Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean

http://pitchfork.com/news/40002-iron-wine-announce-new-album/

"early 2011"

still like this guy's first record a lot.

yeah, me too. there have been a few good things after that, but nothing comes close to the debut.

the EP he did w/ Calexico slays

yeah, post-Creek Drank the Cradle, that and the Woman King are probably my faves. I barely listened to the last one.

Woman King is great

is it not fashionable to like iron and wine?
fuckit, i still like dude a lot.

^maybe file under posts in character

oh i'm sure plenty of dudes here think he's boring dadrock (or momrock, maybe), but he's written some great tunes.

it's probably not fashionable but some of his shit is undeniable so fuck it

i never got that rarities thing he put out last year -- worth it? I think i had a lot of the demo-y stuff already.

forgot all about that! never bought it but I have heard some unreleased stuff from the net before and some of that might be on that record?

oh exciting news. Still love me some Sam Beam.

album out 01.25.11, on subpop.

love everything he's done.

very brief clip there sounds kinda overblown but maybe not in a bad way? kinda 70s beach boys or something.

yea!

OMG this new "Black Friday" EP release - WOOF. OK, so I've never liked the guy too much, but holy shit this is fucking horrendously bad. Does he think he's Kanye or something?

new song, walking far from home.

i dunno; i'm nervous about this disc. on the one hand, the lyrics to this new song have some of the same charms and insight as beam's other works, and the idea of him turning into a dark, southern version of the beach boys has its appeal, despite how worn-out the beach boys are as an 00 inspiration. on the other hand, this disc could be beam's document, i.e., a really good disc that finally and definitively leaves behind the sound that made him so striking and charming in the first place.

if the rest of the record is going to sound like this, i'll probably pass

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4d/Kiss_Each_Other_Clean.jpg

Kiss Each Other Clean is the fourth studio album by Iron & Wine, due out January 25, 2011. It's his first album for the Warner Bros. label after leaving Sub Pop.

Track listing:

1. Walking Far from Home
2. Me and Lazarus
3. Tree by the River
4. Monkeys Uptown
5. Half Moon
6. Rabbit Will Run
7. Godless Brother in Love
8. Big Burned Hand
9. Glad Man Singing
10. Your Fake Name Is Good Enough for Me

this has also leaked tonight, what a great night for that.

It's his first album for the Warner Bros. label after leaving Sub Pop.

I wondered why he seemed so high profile this time around.

what do you mean by "seemed so high profile"?

Tv performances, lots of ads, etc...

oh, i haven't noticed tbh

This is godawful.

i can't imagine beam being "godawful," but obv., ymmv. are you a fan of iron & wine's earlier work?

I've never been wild about the guy - I thought The Creek Drank The Cradle was a nice record, and I dig the apparently unpopular "Jesus The Mexican Boy," but my wife is the Iron and Wine fan in this house, and even she was bummed out at how 'terrible' this new album is. Smooth sax, clavinet and Pet Sounds aspirations. Epic fail.

i wasn't crazy about the beach boy-isms i'd heard. but i love beam's work so much i'm going to reserve judgment.

btw, fwiw, spin -- in the first review i've seen -- loves the record (9/10)

God, not another record with smooth sax! Was looking forward to hearing this record but now I'm dreading it.

maybe it's co-written by kenny g.

My wife was doing the intro to the Tonight Show while one song was playing. "Tonight....George Clooney! David Spade! And musical guest...The Dresden Dolls!"

The sound works on about half the tunes, kills the other half.

Yeah this is pretty bad, and I like a lot of recent "smooth sax" records.

There's less sax than I was expecting, for whatever that's worth. There's definitely some dogs on here but I'm not sure yet how I feel about the album overall.

figured i'd hate this (too much of a departure from the style and vibe i'd loved). i'm only playing it in the background at my office, and so i'm paying not even half-attention to the stream, but having said all that: i kind of love this.

really less beach boy-ish, and more . . . 70s AM gold-ish, maybe?

kind of makes me feel like this and the destroyer album will be similarly nostalgic in vibe, which would be fine by me.

this isn't what i love about i+w, but like daniel i'm really into it -- it's kinda unfortunate tho because what i do love about i+w is something that i can't hear from many places, and this partic album feels like a lot of people could've made it

still yet to listen, dont think any of his can compare to creek drank.

i so understand this, chris.

i think it's an interesting study in how artists develop. i'm not talking about the kind of herky-jerky genre-hopping that, say, r.e.m. did after they matured and developed (from chronic town to, say, document). each time out, beam has added more to his instrumental palette, but still retaining obvious traces of what's at the core of his sound. so, does he follow the expectations of his fans, at the risk of remaining a niche artist forever or not developing his sound where he wants it to go? does he expand his sound, at the risk of alienating his core fan-base or being forced to move his sound to places he didn't want it to go? somewhere in between, or an entirely different third option?

anyway, digging this.

yeah i didn't really like the progression of more instruments each album after creek drank the cradle. I really loved just him and the guitar and the stripped down songs, now im just kind of meh.

it's funny, but you know whose evolution i thought of after first hearing this album? joni mitchell shifting between court + spark and hissing of the summer lawns where suddenly jazz (which was always present, like 'turn me on i'm a radio' and for the roses) becomes kinda the pivot that her later work begins to turn out such that by the time 1979 rolls around barely anyone blinks at Mingus coming out. like mitchell, this album isn't out of left field (i feel like 'in the reins' and parts of 'shepherd's dog' really anticipate this album) but i could see it feeling like the turning point between what he used to do and what he's going to do (and like w/ joni, i'm going to be disappointed if this is what he sticks on because the heavy folk touchstones in the earlier albums for both were much more appealing to my sensibilities, even if i can really enjoy hejira for what it is)

saw him live right after creek/cradle...awesome. Just him and the guitar.

our endless numbered days is still my favorite album by him - it's kinda his blue

and again, chris, i have a lot of sympathy for what you're saying.

here's something that occurred to me, which i think could be maligned as ill-informed and stupid. i think of iron & wine as the real successor to the romantic vibe in r.e.m.'s early southern-gothic style. to be clear, iron & wine doesn't have that beat or that jangle-y guitar style, and i doubt beam ever will. but i'm talking about a very specific strand of early r.e.m.'s sound, which is something caputred by vibe and feeling, and i think beam's got that vibe and feeling in spades, even through the current progression in his sound.

Back in 2007 I thought the move to a broader instrumental palette was a good move for Beam. I liked his early stuff -- he has some beautifully intimate songs -- but much of it was so sleepy and one-note, I often had trouble making it through a whole album. And so I really liked the feel of songs like "Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car" and "Boy with a Coin" -- richer-sounding, groove-oriented, but still retaining the clarity and precision of his stripped-down material. Now I've only heard the new one a couple of times, but it seems a little looser and messier in a way that doesn't necessarily play to his strengths. But I do like that he's "progressing."

he trimmed his beard, too.

progress!

one interesting thing to me is that i was kind of hoping he'd go further with that nu-highlife sound he had on my favorite song from the last disc, house by the sea. maybe that's held in reserve for a future project, instead of just being a one-off stylistic detour.

I feel like "Rabbit Will Run" is the best realization of what he's going for on this record. Some of the other tracks just really fall flat for me - I really loathe the opener, for instance.

boy with a coin is great. trimming of the beard is not allowed!

Funny you loathe the opener Simon - that's my favorite on the whole album. At first I thought it was overwrought (actually, it IS kinda overwrought), but the more I listened to it the more I got on board with the way the music keeps shifting underneath Beam's repetitive melody and constantly unfolding lyrics. I thought it was an OK song when I heard it on my computer or my crappy headphones; then I listened to it on the much better speakers in my car and the whole thing opened for me.

As for the rest of the album... in general I agree with you. It mostly just falls flat. I think it's a perfectly natural progression from the last record ("Walking Far From Home" picks up where "Flightless Bird" left off, and "Monkeys Uptown" sounds like an update of "Song of the Shepherd's Dog"); and I'm not opposed to Beam adding more and more instruments with each record. I just think the result, this time around, was something more bland than he usually manages. Mordy otm upthread that a lot of these songs feel like they could have been written/sung by anyone.

some guys desperately need to escape bedroom recording, and some guys should not be allowed within 500 yards of a studio.

this guy is the second type.

^

ok i like the opener

I couldn't make it through or past the opener. It was the worst episode of Yacht Rock ever.

other than the opener, i am not liking this.

fucking hell

godamn it beardie you disappointed me.

anyone buy this?

i'm going to. probably will get the physical disc over the emusic download.

but i've heard it a bunch, via the full-album stream on the conan o'brien website.

i just heard that sam beam was, at one point, a film professor at my undergraduate alma mater!

you learn something new on the internet every day.

godamn it beardie you disappointed me.

haha. i get this, tho i like the new disc a lot.

maybe i need to give it more time, but on first listen...urgh.

I wonder if when he has crazy psychedelic dreams about trudging through the waters of colorful peacock filled worlds, he actually imagines himself in a blazer over a sweater over a button-down.

I didn't like this record, but I wasn't crazy about the direction he was going with the album prior. I listen to Horse Feathers now when I need to satisfy my need for more material like his early records.

^^^ agree Evan, horse feathers really is wonderful.

and i find them really bland and non-engaging.

i dunno. it certainly isn't my favorite iron & wine record. as i said upthread, i think this is sam beam moving into his document phase, i.e., a mid-career period where he's making very good records, but moving away from the signature sound that made him so special.

not the only iron & wine/r.e.m. parallel i see (again, see upthread), but it's one of them.

really daniel? some of the horse feathers stuff can be a bit bland, but their debut is fantastic.

yeah, i tried with them, i really did.

i'm on vacation next week. maybe i'll give it another chance.

their newest is kind of blah, but i always go back to the debut. In Our Blood and Finch on a Saturday do it for me to this day.

never heard of horse feathers but am giving thistled spring a try

go with Words are Dead first.

Horse Feathers

speaking of sam beam's bedroom/beardo past, wasn't there a famous set of demos he did before the debut album, which were circulated around the internet?

if anyone knows what that stuff was called (officially or colloquially), please let me know.

check yr webmail daniel

greatly appreciated.

Finally hearing this, I like it! I wasn't expecting to, because I'm still such a huge fan of those demos and the first album and EP. But, there are some interesting parallels to the new Destroyer, imho - the "smooth" sax, the lite-funk of "Big Burned Hand" (which also sounds like a Phish jam from their 98 "funk" era). I'm thrilled to hear him playing around like this.

ahem re those demos?

i just bought the disc version. still like it, just not at the feverish level i loved the debut through, say, the calexico collab.

i should check this out this weekend. at least listen to some of it online

is it getting a lot of press? i don't feel like there's been any buzz, but i haven't really been reading a lot of music writing lately, so i probably wouldn't know even if there has been a lot of talk

yeah, it's definitely the highest-profile release of his career, because it's on warner bros.

forks - I don't have a link for you or access to mine right now, but search for 9-20-02 demos and you should come up with something, thats the only label I've seen for 'em

all set gracias

xxpost totally forgot he left sub pop. very curious to see what sort of numbers this pulls off

those demos + creek drank the cradle are his best imo -- definitely don't begrudge the guy for expanding the sound/trying new things, but none of the subsequent stuff has grabbed me as much.

i loved everything up to the last two discs, both of which i like a lot. last disc is beam's life's rich pageant; this one's his document.

This is really growing on me, I love the 70s singer-songwriter vibe. What helped it really click for me was reading that Pitchfork feature where he talked about a lot of his inspiration coming from the Fleetwood Mac and early Elton John records he'd hear in his mom' car. I really think this would appeal to quite a few ilxors who would otherwise be perfectly happy ignoring this guy based on his earlier stuff. In retrospect, even though it broke him through to a wider audience, I think it really hurt him to get saddled with that ubiquitous Postal Service cover. I think it made him feel like too much of a novelty for some folks.

haven't really given this much more than a cursory listen, but was impressed with just how uncool it sounded. and i might mean than as a compliment? not sure yet, haha.

No, that totally makes sense here. The sax, the flutes, this is miles away from what has been popular as of late (although, some of the smoothness reminds me of the Destroyer record in spirit, if not in sound).

this is... strange... it sounds like I dont know... barry manilow's band jamming with iron & wine.

Its uncool alright... really strips apart whatever it was that made iron and wine sound different.

This debuted in the top five, by the way.

Well its not THAT smooth now.

Its uncool alright... really strips apart whatever it was that made iron and wine sound different.

It definitely does move away from his original, but I still think he sounds pretty different. I'd be really bored with another vaguely folksy, quiet record at this point.

Well I don-t know how to feel about it... I hate those new age sounds... those exotic, spacey synths... if you remove his voice and the few guitars it could be the soundtrack to some show in vegas.

"Exotic, spacey synths" make it sound different than it is. I'd sooner accuse it of "jamband", particularly "Glad Man Singing".

Am I the only one getting a broadway/vegas soundtrack feel from it? Sort of bombastic but tacky and cheap at the same time.

yeah, i was thinking that too in regards to the destroyer record, but that record still sounds "cool" (the more i use that word the dumber it sounds). the I&W record seems pretty far off from any concerns of a hip sound. like it doesn't even sound "retro-hip", it just sounds ... un-hip. again, not saying this is necessarily a bad thing.

I definitely get the "bombastic but tacky and cheap", but it doesn't really read "Broadway" to me - mostly because it lacks obvious/easy lyrical hooks.

Let's stop with the "cool" business. I'll be damned if Iron and Wine and Destroyer redeem the Boz Scaggs albums I've dug for years.

Heh, speaking of that, it was funny to hear a "Lido Shuffle" bumper during the Super Bowl sandwiched between your usual jock jam stuff.

Well... Dan Bejar has always had a fascination with synths and midi sounds so his record doesnt feel that odd to me, he sounds more in control of whats happening around him... sam beam makes it sound uncomfortable and awkward... even tho Ill admit he does sound like hes having fun in this record.

I definitely get the "bombastic but tacky and cheap", but it doesn't really read "Broadway" to me - mostly because it lacks obvious/easy lyrical hooks.

― one pretty obvious guy in the obvious (jon /via/ chi 2.0),

I meant the music, not the lyrics. I was imagining it without sam beam on it.

Yeah, missed that part of your earlier post. I think maybe you and I are just operating on different definitions of what we think "tacky" means. Also, I'm so not a fan of musicals, so I don't have a lot to drawn on there.

Well I wasnt aiming at musical... think more in the lines of I dunno... magic shows, cirque du soleil and that sort of spectacles. I could easily picture several snippets from this record giving cues for the performers to dance around or do tricks or whatever.

Not sure if its a bad thing anymore... the more i think about it in that context the better it sounds... it still doesnt make it cool tho.

This debuted in the top five, by the way.

really?!? thrilled for this band. beam deserves it.

although next week he'll be passed up by kidz-rock 23; american idol runner-ups 42; and the you-had-a-bad-day guy.

He makes music at least as good as they do.

yes, maybe someday he can be as good a songwriter as the heeeeyyyyy macarena-guys.

dare-to-dream.

Haven't heard this album yet by the way, but the last one was a bad nap.

aw, it wasn't on the level of the debut or sophomore disc, but house by the sea was a nu-highlife jam.

Bought this a week ago without first listening to it. It's...different. Up to track 4 atm. A little disappointed (loved the opener, though), but maybe this will be a grower.

The main reason I bought it was to motivate me into giving it many listens to justify its purchase. :)

Iron and Wine debut at number two in America on Warner Bros. Records. Destroyer debut at number 62 on Merge Records.

Breaking news today: People are stupid, money is powerful.

unfair and inaccurate, tho i like destroyer, too.

That is a disappointing number for Destroyer, definitely, but lets keep in mind that Iron & Wine had Warner Bros behind them this time.

Also let's keep in mind that Destroyer is really boring

Mordy!

Even without Warner Bros., I think Iron & Wine would've debuted substantially higher than Destroyer. Lots of people like that dude.

yeah my mom likes him.

she doesn't like destroyer akaik

"destroyer" is an aggressive, offputting name.

by contrast, many people like wine, and everyone needs iron.

Last.fm stats:

Iron & Wine: 1,282,993 listeners
Destroyer: 236,936 listeners

destroyers' great, too. not sure why it's a zero-sum game.

maybe there's only one spot for beardos in the top 100?

I would bet that Iron & Wine had a larger following in the first place, Warner Bros or no.

Exactly.

yeah, probably.

i still cant get into this. and i want to.

Same, tbh.

Don't remember any songs from first listen. Not a good sign.

Really? I can't get the songs out of my head. That said, I only really like a couple of them.

don't forget Iron & wine has the twilight crowd on side too.

actually really enjoying digging into this album, and sort of love that he clearly doesn't give a shit what's expected of him. last track is pretty fantastic.

last track i like and first, thats about it.

walking far from home is pretty beautiful if you ask me. damn beardo.

Finally got round to giving it a listen...really like the jazz/funk undertow...Surprised how much I like it...saying that might never listen to it again...like most things these days...

i think i like this record

it's great. i keep going back to it

def a grower for me

his lyrics have kind of degenerated into long lists of one-liners. which sounds like a bad thing but i really like it for some reason! 'innocent bones' was my favorite track on the last one and he seems to be working from that template now

Yeah, I'm starting to feel this album more with each listen. Love the slow build of the first track.

finally listened to this, wish I hadn't, it is shit

I've had it sitting on my hard drive for months and I can't pull the trigger. I'll probably just go ahead and delete it.

don't. it's really good.

Yeah I'll rep for this...I particularly like the the no wave brass arrangements
...kinda reminds me of Defunkt in places...one of the years more interesting releases...

I went through a period of feeling like I disliked the record, yet continually putting it on. I chalk that up to meaning that the songs themselves are good, but I'm irritated by some of his production choices.

That said, I haven't listened to it at all for a few months now.

I've given up on it

I like it.

This is a real grower. Hated it at first but the neat vocal call and response harmonies won out.

Shepherd's Dog was really great though. Don't understand how anyone couldn't appreciate its rustic groove.

more like rustic horseshit

the only reason i say this is because of my posts above...im just so enamored with old iron and wine and his older stuff i just dont care for the direction he took.

Don't care for his acoustic singer-songwritery stuff. I like the thicker swampy stuff on the previous album. This one's a bit lighter, but nice vocal harmonies all the same.

harmonies are great, i like that but dont dig his 70's Stephen Bishop vibe.

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/iron-and-wine-kiss-each-other-clean-round-3-robs-choice/

I really like "Half Moon"

Relistening to this for the first time in about a year. Sounds better than last time, when I was slightly disappointed. I don't know if it's truly great, but I'm definitely enjoying it.

And "Walking Far From Home" is a magnificent track. Love the vocal arrangements.

sam beam is on 3 tracks on tift merritt's album - worth checking out. also if anyone dug "love letter for fire," jesca hoop has a new album out that i'm digging.

I liked that album with Jesca Hoop but have never heard her solo stuff - good reminder!

Didn't know about the Tift Merrit appearances. Beam seems to be big on collaborations these days.

did u guys know a new album was dropping today? cause i had no idea. what a lovely surprise.

It's came around quite quietly. Gave it a listen in the car this morning, it's low key and lovely without any songs revealing themselves as immediate standouts.

I've seem suggestions it harks back to the sound of his first couple of records but it's more polished than those, in my opinion anyway.

Kiss Each Other Clean kind of landed like a thud to these ears so I kinda lost track of what he's been doing lately. I liked the opening track off of KEOC but the rest never really sunk in. I guess this latest is a bit of a return to form so I hold out hope...

i never really got into Kiss Each Other Clean but i think Ghost on Ghost is his best since going hi-fi

new one is a nice return to the folk thing but to me ghost was an impressive evolution of his chamber-pop leanings on the previous few

I bumped into the new one today and it fitted (almost too) perfectly with these gauzy end of summer days.