Listening Assignments 7.28.08

1. Calexico - Two Silver Trees - Everybody's favorite western alt-folk group is pouncing back to Feast of Wire form with the upcoming release of Carried to Dust. Sounds like they're singing out over an expansive plain, echoing across canyons, accompanied by the whispery grasslands and wild dogs. They survive on dust and dew. [from Carried to Dust (out 9.9)|info]

2. Chad VanGaalen - Willow Tree - This is so Chad. Tiptoeing along with timidness. It always sounds like trembling fear, but it always gallops into redemption. This time, especially. [from Soft Airplane (out 9.9)|info]

3. The New Frontiers - Spirit and Skin - I spent a week with this record, after reading numerous reviews saying it was the Militia Group's best release since Copeland's Beneath Medicine Tree (one of my all-time favorite records). And it's good, but not transcendent in any way, save this one song. A simple and beautiful ballad that would be huge if it were recorded on a cheap tape recorder and Sam Beam were singing it. But being on Militia just isn't "cool" enough. [from Mending|buy]

4. My Brightest Diamond - Inside a Boy - Something tells me if it were a dude singing a song called "Inside a Girl", it'd be a major taboo. As it stands, it's more of Shara Worden's Jefferson Airplane-esque spaciness, spinning through an enormous space with violins and tons of reverb. [from A Thousand Shark's Teeth|buy]