Restiform Bodies Hold Remix Contest

On September 30 of this year, freak-hop super-group Restiform Bodies released its album, TV Loves You Back. There are, apparently, severalnoteworthyremixesfloatingaround, but many more that have caught the band’s attention.

Thus, Restiform Bodies are hosting a remix contest to complete a collection of limited-edition vinyl releases. The deal: RBs have provided acapellas and bpms for each song off TV Loves You Back (grab ’em here). Do what you will with these parts, then submit your entry by January 1, 2009. Two entires will be chosen and included on a new Restiform Bodies 12″. Winners will also receive 10 releases of their choice, CD or vinyl, from the anticon. catalog.

No Age, Pinback Play Noise Pop 2009

San Francisco will once again welcome the end of winter with its annual Noise Pop festival, now in its 17th year. The multi-day music and film event is set to take place February 24 – March 1, 2009, in various locations around the city.

Early lineup confirmations include No Age, Pinback side-project Goblin Cock, Dear and the Headlights, Bay Area-based band Clues, New Pornographers frontman A.C. Newman, and a special performance by Antony and the Johnsons. Oh, and the screening of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, which is part of the festival’s film aspect.

Previous characters to grace the Noise Pop stages have been Blitzen Trapper, Holy Fuck, the Magnetic Fields, MSTRKRFT, Panther, Tilly and the Wall, and many, many others. Stay tuned for updates to the lineup as we move closer into the new year.

Pictured: No Age.

Cash in My Pocket

Since money’s tight for everyone these days and restaurants are featuring specials like “Credit Crunch Lunch,” Wiley decided to throw a little humor into these grim times with this video. Whether he hired actors or just bumrushed a nearby office building and directed actual employees in unclear, but it’s a pretty hilarious video that features the suit-clad workforce lip-synching to Wiley’s rhymes and R&B singer Daniel Merriweather’s vocals and dancing around merrily–despite the times.

Vivian Girls Cover Beach Boys on New 7″

With a lengthy tour winding down, Vivian Girls are rewarding all their hard work with a little fun for the end of the year. As in, the Surf’s Up Fun Pack, which the trio is releasing via its site as we speak. Vivian Girls fans can currently score a new 7″, the ocean-themed “Surf’s Up,” a t-shirt, two postcards, and a button, for $20.

“Surf’s Up” is the first release off the band’s own Wild World label, and includes two new cuts, “Surfin Away” and “Second Date,” as well as a cover of the Beach Boys’ “Girl Don’t Tell Me.” The new tunes are only available as part of the entire limited-edition package.

Meanwhile, the fun on the road is coming to an end, as Vivian Girls have just two dates left of their current tour, with King Khan, and what looks to be an NYE bash in Jersey.

“Surf’s Up”
A1 “Surfin Away”
A2 “Second Date”
B1 “Girls Don’t Tell Me (Beach Boys Cover)”

Dates
11/28 Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s+
11/30 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom+
12/31 Montclair, NJ – Wellmont Theatre*

+ = w/ King Khan
* = w/ Yo La Tengo, The Feelies

Video: “Tell the World”
MP3: “Blind Spot (Daisy Chain Cover)”

Photo by Austin Warnock.

Atmosphere’s God Loves Ugly Reissued

Rhymesayers has announced the re-release of Atmosphere‘s 2002 album, God Loves Ugly, which has been out-of-print for over a year now.

According to a post by the Minneapolis-based duo, the re-issue will be “uglier than ever,” and will feature a bonus DVD that was originally the limited-edition Sad Clown Bad Dub 4 DVD.

Besides remastered versions of the original Ugly tracks, the new version comes with two hours of live performance footage, glimpses backstage (which are doubtless entertaining), and music videos for “Godlovesugly,” “Summersong,” and “Say Shh.” A custom sleeve finishes the package off, and you pick it all up on January 20.

God Loves Ugly
01 Onemosphere
02 The Bass and the Movement
03 Give Me
04 F*@ck You Lucy
05 Hair
06 GodLovesUgly
07 A Song About a Friend
08 Flesh
09 Saves the Day
10 Lovelife
11 Breathing
12 Vampires
13 A Girl Named Hope
14 GodLovesUgly Reprise
15 Modern Man’s Hustle
16 One of a King
17 Blamegame
18 Shrapnel

Dates
11/22 Honolulu, HI – Pipeline Café
12/30 Lorne, Australia – Falls Festival
12/31 Marion Bay, Australia – Falls Festival
01/01 Adelaide, Australia – Rymill Park
01/03 Busselton, Australia – Southbound Festival
01/04 Sydney, Australia – Moore Park
01/08 Richmond, Australia – Corner Hotel
01/09 Auckland, New Zealand – Zen

MP3: “Shoulda Known”

Image by Mike Davis.

Kraftwerk’s Hilpert Suffers Heart Attack

Kraftwerk was forced to cancel its November 22 show at Melbourne’s Global Gathering Festival when member Fritz Hilpert suffering a heart attack. Hilpert was taken to a hospital, though reports are that the attack was minor and that the band performed the next day.

Hear the crowd’s aghast cries at the news when Global Gathering’s MC stepped onstage to announce that the band would not be performing:

In other Kraftwerk news, the band has lost a German copyright court case to rap producer Moses Pelham, who had used two seconds of a sample from the band’s track “Metal on Metal.” A new ruling states that the sample may be used, so long as it bears no resemblance to the original.

Dates
11/26 Auckland, New Zealand – Great Hall
11/29 Brisbane, Australia – Turf Club @ Global Gathering Festival
11/20 Sydney, Australia – Hordern Pavillion @ Global Gathering Festival
12/03 Singapore, Singapore – The Esplande Theatre
12/05 Hong Kong, Hong Kong – AsiaWorld-Expo

Antoni Maiovvi “Tokyo Ultra Funk”

Seed Records member and famed Italo producer Antoni Maiovvi was on to something when he named his forthcoming debut album Electro Muscle Cult. Set for a December 1 release, Maiovvi, along with producer Fortuna, has crafted an album that, if this track is anything to go by, is an energy-filled trip through robust rhythms and enough noise to make us wonder at the state of these guys’ equipment once they finished the album. Muscle Cult is currently available for pre-ordering, and we’ve been advised to “catch them now before they move on to a more noise-based project that ain’t half as fun or sexy.” So, all who enjoy a hearty synth line, please hit download now.

Antoni Maiovvi – Tokyo Ultra Funk

Heartbeat

On their tracks or onstage, Late of the Pier have a reputation for evoking the spastic kind of energy that causes one to do things like start a mosh pit and rip one’s t-shirt off. In the Megaforce-directed video for “Heartbeat,” similar tactics are applied. You’ll find band members shoving one another around, dragging lead singer Sam Dust along by his arms, jumping frantically through trippy, optical illusion-type rooms, and occasionally appearing in various states of undress.

Inbox: Land of Talk

Sure, we’re always curious to know about an artist’s upcoming release, most recent tour, or arsenal of analog gear, but XLR8R‘s also got a curiosity for quirk. Thus, each week, we email a different artist and find out what makes them tick, in the studio and in life. This week, Liz Powell, Land of Talk‘s lady-in-chief, chats books, Fugazi, and pinball machines.

What are you listening to right now?

Wang Chung’s greatest hits.

What’s the weirdest story you ever heard about yourself?

That I am Irish and that I am a man.

What band did you want to be in when you were 15?

Fugazi.

Worst live show experience?

Being sick on stage.

Favorite city to play in?
No favorites.

What’s the meaning behind the title Some are Lakes?

It’s a secret

What is your favorite thing you own?

My books.

What did you always get in trouble for when you were little?

Scowling, messiness, obnoxiousness, laziness.

What other artist would you most like to work with?

Spoon.

What’s the last thing you read?

David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.

Complete this sentence: In the future…

I will have a pinball machine.

Stupidest thing you’ve done in the last 12 months?

Slammed the tour van into reverse on the highway.

What’s next?

Spending Christmas break in Montreal. Sledding on the mountain and hanging with friends.

MP3: “Corner Phone”

Last Week: Rainbow Arabia

Carl Craig and Moritz von Oswald Maurice Ravel & Modest Mussorgsky Recomposed Vol. 3

A word to the unwise: a collaborative effort of this magnitude by two of techno’s most enterprising artists is a major cause célèbre, a true milestone event. Few have reached as far and achieved as much as have Carl Craig and Moritz von Oswald, each one a cornerstone of electronic-music innovation over the last two decades. Longevity is a premium not often associated with club culture, where unforgiving (and often stupid) cyclical trends and dangerous trap doors of a more personal nature are the standard. But Detroit-based Craig and Berlin-based von Oswald have kept the techno torch burning by alternately expanding and reducing the basic template, broadening the palate and seasoning it with new tones and textures, adding elements of dub, jazz, house, progressive rock, and classical composition to essentially build a brave new world of sound.

This ambitious, seamless, 64-minute reinterpretation of the fluid sonic impressionism of Maurice Ravel and the music of 19th-century Russian classicist Modest Mussorgsky (the most famous intersection of the talents of the two men came on Ravel’s 1922 arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition) blends complex historical works into a danceable three-act instrumental drama. “Bolero” is indeed represented here, as are Ravel’s “Rapsodie Espagnola” and Mussgorsky’s “Bilder einer Ausstellung.” (The source material for all three is a recording by the Berlin Philharmonic in 1987.)

It’s interesting to note that it was recently reported that Ravel may have been in the early stages of frontotemporal dementia when he composed the piece, which some say could account for its repetitive nature. Well, ahem, stand down Juan Atkins: We might have a new unwitting godfather of techno, a mad French genius who began creating sick, hypnotic drum patterns as early as 1928.

Craig and von Oswald’s undertaking begins like a ride on the wings of angels, with somber cathedral organs and a blending of what sounds like bassoons, clarinets, oboes, and trumpets delicately treated with electronic effects all leading the charge. Aided by the light patter of a marching drumbeat, this celestial introduction goes on for a gorgeous 20 minutes or so before the mood darkens, helped by a flutter of synthesizers, resonators, and light dub treatments. While still containing echoes of Ravel and Mussorgsky, Craig and von Oswald begin to push the content until it starts to sound a lot like Chicago acid, an early inspiration for both artists. It’s a pivotal moment in the piece. Either you take the leap and go along for the ride or you get off here. More pleasures await if you stick it out.

About halfway through, an ambient wobble works its way down into the mix, hovers over the klang for a few moments, then takes center stage as the beats recede. It’s the loveliest break of all, a 10-minute interlude that anticipates the last act. Beats roll back in, as do the horns, and strings appear and begin a final ascent. Digital effects are subtle but still apparent, never denying the presence of the recomposers. They make their mark once again with a deepening bass hum and percussive pressure that recalls von Oswald’s Rhythm & Sound project (with fellow dub traveler Mark Ernestus). This is foremost a classical project, confidently rendered by two faithful modernists, who know when to let great music convulse and pulse without unnecessary interference.

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