New music from founding members of The Slip

The two brothers, Brad and Andrew Barr, from The Slip have put together a new outfit conveniently called The Barr Brothers. They’re currently working on a full length album due out later this year but the first song has been made available for our listening pleasure.

Beggar In The Morning  by  The Barr Brothers

The song finds the two brothers playing towards their strengths, which is in my opinion a tribal, almost religious like melody and rhythm combo. This style is very reminiscent of artists like Paul Simon or U2. Although the U2 comparison is more on the religious / spiritual realm then tribal. And this particular song weighs heavier on that scale then it does on it’s African roots, which is a place that drummer Andrew spent time studying.

They are teamed up with a harpist, Sarah Page, who they became close friends with after both brothers moved to Montreal from Boston about five years ago. This song doesn’t tell us too much about how they’re incorporating Sarah into the music since as far as I can tell she’s not on this track. But perhaps the harp is being used with some sound effect that my untrained ear isn’t able to pick up.

As of right now their tour doesn’t bring them to Boston. The closest show will be Montreal. They’ll be opening for The Low Anthem, their Rhode Island compadres. But what is exciting news is that Surprise Me Mr. Davis, the Barr brothers other outfit besides The Slip, will be playing in Cambridge at Club Passim, one of my favorite new spots to catch music, on April 13th.

Buy tickets to the Club Passim show

Fun with Archive.org: Justin Townes Earle

Thanks to a new iPhone app that the App Store Genius recommended to me (Music Archive) I’m rediscovering the wonders of Archive.org. This website, which acts as both a graveyard and a purveyor for the Internet, is well known for it’s plethora of stored live music recordings, most notably the Grateful Dead. As of this post they had 3,339 shows available to download and 3.976 Grateful Dead shows that you can stream. The entire library consists of 73,799 musical archives covering 3,988 different bands (as of 2/9/10).

I was sending out Twitter messages and posting on Facebook some of the live shows that I was discovering and realized that there’s so much music on here besides the Grateful Dead that it would be fun to share some of my favorite finds on hip2besquare. I call it my “Fun with Archive.org” posts.

First up is Justin Townes Earl at Stubb’s BBQ from 2/4/2010. Below is the stream.

Download this show

Setlist:

01 Intro
02 Poor Fool
03 They Killed John Henry
04 Halfway To Jackson
05 My Mamas Eyes
06 Boy Keep Movin’
07 What I Mean To You
08 Someday I’ll Be Forgiven For This
09 Ain’t Waitin’
10 A Wanderin’
11 Do I Ever Cross Your Mind (Dawn Landes on vocals)
12 Starter Won’t Start (Lightning Hopkins)
13 What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome
14 Hard Livin’
15 Lone Pine Hill
16 Ain’t Glad I’m Leavin’
17 I Don’t Care
18 Workin’ For The MTA
19 Mama I’m Coming Home
20 Midnight At The Movies
21 Banter
22 Gold Watch And Chain (Carter Family)
23 I Can’t Wait
24 Walk Out

Learn more about Justin:
www.justintownesearle.com

New Caribou track – “Odessa”

On April 20th, Caribou releases his new album, Swim, onto the masses on Merge Records here in the states and City Slang in the UK and Europe (released on 19th). The first track to come out is Odessa.

While I’m excited for many albums this year (Hot Chip, Arcade Fire, Radiohead, etc), Caribou is definitely at the top of my anticipation list. This track just fuels the fire. With his signature tribal / psychedelic undertones, this track is a killer. However, it’s more dancey then some of his other material. The drums aren’t as jittery. They’re more straight forward and don’t stray too far off the four beat reservation. There’s a real disco vibe, most notably pronounced by a treble heavy guitar riff that pops it’s head out from time to time. But there are twist and turns that keep the Caribou signature in tact. Overall this is a fantastic song and I look forward to hearing more of the album when it comes out.

While one of the biggest reasons I admire Dan is his versatility to mix complex rhythms with psychedelic melodies, I’m quite confident that if he decides to infuse dance music in this next album that he’ll take the genre by storm and show most of these kids who think they know how to create a good electronic dance album a thing or two.

Odessa

Recently added video (2/19) for Odessa:

Buy Caribou (formerly known as Manitoba) albums

Bluegrass legends jam at Harvard Symposium

This past weekend Harvard held the first ever Bluegrass Symposium. It was called Fire on the Mountain. For bluegrass fans, they had more then just famous players (Sam Bush, legendary Bobby Hicks and Alison Brown), but also famous professors and instrument builders on hand to talk about one of America’s greatest contributions to the music community – bluegrass.

During the 3:30 session the three musicians who were told their stories about how they got started, where they learned to play, who they played with and what they feel is the future of bluegrass music. Each played some of their favorite tunes but when it came time for Sam Bush to pick his mandolin he told Bobby to join in if he felt so inclined. And boy, did he feel inclined. I know there were others recording so I’m sure there’s something better then one I captured on my little old iPhone, but you don’t need much for this to sound good. Enjoy.

For those in need of some Bluegrass in their collection, start with Bill Monroe and work your way out from there. For those eMusic subscribers, grab The Essential Bill Monroe & The Monroe Brothers collection.

Beach House – Pitchfork Videos and that’s all

I’m not writing much about Beach House because enough has already been said but here are some videos from Pitchfork TV that I will share. For those who happen to stumble on my blog and have never heard of this band or about the hype surrounding their recent release, Teen Dream, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts about this music? Leave your thoughts in the comments. Me personally, I think these videos speak for themselves and there’s no need to write about it any further. This is perfectly crafted music and whether you prefer hip hop, country, classical, pop, rock, metal or what ever, you can’t ignore this one fact.

Download Norway (Courtesy of Pitchfork)