Heavy Ghost, the debut album from DM Stith, cast an almost supernatural effect on reviewers and fans when it was released in March of 2009. Both groups acclaimed it as a stunning debut unlike anything else they had heard. NPR called the LP “complex… [containing] inventive songs,” while Entertainment Weekly proclaimed it “one of the strongest debut albums I’ve heard.” Stith’s peers received it well too: Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear twittered about it calling it a “lovely album,” and Bat for Lashes picked Heavy Ghost for her New York Times Playlist, saying “It traverses all these magical landscapes… almost like Alice through the looking glass. Like you’re being sucked into a secret world.”

If you're in Austin next week, you should know that Stith will appear twice at SXSW this year. Summer tour dates on the way. Please click more for SXSW details.

Photo by Kristi Sword

Today Epstein Y El Conjunto's When Man is Full He Falls Asleep is being released across the internet in all of its nooks and crannies. A reminder, Epstein is one of the many talented alter-egos of Roberto Lange, and El Conjunto the willing volunteer band to fill out the Epstein sound. This April, in celebration of this release, Roberto Lange, Julianna Barwick and visual artist Jonathan Dueck, will be engaging in a unique collaboration that blurs the divisions between studio, stage, touring and recording. Roberto will be performing under both of his monikers, Epstein (exploration into the digital debris and soul of experimental hip-hop influenced electronic music) and Helado Negro (the official band of the Latin Awareness Initiative). Julianna will be performing her ethereal and magical vocal layering. Using the framework of a traditional music venue tour, these three artists will create a new body of work that will reflect their time together and those they encounter. While the two musicians collaborate and produce new music, Jonathan Dueck will be documenting with drawings, video and photography which will later be incorporated into the packaging materials for the final product of this experience.

The live set will include projected video by Jonathan Dueck in between music sets. These visually and musically rich videos are a culmination of 4 years of work on 20 short films. Dueck scratched, painted on, stamped over, and projected old 16mm films to create this work. With the collaboration of I Heart Lung, Chad VanGaalen, Deneir, and Son Lux, he has created 20 short, but visual rich videos from these 16mm films.

The tour will also include two art exhibitions, the first in New York at the 92YTribeca which will include stills from Jonathan's films plus the playful work of Kristi Sword. This show will be up for the month of April. The second will occur in Indianapolis at the Big Car / Mt. Comfort galleries and will include art by DM Stith, Ryan Irvin, John Berry as well as Dueck. See full list of tour dates here.