Cotton Mather's I Ching Project Continues with Forthcoming Wild Kingdom

We got in on Austin faveband Cotton Mather's projected 64-song I Ching project early on and are excited to find leader Robert Harrison has now completed 30 songs. Following last year's highly praised LP Death of the Cool, CM/RH are set to release followup LP Wild Kingdom next month (7apr17, to be exact).

Below are two freely downloadable songs we love from the new one, plus another we found at Fanatic Promotion's SoundCloud page. In fact numerous Cotton Mather songs are available for free download there. To find out which ones, just hover . . . oh, fudge, here they are: #1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 22. And here are most, if not all, of our Cotton Mather posts.







Many thanks to  Fanatic Promotion's Josh Bloom for that initial alert and all subsequent updates, including this latest.

Music of the Sphere: Cotton Mather, The Hollies, Dusted

Yeh, we usually wait till we've built up a bigger cache, but we don't know when that Cotton Mather song will be . . . gone. And since we've got these other two excelentes in the cache, why not they, too? As always, many thanks to the generous bloggers.

Cotton Mather - I'll Be Gone - Side One Track One

The Hollies - Look Through Any Window - Peter's Power Pop - We like that Michael Carpenter/Rob Smith cover, too.

Dusted - Into The Atmosphere - Stereopills

Humpday Howdy: Future Clouds, Cotton Mather, Tall Dwarfs, Marching Band, Pallers, Parties, Two Hours, Miss D, Sad Day, Death Cab, et. al.

Hello, Mr. Harrison.

Recently somebody made fun of somebody for using the word "Humpday." Some people can be so very cruel. Sigh.

Austinites

Future Clouds and Radar - The Epcot View mp3 - from Peoria, released 4 Nov. - headed by Robert Harrison, formerly of Cotton Mather - Speaking of which, here are a couple of Mathers we previously posted and love.

Cotton Mather - Lost My Motto (Millenium Chrome Version) mp3 - from Hotel Baltimore

Last of the Mohicans mp3 - from The Big Picture, as is the next one

40 Watt Solution mp3

Interlude

Tall Dwarfs - Meet the Beatle mp3 - Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, wrong Harrison. . .and yet so very, very right.

Scandifun

Marching Band - from this year's Spark Large

For Your Love mp3 - Love that shift at exactly 1:00 (Declarative, not imperative.)

Make No Plans mp3

Pallers - Humdrum mp3 - Thanks to Christian Liljas at Labrador Records.

Femmes Vitales

Miss Derringer - Black Tears mp3
Sad Day For Puppets - Little Light mp3 - More Scandi fun. . .

Strummers

Two Hours Traffic - Sure Can Start mp3

The Parties - Yours and Mine mp3 - San Franciscans chime it nicely, too.

Endgame (No, FR, not that kind! :-) )

Made In China - How Everything Works mp3 - These Bridgewater, New Jerseyites' debut LP Sonic Blog V.1 is due out on 18 Nov. on Recordburger Records. - Thanks to AOL's Spinner.com.

Death Cab For Cutie - 405 (acoustic) mp3

Cotton Mather

Writing for allmusic, Stewart Mason describes this Austin, Texas band as "a brilliant fusion of the Beatles, Squeeze, Guided By Voices, and some less obvious influences." He goes on to say that "Cotton Mather are one of those rare power pop groups who transcend their inspirations to create powerful and original music of their own."

Cotton Mather
Hotel Baltimore
Lost My Motto (Millenium Chrome Version) mp3
The Big Picture
Last of the Mohicans mp3
40 Watt Solution mp3

Sunday Sixpack: New Pornographers, Teenage Fanclub, Apples in Stereo, Cotton Mather, Myracle Brah, Shins

Here are a half-dozen personal faves on this lazy Sunday.
The New Pornographers - Graceland mp3
Teenage Fanclub - It's All In My Mind mp3
The Apples in Stereo - Please mp3
Cotton Mather - Lost My Motto (Millenium Chrome Version) mp3
Myracle Brah - I'd Rather Be mp3
The Shins - So Says I mp3

Cotton Mather's "Child Bride"

Does that widgetpicture look familiar? If so, you might be remembering our exciting news about Cotton Mather headman Robert Harrison's new I Ching-inspired 64-song cycle project. He's just dropped the second song, and you can absorb it above, courtesy of Fanatic Promotion. Click those words "exciting news" to get more background info, along with the first song.

By the way, just this past weekend we read this interesting article on the I Ching and can't help but wonder the following: Coincidence?

Past & Present Future Clouds & Radar

I just got two more today from the excellent Austin band's 2008 lp, Peoria. I'm also reposting "The Epcot View," plus three tunes from their 2007 eponymous debut. And, of course, it's simply de rigeur when posting on FC&R to include songs from Robert Harrison 's former band, the glorious Cotton Mather. Click song titles to listen/download. Click yellow and green things for more info and sounds.

Future Clouds & Radar

Peoria

Feet on Grass mp3

Mummified mp3

The Epcot View mp3

Future Clouds and Radar

Quicksilver mp3
Drugstore Bust mp3
My Little Mustang mp3

Cotton Mather

Hotel Baltimore

Lost My Motto (Millenium Chrome Version) mp3

The Big Picture

Last of the Mohicans mp3

40 Watt Solution mp3

Taking The Cotton Mather Pledge to Celebrate the Death of the Cool

We got in on the ground floor of Austin faveband Cotton Mather's I Ching-based song cycle project, ascended to Level 2, and then kind of zoned. We're not sure what storey the song below's at, but we like it anyway. Previous posts-cum-downloads are here and here.

The band's first LP in 15 years, Death of the Cool, is due to drop July 29 of this year. Read here, if you haven't already. We've heard it and loved it and are pretty sure you'll want to make the register go "Ka-ching" for the I Ching.

Cotton Mather's Divine New Project

Sure, we've "always" known the I Ching spoke to power, but who knew it also brought the pop. Very glad we are, then, that Robert Harrison, leader of longtime Austin faveband Cotton Mather, consults the I Ching daily and recently received prompting to launch a song cycle based on each of the ancient oracle's 64 hexagrams.

Harrison's already written the first 18 songs, the first of which you can hear and download above. Based on this and previous emanations from CM, it doesn't take much foresight to divine future musical enlightenment of a very high order. Read the whole caboodle at Fanatic Promotion, which also has numerous links to guide you to further wisdom and inspiration. Many thanks to Josh Bloom of Fanatic for guiding us thus far.

Around the Blogosphere

Several excellent blogs are hosting music you just might want to wrap your earballs around. Heather over at I Am Fuel, You Are Friends has a couple of satisfying pieces by Austin's superb Cotton Mather, along with news and a song by CM frontman Robert Harrison's new group, Future Clouds & Radar. Cotton Mather were one of my first posts back in the early days of Powerpopulist, so check out the songs here if you like. The ever-vigilant stytzer at Hits in the Car pointed me (and hundreds of others) toward an excellent South African blog called The Muso. I particularly liked songs by South African bands Joint State and The Dirty Skirts, but the site also hosts a rich stock of other fine bands and songs. Finally, the consistently excellent swedesplease is hosting a couple of early Peter Bjorn and John songs I very much enjoyed. Happy listening, and thanks to these great blogs.

Little Hits Faves - Part Trois

Yes, it's that time of the week when we get small and feel big. It's all explained here. The second episode is here. Just remember, click on the links below and when you get to Little Hits, click on the blue artist name/song title to launch the mp3. It's not just music, it's an adventure.
Cotton Mather – My Before and After
The Vandalias – The End of the World
Skooshny – Crossing Double Lines
The Walkabouts – Goodbye to All That
Cherry Twister – Blue Summer

Again to the Archives

After the favorable response last time, we return for another visit to the Powerpopulist Archives. Some of these aren't particularly new, but to some, that won't matter. Click on band names for links.

Cotton Mather - Lost My Motto (Millenium Chrome Version) mp3
The Morning After Girls - Run For Our Lives mp3
The Last - Looking at You mp3
Headlights - TV mp3
The New Pornographers - The Laws Have Changed Direct link removed by record company; click on song name, go to bandsite, listen to song there
Tralala - Fired Up mp3
Levy - Rotten Love mp3
The Shins - Phantom Limb mp3
The Radio Dept. - Pulling Our Weight mp3
The Green Pajamas - The Secret of Bethany's Mouth wma

Faves of the Faves - October 2017: The Galileo 7, Guided by Voices, Purple Wizard, Cotton Mather, This Blinding Light, Marble Party, Linn Koch-Emmery, Tristen, Arvidson & the Butterflies, The Black Heart Death Cult, The Brixton Riot, Black Nite Crash, The Prissteens, Acid Baby Jesus, Luminous Fins, Dream Phases, DMA's

Here are our very favorite songs dropped into our October 2017 playlist over at Playmoss. We love Playmoss but they've been undergoing adjustments that have thrown us off our game. (It don't take much, seeing as how our "game" is so very Minor League and all.)

Anyway, Playmoss no longer accepts songs from SoundCloud and balks at playing songs from Bandcamp. We're therefore posting first the Playmoss widget with the songs it would play and below that widgets for other songs Playmoss balked at playing. Clear? Sorry.

BTW, we've been corresponding with Playmoss about all of this and they've been frightfully nice in response. A couple of Mossers actually checked out some of our playlists and added some songs to their own. Now if that's not nice, what the hootie is?

Note: Name-Your-Price Download

This next one is a video (duh) but for some reason Playmoss balked at playing it.