Feist’s crazy-anticipated new album, Metals, doesn’t come out until next Tuesday.  But you can hear it now if you give her your email address.  I’ve had a listen – it’s fantastic.  Enter your deets below, or if that doesn’t work for you, click here to go to the site.

Ryan Adams is one of my favourite singer/songwriters.  I just can’t get enough of his rock-country style.  I’m eagerly anticipating the release of his new album, Ashes and Fire, due out October 11.  In the meantime, here’s a tune he just released.

Guy Garvey is the singer of one of Ian and I’s favourite bands – Manchester-based Elbow.  Guy hosts a radio program on BBC Radio 6 every Sunday night (at 10pm in England, or 5pm here) called Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour.  We like to listen in – he’s quite entertaining, and naturally, has a great voice for radio.  The music he picks to play is great too.

You can listen online on your computer here, or download the TuneInRadio app for your iPhone, iPad, or Blackberry.

[photo of Guy Garvey by Gary Calton, from this Guardian UK article]

You know I love Belle and Sebastian, and their live show back in October was delightful.  This afternoon you can watch the band’s “Holiday Spectacular” on NPR’s All Songs Considered website. Description: “frontman Stuart Murdoch and the rest of Belle and Sebastian will dig deep into their archives to share popular classics, fan favorites and a few festive surprises. Video of the performance, from the group’s hometown in Scotland, will be webcast live on NPR Music.”

Tune in here at 4pm (Eastern) today.  Enjoy!

Last night Ian and I saw Belle & Sebastian at Massey Hall.  What a great show – so full of energy.  They invited audience members onto the stage to dance with them, including a 6 or 7-year old girl, who rocked out.  Then they gave them prizes!  And the band (all 13 of them) sounded so good.

If you haven’t already heard the new album, Write About Love, I recommend it.  Watch the video above for a good taste of the album.  And if you’re in the mood for a kickback, listen to Dear Catastrophe Waitress, or my favourite Belle & Sebastian album, their debut Tigermilk.

Just the other day I was saying to Ian, “what happened to Sufjan Stevens?”  Remember when he announced he was going to do an album for each of the 50 US States?  Yeah, that didn’t work out so well… after Michigan and Illinois, he gave up, calling the project “such a joke.”

But now he’s back, with All Delighted People, a new eight-song, 60-minute EP that he’s released online.  And the best part is - you can download it for 5 bucks. Talk about value.  The EP is described as follows:

The EP, All Delighted People, is built around two different versions of Sufjan’s long-form epic ballad “All Delighted People,” a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s “Sounds of Silence.”

Sounds just like the kind of pseudo-intelligent literary hipster drivel that I love.  I’m downloading it right now.  You can too – click here.

Alt-country super-prolific rocker Ryan Adams is probably my favourite musician out there.  Well, maybe.  I think he’s tied with Wilco for the title of “Avery’s Favourite Band/Musician”.

Anyway, Ryan has done some pretty crazy stuff in the last couple of years, including deleting his entire blog in March 2008 ( which is sad, as it was full of great writing and goofy photos), putting the blog back up and taking it down again repeatedly for over 6 months, marrying teen-pop star/actor Mandy Moore in 2009, and then releasing a sci-fi metal concept album. 

Oh, and up there in that first paragraph, I wanted to include a link to Ryan Adams’ website, but he took it down.  Or, more accurately, it auto-forwards to the sci-fi metal concept album website.  So I had to put his Wikipedia link up there instead.

Yeah, so he’s pretty nuts.  But in the best possible way.  So I was thrilled to see on his facebook page that he is working on a new solo album.

While I wait for that, I’ll be listening to my favourite Ryan Adams song, from a long time ago when he was in the band Whiskeytown.  YouTube clip below for audio… enjoy.

I like to listen to music while I work, but I don’t always like to listen to albums all day long.  I like to mix it up a bit – I’m more of a radio girl.  But other than listening to BBC Radio 1 Scotland in the morning, and a bit of CBC throughout the day, I don’t have a lot of options.

I like the “genius” function on my iPhone, but that plays music I already have.  I want to hear songs I already like, with some new songs thrown in there too.   I used to LOVE Last.FM, which would play a customized radio station for me (it would “learn” my preferences over time, based on me giving songs the thumbs up or thumbs down).  But Last.FM started charging for their service, so I stopped listening.

I read this article in the New Yorker last night (about internet radio and music streaming services), and my interest in the topic has been renewed.  I’ve heard amazing things about Pandora, but it’s not available in Canada.  So now I’m going to try MOG, the other service reviewed in the article.  But at first glance, MOG looks like Last.FM (same features).  And I did spend all that time “teaching” Last.FM about my music preferences.  So maybe $3 per month for Last.FM isn’t so bad.   I think I’m going to sign up again.

If you haven’t already noticed, I love Scotland and all-things-Scottish.  Since I have no plans to return to the Highlands anytime soon, I get my Scottish fix by listening to BBC Radio 1 Scotland online.  I like to tune in throughout the day, but you can pretty much guarantee that I’ll be listening weekdays between 9-11am (Toronto time).  That’s when the Tom Morton show is on – an excellent mix of pop music (new and old), witty Scottish banter, and Scottish news. If you can’t listen live, you can download podcasts of the show here.

You can listen to all the BBC radio stations online here.  And if you want BBC Radio 1 Scotland, click here.

I’m going to see Frightened Rabbit play tonight at the Opera House.  I can’t remember the last time I went to a real rock concert.  These guys are great – they’re from Selkirk, Scotland.  Other than maybe haggis, I can’t think of anything that’s come out of Scotland that I didn’t like.  Anyway, they’re a great band, and I hope they’ll put on a good show.  Here’s their MySpace page if you want to hear some tunes.