Possibly as a primer for a new album, Gorillaz has teamed up with Converse, James Murphy and Andre 3000 on the new track “DoYaThing” now available for streaming and soon available as a free download at converse.com. (via vulture)
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Possibly as a primer for a new album, Gorillaz has teamed up with Converse, James Murphy and Andre 3000 on the new track “DoYaThing” now available for streaming and soon available as a free download at converse.com. (via vulture)
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Written as an elegy for his late father, Francis Harris’s Leland has all the groove you’d expect from a dance record with the intimacy of something extremely personal. Harris, who’s released numerous recordings under the alias Adultnapper, lends his real name to this project — an hour-plus long voyage through grief and somber hope.
Mood is everything on Leland. Harris takes dance conventions (hypnotic rhythms and intense tones) and combines them with saccharine nuances to create an album of late-night electronic music. Subtle thumper “Pensum” leads by example with pulsating bass trudge and solemn trumpet din. It sounds like The xx, Aphex Twin, and a soulful trumpeter all on stage at a smoky underground jazz joint at midnight.
Danish singer Gry contributes vocals to lead single “Lostfound,” which she opens by saying: “Late in the night when the darkness is deep/Come to my home, let me offer you tea.” Delivered over a backbeat of stuttering claps, the sentiment is both comforting and sensual as you picture a quaint apartment safe from the dizzying spell of the night rainstorm.
As an ode to the man who was one-half responsible for giving him life, Leland holds up remarkably well. All the uncertainty and vacillation in these ominous tones clearly signify a requiem, but Harris also succeeds in the hardest task — forging his thoughts into pleasant, rewarding music.
(Scissor & Thread, no mailing address given)
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Early-1990s slowcore/indie rock band Codeine recently reunited and immediately announced a slew of shows in Europe and Japan — surely breaking the hearts of longtime fans in the States who wished to see them perform for the first time since the band’s demise in 1994. However, the band has added several dates on both coasts to their itinerary. Dates are below. (via Prefix)
Codeine on Tour
4/09 Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern
4/14 Tokyo, JP @ ATP I’ll Be Your Mirror
5/26 London, UK @ ATP I’ll Be Your Mirror
5/27 Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
5/28 Groningen, NL @ Vera
5/29 TBA
5/30 Vienna, AT @ Szene
5/31 Bologna, IT @ Lokomotiv
6/01 Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound
6/08 Porto, PT @ Primavera Sound
6/29 Brooklyn, NY @ Bell House
6/30 Brighton, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
7/01 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
7/09/10 Seattle, WA @ Triple Door
7/11 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
7/12 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
7/13 Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex
7/15 New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge
On her third time as a headliner in Washington, DC, Zola Jesus played to a sold out crowd of approximately 500 people at U Street Music Hall. This was certainly the best possible location in the neighborhood for her to showcase her incredibly strong and compelling singing voice. At just under two years old, it’s the youngest venue in the bustling U Street Corridor, and offers acoustics superior to the nearby aging rock clubs.
Zola Jesus, the stage name of 22-year-old Nika Roza Danilova, performs with a backing trio consisting of synthesizers, electric violin, and drums. However, the synths and violins were almost completely drowned out when Danilova’s wailing voice and the thundering waves of drums synced up. Her voice was mixed very high, and it eerily carried over just about everything else – at least, when she wanted it to. She seemed to have two modes of singing: loud and whisper-quiet, both of which gripped the audience.
Zola Jesus plays a creepy mixture of electronic industrial pop mixed with classical aria singing. Much of the music seems to reflect on a disturbing and lonely childhood. Danilova was raised on a remote 100-acre plot of Wisconsin forest, far removed from any peers except her brother. Her father was a survivalist hunter, and she has described experiences such as having to duck to avoid the deer heads he would hang from trees as an offering to scavengers. It’s easy to see why her music bears such a consistently disturbing aesthetic.
Her stage presence was interesting. The pale-skinned, bleach blonde Danilova was dressed all in white, illuminated almost exclusively by glowing blue cubes on stage, framed by a fog machine, appearing ghost-like. Her movements on stage at times seemed choreographed, but sometimes appeared as if she was dancing alone at home in her room with no one was watching — these moves felt the most honest and authentic. At times during the performance, she curled up on to the stage into the fetal position, as if suddenly possessed mid-song by a memory of the traumas that inspired the music. At the end of the final song, a fantastic performance of her single “Vessel,” Danilova grabbed a drumstick and started violently bashing a cymbal, in what was clearly a cathartic release. The enthusiastic crowd rapidly demanded the two-song encore that followed.
The problems Zola Jesus encountered are somewhat inherent to the sound. First, Zola Jesus is not a band, but rather a solo artist backed up by a band, and there were moments when this lack of cohesion became apparent. As a touring act, Zola Jesus is rapidly approaching maturity, but still developing. However, overall, Zola Jesus is a compelling live act worth the price of admission for anyone desiring to hear creepy electronic music and an expressive female vocalist.
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Check out Peter Borghard‘s photos from F. Stokes’s performance at the Gramercy Theater in New York.
Spearheading TS & The Past Haunts is former Piebald leader Travis Shettel, who teamed up with married bass-and-drums duo Ben and Heather Heywood for Gone & Goner, the band’s debut LP.
Recorded live with no overdubs, Gone & Goner is a raw affair of buzzy feedback and garagey power chords. Given that, “Let’s Be Lazy” is a surprisingly polished effort with biting hooks and a siren-like guitar melody. It’s the perfect three-minute garage-pop tune: radio-ready and still rockin’. “Circumstance” channels Pavement with Shettel’s effortless speak-sing and indolent strums that give way to a spastic solo.
With one foot on the fuzz petal and one free to tap along, Gone & Goner is an exercise in balance. Catchy pop jingles weave in and out of tempo-shifting alt-rock on overdrive, like the dizzying “Heaven In Your Hair.”
Going by Gone & Goner’s cover art, it’s not unreasonable to assume that TS & The Past Haunts don’t take themselves too seriously, but that doesn’t mean they make throwaway music. In fact, though songs like “All I Can Tell You” might sound breezy and simple, Gone & Goner is brimming with self-examination and musical craftsmanship. Of course they’re having fun — it’s rock and roll, man!
But spend some time with TS & The Past Haunts (perhaps with an adult beverage) to see why they deserve more than just a few casual listens.
(No Sleep Records, 16651 Gothard Street Unit E, Huntington Beach, CA 92647)
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Museum Mouth’s sophomore album, Sexy But Not Happy, is a burst of youthful energy. Imagine Wavves without the drugs or Times New Viking without the art-school influence. Underneath the fuzz and echoes, Sexy But Not Happy is more like a diary. Unfortunately, Museum Mouth’s diary reads like a teenager’s. Clunky lyrics like “I’m constantly fearful of leaving you tearful” really threaten to bring down the album. But since most of the songs clock in around two minutes or less, it passes quickly. Even at their worst, it’s not unbearable. Museum Mouth would probably be a better live show, where you can get lost in the energy and not hung up on the words.
(self-released, no address provided)
On Earth’s previous album, Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light I, the band embarked on a bit of a new sonic direction. The heaviness of “Seven Angels,” from their 1993 album Earth 2, or the title track from their 2009 album, The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull, remained, but with a much cleaner guitar tone than on past recordings. At first, I wasn’t really feeling it, but the more I listened to “Demons of Light I,” the more it grew on me. Songs like “Old Black” and “Father Midnight” feel just as at home in the Earth catalogue as their more ambient stuff like “Thrones and Dominions.”
The varieties of sonic landscapes guitarist Dylan Carlson and company have crafted over the years are what I’ve appreciated most about listening to Earth. You can listen to two songs, from two sonically different parts of the spectrum, but still feel a kind of unity holding them together. I’ve been looking forward to Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II for more of Earth’s new sound.
The clean guitar tones of Demons of Light I are present here on this album, but there is a much more subdued feeling throughout. Both the heaviness of my favorite Earth tracks from the past and the warmth of their ambient material are missing from this. Without the punch of their heavy material or the soothing feeling of their ambient material, what remains feels flat compared to previous albums.
The first two tracks, “Sigil Of Brass” and “His Teeth Did Brightly Shine” sound like the intros to Earth songs, but without the rest of the song to go with them. While starting out a bit weak, the album does get better. The track “A Multiplicity Of Doors” is a new classic hopefully destined to become a staple in the band’s live set. Carlson’s guitar fades to a backing role for most of this track, with the haunting, wavering cello of Lori Goldston occupying center stage. Her beautiful cello lead rubs like a bow on the heartstrings, and you can’t help but be moved.
“The Corascene Dog” is an interesting track for the interplay between Carlson’s guitar and Goldston’s cello. There’s a sense of almost dueling instruments, but in a very subtle manner. The almost back and forth interplay between them throughout keeps the track interesting throughout its nearly nine minutes.
The album closes with “The Rakehell,” a track with Carlson’s guitar once more leading the sound. The track is very somber compared to the emotional intensity of “A Multiplicity Of Doors,” as the overall feeling is very dark and moody. Carlson’s leads invoke the blues at moments, heightening this vibe. While the song doesn’t quite have the same power as “A Multiplicity of Doors,” I consider it the second-best track on the album.
I think the biggest disappointment of Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II is how unnecessary it seems that it was made a separate album. If the chaff of the opening tracks had been dropped, the three remaining songs on this could easily have been added to Demons of Light I, making for a single solid release. As it stands, I think this album is worth checking out, but I’m not as crazy for it as past Earth albums.
(Southern Lord Recordings, PO Box 291967, Los Angeles, CA 90029)
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