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Kanye’s Moving Painting

Posted by George on August 9th, 2010

I don’t really want to preface this so just click the link and watch the video.

General Update!

Posted by George on June 5th, 2010

Apologeeeez

all around for the long break in posts. I guess it proves how reliant I am on my sister’s incredible and tasteful prolificity.

Anyway, because I’m really busy with finals and truthfully not too good at this, here’s a post to keep things going and to keep us rolling: Let’s Go!

I hope you’ve been enjoying “Power” by Kanye. It’s pretty hot. However, there’s a new band that P4k’s picked up on, giving them the prestigious “Best New Music” title a week ago. The band is Tame Impala and I’ll be damned if you don’t think they sound like the Beatles. (Zach Kelly at P4k says, “Frontman Kevin Parker shares an eerie vocal similarity with John Lennon, both in tone and in the way he allows his voice to soar with each melodic turn or rhythmic surge.” Quite true.) I’ve added their track “It’s Not Meant to Be” to the player so check it out. (Wait that’s not Lennon!?) They’re not a ripoff but just as my friend Tom said, “It’s like the Beatles kept making songs, but didn’t age.”

Next, I’d like to show you this kickass video for the Jaydiohead mashup that was made not long ago (Radiohead + Jay Z = Jaydiohead… derp). The mashup is brilliant and if nothing else, be impressed by this CLASS-A dancing in this video.

Also, Radiohead’s Phil Selway released information and cover art for his new solo album, titled Familial, which is set to come out August 30. Yay? (I don’t think it’ll upset.)

Phil's album cover. Looks promising!

Thanks guys for bearing with us.

George

Quick Post: Kanye!

Posted by George on May 28th, 2010

Finally, after disgracing himself with 808’s and then with that Swift chick, he’s done something worthwhile. It’s called “Power” and it is really cool. Like M.I.A. cool.

PAH!

Listen over at the hypemachine.com

Free Music: if there is a will, Dropbox provides a way

Posted by Larissa on May 24th, 2010

You’ve got to love a band that can release all of their music for free and still peak at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart on retail release of the physical form. You’ve got to love them unless you’re a struggling artist who saw that move as a real slap in the face.

That was Lily Allen’s opinion of Radiohead’s release of In Rainbows. She saw it as a promotion of music pirating and had a whole blog post dedicated to its condemnation. Eh, it’s more like she’s just jealous but I do get how it can seem wrong when someone can pull off that business plan.

But Allen had it all wrong. Radiohead was not promoting music pirating, but bypassing it. And they did it by giving us what we want for free.

And that’s what Lefsetz of LefsetzLetter is saying, “In other words, the solution to the file-trading problem is not legislative, it requires business innovation.  Which I don’t expect to come from Ms. Allen, I’ve never heard she was a good programmer.”

And now everybody is doing it. They’re giving us music for free. Grooveshark, Lala, and every artist releases a free single as a preview before their album -The National giving away “Bloodbuzz Ohio” before High Violet, Yeasayer giving away “O.N.E.” before Odd Blood - just to name a few.

But illegal activity will continue. Yeah, such is life. The newest craze, Dropbox, uses cloud computing to enable users to store and share files. It’s cool because folders are shared through email,and you kind of become a member of that shared folder. There is a feed that shows all recent activity so you can tell who is uploading new material. The space for free use is limited but deleted files can be restored. It’s illegal to upload copyrighted stuff, but it’s going to happen anyway.

M.I.A. Drops Some Killer Music

Posted by George on May 14th, 2010

/\/\/\Y/\

^ This is apparently the title of M.I.A.’s new album. She’s dropped two songs from this album already, both of which are incredible, and one even sports a really gruesome video to go along with it.

The most recent track is called “XXXO” and it has two manifestation currently, a remix by Blaqstarr, and the much better original. Listen to the original here:

The remix version can be heard on her label’s super badass blog.

EDIT: Violence seems to be a theme with videos these days (oh my delicate sensibilities!). Watch Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor’s new band How to Destroy Angel’s bloody new video over at pitchfork.tv

HTDA: Trent and His Wife Have Been “Getting Busy”…

Posted by George on May 5th, 2010

“Trent’s been really busy lately what with his new wife and all.”

Rumor has it that Trent Reznor and his new wife, ex-West Indian Girl Mariqueen Maandig, have been “getting busy.” Well let’s hope so. ;)

Actually, they’re making music… WHAT? Who do they think they are? Sonny and Cher? Well they call themselves How to Destroy Angels (HTDA) and I’m not quite sure what to make of it yet. Here’s a list of things that could happen:

a) More post-Year Zero refuse (how typical of you Trent)

b) A soundtrack to a documentary about Trent and Mariqueen and how they chose the worst name for a band ever

c) Something unpredictable (and hopefully really good [à la the Fragile])

d) An EP of music that sounds like NIN making music under the name HTDA

My guess is option D but I’m wishing for option C. Who knows…

Hold on a second, that’s not Trent’s hand…

If Thom likes her so do we: New M.I.A song and more

Posted by Larissa on April 27th, 2010

Back in 2008 Radiohead DJed during a webcast. One of the most notable moments was when Thom Yorke broke down into his usual spastic dancing to his mix of M.I.A. Someone on YouTube described it as a, ‘psycho bunny dance.’ He just seems to lose control of his limbs but I’m telling you, it’s one more reason I’m enamored of the guy. You can view below.

M.I.A.

Check out new song Born Free and its video on her labels website, N.E.E.T. The song is great, the video is horrifying and graphic and the site ‘is flashy and screams in your face’ (George).

Weekends return to Baltimore and release new song!

Posted by Larissa on April 22nd, 2010

Listen to “A Defining Love” here

Weekends

are returning to Baltimore for a show tomorrow at The Hexagon. I need to get my tendency to be completely star struck under control; I always get really excited reporting about Weekends (since I’ve known the guy from Hopkins!) Adam has already agreed to an interview – can’t wait to hear how Hopkins boy turned Indie. In other news, today, they released their song off the Friends and  of Friends compilation. Check it out above…We can thank our own Adam Lempel for the album artwork. Also, I’m digging this song. The glo-fi vocals on top of the acoustic plucks of the guitar produce a really fresh combination. Wish I were around to hear them this weekend.

Record Store Day La la la

Posted by George on April 18th, 2010

Some metal band playing at Reckless Records. Note the 7-Eleven across the street where I got a Slurpee.

Yesterday was Record Store Day and in honor of it I biked to Reckless Records, a cool record shop in the loop, to check out the scene. I was surprised to see a live metal band playing in the tiny store. It was great fun but I didn’t end up buying anything. Anyway, two new Record Store Day releases that stuck out to me as prominent were a 12″ from Beach House and a new new new new song from Blur! Wow, how many years has it been? Anyway, here’s what I have to say about the releases: the Blur song is excellent and it almost seems like a part of a bigger picture and I would die to get a Blur release this year. Graham Coxon’s guitar throughout, and especially at the end, reminds me of why I care.

:)

The Beach House track, meh… It sounds like a Teen Dream outtake, which it probably is but if you haven’t had enough Beach House then go for it but I wouldn’t have spent money on the footlong (12″ release) if had been able to find it in any of the record stores I went to yesterday. I went to two by the way. The second one was this cute store closer to campus that I walked into on my way to dinner at Ribs n’ Bibs. Dinner at Ribs n’ Bibs was great though. I had a “Bronco Burger” with fries and slaw for three dollars. What a steal!

Beach House – The Arrangementbysubpop

Oh, by the way, download the Blur song here and you can listen to a high quality version on our player.

Animal Collective Returns to Birthplace: ODDSAC Screening in Baltimore

Posted by Larissa on April 17th, 2010

The creepy,

visual album, ODDSAC, is screening tonight at the Senator Theater in Baltimore. ODDSAC is a masterpiece produced by Animal Collective in collaboration with filmmaker Danny Perez. The Director and members of Animal Collective will be at the screening to answer questions and hopefully they’ll stick around for the After-party.

I’m not really a fan of Indie music videos. They tend to ruin songs for me. Watching the video for “In the Flowers” seared images of tiny dancers, dolls and masks into my head that reappear every time I relisten to the song. The symbolism of these freaky plots and visuals bypasses me completely.

Apparently ODDSAC is especially disturbing. Yet, I’d say it gained unprecedented prestige in the ‘normal’ film community. This January it had its World Premier at the Sundance Film Festival. I mean, that’s cool, but at Sundance, they still weren’t quite sure what to make of it.

It’s kind of funny, if you read the Sundance review of the film, the reviewer sounds kind of confused and overwhelmed – he’s not quite sure what he’s supposed to say and basically writes that he’ll leave it to Pitchfork to sort out.

What I do know is that ODDSAC definitely doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen at Sundance, or maybe even in my life, and at its best moments captures some of the aural layers and intensity of the band’s music itself. If you’re going for “visual album,” I’d say that’s pretty good.

George went to the screening in Chicago a few weeks ago. He was disappointed that only Geologist was there to answer questions. According to George, some girl raised her hand to criticize the anti-feminist message of the film. George said the director looked confused and the crowd began to boo her complaint. I guess if there is some sort of anti-feminist undertone, AC was not aware.

Anyway, take a look at the trailer below and you can be the judge.

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