New Olson/Louris

Well, kinda... head over to Marc Olson's MySpace page to hear "Poor Michael's Boat", a song from his forthcoming album, The Salvation Blues, featuring former bandmate Gary Louris on backing vocals. (They apparently co-wrote the song years ago but never recorded it.) You can also listen to two other songs from the album (sans Louris) entitled "My Carol" and "Clifton Bridge".

The Salvation Blues, due out on June 15th via Hacktone Records, is Olson's first album following his divorce from Victoria Williams, and is being heralded as "a deeply personal album, documenting as it does two profound years in the life of an equally profound artist." Yeah, that's label PR for ya. Here's some more:

Produced by Ben Vaughn (Los Straitjackets, Ween), [the album] lays bare Olson's painful break-up with wife/musical partner Victoria Williams, the loss of his home, and the eventual reclamation of his very spirit. It's a collection whose overriding sentiment Olson sums up (every bit as eloquently as you'd expect) in the first verse of the title track: "There's such joy and sweet moments to be found in this world/We know they'll come to an end/Just how makes our hearts hurt/Salvation blues/And these blues will help us all."

I really like the songs I'm hearing so far. Looking forward to hearing the whole thing. Marc is playing 4 shows here in New York in April:

April 17: Mo Pitkins
April 19: Mo Pitkins
April 24: Mo Pitkins
April 26: Mo Pitkins

Tickets are available now for only $8. I just got a ticket for Thursday the 19th.