Josh Epstein crafted some beautiul indie-pop gems on last year’s The Globe. The Silent Years’ founder and lead-songwriter returns with his Detroit-based outfit July 14th. That’s when SideCho Records is releasing the Detroit-based band’s latest EP, Let Go. That’s the black-and-white cover below. On the delicious preview track, “Madame Shocking,” a string quartet swirls around few a few bars and then the full band opens up into a summery, xylophone and piano-driven jam. Epstein may say he “was born in the ‘80s” but this is timeless pop music, regardless of the season.
Three girls (maybe they’re in bands, they sure like Teenage Age Jesus and The Jerks) infiltrate a haughty rooftop soirée, and paintball bomb the hell out of it. We really hope Sonic Youth‘s speaking from experience in this latest video for The Eternal‘s “Sacred Trickster.”
Camera Obscura
“French Navy” (Live on “The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson”) Video
Last night on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, Camera Obscura played the charming single “French Navy,” a song from their equally charming recent album, My Maudlin Career. There’s a Camera Obscura Detection feature in the current issue of Under the Radar. It’s funny watching Craig get all excited when he announces that the Camera Obscura crew is from Glasgow, Scotland, his cherished homeland. The swinging seven-piece is currently wrapping up the final leg of their U.S. tour.
Modest Mouse
“Autumn Beds” MP3 Stream
Jun 16, 2009
Modest Mouse are keeping up the recent stream of new tracks. After their recent post-Record Store Day single “Satellite Skin”/“Guilty Cocker Spaniels” here’s another, a 7-inch featuring “Whale Song” and “Autumn Beds”, the latter of which you can hear below at Spinner. “Autumn” harkens back to the group’s ramshackle banjo jams on break-out smash Good News for People That Love Bad News. The 7-inch will be available in independent record stores this Saturday, June 20, for the Record Store Day’s Vinyl Saturday.
Blur is back folks and they sound great. The Britpop stars returned to the spot of their very first concert way back in 1988 to kick off their reunion tour. Though they haven’t announced any U.S. concerts yet their first gig as a four-piece in nine years seemed to have plenty of energy at the East Anglian Railway Museum gig. The two-hour, 28-song set has made its way onto YouTube. Here’s a pretty neat clip of Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, and company playing “Parklife.” There’s a whole slew of high-quality videos up on the Tube chronicling the laddish performance.
Bowerbirds
“Under Your Tree” MP3
Jun 15, 2009
Bowerbirds’ second track from Open Air may not be as instantly memorable as “Northern Lights” but it has its own merits. Lovelorn plaudits switchback between lead singers Phil Moore and Beth Tacular on “Beneath Your Tree.” The Open Air cut also features Moore’s accordion and light acoustic guitar and percussion.
If you want to know what the duo are singing about, the sad lyrics are below:
“I could bleed, bleed, bleed for days, but my heart would still beat for you dear. Yet we carry on like a storm, like we’ve no idea where we’re coming from. But the rain will subside by the morning. I could drag my legs across the desert, but my lips would still thirst for you dear. Yet I feel your gaze like a furnace. Though it burns, I go on; I keep crawling. And the moon will rise in the evening, and I’ll fall to sleep beneath your tree, and the wind will howl through your leaves and serenade me. You don’t own me, but I’ll take your lead down a gnarly thicket in the trees. And we’re soon lost, and we’re terrified, but I’ll always find my way to your eyes. And the moon will rise in the evening, and I’ll fall to sleep beneath your tree, and the wind will howl through your leaves and serenade me.”
The Releigh, NC nu-folkies are touring with Megafun throughout July and August and have a stop at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago on July 18. Upper Air is now available for pre-order from Dead Oceans on CD/LP. Fans pre-ordering the album will receive an immediate download code, before the physical release floats into their mailbox. Also included with the physical copy will be a limited 17"x 22” Bowerbirds poster. Open Air will be available in stores on July 7 in the U.S. and July 6 in the U.K.
Here’s the stop-frame animated, sort of eerie collaboration between London’s We Have Band, Blinkink Productions and Ida Gronblom and Fabian Berglund from Wieden + Kennedy London. The “You Came Out” clip was composed from 4,816 photographic stills of the electro trio, all of which are apparently being uploaded to WHB’s Flickr, “allowing people to re-edit the sequence as they see fit in order to make their own video.” The slow process involved WHB lying stock-still for two consecutive days in a studio. The manic, casket-like framing of the faces matches up well with the track’s party-gone-horribly-wrong lyrics. The music video for robo single “Oh!” had a similar visual leitmotif. If you’re interested in the arduous directorial process for “You Came Out,” a “making-of” video can be found here. It’s really quite fascinating. We Have Band was interviewed for our Fall ‘08 Pleased to Meet You section.
Anti-Pop Consortium
“Capricorn One” MP3
Jun 14, 2009
As far as postmodern hip-hop goes, the New York foursome Anti-Pop Consortium are in a league of one. The boundary-pushing experimenters reunited a few years ago. The blazing “Capricorn One” is the first fruits of their fall recording Fluorescent Black. The highly-antcipated LP is the crew’s first full-length since 2002’s Arrhythmia. Big Dada is releasing the 17-track black hole on October 13th. South London rapper/labelmate Roots Manuva (Rodney Smith) spits some verses on “NY to Tokyo.” Check out the spacey album artwork to the right; and here’s the tracklist.
Fluorescent Black:
01 Lay Me Down 02 New Jack Exterminator 03 Reflections 04 Shine 05 C Thru U 06 Volcano 07 Timpani 08 The Solution 03 Get Lite 10 NY to Tokyo [feat. Roots Manuva] 11 SuperUnfrontable 12 Born Electric 13 Apparently 14 End Game 15 Capricorn One 16 Dragunov 17 Fluorescent Black
As far as postmodern hip-hop goes, the New York foursome 
