Cary Brothers – Under Control

If I had to make up a list of some of my favorite albums of the past decade, Cary Brother’s first album, Who You Are, would likely be close to the top, and it remains one of my favorite albums that I hold in my possession. Since its release in 2007, I see it as a sort of capstone album coming out of my college years. It closely followed with my own tastes in rock music, falling somewhere between the indie-rock and mainstream songs on the radio. Since then, I’ve graduated from college, found a job, bought a car, rejoined college and so on: life moves along and times change, and since that first album, I’ve wondered and kept an eye on Brothers for word of an upcoming album. I’ve wanted to know if the music that really defined college for me would stand up to the changes since then.

A handful of years later, and Brother’s latest album, Under Control has since been released. The result is a fantastic collection of songs, which demonstrate a good progression in quality from Who You Are, while still retaining all of the good sound and feel of that album. While I don’t know if this new release will age as well as the other one (at least in relation to how I view Who You Are), I can say that it’s easily Brother’s best work to date.

The album starts off with quick Ghost Town, which begins with a very catchy piano beat before launching into the very airy and atmospheric feeling tone that really made his earlier album for me. With the second song, Under Control, the album takes on its own feeling, with some new territory. This song in particular feels fairly important to the album – in press materials, Brothers worked to get out of his prior major record label contract because he liked working on the day to day details of creating an album. In a sense, this album feels a bit free, and the title of the song and album speaks greatly to this. Other songs, such as Break Off The Bough, Belong, Over and Out and Something About You feel much the same way: there’s a familiar sense that there’s a connection from the prior album, but with a lot of new territory.

Overall, the album hits all of the major high points for me. The sound for each song is polished, together, rich and interesting, not to mention consistent throughout the entire album: there isn’t a song on here that I don’t like, and clearly, the four year wait between albums was time well spent. Under Control even gets points from me for having a fantastic appearance with the cover (something else that impressed me with Who You Are).

The real point that I liked about Under Control is how the songs seem to have matured in real time: This isn’t a copy of his earlier work, but an improvement over something that was already very, very good. If I were to pick up Who You Are at the moment and give it a first listen, I’m sure that I would have a lot of good things to say about the album, but there is a maturity and depth to this work that doesn’t seem to be there in the first. The album is a bit more together, a bit more somber, thoughtful. To me, this is a positive sign: Brothers too has seen the last couple of years, and hasn’t been living in the past with earlier successes, but sought to move on and accomplish more.

Ghost Town – Cary Brothers

(You can also get a free track, Over and Out, free, at his website, listed below)

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Preview: Cary Brothers – Under Control

There’s a bit more online about the upcoming Cary Brothers album, which is to be released in just a couple weeks, April 6th. The album is called Under Control, and marks the first album since 2007′s Who You Are. In his myspace blog, Brothers notes the reasons behind the long gap in new work:

after i spent the first few years of my career running the show myself and releasing records from my house, i made a deal in 2007 for the last record “who you are” that i had hoped would be my attempt to put the work on the shoulders of others and allow me to just write and play music. i had seen some friends sit back and let their careers be controlled by other people, and that seemed like a good life. everything went well with the release, and i had a good year and half on the road promoting that record around the world. unfortunately, what i didn’t take into consideration was that i like the business part of this job. i like working with people. the songwriting and playing is a part of who i am whether or not i make money at it, but the details after the studio are what makes it feel like satisfying work. maybe it comes from a work ethic handed down by my family, but i like doing doing the day to day stuff – helping create artwork and talking to my distributor and knowing all of the numbers and, most importantly, having a one on one relationship with every single person involved in my music getting out there. i wanted to have control again. i’ve seen too many friends sign a piece of paper and lose their career because one radio single didn’t work or they weren’t enough of a priority at their label after their biggest fan left the company.

however, i was tied up in a record deal in which i still owed two more records to my label. after weighing the options, i decided to buy my way out. as these things often go, the legal wrangling took a bit of time (hence my musical disappearing act), but now it’s over. thanks to the great kindness of the president of my old label who could have held me to the contract, i am free, with a new record that i paid for myself, and it feels absolutely incredible.

against the advice of many people, i took my sweet time to finish this record. after the better part of four years on the road, opening for great bands and headlining shows and producing the hotel cafe tour, i needed to live life. some musicians move from record to record and show to show and write about the shifts of that experience. with all due respect to their creative process, i don’t work that way. i felt like i needed to go home and see my friends and wake up in the same city every day. my songwriting comes from reflections on the world around me, and i needed to fill up that well with experience instead of just writing lyrics because i had a deadline for a record release. in that time, i have faced some demons and made many realizations about myself, and i spent some difficult and some wonderful and ultimately rewarding months learning eye-opening truths with my very closest friends on this earth. and i laughed. a lot.

Reading over this, I can certainly appreciate the long wait for new music from Brothers. When Who You Are was released, it was one of the tracks that I listened to constantly, and still do. Hopefully, the wait will be worth it, and listening over Ghost Town (which is streaming on his website), I think any fears of this record bombing are somewhat gone. I’m eagerly anticipating this one.

Here’s the track list:

1 – Ghost Town
2 – Under Control
3 – Break off the Bough
4 – After The Fall
5 – Someday
6 – Belong
7 – Over and Out
8 – Alien
9 – Something About You
10 – Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You (Cover)

The first single will be Ghost Town, and it’ll be released on March 23rd.

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One

A year ago today, after some contemplation, I started off on this little experiment of a music blog. One year later, 425 posts and a total of 121,433 and 143,160 page visits (somewhat less unique visitors – this number is low, because I added on tracking a couple months after I started.) I’d say this is a success. The site has really grown over the past couple of months, and I’ve tried a number of features, such as the Cover and Original, Acoustic and Original, Live and Original, Artist Evolution, 80 Bands Around the World, Artist Comparison and a couple others. Some of those I haven’t kept up with, but it’s been a fun ride thus far.

The name Carry You Away came from a couple of songs, most notably Cary Brother’s song Who You Are and Rilo Kiley’s The Angels Hung Around. The idea was that music carries one away while listening. I liked the idea when I heard Who You Are, and it stuck.

From The Angels Hung Around:

“…’Till the angels hung around
as they carried me away.”

From Who You Are:

“…You try to, but you can’t move
As the windows crash around you
No one there to carry you away”

My main mission here is to highlight music that I like. Over the past year or so, my tastes have grown considerably, and I’ve found that there’s a lot of stuff out there that I like. I’ve become a more competent reviewer and writer, partially because of the amount of writing that I’ve had to do for this site, and my tastes in music is more refined. I’ve met artists, taken tons of pictures, and found hundreds of new artists and songs that I never would have come across otherwise.

So, thank you to everyone for making the site a success, and for hearing what I’ve got to say about things.

Beginnings - Chicago
Thirty One Today - Aimee Man
One Week - Barenaked Ladies
One (Blake’s Got a New Face) – Vampire Weekend
One Good Year - Slaid Cleaves

Who You Are - Cary Brothers
The Angels Hung Around - Rilo Kiley

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Artist Comparison: Cary Brothers / Chris Stills

Okay, it’s been a long time since I’ve done a bunch of my regular features, and the recent A Fine Frenzy/ Chris Stills concert’s got me back into the swing of things with a review, so here goes. Today, the two artists are Chris Stills and Cary Brothers, two singer/songwriters whom I’ve both seen in concert and whom I’ve become a fan of.

I’ve listened to Cary Brothers a lot more than I have with Chris Stills, because of Brother’s heavy media influence with a number of TV shows and his stint on Garden State’s soundtrack, along with his first album, Who You Are.

Stills and Brothers both play and sing in a way that’s very similar to one another. They’re both in the ‘Adult Alternative’ genre that’s popular with the 20-30 year olds, and have an overall similar sound – both male vocalists, they both play piano and guitar, and have a good, solid tone to their sound. They’re not carbon copies of one another, but while listening to both of their works, I hear a number of similarities.

Stylistically, they both have a good vocal range, and vary their energy and speed a bit – Blue Eyes vs. Who You Are for Cary Brothers and When the Pain Dies Down and Fool For Love with Chris Stills.

Additionally, they’re both from California, singer-songwriters. I can really see these two guys touring together, or even collaborating – it’d be a fun listen. Most of all, they’ve both got a really solid sound that I really like, something that’s pretty easy to listen to.

When the Pain Dies Down – Chris Stills
If You Were Here – Cary Brothers

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My Mix

I can’t think of a good title for this mix of songs. I was fooling around with play lists on iTunes – I swear, it’s a compulsion sometimes, when I came up with the first five songs, when I realized that I had something good here. When I got home from work, I pulled another dozen songs together to come up with this final list. I think that it’s the best play list that I’ve come up with in a while. Let me know what you think:

Everybody Knows - Ryan Adams
Hang Around - Gregory Douglass
When The Pain Dies Down – Chris Stills
Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car - Iron & Wine
Hard Sun - Eddie Vedder
Good Man - Josh Ritter
Who You Are - Cary Brothers
Pressure Suit - Aqualung
Time Is A Runaway – The Alternate Routes
Toy Soldiers - Carbon Leaf
See The World - Gomez
Trouble - Ray LaMontagne
Place To Be - Nick Drake

Have a good weekend! Next week, regular features & an announcement for a new feature.

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Carry You Away’s Best Songs of 2007

It was difficult to narrow down just ten songs out of everything that I’ve heard this year. But, here are the songs that I feel are the best that I’ve heard or enjoyed.

10 – Rangers, A Fine Frenzy

From A Fine Fenzy’s debut album One Cell in the Sea, this song has a really good sound to it, with a pace and energy that really matches her tone. The chorus is a really good one, followed up with some fantastic lyrics. Everything really comes together nicely here for this tune. This song really turned me onto A Fine Frenzy, and will keep me listening for years to come.

9 – Heart Made of Sound, The Softlightes

The video for this song really got me hooked here, and brought me back time and time again for listen after listen. This song gives me the same feeling that I had on my best summers here in Vermont – sounds weird, but for some reason, I connect this song to walking around Burlington Vermont on a sunny summer afternoon. The sound here is bright, energetic and just fantastic. Even when I’m in a horrible mood, I’ll listen to this and it’ll bring me right back up.

8 – Seed of Wonder, Jesca Hoop

This song sounds really different, with some absolutely fantastic guitar work and vocals from Hoop. It’s unconventional, with influences from Hip-Hop and alternative rock. It’s got a lazy beat that’s incredibly catchy.

7 – Hard Sun, Eddie Vedder and Everybody Knows, Ryan Adams (Tie)

This is a tie for me, because both songs remind me of the other. Hard Sun is a good, solid rock song, one that reminds me of driving on a highway, while Everybody Knows brings out the same feeling – both have a good beat behind it backed by lyrics and a sound that just works, really well.

6 – Vermont Avenue, Ferraby Lionheart

I didn’t take to this song at first, but it grew on me quite a bit as time went on. Lionheart’s voice is like gold here, lazy and seductive, with lyrics that match that. The guitar and drum work is wonderful, and I like this song more and more as time goes on.

5 – In the Mausoleum, Beirut

Beruit’s back with more of a fantastic Balkan sound. This song starts off with a fantastic beat and sinks in with some fantastic vocals and lyrics. What’s really catchy is the use of other instruments, such as their distinctive use of a trumpet and stringed instruments. This song floats along wonderfully through the entire three minutes.

4 – Time Is A Runaway, The Alternate Routes and Who You Are, Cary Brothers (Tie)

This was another tie for me, between Time is a Runaway and Who You Are. Neither song really stands out on a technical level, but both songs really grabbed me for their sound and lyrics. Who You Are has a wonderful LA sound to it with a fantastic beat and energy, while Time is a Runaway has some fantastic lyrics coupled with their vocals and background instrumentation. Both are songs to relax to.

3 – Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!, Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans

Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albanians come forth with this fantastic ballad-like song that exhols the wonders of mounted cavelry, looking at their use through history. As a history person, this is just a wonderful song to pull apart line by line, and it’s got such a fantastic song to go along with it.

2 – Ah, Mary, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals

I knew that my #2 song would be a Grace Potter song, but it took me a little while to figure out which one. I went with the first one that I heard, Ah Mary, a sort of protest song that pulls you in nicely with Grace’s fantastic voice before cranking it up a notch exactly a minute in as it turns to something you’d expect from some of their idols, like Neil Young. Their studio version seems to be a little subdued – go see this live for the full effect.

1 – Boy With A Coin, Iron & Wine

And my number one song of the year – Iron & Wine’s Boy With A Coin. Like Grace Potter’s album, there were a bunch here that could take the #1 spot, but there’s something here. Maybe because this song stands out so much from Sam Beam’s other songs and typical sound, or maybe because it falls into a fantastic beat and rhythm, this song just completely blew me away when I first heard it.

There you have it, the top 10… er… 12 songs of the year. Here are the ones that didn’t quite make it:

Dreamworld, Rilo Kiley
Sea Legs, The Shins
Down The Line, Jose Gonzalez
Rumors, Josh Ritter
The Pretender, Foo Fighters
Dashboard, Modest Mouse
Keep The Car Running, Arcade Fire
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
Love Song, Sara Bareilles
Pressure Suit, Aqualung
Sci-Fi Kid, Blitzen Trapper
Eh Hee, Dave Matthews

There were others, but overall, fantastic year for music. Let’s see what’s next.

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Concert Online

Back in October, I posted up a review for a concert, Cary Brothers, Kate Vogele and Matt Nathanson. While poking around Archive.org, I came across the Matt Nathanson portion:

Intro
Car Crash
Wedding Dress
Lucky Boy > (I Want You to Want Me) !
Angel > I Saw
Princess > (Jesse’s Girl) [Rick Springfield Cover] > Princess
Come On Get Higher
We Live as We Dream Alone (Gang of Four Cover) > Pretty the World…
Bent > Such Great Heights (Postal Service Tease)
To the Beat of Our Noisy Hearts
Falling Apart
Still
Suspended
Forgiveness
Gone
Laid
Don’t Stop Believing (Journey Cover) w/Kate Vogele & Cary Brothers
Amazing Again > Losing My Religion (REM Cover)
Answering Machine
Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran)
All We Are

A lot of covers in there – Nathanson seems to like doing a lot of songs. Enjoy!

Weekend Mix

I didn’t have anything planned to throw up here today, so here’s a random smattering of songs that I really enjoy. So, some good stuff for listening this weekend:

Apologies – Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
Fa Fa – Guster
Fall Apart Again – Brandi Carlile
Freedom – Sara Wheeler
Lovesong of the Buzzard – Iron & Wine
On The Radio – Regina Spektor
Sister Jack – Spoon
Small Planet – Ferraby Lionheart
Torn To Tattered – Carbon Leaf
Who You Are – Cary Brothers

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Concert – Cary Brothers, Kate Voegele and Matt Nathanson

This weekend at the Higher Ground, I was able to see Kate Voegele, Cary Brothers and Matt Nathanson in the Higher Ground Ballroom. It was an okay night – not the greatest

Kate Voegele Set
One Way or Another
Wish You Were
Hallelujah (Cover)
chicago
Only Fooling Myself

I wasn’t extremely impressed with Kate Voegele, who’s recently scored her first album through the newly formed Myspace Records. She’s got a fairly typical sound for a singer, and overall, there wasn’t anything that really makes her stand out a whole lot. Not to say that she’s a bad singer, because she’s not. Maybe average. Her set was decent, fairly short, and she had some fun on stage. Maybe she’ll get better with time.

Cary Brothers Set
Ride
Jealousy
Who You Are
If You Were Here (Thompson Twins Cover)
Honestly
Wasted One
Glass Parade
Blue Eyes

Cary Brothers was the one that I set out to see last night, and I finally got a shirt from their merch booth (I tried to get one last time I saw him and failed, because they ran out.) His set was a significant improvement over Voegele’s, although because he wasn’t backed by a larger group this time around, I wasn’t as thrilled with his set as I was the last time that he was in town. His set was also a bit shorter. They did take the smaller group (only Cary and two others) and ran with it – they had a couple of songs that sounded a little different, like Wasted One and Who You Are, but the sound was good and he was probably the best singer of the night.

Matt Nathanson Set
Car Crash
Wedding Dress
Lucky Boy
-> I Want You To Want Me (Cheap Trick Cover)
Angel
I Saw
Princess
-> Jessie’s Girl (Rick Springfield Cover)
Come On, Get Higher
Pretty The World
Bent
To The Beat of Our Noisy Hearts
Falling Apart
Still
Suspended
Snakes? (Patty Smith Cover?)
Gone
Laid
Smalltown Girl (Journey Cover) With Cary Brothers and Kate Voegele
Comfort Me
-> Losing My Religion (REM Cover)
Answering Machine
Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran Cover)
All We Are

Matt Nathanson is a bit of an annoying twerp. He’s a very good singer, but he reminds me a lot of Dane Cook. On stage, he’s funny, often getting the crowd going and seems a little self-involved, but once he gets down to start playing, he and his group sounds pretty good on stage.
Matt was clearly the show for the night, with everyone there to see him. He’s certainly popular with the college group and demographics. His songwriting is also about average, and his live show can double as a comedy one, which is fine, as long as he plays music. On stage, they’ve got a good sound, very solid, very good beat.

Overall, the entire night was pretty good, low key. I chatted with a couple people, took pictures, and enjoyed myself. This was the last night of the tour for this group of singers, and they seemed to really have a fun time. Cary and Kate both jumped on stage for one of Matt’s songs, and Matt jumped into one of Cary’s songs, Blue Eyes. It looked like they were also enjoying themselves.

More pictures here.

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New Cary Brothers Video – Honestly

I just came across this, a new Cary Brothers video with scenes from Feast of Love, which looks like a new movie coming out. The song was on his first album, Who You Are, a fantastic first album.

Looks pretty good – Brothers is certainly good at getting his music into films. I’ll be seeing him next week when he comes to South Burlington with Matt Nathanson.

Honestly – Cary Brothers

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