Performed during the May 11-12 festival internacional!

By Blurt Staff

The ever-fascinating Flying Lotus - aka Steve Ellison, whose 2010 album Cosmogramma got an 8-star BLURT review, as did the followup Pattern + Grid World EP - was one of the highlights at last weekend's Sónar São Paulo festival (via Pitchfork). FlyLo unveiled new material slated for his upcoming (October) album Until the Quite Comes along with a hat tip to the recently-passed Adam "MCA" Yauch of the Beastie Boys - a segment of the Beasties "Intergalactic" around 11:40 in the 28-minute, professionally-shot, video, below.

"Sweet Sure Gone" from new album Space Homestead.


By Blurt Staff


As you will discern from the dek, above, there's a choice song from MV & EE's latest record, which was just reviewed today at ye olde BLURT. Our scribe said, in part, of the album, "For you kids out there planning to attend space camp, I can't think of better counselors than Elders and Valentine to take you far out where few have journeyed before. It's difficult to say, though, if your mode of transportation is an interstellar vehicle or simply a sickly-sweet, resinous cloud."


Check out "Sweet Sure Gone," below, and burn one on us!

MV + EE: "Sweet Sure Gone" by adhocfm

3-disc set only available via mailorder to all you fans...

By Blurt Staff

As previously announced, Britain's Saint Etienne have their new album Words and Music released on May 21; if you happen to be in London on Sunday, May 21, they're hosting a special listening party at the Lexington which will include a Q&A session and DJ sets from members of the group. (Go here to watch an advance video teaser for the album, first single "Tonight.")

Meanwhile, though, in addition to the album being released as a single CD or a double-disc featuring remixes, it will also be available in a mail-order only limited edition box of 1000 copies boasting a third CD, hardback book featuring photography rom Paul Kelly, 4 art prints, a foldout map of the front cover, and an enamel badge. The box will be released on June 11, but fans who preorder it will receive a download code to all the content on the regular May 21 release date. Below is an image of the album in its various iterations, along with the tracklisting.

CD1 - the album

1. Over The Border

2. I've Got Your Music

3. Heading For The Fair

4. Last Days Of Disco

5. Tonight

6. Answer Song

7. Record Doctor

8. Popular

9. 25 Years

10. DJ

11. When I Was Seventeen

12. I Threw It All Away

13. Haunted Jukebox

CD2 - the remixes

1. Tonight - 2 Bears

2. Last Days Of Disco - Erol Alkan

3. DJ - Stay+

4. I've Got Your Music - Golden Filter

5. Popular - Tom Middleton

6. Heading For The Fair - The Time And Space Machine

7. Tonight - Club Clique

8. Answer Song - White Horses

9. Haunted Jukebox - Summer Camp

10. I've Got Your Music - Kisses

11. DJ - Muddyloop

12. Last Days Of Disco - Beat Connection

CD3 - the bonus EP

1. Record Doctor Dub

2. Peter Pan

3. Lion Green

4. Wouldn't It Be Nice (Beach Boys cover, from the recent Mojo tribute album to Pet Sounds)

New record Valtari arrives May 29 via EMI/XL.


By Blurt Staff


As previously announced and as the dek above suggests a big day is headed in the direction of Sugur Ros fans. All of whom have ample opps to get an advance listen to it this Thursday, May 17, starting around 7pm.


That's when you can tune in on the web or at your NPR affiliate via the smartly-named Valtari Hour link. Or, if you happen to be in, oh, just about any city with a cool indie record store, you can simply walk in at 7 and listen to it over the in-house stereo - such as BLURT's sister company, Schoolkids Records in Raleigh, NC.


While there, sign up to pre-order the album with a limited edition Valtari print and enter to win a Valtari prize pack, which includes a Valtari vinyl test pressing, a copy of the Record Store Day-only Hvarf/Heim album on clear vinyl. (We've seen the swag and it looks tasty indeed.)

By the way, we'll have a full review of the album in the new print issue of BLURT - watch for the Spiritualized cover on your local newsstand in a couple of weeks.



PARTICIPATING INDIE RETAIL STORES:

BK Music (Richmond, VA)
Bull City (Durham, NC)
Bull Moose (Portland, ME)
Cactus Music (Houston)
Criminal (Atlanta, GA)
Dimple (Folsom, CA)
Disc Exchange (Knoxville)
Ear Candy (Missoula, MT)
Electric Fetus (Minneapolis)
End of an Ear (Austin)
Fingerprints (Long Beach, CA)
Good (Dallas)
Greywhale (Taylorsville, UT)
Grimey's (Nashville)
Guestroom (Norman, OK & Oklahoma City, OK)
Harvest (Asheville, NC)
Homers (Omaha)
Landlocked (Bloomington, IN)
Lou's (Encinitas, CA)
Luna (Indianapolis, IN)
Melody Supreme (Charlottesville, VA)
Monster (Charleston, SC)
Music Millennium (Portland, OR)
Origami (Los Angeles)
Park Avenue (Orlando)
Phono Select (Sacramento, CA)
Princeton Record Exchange (Princeton, NJ)
Radio Active (Ft. Lauderdale)
Rasputin (Berkeley, CA)
Record Archive (Rochester, NY)
Record Exchange (Boise, ID)
Repo Records (Philadelphia)
Scenesc.com
Schoolkids (Raleigh, NC)
Sonic Boom (Seattle)
Sound Garden (Baltimore)
Streetlight (San Jose & Santa Cruz)
Strictly Discs (Madison)
The Telegraph (London, CT)
Twist & Shout (Denver)
UHF Records (Royal Oaks, MI)
Underground Sound (Ann Arbor, MI)
Vintage Vinyl (St. Louis, MO)
Vinyl Renaissance (Kansas City, KS)
Waterloo (Austin)
Zia (Phoenix)

Out this week on Sub Pop, Bloom is hypnotic and emotional, and one of the most anticipated titles of the first half of 2012.


By A.D. Amorosi

With each album, Beach House, move farther away from their soft druggy drooogy waking-daydream éclat into something harder. The first self-titled effort was hazy and emotional with an emphasis on dime store retro keyboard sounds. Devotion found singer Victoria Legrand moaning through a soundtrack of Hammer horror organ grinding glitter rock guitars and girl-group syncopation, still on the cheap. Same with Teen Dream, only they added a yawning slide-guitar strewn quality to the whole affair.

Myth by Beach House by Mistletone

The new Bloom (Sub Pop) still sounds as if it were recorded in a Salvation Army with an arsenal of the aforementioned instrumentation from all three previous efforts. But Legrand and Alex Scally up the ante on its blue-eyed soul slinging a bit with the Hall & Oates-ish chorus to "Wishes," reminding listeners that B-more isn't far from another falllllllllll in Philadelphia, to say nothing of its bass lines on tracks like "Myth" (listen to it here) sounding ready for the trek to the land of the good groove.

This ain't no disco though. Hardly. Remembering that Legrand has a legacy to uphold -she's the niece to cosmopolitan jazzy film composer Michel Legrand - there's a cocktail cool to "Troublemaker" that goes nicely with the singer's Nico-on-a-bender routine. And "Irene" with its hypnotic refrain and ice-thawing emotionalism is the sort of heartbreaking melody that made you fall in love with the pair in the first place.

"Mountain" and "Financial District" comes out on 7" vinyl next month. Tour dates listed below.

By Blurt Staff

Following the release of his acclaimed 2010 debut LP ‘Lucky Shiner, Gold Panda has announced a new 7": ‘Mountain/Financial District'. In North America and mainland Europe, the 7"/digital versions comes out on Ghostly International while Gold Panda's own label NOTOWN will release it in the UK. The digital version drops on May 14th/15th while the 7" version is available June 11th/12th. You can check out a stream of each track here:

Mountain by Gold Panda Financial District by Gold Panda

Gold Panda calls the material "modern hip-hop," adding, "the 808 snares on ‘Mountain' are a nod to Noah "40" Shebib and some-time Drake collaborators Boi-1da. ‘Financial District,' at 125 bpm, though actually feels slower than that because the drum machine pattern on it has a completely different feel. It's in the rhythms that I depart from that initial hip-hop idea." Of the songtitles, he notes, "Listening to ‘Mountain' again on a trip to Japan over New Year, we flew directly over Mt.Fuji and it seemed to just fit what I was seeing out of the window. ‘Financial District' was just the opposite of the vast expanse of the mountain I guess. Crowded, synthetic and shiny... repetitive - and of course both can erupt at anytime."

Tour Dates:

05.27 Detroit, MI @ Movement Festival

06.02 London, UK @ Field Day Festival
06.10 Manchester, UK @ Parklife Festival
06.23 Clonmellon, IE @ Body & Soul Festival
06.30 Evreux, FR @ Le Rock Dans Tours Ses Etats Festival
07.07 Amsterdam, NL @ Pitch Festival
07.26 Miami, FL @ Bardot
07.27 Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
07.28 Vancouver, BC @ Electric Owl
07.29 Portland, OR @ WTF Festival
08.01 Washington, DC @ U Street Music Hall
08.02 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
08.04 Salzburg, AT @ STUCK! Festival
08.19 Leicester, UK @ Summer Sundae Festival
08.30 Pula, HR @ Outlook Festival
09.02 San Francisco, CA @ FYF Festival
09.06 Pula, HR @ Outlook Festival
09.09 Isle of Wight, UK @ Bestival Festival
10.05 Vienna, AT @ Waves Festival
10.12 Bologna, IT @ Robot Festival

May 11 at Pearl Street in Northampton, Mass., the indie-rock godfathers served up a rousing 2-set, 2-encore evening o' fun.

By Jennifer Kelly

The Feelies have always had an uneasy relationship with time. Crazy Rhythms, the band's first album, revved and stuttered with at-the-gate energy, eager to be off, giddy with a hormonal rush, but palpably blocked and frustrated. The Good Earth, five years later, was fluid, languid, circular, its jangling hooks moving forward, then catching on themselves so that they doubled back. Last year's post-reunion album Here Before was even more serene and rearview oriented, full of admonitions to slow down, take time, see what happens later on. There is very little "now" in the Feelies' recorded cannon, but quite a lot of past and future.

That said, they were definitely "present," in every sense of the word, at their two-set, two-encore gig in Northampton this Friday, the band's two-percussionist line-up (that's Stan Demelski on kit and Dave Weckerman on tambourine, maracas, woodblock, cowbell and general sun-glassed, decadent rock-star ambience) lighting a fire under even the most placid Feelies tunes. There was nothing elegiac about Glenn Mercer's bounding, lunging, windmilling guitar work, either, and even stolid Bill Millions ("Look at Bill. He looks like a science teacher," said someone behind me) got into an antic groove by the end of the first set. There was very little banter, just an occasional "Thank you," from long-time bassist Brenda Sauter, and then the woodblock or tambourine or tom beat would kick in again, Mercer would execute one of his rubbery, vibrato-filled guitar licks, Millions would strum a stinging jangle and the band would be off again.

"Let's Go" had just started when we got to the club, a bit late, its expansive, jangle-pop riff balancing hope and melancholy on a knife-edge, its rhythmic grounding a bit more muscular than you might remember from, say, the Squid and the Whale soundtrack. The first set is, as far as I can make out, dominated by the Feelies' later material. "Here Before" from the post-reunion album of the same name shimmers with liquid guitar slides. "For Awhile" from 1988's Only Life,  turns bittersweet as Sauter and Millions lean up to the mics for harmonies. "On the Roof," from Good Life, is a Feelies trademark...a soft song punched hard with drums, maracas and jangly, jagged guitar riffs. And for "When You Know", the last song of the first set, Mercer turns back towards his ancient amp (literally, it seems to be an antique), squalling out a bit of noise to break up the serenity.

There's a bit of break as the Feelies guitar tech retunes all the instruments, and I turn around to survey the crowd, a mix of people old enough to have seen the Feelies at Maxwell's in their heyday, one or two actual children, and a smattering of college age kids. Some of them had graduated from U. Mass. earlier in the day. It's a nice crowd, prone to very little shoving and showing a great deal of interest, during the break, in the well-worn instruments and sound equipment.  I may be projecting, after a hellishly busy, badly paid week, but it seems that we are all very happy to be there, at the beginning of the weekend and, perhaps, the beginning of better times...or at least a break from awful ones.

The second set is louder and more urgent, the doubled-down percussion pushing, like a freight train, towards the front of the set, Mercer increasingly antic and animated, the songs a bit faster and much harder. "Nobody Knows," which sounds fairly serene and detached on Here Before, snaps to militant attention on stage, the thunk of woodblock cutting through its interlacing guitars. "Higher Ground" is nearly blasted to bits by its thundering, four-handed tom beat, while "Way Down" (another song  from Here Before that I could have sworn was fairly quiet on record) pits soft sustained modal vocals against nervy, sharp-edged licks, while "Time Is Right" rumbles in on a bass solo and proceeds to obliterate. It is right about at this time that I start thinking like a 14-year-old: "This is the best band ever."

The first set closes with a trio of older songs "Moscow Nights," "Raised Eyebrows" and "Crazy Rhythms," all super-charged with percussion. Indeed, the cowbell from "Crazy Rhythms" has hardly stopped echoing when the crowd begins clapping, stomping, shouting for an encore. It works, though it takes some time. The crowd gets a stomping, thumping, eastern-toned cover of "Paint It Black" (as well as one other song I don't quite recognize - it might have been a harder, faster version of something from Mercer's solo album Wheels in Motion. )  It is after the first encore and before the second that I first begin to realize that I have spent close to three hours with the Feelies without hearing "Fa Ce La," but stomp, stomp, stomp and they're back. This time, they play the best song off of Crazy Rhythms as if they'd just written it, as crisp and fast and offhand as if 30 years had never been...yet another of the Feelies tricks with time.

One of rock and soul's most classic bass players ever.

By Fred Mills

Donald "Duck" Dunn, bassist for the legendary Booker T. and the MGs, passed away early this morning while on tour in Tokyo. Word got out after bandmate Steve Cropper posted the news to Facebook, indicating that Dunn had died in his sleep. A report at Billboard.com adds, "Miho Harasawa, a spokeswoman for Tokyo Blue Note, the last venue Dunn played, confirmed he died alone early Sunday. She had no further details."

A tribute page at Facebook, Remembering Duck Dunn, was quickly established as the news got out, and fans have already posted numerous testimonials, photos, etc. to the page.

Dunn was 70 at the time of his passing, and by that time he'd lived one of music's richest lived, not only being an integral part of the Memphis-spawned Stax-Volt scene along with the MGs but also as a sideman and touring partner to everyone from Eric Clapton, Neil Young and the Blues Brothers. He additionally appeared in The Blues Brothers movie as - himself! He was a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was a recipient of a 2007 lifetime achievement Grammy.

Speaking personally, I was fortunate enough to see him play several times and was always struck by the duality of his fierce, precision playing and his calm outward demeanor. At one show, most likely a Neil Young concert, I watched him placidly puffing on a pipe while playing his bass in the midst of several furious raveups - the calm eye at the center of the storm, so to speak. God bless ya, Duck.

Ultraista features Joey Waronka and Laura Bettison. Wide-eyed (see image, above), but painless...!

By Blurt Staff

Radiohead/Beck producer Nigel Godrich is stepping around to the other side of the glass, forming a band he's calling Ultraista with drummer Joey Waronker and artist Laura Bettinson. Details are sketchy at the moment, but there is a stream and a video to check out already:

Smalltalk by ultraísta

Also featured in North Shore Sessions from MPLS.TV.

By Blurt Staff

With the release of The Clearing in March on Dead Oceans, NC's Bowerbirds have been on the road constantly, wrapping a 3-week Euro tour this week and prepping for another American trek, concluding in August with Portland's Pickathon festival and the Lollapalooza bash in Chicago. Full tour intinerary is below.

The band is also featured in the new print edition of BLURT, hitting newsstands shortly, and appears in the inaugural edition of a new video series being launched by Dead Oceans. Entitled "10,000 Takes," it aims to highlight outstanding performances by Dead Oceans' astounding artists. Producer Dan Huiting assembled his crew and caught up with Bowerbirds at The Cedar in Minneapolis to capture album track, "This Year:

While in Minneapolis, Bowerbirds also took some time out to perform "Overcome With Light" and "Brave World" for North Shore Sessions in conjunction with MPLS.TV: 

BOWERBIRDS' US TOUR DATES

Thu. June 7 - Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar

Fri. June 8 - Columbus, OH @ Wexner Center

Sat. June 9 - Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop

Mon. June 11 - Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick

Tue. June 12 - Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom

Wed. June 13 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr Smalls

Thu. June 14 - Buffalo, NY @ Tralf Music Hall

Sun. June 17 - Ithaca, NY @ The Haunt

Mon. June 18 - Northampton, MA @ Iron Horse Music Hall

Tue. June 19 - Montreal, QC @ Il Motore

Wed. June 20 - Portland, ME @ Space

Thu. June 21 - Providence, RI @ The Met

Sat. June 23 - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Fri. Aug. 3 - Happy Valley, OR @ Pickathon

Sat. Aug. 4 - Happy Valley, OR @ Pickathon

Sun. Aug. 5 - Chicago, IL @ Lollapalooza