WYEP Station Blog

If you’re a fan of the Block Party (weeknights from 8pm-12am EST) on 91.3fm, we’re now featuring an Album of the Month with your New or Renewing Membership to WYEP. The Block Party Featured Album is available in CD format for a $60 donation to WYEP or Vinyl format with your $75 or higher donation.

October’s Block Party Featured Album of the Month is The Rip Tide by Beirut. Become a WYEP Member at wyep.org and grab a copy on CD or Vinyl as your thank you gift this month.

Review of Beirut’s The Rip Tide by WYEP Intern Gareth Gebhardt of the University of Pittsburgh.

It’s hard to believe it was all the way back in 2006 that Zach Condon and his ragtag orchestra first introduced us to the revelation that is Beirut. Never before had the musical traditions of the Balkans met so harmoniously with the horns of Southwestern and Mexican bands, rounded out by a sharp sense for pop hooks and smooth vocals. Building upon their eponymous EP and full-length debut, Gulag Orkestar, Beirut cultured a sizable following among fans and indie critics alike with their tireless touring schedule and on the strength of singles like “Postcards from Italy” and “Scenic World.”

With The Rip Tide,  their third full-length album, the band proves their unique sound has solid staying power.  Bandleader Condon’s lyrics seem to come more easily and confidently than ever, and the band’s sound as a whole has the smooth, polished feel of guys who’ve been spending a whole lot of very good times together.

Title track “The Rip Tide” is the one of the album’s best examples of their ability to refresh their sound while preserving all the elements that make them so likable in the first place. Beginning with a beautiful piano line to set the scene, the chords just sort of roll along, giving you the feeling of being carried away on waves. LIke a sky full of grey clouds, horns and strings blow in soft and lovely until Condon’s voice comes in to set your feet back on the ground. It’s evocative, introspective, and lovely – well-trod territory for Beirut while adding even more atmosphere to the band’s palette.

But just in case that track’s too much of a downer (and it shouldn’t be; it’s beautiful), Condon brings us back to bright and sunny on “Santa Fe,” a track he wrote “loosely” about his hometown that evokes warm sun-drenched streets on summer days. “East Harlem,” “Payne’s Bay” and “Vagabond” are all standouts as well, traveling the band’s wide musical spectrum from soft violins to glockenspiel waltzes to Condon’s ever-present, always infectious trumpet melodies.

Beirut sticks out from everyone else for a whole lot of reasons: Condon’s smooth vibrato, the ukeleles and mandolins replacing any appearance of guitar, horns and accordion put to perfect arrangement. Their success is due to all of this and more; Condon and co. are making music that samples half the world, while remaining, unmistakably, their very own. And that’s precisely what makes them so special.

Pick up a copy of The Rip Tide by Beirut with your Membership today at wyep.org.

If you’re a fan of the Block Party (weeknights from 8pm-12am EST) on 91.3fm, we’re now featuring an Album of the Month with your New or Renewing Membership to WYEP. The Block Party Featured Album is available in CD format for a $60 donation to WYEP or Vinyl format with your $75 or higher donation.

September’s Block Party Featured Album of the Month is W H O K I L L by tUnE-yArDs. Become a WYEP Member at wyep.org and grab a copy on CD or Vinyl as your thank you gift this month.

Review of tUnE-yArDs’ “W H O K I L L” by WYEP Host Melissa Larrick

Merrill Garbus, leader of tUnE-yArDs, first appeared on the Canadian indie scene in the early 2000’s with  the band Sister Suvi. Garbus, flying solo with the experimental lo-fi folk project in 2006, can attribute tUnE-yArDs for taking flight from touring with the likes of Thao and selling over 1,000 copies of debut album Bird Brains – which took her almost two years to complete.

After the release of Bird Brains, Garbus toured with Dirty Projectors in 2009. Collecting all the hype and creating a contagion of clever melodies, boisterous vocals and undeniably catchy hooks, bassist Nate Brenner joined Garbus and took off to a professional studio to re-fine their already unique and original sound.  Record label 4AD released W H O K I L L earlier this year.

W H O K I L L, Garbus’s sophomore album, clearly demonstrates her growth as an artist. The wonderful thing about Garbus is that she does not restrict tUnE-yArDs to any specific sound.  Tracks, such as “Gangsta” and “Bizness”, explode with a hip-hop influence, tied together with looping vocals and saxophones to give a jazzy and a fun-to-dance-to vibe. “Riotriot” starts off with a slightly off-kilter sounding ukulele which completely sets the tone for the track. Her quiet and clever vocals weave together in the most appeasing way and finishes off with dancey beats and sassiness of the Sax. “Powa” is an incredibly sexy song. Garbus executes every human emotion in this album, making it easy to listen all the way through, and then over and over again.

We can only hope for another release from tUnE-yArDs soon. In the meantime, Garbus has her hands in other projects like producing and contributing instrumentation to the 2011 release of Thao and Mirah’s self-titled debut.

Garbus creates a musical onion. Layer upon layer of catchy and clever lyrics, jazz, hip-hop, folk, lo-fi, and almost never failing to break into a dance party somewhere in the track. It’s this kind of element that makes tUnE-yArDs unlike any other and W H O K I L L one of the best releases of 2011.

Pick up a copy of W H O K I L L by tUnE-yArDs with your Membership today at wyep.org.

If you’re a fan of the Block Party (weeknights from 8pm-12am EST) on 91.3fm, we’re now featuring an Album of the Month with your New or Renewing Membership to WYEP. The Block Party Featured Album is available in CD format for a $60 donation to WYEP or Vinyl format with your $75 or higher donation.

August’s Block Party Featured Album of the Month is Circuital by My Morning Jacket. Become a WYEP Member at wyep.org and grab a copy on CD or Vinyl as your thank you gift this month.

Review of My Morning Jacket’s Circuital courtesy of Rolling Stone

“I can see potential/Speaking through you/Speaking to you/ From all of heaven’s possibility,” My Morning Jacket’s Jim James sings at the opening of his band’s sixth album. He sounds like a hippie shaman, but the track is more Radiohead than the Doors: a sleek, low-end bass whir and tensely driving cymbal hits melt into hypnotic waves of ambient sound and ghostly backing vocals; the song builds ominously, then speeds headlong until climaxing in chaos and distortion.

Over the past decade, the Kentucky quintet have been on an ambitious, boundary-melting mission. The last two discs – 2005′s Z and 2008′s Evil Urges – ping-ponged between misty-mountain guitar explorations and Seventies funk fantasias, kinky reggae and unwinking metal, while still delivering Southern-tinged jams that felt as comfy as a crusty college futon. Recorded in a Louisville church gymnasium, Circuital is just as adventurous, yet more organic and focused.

“First Light” is a Seventies Stones boogie with the apocalypse sucked out and replaced with lyrics about spiritual satisfaction; the title track opens with Morse-code guitar noodling and unfolds into smiling, open-road strumming that recalls Wilco at their loosest.

So much bliss could get pie-eyed pious, but Circuital has a funny bone, too. “Outta My System” is about a reformed burnout car thief looking back happily on his outlaw days from the safety of marriage and stability. And then there’s “Holdin on to Black Metal,” probably the gnarliest thing these guys have done. Over a fuzz-toned psychedelic funk groove, sulfurous guitars and wah-wah horn flares, James brags about “catchin’ waves on Lucifer’s beach,” as switchblade-wielding girl singers get his back.

Pick up a copy of Circuital by My Morning Jacket with your Membership today at wyep.org.

If you signed up for the Sold Out Member Show  (your name will be on a list at the door) with Jenny Owen Youngs, don’t forget it’s tonight at the Thunderbird Cafe in Lawrenceville at 7pm, with the Wrecked Kids opening. Doors open at 6:30pm.

Cindy’s hard at work counting New and Renewing Members, one dry erase marker mark at a time. We want 913 members by the end of our May Membership Campaign on May 20th! It’s big. It’s grand, and it means we have to start now.

Watch the video!

There are so many ways to become an Essential Member. Do it online at wyep.org, give us a call at 412-381-9900, or send us your pledge by post at WYEP, 67 Bedford Sq, Pittsburgh, PA 15203-1152.

If you are a current Member of WYEP, you and a guest can sign up to attend Quantum Theatre’s Breakfast with Mugabe on February 6th.

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Sign up for two great Member Events in January – a concert with Marc Cohn and a Martin Sexton Studio Session!

Thinking about selling your car, boat, motorcycle, truck, or other vehicle? Donate it to 91.3fm WYEP instead. You can help get the new WYEP Car Donation Program rolling and receive a tax deduction for yourself. To donate your vehicle, just call our representatives at 877-913-WYEP and we’ll take care of the rest.

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