Out of the line

After one month of many logistic problems, with the computer and the Internet connection, I'm back to misinform. Many records of the week without a post, some videos and concerts and a few more things. During this last month I've been listening a lot to the next records:
THE BOWERBIRDS - HYMNS FOR A DARK HORSE


Coming from North Carolina, this debut album from these indie-folk kids has some of the most talented hymns of the year, such as In our Talons. Guitar, drums, violin and accordion along with voices and chorus from the three members.

IRON AND WINE - THE SHEPPERDS DOG

The new record of Iron and Wine is the natural next step in his carer. Better sound and more instrumentation than the previous two records, more in the line of The Woman King EP. Some will miss the naked intimacy of the first records, also represented here in some tracks, but I don't think that the full-band arrangements destroy any of the charismatic features that has always been characteristic of his songs.

MATTHEW DEAR - ASA BREED

The new record of this electro-pop freak is somewhere between more commercial and less commercial than his previous records. The strange slowdown voices are more present than ever before, the sounds from drum machines, and the convination of electronic and organic instruments is sometimes frightening and dark but it's also his record with most standard and classical pop songs, more slow motion than dance oriented and with clear postpunk influences (and who doesn't nowadays).

THEE STRANDED HORSE.


Frenchman Yann Tambour, known previously for his work in the abstract electronic project Encre, has just made one of the most interesting folk records of the year. his reason to start this project was the discovery of Kora, an African instrument somewhere in between an arp and a big pumpkin, and most of the songs of the record are played with this instrument. The originality of the project is the convination of this instrument, acoustic guitar, his personal voice (that reminds Devendra Banhart's without the overly dramatic component) and the silences, as important in the record as any other instrument. Some people already call him the masculine answer to Joanna Newsom, but its own personality makes it the best folk record of the year so far.