Videos

Die! Die! Die! release new album entitled SWIM

Dunedin’s punk sons of the modern age, Die! Die! Die! will be releasing their fifth album SWIM on 6th October and have shared a slice of things to come with the unveiling of the video for ‘Get Hit’.  The concept for the pugilism-themed clip came straight from the mind of frontman, Andrew Wilson and has been interpreted for the screen by director Ryan Harte of Slow Pulse Studios.  Ultimately the track speaks to fighting your demons which has been illustrated by a boxer fending off an invisible opponent, and while he catches a few blows to the face he is ultimately left standing.

SWIM is an 11-track opus formed from the wall-sweat of Europe’s best clubs, scratched off the tour van floor and from down the back of the couch-surfed accommodation.  Produced by the band and Chris Townend  (Portishead, D12, Violent Femmes) from The Lab in Auckland to Lightship 95 in London, SWIM’s sparse geographical consummation is as expansive as their definition of punk and pop music.

As an internet acronym for ‘someone who isn’t me’, SWIM’s title suggests that Wilson is stepping out of his own comfort zone lyrically and bringing new themes and broader strokes to the mighty crash and boom of Die! Die! Die!’s sound.

Goat reveal new single ‘Words’ from upcoming album ‘Commune’

When Commune, the follow-up album to GOAT”s World Music was announced, the internet exploded in a frenzy of excitement. ‘Hide From The Sun’, the first single from the new album, was Track Of The Day on QMusic, appeared in NMEs Essential Tracks, Mojo’s and Uncut’s Playlist and was given 4.5/5 by Artrocker, and has been posted, cross-posted, re-posted and discussed throughout the music press.

Commune will be released on CD/LP/DL on 22nd September 2014 via Rocket Recordings (Stranded Rekords in Scandinavia and Sub Pop Records in North America).

The first public airing of Goat’s new album Commune will take place on Friday 15 August at The Alibi in Dalston, London, as part of the ‘Nothing is…’ night.

The evening will begin at 9pm with the first ever playing of GOAT’s eagerly anticipated sophomore album, Commune, one month before its release on 22nd September.  Commune is the follow-up to GOAT’s hypnotic 2012 debut, World Music, which received widespread acclaim and placed in many top-ten lists.  The mysterious, masked group continued to awe the world with their intense live shows which was captured on their Live Ballroom Ritual double-album.

Following that, the ‘Nothing is…’ regulars will be bringing their eclectic mix kraut, psych, cosmic disco, biker funk, psych jazz, spacey techno, afro rock, and all other strange sounds in-between.
 
Nothing is…
Cage &Aviary (Emotional Especial/DFA)
Cherrystones (Brutal)
Little Dirty (Hed Nod)
Chris Reeder (Rocket Recordings)
facebook.com/NothingIsQuiteWhatItSeems

David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights to release new album!

The latest album from David Kilgour & the Heavy Eights was recorded in his native New Zealand between 2012 and 2014. That span covering three years suggests this might be one of those albums that was slaved over, with weeks-upon-months spent recording and then mixing until every minor detail was perfected.  The opposite is true.  End Times Undone took so long to finish because Kilgour assembled his bandmates every four or five months, and then only for a couple days at a time.

“We’ve become so obsessed with capturing the creative moment as early as possible when we get together,” Kilgour says of making music with guitarist Tony de Raad, bassist Tom Bell, and drummer Taane Tokona.

It’s the perfect way for Kilgour to operate these days, more than 30 years into a career that is equally compelling, consistent, and influential.  From his first recordings with The Clean, the iconic band who remain active and whose legend deservedly grows mightier every year, Kilgour has had a distinct sound that has inhabited all of his albums and sounds fresh with every new release.

If it sounds a little fresher on End Times Undone – Kilgour’s eighth solo album and second straight with this Heavy Eights line-up – that’s because of the method.  Not many bands can make musical discovery sound so leisurely and urgent, so crisp and casual.  But that’s what transpires over these ten tracks. Building on the chemistry showcased on 2011’s Left By Soft, Kilgour and the Heavy Eights were able to quickly coalesce around this batch of songs.

Over just ten songs, End Times Undone offers a robust sampling of all the various styles Kilgour has mastered over the last three decades.  For an album that comes so late in one’s career, it’s a surprisingly convenient entry point into Kilgour’s body of work.  After a psychedelic intro, opener “Like Rain” immediately identifies itself as vintage Kilgour, with shimmering guitars that gracefully swell and secede.  “Lose Myself in Sound” will appeal to fans of The Clean who favour songs where the band chugs along on a blissful straight-line path.  While the album has its share of abstract lyrics, this title is one to take seriously.  And like many songs here, it draws to a close with an extended instrumental passage, the sound of four people finding their own rhythm together.

End Times Undone will be released shortly after a reissue of The Clean’s Anthology, a 46-track set that serves as the band’s defining document that can attest to their pantheon status.  End Times Undone is a perfect companion piece to that collection that left off in 1996, and in many ways feels like it could have simply been the next album helmed by Kilgour instead of one that comes nearly 20 years later.

End Times Undone will be released on Merge in the UK on 1st September 2014.

Goat announce new album, Stereogum premiere first single

Swedish rock collective GOAT will release their highly-anticipated second album,Commune on CD/LP/DL on 22nd September 2014 via Rocket Recordings (Stranded Rekords in Scandinavia and Sub Pop Records in North America).

You can now listen to the lead single, ‘Hide From the Sun’, which Stereogum calls, “beautifully psychedelic…[their music] crosses borders at will and speaks its own language.”    

Commune is the follow-up to GOAT‘s hypnotic 2012 debut, World Music, which received widespread acclaim and placed in many top-ten lists. The mysterious, masked group continued to awe the world with their intense live shows which was captured on their Live Ballroom Ritual double-album.

GOAT will be presenting new songs from Commune on festival stages throughout the summer before embarking on their first full European tour which finishes with a massive show at London’s Roundhouse.

There is no direct association between mysterious Swedish psychedelicists GOAT and revered Argentinian master of magical realism, Jorge Luis Borges. Yet their mission appears to be the same. Borges generated his ideas from historical curiosities across the globe—gaucho knife duels on the South American plains, Middle Eastern heresiarchs plotting treacheries in secret libraries, Chinese pirates waging wars against the Emperor—and twisted them into fictions that blurred the lines between fortified footnotes and outright fantasy.  GOAT’s sound is the sonic manifestation of this principle, as evidenced in their aptly-named debut album, World Music, which incorporated elements of Nigerian afrobeat, German krautrock, Anatolian funk, and a host of other global micro-niches into a hallucinatory cultish celebration of rock’s diverse manifestations. Deprived of the requisite band biography, early experiencers World Music’s electrified tribalism and lysergic compositions had the inevitable questions regarding the origin and timeframe of the recordings. The truth only became knottier every time the elusive GOAT collective provided their cryptic answers.

Ultimately, it is GOAT’s music that speaks the most about them, and, on their sophomore album, Commune, GOAT deliver a heavy dose of acidic grooves, hypnotic incantations, and serpentine guitar lines. 

The Blue Angel Lounge release video for Desolate Sounds

On 30th June, The Blue Angel Lounge release their third album, A Sea of Trees on Anton Newcombe’s  (The Brian Jonestown Massacre) ‘A’ Recordings label (Dirty Beaches, Dead Skeletons, KVB).  Anton joined The Blue Angel Lounge on stage in support of their last record, and most recently invited them to support them on The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 2012 American tour.
 
Since the release of their previous album Narcotica, the band have been garnering international acclaim, touring the US, UK and France with the Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and also making appearances at the Austin Psych Fest and Roskilde.
 
A Sea Of Trees sees the band blossom into its own, incorporating the experimentation of their most recent EP and single releases (“Ewig” 2012, “Walls” 2013).  From the very first moment of A Sea Of Trees, the epic opening track ‘Winter’ wastes no time sonically detailing where the band has been. The band’s weapons of choice; guitars coupled with harmonium, and singer, Nils Ottensmeyer’s powerful Nico’esque vocals culminate in genre-bending territory belonging to them alone.

The Blue Angel Lounge formed in 2006, after meeting at school in their German village Hohenlimburg near the Rhine River.  Led by singer, Nils “O.” Ottensmeyer and Dennis Melster, the band took their name from the club in New York City that offered Nico her first live performances in America.  Nico and The Velvet Underground remain an underlying influence on the band. 

Stereogum premieres new video from Secret Cities

Secret Cities announce the release of their new album, Walk Me Home, out this summer on Western Vinyl (Ava Luna, Dirty Projectors, Nat Baldwin).  Walk Me Home is the 3rd LP from Secret Cities and follows their acclaimed 2011 release Strange Heartsand 2010’s Pink Graffiti.   Recorded in 10 days at SF’s Tiny Telephone with Jay Pellicci(The Dodos, Deerhoof, Erase Errata) manning the controls, Walk Me Home is the result of the most spontaneous, democratic, and visceral recording of the band’s life.

Started by Marie Parker and Charlie Gokey at the tender age of 15, the members of Secret Cities have never lived in the same city in their 9 years of making music and touring together.  After they released Strange Hearts, the three members set off in different directions.  Marie became a teacher in the band’s spiritual home of Fargo, ND. Charlie became a civil liberties attorney in D.C. Alex Abnos became a journalist in NYC. Time passed and the band decided it was time to come together again and enter a real studio where they could play and record together in real time.  

Walk Me Home is a supreme reflection of their live chemistry and diverging lives and musical tastes.  Bringing in band member influences ranging from soul masters like King Floyd & Dr. John to Roy Orbison and using the band’s unique dual vocalists Marie and Charlie to their utmost advantage, Secret Cities created a record with great originality and range.   As it is, it took years of traveling in different directions for Secret Cities to make an album that brought them closer together than ever.

Walk Me Home is released 23rd June 2014 on Western Vinyl.

BIRD release video to A War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ8l-PLLb9o

After releasing two EPs (one of which was produced by composer and ex-The Coral guitarist, Bill Ryder-Jones) and continually touring the UK, BIRD have gained a large loyal following and garnered praise from all corners, including BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 6Music and have even been invited to play sessions for Simon Raymonde (The Cocteau Twins/Bella Union).  The Guardian, Metro, NYLON, NME, Q Track of the Day, TLOBF  and Channel 4 are just some who have featured the band.  They recently played at the BBC6Music Festival, and are currently on tour in Europe supporting Rodriguez playing to sold out venues of 3,000!

Support slots with Wild Beasts, Soley, King Charles, PINS, Poltergeist (Echo and The Bunnymen), Stealing Sheep and Rodriguez have cemented BIRD as a formidable live presence.  They were invited in 2013 to play at Festival Number 6, The Great Escape and Liverpool Sound City.  
 
Retaining the atmosphere and dark heart of their early EPs, and combining this with melodic hooks, stark lyrical imagery and intensely-layered soundscapes –  the band utilise instruments such as harp and theremin to add to their unique sound.   

UK Tour dates
2nd June – Joiners, Southampton
3rd June – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
5th June- Broadcast, Glasgow
6th June – The Compass, Chester
9th June – Basement, York
10th June – Bodega, Nottingham
16th June – Birdcage, Bristol
17th June – Crauford Arms, Milton Keynes
18th June – Railway Inn, Winchester
19th June –  Hoxton Bar & Grill, London
21st June – First Chop Brewery, Manchester
19th July – Astral Coast Festival, New Brighton, Wirral
1st- 3rd August – Kendal Calling – The Lakes

Giuda unveil latest video, 'Yellow Dash' and announce London gig

Giuda (pronounced JEW-DA) are an Italian five-piece band from Rome, born from the ashes of one of the finest European punk rock groups, Taxi. They play the most exciting kind of retro-sounding pub rock and junk shop glam and they have the look of true working class heroes (boots, polos, chequered shirts, leather jackets and short or shaved hair).

Giuda will be releasing a limited edition 7” single of ‘Yellow Dash’ taken from their second album Lets Do It Again on 19th May. The b-side is an exclusive track entitled ‘Kukulcan’. The Damaged Goods version of this 7” is on yellow vinyl and and limited to 1000 copies only.

“They’ve ram-raided the vaults of 70′s glam, punk and rock ‘n’ roll to make a foot-stomping, fist pumping riot of sound that has the scenesters, the punks and rockers and young and old in attendance going nuts!  Giuda are the best band we’ve seen in years!”  

– Vive Le Rock

Stereogum premieres video from Jerry David DeCicca's forthcoming solo album

Understanding Land is the debut album from Jerry David DeCicca and will be released on 2nd June 2014.   After five critically-acclaimed albums with Columbus, Ohio’s The Black Swans, the last of which, Occasion For Song, served as a eulogy to the late Noel Sayre – the friend and violinist who DeCicca formed the band with –  it felt like a good time to begin a new journey. The 10 songs which make up Understanding Land, were written in London after 5 months of touring and traveling the US, Spain, Portugal, and the UK.  What began as demos, turned into an album when they were shared with double bassist Andy Hamill(Mark Murphy, Natacha Atlas, Tracey Thorn).   Andy added bass and some gypsy slides.  DeCicca sent tracks to pals Will Oldham (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy) and Kelley Deal(The Breeders) and they both came back with sweet harmonies.  The legendarySpooner Oldham (Muscle Shoals, Dylan, Neil Young) played Wurlitzer on 3 songs in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.The first single, ‘First And Last’ features the two Oldhams (unrelated) together on a track for the first time.  “It’s a gentle acoustic ballad that matches the easygoing imagery in Matt Bauer’s video, which finds DeCicca peacefully drifting around his new hometown of New Braunfels, Texas by land and sea.” Stereogum.
Everyone you hear on the album (except Spooner who cheated and used a real studio, The NuttHouse in Muscle Shoals, Alabama) recorded the tracks in their home, themselves.  Once the digital world allowed everyone to be gathered together, it was mixed in Austin, Texas by Grammy winner, Stuart Sikes (Cat Power, Phosphorescent, Loretta Lynn, White Stripes).

The Faint return with new album Doom Abuse


The Faint will return this spring with their sixth album, Doom Abuse via SQE Music.  The birth of Doom Abuse, in many ways, is in parallel with a rebirth of the band itself.  The Faint, started in Omaha in the mid-’90s, have always created against the grain, disinterested in making anything except what their own inspiration drives them to make.  Each album since their 1998 debut Media has shifted and evolved that desire. Some albums, like 1999’s Blank-Wave Arcade, came from urgent, short recording processes while others, like 2004’s Wet From Birth, were more carefully constructed.  The musicians themselves are the constant, together embracing a style that is truly unlike every other band out there.  While Doom Abuse harkens back to Blank-Wave Arcade‘s immediacy in some ways, it opens a new door.  Inside is exactly where The Faint want to be now.