defined gangsta rap with the 1988 release of Straight Outta Compton, and even though it s their only essential album and a veritable greatest hits all by itself, N.W.A have had more than their share of hits comps and legacy collections compiled from their meager discography.
Well, here s another one: The Best of N.W.A: The Strength of Street Knowledge, out December 26 on Capitol/Priority.
What Street Knowledge adds to the noble legacy of lumping a bunch of Straight Outta Compton tracks together with a couple of other singles is a DVD, and it s actually a pretty cool one. Its 11 tracks feature over two hours of music videos and interview footage (mostly previously unreleased) with Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella.
Street Knowledge will come as a CD and as a CD/DVD package; both will include liner notes by hip-hop writer Soren Baker.
And for those of you who think spending 20 bucks on a compilation of songs you already have just to watch interviews isn t enough, nine N.W.
A tracks will make their ringtone debuts on December 12. 35 ringtones have been made from clips of the songs, which include Express Yourself , Straight Outta Compton , and Fuck Tha Police . So the next time you get pulled over for speeding and your cell phone accidentally rings, you ll be guaranteed a ticket.
UK-based are only one of the best DJ duos going right now, and upon hearing this mix a couple weeks ago-- commissioned for the show and aired last month-- we knew we had to do whatever it took to share it with you. The duo (JD Twitch and JG Wilke) s Optimo Espacio Sunday night parties in Glasgow, Scotland are almost absurdly acclaimed. This mix demos that night s sound, drawing heavily from New York no wave ( Optimo , after all, is also the name of a classic Liquid Liquid track), disco and funk.
It also includes stuff we ve been recommending of late, like LCD Soundsystem s 45:33 mix, Ricardo Villalobos, Lindstr m, and Prince. (Man, have you checked out Prince yet??
) The pair were kind enough to provide Pitchfork with a voiceover- and station-ID-free version of their mix for download today, and with a million office parties/family get togethers/midnight masses on the holiday horizon, we say just dump the whole goddamn thing on your iPod and let these guys relieve you of your DJ duties. It ll make you wish you were at their night Glasgow, not surrounded by loved ones at home.
Sorry kids, they're all in London At last!
Concrete news! None of these or , oh no--real live concert dates. Unfortunately for most of the world, those dates are all in London.
In a month and a half, the powerhouse Canadian collective will head to England for the first time since the fall of 2005. They will play five very special shows, according to their management. More dates will be announced soon, as will details of the band s second album, due out in the spring.
Wake up, people! Arcade Fire are back!
It begins with the band sitting in a club looking bored--nothing particularly interesting.
Then something weird and wonderful happens. I don t want to spoil the surprise by revealing exactly what, but let s just say there s definitely something in Kele s drink. The video for , the first single from s forthcoming second album A Weekend in the City (due February 5 on in the UK and February 6 on in the U.
S.) made its debut on the BBC Radio 1 last night. It was directed by Walter Stern, the man behind such classic clips as the Prodigy s Firestarter , the Verve s Bitter Sweet Symphony , and Massive Attack s Teardrop .
Props to his special effects team. While we brace ourselves for the March 20 release of Turn the Lights Out, the third LP from s , (Chicago reprazent!), here s a taste-- wait a minute.
An album called Turn the Lights Out on Matador in 2007? Is that supposed to be some kind of joke? I guess they re taking pretty hard after all (kidding, we love u guys 3).
Anyhow, Lights Out s Double Vision , presented below in stunning MPEG-1 audio layer 3 format, finds our little Ponys further emerging from the riff-rock riff-raff, treating their guitars with dollops of delay, and delivering a pretty clean, concise case for rocking out in dorm rooms and dive bars alike. The lyrics probably won t make your LiveJournal, and singer/guitarist Jared Gummere does rhyme place with, er, place , but who comes to music like this for poetry? .
..whoa, now that name s a blast from the past.
According to the Pitchfork Time Machine, May 2005 was when we last heard from the Chicago punk/funk (or junkyard afro-new wave as our own Pete Macia ) party-starters. A whole year-and-a-half ago! That s, like, a decade in internet time.
Since then, Mahjongg have been laying low, but they haven t disappeared. In fact, they re gearing up for a busy 2007, working on their debut album for seminal indie label . Recently, Pitchfork spoke with multi-instrumentalist about what he and his crew have been up to, including their signing to K.
We are really excited to be on K, Husar said. It s the best possible situation we could find ourselves in. Calvin [Johnson, K head honcho] is really nice.
On a personal level, I found him to be an interesting guy. Husar said that he hopes to release a 7 in the spring on K, and then an album later in the year. The 7 will feature the tracks Problems and Those Birds Are Bats ; so far, the only album track title being floated is Kottbusser Tor , named after a place in East Berlin where you get drugs, according to Husar.
Not that he d know anything about that, right? No. Nothing.
Leading the pack of the UnGoogleables, Seattle psych-drone legends return this spring with a brand new disc for , which has the Dylan Carlson-led crew re-addressing selections from its back catalogue and refitting them for the 21st century zeitgeist, whatever that may be.
Tentatively slated for March release, Hibernaculam (spelling intentional, apparently) collects what a press release calls stark and clean new versions of Ouroboros Is Broken (featured on 1991 s Extra-Capsular Extraction EP), Coda Maestoso in F (Flat) Minor (from 1996 s Pentastar: In the Style of Demons), and Miami Morning Coming Down (from an old Touch compilation). Rounding out the four mega-song set is A Plague of Angels , from this year s limited edition 12 split with Sunn O))).
Truly a 21st century artifact, Hibernaculam will come in stunning dual-disc format, with the flipside DVD containing a documentary on Earth filmed by prolific graphic designer , comprised of footage from the band s 2006 European tour with Sunn O))) and interviews with Carlson. \m/ Taunton, Massachusetts have returned from a three-year hiatus following 2003 s and their subsequent drop from Sony imprint Aware Records. Now they re a duo consisting of singer/guitarist Scott Levesque and drummer Brendan Harney, and they re getting back into action with two releases for their new label, , scheduled for the coming months.
The first is a mini-album titled That s Exactly What I Wanted...
Exactly That, featuring five new songs, including Little White Dove , a track from Wheat s upcoming full-length. Empyrean will release Exactly That exclusively online on December 15, and the label is also offering a limited edition package deal including the mini-album and a hand-numbered, silk-screened poster and a t-shirt, both designed by the band.
As for the full-length, it s titled Everyday I Said a Prayer for Kathy and Made a One Inch Square (brevity is apparently not part of Wheat s vocabulary) and scheduled for a March 6 release.
Empyrean will follow the album deluxe re-issues of the band s first two albums, Medeiros and Hope and Adams.
Finally, at the carefully maintained fansite , Wheat are allowing fans to the original, nude versions of the songs on Per Second, which were recorded before the band signed with Aware/Sony. remember, have supported audience audio taping at their concerts, as well as the trading of said material for non-commercial purposes.
And we ve always appreciated this, but today, we re more thankful than ever, as a slew of new Jesse Jarnow of was kind enough to round up an for his readers enjoyment. He managed to track (Keep in mind that none of these mp3s are official, and, given the nature of these things, they could disappear at any moment.) According to Jarnow s list, Me , Let s Fight , Is That the Thanks I Get?
, recreate music right up until (and sometimes during) studio sessions, we re stages. But for the time being, we ve picked a few favorites from the eclectic call-and-response Is That the Thanks I Get, where you ll hear Tweedy s voice reach for the High-Note Hall of Fame, Walken , which trots along before bursting into a bluesy, piano-heavy chorus and bridge, and the lovely, whispery, and dare we say sleepy Lullaby for Rafters and a break from the road right now, but the band s individual members remain busy the majority of December, and he recently contributed to M. Ward s To Go Home single, due February 20 via .
In addition, John Stirratt and Patrick Sansone s duo have a new album scheduled for January.
Dafydd Ieuan records with the Peth. Yes, that's a person's name.
Sometimes you want your music to go just a little bit bonkers, and that s why God put (Welsh name, roughly: Ffllygddyll- ddylgldlydllggylldyld ) on this Earth, as a foil to all those brooding post-punkers and too-serious emocore yelpers. The Furries acting frontman (English pronunciation, roughly: dances with pancakes ) has a new solo disc on the way-- his second-- titled Candylion (Welsh: Cyncncnnncnclyn ).
delivers dozen-song Candylion, which follows up 2005 s all-Welsh set Yr Atal Genhedlaeth (pronounced: ponies make me want to frolic hard ), on January 29 in the UK.
A single for the title track is out now, and what s this? A delightful, low-budget video directed by Mark James that will get you in the mood for some intense craft-making? Believe it:
After raking in for the stellar track Pale Rider Blues , will release their debut, , scheduled to hit shelves on January 23.
Arbouretum main man Dave Heumann has lent a hand to people like and in the past, and the band s was released on Ned Oldham s Box Tree Records. On Rites of Uncovering, listeners can expect contributions from Walker David Teret, percussion from s Mitchell Feldstein, and bass from Corey A lengthy Arbouretum tour will take place around the record s release, though dates have not yet been confirmed. They currently have three shows scheduled for this month.
the -fronted have a disc slated for January 23. The large collective features, among others, Tortoise s Jeff Parker and John Herndon, Frequency s Nicole Mitchell, Vandermark 5 s Jeb Bishop, Born Heller s Jason Ajemian, Isotope 217 s Matt Lux, our very own Pitchfork Festival organizer Mike Reed, and Tortoise/the Sea and Cake s John McEntire, who recorded this album at Soma Studios. The work, titled , is divided into three sections and, according to a album description on Thrill Jockey s website, it corresponds to a story involving an exploding star, cosmic transformation, a sting ray, the travels of the sting ray, intelligent conversations with electric eels, the destructive power of humans, the death and ascension of sting ray, the transformation of sting ray ghost to flying bird, and the transformation of bird to phoenix to rocket to flying burning matter to a new-born star.
record, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, have embraced the Internet, first uploading individual tracks to their and later to a full-blown LP on s website. (Not to mention the occasional album track as an mp3.
) Kevin Barnes is But even internet marketing geniuses face day-to-day challenges offline. For instance, Barnes wife, Nina, lost her hat in Little Rock, Arkansas, inspiring the new Of Montreal track, Little Rock . What hardship!
As , the song was released documents the incident ( Little Rock, I offered you my heart and you tried to steal Nina s hat. Little Rock, why d you have to go and do something as stupid as that? ) and Of Montreal s subsequent disdain for in a 58-second mostly-acoustic ditty.
of instrumentation? Believe it, and download the track below. And get ready for the diss track by the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, hopefully coming to a mixtape near you soon.
label 12 , which boasts two cuts from the band s new record, also landed on Polyvinyl yesterday. But you . have a new EP on its way January 23, titled Icons, Abstract Thee.
Listeners can preview its opening track, Du Oh Meg , on the band s .
addition to its inclusion on the Polyvinyl EP, the song will appear on side cuts also slated for Icons. The EP, however, features the exclusive track Miss Blonde, Your Papa Is Failing , which will not be found pre-ordering the CD versions of both Hissing Fauna and Icons, Abstract Thee at once from Polyvinyl are eligible to receive a special package deal.
We love deals! three-month-long North American tour this January. And out of all these dates, there is not one show scheduled in Little Rock.
Walking the walk...
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