Read The Lastest Music News/Reviews

I

Though its stature as a festival has swiftly risen since its inception in 2010, many of Manchester

This piece of music may sound mighty familiar if you were at Sonar over the weekend (and if your ears are sufficiently recovered).

Played between acts on Red Bull Music Academy’s SonarDome stage, the near-17 minute composition was created by 2011 Red Bull graduate, LuckyMe affiliate and FACT favourite Claude Speeed, who crams in squiggly synths, textured ambience and huge, crashing drums, touching on epic electronica from Brainfeeder to Boards of Canada. Listen below, and check out another interlude piece created for the stage by Japanese producer Yosi Horikawa.

At the beginning of the year Speeed delivered a stately and spooky remix of Martyn’s ‘We Are You In The Future’, and we previously got ourselves excited over a 100-minute soundtrack of classical, ambient and drone music he created for a London clothing store.

The times for next week’s Glastonbury Festival are out.

At the very top of the ticket, Friday will see Arctic Monkeys go up against Portshead and Chic; the Stones will contend with Fuck Buttons and Public Enemy on Saturday; and the closing night will see Mumford & Sons playing at the same time as Phoenix and Bobby Womack. Cast your eyes below to plot your timetable, agonize over clashes, and make sure you get to see the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan monks. Note: it looks like The Weeknd has mysteriously vanished from the line-up, suggesting Mr. Tesfaye won’t be stopping by in Pilton after all.

Performances on all of the the major stages will be streamed in full by the BBC at this year’s festival – well, almost all of them.

Stage Times:
Pyramid Stage

Friday

ARCTIC MONKEYS 22:15

With ATP's Deerhunter-curated weekend - their last ever UK summertime holiday camp festival - we thought it'd behoove us to shine a light on some of the less familiar names on the bill. Obviously Steve Reich, Tom Tom Club, Dan Deacon et al are unmissable, and Deerhunter themselves have grown into a formidable live krautprogpunk monstrousity that you really do need to see. But a big part of the joy of ATP is in finding something new as you stumble around with a pint of Newcastle Brown*. To whit:

BLUE ORCHIDS

Classic melodic post punk band lead by the founding guitarist of The Fall, Martin Bramah.

CAVERN OF ANTI-MATTER

Tim Gane of Stereolab's new, motorik derived project.

MICHAEL HURLEY

Wryly lovely folk, beloved of Cat Power, Devendra Banhart and Calexico. Hopefully on early on Sunday to restore any ravaged souls.

BLUES CONTROL WITH LARAAJI

Laraaji, famed for his stunning 70s electronic zither collaborations with Brian Eno, teaming up with Blues Control for densely atmospheric long form improv.

LONNIE HOLLEY

Improvised soulful crooning over abstract avant garde twitches and drones. could be utterly spellbinding.

And for good measure, here's Deerhunter leader Bradford Cox's mix tape for the event:

*literally the only good drink served on site

The next delivery from the Adult Swim Singles Program comes from promising Florida rapper Kitty.

‘Barbie Jeep’ sees the artist formerly known as Kitty Pryde survey the club and deem it full of losers, casting Harry Potter spells on her admirers over a loose beat of jumbled percussion.

The track is the second in this year’s singles giveaway by Adult Swim, the late-night channel from Cartoon Network, following ’36

Hats off to the Unsound programming department – their latest brace of additions is typically excellent. 

The festival now boasts a veritable Modern Love supergroup in the form of Andy Stott & Demdike Stare, presenting a bespoke collaborative composition. Eutectic has been written with Unsound’s “interference” theme in mind, and will be performed by the trio entirely on hardware. They’ll be given a run for their money by another charmed collaborative project, The Mulholland Free Clinic – aka Juju & Jordash, Move D and Jonah Sharp. Their live show promises freeform house and techno, cooked up on the fly using analogue apparatus and other non-laptop kit.

Downwards head honcho Regis will present Necklace Of Bites, a disordered and resequenced journey into the producer’s extensive back catalogue. Forest Swords – the man responsible for 2010′s essential Dagger Paths, which claimed the No. 1 spot in our favourite albums of 2010 list – will also be presenting a slew of new material. Hessle Audio’s Pearson Sound is confirmed, as are racket-maker Pete Swanson and skewed Norwegian singer Jenny Hval.

Further additions in...

Another top score for Numbers.

The latest from UK producer Sophie is a logical follow-up to the label’s last release, Rustie’s insta-classic ‘Slasherr/Triadzz’.

Lead track ‘Bipp’ is a bouncing, jerking, jumbo-sized bag of spiked Haribo guided by a sugar-sweet pop vocal, while ‘Elle’ on the flip is what Candy Crush would sound like as a dubstep banger.

The single is out now digitally and on 12″ vinyl. The incognito producer also has a series of live dates planned throughout the summer, kicking off this Friday at The Nest in east London:

21 June

Alex Zhang Hungtai’s dolorous solo project will wind its way around the US in Autumn.  

Dirty Beaches’ ambitious Drifters/Love Is The Devil dyad – an endlessly compelling 2xLP of ghostly rockabilly and spooky electronic pop – is one of the most immersive listening experiences of 2013. For those Stateside fans keen to get their live Dirty Beaches fix, Hungtai will head out on the road in North America for a series of dates throughout September (plus a handful of June stops to boot). A veritable patchwork of support acts have also been confirmed: Heathered Pearls, Xray Eyeballs, Porcelain Raft, Andy Boay, Sisu, Chasms, and Eola will appear at various dates.

A full list of dates is below, courtesy of Pitchfork. Earlier this year, FACT caught up with Hungtai to chat Andy Stott and Retromania.

Dates:
June 26 New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
June 28 Brooklyn, NY – Glasslands
September 4 Montreal, QU, Canada – Societe des Arts Technologiques
September  5 – Boston, MA – Chruch of Boston
September  8 Washington, DC – Rock & Roll Hotel
September  9 Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
September 11 Toronto, ON – The Garrison
September  13 St. Louis, MO – Firebird
September 14 Na...

Californian rock duo Deap Vally tend not to wear a huge amount of clothing, something that seems to have caused a low level tizz in some corners of the indieverse. I guess I can see both sides of the argument

Another of Scandinavia

American Psycho-inspired short film" src="http://factmag-images.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/KanyeWest180613.jpg" alt="Kanye West unveils American Psycho-inspired short film" width="685" height="514" />

So, it’s official:Yeezus is, y’know, pretty good.  

As part of the tortuous build-up to the album, the public at large have been promised an American Psycho-themed trailer for the album, first premiered in projection form on Sunday at L.A.’s Milk Hangar.

The clip features Keeping Up With The Kardashians regular Scott Disick aping Christian Bale, and Kim Kardashian bezzie Jonathan Cheban playing Jared Leto. It’s deeply stupid, and presumably marginally amusing if you know who these people are, but watching reality TV stars butchering one another at least feels thematically consonant with the album.

With Yeezus just out, check out FACT