Grizzly Bear - “Knife”
MySpace: myspace.com/grizzlybear
Add comment May 27th, 2007
Archive for May, 2007
The National - “BOXER”
The National’s songs embrace a frame of mind that may be more familiar from movies than from daily life: a bleary urban predawn in which a deadpan antihero drifts among alienation and yearning, cynicism and vulnerability. “You were always weird, but I never had to hold you by the edges like I do now,” Matt Berninger sings in his resigned, morose baritone. “Walk away now and you’re gonna start a war.”
Ominous ambiguity fills the National’s fifth album, “Boxer.” In “Brainy,” Mr. Berninger sings, “Think I’d better follow you around/You might need me more than you think you will.” He could be a guardian or a stalker, but behind him, the music rises reassuringly, switching from a dark minor-key verse to major-key affirmations.
The National got started in Cincinnati before moving to Brooklyn, but its music looks toward Britain. With a steady eighth-note pulse, uninflected drumbeats and layers of guitars entwined around Mr. Berninger’s midtempo melodies, its song structures revive the 1980s mope-rock of New Order and the Cure. Yet the National’s songs aren’t aimed at clubland; they’re elaborated with orchestral brasses and strings that make them weightier and more inward-looking, dissolving 1980s nostalgia in the music’s sheer intricacy.
There are verbal nuggets throughout the album — “You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends” — but it’s not the antihero sentiments that make the songs memorable; it’s the methodical yet obsessive patterns that frame them.
The National is to play five sold-out shows May 28 to June 1 at the Bowery Ballroom.
Aug 17 at South Street Seaport, NYC
-JON PARELES
Taken from: nytimes.com
Add comment May 26th, 2007
Battles - “Mirrored”
2007 has been an amazing year for records so far - and we haven’t even reached Summer yet. As well as stunning turns by Von Sudenfed, Dinosaur Jr and Dalek we’ve had three stone cold classics in the form of ‘Sound of Silver’, ‘The Magic Position’ and now this. Battles, for the uninitiated, are a four piece featuring ex-Helmet sticksman John Stanier, multi-instrumentalist Ty Braxton, former Don Caballero guitarist and keyboardist Ian Williams and Dave Konopka from Lynx. They caused something of a stir a year or so ago when Warp gave their first two EPs a licensed release in the UK and they came over for a number of gigs including an amazing turn at Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival.
But if people had them pinned down as math rock experimentalists (an incorrect assumption even then) this album visibly dispels that myth immediately. From the opener ‘Race: In’ this album is a sunburst of ideas and styles, presumably painstakingly written, and fairly difficult to play but never anything less than instantaneously accessible. The set up works like this: John hammers out the kind of jazz and metal inflected breaks that work as a focal point for the rest of the band, who evolve and devolve loops all around him. Trilling and thrilling themes ebb and flow, keyboard riffs ape guitars which in turn ape processed vocal loops. Amazingly this is actually how they sound live as well, at any one point during a track by Battles up to eight instruments (vox included) are being played by four people.
The most astounding track on an astounding album is the aptly titled ‘Atlas’, which is a conceptual joke of sorts. The Helmet vet travels regularly to see his girlfriend in Cologne where the DJs had grown really sick of the minimalist Kompact scene and started hanging out in rock clubs before transferring their own lolloping Glitter beat to techno tunes to create shcaffel; the sound that would eventually influence Goldfrapp and Rachel Stevens. Battles thought it would be funny to cover the techno as a rock band and see what the results would be like. They were, of course, phenomenal. Elsewhere the symphonic prog pop of The Cardiacs informs on ‘Ddiamondd’; the sumptuous horror-show of ‘Rembrandt Pussy Horse’-era Buttholes on the creepy ‘Leyendecker’ and the twitchy jazz rock of ‘Tij’. This is not just an album that can be appreciated by fans of the avant-garde, pop and rock alike but a genuine fuck you to the people claiming modern music has nowhere left to go. Essential.
John Doran
But if people had them pinned down as math rock experimentalists (an incorrect assumption even then) this album visibly dispels that myth immediately. From the opener ‘Race: In’ this album is a sunburst of ideas and styles, presumably painstakingly written, and fairly difficult to play but never anything less than instantaneously accessible. The set up works like this: John hammers out the kind of jazz and metal inflected breaks that work as a focal point for the rest of the band, who evolve and devolve loops all around him. Trilling and thrilling themes ebb and flow, keyboard riffs ape guitars which in turn ape processed vocal loops. Amazingly this is actually how they sound live as well, at any one point during a track by Battles up to eight instruments (vox included) are being played by four people.
The most astounding track on an astounding album is the aptly titled ‘Atlas’, which is a conceptual joke of sorts. The Helmet vet travels regularly to see his girlfriend in Cologne where the DJs had grown really sick of the minimalist Kompact scene and started hanging out in rock clubs before transferring their own lolloping Glitter beat to techno tunes to create shcaffel; the sound that would eventually influence Goldfrapp and Rachel Stevens. Battles thought it would be funny to cover the techno as a rock band and see what the results would be like. They were, of course, phenomenal. Elsewhere the symphonic prog pop of The Cardiacs informs on ‘Ddiamondd’; the sumptuous horror-show of ‘Rembrandt Pussy Horse’-era Buttholes on the creepy ‘Leyendecker’ and the twitchy jazz rock of ‘Tij’. This is not just an album that can be appreciated by fans of the avant-garde, pop and rock alike but a genuine fuck you to the people claiming modern music has nowhere left to go. Essential.
John Doran
Taken from: playlouder.com
MySpace: myspace.com/battlestheband
Play at: July 20 at Studio B - Brooklyn, NY
Aug 31 at Seaport Music Festival, NYC
Add comment May 26th, 2007
DISKULL @ EPISTROPHY
SUNDAY MAY 27 @ 6PM
DJ D-MARCO
Epistrophy Cafe
200 Mott St Betw Spring & Kenmare St.
NYC 10012
212.966.0904
1 comment May 22nd, 2007
Don’t miss it!! - Apostle of Hustle
Don’t miss it!!!!
play:
June 11th 18th and 25th at The Mercury Lounge, NYC
June 24th at Central Park SummerStage, NYC
Jun 17th at Union Hall Brooklyn, NY
Band: apostleofhustle.com
MySpace: myspace.com/apostleofhustle
Add comment May 19th, 2007
VOXTROT
Just in time for summer’s porch nights and lightning bugs, Voxtrot provides the fittingly innocent coos of their self-titled debut. Hailing from the musical haven of Austin, Texas (home to the ballooning South by Southwest Festival), the five-piece band outlines its three-EP follow-up with a mini-documentary (available on the Web site) and 11 shiny new tracks, each suitable to please any poofy 1960s prom queen. Every neatly packed tune is wrapped so snugly in the sweetly expressive vocals of Ramesh Srivastava - over soft, paced guitar, percussion and assorted strings - that by the end, Voxtrot is one big, bulging indie-pop gift. From opener “Introduction,” the band fabricates a faint and elegant world, fading in layered instruments that give way to crystal clear bittersweetness like, “And you love me just like a stranger/ And you love me just like I am.” But with nary a moment for grievance, “Kid Gloves” livens the step with quick guitar strokes, “Stephen” spins the theatrics of a Freddie Mercury-worthy spectacle - with spoken word and abundant piano chords - and the drawing chorus of “Firecracker” is underscored with a foot-stomping dance-floor rhythm.Final track and single “Blood Red Blood” ends on a strong note, building with insecure outbursts and a steady rise of static intensity. Focusing less on the proceeding Belle and Sebastian-esque murmurs and more on the elements of rock, unkempt horn squawks break the instrumental cookie-cutter and an emotional chant explosion - “Got to lift your face to the breaking day/ It’ll eat you up, blood red blood” - proves this season is more than sunshine and rainbows.
By Kathryn Berk
Taken from: ucsdguardian.org
Band: voxtrot.net
Add comment May 19th, 2007
FABRICLIVE 33 - Spank Rock
The Spank Rock hip-hop collective — three producers cum deejays plus an emcee — has been widely praised for its genre-bending, nasty fusion of party rap and electro-sleaze. So you might think a Spank Rock mix would be a wild, eclectic affair. Think again. FabricLive 33, Spank Rock’s contribution to the FabricLive mix series, doesn’t straddle diverse genres the way you might expect.
On paper, the track list seems to boast considerable variety, with twenty-seven tracks spread across a seventy-minute mix. But despite the broad(ish) range of artists, the mix maintains a steady course, sonically speaking. For better or worse, listeners are in for a consistent stream of artfully trashy dance grooves, with a few chunks of hip-hop floating in the middle. Tracks by Daft Punk (”Technologic”), Dominatrix (”The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight”), and Spank Rock’s own remix of CSS’s “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above” set the tone.
Though lacking in sonic variety, the mix is cleverly assembled. Tracks from later in the track list are “teased” in early transitions while bits and pieces from earlier cuts reprise later on. But the mix is slightly marred by a few clumsy transitions and the fact that its energy peters out toward the end. At about fifty minutes in, the plodding Maurice Fulton remix of Hot Chip’s “Over and Over” has an effect reminiscent of a cold shower.
In fact, the mix is generally lacking in the Sexy. At its best, Spank Rock’s music has a rough, horny edge to it. It’s music to fuck to; FabricLive 33 seems more like music for doing laundry on a Sunday afternoon. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se, but we really can’t be expected to “shake it ’til our dicks turn racist” at the Laundromat. Shaking it in this manner is a surefire way to get thrown out of the Laundromat. Trust me on this.
Considering the visceral appeal of Spank Rock’s original material and live act, you wonder if the boys couldn’t have provided a mix with a higher thrill count. Other than the undeniably genius inclusion of Yes’s “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” the mix is woefully short of highlights. FabricLive 33 is competent and at times enjoyable, but it’s hard not to think the group could have delivered something with a little more personality
Taken from: prefixmag.com
Group: http://www.spankrock.net/
Label: http://www.fabriclondon.com/
Audio: http://www.myspace.com/spankrock
Add comment May 19th, 2007
MAY DISKULL DANCE PARTY
BAND:
VIA AUDIO
DJS:
LESTER
LADY Z
D-MARCO
MRS MOUSTACHE
@
ROSE LIVE MUSIC
345 GRAND ST.
WILLIAMSBURG, NY (Map)
Tel. 718.599.OO69
VIA AUDIO - Photo by: Mitch
Mp3: Modern Day Saint
Add comment May 13th, 2007
Patrick Wolf at Highline Ballroom
Patrick Wolf at Highline Ballroom - May 8 , 2007
Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
Add comment May 10th, 2007
The Jesus and Mary Chain in NYC
Attention New Yorkers! Scottish post-punk act The Jesus and Mary Chain have slated a pair of performances in the Big Apple this May. The two shows, scheduled for May 21 & 22 at Webster Hall.
Add comment May 6th, 2007
FEIST - “The Reminder”
Canadian indie rock songstress and Broken Social Scene component Leslie Feist, known simply by her surname, has announced a 16-date U.S. tour behind the May 1 release of The Reminder, her follow up to 2004’s acclaimed debut Let it Die. The tour, kicking off June 8 in Northampton, MA, will lead Feist, along with supporting act Grizzly Bear who will open all but four dates, through East Coast metropolises such as Boston, Washington, and Atlanta before logging a June 17 performance at the Bonnaroo Festival. From there, the duo will hit assorted cities across America’s mid-section and descend the West Coast from Seattle to Los Angeles.
Taken from:http: Spin.com
Feist play June, 11 & 12 at Town Hall, NYC
Add comment May 6th, 2007
The Noisettes
The band formed in 2003 when guitarist Smith and singer Shoniwa of the band Sonarfly began playing and writing together more often. The two met drummer Morrison (formerly of Living With Eating Disorders, Willis, Six Toes, Jaywalk Buzz and others) in December 2003 and played a number of gigs across London over the winter.
They recorded their debut EP Three Moods of the Noisettes during this time, which was released in April 2005 on London indie label Side Salad Records. This led to signing internationally with Universal Music Group, who released the EP in the US on the Low Altitude imprint. Their next single, “Iwe” was released via the Transgressive label, followed by “Scratch Your Name” on Mercury/Side Salad Records; since then all releases have been on the Vertigo Records label.
Noisettes have toured Europe and the United States extensively, with the likes of TV on the Radio, Tom Vek, Babyshambles, Bloc Party and the Mystery Jets. They supported Muse on a UK and European arena tour in November and December 2006, and have a headline tour of the UK scheduled to promote the release of their debut album What’s the Time Mr. Wolf? in February 2007.
-June 6 Noisettes play at Knitting Factory NYC
Add comment May 5th, 2007