A.A. Bondy’s new album, American Hearts, is easily one of my favorites of the year, and it comes just at the right time. Summer’s going to fade soon, the leaves will change and Michigan will be at its absolute most beautiful before we get buried in winter. Bondy’s sparse folk rock will make a nice soundtrack for that transition, like Springsteen’s Nebraska or Will Oldham’s Days in the Wake. The other artist that comes to mind here is Steve Earle; “Vice Rag,” my favorite of the two songs below, is essentially a lilting country version of “CCKMP,” and is as disarming as the original. Bondy makes less more on American Hearts, much to this listener’s pleasure.
The Hudsons
The Hudsons often describe themselves as a hard-working band, making this an appropriate Labor Day post. Offering up a solid blend of folk & country, I ran across this Austin trio while researching Texas bands for my friend Tim. He’s got a friend moving there, and wanted to clue him in to the scene (which is probably pretty big, considering the size of the state and all that). I was hooked on the clean sound and classis lyrics of the Hudsons from “It Just Takes One”; that is, after all, all it took. If you like what you hear — and this goes for you too, Tim’s friend — head over to the band’s website for a half dozen live tracks, or to Sonicbids for more studio recordings.
Cary Brothers
So, I’m clueless enough to not have realized for at least a year or two now that Cary Brothers isn’t, you know, like a duo of siblings or whatever. Anyway, here’s the story: Lisa S. gave me a copy of the Garden State soundtrack, and I love that song “Blue Eyes” and I’ve wanted to track down the singer ever since, but I just never got around to it. (See name of record label for full joke.) And then I’m looking through the 17,000,000 bands that played South By Southwest this past spring (all those MP3s are still live, by the way) and there they — oops, no — he, is. (This might be why 3hive writers don’t get paid.) So, here’s Cary’s track from the SXSW page, plus a few live & demo tracks from his website. He’s got a fabulous sad voice, perfect for this cover of “Skyway,” and good folk-country-rock sensibilities. He can even get a little trippy, like in “Ride.” So, yeah, enjoy the product of my cluelessness.
Mirah and Spectratone International
Observations of insects are typically rendered so clinical that you may as well be studying accounting or, on the flipside, so elementary that you’re dealing with plush caterpillars whose sole purpose is to teach your child how to hug. Share this Place: Stories and Observations is, well, a creature of a different stripe. The multimedia project commissioned in 2006 by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art features music by Mirah (repeat after me: We love Mirah) and her longtime collaborators Lori Goldston and Kyle Hanson, AKA Spectratone International (also with Jane Hall and Kane Mathis), and stop-motion video by Britta Johnson. It sounds like something that could easily become child’s play, and in fact the chamber pieces are indeed playful and alive — Spectratone’s arrangements give a subtle bounce to Mirah’s ever-airy vocals, and Johnson’s stop-motion insects are made from all manner of found objects and wander around rolling dung and other fun things. But it’s also serious literary entomology thanks to its source material: Jean Henri Fabre is considered the father of the study of insects and is most remembered for telling his tiny friends’ tales as first-person narratives. So it is that in “Credo Cigalia†(video below) a cricket addresses us with “you’ve no choice but to listen to my song.†And on the fantastically delicate “Community,†rather than a standard lecture on the group habits of six-legged creatures, you get a lullaby so sweet and smart that you’ll want to sing it to your sons and daughters all the way to MIT.
Nyles Lannon
Mr. Lannon needs to make up his mind! He’s released music under N.Ln, N.Lannon, and now, finally, under his full name Nyles Lannon. Whichever moniker he chooses you can expect moody, alluring songs with amazing melodies. Straight forward folk songs like “Did I Lose You?” quietly recall the work of Elliott Smith while “Next Obsession” punches a little harder and is not unlike another favorite of mine: Calla. It was news to me that he split from his band Film School, but now that he’s focused hopefully he won’t suffer from any further bouts of identity crisis. Because I’ll tell you right now Mr. Lannon, after this post, I’m not going to dedicate another one to any further name changes. As it stands I believe you hold the record here at the ‘hive with four different pages. And just in case anyone mistakes my tone: I jest. It’s all good. Thanks for the fine tunes __ Lannon.
Oakley Hall
Zingerman’s is an Ann Arbor original, a foodie university of its own providing in-depth instruction on eating well and fully savoring the experience. Last week, on their Eat American road tour, my friends Cheech and Lisette toured the ZingEmpire (I tagged along too), and found both incredible hostpitality and the kind of quality food products that their trip is all about finding and highlighting and protecting. As we were working our way through some of chef Alex Young’s transcendental BBQ at Zingerman’s Roadhouse restaurant, I was thinking that 3hive should have been providing the soundtrack to our dining experience. We tend to be pretty committed to things that are obscure and high quality — most importantly, things that we like — a philosophy that pairs well with Zingerman’s approach to food.
With this in mind, here’s Oakley Hall, offering straight-up boy-girl Americana folk rock from Brooklyn. Listening through the tracks below will gove you a good sense of the band’s various sounds. “No Dreams,” off the forthcoming album I’ll Follow You, rocks out in a way that seems from a totally different world than the restrained sounds of “Living in Sin in the USA.” This diversity shows of instrumentation, vocal style (and vocalist), tempo, volume, and just about every musical aspect you can think of gives a welcome sense of freshness to Oakley Hall. Too bad the closest they’re coming to Detroit is Chicago.
Eugene Francis Jnr.
He’s an imaginative lad, this Eugene Francis Jnr. One need look no further than the video for his group’s first single “Poor Me” for proof — kinda like Gulliver’s Travels as told by Michel Gondry. It won’t surprise you that homeboy’s got some hippie roots. He’s the son of Eskimo and Apache Indian parents who lived in Wales, if you’re to believe his bio. They provided him with a diverse musical upbringing that ultimately led him to pursue music himself. He started out solo, but soon recruited a small army of fellow Welsh musicians to create a “harmonious, beatnik supergroup” (his words, not mine). This democratic approach makes for really nice, lush instrumentation to buoy his humble voice. Think ’90s XTC, Syd Barrett, or Lost in the Trees. Eugene was kind enough to provide us with this dreamy little number, the other A-side of the double A-side single “Poor Me”/”Kites” — available on iTunes (U.S. only for the moment).
Bat for Lashes
The UK’s Mercury Music Prize is basically the musical equivalent of the literary Man Booker Prize: Though neither necessarily goes so far out on a limb that they’re what revolutions are made of, you can be pretty well assured that the nominees are making the best music (or fiction, as it were) right now as opposed to (though not always mutually exclusive of) the most popular. But you already know that. You probably also know that Bat for Lashes, the breathtaking brainchild of singer, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Natasha Khan, is a nominee for this year’s Mercury Prize, and she certainly deserves it. Fur and Gold is loose yet organized, expansive yet hummable, experimental yet familiar. Khan has a cinematic sense of arrangement and a sonic majesty that marks her as an absolute original on the pop landscape who nonetheless bears the best markings of recent forbears like PJ Harvey, Bjork, Chan Marshall, Sinead O’Connor, and Kate Bush. She weaves echoey piano harmonies with one-note-at-a-time basslines and harpsichord with marching drums, conjuring a cabaret-esque intimacy and drama. Yet unlike other recent entries into the post-punk chamber pop canon like Joanna Newsom and CocoRosie (great artists both of ’em, don’t get me wrong), Khan seems to make songs for more than just herself. Her “sounds like” description on MySpace includes “Halloween when you’re small” and “dark nighttime lovemaking,” which pretty much say it all. Fur and Gold is one of the most haunting and engrossing albums I’ve heard this year precisely because that’s the only way Khan could have made it.
Canada
Leave it to Sean in sunny California to raise awareness of a record label that’s operating practically in my backyard, even though he’s three time zones away. Canada, like the previously-posted Chris Bathgate, records for Quite Scientific, right here in Michigan. That is, Canada the seven-piece band out of Ann Arbor. If you’re looking for a bit of a late night summer folk-rock sing-along anthem, check out “Hexenhaus,” fom their 2006 LP This Cursed House.
Plunkett
Ian and Lara Plunkett, recording wistful acoustic pop in Italy. At least that’s what I remember this track sounding like. I’m working on giving myself access to the song… You see, I’m writing this post up on a new laptop purchsed for me by my wife Jennifer — Thanks honey! This is way cooler than your “right shoe for my birthday, left shoe for Father’s Day” idea! — and I don’t quite have it set up correctly yet. I hope the rest of you can enjoy the mellowness of Plunkett as I navigate the MacBook world. Ciao!