Gang Gang Dance Ready ‘God’s Money’ Reissue, Month-Long North American Tour

Posted on June 29, 2009
Filed Under News | 1 Comment

Four months after a fire destroyed all their equipment in Amsterdam, Gang Gang Dance have bounced back with a month-long North American tour that runs between an August 2 stop in Northampton, MA, and a Bumbershoot appearance on September 5. As we said in a review of their MoMa performance earlier this year, “Gang Gang Dance performances are percussive, celebratory affairs that graze everything from dub to demented pop on the way to creating a sound all their own…every GGD show we’ve ever seen has been strikingly different. That, and a blur.”

Highly recommended stuff in other words, just like the group’s finest hour, 2005’s God’s Money. Long out-of-print on wax, it’ll soon be repressed through Gang Gang’s longtime label, Social Registry.

And now, for some live dates and a clip of our favorite Money shot…

Read more

PEEP SHOW: Girls Cover Vivian Girls’ “Wild Eyes” Single At Cake Shop Show, Justify Recent Matador Records Signing

Posted on June 28, 2009
Filed Under Media, Peep Show | 2 Comments

So the word on self-titled’s street is that Girls nailed their NYC show last night, stirring our associate editor’s loins enough to make us all eagerly anticipate their Matador/True Panther debut. Since it doesn’t drop until September 22, s/t thought we’d share two things to show you what we mean: (1) the duo’s rather epic “Hellhole Ratrace” video, and (2) a scarlet-tinged Cake Shop cover of Vivian Girls’ “Wild Eyes” 7-inch, cast against a Vivian rendition of the original.

Enjoy, and expect more from the Girls camp and us soon… Read more

THIS WEEK IN TWITTER: The Michael Jackson Edition, Featuring Boys Noize, Islands, The Streets, Nico Muhly, Surkin, and Many More

Posted on June 26, 2009
Filed Under This Week In Twitter | 1 Comment

Since the Daily Swarm’s doing a mighty fine job of aggregating Michael Jackson material, s/t thought we’d treat this week’s Twitter column as a roundup of tributes (and one tasteless critique) to the King of Moonwalking Better Than You Ever Will. Here’s what we uncovered (click on the screengrabs to follow each artist)… Read more

FROM THE STACKS: The Rural Alberta Advantage

Posted on June 26, 2009
Filed Under Features, From The Stacks | Leave a Comment

gladstone_01_hi

[Photo by Marc Hodges]

We get a lot of crap CDs at the self-titled offices. But once in a while, a pleasant surprise slips into our promo stack. Here’s a recent delivery that knocked the S/T staff on its collective ass. Read more

THE S/T FIVE: Right About Now, The Funk Soul Brother Needs To Play a Song That’s Actually Good

Posted on June 25, 2009
Filed Under Reviews, The S/T Five | 2 Comments

[Photos/Text by Andrew Parks]

Bless the girl in the above photo and her undying devotion to Fatboy Slim despite the unfortunate frat-party approach of his New York ‘performance’ last night. Playing to a not-quite-full Terminal 5, Norman Cook started off strong with swift “Praise You” snippets and speaker-rattling sheets of acid techno and big beat, but overall, his rare 105-minute (!) set suffered from severe peak/valley problems. In other words, nearly every time he led the laidback crowd down a path of potentially-losing-their-shit, Cook lost his momentum somehow, either by wearing out a song’s welcome (do we really need to hear DJ Kool drops for six minutes?) or not ratcheting up the tension of the few familiar Fatboy tracks that made the mix (”Right Here, Right Now,” “The Rockafeller Skank,” the aforementioned “Praise You”). Read more

PEEP SHOW: Pelican Guitarist Shares Nightmare-Inducing Clip From Noise/IDM Project

Posted on June 25, 2009
Filed Under Media, Peep Show | Leave a Comment

While self-titled already told you everything you need to know about Chord—the Fripp & Eno-channeling side project of Pelican guitarist Trevor de Brauw—we just received word of yet another de Brauw band, the free-noise/electronic trio Teith.  Fresh off last year’s Oak City reissue comes the long-awaited “Writing With Bloody Mary” video, described by de Brauw as “a short little vignette about the world within the mirror of a haunted house…my bandmates from Pelican wrote me back to say they were disturbed.”

What he means to say is that Rob Zombie could have ghost-directed the following clip, which was filmed in Chicago and took a year to cobble together. Don’t watch this one with the lights out… Read more

Devendra Banhart Splits From XL, Wraps Sixth Record With Band of Bees Member

Posted on June 25, 2009
Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

Devendra Banhart has finished his sixth full-length for a fall release through a TBD label. (While the hairy fairy king is still listed as a “current” artist on XL’s site, he parted ways with the label recently.) Band of Bees frontman Paul Butler co-produced the effort with Banhart, which was recorded in a rented house just north of San Francisco with the following backing band: Greg Rogove (drums, backing vocals), Luckey Remington (bass, vocals), Rodrigo Amarante (guitar, backing vocals) and longtime collaborator Noah Georgeson (guitar, backing vocals). According to a press release, “all the musicians involved played a part in arranging the songs recorded.”

Hopefully that means they took it more seriously than the following clip… Read more

COFFEE TALK: Josh Homme Taps Mike Patton For Top Secret Project, Kate Moss Destroys New Kills Tracks

Posted on June 24, 2009
Filed Under Coffee Talk, News | 1 Comment

So THIS is why the Kills lost half of their next LP.

So THIS is why the Kills lost half of their next LP.

Today’s Peep Show clip of the day—featuring three s/t cover stars—just made us a bit nauseous… Read more

HYPE CHECK: Phoenix Makes a Strong Case For Indie Pop Crown At Sold-Out Terminal 5 Show

Posted on June 23, 2009
Filed Under Hype Check, Reviews | 2 Comments

[Text/Photos by Andrew Parks]

The Artist and Their Current Album: Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Glassnote)

What’s Been Said: “Though the album trips lightly from slinky roller-skate jams (’Fences’) to near Brit-rocky rave-ups (’Lasso’), the underlying vibe is both retro and somehow outside of time—like a memory made 
sweeter than the real thing it recalls.” — Entertainment Weekly, A- rating

“Its unflappable sonic sheen gives Wolfgang some winsome 80s nostalgia, but smart modern touches—a constant near-Auto-Tune vocal effect, Justice-lite keyboard stabs on ‘1901′—ensure its of-the-moment-ness…They’re pleasure-pushers, filling tunes with riffs, phrases, and beats a five-year-old could love.” — Pitchfork, Best New Music

“The group has polished its ’60s-rock-revivalist sound to near perfection, but keeps expanding its aural palette, experimenting with layered rhythms and sonic textures. Opener ‘Lisztomania’ captures the group at its peak: Sprightly rock rhythms and shimmering guitar licks intertwine beautifully with Thomas Mars’ lead vocals, which ruminate on musical fame throughout raucous verses and spare, keyboard-plinking choruses.” — Billboard

“Phoenix are what architects should dance to. Sleek minimalism. Clean lines. A propensity to wear white. Emotionally neutral but texturally rich—they’re the sound of Richard Rogers’ utopian future. If Brian Eno wanted to do Music For Airports Two, he’d just tape a Phoenix album with a bunch of gate announcements over it and spend the time he saved thinking up more policy proposals for the Lib Dems.” — NME

Our Take: Read more

PEEP SHOW: The Field Redeems Sophomore Slump With Trance-tastic Live Set, Including an Epic Version of “Over the Ice”

Posted on June 21, 2009
Filed Under Media, Peep Show | 1 Comment

[Photos/Text by Andrew Parks]

Look, we really wanted to LOVE The Field’s second full-length record (Yesterday & Today), but let’s be honest: the thing simply isn’t as transcendent as his Kompakt debut, From Here We Go Sublime. That said, we were pleasantly surprised to see Axel Willner perform with a full band at Webster Hall on Saturday, bringing a laptop-less pulse to his endless epics. The following is a standout for sure… Read more

keep looking »