Invisible Children Holiday Show

The Mountain Goats' latest album is called 'All Eternals Deck,' and is in stores now.

"The songs cluster around themes of hidden things and the dread that hidden things inspire," says singer/songwriter John Darnielle, "but also the excitement, the attraction, the magnetic draw that scary unknown hidden things exert." The title refers to an apocryphal tarot deck, though Darnielle explains that the album's fascination with the occult originates in having run across the word "occult" in a textbook in his nursing-student days. "'Occult' just means 'hidden' or 'not immediately obvious' in medical terminology. There was a nursing directive to be aware of 'occult blood.' I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever heard," he says.

Darnielle started recording songs while during his psych-nurse days in California. "I had been writing poetry pretty much all my life," he remembers. "At some point in Norwalk I bought a guitar from this really cool old music store in a strip mall, and I started teaching myself to play." Soon Darnielle was playing live, touring with bassist Rachel Ware and then with multi-instrumentalist Peter Hughes. In 2001 they became a full-time studio-and-road-show duo, releasing four albums together: 'Tallahassee,' 'We Shall All Be Healed,' 'The Sunset Tree,' and 'Get Lonely.' Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster joined in 2007, and the collaboration clicked perfectly. "Peter and I had played with other musicians," says Darnielle, "but with Wurster we were an honest-to-God trio. We played together with real glee."

The band toured the U.S., England, Australia, and New Zealand extensively, recording a new studio album called 'The Life of the World to Come' in 2009 that prompted GQ to remark: "Darnielle's not just one of the greatest songwriters working today--he's probably one of the greatest working writers." The album earned a 'Best New Music' nod from Pitchfork, and prompted Stephen Colbert to invite the band to make its national television debut on The Colbert Report.

In 2010, the band signed to Merge Records, headquartered within walking distance of Darnielle's Durham, NC home. The band approached recording sessions for 'All Eternals Deck' as commando raids on multiple studios with a several producers: four songs at North Carolina's Fidelitorium with John Congleton; one at Q Division in Boston with longtime soundman Brandon Eggleston; four at Brooklyn's Mission Sound with Scott Solter; and four at Mana Recording Studios in Florida, with Morbid Angel guitarist and Hate Eternal helmsman Erik Rutan.

"We wanted to see how disparate seasons and moods and locations and producers would play out in the songs," explains Darnielle. The result? "If you've ever watched, say, a 70s occult-scare movie where one of the scenes involves a few people visiting a storefront fortune teller, getting their cards read, and then they're trying to feel super-hopeful about their predicted outcome when what they're visibly actually feeling is dread, then you have a pretty decent idea of what this album is all about."

the Mountain Goats:
John Darnielle - vocals, guitars, keys
Peter Hughes - bass, vocals
Jon Wurster - drums, percussion

There's a scene in Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov where the main characters Ivan and Alyosha discuss the existence of God. Ivan, in particular, questions the idea of God. Alyosha, on the other hand, is a monk, a believer, some may say, a holy fool.

Talk of faith and exalted things is rare in indie rock today. Enter Seattle band Ivan & Alyosha. Throughout their second release, the five song Fathers Be Kind EP, the band chart their own course between divinity and disbelief.


"I left my family and my home/to fight the battle on my own

I stole a car and drove away/but in my hate St. Paul did say

'Glorify the Lord above/with your drink and making love

Glorify the Lord my son, with your whisky and your gun."

Ivan & Alyosha began as the solo outlet for Tim Wilson but in spring 2007 the band formed after Tim met Ryan Carbary through a former band mate and mutual friend. Ryan and Tim began playing and recording together and a trip to Los Angeles to work with Eli Thompson (Richard Swift, Delta Spirit) spawned the name Ivan & Alyosha. According to Tim, Thompson is a huge Dostoevsky fan and the name stuck. With that, Wilson and Carbary released The Verse, The Chorus, their debut EP on Cheap Lullaby Records (Joan as Police Woman, The Silver Seas, Teitur). The stand out track "Easy To Love" earned NPR Song of the Day honors as "a propulsive, sweetly booming ode to love as a feat of endurance."

The name Ivan & Alyosha is apt for a band cutting its teeth. As Ivan in Brothers Karamazov moves through the novel with doubts, Ivan & Alyosha navigate the indie rock world contemplating their path as a band. Tim says he writes songs about what's current in his life. He recently married and had a son. Songs like "Living for Someone" and "Fathers Be Kind," reflect Ivan & Alyosha grappling with the idea of being in a band and trying to fashion a career. Not only to follow their dreams but to earn a livelihood and support their families; a feeling he expresses in the former song, "Expecting our first child / Amid the great recession". Despite the uncertainty, Ivan & Alyosha's soulful folk tunes suggest a band inspired, hopeful and longing; a band unafraid to probe their collective faith and doubts.

Plus, things are different this time around. Tim and Ryan are joined by two others – Tim Kim and Pete Wilson, Tim's brother. The band built a studio in a barn at Ryan's parent's house in Snohomish, 45 minutes outside of Seattle. Snohomish provides an idyllic setting with a charming main street lined by bars and little distraction. Self-recording their upcoming EP allows the guys more time together to create and perfect the new songs. Recently the band spent a week in New York playing gigs at 92Y Tribeca, Maxwell's in Hoboken and Brooklyn's Littlefield. They also took a trip to NPR Headquarters in Washington DC to record an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, and opened a run of shows for the Jayhawks' Mark Olson.

In the Brothers Karamazov, when Ivan asks Alyosha to renounce his beliefs, Alyosha refuses. Rather, he kisses Ivan on the lips. Seattle's Ivan & Alyosha are not nihilist indie rockers but a new brand of tender dreamers. And non-believers be damned! God, or no God - these guys are no holy fools. They have their music to prove it.

La Sera is the solo project of Katy Goodman of Vivian Girls/All Saints Day.

Echo Park’s NO began as a home recording project in July 2011. In a small house on Mohawk Street a group of friends began building something to represent their collective ethos of searching for the more authentic elements in music and in themselves. Their sound has since been dubbed ‘Post-Hymnal Anthematic’ and would appear to be stemming from their desire to collectively sing & yell while driving others to do the same.

NO’s debut EP, Don’t Worry, You’ll Be Here Forever, is available for free download at http://nomusicfor.me/