What is Iron and Wine anyway? A man? A band? A concept? A sound? For the past decade, Sam Beam has used his stage name to mean all of those things. The Southeastern raised songwriter first caught people's attention in the Northwest, actually, through a demo featured in Yeti Magazine and followed by a spare yet beautiful debut released by Sub Pop. In 2002, The Creek Drank the Cradle placed dusty Americana in a modern context before it was fashionable to do so and stunned listeners with its gentle but undeniable songs and Beam's own hushed voice barely above a whisper. Since then, Iron & Wine's sound has grown, through increased production and instrumentation and by collaborations with other artists, culminating in 2011's full-band LP, Kiss Each Other Clean, which with its lushly produced 70's pop sound, seemed miles away from those first homemade demos. Yet even as he explores more jazz and R&B influences on this year's Ghost on Ghost, Sam Beam always manages to sound distinctly himself. Recently, Beam got back to basics during an intimate, stripped down in-studio performance at KEXP, mixing up songs new and old, just a man and a guitar and Iron & Wine.
Full Performance:
It had to be one of the stranger pairings we heard about this year: acclaimed electronic producer Nicolas Jaar and the relatively unknown Dave Harrington. That the two might be friends from their Brown University connection (both studied there) mades sense, but what would a composer of heady ambien…
Brooklyn synthpop trio Au Revoir Simone are back after a four year hiatus, and we were thrilled to have them as part of our CMJ broadcast from Judson Memorial Church. After a lovely walk around Washington Square Park with their young superfan, we stopped for a chat about parenthood, '80s beats, and…
