City and Colour Release New CD "Little Hell" on June 7th // Download "Fragile Bird" for Free

DOWNLOAD: City and Colour - "Fragile Bird" (from Little Hell)

Dallas Green will be releasing his 3rd solo album as a singer-songwriter under the moniker City and Colour on Vagrant Records. The album titled Little Hell is scheduled for release on June 7th, 2011 and it is the follow-up to the 2008’s Bring Me Your Love, which was certified platinum in Green’s native Canada. Alternately sparse and inviting, intense and delicate, Little Hell shows music fans another side of Green’s incredible songwriting skills, and features some of his finest songs to date.

Little Hell was recorded earlier this winter at Catherine North Studios in Hamilton, ON with producer/engineer/mixer Alex Newport (At The Drive-In, Mars Volta, Death Cab For Cutie). Fans got a sneak preview of a brand new track from the upcoming album when an alternate version of the song titled “Northern Wind” recently made its debut on a special Valentine’s Day episode of the hit series One Tree Hill. Green performed on the episode as part of the show’s story line.



Little Hell – named after the album’s title track, a song that explores the little heavens and little hells that comprise a relationship – is the first of Green’s albums to be recorded and mixed to tape. This sonic move ultimately resulted in the album’s warm immediacy, allowing the songs to take on a spaciousness previously unheard in City and Colour albums. The record allows Green to highlight all of the facets of his songwriting, from Blues-tinged rockers to pedal steel-soaked acoustic gems. Songs like “Northern Wind” have a beautiful intimacy, as if Green is in the same room and singing right to you, while “Sorrowing Man” is dark and brooding, anchored by an ominous organ in the chorus. The record also highlights Green’s impressive vocal range, from driving a full band on the rousing chorus of “Natural Disaster” or sighing mellifluously on opener “We Found Each Other in the Dark.”



Links:
City and Colour

The Duke and The King - CD Release Show at Mercury Lounge on August 4th

DOWNLOAD: The Duke and The King - "If You Ever Get Famous" (MP3)

The debut disc from Simone Felice and Robert 'Chicken' Burke's new project, The Duke and The King, drops Tuesday and the band is playing a CD release show at Mercury Lounge that night.

Tracks on this new disc are somewhat bittersweet and Simone Felice talked about some of the inspiration behind this new project in an open letter that he posted to his MySpace page (below).

"Dear Friends and Family, this is just a little note to show my deepest gratitude for all the letters and concern I've received over my absence from The Felice Brothers stage over the past few months, and for the boundless love and belief you've shown for our music over the years.

This winter has been a time of tragedy, sadness, and regeneration in my life. I'd been working on a new book and recording some songs with my dear old friend Robert close to home in the Catskill Mountains and my long time love and I were expecting our first child. Then in late January out of the blue we lost our baby girl and it really broke my heart and turned my world inside out. In the process of mourning it helped a lot to turn some of the sorrow and revelation into songs and after a while I came back to Robert and I's cabin/studio to put them down and to finish the other recordings we started.

I've been writing a lot this past year, and seeing as my role in the band was always more of a supportive one (helping with lyrics, drumming, harmonies and the occasional lead vocal) I've been compelled to find a vehicle that would help me be able to share all these new songs and stories. So I hope you like The Duke & The King, the songs mean a lot to us, being as they are, after all, the soundtrack of a long fateful winter. We'll be playing a handful of debut shows come spring, and I'll be working on finishing the novel and spending more time close to home. The boys have a couple great drummers working with them now (chief among them our close friend Jeremy 'The Searcher' who's produced all our records and was one of my most important drum teachers in the long ago, and Dave, an awesome young hitter who I've had the privilege of working with this spring to pass on some of the stank codes of our tradition), and they all have a very strong and dynamite vision of how to carry the music and poetry we've all made together into the future. I'll be making special appearances at Felice shows from time to time to share the stage with my brothers as they support 'Yonder Is The Clock' (our proudest effort to date) and beyond, something I look forward to with an earnest and warm heart.

It's very nice that I can be candid in sharing these heavy life changes with you guys, though the comfort I feel in doing so is no surprise considering how loving and supportive you've been in helping us build this big old crazy family together, a family as sacred as it is rowdy! Please know that it really is you all who've made this never-ending story of ours possible, and that this knowledge has never and will never be lost on me."
-- An Open Letter from Simone Felice (from MySpace)

For the CD release show, The Duke & The King are playing with Maya Solovely, The Morning Pages and Tyburn Saints. Tickets are $12 in advance and $14 day of show.

Links:
The Duke & The King's MySpace Profile

Joel Auge - "On The Blue" CD Release Interview, NYC 8-8-08

Last Friday, Integrity Music artist Joel Auge was in town to promote his debut CD On the Blue. The disc dropped in July and the first single, "So Deep In Love", was selected as an iTunes Discovery Download. iTunes said "Auges' mixture of worship music and emotional alt-rock rings makes a solid case for being one of the highlights of 2008. The album mixes up folk and pop with piano pop and Auges' own transcendent vocals."

Joel and I had a chance to talk about the new CD, his beliefs and the inspiration behind the CD and what his plans are for the rest of the year.



In addition to making some great music, Joel's a warm and funny guy to talk to. Check out this video of Joel attempting to purchase his CD from a bookstore on its release day.



For anyone that hasn't heard "So Deep In Love", the tune is streaming on Joel's MySpace Profile and there is a bizarre fan-made video on YouTube that sets the audio track to a picture of the American flag. I guess the videographer didn't realize that Joel is Canadian...

Fans of British piano-pop (Coldplay, Keane) would do well to give Joel's music a listen.