In effort to bring you more of our photographers’ amazing work, we’re gathering some of the best uploaded pics each week with links for you to view more. Here’s a sample of what was uploaded this past week:

photo by Alex Crick S.U.E… I mean, U.S.E bring the dance party (and the letters) last Wednesday to the lunch hour listeners [more] …

photo by Jeremy Center while San Diego post rock instrumentalists Tristeza slowed it down on Friday and gave everyone a chance to digest. [more]

photo by Kyle Johnson Though they’re no strangers to KEXP, last week was the first time Portland’s Blind Pilot has made it to the Seattle studio. The band has toured exhaustively this year, thankfully no longer by bike!, supporting The Decemberists and The Hold Steady, and playing alongside Laura Veirs, Point Juncture WA and others, while selling out many venues. Perhaps they’ll get some rest after this. [more]

photo by Brittney Bush Bollay KEXP listeners are sure to remember Halou, a dream-pop meets trip-hop project out of the Bay Area, but now Rebecca and Ryan from the band are called Stripmall Architecture (with a lineup change) and while they’ve expanded their sound, if you liked Halou, you’ll love the new band! Rebecca and Ryan, with their new compatriots, played new songs on the Midday Show on Wednesday. [more]

photo by Brittney Bush Bollay A band name like We All Have Hooks For Hands might not be the catchiest, but their quirky indie pop sure is. And a band with two drummers? Great! …with two drummers playing the same kick drum? Awesome! [more]

photo by Brian Cullen Califone performed a set from their new album, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, which is also a companion to the film they showed (and played a live soundtrack to) at the UW HUB Auditorium that night. Here’s a portrait of frontman and auteur Tim Rutili. [more]

photo by Jill Rachel Photography Brazilian ex-pats Forro in the Dark prove they have sole. [more]

photos by Caitlin Enwright At the Sunset last Saturday, KEXP’s Audioasis broadcast in support of Teen Feed, an organization that works with the community to address basic needs, build strong relationships, and ally with homeless youth as they meet their future off the streets. Charles Leo Gebhardt IV and The Shackles performed. [more]

photo by Beth Eisgrau-Heller While over in NYC, John Darniele brought The Mountain Goats over to the Cutting Rooms Studios NYC for a session on the Morning Show with John Richards [more] …

photo by Keith Goldstein …followed by UK group The Big Pink, who showed up on the Morning Show to play moody, dancy music. [more]

photos by Brian Cullen

I’m the kind of person that gets stuck on repeat. I’m the kind of person that get’s stuck on repeat. I’ll discover a song that walls up around me in a way that shuts all other songs out. Sometimes it lasts for days sometimes weeks. I think I listened to a song once for a month straight without the slightest consideration for what else I might be missing. These songs keep me up at night. When I finally fall asleep they inhabit my dreams. Yes, I have problems (but have you ever skated a full-pipe with Morrissey while reading the Sunday Times?).

Along the way these songs, always bouncing around inside our heads, become the soundtrack to life. The things we see and do. Each time we smile, every failure and every success, every look in the mirror, every hi-five given and every hug taken. However bizarre or mundane, each grain of sand has a song beneath it. We make them into mix CDs and give them to loved ones in hopes that they might better understand the complexities of our individual films.

Lately my film has been stuck on “Funeral Singers,” from Califone’s most recent album and feature film of the same name, All My Friend’s Are Funeral Singers (Dead Oceans). As the centerpiece to Califone’s cinematic songwriting Tim Rutili has always used poetic imagery and tone to provoke feelings. Despite its roots in folk, Rutili’s music is never overtly focused on a strict narrative, making shadowy songs like “Funeral Singers” all the more applicable to one’s own life. Waking up last Thursday morning, I wondered how the evening’s live performance and film screening at the University of Washington’s HUB Auditorium might alter my thoughts on the song. Would the application of specific imagery and dialogue fade the track from my mind once and for all?

As per usual we arrived early and had to wait just outside the auditorium’s double doors for a good little while before the show/film was to begin. Having spoken to the band earlier in the day during their (phenomenal) in-studio performance at KEXP, I knew that the second leg of the tour had employed a new sound engineer — the UW show being the first of his dates. As the boys tinkered, my date and I shared a bit-o-honey (despite talking a load of shit I discovered an affinity for this dinosaur) and discussed the comedic merits of backwards jokes and whoopee cushions. It’s what we do.

Soon enough, we filed in and found our seats amongst a rapidly filling theatre of excited guests. How often is one given the opportunity to experience a film score performed live? As Rutili, Becker, Adamik and Massarella walked out on stage I gave a look around and realized just about everyone was smiling. For once it seemed as though not a single person in the audience had been dragged there; no one was tricked, bribed or duped into seeing this film. Lovely. After a brief introduction the players took their places in near total darkness — individually angled backward as to keep all eyes on the film — and began to play the opening sequence.

The film centers around a thirty-something clairvoyant woman named Zel (Angela Bettis of Girl Interrupted, May). While Zel takes in the occasional mortal for Tarot Card readings and the like her main source of companionship is a relatively large and varied cast of ghosts, several of which happen to play folky post-rock (Califone). While Zel considers these apparitions to be her only family, Rutili hints at Zel’s underlying desire to live a normal life, often surrounding herself in moats of salt over which the spirits can not pass. At first the ghosts are a real bunch of Caspers, helping Zel make money contacting dead relatives and picking winners at the track. And your own personal band of funeral singers to boot? Could be worse in this economy, right? Well, things go awry one evening when the ghosts discover a magnetic light in woods surrounding the house. As they attempt move into the light, the ghosts discover they are in fact trapped within the walls of Zel’s home. Ghosts no likey being trapped. Believing it is Zel that has trapped them in this purgatorial halfway house, the ghosts decide to torture their apparent captor. Suddenly, the music becomes a continual barrage of noise. The lucrative perks of knowing ghosts? Also gone. After a creepy customer almost cuts her, Zel realizes that despite her attachment to them any hope for normality (or just some god-damn peace and quiet) hinges on the freeing of her ghostly counterparts.

While all of this plays out under the auspices of a loose narrative structure, the meat and potatoes of Rutili’s film, much like his music, is largely free-form and surreal. Similar to Luis Bunuel’s partygoers in The Exterminating Angel, and even Ingmar Bergman’s Knight and Squire in The Seventh Seal, Zel’s trapped ghosts are a boundless vehicle for the dreamlike discussion of larger philosophical questions. Greed. Freedom. Morality. Death. Desperation and loneliness. Emotional Purgatory. The presence of God. Simple Survival.

Broken up into verse-like chapters, the major movements of the film correspond to various human superstitions (three of which are also tracks from the album) and remind the viewer that questions are being asked. What are your answers?

Throughout the film and brief follow-up set, it was easy to see that the band was truly enjoying themselves up there on stage. Tim Rutili and the rest of Califone should be commended for the success of such an ambitious project. To conceptualize and write a double-LP’s worth of songs and a screenplay is an undertaking in and of itself, but to then fund, direct, act, promote and play live to the film in 20 cities? Holy shit, there’s something to hang your hat on, bub. Oh yeah, and as of Thursday the film was officially accepted to the 2010 Sundance Film Festival — so if you happen to be in Park City please do check it out. Redford and company usually have a good eye for this sort of stuff.

As you may’ve already concluded nothing has changed for me with respect to “Funeral Singers.” I’ve listened to it today more times than I care to admit. It’s still mine for exactly what it means to me — but now it means more. I’ve taken the song and added it to my experience. To that I’ve added the film to get to where I am now. Where I am now is good. Different than where I was before.

And that, my friends, is the beauty of art.

photo by John Adams

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs and recordings from Independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Each and every Friday we offer songs by local artists. Today’s featured selection, chosen by Midday host Cheryl Waters, is “Funeral Singers” by Califone from their 2009 album All My Friends Are Funeral Singers on Dead Oceans.

Once ironically self-describing the project as an “easy listening” solo project, Califone frontman Tim Rutili and company — Jim Becker (violin/banjo), Joe Adamik (drums) and Ben Massarella (various percussion) — have been cobbling together thought-provoking thematic sounds for over a decade. Born from the blues-rock ashes of Red Red Meat, Chicago’s Califone has assumed a sonic personality that could never be equated to anything easy. Doing the same thing over and over? Easy. Adhering to formulaic song-structures? Easy. Using the usual instruments? Easy. No, Califone has done none of these things. Instead, over the years the band has released upon the world a catalog of records that serves to remind us of music’s oft-overlooked virtue and connection to other art forms. Concept album exploring the nature of recurring dreams? Yes (Heron King Blues on Thrill Jockey, 2004). Two compelling instrumental film scores exploring the connection between silent-era storytelling and music? Yes and yes (Deceleration One and Deceleration Two on Perishable Records, 2002 & Thrill Jockey, 2003).

All My Friends Are Funeral Singers (on Dead Oceans) marks the next step in Califone’s uniquely cinematic journey to the other side of rock ‘n’ roll. This much anticipated followup to 2006’s Roots and Crowns (on Thrill Jockey) acts as a companion piece and soundtrack to the Rutili-written and directed feature film of the same name. The album, written in conjunction with the screenplay, uses much of the same imagery as the film: A lonely psychic woman’s life is turned upside down when the ghosts trapped inside her house forcibly try to escape.

The music itself is a densely packed atmospheric narrative housing nearly every single instrument you could ever imagine -– layers of guitar, banjo and violin are buoyed by steel drum, ukulele, optigon, loops and a variety of horns (from bass clarinet to French horns). Perhaps not the best example of the aforementioned orchestral skill, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers’ (sort of) title track is an excellent showcase for Rutili’s vocal prowess. Stripped to acoustics, banjo and gritty blues intonations, the song breathes deeply with sincerity and strength. The exhale comes toward the end of the song with lightly mixed electric guitar and ghostly tape loops. I take it back — this is the perfect example of what Califone is capable of.

You can witness it for yourselves in Seattle on December 3 at the UW HUB Ballroom. Sure, it’s an odd place to see the band, but this won’t be your ordinary rock show. Rutili and the band will perform the soundtrack live to the movie. Check out the brief trailer of the movie below and head over to their MySpace page for more dates in the Northwest. You’re going to want to see this twice!

One of the many reasons you love KEXP and would go out of your way to support us during our 2009 Fall Membership Drive (going on now!)? The fact that we go out of our way to bring you great music not just on the airwaves (and internet waves) but also for you to stream, watch and download on the KEXP Blog.

Just like every Tuesday, on Out This Week, where we scour the web to find the latest videos and legitimate MP3 links for your own guilt-free downloading, allowing you to sample each week’s new releases before you head out to your local record shop or online tone vendor. Not only is this a truly great resource for your own musical discovery, but it’s also smart thinking in these uncertain economic times. KEXP is here to help you!

And just look at today’s list of new releases! Yowza! Built to Spill (sorry, no MP3 but you can stream the whole thing here), Air, Lou Barlow, A Place to Bury Strangers, Dead Man’s Bones, The Dutchess & the Duke, Gossip, Califone, The Raveonettes, The Mountain Goats, The Very Best… and do I really need to keep going? Check out the complete list with links to buy from our friend Largehearted Boy, but don’t head out until you’ve had a chance to sample all of these fine tracks, compiled by the station where the music matters!