Joy Division and New Order master tapes found among gold and guns by Jamie Oliver (who is holding them hostage until you change your disgusting eating habits)
All that time spent trying to help the obese population in Huntington, WV lose weight is reaping some real karmic benefits for Jamie Oliver! Not only is he is dreamy in that odd, doughy Wallace and Gromit kind of way, good things just keep happening to him. While recently excavating the basement of a Midland Bank branch set to be the home of his new restaurant in Manchester, Oliver’s crew stumbled across a literal treasure trove of long-lost goodies stored in leftover safety deposit boxes. Britain’s most reputable news source, Holy Moly, is reporting that Oliver found, “not only jewels and gold, but also Joy Division and New Order master tapes as well as a very reasonable collection of guns. Total value: £1.1m.”
Oliver has turned all of the findings over to the British treasury, presumably for safe keeping. Living members of the bands have yet to comment, so it’s unknown what’s precisely on the tapes or how they ended up there, though it’s safe to assume that if there’s a profit to be made, we’ll eventually have the chance to hear them. No doubt Ian Curtis is rolling in his grave over Mr. Oliver’s good fortune, which also benefits Peter Hook and his New Order bandmates — this blip of publicity should create some additional interest in their recently announced spring tour.
Oliver’s new restaurant is set to open next week, with no word yet on what the soundtrack will be like.
Tourdates:
04.26.12 - Manchester, UK - Apollo
04.29.12 - Birmingham, UK - Birmingham Ballroom
05.02.12 - Brixton, UK - O2 Academy
05.05.12 - Glasgow, UK - O2 Academy
Gather around and listen attentively, my children. Recall (if you have the capacity to) a certain wonderfully majestic new age compilation series that was promoted seemingly ad infinitum on cable television during the mid-to-late 90s. Now, if that description isn’t enough to give it away and make you feel all warm and nostalgic inside, try and associate the following lyrics with the specific commercial that I have in mind: “Sail away, sail away, sail away, sail away” (repeat x 47). Yes? No? I’m talking about that magnificent soundtrack to meditative activity, otherwise known as Pure Moods. Despite being discontinued since 2004 and hardly anyone missing it, the series is being resuscitated this year in the form of Dream Continuum!
Or so you might think. “Dream Continuum” certainly doesn’t sound like the name of a brand new Planet Mu collaboration between two artists who casually navigate the gray area between electronic sub-genres, but that’s exactly what it is: Machinedrum, who increased his fanbase last year with the release of the critically-acclaimed, loosely-labelled “footwork” album Room(s), is joining forces with a relatively new figure on the scene, Om Unit a.k.a. Jim Coles, to form Dream Continuum. And on March 26, they’ll be releasing their first EP, Reworkz, which you can preview here. As it turns out, their alias seems oddly consistent with the echoing jungle samples and unyielding rhythms on display throughout their work. I’m slightly taken aback by the lack of Enya though.
Former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha recently announced news of a sophomore LP to be released next month by EMI Japan. Entitled Look to the Sky, the album is Iha’s first collection of solo recordings since 1998’s well-received Let It Come Down, and judging by the titles of the tracklist, it’ll be a clear continuation of the prior LP’s sunny folk/pop brew.
Since the demise of the original line-up of Smashing Pumpkins (a band he co-founded with fellow Windy City nincompoop Billy Corgan) in 2000, Iha has been busy producing and remixing other musicians, guesting on friends’ records, contributing to various soundtracks and even co-founding a label, Scratchie Records, with Smashing Pumpkins bud D’Arcy Wretzky and Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne. The label has released LPs by bands like The Sounds and The Blank Theory. Iha has also regularly played with bands like A Perfect Circle and Tinted Windows. Look to the Sky is due March 14.
Look to the Sky tracklist:
01. Make Believe
02. Summer Days
03. To Who Knows Where
04. Till Next Tuesday
05. Dream Tonight
06. Dark Star
07. Appetite
08. Gemini
09. Waves
10. Speed of Love
11. 4th of July
12. A String of Words
13. Diamond Eyes
14. Stay Lost
Story intro ideas - Cymbals Eat Guitars tour w/ Cursive - Nobodaddy
I.
Hey guys, big news! Cymbals Eat Guitars are touring the US this spring with Cursive! CEG are, of course, touring in support of last year’s Lenses Alien LP. Cursive, on the other hand, are touring in support of the year 1998.
II.
Indie-rock stalwarts Cymbals Eat Guitars will finally get a chance to see if their band name looks cool written in cursive this spring when…
III.
Oh boy, this is kinda embarassing. See, Cymbals Eat Guitars (whom you may recall dropped the OK NEW MUSIC’DLenses Alien on Barsuk last year) had this big tour planned with everyone’s favorite irrelevant post-rockers Cursive this spring. But then, when they weren’t looking one day, their fat-ass cymbals went and ATE all of their guitars!
IV.
Being as they’re the only two bands in the known universe that are still using guitars to sell the purported epic nature inherent to the modern rock song (such as it is currently conceived), it makes — if you’ll begrudge me a quick pun — “sound sense” for Cymbals Eat Guitars and Cursive to ply their trades together in order to increase the the odds, as it were, of achieving the ordinarily desirous goal of credit’s triumph over debit; particularly in the case of Cymbals Eat Guitars, for whom the continued relevancy of their most recent compendium of compositions is of critical importance. Therefore, the two musical groups have agreed to converge for a tour this spring of both the contiguous United States and select Canadian cities. Fans of either group are hereby advised, pragmatically, semantically, or otherwise, to conflate their sense of personal (viz. social, aesthetic, historic, political, etc.) identification with one with that of the other, to the mutual betterment of all three parties touched upon herein.
Dates:
03.22.12 - Iowa City, IA - The Mill *
03.23.12 - Minneapolis, MN - The 400 Bar*
03.24.12 - Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon *
03.25.12 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall *
03.26.12 - Champaign, IL - High Dive *
03.27.12 - Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig *
03.28.12 - Pittsburgh, PA - Mr. Smalls Theatre *
03.29.12 - Cleveland Heights, OH - Grog Shop *
03.30.12 - Buffalo, NY - Mohawk Place *
03.31.12 - Toronto, ON - The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern *
04.02.12 - Cambridge, MA - Middle East (Downstairs) *
04.03.12 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom *
04.04.12 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom *
04.05.12 - Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer *
04.06.12 - Washington, DC - Black Cat *
04.07.12 - Raleigh, NC - Kings Barcade *
04.08.12 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl *
04.09.12 - St. Augustine, FL - Cafe Eleven *
04.10.12 - Orlando, FL - The Social *
04.11.12 - Tallahassee, FL - Club Downunder *
04.13.12 - Houston, TX - Fitzgerald’s Upstairs *
04.14.12 - Austin, TX - The Mohawk *
04.15.12 - Dallas, TX - Trees *
04.17.12 - Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone Cafe *
04.18.12 - Lexington, KY - Cosmic Charlies *
04.20.12 - St. Louis, MO - Off Broadway Nightclub *
04.21.12 - Columbia, MO - Mojo’s *
Jodie Christian, the protean jazz pianist who bridged the hard-bop and avant-garde eras in Chicago, died early Monday morning. He had marked his 80th birthday less than two weeks ago, on February 2.
The pianist had an enormous impact on Chicago music of the last half-century. As a collaborator with Ira Sullivan in the late 1950s, and as a regular “house pianist” with visiting soloists in the decades after, he exemplified the bold and brawny Chicago approach to mainstream jazz. As a sideman for several of saxophonist Eddie Harris’s projects — including Harris’s first foray into electronics — he contributed to recordings that helped pave the way for the jazz-rock fusion. And he unassumedly mentored two generations of younger musicians who have in turn made significant contributions to the Chicago scene.
But Christian truly secured his spot in history in 1965, when he and three other Chicago musicians — Muhal Richard Abrams, Phil Cohran, and Steve McCall — initiated the discussions that became the groundbreaking Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. As documented in George Lewis’s AACM history A Power Stronger Than Itself, Christian’s was one of the five names that appear as signatories on the AACM charter granted by the State of Illinois on August 5, 1965.
You’re about to learn a lot of cool things about Ghost frontman Masaki Batoh. It’s probably best to lay out the facts in bullet point form:
• In addition to fronting one of the great Japanese psych rock bands of our time and touring regularly, Batoh is a professional, working acupuncturist.
• Batoh commissioned a device called the Brain Pulse Music machine that essentially translates brain waves from the parietal and frontal lobes into sounds (and Batoh has mastered its use).
• Batoh has a new album, Brain Pulse Music coming out on Drag City February 28.
• Batoh is a badass who really cares about the people of his country.
• Watch this.
Brain Pulse Music (BPM) was originally meant to be a straightforward attempt to translate brain waves into sound for the purpose of creating music. Following the earthquake that hit Japan in March 2011, the project changed considerably. Once Batoh was able to return to his acupuncture practice, he noticed a distinct increase in the anxiety levels of his patients. Instead of just translating any old thoughts into sounds, Batoh’s mission shifted to translating the post-disaster mindset that he saw permeating society into music. By creating music out of the brain pulses within this framework, Batoh also sought to create a release valve to help relieve that newfound anxiety.
Here’s a little more info on the machine:
…[The BPM machine] consists of headgear and a motherboard. In order to see the immediate effects on the level of brain waves, a special set of goggles that project indicator lamps (synchronized with the motherboard) are worn during the performance of the recording session. The headgear is worn by the performer, which picks up brain waves from the parietal and frontal lobes and sends them, via radio waves, to the motherboard. The motherboard then converts the radio waves via a generator into wave pulses, which are then output as sound.
Needless to say, this is a very cool and intriguing idea that borders on science fiction. The intensity and emotion that the promotional video hints at is a good indicator of the heft that Batoh’s project brings to the table. While the tones that make up this music are electronic, the album finds Batoh releasing some of the most traditional folk-oriented music of his career, a reflection of the roots of where the electronic tones originated, the Japanese psyche.
Batoh is donating all proceeds from the album to the Japanese Red Cross in support of earthquake victims. If the concept at play here isn’t enough to get you to buy this, hopefully that should do it.
Brain Pulse Music tracklisting:
01. Kumano Codex 1: Shou (wind pipes) and Nambu Furin (bells)
02. Eye tracking test: BPM machines (2 machines at same time)
03. Kumano Codex 2: 9 people play Konchiki (small gong hit by dear horn
stick) walking in a circle
04. Kumano Codex 3: Kodaiko (small drum), Shakubyoshi, Hansho (Buddhist
gong), Kagura suzu (bells) and Shakuhachi (flute)
05. Kumano Codex 4: Odaiko (big drum) , Konchiki, Mokugyo (Buddhist wood
block), Hyoushi-gi (wood block) and Shakuhachi
06. Kumano Codex 5: Kin (Buddhist bells)
07. Aiki no Okami: BPM machines (2 machines), Plasma Thermin, Springer FX
and Norito (Shinto chant)
