Bad news, human beings looking forward to listening to Azealia Banks’s debut album Broke With Expensive Taste this fall: you can’t. So says Idolator and so says Banks’ Twitter. While the record was originally set for a fall release, it’s been pushed to February 12, 2013. Earlier this year, Banks released the 1991 EP and the Fantasea mixtape, so it’s not like fans of the Harlem MC are at any loss for new material. Still, the delay of her anticipated new album must be at least a little disappointing.
But don’t worry: Swans’s The Seer is still coming out on August 28! Hooray! This was the unasked question that flooded everyone’s mind: “Hey, how is this Azealia Banks delay going to affect Swans?” Good news, it won’t! By now, it’s probably too late to delay the album, so Michael Gira and his mind-obliterating friends will be able to obliterate your mind next Tuesday. Phew! On her Twitter, Banks said that she has “ALOT of REALLY excitin ish happening in btwn!” She’s of course talking about listening to The Seer a ton. Who can blame her? I mean, it’s coming out August 28.
Being both the serious devotees and the leading innovators of old-timey, experimental, freak-out circus music that they are, The Music Tapes must have slapped themselves in the forehead pretty darn hard the other day when they realized they’ve never toured the United States of America in a literal traveling circus tent. (I mean, seems like a no brainer that that’s what you’d do if you’re Julian Koster. Just saying.) But then, after they got over how much such an emphatic slap must have hurt, they probably realized that the reason they’ve never done this is simple: it’s actually pretty counter-intuitively expensive to go around pretending like you’re a rootless, roving band of fun-loving carnival folk. And if you’re a rootless, roving band of fun-loving carnival folk that’s trying to keep Kosher or eat vegan or buy organic or keep your iPhone charged so all the singing saw apps work night after night… good night, Irene!
But that’s where this futuristic, new fangled internet contraption called a “Kickstarter” comes in. See, Julian and his pals have a new album coming out September 4 via Merge called Mary’s Voice, and they figure that now’s the time to rectify that touring-circus problem. So they’ve gone ahead and started a humdinger of a jim-dandy of a dilly of a Kickstarter page to offer supporters loads of doodads in exchange for helping to fund this whole shebang, which they’ve dubbed “The Traveling Imaginary.” Check it:
The Traveling Imaginary is an invitation into The Music Tapes’ world. We will tour the United States in a circus tent, transforming spaces into cozy, dreamlike environments for evenings’ worth of music, games, stories, films, and amusements. The Traveling Imaginary is a long-dreamt-of undertaking on a grander scale than anything we have ever done. You, the audience member, will be an honored guest in The Music Tapes’ world – the one in which Julian has lived and recorded in for years.
There are historic tentmakers in England who will help us realize our designs. The goal of $5,000 will cover the cost of the tent and help us purchase a trailer to transport it. It will also contribute towards the sound system the show will require and motor vehicle repairs. All we can raise beyond that will fund the creation of the show itself! We have a great many exciting new Music Tapes amusements and contraptions envisioned for the show! We hope to build as much as we can with your donations.
Actually, as of this moment, they’ve already reached the hoped-for $5,000 goal, but there’s still 20 days left to go for this thing and some pretty handsome prizes for any donation level (starting with an exclusive, funders-only EP at the $10 level and culminating in the freakin’ BANJO Julian used on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea for any backer who’s got enough balls growing out of his/her back to bring the ballin’ backing of $3,000), so don’t sleep on this. Besides, you heard what the man said up there. There are HISTORIC TENT MAKERS IN ENGLAND involved here, people. Let’s help them build their dream tent! They could probably use the work.
Meanwhile, check out “The Dark Is Singing Songs (Sleepy Time Down South),” the first track off Mary’s Voice, which we premiered last month:
No doubt at some point today, you stopped and thought, “I wonder what’s going on at the Technology Policy Institute Forum in Aspen today…” Well, TMT is here to help answer that omnipresent question. As it turns out, RapidShare’s Chief Legal Officer Daniel Raimer was on hand to talk to the group about the real problem with online piracy. As he frames it, it’s not legit cloud services like RapidShare that are perpetuating the prevalence of illegal online file-sharing, but the ‘linking sites’ that direct users to copyrighted materials hosted in clouds. Get rid of the linking sites, and poof, no more internet piracy of copyrighted materials.
To that end, RapidShare is advocating for the adoption of a ‘responsible practices’ document that it drafted. Instead of having the government step in and regulate, RapidShare would prefer that everyone voluntarily play by its rules so as not to restrict the creative possibilities that cloud-based technology holds, much in the same way that industry standards and practices have been established and adopted in the advertising and credit industries. That would appear to be a sensical and appropriate way to handle the issue, but the major labels disagree, wishing for further regulation of the internet to protect their intellectual property.
To recap:
• Linking sites = bad
• Cloud services = good
• Government regulation = bad
• Industry standards = good
• Major labels = desperate to hold on to a dying business model
Regardless of how the issue is handled in the future, people will continue to find a way to use the internet to share intellectual property, whether it’s legal or not, so all parties involved should probably focus on monetizing that instead of trying to think of new ways to prevent it from happening.
Experimental producer Venetian Snares (or Aaron Funk, if you’re into real names) is from Winnipeg. I always forget this! Since my main experience with Venetian Snares is from an album referred to as The Hungarian Album (but actually titled Rossz csillag alatt született), I always assume he’s from Hungary. But this really doesn’t make a lot of sense, since every album by a Hungarian artist then could be “The Hungarian Album.” But my brain thinks dumb thoughts. This should be no reflection on Venetian Snares, whose brain seems to think rather intelligent thoughts.
Venetians Snares doesn’t have any (announced) plans to go to Hungary any time soon, but he will be relatively close this fall. Our buds at FACT report that the producer is going on a European tour for about a month this fall. The world must hear his beats or, at least, this chunk of the world must hear his beats. Antarctica will probably not hear Venetian Snares’ beats any time soon. Well, I mean, they could through a record or MP3s or something. But they’re probably not going to, because there’s only like a thousand people there and they’re all scientists. So, the chance of one being a Venetian Snares fan is pretty low and… forget it.
Venetian Snares dates:
09.14.12 - Trevelgue, Newquay, UK - Bangface Weekender
09.18.12 - Bristol, UK - The Fleece
09.19.12 - Den Hague, Netherlands - Plaard Van Troje
09.20.12 - Brussels, Belgium - Blaes 208
09.21.12 - Groningen, Netherlands - Simpion
09.24.12 - Brighton, UK - The Haunt
09.25.12 - Manchester, UK - Sound Control
09.27.12 - Berlin, Germany - Berghain
09.28.12 - Dublin, Ireland - Twisted Pepper
09.29.12 - London, UK - Corsica Studios Mu Night
10.04.12 - Bucharest, Romania - Silver Church
10.05.12 - Milan, Italy - Leoncavallo
10.06.12 - Gdynia, Poland - Trasvizualia
10.07.12 - Krakow, Poland - Fabryka
Oh my. The Guardian has reported that seven peaceful protesters were arrested recently outside of the Russian consulate in Marseilles, France. There to show support for the three members of feminist punk group Pussy Riot, who were convicted and sentenced last week to two years behind bars for playing an anti-Putin song in a Russian church, some members of the 30-person protest sported balaclavas, the knitwear that covers your whole face, with cutouts for your eyes, mouth, and nose. Although the protesters were merely standing behind a sign professing the power of poetry (similar to the healing power of laughter?), the fact that they were covering their faces gave the police the right to arrest and question them.
In order to not come off as totally racist, Sarkozy’s 2011 law banning the wearing of the niqab by Muslim women was amended to ban all covering of one’s face in public spaces. Still seems pretty racist, but this action against the protesters wearing balaclavas demonstrates the state’s willingness to apply the law to circumstances that don’t have anything to do with religion.
One protester at the rally was quoted as saying, “We came here to defend freedom of expression in Russia and we find ourselves stopped by French police.” Needless to say, those at the rally found the whole ordeal to be rather ridiculous, especially given the cause that they were there to support. If the members of Pussy Riot were to hear about this, I’m sure they’d just shake their heads and laugh as they did upon hearing their guilty verdict last week.
Back in 2010, artist/composer Letha Rodman Melchior was diagnosed with breast cancer and melanoma. She’s been fighting like hell to beat them since, but the drug trials needed to get better aren’t covered by her insurance. Her husband, guitarist/composer Dan Melchior, quit his day job so he could do whatever he could to take care of her — certainly a difficult decision for an independent artist. Somehow, Dan still found a bit of time to make music, and on September 11, he’ll release The Backward Path on Northern Spy. He’s dedicated this album to Letha, and all profits from the first pressing will help pay for her medical treatments.
The songs on The Backward Path are quieter and more sentimental than most of Dan’s previous work, and he enlisted the help of a few friends: C. Spencer Yeh on violin; Haley L. Fohr (Circuit Des Yeux) on vocals; Anthony Allman on keyboards; Ela Orleans on vocals, keyboards, and guitar; and Sam Hillmer (a.k.a. Diamond Terrifier) on saxophone. You can order the record right here, and you can also send donations directly to Letha via The Letha Melchior Rodman Cancer Fund. You can make tax-deductible donations to Northern Spy’s sister company, Jump Arts. All funds will help Letha pay her medical bills.
Letha made a video for “Night Comes In,” a single off The Backward Path. It shows a bit of her life with Dan and their parakeet Glen in North Carolina. You can keep up with Letha’s progress on her blog.
The Backward Path tracklist:
01. S.P 1
02. Night Comes In
03. S.P 2
04. All The Clocks
05. S.P 3
06. S.P 4
07. I Have Known The Emptiness
08. S.P 5
09. Dark Age Tail Spin
10. S.P 6
11. Waves
12. S.P 7
13. No End
