Video: Kurt Vile - Yours Truly/MTV Hive session

Kurt Vile's Smoke Ring For My Halo is one of the records I've been listening the most to this year, and it's certainly raised Vile's profile quite a bit. Vile recorded a two-track session for MTV Hive and Yours Truly which was released a week or so ago and you can watch it right here. It's an excellent session featuring great takes on "Jesus Fever" and "Baby's Arms" from Smoke Ring For My Halo, and you can listen to the entire album here if you haven't heard it yet.

Stream: Phosphorescent - "Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye" (Leonard Cohen cover)

I must've missed the release of Phosphorescent's Live/Ghost Lights ep completely when it was released last year, which is quite surprising consider their lp from last year Here's To Taking It Easy was one of my favourite albums of 2010. By the looks of it Live/Ghost Lights was a limited release, but it's still available for download from your regular provider. I haven't heard the entire ep yet but Phosphorescent's label Dead Oceans were kind enough to upload one of the tracks from the ep to their soundcloud page - namely a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye".

Since Phosphorescent are far from newbies when it comes to covers - they even released a full-length album of Willie Nelson covers - it's not surprising that this one is as good as you could hope for. Check it out below, and if you live in the UK, Ireland or are at Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona you should definitely check them out live (dates here). They're a great live band.

Prince to headline Way Out West Festival

In an act that surprised everyone (or at least me) Gothenburg, Sweden-based festival Way Out West just announced that Prince will one of the headliners for this year's festival. It's the first time ever that Prince will play a Swedish festival, and personally I find this huge. Prince is one of the biggest artists of the past 30 years, and while his albums may not be as good as they used to be nowadays he's still one hell of a live artist.

A couple of days ago Way Out West announced three more acts; Australien electropoppers Empire of the Sun for the festival area, and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and Koreless for the Stay Out West club program.

These artists join an already impressive line-up featuring Kanye West, Fleet Foxes, Robyn, Pulp, James Blake, Timber Timbre and Janelle Monáe among others. Check out a piece on the festival I wrote for One Thirty BPM's "2011 Summer Music Festival Preview" here (just scroll down a bit).

Introducing... Let's Buy Happiness

This 5 piece group from Newcastle came together when twenty-one year old Sarah Hall was asked to front her little brother’s band. With their mutual love of North American alt-indie bands such as Modest Mouse, Tokyo Police Club and Brand New they started making music.

Let's Buy Happiness have so far supported bands like Idlewild, The Temper Trap, Vivian Girls, HEALTH, Sky Larkin and The Futureheads, and also played at Glastonbury, The Great Escape and Evolution Festival. Let’s Buy Happiness released their first single "Six Wolves" in October 2010 on their own label Ghost Arc Records and in early 2011 the band released the single "Fast Fast" and they're surely a band to keep an eye on.

Video: Arctic Monkeys perform "Don't Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair” on Letterman 26/5

Arctic Monkeys are currently touring the US in support of their upcoming album Suck It And See, out on June 6, and last night they performed the first single from the album, "Don't Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair”, on Late Show with David Letterman. Two weeks ago they performed the same track on Later...with Jools Holland, plus three more songs, which you can watch here and personally I found that performance to be slightly stronger. Watch the Letterman performance below and decide for yourselves.

Stream: Woods - "Any Other Day"

I only discovered Woods this year but they've quickly become one of my favourite bands and they're releasing a new album next month called Sun & Shade. We've previously been treated with "Pushing Onlys" and "Out Of The Eye" and today we've got a third track; "Any Other Day". "Any Other Day" is Woods at their poppiest, with some screeching guitar thrown in too. Check it out below (via The FADER)

Video: Okkervil River - Acoustic MTV Hive session

Okkervil River released their sixth studio album I Am Very Far on May 10 via Jagjaguwar and since then they've toured Europe - including a great show here in Stockholm last Friday - and they've also recorded an acoustic session for MTV Hive.

The band performed four tracks from I Am Very Far; "Your Past Life As A Blast", "Lay Of The Last Survivor", "Hanging From A Hit" and "Wake And Be Fine" and you can watch all four performances below. While the production and sheer number of instruments on I Am Very Far can be a bit daunting these stripped-down versions really show that the songs are just as strong as on the previous Okkervil River albums. If you haven't seen it already you should head over here and check out their great performance of "Rider" on Letterman almost two weeks ago.

Stream: The Horrors - "Still Life"

The Horrors' highly anticipated 3rd album Skying will be released on the 11th of July. The album was produced and recorded in the band's self-built studio in Dalston, London. The first track from the new album is called "Still Life" and was released a few days ago and it premiered as Hottest Record In The World on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1. I think it's an amazing song, listen for yourselves here below:

Video: Brother - "New Years Day"

Here is the new video for the 3rd single 'New Years Day' from Britain's own gritpoppers, Brother. There debut album Famous First Words is released the 1st of August. Enjoy!!!

Gillian Welch announce The Harrow & The Harvest album details

It's been known that acclaimed folk/country singer-songwriter Gillian Welch would be returning to the scene and releasing a new album this summer for a while and last night the details for the album were finally announced. The album is called The Harrow & The Harvest, her first album since 2003's Soul Journey, and it was recorded with constant collaborator David Rawlings in Nashville, TN it'll be released on June 28 via Acony Records. Check out the tracklist below and the album cover above, and as soon as a song from the album is released you'll find it on here.

MP3: Roadside Graves - "Love Me More"

On Sunday I posted about the brand new Daytrotter session with the Roadside Graves, and mentioned that they were releasing a new album called We Can Take Care Of Ourselves soon. The first track from that album premiered on Stereogum last night and it's called "Love Me More", and the album will be released on July 19 via Aquarium Drunkard's Autumn Tone label. We Can Take Care Of Ourselves is inspired by S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and Roadside Graves frontman had this to say about to Stereogum:

My wife and I are both teachers, but we rarely talk about teaching beyond a good day versus a bad day. After a few years together and a few hundred dinners I realized the one exception was when she taught S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. During her Outsider unit our dinners were always punctuated with tales of students who hated reading suddenly being transformed and bright eyed at the prospect of reading a novel that related authentically to them without being dull.

We were careful to not retell the plot in song as bad broadway; rather we focused on making more nuanced allusions to characters, themes, feelings, and settings. We tried to emphasize the sensitive, frightened sides of the characters, instead of showcasing their thick skin and greaser toughness. Musically and sonically, we avoided a retro sound and kept it thick and modern, with only occasional glimpses of melodies and tones that might have pumped out of their radios at night.

The album was recorded in various states of physical distress for the band — a broken thumb, a break out of hives, fever, and coughing fits all graced our time recording and mixing at Strange Weather in Brooklyn with our handsome engineer Daniel Schlett. Some tracks were recorded by Rich Zilg and his mobile studio in a basement in NJ where a heavily-medicated Jeremy did some overdubs while recovering from an appendectomy. In the end, we cooked up eleven songs, ranging from anthems, pop songs, and ballads to a dark synthesizer instrumental to little folk ditties.

Our hope is that the listener, if so moved, can easily tie the songs to particular characters and events of the novel, but that familiarity with the story is not a prerequisite for enjoying the music or personally relating to the songs. Perhaps it will even inspire some people to read the book, or revisit it. Maybe some teachers will use it, kids will hear it, and we can contribute, in our small New Jersey way, to the legacy of one of the greatest stories about pals and trouble ever written.

Listen to and download the Roadside Graves' "Love Me More" below and check out the album cover for We Can Take Care Of Ourselves above.

Full album stream: Black Lips - Arabia Mountain

Black Lips' sixth studio album Arabia Mountain has been one of my most anticipated releases lately, and now it's finally here. The record won't actually be released until June 7 but you can stream the entire album below, via Grooveshark. Most of the record was produced by Mark Ronson in what might seem like an unlikely pairing, but it often works out very good with Ronson streamlining the Black Lips' rowdy sound, but at the same time the loose and ramshackle sound that made their 2005 record Let It Bloom so great is missing.

Stream: Den Stora Vilan - "Ökenhotellet"

It's not often that I listen to Swedish music, and even rarer than I listen to Swedish music with lyrics in Swedish, but this is one of those rare times. Den Stora Vilan have apparently been playing together for a couple of years and been touring all over Sweden, and a few months ago they finally released their self-titled debut album on Mourningwood Recordings.

I've seen the name, which by the way translates as The Great Rest in English, a bunch of times the past months and finally decided to check them out after they were announced as the opening act for Kurt Vile and the Violators in August. Good choice. Their sound could be described as psychedelic country rock and it is heavily indebted to the seventies and comparisons to the Grateful Dead and Neil Young have been thrown around, and correctly so. If you're not from Sweden you might have trouble with vocals in Swedish, but at the same time it might bring a sense of mystery as it seems to do to Dungen's music.

In short Den Stora Vilan sounds quite like a less psychedelic, far more americana-ish, Dungen and they're highly recommended. Check out the track "Ökenhotellet" (The Desert Hotel in English) below.

Video: Yuck perform "Get Away" on Jools Holland 24/5

British indie rockers and Birds Need Feet favourites Yuck made an appearance on Later...with Jools Holland last night to do a great performance of "Get Away". "Get Away" is taken from their impressive self-titled debut album which was released in January this year, and is in my opinion the album's strongest track. Check out the performance below.

Video: Nathaniel Rateliff perform "We Never Win" on Jools Holland 24/5

American folk singer-songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff guested UK television show Later...with Jools Holland last night to perform a track from last year's excellent In Memory Of Loss. The track in question was "We Never Win" and you can view the sparse performance below.

The Horrible Crowes set album release date

In late January it was announced that The Gaslight Anthem frontman Brian Fallon was working on a side-project with Ian Perkins under the name The Horrible Crowes, and they've since worked on the album and have finally finished recording it. They still haven't announced the name of the album, or released any of the songs, but today it was revealed that the album will be released on September 6 via SideOneDummy Records and that it'll contain 12 songs. A proper announcement with album details and a first single will arrive soon.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks to release new album in August

Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus will be releasing another solo record with his backing band the Jicks on August 23 via Matador Records entitled Mirror Traffic. It was reported that Malkmus had entered the studio to record a record with production from Beck Hansen but due to Malkmus' commitments to the Pavement reunion the record didn't arrive then, and will instead be released in a few months. Mirror Traffic will be the follow-up to their excellent 2008 album Real Emotional Trash, which just happens to be my introduction to Malkmus and the world of Pavement.

Video: Bon Iver perform "I Can't Make You Love Me" (Bonnie Raitt cover) on Fallon 23/5

Last night Justin Vernon of Bon Iver guested Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and performed a cover of Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me", which he turned into a medley with Bonnie Raitt's "Nick Of Time" and Leon Russell's "A Song For You". Bon Iver is releasing their second full-length titled Bon Iver, Bon Iver on June 21 via Jagjaguwar which sees the band expanding on the stripped back sound of For Emma, Forever Ago.

Head over here to download its first single "Calgary", which many expected to be the song performed last night. Check out the performance below, and also an interview with Vernon from last night - both via The Audio Perv.

Video: Deer Tick perform "Baltimore Blues No. 1" on Letterman 16/6-2010

This is definitely not anything new, but I just thought this needed to be brought to attention because of how good it is. Deer Tick released their newest record The Black Dirt Sessions in June last year and guested Late Show with David Letterman to promote the album, although the track they chose to perform was "Baltimore Blues No. 1" from their 2007 album War Elephant. Check out the excellent performance below, and if you haven't heard Deer Tick before I'd suggest you check them out - the studio version of "Baltimore Blues No. 1" is even better.

Video: Alex Turner perform "Suck It And See" & "Love Is A Laserquest" (acoustic session)

Arctic Monkeys will release their fourth studio album Suck It And See on June 6 and they're currently touring North America in support of it. Before their Toronto show on May 21st Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner stopped by radio station 102.1 The Edge for an acoustic session, and we've got two audience recorded videos of "Suck It And See" and "Love Is A Laserquest" for you below, via We All Want Someone To Shout For.

Full album stream: My Morning Jacket - Circuital

My Morning Jacket's Circuital has been one of my most anticipated albums for a long time now and I've eagerly followed the build-up towards its release. The album will finally be released next week, on May 31, but NPR's got a stream available already so you can give it a listen a week early. Circuital is quite short for a My Morning Jacket album, only around 45 minutes, and features the band continuing the expansion of their musical palette that began on Z and Evil Urges.

Download: Roadside Graves - Daytrotter Session

The people over at Daytrotter keep delivering brand new sessions by great bands, so many that I've barely got time to listen or post about them. Yesterday they published their session with The Roadside Graves, and earlier during the week we got a double Middle Brother session, the week before there was Josh T. Pearson etc etc.

The Roadside Graves are an American americana band and one of the best kept secrets within the genre, deserving far bigger audience and accolades than they receive. I first discovered them in 2009 with the release of My Son's Home, a sprawling piece of americana, folk rock, alt. country and similar styles stretching over eighteen tracks without feeling overlong. Musically their sound is closest to that of The Felice Brothers, at times even sounding spookily similar.

Last year they released an ep called You Won't Be Happy With Me and this year will see the release of their new full-length We Can Take Care Of Ourselves. The session consists of four tracks, the opening instrumental "Tuff Hair" which will be on We Can Take Care Of Ourselves, "West Coast" from No One Will Know Where You've Been, "Everything" from You Won't Be Happy With Me and the previously unreleased "Help Me, I'm Endangered".

Head over to Daytrotter to download the session for free (requires sign-up).