“I can’t. Get out. Of what I’m into with you.” Comes the pleading refrain, the beautiful prison built from love, the acceptance of a commitment to the agonies and pleasures of throwing yourself into another person, a piece of bittersweet romantic honesty that floats so delicately out of the tail section of All We Ask that it almost seems possible to cup it out of the air and hold it to your chest. It’s easy enough to allow moments like this to float by, unnoticed. There is after all, a plethora of sweet, gentle melodic peaks and dramatic, rolling troughs to choose from besides. You don’t get smoke without fire. Veckatimest is here and crackling away under the billowing clouds of hype and hyperbole there’s a flame burning. Grizzly Bear have written an album with a beating heart. Continue Reading

Now, I would have posted about this a couple of hours ago but I’ve literally only stopped listening to ‘Cheerleader’, the new Grizzly Bear song the kind folk at Warp Records sent over earlier this afternoon. Yes, this is the first taster from one of the most eagerly awaited albums of 2009 – and (thank fuck) it doesn’t disappoint. Not one bit. As can be expected from team Grizzly, the track is sonically luscious, washing over you in a sea of spring reverb, mellotron and gorgeous harmonies. Production wise – I guess it’s a steady continuation from last years Grizzly Bear off-shoot project Department Of Eagles.

Veckatimest is released via Warp on May 25th and features twelve new songs including ‘Two Weeks’ which features vocals from friend of TLOBF Victoria (Beach House) Legrand.

On the live front, no UK dates have been announced as yet – but if you’re lucky enough to be at SXSW this week the band will be performing tomorrow (19th March) at Central Presbyterian Church (at 8:30pm) and Friday (20th March) at Cedar Street Courtyard (at 11:45pm). The band have also just confirmed their appearance at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago in July. Lucky.

mp3:> Grizzly Bear: ‘Cheerleader’

As previously reported here, the new 4AD compilation Dark Was The Night will be released next month and comprises of 31 exclusive tracks curated by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and the AIDS charity Red Hot.

‘Knotty Pine’ by The Dirty Projectors and David Byrne is just one of the many, many highlights on this fabulous set and has just been made available as a free download.

Also, as of yesterday, 4AD began a track-by-track premiere of the record. From January 15 through February 15, each track, in order will be streamed for one day only at www.myspace.com/DarkWasTheNight as well as on the relevant band’s MySpace page.

Tracks to look out for are Antony Hegarty’s stirring take on the early Dylan classic ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’, ‘Cello Song’ by The Books and Jose Gonzalez, ‘Deep Blue Sea’ from Grizzly Bear and a cover of Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling Good’ by My Brightest Diamond – which really shouldn’t work but does in a quite fantastic way. Oh, and there is a stunning reworking of Bright Eyes’ ‘Lua’ where Coner Oberst is joined by Gillian Welch on vocals. Basically, there isn’t a duff track over the whole 2 discs.  Definitely an essential purchase for 2009 and for a great charity  to boot. Pre-order here.

Tracklist in full:

‘THIS DISC’

1. “Knotty Pine” – Dirty Projectors + David Byrne
2. “Cello Song” – The Books featuring Joses Gonzalez
3. “Train Song” – Feist and Ben Gibbard
4. “Brackett, WI” – Bon Iver
5. “Deep Blue Sea” – Grizzly Bear
6. “So Far Around The Bend” – The National
7. “Tightrope” – Yeasayer
8. “Feeling Good” – My Brightest Diamond
9. “Dark Was The Night” – Kronos Quartet
10. “I Was Young When I Left Home” – Antony with Bryce Dessner
11. “Big Red Machine” – Justin Vernon + Aaron Dessner
12. “Sleepless” – The Decemberists
13. “Die” – Iron & Wine
14. “Service Bell” – Grizzly Bear + Feist
15. “You Are The Blood” – Sufjan Stevens

‘THAT DISC’

1. “Well-Alright” – Spoon
2. “Lenin” – Arcade Fire
3. “Mimizan” – Beirut
4. “El Caporal” – My Morning Jacket
5. “Inspiration Information” – Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
6. “With A Girl Like You” – Dave Sitek
7. “Blood Pt. 2″ – Buck 65 Remix (featuring Sufjan Stevens and Serengeti)
8. “Hey, Snow White” – The New Pornographers
9. “Gentle Hour” – Yo La Tengo
10. “Amazing Grace” – Cat Power
11. “Happiness” – Riceboy Sleeps
12. “Another Saturday” – Stuart Murdoch
13. “The Giant Of Illinois” – Andrew Bird
14. “Lua” – Conor Oberst with Gillian Welch
15. “When The Road Runs Out” – Blonde Redhead & Devastations
16. “Love Vs. Porn” – Kevin Drew

mp3:> The Dirty Projectors and David Byrne: ‘Knotty Pine’

Papercuts have announced not one, but two pieces of news this week!

Not only do they have a new album coming out on April 13th called You Can Have What You Want, which is the third album from Jason Quever’s band, but they’ve signed with Memphis Industries in the UK!

Marvellous. The new record features collaborations with our mate Alex Scally of frequent Papercuts tourmates Beach House. The tracklist looks something like this…

01 Once We Walked In The Sunlight
02 A Dictator’s Lament
03 The Machine Will Tell Us So
04 A Peculiar Hallelujah
05 Jet Plane
06 Dead Love
07 Future Primitive
08 You Can Have What You Want
09 The Void
10 The Wolf

Photpgraphs by Anika

Beach House suit London’s Cargo. It’s a cavernous space with speakers in the various bars and seating areas, filling the whole venue with the sound of whoever is playing. In the main room an enormous mirror ball coats the vaulted walls in flickering specks of light. On the right night, it’s a very atmospheric place, and on this freezing London evening Cargo is the perfect setting for a packed out headline show from Bella Union’s Baltimore based duo.

Beach House make warm, intimate, fairylit music. Their sound is an embracing drift played on organ, guitar, drums and vocals. They open with the first two tracks from their recent stunningly beautiful album Devotion, ‘Wedding Bell’ and ‘You Came To Me’; two heart-stopping slow-motion poems that float along on muted drums and gentle slide guitar, droning organ and captivating voice of singer Victoria Legrand. Continue Reading

Photograph by Rich Thane

Victoria Legrand of Beach House recommends… “Battle Cat” by Adventure

“If it was possible to embody a combination of a superhero, an intense teenage crush, a sorcerer, a prism, a starship, a storm, an ocean, swirling colours melting on fire, stupefied androids staring at God, and miniature dinosaurs wreaking havoc upon a miniature nation – and to experience constant, relentless, intense emotions in all these situations – that would be how this song makes me feel. It’s like the deepest level of emotion and intensity possible in a video game. The sounds feel like they’re coming at you and around you like hundreds of tiny meteor spaceships of electronic passion, love and ecstasy.”

mp3:> Adventure: ‘Battle Cat’

Beach House are a Baltimore-based duo made up of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally. Their self-titled debut was scored 8.1 on Pitchfork with sophomore album Devotion receving rave reviews across the board. The pair are currently hard at work on their third album which is expected Spring 2009.

Beach House on MySpace

Bon Iver

We’ve known about this for a few weeks now but for some reason haven’t posted anything about it… *slapped wrists etc* 4AD Records and AIDS charity Red Hot have joined forces with Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National to produce a whopping 32 track album of original material from all your favourite indie superstars. Yup, you’ve guessed it – Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, Beach House, The Decemberists and of course The National all feature. It is certainly set to be one of the must have records of 2009.

Some info from the label below, plus the complete lineup.. Tracklisting so far, hasn’t been revealed.

Dark Was The Night we can confirm will be released on February 16th (Worldwide) and 17th (North America) 2009. Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National produced the album, with John Carlin (founder of the Red Hot Organization) its executive producer. A total of thirty-two exclusive tracks have been recorded for the compilation, which will be available as a double cd, triple vinyl and download album, with profits benefitting the Red Hot Organization – an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS.

Red Hot was founded on the premise that even without a cure, AIDS remains a preventable disease – using music as a great vehicle to raise both money and awareness for it. This is also the twentieth year of Red Hot as well as their twentieth compilation.

The complete list of artists (in alphabetical order) that recorded tracks for this release are:
Andrew Bird
Antony + Bryce Dessner
Arcade Fire
Beach House
Beirut
Blonde Redhead + Devastations
Bon Iver
Bon Iver & Aaron Dessner
The Books featuring Jose Gonzalez
Buck 65 Remix (featuring Sufjan Stevens and Serengeti)
Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues
The Decemberists
Dirty Projectors + David Byrne
Kevin Drew
Feist + Ben Gibbard
Grizzly Bear
Grizzly Bear + Feist
Iron & Wine
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Kronos Quartet
Stuart Murdoch
My Brightest Diamond
My Morning Jacket
The National
The New Pornographers
Conor Oberst & Gillian Welch
Riceboy Sleeps
Dave Sitek (TV On The Radio)
Spoon
Sufjan Stevens
Yeasayer
Yo La Tengo

Pretty awesome huh? I’m particualry looking forward to the Ben Gibbard and Feist collaboration.. More news as and when we get it.

It’s that time of year again… We’re making our list and checking it twice, trying to find out who’s been naughty or nice. Yes, it’s our Album of the Year! More coveted than a shiny penny, more famous than the winner of last year’s X-Factor and guaranteed to start debate!

This year, to shuffle blame away from TLOBF HQ, we’re getting YOU, yes, YOU the reader, to vote for the albums YOU think are the best 2008 had to offer. We’ve whittled down a mammoth list of prospective albums to a mere 50. It’s tough work, but someone had to do it.

So, mouse button at the ready – get clicking! You can pick as many albums as you like, there are no limits. If you feel it’s worthy of “Album of the Year” status, then do the right thing and cast your vote.

If you need some help making that all-important decision, you can read our take on the albums listed in our 2008 archive here.

The poll will close on Friday December 12th.

There is a prize up for grabs for one lucky reader. Some very kind record companies behind the following 50 records have offered up a selection of prizes including: ultra-rare vinyl, posters, t-shirts and CDs by some of the nominees, plus a pair of tickets to see the sold-out Fleet Foxes show at London Roundhouse in February 2009. To be in with a chance of winning this mammoth and hugely exciting prize, enter your details at the bottom of this page. The lucky winner will be notified via email. Competition closes on Friday 12th December.

Continue Reading

Beach House are back with a brand new single ‘Used To Be’ which comes out via Bella Union on 27th November. Putting it bluntly, you really should buy it – it is without doubt the best thing they’ve recorded thus far and could well be one of my favourite singles of 2008. Like, seriously.

To coincide with the single release, Victoria and Alex are flying over to Blighty for a one off London show at Cargo on 2nd December. It promises to be a corker of a show and a sneaky chance to hear some brand new material from the duo’s as yet untitled third album which they are due to finish recording early next year. Exciting times indeed.

We have not one, but TWO pairs of tickets to give away for the show. The two winners will also receive both Beach House albums (self-titled and Devotion), a copy of ‘Used To Be’ on 7″ AND a Beach House T-Shirt. Sweeeeeet! To be in with a chance of winning simply answer the following question..

Which US State do Beach House come from?

Closing date is Wednesday 26th November. Email your answers to competition@thelineofbestfit.com including your name, address and a contact telephone number.

Winners will be notified by email.

School Of Seven Bells is the collective work of Benjamin Curtis, ex-guitarist from the Secret Machines and identical twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza, previously of ambient post-rockers On! Air! Library! and occasional collaborators with Prefuse 73. The band themselves are named after the mythical South American pickpocket academy, the School Of Seven Bells which may or may not have existed in the 1980s, according to a late night documentary Alejandra once caught on US television.

Rich Thane says they sound like “the Postal Service having sex with Beach House”. We have yet to get reports of what those bands think about it…

See for yourself as the band will be in the UK for two special London dates from tonight, as part of the Sonic Cathedral nights.

School Of Seven Bells UK Dates:
Tue 28 October London Old Blue Last www.soniccathedral.co.uk
Wed 29 October London The Social www.soniccathedral.co.uk
Thurs 30 October London Pure Groove 6pm www.puregroove.co.uk

Look our for a track on this months Mixtape, but in the meantime, you can quench your thirst over at their Myspace page.

One of our favourite acts on TLOBF, Beach House, have announced a one-off date at London’s Cargo on December 2nd with ATP Concerts.

As a bit of a taster, they’ve recently recorded a live, one-take version of their new single ‘Used to Be’ (which is out on 27th Nov via Bella Union) in a tiny cove on a Beach in Australia. It’s ace:

p.s. Sorry Alex for chopping your head off in the thumbnail!

Whilst our chums Beach House were touring the UK a couple of months ago the folk at Black Cab Sessions managed to lob them into an unsuspecting taxi to film a version of ‘Heart Of Chambers’ from the much-loved Devotion LP. With the accompaniment of acoustic guitar and floor toms rather than the usual farfisa organ and reverb sodden slide guitar; the performance spawned a whole new dimension to the trademark Beach House sound – turning the track into a jaunty folk number. Suits them too so it does. Check out the performance below.

If we’re to quote The Cranberries (and why shouldn’t you?), “Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we?”. As we’ve past the halfway point in this year of 2008, it seemed like a good time to look back. What have been the musical higlights of the year so far? We’ve had some absolutely corking albums released, from Fleet Foxes genre defying debut, to Elbow’s continued cultured and heartwarming release. It might surprise some of our readers what’s ended up on this list but one thing this exercise has made us realise, is that come the end of the year, there’s going to be a big pile of albums under the ‘Excellent’ heading…

So how did we decide on the final 10 albums? We asked all of our writers to email in their favourite 5 releases of the year thus far. Each album voted for was then given a point and entered into a highly technical spreadsheet – which left us with the following records… Continue Reading

Fleet Foxes photographs by Rich Thane.

It’s nice to suddenly find yourself at a gig that’s gone from being a slightly obscure “up-and-coming” type show to a full blown queue-round-the-block hot ticket in the space of a few weeks. Tonight’s sold out ULU Bella Union showcase is exactly that, with Fleet Foxes garnering 5/5 reviews in every broadsheet and monthly magazine going. Fame, it seems, is looking over their shoulder, and tonight’s gig feels like a significant moment in their rapid rise. Continue Reading

Photographs by Joshua Uziel

A late night concert (10 pm) at Bottom of the Hill’s intimate setting proved to be an apt time and place for the Baltimore duo Beach House. The two disco balls churning on their axes inside wooden boxes alongside Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally pooled red, blue, and green lights on the short ceiling. It looked like how the moon can reflect off the ocean onto creaky docks jutting out from the shoreline. The pooling swirls of changing lights coalesced on the roof as the droning organ sounds coming out of Legrand’s keyboard. Papercuts’ creator, Jason Quever, accompanied the duo on drums. Continue Reading

A Saturday night line-up of Fuzzy Lights, Beach House and The Resistance enticed my first visit to the Barfly, previously the Loft, since the venue changed hands. Few impressions remain of anything that marked this proprietary shift. Any new licks of paint have been blurred in memory through an ill-paced four pints. The formless black and white Barfly logo, painted in front of the beer pumps, seemed to be the only decorative indication of new ownership. Continue Reading