Kurt Vile live on WFMU (mp3s)

Philly's "Constant Hitmaker" Kurt Vile brought a couple guitars, a banjo, a delay pedal, and a trusted microphone to the WFMU studios earlier this month. He played a few new tunes and a few from Constant Hitmaker (Gulcher), which has been one of my favorite albums of the year. I'm not alone -- Mike Lupica picked these "immediately appealing bedroom recordings" in Dusted's Mid-Year Roundup, citing their "fuzzed out melancholia that somehow invokes the spirit of Lee Hazlewood at his best." This stripped-down solo set -- without the multitracked synth, drum machine, and heady loops -- highlighted the darker aspects of Vile's songwriting, with some Songs-of-Leonard-Cohen-y chills.

The live set aired on this week's episode of Talk's Cheap, and was engineered by Trent Wolbe on 8/3/08.
[Talk's Cheap playlist and archive]
Kurt Vile - It's Alright (mp3), Space Forklift (mp3), I Wanted Everything (mp3), Classic Rock in Spring (mp3), Nicotine Blues (mp3)

Kurt Vile is currently on tour, making his European debut, backed by his band The Violators and their multiple floor tom attack. Vile's supporting (and also playing guitar in) The War on Drugs, who'll be playing Beirut Lebanon of all places. Vile's carrying a limited edition tour EP, and a new Richie Records release is on the way.

these live recordings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States license

Comments

[impboy]

That "gig" of Vile's/TWOG's in Beirut happens to be the Big Bang Festival. Check out the lineup. Apparat, Tuxedomoon, Mira Calix... pretty amazing, that a Middle Eastern festival should be showcasing this much Western talent.

http://www.bigbangfestival.net/artists.html