Laura Leebove

writing & stuff

New album reviews: Mumford & Sons, Los Campesinos!, Holly Miranda February 10, 2010

Filed under: albums — lauraleebove @ 3:04 am
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I’m turning back into the record-reviewing machine I was at some point last year and it’s definitely keeping me on my toes…

Some recent reviews for Critical Mob:

Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More (out Feb. 16 on Glassnote Records): These guys were one of my favorite bands during CMJ and their debut LP is beautiful. They also play with Laura Marling, who I adore and am seeing on Friday. Mumford & Sons’ MySpace

Los Campesinos! – Romance Is Boring (out now on Arts & Crafts): I love this band and I think they’re so much fun, but wasn’t totally feeling the new record, at least not to the extent of their first two. Los Campesinos’ MySpace

Holly Miranda – The Magician’s Private Library (out Feb. 23 on XL Recordings): I saw her during CMJ and then a few days later opening for Florence & the Machine (where she sang a few songs with Nada Surf!), and she was great live, I love her voice and she’s really talented, but I didn’t necessarily think it was anything totally new and exciting. The record is a lot more impressive though. Holly Miranda’s MySpace

I also wrote a profile on Owen Pallett and fixed up an older version of my review of Great Lake Swimmers’ excellent 2009 release Lost Channels.

 

New live photos: Ebony Bones @ Mercury Lounge January 28, 2010

Filed under: concerts — lauraleebove @ 12:58 pm
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Just trust me on this: Ebony Bones is going to be huge. When my friends and I walked into Mercury Lounge on Tuesday night (Jan. 26), we were given feather masks and whistles, if that says anything about what was about to happen. I’ll let the photos say it all because I’m writing about her for real and should save my words for that.

Ebony Bones’ MySpace

Amazing photos after the jump!

 

New album reviews: Owen Pallett, Cold War Kids, Mayer Hawthorne (+ best of 2009/Pazz & Jop) January 24, 2010

Filed under: albums — lauraleebove @ 11:34 pm
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I love and hate the feeling of listening to an artist I’ve always meant to check out but never got around to, and then falling in love with their music. For the past two weeks I have been kicking myself for not listening to Owen Pallett (formerly known as Final Fantasy) sooner, while at the same time just drowning myself in his records. Pallett has done string arrangements for artists including, oh, you know, Arcade Fire, Beirut, and Grizzly Bear (and a million others), and his own music is equally amazing. Heartland (album cover above) is my favorite record so far this year, and it’s going to be a tough one to beat.

Anyway, here are some new reviews:

Review of Owen Pallett’s Heartland on CriticalMob.com (+ Owen Pallett’s MySpace)
Review of Cold War Kids’ Behave Yourself EP on CriticalMob.com (+ Cold War Kids’ MySpace)
Review of Mayer Hawthorne’s A Strange Arrangement on CriticalMob.com (+ Mayer Hawthorne’s MySpace) — I know I’ve blogged about this album a bunch but hadn’t formally reviewed it…

Also, my best of 2009 list and commentary for CriticalMob.com.

AND! My first Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll ballot!

Whew! Lot to get out there. A bunch of posts this week, and more to come.

 

New live photos: Hadar @ The Bitter End January 24, 2010

Filed under: concerts — lauraleebove @ 11:15 pm
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On Thursday I got to see my cousin Hadar perform and she absolutely blew me away (I am not just saying this because she’s my cousin!). She just released her debut album, In My Shoes, so it was her CD release show, at The Bitter End in Manhattan (yep, the same place Lady Gaga played just a few years ago, before she was Lady Gaga).

A little background: Hadar was born and raised in Israel, went to college at the Berklee School of Music in Boston and moved to New York after that. Her music is contemporary pop/rock, which isn’t generally the kind of stuff I listen to, but, like I said, seeing her perform totally blew me away. She’s a great songwriter, has an amazing voice, and a wonderful stage presence, not to mention she’s one of the many incredible feminists in my family, which really comes through in her music. She’s going to have some more shows coming up in New York so check out her MySpace for more info!

More photos after the jump!

 

New live review: Vampire Weekend @ Bowery Ballroom January 23, 2010

Filed under: concerts — lauraleebove @ 12:12 pm
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Review and photos of Vampire Weekend’s Jan. 19 show at Bowery Ballroom on Billboard.com

I’ll be the first to admit that I was a little late listening to Vampire Weekend, and my first thought was that I had heard all the songs before. They definitely have grown on me since then, but I’m still not totally obsessed. Their new record, Contra (XL), also grew on me after a few listens, even though I still can’t stand the AutoTune used on a couple songs. But oh well, it’s fun music, it’s not that deep, and I do like it. And the show was fun, despite being surrounded by teenagers…eeeesh.

Vampire Weekend’s setlist after the jump

 

New album previews: Shearwater, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings January 23, 2010

Filed under: albums — lauraleebove @ 11:50 am
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A few times a year, Billboard has a special “best bets” section to preview records coming out in the following months. This time around I wrote about Shearwater and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.

Preview of Sharon Jones’ I Learned The Hard Way, out May 4 on Daptone Records (which is down the street from me!), on Billboard.com

Preview of Shearwater’s The Golden Archipelago, out Feb. 23 on Matador, on Billboard.com

 

New music feature: The Go! Team January 17, 2010

Filed under: music features — lauraleebove @ 11:00 am
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(photo by me at Lollapalooza ‘08)

The Go! Team is going to have a record out this year, hopefully in the spring, hooray! I interviewed frontman Ian Parton a while ago about the record’s progress.

In The Studio with The Go! Team on UnderTheRadarMag.com

I also interviewed Parton and frontlady Ninja for Venus Zine during Lollapalooza ‘08 and you can check that out here.

 

My new job + new album reviews (Julie Doiron, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, more) January 9, 2010

Filed under: albums, blog — lauraleebove @ 12:30 pm
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Exciting news: I have a new part-time job! It’s for a really awesome new music and culture site called Critical Mob, and I’ll be uploading/managing content and photos, as well as doing a lot of writing. Please check out the site and let me know what you think! It launched pretty quietly but the guys who run it (who are fantastic, and I’m so excited to be working for/with them) have some great stuff in the works.

Below are some recent reviews I’ve written for the site. A couple of them are rewrites of pieces of mine that originally appeared on the East Village Radio blog last year (the CM guys used to provide the content for the EVR blog), and some are totally new. They’re not necessarily new records though; some are part of our Top 25 of 2009 and others are on my own personal best-of list (not on the site yet).

Phoenix’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Yo La Tengo’s Popular Songs
Dark was The Night compilation
Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ It’s Blitz!
Julie Doiron’s I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day
Discovery’s LP

And between this and my other writing gigs, I am thrilled to say that I am actually freelancing full-time now–like, actually supporting myself completely off of music writing/Web-related work and not a combination of that + my savings–and I couldn’t be happier!