Music Monday: Arcade Fire

The Arcade Fire hails from Montreal and are fronted by married couple Win Butler and Regine Chassagne with an oft changing cast of super-talented multi-instrumentalist collaborators singing and playing piano, violin, hurdy-gurdy, French horn, and more. Their music is indie rock with an epic sweep, filled with lush instrumentals and heavily layered harmonies.

They released a sweet self-titled EP in 2003, but it wasn't until 2004 that the released the absolutely amazing Funeral, a solid and moving album that was lyrically and tonally influenced by the deaths that year of several of the band members' relatives. This album managed to be both somber and uplifting, and was extremely well-received, both critically and commercially. Here is the official video for the first song off of that abum, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)":



In 2007, the band released Neon Bible which was also universally praised and definitely awesome. Here is the first single off that album, called "Intervention":



Here is an amazing acoustic performance of the song "Neon Bible", played in an elevator, using a ripping magazine for (surprisingly effective) percussion. This is one of our favorite performance videos ever:



They recently released their newest album, The Suburbs, and once again, we think they have created an awesome piece of art! Give a listen to the titular song here:



The Arcade Fire is currently on tour, and just played a couple of days ago (August 5) in Madison Square Garden, a show that was to be directed by Terry Gilliam. They streamed it live on Youtube and you can see the whole thing here. We really like the claymation/puppet promo video they made for the event:



Sweet! We love the Arcade Fire and hope you do too. Check out their website here for all kinds of fun things to hear and see!