Drinking From Cups

Today, my friend JJ introduced me to an awesome trio of musicians, Takénobu. Takénobu is headed by Nick Ogawa, an excellent cellist. Ogawa also does the vocals for the band, which also consists of a drummer, John Craig, and Brian Harper, who plays the violin. The trio have four albums, 2007's Introduction, 2011's Exposition, 2011's Momotaro (which was written, performed, and mastered by Ogawa on his own, though it was still released under the name Takénobu), and last year's Climactica. The band is mostly modern classical music, but gets a bit bluegrassy at times, and alternative-sounding at others. They perform well live, as evident by watching youtube videos of them, as the only videos of them are live, no actual music videos yet. They also have some fun covers out there, including MGMT's 'Electric Feel', and Cee Lo Green's 'Fuck You'. All four of their albums are free to stream from their bandcamp website (here), and purchasable from there as well. This track, 'Cups' is off their newest album. Hope you enjoy it!

Yonkers

The OFWGKTA pack is back! Tyler, The Creator's new album is streaming now from the Odd Future Soundcloud page. Wolf is out April 2nd, features 18 tracks, and some excellent collaborations with other artists. Frank Ocean is found singing on two tracks, Pharrell on another, Erykah Badu is also found lending help with vocals on a track. Even Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab can be found on the album as well as a few other artists, including some other members of the Odd Future collective. The albums lyrics range from Tyler's struggles dealing with fame to some straight up brutal shit from time to time. Unfortunately, there is no widget for me to embed the album from Soundcloud, so I'll just have to give you the link: Tyler, The Creator's Wolf. (Edit: Looks like they've removed the album, so I added another video from the album below!) Check out the video for the track 'IFHY' below, and the video for 'Domo 23' below that!

 The album has 3 different album covers. The top one being the regular version, this second one, with artwork from Mark Ryden will be for the deluxe edition of the album, and the bottom cover is for some other alternate version of the album.

The Dude Abides.

King Dude is playing at the Casbah, here in San Diego on Monday night. Unfortunately I already have plans and am unable to attend. Really wish I could though. King Dude has 3 LPs under his belt, one each year starting in 2010. I am unsure if he will be releasing another album this year, but the video you are about to see for the track 'Holy Land' was released at the end of last year on the album Burning Daylight, and with his touring now, it's possible he will be too busy. But it doesn't look like his touring is that extensive, so, who knows, maybe The King can pull enough time together to put another album together for us. Now, The Dude is some kind of music. I don't really know what kind. Which is fine with me, because, hey, "Fuck Genres," but really, I have no idea what to label this as, and I laugh at a lot of the things I've seen it labeled as. "Blues, Country, Folk, Neofolk, Americana, Psych, Lo-Fi, Luciferian, Pagan, Gothic-Country" I mean, really? I mean, some of those aren't even genres. Can't we just call it "good?" Cuz I think it damn well is. What about you?

Strength To Carry On

Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra is one of many projects Shawn Lee has taken part in. Shawn Lee has numerous albums under his belt as a solo artist, a few collaborative albums, a few soundtracks, and his newest project, AM & Shawn Lee already has one album out, 2012's Celestial Electric and they are due to release La Musique Numerique May 7th. But enough about AM and Shawn Lee, back to Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra. They have a cover of Gorillaz' track, 'Clint Eastwood' which made it's way onto the Ministry of Sound's Uncovered album. This track which is pretty widespread, and much more commercially successful, 'Kiss the Sky' featuring Nino Moschella off of the album Voices and Choices, you may recognize from the shows Eastbound and Down, Life, or Nip/Tuck. 

Blog Fi Dis

I'm not really sure why so many people are releasing "official lyric videos" these days, but I guess it's cool. At any rate, check out the new Major Lazer track 'Watch out for This' which will be on the album Free The Universe, set to be released on April 16th, or 19th, I'm not sure, I've seen both dates listed on a few places. Keep your eye out for it!

Album Trailers and a Video!

Guess I missed these album trailers for Yeah Yeah Yeahs Mosquito. Check em out for a glimpse of what's to come on the album, set to be released April 16th. Also, after the new trailers, check out the video for Sacrilege!

Chip Off The Block

Time for some chiptunes! Philip Cunningham aka Firebrand Boy from Scotland is quite the force to be reckoned with. He has some excellent tracks, including this awesome cover of the Postal Service's Such Great Heights. Unfortunately, there aren't any videos, but he does have plenty of songs to check out on youtube. This track, 'Famous' is from his 2008 EP Songs for Cake. If you dig Firebrand Boy's chiptunes, there's plenty more to check out in the recommended videos for this track. Happy hunting! 

Watery Wave Graves

!!! aka ChkChkChk have a new album dropping at the end of April and there is a trailer for the album, and one track has been released to youtube. There's not a video for it, but oh wells. Below, check out the trailer for the album, THR!!!ER, and check out the track 'Slyd' on youtube by clicking (here). The album is due April 29th or 30th.

Not My Fault

Now, I'm not much for ska, but this band is pretty rockin'. It's that nice blend of punk that makes me like it. My friend Joe showed me them the other night... introducing them to me with this song which was pretty excellent too, but I like showing you guys videos, and this one is excellent (and hilariously dark), so I couldn't pass it up. Check out 'Would You Be Impressed,' from the album Somewhere in the Between by these boys from New Jersey, Streetlight Manifesto.

Fact or Fiction?

A year since I've seen this article has nearly come and gone, and I still haven't decided if I feel like it's true or not. I think knowing what I knew at the time, and during the time that this would have been the most significant, what is stated in this article is highly possible. However, I also know that what is going on now, is taking back what hip hop and the whole scene that surrounds that genre stood for is taking back it's roots. At any rate, what do you think? Here's the article I originally saw about it: 

"The Secret Meeting that Changed Rap Music and Destroyed a Generation"

Tomorrvolution

Tomorrowland has added a second festival (in addtion to Tomorrowland 2013) to it's lineup: Tomorrowworld! The Tomorrowland website has been updated and there is now also a new Tommorowworld website! Tomorrowland was a huge success last year; if you didn't hear about it, check out this epic recap video they made after the festival was over.

Tomorrowworld will be located in Chattahootchee Hills, Georgia, in the USA and take place in September, from the 27th to the 29th. Registration for ticket sales has already started (yesterday) and tickets go on sale in April. As many festivals are doing these days, a trailer has been made for Tomorrowworld, check it out now:

Stop Snitching

I can't really dig up any info on these guys. They just joined facebook two days ago, and posted this video today. Comfort Creature seems to be a two man outfit, who, according to facebook, consists of "a Phil, and a Devon." Philip Deniz Kumsar & Devon Ferrucci both work with looping tools, creating layers upon layers of vocals, drums, bass, keys, and guitar. The video was shot at The Bat Cave, in Arcata, CA. I looked but I couldn't find a facebook page for it, but I assume it's a venue. I found listings for it on last.fm, 4square, and a few other websites. Anyway, check out their first video for the track 'Process of Becoming' below, and if you dig it, be sure to like them on facebook.

Oh LA

Rilo Kiley released a video today consisting of footage spanning their career. It's a wonderful video that they asked their fans to send in photos and footage of, which they then took, cut up, and threw together. The video works great with their song, 'Let Me Back In," a nice tribute to the great city of Los Angeles.

Ultra Ultra Post!

In case you hadn't heard, Ultra Music Festival took place this weekend and oh man was it ever epic. Every year UMF boasts a lineup that has something for everyone. Every edm genre is covered, and it's one of the biggest dance music festivals around. UMF takes place in Miami, Florida, and this year it saw a number of returning acts, as well as newcomers to the UMF scene. Now, I love the internet. Many of you know this. I love the internet for many reasons. One reason is I live in San Diego, Ca, and I love that I can watch a tv show on the internet before it even airs here, because people on the East Coast rip television shows and put them on the web for people to stream! Another reason has to do with music. I can't afford to go to every festival I want to... I mean really, who can? But! Thanks to awesome people, and the power of the internet, I can hear all sorts of concerts, festivals, and music even without being there.

Which brings us to today's post. Ultra Music Festival 2013 Live Sets has tons of music listed already and more is yet to come. (All artists link to their set from weekend 1 of UMF.) I've been listening to sets all day, and have plenty more to listen to. So far sets that have really stuck out for me have been Dog Blood (Skrillex & Boys Noize), The M Machine (included below), and Cazzette. Most of these sets all have download links as well, so if you want to take them and throw em on your mp3 player of choice you can do so. Some other sets I'm looking forward to are Kaskade (of course), Dillon Francis, Birdy Nam Nam, Pretty Lights, Faithless, Madeon, Seven Lions, and ATB. I watched some live streams on the Ultra Music Festival site as well, which was another sweet reason to love the internet. I watched Fatboy Slim, Knife Party and Deadmau5, and saw a handful of other people who I didn't pay too much attention to. Be sure to check out the website Friday-Sunday at the end of this week to see live streams of the festival! 

Legos!

Awesome new video released today for Paul Oakenfold's new track 'Who Do You Love' featuring Austin Bis. The video, written and directed by 13 year old Morgan Spence hailing from Kilbarchan, Scotland, is made entirely of Legos, and shows what is presumably Paul Oakenfold waking up, getting through his morning routine, and then making it to a club full of other dancing Lego people. The detail put into the video is pretty awesome, even the Lego turn-tables spin around!

The Jerk Who Invented Work

Had the pleasure of catching a little show tonight consisting of three performers, right in our own living room here in San Diego! The night started off with my good friend Ben Laatsch playing a couple tracks on his own, including a wonderful rendition of 'Everything In It's Right Place' by Radiohead. Following Ben, our friend James Musselman played a handful of tracks, and was pushed to play even more after he thought he'd played enough. One of the tracks he played tonight included this track, which he had recorded earlier for Couch By Couch West, a funny little spoof of the popular music festival South By South West "Where the beer is cheaper and the only hipster is you." Check out James' track 'Untitled.'

James wrapped up with a track he and Ben Laatsch played together. After that, Chris Darby, who was in town from Chicago played some songs for us. Check out his track 'Don't Look Back' which was also recorded for Couch By.

Chris finished off with a rendition of 'The Big Rock Candy Mountain' originally by Harry 'Haywire' McClintock which was featured on the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? Check out the track, along with a fun video for it as well!

3 Tracks, 1 Video.

James Blake has released quite a few tracks off his upcoming album Overgrown which is due out next month on the 8th. Today we're going to cover all 4 of the releases we've seen so far from the album. The newest track, 'And Holy Ghost' was released via Radio 1 and can be found on Soundcloud via Aliasizm. It's a super down-tempo/ambient track, and quite the flip side of the rest of the tracks we've heard so far. It's an instrumental track, though there is some sampling that has words on it, they aren't considered vocals, and don't carry any melody. Unfortunately, like everything released on BBC/Radio 1, it has watermarks over the track at random points.

The track released previously to 'And Holy Ghost,' was 'Voyeur (Dub).' The track features vocals, unlike the newer track.'Voyeur' is a bit different from tracks that we've heard from Blake. It even features some cowbells. Really? Cowbells? Yes. Cowbells.

'Digital Lion' features the well known ambient producer Brian Eno. Blake and Eno work very well together, Blakes vocals and Eno's production both feed off of each other leaving behind a fantastic track, and definitely the best of the album so far.

'Retrograde,' the only track from the album with a video as of yet, is a far from the post-dubstep/ambient tracks from James Blake, which was his first album. From this track we can see that his sophomore album could quite possibly be exploring other facets of genres even delving a bit into a house sound.

Before we put satin in coffins.

Pitchfork releases a 45 minute documentary on Modest Mouse's breakthrough album, The Lonesome Crowded West. The album was Modest Mouse's second album, and came out in 1997. Pitchfork ranked the album at #29 in their list of the 100 best albums of the 1990's. Admittedly I didn't get into Modest Mouse until 2002, when I first heard their year 2000 release The Moon & Antarctica. I still found the documentary very interesting, and learned a lot about the band I'd more than likely never have known. This documentary was originally released in June of last year, but was recently uploaded (on May 5th) to the pitchforktv channel on youtube. At 45 minutes in length, you might have to set this aside, or come back later if you're interested in checking it out.

The Odd Couple

Deadmau5 and Imogen Heap have teamed up to bring us a fantastic track. Even better than the track itself, is the video. This video mixes so many different animation style's and they all blend together nicely, and flow well with the track. Admittedly when I heard Deadmau5 and Imogen Heap were collaborating on a track, I was skeptical. I felt like there were a number of directions the two could take. I'm definitely happy with the song, and again, even more pleased with the video. Check it out below!

Do You Hear My Fear?

*This video is NSFW*

Foals has come a long way from their Battles-esque dance-indie-math-rock freshman album Antidotes from 2008. Holy Fire, released February 11th, hits much harder then Foals' previous 2 albums as seen in their first video from the album, for "Inhaler," but the album has a soulful side too. The video "Late Night," which was released this morning, features the band playing in a hotel called the "Hotel of Life" where each scene in the video depicts an aspect of life. There is a couple having intercourse, depicting conception, a female giving birth, and a final man, ending his own life. It's a strong video, with some very graphic scenes involving sex, birth, and suicide, just letting you know it's not for everyone. 

So Excite!

'Once, the world was pure. It was the Emperor and the Prophet who kept it thus. Each day, they charted the sun’s course across the sky, guided rivers down from mountain peaks, brought rains to quench raging fires.

With the aid of their four priests, who possessed spirits of wild animals, they travelled the world tirelessly, maintaining nature’s delicate balance, allowing all things to grow and flourish -- always with the aid of the sacred jewel held atop the Emperor’s crown...

But one night, as the Emperor slumbered, recovering from his labours, true darkness appeared. The King of Shadows, ever the bitter foe of the Empire, and all it had achieved, crept into their temple. Craving the Emperor’s power, he stole the jewel from his crown-- and in an instant the world was changed.

Robbed of the bulk of his power, the Emperor and the Prophet watched helplessly as their temple was torn asunder, and their priests cast far out into the world.

But even in that moment, when all appeared lost, there was one thing that the King of Shadows black heart simply could not have imagined... The Emperor and the Prophet have never abandoned hope.' 

I seriously don't know what to say about this, except I've never been so excited for an album after reading something. Seriously. Empire of the Sun.

That's a High Horse!

Leave it to Bam Margera to use his fame to throw fuel behind a music career. Really, Bam? This is horrible. I  honestly don't know if Bam is going for comedy here, or if he's just using absurd lyrics, which, to be honest, are used quite often in dubstep. Evidently there are two "official" versions of this video. I'm not really sure how that works, but hey, when you've got a fuck ton of money, why not? So apparently Yelawolf is behind the beats on this track, I don't know if he's done more or not. Definitely thinking less of him at this point, but hey, making money is making money, right? I wonder if Yelawolf hangs his head in shame at the realization of what he's done. And yes, there is more. Evidently It's not just a I'm going to make a funny song, Bam is on tour with this project, has a whole slew of songs, and even seems like he's more successful than Joaquin Phoenix was at his own attempt at a rap career. At any rate. Here is is, both of them, in all their glory. Fuckface Unstoppable's "Bend My Dick to My Ass."

This is Fred

Lemâitre just released Relativity 3 on March 4th, and had just released their second video for the album. The video is for the track 'Fiction' and is much more entertaining than their first video for the album which was pretty dull. This video features "Fred" (yes, that's a big part of why I'm posting this, also, the song is great!) who is a Foley Artist. Now, a lot of people might not know what that is, the only reason I know is because of an old Amon Tobin album titled Foley Room, but the video does a good job explaining it for you. Lemâitre, two Norwegians hailing from Oslo, have a sound somewhere between Röyksopp, Cut Copy, and Holy Ghost! with maybe a dash of Digitalism thrown in for good measure. Hope you dig it! If you do, be sure to check out their EP Relativity 3, and maybe some older EPs as well. They have yet to release an LP.

I apologize in advance.

A few days ago pomDeteriffic posted a mashup of "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepson and Nine Inch Nail's 'Head Like a Hole" called "Call Me a Hole" to his soundcloud and it spread rampant across facebook and other social media/news sharing websites. I saw it on reddit, dig, twitter, and I saw it posted a number of times by my friends on my own facebook newsfeed. Then someone decided to make a video mashup for it as well, and well, this is the result:

Zizzix?

Heard this band sometime last year, but for some reason didn't really catch onto them till sometime in January of this year. XXYYXX, aka Marcel Everett, a 17 year old from Orlando, Florida, is blowing up and just played San Fransisco's Noise Pop Festival last month. The last time I heard about someone this young dominating the music scene was Madeon. XXYYXX and Madeon have different styles, but XXYYXX is really all over the place. His music has elements of all sides of the electronic dance music scene including dubstep, trap, chillwave, drone, shoegaze, and many more genres all wrapped into one. Most of it however is rather downtempo. XXYYXX has 3 albums so far, this track, "About You" is from his self titled album which came out last year. Check out "About You" and look for XXYYXX playing festivals near you this festival season! (And click here for a version of "About You" with 2 Chainz!)

I still have cassettes.

A friend of mine posted this video on his facebook the other day and I'd never heard the band. I really liked the track and thought the video has a fun story line. Cazzette, a duo of DJ's from Sweden have three videos so far, "Beam Me Up" is the first one, and the one my friend had posted. In it, alien aircraft appear and cause quite the commotion when people begin dancing in the streets, at work, and wherever they may be.

Their second video is for the track "Weapon" in which a girl kicks a lot of ass for a briefcase. The contents of said briefcase? Watch the video and find out!

I can't tell for sure, but it seems like "I Surrender might be a prequel to "Weapon." The same man from the end of "Weapon" is in this video, and the girl he was with at the end of "Weapon" is leaving him at the beginning of "I Surrender." I don't know. Either way, it's still all about the briefcase, and people stealing hearts. Sad stuff. Love people, love!

See You in a Little Bit

Warp Records released this new track from Bibio to youtube today. The track will be featured on the album Silver Wilkinson (a play on the artist's name, Stephen Wilkinson) which will be available on May 14th. Silver Wilkinson will be Bibio's 7th LP, his last was 2011's Mind Bokeh. In 2009 he released 3 full albums, before that he had one in '05 and one in '06.  2009's Ambivalence Avenue being my personal favorite, especially the track 'The Palm of Your Wave." Stephen had this to say about 'À tout à l'heure,'

"The recording of 'À tout à l'heure' started out in my garden on a gorgeous sunny day when it felt morally wrong to be hidden away indoors. I still had the urge to make music so I limited myself to a few bits of gear and set up in my garden: a 12 string guitar, an MPC sampler, a microphone and a cassette recorder. I drummed on objects in the garden, like a plastic watering can and 'snipped' garden shears for percussion parts. The guitar part was something I had been developing over some time in my head but it was this change of environment that led to recording the backbone of this song, which I then continued to build upon in my studio later. When I listen to the intro of that track now, I still hear the sunshine and the garden in it because for me it's like a photograph of that moment. No doubt the sunny outdoors inspired the lyrics too."

Sound City

Edit 3/7/13: A live version of the track has been released with a video. I've replaced the video I had on here originally with the live one because the first one wasn't even a video, just a youtube video with a picture on it.
After hearing about Sound City for a while (check out the trailer here, it looks amazing), I finally caught wind of the soundtrack which is absolutely astounding. Tons of great musicians coming together to record some great tracks. "Mantra" is the first one that I heard, and the one I'm sharing with you here. Sound City is a documentary about the recording studio of the same name. David Grohl, who had recorded there back when he was in Nirvana created the documentary. A number of great musicians, some of whom are featured on the soundtrack, recorded work at the small recording studio which was located in the San Fernando Valley and closed down in 2011. The soundtrack for Sound City is slated for release on March 12th, but a few tracks were already released officially on the Sound City official Youtube page, as well as a few that have leaked such as "Mantra." Other musicians on the soundtrack include Corey Tayler (Slipknot), Paul McCartney, Robert Levon Been (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), Stevie Nicks, and Rick Nielson (Cheap Trick), as well as just about everyone from Foo Fighters. The film can be streamed and is available as an HD download from the official Sound City website. It's cheap, but not free. If you don't wanna pay full price you can use the code "reddit" to get a few bucks off the total. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the track "Mantra" which features Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails, How To Destroy Angels), Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), and Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters).

And Now For Something Completely Different

Winny Puhh, an Estonian punk/metal band was recently featured on Eesti Laul participating in a competition to go to Eurovision and represent Estonia. Unfortunately the band was awarded 3rd place. The winner and second place musical acts were much more "user friendly" and considered by some a "boring and safe choice." Though they've only released two full length albums, Winny Puhh has been around since 1993. They have a number of video/songs you can check out on youtube (here) and their facebook is (here).

Could it be?

Could this be? Evidently last night, Justice dropped this track at Ed Banger's 10th Anniversary party. There's speculation as to if it may be a new Daft Punk track. It's def their style, but I'm not quite sure. There's been a lot of hype about the album, and there's confirmation of a number of great people involved with the project. Nile Rodgers, an amazing guitarist who co-founded the band Chic, back in 1976, worked with Daft Punk on the new album. You may remember Chic's hit "I Want Your Love." Paul Williams worked on the album with the duo as well. An amazing songwriter, Paul wrote "The Rainbow Connection" for The Muppet Movie, David Bowie's "Fill Your Heart" and many other great tracks. Giorgio Moroder, responsible for Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" worked on production for the new album. He's also worked with David Bowie, Bonnie Tyler, Sparks, and Blondie, just to name a few. I'm definitely excited for the new album, slated to be released in May this year from Columbia Records. Can't wait to hear it!

No One Gave Us A Mark

Kaskade has worked with a couple other artists that have brought him closer and closer to the dubstep scene. He even has a few tracks on newer albums that put him in that genre just on his own. This track however is amazing, and I'd love to see this group do a full album. Kaskade + Swanky Tunes. Vocals by Lights. Excellent stuff here. This video dropped a couple days ago, but I've had other things to post for you all. I don't know if we can expect to see more from this duo/trio, but I certainly wouldn't set it aside if there was. Kaskade has time and time again been one of my favorite live acts... really hoping I see this on a tour soon. Check out the video for "No One Knows Who We Are" below!