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The Gray Havens | Live Stream Concert

Live stream The Gray Havens 1 hour Kickstarter Kick-Off show tonight at 7pm (central). I'll remind you via Twitter & other social media later on as well. You can still get their Where Eyes Don't Go EP for FREE. And check out their new Kickstarter campaign and video describing what's in the works for The Gray Havens.


Live streaming video by Ustream

Okkervil River | Stream The Silver Gymnasium

New album from Okkervil River, The Silver Gymnasium (Amazon, out 9/3), is streaming free right now. This is one of my favorite bands working. Some of the best songwriting around from frontman Will Sheff. I'm halfway through the stream right now and it's really good so far.

Get a taste of the new album from Sheff's open mic night. Or just listen here to open track, "It Was My Season"...

Music Monday 7.15.13

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Music Sale

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STREAMING FREE | Low: The Invisible Way

Low band

Stream Low: The Invisible Way | One of my favorite bands, one of my favorite styles of music (slow, heavy, thoughtful). You need to check this one out. Some background from NPR Music...

In 20 years, Low's basic ingredients haven't changed much: Guitarist Alan Sparhawk and drummer Mimi Parker swap and sometimes layer their vocals, with a third member joining the married couple on bass. The pace, for the most part, is kept deliberate, even glacial, with strategically deployed silence hanging between notes in order to enhance their power. Low songs don't often change tempo noticeably, instead achieving tension through variations in volume.

But that seemingly limited framework still provides ample room for experimentation: Low can be a sweetly chiming pop band, or it can seethe and unsettle with an almost industrial buzz. It can express emotion by drawing out the barest fragment of a phrase, or it can expound thoughtfully on life, death, secrecy, war and the way humanity collides with itself.

Low's 10th full-length studio album, The Invisible Way, was produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, who avoids any temptation to radically stretch the Minnesota band's boundaries. But he wisely dials up the interplay between Sparhawk and Parker — who's too often underutilized on Low records — while letting bits of piano and spare percussive rumbles provide the portent. "So Blue" and "Just Make It Stop" give The Invisible Way a bit of a jolt by laying Parker's vocals atop unusually jumpy arrangements, but most of these songs land squarely in that sweet spot where darkness and worry are swathed in pristine beauty.

Music Monday 1.21.13

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  • Buke & Gase: General Dome | Their previous album, Riposte, was great. A few songs in and I'm enjoying this one a lot. (Out a week from Tuesday)
  • Blaudzun: Heavy Flowers | Just stumbled upon this one, and it's worth checking out. "The album fits in nicely amid the ambitious and occasionally orchestral folk-rock..." It's a very interesting sound, and it's not unapproachable. I'd love to hear my readers' take on this one. (Out a week from Tuesday)
  • Ra Ra Riot: Beta Love | Really exicted to see if they capture what I loved about The Rhumb Line  (Out Tuesday)
  • Darkstar: News From Nowhere | Yeah, I dunno much. But NPR says, "News From Nowhere offers a brighter take on synth-driven pop. Its pace is more rapid, its chords more buoyant. There's still an eerie quality to Darkstar's music: Ghostly chords waver in and out of tune, while reverb haunts many of the timbres here." Yeah, ok. I'll try that.

If you haven't heard new stuff from The Lone Bellow, I can't recommend it enough. Three videos of high-quality live versions of their songs and you will be sold. Their album, The Lone Bellow, is out tomorrow on Amazon. I'll be picking it up!

Grab nearly 80MB of Four Tet music free.

Music Monday 1.7.13

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  • Dropkick Murphys: Sign & Sealed In | Pub anthems 
  • Pantha Du Prince & The Bell Laboratory: Elements of Light | If you have a set of church handbells and think they are lame, they don't have to be. Give it 8 minutes & you'll be surprised, 10 minutes and you'll be hooked, 12 minutes and fuggedaboutit. 
  • The Lone Bellow: The Lone Bellow | If Mumford & Sons had a child with The Civil Wars.
  • Broadcast: Berberian Sound Studio | A sonic feast.

Music Sale

$5 Albums for January | There are 2,000. Yeah. I'm not going to list them all, not even the great ones because there are SO MANY. You can check the ones on my Best Albums of 2012 list as several are on sale, including my #1 & #3.

And don't forget to check out my 35 Best Albums of 2012 along with a number of honorable mentions.

Music Monday 10.15.12

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WORTH CHECKING OUT - FREE

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SOMETHING NEW

"Baby It's Cold Outside" by Sharon Van Etten & Rufus Wainwright - Like this a lot. Though listening to Chrismas music in October is crazy, it's worth checking out. Sounds like the whole album is worth checking out, Holidays Rule, which is due out at the end of October. Artists on the album include The Civil Wars, Andrew Bird, Punch Brothers and more. Listen...

Music Monday 10.8.12

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CHEAP ($2.99 - $5)

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Music Monday 9.17.12

Loud-speakers

STREAMING FREE

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VIDEO

Music Monday 9.10.12 | Streaming FREE

New music

A whole bunch of good albums are streaming free at the moment. May I suggest you try out The Dandelion War. I'm quite interested in that one. You should know that I consider Grizzly, Avett, XX to be must-listens. But try out some of the new names you see. I've listened in part or in whole to all of these and they are worth checking out...

Music Monday 9.3.12

No_music

STREAMING FREE

CHEAP

BURNING UP MY iPOD