SHANNON STEPHENS LIVE ON KBCS

February 18th, 2010 , by

Photo by Zack Bent

Yes, it is still winter; this much is true. Still, if there's a category music that's perfect for getting through the cold and gray, the music of Shannon Stephens falls into that category.

Surely by this late in winter you've already picked up her album, The Breadwinner. You can also hear her live on Seattle's 91.3FM KBCS today (Thursday) at 1pm Pacific Time. Don't live in Seattle? No problem! Unless you're a subscriber to our special "Asthmatic Kitty News By Pigeon" program, you clearly have internet access, which means you can click on "Listen Live" right here.

SHARA WORDEN OF MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND TO PLAY WITH CLOGS

February 15th, 2010 , by

You've heard of The National, which consists of brothers Bryce and Aaron Dessner. Bryce Dessner is also a member Clogs, whose new album (The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton) features not just Sufjan Stevens but also Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. And, we might add, quite prominently. 
 
To promote the new album Clogs will playing selections from the record this weekend in Minneapolis, and of course Shara will be performing as well. Tickets are $22 and shows are on Friday the 19th and Saturday the 20th. Info here. And on Saturday at 5:30pm you can also catch a discussion of the musicians' art with the Brothers Dessner and Shara Worden at the Weisman Art Museum. That event is free but you should RSVP – details are here.

TO HAITI WITH LOVE

February 11th, 2010 , by

For those of you in the central Indiana area this Saturday (February 13th), be sure to head over to Big Car at the Murphy Building in Fountain Square. Asthmatic Kitty, My Old Kentucky Blog, Nuvo, Musical Family Tree, IndyHub.org, Indie Volumes, Standard Recording, Upland Brewery and a host of other great local organizations are teaming up to present a night of music and art to raise money for relief efforts in Haiti. The music starts at 8PM, with Asthmatic Kitty's own DJ Slo-Ro the Librarian playing space jammers. All proceeds ($10 or as much as you can give) will go to Partners in Health in support of the Haiti relief effort. This event will feature spectacular local music by Bronze Float, Beat Debris, Sea Krowns, Slothpop, Accordians, Alpha Live, DJ Rusty (of Mudkids), Mr. Kinetik, and many other great artists. For more information visit Big Car's website here.

ASTHMATIC KITTY WELCOMES EPSTEIN TO THE FAMILY

February 10th, 2010 , by

On March 9th, Asthmatic Kitty will be digitally releasing the new album by Epstein Y El Conjunto. 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. The album's title, When Man is Full He Falls Asleep, comes from a lyric by Facundo Cabral translated into english from the song: "No soy de aqui, Ni soy de alla". The song and Facundo's philosophy serves as inspiration for the album, positioning the musician as conscienscious objector to the succumbing of violence and misery in the world. Rather, a sense of joy and humor are embraced and music is used as a surrogate for words. The physical process of this record is a journey traveled to dusty closets of thrift stores in Crown Heights, to forward thinking record stores in Lynchburg, Virginia. The samples and synthesizers are the medium to complete the story that is a visual and ephemeral representation of the two worlds of hunger and sleep, both important daily routines. The resulting sound is a hazy dreamscape of bass, beats, and gloriously washed-out electronics.

To prepare for this release, we are celebrating 10 years of Epstein music making with the release of "Epstein – Completed Mythologies (Back Catalog)". The release is made up of his four back catalog titles (with cover art by La Mano Fria). These will be available through all of your fine digital music stores February 28th. This is the first time any of these titles have been available outside of Japan. And in support of this release, Epstein will be touring in Japan in March as part of the Beta Bodega Coalition alongside La Mano Fria. Check out tour dates here.

In between his many musical costume changes, Roberto is also finding time to amaze the artworld with his collaborative work with David Ellis and Nene Humphrey. Currently, his collaborative work with Nene is being exhibited at the Sharadin Art Gallery at Kutztown University. You can view this work in progress here. The show runs til March 5, 2010. Also, his work with Ellis was a big success at the Scope Art Fair in Miami during Art Basel, earning them a commission from none other than prominent art collector Charles Saatchi for one of their trash pieces. You can see these pieces in action here.

BEN + VESPER RELEASE SUFJAN-PRODUCED EP

February 10th, 2010 , by

With LuvInIdleness, Sufjan Stevens has continued exploring his marital fetish and recorded another husband and wife duo (cf. The Welcome Wagon). The record is a lush pop EP from his old friends Ben + Vesper, the hard-scrabble, working-class artist parents from West Orange, New Jersey. Inspired by both Xanadu and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Luvinidleness is a healthy bonanza of five songs that render the woes of ordinary life (work, rent, mouths to feed! oh the mouths!) into glorious (and psychedelic) orchestrations of bubalicious pop. Sufjan described the recording process as  "high-velocity, instant chemistry, rowdy fun, tag-team multi-tracking, vocal genuflecting, drum-fill whimsy, space-station bass synth, and vocal harmony madness." B+V calls it one of the "funnest" [sic] recordings they've ever done, and that it involved peanut butter cookies. They recommend a subwoofer for best listening experience.

You can download a very good and very free MP3 from the album by clicking here. To buy the CD for $9, click here to journey across the web to Sounds Familyre, or here to buy it from iTunes for about $5. We recommend you do so – they'll be touring with Danielson shortly, and how are you going to sing along if you don't know the words?
 
B-O-N-U-S! Stereogum has a new video from B+V here!

JOOKABOX TOURS AND GETS REMIXED

January 30th, 2010 , by

Europeans, brace yourself. Jookabox have their papers, their passports and their passion all packed up and ready for baggage check. They land on your fine continent February 13th to start a few weeks of touring in support of their recent release, Dead Zone Boys. The band is now a five-piece, and borrowing from their indigenous midwestern weather, they have harnessed tornado power for maximum face twisting. Check tour dates here.

In celebration of this recent release and pending tour, Asthmatic Kitty has teamed up with Audio Recon to gift the interwebs with a ten track free remix EP. This free EP contains ten remixes by midwestern artists Amtrak, Id Obelus, Yeti One, Ligyro, DJ Solly, Whois Louis, Ablerock as well as Brad Dujmovic from LA and Nomar Slevik, based in Freeport, ME. Check out and download the EP here.

And finally, for those in the Indiana area, we will be celebrating the release of this EP with a special show at the historic Vogue Theater on February 5th. Jookabox, Mab Lab, and Twin Monster will perform with dance party to follow featuring the A Squared Industries DJs and DJ Action Jackson.

FOL CHEN: NEW VIDEO, NEW TOUR, LOTS OF NEW

January 29th, 2010 , by

Fol Chen had an incredible 2009, with rave reviews of their debut album, Part One: John Shade, Your Fortune’s Made. They shot a video with the Laker girls. They covered Prince’s "The Beautiful Ones" for Spin’s Purplish Rain compilation and Pink Floyd’s "In The Flesh" for MOJO’s tribute to The Wall. They hit the airwaves with live performances on the BBC and KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic and were featured on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. They were remixed by many (including Liars) and did remixes of many others (including Junior Vasquez).
So, how do you top that for the new year and the new decade? Well, you start with a tour with the Liars, start work on a new LP, and in your free time work with Emmy award winning director Chris Wilcha to provide folks on a high concept music video shot in India to tide everyone over til the next record. Click here for tourdates.

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)

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