After hearing Noah Lennox's encouraging reaction to the partial leak of Strawberry Jam - "put up those other three songs, man, pronto" - maybe it's time to share some more pre-release fun from a handful of other albums that have recently made their way online. Album : St Vincent - Marry Me Pre-Order Marry Me is a bizarre, captivating amalgam of colorful Roaring Twenties jazz, baroque-pop classicism, and inventive guitar sounds. St Vincent is the rare kind of artist who draws from seemingly [...]
This weekend's solid schedule of live shows starts early with Menomena, All Smiles and MOM at the Granada Theater. Local electro-folk duo MOM have come a long way, from relative obscurity to being handpicked by CJ Davis as the first act on his new Pancakes for Mattie label, to playing bills with national acts like these. All Smiles is a natural pairing with Menomena, since Jim Fairchild was originally encouraged to be the first former member to step out of the Grandaddy shadow by his friend (and Menomena drummer) Danny Seim. Menomena you probably already know about, [...]
After two years of lingering overseas in Japan and Europe, Hey Hey My My Yo Yo is coming to America. The follow-up to 2003's dynamic debut, D-D-Don't Stop the Beat , the sophomore album from Junior Senior finally has a distributor here in the states and will presumedly be available for less than the $20-30 price it had been fetching as an import. If you thought Sweden was the undisputed champ of saccarine pop music, these Danes will force you to reconsider. While no one song is capable of topping the sheer addictiveness [...]
The big record coming out today, Icky Thump , has already been talked about enough across the internet - the USB drive news on its own dwarfed most other recent music buzz. But don't forget about some of the other albums that are newly available today, especially the career-shifting releases by the Polyphonic Spree and Art Brut . By most accounts all three of these records are departures for their creators, or in the case of the White Stripes , more of a return to form after the Raconteurs detour. Either way, they're definitely [...]
From the Magnetic Fields website: The new Magnetic Fields album is now planned for release in early 2008. The exact release date and album title will be announced shortly, as well as information on other Stephin Merritt projects. The band will probably do some US tour dates following the release, and when these are confirmed, they will be posted in the Calendar section of the website. Meanwhile, Stephin Merritt continues to work on developing several new projects in theater, including a stage adaptation of Neil Gaiman's children's book Coraline . [...]
Victoria Bergsman is inconsolable. Nothing, not even a beachside dream vacation, can overcome her constant blues. The former Concretes singer, who famously leant her voice to half of "Young Folks," is back with a new project of her own, Taken By Trees . Though it was produced with Björn Yttling and features John Eriksson, both of Peter Bjorn & John , Victoria's debut album Open Field couldn't be further from the light and joyous sound of her Swedish compatriots. On songs like "Lost and Found," Bergsman's sad, soft voice floats over stately strings and graceful piano, poppy enough that the [...]
Not long after they premiered a new Liars song, Pitchfork today dropped a remix of Drums Not Dead 's "It Fit When I Was a Kid" by laptop duo and She-Ra enthusiasts Crystal Castles . Though this particular track has been around for a while, it couldn't have been brought to my attention at a better time. Liars are a band who've changed their sound so often, albeit with equally amazing results, that it's often hard to get a handle on what they'll do next. Where Drums Not Dead is abstract and experimental, [...]
[via] Leslie Feist has been on fire lately, particularly when it comes to live shows and late night appearances. Her Jimmy Kimmel performance of "I Feel it All" on an LA city bus quickly made its way around the internet, a great premise made all the better by Feist's natural charisma. Now her current tour with Grizzly Bear is making noise in New York and taking Conan by storm, too, especially the variety show version of "1 2 3 43 with the buzzed-about Brooklyn band doing back-up duties. But [...]
This evening kicks off in earnest what should be a pretty good week of live shows here in Dallas. Tonight's concerts showcase the kind of post-ironic, genuinely engaging acts that are something of a rare commodity around here, but who thankfully seem to be growing in popularity as of late. Lavender Diamond (9:00 @ Hailey's ) do the earnest, heart-on-sleeve thing to perfection, with Becky Stark's plaintive, classically-trained voice tying everything together. For more unpretentious fun, check out Dan Deacon's set at the Cavern instead. Breakbeat-driven electro noise is pretty much everywhere these days, but what sets this guy apart is his [...]
Video : St Vincent - Your Lips Are Red St Vincent recently announced a summer tour in support of her exceptional debut album, Marry Me , which comes out July 10 on Beggars . The schedule starts with a show at Hailey's on July 6 and runs through early August, including a stop at New York's Bowery Ballroom . Unlike her recent round of supporting gigs with John Vanderslice, in which she performed solo, Clark's summer tour is set to feature a full backing band and should be all the more [...]
The Magnetic Fields - Born on a Train After last night's ambiguous Sopranos ending I had this song in my head - in part to get rid of that Journey hangover, but also because it would've given the series a more fitting musical end. Along with "Strange Powers," my other favorite Fields song, "Born on a Train" is Stephin Merritt at his sublimely lyrical best. In fact, I think this track could play over every closing credits ever, and I wouldn't really mind. The Korgis - Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime Beck notably [...]
Shot over an extended series of weekends in the early 1970s, Killer of Sheep was acknowledged as a national treasure by the Library of Congress despite the fact that music licensing issues prevented it from ever being released. There isn't enough space here to chronicle all the superlatives heaped on Charles Burnett's student film, but countless critics hail it as a modern American masterpiece, a work on par with the best of the Italian neorealists. The film portrays the residents of LA's Watts neighborhood by following, documentary style, the life of a slaughterhouse worker. Though 'Sheep' owes a debt to [...]
Every year at about his time a debate goes on about what single is going to be the song of the summer. Sometimes, like with "Crazy in Love" or 1991's obvious "Summertime," there's a clear consensus, but last year didn't seem to have one certain song that put its stamp on the sunniest season. Pageblank has a nice set of criteria (especially 'Be Irritating') for trying to tag the most likely candidates for the Summer of '07, but this year's jam is very much still up in the air. In the more mainstream, radio friendly category, some folks are already nominating [...]
ODB - Shimmy Shimmy Ya When I went to see Knocked Up this weekend I wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't really understand the commotion over 40-Year-Old Virgin , but "Freaks & Geeks" is pretty much all-time awesomeness; throw in the actress from "Grey's Anatomy" and I'm really confused. Anyway, as soon as I heard ODB's first few "Shimmy Shimmy Ya's" over the opening credits I knew that things were going to be ok. As Method Man put it, there "aint no father to his style" - an analogy that fits the film's themes well, [...]
The New Pornographers have released the official tracklist for Challengers , which is due out on August 21. Not only will the record contain Carl Newman's, "first true epic" in the six-and-a-half minute "Unguided," but with over twelve tracks it promises to be as grandiose as anything they've done. Newman wrote nine of the songs, with Dan Bejar composing the remaining three. You may recall that, "The Spirit of Giving," which closes out Challengers , is, like "Jackie, Dressed in Cobras" before it, from a Destroyer 73 that Bejar subsequently re-worked for his other highly succesful band. [...]
What a month. May saw the release of notable albums from Wilco and the National, not to mention some unexpectedly awesome songs from lesser-known acts. If you're talking individual tracks, it's hard to top the 3 debut joints from Ghosthustler , or the slide-whistling fun and catchy cadence of Bonde Do Rolê's "Geremia." The month's best concert had to be our live introduction to St Vincent, whose Marry Me might just end up being the debut album of the year. More than that, May also brought us some first looks at what this summer [...]
I haven't had much to say about Arcade Fire in a while, mostly because the hype can get a little over the top as it is, and frankly there are too many other good records coming out right now to still be going Ga-Ga (get it?) over Neon Bible . Still, when the "greatest band on earth," or whatever superlative we're using these days, decides to cover Clinic you have to pay attention. Arcade Fire - Distortions (live) Clinic - Distortions [...]
Here's the first Challengers track from the New Pornographers, one that's no doubt been everywhere by now. Called "My Rights Versus Yours," it's a little on the underwhelming side, especially when compared to the awesome power-pop energy of "Use It," the initial single they offered from Twin Cinema . That being said, by the time Neko's harmony on the chorus blends in with Carl Newman's lead vocals and the guitars really start chugging, you sort of don't really mind the tame tempo any more. The New Pornographers - My Rights Versus Yours [...]
Spoon - Don't Make Me A Target Over the last seven years, Spoon have quietly, and in rather business-like fashion, shaped themselves into the most consistently impressive band of the new milennium. They've been so good at it for so long that the geometric, Spinoza-like perfection of their most recent record, 2005's Gimme Fiction , almost seemed expected instead of overwhelming. Early appraisal has their follow-up, Ga 5 , pegged as Spoon's experimental record, a foray into studio manipulation and sonic complexity. Where lead leak "The Ghost of You Lingers" certainly [...]
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Bison - Quill
Shinichi Osawa – Big Beach Mix 2012
Neutral Milk Hotel- Aeroplane Over the Sea
Mr Fogg - Eleven
