Sorry, El Dorado, missing “Confederate gold,” and Ark of the Covenant. You too, Lost City of Z. A bona fide REAL missing treasure has been unearthed, and Krautrock fans are gonna want to lay down their metal detectors and Gemm.com log-ins for this one. For, in a storied land far far away (Germany. Obviously), unsuspecting historians unearthed a wealth of musical gold, what has now been dubbed Can’s Lost Tapes. Head here for more info (or just read the next few paragraphs), but the important thing now is that fans in LA and New York become aware of a couple special events to celebrate its release! Tonight, Los Angeles residents can partake in the wonders of Irmin Schmidt and Kumo’s Podmore doing the DJ set thang, meeting fans, and previewing tracks from the box set at Amoeba Music in Hollywood at 6 PM. New York fans can check out an April 17 event at Le Poisson Rouge entitled “The Music of Can: An Evening of Unreleased Music and Discussion,” during which the pair will talk music and answer fan questions about topics ranging from recording to Renaissance Festivals.
A little background on these lost tapes: a while back, Germany’s Rock ‘n’ Pop Museum bought Can’s studio in Weilerswist and everything in it. Even the army mattresses leaning against the walls for sound protection — they bought those. And it seems they bought a trove of master tapes with illegible labels and a whole lot of mystery. Those tapes would soon become a legend.
After sifting through 30 hours of rediscovered tunes, Can founder Irmin Schmidt, along with Jono Podmore and Mute Records boss Daniel Miller, found a vast quantity of top-notch archived material, including soundtracks to unreleased films, tracks that didn’t fit onto albums, and live material. So together, the group worked to arrange a 3-CD box set of the unheard works, which fans can discover as part of The Lost Tapes once it hits stores on June 19. The material dates from 1968-1977 and includes studio recordings from Schloss Nörvenich and Can’s Weilerswist studio. The lineup features Holger Czukay on bass, guitarist Michael Karoli, dummer Jaki Liebezeit, Irmin Schmidt on keyboards, and vocals from Malcolm Mooney or Damo Suzuki on the majority of tracks.
“Obviously the tapes weren’t really lost, but were left in the cupboards of the studio archives for so long everybody just forgot about them,” Schmidt said. “Everybody except Hildegard, who watches over Can and its work like the dragon over the gold of the Nibelungen and doesn’t allow forgetting.”
And here’s that awesome preview track again for good measure:
Did you read my headline? I said BOWELS! Hahahah! For realsies, though. One could only imagine what the bowels of Baltimore arts and music collective Wham City might look like. My guess? Lots of bright neon colors, remnants of chewed-up Crayola crayons, and bits of organic corn and gummy worms. Want more scatological humor? There’s more in the next paragraph!
Ed Schrader’s Music Beat represents what those bowels sound like. Schrader, a partner of Dan Deacon’s (bowel master) Wham City collective, sings and bangs on the floor-tom with punk enthusiasm and abrasive vocals. Along with bassist Devlin Rice (Nuclear Power Pants), the duo isn’t afraid to insert melodies in the midst of noise. Truly, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat is the poopy poop at its best. The debut album, Jazz Mind, is available on LOAD, and a tour with Future Islands will help to spread the Nutella-like feces of Wham City around the US.
Listen to album track “Sermon” here:
Tourdates:
04.14.12 - Baltimore, MD - Floristree
04.25.12 - York, PA - The Depot*
04.26.12 - Middletown, CT - Eclectic House (Wesleyan)*
04.27.12 - Providence, RI - AS220*
04.28.12 - Boston, MA - Paradise*
04.29.12 - Portland, ME @ Space *
04.30.12 - Quebec City, QC - Le Cercle *
05.01.12 - Montreal, QC - Il Motore *
05.02.12 - Ottawa, ON - Mavericks *
05.03.12 - Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern *
05.04.12 - Rochester, NY - Bug Jar *
05.05.12 - Albany, NY - Valentine’s *
05.06.12 - Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church *
In response to Lil B’s inspiring NYU lecture last night, Sigur Rós have looked inside their rainbow hearts and found even more positivity to share with North Americans after four long years of climax denial. The band recently announced their new album Valtari (translation: steamroller) for imminent release on May 29 via XL Recordings, and thus it was time to ride that steamroller across the land. Just like that G-rated David Lynch movie!
As we described last time around, Valtari will have a focus on electronics and the sounds those electronics make, will have no English lyrics whatsoever, and will make use of a girls’ choir as a way to crank up the ethereal. Will said electronics be brought along on tour, even to Troutdale, Oregon? Of course! Will said non-English lyrics be sung on tour? Yes!! Will they bring along the entire girls’ choir? Not sure!!! But that would be cool, and I hear the band’s stage setup is always impressive. Wouldn’t know personally, as the only concert I’ve ever attended was Edwin McCain at Navy Pier. I was this close to getting his autograph afterward.
Dates:
07.30.12 - Philadelphia, PA - Skyline Stage
07.31.12 - Brooklyn, NY - Prospect Park Bandshell
08.01.12 - Toronto, ON - Echo Beach @ Molson Ampitheatre
08.03.12 - Montreal, QC - Osheaga Festival
08.04-05.12 - Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza
08.08.12 - Seattle, WA - Paramount Theater
08.09.12 - Troutdale, OR - Edgefield Ampitheatre
08.12.12 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Forever Cemetary
08.18-19.12 - Osaka/Tokyo, Japan - Summer Sonic
08.24.12 - Paris, France - Rock en Seine
08.25.12 - Winterthur, Switzerland - Steinberggasse
08.28-29.12 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso
08.31.12 - Stradbally, Ireland - Electric Picnic
09.02.12 - Verona, Italy - A Perfect Day Festival
09.04.12 - Vienna, Austria - Arena
09.05.12 - Ljublhana, Slovakia - Krizanke
09.07.12 - Berlin, Germany - Berlin Festival
09.09.12 - Isle of Wight, UK - Bestival
09.16-17.12 - Krakow, Poland - Sacrum Profanum
My sleep schedule has gone straight to hell. No matter how exhausted I think I am, somehow 3:30 AM rolls around, and I’m still wide awake, usually online, sometimes entering contests to win free records, sometimes looking at photos of charmingly arranged breakfast scenes, sometimes watching music videos.
HEY speaking of videos, Spin just premiered the Marsha Balaeva-directed video for “Teary Eyes and Bloody Lips,” a track off the upcoming Moonface record with backing band Siinai, Heartbreaking Bravery, which The A.V. Club is currently streaming. The album follows up last year’s Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I’d Hoped (TMT Review). In the video, there’s a ghost who skitters through the woods and under a bridge, a couple people who do cartwheels on a hill, and an illuminated wolf head made of paper — images weird enough to give all you lucky sleepers some pretty freaky dreams.
We reported a few weeks ago that the album will see an April 17 release via Jagjaguwar, but now it looks like Spencer Krug has also announced a string of tourdates. Cool. I’m going to nap now. Or at least try to.
Tourdates:
05.11.12 - Helsinki, Finland - Korjaamo
05.14.12 - Stockholm, Sweden - Lilla Hotelbaren
05.15.12 - Oslo, Norway - Mono
05.16.12 - Bergen, Norway - Kjott
05.18.12 - Stavanger, Norway - Grottene
05.19.12 - Aarhus, Denmark - Pop Revo Festival
05.20.12 - Goteberg, Sweden - Pustervik
05.21.12 - Malmo, Sweden - Debaser
05.22.12 - Hamburg, Germany - Hafenklang
05.23.12 - Berlin, Germany - Kater Holzig
05.24.12 - Krakow, Poland - Green Zoo Festival
05.25.12 - Leipzig, Germany - NaTo
05.26.12 - Utrecht, Netherlands - Le Guess Who? Festival
05.27.12 - Kortrijk, Belgium - Sinxen Festival
05.29.12 - London, UK - Cargo
06.01.12 - Düdingen, Switzerland - Kilbi Festival
06.15.12 - Pontiac, MI - Pike Room
06.16.12 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall
06.17.12 - Iowa City, IA - The Mill
06.19.12 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th St. Entry
06.20.12 - Lawrence, KS - Jackpot
06.21.12 - Dallas, TX - Club Dada
06.22.12 - Austin, TX - Red 7
06.24.12 - St. Louis, MO - Luminary Center for the Arts
06.26.12 - Nashville, TN - 12th & Porter
06.27.12 - Atlanta, GA - Earl
06.28.12 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506
06.29.12 - Baltimore, MD - Sonar
06.30.12 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
07.01.12 - Cambridge, MA - TT the Bears
Lil Wayne released Tha Carter IV last year to rank reviews across the board, but despite the sage advice mixed with street cred of online critics, Weezy has yet to show signs of giving a single F. Baby. In an interview with MTV’s Hip Hop POV, Wayne revealed that he’s past the point of no return on a new album called DevoDevol, which is pronounced “devil” and is “Loved” spelled backwards.
The concept of the album is his “version” of love songs. Sez Wayne: “What I mean by my version of love songs is meaning they’re not saying, ‘I love you.’ It’s all material I did when I was locked up.” Obviously the album has no release date yet, or any other solid information, but the project is underway and thus will be released eventually, regardless of the finished product. Critics might be rolling their eyes at the idea of a concept album after the junky rock project Rebirth (and the concept of a legitimate sequel to Tha Carter III), but honestly there’d be more cause for worry if there was no idea behind the grouping of songs at all, à la I Am Not a Human Being — an album literally no one even remembered came out until I just typed its title.
Oh, and FACT points out that a sequel to I Am Not a Human Being is in the pipeline for 2012, too. I’m outta here.
Not to get personal here, but it’s been puke central at my house. Two young kids + their cousins + long car rides + some kinda flu means we’ve been cleaning barf off most surfaces in our home. So maybe it’s just me and my extremely weak stomach, but does the trailer for Aesop Rock’s new album Skelethon (dropping July 10 on Rhymesayers) make anyone else want to yack the fuck up? I’ve been wondering who Whiskers was and what happened to him, thanks to Aesop’s continually entertaining Twitter feed, and now the answer is here. Aesop has found his missing kitty. Watch the video to see it come back from beyond the grave. Yuuuuuuck.
But seriously, what I like here is the first single, “Zero Dark Thirty,” off the album. Aesop’s got such a strange and varied career that it’s anyone’s guess what this new album’s going to sound like. This is his first album in like five years, so it’s hard to say how he’ll integrate all his new influences and ideas. Is it going to be the classic backpack rap that he helped propel into the mainstream (as his flow on this track is hinting at), or the deliciously retro boom bap of his recent album with Hail Mary Mallon? Special guests on the album include folk weirdo Kimya Dawson, and his collaboration on her recent solo album was one of its highlights, so perhaps he’ll hew toward a folk DIY aesthetic. Who knows? In just the past day he’s been dropping ridiculous “free hooks” via Twitter for budding rappers. Sample:
“bagels - poppy seed or asiago, dip that shit in some gazpacho, serve it as a new wave nacho, all you hear is “who made? bravo!”
Sounds like the album will feature backup work (with Kimya the only guest vocalist) from Allyson Baker (Dirty Ghosts), Hanni El Khatib, Nicky Fleming-Yaryan, Rob Sonic, and the Grimace Federation. It drops July 10 on Rhymesayers, so we’ll soon see what he has in store for us. In the meantime, stick close to his Twitter feed, cause that shit is weird!
![ZS - Grain [EP]](http://www.tinymixtapes.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/Thumbnail/1304/zs grain.jpg)
