Los Angeles based alt-rock trio Sir Sly released the video for their lead single “You Haunt Me” today. Lead vocalist and songwriter, Landon Jacobs said of the video, “We wanted to capture the spirit of the song through energetic vignettes of different characters that all share a common unsettling darkness that they carry and exude.”
Sir Sly release their full length debut album You Haunt Me on Tuesday, September 16th via Cherrytree / Interscope Records.
Portland beat based trio Hustle and Drone will release their debut full-length album, HOLYLAND, on September 2nd via Red Bull Sound Select (now available for preorder on iTunes). Having previously revealed their album single “The Glow,” an anthemic summer jam, the band has now unveiled another cut in the form of “Evaporated.” With minimalistic synth lines building to soaring falsetto harmonies, the track sets a darker- albeit equally infectious- tone.
Hustle and Drone was established in February 2012, when keyboardist Ryan Neighbors left Portugal. the Man to pursue his own songwriting. He teamed up with longtime friend Kirk Ohnstad, and the two immediately began recording & writing. Hustle and Drone released its debut, self-titled EP in July of that year. The band decided to record with producer Sonny DiPerri, which marked the beginning of HOLYLAND – spending time at beach houses & their basement in Portland in order to perfectly craft the record. In the summer of 2013, Kirk made his departure from the group- bringing in bassist Andy Black & Ryan Moore.
“We wanted to make a collection of songs that are a soundtrack to the times you lose yourself in the moment…whether it’s in the club, in the sunshine with friends or staring up into the night sky.” – Menace & Lord Each has individually enjoyed a colorful, successful career within the electronic music industry, but now Kris Menace and Simon Lord have teamed up for an all-new music project simply dubbed Menace & Lord. In step with their new direction, the pair will release an album on September 15th, and the debut single from the album is the title track “Sun, Moon & Stars, Pt. 1”. The music video was directed by Rolling Stone Awarded Meeto Worre Kronborg Grevsen from Denmark who says: “When I was first presented to Menace & Lord, I was completely astonished by the feeling of the tracks. For me, they had a sense of magic like the feeling of being in love for the first time. A feeling of the universe coming together around you and a feeling of coexisting with another person and daydreaming. We wanted to create a love story, and we quickly decided to let the video universe evolve over more than one video to get deeper sense of the story and atmosphere. It’s always a task to make a story fit within a music video, because making a music video is to the create a visual emotion to the music, and often a story is told by words and within a narrative structure that has to make sense somehow. But I think we found a way to create a sense of a story without making it depend on words and the narrative structure. You should feel the videos rather than understanding it perfectly. And I love the chemistry between the actors.” This is just the first video of three that will be released for the debut album Sun, Moon and Stars. The next two music videos are just as visually breathtaking as this one, and will be released in the coming months. Again, from Meeto, “‘Sun, Moon & Stars, Pt. 1’ is the initial video of the trilogy and it should set the atmosphere for all three. It’s centred around the first meeting and the magic of feeling another person for the first time. It’s a happy beginning but we put some drops of melancholy in there as well. The sense of nothing last for ever.” Menace & Lord are defining an all-new path in the electronic music scene so keep an ear out for the revolution.
“‘I’m Ready,'” which melds the brothers’ love of Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel harmonies with more contemporary electro-pop influences like fun. and Imagine Dragons, is quickly becoming a bona fide hit.” – Billboard
Emerging pop trio AJR, who is on the verge of becoming one of the biggest and brightest new bands of 2014, will release their full-length debut Living Room on September 30(AJR Productions/Warner Bros. Records). The 13-track album, which was written, recorded and produced by the band themselves in the living room of their New York City apartment, will feature the hit single “I’m Ready,” an infectious track that is rapidly climbing the Top 40 charts, currently at #29 with over 375k singles sold and 3.75 million YouTube views. AJR is set to appear on NBC’s The Today Show on July 29.
AJR’s NYC-bred Met brothers – Adam (bass/vocals), a 23-year old Columbia graduate, Ryan (guitar/piano/vocals), a bespectacled 20-year old Columbia student who serves as the band’s main songwriter, and Jack (vocals/guitar), the 16-year old force-de-nature who splits time between lead vocals and attending high school in NYC – have seen a meteoric rise in the past year following the self-release of a 5-song EP. Billboard favorably compared the band to the Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel (for the harmonies), Fun. and Imagine Dragons (for the electro-pop influences), while New York Post praised their “sticky-sweet pop melodies with vintage barber shop vocals [and] edgier electronic samples and ‘spokestep’ [aka dubstep breakdowns derived from vocals].”
The viral success of “I’m Ready” won over early champions including SiriusXM – who added the song the day it was released on iTunes – , iHeartRadio, VH1 “Big Morning Buzz,” Billboard and NBC, who featured the song in their Olympic promos. Just last year they opened shows for the likes of The Wanted and Demi Lovato, and recently wrapped a nationwide tour supporting Lindsey Stirling.
AJR got their musical start as kids busking in Central Park and Washington Square, singing Jackson 5 covers, and, later, their own material. They used their earnings to buy musical equipment which they set up in their parents’ living room, where they write, record and produce all of their own music to this day.
London collective Jungle has premiered the video for latest album cut “Time”.
The “Time” video arrives a week before the release of Jungle’s highly anticipated, eponymous debut album out July 15 (14th in the UK) on XL Recordings. Identified by Rolling Stone as a “New Artist You Need To Know”, Junglehas already been described by New York Times as “a beguiling and promising introduction“, by NME as ” the pop-art album of the summer” and Time Out exclaims “the group’s steamy, grooving, creeping neo-soul tracks are something pretty special.” Jungle is available to stream in full exclusively via ITUNES.
Meanwhile the collective will return to the states this fall with a seven-piece Jungle live experience that will perform on over 20 dates across North America, in the largest set of rooms the group has played to date. The group will also make stops at Lollapalooza, Treasure Island and Corona Capital Music Festivals. See full list of dates below.
“Equal parts chilly krautrock majesty and proto-synthpop menace” – NME MAGAZINE
New York based one man project, BL_NK SP_C_Shas 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 wasinspired 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_Sbegan 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.
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!
Standing on the shoulders of his musical heroes, Bon Iverand Swedish multi-instrumentalist Tingsek, Josh Recordreleases his stunning debut album Pillars on Virgin/EMIJuly 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.
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 Antonoffwith 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.
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.
London-based collective Jungle has revealed they will release their debut album in North America on July 15, 2014 (July 14 UK) on XL Recordings. Their eponymous album is set to be one of the summer’s most anticipated debut records, building on the success of their singles “Platoon”, “The Heat” and “Busy Earnin'”. Rolling Stone recently included the group in their “10 New Artists You Need To Know“.
Jungle are based around a core musical duo of lifelong friends known simply as ‘J’ and ‘T’, who expand to a thrilling seven piece live, and make mesmeric, kaleidoscopic modern soul that’s unmistakably born in the UK but has true global appeal (their “Platoon” video has already racked up more than 4 million views). The album was recorded between the band’s own home studio in Shepherds Bush, London and the XL Recordings studio in Ladbroke Grove.
Meanwhile, Jungle will return to North America for their first headline tour to date in the country. The group will perform in NYC at their third sold-out show, as well as San Francisco for a sold-out show at The Independent on June 7, the day after they kick off their tour on June 6at The El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. The group will come back in August to perform at this year’s Lollapalooza (full list of dates below).
JUNGLE North America Tour Dates
Fri, Jun 6 – El Rey Theater – Los Angeles, CA
Sat, Jun 7 – The Independent – San Francisco, CA *SOLD OUT
Mon, Jun 9 – Doug Fir Lounge – Portland, OR
Tue, Jun 10 – Neumos – Seattle, WA
Fri, Jun 13 – Fine Line Music Cafe – Minneapolis, MN
Sat, Jun 14 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL
Sun, Jun 15 – Lee’s Palace – Toronto, ON
Tue, Jun 17 – The Sinclair – Cambridge, MA
Wed, Jun 18 – Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY *SOLD OUT
Musically Amusing 