Alexander Laurence's Blog, page 2439

Ypsigrock Festival 2014 Line up Announcement

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YPSIGROCK FESTIVAL is extremely proud to announce:
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN ● MODERAT ● ANNA CALVI ● WILD BEASTS ● KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS ● SUN KIL MOON ● ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT ● FANFARLO ● SOHN ● FOREST SWORDS ● MONEY ● BO NINGEN ● SAMARIS ● UZEDA ● M + A 
7-10 AUG 2014 Castelbuono, Sicily - ITALY
Ypsigrock Festival 2014 Line up Announcement [VIDEO] http://youtu.be/FfgARBICCiY
Why not combine italian holidays with a unique music festival this summer?
Established in 1997, Ypsigrock Festival has earned a reputation as one of the most suggestive European festivals and it returns this August for its 18th edition at its stunning location: the imposing Castle of Castelbuono, in Sicily, Italy.
It's an unmissable event with a fantastically friendly crowd and an amazing venue for a blissful weekend of relax, and great music.
Ypsigrock Festival 2014 confirms, once again, to be the only one Italian wriggle in the sweeping list of international festivals.
Focus on :
WHAT Ypsigrock Festival 2014 - 18th editionWHO 8th AUG: UZEDA / BO NINGEN / ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT / FANFARLO / ANNA CALVI9th AUG: M+A / SAMARIS / FOREST SWORDS / SOHN / MODERAT10th AUG: MONEY / SUN KIL MOON / KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS / WILD BEASTS / BELLE AND SEBASTIANWHEN 7-10 August 2014WHERECastelbuono, Palermo - Sicily (ITALY)HOW MUCH3-day ticket 67€ / 8th Aug 28€ / 9th Aug 35€ / 10 Aug 38€ / Camping weekend ticket 35€LINKS www.ypsigrock.com / www.facebook.com/Ypsigrock

Vashti Bunyan 'Heartleap'

Vashti Bunyan
'Heartleap'

Release Date: 6th October 2014
Formats: LP / CD / Dig

Nine years after 'Lookaftering', her last album of new material, legendary
British singer-songwriter Vashti Bunyan returns with a breathtaking new LP.
Recorded largely in her home studio, 'Heartleap' is a unique and entrancing
collection of ten songs forming what Vashti is adamant will be her final
album.
Vashti's third album follows her rediscovery - after thirty years in the
wilderness - with the 2000 re-release of 'Just Another Diamond Day' (a bona
fide cult classic that made # 53 in the Observer Music monthly's 'top 100
British albums of all time'), and the critical success of 2005's
'Lookaftering'. 'Heartleap' has a classic sound and sees her break free from
previous frustrations to deliver an album where - for the first time - she
herself has been in control of the whole process, from writing and arranging
to playing and recording. Working predominantly from a studio set up in her
Edinburgh home, the record was slowly pieced together, and reveals an artist
at her peak, capturing her songs within fluid settings that masterfully
marry content and form.
Both 'JADD' and 'Lookaftering' saw Vashti's songs arranged and framed by
others. Joe Boyd's production and Robert Kirby's arranging of the former
remain timelessly classy, whilst Max Richter's bold production of the
latter was enhanced by contributions from a raft of supporting artists
(including Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Vetiver and Adem), all eagerly
adding their colours. Vashti is justly proud of 'Lookaftering', but
'Heartleap' is a strong and more personal record, standing solely on the
merits and patient endeavour of its author rather than being buoyed by and
filtered through the cachet and collaborative creativity of a powerful
supporting cast. It is ultimately a less mediated record, one that Vashti
feels is far closer to the vision she set out to realise.
The vast majority of 'Heartleap' was recorded and edited by Vashti, who
"wanted it to be more akin to my very first recordings, pre-'Diamond Day'. I
wanted to see what I could do without using the ideas of others. It would
have been much easier had I recorded it with an engineer - I would not have
had to spend so much time on editing - but that's been the interesting part.
If I'd taken these songs and gone into a studio with them they might have
turned out very differently, perhaps more 'produced' - but not as near to
how I hear them for myself." 
Recording her vocals when no one else was around to overhear - freed Vashti
up to deliver more confident performances. Equally, working without the
induced pressures of studio deadlines enabled her to craft it slowly and
lovingly in her own time, weaving together tracks out of numerous takes.
Predominantly guitar or piano led - with additional instrumentation building
throughout - the songs have no underpinning bass-line or percussion, giving
each instrument and voice the chance to pace itself.
Where the synthetic instrumentation on Vashti's 'Lookaftering' demos was
rejected in favour of recording the warmth and organic nature of real
acoustic instruments, 'Heartleap' retains those electronic voices, alongside
studio-recorded string and recorder arrangements - the two mixed in a
delicate balance between the synthesized and the organic. Freely admitting
that she can't actually play the piano, Vashti built the keyboard parts from
single notes and multiple one-handed takes. No-one else would have made it
or played it that way and it's that voice, her own voice, that helps lend
the record its power and marks it out as distinctive.
"The whole point of the album was finally to learn a way that would enable
me to record the music that is in my head, by myself. I neither read nor
write music, nor can I play piano with more than one hand at a time, but I
have loved being able to work it all out for myself and make it sound the
way I wanted. I've built these songs over years. The album wouldn't have
happened any other way. Sometimes when I replace the arrangements with real
instruments they don't work in the same way. The extended notes of the
clarinet on the song 'Heartleap' for instance could not be played on a real
clarinet. I can't 'play' a musician playing their instrument - I can't make
them play each note as I want it, but with a keyboard and a music program I
am the player."
Concise as ever, Vashti's lyrics open out a series of locket-like miniatures
- stories of family and friends, lives and loves, memories, dreams and
realities; of differences in perception and the gaps between people /
meanings / understandings; of coping, getting by, surviving. "All the songs
are based on real stories or real people, 'Mother' especially. 'Blue Shed'
was written when the house was still full of young people slamming doors and
yelling. (I do miss them now). 'Gunpowder ' is about an ex-partner with whom
communication can still be difficult." There is no vast sweep or ambitious
stabbing at the grandiose in her lyric writing, yet in their honesty these
close-focused articulations draw you in and resonate with heartfelt emotions
and universal truths. 
The luminous musical arrangements act with the lyrics illustratively -
'Jellyfish' ripples and floats from side to side, "and is soft apart from
the vibraphone which is quite harsh - like the dream it's about. The kalimba
and the tumbling guitars in Across the Water are to give the song the sound
of waves on shingle, and the piano on 'Mother' is to sound a little like the
old un-tuned upright piano I overheard my mother playing sometimes, 'briefly
unbound' from her duties as wife and mother."
Recording in studios in California, New York and London - but mostly alone
in her own studio - it took in total seven years to put together these ten
songs. The first was written in 2007, the last just two months before
mastering. A hiatus in recording came with the untimely passing of Robert
Kirby in 2009. Robert had arranged three songs on 'Just Another Diamond Day'
and the pair had just reconnected and planned to work on new arrangements
together - just weeks before he died. It would be another two years before
she took the decision that she must arrange the music herself, with Robert
always in mind. The subsequent three years saw her gradually picking the
thread back up and working with renewed purpose. Slowly more songs found
their way out of her. Gems like 'The Boy' - which she'd sat on, fretted over
and intended to ditch - were prised from oblivion. Seven became ten and
those around her finally began to really believe that an end was in sight.
The right final mix frustratingly eluded her until the album magically came
together in a week in May 2014 - when it was balanced and mastered
beautifully at the hands of mixing engineer Martin Korth - and mastering
genius Mandy Parnell at her Black Saloon studios in London.
The album's striking cover artwork is once again taken from a painting by
Vashti's daughter, Whyn Lewis, and forms a neat companion to her hare
painting featured on 'Lookaftering', giving the impression (besides both
album's titles being portmanteaus) of a pair of bookends. Whyn describes
this painting (titled 'Hart's Leap') as being "about getting away
unscathed... about confidence and self-assuredness, and wisdom. The deer is
leaping forward while looking backwards - and it has a little grin. It is
said that deer make a large bound of joy when they know they are escaping.
The deer is linked with the deerhound shown on the deer's collar - what it
has been escaping from. The deerhound in this case really is just allegory
for the thing that chases or hounds you. Life is most appreciated when it is
challenged."

One of the final songs to be written, the gorgeously gauzy, autobiographical
title track came to Vashti all of a sudden in March this year, as she was
gazing at Whyn's painting. Recorded straight off, with only minor changes
made in the final mix, it closes the album perfectly. A bittersweet song, it
cryptically catalogues and a whole life's worth of loving, losing, letting
go, getting through; of heartbreaks and happiness and the lulls in between -
through a minimal, modular, repetitive structure with recourse to just a
handful of compound word variations - surges and tugs between head and
heart. Simultaneously aching and hopeful, it looks back with both pain and
joy, with resigned acceptance. If it truly is to be the final word on a
final album, then it is an utterly fitting and devastatingly beautiful one.

Like the deer on the cover painting, 'Heartleap' moves gracefully,
enchantingly. Overcoming adversity through sheer willpower, its very
existence is a dazzling triumph.

'Heartleap' will be released on FatCat in UK / Europe on October 6th and in
North America via DiCristina on oct 7th.

Vashti will play a run of UK tour dates in smaller settings with guitarist
Gareth Dickson (her first since 2010) in support of the album, with more
dates to be added in early 2015.

UK Tour Dates

07 Oct - MAC, Birmingham, UK - tickets <http://macbirmingham.co.uk/>
08 Oct - St. Pancras Church, London, UK - tickets
<http://www.songkick.com/concerts/20871843-vashti-bunyan-at-st-pancras-old-c
hurch>
09 Oct - St. Pancras Church, London, UK - tickets
<http://www.songkick.com/concerts/20872063-vashti-bunyan-at-st-pancras-old-c
hurch>
11 Oct - The Band Room, Farndale, UK - tickets
<http://www.thebandroom.co.uk/>
12 Oct - St. Philip's Church, Manchester, UK - tickets
<http://www.songkick.com/concerts/20902398-vashti-bunyan-at-st-phillips-chur
ch>


Tracklisting:

1. Across The Water
2. Holy Smoke
3. Mother
4. Jellyfish
5. Shell
6. The Boy
7. Gunpowder
8. Blue Shed
9. Here
10. Heartleap

OASIS (WHAT'S THE STORY) MORNING GLORY?

 
OASIS (WHAT'S THE STORY) MORNING GLORY?CHASING THE SUN EDITIONRELEASED SEPTEMBER 30 2014 ON BIG BROTHER RECORDINGS


ALBUM AVAILABLE ON THE FOLLOWING FORMATS:Standard CD & digital downloadSpecial Edition 3 x CD & digital download12" vinyl LP (with digital download bundle of all bonus CD content)Deluxe Box Set (including LP, Deluxe CD, exclusive 7", 12" & merchandise).Liam Gallagher & Noel Gallagher - Photo By Stefan de BatselierThe second in the new Oasis: Chasing The Sun series, (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, will be released on 30th September on Big Brother Recordings. Demand for the legendary Manchester band remains as strong as ever: the first reissue in the series, Definitely Maybe, recently entered the UK album chart at No.5, selling almost 20,000 copies in its first week. A large proportion of sales have been on vinyl, making it one of the biggest selling 12" records of 2014 so far. The accompanying exhibition of rare photo's and memorabiliaChasing The Sun: Oasis 1993 - 1997 attracted over 40,000 visitors to a Shoreditch gallery in April. 
Each Chasing The Sun series album release is remastered and available with rare and exclusive bonus content. (What's The Story) Morning Glory? has been remastered from the original tapes by Ian Cooper at London's Metropolis Studios, supervised by the album's producer Owen Morris. A small army of contributors, including original members of the inner circle who were involved in studio and live recordings, came together to hunt down unheard demos and live material. The team also unearthed a wealth of never-seen-before photos and vintage memorabilia, which will be included in the new artwork. 
(What's The Story) Morning Glory? is available on standard CD & digital download, Special Edition 3 x CD & digital download, 12" vinyl LP (with digital download bundle of all bonus CD content), & Deluxe Box Set (including LP, Special Edition CD, 7" of an exclusive demo, replication of an original 12" promo & merchandise).



 

Oasis - Bonehead's Bank Holiday: exclusive streamAs part of the new Chasing the Sun series, here's a taster of Bonehead's intended Ringo moment, taken from the forthcoming (What's the Story) Morning Glory? re-releasehttp://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/02/oasis-boneheads-bank-holiday-exclusive-stream  
In their 14-year recording career (1994 - 2008) Oasis sold over 70 million albums worldwide, had 22 consecutive UK Top 10 singles, 7 No.1 studio albums, but, more than that, they helped define a generation. The next release in the Chasing The Sun series will be Be Here Now(What's The Story) Morning Glory? 



The follow-up to Oasis's 1994 debut album Definitely Maybe, (What's The Story) Morning Glory? was recorded between May and June 1995 in Rockfield Studios, Monmouthshire, with Owen Morris and Noel Gallagher producing. Released on October 2nd 1995, it sold a record-breaking (at the time) 347,000 copies in its first week. The album spent 10 weeks at No.1 in the UK, and is Oasis's most commercially successful, with 22 million copies sold worldwide to date, including 4 million in the US. 
(What's The Story) Morning Glory? features many of Oasis's biggest hit singles, including Don't Look Back In Anger, Wonderwall, Some Might Say, and Roll With It, and won the Best Album at the 1996 Brit Awards, with Oasis also taking Best British Group and Best Video awards.
It was during the Morning Glory? era when Oasis played their some of their most iconic gigs, including two nights at Maine Road Stadium, the then home of Manchester City Football Club, in April 1996, and Knebworth House, where the band played to 250,000 fans over two nights in August 1996. Over 2.6 million people applied for tickets for the shows, making it the largest ever demand for concert tickets in British history.
Each brand new edition of the album includes a re-mastered version of the original. The Special Edition CD and  Deluxe Box Set include two CDs of all the B-sides plus rare and unreleased Oasis tracks from the Morning Glory era. The Deluxe Box Set format comes with new sleeve notes by respected rock critic Neil McCormick.Highlights of the bonus content include:Previously unheard demos of She's Electric and Rockin' Chair recorded at Mark Coyle's Manchester studio Demos of Some Might Say, Hey Now, and Boneheads Bank Holiday recorded by Mark Coyle for the first time at the band's soundcheck, Club Quattro in Tokyo in September 1994Live recordings from legendary gigs such as Knebworth House, Maine Road Stadium, Earls Court, and Bath PavilionAll of the Morning Glory singles acclaimed B-sides including Talk Tonight, Acquiesce, The Masterplan, and Underneath The Sky Pre-Order Link here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/whats-story-morning-glory/id895279609   

THE PRESETS NEW SINGLE ‘NO FUN’

THE PRESETS NEW SINGLE ‘NO FUN’WORLD FIRST - SIX SIDED INTERACTIVE MUSIC VIDEO, AN EXPERIMENT WITH GOOGLE PLAY
 The Presets return and offer us ‘No Fun’, a new single of pulsing, itchy future dance.  GET ‘NO FUN’ VIA GOOGLE PLAY HERE.  In a world first, ‘No Fun’ is released with the world’s first six-sided, interactive music video, directed by Barnaby Roper (David Bowie, Kanye West, Banks). An experiment in storytelling from Google Play, the Cube allows six full-length music videos, each with their own distinct narrative, to run on six sides of the ‘Cube’, allowing you to twist, turn and manipulate your own unique audiovisual experience of ‘No Fun’ in real time.  The track is available exclusively for pre-release on Google Play from today.  WATCH THE ‘NO FUN’ CUBE HERE
The Cube is easily embeddable – just hit the share button to post. It’s best viewed in Chrome.Watch the behind-the-scenes video here. #NOFUN #PRESETSCUBE After releasing three landmark albums in the last 10 years with 2005’s Beams, 2008’s Apocalypso and 2012’s Pacifica, 2014 sees The Presets regroup, refocus and refine. While the recent single ‘Goodbye Future’ bid adieu to tomorrow over empowering, life-affirming posi-trance, ‘No Fun’ sets The Presets on a nihilist path to techno decadence. Full of reckless, irreverent energy, squelching synth-bass, towering trance melody, a pull and push call and response, and a crushing breakdown, ‘No Fun’ is a joyous, frightening offering - The Presets at their boldest and best. ‘No Fun’ was written and produced by Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes in Sydney’s Inner West. Remixes come courtesy of rising Australian dance faves RÜFÜS, Australian house star Lancelot, Montreal Mau5trap signing Eekkoo, Belfast techno maestro Phil Kieran, and new UK outfit Wax Wings. The ‘No Fun’ single with a remix by Lancelot will be out digitally on July 8th in the United States.The full ‘No Fun’ package with all remixes will be available August 5th.

The Burger Revue @ Observatory

THE BURGER REVUE IS TONIGHT!!!Happening at The Observatory Orange County!!!THERE WILL BE A FEW TICKETS AT THE DOOR, SO COME DOWN AND GET SOME!!! www.observatoryoc.com

Lucius Shares Tears For Fears Cover w/ SPIN

“Everybody Wants To Rule The World” (Tears For Fears Cover)
Drops, B-Side to Special Edition Genevieve 7” Vinyl Out Today 

Rdio Session Available Now

Tour Continues With Headlining Dates, Festivals 
and Supporting Sara Bareilles


Photo Credit: Peter Larson
 
Brooklyn’s Lucius will release a special edition Genevieve 7” vinyl on July 1 via Mom + Pop/Dine Alone Records. The vinyl will be available to purchase in the band’s  online store .
 
Genevieve will include its namesake, the infectious track from the band’s debut album Wildewoman and will be B/W a cover of Tears For Fears’ legendary single “Everybody Wants To Rule The World.” The cover highlights Lucius’ signature harmonies and delicate instrumental touches. It was unveiled on  SPIN  and is also available  here  to post and share.
 


Lucius’  Rdio Session , which was recorded in the historic Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin, TX during SXSW, is now available exclusively on Rdio. The recording features a uniquely stripped-down take on the bands' brand of soulful indie pop.
 
The quintet will continue to tour throughout the summer and fall, making appearances at a variety of festivals, including Newport Folk, Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, headlining dates of their own and supporting Sara Bareilles. A complete list of tour dates follows.
 
Lucius Tour Dates
 
~ = supporting Sara Bareilles
* = co-headline w/ Lake Street Drive
 
7/4: Toronto, ON @ Toronto Urban Roots Festival
7/4: Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
7/6: Ottawa, ON @ Ottawa Bluesfest
7/11: Bridgeport, CT @ The Klein (supporting Andrew Bird)
7/12: Greenfield, MA @ Green River Festival
7/14: Vienna, VA @ Wolf Trap ~
7/18: Chattanooga, TN @ Nightfall Summer Series
7/19: Asheville, NC @ The Mothlight (w/ Her Marigold)
7/20: Louisville, KY @ Forecastle Festival
7/22: Raleigh, NC @ Red Hat Amphitheater ~
7/23: Atlanta, GA @ Delta Classic Chastain Park Amphitheater ~
7/25: Camden, NJ @ XPoNential Music Festival
7/26: Newport, RI @ Newport Folk Festival – SOLD OUT
7/29: Cincinnati, OH @ PNC Pavilion ~
7/30: Nashville, TN @ The Woods at Fontanel ~
8/1: Chicago, IL @ Lollapalooza – SOLD OUT
8/2: Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall (Official Lollapalooza Aftershow) – SOLD OUT
8/5: Seattle, WA @ Marymoor Park ~
8/6: Portland, OR @ Edgefield ~
8/8: Edmonton, AB @ Edmonton Folk Fest
8/10: San Francisco, CA @ Outside Lands – SOLD OUT

The Kooks' new album now available for pre-order

The Kooks' New Album Listen Available Now For Pre-OrderTo Be Released September 2ndListen To "Bad Habit" Now
  
The Kooks' anticipated new album, Listen, is available for pre-order now via  iTunes  and the band's website. Fans who purchase the album from The Kooks store will also get an exclusive presale code for the upcoming US fall tour (dates TBA). All pre-orders of the album will get an unreleased track from the album for immediate download, "Bad Habit," which follows the release of previous songs "Down" and "Around Town." Listen to "Bad Habit" at the link below:
Listen at Soundcloud:  "Bad Habit"  
Listen is out September 2nd via Astralwerks. Produced by young hip hop pioneer Inflo and Luke Pritchard, it showcases a new direction and sound for the multi platinum selling UK act.
"To me," Luke says, "this album is about pure expression. Even the way we made the album felt fresh. Rather than us just being a band in a room, playing our guitars with the vocal over the top, which is what we'd always done before, we were really listening to what was going on around us, picking up ideas. The whole thing was much more natural."
Listen is made up of 11 tracks (the Deluxe has 15), with highlights including the street-smart garage rock of "Bad Habit," the powerful and haunting "See Me Now," and the incandescent joy of "Are We Electric."
The Kooks On TourJul 26 - Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock ClubJul 27 - Washington, DC @ 930 ClubJul 29 - New York, NY @ Terminal 5Aug 01 - Chicago, IL @ LollapaloozaAug 03 - Montreal, QC @ Osheaga FestivalAug 04 - Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music HallAug 08 - Los Angeles, CA @ The RoxyAug 09 - San Francisco, CA @ Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival
LISTEN / SHAREAround Town https://soundcloud.com/kooksmusic/around-town Down https://soundcloud.com/kooksmusic/down-1 

Roddy Frame (Aztec Camera) To Release Solo Album

Roddy Frame (Aztec Camera) Announces New Album,Seven Dials, Out August 19th via AED Records
 

 
Listen + Share “ Postcard ”
 
“This, for any lover of the cracked ballad, the pop hit, the smart word or the perfectly chosen chord, is essential.” – The Line of Best Fit
 
It is with great delight and pride that AED Records announce that Roddy Frame has chosen us for the home of his first recordings in eight years. His new album, Seven Dials, will be released in the US on August 19th, 2014. Courtesy of Wondering Sound, listen now to the wistful traveler’s song “Postcard” HERE.
 
The album was recorded at West Heath Studios, the home of AED Records, a label formed by Edwyn Collins in 2011. The relationship between Roddy and Edwyn reaches back to the records their respective bands, Aztec Camera an Orange Juice, released on the legendary Postcard Records of Scotland label in the early 1980’s.
 
Seven Dials was recorded in sessions that spanned across 2013. Co-produced by Roddy himself and Sebastian Lewsley, the ten tracks feature drummer Adrian Meehan and keyboards by long-time Roddy cohort Mark Edwards, with all other instruments played by Roddy himself.
 
Following three prestigious sell-out shows in the UK to celebrate the thirty-year anniversary of his first album with Aztec Camera, Roddy will internationally tour later this year.
 

 
Track List
 
White Pony
Postcard
Into The Sun
Rear View Mirror
In Orbit
 
Forty Days of Rain
English Garden
On The Waves
The Other Side
From A Train
 
www.roddyframe.com
www.aedrecords.com

GOAT to release 'Commune' Sep. 23 + "Hide from the Sun"

Swedish collective GOAT share details on behalf of
Commune, their second album

“Hide From the Sun” premiere via Stereogum
http://www.stereogum.com/1690001/goat-hide-from-the-sun-stereogum-premiere/mp3s/Commune will be available September 23rd via Sub Pop Records in North America, September 24th via Stranded Rekords in Scandinavia, and September 22nd via Rocket Recordings for the rest of the world.
Swedish rock collective GOAT will release their highly-anticipated second album, Commune on CD/LP/DL September 23rd via Sub Pop Records in North America, September 24th via Stranded Rekords in Scandinavia, and September 22nd via Rocket Recordings for the rest of the world. You can now listen to the lead single, “Hide From the Sun,” which Stereogum calls, “beautifully psychedelic” (see premiere July 1st).Commune is the follow-up to GOAT's hypnotic 2012 debut, World Music, which received widespread acclaim and placed in many of that year's top-ten lists. The mysterious, masked group continued to awe the world with their intense, ritualistic live shows, the "Dreambuilding" b/w "Stonegoat" 7" (released in North America by Sub Pop in 2013), and the recent Live Ballroom Ritual double-album.GOAT has scheduled a fall European tour in support Commune, which begins September 19th in Copenhagen, DK at Vega and ends October 3rd in London, UK at the Roundhouse. Please find a current list of tour dates below.Commune is now available for preorder in North America via Sub Pop Mega Mart,  iTunes and Amazon. While supplies last, customers who pre-order the LP version of Commune frommegamart.subpop.com will receive the colored-vinyl “Loser Edition” of the album and a limited-edition, single-sided 7” with a non-album track.More on GOAT:
There is no direct association between mysterious Swedish psychedelicists GOAT and revered Argentinian master of magical realism, Jorge Luis Borges. Yet their mission appears to be the same. Borges generated his ideas from historical curiosities across the globe—gaucho knife duels on the South American plains, Middle Eastern heresiarchs plotting treacheries in secret libraries, Chinese pirates waging wars against the Emperor—and twisted them into fictions that blurred the lines between fortified footnotes and outright fantasy. GOAT’s sound is the sonic manifestation of this principle, as evidenced in their aptly-named debut album World Music, which incorporated elements of Nigerian afrobeat, German krautrock, Anatolian funk, and a host of other global micro-niches into a hallucinatory cultish celebration of rock’s diverse manifestations. Deprived of the requisite band biography, early experiencers World Music’s electrified tribalism and lysergic compositions had the inevitable questions regarding the origin and timeframe of the recordings. The truth only became knottier every time the elusive GOAT collective provided their cryptic answers.Ultimately, it is GOAT’s music that speaks the most about them, and, on their sophomore album,Commune, GOAT deliver a heavy dose of acidic grooves, hypnotic incantations, and serpentine guitar lines (Read more at Sub Pop). Commune
Tracklisting:
1. Talk to God
2. Words
3. The Light Within
4. To Travel the Path Unknown
5. Goatchild
6. Goatslaves
7. Hide From the Sun
8. Bondye
9. Gathering of Ancient TribesTour Dates
Jul. 06 - Belfort, FR - Eurokeennes
Jul. 18 - Suffolk, UK - Latitude Festival
Jul. 20 - Ostrava, CZ - Colours of Ostrava
Aug. 03 - Stockholm, SE - Stockholm Music & Arts
Aug. 23 - Paredes de Coura, PT - Paredes de Coura Festival
Sep. 19 - Copenhagen, DK - Vega
Sep. 20 - Tilburg, NL - Incubate
Sep. 21 - Brussels, BE - Ancienne Belgique
Sep. 23 - Berlin, DE - Postbahnhof
Sep. 24 - Munich, DE - Ampere
Sep. 25 - Paris, FR - Trabendo
Sep. 27 - Liverpool, UK - Liverpool Psych Festival
Sep. 28 - Glasgow, UK - SWG3
Sep. 29 - Newcastle, UK - Northumbria University
Oct. 01 - Brighton, UK - Concorde 2
Oct. 02 - Bristol, UK - Trinity Centre
Oct. 03 - London, UK - Roundhouse

FAT POSSUM TO REISSUE ROWLAND S. HOWARD'S "POP CRIMES"

FAT POSSUM REISSUING ROWLAND S. HOWARD'S 'POP CRIMES' ALBUMAVAILABLE AUGUST 5TH     
        Listen to Pop Crimes title track here In this age of instant information, where we’re all one click away from being experts, let’s start by saving you a trip to wikipedia with a few core facts.
Rowland S. Howard started playing in teenage bands in late 70s Melbourne. Whilst still a callow youth, he wrote Shivers, an undisputed classic, (quietly ignoring the fact that Rowland perhaps doesn’t see it that way and approaches the song as if it was written by someone else.) The song was recorded by his band The Boys Next Door, who mutated into the Birthday Party and then relocated to Europe to wage a guerrilla campaign against the trivialities of the 80s, until they turned their fire upon themselves and disintegrated mid-decade.
Whilst his former associates have moved on to weekend color supplement acceptability, Rowland has commonly been perceived as the banished wastrel prince... exiled to a squalid garret on the colder edges of the kingdom, accompanied only by his dreams and inclinations. His demeanor (pale, gaunt, stick thin, sickly, dark humored, fatalistic) has perhaps inadvertently added far too much credence to this interpretation of events. The shadow of this myth has seemingly obscured by the sheer volume of his creativity and the singularity of his musical vision.
Always respected by his peers, a scan through Rowland’s catalogue of work sees him allied with the likes of Lydia Lunch, Thurston Moore, Wim Wenders, Barry Adamson, The Gun Club, Nikki Sudden, the Beasts Of Bourbon, the Hungry Ghosts and HTRK. Rowland’s own ensemble, These Immortal Souls, gun their engines in the ill-lit background and the legacy of his work with The Birthday Party scores the skin of successive generations of musicians and fans.
But it’s a history Rowland would gleefully put a match to. With or without it, Rowland S. Howard would make tense, beautiful music, would deliver us his personal vision of the world, would create Pop Crimes.
Long-time faithful friends Mick Harvey (who has played with Rowland for over 30 years), JP Shilo (Hungry Ghosts) and producer Lindsay Gravina make for a formidable backline. Out front, the guitar playing couldn’t be any one else but Rowland S Howard and his weary, almost journalistic vocal delivery dispassionately sits amidst the sweaty panic of the music, adding to the ill ease.
The band lurch in to Pop Crimes as if dragging a rain soaked body across a muddy field. The ghosts of Lee Hazlewood, Snatch, Sergio Leone, The Shangri-Las and nameless guys from a never known chain gang watch on. Within the first few breaths Rowland references Stalin, Calvary and genocide, whilst razoring guitar lines the current crop of post-punk revisionists could only fantasize about.
Shut Me Down is Rowland at his most romantic, though inevitably it’s shot through with loss and longing. If only Dusty Springfield were alive to revel in its drama. Talk Talk’s ‘Life’s What You Make It’ is re-imagined as if it had risen from the grind of a Detroit auto plant’s assembly line. ‘(I Know) A Girl Called Johnny’ sees Jonnine D from HTRK sidle up to the microphone for a duet that will melt even the coldest of hearts. It’s a glorious missing link between the New York girl group sound and the street smarts of Suicide. Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Nothin’ is given a chilling tenement building transformation. ‘Wayward Man’ has the band wailing like alarm sirens before Rowland emerges at his most contemplative with the gorgeous, fragile build of ‘Ave Maria’. Final track ‘The Golden Age Of Bloodshed’, takes the album out on a swaggering, swashbuckling epic, with salvation slipping through the narrator’s fingers.
Rowland S. Howard carved a deep scar across the landscape of contemporary music. Elsewhere in the world, such a rogue character would be rewarded with glowing features in glossy music magazines, invited to curate arts festivals, offered their own radio show or feted with tribute albums. In Australia, such a triumph of the spirit, a lifetime spent wilfully unyielding to the middle ground, is not so highly prized and not so publically commended. Sadly we don’t do gravitas. We don’t value those who scratch the polished surface, shine a pale light in to our darker corners, alert us to the fact that we are not without blame or weakness, dare to infer that the very same things that pleasure also corrode.
“Sometimes, Muhammad must come to the mountain.” Rowland S. Howard: October 24th, 1959 – December  30th, 2009 Tracklist:
Side One
(I Know) A Girl Called JonnyShut Me DownLife's What You Make ItPop Crimes
Side Two
Nothin'Wayward ManAvé MariaThe Golden Age Of Bloodshed