Already anticipating the next album from Stars of the Lid? Perhaps It All Falls Apart, the upcoming album from which “Fervent” is taken, will whet your appetite for a while. With its light, glassy synth drones moving glacially behind a high-frequency melodic loop and dusty scratches here and there, The Sight Below crafts perfect ambient squalls to soothe the ears and mind.
Radian are no strangers to deconstruction. Through past albums like 2002’s rec.extern and 2004’s Juxtaposition, the Austrian trio has taken apart every aspect of their band—rhythm, melody, and songwriting—and rebuilt themselves into a glitchy, experimental post-rock outfit that defies categorization. Five years later, Radian has set out to dismantle the rock band on their latest release, Chimeric, an album built on the foundation of distorted textures, piercing feedback, and cut-and-pasted drum patterns made from recordings rearranged and reimagined to fit their syncopated rhythms. Ten-minute epic “Feedbackmikro/City Lights” is a standout journey through pattering percussive noises, inverted guitar textures, and atmospheric elements that eventually coalesce into a fully realized composition. Simply put, Chimeric ups the ante for inventive instrumental music.
LA-based tech-house label Culprit has announced the 2010 line-up of its famed summer rooftop parties, and this season looks to be as slamming as those of the past. Kicking off on April 11 with Konrad Black and Martin Buttrich, the label will also host the inimitable Henrik Schwarz, Dyed Soundorom, Matt Tolfrey, Heidi, Hot Natured, and many more. Check the label site for more information!
Pictured above: Martin Buttrich
The French mega-producers in Air are joining forces with London music technology company RjDj to make a nifty little app for your iPhone, and hopefully promote their latest album, Love 2, in the process. The music-making program, called “Love by AIR,” gives fans (who are also AT&T customers) the experience of mixing ambient soundscapes and their own voice into Air’s music all in real-time. In launching the iPhone app, RjDj and Air are holding a contest, which takes the age-old idea of making a mixtape for someone you love and joins it with the ease and customizing abilities of their new technology. Check out more details on “Love by AIR” and the contest here.
New York’s familial tech-house duo The Martinez Brothers are set to release the follow up to their last single, “Debbie Downer.” TMB’s new EP, entitled Don’t No Yet, comes to us March 16 from Objektivity after nearly a year-long hiatus, and just in time for their performance at WMC. The three songs featured, “Broke in the BX,” “Won’t Somebody,” and the title-track, all come complete with the Brothers’ trademarks—classic drum sounds, slow-burning intensity, and soulful melodies in their synth work. Check out the artwork and tracklist below.
A1. Won’t Somebody
B1. Don’t No Yet
B2. Broke in the BX
The grimey garage of London’s Jammer gets seriously pumped up in this remix from Milwaukee’s Lorn, whose reputation as a member of FlyLo’s Brainfeeder crew precedes him. The crunchy bass stems of the original are brought way up in the mix, frenetic secondary percussion is added, and the backing beat is more in line with contemporary bass than the danceable grime of the original. With its truly sick breakdown that artfully incorporates the epic strings of Jammer’s track, Lorn’s remix is bound to get clubs burning this spring.
It’s not just the name of the track that makes “Curtain Call” sound like the last salvo from Little Brother‘s final album, LeftBack. Amidst shimmering synth flourishes, a boogie-indebted bassline, and a shuffling drum-machine beat, Phonte and Rapper Big Pooh declare, “this is it, the last monologue/last act in the play, you could say the epilogue,” and then list off their thank-yous as the track fades out—sounding less like an acceptance speech than the end of a memoir.
LeftBack is out April 20 on Hall of Justus.
Somewhat confusingly described in their press materials as a “jazz trio,” Zelienople may share Bohren & der Club of Gore’s fixation on Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks music, but they cut that dreaminess with wandering clouds of guitar-nourished despair. It gives the proceedings a smudged and inconsolable soiled-American vibe similar to Steven R. Smith’s music, with a few formal nods to ambient electronic. Give It Up‘s drift is fuzzy without being particularly warm; while Bohren could pass as perverse dinner-party music, Zelienople has created something much more solitary. The album’s slight menace challenges the equivalence between ambient music and thoughtful domestic life; this seems to have less to do with tea than extinction.
We’re not sure exactly who else could get away with announcing an album with no title, no artwork, and no single to be heard, but we’ll certainly let it slide for James Murphy and his LCD Soundsystem. Today, the DFA label head told the world that he is indeed releasing a follow-up to his sophomore effort, Sound of Silver, and that it’ll be released May 18 on DFA/Virgin. There isn’t much else to share other than the album was recorded at The Manshun in Los Angeles (peep videos on all that here), and written and produced by Mr. Murphy himself. Check out the album tracklist below.
Dance Yrself Clean
Drunk Girls
One Touch
All I Want
Change
Hit
Pow Pow
Somebody’s Calling Me
What You Need
The sweet soul sound of The Phenomenal Handclap Band‘s “Baby” is definitely contrasted by the track’s dark video, but London’s Clock Opera artfully combine both the video’s menace and the track’s throwback sunniness in this remix. Beginning with pulsing kicks, deep bass, and jagged guitar riffs, the song builds to a shadowy apex, then suddenly becomes a dreamy near-disco track replete with lush synths, softer guitars, and flute flourishes. Taken from the upcoming Gomma release, which also features remixes from Black Strobe and Daniel Haaksman.
