I do love my country rock records. This track from The Raindogs fits the mold, but what really makes it special it the Celtic-like violin. The violin solo in the second half is truly the best part.

The original poster, Captains Dead, is experiencing technical difficulties, but you can read his original post through the Google cache.

There were so many Seattle artists that I never came to appreciate. Damien Jurado is near the top of that list – up there with David Bazan. And even this new album isn’t very compelling. The songs sound too same-y when queued up as an album. The stories are all loosely tied to geography, which would normally interest me. Here, I fade after four minutes.

Via Tune the Proletariat.

World Atlas‘s self-titled EP sounds like it is a lost Belle & Sebastian EP from the Jeepster years that has finally been released in the States after years of being a highly sought rarity. In fact, it sounds so much like Belle & Sebastian that it is a little unnerving. World Atlas is like a cover band that decided to step it up a little. Listening to the EP I feel a little used, but I also feel swaddled in the lost innocence of days past.

Via Magnet.

Solomon Burke – Sit This One Out

In 2001, when Rev. Burke recorded Don’t Give Up On Me, people had given up on him. He had been absent from the record charts for almost three decades. All around him, soul and blues legends were being lionized. Aretha Franklin was signing at the White House; B.B. King was recording with Eric Clapton; the name of Marvin Gaye was still part of the music conversation in the U.S. Burke’s secular recordings, though, were all but out of print.

Solomon Burke – Fast Train

Someone remembered. Joe Henry remembered. He put together a recording session, put out a call for songs, and pieced together this album. The songs came tricking in. Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. Tom Waits and Brian Wilson. They all sent in new material. (The best songs, though, are not from those luminaries.) For the recording session, they even found Solomon Burke’s old ribbon mike – Number 9 – that he had used for his first recording career. The album is built around that mike and Rev. Burke’s voice. Like Johnny Cash’s American Recordings, the whole idea of the album is a legendary artist stamping out quality songs. And it worked.

Solomon Burke – None Of Us Are Free

Unlike Mr. Cash, Rev. Burke abandoned the formula after it brought him back on the scene. His next album, Make Do With What You Got, changed producers and went more up-tempo. The song writing was strong and the vocal phrasing powerful. The album, while good, became stuck in a neverland between the original soul sounds of the 1960s and the stark production expected in late career legacy albums. The good reverend continues to record, but the new albums are not events. Joe Henry went on to resurrect Betty LaVette‘s career.

Last year I discovered The Flaming Lips’s Yoshimi Wins live release on the dear, departed Lala. When the service shut down, this is the first album that I downloaded from eMusic so I could keep spinning it at work. The pace is perfect for writing.

Captains Dead posted the mp3s for two Wilco shows last week. I’d never heard Wilco live before and they were playing during what I consider the prime years – Mermaid Avenue / Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I always love hearing old favorites played live. It strips the song of all the production and reduces it to the essence, the walking around under your breath version of the song.

While searching for the original Captains Dead post, I found this Norah Jones cover and just had it include it. Via Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands

I’m still undecided about what this song. Fun or obnoxious? Lively or dull? Scissor Sisters style hooks with, with – with what? I leave it to you. From the forthcoming album, Gargoyles And Weathervanes. Via The Mad Mackerel.

Brashness and swagger are necessary parts of the job for Mr. Flynn. The press has him carrying the banner of Anti-Folk in Britain almost singlehandedly. A burden he neither shirks nor disavows.

Mr Drum was here yesterday, he knows just what he needs

And gives what he’s got to the thump of his creed

Last November, he released the Sweet William EP, but it didn’t cross my path until the SXSW coverage. The EP is short, well paced, and possibly meaningless. The lyrics are so vague that they invite the listener to speculate and free associate almost at will. There is some charm in that. It tickles the mind as it tickles the ears.

I’m full of you although we’re far apart

Trains don’t stop your soul they break your heart

After ten, or maybe fifteen, listens, the parallels to Joanna Newsom have come home. Mr. Flynn has many of the same sonic textures combined with opaque lyrics. Bubbling up, though, is a dash of Devanda Banheart‘s accessibility to moderate the tonic.

Via Borangutan

Blame It On The Tetons is a very Modest Mouse tale of emotional dissatisfaction and escapism. In fact, it is a Modest Mouse song off of Good News for People Who Love Bad News. But ever since I heard this cover, it stopped being their song. Mr. Ritter sells the longing for solace much more sincerely than Modest Mouse ever did. Blame it on the Tetons and be done.

From Josh Ritter‘s Girl in the War EP via Cover Lay Down.