Indie Flow

C'est Ma Vie

Wild Loneliness

On the Floor

Unlearning

How Cool Are You?

S. Carey - Break Me Open

Keep Me High

La Fusée du Chagrin

Contradiction of Wants

Contradiction Of Wants

World Like That

From the new album CARRIE & LOWELL by Sufjan Stevens
Get it: http://akrec.co/1y05i0M
Available on Asthmatic Kitty Records

More info: http://carrieandlowell.com

LYRICS:

I should have known better
To see what I could see
My black shroud
Holding down my feelings
A pillar for my enemies

I should have wrote a letter
And grieve what I happen to grieve
My black shroud
I never trust my feelings
I waited for the remedy

When I was three, three maybe four
She left us at that video store
Be my rest, be my fantasy

I’m light as a feather
I’m bright as the Oregon breeze
My black shroud 
Frightened by my feelings
I only want to be a relief

No, I’m not a go-getter
The demon had a spell on me
My black shroud
Captain of my feelings
The only thing I want to believe

When I was three, and free to explore
I saw her face on the back of the door
Be my vest, be my fantasy

I should have known better
Nothing can be changed
The past is still the past
The bridge to nowhere
I should’ve wrote a letter 
Explaining what I feel, that empty feeling

Don’t back down, concentrate on seeing
The breakers in the bar, the neighbor’s greeting
My brother had a daughter
The beauty that she brings, illumination

Don’t back down, there is nothing left
The breakers in the bar, no reason to live
I’m a fool in the fetter
Rose of Aaron’s beard, where you can reach me

Don’t back down: nothing can be changed
Cantilever bridge, the drunken sailor
My brother had a daughter
The beauty that she brings, illumination 

--------------------------------------------------------

Sufjan Stevens, "Should Have Known Better"

Leaves In The River

Middle Distance Runner (Album Version)

04 - SUMMER KISSES WINTER TEARS - Elvis Presley

Beirut - Elephant Gun

Happy Fucking Holidays

Starfucker 2007 Portland
Josh Hodges
(Willamette Week's -Local Cut Comp)

Happy Fucking Holidays

Windmills debut album "Keep Moving" released January 27th, 2012.

Great Divide

Taking its name from novelist Jack London’s 1904 seafaring adventure, Sea Wolf has evolved organically from its hermetic origins in Alex Brown Church’s living room into a muscular, full-bodied musical entity with passion to burn. After adopting the sobriquet, Church burst onto the music scene in two-fisted fashion with the EP, Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low, and the subsequent full-length debut album, Leaves in the River, about which Interview magazine observed, “His music is both erudite and unvarnished, a blend of swirling melodies, literary balladry and damaged art-rock composition.”

And now, Church’s singular vision has led to the creation of the eloquent and expansive new album White Water, White Bloom, which not only fulfills the immense promise of the initial musical diptych but conjures up its own cosmology. This is one of those rare and mysterious records wherein, the first time you hear it, you can’t shake the feeling that it’s always been part of the soundtrack of your life. You intimately know its ups and downs, its melodies and cadences, its settings and characters.

“I couldn’t have known beforehand what the next record would sound like,” says Church, “but I did know I wanted it to be bigger, with a band feel, rather than another series of intimate confessionals.”

A song cycle set against the changing of seasons, this timeless work unfolds like an epic poem, yet resonates with thematic elements that speak, elliptically yet unmistakably, to the world we live in. Pulsing with evocations of nature at its most elemental, Church’s songs are flooded with vivid imagery, carried along on torrents of sounds as majestic as a mountain stream swollen with the bracing, crystalline runoff of spring’s first warming breath. What’s more, he sings these songs with newfound power, the result of extensive roadwork behind Leaves in the River, while deepening the mesmerizing expressiveness with which he made his initial mark.

Opening track “Wicked Blood” begins with what sounds like an orchestra tuning up before surging to glorious life, the rhythm section shaping itself into a propulsive groove accented by delicate piano notes, carrying along the opening chapter of the saga: “We met in the East/ poured in like a flood,” Church begins, shadowed by the breathless wheeze of an air organ, “You’re the whispering kind/dark sapphire blood/A vision of veils/all shimmery white/like a backdrop of sails/all aglow from the light/of the wonder behind/at a starry night.” And with that, we’re off into an adventure of cinematic immediacy, as befits the sensibility of this onetime film student, who’s clearly found his natural medium of expression.

“Lyrically,” says Church, “I like to incorporate what one would construe as classic imagery, and even infuse the songs with elements of mythology, but also delve into more contemporary themes. I’m interested in the way words look and feel, not just when you hear them but also when you read them.”

Church’s verbal acuity is mated with bold, vibrant soundscapes set off with thundering drums, stabbing, reverb-soaked electric guitars and ghostly keyboards, resulting in such memorable pieces as the mythological tale “Orion & Dog,” ornamented with strings right out of a John Ford western; the folk-noir fable “O Maria!”; the surging title song, burning with Byronic heat; the fever-dreamscape “Spirit”; the muted, idyllic, “The Orchard”; the Dylanesque roundelay “The Traitor”; and the closing “Winter’s Heir,” with its life-embracing denouement.

“When I write a song,” says Church, “for me it’s always associated with a specific place and time. For example, ‘Orion & Dog’ was written during the summer, and ‘Winter’s Heir’ is about coming out of the long Montreal winter and experiencing a sense of rebirth.”

The album has a back story: “I met and fell in love with a girl in Montreal while on tour with Irving, and just before signing with Dangerbird,” Church recalls. “And then, while touring behind the Sea Wolf record, I spent most of my time off in Montreal with her. Apart from ‘Wicked Blood’ and ‘O Maria!,’ which I wrote in Los Angles, everything on White Water was written in Montreal, holed up in our little apartment, a block away from the river. That was all of last fall, winter and spring, so I was very much influenced by that experience, and a lot of the record is set there in my immediate surroundings, along with remembrances of being home on the West Coast.”

White Water, White Bloom was recorded at the Omaha studio of Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, M. Ward, Monsters of Folk), with Church handling vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, as well as some of the air organ and pump organ sounds that were such a big part of the sonic signature of the earlier records. Joining him were the three core members of the six-piece Sea Wolf touring lineup: keyboardist Lisa Fendelander, bassist Ted Liscinski and drummer Joey Ficken. The remaining slots were filled by Mogis on lead guitar and an assortment of other instruments, with his Bright Eyes cohort Nate Walcott filling the role of the cellist, arranging strings for a quartet, sometimes working from cello parts originally created by Catherine Odell, who’d been part of the initial Sea Wolf touring lineup, with Church’s input.

They arrived with a full set of song demos, providing a detailed blueprint for their subsequent expansion into widescreen anthems that reshape the classic aspects of traditional folk, folk rock and chamber pop—but these bucolic elements are intercut with aggressive bursts of raw emotion sharpened to a serrated edge—making for a rich, vibrant sound that is virtually unprecedented.

Church is working in the most personal of mediums, and that results in constant self-questioning. “Every time you make a record,” he says, “you invariably think, ‘Oh, I wish I’d done this differently,’ or ‘Next time I want to do this.’ But if you get to the point where you don’t think that, then it’s time to quit. In terms of aspirations, as long as I’m constantly having new ideas and finding new places to explore with the music, I’ll be satisfied.”

Middle Distance Runner (Album Version)

Sea Wolf

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