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Levitation 2018 first lineup announced.
The first wave of lineup announcements for Levitation Austin 2018 has been released, and (as usual) it’s great.
The festival is no longer being held at the Carson Creek Ranch, but rather at multiple venues in downtown Austin like Stubb’s BBQ, Empire, Barracuda, and more. You can buy tickets for the individual shows, which vary in price. They offered full weekend passes for all shows for $400.00 (quite a price jump from previous years), but they sold out in minutes. Screw you, ticket buying robots!
Regardless, the first lineup already has many great artists on it. Rishi Dhir of Elephant Stone will be performing solo and with a new venture he has called Mien. Dead Meadow, Thee Oh Sees, Slowdive, the Black Angels, Electric Wizard, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Ministry, Chelsea Wolfe, Ty Segall, Golden Dawn Arkestra, Imarhan, the Men, and Al Lover are all stand-outs.
Don’t wait too long to get tickets. Tickets to individual shows at the 2016 festival sold out quick and many tickets went to scalpers who flipped them at outrageous prices. More announcements are due in the early part of 2018, and that will only cause tickets to sell faster.
Keep your mind open.
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Zombie Zombie – Livity
French synth wave / electro trio Zombie Zombie (Etienne Jaumet – synths and saxophone, Cosmic Neman – drums, vocals, and effects, and Dr. Schonberg – percussion, electronics, and trumpet) didn’t want us to walk out of 2017 without dancing, so they’ve brought a new album full of vintage analog synth dance grooves and mood-changing tracks on their new album Livity.
The title track alone is worth the purchase price. The title refers to a Rastafarian term for “life force.” It’s almost nine minutes of head-bopping beats, haunting synth bass, and synths that are straight out of your 1980’s dreams. Put this in your earbuds and your perception of the world around you will shift. “Ils Existent” moves along with hypnotizing sci-fi synth loops until Neman’s wicked drum licks almost turn the song into an action movie theme. The percussion on “Hippocampe” is so damn good it might make you lose your mind. Jaumet’s synths build and build to wind you up and the whole song morphs into a cosmic journey around the 2:40 mark.
Zombie Zombie were the highlight of Levitation Austin 2015 for my wife and I, and the funky, acid jazzy “Looose” is an example of why that was the case. “When you have nothing to lose, it gets groovier,” Neman sings as his drums seem to fall off their kit in the chaos of the song. “Acera” gets us back to the sci-fi themes of the album with spaceship dance club beats and alien menace buzzes and bleeps.
“Heavy Meditation” would’ve fit in perfectly on the Blade Runner 2049 score. It’s perfect for scoring some soba noodle soup in a rainy downtown future L.A. while flirting with a replicant prostitute. The closer “Lune Noire” is a dark, simulated rainy night on a lonely space station near a fading super nova encapsulated into a 4:52 song.
Livity is one of the best electro albums of the year. It’s especially impressive when you consider the seven tracks were recorded live in just seven days. Zombie Zombie continues to explore new ground in the synth world an experiment with sounds you don’t seem to have heard before now. Get into this groove and live.
Keep your mind open.
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Earthless announces March 2018 North American tour dates.
Clear up your calendar for March 2018, because stoner metal giants Earthless will be touring North America. They’re also bringing legendary psychedelic band Kikagaku Moyo and psych-rockers Jjuujjuu with them. This is a great triple bill, so don’t miss it. I’m sure tickets will sell fast once they’re available. I plan to see them at their Chicago stop in late March 2018 at the Empty Bottle. I saw them there last year and it was a great show.
Keep your mind open.
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Oh Sees – Orc
John Dwyer is one of the busiest guys in rock. He has so many variations of his band Thee Oh Sees that it can be difficult to keep track of them all. One of the latest, which he’s just calling Oh Sees, has put out a fine record of psychedelic art-punk called Orc.
The album opens with the crazy, frantic “The Static God” – which appears to be a song about the whirlwind nature of battlefield combat. Dwyer’s guitar is all over the place, but the chorus’ vocal hook has a wonderful pop twinge to it. “Nite Expo” has 1980’s video game synths leading it before Dwyer’s guitar kicks open the door and catches you by surprise. “Animated Violence” hits as hard as any metal track you’ve heard all year, both in the instrumentation (i.e., buzzsaw guitars and thunderous drums) and vocals and lyrics (revealing Dwyer’s love of Motorhead).
The longest track on the record (at 8:10), “Keys to the Castle,” is (on its surface, at least) about a bloody siege in a medieval fantasy kingdom. I’m sure it’s probably a metaphor about how we’re actually destroying ourselves in these castles of loneliness and disconnection we’ve built thanks to the internet, but maybe I’m overreaching and should just enough the fun freak-out of a tune that it is (especially when the violin and organ creep into it).
“Jettison,” with its early Mick Ronson-like guitar work, is one of the grooviest songs about death in a long while (“Who likes sugar in their coffin? The underground is twice as nice.”). “Cadaver Dog” encourages the generation behind Dwyer to be leaders and not followers and be self-reliant instead of clinging to potentially deadly illusions. “Drowned Beast” is a fuzzy salute to deepwater beast warriors who slay and eat everything in sight. Three fun instrumentals, “Paranoise,” “Cooling Tower,” and “Raw Optics” are included. The first has some subtle synths that might make you paranoid, the second is something you’d hear drifting out of a Mothers of Invention studio session, and the third (which closes the album) is a snappy blast of post-punk with a drum solo to boot.
Orc is a quirky, wild record, but you’d expect no less from Mr. Dwyer. He excels at making quirky, wild rock that can melt your face one moment and intrigue you the next.
Keep your mind open.
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Ty Segall’s new album, “Freedom’s Goblin,” due January 26th.
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Partner announce tour dates for 2018.
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Tom Rogerson collaborates with Brian Eno for debut album.
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Marian Hill’s saxophonist drops one of the grooviest singles of 2017.
Steve Davit, saxophonist for Marian Hill, is working on some solo material that combines jazz with electro and hip-hop beats. His first single, “Forward,” is a funky blast of chopped up saxophone riffs and sweet synth beats.
You can listen to it here, before everyone starts proclaiming it’s their favorite new song. Get in on the ground floor now.
Keep your mind open.
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Olden Yolk debuts first trippy single – “Takes One to Know One”
Introducing Olden Yolk;
Debut Self-Titled Album Out February 23rd On Trouble In Mind
Debut Self-Titled Album Out February 23rd On Trouble In Mind
Watch The Video For Lead Single “Takes One To Know One”
https://youtu.be/wQDz8ErJvPc
[Photo by Daniel Dorsa]
Olden Yolk, the New York-based group led by songwriters, vocalists, and multi-instrumentalists Shane Butler (of Quilt) and Caity Shaffer, are pleased to announce their self-titled debut album coming out February 23rd on Trouble In Mind. Along with today’s announcement, Olden Yolk are sharing lead single “Takes One To Know One” with an accompanying video debuted via Stereogum.
“‘Takes One to Know One’ is a play on the phrase typically meant to assign blame through commonality,” explain Butler and Shaffer. “Its use in the song is closer to an acceptance of our collective situation rather than a belittlement of it. It was written in our hometown of New York City–an iconic place whose icons (monuments, buildings, public art) are continually morphing and breaking down, shifting whatever former meaning had once been assigned to them.”
They continue, “Some moments hit right when you feel like the ‘writing’s on the door.’ The song, written during an especially jarring year of disillusionment, explores the process of finding solace in passing visages–a stranger’s smile on the subway or the beauty of haphazard graffiti on a brick-laden wall. The song cycles around a group chant at the choruses. It’s instrumentation is highly inspired by the percussion style of Jaki Liebezeit (of the German group CAN), a favorite of ours.”
Olden Yolk is a group whose penchant for dystopian folk, abstract poeticism, and motorik rhythms have enveloped them in a sound uniquely of-the-moment yet simultaneously time-tested. The interlaced vocals of Butler and Shaffer are found guiding each composition on their enlivening self-titled debut. The project was initially conceived in 2012 by Butler as an outlet for one-off songs and visual art while touring and releasing albums with the band Quilt (Mexican Summer). Following the release of a split-record with Weyes Blood in 2014, Olden Yolk became a collaborative entity.
Their debut full-length ruminates on questions surrounding love, self-doubt, and locating autonomy amidst burgeoning unrest. Wrought with hazy melancholy and halcyon joy, Butler and Shaffer’s lilting vocals play off one another through a devotional dialogue, taking form in haunting choral melodies and candid rock n’ roll. These songs are ecstatic odes to the life of the city; to the subway platforms, kiosks, and monuments which enliven and encompass our collectivity, elevating into an urban-psychedelia.
On the album, Butler and Shaffer are joined by drummer Dan Drohan (Tei Shi, Uni Ika Ai) and guitarist Jesse DeFrancesco who round out the studio sessions and live-band. Drohan’s deep passion for jazz, hip-hop, and experimental percussion come to fore while Defrancesco’s minimal yet powerful guitar ambiences are heard swelling in the peripheries of each song. The album was recorded at Gary’s Electric in NYC by Jarvis Taveniere (Woods) with co-production, electronics, and mixing by Jon Nellen (Ginla, Terrible Records). Other guests, such as multi-instrumentalist John Andrews (Quilt, Woods, The Yawns) and violinist Jake Falby (Mutual Benefit, Julie Byrne), add to the mercurial nature of the record, creating a landscape tinged with beatific songwriting and transgressive underpinnings.
Olden Yolk will play a full band record release show at Union Pool in NYC on February 24th along with special guests to be announced. John Andrews & The Yawns will open.
Watch Olden Yolk’s “Takes One To Know One” Video:
https://youtu.be/wQDz8ErJvPc
https://youtu.be/wQDz8ErJvPc
Listen To “Takes One To Know One”:
https://soundcloud.com/
https://open.spotify.com/
Olden Yolk Tracklist:
1. Verdant
2. Cut To The Quick
3. Gamblers On A Dime
4. Vital Sign
5. Aria
6. Common Ground
7. Hen’s Teeth
8. Esprit De Corps
9. After Us
10. Takes One To Know One
1. Verdant
2. Cut To The Quick
3. Gamblers On A Dime
4. Vital Sign
5. Aria
6. Common Ground
7. Hen’s Teeth
8. Esprit De Corps
9. After Us
10. Takes One To Know One
Olden Yolk artwork
Pre-order Olden Yolk:
Trouble In Mind – http://www.troubleinmindrecs.
iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/
Trouble In Mind – http://www.troubleinmindrecs.
iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/
Olden Yolk online:
https://www.facebook.com/
https://www.instagram.com/
https://twitter.com/oldenyolk
https://oldenyolk.bandcamp.
http://www.troubleinmindrecs.
http://pitchperfectpr.com/