Given and Taken in Ink

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8tracks: March 2012 Mix

Given and Taken in Ink - March 2012 from gtimusic on 8tracks.

Playlist:

1. Robbers on High Street - Didn't Wanna Know
2. Justin Townes Earle - Look the Other Way
3. Moonlight Bride - Lemonade
4. Elias - Glass
5. Holy Esque - Rose
6. The Shins - 40 Mark Strasse
7. Ramesh Srivastava - The King
8. Joshua Hyslop - What Have I Done? (feat. Anna Scouten)

Let me know if you like the tracks.  The big heart button next to the word "Like" is an excellent way to do that...

Review: Justin Townes Earle, Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now

"Get over it," Justin Townes Earle said during a recent live performance.  The quip came in response to a review Earle had read about his new album, Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, in which the reviewer stated that he should have made another Harlem River Blues (his last album).  If you didn't know anything about Earle's back story, it would have seemed an unusually scrappy defiance for a dapper young man who performs sad folk songs while wearing a suit and bowtie.

"I gotta keep myself interested too," Earle explained.  It's a good thing he did, because Nothing's Gonna Change may end up being the most important record of the year.

It's an unfortunate reality that modern music genres have a rather stark racial segregation, with folk, rock, and country on one side, and soul, R&B, and hip-hop on the other.  Musicians who try to cross over are greeted as curiosities, comedians, or thieves.  In general, people seem to wish that everyone would just stay in their predetermined aisle of the music shop and leave all that racial mixing alone.

So when a country/blues guy releases a record with strong Memphis soul influences, some people get a little annoyed.  The country crowd feels betrayed, and suspicions arise that another white guy is appropriating black culture and selling it to a white audience.

For Justin Townes Earle, that's just not the case.  In an interview with GQ, Earle discussed the connections between country and soul music, despite the social barriers that have historically separated the people who identify with either genre.  But growing up in a racially mixed neighborhood, Earle learned at a young age how music can shatter those boundaries.  "That's a pretty fucking powerful idea," he said.

Earle isn't inclined to tackle these issues in his lyrics, though, instead letting the music speak for itself.  Rather, the subject matter of Nothing's Gonna Change treads more in the realm of relationships, both familial and romantic.  Earle's parents bookend the album, although their presence is fraught with tension just barely beneath the surface.  "Am I That Lonely Tonight?" is downright mournful, opening with the line "Hear my father on the radio, singing 'Take Me Home Again'."  It's important that the connection between father and son is over the radio, not direct, as the younger Earle admits, "Sometimes I wish that he'd just call."  The narrator - whether Earle himself or a character - is at the depths of despair.  He sees "oncoming headlights through the mountain mist / Too close for comfort / Too much at stake."  Is he contemplating a suicide-by-car-accident?  Earle sounds weary, having nearly given up, acknowledging "I thought I'd be a better man" as a muted trumpet and gentle strings play underneath.

Earle's vocals are noticeably different from past albums.  Depending on the mood of the song, he switches from melancholic crooning to a husky growl.  He's shown off this ability before, but it's never been on display as proficiently as it is here.  There's a rawness and intimacy to his delivery that underscores the theme of this album: Earle has a lot of stuff to get off his chest.

It's not all self-excoriation, though.  Indeed, one of the album's highlights isn't about Earle at all.  "Unfortunately, Anna" weaves a tale of a down-on-her-luck woman, striving against an unforgiving world, completely unaware that the real problem lies within her. The song's Big Reveal - "All this time you've been waiting for the world to change / But unfortunately, Anna / It's you who needs to change" - serves as the emotional climax of the album.

In the end, family resurfaces in the closer "Movin' On." Earle relates a conversation with his mother: "She asked me how my father's been / We both pretend we don't know why." It's just a momentary check-in, though; "Movin' On" finds Earle as a wanderer, searching for some stability in a life of turbulence: "Thirty years of running left me standing with my back to the coals / And it's left me most days wondering if I ever learned a thing at all / But I'm trying to move on."

There's hope in that progression.  Nothing's Gonna Change opens at the depths of loneliness, ambles through a series of painful relationships, before ultimately finding the resolve to move toward something better.  These are themes that transcend our social divisions, and maybe that was Earle's point all along.  Or maybe he's just keeping himself interested.

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MP3: Ramesh Srivastava (Voxtrot), “The King”

Ramesh Srivastava, former lead singer and songwriter of Voxtrot, is back with a new EP.  It's the first new music Srivastava has released since Voxtrot split up in 2010.  He's made "The King" available for free download (although you do need to register for a RCRD LBL account in order to do so).  Digital copies of the EP are available here.

Srivastava's music has always had a bittersweet quality that few of his peers can match, and "The King" is no different in that respect.  As I said in a retrospective I wrote about his former band, "[Voxtrot's] music is about the ugliness of human interaction, wrapped up in an often cheery exterior.  It's much like how we pretend we're fine, when everything is really, really falling apart.  Lead singer Ramesh Srivastava's lyrics unfold like journal entries, at times scribbled in rage, but always with the incisive precision of a scalpel."

When Voxtrot broke up, Srivastava wrote on his blog, "Being in Voxtrot has been wonderful and amazing, but it is only one chapter in the book."  Luckily for his fans, there is now another chapter.

Check out a stream of "The King":

Japandroids, “The House That Heaven Built”

On June 5, Vancouver duo Japandroids will release Celebration Rock, the follow-up to its 2009 debut, Post-Nothing.  Check out the huge, summer rock anthem of a first single, "The House That Heaven Built":

Preorder Celebration Rock at Polyvinyl Records.

Japandroids will be touring North America and the UK all spring and summer:

04-27 Grand Rapids, MI -- The Pyramid Scheme
04-28 Grand Rapids, MI -- The Pyramid Scheme
05-17 Cardiff, Wales -- Clwb Ifor Bach
05-18 Brighton, England -- Green Door Store
05-19 Amsterdam, Netherlands -- Paradiso (London Calling Festival)
05-21 Bristol, England -- Cooler
05-22 London, England -- CAMP (Basement)
05-23 Manchester, England -- Soup Kitchen
05-24 Glasgow, Scotland -- King Tut's
05-25 Leeds, England -- Cockpit 2
05-26 Nottingham, England -- Bodega
05-31 Barcelona, Spain -- Parc del Fòrum (Primavera Sound Festival)
06-11 Seattle, WA -- Neumos
06-12 Portland, OR -- Doug Fir
06-14 San Francisco, CA -- The Independent
06-15 Los Angeles, CA -- Echoplex
06-16 San Diego, CA -- Casbah
06-19 Denver, CO -- Larimer Lounge
06-21 Chicago, IL -- Lincoln Hall
06-22 Cleveland, OH -- Grog Shop
06-23 Toronto, ON -- Horseshoe Tavern
06-25 Montreal, QC -- La Sala Rossa
06-26 Boston, MA -- Brighton Music Hall
06-27 New York City, NY -- Bowery Ballroom
06-29 Philadelphia, PA -- Johnny Brenda's
06-30 Washington, DC -- Rock & Roll Hotel
07-03 Minneapolis, MN -- 7th Street Entry
07-07 Vancouver, BC -- Biltmore Cabaret

Holy Esque, “Rose”

Glasgow rock band Holy Esque will release its debut self-titled EP on April 23.  Lead singer Pat Hynes has a unique, ragged warble to his voice that makes a single like "Rose" so compelling.  Including Hynes (vocals/guitar), the band is comprised of Keir Reid (keys), Hugo McGinley (guitar) and Ralph McClure (drums), all of whom are between 19 and 20 years old.

Combining the UK post-punk revival sound with 90s indie rock, "Rose" features prominent drumming and a catchy guitar line, all over a wall of atmospheric distortion.  It's an extremely promising introduction to a band that seems poised for very big things.

In support of the EP, Holy Esque will be touring throughout the UK over the next two months:

April 20 - Glenrothes, UK - The Greenside
April 25 - Leeds, UK - Nation of Shopkeepers
April 26 - Stoke, UK - Fat Cats
April 27 - London, UK - Camden Barfly
April 28 - London, UK - Old Blue Last
May 4 - Dundee, UK - The Doghouse
May 5 - Glasgow, UK - Stereo

The Holy Esque EP will be available digitally on iTunes.  Physical copies can be found at any of the shows listed above.

Video: Justin Townes Earle, live @ Four Seasons [SXSW]

Justin Townes Earle played a bunch of new tunes at Austin's Four Seasons as part of KUT's lineup for SXSW.  You can download the whole thing here (and it's well worth doing so), or check out the video for his performance of the album's first singe, "Look the Other Way," below:

Count me as extremely excited for the new album.  (I loved Earle's quip about people complaining that he didn't make another Harlem River Blues: "Get over it.  I gotta keep myself interested too.")  And a very big thanks to KUT for posting the set!

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Stream: Joshua Hyslop, “What Have I Done?”

Joshua Hyslop will be releasing his debut LP this spring, and has given fans a taste with the album's first single, "What Have I Done?," a duet with Anna Scouten.  Building on the success of Cold Wind (one of GTI's favorite EPs of 2011), Hyslop continues to show off his talent for melody and a voice that must make all the ladies swoon.

Sometimes initial reactions are the most illuminating, and mine was, "Oh my.  That's pretty."

Check out the stream:

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MP3: Strand of Oaks, “Spacestations”

"Welcome to my next big decision," Timothy Showalter self-referentially sings on "Spacestations," his new song recorded for last month's edition of Shaking Through.  Showalter's career has been one of big decisions.  There was the first, a decision to quit his job as a second-grade teacher and record his debut album, Leave Ruin.  Then came the decision to record a concept album in Pope Killdragon that shattered the boundaries of what folk music could sound like.  And now, for his Shaking Through session, Showalter chose to abandon guitars entirely and go for a big, atmospheric, synths-driven sound in "Spacestations."

Shaking Through is a collaboration between Weathervane Music and WXPN designed to support the careers of independent up-and-coming musicians by uniting them with top recording professionals and resources.  Strand of Oaks' session was curated by Chris Ward, drummer for the Philadelphia indie rock band Pattern is Movement.  "Spacestations" was recorded over two days at Miner Street Recordings.  It was produced by Brian McTear and engineered by Jon Low.  For more music by Strand of Oaks, check out its bandcamp page.

Here's hoping he keeps making big decisions like this.

GTI has featured Strand of Oaks quite a bit, beginning with the time I met him in Philadel