I first heard The Civil Wars live back in October in Waco, TX. Their chemistry and woo factor was potentially the best I’ve seen; very few artists can make a room of 1000 people feel like a living room. Joy Williams and John Paul White are a phenomenal musical pairing with beautiful moving harmonies, gut wrenching lyrics, and more emotion than a pregnant woman watching The Notebook.

You can grab their live album for free here, and the duo have just released two new songs today, which you can snag for free, here.

The Parlor has some great live footage. The last video on the page encapsulates the group best, with a few fun covers and then their new single performed flawlessly. Check it out here.

Here’s a video of their strongest original to date, “Poison and Wine.”

The Civil Wars – 2 Free Songs is a post from: wax&wires

You can stream the new album, Ray Lamontagne and the Pariah Dogs – God Willin’ and The Creek Don’t Rise for free here. You can also buy it for just $3.99 on Amazon TODAY.

Ray will be touring with David Gray, both in support of new albums coming next Tuesday. You can be sure I’ll be catching that one.

[via Exclaim]

LaMontagne recently told Exclaim! that, while he’s not too keen on co-headlining bills, he feels the combo with Gray will give people their money’s worth. “We opened for [Gray] years ago, I think after our second record,” LaMontagne says. “I’ve never felt that fans really want to spend more money to see two shows when they can spend a little less to just see you. But in this case we were all hopeful that the fans of each of us would be into it. Judging by how ticket sales have been going, that appears to be the case. I’m excited about it just because I’m a fan of David’s. I think he’s amazing.”

So far, there’s only one Canadian stop, at Toronto’s Molson Canadian Amphitheatre on August 27. However, intrepid fans might want to hold out until November when LaMontagne has a handful of dates slated with roots rock legend Levon Helm.

“That will be a special co-billed tour, very short, on the East coast,” LaMontagne says. “I met Levon for the first time when we were both on Elvis Costello’s TV show, and then I played at his 70th birthday bash up at Mountain Jam. After that we started putting this tour together, some select places, and it’s something we’re all obviously very excited about doing.”

Ray LaMontagne – Stream The Upcoming Album FREE is a post from: wax&wires

I know they cite Reich as a key influence, as many bands do, but with UnMap, Volcano Choir follows through with that promise; and for the better. Tracks like Seeplymouth showcase a percussive pulse driving the song forward, trademark Reich, and even a bit of Pat Metheny Group to my ears. All the while, Vernon’s vocal keeps the mood intimate.

Today, you can grab their album for $5 on Amazon and enjoy some great music to put on in the cold.

Volcano Choir – UNMAP

Here’s the rather self-indulgent bio from their site:

Volcano Choir is an assembly of Wisconsinites Jon Mueller, Chris Rosenau, Jim Schoenecker, Daniel Spack, Justin Vernon, and Thomas Wincek. You might find these old friends also frequenting records and stages under different monikers, Collections of Colonies of Bees and Bon Iver. The collaboration predates the meteoric rise of Justin Vernon’s Bon Iver project, with original songwriting dating back to the summer of 2005, right around the time the Bees first toured with Vernon’s previous band DeYarmond Edison.

While entirely a studio record, the collection doesn’t suffer from the overburdens of a digital pile up or over-thinking. Rather it breathes and convulses in equal measure, radiating an inherent dynamism found only in the voluntary bondage of intimacy. With influences ranging from David Sylvian and Steve Reich to Mahalia Jackson and Tom Waits, it might be more accurate to say the group’s influence is music itself. You can hear it in the care and real love generously applied to each moment of Unmap. With the vibe of some intimate backwoods gospel, plus a spirit of patience and thoughtful repetition, the music of Volcano Choir is as dynamic as it is lovely.

Unmap ultimately came together over a weekend in November 2008 in Fall Creek, Wisconsin, at Justin and Nate Vernon’s recording studio. And while it is at its heart a record about the allure of being with people you need and making something with them, it is also a document created by musicians with rare gifts getting together to exorcise their ideas about beauty. This scaffolding of loops and off grid tempos for choral style vocals offers a state of continual surprise, call it unexpectation.

Unmap marks the debut full-length from Volcano Choir, the collaboration between Collections of Colonies of Bees and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.

Wax Pick: Volcano Choir – UNMAP is a post from: wax&wires

Half a decade later, I was reintroduced to Danielson after really getting into Sufjan Stevens, and hearing of his ties to the band. I slowly started to get what it was that Daniel Smith was about, and what he was trying to do with his music. It finally clicked why he has such a fervent fanbase.

Today, Danielson releases a new 7-inch in partnership with Weathervane Music, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the social conscience with regards to independent music and artists’ rights, particularly in Philadelphia.

Check this video out too, for more of the technical info on the production process of Daniel Smith.

VIDEO: New Danielson Project is a post from: wax&wires

As lead singer of The Frames, Glen Hansard has spent more than 15 years establishing himself as the Bard of big-hearted but emotionally delayed men. In the process, he and his band have become huge stars in their native Ireland, but hopscotched from failed label deal to failed label deal in the U.S.

Then came 2007′s low-budget indie musical Once, in which Hansard and young Czech singer Marketa Irglova starred as struggling musicians who strike up a tentative relationship in Dublin. The pair became a couple in real life, and as the film took off, they toured the world to support Once and its best-selling soundtrack. In early 2008, they even won an Academy Award for the movie’s beautiful signature song, “Falling Slowly.”

Hansard and Irglova have split up amicably, but they maintain a fruitful professional relationship. Recording as The Swell Season, they’ve recorded a lush, lovely, heartfelt gem in the new Strict Joy, on which they examine a tumultuous relationship over a mostly calm bed of acoustic guitars, pianos and strings. You can hear Strict Joy in its entirety on this page for the two weeks leading up to its Oct. 27 release.

Moody and frequently spare, Strict Joy gives Hansard and Irglova room to breathe and seethe, particularly in sad, brooding ballads such as “Low Rising,” “Paper Cup” and “Back Broke.” But, as on any Hansard-related project, the gloom is offset by a generous helping of big-hearted emotionalism. In “Feeling the Pull,” he and Irglova pine for a world beyond the boundaries that surround them; even when he’s feeling paranoid in “The Verb,” they couch his worries in rich harmonies that grow increasingly warm and sweet. As on the Once soundtrack, Irglova gets a few opportunities to seize the spotlight (“Fantasy Man,” “I Have Loved You Wrong”), but she’s most often utilized for her ability to add subtle shading, in the form of her piano work and gentle backing vocals.

Please leave your thoughts on Strict Joy in the comments section below. And, as a companion piece to the album, be sure to revisit the pair’s unforgettable Tiny Desk Concert, in which Hansard and Irglova turn up at the NPR Music offices and perform six songs from Strict Joy (as well as the Once hit “When Your Mind’s Made Up”).

See the original story, and listen to the album here.

Exclusive First Listen: The Swell Season is a post from: wax&wires

Glen does a brilliant job at inviting the audience in, even having them improvise parts on the spot with him. Great artists do one of two things: knock you on your back in awe with big songs, or pull you in for an intimate encounter. Glen is a prime example of the latter.

[via Stephen Thompson, NPR]

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova record and tour together using the name The Swell Season, which is a shorter but far less descriptive moniker than “Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, Who Won Oscars for the Song ‘Falling Slowly,’ From the Hit Indie Musical Once.” So when we informed our coworkers that last Wednesday’s Tiny Desk Concert would feature the pair, the response generally ran somewhere along the lines of, “Um, okay. … Wait, who? THEM? REALLY?”

Read the full story, and see the video here

The Swell Season – Tiny Desk Concert is a post from: wax&wires

Back in 2007, the renaissance man himself produced a project called the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) in New York. It was a live performance packed with everything from the whole gamut of quirky musicians to hula-hoopers,  dubbing it a “symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City’s infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.” The project featured Super 8mm film footage shot by  Sufjan, 36 live performers including a band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players and (of course) hula hoops. Sufjan composed the music, which is entirely instrumental, and is now producing the accompanying film to be released on Athsmatic Kitty, his label.

The BQE will be made available as a CD soundtrack, vinyl (complete with a “Hooper Heroes” Comic Book), DVD, 40-page book, and stereoscopic 3-D Viewmaster reel (so you can finally break out your stereoscopic 3-D Viewmaster viewer…?!?….).

This October, the 92YTribeca will be premiering the BQE DVD in NY, and Sufjan will be there to intro the film. You can get tickets here.

In the meantime, you can watch the trailer for the BQE:

Sufjan Stevens’ The BQE – Video Trailer is a post from: wax&wires

They’ve been on the rise with the help of some good words from their friends in Sigur Ros. Jonsi liked their album so much, recorded with Peter Katis, that he decided to cut his solo album with him.

Sigur Ros is actually named after Jonsi’s younger sister, and that’s her and her cousin on the cover of Reservoir.

Now through July 4th, you can pick up Reservoir for just a dollar on Fanfarlo’s site here.

If you want to check out their other albums, you can find them for less than $2 each on Amazon here.

Fanfarlo – Reservoir

Wax Pick: Fanfarlo – Reservoir is a post from: wax&wires

First off, let’s get it straight that Cary Brothers is a man, not a band (so the opposite of Steely Dan). I hear people say, and I did at first too, “Hey, have you heard The Cary Brothers? They’re really good!” Don’t embarrass yourself like I did; it’s just a guy with Brothers as his last name. I first got into Cary after hearing him on the Garden State soundtrack back in 2004. A few tracks like Honestly and Blue Eyes still find their way onto playlists I create even now. He has developed a smooth folky sound that goes great with a little r&r.

“Who You Are” features Cary’s biggest hits, including Ride, which gained momentum via a remix by DJ Tiesto. You’ll also hear Matt Hale (Aqualung) and Priscilla Ahn gracing the album.

Check it out. It’s a great buy that you’ll be coming back to for years, and only $1.99 today on Amazon.

Cary Brothers – Who You Are

Wax Pick: Cary Brothers – Who You Are is a post from: wax&wires

[via Jordan Sandvig @ RS]

It’s been 10 years since Justin Vernon, better known as the leader of Bon Iver, performed on the stage of Memorial High School in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. But the rising singer-songwriter Rolling Stone profiled in February joined his former high school jazz band on Sunday night (April 19th) for a special show to raise money for group’s trip to Essential Ellington — a competition hosted annually by Wynton Marsalis, who has hailed the Memorial HS jazz outfit as “the $25,000 band” for their consistent ability to raise the funds necessary to make the trip six times in the last 10 years. Their first journey to the event featured Justin Vernon playing lead guitar his senior year.

After Old Abe Jazz Band I’s own set, in which they nailed Duke Ellington tunes, the hometown hero took the stage, joining Bruce Hering, the same man who led the band when Justin cut his chops a decade ago. Backed by a 20-plus-piece brass section and dressed in a bold white-on-white suit, Vernon performed “Lump Sum” (from For Emma, Forever Ago), followed by four standards — Ellington’s “Rocks In My Bed,” Nina Simone’s “Since I Fell For You,” Ella Fitzgerald’s “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” and “Miss Otis Regrets” — before doing another of his own songs, “For Emma,” which came alive under the weight of the large brass section. (YouTube after the jump!)

After several standing ovations, Vernon closed with Frank Sinatra’s “The Lady Is a Tramp” and encored with a revelatory solo version of Mahalia Jackon’s “A Satisfied Mind.” He graciously attempted to shift the spotlight off of himself and on to the band (made up of juniors and seniors), the director, the songwriters, the community and his Bon Iver bandmate Mike Noyce, who contributed a wicked harmonica solo to “Since I Fell For You.”

Bon Iver Goes Back To High School For Jazz Band is a post from: wax&wires

Khan was influenced by such artists as Steve Reich and Susan Hiller while earning her degree in music and visual arts. Her experimental work from those days manifests itself as sheer artistry in her current project, Bat For Lashes. Up for two Brit Awards in 2008, Best Breakthrough Act and Best Solo Female, Khan walked away from the show without an award, but with quite a bit of gained notoriety and hard earned credibility amongst successful peers-turned-fans like Thom Yorke and M.I.A.

Bat For Lashes has been compared to other female contemporaries like Bjork and Fiona Apple, and while sure to please their fans, Khan has more than cut a mould of her own.

Bat For Lashes will be releasing a new album, Two Suns, this Tuesday. You can hear the single, Daniel, here.

Bat For Lashes – Fur And Gold

Wax Pick: Bat For Lashes – Fur And Gold is a post from: wax&wires

Justin Vernon did a great job with this short 4-song work, seeping his emotional and intimate vocals atop moody instrumentation. Even though there are just 4 tracks, all slightly varied in timbre and genre, the album does not fail to paint a consistent landscape. A lot of the vocal phrasing and harmonies will win over fans of Fleet Foxes… well… the few that weren’t already fan’s of Bon Iver that is. Babys is driven by a piano reminiscent of Steve Reich’s Piano Phase that I really dig. I kept waiting for the line to separate and create some contrapuntal parts with the phasing. Though that didn’t quite occur, I like the piece nonetheless, and it probably makes it a bit more pop friendly. Woods presents a gospel-choir meets Imogen Heap’s vocoder and Auto-Tuned vibe, rich in textures and wrought with emotion. Throughout the whole album, the reverb saturation is beautiful; tugging your eyelids down, gently persuading you to abandon all this rubbish for simpler times.

Give it a go. It’s only a buck.

Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP

Wax Pick: Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP is a post from: wax&wires

Norway’s own Even Johansen pulls on a lot of electronic stylings to color his folk-driven sound. Nowhere is the balance between the two struck more perfectly than on his 2005 album The Tourniquet. It’s a very lazy album at times, yet remains inspirational throughout. Even’s raspy voice carries listeners through narratives previously reserved for the likes of Ryan Adams. The production is beautiful. You’d be pretty hard pressed to find a banjo and synth as the two primary instruments anywhere else.

Magnet – The Tourniquet

Wax Pick: Magnet – The Tourniquet is a post from: wax&wires

The whistling wonder known as Andrew Bird has released his new album, Noble Beast, for just $1.99 on Amazon. The album has the nuances of an eclectic Ryan Adams, but don’t write him off as just another copy cat. Andrew Bird brings a lot of unique textures into his folk driven songs and Noble Beast absolutely lures you into the landscapes painted by Bird’s unique orchestration.

Andrew Bird – Noble Beast

Wax Pick: Andrew Bird – Noble Beast is a post from: wax&wires

Oren Lavie’s video for Her Morning Elegance is absolutely stunning and beautiful. It’s gone totally viral with over a million views on YouTube alone, and undoubtedly helped Oren sell an album or two.

Continue to push your creativity and eventually people will notice, even if it’s two years after your album came out.

Her Morning Elegance – Oren Lavie is a post from: wax&wires