Right up there with such perfect-moment masterpieces as Tori Amos' Little Earthquakes, Mazzy Star's She Hangs Brightly, Suzanne Vega's self-tiled album from 1985, and Milla Jovovich's critically underrated The Divine Comedy from 1994, this coming Tuesday's first glimpse at a 21-year-old Choctaw native is as powerful, immediate, and gripping as it comes. With a voice like Billie Holiday's trippin' kid sister raised on T.Rex demos and Radiohead ballads, Samantha Crain's The Confiscation: A Musical Novella is a stunning introduction to a refreshing, metaphysical artist that demands attention. There must be something special about the mothering Oklahoma creek water that produces so many amazing singers/songwriters, from Woody Guthrie to the Flaming Lips. Tastefully packaged in a cardboard Digipak that mimics an old family photo album, the five-song EP is on the hip, old-timey Ramseur Records imprint - the perfect home for her national debut, also releasing the long awaited Second Gleam from the Avett Brothers next week.
Television Alert
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno hosts Gavin Rossdale of Bush this evening, Coldplay on Thursday, and One Republic on Friday; The Late Show with David Letterman welcomes The Hold Steady tonight, John Mellencamp on Thursday, and Augustana on Tuesday; Late Night with Conan O'Brien boasts the SteelDrivers on Friday overnight; and on Thursday VH1 debut's its Rock Honors tribute to The Who, recorded five days prior with featured performances by Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Flaming Lips, and Incubus.
New Releases Coming Tuesday, July 22
Almighty - Original S.I.N.: Strength in Numbers (Babygrande/Koch) featuring Killah Priest, Son One, Bronze Nazareth, and 5-Star
Austrian Death Machine - Total Brutal (Metal Blade) with guests from As I Lay Dying, Killswitch Engage, and Mercury Switch
Bayside - The Walking Wounded: Gold Edition (Victory) CD and DVD package featuring live acoustic tracks, a documentary, and the band's May performance at Looney Tunes Records in Long Island
Black Kids - Partie Traumatic (Almost Gold) produced by Bernard Butler of the London Suede
Buffalo Killers - Let It Ride (Alive) produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, the first 500 copies of the vinyl LP version pack a bonus live bootleg LP recorded by a generous fan at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles
California Guitar Trio - Echoes (Inner Knot) with guests Tony Levin and Bonnie Prince Billy, and must-hear classical arrangements of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, Pink Floyd's Echoes, and Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird
Candlebox - Into the Sun (Silent Majority Group) featuring new bass player Adam Kury, this is the band's first new album in 10 years
Brendan Canning - Broken Social Scene Presents Brendan Canning: Something for All of Us (Arts & Crafts)
CSS - Donkey (Sub Pop) the hot Brazilian band's sophomore release, touring the festival circuit this summer
Timmy Curran - Word of Mouth (Adeline) debut album from the aerial revolution surfing star
The Dirty Pigs - Pigs (Socyermom Records) gnarled Austin, Texas, garage kings, winding out a sludgy, freak-beat frenzy in Possession Blues
Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh - Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh (Drag City) Terrastock favorites and former collaborators with Damon & Naomi of Galaxie 500, Eugene Chadbourne, and Bert Jansch, these haunting, adventurous sessions were recorded over four days by the Swedish cellist and the Japanese founder of Ghost
Facts About Funerals - Love Songs & Funeral Homes (Evangeline) easy-going pensive pop from Rob Sharp of New West Motels
Falcon - Falcon (No Office) CD EP with a heart-whelming back story, as the five songs are fully fleshed out covers of songs by Jared Falcon, a prolific songwriting prodigy whose three home-recorded ditties were discovered after his death in 1988
Faun Fables - A Table Forgotten (Drag City) excellent four-track CD EP from Dawn McCarthy, co-produced with Nurse with Wound's Matt Waldron and featuring a song co-written by Bjork
Archie Fisher - Windward Away (Red House) traditional Scottish vocalist, featuring his English-language translation of the Gaelic Surge of the Sea by D. MacVicar
Benji Hughes - A Love Extreme (New West) hot off tour with Rilo Kelly
Lost Boys: The Tribe - original motion picture soundtrack (Artists' Addiction Records) with the Eagles of Death Metal, the Von Bondies, Seether, Aiden, and Dave Gahan
Lustmord - Other (Hydra Head) with guests Buzz Osborne of the Melvins and Adam Jones of Tool
Men Without Pants - Men Without Pants (Expansion Team) new from Dan the Automator and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Russell Simins
The Midnight Meat Train - original motion picture soundtrack (Lakeshore) with music by Digital Dirt Heads, ALU, Three Dot Revolution, and Ironcrash
Misery Signals - Controller (Ferret Music) on tour this summer with Darkest Hour on the Thrash N Burn Tour
Nine Inch Nails - The Slip (Null Corporation) originally released free over the Web this past May, the individually numbered, six-panel digipak CD features a bonus DVD of rehearsals, stickers, and a 24-page booklet
Willie Nile - Streets of New York (00:02:59 Records) intimate CD or DVD from the Mercury Lounge on the Lower East Side in 2006, featuring a cover of the Eddie Grant/Clash hit Police on My Back
One Day as a Lion - One Day as a Lion (Anti) five-song CD EP from Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine and Jon Theodore, formerly of the Mars Volta and Royal Trux
Pepper - Pink Crustaceans & Good Vibrations (Law Records) produced by Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers and featuring Randy Bradbury of Pennywise on Black Out
Red Krayola - Fingerpointing (Drag City) limited-edition remix of the entire Fingerpainting album from 1999 by Jim O'Rourke
The Shys - You'll Never Understand This Band the Way That I Do (Aeronaut) incorporating violins and glockenspiel on the opening track, the sneaky, classy intro morphs into an electrified, staggering slap in the face with the band's signature bluesy British whip and smack
Bruce Springsteen - Magic Tour Highlights (Columbia) digital-only EP with guests Alejandro Escovedo, Roger McGuinn, and Tom Morello, benefiting the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund in remembrance of his late keyboardist
Slightly Stoopid - Slightly Not Stoned Enough to Eat Breakfast Yet Stoopid (Controlled Substance/Megaforce) reissue of the 2005 CD EP with 14 added songs, including a live version of Sensimilla
Sunfold - Toy Tugboats (Terpsikhore) with Adam Baker of the Annuals, young sound engineer and multi-instrumentalist Kenny Florence guides his hip, jazzy combo barefoot in North Carolina Bermuda grass like an indie Christopher Cross, pickin' and grinnin' through the back-porch soul of Shapeshiftin'
Tuner - Totem (Unsung) new from Pat Mastelotto of King Crimson and Markus Reuter of Germany's Centrozoo
Sammy Walker - Misfit Scarecrow (Ramseur) fantastic return after almost 30 years from this Georgia country folk artist originally nurtured by Phil Ochs
Paul Weller - 22 Dreams (Yep Roc) available as a single CD, double CD, or two-LP vinyl edition, featuring guests Graham Coxon of Blur, Noel Gallagher of Oasis, and Bobbie Gillespie of Primal Scream
Windmill - Puddle City Racing Lights (Friendly Fire) after numerous homemade four-track recordings, this proper label release from the one-man-band of Matthew Thomas Dillon is a buoyant, gleeful swirl in the vein of the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev
X-Files: I Want to Believe - original motion picture soundtrack (Decca) score by Mark Snow, featuring an interpretation of the show's theme by UNKLE
