To commiserate/celebrate the end of summer, here’s your friend Summer Gems Part II.
Tracklisting:
1. You Turn Clear In The Sun – Telekinesis 2. Hypnotic Winter – JEFF the Brotherhood 3. Before The Dive – St. Lucia 4. Henrietta – Yeasayer 5. Falling Out – Body Language 6. The Look – Metronomy 7. Waiting On A Friend – The Rolling Stones 8. Just My Imagination – The Temptations 9. I Want To Hold Your Hand – Al Green 10. Where I’m Going – Cut Copy 11. I’m Goin’ Down – Bruce Springsteen 12. Time To Run -Lord Huron 13. Little Garcon – Born Ruffians 14. Private Affair – The Virgins 15. The Village – Boy & Bear 16. Don’t Deny Your Heart – Hot Chip 17. Everything All The Time – The Outfit 18. New Coat – White Denim 19. More Of This – Vetiver
Just in time for everybody to tuck in to the most lazy and food filled day of the year. As always the tracks are all free downloads, but support these wonderful artists if you can.
Man Who Lives Forever (Rollo & Grady Session)- Lord Huron
Lord Huron has been a band that is constantly defying my expectations, they’re due out for a well deserved full length album this coming year and if Man Who Lives Forever is any indication of where their sound is going, look for them to be all over the indie airwaves next year.
Possibly the greatest talent to emerge from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Frusciante has shown that he’s no one trick pony and a masterful songwriter in his own right, Song To Sing When I’m Lonely is one of my favorites, starting with a melody right out of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Blitzen Trapper have the new Americana sound locked down on their most recent full length, American Goldwing. Think of it as Wilco with a little more drawl and optimism. Not many bands these days can write a narrative as compelling as this Portland group.
Critics of The Head and the Heart stated that their debut album was filled with derivative sounds of Americana, on “Coeur D’Alene” all they can note is a perfectly crafted pop song.
Quite possibly my favorite song of 2011 with its off-kilter rhythms and technicolor arrangements, Temple lures you in with the first few notes and by the time his charming lilt comes into the fore there’s no letting go.
White Denim is one of those bands that can make prodigious skill seem par for the course for their songwriting, “Handwriting” being an intriguing guitar run through that makes you wonder how they’re playing what they’re playing and can still mold it into a conventional song form. The pedal steel puts a nice touch.
If not the best thing to come out of Iceland, by far he is the most underrated. Sure his name might never be commonplace in pop music but he is as well deserving as any singer-songwriter out there right now.
Gotye shows the creative intensity that we used to expect out of Beck, but this Australian troubadour proves his equal and more through his clever approach at arrangements and his chameleon vocals.
Livin’ In The Jungle- Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears seem intent on bringing R&B back to what it once was, the hard propulsive blues that brought the Black Keys into prominence with Brothers only with more of a funky kick and a wicked horn section.
James Hunter wowed Van Morrison with his debut Believe What I Say even getting the man himself to duet on a couple tracks with him, if Sam Cooke had managed to live to old age this croon might be what we were in for.
When it hits me that she’s gone/ I think i’ll run for president/ Get my face put on the million dollar bill/ So when these rich men that she wants/ Show her ways they can’t take care of her/ I’ll have found a way to be there with her still
Within the opening of “Million Dollar Bill” Taylor Goldsmith managed to portray the sadness, jealousy, and ultimately love that’s still present when your lover has left you. Proof why he’s one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.
It wouldn’t be the farthest stretch to compare this band with Mumford & Sons, but that would greatly undermine the talent present in this group, the lyrics and vocals alone on this song should guarantee them recognition for album of the year (and yes, the rest of the album is fine too).
For the acoustic guitars and the rolling drum fills that propel this song along and the endearing harmonies that go along with it. Who couldn’t like a band called Tiger Waves? And you call yourselves American.
No matter how many incarnations there was and will always be of tight harmonies and acoustic fingerpicking, it will always sound good, and Jones Street Station isn’t about to change that. But they certainly liven the arrangement up to great success.
Usually, I try to at least give some detail into the songs I choose to put on here, but Boy & Bear’s “Big Man” is a song whose lyrics speak for itself. For those of you who have been craving more Mumford & Sons, and still are in love with Bruce Springsteen, this piece is right up your alley. Hailing from Sydney, Australia, their choral vocals on par with the best that Fleet Foxes can muster. Surely, Boy & Bear will be big in only a matter of time. Check out the full lyrics below, enjoy the song, download it below, and buy Boy & Bear’s debut album Moonfire. You won’t regret it.
Well I bit on my lip, and I kicked at my toes No, I don’t need your lecture cause your lecture won’t show That you told me so I told you so But I would have managed, I would have been fine I’d do it myself and I’d do it just my way, I’m a big man for thinking just so.
But somebody told me that your mother was born Wa-wa-wandering woman with a spirit so sworn of the riverside And it never surprised me but it meant that my love was immobilized Well, it meant that my love was immobilized Cause when it comes, it comes when it does.
But you came in the middle and you fell in my hands Oh a, wonderful woman and an average man. See that makes me the lucky man I won’t be deserving, but I won’t be denied See, I fell in this position, I will still teach my kids pride Because failure’s a part of it all And if failure don’t hurt then failure don’t work at all
But somebody told me that your nephew was born Oh, a beautiful baby, so smart and so sure of his little self And in a wonderful way he was making me feel so small Was making me feel so small, was making me feel so small. And I don’t think I’ve felt this before.
In all the reasons to come, well they override my body and, I point to the sun, cause where it’s warm is where the wilderness grows And it grows, and it grows ‘til it all becomes nothing And nothing is left as you know.
(We walked it for a thousand years, with broken eyes and salted ears Complaining ’bout the weather like we ever had a choice. Through all the noise and self abuse, you waited for your fill of truth Oh I’m terrified I’ll achieve nothing at all.)
The Art of the Mixtape 