Morning Shorts

Made in Mexico Records has reissued Damien Jurado's long out-of-print 1998 EP, Gathered In Song, with new cover art and extra late-night lonesomeness in the form of five bonus track demos, including a guitar version of the piano-ballad b-side to the UK Letters and Drawings single, "As You Were". The best demo? A super-excitable take on Where Shall You Take Me's mellow "Matinee", the way it was always meant to be. ("Admission's cheap and the soda's free" after all).

As you might guess, the sound is pretty similar to his Sub Pop debut Water Ave S.; his voice has this certain craggy catch when he sings the high notes, which I love and miss - it kind of went away on Rehersals for Departure forward.

Jurado's new album, And Now That I'm In Your Shadow, is out October 10th on Secretly Canadian, who've made available a pretty teriffic preview track, "What Were The Chances". His tour starts next week, like all great journeys, in Provo.

MP3: Damien Jurado - What Were The Chances

A note on pronouns: third person is not working so much anymore. There's an illustrious new contributer in town, vpc, and I'm iff, and we're writing in the first person from now on so as to keep things in line.

Morning Shorts

I'm in love with Sweet Thunder - not a Foghat tribute band, but a website of found sounds pulled off of abandoned cassette tapes. Mr. Thunder scavenges thrift stores and garage sales for these gems, a hobby/art form I was first exposed to on Damien Jurado's excellent Postcards and Audio Letters album.

There are 71 tapes posted, with a new one every week. I haven't made it through the whole archive, but favorites so far include:

• The Young and the Fuck: "This week we have a crazy tape from the late 80s. It features some juveniles recording a parody soap opera about suicide and getting it on."
• The Kiss Sisters Love Letters: "Meet the Kiss Sisters from New York. These two young girls are in love with Peter Criss and just got a new tape recorder for Christmas."

Watch what you leave in your cast-off walkmen, people, because Sweet Thunder is waiting.

Meanwhile, Pitchfork reports that Smog appeared with maybe-girlfriend Joanna Newsom at a show in Austin to bang-up results. The fork isn't sure if Joanna is joining Billy on the upcoming tour, and I've got mixed feelings. It would bring lots of attention to Smog's long-underappreciated songbook, but Joanna would probably overshadow things and maybe make it difficult for iff to get into the aptly named Iota. Smog has long been the stud of the indiefolk scene, having previously moved to the country with Cat Power and immortalized her on a subtle album cover. Remember those tour dates.

MP3: Husbands, Love Your Wives - Fuel (Damien Jurado cover)