It was my wonderful wife, Maria, who first tipped me off to The Civil Wars. It was Taylor Swift on Twitter—not that Maria follows Taylor Swift, I should hope not!—that apparently tweeted about the folksy duo and, via the power of having a million followers, launched them into atmospheric orbit.

The Civil Wars are just about a stripped down as you can guy. Joy Williams (yes, that Joy Williams) and John Paul White, a guitar, and the occasional percussion and piano. The focus though, in my opinion, isn’t so much on the instruments. What sets this band a bar above others is how well they use their voices, together. It just works, so well. White’s trembling tenor and Williams’s crisp vocal range play so well together, you have to hear it to understand.

When we saw them live in a tiny club in Toronto back in the Spring. Well, let me just say that this is one of those groups you need to see live. I’ll say that their recorded stuff, even the live recorded stuff, captures only about 40% of the power and perfection of a live performance. 40% folks.

Here are a couple of my favourite live tracks, and their single:

“Between the Bars” (Elliott Smith Cover)

“Disarm” (Smashing Pumpkins Cover)

“Barton Hollow”

So I’m a huge fan of The Tragically Hip but somehow missed the release of frontman Gord Downie’s latest solo record, his third, this past summer. The first time I heard the album’s single on the radio was about a month ago, I immediately went home to do some further investigation.

The Grand Bounce sees Downie recording with some other pretty impressive Canadian musicians under the guise of Gord Downie & The County of Miracles. Joining Downie is, among other names, Canadian singer/songwriter Julie Doiron and Josh Finlayson of Toronto’s Skydiggers. Together, this Canadian ensemble manages to scrape together a rather impressive record and at least some songs that definitely deserves some time on your playlist, in my opinion.

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I’m a pretty big fan of The Decemberists ever since I stumbled upon a band that sounded, to my description, like “the American Belle & Sebastian.” That was around the time of the release of their first full-length, Castaways and Cutouts.

Since then, The Decemberists have produced a series of solid records roughly maintaining the party line as a band that sings about rifles, tall ships, and cobblestone. The 2009 release The Hazards of Love, a dark and foreboding concept disc, saw a pretty serious departure from this format though. The Hazards of Love was a complete story, told in dark, enchanted forests, and broken up into a series of acts with characters, plot, action, and the whole nine yards. Musically, it was vastly different from what we’d heard from The Decemberists up to that point. The Hazards of Love was dark, electric, and chaotic. When I initially reviewed it I found it very difficult to enjoy—very tough to get into—and even when I was recommended to give it a second try I had a very hard time getting comfortable with the band’s sound. Listened to in one sitting, as I think it was intended to be, proved to be an onerous task for me and so I gave up.

But early buzz surrounding 2011′s The King is Dead made it clear that The Decemberists were taking a very different tact from their previous release. Indeed, the rumours were true.

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Last week I was able to write some initial impressions of the new Sufjan Stevens album thanks to NPR, who have the entire thing streaming on their website. Well, they’ve done it again. Belle & Sebastian’s new album, Write About Love, is available to stream online, in its entirety, until it’s released next week. So thanks again to NPR I’m able to give some initial impressions and thoughts on an album I’ve been waiting an eternity to get my hands on.

For a Belle & Sebastian record, Write About Love opens with a punch. For a band that’s never put much musical emphasis on their percussion section—as talented as it may be—this album opens up with a rolling drum line that sounds more like a Sparta track than a tune from the Scottish indie pop superheroes we’ve come to know a love. Of course, once the piano keys in and that familiar guitar twang begins it starts to feel a bit more familiar it’s still immediately clear that this is a Belle & Sebastian record that’ll keep you guessing. And it does.

Over the course of their last couple of records Belle & Sebastian have steadily grown from a pretty sleepy albeit incredibly talented song-writing force-to-be-reckoned-with into an equally talented although far more perky indie pop ensemble. The shift was pretty pronounced with the release of Dear Catastrophe Waitress in 2003 with a sound that was pretty different from their previous records. The group built upon this new-found sound with 2006′s The Life Pursuit. The release of Write About Love, however, is a curveball to anyone who thought that they had the group pegged down.

Through the course of the forty-minute record we’re treated to an enormous spectrum of songs and sounds. Many tracks on this album are heavily and very professionally-produced pop tracks in a vein similar, yet different, to those found on the group’s last two records. Thanks to what must’ve been incredibly high production values, these songs come out sounding absolutely stunning. On many of these tracks it’s clear that the band is trying new things, like the emphasis on the drum line in the opening track. Still, we’re left guessing, because many of these tunes are also throwbacks to older Belle & Sebastian material. Many songs are slower, more toned-down, the likes of which we haven’t heard the band write since their very early albums. And again, there are many aspects of this record that just leave me wondering like the guest appearance of Norah Jones singing alongside Stuart Murdoch and the incredibly different track contributed by guitarist Stevie Jackson.

At any rate, from my initial impressions Write About Love is the album I’ve been waiting so long for, and then some. If a four-year wait between records felt like a long time I think we can all agree that after hearing what can out of it, it was worth the wait.

In 1988, Paul Simon made an appearance on the popular kids show Sesame Street. It was very possible that, as a kid, I was watching when Simon and a small troupe of child performers sang “Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard”.

Lasting just shy of two minutes, Simon’s version of his incredibly popular song is performed only as a brief rendition but if you watch it I’m sure you’ll understand why I love it so much to include it in my Live Tracks series.

Truly, this performance is surreal.

First of all, Simon’s playing a tune that while fun and campy, has a bit of a dark if not mysterious undertone to it. The true meaning of its lyrics, while never revealed by Paul Simon himself, have been speculated to refer to rape or sodomy. Yet, here he is playing it on a children’s TV show. It sure sounds good.

Then there’s the little girl sitting next to Simon. Now this has gotta be the coolest little girl. In what seems like a totally unrehearsed performance she sings, claps and dances along with Paul and really puts on a show. I mean these two could cut a single together, no doubt.

I love everything about this video. Paul Simon and a small group of kids singing, playing and dancing on a nearly deserted Sesame Street set. The pure, unadulterated joy and expression of children having fun. And a really good tune.

Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard

Tony Dekker, aka Great Lake Swimmers, has that kind of rare talent—the talent that can turn one voice and one guitar into something incredible, something beautiful. It’s absolutely compelling.

Moving Pictures, Silent Films

I don’t know if there’s really such a thing as a perfect song but if there is Canada’s Patrick Watson has surely hit upon it.

Watson is an immensely talented and creative performer who’s music is just nothing short of enchanting. This song is no different, but on track lists full of lots of other incredible music, it surely stands out. It’s simple, super-simple, but Watson’s voice over the gentle ebb and flow of the piano creates some kind of other-worldly bliss. With overly complicating things he captures some kind of raw emotion and, for me at least, it resonates big time. Performed live, as you’ll hear, this song is just breath-taking.

The Great Escape