J Mascis teams up with a pair of stoner buddies for release of all-instrumental record!?

Mascis has teamed up with a pair of old friends for the release of Heavy Blanket on Outer Battery Records on 4th June
Mascis rounds up a couple of partners-in-crime from his adolescence with an eye and ear – towards shredding harder, wailing louder, and generally melting faces even more brutally than ever before. Stoner dirtbags cloaked in mystery, J’s longtime buddies, Pete Cougar and Johnny Pancake lay down the heavy rhythm base for J’s massive licks and blistering guitar mastery. Ever wondered what Band of Gypsies would sound like if you mixed it up with Japanese hard psych and smoked it through a giant power bong? Well, now you know. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Posted on: April 12th, 2012

The Brian Jonestown Massacre announce 2012 tour!

The Brian Jonestown Massacre will be releasing a new record on the 7th May, entitled, Aufheben.
Aufheben (a German word for ‘abolish’ or ‘preserve’) brings the traditional Brian Jonestown Massacre sound mixed with eastern influences, up to date with the benefit of all the additional weirdness that has been discovered in the past 40 years.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre is somewhat of a musical commune for many respected musicians over the years, a band from the 1990’s that has spurned a number of great bands ever since. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Warlocks, The Silver Rockets, The Black Angels, The Ravonettes, The Dilettantes (to name a few) are all part of this musical family tree. Indeed, this is a band that has witnessed many incarnations, since its inception in San Francisco in 1992.
Two dozen band members later and numerous ups and downs (some famously sensationalized in the media), the one factor that has always remained consistent for this psychedelic collective, is front man, Anton Newcombe.
Aufheben was recorded in Berlin in Newcombe’s studio & the infamous East German Radio Station “Studio East”. The album features Matt Hollywood an original member of the band, together with Will Carruthers (Spacemen 3, Spritualized), Constatine Karlis (Dimmer), and Thibault Pesenti (Rockcandys). Eliza Karmasalo provides additional vocals in Finnish.

The BJM will be in the UK in July. Dates below:
Friday 6th July – Scotland, T In the Park
Saturday7th July – London, Shepherds Bush Empire
Sunday 8th July – Manchester, Ritz Ballrooom
Monday 9th July – Birmingham, Academy 2

Posted on: April 12th, 2012

Invada Records to release award-winning ‘Drive’ soundtrack on vinyl 21st May!?

The soundtrack features original music by Cliff Martinez (The Lincoln Lawyer, Traffic) with Eurosynth-styled songs by Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx (“Nightcall”), The Chromatics (“Tick of the Clock”), Desire (“Under Your Spell”), College featuring Electric Youth (“A Real Hero”), and Riziero Ortolani featuring Katyna Ranieri (“Oh My Love”).  Rolling Stone Magazine named Drive the No. 1 movie of 2011.

In Variety, Laura Ferreiro wrote,“while a synthetic electronica score may seem an unusual choice for a cerebral action thriller, it plays a pivotal role in setting Drive apart from other heist-gone-awry films, and arguably helped it become one of this year’s critical darlings.”

In an article about the sales success of the soundtrack, The Hollywood Reporter commented “It was No. 5 Monday morning as fans touted it on Twitter: ‘Listening to the Drive soundtrack actually makes you 40% cooler than you were before’.”

The Drive soundtrack raced to the top of the iTunes album charts, hitting No. 4 within a week of its digital release and peaking at No. 35 on the Billboard Top 200. The soundtrack re-entered the charts in February 2012 when the film was released on DVD.

“One thing that was unique for me about this project was having songs exert such a strong influence on the score,” said Martinez.  “That helped to create a unified, one-size-fits-all, style of soundtrack…the 80s electronic pop style made a lot of sense to me. I knew that Nicolas [Refn, director] was in love with that sound and I saw a way to acknowledge it with vintage synth sounds and cover most of the dramatic food groups while referencing that style.”

This blending of score and song is the perfect vehicle for Cliff Martinez.   Martinez moved to California in 1976, just in time for the punk movement. He had stints as drummer for the Weirdos, Lydia Lunch and Foetus frontman Jim Thirlwell, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Dickies.  He was also the drummer in the final incarnation of legendary iconoclasts Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.

Martinez has since received compositional credit on many of Steven Soderbergh’s projects including Kafka, The Limey, Solaris, Gray’s Anatomy, Schizopolis, Traffic (which earned four Oscars and earned Martinez a Grammy nomination), and the upcoming film Contagion.  He also composed the music for Espion(s) and A L’Origine, two French films released in 2009 – the latter earned a Cesar Award nomination for best original score.  His other credits include Pump Up The Volume, Wicker Park, Wonderland, and The Lincoln Lawyer.

“I am very excited for Invada Records to release the Drive soundtrack on vinyl.  It is nice to see good music allowed to play a pivotal role in a great film.”
Geoff Barrow (Portishead/Invada)

“I have followed Cliff Martinez’s career since his score to Solaris in 2002.  I was astounded by his work on the Drive OST.  I am thrilled to be involved in this project.” Redg Weeks (Invada Label Manager)

Posted on: March 6th, 2012

Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury to release DROKK – Music Inspired by Mega-City One?

Geoff Barrow is a founding member of Portishead and producer/label owner of Invada Records UK.  Ben Salisbury is a soundtrack composer with over 200 film and TV credits to his name, including David Attenborough’s ‘Life of Mammals’, ‘Life in the Undergrowth’ and ‘Life in Cold Blood’.

Barrow and Salisbury met over 10 years ago when they both joined a Bristol football team for old men.  After many disastrous games they decided they might be more productive working on a music project together.  Other work commitments kept them apart until late 2010, when the pair met up with a screenwriter to discuss some possible work on a feature film project.  Although their involvement with this particular film did not continue, a collaborative writing relationship had begun…

When Barrow and Salisbury revisited and started expanding upon this early material they decided to continue writing what was essentially soundtrack music.  Barrow, along with album designer and long term friend, Marc Bessant, were both avid 2000AD readers from a young age, and the sprawling metropolis and classic stories of Mega-City One seemed the ideal inspiration for this ‘soundtrack’.

Although Mega-City One has been brought to life in great detail over many years by the acclaimed work of writers and artists alike, there is still huge scope for readers to have their own vision/soundtrack of the city.  Rather than intending to be the definitive sound of Mega-City One (could there be a ‘definitive sound’ of a city so vast, changeable and varied?), DROKK is Barrow and Salisbury’s personal, outsider’s’ interpretation.

DROKK was written in a 6 month period between Barrow’s Portishead world tour and Salisbury’s composing jobs for the BBC.   Although it is a soundtrack of sorts, Barrow and Salisbury instinctively felt that music for MC1 should steer clear of the rich orchestration common to many contemporary film scores.  Even for electronica the music is often purposefully stark and spare, with the majority of tracks created exclusively on the Oberhiem 2 Voice Synthesizer (a 1975 classic keyboard), and its onboard sequencer used to create rhythm and drums sounds. The only exceptions are a handful of tracks which combine the synth with digitally manipulated and time – stretched performances of acoustic instruments (such as piano, violin, mandolin, ukulele, voice and hammered dulcimer).  There is also a brief cameo from Barrow’s other band BEAK>.

“2000 AD is delighted that Judge Dredd continues to inspire artists in the year of the character’s 35th anniversary, especially such high profile talents as Geoff and Ben. You can tell, from their vision of the Big Meg, that they’re massive fans of the strip.”  2000 AD

Posted on: March 6th, 2012

Alternative Tentacles release Slim Cessna’s Autoclub new album on 2nd April!?

“The best band at SXSW was Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, a Denver 6 piece that combines the best of bluegrass and backwardass – like a crazed punk band crashing into a gospel hoe-down, the band swerved preachy to creepy with a downhome flair.”  SPIN

“What do you get when you take the hillbilly son of a southern baptist preacher, fill him with Jim Beam and hand him over to Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles record label?
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, which has to be one of the more bizarre and welcome bands signed to the notoriously hardcore punk label.”  NuWax

“With two of the most charismatic frontmen around and four accomplished musicians (Wovenhand, Delta 72, 16Horsepower), SCAC is the past, present and future of American Music.”  Westword

“This is the country band that plays the bar at the end of the world.” Jello Biafra

Alternative Tentacles will be releasing Slim Cessna’s Auto Club latest album, Unentitled, in the UK on the 2nd April. Engaging, riveting, sad and humorous; demanding the audience to participate both live, and while listening to their albums – Denver’s Slim Cessna’s Auto Club has been tagged with every musical description possible.  After more than a decade of working and living as Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, they have seamlessly created their own genre.

Unentitled is another high-water mark in the Auto Club’s career.  The nine songs are each thoughtfully crafted with unique arrangements, executed with superb musicianship and fully realized through original, insightful and intelligent lyrics.  Tracks like “Three Bloodhounds, Two Shepherds, One Fila Brasileiro” add creepy lyrical imagery to their jaunty choruses. “Do You Know Thee Enemy?” uses Cessna’s trademark call-and-response vocals and “Hallelujah Anyway” has Munly serving as an ominous narrator.

The instruments are drums, upright bass, pedal steel, banjos, piano, guitar, vocals and stories.  SCAC is led by Slim Cessna and Munly Munly; and features members of Blood Axis, The Denver Gentlemen, Tarantella and more.

Posted on: March 6th, 2012

Zammuto (the books) debut album to be released 30th April

Nick Zammuto of experimental New York duo the Books has been releasing tracks since last summer with a new band simply titled Zammuto, including the Idiom Wind EP.  Temporary Residence is proud to announce they will be releasing their self-titled début album on 30th April 2012.

Sprouting from the same mind that created the Books – one of the most acclaimed and innovative groups of the past decade – Zammuto marks a deep reinvention of the highly detailed, genre-defying spirit that made seminal albums such as The Lemon of Pink and The Way Out possible.  Given the Books’ success as an experimental collage-pop project, Nick Zammuto could have comfortably extended that thread.  Instead he has given us a record that is progressive and forward-looking, intense and driven, with hugely varied rhythms and melodies.  The whispered, folksy vocals that became a trademark of the Books are for the most part shed in favour of an uncharacteristically confident, soaring delivery, often fuelled by a wide array of vocal effects.  The result is a man-machine sensitivity that ultimately enhances the songs’ emotional intensity.   With dense and beautiful string arrangements by Gene Back (the Books) and brain-warping drum performances by Sean Dixon, the radical and varied sound of Zammuto leaps out of speakers with a searing directness.

Making music that sounds and feels like no one else is nothing new for Zammuto, but making music that does not even sound like his own past is a whole other impressive feat in itself.

Nick Zammuto will be performing as part of the Bang On A Can AllStars at the Barbican on 20th March. The All-Stars give the world première performance of Field Recordings, a new evening-length project featuring music by Tyondai Braxton, Mira Calix, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Christian Marclay, Julia Wolfe, Nick Zammuto and Evan Ziporyn.
See here for more details – http://bangonacan.org/

Posted on: March 6th, 2012