Posted by Serge On December - 19 - 2009ADD COMMENTS
Kid Sister is Chicago. She makes rap music and works at a children’s clothing store slanging bibs and teething rings. Yes, her hype man J2K of Flosstradamus is her real brother, and yes that does rule. Together they took the Chi-town music scene by storm, rocking parties and causing all around dancefloor mayhem. This was followed by tours with Kanye West’s DJ A-Trak (her boyfriend, one of her main producers and co-owner of Fool’s Gold Records). 2006 found Kid Sister selling-out shows from Chicago to Paris, including an appearance at the Pitchfork Music Festival. The media responded favorably, with features on MTV (“My Block”), Pitchfork, i-D Magazine, XLR8R, the New York Times, Billboard and the cover of URB’s “Next 1000” issue, among others.
Building on the strength of this early buzz, Kid Sister hit the studio and released two singles on Fool’s Gold (“Control” and “Pro Nails”). Frequent international touring followed throughout 2007, including an appearance at Coachella, a sold out show at SXSW, and a full US tour with her fellow labelmates. Kanye West also took notice, adding a verse to her “Pro Nails” single (which he released on his “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” mixtape) and appearing in the music video, which quickly became an MTV favorite.
With her full-length debut on the way this year featuring A-Trak, Xxxchange of Spank Rock, and others on production duties, Kid Sister is taking this.
Posted by Serge On November - 3 - 2009ADD COMMENTS
To get the formalities out of the way, Miike Snow is not a singer/songwriter named Mike. Miike Snow isn’t even a he, actually. It’s an indie-electro pop trio, made up of singer Andrew Wyatt of Fires of Rome and Swedish (hence the double “i” in the name) mega producers Chris Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, otherwise known as Bloodshy & Avant. Those familiar with Bloodshy & Avant’s track record — working with Britney Spears, Madonna, and Kylie Minogue — will know that they’re capable of making top-notch pop gloss geared for the dancefloor. But the question here is, “can they create music that isn’t designed for club-goers and teeny boppers?” With their self-titled release, they do make light, inoffensive pop with twinkling synths and unshakable choruses, but it’s a pretty substantial shift in style from their past gigs. Consistent throughout, the album’s more suited for a coffee shop or a Sunday morning drive than a night out with the girls, with its fill of slick mid-tempo beats and Swedish twee glee. Starting with a hook that doesn’t sound too far off from a Vampire Weekend cut (not a surprising reference point, since Miike Snow’s repertoire of remixes includes a version of “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance”), dubby synths circulate around flighty vocals with heavy sentiments: “I change shapes just to hide in this place, but I’m still, I’m still an animal.” Slight of hand seems to be one of the group’s best tricks, as they take lyrics with moody undertones to unexpectedly joyous heights. When the second track, “Burial” — a slice of pop that’s as instantly accessible as the first — starts with the line, “Misery is all we know lately,” the music box keyboards never hint at anything but a sweet little ditty. Production tricks are used just enough to keep the sound fresh as Karlsson and Winnberg rifle through their folders of synth sounds and plug-ins, all the while adding arpeggiated bleeps, Moog pads, and the occasional octave effect to enhance vocal parts. As talented as they are, they could have easily gone overboard with the studio wizardry, but they show enough restraint to never break the illusion that this is a simple, easy listening, electro-pop record. There’s no lack of artists making similar sounding music — MGMT, Pop Levi, White Williams, and even Animal Collective come to mind — but Miike Snow is ambitious and fun enough that they’re worth checking out.
Miike Snow’s video for “Animal”
Miike Snow’s self titled debut available at All That Music & Video.
As Tall as Lions made a late-aughts splash on the indie music scene with a sound characterized by Coldplay-esque melodicism, U2-ish ethereal guitar textures, and the supple, soaring, Jeff Buckley-influenced lead vocals of singer Dan Nigro. On You Can’t Take It with You, the Long Island-based group continued in much the same vein as on its 2006 self-titled release, matching the abovementioned sonic palette with kinetic drum’n'bass beats and heaping helpings of old-fashioned rock energy. Sounding at once accessible and inscrutably mysterious, “In Case of Rapture” bristles with a nervous energy that should please emo fans, but remains densely textured enough to appeal to listeners with an ear for the progressive. “Circles” starts out softly melancholy, with a vocal that recalls Art Garfunkel or Elliott Smith before eventually exploding into a guitar freakout underpinned by tense, wiry, claustrophobic rhythms. Throughout, You Can’t Take It with You represents the sound of a band striking a delicate balance between emotional directness and artful experimentation.
Here is a teaser for the new album “You Can’t Take It With You”.
This horror comic combines urban myths with the serial killer and revenge flick genres in an entertaining and thrilling manner. This is a dark story. Heads are lopped off, the innocent are harmed, and sins are committed. Writer Jaime “Jimmy” Portillo has a good eye for staging a moody scene and punctuating it with a horrific payoff. Writer of the extremely moody and frightening vampire tale GABRIEL (covered right here in Indie Jones last year), Portillo seems to have a firm hold on what can scare a reader. There were a few instances where the captions redundantly described the action in this issue, but those are minor missteps. The dark tone, horrific action, and damn fine art from Arturo Delgado Molina make THE RAILROAD KILLER one horror comic to look out for.
Realigned with Philippe Zdar, the half of Cassius who mixed United, Phoenix make adjustments on the polarizing characteristics of their second and third albums — the pokey and occasionally listless Alphabetical, the jagged and tune-deficient It’s Never Been Like That — with some of the most direct and enjoyable songs they’ve made to date. The two opening songs, the bopping “Lisztomania” and the buzzing “1901,” are so immediate and prone to habitual play that the remainder of the album is bound to be neglected. There is plenty to like beyond that point, including “Lasso,” which niftily alternates between a tangled rhythm and tight-spiral riffing, and the labyrinthine “Pt. 1″ of “Love Like a Sunset,” which serves the same purpose as the extended instrumental passages on Roxy Music’s Avalon, at least until its rousing conclusion and shift into “Pt. 2.” Beyond containing the band’s best, most efficient songwriting, the album also stands apart from the first three studio albums by projecting a cool punch that is unforced. Vocalist Thomas Mars, more bright-eyed and youthful than ever, also sounds more a part of these songs, rather than coming across as a protruding element that clashes against the instruments. Maybe they’ve just hit their stride.
“I’m feeling restless; don’t slow down!” advises Matt Johnson during Grand, the hyperkinetic follow-up to Matt & Kim’s hyperkinetic debut. Grand makes good use of that advice, sandwiching 11 songs into a half-hour blast of snare hits and bouncing, buzzing synthesizer riffs. Johnson handles the bulk of the vocal duties, singing every song in a nasal, nerd-chic tenor while overdubbing his own harmonies. Yet it’s the chemistry between Johnson and his partner, drummer Kim Schifino, that largely fuels the band’s energy, even if Schifino’s presence is somewhat muted by the album’s beefed-up production (which polishes her wild percussion into tight, precise beats — not necessarily a poor decision, but far from representative of her live musicianship). Building off the template established by the band’s debut, Matt & Kim aim for the middle point between sugared melody and punked-out swagger, making room for flourishes of stomp-clap percussion, dancefloor electronics, and jingle-worthy progressions. Grand isn’t as majestic as its name suggests, with only a handful of songs moving past the anxious minimalism that permeated the last album. For returning fans, though, Grand provides a familiar brand of punk music for happy people, for lovebirds, for those who wish Mates of State had more swagger and less glockenspiel.
“Daylight” video from their new album ,”Grand”.
You can pick up “Grand” now at All That Music & Video.
OK, let’s just spear the elephant in the room: Empire Of The Sun are really, really like MGMT. This Sydney duo (duo!) have arrived bearing blissful psych-pop with visions of a New World Order Of Shagging For Peace siphoned directly from the Wesleyan College acid pool. You get the same nasal vocals and, right from opener ‘Standing On The Shore’, the hippy dribble flows freely too: “The future’s in my hands/I hold it in my palms/Engrave it in the leylines running/Right down her arms”.
When acts score big, labels rush to present similar acts in their wake and Virgin are clearly showing off the ‘new MGMT’. Publicity shots show Empire’s Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore dressed as a Chinese space-wizard and Lando Calrissian’s bowling partner respectively. Such psychedelic homoeroticism continues in the video for new single ‘We Are The People’, where the boys throw mystical shapes in the jungle and sing about “A force running in every boy and girl” with the result looking like MGMT’s ‘Electric Feel’ video recreated by French and Saunders.
Which is where we can begin to separate the two: Empire are funnier.
Daring to look silly is a fine quality in a musician, mind. Bowie, Iggy, even Slade took the risk and triumphed, and Empire could pull it off too – if your songs are good enough, no-one will call you a dick. The ludicrousness of ‘We Are The People’ and ‘Walking On A Dream’ doesn’t stop them from being sensational. Both have sunshiny choruses which hook into your perineum and drag you upwards, with ‘Walking On A Dream’’s mantra of “We are always running for the thrill
of it, thrill of it” marking it as their ‘Time To Pretend’.
This is no hopping on the tie-dyed bandwagon, though: Steele is the talented and temperamental frontman of The Sleepy Jackson, the Aussie alt.rock group whose 2003 album ‘Lovers’ provides the template for Empire: seductive melodies, memorable hooks and (pre-VanWyngarden!) those ethereal vocals. Littlemore is a member of Pnau, whose trippy tribal pop also feeds directly into this side-project. Together, they’ve written an inspired succession of songs which transcend any marketing angle and whose musical origins precede MGMT. So there.
If both occupy the same island, Empire are on the side with the hot springs. ‘Standing On The Shore’ conjures up a beach party where Hall & Oates play volleyball against David Byrne and James Murphy. ‘Half Mast’ is a Balearic dream with a sublime chorus that simply goes, “Oh, oh, honey I need you ’round, I know”. When the sun sets, spaceships light up the sky and Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack echoes across ‘The World’, a meditation on that whole death thing which still manages to sound like The Thin White Duke in a good mood. Indeed you could call the whole album ‘‘Low’ By The Sea’, such is its warm take on surrealist grandeur; ‘Tiger By My Side’ is both disturbing and dancey and ‘Without You’ is a Bowie-esque tragedy referencing ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Vienna’.
And that’s the thing with Empire Of The Sun: they’re silly but their songs demand to be taken seriously, just like Prince, Ultravox and Bowie. And yes, they’re like MGMT – in that they’re great.
Posted by gator915 On August - 9 - 2009ADD COMMENTS
Florence and the Machine is the recording name of Florence Welch and a collaboration of other artists who provide backing music for her voice.[1] Musically Florence and the Machine’s sound is generally referred to as soul inspired indie. Florence and The Machine’s music has received praise across the British music media, especially from the BBC who have played a large part in Florence and The Machine’s rise to prominence by bringing them into the spotlight as part of BBC Introducing.[2] This has led to her playing Glastonbury as well as Reading and Leeds festivals and T in the Park. The band’s debut album, Lungs, was released on 6th July 2009 and was at the number 2 position its first four weeks on the charts, behind the late Michael Jackson.[3] The band’s debut single was “Kiss with a Fist”. The song will be used in the soundtrack of the upcoming film Jennifer’s Body.[4] The follow up single “Dog Days are Over” was recorded with no instruments in a studio the “size of a loo”.[5] Florence told the BBC’s Mercury Prize website that she would celebrate her nomination for the 2009 award by folding clothes.
Posted by gator915 On August - 6 - 2009ADD COMMENTS
The Prodigy are a successful English electronic music group formed by Liam Howlett in 1990 in Braintree, Essex, England. Along with Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers and The Crystal Method, as well as other acts they are pioneers of the big beat electronic dance genre which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s and 2000s, and are known for high-quality live performances. They have sold over 17 million records worldwide which is unequalled in dance music history.[1]
Their music consists of various styles ranging from rave, hardcore, industrial and breakbeat in the early 1990s to electronic rock with punk vocal elements in later times. The current band members include Liam Howlett (composer/keyboards), Keith Flint (dancer/vocalist) and Maxim Reality (MC/vocalist). Leeroy Thornhill (dancer/very occasional live keyboards) was a member of the band from 1990 to 2000, as was a female dancer/vocalist called Sharky who left the band during their early period. The Prodigy first emerged on the underground rave scene in the early 1990s, and have since then achieved immense popularity and worldwide renown. Some of their most popular songs include “Charly”, “Out of Space”, “No Good (Start the Dance)”, “Voodoo People”, “Firestarter”, “Breathe”, “Smack My Bitch Up”, “Omen” & “Warrior’s Dance.”
The name displayed on album covers changed from “The Prodigy” to “Prodigy” between Music for the Jilted Generation and The Fat of the Land in 1997 and back again with the release of Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned in 2004. However, Howlett has stated that the title has always been “The Prodigy”. The change was made only to fit within the displayed logo, according to Howlett.[2][3]
Posted by gator915 On August - 6 - 2009ADD COMMENTS
As reported on Pitchfork in March 2007, the group have signed to Music With a Twist, a subsidiary of Sony Music Label Group, concentrating on LGBT music acts.[2] Beth Ditto appeared nude on the front cover of the UK music magazine NME (cover dated June 2, 2007). During the summer of 2007, Gossip was a part of the multi-artist True Colors Tour 2007,[3] which traveled through 15 cities in the United States and Canada. The tour, sponsored by the Logo channel, began on June 8, 2007. Hosted by comedian Margaret Cho and headlined by Cyndi Lauper, the tour also included Debbie Harry, Erasure, Rufus Wainwright, The Dresden Dolls, The MisShapes, The Cliks and other special guests. Profits from the tour went to benefit the Human Rights Campaign.
Gossip are based in Portland, Oregon and have played with bands such as Sleater-Kinney, Le Tigre, CSS, Erase Errata, Mika Miko, Panther, Comanechi, and Mates of State. Gossip also opened for the Scissor Sisters for three dates on their November 2006 tour, but singer Ditto complained to NME magazine that she disliked performing for an audience who didn’t “know their Ramones. “[citation needed]
On June 24, 2007 Gossip closed the Glastonbury Festival, playing the final set on the John Peel stage during which Ditto gave a tribute to the late John Peel. Gossip also performed the following year, on the Pyramid Stage.
Gossip launched the Live in Liverpool album in the UK and the U. S. in April 2008. The album was produced by Rick Rubin. The album also features a DVD of their live performance. A new studio album called Music For Men was released on June 22, 2009.
