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In their new video for Hummingbird opening track “You & I”, Local Natives offer the heart-wrenching tale of the last living dog on Earth. In other words, the most unforgiving episode of The Twilight Zone. Think about it: Could you imagine a world without Obsessive Corgi Disorder? Or a street with only shitting pigeons, scurrying rats, and sticky ant piles? That place would absolutely suck, and goddamn them for making me think about it. (Especially since it would mean this little guy would no longer be able to chill out with me.) Anyways, if you’ve got the mind, body, and soul for that nightmare, watch Local Natives, Daniel Portrait, and Kamp Grizzly’s horrifying vision below. (Full admission: It’s actually really, really well shot.)

The Top Star-earning Hummingbird is currently available now via Frenchkiss Records. If you’re looking for a textual upper, per se, revisit our cover story with the band here.

Brooklyn’s Nude Beach write buoyant, boisterous punk-based rock music made for drinking or driving — it’s like they’ve taken all the best elements of your favorite Replacements and Cheap Trick songs, combined them, and used them in the service of crafting summertime party anthems. Following their excellent 2012 LP II, the band are back with a new EP, “What Can Ya Do,” whose B-side, “I’m Giving Up,” we first listened to in April. Today we’ve got the A-side, in advance of the band’s upcoming tour, and it’s a goddamn blast, all jangle and fuzz and melody, like sunshine itself played through a Marshall stack. Listen, and check tour dates, below.

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Nude Beach at Bowery Ballroom, March 2013 (more by David Andrako)

Brooklyn's Nude Beach, who played over the weekend, are readying a new 7" for Other Music -- "What Can Ya Do" b/w "I'm Giving Up" -- out on July 9th. Stream both sides of the release below.

The band will be breaking their own release date, though, as they'll have copies on hand when they head out for a string of dates this week that include a stop in Chicago at Empty Bottle and here in NYC at Knitting Factory on July 5 with Prince Rupert's Drops and Pop Zeus. Tickets are still available.

All dates are listed, along with those song streams, below.

Continue reading "Nude Beach ready new 7" & playing shows (dates & stream)" at brooklynvegan

The Daniel Portrait of Kamp Grizzly-directed video for Local Natives’ “You & I” is truly upsetting until the last twenty seconds. Puppy enthusiasts be forewarned: This clip takes place in a future where dogs become extinct. Fortunately, in this terrible future there are also dog detectives (not like Wishbone, who is a dog that is also a detective, but actual human people who sleuth to find pups) and there is hope! Check it out below.

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The San Francisco producer/digital avatar readies an EP of house and techno mutations.

Matrixxman is no stranger to these pages, whether for his work as half of 5kinAndBone5, his biblical house/snap rap collaborations with Mykki Blanco, or his solo material and remixes.

Next month will see another edition to the latter category. The XX Files joins four originals with remixes by UK producers Ill Life and Myler. With nods to “classic Detroit techno and WBMX-era Chicago house,” the EP ranges from the lush groove of ‘Credentials’ to the percussive intensity of ‘Protocol’. Meanwhile, both remixers take their tracks in darker, metallic directions.

The XX Files is due out July 23 via Brooklyn newcomers Fifth Wall. Preview it below; the cover art and tracklist follow.

1. Case Closed [A1]
2. Credentials [A2]
3. Protocol [B1]
4. A Witness
5. Case Closed (Ill Life Remix) [B2]
6. Credentials (Myler Remix)

Screaming Females at Cake Shop in 2010 (more by Lori Bally)

As you may know, legendary Hoboken venue Maxwell's is unfortunately closing at the end of July. As we've said before, many local bands who have called the venue home for years are playing in its final months (check out the upcoming schedule), and another one's just been added. NJ DIY heroes Screaming Females will play the venue on July 21. Tickets for that show are on sale now.

Screaming Females' Don Giovanni labelmates/collaborators Shellshag have a show there with Screamales' pal Ted Leo, and another Don Giovanni band, Black Wine also play one with The Everymen, Life Eaters, and The Brooklyn What.

In related news, Screaming Females' Marissa Paternoster produced the new Modern Hut (the project of Don Giovanni co-founder Joe Steinhardt) album, Generic Treasure, which is due out on August 7. You can check out a track from that album, "History," below.

Continue reading "Screaming Females playing Maxwell's; Marissa Paternoster produced the new Modern Hut LP (stream a track)" at brooklynvegan

The phrase “sob story” doesn

Singer-songwriter Bill Callahan (aka Smog) has announced the release of his new studio album, Dream River, due out September 17th via Drag City. Serving as the follow-up to 2011′s excellent Apocalypse (which made our list of the Top 50 Albums of 2011), the album was recorded in Cacophony, TX this past year, and is described by Drag City as “easily the most sensual and soulful of Callahan’s career.”

A number of topics are covered across the album’s eight tracks, including “flying home in a small plane, drinking with the sleeping inhabitants of a hotel for company, painting boats for the summer, or flying towards the sea along the path of the dream river without the aid of any craft.”

In support of the album’s release, Callahan will hit the road this fall. Stay tuned for those dates.

Dream River Tracklist:
01. The Sing
02. Javelin Unlanding
03. Small Plane
04. Spring
05. Ride My Arrow
06. Summer Painter
07. Seagull
08. Winter Road

Producer Mark Pritchard has exorcised the Ghosts of his past, and is concentrating on the future.

Pritchard

If you ever wanted to see Yolandi from Die Antwoord pee her pants, now is your opportunity with their new video for “Cookie Thumper.” This is the least troubling part of the whole thing, as the song is seemingly about being victimized by a recently-freed-from-jail drug dealer. I guess it’s better than black face? Major trigger warning.

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The song appears on his debut EP, L O V E C H A M P I O N, forthcoming via UNO NYC.

An associate of New York underground kings Hood By Air and GHE20 G0TH1K, Ian Isiah shared a NSFW video for his Arca-produced slow-jam ‘M1NDFVCK’ last month. While that song is a hazy tone poem dedicated to mindfuckery, follow-up song ‘Blindfolded’ is a fully-formed R&B smash.

Over a shifty beat (co-produced by fellow NYC talent King Royal) that is reminiscent of torch-carriers Timbaland and The-Dream, Isiah lays down a sensual, insistent vocal that is just as bedroom-focused as ‘M1NDFVCK’; the “Baby Oil Music” tag is definitely appropriate. Stream/download ‘Blindfolded’ below.

Ambient-music soul-stirrer Julianna Barwick builds gorgeous landscapes out of her own voice, and her new album Nepenthe looms; we’ve already heard the early track “Forever.” “One Half,” the next song she’s shared from the album, might be the closest thing to an actual song, rather than undulating whisper-cloud, that Barwick has ever made, though it still works as an undulating whisper-cloud. The track makes room for string-sighs and actual words, and you can hear it below.

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