Chills

I was able to secure advanced copies of my two most highly anticipated records and I'm currently having trouble doing anything productive (stories for next week) as the sounds of these records have me in grips.

In the liner notes of Fleet Foxes debut album, best taken as a listening companion to their EP, music is described as a private affair, a way of communing with the memory of the first time you heard a song. For them, it's the only medium that can transport you to another time. One track does this for me, to a time I cannot even conceive but can try.

How rare it is that people hear a sound that absolutely reminds of them of their own mortality. Fleet Foxes may be cribbing from beloved records of their mothers and fathers, but they have used them as a tin can telephone to the other world.

The example is the track Your Protector. Only listen to it moving 60 miles per hour or over. The acoustic stomp remembers the folk intensity of some Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young songs. The group harmonies resurrect the spirits that roll across the land and last longer than we do. It's not often that a track reminds you of forces beyond your control, but this one does.
Elsewhere, Blue Ridge Mountains affirms my decision to move near Carolina, Tennessee areas.

More on Wolf Parade soon which does remind one of the adventurous aim of Television's "Marquee Moon." Thank you press release...