Recommendations from Jess at pH Balanced and mvyradio

A favorite blog of ours is pH Balanced, written by Jess Phaneuf, a DJ at mvyradio in Martha’s Vineyard. This week we pass along a few of her recommendations from the past few weeks. And by the way, you can tune in to mvyradio on the internet. There’s a nice iTunes link on their website, and it’s excellent listening all around.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones is a tight soul band from Alabama, fronted by Paul Janeway. Their debut release “Half the City” is out, and the video for “Call Me” introduces you to this excellent, though unlikely looking outfit. I hope Paul will be flattered by the inevitable comparison to a certain Blues Brother.

Appearing recently on The Conan O’Brian Show was Jamestown Revival performing “California (Cast Iron Soul)”. The song appears on “The California EP” as well as on the full length album “Utah”, named for the location of the mountain cabin where the songs were recorded. Jamestown Revival is the duo of small-town Texas high school friends Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance. Before trekking to Austin and L.A. to craft their sound, both had done solo work, and Clay had a few songs picked up by TV Shows ranging from “The Real World” to “Sons of Anarchy”.

Sam Roberts Band has just released the album “Lo-Fantasy” and the single “We’re All In This Together”. Sam Roberts has been well known in Canada for over a decade, winning a number of Juno Awards – Canada’s Grammys – along the way. His first hit single “Brother Down” came out in 2002, released on his first EP “The Inhuman Condition”.

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Broken Bells Back With Another Album

Broken Bells is a collaboration between Brian Joseph Burton (aka Danger Mouse), one of this century’s best producers, and James Mercer, frontman for indie favorite The Shins. Their second full album together, “After the Disco”, is due to be released in early February 2014, but the track “Holding on for Life” is already out. A few versions of the tune can be viewed on YouTube, including this spare live version. But the spacey (literally) official video lets you hear the more layered album version.

The Shins have been around since 1996 and got a big boost when their song “New Slang” was featured in the movie “Garden State”. Below is a clip from the movie with Natalie Portman giving Zach Braff a listen, followed by the full album version of the song.

Over the last decade Danger Mouse has produced albums for the Black Keys, Norah Jones, Beck, and Gorillaz, and he is currently working on U2’s upcoming release. He’s probably most well known for being half of Gnarls Barkley opposite CeeLo Green. “Crazy” was the 2006 mega-hit from the duo’s first album “St. Elsewhere”. Below are two versions of the song, one featuring CeeLo and Danger Mouse in a live studio setting, and the other featuring Prince on guitar.

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After Over 40 Years, I Want You Back!

Lake Street Dive recently covered the Jackson Five’s debut major label single “I Want You Back”. The J5 released it in 1969, and it went to the top of the singles chart in January 1970. Lake Street Dive has been getting buzz from an eclectic set of directions including reviews in the Wall Street Journal, an appearance on Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” and sets at SXSW. Fronted by jazz singer Rachael Price, their sound is as eclectic as their buzz.

Enjoy the laid back Lake Street Dive cover and the historic original.

Of course, Lake Street Dive isn’t the first band to cover this song. Here are some other great renditions from KT Tunstall (showing that she can use the live loop), and Graham Parker knocking it out old-style with The Rumour in 1979.

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Holland’s Bo Saris – Recalling the Soulful Falsettos of Motown

Our blogger friends at Read and Hear surfaced an artist with a retro-soul-falsetto style that recalls Smokey Robinson and Curtis Mayfield. You can read a bit about Bo Saris in this Billboard article. Like many “new” artists, he’s been working and recording for years.

You won’t see Bo in the video for “She’s on Fire”; instead you’ll see clips of Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield and Bo’s library of stripper movies. “The Addict” was released recently, and this one hides Bo behind clever animation.

To see Bo without any artiface, visual or otherwise, watch this live, unplugged performance of “Tender”.

Since Bo paid homage to Curtis Mayfield in the video for “She’s on Fire”, let’s do the same, and then let’s listen to Smokey Robinson and Daryl Hall having fun with a Miracles classic.

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Bernhoft and Kimbra Demonstrate the Art of the Live Loop

Fans of Conan O’Brien just got introduced to soul singer and one-man band, Bernhoft. After fronting a couple of bands between 1996 and 2005, the Norwegian released his first solo album in 2008. His performances center around recording a series of backing loops, sometimes on multiple instruments, to sing and play guitar over. Check out the totally entertaining “Cmon Talk” as well as the live version of “Sunday”.

Another artist who makes use of loops, more focused on vocals, is Kimbra. She got a lot of exposure in 2012 accompanying Gotye on his Grammy Record of the Year “Somebody That I Used To Know”, but her vocal range and stylistic range are much broader. Check out these two numbers and hang with the idiosynchratic “Settle Down”.