Ok, so I’m a few years behind on this one. More like 10. We are each on our own musical journey however, and sometimes it takes some serious beating over the head before we learn what was blindingly obvious from day one. So, withold your judgement please.
Ryan Adams is the dude. And he’s country. Don’t cringe! Stop cringing dammit. He’s alternative country. Phew. Collective sigh of relief. Sound Doc readership still intact? Good. Let’s progress.
We seem to be losing sight of what makes a song a good song these days. If you haven’t invented a sub genre of a sub genre and you don’t have 5-10 high pitched yelps every 3 seconds most folk don’t want to listen to you. No falsetto? Skip.
Ryan Adams on the other hand knows what he’s good at – writing songs. Sad songs. His record “Heartbreaker” is composed of tunes entirely for lost lovers. The songs don’t push the boundaries of, well anything. It’s recorded extremely well, written extremely well and it is extremely good. This tune ‘Damn Sam, I Love A Woman That Rains’ is from Heartbreaker and is a mere 2mins and 8secs but it’s my favorite song at the moment. The big hits on the title lyrics get me every time. Left-right-left-left-right and I’m done.
Enjoy the simpleness. Let it wash over you. I recommend listening at least twice.
Ryan Adams – ‘Damn Sam, I Love A Woman That Rains’
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Between recording and touring with his band Valar, James Blackwood will be guest-posting here at Sound Dcotrine every whenever-the-hell-he-gets-his-ass-in-gear. Stay keen.
Radical Face, who released what is likely one of my all time favourite albums in 2007′s Ghost, has finally announced the release date of his next full length: October 4. That’s not far off at all! Though I’ve recently forfeited the Roman calendar system in favour of a more exciting form of temporal measurement, I’ll try to put things in perspective for you: it’s roughly 20 days after the end of ULTRAmonth and 3 moons before Boomuary is in full flux. Yeah. That soon. Download the new track (which apparently won’t be on the new album) by clicking in the large, black and seamlessly integrated box below.
Radical Face – ‘We’re On Our Way’
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Jens Lekman’s most recent excercise in syllable cramming is called ‘An Argument With Myself’ and is yet another reason to love the already charming, notoriously wordsy Melbourne based Swede. The good news that there’s a new release from Jens on the way was tainted by the addendum that it’s an EP rather than a full length but whatever, I’ll chow down on anything he sends in our direction. The EP is out in September.
Jens Lekman – ‘An Argument With Myself’
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SD endorsed musicians doing cool junk on camera, watch these.
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Tim Fitz – Morning Mr Magpie (Radiohead Cover) |
Sleepyhands – Autumn March (Shoot the Player Session) |
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Sufjan Stevens (ft. Bryce + Aaron Dessner) – Pleasure Priciple (Live on Soundcheck) |
The Tallest Man On Earth – Love Is All (Live on KEXP) |
James Blake tonight, get jealous.
These have been a formative past 12 months for Sleepyhands. The reasonably ragtag debutante that we saw play it’s first ever show at the Brass Monkey 13 months ago is now a finely tuned sonic collosus. Their facebook followers (the true qualitative measure of a band) have moved from 10 to near 1,000 and they’ve picked up the single greatest drummer that has ever been [in Sleepyhands]. Even more impressive is the fact that they’ve managed to grow so heartily in spite of the band’s serious inter-personal difficulties. Accusations that drummer Tim Watkins has been funneling band profits to anti-semitic group Hizb ut-Tahrir and that guitarist Tim Adamson actually stole the head of Christopher Mintz-Plasse left the band embroiled in multiple law-suites late last year. But, having overcome these hardships, Sleepyhands have delivered us a new madrigal.
The track is called ‘Smoke People’, which if read as a directive is pretty socially irresponsible given the high rates of smoking related illness and prevalence of lung cancer. More seriously though, it’s a strong indication that Sleepyhands aren’t a one trick pony as their movement forward is undeniable, notably in the songwriting. They’ve shed the formulaic song structure present of their self-titled EP (which was, nonetheless, a straight up bonanza) but retained the pristine guy/girl/girl harmonies. Listen to it yourself and let me know your thoughts.
Sleepyhands – ‘Smoke People’
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