Monsters Of Folk Go On Tour, Donate To Charity; As It Turns Out, Man Is The Real Monster

By Kat Gardiner on Jul 23 2009

Despite what The Minutemen say (the vigilantes, not the band), we're all immigrants here. For some, the need for outside input is superficial, while others yearn to expatriate themselves and experience the world far from America. I don't think I'm jumping the gun to say that A Hawk And A Hacksaw fall into the latter camp.

Délivrance, their new album on The Leaf Label, finds the duo of ex-E6er Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost completely enveloped in the world of Eastern European folk. The Baltic World saw the duo, welcomed them in with open arms, and then started dancing in the streets. Now they return to The States with a slight Transylvainian accent, musically of course.

Look for the album to be released in The New World August 25.

Délivrance tracklist:

1. Foni Tu Argile
2. Kertész
3. The Man Who Sold His Beard
4. Hummingbirds
5. Raggle Taggle
6. I Am Not A Gambling Man
7. Turkiye
8. Zibiciu
9. Vasalisa Carries A Flaming Skull Through The Forest
10. Lassü

By E. Nagurney on Jul 23 2009

Remember that old Nintendo 64 game Dark Rift? No, of course you don’t. It was this terrible fighting game from 1997 that only three people played: one of them was me, one was someone else, and one was Pictureplane, a.k.a. 24-year-old performance artist Travis Egedy, who just titled his new album Dark Rift.

I'm lying. Dark Rift (the album) is almost certainly not inspired by Dark Rift (the video game) at all. But there are a lot of actual facts about Dark Rift. Like the fact that Dark Rift will be out August 4. Or the fact that Dark Rift will be Pictureplane’s first release for Lovepump United. These are facts worth knowing.

The Lovepump party line on Dark Rift is that “grimy synths, broken beats, and bucolic vocals collide somewhere between early 90s house music and the gnarly soundscapes of Black Dice to forge a sound that's wholly unique and endlessly exciting.”

Sounds pretty good, but Egedy himself makes it sound even better: “Once every 26,000 years our planet crosses through the elliptical plane at the center of our galaxy known as the dark rift. The songs on dark rift lyrically deal with humanity entering a new age or next phase of our existence.” Far out!

More songs about ages and phases:

1. Solid Gold
2. Trance Doll
3. Boys in Blush
4. Gang Signs
5. 5th Sun
6. Goth Star
7. Cyclical Cyclical (Atlantis)
8. Time Teens
9. Dark Rift
10. New Mind
11. Transparent Now (Thin Veil)
12. Dimensional Rip III
13. True Ruin

Pictureplane will hit the road with HEALTH this September to determine who is the number one Nintendo 64 master. Also, they will be playing some shows. Dates:
09.09.09 - Los Angeles, CA - The Troubadour
09.10.09 - San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill
09.11.09 - Portland, OR - The Works (Time-Based Art Festival)
09.12.09 - Seattle, WA - Vera Project
09.17.09 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry
09.18.09 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
09.19.09 - Toronto, ON - Wrong Bar
09.20.09 - Montreal, QC - La Sala Rossa
09.21.09 - Providence ,RI - Club Hell
09.22.09 - Allston, MA - Harper’s Ferry
09.24.09 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
09.25.09 - Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
09.26.09 - Baltimore, MD - Sonar