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*Silver Lining Drops 10/4/10 on Muti Music; Massive Run of Fall Tour Dates Also Announced*
Los Angeles’ MiM0SA has made a distinct mark on the West Coast sound in the past two years and has become one of the top West Coast exports. This young producer’s energy whilst performing is magnetic; the word has spread fast and MiM0SA has recently shared the stage with the likes Benga, Skream, Rusko, Glitch Mob, Pretty Lights, Bassnectar and Flying Lotus, playing shows across the US and festivals like Coachella, Symbiosis Gathering, Burning Man, Decibel Festival and of course, gracing the stage at the now-legendary Low End Theory in Los Angeles. MiM0SA brings an energy that is as fierce as it is friendly, taking listeners and audiences on journeys through urban chaos and ecstasy. His new mini-LP Silver Lining is dropping October 4th, 2010 on SF based Muti Music.
MiM0SA’s production expertise has been in high demand and collaborations with Marines Parade’s Panty Raid have been featured on Mary Anne Hobbs‘ BBC radio show. His past releases “Flux For Life” (which cracked the iTunes Top 10 dance music chart) & “Hostilis” have shown an ability to move effortlessly between Dubstep and Experimental Hip Hop. Most recently, the Your Love EP begun to showcase a new level of skill and confidence as well. MiM0SA also partners with producer Sleepyhead for the collaborative project Sexytime as well. He’s been releasing on Muti Music for the past three years, and will be touring extensively throughout the fall.
The Brooklyn indie-rock, dream-pop trio Kordan are set to release their anticipated first full-length album this October. Their shoegazey-electro textures take cue from the guitar drones of late 80s/early 90s groups like Ride or Swervedriver and are driven by propulsive, post-punk rhythms and synths of earlier Factory/Mute releases. More contemporarily, think a more melancholy, darker (but still dancey) flipside to the upbeat indie pop of The Drums. Don’t sleep!
Sifting through traces of quantum universes, Kordan find the lush textures, pulsating beats, and somber melodies that they use to project dreams of bleak, dismal cities in a holographic future. But just below this mournful atmosphere there is also flicker of energy, like one of those cities is slowly flickering back on after a blackout. Lumines- cent synths build on scratchy guitars and the electricity of the city finally rushes back on.
Arthur (vocals/guitar), Liz (vocals/synth), and Gabo (bass) emerged from the vibrant rave and indie rock scenes in Puerto Rico during the early 2000s. After different stints found them in different parts of the US, the trio converged in Brooklyn. Together again, they began to fuse an electro glint and a shoegaze murk, and thus forged Kordan.
In the fall of 2008, Cut Copy heard the band’s songs and chose Kordan as an opening act on their North American tour, taking them through Minneapolis, Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, and back to New York City. In the summer of 2009 Kordan released their demo recordings as the Fantasy Nation EP, garner- ing critical acclaim from Filter, Jezebel, and Oh My Rockness, among others. The debut release heralded Kordan’s aural world, tinged by futuristic visions and Japanese street culture. The following autumn months saw Kordan playing a CMJ showcase and shows in New York City, including opening for The Drums and The Mary Onettes. They have also brought their sonic influences to other bands, having done remixes for ZAZA and The Delta Mirror.
The Longing, their first full-length album, expands the dystopian city they built on Fantasy Nation, making way for a full-fledged love story in a hazy metropolis circa the year 2036. Somewhere in a bleak, run-down Tokyo neighborhood, someone drifts through the crowds, holograms, and faded neon to reunite with a loved one he hasn’t seen in years. In this vast metropolis of millions, loneliness has become his prison. The longing he has felt for her and the memories of what could have become have become his only reality.
“They have created a cerebral gesture, an atmospheric ride through Tokyo’s cityscape.” -Jezebel Music
“Fantasy Nation is one of the most memo- rable debut releases of the year, and listening to it shows why Cut Copy demanded Kordan to be their opening act last year after hearing the songs on this EP.” – Obscure Sounds
“If you like any of that old shoe-gaze Britpop stuff, then Kordan has a stronger than fight- ing chance to become a part of your listening life.” – Oh My Rockness
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“It’s all very Nordic, and awfully pleasing – the kind of adult pop that Air were promising us with their first album, before they were sidetracked.” The Guardian UK
“Husky Rescue’s first two albums were packed with potential. Ship of Light is the album on which the Helsinki band realise it, raising their game, adding a new level of pop accessibility and threatening to move beyond their cult status to charm a wider audience.” The Sunday Times
“With softly grained melodies and the accomplished orchestration we come to expect from the Scandinavians, this is therefore a nocturnal winter treat from Husky Rescue. They offer so much more than your standard chill out fare, with songs that burn brightly in the darkness, and with words that can freeze you to the bone or, more likely, offer warmth in the coldness of winter.” MusicOMH.com
Husky Rescue is composer Marko Nyberg communicating a world of magic, beauty, spiritual awareness, and the idea of a hopeful sect sharing a common world-view to his listeners. This “sect” of course being the group itself, a collective of close friends as much as musicians. The Finnish band’s third album on Catskills Records, Ship of Light, will be released in October 2010 in the US.
Husky Rescue started their international career in 2004 with style. Their debut “Country Falls” introduced the pop-savvy and compositional stylings of Marko Nyberg, the Helsinki-based ensemble’s primus motor. Essential to the Husky Rescue sound was also Reeta-Leena Korhola on vocals, delivering each line with remarkable intensity and emotion. The cinematic sceneries found on the debut were further expanded on 2006’s “Ghost is Not Real”.
After releasing and touring the first two Husky albums, Nyberg at first didn’t have a clear-cut blueprint for the evolution of the band’s sound. But learning about a reported UFO sighting near his home just outside central Helsinki further turned his interest towards nature, thus propelling a new wave of inspiration. He sees hope and beauty in the Northern surroundings, and embarking on a solitary songwriting trip to Lapland early on in the process was a crucial decision in the making of Ship of Light.
Another important feature of the album’s strikingly innovative sound is the use of instrumentation that Nyberg feels a personal connection to. One of his tools-of-the-trade is the rare Memorymoog, an organ-like instrument yielding a sound like no other. Nyberg remembers longing after one in childhood, and he stumbled upon one before starting on the third Husky album. His Memorymoog sound of choice on the recording sessions was number 74, coincidentally also his year of birth.
Opening up a new chapter in the Husky Rescue saga, Ship of Light sounds familiar yet strikingly fresh and unique to those who’ve discovered the band during their first two albums. The current edition of Husky Rescue occupies its space more actively, getting under the listeners’ skin in a style reminiscent of an aural representation of postmodern film noir. More intense in ambience, the album also comes across as more communal in terms of the band’s mutual communication. Indeed, they recorded bits an pieces of it at remote cottages and the like, prompting Nyberg to call the ensemble “a contemporary musical congregation”.
Cuts such as the first single ‘We Shall Burn Bright’ stand as ample evidence of this. They are sonically rich and filled with the class A musical handicraft evident on every ounce of the album. The songs each sit comfortably within the framework, while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of the frame they’re working in.
The Husky Rescue sound mk3 is live, inviting the listener into aural adventures not easily pinpointed at any one location, genre, or scene. The imagined open spaces coming through from the music could as well be in Finland, Norway or Nevada.
Ship of Light is about a transition into something better. Marko Nyberg and his trusty Huskies recorded the album’s opening soundscape “First Call” in the middle of a forest on a dark autumn night, using wooden flakes on a string. This ancient sound instrument is used traditionally to keep evil spirits away, and the Husky songsmith sees a strong thematical connection here.
Furthermore, Ship of Light is a celebration of old school musical craftsmanship at work. As the Swedish studio engineer Niklas Flyckt fittingly pointed out to Nyberg when mixing tracks on the album, “your drums sound shit but you know it”. Why aim for something sterile when you can make it life-like?
Welcome, come on in, sit down, be at ease. I want to take you back – back, back, back into the mists of time, when Margaret Thatcher was still – just – in power, Nelson Mandela had just been released from prison, the World Cup was won not by Germany but by West Germany and a man called Tim Berners-Lee published a formal proposal for something esoteric called the World Wide Web. And two young DJ/producers, fresh from their success with the likes of household names such as Yazz and Lisa Stansfield as well as in their own right, returned from a tour of Japan sick of major label bullsh*t and decided to set up on their own. These two fresh-faced young men, Jon More and Matt Black, collectively known as Coldcut, made NINJA TUNE.
Twenty years! Twenty fu*king years!? That’s a long time for anything, but for an independent record label it’s aeons. So yes, we are going to make a fuss. Yes, we are going to celebrate. But this will not be a tired cash-in, a festival of re-tread or an orgy of old. NO! We are focussing on new material, new newness.
This week’s Ninja Tune XX giveaway comes from one of the key artists of Ninja’s recent history, and of electronic music as a whole. Kevin Martin has been making and performing music for a long time, and under various guises. Having released feverishly acclaimed albums through Aphex Twin’s Rephlex imprint in the past, Ninja signed The Bug in 2007, to much excitement within the label. His debut Ninja full length, ‘London Zoo’, was everything we’d hoped it would be. Chiming with the formative dubstep movement that Martin had himself influenced, it drew together his mastery of electronica, dancehall and dub into a record that was as furious and fiery as it was infectious in its melody and bass.
‘Catch A Fire’ is a new track by The Bug and is on the Ninja Tune XX compilation and box set. It shows a fascinating development of Kevin Martin’s recent sound, alongside the trademark, irresistible production that’s made his name. This track will also feature on a brand new EP, out later in the year.
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MP3: “Figure 8″
“Lovers’ last disc, I Am the West, was one of the best albums to come out of Portland in 2009-even if its release went under the radar for a lot of people… Lovers’ next album shouldn’t catch anyone by surprise, because we’re not going to let it.” Willamette Week
Loud and proud, Portland, OR based Lovers is a band of emotional intensity and complexity. Their new album Dark Light begins with singer Carolyn Berk’s confession, “every time the music starts, I can feel my aching, shaking heart,” and from there, Lovers embark on a spiritual journey of inspired three-part harmonies, deep introspection, and next-wave humor.
Dark Light, recorded at Portland’s beloved Type Foundry studio with Badman label owner Dylan Magierek (Mark Kozelek, Thao Nguyen & Portland Cello Project, Starfucker)is the first for Berk, Ferris and Kingan together. Says Portland’s Willamette Week, the new record marks “a change in Lovers philosophy that takes the band from being a singer-songwriter’s outlet to a full-on synth-driven pop group, and it does so masterfully.” The result is an expansive sonic landscape of colorful wonder and hope, and an interactive and engaging performance that strives to leave audiences inspired. These audiences will, in fact, have the opportunity to see Lovers live this fall, with full October and November tour dates to be announced soon.
Over the years, Carolyn Berk has established her unique voice as Lovers with four acclaimed, haunted and heart-broken previous albums. Lovers (celebrated lyricist Berk, synth-programmer and performance artist Kerby Ferris, and multimedia artist and percussionist Emily Kingan) craft an intimate portrait of female friendship, sexuality, and evolution as an infinite process. The three first encountered in 2002 after Berk’s near-fatal van explosion while on tour with an earlier incarnation of the band. Emily Kingan, then on tour with classic Portland feminist hardcore band The Haggard, invited Berk to join the bill. Ferris was their roadie. Years later, Kingan organized a meeting for her two friends and future band-mates in South America, where Berk was travelling and Ferris was living at the time, performing in various experimental electronic projects in São Paulo’s thriving music scene. The result was sisterly love at second site, and prophetic premonitions of the creative collaborations to come.
Says Berk about Lovers presently: “We are like sisters. We are sisters.”
They are three girls and one guy from Nashville, Tennessee that play rock and roll Stonehenge punk.
Their music is youth incarnate; fast and loud and exuberant.
Produced by JEFF The Brotherhood’s Jake Orrall, the album is heavy on fast, fun and irresistable hooks like fan favorites “Tina”, “Lava Lamp”, and “Hawkwound”. The first single, “Watusi”, feels like the kind of song that was made to make the summer last well into November.
Aug 18, 2010 – Exit In (w/Screaming Females & JEFF The Brotherhood)
Nashville TN Aug 20, 2010 – Rock’s Off Cruise (w/Detroit Cobras)21+ New York, NY Aug 22, 2010 – Comet Ping Pong (w/Vivian Girls) Washington, DC Aug 26, 2010 – Discoteca (w/Gestapo & Khazi) Chattanooga, TN Aug 27, 2010 – Pilot Light Knoxville, TN Aug 28, 2010 – Snug Harbor Charlotte, NC Aug 30, 2010 – The Box Charlottesville, VA Aug 31, 2010 – Black Cat (w/Unnatural Helpers) Washington Sep 1, 2010 – Union Pool (w/Boogie Boarder) Brooklyn, NY Sep 2, 2010 – Cake Shop (w/Unnatural Helpers) New York, NY Sep 3, 2010 – Flywheel (w/Sweet Apple) Easthampton, MA Sep 4, 2010 – The Meat Locker Montclair, NJ Sep 5, 2010 – Elf Parlor North Adams, MA Sep 6, 2010 – The Rock Shop (w/Pterodactyl, Dinowalrus) Brooklyn, NY Sep 7, 2010 – Death By Audio New York, NY Oct 8, 2010 – Hi-Tone (w/JEFF The Brotherhood & Cy Barkley) Memphis TN
“Infinity Cat’s answer to The Runaways: playing quick, straightforward, Ramones-y numbers with plenty of bopping energy and little pretense.” Nashville Scene
“Nashville’s new rockers Heavy Cream just released their debut EP on Infinity Cat. Five lo-fi tracks of stripped-down twangy punk. Go see them. They’re a blast live.” Civil War Syndrome
“Man, we will never get tired of these babies. I mean, do we really need to write a review of their show? Fine. It ruled. They rocked. So primal. We love them. Go see them. Blah blah blah blah blah…. Seriously, Heavy Cream, you are the apple of Nashville’s eye.” Nashville’s Dead
“Heavy Cream play a set of youthful Stooges-meets-the-Runaways-style dirty proto-punk that recalls the grit of everything that made 1979 an awesome year” Creative Loafing
Lobisomem (a.k.a. Brad Loving) makes electronic music. His music, however, does not fall comfortably into the boxes that one normally uses to categorize electronic music. It is neither dance music, nor raw experimental noise. It is instead a hybrid of more subtle influences referencing African, South American, and Jamaican music as well as more native forces such as hip-hop and jazz. Lobisomem’s artistry has also been impacted by his immersion in Chicago’s improvisational music scene. Lobisomem just finished opening for Bear in Heaven in New England – more Lobisomem shows are in the works.
Brad DJs regularly in Brooklyn, New York and Chicago. He has collaborated with John Herndon of Tortoise, Jon Philpot of Bear in Heaven, Helado Negro’s Roberto Carlos Lange and Jason Ajemian. Brad curates the community of Bird & Whale which features carefully crafted DJ mixes from some thirty selectors including many luminaries from groups such as Tortoise, The Eternals, Helado Negro, Savath + Savalas, and Yeasayer as well as record collector heavyweights Rob Sevier and Dante Carfanga. Bird & Whale has gained an international following due to the caliber and breadth of music showcased. Brad says, “I think it’s worth trying to give a little context to these tracks because the last ten months have been such an unusual time in my life. In the spring of 2009 I was living in Chicago, working a steady job, and sort of cruising on autopilot. Then in May of last year, I quit my job and made a month long trip to Mali, Africa. Mali’s musical force hit me like a tidal wave, and those sounds definitely pushed me in the construction of this music. After returning to the States, I packed up a fraction of my belongings, threw away everything else, and moved to Brooklyn. I took the next five months to work on this music. I made trips to Japan and Texas during that time to record and then finally a trip back to Chicago and Soma studios in December of 2009 to compile everything together.”
“Sharp as a boot spur and tough as Tinactin, his band, The Rodeo, hearken back to the days when, as so many indiephiles will agree, country was good.” Tiny Mix Tapes
Formed in late 2005 by exiles from various rock bands, Brent Amaker and the Rodeo hail from Seattle, Washington where it’s not always cool to be a cowboy. Dressed in black from head-to-toe, the Rodeo are influenced by original country music classics like Johnny Cash along with art rock and New Wave artists like Devo and glam rock innovators like David Bowie, all who actually gave a shit about putting on a SHOW. Their vibe, their sound, their whole deal, sounds like something that could be blaring from an old jukebox in the background of a rugged Quentin Tarantino crime film.
Seattle based indie-label Spark & Shine Records will be releasing a limited edition vinyl package along with a “For Adults Only” graphic comic book entitled Mescal De La Muerte written by indie horror filmmaker Jay Cynik and illustrated by Simon Young. The Rodeo has also mapped out a sizable fall tour in support of the record, and will be playing the this year’s edition of Bumbershoot as well as the inaugural Heineken City Arts Festival in Seattle as well. They’ve creeped into the national consciousness via music in the Showtime series ‘Californication,’ and have completed several North American and European tours and have made appearances at music festivals around the world including Popkomm Festival in Berlin, and the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City.
The Rodeo have gained a reputation for their raucous, whiskey-infused live shows and non-stop touring, which provide the basis for previously mentioned comic book. Their distinctly DIY approach has gained them a rabid cult following both abroad and in the cities where they’ve done their damage. And in what’s now known as the B.A.R Brigade, some even come to their shows emulating the Rodeo’s distinct style, a true living example of life imitating art.
Please Stand By will be released on vinyl, digitally and on CD on October 19, 2010.
Returning for the second year in a row, the OhhLaLA Festival is bringing its French chic flair to venues around Los Angeles September 30th to October 2nd. Following the success of the inaugural three-day event last year, this year’s installment features more exciting artists arriving out of France’s electrifying music scene, including the highly anticipated US debut of REVOLVER, who’s French grammy nominated Music For A While comes out 8/24 on Astralwerks (already gold in France). The French trio of Ambroise Willaume (vocals, guitar, piano), Christophe Musset (vocals, guitar) and Jérémie Arcache (vocals, cello) joins other French musical luminaries such as Gotan Project, Sebastien Tellier, General Elektriks, Kavinsky, Acid Washed, and many more. The festival is being presented by Goldenvoice, KCRW, the Consulate General of France, and the French Embassy Cultural Services in the US.
In addition, REVOLVER has enlisted the help of fellow Frenchman and Tigersushi Records founder Joakim for a blistering remix of the album cut “Birds In Dm.” The remix itself is at times both moody and intense, and Joakim provides an blistering counterpoint to the layered harmonies of the original. In addition to running Tigersushi, Joakim releases a broad spectrum of music including artists such as Maurice Fulton, E.S.G, Poni Hoax and Metro Area, and also doing remixes for the likes of Tiga, Royksopp, Friendly Fires, Air, Simian Mobile Disco, and more.
The Music For A While full length was recorded in Paris’s Studio Pigalle. Producer Julien Delfaud (Phoenix, Herman Dune), helped Revolver hone their fantastically eclectic and century-skipping ideas, as well as gave the band the ability to recall the sunshine harmonies of Simon & Garfunkel and the Beach Boys, both of whom the band has always loved. Revolver’s melodies can be traced to 16th century songwriters and 17th century British Baroque composers, as well. Each of these styles defined the popular melodic and harmonic structures of their respective generations, and Revolver offers us a modern take blending each of these pop histories.
