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June 25, 2007

New Feist - "Somewhere Down The Road"

At 37, songwriter Jesse Harris is carving out a place in the pantheon of notably covered artists with his latest record of tunes, the soundtrack to the upcoming Ethan Hawke written/directed film The Hottest State. Known well as the man who penned much of Norah's Come Away With Me (grabbing the Grammy for "Don't Know Why"), Jesse was asked by good friend Ethan to provide songs for the flick, and the resulting crop of tunes inspired Ethan to get all conceptual:

From our first conversation, I was overwhelmed by the quality of Jesse's songwriting and how perfectly matched it was to my aspirations for the tone and mood of the film. An idea began to develop: What if we scored the film entirely with original songs written by Jesse and performed by contemporary artists hand-picked to match certain scenes? To my mind this would give the entire film a continuity of authorship while still providing massive shifts in energy.
Sounds like a cool idea, and it got a lot cooler once Willie, Bright Eyes. M. Ward, Cat Power, Brad Mehldau, et al signed on. Now Ethan's got a buzzy soundtrack and Jesse's looking even more like a songwriting treasure. And of course, no collection of indie rootsy-ness is complete without reigning queen of sultry acoustic meanderings, lovely Leslie.

For "Somewhere Down The Road," Feist sounds like she's delivering an outtake from The Reminder sessions: faint hints of glockenspiel, some horns, and a gentle shaker flesh out her chill, coffee-shop jazz spin on Harris's tune. Add a little Wurlitzer through the bridge and you've got yourself a bona fide Feist lullabye, smooth and true. Pretty.


[Pic from Feist @ Town Hall 6/12/07]

The Hottest State Soundtrack is out 8/7 via Hickory. Tracklist below.

01. Rocha"Ya No Te Veria Mas (Never See You)"
02. Willie Nelson - "Always Seem to Get Things Wrong"
03. Feist - "Somewhere Down the Road"
04. Bright Eyes - "Big Old House"
05. Emmylou Harris - "The Speed of Sound"
06. Jesse Harris - "It Will Stay With Us"
07. The Black Keys - "If You Ever Slip"
08. M. Ward - "Crooked Lines"
09. Norah Jones - "World of Trouble"
10. Brad Mehldau - "Never See You"
11. Cat Power - "It's Alright to Fail"
12. Jesse Harris - "One Day The Dam Will Break"
13. Tony Scherr - "You, The Queen"
14. "Morning In A Strange City (Cafe)" (score)
15. Rocha - "No More
16. Jesse Harris - "Dear Dorothy"
17. Rocha - "Never See You"
18. "There Are No Second Chances" (score)

Posted at 5:43 PM
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9 Comments

Don't forget about Jesse Harris's (very) own new album "Feel," which comes out July 10 (same day as the Pumpkins, Chris & Rich Robinson's new one, among other notable releases that day). I have it, got to listen to some of it, and will have my review of it up on my own site soon enough, BTW.

Posted by: chuck at 06/25/07 7:05 PM | Reply
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"Add a little Wurlitzer through the bridge and you've got yourself a bona fide Feist lullabye, smooth and true. Pretty."
Ms. Feist can sing me to sleep anytime.

Posted by: Christopher at 06/25/07 8:14 PM | Reply
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word to Christopher

Posted by: Nate at 06/25/07 9:59 PM | Reply
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oh someone please post a downloadable version of this. she's too lovely!

Posted by: gunner at 06/25/07 11:56 PM | Reply
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Why does the Amazon link go to "Since Then: How I Survived Everything and Lived to Tell About it" by David Crosby?

Posted by: Colin at 06/26/07 9:53 AM | Reply
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surreptitious crosby love?

there's no good explanation for that, colin. old links die hard, i guess. it's better now, thanks!

(*buy crosby*)

Posted by: amrit at 06/26/07 10:02 AM | Reply
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Jesus, this voice...

she can do no wrong.

Posted by: James at 06/26/07 11:40 AM | Reply
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wow. i love this. that soundtrack looks wicked awesome.

Posted by: jessiedoll61 at 06/26/07 12:36 PM | Reply
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The Feist song and a few of the others are streaming at the Hottest State MySpace page: http://myspace.com/thehotteststate

Posted by: Molly at 06/26/07 8:18 PM | Reply
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