Straight to Video
Rock Art Rock
See more in the Rock Art Rock gallery.
polls
Loading ...
Now Hear This: Future Islands, “Tin Man”
I’m a huge fan of Baltimore’s Future Islands, so I’m really happy that they’re sharing a new song, “Tin Man“, from their upcoming album, In Evening Air (Thrill Jockey, May 4th) with us today. Describing their sound as “post-wave”, Future Islands combine synth-heavy, energetic dance rhythms with singer Sam Herring’s (center) distinctly passionate delivery. The ethereal chimes of “Tin Man” swirl around a familiar motif in an unlikely but emotional marriage of a cathartic dance anthem and a soulful tear-jerker. I sincerely hope you love it as much as I do. If you do, there’s an extended version of the song due out on a 12″ single, In the Fall, (Thrill Jockey) which is available digitally via iTunes now and physically on April 6th.
Plus: Check out the live video for Future Islands’ “An Apology”, from In Evening Air after the jump!
Heavy Leather NYC: Get Strapped
As a guitar player, I’m generally appalled at the complete lack of style and imagination that seems to control the design of the bulk of your standard, off the rotating rack, music store variety guitar straps. You’ve got your standard plain black synthetic fiber strap with some kind of plastic, utterly breakable adjusters, and your gaudy-patterned alternative in a variety of fruity colors that relies on the same busted hardware. Then there’s the all-leather-silver-eagle-faux-coyote-bone-and- turquoise-colored-plastic-bead-studded TexMex insult to everything collection that retails for astronomical sums inversely proportional to their level of taste. Yeah. Unless I’m four feet tall and singing you a ranchera on BART, forget it.
So where does the aesthetically discerning guitarist with a wee bit of cash to burn turn to satisfy his need to sport a strap that rocks? Heavy Leather NYC, a two-year-old e-boutique HQ’d in good ol’Brooklyn, USA, has the answer to your prayers. Boasting model names like Wild Thing and Ballroom Blitz, founder Rachel Becker’s straps capture the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll in daring designs that don’t spare any expense. Lizard skin, distressed studs, and hand carving combine to form the ultimate in rock guitar straps. And by “ultimate”, I mean Lemmy wears them. No joke. And, in case you’re going for the country look, the store’s Western line does cowboy with class––not a rhinestone in site. Straps start around $70, and are customizable. There’s even a custom “shop” within the store that welcomes design submissions (and prices accordingly).
Rock on. Now all you have to do is learn how to play.
Now Hear This: Stream Happy Birthday’s Debut Before It Comes Out
Sometimes I think I’m woefully sick of lo-fi bands. I hear stuff from the Smith Westerns and I’m ready to renounce listening to anything but the squeakiest of clean productions. And this is coming from a guy who cut his indie teeth on Pavement’s early stuff and Guided By Voices. Then I get the lovely news that Sub Pop is streaming this lovely new record by a band with an almost un-Google-able name for free before it’s even released, and I become glad that I held back the fire and brimstone. I’m going to have to go ahead and agree with Mike’s post-E6 assessment of Happy Birthday, maybe add a stylistic nod to that enclave’s fondness for well-placed wonky sounds, and subtract a lot (but certainly not all) of the weirdness. While it’s not groundbreaking, it sidesteps the perils of unambitious production by stringing together a wall-eyed set of catchy tunes that probably would have worked even if they were recorded on a four-track in someone’s dorm room. Look for them at SXSW.
Mash-Up Monday: Mashup-Germany’s Man-Machine
Ever wonder what Rick James and Tag Team might sound like when paired? How about throwing some random German band into the mix? If you can get past––or better yet, embrace––the language barrier, you’re in for a treat. “Whoomp That Arbeit Nervt”, which I can’t translate, is one of the many imaginative if initially daunting (Justin Bieber & Elton John? Limp Bizkit & anything?) mash-ups posted regularly on Mashup-Germany.
A 25-year-old half-German, half-American DJ who goes by the name BenStilller (note the extra “l”) steadily churns out well-done but strangely concocted mash-ups via the site. Not every song features a German group, but there’s definitely a “foreign” sensibility at work behind the artists BenStilller selects.
Perhaps the cultural stigma of remixing Train doesn’t exist in Germany. Maybe it’s some Teutonic uber-irony incarnate. Or maybe, as the site’s banner claims, “It’s all about creating,” and taste falls secondary to the art of musical recombination. But even if you object to the site’s sonic palette, its pop-tastic perspective is refreshing.
Check out some of Mashup-Germany’s offerings after the jump.
read more
Free Download: Neon Indian, “Sleep Paralysist”
It’s a big week for Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor. The Morning Benders dropped their Rough Trade debut, Big Echo, which Taylor co-produced, on Tuesday. And now, Neon Indian has released a new song, “Sleep Paralysist”, that’s also got Taylor’s co-production stamp on it. It’s like he’s the new, one-man taste maker. Compare “Sleep Paralysist” to what’s on Psychic Chasms and you’ll find the sound has gotten way cleaner. Taylor done good. Start your weekend right and download this kickin’ tune free from Green Label Sound.
Lost Weekend Video: Yello, “The Evening’s Young”
If I ever start a Swiss techno band, I have to make sure that the singer is a millionaire industrialist/professional gambler/competitive golfer. That would be so ’80s! It would also help if he looked sort of like Robert Goulet. And we’d have a sketchy looking ’stache party with back lighting and glo-stix and just all-around jam out together. Dude, that would be like, radical.
No really, I’d love it. Because apart from the fact that Dieter Meier is kinda creepy looking, I’d pretty much say the guy lives in a cocaine fantasy. And there’s more: he owns a ranch in Argentina, serves on the board of a recording studio sound technology company, and does lots of conceptual art. He’s the man. It’s like he chose to be totally awesome with his fortune instead of being a completely evil dick.
I’d like to meet the person that wouldn’t crack a smile at this video.
Free Download: High Places “Can’t Feel Nothing” (Remix)
High Places have a new album, High Places vs. Mankind, coming out April 6th on Thrill Jockey. As a little teaser, the band has released a non-album track, a remix of “Can’t Feel Nothing”.
It’s a dark dance number that’s got some really wicked production going on. Several layers of beat comprise the song’s kinetic drive. The lower registers are pure club bass, while the upper drums ring out, sounding hollow and vaguely tribal. You’ll want to listen to it with headphones on, or blast it from your stereo.
The song will be included on an upcoming 12″ single, Can’t Feel Born, with the original version of “Can’t Feel Nothing” and the song and “I Was Born”, which they released in October. The title’s a mash-up! Get it?
Party on…
Album Review: Liars, Sisterworld
Liars
Sisterworld
(Mute, 2010)
If you haven’t seen the video for “Scissor“, the lead-off track from Liars’ new album, Sisterworld, you’re denying yourself the privilege of viewing the best music video to come out (so far) this year. Artfully shot, well conceived, scary, brutal, and darkly funny, “Scissor” is an excellent taste of what Sisterworld offers.
Liars consistently elude genres. Some people call them an art-rock band, but Sisterworld merely dabbles in “rock”. Shadowy, unsettling, and oozing with a dark, viscous fluidity, the album is truly a world apart.
It can be described in extremes: juxtaposing dynamics and slippery rhythms that debase comfort zones and defy predictability. Musically and lyrically, Sisterworld sounds fixated on challenging established motifs and values. Naturally, the album is noisiest and loudest where the gauntlet is thrown hardest.
New Classics: The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses
It’s plain from the cover of their self-titled classic that the Stone Roses were looking to lead some kind of revolution out of Manchester in the late ’80s. The tri-color banner framed in an abstract expressionist field after American iconoclast Jackson Pollock. The double evocation of lemon slices: tear gas antidote/psychedelic trip enhancer. And, a seamless fusion of acid house and guitar pop contained within.
The definitive “Madchester” album, The Stone Roses finely encapsulated the past, present, and hopeful future of music for fans that flocked to the large outdoor gigs put on by the band in their heyday. The band’s sound was the voice of a culture. Even if that voice spoke only for a brief moment, it’s as eloquent now as it was then. Its ornate but essential guitars hover over an often insatiable beat. It’s as if the band’s keen ear for the past is leading the charge of a relentless, ever-coming present. Thus, revolution becomes not merely part of The Stone Roses‘ context so much as an element of its sound.
New Classics: Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream
by: Andres Jauregui
A lot of the more inarticulate attacks (insert “blah’s” and lame monikers here) on our perennial has-been/villain focus on Corgan’s personality. They’re deserved. But those who choose to attack his creative power at its height are blinded by retrospective anti-hype, and sadly deaf to one of the essential albums of the ’90s.
Siamese Dream is the most perfect expression the Smashing Pumpkins ever achieved as a band, and it’s no secret that it emanated mainly from Corgan. Its intense, saturated sound, a crushed velvet compressed distortion built of layer upon layer of overdubs, rivals Loveless in ingenuity and obsessive greatness. The album’s prog-rock trappings eschewed the conventions of the grunge era, drawing upon resplendent psychedelia yet resonating with the personal angst for which Corgan would become reviled.
read more
by: Andres Jauregui
published: March 17, 2010
in column: New Classics, What Goes On
4 comments
Tags: