Tag: The Decemberists

Best New Releases – The Decemberists, R.E.M., Smith Westerns, Tennis, Braids, Oh No Oh My, Dolorean, Modern Skirts, Eulogies

Posted on by Max Hammer

It’s safe to say that among the biggest new releases this week The Decemberists‘ follow-up to the success of Hazards of Love in 2009, The King Is Dead. The band turn towards a more American folk style rather than the more-English folk that propelled the band from the fame within the indie rock world to the Billboard charts and the ‘mainstream’ rock world.

“January Hymn” – The Decemberists from The King Is Dead

However mainstream The Decemberists are, or how much they don’t deserve to be ‘indie’ anymore (since signing with Capitol Records in 2009), are legit discussions, but the point is, they have managed to keep their branded sound uniquely their own, and continue to release awesome, ballad-heavy folk pop songs that appeal to a wide audience of music lovers.

The first single release, “Down By The Water”, was played live for the first time last September when we saw the band performed it at their sold out performance in Pioneer Courthouse Square during NWMF, Portland‘s biggest annual musical festival.

“Down By The Water” – The Decemberists from The King Is Dead

R.E.M.’s Welcomed Return to Their Pop Roots

One of the world’s greatest rock bands of the past 30 years, R.E.M., have just made available the first single from their first album in since 2008’s Accelerate. The legendary band’s 15th studio album, Collapse Into Now,  is set to drop in March.

The new single, “Mine Smells Like Honey” (purchase MP3 via AMZ for 99 cents) is R.E.M. in true fashion – upbeat, hooklicious pop rock with a catchy beat, soaring, jangly guitar work from Peter Buck, the ironic lyrics and unforgettable nasaly and grumbling voice of Michael Stipe, and the sweeping chorus heights, preempted by the wild “call-and-response” backup vocals of Mike Mills.

You can pre-order the master CD for Collapse Into Now for a discounted $14.99.

The Debut Album from Husband and Wife Duo, Tennis, Officially Out Now

By Emma Majerus

After creating a buzz with the single, “Marathon,” college sweethearts turned husband and wife duo, Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore, along with band mate James Barone, have just officially released their debut LP, Cape Dory.  The songs on Cape Dory are not a departure from the summery sound of “Marathon,” as Tennis demonstrates a knack for the beachy pop music that so many bands have attempted to perfect over the past year or so.

“Marathon” – Tennis from Cape Dory

In fact, with their breezy vocals and jangly percussions, Tennis seems to have made themselvess fore runners of setting the tone for the indie beach sound of 2011.  And that seems only fitting; afterall, the husband and wife duo spent seven months sailing on the Atlantic Ocean. The sounds and musical influences of the ocean, the wind and the sun are well within  their grasp.

In large part, Cape Dory is reminiscent of an earlier, simpler time, while maintaining a refreshingly relevant sound.  With all of Moore’s “Oh oh’s” and “sha-la-la’s”, there are songs that conjure up images of 1960’s girl groups, but this time around, singing on a sailboat.  With rhetorical lyrics like: “Do you wanna go where it never snows and the mid-60s are the extreme lows?” from the album’s title track, Tennis doesn’t attempt to go far beyond the realm of beach music, but they do it so well that it would be difficult to fault them for it.

“Take Me Somewhere” – Tennis from Cape Dory

Chicago’s Smith Westerns Announce Debut LP for January Drop

The year 2010 was a grand year for Chicago’s rising band, Smith Westerns, whose name recognition and fan following grew by leaps and bounds, due in part to a wildly successful cross-country tour and plenty of blogger and social media love.

Today the band released its sophomore album, Dye It Blonde. Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beach House), produced the new LP.  The short indie film, Friends Forever, features a performance of the band playing the track, “All Die Younger”.

“Weekend” – Smith Westerns from Dye It Blonde

The film was shot by popular indie artist and photographer, Ryan McGinley, who captured Smith Westerns’ performance at this year’s Pitchfork Festival. In addition, the film also features footage from San Francisco rising indie band, Girls‘, gig at Pitchfork. Interestingly enough, both bands will be featured in IRC’s Best Bands of 2010.

“Imagine Pt. 3” – Smith Westerns from Dye It Blonde

braidsband
California indie band Braids are an IRC band to watch in 2011.

New Releases from Braids, David Gergen, Oh No Oh My, Modern Skirts and others

In addition to the new and terrific debut album from Tennis, other recommended releases include  Braids, Dolorean, Seafarer and Modern Skirts. After a four year recording hiatus following their indie-hit debut, the band Oh No Oh My just dropped their sophomore album, People Problems, and the lead single below, just makes it more probable that we’ll get around to listening to all of People Problems.

Also, check out other recommended releases, including two DIY from Seafarer and David Gergen, plus LPs from Dolorean, Eulogies, Modern Skirts, Only Sons, Fergus & Geronimo, and others.

In addition to this week’s highlighted releases, you can also still stream and download singles from our first Best New Releases of 2011, last week’s installment that we were admittedly a couple of days late with.

“Plath Heart” – Braids from Native Speaker

“The Streets I’m Walking” – David Gergen from The Nearer It Was…The Farther It Became

“Walking Into Me” – Oh No Oh My from People Problems

“You Hide” – Eulogies from Tear the Fences Down

“The Unfazed” – Dolorean from The Unfazed

“Magic” – Only Son from Searchlight

“Noise Floor” – Seafarer from Hiding Places (self-released)

“Bumper Car” – Modern Skirts from Gramahawk

“Powerful Lovin'” – Fergus & Geronimo from Unlearn

“Superstition” – Disappears from Guider

Other New Releases – Hip-Hop, Country, World Music, Trip Jazz

Tracks that are rarely heard, but not forgotten

“Arrivederci” – Sane Smith from Robots Will Kill

“Dark Road – Daniel Martin Moore from In the Cool of the Day

“Wolf Pantolones” – Beep from City of the Future

“Tio Sam” – Aurelio from Laru Beya

Posts and Playlists In the Pipeline on IRC

We didn’t do any other real reviews this week other than what’s on this page. The reason why is because we’re so busy still compiling and rolling out ‘best of 2010’ playlists. In fact, on Wednesday, we’ll publish the first installment of our top songs for 2010, which will be different from the Top 50 No.1 Indie Songs of 2010 that you guys all voted for throughout the year on the Top Ten Songs page.

Since 2009’s Best Songs series was such a big hit, we had to put one together for 2010, right at the same time that the first best new songs of 2011 are coming out.

Also, don’t miss our Winter/Spring 2011 Anticipated Releases Guide, hopefully to hit the site next weekend. In the meantime, enjoy. When you run out of great songs, just remember that all you have to do is click around the site a little to find hundreds of more songs to stream and listen to online and/or download to your MP3 player.

The S-25 Songs Mix, Vol. VI – The Decemberists, Josh Rouse, Sigur Ros, The Shins, Cream, Man Man, The Walkmen, The Violent Femmes

Posted on by Max Hammer

It’s 2011, and there’s so much happening. Not only are we working on our year end lists for the best songs, albums, bands and more of 2010, but we’re also prepping Advance Spins of upcoming releases from a bunch of artists and bands, ranging from Bright Eyes, Minks, The Strokes, The Decemberists, Smith Westerns and many others. In fact, January is looking to be a blockbuster month for new indie rock releases of 2011.

If you haven’t already done so, you’ll probably want to check out the Readers’ Choice playlist and poll of the top 50 No. 1 songs from 2010 – all of which were chosen by you. Now, we’re watching this poll – as many others as well – to see what will be the Top 30, 20, 10 songs all of you pick from the top 50. Once the playlist/poll closes on Jan. 13th, we’ll announce the winners in a special edition of IRC’s Best of 2010 series.

In the meantime, another Sunday is here, and we’ve got another playlist of 25 songs that we love from all decades and genres of music over the past half century. Each Sunday, we unwind to put together a playlist of of 25 fantastic tracks that is not restricted to our usual indie rock format. Since The Sunday 25 Songs Mix (aka, The S-25) started back in November, it has received a huge and enthusiastic reception from our regular readers, and tens of thousands of weekly visitors from around the world.

As with all of the other S-25 mixes, we also profile one artist or band that has made an impression on us – and others – in recent months, or even recent years. In the first five installments, the artists featured were WireTree, The Strokes, Beach House, Oberhofer and The Tallest Man on Earth.

This Sunday were stoked to focus on the music of one of the best bands to break out of Portland‘s robust indie music scene, The Decemberists. While one could make a convincing argument that The Decemberists betrayed some of their most loyal fans when the band signed with Capitol Records in 2009 for their last album, The Hazards of Love, the fact is that the band consistently releases excellent albums full of adventurous, wonderfully crafted folk rock songs.  Because of this, the band have seemed to avoid, at least for the most part, the “sell-out” label that was predictably pinned on them by some die-hard indie purists.  While we are definitely huge fans of their pre-Capitol recordings, The Hazards of Love still managed to make many 2009 ‘best of’ lists in the mainstream media, and especially among blogs, from Pitchfork to IGuessImFloating.

“The Rake Song” – The Decemberists from The Hazards of Love (2009)

In September, The Decemberists opened for Neko Case, who opened for Bob Dylan at the  Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival in Seattle, WA.  During their performance, Colin Meloy annouced that the band’s newest album, The King is Dead, would be released in January (the 18th to be precise) with R.E.M. member Peter Buck playing on three of the album’s tracks.

The first single from The King is Dead, “Down by the Water” has been released in advance of the album’s January 18th release via Capitol Records. So, even if The Decemberists are no longer considered “indie”, that’s OK with us. It doesn’t mean that we just cast them away because they “crossed over”.  They’re still putting out great music. Plus, it’s not like they are so big that most ‘mainstream’ music listeners have heard of them, even with their repeated appearances on the popular Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report.

“Down By The Water” – The Decemberists from The King is Dead – Jan. 18th

We guess that someone could make a good argument that The Decemberists are not mainstream, but are instead trapped in between the ‘indie’ world and the ‘mainstream’ (semi-celeb) world.  However, first we recommend listening to Picturesque and The Crane Wife.

To order any of the albums featured here, just click on the album title and you’ll be taken to the Amazon check out.

“It Looks Like Love” – Josh Rouse from Subtitulo (2006)

“Hoppipolla” – Sigur Ros from Takk… (2005)

“Kissing The Lipless” – The Shins from Chutes Too Narrow (2003)

“O Valencia!” – The Decemberists from The Crane Wife (2006)

“Chariot” – Page France from Hello, Dear Wind (2006)

“Devil Bunnies” – My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult from My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult (2006)

“Mrs. Cold” – Kings of Convenience from Declaration of Dependence (2009)

“Jumpin Jean-Luc” – We All Have Hooks For Hands from We All Have Hooks For Hands (2007)

“11th Dimension” – Juliana Casablancas

Pete Townshend of The Who was famous for his powerful guitar playing

“Let My Love Open The Door” – Pete Townshed from Empty Glass (1980)

“America” – Simon & Garfunkel from Greatest Hits (1988)

“Summersong” – The Decemberists from The Crane Wife (2006)

“Submarines of Stockholm” – AC Newman, unreleased

“Spider Cider” – Man Man from Six Demon Bag (2008)

“Strange Brew” – Cream from Greatest Hits (1999)

“Pretty in Pink” – The Psychedelic Furs from Talk Talk Talk (1981)

“Cool Jumper” – Wavves, advanced single

Don’t Miss The Other S-25 Mixtapes

“Hello, It’s Me” – Todd Rundgred from Hello It’s Me (1978)

“Love Train” –The O’Jays from Backstabbers (1973)

opusorange

“Nothing But Time” – Opus Orange from Opus Orange EP (2010)

“We Both Go Down Together” – The Decemberists from Picturesque (2005)

“Four Provinces” – The Walkmen from You & Me (2008)

“Blue Sky” – Allman Brothers from Eat A Peach (1972)

The Violent Femmes were forerunners of indie rock in the 1980s

“Blister in the Sun” – The Violent Femmes from Violent Femmes (1984)

“Jackhammer” – Spinto Band from s/t debut (2008)

My Mother Was A Chinese Trapeze Artist.mp3 – The Decemberists from The Crane Wife (2006)