When Kevin Drew and his rejiggered (but still BSS-laden) backing band made their live debut at TT the Bears here in Cambridge a couple months back, Ryan Walsh of Hallelujah the Hills was tapped to open up the very-packed MySpace show with an acoustic set of his own. He used the opportunity to share not just stripped-down versions of a few songs from his band's excellent full-length debut, "Collective Psychosis Begone", but to give us some brand new stuff, a familiar cover, and even dust off a track by his previous band, the Stairs.
On the eve of Hallelujah the Hills' 8-date East Coast tour, which kicks off tomorrow night in Knoxville, Tennessee (see dates below), the band is unleashing a couple more new songs onto the 'net, with exclusive tracks offered at both Largehearted Boy ("Cataloging Candy's Demise") and Stereogum ("Let It Wave"). To add to this wealth of HtH goodness, I'm happy to share my Ryan-approved recording of that acoustic TT's set...
Audio: Mp3s - From "Collective Psychosis Begone", download the song "Hallelujah the Hills". Grab the non-album track "Monster Eyes" (written using words from Jonathan Lethem's book "You Don't Love Me Yet"). Stream - four songs on their MySpace page, including a demo version of the song "Nurses Five Float Past". The band also has a bunch of other demos and selected live songs on their own downloads page. And be sure to head to Largehearted Boy and keep an eye on Stereogum for those two brand new tracks. As ever, you can easily stream all 'Nac-hosted mp3s using the Hype Machine.
appeasing the audiophiles... All almanac live sets are recorded with a Sony ECM-719 mic and a Sony MZ-RH10 minidisc, converted to .wav and then edited to 192kbps Mp3s. Files are made available for a limited time, and are not reposted once removed.
