I rarely buy full albums anymore, but in the span of a couple months I have bought three. As part of my recent music kick I would like to share a few tracks from each in the hopes that word will spread about how great they are. The mp3s, as usual, are for sampling purposes only, if you like what you hear, then go out and buy the music, you won’t be disappointed. If you are the artist or label rep and don’t want an MP3 featured, please email me
Regina Spektor – Far
Ever since the debut of her album Soviet Kitsch I have fallen for the goofy hamming it up vocal theatrics of Regina Spektor. Her voice is lovely, her songs carry that off the cuff performance energy, and let’s be honest, she is a beautiful woman to boot. Her last album felt too polished and deliberate, but with Far she has returned to the vocal manic departures (including dolphin sounds) that I have grown to love. Probably never going to break into mass appeal, her music is a niche pleasure, a somewhat naive and bouncy Bardot concoction that keeps summer alive.
Folding Chair
Folding Chair
Machine
Machine
Hayden – The Place Where We Lived
I have been a longtime fan of local Toronto troubadour, Hayden, ever since his grungy nineties arrival on the scene with the album Everything I Long For (one of my ten favorite albums of all time). Known mostly for his brooding and melancholic ballads about loneliness and loss, The Place Where We Lived is much of the same, though characteristic of a late country bent to his work. His song Let’s Break Up is unusually upbeat, for Hayden, and for the subject matter, but ‘Never the Lonely’ is the best gage for newcomers to the kind of wry sadness he is known for… as it begins “I’m doin’ just fine”.
Let’s Break Up
Let’s Break Up
Never Lonely
09 Never Lonely.mp3
Away We Go Soundtrack
Not since Once has a soundtrack so consumed me and been on constant repeat on my ipod… seriously I have played this soundtrack to death, and need to stay a way from it for a bit. Filled mostly with Alexi Murdoch tracks the album keeps to a Nick Drake moodiness (Murdoch’s voice is often mistaken as Drake’s). His song ‘All My Days’ which played in the trailer for the movie is my favorite Murdoch song on the soundtrack but there are other great numbers to choose from, many of them played throughout the film (I think at least five tracks). The final scene is set against ‘Wait’, one of his more conventional indie pop songs. The real find on the album for me was The Velvet Underground’s ‘Sweet Nothin’ which somehow I have never heard before, and it is glorious.
All My Days
All My Days
Wait
Wait
This discussion currently has 8 responses.
July 5, 2009
We see opposite on Regina's latest. I think Far is actually much more produced than anything before it. She's got all those other layers going with it too, which to me takes away from the her and her piano type stuff that hooked me in the first place. It's a good album, and I believe it will see better overall sales than previous ones, with many fun tracks, but it's a bit of a disappointment to me. She's been major labelled
I'm really digging the tracks from the Away We Go Soundtrack. This I will seek out.
July 5, 2009
I am in love with Regina's voice. Madly, deeply, truly in love.
July 6, 2009
More produced then Begin to Hope?! No Man, gotta disagree, if anything Far gives Soviet Kitsch a run for its money. several of these songs are Soviet Kitsch era songs, I believe I heard her play live Human of the Year, Dance Anthem of the 80's and Blue Lips, and they are indistinguishable from her other stuff. Machine, if anything, sounds too much like one of her older songs.
and Jonathan, I saw her first.
July 6, 2009
I am a big Tori Amos fan but she has let me down lately, compared to her, Regina is still feeling fresh and enticing.
July 6, 2009
I'm a huge Amos fan as well, but her music clearly isn't the same as it once was.
If I had to guess, I'd say she found happiness, and her muse just doesn't know how to respond to that.
July 6, 2009
I know, Choirgirl Hotel was the height and she was the most depressed then.
July 6, 2009
Oh sigh. Will have to spend money on Hayden's new album. I love that man.
July 6, 2009
I can never understand why he is always writing about breaking up and being lonely, the guy is attractive, talented, funny, from Toronto, what else could you want?