Last night, Wildbirds & Peacedrums—a married couple from Sweden who make folk music weird enough to match their band’s name—played New York’s Bowery Ballroom. Although they were the openers for Britain’s Fanfarlo, who performed a set of thumping Arcade Fire-esque anthems that justified their growing buzz, W&P were the evening’s focal point.
Like Björk or Kate Bush, it’s hard to imagine anyone else touching the strange, fantastic place these two Wildbirds tap for inspiration. And crazily enough, they relay their weird world using not much more than Mariam Wallentin’s soulful vocals and her husband Andreas Werliin’s tribal drumming. Check out one of their vids after the jump.
Welcome to Extended Play, a recurring feature on this here Music Mix wherein we review albums that for one reason or another didn’t make the magazine. It’s important for us to emphasize that this is not a judgment against these albums, simply a tragic reality in a world where paper is worth its weight in gold. (Note: That statement about the monetary value of paper is not factually true.)
Pop star Mika drops his second album, 
There it is, track No. 10 on the 
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from 
It was way back in 2002′s “Don’t Let Me Get Me” that Pink delivered the lyric, “Tired of being compared / to damn Britney Spears,” complaining about the conformity expected of her while emerging into a then-crowded field of girl-pop stars. Over three subsequent records filled with aggression and raw personal history, she’s more than backed up that statement of purpose with stubbornly non-conformist action, and so it is with apologies that we must compare these ladies one more time.
Okay, so it may not be in the same league as “I have a dream” or “Ask not what your country can do for you…” but one of my favorite live-album ad libs appears on the Rolling Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! when Mick Jagger declares, “Charlie’s good tonight, innee!” The “Charlie” in question is, of course, drummer Charlie Watts and a terrific job he did in 1969 at Madison Square Garden (where the album was recorded), propelling the Greatest Rock & Roll Band In The World through performances of, among others, “Midnight Rambler,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Love In Vain,” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
