A happy new year to all! The date has changed but we’re still the same; appreciative of what the past has given us/grateful to see the back of it, apprehensive of what the future holds/greedy to embrace it. So as a product of and homage to the Janusian thinking this time of year brings, today’s article is a double header: one past, one future; one happy, one sad; one track, one video; one electric, one acoustic; both brilliant.
Thao & Mirah’s self-titled, collaborative LP was released through Kill Rock Stars all the way back in April, before Squealer was even a sparking synapse, yet slipped right under our radar. Mirah, currently of K Records and with a discography tracing back to the 90s, and Thao, signed to Kill Rock Stars with her band The Get Down Stay Down, enlisted Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards fame to help out with production duties in a two-week whirlwind of recording. Sharing the instrumentation (from drums and bottles to slide guitar and knee caps) while keeping all the music as in-house as possible, they created a record that swings between clattering drums, soulful acoustica, ear-worm melodies and pitch perfect harmonies without skipping a beat. The gamut of styles and genres through which the record runs is impressive in itself yet the cohesive tone of the album makes it far greater than the sum of its parts and makes us wish we’d stumbled across it before putting together our end of year list.
Eleven (Thao + Mirah ft. tUnE-YaRdS) by thaogetdownstaydown
Canadian indie-folk group Evening Hymns first caught the world’s attention with 2009’s Spirit Guides, the result of years of hard work and determination by the band’s unquestionable leader, nucleus and songwriter Jonas Bonnetta. Not one to rest on his laurels, Bonnetta set about the writing and recording of second album Spectral Dusk before going back on tour to give the songs some airing in the live setting. From what we can tell they remain deeply confessional yet with an added maturity, be it of cynicism or wisdom, that displays Bonnetta’s skills as a songwriter and lyricist so that each song will leave a little part of itself with the listener, a feat only truly talented artists are able to achieve.
Spectral Dusk will be out on Shuffling Feet Records sometime this spring but until then Bonnetta & Co recorded a couple of the new songs for La Blogotheque while on tour last year, presented below.
Evening Hymns | A Take Away Show | Presented By La Blogotheque, NxNE, SxSW and ASTW from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.
So that’s our our first post of 2012. May each year be better than that which preceded it.
