Sunday 22 March 2009

København Store - Action, Please!


Download
There is a thread running through the continent, from the north of
Europe to the north of Italy.
A long, long thread, made of chilly melodies, bedroom post-rock
and lo-fi electronica. A thread spun by København Store, one of
Italian indie’s best-kept secrets.
Born as a duo at the beginning of 2003, after a journey in
Scandinavian territory (which explains the bizarre moniker), in time
the band evolved to a fuller line-up.
After the first two electronica-tinged demos, København Store
re-discovered guitar sound and moved towards a mutated,
subtly nuanced form of post rock. Like Mùm in a lockdown with
cLOUDDEAD and Godspeed You!Black Emperor.
“Action, Please!”, their first full-length album, was released in
February 2008 by Italian label 42 Records. It was produced by
Giacomo Fiorenza (who also worked with Yuppie Flu, Giardini di
Mirò, Austin Lace and Fuck, among others), and features vocals
by Jonathan Clancy (of Settlefish, A Classic Education and His
Clancyness), Alessandro Raina (of Giardini di Mirò and Casador),
Fabio Campetti (of Ed Wood) and Simone Magnaschi, formerly the
singer in Italian punk legends Stinking Polecats, and now a fulltime
member of København Store.
Its peculiar genesis makes “Action, Please!” come across as the
“You Forgot it in People” of the Italian Broken Indie Social Scene.
The album immediately became a hot item on the national music
press, obtaining enthusiastic reviews on the most widely-read
magazines and webzines. Some of the songs included in the album
also gained airplay on major radio networks.
The live experience, however, is where København Store actually
made the grade. Their shows (over 60 dates in the main live venues
all over Italy, in little over a year) are the stuff rock’n’roll is made
of: the often ethereal, jingling melodies of the album come alive in
a barrage of sound that never fails to amaze the audience. They
have shared the stage with bands such as Mono, Giardini di Mirò,
Apse, Solvent, Populus, Disco Drive and Envelopes. It is perhaps no
coincidence that the band managed to sell over 1,000 copies of
the album, without distribution, entirely at concerts and by wordof.
mouth.
The video for their first single (shot and directed by Stefano Poletti,
who also worked with several bands on the Italian mainstream
circuit) was picked up for airplay by several music channels,
among which MTV and MTV Brand:New.
March 2009 saw the Italian release of a new version of “Action,
Please!”, finally distributed in record stores by Halidon. The album
was previously available on iTunes and other digital stores, or
through mail order. In the wake of the record’s re-release, the
band is about to go back on tour. In the meantime, they are already
working on their second album, set to be released at the beginning
of 2010.
They are expected to spend the rest of 2009 touring Europe.

Faggot Rock - Collective Grizzly Bears in Rainbows



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Last.fm

Faggot Rock is an avantgarde sleaze metal jazz fusion indie rock band hailing from all over the world. The brainchild of a mysterious European with a passionate hatred for the Swedish, Faggot Rock’s band name is at once a political statement and a call to end bigotry. Hateful words aren’t as hateful when they just become words again. Plus, Sean Penn won an Oscar for playing a gay dude.

Eureka Brown - ¡Digitalia!



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Myspace

eureka brown is a file sharing enthusiast from urbana illinois who makes sunny, lo-fi, psychedelic dream-pop. he began to make ripples in late 07 after releasing the first 5 songs from his debut album future vision of the digital universe on myspace. after recieving praise via a myspace comment from one of his favorite bands and influences the bees he sent them a hand made promo copy of the record along with a letter thanking them for listening and professing his passion for all of their records. a few weeks later, just as he was wrapping up a series of shows with his new drummer to promote the album, the very same day the first track (i told you so) from the new album went up, he discovered that he had become one of their top friends! over the summer of 08 he steadily released tracks from the new record immediately upon their completion until one day in august of 08 when he recieved a message from the bbc requesting permission to include his newest song, full speed ahead (only a day or two old at the time), on their 6 music radio show fresh on the net with tom robbinson. furthermore only a small percentage of the artists, about 25%, of those who were included on the live stream made it to the podcast which is now in the bbc's permanent archives, and full speed ahead was the 2nd track on the playlist! it has since been played also on daniel peñacoba's ibiza radio show la captura del sonido/the capture of sound.

this is just very exciting because it shows how in this day and age you can bypass the usual trenches of the musica industry and have something come straight from your basement to the rest of the world without waiting a second. the very moment something is completed it can become available directly from the artist and it's free to evolve into whatever it sees fit. and indeed it has. if you watched them closely along the way you know that their songs were released in a series of versions building up to the ones that we see now, and in fact the final version of full speed ahead that you see here is a slight refinement from the 2nd or 3rd version that was included on the bbc podcast. but it doesn't stop there. these guys will do anything they can think of to destroy the boundries of a conventional record release. and so with this one there is not just one album cover but two variations, each of which are an animated sequence which plays out in the item artwork viewer on the bottom left corner of your itunes library as you click through the ten tracks of the album. also included in the zip folder download is a video only .mov bonus track.

the mp3's were released live at the mike n' molly's show in champaign with coltrane motion late last night. here's what the virtual liner notes have to say about the record:

¡digitalia! is a musical style and a miniature art movement that supports it's belief in file sharing by giving away it's musical content freely. the animation and visual art are inspired by the music, which is a highly computerized form of digital recording that's made with all real instruments. the sound is characterized by it's heavy use of percussion, analog synthesizers, dub effects, vocal harmonies, acoustic guitar, surf guitar & funk bass.

this album was also given this name because it's songs exemplify the culmination of the style. ¡digitalia! is the 2nd installment in a planned trilogy of mini-albums that imagine a future where man is faced with the possibility to embrace technologies that completely integrate man and machine.

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Chris Clark - Growl's Garden [2009]


Chris Clark returns with six brand new tracks of powerful, atmospheric electronic music. This maritime themed album with its Nordic seatown titles conjures up images of crashing waves and men battling against the elements. Tracks that reflect the steely silver of Berlin, where Chris wrote the material, sample the sounds of boots treading on snow and rocks roughly thrown together to form the urgent basslines that run throughout. The lead track ‘Growls Garden’ features haunting vocals from Chris himself.


01. Growls Garden
02. The Magnet Mine
03. Seaweed
04. Gonk Roughage
05. Distant Father Torch
06. Farewell Mining Town

- Download

ISIS - Wavering Radiant

Like it needs an introduction, picture, blocks of text, etc.

go for it!

Future Of The Left - Last Night I Saved Her From Vampires [2009]


Future of the Left's first release for 4AD has just been announced by the band and it's going to be a live album but with a slight twist. Entitled Last Night I Saved Her From Vampires, it was recorded at two live shows - Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach on 13th August and London Water Rats on 20th August. It not only features tracks from feted debut album Curses but also four new ones - 'Drink Nike', 'Distant Jabs At A Soul', 'V.D.F.A' and 'Cloak The Dagger' (the latter two having been a regular fixture of the band's live set throughout this summer).

Peter Von Poehl - May Day [2009]


The whole album is moved by new vibrations, which increase the songs intensity, even if they’ve once again been made by hand. Just like Going to Where the Tea Trees Are, the majority of May Day was put together in the middle of the Swedish countryside in Christoffer Lundquist s marvellous studio. (A longtime friend and collaborator, Lundquist is once again credited as co-producer.) The arrangements on May Day are bursting with discoveries you just know were spontaneous, specific moments that grew organically out of the sessions. The tight groove of Carrier Pigeon, the irresistible pop whirlpool of Moonshot Falls, the rough blueprints of Dust in Heaven and Near the End of the World or the knowing layering of instruments in the knock-out Elisabeth all share the same sense of discovery and the same taste for play, which stretch across all the parts of von Poehl s unclassifiable songwriting. Utterly resistant to gratuitous stylistic devices from the arrangements to the style, the rhythms to the lyrics everything on May Day is there to benefit a musicality free of harmful gimmicks.

Amesoeurs - Amesoeurs [2009]


Amesoeurs was a French post-punk/black metal band formed in 2004 by guitarist/singer Neige of Alcest and Peste Noire fame and bassist/singer Audrey Sylvain. Later, drummer Winterhalter (also in Peste Noire) and guitarist Fursy Teyssier were added to the mix. In 2007 they released the EP Ruines Humaines, followed by the full-length album Amesoeurs in March 2009. After the release of the full-length, Amesoeurs split up due to personal tensions and conflicting ideas regarding the band's future.

Les Claypool - Of Fungi And Foe [2009]


Les Claypool's album "Of Fungi and Foe" is his latest album of all original music. This album is a collection of songs inspired by the projects he has been working on over the past few years, and also contains a jam session with Eugene Hütz the charismatic front-man of the band Gogol Bordello that turned into the track "Bite Out Of Life". Other musicians who appear on the cd include Lapland Miclovik, Mike Dillon, Sam Bass, Paulo Baldi, Cage Claypool, and Bryonn Bain.

The Unfinished Sympathy - Avida Dollars [2009]


The Unfinished Sympathy is a modern rock band inspired by diverse influences such as emo/indie 90's bands, 80's pop, and classic hard rock, like a combination of Jets To Brazil, The Police and Van Halen. They started in 2000 with a demo that came to the hands of BCore, which quickly signed them up. First album "The unfinished sympathy" in 2001 had such a good response that led them to their first spanish and european tours, including the recording of a John Peel Session at London's BBC, being the first spanish band ever to be invited to the show, by John himself. An extensive european tour with american band Joshua, a german tour with labelmates Maple and support for Jimmy Eat World and Bad Religion led them to their second album, "An investment in logistics" in 2003. It reached Top 1 at main spanish indie newspaper Mondo Sonoro, and number 3 for Rock Sound in their annual polls, and started to appear on the covers of specialised magazines. Another exhaustive german tour and a second visit to the BBC studios to record another John Peel Session were quickly followed by their third album, "Rock for food" (2004) which also reached Top 1, this time for Rock Sound, and number 2 for Mondo Sonoro. Before that, the advance single "This living kills" had such a big acclaim thanks to the awarded 35mm video and the cover of Undertones' classic "Teenage kicks", conceived as a gift for their friend John Peel. More than 200 shows around Europe prove this is one of the best spanish rock bands to be followed closely.

Pink Mountaintops - Outside Love [2009]

"Outside Love" is the third album by Pink Mountaintops, AKA Stephen McBean, who has slowly emerged as a distinctive voice and a very special contributor to the North American songbook. A veteran of the Vancouver/Victoria punk rock scene, McBean is best known for his contributions to acclaimed rock band Black Mountain, as principal songwriter, guitarist and co-vocalist. The ten songs on "Outside Love" are about or influenced by weddings in Montreal, winter, Pink Floyd's The Final Cut, Christmas albums, that one Exile song and that one Echo and the Bunnymen song, the Bermuda Triangle, being depressed in the sunshine, people who haven't made out yet but will in the future, The Everly Brothers, clowns in the ceilings, and bedrooms where skinheads used to live. Friends and family who contributed to or appear on "Outside Love", in no particular order, include Sophie Trudeau (A Silver Mt. Zion, Godspeed You! Black Emperor), Ted Bois (Destroyer), Jesse Sykes (Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter, sunnO)))), Phil Wandscher (Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter, Whiskeytown), Josh Stevenson (Jackie O Motherfucker), Ashley Webber (The Organ, Bonnie Prince Billy), Amber Webber (Black Mountain, Lightning Dust), Matthew Camirand (Black Mountain, Blood Meridian), Joshua Wells (Black Mountain, Lightning Dust), Keith Parry (Superconductor, the Gay), and Tolan McNeil (Caroline Mark). Recorded at multiple studios, "Outside Love" was mixed at Elmwood Studios by John Congleton (Modest Mouse, Black Mountain, Explosions In The Sky, The Mountain Goats).

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Pet Shop Boys - Yes [2009]


Yes was produced by Brian Higgins, songwriter and producer who works under the name Xenomania. Past collaborations include work with 90’s disco-revamped Cher, Kylie Minogue and Girls Aloud. Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr also plays on several of the 11 newly recorded tracks.

The Thermals - Now We Can See [2009]


Thermal mainstays Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster recorded Now We Can See as a duo, as they did on 2006's The Body, The Blood, The Machine. Foster performed all drums and bass (and sang for the first time on a Thermals record), while Harris sang lead and played guitar. They returned to Oregon City's Supernatural Sound (where TBTBTM was tracked), with John Congleton (Explosions In The Sky, Polyphonic Spree) producing. The result is the widest, loudest piece of alternative/indie/punk rock The Thermals have yet unleashed.Lyrically, The Thermals have managed to move past religion and politics (having just about over-done them on TBTBTM), yet remain joyously obsessed with love and death. Though the subject matter may be dark at times, the lyrics, as well as the melodies, remain as catchy and uplifting as ever.

01. When I Died
02. We Were Sick
03. I Let It Go
04. Now We Can See
05. At the Bottom of the Sea
06. When We Were Alive
07. I Called Out Your Name
08. When I Was Afraid
09. Liquid In, Liquid Out
10. How We Fade
11. You Dissolve

- Download *new link*

The Wooden Birds - Magnolia [2009]


Andrew Kenny is a native Texan who, after nearly six years in Brooklyn, NY, has returned to beautiful Austin, TX. He's best known as the singer/songwriter behind mellow indie favorites the American Analog Set. He's also performed as a guest artist with the Album Leaf, Her Space Holiday, Styrofoam, Arthur and Yu, Ola Podrida, and most recently the Broken Social Scene.
His latest project is called The Wooden Birds, and it is his best effort to date. The Wooden Birds' first album is Magnolia. Fans of the AmAnSet will recognize his voice and songwriting immediately, but the arrangements on Magnolia are more vocal and percussion heavy than anything Kenny has done before. The Wooden Birds also includes Ola Podrida songwriter and David Gordon Green film score composer David Wingo, along with co-producer, Chris Michaels. Vocalist, guitarist, and AmAnSet guest artist, Leslie Sisson, and Lymbic System drummer, Michael Bell, round out the line-up.

Thee Oh Sees - Help [2009]


It’s good to be from San Francisco. At least, that’s true if you’re Thee Oh Sees, who continue to be one of the best underground bands in the bay area, home of the musically diverse scene including Deerhoof and Why? Venerated as the head of garage rock in not only San Francisco but also in the nation, Thee Oh Sees derive definitive influence from 60's Phantom Surfers garage rock, but break loose from the simple power chord definition of many basement jams. Perhaps it births from frontman John Dwyer’s noise rock backgrounds with the Coachwhips and Pink and Brown, the female-male vocal head-on collisions, or the band’s thick spring-reverberated bombastic tunes. Thee Oh Sees’ latest album, The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In , on Tomlab Records (home of David Shrigley’s Worried Noodles and previous releases by aforementioned Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, Tussle, and more), sees the band’s most accomplished release yet. Now a quartet, the alternating coed vocals give the band vibes of the B-52s vocal interplay when the latter found themselves at their least cheesy and most epic (think Mesopotamia). The album weaves Dwyer's distorted quivering yelp—signature of predecessors Suicide and The Wipers—Brigid Dawson's elegant and haunting harmonies, punk-paced guitars, and guttural drums (at times in pairs).

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Cableline's Attic, Vol. 3

March 2009
"...late on a Saturday night..."

01. James Carr - The Dark End Of The Street (1967)
02. O V Wright - He Made Woman For Man (1977)
03. The Mar-Keys - Last Night (1960)
04. The Esquires - Get On Up (1967)
05. The Platters - Duke Of Earl (1961)
06. Don Covay - Mercy, Mercy (1964)
07. The Impressions - I'm Loving Nothing (1968)
08. Solomon Burke - If You Need Me (1963)
09. Major Lance - Monkey Time (1964)
10. The Artistics - I Need Your Love (1965)
11. The Falcons - You're So Fine (1959)
12. Sam & Dave - Hold On, I'm Coming (1966)

- http://www.mediafire.com/?vx5tzngh1zc

...so, another month...thought we'd change a bit and offer up some golden soul for these remaining cold nights...