Posted: March 31st, 2008 | Author: justin | Filed under: life, music, noise, psych, punk | No Comments »
Artefacts For Space Travel are a young dystopian three piece from South London consisting of Joseph Walsh, Sam Walsh, and Alex Griffiths. The trio plays a loud and energy packed mix of punk and apocalyptic pop. Themes of the group’s songs are centered on death, childhood, the cosmos, romance, and a dystopian future. Songs bend from noisy and growling psychedelia to panic stricken punk packed full of modern and haunting melodies.
I’ve had “Recoop,” the b-side of the band’s single “Lucy” on repeat for the last week or so, sucked in by the catchy chorus line sung by guitarist Joe Walsh; “recoup because you’re so young”. It’s funny that I discovered the track (and band) around this time, because it’s perfectly fitting for my dad, who’s currently recouping from a busted up arm. The poor guy took a nasty fall about two weeks ago and not only broke his radius in half, but also dislocated his ulna from his wrist sending it tearing three-inches out of his skin. The image accompanying this post is the actual x-ray from his left arm about two hours after the accident took place. Awesome! Here’s to “recooping” dad and also providing some rad “exclusive” content for the site. Ha! Try not to bust yourself up any more and make sure to get your ass to physical therapy!
Artefacts For Space Travel embark on the “Stolen Tour” in the UK on April 8th followed by an appearance at the Great Escape Festival in Brighton and more local shows in June. “Lucy” is out now on Stolen Recordings and available for download. More info on the band’s MySpace page.
[MP3]: Artefacts For Space Travel ”Recoop”
Lucy Single, Stolen Recordings; 2008
Posted: March 28th, 2008 | Author: justin | Filed under: FRICTION, electro, events, madlib, music | 1 Comment »
Over here at the FRICTION NYC HQ, we’ve spent most of the day nursing our massive hangovers from last night’s show, party, afterparty, and after afterparty drinks. While we were bringing ourselves back into existence from our drunken haze we decided it’d be festive to recap last night’s show Madlibs style. Yeah, we’re probably still a tad off, but whatevs, here it goes.
Last night we were too poor to play this game, HEALTH ate the king cake and the drummer was very excited because he got the baby Jesus in his piece of king cake. So, therefore, after the bathroom break the viking warrior drummer had to buy the next king cake. This made everyone feel festive at the show. Apache Beat ran around heaven with excitement over the XGames, while Crystal Castles broke the baby Jesus over Leonardo DiCaprio’s face. Nghiiiiaa fucked the Statue of Liberty in a dimly lit back alley throughout the show and was not a witness to any of these exaltations. Ruckus Roboticus expressed great fungus over the unwashed recycling bin. Team Robespierre observed these goings on from a distance and were like “whatever duuuude.”
FRICTION is back at The Mercury Lounge for Cinco de Mayo with Bristol’s creamy Fuck Buttons. Tickets on sale Saturday, March 29th. More details soon. Photos from last night’s wicked party on our Flickr site.
Posted: March 27th, 2008 | Author: Nghia | Filed under: music | No Comments »
If you’re still trying to recovering like us from last night‘s Friction fun, wake up!!! It’s almost time for the weekend to start we guess. On April 15th, HEARTSREVOLUTION is releasing their hit track with remixes by Brodinski, Lauren Flax, CFCF, Lazaro Casanova and Dan Oh out on the iheartcomix label. Here’s a song and mix that will wake you up. Come on we’re still waiting for that release from Dreamburger.
[MP3]: HEARTSREVOLUTION “C.Y.O.A.” (FLOSSTRADAMUS REMIX)
[MP3]: SCION CD SAMPLER VOLUME 21: IHEARTCOMIX RECORDS REMIXED – FRANKI CHAN MIXTAPE
Tracklist
1. ACID GIRLS – Intro Track
2. THE GLAMOUR – Respect The Party
3. THE TOXIC ACVENGER – Pokerface (Lies In Disguise Remix)
4. HEARTSREVOLUTION – Switchblade (LA Riots Remix)
5. OCELOT – Lo Sforzo (St. Andrew Remix)
6. MATT & KIM – No More Long Years (Radioclit Remix)
7. HEARTSREVOLUTION – C.Y.O.A. (Flosstradamus Remix)
8. HAIL SOCIAL – Heaven (Designer Drugs Remix)
9. GAMEBOY/GAMEGIRL – Fruit Salad
10. MATT & KIM – It’s A Fact (Printed Stained) (Mano Remix feat. Hollywood Holt)
11. PROTOKOLL – Moving Forward (Designer Drugs Remix)
12. THE DEATH SET – Negative Thinking
13. TOTALLY MICHAEL – Winona (Miami Horror Remix)
14. HEARTSREVOLUTION – Dance Till Dawn
15. ACID GIRLS – Matter Made
16. SURKIN – White Knight Two
17. THE TOXIC AVENGER – Stage Divin’
18. OCELOT – Our Time (Tom Neville Remix)
19. FUTURECOP! – Starworshipper
Posted: March 26th, 2008 | Author: justin | Filed under: FRICTION, electro, events, music, new wave, noise, psych, punk, tropical | 1 Comment »
GET HYPE! Crystal Castles, HEALTH, Team Robespierre, and Apache Beat are primed to mess with your ears tonight at the Mercury Lounge for our SOLD OUT installment of FRICTION. Crystal Castles bring their distorted electro all the way from Toronto, while HEALTH’s blasts of noise mess with your head, this of course, after locals Team Robespierre and Apache Beat freak you out with their spazzed-out pop-screamo and tropical psychedelia. Dayton Ohio’s, Ruckus Roboticus will be spinning his own tracks between sets. Afterparty to follow at The Annex.
Doors open @ 7:30PM. MP3′s, full details, and more. Here
Crystal Castles cover photo © Ren Rox 2007
Crystal Castles (above) © Patrick Parault 2007
Posted: March 25th, 2008 | Author: justin | Filed under: dream-pop, music, pop, shoegaze | No Comments »
Fifteen years after the release of their debut album, Secret Shine will be dropping their sophomore full-length titled All Of The Stars on April 8th via Claire Records. The album follows the Elemental and Beyond Sea and Sky EP’s, which were released in 2006 and marks their lone LP since their 1993′sUntouched. I’ve only heard a couple tracks from the record, but according to the band this album “has everything you would want from a Secret Shine record and more; noisy, swirling power pop, sweet and brittle melodies and girl/boy shoegaze harmonies.”
The shoegaze/dream-pop trio, was formed in Bristol, England in 1991 by vocalist Jamie Gingell and guitarist Scott Purnell. The group was originally signed to Sarah Records where they released a couple of singles including “After Years,” “Ephemeral,” and “Loveblind” as well as Untouched in 1993. The band broke their silence in 2006 when the limited edition Ephemeral EP hit the streets, ten years after the band’s last recorded output. Earlier this month, Secret Shine appeared at SXSW and did a mini tour of the Midwest. The band will go on a brief UK tour in May and June. Full details along with streams of new tracks on MySpace. Pre-order All of the Stars now via Tonevendor.
[MP3]: Secret Shine ”Temporal”
Untouched, Sarah Records; 1993
All of the Stars Tracklisting:
01. “Voice of the Sea”
02. “Know”
03. “Stars in the Sky”
04. “Café Crash”
05. “Another Day”
06. “Hate You When You Smile”
07. “All That’s Left”
08. Oblivion
09. “Last Leaves”
10. “The Sound of Light”
Posted: March 25th, 2008 | Author: Nghia | Filed under: music, review | 3 Comments »
The first thing I did after listening to a mastered copy of Crystal Castles new self-titled album was delete all of their bootleg and demo recordings off my computer. Don’t worry, I’m still a big fan of their work, that’s just how complete their new sixteen song album is. 1 | 2 If you haven’t had the chance to give the new album a listen, you might be surprise like I was that it isn’t a total rehash of the songs that have been circulating around the web the last couple of years. At times the original demos could come off as abrasive, unstructured noise with annoying video game blips for the new listener. The mastered copy of the album has added balanced bass and noise levels plus contributed to clearer vocals that may have never been there before.
CC have become the king/queen and darlings of the whole DIY Myspace electro-experimental-thrash-8-bit movement thats become all too familiar in music these days. Originally known for a Klaxons remix, they’ve gone on to remix others from Bloc Party to Uffie to The Whip. One thing one finds out quickly after giving the Self-Titled a listen is that they actually have pop sensibilities.
If you don’t think so, check out the smooth sounding new bridge on ‘Air War’. They may just not come across as being electro-pop because vocals are at times so distorted and filtered. CC just seem to have a knack for playing dissonant melodies over major chords which leave the listener in limbo though I’m not sure whether or not they do this on purpose. But it works for them on popular songs like ‘Untrust Us’ and ‘Knights’. ‘Black Panther’ sounds like something I imagine being played at some dance club on the Jersey shore during the Summer where you’d get smashed in the head with a beer bottle by some meathead named Tony. All they need to do is drop in a repeating chorus like “better off alone” or “do you miss me?” and their act is moved from the basement to the bottle-service crowd. The same can be said for ‘Courtship Dating’. On ‘Vanished’, instrumentalist Ethan Fawn gets in on the act and does lead vocals. Alice Glass ends up with Suburban Lawns-esque and beach bunny vocals on the tunes ‘Good Times’ and ‘Courtship Dating’. Most surprising is the last song where CC create what seems to be perfect goth/shoe-gaze ballad with just guitar strumming. Like I said, this is a complete record and not just a dance album. Album out now on Last Gang Records.
[MP3]: “Crimewave” (Crystal Castles vs. HEALTH)
Check out the video for Crimewave
Crystal Castles finally play our longley anticipated FRICTION party on March 26th with HEALTH, Team Robespierre and Apache Beat . Plus an appearance at Studio B in Brooklyn the night before.
Posted: March 24th, 2008 | Author: justin | Filed under: dance, layers, music, shoegaze, synths, trance | 1 Comment »
A month or so ago I was lucky enough hear most of Saturday’s = Youth, the new album from Anthony Gonzalez, better known as M83. And although I only listened to Gonzalez’s fifth studio album just once through, I can confidently say that Saturday’s = Youth is the best thing I’ve heard so far this year. Keep in mind though, I’m a big fan of M83, so my opinion is somewhat biased.
The hazy shoegaze atmospherics and deep space textures of Gonzales’ past efforts are still present on Saturday’s = Youth, but the Frenchman loses the melodrama of previous records, crafting more structured songs with a pop mentality. M83’s recent composition, the eight-and-a-half minute “Couleurs” is driven by assertive thumping beats and glistening synths with an ambient fog hanging over layers of feedback, which is broken through by a trance-like rhythm as the song picks up in its later minutes. I’m really digging the less rock, more pop/dance aspect of this song and the record.
Saturday’s = Youth drops on April 15th via Mute and was produced by Ken Thomas (Sigur Rós, Suede, Cocteau Twins, Sugarcubes) and Ewan Pearson (The Rapture, Ladytron). The first single set to be relased from the record (following the already released “Couleurs”) is “Graveyard Girl.”
Gonzales and his crew consisting of drummer Loic Maurin, bassist/guitarist Pierre-Marie Maulini, and Morgan Kibby, who did vocals for the album lands in New York City on 6/3 at Music Hall of Williamsburg and 6/4 at Bowery Ballroom, while Philly gets the band on June 6th in the basement of The First Unitarian Church before they head to D.C. the following night for a show at Black Cat. Tickets are on sale now.
[MP3]: M83 ”Couleurs” (via)
Saturday’s = Youth, Mute; 2008
