The Dirty Vegas’ head honcho, Steve Smith, has recently announced the release of his debut solo album, This Town. Seemingly taking cues from the online popularity of the acoustic version of “Days Go By”, Smith’s solo album includes a number of more personal tunes that seamlessly blend folk, electronica, and rock styles together. Furthermore, the album features a large number of guest stars including, The Magnetic Fields' Claudia Gonson, Executioner Rob Swift, and even the voice of actor John Savage....
NegativlandOur Favorite Things CD & DVD(Seeland) It’s been over twenty years now since Negativland first took on the responsibility of subverting every audio medium in the world and tipping every sacred cow in sight. There have been lawsuits. There have been feuds. There has been outrage; and it has all occurred to the expressed glee of both the band and those people intelligent enough to get the joke. Initially appearing as an anonymous brain trust primarily concerned with issuing the...
Anyone that has ever gone through anger and aggression therapy will recognize the sound on Scout Niblett’s fourth record in contrast with the one prior. Last time, on Kidnapped By Neptune, Niblett came unglued as she railed against a lover that had spurned her and fell on the floor and screamed and pounded on the walls, cried her eyes out, came undone and got her shit together. The next step in the progression after that fury is lamentation and introspection—which...
It’s almost unbearable to think about being in a room with the challenge of making something better than the Sony Bravia commercial that featured zillions of super balls bouncing oh-so-softly down the black-diamond streets of San Francisco. A follow-up to that one was created last year called “Paint,” which required over 18,000 gallons of paint, 1,700 detonators, 455 mortars, 622 bottle bombs, 65 camera positions and a crew of 200 people to turn a building in Glasgow into a Las...
Is it possible to walk into a crowd of 20,000 people and feel completely isolated? Conductors of crowd studies would probably say yes, although I don't think it takes very long for mob mentality to overrun our circuit protectors and bring us flush up against our brothers and sisters in the heat of the moment. In this case, the moment being one where LCD Soundsystem and Arcade Fire perform at the oft-disregarded, impersonal amphitheater in the Silicon Valley, and bring...
For our seventh Lunarcast, we caught with up the latest addition to the Kemado family, Saviours. Hailing from Oakland, CA, their brand of metal is as precise as it is raw. There is this perfect balance of the gut-wrenching brutality, Ginsu guitar work that would make the nimblest fingers black with envy, and a punk ethic that shoves convention aside and allows the band to write music their way. We caught up with them in Los Angeles two times. Once...
Who would’ve thought that a musical equation including elements of pop, prog, metal, math rock and punk would ever end up surfacing? Nevermind that, who would’ve thought it would appear sounding fully formed, complete and with a proof? While no reasonable hands could be raising at the moment, that’s exactly what Mt. St. Helens has concocted on their debut. Of Others doesn’t just display all of the aforementioned sounds to pay lip service to a couple of them and focus...
Los Angeles’ She Want Revenge will be releasing their sophomore effort, This is Forever on Geffen next week on October 9. The album is said to keep on track from the band’s first album, with more thought-provoking, dark, emotionalized dance music. Track listing for This Is Forever is as follows: 1. First, Love2. Written In Blood3. Walking Away4. True Romance5. What I Want6. It’s Just Begun7. She Will Always Be A Broken Girl8. This Is The End9. Checking Out10. Pretend...
In any language and by any professional standard (no matter which field), four years is a very, very long time between productions. Granted, the four-year period that Andy Magoffin and his band, Two–Minute Miracles, have taken to follow up 2003’s Volume III: The Silence Of Animals is not lengthy in a Guns N’ Roses sort of way, but when you realize that the duration of some bands’ entire careers—particularly now that the music industry and popular tastes shift faster than...
Fans of the Swedish singer/songwriter José González that don’t happen to be in our nation's capitol this evening will be happy to learn that his performance tonight at the 9:30 club in Washington, DC will be webcast live tonight at 10 pm EST on NPR.org. The webcast will be available from this site: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14810080 González is currently tour in support of his recent release In Our Nature, out now on Mute Records. You can still check him out at any...