For their part, the Brazilian legends proved last year that they hadn’t lost a step either with Haih Or Amortecedor so everything points to a terrific show. Be sure to catch it if you can.

Dates are below:

11/05 Dallas, TX – Palladium Showroom
11/07 Houston, TX – Fitzgeralds
11/08 New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jack
11/09 Atlanta, GA – Variety
11/10 Chapel Hill, NC – Cat’s Cradle
11/11 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
11/12 Philadelphia, PA – Trocadero
11/13 New York, NY – Webster Hall
11/14 Boston, MA – Royale Boston
11/16 Montreal, Quebec – National
11/17 Toronto, Ontario – Opera House
11/18 Bowling Green, OH – Clazel Theater
11/19 Chicago, IL – Metro
11/20 Minneapolis, MN – Cedar Cultural Center
11/23 Denver, CO – Bluebird
11/24 Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge
11/26 Vancouver, British Columbia – Vogue
11/27 Seattle, WA – Neumos
11/28 Portland, OR – Berbati’s
11/30 San Francisco, CA – Regency
12/01 Santa Cruz, CA – Rio Theater
12/02 Los Angeles, CA – Henry Fonda Theater

Artwork and the rather brief tracklist can be viewed below:

01 D.I.W.S.W.T.T.D. (Stereolab Mix)
02 Dressed in White She Walks Through the Door (Melchior Mix)
03 Ayisha Abyss (Lindstrøm Mix)

Iron & Wine’s current tour dates can be seen below:

09-10 Mainz, Germany – 3Sat Festival
09-11 Dorset, England – End of the Road Festival
09-12 Leeds, England – Howard Assembly Room
09-14 London, England – Union Chapel
09-15 Düsseldorf, Germany – Zakk
09-16 Zürich, Switzerland – El Lokal
09-17 Luxembourg City, Luxembourg – Kulturfabrik
09-18 Groningen, Netherlands – Take Root Festival
10-12 Iowa City, IA – IMU Main Lounge
10-13 Milwaukee, WI – Pabst Theater
10-14 Columbus, OH – Ohio State University

For a taste of what chicha brings to the table, here’s a splendid song from the first comp entitled ‘A Patricia’ courtesy of Los Destellos:

If you’re keen on hearing Hobbs’ entire send-off show, that can be streamed here.

Sunlight on its own isn’t particularly wondrous. Its allure is contingent upon context and contrast, cause for joy when those precious rays stumble onto the scene. If they didn’t need to carve a path through steadfast coats of gray to get there, these scintillas would swell into a blanket of sandy nothingness, taken for granted and deemed shopworn within moments. Scarcity and surroundings ultimately determine their reception.

Atmospheric pop duo Candy Claws opted to prop its treated vocals far too high in the mix on 2009’s In The Dream Of The Sea Life, subsequently drowning sparks of energy and whimsy in the harsh and blunt. One year later, Ryan Hover and Kay Bertholf have allayed their edges and equipped their material with lusher, comely production to accentuate their latent gleams. ‘In The Deep Time’ is first out of the gate as honeyed tape hisses, knotty ambience, and smoky inflections join forces to birth an effervescent opener. The dusky, sensual property of the voices marries wonderfully well with the verdant arrangement — time appears to slow down, spirits lighten, our senses are amplified. Hidden Lands‘ opener legitimizes the title of LP #2, conveying a universe of harlequin skies and hopped up lounge artists trading their torpor in for an afternoon of hazy forest-frolicking.

‘Hiding’ further mines this sonic depth, adorning those languorous come-hither vocals with flourishes both earthy and shimmery, deftly tapping into the interplay between body and buoyancy. As a result, charming web of textures is spun, motioning sunlight in the track’s direction and urging it to slither through interstices just modest enough to stoke the fire.

The flora pervading ‘In The Deep Time’ and ‘Hiding’ doesn’t persist throughout, abandoning the sun to its own devices on one too many occasions. In these instances, the album’s footing falters dramatically. ‘Sunbeam Show’ and ‘Sun Arrow’ are cluttered tracks, keyboards, vocals, drums, and gawky guitars grounding the twosome’s flight and holding us in a tepid middle ground rather than a colorful hidden land. On the flip side, ‘On The Bridge’ as well as ‘The Breathing Fire’ are too spare and in the wake of the muted sting from debut to follow-up, too dainty. They could do with additional layers, nuance to highlight the effulgent compositions instead of easing them into saccharine plains.

Offsetting the wear of a uniformly slow burn, Candy Claws tighten the affair and propose rather tuneful cuts ‘Silent Time Of Earth’ and ‘Miracle Spring’. These two entries display the record’s conflicting approaches to melody. Infectious in its laid back, almost watery nature, the former dodges prim pitfalls by way of warbly synths and bongo-like-but-thinner percussion. There’s an exotic flavor at work, an air not of danger but fantasy. The latter sways along in pleasant sun-soaked fashion too, but it’s so meek that even if it were to hit the mark, it wouldn’t stick. It’d merely bob back down to earth without anyone taking notice — an additional glimmer within a universe of dead ringers hardly brightens the picture. Where ‘Silent Time Of Earth’ is immersive, ‘Miracle Spring’ struggles to even reach ankle level.

Hover and Bertholf have drawn their claws back and their tunes out on Hidden Lands. However, they don’t appear to have filled up the newfound space with anything of substance. A merrier excursion it may be, it remains a bit of a drag as sunrise is met only with a scenery unworthy of its weight in gold.

Vinh Cao

Myspace