Lissie - "Covered Up With Flowers" CD Review (Fat Possum)

After generating a buzz with the her full-length debut, Catching a Tiger (2010), and a sold-out CMJ show at Hiro Ballroom, Lissie's back with a five-track / 25 minute EP of covers, "Covered Up With Flowers". The disc includes covers of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", Kid Cudi's "Pursuit Of Happiness" and Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" (which are well familiar to fans through Lissie's YouTube videos) in addition to previously unheard covers of Joe South's "Games People Play" and a haunting version of Nick Cave's "The Ship Song".



Coincidently, prior to playing this disc, I had pulled Nick Cave's Kicking Against the Pricks off the shelf and given it a spin. There are a lot of similarities between Kicking Against the Pricks and "Covered Up With Flowers" as Lissie, like Cave, picks an eclectic mix of cover songs and "owns" her version and reinterpretation of these songs. The key to a good cover song is to pick something unexpected and then either present a unique take on the song or completely deconstruct the song (like Devo's "Satisfaction" or Meat Puppets' "I've Got a Right"). By this mark, Lissie succeeds on both fronts and gives recognizable but unique takes on each of these five songs.

The disc starts with a live version of Kid Cudi's "Pursuit of Happiness", which appears to be from the video embedded above. After this, Lissie shaves off the pop gloss from Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and delivers a dark and somber but spirited reinterpretation of the song. From there, Lissie goes into a sun-baked cover of Joe South's "Games People Play" before returning back to the somber side of life with faithful-to-the-original covers of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" and Nick Cave's "The Ship Song".



While most covers albums are stop-gap measures, "Covered Up With Flowers" is a solid addition to Lissie's catalog as it collects (almost all of) the previously unreleased songs that have helped defined Lissie's career to-date.

Links:
Lissie

Luke Elliot - "Death of a Widow" CD EP Review

Luke Elliot is a young songwriter with an old soul. On his second disc, “Death of a Widow”, Elliot creates predominately dark-hued musical landscapes which serves as backdrop to his tales of love, heartbreak and obsession. There are elements of Americana (specifically Faulkner, Dylan and Cohen) in this disc’s five tracks but Elliot ‘modernizes’ the classic Americana sound into something that is both delicate but dangerous. Elliot’s clear vocals drive each song (in addition to driving home the lyrics) and the vocals are complemented by brooding piano and guitar arrangements. The end result has Elliot carving out his own niche where he sounds more like an alt-folk “cousin” to John Cale or a less-deranged Nick Cave than the aforementioned Americana artists.

"Death of a Widow" is available from iTunes for $3.99 (click-through on the CD cover above).

Luke Elliot’s next NYC show is at The Bitter End on November 13th.



Links:
Luke Elliot

James Apollo Plays NYC on Sept. 10th and 11th // New Disc Out Oct. 12th

Pray for Rain - James Apollo by CrashAvenue
DOWNLOAD: James Apollo - "I've Got It Easy" (Live on the BBC)
STREAM: James Apollo - "Morphine and Wine" (Live on KEXP)

James Apollo has been on the road since his sixteenth birthday and his music reflects a drifter's view of the backroads and highways of the world. This is classic Americana with both Bob Dylan and Tom Waits being easy points of comparison.

In support of his upcoming release Til Your Feet Bleed (due out October 12th), James is playing free shows in Manhattan and Brooklyn on September 10th and 11th.

Friday, September 10th
James Apollo
The Living Room
154 Ludlow Street
New York, NY 10002
free / 8pm doors / 10pm set / 21+

Saturday, September 11th
James Apollo
w/ Numbers and Letters
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211-1312
free / 8pm show start / 9pm set / 21+



Links:
James Apollo

Ashton Nyte: Live Footage & Interview from "The Valley" CD Release Show at Fontana's, NYC 6-29-10

Ashton Nyte is considered to have pioneered alternative music in South Africa and he made his NYC debut at Fontana's with a CD release show for his latest disc The Valley (Intervention Arts Records). I had a chance to talk with Ashton before the show and this video also includes the first song from the set.



Here are Ashton's upcoming tour dates (which include a return trip to NYC on July 23rd):

Thursday, July 8 8:30PM (acoustic)
Mars Cafe: 2318 University Avenue, Des Moines, IA 50311-4316

Saturday, July 10 8:00PM (acoustic)
Kick Butt Coffee: 5775 Airport Boulevard, Austin, TX 78752

Sunday, July 11 10:00PM (full band)
Headhunters: 720 Red River Street, Austin, TX 78701

Monday, July 12 8:00PM (full band)
Avant Garden: 411 Westheimer, Houston, TX 77006

Tuesday, July 13 5:30PM (acoustic in-store appearance)
Cactus Music: 2110 Portsmouth Street, Houston, TX 77098
Refreshments provided by St. Arnold Brewing Company

Thursday, July 15 9:00PM (acoustic)
Checkpoint Charlie's: 501 Esplanade Ave, New Orleans, LA 70116

Saturday, July 17 10:00PM (full band)
The Highlands Taproom: 1279 Bardstown Road, Louisville, KY 40204

Friday, July 23 8:00PM – 9:00PM (full band)
The Gallery Bar: 120 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002-3177

Saturday, July 24 10:00PM (full band)
Spellbound @ Recessions: 1823 L Street NW, Washington, DC 20036

Links:
Ashton Nyte

Ashton Nyte Announces CD Release Show at Fontana's for "The Valley" (US Debut Album)

"Ashton Nyte is a South African born singer, songwriter, producer, composer and front man of the South African alternative rock band The Awakening. Nyte has released five solo albums both as Ashton Nyte and Ashton Nyte and the Accused in addition to his numerous releases as The Awakening. He is considered to be a pioneer of alternative rock in South Africa and has been described as "something of a music[al] genius" for his typical method of composing, playing and recording each instrument himself on most of his releases. Nyte is widely known in South Africa for his chart-topping cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence" and several other top singles. His signature style combines baritone vocals akin to David Bowie and Johnny Cash, with instrumentation that ranges from Americana to alternative rock and even lo-fi indie rock. Themes of George Orwell's 1984 often infiltrate Nyte's work, along with numerous Christian references. Nyte has been based in the USA as of 2009." -– Wikipedia

Ashton Nyte just released his US debut, The Valley (on Intervention Arts Records), and he is playing a Best Buy in-store along with a release party (full band) show at Fontana's next Tuesday, June 29th. The Best Buy in-store is at the Union Square location (52 E. 14th Street) and Ashton is playing an acoustic set that starts at 4PM. The show at Fontana's is a full-band set which starts at 8:30PM. Both shows are free and there will be a pre-show open bar at the Fontana's show which starts at 7PM

Here is the video for "Jennifer", which is the first single from The Valley:



Links:
Ashton Nyte

Nick Cave - Henry's Dream [Remastered] CD Review (Mute)

Nick Cave's seventh studio album, Henry's Dream (1992), is the last of the current set of reissues. This sound of this album heads back toward the dark intensity of Tender Prey without giving up the acoustic sounds of The Good Son.

“Henry’s Dream,” explains Nick Cave, “was one of the first records that I came to with an absolute sound in my head as to how this record should be. What I wanted to make with Henry’s Dream was a very violent acoustic record, basically using storytelling and acoustic instruments to create a really fucked up and violent sound, but which was in no way heavy. This, sadly, didn’t happen” This comment aside, Henry's Dream was one of Cave's strongest release to date and roughly half of the songs on this disc ("Jack The Ripper", "I Had A Dream Joe", "Papa Won't Leave You Henry" and "Brother My Cup is Empty") are staples in the band's live set.





At the time, this was probably one the more polished Bad Seeds releases but this plays more into the band's evolving sound along with newcomer producer David Briggs (Neil Young) rather than the changes in line-up. Between The Good Son and Henry's Dream, Kid Congo had left the fold and the Bad Seeds added Conway Savage on piano and ex-Triffid Martyn Casey on bass.

Like the other reissues in this series, this release is a digi-pack with a bonus DVD. The tracks on the DVD are:

Henry's Dream album in 5:1

Extra tracks:
Blue Bird
Jack The Ripper (Acoustic version)
I Had a Dream Joe (Live)
The Good Son (Live)
The Mercy Seat (Live)
The Carny (Live)
The Ship Song (Live)

Videos: – also available for download to MP3/Ipod

Music videos:
I Had a Dream, Joe
Straight to You
Jack the Ripper (Acoustic Version)

"Do You Love Me Like I Love You": (Part 7: Henry's Dream)
Directed by Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard

Links:
Nick Cave

Nick Cave - The Good Son [Remastered] CD Review (Mute)

Nick Cave's sixth album, The Good Son (1990), completed his transition into the mainstream. Cave forgoes the dark intensity of Tender Prey on this disc and the (almost) Southern gospel songs on this disc are powered by Cave's vocals accompanied by keyboards and strings. As Cave had discovered a new-found sobriety and had also found love with Brazilian stylist Viviane Carneiro, most of the songs on The Good Son are mid-tempo, piano-driven explorations of love and sorrow.

To set the stage for these recordings, Nick remained in São Paulo after the Tender Prey tour while the rest of the band returned to Berlin.

“I started to write a lot and I didn’t really go back; I just stayed in Brazil. A lot of stuff started to come quite quickly: ‘The Weeping Song’, ‘The Ship Song’, ‘Foi Na Cruz’ - these extremely sweet love songs appeared.” As it turned out, the songs from that period prefigure and hint at something that would henceforward become a Cave obsession: to write a kind of “classic” love song, a craft he would devote many years to fine honing.

It was during this period also that Nick really began to come to grips with the piano as a compositional tool. Although he’d had two years of piano lessons in his pre-teens and knew how to make a chord, for all practical purposes, Cave could not perform at the keyboard as fluidly as his songs demanded. “In the early days,” he admits, “there was no way I could sit down and play and sing a song that sounded convincing. That’s not to say I couldn’t hear how it could it be in my head, but it would very much have to be interpreted by the band. Something like ‘The Carny’ for example: all the parts were written on the piano. I just couldn’t necessarily play the stuff.”

When originally released, the release of this disc was preceded by "The Ship Song / The Train Song" 7" which set the stage for the piano/strings balladry of the full disc. Keeping in that same vein, the disc opens with "Foi Na Cruz" which, according to Wikipedia, is based partly upon the traditional Brazilian Protestant hymn of the same title. Bookending the disc is the ballad "Lucy" which features Roland Wolf's last recorded work with the band.



There are a couple of up-tempo songs on the disc - "The Witness Song" has the hand-clapping groove of a Southern revival and "The Hammer Song" has some of the Tender Prey's dark intensity.

Like the Tender Prey, this release is a digi-pack with a bonus DVD. The tracks on the DVD are:

The Good Son album in 5:1

Extra tracks:
The Train Song
Cocks 'n' Asses
Helpless
(Note: all three tracks are on Cave's B-Sides & Rarities)

Videos: – also available for download to MP3/Ipod

Music videos:
The Weeping Song
The Ship Song

"Do You Love Me Like I Love You": (Part 6: The Good Son)
Directed by Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard

Links:
Nick Cave

Nick Cave - Tender Prey [Remastered] CD Review (Mute)

Nick Cave's fifth album, Tender Prey (1988), was his great leap forward. This was the first disc where Cave made a complete break from his raw, experimental Birthday Party roots and this disc establishes him as a (surprisingly) accessible epic storyteller / songwriter. The band's sound benefits from the additions of Kid Congo Powers (guitar), who was juggling a second trip through the Gun Club at the time, and keyboard/organist Roland Wolf.

Tender Prey kicks off with the seven+ minute death-row story, "Mercy Seat", which has become one of Cave's signature tunes. The are a couple other Cave staples on this disc which include the darkly pulsing "Up Jumped the Devil" and garage-rock murder ballad "Deanna".



Although Nick had lyrics ready to go for “The Mercy Seat”, the song had not yet fully taken shape. Nick attests that he sat down in the studio piano and devised a descending chord structure and “…that I was able to sing the words to those chords. Then Mick threw in the E minor – B flat vamp.” However, rather than starting with the piano, recording of the basic tracks for “The Mercy Seat” actually began with a loop which Mick says “came out of the same idea that Nick had been trying to do for ages: he wanted to have a song that was really relentlessly at you and in your face.” Nick affirms he was aiming for an aggressive rapid-fire machine-like effect similar to the churning rhythm of “Harlem” by Suicide, “… but we didn’t know how to do that, so we did it with drumsticks on the open tuning of the bass”.

Like the previous Nick Cave reissues that Mute released earlier this year, Tender Prey comes in a digi-pack with a bonus DVD. The DVD contains the album remastered in 5.1 surround sound plus the following bonus tracks & videos:

Bonus Tracks
The Mercy Seat (Video version)
Girl at the Bottom of my Glass
The Mercy Seat (Acoustic version)
City of Refuge (Acoustic version)
Deanna (Acoustic version)

Videos: – also available for download to MP3/Ipod

Music videos:
The Mercy Seat
Deanna

"Do You Love Me Like I Love You": (Part 5: Tender Prey)
Directed by Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard

The remastering job is stellar and stays true to the original vinyl recording. The bonus tracks are sort of hit-and-miss for me as four of the five tracks are on Cave' 2005 release B-Sides & Rarities and I'm not much for music videos. "Do You Love Me Like I Love You" is a bit more intriguing but it is the sort of "Behind the Music" footage that you will watch once and will be unlikely pick up again anytime soon.

"Do You Love Me Like I Love You" is a series of 14 new short films by British artists Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard to accompany each album. Each 40-minute film features a compelling collage of the famous, infamous and unknown talking directly to camera about what the songs mean to them. The result is a determinedly human portrait of the unique body of work, told through those who have lived and loved the music.



Links:
Nick Cave

The Brute Chorus Announce New Album 'How The Caged Bird Sings'; Download New Single (Free)

DOWNLOAD: The Brute Chorus - "Could This Be Love" (from How the Caged Bird Sings)

Indie blue-rockers, The Brute Chorus are releasing their second disc, How The Caged Bird Sings, in August on the London indie label TAPE. The first single, "Could This Be Love", is available now as a free download.

The Brute Chorus' music is a mix of blues and rockabilly and is comparable to the Knoxville Girls or Heavy Trash. (The Cramps or Gun Club may be better comparisons for those outside of the New York area). The band built a reputation for their live shows at Camden's Hawley Arms (one-time home to Amy Winehouse) and recorded their self-titled debut album in front of a live audience at Camden's Roundhouse. The BBC described the band as "suckled on surf, old time blues and quiff-bouncing rockabilly, their music breathes and sweats; you can almost feel the saliva spray as frontman James Steel splutters lines about flooded tower blocks and duplicitous mythical heroes."

Here are the band's upcoming tour dates:

April 29th – London, UK – Bloody Awful Poetry @ Madam JoJo’s at 8pm
May 1st – Leeds, UK – Live @ Leeds, Elbow Rooms at 1pm
May 1st – London, UK – Camden Crawl @ The Hawley Arms at 8pm
May 20th – London, UK – Big Chill House @ 8pm
July 15th – Cheltenham, UK - 2000 Trees Festival
July 18th – Cockermouth, UK – Cock Rock Festival

Links:
The Brute Chorus

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - White Lunar CD Review (Mute)

Nick Cave and long-time The Bad Seeds/Grinderman/The Dirty Three collaborator Warren Ellis have released a hauntingly beautiful 2-CD set of predominately instrumental soundscapes. This set is compiles tracks from various soundtracks that Cave & Ellis have scored over the last five years along with four previously unreleased pieces from the Cave & Ellis archives.

Disc One contains selections from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), The Proposition (2005), and the forthcoming The Road (which is based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of a father and son's trek across a vast wasteland in the aftermath of global catastrophe). While the song arrangements are fairly minimalist, Nick Cave winds piano melodies around Warren Ellis' violin to create a warm but desolate landscape. Cave sings on "The Rider Song" and provides whispered vocals on "The Rider No. 2" (both from The Proposition) and both of these songs could easily fit with later-day material from The Bad Seeds.

Disc Two is a bit more eclectic and perhaps schizophrenic; it contains material from two lesser known documentaries along with the four tracks from the vaults. The two documentaries are The English Surgeon (2007) which traces Dr. Henry Marsh's struggle to bring neurosurgery to post-Soviet Ukraine and The Girls of Phnom Penh (2009) which is an investigative documentary of sex workers in Cambodia's "virginity trade". The material on this disc is claustrophobic, urban and (at times) intense. The four vault tracks fit within this musical structure and all of the tracks are named after craters. While all of the tracks are solid compositions, "Daedalus" is one of the more interesting as it segues from a sunny flute and piano-driven piece into a jagged hidden-track instrumental.

While instrumentals never seem to get a lot of repeat play, this set may well replace Sunn O)))'s Monoliths & Dimensions in my late-night listening queue.

Links:
Nick Cave

David Rogue is Playing The Bitter End Tonight (Dec. 12th)

I got turned on to David Rogue through one of the MPFrees in the NY Post. David is a singer/songwriter who cites his influences as Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. David plays stripped down rock with sort of a country flair and, as you would expect with these sorts of influences, his music has sort of an edge. David just released his debut CD, The Arrival, in September.

David is playing tonight at The Bitter End with Studio E, The Embracers and SIUGeneris and tickets are $10.

Links:
David Rogue's MySpace Profile