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.
Before embarking on their current European Tour, Architecture in Helsinki snuck off to Australia’s Gold Coast with their good friends and fellow Melburnians Krozm, who had mentioned to them earlier in the year that they’d met a Pyrotechnician who had offered them use of his Animatronic Dolphins.
As the band recount, “This sounded too good to be true, so we pinky swore that we’d make our dolphin dream a reality. We later found out that these same dolphins were used in the 90’s version of Flipper, featuring Jessica Alba, which only made the prospect of this clip more exciting.”
They add that “In a nutshell, ‘W.O.W’ acts the soundtrack to a film about one man’s quest to find answers and in turn his place in the natural universe. Somewhere along the line we convinced Cameron to make his acting debut, which included him swimming fully clothed in freezing water for a whole day.”
Next week AIH embark on their final US Tour for the Aria-nominated (for Best Pop Release) “Moment Bends,” so be sure not to miss the last opportunity to see them for quite a while.
Tour Dates:
02 Nov 2011 – Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey Theatre
03 Nov 2011 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
04 Nov 2011 – Cruz, CA @ Rio Theatre
05 Nov 2011 – Mexico City, MX @ El Plaza Condesa
06 Nov 2011 – Austin, TX @ Fun Fun Fun Fest
07 Nov 2011 – Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald’s
09 Nov 2011 – Tallahassee, FL @ Club Downunder
10 Nov 2011 – Tampa, FL @ Crowbar
11 Nov 2011 – Miami, FL @ Grand Central
12 Nov 2011 – Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
14 Nov 2011 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
15 Nov 2011 – Washington DC @ 9:30 Club
16 Nov 2011 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
17 Nov 2011 – Boston, MA @ Royale
18 Nov 2011 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
19 Nov 2011 – Alfred, NY @ Alfred University
20 Nov 2011 – Oberlin, OH @ Oberlin College
21 Nov 2011 – Chicago, IL @ Metro
22 Nov 2011 – St. Paul, MN @ Macalester College
Additional Festival shows:
26 Nov 2011 – Canberra, AU @ Foreshore Festival
03 Dec 2011 – Sydney, AU @ Homebake / The Domain
29 Dec 2011 –Gisborne, NZ – Rhythm & Vines Festival
22 Jan 2012 – Gold Coast, AU @ Big Day Out / Gold Coast Parklands
26 Jan 2012 – Sydney, AU @ Big Day Out / Sydney Showground
29 Jan 2012 – Melbourne, AU @ Big Day Out / Flemington Racecourse
03 Feb 2012 – Adelaide, AU @ Big Day Out / Adelaide Showground
05 Feb 2012 – Perth, AU @ Big Day Out / Claremont Showground
R.E.M. POST TWO VIDEOS FOR BRAND-NEW SONG “WE ALL GO BACK TO WHERE WE BELONG”
R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe and co-director Dominic DeJoseph (who has directed previous films for R.E.M.) recruited actress Kirsten Dunst to star in one of the videos for “We All Go Back To Where We Belong.” Dunst is a Golden Globe-nominated performer who has starred in such movies as Sophia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Marie Antoinette, and the Spider-Man trilogy. She recently received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for her role in the current film Melancholia, directed by Lars von Trier.
The other film stars iconic and legendary Dial-A-Poem artist/poet/activist John Giorno. Over the course of his notable career, Giorno has collaborated on several acclaimed projects with such luminaries as William S. Burroughs, Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Glenn Branca. His work includes several books and multimedia poetry experiments and events. A career-spanning collection of his poems, entitled Subduing Demons in America: Selected Poems 1962-2007 was published in 2008. His first one-person gallery show, entitled Black Paintings and Drawings, was mounted at the Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery in New York in 2010.
Both black and white films for “We All Go Back To Where We Belong” capture their subjects in stark relief using a strong key light and shot with a stationary camera, an effect that Stipe describes as lending “gravity and beauty” to the proceedings.
These videos arrive on the heels of last years’ successful Collapse Into Now Film Project, which featured films by artists for every song on the album. Stipe said of the new project, “To be able to work with John and Kirsten was a dream I carried since we recorded the song, and their participation completes the song for me.”
“We All Go Back To Where We Belong,” which Rolling Stone recently premiered, is one of three new tracks to be included on R.E.M.’s upcoming final album R.E.M., Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage, 1982 – 2011 – a 40-song career-spanning retrospective that collects, for the first time ever, songs from pioneering American band’s entire 31-year career, including their years on both the IRS label (1982 to 1987) and Warner Bros. Records (1988 to 2011). The collection will be released on Warner Bros. Records on November 15th, 2011 and is currently available for pre-order on iTunes here and Amazon here.
Shunda K of Yo! Majesty, a lesbian, African American rapper, and Snax, a gay, Caucasian producer and rapper, didn’t know that the quickie music video they shot in a Berlin grocery store over the course of a day for their fun party jam “It’s Time To Get Paid” would rack up 600,000-plus YouTube views in a week. They also didn’t know they would be dealt a dose of reality about the state of tolerance in our country.
The clip, for the latest single from Shunda K’s album The Most Wanted generated hundreds of homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic (though neither artist is Jewish!) comments over the course of the time that the video was featured on YouTube’s front page as part of a playlist celebrating “National Coming Out Day.”
Neither artist set about to justify the hatred with direct commentary on the site itself, but Snax issued an insightful and bitingly humorous commentary via his website “World of Snax” at snaxonline.org. That post has now been re-published by The Huffington Post. In the post, Snax states, “I can’t stop you from doing anything. Know this, though; your tossed off, poorly written and childishly expressed ranting is nothing more than hurtful and destructive…”
The clip for “It’s Time To Get Paid” was shot on location in Berlin at Netto Grocery Store and Monster Ronson’s Ichiban Karaoke Nightclub. The clip also features an appearance by everyone’s favorite “F**k The Pain Away” performer, Peaches. Filmed, directed and edited by Robin Thomson, the video is accompanied by the release of a remix of the tune by DJ Dickey Doo, who also recently remixed the R.E.M. single “Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter.”
Los Angeles-based band Archer Black has released the first video from its upcoming album Forgiveness Is A Weapon, which is set for release through Post Planetary Records on January 3, 2012. The clip for “Onward & Down” was directed by Scott Cronan, a longtime friend and fan of Archer Black leader Dustin Morgan’s other band The Autumns.
“Scott helped me refine the vision to come up with something cinematic,” says Morgan. “Everything you see was done in camera without post production effects. For the water shots, Scott even swam out into the ocean with a waterproof camera at 5AM.”
“Onward & Down” stars actor Luke Barnett and Archer Black violinist Jen Thomas. “Luke was an absolute professional,” says Morgan about Barnett’s role as a soldier in what Morgan characterizes as a “death dream.” “We had a bag stuffed with bricks to make it look authentic and he must have dragged it up and down the beach a hundred times.” Of his band mate, Morgan confides “Jen is gorgeous. She’s married to one of my closest friends though and I’m not sure what he’s going to say when he sees that romantic sunset scene.”
“Onward & Down”’s lyrics, like most of Forgiveness Is A Weapon, uses some facet of war as a metaphor for a human relationship. Morgan explains, “The song was inspired by the fact that, prior to Vietnam, very few soldiers would discharge their weapons in combat. This is one of those facts that just stuck with me, screaming, ‘this is a profound statement about what it means to be human.’”
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
As he gets ready to put on an unforgettable performance of his album Lillian at NYC’s Le Poisson Rouge on October 25th, Ben Lear is sharing a free mp3 of one of its tracks, “Scuba Lessons.”
Lillian is a compelling tale of love, loss, and an underwater adventure with sea creatures and an island made of floating trash. An activist who has performed at events for the United Nations and TEDx, Lear was inspired to make Lillian a parable about pollution in our oceans after learning about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a giant gyre of plastic bottles, tires, and other debris floating in the ocean between California and Japan. Activism runs in the Lear family, as Ben is the son of activist and TV legend, writer/producer Norman Lear (All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son).
The October 25th performance of Lillian will bring Lear’s vivid story to life with an ambitious staging that includes plastic bottle light sculptures (designed and built by Ben himself), costumes, a 15-piece band and orchestra, gospel choir, and projected animation.
Click here to watch Ben construct Lillian light sculptures for NYC show
Lillian is the story of a young man kept awake by the fear that he’s watching his lover, who sleeps soundly in bed, drift away from him, becoming one of the many things he’s lost in his life. He determines that all the things we lose in our lives end up in an island of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean. And, in a desperate attempt to reclaim these things, he sets off on a scuba-diving journey to that island.
Lear elaborates, “During ‘Scuba Lessons,’ the diver remembers when he and Lillian learned to dive on a family trip to Hawaii. It’s a bit of an aha moment when he realizes that’s how he’ll rescue her from sea, by diving to the Garbage Patch.”
“I might not have slept, but I woke up a superstar.”
Complete with freshly washed headbands, newly strung tennis rackets and a following of Japanese girls (read: Idoling!!!) – Martin and his “manageur” hit Japan for a whirlwind tour of all that is on offer! Cruising their way through busy streets, crowded swimming pools and Geisha parlours, Martin Solveig cooks up a storm with fans on the street and in the same breath gets taken to the floor by ‘Inglourious Basterds’ star, Melanie Laurent.
“Big In Japan” will be released on iTunes over the coming weeks.
In consideration of Japan, and the events of earlier this year; Martin will make a personal donation to the Red Cross in aid of their efforts.
Nashville-based SafetySuit has just revealed the new video for “Let Go.” It’s the latest single from the forthcoming album set to release early next year.
Coming off the heels of their 2008 release, Life Left To Go and hit single “Stay” (which garnered the band the coveted “You Oughta Know” spot on VH1), the Universal Republic signed pop-rockers have continued to hone their fun and playful energy into a downright hookfest of arena ready rock anthems.
Musically Amusing 