Broken Bicycles / Adam Kiesling

Today is the second of six Saturdays this summer when we will be sponsoring music at the Midtown Farmer’s Market.  This morning at 9, Broken Bicycles – who recently played here in the shop – will perform, followed by a set of traditional music by Adam Keisling at 11.

We’ve already featured a few tracks from the new Broken Bicycles LP, Minneapolis (click here) and today we’re going to try something new with Unclouded Day: Instead of putting the disc onto our computer and adding a few favorite tracks to this post, we’re going to use a player from Adam Kiesling’s Bandcamp page (which you can click to here). With this player, you can stream all seventeen tracks on the disc, and if you like them you can buy a download or come into the shop for a CD (This all kind of ties into the discussion of artists’ rights and media downloads that I commented at the beginning of the week).

Adam performed here at the shop on Record Store Day 2011 with the East Lake Pavers, a string band assembled by Jim Parker, who lives just a few blocks from the shop. We had heard about Unclouded Day from Dakota Dave Hull*, who recorded it at his Arabica Studio over the course of a couple years – It was eagerly anticipated around here, given what we’d heard from Dave and Adam’s previous album, I Wish I were a Lizard in the Spring.

And we were not disappointed – Unclouded Day is one of my favorite discs of the year. If some dinosaur rocker released this as his “back to roots” project Rolling Stone would be swooning over it. He’d tour and it would cost thirty-five bucks to see him play at some snooty place like the Dakota. As it is Adam Kiesling is as down-to-Earth as his music, and his interpretation of sixteen ol’ standards (and one Dylan cover) is not only more genuine, but more original. Kiesling’s approach to slow standards like the “Black Dog Blues” is refreshingly frank – like the Sam and Kirk McGee songs of yore. The string band tracks on Unclouded Day are the best part of the disc, full of life and enthusiasm and performed unflappable confidence.

Broken Bicycles will perform today morning at 9 (hot off an Old Fashioned Record showcase with I’m Not Dead, I’m Not A Robot and Fletcher Magellan at Kinsen). Buy them coffee. Adam Kiesling will perform after them at 11.

And tomorrow, by the way, the Roe Family Singers will perform here in the record shop. Next Sunday’s in-store performance will be by Dakota Dave Hull himself!