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”

Imagine for a second Gogol Bordello but slowed down to a crawl. Imagine each of their songs but not fueled by rampant punk energy. Instead imagine slow rich ballads and duets but still inspired by the gypsy music of the Balkans and points East. If you’ve got that picture in your mind’s eye than you have an approximation of the lush sound of the Ann Arbor band Orpheum Bell whose music coined the phrase “Country & Eastern”.

The band celebrates the release of its sophomore release, Pearls, over the next couple of months. If you live in the Midwest you should try to check out one of these shows:

Oct 10 2009 White Crow Conservatory of Music Saginaw, Michigan
Oct 17 2009 Freshwater Studio (CD Release) Boyne City, Michigan
Nov 6 2009 The Howmet Playhouse Whitehall, Michigan
Nov 14 2009 Crooked Tree Arts Center Petoskey, Michigan
Dec 4 2009 The Ark (CD Release Show) Ann Arbor, Michigan

Here’s a preview track from the upcoming record. The song is called “Money From Another Town” and features all the eclectic instruments (bowed double bass, accordion, trumpets, and various percusion) the band is known to use as well as lead singer Aaron Klein gothic (in the truest sense of the word) vocals, chanting choruses, Serge van der Voo’s double bass and slightly morbid lyrics.

Pick up their debut record Pretty As You here and keep an eye out for the followup Pearls in the coming months.

Money From Another Town

Two of the finest music blogs one the web wrote about the band’s first record. Links to those reviews – You Crazy Dreamers, Setting The Woods on Fire.

Wow a press release I can actually use. I’m flabbergasted. None of the CD release lists I peruse had a new Sam Lowry listed (I wrote about Sam here first three years ago) . So this is a complete surprise. Sam pals around with Murder by Death, Langhorne Slim, William Elliott Whitmore, Lucero and O’death and probably listened to a little too much Leonard Cohen growing up. His songs are not jaunty sing-a-longs. More often than not the chorus is absent and rhymes are few and far between.

His new record With/Without is out May 19 on Higher Step Records. He’ll be on tour with Langhorne Slim soon and will release a split 7″ with W.E.W on May 19 as well.

“Manhattan Took Us First” is a reference to Leonard Cohen’s “First We Take Manhattan”. It begins with somber cello and then in comes Sam’s world weary baritone. It’s a modern tale of city life and the pain of anonymity, loneliness and despair.

Manhattan Took Us First

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The new Swedesplease shirts are now for sale here. I’m really happy with ow they came out (I’m wearing one right now!).