My Brightest Diamond Plays the Bowery

January 23rd, 2013 , by

My Brightest Diamond is playing played at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City Wednesday, January 23rd. Her blog promised a parade (!), new songs (!!), marching, dancing,  party hats, and whistles.

[youtube width=”542″ height=”305″]http://youtu.be/wK4vbN7g6m4[/youtube]

[youtube width=”542″ height=”305″]http://youtu.be/zb52M-ByxOk[/youtube]

Helado Negro’s Dance Ghost Gets a Video

January 22nd, 2013 , by

“There’s no one home, just the ghosts who dance alone.”

The FADER just premiered a new video from Helado Negro of “Dance Ghost,” the first single from Invisible Life. Directed by David W. Merten, of GHAVA, the video follows an individual who moves throughout Miami as if in a daydream. As he progress through the surreal landscape of Miami, he is mostly in the background. [vimeo width=”542″ height=”231″]https://vimeo.com/57236809[/vimeo] Says Roberto Lange of Helado Negro: “They are ghosts to maybe most who are usually trying to create the least amount of resistance when trying to survive in the US due to the many instances of inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants in the US. The song may be saturated in ambiguous synth tones, but the reality of living somewhere or being somewhere where others want everything about you but you, is what haunts them.” Preorder the CD or LP of Invisible Life here.

[soundcloud id=’69197184′]

The False Alarms: a new album coming from Fol Chen

January 10th, 2013 , by

Los Angeles band, Fol Chen, will release their third album, The False Alarms, on March 19.

Fol Chen will tour North America this spring in support of the release.

Fol Chen’s first two records, PART I: John Shade, Your Fortune’s Made  and PART II: The New December (produced by Samuel Bing and Julian Wass) cemented the band’s place as peddlers of dark pop in the alleys of independent music. Their live entity has a wide artistic reach with a propensity for interactive projects like the Tetrafol, a motion-based sound toy developed with musical interface pioneers Monome. Band events have been presented at sites such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Annenberg Space for Photography, and the Walker Art Center.

If you’ve heard their songs “In Ruins” or “Cable TV,” The False Alarms will change the way you think about Fol Chen. The band calls the genre of False Alarms  “Opera House,” a name lifted from Malcolm McLaren but recoined as beat-driven electronica with grand, operatic gestures and lyrically-dense storytelling. The songs, written by Bing and Sinosa, play together as a surreal journey with a human core, created in a year marked by sudden losses of family and friends. On the dance floor or in the bedroom, The False Alarms is a set of pop symphonies that are chopped, screwed, mangled and beautiful.

We are releasing The False Alarms on March 19th, 2013.

[soundcloud id=’73738177′]

 

 

Sufjan on Joyful Noise’s Flexi Disc Series

December 20th, 2012 , by

Sister label Joyful Noise Records has announced their 2013 lineup for Flexi Discs, and next year’s will include Sufjan Stevens appearing with Cat Martino.

What’s a Flexi?  Invented in the 1960s as an easy way to distribute singles alongside printed material (like magazines), a flexi is a paper-thin vinyl record. And Joyful Noise’s Flexis are clear, single-sided, 7″squares. It’s a pretty unusual format, but playable on any standard turntable.
The 2013 lineup also includes:
Birthmark
Here We Go Magic
Hella
Helvetia feat. Built To Spill
Melvins
Mike Adams At His Honest Weight
Monotonix
Rob Crow
Son Lux
The Sea And Cake
Sufjan Stevens & Cat Martino
WHY?

Flexis are not available for individual sale, you must subscribe to the entire series. However, you may cancel at anytime. You may sign up for automatic monthly payments, or pay all at once for the whole year.

Subscriptions are available for $5 / month (w/ a “deluxe subscription” available which includes a box set), right here.

EDIT: The tracks in the Flexi series are exclusive, including Sufjan and Cat’s. You won’t find them anywhere else except in Flexi form!

box-front-web

New Album from Alfred Brown of AKR Library Catalog Music Series

December 7th, 2012 , by

Earlier in 2012 we released Alfred Brown’s Music for Moving in Slow Motion as one of our Library Catalog Music Series (if you haven’t heard it you can hear it here).

Today Alfred released The Seagull: A Song Cycle on Abandonbuilding Records.

Originally intended as a soundtrack for a film adaptation of a play of the same name by Anton Chekhov, this collection eventually developed into an entity unto itself. In this adaptation, Chekhov’s tragic figure Konstantin Treplev was to be portrayed as an experimental composer of music, rather than a playwright and “The Silent Drum” was intended to be one of Treplev’s personal compositions. This cycle can be listened to as a chronological account of the story or as a meditation on the main themes. It is the internal dialog of a man plagued with self-doubt and self-pity, jealousy, and paranoia. It is the soundtrack that no one, but Konstantin can hear. These are his prayers to a god that he does not believe in. Prayers to save him from himself. Prayers that go unanswered.

You can hear and purchase The Seagull: A Song Cycle below, or here.

Christmas album from Chris Schlarb

December 7th, 2012 , by

Sufjan isn’t the only AKR artist who makes a Christmas album every year. See also Chris Schlarb, who’s established a great annual holiday tradition of recording a family Christmas album.

This year, Schlarb & Co. cover Fleetwood Mac, including classics like “Go Your Own Way” and “The Chain.” You can download Schlarb’s Christmas gift to the internet by clicking here.

Or instead enjoy this strange Fleetwood Mac Christmas video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Delzn2tWQ1g[/youtube]

The Songbook for Siftbam’s Sing-A-Long; Indianapolis tickets released

December 6th, 2012 , by

If you’re going to one of the remaining shows from The Sirfjam Stephanapolous Christmas Sing-A-Long Seasonal Affective Disorder Spectacular Music Pageant Variety Show Disaster, you’ll need a songbook. Your entrance fee + ticket reservation accusation + online bandwidth transmission charge + emitted diode light security insurance fee entitles you to receive one at the show, but we know that some of you may wish to have them early so as to study, to color, to share.

Click here to download the songbook in PDF form. Print in B/W, fold in half.

EDIT: We just moved the show in Indianapolis on December 14th from the Old National Deluxe to the Old National Egyptian Room. The Wheel of Christmas is larger than the basement. Tickets available now – click here to get them for $20 + fees.

Finally Visible: Invisible Life from Helado Negro

November 29th, 2012 , by

From the room he grew up in, in South Florida, to his apartment in Savannah, and now in his current home in Brooklyn, Roberto Lange of Helado Negro has never not made music. Tones whittled out of these places, memories, time and all its impressions, Invisible Life is Helado Negro’s third full-length album. Like captured light, it is a reflection of Helado Negro’s refined love affair with synthesis, sampling, and his own strengthening voice.

Singing in Spanish, as well as English, Helado Negro is a bilingual tour guide into the transcendent zone of wavelength where music is mutually transacted bouncing between artist and listener. Assisting in this transaction are contributions from collaborators including Bear in Heaven’s Jon Philpot, Mouse on Mars’ Jan St. Werner, Devendra Barnhart, Matt Crum and Eduardo Alonso. Each help multiply the whispered dream of Helado Negro into a full-spectrum technicolor existence.

In the way of artists like Caetano Veloso, The Sea and Cake, and even Sade, Helado Negro floats beyond his own identity into that democratic forest of shape and color.

Helado Negro’s Invisible Life is out March 5th, 2013. Until then, please enjoy “Dance Ghost” on Pitchfork by clicking here.

New videos from Sheila Saputo & Sufjan Stevens

November 20th, 2012 , by

Later this week, Sufjan Stevens begins his tour for Silver & Gold starts this week. If you’re going, there’s some homework. Listen to and memorize these songs, and then watch a few videos featuring Sheila Saptuo, who’s opening for Sufjan. The videos, directed and produced by Jeff Shoop, Rosie Thomas, and Deborah Johnson are featured on Pitchfork today. Click here to view all of them.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBaJHcnVAvg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

 

How Did People Start Betting on Horses

November 19th, 2012 , by

To modern man, horse racing may seem as one of the older but not too old sports. We usually equate it with British nobility, with an aristocrat racing his steeds in order to relieve himself of boredom. This image has crept into the popular mind rather well, and indeed, today’s aristocracy is basically unimaginable without horses. […]

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