Today is a day for a singularly mindblowing clap of thunder, a clap of thunder to rival all the cunning and skill that Thor in his Asgaard might muster. More specifically, today is a day for a clap of hot thunder, to be followed by billions of claps; claps of ecstatic appreciation by the nations (with the occasional 'bravo!' thrown in for good measure), surging like a mighty wave on the sea, cresting in one monumentous, indeed, thunderous, clap (yea, the clap heard round the world). Today is the day for the latest release from Ben + Vesper, "Hot Thunder".

For those who haven't yet heard, either because they were only just born within the last few hours, or because they've been caught in a month-long Antarctican blizzard whilst studying the Southern Elephant Seal (Mirounga leonina), Ben + Vesper's "Hot Thunder" is the third and final project of Daniel Smith's Shaking Through curation, produced by Weathervane Music and WXPN in Philadelphia. Shaking Through is the music and video web series that supports Weathervane's mission to create community, opportunity and resources for working independent musicians. It's a pretty darn cool thing.

So download the MP3 and see the new Shaking Through session videos (there are three!) by clicking on the ultra-hip "Hot Thunder" image below (created by Ben and Vesper, of course).

 

 

Also, to receive updates about Weathervane Music and Shaking Through artists, subscribe to their newsletter here.

Finally, stay tuned for updates on Ben + Vesper's next full-length, HONORS, to be released the first fresh days of 2011. It's a doozy!

“There's a head-hunt for the painted feather
Wanna come along Mr. Long John?
Someone in this room has got a pretty good idea
Bring forth the potion,
bring forth the potion,
bring forth..."

Like the indie-pop equivalent to James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, the music of Ben + Vesper achieves a mesmerizing balance of the profound and the bizarre, the tender and the outlandish, and Hot Thunder, their latest single, is a joyful plunge into the deep recesses of the subconscious, where alternate musical and lyrical laws of gravity exist. It's a journey magical and mysterious, filled with both danger and whimsy.

Ben + Vesper's Hot Thunder is the third and final project of Daniel Smith's Shaking Through curation, produced by Weathervane Music and WXPN in Philadelphia. Shaking Through is the music and video web series that supports Weathervane's mission to create community, opportunity and resources for working independent musicians. Now that's a cause we can all get behind, right? Inclusion in the Shaking Through series puts Ben + Vesper among the likes of Danielson, Sunset, Sharon Van Etten and the Strapping Fieldhands, as well as other projects curated by Scott McMicken of Dr. Dog, and Mark Schoneveld of YVYNYL.com (to see past Shaking Through projects, go here. To see photos from the Hot Thunder sessions, go to Weathervane's photostream here.)

So be forewarned, in one week, the distant rumblings you're hearing now won't be so distant. Grab your umbrella. Run for cover. Cower in your basement. Regardless of where you are or what you're doing though, on August 17th Hot Thunder will be upon us all. It's on the way. It's unavoidable. But it's alright. This will be the sweetest thunder you'll ever hear.

New Wovenhand!  OUT NOW!

In almost every documented encounter with the music of Wovenhand, what is described is an experience so visceral and so universally disorienting, that one has to take note.  From the first measures of music, the taste of desert earth is on the lips; neck-hairs snap to attention as strange and unfamiliar sounds whisper just underneath the surge of guitar and the rumble of bass; clouds loom on the horizon promising either the balm of rain or the threat of judgment — it could be either.  The music of Wovenhand is its own iconography, its own world, its own universe.

Click here to read, hear, and ORDER...