ROCK YOUR FACE OFF IN INDY

January 19th, 2010 , by

My Old Kentucky Blog, one of our favorite daily visits on the interwebs, has thrown together quite. a. party. in the Midwestern city of Indianapolis. They’ve partnered with, well, darn near everyone to throw such a huge show that it literally has to start at noon to be done by a reasonable hour (which his to say, probably around 4am). 
The numbers are these: 14 bands. $10. January 23. It’s at Locals Only, and a random sampling of the bands includes: Pravada, Marmoset, Early Day Miners, and The Broderick. Go here for a complete list of bands and sample mp3s courtesy of My Old Kentucky Blog. 

ELLUL RELEASES EP TO BENEFIT HAITI

January 15th, 2010 , by

San Francisco-based Joel St. Julien is in ELLUL, a band signed to the record label Sounds Are Active. Joel is also Haitian-American. ELLUL has a new album forthcoming in the spring and had planned to release a promotional EP but promotion  doesn’t seem to matter much right now in light of what’s happened to Haiti.
Ellul is releasing the EP so that all proceeds going to Partners With Haiti, an organization nearly 30 years old that Joel and his family have been supporting for a long time.
The EP is “pay-what-you-will-donation.” You can do that right here.
Other places to contribute that we ourselves are donating to include Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, World Vision, and Unicef. The US Government, the Red Cross, and cellphone providers have partnered so that we can text “HAITI” (without the quotes) to 90999 to send the Red Cross $10 via your phone bill.

RAFTER GETS HIS ANIMAL ON! [FREE MP3]

January 13th, 2010 , by

Following the pop-leaning lead of his last EP, Sweaty Magic, Rafter’s latest longplayer, Animal Feelings, hits shelves April 13th! It will be a long winter wait for this a Technicolor pop blow-out, but well worth it! Animal Feelings recalls Nintendo composer Koji Kondo leading a fantasy camp super-jam with Cody Chesnutt, Justin Timberlake, and the Tom Tom Club. Rafter’s history and influences, his dreams and ambition, and his love for love, all come together as a sweet, fun, speaker-blowin’, beat-busting ride into the inner-core of pop and R&B music.

Ask him to drop names for his latest work and he’ll say Justin Timberlake and Sublime Frequencies’ Radio Phnom Penh without batting an eye. He’ll tell you Animal Feelings is "a marriage record, a lust record, a death and sex record" and he’ll tell you to read The KLF’s notorious manual on writing a #1 single, which he says fueled and saved the recording sessions, which stretched over the course of a year and a half.

Animal Feelings, his fourth LP for Asthmatic Kitty, is an idea-packed picnic of philosophies and fears, of affirmations and questions. Like all of his work, this record is a very personal piece of music and Rafter has a lot to tell you. Whether you choose to listen or not is the difference between you getting down on the dancefloor or simply standing outside the club, listening to the beats, muffled and gutless through the walls. You have exactly three months to get ready to join the party!

Check out a track from the album, Paper. (Note: Not safe for radio or sensitive ears!)

“Paper (Explicit)” Animal Feelings (Download)

MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND PLAYING AT BOWERY IN NYC

January 7th, 2010 , by


Photo by Raphael Neal

It’s darn near impossible to corner Shara Worden these days. But believe or not: you can! In addition to all this other amazing stuff we mentioned a few weeks ago (addendum: she’s also on the new Clare & The Reasons album, which we should say is very nice), My Brightest Diamond is playing at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City on Friday, January 22. You can buy tickets in advance for $15 here or $17 at the door.
If that doesn’t work for you, you’ll need to plan ahead. Shara will be playing with Clogs in Minneapolis on February 19th and 20th (details here). Then in March, MBD will be playing alongside acts like Vampire Weekend and Joanna Newsom at the Big Ear Festival in Knoxville (details here). 
And don’t forget: we are releasing a limited-edition compilation of four My Brightest Diamond remix albums by Alfred Brown, Son Lux, Roberto Carlos Lange, and DM Stith. Info and preorder here.

THANKS FOR 2009!

January 6th, 2010 , by

We wanted to say thanks to you all for making 2009 our best year – and by best, we don’t mean that in the stockholder conference call sense. We mean it in the good-music-to-good-fans kind of way, which as far as we’re concerned is the only way. We released more records in 2009 than any other year in our eleven-year history – but every single release was, in our opinion, terrific. And the way you came to the shows and wrote in and played our artists’ music – that’s even more terrific.
There are really too many 2009 releases to list here, but it’s our philosophy that it’s better to show than tell. You can download a nice little sampler we threw together with at least one selection from every release in 2009 right here.
Thanks to you all for 2009, and thanks in advance for 2010!

NEW EP FROM WELCOME WAGON TO BENEFIT FREESET

December 22nd, 2009 , by

As you well know, most album recordings often produce songs that don’t always fit into the framework of the record. This happened to The Welcome Wagon, especially since the process took nearly seven years in between the free moments of raising a family. For most bands, the best of these songs created during this process end up on an EP.

Before the completion of their debut album Welcome to the Welcome Wagon, Vito and Monqiue  learned of Freeset, a fair-trade business in India that helps women escape the sex trade in Kolkata. By providing women with the opportunity to start new lives, regain dignity in their communities, and begin a journey towards healing and wholeness, Freeset seeks to break the cycle of poverty and exploitation for these women once and for all.
So, The Welcome Wagon married these additional songs to their desire to help the brave women Freeset helps. The result is the EP Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to Freeset.
The four song EP includes an early demo of “Up On a Mountain,” recorded around a kitchen table with Sufjan Stevens and Vito playing guitars, as well as the first song Vito ever wrote – the very good “There is a Fountain Filled With Blood.” To buy the EP, exclusively from iTunes for $3.96, click here.
To read more about the EP, go here. You can visit Freeset Global here.

DM STITH: LIVE ON CHRISTMAS DAY

December 18th, 2009 , by

Photo by Ben Tousley
DM Stith, whom you will recall obtained the 17th slot on Metacritics rather objective Best of 2009 list, is dedicated. He will debut an album that challenges you. He will release EPs that undermines and subverts his own music. He will play…on Christmas day. For you.
On the 25th, Stith will be playing at The Stone in a series of concerts curated by singer and composer David Garland, known also for his work with WNYC-FM. This fantastic series includes performances by Danielson on the 22nd, Rob Moose on the 18th (who has played violin for My Brightest Diamond and Sufjan Stevens), and the Garbus sisters (one of whom heads up tUnE-YaRdS). If you’re in NYC, you should make it to one if not several of these shows. We’d expect some kind of festive music though, if we were you.
Details are on The Stone’s calendar page here.

WILLIAM RYAN FRITCH RELEASES FREE CHRISTMAS EP

December 16th, 2009 , by

William Ryan Fritch, an experimental folk musician out of LA, appears on our Habitat for Humanity compilation (appropriately named Habitat) and is a long-time friend of the label. We’re hosting his latest work, a six-song Christmas EP that explores not only Fritch’s broad musical repertoire, but also the “unifying will and spirit” of the season. You can read more by clicking here, or download it by clicking here.

For other Christmas music related to AK you should of course check out our well-stocked Sufjan Xmas site where you can stream the entire 5-CD boxset (click here for that – buy it for just $15 here). Also, the yearly Christmas EP from Chris Schlarb and co. is out on his website here. And Half-handed Cloud shows up on a beautiful Christmas compilation from The Record Machine (bonus: also includes Great Sufjan Song Xmas Xchange runner-up Nathan Philips!). Get that compilation here.

BUSY AS A BRIGHT DIAMOND; SHARK REMIXES [FREE MP3 ALBUM]

December 12th, 2009 , by

We have probably said it before, but it is worth saying again: Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond is the hardest working gal in the business. Having just wrapped up a busy year with the Decemberists (including late night appearances on Leno, Colbert, etc!), she didn’t even unpack and instead went straight on a brief tour of southern Europe. In between the Decemberists press and tour dates, she also managed to squeeze in a couple duets with Bon Iver at the Sasquatch Festival and Radio City Music Hall where she also performed as part of the Dark Was the Night Benefit Concert. The concert was a live performance of the previously released album (which MBD appears on). 

Shara also recorded a duet with David Bryne for his upcoming album, Here Lies Love, due out early next year via Nonesuch Records. And yet still, somehow she found time to perform with the Dessner brothers (alongside the Deal sisters) as part of their Brooklyn Academy of Music-commissioned rock opera, The Long Count.

What better way to celebrate an absolutely incredible year for MBD than to give away some lovely demos? The demos are a fully realized collection of five alternate versions of tracks from A Thousand Shark’s Teeth. MBD has also included an album outtake. Orchestrated and complex yet spacious and direct, these are quite rewarding; they let us hear how the the songs grew into their final form.

Finally, we are pleased to announce that the fourth and final Shark Remix EP will be a collection of A Thousand Shark’s Teeth remixes by DM Stith and will be available digitally January 26, 2010.  Simultaneously, we will be releasing a fancy limited edition 2xCD of all 4 EPs signed and numbered by Shara. You can preorder it by clicking here ($22+S&H), or visit the release page here. There are only 1500 of these and they will go fast.

DM STITH, WITH A BRAID OF VOICES

December 8th, 2009 , by

Photo by Ben Tousley
This is it. The end of the year, and the decade. And, we might humbly add, the triumvirate of DM Stith EPs. Braid of Voices, the third (first: BMB, second: Thanksgiving Moon) in a series of EPs that showcases the full breadth of Stith’s debut full-length, Heavy Ghost. 
For Stith’s part, he distills “Braid of Voices” to its essentials, which often involves brass more often than not. Clark, Ensemble, and Bibio remix a few Stith favorites, Stith covers “Easy to Be Around” by Diane Cluck, and labelmate I Heart Lung teams up with Stith for a free-jazz retake of “Wig.
Heavy Ghost made it to the 19th slot on Metacritic’s entirely objective Best of 2009 list (tied with other class acts like The Clientele and The xx). This seven-track EP wraps up a trilogy that has taken nearly a year to explore Heavy Ghost. You can too by buying it on iTunes only for just under $6 by clicking here.
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