Yours Truly pull it off again. The bookend musings from Ekhi Lopetegi add a nice bit of context to what’s otherwise a bare bones performance vid.

Here are the freshest tracks of the week, plus some we can’t stop listening to.  You’re gonna want to turn the volume up on this one.

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Buffalo Moon – “Beach Boy”

Theophilus London – “Give It Up Dad”

Rusko (Feat. Amber Coffman) – “Hold On”(Sub Focus Remix)

Sleigh Bells – “Tell Em”

Interpol – “Lights”

Nikoo – “Marquee”

Twin Sister – “Lady Daydream” (Cassette Version)

Windsor for the Derby – “Queen of the Sun”

Weekend Mix – All Tracks

Written and recorded over seven years, All The Roadrunning is a warm and generous collaboration between two veteran recording artists still capable of putting down music with strong, grounded narratives and plausible emotions. Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler share and trade vocal duties with such an organic touch it’s easy to forget they recorded the album when they had time. Further, Knopfler lends his production and guitar expertise, imbuing the songs some rock leanings. For an interesting counterpoint in the sub-genre of all-star country collaborations, consider Van Lear Rose, which initially benefited from the buzz generated by the incongruity and notoriety of the duo (Loretta Lynn & Jack White) but has lost some of its luster since release, whereas All The Roadrunning appealed on first listen and endures still because Knopfler and Harris make for a much better pairing in several respects.

Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris – “All The Roadrunning” (live)

It’s just about the perfect time of year for a video like this. Infinite Arms is out 5/18 and is available now on iTunes.

This video brings it. Content and intensity are not at all surprising once you learn the director, Romain Gavras, is the son of Costa-Gavras, director of the classic political thriller Z, which, if unfamiliar, needs to be in your Netflix queue.

Listen:

Interpol – “Lights”

Late last year, drummer Sam Fogarino promised that Interpol’s new album “falls back towards the first,” and he wasn’t joking. “Lights” is a reverb-laden slow burner, and we can’t wait to hear more.  There’s still no word on the release date for their fourth LP, but for now enter that email address and grab this mp3.

Pairing the budding indie darling that is Beth Cosentino with video games is quite the head scratcher, but Best Coast’s new track, “Our Deal,” premiered on the Bright Falls web series earlier this week.  The fantastic new track will also appear on Best Coast’s upcoming debut LP, which I didn’t need to be any more excited for.

Listen:

Best Coast – “Our Deal”

When it was announced that Jack White was producing Loretta Lynn’s upcoming album, one couldn’t help but think “What the fuck?” White was at the top of his game, having just toured behind Elephant and making appearances in Coffee & Cigarettes and Cold Mountain. Lynn on the other hand had just become a Kennedy Center honoree and was preparing for the release of her tantalizing new book, You’re Cookin’ It Country. The country music legend meets the newly minted rock superstar, it was a match made in heaven.

Critical praise for the album was embarrassingly hyperbolic, with writers young and old wetting themselves over the interplay between White and Lynn. Cruise on over to Metacritic.com, the entertainment crit Mecca, and you’ll find Van Lear Rose rubbing shoulders with Brian Wilson’s Smile and Led Zeppelin’s How The West Was Won atop the All Time High Scores list, meaning it is essentially the best reviewed album of the last decade. Just let that one sink in for a few.

Regardless, Van Lear Rose is a very good album, and Lynn putting out a record of this caliber at sixty-nine years old is a truly impressive feat. White, with the help of future members of The Raconteurs, proved to be the Rubin to Lynn’s Cash, and gave her the resurgence that she undoubtedly deserved.

In 2002, you would have been hard pressed to find a bigger rising star than Damon Gough, or Badly Drawn Boy. Having released the Mercury prize-winning The Hour of Bewilderbeast just two years earlier, Gough’s next move was a fairly bold one: scoring a Hugh Grant film directed by those American Pie guys. About a Boy is based on the 1998 Nick Hornby novel of the same name, and as with most adaptions, many liberties were taken with the printed version. The most apparent being the exclusion of Kurt Cobain as a central plot figure, but that’s a completely different discussion. The point is, who in there right mind would read About a Boy and think to themselves, “The smooth brit-folk of Badly Drawn Boy is perfect for the film adaption?”

But somehow it worked. Gough’s soundtrack helped turn a decent film into a good one, and provided an album that didn’t simply fit into the confines of “film score” territory, meaning that it was entirely enjoyable on its own, without imagining Hugh Grant and the kid from Skins going on about ducks. Depression and loneliness were the central motifs of the novel, and Gough proved that those themes were right in his wheelhouse. Tracks like “Something to Talk About,” “Silent Sigh,” and especially “A Minor Incident” are some of the best tracks Badly Drawn Boy has put to tape, while album closer “Donna & Blitzen” has become a staple for those obnoxious Indie Christmas mixes.

Just a few months after About a Boy, Gough released the divisive Have You Fed the Fish?, another fine album that sits in the trinity of “good” Badly Drawn Boy efforts. In 2004 however, Gough decided his listeners needed a long nap and he provided the soundtrack with One Plus One is One and its follow up, 2006′s Born in the UK. 2009 marked a return to film scoring for Gough when he released an album inspired by the ITV film The Fattest Man in Britain, and the results were Badly Drawn Boy’s best album since 2002. Sure, it’s no big budget studio feature, but Is There Nothing We Could Do? is a step in the right direction for a talented singer/songwriter who hopefully has a few great albums left in him.

Listen:

Badly Drawn Boy – “A Minor Incident”

Also, check out Nick Hornby’s take on the above track from his 31 Songs collection.

Sweden’s Pallers have a new digital single on Labrador Records, titled “The Kiss.” The track begins as a Kraftwerk-aping synth jam, with each verse bringing with it a new layer of strings, guitar, or drums. Before you know it, you’re listening to the finest ’80′s tune you’ve heard all day. Also, be sure to check out their Humdrum EP, which was released last July.

Download:

Pallers – “The Kiss”

Buy Humdrum at iTunes.

Buy Humdrum on vinyl.

(Via The Fader)