Just recently, Midlake released The Courage of Others. It’s really flute heavy and is an intense downer, but it works because they’re so good at making existential pain fun to listen to. To celebrate the album’s existence on the physical plane, the band got together to record live versions of a bunch of tracks for The Guardian. They stay surprisingly close to the songs on the record, beefing up “Small Mountain” with a heavier whisked drum presence, and generally adding tambourine and bells wherever it makes sense. To be totally real, it is bumming us out to picture the band playing music anywhere but in the middle of a field with a bunch of horses chilling in the background like it’s no big deal… but we’re happy these songs exist anyway.

Download: Midlake, The Denton Sessions (via MBV)