In this video, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are promoting "Garden State 2." I can't help but find everything Zooey does completely adorably. And speaking of which, I can't help but wonder who would win in a fight between her and Natalie Portman. any thoughts?
Scandinavia is Better than Your Region. My love for the Northern European region is certainly welldocumented, so when I discover some lovely new music from three different Scandinavian countries in one week, its a big deal for me.
Everyone's favorite proggy Danish band, Mew (no, not that mew), have released a couple tracks from their upcoming LP, entitled No More Stories Are Told Today I'm Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories the World Is Grey I'm Tired Let's Wash Away, out on August 25 via Columbia.
Mew - "Repeaterbeater" - No More Stories... [2009; Columbia]
Now, making the jump from mainland Western Europe, we go to Sweden for the nostalgia-pop duo, Air France (not to be confused with Air, who are a duo from France). The Swedish lads have contributed a song as the second part of a love letter in three parts to their home town of Gothenburg, called "Gothenburg Belongs to Us." The song, which has the same name, is a fairly typical Air France piece of summery synth-pop. Everything they right makes me feel like I have gotten used to living in a foreign place. Part III is a pretty cool video too.
Moving west, we run into Norway's Hanne Hukkelberg who has a video for the title track "Blood from a Stone" from her third full length album. Somehow, despite all of my adoration for Scandinavia, I had never heard of Hukkelberg before but I am sure glad I ran into this. Besides the fact that she looks like Lykke Li, her music, both in the video and throughout her albums, exhibits really catchy pop sensibilities which at the same time tempering all the confection with a sense of archaic longing that I have come to love about certain European acts. Love.
Beck's website, apparently, will shortly be featuring something called the "Record Club section: a place to follow Beck's ongoing experiment that features different musicians who will record an entire album in one day with him. No songs will be rehearsed or arranged ahead of time, and the only framework to the sessions will be the selection of a particular album to be covered. Every week a new track from these meetings will be uploaded to Beck's site, allowing fans to find something different at Record Club every seven days."
And, if this doesn't sound awesome enough already, the first album he is working on is The Velvet Underground And Nico 1967 album. And if THAT doesn't sound exciting enough, Beck has enlisted the likes of Devendra Banhart, MGMT, Jamie Lidell and Nigel Godrich for upcoming projects on Record Club. Stay tuned for more details.
Being as it is the last year of the decade, I have been casually considering what my favorite albums of the aughts (I guess thats what we're calling '00-'09) might consist of. This has inevitably brought me back to Air, most specifically 2004's chillout/sex soundtrack Talkie Walkie. Having been rather prolific this decade, the french duo have been in the news off and on, releasing an album every couple of years and recently, a special edition of their first album, Moon Safari, last year.
That being said, it seems Air are preparing to sneak one more album into the decade before it shuts its proverbial doors. The new album is called Love 2 and is set to be released on October 6 of this year. This album marks a bit of a change as, according to Billboard, this album "marks the first time the group wrote, recorded and produced everything on the album" themselves.
If you are anxious to hear what this might sound like, Air is planning on releasing two singles before the album drops, including "Do The Joy" on July 7 and "Sing Sang Sung" on August 25.
The tracklisting is:
‘Do The Joy’ ‘Love’ ‘So Light Is Her Footfall’ ‘Be A Bee’ ‘Missing The Light Of The Day’ ‘Tropical Disease’ ‘Heaven's Light’ ‘Night Hunter’ ‘Sing Sang Sung’ ‘Eat My Beat’ ‘You Can Tell It To Everybody’ ‘African Velvet’
Spinner.com debuted a new Modest Mouse song today entitled "Autumn Beds." The song is fairly downtempo and moves along with a consistent hop-and-a-skip drum beat and some sweet banjo action. As we have seen before, newer Modest Mouse songs like "Satellite Skin" seem to try and make the most out of a simple theme and play with it for three or four minutes. However, with "Satellite Skin" I felt like there wasn't enough substance to support the song throughout that time. Maybe because "Autumn Beds" is a more intimate, minor chord type of song it lends itself more to this sort of quiet repetition. Without trying to do too much, they sort of let the song takes its natural course, playing with the dynamics throughout. One of my favorite things about the song is that (singer) Isaac Brock several of the various registers and textures he can get out of that wonderful voice of his again. This song might even be my favorite new Modest Mouse in years (I am on my 6th consecutive listen). I hope its a sign of things to come from my Issaquah hometown compatriots.
The expansive Ed Droste led cover is somewhat lacksidasical and sounds a little like a filled out Horn of Plenty Grizzly Bear. Not bad at all, but not a keeper for me. Next, Animal Collective have their second video in support of Merriweather Post Pavilion for the track "Summertime Clothes." Again, the video is pretty interesting, but its definitely not in my topfew or so for the year. So yeah, basically I think this stuff is just hype. But, here we go.
Cast: Larry David, Ed Begley Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Conleth Hill, Michael McKean, Evan Rachel Wood
Opening: 19 June 2009
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Plot summary: An eccentric New Yorker played by Larry David abandons his upper class life to lead a more bohemian existence. He meets a young girl from the south and her family and no two people seem to get along in the entanglements that follow. Run time: 92 minutes. Rated: PG-13 [Sony Pictures Classics].
The 60's are Soo Back If I had to list two of my favorite musicians that are still alive whose post 1971 output I have hardly followed, they would easily be Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney. So naturally I was intrigued when I read the Robby Z expressed interest in potentially collaborating with the old walrus. Dylan told Rolling Stone that it "would be exciting - to do something with Paul," which is saying a lot for the typically understated Bobby D. Not many details yet but Paste Magazine has reported that the collaboration is going to happen with help on the drums from some guy named Ringo Starr. I am sure this is exciting for Mr. McCartney as he does have a well documented man crush on Dylan, so keep your ears open.
Elsewhere in the kingdom of Sir Paul, having just announced the amazing looking Beatle's Rockband, McCartney is keeping busy. Naturally one collaboration isnt enough, so Beatleman recently mentioned that he would be open to working with bloggo-babies, MGMT. As he told Zoegriffin.co.uk, "I like MGMT...I'd like to work on some more dancey stuff with MGMT. But it has to happen organically." That would be huge for one of the most hyped acts in all of hipsterdom.
He added: "We need to talk about it. I can't call them. If they called me, I'd say, 'How did you get my number?'. But I'd do it."
I love Sweden and if you dont, I think you should. I also love music from Sweden. I love it so much that I just want to share it with everyone. And, when the likes of Peter Bjorn and John, Lykke Li, Air France and The Knife all hail from the northern European social democracy, its easy to see why people would want to share it too. Sweden, being the liberal state that it is, has a political organization named the "Pirate Party," whose goal is to reform copyright law in order to ensure citizen's right to privacy. Now, according to the BBC, The Pirate Party recently "secured 7.1% of the Swedish vote," enough to qualify them for a seat in the European Parliament.
I think we could learn a thing or two here in the States from the Swedes about how democracy works.
Phoenix's summertime-road-trip jam gets the acoustic treatment for a Paris Radio program Le Mouv. I think it holds up pretty well. It's amazing how much (vocalist) Thomas Mars contributes to the song just through the way he pronounces things. Though as far as acoustic version of this song go, I think this other one is a little better. The song does better with a little fleshing out, maybe.
The details for the new "Beatles Rock Band" game were revealed last week at the E3 videogame conference in Los Angeles. The game is going to be released Sept. 9 (you know, 9/9/09) and it looks completely amazing. At the conference, Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr revealed 10 of the 45 songs that are going to be included in the game. The tracks are "I Saw Her Standing There," "I Want To Hold Your Hand," "I Feel Fine," "Taxman," "Day Tripper," "Back In The USSR," "I Am The Walrus," "Octopus's Garden," "Here Comes The Sun" and "Get Back." I can't wait to pretend to play that awesome riff from "Taxman." Even better, according to Billboard "they said the entire "Abbey Road" album will be available for purchase and download, as will other tracks from the band's catalog, after the game's release, and "All You Need Is Love" will be released exclusively for Xbox 360 users as a downloadable song the day the game hits retail shelves. The proceeds of the single will be donated to Doctors Without Boarders."
It really seems like they thought of everything. They allowed for three-part vocal harmonies and included previously unreleased recordings of the bandmates talking between takes during studio sessions recorded at Abbey Road.
Even the different venues that the Beatles played at will be featured in the game, including the Cavern Club in Liverpool, the Ed Sullivan Show, Shea Stadium, the Budokan in Japan, and the famous rooftop. In between that last one, while the Beatles were just a studio band for a while, the game features "artistic visual expressions known as Dreamscapes, intended to transport players to the imaginative environments that capture the essence of The Beatles' genre-busting musical and fashion transformations during their later years," according to the release. Sounds amazing!
Sigur Ros' 'To Do' List : Perform for the Dalai Lama, Write Solo Album, Side Project, Soundtrack and New Album
The Dalai Lama is a cool guy. So you know that when he gives a talk in Reykjavik he needs some jammin' tunes. Enter Sigur Ros. According to a post on Sigur Ros' band blog, the Icelandic quartet performed (without Jonsi) for His Holiness this last tuesday. I haven't able to find any report on how it went or if Mr. Lama enjoyed the performance but I am sure he had very moderate and compassionate comments for them all.
And if that isn't enough, According to sigur-ros.co.uk, "in addition to the Riceboy Sleeps album [due July 20th], Jónsi’s solo album and Kjartan’s ondine soundtrack, Sigur Rós have been at work in their Sundlaugin Studio in álafoss the past few weeks recording a full length album, which is now nearing completion."
The bands drummer, Orri Páll Dýrason*, described the songs as "melodic but much less noisy and more 'out there' than previous albums." If you are already in Iceland, what exactly does 'out there' mean? According to DIS, "the album does not have a release date set but is expected to be released sometime next year." Sounds like a bunch of Gobbledigook.
Because releasing two albums last year is not enough for the Welsh band, Los Campesinos! are prepping to release their third album. According to lead singer Gareth Campesinos! the album is a little darker than their previous releases. It is also "about shagging and death." Brilliant. Read the interview here. Elsewhere in the land of LC! (that punctuation suddenly seems slightly less appropriate), Keyboardist-singer Aleks is leaving the band in order to return to go back to school. To quote the (ever witty P4K) "Her vocal counter-melodies often acted as a mellifluous foil to lead singer Gareth's manic musings on some of the band's best songs. She will be missed, but at least she will be smarter, too." Read LC!'s blog post about it here.
So here I am, lazily perusing my google reader when I come across this "Nirvana's former bassist, Krist Novoselic, has announced that he is running for public office to protest Washington state's election methods."
Not exactly what I expected to see. He is apparently part of the (nonexistent) “Grange Party,” which sounds strangely close to this other "party" he was once a part of... Apparently, he is running "in order to bring attention to the state's policies of allowing candidates to name their own party affiliation." According to NME, "The politically active bassist currently serves as chairman of the Wahkiakum County Democratic Party." The only thing weirder than this is that I am reading about my home state on a British magazine.
So unless you don't read anything online about music at all, you've realized that Grizzly Bear's heavily anticipated 3rd LP, Veckatimest came out last Tuesday. Consequently, the whole blogoverse went absolutely apeshit. I recently met the four of them at Sasquatch! and while I did not get the chance to interview them (I have no credentials!), I did find out that they were very gracious and down to earth people. So in the spirit of awesomeness, here are a few of the most interesting manifestations of people's obsessions with the glory that is Grizzly Bear (what a horrible sentence).
1. One of my favorite websites (that I recently discovered) is Black Cab Sessions. They basically feature really awesome artists doing creatively stripped down versions of really awesome songs. They recently did one for Grizzly Bear who played "All We Ask" which sounds absolutely gorgeous and intimate in the acoustic format. Oh the harmonies! That moment where Rossen takes over is orgasmic.
2.Here Grizzly Bear performs "Ready Able" on AOL Spinner's The Interface. The video doesn't quite capture their live (as in, with an audience) performance, but I thought it was still interesting to here them play something other than "Two Weeks" "Cheerleader" and "While You Wait for the Others" (all of which they also played).
Jimmey Kimmey is "Briefcase Joe" as taughted by Eminem. Musical hilarity ensues. Best moment "I got a garden hoes...Cause' that's clever cause it seems like I have prostitutes living in my garden...its good enough." and also "so what I should say maybe is that my mother chopped me up and put me inside the briefcase and mailed me to the school." "Yes, exactly." I can't wait til the album drops.
Joanna Newsom is all about the unexpected these days. I watched this video three times and had no idea that was her. If it wasn't for Rolling Stone, I still wouldn't believe it. Seriously, this is blowing my mind. Speaking of which, as for the video itself, I think the number of people who haven't heard this song is only slightly more than the number of people who are Drew Carey. That is just to say, I know that maybe some people are getting sick of this song/band, but this video is completely insane. It is up there in my mind with Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks" video for creepiest/awesomest video of the year.
You know those times you are sitting around with your friends, lazily talking about which bands would be the most awesome/ridiculous to see collaborate. Someone suggest the Sufjan/Kanye duo or the Xiu Xiu/Ratatat insanity. Well Jimmy Fallon has brought together two artists whose collaboration most certainly falls in the "awesome category."
I hadn't really listened to The Dirty Projectors before this year. That was mostly because their releases prior to this year have been mostly inaccessible, art pieces that never really caught my ear. When I first listened to Dark Was the Night, I found my self coming back to the summery-morning-feeling opener "Knotty Pine" with its enrapturing piano hook and vocal variety. This then piqued my interest about their forthcoming LP Bitte Orca, which leaked quite some time ago. After the initial confusion about the frenetic song structures and vocal interplay, I completely fell in love with the album. That is to say, if you haven't had a chance to hear the Dirty Projectors new album, I absolutely recommend that you head over to (the great) NPR to check it out. Seriously. About half of this album is on my "Best songs of '09" iTunes playlist.
Here is a Japanese commercial that is way better than 99% of the commercials we have here. I don't even speak Japanese.
And of course, Animal Collective. Listen for the 13 year old girls once they figure out what song it is. Also, I love seeing this little light off to the left wagging back and forth. Oh geologist. No one know what you do...
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