Javelin Are Dope
Javelin are the most productive set of cousins since Jerry Lee Lewis and Myra Gale Brown. After releasing two well-received 12 inches on Thrill Jockey, this familial duo from Brooklyn via Providence have just announced their first LP, entitled No Mas, which is due out on Luaka Bop on April 20th. They also just signed up for the upcoming earth-shattering Yeasayer US tour, which will surely do wonders for both of these up and coming indie obsessions.
Pitchfork and Stereogum have already tagged Javelin as a band on the rise, they have also friend requested their chunky 8-bit beats, poked their musical sense of silliness, as well as superpoked their variegated mix of influences, which range from Lauper disco, Dilla, to video games. “Soda Popinski,” could be the greatest one-minute song written for the XBYA controller.
Javelin’s music is infectious in the only positive way that that adjective can be used. “Lindsay Brohan,” will have you dancing as much and just as white as the cast from “Mama Mia,” and your head will weave from side to side in a fashion that went out of style before the advent of memory cards.
Mp3: Javelin – Me Thing Drawing Me
The White Stripes – The Ballet
In November 2006 the award winning contemporary ballet, Chroma, by choreographer Wayne McGregor, debuted at London’s Royal Opera House. Now it is coming across the Atlantic as a part of the National Ballet of Canada’s upcoming season.
The piece received rave reviews in London and here is a quote from the National Ballet of Canada’s website describing the work for their next season.
“Set to a score of orchestrated versions of songs by the rock band The White Stripes, the work pits the angular, rough-edged music and the choreographer’s energetic, exacting style against a stark, minimalist architectural space, allowing the audience to see the nature of physical movement in an entirely new and invigorating light.”
According to a Guardian review via pitchfork the piece features the songs “Blue Orchid” and “The Hardest Button to Button” among others. Jack White has been invited to the premiere in November.
If that’s too long for you to wait, the Milwaukee Ballet is performing Innovative Motion this upcoming weekend at the Pabst Theater. Three captivating works including a world premiere “Let There Be Light” from choreographer Timothy O’Donnell.
Vampire Weekend: Cover Rancid/Take Me Back To My Youth…Again
MP3: Vampire Weekend- Ruby Soho
While listening to Vampire Weekend’s output, especially their first album, a connection to Graceland-era Paul Simon is absolutely undeniable. The afro-pop rhythms shake the same and the vocals of Ezra Koenig are just as silky smooth as the Garfunkel-less Simon. This is not new information nor is it some obscure connection that will catapult me into….anything. I bring it up because Graceland was the very first cassette I ever put money on the counter for and Vampire Weekend made me listen to it again. Today, Vampire Weekend’s cover of Rancid’s “Ruby Soho,” hit the web. Let’s see if their take on a song from Rancid’s radio friendly punk classic …And Out Come the Wolves forces me to dig out yet another buried album that I wore to the bone. Thoughts?
Mixtape: Monday Roller
Here’s a sample of some music that gets me a little fuzzy for what’s to come in 2010. Some of these tracks have been floating around for a bit but I give you these 7 newish tracks and a rhyming couplet with the hopes of getting your week off to a smashing start. Enjoy
MP3: Emblem of the World- Dirty Projectors
MP3: This Fucking Job- Drive By Truckers
MP3: Saturday Come Slow- Massive Attack (featuring Damon Albarn)
MP3: Liv Tyler- Roadside Graves
MP3: On Giving Up- High Places
MP3: California English- Vampire Weekend
MP3: I Know What I Know- Paul Simon
Leaking Has Never Felt So Good: Harlem’s Hippies
Hippies is the dirtiest, most lovable, kind of album. For anybody who loves basement rock, Hippies will become a staple to your auditory diet throughout the coming months, and has probably already made it’s way on to next years “Best Of” lists. As you make your way from “Gay Human Bones,” to “Poolside,” it becomes apparent that Harlem understand understated, goofy pop music better than anyone else out there, save King Khan and The Black Lips, who are Harlem’s equals, not superiors.
The album starts off with a tongue-in-cheek bang, if there is such a thing, yes, the album starts off with an exploding tongue, “Someday Soon”. The track is a good melodramatic high, and the opening line of, “Someday soon you’ll be on fire,” is unsettling in it’s sincere delivery. Like the rest of the songs on the album “Someday Soon” is brief (longest song clocks in at three minutes 38 seconds), filled with strat-twang and early 60’s musical sensibilities. There is enough variance to keep things interesting though, like on “Prairie My Heart,” a min0r-chord rock n’roll romp through the ceaseless landscape of Texas, as well as, “Be Your Baby,” which sounds like a response than a cover of the Ronettes, “Be My Baby”; but the best song of the album goes to “Cloud Pleaser,” for it’s smooth Jagger vocals over the mournful riot of guitars and drums.
There are a lot of bands out there trying to do what Harlem is doing, what the Black Lips are doing, but no one does it as successfully as them, and anybody mistaking Harlem for another lo-fi retro garage band, is musically uneducated.
Harlem just made the best album of the year so far, and they did it all under 41 minutes.
David Byrne and Fatboy Slim w/Florence Welch
When I heard Imelda Marcos concept album and David Byrne in the same sentence I smiled. It is specifically the kind of absurd grandiose musical endeavor that I thought might be original, surreal, and catchy all at once. Over on Stereogum they have a quote from Byrne explaining his concept:
“The story I am interested in is about asking what drives a powerful person- what makes them tick? How do they make and then remake themselves? I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if- as a piece this would be principally composed of clubby dance music- one could experience it in a club setting? Could one bring a ’story’ and a kind of theater to disco? Was that possible? If so wouldn’t that be amazing!”
Below check out the title track, “Here Lies Love” the forthcoming album where David Byrne and Fatboy Slim attempt to bring their wild pop narritive to the club scene. Promises to be colorful. Featuring Florence Welch, this one may take a couple listens.
WWJDL2? Shark? White Hinderland, Marvelous Darlings, BRMC, Lo-Fi-Fnk, The Selfish Replicators, Big Troubles, BRAHMS
Greetings. This is another mix tape.
Does any one know who the Selfish Replicators are? Rumors of a ‘high-profile’ side project are spinning around. The track “Strands” is pretty rad.
mp3 – Shark? – I’m An Animal
mp3 – White Hinterland – Icarus
mp3 – Marvelous Darlings – I’ll Stand By Her
mp3 – The Selfish Replicators – Strands
mp3 – Lo-Fi-Fnk – Marchin’ In
mp3 – Black Rebel Motorcycle club – Beat The Devil’s Tattoo
mp3 – Big Troubles – Wouldn’t Mind
mp3 – BRAHMS – Toward The Ghost
mp3 – The Don’ts & Be Carefuls – Color TV
update: a zipity-do-da of the mix here.
Def Jux: “Found a cure for cancer; it wasn’t radio-friendly”
You want bleak dystopia? THIS IS A COLOR PHOTOGRAPH
El-P – Run the Numbers (feat. Aesop Rock)
Aesop Rock – The 9-5er’s Anthem
Sad news on the backpack hip-hop front: sorta historically-significant and always-interesting label Def Jux is going on hiatus as of today. “Hiatus,” for those of you not hep to the connotation, is politically-minded music-speak for “your mother and I are going to spend some time sleeping in separate beds. Also, the separate beds will be in separate houses. Also, my house is now an apartment. Also, could you steal me some coffee grounds and a stapler? Your mother doesn’t need the stapler. God DAMMIT IF SHE DOESN’T NEED THE STAPLER. Also, be sure that there’s staples inside the stapler. If not, bring me her checkbook.”
They Call it “Friendo”
It might be safe to assume that the Canadian trio Friendo got their name from an Anton Chigurh reference, especially seeing as how when you type “Friendo” into Google Images three-quarters of the results are of the floating, but still sexy, head of Javier Bardem, but not of this group of talented Calgarians. Their most popular song, “Callers,” even sounds like something that Anton Chigurh would be listening to as he ready the air pressure in his cattle-braining, door-knob annihilating, device.
Friendo describes themselves as,”…a three-piece, guitar-driven band largely inspired by ’90s experimental rock, ’70s punk, and ’60s pop,” but that doesn’t do any justice to the band’s actual aesthetic. On, “Young Flowers,” they channel the Velvet Underground that no one likes to listen to (and if someone does say that they love “The Gift,” check yourself because you’re in a snobby cocaine den). Comparisons have also been made to Panda Bear, but Friendo isn’t as produced or sunny. Friendo seem to feed from the seediness of basement music, while still crafting harmonies and layering their guitar work in an ear-catching way.
Sometime this spring, Friendo is due to release Cold Toads (Secretly Canadian), which up until now had only been available on tape, just like every other Canadian release.
Wait for the second, noisier, part of “Callers” to emerge from the lull. These second, more experimental, movements within the same song are something of a signature move with these secretive Canadians.
Mp3: Friendo – Callers
There is Water Here
“Water Here”, a pretty epic lil jam, from Secretly Canadian’s Bodies Of Water is complete with a ton of horns, jangly guitars, and take you to church hand-claps. Water Here is off their latest, ‘A Certain Feeling’.
mp3 – Bodies Of Water – Water Here
