[Photo by Paul Dugdale]

Okay, so Liam Howlett didn’t quite live up to his latest promise of delivering a new Prodigy disc by the end of the year. We’re okay with that, simply because we’re willing to wait for a record that’ll blow the Ed Banger generation away, restoring some order to the easy-to-answer question of what came first: Music For the Jilted Generation and stellar rave-era singles like “Out of Space” and “Everybody in the Place,” or such deeply-indebted fare as Justice’s “Cross” LP.

Now christened Invaders Must Die, the Prodigy’s fifth full-length is due out March 3 through Take Me to the Hospital/Cooking Vinyl. We hear it’s a return to the trio’s scene-defining days, with traces of ultra-modern techno that’ll appeal to kids who still insist on wearing neon hoodies. The first evidence of this is the title track, which is available as a free download or hi-def video, which we’re streaming below. Be sure to comment on it like you did our EXCLUSIVE Prodigy interview earlier this year.

Read more

Is it lame that we’re really, really psyched for the ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ movie?

Here are some recent features and news bites to mull over as your stomach settles …

• Wondering where Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are film is at? This extensive interview has quite a few answers.
• Uncut and Mojo have posted their year-end lists, which take a few chances (Flying Lotus and Fuck Buttons, for instance) amid all a slew of usual suspects (MGMT, Fleet Foxes, Vampire … Fucking … Weekend).
• Axl Rose is pissed at Dr. Pepper.
• Kanye West has landed on the cover of the new FADER.
• MySpace Music has named its ’stylish’ new president.
• Aziz Ansari has revealed some details about the new Office-related (writing/production wise, at least) show starring him and Amy Poehler.
• Read more
  

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER?: Gaahl portrait by Peter Beste

If you have even the slightest passing interest in photography and black-metal, Peter Beste’s True Norweigan Black Metal is a must-buy that captures more than bullet belts and buckets of corpse paint. Beste’s compelling viewfinder chips away at the kvlter-than-thou posturing that’s made this subgenre/scene such a deadly serious proposition, revealing some of the humanity behind convicted criminals and convuluted madmen.

The video presented after the jump pastes together the five parts of VBS‘ acclaimed black-metal doc for the first time. Enjoy it with your loved ones on this special day …

Read more

[Photo by Steve Gullick]

self-titled has avoided boring the shit out of artists since the second we started this daily site/digital magazine. Like the plague, really. One of the earliest ‘brilliant ideas’ we stumbled upon in our search for non-profile pieces was a simple but scintillating return to the Mad Libs pads of our stunted adolescence.

Meant as a way to not worry about anything but mindless queries like “lucky number” or an “adjective starting with C,” self-titled’s recurring Mad Libs page first ensnared No Age at this year’s South by Southwest festival. Our current issue caught two major artists in the act of filling out our “Chris Martin Licks the Wrapper” manifesto: Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, who’s in our actual issue, and Bloc Party, who offer an alternate take in the sheet below …

Read more

Because self-titled’s staff doesn’t always agree about what’s amazing or godawful

What we said then:
“Say what you will about the state of Guns N’ Roses (and more specifically Axl Rose’s sanity), but every song on Chinese Democracy contains at least 15 to 30 seconds of undeniable brilliance—an admirable feat that would be difficult for any artist working today to match.”

Read more

By Aaron Richter

As we all know by now, new releases hit record-store shelves and digital-download services each Tuesday. That’s why self-titled presents the following every week: a new release you’d be stupid not to own (Buy It), one worth checking out if you’re the curious type (Burn It) and something you might have heard about but probably should avoid (Skip It). Simple, ain’t it?  Read more

Photos by Andrew Parks

When we heard that Ben Frost—easily one of our favorite ‘experimental’ acts at the moment, since he knows how to push things forward without losing the listener in a masturbatory haze—and Bora Yoon were presenting a special Church of the Ascension performance this week, self-titled sprinted to see the pair pull a Sunn O))) and “evoke site specific spirits.” And by that we mean the freaked-out feeling we had after a hymnal book from 1982 fell on our lap midway through their hour-long ( (( Phonation )) ) set. Apparently someone up there was a little miffed about tonight’s secular soundtrack of ghastly loops, clinical, chest-thumping beats and speakers pushed to the point of purified distortion. Us, well we dug everything but one ill-advised turn into singer/songwriter territory. Yoon’s voice is so gorgeous in the abstract that we prefer her wailing like a tormented soprano over standard verse/chorus/verse/chorus narratives.

Lots of photos after the jump. If you like what you see, be sure to see Yoon’s Frost-free gig at the Stone on December 5. (It will have “special visitors,” though.)

Read more

Sal P slips in and out of madness

Photos/Text by Andrew Parks

James Murphy is usually a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, but self-titled’s never seen the LCD Soundsystem frontman/DFA don smile quite like he did throughout Liquid Liquid’s special Santos Party House set last night. Perched over Santos’ mixing desk with a hint of delirium in his eyes, Murphy looked like an overgrown kid who just got the keys to his parents’ car. Or in this case, the knobs and sliders that control the subtleties in such Lower East Side classics as “Optimo,” “Bell Head,” and the song that made “White Lines” an instant anti-coke anthem, “Cavern.”

Read more

A barely post-pubescent Liquid Liquid

Secret DFA sessions, a DVD of unlocked live footage, and more collaborations than we could possibly keep up with—these are the details that Tussle’s main knob twiddler, Nathan Burazer, managed to get out of Liquid Liquid in an exclusive self-titled interview with vocalist Salvatore Principato and his co-percussionist Dennis Young. While they’re best known for one of the most important basslines in hip-hop history (Melle Mel’s “White Lines,” which swiped its low-end from Liquid Liquid’s “Cavern” single), the pair recently reunited for their first London show ever in hopes of reminding people how much the Rapture, !!! and, well, Tussle, owe to their percussive workouts and disco-punk blueprints. Scroll down to see how you New York City folk can experience the same thing tonight at Santos Party House.

As for what Tussle’s been up to lately, the quartet continues to support its “Burn It”-approved Cream Cuts LP with stellar singles, including a “Night of the Hunter” 12-inch that sports a Prins Thomas edit …

Read more

Fischerspooner makes us actually miss ‘Emerge’ … a lot

“The melodic one,” eh? Who do you think you’re kidding, Kitsuné? This is a Maison compilation, after all, and doesn’t Maison mean serrated synths and tweeter-blowing bass lines in English?

Apparently not. Well, not in most cases this time around. While d.i.m. flips Fischerpooner’s “Danse en France” into Boys Noize-approved electro—a sound that chips away at the pristine pop sheen of the group’s past singles—and Heartsrevolution’s  Leyla Safai howls like a hardcore punk princess atop the shimmering keys of “Ultraviolence,” most of this Maison mix could classify as electronic emo music.

Read more