Category: Rock

Midnight Sister’s debut album, “Saturn Over Sunset,” due out this September.

Midnight Sister Announce Debut Album, Saturn Over Sunset,
Out September 8th On JagjaguwarWatch The Video For New Single, “Blue Cigar”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk8Ag-Vn06U

Catch Them On Tour This Fall With D.D Dumbo

 

“Sounding at times like early Perfume Genius, L.A. band Midnight Sister shows off a knack for blending orchestral pop and psychedelia…” – The FADER

“alluring and wonderfully timeless” – Gorilla vs. Bear

Midnight Sister are pleased to announce their debut album, Saturn Over Sunset, out September 8th on Jagjaguwar. Along with the announcement, they’re sharing the official video for their new single, “Blue Cigar.” Curious smoke curls across your face as some terrifying, glamorous woman whisper-sings into your ear over jumpy keys and squawking, oddly charming horns. You can’t quite remember how you ended up here with these questionable characters. But you can’t get out of the booth, not now. It’s too late for you, I’m afraid.Midnight Sister — the project of intense creatives Juliana Giraffe and Ari Balouzian — is brought to you by the isolating landscape of the San Fernando Valley — its colors, its diners, its lunatics, its neon lights. Both lifelong residents of this storied valley, Giraffe and Balouzian have only become more inspired by the area’s mythology over the years, it’s two-faced magical wonderland and tragic circus. And Saturn Over Sunset works almost as an album version of Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, each song a character study of the valley’s odd personae.

Giraffe, 23, a daughter of an LA disc jockey, was raised almost exclusively on disco and Bowie. Her lyrics and lyrical melodies, informed very much by her filmmaking background, were composed gazing out from a tiny retail window on Sunset Boulevard. Her “Rear Window”-like longing allowed her imagination to run wild and cook up the wild narratives that would fill Balouzian’s compositions. Balouzian, 27, classically trained and already a go-to arranger for odd-pop names like Tobias Jesso Jr. and Alex Izenberg. Midnight Sister represents a first for both of them. It’s Giraffe’s first time writing and performing music. And it’s Balouzian’s first foray into playing true pop music.

Saturn Over Sunset is a shared musical vision of Hollywood’s oddest corners. It is the baroque, eldritch alley you must pass through to find the speakeasy night of your life. You’ll come out bleary-eyed and the sunrise will be pouring all pink and orange through the smog and palm trees.

Watch Midnight Sister’s “Blue Cigar” Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk8Ag-Vn06U

Watch “Leave You” Video:
https://youtu.be/Jot8NY3wq1k

Midnight Sister Tour Dates:
9/8 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/9 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/11 – Santa Cruz, CA @ Atrium at The Catalyst (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/12 – San Francisco, CA @ Independent (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/14 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/15 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/16 – Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore Cabaret (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/19 – St Paul, MN @ Turf Club (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/20 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brendas (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/23 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom (w/ D.D Dumbo)Saturn Over Sunset Tracklist:
1. Canary
2. Leave You
3. Blue Cigar
4. Showgirl
5. The Drought
6. The Crow
7. Daddy Long Legs
8. Neon
9. Shimmy
10. So Young
11. The View From Gilligan’s Island
12. Hitman
13. Clown
14. Their Eyes

Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: Ride

Influential British shoegaze band Ride broke up in 1996 after just six years and a couple albums, but they got back together in 2015 and have a new album, Weather Diaries, out this year.  Ride’s performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival on July 16th will be one of the highlights of the weekend, as not many expected a Ride reunion, let alone a new album or tour.  They sound like they haven’t lost anything after 20 years, so don’t miss their set if you’ll be in Chicago that weekend.

Keep your mind open.

[Take a ride with me by subscribing.]

 

Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: NE-HI

Chicago’s NE-HI formed to score a friend’s film and ended up becoming indie rock darlings.  I’m guessing they took their name from the mostly forgotten brand of soda, but perhaps I’m wrong.  I do know that their catchy psychedelic rock hooks are good and I’m confident a lot of their hometown fans will be at their Pitchfork Music Festival set on July 16th to cheer them.

Keep your mind open.

[Here’s a great offer!  Free blog updates sent straight to your e-mail inbox in exchange for your e-mail address.]

Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: P.J. Harvey

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actress, and sculptor P.J. Harvey will be playing Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival on July 15th.  Ms. Harvey is an alt-rock, feminist giant who has crafted complex songs she insists aren’t about her, but many suspect otherwise.  She is bold and beautiful, serious and sexy, charming and chaotic.  Her set will surely be packed and one of the highlights of the festival.

Keep your mind open.

[Spinnin’ wheel, spinnin’ through.  Subscribin’s what you should do.]

 

Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: Thurston Moore Group

Thurston Moore doesn’t need much introduction.  The former lead singer and guitarist of Sonic Youth has influenced more bands and musicians than we can probably count and is a guitar hero to many (much to his chagrin, I’ve heard).  His new band puts out great “wall of sound” fuzz rock, and I’d hoped to catch them at Levitation Austin in 2016, but that was cancelled due to bad weather.  He’ll be performing at the Pitchfork Music Festival on July 14th, so it will be good to catch up with him.

Keep your mind open.

Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: Priests

Washington D.C. punks Priests have unleashed a lot of post-punk / no wave protest music in the last year, and the world is better for it.  They’re smack dab in the middle of the current political climate’s hotbed, and they’re not just speaking out, they’re shouting out.  A lot of their songs build to high tension, which is an apt reflection for much of the country right now.

Priests open the Green Stage at the Pitchfork Music Festival on July 14th.  It’s sure to be a raucous way to start the day.

Keep your mind open.

[Get all the updates you want when you subscribe.]

Wand’s new album, “Plum,” is due out in September, but you can hear the title track now.

WAND ANNOUNCE PLUM, NEW ALBUM OUT SEPTEMBER 22ND
ON DRAG CITY RECORDS, AND TOUR

WATCH VIDEO FOR LEAD SINGLE, “PLUM”
https://youtu.be/FZXI6Pw_CgE

(above image by Abby Banks)

“they pack both a purist intent and an inescapable weirdness into songs
as adventurous as they are catchy.”  – NPR Music

“a wonderful retro-futuristic mess” – Los Angeles Times

“spacey, proggy, psych detour.” – Rolling Stone “Artist You Need To Know”

“Theirs is a fuzz-shrouded kind of rock ‘n roll displaying an imaginative urge to re-smear the already kaleidoscopic boundaries of the inventive modern crop of modern psychedelic music.”
– Paste “Best of What’s Next”

Los Angeles-based Wand announce the release of Plum, out September 22nd via Drag City Records, as well as lead single, “Plum,” and its accompanying video, and a tour that embarks on the heels of the album’s release. Plum is Wand’s fourth LP since the band formed in late 2013, but their first new album since 2015. After a whirlwind first two years of writing, recording, and touring, their newest document focuses teeming, dense, at times wildly multichromatic sounds into Wand’s most deliberate statement to date, with a long evening’s shadow of loss and longing hovering above the proceedings.

In late winter of 2016, the band — Cory Hanson (guitar, vocals), Lee Landey (bass) and Evan Burrows (drums) — expanded their core membership to include two new members — Robbie Cody (guitar) and Sofia Arreguin (keyboards, vocals). The change in lineup naturally led to a shift in working method. The songwriting process was relocated to the practice space, where for several months on and off the band improvised, while recording and archiving as much as they could manage. And while previously Wand songs had often been brought to the group substantially formed by Hanson, now seedling songs were harvested from a growing cloudbank of improvised material, then fleshed out and negotiated collectively. This new process demanded more honest communication, more vulnerability, better boundaries, more mercy and persistence during a year that meanwhile delivered a heaping serving of romantic, familial and political heartbreak for everyone involved. The resulting Plum delicately locates the band’s tangent of escape from the comfortable shallows of genre anachronism.

Watch the video for “Plum” below. As Hanson describes it, “The song transpires between our collective harmony and individual dissent. It felt like we were each trying to obstruct a clear path in order to discover new space. As a total accident, ‘Plum’ wound up being a miniature blueprint to the musical language we developed together over months of dedicated writing.”

Watch “Plum” Video –
https://youtu.be/FZXI6Pw_CgE

Plum Tracklisting:
1. Setting
2. Plum
3. Bee Karma
4. Charles De Gaulle
5. High Rise
6. White Cat
7. The Trap
8. Ginger
9. Blue Cloud
10. Driving

Pre-order Plum:
http://itunes.apple.com/album/id1252054166
https://wand.bandcamp.com/album/plum

Wand Tour Dates:
Sat. Sep. 23 – Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour #
Sun. Sep. 24 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah #
Mon. Sep. 25 – Las Vegas, NV @ Bunkhouse #
Wed. Sep. 27 – Denver, CO @ Lost Lake #
Thu. Sep. 28 – Lincoln, ME @ Lincoln Calling
Fri. Sep. 29 – Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock Social Club #
Sat. Sep. 30 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall #
Mon. Oct. 2 – Toronto, ON @ Baby G #
Tue. Oct. 3 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz #
Wed. Oct. 4 – Cambridge, MA @ Cambridge Elks Lodge #
Fri. Oct. 6 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom #
Sat. Oct. 7 – Philadelphia, PA @ Everybody Hits #
Sun. Oct. 8 – Washington, DC @ DC9 #
Tue. Oct. 10 – Raleigh, NC @ Kings #
Wed. Oct. 11 – Atlanta, GA @ 529 #
Thu. Oct. 12 – New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa #
Fri. Oct. 13 – Austin, TX @ Barracuda #
Sat. Oct. 14 – Dallas, TX @ Dada #
Sun. Oct. 15 – Norman, OK @ The Opolis #
Wed. Oct. 18 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Bar #
Thu. Oct. 19 – Boise, ID @ Neurolux #
Sat. Oct. 21 – Vancouver, BC @ The Cobalt #
Sun. Oct. 22 – Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project #
Tue. Oct. 24 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel #
Tue. Jan. 23 – Brighton, UK @ Patterns
Wed. Jan. 24 – London, UK @ Dome
Thu. Jan. 25 – Bristol, UK @ Louisiana
Fri. Jan. 26 – Manchester, UK @ Soup Kitchen
Sat. Jan. 27 – Glasgow, UK @ Garage 2
Sun. Jan. 28 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell (main room)
Mon. Jan. 29 – Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds (room 2)

# = with Darto

(Plum cover artwork)

Rewind Review: Suuns and Jerusalem in My Heart (2015)

Two Montreal psychedelic powerhouses, four-piece Suuns and producer Radwan Gahzi Mounmeh (otherwise known as Jerusalem in My Heart), teamed up in 2012 (but didn’t release the collaboration until three years later) to create a new project that mixes Suuns’ rock aesthetic with Mounmeh’s tripped-out Middle Eastern sounds. It’s mind and tongue twisting.

What do I mean? Well, the first track is titled “2amoutu I7tirakan.” The numbers are used to reflect Arabic sounds that have no good western written translation. The track sounds like a forgotten relic from Vangelis’ Blade Runner score. “Metal” is a great cut that shows how western rock and Middle Eastern beats can work so well together. “Self” blends Middle Eastern chanting with weird electro-blip percussion. “In Touch,” with its almost subliminal bass and building beats, is perfectly suited for playing in the glass elevator you’re taking to the upper floors of the casino hotel to meet your lover / the contract killer you’ve hired.

“Gazelles in Flight” begins with what sounds like a film reel flapping after it’s made its run through a projector. It builds into weird insect-like sounds and then into something that sounds like a Claudio Simonetti giallo film score track from the 1980’s. It’s wonderfully weird. The album closes with “3attam Babey,” an eight-minute track of desert mirages and a mix of touches from the likes of Bauhaus, Joy Division, and early Pink Floyd.

One of the most incredible things about this mind warp of a record is that it was recorded in one week back in 2012. One week! A longer team-up between them may produce something that can transport us to the astral plane. I hope they do this soon. I’d love to check out that place.

Keep your mind open.

[You’ll always be in my heart if you subscribe.]

A Perfect Circle announces North American fall tour dates.

Not ones to take a break, A Perfect Circle have announced fall tour dates throughout North America.  No new album has been announced, but they have played new material during recent shows.  Here are the announced dates:

October 21 — Sacramento, CA @ Aftershock Festival
October 23 — Colorado Springs, CO @ Broadmoor World Arena
October 25 — Albuquerque, NM @ Tingley Coliseum
October 26 — El Paso, TX @ Don Haskins Center
October 30 — Knoxville, TN @ Thompson-Boling Arena
November 1 — Fairfax, VA @ EagleBank Arena
November 2 — Brooklyn, NY @ Tidal Theater at Barclays Center
November 4 —Reading, PA @ Santander Arena
November 5 — Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun Arena
November 7 — Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion
November 8 — Boston, MA @ Agganis Arena
November 10 — Portland, ME @ Cross Insurance Center
November 11 — Albany, NY @ Times Union Center
November 12 — Syracuse, NY @ The OnCenter Arena
November 14 — Montreal, QC @ Laval Centre
November 15 — Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre
November 17 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Petersen Events Center
November 18 — Cleveland, OH @ Wolstein Center
November 19 — Highland Heights, KY @ BB&T Arena
November 21 — Detroit, MI @ Fox Theatre
November 22 — Grand Rapids, MI @ The DeltaPlex Arena
November 24 — Chicago, IL @ UIC Pavilion
November 25 — St. Paul, MN @ Xcel EnergyCenter
November 28 — Spokane, WA @ Spokane Arena
November 30 — Vancouver, BC @ PNE Coliseum
December 1 — Seattle, WA @ Key Arena
December 2 — Portland, OR @ Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum
December 4 — Eugene, OR @ Matthew Knight Center

Keep your mind open.

[Subscribing to us is so easy that it’s perfect.]

Rewind Review: The New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers (2014)

The New Pornographers returned in 2014 after a far too long absence to bring us another masterfully crafted album of power pop. The Canadian supergroup’s Brill Bruisers sounds like a long-lost ELO record and is a fine piece of work desperately needed in this world of pop divas, TV show idols, bro’ rock, country-rap, and booty call music.

The opener (and title track) starts with blaring guitars, powerful drums, vocals that swirl with great melodies, and a touch of psychedelic synths. Vocalist / guitarist A.C. Newman and his crew seem to channel the stadium-filling power of early ELO records on it. “Champions of Red Wine” doesn’t refer to my wife and one of her best friends, but is rather a fun song from outer space (judging by the poppy space lounge keyboards) sung by the always mesmerizing Neko Case. The band knocks this one out of the park.

“Fantasy Fools” will have you jumping and dancing, as it’s nothing but joyful. The keyboards on it are the hidden key to the song’s power. Those same keyboards are front and center during “War on the East Coast,” in which Dan Bejar worries more about potentially botching a relationship than about world chaos and bad news. “Backstairs” brings back the ELO influence and is big, booming, and wonderful. I can’t wait to hear this one live. It swirls into mind trip material and is all the better for it. “Marching Orders” is peppy with happy keyboards and Neko Case’s happy vocals. You can visualize her dancing in the recording booth as she sings. I love the way “Born with a Sound” dabbles in electro. The New Pornographers have the luxury of being able to do whatever the hell they want, so an electro-rock cut doesn’t jar the flow of the album at all (and Kathryn Calder’s backing vocals on it are excellent).

If you’re worried the New Pornographers are turning into an electro band, have no fear. “Dancehall Domine” sounds like something off The Electric Version with its big guitars, great Newman and Case vocal trades, and straight-up rock drums, and “Spidyr” sounds like it could’ve been a track from Mass Romantic. “Hi-Rise” and the closer, “You Tell Me Where,” dive back into the synth-heavy sounds, but it all works. “You Tell Me Where” is a nice grand finale and I’m sure is a big set-ender at their live shows.

We needed this record. It’s refreshing and lovely – the best kind of porn, really.

Keep your mind open.

[You won’t get bruised if you subscribe.  It’s painless.]