Taking Alcatraz is the second track off Field Report's forthcoming debut album. Field Report happens to be an anagram of Porterfield, the lead singer and mastermind behind Field Report. With the kind of coverage they're getting, they're sure to be great. You can download Taking Alcatraz in advance of its release here.

Hailing from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Porterfield is a former band mate of Justin Vernon from Bon Iver and even recorded the album at Vernon's home in Wisconsin. So enjoy, tell your friends that you're the first on your block to know about Field Report and its true meaning. You'll seem like a music savant.

Justin Vernon has had a hell of a year. He produced his girlfriend’s album (Kathleen Edwards), started his own label and announced the first release, won a couple Grammy’s and his former bandmate Chris Porterfield has just come out with a couple of tracks from his upcoming debut album which sounds like it’s going to be amazing. Porterfield is the front man for Field Report, a band out of Wisconsin, and formerly of DeYarmond Edison a band that not only featured Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, but also featured the guys from Megafaun.

Porterfield has big steps to follow, in regards to the success of those two acts. Perhaps, that’s the reason this album was six years in the making. Recorded at Vernon’s studio, the album is due in July and was mixed by Paul Kolderie (Pixies, Radiohead, Warren Zevon, and Uncle Tupelo). They played SXSW, but before that hadn’t even performed live, but still attracting a swell of attention, partly because of Vernon and Megafaun, but mainly because of the “leaked” tracks from the upcoming album.

Their website is minimal, but has a number to text the band directly and upcoming tour dates. If I were you I’d definitely check them out, as they look to be one of thenext big acts on the indie circuit. You can listen to the tracks here.

What Bonnaroo does better than any other North American festival is purvey that communal atmosphere of Woodstock. As great as the festival's atmosphere is, let’s talk about some of the bands we’re most excited to see.

They’re not exactly a new band, in fact, they’re the complete antithesis of that, but we’d be remiss if we didn't at least give a passing mention to the Beach Boys in their 50th anniversary.  Bonnaroo could be an amazing place to see the rock legends perform live. Imagine the rain sweeps through Tennessee, Mike Love starts into “I Get Around” as the puddles accumulate and you, a rugged individual concertgoer starts sliding through the mud. That would be the experience of a lifetime.

You want newer bands? We got Grouplove, who as you aware of, are one of the best new bands to hit the scene in years. What they’re doing is almost criminally good. Sure, they’re a bit weird and a bit disjointed, but don’t we seek a bit of chaos in our musical joy? Having never seen them live I can only imagine the amount of energy that it takes to play at such a high level.

The Avett Brothers are a band I have had the pleasure of seeing in person. They’re so good live that they’ve made it onto my top five concerts list. They drip sweat the way Bruce Springsteen does after a show. You would half expect a digit to fly with the sheer speed that they play their respective instruments. With a new album coming out sometime this year, they’re sure to play some songs you’ve never heard and perhaps, if you’re lucky, a cover or two like the backyard YouTube video they did of the aforementioned Springsteen’s“Glory Days.”

Who is Bon Iver? Or for those unadoring haters, Bonny Bear. He’s the Grammy winning Best New Artist, but that doesn't mean shit. I didn't love his last album, but mostly because it wasn’t particularly my style. The album so many people that considered it one of the best albums last year that I felt like I was in the minority of those that didn't have it in the top five. Even if you don’t like Bon Iver what you can’t deny is that Justin Vernon is funny, engaging and a wonderful talent in a scene that seems thoroughly bereft of much of it these days.

If you thought I was going to leave out hip-hop, you thought wrong. Childish Gambino is gonna get on that as tags and destroy all the preconceived notions you had of a rapper, actor and a celebrity all in one fell swoop. I already thought he had one of the best albums last year and knowing that he’s about to blow the tarp off the Bonnaroo stage makes me shaky with anticipation.

If you’ve budgeted for one festival this summer, for one trip, make this the one. Get on a plane, take a train, find a bus, gas up the Prius and get your ass to Tennessee in June. Kudos to the organizers of this amazing festival, you’ve done it once again.

When my friends and I wax sentimental, it’s become common—even expected—to hear at least one anecdote from a bygone Sasquatch weekend. Hosted at the Gorge Amphitheater in central Washington, the festival promises jaw-dropping musical talent and one of most visually stunning venues in all the land. This year suggests no different, with performances from musical goliaths Bon Iver, Beck, Jack White, Girl Talk and BestNewBands.com favorites such as Childish Gambino, The Civil Wars, Gary Clark Jr. and our Best New Band of 2011, Grouplove.  Also, there is a bundle of new and up-and-coming bands sure to secure a spot in the memory banks of this year’s attendees. For example:

Shabazz Palaces—

With the release of their debut album last year, Seattle’s Palaceer Lazaro—aka Ishmael Butler—and multi-instrumentalist Tendai Maraire (Shown Above) have proven to be two of the most exciting new voices in hip-hop.  Black Up is an impressive mix of Butler’s cosmic rhymes set to swirling psychedelic beats and haunting, reverb-drenched effects.

Lord Huron—

There’s a lot of folk-pop to be had in this world, but it’s rare to find some as carefully crafted and emotive as Lord Huron. With ethereal vocals that drift over Afro-Caribbean percussion and acoustic guitar narratives, Ben Schneider and crew are able to separate themselves from the pack while making it sound effortless.

Star Slinger—

It was two years ago that Darren Williams started making music under the name Star Slinger.  Since then he’s put out a number of unofficial remixes, collaborations with other artists and original material. Volume 1, his 11-track 2010 release, finds the 25-year-old producer making upbeat sample-heavy sonic collages that follow in the footsteps of artists like J-Dilla, Kanye West and Madlib.

For more information see: http://sasquatchfestival.com/

Top Photo: Deerhunter by Christopher Nels

The coffee percolates, the birds chirp, the crisp clean air of morning in San Francisco is upon me. I revel in these days, these new music Tuesdays when everything seems new again. It’s days like this that remind me of going on trips as a young boy with my family. On a modest budget my parents would traverse with us kids, the natural wonders of the United States, Yosemite, Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, The Rockies in an effort to teach us that while architecture is magnificent, nature is perfection. I hated those trips as a child, but yearn for that experience today.

The closest I’ve felt to getting back there is listening to Kathleen Edwards’ new album, Voyageur, which was produced by the Canadian singer and Justin Vernon, better known as Bon Iver. There is something about her voice that takes me back. It moves me and its haunting. I listened to her first single “Change the Sheets” a few weeks back and thought it was different, and I loved it. As the entire album has finally dropped this week, I listened intently and it played like a Cormac McCarthy novel reads. It’s nostalgic, desolate in places, watching emotion from the outside in; these are things that evoke strong feelings from followers. Take this verse from the aforementioned “Change the Sheets”:

My love is a stockpile of broken wills

Like Santa Fe, margaritas and sleeping pills

I wanna lie in the cracks of this lonely road

I can fill in the blanks for every time you go home

Here is the truth I swear it used to be fun

Go ahead run

Still, this album is a departure from her previous albums that hung out in that area between alt. country and country. Voyageur has its roots gripped firmly in that new indie rock category that fits so many artists these days. The fascinating thing about the album is that it hearkens back to a time when desolation was the norm. It is reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen’s darkest times, his Nebraska, Ghost of Tom Joad moods.

There is something so effecting about this album that I can’t quite competently explain. I hear it and think of riding in an old car with the windows open. The highway is open and a girl is wearing a flowery summer dress. You stick your head out the window, close your eyes and the wind, the music and the soul of the road envelopes you. Those are just memories, though and suddenly you shudder awake. You lie there and think it felt so real and it felt like it was all happening again. Then you realize you’re back where you started with the coffee, the morning and Kathleen Edwards and as much as you love the memories, you’re content with the way things turned out.

It’s albums like this that leave marks on me like notches on shillelagh. Those albums that reek with discontentment, the power of love without being corny and the power of loss without being mired in the sorrow of it all. It’s almost more powerful to be disaffected and tell the story than to get all Mariah Carey about it and cry over spilled milk. It’s that detachment and anger that I admire. It’s not Alanis Morissette anger, but more of anger at oneself for being so dumb. It becomes thematic as the album starts with that loss, and then towards the end it becomes a struggle to get over all of it. I overuse the word brilliant on occasion, much because of my time in Europe, but this album is absolutely brilliant. In its bleakness, its emotional tonality and in Kathleen Edwards haunting vocals that mourn the loss of emotion.

You can follow Matt De Mello on Twitter: @MattkDemello

I recently had someone send me the album Glowing Mouth (Released – 9/13/2011) from Brooklyn-based band Milagres. This release is a must listen for fans of Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver—actually for anyone who enjoys beautiful music. This album carries a lot of emotion as it tells stories of past loves and more optimistic days.  The layered sounds that accompany these soulful stories are angelic at times while dark and eerie in others. Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Kyle Wilson (Lead singer and Songwriter) before him and the rest of the band hit the road for a solid month of touring in support of Glowing Mouth.

Dan Cordie: Can you point to a single experience or event that has led to you choosing to create music?

Kyle Wilson:  When I was in kindergarten, my parents sent me to afterschool care and I really wanted to take taekwondo. My mom made a deal with me, she said I could take taekwondo, but only if I took piano lessons as well. I didn’t want to take the piano lessons, but very shortly after that I had quit taekwondo and was just playing piano. I have my mom to thank for forcing me into something that I ended up really loving.

DC: How did each of the current members of Milagres meet?

KW: We all kind of met in different ways. A couple of people in the band have known each other for a really long time. Our meeting all centered on where a few of us went to school, which is at NYU.

DC: What type of preparation have you been doing for your upcoming tour?

KW: The biggest thing for us right now is figuring out how we’re going to fit all of our stuff in our tiny little van. It’s not easy trying to fit five people and all of our gear into a little van. We’re also trying to make sure that we can play our set really really well. You always get much better at what you are doing throughout the course of the tour, just because you are playing every night. Starting out at a high level is much better than starting out low and going from there.

DC: Are there any dates on the upcoming tour that you’re really looking forward to?

KW: Yeah, absolutely! The last time we were out we played a really fun show in Savannah, GA (10/5). It’s an underserved tour market, that doesn’t have many bands coming through. We had a great time there and love the people and the town. It’s always nice to play on the West Coast; I really like Portland (10/25) and Seattle (10/24). We’re also very excited for our LA show (Which Hasn’t Been Announced).

DC: Who are some past or current artists that inspire you?

KW: Since you use the word inspire, I think I’ll take the opportunity to answer this in a different way than you might expect. There are artists that influence you musically, but to inspire you can be totally different. I’m going to go with Wu Lyf  – they are a band out of the UK that I find inspiring. I heard that they charged a major label A&R person $50 for a demo, I thought that this was inspiring just because it’s so ballsy and fiercely independent. Other examples are people who do things for themselves, people who can release their own record and make it really successful and people who get where they want to go by working hard and not giving up. It’s hard for me to think of examples because a lot of times you don’t get the back-story. It’s easy to learn what an artist has been doing for the past year, but it is difficult to hear about what the artist has been doing for the past ten years, which likely is struggling.

DC: What are some places, experiences or people that have influenced the music that you are creating as Milagres?

KW: For me it’s likely different from my band mates. I’m from New Mexico, out west in a pretty rural place. My moving to New York and starting to play music has had a huge impact on the way that I think about music. I really do think that no matter what you are naturally inclined to create, your environment has a huge impact on what is interesting to you at that particular point in time. I tend to think of myself as someone who has a naturally almost bucolic sensibility but I live in the city, so I write music that is more urban. In terms of artists, on Glowing Mouth Prince was definitely an influence, Peter Gabriel and the British band Elbow was a pretty big influence as well.

DC: Was there a particular theme that you tried to stick with while creating Glowing Mouth?

KW: Not really, the album that we had finished before (Seven Summits) had a really really specific theme. After I had done that I wanted to just be free to write about whatever I wanted. At the end of the day, the album ended up having some threads that run through it, but they were more natural.

DC: Continuing with Glowing Mouth, could you give me a little background on the song “Gone”?

KW: “Gone” was written in one night really quickly. There was one night where I wrote half the songs on the album. It just came in this crazy fiery. The songs I wrote that night were “Gone”, “Gentle Beast”, “Fright of Thee” and I think one more that didn’t make it onto the album. They are all related loosely, I intend to leave it a bit open to your interpretation. Something that I have been writing a lot about and wrote a lot about on Glowing Mouth are some ideas around the poet Wallace Stephens. “Gone” definitely has a lot of ideas that come from Wallace Stephens’s work.

DC: Following your upcoming tour, what do you have planned for Milagres?

KW: Our album comes out in Europe early next year. We’re really looking forward to going over there and playing some shows in Europe. Some of us (Laughs) have actually never been and we’ve definitely never been as a band or musicians. Well—Glowing Mouth has been finished for a while, so we’re pretty excited about writing new music. I’m sure there will be a lot of touring in the US before we have another record out.

Stay connected with Milagres on Facebook and Twitter

Catch them live at one of their shows on their upcoming US Tour

Sometimes you uncover new music in the most obvious of places. While hunting for new material at Amoeba in Hollywood the other night, I stumbled into a conversation with Doc Allison, who just so happened to be going through CDs in order to be shipped back to the distributor. After an album recommendation by yours truly (The Power of Soul tribute to Jimi Hendrix, a must listen for all) and a conversation about Bon Iver, I discovered that the gentleman I was chatting was not only a musician, but a talented one with an interesting story at that. That being said, here’s what we discussed.

Who: Celilo with Joe Pug and Strand of Oaks

When: Saturday, May 14. Doors at 8 pm, show at 9 pm

Where: The Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR

Cost: $10 advance, $12 day of show

Age Restrictions: 21 and over

Click here for more information or to purchase tickets...

Montreal-based jazz musician Colin Stetson is one of the few artists in his genre that is able to play music elegantly, yet can retain a rock n roll edge to his sound. The horn player possesses exquisite skill and genre-defying creativity that make his second solo record, New History Warfare Vol. 2 so unique and a must listen for fans of all genres, not just jazz. This can be attributed to Stetson’s influences, which he cites as Bach, early metal, American pre-war Gospel, Jimi Hendrix, Peter Brotzmann and Albert Ayler. With influences like these, Stetson breaks away from preconceived snobbery notions that run rampant in his genre to make an album that has a sound that most people can enjoy.

Colin has been making his mark as a solo performer for several years, in front of a wide range of audiences. Whether he’s playing at intimate jazz venues to opening for rock bands like fellow Montreal natives the Arcade Fire or The National, or performing at festivals like the Moers and London Jazz, Stetson’s music can transcend whatever type of audience he’s playing to. The horn player’s has been enlisted to play with musicians as diverse as Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson, TV On The Radio and Bon Iver.

Vanaprasta was an expected discovery- one of many, a result of this year’s Sunset Strip Music Festival.  I was lucky enough to catch up with them at said festival and we chatted for a bit (HERE!) about Vanaprasta’s upcoming plans musically for the next few months.

Now, after an entirely successful residency at the Echo, they’re gearing up for a little CMJ action- leaving the city of angels for the city the never sleeps, New York- and it’s no wonder the quintet were granted entrance complete with performance rights into the famed Indie fest.  From their ambient Caribou-like “Minnesota,” to the Bon Iver-ish “color of sin,” the group covers the spectrum of indie rock and it’s ROY-G-BIV spectrum of sounds.

While geometry seems to have a set staple of rules and guidelines, Vanaprasta has no problem breaking musical boundaries and exploring every plane of the auditory unknown- and every attendee at their shows is a willing student of Vanaprasta’s philosophy.  Hipsters, scenesters, and any and all unclassified music enthusiasts alike end up swaying to and fro entranced by the incredibly endearing sounds the five California kids have to offer.