Trees that Tower and an Album Called Babel

Last night found us wrapped in blankets beneath the big tree, hiding from errant raindrops, listening to Mumford and Sons, smiling like we have secrets, smiling like little kids.

The album is a family and every song afire with a passion all its own. There is no resolve like the kind in "Holland Road," no hope like that in "I Will Wait," and no love like "Not With Haste." They demand and they promise and then leave the believing and the loving and the rallying to you.

These are the songs of the prodigal son. These are the songs of the wandered. These are the songs of the ones who ride triumphant into love with hands open and brave hearts brave and unfailing.

get on the roof

16 Reasons to Get Yourself on the Roof(top Concert Series) this Friday:

1. It's outside. On top of a parking garage. In the summer. #epic
2. It's F R E E .
3. There will most likely be white lanterns strung all over the place.
4. Black Sheep Cafe's sweet potato fries.
5. India Palace's curry stand.
6. New Electric Sound is playing. (Need proof for their coolness? Watch here:
7. Oh yeah, and Fictionist will be there too (!).
8. It's easy to get to the front of the stage if you want.
9. It's easy to get far away from the stage if you want.
10. You can sit or stand.
11. Sammy's shakes are a mere stone's throw away.
12. Chances are you'll run into at least five people that you know and like.
13. Always great trend spotting here--pompadours, stars and stripes denim pants, suspenders, teal windbreakers...you name it, Rooftop Concerts has it.
14. FlyProvo sponsors the Concert Series. Here's why this counts as a reason to go to the concert: If you haven't flown out of Provo yet, it's pretty much all-caps COOL. Super-convenient, super-close, they give you a warm cookie on the flight, annnnnd you get to walk out on the tarmac like you're in a 1940's film. (If you're missing my logic here, if FlyProvo=COOL and FlyProvo=Rooftop Concerts, then Rooftop Concerts=COOL.)
15. 3BYoga also sponsors it. Anything these people do turns to gold, so you know these concerts have to be good.
16. I'm going to be there, so duh it's a good idea.

In other words,
Provo Rooftop Concert Series.
7.30 on September 7.
Seriously, though.
Come.

"the thunder of summer is rumbling in" (The Avett Brothers' new album)

Two and a half years ago, a group of us gathered in a basement late at night to listen to a newfound band, the Avett Brothers. Tucker rode his bike to the next town over to get the album (I and Love and You), and delivered the most beautiful love-letter for an album that any of us had ever heard before.

And then we sat in the dark and listened. I cried during "I and Love and You."

And now the Avetts have a new album again: The Carpenter. (You can listen to it in its entirety, courtesy of NPR's First Listen.) When a band puts out another album after huge success on their first, I listen for what's different. If it's just more of the same, I'm less impressed, and usually don't end up buying the second album. But if they can add something new, show the world they've got expansive skills, then I buy. Frinstance, after the compilation of one-hit miracles on X&Y, Coldplay's Viva La Vida was a storybook and an epic poem--the songs could stand on their own (as in X&Y), but they were also integrated into the arc of each other. Beirut's The Rip Tide showed a more crisp, driven Zach Condon than the warbling, wandering gypsy melodies (which I love just as much) of Gulag Orkestar. And after For Emma, Forever Ago, Justin Vernon actually sings notes in the bass clef on Bon Iver.

Here, in this "next" album, the Avetts are certainly putting on some new hats. The headline song, "The Once and Future Carpenter" is cedarn and valleyed like John Denver. "Live and Die"'s clippy rhythm and rhymes are reminiscent of some of Colin Meloy's work with the Decemberists. And "Paul Newman v. The Demons" is its own beast entirely.

They carry off this foray into new styles with a tentative (and endearing) curiosity, even if the poetics and melodies of these first few songs are a little more generic and predictable than their first album's. And this is where it gets sticky: I have mixed feelings about the Avetts trying on new hats. I and Love and You was a tender, incredibly intimate peek into two brothers' hearts. I fell as much in love with their purposeful, compassionate view of the world as I did with their voices and melodies.

So I came at The Carpenter waiting for the one song that would grab me around the throat and choke me, the way "I and Love and You" did the first time I heard it. The album takes a little while to get there--it isn't until "February Seven" that I start feeling like I'm really listening to the Avett Brothers--but by the time "Through my Prayers" and "A Father's First Spring" comes around, that familiar goodhearted, bright-eyed longing is back in full force: "I have been homesick for you since we met."

Best song on the album? The last one, "Life."
"We're not of this world for long."

And that's what I love most about the Avett Brothers--they remind me of the bigger things I was born for, of the bigger worlds that exist in honesty, in forgiveness, and in loving each other.

(P.S. What's your favorite Avett Brothers song?)

music monday

1. "Kids" (Lady Danville)
2. "Dahl Parts" (The Theater Fire)
3. "Follow Me" (John Denver)

rooftop concert: 16 good things

This week's been a bit of a case of the mean reds, I'm afraid. I almost stayed home tonight to get some sleep and some rest and maybe do some laundry or read a book or be responsible like a real-adult is. But then some very influential people called (and by "very influential" I mean they have the power to talk little me into anything, not necessarily "influential" like Mitt Romney or Oprah or Mr. Darcy) and before I knew it, I was driving down to a little thing we call the Rooftop Concert Series.

And boy am I glad I went, because the night bubbled over in benevolence, old friends, new introductions, and lots of good tunes.

The list of good things is as follows:

1. listened to Blessid Union of Souls all the drive down. (They actually have some amazing songs.  Remember this?)
2. found the haircut I've been dreaming of.  I'll explain: there's a haircut that exists in my mind but that I can't find any pictures of or examples of anywhere.  This makes requesting said-haircut difficult and risky. (Not to be confused with "risque," which my nine yr. old sister did this afternoon.) So where's the best place to find awesome haircuts?  The Rooftop Concert Series.  I asked the girl that was sporting it if I could take a picture, and she was so obliging, she even explained to me the ins and outs of the haircut.
3. was introduced to the charming sounds of Book on Tape Worm.
4. saw a whole slew of people I really like. (Can you use the word "slew" when talking about people? I'm not so sure...)
5. met Danielle, a girl with very much kindness and very amazing hair. I think we'll be friends now. Especially because we see each other sometimes at the milkshake place.
6. saw a new side of Brandon tonight--the "fightin' words" side.  this = exciting because it means we've crossed into a new realm of friendship.  which i like a lot.
7. saw Miss Liz (yep, apparently these concerts are the place to go). She is tall and stately and elegant and beautiful and every time I see her I feel better about who I am because that's the effect she has on people. Sigh.
8. stood on an elevated curb, held onto a railing, and swung out so I could see the concert better. I don't know what it is about holding onto railings and swinging out, but I find it particularly wonderful and want to do it all the time. (One time doing so almost got me hit by a bus in Scotland. Sheesh, remember that time?)
9. got to go up close for the last band
10. realized the last band is actually a band that I LOVE. He headlined under the name "Isaac Russell" (which I didn't recognize) but when I knew every single song by heart, I started trying to figure out where I knew the music from. It was like music from a dream. Then on the last song it hit me--RURU, a band I fell in love with years ago when my friend Marci introduced me to them. (At least I think it was Marci...sorry if I'm giving credit to the wrong person.  There is nothing worse than when someone else gets credit for finding a band that you love :)
11. sat on the concrete for a while with my amigos. There is something singularly enjoyable about sitting on concrete with nowhere to go on a summer night.
12. saw Daniel (an old, old friend who I haven't seen in years) and met his wife, who was darling and who I think I want to be friends with because she's starting a publishing company and likes good music and was otherwise just generally really delightful to talk to.
13. saw Joshua James, long-time musician idol. He was wearing reeeeeally short shorts.
14. saw lots of handsomely trimmed beards and shirts buttoned up to the top button--all things I find endearing.
15. drank some dang good grape soda.
16. drove home with the windows rolled down, doing that wavy thing with my arm out the window (you know what i'm talking about), listening to "Time after Time" and I didn't roll them up until I was parked in my driveway. I need more of those summer moments in my life.

music monday

1. "Oh Henry" (The Civil Wars)
written in the mountains of Salt Lake City

2. "A Corps Perdu" (Gregory LeMarchal)
Gregory LeMarchal battled cystic fibrosis. He passed away in 2007 of lung complications.

3. "Mercy" (Dave Matthews Band)
the band's newest song woot.

music monday

1. "Ten-Twenty-Ten," Generationals
2. "I Wish That I Was Beautiful For You," Dustin Hanlon
3. "Knot Comes Loose," My Morning Jacket

let's have a party and do this:

of monsters and men video.  a little music for your wednesday.

a love letter for the bon iver concert

In the vast sea that is mainstream music, some albums are just a drop in the bucket, made to make a quick couple of bucks.  I'm thinking of anything Owl City did post-Fireflies, most Justin Beiber songs, and kinda any song by Adele (sorry Grammy committee.  But I mean..."I'll set fire to the rain"?  What does that even mean?!).  And then there are albums that actually try to change how we listen to music--albums that are the moon changing the tide and carbon emissions melting icebergs and raising sea levels.  "For Emma, Forever Ago" is that kind of album.

First, there's the lyricism in the title: "For Emma, Forever Ago"--the parallel between "For Emma" and "Forever" as if they're synonymous, the breakdown and loss when the parellel turns into "Ago," the hopeful promise when you stick that "ago" with "forever"...  This alone should win anyone over to at least a good-hearted listen.

And what do you find then?  Melodies that cascade over each other and choruses that echo and timber and rush.  

Please listen to it from start to finish.  

Please turn the lights out and lay spread eagle on the floor.  

Please open a window and let the moonlight or the streetlight fall through the blinds and make stripes on the carpet.  

And of this week, when Bon Iver came to town, I can say only that the audience was a lightshow gallery of iPhone screens and camera LCDs, that the Red Butte breeze pushed the seaweed-curtains and his Bon Iver hair like he was sailing headlong into a storm, crying, "Who will love you?", which he answered again and again: "Thank you. I love you all."

He played the nighttime into "Michicant", and by the time the song was over, the stars were out.

#valtarihour

 So there we were, the seven of us, in a blanket fort in a loft apartment, drinking cane-sugar ginger ale and eating berries and cinnamon dip and thinking the birds outside were part of the tracks that Sigur Ros was streaming across the world, a global listening party.

I live in a world where there isn't much time for thinking or for watching or for listening.  But tonight I thought about how my life has let me live every one of my dreams, the big ones and the little ones.  I thought about how it has been nothing but a forth-flowing of grace upon grace.  I thought about the magic and the sublime that I sometimes forget is inside me, and that I sometimes forget is inside others. Tonight I traversed the landscape of my heart and found there mountains and gentle valleys and all as it should be.

I watched the sheets of our little blanket-fort ceiling push back back and forth with the wind through the open windows.  

And most of all I listened.

This is something I feel strongly about: 

Find space in your mind to be quiet, to let thoughts come and go as they please, to do nothing more than watch a sheet get teased in the breeze.  Make a blanket fort and turn out the lights and drink ginger ale, or at least do those things in your heart and mind.  The world is invading my world and I won't have it.  I'm going to lay down my stakes and trace a circle around myself and think and watch and listen.

{review}: move slow and steady, feel like a waterfall

via

listen here: Of Monsters and Men's new album "My Head is An Animal" is about to change your spring.
the group is from Iceland (big surprise--music this beautiful and textured can only come from a place similarly so).

via

this is the kind of music that all music hopes to be: haunting, calming, and bursting with joy.
the melodies of the album braid together, carve deep, reverberate.
like echoes in the mountains.
or a cableknit sweater in the wet-chilly forest air.

"Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and Ragnar Þórhallsson's lead vocals, appropriate to the land of fire and ice, intertwine beautifully before erupting into rousing sing-along choruses.  Each song demonstrates wide-eyed, openhearted exuberance. It's an album that rings with unbridled joy, just in time for spring."  
(Kevin Cole of KEXP)


the album's available April 3.
until then listen here.

teenage boy bands

i started the morning with a little aqualung, then arcade fire, and then dissatisfaction.  the aforementioned bands are my big-girl, twenty-something reluctant hipster grad student music.  and today, it just wasn't doing it for me.

then i remembered that this existed:

ladies, do you remember this?!  then, do you remember when you found out they were from england, and hence infinitum times more irresistible?  (i was by a pool in salt lake city with my brother when i found out.  yes, this is one of those few memories of my youth that i have held onto for some reason.  perhaps that's pathetic. (shoulder shrug))

all i'm saying is every now and then you just need a little 90's boy band music.  and this morning was one of those now and thens.  after bbmak, of course i listened to backstreet:

i think it's safe to say we were all there for "i want it that way," but not everyone was around for their resurgence...2005 was it?  

at any rate, all this boy-band-listening reminds me of a beautiful (truly. beautiful.) video sister camille (also truly. beautiful.) showed me when she came for the weekend.  you must watch it or you won't get how cool it is.  do it.  cast aside your snooty "i'm over teenage boy bands" attitude and embrace the joy that only five teenage boys singing and dancing and jumping around can create:

(sigh)

i like this video for ohsomany reasons:

1) cardigans, suspenders, maroon pants, shirts buttoned to the top button.  listen up, boys of america, this is where fashion will be in six months.  get on board.

2) pompadour.  need i say more?

3) ummmmm, is that HAMPSTEAD HEATH they're playing on?!

4) big ben big ben big ben!  (not to mention nelson's column, the national gallery of art, st. paul's cathedral, millennium bridge (aka: the harry potter bridge), big ben at night........etcetera..........)

5) buskkkkking! which thing i love for two reasons: first, because some busking-dude sang "it's now or never" to me and some friends on westminster bridge. and second because mark my words, as soon as the weather gets nice, i am going to busk!

6) another reason: how completely self-indulgent the concept of this video is: "let's get a bunch of shots of girls wanting to take their picture with us while we wander the streets of london, amassing hundreds of people as we walk!"

7) and tangentially how completely happy they are to be singing about whatever it is they're singing about (who even knows?).  i mean, these boys are seeping exuberance.

8) oh and i love that my friend andrea is in it (2:42ish)

so there you go.  still in love with teenage boy bands.

EPILOGUE, in the style of And Then There Were None's epilogue, in which several creepy things about aforementioned events are revealed:
did anyone else notice some creepy similarities between all these boy band videos?  like that One Direction talks about "climbing the walls"...which is the title of the Backstreet Boys song?  and that both BBMak and One Direction are busking in london?  and that "i want it that way" happens at an airport...which is the same thing as the train station that appears in BBMak?  (cue Hitchcock theme music)

new year wish number {two}

someone to whisper secrets to

music crushes, 2011

one time, my friend nick, a real music guru if there ever was one, said he'd marry eisley's voice if he could.  i've had a good handful of music loves this year...come to think of it, i probably hear their voices at least daily.  how often can you say that about a person--that you hear their voice daily?  good thing their voices are so loveable...

in chronological order, and for your listening pleasure, i'm coming clean--admitting all my [musical] crushes of the year.  dear men featured here, your voices are beautiful.  they've made the melodic fabric of my visions and of my imagination for the last 365 days.  i would marry each and every one of your blessed voices. 

ROBIN PECKNOLD

of FLEET FOXES

the following song first debuted at music at ten, courtesy of jake who's always up on stuff like new songs available for free download.  totally enamored of fleet foxes' first album, i downloaded A-SAP, then proceeded, michael-style, to listen to nothing other than this one song, on repeat, for everyday.  late one night, after the fort days of february, i was sitting in the dark with friends (this sounds very hipster.  it wasn't.  just bored and enjoying music.  on the floor.  in the dark.  okay fine, it was totally hipster.).  i accidentally switched itunes to visualizer mode and thus opened a new world of wonder!  first, the colors of the visualizer are rainbow.  second, the explosions and vibrancy of said rainbow shapes are synced with the rhythm and intensity of the music!  there are some things words cannot explain.  not many, but some.  this is one of them.  try it.  download the song, switch to "jelly" mode in visualizer, turn off all the lights, turn up all the speakers.  mesmerizing, enchanting, captivating, hypnotizing, ensorcelling, bewitching.  not to mention the whole bit about orchards.

oh and then i saw fleet foxes specifically robin pecknold perform in london.  in a theatre with all the seats removed, with amazing acoustics.  and when that first riff of sun giant rippled acoustic through the crowd....silence and harmony and perfect music.  there aren't many moments of perfect music in your life.  that was one of them.

MARCUS OLIVER JOHNSTON MUMFORD

of MUMFORD & SONS

ohhh, marcus mumford.  where ever did you come from.  i don't even remember how i found you...  but oh your voice like honey from the alps, oh your stomping like a party underground!  this was what caught my eye:



this is what endeared me to you (specifically at "rage" (1:36) and at 4:10 when you may or may not be crying):



and this is why i keep listening:

MATT BERNINGER

of THE NATIONAL

when i listen to this, i am walking to portobello road, through kensington gardens.  i am ordering curry at the shop around the corner.  i am sitting next to preston and andrea at the gloucester tube stop, on our way through the evening to the national theatre stopping for galaxy bars and cadburys with hazelnuts.  i am walking the bridge to the globe.  i'm running back to my flat and bedroom after class, my bedroom that smells like humidity, grabbing two clif bars, and meeting everyone at the door for the day's gallavantings.  i am riding to the victoria stop singing, "squalor victoria."  i am on the train to scotland, i am at primark, i am walking to portobello road, through kensington gardens.  his voice is the sound of london--the rain, the busses, the rooftops over queen's gate terrace while i wait for my laundry to dry.

CHARLIE FINK

of NOAH AND THE WHALE

charlie was my other london lover.  he came across europe with me too, hiked up to murren with diana and i, made me rethink my loving.  other than that his lyrics are sheer and utter brilliance, i have nothing to say.

JUSTIN VERNON

of BON IVER

okay so this crush is no new revelation (or crispy realization, if you know what i'm saying), ever since that first night at dinner group, sooo many years ago, when amanda g. queen of the world and i listened to "for emma, forever ago" three times straight through while making enchiladas...that's how long this crush has been existent.  but i didn't truly recognize the depth to which my affections ran until i was sitting on a bed, overlooking a bay on the italian coast, listening to "towers" for the first time, not knowing who the artist was.  that song left me with mouth wide open, giggling and shaking my head, like a new dream that is so familiar in its perfection, but so captivating that every note is both a revelation and an ancient promise you've known all along.  this song is the naked waves blue and glistening.





i chose to post the version with only the album cover.  the others have too much to look at and it takes away from the unexpected delight of unexpected words like "onus" and "swampy", "towers" and  "honeycomb," and how they weave their way together into an impossibly tangled and impossibly delicate world, building itself around you with every line.

ZACHARY FRANCIS CONDON

of BEIRUT

this romance started way back last summer 2010 with "postcards from italy."  it continued, obsessed and unashamed, to this fall, when i discovered this gem and couldn't stop singing it/thinking about it/whistling it/playing it/thinking about it more.

and then i read about zachary and how cool he is, and now i mostly want to marry his voice AND him, not to mention every one of his albums, and whoever the guy is who plays the horns (seriously awesome, guy).

if i had more time and it wasn't an hour and a half past my new-year's-resolution bedtime, i'd talk about all the words these men have written that i've punched out, letter by letter, so many times in the typewriter-that-is-my-brain that they're embedded deep, deep in what i believed this year.  words like

gold hair in the sunlight, my light in the dawn.  if i had an orchard, i'd work till i'm sore.

and

so now i've grown older than my mother and father when they had their daughter.  now what does that say about me?

serve God, love me, and mend.

and

i could see for miles, miles, miles

if you give a little love, you can get a little love of your own.  don't break his heart.

,

when love comes a-calling, don't forget the tune.

love, it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free!  be more like the man you were made to be.

and still, the sweet london march, through side-streets new and unexplored:

stay out super late tonight, picking apples, making pies

this seemed to be the year of songs that break-down halfway through into their real selves.  "helplessness blues," "sigh no more," "postcards from italy," "fake empire," "towers."  they all do it.  and come to think of it, this seemed to be the year that broke me down halfway through into my real self.  broke down the "what i thought i wanted to be" so the "what i really want to be" could come out, foot-stomping, accordion-squeezing, orchard-picking and all.  broke down so that my real dreams (like maybe ditching academia for creating my own path) could be colorful and promising and adventurous.

...get over your hill and see what you find there, with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

new year wish number {one}

someone to have adventures with, someone with whom to walk to the sea.

calisthenics and mile thursday

when i was in seventh grade we had to run the mile every thursday.  i dreaded that day all week every week.

i love this video for so many reasons. watch it before you read more.

the freckles,
the puddles,
the train,
the yell-singing,
the heart pumping,
the fireworks.

i want to be friends with every one of these kids,
that last boy especially.
keep running, kid.

focus on your ability. {finals week '11}

got shackles on,
my words are tied

fear can make you compromise

fast enough
it's hard to hide

sometimes
                  i
                  want
                        to

                                 d
                                 i
                                 s
                                 a
                                 p
                                 p
                                 e
                                 a
                                 r

{magic of the season}: music!

last christmas i did a lot of listening to this great free album called "hey it's christmas!"

and what do you know,

this year these wonderful people put out another one!  

also free, also beautiful.

(i mean, would you look at this album art?  that alone should convince you to download.)

favorites include silent night and little drummer boy.

download here: http://heyitschristmas.com

*other music fixes lately include:

spotify (which is currently blowing my face off it's so cool)

and

les concerts a emporter (i could spend hours on here)

and 

buying a guitar strap.  finally.  which has resulted in me spending too much time wandering around the apartment troubadour-style singing josh ritter to my roommates

{magic of the season}: jazzy shoes

what i learned today:

it is impossible to listen to this song while wearing these shoes and not dance everywhere i go.

a love letter

did you know that this kid dropped out of high school at fifteen because it wasn't challenging him, and instead moved to paris with his brother?  he learned french and listened to french chansons and learned every instrument he could.

and now here he is: writing every part of every song--sometimes up to 15 instruments--and touring the world and making albums inspired by Eastern European gypsy music and 1907 photos of the hot air balloon festival in Paris.

i can't get enough.



(info above found here and here)