Growing to Tour with Hot Chip

They joined the Social Registry’s roster a little less than a year ago and have just completed a new full-length of ambient guitar compositions that’ll drop on September 9. Shortly thereafter, the boys in Brooklyn-based duo Growing will hit the road. The handful of U.S. tour dates will see them sharing a stage with Hot Chip, but before that, they’ll perform at the My Bloody Valentine curated ATP part in New York. More fall dates to follow soon.

09/20 Catskills, NY: Kutshers Country Resort
09/28 Chicago, IL: Metro
09/29 Chicago, IL: Metro
09/30 Toronto, ON: Kool Haus
10/01 Montreal, QC: Metropolis
10/03 New York, NY: Terminal 5
10/04 New York, NY: Terminal 5
10/05 Philadelphia, PA: Trocadero
10/07 Baltimore, MD: The Ramshead
10/08 Washington, DC: 9:30 Club
10/09 Atlanta, GA: Variety Playhouse

Fat Beats Turns 14

Hip-hop label and retail powerhouse Fat Beats turns 14 this year, and to celebrate, the company is holding a massive sale over the weekend.

From Saturday, July 26 through Sunday, July 27, both Fat Beats NY and Fat Beats LA will offer customers 10% off all purchases, from CDs to 12″s to DVDs and t-shirts. Check the Fat Beats catalog for an in-depth look at all the hip-hop it has to offer.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper anniversary without some parties, and a couple of in-store performances are planned for the occasion. Fat Beats NY will host Reks & Statik Selekta, Pace Won & Mr. Green, J-Live, DJ Eclipse, and others, while on the left coast, Shabba Ranks, The Alkaholiks, Shawn Jackson, Dez of Slum Village, and others will take over Fat Beats LA. Both events are set to take place on Saturday.

Mochipet “Rambunktion Remix”

Fresh of a lengthy tour of the U.S. and Europe, David Wang (a.k.a. Mochipet) will return to his home in the Bay Area just in time for a record release party in honor of his Michrophonepet album on August 9. The man who incorporates everything from dubstep to techno to hip-hop into his tracks and started his musical career playing metal guitar will wow the crowd alongside Freestyle Fellowship’s Mykah9, Alphapup member Mike Boo, Raashan of Crown City Rockers, and others. And here, to further peak your interest, is a remix of the track “Rambunktion,” off the new album, featuring the aforementioned Mike Boo, Taiwankid, and two-man rap machine 215TFK. Photo by Alexander Warnow.

Mochipet_Rambunktion

Stereolab Chemical Chords

Sticking with the accessible pop of Margerine Eclipse–which many fans, saw as a rebound from the band‘s divisive 2001 album, Sound-Dust–Stereolab offers its tenth studio album, Chemical Chords. Gone (mostly) are the Krautrock underpinnings that characterized their beloved early work–instead, horns, bells, and orchestral flourishes compliment a very upbeat set of sun-drenched lounge-pop. “Nouns Vous Demandons Pardon” and “Vortical Phonoteque” are vintage ‘Lab, but tracks like “Pop Molecule” apply a Burt Bacharach sheen to the group’s formula. Though often knocked for a long string of samey records, it’s worth noting that Stereolab has yet to release a bad album. Chemical Chords is no exception.

Lykke Li: Future Pop Purveyor

It’s one of those unbearable New York City summer afternoons. Everywhere you look, t-shirts are affixed to their owners’ backs with sweat and it feels like you might choke on the humidity. Stockholm’s Lykke Li sits at a crowded East Village café trying to refresh herself with a bowl of fruit. Perhaps it’s the weather, or maybe the strawberries and bananas just aren’t cutting it, but the Swedish singer-songwriter isn’t stoked to chat. “Journalists ask me the same things wherever I go and I’ve been doing [interviews] since May of last year,” she sighs. “But I like doing them…sometimes.”

With a restless petulance that’s as endearing as it is frustrating, she leads me on, telling me she’s starring in a film (she’s not) and refusing to talk about the tattoo she got the previous day. “It’s a secret,” she says.

Lykke Li (pronounced “Leek-yuh Lee”) has reason to be press-weary: Having already released her Little Bit EP and Youth Novels full-length in Sweden, she’s been on the road for a year gearing up for those records’ worldwide release, enduring nosy music scribes all along the way.
Of the secrets we do know: 22-year-old Lykke grew up in an artistic household–her dad is a musician, her mom is a photographer; as a youth, she avoided her homeland’s folk music in favor of the pop and hip-hop making its way across the Atlantic. At 18, Lykke Li began recording her own tracks, then shopped demos to notable Stockholm producers. “I didn’t want to produce my own album,” she says. “I always believe that working with other people gives you more. Someone suggested working with this guy, so I got his phone number and just called him.”

That guy was fellow Stockholm resident Bjorn Yttling of hit-making indie-pop trio Peter Bjorn and John. Known for his crisp production (he’s also helmed records for Robyn and Nicolai Dunger), Yttling perfectly complemented Li’s subversive brand of sprightly, sensual bubblegum pop. The album’s first single, “Little Bit,” which pairs Lykke Li’s come-hither coo with plucking guitars and a minimal beat, is an ideal example of the undeniably catchy recipe that propels this record-.

Youth Novels’ confidence and sassy stride perhaps comes from the speed with which it was recorded. “You have to have the ideas for what kind of music you want to make–that’s been a lifelong process–but the actual [recording] was really fast,” says Li. And with a gang of female artists–Santogold, Robyn, M.I.A.–currently serving up genre-smashing beats, this Swede has got a willing audience for her mix of pop, hip-hop, and modern folk. Li claims she hasn’t listened to any of those artists (though Robyn appears in a YouTube-able live clip of Li’s track “I’m Good, I’m Gone”). “We’re all female and we’re all doing something new… but that’s not my inspiration,” she says defiantly.

Bad moods aside, Lykke Li is a talented singer with a rare penchant for melody–and a plucky personality that she’s not going apologize for. “Sometimes you’re [feeling] social and sometimes you’re not,” she offers. Yeah, we noticed.

Takka Takka “Silence”

In the words of Takka Takka member Gabe Levine, the band’s new record, Migration, is about experimenting with sound and form, being in places one doesn’t belong, honesty, and his mother. What that adds up to on the track “Silence” is a lyrical landscape about loneliness layered down over catchy guitar hooks and snares. The band, who has been playing together since 2004, commissioned Sean Greenhalgh (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) to produce the album, which was recorded in Brooklyn and also features performances by The National’s Bryan Devendorf and Lee Sargent of CYHSY. It’s indie-pop at its most ambitious, and we’re loving every layer of this tune.

Takka Takka – Silence

RZA as Bobby Digital Digi Snacks

More consistent then 8 Diagrams and fresher than Ghostface’s The Big Doe Rehab, Digi Snacks is the most impressive Wu-affiliated album of the past year. And it might just be RZA’s most consistent solo effort, too. As with previous Bobby Digital affairs, it’s not always clear where the character and the real RZA begin and end (though “You Can’t Stop Me Now” is pretty much an autobiographical treatise). Musically, however, the Abbot shows that he’s still one of hip-hop’s most original producers. Striking a seamless balance between sample-based production and organic contributions from John Frusciante, Dhani Harrison, and Stone Mecca, Digi Snacks is familiar enough to please Wu loyalists and just weird enough to bug them out.

Burial Nominated for Mercury Prize

Among this year’s Mercury Prize nominees–which include Radiohead, British Sea Power, and Robert Plant–sits the ever-elusive Burial, who guards his privacy so tightly he puts Banksy to shame in terms of anonymity. The U.K.-based dubstep producer’s Untrue album has joined the ranks of In Rainbows and Do You Like Rock Music? for the annual music prize.

Though electronic music artists have been awarded before (Roni Size won in 1997, and Dizzee Rascal scooped the award in 2003 for Boy in Da Corner), this is the first year a wide number of people are betting on a dubstep producer as a solid contender. Somehow we think the Mercury Prize isn’t at the top of Burial’s radar, and as our friends over at Resident Advisor stated, “We, of course, don’t expect Burial to attend the award ceremony, but if he just so happens to win, who will pick [the award] up in his stead?”

All questions answered on September 9, when the award is handed out.

Photo by Georgina Cook.

Hot Chip, Beach House Play Pop Montreal

MUTEK has wrapped, the scowling minimal techno DJs have returned to Berlin, and it’s now time for bands to descend on Quebec for the seventh annual Pop Montreal festival.

Set to take place October 1 – 5, this year’s five-day round of festivities features another sampling of music, film, and visual arts, with Hot Chip, Beach House, Crystal castles, the Black Kids, and more confirmed for the bill. Panel discussions and hands-on music workshops are also scheduled, and this year the organizers have even extended the invitation to kids, with a selection of shows and demonstrations.

Advance passes are on sale until August 31, for $175. After that date, the price jumps to $225, and then up to $275 after September 30.

Confirmed Lineup
Burt Bacharach, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Hot Chip, The Persuasions, Dan Deacon, Cori Bishop (aka Elyse Weinberg), United Steel Workers of Montreal, The Dodos, Liam Finn, Wintersleep, Dark Meat, Headlights, Playdoe, Dabaaz, Kim, Eric Bélanger, The Veils, WIRE, Crystal Castles, Black Kids, St Catherines, Vetiver, Silver Apples, Thomas Function, Julie Doiron, Chad Van Gaalen, Dominique Grange & Jacques Tardi, Great Lake Swimmers, Katie Moore, Socalled, Woodhands, You Say Party! We Say Die!, Sam Shalabi, Gatineau, Jason Collett, Chocolat, Irma Thomas, Wedding Present, Evangelicals, Beach House, Jana Hunter, Cex, Teeth Mountain, Teki Latex, D’Urbervilles, Michie Mee

Photo by Paul O’Valle.

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