When I needed some fresh music today, I headed over to one of my favorite music streaming sites - the ever clever Podington Bear. Podington makes incredibly sweet, fun electronica music and makes it easily accessible in a stand-alone music player or podcast subscription. Well, quite unsuspecting of the momentous occasion I was about to encounter, I clicked over to PBear’s online den and LO and Behold! Today, Wednesday July 25th, Podington Bear posted his 100th hand-made track of 2007! That’s right, the prolific little bear has hand-crafted 100 songs since the first of January. He posts a new song every other day, despite being on the road pretty much constantly. ([More →])

Suzanne Vega is back with a new album out on June 5th. Beauty & Crime is her 7th album but, marks Vega’s debut on Blue Note Records.

Tracklist

1.Zephyr & I
2.Ludlow Street
3.New York Is A Woman
4.Pornographer’s Dream
5.Frank & Ava
6.Edith Wharton’s Figurines
7.Bound
8.Unbound
9.As You Are Now
10.Angel’s Doorway
11.Anniversary

The album is a narrative about her personal experiences in Spanish Harlem, Manhattan, and all around the city of New York where she grew up and still resides. The album sounds like a storybook map of NYC as read by Vega herself. The album has hard luck, love, even graffiti, as well as an all-star cast of musicians and producers:

Will Malone (Dido, Seal, Corrine Bailey Rae) - orchestral arranger
KT Tunstall - background vocals and vocal arranger
Gerry Leonard (David Bowie) and Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) on guitars
Tony Shanahan (Patti Smith) - bassist

Plus og members of Suzanne’s band, Mike Visceglia on bass guitar and Doug Yowell on drums.

Well right now you can grab a video podcast of Vega describing her experiences and thoughts about making this album and shedding even more light on the narrative that Beauty & Crime offers about growing up in NYC.
Alas, this is another iTunes only podcast, so if you use this format, go get it. And, as usual, if that link does not work, please let me know…
Enjoy Wanbli! I am also looking forward to this album very much. It has been too long since we heard Ms. Vega’s sultry voice.

Hotter Than 98.6F

i just got word that our friends over at the Siladi collective have been producing podcasts. (so that’s what they’ve been doing all this year, i was wondering)  well, according to Circuit 73, the latest podcast, #13,  is a selection of “new music from Pole, Modest Mouse, The Cinematic Orchestra, Antibalas, John Hughes and more. ”
check out all the episodes on the Siladi Music page.