Sunday Morning Music: Peter and the Wolf

"It's ok to run, we expect ya back"

Hungover? Hating sun light? Bad case of morning breath? Don't worry, we feel the same way. Only one cure for a dehydrated dilemma like this, Sunday morning music.

Sunday morning music is the polar opposite of Saturday night music. Quiet, introspective and hopefully soothing, this new section will heal the wounded and make becoming an active participant in the day a little less daunting than usual. This week we're featuring an artist who I've been meaning to post about since founding the Bobka, Red Hunter aka Peter and the Wolf. A nomadic boho, Hunter has been making some of the simplest, most introspective music around for some time. He won me over big time in the fall of 2006 with his album Lightness, which eventually became the soundtrack to my travels in South East Asia last winter. Lightness is a whistful dream of a record that often feels like floating on an ethereal plane. Red says it much better:

Lightness is a whole record about that feeling when you wake up all sentimental from a dream and you want to call your friends and ask How is your health, how's your dad, how's travels? It is about those good mornings when you're just wishin' everybody well.

More than any other song on the record, "Safe Travels" seems to epitomize the carefree, freewheeling, well-wishing spirit in which Lightness was crafted. Perfect for roaming the back streets of foreign lands, waking up in harbors half way across the world and curing an ailing headache.

Peter and the Wolf- Safe Travels
Peter and the Wolf- The Owl
Peter and the Wolf- The Apple Tree

Sunday Brunch: Muxtape

Missing XL-II's like whoa

Dura sent me a link to Muxtape the other morning. It's pretty sweet, so I figured we'd make an inaugural mux. Think of it as a belated St. Patrick's day present, from us to you. No theme here, just a few randoms I've been enjoying and threw together. Expect this to change over the coming weeks. Without further adieu, our first muxtape.

Hello Blue Roses- My Shadow Falls
Dr. Dog- Heart it Races (Architecture in Helsinki cover)
Ra Ra Riot- St. Peter's Day Festival (Daytrotter session)
Peter and the Wolf- Better Days
The War on Drugs- Buenos Aires Beach
Sera Cahoone- Only as Long as the Day
Radiohead- Unravel
Mindbenders- Groovy Kind of Love
Silver Jews- Black and Brown Blues
Arthur Russell- A Little Lost
Fleet Foxes- He Doesn't Know Why
Port O'Brien- I Woke Up Today

Make your own Muxtape here

nu musick: The Archivist

"I Look Forward To A Time When We Can Someday Meet Again"

Somewhere between Stephen Merritt and Elliott Smith sits The Archivist, a Milwaukee bedroom musician whose woolen folk often sounds like it was recorded via an ancient walkie-talkie inside a chopper shot down behind enemy lines. At times it's raw, lo-fi aesthetic at its best. However, The Archivist also brings a few synths to the table on the standout track "New Years" which could have been the 70th track on 69 Love Songs. Even his simple, yet universal lyrics are delivered in the same gentle deadpan that won The Magnetic Fields so many broken hearts.

"In ten or twenty years if thats not much too long/I'll try and find you here provided your not gone/ But if you left or if you hide or if you lock yourself somewhere hoping not to be found/ I take it as a sign your well and that you found somebody else with whom you'd be much better off/ I hope I wont be wrong"

If you've been spending endless nights pacing around your bedroom or starring into a half empty glass of red, your in luck as The Archivist has a gift for you. What you might ask? Well it just so happens to be his recently released debut EP "recorded in his bedroom and available for free to anyone with an internet connection." Click HERE to download the whole EP for free, or check out two of my favorites below. For fans of Bon Iver, Sparrow House, Peter and the Wolf, Elliott Smith and general folkie sadness.

The Archivist- New Years(highly rec'd)
The Archivist- Jeremiah (The Archivist)