New Track – Fabrizio Moretti : Inside Out (Spoon Remix)
Spoon is set to release a new EP of remixes on April 28. The collection will feature remixed tracks from They Want My Soul by Fabrizio Moretti of the Strokes, Dan Boeckner’s band Operators, Tycho, and film composer Brian Reitzell.
Listen to Moretti’s remix below.
Inside Out (Fabrizio Moretti Remix) from Loma Vista on Vimeo.
Video – Courtney Barnett : Kim’s Caravan
Courtney Barnett has released the devastatingly beautiful and poignant video for “Kim’s Caravan” from the debut album Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit, an album which recently debuted at number 10 on the US Billboard album sales charts. “Kim’s Caravan” will be released as a special Record Store Day 12″ and is paired with a gorgeous and intimate recording of John Cale’s “Close Watch” as the B-Side.
Indie Artists Commissioned to Create Murals Inspired by Video Game
For the uninitiated, the launch of a highly-anticipated video game can be, in many ways, similar to a movie premiere. Parties are thrown, members of the press are called over, and in some cases, murals are painted.
This was the case when Ubisoft launched “Far Cry 4” in November of last year, and the game developer, showing a great interest in street art, not just commissioned artists to create two murals inspired by the game for its launch, but also threw a street art gallery event to allow fans to interact with the independent artists who created the in-game murals. The street art gallery event gave attendees the chance to experience the game firsthand, as well as watch artists create three in-game murals and win prizes.
Ubisoft also commissioned artists David Loran, Nick Sweetman, Bruno Smoky, Shalak Attack, and Jeff Blackburn to create two large murals inspired by the game, and according to The Canadian Press, while the artists braved the cold weather to pull off the project, it also helped them get a feel for the game. ““Far Cry 4,” due out Nov. 18, is set in the fictional Himalayan region of Kyrat. And the artists must have felt they were right there on the weekend, braving chilly two-degree conditions while creating their art in a downtown Toronto parking lot,” writes Neil Davidson.
“Far Cry 4” received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics when it was released, as it follows the current trend of video games now incorporating more than one genre into their gameplay. Similar to how Spin Genie has incorporated action-adventure elements into the slot genre, “Far Cry 4” created an open-world adventure that allowed gamers to experience a new, vastly interactive world every time they entered the game. In the game, players are able to encounter various wildlife from the Himalayan landscape, as well as explore villages and settlements to immerse themselves in the culture of the fictional country the game takes place in. These served largely as the inspiration for the mural.
David Loran has had experience creating murals of all sizes, both indoors and outdoors. The elephant mural he created for Ubisoft took him 6-8 hours, as he rendered it digitally before starting work with his spray-paint cans. “The difficult part was doing this dust powder effect, kinda like in the game,” Loran says of the experience. “Apparently, in “Far Cry 4”, a lot of the characters turn into powder, and it’s like a whole new thing, like a look that their game has.”
The rest of the mural took much faster to complete because it had multiple artists working on it at once. Shalak Attack has posted a video of the creation of the mural:
New Track – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard : God Is In The Rhythm
Count on this group of Australian weirdos to come up with an idea like this – a 12” of four songs, each 10 minutes and 10 seconds long, accompanied by an insane painting of four different worlds melding together. Who are we to refuse them?
To honor the inherent twenty-five percentedness of this record, the band has created a special Drawn and Quartered edition – the colored vinyl will be quarter pie-slices of Translucent Red, Opaque Grimace Purple, Translucent Ice Blue, and black, and the artwork will be a custom designed poster of the full artwork that folds into a gatefold jacket for the record, and opens up to a 24” x 24” poster of the art on one side and the lyrics on the other. It’ll only be available from our webstore and from the band directly, so do yourself a (huge) favor and sign up for the mailing list here.
New Track – Donald Cumming : Game of The Heart
Donald Cumming, Former lead singer and founder of the band The Virgins. will release his highly anticipated debut solo album, Out Calls Only, on June 16th on Washington Square, the label imprint formed by Razor & Tie. Listen to the first track “Game Of The Heart”, recorded at East Village Recording Center with additional work done at Sullivan Street Studios in Manhattan.
Video – Moon Duo : Animal
After sharing debut single, “Animal,” which has an early West Coast punk viciousness unique to the Moon Duo catalog, the band is now presenting the video directed by and starring skateboarding legend Richie Jackson. As described by Ripley, “We loved Richie Jackson’s skate videos, the idea of a psychedelic skater, something outside of the norm. We contacted him and he had the idea of doing the world’s first skate video without a skateboard, and we were sold right there.”
Shadow of the Sun is available for pre-order now. iTunes’ pre-orders come with an instant download of “Animal,” which, in a nod to a great pop tradition, will also appear as the A-side of a 7-inch packaged with each copy of the vinyl edition and exist as the final track of the album on the CD and digital versions.
Video – Twin Peaks : Making Breakfast
After a quick jaunt to the UK, Twin Peaks have returned and they have a new video to share, the playful “Making Breakfast,” directed by their regular collaborator Ryan Ohm.
New Track – Parkay Quarts : Uncast Shadow of a Southern Myth
On Content Nausea , we find Parkay Quarts confidently exploring sounds that were previously only hinted at; Townes Van Zandt, Warren Zevon, and Dylan are evident points of departure on “Uncast Shadow of a Southern Myth”, a lonesome tale about “two men tragically colliding in the deep south”.
New Track – Belle and Sebastian : The Party Line
Taken from the forthcoming Belle and Sebastian album Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, “The Party Line” is the first radio single since “Come on Sister” from their previous album, 2010’s Write About Love.
Stream it below:
.
Video – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart : Kelly
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart share the video for their latest single “Kelly” today. It was shot by the band’s friend and longtime collaborator, Art Boonparn. The band is currently on tour and will join back up with The New Pornographers for another run of dates in Nov. The band also recently released a deluxe edition of their 2014 LP Days of Abandon, with 5 bonus tracks. You can listen to one of these bonus tracks, “Summer of Dreams” here. You can buy the deluxe album right now via iTunes or listen to it on Spotify.
Video – Pond : Elvis Flaming
Pond’s lead single, ‘Elvis’ Flaming Star’ stomps like a ’70s glam band coached by Bowie, before collapsing into and out of a mid-tune daydream.
Video – Thurston Moore : Speak to the Wild
Watch Thurston Moore’s video for “Speak to the Wild” from his new solo album Best Day.
Video – Ty Segall : The Singer
With nothing but the junk and the ghosts and his guitar, Ty draws us magnetically into the power of the Singer. Then the guitar solo sings out – and as it bites down, the room begins to spin.
Video – Chromeo : Old 45’s
In Chromeo’s new video for “Old 45’s”, Dave kicks it with HAIM before Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder) shows up to steal his girl.
Video – The New Pornographers : Dancehall Domine
The official music video for The New Pornographers’ new single, “Dancehall Domine” is meant to feel like a whole bunch of B-roll clips or film fragments sort of strung together as if they’re taken from some Italian or French musical.
Video – Rosebuds : Blue Eyes
Official video for “Blue Eyes” from the Rosebuds 2014 album Sand + Silence.
Recording Sand + Silence involved a collaboration with Justin Vernon, spending a week in his Wisconsin studio to create what would become a new Rosebud era-the energy of which can be felt immensely in their new video for ‘Blue Eyes,’… the resulting sound is more hook-heavy tunes that brim with sheer joy and herald a welcome return for the North Carolina band.
First Listen Live – The New Pornographers perform NPR Music
To celebrate the release of their new album, Brill Bruisers, The New Pornographers recently performed an NPR Music “First Listen Live” at the legendary Brill Building.
Video – Parquet Courts : “Bodies Made Of” Live At Sugarhill Supper Club
People may remember the epic record release show Parquet Courts staged at Bedford Stuyvesant’s Sugarhill Supper Club back in June. It was a sweaty, inebriated affair that reportedly led to 8 future weddings, 4 children being conceived, 3 breakups, and 1 animal attack (note: none of these reports have been substantiated or, furthermore, reported). Luckily for everyone who missed it, acclaimed directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard (known for the recent Nick Cave documentary, 20,000 Days on Earth) were there to capture the scene. Here’s a snippet of what they caught, which was edited into a video for the band’s Sugarhill performance of “Bodies,” one of the standout tracks on this year’s critically acclaimed album Sunbathing Animal (What’s Your Rupture?/Mom+Pop).
Video – Broken Bells : Control
Broken Bells have unveiled the accompanying video for their new single “Control” from After the Disco(Columbia). Join Brian Burton and James Mercer on an alien adventure through space and time. The video, as is true with the band’s previous visual pieces, features the omnipresent, extraterrestrial pink orb.
New Track – Julian Casablancas & The Voidz : Where No Eagles Fly
Julian Casablancas+The Voidz are premiering the video for “Where No Eagles Fly,” from their forthcoming debut album, Tyranny. Directed by guitarist Jeramy Gritter, watch the video here and buy the track for $.59 here from Cult Records. Tyranny is out on Cult Records September 23 in the U.S./Canada, September 26 in Australia and October 13 internationally.
