What I Listened To The Two Weeks of April 1 - 14, 2011

Week of April 1 - 7, 2011:

1. EELS with Strings - Live at Town Hall (Vagrant Records)

2. DeVotchKa - 100 Lovers (ANTI)

3. Duniven - I Need To Try For Her (self release)

4. Birds and Batteries - Panorama (Velvet Blue Music)

5. EELS - Electro-Shock Blues (Dreamworks)

6. The Lonely Wild - Dead End 45 record (self release)

7. EELS - Tomorrow Morning (E Works)

8. Helen Stellar - If The Stars Could Speak, They Would Have Your Voice... (self release)

9. The New Pornographers - Together (Matador)

10. Pinback - Summer In Abaddon (Touch and Go Records)

With the tickets for the upcoming August EELS show at El Rey going on sale, I went out and got the EELS with Strings album, Live at Town Hall, and just wallowed in it. What a beautiful record, and I'm ashamed I hadn't gotten it before. It contains a lot of wonderful versions of songs from both Electro-Shock Blues and Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, two of my favorite EELS albums, and with beautiful string arrangement.

Can't stop listening to DeVotchKa as well as their live show remains vivid in my mind. The Duniven album is intriguing enough to keep me coming back to it, and The Lonely Wild 45 record I picked up at their first Tuesday for RFSL at LaBrie's is a wonderful recording featuring five of their songs. Very impressive.

All the others are returning favorites that I've written enough about. Whenever I'm at a loss, I go back to Pinback because it centers my hearing. They're like my tuning fork. In anticipation of seeing them for the 13th time this month, I dragged out one of their very best albums.

week of April 8 - 14, 2011:>

1. EELS with Strings - Live at Town Hall (Vagrant Records)

2. DeVotchKa - 100 Lovers (ANTI)

3. Duniven - I Need To Try For Her (self release)

4. The Lonely Wild - Dead End 45 record (self release)

5. Walking Sleep - Measures (self release)

6. Pepper Rabbit - Beauregard (Kanine Records)

7. The Break Ups - Eat Your Heart Out (self release)

8. Low - C'mon (Sub Pop Records)

9. Jenny O - Home EP (self release)

10. The New Pornographers - Together (Matador)

EELS still number one, Walking Sleep had a residency during this month that made me pull out their recent album, Measures, and The Break Ups, who played a set for our show at LaBrie's one week, have a very arresting CD in Eat Your Heart Out. Almost everything else is a returnee.

The exception being the new album from Low. I just picked it up the last day of this week, but became instantly addicted, so it ended up on the list. C'mon is an impossibly beautiful album and it will figure prominently at the end of the year.

whrabbit