during a recent interview, fleet foxes were asked to comment on the dutch renaissance painting used on the cover of their self-titled debut album released by sub pop.  robin pecknold, the 22 year old lead singer responded:

“when you first see that painting it’s very bucolic, but when you look closer there’s all this really strange stuff going on...  i liked that the first impression is that it’s just pretty, but then you realize that the scene is this weird chaos.  like that you can’t really take it for what it is, that you’re first impression of it is wrong.”

not coincidently, that description fits the the contents of the album.  the more i listen, the more harmonic depth, with touches of harp, gospel, and folk i discover within the album.

anyway, robin and his childhood best friend skyler skjelset (playing guitar) along with the rest of the seattle based band grew up on and were heavily influenced by bob dylan, neil young, and the beach boys.  off their contemporary colleagues, fleet foxes could be compared to my morning jacket, iron and wine and midlake.

at this time there isn't a lot of live fleet foxes material available on the internet, but let's give them a break, their debut l.p. just dropped june 3, 2008.  in fact, the band only played a few shows before they were picked up by sub pop.  here's what i was able to find: click here for two track broadcast on world café.  click here, here, and here for some live stuff off of youtube.  expect to hear a lot more from this extremely talented baroque pop quintet soon.

NEW ADDITION:  fleet foxes played d.c.'s black cat july 7, 2008.  click here to listen.

fleet foxes are touring in support of their album.  click here to find out if fleet foxes are playing near you.

as always, please buy this album from your local independent music store and not from retailers like wal-mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand).  incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the united states.  that my friend, bites.