Check out new music from this week and next, from Ivan Alyosha, Brooke Waggoner, the Cave Singers, the Mavericks, Autechre, Mount Moriah, Woodpigeon, Madeleine Peyroux and more.
I already introduced you to Ivan & Alyosha in December, but if you need a more robust taste of the crew, get a free download of jangle-rock “Running for Cover,” available as iTunes’ Free Single of the Week. If you wish to play along, watch the music video for the track, and just be sure to press your button-down before you do, you look like a slob.
If you don’t have enough Mavericks in your collection — and you don’t, I looked — then their new album “In Time” may be a fun place for entry or re-entry. Songs like “Come Unto Me” confirm their place among country music royalty, and the influx of recording technology has no bearing on the timelessness of Raul Malo’s incredible voice.
To tender that hoarse, Sunday-morning feeling, check out Mount Moriah’s for some sunny hangover helpers, fresh from Merge. There’s little-to-no sheen on these crunchy rock gear-turners for “Miracle Temple,” which has the help of some country crooner influence.
Woodpigeon‘s “Red Rover Red rover” video, from new album “Thumbtacks and Glue”: An excellent and upbeat usage of public domain videos, you earnest sad bastard.
Ahead of the March 5 drop date, Autechre dropped their double-album techno-dyslexia experiment “Exai” digitally nearly a month early. For collectors, CD and vinyl is still out this coming week. They are webcasting a radio show this weekend (March 2 and 3) that will go on for hours and hours, featuring the new tracks. Don’t check your calendar: you weren’t doing anything anyway.
The Cave Singers debuted a poppy new song “Easy Way” via Boing Boing this week, because Boing Boing OK yeah whatever internet. Tambourine-heavy and blissfully crinkled as Lucero’s drinking face, the song is a good taste of “Naomi,” due on Tuesday (March 5).
Jazz and standards singer Madeleine Peyroux could sing me a Ted Nugent autiobiography and I’d still be on my feet for an encore at the end. The piano sounds on each of her records will have you looking long into the mirror (“What is it you want… heart?”), with tracks like “Born to Lose” making you wish you had blown your undergrad on poetry. The Wall Street Journal has a stream of the whole new album “The Blue Room.”
Brooke Waggoner was making eclectic, piano-based tunes long before she was on tap as one of the members of Jack White’s all-girl backing back the Peacocks. Now, like Tegan and Sara, Waggoner has found her commercial destiny in headrushing, smart pop tunes like “Rumble,” below. “Originator” is also out next week.