M83 is not my cup of tea. It's often described as synth shoegazing music while I'm definitely more down with a strong guitar sound in my shoegazing. That said, I am clearly in the minority in my opinion as this band is now at number 2 on the college music charts. Pitchfork has them featured in their best new music sections. Their reviews give them 8.5 out of 10. Spin is not as kind, giving the band 2.5 out of 5 stars. Spin made the following statement which seems to sum up the band in my mind: "M83 needs to step out of the '80s and back into the future."
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Wikipedia:
M83 is an electronic music group consisting of Anthony Gonzalez (and formerly Nicolas Fromageau), and was formed in Antibes, France in 2001. The musical style owes something to the shoegazing genre in its extensive use of reverb effects and lyrics spoken softly over loud instrumentals, though M83's songs employ considerably less guitar than most shoegazing bands such as My Bloody Valentine. All three of their albums were well received, in particular Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, their second album, which allowed them to break through to a larger audience. For the third album released by M83, Before the Dawn Heals Us, Gonzalez decided to part from Fromageau (after an emotionally distressing tour for Dead Cities) and record mainly on his own, with the help of a few other musicians.
M83's song "Unrecorded" from Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts was used in the trailer for the international release of the Russian movie Night Watch, and the track "Teen Angst", taken from Before the Dawn Heals Us, appears on the trailer for the film adaptation of A Scanner Darkly. Some of M83's tracks were featured in several Top Gear episodes, including "Unrecorded" (series 3, episode 2; and series 4, episode 5), "Cyborg" (series 3, episode 5) and most notably, "Moonchild" (series 6, episode 6; series 7, episode 3; and series 7, episode 7). M83's "Don't Save us From the Flames", which, ironically, is about a car crash, was also featured in a Pontiac commercial. Cyann & Ben's cover of "In Church" was featured in the 2006 film Stranger than Fiction.
M83 produced the remix of the track "Pioneers" on British group Bloc Party's 2005 album Silent Alarm Remixed. They have also remixed Placebo's "Protège-Moi", Goldfrapp's "Black Cherry", Depeche Mode's "Suffer Well" and Bumblebeez 81's "Vila Attack". Similarly, M83's songs have been remixed by Gooom labelmates Montag and Cyann & Ben.
In 2005, M83 also reissued their 2001 self-titled album. This was made available in the United States, unlike the 2001 release.
The name M83 is picked from the galaxy of the same name.
In 2006, after the Before the Dawn Heals Us US tour, Anthony Gonzalez continued to explore a musical direction already heard on earlier M83 tracks and began writing and recording a collection of ambient works. The album was recorded primarily at his home studio with the assistance of Antoine Gaillet. The resulting project is called Digital Shades Volume 1 and was released on September 3, 2007. It is intended to be part of an ongoing series of ambient works.
Saturdays = Youth, M83's fifth studio album was released on April 15, 2008 on Mute Records. It was recorded with Ken Thomas (known for his work with Sigur Rós, The Sugarcubes, Boys in a Band, Cocteau Twins and Suede), Ewan Pearson (who has also produced for Tracey Thorn, The Rapture and Ladytron) and Morgan Kibby (of The Romanovs, and Morgan and the Hidden Hands). The album is said to deliver the rich sonic textures for which M83 is well known, but with a more focused approach to song structure and form. "Couleurs" is the first single from the new album, released to digital retailers on February 25, 2008. The album's second single, "Graveyard Girl," was released to digital retailers on April 8, 2008 and comes with an exclusive remix from Yuksek.
m83
Why? - Why is that guy in the background of the video pretending to play the crutch? Why are they performing at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum? And why does one person play both the drums and the zylaphone? I can't help you with any of these questions. It's all simply a part of what makes Why? such an interesting band.
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Wikipedia:
Why? is a Berkeley hip hop and indie rock lyricist and musician Jonathan "Yoni" Wolf. The group has since gone on to include Doug McDiarmid, Matt Meldon, and Yoni's brother Josiah Wolf. Why? is one of the founding groups of the anticon. collective of Oakland, California. Current members are the Wolf brothers and Doug McDiarmid. Why? leans more towards folk and indie rock as opposed to the more anti-pop hip-hop styling of their other label mates.
Yoni Wolf was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the summer before his first year at High School, Wolf discovered an old 4-track in his father's synagogue and began to experiment musically. Forays into rapping, drumming, and poetry followed.
In 1997, while attending an "Art of sex" class at the University of Cincinnati, Wolf met fellow student Adam Drucker — better known as Doseone — at the semifinals of the 1997 Scribble Jam. Doseone and Wolf formed the live improvisational group Apogee along with Yoni's older brother Josiah and DJ Mr. Dibbs. The partnership of Wolf and Doseone continued for many years, under many guises including cLOUDDEAD and Greenthink.
In 2005 Why? released Elephant Eyelash, which deviated considerably from their previous full length Oaklandazulasylum, primarily as less of an independent solo-project to the sound of a full indie rock band. To accomplish this sound, Yoni enlisted the help of his brother, Josiah Wolf, on drums, Matt Meldon on guitar and Doug McDiarmid as a random-task member. The group toured much of 2005 in support of the album as a four piece; however, by the time of their May 2006 tour with Islands, the group had become a three piece because Matt Meldon moved to an island off the coast of Seattle to live with his girlfriend.[1]
Why?'s discography consists of three full lengths, four EPs, a number of singles and a handful of limited edition CD-Rs. Further collaborative work has been done with a number of groups: Hymie's Basement, Miss Ohio's Nameless, Object Beings and Reaching Quiet.
For their third LP, Alopecia, Why? asked fans to contribute photographs of their palms (hands) for the album's artwork. The album was released March 11, 2008, to positive reviews. The first single was "The Hollows." Two different European and US versions of the single were released, featuring remixes and covers by Boards of Canada, Xiu Xiu, Dntel, Half-Handed Cloud, Dump and Islands on their respective issues.
If you can't laugh and have a good time with this music there is seriously something wrong with you. I have long been a Ween and King Missle fan and can appreciate music which does not take itself too seriously. These guys are lyrical, musical and comedic geniuses. Some good time music dedicated today for all you Mothers out there.
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Wikipedia:
For the HBO series based on the band, see Flight of the Conchords (TV series). For their self-titled second album, see Flight of the Conchords (album).
Flight of the Conchords
Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, from Flight of the Conchords, performing at Gramercy Theatre in New York on June 14, 2007
Background information
Origin
New Zealand
Genre(s)
Rock, Comedy rock, Folk rock
Years active
1998–present
Website
http://www.conchords.co.nz/
Members
Bret McKenzieJemaine Clement
Flight of the Conchords is a Grammy Award-winning folk, pop, and comedy band composed of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Billing themselves as "Formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo"[1] , the group uses a combination of witty observation, characterisation and acoustic folk guitars to work the audience. The duo's comedy and music became first the basis of a BBC radio series and then an American television series, which premiered in 2007, also called Flight of the Conchords.
Named Best Alternative Comedy Act at the 2005 US Comedy Arts Festival, Best Newcomer at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and receiving a nomination for the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2003, the duo's live performances have gained them a worldwide cult following.[2]
Links:
Flight of the Conchords' official site
Flight of the Conchords at MySpace
Flight of the Conchords' Social Network
Flight of the conchords
First thing I read about these guys was a review on itunes where someone called them "my generation's Sonic Youth." That made me feel old because my generation's "Sonic Youth" was in fact "Sonic Youth." I am beginning to have nightmares that it will not be long before I find myself listening to "TeenAge Riot" on the classic rock radio stations while my teenage children mock my musical taste.
Anyway, No Age released "Nouns" today on Sub Pop Records and there is already quite a buzz about the band. Spin gives the album 4 out of 5 stars, NME a pretty average 7 out of 10 and Pitchfork a lofty 9.2. I haven't seen eye to eye with Pitchfork in my last couple of postings but I have greatly enjoyed this record. The ambient guitar and fuzzy distortion makes me happy. It's a thumbs up from The Pants. Take a listen:
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Wikipedia:
No Age is an experimental rock band based in Los Angeles, currently signed to Sub Pop records.
No Age formed in December 2005 out of the ashes of hardcore punk band Wives and played their first proper show at Downtown Los Angeles venue The Smell in April 2006 with sister band Mika Miko. The band have recorded a number of limited vinyl singles and EPs which were collected together to form the album Weirdo Rippers, released by FatCat Records in 2007. The album received positive reviews in the music press and the band have since signed to the prominent Seattle-based independent label Sub Pop. On May 6th, 2008, No Age released their debut record for Sub Pop, Nouns.
NO Age
Bubble gum pop meets the Jesus and Mary Chain in the The Kills song "Sour Cherry." It's catchy has a nice beat and I can dance to it. Pitchfork media seems down on the album giving Midnight Boom a 6.8 out of ten. Despite the negative press it didn't take long for them to jump up near the top of the CMJ top 20. The college kids seem to dig em. So take a listen:
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Wikipedia Bio:
Mosshart was previously in Floridian punk rockers Discount, and Hince was in British rock bands Blyth Power and Scarfo. The duo first met when Mosshart heard Hince practicing in the hotel room above hers, and when the former groups disbanded they struck up a songwriting partnership. For months, the pair air mailed work tapes across the Atlantic; this proved to test the patience of both artists as it took days or weeks to get each others tapes, so Mosshart upped sticks from her Florida home and flew to London.
Wanting to cut themselves off from their pasts, Mosshart and Hince considered their new project to be Year Zero in their careers. They renamed themselves VV and Hotel respectively and began writing sparse, minimalist songs together with the aid of a drum machine. In 2001 they showcased their new songs on a well received demo tape. In true punk rock fashion, however, the pair shunned approaches from major record labels. Recording as VV and Hotel, they contributed the song "Restaurant Blouse" to the compilation If the Twenty-First Century Did Not Exist, It Would Be Necessary to Invent It. Shortly after this they recorded their debut release, the Black Rooster EP, which saw release on British indie label Domino Records and was picked up for distribution by Dim Mak Records in the United States.
The record could not have been more of a departure from both artists' previous bands. It was lo-fi in both musical and aesthetic terms. The record sleeve featured photos of Mosshart and Hince taken in a photo booth rather than professional photography. Musically, the record was a sparse, lo-fi Garage rock/Blues hybrid. Though the band cites PJ Harvey, LCD Soundsystem and Royal Trux as immediate influences, the music press has largely compared them to the other boy/girl minimalist garage blues duo The White Stripes.
Following international touring, they entered Toe Rag Studios, where the White Stripes had recorded their album Elephant, to record their debut album Keep on Your Mean Side, mostly on 8-track, in just 2 weeks. Distributed in the US and UK by Rough Trade Records, the album was similar in style to the EP, veering from the Velvets-esque stomp of "Wait" to the noisy, dirty garage punk blues of "Fuck the People" (this song is rumoured to be a reference/homage to the French convicted criminal Florence Rey) and dark psychedelia of "Kissy Kissy". The record was well received by the music press, though the White Stripes comparisons would not go away.
Maintaining an anti-careerist, anti-music industry attitude, the band rarely granted interviews. Rather, they got the music press to come to them with their minimalist yet powerful live shows (which also included the drum machine), the pair maintaining an air of tension by subverting the expected role of stage performer.[citation needed] Mosshart chain-smoked while singing, rarely speaking to the audience, whilst Hince violently ripped blues riffs from his instrument. At a New York City show following the ban on public smoking, Mosshart went on stage with three bottles of water, lit up a cigarette and proceeded to smoke constantly from the first song to the last note of the set.
Their second album, No Wow, was released by Domino Records on 21 February 2005. Featuring an artier, less guitar rock sound, the record embraced post punk influences and sounded even more stripped down than Keep on Your Mean Side. Originally written to be performed on a Moog, the band was forced to change directions and record it primarily using a guitar as its central instrument after Hince's Moog broke and couldn't be repaired before entering the studio.[1] A 40-minute DVD documentary was included with a limited number of copies and features interview, performance and on the road footage shot on tour.
The first single, "The Good Ones", from No Wow, was released on 7 February 2005 and reached number 23 in the UK singles charts.
Mosshart features in the title track of Placebo's latest album Meds, released on 13 March 2006 in the UK, and on 4 April 2006 in the US. She also features on the Primal Scream album Riot City Blues.
In 2006 "Wait" from the album Keep on Your Mean Side was used in Children of Men, the film by Alfonso Cuarón. It is played on Radio Avalon and described as "a blast from the past all the way back to 2003, that beautiful time when people refused to accept the future is just around the corner".
In 2007 the show Criminal Minds used the songs "Cat Claw" and "Wait" from the album 'Keep On Your Mean Side' in the episode "Doubt".
On November 2, 2007, the band announced on their news blog that their third album was finished. The first single was called "U R A Fever", and was premiered by Steve Lamacq on BBC Radio 1 on November the 19th. On December 10, 2007, The Kills were interviewed on a New York radio station where it was revealed that the new album will be titled Midnight Boom. Two song titles were also revealed: 'Alphabet Pony', a dark surreal song inspired by playground clapping games and songs, and 'The Last Day Of Magic', a song written by Jamie Hince about heartache and feeling alone, with references to the book Crime and Punishment.
Following a cover-story interview in Nylon magazine, the new album was released March 10, 2008 (March 18 in US), and The Kills embarked on a supporting US tour. There is also a new UK tour for April, set to begin in Edinburgh on April 15 with These New Puritans.
Their song, Sour Cherry, was recently used in the "OMFG" promo for Gossip Girl
Links:
Official website
The Kills at MySpace
The Kills at Domino Records
The Kills at Dim Mak Records
"The Good Ones" music video
The Kills interview clip for Edie:Girl on Fire
The Kills
