Category Archives: new albums

Check ‘Em Out: BL_NK SP_C_S

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“Equal parts chilly krautrock majesty and proto-synthpop menace  – NME MAGAZINE

New York based one man project, BL_NK  SP_C_S has released his debut album on the fledgling You Records label.

Memory Man, recorded with producer Martin Dubka (Aeroplane / Kitsune), features ten tracks including the recent critically acclaimed and BBC 6Music,  XFM and Amazing Radio endorsed download single “The Great Shark Hunt”. A special video single of the “Memory Man” track, which was inspired by David Bowie’s “The Man Who Fell To Earth” and Maya Deren’s classic  “Meshes Of The Afternoon” short, can be viewed here:

BL_NK  SP_C_S began making his own take on electronic pop music last year and records everything on tape in his bedroom based analogue studio. His synth laden melodies, krautrock guitars and pop sensibilities draw influence from Eno, Neu, Morricone and The The, but there is something truly new and exciting about his sound. Soaring and uplifting there are too may highlights to mention, but album opener “A Parting Gift”, “Sneaking Back In”,  “No Sleep”, “Start”, “Heavy The Lay The Crown” and the eponymous album title track are as diverse and catchy as any great songs you will hear this year and beyond.

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Buy it now on iTunes

Album Tracklisting:

01. A Parting Gift

02. Too Far Gone

03. Sneaking Back In

04. No Sleep

05. Start!

06. The Great Shark Hunt

07. As Good As It Gets

08. Heavy Lay The Crown

09. Memory Man

10. Talk The Talk

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Newest Love: The Districts

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Listen: The Districts – “Funeral Beds”

Philly band The Districts are a young four-piece band who recently released their self-titled EP on Fat Possum. Since then, the band has toured North America, playing shows with White Denim, Dr. Dog, and more.  The band kicked off their summer tour dates and will continue winning people over throughout the summer, with their own headlining dates alongside big name festivals like this weekend’s Boston Calling, as well as Ottawa’s Bluesfest, Lollapalooza and Outside Lands.  Quite an impressive schedule, but the band is more than up to the task with their incredibly energetic live shows.

The self-titled EP features three newly remastered tracks off their 2012 self-released album Telephone, as well as two brand new tracks.

“Lancaster County, Pennsylvania’s the Districts serve up an impressive EP that straddles the line between imaginative indie rock and brisk blues-inflected folk.” – Rolling Stone

“on stage, with a confidence that doesn’t come easy to veteran acts, the band put across its impressive mix of raw rock-and-roll and quieter folkish elements.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

 The Districts on tour:

  • 5/19 — Charlottesville, VA — Jefferson Theater*
  • 5/20 — Washington, DC — The Black Cat*
  • 5/21 — Washington, DC — The Black Cat*
  • 5/25 — Boston, MA — Boston Calling Festival
  • 5/31 — Brooklyn, NY — Knitting Factory
  • 6/5 — Tulsa, OK — Cain’s Ballroom**
  • 6/7 — Columbia, MO — The Blue Note**
  • 6/8 — Indianapolis, IN — The Vogue**
  • 6/10 — Pittsburgh, PA — Stage AE**
  • 6/11 — Carrboro, NC — Cat’s Cradle**
  • 7/9 — Ottawa, ON — Bluesfest
  • 7/10 — Ottawa, ON — Bluesfest
  • 7/18 — Louisville, KY — Forecastle Festival
  • 7/27 — Camden, NJ — XPN Festival @ Susquehanna Bank Center w/ Beck, Band of Horses
  • 8/2 — Chicago, IL — Lollapalooza
  • 8/2 — Chicago, IL – Metro
  • 8/8 — San Francisco, CA — Outside Lands Festival

* w/ Deer Tick, Langhorne Slim & The Law

**w/ Dr. Dog

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Listen: Noosa – “Wildfire”

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Listen: Noosa – “Wildfire”

Check out “Wildfire”, my favorite track from Wonderland, the debut LP from Noosa. Wonderland is a collaboration with producer Mickey Valen, recorded in Noosa’s hometown of Long Island. The inspiration of Wonderland comes from Noosa’s long desired departure from New York and fascination with life’s possibilities on the west coast. Noosa finds a place to portray a sense of lightness, honesty, and wonder in her music coined by her as “fairy-pop”. It is an arrangement of nature interspersed with pop music that gives Noosa her free-flowing and memorable sound. “

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Brand New: The Cold And Lovely

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The Cold and Lovely is the brainchild of indie-rock goddesses, Meghan Toohey (The Weepies, Lenka, Schuyler Fisk) and Nicole Fiorentino (The Smashing Pumpkins,Veruca Salt, Spinnerette). The duo came together to form The Cold And Lovely with a singular sonic vision. The deceivingly moody yet bold new Ellis Bell Deluxe EP will be released on June 17.

Mastered by Dave Cooley (M83, The Silversun Pickups), the release features driving rock tunes that are as heartbreaking as they are anthemic. Upon discussing their influences, Toohey explains, “I dug deep into albums that changed my life, such as My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, PJ Harvey’s entire catalog, and the work of bands like The Cure and U2. But it was Nicole who really helped me shake out the sound and pinpoint what I loved about the guitar tones and production.”

Shoegaze masterpiece “Oh, My Love” is a brooding lovesong strapped with melancholy lyrics and a bass line that commands listeners to move. Infectious title track “Ellis Bell” blends the duo’s slightly distorted vocals over lush instrumentation and dramatic, driving bass. With celestial backing vocals and hard-hitting lyrics, the percussive nature of “Radio” at once lends itself to road trip mixtapes and late-night ragers. “Radio” was released with VICE’s Noisey and you can check it out here.

Listen: The Cold And Lovely – “Radio”

The Cold And Lovely have launched begun a Pledge Music campaign, offering backers behind-the-scenes video snippets as well as a variety of brand new exclusive merchandise. The duo will hit the road this spring with their first ever East Coast run, launching in NYC:

6/10: New York, NY @ Pianos NYC (New Music Seminar)
6/11: Long Branch, NJ @ The Brighton Bar
6/12: Washington, DC @ Black Cat
6/13: Columbus, OH @ Rumba Cafe
6/14: Pittsburgh, PA @ Howlers Coyote Cafe
6/16: Brooklyn, NY @ Glasslands
6/17: Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie
6/18: Cambridge, MA @ T.T. the Bear’s Place
6/19: Easthampton, MA @ Flywheel Arts Collective

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Video: The Van Doos – “Speak Up”

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Check out the video for “Speak Up”, which was filmed right in the band’s own living room! This is their first official single from their debut album and it’s now available to buy on Amazon! Released last week, “Speak Up” has already been featured on NME, ShortList Magazine and loads of other blogs!

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Check ‘Em Out: Josh Record – “Wide Awake”

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Listen: Josh Record – “Wide Awake”

Standing on the shoulders of his musical heroes, Bon Iver and Swedish multi-instrumentalist Tingsek, Josh Record releases his stunning debut album Pillars on Virgin/EMI July 14th.
 
Having been tipped by Q Magazine, The Sunday Times Culture, iTunes, Radio 1, XFM, The Sun and VEVO at the turn of the year, Pillars does not disappoint with Josh’s joyous uplifting, melodic songs weaving their way into your very being.
 
Written by Josh (two songs were co-written with long-time collaborator Tom Prothero) and co-produced with David Kosten (Bat For Lashes), the album was recorded largely in Oxford and London, and features the Radio 1 and Radio 2 playlisted hit “For Your Love”.
 
Other highlights include “The War” the track that launched Josh when picked up by Zane Lowe off YouTube, the radio hit “Bones”, the lung busting epic “Finally”, and the new single “Wide Awake”.
 
Already a veteran on the road with shows supporting Bastille, Lorde, London Grammar and Sam Smith, Josh Record has sold out all his headline shows to date and is set to play summer festivals throughout the UK and Europe including Glastonbury, T in The Park, Rock and Park, Rock AM Ring, Wilderness and V Festival.

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Video: Plaid – “Wallet”

Check out the video for “Wallet” from Plaid’s new album, Reachy Prints.

The video is directed by Sabrina Ratté who says: 

“The video is inspired by the idea of creating a world based on memories, where things seem real but they are in fact a construction of the mind. All the images are made from electronic signals, from which were created a reproduction of a sun, different landscapes and cities. The musical composition induced the vision of bright colours and daylight atmosphere, so the simulated sunlight became a central element of the video, thus creating dazed images where everything is diffused and hard to grasp.”

Plaid explains:

“We wondered if consciousness is a memory and what role memories have in the imaginative process . We saw prints as physical memories and an equivalence between printing and memory function. They often share the aim of ‘reproducing’ a subject as accurately as possible. Experience told us that a perfect reproduction is difficult, if not impossible. An attraction to explore this fallibility and a curiosity about the potential inaccuracies and artefacts gave us the album title, Reachy Prints.
 
“The track ‘Wallet’ is inspired by the items found in wallets, the money, receipts, business cards, photos etc and the symbolism of wallets as a safe place to store items we value and want to remember. Most items in a wallet have already been digitised and perhaps physical wallets/purses will become obsolete.”

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Video: Alice Boman – “Over”

New Album, EPII, out June 3 via The Control Group

“Alice Boman’s voice wavers between ethereal and ghostly, but its fragility doesn’t limit the force of her songs.” – Huffington Post

“Alice Boman’s lyrics are frank and direct, revealing the most personal thoughts in the darkest corners of her mind.” – Pigeons and Planes

“‘Over’ is a melancholy tune about heartbreak and loss, with Boman’s dreamy vocals and intimate lyrics the perfect partner for the low key and ghostly Bon Iver-like production.” – Indie Shuffle

 

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Video: Midnight Faces – “Hold Tight”

“Crisp, synth-lined pop drama.” – SPIN

“This record is solid from start to finish.” – Nylon Guys

“Full of air and catchiness.” – The Onion A.V. Club

Matt Doty, one half-of LA based duo Midnight Faces with Philip Stancil says of the “Hold Tight” video ,“it was pretty impulsive overall.” The clip is a joyous tour of Los Angeles that sees the Midnight Faces guys dancing in the Saddleback Butte State Park desert, the fields of Mugu State Park, the Angeles National Forest mountains, downtown, and at the Santa Monica beach.

“We set aside a few days to shoot it and headed out to the desert,” Doty says.  “After a few shots, we decided we were having more fun dancing than walking around.”  It’s fun for the viewer, too.  The clip perfectly captures the humanity behind the insular circumstances of the album’s creation.

Midnight Faces new album, The Fire Is Gone, is out now.

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Tracklist for The Fire Is Gone

  1. Wake Me
  2. Over Again (Stream)
  3. Shadows
  4. Hold Tight (Stream)
  5. This Time (Stream)
  6. Give It Up
  7. Animal
  8. The Fire Is Gone

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Highly Anticipated: Bleachers Debut Album

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Bleachers will release debut album Strange Desire on July 15th, 2014 on RCA Records. The highly anticipated album was written and produced by Grammy Award winning musician Jack Antonoff with co-producer John Hill (MIA, Jay Z, Empire of the Sun) as well as Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yaz, Erasure) and others.
 
Here’s the Craigslist Ad that Antonoff put out a little over a day ago:

‘strange desire’ is something that came to me a few weeks ago when i was working on the last song i wrote for the bleachers album. the lyric is, “feeling like i never was young i followed a dream and a strange desire”. it was just something that came out in a scratch vocal take off the top of my head and i didn’t realize how important it was in that moment. that line speaks to my entire life over the past 14 years of writing and being on tour. i do feel like I’m constantly mourning a childhood i never had. mostly because i dealt with a lot of loss in the most formative years of my life. that ties into a lot of the lyrics on the album. specifically ‘i wanna get better’ – “while my friends where getting high and chasing girls down parkway lines i was losing my mind…”. i felt completely freaked out at a moment in life that was supposed to be carefree. i let go of a lot right then and started to follow what i now call a strange desire. its the 2 words that perfectly title what this bleachers album is as a documentation of my life as i can remember it at this point. or better put, as i see it from this point. its been a bizarre and wonderful decade (particularly the past 2 years). a lot of great things have happened but its also been strange. this album speaks to all of that. i never kept a diary over the past year of being away and thinking about my life as it has unfolded – instead i wrote this album. 

so now its time to move on from the ‘making the album phase’ and start to make the plans to give it to you. that will be july 15th. now you know that. as much as its weird to admit, sharing this album is as important as making it for me. I’m able to move on with my life from hearing the stories of what people have been through as well as telling them myself. people hearing my stories makes me feel less alone, hearing others stories does the same….. strange desire etc. 

jack
 

Bleachers first single “I Wanna Get Better” has already streamed over 1.5 million times, was deemed “the song of the summer in February” by the Huffington Post and quickly skyrocketed into the top 10 at Alt radio.  Coming off the success of the breakthrough single, Bleachers recently premiered “Shadow” on Pigeons & Planes which is now available on all digital providers.

 

Listen: Bleachers – “Shadow”
 

Since the Bleachers launch in February critics have been nothing but excited and eager to hear more. Rolling Stone exclaimed “We’ll be shocked if it’s not all over the radio by spring”, TIME raved “…it’s exciting to imagine what else Antonoff has up his sleeve” and Hilly Dilly proclaimed “…this is the kind of music that can’t get big enough.”

 Bleachers will kick off their summer festival tour dates in early June at New York’s Governor’s Ball:
 
June 8 – New York, NY @ Governor’s Ball
June 19-22 – Dover, DE @ Firefly Music Festival 
June 25 – Pilton, UK @ Glastonbury Festival
June 27 – Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest
July 5-6 – UK @ Wireless Festival
August 1 – Montreal, QC @ Osheaga Festival
August 3 – Chicago, IL @ Lollapalooza
August 8 – San Francisco, CA @ Outside Lands Music Festival 
September 5 – Boston, MA @ Boston Calling Music Festival
September 6 – Boston, MA @ Boston City Hall Plaza 
September 7 – Boston, MA @ City Hall Plaza
October 3 – Austin, TX @ ACL Music Festival 
October 10 – Austin, TX @ ACL Music Festival
 
Hailing from New Jersey, 29 year old Jack Antonoff has been in the music scene for over a decade.  In 2002, with Jack as the lead singer, the success of New Jersey born indie rock band Steel Train was well underway. Steel Train’s cult following lead them to make their national television debut on Late Night With Conan O’Brien and later appeared on Late Show With David Letterman. In 2008, Jack joined Nate Ruess and Andrew Dost to form the Grammy award winning fun.
 
In addition to being a multi-talented musician, Jack is a critically acclaimed songwriter and producer.  His achievements include fun. being honored with the Vanguard Award at the 2014 ASCAP Pop Music Awards and co-writing fun.’s Grammy award winning song “We Are Young” and Grammy nominated album Some Nights. He also received a Golden Globe nomination for his collaboration with Taylor Swift on her song “Sweeter Than Fiction.” Jack has also worked with Sara Bareilles, co-writing her Grammy nominated hit “Brave”, and Canadian Indie icons Tegan and Sara.

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