Du Tonc share their third mixtape today, maintaining their exploration into the sounds of the late night, layering disco, house, and acid. The duo, made up of Matt Van Schie(of Van She) and Mighty Mouse, continue to collaborate in the studio, preparing to unveil new material very soon.
Until then, go check out and download the mixtape!
And so after a week of carefully picking and choosing songs to suit most everyone, I’m proud to share my personal Christmas Party Playlist. Go ahead and enjoy this 4.5 hour long mix at your holiday party. There’s even some mainstream dance tracks towards the end for some of those rowdy party-goers.
Cut Copy have finally announced news on their latest album. Free Your Mind will be released November 5th via Loma Vista/Modular. Cut Copy’s Dan Whitford says, “The concept of freedom is one that’s universally positive and timeless, and whatever each person’s version of that freedom is, it’s a good thing to be reminding people or even just ourselves to be ‘free.’”
Have an eargasm and enjoy listening to another new song, “Let Me Show You Love”.
Free Your Mind tracklist:
(Intro)
Free Your Mind
We Are Explorers
Let Me Show You Love
(into the desert)
Footsteps
In Memory Capsule
(above the city)
Dark Corners & Mountain Tops
Meet Me in a House of Love
Take Me Higher
(the waves)
Walking in the Sky
Mantra
Tour Dates:
10-30 Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot
10-31 Reno, NV – The Knitting Factory
11-01 Portland, OR – Roseland Ballroom
11-02 Oakland, CA – The Fox Theater
11-03 Los Angeles, CA – HARD Day of the Dead
11-06 Tempe, AZ – Marquee
11-07 El Paso, TX – Tricky Falls
11-08 Austin, TX – Fun Fun Fun Fest
11-09 Houston, TX – Warehouse Live
11-10 Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom
11-11 St. Louis, MO – The Pageant
11-13 Madison, WI – The Majestic
11-14 Chicago, IL – The Riviera
11-15 Toronto, Ontario – Danforth Music Hall
11-16 Boston, MA – House of Blues
11-23 Santiago, Chile – Primavera Festival
11-26 London, UK – Oval Space
11-28 Luxembourg, Luxembourg – Atelier
11-29 Brussels, Belgium – Beursschowburg
11-30 Paris, France – Trabendo
“Blending 80′s art-rock, synth-pop, and a straight up indie rock chug, the band pours these genres together into a giant boiling cauldron of influences and come away with something that takes the best of each and leaves the rest to die by the wayside…” – Beats Per Minute
Click to check out the EP
Tracklist:
1. The Runner
2. Gone
3. Can’t Stop Shaking
4. House On Fire [Bonus Track]
5. House On Fire (SoundSAM Remix)
6. Can’t Stop Shaking (Soul Puncherz Remix)
SWF is the dream of, and moniker for, the artist, musician, and self-described mystic, Stevie Weinstein-Foner. Stevie’s messages of love and longing roll from his debut album, Let It Be Told, like mantras blasted from the radio of a brightly re-painted VW van, cruising down a metaphysical highway of endless summer with the windows down. Let It Be Told (out October 8 via Mecca Lecca) was recorded in Memphis, and the album’s soulful proclamations are backed by a chorus of fuzzy guitars, vocal harmonies, and very singable hooks. Time Out New York describes SWF’s music as “warm, mellow, scruffy rock & roll.” A few days ago marked the release of his first music video for “Black & Golden”, which you can watch below. The video was shot over the course of an entire year, beginning with the Chinese New Year in 2012 and wrapping on New Year’s Day in 2013.
After spending the summer of 2008 in the Grand Canyon rafting down the Colorado River, Stevie moved to Brooklyn, where he began to study yoga and write the songs which would become the material for Let It Be Told. Leaving Brooklyn to live and work on farms in Central America for the winter, he ended his travels in Memphis in May 2011, recording the first half of his debut album. Upon returning to Brooklyn, Stevie began performing as SWF, gathering friends from the yoga and music communities to act as band members.
After a year of determination, detox, and deep self-study, Stevie returned to Memphis in January 2013 to record the rest of the album. On “Warrior”, he sings, “I let my darkness shine, I let the darkness out, I’ve taken the warrior’s vow”, illuminating his path of sincerity and soul discovery. The songs are odes to a deeper connection to our soul and the challenges and beauty of hoping to attain enlightenment in the 21st century.
Revealed in both the spirit of light and darkness, Let It Be Told is a work of truth, love, and a heart that beats for rock & roll.
Upcoming SWF Tour Dates
9/02 – Brooklyn, NY – Glasslands (w/ Vermont Joy Parade)
10/08 – New York, NY – Pianos (Record Release Show)
Smallpools, the Los Angeles 4-piece announce two new tours today. After headlining the sold out Neon Gold’s Popshop West party on September 4th, the band will divide their time between the studio working on the full-length debut and touring with Walk The Moon in October and 21 Pilots in November. The foursome consist of Sean (vocals/keys), Mike (guitar), Joe (bass) and Beau (drums), just finished their tour with San Ciscoto a wild response.The release of their self-titled debut EP gained them critical acclaim.Neon Gold calls “Mason Jar”“a sepia splash of power-pop that crystallizes into a starscraping smash before the verse even kicks in, as stadium-sized Of Monsters And Men gang vocals ride high on the buoyant flair of Smallpools’ youthful, Two Door-esque ebullience.”
Their first single “Dreaming” was produced by Captain Cuts and instantly shot to #1 of Hype Machine within the first 3 days of its revealing. Check out where I originally posted “Dreaming” and a couple other remixes here AND check out the latest remix below.
Cold War Kids announce the release of ‘Tuxedos’, a digital EP available September 17th throughDowntown Records and MapleMusic Recordings. The six-song collection includes two previously unreleased tracks, “Romance Languages #2” and “Pine St.”, as well as covers “Aeon” (Antony and the Johnsons) and “You Don’t Come Through” (The Band). ‘Tuxedos’ also features the self-titled original album track and an alternative version of “Bottled Affection” from their April 2nd release, Dear Miss Lonelyhearts.
“Fits and starts of brilliance on the first three records, Cold War Kids have hit their stride and locked into a very intense groove for the fourth,” saysEsquire Magazine. NME adds, “(Dear Miss Lonelyhearts) has gone back to the sort of idiosyncratic weirdness that made us fall for them in the first place.” Relix states, “There’s a natural flow to the songs on this disc … a complexly drawn collection. And that blues sensibility you always liked best about them is happily still there.”
Tuxedos:
Tuxedos
Aeon
Bottled Affected (Cathedral Version)
Romance Languages #2
Pine St.
You Don’t Come Through
Cold War Kids Tour Dates
August 15 – San Diego, CA – House of Blues *
August 16 – Las Vegas, NV – Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas *
August 17 – Denver, CO – Cultivate Festival
August 18 – Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre *
August 19 – Albuquerque, NM – Sunshine Theatre *
August 21 – Tulsa, Oklahoma – Cain’s Ballroom *
August 22 – Austin, TX – Stubb’s Amphitheater *
August 23 – Dallas, TX – South Side Music Hall *
August 24 – Columbus, OH – CD 102.5 Summerfest
August 31 – Edmonton, AB – Sonic Boom
September 1 – Calgary, AB – X-Fest
September 19 – Los Angeles, CA – The Wiltern *
September 21 – Flagstaff, AZ – The Orpheum Theatre *
September 22 – Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theatre *
September 26 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue *
September 27 – Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall *
September 28 – Detroit, MI – St. Andrew’s Hall*
September 29 – Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue *
October 18 – Boston, MA – House of Blues *
October 19 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer *
October 21 – Providence, RI – Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel
October 22 – New York, NY – Terminal 5 *
October 24 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club *
October 26 – Richmond, VA – The National *
October 29 – Charlottesville, VA – The Jefferson Theatre
October 30 – Athens, GA – 40 Watt
October 31 – Asheville, NC – Orange Peel
November 1 – Louisville, KY – Headliners Music Hall
The Fratellis are back! After a 5-year release hiatus, the band is thrilled to announce their third full-length album We Need Medicine, slated for release on October 8 through BMG. An 11-track record of bluesy rock anthems, it was recorded in Glasgow’s West End and produced by Jon Fratelli and Stuart McCredie, who also mixed the record.
Lead by driving percussion, “This Old Ghost Town” is an upbeat summer-perfect track, while the darker “Rock n Roll Will Break Your Heart“ tells a tale of regret and love lost. “Seven Nights Seven Days” is a rousing jam with a deliriously catchy guitar hook, pounding keys and classic Fratellis snarling vocals. Check out “Seven Nights Seven Days” now!
Renowned for their electrifying live show, The Fratellis are planning to take the US by storm this fall. Stay tuned for more news & tour details coming soon!
We Need Medicine Track List
1. Halloween Blues
2. This Old Ghost Town
3. She’s Not Gone Yet But She’s Leaving
4. Seven Nights Seven Days
5. Shotgun Shoes
6. Whisky Saga
7. This Is Not The End Of The World
8. Jeannie Nitro
9. We Need Medicine
10. Rock n Roll Will Break Your Heart
11. Until She Saves My Soul
When Morcheeba last toured Brazil, they stayed in a Sao Paolo hotel with a swimming pool bar called the Skye Bar on its roof. One day, singer Skye Edwards was swimming in the pool when the manager came up and told her, “You do realize this pool is named after you, Skye?”
This gives some measure of how far and how deeply Morcheeba’s influence has spread since they first sketched out the blueprint for trip-hop with their debut album Who Can You Trust? It’s a journey that has taken the brothers from their native Kent and Skye from East London to performing for tens of thousands of ecstatic fans in South America and China, along the way releasing seven successful albums of modern music that reflects the most positive aspects of contemporary culture.
With a career spanning over 18 years and with millions of album sold worldwide, Morcheeba now return with their eighth studio album. Head Up High is due for release on October 15th 2013 via [PIAS] America. This follow up to 2010’s Blood Like Lemonadesees the band enlist Chali 2na (Jurassic 5), James Petralli (White Denim), Rizzle Kicks, Ana Tijoux and Nature Boy, highlighting the magnitude of their career and influence on a wide variety of artists old and new.
The biggest changes in the band’s sound, though, are provided by the retrained post-dub step elements coming through in some songs such as the wobbly synth bass underpinning the urgent dancehall throb of “Make Believer”, and the jerky rhythm of the bittersweet “To The Grave”, a song about guilty secrets. In the elastic, buzzy synths of “Hypnotized”, which in typical Morcheeba manner, blends Paul’s turntable scratches and Ross’s bluesy guitar and harmonica into a piece that defies simple genre description – all the more so for the fiery Spanish rap by Ana Tijoux, whom Paul first encountered watching an episode of Breaking Bad.
“I thought she was incredible,” he recalls. “While she was recording her vocal for ‘Hypnotized’, she was heavily pregnant and we didn’t know if she was going to be able to do it; I think she went into labor about a day later.”
Ana Tijoux isn’t the only guest featured on Head Up High. Rappers Nature Boy, Jim Kelly and Jurassic 5’s Chali 2Na appear on the sinister “Release Me Now” and the infectious, loping strider “Face Of Danger” respectively, the latter song a celebration of shame-free liberation and self-determination.
But it’s not just rappers that guest on Head Up High: three tracks also feature the smoky vocals of White Denim guitarist James Petralli, who brings a soulful blues tone to “Call It Love” and blends beautifully with Skye’s voice on the brief “I’ll Fall Apart” and album closer “Finally Found You”. All three songs also feature Petralli’s lyrics, while Ross gets to display the full gamut of his guitar prowess, with a delicate break on the latter and an all-out, Hendrix-style blitz on “Call It Love”.
For the other tracks, Paul wrote lyrics using the cut-up method devised by William Burroughs and most famously employed by David Bowie. “I took phrases I admired from a load of my favorite books – writers like Philip K. Dick – put them in a bag and drew them out, putting relevant ones together, and the mood and feeling of a song would come together from that,” he explains. “It was just a nice, fresh way of approaching it. With the English language, it’s so difficult to reinvent the wheel, despite its flexibility.”
It’s an attitude typical of the band’s approach to their art overall: Morcheeba have never been a band ready to rest on their laurels. “I always need to feel we’re moving on and making progress,” says Paul. “When we make new records, all we want to do is blow our fans away, and hopefully make some new ones.” With Head Up High, Morcheeba more than fulfill those ambitions.
TRACKLIST 1. Gimme Your Love 2. Face Of Danger 3. Call It Love 4. Under The Ice 5. I’ll Fall Apart 6. Make Believer 7. Release Me Now 8. To Be 9. Hypnotized 10. To The Grave 11. Do You Good 12. Finally Found You
“Mixing a dash of The Smiths’ swagger with more worldly influences”—Brooklyn Vegan
“Ski Lodge’s songs are most impressive not for their simplicity or for their general vibes, but for their striking clarity and attention to detail, as well as hooks so strong you couldn’t ignore them if you tried.”–The L Magazine
“Think, Real Estate and The Smiths. Marr writes about nostalgic memories of youth on top of his indie surf jams.” – Earmilk
“The album is preceded by first single, “Boy”, one of the catchiest ways to convey total suffocation and a perfect ode to summer heartache.” – Consequence of Sound
Twenty-plus years of stories, twenty-plus years of perfecting music’s craft, Ski Lodge’s Big Heart is exactly what a debut record should be: the culmination of a creative force’s life on this planet. Andrew Marr, the multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter behind Ski Lodge, has created a deeply personal record that overflows with lush melodies and insatiably catchy choruses. His songs occasionally deal with dark matters—infidelity, painful break-ups, loneliness, disjointed father-son dynamics—but Marr bathes them in a blissful light ripe for sing-alongs.
“I try to write songs honestly, and a lot of the things going on in my head that I struggle with might be deemed ‘dark,’ but I don’t think that means I can’t sing about them in a way that is musically upbeat or poppy,” Marr says, from his home in New York City. It’s a dichotomy that also translates to Marr’s choice for musical moniker. He explains the name Ski Lodge “evoked an image of being warm by a fire, alone or with friends, while outside exists the cold and cruel winter.”
Big Heart, Ski Lodge’s debut full-length, out this summer on Dovecote Records, is Marr’s fullest realization of this hot and cold split. Marr wrote all of the lyrics and music, and played nearly every sound that ended up on the record. However, this was the first time the 26-year-old worked in a professional studio with a producer, the indelible Lewis Pesacov (Best Coast, Fool’s Gold), over several weeks in Los Angeles. The combination of Marr’s intrinsic songwriting and Pesacov’s LA-defining production skills resulted in music with fuller breadth and scope than Ski Lodge’s previous release without losing any of the wry innocence that made 2011’s self-titled debut EP so much fun.
The one exception is the lead single “Just To Be Like You,” which was recorded with the full band in Upstate New York using producer Kevin McMahon (The Walkmen, Real Estate). Prefix Mag called the track “sugary sweet pop,” while Pitchfork warned its readers not to “be deceived by the energetic, hopscotching riff” before lauding the single’s dark depths. The song and its accompanying video of cult imagery are an exploration of contrast that fits in perfectly with both the album and Ski Lodge as a whole: deeply affecting and unmistakably danceable.
1. Anything To Hurt You
2. Boy
3. Looking For A Change
4. Big heart
5. You Can’t Just Stop Being Cruel
6. Dragging Me To Hell
7. I Always Thought
8. Does It Bring You Down
9. Just To Be Like You
10. Down On This Southern Tip
11. I Can’t Tell
Ski Lodge is having their album release party August 20th at Grasslands Gallery in Brooklyn.
Musically Amusing 