New David Gray Album + Contest

Two matters of business here:

1. The new David Gray album comes out this Tuesday and I think it is swell.

The album as a whole is a return to form for Gray. His first new album  was released today on Mercer Street Records.  Despite a completely new band and a new label, Draw the Line sounds oddly familiar. The song-writing is very reminescent of the early David Gray that I first fell in love with.  I must clarify here, I am actually referring to White Ladder, Gray’s fourth record, which was the first one I ever heard.  Some of those similarities may be due to the fact that like White Ladder, all of the songs for this record were written completely uninfluenced by a record label contract.  Gray was unhindered and able to put himself completely into the songs. “It shines the light on facets of me as a performer, a writer and a singer that I haven’t perhaps illuminated as brightly enough for a long time,” says Gray, commenting on Draw the Line.  One of the highlights of the record are when Gray is accompanied on vocals by the lovely Jolie Holland on “Kathleen” and the intoxicating Annie Lennox on the album’s closer “Full Steam Ahead.”  It’s not catchy.  Nor is it flashy.  Ok maybe “Fugitive” is a little bit.  But I assure you the rest of it is not.  But if you give it some time, I assure you it will give in return.  This melancholy mix of minor-keyed ballads is good company, sure to make your ears bleed.

2. I am running a contest to give away a limited edition print of the cover art for Draw the Line.

Here are the details for the contest.  Any one can enter (if you live in the U.S.).  All you have to do is come up with a David Gray poem or haiku.  The contest will be open for the next two weeks, ending Oct. 6th.  Myself and the rest of the IHYEB staff will get together and select our favorite poem as the winner. Make sure and leave your e.mail address so that we can contact you if you win.

“Logos” is More of the Same, But Better

Bradford Cox makes Xanax rock, mumbling over stoned minor chords and losing himself in a song’s gauzy afterglow. His solo project, Atlas Sound, and his better-known band, Deerhunter, both take this ramshackle approach to melancholy, though the latter has always made for better art.

Cox’s numerous afflictions make for good art, too, and as he obviously knows, his songs and his interviews reveal much about his troubled childhood. He’s sung about his own imagined crucifixion more than once. The singer suffers from Marfan’s syndrome; that’s his collapsed frame on the cover. All this paints a portrait of Cox’s vulnerability, which, however unsettling, is the source of all his work.

When the artist accidentally leaked an unfinished copy of Atlas Sound’s newest, Logos, last year, he was furious at both himself and his fans. Rumor spread that the album would never see an official release, and when Deerhunter released the excellent Microcastle last year, it seemed that Cox had left Logos behind.

But here it is, and the album certainly wins “Most Improved” after 2007’s unbearably tepid Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel. Logos is home to Cox’s every style: languid 1950s pop (“My Halo,” “Shelia”), garage rock (“An Orchid”) and, best of all, the Krautrock-shoegaze-masterpiece (“Quick Canal”).

It flows, somehow. Logos, like its predecessors, is designed as a whole, with clusters of similar songs grouped around the best one (here, it’s the aforementioned “Quick Canal”). This is autumnal music, with percussion that clicks and pops behind gorgeous finger-pickings. As with all of his work, Cox emphasizes texture over tune, though “Criminals” is a real pop gem.

While his work has slowly matured, Cox has been riding the same aesthetic for a few years now. Perhaps Logos will serve as the bookend for a string of finely similar records.

RW: DJ (Benny Benassi Remix)

So I’ve mentioned it before.. and I’ll mention it again.

My favorite Bowie hook, is “I am a DJ, I am what I play.”

I love it. I live it.

Well as luck would have it, Benny Benassi in his infinite wisdom has remixed the song of my musical mantra’s origin.

It lacks nearly everything the original once had, but the hook is still there… and it still pulls me in.

I hope your ears am what they play. Ω

John Vanderslice Live In the Studio w/ Magik*Magik Orchestra

I’m finding it hard to find something to write to you these days. I’m feeling rather uninspired lately.  That and I am just way too distracted by fantasy football.  But instead of silence or my half-hearted ramblings, I am giving to you a couple of John Vanderslice videos.  Here are two live studio recordings of John Vanderslice and the Magik*Magik Orchestra performing some songs off of his excellent May release, Romanian Times.

Forest Knolls

Too Much Time