Adventure beats level, advances to third album Weird Work
Up, up, down, down, A, B, A, B, left, right, right, left, A, A, up, down, select, start, then select and start at the same time. If you do it right, that’s the cheat code you’ll need to release an awesome nugget of news about Adventure’s new album! Oh shit, I just spoiled the surprise. You should still try that out next time you’re playing your old NES (any game should do the trick), but here’s the DL in the meantime: Baltimore’s Benny Boeldt is set to drop a new Adventure record right into your cartridge slot on April 30 courtesy of Carpark Records. THIS April 30. Line up outside the GameStop and then when it’s time, walk over to the Best Buy next door, find out they don’t have anything worth buying, then go to your local record store and buy the new Adventure record, titled Weird Work.
The new album definitely has a more evolved IDM vibe (think old, REALLY fun Squarepusher), but each track still sounds like it could be the background music for any given Mega Man level (this is a good thing). Hear first single and final album track “Happiness” below.
Weird Work tracklist:
01. Days Off
02. Laser Blast
03. Nervous
04. Flower
05. Reality Shift
06. Alone
07. Constantly
08. Catching Up
09. Happiness
• Adventure: https://www.facebook.com/adventuresound
• Carpark: http://carparkrecords.com
Bill Callahan emotes, “Hey everyone, I’m going on tour! It’s going to be amaaaaazingg!!”
Ruminating in Bill Callahan’s under-appreciated back catalog is one thing, but I imagine (and I have to, because the experience has so far eluded me) that hearing him in a live setting is a different low-frequency beast altogether. Here’s how I imagine it going: Callahan walks out on stage, grabs his guitar, and assumes his position in front of the microphone. Breathe in. The microphone and its stand shake in anticipation. “There grows… ” And everyone’s clothes have vibrated completely off their body, in what is only an initial display of baritone sexiness.
Living on the West Coast, it looks like I’ll have to continue removing my clothes manually for the time being, as Callahan has just announced a series of lives dates centered around the middle of the country — Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri… you know, that whole area. Check out the schedule in full below.
Dates:
04.29.13 - Little Rock, AR - The White Water Tavern *
04.30.13 - Oxford, MS - Proud Larry’s *
05.01.13 - Nashville, TN - Exit/In *
05.02.13 - Louisville, KY - Headliners *
05.03.13 - Nelsonville, OH - Stuart’s Opera House *
05.04.13 - Oberlin, OH - Dionysus Club (the ‘Sco) *
05.06.13 - Chicago, IL - Garfield Park Conservatory *
05.07.13 - Columbia, MO - Mojo’s *
05.08.13 - Kansas City, MO - Record Bar *
05.09.13 - Norman, OK - The Opolis *
05.10.13 - Dallas, TX - The Prophet Bar *
05.11.13 - Austin, TX - Central Presbyterian Church *
06.01.13 - Rehoboth Beach, DE - Dogfish Head Brewing and Eats
* Flat Foot
• Bill Callahan: http://www.dragcity.com/artists/bill-callahan
Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano are releasing an LP called The Raw and Cooked, and they’re making tacos to celebrate!
The Raw and the Cooked is not Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano’s book of recipes involving apples, marzipan, and rainbow sprinkles, all of which require a miniature blender and an Easy-Bake Oven. The Raw and the Cooked is not an experiment in which Bill Orcutt tries all the possible ways to eat raw kale and Chris Corsano tries all the possible ways to eat cooked kale. The Raw and the Cooked is not a musical soap opera set in the kitchen of a brunch restaurant in which Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano star.
The Raw and the Cooked is an LP that consists of 12 tracks that guitarist Bill Orcutt and drummer Chris Corsano recorded on tour during August and September of last year, in Brooklyn, Easthampton, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. It’s slated for a June 1 release of just 500 copies on Orcutt’s own Palilalia label, and before it drops, you can stream the first track below, which showcases the duo’s penchant for a sound that’s completely off the rails. Listen to it while you roast asparagus or slice strawberries or bake pie.
• Bill Orcutt/Palilalia: http://palilalia.com
• Chris Corsano: http://cor-sano.com
Masaki Batoh lugs his Brain Pulse Music machine around on US tour
Masaki Batoh, he of legendary Japanese psych outfit Ghost, is bringing his Brain Pulse Music (TMT Review) project to the US for a series of live installations and performances starting a week from Friday (April 26). As we previously reported, Batoh set out to create music by directly tapping into human brain waves, cutting out the conscious self in order to access an individual’s true output. To do this, Batoh developed a machine to read brain waves and transmit them into sound. When the earthquake of 2011 hit Japan, though, the project morphed into something different altogether. As a practicing acupuncturist, Batoh noticed an increased level of stress and anxiety in his patients following the natural disaster and wanted to use his brain pulse machine to help. The resulting album that came out in February of last year was a combination of music resulting from Batoh’s unique ‘bio-electric procedure’ as well as a series of acoustic requiems that harken back to traditional prayer songs normally performed to appease gods once thought responsible for inflicting natural disasters upon the earth.
That’s all well and good, but how will this translate into a live show? The press release gives little info on what’s to come, but here’s hoping audience members will get the opportunity to volunteer to be hooked up to Batoh’s machine. The instructional video below explains how to use the machine, and it seems pretty straightforward as long as you can tap into your ‘Satori,’ or meditative state. The machine apparently blocks brain waves collected when a user is focused on materialistic endeavors, but works somewhat like an effects pedal once you’re mentally connected and get past the ‘gate.’ Even if volunteers aren’t involved, seeing Batoh use the machine to produce music should at least be a unique experience. As Batoh notes at the end of the video, come on out and, “Enjoy BPM.”
Tourdates:
04.26.13 - Boulder, CO - ATLAS Institute Black Box
04.27.13 - Austin, TX - Austin Psych Fest
04.28.13 - Oceanside, CA - Craftlab Gallery
04.30.13 - Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex
05.02.13 - Seattle, WA - Chop Suey
05.05.13 - Vancouver, BC - Electric Owl
05.06.13 - Portland, OR - Star Theater
05.08.13 - Calgary, AB - Broken City
05.09.13 - Winnipeg, MB - West End Cultural Centre
05.11.13 - Cedar Rapids, IA - CSPS
05.13.13 - New York, NY - Spectrum
• Masaki Batoh: http://www.dragcity.com/artists/masaki-batoh
• Drag City: http://www.dragcity.com
ADULT. ready new album on Ghostly, explain the importance of spaying/neutering your pets
It’s nice when a band doesn’t record anything for oh, say, six years, because then when they finally DO release new material, you can open a story with a short yet exciting phrase like “ADULT. is back!”
So, you guys, ADULT. is back! The Detroit-based art techno duo have a new album in the works called The Way Things Fall, due May 14 on Ghostly International, their first since 2007’s Why Bother? ADULT.’s fifth album shows off a more structured, cohesive side (oOoOh COHESIVE) to the band’s sound, with lead track “Idle (Second Thoughts)” available to preview right here:
ADULT.’s Adam Lee Miller explains the group’s long musical hiatus: “After a long world tour, we totally burnt out. We decided we wanted to do something completely different.” He then explained that he and musical partner Nicola Kuperus started their very own traveling cat circus, touring the globe to teach schoolkids the importance of spaying and neutering pets. (The grand finale was a live surgery accompanied by throbbing Detroit techno. It changed a lot of lives.) No! Just kidding! What they did was make a series of films called The Three Graces Triptych and work on visual art projects and umm… “a major commercial building renovation.”
And so it was a mere caprice of fate that brought these two to the studio once more. Originally ADULT. had gone back to the lab again to record a 12-inch of the two new songs they’d performed at a 2012 appearance at the Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art. Then more music started coming, until the mighty gods of album creation joined together in unison and said, “Yea, let there be a new ADULT. album.” And the gods saw it was good. And there you have it. Cat surgery. Music gods. New ADULT. album.
The Way Things Fall tracklisting:
01. Heartbreak
02. Idle (Second Thoughts)
03. Tonight We Fall
04. New Frustration
05. Love Lies
06. At The End of It All
07. Nothing Lasts
08. A Day Like Forever
09. We Will Rest
10. Rise & Fall
• ADULT.: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ADULT-Official/118691255799
• Ghostly: http://www.ghostly.com
ATP Iceland reveals its lineup exclusively to TMT and the rest of the internet; Nick Cave to headline
What’d I tell you last week, readers? Does ol’ Nobodaddy got your back or what? BAM: ATP Iceland reveals its complete lineup, and BAM: Tiny Mix Tapes recapitulates the news like freakin’ CLOCKWORK. In addition to bill-toppers Nick Cave, Chelsea Light Moving, The Fall, Thee Oh Sees, Deerhoof, and more, they’ve also confirmed that film director Jim Jarmusch will be DJ-ing some films (pretty literally; he’s picking movies to play all day) in “the festival cinema on one of the days.” Which one?? Better buy tickets for both days just to be sure!
Haha, just kidding. But no, seriously; the fest still takes place on Friday, June 28 - Saturday, June 29 in Keflavík, Iceland (at a former NATO base!), and tickets are available here in a couple of different packages. Hey, why don’t you go check ‘em out if you want? No, you totally can; it’s cool! We’re not jealous of your visiting other websites! Well, except maybe explodingdog.com. That guy’s such an asshole! Haha, just kidding. But no, seriously.
ATP Iceland lineup:
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Chelsea Light Moving
The Fall
Deerhoof
The Notwist
Thee Oh Sees
Sqürl
múm
HAM
Dead Skeletons
Valgeir Sigurðsson
Mugison
Amiina
Ghostigital
Puzzle Muteson
Apparat Organ Quartet
Hjaltalín
Snorri Helgason
Kimono
Æla
• All Tomorrow’s Parties: http://www.atpfestival.com
Public Information releases ready-to-be-enshrined Interpretations on F.C. Judd remix album w/ help from Holly Herndon, Leyland Kirby, and more
Sometimes it’s hard not to fetishize music that is well matched by its container. It’s difficult not to feel that things like the Threshold Houseboys Choir’s Amulet Edition or Coil’s Color Sound Oblivion box have some kind of power as objects beyond the music they contain. It makes a strange amount of sense to take out a Grouper album just to stare at the art and feel the weight of the record; it adds something when you actually listen to the music.
The kind of releases where form and content blend to create something greater are usually few and far between; not everything can be art (despite how contentious that term can be). However, Public Information handily helped themselves to some of that nigh-idolatry last year with their release of Electronics Without Tears, a collection of esoteric artist F.C. Judd’s early electronic music and experimentation. Now FACT is reporting that Public Information is putting out another instantly canonized collection by getting a drool-inducing group of artists to reinterpret F.C. Judd’s music. The collection is called Interpretations on F.C. Judd and includes pieces by the likes of Pye Corner Audio, Peter “Pita” Rehberg, Holly Herndon, Chris Carter, and the ever-elusive Leyland Kirby. Listen to industrial deity Chris Carter’s remix below. This baby drops on May 20, so now is a good time to start building an addition to that early-electronic shrine in your basement.
Interpretations on F.C. Judd tracklisting:
01. Ian Helliwell – Solid States
02. Perc – Woodford
03. Chris Carter – Flip Flop
04. Holly Herndon – Control Sample
05. Mordant Music – Hoarded House (remix Fredit)
06. The Boats – Space Judder
07. Pye Corner Audio – Splice Block
08. Leyland Kirby – Slim Jim Wimshurst Mechanicals
09. Karen Gwyer – Judd Drums
10. Peter Rehberg – FJUDDmix 032013
11. Bandshell – Concrete Teeth
12. Ekoplekz –Fredwrek
• F.C. Judd: http://www.fcjudd.co.uk
• Public Information: http://public-info.co.uk
Sub Pop announces Silver Jubilee, a free festival celebrating 25 years of tickling pop’s underside
Pay attention, adults. It’s time for an unsolicited reminder of how old you are.
It’s been roughly 25 years since Seattle’s Sub Pop label first gave arguably the most prominent buoy to the now geographically-welded (to the PNW) grunge genre, and times have changed, even if a certain penchant for flannel shirts hasn’t. Soundgarden may have just unearthed a well-received reunion album, and Mudhoney may be sticking to music like a bee-preferred adhesive, but other than that, it’s difficult to quarrel with the notion that grunge is but a dreary shadow of what it once was, in terms of widespread popularity.
And yes, in case you weren’t aware, in the subsequent years, Sub Pop has still existed as a record label, and has continued to be a noteworthy purveyor of culturally relevant music releases. Half a decade ago (or potentially, even today), could you enter the “indie” world without willingly exposing yourself (aurally speaking) to The Shins, The Postal Service, or Iron & Wine? More recently, let’s mention Fleet Foxes. Reverberant vocals with a folksy accompaniment has hardly known such recent success. I’m simplifying a bit.
Even if the number wasn’t divisible by five, I’d say that the folks at Sub Pop have reason to celebrate. In honor of their 25th anniversary, however, the label is hosting Silver Jubilee, a free festival in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood, on Saturday, July 13, 2013. The lineup so far is a temporal smorgasbord of Sub Pop signees, with Mudhoney, Pissed Jeans, Shabazz Palaces (with THEESatisfaction), Shearwater, and more all being scheduled for performances, with more more more set to be announced in the future. Tickets are… it’s free, damn it!
Check out, or keep an eye on, Silver Jubilee’s dedicated website for more information, and see the event announced by some of Sub Pop’s Silver Statesmen below:
• Silver Jubilee: http://silverjubilee.subpop.com
• Sub Pop: http://www.subpop.com
PEOPLE ARE BUYING RECORDS AGAIN!!! (sort of)
It seems like a no-brainer to me. If you are going to buy music (rather than steal it) you might as well do so physically; that is, you ought to have at least some material gain to show for after a thorough pocket scraping. Furthermore — and I’m going to break some spirits here — size matters. As every bleeding-heart white-lying female won’t tell you: bigger is better. It’s simply much more satisfying to have the larger artwork of a vinyl LP in your hand than it is to wrestle the mini-booklet from that somehow already cracked, pathetically smaller jewel case (are those the lyrics or just really tiny pictures?). Plus one of those damn teeth on the inside always breaks off, so have fun living with that tic-tac rattle sound for at least another five years.
Well anyway, it seems some of you clods out there are wising up, because, as the IFPI’s (International Federations of the Phonographic Industry) annual “Recording Industry in Numbers” and FACT report, vinyl sales are up, at their highest level since 1997. Oh and, surprise surprise, CD and tape revenues are down, while digital downloads and streaming services have continued to grow.
Now before you get too excited, let’s remember what 1997 was like: Blockbuster Music was still bustling, and CDs (the top earner) were regularly bought for $17.99. This was a bleak consumer environment still dominated by the painfully overpriced CD — vinyl records weren’t exactly flying off the shelves.
So, while things are looking up for our old, old friend the vinyl record, this is hardly a victory worth celebrating. But, I for one, will continue to throw wads of cash at my compulsion to extend my fetish collection by a few more units, cuz’ after all, bigger is better.
• International Federation of the Phonographic Industry: http://www.ifpi.org
Keith Fullerton Whitman adds 12-hour collection of pop deformations to SoundCloud; corporate America grinds to a halt as thousands of workers call in sick
Who knew all it would take to bring capitalism to its knees was 12 hours of new music from Keith Fullerton Whitman all at once? I don’t know about your neighborhood, but outside my window I can see two abandoned semi-trucks, several small fires, and an Arby’s in the process of being looted. All of this happened because apparently everyone called in sick today so they could listen to all 12 hours of Whitman’s Greatest Hits. With everyone at home faking coughs, industry just kind of… stopped.
Whitman, as opposed to literally every other human in the country, never calls in sick and is also possibly a machine (maybe a Voight-Kampff one, eh? eh?). He says he started working on these tracks back around 2003 when he began taking bits and pieces of pop songs from his youth and running them through a variety of processes and effects, making what he calls “automatic enhancements,” which sounds both awesome and an awful lot like a CSI: Miami joke. You can find the first 100 tracks on Whitman’s SoundCloud now. He says making them was a sort of therapy over the years, and that he feels the end results shine “a flashlight into the dark corners of each selection, revealing the ghosts lurking within,” the ghost part of which sounds pretty scary to me given the fact the electrical grid is clearly on its way out here and it’s getting dark now. Check out some of the songs over at the Chocolate Grinder.
Hopefully your experience of hearing these tracks in our new era is pleasant and not at all post-apocalyptic. For what it’s worth, though the tracks seem to sound uniformly excellent and the Arby’s near my house is still closed, so this whole “post-capitalist” thing has been kind of a mixed bag for me so far.
• Keith Fullerton Whitman: http://www.keithfullertonwhitman.com
![ZS - Grain [EP]](http://www.tinymixtapes.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/Thumbnail/1304/zs grain.jpg)
