Frightened Rabbit | one of the Best of UW 2010

Uncharted Waters is the new releases show that I host on mvyradio (Friday 9 PM; replay Sunday at 9 PM). I have started a 3 part series, looking back over the songs, albums and artists that made their way into this weekly musical container.

There's something about the concentration of approximately 50 hours of music (4 shows x 12 months) into 3 short hours that makes me dizzy and full wonder at the power of song. See part one's playlist below.

One of the songs from this week's show is from Glasglow's Frightened Rabbit, who released their third album "Winter of Mixed Drinks" this year. The record's "Swim Until You Can't See Land" seems to be about transcending the trappings of life:

Dip the toe in the ocean.
Oh how it hardens and it numbs.
And the rest of me is a burgeoned man
built to collapse into crumbs
And if I hadn’t come down
To the coast to disappear
I may have died in a land-slide
Of the rocks, the hopes and fears.

As I was listening to the refrain, "swim until you can't see land" I thought, mmm good theme song for Uncharted Waters!



Here's the playlist for this week's (12/10/11) show:

Best of UW 2010-Part 1

"Run" Vampire Weekend Contra
"I've Got Dreams To Remember" Angelique Kidjo Oyo
"Five Small Words" Elvis Costello National Ransom
"Burden Of Tomorrow" The Tallest Man On Earth The Wild Hunt
"Hurricane Season" Trombone Shorty Backatown
"Hitchhiker" Neil Young Le Noise
"I Didn't See it Coming" Belle and Sebastian Write About Love
"Unfortunate Sea" Everest On Approach
"Let Yourself Go" Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Mojo
"Troubled Waters" Catherine Russell Inside This Heart Of Mine
"Swim Until You Can't See Land" Frightened Rabbit Winter Of Mixed Drinks
"Hotel Lights" Amy Cook Let The Light In
"Dry Bones" Robert Randolph and The Family Band We Walk This Road
"Unsophisticated Heart" Joe Pug Messenger

Feist | Look At What The Light Did Now

In the new documentary about Feist, "Look At What The Light Did Now", the Canadian artist/musician likens herself to a peacock, a "scrawny little bird" amid dazzling plumage. The beauty that surrounds her is born in the artistic collaboration with what she calls her "amplifiers"- her band, photographer, shadow puppeteers, video director and all who work with her to bring her work to light. The film itself is a reflection of an amazingly creative mind and reveals the profound benefits of trust.

"If you trust people and their art, it grows", says Feist.

Milton Music

Milton came to the Vineyard last week from his home in New York to spend Thanksgiving with his family and he stopped by mvy to sit down for a conversation and a couple of songs. We became aware of Milton in 2008 and played songs from his third album "Grande Hotel" which was released that year. Friend of mvyradio, Buffy McCleery is a fan, too and she was the matchmaker for this interview. She knew that Milton was going to be on-island for the holiday and we took it from there. Thanks, Buffy!

Listen to the interview here.

Check out clips from "Grand Hotel":

Kim Richey | Wreck Your Wheels

I read on Kim Richey's facebook page that she is in London and it was her first Thanksgiving Day there. "Turkey, mash, chestnut dressing..." Sounds like she brought a great American meal to her friends across the pond!

Over the last several years Kim has split her time between London and Nashville and her new CD "Wreck Your Wheels" was recorded in "Music City" with her touring band. It's her sixth record, and her collaborative spirit is strong. Every song is co-written by songwriters like Mando Saenz, The Jayhawks Mark Olsen, Beth Rowley and long time friend and collaborator Neilson Hubbard.

Kim has many strengths - an absolutely pristine voice and a songwriting skill that rivals the best in the business -and they are all on display here. But the key to her appeal is the subtlety that underlies it all.

Kim's fans contributed to this video for "Wreck Your Wheels"




Listen to clips from the CD...

Belle and Sebastian | Write About Love

The Scottish band that formed in the mid 90's has just released an album "Write About Love", and after years of appreciating what they do from a far, I have been captured, pulled in, won over. The vulnerability and sweetness in their indie sound is emboldened with a pop certainty on this record that lines up with what I have heard between the lines in some of their other work. Seems like a natural, inevitable and wonderful evolution.

Watch...is that Simon and Garfunkel's "A Hazy Shade Of Winter" coming through?



Listen to it...pop...

What's New... today

I'm putting together a set of new music for The Lunch Hour on mvyradio ...The new tunes will roll out at about 12:20 PM.

Paul Simon has a new album, done and due for release in the spring of next year. Just so happens there is a song on it called "Getting Ready For Christmas Day". What to do? Release it! Play it!

I found another track to play from The Autumn Defense's new CD "Once Around". "The Swallows of London Town" is one of the stand out tracks from John Stirratt and Pat Sansone on their fourth CD.

Louisville's Cheyenne Marie Misez has a new CD "Before Lately". "Friend" got me on the first note.

Ryan Montbleau's "Lonesome Serenade" is track # 13 on "Heavy On The Vine", some sweet stuff as the new album is coming to a close. His fans are going to want to hear this song when he plays with J.J. Grey and Mofro next Wednesday (11/24) at The Paradise in Boston!

AND FINALLY! Adele! We just got "Rolling In The Deep" from "21" her second CD due for release in February. I learned a new word from Adele -"chuffed". That's what she is after completing the new record. Quite pleased. You will be, too, when you hear it today on www,mvyradio.com

Dan Zanes | Family Man

Dan Zanes and his band will play at The Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford this Sunday, November 21st. The music Dan has been focusing on for the last thirteen years or so is, by his own description, "handmade music". He has revisited songs of Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and many others and put his own particular spin on them.

The birth of his daughter, who is now 16 years old, lead him to this "parallel universe". After she was born, as he was wondering what would be the very first song he would play for her, it never occurred to him that it could be one that HE sang to her. Shortly after that, he started to make family music.

There's one thing that runs through all of his music making, from his time with Boston's The Del Fuegos in the '80s, his solo records of the '90s and his family music of the past decade and it's the element of participation. The Del Fuegos never felt like they had played a gig, unless people danced. In 2010, as he celebrates ten years of his Festival Five Records, the idea behind Dan's records and his shows is not only to inspire people to dance and to participate in HIS music but also to encourage them to make their own.

Listen to my interview with Dan Zanes here



Get on Dan's train:

Bruce Springsteen | The Promise

The previously un-released tracks from the "Darkness on the Edge of Town" sessions will be released today as "The Promise". The whole package includes 2 CDs and 3 DVDs. Springsteen says it's "a new/old record, the lost sessions of music that could have/should have been released after "Born To Run" and before the collection of songs that became 'Darkness on the Edge of Town'". Springsteen went back to the music that the had abandoned thirty years ago and selected twenty-one tracks from the '77,'78 sessions. He left many of the tracks just as they were recorded, and worked on some, doing "what I would've done to them at the time and no more."

These songs were recorded at transitional time in Springsteen's career, a time when he was emerging from the tremendous success of "Born To Run" and a time that was marked by intense legal battles. "Darkness on the Edge of Town" is one of Springsteen's most beloved albums. His return to music that was recorded during this period material feels like a necessary journey of discovery and reconciliation.

Listen to www.mvyradio.com today at 12:30 to hear some of the songs.

Check out songs clips from the CD here:

NEeMA | Escape

I just saw the video of a new song by Montreal based singer NEeMA, and I want to share it. "Escape" is from a new album called Watching You Think and the song makes a lasting impression, due in great part to the sweet innocence of the video, which was shot at Ecole St-Ambroise in Little Italy in Montreal. NEaMA (pronounced "Nee-mah") has had a lot experience with working with children in a pre-school in Montreal and also with street kids in Egypt. Mentor's Leonard Cohen and Pierre Marchand (Sarah McLachlan, Ron Sexsmith) helped produce the new record. NEeMA is on tour with The Chapin Sisters.

Check out the video:



Listen to song clips from the album:

Neil Young | Le Noise

It seems that Neil Young is always very aware of the journey he is on as a performing artist and human being and spontaneously draws people and experiences to himself that manifest his life and music. "Le Noise" is Young's new album, produced by Daniel Lanois, aptly titled because of the rugged, crunchy, big sound of the record, but named for "Le Noise" --Daniel Lanois. Deeply personal, probing and raw, we are witness to pieces of Young's inner life unfolding in a vivid sonic atmosphere created by Young and partner Lanois. "Black Dub" is a technique that Lanois used for this project. He takes parts of the music that he has recorded and re-inserts it into the song, like a piece of cloth cut out of a dress and then re-applied in another spot. The result is a new sound that will be interesting to track as it, and if it finds it's way into other musicians' palettes.

Listen to some of the tracks from 'Le Noise" tonight at 9 PM ET on mvyradio's Uncharted Waters and hear the entire album on mvy's Album of The Week Wednesday (10/20) at 9 PM ET.

Tracy Bonham | Masts Of Manhatta

I wondered about the title of Tracy Bonham's new album "Masts Of Manhatta". Intriguing, strong, mysterious. Come to find out that it's taken from a phrase from Walt Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." "Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers. Stand up, tall masts of Manhattan! Stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn." One of the many unexpected pleasures of encountering Tracy Bonham again -going back to read Walt Whitman again!

It's been five years and a lot of life changes since Bonham's last CD. She got married, got certified as a yoga teacher, moved to Woodstock and now splits her time between her home there and Brooklyn.

Smokey Hormel from Brooklyn's Smokey's Roundup is on guitars with his bass player, Tim Luntsel and drummer Andy Borger, providing the roots backbone to the album. Tchad Blake mixed it.

The record holds together beautifully, with Bonham's sense of humor and strength as a singer and player (violins, Fender Rhodes, guitar, piano, claves, spaghetti pot, cardboard box) filling the tracks. All the years of playing -her early classical training in her native Eugene, Oregon, her time in the early '90's at Berklee and playing in Boston, and her subsequent, short-lived dominance on the alternative scene in the mid 90's all serve her well and make the release one of the best of the late summer, early fall season.

Listen...

Mavis Staples | You Are Not Alone

I go through a process as I listen to an album for the first time. Because of the volume of music I listen to every week, it's rather quick, but a process nonetheless. Even with a legendary musician like Mavis Staples, one I am so ready to accept absolutely, it takes a certain amount of time before an album kicks in, takes hold. And that moment when it does, the moment when I'm swept away is my favorite part of the music listening routine.

As I made my way through "You Are Not Alone" the new CD from Chicago's Mavis Staples, I asked myself "Do I like this?" and "Am I going to get blown away?" I experienced a slow build, and by the time I circled through a few times, I was sold. The song choices are inspired, and include a few written by her dad the late "Pops" Staples, a couple by the album's producer, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy (love the title track written by Jeff!), and one from Randy Newman, "Losing You", another killer song choice. Mavis has so much depth as a singer and what I realized was happening with the slow build was that I was traveling inside her sound, with all of it's subtlety and breadth of experience. And all at once, I got to the center and found what I was hoping for, what she was going for.

Listen to clips from the CD here.