Wednesday, November 30th, 2005

Melt Your Heart

So word around the internet is that the Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins album, Rabbit Fur Coat (Grok album art here), has leaked two months before its official January 24 release date – in other words, exactly on schedule. Now in accordance with my mostly inflexible stance on leaks (don’t do em), I haven’t heard any of it but people seem to be pretty excited about it. I’m not surprised – Jenny has a voice made for country music, so the twang-friendly sound of this album should suit her just fine. So now while I don’t have any MP3s to share, I can point you to this feature story in the new issue of Harp (from which I also took this fetching photograph). And her MySpace blog has also transcribed this piece from Paste.

People are calling Rabbit Fur Coat a solo album for Jenny Lewis, but that’s unfair because as the credit clearly states, it was created with The Watson Twins, who were in the band Slydell and are currently at work at their own debut album, Southern Manners, also due out in January. If the one song posted at their MySpace page is any indication, they can make some gorgeous music with or without Ms Lewis… Of course, the association can only help them out, but hopefully people won’t forget that the Watsons deserve recognition on their own merits.

And not to be outdone by his Rilo Kiley bandmate (though lets be honest – he totally is), Blake Sennett’s side project The Elected will also put out their second album Sun, Sun, Sun, on January 24. Think they’ve got little side-by-side bar graphs representing respective sales of the albums at RK HQ? Me neither.

My “no leak” policy also prevents me from hearing the new Belle & Sebastian album, but thankfully Matador has revealed the album art for The Life Pursuit, out February 7, and released an mp3:

MP3: Belle & Sebastian – “Another Sunny Day”

NPR will be webcasting Calexico and Iron & Wine’s show in Washington DC tonight at around 10PM EST.

Brooklyn’s We Are Scientists are at the Horseshoe on January 14. Apparently the UK loves em. Take that as you will, and check out press from Chart and MTV.com.

Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene introduces Harp to his Toronto. Which, incidentally, looks an awful lot like my Toronto. I used to work half a block away from the strip club he’s talking about.

Sarah Harmer tells JAM! about how her tour in support of the Niagara Escarpment informed her new bluegrass-y album I’m A Mountain. It’s been out in Canada for a little while now but isn’t out in the US till February 7. She’s playing a run of shows at the Harbourfront Centre tonight through Saturday, and will also do an in-store performance at the Mountain Equipment Co-op on King St on Saturday at 1PM.

Cokemachineglow has taken a different approach to the inevitable deluge of lists coming our way. I’m already becoming jaded, but with titles like “Top 7 Brief and Spitefully Expressed Occurrences of Visceral Disappointment ” and “Top 12 Songs on OK Computer“, you have my attention.

np – The Mendoza Line / Full Of Light And Full Of Fire

By : Frank Yang at 8:56 am
Category: Uncategorized
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  1. 11/30/05 9:12 am

     Torr says:

    We Are Scientists have had a little but of UK chart success. One single went in at #35 and the album went in at #42. Not bad, but not really "UK loves em" either :-)

  2. 11/30/05 9:20 am

     Five Seventeen says:

    The CokeMachineGlow lists are great.

    I wrote an email yesterday with a list foe a friend titled "The first 10 CDs I’d buy from Amazon (all in print) after my condo gets set on fire by crack-dealers and the insurance company won’t pay up."

  3. 11/30/05 10:55 am

     suckingalemon says:

    i did not know about that harmer in-store. nice. thanks.

    cheers

  4. 11/30/05 12:25 pm

     daniel says:

    The new B&S is pretty good, I’ve listened to it about four times all the way through, and in my opinion, the second half of it is really great.

  5. 11/30/05 12:36 pm

     j. lewis says:

    The new Jenny Lewis is great. Why so inflexible about leaks? Not like you can’t go out and buy the disc once it’s released.

  6. 11/30/05 1:06 pm

     Frank says:

    re: leaks – I don’t do leaks for many reasons, all boiling down to personal preference. I like the anticipation and experience of going out and buying the CD, popping it in my stereo and listening to it properly. My computer speakers aren’t great. And also out of respect for the artists – they intend for their work to be presented at a certain time and in a certain way, ie – artwork, packaging etc.

    And I’m patient. No big deal, I have lots of music to listen to in the interim.

  7. 11/30/05 2:43 pm

     Alex says:

    Of course, release dates have nothing to do with what an artist "intended" for you to experience. It’s the record label’s marketing decision as to when a CD get thrown out there.

  8. 11/30/05 2:46 pm

     Frank says:

    well, I do remember one interview wherein Jenny Lewis said the timing of the album’s January release was to coincide with her 30th birthday. Probably just PR, but that’s not the point.

    I prefer to wait and enjoy the album as a whole, rather than hunt down mp3s here or there. What others do is of no concern to me.

  9. 12/1/05 10:08 am

     Ivo Escossia says:

    the new belle et sebastien is really goody indeed. The best one since "the green" one.

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