Iron and Wine in Concert
Hear Full Performance on NPR.org from Washington, D.C.
Iron and Wine in Concert
Iron and Wine's new CD is The Shepherd's Dog. hide caption
Download a copy of this concert with the All Songs Considered podcast.
Iron and Wine performs live in Washington, D.C. Joel Didriksen for kingpinphoto.com hide caption
Set List
"Lovesong of the Buzzard"
"Peace Beneath the City"
"Innocent Bones"
"On Your Wings"
"Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car"
"White Tooth Man"
"House by the Sea"
"The Devil Never Sleeps"
"Boy with a Coin"
"Sodom, South Georgia"
"Carousel"
"Upward over the Mountain"
"Jezebel"
"Wolves (Song of the Shepherd's Dog)"
"The Sea and the Rhythm"
"Resurrection Fern"
"Flightless Bird, American Mouth"
"Naked as We Came"
Iron and Wine performs live at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. Joel Didriksen for kingpinphoto.com hide caption
When soft became the new loud in indie circles a few years ago, Iron and Wine quickly stepped ahead of the pack as the most arresting of the whispery new-folk artists. Led by the gentle-voiced Sam Beam, the group makes morose and mysterious music, with impressively layered harmonies and the barest instrumentation. Hear the band in a full concert, recorded live from Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club, on Sept. 29.
Iron and Wine is on tour in support of its new CD, The Shepherd's Dog, a significant departure from the group's previous work. The cozy creakiness of such earlier albums as The Creek Drank the Cradle and Our Endless Numbered Days has been replaced by much denser studio production. It's a forgivable evolution in Beam's move from scratchy home recordings to a larger stage.
The newer songs of Iron and Wine are still steeped in southern lore with brooding tales of love, violence, infidelity and religion. But The Shepherd's Dog largely abandons Iron and Wine's more traditional acoustic folk sound for a surprising mix of worldly beats, blues and psychedelic rock.
Sam Beam started out as a film instructor in the late '90s in Miami, Fla. He wrote and recorded songs in his spare time and started getting attention when his basement tapes found their way to the indie label Sub Pop. In 2002, Sub Pop released 12 of Beam's songs on a collection titled The Creek Drank the Cradle. It was followed by 2004's Our Endless Numbered Days, as well as the Woman King EP and a collaboration with Calexico titled In the Reins.