Ray Charles was born September 23rd, 1930. This truly astounding musician was a big influence on me when I first started to really enjoy music. Here's my Grandma's favourite Ray Charles song, his definitive take on a classic:

Grizzly Bear - Shields

This is my first blog post, and I don't think I could have picked a better time to start. Shields, Grizzly Bear's fourth studio album, is possibly the best thing I've heard this year.

From the offset, the album is more animated and robust than any of its predecessors, but it still retains the lavish sonic landscape that made Veckatimest such a success; opening track Sleeping Ute sounds initially like a tug of war between the last album's Fine for Now and Ready, Able before shifting abruptly into a lush, fingerpicked guitar hook which eases the track to a stop to make way for Speak in Rounds. This kind of coherence between tracks is something which is often overlooked, but when artists like Grizzly Bear devote their attention to it, the resulting album becomes much greater than the sum of its parts.

It's to the band's credit that some of their most immediate and accessible tracks to date (particularly Sleep in Rounds and Yet Again) sit so well within an album of such brilliant intricacy and detail as Shields. I don't want to turn this into a track by track account of the album, so I'll just say that from its opening bars to its invigorating and bold closing track Sun in Your Eyes , this album is very, very exciting. If Veckatimest was the album that thrust the Brooklyn quartet to the heights they currently enjoy, then Shields is the album that will make sure they stay there.

Highlight: Sun in Your Eyes 

Worth a look: Grizzly Bear performing Shift for Blogotheque.