Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream

It’s a story that’s as old as record companies. Singer-songwriter is unknown. Singer-songwriter finally makes it. Singer-songwriter becomes huge. Singer-songwriter releases backlog of unreleased and out-of-print tracks–the masses go crazy for it. But here’s the part with which I have the most trouble: isn’t there a reason why these tracks were unreleased and out-of-print? Shouldn’t we expect and want the artist to have some discretion about what we, the listener, hear from them? Instead, we go googly-eyed and begin drooling over every little Sufjan scrap or Iron & Wine iota or Death Cab diatribe (for the sake of alliteration).

Despite this small rant of mine, I have to tell you that Iron & Wine’s Around the Well is quite excellent. There’s very little of  that lo-fi, unedited, unpolished dredge that one expects from these type of albums. While Beam’s cover of The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” has been around the blogosphere quite a bit over the past year, most of the tracks here are new to the casual Beam listener. Leading off the album is  “Dearest Forsaken”, a twangy bluesy folk number whose amber tones are as deep as Sam Beam’s beard.  “Loud As Hope” is as sweetly enticing a song as I’ve heard in many moons, with I&W’s gentle rasp softly swaying with the ebb and flow of the waves on some remote shore in a parallel world. And with titles like “Friends are Jewels” and “Communication Cups and Someone’s Coats”, there’s something for even the most literary of listeners. “Belated Promise Ring” is an easygoing playful piano ditty, and the inherent irony in the song is not to shabby either.

There’s something here for everyone: the novice, the casual, and the experienced I&W listener. This is not your run-of-the-mill backlog album, this is a great album in its own right.

Grab a copy of Around the Well.

Listen to “Loud As Hope”

Listen to “Belated Promise Ring“

2. Jens Lekman – Night Falls Over Kortedala

You may recall me referring to my man-crush on Jens Lekman, and nothing has really changed since then. Lekman’s sage-like wisdom about life and relationships always comes across with the utmost earnestness (and comedy). Lyrically, NFOK is certainly interesting, with the situational “Postcard to Nina” or the comically romantic “Your Arms Around Me”. Discopop tracks (“Sipping on the Sweet Nectar”) combined with funky fresh tunes (“Kanske Ar Jag Kar I Dig”) make for an album that has only one rival from the entire year. Cheers, Jens. More on Jens Lekman here.

Listen to “Your Arms Around Me” (5/5)

3. Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha

What an amazing year it has been for His Birdness! While not touring around the country for his incredible Armchair Apocrypha, Bird has been busy taking with his violin. Complete with lush stringed instrumentation, Bird’s lilting vocals, and the addition of Martin Dosh’s stylings, Armchair Apocrypha lends for music that (as some have described) may cure some forms of cancer. Bird also finally tackles the various analogs between himself and the namesake of his last name–he seems to have embraced his birdness in the end. Click here for a really great post on the album.

Listen to “Dark Matter” (5/5) [via Sound of Marching Feet]

4. The National – Boxer

I know everybody and their mother has put this album pretty high on their albums of the year, but the bottom line is that it is justified. Matt Berninger’s vocals conjure up images of an earnest poet who has plenty of worthy things to be said. Berninger throws around such vivid, subtle imagery ( ‘Standing in an empty tuxedo with grapes in my mouth’), that it often takes a keen listener to pick them out over the symphonic, horn-glazed tracks. Boxer is a collection of emotive and dynamic songs that uniquely find a way of coming together as a document of the everyman’s conscience. More on The National here.

Listen to “Ada” (5/5)

5. Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog

The Shepherd’s Dog seems to take influences from everywhere, from the dusty trails of ghost towns to the asphalt paths of boisterous cities. It’s an album that celebrates the extroverted and the reserved, one that appeals to the ears but sings to the soul. Each track has a sparseness to it, but yet the multi-layered richness of Beam’s voice and his plethora of instruments add an incredible voluminousness each song. This album simply doesn’t miss. More on Iron & Wine here.

Listen to “The Devil Never Sleeps” (5/5)

I know, what’s taken me so long? Many reasons, but none of them are sufficient to explain why I’ve waited to write about what may be the most excellent, heartfelt albums of the year: that of Sam Beam, aka Iron & Wine. Beam’s rise to fame over the past several years has been gradual, but surely his latest release The Shepherd’s Dog will rocket him to folk-hero proportions. Much like his famed beard, Beam’s songs are thickly layered with a great deal of warmth and earnestness yet retain some kind of mystique.

The Shepherd’s Dog seems to take influences from everywhere, from the dusty trails of ghost towns to the asphalt paths of boisterous cities. It’s an album that celebrates the extroverted and the reserved, one that appeals to the ears but sings to the soul. Each track has a sparseness to it, but yet the multi-layered richness of Beam’s voice and his plethora of instruments add an incredible voluminousness each song. “The Devil Never Sleeps” is a piano-driven, ragtime-blues-meets-indie-rock ditty whose only flaw is its brevity (clocks in at 2:06). “Peace Beneath the City” is a kind of mysterious, ethereal song, that listens much like a secret that Beam is sharing with his audience. Not to mention the lovely “House by the Sea” or the achingly sweet “Carousel”, this album simply doesn’t miss.

Be obedient, and grab a copy of The Shepherd’s Dog.

Listen to “The Devil Never Sleeps” (5/5)

Listen to “Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car” (4.8/5)