(photo by Autumn de Wilde) By now, you’ve had some time to absorb the glory of Fleet Foxes second album, Helplessness Blues, and are probably more than ready to hear how the band handles its grandeur live. Well, our friends at NPR Music have just the thing — tonight at 9:30 pm EST, they’ll be [...]

Our good friends and Selects alum Breathe Owl Breathe have a new album coming out this spring, and this trailer is pretty much all we need to see to get excited for it. We have no idea where this was shot, but Micah’s frozen beard is something to behold.

(crummy picture courtesy of iPhone + CameraGenius app) Anyone who is Facebook friends with me already got this impassioned alert, but I’m telling you, if Strand of Oaks is not the Bon Iver of 2010, I will be wreaking some indie rock havoc. On record, Tim Showalter’s songs are plaintive and folky, constructed from sturdy [...]

So… any good new releases today? Obviously, today is Sony day, which sees a slew of popular — and not-so-popular — titles hit the site. There is a kind of giddy rush that comes from seeing, say, Bitches Brew or the first Stone Roses record turn up, and I’m already figuring my personal Save for [...]

Last year we fell hard for Icelandic folk singer Ólöf Arnalds — so hard, in fact, that her masterful debut Við og við landed in our top records of the year (although, to be fair, the weird kinship with Iceland we’ve managed to cultivate over the last few years probably didn’t hurt). So, you know, [...]

He makes it soooooo easy. When someone is this good at this many things — and things so wide-ranging in scope, you can’t help but be shocked in spite of yourself — it’s damn near impossible not to tumble down the rabbit hole. The Arthur Russell story is well-chronicled amongst music obsessives, the gist being: [...]

Daily “I-don’t-know-nearly-enough-about-music-or-life” confession: I’ve spent no time with the music of Willie Nelson. Apart from a dim knowledge of the “classic status” of the album Red-Headed Stranger and the vague belief that the dude MUST have written a string of unimpeachable classics in his life or I wouldn’t see him all over award shows all [...]

In a few weeks, eMusic will herald the arrival of a very special record — A Society in Which No Tear is Shed is Inconceivably Medicore by Yonlu. A collection of spare, brittle, lo-fi folk songs, Society is what Caetano Veloso might sound like if he collaborated with Lou Barlow. Most of the songs sound [...]

Big day at eMusic, as classic albums from the Reverend Al Green hit the site. Do I even need to say how timeless and essential these are? Most people will go for the Greatest Hits, and I get that, but the full albums here are just as rich and rewarding. We’ve assembled all of Al’s [...]

If you paid attention to the commercials during the Super Bowl yesterday (great game!) you may have noticed a familiar-sounding acoustic chant number in the background of a John Turturro-starring Heineken spot. Turns out to be none other than “Higher Than the End,” from 17 Dots fave Twi the Humble Feather! A shocking turn to [...]

Wanted to throw a little light on a New Arrival that I think is particularly special: Strand of Oaks, Leave Ruin. Strand of Oaks is one guy — Timothy Showalter — who writes gorgeous, folky songs shot through with loss and longing. His voice is the very sound of heartbreak — and with good reason: [...]

I first saw Bishi perform one very hot night in the summer of 2006 at east London’s Bistroteque. The audience had started to blow out the candles on their tables – even the tiny amount of heat produced by a tea light was too much. The room was nearly dark when Bishi appeared, using her [...]

This week 17 Dots token Brit (i.e. me) has made it off the island and is currently hanging with the other Dotters in NYC. That said I still retain a strong commitment to my side of the Atlantic, so I’m going to totally ignore my surroundings and talk about Manchester-based Cats In Paris. Cats In [...]

I’ve been listening to this song for the past 12 years. It’s funny and angry and a total staple for your classic Boys Suck mix. So imagine my delight when this afternoon Dar Williams performed “As Cool As I Am” right in the middle of eMusic’s kitchen! At my request (in a round about way)! [...]

There are a couple of things that have caught my attention recently. And hey, at least two of them are available worldwide!

I’ve reached the age where my friends are starting to have babies. After feeling slightly freaked out at first, I’m now pretty keen on spending time with my friends’ sprogs – after all they’re basically a smaller, version 2.0 of someone I already like and I get to do all the fun, rolling on the [...]

(photo by Ethyor) I decided to take advantage of a slow new release day to give a big push to a record I’ve fallen in love with over the course of the last year or so: Við og við by Ólöf Arnalds.

I love the Mercury Prize. I admit that the bands I want to win never do win (I’m so sorry British Sea Power, it’s all over for you now.) But the Mercury seems to be one of the very few awards that actually gets people talking about music, as opposed to sales figures or party [...]

How happy am I? We just go the new Beck album! Well… we got the new Beck album if you’re a European user. And I am a European user, so I’m happy – although it’s a selfish kind of happy. I’d sort of let Beck fall by the wayside a little. Odelay was the sound [...]

It might be something about the time of year and wanting to waft about fields in a floaty dress like a girl in a Flake advert, but my favourite folk albums are dominating my most played lists right now. I love British folk for its weird and wild aspects; the storytelling – the green men, [...]