Read The Lastest Music News/Reviews

by Bill Pearis

Danish quartet When the Saints Go Machine have been around since the mid-'00s, making eerie, soulful dance music, distinguished in no small part by Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild's vocals which lie somewhere between Arthur Russell and Antony. The group's third album, Infinity Pool, is out next week (5/28) via !K7. You can watch videos for "Iodine" and first single "Love and Respect" (featuring Killer Mike), as well as stream a couple remixes of the latter, below. The whole album is streaming over at Pitchfork.

When Saints Go Machine are doing the European Summer Festival circuit (including Aarhus, DE's Northside Festival that weirdly happens the same weekend as Brooklyn's Northside festival). Then, the band will jet our way next month for their first-ever U.S. show which happens in NYC at Glasslands on June 24. Tickets for that show are on sale now. It's their only announced North American show.

All WSGM dates are listed, along with those videos and stream, below.

Continue reading "Denmark's When Saints Go Machine releasing 'Infinity Pool,' making US live debut next month in NYC (dates, streams)" at brooklynvegan

Ya did it, Steve Buscemi: Vampire Weekend’s third studio album, Modern Vampires of the City, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Album Charts after moving 134,000 copies in its opening week. It’s the first independent album to achieve such a feat in 2013.

This marks the band’s second No. 1 album. Their 2010 sophomore LP, Contra, also debuted atop the charts with 124,000 copies sold.

Read our Top Star review of Modern Vampires of the City, and watch the band perform “Diane Young” on Saturday Night Live below.

Free Pussy Riot.

In the latest fragment of news from the Pussy Riot camp, currently-jailed member Maria Alyokhina has begun a hunger strike in protest to the Russian court’s decision to prohibit her from attending her own parole hearing. Alyokhina’s Pussy Riot bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was denied parole last month, so it’s hardly surprising that she doesn’t have much faith in the system as it stands.

Forbidding her lawyers to take any further action in the parole hearing, Alyokhina has become the most high profile prisoner to date to refuse to take part in Russia’s highly-criticized justice system. She instead appeared by video-link, and was required to file all motions by fax, which clearly delayed proceedings. After a day of the hearing, Alyokhina announced her hunger strike, no doubt aware this would raise the profile before things continue on Thursday.

Alyokhina was wryly critical of the whole affair, saying ”Let the troika sitting here

Oh hey, new Daft Punk! The French robots spent so many years putting together the immaculately crafted new album Random Access Memories that it only stands to reason that there would be material left over. And a Japanese edition of the album has a bonus track, called “Horizon,” that points in a couple of the directions the album could’ve gone. The track is a meditative, instrumental, half-acoustic reverie that recalls nothing so much as Daft Punk’s onetime French contemporaries Air. It’s awfully pretty, if entirely baffling, and you can stream it at the No BPM Limit Tumblr.

photos by Sarah Gainer

The National at Mercury Lounge - 5/21/13

After The National played tiny shows at Sycamore and Public Assembly yesterday (5/21) to celebrate the release of their great new record, Trouble Will Find Me, they headed to Mercury Lounge for a third intimate show of the day. Hitting the stage around 10 PM, the band played almost the entirety of their new record plus a few older cuts too, but a shorter set than their tour kickoff show in Ithaca. Pictures and the setlist from the Mercury Lounge show are in this post.

The National will play NYC again at a show which is going to be much easier to get into when their tour hits Barclays Center on June 5 with Youth Lagoon. Tickets for that show are still available and we're also giving away a pair.

More pictures and the setlist from Mercury Lounge below...

Continue reading "The National played Mercury Lounge (pics & setlist)" at brooklynvegan

Los Angeles singer-songwriter Julia Holter will soon return with Loud City Song, due out August 20th through Domino Records. The album marks Holter’s third to date, but first recorded in a studio. That said, the songs’ origins pre-date Holter’s 2011 debut, Tragedy, born out of demos recorded in her bedroom.

According to Domino, Holter drew inspirations from Collette

Last year, the Los Angeles singer and producer Julia Holter released Ekstasis, an album of gauzy and elliptical and weirdly comforting experimental pop music. That LP turned out to be very valuable in helping some of us slow down and breathe and chill the fuck out from time to time. Later this summer, she’ll follow that album up with a new one, her first proper studio effort, called Loud City Song. And now she’s shared the slow, warm, beautiful opening track “World” in the form of a flickering, elusive video from the director Rick Bahto. Watch the video and check out the album’s tracklist below.

Read More...

The Los Angeles-based artist unexpectedly returns with Loud City Song.

Julia Holter‘s Ekstasis was one of those rare albums that managed near-universal praise, and now the fiercely singular producer is back with a brand new album, which sounds almost as ambitious as its towering predecessor. Holter has already proved herself with a run of two devastating records, but apparently Loud City Song is rooted in demos made before even her 2011 debut Tragedy.

Based on Collette’s 1944 novella Gigi, Holter used this to reflect on her own hometown of Los Angeles, and recorded with an ensemble of Los Angeles musicians we can’t wait to hear what it sounds like.

UPDATE: Domino have now uploaded a video for the track ‘World’, and it’s utterly gorgeous, understated and decidedly minimal. Sort of like Stina Nordenstam performing with choir of ghosts. Check it out below.

Loud City Song will be released on August 19 on CD, LP and digital via Domino.

Tracklist:

01 World
02 Maxim’s I
03 Horns Surrounding Me
04 In The Green Wild
05 Hello Stranger
06 Maxim’s II
07 He’s Running Through My Eyes
08 This Is a True Heart
09 City Appearing

Dance pioneers still say they want to remain anonymous though

by Andrew Sacher

Julia Holter at Bowery Ballroom in 2012 (more by Amanda Hatfield)

Art pop musician Julia Holter had one of the best albums of 2012 with Ekstasis, and she's now set to release that album's followup, Loud City Song, on August 20 via her new label home, Domino. Regarding the new album, Domino writes:

The songs that make up Loud City Song have origins that pre-date 2011's debut Tragedy - coaxed out and finessed as demos in Holter's bedroom studio and then finally coalesced into one thrillingly cohesive experience in the latter stages of 2012 by Holter and co-producer Cole Marsden Grief-Neill and an ensemble of Los Angeles musicians. The result is an album of enormous ambition - Holter taking inspiration from Collette's 1944 novella Gigi and using it as a prism through which to explore her relationship with her hometown of Los Angeles and modern life universally, taking cues from the work of Joni Mitchell and the poetry of Frank O'Hara but forging those touch-points into something resolutely unique.

Check out the video for the haunting opening track, "World," below.

Domino also just reissued her great 2011 LP, Tragedy, this week (5/21) and you can purchase that in 2XLP/CD formats at the Domino Webstore.

As mentioned, Julia is coming to NYC for a show on July 12 at Le Poisson Rouge with Jessica Pratt around the time of her appearance at Pitchfork M...

Bassist Trevor Bolder, who played in David Bowie's Spiders From Mars and Uriah Heep, has passed away after a battle with cancer, reports The Guardian. He was 62.

Bolder played alongside Bowie on his albums Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, Aladdin Sane, and Pin Ups, and also toured with him. To pay tribute to him, Bowie posted the following to his website:

Trevor was a wonderful musician and a major inspiration for whichever band he was working with. But he was foremostly a tremendous guy, a great man.

Uriah Heep, who Bolder joined in 1976 and remained with until present day, also posted a message to their site:

It is with great sadness that Uriah Heep announce the passing of our friend the amazing Trevor Bolder, who has passed away after his long fight with cancer. Trevor was an all time great, one of the outstanding musicians of his generation, and one of the finest and most influential bass players that Britain ever produced.

His long time membership of Uriah Heep brought the band's music, and Trevor's virtuosity and enthusiasm, to hundreds of thousands of fans across the world. He joined the band in 1976 and, barring one short break, was a fixture until his ill health forced him to take a step back early this year. Prior to joining Heep he was a founder and ever-present member of David Bowie's legendary Spiders From Mars band, performing...

Sometimes it takes the right singer to deliver the wrong song. And while Backstreet Boys seem like unlikely territory for Charli XCX, the British singer proves otherwise. On Tuesday, Charli stopped by Chicago indie record shop Borderline Music, where she performed a short in-store performance, which ended with a cover of the Boys’ “I Want It That Way”. Between the tune ups and her spectral vocals, Charli really makes it her own anthem, quite similar to how Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” forever belongs to Sinead O’Connor. Catch it below.

Keep your eyes peeled: Our own Sami Jarroush hung out with the rising British icon this week for another unique video interview, which will appear on Rock It Out! Blog shortly.

Charli’s debut, True Romance, is currently available via IAMSOUND.

The pioneering Italo-disco genius Giorgio Moroder, currently going through a popular renaissance thanks in part to his appearance on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, is 73, and he came up in the era when producers weren’t also expected to serve as DJs. But last night at the Brooklyn club Output, Moroder played his first-ever DJ set. The set was part of the Red Bull Music Academy series, and Moroder had the younger DJ and “musical director” Chris Cox helping him out; he wasn’t doing it all himself. Together, they played many of Moroder’s greatest hits, like the Donna Summer songs “I Feel Love” and “Bad Girls” and his own music for Midnight Express. They also worked in newer tracks like “Racer” and the Daft Punk collab “Giorgio By Moroder.” Moroder introduced himself via vocoder and added bits and pieces, including one keyboard solo, to the music. And you can hear a pristine recording of the entire DJ set below.

Read More...

(via @liokanine)

Tickets to see Death Grips at Webster Hall go on sale today at noon.

Tickets to see Peter Hook & The Light performing New Order albums at Webster Hall go on sale today at noon.

RJD2 is playing a HARD NYC event at Terminal 5 on October 4 with Zeds Dead, Paper Diamond, Green Lantern and Branchez. Tickets to that show go on sale today at noon.

Tickets for the Ty Segall shows at MHOW and Bowery Ballroom go on sale today at noon.

Tickets for The Flamin' Groovies shows at Bowery Ballroom and Maxwell's go on sale today at noon.

Iggy Azalea is playing The Bowery Ballroom on June 17. Tickets to that show go on sale today at noon.

Tickets for the Kisses show at Mercury Lounge go on AmEx presale today at noon.

Mike Birbiglia is playing Carnegie Hall on June 2. Tickets to that show are on sale now.

Week of Wonders, Chalk & Numbers, and Pale Lights are playing Mercury Lounge on July 8. Tickets to that show go on AmEx presale today at noon, with a general on-sale starting Friday (5/24) at noon.

Frenchkiss signees Drowners are opening for Skaters at The Bowery Ballroom on July 19. Tickets to that show go on AmEx presale today at noon, with a general on-sale starting Friday (5/24) at...

Here’s a new lick from Ikonika, featured on Girl Unit’s recent Night Slugs mix. It’s called Mr. Cake, and it’s quite beautiful in a strange way, sumptuously positive in its chords and relative simplicity (check the bassline as well, whoo!):