The Providence based band Brown Bird has been blowing up my Twitter feed thanks to Slowcoustic (posts here and here). The band plays a gloomy blend of americana and indie folk. David Lamb’s voice is deep and resonant, his songs are suitably dark and are laden with many intense images and appropriate instrumentation. The band sits somewhere between the slow dark folk of J. Tillman and the punk spirit of O’Death.

The band’s new record The Devil Dancing is out November 10th and can be preordered now through Peapod Recordings. Here are two songs from the new record that show the depth and range of Brown Bird’s music.

Muck And Mire

Bonus:

Danger and Dread

“Bottom Of The Bottle”

While my goal was never to be the one stop shop for Gypsy inflected music I can’t resist writing about this stuff when I get the chance. And now there’s a group in my very own backyard that’s making inroads with their new release. Harmonious Wail are from Madison, Wisconsin (not a hotbed of gypsy music); their new release Resist Temptation will be out Oct. 7 on Range Entertainment.

I love the accordion, the romantic French vocals and of course the gypsy guitar in “Joie De Vivre”.

Joie De Vivre

Pariah Beat is a natural follow-up to the The Devil Makes Three post from last week. The two bands are MySpace friends for goodness sake (Pariah Beat also lists Songs:Illinois faves – The Cankickers!). I could drop all the same adjectives on this band as I have for those two, but I’ll just leave it at gypsy-folk-circus punk-rockers in fishnet and stiletto’s (and that’s just how the guys dress!).

You can download the new 5 song ep for free here.

Babylon Is Fallen
Tipparary

A week or two back a random selection of music blogs received a track from Milan Entertainment and the band The Devil Makes Three. As I usually immediately delete any bulk email sent my way it was an anomoly that I opened the email at all, but the band name and the song “Old Number Seven” rang a bell. All the other blogs ran with whatever information was included in the email or threw the song up with only a cursory “this showed up in my inbox so what the hell.” Not that blogs should be held to the same standard as other, more serious, online publications or even certain print publications, but it’d be nice if they got the story even partially straight.

A little bit of research would have shown them that this “new” record is actually a remastered version of the band’s 2002 self-titled debut. I have no idea why a forgotten release that’s 5 years old from a band that is unknown even in blues-folk circles is suddenly due the re-issue treatment. And I wonder why I’m throwing my hat into the ring to help promote it. I guess the easy answer is the record’s pretty great. Since it came out originally in 2002 it predates all the hoopla about Beirut, Devotchka and Gogol Bordello; three bands that share the same aesthetic if not the same cultish following. Did its release or the band’s west coast touring help inspire any of these other bands? I’m sure not, but the gypsy-folk, pirate-camp and whiskey-whore sound of The Devil Makes Three is a welcome addition to this under-appreciated sub-genre. Here’s another song from the 2007 re-issue of the 2002 self-titled record from San Francisco’s The Devil Makes Three.

The Plank

The Devil Makes Three