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by Andrew Sacher

Roomrunner at WBAR-B-Q 2013 (more by Amanda Hatfield)

As mentioned, Baltimore's Roomrunner are releasing their debut LP, Ideal Cities, next week (5/28) via Fan Death, but you can now listen to it ahead of its release date at SPIN. When last writing about the album, I said:

The album has the clearest production of anything the band has put out to date, but it's far from overly polished. Guitar riffs pile on top of each other in a Siamese Dream/In Utero sort of way, putting Roomrunner in a league of other current bands like California X and Milk Music that actually make the term "grunge" sound appealing again.

As mentioned, they'll be playing a few dates in June with Mikal Cronin (who is touring in support of his excellent new LP, MCII) and Shannon and the Clams, including the NYC show happening on June 20 at Ballroom (tickets). Around that time, Roomrunner will also play a record release show on June 13 at Death by Audio, where they were initially supposed to play a release show in May but cancelled.

Updated dates are listed, along with a video of them playing "Bait Car" at Death by Audio, below...

Continue reading "Roomrunner streaming debut LP, reschedule release show" at brooklynvegan

The singer-songwriter played 'Sorry' and 'Heaven's Ladder' last night in Santa Cruz, California

Last month, Cassie, the queen of breathy-robot electro-R&B, released her insanely great RockaByeBaby mixtape, which would still be the year’s best mixtape if Chance The Rapper’s Acid Rap hadn’t come along. The tape ended with the twinkly, luxurious “All My Love.” And now the Brooklyn dance producer Kingdom has reworked the track, though he didn’t exactly overhaul it. Instead, he stretched out its titanic computer-groove to nearly twice its length, adding in some subtle touches. Listen to his edit below.

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Kvelertak @ The Studio at Webster Hall, 5/17/2013 (more by Keith Marlowe)

Kvelertak brought the temperature up a few degrees in the basement of Webster Hall, when the band joined Cancer Bats and Black Tusk as part of a sold-out show at The Studio on May 17. More sweaty, stage-divey, rafter-hang-y pictures are at InvisibleOranges. The show was part of a tour for the Norwegian party-metal crew in celebration of their new LP, Meir, out now.

Continue reading "Kvelertak played The Studio @ Webster Hall with Cancer Bats and Black Tusk (pics)" at brooklynvegan

Bennio Qwerty is a new project with its foundation in the foundation of one of my favorite bars on the South Side of Williamsburg, Bar Donna. And “its foundation in the foundation” is not a typo: guitarist/singer Mike Barron and bassist Nathan Delffs met onsite-constructing the bar’s elegant woodwork, discovering a shared love for the likes of Lungfish, Scott Walker, and Drive Like Jehu while laying the beams. Barron’s been on these pages already, as guitarist for North Highlands; before Bennio, Delffs played in Forest Fire, and drummer Louie Glaser comes from Wise Blood. Bennio’s sound isn’t really a triangulation of those aforementioned influences, nor the band members’ previous projects for that matter. Barron voices intelligent intonations over a rhythmic, lydian track that’s given a soothing studio treatment, registering as something like a less mathematically minded Travis Morrison. Hear it:

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by Bill Pearis

Local indie rockers Old Monk are busy finishing the follow-up to 2012's Birds of Belize, a record that should be out in early 2014. Meanwhile, the band have a stopgap single out now on Eenie Meenie, the very catchy "Seymour." We've got the premiere of its video in this post. Using 8-bit graphics it works in references to Pitfall!, plus a slew of classic films (Safety Last, Annie Hall, The Good, the Bad & the Ugly to name three) and was directed/animated by Josh Carrafa who you may know from his Music History Gifs website. You can check it out below.

Old Monk also have a few NYC shows coming up: June 8 at Knitting Factory with The Vansaders, The Marshmallows and The Brooklyn What (tix); then June 18 at Cameo; and June 28 at Ludlow St. club Leftfield. Those dates are listed, along with that video, below.

Continue reading "watch a new 8-bit video from Old Monk ++ upcoming shows" at brooklynvegan

Read and comment. From thedailyswarm.com.

Boy, oh boy, are the GIF makers in for a field day. In the new video for “Strictly 4 My Jeeps”, watch as Action Bronson does cartwheels, lifts weights, ride around in his big ass jeep, and play a game of horse with RiFF RAFF before heading home for a mean steak and an Action Bronson-themed ice cream cake. A+ job to everyone involved.

“Strictly 4 My Jeeps” is the first track off Bronson’s collaborative album with wunderkind producer Harry Fraud, Saab Stories. In a recent tweet, Bronson revealed the tape “WILL BE OUT EARLY JUNE 10000000% no matter what.” As always, stay tuned for more.

photos by PSquared Photography

The National at State Theater - 5/16/13

As mentioned, The National are releasing their new album, Trouble Will Find Me, this week (5/21), and they kicked off their international tour in support of it last week (5/16) just a few hours upstate of their hometown at Ithaca's State Theater. Pictures from that show are in this post.

At that show, they played almost the entirety of the new album, including all three singles, "Sea of Love", "Don't Swallow the Cap", and "Demons", and a number of other highlights like "I Should Live In Salt" and "I Need My Girl." They spread the new tracks apart pretty well though, making room for tons of old favorites like "Daughters of the Soho Riots," "Fake Empire," "Mr. November," "Afraid of Everyone," and more. Check out the full setlist below.

As mentioned, The National's tour brings them to their hometown for their largest show there yet on June 5 at Barclays Center with Youth Lagoon (who also just played NYC). Tickets for the Barclays Center show are still available and we're also giving away a pair.

More pictures and the setlist from the Ithaca show below...

Continue reading "The National began their tour in Ithaca (pics, setlist)" at brooklynvegan

The singer-songwriter's fourth album comes out on May 27

Haven’t heard of Nommos before? You’re in for a treat.

Craig Leon will always be best known as a producer to the stars. The man has lent his technical knowledge to a host of high profile bands and artists, from the Ramones, The Talking Heads, Blondie and Suicide in the 1970s and 80s to his more recent classical work with Luciano Pavarotti, The London Symphony Orchestra and flautist James Galway. It is however, a lesser known album from 1981, released on John Fahey’s hallowed Takoma imprint that stands as his most unique contribution to music. An electronic record made at a time when the sounds were still in their infancy, Leon took the post-punk sound he helped to forge and stripped into a skeletal, pulsing hum replacing any sense of pop with off-key drones, reverberating rhythms and pulsating synthesizers.

Nommos will be re-issued by the Superior Viaduct label on June 25 and it’s beyond overdue. The album received a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ bootleg pressing not so long ago, but Superior Viaduct are pulling out all the stops to make sure theirs is the version to grab, with the edition remastered from the original analog tapes.

According to Julian Cope’s Head Heritage Nommos is the ”missing link between the proto-industrial rhythm and drone of Suicide and the whole minimalist drone / static / repetition met...

French Camp is a Brooklyn-based band comprised of singer Owen Beverly along with Benji Lee, Edward Barton, Andrew Doherty. Beverly is originally from Jackson, Mississippi and named the band after a boarding school in the Mississippi delta not too far from there. The have two records to their name with the latest being Odd Particle that was released earlier this month. During the creation of the record, they drew inspiration from Roy Orbison and many of his signature trademarks can be heard in the lyrics, guitar tones, and vocals.

Their newest single is the melodic “Way To Your Heart.” According to Beverly, the song was written shortly after a friend had passed and is referenced with some of the imagery in the new video for the song, although they tried to keep the visual “a little more playful and ironic.” The depicts a heart surgery along with Beverly running throughout the clip as a cathartic release while tossing aside objects that go along with the lyrics of the song. Find it below along with a stream of the album in full.

Odd Particle by French Camp

Read and comment. From thedailyswarm.com.

The inaugural First City Festival will take place August 24th and 25th at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival grounds are at same site as the famed Moterey Pop Festival in 1967.

The lineup includes Modest Mouse, Passion Pit, MGMT, Neko Case, Beach House, Deerhunter, Devendra Banhart, Purity Ring, Dr. Dog, Father John Misty, Toro Y Moi, Washed Out, Okkervil River, The Hold Steady, Delta Spirit, The Black Angels, The Antlers, Dodos, Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks, Lucero, Tennis, Akron/Family, Bleached, Guards, Blitzen Trapper, and more.

General admission and VIP passes will go on sale May 31st through the festival’s website.