From Portland, with love.

Along with crunchy leaves and drawn-out sunsets, autumn never fails to materialize with a pretty serious cold epidemic. So while I sit here miserably nursing my sickness and wishing I had spent the extra fifty cents on the higher-end snot paper, I am comforted by what I consider to be yet another fall staple: folk music. Because as the weather cools, nothing warms you up quite like the slow guitars and the soothing voices of bearded men wearing plaid shirts. No?

Now if you’re not already deterred by the fact that I used ‘sunset’ and ‘snot’ in the same paragraph, bear with me, I’ll eventually get to the point.

Here are two bands I have grown quite fond of this week. They both hail from Portland, Oregon, which is the land of The Decemberists, microbreweries and um, roses.

Blitzen Trapper is a six-man (six-person? sextet?) ensemble who have been around for a few years. Their new album is called Furr and is their first release under Sub Pop. The title track was quick to seduce me, with its strange lyrics about a boy raised by wolves. Or maybe it was the sound of loons in the background which reminded me of childhood camping trips (please note that this memory triggered thoughts of hot dogs and juice boxes, causing me to walk away and make snacks, briefly forgetting about this post). In a nutshell: this whole album is beautiful and worth your while.

The second band is called Horse Feathers and are completely adorable. Their quiet but gut-wrenching Iron and Wine-type sound has earned them a spot touring with Jose Gonzalez .Their latest album is called House With No Home and I would like it to be my soundtrack as I bike to work in the morning, please. Here it is.

xo.

Festival Season: Ottawa Bluesfest

Day 1 = sunny, musically diverse, a success. Of the handful of acts we were able to see, here are the notables.

People Project, a Canadian-Mexican hybrid built on Latin rhythms and cross-cultural unification, is an extremely talented bunch of dudes. A few members are also part of Ottawa-based SoulJazz Orchestra (MySpace), great in their own right, who happened to join People Project on stage at the end of the set. The songs on their MySpace don't do the improvisational live show justice, but "People," the highlight of the set (with beat-boxing intact) is definitely worth a listen.

José González. What more can be said about this guy, no stranger to the world circuit. He's in his own league with songs ranging from timid to unnerved, at times hopeful, always earnest, sometimes even a bit pissed off at accepted practices (see: "Cycling Trivialities" from last year's In Our Nature). The subtly winding latino and classical guitar riffs sound just as good in the open air as they do in a pair of headphones. If you haven't seen him live and are unsure, here's our stamp of approval (as though that's needed). As an aside, I got a chance to have a couple words with the bearded Swede about the festival circuit and playing Ottawa, one of the highlights of the night.

TV on the Radio. Luckily these boys were delayed in starting, allowing some stage to stage travel time after "Heartbeats" and the like...From "Province" to "Wolf Like Me," and the appropriate "Staring at the Sun" (this was around 8:30, or just before sunset), they did a fine job of commanding the stage and trying to reach out beyond the obvious fan base to those waiting around for The Hip. Very charismatic, passionate performance.

The Tragically Hip. A rare band whose popularity in Canada is wildly beyond that of anywhere else they have a fanbase. As patriotic as you can be, they sang of small-town life, hockey, loyalty, "Courage," and on and on. They covered most, if not all big hits. The following day's paper reported around 25,000 in attendance, if that's so, they seemed to all be standing between my friends and the stage. A sea of people rippling with national pride is captivating, no matter where in the world that may occur. For those outside Canada who know little of The Hip, please check them out to get dose of real Canadiana.

José González - Down the Line
José González - Cycling Trivialities
TV on the Radio - Province
The Tragically Hip - Fireworks
(thanks to Wolves Hawks & Kites for that last link)

- BA

PB & J Talk to BTA about Canada, New Record Plans

Any day that involves last-minute, spontaneous chats with Swedish indie-popsters is a good day by all accounts. So the fact that my afternoon included a brief hang out with the boys affectionately known as Peter, Bjorn & John made waking up this morning a great decision.

PB&J are in Toronto tonight playing a soldout show at the Phoenix, their second in less than a calendar year. After this tour, it's back to the studio to begin recording on the follow-up to 2006's gigantic hit (critically and commercially) Writer's Block.

We talked a bit about the new album, the success of the Swedish music scene, and why the band seems to enjoy coming to Canada.

BTA: 2007 was a successful year for many Swedish artists internationally Jens Lekman, Jose Gonzalez, the Sounds, etc.) and 2006 was pretty solid, too. What exactly is happening over there that's causing the international eyes to turn toward Sweden?

PBJ: The music scene in Sweden isn’t any stronger than it was, but I guess when one band starts to get attention, it helps out all the other bands around them. And also the internet obviously has a lot to do with that.

BTA: What about the Swedish artists who aren't getting enough recognition outside of their homeland? Any bands you think deserve more attention?

PBJ: There’s a band called the Bear Quartet that have been around forever that we've always liked. They've released fourteen albums now, over like fifteen years. Also, there’s a bunch of side projects from them as well.

BTA: So you're doing a few shows here and then down to Mexico and LA for a couple more. What's next for PB&J? Any details on album plans?

PBJ: We're going to head back home and start working on a new album. We're going to take our time on it, though. We definitely won't be working every day. But we hope to have it finished by the end of summer.

BTA: Writer's Block was officially released in 2006 to a lot of critical success, and then still managed to find its way on a bunch of "best of" lists for 2007. Has the longevity of the album surprised you?

PBJ: It’s great that it just keeps growing. But it wasn’t released in proper physical form in a lot of countries, like Canada and the US until February. And there are still some countries, like Brazil, who still haven’t released it but want to. So who knows how long it will go.

What’s funny is that we won a Swedish Grammy for it in 2006, and then were nominated for more in 2007 with the same album. We asked the girl at the record label in Sweden how that’s even possible, and she said it has something to do with it being re-released with a second disc.

BTA: Your website mentions Canada as one of your favourite countries to play. What is it about Canada that has left such a favourable impression?

PBJ: We haven’t been here a lot, but when we have played, the crowds have always been big and really great. We’ve only been to Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal and this (tonight at Phoenix in Toronto) will be maybe our tenth show. But we’ve always really enjoyed ourselves. I think our countries share a lot in common in terms of taste. So we feel pretty at home here.

Peter Bjorn & John - Lets Call it Off (Single Mix)


- bbbykmbrly.

Remix Sunday - Teardrop

This week's Remix Sunday brings you José González's excellent cover of Massive Attack's epic 'Teardrop', from their 1998 album Mezzanine. It's hard to believe that Mezzanine was released almost 10 years ago, but today the album enjoys an almost iconic status. In fact, Rolling Stone ranked it at number 412 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

It's nice that the José González version is as beautiful and wistful as the original. I'm a big fan of previous González covers ('Heartbeats', anyone?) and his original work is really starting to win me over as well. The Swedish singer/songwriter's second album, In Our Nature, was released on September 25th and is quite a gem. I've been on a real Swedish kick lately, but our Scandanavian friends can certainly deliver some quality music. I'll endeavour to share some more secrets from Sweden in the days and weeks ahead.

Neat fact about 'Teardrop': The original version of the song features vocals by Elizabeth Fraser (of the Cocteau Twins). Fraser's vocal part was recorded just after she was given the news that Jeff Buckley, with whom she had a close personal relationship, was missing in the Wolf River of Memphis, Tennessee (high five to Wikipedia for that little tidbit). Creepy.

- a.m.p.m.

José González - Teardrop
Massive Attack - Teardrop

From In Our Nature:
José González - How Low