CRYPTACIZE RELEASE 7INCH, CONTINUE TO TOUR
June 22nd, 2009 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Having barely finished a whirlwind European tour playing with Final Fantasy, Mirah, and Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu), Cryptacize is now hitting their home pavement with an extensive US tour alongside Casiotone for The Painfully Alone. Touring in support of their sophmore release Mythomania, the band has filled out a little with newest member Aaron Olson joining Chris, Nedelle and Michael. Aaron and Nedelle met at music school a few years ago. Guitar is his first instrument but he was kind enough to switch to bass for Cryptacize. Most importantly, Aaron has black hair, hazel eyes, and is a sensitive guy. Be sure to catch them on the road. Check the tour dates here.
Also be sure to head over to Slowboy Records to pick up the newest offering from Cryptacize, their Lost Beauties & Easy To Dream 7″. This limited edition (300 copies) clear vinyl 7" can be purchased by clicking here. We think it is pretty awesome that the previous release on this label was a David Bryne/Brian Eno collaboration.
A NEW ALBUM FROM CASTANETS
June 15th, 2009 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Castanets’ contribution to the American music canon has always been a strange, experimental, defiant one. Beer-soaked country rock gone contrarian noise. Corpse-y folk and desert blues. Live shows and past records brought free-jazz and Nashville together or went dub like it was casual. But no matter how out there it’s gone, Castanets’ music has always had this sly, wizened eye for catchiness and a quiet, laidback flirtation with beats. In the five years since Castanets main-man Raymond Raposa dropped his debut, Cathedral, it has always seemed like Raposa was just one step away from writing a whopper of a totally accessible pop record.
And here it is, Texas Rose, The Thaw, and The Beasts. Only it’s not. By some dark alchemy, Castanets has managed to craft an album that is as catchy and well-defined as it is full of experimentation. And more so. More so on the catchy. More so on the song-craft. More so on the clean, majestic classy production (courtesy of our own Rafter Roberts). But also more so on the noise, the haunted electronics, and the all-out remodeling of American song forms.
It’s something new and it’s something epic – and it satisfies. There are many things we can ask for from our music but to be satisfied is paramount. Texas Rose, The Thaw, and The Beasts, the brand-new record from Castanets, is out September 22nd. You can read more about the album here.
In between now and then, Castanets are touring, extensively through June. Those tourdates are here.
HELADO NEGRO PLAYS LIVE, MIXES TAPE, AND BUSTS TWEETERS
June 11th, 2009 , by Asthmatic Kitty
For those of you in the New York area, be sure to catch the debut performance of Helado Negro at the Sycamore on June 12th, featuring Roberto Lange on various instruments and vocals, Nathan Michel on percussion, Isaac Lekach on guitars and vocals, Joe Stickney on drums, and Oliver Chapoy on guitar and bass. Get more info here.
If you are looking for some tunes to kick off your summer lounging we recommend you head over to Fader.com and grab Roberto Lange’s and Jaytram’s Elastic Island mix. Read and listen here.
Not one to be satisfied by the soundless and at times lifeless 140 characters of the twitter format, Helado Negro has hijacked the twitter-waves to offer up an ongoing series of "musical tweets". #TuiteroRoto is a collection of 30 second soundbites to accent your twitter experience. Be it My Brightest Diamond ticket giveaways, I Heart Lung tour economics, Future Rapper’s…well, whatever it is that Future Rapper does, there are plenty of great reasons to follow our artists as well as the label on the old twitterbox.
Twitter:
Helado Negro – http://twitter.com/HeladoNegro
Shannon Stephens – http://twitter.com/S_Stephens_AKR
My Brightest Diamond – http://twitter.com/zosima
DM Stith – http://twitter.com/dmstith
Chris Schlarb – http://twitter.com/schlarb
Future Rapper – http://twitter.com/futurerapper
Asthmatic Kitty – http://twitter.com/asthmatickitty
ESPOIR NOW OUT [FREE MP3]
May 23rd, 2009 , by Asthmatic Kitty
The debut album from Hermas Zopoula, Espoir, is now officially out and available for purchase. Zopoula recorded the first disc in the official Burkina Faso government studio, and the second in his backyard, sidestreet, and living room.
WE LOVE YOU SO, a blog documenting some of the influences on Spike Jonze’s upcoming Where the Wild Things Are, listed Espoir as one of them. And Thom Jurek at allmusic called the album one of the "great surprises of 2009."
It might be a while before Zopoula makes his way from Burkina Faso to the U.S., so he has instead recorded no less than a dozen videos. Some are official music video, some are interviews, and some are impromptu recordings. All are enjoyable. You can watch them here.
Buy the album here.
FOL CHEN – COAL – KID ICARUS – MORE
May 19th, 2009 , by Asthmatic Kitty
ROUNDING UP CRYPTACIZE
May 15th, 2009 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Next week, Cryptacize begins a massive intercontinental tour. That makes today as good a time as any to recap and roundup Cryptacize related news across the net of inter. Let’s hop to it!
First, the goodies. Cryptacize has been planting little mixes in a couple of places across the cyberscape. We’ve done you the favor of compiling them for you. Mix 1 ("A Rainbow’s Revenge") is right here, Mix 2 ("Find Someone") is here, Mix 3 ("The Eternal City") is here, and the latest, Mix 4 ("The Edge of the World"), is here. Chris Cohen, guitarist of the quartet, has also generated a terrific little mix entitled "Awkward Shadow," available on Porch of the Mystics here. They are all good. You now have hours of listening ahead of you!
Ok, second, people are digging the new album, which is nice. David Bryne included Cryptacize on his April 2009 mix (here). Nate Chinen, a critic, at the New York Times listed Mythomania as one of his choices here. The ever-intrepid XLR8R said Mythomania is full of "pleasant pop moments." And Under the Radar used words like sharp, tasteful, deliberate, dynamic, and beautiful in their review. Thanks guys!
Speaking of UTR, they’ve published a terribly fun interview with the band. You can read it here.
And don’t forget their tour! They’ll be in Europe until June 12th, where you may be able to buy Cryptacize’s new 7", coming out on Slowboy (see here). Then they’ll barely have enough time to adjust their clocks before they’re touring in the U.S. starting in LA on the 23rd. See here for details.
ANNOUNCING THE LIBRARY CATALOG SERIES
May 14th, 2009 , by Asthmatic Kitty
You’ve felt it; that strange emptiness driving home from work, the awkward silence at the breakfast table, the lack of ambience while walking down the street. Sound familiar? You may need a life soundtrack, and Asthmatic Kitty Records can deliver. On July 21st, 2009 we will launch the Library Catalog Series, a collection of audio expeditions into the many and varied worlds of contemporary music, performed by some of the industry’s hardest working musicians.
The design of each album is as important as the music itself. Engineers and designers collaborated in hermeneutically sealed cubicles to professionally and lovingly package these Compact Discs and "Long Playing" records. These albums will provide you with an essential library for soundtracking your life in all of its moods and complexity. Be your own music director! Score your life scenes!
But wait, that is hardly all! Not only can you employ this music in the privacy of your home, computer and car stereo, but you can also license the Library Catalog Series commercially. Need to score that winning presentation for the board meeting next Wednesday? Is your Christmas home video lacking that certain climatic punch? Are you a major multi-national corporate conglomerate looking for quickly recognizable audio branding? Do your employees and/or customers have the overhead-radio doldrums? Then look no further, our sliding-scale fee structure can accommodate any every musical need, be it personal or corporate.
A world of sound awaits you with the Asthmatic Kitty Records Library Catalog Presents Series of Stereo Sound Recordings! Start saving now for what will quickly become an essential in any home audio library. Collect them all! Stay tuned! Details here!
GRAMPALL JOOKABOX IS DEAD. LONG LIVE JOOKABOX!
May 8th, 2009 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Grampall Jookabox is now Jookabox. Extensive focus group testing revealed that enjoyment of Grampall Jookabox in the ever-important 18-31 age demographic increases 3.2% when told they’re listening to Jookabox rather than Grampall Jookabox. Not only that, words take up paper and, these days, bandwidth. And those things take up environment. And, in the interest of environment (and focus group testing), David "Moose" Adamson has decided to buckle down and trim his bandname from Grampall Jookabox to Jookabox.
Needless to say, it was not a good Friday afternoon when Moose sat Grampall down and laid him off. But, it has freed up the resources to complete the fifth in the Unusual Animals vinyl series, and a free mixtape. Grampal…er…Jookabox occupies Side A of the 7", and Dosh Side B. Jared Chapman continues illustrating the cover art, this time employing the deceptively unusual Yellow Seahorse. Read details here.
To commemorate this change in ‘tude, Jookabox (now unshackled from the logistical wranglings of Grampall, who never would have approved of such freeness) has provided a free mixtape – 317 Ways. You can download it song by song, or the entire thing, right here.
ZACK BENT WITH GALLERY OPENING IN SEATTLE TONIGHT
May 7th, 2009 , by Asthmatic Kitty
If you listen to our records (thanks, by the way!) then you have probably seen Zack Bent’s work before. Most notably, Zack and his wife Gala designed the imaginative packaging and menus for the eclectic and librarical Encyclopedia Asthmatica DVD. He is definitely one of our favorite visual artists around.
Tonight in Seattle, Gallery4Culture is holding a reception for some of Zack’s newest work, entitled Buffalo Trace. The pieces focus on the Boy Scouts as metaphor for a rethinking of American tribes and communities at large. Zack: "I am interested in how my culture (family) can query human behavior by replaying our life to the tune of other histories."
In other words, this should be good. Details here, or you can visit Zack’s webpage here. Click more for a few representative photographs.
"Burning Bush"
"Coverings I: Confusion"
RAFTER: AS LIVE AS YOU CAN GET WITHOUT BEING LIVE
May 6th, 2009 , by Asthmatic Kitty
