My recent point of over-the-top affection, Brooklyn’s Department of Eagles, stopped by Daytrotter to do the Daytrotter thing and brought along with them two new songs, not on their recently released In Ear Park. The songs, 1997, and What Is Your Problem?, are fantastic, and Dan, Fred, and company also brought along my favorite In Ear Park cut, Herringbone.
[mp3] Department of Eagles – Too Little, Too Late (JoJo Cover)
Oh, In Ear Park, let me count the ways that I love you! Allow me, if you would, to reflect upon the enchanting intricacies of your songs; the words inside of them, the aesthetic of the recordings, the very chords themselves, the drafty old rooms they were written in.
If you didn’t know by now, Department of Eagles is Dan Rossen and Fred Niclaus’s band. Dan is in another band, slightly more known right now, called Grizzly Bear, ya know, maybe you saw them on tour with Radiohead? To call Department of Eagles a side project feels a bit unfair though, as the project actually begot Grizzly Bear. So here we are in the early stages of Autumn, 2008, and Department of Eagles have a new record coming out on 4AD in a few short weeks. The timing of that event could not be more perfect, because this record is the most beautiful slice of Cold-weather melancholy that I’ve heard in a very long time.
A warm cup of tea, an old dust hardback, the first blustery day of winter, the breeze when it starts to get chili, the first pile of leaves you walk by, a cold fall morning, the way your jacket feels familiar the first time you’ve put it on in 4 months, the smell of the air in September. These are the things that come to mind when I listen to In Ear Park; it’s samples, it’s untouched room-mic’ed guitars, it’s vocal tracks resoudning through acient hardwood floors, it’s scatterbrained percussion, it’s precisely the sort of thing you’d hope for given the situation. A slight departure from Rossen’s work in Grizzly Bear, but with the best parts of that famliar friend still in tact.
In Ear Park will be released on October 6th. You can pre-order it here.
[mp3] Department of Eagles – In Ear Park
[mp3] Department of Eagles – No One Does it Like You
Hard to Find a Friend - A Music Blog 