We heard an abridged take on this song last month, when Justin Vernon and friends announced their new Volcano Choir album, Repave. That clip focused on the moment the cut’s steady-building undercurrent crashes into a chorus of cymbals, guitars, and rafter-reaching vocals, but now comes the full attack and release appearing on the LP. For a 6-piece band comprised of musicians with other projects on their plate, they work as an impressively cohesive unit here — just enough cooks in the kitchen to rally behind Vernon’s always-welcome lower register. As rousing as the best Bon Iver tunes, hear “Byegone” above.

Photo by Zoran Orlic

In which the new Mavis Staples record starts shaping up to top her last Wilco Loft-recorded LP, here’s our latest taste from One True Vine, “Far Celestial Shore.” Last month’s “I Like The Things About Me” found Jeff Tweedy and son updating a classic, self-affirming Staples Sisters cut with fuzz-laced guitars and a spare groove on Spencer’s drumset, and now comes a folk-gospel gem from the album. Only time will tell, but this cut — a hopeful ode to Mavis’ take on heaven — is feeling very timeless right now. Hear it above.

Joni Mitchell interviews are something to behold, and this new one with Canadian journalist Jian Ghomeshi delves even deeper than she’s gone in decades. Landing a Q&A with Joni is so rare, in fact, there’s little to compare it to — a career-spanning discussion from her home in Los Angeles, it covers her views on art in all forms, aging as an artist, the non-artistic quotient of Bob Dylan, and much more than I’d attempt to surmise from the freewheeling, near-2-hour talk. Having spent two days coming back to the clip, it’s biggest yield has been a rabbit hole of music discovery and insight, among other tangents rewarding to the patient fan. Watch — and/or bookmark for later — above.

We’ve backed a number of Daughter studio cuts, from their debut LP’s “Smother” to this spring’s Daft Punk cover, but if it’s been hard to imagine Elena, Igor, and Remi’s performances in a live setting, here’s their recent KEXP set as proof they can bring If You Leave home in spades onstage. “You can just keep playing all day,” says host John Richards at the end of this video, inspired by the rousing take on “Human.” Watch their full, 4-song set here and/or the personal-favorite clip above.

Daughter are opening for the National in August, followed by a headlining U.S. tour this fall.

Update: Neko Case’s new album trailer was scant on details over the weekend, but now we have a confirmed LP title (The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You), cover art (left), release date (September 3), and first single.

Hear Case come out swinging with M. Ward lending guitar on “Man” above.

We’ve been biding our time with Neko Case’s excellent Ghost Brothers of Darkland County track “That’s Who I Am” and last month’s live Iron Maiden cover, but at last her long-in-the-works new album is imminent. Tentatively dubbed The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight. The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You., Case uploaded a first glimpse of the Middle Cyclone follow-up this morning with this 85-second intro to the song “Where Did I Leave That Fire.” Directed by Xan Aranda – whose work we saw recently in Andrew Bird’s Fever Year documentary – the beautifully shot clip is short on specifics while delivering big promise for what sounds like a moody, sprawling backdrop to the next Case set. Can’t wait to hear (and see) more. Get psyched with the album teaser video above.

The last set from Desertshore found Mark Kozelek joining Red House Painters guitarist Phil Carney and pianist Chris Connolly on lead vox for more than half the tracks off sophomore effort Drawing Of Threes. Given the trio’s strong collaborative past, it was an excellent pairing to say the least, and now they’ve followed the LP toward its most natural conclusion: Kozelek contributing to their whole next record, eponymously titled Mark Kozelek and Desertshore, featuring Sun Kil Moon drummer Mike Stevens. We’re more than two months out from its August 20th release date, but this year’s Perils From The Sea now has competition for the best Kozelek team-up of 2013. Hear two promising cuts — “Mariette,” featuring images of New Orleans via Stereogum, and the fastest paced Kozelek cut in years via Caldo Verde, “Katowice Or Cologne” — below:

“Mariette”

“Katowice Or Cologne”

Getting married and sober has been prime fodder for many singer-songwriters over the years, but Jason Isbell goes well beyond the press-ready lede on his fourth LP. At one point, 2011 tourmate Ryan Adams — complete with a similar recent backstory — had even signed up to produce what might’ve been Isbell’s own Ashes & Fire. There’s a bit of that here on Southeastern, particularly on spare opener “Cover Me Up,” but chalking it up to such simple redemption would be doing the record’s great depth and versatility a disservice. After a few spins today — while reading The NY Times Magazine‘s new Isbell profile piece — it’s hard to imagine anyone other than David Cobb producing this set of heartbreaking, hopeful, and romantic tunes. “There’s a man who walks beside me, he is who I used to be,” he bookends on solo-acoustic standout “Live Oak,” calling some of this discussion to the table. “And I wonder if she sees him and confuses him with me.” There’s no confusion here, just one of the best records from a guy who’s always had this in him. Stream it below (via MTV Hive):

It’s become a tradition in the weeks following a new Laura Marling LP that a handful of songs penned for the next set get their debut. After A Creature I Don’t Know we heard “Pray For Me” in near-finished form back in 2011, and now — also live on-air for WNYC — we have “Bleed Me Dry,” a fair warning to a future lover from the post-Once I Was An Eagle era. “Well, it’s love that I need and to love you have to bleed,” she sings. “I’m not sure I’ve got a drop to spare.” Listen/watch above.

As Will Oldham prepares to head out next month on a tour supporting his new Everly Brothers covers set, Bonnie “Prince” Billy stopped by a local children’s show for a playful Q&A with kids and puppets, including a pair of performances with Liberation Living Room‘s house band. For the music, host/Liberation Prophecy leader Jacob Duncan & Co. backed up one of Palace Music’s oldest tunes, “Ohio River Boat Song,” before reworking Beware‘s “I Am Goodbye” into a boisterous ragtime jam. Check out both takes along with a more serious offering from Bonnie and Dawn McCarthy this week, the official video for their take on the Everlys’ “Omaha,” below:

“I Am Goodbye”

“Ohio River Boat Song”

Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Dawn McCarthy – “Omaha”

Jake Bellows — the leader of Omaha’s Neva Dinova and man behind one of our favorite tunes, “Spring Cleaning” — has a debut solo record out this summer. Titled New Ocean, the album marks a return to releasing music for Bellows, who had moved down to L.A. and sold his Les Paul to buy a Datsun pickup (not unlike Neil Young in “Out on the Weekend”). He put 18 demos to tape before heading out, though, and joined collaborators for a drive that fall “in a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle that didn’t have heat, a speedometer, a fuel gauge, seatbelts, or radio. They made it as far as Lincoln, NE, before the car caught fire at 4 in the morning.” Bellows, Heath Koontz, the Faint’s Todd Fink, Whispertown’s Morgan Nagler, Ryan Fox, and Ben Brodin made it to ARC Studios for a quick-paced session soon after. There’s more to the backstory, but that part, in addition to being a longtime fan of this guy, works for me.

Saddle Creek are releasing pre-orders of New Ocean on July 23rd. In the meantime, here’s a track Bellows shared on a preview EP earlier this year — it isn’t a proper single, but this album cut, “Help,” is very promising regardless. Hear it below with the LP’s trailer:

“Help”

If, like me, you’re new to the Swedish word “skisser,” it’d be hard to come by a lovelier introduction to the term than Alice Boman‘s debut EP this year. As mentioned in praise of opener “Waiting”, the title means “sketches” in English — a fitting description for demo cuts not meant to reach ears beyond the voice and keys playing them. Steeped in lo-fi hiss, the set is filled out by three unnamed tracks, simply numbered in the singular, skiss, à la Elliott Smith’s “No Name” tunes on Roman Candle. Boman’s most accessible tales of forlorn longing bookend the set, available now on iTunes, Spotify, and streaming above.

While New Orleans transplant Luke Winslow-King’s new record is on rotation, the former Jack White tourmate & Co. just took a horse-drawn carriage ride down Bourbon Street with an older tune in tow. “Never Tired” is a charming track in any configuration, but this one — seersucker suit, washboard percussion, sunny New Orleans day, et al. — is perfect for early June. Watch him jam with Esther Rose and Cassidy Holden above.

David Lynch hasn’t a single film project in the pipeline, but in the meantime the auteur/painter/furniture designer has something else ready to mess with our minds midsummer: a sophomore solo record, The Big Dream, due on July 16th. This one’s “a little bit more confident,” he tells Billboard of the Crazy Clown Time follow-up. “I feel like the songs are tighter.” As with the previous set, The Big Dream is “based on the blues” before Lynch and collaborators act and react on the cut until lyrics crop up. Some hype will be made of the 12-track LP’s Bob Dylan cover, but “it’s not really a cover of Bob Dylan as much as it is a cover of a Nina Simone cover of Bob Dylan,” he says. Today we have a glimpse from the sessions in the form of this dreamy, Twin Peaks-ready bonus cut starring Lykke Li on lead vocals. Hear “I’m Waiting Here” above and revisit that Simone’s cover below:

The opening track on Houndmouth’s debut won us over earlier this spring, but it turns out their charm is far from limited to “On The Road.” Team Coco is streaming the set now, including early standout “Come On, Illinois.” “It’s a long way just to make it to the borderline,” sings Matt Myers on the refrain — a simple gesture, perhaps, yet aptly glorious in light of how far the New Albany, Indiana quartet has come in recent months. Hear that cut in studio form with the rest of the record at the Conan link and/or watch them perform an excellent album-faithful take above.

Volcano Choir — the Wisconsin collaboration between Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and Collections of Colonies of Bees — have a sophomore record on the way this year, and if today’s teaser is any indication, it’ll be a highlight of the year. Above, hear a 2.5-minute glimpse of the Unmap follow-up, Repave. Complete with Vernon driving the track’s steady, triumphant build in his lower register and footage of the band hunkered down/having a ton of studio fun in a snowbound Eau Claire winter, this cut arrives in full with 7 more on September 3rd. The tracklist and Corey Arnold‘s album cover photo are below:

Repave Tracklist

01. “Tiderays”
02. “Acetate”
03. “Comrade”
04. “Byegone”
05. “Alaskans”
06. “Dancepack”
07. “Keel”
08. “Almanac”