radioSpin

IRON & WINE
Ghost On Ghost

Iron & Wine makes its Nonesuch Records debut with Ghost On Ghost, the 5th release from singer-songwriter Sam Beam. The album was produced by his longtime associate Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Califone, Fruit Bats) and follows 2011′s Kiss Each Other Clean. Ghost On Ghost deftly integrates a broad, transparent soundstage and a Swiss watchmaker’s precision with the whispery tenderness at its center. Helping them these songs to life is a studio band composed of topflight session players including the Dylan-certified rhythm section of drummer Brian Blade and bassist Tony Garnier, pedal steel player Paul Niehaus (Calexico), a horn section of downtown New York veterans and five string virtuosos. Ghost On Ghost insinuates itself into the listener’s consciousness like a film, one that demands to be watched over and over.

ARTIST: Iron & Wine
TITLE: Ghost On Ghost
LABEL: Nonesuch
RELEASE DATE: April 16, 2013
TIME: 44:05 min.
WEB: http://www.ironandwine.com/
PURCHASE: price – 9.99$

01. Caught in the Briars [03:12]
02. The Desert Babbler [03:27]
03. Joy [02:31]
04. Low Light Buddy of Mine [03:30]
05. Grace for Saints and Ramblers [03:36]
06. Grass Windows [02:53]
07. Singers and the Endless Song [03:39]
08. Sundown (back in the briars) [02:18]
09. Winter Prayers [03:12]
10. New Mexico’s No Breeze [04:28]
11. Lovers’ Revolution [05:40]
12. Baby Center Stage [05:39]

PREVIEW: Iron & Wine – Joy

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JOHN GRANT
Pale Green Ghosts

After a breakthrough year following his exceptional solo debut Queen of Denmark, John Grant hasn’t rested on his laurels but created a follow-up that underlines his uncanny and charismatic talents. Recorded in Iceland and featuring Sinead O’Connor on guest vocals, this brilliant Pale Green Ghosts adds sublime notes of dark, gleaming electronica to the anticipated velveteen ballads, calling on all of Grant’s influences and tastes, presenting an artist at the peak of his powers. Exclusively for RS readers, here’s a deluxe edition featuring a bunch of stunning remixes.

ARTIST: John Grant
TITLE: Pale Green Ghosts (deluxe edition)
LABEL: Bella Union / Partisan
RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2013
TIME: 1:40:47 min.
WEB: http://johngrantmusic.com/
PURCHASE: price – 11.90$

01. Pale Green Ghosts [06:04]
02. Black Belt [04:19]
03. GMF [05:14]
04. Vietnam [05:29]
05. It Doesn’t Matter to Him [06:27]
06. Why Don’t You Love Me Anymore? [06:12]
07. You Don’t Have To [05:54]
08. Sensitive New Age Guy [04:42]
09. Ernest Borgnine [04:54]
10. I Hate This Town [04:04]
11. Glacier [07:38]

01. Black Belt (hercules & love affair rmx) [07:48]
02. Black Belt (gluteus maximus vocal rmx) [08:24]
03. Pale Green Ghosts (nivolt rmx) [05:21]
04. Pale Green Ghosts (no ceremony rmx) [04:48]
05. Why Don’t You Love Me Anymore? (nivolt rmx) [05:49]
06. Why Don’t You Love Me Anymore? (bon homme rmx) [07:40]

PREVIEW: John Grant – Black Belt

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THE NATIONAL
Trouble Will Find Me

Trouble Will Find Me is The National‘s highly anticipated 6th album. Formed in 1999, the Ohio-raised, Brooklyn-based band consists of vocalist Matt Berninger fronting two pairs of brothers: Aaron (guitar, bass, piano) and Bryce Dessner (guitar), and Scott (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums). Trouble Will Find Me is the most self-assured collection of songs produced by The National in its 14-year career: it is a tribute to fully evolved artistic vision and (somewhat less mystically), to sleep deprivation. Trouble Will Find Me is both dark and melancholic, uplifting and quietly euphoric: another masterpiece from The National.

ARTIST: The National
TITLE: Trouble Will Find Me
LABEL: 4AD
RELEASE DATE: May 21, 2013
TIME: 55:27 min.
WEB: http://www.americanmary.com/
PURCHASE: price – 9.99$

01. I Should Live in Salt [04:09]
02. Demons [03:33]
03. Don’t Swallow the Cap [04:47]
04. Fireproof [03:00]
05. Sea of Love [03:43]
06. Heavenfaced [04:25]
07. This Is the Last Time [04:45]
08. Graceless [04:37]
09. Slipped [04:26]
10. I Need My Girl [04:07]
11. Humilation [05:02]
12. Pink Rabbits [04:38]
13. Hard to Find [04:15]

PREVIEW: The National – Graceless

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JUNIP
Junip

Junip‘s self-titled second album is a lovely record about old hopes, new beginnings and redemptive moments of clarity. And once again, the music (supplied by the frontman José González with bandmates Elias Araya and Tobias Winterkorn) finds a spot somewhere between krautrock rhythms and African beats to infuse a dash of inherent Swedish serenity. Junip is a work filled with elegant phrasing and playing which doesn’t make for a very aggressive listen. Nothing here assaults or even grabs for the listener’s attention. It’s all in the details, and as long as you’re committed to them, there’s plenty of wonder and beauty to be uncovered.

ARTIST: Junip
TITLE: Junip
LABEL: Mute
RELEASE DATE: April 23, 2013
TIME: 42:46 min.
WEB: http://www.junip.net/
PURCHASE: price – 9.99$

01. Line of Fire [05:39]
02. Suddenly [03:27]
03. So Clear [04:45]
04. Your Life Your Call [04:07]
05. Villain [01:59]
06. Walking Lightly [05:44]
07. Head First [02:38]
08. Baton [03:45]
09. Beginnings [05:01]
10. After All Is Said and Done [05:41]

PREVIEW: Junip – Line of Fire

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RS VIDEO OF THE WEEK – #152
JAMES BLAKE – Retrograde

ARTIST: James Blake
TITLE: Retrograde
ALBUM: Overgrown
WEB: YouTube

directed by Martin de Thurah

PASCAL PINON
Twosomeness

Still a four-piece when they recorded their self-titled debut album (although the band name always indicated that these two twins from Reykjavík were in fact the heads of the operation – Pasqual Pinon was a two-headed Mexican, a sideshow attraction in the early 1900s), Pascal Pinon is now, with this Twosomeness, essentially comprised of Jófrídur and Ásthildur, with occasional help by Kristín (and then there’s also casual member Sylvía). Together they have created a many-layered soundtrack to growing up on a volcanic island in the Atlantic: a small world of its own, with all its marvels an all its Good and Bad Things.
A DIY Icelandic tiny dream.

ARTIST: Pascal Pinon
TITLE: Twosomeness
LABEL: Morr Music
RELEASE DATE: February 5, 2013
TIME: 37:13 min.
WEB: http://pascalpinon.com/
PURCHASE: special offer – ONLY 8.99$

01. Ekki Vanmeta [03:17]
02. Þerney (one thing) [03:37]
03. Somewhere [03:10]
04. Evgeny Kissin [03:15]
05. When I Can’t Sleep [03:42]
06. Annar Logi [00:47]
07. Kertið [02:51]
08. Sumarmál [03:44]
09. Bloom [03:55]
10. Fernando [03:17]
11. Good and Bad Things [02:29]
12. Rifrildi [03:09]

PREVIEW: Pascal Pinon – Þerney (one thing)

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NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS
Push the Sky Away

Brand new studio album from the veteran singer/songwriter and his longtime backing band. Push the Sky Away (the first album on the band’s own label, Bad Seed Ltd.) was produced by Nick Launay and recorded at La Fabrique, a recording studio based in a 19th Century mansion in the South of France, where the walls of the main studio are lined with an immense collection of classical vinyl. Experimental yet built on superb songwriting, fresh and surprising but still somehow recognisably a BS record, the amount of innovation and inspiration found on Push the Sky Away proves that Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds must still care an awful lot about this rock ‘n’ roll stuff.

ARTIST: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
TITLE: Push the Sky Away
LABEL: Bad Seed Ltd.
RELEASE DATE: February 19, 2013
TIME: 42:49 min.
WEB: http://www.nickcave.com/
PURCHASE: price – 9.99$

01. We No Who U R [04:06]
02. Wide Lovely Eyes [03:40]
03. Water’s Edge [03:49]
04. Jubilee Street [06:36]
05. Mermaids [03:49]
06. We Real Cool [04:19]
07. Finishing Jubilee Street [04:29]
08. Higgs Boson Blues [07:51]
09. Push the Sky Away [04:10]

PREVIEW: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – We No Who U R

removed by request

RS VIDEO OF THE WEEK – #141
DAVID BOWIE – Where Are We Now?

ARTIST: David Bowie
TITLE: Where Are We Now?
ALBUM: The Next Day
WEB: YouTube

directed by Tony Oursler

TORRES
Torres

Torres, the debut album from 22-year-old Nashville native Mackenzie Scott, has a deceptively charming backstory. Scott’s family pooled their money together to buy the Gibson guitar that is heard on the album. It was recorded live to tape over the course of five days in the home of a Louisiana songwriter. Scott herself is a bright-eyed, beautiful young woman that simply looks happy to have the opportunity to share her music. Given such a pleasant, unassuming foundation, it is a welcome surprise that the album itself is a raw and gripping exploration of our most basic human emotions. Over simple and often sparse arrangem- ents, Scott unleashes her remarkably multi-faceted voice and lets the listener into the intimate moments of her life. She stands confused outside of a strangers house. A man ashes in his coffee. She looks down the face of a waterfall, wondering whether or not to jump. Torres is a deeply personal record. However, through her stories of fear, heartbreak, inadequacy, and self-acceptance, Torres ultimately speaks to something universal.

ARTIST: Torres
TITLE: Torres
LABEL: Torres
RELEASE DATE: January 24, 2013
TIME: 52:54 min.
WEB: http://torrestorrestorres.com/
PURCHASE: price – 8.99$

01. Mother Earth, Father God [04:31]
02. Honey [05:41]
03. Jealousy and I [04:33]
04. November Baby [07:04]
05. When Winter’s Over [03:30]
06. Chains [05:49]
07. Moon & Back [04:18]
08. Don’t Run Away, Emile [04:51]
09. Come to Terms [05:20]
10. Waterfall [06:07]

Torres – Mother Earth, Father God

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LISA GERMANO
No Elephants

Lisa Germano‘s communication with herself, the earth, and its beings is getting weirder every day. Her music, which has always been a beautiful pool to drown in, leagues deep with epistolary lament and existential fear, as well as a beacon of ragged hope. With No Elephants, at first you’ll be attracted by the gauzy mellifluity of her dreamy atmospherics, but you’ll soon find your wretched brain synapses firing, comprehension dawning, your complicity in Germano’s dystopias perceived, and, you know, what a ruckus that would provoke.

ARTIST: Lisa Germano
TITLE: No Elephant
LABEL: Badman / E1
RELEASE DATE: February 12, 2013
TIME: 35:13 min.
WEB: http://www.lisagermano.com/
PURCHASE: price – 13.02$

01. Ruminants [03:20]
02. No Elephants [04:25]
03. Apathy and the Devil [02:38]
04. Back to Earth [01:39]
05. Haunted [02:51]
06. A Feast [03:24]
07. Up in the Air [02:44]
08. Dance of the Bees [02:05]
09. Diamonds [03:38]
10. … and So On [02:30]
11. Last Straws for Sale [03:21]
12. Strange Bird [02:38]

Lisa Germano – No Elephant

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AA.VV.
RS Top50 2012

So here we are again: just like every late December, it’s summing-up-time! It has been a really really hard work (but someone’s gotta do it, you know) to select the best albums of 2012. As usual, no claim to be exahustive round here: it’s a matter of musical taste, and surely we’ve missed some fantastic release (we pre-apologize for that), but we’ve tried, and here are the RS-TOP20 album between the ones featured on radioSpin.
Let us know what you think about it.

01. BAND OF SKULLS – Sweet Sour
02. ALT-J – An Awesome Wave
03. PINBACK – Information Retrieved
04. ARCHIVE – With Us Until You’re Dead
05. HUMAN DON’T BE ANGRY – Human don’t Be Angry
06. CHROMATICS – Kill For Love
07. DIVINE FITS – A Thing Called Divine Fits
08. REDRUM ALONE – De Redrum Natura
09. GRIZZLY BEARS – Shields
10. GIARDINI DI MIRÒ – Good Luck
11. Fairmont – Automaton
12. ORBITAL – Wonky
13. JASON LYTLE – Dept. of Disappearance
14. TWIN SHADOW – Confess
15. SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS – Ghostory
16. TINDERSTICKS – The Something Rain
17. SOULSAVERS – The Light the Dead See
18. BRETON – Other’s People Problems
19. CALEXICO – Algiers
20. SOUNDGARDEN – King Animal

Here below (and, of course, inside the concerning section) a slighlty mixed exclusive podcast (downloadable at the end of the post) with the previous tracks.
And then, in the end, like last year, the rest of the chart, from position 21 to 50.

21. CLARK – Iradelphic
22. THE SHINS – Port of Morrow
23. dEUS – Following Sea
24. YEASAYER – Fragrant World
25. TWILIGHT SAD – No One Can Ever Know
26. DRINK TO ME – S
27. DINOSAUR JR. – Silent Running
28. CAT POWER – Sun
29. SOFA SURFERS – Superluminal
30. SWANS – The Seer
31. METZ – Metz
32. LOTUS PLAZA – Spooky Action at a Distance
33. TY SEGALL – Twins
34. PAUL KALKBRENNER – Guten Tag
35. MARK LANEGAN – Blues Funeral
36. THE EYES IN THE HEAT – Program Me
37. PURITY RING – Shrines
38. SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO – UnPatterns
39. MIAOUX MIAOUX – Light of the North
40. ERRORS – New Relics
41. THE XX – Coexist
42. BETH ORTON – Sugaring Season
43. BAT FOR LASHES – The Haunted Man
44. LANA DEL REY – Born to Die
45. BLOC PARTY – Four
46. APOLLO 440 – The Future’s What It Used to Be
47. DEFTONES – Koi No Yokan
48. CRYSTAL CASTLES – III
49. SCUBA – Personality
50. SQUAREPUSHER – Ufabulum

AA.VV. selected by radioSpin – RS TOP20 2012

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MOSES LUSTER
Stands Alone

Moses Luster has returned, bringing with him a heavy-duty new album. Stands Alone opens with some vintage analog synths, pigpen drums and wayward banjo set the agenda clear: the stranger is back, and he has more tales of the weary to tell. Moses cut his teeth playing the casinos of Vegas and Reno. After years of mixing with the gamblers and lowlifes for whom the glitz of the strip was a distant memory, he finally came to Hollywood and started writing songs about his past. Like Charles Bukowski or Tom Waits, he paints vivid pictures of the underbelly of society, but the sound is more actual: an electronic noir from a modern day crooner, a cursed poet standing alone between Nick Cave and Johnny Cash.

ARTIST: Moses Luster & the Hollywood Lights
TITLE: Stands Alone
LABEL: self-released
RELEASE DATE: November 19, 2012
TIME: 40:22 min.
WEB: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Moses-Luster-and-the-Hollywood-Lights/
PURCHASE: special offer – NAME YOUR PRICE!

01. Hollywood’s Black Heart [04:01]
02. God Is Watching [02:45]
03. The Past Is No Place For A Man [03:11]
04. Free At Last [04:17]
05. Mary Winkler [04:10]
06. Stands Alone [03:40]
07. Rumors [04:05]
08. Capsize [04:27]
09. The God Machine [04:13]
10. There’s A Cross for Everyone [03:58]
11. Theme from Stands Alone [01:35]

Moses Luster – Rumors

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BETH ORTON
Sugaring Season

Beth Orton‘s ANTI debut captures the classic hypnotic sound that won her prominence, at the same time as it shows a singer at the full maturity of her instrument, with a new soulfulness that can recall Roberta Flack or Nina Simone one moment, June Christy at the next. Sugaring Season is in many ways a culmination of Orton’s art of contradictions, a full circle from that first John Martyn cover she recorded with William Orbit back in the day soulful and ambient, lush and bittersweet, starkly still and fiercely rhythmic.

ARTIST: Beth Orton
TITLE: Sugarin Season
LABEL: ANTI
RELEASE DATE: October 2, 2012
TIME: 37:24 min.
WEB: http://beth-orton.net/
PURCHASE: http://www.amazon.com/

01. Magpie [04:32]
02. Dawn Chorus [03:24]
03. Candles [03:45]
04. something More Beautiful [03:28]
05. Call Me the Breeze [03:52]
06. Poison Tree [04:06]
07. See Through Blue [01:54]
08. Last Leaves of Autumn [04:01]
09. State of Grace [04:15]
10. Mystery [04:08]

Beth Orton – Magpie

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JAKE BUGG
Jake Bugg

18 year-old Jake Bugg releases his debut later this month, a name and album that has been surf ahoy on the hype waves for a good six months. An abundance of young male singers have forced themselves upon our metaphorical doorsteps over the past couple of years, but Jake Bugg stands miles apart from these acts. Everything feels real and simplistic in this self-title debut Jake Bugg, with no ridiculous over-production. His musical demeanor sounds like it’s fresh out of a time machine. Like a Bob Dylan, born in 1994.

ARTIST: Jake Bugg
TITLE: Jake Bugg
LABEL: Mercury
RELEASE DATE: October 23, 2012
TIME: 39:24 min.
WEB: http://jakebugg.com/
PURCHASE: http://www.amazon.com/

01. Lightning Bolt [02:24]
02. Two Fingers [03:16]
03. Tast It [02:25]
04. Seen It All [02:51]
05. Simple As This [03:19]
06. Country Song [01:50]
07. Broken [04:07]
08. Trouble Town [02:50]
09. Ballad of Mr. Jones [02:39]
10. Slide [03:09]
11. Someone Told Me [02:37]
12. Note to Self [04:32]
13. Someplace [03:32]
14. Fire [01:44]

Jake Bugg – Two Fingers

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VIDEO OF THE WEEK – #127
as seen on radioSpin

ARTIST: Bat For Lashes
TITLE: Laura
ALBUM: The Haunted Man
WEB: YouTube

directed by Noel Paul

SILLYBOY
Nature of Things

Athenian art-rocker Sillyboy (moniker inspired by the Silly Boy Blue track of David Bowie) has worked for more than ten years supervising and producing music for TV commercial campaigns. He always kept an eye on the Greek indie scene playing bass for one of the finest Athenian acts The Expert Medicine. However back on 2008 started recording his own ideas and in 2010 he releases his debut album Played. Local press and the majority of main music editors are putting Played on the top of their “Greek albums” lists. The vinyl limited release of the album combined with some amazing feedback from ground breaking underground DJs both in US and Europe brought Sillyboy some hype. Now that we have listened to his second album Nature of Things, we guess this is the time for him to get the ultimate European (or maybe world-wide, who knows?) acknowledgment.

ARTIST: Sillyboy
TITLE: Nature of Things
LABEL: Just Gazing
RELEASE DATE: September 24, 2012
TIME: 38:09 min.
WEB: http://www.myspace.com/sillyboymusic

01. Name Your God [04:27]
02. Coast to Coast [03:06]
03. Selling Plenty [03:17]
04. All the Records [04:13]
05. Nature of Things [03:53]
06. Got Your Numbers [03:32]
07. Over My Name [02:52]
08. The River [04:20]
09. Supply Chain [03:05]
10. Animal [03:24]

Sillyboy – Animal

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