The Black Lips - Live in Tijuana
Add comment April 22nd, 2007
Archive for April, 2007
Patrick Wolf - “The Magic Position”
In what is already shaping up to be a classic year for albums (LCD Soundsystem, Grinderman, Battles in the first few months alone) you’ll still have to go a long, long way to find something more enjoyable and satisfying on every level than this album. The freshman album ‘Lycanthropy’ was precocious, bewildering and gauche, the sophomore ‘Wind In The Wires’ was assured and full of promise and now the boy Wolf’s Junior effort is simply jaw-dropping.
The sheer braggadocio of tossing in a joyous tune at the top of the album - the kind that most would save for their centrepiece - and then casually refer to it as an Overture is not misplaced. The second two thirds of this opener ‘The Magic Position’ and ‘Accident and Emergency’ you will already know but deserve quick mention anyway. If I have a definition of what good pop music is, it could be summed up simply by the following; a familiar sounding, catchy song constructed with unfamiliar sounds and textures. ‘A&E’ has this in spades - digital dancehall productions, juddering glitchy electronics make for brilliant backing to Wolf’s ever more confident Bowie/Ferry-esque mannered pop vocals. The title track occupies ground nearer to the centre but given that this resembles Dexy’s Midnight Runners at their most unhinged this is something for celebration indeed.
‘Bluebells’ (part Johnny Boy, part Peter Greenway’s ‘Drowning By Numbers’, part blissed out Suede) proves that he is the real deal, for his intense imagist lyrics, song writing prowess and imaginative sonic powers are only matched by his classic outsider good looks and style. The fucking bastard. The sheer balls of having such a lull in the middle of the record as ‘Magpie’, ‘The Kiss’ and ‘Augustine’ marks this out as being akin to Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’, in it’s senseless but brilliant eclecticism. In fact it’s really hard to find fault with this record at all. (Is there a hint of an American accent creeping into his voice?) Somewhere there is a definitive list of the twenty albums that all freshmen should take away to university with them - ‘The Queen Is Dead’, ‘Low’, ‘Funeral’ and ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’ included. You can add this to that list now. Let’s hope that after his senior effort and beyond he maintains this effortless air of combining childlike curiosity and adult intelligence.
The sheer braggadocio of tossing in a joyous tune at the top of the album - the kind that most would save for their centrepiece - and then casually refer to it as an Overture is not misplaced. The second two thirds of this opener ‘The Magic Position’ and ‘Accident and Emergency’ you will already know but deserve quick mention anyway. If I have a definition of what good pop music is, it could be summed up simply by the following; a familiar sounding, catchy song constructed with unfamiliar sounds and textures. ‘A&E’ has this in spades - digital dancehall productions, juddering glitchy electronics make for brilliant backing to Wolf’s ever more confident Bowie/Ferry-esque mannered pop vocals. The title track occupies ground nearer to the centre but given that this resembles Dexy’s Midnight Runners at their most unhinged this is something for celebration indeed.
‘Bluebells’ (part Johnny Boy, part Peter Greenway’s ‘Drowning By Numbers’, part blissed out Suede) proves that he is the real deal, for his intense imagist lyrics, song writing prowess and imaginative sonic powers are only matched by his classic outsider good looks and style. The fucking bastard. The sheer balls of having such a lull in the middle of the record as ‘Magpie’, ‘The Kiss’ and ‘Augustine’ marks this out as being akin to Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’, in it’s senseless but brilliant eclecticism. In fact it’s really hard to find fault with this record at all. (Is there a hint of an American accent creeping into his voice?) Somewhere there is a definitive list of the twenty albums that all freshmen should take away to university with them - ‘The Queen Is Dead’, ‘Low’, ‘Funeral’ and ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’ included. You can add this to that list now. Let’s hope that after his senior effort and beyond he maintains this effortless air of combining childlike curiosity and adult intelligence.
John Doran
Take from: playlouder.com
Add comment April 22nd, 2007
Electrelane
Electrelane began writing material for their fourth album in Berlin’s Planet Roc studios in the summer of 2006. In September and October 2006 they were in Benton Harbor recording and mixing their album. In November of 2006, the band announced on their official website that they had finished recording and had titled their album ‘No Shouts, No Calls’. The album is due to be released in April 23 2007 in Japan, May 3 2007 in the USA and April 30 2007 elsewhere. It will have eleven tracks. The first single is titled “To the East” and is being released on March 12, 2007.
Electrelane play with Tender Forever / The Blow May 15 at Irving Plaza, NY
Add comment April 22nd, 2007
APRIL DISKULL DANCE PARTY
Friday APRIL 20th 9pm
DJ LESTER
DJ UNCLE VIOLET
DJ MRS MOUSTACHE
ROSE LIVE MUSIC
345 GRAND ST.
WILLIAMSBURG, NY (Map)
Tel. 718.599.OO69
Add comment April 15th, 2007
Bonde Do Role made my week!!
Bonde Do Role - Solta O Frango
Last night this Brazilian people made my week!!
Bonde Do Role play with Klaxon at Studio B In Brooklyn
Add comment April 15th, 2007
CocoRosie
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble—that’s what Bianca Cassady sings like: as if she’s conjuring. But her lyrics aren’t Shakespeare. “Life is like a roller coaster,” she bleats on “Japan,” thus joining the ranks of the F.R.C.S.A., or Fellowship of Roller Coaster Simile Advocates.
So yeah, CocoRosie—Brooklyn’s Sierra and Bianca Cassady—are back with their increasingly inscrutable jams. Welcome to their world of toys: samples of pocket change; gauzy, or reedy, or insect-like synths; drum machines; obnoxious drum machines; some stoner dude talking; Bianca’s sing-speak cackle; opera ephemera. The songs on The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn (yoy) mash all these together like cars crashing in a dense fog. Usually based on just three or four chords, they’re structured like hip-hop (the sisters are big fans), outfitting a repeated loop with motley bells and whistles. Where Lil Jon might say, “Okaaaay,” CocoRosie sample the bleep of an answering machine.
According to the (obnoxious) press materials, this record is supposed to be about some magical transatlantic journey, a road-trip movie directed by Matthew Barney. But I don’t hear that. What I hear are some ineffectual sonic finger painting and lyrics that revel in art-school juxtapositions: “In my heart a flower dies slow/Like a campfire covered in piss.” Such juxtapositions are CocoRosie’s bread and butter: They splash in the gutter, then play in the nursery. They’re lascivious, they’re juvenilely chaste; they’re musicians, they’re defiantly a-musical. Once they could juggle being both captivating and grating. Today, they’re just the latter.
by Garrett Kamps
Taken from: VillageVoice.com
CocoRosie play Warsaw April 20, polishnationalhome.com/warsaw.html.
1 comment April 14th, 2007
Andrew Bird On Letterman Last Night…
Andrew Bird play May 17 @ Webster Hall, NYC
Add comment April 13th, 2007
Björk - “Volta”
Photo by Ohashi Jin
Björk’s first single from Volta, “Earth Intruders,” produced by Timbaland with additional percussion by Konono Nr. 1, is apparently her militant response to our crappy president and kinda boring. Bless her pixie heart and rebel spirit, this is not what we expected considering the names involved. Specifically, why does it sound like Uffie covering “Tusk”? Decide for yourself, but we’re going to hold out for a desert sesh when B.G. and Konono hit Coachella, but if not, Konono’s touring North America and Europe throughout Spring and Summer and we don’t need no stinking Björk to get us geeked. Actually, Björk probably smells nice.
Taken from: TheFader.com
Add comment April 11th, 2007
Cansei de Ser Sexy
CSS play June 01 @ The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza
Add comment April 11th, 2007
Kings Of Leon - “Because Of The Times”
They don’t make seven-minute doomed-teen-lover melodramas like the Kings of Leon’s “Knocked Up” anymore. This is the Tennessee band’s big album-opening saga, building from quiet to loud with guitar licks that sound like the Edge fried in okra, with ominous thunderclap drumrolls. Caleb Followill chokes on his story: He and his cowgirl are gonna have a baby, her mama don’t like it, they don’t care, they’re hitting the road in a Coupe de Ville, no doubt just one step ahead of The Man. “I’ve taken all I’ve had to take/This takin’s gonna shake me,” Caleb declares with his usual throaty passion, gunning for the border as the guitars weave between U2 and Uriah Heep. Car + girl + lots and lots of guitar = “Knocked Up.” Kings of Leon make it sound so simple — and so funny — they make you forget how many other bands go soft trying to run this same road.
It’s an excellent opener to an excellent third album from the Kings. Because of the Times, named after a Southern preachers’ conference that the boys used to attend with their Pentecostal minister father, is a whole album full of songs inspired by the only topic the Kings seem to care about: no-good women, the kind who turn nice country boys into thieves, fugitives or corpses, and make them love every sordid second of it. These are sons of the preacher man: singer-guitarist Caleb, bassist Jared and drummer Nathan are brothers, while cousin Matthew plays lead guitar. The Followills grew up living in a car with their defrocked itinerant minister daddy, Leon, and they basically went into the same business, except they’ve got sticky fingers for sin. On anthemic shitkickers like “Black Thumbnail,” “My Party” and “On Call,” they flare up like Black Oak Arkansas on a jag with the Ozark Mountain Daredevils and the Amazing Rhythm Aces.
When the Kings first arrived on the garage-rock scene a few years ago, they whipped up so much interest right away, nobody really minded that they weren’t any good. Their Grizzly Adams beards, their Bible-thumping family background — it all fed into their fans’ Huck Finn fantasy of unspoiled backwoods boogie. Well, the back story was cute for about five minutes, but the songs didn’t get the job started until their second album, the stunning (and sorely underrated) Aha Shake Heartbreak. From the sounds of the record, the Kings had met a few girls on the road and gotten their asses handed to them. There were all sorts of new energy and wit in the Strokes-Skynyrd music as the Kings unloaded their fantastic groupie tales — the girl in “Soft” would paint your toes and let her “perfect nipples” show, while the girl in “Milk” had an hourglass body and lent you her toothbrush.
Because of the Times is even better — the band doesn’t fuss with any sort of rootsy purism, which is why it gets away with retro moves that would sound soft from anybody else. Matthew Followill keeps getting more expansive dynamics out of his guitar, with salutary Euro influences — “Charmer” has a driving guitar riff swiped from Wire’s “Ex Lion Tamer,” probably by way of Blur’s “Song 2.” “Trunk” has loony, high-lonesome oooohs over some serious swamp-blues guitar murk. Folksy ballads like “Fans” and “The Runner” remind you that the Kings could be as facile as the Black Crowes or Nickelback if they were content to aim that low. Caleb’s vocals continue to defy description: Steppenwolf’s John Kay after a nad-crushing motorcycle crash? The Band’s Richard Manuel with scurvy? Dave Matthews getting ripped apart by wolverines? And did I mention the lyrics? Ridiculous little monsters, they are, fit to get brutally stomped into the dirt, which in fact is exactly how Caleb treats them. How good can the Kings of Leon get? On Because of the Times, they’ve already gone further than anybody could have guessed.
ROB SHEFFIELDTaken from: Rolling Stone Magazine
Add comment April 10th, 2007
Aqueduct - “Or Give Me Death”
If you’re familiar with Aqueduct you’ll be happy to hear that David Terry’s love of the pop hook has only gotten stronger with time. However, unlike i sold gold’s huge, blown-out drum sounds and blip-pop synths, or give me death finds Terry broadening his tonal horizons to encompass mariachi horns, Gershwin-esque strings, looped and layered vocals, and grand piano. Oh and there’s also quite a lot more electric guitar. Terry has grown as an artist since 2005’s i sold gold, and or give me death is his most melodically complex and lyrically mature release to date. It also contains the best song about The Princess Bride EVER!
If you’re not familiar with the story, Aqueduct was founded in Tulsa’s dusty plains as the solo project of pop aficionado David Terry. He relocated to Seattle in 2003, and a mere 12 hours after Terry’s arrival in Seattle, Aqueduct was opening for Modest Mouse at The Showbox. Word spread throughout the Pacific Northwest about the nimble cleverness of Aqueduct’s heartbreaking lyricism and unstoppable piano-laden hooks. Copies of the 2003 self-released cd power ballads were circulated to the delight of many new ears — including those at Barsuk.
After months of culling and polishing new and pre-existing material with the help of producer Matt Pence, Aqueduct completed their full-length, i sold gold, along with an EP, pistols at dawn. Barsuk is proud to have released these documents of infectious bedroom pop-perfection, and while or give me death takes Aqueduct somewhat out of the bedroom, we still think it’s pretty darn perfect pop.
Taken from: barsuk.com
Add comment April 4th, 2007
Blonde Redhead - “23″
I’m probably not the only person that’s posting or already has about the new promo track from Blonde Redhead’s upcoming album 23. But considering how excellent the track is, I figure it wouldn’t hurt to toss my hat into the group as well. The only album i’ve listened to in it’s complete entirety from the group was Misery Is a Butterfly. An incredible record in itself that managed to capture a dark and almost mournful mood with lush and ethereal sounds that continues throughout the entire duration. Other than that, i’ve only dabbled with songs from past releases as i’ve never had much time to sit down and really listen to anything else from them.
About the track itself, which will be the lead single along with being the first track off the album, looks to be a great opener to what we hope will be a great record. A nice continuous drum beat plays along to Kazu Makino’s familiar angelic vocals. I don’t know what it is about asian vocalists but I just can’t get enough of them. Couple this track along with some nice cover artwork, and you’ve got the basis for a great release to look forward to as 23 is due out April 10th on 4AD.
Taken from:theyellowstereo.com
1 comment April 4th, 2007
THE HORRORS - “Strange House”
Like If’s Mick Travis after a nasty bout of electro-shock therapy, The Horrors have waged war on indie conformity over the last 12 months with a sadistic glee. Interviews have seen articulate discourse on everything from Lord Rochester to obscurist psych-rock (the band’s fanzine, Horror Asparagus Stories, takes its name from a single by ‘60s garage types The Driving Stupid). The video for debut single “Sheena Is A Parasite” was directed by Chris “Windowlicker” Cunnigham, starred Samantha Morton and proved them to be men of both wealth (i)and(i) taste - singer Faris Badwan and bassist Tomethy Furse are former pupils of Rugby School (alumni: Rupert Brooke, Lewis Carroll). The band’s image, meanwhile, is a cartoonish gothic which wouldn’t look out of place on the starting grid of Wacky Races.So far so intriguing. But having bagged a hefty deal with Poydor offshoot Loog, the question remains: can The Horrors go the distance? Produced by a slew of heavyweights including Bad Seed Jim Sclavunos, Alan Moulder (Depeche Mode) and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, Strange House has the feel of a record with a troubled gestation. Tunes, heavily influenced by no-wave pioneers Mars and James Chance And The Contortions, come swathed in skeletal surf guitars and two-note organ riffs, whilst the lyrics – a bloody catalogue of death and dissection - suggest Badwan is, like Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka, purging a childhood surrounded by medical textbooks (his father is an eminent neurosurgeon).It’s complex, uncompromising stuff, and, when Badwan howls, “Collarbone crushing/ Like a butcher/Feeling the mash of bone and sinew!” in a rage of sickness and abhorrence in “Gloves”, it’s enough to terrify passing Kooks fans. If the debt to The Velvets becomes obvious on “Excellent Choice” (a rehash of “The Gift”), the overall effect has the magnetic menace of Village Of The Damned. Whilst indie orthodoxy dictates commercial success at all costs, The Horrors are feeling their way through the cobwebs to rock’n’roll’s darkest recesses.
PAUL MOODY
Taken from: UNCUT Magazine
Add comment April 3rd, 2007