Cities of the Plain

Painted Palms

The Neighborhood: SOMA // Painted Palms from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Yours Truly profiled local act (via Louisiana) Painted Palms for the latest edition of their Neighborhood series. Aside from it being shot beautifully, I love this video for a few reasons. Reese and Chris, the cousin duo behind Painted Palms, live in my neighborhood and there are a number of great shots along Divisadero, the main drag in our area. Also, I have met the guys a few times through mutual friends and it feels great to be able to support nice, talented people from the hood (and to name drop!). I’ve only casually listened to their recorded material, but was lucky enough to catch them last night at Milk Bar and I was extremely impressed. Their sound benefits a lot from the breathing room afforded by a venue and they had the crowd grooving on a typically groove-less Monday night. Highly recommended if they come through your town.

Foreign Born - Keep It In Mind

Foreign Born’s Person to Person remains a perennial summer favorite around these parts. Sadly, it does not look like we will be seeing a follow up to that record anytime soon. Secretly Canadian, the bands label, is reporting that the band will be going on indefinite hiatus as the members focus on other projects. As a parting gift, the guys have offered up a new song, their first since Person to Person. “Keep It In Mind” shakes and grows with the same spirited energy that made their album such a stand-by.

mp3:Foreign Born - Keep It In Mind

The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient

The War on Drugs - “Come to the City” (Official Music Video) from Urban Outfitters on Vimeo.

Check out another video to surface from The War on Drug’s upcoming album, Slave Ambient. The video does a fantastic job of capturing the mood and textures of the more organic, layered sound that they first introduced on their Future Weather EP and pervades the new album. You can hear what I mean by streaming the whole album at the Urban Outfitters blog now. I just bought tickets to see them this Fall in San Francisco and am excited to see the new album come to life.

Shabazz Palaces - Live at KEXP

Lia Ices - Ice Wine

Lia Ices - Ice Wine from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

I imagine this video was shot a few months back when Lia Ices came through San Francisco opening for the Cave Singers. I arrived uncharacteristically early to that show so was able to catch the entirety of their set. I was more or less captivated by her then and, not surprisingly, the team at Yours Truly has done an excellent job at bottling some of that magic. Lia Ices’ debut album Grown Unknown comes highly recommended.

Beirut - East Harlem

This new single from Beirut comes out tomorrow and it is a good reminder that we should all be listening to more Beirut. The repeated line of “the rising sound of your breath in the cold” is a particularly poignant moment that evokes images of a couple bracing against the chill on a winter night in the city. Beirut - East Harlem by Revolver USA

Washed Out - Eyes Be Closed

I haven’t done the requisite research to support this, but in a reflective moment the other night I wondered if my generation, the ambiguous 20-somethings, might be the first generation to actually prefer the way things were as we were growing up. Hardly the greatest generation, historians will refer to us as Generation N. The “N”, of course, for nostalgia. That feeling of vague familiarity which so many generations past rejected to create their own unique vision of the world, embraced whole-sale by us, the non-rebels. Through this unfortunate lens then, “chillwave” becomes our generational soundtrack, music tinged with a reverence for the ineffable quality of times gone past.

Washed Out, the project of South Carolinian Ernest Greene, was initially saddled with the chillwave designation. And not entirely inappropriately, his Life of Leisure EP definitely recalled those familiar feelings. However, if “Eyes Be Closed” is indicative of the rest of his new album then we should become increasingly hesitant to cast Greene off as just-another-chillwaver. The climactic refrain right before the break, “see the world clearly now”, followed by a refreshing cascade of percussion, seems to indicate that he has shed his hazy affection for the past and is looking confidently into the future with clear-eyes. A welcome evolution in his project and possibly a missive of hope, that sooner or later the rest of us will follow suit.

Within and Without, Washed Out’s first proper LP, will be released on July 12th by Subpop and will feature the previously loved track “You and I”. The album was produced by Ben Allen, who also shares credits on Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion and Deerhunter’s Halycon Digest.

French Kicks - Sex Tourists

All splashy drums and blase vocals, the French Kicks aren’t trying to turn any heads with “Sex Tourists”. It is one of those songs you can listen to on repeat for hours without really hearing, one listen seamlessly blending into the next. But then there are those moments when you suddenly realize you stopped whatever you were doing 10 minutes ago and all you have been doing is listening. Eyes closed, head back, listening. The French Kicks are masters of this sort of silent takeover. Half way through they sing “when we’re vibrating somewhere” and I am sure they are referring to that pleasant buzzing sound in your brain when you are blissfully unengaged. Sun on your face, wind in you hair, the world turning ‘round.

“Sex Tourists” is from 2008’s shamefully underrated Swimming, one of those rare front-to-back albums that I still listen to years later.

Alela Diane - Long Way Down

My first reaction after hearing Alela Diane’s new album, Alela Diane and Wild Divine, was to go back and listen to her previous album, To Be Still. Some important change had taken place over the course of albums, but I couldn’t put my finger on it without looking backwards. A few songs in my suspicions were confirmed: this was a new Alela Diane. To Be Still resonated with listeners because of it’s sweet fragility, the product of a young women still searching for her place in the world. Wild Divine, on the other hand, brims with confidence and purpose, the work of a songwriter completely at ease with herself and her craft. This new found maturity suits Diane very well, most so on “Long Way Down”. Here Diane sings of love gone cold, but with the perspective of someone who has learned and grown from her romantic failures rather than been defeated by them. Supported by surprisingly muscular guitars, played by her father and new husband, she sounds much more like country-rock heroine Gillian Welch than Joanna Newsom, the folksy songstress she has typically been compared to in the past.

Gardens & Villa - Black Hills

Gardens & Villa are a new-to-me group out of San Diego looking to have a big year in 2011. They recently signed to Secretly Canadian, who will be releasing their debut LP in July, and have been touring up an down the west coast this Spring. I caught the tail end of one of their packed shows at Amnesia a few weeks ago and was impressed with the two songs I managed to hear. Although, I was disappointed to have missed “Black Hills”, one of the two tracks featured on their Cool Summer Records 7” and one of my favorite songs of the Spring. The song pulses and flutters with a cool energy that makes for a prefect soundtrack to a now sunny San Francisco. While many of their Californian-brethren choose to bash through 2 minute riots these days, G&V are distinct for their pace, letting their songs breathe and sweat, like the perspiration of a cold beer on a hot day. Which is just about the highest praise you can give anything, right?

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A bit of housekeeping here as well. Clearly the current format of COTP is not inspiring much production, so I am going to focus my efforts in the coming weeks. From now on I am going to feature 3 songs, new or old, a week. No more, no less. If I can get in the habit of writing on this schedule I might pull in some show reviews, but for now it is back to basics. Today was our 700th post, a nice round number, and I’d like to keep this going for 700 more.