New Releases Sprouting Like Weeds

April showers might bring May flowers, but apparently they also bring plenty of new music releases as they are coming fast and furious this Spring and Summer. Here are some of the discs I am either looking forward to or they are making me consider exploring a band I am yet to know. I give them to you in order of their release as I know them.

• First up we have Together, the new album from power pop band The New Pornographers due out May 4, 2010. It is streaming over at NPR and worth a listen. This is yet another band I keep reading about and hearing, but don't have in my collection. Thinking I am going to start with Twin Cinema first, but basically all of their albums have really solid reviews.
• Follow that with the new, very much anticipated album High Violet from The National which is streaming over at the NY Times until tomorrow along with a great article on this Brooklyn band. I have been digging this stream, but am going to drop back and pick up The Boxer first. The album will be released May 11, 2010.
• Sliding into June, we have the second album from Samantha Crain, whose first album was well worth noting. The new album, You (Understood) is due out June 8, 2010, and has a little bonus for me (more below).
• Moving into July we have Mark Kozelek releasing Admiral Fell Promises, the fourth album for Sun Kil Moon. I loved the last two from Sun Kil Moon, so will be anxious to hear this one.
• Then of course we have an album I am probably looking forward to too much (thereby putting too much pressure on it)--Dead Malls and Nightfalls by Frontier Ruckus which is out July 20, 2010 according to their MySpacey page--dudes, really, get the new website up (and should I worry about the missing woman in that picture whose harmonies are so much apart of the first album?).
• And finally, somewhere during this summer (it seems) José Gonzáles is going to release a new album with his band Junip. I have really enjoyed his solo work and look forward to hearing his music with a few more musicians around him.

So there is much to look forward to on the music front, although I am about to make some backward looking purchases first. Until then, though enjoy the new Samantha Crain video that features, wait for it, Frontier Ruckus. Ah, love when that happens.

Train Music

Goodness this blog (when I have actually been able to squeeze out a post) has been veering rapidly past depressing toward being irritatingly whiny. On top of that, you would think I haven’t been listening to any music as of late. Sorry about that. Let’s see if we can’t correct that, eh?

This afternoon finds me on my way home from NYC on the ole Amtrak NE Regional and while I should be doing some work, train trips always make me reflective and in the mood to listen to music as the cities and landscape slide by the window. I tend to have a certain kind of music that I prefer on the train—typically, acoustic and contemplative. Think Nick Drake, Gillian Welch, Bon Iver or Sun Kil Moon—and if you happen to sing about trains often like say,Tom Rush, that is a little bonus.

Well let’s add José Gonzáles to that list. Gonzáles comes to me by way of the magical Pandora on my acoustic station. He officially hails from Sweden, but given that he was born to parents who moved there from Argentina, the Latin-influence sound in his guitar makes a bit more sense. While he like so many played in a variety of bands of various types over time, entering into his music as I did (late) with his first full solo album Veneer, it is hard for me to imagine him as anything but a thoughtful singer-songwriter with wonderful lyrical guitar sense.

This 2003 album is slow and haunting with little more than double-tracked guitar and voice. As is always the case with me, I love the song that seems simple but ultimately warrants revisiting over and over. And I love the spaces in the music which leave you anticipating the fill. And the fill is beautifully quiet classical guitar that brings a certain tension to the songs as the lyrics float across the guitar line.

Here are two that I think really capture the album, particularly the way in which the songs can be so similar in some ways and so unique in others. I will be curious to see what I think of his second album, which I will surely pick up.

Crosses (Buy Album)
Hints

Now back to my window.