If you missed it, I linked you to the live videos for all of Beirut's The Flying Club Cup. You can also see some of them on YouTube. My favorite musically is "A Sunday Smile." The singer of Grizzly Bear, Ed Droste, is featured on "Cliquot," another great song. Two of the most fun are "Nantes" (not listed at the video site, but one of the first films as a Take Away Show) and Joe Thorn's favorite Beirut video "Forks and Knives"...
Back in my Beirut concert post I mentioned that Condon pulled out "one really intense French song that was an admitted indulgence for Condon." Here's the original song and singer with English subtitles...
Here's Condon's cover...
In other music news, I did pick up Band of Horses' Cease to Begin and Iron and Wine's The Shepherd's Dog on Tuesday (Best Buy had them for $7.99 each!). I haven't spent much time with The Shepherd's Dog yet but have enjoyed what I've heard. Here's their recent Letterman appearance...
Band of Horses' new one is just wonderful. Pitchfork's favorable review states well what I hear when I listen to Cease to Begin (and their tremendous debut Everything All the Time)...
If Everything All the Time was a Pacific Northwest indie album with flourishes of country and Southern rock, then Cease to Begin reverses the equation. Putting a different regional spin on their tender-hearted indie rock, however, doesn't change up the sound too much-- the guitars still churn and crest majestically, Bridwell's vocals still echo with grandiose reverb-- but simply creates an atmosphere evocative of something like autumn in a small town.
A few other things to watch...
Love the opening song off Cassadaga from Bright Eyes: "Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed)." The album version is better because it starts with a minute and a half of building noise. This is good too. Lyrics are right after, if you want to follow. No arguments for or against the lyrical content please, and you might need to turn it up a bit.
Corporate or Colonial
The Movement (Sickness via video) is unstoppable
Like the body of a centerfold it spreads
To the counter-culture copyright
Get your revolution at a lower price
Or make believe and throw the fight, play dead
It's exploding bags, aerosol cans
Southbound buses, Peter Pan
They left it up to us again
I thought you knew the drill
It's kill or be killedFuture Markets, Holy Wars
Been tried ten thousand times before
If you think that God is keeping score, Hooray!
For the freedom-fighting simulcast (Victory! A defeat! Victory!)
The imminent and the aftermath
Draw another bloody bath to drain
Like the polar icecaps centrifuge (Oh Allah! Oh Jesus please!)
First snowman built at the end of June
He slicks his hair for the interview, his fifteen-minute fame
Would you agree times have changed?