My final preview of a very special DJ set. This one features the poetry of Della Watson.

Touch or be touched?

A preview of a special DJ set that I’m working on. This one features the poetry of Olivia Cronk.

Where were you when the wheel fell?

I’ve posted a new DJ set. Click the image below to play and download.

I’ve posted two new mixes. Select “DJ Mixes” from the menu bar to preview and download.

JHW

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It’s only April and already 2009 has been an outstanding year for new music.

This playlist contains fourteen of my recent favorites. Click here to download all of the tracks in one zip file.

I’m calling this mixtape “First Quarter Report” because most of the tracks have been released between January 1st and today. There are, however, three tracks on here that I missed in my “Best of” playlist from 2008.

One of the 2008 tracks is My Delirium by Ladyhawke from her excellent debut record that SHOULD have been high on my Best Albums of 2008 list. Many thanks to my friend Kevin for bringing this one to my attention.

Joining the 2008 leftovers is a great track by the Portland-based band Blitzen Trapper and the title track of Jenny Lewis’ superb record “Acid Tongue” which also SHOULD have placed high on my “Best of 2008” list.

I’ve also included a few tracks that aren’t technically “out” yet—One track from Bloc Party’s new remix album and a single from the new Peaches record “I feel Cream” out later next month.

I really enjoy this mix and hope that you will too. It’s a hard hitting dance/rock set in the beginning that gives way to some mellow tunes at the end.

Let me know what you think by hitting the comment section below. Tracklist after the jump.

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A couple of weeks ago I posted the first in a series of mixtapes that feature cover songs. That particular collection was a mellow mix of unconventional covers.

For the second volume in this series the tone become more frantic, and, frankly, weirder. I like to think of this mix as the evil stepsister of the first mix. From 90’s folk rockers covering gangsta rap, to spoken word and industrial giants covering Madonna, this mix has a bit of everything.

Let me know what you think by downloading the mix here. The link will take you to a third-party site where you can download a single zip file with all 13 tracks.

I want to keep this series going indefinitely, so if you have a cover that I need to hear let me know by hitting the Comments section below.

Tracklist and player after the jump…

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Cover songs have always been a cornerstone of contemporary music. Elvis, Patsy Cline, Aretha Franklin, so many of the musicians we think of as “great” were primarily cover artists.

The American Idol school of pop music gets it wrong, though. A great cover song is more than just a reproduction of the original, glossed up with a livelier drum beat and a gospel chorus. The genius of a great cover is not just to reproduce what’s already been done, but to reinterpret it.

This collection features mostly mellow and acoustic translations of a variety of popular songs. In this volume, the voice is the key and each of these artist lend new nuance and texture to the originals.

Download these tracks by clicking here. You will download one zip file with all 15 individual tracks, which you can then sort, delete, and keep at will.

Do you have a great cover song or did you find something here you really enjoy? If so, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.

Tracklist after the jump…

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1. DEAR SCIENCE by TV on the Radio

2. IN THE FUTURE by Black Mountain

3. NEW AMERYKAH: PART ONE (4TH WORLD WAR) by Erykah Badu



4. THIRD by Portishead



5. HEY MA by James



6. NARROW STAIRS by Death Cab for Cutie



7. NEW YORK CITY by Brazilian Girls



8. THE ODD COUPLE by Gnarls Barkley



9. ROBYN by Robyn



10. SEVENTH TREE by Goldfrapp



HONORABLE MENTION

The Slip/Ghosts I-IV by Nine Inch Nails






Intimacy by Bloc Party




Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust by Sigur Ros

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For those of who have not read about or followed the recent efforts by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor to revolutionize the way music is distributed and redefine how bands can build active, loyal fan bases you need to head over to the band’s website and have a look around.

On March 6, 2008 NIN took their first foray into digital self-distribution by offering a 36 track album of instrumentals “Ghosts I-IV” on their website in a variety of formats ranging from a free partial download to a $300 deluxe collector’s edition.

Reznor describes the 36 tracks on Ghosts as “Music for daydreams,” and the description fits well. From the wistful and eloquent to dark and foreboding, Ghosts offers an incisive look into the NIN sonic pallet.

The album was released under a creative commons license, freeing fans to remix, sample, and distribute the tracks from Ghosts in whatever way they see fit.

For me, Ghosts is a smorgasbord of sounds and textures, but trying to listen to all four albums in a comprehensive way is daunting. So, I selected the most compelling tracks and mixed them into a single-track megamix.

Take a listen by clicking the download link below, and if you enjoy what you hear by all means head over to the band’s website and pick up all 36 tracks in a high quality, lossless format for $5.

While you’re there, be sure to pick up the band’s fantastic new album, “The Slip” which Reznor is offering free of charge.

Stream or Download: A Ghost Medley

Tracks Used: 1 Ghosts I, 29 Ghosts IV, 23 Ghosts III, 24 Ghosts III, , 32 Ghosts IV, 14 Ghosts II, 20 Ghosts III, 13 Ghosts II, and 37 Ghosts* (Deluxe edition bonus track).

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Last night I was reading the essay “An Entrance to the Woods” by Wendell Berry (if you haven’t read Mr. Berry’s work there really is no excuse). One particular passage in this poignant essay captured my attention, in the way that only a carefully studied piece of writing can capture one’s attention. The passage describes Berry’s trek into the deep woods of Eastern Kentucky, to a remote spot not too far from where I grew up.

“These are haunted places, or at least it is easy to feel haunted in them, alone at nightfall. As the air darkens and the cool of the night rises, one feels the immanence of the wraiths of the ancient tribesmen who used to inhabit the rock houses of the cliffs; of the white hunters from east of the mountains; of the farmers who accepted the isolation of these nearly inaccessible valleys to crop the narrow bottoms and ridges and pasture their cattle and hogs in the woods; of the seekers of quick wealth in timber and ore. For though this is a wilderness place, it bears its part of the burden of human history. If one spends much time here and feels much liking for the place, it is hard to escape the sense of one’s predecessors. If one has read of the prehistoric Indians whose flint arrowheads and pottery hominy holes and petroglyphs have been found here, then every rock shelter and clifty spring will suggest the presence of those dim people who have disappeared into the earth. Walking along the ridges and the stream bottoms, one will come upon the heaped stones of a chimney, or the slowly filling depression of an old cellar, or will find in the spring a japonica bush or periwinkles or a few jonquils blooming in a thicket that used to be a dooryard. Where ever the land is level enough there are abandoned fields and pastures. And nearly always there is the evidence that one follows in the steps of the loggers.

That sense of the past is probably one reason for the melancholy that I feel. But I know that there are other reasons.”

In this brief passage, Berry encapsulates a feeling I often had growing up in Eastern Kentucky. Simultaneously, one can feel a surreal isolation and a deep connection to the bloodline of the hills.


I was listening to my Ipod on shuffle today when it serendipitously landed on a song by Stantford Kelly. Stantford was a bluegrass musician, born in 1898 who played throughout Kentucky and the surrounding area during his lifetime. Stantford’s talent is the stuff of local lore, and most importantly, to this story at least, he was my great-uncle—my maternal grandfather’s brother. Throughout childhood I heard stories about Stantford, but he died six years before I was born so I never had the chance to meet this man of such considerable family legend.

Last year when I was visiting my grandparents, my uncle played a CD he had bought from the internet and I was startled to hear this old, rough, cracked voice come belting from the speakers—a voice both comforting for its tonal proximity to my own grandfather’s voice and startling because here was the real voice of this man who had only existed as a figment of my family’s folklore.

After playing a few tracks from the album, my uncle said “you know his son has a CD too.”

Stantford’s son, Clarence Kelly, is also a bluegrass musician and his CD “The Mountains are Calling” is a solid, well-written, jubliantly played collection of bluegrass melodies. Clarence’s songs speak of home, both literal and metaphoric, with remarkable clarity and grace. I am particuarly drawn to the title track, the story of a young man calling home to ask his father for money to come home after heading north as most restess young men do who were raised in Appalachia.

Listening to these songs of my distant relatives, I feel connected to my roots but also pulled away from my history, my source. Though I have good reasons for no longer living in Kentucky, the Bluegrass is in my blood and being removed from the land leaves a residual melancholy, an ambiguous longing I quell from time to time. Knowing this week that so many outsiders are on their way to the Derby, I can’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy, for like Wendell Berry I have walked in those hills and felt my own blood connection to the land. In the songs of Stantford and Clarence, I am reminded of that place again and of the tie that binds me to the hills.

Take a listen to these tracks, and if you enjoy them please support grass roots music by making a purchase here and here.

I Love my Honey I Do by Stantford Kelly
The Mountains are Calling by Clarence Kelly

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