Luke Roberts recently signed to Thrill Jockey and announced he will be fleeing New York City in search of freedom. What form does freedom take in this day and age?
“…why leave New York? Well, for one, there’s no place to park a 1979 Chevy Tioga, it’s also expensive, and there are no alleys (which is annoying to everyone who’s ever lived anywhere else). “ Ultimately, though, the musician plans to eat “a lot of Arby’s Bacon Beef and Cheddar sandwiches” which is highly understandable.
You can grab the MP3 download for Unspotted Clothes single and watch the video directed by James Clauer, who did work on Harmony Korine’s “Gummo”, and the video for Dime Song below:
Paper Crows show you how to make paper crows. The instructional video is put to the sounds of “Gone”, the B-Side track to their upcoming single “When Friends Survive” which you can listen to here: Paper Crows – When Friends Survive by Paper Crows
Brooklyn band nihiti have put out a new ep entitled Faced with Splendor on lo bit landscapes record label. It’s a solid 5-track ep to follow up their previous release other people’s memories and is a more approachable album with its more pop-savvy, structured songs. You can grab the mp3 for the track Pinko Morning below.
The Golden Filter are collaborating with Scandinavian director Kristoffer Borgli to create a short film entitled Syndromes to be released on October 10. The trailer for the short film features their track called “Mother” and focuses on a protagonist with special talents such as self combustion and the ability to levitate inanimate objects without contact. The trailer is beautifully shot and paired with the score it promises to be a great collaborative effort. The film will be released on The Golden Filter’s record label Perfectly Isolated and The Vinyl Factory will release a limited edition run of the soundtrack.
Keep an eye out for Audego, a Melbourne, Australia duo, comprised of Pasobionic (TZU & Curse ov Dialect) teams up with one of Australia’s finest female vocalists, Big Fella, aka – Carolyn Tariq (Defend the Melody). You can preview Rhapsody for the Wicked off their debut album that will be released this fall. The track features delicate and sexy vocals over some sick “smudged samples, blurred synths, and crooked percussion.”
Brooklyn based rapper Richard Rich just put out Get Your Money Vol. 2: Sick & Tired, his 4th product in a little over a year. Sick & Tired is yet another hand-crafted and perfected piece of work that is accurately described as full of “classic/quirky rap instrumentals, motivational messages, obscure rock samples, introspective thoughts on the human condition, hood ass shit, bittersweet hope”. I’m sticking with hood ass shit.
Richard Rich’s vocals cut through the instrumentals like a knife delivering witty and intelligent yet often silly and fart-jokey rhymes that leave you wondering “Is he really serious?” But given the quality with which he delivers you know he must be.
Discosalt artistViktor Timofeev has announced the release of his new album Give Health999 on Lo Bit Landscapes. Viktor has been getting a lot of attention the past couple of years since his move from New York City to Berlin focusing in on his visual art career but will soon be getting paralleled notoriety for his music career.
Martin Chohen, bassist turned singer / songwriter and frontman of Milk Maid, formerly of Nine Black Alps, recently recently recorded and released the debut album Yucca. Recorded in Cohen’s apartment in Macnchester, UK Yucca is an intelligent and solid album that offers up gritty guitar and often dark or concerning lyrics over “sweet, sun-drenched pop hooks”.
Yucca is what I imagine a Sonic Youth album would sound like if they had been from California and not New York. The range and versatility of Yucca can be seen with tracks like “Not Me” wailing heavy guitar action, the seemingly happy pop jam “Dead Wrong”, and the down-and-out lullaby “Someone You Thought You Forgot”.
Yucca is an album that could almost be a course book for a class on modern music history but without any obvious or direct references. In the past 2 years there has been a resurregence of bands that nod to 1950′s and 60′s girl group sound. While many of these bands are great many of them alsmost sound as if they could have been released in that era and no one might have known that they were made in the future and zipped back to be released via time machine, logically. Listening to this album you know that Yucca was made in current times – it’s obvious they know too much. The maker of this album must have a matured and very aware sense of where pop music has been and where it is now. They have been exposed to pop rock, garage rock, surf rock, punk and post-punk. They know what they are doing.
I highly recommend picking up Yucca and blaring it while the weather is still nice. Preorder it at FatCat Records.
White Hills have released a video for the song Paradise off their latest album H-p1. T This album finds more ambient sounds that “recall a German kosmische vibe” .The NYC act will be setting off their US/ European Tour in their hometown on September 3. Check out more dates and videos below.
Sep 3 Brooklyn, NY Aviator Sports Complex w/Psychic Paramount, Pictureplane
Sep 8 Vancouver, BC The Biltmore Cabaret w/Sleepy Sun
Sep 9 Seattle, WA Nectar Lounge w/Sleepy Sun, Kinski
Sep 10 Portland, OR Ash Street Saloon w/Eternal Tapestry, Pierced Arrows
Sep 14 San Francisco, CA Rickshaw Stop w/Carleton Melton
Sep 15 Long Beach, CA Alex’s Bar w/RTX, Heavy Cream
Sep 16 Los Angeles, CA Nomad Art Gallery w/Sleepy Sun
Sep 17 San Diego, CA Soda Bar
Sep 30 Den Bosch, Netherlands W 2
Oct 1 Leuven, Belgium Het Depot
Oct 2 Cologne, Germany Underground
Oct 4 Vienna, Austria Arena
Oct 5 Feldkirch, Austria Graf Hugo
Oct 6 Stuttgart, Germany 1210
Oct 7 Weimar, Germany Werk
Oct 8 Cottbus, Germany Burning Earth Festival
Oct 9 Berlin, Germany White Trash
Oct 10 Hamburg, Germany Molotow
Oct 11 Bielefeld, Germany AJZ
Oct 13 Olten, Switzerland Quote D’Or
Oct 14 Wurzburg, Germany Cafe Cairo
Oct 15 Darmstadt, Germany 603
Oct 17 Savignano Sul Rubicone, Italy Sidro Club
Oct 18 Rome, Italy Sinister Noise
Oct 19 Quero, Italy Piettro Alternative Sound
Oct 20 Martigny, Switzerland Les Caves Du Manoir
Oct 22 Maastricht, Netherlands Musikgiterij
Oct 23 Birmingham, UK Supersonic Festival
Oct 24 London, UK Corsica
Plaid, one of the main pillars of atmospheric electronic music comprising Andy Turner and Ed Handley, are releasing a long-awaited new album Scintilli (“I am many sparks.”) It will be out on Warp Records on September 25 and you can check out the eerie video for ’35 Summers’ below.
Head on over to Hudson River Park’s River Rocks at Pier 54 in Manhattan tonight to see Metronomy play for FREE! They should be going on at 8:30PM just after Brooklyn based Class Actress opens it up. You can download their Free 2011 Digital Mix Tape, that contains tracks from a lot of the acts on their summer lineup, here.
The long awaited debut EP from Botany is to be released on Western Vinyl on August 16th. The download below, Waterparker, is a light, breezy, bouncy and perfect up-mellow track to help you endure the heat this summer. You can preorder the album from Western Vinyl.
