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Bon Iver / 22, A Million

Coming awake, forgotten dormancy appears broken at first. Dismembered, sparse, and distant, it shakes off those dead limbs and skins, slying from slumber. Despite this immediate projection, it is not broken, just reconfigured, rebuilt - more efficient in some areas - heartfully rewoven into something new, something that rests on everything it was before, and yet, remains completely other. This is god, in the only way that can be witnessed: as a progress. Something that might not always be awake, but brings with it the shining morning of a new day. Bon Iver’s 22, A Million will be released on September 30th via Jagjaguar.

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CENTRIC: Sermon on the Rocks

The message can be hazy at first, mopped in a Twain-esque glaze, left to smoke for a day in a Cajun steel tube, and finally pulled forth from the river after a long lost escape journey. Ritter's words captivate and calm - create and reason - in his own image, as he sees fit. Sermon on the Rocks finds a remembrance of The Animal Years: true story-telling prowess, aged in experience after a return from parts unknown. New sounds and old imagery riddle Ritter's latest manifesto, harkening back to his small-town days in a soft recall of golden fields and stupid college experiences. This is not a regret of the past, but an understanding and reconciliation with faded emotions that once burned, and forgotten places re-emerging. The haunts, the memories, the good and evil: they still abide. And so do we.

Ritter's story recounts the true story of fundamentalism: small-town private colleges where dress codes still apply and true growth is only achieved in the alone-moments.  He exists somewhere between doing right and fulfilling forbidden passion, a narrative deemed a rite of passage as much as useless ritual. This, in turn, is an awakening of all paths, embodied in the joys of alcohol, rejection, aloneness, and separation, rampant in this place that's not worth interacting with, yet still worth witnessing. In a world where answers are expected, and progress is the norm, slowing down and saying "I don't know" becomes the only resolution to a seeking heart. This concept of sin, so readily accessible in our childhoods, begins to melt away with every drop and drag, ultimately revealing the harsh, beautiful, uncaring world opposite humanity, sometimes "right" and sometimes "wrong," but always in control. This "individuality" and "solidarity" with a midwestern Americanized monastic deity is the cause of separation throughout so many memories. And this separation sets the journey that so many walk alone.

But the good news resides, as in any story, in love - an action/reaction wholly grasped within, and yet completely apart from, this strange existence. Love is the conclusion of separation, and the beginning of the return. The true joy in Ritter's words exists in the realization that this is best experienced in the quiet place, where memories make their mark, and where we can touch a piece of eternity. And when the return is complete, love is its end. Getting high and tongue-tied, wasting gasoline, partying, studying the Bible academically: these are but steps taken that may or may not have virtue. Yet, they make the space in life for connections to be made, ideas to flow and merge, and for love to take root. The beauty of the quiet place is that there's nowhere to go.

Sermon on the Rocks has been out for a while now on Pytheas Recordings.

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Glen Hansard - Didn’t He Ramble

Unbeknownst to many, and forgotten - in a material sense - in times of inaction, the troubadour is a wistful role. Acting more as an answer to, rather than a product of, society, this trembling soul is a mover of spirits, a filibuster* woefully, yet uncontrollably, bound to the shepherding of creation in its many and moving versions. They are alone, and they are everyone, to the point of poverty in self. These are humans who inspire hope, rather than despair (and musicals, rather than keychains). There is a journey laid before each who takes up the oath, but no map for these uncharted, yet familiar, regions. When the sun rises and the spirit stirs with a rush - a hope - remember the law of movement, and the justice in being pushed within your very stillness: for to be completely unpushed and completely unmoved is to be still as death.

Glen Hansard rips us from our dormant state, to roar a blessed cry of clarity and vision amidst the fog. Didn’t He Ramble is out now via Plateau Records, Ltd.

*  filibuster - a person engaging in unauthorized warfare against a foreign country.

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Prodigy is meant to guide. It is meant to bear the light for others to follow, in hope of purpose, for once. This bears a certain weight and responsibility, and with it the bare confusion of obsession and identity: is the art, or the artist, the experience here? How far must we traverse barren memories on a fact-finding mission, in order to understand an artist’s meaning? And how long must we meditate upon a work, a creation, before we grasp its fullness of wealth and despair? Shall the two ever meet outside of the marketplace, or are they one in the same? Myth brings with it these dualities, so that our minds may work it out, rather than wallowing in acceptance and stagnance. We toss and turn with love and indifference, with anger and mercy, but in the end, only one comes home, and only one exists. When the sun sets, and the new buildings rise, the legends stand still, and sing the same songs, for someone who wants to know.

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Despite the rise of peaceful civilization and the streamlining of our curated lifestyles, the battlefield still exists for most, buried deep within the bowels of society and culture. In this paycheck-to-paycheck, dash-cam existence, those who reach for the skies have known the pit for far too long. Yet, the healing - after the hard fighting due this ascension - serves to center what we have learned, bringing this reconciliation in, to home and hearth. With a prayer and a hope, strong tradition and history in healing bears civilization past the wavering threshold, and into eternity.

Gary Clark Jr.’s The Story of Sonny Boy Slim is out September 11th via Warner Bros. Records.

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Iron & Wine and Ben Bridwell: Sing into My Mouth

We are bound, as a people, to worry. In a world where identity needs an explanation, where belief needs an excuse, and where peace needs a way out, forgotten are the ways of abiding. When money fuels our needs, and words fuel our money, the incessant barrage of useless information strips all glory from meaning, and the saltiness from the salt. Would that we halt periodically, and perhaps for good, to allow more than a just an individual journey: the understanding of the self, unfolding, yet still; amongst nothing, for it is everything.

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The panic of urgency and the pangs of simplicity meet in their aim towards the small things - rodents, rivers, laughing - each as a comfort and contentment to the other, set over and against the grand schemes and perpetual big picture herrings of our time. Not all answers are written in the dust, and not all saviours - if any - are born in the sky. In the mundane 9-5, in the gas station bathrooms, and our pigeonholed mortgages, we find the unashamed universal: the public access experience of home.

Sun Kil Moon’s most recent release Universal Themes is out via Caldo Verde Records.

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EXP: Something More than Free

There comes a point in our unfolding where release overpowers comfort, and all that we know, and barely know, comes into question. The purge of distraction remains almost an inevitability in the human journey, in many cases being the only way out of our self-induced sickness in pride and prejudice. After the rough and tumble, where the lucky few of us retire to loving homes at heart, clarity, providing more than renewal, inspires action and response.

This process shines forth in Jason Isbell’s latest release Something More than Free. He begs a distinct comfort in saying goodbye to old ways, split rules, and local conventions, while bringing out the best of what we once wished to be, in ourselves and as a people. There are new paths that must be taken, and a new spirit that burns their trails. Isbell reminds us that love doesn’t always mean sticking around, and peace cannot be obtained from any creature or creation in this world, but only from within, and from being one with the identity we feel and seek. This identity is rooted in the truest form of freedom: as our neighbor’s keeper, and beloved lover.

In this light, freedom is not solitude, nor a solo endeavor. Our pseudo-endgame in this diseased existence, commonly cloaked under the Western guise of individuality, has supplied the driving force of separation between north and south / drunk and stoned / atheist and spiritualist, throughout the better part of “Good vs. Evil” Christendom, and it plays a formidable role in our life-plots. Yet the truth of freedom’s place in our daily lives may only be observed above and beyond the dichotomy of freedom “from,” and freedom “for” - that which is exemplified in our beliefs and transactions. The Western notion of freedom = aloneness continues to perpetuate the gravest sins of our collective ancestry, simultaneously downplaying the reality of humanity as a pluralistic entity, as well as the reality of cultural heritage in light of evil cultural practices. There is something more than freedom (as individuality) in our purpose here.

Too long has separation plagued our search for identity.

The meaning of our identity penetrates far deeper than the bastions of division - a lifestyle, or a flag - and the true mark of identity (whether in heritage, or freedom from it) places the freedom for reconciliation squarely on our shoulders. Reconciliation remains the only constant in our unfolding: critique, and the betterment of both yourself and those around you, is the only way to truly participate in the reality of freedom, and perhaps something more.

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CENTRIC: My Favorite Faded Fantasy

We waited so long. After the years when “Rootless Tree” and “I Remember” had fueled a passionate discourse of somber regression within ourselves, giving us something to hate and love and hate again, there was nothing. And as the Youtube views grew, the freshness wilted, and we wandered off to more immediate and fulfilling writers. Ones who gave us stories with feelings, rather than stories about feelings.

But the puncturing nature and intrinsic power in Damien Rice’s prose and tone have not wilted in light of their public dormancy. His international tour throughout 2014-15 in support of My Favorite Faded Fantasy has prompted sold out shows, with a prominent opening cast built with the likes of Josh Ritter and Sam Beam, among others. His music has inspired something in us over the years, but for the life of me, I am unable to remember a single character or timeline within his work.

This is not a flaw, nor something to praise, but merely a stylistic difference, and perhaps an intentional breaking down of the complexities inherent in storied-feelings, so as to disclose a properly betrothed word and sound. While much can be said for what is “up front” and “clear” about the music we carry, eons are left to fill with what goes unsaid, what we don’t hear when we share a song: that which we feel inside and cannot express. That, I believe, is Rice’s target in songwriting.

His return from obscurity begs a double take upon his partnering with Rick Rubin via Warner Bros. Records, a creative boon that truly brought out the best of what this record is, and continues to become. There is a freedom, and a return home in his voice this time around. Something has been dropped, and the shoulders are beginning to feel that soar weightlessness, bringing healing around and about.

These feelings swell towards their individual axioms, and the more we join in, the more we experience, for in Rice’s creation, experience is all there is. We are brought into a world of “you and I,” a stream of consciousness constantly building and rebuilding “what it all could be.” That is a world in turmoil, a world which tosses about upon the endless hues of the sun, to be sunk but by the grace of the elements themselves. Sounds like home.

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Back again. After the start, after the toil, and the rest, full-circle allows for more than journey’s taking, and more than journey’s end. The movement has taken place more within than without, and brought us to understanding of self in the universe, and the universe within the self. Oftentimes this merits a baptism, a head-first dive amidst a squall, into the gutter, just outside your workplace. We have solidarity with each other in the fact that we all will eventually know, if we don’t already, the whiskey-sweet taste of fresh dirt and oil, covering the skin with intrepid reminders of ashes to ashes.

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Big names and big lies move us further along the primordial flow, givin’ and gettin’ with a swift pull, that very progression for which we are so often lost in the search. It’s not some inherent power that gives our swindling such sway, but rather the seed beneath the perceived meanings, the bare-bones logic of being, and only being. The end message, as it sits for a curb-side smoke and lament, is somewhere beneath the feeling, seeing, smelling, hearing, and tasting, as it breathes out one wretched gasp after another: be.

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When we choose to set our sights on the farthest shore, the opening of something new, and conquering of the unknown (simply because it is unknown), we experience first hand the causal factors of belief, in and of itself, to the highest degree. The choice to do so in the first place - to remove onesself from common comfort and certainties - is the very light that reveals the circular axiom of being compelled to believe. If we choose, it is no more of our own doing than being chosen. And if we are chosen, no transformation can occur sans the very will to meet. My Morning Jacket continues to shed curiosity and purpose with each album skin, each subsequent coat, left on the trail en route to the mount, for others to see, and believe. The Waterfall is out now via ATO Records.

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The age old mantra of choice is an elusive pet, one that perpetuates our illusions as often as it grants our freedoms and joys. Choice is the inherently paradoxical situation of humanity, simultaneously the source of our greatest strength and greatest weakness: that which propagates the journey's end, whilst abiding within the very journey itself. When the results are unpredictable, when the destination is shrouded in the throws of chaos, we find a fundamental purpose in acting for action's sake, regardless of the worries and woes of what is yet to come. This is living at its core: a harmonious chant and sporadic shout, before fading into the night. Lee Morgan's 1967 release Cornbread pairs a lively humanist debate with the shear happiness of not knowing - and not pretending to know - any answers whatsoever. That is true enjoyment. 

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It's scamp Walker time again. When the common stresses, the unrelenting restrictions, and brutally rasping vertebrae are finally baptized in the elixir of easy, in-the-moment existence, sinking to the rocky bottom as every troy of worry seeps out the top of the crown like venom. The final veil - that which embodies every list of insecurities that rest in our self-awareness - pulls back and fades into the triumphant axiom of individuality: "it don't matter how you do it, just do it like you know it." Would that every day began this way, trotting to a sweet sangria finish.

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Not all songs are created equal. With a fresh hangover and the burning sun, we might begin to answer with a soft repose, overwhelmingly renewed in our cleared sight and process. With a wild scream and the waning moon, we might find solidarity in ritual and rowdy uproar. Yet, the constant ones - the songs that know no bearings and have no requirements for how we carry them - reveal before us a fool's hope that there is such a thing as a perfect storm: that which exists not for the listener, nor for the writer, but wholly and eternally for itself. When we seek such perfection, when we choose to believe that something can come from nothing, in fully justified and glorious existence, we find it more often than not, and see, in finality, creation, as creator, as creating. Alabama Shakes continues to monopolize on scrumptiously filling groove and Brittany Howard's tempest swell of a voice, with lightning strikes and thunderous groans. Their much anticipated release Sound & Color is currently streaming on NPR's First Listen, and is set for 4/20 release via Rough Trade Records, ATO Records, and MapleMusic Recordings.

Upcoming Tour Dates

Apr 17 Coachella Indio, CA, US SOLD OUT Apr 18 Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas Las Vegas, NV, US TICKETS May 03 Astra Kulturhaus Berlin, Germany TICKETS May 13 O2 Academy Birmingham Birmingham, UK TICKETS May 15 Brighton Dome Brighton, UK SOLD OUT May 16 O2 Apollo Manchester, UK TICKETS May 28 The Fabulous Fox Theatre St Louis, MO, US TICKETS May 29 Starlight Theatre Kansas City, MO, US TICKETS May 30 Hall’s Island Minneapolis, MN, US SOLD OUT Jun 02 The Farm Bureau Insurance Lawn at White River State Park Indianapolis, IN, US TICKETS Jun 03 Masonic Temple Detroit, MI, US TICKETS Jun 05 Gentlemen Of The Road Stopover Seaside Heights, NJ, US TICKETS Jun 06 Field Trip Music & Arts Festival Toronto, ON, Canada TICKETS Jun 07 Mountain Jam Festival Hunter, NY, US TICKETS Jun 09 nTelos Wireless Pavilion Charlottesville, VA, US TICKETS Jun 10 Koka Booth Amphitheatre Cary, NC, US TICKETS Jun 12 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival Manchester, TN, US TICKETS Jun 24 Glastonbury Festival Pilton, UK TICKETS Jun 26 Down the Rabbit Hole Beuningen, Netherlands TICKETS Jun 28 Rock Werchter Werchter, BelgiumTICKETS Jul 04 Marlay Park Dublin, Ireland TICKETS Jul 08 Summer Festival Lucca Lucca, Italy TICKETS Jul 10 North Sea Jazz Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands TICKETS Jul 10 T In The Park Auchterarder, UK TICKETS Jul 31 Lollapalooza Chicago, IL, US TICKETS Aug 01 Harrah’s Council Bluffs Casino & Hotel Council Bluffs, IA, US TICKETS Aug 04 Red Butte Garden Salt Lake City, UT, US TICKETS Aug 07 Squamish Valley Music Festival Squamish, BC, Canada TICKETS Aug 16 Red Rocks Amphitheatre Morrison, CO, US TICKETS Nov 18 O2 Academy Brixton London, UK TICKETS

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Solitude is not always as healing and welcoming as we remember it. Looking forward to clarity and the centering of our energies, we shake off the inconsistencies, the pressures, and the burdens of communication, and desperately inquire of alone-ness for the peace we seek. Only when the other beating hearts are silenced do we know exactly what we are missing, as the metronome of relationship is the only natural force that can fulfill this healing, this welcoming. Do not fear dying alone, but do not shun life either, for life is others: the beat that brings us into a common denominator existence, while allowing for all manner of melodies to protrude. Sufjan Stevens confronts this death in ways we may need time to fully understand (as it should be), and begs a welcoming cry from deep within the belly of our universal cadence. His latest album Carrie & Lowell is out now via Asthmatic Kitty Records.

Upcoming Tour Dates

04-10 Philadelphia, PA - Academy of Music 04-11 New York, NY - Beacon Theater 04-12 Hartford, CT - The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts 04-14 Portland, ME - Merrill Auditorium 04-15 Albany, NY - The Palace Theater 04-16 Cleveland, OH - Cleveland Masonic Auditorium 04-17 Columbus, OH - Palace Theater 04-18 Indianapolis, IN - The Murat Theatre 04-20 St. Louis, MO - Peabody Opera House 04-21 Kansas City, MO - Midland Theater 04-22 Minneapolis, MN - Northrop Auditorium 04-23 Milwaukee, WI - Riverside Theater 04-24 Chicago, IL - Chicago Theatre 04-27 Detroit, MI - Masonic Temple 04-28 Grand Rapids, MI - Covenant Fine Arts Center 04-29 Toronto, Ontario - Massey Hall 04-30 Montreal, Quebec - Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier/Place Des Artes 05-01 Brooklyn, NY - Kings Theatre 05-04 Boston, MA - Citi Performing Arts Center Wang Theatre 05-05 Washington, DC - DAR Constitution Hall 05-06 Richmond, VA - Altria Theater 05-07 Durham, NC - Durham Performing Arts Center 05-09 New Orleans, LA - Saenger Theatre 05-10 Dallas, TX - Majestic Theatre 05-11 Houston, TX - Jones Hall for the Performing Arts 05-12 Austin, TX - Bass Concert Hall 06-02 San Diego, CA - Copley Symphony Hall 06-03 Los Angeles, CA - Dorothy Chandler Pavilion 06-05 Oakland, CA - Fox Theater 06-08 Portland, OR - Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 06-09 Vancouver, British Columbia - Orpheum Theatre 06-10 Seattle, WA - The Paramount Theatre 09-04-06 North Dorset England - End of the Road Festival

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JUX: Live at the Music Hall & The Phosphorescent Blues

One is a band. The other is a songwriter’s slow manifestation. One is a pristine aim of perfection hitting every 32nd note. The other is an often inaccessible and secluded musical mindset.

Indeed the true beauty of the Punch Bros. is they remain enormously versatile within their respective instrumental skill sets. These are bluegrass songs with classical arrangements, pop songs about magnets. I’ve often argued that they are the best band on earth right now. Not my favorite band. Just the best. Precision is their modus operandi, weaving entire eons into their sonic tapestries. The Phosphorescent Blues is no exception, only reinforcement, of this magical position. Not so much marking change or maturity (they are far beyond these early stages), the new release is richer, sweeter, catchier, and riskier than we remember their previous albums. Yet a quick revisitation would disclose not an inch of refutation or denial in past works, but culmination, addition, and progression of the oldest and truest muses within these works, and within us all. It’s simply fun, as easy as “This Little Light of Mine.”

A different breed stands behind the mad wheel of Phosphorescent proper. Matthew Houck is known for slow drawls, bacon-crackling melodies, and an ancient style of writing and representation, where words might mean different things while amongst a few friends. He’s enlisted a fine crew for his live appearances, adding exponential levels of excitement and awareness of the sheer involvement Houck feels towards his work. A bold voice, to the point of utilizing a live release to showcase old tunes off records many have never encountered, nor sought. Everything we love about Phosphorescent in the drifting auras, the angel choruses of repetition, the desert meditations on our lost pieces, is brought to us by Houck, regardless of what we desire to find. And thankfully so, as desire too often robs us of opportunity. He offers a slow trek, a long party, and a constant prayer for that which is lost, and being found again.

Simple appearances would pit Punch and Phosphorescent as two separate ends of a long spectrum: one approaching as a staunch embodiment of musical expertise and educated precision, the other with quietly brilliant lyrical acumen and a rambler’s heart. It’s common to see artists ditch previously fruitful endeavors, rebranding their image to better suit a thousand needs. It’s encouraging to see those who make that transition well. Yet, even more so encouraging are those whose older work stands strong beside newer tunes, begging us to go along with them to the beginning, where passions were fresh and streaming service payouts didn’t matter as much. Not unlike the last stand between an Army Ranger and a drunken cowboy, both the Punch Bros.’s rigorous aim, and Phosphorescent’s hopeful hip shot, hit the mark.