Ben Sollee
Cellist Ben Sollee is like Andrew Bird with a little more soul, or Arthur Russell with a bit more bounce. Initially making his name as Abigail Washburn’s sideman and a member of her Sparrow Quartet (which features none other than Bela Fleck on lead banjo duties), Sollee’s solo material skews more heavily in the pop direction, making him a bit of an oddity amongst his fellow folkies. The title track off his debut album, Bend, features Washburn in a supporting role, and is one of the most heart-rending songs you’re likely to hear this year.
Listen to the song, A Change is Gonna Come.
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Tagged: folk music, pop music
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Findlay Brown’s Love You Will Find You
A former bare-knuckle boxer from Yorkshire, England (for real), Findlay Brown was heralded by many as the UK’s answer to Jose Gonzales when his debut album, Separated By The Sea, was released on Peacefrog Records in 2007. Love Will Find You moves beyond his earlier folk sound to a more ambitious — and soulful — place. Produced by Bernard Butler (Suede), the album features songs that are lush and intimate, influenced as much by Phil Spector and Ennio Morricone as by Roy Orbison or The Beatles. The album came together while Brown was stuck on his sister’s couch nursing a broken leg, having been run over by a cab driver: ‘I’d already started going back and listening to a lot of records I’d grown up on, like Elvis Presley, soul music, doo wop, Phil Spector, The Righteous Brothers and the like. I had an idea about making a modern record influenced by the songwriting of the late 50s and early 60s. I just started writing, trying to work out what made a universally great song, like Stand By Me. These new songs are the first part of that process’. You can download his new single, Holding Back The Night, for free in our Music Download section.
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When this scruffy fellow opens his gob, something high and mighty emanates. His music is great for long drives, in cold places and long nights in warm places. We speak of Bon Iver, who we interviewed recently. Read more
His name echoes those of colonels and soldiers who fought in the American civil war. But far from that, William Fitzsimmons is actually an obscure songwriter from Jackson, Illinois. Read more
Also by GERRY MAK
The Bea Arthur Mountains Pizza website
You know, pictures featuring Bea Arthur, mountains, and pizza are the best, but there are still a lot of duds out there. Good thing Bea Arthur Mountains Pizza has collected the best of the best Bea Arthur, mountains, and pizza pictures all in one place.
Something Awful just posted some hilarious movie poster mash-ups, matching images to titles that result in inappropriate allusions to the core premises of each film.
San Francisco-based photographer Rob Kroenert is responsible for the above image of Horsetail Falls, a seasonal waterfall in Yosemite that due to the positioning of the sun during part of February, reflects the last rays of the day in such a way that makes it look like molten lava.
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Build your next bike at Bamboo Bikes Studio, who help cyclists build their own custom, bamboo-framed bicycles. The organization, in partnership with the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Millennium Cities Initiative, uses revenue to subsidize sustainable bamboo bike factories in Africa and South America.
Anchored in Paris and Helsinki, the design and illustration duo of Anna Ahonen and Katariina Lamberg is conquering mediums across fashion, advertising and print. Small team. Big ideas. We like.
Those of you who are based in Australia and are into sports might like to check out the other website the Lost At E Minor team runs, The Roar. Read more
I’m really digging Los Angeles-based illustrator Jon Han’s textured, colourful, almost scientific work. I find it particularly refreshing how Han frequently eschews most of the physical detail within his tiny figures, which lends itself all the more to further enhancing the diagram like quality of his work.
Not much more needs to be said about this. Ricky Gervais, the funniest man in
In Los Angeles, in the gas guzzling centre of the Universe, BP has enlisted Office dA to embrace the paradoxical task of creating a green petrol station. Read more
I had the pleasure of seeing Duran Duran play a few weeks back in the balmy drizzle of New York’s Central Park. I always thought the guys had more cheek than they were ever given credit for. But don’t be fooled! For a band so rooted in the immediacy of disposable pop, they wrote some timeless songs, none more so than The Chauffeur.
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WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Oslo artist Gry E.Pedersen blends digital artwork and photos, but her generally experimental artwork also includes more traditional forms of paintings. Read more
Scanners’ new single Salvation
I love this track by London based rock group, Scanners, which is off their latest album, Submarine. Having toured with acts such as The Horrors, The Wedding Present, The Charlatans, Electric Six, and Juliette & The Licks, Scanners could well blow up in 2010. Figuratively speaking, not literally. No, that wouldn’t be fun.
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Check out Mike Stimpson’s Lego reinterpretations of classic photographs. Stimpson’s version of Malcolm Browne’s iconic 1963 photograph of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc is particularly twisted. Read more
Damn hipster dogs coming in here with their parents’ money, acting like they own the place, not respecting us real dogs who know what real culture and art are. We were here first and we knew about all those bands before they did. Read more
I live the upbeat, feel good tempo of the new single — A Hundred Hearts — from Philly group, The Swimmers. Off their latest album, People Are Soft, this song is a strangely fitting anthem for the blustery day outside.
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It’s spring cleaning time and we have a massive pile of assorted new release CDs to give away to a randomly selected LAEM subscriber. To enter, just be a subscriber and leave a note under this message telling us the city you live in.
Dosh is a super-slim, go-anywhere wallet, built for a go-anywhere lifestyle. This Dosh Wallet was designed by Joanthan Zawada, a Sydney-based artist who has created commercial works of art for Ksubi, Modular records, The Presets and Tina Kalivas. Read more
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