Iron and Wine, the principal recording/performing vehicle for current Austin, TX resident Sam Beam has, since 2002, released three full-length albums, a handful of EPs and singles, plus the collaborative In the Reins EP with Calexico. An incredibly prolific songwriter, Sam has built each album from a wealth of recorded material. Many of the songs not found on individual Iron and Wine releases later surfaced in live performance and in various limited-edition compilations. Up till now, any fan would find it difficult to track down these rarities.

Collecting songs ranging from out-of-print to never-before-released, Around the Well spans Iron and Wine’s earliest sessions which yielded the band’s debut (2002’s The Creek Drank the Cradle) through material recorded for 2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog. The double-disc Around the Well collection is broken up into two sections. The first half is an assortment of hushed home recordings, unedited and raw, and the second highlights moments captured in the confines of proper studios with the help of other musicians, friends and engineers.

The album’s title comes from a line in the song “The Trapeze Swinger,” a fan favorite which was written for and included in the movie In Good Company. Three more songs written and recorded for the film finally make their appearance here as well: “Belated Promise Ring,” “God Made the Automobile” and “Homeward, These Shoes.” Around the Well also brings together hard-to-find covers such as The Flaming Lips’ “Waitin’ for a Superman” and New Order’s “Love Vigilantes,” along with one of Iron and Wine’s earliest originals, “Sacred Vision,” which appeared on a compilation for Sound Collector magazine.

Listen to Iron & Wine:

Elsewhere on the web:

www.ironandwine.com

Citay makes a joyous return on Dream Get Together, the San Francisco cosmic wanderers' expansive third album. Many of the touchstones from Citay's previous work remain intact – flourishes of Led Zeppelin, Eno/Fripp, Thin Lizzy, Pink Floyd, Popul Vuh and ELO can be heard throughout – but a newfound swagger pushes Dream Get Together way over the top.

Seldom has there been a more obvious choice for an album-opener than "Careful With That Hat," a song propelled by a deep groove and swing that practically begs the listener to stand up and air-drum wildly. The vocals soar, the lead guitars catch fire and the mammoth solo (courtesy of guitarist Josh Pollock) builds to an ecstatic explosion. This is the shot across the bow. Citay have arrived on Dream Get Together.

Led by songwriter Ezra Feinberg, Citay has made a career out of studio exploration, recalling a time when studio excess was the norm. Producer Tim Green, of the Fucking Champs, is no stranger to sonic indulgence, and together Feinberg and Green have woven together a musical tapestry that is both heavy and sweet. In Citay, the metal leanings of Green's band are replaced by an altogether different brand of fantasy rock. Dream Get Together has an embroidered and epic beauty that flies over the ocean while snuggling up to the ears. Joining Feinberg in Citay is drummer Warren Huegel, whose rhythmic sensibilities are best exemplified not only by his thunderous beats, but also his percussion decorations that lift the Citay sound from the ground up. Flanking Feinberg's acoustic six string live are the electric guitars of Sean Smith and Josh Pollock. Bassist Diego Gonzalez holds it all together throughout. Feinberg shares vocal duties on Dream Get Together with Tahlia Harbour and Meryl Press, whose sweet, soaring voices play the perfect foil to the bombast.

One of many highlights of Dream Get Together is "Mirror Kisses," a song Feinberg wrote specifically for guest vocalist Merrill Garbus (of Tune-Yards) to sing in three-part harmony with Harbour and Press of Citay. With the soaring Ebow guitars and vocal harmonies, "Mirror Kisses" is Citay at its most lush and melodic. In contrast, "Hunter" is Citay at its most excessive – a triumphant instrumental anthem that somehow bridges the gap between Klaus Schulze and The Scorpions. With a spaced-out synth solo by Joel Robinow of Howlin' Rain, "Hunter" is a majestic ride. Dream Get Together closes with a gorgeous rendition of Galaxie 500's "Tugboat," in which Citay replaces the reverb-y electric guitars with clean acoustic strumming and Fripp-ed out sonics, preserving the beauty of the original while making the song their own.

Listen to Citay:

Elsewhere on the web:

myspace.com/citay07

Elsewhere on the web:

myspace.com/thefreshonly

Cymbals Eat Guitars is an indie rock band from Staten Island, New York. Joseph Ferocious (Joseph D'Agostino) and Matthew Miller attended Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin, New Jersey where they graduated in the class of 2006 together. According to their website:

Their debut album Why There Are Mountains was included in Pitchfork Media's "Best New Music", earning 8.3/10 in its review. The LP version of the album is currently only available via Insound.

An early version of the song "Share" was released on the Indiecater Vol. 1 compilation in June 2008.

In late 2009, the band was chosen as of one Beyond Race Magazine's "50 Emerging Artists," resulting in a spot in the publication's #11 issue (with Bodega Girls and J. Cole on the cover), as well as an exclusive Q&A for the magazine's site.

(Information taken from Wikipedia, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.)

Elsewhere on the web:

cymbalseatguitars.com

Just 20 seconds into the new Phosphorescent album, you hear something so immediate, so purposeful, so damn infectious, it's clear that something special is underway. The first album of original material since 2007's Pride captures the band moving into a truly extraordinary place. Here's to Taking It Easy is the culmination of the past three years: a grand statement, the album we dreamed Phosphorescent would make.

Pride was a deeply personal, haunting record that Phosphorescent's Matthew Houck recorded on his own, playing all of the instruments himself. 2009's To Willie (their tribute to Willie Nelson) featured Houck joined by his bandmates, rambling through the Nelson catalog with fifths of whiskey and undeniable swagger. So if Pride was built for 5AM and To Willie sounded just right as last call approached, where does Here's To Taking It Easy fit? This is the Phosphorescent record made for any time, any season.

Featuring the current live incarnation of Phosphorescent (Scott Stapleton, piano; Jeff Bailey, bass; Chris Marine, drums; Jesse Anderson Ainslie, guitar; Ricky Ray Jackson, pedal steel), Here's to Taking It Easy is the new Cosmic American Music. Recorded in the band's hometown of Brooklyn with outside mixing assistance from Stuart Sikes (White Stripes, Cat Power, Loretta Lynn, the Walkmen), this album breathes with life like nothing Phosphorescent has ever done before. "We'll Be Here Soon" and "Hej, Me I'm Light" hint at the narcotic haze of Pride, while anthems like "The Mermaid Parade" and "It's Hard to Be Humble (When You're From Alabama)" sound perfect pumped out of the car stereo with the windows rolled down. "Heaven, Sittin' Down" recalls the country rock of To Willie, while the stark album closer, "Los Angeles" sounds as if it was lifted from the grooves of Neil Young's On the Beach. Jam after jam, Here's to Taking It Easy brings everything together for Phosphorescent; a classic that could be from another era, but sounds perfect right here, right now.

Listen to Phosphorescent:

Elsewhere on the web:

Elsewhere on the web:

myspace.com/phosphorescent

Iron & Wine - http://www.myspace.com/ironandwine
The New Pornographers - http://www.myspace.com/thenewpornographers
Phosphorescent - http://www.myspace.com/phosphorescent
Cymbals Eat Guitars - http://www.myspace.com/cymbalseatguitars
The Fresh & Onlys - http://www.myspace.com/thefreshonlys
Citay - http://www.myspace.com/citay07

And, if you can't wait for some of the great live music until September, why not join us in London at Union Chapel on 1st June, when End of the Road presents: The Unthanks + special guests.

The Unthanks released their latest album 'Here's The Tender Coming' in September 2009 to great excitement and great reviews. The album uses a kaleidoscope of unlikely instruments, it features in almost every UK poll for Albums of the Year and was recently described by the Guardian as "haunting, original and magnificent". The live show promises to be something really, really special.

Join the event on Facebook: http://tiny.cc/3gIek

Tickets are £15 advance, available from:

TicketWeb: http://www.ticketweb.co.uk / 0844 477 1000
SeeTickets: http://www.seetickets.com
WeGotTickets: http://www.wegottickets.com

“I have to say, this was the most fun I've ever had making a record,” says Jeff Tweedy. “We worked really hard, but it was pretty joyous work, and it came together quicker than any record I can remember.”

That sense of confidence and purpose is immediately evident on Wilco (the album), the tenth release from one of the world’s most acclaimed and respected bands. The project represents the full range of Wilco’s musical palette—from the driving opener “Wilco (the song)” to the delicate “You and I” (a duet with Feist), from the tense, menacing “Bull Black Nova” to the breezy “You Never Know.” The eleven songs on Wilco (the album) reveal a group fifteen years into its career and at the peak of its game.

This album is the follow-up to 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, which was the first Wilco recording with the band’s current line-up: Tweedy (guitar and vocals); John Stirratt (bass); Nels Cline (guitar); Glenn Kotche (drums); Pat Sansone (multiple instruments); and Mikael Jorgenson (keyboards). Sky Blue Sky was the group’s highest-charting release ever, and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Album. Its stripped-down sound was the result of a new, very deliberate recording strategy by this ever-changing collective.

“Sky Blue Sky had a bit of a purity complex,” says Tweedy. “We were trying to keep the overdubs to a minimum, and we proved we could do it. I felt liberated by that, so this time we thought, let's reincorporate the other ways we know how to use a studio.”

“After Sky Blue Sky, there was a concerted effort to explore what our current line-up could do with more studio craft,” says Stirratt. “We were very conscious that we wanted to introduce a more dense soundscape.”

In addition to knowing that they wanted to revisit the possibilities of studio recording, the members of Wilco were also energized by a series of shows they performed in Chicago in February of 2008, during which they played through their full catalogue, over the course of five nights. “Those residency shows gave the band more sense of ownership, especially for the members who weren't on the earlier records,” says Tweedy. “I felt that this band actually did a better job of representing those songs than we were able to do when the records came out. What the band has always aspired to be is closer now than it has been at any other time.”

Armed with that sense of Wilco’s history, they began sketching out songs—until an invitation arrived that added another spin to the new project. Crowded House/Split Enz singer/songwriter Neil Finn asked Tweedy, Stirratt, Kotche, and Sansone to join him, Johnny Marr, members of Radiohead, and others in New Zealand, for an album he was recording to benefit Oxfam International.

“Before New Zealand, the songs were pretty well rehearsed, the shapes were pretty well set, and about 90% of the lyrics were written—and I don't think I've ever had 50% done at that point,” says Tweedy. “So when we finished that other project, we opted to stay in the Southern Hemisphere, in warm weather, rather than going back to Chicago in the middle of winter.”

“We had sketched everything out beforehand,” says Stirratt. “Then when the four of us were in New Zealand, we had the bedrock, and we got the basic takes on analog.”

Tweedy says that the setting and the weather were inspiring, but that there were also practical reasons that the foursome’s stay in New Zealand was so productive. “Any time your home life is based in the city where you're recording, it will insinuate itself and you'll get distracted by everyday life,” he says. “Being responsible only for a small bag of clothes, and for feeding yourself, it facilitates a higher level of focus.”

The basic tracks from New Zealand were then taken back and fleshed out at the Loft, Wilco’s home base in Chicago. It was at this stage that the more elaborate arrangements and overdubs were added—the sonic elements that give Wilco (the album) its variety and breadth. “When you talk about using the studio for layering, people imagine some ornate pop record, but you can also use it in a lot of subtle ways as well,” says Tweedy.

Both Tweedy and Stirratt pointed to the same song as a breakthrough in the sessions. “The demo of ‘Deeper Down’ had the feeling of a cool template that we could work from,” says the bassist. “We had talked for a long time about constructing a record on ProTools and then going back and playing it organically, and that’s kind of what we did.”

Stirratt also singles out the closing track, “Everlasting Everything,” as both a personal favorite and a central piece of the album. “That’s a successful example of taking a very basic song and slowly crafting it into something that went beyond a simple little tune,” he says. “That one is a high point for me.”

The smoothness of the recording process, however, doesn’t mean that Tweedy has lost the edge in his words. Wilco (the album) is largely a meditation on survival, persistence, and mortality—sometimes defiant (“Wilco (the song)”), sometimes despairing (“Country Disappeared”), sometimes bemused (“You Never Know”).

“As a lyricist, and as a person who is trying to navigate the world as best I can, I’m certainly confronted with a fear of the other shoe falling, of the ambiguity and randomness we face,” says Tweedy. “These are existential crises I've been obsessing about for the twenty years I've been writing songs. 

“I do think these songs reflect a higher tolerance for that ambiguity, a better ability to cope with not knowing. That doesn't erase the anxiety of a song like ‘Bull Black Nova’—if anything, it makes it more palpable. But people will probably think the balance is tilted toward a more optimistic side—and I hope so. Isn't that what we would all prefer?”

Listen to Wilco:

Elsewhere on the web:

wilcoworld.net

We are super excited to be doing a show at Union Chapel with The Unthanks + David Thomas Broughton!

Not many bands can count amongst their fans, Radiohead, Portishead, Robert Wyatt, Ben Folds, Elvis Costello, Ewan McGregor and Nick Hornby, but The Unthanks occupy a unique place in music. Northumbria sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank are unsentimental young storytellers outside of time, forging links between folk worlds old, new and other. Staunch traditionalism and sonic adventure ought to be polar opposites, yet they are easy bedfellows in the gentle hands of The Unthanks; the British counterpart to the leftfield folk leanings of Sufjan Stevens, Bonnie Prince Billy, Tom Waits and Fleet Foxes.

Formerly known as Rachel Unthank & The Winterset, their second album The Bairns (2007) was Mercury Music Prize nominated and in The Best Albums of the Decade (worldwide, all genres) in Uncut and The Guardian. New album Here's The Tender Coming uses a kaleidoscope of unlikely instruments and features in almost every UK poll for Albums of the Year.

This will be a really special show.

Doors: 7pm

Tickets are £15 in advance, available from:

TicketWeb | 0844 477 1000 | www.ticketweb.co.uk

SeeTickets | www.seetickets.co.uk

WeGotTickets | www.wegottickets.com/event/73024

Further Information:

The Unthanks | www.the-unthanks.com | www.myspace.com/rachelunthank

David Thomas Broughton | www.davidthomasbroughton.co.uk | www.myspace.com/davidthomasbroughton

Union Chapel | www.unionchapel.org.uk | 020 7226 1686

What this means:
We have been given permission to open camping and some parts of the site on Thursday afternoon, meaning that you can arrive, set up camp, spend the evening finding your way around and be ready to hit the festival when the entertainment starts on Friday.
We will also have a few small bands on the tipi stage, the cinema will be running and bars and catering will be open.
Changes to published timings:
The festival website is now up to date, but other sites, blogs and forums may take a while. So for all up to date information please check www.endoftheroadfestival.com

Thursday 9th September
Car Parks & Box Office opens at 2pm
Camping opens at 3pm
Latest arrival on Thursday is 10pm (gates close for the night at this time)
Tipi, Cinema, Bars and Food open from 5pm

Friday 10th September
Car Parks, Box Office & Camping open at 8.30 am