Sparkadia is essentially Alex Burnett who plays with his supporting and touring band. The latest album, The Great Impression, is a great listen, and “Mary” is a great introduction to the record as a whole. “Mary” is a perfect example of Sparkadia’s musical astheic and take on twisted emotions of a story-telling soul. Look out for Sparkadia’s upcoming music video release for a track off The Great Impression by visiting their site here www.sparkadia.com.
The Great Impression by Sparkadia is out now, and can be purchased here.
Check out this video from Class Actress for “Journal of Ardency” — a single from last year on Class Actress’ EP Journal of Ardency on Terrible Records. Class Actress is Elizabeth Harper and when she set out on her glam-rock adventure, she decided to have a REAL early 80s feel to her music by using vintage drums and analog synths.
Have a listen at “Weekend” from her debut album, Rapprocher, out now through Carpark Records.
“sweetly spectral vocals over lush ’80s synths and beats.” – NYLON
“New York is no stranger to disco-influenced electro-pop, but there’s always room for another addition to the party….cool and collected vocal hooks from [Elizabeth] Harper’s sultry croon floating atop a straightforward dance beat rife with shimmering synths and bouncing basslines.” – XLR8R
Tracklist:
1. Keep You
2. Love Me Like You Used To
3. Weekend
4. Prove Me Wrong
5. Need To Know
6. Limousine
7. All The Saints
8. Bienvenue
9. Missed
10. Hangin’ On
11. Let Me In
Gigamesh’s debut self-titled EP is available through all digital retailers starting today, through Our Label International. Additionally, fans can buy the extended version of the single “When You’re Dancing Ft. Induce” exclusively on Beatport. Gigamesh has received considerable attention and support from DJs as diverse as DJ AM and Brodinski to Busy P and Fare Soldi for his bootleg remixes of artists like Animal Collecitve, Lykke Li and Radiohead, the latter two of which hit #1 on the Hype Machine. In celebration of the EP release, he has released the new “It’s So Intense” (Fare Soldi Enrico Pallazzo Remix) MP3.
Gigamesh opens the EP with disco-infused single “When You’re Dancing (feat. Induce)” with a hook that commands you to move. “It’s So Intense” lives up to its name as a hazy synth-driven club banger. EP closer “People” shows the melodic side of Gigamesh, lead by melodic vocals from Nicole Godiva while still incorporating bass guitar and synths.
Known for pushing the boundaries of dance music, Gigamesh has been making his mark for several years in dance clubs around the world. He has garnered widespread success with his own popular blend of remixes, as well as his work with remix group DiscoTech, and his role in Señor Stereo, a disco influenced live-electronic group. Gigamesh was hired to remix Mike Posner’s “Cooler Than Me” in late 2009. Ultimately chosen to be the first single on Posner’s debut album, the Gigamesh version went on to sell over 2.5 million copies.
Gigamesh Tour Dates
10/29: Minneapolis, MN @ Kitty Cat Klub, Record Release Show
11/4: Toronto, ON @ The Gladstone
11/5: New York, NY @ Juliet Supperclub
11/18: Vancouver, BC @ Post Modern
Pajama Club, the new band from Crowded House and Split Enz frontman Neil Finn, are getting to release their self-titled debut album this Tuesday September 13th on Lester Records/Redeye. For a taste of what to expect check out the band’s eye-popping video for opening track “Tell Me What You Want.” The track is a tete-a-tete between singers Neil and his wife Sharon Finn, who coyly blend heaving breathing and falsetto vocals.
Like “Tell Me What You Want,” the rest of the album, the song is anchored by a massive rhythms and quirky electronics, topped off by Neil and Sharon’s back-and-forth vocals. The pair have an alluring natural chemistry that forms the core of the band. Pajama Club has a wonderfully spontaneous feel to it, which stems from the way in which it was recorded. The skeleton of the songs were formed when Neil and Sharon began jamming together just for fun at home, drinking wine, wearing pajamas and realizing they had something going on, bigger than just raw grooves.
Eventually Neil added additional layers of guitar, keys, and other melodic lines to the bare-bones songs while he toured with Crowded House in 2009. The final piece of the puzzle came when Sean Donnelly began rounding out the tracks with electronic loops and texture, in a similarly independent, creative, and organic fashion that Neil and Sharon had first begun.
Pajama Club’s debut bursts with a joyous, free spirited energy at every turn. However it is Neil and Sharon’s impeccable melodies that bring it all together – burrowing in the listener’s brain while giving each song an immediate likeability.
Mick Jagger has teamed up with Eurythmics founder Dave Stewart, soul singer Joss Stone, Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack composer A.R.Rahman and reggae star Damian Marley to form a band cooperative project called SuperHeavy. This diverse and eclectic line up who share eleven Grammy Awards between them, have been recording together in various studios around the world, with the majority of the tracks on the project laid down over three weeks in Los Angeles earlier this year.
It’s little wonder that Stewart refers to SuperHeavy as, “A mad alchemist type experiment”. Fusing the talents of one of the greatest front-men of all time, a two time Academy award winning Indian composer, a soul vocal prodigy, a three time Grammy winning reggae star, and one of the most sought after producers in the world, you would expect the explosive results to defy categorisation.
SuperHeavy came together after Jagger and Stewart considered what a band comprising of musicians from different genres would sound like. Jagger explains, “Dave really wanted to make a record with a different group of musicians, in other words, with different backgrounds of music. Instead of everyone being a rock musician, or a blues musician, or some other genre, he wanted to get as many genres together that would fit. I said it sounds like a good idea, I never thought it would actually happen.”
Despite their disparate backgrounds, they instantly connected and hit the ground running, writing twenty-two songs in the first six days. Stone was thrilled with the results, “That’s what you need, all these opinionated people who have been brilliant in their own field, shove them together and see what comes out. It’s really unexpected, it’s mind blowing,” she enthuses.
However, despite the free flow of creative juices and the easy rapport they established, getting the band together in one place became very difficult, as Stewart explains, “It’s the most complicated record ever made. Imagine, some of it’s recorded in LA, some of it’s recorded in the South of France, some of it’s recorded off the coast of Cyprus, some of it’s recorded in Turkey, some of it’s recorded in Miami, some of it’s recorded in the Caribbean, and some of it’s recorded in Chennai, in India.”
The project needed a name. Marley had been riffing the term “SuperHeavy”, inspired by Muhammad Ali being the super heavy weight champion of the world and the phrase became the band’s catchphrase, “It was Mick who said, ‘Why don’t we call it SuperHeavy?”, recalls Stewart, “We all thought about it for ages and then it sort of stuck.”
Back to that alchemical experiment, Jagger, Stewart, Marley, Rahman and Stone appear to have created a new genre. It’s a new kind of music, it’s a new genre, one that cannot be placed” says Stone. Yet, Jagger is keen to point out the music is accessible, “It’s very approachable. If you’re a Rolling Stones fan there’s definitely stuff you can relate to.”
As far as the future of SuperHeavy goes, “We haven’t planned to do a tour or anything, but if people really like it maybe we will. We’d love to get out and play some of it live,” says Jagger humbly. “As soon as we started playing together in the studio it gelled, and all these different styles didn’t seem to be a problem to make them fit together… I hope people will like it….”
I know I like what I’ve heard so far…and can’t wait to hear the rest! The band’s self-titled album will be in stores September 20, 2011.
Coming off like the perfect hybrid of Friendly Fires and Phoenix with a bit of that Down Under electro touch thrown in for good measure, Strange Talk are one of the most polished and exciting new acts to emerge. Fully equipped with an arsenal of stadium-ready anthems, “Climbing Walls” is all shimmering synths, cascading bass surges while next single “Eskimo Boy” shines as the bands flagship anthem, churning synths and heavy basslines slowly building up to the kind of dancefloor-swallowing breakdown Neon Gold dreams are made of. Elsewhere, “Is It Real” and “We Can Pretend” beg to be blasted with the top down on the open roads of summer as producer Eliot James (Two Door Cinema Club, Bloc Party), earns his 2011 Music Producers’ Guild Breakthrough Producer of the Year award with some of his finest work yet.
Click image to go listen to "It's Around You" and "Blood on Blood"
On August 29th, apocalyptic synth-pop purveyors ANR will release the 7” single for “It’s Around You” on Neon Gold Records (Passion Pit, Marina & The Diamonds, Ellie Goulding). The duo are also sharing the single’s B-Side, “Blood On Blood,” a frantic rave-up complementing the slow-building majesty of the A-Side. Click HERE to purchase the 7” and click HERE to head over to Neon Gold’s general record shop.
For “Blood On Blood” the gents of ANR enlisted the golden touch of Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Gnarls Barkley) to mix the song. The result is an anthemic track armed with the group’s trademark quirky pop hooks and psychedelic sonics.
North American Tour Dates:
08/25: Washington, DC @ U Street Music Hall
08/29: Philadelphia, PA @ Kung-Fu Necktie
08/30: New York, NY @ Milk Studios
08/31: New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
09/01: Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
09/02: Montreal, QC @ Casa Del Popolo
09/03: Toronto, ONT @ The Drake
09/05: Detroit, MI @ Lager House
09/06: Grand Rapids, MI @ Pyramid Scheme
09/07: Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
09/09: Urbana, IL @ Canopy Club
09/10: Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
09/12: Seattle, WA @ Crocodile Lounge
09/13: Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
09/15: San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill
09/16: Fresno, CA @ Audie’s Olympic
09/17: Los Angeles, CA @ The Satellite
09/20: San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar
“the driving beats of TV On The Radio blended with the psychedelic sweetness of Passion Pit” – MTV.com
Miami’s psychedelic synth-pop duo ANR released the brand new track “New Armor.” The song is the latest example of the group’s constant evolution as well as their prolific songwriting. It begins with a lone acoustic guitar before falsetto vocals and lush, sparkling keyboards join the mix. ANR’s reverb-laden vocals are anthemic and continue in the introspective, earnest direction of the previously released tracks from Stay Kids Deluxe Edition, their forthcoming album out September 13th on 10k Islands.
ANR consists of merely two members – Brian Robertson (Keys, Vocals) and Michael-John Hanock (Vocals, Drums) – but they create a powerful sound filled with layered melodies and bountiful hooks. It has already earned the duo praise from RCRD LBL, The Fader, MTV.com, and Nylon, among others, and have landed them shows with bands like Animal Collective, Neon Indian, No Age, and Fucked Up. The band kicks off their North American tour later this month.
08/25: Washington, DC @ U Street Music Hall
08/29: Philadelphia, PA @ Kung-Fu Necktie
08/30: New York, NY @ Milk Studios
08/31: New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
09/01: Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
09/02: Montreal, QC @ Casa Del Popolo
09/03: Toronto, ONT @ The Drake
09/05: Detroit, MI @ Lager House
09/06: Grand Rapids, MI @ Pyramid Scheme
09/07: Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
09/09: Urbana, IL @ Canopy Club
09/10: Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
09/12: Seattle, WA @ Crocodile Lounge
09/13: Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
09/15: San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill
09/16: Fresno, CA @ Audie’s Olympic
09/17: Los Angeles, CA @ The Satellite
09/20: San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar
Musically Amusing 