Music of the Ears (and Eyes)

As long as I'm spending more time with music than with space these last few weeks (damn that new iPod!), I thought I'd write about some music I've discovered recently. Nothing to do with space, but it's "music of the spheres," OK? I don't know how to link directly to iTunes, but that's where I've bought most of this stuff. So I'll link to Amazon instead.

The Village Sessions - Last December, John Mayer recorded acoustic versions of six of the songs from Continuum and it's really great stuff. He's an amazing songwriter and I'm really jealous of how cleanly he plays the acoustic guitar (forget his lead guitar, I'm not even in the same universe on that). The songs really stand up well to this simple treatment.

Iron & Wine - Iron & Wine is basically singer/songwriter Sam Beam, though he's recorded with a few different people. I've only downloaded a few songs from his four or so albums so far, but they have a quiet beauty that is really mesmerizing. He has a new album called The Shepherd's Dog which came out a few weeks ago.

Lisa Hannigan - You can't really get much music by Lisa Hannigan, but I am totally in love with her voice. She's an Irish singer who has recorded and performed mostly with Damien Rice on O and other CD's and videos, and on a song called Unplayed Piano which I found on iTunes. I read somewhere that she's recording a solo album but I don't know when it will be out.

Bruce Springsteen, Magic - I'm mostly a fan of his first 4 or 5 albums from the 70's plus a few songs from his later periods, but his new CD with the E-Street Band really grabs me like that early stuff.

Gone Gone Gone - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss? Who'da thunk? But wow, it really works. This is the first single from their CD Raising Sand, which is coming out in a couple of weeks. I love Alison Krauss and Led Zep and I love the groove and the harmonies on this rockabilly tune.

Jeremy Fisher, Goodbye Blue Monday - This is one I just found the other day on the new Paste Magazine sampler CD (#36) with a song called Scar That Never Heals. Another cool song is Cigarette (there's a funny video for this on YouTube, embedded herewith).

There's more, including some old Steppenwolf songs that I forgot I used to love in high school! They were an awesome band. And the new KT Tunstall CD is great too, Drastic Fantastic. I'm also reading Bob Dylan's Chronicles: Volume One. My musical tastes are all over the map. No, the solar system.