In addition to your garden variety one-sheet, the New Pornographers’ Together just arrived in the mail today with an album-inspired piece written by author Rick Moody entitled We Are Together. After crying quietly at our desk for a short moment, we pulled ourselves together, wiped the snot from our face and selected a fitting/favorite excerpt. Wisdom and brand new mpfree porn below:

Fewer keyboard flourishes, and fewer things that sound like they necessitated a good computer programmer, and more things that sound like A.C. Newman and the rest of the band playing in a room. This is probably an illusion, this playing together, but it is an illusion with a purpose, because there are at least two songs on this album that use togetherness as the assembling cement, the epoxy of their composition. The first of these is a big rock song, “Your Hands (Together),” and as you would expect the putting of hands together also occasions a silver bullet, of the mortally inflicting variety, which is the paradoxical sort of thematic approach that we would expect from songwriters who are no longer young, and who are willing to write a couplet that answers the question “What’s love?” with the response: “What turns up in the dark.”

The New Pornographers, Your Hands (Together)

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Tripwire photographer Sarahana has a great music blog, and one of the regular features is a series of mini musical documentaries she calls the Secret Garden. For this very special installment, Sarahana gave us the exclusive to her video of the angelic-voiced, rising folk artist Sharon Van Etten singing “Keep” from her upcoming album, Because I Was in Love


Words and video by Sarahana

When twenty-eight-year-old Sharon Van Etten sings, her voice feels like a timeless story you’d read from a musty book, colored yellow with age. In some way, this voice is emblematic of the ultimate form of feminine heroism because it attains its unbreakable might by confronting its deepest wounds and vulnerabilities; its strength is that it is unafraid of its weakness.

With this kind of prowess up her sleeve, Sharon has been steadily winning the attention of everyone’s who’s crossed her path. It still feels like she remains one of the most overlooked jewels of new music, but that should be expected to change soon with the proper release of her stunning debut, Because I Was in Love, out on May 26 through Language of Stone Records.

The recent release of a music video for “For You”, directed by the seasoned Michael Palmieri (Foo Fighters, The New Pornographers), and opening sets for prominent bands such as Beirut and Great Lake Swimmers have already earned Sharon new praises from tastemakers outside the comfort zone of Brooklyn, the musical savvy borough that has been a kind home to her since leaving New Jersey, where she’s originally from, and Tennessee, where she spent several years growing up.

Before she embarked on her European tour, we visited Sharon at her apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where she performed “Keep”, taken from her upcoming album, Because I Was in Love.

“The Heartbreak Ride” is one such beautiful pop song about late night rides to downtown L.A. It’s a heart tugging symphonic musical arrangement filled with trumpets, both acoustic and electric guitars and chiming bells. “Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer” and “Prophets” are both irresistibly catchy songs with great hooks that could easily fit in to a New Pornographers album with A.C. and Neko harmoniously singing together.

Albeit a hard task, if I had to pick a favorite song on the album, it would be “The Palace At 4 a.m.”, which is absolute pop bliss. With bouncy drums and an uplifting orchestration, it makes you want to dance around while singing the great chorus; “It was a straight shot / A straight shot / Lady would you call it off!” Such a perfect pop song; one that I have grown to expect from A.C.

For fans of New Pornographers and also new listeners this is an appealing album, filled with catchy songs and killer hooks. The sunny chamber pop is the perfect antidote for bleary winter days. Definitely my first must have album of 2009.

Matador Records