New Chilly Songs: Never Let Go + Leaf

I've just posted two new tracks from my experimental-ish new Little Insects album, Autumn Skies EP.

These songs are the most electronic tracks I've made in a while and I'm proud to say that I didn't use guitars at all (excluding bass, guitar) on them. They are intended to be refreshingly "guitar-less" and "chilly" to welcome in the autumn season. The two tracks are intended to be heard in a series so they are "gapless." However, they could work as two distinct tracks as well, I suppose.

Anyway here they are streaming from Bandcamp "Never Let Go" and "Leaf"



You can download them for free from the site as well, you just may have to enter your email so I can email you whenever the next album comes out.

New Songs - Autumn Skies EP

The autumn, while literally chillier, feels warmer than other seasons, figuratively. It's the colors. Naturally, autumn deserved its own concept album--or at least a concept EP.

In the past few days, I spent some extra time indoors, resting and staying warm to help cure a cold, and used the time to also get some recording done on the Autumn Skies EP.


(cover photo by Eric Kankowski)

However, what came out of these recording sessions for this EP will be far different from Almost Ghost in many ways. Since long stretches of perfectly quiet time and ample spaces with nice acoustics are harder to come by in Brooklyn than they were in Orlando, I've had to crank up the volumes of what I record and the amounts of Electro-Harmonix Big Muff pedal that I use.




Turns out, it's actually a good way to play nicely with the background noise of buses and neighbors walking around upstairs. Consequently, Autumn Skies EP is far more noisy than Almost Ghost or anything I've recorded before for that matter.

Take for example the Autumn Skies track, "Let Go of My Sweater," which you can stream from YouTube or download for free from Bandcamp.



It's somewhat of a departure from Almost Ghost, on which I used hardly any distortion at all. You can expect similar things on some of the other tracks on the EP, which are as follows:

Autumn Skies EP - tracklist:

1. Never Let Go
2. Leaf
3. Autumn Skies
4. Let Go Of My Sweater (free download)
(5. Midnight Is Almost Over --- Bonus Track!)

You should be able to grab a copy of the entire EP at either of the following shows:

1. At my November 16th show:



9pm @ Sidewalk Cafe in the East Village, New York
94 Avenue A,
New York, NY
(at the intersection of Avenue A & East 6th St.)
(Click here for the Facebook Event Page)


2. At my November 28th show:



9pm @ Uncle Lou's in Orlando, FL
1016 North Mills Avenue,
Orlando, FL 32803
(near Mills and Virginia Ave.)
(Click here for the Facebook Event Page)


So yeah. I hope to see you at one or both of these shows.

Merry Autumn, everyone!

Jonathan Richman @ Bowery Ballroom

(photo by Vicky Cerutti)

On Monday, November 1, Jonathan Richman played his first of two New York shows at Bowery Ballroom (the other was at Bell House) alongside long-time drummer/entire-band Tommy Larkins. Compared to the other two times I've seen Richman (and Larkins) live this show was both almost exactly like the others and yet full of impromptu "unique" moments like only Richman can provide via on-the-fly lyrical-re-writes to his songs setting it apart from the others as well.

The setlist drew heavily from 2008's "Because Her Beauty is Raw and Wild," which isn't exactly a bad thing considering that late-career album's surprising high-quality. Strangely enough, he left out "As My Mother Lay Lying" from the set, which was a bit of a shame since his performances of the track the two previous times I saw him seemed extremely heart-felt and highlights of both of those sets. However, he made up for it with an awesome, extended rendition of the title track of 2004's "Not so Much To Be Loved as To Love" discussing his young man "yearning" and eventual "learning." Overall, the setlist left little to be desired--except maybe the newer (unreleased?) song "Keith Richards" historicizing the life and style of the Rolling Stone.

A highlight of the set (as usual) was the inter-song commentary. The commentary on the old, Modern Lovers' classic "Pablo Picasso." As he began the now-acoustic version of the song he laughed about how the phrase "some people try to pick up girls and get called assholes" sounded less predatorial in 1969 when he wrote it. His comments here got lots of laughs from the large crowd, packed liked sardines on both levels of the Bowery Ballroom.

He added to the amusing commentary by giving some "behind the scenes" stories regarding the new album. At another point of the show, he talked about the constant changes in direction during the last six months of recording his follow-up to "Because Her Beauty is Raw And Wild" and mentioned how each recording session took the album in a completely different direction than he thought of taking it the previous direction. Then he mentioned how the title-track of the new album, "Oh Moon, Queen of Night on Earth" (due out Nov. 9 on Vapor Records) was born out of an impromptu call-and-response between himself and the female vocalist in the studio featuring the title-phrase. He admitted to having no idea what to respond or where to take the song after she sang her part, but somehow something came to him. And that "something" turned out to be a pretty decent, new Richman track I was hearing for the first time.

Of course, that wasn't everything. It just wouldn't've been a Jonathan Richman show without his trade mark dance moves appearing about as frequently as other artists take guitar solos.


(photo by Vicky Cerutti)

Korallreven - Honey Mine (feat. Victoria Bergsman)

If you could break great pop down to a formula it would have to be this: lushness + funkiness + euphonious/melodious vocals. "Honey Mine" The new Korallreven collaboration with Victoria Bergsman (the woman behind/in-front-of Taken By Trees, the Concretes and Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks") is perhaps the greatest example of that formula in action.

Korrallreven - Honey Mine (feat. Victoria Bergsman) (via DiscoBelle)