Two dusty-voiced singer-songwriters to carry us into the weekend.
Josh Rouse - "1972". First off, the softglimmering title track from last year's 1972. It starts out with strums and piano and organ, but things rise out of the calm, a beautiful melody on worn voice and reined-in strings. "She was feeling 1972 / groovin' to a Carole King tune." This impresses me in much the same way as Is This It? impressed me. Such simple ingredients - Rouse playing with the conventions - and yet the songcraft carries it up and into the truly great. For all of us who wish there was more craft to MOR, richer stuff in the fabric of John Mayer or James Taylor's songs. (This is, after all, a tribute to the seventies' pop folk. But it's very, very good.)
Jim White - "Static on the Radio". Taken from Jim's new album, Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See. Yes, that's a terrible title. And while the record is uneven, this opening track is dusted with genius. Alt.country on a desolate midnight road, a wailing clutch of instruments (pedal steel, vibraphone, Your Blues-style synths,) that add mystery to the noir bassline. Aimee Mann's backup vocals make the song, really - it's the tickle of better things round the bend, or better things left behind. This song is the loneliness that comes from past fullness: better to have loved and lost, right? Right? "Ain’t praying for miracles, I’m just down on my knees. Listening for the song behind everything I think I know. ... Everything I think I know is just static on the radio."
Better Propaganda - like Epitonic only, uh, with better indie cred. (Free, legal mp3s by the guys who founded, then sold, Epitonic.) Via mefi.
Benjamen Walker, the man behind NPR's musicblogging story a couple of weeks ago, has edited and released a longer version of the piece. He digs deeper into the legal ramifications/possibilities for the movement, and it's quite well done indeed.
See you Monday!