February 9, 2010
We mentioned Blonde Redhead did the score for The Dungeon Masters, the Keven McAlester's Dungeons & Dragons documentary, when we directed you to its entertaining trailer. At the time I was going to make a joke about how BR's Kazu Makino would be the only female in the movie, but dark elf Elizabeth Reesman, aka "The Drow Princess," nixed that idea. We haven't seen the movie yet, but we do have "Il Padroni," a medley of Blonde Redhead's main theme and final reprise. The moody, pensive music beings after a quietly apocalyptic/ha ha ha sample.
Continue reading Blonde Redhead - "Il Padroni" (Main Theme/Final Reprise From The Dungeon Master) (Stereogum Premiere)...
Posted at 4:21 PM by brandon in
Tags: Blonde Redhead
Los Angeles-via-Pennsylvania multi-instrumental singer and home recordist Evan Voytas -- sort of a more clean-cut Ariel Pink -- creates strange synth-pop/space-disco outings that feel danceable but private and insular. The idea's explored in the video for his most recent single "I Run With You, Spirit Animal." The clip was directed by Carlos Charlie Perez, who recently finished the upcoming Vampire Weekend video and shot those tongue-in-cheek promos that showed up on ithinkuracontra.com. You'll find that playfulness, here as well, after Voytas locates a place to rest his plank of wood while he tries on sunglasses and animal masks.
Continue reading Evan Voytas - "I Run With You, Spirit Animal" Video...
Posted at 3:14 PM by brandon in ,
Tags: Evan Voytas
latest by Nick
Dr. Dog have been a band for over a decade now, Philadelphia-based throughout. Their hometown hasn't factored much into their sound, which throws back to the Beatles-era of the classic rock school, or their themes and lyrical schemes. That's changed with "Shadow People," the first single form the band's forthcoming, fifth LP Shame, Shame, a track they've called a "full-on West Philly diary." The sound's the same, decidedly not of their hometown in this time or even a past one, but the scenes painted by guitarist vocalist Scott McMicken are documenting his neighborhood, now, a section of Philly that can be shoddy, dangerous, and artistically vibrant, in turns but often at once. He says:
Continue reading Dr. Dog - "Shadow People" (Stereogum Premiere)...
Posted at 2:53 PM by amrit in
Tags: Dr. Dog
latest by andy
Onetime BTW Under Byen's fourth album Alt Er Tabt ("All Is Lost") is out in April. The Denmark group's followup to 2006's Samme Stof Som Stof definitely has an anguished, although not done-for feel. In their new form, they're without a pianist and their one-time orchestra, which makes things immediately sparer, like the whispered warping and unfurling bedroom-folk abstractions of Islaja or Lau Nau. See, for instance, the collection's quietly swarming title track. In a translated statement about its video, director (and visual artist) Sidse Carstens says she's commenting on "how women of today still have to tear down their conception of perfection." It's like an intensely spare diorama installation. The Yellow Wallpaper came up around the water cooler this morning. You wouldn't be wrong to think about "Romance Is Boring," too.
Continue reading Under Byen - "Alt Er Tabt" Video (Stereogum Premiere)...
Posted at 12:40 PM by brandon in ,
Tags: Under Byen
latest by gaffa
Four years after the worthy Derdang Derdang, London's Archie Bronson Outfit are set to followup that last LP's dark blues/rusty grooved garage rock with a long-awaited third album, titled Coconut. On production is sorta-ex-DFA-dude Tim Goldsworthy, whose stellar C.V. includes the likes of the Rapture and Hercules & Love Affair. You'll hear some of that dirty and discomfiting dance sensibility creep into Coconut's first single "Shark's Tooth": throbs of bass, scraped guitars, like their rock gut a little grimier and their dance-blues turned a little more to the psych. The official video is a sci-fi odyssey, with effects like Laser Cats and animation via Monty Python. Are we laughing, or are we vexed? "Dart For My Sweetheart") it is not. But it is good.
Continue reading Archie Bronson Outfit - "Shark's Tooth" Video (Stereogum Premiere)...
Posted at 12:21 PM by amrit in ,
Tags: Archie Bronson Outfit
latest by clockworkrobots
With their carefully sustained clandestine aesthetic and tendency toward darker but still deeply jubilant dance music, the Golden Filter are, in one sense or another, the NYC version of the Knife. And, yeah, in other senses their not. As far as Big Apple groups go, though, Penelope and Stephen do an admirable job of getting out there and going for it without the attendant overexposure. Now, after a series of impeccably packaged singles and sundry remixes, their official full-length debut Voluspa is out in April. Take a listen to "Hide Me," which might sound familiar until it goes where the "demo" didn't.
Continue reading The Golden Filter - "Hide Me"...
Posted at 10:23 AM by brandon in
Tags: The Golden Filter
latest by Sam
February 8, 2010
Ben + Vesper are a married couple in Northern NJ. They have kids. They also write that they "have almost exactly the same hair color in the right light and definitely both have curlz in any light." They also "paint pictures and have cell phones to call their friends and work at home and eat meals and drink drinks and have a sign above their kitchen door that says "Love One Another," etc. These are simple facts that could apply to just about anyone in a relationship, anywhere, which is part of the appeal of their simple, honest-seeming songs. But there's also an ambitiousness to the constructions. We checked in with their 13-track LP All This Could Kill You back in '07. That one was produced by their label's head Daniel Smith. B + V's new five-song, 16-minute EP LuvInIdleness was produced (and arranged sweepingly) by Sufjan Stevens: Its origins are as homey as the above quotes, the results grander (and weirder) than might be expected.
Continue reading Ben + Vesper - "Singing Swords" Video (Stereogum Premiere)...
Posted at 4:15 PM by brandon in , ,
Tags: Ben And Vesper | Danielson | Sufjan Stevens
latest by milli
No Age Bring Unreleased Tracks To Daytrotter • No Age's Dean Spunt promised us a new LP in 2010. Until then, grab these live takes on three unreleased (though not new) tracks over at Daytrotter.
latest by milli
