NPR listeners have chosen The Decemberists album The Crane Wife as their best album of the year.

If I had to pick the Most Interesting Inspiration for an Album of the Year, I would choose The Crane Wife as well.

From Wikipedia:

The album was inspired by a Japanese folk tale

The Story of the Crane Wife

The Crane Wife is an old Japanese tale. While there are many variations of the tale, a common version is that a poor man finds an injured crane on his doorstep (or outside with an arrow in it), takes it in and nurses it back to health. After releasing the crane, a woman appears at his doorstep with whom he falls in love and marries. Because they need money, his wife offers to weave wondrous clothes out of silk that they can sell at the market, but only if he agrees never to watch her make them. They begin to sell them and live a comfortable life, but he soon makes her weave them more and more. Oblivious to his wife’s diminishing health, his greed increases. He eventually peeks in to see what she is doing to make the silk she weaves so desirable. He is shocked to discover that at the loom is a crane plucking feathers from her body and weaving them into the loom. The crane, seeing him, flies away and never returns.

Band leader Colin Meloy found a version of this story and decided to write music based on it.

That is a good enough reason alone to go out and buy this album if you haven’t already.

mtvU.com and The Decemberists are currently running a contest for fans to create animations for their video “O Valencia!”. The video was filmed with the band members against a green screen so that fans can then create their masterpieces. Each submission will be judged by the band. The deadline for entries is December 15th, 2006.

For more information about the video contest go to: mtvU.com

Watch the green screen version of The Decemberists video for “O Valencia!”

The Decemberists will be on tour for the following dates:

Dec 13 2006
Commodore Ballroom - MAKE UP DATE Vancouver, British Columbia

Dec 14 2006
Commodore Ballroom - MAKE UP DATE Vancouver, British Columbia

Feb 2 2007
Leadmill - Sheffield

Feb 3 2007
Vicar - VENUE CHANGE - Dublin

Feb 4 2007
ABC - Glasgow

Feb 5 2007
Academy 2 - Manchester

Feb 7 2007
Trent University - Nottingham

Feb 8 2007
Shepherds Bush Empire - London

Feb 9 2007
Southampton University - Southampton

Feb 10 2007
Botanique - Brussels

Feb 12 2007
Prime Club - Koln

Feb 13 2007
Knust - Hamburg

Feb 14 2007
Postbahnhof - Berlin

Feb 16 2007
Fri-son - Fribourg

Feb 17 2007
Estragon Club - Bologna

Feb 18 2007
Ampere - Munich

Feb 19 2007
Flex Club - Vienna

Feb 21 2007
Paradiso - Amsterdam

Feb 22 2007
La Maroquinerie - Paris

Dates could change! For the latest tour dates and information go to The Decemberists Official Website

The Decemberists on Myspace

By: Jenny May