The Twelves sent over their brand new mixtape — sneak a peak at two brand new remixes for Theatre of Disco and Black Kids that you haven’t yet heard. Plus, um Chromatics… can’t go wrong there. Overall nice mix… tweaked in all the right places.
30 minutes of the Twelves (mp3)
Tracklisting (more…)
The excellent WFMU is in the midst of their 50th anniversary pledge drive, so last night the unlikely trio listed above variously stopped by Tom Scharpling's The Best Show to help raise cash. You can hear the 3-hour broadcast -- all pledge shout outs included! -- by heading here. Ted could always raise money with his awesome arm wrestling skills. We're pretty sure he could beat Ben. Also as part of the drive, Yo La Tengo Murdered The Classics Sunday night, though that archive's unavailable. Which doesn't mean you shouldn't pledge.
My Bloody Valentine, the Breeders, the Verve ... and now maybe Pavement? Malkmus may have only just starting airing he and his Jicks' Real Emotional Trash, but there are rumors that a Pavement reunion's in the works. Actually, a little more than rumors. EW got some quotage from Ibold, Kannberg, and Stephen.
American Idol Brings Us A Grunge "Hello"">None of us are doing a good job of keeping tabs on American Idol, but Stereogum's usually up on its Lionel Richie. We have history together. Where else will you get frame-by-frame analysis of the Prof. Richie-stalking-his-blind-student video, or find out about the "Hello" Project wherein sculptors were blindfolded and made to reconstruct the jeri-curled cranium of our man, or learn that Scott named his cat Lionel Richie? Hence J's email this morning (Subject: Slackers):
I totally expected to see David Cook's rocking version of "Hello" on Stereogum by 10:02pm last night.Fair point, J. Our Lionel Richie TiVO alert didn't catch that. But Cook's judge-beloved grungy take (or in the words of the Dawg, "slightly emo version out of an extremely pop Lionel Richie song") easily qualifies it for most Daughtryesque cover of Lionel Richie we've ever heard. So watch it and get used to his name for when he tops SoundScan next year.
We're really digging Witch's Paralyzed, out 3/18 on Tee Pee. This week's Drop, "Old Trap Mine," is the epic finale from that nine-song collection, which finds the Vermont/Western Mass crew expanding into heavier, sludgier, occasionally up-tempo punk-ish realms. The rhythm section of bassist Dave Sweetapple and drummer J Mascis is out of control (Deep Wound, yeah, but remember Upsidedown Cross?). Vocalist/guitarist Kyle Thomas and non-pictured guitarist Asa Irons, both also of folk crew Feathers, pack the jams with dense, airy psychedelic grooves and hooks. You can get a taste of all the aforementioned and find out what "Old Trap Line" has to do with Vipassana Meditation and Andrei Tarkovsky if you click here.
For the prize-giving portion of this week's 'Gum Drop, we offered the change to win a limited-edition Radiohead 4GB USB stick packed with the seven Parlophone albums. It's shaped like the Radiohead bear! Seriously...
Don Cavalli - New Hollywood Babylon
With another entry in the book of "out of left field" comes France's Don Cavalli. I got his new album CryLand a while back from his little US label, LA's Everloving (who released the Cornelius album last year and Metric's Old World the year before), and I find myself wanting to listen to it a lot. As in, listen to it over and over.
Now, one thing about Cavalli that I find completely fascinating is the fact that his music - stripped down, lo-fi blues, usually just his voice, drums, and guitar, either clean or fuzzzzzzed out - is clearly from a scene that is completely different than any of the other music I know that's happening in Paris. For example the electronic scene most of us young Americans are exposed to right now is dominated by the descendants of Daft Punk, via our friends at Ed Banger and Institubes. So thank goodness for this differentiation of scenes. This Cavalli business is a sick electric blues record! By a white guy! From France! How weird, and how awesome is that? Robot Mark tells me "Cavalli is considered the Johnny Cash of france".
Cryland sees a digital release this week, with vinyl and CDs in stores April 22nd. I haven't found out where you can download the album from yet (though I should have a link for you later today), but for now, you can pre-order a physical CD from Amazon.com
I'd love to know what some of you think of this track, as I think it is a real standout on the album. Also, check out the Everloving site for Cavalli here as there's a crazy video for the song "I'm Going To A River", and you can actually stream the whole album there too, so it is well worth it.
P.S. The album art - all cartoon-y and crazy, maybe somewhat familiar looking? That's because it is by Ed Banger art-director So-Me. Boom!
After years of bifurcations, German quartet the Notwist have mastered a subtle, detached dream pop that hits like an easy breeze with remnants of their past experimentations gurgling throughout the innards. The last time we let their sounds sink in was when they collaborated -- seamlessly, we should add -- with Anticon crew Themselves as 13 & God. There's reportedly another album from that hybrid coming out this year, but as evidenced by "Good Lies" from the Notwist's forthcoming The Devil, You + Me, the foursome by their lonesome can be equally sweet. On the track, vocalist Markus Acher repeats, as if out of habit, "Let's just imitate the real, until we find a better one." It comes off like the best pickup line in weeks, but when he adds "remember, the good lies win," you realize this is maybe some sort of "Fake Empire" shit.
"Declare Independence" is undoubtedly one of the best tracks from Volta. Unfortunately, the technically complex Michel Gondry video fails to tap the track's emotional power, but when Björk performs the anthem live and does something as seemingly simple as give a shout out to actual States or prospective States fighting for self-governing, the goosebumps start popping. As you've likely heard, she's taken some shit for dedicating the song to Kosovo, Tibet, etc. Here she is in action.
(Via Daily Swarm)
Yup, as might be expected, all sorts of feathers were ruffled -- Björk's opted not to play the Serbian EXIT festival, for example -- so she decided to issue a statement.
Inspired by hearing from that other Norwegian Annie, we poked around to see what Ane Brunvoli was up to to find she's completed work on the follow up to 2005's double dip of A Temporary Dive and Duets. She's even started releasing singles! You Norwegian Ans really should keep in better touch. "Baby we were made of gold" is the operative phrase in Ms. Brun's "The Treehouse Song," a dark then wistful tune with a subdued old-school country vibe on the hook. Director Magnus Renfors takes the camera through increasingly absurd portraits of people and animals, and baby they are made of gold -- as in camera filter, sparkly settings, even massive embedded (literally) hearts. Hey Ane, you still be the type of girl to take it seriously.
Posting Database yesterday made me remember — New Rave Kids On The Block. Does it even matter that new rave was soo 06? No. The joke is still funny. These boys make me laugh… like in a Hipster Runoff type way. Funny shit:
NRKOTB - “Vivian the Whore Next Door” (NSFW) (mp3)
And then they do stuff like this that is just so enjoyable and fun that you forget all your troubles and you wanna run around and do crazy shit… everything we want in a track like this:
NRKOTB - “Strange Phenomenon” (mp3)
and…
NRKOTB - “Boyz On Stage” (mp3)
Hm, anyway. I suspect the guys put on one of the funnest shows ever. Full on energy.