VA - Now Hear This! (The Word Magazine, July 2009)

Tracks
01. Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara - Kele Kele (4:01)
02. Fanfarlo - Fire Escape (3:01)
03. The Lemonheads - Waiting Around To Die (2:25)
04. The Mummers - Lorca & The Orange Tree (5:12)
05. Eilen Jewell - Rain Roll In (2:48)
06. Oi Va Voi - Travelling The Face Of The Globe (3:51)
07. Lenka - Bring Me Down (3:29)
08. The Duke & The King - If You Ever Get Famous (3:49)
09. Carrie Rodriguez - She Ain't Me (3:42)
10. Client - Don't Run Away (3:05)
11. Wave Machines - The Greatest Escape We Ever Made (4:51)
12. Sometymes Why - Joey (4:06)
13. Sparrow & The Workshop - Devil Song (2:59)
14. Tom Brosseau - Been True (1:57)
15. Phosphorescent - Can I Sleep In Your Arms (3:41)

Total time: 52m 57s


What's on the CD with the July issue.

1. Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara - Keli Keli
No apology for once again featuring the dynamic pairing of the rock guitar of Justin Adams (producer of Tinariwen and collaborator with Robert Plant) and the hot-from-the-griddle fiddle stylings of Gambia’s Juldeh Camara. This, not the huffing and puffing of the latterday heirs of Clapton (you know who you are), is the true blues Esperanto.
From the album Tell No Lies

2. Finfarlo - Fire Escape
Based in London, Fanfarlo were formed by the Swedish musician Simon Balthazar. They have already released three singles and their first album was recorded in the United States with producer Peter Katis, who has performed the same service for Interpol and The National.
From the album Reservoir

3. Lemonheads - Waiting Round To Die
The new Lemonheads album is made up of cover versions of songs ranging from the familiar (Leonard Cohen’s Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye), through the cultish (Wire’s Fragile), to the hilariously obscure (Yesterlove by Sam Gopal). Given that range, this cover of one of Townes Van Zandt’s tunes fits somewhere in the middle.
From the album Varshons

4. The Mummers - Lorca And The Orange True
Fronted by Raissa Khan-Panni, who had a minor hit under her first name in 2000, and her collaborator Mark Horwood, The Mummers promise to make “the sound of the ordinary cast adrift, of the humdrum left to float somewhere extraordinary”.
From the album Tale To Tell

5. Eilen Jewell - Rain Roll In
This is the third album by this Idaho-bred and Boston-based performer. Her last album was represented on a Now Hear This! compilation and the standard of this new record demands that she be included on this one. “There’s a lot of styles of music that I love equally,” she says, “and I come from all of them. For this record I had a clear sense of the sound I wanted to hear and I managed to communicate that with the band.”
From the album Sea Of Tears

6. Oi Va Voi - Travelling The Fasce Of The Globe
They take their name from an exclamation popular in modern Hebrew meaning “Oh, My God!”. Their influences have included Eastern European folk music as well as klezmer, Ladino and contemporary electronica. On Travelling The Face Of The Globe, where they are reunited with producers Kevin Bacon and Jonathan Quarmby, Oi Va Voi have stretched the musical landscape even further.
From the album Travelling The Face Of The Globe

7. Lenka - Bring Me Down
Like Alanis Morisette and Lisa Stansfield before her, Lenka Kripac is the former host of a children’s TV show (this time in Australia) and has played with the group Decoder Ring. Since 2007 she has been based in Los Angeles developing her solo career.
From the album Lenka

8. The Duke & The King - If You Ever Get Famous
Recorded in Bearsville, New York by The Duke (aka Simone Felice of The Felice Brothers) and The King (aka George Clinton collaborator Robert “Chicken” Burke) and mixed in Brooklyn by Grammy award-winning hip-hop maestro Bassy Bob Brockmann, this is the first single to be taken from their forthcoming album.
From the album Nothing Gold Can Say

9. Carrie Rodriguez - She Ain't Me
Carrie Rodriguez may be familiar to you from her performances and albums with
Chip Taylor. This is her second album in her own right and is produced by Malcolm Burn, who has filled the same function for Emmylou Harris and Patti Smith among others. It features song writing collaborations with Gary Louris and Mary Gauthier alongside an appearance from Lucinda Williams.
From the album She Ain’t Me

10. Client - Don't Run Away
It is a long-established fact that an air stewardess’s uniform can have an effect on the male libido entirely unconnected with their firm grasp of safety procedures. One mentions this because the members of London electro group Client adopt the same uniform as their own. This is a shrewd move.
From the album Command

11. Wave Machines - The Greatest Escape We Ever Made
According to their blurb they are “a mercurial Merseyside four-piece, creating instinctive art-pop; rhythms built of melodic ticks and bleeps, polka dots of sound drawn together beneath Tim Bruzon’s falsetto vocal, part-Beck Hansen, part-Barry Gibb”. Their album was apparently recorded in the bowels of the old organ room at St Brides Church in Liverpool.
From the album Wave If You're Really There

12. Sometymes Why - Joey
Hailed as something of a supergroup in alt-folk circles, Sometymes Why comprise Aoife O’Donovan from alternative bluegrass group Crooked Still, Ruth Ungar Merenda from The Mammals and Kristin Andreassen from Uncle Earl. This is their second time out. “The vibe of the first album was very DIY,” they explain, “which we sought to preserve on this album. But we also wanted to be able to explore bigger sounds.”
From the album Your Heart Is A Glorious Machine

13. Sparrow & The Worshop - Devil Song
A three-piece who claim Scottish, Welsh and American nationality, Sparrow And The Workshop formed in Glasgow in January of last year and have supported British Sea Power all over the UK. Instead of a long-player or an EP, they proudly describe their album as a short-player.
From the album Sleight Of Hand

14. Tom Brosseau - Been True
If you liked Chris Thile’s song How To Grow A Woman From The Ground you’ll probably like Tom Brosseau, because he wrote it. Brosseau’s eighth album, Posthumous Success, offers a similar strain of delicate, slightly savoury Americana. The singer-songwriter circuit is full of “old souls trapped in young bodies” but this one stands out – his voice is antique and strangely effeminate. He’s from North Dakota and now lives in Los Angeles.
From the album Posthumous Success

15. Phosphorescent - Can I Sleep In Your Arms
There was a brief period in the late ’70s when one’s paramour answered to the appellation “lady”. It’s good to see that one-man-band Matthew Houck, formerly of Athens, Georgia and now, like everyone else with a beard, living in Brooklyn, is doing his bit to revive it by recording this Willie Nelson song. One of 11 Nelson covers on his “love letter” album, this makes a nice drifting-off coda to this edition of Now Hear This!. We’ll see you next time.
From the album To Willie