MP3: High Priest ft. TV on the Radio: "Keep Time" NYC avant-rap shape-shifter has been on the scene since the late 90s, when his group Anti-Pop Consortium first started blowing minds with their fusion of hip-hop, IDM, and jazz. APC put out a record on Warp and toured with Radiohead and DJ Shadow before breaking up in the early 00s.
Priest went on to form Airborn Audio with fellow ex-Anti-Pop member M. Sayyid; they released an album on Ninja Tune last year and toured with the Faint and Bright Eyes. Now, High Priest is getting ready to release a solo album.
Born Identity, due February 6 on , is a characteristically adventurous collection of Priest s hazy phrasing over cacophonic, genre-crossing beats. However, Keep Time , Born Identity s final track, breaks from the formula by ditching High Priest s raps entirely. They re replaced by the mumbles and hums of s Tunde Adibempe, who is joined by his TVOTR bandmate Jaleel Bunton on sitar and percussion.
Priest is responsible for the bass, keyboards, and drum programming on the track, contributing a spooky, creeping groove. Apparently, Keep Time was made while TV on Oh boy, here we go again. , Sunset Rubdown merch guy Warren Hill scored the supreme rock n roll artifact, an acetate test-pressing of an early version of the first Velvet Underground record, for $0.
75. He , somebody named mechadaddy won it last Friday, and , mechadaddy turned out to be just some schmo whose buddy hacked into his eBay account. A deadbeat, as they call them on the wild frontiers of eBaynia.
But Warren s not daunted by one chump bidder, no no! He the acetate for auction today, but here s the catch: only pre-approved eBay users can bid, which means you have to e-mail Hill first. Info .
And , it s right now! The best part: Oxford Collapse and Thunderbirds Are Now! Tour Looks like are going to spend 2007 just like they spent 2006: touring their asses off.
Along with co-headliners , they re revving up for a North American trek in late January and early February. In addition to making the rounds with TAN!, the Brooklynites will play a New Year s Eve show with Radio 4 at NYC s Mercury Lounge, as well as a January 26 gig at in Portland, Maine.
And speaking of Thunderbirds Are Now!, the group has undergone some special changes over the course of the last month or so. No, not B.
O. and hair in unexpected places-- there s been a member switch. Bassist Howard Chang left the band to pursue life as a family man, according to a statement on TAN!
s website. Julian Wettlin ( ), who began performing live with the band in November, will serve as Chang s replacement. He ll be in tow for the Oxford Collapse jaunt, as well as a newly announced series of European shows this February.
TAN! will also play the fourth annual Detroit Sounds and Spirits benefit concert on December 22. Proceeds assist the .
Willowz Sign to Dim Mak, Ready New Album filled two slotz on the zoundtrack to Charlie Kaufman z (and more recently, contributed muZic to another Michel Gondry-directed film, The Zcience of Zleep), their profile has continued to rize. (OK, we ll ztop. I mean stop.
) Now, has tacked the Willowz on to its roster, and plans to release their forthcoming Chautauqua LP on March 20. The track Evil Son is available for download below. The band will tour North America with the Mooney Suzuki in February and March, and hit Europe in early 2007, though dates have yet to be confirmed.
They ll also appear at Dim Mak s showcase at next year s . Like everybody and their mom, the Willowz have been nominated for Subterranean s video of the year for their Cons and Tricks clip. Vote , if you are so Finally, the Willowz currently have a single date on their agenda.
They ll play a free show at L.A. s Spaceland club on December 26.
s debut performance on the PBS show -- which recently released on as Live From Austin, TX-- now has a CD release date. New West will put out the disc on January 9 with the same tracklist as the DVD, though fans should remember that the set is from August of 2003 and so doesn t include new album favorites like Star Witness or Hold On, Hold On .
Case has two Australian dates with this month, and she ll return there for her own tour in January.
She will follow those with a handful of U.S. dates, including four opening for country legend Merle Haggard.
Silent Night is one of my least favorite holiday tunes, but , principal songwriter for and recent signee, has saved the world from another mundane, traditional version of the track. Bobby s take is available for free download below. Here, Silent Night is pulsating and fuzzy.
blade of grass held between your thumbs. Unfortunately, Bobby s voice is high-pitched and label. It s available exclusively through the label s page.
All proceeds from the disc go to the charity. Nothing says Happy Holiday-of-Your-Choice like a gadget, and with this in mind, Michigan electronic label has collaborated with New York design boutique in the creation of what is, to our minds, the first officially released compilation on a USB-compatible memory stick.
Featuring a 128-megabyte flash memory and doubling as digital storage space, M/GM 1 (read: Moss/Ghostly Music Edition 1) features tracks from Matthew Dear, Dabrye, and Mobius Band, among others.
Kristin Victoria Barron designed the device based on a concept from label head Sam Valenti IV.
According to a press release, M/GM 1 is roughly the size of a pack of gum [and] can be used for data storage of any sort, a feature that follows from Ghostly s encouragement of file-sharing and desire to make music as portable and transferable as possible. A label that encourages file-sharing and the portability of music in 2006?
What a novel idea, majors!
The whole point is to get people who are having their moment..
.and get a definitive record of what they're doing. , producer s -- a sort-of television show that s on the Internet and thus has nothing to do with television at all-- will be available for download December 18 on (okay, almost nothing to do with TV) and iTunes.
For a small fee viewers may scoop up the show, which presents live performances in intimate settings without all the bells and whistles that usually hamper these things. , , and all play the debut episode, and if the any indication, it looks pretty effing fantastic.
The follow-up episode (due in February) will showcase performances by and , and Godrich has high hopes for the series.
Taking time out from working on the new record, Godrich told Pitchfork in a recent interview, We ve got a lot of people that I d like to see on the show [that] we re talking to. [But] I don t want to mention their names. Obviously, I m really interested to capture some really iconic, bigger names-- really the whole point is to get people who are having their moment, to try and get a definitive record of what they re doing.
And also, I ve got a lot of friends in smaller bands, continued Godrich, and there s an element of trying to promote stuff that we think is good.
Indeed, Godrich first conceived of From the Basement as a means of authentically documenting the pulse of music being made today. Beck and I [had] been watching Rock and Roll Circus, that Rolling Stones movie that they made after they d been on tour.
..we were just saying how amazing it was to see such a snapshot of that time: You get to see them, warts and all.
..hanging out with John Lennon and Eric Clapton and all these people.
[We were] just saying what a shame it was that there wasn t anything that really felt as honest as that anymore, at the moment.
Mastodon Attacked by Gorillas!
(Tool members in gorilla suits, that is) Oh, .
Such jokers! Including 3D glasses with the artwork for your , writing songs with titles like Rosetta Stoned , ambushing your opening band while wearing ape costumes. It s just a constant party with you guys, right?
Said ambush took place last night at Zurich, Switzerland s Hallenstadium, while Tool were busy melting Swiss faces. We re not sure what, exactly, happened, but judging from these photos, it appears that organ grinding was involved. Think that s funny?
How about this: Mastodon are nominated for a Grammy for Best Metal Performance for their song Colony of Birchmen from . Now that s hilarious. horse (er, ass) when it comes to jokes about the title of s Best New Music-earner, (even the band ), but c mon, with a name like that, there s no way around it.
have tacked on a handful of dates to their U.S. tour, which is scheduled to kick off in late January.
After showing the States their stuff, Yo La Tengo will make their way to Japan, Australia, and Singapore. -holders have access to pre-sale tickets for the new gigs. Yo La Tengo will drop a live iTunes Session EP digitally on January 9.
The Athens, Georgia music community, as close-knit as scenes come, experienced a tragic loss this past Monday as Will Westbrook, guitarist for -affiliated offshoot , passed away.
Will was also an Olivia Tremor Control collaborator, a player in Neutral Milk Hotel s live incarnation, and a celebrated photographer-- it s his portrait of NMH that appears on the Elephant 6 . Will s untimely death-- said to extend from unspecified recent health problems-- prompted an outpouring of grief from the Athens community.
Will was a a great guy, and a madman as a guitar player, wrote Ben Crum of fellow Orange Twin act on his band s . He will be sorely missed.
Along with Scott Spillane and John D Azzo, Westbrook formed the core of the Gerbils, who came together back in Louisiana in 1992, later relocating to Athens.
They released a pair of albums and several singles over the years (also breaking up for a period), the most recent being 2001 LP The Battle of Electricity on Orange Twin.
Some thoughts posted by J. Kirk Pleasant of former Athens band on the Elephant 6 touched on elements of Will s character unbeknownst to most.
He was very unassuming on stage, wrote Pleasant. His beauty always lay in the very very subtle.
It took him forever to do anything.
.. record a guitar solo, line up a photo, make a cup of coffee.
If anyone ever goes by the transmetropolitan in Athens, notice the tile before the entrance. Will did those tiles and took years (as I recall) to finish the job. Every tile was perfect and he made sure that when he did anything, it was perfect.
He was an extraordinary photographer. I always admired him the most for that. His hands were perpetually cracked and dry.
I keep seeing his hands in my mind today as this news sinks in. This is tearing me apart. I ll miss him.
Our hearts go out to friends and family of Will and all those he loved.
Last weekend, what seemed like the entire noise-rock universe gathered in Somerset, England for festival, curated by scene godfather of . We are so jealous of everybody who went.
And Thurston didn t take his curatorial role lightly, oh no. Dude was everywhere. Not only did he play two sets with Sonic Youth and one with side project Bark Haze, but he also jumped onstage with Be Your Own Pet and sang backup for Negative Approach.
Andrew Kesin, General Manager of Moore s label, was kind enough to share a small slice of the thousands of photos he took at the event. Pix of performances from Sonic Youth, the Stooges, Gang of Four, Flipper (with Krist Novoselic!), Be Your Own Pet, the Melvins, Negative Approach, Six Organs of Admittance, Wooden Wand, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Wolf Eyes, Comets on Fire, Dead Machines, Hair Police, Awesome Color, Bark Haze, 16 Bitch Pile-Up, Monotract, and MV + EE are below.
For a lot more, including performance photos from Nurse With Wound, Dinosaur Jr., No Neck Blues Band, Prurient, Sun City Girls, and many, many others, as well as off-stage goofing, check out Kesin s on the Ecstatic Peace site.
Diplo, Muse, Spank Rock, Drones, Hot Chip, Tool also set for Australian fest At Pitchfork HQ, scarves and shivers pretty much make up January and February s forecast, but for occupants Hemisphere, it s bikinis and sweat.
Early next year, Australia and New Zealand will celebrate their summer with the 15th annual festival. The event will travel to Auckland on January 19, Gold Coast on January 21, Sydney on January 25, Melbourne on January 28, Adelaide on February 2, and Perth on February 4. Day Out boasts a boatload of both touring and select-show-only acts, including the Killers, Tool, Violent Femmes, the Streets, Peaches, Muse, Lupe Fiasco, Lily Justice, the Presets, the Drones, the Vines, the Sleepy Jackson, and more.
For a more complete lineup, head ; local acts The video for Golden Skans -- January 22 single from the forthcoming LP-- is the band s best video yet, due in no small part to the fact that they now seem to have a budget. Like a human version of the awesome for Vitalic s Poney Part 1 , a good portion of the clip is spent with the band floating in the air wrapped in colored ribbons. But it also includes sweet shots of the band roaring up from a body of water and using thin rods to slice through big cylinders with liquid inside.
Right, so it doesn t make any sense, but director -- responsible for Klaxons excellent video as well as the cleverly edited Bush and Blair set to Electric Six s Gay Bar and who has one of the most awesome websites we ve seen-- makes it all look fantastic.
Polydor will release Myths of the Near Future in the UK on January 29, and Klaxons have plenty of UK tour dates to keep them busy before then and afterward. ready to cut a rug, because are about to tour pretty much everywhere.
In late January, the band will fire things up with quick treks through both Japan and Australia. Then, they re off on whirlwind treks across North America and Europe, taking them through late April. the Sisters also slated to play a New Year s Eve gig in Berlin, as well as three English dates in the summer.
And they ll reach an even bigger audience on February 8, when Scissor Sisters will appear on the zany NBC soap opera Passions . According to their website, the band will burst on to the show in a puff of smoke, conjured by young witch(!) Endora to play in her mother s living And speaking of that big screen sitting in front of your face (the one that isn t a computer monitor), last month, Scissor Sisters asked their fans to film themselves getting ready, pumped and prepared Finally, the band released a new single, Land of a Thousand Words , not too long ago on CD, picture disc, and iTunes exclusive download.
recorded in San Francisco this May, features material from the pair s , , and albums.
Like Gonz a lez, Goldfrapp are also up for a slew of awards. They are nominated for two Grammys, Best Electronic/Dance Album (Supernature) and Best Dance La ).
Vote and for the latter two honors, respectively. their home studio in Bath, England recording new tunes; these are slated for a spring release. Finally, keep an eye out for Goldfrapp on Showtime s The L Word in 2007, as they taped a performance for the series earlier this year.
Ooh La La indeed!
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