A new 30-minute video documenting the process of making Goodnight Unknown, the upcoming Lou Barlow album premiered on The Onion AV Club and is now available on LooTube. This behind-the-scenes vignette is the first in a series of videos from Goodnight Unknown that will be unveiled weekly until its October 6 release date.
Daniel Johnston is back with his first album in 6 years Is And Always Was (due out Oct 6th)! If the track "Freedom" is any indication, this could well be Johnston's best album ever. On this album, Daniel allied with the musician and producer Jason Falkner, who is known for his own stellar solo career as well as his work with Beck, Air, and Paul McCartney. We will do a full review of the album as the release date draws closer. For now, enjoy "Freedom."
On its way to you in a triumphant spiral of zeros and ones through that strange nether universe from which all things computery come is the new Music Tapes video, “For the Planet Pluto.”
Featuring the tasteful backup vocals of the 4th graders of Barrow Elementary School in Athens, GA, "For the Planet Pluto" stars Kiran Fernandes and Sophie Fernandes, reunited for the first time since starring in the movie Major Organ and the Adding Machine, except that they are brother and sister and live together. It also features a comic turn from Kevin Barnes as "The Slightly Sinister Father," a departure from the more serious roles he has become famous for in the videos of the modern rock band Of Montreal.
The Woods began in 2006 as the bedroom recording project of songwriter and visual artist, Ian Dudley. The musical project, named after Ian's imaginative perspective on Tallahassee, Florida, grew to include over 30 friends and family members who all contributed to the band's self-titled debut, released in May 2008 by Plug Research Records. The album musically narrates a story of a boy whose faulty air conditioning sends him on a high seas adventure. With true artistic craftsmanship, the album was released packaged in actual books, as well as sold on iTunes. The tale the album told was brought to life in 2009 with a music video for the song "The Final Breaths of a Main Character," featuring illustrations by Ian Dudley and directed by Raul B. Fernandez.
After a short tour in the summer of 2008, the paths of The Woods' residents diverged. Feeling a sense that the debut album was merely the first chapter in a very long book, The Woods, with the help of modern technology, compiled foggy memories and scattered instrumentation from six cities across these United States to create The EP Logue, released for free online on June 22nd, 2009. Inspired by possessions, locations, youth, distance and pack-rats, The EP Logue completes the story that began in Tallahassee with Ian Dudley and friends. Although the core group of musicians that contributed to both albums plan to continue to write and play together, The Woods will be left behind for new landscapes and stories.
I got this great email in my box today. The video is really great, so I thought I'd just share the email with you as is:
Hello. This is Jimmy from the band Elf Power. We got to tour Europe this past Spring with Vic Chesnutt in support of our collabaorate album together called Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power and The Amorphous Strums "Dark Developments" Orange Twin Records, 2009). We were in Europe for 3 weeks coming straight off of a REM Tribute show that we played in NYC at Carnegie Hall. Vic had his personal camera with him on the trip and filmed 11 tapes worth of footage while we were on tour (with Laura Carter and myself also filming from time to time, but the footage is 90% shot by Vic himself). After tour, I brought the tapes home and sifted through them. Realizing that whatever I did with them would be way too long to hold the attention span of today's YouTube generation, with the task of editing these tapes into a tour video I decided to break them down into episodes, the first of which can be viewed here:
Episode 1 takes us from NYC to Den Haag, Netherlands with a travel day inbetween. I already have 2 more episodes complete and plan on posting them in intervals, maybe one per month, until the series is complete (i am guessing by the end there will probably be about 8 episodes). It was a fun trip and we're all excited to share the videos with friends and fans.
So why am I telling you all of this? Well, I am just trying to let some people know that this video (and forthcoming series) exists and I am trying to get the word out to whoever is interested. So if anyone would like to post about this anywhere on the world-wide-web then we would apprciate it.
Hope you like the video.
Jimmy - Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power, and The Amorphous Sturms
Los Angeles-based Princeton is releasing their debut record, Cocoon of Love, September 29th on Kanine Records. Growing up on Princeton Street in Santa Monica, the group now lives in an aging green house on a hillside in the Eagle Rock district of LA where their album was recorded. Take a second to listen to or download the beautiful song "Calypso Gold." The entire album is full of wonderful pop gems.
Thanks to our pals at Grandcrew, we gladly present you Why? playing live in Paris at the Colors Music Festival! It's really frigging awesome. The clip below is the song "The Hollows." The full concert is 16 amazing songs. Check out the whole thing here: WHY? LIVE!
After The Olivia Tremor Control went on hiatus, songwriter W. Cullen Hart's first step was to create the Circulatory System. Featuring members of the former Olivias and other notable Elephant 6 luminaries, the Circulatory System's self-titled first album explored themes of the larger and the smaller, the here and the far away, and the now and the forever.
Seven and a half years in the making, culled from hours of recorded material sculpted in at least seven different studios, the new Circulatory System album is an absolutely stellar document of song and sound. Still concerned with matters of the inner/the outer, the incomprehensibly huge and the very, very small, Signal Morning is an imperative blast of kinetic motion. Composed by W. Cullen Hart while in the midst of battling Multiple Sclerosis within his own system, the new album finds Hart broadcasting his urgent pleas to the world(s) to evolve into a higher dimension, or for existing patterns to reveal themselves at peace within the natural order of the universe.
Featuring all the members of The Olivia Tremor Control, as well as Jeff Mangum and Julian Koster of Neutral Milk Hotel, Signal Morning has been eagerly anticipated since the release of the first Circulatory System record earlier this decade. The album is due out on Cloud Recordings in CD and Digital format on Sept 9th. The vinyl release will be in October.
Keeping with our recent weekend disco theme, here's a great live performance from Music Go Music performing on Face Time. Their new album Expressions is due out Oct. 6th. Get out your mirrored ball!
Sonya Cotton is one of the finest singer/songwriters of our time. Her latest album Red River (due out on Sept 1st) is one of the most peaceful, delicate, and beautiful recordings I have ever heard. Perhaps the best compliment I can give her is I would trade in my Joanna Newsom records to be able to listen to her on a quiet, contemplative day. Every track on Red River is pretty much perfect. Our favorites include "Brother and I", "Canal", and "Sickness." Be sure to follow the link below to a great podcast of Sonya Cotton performing or, at the very least, take some time and investigate Sonya Cotton on your own.
Clock Hands Strangle hail from the semi-moist, manatee ridden state of Florida. The same state that has given us such horrendous acts such as Limp Bizkit, Creed, and 'N Sync. All jokes aside, it is fascinating that such a well versed, literate bunch of indie folk/roots rockers would spring up from a state that has devalued it's grade school education system in hopes of retaining it's larger population of retirees and tourists.
In June, Clock Hands Strangle released their latest album Distaccati. In an interview with Groupee.com, primary songwriter Todd Portnowitz explains his writing process for the album as such, "...most of the lyrics on Distaccati came about as a reaction to reading a slew of modern literature, writers like T.S. Eliot, who said that an artist must 'destroy his personality' to create anything substantial. I understand the notion—it’s the same for a scientist, who must completely remove his subjective self from the experiment in order to reduce the amount of bias in the results; but I only agree with it in part. Writing this album was a way to wrestle with that question - how much of yourself should be in art? How much should be pure, removed observation?" Even the word Distaccati itself means 'detached' in Italian.
We caught up with these thoughtful gentlemen via in the internet and persuaded them to answer a few of our highly suspect questions....
Viva: What's the most embarrassing band you loved as a kid? Todd: Ace of Base. Had the CD and tape. What you gonna tell your dad, it’s like a wheel of fortune. Brian: Stryper. Nick: Probably DC Talk. Cristian: Coolio. Adam: Skankin’ Pickle.
Viva: Who smells the worst in van after a show? Todd: Nick. And as a side note, I still stand by my wager that I could go five days on the road without a shower and still smell sweet. Brian: A tie between Cristian after two days or Nick's beef jerky. Nick: I think it's between Adam and Cristian. One always smells worse than the other. Cristian: Me. Adam: Nick.
Viva: More frightening clock: Doomsday or Biological? Todd: Biological, but I was always more afraid of the whole atomic time vs. earth time (time measured by an accurate cesium clock vs. time measured by the earth’s rotation). I remember reading an article about how in the 70s they had to add two “leap seconds” in order to make the two clocks agree, so that our satellites would be coordinated, and GPS systems would continue to function. I believe there was even an entire week lost in Great Britain at some point way back in the day, from trying to coordinate atomic time and earth time. People were protesting in the streets, fighting for their week back. Brian: I don't have a menstrual cycle ... So doomsday. Nick: Biological. You should see Nick Sr. Cristian: Doomsday. Adam: Neither. I welcome male pattern baldness, the returning of Christ, and my ascension into the kingdom of heaven.
Viva: What's the funniest thing that has happened to you on the road? Todd: I think we were in Champaign-Urbana, and someone’s girlfriend straightened my hair. We put on a little mascara and went and took fake emo pictures out by these abandoned railroad tracks, pretending to look like we’d just listened to The Used for three hours and were all suffering from metaphorical “wounds to the heart.” Some of the pictures are still circulating online. I’m not sure anyone ever got the joke, so there’s probably people out there who think we’re really that lame . . . I guess I don’t blame them. Brian: Nick getting punched repeatedly after fooling around with this dude’s girlfriend in Tulsa, OK. Nick: Hard to choose, but I would say the time we were in D.C., staying at a hotel with Brian's family, and his Mom walked in on Todd just as he was going to pee in the kitchen sink . . . Cristian: We stayed with this girl who thought we were going to steal her cat (apparently it had happened three times), she also warned us to “keep the volume down” if there was going to be any sex (it was only the five of us staying there) . . . she was strange, to put it mildly. Later in the night Nick and Todd went upstairs to her room to ask for pillows and both came back downstairs with these traumatized faces. For a little while they wouldn’t say what happened, and just sat there blank-faced. The suspense, waiting to hear what sort of whacked out shit they’d seen, was the funniest thing ever. Adam: Almost dying on an icy highway, driving from Toronto to Chicago.
Viva: What's the last concert you attended? Todd: Silver Jews w/ Monotonix Brian: mewithoutyou in Tampa Nick: Was at the mewithoutyou show with Brian and Cris. Cristian: mewithoutyou Adam: Radiohead
Viva: Who's in heavy rotation on your iPod? Todd: Eric Dolphy – Out to Lunch, and The Complete Prestige Recordings. Brian: The new Clem Snide album and the new Joan of Arc. Nick: I don't have an ipod. Cristian: Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Adam: Phantom Buffalo.
Viva: What was the worst fight over nothing that you got into with each other after being road weary and exhausted? Todd: Nick and I had a long and bitter argument over the difference between a “bite” and a “taste.” In New York, Nick purchased this giant, amazing-looking burrito, and I asked for a “bite” so that I could “taste” it. He assumed that my asking for a “bite,” implied that I was hungry, but too cheap pay for a burrito. Really I just wanted a “taste,” so I could see how tasty the burrito was. The “bite,” in my belief, was just a necessary evil for exploring the “taste.” Twenty minutes later the burrito was gone and I never got a taste. Or a bite. This argument continues. I mean, we’d go to different bars and all order different beers, and occasionally we’d “sip” each other’s beers in order to “taste” them, so that our next decision would be more informed. What’s the difference between a beer and a burrito? I support tasting in all forms, wholeheartedly, and affirm with great conviction that neither hunger, nor greed, nor thriftiness, play a role in the tasting process. “To expand the pallet is to expand the mind,” as William Howard Taft once said. I wanted that burrito… Brian: Either Cristian’s bad driving or Todd’s horrible navigating. Nick: We don't fight really, just know how to push each others buttons. Although there were a few pretty good fights when a couple of us brought our girlfriends with us on tour. Cristian: Whether or not to eat at Cracker Barrel at the end of our last tour. Adam: I got absurdly angry with Brian and Nick in St. Paul, MN because they started trying to help pack up my drums immediately following a show. I have my methods.
Why? is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful bands ever to grace indie rock. They have just announced their Fall tour schedule supporting the release of their 4th, and perhaps most poignant, album Eskimo Snow (due out 9/22). Take a listen to the MP3 "This Blackest Purse." It's a bit of a departure from last year's Alopecia, but surprisingly, they recorded both albums at the same time deliberately making the albums each others' opposite. Whether you are already a Why? fan or not, when you hear this record, you will be instantly in love.
09/24 Cincinnati, OH Northside Tavern * 09/26 New York, NY Le Poisson Rouge / Wordless Music Series + 10/01 Cambridge, MA Middle East #% 10/02 Philadelphia, PA First Unitarian Church #% 10/03 Pittsburgh, PA Assembly Room, William Pitt Union FREE SHOW #% 10/04 Ann Arbor, MI The Blind Pig #% 10/05 Chicago, IL Bottom Lounge #% 10/06 Madison, WI UW Madison Terrace #% 10/07 Minneapolis, MN Triple Rock #% 10/09 Denver, CO Bluebird #% 10/10 Salt Lake City, UT In The Venue #% 10/13 Annacortes, WA Department of Safety &$ 10/14 Seattle, WA The Vera Project &$ 10/15 Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom &$ 10/17 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall *%$ 10/20 Los Angeles, CA Echoplex *% 10/23 Phoenix, AZ Modified Arts *% 10/24 Tucson, AZ Club Congress *% 10/26 Denton, TX Hailey's *% 10/28 Birmingham, AL Bottletree *% 10/29 Asheville, NC Grey Eagle *% 10/30 Carrboro, NC Cat's Cradle *% 10/31 Atlanta, GA Lenny's %^@ 11/02 Orlando, FL The Social %! 11/03 Gainesville, FL Common Grounds %! 11/04 Tallahassee, FL Club Downunder %! 11/06 Baton Rouge, LA Spanish Moon %~ 11/07 Houston, TX Walter's On Washington %~ 11/08 Austin, TX Fun Fun Fun Fest 11/10 Lawrence, KS Jackpot Music Hall %~ 11/11 St. Louis, MO Firebird %~ 11/13 Bloomington, IN Rhino's Youth Center ~
* = w/ Serengeti and Polyphonic # = w/ Dark Dark Dark % = w/ AU & = w/ No Kids $ = w/ Mount Eerie ^ = w/ Jemina Pearl @ = w/ Islands ! = w/ James Husband ~ = w/ The Moore Brothers + = w/ Owen Weaver with Flexible Music
Los Angeles-based Princeton is releasing their debut record, Cocoon of Love, September 29th on Kanine Records. Growing up on Princeton Street in Santa Monica, the group now lives in an aging green house on a hillside in the Eagle Rock district of LA where their album was recorded. Take a second to listen to or download the beautiful song "Calypso Gold." The entire album is full of wonderful pop gems.
After The Olivia Tremor Control went on hiatus, songwriter W. Cullen Hart's first step was to create the Circulatory System. Featuring members of the former Olivias and other notable Elephant 6 luminaries, the Circulatory System's self-titled first album explored themes of the larger and the smaller, the here and the far away, and the now and the forever.
Sonya Cotton is one of the finest singer/songwriters of our time. Her latest album Red River (due out on Sept 1st) is one of the most peaceful, delicate, and beautiful recordings I have ever heard. Perhaps the best compliment I can give her is I would trade in my Joanna Newsom records to be able to listen to her on a quiet, contemplative day. Every track on Red River is pretty much perfect. Our favorites include "Brother and I", "Canal", and "Sickness." Be sure to follow the link below to a great podcast of Sonya Cotton performing or, at the very least, take some time and investigate Sonya Cotton on your own.
Clock Hands Strangle hail from the semi-moist, manatee ridden state of Florida. The same state that has given us such horrendous acts such as Limp Bizkit, Creed, and 'N Sync. All jokes aside, it is fascinating that such a well versed, literate bunch of indie folk/roots rockers would spring up from a state that has devalued it's grade school education system in hopes of retaining it's larger population of retirees and tourists.
Why? is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful bands ever to grace indie rock. They have just announced their Fall tour schedule supporting the release of their 4th, and perhaps most poignant, album Eskimo Snow (due out 9/22). Take a listen to the MP3 "This Blackest Purse." It's a bit of a departure from last year's Alopecia, but surprisingly, they recorded both albums at the same time deliberately making the albums each others' opposite. Whether you are already a Why? fan or not, when you hear this record, you will be instantly in love.