Acoustic Update

Just a quick weekend update of a couple acoustic tracks that struck my fancy this week.

As we are officially mid SXSW, first up is a 2010 entry that the folks over at NPR took a liking to, for good reason. Without further exposition, here is their ‘Tiny Desk Concert’ starting with the toe-tappingly infectious “Beautiful Lie: Ivan & Alyosha”
Keeping with the live-acoustic-session-in-a-small-space theme of the post. Here’s “Daughter” playing a supremely gentle tune, ‘In the Shallows’.  On first blush, I wasn’t sure what to make out of the track; and to be honest I’m still not sure, yet I return. I think it may simply be the delicacy of her acoustic touch. The song itself, lyrics, melody and all, is nothing super enthralling. But the light, almost frail sounding, plucks of the guitar strings just seem to draw one in to keep listening.
Links to buy and try, after the jump.

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Stopping the show on YouTube

Thanks to the prevalence of webcams and the ease of use of youtube, there are now millions of videos of people sitting around with an acoustic guitar playing covers, or even their own work. Remarkably there are some real talents out there, and people (not very many) are actually getting discovered from the youtubes.

AJ Rafael is one of these artists. He has released the ‘Juicebox EP’ which is available on iTunes. One of his tracks ‘Showstopper’ appears on the EP in fully produced form, but was originally released as a solo acoustic video of AJ on a ukelele.  AJ released an mp3 as well as lyrics and chords along with it, and it has become reasonably well covered by his fellow tubers.
The original track manages to be all kinds of infectious, which is unfortunately lost in production.

Here’s a direct link to the mp3: AJ Rafael – Ukelele.

Another discovered on YouTube singer/songwriter, Alyssa Bernal, covering the song.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]If you’re interested, and not yet sick of the song, the fully produced version is after the jump.

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On Swimming Puppies

El Perro Del Mar sits down with Lykke Li for a porch-side rendition of “Change of Heart.” 



For you buzz users, just click here.

More linky goodness and the bizarre original music video after the jump.

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