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Don’t exhale you guys, because the ’90s resurgence isn’t over yet. While on tour in Chicago yesterday supporting her debut album, True Romance, (or as I like to call it, “Thank god, a new collection of sex jams”) Charli XCX performed a cover of the Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way during a show at Borderline Music. If you’re keeping score (or making some sort of elaborate conspiracy theory chart on your bedroom walls) One Direction did the same cover about two weeks ago.

Someone should ask Nick Carter his thoughts on this, because I have a feeling it’ll be like how Bob Dylan said Jimi Hendrix’s version of All Along the Watchtower was how Dylan wanted his own to sound. Charli XCX’s I Want It That Way is more sultry and less rigidly structured (meaning no five-boy harmonies) than the original. The video is below, but before you hit play, take a second to consider: it’s gonna be stuck in your head all day.

The post Watch: Charli XCX Covers The Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” appeared first on CMJ.

While I have never really been able to get into the HBO show True Blood, their latest soundtrack for the series is something to get behind. Scheduled for release on May 28th via ATO Records, it features the likes of My Morning Jacket, Deep Valley, The Flaming Lips, and Warpaint to name a few. Additionally, everyone’s favorite down home mamajamas Alabama Shakes are contributing a new one titled “Pocket Change.” It is a simple little throwback ditty that would be perfect to throw on for your next backyard BBQ. Stream it below.

Brodinski and Manu Barron prep the tenth release from their club-minded imprint.

Bromance #10 features tracks from Montreal’s Kaytranada and Baton Rouge’s Suicideyear

The mighty San Francisco psychedelic titan known as Ty Segall has announced a summer tour to support his new solo album, Sleeper, due out August 20th through Drag City. The docket includes appearances at Pickathon and FYF Fest before Segall embarks on a headlining tour that stretches from late August through mid-September.

Watch the surprisingly eerie trailer announcing the tour:

Ty Segall 2013 Tour Dates:
07/19 – Paris, France @ City Sounds Festival
08/01 – Santa Cruz, CA @ Catalyst Atrium * #
08/03-04 – Happy Valley, OR @ Pickathon Music Festival
08/24 – Los Angeles, CA @ FYF Fest
08/27 – Austin, TX @ Mohawk Outside
08/29 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
08/30 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
08/31 – Chicago, IL @ Logan Square Auditorium
09/02 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall #
09/04 – Monterey, CA @ Golden State Theatre #
09/05 – Oakland, CA @ New Parish #
09/07 – Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s #
09/08 – Boise, ID @ Neurolux #
09/09 – Reno, NV @ Holland Project #
12/01 – Camber Sands, UK @ ATP’s End of an Era Festival

* = w/ Daughn Gibson and William Tyler
# = w/ Mike Donovan

The boards are the heartbeat of DiS, and as such you

The promotion for Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories was innovative, but it’s certainly rivaled by the mysterious roll-out for Boards Of Canada’s first album in seven years, Tomorrow’s Harvest. The first preview of new music came via six single edition 12″s released on Record Store Day that went from a crate-digger’s goldmine to being sold for the price of one of Diddy’s children on eBay. Yesterday, more music from the Scottish ambient duo was unveiled a la Kanye West on a screen in Tokyo. Check out the footage below.

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One of the things I remember most from this year

Laurel Halo’s confidence in her beat making ability has only grown in the year that’s passed since the release of her full-length debut, Quarantine. Her latest short and sweet EP, Behind The Green Door, displays Halo’s versatility, taking a left turn from the sounds explored on her full-length. Suprisingly, Halo’s new record doesn’t contain any of the fluttering vocals to which we’ve become accustomed. Instead, we are hit by more dance-club ready tunes. It’s as if Halo has stumbled onto a time machine and launched herself back a few years, because the sound is oddly familiar to her 2010 EP Hour Logic.

The opening song, “Throw” fades in with crisp but ominous piano chords, as if Halo knows something bad is about to happen. Just as the tension in the song reaches its tipping point, she slows it down with a constant pitter pat on the drums, only to smoothly reintroduce the piano near the end. By the time it was over, and that tingling feeling slowly left my body, I realized that there was no drop. It was like taking a steady climb to the top of a mountain, only to be left there with no path back to the base camp.

From there Halo transitions into the actual club banger off the EP. “UHFFO” is the only song off this album that I can picture people bouncing around and fist pumping too at a hot and crowded party. With a roaring bass and warbling synths that in...

Two of London’s finest, The xx and Jessie Ware, teamed up last night at Berlin’s Night + Day concert to cover not a Daft Punk song, but the Stardust one-off hit “Music Sounds Better With You”, which written by Thomas Bangalter with Alan Braxe and singer Benjamin Diamond. Watch the sultry performance of the French house classic below, which also interpolates a little of Modjo’s “Lady (Hear Me Tonight)”.

The xx-curated Night + Day comes to London’s Hatfield House on June 22nd with performances by Solange, Poliça, Kindness, Mount Kimbie, and, of course, The xx.

At Berlin’s Night + Day Festival over the weekend, the xx invited Jessie Ware, their peer in warm, poised, inward-looking London club music, to the stage for something very cool. Over the track from Jamie xx’s “Sunset” edit, they fused together two circa-2000 rave classics: Modjo’s “Lady (Hear Me Tonight)” and Stardust’s “Music Sounds Better With You.” The xx handled the “Lady” hook, while Ware sang the everliving hell out of “Music Sounds Better With You,” and the whole thing just sounded awesome. The Berlin crowd, bless them, knew both hooks well enough to sing along. Watch a prettily filmed, pristinely recorded video of the performance below.

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Brooklyn’s People Get Ready are about to digitally release the Zelda Maria EP, a follow-up to their 2012 self-titled debut. “Zelda Maria” was the album’s second single and the EP that it is being re-released on will sort of function as a companion piece to understanding the band’s process as musicians and performers, including demos, remixes, and instrumentals. For the title track, the group has crafted an experimental visual, heavy on movement and image-manipulation. The dancing was choreographed by Guggenheim Fellow Tere O’Conor, while PGR founder Steve Reker worked with video artist Ty Flowers to edit the images. Check it out below.

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CBGB Festival 2012 (more by Chris La Putt)

As mentioned, the CBGB Festival is returning to various NYC venues this year from October 9 to 13. In addition to the music portion, there will also be a film portion of the festival. The hub for the film portion will be at The Landmark Sunshine Theater on E. Houston St.

Badges for the festival are on early-bird sale now through July 1, at which point the regular sale will begin and go through October 8. Walk-up badges at a higher price will also be available during the festival.

Info on the different types and pricing of the badges and a trailer video for CBGB Festival below...

Continue reading "CBGB Music & Film Festival announces 2013 ticket info (earlybird passes on sale now)" at brooklynvegan

The controversial artist and political activist reveals the first song from his forthcoming album.

A leading contemporary artist known for his irreverent, politically-charged installations and sculptures, Ai Weiwei was also the victim of state oppression in China, where he was forcibly detained for over three months in 2011.

Earlier this year, Ai (and musician Zuoxiao Zuzhou) announced plans for an album, with songs that run the gamut from heavy metal to punk to pop. ‘Dumbass’ falls into the metal category, with a sludgy riff and a derisive, political message (“Stand on the frontline like a dumbass, in a country that puts out like a hooker,” according to an English translation).

Directed by Ai with cinematography by Christopher Doyle, the video dramatizes and then satirizes Ai’s imprisonment. Stark recreations of prison life quickly descend into images of sex dolls, lingerie-clad models, and several bits of eye-catching roll reversal.

Watch the video below; the song and video are available for download on Ai Weiwei’s website, as are the song’s lyrics. ‘Dumbass’ appears on The Divine Comedy, due out June 22.

Even before CHVRCHES turned the Game of Thrones theme into a slice of bedroom-born synth-pop, frontwoman Lauren Mayberry was churning out left-of-center covers like it was going out of style. Case in point: this rendition of Rage Against the Machine’s classic “Killing in the Name” alongside her pre-CHVRCHES outfit Blue Sky Archives.

Mayberry and company transformed the once angsty, riotous anthem into a sweet and delicate gem of jangly folk-pop, muting the rage while upping the sheer adorableness. (It’s about an 8.0 on the “Romantic Songwriter” meter). I double dare anyone not to absolutely swoon when she sings “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.”

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Photo by Heather Kaplan