RAC put out a new album. It includes some of their best remixes over the past two years! Check it out! My faves are their remixes of Phantogram’s “When I’m Small”, The Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition” and Theophilus London’s “Why Even Try”.
Listen/download: RAC – Chapter One
Filed under Awesome, downloads, listen, new albums
Atlas Genius just premiered the official video for their hit single “Trojans,”on MTV, MTVu and VH1. The band has also just released a remix by Goldroom for their song “Back Seat.” Good Music All Day says, “this track might melt your soul a little bit, but in the best possible way of course.”
Download: Atlas Genius – “Back Seat” (Goldroom Remix)
Confirmed US Tour Dates:
Omaha’s Icky Blossoms plunge through the looking-glass in their newest video for “Heat Lightning” and the result is a seamless AV match up of starkness permeated by technicolor pops. If you seek the kaleidoscopic experience in real life, check Icky Blossoms on tour with Tilly and the Wall now and with Saddle Creek label-mates the Faint at the end of November.
TOUR DATES
w/ Tilly and the Wall
w/ The Faint
Heartsrevolution just dropped this video from their just-around-the-corner mixtape (teasing their new album in 2013).
Tegan and Sara’s new album, Heartthrob, has a release date for their seventh album of January 29, 2013, with the exception of UK/Europe which is February 18th. Sisters Tegan and Sara Quin have some additional exiting news. Before their impending US Tour with The Killers, with whom their currently on the road in the UK, Tegan and Sara announced today that they’ll be playing a special special gig at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom on Monday, November 19th. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at Noon EST.
The girls are set to perform their addicting new single, “Closer,” on The Late Show with David Letterman November 20th. “Closer” has come out of the gates blazing. Tegan and Sara recently offered fans another taste of what they can expect on Heartthrob when they posted a stream of another new song, “I’m Not Your Hero”.
Confirmed T&S Tour Dates:
UK Dates w/The Killers:
US Headlining Show:
w/The Killers:
*without The Killers
Filed under Awesome, listen, new albums, Shows
I am super excited to share this brand new track and video with you. It’s a new Foals song called “Inhaler” and the band will be releasing their third album Holy Fire on February 12, 2013.
Produced by Flood & Moulder (PJ Harvey, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins) at Assault & Battery studios in London, Holy Fire is the Oxford five-piece’s most direct and fully-realized album yet. Of the electric “Inhaler,” front man Yannis Philippakis says “It’s heavy, that song; it was liberating,” adding that it is the sound of the band shedding their inhibitions.
Foals released their debut album Antidotes in 2008, followed by 2010’s breakthrough Total Life Forever. Both are certified gold. Total Life Forever was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize, an Ivor Novello award for Best Song and they received five nods at the 2011 NME awards, winning Best Single for “Spanish Sahara.” TLF was also voted The Fly magazine’s album of the year in 2010.
The band will hit the road on a small club tour in the UK next month, look for them stateside in the spring. For more info visit http://www.foals.co.uk/ or https://www.facebook.com/Foalsforever
Filed under Awesome, Highly Anticipated, new albums, video
Click image to go listen to songs from West End Motel’s album Only Time Can Tell
Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds is receiving praise for his side project West End Motel’s newest release Only Time Can Tell, out now on Warner Bros/ADA. The album is streaming in its entirety at AOL Spinner in addition to PASTE Magazine, who applauds its “acoustic-driven, country-twinged tracks.” Similarly, MTV declares it “hypnotizing,” praising the “brittle guitars and hushed, husky vocals,” while Alternative Press states, “rockabilly and surf rock with strong flavors of Stax and Motown soul prevail, yet a smorgasbord of disparate influences also insinuate their way into this mix, ensuring no two songs are alike.”
The 8-song set is now available to purchase on iTunes. Rolling Stone is streaming the album’s first single “Burn It Down,” praising its “brightly shout-out-loud vocals, warm and soulful textures, swooning funk melodies and a breezy beat that’s downright feel-good music.”
West End Motel will kick off a 3-week tour on November 28 in Washington, D.C. – making stops in New York, Boston, Chicago, and more – wrapping up December 15 in Hinds’ hometown of Atlanta. See below for more details.
Only Time Can Tell is the highly-anticipated follow-up to Hinds’ acclaimed 2011 debut Don’t Shiver, You’re A Winner which SPIN proclaimed “a welcome departure from Mastodon’s thrashy, progged-out fare…sounds like Tom Waits and Tim Burton co-hosting the creepiest vaudeville show ever,” and Pitchfork praised for its “playfulness and off-the-cuff amiability.”
West End Motel began in 1993 under a bridge in Atlanta, where Hinds first met longtime friend Tom Cheshire. Describing themselves as a “conglomerate of losers, poets and hobo-sexuals,” the pair write acoustic-guitar driven songs enriched with horns and keys, with the end result sounding like Nick Cave fronting Gogol Bordello. The project pre-dates Mastodon and offers an important glimpse into Hinds’ musical influences.
“I grew up listening to Chet Atkins play guitar, and I grew up listening to Brian Setzer play guitar,” explains Hinds. “Jimmy Bryant, Speedy West, all these country-chicken-pickin’-flying-’round-the-guitar-neck guitar players. I got really inspired by it. I’m from way down in the country. It was pretty common to have the interests I had when I was that age. MTV had some hair metal on there, but I was more interested in this rockabilly vibe. Stray Cats were really big at the time, in the ’80s. It was epic.”
Only Time Can Tell Track Listing:
WEST END MOTEL TOUR DATES
Filed under Awesome, Check 'em Out!, listen, new albums, Shows
L.A.-based indie supergroup The Living Sisters —Inara George (The Bird and the Bee), Becky Stark (Lavender Diamond), Eleni Mandell and newest ‘sister’ Alex Lilly — have followed up their critically adored 2010 album Love to Live with the standards collection Run for Cover. The six song EP, with its intricate retro harmonies and righteously old-school instrumentation from the likes of drummer Don Heffington (Lone Justice, The Jayhawks) and pedal steel master Greg Leisz, provides listeners with some perspective as to the various sources of The Living Sisters’ zesty musical recipe, which “weave[s] together ’40s pop vocalizing, ’50s doo-wop, jazz, folk and country elements in a seamless mélange,” according to the L.A. Times’ Randy Lewis.
The six selections on Run for Cover range from a sublime a cappella take on Dolly Parton’s folk classic “Jolene” to a wildly imaginative reinterpretation of Funkadelic’s “Can You Get To That?” The harmony-laden EP, which also contains covers of songs associated with Jo Stafford “Make Love to Me” and Doris Day “Que Sera, Sera,” features two songs made famous by Patsy Cline “A Poor Man’s Roses (Or a Rich Man’s Gold)” and “Sweet Dreams.” In 2011, The Living Sisters hosted ‘A Tribute to Patsy Cline’ at Los Angeles’ Disney Hall as part of the L.A. Philharmonic Songbook Series.
Run for Cover is the latest in a string of accomplishments for these all-stars, who have been collaborating off and on since 2006 while conducting their respective individual careers. Mandell’s sultry voice and inventive songs have made her a modern-day L.A. treasure, and she has once again captivated the critics with her latest LP, 2012’s I Can See the Future. Stark’s mix of pop and chamber music in Lavender Diamond has been described as “effortless [and] timeless-sounding.” As The Bird and The Bee, George and her partner Greg Kurstin have built a cult following with their heady fusion of jazz, pop and tropicalia. And singer/multi-instrumentalist Alex Lilly’s band Touché has been cited as “scintillating pop music that tickles and rolls all over the flesh with a blend of beats and guitar and keys that feels fresh and new.”
Filed under Awesome, Check 'em Out!, listen
Upcoming tour dates (all w/ Grouplove):
Filed under Awesome, Check 'em Out!, downloads, listen, Newest Love
Flush with simmering sexuality and irresistible dance pulse, Brooklyn-based Hank & Cupcakes are the coalescence of rock without guitars and pop without synthesizers. Hailing from Tel Aviv, the duo consist of powerhouse vocalist/drummer Cupcakes and bassist/pedal board magician Hank. Named in reference to Charles “Hank” Bukowski and one of his real-life lovers “Cupcakes,” they have been honing their explosive live performances in front of US audiences since they arrived in 2008. Fully realized now, the show is a raucous bash, where the mesmerizing Cupcakes stands to bang her drum kit only breaking the beat to catalyze a dance party with the crowd.
Hank & Cupcakes recorded their debut album with Swedish producer Ludwig Boss at the legendary Hansa Studios in Berlin where landmark records from U2, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, R.E.M. & many more were made. First single “Sweet Potion,” which premiered today with MTV Hive, is the perfect balance of Hank’s cool progression on the bass and Cupcakes’ lyrical hooks and percussive assault. They are offering it as a free MP3 in advance of a brand new EP release October 22nd on BMG Rights Management.
Don’t miss the duo when they take their magnetic live show on the road this month in anticipation of a 2013 album release that will further showcase their postmodern brand of disco pop.
Download: Hank & Cupcakes – “Sweet Potion”
10/18: Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy
10/19: Pittston, PA @ The Rattler
10/20: NYC Wreckroom CMJ showcase @ Fontana’s
10/23: Columbia, SC @ New Brookland Tavern
10/24: Charleston, SC @ The Sparrow
10/25: Jacksonville, FL @ Jack Rabbits Live
10/26: Miami, FL @ The Stage
10/27: Tampa, FL @ Czar
10/28: Sarasota, FL @ Shamrock
10/31: Saratoga Springs, NY @ Putnam Den
11/1: Buffalo, NY @ Duke’s Bohemian Grove Bar
11/2: Rochester, NY @ Bugjar
11/3: Harrisburg, PA @ HMAC
11/6: Cleveland, OH @ Mahall’s
11/7: Bloomington, IN @ Bluebird
11/8: Indianapolis, IN @ Melody Inn
11/9: Chicago, IL @ Schubas
12/8: New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
Filed under Awesome, Check 'em Out!, downloads, Shows
Musically Amusing 