Time again to check in with my good buddies, who just happen to be talented musicians making wonderful new music. I don't hang with scrubs. Gold Lake are back in the area to road test new music that they've been working on for the past few years here and in their native Madrid. I kinda wish I didn't know them (or have seen their childhood photos) so I can give you an unbiased glowing review. So you're stuck with my biased glowing review of their new material. They take queues from Mazzy Star, Broken Social Scene and spaces inbetween with their twangy guitars, electronic flourishes and dreamy vocals. If you can be as so kind, check out their song, "We Already Exist" on their SoundCloud Page.
Years is the name of the debut album. Once it's out, you'll know it here. Trust me on this one folks, they are doing good things.
Happy times with London outfit, The History of Apple Pie. After releasing a series of fun, throwback 90s alt-rock, shoegaze singles ("You're So Cool" is pure magic), they've finally released their debut album, Out of View. Even better, it's available in the U.S. on Marshall Teller Records. It's sugary, fuzzy, hazzy innocence laid out with screeching guitars and lovely vocals.
Tracklisting:
1. Tug 2. See You 3. Mallory 4. The Warrior 5. Glitch 6. You're So Cool 7. I Want More 8. Do It Wrong 9. Long Way to Go 10. Before You Reach The End
No. U.S. tour plans yet, but I will be on the lookout. In the meantime, check out their latest video, it's fore the track "See You"
The latest single and video from mega-buzzed about UK sensation Dan Smith, aka Bastille, finds him stumbling through the desolate landscape that is Los Angeles. "Pompeii" is another free-wheeling electro-pop bomb of joy and sorrow. It comes from his debut album, Bad Blood, out on Virgin in the UK on March 5th. He's already selling out big venues in London, so that means it will probably take him years to breakthrough in the U.S.
Coming out of Chicago and Minneapolis is electro-pop trio On An On. Their debut album, Give In, is out today on Roll Call Records. It's slamming beats with big juicy synths for your headphones and speakers. Nylon called it, '"dream-washed synth pop that never gets too sweet." You can stream this bad boy over at Spinner, Hype-machine or their website.
Their latest video from the album is for the track, The Hunter. It has a lot of long-haired freaks breakling stuff. You'll love it.
As for live dates, they'll have a couple of area dates next month. Right now, they are finishing up some west coast dates with Geographer.
Gone way too long from the music scene, Editors have returned to the studio to start work on new material. This will be the group's first offering without guitarist and my home boy Chris Urbanowicz, who left the band last year. He parted ways with the band during sessions last year with producer Flood over musical direction. Urbanowicz, where you at?
Now, the band is in Nashville to work on the new album. You can follow the band's progress and sample some work on their various social media. This a video they posted about week two of their sessions.
The new album will be the band's first since 2009's In This Light and on This Evening. Between that time, lead singer Tom Smith released a Christmas album with Andy Burrows of We Are Scientists and Razorlight called Funny Looking Angels.
Since I've backed away a bit from all things Black Angeles, being that's I've seen them eight times across two continents, I think it's time get back on that Austin psych vibe. The group is back with a new album, Indigo Meadow, single, tour -- everything you every wanted.
The album will be the band's fourth studio album, the follow-up to 2010's Phosphene Dream. You can listen to a track from the new album below, "Don't Play With Guns."
"Our music has always tried to shed light on issues that may be hard to
deal with or confront," says singer/guitarist Alex Maas. "If people
think they can ignore the issues, they are wrong. Don't play with guns,
don't touch a hot stove, don't give your child a poisonous snake, don't
turn the cheek when artists are willing to discuss these issues."
Love it. It's grimy, dirty, freaky.
Producer/mixer John Congleton (David Byrne & St. Vincent, Explosions In The Sky, Clinic) helmed the album, which comes out on the Blue Horizon label.
To go with the new music, is an extensive North America tour. Tour supports comes from Allah-Las, Elephant Stone, Hanni El Khatib and Wall of Death (the french band I saw open for them when they I saw them in Brussels).
April 4: Georgia Theatre -- Athens w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 5: The Orange Peel -- Asheville, NC w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 6: Black Cat -- Washington, D.C. w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 7: Union Transfer -- Philadelphia w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 8: Webster Hal -- New York w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 11: Royale -- Boston w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 12: Le National -- Montreal w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 13: Danforth Music Hall -- Toronto w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 15: Magic Stick -- Detroit w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 16: Beachland Ballroom -- Cleveland w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 17: Newport Music Hall -- Columbus, OH w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 19: Vic Theatre -- Chicago w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 20: Fine Line Music Cafe -- Minneapolis w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 21: The Waiting Room -- Omaha w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 22: Granada -- Lawrence, KS w/Allah-Las, Elephant Stone April 26-28: Austin Psych Fest -- Austin May 2: Spanish Moo -- Baton Rouge, LA w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 3: WorkPlay Theatre -- Birmingham, AL w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 5: Mercy Lounge -- Nashville w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 7: The Vogue -- Indianapolis w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 8: The Firebird -- St. Louis w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 10: Boulder Theater -- Boulder, CO w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 11: The Depot -- Salt Lake City w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 13: Neptune Theatre -- Seattle w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 14: Commodore Ballroom -- Vancouver w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 15: Wonder Ballroom -- Portland w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 17: The Fillmore -- San Francisco w/Hanni El Khatib, Wall of Death May 18: The Glass House -- Pomona, CA w/Wall of Death May 19: Belly Up Tavern -- Solana Beach, CA w/Wall of Death May 21: Mayan Theatre -- Los Angeles w/Wall of Death May 22: Club Congress -- Tucson, AZ w/Wall of Death May 24: Fitzgerald's -- Houston w/Wall of Death May 25: Granada Theater -- Dallas w/Wall of Death May 26 White Rabbit -- San Antonio w/Wall of Death
Billboard has confirmed a report in the French newspaper Le Parisien that Daft Punk has signed with Columbia Records and plans to release a new album this spring. They've been with Virgin since the beginning. This will be the duo's first new material since the TRON: Legacy score.
Plenty of spectulation on who's produced, appears or worked on the album -- Nile Rodgers, Paul Williams, Chilly Gonzales and Giorgio Moroder. So everybody just chill out, polish off your motorcycle helmet and wait for the official details.
Good afternoon, comrades. It's time to dust off your Russian, Polish and passports because Blur will be headlining some festivals thousands of miles away. Yup, start booking flights. It's a long trek using several carriers, and accommodations will be a little on the rough side.
Even better, the google translate desribes that band as the following:
Annual
Picnic Festival Posters announces headlining tenth Picnic: they will be
Blur - perhaps the best British band of the last two decades. The
team that wrote 'Girls and Boys', 'This Is a Low', 'Tender', 'Coffee
& TV', 'Country House' and many other songs that millions of people
around the world know by heart group, determined the development of rock
90s music - intelligent, expressive, and fun at the same time, the
group, which became the British music in Russia, a group that returned
two years ago on a musical Olympus, and proved that they are still the
best of the best. In Russia, the performances of the musicians were waiting for the last 10 years. And now it's time to: Blur rightly become one of the most exciting musical experience of the summer of 2013.
Exactly, a musical Olympus!
If Russia is too far away from, there's always Poland. The Heineken Open'er Festival takes place July 3-6 at the Babie Doly Airfield in lovely Gdynia, Poland. Other headliners are Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, and Kings of Leon.
If you're not feeling adventurous or just a wuss, I guess you can go to California for Coachella. Let me know how it is. I'm going to wait for others dates.
And it's a shame that Stone Roses are listed before Blur. It will be Blur's first U.S. date in ten years, and first with Graham in 14 years.
Hey, look who is back on this space in live form, Palma Violets. Yeah, you've known about them and how insane they are as a live act because you follow me and my international exploits. Yeah, the music snobbery lifestyle begs me to tell you that this is my second time seeing, but first in the U.S. I'm glad everyone is having a good time during 3-night Brooklyn jaunt this month. So for me, this was revisiting my cracking good time I had with them in Edinburgh. I'll just copy and paste the text from back then onto this post, just to see if you notice
It was 80% the same show from October. It took the Brooklyn crowd a few songs for them to wake up and start getting into it. Edinburgh crowd was rioting the first song. It happens. The band's performance was about on par from back then. They don't hold back. It all stems from Chilli Jesson, bassist and sometimes lead singer. They may look and act sloppy, but man, they crank out the hits with flare. As far as I can remember, they played the same songs 'Rattlesnake Highway", "Summer Wine" "Best of Friends", "14", "Tom the Drum". They definitely played longer tonight, a good 45 minutes of crowd pleasing, riot-inducing garage rock.
Basically, the show enhanced my appreciate for the band, their rough around the edges performing, spot on tunes and their good time attitude. This is the time to see them, in the small venues, before the dick heads of the world become fans and ruin the shows. They have the chops to make legions of new fans this year, who are just starting to come around.
The show made me itch more for their debut album, 180, out next month on Rough Trade (not sure when the U.S. release will be). It's going to be Top of the Pops, you knows it. Now, I want to see them outside of the BK scene, like in Hoboken or Philly, so I can see the crowd reaction. I anticipate it will be the same.
To end, the major difference between the two times I've seen them, the end time. Tonight, midnight, Edinburgh - 9:30pm, and it had two opening acts. COME ON. Fucking NYC, end these damn things at a normal time.
Following up on a band I wrote about last May, UK band Fear of Men have their sites on a U.S. debut with SXSW nonsense and a March 20th date at Pianos in NYC so far. More importantly, they've collected their various singles and B-sides into one little bundle of joy and will call it Little Fragments. Kanine Records will release the compilation, which includes tracks Green Sea, Seer and Born, on February 12.
As I've stated before, they are the sound of Tim Burton going surfing. Dream poppy, dreary, endearing, you know, comforting stuff.
