You might remember Vivek Shraya from a post on this very blog a long time ago. Well, our favorite Canadian indie/electro upstart is back with his sophomore album “Keys and Machines” and it’s set for a release this November! So hold onto your hat and enjoy this funky preview track “In Out” featuring Meghan Toohey.
The Main Drag are an indie/electro/pop band out of Boston Massachusetts. Like Passion Pit, another Massachusetts band, these guys have an ear for a good pop song, and also like Passion Pit they throw everything and the kitchen sink into their mixes. Everything from strings and glitches to horns makes it’s way into their songs. The Main Drags overall sound is a bit more of a traditional rock sound that only leans on synths occasionally. The main heft of their songs is lifted by their nimble guitar work. They’ve gone on to be salon.com’s #1 unsigned artist and have a song featured in a Target commercial.
The band has also done an excellent cover of LCD Soundsystem’s ‘All My Friends’. I know what you’re thinking: “Oh great, another ‘All My Friends’ cover, whoop dee doo.” Well imagine the Arcade Fire covering the song over skittering dance beats with Beirut on vocals and you’re getting into the ballpark of what it sounds like.
Also, if you’re interested, here are some tour dates:
June 20- Allston, MA – The Great Scott
June 22- Chicago, IL – Schubas
June 23- Minneapolis, MN -Fine Line Music Cafe
June 24- Winnipeg, MB – The Lo Pub
June 26- Lethbridge, AB – Henotic Lounge
June 27- Calgary, AB – Sled Island Festival
June 29- Milwaukee, WI – TBA
July 1- Philadelphia, PA – The M-Room
Leed’s retro-futurists Heads We Dance have released a b-side from their upcoming single “When the Siren Sounds” called “Work It Out” featuring a little lady who has been taking the world by storm, Little Boots! The track is a bit darker and more rock driven than a lot of their other stuff, but fear not, the synths are turned on high as they cruise past cymbal crashes and dance beats.
Heads We Dance also launched their new website where you can get Frankmusik’s remix of “Love in the Digital Age” and listen to some of their own mixes.
That sometimes folky, sometimes dancy upstart known as Emil & Friends from Brawlston Massachusetts is back with a new song on a folkier kick called “The Shrine”. If you’re looking for a laid back song for an early morning or late night of scrambling around to get all those things on your impossibly long list of things to do done “The Shrine” is the perfect chill pill.
Division Kent is a two piece from Zurich, Switzerland that plays swirling, dark new wave rock composed of two members; vocalist Andrea B. and instrumentalist Sky Antinori. Their music is at times dark and heavy, calling to mind the work of psychedelic indie band Midnight Movies due to the ominous melodies and sultry voice of Andrea B. While this is the primary musical mode the band is set in there are some fun surprises along the way.
Right off the bat the band set a mood with the atmospheric “No Kryptonite” that calls to mind Blonde Redhead. “Pat the PanAm Pilot”, starts off with some quirky keyboards and a skeptical narrative of the life of a successful pilot. From there the energetic “She’s Going Places” takes flight with guitar work and a beat that sounds like a fusing of Lali Puna and the Cure. “The Big Hush” is another experiment in combining a heavy atmosphere with haunting vocals. The track “In The Headlights” separates itself from the rest of the album using ultra bendy bass and a Casio beat that gives way to the most memorable chorus on the album. I could see this track being used in a dramatic scene of a movie. For all I know it might be already.
Once the album gets through most of it’s down tempo song, the arrangements, clicks, beats and synths really shine. “L’huere Blue” erupts with a dark 80′s pop sensibility and cascades of melodies and bells. Perfect for your retro goth prom. If “L’huere Blue” is an entrance song to said retro goth prom, then “Rooftop Rallye” is the party starter. Waves of aggressive bass pulse as Andrea B. purrs her way through the song. The next track is the most fun off of the album, entitled “Offshore”, featuring the most upbeat vocals and guitars that call to mind VHS or Beta in their heyday. The album winds down with the slinky duet “Salty” and comes to a close with the hauntingly programmed number “The Year of Magical Thinking”.
All the attention to detail makes Division Kent worth listening to. There are a couple spots on here where their formula, no matter how well done, feels worn out, dark electronica rock with deep sensual female vocals, we get it. It’s when Division Kent change up their style a little bit that they really shine, on tracks like “L’Heure Blue” and “Offshore” where their sound moves past brooding girl territory and into kicking electro rock pathos. Whether you’re looking for music to sulk dramatically to or music to get the party started, Division Kent has what you need.
Dirty Disco Youth is the project of Phil Speiser who resides in Hambug, Germany where he spins his prodigiously hard mixes.
10 Questions with Thieves Like Us (#2 Best album of 2008!)
By: Aaron Z. Lee
Thieves Like Us is an electro band that’s two thirds Swedish, and one third American that creates indie electro pop that’s akin to a sonic mix of New Order and Daft Punk. I corresponded with their singer, Andy.
1. You’ve said that Play Music is your autobiography. What kind of events and experiences do you draw from to write a song?
Most of the songs on the album were about breaking up. The three of us were living in Berlin. I had gone there expecting a crowded German metropol… I hadn’t even done my research that the town had been bombed. And I thought everything would look like Christiane F. But. The town was empty. People were only listening to techno. No pretty girls would talk to me. The music scene sucked. But, there was this promise, that you could make something in Berlin. AS, it wasn’t a “finished city” like NYC or Paris. The three of us were all down, I suppose. Bjorn and I hated everyone and everything. I was binge drinking. Every day. Starting at noon. All through the night. Luckily Pontus stepped in. He wasn’t on this mad romp in substance abuse like Bjorn and I were. I had met a sexy Austrian girl. she sang in Sex In Dallas. Which I thought were shit. But she was good in bed. And seemed to love me. I was acting stupid. And I freaked out one night cos of the booze. She just split up with me. And then, I think most of the songs were about losing. We are a band of losers. I think Miss You is the only up song on the album. That one is about being a waitress in a nightclub and also about Angela and David Bowie (I had a dream about them). I don’t want to keep writing about losing, though.
2. The sonic vocabulary you guys employ on Play Music is like a rediscovered language of electronica, beyond New Order, where do you guys look for inspiration?
Bjorn and I were sampling our favorite records. And I had two really expensive old delay pedals. I don’t know. At that time. We wanted to sound like some late seventies kraut record. I think now… hmmm. We are listening to a lot of seventies stuff. I think Hate it Or Love it by 50 cent is a great example of a song which combines this sixties soul feeling with some modern keyboards. I also think V-2 Schneider and Sound and Vision on the Low record by David Bowie are a really cool fusion of 60s soul and “THE FUTURE”. So, I guess we want to combine the past with the far future.
3. How is it to work with bandmates who are from different countries? What unique influences do each of you bring to the music?
Bjorn and Pontus are more pop or up than me. If it weren’t for them, I think every song would sound like Broken Heart by Spiritualized. Bjorn is always researching some older obscure music, to look at. Pontus. He. I think he had listened to alot of R and B and soul. He started drumming at 8.
Bjorn and I aren’t real musicians. Or we were just hobbyists. We were both big fans of the edge. He saw u2 in 1992 in Malmo and I saw them in 1992 in Denver.
4. While you were in Germany DJing you confused clubbers by mixing into some hip hop and rap into the mix. Can you describe their reactions?
But back then. In 2003…. They hated it. I was working in a hip hop club in nyc as a bus boy. I would take a plane on the weekends sometime to Berlin and play the same songs. This was 2003 before everything was up on the web. So a song would come out in the states and not get released in Europe until six months later. It was like having secret weapons. But a lot of people hated hip hop and r and b. They are so serious. Hmmm. I remember somebody in Berlin getting really angry. Grabbing me by the head and telling me not to play Nigger Music. Fuck. I used to say we were trying to wipe out fascism by playing all those snooop songs.
5. When you were recording the album in Berlin, London, New York City and Stockholm was it all together as a group or did you record parts and send them to each other via e-mail?
It was mostly as a group. I had very little to do with Desire and Miss You actually. I wrote the singing parts after the backing tracks were done.
6. Do you remember the moment that you as a group decided that you could make music that was better than the stuff you heard in nightclubs night after night?
Hmmm. Well that must have been my first month in Berlin. I saw some really silly guy get up with a cd for a backing track. People loved it. I hated it cos it was so tongue and cheek. I was listening to Blonde Redhead a lot. And I think I had this idea for a kind of slightly galmerous but tragic disco band. THat would be us. Hopefully we will morph into the bee gees and make some momey soon.
7. Your songs are so minimalist yet so funky, one of the best examples is the infectious jam “Miss You” that’s one part 80’s rap and one part new wave, how do you make songs so danceable with so few parts?
We work on an Akai MPC. Which has limits. Which is good. It’s like Dre’s “STILL DRE”. It’s pretty minimal. Or xxplosiv. I think these are good examples of how to compose.
8. I love the spoken word on “Program of the Second Part”, it’s like reading poetry to the Blade Runner soundtrack. Where did the idea of spoken word in this interlude come from?
We had the instrumental first. And I think I was too proud, somehow. I wanted lyrics for everything, so I wrote a poem for it. I always want our lyrics to be printed. Lyrics are important. Language is important. Poetry is important. That song is maybe about watching time fade away.
9. The Video for “Program of the first Part” works so well with the footage from the Tron movie, did you guys write the song with that in mind, or did it all just fall in place?
Hmmm. It was probably in the back our heads when we made the tune. So, a gift from God maybe.
10. What’s in store for Thieves Like Us in 2009?
We are making a second record, which we want to have out before the end of the year. And hopefully we will tour a lot. If we can get some extra finances, I’d like to see us pimp out our stage show with some lights and special effects.
Welcome to the second installment of the AZLTRON Blog’s top 30 Albums of the year! Here are some albums for your listening/reading pleasure! Here is the link to Part 1.
20. Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head – Glistening Pleasure
This creatively named band feels like a joke band started between a few friends that somehow along the way they shocked each other with how good they became and decided to take the show on the road. The concepts featured on the album are just as ridiculous as the band’s name and their album art. With love songs sung to the father of your girl citing the things you do when he’s not in the room, to odes to facial hair and atrocious 80′s styles, you’re bound to find yourself laughing just as much as you find yourself dancing.
Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head – Me + Yr Daughter
Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head Myspace
19. The Banshee – Your Nice Habits
Genova, Itlay band The Banshee’s album “Your Nice Habits” is full of jittery post-punk-pop ready to get you wherever you need to go in a hurry. It’s hard to not physically speed up whatever you are doing while listening to them. This feeling is certainty helped by producer Luke Smith (Former member of equally as Jittery defunct band Clor, and producer of yet another fidgety band Shit Disco) who also helps guide the band into quirky Gary Numan synth territory. While there’s not exactly a lot of new ground forged here, the record is unabashedly fun and you can tell the band is having fun too. This record is proof that Italians may indeed do that better.
18. Falcon - Falcon
Falcon emerged on the scene with an incredibly original concept. All of their songs have already been written, and they are a new band. “How is this possible?”, You might ask. Well, it’s because these songs were written by a songwriting prodigy named Jared Falcon that three of the band members went to school with. He recorded the songs on a simple four track recorder which the band then studies and fleshes out. If the intense guitar effect and drumming of the band seems familiar, it’s because the drummer and guitarist of Longwave are also in the band. Beyond the concept and all star line-up, it’s the songs that shine through for Falcon. Each song shines with an introspection and optimism that could only be written by an extremely talented youth.
17. Woven - Designer Codes
Woven is a band out of L.A. that fuses electronic and rock so well, I was confused when I first listened to their music. It was so good, I felt like I had heard it before somewhere. I don’t know if I’d heard it during a movie, or a commercial or whatever, but their stuff is so cinematic that I think I should be hearing their stuff in commercials and movies. Waves of keys, guitars, and vocals wash in and out over otherworldly pristine pop. It’s like the band time traveled from the future to show us what rock will be like in 50 years.
16. The Presets – Apocalypso
The Presets have always been a gritty electro dance band. Once in a while they let some of their pop/dance stylings escape from their bag of tricks. Like on their excellent songs “The Girl and the Sea” or “Summer of Love”, but for the most part they prefer to be dirty and rowdy. On their new release Apocalypso, The Presets have cleaned up their act, and their music is all the better for it. The vocals soar, choruses richochet inside your head, where they’ll stay for days, and the beats and grooves have never been better. You’ll be hard pressed to find better party starters than “Yippiyo-Ay” and “My People”. There are even songs featured here that are actually pretty in spots (This Boy’s In Love). In a strange turn of fate, the beast has become the beauty.
15. The Ting Tings – We Started Nothing
If there is one band that is poised for mainstream crossover success and deserves it, it’s The Ting Tings. Jules and Katie have all of the fun and intelligence of the best indie-dance music and all of the accessibility of the best of Rihanna or Katie Perry, all without listeners having to hide it as a guilty pleasure. From the opening strums of “Great DJ”, you know there’s something special going on here. From guitar riffs, to microkorg melodies, to ample use of Cowbell, it’s all here. It’s hard to believe so much fun comes from just two people. They’re also phenomenal live.
14. The Age of Rockets – Hannah
The Age of Rockets is a NYC three piece composed of producer/frontman Andrew Futral, drummer Saul Simon Macwilliams, and guitarist/keyboardist Bess Rogers. Their album “Hannah” could easily soundtrack a movie about touring around the world on a cloud. The vocal harmonies ring out here as the richest assett featured througout. That’s not to say this is an accapella album in the least. There are all kinds of supplemental instrumentation, from guitars, to pounding drums, to glitchy beats, to gentle keys, to violins being gently plucked. The album is largely a mellow affair with poignant lyrics scattered througout. It’s remarkable that three people could make this big of a diverse sound and it’s that expansiveness and attention to detail that makes “Hannah” by The Age of Rockets one of the best albums of the year.
The Age of Rockets – Avada Kedavra
13. My Dear Disco – Dancethink LP
My Dear Disco is a band out of Michigan that fuses together dance-punk, jazz-funk, and many other styles into one cohesive digestible whole. The septet churns out dance hits that are on par with any club banger that you’ve heard this year while at the same time they contain musical and lyrical content that is equally enjoyable as well as intellectually stimulating. On every track you can feel the enthusiasm of the band bleed through to every note. Even though the band has significant instrumental might, their secret weapon is lead singer Michelle. Who has a duality equal to that of Clark Kent and Superman. Off stage, she’s personable and intelligent, but up on stage she lets loose with that glorious voice of hers with the might of a superhero. With the costumes they wear while on stage, being musical superheroes may not be far off.
12. The Walkmen – You & Me
The Walkmen have released a much more pensive album this time around with “You & Me”. They keep a tight leash on their wild, singular energy, careful to only let it out of the bag on a few occasions. This tension and release throughout album makes the both the quiet and loud songs better. Not to say that their other releases aren’t intimate at times, but this album feels the most personal out of all of their records. Like when Hamilton Leithhauser laments that he lives at the same address on “In the New Year”, the music conveys the urgency and optimism for him to redirect his life. The Walkmen have always had a formula that has fit a wintery retrospective pretty well. The most sublime example is the romantic reconciliation of “Canadian Girl”. The old school rhythm and ear warming guitar chimes will have you smiling in no time.
11. The Stills – Oceans Will Rise
In a year filled with comebacks, The Stills provided one of the most dramatic. I’m not saying that their previous release “Without Feathers” was a bad record by any means, it just didn’t feel like them. But, this album marks a return to their hypnotic guitar stylings and inspired drumming. Their previous album felt like they were reaching for a bunch of different sounds. “Oceans Will Rise” feels like they’ve remembered who they are. Also, they’ve not lost some of the stylings they picked up on their previous record, they’ve applied them for sensational effect. Pianos roar and resonate and Tim Fletcher’s vocal delivery will have you hanging on every word. There’s even some stadium appeal here with the fantastic single “Being Here”. It’s time to remember all the reasons why you liked The Stills in the first place.
10 Questions with Microfilm By: Aaron Z. Lee
I had the opportunity to ask Matt Mercer and Matt Keppel of the Portland, Oregon electronic band Microfilm and here are the results!
1. Your earlier works are very minimalist and German inspired, while the later works still work in this vein, your new work on the Slingshot Orchestra leans toward more of a synth-pop aesthetic. Is that a latent taste that you guys have always had or did you guys have an epiphany and start working in that direction? And if it was an epiphany, can you tell us about that?
Mercer: It’s been an organic evolution. My solo music is more angular and fragmented, sometimes a bit harder, and the earliest Microfilm tracks are more a reflection of this; I think these new tracks are more collaborative and have veered into something more lush.
Keppel: I don’t know if it was an epiphany or even a discussed decision, I think we just started writing songs that were a little more musical, more complex, maybe a bit softer then the first album.
2. How did you guys arrive at creating a cover, that I think is better than the original, of Sufjan Steven’s song “Chicago”?
Keppel: Better? Well, thanks for that! We’re both fans of Sufjan’s music and decided we wanted to do our first cover version and I think I suggested ‘Chicago’. I think we wanted to cover a song that was a completely different genre and try to make it fit into an electronic, dance realm. It wouldn’t be very interesting for someone like us to cover, say, the Pet Shop Boys.
Mercer: We both liked the song, and it represented a moment in time for us, being enthusiastic about our city of residence… ironically, not long after we decided to leave for Portland! But with that cover we really strived to recreate all the various layers of the original arrangement, but in new and different ways. For instance, I played a lot of piano parts from ear and then cut it apart into fragments, and we recorded numerous layers of vocals to give it a different harmonic sensibility…. but we felt that a good song is a good song, and we didn’t want to rewrite the song itself and wanted to honor it as much as possible.
3. You also worked on a cover of “The Desperate Things You Made Me Do” for a Magnetic Fields cover album. How did this come about?
Keppel: We saw a post on the blog The Music Slut about a Chicago singer/songwriter who was compiling a covers album of Magnetic Fields tunes and he was looking for submissions. We’re both big fans of Magnetic Fields and so we wrote the guy and asked him if he’d like a submission from us and he said yes. Pretty simple.
4. Out of all the songs by the Magnetic Fields, what made you choose that one?
Mercer: I’ve always been more interested in Stephin Merrit’s earlier, stranger synth-pop flirtations. I like the weird sounds he uses; they all sound sort of cheap (in a good way). This one seemed the most dancefloor-ready, something we could have fun with without removing it too far from the source. It’s actually a relatively complex song and it was fun to dissect it… plus, it has one of the more memorable pop choruses of our time, in my opinion!
5. Your vocals have a very signature sound to them, sometimes they are processed and sometimes not. What kind of processes do you guys run your vocals through?
Mercer: It varies. Sometimes the vocals are more “naked” where we just add some reverb to them and let them shine on their own; at other times we add a lot of effects to give it some more edge. Early on we experimented a lot with the detuned unison effect that you hear on tracks like “Paris”, where Keppel’s voice sounds slightly disembodied… this is a treatment we continue to explore as a unifying element.
6. There are many classical instruments heard throughout “The Slingshot Orchestra”, including piano and violin. Where did this idea come from?
Mercer: Part of it is sheer intrigue of what’s become possible via software. Almost all of those instruments are digital instruments, and I “played” them using a midi keyboard. We liked the juxtaposition of hard and soft, synthetic and organic. That sense of contrast is, of course, nothing new, but I think we struck a healthy balance between those two worlds.
7. Do you guys have a favorite classical composer?
Mercer: I studied classical organ and piano growing up, and my favorite composer was always Chopin. I listen to more adventurous 20th century neoclassical music as well as a lot of stuff in between, but Chopin will always be special to me for reasons that are hard to articulate.
8. Who exactly is Johnny X and how did he lose his girl to Erlend Oye?
Keppel: It’s just a character I created for the song. Haven’t really been that specific with characters in my lyrics yet, but thought I would write one of those “name” songs. The title supposed to be a bit Ramones-y. I thought it was funny that this guy would lose a girlfriend to someone like Erlend Oye, who seems a bit bespectacled and kind of wimpy; he’s an anti-hero of the un-cliched variety.
9. What song or artist is stuck in your head today?
Keppel: Good song? ‘Old Fools’ by Magnetic Fields. Bad song? ‘She’s Not Me’ by Madonna; a terrible, terrible song.
Mercer: A handful of artists I’ve really been enjoying lately are Booka Shade, Andy Stott, Grouper, Alias, Mountains, Lindstrøm, James Din A4… the list always goes on, but those are some current favorites.
10. There’s been a lot of snow hitting the ground up here in the North East United States, Does it look like you guys will have snow over there in Oregon for Christmas after all?
Mercer: Yes, and neither of us is happy about it.
Keppel: Well, I like it from the inside, but it needs to all melt come Dec. 26th.
Thanks for doing this interview and Happy Holidays!
Microfilm – We Are Terribly Sorry For Your Loss
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