“U.O.E.N.O.,” the recent single from the Atlanta rapper Rocko, earned itself a ton of unwanted notoriety in recent months: It’s the song where Rick Ross bragged about date rape. So consider this a reclamation. All four members of L.A.’s furiously exciting Black Hippy supergroup — Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, and Jay Rock — have teamed up for a spazzed-out, fired-up remix of the track. Download it below.
On their staggering new album Sunbather, the San Fransisco metal explorers Deafheaven fuse black metal to shoegaze, creating mind-warping 10-minute odysseys of sound that are vast enough to get lost in. It’s a hell of an album, and I don’t think Michael will mind if I tell you that it’s his favorite LP of the year thus far. (Michael’s off today because he’s on his way to the Maryland Death Fest, so his opinion on a metal album should carry some weight.) We’ve already posted the opener “Dream House” and the title track, and now you can, and should, stream the entire album at Pitchfork.
Sunbather is out 6/11 via Deathwish, Inc.
Toronto’s Arts & Crafts turns ten this year and they’re doing a number of things to celebrate, including the release of X a compilation of collaborative tracks from artists throughout the label. The comp will feature tracks from Feist, Stars, Chilly Gonzalez, and this track, “Day Of The Kid” from Broken Social Scene and Years. The song is ascendent and immersive, warm and building, the kind of thing that endeared BSS to so many. While the band may be on an indefinite hiatus, one of the A&C10 will include at one-night only performance from the group at Field Trip Festival in Toronto on 6/8. There will also be performances from Ra Ra Riot, Bloc Party, and more. Check out “Day Of The Kid” below.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Ernest Greene, the gloopy Georgia-based synth auteur who records as Washed Out. But his 2011 debut album Within And Without was one of the best things that came out of the whole chillwave movement (even if it did hit stores after that whole thing had already faded). And later this summer, he’ll follow that album up with a new one called Paracosm. On this one, he once again worked with Within And Without producer Ben Allen, probably best-known for Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion.
The album’s title refers to the idea of imaginary worlds that people create, and Greene may have created his own world with the album, using more than 50 instruments, as well as samples. The first single is called “It Feels All Right,” but we haven’t had a chance to hear it yet. There is, however, a two-minute album trailer with some deeply pretty music in it; check it out below.
An enthusiastic 1,200 folks danced at the sold-out Majestic Ventura Theater, soaking up a twenty-one song set by Arctic Monkeys who are doing a handful of dates across the States before their headlining slot at Glastonbury. They kicked off the show with a new song “Do I Wanna Know?” (watch below) before digging up older gems like “Fake Tales Of San Francisco” and “Dancing Shoes.” Check out the photo gallery above and the setlist below.
Andrew Cedermark, the former Titus Andronicus guitarist and veteran of the home-recording limited-cassette-tape universe, is about to release his new album Home Life, and the songs we’ve heard from it are bigger, fuller, and prettier than anything he’s done before. We already posted the luminous early track “Canis Major,” and now “At Home,” another track from the album, turns out to be a quiet and reserved anthem, with resigned lyrics about lost childhood and a combination of surging guitar and honking harmonica that recalls prime Springsteen. It’s a great song, and you can hear it below.
The New York indie-pop band Caveman rounded up a pretty impressive cast for their video for “In The City,” the first single from their self-titled sophomore album. The clip stars Julia Stiles and the Dollhouse actor Fran Kranz as a tourist couple visiting New York, and it looks like a fun visit before a creepy hotel bellhop gets involved and things take a darker turn. Philip Di Fiore directs; watch it below.
Last night, a night after they served as musical guests on Letterman, the National returned to TV, bringing their debonair and sophisticated gloom-rock to The Colbert Report. On Letterman, though, nobody expected them to sit for an interview. And on Colbert, the clearly nervous-as-fuck singer Matt Berninger had to speak on camera to Stephen Colbert, who proceeded to murder him for being a boring interview. (For the record, I’ve interviewed Berninger before, and I found him to be a delightful talker. But he probably wasn’t nervous to talk to me.)
The band got a chance to redeem themselves, though, when they played the stately, surging Trouble Will Find Me track “Graceless” and then, as an online bonus, also charged through the single “Sea Of Love.” The Colbert website is having some embedding issues right now, but you can watch the full episode here. (The interview is the third segment, and the song is the fourth.) Check out the “Sea Of Love” performance below.
