All posts tagged as: wailing wall
Fanfarlo Joins the Digital Download Game
If you download one free album this week, I would recommend “Hospital Blossoms” by the Wailing Wall
. If you download one album for $1, I recommend “Reservoir,” the debut album by British group Fanfarlo. They are offering the full album plus bonus tracks for $1 at their website
. Plus the mp3s are high quality and DRM-free, and the website interface makes the checkout as simple as possible.
“Reservoir” was produced by Peter Katis, who also worked on records by The National and Interpol, and Fanfarlo reminds me of those groups, with a touch of Glen Hansard.
Photos From The Road
Many thanks from JDub to everybody who has been documenting our bands on tour. Here are a few samples. If you have any other pictures or videos to share, please send ‘em our way!
Balkan Beat Box in Mexico City on March 29, courtesy of Antichuping Xolot
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So Much New Music to Buy, Where to Start!!
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are excited for the new releases dropping this week; Clay Aiken, Leonard Cohen, Diana Krall, Keith Urban and much more unenjoyable bellowing. What’s really good is the insane amount of releases and pre-orders coming from JDub Records, the very blog you are reading right now. See below for some must have records this month.
Balkan Beat Box - Nu Made (Remixes) Myspace
Dance-floor ready remix album with stand out remixes from Nickodemus, Soulico, Dub Gabriel & more. Available on CD ($7.99) and LP ($11.99) Also, BBB’s dynamic 2nd album, Nu Med is now available on vinyl. Grab it for only $9.99
Balkan Beat Box - Adir Adirim (Nickodemus Remix)
The Sway Machinery - Hidden Melodies Revealed Myspace
Indie supergroup featuring members of BBB, Yeah Yeah Yeah, Antibalas and Arcade Fire. Available on CD ($7.99), LP ($9.99) and the CD+LP combo ($17.99) All pre-orders come with free button and poster!
The Sway Machinery - Tell it all to me
SoCalled - The SoCalled Seder Myspace
Mini hip-hop symphony using break-beats and Jewish samples to re-create Passover Seder. Special Low Passover price of $6.99 or buy 2 for $12 or go for the gold and scoop up the Afikomen Prize Pack which includes the Seder, SoCalled - Ghettoblaster and Golem Citizen Boris for only $17.99
SoCalled - Who Knows One
The Wailing Wall - 7″ Myspace
Grab this limited release yellow 7″ from very recent JDub signing, The Wailing Wall. Freak-folk at its best led by musical mastermind Jesse Rifkin and his traveling band of musicians. Only $5 for the 7”
The Wailing Wall - For my Baby Brother
The Totally Cliche Tour Photo Post
Jesse and Chris, Northampton, MA (photo by Joey Lawton)
Two weeks ago, The Wailing Wall hit the road for an all-too-brief eight days of shows alongside our good friends Tiger Saw and Paper Birds. For most of these shows, we were a two-piece band with myself on electric guitar and Chris Roush on drums (though thanks are due to keyboardist Ben Bernstein, pianist Trevor Wilson, and violist Holly Fulton, who all sat in when they were able to). In hindsight, going north during February may not have been the brightest idea, but other than one really bad snowstorm in Burlington, VT, this tour was nothing but good times. Here is a more or less accurate representation:
My Heart Is About To Burst
The Wailing Wall - Everything Around You Turns to Shit
The RPM Challenge is a project that encourages musicians everywhere to create a full-length album (at least 35 minutes or 10 songs) entirely in the month of February. All material must be previously unreleased, and they encourage participants to write all the songs during February as well (no covers are allowed). The idea is not to try and make the most amazing album of all time, just to make an album - it could be anything! It could be 35 minutes of nothing but hand claps! The purpose, according to their mission statement, is to “get busy and stop waiting around for the muse to appear…[because] taking action puts you in a position to get inspired.”
Now, if anybody is a poster child for “waiting around for the muse to appear,” its me. My creative process is probably best explained by Oscar Wilde’s famous quote (I am paraphrasing here), “I worked very hard all day - in the morning, I added a comma, and in the afternoon, I took it back out.” I am a neurotic, a nitpicker, a second-guesser, a perfectionist. I form songs over months and months, adding or subtracting a word or a chord as they come to me; when I sit down with the specific intent of “writing a song” in one sitting, the results are unfailingly pathetic. The idea of writing and recording an album entirely during the month of February could not be any more frightening to me, which is why, this year, I opted not to participate (I told myself over and over that it was because of my busy schedule, but really, who am I kidding?). However, a few of my friends are currently hard at work on their own RPM albums, including Wailing Wall drummer Chris Roush, aka Soul Saint Marie, and Portsmouth, NH’s own Guy Capecelatro III.
The Wailing Wall - Hospital Blossoms LP FREE Download
The Wailing Wall
Hospital Blossoms LP
Hospital Blossoms (128 kbps, 38.1 mb)
Download from JDub
Hospital Blossoms (192 kbps, 57.5 mb)
Download from ZShare Download from JDub
The Wailing Wall on MySpace
The Wailing Wall on WNYC
The Wailing Wall, as it appears on this record, is:
Luke Bace – bass, sound effects
Holly Fulton – viola, grand piano
Alixandra Macmillan-Feidel – vocals
Natalie Mirsky – accordion, vocals
Taylor Pavlik – trumpet
Jesse Rifkin – vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, banjo, harmonica, harmonium, accordion, electric piano, glockenspiel, violin scratches, drums, shakers, tambourine, wood block, field recording of gamelan musicians
Chris Roush – drums, cajon, darbouka, bass synth, shakers, vocals, sound effects, field recording of a thunderstorm outside the boathouse
Recorded by Chris Roush at the Boathouse in Stone Lake, WI and at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, except for “Floral Park,” “No Wind,” and “Morning #2,” which were recorded by Jesse Rifkin at his parents’ house in Annapolis, MD (Chris added all sorts of awesome sounds to “Morning #2” later on though).
Mixed by Chris Roush. Mastered by Michael Fossenkemper.
All songs copyright Jesse Rifkin, 2006-2007.