New Release Tuesday

Dan Bern - Breathe
We love us some Dan Bern, always have, but we're worried the new Breathe tips the scales from smartly comforting to sentimental based on the title track we've heard. The other track made available for preview, "Trudy", is a bit better, though: "all the questions you've been saving for the next electric wave/will all be answered in the Christian new year".

MP3: Dan Bern - Trudy


Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go
We like our Oldham served with a woman, and lucky for us Faun Fables' Dawn McCarthy is on board adding her vocals to The Letting Go . Pitchfork gives it an 8.2, but says that "the beauty and eccentricity of The Letting Go doesn't provoke deep absorption or self-reflection so much as a kind of fond familiarity." Now they're dishing out 8.2s for fond familiarity? Watch Billy get his peacock on tonight on Conan and judge fer yerself.


The Hidden Cameras - Awoo (!)
OK, so Hidden Cameras tracks like "Ban Marriage" (from their debut The Smell of Our Own) and "The Fear Is On" (from Mississagua Goddamn) are among the best pop songs we own, but the tinny production just doesn't do them justice. They always sound better in our head. Still, this is sure to be a keeper. AllMusic deems it "by far their most accessible and cohesive record yet" and assures America "there are no songs about pee this time around".

MP3: The Hidden Cameras - Death of a Tune


Corrina Repp - The Absent and the Distant
Despite being Hush Records fanatics, we've never gotten around to hearing much Corrina Repp. However, the Hush pedigree + Mark Kozelek making her his only Caldo Verde signing + the crazy talented Rachel Blumberg on drums = instant purchase.

MP3: Corrina Repp - I'll Walk You Out

TIVO Alert!

Tomorrow sees the release of Bonnie "Prince" Billy's The Letting Go, and to coincide with the CD, LP, DVD-Audio, and wax cylinder formats available to you, Drag City is pushing BPB in front of the cameras for his network television debut on Late Night With Conan O'Brien (12:30 EST, you know).

He'll be playing "Strange Form of Life" from The Letting Go with a backing band of Paul Oldham, Matt Sweeney, Jim White and Andrew WK. Andrew WK?! Let's get rocked.

In the meantime, you can watch three commericals for The Letting Go, featuring America's celebrity spokesperson Neil Hamburger, here.

(picture courtesy the Drag City mailing list)

Morning Shorts

• Jens Lekman offers his personal end-of-summer mix of songs as a single 36mb mp3 download, including America and Ennico Morricone (via Pitchfork)
• The NYC restaurant I'm dying to dine at, Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction, is holding their first anniversary shindig tonight, featuring buckets o' talent including Laura Cantrell and comedians Eugene Mirman and Todd Levin (of the longtime net great tremble). iff strongly encourages NY denizens to go, nosh some deep fried mac 'n cheese and matzoh ball soup, and report back.
• Insanely great session-site Daytrotter posts a new Bonnie "Prince" Billy four-song set, along with Oldham banter. On "New Partner", he writes:
  

  One of the most requested songs that I get to play, it wasn’t until this trip that I started to understand, from inside, why this is. To me, this was an exercise in writing. It takes parts of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box,” the Rolling Stones’ “Get Off of My Cloud,” both Willie’s and Elvis’s versions of “You Were Always On My Mind,” and the song “Tony” by D.C. Powers, as performed by Johnny Cash. On this trip, I understood it to be, somewhat disturbingly, about not not loving someone who you are not with.”

• Psycho Daises reviews Burn to Shine-Portland, calls Mirah's "The Light" "the oddest and most surprising performance on this disc, and one of the best."
• UK blogger Highway Five posts some excellent Mark Eitzel/American Music Club links, among them a recent Eitzel podcast, and incredibly, the entirety of AMC's classic Everclear for legit download. Eitzel recently posted a message to the Undertow boards on his new band, All the Lost Achors of the Pacific, who performed with him last week in SF.
• Punk-o-matic! DIY. (via DailyKos)

MP3: Laura Cantrell, "Letters" (Lucinda Williams cover)
MP3: Laura Cantrell, "Hong Kong Blues" (Hoagy Carmichael cover)

Cursed singles

The LP's not even out yet, but Drag City has announced a second single from Bonnie "Prince" Billy's new record The Letting Go, this one for "Cold & Wet". The disc also includes a live version of "The Way", originally from Billy's Master & Everyone album, plus the hook of the single, a cover of Kenny Rogers' "Buried Treasure", and a video of the title track, and will drop in November.

In a move not as unlikely as you might think, DC is also issuing Bert Jansch's new album in October. The legendary British folkie is joined by Otto Hauser and Helena Espvall of Espers, Beth Orton, David Roback, and Devendra Banhart on The Black Swan. Hipsters may remember Jansch from last year's soundtrack to Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, where three of his tracks were featured alongside the brilliant, unearthed "Holland Tunnel" from Mamas and the Papas' John Phillips.