Pyramids and Nadja Collaborate on New LP, Because Sometimes the World Just Makes Sense
By E. Nagurney on 08-21-2009
Pyramids are a metal band whose sound is based on droning guitars and shoegaze textures. They are from Denton, Texas. Last year, they put out an acclaimed self-titled record (TMT Review) on Hydra Head. That particular album also possessed last year’s best album art, according to us.
Nadja are a metal duo (Aiden Baker and Leah Buckareff) whose sound is based on droning guitars and shoegaze textures. They are from Toronto, Canada. They have put out a number of albums on respected labels like Alien8 and Robotic Empire. None of their album covers are quite as good as that Pyramids one, but this one is pretty neat.
And so, in a move that makes an incredible amount of sense, Pyramids and Nadja have collaborated on a new LP, which is coming out October 27 on Hydra Head. The collective six members of the two groups play on all four of the record’s tracks, though with help from a pretty extensive guest list. Like most things involved with this project, all these guests make a certain amount of sense: Simon Raymonde of '80s legends Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil, Albin Julius of Austrian psych-rock project Der Blutharsch, Chris Simpson of '90s emo group Mineral, Colin Marston of tech-metal giants Dysrhythmia, and James Plotkin of black metal band Khanate, who produced the record. Assuming the world continues making sense at this rate, the album will likely contain lots of pretty drones, ambient textures, and long, dirge-like songs. Then again, maybe it’ll wind up sounding like a synth-pop record.
Pyramids With Nadja tracklisting:
1. Into the Silent Waves
2. Another War
3. The Sound of Ice and Grass
4. An Angel Was Heard to Cry Over the City of Rome
Elvira Called… She Wants Her House Band Back: The Horrors Hit the Long, Winding, Spoooo-key Road
By David Nadelle on 08-21-2009
Some say it was the constant presence of Wheaties next to the cases of Tru Blood on their backstage rider. Others claim bringing in author Craig Silvey, Portishead's Geoff Barrow, and video maverick Chris Cunningham to help produce their second album, Primary Colours, in turn produced an inspired, unexpectedly brilliant recording. Still more state that it is all just a natural part of the group puberty process, creating the perfect storm of nut fuzz and songwriting chops. Whatever the impetus, The Horrors have transformed themselves from an interesting but novel, neo-goth, Cramps-influenced act to something altogether different and better. True, the caretaker chic is still donned with all-too-knowing nonchalance and they still use nicknames stolen from "Munsters" stagehands (Spider Webb? Coffin Joe? Relatively Dour Pete?) but the quality of Primary Colours cannot be refuted.
The dark-hearted quintet get a big chance to convince the great unwashed and made-up of North America of their new-found powers starting September 15 in Boston during a live stretch which will see them travel from coast to coast to coast. Also included below are three NYC dates supporting Nine Inch Nails (at the behest of super-fan Trent Reznor) and a mausolean U.K. and European tour that Maiden would have trouble pulling off. You will notice that The Horrors are playing a gig on Halloween night but there are no shows on Elm Street or at a House on Haunted Hill or on a Friday the 13th or at The Last House on the Left or with Rosemary's Baby as support or Bride of Chucky as caterer? Bah, they have changed!
I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside of these cities and venues:
08.22.09 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom #
08.23.09 - New York, NY - Webster Hall #
08.25.09 - New York, NY - Terminal 5 #
08.28.09 - Reading, England - Reading Festival
08.29.09 - Paris, France - Rock en Seine Festival
08.30.09 - Leeds, England - Leeds Festival
09.05.09 - London, England - Offset Festival
09.11.09 - Isle of Wight, England - Bestival
09.12.09 - Dorset, England - End of the Road Festival
09.15.09 - Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club
09.06.09 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda’s
09.07.09 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
09.18.09 - Baltimore, MD - Sonar, Club Stage
09.19.09 - Washington, DC - Black Cat
09.21.09 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl
09.22.09 - New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jacks
09.24.09 - Houston, TX - Walter’s on Washington
09.25.09 - Dallas, TX - Granada Theater
09.26.09 - Austin, TX - Emo’s (outside)
09.28.09 - Tempe, AZ - The Clubhouse
09.29.09 - San Diego, CA - The Casbah
09.30.09 - Costa Mesa, CA - The Detroit Bar
10.01.09 - Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theater
10.02.09 - Pomona, CA - The Glass House
10.03.09 - San Francisco, CA - The Independent
10.05.09 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
10.06.09 - Seattle, WA - Neumo’s
10.07.09 - Vancouver, BC - Venue
10.10.09 - St. Paul, MN - Turf Club
10.11.09 - Chicago, IL - Double Door
10.12.09 - Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
10.14.09 - Toronto, ON - Lee’s Place
10.15.09 - Montreal, QC - Petit Campus
10.16.09 - Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg
10.17.09 - Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell’s
10.31.09 - Brussels, Belgium - Botanique
11.01.09 - Ghent, Belgium - Minnemeers
11.02.09 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg, old room
11.03.09 - Nijmegen, Netherlands - Doornroosje
11.04.09 - Utrecht, Netherlands - Tivoli
11.06.09 - Cologne, Germany - Underground
11.07.09 - Hamburg, Germany - Uevel & Gefaehrlich
11.08.09 - Aarhus, Denmark - Voxhall
11.09.09 - Copehagen, Denmark - Vega
11.10.09 - Berlin, Germany - Lido
11.12.09 - Munich, Germany - 59 to 1
11.13.09 - Vienna, Austria - Szene
11.15.09 - Lausanne, Switzerland - Le Romandie
11.16.09 - Zurich, Switzerland - Abart
11.18.09 - Rome, Italy - Circolo Degli Artisti
11.19.09 - Florence, Italy - Flog
11.20.09 - Ravenna, Italy - Bronson
11.21.09 - Turin, Italy - Spazio 211
11.23.09 - Toulouse, France - Le Phare
11.24.09 - Barcelona, Spain - Razzmatazz
11.25.09 - Madrid, Spain - Joy Eslava
11.27.09 - Bordeaux, France - Theatre Barbey
11.28.09 - Nantes, France - Olympic
11.30.09 - Paris, France - Trabendo
12.05.09 - Minehead, England - All Tomorrow's Parties, Butlin's Holiday Camp
12.08.09 - Birmingham, England - LG Arena
12.09.09 - London, England - O2 Arena
12.11.09 - Bridlington, England - Bridlington Spa
12.12.09 - Manchester, England - Manchester Central
12.14.09 - Glasgow, Scotland - SECC
# Nine Inch Nails
Thrill Jockey Announces 12-Inch Record Subscription Club
By Annapocalypse on 08-21-2009
Remember back in 1988 when Sub Pop started their successful Record Singles Club? Neither do I! But I do know that Thrill Jockey are starting a 12-inch record subscription club, which includes seven limited-edition records guaranteed exclusively to mail-order customers.
So what Thrill Jockey bands are included in this whole deal? According to the label, package #1 ships later this month and includes Pit Er Pat’s High Time Remixes [The Fiery Furnaces' The End Is Near 12-inch] (now replacing Pat since the first wave of subscriptions sold out immediately) and Tortoise’s Beacons of Ancestorship Remixes. Package #2 ships in October and includes Thank You’s Pathetic Magic EP, Pontiak’s Sea Voids EP, and White Hills’ Dead EP. Package #3 will ship in November and includes as-of-yet unnamed EPs from Javelin and Mi Ami. The best part? Every subscriber gets a free Thrill Jockey record tote bag! Sweet, dude!
For more information, check out the Thrill Jockey page and find out how to join. The subscription is $84 in the U.S., $98 in Canada, or $122 for Europe or Japan.
On Land Fest, the Counter to Outside Lands, to Feature Grouper, Ducktails, Keith Fullerton Whitman
By Jon Lorenz on 08-21-2009
Anti-Festivals seem to be all the rage these days. Pitchfork Fest had its mostly word-of-mouth Bitchpork Fest with Times New Viking, Cave, Wet Hair, Bird Names, and others running a samurai sword through the well-oiled machine in the park. Now it turns out San Francisco is planning something similar in anticipation of the unholy Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, featuring Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Tenacious D, Modest Mouse, Incubus, M.I.A., and so on.
More specifically, Aquarius Records and the Root Strata label are putting on the On Land Festival from September 19-20 in good ol' San Fran. The fest will feature Grouper, Christina Carter, Ducktails, Ilyas Ahmed, Pete Swanson (of Defunct Yellow Swans), Keith Fullerton Whitman, Starving Weirdos, and plenty more. The festival will consist of an early show at the Swedish American Hall and an afternoon show at Cafe Dunord on Saturday (each show $10), followed by a Sunday night back at the Swedish American Hall (this time $20). So, if you can stand to miss Incubus, go check out On Land. Damn, let's keep these anti-fests coming!
- 09.19.09 - Swedish American Hall (Early Show)
Starving Weirdos
William Fowler Collins
Metal Rouge
Darwinsbitch
Jim Haynes
John Davis
Danny Paul Grody
- 09.19.09 - Cafe Dunord
Tarental
Keith Fullerton Whitman
The Alps
Ducktails
Pete Swanson
Joe Grimm
Operative / Scott Goodwin
- 09.20.09 - Swedish American Hall
Grouper
Christina Carter
Ilyas Ahmed
Barn Owl
Sun Circle
Common Eider, King Eider
Brendan Murray
Classic ’76 Harmonia & Brian Eno Collab Reissued with New Tunes and Revamped Track Sequence
By Mike McHugh on 08-20-2009
Despite his unfortunate association with Phil Collins, Brian “The Bald Egon” Eno has spent a sizeable chunk of his career wading his abilities in the same creative waters as some of pop music’s grandest talents. From Robert “Granite Frets” Fripp to David “I Fucking Dare You to Call Me Dave” Bowie, Eno’s chops behind the boards and incisive musical brain have made him the perfect collaborator for many significant musicians, especially during his (arguably) mid-1970s creative peak. But for all the Byrnes and Bonos and Windows 95s that managed to keep Brain One well remunerated for his efforts, a host of other projects inevitably slipped through the cracks, doomed to be fed as scraps of art-rock arcana to music critics and unemployable prog-heads across the globe.
Tracks and Traces, Eno’s collaboration with krautrock übergrupp Harmonia, is one of those projects. In 1976 the two parties convened while Eno was en route to record Low with Bowie, but the tracks didn’t appear on wax until 1997 when Harmonia/Cluster co-founder Hans-Joachim Roedelius remixed nine tunes and released them as a single album. Though his autonomous actions angered the other members of Harmonia, Neu!’s Michael Rother and fellow Clustertacean Dieter Moebius, the pair certainly couldn’t fuss about the quality of the material. But Roedelius wasn’t the only one with a copy of the sessions gathering dust in his attic. Rother eventually digitized his copy into 27 fragments, and while apparently the unreleased material could fill a whole album, the band decided instead to reissue the 1997 album with three new tunes integrated into the existing track sequence. Out October 6 on Gronland Records, this shizz is not to be missed, folks, especially since Harmonia has made it clear that they have no intentions of reforming for a new album or tour.
Tracks & Traces tracklist:
1. Welcome #
2. Atmosphere #
3. Vamos Companeros
4. By the Riverside
5. Luneberg Heath
6. Sometimes in Autumn
7. Weird Dream
8. Autumn
9. Les Demoiselles
10. When Shade Was Born
11. Trace
12. Aubade #
# - Previously unreleased.
