Matador Records ditches their spell check and adds Majical Cloudz to their roster
By Brendan Sudol on Feb 6 2013
Much to the chagrin of anyone who writes about music and uses word processing software with a spell check (i.e., everyone) Matador Records has signed Majical Cloudz. The project of Montreal-based songwriter Devon Welsh and his producer/live collaborator Matthew Otto, Majical Cloudz made a name for themselves collaborating with Grimes as well as releasing the 2011 EP Turns Turns Turns on Arbutus Records.
While their debut for the label isn’t going to be out for a while, Majical Cloudz have released a Yours Truly session, which can be viewed below, and they’ll be touring this winter with Autre Ne Veut.
Dates:
02.26.13 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brendas *
02.27.13 - New York, NY - Santos Party House *
02.28.13 - Montreal, QC - Le Belmont *
03.01.13 - Toronto, ON - Wrongbar *
03.02.13 - Chicago, IL - Schubas *
03.04.13 - Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock *
03.07.13 - Vancouver, BC - Electric Owl *
03.08.13 - Seattle, WA - Barboza *
03.09.13 - Portland, OR - Bunk Bar *
03.11.13 - San Francisco, CA - The Independent *
03.12.13 - Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour *
03.13-17.13 - Austin, TX - SXSW
* Autre Ne Veut
• Majical Cloudz: http://www.facebook.com/MajicalCloudz
• Matador: http://www.matadorrecords.com
Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich announce DJ dates, fans scramble to decipher the meaning behind spinning four hours of Fleetwood Mac songs
By E. Nagurney on Feb 6 2013
Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich are a real odd couple. One sings and plays guitar in Radiohead, the other one produces Radiohead records. How could such oil and water personalities mix? Well, they mix, buddy, they mix just fine. So fine, that they’re playing together in Atoms For Peace, who just happen to be releasing their debut record Amok on February 26 via XL Recordings. They even mix so fine that they’re doing a trio of DJ dates together in February and March.
Further details on those DJ sets are… a little scarce. They’ll be playing London, Berlin, and New York City, but they have yet to announce exactly where in those cities they’ll be playing. Don’t worry, though, there can’t be more than four or five places to do a DJ set in any of these cities. Prove me wrong.
Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich dates:
02.22.13 - London, UK
03.08.13 - Berlin, DE
03.14.13 - New York, NY
• Radiohead: http://radiohead.com
• Nigel Godrich: http://www.nigelgodrich.com
Eluvium announces new two-disc album Nightmare Ending; Freddy Krueger strongly objects
By Mike Reid on Feb 6 2013
You remember 2010? Yeah, me neither. Talk about your unremarkable years; I can’t remember anything worthwhile that happened, either on a personal or global level, and no, before you interject, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver only ventured into “Eh? Ehhhh” territory. “Oh, well what about the World Cup?!,” you might ask with an air of assurance. Spain unsurprisingly dominated and the world was introduced to vuvuzelas — nuff said.
What would’ve been remarkable had listeners not already been so skeptical of the theory behind it, was the release of Similes (TMT Review) from Portland, Oregon-based, typically ambient musician Eluvium a.k.a. Matthew Cooper. The album marked his first experiment with vocals under the moniker and was generally met with average reviews. Resistance to change is as much a human characteristic as bipedality.
Calming the nerves of his more anxious followers (taxonomy: Homo sapiens), Eluvium has just announced the release of Nightmare Ending, a two-disc album of mostly (entirely?) ambient material, and his first true follow-up to Similes (though one shouldn’t ignore the limited Static Nocturne). Fans of 2007’s Copia will likely find something appealing in the fact that Nightmare Ending was initially conceived as its direct follow-up, until creative frustrations put the project on hold. Later revisited, it’s the result of years of conscious and unconscious consideration. Don’t know about you, but I’d consider a purchase when it’s released on May 14.
Nightmare Ending tracklisting:
Disc 1:
01. Don’t Get Any Closer
02. Warm
03. By the Rails
04. Unknown Variation
05. Caroling
06. Sleeper
07. Envenom Mettle
Disc 2:
01. Chime
02. Rain Gently
03. Impromptu (For the Procession)
04. Covered in Writing
05. Entendre
06. Strange Arrivals
07. Happiness
• Eluvium: http://www.eluvium.net
• Temporary Residence Ltd.: http://temporaryresidence.com
Digitalis’ reissue of the amazing UK duo Leven Signs’ only release opens stargate to alternate, cooler past/future
By Liz Louche on Feb 5 2013
Forgotten progenitors of weirdo avant garde electropop and most Googleable band ever Leven Signs are getting some long overdue attention from the good people over at Digitalis. Like almost 30 years overdue. (And seriously, if you Google this band, you get like 10 exact results, and only one is inexplicably for an iPhone 4 case.) In 1985, the experimental UK duo of Peter Karkut and Maggie Turner released their one and only album Hemp Is Here as a cassette on Unlikely Records and as a vinyl LP on Cordelia. And then, like a shifting, shimmering dream of gamelan-studded, organ-washed, minimal electronica from an alternate future, it was gone. Gone from the pressing plant, gone from the wherever tapes are made. Gone from the collective consciousness of post-punk lovers everywhere.
Until an undisclosed date in February, when Digitalis gives Leven Signs a vinyl reissue. The phrase “before their time” gets tossed around a lot, but the mysterious and lovely Leven Signs should stir the hearts of the same people freaking out about the likes of Peaking Lights or Fabulous Diamonds. That sorta thing. Check out the track “Prague Spring” below:
• Digitalis: http://www.digitalisindustries.com/music
Prurient’s Dominick Fernow readies first Blackest Ever Black release and more, streams new song
By Taylor Peters on Feb 5 2013
Following Robert Pollard’s nonchalant announcement last month that he will release three Guided By Voices albums “every year forever,” Prurient’s Dominick Fernow has tacitly confirmed a similar, if more foreboding, promise that he’ll be releasing at least three albums every year until the day the Earth is consumed in fire.
On February 25, Blackest Ever Black will be putting out Prurient’s Through the Window. With this release following Raime’s excellent Quarter Turns Over a Living Line from last year, Blackest Ever Black have cemented their position as “record label I’d be most scared of meeting in a dark alley.”
Through a Window consists of three songs recorded around the same time as 2011’s Bermuda Drain and Time’s Arrow, and it’s reportedly consistent with Fernow’s recent shift away from straight noise. Here’s what Blackest Ever Black says about it:
The three pieces featured on Through The Window, including the 18-minute title track, also represent the ultimate expression of Fernow’s affection for European techno forms, and his ability to apply them to his own uniquely lacerating purpose. Unlike his claustrophobic, inward-looking work as Vatican Shadow, this material is widescreen, open, expansive. Nonetheless the goal is exorcism and self-knowledge, not ecstasy. Through The Window is, at bottom, a work of true SM electronics. Music to listen to at night, in the hills, watching as headlights approach.
Check out “You Show Great Spirit” here:
In addition to the Prurient album, we’ve also got two dark-ambient releases from (the supposedly anonymous) Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement to look forward to. The first is a vinyl reissue by (surprise, surprise) Blackest Ever Black of last year’s Hospital Productions tape Black Magic Cannot Cross Water. According to Blackest Ever Black, the album was “[sourced] from a box of cassettes found at a market in Port Moresby, and thought to be recorded some time in the 1980s by a group of Christian missionaries shortly prior to their still unexplained disappearance.” It’s out in March.
The other release, as Fernow’s own Hospital Productions informs us, is a limited-run three-cassette package, including pieces titled “The Plant With Many Faces” and “Folklore Venom.” It’s available in a 99-copy run from Hospital, and in addition to “over 80 minutes of chance to the green devil,” it comes with a t-shirt and a full-size booklet.
Here’s to the Earth eventually being consumed in fire!
• Prurient: http://prurient.bandcamp.com
• Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement: http://hospitalproductions.net/category/releases
• Blackest Ever Black: http://blackesteverblack.blogspot.com
• Hospital Productions: http://hospitalproductions.net
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