Setlist via.
State of the Art
Know Til Now
Dear One
A New Life
Exploding
Of the Mother Again
Actress
All if Forgvien
God’s Love
Encore:
Bermuda Highway
Wonderful
Dear God
His Master’s Voice
The Right Place
Losin’ Yo Head
Changing World

So somehow you weren’t able to get tickets to see Jim James at Johnny Brenda’s last month and
My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James recently appeared on World Cafe after releasing his debut solo effort Regions of Light and Sound of God.  Discussing a transitional period he went through following a 2008 tour and the inspiration he drew from Lynd Ward’s graphic novel God’s Man, James and World Cafe host David Dye move through the musicians’ thought process and songwriting techniques for this latest album in between performances of “State of the Art,” “Know Til Now,” “Dear One” and “New Life.”  Stream and download the episode of World Cafe’s Words & Music podcast below. Don’t miss a single episode of the weekly podcast of a World Cafe session. You can subscribe here.

Jim James/My Morning Jacket play this summer on Sunday, July 27 at the XPoNential Music Festival with Bob Dylan, Wilco, and Ryan Bingham as part of the AmericanaramA Festival of Music. Weekend passes are available here.

Track List:
“Leaving on a Jet Plane” by My Morning Jacket
“Take Me To Tomorrow” by Dave Matthews
“All of My Memories” by Kathleen Edwards
“Prisoners” by J Mascis and Sharon Van Etten
“Sunshine On My Shoulders” by Train
“Back Home Again” by Old Crow Medicine Show
“This Old Guitar” by Lucinda Williams
“Some Days are Diamonds” by Amos Lee
“Rocky Mountain High” by Allen Stone
“Annie’s Song” by Brett Dennen and Milow
“Looking For Space” by Evan Dando
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” by Brandi Carlile and Emmylou Harris
“The Eagle and The Hawk” by Blind Pilot
“I Guess He’d Rather Be In Colorado” by Mary Chapin Carpenter
“Darcy Farrow” by Josh Ritter and Barnstar!
“Wooden Indian” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

All Photos by Eric Ashleigh | showtographe.com

The energy was unreal. A couple hundred fans of exploratory Americana band My Morning Jacket (and its far-out frontman Jim James) packed into the cozy confines of Johnny Brenda’s last night for a full performance of Regions of Light and Sound of God, James’ thought-provoking and eclectic solo debut on ATO Records.

The album has only been out for a few weeks, but the crowd was massively responsive to the relatively new material, beginning with progressive opener “State of the Art.” Rhodes keys and James’ haunting vocals were augmented with a deep bass groove and a fierce drumbeat, and the room cheered wildly with each new layer as the man at the mic wrestled with the thought of technology that’s “supposed to make for better living, but are we better human beings?”

A surprising but certainly apt question to pose on a journey through eclectic electronic soundscapes. James later admitted that this was only the third gig with this new lineup, and they were “working out the kinks, figuring out how to play all this computer shit we’re not used to.”  On the album, the music is downbeat and somewhat mellow (though certainly expressive); with live instrumentation, it’s given an energetic lift, enough that James, clad in a three-piece suit, was dancing more or less the whole set.

The mood bounced between dub, rock and roll, jazz (with James on sax) and avant-noise freakouts. On the snappy single “A New Life,” his voice took on a Roy Orbison crooner’s tone; on “All Is Forgiven,” the energy was otherworldy and shamanistic, as though James were bringing the room on some sort of vision quest. When the last strains of “God’s Love” faded, the crowd once again erupted into applause as the players filed offstage.

Mostly unchatty during the main set, James let his guard down on the encore, expressing his affinity for Philly and telling the crowd that “Of the Mother Again” was based around a mutated guitar sample from an unreleased Dr. Dog song.

“We used to tour with those guys all the time, we love them,” James said. “And they had this one song, ‘Fat Dog,’ they played during soundchecks. I don’t know if it ever got released, but I recorded all our shows and got fuckin’ obsessed with this guitar lick, so it’s the one you hear repeating.”

An assortment of My Morning Jacket favorites followed, and if the room wasn’t already ecstatic enough, “Wordless Chorus” (an appropriate inclusion, since Regions of Light most easily parallels Z in its spaced-out, experimental angle on James’ songwriting) and “Victory Dance” (an unreal finale) easily put them over the edge.

Setlist
State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.)
Know Til Now
Dear One
A New Life
Exploding
Of the Mother Again
Actress
All If Forgiven
God’s Love

Encore:
Wonderful
Wordless Chorus
It Beats For You
Touch Me I’m Going to Scream
Victory Dance

Photo by Neil Krug

We’ve got to hand it to Jim James – for such a hot commodity (two Philly shows sold out in less than 24 hours), he’s not afraid to keep things interesting and unusual. Of course, that’s exactly what makes him so in-demand. A new music video for “New Life” from Regions of Light and Sound of God starts off hushed and acoustic in a minimally lit room – whether musically or visually, James’ knows how to strike a way-intimate tone – but as the beat kicks in, he walks through a doorway and into a delightfully surreal take on the Great Plains. Watch the video in the player below. Jim James plays a sold-out Johnny Brenda’s on February 19th and a sold-out Union Transfer on April 27th.

Nightlands | Photo by Matthew Davis

Prairie Empire stops by to record a Folkadelphia session [link]

Philly’s Nightlands celebrates the release of Oak Island at Kung Fu Necktie [link]

My Morning Jacket’s Jim James streams his new album, announces a Union Transfer show [link]

Philly rockers Free Energy get interviewed by a couple sixth graders [link]

Remembering versatile guitarist Jef Lee Johnson, who passed away at age 54 this week [link]

Indiepop five-piece Catnaps releases a new EP for free downloading [link]

Shoegazers Nothing will make the First Friday crowd wish they packed earplugs [link]

Lancaster folk trio The Stray Birds records a Key Studio Session, comes to World Cafe Live [link]

Philly rapper Chill Moody releases a mini-documentary of his December TLA show [link]

Thao Nguyen plays “We The Common” on a banjo, through a microphone, at a rally [link]

All week the Unlocked series features Almost Endless, the new LP from The National Rifle [link]

General on sales for the tour begin this weekend while Roll Call members (My Morning Jacket fan club) have first access pre-sales this Wednesday at 12noon EST. Go to jimjames.com for event and ticket details. $1 per ticket will benefit Cancer Research Hospital and Treatment Center, City Of Hope, for every show.

Listen to Regions of Light and Sound of God via NPR Music here.

Jim James | Photo by Danny Clinch | dannyclinch.com

Regions of Light and Sound of God doesn’t want for thematic ambition: It finds James unselfconsciously name-dropping both God and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Still, the album is at its best when James seems content to articulate the tender musings of a lonely mind. For all his grandiose ambitions, smallness suits him.

Listen to Regions of Light and Sound of God in its entirety here. Jim James plays a very sold out show at Johnny Brenda’s on February 18th.

Birdie Busch‘s latest LP, Birdie Busch and The Greatest Night, gets profiled in Unlocked [link]

World Cafe‘s Sense of Place series explores the musical heritage of Memphis [link]

Philly synth-poppers Vacationer announce a monthly music showcase at Underground Arts [link]

Gracie releases a free download and EP details [link]

Emo four-piece Everyone Everywhere records a Key Studio Session [link]

My Morning Jacket’s Jim James announces a solo appearance at Johnny Brenda’s [link]

Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic gives Bleeding Rainbow a shoutout via Twitter [link]

Catnaps premier a playful new music video for “Cherry Lips” [link]

Shorty Boy-Boy also premiers a video for the ultra-catchy “Closer” [link]

Download a song from Kurt Vile‘s reissued Hunchback EP [link]

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds release a lyric video for “Jubilee Street” [link]

Brooklyn singer-songwriter Jason Myles Gross appears in a Folkadelphia session [link]

Photo by John Bartol

My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James has a cool, eclectic solo album coming out next month called Regions of Light and Sound of God. With its haunting electronic tones and subdued arrangements, it most closely recalls the work he did with My Morning Jacket on 2006′s Z – and I’m thinking it will sound positively stunning in the cozy confines of Johnny Brenda‘s on February 18. Tickets go on sale this Friday, January 18, at noon. Below, listen to “A New Life” from Regions of Light and Sound of God, which is out on ATO Records on February 5th.

Set to coincide with the centennial celebration of Woody Guthrie’s birth year, New Multitudes will be released February 28 on Rounder Records as a 12 track release and a 23 track deluxe, limited edition. The limited edition features original Guthrie lyric sheets, the 12 track release, and 11 additional compositions recorded by Farrar and Parker. The album will also be available on vinyl. Under the invitation of Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, to tour the Guthrie archives, each of the four songwriters were offered the chance to plumb and mine the plethora of notebooks, scratch pads, napkins, etc. for anything that might inspire them to lend their voices and give the words new life.