Legendary and heavily influential hardcore punk band, Black Flag, has released their first song in the past 23 years with singer Ron Eyes. The song can be downloaded here when prompted for an email address. Frantic, this sounds a lot different than what I expected.
This is a pretty lengthy interview that Nardwuar got a chance to conduct with drummer and joint frontment of The Roots, Questlove. Cool Questo spoke with Nardwuar for about 46 minutes long, going back and forth with Nardwuar about old soul and funk records and groups from decades ago. It’s a very interesting watch and Questlove loves showing off his heartfelt laugh throughout.
Hip-hop producer Harry Fraud is prepping his EP release, High Tide, for May 7th. To build hype, one of the tracks from the EP, “Yacht Lash,” featuring Earl Sweatshirt and RiFF RAFF, is available for free as a download, thanks to Scion A/V.
Here’s the tracklist for the High Tide EP, featuring Smoke DZA, Action Bronson, and others:
01 Rising [ft. Tech N9ne]
02 Loopy [ft. Chinx Drugz and Smoke DZA]
03 Tell Em Bout It [ft. Mistah F.A.B. and Troy Ave.]
04 Mean [ft. French Montana and Action Bronson]
05 Yacht Lash [ft. Earl Sweatshirt and Riff Raff]
May 6 marks the date in which Adult Swim will be releasing their free-to-download garage rock compilation album, titled Garage Swim. The album is sponsored by Dr. Pepper, and will feature unreleased singles from the Black Lips, King Tuff, Mikal Cronin, JEFF the Brotherhood, the Gories, King Khan and the Gris Gris, Mind Spiders, Bass Drum of Death, and others.
Thee Oh Sees has a track available online, via William Street Records‘ Soundcloud, titled “Devil Again.” Hear it here.
Peep the tracklist below.
01 Bass Drum of Death: “Dregs”
02 Apache Dropout: “Constant Plaything”
03 Thee Oh Sees: “Devil Again”
04 King Tuff: “She’s on Fire”
05 JEFF the Brotherhood: “Melting Place”
06 Black Lips: “Cruising”
07 King Khan and the Gris Gris: “Discreate Disguise”
08 Mikal Cronin: “Better Man”
09 Mind Spiders: “They Lie”
10 Cheap Time: “Kill the Light”
11 King Louie’s Missing Monuments: “Covered in Ice”
12 OBN IIIs: “A Good Lover”
13 The Gories: “On the Run”
14 King Khan: “Strange Ways”
15 Weekend: “Teal Kia”
It’s funny — now that Mac Miller has this track out that’s produced by Flying Lotus, people who didn’t care about Mac Miller are now starting to, me included. This beat is dope, his flow is on point, and the video is something as silly as an old Slim Shady video. Great stuff here.
Quasimoto, the cartoon alter-ego of hip-hop producer Madlib, is prepping an upcoming release titled Yessir Whatever. The album will be a compilation of b-sides and rarities, including 12 tracks recorded over a roughly 12-year period. The LP & CD will “come with a peel-off cover sticker revealing Quasimoto’s guts,” while the LP will release with a bonus 7-inch single. Details on the album and pre-order goods can be found here, via Stones Throw‘s official website.
According to the press release, the album’s title might’ve spawned from this:
…As for Quasimoto – usually represented by pen & ink with brick in hand – he has been many things over the years: rapper, cartoon, the poor-man’s Gorillaz, a toy, bad tattoo, internet meme. To all this Lord Quas might say, yessir … whatever. It’s all about the music.
The first track released from the upcoming compilation is titled “Planned Attack,” and can be heard here, via Stones Throw’s Soundcloud page.
I was first introduced to Deerhunter with their 2008 release, Microcastle, which was a deliciously fun, noisy record full of dreamy guitars and a cohesive amount of pop. It was a grand album that gradually got dreamier with each track it threw out, echoing its strings and sometimes whispering vocals that seemed to get lost within the dreamlike presentation. This band was something of its own category, blending shoegaze and indie rock into a perfectly concise sound.
Flash forward five years later, Deerhunter and frontman Bradford Cox have created a significantly solid discography. As a group, Deerhunter has released five studio albums and four EPs, with Monomania being the sixth staple in the collection — most all being critically acclaimed. Frontman Bradford Cox has released three albums as a semi-solo artist called Atlas Sound, as well as four volumes of music that are up for grabs and completely free via his blog, and a couple of other “virtual 7-inch,” downloads. While bandmate Lockett Pundt has released two albums as Lotus Plaza, it’s very clear what this album title is strictly referring to: Bradford Cox’ absolute need to create music.
Monomania is defined as a form of partial insanity with a single phenomena or preoccupation, or just heavy concentration on one subject. In this case, it’s either Bradford’s obsession with making music or some of them themes brought to the album itself. It’s also been stated by Cox himself in a Rolling Stone interview back in 2011 to promote Atlas Sound’s Parallax.
…And I guess my time as a musician has gone by so fast that I realized that I have no personal life. The other guys in Deerhunter, they all found things. And I just have monomania. I always will. I’m obsessive about one thing, that there’s one thing that’s going to make me happy and it’s making music, or there’s one thing that’s going to make me happy and it’s this person.
Monomania‘s Deerhunter’s sixth full-length effort to date, and more the reason to naming the appropriate album title.
The album opens up with “Neon Junkyard,” a track where Cox delivers Bowie-esque vocals with a freak-folk vibe. The song’s lyrics deal with neon and I’m guessing an obsession with neon lights all around Cox (neon’s even on the album cover). The vocals are very rough and blaring, with a heavy emphasis on distortion and fuzz all around the background atmosphere. Things get even louder on the next track, “Leather Jacket II,” which is a blend of sounds featuring a ton of scribbling guitar fuzz, clambering cymbals, and screaming vocals which literally sound as if they were coming through a megaphone that was connected to alarm clock radio speakers.
Instantly, the clammering is toned down with the next lineup of tracks “Pensicola,” and “The Missing,” and “Dream Captain.” Deerhunter is definitely pulling from early inspirations such as T. Rex, David Bowie, and Sonic Youth, giving listeners a boom of noise while coinciding confident growling vocals and smooth garage-rock electric guitar. These songs bleed 70′s influence with hints of modern ties — it’s wonderful and a great blend. On “Dream Captain,” Cox sings the lyrics, “I’m a poor boy from a poor family,” helping reinforce that early rock n’ roll sound by use of Queen lyrics. “Pensicola,” and “The Missing,” are two tracks that sonically sound like every band that has influenced American rock n’ roll. It’s a bit unexpected from Deerhunter, but it’s welcomed with open arms as the band seems comfortable with their direction.
“T.H.M.,” features Cox panting in a manner a dog would, breathing over a microphone manically with every measure. “Sleepwalking,” take the old vibes they pull influence from and splice a little bit of The Strokes and modern-indie rock sounds into the mix. The title track, “Monomania,” comes back to the initial sound of the record, bringing back the moderately sexy blaring guitars and fuzz, as well as the words “mono monomania,” being repeated at around two minutes straight with non-stop guitar noise and banging cymbals in the background. It’s loud and I dig that.
The thing is, Monomania, seems to be one-fourth loud and blaring noise and three-quarters toned-down noise-rock, similar to Yuck or Kurt Vile. The entire thing is almost an ode to rock n’ roll music. That’s not a bad thing, but for Deerhunter, it’s a bit of a change in direction most wouldn’t expect. Cox is heavily influenced by Bowie and the glam-rock scene and older psychedelic bands, so this album definitely bleeds with the same noise and fuzz the 70′s and 80′s helped produce. It’s a great mixup, almost perfectly executed with their own style.
Stream the album here in its entirety, via NPR.
Last week at Coachella, Modest Mouse busted out this new song called “Be Brave.” The very great performance can be seen live below.
This weekend during a show in Pomona, California, the band premiered two new track called “Shit in Your Cut,” and “Sugar Boats.” No word on a new album as of yet, but it definitely seems likely.
In honor of Record Store Day, Pitchfork.tv just released this short documentary on the vinyl culture in New York, taking a look at labels, pressing plants, and record stores. The short, “Revolutions Per Minute,” puts focus on Brooklyn labels Sacred Bones, Captured Tracks, and Mexican Summer, Williamsburg’s record shop, Co-Op 87 (downstairs from Mexican Summer), and East Village shop Other Music.
This song is absolutely crazy. First off, this track sounds like Kanye West actually cares about putting Pusha on the map now, as the beat (Kanye produced) sounds much like his Pete Rock inspiration. Second, Pusha T is extremely comfortable on this track, flowing over the minimal clanking and bassline Kanye provided, and sounding a bit reminiscent to a rugged Jay-Z. Really excited to hear what Pusha can cook up for his album!
