went to war every morning

Lisa Hannigan is the gorgeous-voiced Irish woman who essentially made up half of Damien Rice's majesty, through her haunting collaborations all throughout the O album --on songs like "The Blower's Daughter" and the secret and devastating "Silent Night"-- and on the recent 9 Crimes.

Lisa's new album Sea Sew came out last week in Ireland, and this is a melancholy demo version of the first single "Lille."

Lille (demo) - Lisa Hannigan


Currently on tour in Ireland, she'll be hitting the States in October and November. Her MySpace page shows her coming through Denver on October 27. In related news, the Fillmore website seems to suggest it is possibly with Jason Mraz.

Monday Music Roundup

The game's on tonight. I love taking three or four hours to watch baseball -- the pace of it, the grace and the subtlety. I am having so much fun watching The Rockies' brand of baseball - it's young and hardworking and fun, and it's all coming together for them into a very very likely World Series run (becoming more likely after that 4th inning tonight)! It's a fun time to live in Colorado. They need to win just one more against the Diamondbacks to go to the Series, and this Giants fan is cheering for them without qualms.


The Feeding Of The 5000
Ian Brown
There's a Matt Nathanson song called "Everything You Say It Sounds Like Gospel," a sentiment that also applies to much of what former Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown has been putting out lately. In addition to a storyline here straight out of The Good Book, Brown is drawn to using these dramatic orchestral foundations that make it all seem even more epic and important. But I don't find it pretentious; I get into the way the strings combine with cool electronic flourishes and his effortlessly swank vocals. His new album The World Is Yours is out now in the UK, not in the U.S. yet.

The Hustle
Marah
This came on my shuffle on my iPod at the gym while I was trying to top my personal best at sit-ups (oh, like 33. Something mindblowing), and it gave me an instant rush of energy. This is a Marah tune that has comfortably been living on my iPod for a good two years or so without receiving my full unabashed love -- until now. Without reading the shuffle display, at first I thought this urgent, perfectly ebullient song was maybe Westerberg because of the yowly crack to Dave Bielanko's voice, with delightfully jangly rock guitars. I now love this song, it's my new favorite -- off their 2005 album If You Didn't Laugh You'd Cry. This Philadelphia-based, brother-helmed band has got a lot of cool stuff going on now, including a new EP/10" vinyl this month (Can't Take It With You) and a forthcoming album called Angels of Destruction.


Needles
Lisa Hannigan
I wrote about the Cake Sale compilation last year when the Oxfam benefit album featuring the talents of lots of good folks (Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, Josh Ritter, Glen Hansard, Gemma Hayes, etc) was released in Ireland. At the time, it was a UK-only release, and for those of us on this side of the pond not hardy enough to weather the pounds-to-dollars conversion, it's finally gained a U.S. release tomorrow on Yep Roc. This particular song (written by Damien Rice) is as haunting and lovely as everything Hannigan loans her vocals to. Allow me to repeat at this point that it's truly a crying shame that things didn't work out musically with her and Damien Rice; I can't get enough of the way she sings.

The Way I Am
Ingrid Michaelson
I've mentioned my love/hate relationship with Old Navy music and also lately their '80s carnival of wide-necked, very long, big-buttoned, "they-think-I-am-11" items. However, this song which they tapped for their latest sweater commercial is a nice home run for deserving songwriter Ingrid Michaelson from Staten Island. Despite her being my MySpace friend for, like, ever -- somehow this infectiously cheery, handclappy sweet ditty slipped my notice. Okay, it's a bit syrupy, but you know when the girl-group harmonies of that chorus hit, you kinda like the sugar rush. Her new album Girls and Boys is out now.


Avril 14th
Aphex Twin
Since we're already talkin' TV, here's one other one on the airwaves lately. I'd never listened to ambient musician Aphex Twin (born Richard David James) until I started seeing articles about the licensing flap about the sampling of this song in the recent hi-larious Samberg digital short on SNL, "I Ran." This original is a lush, gorgeous piano song from the 2001 Aphex Twin album drukqs, and count me as a new fan . . . but I can't really listen to it purely without thinking of lines like, "You ain’t wrong to me, so strong to me, you belong to me . . . like a very hairy Jake Gyllenhaal to me" (which, incidentally, may be one of the best rhymes ever written). If you haven't seen it:

"The Cake Sale" (featuring Josh Ritter, Lisa Hannigan, Damien Rice, The Thrills, and more)

Well, here's something tasty.

Excellent Irish musicians team up for a good cause with the upcoming release of The Cake Sale -- a band featuring a loose and expansive collective of musicians and writers who have combined to create a 9-song CD of the same name on Oxfam Records. All profits will go to support Oxfam Ireland's Make Trade Fair campaign and their overseas program work.

Songs on the album have been written by Dave Geraghty and Paul Noonan (both of Bell X1), Bono's favorite Emm Gryner [link], Glen Hansard (of The Frames), Ollie Cole (of Irish band Turn), Damien Rice, Irish indies The Thrills and Australian-born Irish songwriter Matt Lunson [link].

Lead vocalists for the project include Lisa Hannigan (who has worked extensively with Damien Rice and should release a solo album as soon as she is able), Nina Persson (of The Cardigans), Gary Lightbody (of Snow Patrol), the lovely Irish singer Gemma Hayes, Glen Hansard, Josh Ritter, Conor Deasy (The Thrills) and Neil Hannon (of The Divine Comedy). A host of other luminaries fill the roles of musicians.

That's a top notch compilation lineup if I ever saw one! You can stream audio from all nine of the songs here, or on their MySpace page. Be their friend. Buy their record. It's a GOOD cause. The Cake Sale was just released in Ireland last week, and apparently those of us not on the Emerald Isle can buy it online through Road Records.

Here's just one of the great songs:
Last Leaf (Lisa Hannigan on vocals) - The Cake Sale
(re-upped 11/11/06)

O! New & unreleased songs from Damien Rice

I absolutely love Ireland's unofficial Ambassador of Melancholy Damien Rice and his 2003 release O. There is so much beauty, longing, and sadness wrapped up into those songs. Rice has a way of constructing these haunting & languid melodies, incorporating evocative strings to have as potent of a voice as his own. And, for the record, "The Blower's Daughter" is the best 3am song ever ever written. (Oh, Wayne Rooney likes it too)

So, recently when a friend shared five new/unreleased songs from Damien Rice, I was excited to hear some new material which might be on his sophomore album (very tentatively rumored to be called "Childish" and out in December, according to Rice at a recent concert). Details on the new album are super sketch at this point, but Q Magazine did report that the song "Cross-eyed Bear" (which Rice contributed to the Help: A Day In The Life compilation) is a taste of new material and the direction he is going for the second album. These other five tracks will also give you a sense of what's he's been up to.

Accidental Babies - Damien Rice
A popular and notable addition to many of his recent live shows (this version is from a June 2005 Paris show @ Le Trianon); a gut-wrenching piece about love & loss that I can't stop listening to. This is the age-old breakup song wherein the singer wonders about everything his lover is doing with her new guy ("Do you brush your teeth before you kiss? Do you miss my smell? Do you really feel alive without me? If so, be free. If not, leave him for me - before one of us has accidental babies.")

Toffee Pop (live) - Damien Rice
A mid-tempo number, beginning with furious acoustic guitar and a tapping foot as the sole percussion. A more playful song which I take to be about falling in love (or lust or something in between): "Lollipop licking with Lola sticking like toffee to my teeth / Wait, watch, gravitate." This was first heard with Juniper, Damien's earlier band with guys who are now in Bell X1.

Then Go (live) - Lisa Hannigan & Damien Rice
This is another Juniper song, this version featuring Lisa Hannigan handling the lead vocals with Rice coming in with harmonies. Haunting and somber, as her voice always is. The lyric "Did your mother have you easily?" reminds me of the Ryan Adams lyric (which I find sweet, though others would argue it is creepy): "I would have held your mother's hand on the day that you were born."

Sand (radio broadcast version) - Damien Rice
A simple song of happy love, of a growing conviction that you are with the right person. "My love, my life, my work, my time / I give them all to you / Your hand in mine we walk, we talk in rhyme / We go the whole night through."

Baby Sister (radio broadcast version) - Damien Rice
Another older unreleased song, Rice addresses grittier subject matter with this ode to escaping domestic violence. "Baby sister, keep drinking / Or he'll hit you / He'll bleach your eyes / So be a good girl / Just for the night / And run, run..."

As a bonus, I've long found this hidden track from "O" to be quietly devastating, but it doesn't fit on a Christmas mix because, well, it only shares the melody of the Christmas carol and none of the calmness, brightness or peace. The a cappella vocals are all by the lovely 24-year-old Lisa Hannigan, who accompanies Rice on many of his songs.

Silent Night - Lisa Hannigan & Damien Rice

If the above links quit working, as they have been wont to do lately, here is a temporary YouSendIt link of all the songs in a zip file here.