Shearwater - Rook

It’s difficult not to think about the Buckley family, Jeff and particularly Tim, when you listen to Jonathan Meiburg’s bold, soaring voice, occasionally falsetto.
Shearwater from Austin, Texas, releases their new album, Rook, this June (3rd), a hugely ambitious follow-up to Palo Santo (2006, reissued by Matador in 2007).
Essentially a prog-folk oriented performance, the music of Shearwater goes in a wide variety of styles. The album themes within meditate on man’s intersection with the natural world: the hunter and the prey; the extinction of species; the world after human beings are gone…
I just listened to Rook since a week or two but it’s a safe bet that those who will listen to Jonathan Meiburg in June wouldn’t balk at the fact that he’s a remarkable talent and one of American’s finest tunesmiths. Rook, a sublime album to listen.

Web: shearwatermusic.com
MySpace: myspace.com/shearwater
Label: matadorrecords.com

Shearwater - Rooks .mp3 from Rook
Shearwater - Red Sea, Black Sea .mp3 from Palo Santo
Shearwater - A Dame Et La Licorne .mp3 from Palo Santo via Girlpants

Bonus: Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye .mp3

Tift Merritt & Will Hoge

Last night I had the good fortune to be able to check out 2 acts previously unknown to me. Grammy nominated artist Tift Merritt, who hails from North Carolina, brought her solo show to Paris. The singing, songwriting, guitar/piano woman playing musician is a gifted musician and a firecracker of a performer. Tift, with heavily accented French interludes, warmed the hearts and totally charmed the crowd of around 80+ folks in the nice La Java venue. She sang a collection of all original material from her past CD’s as well as some new tunes from her new (and written pretty much in Paris according to her web site) American release Another Country. (The song Broken from that record is a great song BTW!).
She’s an energetic and dynamic performer, switching back and forth from electric piano to acoustic guitar and she often stepped away from the microphone to give us intimate “unplugged” sessions (on the guitar) much appreciated by the audience. Overcoming some small technical problems early on with a positive professional attitude (meaning she didn’t let it slow the show down!), she treated us all to a remarkably warm and friendly evening of fine, light acoustic music here in the City of Light.
The show was opened by Nashville living, guitar toting, husky-voiced singing, gum-chomping, innocuous songwriter Will Hoge in a too long (by about 30 minutes) set. Please excuse my harshness here but he “had” the audience for about 20 minutes. 40 minutes later it had gone totally the other direction and folks were yawning, looking at their watches and talking. Better too little then too much for opening acts (until you learn better)!

Bookerfatzs2

Web: tiftmerritt.com
MySpace: myspace.com/tiftmerritt

Tift Merritt - Broken .mp3
Tift Merritt - Morning Is My Destination .mp3
Tift Merritt - Keep You Happy .mp3
Tift Merritt - RTE Radio -Pat Kenny program .mp3

Bonus: (one of Tift big influence) Van Morrison - Bring It On Home To Me (live) ( song removed)

Photo: Bookerfatzs2 – Tift Merritt – La Java, Paris – May 21, 2008

Willard Grant Conspiracy - The Pilgrim Tour

Two chandeliers are hanging from the ceiling of the Nouveau Casino concert hall (Paris); Howe Gelb focused his attention on them while trying to connect in French with the Parisian audience… later on Willard Grant Conspiracy like a chamber orchestra filled the stage.
Leaky Sparrow’s friend Chris Eckman was in town last Monday with Willard Grant Conspiracy and was kind enough to put me on the guest list. Years ago, the Nouveau Casino should have been packed, unfortunately WGC and Howe Gelb, who played a fine and funny support act, didn’t filled the room this time.
I already saw Howe Gelb, also as a support act, during a PJ Harvey tour in 2001 but I have never seen the Boston-based music group Willard Grant Conspiracy. Captain Robert Fisher, lead singer, and his team, eleven on stage, Chris Eckman included on the left, are now meeting European listeners to promote their latest album Pilgrim Road (May 5). Paris was one of their main stops. It was an intimate show where every note from each member of the band could be heard clearly. I was quite surprised by the intimacy of the set, I was expecting for a music lets say more dynamic, my knowledge of the group consists only on one song, Soft Hand, who in my opinion was one of the best songs from 2003. Fortunately, Robert Fisher and his friends came back for an encore with... Soft Hand. A very enjoyable ending for an elegant show. I was sorry for those who stayed home.

Web: willardgrantconspiracy.com
MySpace: myspace.com/willardgrantconspiracy

Willard Grant Conspiracy - Crush .mp3
Willard Grant Conspiracy - Dance With Me .mp3
Willard Grant Conspiracy - Lady Of The Snowline .mp3

Howe Gelb - Nail In The Sky .mp3

Photo: Katy - Willard Grant Conspiracy - Nouveau Casino, Paris - May 19, 2008

Harmonia - From 1974 To 2008

Harmonia? Who the hell are they? In the early ‘70s, I was completely aware of what was going on on German progressive rock music (at that time, not really much people called it Krautrock). I attended gigs from Tangerine Dream, Can, Guru Guru… I listened to Klaus Schulze and Kraftwerk, of course, and some others. But I never heard about Harmonia. Never.
Few weeks ago, my good friend Christo Jota from Cologne gave me a little black and white promo CD from a German group that I should listen to: Harmonia.
I made my research. Harmonia was found in 1973 by ex-members of Cluster and Neu! They made two albums, one in 1974 and one in 1975, with later 1976 sessions recorded with Brian Eno released two decades later… more here or on the band website.
Harmonia Live 1974 just like the title says is a live recording but… without any signs from the audience. Not a problem. The music is based on repeated rhythmic figures and simple guitar harmonies employed as foundations of long, hypnotic improvisations, several reaching 15 minutes or more. The quality of the recording is perfect and makes the performance from the band very attractive. Many repeated listening is requested to extend the state of peace that the music brings.
Live 1974 was released on the UK-based Groenland Records label on October 22, 2007 and the San Francisco based Water Records label in the United States on December 11, 2007.
And guess what? Harmonia is still alive and is touring this summer; latest news here.

Listen via Sneakmove to:

Harmonia - Dino .mp3 from Musik von Harmonia (1974)

Cluster - Caramel .mp3 from Zuckerzeit (1974)

Bonus: Kraftwerk - Computer Love .mp3

Gregor Samsa - Rest Is Peace

If you want to buy a Gregor Samsa album in your local record shop, you better have to go to the letter S instead of G, that’s how I could found Rest ten days ago. Maybe someone in the shop thought that Gregor Samsa is the name of a musician, wrong my friend, it’s a post-rock band from Virginia formed in 2000. It takes its name from the main character of Franz Kafka's short story The Metamorphosis.
It’s a good thing that Gregor Samsa called their latest release Rest instead of 01:50:24… Imagine the title of their seventh one, something like 1 day 05:26:24… Difficult to follow (to understand, you must have a look here to see how the titled their previous albums).
Rest is the record I was very much looking forward to hear this year. 55:12 was for me one the best surprises from 2006. This time, for his second full-length (after the released of two EP’s), Gregor Samsa has largely dismissed the guitar in favor of piano and keyboard flavors. Champ Bennett’s piano is crisscrossed by violin, cello, vibes and clarinet adding majesty to his murmurs, underpinned by the beautiful harmonies of Nikki King. Rest is a peaceful journey filled with languorous singing and minimalistic restrictions. Perfect for the sunny days we have now in Europe. A record that will listen a lot.
The album was release in May on Kora Records in North America and Own Records in Europe.

Web: gregorsamsa.com
MySpace: myspace.com/gregorsamsamyspace
Labels: Own Records or The Kora Records

Gregor Samsa - Jeroen Van Aken .mp3 from Rest (2008)
Gregor Samsa - Young & Old .mp3 from 55:12 (2006)
Gregor Samsa - Three .mp3 from 27:36 (2004)

Bonus: The Dust Dive - Claws Of Light .mp3

MGMT - Spectacular Tour @ Köln

I purchased the MGMT’s debut album, Oracular Spectacular, about two weeks ago and as soon as I listened to it I was wondering if I wished to talk about it or not here on Leaky Sparrow - so many blogs before me reviewed it and made such a big buzz around what will be at the end of 2008 the number 1 of most top tens. The answer came easy, last week I was walking in Cologne (Köln) and imagine my surprise when I saw a poster under a bridge saying that our friends from New York will be in town the next evening. As soon as I could I purchased two tickets.
Imagine The Luxor, a small club with a stage at the bottom enough large to welcome a band of 5 members not more and imagine you’re in the beginning of the sixties in a club somewhere in Hamburg discovering a young band called the Management. Soon after, they changed the history of music… I’m kidding!
MGMT is an amazing young band with lots of ideas and many pretty pop songs very well craft. The record is full of hits and I was curious to see if they could bring live the energy that I heard on the record. The setlist consisted of almost all of Oracular Spectacular’s tunes plus one or two new ones (not especially fancy but…). Time To Pretend and Kids were the highlights of the show and made almost everybody jumping and happy. A very promising performance from a band in the prime of life.

Web: www.whoismgmt.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/mgmt

MGMT - Kids .mp3 “Control yourself take only what you need from it”
MGMT - Time To Pretend .mp3 “I’m in the prime of my life”
MGMT - Destrokk .mp3

Photo by Lucky Lady (MGMT in Köln)