Deerhunter Review The Breeders

I agree.

Deerhunter join CSS, The Bronx, Pit er Pat, Bon Iver, Gang of Four and many more at (now sold out) The Breeders curated ATP festival.

Friday Freebie (part II): The Breeders - Fate To Fatal (mp3)

Friday Freebie: Jarvis (hearts) Angela

Angela, an early track from Jarvis Cocker's forthcoming LP, Further Complications, is perhaps the most clichéd song about a girl you will download all week, and will download it: Why? Because you know, he use to be in Pulp.

Angela is no Deborah nor has she studied sculpture at St Martin’s Collage but she does make four-fifty an hour with a complementary shower, Angela!!

Bonus: While you wait for the download you can watch this video of Jarvis spelling his name with crazy plastic letters. C. O. C. K... I'm sorry, childish I know.

Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time, download this week’s Friday Freebie from http://www.jarviscocker.net

Splendour is Back and the line up is bigger than ever.

Starting with the reformed Jane’s Addiction who should be fresh of their NINJA shows with Nine Inch Nails will bring their OTT stage antics to Byron as will The Flaming Lips back in the country for the first time in ‘who knows?’.

Bawley favourites The Gutter Twins, Bloc Party and MGMT for Bloc Party and MGMT the Splendour shows will be their only Australian performances for 2009.

Of course there is also a great list of up and coming and established Aussie bands excitingly this includes the stars of the last two Bawley sponsored Friday Freebie stars The Middle East, and Bob Evans, along with Midnight Juggernauts, Decoder Ring, Josh Pyke, Birds of Tokyo, and Lost Valentinos.

Line up so far:

Bloc Party
The Flaming Lips
Jane’s Addiction
MGMT
Hilltop Hoods
Grinspoon
Midnight Juggernauts
The Specials
Sarah Blasko
Augie March
Josh Pyke
Friendly Fires,
Little Birdy
Birds Of Tokyo
The Gutter Twins
Manchester Orchestra
Yuksek
Bob Evans
White Lies
Kram
Yves Klein Blue
Decoder Ring
Lost Valentinos
Leader Cheetah
Jack Ladder
The Middle East
Polaroid Fame
Glass Towers

The event takes place on the Saturday July 25th and Sunday July 26th 2009, Belongil Fields, Byron Bay.

Tickets will go on sale and no doubt sell out on 14th May.

Drawn Together: Gorillaz Go Bananaz

"These guys aren't in the band but they know the animated characters who are"

Bananaz is the story behind the world’s most successful cartoon band: Gorillaz.

Created as a reaction to the seriousness of pop music Gorillaz have grown into the multi-million selling, genre hopping, simian side project spinning beast we know today. In Bananaz directory Ceri Levy reveals that this journey was not always planned, and that the relationship between the animated characters is just as complex as that between their human creators.

For the next month you can watch Bananaz on http://www.babelgum.com/gorillazgobananaz

Happy Record Store Day

Today is a Record Store Day, an international celebration of all that is good about wandering in to your local record store, rummaging through the racks, and coming away with something that you didn't even know you wanted.  Lots of info, and a free Dandy Warhols download here,  but I thought I'd give you  a fairly unscientific top 5 record shops that I like.

Title,  Crows Nest,  http://www.titlespace.com

This great little indie popped up in my neighbouring suburb last year.  It's all very fancy, and fairly highbrow, and I've got no idea how it stays in business, but it's full of interesting stuff, so I hope it sticks around for a while.

Piccadilly Records, Manchester http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/

Vinyl Exchange, Manchester http://www.vinylexchange.co.uk/

Two selections from Manchester's Northern Quarter, and two places where I spent quite a lot of my time while at university.  Piccadilly records was great for new stuff, with friendly, knowledgeable staff and a good selection, while Vinyl Exchange was brilliant for rummaging through second hand stuff, and discovering a few bargains or interesting rarities.

Basement Discs, Melbourne http://www.basementdiscs.com.au/index.html

I discovered this place on a trip to Melbourne last year, and while I've only been once, it's perhaps the closest I've found to that idea of the 'classic' record shop.  it's down in a dingy basement, with the walls covered in old band posters, and carries a stock that bears very little relation to what people might actually want to buy; merely, what the record shop wants to sell. and there's a great bit at the back with comfy chairs and a coffee table piled high with old music magazines, where you can sit and relax while you sample a potential purchase.

HMV Oxford Street, London http://www.hmv.com

Not an indie, obviously, but these days, the big high street chains need almost as much support as the little indies.  While it lacks in ambiance, sometimes it's good to go into a record store knowing that there's a very good chance they're going to have the CD you want, no matter how old or obscure.  And with HMV Oxford Street being one of the biggest in the world, you've got a better chance than at most places.  Plus, I've seen some great live music in-store here, by bands like  Hot Chip, the Pipettes and The Gossip.

Read Silence, TVOTR Remixed

TV On The Radio had a good 2008, releasing the superb Dear Science, putting on amazing live shows and famously getting three songs in the Bawley 100.

Building on this success they are now releasing Read Silence a download only EP containing remixes of three of Dear Science less played tracks.

1. Shout Me Out (Willie Isz Remix by Jneiro Jarel)
2. Stork & Owl (Gang Gang Dance Remix)
3. Red Dress (Remixed by THE GLITCH MOB)

It is all great but for now I am really loving Gang Gang Dance’s take on Stork & Owl.

Blood from The Middle East

Today's Friday Freebie is Blood a sublime track from Townsville indie/folk band The Middle East.

Original pressings of their self-titled EP have sold out but an official release is on the way. For now you can download more from The Middle East on triple j Unearthed and myspace.

The Middle East - Blood (mp3)

Good Friday Freebie.

Bob Evans is back with a new album and as promised it is a little more rocking than his previous two efforts.

The first single from the album is Someone So Much, and thanks to triplej you can download it now.

I know that for some of you a little Bob Evans is never enough, so if you hop over to the schnazzy new bobevans.com.au you can download the previously unreleased We’re A Mess.

Happy Easter.

Live Review: A Place To Bury Strangers, Birmingham, Barfly, 05/04/2009

My first A Place To Bury Strangers live experience, four months ago, left me wanting more. This week I got the encore I was waiting for.

The band are back at Barfly but things are a little different: they are playing the smaller upstairs bar, and a good percentage of the (again, smaller) crowd are wearing gig-plugs.

I don’t know if these two things are related, perhaps some Darwinian evolution thing: those who are smart enough to wear earplugs survive, while those that are not go deaf and get run over by buses or something.

The show gets off to a slow start as the band wait for the stage lights to go out, only to be told that the switch is on the wall next to the stage... click... straight in to the swirling noise of Gimme Acid.

Don’t Think Lover and Fix the Gash in Your Head are next, and provide the highlights of a familiar set.

Tonight the band have brought their own light show: a projector that throws images of barren deserts, passing trees, and soft yellow daises over the band as they pound the audience into submission with feedback and volume.

Closer Ocean has front man Oliver Ackermann tearing the strings off his guitar while much of the audience close their eyes to avoid the nauseating strobe. Lunches stay down and all is forgiven when the band finish their set and walk into the crowd, chatting, signing merchandise and posing for pictures with anyone and everyone who asks.

While tonight was let down by the small crowd, A Place To Bury Strangers are still a great live act.

Dangermouse + Sparklehorse = DANGERHORSE!

Sparklehorse is the name under which Mark Linkous has recorded four brilliantly woozy alt.country records over the last 15 years, including 2001's masterpiece (and one of my all time favourites), 'It's A Wonderful Life'.

Danger Mouse is the genius super-producer who is in Gnarls Barkley, produced the second Gorillaz LP, and the most recent Beck album, did that 'Grey Album' thing, and a bunch of other stuff.

Together, they are DANGERHORSE, a collaborative project that's been talked about since 2006, but, which now - finally - seems to be bearing fruit. Well, 'DangerHorse' was the working title anyway. But they don't seem to be using that name anymore.

A 'mysterious poster' has been sent to a number of bloggers (not us, sadly), promising an album - 'Dark Night Of The Soul' in summer 2009. It also boasts an eye-watering list of collaborators: Black Francis (Pixies), Jason Lytle (Grandaddy), Julian Casablancas (The Strokes), Nina Persson (The Cardigans, A Camp), Iggy Pop, Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals, Neon Neon), James Mercer (The Shins), Vic Chestnutt, Suzanne Vega, The Flaming Lips (!), and David Lynch (!!). It's presumably all the artists who wanted to be on album with the words 'Dark' and 'Night' in the title in 2009, but missed out on that other one. Other than the above, details are non-existent at the moment, (this website doesn't shed a lot of light) but if the album emerges and is anywhere close to the sum of its parts, it could turn out to be the best record of 2009. Possibly the greatest thing ever.

Vince the Impaler

While the UK lad rock scene is generally a pretty boring place, Kasabian offer something more. Their electronic-indie-rock is played with the swagger and confidence of Oasis, but without some of the arrogance.

This week’s Friday Freebie is Vlad the Impaler taken from the band’s third album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, you will have to be quick as the download link will expire at midnight tonight.

Get it now get it here.

Kasabian obviously know that we like funny men almost as much as freebies, inviting The Mighty Boosh’s Noel Fielding to design promo posters and play the lead role in the video for Vlad The Impaler. Watch below.

West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum is out on June 8th.

Remix Bloc Party

Way back in 2007 Bloc Party gave their fans a chance to remix The Prayer some of the results were great the k-rad remix even found its way into that years Bawley 100.

Jump to 2009, ahead of the release of Intimacy Remixed Bloc Party are giving you another chance to mess with their music. The Intimacy tracks Signs, Ares, and Ion Square are all available to download as multipart mp3 ‘stems’.

When you are finished you can share your completed work and listen to other fans attempts on www.blocparty.com.

Download Here:

Signs
Ares
Ion Square

And don't forget to tell us know how your remixes are coming along.

Brand New NIN For 2009

Surprise! The new Nine Inch Nails album is available. Now!!!

Produced by Timberland and rammed full of special guests the album is called Strobe light and can be downloaded from the nin website.

track list:

1. intro skit
2. everybody's doing it (featuring chris martin, jay-z AND bono)
3. black t-shirt
4. pussygrinder (featuring sheryl crow)
5. coffin on the dancefloor
6. this rhythm is infected
7. slide to the dark side
8. even closer (featuring justin timberlake and maynard james keenan)
9. on the list (she's not)
10. clap trap crack slap
11. laid, paid and played (featuring fergie of the black eyed peas and al jourgensen)
12. feel like being dead again
13. still hurts (featuring alicia keys)
14. outro skit

Timberland salad may not make a good album but it is a great April Fools.