The Music Note

I watched the second instalment of Josh Rouse's Late Night Conversations concert series on Stageit last night.  Once again, Josh delivered a fantastically varied setlist in which he played a wide range of tracks from previous albums, debuted a new track and took requests from the audience.  This time round, the sound quality was again very clear, aside from a slight delay at the very beginning, which was resolved within the duration of the first song. Accompanied by Caio Bellveser on piano, Josh opened the set with a beautiful rendition of Bluebird St. (Caio joined Josh on bass for the remainder of the show).   An equally impressive Streetlights followed, in which Josh played harmonica in the into and middle 8 sections.   This is one of my favourite Rouse songs to hear live, it works so well played both acoustically and with a full band, and on this occasion I felt the harmonica added a nice touch to the intro.  Next up, Josh played a new trac...

Taken from Guster's sixth studio album Easy Wonderful , That's No Way To Get To Heaven is, in terms of arrangement a simplistic, yet powerful song.  I like how the instrumentation is layered; the track starts with just guitar, but further elements are gradually introduced at key moments of the song's progression. The appearance of piano and vocal harmonies in particular, add a lovely warmth to the overall production of the song, and with lines of "One half of me is still shaking / The other half is still waiting for a lover", the clarity and strength of Ryan Miller's lead vocal is evident throughout.

The Killers have released a trailer for their upcoming album  Battle Born .  The album, due for release in September, is the follow up to 2008's  Day & Age. I'm looking forward to hearing more previews of the album in the coming months and hopefully, the band will announce new tour dates soon! It's been four years since  Day & Age , so I'm very excited to hear new music from one of my favourite bands.

Hot Chip's new album In Our Heads  is released on June 11.  However, the follow up to 2010's One Life Stand  is currently streaming over at npr.org. The album can be heard in full here . I've listened to the the entire album a few times now and so far my favourite track is Don't Deny Your Heart  - I'm loving the 80's synths on this track.  The chorus is great too, fast paced and totally addictive.

Josh Rouse has just announced a new Stageit show for Sunday June 24.  He tweeted that he would be premiering new songs.  His previous show was awesome, so I am very much looking forward to this one. It looks like these concerts, known as Late Night Conversations , are going to be a regular thing.  Great news for fans! Tickets are once again being sold on a 'pay what you can' basis and can be purchased here .

John Mayer's 2006 album Continuum is generally regarded as being his finest work to date.  Though 2003's  Heavier Things  is my personal favourite, Continuum is a fantastically produced album, full of well crafted songs which not only demonstrate Mayer's flair for song writing, but also his undeniable talent for playing a guitar.  Whereas Heavier Things touched upon blues in places   (most notably on  Come Back To Bed ), the genre is present throughout on Continuum , backed up with elements of pop and soul. The soul influence is evident on the politically driven  Waiting On The World To Change ,   an upbeat song which made for a perfect lead single with it's catchy lyrics, complete with an even catchier middle 8 vocal breakdown and guitar solo. The political theme is also present on Belief , one of the album's strongest tracks, which is powerful both instrumentally and lyrically.  Wonderfully melodic guitar hooks are complimented w...