Summer Wasn't That Long Ago... Part 1

It has been a while ....so where to begin?

I recently spent a couple months in Fairfield, Iowa, home to both KRUU FM & DLF.TV so I was able to do a few live shows in the radio station. First of all, I thought I was only going to be visiting for two weeks and needless to say, the trip was extended so I will be adding a lot of bulk here all of a sudden.

My first choice for the October 10th show was to play song from a few of my favorite new albums I picked up at K Records' annual campout at Helsing Junction, an organic farm just south of Olympia. Let's Build A Roof is the latest album by LAKE (pictured right by Sarah Cass). Now, I'm not gonna lie, I was a little nervous after Ashley and Eli from LAKE dropped me off at my Seattle home and I popped in their new CD ...and no, it wasn't because we shared ghost stories all the way home.

I was nervous to hear their new album because I love its predecessor Oh, The Places We'll Go so much that I could hardly imagine them creating a better record. But I think they did just that. LBAR is a slightly darker and velvety rich album that manages to maintain the catchy pop hooks that drew me into their world in the first place. Golden.

Also contributing on production to LAKE's album is the super talented Karl Blau. Karl has been featured on Eden's Hour many times before so regular listeners and readers (all two of you) will be familiar with him and my love for everything that Karl Blau touches! Fortunately, Karl has a production foot in the door several northwest bands and he has been continuing to expand his personal musical repertoire. Zebra is his latest endeavor, heavily influenced by African music (album cover by Kevin Noonan). Karl has explored and developed new sounds with this album that are funky, bass-heavy, earthy, and totally his own.

And just in case you haven't heard Karl's in-studio performance on Eden's Hour ...allow yourself this one little aural pleasure right here right now.

UPDATE: Karl's music video for Dark Sedan (feat LAKE) debuted on Pitchfork.

Check it...




Click HERE for the 10/10/09 Playlist