The Staves - Dead & Born & Grown

Aha! I've found another treasure.

No surprise I scour British music blogs, is it?

The debut album for Watford-based The Staves, Dead & Born & Grown is a sweet, flowing, calm, folksy album that is just perfect for a fall evening with a cup of tea and some friends or a kitty on the lap. The Guardian describes their folk sound as that of "post-Marling, post-Mumford," and I would have to agree. It's charmingly mellow, and the vocals are, in my mind, the gems of this record, leading us through the gentle melodies with less of a banjo-crazed Mumford & Sons, and softer harmonies than Laura Marling. I love both of the aforementioned, but The Staves, I think, are set to add their talents to the current string of amazing folk acts to come out of England.

Comprised of sisters Jessica, Emily and Camilla Staveley-Taylor, The Staves seem set to take the indie kids on their next musical journey, and will probably appeal to fans of Emily and the Woods or Daughter. Dead & Born & Grown is to be released tomorrow, November 12, in the UK from Atlantic. No word yet on the US, but as you can imagine, I'm waiting. :)

And of course, so that you're not left wondering whether you'll ever heard it, the album is available to stream in its entirety here, so enjoy it while you can while the US awaits a release! Also, in the meantime, if you're just curious, available on Spotify or iTunes are their two EPs, Mexico (2011) and The Motherlode (2012). 

"Motherlode" from The Motherlode EP:

Kind of Blue Morning

I gathered up an A+ stack of music last night to listen to -- some of which I knew already, some of which I had yet to hear. This morning has been a Miles Davis' Kind of Blue sort of morning. 

I've been listening to jazz and classical a lot more during the day -- mostly at work, but also at home when I am writing, because it provides some sort of music background without being distracting. I've never been much of a jazz enthusiast (or classical, for that matter, until I discovered some English composers such as Elgar and Vaughan-Williams), but not for lack of wanting to be. Interestingly, since I work in a bookstore, it has always been bookstores that I associate with jazz. When I was about 14 or so, I was staying north of Milwaukee with my dad, helping him out with an air fair during a summer weekend. In the evening, we stopped into an independent bookstore in some anonymous upper-crust shopping center, and the adjoining coffee shop had a live jazz pianist, whose tunes wafted through the dark-shelved and cozy bookstore and forever impressed upon me the association between bookstores and jazz. Alas.

So now, whenever I have the chance at the bookstore I work at, I put in jazz, because it reminds me where I am. I love it. Yesterday I grabbed a few jazz titles along with some other alternative titles that I knew, but hadn't heard yet, save The Duke Spirit, which I have already and wanted to play in the car on the way home. ;) The 2009 Editors release, In This Light and On This Morning, is really great, and worth a couple listens.

1. Gene Ammons & Sonny Stitt - God Bless Jug and Sonny (Live at the Left Bank), Prestige

2. Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie - Bird & Diz, Verve

3. Editors - In This Light and On This Evening, Faderlabel

4. My Morning Jacket - Chocolate and Ice EP, Badman

5. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue, Columbia

6. Miles Davis - Cool Blues, NewSound

7. The Duke Spirit - The Duke Spirit, Shangri-La

8. The Walkmen - Bows & Arrows, Record Collection

9. Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers - A Night in Tunisia, Bluebird

10. Elgar - Symphony No. 2, EMI

Not Shown: Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt - Boss Tenors, Verve