Monday, December 30, 2013
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Friday, December 6, 2013
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Friday, November 29, 2013
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Monday, November 25, 2013
Lo-Fang - Look Away
Lo-Fang is the musical moniker of vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Hemerlein. His classical training in violin, cello, bass piano and guitar bring complexity and depth to an electro-pop, R&B influenced sound. Hemerlein’s lyrics are matched by the strength of his falsetto voice and folk inspired harmonies. Buzzbands LA said of Lo-Fang’s sound, “Can music be intimate and expansive at the same time? Washington, D.C., ex-pat Matthew Hemerlein, now doing business as Lo-Fang, seems to have arrived at the formula.”
Blue Film was written and recorded in a farmhouse in Maryland, hotels and studios in Cambodia, London, Nashville, and completed in the legendary Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. Hemerlein collaborated with GRAMMY Award winning producer Francois Tetaz (Gotye), who he calls a “mirror” that illuminated and reflected his work throughout the process.
Kenneth James Gibson "Something In The Way (Extended Mix In 3 Passages)"...
Kenneth James Gibson (born 8 October 1973), better known as apendics.shuffle is an experimental, electronic, and dance music artist who has been releasing records since 1994. He founded the minimal techno record label Adjunct Records in early 2005 with friend Konstantin Gabbro, through Kompakt records. Gibson also releases music under the aliases Eight Frozen Modules, dubLoner, The Premature Wig, Men In Slippers, Cascabel Gentz, KJ Gibbs, Reverse Commuter, Bal Cath, Electronic Music Composer, and Hiss & Buzz (with Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto). Gibson also founded the 1990s noise pop band Furry Things, who released most of its material onKing Coffey's (of The Butthole Surfers) label Trance Syndicate / Touch and Go Records imprint.
apendics.shuffle ("[a]pendics.shuffle") is Gibson's main electronic music alias. Under this alias he creates a mix of minimal house and techno, micro house, and experimentalelectronic dance music. Apendics.shuffle has released music on many labels such as Orac, Adjunct Records, Mo's Ferry Prod., Lick My Deck, We Are, Leftroom, Sunset Diskos and more.
DubLoner is a dub project from Gibson. Dubloner's output ranges from deep and spacious dub techno and house to more rootsy dirty dub experiments. He has, as Dubloner, remixed and collaborated artists such as Meat Beat Manifesto, Jack Dangers (a duo of dubLoner and Jack Dangers called Hiss & Buzz), Isaac Haile Selassie and Markus Nikolai.
Eight Frozen Modules (also known as 8FM) is another of Gibson's experimental electronic music projects. Eight Frozen Modules' recorded material is a mix of IDM, techno, dub,electro, breakcore, dancehall, and noise. The project started as a side project to the now defunct noise-pop band Furry Things which Gibson started with Cathy Shive in 1992 and was released on King Coffey's Trance Syndicate label (who also released the first 8FM material). As 8FM, he has released music on labels such as Phthalo, Planet Mu, Orthlorng Musork, Tigerbeat 6, City Slang, Shockout, Mutant Sniper, Mille Plateaux, Warp, In Vitro Records, Lo Recordings and Tino Corp to name a few.
Gibson is also known for musical outings under the aliases Cascabel Gentz, Furry Things, KJ Gibbs, Men In Slippers, The Premature Wig, Kenneth James G., Electronic Music Composer, and Reverse Commuter.
James Blake - Live at Electronic Beats Festival 2013 (Full Set)
http://jamesblakemusic.com/
Overgrown is the second studio album by English electronic musician James Blake. It was released on 5 April 2013 by Blake's ATLAS Records, along with A&M Records and Polydor Records. It was supported by lead single "Retrograde" and a series of concert appearances including one at Coachella. It is being promoted as Blake's most expansive piece of work to date, with guest features from electronic producer Brian Eno and Grammy Award-winning rapper and producer RZA.[2] Overgrown débuted at number eight on the UK Albums Chart and at number one of the US Dance/Electronic chart, becoming Blake's highest-charting album to date.
On October 30th 2013, Overgrown won the Mercury Prize in a surprise victory, beating out favourites to win Laura Mvula, Disclosure, and David Bowie.
Following both the critical and commercial success of Blake's self-titled début album, Blake released both the Enough Thunder andLove What Happened Here EPs. These EPs, noticeably more structured than his previous releases, featured more R&B tinged work as opposed to the experimental electronica found on CMYK. Many reviewers speculated in the year between releases that Blake was headed in the wrong direction, with Pitchfork's Larry Fitzmaurice saying that "James Blake's reliance on piano-based singer/songwriter electro-soul perhaps played it a bit too safe, prompting comparisons to the once-outré, now-gear spinning career of fellow avant-crooner Jamie Lidell".[3]
Blake admitted to Hot Press in an interview about Overgrown that his relationship affected the album. He said, "I can't deny it. There's no point in trying to come up with some other explanation for what I've been writing about... When it happened, I was really struck. Y'know—Suddenly I'm hit!".[4]
Earlier in 2012, Blake spent time with American rapper Kanye West and singer Justin Vernon. Their time spent together is alleged to have affected his album as many of the soul and electronic influences of West and Vernon can be seen in the first single released from Overgrown: "Retrograde". In 2012, after months of speculation, Blake announced a new collaborative non-single release under the moniker Harmonimix. This release featured British rapper Trim and the single "Confidence Boost/Saying" was released on 24 September 2012. It was a return to form for Blake and featured the distinct characteristics present in his previous efforts (Though "Confidence Boost" has been floating around on the internet for three or four years).[5]
During the final weeks of 2012, Blake performed three intimate shows where he débuted five of his new songs, the five being "Our Love Comes Back", "Overgrown", "Retrograde", "To the Last" and "Every Day I Ran."[6][7]
Blake announced via Facebook on 7 February 2013 that his second album, Overgrown, would be released on 8 April.[8] The first single from the album, "Retrograde", was débuted the same day on BBC Radio 1, and was released on 11 February.
In an interview with Oregon Music News on 23 September, Blake described his music as "melodic bass music" and also said that his dub influences extend both to the traditional dub music and garage music.
On 7 March, Blake and his labelmates at 1-800 Dinosaur released both the dub version of "Voyeur" and the album cut of "Digital Lion" featuring Brian Eno.[9]
Demdike Stare - Ishmael's Intent / (Video)
Demdike Stare is the occult project of Miles Whittaker and Sean Canty. Miles is also known as Modern Love’s DJ MLZ or as one half of Pendle Coven. Sean Canty is the dedicated digger behind the Haxan events and a member of the respected Finders Keepers crew of vinyl vultures.
The duo’s collaborative project tracks the sonic ley lines of cult soundtracks, Arabesque dubs and psychotomimetic ephemera with a proper Lancastrian twist.
Their releases, notable for their beautiful cover design by Andy Votel, have included Symbiosis,Liberation Through Hearing, Voices of Dust and Forest of Evil. In 2011 the latter three were compiled as Tryptych.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Rustie - 30 Minute Summer Mix (HD)
Rustie, born Russell Whyte in Glasgow, Scotland, is an electronic musician signed to Warp Records. He has also released recordings on Stuff Records, Hyperdub, Wireblock and various other labels. He released the EP Bad Science on Wireblock Records.
Belbury Poly and Spacedog - Find Me
The concluding single of Ghost Box's Study Series is due for release on 16th October. Belbury Poly collaborate with Brighton based cabaret electronics trio, Spacedog on two tracks that explore their overlapping areas of interest. The results are haunted by Jenny Angliss's mannered vocals, Sarah Angliss's elegant theremin and electronics and Jim Jupp's dusty analogue synths.
It has the usual luxurious Julian House designed packaging and comes in heavyweight vinyl. Available on 7" or download, PRE-ORDER NOW from the Ghost Box shop. (Ghost Box shop customers ordering the 7" will be entitled to a free download version on the release date.)
Fort Romeau - Desire
Fort Romeau continues to roll out thoughtfully detailed productions for Ghostly in 2013. In March, the London-based producer released the Chicago house influenced "SW9" single on Ghostly's sub-label Spectral Sound, and showed his versatile house rhythms in July with its follow-up, the Jetée / Desire single. 2014 will see his debut album for Ghostly — it's his second full-length record, with his debut album Kingdoms being released last year on LA outsider dance institution 100% Silk.
In the meantime, he continues to forge masterful house on this four-track EP, entitled Stay / True. The title track is perhaps the producer's most memorable track yet, a languorous seven-minute slow-burner that moves away from classic house territory in a more experimental direction, cruising along on a leisurely arpeggiated synth figure and a simple but effective kick/clap pattern. The more classically house-influenced "Your Light" is all tight kicks and vocoder-laden vocals, while the "Together" starts with the sound of field recordings and then drops a heavy 4/4 kick and even heavier bassline. The 12" version comes with an exclusive track ("Trust Me"), as does the digital version (the dancefloor-focused house belter "And Now").
Monday, October 28, 2013
LOU REED 1942-2013
Avant-rock pioneer, feedback wrangler, hard drugs eulogiser, bondage enthusiast and notoriously prickly interview subject – Lou Reed was, of course, the textbook rock and roll animal.
But beyond the iconic snarl and leather boots lies a sprawling and wildly eclectic catalogue of music that contains – improbably, and in the noblest way possible – something for everyone. Who’d have thought it? Turns out the more you know of Reed, the less you really understand. How can the mind that produced the breakfast jingle charm of ‘Who Loves The Sun’ be the same that birthed the noise assault of Metal Machine Music? What relation is the lovelorn vigil ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ to the proto-punk blast of ‘White Light/White Heat’?
Over six decades as a solo artist and with the Velvet Underground, the band he honed in Andy Warhol’s Factory in the 1960s, Reed became arguably the single most influential figure in the rock history. While the influence of Elvis and The Beatles waned with their absorption into establishment tastes, Reed remained the consummate outsider throughout his life, inspiring legions of musicians not to merely imitate the Velvets’ hypnotic two-chord manoeuvres or his own deadpan, barely-sung lyricisms, but to express themselves with honesty and poetry, to push at the limits of the listenable and reject the dichotomy of high versus low art.
Aside from his Velvet Underground bandmate John Cale, Reed’s only real peer in terms of stature and influence was the incomparable Iggy Pop. Everyone else came afterwards. Reed’s songs, style and attitude begat a lineage of musicians who themselves became heroes and idols: David Bowie, Roxy Music, the New York Dolls, Patti Smith, Jonathan Richman, Talking Heads, Siouxsie Sioux, Sonic Youth, Bauhaus, R.E.M., The Jesus and Mary Chain, Galaxie 500, My Bloody Valentine – and these are just the most obvious picks. Reed’s influence is pervasive, slippery and incalculable. He’s there in the childlike simplicity of The Pastels, the poetic swagger of Richard Hell and the Voidoids and fearless, freeform hurricanes of feedback plied by a generation of noise artists.
Born Lewis Allan Reed in Brooklyn in 1942, he was fond of blues, jazz and doo-wop as a teenager, particularly girl groups like Martha and the Vandellas, whose 1963 hit ‘(Love is Like A) Heat Wave’ he regularly named as one of his favourite songs. In 1956 he was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy intended to cure his deviant preferences, bisexuality being verboten before the sexual revolution that he would himself help fuel with his story-songs of sadomasochism and transsexual lovers. An academic sort, much like the adolescent Iggy Pop, he arrived at Syracuse University in 1960 to study creative writing under his mentor Delmore Schwartz, whose poetry and prose was a major influence on Reed’s mission to ennoble rock music as a literary pursuit.
Heading to New York City in 1964, Reed found work as a songwriter at Pickwick Records where he penned ‘The Ostrich’, a joke song inspired by the popular dance crazes of the time. In the hope of landing a hit single, Reed’s bosses brought in a clutch of session musicians to promote the song, one of whom was Welsh viola and piano player, John Cale. Having recently arrived in the city to study music, Cale was fascinated to discover that Reed had written ‘The Ostrich’ by tuning each string of his guitar to the same note – a technique that Cale had himself been exploring in his own avant-garde circle with minimalist composer La Monte Young.
The next year, while living together on the Lower East Side, the pair formed the Velvet Underground with Reed’s college friend Sterling Morrison and college dropout Maureen Tucker. Their art world connections soon brought them to the attention of Andy Warhol, who introduced the band to his fold of artists, muses and hangers-on and orchestrated a touring multimedia event, The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, to make their name. Despite being credited as a producer on the band’s debut album, Warhol’s only real artistic contribution to the Velvets was his insistence that the band take on the mysterious European model Nico as chanteuse. Though both parties bristled at their forced marriage, the result was The Velvet Underground & Nico, a rock and roll album sui generis which dared to give voice to New York’s seedy underbelly – speedfreaks, femmes fatale, leather boots and all. (Famously, Brian Eno once said that even though only a few thousand people bought the album, almost everyone who did formed a band. His sentiment is accurate, but the numbers are way off – the album actually sold almost 60,000 copies in its first two years.)
Three more Velvet Underground albums followed. White Light/White Heat, Cale’s second and final album with the band, is the embodiment of avant-garde experimentation and ’60s excess, spanning deadpan horror stories (‘The Gift’), untamed guitar scree (‘I Heard Her Call My Name’) and a previously-unheard-of 17-minute wigout (‘Sister Ray’). After Cale’s departure came 1969′s self-titled effort, a quieter, calmer collection that opens with ‘Candy Says’, a tribute to the transsexual Factory muse Candy Darling, and signs off with ‘After Hours’, a bedtime ditty sung by Tucker, who stepped away from her drum kit to record the vocal. Finally came the band’s most commercial album, 1970′s Loaded, which was released just after Reed finally quit the band. Unashamedly poppy, the Velvets’ last hurrah is bouncy and vigorous, propelled by teenage drummer Doug Yule who was drafted in to replace a pregnant Tucker.
After quitting the band, Reed took a job at his father’s accounting firm while he looked for a new contract, and a year later he recorded his self-titled solo album, a scrapbook of some of his finest songs to date including new recordings of Velvets compositions like ‘Ride Into The Sun’. The record flopped, however, and Reed found himself adrift, until one of his most loyal fans stepped in. As history now tells it (much to Reed’s chagrin), David Bowie picked him up, dusted him off and pushed him into the studio to record his first commercial smash, Transformer, which foreground Reed’s knack for a radio-friendly melody on songs like ‘Walk On The Wild Side’, ‘Vicious’ and ‘Satellite of Love’.
Buoyed by Transformer’s success, Reed responded as only he could with Berlin, a cinematic concept album about drug addiction and domestic abuse that culminates with the main character’s suicide. Notoriously, the small children who can be heard crying on ‘The Kids’ were the offspring of Reed’s producer, Bob Ezrin, who forced their tears by lying to them that their mother had been killed in an accident. “This one will show them I’m not kidding,” Reed said of Berlin at the time. Meanwhile, he was breaking up with his wife of barely a year and taking comically excessive quantities of drugs; rock writer Lester Bangs reported in a 1973 interview that his bloated hero’s face had acquired a “nursing home pallor”.
That pattern – of tantalising success followed by commercial failure – dictated the rest of Reed’s 1970s output, from the so-so yet popular Sally Can’t Dance (notable for ‘Kill Your Sons’, a song about the electroconvulsive therapy he’d undergone in the ’50s) and two live albums, Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live, to the spectacular car crash of Metal Machine Music, a double album of electronic feedback that horrified the music press at the time but is recognised now as a visionary proto-noise statement. “I honestly thought, ‘boy, people who like guitar feedback are gonna go crazy for this,’” he said in 2007, five years after the album was painstakingly transcribed for a classical ensemble and performed live, with Reed on guitar, to a rapturous reception.
1975′s Coney Island Baby saw Reed on far mellower form, with the gorgeously wistful title song dedicated to his transgender lover at the time, Rachel. Later in the decade, as punk reared its head in London and New York, he delivered Street Hassle, his riposte to the scene he’d so obviously helped to spawn. Although it bears some surface similarities to the crunchy, guitar-led music taking off in the Britain and the US, Street Hassle beats with a poetic cruelty that few of the young bucks could have mustered.
A highlight of Reed’s late-70s stretch is the live album Take No Prisoners, a tour de force of showmanship that really defies comprehension. With Reed’s rapidfire quips punctuated with saxophone stabs, wailing backing singers and a wildly devoted crowd, he said himself it’s “as close to Lou Reed as you’re probably going to get.” Easing into the 1980s, he delivered The Bells, an oddly jazzy, even disco-tinged record partly written with Crazy Horse member Nils Lofgren and jazz icon Don Cherry, followed by the rather unloved Growing Up In Public.
Reed married the British designer Sylvia Morales in 1980, a union that lasted more than a decade, during which time his records became steadily more experimental and sonically adventurous. He also sobered up, as all ageing rock icons inevitably must. Highlights of this period include 1982′s The Blue Mask, which featured guitarist Bob Quine, a longtime Velvets nut who’d had the foresight to tape several of their early shows, and 1989′s New York, a stripped back, politically charged rock and roll album, which featured his old bandmate Maureen Tucker on drums and even produced a hit single, ‘Dirty Boulevard’. Also worth picking out is his 1990 collaboration with John Cale, Songs for Drella, a tribute to their late friend Andy Warhol. During a performance of songs from the album, Cale and Reed were joined onstage by Tucker and guitarist Sterling Morrison, a moment that paved the way for the Velvet Underground’s brief reunion tour in 1993. Morrison’s untimely death in 1995 brought and end to any further reunion plans, however, and inspired Reed’s 1996 LP Set The Twilight Reeling.
Towards the close of the ’90s, Reed started a relationship with New York artist and musician Laurie Anderson, eventually marrying in 2008; her electric violin appears on 2000′s Ecstasy, an intimate, strangely vulnerable album that’s adventurous as anything in his catalogue, while her voice also appears alongside Reed’s on 2003′s The Raven, an album of Edgar Allen Poe stories and poems that also features longtime friend (and occasional foe) David Bowie.
In his final decade, Reed toured regularly, bringing to life a Julian Schnabel-directed performance of his half-forgotten classic, Berlin, and occasionally inviting his T’ai Chi instructor onstage during solo shows. Sadly, or perhaps brilliantly, his last album was to be his 2011 collaboration with Metallica, the much derided Lulu. As a parting shot, it’s perfect – a straight-up fuck you to the rock and roll establishment he’d slowly found himself settling into, and a record that riled his own fans as much as Metallica’s. After his liver transplant this spring, Reed wrote a valedictory message to his fans announcing himself as “a triumph of modern medicine, physics and chemistry.” He died on Sunday at his home in Long Island. He was 71.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Michael Mayer - Good Times (Official Video) 'Mantasy' Album
It’s been eight years since Kompakt label head and DJ Michael Mayer released his debut album, Touch. In the interim, Mayer has been incubating his forthcoming Mantasy LP, fusing together the “gazillions of sounds [he's been] listening to in private, especially [his] love for soundtracks or soundtrack-like music.” “Good Times” is the hands-up closing track featuring Whomadewho’s Jeppe Kjellberg. This single may be the truncated “Smartphone Version,” but none of the deep house sensibility has been lost. Mantasy is out October 22nd on Kompakt.
Read more: http://www.thefader.com/2012/09/10/michael-mayer-good-times-mp3/#ixzz2j1MQcBja
Kaito - Until the End of Time (Official Video) 'Until the End of Time' A...
It will be Hiroshi Watanabe's eighth album as Kaito, all but one of which have been released through Kompakt (the sole exception was 2008's A Moment For The Life for Octave Lab). Until The End Of Time sees the Tokyo producer further explore his penchant for warm, trancey and organic electronica. The record features two tracks from the recent sampler 12-inch Behind My Life—which an RA review described as "the sound of an old master returning at his own unhurried pace"—in addition to seven new cuts. It's the latest full-length to arrive in Kompakt's 20th anniversary year, which has seen a string of compilation and album releases—check out our Oral History on the Cologne label if you missed it first time round.
Tracklist
01. Sky Is The Limit
02 I'm Leaving Home
03. Will To Live
04. Run Through The Road In The Fog
05. Behind My Life
06. Inner Space
07. Star Of Snow
08. Dear Friends
09. Until The End Of Time 10/D2. Smile
Kompakt will release Until The End Of Time on October 28th, 2013.
Chantal Acda - Arms Up High (feat. Peter Broderick)
Chantal Acda (b. 1978) has worked under the Sleepindog moniker since 2006, making three affectionately received albums; 'Naked In A Clean Bed' (2006), Polar Life (2008) and, most recently, ‘With Our Heads in the Clouds and Our Hearts in the Fields’ (2010), in which she worked closely with Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid, A Winged Victory For The Sullen). They toured the UK and Benelux with Low.
At the same time, she was a constant on-stage presence with Isbells.
After all this, it was time for her first real solo record. Playing in various formations had made her conscious of the patterns that we all, as humans, share in. So she sought out kindred spirits with whom she might record an album filled with freedom and intensity, and who were conscious of the patterns we so often fall back on.
Nils Frahm was the first of these to cross her path. The German pianist reaches in and touches with his intense records and adventurous performances.
Acda also experienced a direct bond with Peter Broderick. We know this multi-instrumentalist from his own work and from his work with, among others, Efterklang.
Cellist extraordinaire Gyda Valtysdottir had previously worked with Chantal as a member of the Sleepingdog live band. She had previously played in Icelandic group Mum.
Shahzad Ismaily stumbled into this picture by chance, but when Chantal and he found themselves in the same room they formed an instant rapport.
The circle completed, Acda had found the 4 worlds that would enable her to record an album wherein she might go in search of those boundaries and patterns. In full freedom. Power revealed through vulnerability.
Nils Frahm, who played all over the record, also took on the role of producer.
What began as a journey ended as a wonderful record - one wherein the five musicians were able to find their place and, together, and with great warmth, tell their nine-song story.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters - Das Volk hat keine Seele
Best known for his mid-’00s work, which combined the yearning romanticism of electronic peers like Kompakt with a reverence for earlier acts like Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine, Schnauss has been collaborating with Peters since 2004 (both play in the band Engineers), but it wasn’t until 2011 that they first released a full album together, Underrated Silence.
Bureau B, who will be releasing Tomorrow is Another Day, promise “a sublime exploration into their signature expressionistic landscapes while exploring the potential of a collaborative model in which Schnauss’s keyboards and Peters’s guitar work together in juxtaposition … a musical exchange in which each musician’s contribution was emphasized in contrast to the other’s voice.”
You can stream snippets of the album below; it’ll be released on October 25.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Friend Within - The Renegade (Official Video)
Friend Within – May 2013
‘Undoubtedly delivers’ – RA
‘One name to watch’ – Annie Mac
‘Friend Within is going to have a very good 2013’ – Disclosure
Who is Friend Within?
With releases on Dirtybird and PETS and remixes for the cream of modern music talent such as Fenech-Soler and Mausi already under his burgeoning belt, this is one producer already impossible to pigeonhole and difficult to ignore since bursting onto the scene in early 2013.
Seemingly arriving from nowhere, Friend Within has made a lot of friends in a very short space of time. From guesting on T.Williams Rinse FM show to radio plays by Skream & Benga, Annie Mac, B Traits, Mistajam, DJ Cameo and Monki as well as having already DJ’ed in pretty much every major city in the UK, there’s no denying the dent this mysterious producer has made.
With further support coming from RA, XLR8R, Dancing Astronaut and Trap Magazine to name just a few, Friend Within has been living up to his name following an invitation to feature on the ‘Monki & Friends’ Red Bull collaboration project. Working alongside Karma Kid and Yasmin, their track ‘Feeling (So Special)’ blends the best of all three artists in a bona fide summer anthem that’s already picking up serious radio, DJ and online love even before it’s available as a free download via the Red Bull Studios website (out now).
Friend Within is gearing up for his forthcoming EP on Hypercolour in mid-June, plus a release on Disclosure’s own Method Music imprint with the colossal ‘Renegade Master’ refix that’s been hammered by everyone and continues to build anticipation going into the festival season. Despite already having had a hugely successful career in a past life, Friend Within is about to do the near-impossible and make it two.
Sóley - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)
Sóley (Sóley Stefánsdóttir) is an icelandic singer, pianist and member of the indie-collective Seabear. She also studied composition and is a passionate piano player and singer. In March 2010 she released her debut EP Theater Island which is followed by her first full-length We Sink - a pop record, that sounds like a dream: sweet and weird at the same time.
Indians - La Femme (Official Video)
Coming to the attention of 4AD after a clutch of demo tracks went online early in 2012, Indians emerged in a fittingly understated manner and with Somewhere Else, have made both an assured and majestic debut album.
From Copenhagen, Indians is all the work of one man, Søren Løkke Juul, who brought his band in to being when he felt the need to challenge himself and do something different. Not aiming for anything other than satisfying a creative urge, things have snowballed quickly for him ever since.
Performing his first show as Indians in February 2012, he self-released his debut single on 7” a few months later and has since extensively toured both Europe and North America, playing shows with the likes of Beirut, Bear In Heaven, Dan Deacon, Lower Dens, Other Lives, Perfume Genius, Retribution Gospel Choir, Savages and Weird Dreams. To cap it off, he’s joined fellow countrymen Efterklang in signing to 4AD, doubling the number of Scandinavian acts on their roster.
Over the summer months, Søren retreated to a studio in the Danish countryside to finish his early demos and write new material to makeSomewhere Else a personal document that’s equal parts melancholic lament and hopeful stargazing, the title itself an indication of the sense of otherness that runs throughout. Evocative of the natural world, its cavernous tones and Autumnal warmth reflect the vastness of the landscape that formed the backdrop of its conception.
Indians celebrated their signing with the airing of a 4AD Session, joining the ranks of Bon Iver, St. Vincent, Tune-Yards and Mark Lanegan before them. Like all 4AD Sessions, it was filmed in a day and in a way that the band wanted it. Directed by Iain & Jane, they went to Osea Island, a little-known, privately owned island in the estuary of the Blackwater in Essex, UK where Søren was flanked by two additional band members (his live band floats between solo performances and a three-piece band). Facing up to the challenge of performing in a vast open space, under sky and near water, they triumphed in making quite a first impression.
Spiritualized - Live at Coachella 2013 (Apr 13) (Full show)
Spiritualized are a British space rock band formed in 1990 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Jason Pierce (who often goes by the alias J. Spaceman) after the demise of his previous band Spacemen 3. The membership of Spiritualized has changed from album to album, with Pierce — who writes, composes and sings all of the band's material — being the only constant member.
Spiritualized have released seven studio albums. The best known and most critically acclaimed of these is perhaps 1997's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, which NME magazine named as their Album of the Year.
Following a breakdown in relations between Spacemen 3 co-frontmen Peter Kember and Jason Pierce, the group's bassist Will Carruthers, drummer Jonny Mattock, and guitarist Mark Refoy were asked by Pierce to form a new group alongside local friend Steve Evans, subsequently calling themselves Spiritualized. The band took their name from an adaptation of the text on the back label of a bottle of Pernod. Due to formation from a majority of Spacemen 3 members, a technical clause meant that Spiritualized had to maintain the Spacemen 3 recording contract with Dedicated Records.
The first Spiritualized release, in 1990, was a cover of The Troggs' "Anyway That You Want Me"; the record heralded the official split of Spacemen 3 following contractual wrangles over the band's name and its use in Spiritualized-related promotional material (initial copies of "Anyway That You Want Me" came with a Spacemen 3 logo on the sleeve).
Evans was replaced on keyboards by Pierce's then-girlfriend Kate Radley for the follow-up single, "Run"/"I Want You". A number of singles followed, before the band, in early 1992, released their first LP Lazer Guided Melodies, which had been recorded in Rugby over the previous two years. A second album, Pure Phase, was released in 1995, and a third Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space emerged in 1997 to critical acclaim and commercial success.
The musical style of Spiritualized relies heavily on sustained 'pedal' notes and drones. Lazer Guided Melodies and Pure Phase incorporate elements of the shoegazing style, drones and tremolo. The landmark Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Spacesaw the influence of African-American gospel and blues beginning to show, while "walls of sound" modelled after the production styles of Phil Spector and Brian Wilson also made their presence felt. Such influences dominated Spiritualized's next album, Let It Come Down, which included over 120 musicians. Amazing Grace favoured a more stripped down sound with the gospel, blues, and soul influences even more dominant than before.
On 15 June 1997, Spiritualized became the last band to play at Factory Records' Manchester nightclub The Haçienda.
After several years of work and Pierce's serious illness in July 2005, the album, Songs in A&E was released on 26 May 2008 in the UK, and on 27 May 2008 in the US. The first single from the 18-track album was "Soul On Fire". The release was backed by an Electric Mainlines UK tour which began in May. Pierce has also scored Harmony Korine's 2008 film Mister Lonely.
Pierce is quoted as saying in a 2008 interview that Spiritualized was scheduled to play the CERN collider. "They asked us to do it! We were gonna play in it before they’d thrown the switch. But it was a timing thing—their timings didn’t coincide with ours."
In October and December 2009 the band performed 1997's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space live in its entirety as part of the All Tomorrow's Parties-curated Don't Look Back series.
After more than two years in the making, while Pierce was undergoing experimental chemotherapy for a liver disease, and including a year long period of mixing, Sweet Heart Sweet Light was released in April 2012, on Double Six Records. The band had already played some of this new material over the past 3 years but not much else was known about the content of the album. The album cover, an octagon surrounding the word "Huh?" on a plain white background, is a reference to the working title of the album. In an interview regarding the new release it was revealed that the album would "embrace" more poppy songs compared to previous albums. In the same interview, Jason Pierce also said that the album was partly inspired by the experiences of performing "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space" live in its entirety.
On the 18th of March 2013 it was announced that Spiritualized would be headlining Truck Festival in Oxfordshire on Friday the 19th of July 2013.
Earwig - Scraped Out (+playlist)
Earwig /Insides seen as one of the earliest examples of what came to be known as post-rock in the UK, a genre that included Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis, Laika and Pram, to designate bands that used guitars but were not interested in ‘rocking’, and was not closely linked in the UK to the short-lived indie shoegazing scene, which centred rather on a clutch of post-My Bloody Valentine bands such as Chapterhouse, Ride, Lush, Boo Radleys, Catherine Wheel and Moose.
They later changed their name to Insides and operated mostly as the duo of Kristy and Sergei, and honed their vision on the Euphoria album on 4AD in 1993.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Archaster - The Saddest Boy In The World
Archaster, aka Francis Yu, is a dream-pop artist from Valenzuela, Philippines. Equipped with his semi-working guitar, Casio keyboards, tambourine and Cool Edit Pro 2, he records bedroom songs for his friends. Would You Like Some Tea? is a perfect next chapter in his calm, dreamy and melancholic songbook, following the self released digital eps Willow Low and Badly Written Rhymes, a split with Eveden on Dufflecoat (UK), collaborations with Some Gorgeous Accident and Tarsius on Numberline Records (Philippines), and contributions for Popscene Manila and Sea Indie compilations. If you like daydreaming on a sleepy afternoon, watching the moonlight, listening to sad melodies, and the dreamy-soundscapes of Harper Lee, The Velvet Underground, Luna or The Magnetic Fields, then let Archaster's music be your lullaby.
KID WISE - HOPE (OFFICIAL VIDEO)
Emerging from the vibrant rock scene Toulouse, Kid Wise is an indie pop band led by the young pianist / singer Augustin Charnet, joined in autumn 2012 by five musicians around his first EP "Wisdom."
The band has just released their second EP titled "Renaissance" in digital, with the participation of a set of strings and brass came from France, Belgium and England. "Renaissance" also released in physical version exclusively FNAC Monday, October 28.
Vampire Weekend - Step (Official Lyrics Video)
Vampire Weekend is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 2006. They are currently signed to XL Recordings. The band consists of four members: lead vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, guitarist/keyboardist and backing vocalist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer and percussionist Chris Tomson, and bassist and backing vocalist Chris Baio. The band released its first album Vampire Weekend in 2008, which produced the singles "Mansard Roof", "A-Punk", "Oxford Comma", "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", and "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance". The band's second album, Contra, was released in 2010. Their third studio album,Modern Vampires of the City, was released on May 14, 2013.
On November 11, 2011, it was revealed that Vampire Weekend had been in the studio, writing and recording material for their third album. On April 26, 2012, Rolling Stone reported that the new album could be released by the end of the year. Koenig said, "We do have a ton of stuff. It would be cool if it was [released] this year...We just never want to be in a position [where] when we put out something, we feel could've benefited from more time." Until its release, members have been decidedly discreet about the details of the next album, stating that a band "can give a bunch of interviews when they're working on stuff" but they "don't want something [they] said six months ago to influence how people hear it when it's done."
Modern Vampires of the City was released in May 2013, and written and recorded in various locations including SlowDeath Studios in New York, Echo Park "Back House" in Los Angeles, Vox Recording Studios in Hollywood, Rostam Batmanglij's New York apartment and a guest house on Martha's Vineyard. The album was co-produced by Batmanglij and Ariel Rechtshaid. After Batmanglij produced the first two albums himself, this marked the first time the band worked with an outside producer on any of their records.[19]
In an interview for the February 2013 edition of Q (released in mid-January), Koenig described the upcoming album as "darker and more organic" and "very much the last of a trilogy". The album was recorded and co-produced by Ariel Rechtshaid in his Los Angeles Studio (alongside Batmanglij). The band discussed the album with The FADER and appeared on the cover of the magazine's 84th issue. On March 16, 2013, the band played the closing show at Stubbs on the last day of the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. In the show they played two new songs from the upcoming album: "Diane Young" and "Ya Hey". On March 18, 2013, Vampire Weekend released a double-sided single, "Diane Young"/"Step". On May 11, 2013, Vampire Weekend were featured as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live with Kristen Wiig hosting, their third time on the show. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts. This marks the second time Vampire Weekend has achieved such a historic feat: its sophomore album Contra also debuted at #1 in 2010, making this the first time an independent rock band has entered at #1 with two consecutive releases. Modern Vampires of the City also shattered the previous record for first week vinyl sales, moving nearly 10,000 units on vinyl alone and debuting at #1 on the Soundscan Vinyl Charts. Additionally, the band charted #1 at Indie, Alternative, Digital and the top 200.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)