I fell in love with “Still Sound”, one of the songs off of this new record from the South Carolina based Chazwick Bundick, aka Toro y Moi earlier this month and have been waiting with just about still breath for the release of this full length record. Today’s the day. Hooray!
Gol’dang we love these guys and we love this band. 2 separate but equal loves.
The super rad Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin have a new record coming out next month on August 17th called “Let It Sway” and like many of their fans, I could not be more excited and full of anticipation. Nicely, as these dudes always are, they’ve put up a lovely short film about the making of this record. “Let It Sway” was produced by Chris Walla, of Death Cab For Cutie, and is the first record that SSLYBY hasn’t self-produced. From the sounds of the first single and a couple of other sneak peak listens at live shows of new songs, it hasn’t changed their sound, it’s just freed the band up to be even better than before.
Anyhoo, yay! Watch the documentary about “Let It Sway” by clicking the image above, and click the below for more information on the new record in all it’s forms (CD, vinyl, you know the drill) and from their label Polyvinyl or click here for pre-ordering.
And click to pre-order info for sslyby's "Let It Sway" from Polyvinyl.
2-color, all hand screenprinted poster for the band Vetiver's show at the 2010 Sasquatch Music Festival. (click for more details or to purchase.)
Just released and ready to go! This is my new poster for the band Vetiver, from their Sasquatch Festival show this past weekend at The Gorge on George, Wa.
2010 is the 4th year in a row that I’ve had the pleasure of working with Sasquatch in their poster series that they arrange with the top poster artists from around the country, pairing them up with their favorite bands appearing at Sasquatch each year. We couldn’t be happier that we were paired up with a great band like Vetiver!
This is my 2-color, all hand screenprinted poster for Vetiver with deep brown and sunset-orange, hand mixed and non-toxic water based screenprinting inks. These posters are signed (by me) and numbered. Edition of 90. Size: 16 x22 inches (39.4 cm x 55.9 cm.) Paper: archival Cougar, White 100lb cover weight.
I design & hand screenprint my prints and posters. If you have any questions, just let me know!
Click here to to listen to the new "This Is Happening" LCD Soundsystem record preview
I didn’t think that I could love LCD Soundsytem more, and yet it turns out that I can.
And I do.
Simple little post here. Basically, this new record sounds great. James Murphy & co are back, and awesomer than even before. Best, to pre-empt illegal downloads, there is a heft preview of the new record, “This Is Happening” on their site here. Click! Listen! Fall deeper in love.
Early favorite tracks here are Dance Yrself Clean, Pow Pow (! so good!), and of course, Drunk Girls. 😉
If you love it too, buy this jam when it comes out and support your favorite artists so they can keep making awesome.
Click to watch Phoenix play live, outdoors in Paris.
Un, duex, trois, quatre!
It’s not secret that I love the band Phoenix, (they’re the best) nor the fantastic paris based music blog La Blogotheque and their signature Les Concerts A Emporter, or Take-Away Shows. If you are not familiar, the basic premise is always the same, where French filmmaker Vincent Moon asks a band to play a short set, often consisting of just 2-3 songs, at an impromptu and outdoor location, usually accoutically, while he films the moment.
The Take-Away Shows are often really lovely and intimate, almost always with small surprises and little treats that can only happen with the unplanned & gentle collision of a band suddenly playing live in public spaces not typically made for such moments.
Click to watch Phoenix play live, outdoors in Paris.
A perfect case in point are the most recent 4 songs on La Blogotheque featuring the French band Phoenix, (who sing just about exclusively in English), and are perhaps better known outside of their home country than withing their native France.
In this heart melting set of 4 songs for Take-Away Shows (or more rightly Les Concerts A Emporter), quite possibly my favorite band Phoenix performs 1901 at Trocedero Square, close to the Eiffel Tower, with lots of passersby simply stopping to get an ear and eyeful of the band. There’s even a freshly married couple among the gathering crowd, and it simply couldn’t be more romantic.
Click to watch Phoenix play live, outdoors in Paris.
Phoenix then moves onto a crowded Parisian tour bus, taking seats at the back of the open upper deck and play 2 songs (Lisztomania & One Time Too Many) while the bus and it’s happily surprised tourists take a ride through Paris streets. The final show is Long Distance Call, played beautifully under a stone bridge along the Seine, complete with a sweet echos from the pigeon encrusted columns of the bridge. My favorite band + my favorite city = I’m done for.
In keeping with the previous post today, I thought I’d share this quite cool internet radio station that I found today, called Christmas Vinyl, When Music Was Music, where the only music is Christmas related fare recorded on vinyl. I have to say that I sort of love the somewhat cranky implication that music released on vinyl, and in vinyl’s heyday is better than more recent music. There is something to be said for classics and tradition and sticklerhood.
Beyond that, this station, Christmas Vinyl is really cool for mixing all sorts of vinyl recordings of Christmas songs from Burl Ives (!) to jazz artists like Bing Crosby or Ella Fitzgerald to lesser known, session & pop singers, as well as instrumentals and choral works. Basically, if a Christmas song was recorded on vinyl? They’re up for playing it over there. The site itself Christmas Vinyl is only able to handle 500 listeners at a time, but! Fear not. I actually found the site via Shoutcast.com Radio, and they’re listener capacity is much larger. Just search for “Christmas Vinyl” in Shoutcast.com’s search box when you click here. If you do listen to Christmas Vinyl‘s stream from their website, you get an accurate current and upcoming track listing that’s pretty handy too. Also, it’s really nice when you can hear little noises that you only get with vinyl. Very warm and cozy.
I’m listening to a lovely recording of Louis Armstrong singing “Christmas Night In Harlem” and not only does it give the phrase “all lit up like a Christmas Tree” an added meaning, it’s the jam.
If you read my blog even semi-regularly, you know that I am a fan of the NPR music show All Songs Considered. And while I don’t get to listen to every single show, you may consider me curating their offerings for you when I post about a show here on my blog.
Christmas and holiday music is something so ubiquitous as to almost be a joke. Either the crushingly sweet songs that you come to expect are blaring at you from all directions from retail stores from Thanksgiving (or sooner, ugh) until practically New Year’s, or the “ironic” or what I call trashy Christmas & holiday music is thrust out like some sort of cure to the overly sentimental traditional offerings. (It’s not.)
However, look, the reality is that we all grew up with the experience of music switching from whatever is on the radio to a slew of holiday cheer for a few special weeks a year. I still get nostalgic thinking about that inexplicably special day when the Christmas music vinyl records would come out of the catalogue my parents had and the hours that I would pour over their cover art and listen so closely to each note. From the Harry Simeone Chorale “The Little Drummer Boy” collection, to the slightly weird and awesome Victoriana throwback “A Music Box Christmas” by Rita Ford. Or the parade of hits from the 1940’s – 1980’s that would fill my neighbor’s house for 2 or 3 days at a time, day & night while 3 generations of women made dozens of types of cookies creating a bounty of literally hundreds and hundreds of treats for us all.
Somehow, while being able to laugh at ridiculous songs as well as collecting some really great tunes, the All Songs Considered Holiday Music mix isn’t smarmy or ironic or jackassed. (Have I told you that I am completely sick of and over irony as a statement? I am. It’s boring. Knock it off.) It’s just good, fun, and yes, ready? Jolly.
There. I said it. I’m listening to it right now as I write this, and I’m recommending it to all of you. Enjoy , Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
Au Revoir Simone play live at Seattle's KEXP (photo by Dan Shultz)
As a bit of an NPR junkie, you might be able to imagine that the musical offshoot, NPR Music’s All Song Considered is an even bigger addiction for me. If you are not familiar with it, come on, climb out from underneath that rock friend.
As a designer, I’m always interested in how things are put together, and more specifically as a rock poster designer, well, of course I listen to what is likely an ungodly amount of music, all day, and sometimes all night long. So the gigantic culling breadth of All Song Considered and it’s amazing way of finding and showcasing music, bands and process makes it just about one of my favorite stops to park on the web.
Part three, the final installment. Finally!! Parce que c’est trés bon!
Oui, the new Phoenix record is out.
Ahh, really, I feel like I shouldn’t even write and prattle on about this record. Instead, I just really urge you to listen. I mean, if mostly all that you dig is Black Metal, well, you might want to move along to something like Big Business’ new record. (And yes, I know that Big Business isn’t Black Metal, don’t be rude.)
But, if you’ve been on board with the previous two new releases of May here, get on the bag son. Wolfgang Amdeus Phoenix might be my favorite Phoenix record. Scratch that, it is my favorite.
Again, like the previous two records discussed (The Wooden Birds, Magnolia and Jason Lytle’s Yours Truly, The Commuter), Phoenix not only have continued the reincarnation theme that seems so prevalent this May, but more, they have done something super special, complete and lovely with their new record Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Sprite, multi-layered, poppy and webby like a giant tight rubber band, I think that you just need to listen. And, you can do so here on Myspace for free, of course. Or, you can purchase the record here on iTunes and support the band, or (gasp!) leave the house and find this record at your local indie music store.
I don’t know why this superbe French band sings in English, but I’m glad that they do. Though even if they sung en Français comme Stereolab, I’d still be singing along to every word phonetically. Phoenix is on tour in the US now (dates here), so give it a go if you’re lucky enough to live someplace where this quartet of awesome is landing for a night.
Some fun things always crop up on the Phoenix blog here, such as a few process photos from a screenprinted run of vinyl LP covers here (!) Don’t know who printed them, but I’d love to. Anyone out there know?
And now, for part two of a probably just 3-part series of posts. Unless of course, you have a recommendation, then feel free to let me know of anything else released in May.
Part two, and certainly not in any order at all, is Jason Lytle and his first solo record, Yours Truly, The Commuter, released by the fiercly rad ANTI. It’s a bit of a head-scratcher, really, as it feels like he’s released a solo record before. But he hasn’t. And this one is worth the wait. Ooooh yes.
Following the apparent theme of reincarnation for music in May this year, once again, you may feel this record sounds familiar, and I honestly hope that you do. That would mean that you are already familiar with Grandaddy, one of Lytle’s previous and superb band projects. Furthermore, if that’s the case, then you really ought to listen to, and will likely also love this first solo record Yours Truly, The Commuter as well.
Written, recorded, and sung by Lytle from every angle, as he played each instrument and sang all of the vocal tracks, it’s about as complete a record as one can get without being self-indulgent in any way. Again, we’re into editing, choices and commitment to a vision around here, and again, we love it when music is made with those sorts of internal parameters too.
Do you like thoughts of floating, flying, dreaming and falling in love all over again with the beloved pets that have moved onto the fields near The Rainbow Bridge? Then this record and Jason Lytle in general, are you for you. Bub.
Yours Truly, The Commuter is available at yoru local independent record stores, and also on iTunes with a bonus track “Weather Girl”. You can also listen to a few tracks for free on Myspace. And better, Jason Lytle is embarking on a great big US tour this summer, dates here, hopefully some are near you. Mad stoked for the Pittsburgh show at motherfreaking SANDCASTLE water slide park, what?!
And now, for the greatest interview on good songwriting ever:
So, around these parts? We love music. Stunning revelation, I know.
Also, around these parts, we love melodic, perhaps occasionally quiet, intentional, well constructed and pretty stuff too. Kinda like design, we appreciate restraint and the product of many choices, edits and vision. With that leaning, let me tell you, it’s a lovely month for music with two fantastic new and newly-incarnated, say reincarnated even, releases.
The Wooden Birds first record, Magnolia
The first is The Wooden Birds‘ first record, Magnolia, put out by Barsuk records. Give a listen, fall in love, feel the eerie sweet. Sound slightly familiar? Ahh yes, then you also were a fan of The American Analog Set. A band dear to my heart. Andrew Kenny, of AmAnSet has moved home to Austin, TX, regrouped and formed a new band in The Wooden Birds. And! They are out on tour right now, dates listed here, so if you’re approving and inclined, go see them. They’re pretty great, and we can’t wait until we get a chance to see them ourselves. Magnolia is available on through Barsuk Records in the US, Morr Music in Europe, and on iTunes as well as your local independent record store. You can always listen for free at Myspace, if you think I’m joshing. (Which, come on…)
Two cool and fresh things musically that you should be aware of this week:
Sigur Ros, performing in the small Parisian restuarant, la Closerie des Lilas
1. The hauntingly excellent Sigur Ros‘ appearance on the Paris-based fantastic music + performance blog La Blogotheque‘s super dupes Les Concerts A Emporter, aka in English Takeaway Shows. If you are not familiar with the Takeaway Shows, well, here is your chance to get cozy with one of the most fun, creative and intimate things going on with current music. Filmmaker Vincent Moon shoots bands performing acoustically in an ever-changing array of impromptu and unexpected places from small Parisian alleys (Of Montreal vs Axe Riverboy), to hotel rooms (Tom Jones), to an abandoned turn-of-the-century exhibition hall (The Fleet Foxes) and in this case Sigur Ros sitting in booths and playing at the very small, very old, and exceptionally traditional Paris restaurant la Closerie des Lilas. Check out Sigur Ros’ Takeaway Show here.
Del The Funky Homosapien's stimulus package, Funk Man
2. Hell yes! Del The Funky Homosapien is making his new bag of tricks, Funk Man available for a free download. I’m listening to it now, and it is awesome. Click download, enter your email address and zippy little link for you to get your own free copy of funky stimulus is yours. Thanks Del! Get your Funk Man on here.
This is just so super cool and fuzzy & warm and awesome. Neko Case, as if she wasn’t already rad enough, is doing a animal-rescue friendly promotion that will run from January 13 to February 3, 2009.With a new album. Middle Cyclone,coming out on March 3, 2009 she is pre-releasing a downloadable single called “People Gotta Lot Of Nerve” but with an added bonus.
Neko Case and ANTI– will make a cash donation to the amazing Best Friends Animal Society, possibly best known for being the shelter facilty that runs Dogtown and has taken in 22 of the abused former fighting dogs from the Michael Vick dogfighting ring case. For every blog that posts reposts the single Five dollars ($5!) will be donated to the Best Friends Animal Society and or every user of iLike that adds the song to his/her profile. one dollar ($1!) will be donated toBest Friends Animal Society. The Vick dogs, and literally hundreds of other abused animals are cared for every day, rehabilitated and when possible, adopted into loving home because of the fantastic & dedicated work of the people at Best Friends Animal Society.
SO! Download the song and enjoy, because like Ms. Case, it’s an ass kicker. If you have a blog? Please post about this limited time donation and add this download to your blogs.
I listen to music all day long, always in the car (unless it’s NPR time), and when I’m printing, cleaning the house, etc. Like, basically? A lot. A ton if you will, even. And despite the fact that between me & my fella’s huge collection and varied tastes in music, I still find myself bored with what I’m listening to from time to time. It’s really sort of crazy if you look at it from a volume standpoint. But, it makes perfect sense really if you think of music as a driving force in creativity. Especially for people like us who also work in and for the music industry. Music, creativity, art, emotion, thought…they are all linked in a nice messy complicated creature.
One of the ways that I regularly combat this need for fresh sounds is to check out what’s new on National Public Radio (NPR)’s awesome show All Songs Considered, (a show featured in NPR’s also excellent NPR Music offerings) hosted by music fanatic and super open Bob Boilen. If you are a NPR junkie like myself, you’ll get the pun, if not…the title is still apt and clear.
What I love about All Songs Considered is the easy mixing of live shows at music clubs or in studio at NPR and exclusive studio recorded music, as well as the variety of bands and performers covered. Lots of music outlets promise variety in their catalogue, All Songs Considered delivers. It’s a little bit insane. You are as likely to find the newest in new movements, let alone artists, from all around the globe working in genres as varied as human history as you are an old favorite working out something new over yonder. I consistently find stuff that I didn’t know existed, forgot that I had liked, or thought that I would never dig and yet…BANG. Awesome. There is something to be said for excellence in curation.
A new and cool feature for 2009, All Songs Considered will be debuting new work from musicians with online record release parties, followed by live chat sessions to review and discuss a couple of days later. To start off this new venture, January has record special releases from Andrew Bird, M. Ward, and Animal Collective Neat, right? The first in the series is Andrew Bird’s record release yesterday Janury 5th, 2009 followed by a live chat on Thursday January 8th, 2009 at 1pm EST.
I’m not usually much of a cover-song girl, I’ll be honest, but these covers by Of Montreal are super. It’s no surprise right? I’ve done two posters for these guys to date, so you know, it might be obvious that I love them. This collection runs from Led Zepplin to Prince to Boston to Elf Power and more, more more.
Of Montreal is one of the best bands currently alive and playing and breathing. And they play a lot of covers in their live shows. The music blog You Ain’t No Picasso has culled really solid collection of live covers up from these super heroes of rock right now. A slew of them if you will, with 52 hot-assed, booty shaking covers, there’s plenty of pie for everyone. Just click on the site and a convenient player rolls through them all for you. Heaven.
