CMJ » Dan Jackson

Majical Cloudz – Impersonator

Dan Jackson — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:25:44 +0000

“I told you that I’d been writing/This song is proof that I’m trying,” sings Devon Welsh on “Impersonator,” the title track off his new album. The key word in the lyric is “trying.” Through his work as part of Majical Cloudz, a Montreal-based synth-pop project with Matthe Otto, Welsh has chronicled his own anxieties about the creative process and more often than not the words he associates with it—lies, illusions, magic—are rooted in deception. His work is often self-referential and even meta-textual, but it’s rarely concerned with seeming clever, witty or cute. Welsh sings in a deep, expressive baritone—think Leonard Cohen, think Matt Berninger, think a sad owl clutching a dead mouse in its mouth—and the arrangements that surround him float around him with a stark, urgent simplicity that contradicts the band’s fanciful name. If he’s hiding behind something, it’s a simple white mask. Nothing ornate. “I’m a liar,” he sings in the album’s opening moments over a bed of processed vocal samples. “I say I make music.”

He does make music, and he’s been doing it for a while now. Welsh and Otto released the Turns Turns Turns EP last year through the small Montreal record label and artist community Arbutus, the home to cosmopolitan, experimental pop acts like Grimes, Blue Hawaii and Doldrums. These artists each have a busy, kinetic quality that Welsh’s patient, austere music lacks and it makes sense that the singer has made the leap to one of the larger independent labels, Matador, to release his full-length. For all its icy synth beds, crackling percussive touches and chilly piano chords, Impersonator doesn’t feel like the work of particular community, scene or collective. It’s surprising that two people even collaborated on these songs; they feel like the work of a singular mind working in total isolation.

With his shaved head, paired-down wardrobe and occasionally violent lyrics, Welsh can at first seem like a loner, a lost drifter character out of a Gus Van Sant movie. The brutal elegance of songs like “This Is Magic” and “Childhood’s End” recall the barren, downtrodden ballads of Bill Callahan or Nick Cave, but Welsh’s voice has a touch of the theatrical to it, a hint of that Antony Hegarty magic that turns even the darkest moments into opportunities for powerful, radical empathy. Walsh has a tendency to repeat phrases over and over, putting a different emphasis on each word, letting syllables roll off the tongue like he’s trying out lines in front of a mirror. “Loving you/I’m loving you/I’m loving you/I want to/I would love to,” he cries out on “I Do Sing For You,” turning the heartfelt declaration into a throaty death rattle.

This is a remarkably self-assured album, precise in its themes, particular in its language and modest in its ambitions. Over 38 minutes Welsh circles around the same core ideas, pawing at them like an animal ready to pounce. For some listeners the minimal, unfussy arrangements and the lack of clear, discernible hooks will make it difficult to take the plunge into sadness that Welsh wants to take you on. “Turns Turns Turns” (no relation to the Byrds track) offers the closest thing to an ethereal pop pleasure, with its swooping vocal samples and its tribal drums, but it never crosses into the art-damaged R&B territory of something like Autre Ne Veut or How To Dress Well. On the other end of the spectrum songs like “Bugs Don’t Buzz” and “Silver Rings” are almost unbearably sad. “I don’t think about dying alone,” Welsh moans at one point. He doesn’t sound confident. He doesn’t sound sure.

For all his emphasis on loneliness, many of these songs are directed at people: friends, family members, lovers. The names are never stated but when you’re dealing with the type of seismic emotions that Welsh conjures here, there’s really no need to muddy things with specifics. The details that do emerge—the “gunshot right outside” on “Childhood’s End” or “fingers throwing dice” on “Illusion”—are evocative but mysterious. Only towards the album’s end do details begin to seep out. “See you in your hospital gown/Never let surroundings bring you down,” Welsh sings. “You and me won’t be here forever/Love will conquer these feelings.” Impersonator isn’t about the danger of pretending; it’s about the necessity of it, the way deceptions, impersonations and songs can create hope.

The post Majical Cloudz – Impersonator appeared first on CMJ.

Matthew E. White @ Bowery Ballroom: May 13, 2013

Dan Jackson — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:10:04 +0000

Photo by Ryan Spears

Matthew E. White’s music lends itself to interpretation. The songs on his debut album, 2012′s spry and soulful Big Inner, are chockfull of moments and sounds that harken back to an era before the 30-year-old singer was born: Stax, Motown and Sun Records are just a few of the reference points. White is a master of breathing new life into old sounds, so it should come as no surprise that he’s just as good at finding new ways to rearrange and reimagine his own music.

When I last saw the Richmond-based bearded singer and his band at Union Pool as part of CMJ 2012 back in October, he was in the midst of touring with the Mountain Goats and he was traveling with a robust horn section that did an impeccable job of replicating the dusky, jazzy inflections of the record. It was a little comical to see so many musicians slammed together on the tiny Union Pool stage—seriously, look at the picture—but White made it work. He’s a professional.

Last night at the Bowery Ballroom, he was given a lot more space, but he brought a much smaller band along for the ride. Opening with the soft, aching “Will You Love Me,” it was quickly apparent that this wasn’t going to be a night of horn-and-string-filled chamber pop. Instead, White and his band ripped into the louder sections of the song with a gnarled guitar part and a country-tinged swagger. The group has been touring this material for a while now and like any adventurous, talented group of musicians, it’s obvious they take a certain amount of glee in finding new wrinkles in them, stretching solos out into new shapes and trying out new arrangements just for the hell of it. That playful tendency grew even more apparent as the group jumped into “Steady Pace,” a brisk whirling dervish of a track from the record. At one point White and bassist Cameron Ralston even did some coordinated dance moves, shuffling back in forth with shit-eating grins on their faces.

The show had a improvisational, joyfully slapdash feel to it. The band played a freewheeling cover of Waylon Jennings’ “Are You Ready For The Country” towards the beginning of the set. Around the midpoint of the show White offered to buy a drink for the whole crowd. The keyboard player made some serious closed-eyes-music-making faces while summoning synth flourishes that wouldn’t sound too out of place on a Yes album. White is the type of musician who makes everything look easy, but towards the end of the set he revealed things might not be as easy as they look. After a recent European tour, White lost his voice. “My doctor gave me loads and loads of steroids,” he explained, saying he might be volatile if you approached him at the merch table but it would just be the steroids talking.

It’s hard to imagine White getting very angry. With his long hair and his bushy beard, he’s about as intimidating as the friendliest guy in a cult or the cool high school English teacher who lent you his Thomas Pynchon novels. But stripped of the horns and strings that adorn his albums, his music did take on a more aggressive, almost furious edge. Where Big Inner brings to mind a witty pop flamethrower like Randy Newman, the stripped-down set-up at last night’s show recalled the no-frills heroics of Neil Young or Bob Seger. Is that where White is headed next? I’m not sure. With a prolific talent like White, not knowing what you’re gonna get is half the fun.

All photos by Ryan Spears.

The post Matthew E. White @ Bowery Ballroom: May 13, 2013 appeared first on CMJ.

Local Natives Announce Tour Dates, Release Remix

Dan Jackson — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:19:45 +0000

Photo by Bryan Sheffield

After wowing crowds at CMJ 2012, releasing Hummingbird to wide acclaim and conquering Valentine’s Day, Local Natives now have one goal: world domination. Or at least a world tour, which will presumably lead to the early stages of world domination.

To celebrate their impending string of dates, the group has released a percussion-filled remix of Hummingbird stand-out “Wooly Mammoth.” The remix is going by the title “Wooly Robot” and it’s a creepy, hulking take on the track, all slow-build up and big release. Good stomping music. Check it out below, along with the group’s tour dates, which include quite a few festival stops, a show with brood-rock titans the National and multiple dates with Wild Nothing.

Local Natives Tour Dates:
05/15 – Sydney, AU – Metro Theatre
05/18 – Melbourne, AU – The Forum Theatre
05/19 – Brisbane, AU – The Zoo
05/24 – Barcelona, ES – Primavera Sound
05/31 – Porto, PT – Optimus Primavera Sound
06/07 – New York, NY – Governors Ball
06/10 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE
06/11 – Louisville, KY – Headliners Music Festival
06/12 – Memphis, TN – Minglewood Hall
06/14 – Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival
06/15 – Columbus, OH – The LC Pavilion #
06/18 – Charleston, SC – Music Farm
06/19 – Richmond, VA – The National
06/23 – Hilvarenbeek, NL – Best Kept Secret Festival
06/28 – Pilton, UK – Glastonbury
06/30 – Bialystok, PL – Halfway Festival
07/02 – Zagreb, CT – Salata
07/03 – Monthey, CH – Pont Rouge
07/05 – Normandy, FR – Festival Beauregard
07/06 – Arras, FR – Arras Festival
07/07 – Sesto al Reghena, IT – Piazza Castello
07/11 – Luxembourg, LU – Den Atelier
07/12 – Russelsheim, DE – Phono Pop Festival
07/14 – Balado, UK – T in the Park
07/19 – Ferropolis, DE – Melt! Festival
07/20 – Dublin, IE – Longitude Festival
07/21 – Suffolk, UK – Latitude Festival
07/26 – Niigata, JP – Fuji Rock Festival
08/02 – Chicago, IL – Lollapalooza
08/08 – Oslo, NO – Oya Festival
08/09 – Gothenburg, SE – Way Out West
08/10 – Haldern, DE – Haldern Pop Festival
08/11 – Palerno, IT – Ypsigrock Festival
08/15 – St. Malo, FR – La Route du Rock
08/16 – Hasselt, BE – Pukkelpop
08/17 – Skipton, UK – Beacons Festival
08/18 – Glanusk Park, UK – Green Man Festival
09/05-07 – Raleigh, NC – Hopscotch Music Festival
09/08 – St. Louis, MO – LouFest
09/12 – Oakland, CA – Fox Theater *
09/13 – Los Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre *
09/15 – Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theatre *
09/17 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre
09/19 – Madison, WI – Orpheum Theater *
09/20 – Royal Oak, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre *
09/21 – Toronto, ON – Kool Haus *
09/23 – Annapolis, MD – Rams Head On Stage *
09/28 – Philadelphia, PA – Electric Factory *
09/30 – Atlanta, GA – Tabernacle *
10/01 – Birmingham, AL – Iron City *
10/02 – New Orleans, LA – Tipitina’s *
10/04-05 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits
10/06 – Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom*
10/07 – Oklahoma City, OK – Diamond Ballroom *
10/11-13 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits
10/15 – Cambridge, UK – The Junction
10/16 – Norwich, UK – Waterfront
10/17 – London, UK – Brixton Academy
10/19 – Oxford, UK – Gathering Festival
10/20 – Newcastle, UK – Sage 2
10/21 – Glasgow, UK – The Arches
10/22 – Belfast, IE – Limelight
10/24 – Dublin, IE – Olympia
10/25 – Sheffield, UK – Leadmill
10/26 – Manchester, UK – Ritz
10/27 – Bristol, UK – O2 Academy Bristol
10/29 – Southampton, UK – University
10/31 – Brussels, BE – AB Club
11/01 – Cologne, DK – Gebaudede 9
11/04 – Copenhagen, DK – Vega
11/05 – Aarhus, DK – Voxhall
11/06 – Hamburg, DE – Molotow
11/08 – Vienna, AT – Flex
11/09 – Bologna, IT – Estragon Club
11/11 – Rome, IT – Blackout
11/12 – Florence, IT – Viper
11/19 – Bordeaux, FR – Theatre Barbey
11/20 – Paris, FR – Bataclan

# = w/ The National
* = w/ Wild Nothings

The post Local Natives Announce Tour Dates, Release Remix appeared first on CMJ.

Listen: Holy Ghost’s “Dumb Disco Ideas”

Dan Jackson — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:08:54 +0000

DFA’s resident disco duo Holy Ghost will return later this year with Dynamics, the follow-up to the group’s stellar 2011 self-titled debut, and though the album doesn’t have an official release date yet, it does have an excellent eight minute banger of a single called “Dumb Disco Ideas.” The song comes with a deceptively simple time-lapse video as well, but the real attraction is the track’s sweltering, dance floor ready beat.

With a title that could serve as a pithy critique of Random Access Memories—sorry, Daft Punk—the track finds the band deploying all its biggest, goofiest retro moves. It’s got sparkly synths, pounding percussion, robo vocoder and pithy lyrics—”Cruel summer for cruel lovers/This bodega’s got a club in the basement” is an early highlight—but most of all it’s fun. Really fun. Check it out below.

The post Listen: Holy Ghost’s “Dumb Disco Ideas” appeared first on CMJ.

Superchunk Announces New Album, I Hate Music

Dan Jackson — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:52:31 +0000

Superchunk will release its 10th studio album, the follow-up to 2011′s excellent come-back record Majesty Shredding, on August 20 via Merge. The new record is called I Hate Music, which just might be the best “full-sentence-as-an-album-title” I’ve seen this year. Sadly, there’s no single yet to show off how much the band now hates music, but the group has released a charming little preview video that contains some snippets of new songs.

I actually caught Mac McCaughan playing a solo set at the Merge showcase at CMJ last year and he played a few of the new songs, which you hear via the nice folks over at NYC Taper. Even if they hate music, Superchunk is still really good at making it, so check out preview and tracklist below.

Tracklist For I Hate Music
01. Overflows
02. Me & You & Jackie Mittoo
03. Void
04. Staying Home
05. Low F
06. Trees Of Barcelona
07. Breaking Down
08. Out Of The Sun
09. Your Theme
10. FOH
11. What Can We Do

The post Superchunk Announces New Album, I Hate Music appeared first on CMJ.

Daft Punk Teases New Album Again Because That’s What They Do

Dan Jackson — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:56:59 +0000

Updated: The teasing is over. You can now stream Random Access Memories over at iTunes. Go to Daft Punk’s artist page and crank the album in your spaceship.

The road to Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories has been paved with promo videos, so it’s not surprising that as we head down the home stretch toward’s the album’s release on May 21, the duo is still dishing out tiny bits of slick, light-filled hype to keep fans excited. It can be frustrating to see the words Daft Punk in a headline and think, “New music??” only to again be greeted with a two minute video featuring 20 seconds of a song, but I guess this is what qualifies as an effective marketing campaign in 2013. After releasing the smooth single, “Get Lucky,” maybe you thought the pair was done teasing us? Nope. Sigh. At least this one looks cool and you get to see the record?

The new trailer for Random Access Memories takes place inside a cavernous, Ridley-Scott-goes-to-the-disco spaceship with a killer soundsytem. The duo opens up the album’s packaging, takes out a thick black slab of vinyl and lets the needle drop. It’s sort of like one of these but in a spaceship. Probably can’t get satellite radio. Anyway, we then hear 20 seconds of the album’s opener, “Give Life Back To Music.” That’s it. Watch it below.

The post Daft Punk Teases New Album Again Because That’s What They Do appeared first on CMJ.

Pure X – Crawling Up The Stairs

Dan Jackson — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:55:35 +0000

Purity is an easy pose to strike but a hard look to maintain. On its first album, 2011′s Pleasure, Texas slow-crawl psych group Pure X showed a total command of a very specific mood: dusky, sexy desert rock cool. The guitars were molten, the vocals were equal parts Velvet Underground, Galaxie 500 and Yo La Tengo, and the song titles were really, really short—two words at most. On the band’s latest album, Crawling Up The Stairs, Pure X has revealed an interest in a wider range of recording techniques, a more eccentric instrumental breadth and a burgeoning lucidity—seriously, there’s an eight word title here—but the most impressive leap is the transition into more emotionally mature, unguarded songwriting.

It’s not surprising that Crawling Up The Stairs grew out of some emotional turmoil and geographic upheaval. According to a recent interview with Dummy, each member of the band was dealing with a major life change in the time between Pleasure and the new record. Guitarist Nate Grace suffered a knee injury from a skateboarding accident, bassist Jesse Jenkins saw a relationship end and drummer Austin Youngblood relocated to L.A. to be with his girlfriend. These aren’t tragic developments but in the easygoing, glacial world of Pure X they feel like shocking developments. “During the last record I felt like I was already dead,” says Grace in the interview. “Like I was a ghost making a record for other ghosts. Then I got a true taste of my own personal hell and I was terrified beyond belief. I suddenly wanted to live very badly, to be as alive as fucking possible.”

That type of vulnerability is apparent in these songs, which take more risks and provide more chances for embarrassment than the band’s early work. “Someone Else” signals the band’s new found interest in vocal performance, particularly the way a stray line can be pushed and dragged into darker places by the dramatic, almost melodramatic singing. It’s a song that alternates between lost highway swoons à la Chris Isaak and the pained histrionics of Okkervil River’s Will Sheff. “Come on break me,” sings Grace at the song’s opening, but by the end he already sounds broken, shattered into a million pieces and left for dead. It’s recorded in a way that makes you feel the spit on the microphone. “Come on make me feel something baby/I don’t give a fuck,” he seethes. “You know I earned it/So come on and give me all your love.”

Along with the apocalyptic sexual frustration, the album makes room for some moments of playful beauty, though it still comes coated in a layer of self-doubt and shame. Highlight “I Fear What I Feel,” a percolating piece of Dump-like lava lamp funk in falsetto, uses a patient bass line, steady drums and clinking guitars to conjure up an otherworldly, sensual experience. The sad-bastard pop freakout Shadows And Lies again lets Grace push his vocal chords to the breaking point, here in the service of more conventional rock catharsis. For all the bleak, desolate themes on the album, there are still moments of befuddled wonder (How Did You Find Me) and wondrous befuddlement (Thousand Year Old Child). There’s an ecstatic curiosity to everything the band touches here.

Not all the experiments work. Written In The Slime holds you at a distance, using smeared guitar tones, New Age synths and a vocoder to create a creeping feeling of dread that’s not as evocative as intended. It’s like a cut from Neil Young’s Trans flattened out into a dreary plateau. I Came From Nowhere is an equally obtuse, uneventful walk through a barren landscape. It’s the type of sketch that Deerhunter could stretch into an alluring art-rock gem, but in Pure X’s coarse hands it lands with a thud. After hearing the band speak so clearly and so directly, it’s frustrating to hear them lapse into a mumble again.

“Let go of your reasons/And let yourself be loved,” sings Grace on the album’s closing track, All Of The Future (All Of The Past). These moments of simultaneous resilience and resignation are what keep the record from teetering into the abyss. While this is a fearful, trepidatious record, it’s not without hope. Pure X may not be particularly pure anymore, but it’s a pleasure to have them down in the muck with the rest of us.

The post Pure X – Crawling Up The Stairs appeared first on CMJ.

Music News, May 10, 2013

Dan Jackson — Fri, 10 May 2013 22:10:49 +0000

Gold and Platinum records for the Great Gatsby

Lots of things happen in the music business and on the internet every week. This is an attempt to make sense of them. OK, here we go.

After Billboard adjusted its secret chart formula to include YouTube streams, marking the beginning of what historians will one day refer to as the “Age Of Macklemore,” it should come as no surprise that the mighty Recording Industry Association Of America has announced that it will begin to use data from on demand streaming services in the certification process for Gold and Platinum records. Billboard helpfully breaks down what what this all means, the most noteworthy revelation being that “This Is War” by 30 Seconds To Mars is now a Gold record. The new data includes streams from MOG, Muve Music, Rdio, Rhapsody, Slacker, Spotify, Xbox Music, VEVO, Yahoo! Music, YouTube and more. So congrats Jared Leto! If only they gave you an Oscar for every time I’ve watched the trailer for Chapter 27. Only then will there be justice in the world.

As most knowledgable people know, YouTube is a treasure trove of Jared Leto movie trailers. But did you know it also features original content? And that YouTube wants people to pay for some of that content? That’s right, according to The Verge, the streaming video giant has launched a paid channel pilot program based around channels “that can only be accessed after paying an apparently variable subscription fee, which starts at $0.99 per month.” Start saving your pennies!

With most music heading online, one question continues to haunt the youth of America: What will happen to linear notes? As Newsday points out, the nice people over at Rhapsody have a solution: digital linear notes. There’s no word yet on whether or not Taylor Swift’s digital linear notes will include an encrypted message that allows you to assume the consciousness of one of her ex-boyfriends and use your digital computer powers to throw his body into a well, but I assume this feature will be revealed as the story develops.

Skrillex continues to find new ways to make people shake their heads and go “What will you think of next Skrillex?” SPIN has the story on the well-coiffed producer’s latest plan to purchase a 11,000-square-foot building in L.A.’s Chinatown and convert it into a studio for “in-the-box producers.” SPIN compares it to Warhol’s Factory, but personally I hope it’s more like an EDM version of the Foot Clan’s hideout from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

All good things must end, so it seems that Randy Jackson is leaving American Idol. CNN has the story, which includes this amazing quote: “‘Yo! Yo! Yo! To put all of the speculation to the rest, after 12 years of judging on ‘American Idol,’ I have decided to leave after this season,’ Jackson said in a statement, released through his representative.”

When one door closes, another gaping hellhole opens. That’s how that inspirational quote goes, right? The Hollywood Reporter reports that Maroon 5 singer and host of The Voice Adam Levine has “inked a one-year first-look development deal at NBC with his longtime manager-turned-producing partner, Jordan Feldstein.” Levine will be working on developing “both scripted and alternative programming to serve as series and specials for the network.” Hopefully he makes a cop show where he’s a police officer who has to go undercover as the lead singer of a band called Maroon 5. It can be called Code Maroon. Please Adam, steal my idea.

In a very Adam Levine like move, Zach Hill of Death Grips fame has revealed (via Pitchfork) that he’s currently writing, directing and soundtracking a feature film. Perhaps NBC is interested?

While Adam Levine continues to ride a golden sunbeam of success to the top of the money mountain, things haven’t been so easy for Lauryn Hill. As the AP reports, the singer was sentenced to three months in prison for failing to pay her taxes. This news came only days after Hill had released a new track, “Neurotic Society (Compuslory Mix),” which you should definitely listen to below.

There’s a an app that lets you dress Drake. You’re welcome.

There’s also video footage of Kanye West walking into a sign. If the idea of watching a video of Kanye walking into a sign intrigues you at all, you owe it to yourself to watch this exciting video clip of Kanye walking into a sign.

Alright, that’s it for this week. Have a great weekend and maybe watch that DFA documentary that Red Bull put out that was linked everywhere earlier this week. It’s good!

The post Music News, May 10, 2013 appeared first on CMJ.

Watch: Yeah Yeah Yeahs Get Gross With “Mosquito” Video

Dan Jackson — Tue, 07 May 2013 17:13:15 +0000

After the ambitious psycho-drama of the “Sacrilege” video, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have gone back to basics for the new clip for the title track off the group’s defiantly strange album, Mosquito. In fact, they’ve gone back to the most basic thing there is: blood.

The creepy, low-concept clip, directed by B. Shimbe Shim, tells the story of one very hungry mosquito and a cute little boy who happens to become the insect’s victim. As the bug drinks and drinks from the boy’s hand, it grows larger and larger, eventually morphing into something you might see in an old ’50s monster movie. Luckily, the kid seems unfazed and the video ends on a note of pro-human/anti-bug triumph. Think of it as a simplified take on Starship Troopers. Watch it below.

The post Watch: Yeah Yeah Yeahs Get Gross With “Mosquito” Video appeared first on CMJ.

Download Adult Swim’s ‘Garage Swim’ Feat. Thee Oh Sees, Mikal Cronin

Dan Jackson — Mon, 06 May 2013 21:14:33 +0000

The good people at Adult Swim have knack for bringing talented artists together—after all, their Williams Street imprint was responsible for bringing El-P and Killer Mike together for R.A.P. Music—and the company’s latest music-related project, the garage rock compilation Garage Swim, has a similarly stacked pedigree. The 15 track album features ragged, snarled future-nuggets from garage rock luminaries like Thee Oh Sees, Mikal Cronin, the Black Lips, JEFF The Brotherhood and more. You can download it here or stream the comp below.

Early highlights after a cursory listen include King Tuff’s brain-melting collaboration with Ohio native Gap Dream and the Sabbath-like sludge of JEFF’s “Melting Place.” Definitely some potential head-bangers here.

Garage Swim Tracklist:
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”

The post Download Adult Swim’s ‘Garage Swim’ Feat. Thee Oh Sees, Mikal Cronin appeared first on CMJ.

The National Perform One Song Over And Over, Announce Tour Dates

Dan Jackson — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:06:44 +0000

What did you do with your Sunday afternoon? Maybe you went to a show. Maybe you listened to some records. Maybe you watched a basketball game or enjoyed some time in the sun. If you’re in The National you spent your Sunday afternoon playing the same song over and over again for six hours at the MoMA PS1 in Long Island City. What song did they choose to play over and over? “Sorrow.” Typical lazy Sunday afternoon stuff. Here’s a video of the band doing its thing:

Whoa. Do those guys know how to party or what? For those of you who prefer non-”Sorrow” National songs, you’re in luck. The Brooklyn mope-rock band has added tour dates to its already busy schedule, including late summer and early fall stops with Daughter and Frightened Rabbit. The tour is in support of the band’s upcoming record, Trouble Will Find Me. Check out those dates and listen to the record’s single “Don’t Swallow The Cap” below. Or listen to it for six hours if you want the real National experience.

Tour Dates For The National:
05/16 – Ithaca, NY – State Theater
05/26 – Boston, MA – Boston Calling Festival
06/05 – Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center *
06/06 – Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion ^
06/07 – Philadelphia, PA – Mann Center for the Performing Arts ^
06/08 – Richmond, VA – The National
06/10 – Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheatre ^
06/11 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE ^
06/13 – Montreal, QC – Lachine Canal
06/14 – Toronto, ON – North by Northeast
06/15 – Columbus, OH – LC Pavilion
06/16 – Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo
06/21-22 – Scheessel, DE – Hurricane Festival
06/21-22 – Neuhausen Ob Eck, DE – Southside Festival
06/23 – Istanbul, TR – Vodafone Istanbul Calling
06/25 – Brussels, BE – Cirque Royal
06/28 – Cork, IE – Live at the Marquee
06/30 – Rome, IT – Parco Della Musica
07/01 – Milan, IT – City Sound Festival
07/02 – Zagreb, HR – Salata
07/04 – Werchter, BE – Rock Werchter
07/05-07 – Roskilde, DK – Roskilde Festival
07/14 – Cincinnati, OH – Bunbury Festival
07/27 – Byron Bay, AU – Splendour in the Grass
08/03 – Chicago, IL – Lollapalooza
08/04 – Indianapolis, IN – Muray Theater #
08/05 – Milwaukee, WI – Riverside Theater #
08/06 – St. Paul, MN – Roy Wilkins Auditorium #
08/09-11 – San Francisco, CA – Outside Lands Festival
08/10 – Los Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre #
08/11 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Forever Cemetery #
09/07 – St. Louis, MO – LouFest
09/08 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium %
09/09 – Atlanta, GA – Cobb Energy Center %
09/11 – Charlotte, NC – The Fillmore %
09/12 – Asheville, NC – Thomas Wolfe Auditorium %
09/13 – Lousivlle, KY – Iriquois Ampitheater %
09/15 – Madison, WI – Orpheum Theater %
09/17 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Ampiteather $
09/20 – Seattle, WA – Paramount Theater %
09/21 – Portland, OR – Edgefield Winery %
09/22 – Vancouver, BC – PNE Ampitheatre %
10/31 – Helsinki, FL – Ice Hall
11/02 – Copenhagen, DK – Forum
11/04 – Berlin, DE – Max Schmelling Halle
11/05 – Düsseldorf, DE – Mitsubishi Electric Hall
11/06 – Luxembourg, LU – Rockhal
11/07 – Amsterdam, NL – Heineken Music Hall
11/09 – Belfast, IE – Odyssey Arena
11/10 – Dublin, IE – O2 Arena
11/11 – Manchester, UK – O2 Apollo Manchester
11/13 – London, UK – Alexandra Palace
11/18 – Paris, FR – Le Zenith
11/20 – Madrid, ES – Palacio Vistalegre
11/21 – Lisbon, PT – Pavilhao Atlantico

* = w/ Youth Lagoon
^ = w/ Dirty Projectors
# = w/ Daughter
% = w/ Frightened Rabbit
$ = w/ Local Natives

The post The National Perform One Song Over And Over, Announce Tour Dates appeared first on CMJ.

Deerhunter – Monomania

Dan Jackson — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:17:32 +0000

At what point did Bradford Cox become a real rock star? Did it begin with Deerhunter’s first album, Turn It Up Faggot? Or did it happen when he first began releasing his solo recordings under the name Atlas Sound? Was it on the psychedelic shoegaze vision quest of Microcastle? Was it when he let that saxophone take the reigns on Halcyon Digest’s “Coronado”? Or was it when he showed up on Jimmy Fallon a few weeks ago and performed the title track to his band’s latest album, Monomania, while wearing a tattered black wig and bloody bandages on his fingers? It’s impossible to know for sure. This type of calculation is a fool’s game, but it’s the kind of thinking that Cox, one of indie rock’s only totally singular frontmen left standing, inadvertently inspires. To put it more succinctly: What’s his deal?

None of these questions are answered by Monomania, Deerhunter’s playful swerve of an album. After the polished dream-pop of Halcyon Digest and the crooning, precise confidence of Atlas Sound’s Parallex, Cox and Deerhunter are at an odd place. Cox feels like a star but his band still traffics in obfuscation. The two are developing at different rates: Cox tosses out controversial opinions like confetti, staging performance art pranks and toying with your expectations; Deerhunter has only grown more shrouded in mystery. Deerhunter still feels more hesitant as a band, but on Monomania Cox has taken control of the ship and steered it straight into adventurous and occasionally choppy waters.

In interviews Cox has described the album as a rather straight-forward “rock” record, but it actually takes a few tracks for the band to work itself into a fittingly retromaniacal froth. The record’s opening bits of squall, “Neon Junkyard” and “Leather Jacket II,” are more sketches than songs, snotty blasts of raw energy and cathartic release. The album reaches its full potential on “Pensacola,” a twang-ey, careening piece of slop-rock that sounds like someone left the Strokes out in the sun for too long, all the steely fuck-me swagger bleached into a smeared, calloused blur. Like most great rock songs, it’s about the road, or the idea of the road as a place of transcendence and escape, but under Cox’s guiding hand it feels invigorating. At one point he calls out “Let’s go” and it’s easy to jump right on board—even though it looks like a bumpy ride.

The album is full of weary invitations and conflicted descriptions of transportation: On “Dream Captain” Cox opens the song with a defiant “Dream captain take me on your ship/I’ve been feeling like I’m gonna be sick.” Despite the raucous, Black-Lips-playing-a-neon-basement-show quality to the record, Cox can’t help but apply a thick layer of melancholy and a touch of paranoia to even the more unhinged, garage rock moments. Cox’s solo music has always felt more romantic than his more murmured Deerhunter work, but here the lines become blurrier. At the end of “Blue Agent” he quietly sighs, “The sky is clearer now/And I’m filled with fright.” “Sleepwalking” and “Back To Middle” are equally catchy and rescinded, though I can imagine either track being given a rough, feedback-filled makeover in a live setting.

Following bassist Josh Fauver’s departure, the band can occasionally sound unmoored, and compared to the inventiveness of the group’s last two records, it’s possible to see this one as a step backwards. Guitarist and co-writer Lockett Pundt, who was the the not-so-secret-star of Halcyon Digest and who crafted a serene collection of guitar-pop under the Lotus Plaza banner on 2012′s Spooky Action At A Distance, recedes to the background on this record, taking vocal duties only on “The Missing,” an effective but hardly attention-grabbing bit of chiming dream-pop. This is the Bradford Cox show. It’s hard not to feel like this album is an effort to reconfigure the band around Cox, which is fitting because he’s at his most compelling here, never more so than on the album’s poignant centerpiece “T.H.M.” Over a delicate guitar line and pitter-patter percussion, Cox seems to be describing the birth and death of a friend (possibly a twin brother?) but at the end he tuns the mirror on himself. “Ever since I was born/I have felt so forlorn,” he sings. “I always knew this day would come/Hey you lose and you win some.”

Deerhunter wins more than it loses on Monomania. Cox obviously has a set of rock deities that he’s genuflecting before here: Lou Reed, Joey Ramone, Patti Smith, Bo Diddley, Elvis. Not Morrissey. It’s apparent from recent comments that he’s grown tired of being measured on the sliding scale of indie rock or pinned down by the platitudes of punk. At one point during a recent interview with Pitchfork, Cox described his punk ideal as being “provocative without being political.” Strangely enough, that abstract, nonsensical quality is least present on the record’s closing song, “Punk (La Vie Antérieure),” which feels both confessional and epochal. As the song builds to a conclusion, the patient strum of Cox’s guitar does battle with an array of guitar effects and sound collage elements that sound shipped in from earlier Deerhunter recordings—quaking tremors, bomb-like reverb, psychedelic catcalls—but at the end only the acoustic guitar remains. It’s a powerful moment: the sound of Cox casting off not only demons, but unwanted versions of himself.

The post Deerhunter – Monomania appeared first on CMJ.

Listen: Majical Cloudz Take Flight On “Bugs Don’t Buzz”

Dan Jackson — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:02:16 +0000

Majical Cloudz singer Devon Welsh has a voice that makes every word he utters instantly fraught with drama. It’s a chilling effect, used perfectly on songs like “Childhood’s End” and throughout his upcoming record, Impersonator, out May 21 via Matador. Today he’s released “Bugs Don’t Buzz,” another emotionally draining song from the album.

“The cheesiest songs always end with a smile,” sings Welsh at the beginning of the song over a sparse piano part, and things only get gloomier from there. The song’s use of space, particularly the way Welsh relishes the pauses after each word, gives it a haunting power. When a buzzing, warped synth appears at the close, it’s like the song takes flight. Check it out below.

The post Listen: Majical Cloudz Take Flight On “Bugs Don’t Buzz” appeared first on CMJ.

Watch: Mac DeMarco’s “My Kind Of Woman” Video

Dan Jackson — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:19:02 +0000

CMJ 2012 stand-out Mac DeMarco is back with another video for a track off 2012′s easy-going and deceptively clever 2. Where DeMarco’s last video for “Ode To Viceroy” was a grainy, VHS-scrambled affair complete with fisheye lenses and goofy slacker antics, this clip is a considerable jump in composition and ambition. Also, he wears a dress, which is always a plus.

The video, directed by Alex Lill, finds DeMarco applying some vaguely Joker-like make-up and donning a dress while singing the twinkling, romantic song. As the camera follows him around what appears to be the backstage of a circus, he gradually takes off his clothes, coils himself into a naked ball and climbs into a box, which is probably a pretty typical day for DeMarco. Check out the video (via Nowness) below.

Mac DeMarco: My Kind of Woman on Nowness.com.

The post Watch: Mac DeMarco’s “My Kind Of Woman” Video appeared first on CMJ.

Stream Savages’ Debut LP, Silence Yourself

Dan Jackson — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:39:59 +0000

If you were preparing to silence yourself next week, plans have changed. CMJ 2012 stand-outs Savages will release their debut full-length on May 7 via Matador, but today the UK post-punk group’s record, Silence Yourself, is available to stream in its entirety. After months of powerful live performances, impeccable videos of powerful live performances and throat-grabbing singles, the band has unleashed its not-so-silent record on the world.

So, in the spirit of the LP’s instructional cover, climb into your cone of silence, turn off a few of the “constant distractions” that surround you, and listen to the new album below.

The post Stream Savages’ Debut LP, Silence Yourself appeared first on CMJ.