SEE: Wild Beasts perform in a lift, in Copenhagen
Continuing the fine tradition of bands performing in places where they shouldn’t really be performing, Wild Beasts recently took to a freight elevator in Copenhagen in one final bid to one up every other band on the planet. Whilst there, they embarked on a journey not only to play gorgeously stripped down versions of both “Bed Of Nails” & “Reach A Bit Further” but also to hide their immense sadness behind walls of beige clothing, circular glasses, stupid hats and beards. All of which can be seen in the video’s both above and below courtesy of They Shoot Music (they actually do, you know)
Alec
BELATED: Hear new Thom Yorke tracks “Twist” and “Stuck Together”
Whoa-ho-ho there, where do you think you’re going? Step back, spend some time, there’s no rush. Now, a little birdy told me you’ve been ignoring old uncle Yorke, not responding to his texts and refusing to acknowledge his numerous, increasingly desperate voice mails. So what is it? Is it his eye? It’s probably his eye. It is a pretty strange eye, I’ll give you that. Although, it’s not like he’s without his plus points, though. Radiohead do have at least five 9+/10 records, as well as being a pretty formidable bleepy musician in his own right. So please, find some time in your busy, busy schedule to listen to his two latest solo efforts, titled “Stuck Together” and “Twist” respectively. Both of them fit rather comfortably into his cannon of sub-Flying Lotus efforts, which is a bit like saying they’re sub-totally brilliant, in this case, they’re just great. So, you know, get to it.
/information: Both tracks came from a swanky fashion event for equally swanky clothing label Rag & Bone, which means you can’t lay your grubby little mitts on them outside of those YouTube videos directly above. Oh, and that atrocity of an image? Courtesy of DeviantArt, remind yourself never to visit that website.
Alec
NEWS: Last.fm publishes 2011 statistics, offers gratis superiority
The year of our lord, 2011. Full of music, it were. You probably remember some of it, the fine folks at last.fm do too. They’ve been busy collecting our listening habits in a way which is absolutely not part of a larger plot, one which ultimately leads to our collective mortal demise. So what do the Terminators of the future have to look forward to? Well, judging from their published 2011 statistics, the robot apocalypse will be sound tracked by warbling chubby chubster Adele, who scooped the top spot with a cool 818,395 listeners, followed not so closely by faux avant-garde mistress Lady Gaga with 460,356 listeners to her name. Who else made the list? Read on, weary traveler.
1 – Adele
2 – Lady Gaga
3 – Foster the People
4 – Britney Spears
5 – Natalia Kills
6 – J. Cole
7 – The Strokes
8 – Foo Fighters
9 – Radiohead
10 – Avril Lavigne
11 – Christina Perri
12 – Fleet Foxes
13 – Coldplay
14 – Incubus
15 – Bon Iver
16 – James Blake
17 – The Vaccines
18 – Beyoncé
19 – Diddy – Dirty Money
20 – The Naked and Famous
Of course, that’s just the tip of the dimly interesting iceberg, you can sort it all by country or genre, which is nice. Alternatively, they’ve got a sexy little infograph showing the biggest news stories of 2011′s musical calender and their effects on musical habits.
Your journey to the center of procrastination starts here
TRAILER: LCD Soundsystem – “Shut Up And Play The Hits”
If you were lucky enough to go see LCD’s final euphoric sendoff live, and you happen to be at Sundance 2012 to see this film, you are by far my least favourite human being on the planet. Honestly.
Alec
NEWS: Xiu Xiu announce new album “Always”, stream new single “Hi”
No, i’m not upset with you, Jamie. I mean, it’s not like you made at least one Xiu Xiu record every single year since 2002, only to leave me hanging after 2010′s supoib (that’s how New Yorkers say superb) “Dear God, I Hate Myself”. Oh no, it’s not like that at all. Oh wait, it is like that. But I’m not mad, i’ll be fine. At least, now I will be. Yes, fans of the emotionally explosive exploits of Jamie Stewart, Xiu Xiu are back with a new album, a new single AND a new logo. The latter of which may or may not look exactly like the XX logo turned fleshy, which is neither here nor there (A: may, here). The new record is called “Always”, which implies the kind of permanence which musicians can scarcely afford, and it’s also had quite the tough birth, what with the gloriously luminous entity of Zac Pennington both joining and then quitting the band among mysterious and probably bitchy circumstances. Those poor creatures.
Here’s a tracklisting for it, followed by some words, which I wrote.
01. Hi
02. Joey’s Song
03. Beauty Towne
04. Honey-Suckle
05. I Luv Abortion
06. The Oldness
07. Chimney’s Afire (Mickensian Suicide)
08. Gul Mudin
09. Born to Suffer
10. Factor Girl
11. Smear the Quen
12. Black Drum Machine
“Always” will be dropping (that’s music journalist speak for “arriving at all decent retailers”, we sure are a crazy bunch) on the 28th of February in the glorious European union and the 6th of March for everywhere else. Not only that, but there “500 limited edition copies of translucent pink 180 gram vinyl available via Polyvinyl mailorder. A collage poster of Xiu Xiu tattoos and scars accompanies the LPs.” which sounds absolutely wonderful. Europe can get it here, whilst everyone else must click here for that sweet sweet cash transaction action.
SOMETHING I WAS GOING TO WRITE IN THE TEXT ABOVE BUT FORGOT AND NOW AM SHOEHORNING INTO THIS LITTLE BIT AT THE BOTTOM: Xiu Xiu have a new single, too! It’s called “Hi” and you can here it directly above these words. As the sexually confused offspring of Fabulous Muscles and Dear God, I Hate Myself, it’s one glorious mess of affected vocals, horrifically catchy melodies and deeply off kilter musicianship. Almost exactly like the kind you were waiting to hear ALL THE WAY THROUGH LAST YEAR. Sigh.
Alec
NEWS: At The Drive-In reunite, gang of gimps abuse one of my favourite albums
When Cedric Bixler-Zavala comes home from a day in the pretentious, bad-acid (if acid resulted in heightened anal retentiveness) office of Mars Volta, often rumoured to be nothing but a dirty dream of Geddy Lee, he cracks open a Bud. Exhaling as the ice cool beer hits the back of his throat, he reflects upon his days of heroin abuse. Next, he sits down to watch Golden Balls – all goes well until a horrific coincidence occurs – he becomes randomly and spontaneously aroused at the exact time Jasper Carrot appears on stage; he’s about the skulk off in search of a Detectives box set when he remembers that he has one last duty to perform today.
Descending the stairs into the basement, Cedric opens a large, walk-in refrigerator, wherein are stacked hundreds of pre-packaged parcels of dog shit. He scans the rows of boxes, picking out several. He then proceeds to post these to his old At The Drive-In band mates. His work done, he settles back down in his living room, nestled in between conspiracy theorist props, a box of tissues in his left hand, The Detectives season one in the other.
But don’t worry Ceddy, you won’t be running out of excrement anytime soon, At The Drive In are getting back together! I don’t know if you know yet, I mean, from the way you all denied that it would ever happen – saying that either you had no desire to play the songs or that everyone hated one another – I presumed that the Reunion Gods had made it so without telling you bu—-
Guess those shitty Mars Volta albums aren’t selling too well.
Liam
FEIGN INTEREST: Best Coast have ‘Grown Up’, Beth C—weedweedweedweedweed
This week, Beth C., of Best C. fame was reported as saying to Pitchfork, “I need to figure out a way to get people to stop thinking of me as the ‘stoner, cat loving’ girl,” She then added, conclusively “I’m not really like that anymore.”
Meanwhile, her boyfriend, the equally famous and distorted Nathan Williams of Wavves infamy tweeted “weed basketball weed basketball weed basketball”
Thanks.
More interestingly, however, Williams revealed this hilarious soundbite: ‘fuck! got beat the fuck up by rob kardashians boys last night FUCK!’
Best Coast, much to the enjoyment of young girls and people who like all their music to sound the same, are back in the studio, and with Jon Brion to boot. Does that mean anything to you? No, you’ve probably never even heard of him. Regardless, their new direction is reportedly, ‘more emo’. Whether this means they’re heading into the murky waters of early 90s emo indie rock or just writing songs about how your boyfriend won’t pay attention to you because he’s too busy inserting sealed bags of blueberry kush into his previously violated anus is yet to be determined.
Liam
STREAM: The Flaming Lips and the Plastic Ono Band’s joint EP
Fond of Embryonic? Consider Yoko Ono to be one of the worlds very finest purveyors of largely ignorable avant-garde experimentation and screaming inside art galleries to the bemusement of understandably distressed onlookers? Well, kid. Sit down and get a piping hot load of this shit. I actually really enjoyed this, I hope you do too. I’m not sure why I’m hiding this text.
“The Fear of Litany”
“Do It”
“Brain Of Heaven”
“Atlas Eets Christmas”
Alec
VIDEO: Youth Lagoon – July
I quite liked Youth Lagoon’s debut album, “The Year of Hibernation”, I did. I even wrote about it here, remember? Back when it was little more than a few lines of code at the bottom of some words, ah, those were the days. It’s been a thermonuclear minute since then though, and I’ve been somewhat lacking in my declarations of admiration for it. So here goes; “The Year of Hibernation” is still a deeply pretty slice of minimalist pop and astonishingly, I continue to rather enjoy it (note: it’s still up for streaming on my original post). So, suck on that, people.
As the kids are likely to do, Trevor Powers and his one man music video machine Tyler T Williams have been busy beavering away making videos to go alongside the music. This one’s for “July”, which is a song that was on an album and now have a video to go alongside it. There’s nosebleeds, skinny people, televisions that are no longer made and enough instant nostalgia to last you a good few hours. Or, at the very least, until you find another fucking app to take pictures with incorrect colours and thick black frames, you horrid human being.
Check it, above.
Alec
