Music Updates - Free Music Related News

I was just listening to DIOYY’s “Let’s Make Out” and then Blamma! Blamma!’s “Carry Me Home” came on and I just about ripped my shirt off. No joke. So intense. So yummy. The combination is a deadly prescription. “Carry Me Home” is almost two years old now, but it still sounds so fucking fresh. Or maybe I’m just played out. I dunno. Anyway, if you want people to take their shirts off then you now know what to do. In all its 320 kbps greatness:

Blamma! Blamma! - “Carry Me Home” (mp3)

And the Blamma! Blamma! remix of Blood Red Shoes was getting a shit load of blog love a few months ago. It’s still at the top of my playlists — as it should be on yours.

Blood Red Shoes - “It’s Getting Boring By The Sea” (Blamma! Red Shoes mix) (mp3)

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Travis Morrison Hellfighters - As We Proceed

Bless these lightning fast fingers for clicking my way into tickets to the Dismemberment Plan Reunion Benefit Shows earlier this year in DC at the Black Cat. As you may have heard, these shows were explosive, the crowd was nuts and the band was on fire--Travis Morrison was clearly reveling in the atmosphere and in total command of the audience. The rest of the band were like mad scientists in their labs after midnight. This is what DC had been missing since D-Plan broke up, and god we wanted it back.

I can't help it--had Dismemberent Plan taken their thing as far as it could go? Not from where we stood, not by a longshot. There are lots of reasons why bands move on, can't be helped, but DC just wasn't ready for this one.

Then when Travis' first solo record came out... Honestly, I don't want to dwell on the history, but suffice to say I'm in the camp of folks who were hoping for something...else. Is it bad to want more of the same? When the same would be so good?

And I feel ok saying that because I finally got what I wanted, which is the Travis Morrison Hellfighters album, All Y'all . Here's the energy, here's the crazy rythym, here are the melodies that really make sense, if only in their own cool little world--and what's best is that all the elements are put together in a cohesive package that's both challenging but accessible--just enough of a touchstone to keep you grounded but with the electricity and stargazing that you're dizzy too. It's all here in As We Proceed, and it continues throughout the album. It's not a navel-gazer, it's back to the get off your ass and do your best to dance. And each of these tracks really makes you impatient to see the whole thing live and in person, you already know you're going to sweat.

Right now you can stream the whole dern thing courtesy of Barsuk Records .

The Black Ghosts - July 07 Mix

Just got an email from my mate Oli over in the UK with this attached to it: a slick little DJ mix by our friends the Black Ghosts.

There's some sick dance-jamz on it, like a Lindstrøm classic used as instrumental backing for (I think) one of the Black Ghosts' songs, lots of nasty breakbeat-heavy stuff, like a remix of the Gossip, that Grovesner song that opens the Hot Chip DJ Kicks CD, and an even heavier, darker-sounding reworking of the Ghosts' own "Some Way Through This" - super solid stuff.

Visit the Black Ghosts myspace page for more up to date info on the band, live dates, videos, links to buy their singles, and a link to another mix of theirs.

Huzzah!

ZZT - “Lower State of Consciousness” (Original Munich Version) (YouTube)

ANTS ARE THE NEW ROBOTS. Ok, maybe not. But Tiga and Zombie Nation remind us who is boss with their production on ZZT’s “Lower State of Consciousness.” This track pretty much sums up 2007 — for the masses.

BUT BUT BUT don’t stop there because the Justice remix is EPIC. And I’m not even a Justice fanboy. It reminds you what those boys were all about before they started making gay house music for the straight boys.

Cop it via Hype Machine, or grab it in stores as of last week.

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So, there's this little dancing robot called Keepon, who looks like an overweight Peep and dances like, well, a machine (the dancin' kind, not the literal kind). There's also a band called Spoon, who we just saw rock the crowds at Virgin Festival 2007. When the former was born in the NIST labs in Japan, they made a demo featuring a Spoon song. Now there's a semi-proper music video for Don't You Evah featuring the little dancing robot; be sure to watch till about 3:00 where there's a full on multi-bot hoedown. The video was put out by Wired as a teaser for their annual Nextfest, and the band and the bot are scheduled to reunite there. Check out the video; bathe in the cute overload.

Hey gang, some info on a very last minute show by the new DFA signings, New Zealand's Shocking Pinks:

The band rehearsed last night and it went so well they booked a last minute and unexpected gig for TONIGHT - It will be a 5 song set, approx 30 minutes long. Could be rough, could be brilliant, could be both.

ORCHARD BAR (NYC) - 200 Orchard Street (just below Houston), 10pm - FREE!!!

Also, click the banner below to download the first single, "I Want U Back" from the band's ridiculously good first album

Boom!

Blue States - What Can be Done to Right a Wrong

For those of you who follow the goings on here at Music For Robots, you'll recognize the band Blue States, as they're a mainstay of the UK-based Memphis Industries label (also the UK home of the Go! Team, the Pipettes, Dungen, El Perro Del Mar, Absentee, Field Music, etc.), and because I've posted about them in the past. Plus, Blue States, originally the solo-work of Andy Dragazis, was actually the first band Memphis signed, back in the late 90s.

Well, now, four albums into it, Blue States comes 'full circle' with First Steps Into... being essentially just the work of Dragazis, whereas the previous record had a number of collaborators involved, including Chris Carr and Jon Chandler on vocals and drums respectively. As it turns out, FSI is a real grower - I liked it on first listen, but each subsequent listen has revealed more and more complexity to the songs. The songs draw from the band's origins in the late-90s "downtempo" boom (the first album was released in the US on the Thievery Corporation's ESL Records), but they also draw as much from instrumental indie- and prog-rock, with layers of strings and brass thrown into the mix, making the album sound nothing like 90s downtempo at all. Really satisfying, enjoyable stuff. Definitely check out "Down the Days" and "Last of Old England" if you like this track.

First Steps Into... comes out on CD and vinyl on August 27th in the UK and on the 28th in the US, but if you want to hear it all now, you can download it via
iTunes, or from eMusic. Otherwise, look to your favorite music stores for physical copies, or order it from Memphis Industries' online-store.

Also, get more up to date info, streaming tracks, and a new video on the Blue States myspace page. Oh, and for you readers in the UK, they're playing some songs live on the Gideon Coe show on Tues 21st August, on BBC 6.

Dear Los Angeles,
this Thursday night I'll be dj'ing with my old friend Scott Sterling (former editor in chief of Urb Magazine and current music blipster at Metromix), as well as members of the Veils. It'll go down at 3 of Clubs in hollywood(ish). It's located on Vine Street, just north of Santa Monica on the west side of the street. It's nice and divey in there and should be a blast. Scott and I will be playing 45s only. Corny!

Starts at 10 p.m.. Shotgun weddings (shot + beer) for five bucks all night. No cover, no list, no rsvp. Just show up.

It's been a long time since I've heard a song that I can't stop listening to. The last time this happened to me was probably when I first heard Jarvis Cocker's "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time," but that one was in my rotation for a long time before I knew I was obsessed, so I don't think it counts. This song is my newest obsession; I heard yesterday it for the first time, and I've probalby played it ten times since then.

John Doe feat. Kathleen Edwards - The Golden State.

This is from Doe's new record A Year In The Wilderness, which came out on Yep Roc in June. He's been quietly putting out good records over the past few years, including his last one, 2005's Forever Hasn't Happened Yet. Though I'm sure it's a different story in other parts of the country (ahem, L.A.), we don't hear too much these days about John Doe and/or his old punk band X. He deserves more attention than he gets, if you ask me. This record, which features Kathleen Edwards, Aimee Mann, and Jill Sobule, is just as good as his last one.

Edwards and Doe make a great pair on this song. I've always liked Edwards fine, but I think I need to give her a second look. When her debut Failer came out in 2003, she was praised but unfairly written off as a Lucinda Williams wannabe. I hope this great track gives her more exposure.

You can buy A Year In The Wilderness from Yep Roc, and you can pick up Kathleen Edwards' latest, Back To Me, here.

Daft Punk Live at Coney Island.

Worth waiting for since 1997?

Absolutely.

(Hit the jump for youtube clip from the encore)