Monday Album Roundup

Carole King: Tapestry (Legacy Edition reissue with additional live versions)
Looking back at the best-selling albums in pop history, not all retain their emotional impact. Tapestry however, plays just as powerfully as it did in 1971. With a wealth of Brill Building hits behind her, King created a masterpiece with these dozen timeless tunes, including "You've Got a Friend" and "It's Too Late." She might well be the finest songwriter of the modern pop era. A second disc, with live renditions, is included.


Love: Forever Changes (reissue released April 2008 with outtakes and alternate versions)
Mysterious lyrics, intricate arrangements and lead singer Arthur Lee's urgent vibrato helped make Love one of the most innovative psychedelic folk-rock bands. Rhino's two-disc release includes previously unheard material from this landmark album
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Richie Havens, Nobody Left to Crown ( will be released July 2008 )

From Richie Havens: Ageless folk legend still making art for the here and now:
"I can't believe I'm doing it still," he says through infectious laughter. "It's so much fun to be allowed to do this. I'm being allowed and I really know that."

The 67-year-old folk-rock legend is talking about his still very much ongoing career, which includes a new CD, "Nobody Left to Crown," his 27th album to be released in July on Verve, and a seemingly endless tour which not infrequently finds him in New England.


Weinland, La Lamentor
Portland-based five-piece Weinland sophomore release, La Lamentor (Badman Recording Co.), is a really nice album and proves the old adage that pain equals art. Darker in feel and heavily influenced by the struggles front man, John Adam Weinland Shearer, faced in relationships and at work in a flawed and troubling mental health system, La Lamentor portrays life's misfortunes with dark-hued tones and moving lyrics while bearing the heart of Neil Young, the thoughtfulness of Nick Drake and the beautiful sorrow of Elliott Smith.

Listen on iTunes

"The arrangements uncover delicate surprises throughout this record-a light washboard shuffle with an easy-going acoustic hook, well-placed lap steel, and occasional piano clamoring-the effect is perverse springtime listening that reminds you the fall is just a season away." --Crawdaddy

"La Lamentor follows and expands upon the warm, folky songs we've come to love and expect from this band." --Muzzle of Bees

"To rock or not to rock? That has long been the question facing Weinland frontman Adam Shearer. But the real issue at hand for this solo songwriting project-cum-three piece-cum-folk ensemble is how big a sound to have. La Lamentor has an answer." --Willamette Week

"An album that announces itself as a classic from beginning to end." --The Portland Tribune

"An amazing & intimate collection of hauntingly beautiful folk lullabies-the kind that are so good they give you goose bumps." --The Portland Mercury

"It's clear from the first word that Weinland have created a special album-it's a little bit country, it's a little bit rock and roll, upbeat melodies with tormented lyrics alongside quiet poignant songs with messages of hope. It's like Dylan always having been electric, or like Neil Young putting out an album of indie-rock covers." --MOG

"Weinland provides a sound reminiscent of Hayden and Iron & Wine's group efforts, with roots in folk, rock, and a touch of the Bakersfield sound." --AuralFitness

Rajaton: Finnish a cappella

Adapted from http://www.singers.com/jazz/rajaton.html:
I'm guessing that not a lot of people have heard the sound of finnish a cappella music, and it's time to change that, as far as I'm concerned. Vocal ensemble Rajaton, founded in autumn 1997, is a professional a cappella group with six singers (SSATBarB) most of whom have studied singing either at the Sibelius-Academy or at the Pop/Jazz Conservatory in Helsinki, Finland. They primarily perform music written for the group. As its name shows (rajaton = boundless), its musical scale ranges from sacred music to pop and from folk music to contemporary concert music. At the moment, their repertoire consists mostly of settings of texts by Finnish and foreign poets written for the ensemble by young Finnish choral composers. Rajaton also performs new arrangements of Finnish and foreign folk songs.

Give a listen to Mita kaikatat, kivonen? ("Wherefore Grumblest Thou, O Grindstone?") which I discovered via Said the Gramohpone blog.

Ida

Ida is an "indie folk rock" quartet from New York City originally formed by Daniel Littleton and Elizabeth Mitchell (who married in 1999). They recently released their sixth album Lovers Prayers which was recorded at Levon Helm Studios in upstate New York. The band is named for Ida Machado Schafer, the grandmother of Mitchell's old friend, the artist and playwright Erin Courtney. Schafer was 92 years old at the time Mitchell and Littleton formed the group. The current lineup includes Mitchell, Littleton, Schickele, drummer Ruth Keating, and violinist Jean Cook. They are also frequently joined by pedal steel player Matt Sutton.

Their album list is given below, with links to a few of my favorite songs of theirs:

2008 Lovers Prayers
Worried Man Blues
Richard Thomson "For Shame of Doing Wrong"
2005 Heart Like a River (Polyvinyl)
Late Blues
599
Mine
Sundown
2001 The Braille Night
2000 Will You Find Me
Maybelle
1996 I Know About You
1994 Tales of Brave Ida

Band members are connected by a variety of side projects including one album as Nanang Tatang, several solo albums, and three albums of children's music. Karla Schickele has also recorded with Beekeeper and K. Daniel Littleton has performed with the Hated, His Name Is Alive and Jenny Toomey's Liquorice. Elizabeth Mitchell previously performed in a duo with Lisa Loeb; Mitchell and Littleton both perform on Loeb's hit single "Stay (I Missed You)." Mitchell and Loeb also recorded a children's album in May 2004 entitled Catch the Moon.

You may also like:
Elliot Smith, Big Star, Nick Drake, Galaxie 500, Owl & the Pussycat, Oakley Hall, Winterpills, Lisa Loeb, Slowdive, Marykate O'Neal, Aimee Mann, Secret Stars, Lucero, Low, Codeine, Retsin, Idaho, Sweeder, The New Year, Kind of Like Spitting, The Naysayer, Alice Despard Group, Hannah Marcus, The Verna Cannon, Slackjaw, Julie Doiron, Rainer Maria, Sappington, Empress, Tram, Coastal, Rosa Chance Well, Low and Dirty Three, Tanya Donelly, The Capsules, Loquat, Thee More Shallows, Azure Ray, Nanang Tatang

Friday Video Spotlight: Traveling Wilburys

I've always enjoyed the historical impromptu accident that was the Traveling Wilburys and my band even covers both End of the Line and Handle with Care. I noticed this video of the latter hanging around and thought it would be a good end of the week video break.

Read more about the Traveling Wilburys here in Catherine Wagley's recently article in PopMatters.com.

Featured Studio/Producer/Engineer: Mike Mogis and Presto

I'm a pretty big fan of Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley) and the Watson Twins, and I've even used their arrangement of the Traveling Wilbury's Handle With Care as well as Jenny's song Rise Up With Fists!!! A combination of this album and a Tape Op (#51) interview with Mike Mogis (playing the slide guitar, above) led me a real appreciation of Mike's talents and his role as, among other things, engineer and producer at Presto! Recording Studios in Lincoln, Nebraska. He has become even more well known due to performing with Bright Eyes and his affiliation with Saddle Creek records. I don't know if Presto! has already relocated to the new Wes Lachot designed space (originally an indoor basketball court), but it will undoubtedly be a center of great engineering and production. Asked about some of his studio influences, Mogis mentioned Steve Albini and Jon Brion's work as a producer.

Seminal Folk Rockers: Jesse Colin Young

Jesse Colin Young (bass, vocals) probably has a love/hate relationship with Get Together, a cover of the song by Chet Powers (Dino Valente) the one song his band The Youngbloods have become synonymous with due to it's popularity and many cover versions (I happen to like the version recorded by the Indigo Girls on Strange Fire but other notable versions were done by Jefferson Airplane, The Kingston Trio, The Carpenters, Linda Rondstadt, The Association, and Anne Murray).

The Youngbloods also featured former bluegrass musician Jerry Corbitt (lead guitar, vocals)—who left after the band's 2nd album, Earth Music (1967), drummer Joe Bauer, and multi-instrumentalist Lowell Levinger (aka "Banana"). Get Together originally did not sell well upon release in 1967 but in 1969 it was used by the National Council of Christians and Jews as their theme song and the rest, as they say, is history.

Listening:
Ridgetop is a worthwhile Jesse Colin Young song.

Most of the the early Youngbloods material was recorded at RCA Victor, and the relationship between label and band was not a great one. I believe these are the correct production credits for first album, The Youngbloods (later retitled to - can you guess?):

Production by Felix Pappalardi
Recording Supervised by Bob Cullen
Engineers: Mike Moran, Mickey Crofford & Ray Hall
Recorded at RCA Victor's Studio B, New York City.

The Ruby Suns - Tane Mahuta

I have a lot of faith in the tastemakers at SubPop records, which I came to know first by way of Iron & Wine, Grand Archives, Wolf Parade, and Flight of the Conchords. This video from The Ruby Suns 2008 release "Sea Lion" is for the song "Tane Mahuta" and is sung entirely in Maori with a video was created by Marco Vidaurre. The tabloid-kitsch-psychedelic aesthetic is definitely something you either like or you don't. Or maybe you just say who put something in my water or maybe it was those brownies I ate for lunch from that Rasta bakery...