Bahamas Is Afie

The new album from Bahamas, "Bahamas Is Afie," has been in regular rotation for me the last couple weeks. As the album title suggests, Bahamas is the stage name for Afie Jurvanen, a Canadian folk musician. His songs are built around a soft meandering guitar and his soulful vocals, but they periodically incorporate elements from all sorts of other genres like pop, blues, gospel, soul, and country. With summer winding to a close, this album should be the perfect soundtrack to counteract the hustle and bustle of everyday life by getting you to slow down, relax, and soak in the tunes.

Below is an excellent live version of "Stronger Than That," one of my favorite tracks from the new album.



I was absolutely convinced that I had previously posted the excellent track "Okay Alright I'm Alive" from Bahamas' 2012 album "Barchords," but somehow I never got around to it, so listen to that one too!




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Happy 40th Birthday Tim Kasher

Today is the 40th birthday of Tim Kasher, front man of Cursive and The Good Life. In honor, below is one of my favorite "story songs" of all time "Album of the Year," the lead track of the 2004 album of the same name, which, chronicles a year of ups and downs in a relationship through 12 tracks (one for each month of that year). The title track covers the two people's initial meeting and then summarizes the year before the remaining tracks get into more detail. It's a simultaneously beautiful and heartbreaking song with lines like "She said she'd never seen someone so lost, I said I'd never felt so found" and "I know she loved me once, but those days are done. She used to call me every day from a pay phone on her break for lunch just to say she can't wait to come home." Give it a listen and (hopefully) enjoy!



Does anyone else have any favorite "story songs"? Or perhaps a favorite The Good Life of Cursive song to help celebrate Tim Kasher's birthday? Let me know in the comments or by email.

Mimicking Birds - Eons

The blog has been quiet the last few months as life has been busy (and I've been lazy I suppose), but there's too much good music I want to share for it to stay silent forever. I'm hoping to start posting more regularly soon, but first... Mimicking Birds.

One of my favorite albums so far this year has been "Eons" by the Portland trio Mimicking Birds. This is the band's first release in four years, but it has been well worth the wait. I wrote a little bit about the first album here. Since that album, the band has reinvented its sound a bit, straying more from a folksy Modest Mouse to a band that expertly combines folk-rock and electronic elements in a way that sounds incredibly natural.

The first two tracks are outstanding and really set the tone for the album, but the whole thing is wonderful. Below, you can listen to track number five, "Bloodlines". I've had this album on repeat for large portions of the summer, and I expect to keep returning to it for quite some time. Here's hoping we won't have to wait another four years for their next album, but if we do I have faith they'll make it worth the wait again.

Want to check out Mimicking Birds?

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