Laura Veirs just stopped by Daytrotter and performed a four song set, all of material off July Flame, her most recent album. The set included:

Life is Good Blues
Sun Is King
I Can See Your Tracks
July Flame

Check it out here.

Perhaps Laura’s most well-known song:

Laura Veirs – Galaxies

Laura Veirs’ MySpace

-Donovan

-Chris

If the video doesn’t load for you, here’s a link to NPR.

Laura Veirs has spent seemingly a lifetime as two things. Number one is very obscure and unloved by a large portion of the indie community, and number two is one of my favorite artists. Her most recent album, her seventh full length, was released by Raven Marching Band Records here in the States. If you’re wondering why you may never have heard of that label before, it’s because it’s her own label that she created in order to be able to release this album at all. The album itself is fantastic, my favorite of 2010 so far (granted that’s not saying much considering it’s been two weeks). Take a listen fo’ yo’self.

Laura Veirs – I Can See Your Tracks

iTunes / amazon

Raven Marching Band Records

-Donovan

Yann Tiersen – La Valse D’Amélie (Version Piano) (Found this on the blisslist a while ago, one of my favorites movies ever, just watched it last week)

Sgt. Dunbar and the Hobo Banned – A March Through Charles Mingus’ Garbage Pile (Check out our interview of the band here)

The Replacements – I Will Dare

Laura Veirs – Carol Kaye (Best song off of July Flame in my opinion, despite some rather silly lyrics)

-Donovan

So Laura Veirs’ July Flame is right around the corner, set for a January 12 release date here in the US (One day earlier for you European folk). I saw Laura open for the Decemberists at Terminal 5 in NYC and she played a fantastic set (a few mic issues which weren’t her fault notwithstanding). As a birthday gift to me, Laura decided to make the first two songs from July Flame available for free download off her website. Dubbing it the “July Flame Overture,” both tracks are exactly the quality I’ve come to expect from her. She makes you put in some contact info, but it’s all cool and you get a free mp3 download after like 1 minute of putting in info. She played both tracks during her set; I loved them then and I love them now (marvelous production on both tracks). Go to her website and download both tracks right now. The tracks are “I Can See Your Tracks” and the title track “July Flame.”

PS. There’s a Jim James appearance on “I Can See Your Tracks”!!!

Laura’s website
Laura’s MySpace

-Donovan

The album will drop on January 19th here in the states (which ironically is as far from July as you can be, oh well…) and I am extremely excited to hear what she has developed this time around.  She certainly started to develop more of a harmonic sound on her last record, as I’m interested to see if that theme continues. I’m also very, very excited to catch her and her new band next week at Terminal 5 in New York (along with Colin Meloy and his band of rapscallions) but it’s the first time I’ll be seeing her so I’m slightly more excited for her part of the show.

In other big news, she decided to essentially self-release her own album this January, bringing up the fundamental question as to why she would want to do that (a question that undoubtedly has a complicated answer) and sadly I’m guessing that’s probably not what she wanted to do. That’s a real shame because though there are few songwriters today who could reasonably call themselves Veirs’ superior, it seems as though she gets tossed aside far too often. At any rate, I’m very excited to hear some new material next week, and even more excited to hear the whole thing come January. I’ll leave you with my favorite Laura song, which I think is a perfect introduction if you’re unfamiliar.

Laura Veirs – Where Gravity is Dead
Amazon / iTunes

-Donovan