lunes, 27 de septiembre de 2010
t's been three long years since Klaxons set the British music press into another tizzy with their Mercury Prize-winning debut, Myths of the Near Future. Having created a whole new mini-genre, "nu-rave" -- a regrettable bit of journalistic shorthand that encompassed little of the band's ecstatic space-punk -- the quartet set about touring the world for a couple years before settling down to record their follow-up in 2008.
Unfortunately things didn't go quite as easy this time around with Myths producer James Ford of Simian Mobile Disco. Early last year, Klaxons' label, Polydor, allegedly rejected their initial recordings for being "too experimental" (according to tabloid The Sun), and the band headed back into the studio with (of all people) Korn/Slipknot producer Ross Robinson.
The result of these last-minute efforts, Surfing the Void is a pummeling spasm of psychedelia that owes nearly as much to Motorhead as it does to early Pink Floyd and Primal Scream. But as their show last night at Manhattan's Bowery Ballroom proved, for right or wrong, Klaxons made the right choice. There's pop all over these songs, which only mean they pair perfectly with the band's older, breezier and, yes, ravier material.
Klaxons alternated expertly between the new and the old. The grinding bass and wailing guitar lines of Void centerpiece "Flashover" bled seamlessly into the quirky, space-pop of "As Above, So Below"; Myths classic "Golden Skans" served as a worthy introduction to Void's poppiest track, "Twin Flames" -- a tune held aloft by Jamie Reynolds and Jamie Righton's call-and-response vocals.
The two of them made for an odd pairing on stage: Reynolds, hulking and bearded, pounding away on his giant Rickenbacker bass, sweating his way through every verse, and pint-sized Righton, fingering arpeggios on his synthesizer with one hand, his other raised to the sky. But it worked. The pair's unique harmonies -- one singing hot and heavy, the other falsetto -- made it easy to overlook Void's silly sci-fi lyrics ("Searches seem to show/ Damage to solar winds where the air uncovers/ Melting on star pole snow").
While the whole nu-rave thing thankfully never fully materialized, "rave" wouldn't be a bad way to describe last night's show. The area in front of the stage was packed with raised hands, jumping bodies, and smiling faces. And like any good DJ, Klaxons knew how to whip their audience into a frenzy. Halfway through Myths' "Magick," the band stopped the song for at least a full minute as the house lights darkened further and the crowd hollered for more, before roaring back with Simon Taylor-Davis' screeching guitar solo and more blinding strobe lights.
It was a great moment -- and Joaquin Phoenix was certainly smiling. There he was by the bar nodding his head looking very much not like his character in Casey Affleck's "documentary," I'm Still Here. No dreads, no sunglasses, no beer belly, just Joaquin hanging with his friends: Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. (in a predictably vintage AC/DC tee) and former Spacehog guitarist Antony Langdon, who played Phoenix's beleaguered assistant in the film.
Who knows, maybe the guy's working on an upcoming Brit-rock "documentary" -- the story of how Joaquin left Hollywood, got skinny, grew his hair out, and started writing fuzzed-out odes to Mars and time travel? Langdon could even produce. Anything's possible...
Setlist:
"Flashover"
"As Above, So Below"
"Same Space"
"Gravity's Rainbow"
"Venusia"
"Golden Skans"
"Twin Flames"
"Two Receivers"
"Magick"
"Valley of Calm Trees"
"Echoes"
"Future Memories"
"It's Not Over Yet"
"Surfing the Void"
"Alantis to Interzone"
Unfortunately things didn't go quite as easy this time around with Myths producer James Ford of Simian Mobile Disco. Early last year, Klaxons' label, Polydor, allegedly rejected their initial recordings for being "too experimental" (according to tabloid The Sun), and the band headed back into the studio with (of all people) Korn/Slipknot producer Ross Robinson.
The result of these last-minute efforts, Surfing the Void is a pummeling spasm of psychedelia that owes nearly as much to Motorhead as it does to early Pink Floyd and Primal Scream. But as their show last night at Manhattan's Bowery Ballroom proved, for right or wrong, Klaxons made the right choice. There's pop all over these songs, which only mean they pair perfectly with the band's older, breezier and, yes, ravier material.
Klaxons alternated expertly between the new and the old. The grinding bass and wailing guitar lines of Void centerpiece "Flashover" bled seamlessly into the quirky, space-pop of "As Above, So Below"; Myths classic "Golden Skans" served as a worthy introduction to Void's poppiest track, "Twin Flames" -- a tune held aloft by Jamie Reynolds and Jamie Righton's call-and-response vocals.
The two of them made for an odd pairing on stage: Reynolds, hulking and bearded, pounding away on his giant Rickenbacker bass, sweating his way through every verse, and pint-sized Righton, fingering arpeggios on his synthesizer with one hand, his other raised to the sky. But it worked. The pair's unique harmonies -- one singing hot and heavy, the other falsetto -- made it easy to overlook Void's silly sci-fi lyrics ("Searches seem to show/ Damage to solar winds where the air uncovers/ Melting on star pole snow").
While the whole nu-rave thing thankfully never fully materialized, "rave" wouldn't be a bad way to describe last night's show. The area in front of the stage was packed with raised hands, jumping bodies, and smiling faces. And like any good DJ, Klaxons knew how to whip their audience into a frenzy. Halfway through Myths' "Magick," the band stopped the song for at least a full minute as the house lights darkened further and the crowd hollered for more, before roaring back with Simon Taylor-Davis' screeching guitar solo and more blinding strobe lights.
It was a great moment -- and Joaquin Phoenix was certainly smiling. There he was by the bar nodding his head looking very much not like his character in Casey Affleck's "documentary," I'm Still Here. No dreads, no sunglasses, no beer belly, just Joaquin hanging with his friends: Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. (in a predictably vintage AC/DC tee) and former Spacehog guitarist Antony Langdon, who played Phoenix's beleaguered assistant in the film.
Who knows, maybe the guy's working on an upcoming Brit-rock "documentary" -- the story of how Joaquin left Hollywood, got skinny, grew his hair out, and started writing fuzzed-out odes to Mars and time travel? Langdon could even produce. Anything's possible...
Setlist:
"Flashover"
"As Above, So Below"
"Same Space"
"Gravity's Rainbow"
"Venusia"
"Golden Skans"
"Twin Flames"
"Two Receivers"
"Magick"
"Valley of Calm Trees"
"Echoes"
"Future Memories"
"It's Not Over Yet"
"Surfing the Void"
"Alantis to Interzone"
But M.I.A. is also about contradiction, or at the very least, duality. Tuesday night's tour-opener at Montreal's sold-out Metropolis brought home that idea. And whether the crowd believed Maya to be real, or a purposefully conflicted character, the packed house was there to throw hands in the air, dance (even onstage), and celebrate all that diversity.
M.I.A.'s show was a brief 65-minutes long but she was a ferocious presence on stage for the entire gig. After an opening spot from her self-described dance-mad protégé Rye Rye and an interminable DJ set, M.I.A. took the stage with attitude to blaze on "World Town," with its sinus-imploding low end.
Later, she was mixing Third World politics with fashion-runway sensibility, post-modern alt-dance clatter-and-boomboom skittering off the tribal defiance, crotch-grinding her freedom against three immobile backing vocalists in stylized burqas -- M.I.A. might be the only pop star who can play with Islamic iconography and get away with it.
Then, just in case enough buttons hadn't been pushed, M.I.A. also referenced her "Jewish housewife look" (black-and-white stripes, trench-cape, headscarf and shades), preened in front of a video backdrop of battleships and blood-spatters, and unleashed a winning electroid groove on older faves like "Bucky Done Gun" and "Amazon."
Kala's "Boyz" cued pandemonium onstage, precisely because our heroine had subverted the usual concert paradigm: Instead of inviting up a bunch of screeching girls, she called on a bunch of guys to hop about onstage while she rapped: "How many no money boys are rowdy? How many start a war?"
M.I.A. also brought aggression when performing songs from her excellent (but challenging) new album /\/\ /\ Y /\. "I need to see the mosh pit!" she shouted before launching in the frenetic, speed-metal riff of "Born Free." Later, she referenced the pope in "Story To Be Told," and noticeably skipped over the album's most pop-friendly track "XXXO."
The crowd may have been bewildered by M.I.A.'s new material, but as she encored with "Paper Planes," the Metropolis turned into a mini-stadium of riotous, joyous adulation.
M.I.A.'s show was a brief 65-minutes long but she was a ferocious presence on stage for the entire gig. After an opening spot from her self-described dance-mad protégé Rye Rye and an interminable DJ set, M.I.A. took the stage with attitude to blaze on "World Town," with its sinus-imploding low end.
Later, she was mixing Third World politics with fashion-runway sensibility, post-modern alt-dance clatter-and-boomboom skittering off the tribal defiance, crotch-grinding her freedom against three immobile backing vocalists in stylized burqas -- M.I.A. might be the only pop star who can play with Islamic iconography and get away with it.
Then, just in case enough buttons hadn't been pushed, M.I.A. also referenced her "Jewish housewife look" (black-and-white stripes, trench-cape, headscarf and shades), preened in front of a video backdrop of battleships and blood-spatters, and unleashed a winning electroid groove on older faves like "Bucky Done Gun" and "Amazon."
Kala's "Boyz" cued pandemonium onstage, precisely because our heroine had subverted the usual concert paradigm: Instead of inviting up a bunch of screeching girls, she called on a bunch of guys to hop about onstage while she rapped: "How many no money boys are rowdy? How many start a war?"
M.I.A. also brought aggression when performing songs from her excellent (but challenging) new album /\/\ /\ Y /\. "I need to see the mosh pit!" she shouted before launching in the frenetic, speed-metal riff of "Born Free." Later, she referenced the pope in "Story To Be Told," and noticeably skipped over the album's most pop-friendly track "XXXO."
The crowd may have been bewildered by M.I.A.'s new material, but as she encored with "Paper Planes," the Metropolis turned into a mini-stadium of riotous, joyous adulation.
DAZED SEPTEMBER 2010 PLAYLIST
nspired by Gasper Noe's trippy Enter The Void, this month's playlist features the likes of SALEM, Gold Panda, Balam Acab, Two Fingers and How To Dress Well
It seems like an eternity since the last playlist, but then again I might still be tripping after watching Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void. In the latest issue of Dazed we talk to the director about his hallucinogenic Japanese death trip and also his feisty lady leading Paz du la Huerta. In tribute to one of our favourite films of the year I've decided to kick off our A/W winter playlist with LFO's seminal 2004 cut, "Freak", which Noe uses to devastating effect over the title sequence. We then go deeper into different shades of bass culture with Two Fingers, Neon Indian and Bear in Heaven's killer remix of Gonjasufi. Also in the latest issue we go to the Michigan home of screwgaze trio SALEM to chug beer bongs, talk about their debut album King Night and discover if they're as crazy as they've been made out to be. Elsewhere, mysterious producers like Balam Acab, Glasser, How to Dress Well and Gold Panda make an appearance, as do Swedish LOL crunk duo Purpl PoP, Wrexham math rock quartet Gallops, cold wave royalty Frank (Just Frank) and many other amazing new acts. As ever, let us know what you think...
CHROMEO: BUSINESS CASUAL
The Canadian electro pop duo returns with a third album of Hall & Oates and Philipe Zdar collaborations
Canadian purveyors of piano-tie pop Chromeo are back with their third album 'Business Casual' which straight away gives us a heads up as to where the guys are right now musically. Whilst their last record 'Fancy Footwork' was filled to the brim with buoyant synth-fuelled belters, Dave Macklovich and Patrick Gemayel are getting serious but doing so as nonchalantly as ever. The focus this time round has been on developing their sound with a much more considered approach to their production in addition to their actual song-writing. One would assume that working with Philipe Zdar as well as their musical forefathers Hall & Oates helped the process somewhat. Fret not those of you who fell in love with the catchy choruses though as I can say with some experience that it takes some restraint to not sing along to ‘Don’t Turn The Lights On’ on a Monday morning commute. Other excepts such as ‘Grow Up’ has something of Michael Jackson’s ‘The Way You Turn Me On’ to it and the first single that came from the album ‘Night by Night’ is as funky as hell. Meanwhile, Dave demonstrates his forté (albeit experimentally he later explains) on ‘J'ai Claque La Porte’ as his Ph.D in French Language at distinguished American University, Columbia is put to good use. To find out more about this new erudite and polished Chromeo, we gave Dave Macklovich a ring...
Dazed Digital: Talk to me about the journey between Fancy Footwork and Business Casual – Has there been a shift from being more playful to being more serious as the titles might suggest?
Dave Macklovich: I mean, Fancy Footwork was a big record for us obviously and sort of a surprise in term of the acclaim it received. On Business Casual we tried to, I guess typically do the same, wild changing up and evolve in certain ways. With Fancy Footwork, I think that what we achieved is coming up with a number of really charming, really fun eighties-pop ditties and with Business Casual, I wanted to get more into the production and song-writing side and have a record of more lush, more rich, more musical songs and maybe have it be a little less about hooks and more about, this time around, more about interesting things musically with this album and that’s why you’ve got songs like ‘Don’t Turn The Lights On’ which are somewhat more sophisticated than before.
DD: What was it like for you jamming with Hall & Oates? Were you nervous at all? I would assume that they had a huge influence on you guys as a band…
Dave Macklovich: Yeah, huge. We were prepared for it. I think those guys were kind of nervous because they knew that we were super-fans and knew all their shit by heart and on our end, we were like we’re ‘studio’ guys, we’re not incredible musicians. Those guys can play circles around us so we’ve just got to come correct especially me vocally, you know, how can you have me singing next to Daryl Hall? I was just trying not to make a fool of myself!
DD: You also recently played on the Letterman show with Bill Clinton. Did you guys manage to speak at all?
Dave Macklovich: Nah, the Letterman show is really segregated. The musicians, especially with Clinton, he’s not walking around the studio shaking peoples hands, you know?
DD: I was going to suggest you should have tried to get him down to the studio to play some sax on the next record…
Dave Macklovich: Yeah, you’re the 400th person to make that joke.
DD: Sorry, I couldn’t resist. It still would have been amazing though…
Dave Macklovich: It would have been incredible but still, the Letterman show I think was the best TV appearance we’ve ever done. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
DD: What track would you say you’re proudest of from the new album?
Dave Macklovich: The French one (J'ai Claque La Porte) because that one wasn’t an obvious fit. It was a song I wrote and I didn’t know if it was going to work for Chromeo but P was like ‘Nah, lets do it as Chromeo!’ and so I worked hard on that one and managed to pull it off. I think it’s a pretty song and what it means is that when I come up with songs like that one and ‘Mama’s Boy’, it can fit within the Chromeo mould and so Chromeo, even though we have such a specific sound, its not limiting because we can just fit everything into it.
DD: Have you had many exes calling you up asking if you’re talking about them on a track?
Dave Macklovich: Nah, they haven’t. I was on the phone with an ex about an hour ago which is never fun but they haven’t really. It’ll be like, if I’m with a girl, she’ll be like ‘who’s this song about?’ - ‘nobody man’.
DD: You’re playing at the Roundhouse with Midnight Juggernauts soon, What’s your favourite thing about coming to London?
Dave Macklovich: The homies! You know, we’ve got a cool little posse over there. There’s (Backyard label-boss) Gil who’s like family to us so it’s always good to come home. We get to hang out and its also a place where we get to play some of the biggest shows so its really moving to be able to play for such big crowds. We just love it there. We have a longstanding love-affair with the UK and people just get us out there.
Dazed Digital: Talk to me about the journey between Fancy Footwork and Business Casual – Has there been a shift from being more playful to being more serious as the titles might suggest?
Dave Macklovich: I mean, Fancy Footwork was a big record for us obviously and sort of a surprise in term of the acclaim it received. On Business Casual we tried to, I guess typically do the same, wild changing up and evolve in certain ways. With Fancy Footwork, I think that what we achieved is coming up with a number of really charming, really fun eighties-pop ditties and with Business Casual, I wanted to get more into the production and song-writing side and have a record of more lush, more rich, more musical songs and maybe have it be a little less about hooks and more about, this time around, more about interesting things musically with this album and that’s why you’ve got songs like ‘Don’t Turn The Lights On’ which are somewhat more sophisticated than before.
DD: What was it like for you jamming with Hall & Oates? Were you nervous at all? I would assume that they had a huge influence on you guys as a band…
Dave Macklovich: Yeah, huge. We were prepared for it. I think those guys were kind of nervous because they knew that we were super-fans and knew all their shit by heart and on our end, we were like we’re ‘studio’ guys, we’re not incredible musicians. Those guys can play circles around us so we’ve just got to come correct especially me vocally, you know, how can you have me singing next to Daryl Hall? I was just trying not to make a fool of myself!
DD: You also recently played on the Letterman show with Bill Clinton. Did you guys manage to speak at all?
Dave Macklovich: Nah, the Letterman show is really segregated. The musicians, especially with Clinton, he’s not walking around the studio shaking peoples hands, you know?
DD: I was going to suggest you should have tried to get him down to the studio to play some sax on the next record…
Dave Macklovich: Yeah, you’re the 400th person to make that joke.
DD: Sorry, I couldn’t resist. It still would have been amazing though…
Dave Macklovich: It would have been incredible but still, the Letterman show I think was the best TV appearance we’ve ever done. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
DD: What track would you say you’re proudest of from the new album?
Dave Macklovich: The French one (J'ai Claque La Porte) because that one wasn’t an obvious fit. It was a song I wrote and I didn’t know if it was going to work for Chromeo but P was like ‘Nah, lets do it as Chromeo!’ and so I worked hard on that one and managed to pull it off. I think it’s a pretty song and what it means is that when I come up with songs like that one and ‘Mama’s Boy’, it can fit within the Chromeo mould and so Chromeo, even though we have such a specific sound, its not limiting because we can just fit everything into it.
DD: Have you had many exes calling you up asking if you’re talking about them on a track?
Dave Macklovich: Nah, they haven’t. I was on the phone with an ex about an hour ago which is never fun but they haven’t really. It’ll be like, if I’m with a girl, she’ll be like ‘who’s this song about?’ - ‘nobody man’.
DD: You’re playing at the Roundhouse with Midnight Juggernauts soon, What’s your favourite thing about coming to London?
Dave Macklovich: The homies! You know, we’ve got a cool little posse over there. There’s (Backyard label-boss) Gil who’s like family to us so it’s always good to come home. We get to hang out and its also a place where we get to play some of the biggest shows so its really moving to be able to play for such big crowds. We just love it there. We have a longstanding love-affair with the UK and people just get us out there.
domingo, 26 de septiembre de 2010
FEVER RAY EXCLUSIVE MIXTAPE
PUBLISHED 2 WEEKS AGO
Karin Dreijer Andersson gives us some insight into her inspirations along with a selection of her current favourite tunes
- TEXT BY FLORA YIN-WONG
Often hidden by bizarre costumes and mysterious masks, Swedish duo The Knife made a reputation for themselves for breaking the boundaries between music and various art forms. After writing the score for the opera production, 'Tomorrow, In a Year', based on the works of Charles Darwin, the Dreijer siblings have since embarked on solo projects via Olof's Oni Ayhun and Karin'sFever Ray.
Dreijer Andersson's haunting vocals have featured in collaborations withRoyksopp, to her eerie singles like 'Seven', and 'Triangle Walks' attracting remixers from all over such as Tiga and CSS, to Martyn and Crookers. After the release of Fever Ray's eponymous debut album, she has since performed spellbinding live covers of songs by legends like Nick Cave, Vashti Bunyan and Peter Gabriel whilst touring, and is now set to release a cover of the latter's 'Mercy Street'.
Dreijer Andersson's haunting vocals have featured in collaborations withRoyksopp, to her eerie singles like 'Seven', and 'Triangle Walks' attracting remixers from all over such as Tiga and CSS, to Martyn and Crookers. After the release of Fever Ray's eponymous debut album, she has since performed spellbinding live covers of songs by legends like Nick Cave, Vashti Bunyan and Peter Gabriel whilst touring, and is now set to release a cover of the latter's 'Mercy Street'.
Dreijer Andersson’s chilling signature vocals transform the piece: "It's an interpretation. We made it more intense and faster to fit our eccentric percussionists and energetic live musicians. It is a monotone track but we worked with the dynamics trying to make it sparkle". Before Fever Ray embarks on a stunning audio-visual show in Europe, with long term collaborator Andreas Nilsson as art director this September, she works up an exclusive mixtape for Dazed Digital.
Dazed Digital: Do you feel that 'Fever Ray' is your main concern/focus now? Will The Knife return?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I don't know, I'm happy having to do both, but it's good if it's something we don't have to agree upon together... I think it's good to have something solo going on...
DD: The working process is easier alone?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I think it's very different, it's easier when you don't have to agree with somebody else about what you're going to do but then you have to make all the decisions yourself and I think that can be really difficult. I don't know what's easier. I have to write everything myself in the end - but it's good to have other ears listening to what you're doing.
DD: Which way do you feel your music is going? Like Olof's Oni Ayhun project is taking the turn or more electronic music but has Fever Ray liberated you from all that - think I may have read you were getting bored of all the techno stuff?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I don't know... maybe... I think that differs a lot but it's been fun playing live, with quite a lot of organic things and working with Olaf on the opera album we were using only analogue equipment, so I don't know - at the moment, I think of my future work as more minimal, a minimal Fever Ray.
DD: So how did 'Tomorrow, In A Year', the project inspired by Charles Darwin’s The Origin Of Species, come about? Does Darwin's work particularly relate or bear significance for you?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: We were commissioned by the theatre group to write it, so it was their idea from the beginning about Darwin, and at first all we knew about him were the things we had read in school. I think it was nice to do something else, like reading. We did that for a year really, just reading the Origin of Species and other works about Darwin, so it was really nice for a change. Also applying someone's theories on music, working with text in that way was really inspiring. It's something we've talked about continuing to do.
DD: How important do you think theatrics or the stage show is compared to the recorded music? How does it translate on stage and how do you devise the shows?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I think the live thing is more of an experiment of how to experience music. Where I am trying different endings and ideas that could happen, it's more like a playground for music, trying out ideas and seeing what happens if we dress up like this, then seeing what happens to the music. The writing and the studio work is the hard part.
DD: Do you think that the hiding part of your identity helps people to focus on the music or does it inadvertently divert people to a different talking point about 'image' anyway?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: That's always the tricky part I think, because when you try out all these costumes and masks, I think you gain so much more when doing it, when taking away the focus from some private person. It's playing with the character, a performer, like deconstructing the idea of a popstar or how a singer appears or should be on stage.
DD: Do you think where you've grown up has influenced your music? Like the darker moods in your music?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I don't know... I think I have always liked melancholic music more than any other, but not necessarily Swedish music... we listened to a lot of African pop music when I was a kid at home, and also Eastern European music which can be really melancholic, so I don't know really about that or how the climate affects your music. Sometimes I think that if it's light or not where you are recording that affects music, but I'm not sure...
DD: As the themes in your music are quite supernatural, do you feel you relate to a sort of 'spirituality'?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: No, I don't think it's like supernatural, I think music and the ability to reach people and that you can like experience your emotions - that's the power of music. You don't have to talk about anything spiritual, humanity and nature itself has such power you don't have to explain with any religious aspects of it, I'm an atheist!
DD: You've just done a Peter Gabriel cover, do you mostly listen to older music like this?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I'm a very old woman you know! I grew up with that track when I was a kid, it meant a lot to me then, I thought it was really beautiful. I think I was really moved how it created that kind of atmosphere, and I just wanted to try it and play it now with a live set up and percussionist and see how it works, how it sounded.
Dazed Digital: Do you feel that 'Fever Ray' is your main concern/focus now? Will The Knife return?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I don't know, I'm happy having to do both, but it's good if it's something we don't have to agree upon together... I think it's good to have something solo going on...
DD: The working process is easier alone?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I think it's very different, it's easier when you don't have to agree with somebody else about what you're going to do but then you have to make all the decisions yourself and I think that can be really difficult. I don't know what's easier. I have to write everything myself in the end - but it's good to have other ears listening to what you're doing.
DD: Which way do you feel your music is going? Like Olof's Oni Ayhun project is taking the turn or more electronic music but has Fever Ray liberated you from all that - think I may have read you were getting bored of all the techno stuff?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I don't know... maybe... I think that differs a lot but it's been fun playing live, with quite a lot of organic things and working with Olaf on the opera album we were using only analogue equipment, so I don't know - at the moment, I think of my future work as more minimal, a minimal Fever Ray.
DD: So how did 'Tomorrow, In A Year', the project inspired by Charles Darwin’s The Origin Of Species, come about? Does Darwin's work particularly relate or bear significance for you?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: We were commissioned by the theatre group to write it, so it was their idea from the beginning about Darwin, and at first all we knew about him were the things we had read in school. I think it was nice to do something else, like reading. We did that for a year really, just reading the Origin of Species and other works about Darwin, so it was really nice for a change. Also applying someone's theories on music, working with text in that way was really inspiring. It's something we've talked about continuing to do.
DD: How important do you think theatrics or the stage show is compared to the recorded music? How does it translate on stage and how do you devise the shows?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I think the live thing is more of an experiment of how to experience music. Where I am trying different endings and ideas that could happen, it's more like a playground for music, trying out ideas and seeing what happens if we dress up like this, then seeing what happens to the music. The writing and the studio work is the hard part.
DD: Do you think that the hiding part of your identity helps people to focus on the music or does it inadvertently divert people to a different talking point about 'image' anyway?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: That's always the tricky part I think, because when you try out all these costumes and masks, I think you gain so much more when doing it, when taking away the focus from some private person. It's playing with the character, a performer, like deconstructing the idea of a popstar or how a singer appears or should be on stage.
DD: Do you think where you've grown up has influenced your music? Like the darker moods in your music?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I don't know... I think I have always liked melancholic music more than any other, but not necessarily Swedish music... we listened to a lot of African pop music when I was a kid at home, and also Eastern European music which can be really melancholic, so I don't know really about that or how the climate affects your music. Sometimes I think that if it's light or not where you are recording that affects music, but I'm not sure...
DD: As the themes in your music are quite supernatural, do you feel you relate to a sort of 'spirituality'?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: No, I don't think it's like supernatural, I think music and the ability to reach people and that you can like experience your emotions - that's the power of music. You don't have to talk about anything spiritual, humanity and nature itself has such power you don't have to explain with any religious aspects of it, I'm an atheist!
DD: You've just done a Peter Gabriel cover, do you mostly listen to older music like this?
Karin Dreijer Andersson: I'm a very old woman you know! I grew up with that track when I was a kid, it meant a lot to me then, I thought it was really beautiful. I think I was really moved how it created that kind of atmosphere, and I just wanted to try it and play it now with a live set up and percussionist and see how it works, how it sounded.
TRACKLIST
1. Khulumani - Nkata Mawewe
2. The Tale - Meredith Monk
3. Guiyome - Konono No. 1
4. Jungle Riot - Ove-Naxx
5. Ngunyuta Dance - BBC
6. Natsu Ga Kita - Afrirampo
7. Do You Be? - Meredith Monk
8. Believer - M.I.A.
9. Kuar - Olof Dreijer remix - Emmanuel Jal
10. Dread - Nate Young
2. The Tale - Meredith Monk
3. Guiyome - Konono No. 1
4. Jungle Riot - Ove-Naxx
5. Ngunyuta Dance - BBC
6. Natsu Ga Kita - Afrirampo
7. Do You Be? - Meredith Monk
8. Believer - M.I.A.
9. Kuar - Olof Dreijer remix - Emmanuel Jal
10. Dread - Nate Young
Pete Yorn's 2001 debut was so melodically and lyrically sharp that his subsequent releases (including last year's pairing with Scarlett Johansson) have seemed unfocused and fussy by comparison. As if in a fairy tale, however, a Pixie has appeared to straighten him out. Meaning, producer Frank Black, who discards Yorn's tasteful trappings and replaces them with strangled guitars and snappy snares circa Surfer Rosa. From bracing opener "Precious Stone" to the chugging fan appreciation "Rock Crowd" to a heartfelt version of Gram Parsons' "Wheels," Yorn emerges with his most purposeful, affecting album yet.
he kissed a girl (and liked it), shot whipped cream from her breasts, and now Katy Perry has reached the pinnacle of provocative: She's too sexy for Sesame Street. Or is she?
On Thursday, just three days after footage of Perry singing a censored version of her hit "Hot 'n Cold" onSesame Street leaked online (watch below!), officials for the long-running children's show pulled the plug on her skit, which was set to air later this year. Why? Negative viewer feedback, said a spokesperson for the series.
"Sesame Street has always been written on two levels, for the child and adult," read the statement. "We use parodies and celebrity segments to interest adults in the show because we know that a child learns best when co-viewing with a parent or care-giver. We also value our viewers' opinions, and particularly those of parents. In light of the feedback we've received on the Katy Perry music video, which was released on YouTube only, we have decided we will not air the segment on the television broadcast of Sesame Street, which is aimed at preschoolers." [Via Us Weekly]
The clip shows the 24-year-old pop star dressed in a low-cut, heart-shaped dress, singing a duet and playing with Elmo. Since the clip leaked on Monday, YouTube viewers have been butting heads.
"You can practically see her tits," wrote one. "That's some wonderful children's programming."
"Women have breasts, children know this; it was never a secret," wrote another. "The idea that anyone could find this offensive is disturbing."
What do you think: Is Katy Perry a Sesame Streetwalker, or is she wrongly targeted for her curvy figure? Watch the video below, then sound off in the comment section.
sábado, 25 de septiembre de 2010
Festival Weekend Gets Going
While 40,000 people will descend on Maryland's Merriweather Post Pavilion today (Sept. 25) for Virgin Mobile FreeFest, featuring performances by LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., Pavement, Ludacris, Matt & Kim, Jimmy Eat World, and many more, the party officially got underway Friday night at D.C.'s legendary 9:30 Club with a private performance by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.
Check out photos from the gig here, and come back to SPIN.com on Monday for full FreeFest coverage and video interviews!
PHOTO BY Josh Sisk 09.25.10 12:00 pm Email this gallery
License Spin Photos here
While 40,000 people will descend on Maryland's Merriweather Post Pavilion today (Sept. 25) for Virgin Mobile FreeFest, featuring performances by LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., Pavement, Ludacris, Matt & Kim, Jimmy Eat World, and many more, the party officially got underway Friday night at D.C.'s legendary 9:30 Club with a private performance by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.
Check out photos from the gig here, and come back to SPIN.com on Monday for full FreeFest coverage and video interviews!
PHOTO BY Josh Sisk 09.25.10 12:00 pm Email this gallery
License Spin Photos here
ICELAND AIRWAVES FESTIVAL
Despite the ominous day the volcanoes in Iceland started erupting, ‘every (ash) cloud has a silver lining’, and with them, they bring: Iceland Airwaves. The world’s only truly unique festival brings us daytime lagoon parties in hot springs whilst live bands and DJs play at night in Reykjavik’s finest venues.
Electronic acts Robyn, Moderat, Silver Columns and Factory Floor will be joining the likes of Mount Kimbie, Everything Everything, Hurts, Joy Formidable, Hercules & Love Affair, and Alex Metric under the Northern Lights this October. With Germany’s ambient electronic trio Moderat and South Carolina multi-instrumentalist Toro Y Moi. UK's synth-pop Silver Columns and Factory Floor. Finally from FInland, the three-piece, boy baiting female electro-pop band Le Corps Mince De Francoise. Whilst Iceland's own Rökurró, authentic Reykjavik hip hop act Diddi Fel and melodic post-rock from For A Minor Reflection make their highly anticipated appearances. Full line-up here.
Dazed have paired up with the Festival to give readers a once in a lifetime chance to fly over to Iceland courtesy of IcelandAir with a friend, accommodation catered for, plus a pair of tickets for the Festival. To enter, simply e-mail airwaves@dazedgroup.com before 1st October 2010.
INTERNATIONAL LINEUP:
Alex Metric plus special guest Charlie XCX (UK), Basia Bulat (CA), Bombay Bicycle Club (UK), Efterklang (DK), Everything Everything (UK), Factory Floor (UK), Hercules and Love Affair (USA), Hundreds (DE), Hurts (UK), Jaakko and Jay (FI), JJ (SE), Joy Formidable (UK), Junip (SE), Le Corps Mince De Francoise (FI), Moderat (DE), Mount Kimbie (UK), Oh No Ono (DK), Robyn (SE), Silver Columns (UK), Slagsmålsklubben (SE), Snailhouse (CA), The Amplifetes (SE), The Antlers (USA), Think About Life (CA), Toro Y Moi (USA), Tunng (UK)
Electronic acts Robyn, Moderat, Silver Columns and Factory Floor will be joining the likes of Mount Kimbie, Everything Everything, Hurts, Joy Formidable, Hercules & Love Affair, and Alex Metric under the Northern Lights this October. With Germany’s ambient electronic trio Moderat and South Carolina multi-instrumentalist Toro Y Moi. UK's synth-pop Silver Columns and Factory Floor. Finally from FInland, the three-piece, boy baiting female electro-pop band Le Corps Mince De Francoise. Whilst Iceland's own Rökurró, authentic Reykjavik hip hop act Diddi Fel and melodic post-rock from For A Minor Reflection make their highly anticipated appearances. Full line-up here.
Dazed have paired up with the Festival to give readers a once in a lifetime chance to fly over to Iceland courtesy of IcelandAir with a friend, accommodation catered for, plus a pair of tickets for the Festival. To enter, simply e-mail airwaves@dazedgroup.com before 1st October 2010.
INTERNATIONAL LINEUP:
Alex Metric plus special guest Charlie XCX (UK), Basia Bulat (CA), Bombay Bicycle Club (UK), Efterklang (DK), Everything Everything (UK), Factory Floor (UK), Hercules and Love Affair (USA), Hundreds (DE), Hurts (UK), Jaakko and Jay (FI), JJ (SE), Joy Formidable (UK), Junip (SE), Le Corps Mince De Francoise (FI), Moderat (DE), Mount Kimbie (UK), Oh No Ono (DK), Robyn (SE), Silver Columns (UK), Slagsmålsklubben (SE), Snailhouse (CA), The Amplifetes (SE), The Antlers (USA), Think About Life (CA), Toro Y Moi (USA), Tunng (UK)
viernes, 24 de septiembre de 2010
Arcade Fire: The 411 On Indie's Biggest Band
Respect for the Game
It's 5:45 on a flawless summer afternoon at Montreal's Osheaga Music Festival, just under three hours before Arcade Fire are scheduled to play in front of a capacity crowd of over 50,000 -- by far their biggest ever show in their hometown -- but the gig is the last thing on anyone's mind. A more epic reckoning is at hand: a table-tennis throwdown with Pavement.
"I sent an e-mail to [Pavement's] Bob Nastanovich, saying I'd heard they were the best on the circuit," Jeremy Gara, Arcade Fire's drummer-shouter-guitarist, tells me. "He wrote me back a two-line answer: 'Pavement thanks you for your gracious invitation. Your ass is grass.' "
As he says this, Gara's eyes widen slightly, and he looks, even more than usual, like a mischievous and slightly startled little boy. "I hear [Stephen] Malkmus is good," he tells Tim Kingsbury, Arcade Fire's guitarist-bassist-keyboardist. (Note: Elaborate hyphenates are unavoidable when identifying the seven, at least, members of Arcade Fire.) Kingsbury nods his mop-topped head serenely.
"Win's good, too," Kingsbury, 33, says of his own band's singer-guitarist-bassist-keyboardist, Win Butler. "And he doesn't like to lose."
A small crowd starts to gather around the blue table. "I don't even play Ping-Pong," Gara, 32, murmurs. "What in God's name have I started?"
The men of Pavement arrive a few minutes later, dressed in polo shirts and shorts and tennis shoes, appearing in the ring of catering trailers with a certain low-key dignity, as befits their status as elder statesmen of the indie grind. (Not that the setup in Osheaga feels "indie," if that word has any currency left these days: Guitar techs, personal assistants, photographers, photographer's assistants, security, on-call masseuses, and God knows what else swarm around like so many aphids, and the food -- always the best barometer of a festival's fiscal health -- ranges from smoothies to jerk Alaskan king crab. There's an oyster bar, for Christ's sake. Did I mention the on-call masseuses?) Nastanovich, Pavement's tom-slapper, screamer, and all-purpose mascot, claims rustiness, then trounces Kingsbury, 36--15. Pavement guitarist Scott Kannberg and drummer Steve West opt out of the fray, leaving Malkmus and Win Butler, who've seemed a bit shy around each other so far, to get on with the afternoon's marquee event. As they step to the table, Butler tells Malkmus that he really enjoyed a show Pavement put on more than ten years ago. Malkmus shrugs affably. And so it begins.
For all that Malkmus and Butler have in common -- white boys from cushy backgrounds who front indie-rock outfits with rabid followings -- they couldn't seem more different from one another. Malkmus is a patrician and preppy well-to-do dad on vacation, while Butler, 30, with his vaguely paramilitary outfit and his lanky jock's body topped by a sandy brown quasi-mohawk, looks like Steve Nash channeling Joe Strummer. For a backstage hangout, especially one centered on a competitive sporting event, things feel pleasantly hierarchy-free, but even Arcade Fire's well-known commitment to collectivity has its limits. During a pause in the Butler-Malkmus face-off, two friends of the band tie up the table for a little too long. "C'mon, guys," Butler mutters impatiently. "Show a little respect for the game."
Butler and Malkmus resume their play with studied nonchalance, but the match is fast and fierce and nearly silent. Heckling is kept to a respectful minimum as members of the National rank among the looky-loos. The score, after two games, is a perfect draw: 21--16, 16--21. Butler wants to go best out of three, but there's the little matter of the aforementioned 50,000 fans, so the gentlemen of Pavement climb into a convoy of chauffeured golf carts and putter smoothly off into the sunset. I ask Gara if it feels as though a torch of some kind has been passed. Being a well-mannered young man (and a Canadian, to boot), he actually considers this question.
"I dunno," he says. "If Win had won, maybe?"
Three Hours Later
I'm standing on the right side of Osheaga's enormous main stage, observing a large crowd in the process of having their brains defibrillated. Subtlety is the first casualty of the festival circuit, and -- although precise, painstaking details abound on all Arcade Fire recordings, including their third album, The Suburbs, which will be released three days from now -- the band's live incarnation has all the nuance of a North Korean air show. At no point does any member of the band seem anything less than ecstatic: Richard Reed Parry and Will Butler, Win's younger brother, and Régine Chassagne, his wife, dash from one side of the stage to the other, switching from guitar to drums to keys to instruments I barely know the name of, sometimes mid-song; Kingsbury and Sarah Neufeld, on violin, thrash and sway and shudder gracefully; Gara bashes at the kit with his eyes and mouth wide open; and at the center of all this expertly stage-managed hysteria, Win lurches around like a heartbroken Frankenstein's monster. In the brief snatch of silence after "Month of May," The Suburbs' most blistering number, a starstruck hipster behind me turns to his googly-eyed girlfriend. "They're, like, six or seven bands all packed together," he murmurs.
"Yeah," says the girlfriend. "Inside of an aircraft carrier."
A lot of great bands -- even some Arcade Fire owe a debt to -- have built whole careers on self-doubt; not Win Butler and family. If one quality seems indivisible from the music they make, from their eponymous 2003 EP up to and including The Suburbs, it's conviction. Unabashable, indefatigable, Sherman's-March-through-Georgia righteousness, a blitzkrieg on apathy of every possible stripe comes across as clearly as a five-bell alarm on the band's recordings, but at their concerts it hits you physically, in your muscles and your rib cage and your intestines -- everywhere -- before your brain has had a chance to arm itself. The Suburbs' eighth track, "Half Light II (No Celebration)," makes this transaction plain: "Wanna wash away my sins / In the presence of my friends." If there's a more clear-cut summary of arena-rock catharsis than those two simple lines, I haven't come across it yet.
It's 5:45 on a flawless summer afternoon at Montreal's Osheaga Music Festival, just under three hours before Arcade Fire are scheduled to play in front of a capacity crowd of over 50,000 -- by far their biggest ever show in their hometown -- but the gig is the last thing on anyone's mind. A more epic reckoning is at hand: a table-tennis throwdown with Pavement.
"I sent an e-mail to [Pavement's] Bob Nastanovich, saying I'd heard they were the best on the circuit," Jeremy Gara, Arcade Fire's drummer-shouter-guitarist, tells me. "He wrote me back a two-line answer: 'Pavement thanks you for your gracious invitation. Your ass is grass.' "
As he says this, Gara's eyes widen slightly, and he looks, even more than usual, like a mischievous and slightly startled little boy. "I hear [Stephen] Malkmus is good," he tells Tim Kingsbury, Arcade Fire's guitarist-bassist-keyboardist. (Note: Elaborate hyphenates are unavoidable when identifying the seven, at least, members of Arcade Fire.) Kingsbury nods his mop-topped head serenely.
"Win's good, too," Kingsbury, 33, says of his own band's singer-guitarist-bassist-keyboardist, Win Butler. "And he doesn't like to lose."
A small crowd starts to gather around the blue table. "I don't even play Ping-Pong," Gara, 32, murmurs. "What in God's name have I started?"
The men of Pavement arrive a few minutes later, dressed in polo shirts and shorts and tennis shoes, appearing in the ring of catering trailers with a certain low-key dignity, as befits their status as elder statesmen of the indie grind. (Not that the setup in Osheaga feels "indie," if that word has any currency left these days: Guitar techs, personal assistants, photographers, photographer's assistants, security, on-call masseuses, and God knows what else swarm around like so many aphids, and the food -- always the best barometer of a festival's fiscal health -- ranges from smoothies to jerk Alaskan king crab. There's an oyster bar, for Christ's sake. Did I mention the on-call masseuses?) Nastanovich, Pavement's tom-slapper, screamer, and all-purpose mascot, claims rustiness, then trounces Kingsbury, 36--15. Pavement guitarist Scott Kannberg and drummer Steve West opt out of the fray, leaving Malkmus and Win Butler, who've seemed a bit shy around each other so far, to get on with the afternoon's marquee event. As they step to the table, Butler tells Malkmus that he really enjoyed a show Pavement put on more than ten years ago. Malkmus shrugs affably. And so it begins.
For all that Malkmus and Butler have in common -- white boys from cushy backgrounds who front indie-rock outfits with rabid followings -- they couldn't seem more different from one another. Malkmus is a patrician and preppy well-to-do dad on vacation, while Butler, 30, with his vaguely paramilitary outfit and his lanky jock's body topped by a sandy brown quasi-mohawk, looks like Steve Nash channeling Joe Strummer. For a backstage hangout, especially one centered on a competitive sporting event, things feel pleasantly hierarchy-free, but even Arcade Fire's well-known commitment to collectivity has its limits. During a pause in the Butler-Malkmus face-off, two friends of the band tie up the table for a little too long. "C'mon, guys," Butler mutters impatiently. "Show a little respect for the game."
Butler and Malkmus resume their play with studied nonchalance, but the match is fast and fierce and nearly silent. Heckling is kept to a respectful minimum as members of the National rank among the looky-loos. The score, after two games, is a perfect draw: 21--16, 16--21. Butler wants to go best out of three, but there's the little matter of the aforementioned 50,000 fans, so the gentlemen of Pavement climb into a convoy of chauffeured golf carts and putter smoothly off into the sunset. I ask Gara if it feels as though a torch of some kind has been passed. Being a well-mannered young man (and a Canadian, to boot), he actually considers this question.
"I dunno," he says. "If Win had won, maybe?"
Three Hours Later
I'm standing on the right side of Osheaga's enormous main stage, observing a large crowd in the process of having their brains defibrillated. Subtlety is the first casualty of the festival circuit, and -- although precise, painstaking details abound on all Arcade Fire recordings, including their third album, The Suburbs, which will be released three days from now -- the band's live incarnation has all the nuance of a North Korean air show. At no point does any member of the band seem anything less than ecstatic: Richard Reed Parry and Will Butler, Win's younger brother, and Régine Chassagne, his wife, dash from one side of the stage to the other, switching from guitar to drums to keys to instruments I barely know the name of, sometimes mid-song; Kingsbury and Sarah Neufeld, on violin, thrash and sway and shudder gracefully; Gara bashes at the kit with his eyes and mouth wide open; and at the center of all this expertly stage-managed hysteria, Win lurches around like a heartbroken Frankenstein's monster. In the brief snatch of silence after "Month of May," The Suburbs' most blistering number, a starstruck hipster behind me turns to his googly-eyed girlfriend. "They're, like, six or seven bands all packed together," he murmurs.
"Yeah," says the girlfriend. "Inside of an aircraft carrier."
A lot of great bands -- even some Arcade Fire owe a debt to -- have built whole careers on self-doubt; not Win Butler and family. If one quality seems indivisible from the music they make, from their eponymous 2003 EP up to and including The Suburbs, it's conviction. Unabashable, indefatigable, Sherman's-March-through-Georgia righteousness, a blitzkrieg on apathy of every possible stripe comes across as clearly as a five-bell alarm on the band's recordings, but at their concerts it hits you physically, in your muscles and your rib cage and your intestines -- everywhere -- before your brain has had a chance to arm itself. The Suburbs' eighth track, "Half Light II (No Celebration)," makes this transaction plain: "Wanna wash away my sins / In the presence of my friends." If there's a more clear-cut summary of arena-rock catharsis than those two simple lines, I haven't come across it yet.
EXCLUSIVE: At Home with Brandon Flowers
When we recently visited Brandon Flowers in his Las Vegas home, we discovered one of the most awesome items we've ever seen on our monthly visits to musicians' cribs, for SPIN's "In My Room" feature: A grand piano, given to Flowers by Elton John.
No big deal, right?
Flowers, 29, also showed off less glamorous but equally cherished goodies, like a tea cup that Morrissey used at a Vegas hotel — nicked by a pre-fame Flowers, who was an employee of the hotel.
Take a video tour of Flowers' pad below, and click at right to see the full spread from this month's issue of SPIN.
To hear a preview of Flowers' just-released solo debut, Flamingo, click here.
http://www.spin.com/articles/exclusive-home-brandon-flowers
No big deal, right?
Flowers, 29, also showed off less glamorous but equally cherished goodies, like a tea cup that Morrissey used at a Vegas hotel — nicked by a pre-fame Flowers, who was an employee of the hotel.
Take a video tour of Flowers' pad below, and click at right to see the full spread from this month's issue of SPIN.
To hear a preview of Flowers' just-released solo debut, Flamingo, click here.
http://www.spin.com/articles/exclusive-home-brandon-flowers
Kid Cudi: How He Made It in America
Kid Cudi twirls a neon-red, Darth Maul--style, double-bladed lightsaber skyward, and then catches it, mid-spin.
"I need this on tour, so when motherfuckers run up, I can just be, like, 'Breach!' " He twists his head around and shoots me a devilish look.
Dressed this August afternoon as casually as one can be wearing black leather pants and a gold Jesus piece pendant, Cudi, 26, is hanging at home, a sparse, high-ceiling loft in Manhattan's tony TriBeCa neighborhood. But the reference to defending himself is not quite a joke. Last December, onstage in Vancouver, Cudi picked up a wallet, thrown from the crowd, that he claimed had struck him square in the face. Irritated, he pointed out who he thought was the wallet's owner, a fan named Michael Sharpe, and tossed it to him. But the billfold didn't belong to Sharpe, so he tossed it back onstage. Cudi then leaped over a barricade and confronted Sharpe, who was smiling, thrilled to be face-to-face with an artist he admired. Misinterpreting the smile, Cudi popped the fan in the right eye. A frenzy ensued, bouncers lunged, and moments later Cudi dropped the mic and left. It's all on YouTube, for posterity.
Then, something unexpected happened. Sharpe told TMZ the next day: "I'm not upset, I'm not going to be that person. I just want to meet him and be like, 'I'm the guy you punched.' I'm not going to press charges."
Five months after the incident, a regretful Cudi brought Sharpe onstage at Seattle's Sasquatch Festival during the song "Pursuit of Happiness." Afterward, the two had pizza at Cudi's hotel. "We're good friends [now]," he says.
Typical Cudi. He's a star in the traditional sense--handsome, styled just so, a bit of a prima donna. But he carries a tidal wave of insecurity and empathy with him. It's a vulnerability, uncommon in the preening world of hip-hop, that has made him an avatar for young, plainspoken dysfunction. And despite, or in part because of, these genuinely distressed emotional flare-ups, Kid Cudi has exceptionally loyal fans.
"At least 104,000," he says, leaning against a Bape pillow on a sectional couch and taking a pull on his third weed-filled Swisher of the day. The number becomes a sort of mantra during our interview. Actually, it's the number of copies sold (104,419 exactly) of his debut album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, in its first week of 2009 release, good for a No. 4 debut on the Billboard chart. Most of the sales were propelled by breakout single "Day 'N' Nite." Even now, nearly three years since it was recorded and four since it was written, the song sounds like an alien outlier. It's all bloops, astral synths, and a remarkable half-sung melody--"The lonely stoner seems to free his mind at night." Like some evolutionary strand of new-age rap, it became a rallying cry for the disaffected and depressed. When the Italian duo Crookers' electro-house remix hit in late 2008, a swarm of antic, active fans--many in Europe--bought in. Jim Jones, Trey Songz, Pitbull, and many others recorded their own versions. The song has sold an astonishing 2.3 million digital singles.
Despite concern from his co-managers--Patrick "Plain Pat" Reynolds, a longtime Kanye West affiliate, and producer Emile Haynie, the rapper's primary musical collaborator--Cudi hasn't been haunted by the shadow of "Day 'N' Nite." "I think he knows he's a star now," Haynie says. "But before we put out the first album, to a lot of people he was just the 'Day 'N' Nite' guy."
In fact, the first thing Cudi wants to do when we sit down is play a song he's just recorded with "Day 'N' Nite" producer Dot Da Genius that he's hoping to squeeze onto his new album, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager, before deadline. It might be called "Not That Bad," but it's unfinished. As the swaying, sunken beat begins, Cudi taps his retro Air Jordan IV Pure Money $ sneakers on the floor.
The chorus is simple, but considered: "I'm not that bad at all / When you think of the world / It's not that bad at all."
Anyone who has followed the problematic aspects of Cudi's life to this point--his struggle with drugs, his violent outbursts, a recent arrest--will understand why he's giving himself (and everyone, really) a pass. He has to. It's the only way to keep the doubts from consuming him.
"I need this on tour, so when motherfuckers run up, I can just be, like, 'Breach!' " He twists his head around and shoots me a devilish look.
Dressed this August afternoon as casually as one can be wearing black leather pants and a gold Jesus piece pendant, Cudi, 26, is hanging at home, a sparse, high-ceiling loft in Manhattan's tony TriBeCa neighborhood. But the reference to defending himself is not quite a joke. Last December, onstage in Vancouver, Cudi picked up a wallet, thrown from the crowd, that he claimed had struck him square in the face. Irritated, he pointed out who he thought was the wallet's owner, a fan named Michael Sharpe, and tossed it to him. But the billfold didn't belong to Sharpe, so he tossed it back onstage. Cudi then leaped over a barricade and confronted Sharpe, who was smiling, thrilled to be face-to-face with an artist he admired. Misinterpreting the smile, Cudi popped the fan in the right eye. A frenzy ensued, bouncers lunged, and moments later Cudi dropped the mic and left. It's all on YouTube, for posterity.
Then, something unexpected happened. Sharpe told TMZ the next day: "I'm not upset, I'm not going to be that person. I just want to meet him and be like, 'I'm the guy you punched.' I'm not going to press charges."
Five months after the incident, a regretful Cudi brought Sharpe onstage at Seattle's Sasquatch Festival during the song "Pursuit of Happiness." Afterward, the two had pizza at Cudi's hotel. "We're good friends [now]," he says.
Typical Cudi. He's a star in the traditional sense--handsome, styled just so, a bit of a prima donna. But he carries a tidal wave of insecurity and empathy with him. It's a vulnerability, uncommon in the preening world of hip-hop, that has made him an avatar for young, plainspoken dysfunction. And despite, or in part because of, these genuinely distressed emotional flare-ups, Kid Cudi has exceptionally loyal fans.
"At least 104,000," he says, leaning against a Bape pillow on a sectional couch and taking a pull on his third weed-filled Swisher of the day. The number becomes a sort of mantra during our interview. Actually, it's the number of copies sold (104,419 exactly) of his debut album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, in its first week of 2009 release, good for a No. 4 debut on the Billboard chart. Most of the sales were propelled by breakout single "Day 'N' Nite." Even now, nearly three years since it was recorded and four since it was written, the song sounds like an alien outlier. It's all bloops, astral synths, and a remarkable half-sung melody--"The lonely stoner seems to free his mind at night." Like some evolutionary strand of new-age rap, it became a rallying cry for the disaffected and depressed. When the Italian duo Crookers' electro-house remix hit in late 2008, a swarm of antic, active fans--many in Europe--bought in. Jim Jones, Trey Songz, Pitbull, and many others recorded their own versions. The song has sold an astonishing 2.3 million digital singles.
Despite concern from his co-managers--Patrick "Plain Pat" Reynolds, a longtime Kanye West affiliate, and producer Emile Haynie, the rapper's primary musical collaborator--Cudi hasn't been haunted by the shadow of "Day 'N' Nite." "I think he knows he's a star now," Haynie says. "But before we put out the first album, to a lot of people he was just the 'Day 'N' Nite' guy."
In fact, the first thing Cudi wants to do when we sit down is play a song he's just recorded with "Day 'N' Nite" producer Dot Da Genius that he's hoping to squeeze onto his new album, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager, before deadline. It might be called "Not That Bad," but it's unfinished. As the swaying, sunken beat begins, Cudi taps his retro Air Jordan IV Pure Money $ sneakers on the floor.
The chorus is simple, but considered: "I'm not that bad at all / When you think of the world / It's not that bad at all."
Anyone who has followed the problematic aspects of Cudi's life to this point--his struggle with drugs, his violent outbursts, a recent arrest--will understand why he's giving himself (and everyone, really) a pass. He has to. It's the only way to keep the doubts from consuming him.
Chris Walla Talks New Death Cab for Cutie Album
Over the last year, Chris Walla has focused on producing records for Seattle's Telekinesis, indie-pop quartet Lonely Forest, and cutting a Led Zeppelin cover of "In the Evening" for the forthcoming compilation From the Land of Ice and Snow. Now, Walla will turn his attention to his main gig: Death Cab for Cutie.
The guitarist tells SPIN that they've already been working on ideas for their seventh record, which the band began writing and recording back in June. "We're working in fits and starts," he says. "It's hard to say — we might be half done, we may not have started."
For Death Cab's last album Narrow Stairs, Walla, frontman Ben Gibbard, bassist Nick Harmer and drummer Jason McGerr took a relaxed approach to the sessions and the results were a loose, jammy collection of tunes. "With that one, it was live off the floor," says Walla.
But Death Cab are getting way more ambitious for the next record, treating it more like "a construction project." "We're in the phase where songs could be so cool with just two acoustic guitars or they could be really good with sequencers," says Walla. "We're trying on all the outfits with the songs."
Walla — who will also be producing the album — adds that the band isn't in any rush to get out a new record, although Gibbard has estimated it would be out sometime in early 2011. "We've got enough time this time and we're way just into exploring these possibilities rather than going with our gut," he says. "We've ended up with some cool stuff. It's been fun so far."
The guitarist tells SPIN that they've already been working on ideas for their seventh record, which the band began writing and recording back in June. "We're working in fits and starts," he says. "It's hard to say — we might be half done, we may not have started."
For Death Cab's last album Narrow Stairs, Walla, frontman Ben Gibbard, bassist Nick Harmer and drummer Jason McGerr took a relaxed approach to the sessions and the results were a loose, jammy collection of tunes. "With that one, it was live off the floor," says Walla.
But Death Cab are getting way more ambitious for the next record, treating it more like "a construction project." "We're in the phase where songs could be so cool with just two acoustic guitars or they could be really good with sequencers," says Walla. "We're trying on all the outfits with the songs."
Walla — who will also be producing the album — adds that the band isn't in any rush to get out a new record, although Gibbard has estimated it would be out sometime in early 2011. "We've got enough time this time and we're way just into exploring these possibilities rather than going with our gut," he says. "We've ended up with some cool stuff. It's been fun so far."
martes, 21 de septiembre de 2010
RISE: HERE WE GO MAGIC The energetic Brooklyn band get remixed by Neon Indian and Warp's PVT.
Brooklyn's electro-folk five-piece Here We Go Magic are currently enjoying a great year. Their recent album 'Pigeons' was critically acclaimed and the band have recently collaborated with Neon Indian and Warp's PVT. The project was started by former folk singer Luke Temple, he released a self-titled album 'Here We Go Music' in 2009. Temple has since expanded the band. The band's next single 'Casual' is released on the 13th September through Secretly Canadian coinciding with a UK tour including appearances at Bestival and End of the Road festival. Dazed speak to guitarist and co-vocalist Michael Bloch about mullets and lo mein.
WHAT'S…
...so special about you, then?
Six invisible arms
...your worst vice?
Lo mein
…the story behind your name?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_We_Go_Magic
...good for breakfast?
Is this just a way to get me to say "bangers"?
...your worst fashion secret?
8th grade mullet
...your favourite website?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrd13cGv2GU
...a dream collaborator?
Richard Feynman
...at the top of your shit list?
Diarrhea
...are you listening to now?
Hotel lobby version of the Jurassic Park soundtrack
How would you describe your work?
40% sitting, 20% lifting, 10% youtube, 10% e-mail, 5% eating, 5% playing music, 3% dancing, 2% kissing.
Text by Lucy Bridger
WHAT'S…
...so special about you, then?
Six invisible arms
...your worst vice?
Lo mein
…the story behind your name?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_We_Go_Magic
...good for breakfast?
Is this just a way to get me to say "bangers"?
...your worst fashion secret?
8th grade mullet
...your favourite website?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrd13cGv2GU
...a dream collaborator?
Richard Feynman
...at the top of your shit list?
Diarrhea
...are you listening to now?
Hotel lobby version of the Jurassic Park soundtrack
How would you describe your work?
40% sitting, 20% lifting, 10% youtube, 10% e-mail, 5% eating, 5% playing music, 3% dancing, 2% kissing.
Text by Lucy Bridger
Radiohead Finish Recording New Songs
Looks like a new Radiohead record is on the way! Bassist Colin Greenwood has offered an update on the band's recording status. "[We've] just finished another group of songs and have begun to wonder how to release them in a digital landscape that's changed again," he wrote in an essay for the U.K. organization Index on Censorship.
While Greenwood didn’t offer any details about how or when the album will be released -- "We have yet to decide how to release our next record," he writes -- he does go in depth about the band's decision to release 2007's In Rainbows without a label's help and why he thinks discussion and distribution of music on the Internet is finally moving out of its "adolescence." Check out the essay here.
While Greenwood didn’t offer any details about how or when the album will be released -- "We have yet to decide how to release our next record," he writes -- he does go in depth about the band's decision to release 2007's In Rainbows without a label's help and why he thinks discussion and distribution of music on the Internet is finally moving out of its "adolescence." Check out the essay here.
How They Became... Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
Welcome to the new weekly SPIN.com feature "Name That Band"; in which we get the inside stories behind the mysterious monikers of some of our favorite artists. (See past episodes of Name That Band! here.)
This week: Richard Edwards of Margot & The Nuclear So and So's, whose Buzzard is out September 21.
Why Margot & the Nuclear So and So's: "I was driving to class at the University of Indiana in a minivan one the morning, around 9 or 10 a.m." recalls frontman Richard Edwards, "and the name just popped into my head. I think it's because I was in the middle of an obsession with Dr. Strangelove back in 2002, 2003 when the band started. I think that's where the nuclear reference comes from. The full title of the movie is Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. So I had the idea of long titles in my head too. The rest of the band was pretty disappointed when I brought the name to them. Andy Fry, our old guitar player, thought it was too long. I agree with him."
Previously Rejected Names: "There weren't any other names. I was pretty forceful about Margot. There was no democracy. I did used to play in a band called Vegetables, though."
Best Band Names Ever: "There's a band from Chicago called Baby Teeth. I don't know their music but they've got a great name. I wish I'd thought of it. Weezer is a kick-ass name, too. "
Worst Band Name Ever: "Puddle of Mudd. That's pretty bad. There's a band called Hypsterz. That's also not a great time."
Music ELECTROCLASH PIONEER MISS KITTIN
ELECTROCLASH PIONEER MISS KITTIN
Published on Wednesday
The first lady of electro is back with a truck-load of catchy electronic pop tunes under her belt.
ELECTROCLASH PIONEER MISS KITTIN
Published on Wednesday
The first lady of electro is back with a truck-load of catchy electronic pop tunes under her belt.
- Text by Dazed Digital
Dazed Digital: How do you feel your own music has progressed since you first started out?
Miss Kittin: I am getting closer to the kind of pop-electronic song structures I'm trying to reach. Of course when I started, I didn't expect anything like where I am now, I was just a raver who happened to DJ and then speak on tracks, all by "accident". Since then, I travelled around the world, performed as a DJ and my voice exploded. By practicing, on stage or on devices in the studio years after years, I now can finally make my ideas come true. I am conscious the kind of music I have in mind is a niche, too electronic for the masses and too pop for the "underground" but I feel good in this position, this is my home. I am at a crossroads, it defines me well.
DD: Having been such a major part of the electroclash stuff earlier on, what are you listening to for 2010? Your charts tend to include more progressive/tech-house sounds now?
Miss Kittin: I am listening to a lot of things. At home or in clubs. In private I have a huge taste for rock, punk, electronica or simply good pop music. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Biosphere, Bola, Serge Gainsbourg, old kitsch things like Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, Ella Fitzgerald, Iggy Pop, Leonard Cohen, Outkast, Sebastien Tellier, or Fever Ray are among the things running in my iPod lately.
In clubs, I regularly listen to other DJs - it's important, to have fun and open my ears, which is not the case of many of us. I always played Detroit techno in between, pure electro or minimal tools. It's the big jump between all these styles that drives me, artistically and technically. The aim is: how can I play together all the things I like, without taking care of labels, and keep people dancing? It takes a lot of research to find special tunes in your old DJ bags, B-sides, forgotten tracks. Good beats, good melodies. What you play is clearly influenced by what you can find in the new releases today.
So it's true I am back to a certain idea of trance, what you guys call "progressive" which is for me a different type of trance, more british. I always liked it in the German sense of the word, Sven Vath's early 90s flavour. Why? Because there's excellent releases like this right now, because it brings a room together after few years of split atmospheres. I am lucky that this sound is back. Let's say we come back to a sound coming from the heart, less from the brain. I am not the type of musician or DJ running in a loop between the studio and the gigs, I have a life!
DD: Where are your favourite places to play?
Miss Kittin: Many... Ibiza of course, because it's a concentration of all what you can find in electronic music. Well, nearly... I love Spain in general, long love story. I love South America for teaching me how to sublime life through music. I love Japan for the sci-fi feeling lost into a structured society. I love France because it's home, I don't have to travel far and there's so much to do here for music! I love London and Scotland for the rough party style. Italy came on the map a few years ago and I discovered amazing clubs with a long history, plus, the food is great!
I am looking forward to go to Israel for the first time this month.
DD: You've worked with many people like Golden Boy/The Hacker… any dream collaborations for future?
Miss Kittin: I have... But it's a complicated one, let's see how it goes... Otherwise, for the hundredth time, if Damon Albarn calls me...
DD: You recently started your own fashion line? What are the inspirations for the latest collection?
Miss Kittin: It's not really a fashion line, it's fun accessories like purses, for a French brand called Lollipops. Again, it happened for fun, I got introduced to Marjorie, the boss, and we got along. I want to keep it that way. I think the collection reflects this fun, rock'n'roll influenced, girly, black-white-red, something to party. I am working on the summer collection for next year already.
EXCLUSIVE MARK RONSON FILM: "LOSE IT IN THE END"
The music producer talks about his album track 'Lose it in the End' alongside working with Ghostface and Alex Greenwald.
In the October issue of Dazed, Mark Ronson takes over eight pages with some of the musicians from The Business Intl. In this exclusive film by Gavin Elder, the producer talks about working with Ghostface, Alex Greenwald, Johnny from The Drums, and picking up the mic to sing lead vocals on album track, "Lose It In The End". Buy the new issue to read more Business Intl interviews with Cathy Dennis, Boy George, Johnny, Rose Elinor Dougall, and Alex Greenwald.
Exclusive Mark Ronson film: "Lose it in the End".
In the October issue of Dazed, Mark Ronson takes over eight pages with some of the musicians from The Business Intl. In this exclusive film by Gavin Elder, the producer talks about working with Ghostface, Alex Greenwald, Johnny from The Drums, and picking up the mic to sing lead vocals on album track, "Lose It In The End". Buy the new issue to read more Business Intl interviews with Cathy Dennis, Boy George, Johnny, Rose Elinor Dougall, and Alex Greenwald.
Exclusive Mark Ronson film: "Lose it in the End".
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