October 2009
37 posts
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[Links] Culture Club - 30/9
Part 2, as promised Episode 1 of The Blakroc Sessions from the Black Keys and Damon Dash. Under-stated comedy, both intentional and unintentional: everything about Damon Dash. Episode 2 is after the jump, and is even better, with Mos Def’s studio session -After little activity for months, James Murphy announced a bunch of stuff about LCD Soundsystem via Facebook last night…in...
September 2009
50 posts
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[Links] Culture Club - Retroactive for 9/29
I’m just catching up on my internets reading, so this is all of yesterday’s links. Today’s to come later tonight. Here’s a FANTASTIC video of Dirty Projectors putting on an impromptu performance in their dressing room after playing at Jimmy Fallon Live, as shot by ?uestlove -From the FADER: a good profile of Phoenix and a FADERTV feature on Fool’s Gold -Farhad...
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[Tracks] New Tracks from The Knocks
Our pals over at Heavy Roc Music are hard at work on Samuel’s debut album, even tripping out to L.A. for an extended period to work some of the production out. And yet, the Knocks have managed to put together a few interesting remixes of Ellie Goulding, Master Shortie and the Jackson 5 over the last month or so. There’s a lot to like here; each track shows a different side of the...
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[Stream] Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy
Hear one of my most-anticipated albums of the fall below. Childish Prodigy is officially out next Tuesday on Matador. Also, DC readers be sure to enter the ticket giveaway below. As of now your odds are pretty much 100%!!
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[Concert] Suckers @ DC9 (9/27)
Summer is gone and with it the outdoor party. And with that goes the certain joy of a drunken, late-night sing-along. With my friends this typically amounts to little more than a cacophonous mix of clumsy guitars, mumbled vocals, banging beer bottles and the cries of sleepless dissenters. However, there are those singular moments where everything magically coalesces into something wonderful, to...
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[Links] Culture Club - 9/28
-RIP: Beau Velasco of the Death Set passed away yesterday Giveaway -We’re giving away 2 tickets to the Psychedelic Furs/Islands/Happy Mondays show in DC Stuff that’s streaming: -Air’s Love 2 -Karen O’s Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack -deadmau5’s For Lack of a Better Name -Au Revoir Simone’s video for “Shadows” “News” -The small...
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[Contest] Win 2 tickets to Islands, Psychedlic...
Heads up D.C.! In support of their fantastic 3rd LP, Vapours, ANTI- was kind enough to hook us up with two tickets to Islands 10/6 show at 9:30 club. The burgeoning Montreal art-rockers have the honor of sharing the bill with British new-wave legends The Psychedelic Furs and Manchester alt-rock legends Happy Mondays. That’s a lot of legends for one night, probably something you don’t...
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[Links] Culture Club - Weekend Edition 26/9
Two fun videos: a joint interview with A-Trak and DJ Mehdi… …and a great fan video of Washed Out’s “Feel It All Around” that really captures the spirit of the song (via) -Two quasi-related links: Rolling Stone’s mini-profile of Washed Out and Carles on “chillwave’s” use of samples -Merge Records is streaming their remix album -A-Trak...
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[Tracks] NightWaves - (Debut Release) She's...
The wonderful crew over at Binary just sent us the good news that NightWaves will finally be releasing their first official single “She’s Electric” on UK label People in the Sky. The single comes complete with remixes by House of Nada, Spacelex Nachtflug, and CotP regular Vega. Grab the Vega mix below and show some love to the Binary crew and NightWaves by picking up the single....
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[Tracks] How Did The Sky Get So Damn Broken?
Its no secret that I haven’t always been such a voracious consumer of music. CotP started as, and will continue to be, a musical diary of my (and Sam’s) personal discovery. A lot of the bands I suddenly fall in love with have been around for a long time and already have a substantial fan base. However, the excitement that comes with discovering an established act and getting to mine...
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[Concert] All Tomorrow's Parties - Sunday
Our buddy Jared of Playtonic Dialogues covered All Tomorrow’s Parties for us. It should be noted that Jared sent this to me almost a week ago and I’ve just been slow in posting it. Thanks again, Jared. 1:30 AM Music festivals are wonderful, unpredictable, and tiresome. After seeing Atlas Sound, I went with the family to a local Catskills institution, an Italian restaurant called...
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[Video] Fool's Gold - Nadine (Again)
When I first wrote about Fool’s Gold afro-pop gem “Nadine” I described the video as “unsettling”, which is obviously not the term one should be associating with this euphoric summertime jam. Luckily, the LA crew heard my concerns (yes, mine and mine alone) and produced a much more fitting video, complete with iguanas, soda fights, saxophone playing girls and much...
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[Concert] The Walkmen @ 930 Club 9/22
I went into last nights concert with only a handful of songs and endless positive reviews about The Walkmen’s live show. I have slept on their albums for so long, but couldn’t pass up a chance to hear the local D.C. boys at one of my favorite venues. For the most part, they lived up to their reputation as a great live act. Lead-singer Hamilton is a revelation, its amazing that he...
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[Links] Culture Club - 23/9
Here’s K’Naan and J. Period discussing The Messengers project and an all-in-one download link -ESPN music columnist and former NBA player Paul Shirley visited Amoeba in LA (auto-play video) and wrote about Phoenix and Bad Veins -Thom Yorke’s “All For the Best” video is not embeddable. Wtf. -XLR8R named Neon Indian an artist to watch -The Cool Kids gave a video...
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[Links] Culture Club - September 22nd
The guys from Holy Ghost! gave VBS a walkthrough of their home studios. The most interesting thing (besides learning what a modular is) I gleaned from the interview is why these guys haven’t toured yet: “We’ve been offered to do live tours and stuff and we’ve thought about it, but if we’re going to do it, we definitely want to do it right and make it ‘knock...
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[Video] The Flaming Lips - "I Can Be A Frog"
The Flaming Lips “I Can Be A Frog” The Flaming Lips Embryonic is out October 13th.
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[Review] K'Naan and J. Period
Producer J. Period and Somali refugee rapper K’Naan collaborated recently on a terrific new FREE project titled The Messengers. The duo revisited the music of some of the artists who had large influences on their music and released three mixtapes with their covers and remixes of the works of Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan. K’Naan’s delivery and updates on the production...
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[Links] Culture Club - 9/21
Lots of great stuff today, including the above video from sketch group Cook County Social Club of Chicago Free/Cheap Stuff -I don’t live in the U.S., and as such, would have some trouble going to the CMJ Music Marathon in New York, but if you could potentially go, you should enter the AV Club’s contest for a badge. I’ve gone to two CMJs sans badges and you’ll enjoy it...
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[Concert] Local Natives AD Session
Last Friday, Aquarium Drunkard, posted a wonderful four song-session from current favorite Local Natives at Infrasonic Sound Studios out in CA. The new songs hint at a softer side of the Natives, one laced with harmonies and violins. The 6 minute “Stranger Things” is a flowing piece that blends the sing-along moments of “Sun Hands” with a more mature sounding narrative,...
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Culture Club - September 17th
Free Music -Koushik is giving away The Beep Tape for free until Sunday, the 20th -At Amazon: a sampler of stuff from this fall (including Neko Case, Booker T., Jason Lytle, Rain Machine and Islands) and “Tequila Sunday” from the Maldives -Get Hanway Troof’s “And I” here and enter your video to win -Atlanta producer Alex Goose is giving away his tracks that...
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"2 in the morning, got the Fat Burger..."
As a long time Ice Cube fan, I really enjoyed of the flowchart shown after the jump. A fun graphic representation of the classic “It Was a Good Day.” Ice Cube - It Was a Good Day Ice Cube - It Was a Good Day (Remix) Click = zoom
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Monsters of Folk
Monsters of Folk is a (it pains me to use this phrase) “super group” that formed a little while back but started to seriously come together during last year’s Newport Folk Festival. The band consists of Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes), M. Ward (of She and Him and all the rest coming out of Portland), Yim Yames (of My Morning Jacket, formerly known as Jim James) and Mike Mogis...
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All Tomorrow's Parties - Saturday
We at Cities of the Plain only have so much time on our hands and as such, we’re recruiting a few of our music loving friends to provide some guest posts here and there. First up is our pal Jared, who recently started Playtonic Dialogues a sometimes music, sometimes philosophy blog and is living and working in New York City. Jared headed north this past weekend for All Tomorrow’s...
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Culture Club - 9/16
“Some musical things that I think clearly fall outside the world of Nine Inch Nails and I would like to experiment with, and we’re still working on turning Year Zero into a television series, and that’s actually been pretty exciting.” -Trent Reznor in the AV Club’s interview-There’s a few gems over at Mashable making fun of Kanye West -Noteworthy deals on Amazon: Kid...
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Out on the Water
Brooklyn crew, Suckers, just released the B side to their first official single “It Get’s Your Body Movin’”. “Out on the Water” is a playful tune that falls and crescendos in the Suckers typical camp-fire sing along fashion. Now is a great time to go back and revisit their fantastic debut EP, especially for all of you in the D.C. area where they will be making...
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Low Files Tropical
Get Back Guinozzi has been building a little buzz as of late. Their breezy first single, “Low Files Tropical” was released this Monday on Fat Cat and they just sent over the accompanying video that is appropriately filled with 70’s swinger, Boogie Nights pastiche (which also means its NSWF). Check out the video below and head over to their MySpace for some other tracks. In...
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Pray For Rain
I have been on a big TV On The Radio kick lately, so it bummed me out to hear that the guys are taking some time off. Luckily there is plenty TVTOR associated projects to keep us busy in the mean time. Adebimpe is featured on a song from the new Massive Attack EP, Splitting the Atom. “Pray For Rain” is a slow burning lament that builds steadily over its nearly 7 minute run time. The...
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$5 Cover
My latest kick has been the web-series $5 Cover from music-loving director Craig Brewer and MTV. Brewer is a notorious music junkie (see: Hustle and Flow and Black Snake Moan) who, while looking for his next project, turned his camera towards his hometown of Memphis. $5 Cover depicts the lives of fictional characters, all with their lives intertwined in the music scene there in Memphis. Upon...
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CC - 9/15
Modern Guilt Acoustic “Volcano” from Beck Surprisingly not a lot of interesting links to pass along after a few days away. I’m oldrockcriticrippingKanye’d out, though that’s not to say that what he did wasn’t tactless. -President Obama called Kanye “a jackass” (auto-play) -The trailer for the Michael Jackson doc This Is It is out now (also...
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Vampire Weekend Announce New Album
I was convinced this (which now redirects to VW’s website) was the new ad campaign for Polo, but it turns out it is really the cover for the new Vampire Weekend album (which isn’t all that far off from a Polo ad campaign when you really get down to it). “Contra” hits shelves January 12, 2010 via XL. Head over to P4K for the tracklist and some more info on the album. Now...
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Girls Album Stream
Get into it below. I’ve been looking forward to this one for awhile.
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Culture Club - Weekend Edition
But what’s remarkable is what the confluence of these two events represents: The final decline of the record industry’s ability to define the popular narrative about music. With only a few exceptions, record labels have been started by business people who have a terrifyingly consistent history of exploiting the artists they were ostensibly trying to promote. The labels compounded...
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Win A Digital Copy of Veckatimest
I was organizing my room today and stumbled across a promo code for a free digital copy of Grizzly Bear’s latest revelation, Veckatimest. Instead of giving it to one of my ungrateful friends I figured I’d auction it off here. Leave your email and favorite island in the comments below and I’ll pick a winner at the end of next week. Now there really is no excuse not to have this...
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Die Slow
I am still feeling out Health’s latest LP, “Get Color”, but my god this song is killing it. Its been my defacto jam as of late. Probably the only thing cooler is the accompanying video. I can’t recall any video in recent memory that does as good a job at pairing visuals with the mood and atmosphere of a song. Those militant chicks stomping along to that cutting guitar riff...
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Culture Club - 9/11/09
10,000LB Hamburger Tour RECAP!!! A-Trak, Treasure Fingers & Theophilus London from A-Trak -Sasha Frere-Jones previews All Tomorrow’s Parties; if you’re in the New York area and looking for something to do tickets are still available -Carrie Brownstein presents favorite dorm room posters -The LA Times has a brief fall music preview -Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien thinks the...
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New Videos: Air and Steve Aoki (and zuper blahq)
And now for two completely unrelated videos. Air - Sing Sang Sung The latest from Air. Love 2 is out October 6. ______________________ Steve Aoki and zuper blahq - I’m in the House (edit: better quality file there) Also, Steve Aoki and Will.I.Am (masquerading as zuper blahq, I’m not putting the brackets around his fake name) have a new track titled “I’m in the...
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Culture Club 9/10/09
Interlude I—Dream Sequence in Subi Circumnavigation from Sufjan Stevens’ upcoming project The BQE -Sasha Frere-Jones wrote about Trent Rezonr in this week’s New Yorker and discussed the article here -The Beatles are dominating the music news cycle this week: here’s a rundown of NPR’s coverage, they’re going to star in their own graphic novel and Carles of Hipster...
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New Kurt Vile
This is the second track to surface from Kurt Vile’s upcoming LP, Childish Prodigy. This cranks up the volume from previously heard track, “Overnite Religion.” Apparently this new track tackles the “pounding stomp” section of the new album and we’ve still got “hypnotic beats” and “unexpected, soaring trumpets” to look forward to. Yup, I...
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New Fever Ray Video
The new video for the third single, “Seven”. And just in case you thought the Fever Ray project was going soft, this one proves that it is still wierd as hell.
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Culture Club - 9/8/09
(Leon, may he rest in peace/pieces) Quick Culture Club today. Hope all are doing well. -Kon of Kon and Amir is sick and if you’re around NYC on Thursday, go check out the benefit concert for him -Phish’s latest album, Joy is on sale at Amazon for $3.99 -The Guardian ran a great, long profile of Bat for Lashes’ Natasha Khan -Chuck Klosterman reviewed the Beatles’ reissue...
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Alan Wilkis and Passion Pit
Our main man Alan Wilkis passed along his remix of everybody’s favorite Afro-Pop jam, The Very Best’s “Warm Heart of Africa.” I like this guy’s sensibility. He does a nice job of enhancing the original track and expanding on the party jam side of things. The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (Alan Wilkis Remix) Fun live performance of “Sleepyhead” in...
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Culture Club - Labor Day Edition
This video by Pogo is fantastic. I’m always struck by the precision of these videos; they must take forever in Final Cut. More of the same are available here. (via) -The Fader talks with Invasion -NPR links: a Fall Music Preview with the folks from Idolator and a full concert from Sondre Lerche -Shanghaist interviewed Handsome Furs -The Village Voice has an oral history of All...
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Culture Club, 9/05/09
Dope “Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc.” video from Scratch Perverts and friends (via) Also, this interview with Thom Yorke is fantastic (via) -TV and the Radio is taking a break from recording and touring together. “Please step away from the ledge, man in skinny jeans. It’s going to be alright.” -From Pitchfork: their Rising feature on Tanlines and a review of...
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New Karl Blau
Karl Blau’s upcoming record Zebra (out on K Records 10/9) is shaping up to be my dark horse album of 2009. Blau was a bit of a mystery to me in the past, but I love this new stuff. The inflection of his voice delivering cryptic lyrics about pollinating and crows bones has got to be some of the weirdest stuff out there, and some of the most appealing. I’d like to describe the music as...
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"I got the internet goin' nuts..."
Not unlike Paul Wall, these four artists/bands are quite popular on the interwebs but seem to be receiving little attention elsewhere. -HEALTH are an aggressive band from Los Angeles and CFCF is one dude from Montreal. HEALTH - Before Tigers (CFCF Remix) -British buzz band The xx is dominating the inner tubes and have had several leaks from their just released self-titled album, which seems to...
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DJ AM
Blatant re-post here, but worth it so everyone can hear the two fantastic mixes from 2002 that (Thee) Mike B posted over on his blog: So I basically tore my whole world apart looking for these for the past 48 hours. I finally found em at about 5am last night in the middle of a random spindle full of CD’s. I remember Adam burning copies for Shecky Green and I on a visit to LA. I can still...
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Culture Club, September 2, 2009
“The downside (of the MP3 format) is that people are encouraged to own far more music than they can ever give their full attention to. People will have MP3s of every Miles Davis’ record but never think of hearing any of them twice in a row—there’s just too much to get through. You’re thinking, “I’ve got ‘Sketches of Spain and ‘Bitches Brew’—let’s zip through those while I’m finishing that...
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East of Eden
Taken by Trees quiet and beautiful East of Eden comes out next week, but you can stream the whole thing over at NPR now. Check it out. mp3:Taken by Trees - Sweetness mp3:Taken By Trees - Watch the Waves (Memory Tapes Version)
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Culture Club - El Primero de Septiembre
Dope ad for Jay-Z’s upcoming The Blueprint 3, in which he recreates all of his previous album covers; also, the album was leaked on purpose, right after it was leaked not on purpose -Sasha Frere-Jones is going to posting more about the formats we use in listening to music and probably, why vinyl is better to listen to than digital files. If this were 1994, I would reply, “Doy.” But it’s not, so...
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M83 - Live at Pitchfork
M83 - Sitting (Live at Pitchfork)