Julian Casablancas’ first single, “11th Dimension”, off his upcoming debut solo album, has been more or less unanimously voted the hottest track of the past month, based on the outrageous amount of reactions on blogs, twitter, facebook and all the other social networks that you can think of. With “Phrazes For The Young” being slated for official release only two weeks from now, we’ve been treated to yet another track from the album, the cascading…
As previously reported, The Flaming Lips’ follow-up to their recently released full length “Embryonic” will be a cover album of Pink Floyd’s classic Dark Side of the Moon, most probably adapted to the band’s eclectic experimentalism. This Friday, The Flaming Lips hit the KCRW studios where they played Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic closer “Eclipse”, as part of their session for the station’s Morning Becomes Eclectic show. You can check out the faithful rendition of Eclipse…
Just only a few weeks after Sufjan Stevens released “Run Rabbit Run,” a re-worked string instrument based version of his 2001 electronic album “Enjoy Your Rabbit,” the talented singer/songwriter is at it again this week with yet another release, in the form of “The BQE” – a mixed-medium artistic exploration of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The record contains the soundtrack to the live show Stevens put together back in 2007 as part of the project, accompanied…
When did music television die, exactly? I’ll tell you when – it was when we all gave up on it, and with a collective mouseclick accepted Youtube and Myspace as our appointed saviours. But! There’s a more pressing question on my mind: is there a single post-Myspace moment where we can say music television went beyond an existence of pallid, pathetic obsolescence, and into fully-fledged, crap-slinging horribleness? When I say “music television”, I don’t mean…
If you’re a Skillet fan, you should definitely check out this contest we’ve organized. Grizzly Bear will release a special edition of Veckatimest. The latest Baroness record got reviewed by us for a 9/10! The 100 best live albums of all time ranked by Amazon. The Killers have a new song up and streaming as part of their contribution to the New Moon soundtrack. You don’t really feel like going out this weekend, you can…
Last night, The Flaming Lips played LA’s Ricardo Montalbán Theater as part of a more intimate set, free of the band’s usual live show props (no explosions, fake blood or anything that could be considered outrageous, not for The Flaming Lips at least). There, the band opened up the crowd with a set packed with new songs off the new album, “Embryonic” – a really hate it or love it release. Besides the impeccable performance,…
James Murphy’s first single in over a year is actually a cover, a damn right good one too, namely Alan Vega’s (Suicide) infectious 1980 released “Bye Bye Bayou.” Following the release of his incredible 2007 “Sound of Silver,” naturally, there will be some incredibly high expectations regarding LCD Soundsystem’s upcoming 2010 new effort. This latest track, however, doesn’t offer too much insight on what’s to come – all I know is that it’s very good….
Last week, the annual The Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit took place in Washington DC, making the US capitol the most densely populate place on Earth with record industry people. Here, artists, entrepreneurs, record label officials, PR companies, tech enthusiasts, music critics and other diverse individuals with more or less tight ties to the music industry gathered to discuss how new media and the Internet have and will shape the scene. Among other interesting…
Grizzly Bear were joined yesterday night by Beach House’s Victoria Legrand, with whom they also collaborated on the New Moon soundtrack, for an incredible performance at the end of Conan O’Brien’s The Tonight Show. A bit unexpectedly or not, the band played their smashing pop single “Two Weeks” Victoria handling the eerie backing vocals which simply sent a chill down everybody’s spine. Two Weeks is off Grizzly Bear’s most recent album Veckatimest out now.
Alright, it’s now official: Phoenix is without a shadow of a doubt the most remixed band of the year. This most recent one, penned by the talented uprising DJ Don Diablo, is an interesting mashup of Phoenix’s “Fences” and Jay-Z’s “99 Problems.” You can really sense the tight production work that went into the remix from a mile away – almost perfectly synced samples, blending the two songs together in a seemingly effortless and natural…
Tibi Puiu
Al Byrne