Download “Serpents” from Sharon Van Etten’s forthcoming album, Tramp, which arrives next year on Jagjaguwar.

Altered Zones has video of Atlas Sound from the New Museum.

Listen to a full session session with Tinariwen at KCRW.

Stereogum Presents Feist’s Tour Polaroids.

The Current in Minneapolis has a session with Joseph Arthur.

I received and have repeatedly listened to the forthcoming Laura Gibson record. It’s beautiful. Look for it next year on Barsuk.

I highly recommend you download the Turquoise Wisdom: Heavy Summer Nights that’s up over at Aquarium Drunkard. Fantastic stuff.

NPR’s World Cafe has a great interview with Roger Waters.

Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears perform live in The Current studio. Perhaps it’s the fresh Austin connection, but I’ve really been enjoying their new album, Scandalous.

I’d never listened to Chad VanGaalen until a friend recently recommended his stuff. I love the new animated video for “Peace on the Rise,” which appears on the equally great new album Diaper Island. Download the track below:
MP3: Chad VanGaalen – “Peace on the Rise”

One of the albums I’m most excited about this year is Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.’s debut full-length, “It’s A Corporate World“. Spin gives you a listen to “Skeletons,” which is a great introduction until the album arrives on June 7th.

I lost touch with Joseph Arthur’s recorded output several years ago, but his new album, The Graduation Ceremony sounds like a return to form. NPR is streaming the record in full, so take a listen and judge for yourself.

Bon Iver has released the lyrics for the forthcoming self-titled album, which is now available for pre-order.

Aquarium Drunkard interviews the filmmakers behind the new Morphine documentary, Cure For Pain: The Mark Sandman Story. I miss that band so much.

Gorilla vs. Bear has James Blake’s video for “Lindisfarne” as well as details on an upcoming festival they’re curating in Dallas this summer. We’ll be there.

Vinyl Deals: I pulled some amazing deals on vinyl here. It takes some digging, but trust me you’ll be rewarded. It’s also the last time I’ll link to or visit said site.

“One week in the middle of summer this craziness exploded in our Real World Studios. We had this week of invited guests, people from all around the world, fed by music and a 24 hour café. It was a giant playpen, a bring your own studio party. There’d be a studio set up on the lawn, in the garage, in someone’s bedroom as well as the seven rooms we had available. We were curators of sorts of all this living mass. We had poets and songwriters there, people would come in and scribble things down, they’d hook up in the café. It was like a dating agency, then they’d disappear into the darkness and make noises – and we’d be there to record it.” – Peter Gabriel, producer and performer

Last week marked the release of Peter Gabriel’s long-awaited Big Blue Ball on Real World Records. As the above quote describes, the music contained on the record is indeed a melting pot of sound featuring Sinead O’Connor, Vernon Reid, Tim Finn, and Joseph Arthur.

Picked up on a good recommendation and stunning cover art, it really is like “listening to the planet from outer space.” Interest Peaked? I’ll direct you here and here for an in-depth look at the recording process and its history.

Myspace: Big Blue Ball
MP3: Joseph Arthur, Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger – “Exit Through You”

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