Dirty Projectors Cover Dylan

Levi's Jeans is currently sponsoring a series of free downloads featuring artists covering old songs they've been inspired by. This is the Dirty Projectors playing Bob Dylan's "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine". Seems like a pretty cool deal. You can check out and download all the songs so far here.

Dirty Projectors - "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine"

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Fikaked: April!

1. Unfortunately, it sounds like NBC is planning to pull the plug on one of the best shows on television, Life. Apparently the "let's move the show to a different time slot every week and see if anyone can guess when it's on" campaign didn't turn out too well. Nice one, NBC. Boo.

2. Free Richard Alpert! Hopefully this is accurate. It's been a long time coming...

3. Jeremy Enigk's new album, OK Bear, is out there, finally, and it's really solid. Continues along the same lines as World Waits, but not as dramatic or produced. "Mind Idea" is awesome.

4. Best top 5 American Idol has put together since I've been watching the show. No question. They don't know how to shut up, and Adam is downright obnoxious, but all of them can definitely blow.

5. Finally watched Role Models this week. HILARIOUS.

6. Iron & Wine have released both an odds-and-ends compilation (Around the Well) and a live album (Norfolk). I don't have to tell you they're both great - it's Iron & Wine, isn't it?

7. I had a friend call me the other day to let me know that only about 5 people showed up to a Junior Boys show in Lexington, KY. I'm assuming people there are still trying to get their lives back together after the Wildcats lackluster basketball season. There really is no other possible explanation.

8. The new Dirty Projectors album, Bitte Orca is at best a grower, and at worst something that I'm never going to be able to figure out/get into. Their collaboration with David Byrne on Dark Was the Night and the first single from Bitte, "Stillness is the Move", are both pretty catchy, but evidently that isn't their m.o. Definitely not for everybody.

9. Is there anything cooler on the internet than Daytrotter? Here's a list of all the bands that have played for them (you can download their performances for free on the site, by the way).

10. Two other absolutely awesome websites: This is Why You're Fat & FailBlog. Go check 'em out. Guaranteed you'll be a repeat customer.

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Track of the Week: Dirty Projectors' "Stillness is the Move"

"Stillness is the Move" from Dirty Projectors' upcoming album Bitte Orca, due out June 9th.:

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Pitchfork.TV Does "Dark Was the Night"

Dark Was the Night, a charity compilation benefitting the Red Hot Organization, might be my album of the year at this point. Artists like The National, Jose Gonzalez, Iron & Wine, Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Spoon, and The Decemberists (just to name a few) participated, and pretty much everybody turned in something really good.

Pitchfork Media's internet video channel, Pitchfork.TV, is currently broadcasting three "Special Presentations" that feature conversations with different bands who took part in the project, as well as live renditions of the tracks they contributed (they managed to pick three of the very best tracks, too). The first video to be released features The National, whose Aaron and Bryce Dessner (one of the two pairs of brothers in the band) co-produced the entire project. They perform "So Far Around the Bend", which just might be the best song of the entire bunch. Yeasayer and Dirty Projectors are also featured:

(By the way, if the interviews aren't for you, I highly recommend skipping past them to hear the performances; they're worth it.)

The National "So Far Around the Bend"

Yeasayer "Tightrope"

Dirty Projectors "Knotty Pine"

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