
D20 is upon us! Recently, I've been listening to a fair amount of 70s and 80s French music―everything from Bernard Szajner to Karen Cheryl―and I figured it's about time I share some of it with you! Since I'm in a disco sort of mood today, we'll talk about Voyage, a very theatrical yet loungey disco group that made music you'd be more likely to hear at a cocktail hour rather than a thumpin' club. That's not to say the tunes on their 1979 LP, Fly Away , are timid, meek, or tired―they [...]
by john ziegler Peephole , Brooklyn's own electro-pervs, debuted a new line-up last night at Southpaw, drubbing onlookers with their special blend of New Wave paranoia, electro-pop tension and glam attitude. Since forming the band 2 years ago, head peeper Kent Odessa has rearranged his personnel, including himself, switching from lead vocals only to now lead guitar as well. Behind him these days is Noah Pavlov on bass and backup vocals, Willie Mayo behind the drum kit, Kate Schweitzer [...]

Well thirty-four seems little different to thirty-three, apart from the fact that it seems to involve a severe headache and an aversion to bright lights. What I need is a lunch and the King's Wark and a couple of pints and I'll be right as rain. Hopefully. You'll be blindly indifferent to know that after my back injury (yes, months ago) I am now finally feeling brave enough to go back to playing some gentle 5-a-side football again. It's weird with backs - I've done some running, and it feels fine, but because I'm not all that confident [...]
Last night I caught the Brooklyn stop of the Evangelicals/Holiday Shores tour, which continues for five more days. Rarely have I seen two acts so perfectly suited to perform together: Both reference 1960s pop and garage rock while putting their different spins on it--and without sounding like simple regurgitation, the way a lot of "retro" bands do no matter what era they're copying. The first band I saw at Union Hall was Tallahassee, Florida's Holiday Shores. When you can say that a group's synth sounds evoke the classic Moog so perfectly, there isn't much more praise to [...]

++Was reading this article over the weekend about Napster partnering with Best Buy in their continually thwarted, Pinky and the Brain-ian attempts to conquer the industry . Poor Napster, the company that once ruled the world and lost it. (The first few paragraphs of the article, which is generally about gaming, television and Internet all being connected, remind me of my favorite commercial dude . Well, second favorite commercial dude: " Nowhere !") ++ Spinner is featuring a new video for Crazy [...]
The musical transition that seemed to have just begun with Fear of Music came to fruition on Talking Heads' fourth album, Remain in Light . "I Zimbra" and "Life During Wartime" from the earlier album served as the blueprints for a disc on which the group explored African polyrhythms on a series of driving groove tracks, over which David Byrne chanted and sang his typically disconnected lyrics. Remain in Light had more words than any previous Heads record, but they counted for less than ever in the sweep of [...]
Super 45 forma parte del Music Alliance Pact (MAP), una iniciativa de The Pop Cop que reune canciones destacadas de músicos locales de 34 países, una vez al mes. A continuación podrán disfrutar de todos los temas y un link para descargar todo el compilado CHILE: Super 45 Astro - Raifilter Junto a los electro-poppers Moustache!, Astro (Andrés Nusser y Octavio Cavieres) es una [...]

First, here's some free new music that you can collect on your own, if you have an e-mail address, and you happen to like free live EPs by a little-known band called the Pixies. This is fresh from their reunion tour where they're re-creating Doolittle live on stage. The American leg starts later this week. Download The Pixies - "Gouge Away (live)".mp3 [...]

La scorsa settimana abbiamo terminato il nostro viaggio attraverso gli album più importanti del decennio che si sta concludendo. Abbiamo quindi pensato di riassumere il tutto in questo post che non è altro che la lista completa, tappa per tappa, degli album che di volta in volta abbiamo approfondito, in modo tale da avere una sorta di indice delle varie puntate. Dopo il salto trovate anche la listona di tutti gli album che di anno in anno sono stati inseriti fra "gli album da salvare". [...]

Finalmente saiu a versão de estúdio de "Cousins" , segundo single do segundo álbum do Vampire Weekend . A faixa é provavelmente a coisa mais acelerada que o VW já gravou, incluindo aí o hit "A-Punk". Destaque para sempre interessante levada do baterista Chris Tompson e algumas flexões vocais à la David Byrne. Tem algo de natalino e de mexicano também, mas não sei o que é. [MP3] Vampire Weekend - Cousins
Urban Torque proudly presents Fear of Night, the debut album from Southend duo Relation. The stylish Fear of Night combines elements of classic 80s electro pop with crisp modern production. Fear Of Night is filled with songs that on the surface appear simple but on closer inspection reveal lyrical and sonic depths. Press: "An Underworld-meets-David Byrne [...]

d.b. assim como david bowie e david byrne.

A while back Terraform were a new three piece band that could wow you with their first and maybe even second song but from there out dribble down to a spaz-punk one trick pony offering identical sounding songs with modulated guitars and David Byrne-esque yelp. Perhaps it's the new stop/start/stop/start again rhythm section - Jeff Brodski and Mark Makowski - that mad scientist/frontman Ryan Jorgensen lured in or the addition of their alto saxophonist -Katarina Lestenburge- who evens out the synth-y screetches of Dr. Joergensen's Devo-eque guitar playing, but this band sounded more coherent, diverse [...]
ARGENTINA: Zonaindie Entre Ríos - Frontera Finally we get the chance to showcase this great indie-pop band from Buenos Aires on MAP. Entre Ríos is a musical project led by Sebastian Carreras (vocals, keyboards, guitar) that has been around since 1998. Their first albums were recorded with Isol as the main singer, but since her departure in 2005 they've featured different guest vocalists live and in the studio. Frontera is a MAP-exclusive [...]
L'hiver s'installe, mettons donc un peu de soleil dans nos oreilles et retournons en Amérique latine! Après Os Mutantes , nous allons continuer notre voyage au Brésil avec un autre chef de file du mouvement tropicalia. Multi-instrumentiste, mais pas instrumentalisé, Tom Zé , en iconoclaste, déstructure, réinvente et s'approprie la musique traditionnelle. Touche à tout, il détourne et crée des instruments, bricole des sons tout au long de sa carrière. Il est critiqué et mis en marge pour sa vision peu orthodoxe de la discipline. Sa musique devenant de plus en [...]

[Photos by Merry Swankster] For what its worth, I'm firmly placed in the camp of believers calling Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca as one of the best albums of the year. There is a magical cohesion from track to track that elevates the album's song collection into something more special as a sum of its parts, even in spite of standout songs. Bitte Orca keeps pulling me back even as I flirt with other tempting releases that hover in my orbit. Last Sunday's show at the Blubird was the first time I've [...]

The Music Alliance Pact is a collective of 34 of the world's top music blogs and webzines from 34 countries spanning six continents. Every month, each of these 34 sites picks one hot local song that gets posted on all these great blogs and zines. This month we picked Kolkata experimental rock act PINKNOISE 's 'Dream Dream' as the Indian representative on this massive international indie mixtape. The song comes from the band's soon-to-be-released live DVD. You can download 'Dream Dream' along with 33 other tracks from regions as diverse as Denmark, Brazil and Portugal [...]

Penúltima edición del MAP de este año, esta vez con la participación de una banda que ya venía haciendo ruido desde hace tiempo. Nuestra historia rockera es larga y grande, es algo que quizá estábamos olvidando, pero aquí están Los Protones dándonos un boleto de ida y vuelta a nuestros inicios con un rock instrumental que se acopla perfectamente con más de una circunstancia que vivimos a diario, son garage, surf, o como quieras llamarlos con la esencia sesentera en sus venas. Próximos conciertos *20 nov 2009 22:00 Concierto pro fondos 2do [...]

Once more, here is November's edition of the Music Alliance Pact . For those of you who don't know about MAP, it's a collection of music blogs from around the world who band together once a month to shed light on up-and-comers from their home countries. It's sort of like the WTO without the human rights violations. No new MAP countries were added for this edition, so we're sitting solid at 34 countries. If you'd like to be considered, drop by the comments section with a link to your site and I'll [...]

We're so excited about this month's Music Alliance Pact we could explode since it gives us the exclusive privilege of inviting the world to download an incredible song by Scotland's best new band of 2010 and makes us want to use exclamation marks in a frenzied fashion!!! As ever, each country's mp3 selection and the words that go with them come courtesy of the individual blogs, who simultaneously post the entire collection you see below on their own sites. Here for your pleasure then is the world's greatest monthly mixtape... SCOTLAND: [...]