The Scratchy Record

In a recent interview with Vancouver’s Georgia Straight Chad said that he is working on 11 new albums at the moment… yeah you read that correctly, 11. Even more weird is that he is planning to release them all digitally and on tape, no CD or vinyl.

Some of these releases will be based around experimental electronic drones but still, the fact that he just seemed to be sitting on 11 albums worth of work makes me wonder how much unreleased work most artists are sitting on.

Last night Jeff Mangum showed up at the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ and was nice enough to play a few songs for everyone there.

globalrevolution on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Here is the setlist that he did:
Holland, 1945
Ghost
Song Against Sex
Two-Headed Boy Part 2
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
The King of Carrot Flowers Part 1
Oh Comely

Here is a new track from Colin Stetson off of his new EP called ‘Those Who Didn’t Run’.

The end of your suffering by Constellation Records

It’s been a while since I’ve done an album review, mostly because there wasn’t a lot coming out that I was interested in reviewing. There are a few coming out soon that I’m quite excited for so I’ll try to get back on the reviewing horse as much as possible.

Oh Fortune is Dan Mangan’s third studio album, and the follow up to his 2009 record ‘Nice, Nice, Very Nice’ which received tons of critical acclaim along with a Polaris shortlist nod in 2010. Nice, Nice, Very Nice was full of jangly folk tunes and lots of quiet more introspective moments. As far as singer/songriter albums go it was very ambitious and I think that Oh Fortune picks up right where he left off with Nice, Nice, Very nice and maybe even goes a step further.

The first three songs on this album hit like a ton of bricks. The instrumentation is so lush and so dense that it really gives off a feeling of grandiose that I don’t think Nice, Nice, Very nice ever reached on a consistent level. The strings surrounding these first few songs are absolutely marvellous and add to that feeling of grandiose. I think that if Dan were to make an album consisting of songs like these three I would fall in love with it instantly.

After the three opening songs you get a chance to catch your breath a little bit over the next few songs. They won’t come and slap you in the face like the openers did but that doesn’t mean that they have any less emotion in them. While I’d rather hear a bunch of folk songs that you can stomp your feet and clap your hands to, songs like daffodil offer a nice offset to those types of songs. Even though there are songs on here that are slower, it doesn’t mean that they evoke any less emotion. Which gets me to what I love about this album the most.

I absolutely ADORE Dan’s vocals, not because they seems that technically proficient, but just because of how believable they are. I hear lots of bands that try to make these emotional sounding songs but they come off as being complete cheese just because the vocals feel so fake. However, with Dan’s voice I believe and feel every word that he sings. His voice is rough enough around the edges that it comes off as being full of pure and raw emotion.

I might get flamed for saying this but I’ll say it anyway, I think a decent comparison as far as this album goes is In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel. I’m not at all saying that this album is on the same level as In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, it isn’t even close to it. I just think the way Oh Fortune really wears it’s raw emotion on it’s sleeves for everyone to to hear is comparable in style to what In The Aeroplane On The Sea was all about.

So in short, if you want a nice folky album with a mix of loud and soft songs, with some beautiful horns and strings to go along with all the other sounds you normally hear on a folk album then I’d recommend checking this out for sure.

Here is a new video from Dan for his song ‘Rows Of Houses’ which is off of Oh Fortune.

I’m a little late to the party with this one but it’s better late than never for something this awesome. I mentioned a while back that Sigur Rós had planned to release a double live album and DVD called ‘Inni’. Well, now the Icelandic post-rockers have given us all the details and they look pretty awesome.

The album will come in a variety of different forms and packages. You can choose from Digital, CD or Vinyl copies of the album along with a DVD or blu-ray copy of the concert from London.

All of the information about pre-orders for Inni can be found over at Sigur Rós’ website. Below you can find the tracklisting of the album along with a video of the song ‘Festival’ which is on the Inni tracklist.

INNI:
svefn-g-englar
glósóli
ný batterí
fljótavík
við spilum endalaust
hoppípolla
með blóðnasir
inní mér syngur vitleysingur
e-bow
sæglópur
festival
hafsól
all alright
popplagið
lúppulagið

Sigur Rós: Festival (Live) from Sigur Rós on Vimeo.

Even though the release date for Cuff The Duke’s new album ‘Morning Comes’ is a week away, it seems like the norm to have the album streaming somewhere even before the release date.

So, you can can find a stream to the alt-country outfit’s fourth studio album over at Exclaim.ca.

Cuff The Duke also have a bunch of upcoming Canadian Tour dates in the near future with Hooded Fang. You can check out all of those dates over here.