I just listened to this 5 times in a row. I love it.
According to Kate, Hand Me My Bow And Arrow, was a difficult second album to make, but not for the usual reasons of writer’s block or procrastination. Instead, the Townsville songstress was beset by a series of battles throughout the writing and recording process, beginning with family breakdown, and followed up by lost jobs, discarded boyfriends, unpaid rent and being evacuated from her house to escape a cyclone.
“The album came together surprisingly easily”, Kate explains, “I wasn’t exactly short of material to write about.” Candle Burnin’ Wax Drippin’ is about the relationship that are you know will fail from the start, but you stay in it regardless.
Hand Me My Bow And Arrow will be released through Shock Records on March 23.
Plants and Animals’ new album, The End of That, is out today, February 28, via Secret City Records, and to celebrate, the band is releasing a brand new video for the first single, “Lightshow,” which premiered at Paste today. The End of That is also streaming in its entirety all week long at Spinner.
The “Lightshow” video is a collaboration between producer Doug Karr and director Mitchell Hart who work on visual media together in New York. Hart explains the video as a commentary on contemporary media consumption: “There’s so much information coming at us at any given moment … as a result we’re moving further away from appreciating the specifics of any given piece of media.” Hart used the actual multi-track recordings to generate large data sets based on the audio files. Each track was analyzed through a series of code snippets and plug-ins to get what you see on screen. “A true combination of data visualization and cinematic production make this video unique.”
“Songs such as the slower-tempo, contemplative “Before” and the slightly 1970s-rock ‘n roll “The End of That,” really do give the impression that the band has closed a door on past experiences and is starting afresh. The End of That is an older and wiser album.” – Interview
“Even at their most ornate, Plants and Animals have always been a power trio at core. They play with such vigor that they might as well be fronting an unheard orchestra.” – FILTER
“Vibrant, constantly rewarding…” – SPIN.com
Plants and Animals have also added performances to their SXSW schedule and more North American tour dates through May.
Click image to go watch the video over at DailyMotion
French electro-pop composer Yuksek (aka Pierre-Alexander Busson) released his new album, Living On The Edge Of Time, February 14 on Ultra Records. Combining the infectious house beats and dance-floor vibe that Pierre has perfected with a more straightforward pop sound, the album has gained widespread praise from the likes of USA Today and CMJ, among others. Just the other day, Yuksek released a psychedelic video for album track “Off The Wall.” The playful video brings the bouncy, upbeat track to life with images of mirrored body parts moving along to the beat and giant faces built of colorful paper cutouts.
Having already made quite an impression in North America, Yuksek’s US fans will have more chances to catch the master of electro-pop performing live. Yuksek will head out on a string of US dates this March, including several performances at SXSW and Winter Music Conference. Be sure to catch the band unleash a tour de force live in a city near you!
The wait for the Santigold’s album, Master of My Make Believe, is almost over! Today she releases the first official single, “Disparate Youth.” Produced by Santigold and Ricky Blaze, the track is a contemporary rebel song with a new spin on punk & reggae that underscores its message of pushing through all roadblocks and claim “a life worth fighting for.”
Last month Santigold released the video and MP3 for “Big Mouth” to great acclaim. Santi calls out all trash-talkers on “Big Mouth,” with a schoolyard taunt melody backed by an explosive carnival beat that will shake the streets from Bed-Stuy to Baja. The track was produced by Switch and Buraka Som Systema and is available for free download at www.santigold.com. If you’re heading to SXSW this year, be sure not to miss her there!
The High Strung, and especially frontman Josh Malerman, are enthralled with blending fact and fiction. Malerman’s Facebook page declares he worked at “General Faw Faw’s Impossible Meats” in 1852 and that he attended “Fabulous Posture University” for the 95 years leading up to 1902. Because of this, their history and experiences are like big riddles, short puzzles that are as artistic as the albums they’ve made. And of their six albums, none captures this fascination with the absurd better than the new one, rightly called ?Posible o’ Imposible?
When describing how the band formed, Malerman either discusses grade schools and gym classes or, more recently, mental homes, where he says he was a patient and guitarist Stephen Palmer was an orderly, before the two realized they worked well together and busted out.
The rhythm section of Chad Stocker (bass) and Derek Berk (drums) are everything a music fan relishes; explosive, original, and danceable, too. When describing them, Malerman says he can’t remember if they “planted” him or if he planted them but “either way we grew out of the ground and picked each other and presented one another to mother in a vase.”
The songs on ?Posible o’ Imposible? are just as enigmatic. Thinking big is the main thread, but maybe it should be described as “imagining” big. The album is home to many modern characters, most of whom are on the verge of creating a grand spectacle. The hunter who tires of animals and seeks out black holes and planets in “Big Game Hunter”. The man who has toiled in obscurity only to be flooded with opportunities in “On Your Way Up!”. The man who experiences the weather before his peers in “Giant.” And, most notably, the world described in “Rats, Rats, Rats” where “there’s a job opening for a clerk at the Church of Satan” and a “dance tonight at the Church of Raging Hormones.”
The High Strung do not present themselves as ironic; their absurdist scenarios are delivered in a way that reveals they mean it. And the band is on their way up, having scored the theme song for Showtime’s new hit series “Shameless”, starring William H. Macy as an impossibly drunk father.
Live, the band verges on a variety show, traveling hucksters who have, as Malerman says, “between a dozen and two dozen melodies in jars, rhythms too, sentences too, and, on stage, if we get lucky, we open the corresponding jars so the songs make real sense.” The best known document detailing the experience of the band’s live show is a lengthy article in Vanity Fair that covers a two-show trip to Guantanamo Bay where Malerman fell in love with a female soldier, Berk was housed with an over zealous interrogator, and the boys “drank more rum than water.”
The High Strung are a rock band, of this there is no doubt, but one that clearly adores music, successfully injecting all this incredulity, absurdity, and irrationality into ?Posible o’ Imposible? and the shows that will accompany it. It’s the type of album kids will be downloading, illegally or not, as they discuss whether or not it’s true that Berk’s drums talk to him or, as Malerman says, “the first time we practiced together, the very first time we played, the boys all struck a C chord at the same time, without preamble. But I sang a D. And instead of thinking we’d fallen short of some cosmic relationship that was meant to be, I immediately understood we were destined to do something… different.”
New York City’s psychedelic rock beast Spirit Animal has announced plans for their next full-length album, Spiritia Animalia, which will see a release later this year. Today, the band is sharing the first single, “Crocodile Skins,” which is available as a free download through the band’s soundcloud page, along with an album teaser video featuring studio footage of the band at work on Spiritia Animalia. Onstage, Spirit Animal is at once manic and precise, with a non-stop show full of big solos, tight grooves, wild sing-along moments and sweat-drenched performances. Check out this recent live footage from Mercury Lounge for an idea of what their live show is like! With mixing underway on their follow-up full length, Spiritia Animalia is poised to deliver the back-breaking rock and shit-kicking funk missing from the modern music landscape. The band, led by Steve Cooper, has already drawn comparisons to LCD Soundsystem and Animal Collective for their blend of irresistible hooks and riffs, complimented by the bands’ tight rhythm section. Add in a healthy dose of frontman freakout, and you have Spirit Animal.
In 2010, the band released their debut LP, The Cost of Living, a unique and powerful blend of rock, psychedelia and dance. The album garnered broad radio play and earned them placements on ABC’s “Happy Endings” and FOX’s “New Girl.” The band recently released a 7-inch for “I’m Around” on Mecca Lecca Recording Co. The video was also used in an HBO “How to Make It In America” promo.
Shot on location between the misty hills and rolling streets of San Francisco, and the searing heat of downtown Miami during the city’s famous Art Basel Week, the video for “On Your Own” was written, co-produced and co-directed by the Serge Devant himself.
“The story follows a struggling artist in that moment when the whole world seems to collapse around him,” explained Serge from his studio in New York, “but he sees his sleeping girlfriend and can’t help himself but paint her. It’s about that moment when you focus on the one truly beautiful thing that you have, escape into it and produce something genuinely breathtaking and from the heart.”
But in the face of mounting debts and an untimely eviction notice the artist’s companion, played by stunning Russian model Anna Vishnevskaya, fails to find solace in our hero’s work and leaves her love behind. Cue rage, passion and paintings flying out of windows – landing at the feet of an impressed Serge Devant and a cuing complete turnaround of fortunes.
Impressively, the artwork that features throughout the video is the work of Russian painter Andrei Sharov and was commissioned specifically for the video after Devant met the artist in Monaco.
With a full package of remixes from the likes of David Tort, Stephan Luke and Thomas Sagstad & Mike Hawkins, Serge Devant “On Your Own” is out now through www.beatport.com.
With its official release date still over a month away, Recollected – Devant’s second album released through Ultra – is still under wraps, but to celebrate the imminent release of “On Your Own” we’ve received a sneak preview RIGHT HERE. Check out forthcoming tracks “Dice”, “True Faith”, “When You Came Along”, “On Your Own”, “You & Me”, “Far Away”, “Xylo” and Serge’s roaring remix of the classic “3AM Eternal”.
Today sees the US release of The 2 Bears’ debut album, Be Strong, which is available on vinyl and CD from the DFA store, and digitally via iTunes. In celebration of the full-length release, the Bears are sharing a new mix, “Whatever The Weather,” which premiered on Spinner RPM. The mix features new tracks from DFA labelmates Factory Floor, as well as tracks from Armand Van Helden, Henrik Schwarz, Gino Soccio, Davina and more. You can still snag the first free single from the album, “Work,” via DFA’s Soundcloud too!
A London record through and through, Be Strong ducks and weaves to the myriad sounds of the city, as The 2 Bears pursue the perfect party record. Raf Daddy – aka Raphael Rundell – met Joe Goddard (taking time out from his day job as one fifth of Hot Chip) through a party scene that saw them share deck duties at the legendary Greco-Roman parties. Upon venturing into the studio in an attempt to replicate some of the records that they’d lost themselves in the night before, Raf found himself laying down vocals over Joe’s skipping, bassomatic backing tracks safe in the knowledge that they’d soon be replaced by someone with sweeter, more melodious tones. In the end, it was Raf’s voice that characterized and personalized The 2 Bears.
Over its ten tracks, Be Strong conjures up that elusive spirit of the dancefloor without pretension, and with ultimate precision. It’s a soul record in that it’s from the soul, wearing its imperfections with pride. It’s a dance record in that it’ll get you off your seat. It’s a London record in that it couldn’t have come from any other city in 2011, echoing the glorious schizophrenic sound of a late night cab ride listening to a radio with a mind of its own. With minimal effort and maximum respect from their peers, tracks began to be hammered in clubs and on radio by the likes of Andrew Weatherall, Erol Alkan, Pete Tong and Annie Mac. This summer’s Bear Hug EP cranked things up yet another notch with Chris Moyles giving the track some early morning airings and Elton John and Paul McCartney declaring themselves fans.
Musically Amusing 