Cigarette Tricks: What to Download Tuesday: "New Multitudes"

Last week we had news about the upcoming release of Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Recordings, a comprehensive four disc set chronicling the landmark Billy Bragg/Wilco sessions -- a set that will include Mermaid Avenue Vol. III, 17 previously unreleased tracks from those sessions. Well if that wasn't enough to get you excited about Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday, then perhaps the release of New Multitudes (out today via Rounder) will push you a little bit closer to cancelling your July 14th wedding and reforming the event into a Woody Guthrie birthday celebration. The record follows the "Mermaid" format, i.e., it is a collaborative effort in which contemporary musicians come together to compose music for unreleased Guthrie lyrics. The Mermaid parallel is all the more poignant in that the project is headed in-part by Jeff Tweedy's Uncle Tupelo partner/nemesis Jay Farrar (Son Volt). But more than Farrar's response to Mermaid, New Multitudes feels like its own thing. This is helped by the fact that Farrar is joined by three other exceptional musicians: Will Johnson (from one of my favorites, Centro-Matic), Yim Yames (the ridiculous solo moniker of the otherwise very awesome James James of My Morning Jacket), and Anders Parker (of '90s bands Varnaline and Space Needle, and more recently a collaborator with Farrar in Gob Iron). Each singer takes lead on three songs with the other three supporting, and the record really does feel like the product of a "band" and not just individual musicians coming together -- see, for instance, the Billy Bragg/Wilco partnership at times. And while there's nothing on New Multitudes that feels as immediately classic as, say, "California Stars," "Airline to Heaven," or "Walt Whitman's Niece," tracks like "Old L.A.," "V.D. City" and "Fly High" are as strong as any country-tinged-rock tunes to come out yet this year, and the record as a whole hangs together nicely. I'd be surprised if Mermaid III is anywhere close to this good.

Other notable new releases this week include the very excellent, Hairdresser Blues, the first solo record from Hunx and His Punx frontman, Hunx (a.k.a Seth Bogart), Lyle Lovett's surprisingly okay Curb Records contractual ending collection, Release Me ("surprisingly okay" because most contractual obligation records are not nearly this good), Toronto electronic duo Trust's debut, Trst, and UK trio We Have a Band's sophomore disc, Ternion. Full list of all the new releases that matter after the jump
Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Yim Yames, and Anders Parker, New Multitudes