*MP3: Vampire Weekend - “Ruby Soho” (Rancid Cover)
Vampire Weekend leaked a cover of Rancid’s timeless “Ruby Soho” today. Vampire Weekend’s new album, Contra, is out now.
Official Site
(Ian Anderson)
Visit Spinner to stream Yeasayer’s “Odd Blood” in its entirety.
(Ian Anderson)
*MP3: Phoenix - “Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands” (Bob Dylan Cover)
Good work Phoenix, covering Bob Dylan is not easy.
Official Site
(Ian Anderson)
*MP3: Free Energy - “Hope Child”
Free Energy’s debut full length, Stuck On Nothing, will be out digitally on 3/9 via DFA/Astralwerks and it will be awesome. “Hope Child” is the latest single from Free Energy, which I think was originally a Hockey Night song. Needless to say, it’s still bad ass. I cannot wait for this one.
MySpace
(Ian Anderson)
*MP3: Caribou - “Odessa”
Caribou frontman Dan Snaith released the following statement about the forthcoming Caribou album, Swim:
“I got excited by the idea of making dance music that’s liquid in the way it flows back and forth, the sounds slosh around in pitch, timbre, pan… Dance music that sounds like it’s made out of water, rather than made out of metallic stuff like most dance music does.”
“Odessa” is a great example of what Snaith is going for as the undeniable groove will permeate even the most unmoveable of us.
Swim will be out on 4/20 via Merge.
MySpace
(Ian Anderson)
Yes! Finally, Daria will be released on DVD this Spring. More to come as details are released. For now, check out MTV’s teaser-trailer above.
(Ian Anderson)
*MP3: Animal Collective - “My Girls”
The art forms of each age are informed by the cultures which they inhabit. Artists may think and work independently, but their work will likely follow contemporary streams of public consciousness. If we live as a collective, we think and move as a collective, for our collective advancement and preservation. The movement may be unspoken, and it may be be pushed and pulled in many directions, but it is there, and everyone, sooner or later, shifts with it. It’s interesting, then, to observe cases of artistic parallelism, when like-minded artists unveil like-minded works at the same time, revealing a bit of the invisible conversation of collective idealism while helping to shape and change the public consciousness.
Consider 2009. It fascinates me that Animal Collective’s album Merriweather Post Pavilion and James Cameron’s film Avatar would appear in the same year. If there was any age that could defeat the idea of parallelism in art and culture, it would be our information age, with its insistence on expanding and diversifying the terrain of ideas. Yet here they are: a revolutionary film that celebrates the lushness and expansiveness of life, and a forward-thinking album that could easily soundtrack the film. Both were likely intense labors for their creators, requiring years of experience in separate modes of thought and design. And yet they appear at the same moment in history, precisely when it matters most that they exist, and they come to this point without prior knowledge of each other and only the intuitive sense that it was time for such creations to be brought upon the world.
[Click here to watch a clip of Avatar]
When you examine the two side by side, the relationship is starkly apparent—Merriweather expresses aurally what Avatar demonstrates visually. If you have seen the film, go back and listen to “In the Flowers” or “My Girls” and try not to conjure imagery from the film. The strange electronically manipulated jungle sounds that seep from the crevices of the album seem as if they must be taken directly from the film. More than anything, though, it’s the feeling of these two things that seem more analogous and advanced than anything around them. They seem culled from the same future pressure point, simultaneously dire and hopeful in its prediction of what could await us and the choices we can make for getting there.
There is also a willful naivete that exists under the technical mastery of each work. “There isn’t much that I feel I need,” sings Panda Bear on “My Girls”, “a solid soul, and the blood I bleed.” The lyrics are primal. He only wants a proper dwelling place for his family. “Summertime Clothes” and “Brothersport” dance and play wide-eyed around the innocent worlds they encapsulate. In Avatar, the Na’vi swear fealty to the world around them and live by its movements. They only want what is apportioned to them, not what is theirs to take. Their symbiosis with nature is as ancient and primal as music’s ability to describe such things, which means it goes back at least to when human beings first learned to open up their throats and sing.
Such statements have, of course, been made before. Avatar isn’t really that original of a film underneath the visuals, and plenty of other musicians are doing interesting and forward-thinking things that Animal Collective is not. We have learned by now that full-on hippie-dippiness probably won’t bear out anything, that human relations are a more complex animal. The interest of these works, then, remains more aesthetic than existential. But their appearance and relative success at the same time (Avatar has had much more exposure than Merriweather) suggests that what may have once been fringe ideas have gained intelligence and maturity enough to take hold of the public discourse. And that is the beginning of change.
- The Golden Age is a weekly column written by Erik Martz.
*MP3: Yeasayer - “O.N.E.”
When you’ve got it, you’ve got it. Yeasayer is on fire and with “Ambling Alp” and their new single “O.N.E.” So far, with Odd Blood, they’re two-for-two.
Odd Blood will be out next Tuesday.
Official Site
(Ian Anderson)
*MP3: Aloha - “Moonless March”
“Moonless March” from Aloha’s forthcoming album, Home Acres, is immediately engaging and far more aggressive than their previous efforts, let’s hope the rest of the record follows suit. Home Acres will be on 3/9 via Polyvinyl.
They will also be hitting the road in April with Pomegranates:
April 09 - Princeton, NJ @ Terrace Club
April 10 - Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fung Necktie
April 12 - Orlando, FL @ Will’s Pub *
April 13 - Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn +
April 14 - Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506 +
April 15 - Washington, DC @ DC9 +
April 17 - Brooklyn, NY @ Knitting Factory +
April 18 - Cambridge, MA @ The Middle East +
April 21 - Pontiac, MI @ The Pike Room +
April 22 - Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle +
April 24 - Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop +
April 25 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Brillobox +
* with Holiday Shores
+ with Pomegranates
MySpace
(Ian Anderson)
We’ve all waited five years for a new Broken Social Scene and on May 4 our patience will be rewarded. The still untitled album will out on Arts & Crafts and features Feist, Emily Haines, Amy Millan, Lisa Lobsinger and many others from the original BSS crew.
More word on this as information is released.
(Ian Anderson)
*MP3: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - “Glue Girls”
*MP3: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - “Oregon Girl”
I had the good fortune of spending this last weekend on the road with Springfield, Missouri’s Someone Still Loves You Boris Yelstin. On our last night together, the kind dudes let me listen to the rough mix of their new album from start-to-finish: I was completely blown away. This new Chris Walla-produced record embodies the fun nature of the guys as people, as well as embraces their garage-rock roots that they seemed to drift away from on Pershing. Big drums, big guitars, bigger hooks; of course I love it.
The album has yet to be titled, but it will be coming out on Polyvinyl in the Summer.
For now, please visit iTunes and shop around for SSLYBY’s first two albums.
MySpace
(Ian Anderson)
The Album Leaf - A Chorus Of Storytellers (Sub Pop)
*MP3: The Album Leaf - “Falling From The Sun”
Buy it on iTunes.
Midlake - The Courage Of Others (Bella Union)
*MP3: Midlake - Acts Of Man
Stream on Spinner.
Buy it on iTunes.
Mount Eerie - Black Wooden (Southern)
*MP3: Mount Eerie - “Black Wooden”
Buy it on iTunes.
(Ian Anderson)
*MP3: Taken By Trees - “Anna”
Taken By Trees have released a great new single in “Anna” and are hitting the road next week on a bi-coastal tour, which includes a stop at the Cedar Cultural Center on 2/23.
Feb. 13: Brooklyn, NY @ Union Hall
Feb. 14: Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe#
Feb. 16: New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge*
Feb. 17: Brooklyn, NY @ Knitting Factory#
Feb. 19: Cambridge, MA @ Cambridge Family YMCA*
Feb. 20: Montreal, QC @ Il Motore#
Feb. 21: Toronto, ON @ Mod Club*
Feb. 22: Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall#
Feb. 23: Minneapolis, MN @ Cedar Cultural Center*
Feb. 26: Seattle, WA @ Triple Door#
Feb. 27: Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret*
Feb. 28: Portland, OR @ Doug Fir#
Mar 2: San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord*
Mar 3: Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour#
Official Site
(Ian Anderson)
