Music Discovery of 2016: Slow Dakota

This hasn't been a great year of music for me. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm getting old, maybe I'm out of touch. Or maybe I haven't been looking in the right places because the new album (and last album?) by Slow Dakota has moved me.

PJ Sauerteig (Slow Dakota) is headed to NYU law school but not before giving us a thoughtful and Christ-haunted album called The Ascension of Slow Dakota (or Spotify). Check out "The Lilac Bush" with the lyrics also posted below. Wonderfully done. 

One day I came close
To giving up my ghost:

I put my chin inside
A mouth of knotted rope!

But instead of stopping,
My heart began to fly.

A dove perched on my shoulder
And whispered in my ear:

“Each day God comes home
With lilacs from His bush;

He picks them all for you,
His chosen darkling thrush!”

Typhoon | Music Monday Discovery

I am spinning over a Music Monday Discovery today. If someone told me about this band I didn't listen, I apologize. Typhoon is a Portland band (Facebook, Twitter) that just released a new EP, A New Kind of House. I found it because it's streaming FREE at Spinner. It's one of my favorite kinds of music, with surprising instruments and striking harmonies. And these guys know how to build up to a moment, to develop a sense of anticipation in the hearer. Had to go buy it. They also have a 2010 album, Hunger and Thirst.

Here's a video for the first song off A New Kind of House, "The Honest Truth." Creative, engaging, & thoughtful. I encourage you to follow along with the lyrics. They are interesting.