Good News Time: listenlisten Hits Daytrotter

Holy sweet hell-yes, folks. Got word this morning (after being email-less all weekend) that the supremely awesome guys in the variously-spelled {listenlisten} recently hit the Daytrotter studios to record their very own DT session. And yes, it’s freaking great.

Ben Godfrey & company waltz delicately through the four tracks on here, sounding stately and melancholy and restrained all at once, especially on leader “Watchman Tell Me (Part 1),” which I’d swear is the shortest, cleanest, most concise version of the often-rambling track I’ve heard ’em do yet. “Funeral Dirge; Burial Service,” sounds gorgeously polished, highlighting Marshall Graves‘(?) bassy backing vocals nicely, and “Shall We Meet Beyond The River?” (both of which are from 2009’s Hymns from Rhodesia is similar, with those harmony vocals coming to the fore in a very new way.

The newest song of the bunch, “I Will Be Mean,” in contrast, sounds pretty close to how it does/did on dog, a somber, sullen, stubborn passive-aggressivene tune that ties a man’s attempts to repair his fallen-down house to the also-collapsing relationship it formerly held, and it’s still a wonderful, affecting track that’s as real, as human as they come.

Check out the session at the link up there in the first paragraph, and while you’re at it, you can use the super-secret code word “daytrotter” over on listenlisten’s BandCamp site to get their two most recent albums (dog and Hymns) for half the normal price — $5, that is, instead of $10. And trust me, even the full price is very much worth it for either one.

It’s truly, truly excellent, by the way, to see/hear these guys getting noticed beyond the pages of blogs like this one here — the band is honestly one of my favorites, in this town or any other, and one of a growing pile of bands I point to every time people ask me if I’ve heard anything cool lately. What they do is utterly unique, at least to my ears, and any step towards the world at large hearing listenlisten is something that makes me ridiculously happy. High-five, you guys…