The Friday Refrain: Saturday Edition!

I've had a pancake and an egg, I'm sipping on my coffee and ready to pine about music of this week and last. How about you? Well let's at it then.

It's a Half Pints Whole Notes week so head on over to csicon to check out our latest episode. And while Josh was pretty dismissive of the releases of the past two weeks, I have found some things of note in there. So read on. Read on.

Read this. Bangzap it's The List of last week's releases genrerified by me if I listened to a snippet of it.

Well, what's coming out today, er, I mean yesterday? Tori Amos helped out with a musical a bit back and the cast recording has been released. The musical is The Light Princess and it's the only musical cover with Tori Amos, so you can't miss it. Growing up from Disney star to just a normal pop star Selena Gomez is out with Revival. The Zombies (yay!) released Still Got That Hunger and I'm looking forward to finding out the truth behind that statement. Country megastar - right? He's a megastar, yeah. -  Toby Keith made his fans wait a bit but here he is with 35 mph Town. There are two unique releases this week:  The Decemberists released Florasongs EP, the cutting room floor songs from their January release. I wonder if I will agree or disagree with their decisions... And Elvis Costello has a companion album to his biography (also released this week) titled Unfaithful Music & Sountrack Album. I believe there are 2 tracks unreleased or new on it.

It's been awhile since we highlighted the 80s...

so here are some 80s inspired releases of last week:

Desperate Journalist, Good Luck

Editors, In Dream

Dirty Ghosts, Let It Pretend

Girls Names, Arms Around A Vision

Colour of Spring, Grey

And Other Things I Liked

Dave Douglas, Brazen Heart - It's also been awhile since I had a jazz album in my list

Express Rising, Fixed Rope - Oh instrumental rock, you always get me right in the gizzard

Emilie & Ogden, 10 000 - A woman and her harp is all you need to know. While at first I couldn't decide if it was just too sweet (such as her cover of Elliot Smith's "Closer") but just an odd track later I really dug "Nothing New." So give it a whirl - but make sure to sample a little here and there to get a good idea of how you feel before you make a decision.

Ironing Board Sam, Super Spirit - The album cover alone is worth looking this one up, and the fact that it is good blues is another. Blues as an overall genre, not just that fixed "blues pattern" music that seems to take up the category on the virtual shelves of our musical ideas.

Things on my To-Listen-To List

Gregorio Uribe Big Band, Cumbia Universal - it gets cold and I crave Latin music?

Childbirth, Women's Rights - Yeah this isn't for the faint or conservative of hearts. Or it is.

Emily Kinney, This Is War - Singer songwriter with teeth.

Dragonheart, The Battle Sanctuary - you know those locked guitar riffs, double kick, all that. It's that kind of metal.

Wild Throne, Harvest of Darkness - Just got a taste of this today, something in the brief 30 seconds I sampled of a few songs made me think of Mars Volta which alone puts it on the To-Listen list. We'll see.

Man that's pretty varied this week. Nice. Well it looks to be a beautiful weekend so hopefully you will find something to complement it. Happy Listening!