Dirty Projectors: "Bitte Orca" (Streaming)

Bitte Orca, the Dirty Projectors' soon-to-be-released new album is now streaming from NPR. Last week, we may have stated that the Album of the Year race has two horses: Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion and Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest. We may also be dumb, as Bitte Orca is bound to garner the same kind of critical praise as both those albums. It's probably more on the Animal Collective side in terms of accessibility (or rather, inaccessibility), but the vocal harmonies and complex rhythms/time signatures definitely make this album an interesting listen, if nothing else. Whatever you think of the album as a whole, "Stillness Is The Move" is bomb. Respect.

Dark Was The Night: Streamig Concert (NPR)

Photo by Natasha Ryan [via Brooklyn Vegan]

Remember that amazing compilation album that benefited the Red Hot organization? Well, a bunch of artists featured on Dark Was The Night came together for a concert at Radio City Music Hall on May 3rd. You probably weren't there (we certainly weren't), but the great great people at NPR (seriously, they're everywhere) have streaming audio of almost the entire concert... which featured a veritable Who's Who of critically-acclaimed musicians. Even better, you can download the concert as a podcast and take it with you wherever you go! Set-list [via Pitchfork] is below.

Dirty Projectors:
"Useful Chamber"
"Stillness Is the Move"
"Ambulance Man" [ft. David Byrne]
"Knotty Pine" [ft. David Byrne]

My Brightest Diamond:
"Feeling Good" (Nina Simone cover) [ft. the National]

The National:
"Vanderlylle Cry Baby"

Dave Sitek:
"With a Girl Like You" (The Troggs cover)

David Byrne:
"Don't Fence Me In" (Cole Porter cover)
"Dreamworld: Marco de Canavezes" [ft. Bon Iver]

Bon Iver:
"Brackett, WI"
"Blood Bank"
"Big Red Machine" [ft. the National]
"Flume" [ft. My Brightest Diamond]

Feist:
"Train Song" (Vashti Bunyan cover) [ft. Bon Iver]
"Someday Baby" (Bob Dylan cover)

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings:
"Not Gonna Cry"
"When I Come Home"
"Inspiration Information"
"100 Days, 100 Nights"

Dark Was the Night All-Stars/Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings:
"This Land Is Your Land"

NPR: Live Concerts

NPR's music division is excellent. This is probably painfully obvious and unnecessary to say to anyone who listens to/reads NPR regularly. Between their "All Songs Considered," various in-studio performances, and excellent profiles on artists from all genres of music, you could spend days sifting through well-written, well-researched content and still have some left over. One of my favorite sections of their site contains live concerts that you can stream from the website. Usually, the bands have come through Washington, D.C. on tour and NPR is there to record. This is great because although we all want to get out to shows, sometimes it's impossible (and sometimes the artist doesn't tour in your city). Here are some of the recent additions to their concert series:

Dan Deacon (this one even has a time-lapsed video of the concert!)

Animal Collective

White Rabbits (they might be in every post today)

For even MORE live concerts, you have to subscribe to the "NPR: Live Concerts from All Songs Considered" podcast on iTunes. They've got a 100 concerts up there, some with video and some without. It's a veritable gluttony of riches, and you can almost surely find at least a couple of bands you'd like to hear live.