New names announced today for the Electric Picnic line-up. A couple of these had already self-confirmed, with grime/dubstep figurehead Joker being the most pleasant surprise.
Wolf Parade Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip Stars Brendan Perry Black Mountain K’Naan Heathers Sebastien Leger Jackbeats Mixhell Japanese Popstars (live) Kormac’s Big Band Joker & Nomad The Subs Sneaky Soundsystem (DJ set).
U:Mack have announced that Caribou - aka Canadian electronic musician Daniel Victor Snaith - will be playing a show in Crawdaddy on December 9th. His latest album Swim is out now and is typically brilliant stuff. Caribou is also playing Electric Picnic in September.
The much-anticipated debut LP from electronic duo Nouveaunoise , Paraphrase Accolade, is available now, and already the subject of some rave reviews. The album launch party will take place this Friday in Dublin's Academy 2 (not Andrew's Lane, the venue has now changed). Support is from Bill Munro and Subway Mike.
Heart-on-sleeve rockers The Gaslight Anthem will return to Ireland for shows in the Olympia (November 21st) and Belfast's Mandela Hall (22nd). The New Jersey-based four-piece lived the dream last year when they were joined onstage by their hero Bruce Springsteen at Glastonbury. They've just released their third album, American Slang, which seems to be getting somewhat mixed reviews, although it got a five-star write-up in Uncut. 'The '59 Sound' remains one of the best songs of recent years: poignant, cathartic, defiant...the stuff of great, timeless rock music.
Pearson and co-conspirator Rob Barber originally formed High Places in New York in 2006. Since then, they've released a number of beguiling early 7"s (collected on 03/07-09/07) and two albums, their self-titled debut LP and this year's High Places VS Mankind. Their sound is unique and striking: a hard-to-categorise mix of electronic and folk influences, it can feature aquatic, woozy rythms and textures, household percussion, hypnotic child-like vocals, treated samples, bongos, kalimba...their music can range from the dub-tinged, pulsing 'The Longest Shadow' to the tropicalia-flavoured, almost-primitive simplicity of 'Head Spins'. At times there's a tribalistic, spiritual vibe emanating from their music, with its back-to-nature aesthetic and folky, field-recording ambience. They're genuinely one of my favourite discoveries of recent years, and they reached a mind-blowing peak with 'From Stardust to Sentience': it's utterly transcendent, one of those tunes that sounds like it was beamed down from the ether, with the musicians not so much creating it as channeling it.
High Places VS Mankind saw them in something of a transitionary phase, with Pearson's vocals pushed up in the mix, a more pronounced electronic influence and a more direct approach, but they're still a fascinating prospect. Their show upstairs in Whelan's earlier in the year was magical, and the duo have often expressed an interest in playing art galleries and mixing art forms as well as more conventional rock gigs.
So you can't watch Glastonbury highlights on the BBC website because it's 'not available in your region'. And no doubt, like last year, they'll go about removing any video recorded from their footage from YouTube. How does a person get their fix? At this rate I'll just have to go to the festival.
Dublin-based band Logikparty only played their first gig in January of this year, but they're building up quite a head of steam already. I saw them play support to Cap Pas Cap a couple of weeks back in Roisin Dubh and was pretty much blown away by their set.
The four-piece take their cue from the late 70's/early 80's No Wave scene (Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, DNA, James Chance & The Contortions), putting copious amounts of blood in the music: the guitars are caustic and abrasive, the rhythms pummelling and insistent; while frontwoman Benni's vocals match the music for white-hot intensity, with a shriek that recalls vintage Siouxie and the Banshees.
True to their influences, they've also shown a desire to incorporate performance art into their M.O. - they'll be collaborating with New York-based stop motion animator and artist Martha Colburn at next month's Trans Festival in Belfast. Logikparty will be playing a set accompanied by two live 16mm film projections from the filmmaker, with some of the set consisting of once-off improvisation. It all goes down on July 22nd.
Also, you can download this mix they did for Skinny Wolves:
intro: LINK WRAY 'the shadow knows' MARS '3e' RED TRANSISTOR 'not bite' ROSA VERTOV 'rosa yemen' DNA 'lionel' TEENAGE JESUS & THE JERKS 'less of me' UT 'sham shack' LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX 'torso corso' WIRE 'i should have know better' THE POP GROUP 'we are all prostitutes' BAUHAUS 'of lillies and remains' CHARLES DE GOAL 'exposition' TUXEDOMOON 'no tears' CHROME 'electric chair' outro: SUN RA 'i'll wait for you' (edit)
Logikparty play with Children Under Hoof and Fringilla Montifringilla upstairs in Whelan's on July 2nd. They then play a show with the excellent Jogging in Castlebar on 17th July.
The excellent LA-based Liars will be making their way to Whelan's on August 11th, U:Mack Productions have announced. Since their formation in 2000, the unpredictable trio have consistently wrong-footed expectations, veering from needly dance-punk to experimental noise-rock to tribalistic drum-based concept albums. More recently, they've employed more conventional song structures, but as on this year's Sisterworld, it's an unsettling, tense, intermittently explosive sound that they create. This should be a good one.
The new eels album, Tomorrow Morning, will be released on August 24th. It's the third part of a rapid-fire trilogy that includes last year's Hombre Lobo and this year's End Times. If we're brutally honest, both those albums were fairly average and at times ('Little Bird' springs to mind) abysmal. Tomorrow Morning sounds interesting though. According to the official eels website:
TOMORROW MORNING is a new musical landscape: electronic keyboards, drum machines, tape loops and found sounds. "It's a very electronic album -- sounds normally associated with a kind of 'colder' music," says Everett, "but I wanted to make a warm album that was a celebration using electronic instruments to reflect joy in the times I live in."
Talk of the album being thematically about "A new beginning and another chance. The blooming of all new possibilities. The hope that was always there coming to fruition." is all very reminiscent of Daisies of the Galaxy, still my favourite eels album, but from the musical description this almost sounds Beautiful Freak-esque, which could be a great thing: in E's more bland moments I've often wished he'd be a bit more playful and rediscover his inner child, as it were. 'Looking Up' is available as a free sample of the album, in exchange for your e-mail address.
Staying on the subject of E, he was mistaken for a terrorist recently in London - according to http://www.nme.com/,
E from Eels was questioned by police in London's Hyde Park after they mistook him for a suspected terrorist. The singer, real name Mark Oliver Everett was taking a break from a day of interviews when police approached him thinking he fitted the description of a suspicious person they were looking for. After being let go once they realised he was innocent, the frontman said: "Not every guy with short hair and a long beard is a terrorist. Some of us just want to rock."
Popical Island is a record label/collective of Irish acts who share a certain lo-fi/ramshackle charm. A 15-track compilation is now available for download and free streaming on http://popicalisland.bandcamp.com/, and is well worth checking out. It features the much-touted likes of Feed The Bears (who have just sadly split), Yeh Deadlies, Squarehead and So Cow.
Road Records have called the compilation "Irelands very own 2010 version of the legendary C86 cassette." Yikes, high praise!
Via http://harmlessnoise.wordpress.com/, a new track from Dublin/Wicklow-based duo Solar Bears, which should feature on a split EP with FUR later this year. The track is meatier and more guitar-based than their previous electronic experiments, but still builds atmosphere impressively. Solar Bears previously remixed FUR's 'Clears Throat'.
Very exciting news. Brooklyn-based Telepathe will be playing a show in Whelan's on August 14th, courtesy of Skinny Wolves (who've previously released a split 7" featuring Telepathe and Effi Briest reworking eachother's tracks). The duo - Busy Gangnes and Melissa Livaudis - released the excellent Dance Mother last year, a record of sublime minimal avant-pop that was produced by TV on the Radio's David Sitek.
Folllowing up their covers EP Desecrations, the Carlow electronica duo have made a mixtape, called Daylight Savings, available through Soundcloud. Featuring Caribou, James Blake and Jose Gonzalez among others. Desecrations is still available for free download at http://theholyromanarmy.bandcamp.com/:as well as covers of Pixies and Pavement, it features a wondrous version of Rollerskate Skinny's 'Speed to my Side' - shivers down the spine, people, I'm not messing.
Long Island duo Small Black have frequently been associated with the chillwave/glo-fi scene, and it’s not hard to see why: Washed Out, arguably the archetypal artist of the genre, is currently touring with Small Black as support, and also released a glorious remix of their ‘Despicable Dogs’; while the duo’s music has the same hazy, out-of-focus quality and nostalgic tone that distinguishes most of the acts grouped under the chillwave banner. However, whereas most of their supposed brethren (Neon Indian, Toro Y Moi, Memory Tapes etc.) deal in fuzzy electronica, Small Black owe more to guitar music, and in particular shoegaze. Submerged, wistful vocals interact with blurry guitar lines and drum-machine loops to create an atmospheric sound that’s alternately dreamy and jarring.
This re-issue of last year’s self-titled EP includes two new tracks, but the main attractions here remain the same. The original ‘Despicable Dogs’ is only slightly less sublime than its remixed version, a melancholic, bittersweet tune whose misty production only adds to its curious emotional power, while ‘Lady In The Wires’ and ‘Bad Lover’ soar understatedly. In many ways this is the beauty of Small Black’s aesthetic: the anthemic qualities of their songs are downplayed in favour of a more impressionistic approach, and they sound all the better for it. The twilit wash of ‘Pleasant Experience’ is atmospheric and evocative even in this distinguished company, while new addition ‘Kings of Animals’ (originally included on the ‘Despicable Dogs’ 7”) interrupts the mood somewhat, being as it is the punkiest number in their repertoire.
Recent reports indicate that Small Black have been fleshing out their sound (and increasing their line-up) ahead of their first full-length, and you can’t blame them for wanting to avoid the inevitable chillwave backlash (what do you mean it’s already started?!). Still, they could do a whole lot worse than further exploring the beguiling sound they’ve created on this release – genre tags blur into irrelevance when it comes to music this good.
Richter Collective post-hardcore trio Jogging and electronic duo Nouveaunoise: they’re not exactly peas in a pod, but they’re joining forces on this balmy summer’s night at Galway’s Roisin Dubh for a free gig courtesy of Strange Brew. On the evidence of tonight’s show, they can be considered two of the leading lights on the domestic scene.
The good weather that’s in it means the crowd is sparser than usual for a Thursday night, but Nouveaunoise’s support set is received warmly – the duo deal in mellow, layered electronica, with two of their tunes in particular standing out: the atmospheric, hazy ‘Giron’, and ‘Cinnte’, a hypnotic, subtly propulsive tune that Four Tet would be proud to call his own. The atmosphere in the venue is pretty casual, with the duo asking how many songs they have time for (“seven!”) and if Jogging want to play (“at some stage”).
When Jogging take to the stage they launch into an electrifying ‘Bruises Like Bow-Ties’, yet as terrific an opener as it is, they only seem to get better as the gig goes on: considering their status as a relatively new band who’ve just released their (excellent) debut album, the three-piece are insanely good tonight, the relentless, furious pace and momentum never dropping for a second. Jogging’s sound owes much to the Dischord Records stable (Fugazi, Rites of Spring, etc.), but you can also draw comparisons with Future of the Left or the recently departed Giveamanakick. There’s some killer riffs at the heart of almost all their tunes, but what really seals the deal are the unexpected flourishes, such as the thrilling about-turn halfway through ‘Threadbare’, or the breathless, ecstatic climax of ‘Shattered Knees’. It’s tough to pick a highlight (no, it really is) but the immense ‘Not Simple’, with its wonderfully spiteful chorus, is the one I can’t get out of my head all next day. Amazing musicians with irrepressible energy, and credit must go to the soundman also: the sound is punishingly loud yet still crystal-clear tonight – no mean feat.
It’s no exaggeration to say there’s serious potential for an international breakthrough here, especially when you consider how accomplished this band sound in their relative infancy. We all know those dubstep/dance-favouring music fans who say they’ve lost faith in guitar bands, disillusioned by their blandness and lack of inspiration. Take them to see Jogging.
Via Pitchfork, the video for 'Celestica', from the duo's second self-titled album, out now. Also worth checking out is the Thurston Moore remix of the same tune:
Crystal Castles and HEALTH play a double-bill at Dublin's Academy on October 9th, while the former will also be making their second appearance at Electric Picnic.
Over at http://gimmetinnitus.com/, you can hear the brand new track from Brooklyn-based Magnetic Island, formerly known as RENMINBI. Sounds great. Make sure to also pick up their cover of Lou Reed and John Cale's 'A Dream' while you're over there!
The BP oil slick disaster gets more and more depressing by the day. This really is going to get worse before it gets better, and who knows if it will get better? BP don't. It's truly end-of-days stuff.
I'm no longer the idealist, hardline environmentalist i was at the age of 16 or whatever, but one thing that i felt back then and that's still blindingly obvious now is that society's ridiculous consumption demands are completely unsustainable in the long-term - right now, it's looking like the long-term mightn't be so long at all.
Anyway, if it's not a bit suspect to use such a disaster as an angle for a music post, it did get me thinking about bands/artists who've dealt with environmental concerns in their music. And there's not that many, which makes it all the more notable when it does happen.
Talking Heads - 'Nothing But Flowers'
Devastatingly clever lyric from David Byrne, set in a post-peak-oil society and narrated by an increasingly desperate soul who can't adapt to the new, simplified lifestyle necessary to survive - "If this is paradise/I wish I had a lawnmower"...
R.E.M.
Not only did R.E.M. write some pretty eloquent songs dealing with environmental issues, they also walked the walk, donating money to home-state Georgia's conservation funds, promoting Greenpeace on their tours and generally being prominent environmental activists. They even named one of their albums Green. 'Cuyahoga' dealt with the pollution of the titular Cleveland river, which was so badly polluted at one stage that it caught on fire. "Let's put our heads together / And start a new country up" sings Stipe, but it sounds like a doubtful scenario. 'Fall On Me', meanwhile, is commonly interpreted as being about acid rain, although Stipe denies this. Don't heed him.
Neil Young
'Mother Earth' is one of Young's more divisive songs- many of his fans despise it, i quite like it. Young insists on playing it regularly, and there's something quite subversive about a rock star singing a plea for environmental awareness mid-set. 'After The Goldrush' referred to "Mother Nature on the run in the 1970's" - it rings truer than ever today. His most recent album, meanwhile, was a 'concept' album about his Lincoln Continental, which had been retooled to run on alternative energy sources.
Radiohead
The frankly terrifying 'Idioteque' conveyed growing dread and impending doom - "Ice Age coming, Ice Age coming ... We're not scaremongering / This is really happening..". Lead singer Thom Yorke insists on playing venues well-served by public transport, and the band turned down Glastonbury for this very reason. “One of the conditions of the band carrying on touring is that we do everything we can to minimise our impact on the environment. That has included buying two lots of equipment and keeping one in Europe and one in America so we never have to fly our kit around the world again.” Bono, take some notes.
Gorillaz
Latest album Plastic Beach refers, both in title and theme, to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a symbolic monument to human waste: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch. The BP oil leak makes it sound tame.
I think I've fallen back in love with this festival. The line-up for this year grows more and more awesome. So long as there's no more mystery cancellations, they really need to cut that shit out already.
Latest additions: Stars, the Canadians who released the truly excellent Set Yourself on Fire in 2005. They've got a new album, The Five Ghosts, being released next week, and it's already been preceded by the very impressive 'Fixed' - listen below.
Still in two minds over Ireland's new great white hype? Well you can sample Villagers' debut album Becoming a Jackal right now on Soundcloud. Having finally got around to purchasing it myself, i have to say I really like it. Although much like The Immediate before them, there's that sneaking feeling that they're not quite that good.
Also courtesy of State Magazine, a sampler from the excellent Richter Collective label, who've given us some of the best music released so far this year (Redneck Manifesto, Jogging, Worrier...).
Courtesy of State Magazine, a stream of the brand new album from Wicklow's Enemies, the latest release on the Richter Collective label. It's one I've really been looking forward to since catching them live a few weeks back.
There's a whole bunch of 'Life Magazine' remixes circling around the internet, but Delorean's may well be the best yet. They take the original and infuse it with their unmistakeable brand of Balearic bliss-out. Delorean's current album Subiza is getting rave notices from all over the shop, and if you haven't yet picked up a copy of Cold Cave's Love Comes Close album from last year, you really should.
This song's been out a couple of months now, but it hasn't been posted here yet and it's such a perfect summer tune, so here it is. Prefaced by a Thurston Moore quote from The Year Punk Broke, this is infectious, joyous stuff. The album, Clinging to a Scheme, is out now.
One of the most important and seminal bands in the grunge scene of the late eighties/early nineties that saw Nirvana exploding into the mainstream, Mudhoney are now reformed and have recently being playing the classic Superfuzz Bigmuff in its entirety. They'll be playing some Irish dates later on in the year - Dublin's Button factory on the 1st October, Galway's Roisin Dubh on the 2nd.
Dinosaur Jr, Built To Spill, Mudhoney...my money's on the Meat Puppets next. Let's make it happen.
Montreal native Michael Silver aka CFCF produced one of the remixes of last year with his gorgeous take on HEALTH's 'Before Tigers'. He's worked his magic again on this reworking of Taken By Trees' (the solo project of ex-Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman) 'Anna'. 'Anna' also features the unmistakeable vocals of AnimalCollective's Noah 'PandaBear' Lennox.
