I can't quite explain it, but I have listened to the Fleet Foxes', "White Winter Hymnal" 10 times today, maybe more. Listen to it at their MySpace page (it is the first track and will begin playing immediately), or check out a higher quality version here from this Spin article.
After listening to this, and already liking some of their other songs, I tried to hunt down their album(s?), but sadly, I cannot find one. Even their own website seems to have stalled. Here's to hoping they are not so fleeting as their name.
This track and "Meadowlarks" in particular (also on their MySpace page), make my heart sink. I am reminded of being sprawled out on the floor in my bedroom with my mom's old folk records when I was about 10-years-old. That was when music really started meaning something to me, started getting to me, filling up all these little nooks and crannies I didn't even know were empty."White Winter Hymnal"
I was following the pack all swallowed in their coats with scarves of red tied 'round their throats to keep their little heads from fallin' in the snow And I turned 'round and there you go! And, Michael, you would fall and turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summertime
Lynn and I are listening to it right now. It's pretty, but there's more to it than that, isn't there?
It keeps making me think of Neko Case's album cover for "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood." Not only because of foxes, but because of the haunting mix of beauty and allusions to violence.
A ha! One more person to convince me I should listen to Neko Case. See, I am a big fan of her stuff with the New Pornographers. That, and the fact that a radio station in Austin I listen to every day gratuitously over-played her most recent solo album, has caused me to not really give her a chance. It's completely irrational. But yes: the beauty with allusions to violence is exactly why I like this track. The coupling of opposites in art, particularly in music, has always been a favorite of mine.
hey I was having the same problem! I absolutely adore the song, and want to get more of their music. I saw them live about a month ago and they are great! anyways, I did find a website to download this particular song from:
http://www.spin.com/features/band_of_the_day/2007/08/070830_fleetfoxes/
Yeah, they actually have two albums coming out on Sub Pop:
An EP in February, and a full-length by June.
They put out an EP of their own about a year and a half ago, and sold it at record stores around Seattle. But I don't know where else you could get it these days. It's much different though, nothing too folksy.
They are young, gifted men that will represent a new wave of Seattle music from this day forth.