One new track we love of late but haven’t included in our monthly mixtapes (simply because it’s not on SoundCloud) is this one from English songstress Laura Marling.

“Short Movie” is the title track from Marling’s forthcoming fifth studio album of the same name, out March 23 on Virgin EMI and available for pre-order now via iTunes.

We’re continuing the tradition we began just last month, sharing a monthly SoundCloud mixtape of new music that’s either been sent our way, we sought out, or that just caught our ear one way or the other.

This month, we’ve got a brand new one from indie stalwart Juliana Hatfield, a soulful track from St. Lenox (who we interviewed just last week), a lo-fi slow-burn pop gem from the near un-Googleable Los Angeles Police Department, a track from the weirdly appealing Brooklyn band, Invisible Familiars, and we start off with an oddly catchy number from the wordy Father John Misty (PS—click that link to check out FJM’s spot-on satirical site). Hardcore fans—skip straight to the end of the mix for some impressive modern day noisegrind supergroup Head Wound City.

Listen below and on our SoundCloud page and be sure to check through—a couple songs included are available for download for free.

A little over a week ago, one of the music PR people who regularly sends us music to review sent over the debut album of an artist we’d never heard of, New York-based Andrew Choi, recording under the moniker St. Lenox. As you may have noticed if you saw our resulting piece last week, we were pretty impressed. Really impressed, actually. And in that very excited because it was something weird that we’d never heard but really really liked kinda way. We got in touch with Andrew shortly thereafter and he graciously agreed to give us a little bit of his time so we could find out more about the mysterious, crooning bird that s St. Lenox. As you can tell, we talked right before the reportedly catastrophic blizzard was about to hit in NYC.

raven + crow: First thing’s first—are you prepared for the coming massive, historic, city-breaking blizzard?

Andrew Choi: Yes. I have at least a year’s worth of food supply and necessities to deal with most worst-case scenarios.

Smart man. I’m actually really jealous. It’s kind of overcast here in Los Angeles, which is pretty traumatic for most of the population, so we’re with you in spirit. So, can you tell me a little bit about how St. Lenox started?

Really, I’m just a karaoke singer. I studied karaoke the same way that I approached classical music. Classical musicians spend a lot of time paying attention to details and phrasing. They study the classics, listen to a variety of interpretations, and think about how to interpret existing songs and make them their own. Of course, since you’re dealing with the classics, you also learn a lot about song composition. As I moved over from karaoke to jazz, and then open-mic, I took a lot of that experience studying American Pop and the Great American Songbook into my own writing. I was familiar with the idea of singing to tracks from karaoke, and I guess that’s why I started writing in the way that I did. I basically write the karaoke tracks and lyric sheets to my own music.

Wow. Honestly, these songs do have that voice overtop of more buried karaoke feel. Cool approach. This is the first album you’ve released, right?

Yes. I mean I released a sort of preview EP that contains 4 of the songs on this album about a year and a half ago. About a year ago I also released an EP of covers, just to work on some of my orchestration and sampling skills.

Well the album’s really really really fucking good. Like I originally wrote when it was sent over to us, there’s something just beautifully off-kilter about the whole thing—the lo-fi production paired with your powerfully unique voice. It’s one of those records that just blew me away. And I feel like the melodies have this eerily memorable quality to them, like they’ve been in my subconscious forever. Can you talk a little bit about your writing process and what inspires your melodies?

It really just depends. Sometimes I’ll start out with chords. Sometimes I’ll start out with a melody. Two things about melody writing: I think too many songwriters are unwilling to write certain melodies, because the melodies evoke certain emotions that they’re uncomfortable—it feels too cheesy or awkward, and it makes them pull back. It’s like when you’re a teenager and your parents hug you when your friends are around. There’s an awkwardness there and you pull away. But really, it’s a missed opportunity. You have to go for it full bore.

The other thing is that with American Idol and its ilk, people have gotten really self-conscious about their voices. They feel like they can’t put their voices out there and present themselves as singers unless they sound like Beyonce or Evanescence. But you don’t have to sound like them to be a singer. My voice is super weird sounding, I think. You know, there’s this R.E.M. song, from their horrendous album Around the Sun called “The Ascent of Man”. It’s not a great song, but you see Michael Stipe just belting like a soul singer. It’s awkward, but it’s pretty awesome. People should embrace that they can be singers (as opposed to just lyricists who hit some pitches) and go for it, even if they don’t release a pristine laser beam of destruction every time they open their mouths, like Amy Lee does.

Great point and, yeah, that really shows in your songs. It’s such a unique sound + pairing—was that a deliberate move or just…natural for you playing music?

I mean, the production is lo-fi because I was actually not rich living off of a graduate student salary for so many years, and I didn’t have lots of money to put into recording. I paid about $600 to make the album, including the cost of instruments, hardware, software and mastering. I think people try a little too hard for things to be lo-fi sometimes. Lo-fi is an opportunity to concentrate on songcraft and dispense with the process of ornamentation—it’s a similar aesthetic to acoustic performance. It means a lot more than just recording on a 4-track, or putting an album through a lo-fi tape filter. I don’t understand trying to imitate a lo-fi sound—that’s concentrating on production in a tedious way that only appears casual. Like intentional bad-hair day. I don’t know whats up with that.

I missed that holiday. I did read somewhere that you were some sort of childhood violin genius, but I hear zero violin on these songs; it’s mainly somewhat downplayed electronics + keys underneath your belting. Do you think there’s a common language in your mind though as far as writing music and having that early foundation in playing it?

I was the 1st prize winner of the American String Teacher’s Association (ASTA) National Solo Competition, for the violin, at their 50th Biennial competition. I defeated a girl that was lent a very expensive Stradivarius.

There is zero use of solo violin on the album. Some general synthy-sounding strings on “The Greyhound Bus Song” and “Pop Song 2012”. I personally think that writers have not figured out a good way to incorporate it. The violin is an enormously expressive instrument, but people these days just use it to play Americana period pieces, or obnoxious “orchestral” backgrounds for Pomplamoose videos. It isn’t given the respect it deserves, and as of now I haven’t figured out how to incorporate it in such a way that gives it that respect, and I probably won’t until I figure that out.

I once heard that the violin’s so beloved by so many people because it’s the closest in tone + range to the human voice. So I could see that battling sonically with singing. Back to your existing style though, I feel like both your lyrics and singing are so blunt and direct, in a really awe-inspiring, gripping way. Who are some musicians who either inspire your work or who you just dig?

I’ve always been a big fan of R.E.M.—they always knew how to write songs, using the fundamentals. Of course, later on they would incorporate different instruments and whatnot. They were very good at setting scenes and telling stories, and writing characters. I’ve enjoyed listening to the Mountain Goats too—actually I feel embarrassed about this, but I never listened to them much until about a year ago. My law school roommate is a big fan of theirs and played some of their stuff for me back then. There’s an experimentation with how lyrics go onto the page that I admire.

Really though, I don’t listen to that much music anymore. I think the market has been crushed with what I’ll call “nominal songwriting” that I don’t really have the time to navigate through. I spent some time listening to modern indie darlings, and it was kind of a big letdown. I’d rather go to karaoke and see someone do something awkward and live. Or listen to stuff that my friends do. There are some great songwriters in NYC and Columbus that you can find just by going local and doing a bit of exploring. Niall Connolly and Ray Brown in NYC, and Joe Peppercorn (of The Whiles) come to mind. Two of them are or have been open-mic hosts. You want to find good stuff, go to the host of a popular open-mic and they can steer you to some good listens.

How are you liking it there in New York, by the way?

It’s great! It’s a great big lonely city. Hmm.

Whereabouts are you?

I live in Clinton Hill. Probably the fastest gentrifying area of NYC. I’ve got a few songs in me, yet to be written, about that.

Ah, yeah. We were in Park Slope + Carroll Gardens for ten years. Brooklyn’s changed a lot in that time. Favorite thing about the city?

If you’re willing to put the time in to find it, you can find it.

And you’re working on your doctorate in philosophy there, right?

Ah, no. I finished my PhD about three years ago. This past year I finished getting my law degree from NYU. I’m now working at a big law firm in midtown Manhattan. I’m officially getting my license in about a week.

Ah, see, I was going to get all dickish parent and ask you what you plan to do with your philosophy degree, but philosophical lawyer sounds winning!

Philosophy allows insight into the logical structure of the universe. That can be useful.

So, St. Lenox—is this something you just plan to do on the side or a one-off album or none of the above?

I have at least 5 albums of material already written. The next album will be better recorded, though I’m not going to go for high polished production. I’m just going to try and make it a bit less harsh in terms of the sound. By the time I’m done with those, I’ll probably have another 3 albums written by then.

Oh, awesome. I was afraid this was a one-time thing. It sounds like John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats has been singing the praises of your album since he came across it. Have you had a chance to reach out to him at all? Seems like a lot of the people who have heard it have heard it directly or indirectly through him.

We had a cool conversation in private. It was really an honor to talk to him. For me, it was nice because I think people tend to focus on my voice, when I want people to recognize me more as a songwriter instead. Also, I think I have lots of classmates from school that didn’t really respect what I was doing. So, it felt good to have some kind of validation out there like that. Not that I needed it for myself. But you know, I had friends that just initially assumed I was terrible, or classmates that would try to give me “pointers” on songwriting. It was awkward and created a distance to be in that situation.

In any case, I’ll probably try and contact him again in the future, just for advice. Like a lyricist uncle or something.

That’s awesome. So, you’ve got a really distinct visual treatment on the few press photos and promo materials I’ve seen to date, kinda deliberately pixelated or like they’re being viewed through an old TV—what’s the idea behind that?

I didn’t have a lot of disposable cash, even in law school. I had to take the pictures myself, and that was the best that I could do. I think most of it is an HDR filter of some sort? I really don’t know what I’m doing. I just press buttons. Beep borp boop.

I mean, I think it kinda follows through with the sound. And the album cover—am I correct in thinking it got changed up at some point from a dark landscape to an 80s style rocket lift-off?

The original cover was a dark landscape of a silo in Iowa. It turns out the picture was so low-res that the printers wouldn’t use it. Which was super embarrassing on my part. Because I have no idea what I’m doing. I mean i’m a musician fer chrissakes. What do I know about that stuff. And it pushed back the release date, which is sort of how the digital/physical release dates got mixed up. It was all my fault, but it’s because I have no idea what I’m doing. I like writing songs and making music. I don’t know how to do this other stuff. I’m learning though.

The new cover, it was one of a few pictures from NASA that was high-res enough to use as an album cover. It also happens to be the shuttle that my elementary school class named, in a big national competition to name the successor shuttle to the Challenger.

Oh, that’s kind of awesome. But seriously, man, next time you need a hand on the graphics end of things, let me know. That stuff, I know.

So are you planning to play out to support the record at all?

I will be playing some shows, with backup. It’s sort of a combined tracks + live instruments + voice affair. We’re working out the kinks. I’ll probably be following the “Live Rehearsal” tradition of R.E.M. (circa Accelerate). I have a college show that I might be working on soon, and try some visits to Boston, Philly and D.C. over the next few months.

Well let us know if you make it out here to LA. Finally, spirit animal?

It turns out, I am my own spirit animal.

Best response to that question yet. Thanks, man!

Some of us spend the days we’re homebound with a pending blizzard and 102°F fever, I don’t know, curled up on the couch watching back-to-back episodes of Gilmore Girls.

Others write an awesome song in that time. Like Danielle “Danz” Johnson, AKA Computer Magic, who just released “Dreams of Better Days (Don’t Pass Me By)”, available for streaming and free download.

Danielle’s releasing her debut studio full-length later this year.  You can read an interview we did with her last February. I guess we used to embed videos in the sidebar? Cray. Cray.

Photo by hand crafted by martin.

Let me just say, this is awesome.

Just before the release of their new album (which we wrote up recently), Sleater-Kinney was interviewed by one of our new favorite comedy duos, Abbi Jacobson + Ilana Glazer of Comedy Central’s Broad City.

The panel discussion took place in New York City’s Ace Hotel in front of an intimate crowd of 150 or so lucky souls and clocks in at just over an hour, all of which is worth watching.

Oh, to have been in that room. But we’re all runners up thanks to NPR, who shared the videotaped Q+A with Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, and Janet Weiss last week, embedded below.

As NPR put it: “The mutual respect onstage was unmistakable: When Glazer and Jacobson insisted that Broad City wouldn’t exist without Sleater-Kinney, Tucker replied, ‘When we watch your show, I want to write a song.'”

We’re trying out a little bit of Web synergy today, so after you watch this interview, head over to Forgotten Favorite, the music journal we started with Pel, to read our retrospective on Sleater-Kinney and hear their relatively ancient cover of Boston’s classic “More Than A Feeling”.

Alright, I know we’ve been talking a lot about music lately on these pages, but we just have to share this new find that came through last night.

St. Lenox is the genre-dodging project of award-winning teenage violinist + current day pursuant of his Juris Doctor degree at NYU, Andy Choi, and the end result has us reeling a bit. After giving up music to pursue a degree in Philosophy at Princeton, Choi rekindled his interest in it again while working on his PhD at Ohio State, playing through the Great American Songbook and testing the waters at area dive bars.

All this brings us to his debut, the blatantly descriptive 10 Songs About Memory and Hope, a collection of songs that’s essentially knocked the wind out of us. The first thing you notice listening to any of them is Choi’s voice, and rightly so. He’s got this brazen, haphazard croon that’s impossible to turn away from, partly because of how appealing it is, partly because it’s akin to watching a tightrope walker—he gives every indication he’s going to tumble off terribly at any second, but somehow he keeps it all together beautifully the entire time. His vocal melodies—sung with a seemingly impossible degree of confidence—strike you as weirdly familiar, like you’ve got this deep recollection of hearing them vaguely in the periphery long ago somehow and they’ve worked their way into your musical subconscious.

Then the music itself. Alone, much of it’s not necessarily that remarkable—largely lo-fi, often fairly minimal. But there’s this strange imbalance of pressence of voice and lack of production or even lack of attention to production of the music that makes it striking in a memorable way because of the strength of the vocals and direct lyrics…like with the first Liz Phair album. In the same way, it seems like one of those no-win situations going forward, where the immediate inclination from anyone else involved in work after this—the artist included—is going to veer toward a higher production value…which will then totally ruin the beautiful imbalance of the whole thing. Picturing Choi’s voice over third party-produced hyperbolic, squeaky clean music does nothing for me.

But this, as is, has got me really really excited to just keep listening.

Weird, awesome stuff. Keep it up, doctor.

St. Lenox’s debut, 10 Songs About Memory and Hope, can be ordered digitally, as a CD, or on vinyl through Revolver USA and downloaded via iTunes. I have no idea if Choi plays live shows, but I’d personally love to see that happen.

You can listen to a few of the stand-out tracks from the album below.

This just in—David Byrne’s new project is a color guard. No joke.

As the artist informed his fans this morning, some years back, a color guard team approached the artist about using some music he’d written for theatre piece in their routine.

His response—“Fine, no charge… you are a high school team after all,” asking that the team send through some sort of documenting of the finished product down the line. When they did, he “watched, and was amazed and delighted to find myself in a new world that I didn’t know existed.”

He continues:

“Over recent decades, the teams have evolved into something strange and wonderful; they’ve created a vibrant, innovative and original vernacular artform that is wildly popular across the whole North American continent, but is all but unknown in many of the big urban centers—like New York, where I live. Contemporary Color aims to remedy that situation.”

You can read his full announcement for more, but, the take away for you—David Byrne’s doing color guard-based performance accompanied by him and the likes of Nelly Furtado, Kelis, St Vincent, How To Dress Well, Devonté Hynes, Nico Mulhy and Ira Glass, tUnE-yArDs, and who knows what other awesome artists.

The only performances announced so far are June 22 + 23 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto and at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on June 27 +28. Click the link to the original message from Byrne above for pre-sale codes.

Tickets for the Brooklyn show went on sale today and were still available at the time of writing.

And get ready for what I can only assume will be a rising trend of color guard-based popular entertainment.

Can’t wait for their version of Pitch Perfect.

Having now firmly established some regular outlets for sharing some of our favorite old music (via Forgotten Favorite, the retrospective music journal we recently started with Paul at Pel) and new (via our new monthly mixtape series), we feel the need to highlight a song that now falls into the chronological gaps—Tove Lo‘s “Habits (Stay High)”.

This track from the Swedish singer (pronounced “Toh-Veh Low”, given name Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson) has been a not-so-guilty pleasure of both mine and Katie’s since it entered our collective consciousness last year. If I remember right, a publicist sent along to us in a particularly busy time for the studio and I just threw it into a figurative digital pile of music entitled ‘To Sort’. However many weeks later, I finally gave it a listen and fell in love with the catchy track. Whether or not the lyrical content can be held on high—Ms. Lo speaks of binging on Twinkies and throwing up in the tub in her efforts to get through the day—it’s totally addictive, musically.

Tove Lo’s début full-length, Queen of Clouds, was released last fall, and the most recent single, “Talking Body”, just got a video the other day, which Tove described as a “sexy, tacky, dirty Dogville-inspired piece.” You can check that out below too.

Starting a new tradition in 2015, we’re putting together monthly SoundCloud “mixtapes”, compiling some of our favorite, mostly new tunes that are catching our ear and setting the tone for the studio each month.

This month’s picks feature some new bands we’re really, really excited about, like the electronic duo Sylvan Esso from Durham, North Carolina  and locals, Little Brutes and some new music from old timers like Sleater-Kinney and German band Lali Puna.

You can listen to all 15 tracks below or on our SoundCloud page. A couple of these tracks are downloadable if you click through and one band included has a free download for today only via KCRW’s Top Tune series.

Expect later mixes to come at the beginning of months from here on out.

Bon weekend, ya’ll.

NPR’s currently streaming in full some new albums of note from veteran musicians, among them, the ninth studio album from Belle and Sebastian, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, and the first album in ten years from one of this writer’s all-time favorite bands, Sleater-Kinney.

The album, titled No Cities to Love, is the band’s eighth studio release, technically, but, after so much time, rather than sounding like an emotionally stunted picking-up of where they left off in 2005/6, Cities sounds like they’ve been making music together all this time. With the exception of the unmistakable, unshakeable roaring croon of Corin Tucker, most other aspects of the music have evolved and shifted into new, pretty surprising areas that I just didn’t expect to hear when putting this record on.

Honestly, I was never a huge fan of their 2005 release, The Woods—I appreciated the experimentation and liked when they veered off into the CCR-esque stylings, but, overall, it sounded like an album form a band that had just developed a bit of an identity crisis. Cities definitely sounds jumbled or disorganized at times, but it’s striking me as more current and urgent and…interesting this time round.

I think it might be a slow burn—something of a musical enigma for the first few listens for me at least. You can listen to it for yourself in full for a limited time and read Katie Presley’s write-up at NPR’s First Listen.