PR: VOICEsVOICEs

VOICEsVOICEs announce their Prefuse73-produced debut; Origins EP out in January

"it's droning atmospherics and vocals looped and inverted almost beyond recognition" - Pitchfork Media

VOICEsVOICEs are a two-piece making warm, seductively atmospheric, mostly instrumental music from Los Angeles. Formed in June of 2008, Jenean Farris and Nico Turner, came together to break away from the musical mold they were confined to in previous projects to defy what they've been taught, and challenge what they know. Their use of pedals, looping, spellbinding vocals, and heartrending drumming results in hauntingly beautiful music that will awaken even your most subconscious dreams and fears. L.A. Record says "Los Angeles has one of the most exciting music scenes going on in the world right now and in the center of all this is the darling female duo, VOICEsVOICEs."

Contributing largely to the new experimental movement, and regular fixtures of DIY venue, The Smell, this is a band whose rising prominence in the LA music scene is undeniable. Their first studio effort, the "Origins" EP, was recorded and produced in NY by Prefuse73 and due out January 23rd, 2010. They are currently laying down the groundwork for their 2010 full-length, which they will be trying out live on their upcoming rigorous tour schedules opening for Hope Sandoval and Brightblack Morning Light (and also playing as BBML backup band) thoughout Europe, as well as hitting the US with Prefuse73 and Gaslamp Killer in January in support of the EP.

"Origins" will be released 01.23.2009 on Manimal Vinyl

European Tour Dates:
w/ Brightblack Morning Light & Hope Sandoval
11.24 Musikcaféen Arrhaus, Denmark
11.25 Mejeriet Lund, Sweden
11.26 Pusterviksbaren Gothenburg, Sweden
11.27 Revolver Oslo, Norway
11.28 Fritz's Corner Stockholm, Sweden
11.29 Laedes Kalder Copenhagen, Denmark
12.1 K4 Neurnburg,Germany
12.2 Botanique Brussels, Belgium
12.8 Vooruit (Theatre) Gent, Belgium
12.9 Rotown Rotterdam, NL
12.10 Effenaar Eindhovern, NL
12.11 Paradiso Amsterdam, NL
12.13: El Lokal / Zurich, Switzerland
12.14 Officina 49 / Cesena, ES
12.15 LA CASA 139 Milan, ES
12.17 LUZERN @ SÜDPOL
12.17 Point Ephémère Paris, FR

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VOICESVOICES- Origins by manimal vinyl

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Pirate Party Gets Second Seat in European Parliament

From Torrent Freak:
"With the Lisbon Treaty being signed by all European Union member states, the Pirate Party has gained another seat in the European Parliament. The second Pirate Party seat will be occupied by the 22 year old Amelia Andersdotter, who will become the youngest Member of the European Parliament."

Read Entire Article Here

Experimental Dental School - Forest Field (2009)

Experimental Dental School give away their new LP "Forest Field" for free!

Guitars bend to the breaking point. Drums pump. Drums crack. Synthesizers crisp & crackle. One voice howls, the other coos. Skronky noise-rock? Maybe. Vintage garage pop? Maybe. Pretty? Yes. Ugly? Yes.

The last year saw Experimental Dental School turning over a new leaf, paring down from a trio to a two-piece and adopting a less-is-more approach. With this change, they've managed to expand sonically and mature their songcraft. Their colossal sound owes a bit to Jesse Hall's custom "guitar-o-bass" and rig in which the high and low frequencies are channeled to separate amps, where angular guitar melodies ricochet within a sea of bass over a lake of effect pedals. Perfectly complementing Hall's gnarly riffage, Shoko Horikawa's explosive off-kilter drumming propel the songs forward. The latest incarnation of the band has been well-received on the road, just getting back from a European tour and playing NXNE just after. They will be taking their show on the road in the US this September, and overseas again, this time to Japan this October.

While not abandoning their noise-rock roots, Experimental Dental School's latest LP "Forest Field" is another step (perhaps a leap) further away finding them more freely exploring the space between between the instrumental and vocal interplay, exercising new levels of restraint and creativity. Rather than interjecting accessibility into spazz, XDS are more concerned with turning the pop formula inside out. The rocking opener "Basement Fever" rides a R&B groove anchored down by a strutting guitar. The bouncy, oceanic "Royal Fantasy Snow" smoothly glides along courtesy of Horikawa's delicate, vocal melodies before giving way to rapidfire riffing building to a heady climax. The dizzying guitar, vocal harmonizing, and stop-start of "Cheap Wine River" are a great example of the band exercising a finely-honed use of tension to push the envelope of a pop song further. There are many surprises like this on "Forest Field", fresh ideas executed so effortlessly making it exhilarating, addictive listen leaving the listener in a sense of wonder of where Experimental Dental School will go next.

Experimental Dental School "Forest Field" (Self-Released)
Track Listing:
1. Basement Fever
2. Earthquake
3. Royal Fantasy Snow
4. Tear Brush
5. Square Wave Cave
6. Cheap Wine River
7. Vicious Cycle Of Life
8. Argentine Pears
9. Dark Stars In Daylight
10. Now I Can Do Anything I want

Download It Here

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The Adventures of Pete & Pete "Hard Day's Pete"

PR: Subhumans

Subhumans [UK] Back-Catalog Reissued

Subhumans were at the forefront of the UK anarcho-punk scene in the early 80s, alongside such bands as Crass, Flux of Pink Indians, Rudimentary Peni and Conflict. From the start Subhumans were praised for their ability to stretch the boundaries of punk rock with their unique blend of structured dynamic tunes and incisive sociopolitical lyrics.

Subhumans were, between 1980-85, one of the most prolific and original bands of the evolving UK punk scene; they were based in Warminster, Wiltshire, SW England, and the lineup was Dick on vocals, Bruce played guitar, Phil on bass, and Trotsky on the drums. Dick had previously sung for The Mental, who released one EP and embodied the "can't-play-will-play" early punk "anyone-can-do-it" attitude. Bruce had been in The Stupid Humans, also based in Warminster; these two met at an Angelic Upstarts gig in 1980, and when their bands split they got together to form Subhumans.

Musical influences were a mix of Sex Pistols, The Damned and similar punk originators, and pre-punk bands like King Crimson and Frank Zappa, which led to a style of punk more intricate in its structure than their contemporaries, without losing the base energy and dynamics of punk. Dick’s lyrics, at once socially aware and heavily critical of social norms, placed them in the anarcho-punk area of the ever-expanding UK punk scene of the early 80s, alongside Crass, Antisect, Conflict and Flux Of Pink Indians, who released the band’s first 3 EPs (Demolition War, Reason For Existence, and Religious Wars) and their first LP The Day The Country Died, which became an instant classic that went on to sell 100,000 copies (largely at the cover price of ‘pay no more than £3.25’, which was as cheap as possible in order to make the music more accessible).

In ‘83 they formed their own label, Bluurg Records, and over the next two years released the From The Cradle To The Grave LP (which included a 16 minute track of the same name that had the music press calling for a redefinition of ‘punk’!) Evolution EP, Time Flies 12" EP, Rats EP, Worlds Apart LP, and 29:29 Split Vision LP, which was released after splitting up in ‘85. By then the band had played 262 gigs including several European tours and two in the USA, (which was in the 80’s a rare achievement for a non-commercially minded band).

Bluurg records are proud to announce the forthcoming reissues of the Subhumans back-catalog. Remastered and presented in deluxe digipacks with all original artwork, these re-releases give you another chance to hear one of the original UK punk bands at their very best.

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Eminem becomes an even bigger caricature of his fake onstage persona

From Perez Hilton:
"Eminem is reportedly going to do another movie. A horror movie. A horror movie in 3D!!!

It doesn't get any lamer than that!

Oh wait, yes it does - the movie is being called Shady Talez!

Ha!"

Read Full Article Here

Video: Serengeti & Polyphonic "Call The Law"

Beck writes a song about Harry Partch in response to Matthew Friedberger's silly Radiohead diss

From Pitchfork:
"Harry Patch was the last surviving British World War I veteran. Radiohead wrote a song about him earlier this year.

Harry Partch was an experimental music composer who worked with microtonal scales. The Fiery Furnaces' Matt Friedberger thought Radiohead wrote a song about him and got pissed about it ("How's the song? Is it 48 notes to the octave?" he scoffed), igniting one of the more confusing (and pretty dumb) band beefs in recent memory. Radiohead did not respond.

Friedberger tried to cover his fuck up with a statement that said: "Matt has not heard the Radiohead song about Harry Patch, but if he did, he is sure he wouldn't like it. No doubt Radiohead and their fans can ignore his opinion of this matter and continue with their triumphant artistic interventions. Matt would have much preferred to insult Beck but he is too afraid of Scientologists."

Now, Beck seems to actually be responding. He's putting up a new song called "Harry Partch" on Beck.com later today. According to a post on the site, the track "employs Partch's 43 tone scale, which expands conventional tonality into a broader variation of frequencies and resonances." It isn't clear yet if the song is directly related to Friedberger's remarks, or just one hell of a coincidence."

Read Entire Article Here

PR: The Books

The Books set to premiere new songs on Fall Tour dates

With a cut-and-paste musical aesthetic, The Books, a.k.a. Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong, didnʼt invent the audio collage, but they have perfected the idea of incorporating found sound into their music. Not interested in repeating snippets of sound or vocals as in hip hop, The Books use whole sections of speech, where natural pauses and repetitions create an atmosphere all their own. As Zammuto explains, The Books record "little pieces and use the computer to organize those bits." The result is kind of less-is-more future-folk, cliché-free and miraculously organic. Stylus magazine comments, "The sample-heavy music of The Books provides post-modernists ample thought for food, casual listeners something to giggle at, and those in between something to marvel over." The Books are just beginning to explore the balance between lyrics, found sounds, and traditional song structure. "Home studios have ushered in a new kind of folk music." he says Zammuto. "Not to bastardize that word more than it already is, but it allows pretty much anybody to create music within small circles, within the context of their friends or families, and within their own homes. Itʼs a new way of working that allows us to live really close to the ground financially, and circumvent the whole pro-studio atmosphere and corporate aspect of music."

The Books have always been an entity that defied category, or any definable aesthetic, which did little to box them into any critical holding pen. As XLR8R once put it, "It sounds like everything from Asiatic Appalachian folk to a soundtrack for a future where robots made of empty tomato cans, dam radios, and duct tape rule the world."

On the heels of three critically acclaimed releases and worldwide tours, The Books went on hiatus to focus on family, deconstruction, reconstruction, film scoring, organic gardening, babies, and reassessment. Zammuto focused on family life and welcomed the birth of his second child, in late 2008, built a home studio, refined his "Sound Sculptures" (Most notable being his "Spoonbox"), gardening, and experimenting with new methods of making music. de Jong spent time adding to the band's vast found sound archive, working on his solo work, canning, collaborating with Zammuto on a film score, and devoting more time to his family.

The hiatus proved to be a much needed break for the band and recently de Jong and Zammuto dusted off "the books" and sifted through archival material with a new record in mind. Plans are materializing for a 2010 release and promises to be the bandʼs most ambitious release to date.

Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong met in 2000 through a friend when they were living in the same New York City apartment building. Coming from vastly different backgrounds, they soon learned they had a shared love of acoustic music and found sound. They experimented and plunked away until, with some urging by Tom Steinle of Tomlab Records, they recorded what would become their debut album, Thought for Food, in 2002. The Books recorded and released The Lemon of Pink in the fall of 2003 and a year later began recording in an old Victorian home in North Adams, Massachusetts. With the release of Lost and Safe in April 2005, The Books departed from the "folktronica" sound they pioneered in their first two efforts, incorporating a new set of instrumental sounds, including vintage clavinet, as well as homemade electro-acoustic sound sculptures made from filing cabinets. Yes, filing cabinets.

"It is unique and addictive" - THE GUARDIAN UK

"They've taken moments of contemplation-- when one understands something on an emotional level but can't quite articulate his thoughts-- and dressed it up in a melodic frame. immediately accessible despite absences of obvious reference points -- (their) records felt like gifts, demanding little from the listener but paying out handsomely." - PITCHFORK

Tour Dates:
11/19 Waltham, MA Rose Art Museum
11/21 Bellingham, WA Mainstage
11/23 Los Angeles, CA Masonic Lodge @ Hollywood Forever Cemetery
11/24 Seattle, WA Triple Door (2 sets, early and late)
11/25 Vancouver, BC The Clutch
11/26 Calgary, AB Broken City
11/27 San Francisco, CA Noe Valley Ministry
11/28 San Francisco, CA Noe Valley Ministry
11/29 Milwaukee, WI Turner Hall Ballroom
11/30 Madison, WI Majestic Theatre
12/01 Minneapolis, MN Cedar Cultural Center

MySpace
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