Just a few weeks after Elbow premiered a live video of the new song Lippy Kids , off the forthcoming album build a rocket boys! , Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show debuted another new one, Neat Little Rows . Looks like this will be the first official single, with at least a UK release on Feb. 28 . I'm having trouble making out the lyrics, other than the chorus: "Lay my bones in cobblestone / lay my [...]
In the wake of the horrific events from Tucson, it seems only natural that we seek a comforting voice, a familiar sound. It is, to say the least, dispiriting to see Arizona's image get hammered across the nation. And so how lucky are we to be represented by Calexico ? Martin Cizmar , music editor at the Phoenix New Times, has a great interview with frontman Joey Burns about Tucson's unfortunate turn in this spotlight, the band's connection with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Calexico's show on Feb. 4 at Corona Ranch [...]
In the first of what I hope will be many future collaborations with the fellas at Universatile Music , we are bringing to Phoenix a mighty hip-hop triumvirate packed into one night, Feb. 18 at the Hidden House : Nocando , Open Mike Eagle and 5 O'Clock Shadowboxers (featuring Zilla Rocca and Curly Castro ). All three dropped releases in 2010 – Nocando's Jimmy the Lock ; Open Mike Eagle's Unapologetic Art Rap ; and 5 O'Clock [...]
Better late than never ... albums to follow soon. I had a feeling about England in May , and in the seven months since, nothing changed my mind. Before even trying to decipher the lyrics – which appears to many , including myself, to be mostly a futile task – the song's triumphant swell of music had already won me over. England actually surfaced in early-ish 2009, a live version with different lyrics that are about [...]
In an effort to reach 15,000 followers on Twitter , turntable maestro Cut Chemist teased to a new mix or two he would release if he hit the mark by the end of the year. It didn't happen – 13,000-plus followers ain't too shabby anyway – but Cut still promised to come through with some goods, and he did on New Year's Eve, offering up a pair of mixes on a newly created Soundcloud page : "Hip Hop Lives (1985-1996)" and "Disco is Dead (1973-1979)." Says Cut : [...]
It seems 2011 could be a big year for a few of my favorite local bands. If everything falls in place, we could have new albums from Source Victoria , Reubens Accomplice and Kinch , which kicked off an ambitious three-city residency plan on Monday night in Los Angeles. The common thread? L.A.-based Grammy-winning producer/mixer/engineer Chris Testa , who has also worked with Jimmy Eat World on the 2007 release Chase This Light . I know the singer of Source Victoria a little bit , [...]
Extenuating circumstances have kept me from posting my favorite songs and albums of 2010 – namely, eating and drinking my way through the holidays. We also host an annual New Year's Eve bash for which I make a mix of 20 or so songs – or whatever will fit on 80-minute CD-Rs – from the past year that we pass out as party favors. Though I'm likely not considering Frightened Rabbits' The Winter of Mixed Drinks for the short list of my favorite 2010 albums – I still like it quite [...]
As promised , Elbow followed through on its "special surprise" for Boxing Day, releasing a live video of Lippy Kids , the first taste of the forthcoming album, build a rocket boys! , due for a March 7 release in the UK. Singer Guy Garvey said his writing was inspired by his return to an area where he lived in his teenage years, and the drum-less Lippy Kids – which strolls along beautifully on a foundation of understated piano work – captures that nostalgic spirit: " Do they know [...]
Almost three years after releasing the Mercury Prize-winning (and one of my 2008 favorites ) The Seldom Seen Kid , Elbow will put out its fifth full-length album, build a rocket boys! on March 7 in the UK (which I hope means a March 8 release in the United States). No single was released when the announcement was made on Wednesday, but the band did offer this: "Stay tuned for a special surprise on Boxing Day." (For us Yankees, that's Dec. 26.) In an interview with BBC 6 Music [...]
A friend commented to me on Tuesday that this blog has become "increasingly hip-hop centric." He's got a point, but it just speaks to the number of quality artists that have put out stellar material this year ( Open Mike Eagle , Nocando , Isaiah Toothtaker , 5 O'Clock Shadowboxers , El-P , etc.). Ideally, the site serves as a somewhat accurate representation of my listening habits, so if I'm leaning one way, it's probably an indication of what's influencing me every day. Between the Str8 Killa No Filla mixtape [...]
I spent a good deal of time discussing Christmas songs with my next door neighbor Tim the other night, and we both agreed that no song better describes, as Liz Lemon put it on last week's excellent 30 Rock, "the horror of Christmas," better than the Pogues' classic "Fairytale of New York." Gritty, desperate and offensive, the banter back and forth between the song's narrators perfectly captures the image of two lovers fighting over broken dreams and shattered hopes, which, for all the joy this season brings, are pretty much unavoidable as trees go up and [...]
Some of the boys from Limbeck are back with a new band named The Young Dudes and they have a Christmas song for you. The band has so far only played one show that I am aware of but have a few more lined up. They have posted online the first song anyone has heard by them a Christmas track called "I Got Nothing Cool." That may or may not be true but at least I got a new track from Rob and Pat. The band [...]
Just a quickie here as I dust off the winter coat to prepare to depart from 80-degree Phoenix weather for frigid New York for the week. Open Mike Eagle dropped Haircut when he was in Phoenix last month , and he's given us a video in conjunction with the release of Art Rap After Party , an EP that Los Angeles Times blog Pop & Hiss has made available for a free download . I'll be spending much of my time in the air listening to this and [...]
Earlier this month, Spoon released a compilation of demos and alternate versions of songs that the band previously made available as bonus tracks on its website , a monthly practice Britt Daniel and Co. has kept up since April 2008 . Though I think it's unfair to properly review such a haphazard collection that's essentially just a treat for fans and completists, Matthew Perpetua makes a good argument at Pitchfork (6.3) that the 10-song compilation is a little lean. Not only that, it's already dated. Spoon apparently isn't going to [...]
Pedal-steel ace Jon Rauhouse , a mainstay in Neko Case's band and a Phoenix native, spent some time at Wavelab Studio in Tucson in October to record material for his fifth album. It was a rare spot of downtime for Rauhouse, who was on the road for much of the year playing for Jakob Dylan and Billy Bob Thornton. Thanks to Notable Music Co. , we have our first taste of the Tucson session. Damon Booth, VP/GM of Notable Music – an independent music publishing company founded in 1962 by composer [...]
Maybe the title alone sent his hard drive crashing. Whatever the case, a corrupted file kept El-P from including Lab Rat Bravely Escapes on Hovercraft Only to Crash Directly Outside of Gates – we'll call it Lab Rat in the interest of brevity – on his 2010 instrumental release, Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegam ixxx3 . But what technology taketh, it can sometimes giveth back. Lab Rat was salvaged and El-P has made it available for public consumption. The pounding drums and eerie synths leave little doubt this track was [...]
The official press material from Jagjaguwar promises that No Witch , due out Feb. 22, is the Cave Singers' "rock record." That might be true, but the first single at least, Swim Club , isn't too far of a departure from the cozy campfire folk-rock of the trio's first two albums , which were released on Matador. If more robust sounds do indeed await us on the rest of No Witch , it could be the result of the Cave Singers collaborating with producer Randall Dunn, who helped guide the [...]
I don't get terribly excited about Christmas/holiday tunes, but when it's the first bit of new music from Blackalicious in five years, I'll take what I can get. Toy Jackpot comes from The Christmas Gig , a holiday soundtrack released by Target (no commissions here) that features Crystal Antlers, Bishop Allen, Coconut Records and more. The best part about Toy Jackpot is that it doesn't really sound like a Christmas song. Gift of Gab (and a guest MC?) rap from the perspective of [...]
A proper full-length follow-up to 2008's Afterparty Babies is apparently in the works , but until then, Edmonton rapper/ poet laureate Cadence Weapon is tiding us over with a new mixtape he dropped on Tuesday, Tron Legacy . Like his Separation Anxiety mixtape from early 2009 , Tron Legacy is available at Cadence's website on a pay-what-you-want scale for high-quality 320 kbps MP3s. His cultural references and wit sharp as ever, Cadence Weapon tears through an eclectic collection of beats, [...]
Because it's not enough to buy an album once these days, an expanded version of The National's High Violet is coming out this week. As explained in the promotional video above, it contains new songs, B-sides, live tracks and that alternate version of Terrible Love . In a strategic marketing move just in time for the holidays, Black Friday has been dubbed "Violet Friday" by the band, which will make High Violet 2.0 available for just $7.99 at participating stores for one day only. [...]
So Much Silence
[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
Big Boi & Theophilus London (feat. TRE LUCE) - 'She Said OK'
