It was a good week for the old guard as we heard about the triumphant return of Nine Inch Nails, and word of bummed out Beach Boy-Brian Wilson working on a new album. Also in tour cancellation buzz, Modest Mouse has ditched all EU and UK dates to work on their forthcoming album, and evidently A$AP Rocky ended a gig abruptly in Dortmund, Germany after someone in the crowd snagged his snapback. With all of this in mind, hold on to your hats as some of our favorite artists bring gifts of sounds, thoughts, visuals, and revelations in no particular order.
Hear what all the “Incessant Noise” is about surrounding Oakland, California's Bells Atlas as they prepare to release their self-titled on June 18. Like the title of their featured song indicates, sound blossoms and grows everywhere in ways that could carry on eternally as Nigerian-American band leader-songwriter, Sandra Lawson-Ndu takes her vocal and stylings everywhere she wants it to go with a little help from comrades, Derek Barber, Geneva Harrison, and Doug Stuart. A group that moves in all directions, no two-bit adjectives can contain their infectious sound that draws influences from all corners and unexpected places the world over that could only spring in the natural light and mystic foggy air that the Bay Area provides. Catch Bells Atlas at their release show June 14 at Oakland's New Parish, check their Facebook for further details. We caught up with Doug to talk about their song “Incessant Noise” with frontwoman Sandra Lawson-Ndu describing the band's ethos of beauty.
“The track features sultry multi-layered vocals, Brazilian bateria-swells, West-African Highlife guitar riffs, and a coiling yet anchored bass line. As the song progresses, the narrator expresses a longing to control the chaotic nature of one's surroundings—how easy it is to become overwhelmed by life's worries. There's also an
acceptance taking place, however, as the singer expresses “I know, I know, I know”—life is full of noises that no one can ever really control.”
“These moments are highlighted in the track when moments of dissonance are met with moments of amity: As singer/songwriter Sandra Lawson-Ndu describes Bells Atlas's ethos, 'We dive into and fully embrace sounds that are at first unusual to the ear but ultimately beautiful.”
You might know the following artist Brian Irving as Rawkus Records co-founder Brian Brater. He has signed artists such as Big L, Mos Def and Talib Kweli's Black Star, Common, Pharaohe Monch, Reflection to Dr. Luke, Om'mas Keith and numerous others. An impresario with an impressive portfolio that also includes UPROXX.COM, the YouTube studio BigFra.me, and more accolades than we have room to list; but we are proud to present to you his music video for “Eyes Wide”, brought to life and conscious from the creative mind of Amir H. Fallah. Evoking the sleepy eyes opening wide at the dawn of sunrise, the Something In The Universe designed video moves in psychedelic swirls to match Brian's auditory quest for sight and vision. Everything from abstract eyes, guitar frets, and liquid distortions lift the sound to new levels and new stages of consciousness, comprehensions, capturing the feel of sleepy eyes opening wider than ever before . . . like never before. Brian Irving’s album Radiant Things will be available July 16 on Radiant Things Music, but you can read our little chat and catch the video immediately following now.
Tell us a bit about the aesthetic of the “Eyes Wide” video.
Bill Graham's Fillmore East Joshua Light Shows and London's 14 hour Technicolor Dream always fascinated me. When my good friend Amir H. Fallah, founder of Something In The Universe Design and Beautiful Decay Magazine showed me an amazing psychedelic split screen video he did with Spank Rock a few years back I asked him to produce the “Eyes Wide” video.
How has your imprint Rawkus Records influenced your songwriting?
Rawkus Records represented consciousness and uplifting energy in rap music. We chose to promote “spiritual” music. That's the legacy, and ultimately why the label is still relevant. I choose to write songs about love, compassion, the human condition, death, and rebirth so the message has remained consistent. Songs like Talib Kweli's “Get By”, Mos Def's “Universal Magnetic”, and Black Star's “Respiration” are lyrical and spiritual and will always influence me.
This week, Denver's Hollagramz released the much awaited self-titled full-length from Small Plates. Last week we gave you an electric signal of the album's dawning with “Corundum” that presents the conundrum and core of what frontman Ron Cole refers to as his 'Atlantean Techno'. This week we dig deeper with a new sping on the “Love Potion No. 9” with Cole's new developed synthesis of carnal crystalline utopias with “Sex Potion”. Placing Denver, Colorado on the map with the like minded folks from the Holy Underground collective, Travis Egedy of Pictureplane and more; those blue rockies contain some of the most important electronic modifications of sound, body and hedonistic minds heard yet. But now we will let Ron define everything from the musical odes to Atlantis, his work with Cory Brown and the Hollagramz ethos of creating music for 'real life'.
“I came up with the term 'Atlantean Techno' when talking to a friend about Atlantis. The Atlanteans were said to be the most technologically advanced society that has ever been on the planet, and being so technologically advanced, I would imagine that some (if not a lot) of their music was somehow electronic. I get this mental picture of the Atlanteans once being in this utopian crystalline dreamscape that’s being fueled by big bumping sounds and lights, at a time of celebration. I find myself very curious to know what that might have sounded like and I try to embody that in my music. So Atlantean Techno, to me, is a brand of techno/house/electronic music that embodies ancient wisdom, world sounds, futurism, rave and intellect.”
“Co-produced with Denver's Cory Brown, the album was conceived more than a year ago. Most of the writing with Hollagramz starts in my head and transpires from there. A lot of the time, it starts with some shitty voice recording on my phone of some idea that I have. This album is definitely made to be listened to all the way through, and to take you on a 'trip' of sorts. I feel like a staple of the Hollagramz sound is that it's not happy or sad music, it's both. It can be very melancholy at times and very happy at others, and most of the time it's got a whole wide range of emotions going on all at once. It's music for “real life” and all the ups and downs we encounter, and hopefully it can be a positive outlet for people on the dance floor or where ever they may be.”
Louise Burns of Gold & Youth pulled back the veil from her new song “Jasper” this week and talked with us on the track and her upcoming album The Midnight Masses, dropping July 9 from Light Organ Records with a slew of tour dates listed here. The song would fit well on a compilation entitled Pure Haunted Moods of the Northwest, as Louise brings intimate, latent thoughts from ghosts of the past with projections and ruminations on transcending the mortality of the future. The funereal solemnity would also make for the perfect gothic soap opera in primetime (think Twin Peaks' soap within the soap, “Invitation to Love“), as lyrics like the following stay with you long after the song concludes. “Your face turns blue when you look up at the sky, your breath will shorten and your memory dies.” Louise reflects on this song, the upcoming album, working with The Raveonettes' Sune Rose Wagner, and further illuminations.
In the drifting haunt of “Jasper”, what can you tell us about the mysterious character of “Jasper”, and perhaps some of the inspirations for the song?
The song is a meditation on “career death” . . . you know, when an artist is past their prime but doesn't quite know or accept it because they are so used to having things a certain way; a sense of entitlement. It's also about coming face to face with reality and finding a way to accept your “death” and move on. Maybe it's about reincarnation? Maybe my subconscious is telling me to go back to university?
Musically, the song is one of my first experiments with the recording program Logic. I hadn't used it as a writing tool until about a year and a half ago and when I did it was like this flood gate of creativity. I could actually get the synth sounds I was looking for without spending a fortune on a real ARP or vintage moog. I ended up re-creating all my demo synths with analog in the basement of The Waldorf Hotel in Vancouver right before it closed. The song was written in Vancouver during a very dark period for me and I really missed the west coast mysticism . . . creepy night time mist, rainforests, that sort of plush feel. More or less, I wanted to create an atmosphere for myself to retreat to in moments of displacement. Also, I was watching a LOT of Twin Peaks and X-Files at the time.
What were some of the challenges and eases of constructing the 'coherent, cinematic, beautiful and dark' atmospheres of The Midnight Mass?
I made sure I was VERY well prepared for it—maybe a little too much—but I worked every day at something to do with the project either out of a notebook, mood boards, collages, demos; the whole process started in January and I didn't record until December. Part of the reason is from being on tour with Gold & Youth—it's easy to get lazy when you're traveling so much, but I wanted to make sure I went into the studio with a clear idea of every part. Because I pretty much arrange everything myself I get really obsessive and thorough before I even start recording. Indecisiveness costs way too much time and money haha. I made a lot visuals too while recording, mostly as a distraction because I hate hearing my own voice for such long periods of time, but also because it kept me focused and in the right direction. Lots of words glued together into sentences, picture cut outs of Rowland S. Howard coming out of a volcano…That kind of teenager stuff.
How was it working alongside Colin Stewart and The Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner and how have their influences affected your work?
I've known Colin for years and he has produced so many of my favorite records, as well as my other band Gold & Youth's record. The Hive, his studio he owns with Jesse Gander in Vancouver is kind of the best place on earth- it feels like your best friend's parent's basement from childhood. And it's very isolated so you get a lot of work done without distraction. He has impeccable taste and knows how to get pretty much any sound, no matter how poorly I describe it: 'Hey Colin make this sound like Nick Cave's hair!' 'OK!' done. No problem. It was just fun, and he introduced me to new musicians that I play with now.
I've been a Raveonettes fan since the beginning of time and have followed Sune's work forever. We worked in LA out of his apartment and it was just the best. He really pushed me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to be more experimental with the sounds I was going for. Huge learning curve for me. He's a songwriter, and got that that's sort of my whole thing; respect the song, man! He's truly the best human and I was totally honored to work with him.
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Shortcircles is Matt Tammariello, part of Oakland's top tier of electro-innovators and audio inventors. Giving us a listen from his upcoming album Between Waves, we got the collaboration with vocalist Glenn Jackson who sheds some heart between the rainfall of keys and electronic-emotive synthesis. Further proof of the East Bay rapidly becoming the epicenter of electronic music's feature; Tammariello further solidifies this notion through the brick by brick approach to composition and track building that evokes the instinctive and natural within the deluge of keys, compendium of consoles and nervous systems of wires, XLRs, and such. Between Waves will be available through Plug Research July 2, and we have exclusive, behind-the-beat insights from Matt on the collaborative composition.
“'All I Can Be For You' was one of the first songs I worked on after finishing my Remember Me EP and was actually not initially intended to be on the final album. At first, the track was just made up of Juno pads, a drum loop, and some guitar from Adam Myatt (who provides various guitar parts throughout the album) with very little arrangement, but once Glenn (a.k.a. Evander Owens) began recording vocals, the movement and vibe of the song became much more apparent to me. The vocals were all written and recorded in one night at the home studio Adam, Glenn, and myself share. I think the lyrics touch on something most 20-somethings can relate to: indecisiveness with relationships.”
Young Aundee released Fear In The Fold this week and took on Yaz's “Tuesday” with a fresh new sound, dubbed “Young Tuesday”. The escapist quality of the original is put to the tests of an even greater immediacy. Aundee spins new undercurrents of keys and vocals throughout that further underscore the “pack up and drive away” chorus. Side by side, the original and cover clash as generational cousins where the brilliant framework of Vince Clarke's mastery is brought out in a millennial shift where the emulations of the analogous past are heard and understood like the alchemical properties of an audio talisman where the evocation of the oldies are made new again with instructions for tomorrow's electronica. Young Aundee talked with us about the adaptation along with some unique insights into Vince's “songwriting over style” and the influential '80s.
First was just wondering on what you feel Yaz / Yazoo's influence and importance is in current-day synth pop / dance culture?
I feel like Vince Clarke's production style is for certain something that should be researched. I don't honestly know what his influence is but I can hear it in bands like the Presets, Austra, and Hurts.. He uses modular synth In the Majority of the Yaz stuff I've heard and that to myself and Dusty Brown is an essential part of dance music.
I really wanted to do a cover of one of his songs after seeing this interview:
At approx 1:30 into this piece says something about songwriting that really stuck with me.
What was the process and some of the challenges in updating the production from the original version of “Tuesday” for “Young Tuesday”?
I listen to this Yaz anthology at work almost 3 times a week. 'Tuesday' had always got my attention and sounded like it was in my natural vocal range . . . and the beats per minute sounded close to 70 bpm which is the conventional tempo for dubstep and also trap . . . (thus the “trap beats”) tag on the soundcloud upload. Tuesday's BPM is 139.
Dusty and I made all the parts for it in a 3 and half hour session and I rehearsed with it for a week or so then myself and Jessica Brown laid final vocals. The final product was mixed/mastered by Bil Bless like my album.
What do the 80s and 808 beats mean to you, having released Fear in the Fold?
The 80s to me is the essence of pop music that I prefer to listen to. The 808 has that incomparable body that's been dance floors rumble and asses clap for decades. 1982 was the year of my birth and coincidentally a reccurring source of musical influence (Newcleus, Cybotron, Egyptian Lover, and Vince Clarke) In my album the 808 is helpful in the sense that it makes music with somber or intensely emotional or spiritual seem like dance music with the body it provides.
Thoughts on the growing rise of electronic mediums and elements driving the production of both under and overground r n' b compositions?
Take the good with the bad…Ableton has made it super easy for beginners to make music, that's great. But I also think that it's responsible for alot of bad music as well . . . Stuff I'm feeling in the genres you've mentioned: Kastle, Lemonade, Alunageorge, Kate Boy . . .
Royal Forest takes the ol' 'we all live in a yellow submarine' adage into serious business, as they record the head nodding hypnotism of “Everyone Who Knows You” captured live by Cody Ground in the USS Cavalla Submarine turned recording studio in Galveston, TX.
Edmonton, Alberta's Travis Bretzer sent word that his Making Love EP will be available July 23 through Mexican Summer. The first listen with “Trying to Learn” echoes the current Canada DIY guitar ethos that resounds through the bed-headed slack-chord string dissonance. And as those strings ring in different tones like yesterday's records, the most immediate comparisons and influential suspicions will flock to the Mac DeMarco side, especially with lyrical content that obsesses over life's trying decisions. “I've got my whole life ahead of me, this is my youth, I feel so ederly, it's kind of funny, but it makes me sad, to lead my life like my mom and dad”. Travis has a single available now through the UK's Cool Delta and also has plans for a full-length to be released later this Fall.
Peep the Marc Brown video for The Gorgeous Hands' “Generator” off their new album Tender. Watch as the former Magnificent Snails of Chris, Rusty, Charlie and Cullen get hung up while waiting on returned text messages and generating solidarity as a band of bros from the ATX.
Peep all the weirdness you can handle with the Ninian Doff video for Mykki Blanco's Pulse produced, “The Initiation”, from the Betty Rubble: The Initiation EP available through UNO NYC with an international tour in effect now. Chalk this up to another reason why Mykki is one of the world's most original artists around with UNO continuing to push the limitations of sound on the reg.
Modern Hut strums a song about planned historical revisionism and a world where “irony is currency”, on “History”, from his debut album Generic Treasure dropping August 7 from your friends and ours at Don Giovanni Records.
Meet the UK's Matthew Herbert, who has made an entire album in three parts taken entirely entirely from a 5 second sound recording of war photographer Sebastian Meyer being bombed by one of Gadaffi's warplanes in Ras Lanuf, Libya from back in 2011. Matthew digs down deep into the abstraction of war sounds, altering the moments before,during, and after the assault where sounds of nature can still be heard and digital alterations hold back those moments before impact like a locked gear box. It is the flight of the plane and the release of the weapon that gets rearranged into a dance groove that sails and swoops in a manner that is larger and more complex than the entire Benghazi debacle that continues to be beaten like a horse deader than Muammar Gadaffi himself. Herbert's new album The End of Silence will be available June 24 on his label Accidental.
Well ahead of the release of their album Total dropping June 25 from Hardly Art, Hausu gives us further dreams from Portland's alternative revisionist landscape with “Chrysanthemum”. And hey, believe us here; we are not complaining. As depicted in the above photo, this is a definitive Oregonian ode to the imprint Sub Pop that made the 90s dream a fuggin' reality for all of us clueless cretins looked for any glimpse of affirmation and actualized accomplishment (add on authenticity and whatever uplifting 'a' words as you wish) as the whatever gen-X-ers shit the bed and gave little substantial solidarity in return. Because we were weened on the “Rise Above” ethos, Hausu finds a house with the generation spawned from the aforementioned era through the horticultural scope o'scuzz under a species moniker of herbaceous perennial plants.
In keeping up with underground Portland, meet Summer Cannibals who dropped their “Wear Me Out” that enourages you to wear this hot little single out like that favorite pair of denim or dress textile off their No Makeup is due out August 6 from New Moss Records.
Continuing their cycle of singles, San Francisco's Seatraffic released the cognitive synth quest ode to being “Concious Awake”. The vocals and keys from Mark Zannad and Brandon Harrison's take their dreams from the seas, hopes for new lives, new beginnings to the inland sprawl of cities and suburbia to give new conscious meanings to the awakened, lonely hearts of the world. Get the duo's new cut now from Seatrafficsounds.
The Delta Mirror are back, and give you a listen to “Undeveloped Unreturned”, where he returns with co-production from Anticon's co-founder Alias from the new album Better Unsung out August 6 from Lightwave.
Listen to the electronically enhanced vocal synth flames from Lone's “Airglow Fires” 12″ available July 9 from R&S Records.
C-SAN dropped a loosie with “What” featuring Joon of Overdoz and Bless Escro with word of the upcoming project True Achiever coming soon.
Face Tat dropped the Dungeon Mistress EP today. Their namesake track “Face Tat” will encourage the adventurous to get out there and buy Casios and samplers to start an electro project of your own. The ghost talk sample cues of “Phantom Creep” moves like the toxic smoke vapors of melting plastic. “Snake Plissken” will make you want to watch both of John Carpenter's Escape from NY/LA flicks in a row. “Scuse Me For Living” keeps the beats classic while the synth melts around a forward-hopeful leaning guitar. And then there is the showdown and werewolf horror flick creep of “Terror at the Red Wolf Inn”.
Previously of Islands, Aaron Harris and Jesse Newkirk are Steel Phantoms where the two continue to blast forth some of the most fun rock and roll around Brooklyn these days with their new track, “Matt LeBlanc”. The song's title reference to the Friends star Joey might have you wondering what The Rembrandts' “I'll Be There For You” might sound like interpreted through the Phantoms' grunge-and thrash action approach to alternative music. Their self-titled EP comes out July 16.
Get down with some paranormal beats with Egadz new cut, “Ghost”, soon to be beamed to you on the self-released album Satellites on July 30.
From her alias of Bitch to her new project BEACH, Karen Mould asks on “Ibuprofen”, “when you gonna kick in?” Giving the perfect antidote for all the “kissed you and dissed you” headaches, BEACH's In Us We Trust, produced by Roger Paul Mason will be released July 16 on Karen's imprint Short Story Records.
Mixhell takes you to the tropical edges of Sao Paulo in the rolling disco ball visuals for “The Way”, from the Spaces LP available June 11 from Last Gang Records.
You have waited for this, and now it's here. Richmond, Cali's Iamsu! along with the HBK Gang and The Invasion dropped the tape KILT 2, bringing some of the best slappers from the Bay Area and giving the West Coast another reason to stand proud and tall.
Download KILT 2 here via LiveMixtapes
With Flume's self-titled out now from Mom + Pop, check out the Toby and Pete visuals that make for the trippiest Flume concert experience you can imagine. Check out the tour dates running from August 24 in San Francisco through September 14, ending at Tochester Hills, Michigan's Meadow Brook Music Festival here.
(photo courtesy of Jarly Bobadilla)
Coke Weed seeks out b/w projections of the sickest wave while paying homage to everyone's favorite burning planetary orb of light, with the Zach Soares video for “Sunseekers”. Recorded in a flower farm barn at Chickadee Hill, Mt. Desert, the third Coke Weed album Back to Soft will be available July 23.
Get a little “Carpe Diem” with F. Stokes rocking production with The.Kid.Sam.Spence ahead of the Fearless Beauty album dropping June 17. Reminisce now with Stokes' as he recounts influences from Crucial Conflict, Doe or Die, Twista, while pouring a little out for our fallen soldier Pimp C.
Check out the Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit lineup here, including Autre Ne Veut, Delorean, Mount Kimbie, Sparks, Shlohmo, Ulrich Schnauss, and many more. It's all happening October 25-27 in Asheville, NC and tickets are available here.
Prep school rockers Lucy and Gwendolyn Giles are Sac-town's Dog Party who fly out to the sea with their rocker “Jet Pack”. Borrowing liberally from the Southern California indie rioteers of the past decade, they are bringing more of their scuzzy pop styles on their album Lost Control slated for release August 13 from Asian Man Records.
Dig deep into the pages and read between the lines in the Asa Davis video for our buddy Jahzel's “Chapters”, ahead of the upcoming In God's Image tape, dropping July 2.
Brooklyn's Matt Reilly and Ian Vanek of Japanther hit June 28: San Francisco at Bottom of the Hill and then June 29 in Oakland, CA at the Metro Theater. Their new album Eat Like Lisa Act Like Bart available June 21 from Recess Records. Now enjoy as Matt and Ian perform their new track “Stolen Flowers” live on Soundcheck.
Cali's The Bangerz (formerly known as The Fingerbangerz) sent a “Beam” from their six-man DJ team as they prepare to drop their new album PRiSM June 25. Get into the rays, and light scanning synths as they interject sounds of the digital age that make you grateful for those Grandmaster Flash days of analogue direct drive table techniques performed on Technics that made all of this and more possible.
Jeremy Malvin is the electronic mind behind Chrome Sparks, as he continues to melt living rooms, dorms, kitchens, and dancehalls with the Sparks EP. On July 9, Chrome Sparks will be shining up San Francisco's Rickshaw Stop where you can drift into the celestial oceans of “Cosmic Claps of Love”, the stoned slick sap of “Marijuana”, get reacquainted with “Your Planet”, the panless bliss of “Send The Pain On”, enter the aural pearly “Gates of Heaven”, and got to the “Lunar Luxor” that you sure as hell won't find in Vegas.
Get a rolling and rolicking listen to Hani Zahra's opening track “Roll Roll Roll” from his new album Along Those Lines. Catch Hani playing NYC's Mercury Lounge July 6,
Dust your favorite flannel from the wardrobe and get grungy and re-watch Singles and/or Slacker as you are about to enjoy Dead Stars' video for “Fractured'', directed by Susan Hunt, off the dudes' brand new High Gain EP available now through Uninhabitable Mansions.
Check out Canada's Paper Lions performing their ode to the city of brotherly love with “Philadelphia” live for the Seaport Sessions recorded in a warehouse on their home turf of Prince Edward Island. The new Lions' album My Friends drops August 20 on Fountain Pop as they take on the Canadian and US territories on a tour spanning from June 11 through June 22.
Melbourne, Australia's New Gods dropped two new videos to get your summer simmering. Taken off their self-titled EP, check out the Twelfth House Films video for “Klipse” that gathers together vintage stock clips to get you dreaming along with the sounds of a vacation that may or may not arrive.
Make like you're at the lake and zing a few pebbles off this watery surface with New Gods' video for “Skipping Stone”. In the Dale Packard directed visuals, watch as his camera captures footage from/before/during and after a cyclone went wild in Queensland, Australia.
Steezy Ray Vibes is another Oakland based visionary, otherwise known as Dan Casey (behind Yalls now ya'll) who caught our attention this week with a demo cut of “Empty City”. Listen as the great sparsity of vocals and guitar exists in a very natural light, where for a moment the urban surroundings melt into the concrete as the environment around is drained until it is just you and Dan's song. There is a full-length in the works, but by now I have already gotten ahead of myself.
Get temperamental with Clark's epic electro, “Suns Of Temper (Bear Paw Kicks Version)”, well ahead of his upcoming album Feast/Beast available September 16 / 17 from Warp Records.
Getting the Clan back together, the RZA produced Wu-Tang Clan “Family Reunion” cut dropped a few days back with hints of an album in the works. Meanwhile get a listen to what a Wu family gathering sounds like with Masta Killa, Method Man and Ghostface Killah kicking it classic style-wise with RZA dropping some oldie tracks, while toasting one for a better tomrorow. The mood is reminiscent of back in the day, and feels like hanging out with those cool relatives you don't get to see that often in one room, let alone in the same studio.
Get down to the super swinging sounds of summer with La Luz's '”Brainwash” from the 7″ dropping July 16 from Suicide Squeeze. Catch the Seattle dream weavers and mind washers on tour from June 28 through July 27.
From Sao Paulo, you are invited to get phazed with Lucas Febraro's PAZES, and get an early listen with the ice cold techno variations with Biblo's ghost fading vocals on “Frozen” off the forthcoming Sleeping Dolls EP out June 24 from Time No Place.
New York's Born Cages know you really like it, and give you a listen to their single “Caiti” off The Sidelines EP that is dropping June 18 from Razor & Tie. Catch the Cages touring the East Coast throughout this month of June.
Amid word of Foxygen's tour cancellation in the name of their collective “creative health”, songwriter Jonathan Rado dropped the track “Faces” from his solo LP Law and Order coming this September from Woodsist. Get into the village green preservation society of Rado's world where you are taken to those record cubbies of the yester-years where everything sounds idyllic, and groovy. Maybe you will find a burned out roach from 1971, where you get into the stoned, smiling and sparking world where you learn what the world is about as sung through kaleidoscope, lysergically-altered eyes.
Chicago's The-Drum drops the ambient breath explorations of “The Switch”, as they prepare to release their album Contact on Audraglint on June 25, the same date of their release show with Wise Blood at Glasslands in Brooklyn. And who knows? This could be the album that inspires you to create your own sci-fi themed ambient side project.
Fresh from playing their record release show for Hush last night at San Francisco's Rickshaw Stop, the Bay Area's The Limousines stretch their 80s affections and affectations to the mix on the following Spotify album stream.
On the move in a major way, Funk Volume is putting out Jarren Benton's My Grandmas Basement next Tuesday June 11, Dizzy Wright is dropping his Golden Age mixtape in July, Hopsin has got plans to release Knock Madness later this year, with much more on the way from SwizZz and DJ Hoppa. Coming this Fall, the indie crew is dropping their doc with the inside scoop; Independent Living – The Funk Volume Documentary and you can peep the trailer here.
Get a listen to Little Boots' “Broken Record” that is given the dub-plate-extra-big-beat version treatment from DFA's Tim Goldsworthy with the “Dance Dub” single available along with Little Boots' Nocturnes from Beatport.
Reading UK's Tripwires bring you their video for their turbine-to-the-face track, “Shimmer”, off the upcoming Spacehopper album slated for release June 18 from Frenchkiss Records.
Rising vocalist Banks gets the Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs production bump as she canoodles about with Joon of Overdoz in the video for her sexy, water drop-sample percussion cut, “Warm Water,” available through the UK imprint, Good Years.
You too can get taken away with Toronto's dilletantes of disco, Nightbox, as they dropped their track “Utopia” that takes you to a world where the dance don't stop and the clubs have no curfews. Catch them on a tour of the States with Dragonette throughout this month of June.
Meet the Bay Area's Hopie, who dropped the exhale-inhale flow of “Breathe”, produced by WooStaar with some coastal kicking visuals from Stretch. So take a long deep breath and hold it while you check out Hopie's album Sugar Water available now via her Bandcamp.
We got your listen to the indie-big-timer imprint Mom+Pop gives you Boombox: Vol. 1, a compilation that features sounds from Andrew Bird, Beat Club, FIDLAR, Smith Westerns, Jagwar Ma, Lucius, Wavves and many more for your sunny day soundtracks.
Get pumped people, because your boy Dent May has declared the upcoming new album Warm Blanket with the following video, slated for release August 27 from Paw Tracks. Straight out of Oxford, Mississippi from the Cats Purr Collective; get those sentimental smooth warm feelings all over again now. “Turn up the speakers baby, dim down the lights real low…”
Having just released their Kids in L.A. album from Cascine, Kisses dropped the Dedications mixtape that features artists dropping their dedications to loved ones with cuts from their favorite artists, such as Simon Raymone of Cocteau Twins, Erika Spring, Jens Lekman, Saint Etienne's Pete Wiggs, Mike Simonetti, Pat Grossi, and so many more. It's like listening to an indie celebrity late night call-in radio show where the dedications and requests keep on coming with plenty of big time sentimentality. So gather around the speakers with a special someone and get dedicated.
It's time for Ugly Heroes, the trio that features Apollo Brown, Verbal Kent, Red Pill with the visuals for “Hero's Theme”, 'cause every good hero needs a theme song. The Ugly Heroes self-titled is available now from Mello Music Group.
Get a listen to PAPA's 'I want to be your man-fuck my past, forget your plans' professing on the listen to the b-side, “If You're My Girl, Then I'm Your Man” from the upcoming Put Me to Work 7″ available June 25 from Loma Vista.
The new Case Studies album This Is Another Life comes out June 11 from Sacred Bones, but you can get into the other lives of Jesse Lortz right now with the following advance stream.
Get a look at the video animated by Hlin Davidsdottir for Grant Olney's “Not From Body”, ahead of the album Hypnosis for Happiness dropping July 2 via Bandcamp. Watch the owls fly about, as Grant reminds you that you are okay and that you can't plan every piece as you learn to be okay with that.
RxGibbs will release his album Contact on limited edition vinyl through Bella Union / Cascine on July 1, and who better than to guide you through our current changing of moons and planetary alignments than Ron Gibbs as he pushes through the cosmos in rhythmic ways with “Retrograde”.
Prince Rama's Lily X. Wahrman directed film Never Forever premieres this weekend at the Moma PS1 Dome 2 at Rockaway Beach in Queens, and we have the slowed and shining trailer for you here. Look for the Larson sisters bringing their Now Age on tour from June 16 through July 13. Their latest album Top Ten Hits of the End of the World is available now through Paw Tracks.
Get a listen to some of our favorites The Blank Tapes, as they remind you “Don't Ever Get Old” off the new Vacation LP from Antenna Farm Records. We have said it a thousand times before and we will probably beat it into your head and remind you a thousand times more that you will be hard pressed to find a California sound more authentic than Matt Adams and his wonderful Blank, but beautiful, Tapes.
Think back to late 1977 in San Francisco's North Beach district where the summer of love was well over and a pack of dudes that included The Flamin' Groovies Danny Mihm dropped the EP from Destry Hampton & the Wolves From Hell on Z'Bop Records. Punk purists rejoice, as your friends from Superior Viaduct are dropping this hell hound classic, Angel of Madness 7″ on June 25. The perfect gift for that Joe Strummer obsessed friend who swears that The Clash was the be all/end all for the punk movement.
Exray's frontman and future-visionary Jon Bernson wrote a play along with William Bivins called, “A Guide to the Aftermath” for the StoryWorks collaboration between Tides Theatre and the Center for Investigative Reporting. Running through June 15, get into the collective's search for truth, learn more here, while tickets are available through the Tides Theatre located at 533 Sutter Street in San Francisco.
