MONTHLY MIXTAPE: APRIL

So I think we're gonna start putting together a mixtape at the end of each month. It'll be made up of some of the stuff that's been rocking our cubicle. Here's the first one.

mp3: Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele - Meet Me In The Garden
mp3: The Henry Clay People - You Can Be Timeless
mp3: The Boy Least Likely To - Every Goliath Has Its David
mp3: Harlem Shakes - Strictly Game
mp3: M. Ward - To Save Me (with Jason Lytle)
mp3: Andrew Bird - Heretics (early version)
mp3: Matt & Kim - Lessons Learned
mp3: The National & St. Vincent - Sleep All Summer (Crooked Fingers cover)
mp3: Neko Case - I'm An Animal
mp3: Noisettes - When You Were Young (Killers cover) Live

SONG: This Tornado Loves You

I'm completely loving this song.

Neko Case, whose voice is already a force to be reckoned with, becomes an actual force of nature on her latest album, Middle Cyclone. Literally. On this, the opening track, she sings about how she's "smashed every transformer with every trailer / til nothing was standing / sixty five miles wide / still you are nowhere."

The outro refrain of "This tornado loves you / What will make you believe me?" is just so great.

This is an album you should own.

Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You
from the album Middle Cyclone (Amazon/iTunes)

NEWS: Beirut! M. Ward! Neko Case! Hooray 2009!

I apologize in advance for such a scatter-shot post. I'm just so excited for 2009 for so many reasons that I just had to throw it all up here.

First and foremost, I'm getting married on Saturday to the love of my life. But since this isn't a personal blog, I'm going to assume that you don't care and that's all I'll give you. Let it be known though, I'm pretty stoked.

On a more musical note (heh), 2009 is already shaping up to be pretty fantastic.

As Logan already pointed out, one of my very, very most anticipated releases for some time comes out in less than a week. But that's not all folks, that same day will see the release of Bon Iver's new EP, Blood Bank and The 1900s' EP Medium High (a collection of old odds and ends tracks).

A close second on my anticipated releases of 2009 is M. Ward's Hold Time, which like most-anticipated-release-number-one, you can stream in its entirety at NPR. Fantastic.

My third most anticipated album of the year (third only in order, not in amount of anticipation), is Joshua James' new record, which finally has a release date - April 28th (according to his myspace)! Mark your calenders friends. UPDATE: According to a recent email, it looks like sometime in May will be the official release.

Okay just two more! Zach Condon will be releasing two EPs next month - one, titled March of the Zapotec, he'll be releasing as Beirut, and the other, titled Holland, will be released under his lesser-known Realpeople moniker (UPDATE: the second will be titled Realpeople Holland and will also be released as Beirut). Each will reflect a particular culture in music, as we've come to expect from the talented Mr. Condon. Read more here.

And finally, we just got a taste of Neko Case's new album, Middle Cyclone, today. It's called 'People Got A Lotta Nerve', and it's as awesome as her record cover. Check out the song below.

Every one of these deserve their own post, but due to reasons stated in paragraph two, I'm pretty busy right now. But let's all just take a moment and get excited for the great year of music we have ahead of us! Alright. As you were.

Neko Case - People Got A Lotta Nerve
from the album Middle Cyclone (out March 3rd!)


Beirut - Elephant Gun
from the Lon Gisland EP (iTunes)

SONG: We are the challengers of the unknown

Finals are almost over, and that means that in just a few days I am going to feel about 100% better than I do today.

Not that I'll really have any time off, as the end of this semester just brings the beginning of the dental school application process for me. Just moving from one phase to the next, once again. I know many of you might be facing some pretty big events in the coming days and months, whether it's tossing a graduation cap, tossing a bouquet, starting to get serious, starting over, having babies, moving to some far-flung point on the globe, or saying goodbye to good friends who are moving to some far-flung point on the globe - it seems like there are a lot of people I know who are bracing to face whatever comes next. At the expense of sounding overly sentimental, consider this a good-luck post to all you challengers of the unknown.

A few months ago I had my own experience of standing on the brink of the unknown. And like every significant moment in my life, there were a few songs that were particularly important to me at the time, and they'll forever be linked to that point in time in my mind. One of them is this song by the New Pornographers, off the record of the same name (which is a record you need to become familiar with if you aren't already).

Here are some of the lyrics, crooned by the beautiful and talented Ms. Neko Case:

On the walls of the day / In the shade of the sun / We wrote down

Another vision of us / We were the challengers of the unknown...

Until I see you around / Until we clear the accounts / Leave it there

Leave it to us / We are the challengers of the unknown.

All the best to you, whatever you're doing.

The New Pornographers - Challengers

from the album Challengers (Amazon/iTunes)