Clutch, Killswitch Engage, and Cro-Mags are heading on the road together this summer across the United States in what will surely be one of the loudest tours of 2019. Tickets to all dates are on sale now. Some of the dates include festivals like Clutch’s Earth Rocker (July 13), Rock Fest (July 19th), and Impact Festival (July 28th).
Clutch never disappoint live, so don’t miss your chance to see them.
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The 2019 Levitation France music festival has released its first announcement of the bands playing at the Le Quai performance center in Angers, France September 20-21st.
There are some interesting choices right out of the gate. Fat White Family makes intriguing psychedelic rock, Iceage, the Warlocks, and Black Midi will provide some of the loudest sets of the weekend, and New Candys bring in some great Italian shoegaze. I need to research the other bands. There might be a new favorite on this list I haven’t yet discovered.
Keep your mind open.
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“Rollicking, dizzying, high-octane grooves with the joie de vivre of afrobeat and highlife.” — Rolling Stone
“It’s downright miraculous how the songs mesh: guitar licks, hopscotching bass lines, cymbal offbeats and talking drums all land with microscopic precision and can reconfigure in an instant.” — The New York Times
“The sound of a group without obvious peer… such brazen confidence and ability” — Wire Magazine
Niamey, Niger band Tal National returns to tour North America this summer supporting their highly lauded third album for FatCat Records, Tantabara. The tour begins in July and will bring the band to Canada for the first time, while also returning to some US cities in which they’ve blown minds and moved feet previously. Please see current dates below. Hear and share Tantabara via Spotify, Bandcamp and YouTube.
Watch & share “Akokas” official VIDEO.
Tal National is a band built on bringing people together. Their home country of Niger is split into a wide variety of cultures and ethnicities — Songhai, Fulani, Hausa, and Tuareg voices all vie for attention under their national banner, and all are represented in the vast membership of Tal National’s ranks. This gives the band’s music its own particular mash of ethnomusical touchstones, from the bounce of kora, highlife and afrobeat, to the dusting of Tuareg Blues and the roiling boil of Hausa percussion — they are truly their country’s best cultural emissaries. In 2013 the band’s FatCat debut was released to wide critical acclaim: The NY Times placed it on their year end Top Ten and other publications followed suit — The Guardian, The Independent, Mojo, Vice, The Wire, and others all sang exuberant praises. NPR, KEXP and WBEZ hosted frenetic live sessions. Two years on, their follow-up only cemented their status, adding shouts from Pitchfork, Afropop Worldwide, FADER, The Quietus and The Boston Globe to the fray. Though with each heaping of praise they all seemed to echo NPR’s assessment that “there’s no way you won’t dance to this one!”
Tantabara is available on LP, CD and download, released February 9th, 2018 via FatCat Records.
TAL NATIONAL TOUR 2019: 07/06 London, ON – Sunfest 07/07 London, ON – Sunfest 07/08 Toronto, ON – The Baby G 07/09 Detroit, MI – Trinosophes 07/11 Pittsburgh, PA – Spirit 07/13 Winnipeg, MB – Winnipeg Folk Festival 07/14 Winnipeg, MB – Winnipeg Folk Festival 07/16 Portland, OR – The Jack London 07/17 Seattle, WA – Nectar Lounge 07/18 Harrison Hot Springs, BC – Harrison Festival 07/20 Vancouver, BC – Vancouver Folk Festival 07/21 Vancouver, BC – Vancouver Folk Festival 07/26-07/28 Calgary, AB – Calgary Folk Festival 08/01 New York, NY – Public Records 08/02 Marlboro, NY – Live at The Falcon 08/03 New Haven, CT – Cafe Nine 08/04 Portland, ME – Space538 08/06 Hudson, NY – Half Moon presents 08/07 Boston, MA – Museum of Fine Arts 08/08 Easthampton, MA – New City Brewery 08/09 Edmonton, AB – Edmonton Folk Festival 08/10 Edmonton, AB – Edmonton Folk Festival 08/16 Salmon Arm, BC – Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival 08/17 Salmon Arm, BC – Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival
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“In classic Webster style, the spring-appropriate song, titled ‘Flowers,’ effortlessly blends healthy doses of both Americana and hip-hop influence for a final product that can be summarized with two words: Atlanta excellence.” – Paste
“Faye Webster has a golden voice, projected in ‘Flowers’ through a prism of crystal-clear production.” – Consequence of Sound
“Webster’s songs can be disarmingly direct and sorrowful.” – Pitchfork
(“Rising”) “The 21-year-old singer has a natural ability to fuse indie-folk with laid-back R&B.” – Rolling Stone
Faye Webster – 21-year-old Atlanta-based singer-songwriter and decorated photographer – shares a new single, “Right Side of My Neck,” from her forthcoming album, Atlanta Millionaires Club, due May 24th via Secretly Canadian. Following previously released “Flowers,” “Room Temperature,” and “Kingston,” “Right Side of My Neck” is gorgeously built by brass and strings, and zeros in on the lingering scent and uncertainty of new love. “For me I find that sometimes the best songs come out from the exact moment,” says Webster. “This song I didn’t think about writing or what I was doing, I was fresh from a feeling and that’s when I get some of my most honest and relatable songs.“
Listen to “Right Side of My Neck”– https://youtu.be/UwHI4MMM_DI
Atlanta Millionaires Club is a genre-bending collection of songs, bringing together Webster’s feather-light vocals, intimate songwriting, and her acumen for being strikingly vulnerable and brave. Pulling from a familial lineage of folk storytelling and time spent in Atlanta’s hip-hop scene, Webster’s work is a study of duality, weaving through her own introversion and heartbreak; it’s an idiosyncratic sadness punctuated by fleeting observations and an unexpected, sly sense of humor.
“Everything is way personal. I’ve never been that kind of person who can read a book and then write a song about the book,” Webster says. “I have to write about very personal things for me to even want to write.”
Faye Webster will headline a North American tour this month. Additionally, she will appear at Bonnaroo later this summer.
Listen to “Right Side of My Neck”–
https://youtu.be/UwHI4MMM_DI
Watch the video for “Flowers” –
https://youtu.be/qq_Jm_QC4go
Watch the video for “Room Temperature” –
https://youtu.be/nMybE4Ge6hM
Watch the video for “Kingston” –
https://youtu.be/-5_tGEao_GQ
Pre-order Atlanta Millionaires Club –
https://fayewebster.ffm.to/atlantamillionairesclub
Faye Webster Tour Dates
Fri. May 24 – Manchester, UK @ Dot to Dot Festival
Sat. May 25 – Bristol, UK @ Dot to Dot Festival
Sun. May 26 – Nottingham, UK @ Dot to Dot Festival
Tue. May 28 – London, UK @ Bermondsey Social Club
Wed. May 29 – London, UK @ Bermondsey Social Club
Fri. May 31 – Hilvarenbeek, NL @ Best Kept Secret Festival
Mon. Jun 03 – Paris, FR @ La Boule Noire
Sun. June 16 – Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival
Tue. June 18 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
Wed. June 19 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern
Fri. June 21 – Toronto, ON @ The Drake
Sat. June 22 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Cafe
Sun. June 23 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
Mon. June 24 – Allston, MA @ Great Scott
Wed. June 26 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
Thu. June 27 – Washington, DC @ DC9
Fri. June 28 – Asheville, NC @ The Mothlight
Sat. June 29 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
Keep your mind open.
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Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough? is what Jennifer Clavin asked herself when she hit a turning point in her life. It’s also the title of the new Bleached record, out July 12th via Dead Oceans, and Jessie and Jennifer Clavin’s first LP written from a place of sobriety. That newfound perspective serves as the guiding force in every corner of its sound, yielding a courageous, honest, and sonically ambitious album. Throughout, the Clavins radiate the power and bravery of facing addiction, of letting go of the past and becoming open to a radically different future of self-love, acceptance, and newfound honesty. Today, the sisters present its lead single, the defiant, yet playful “Hard to Kill” and its accompanying video, and announce a North American headline tour (all upcoming dates are listed below). Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough? follows 2016’s Welcome the Worms and 2017’s “Can You Deal?” EP. The sisters began writing the album in early 2018 in a Los Angeles practice space and with friends and co-writers in Nashville. “Writing these songs while sober became somewhat of a spiritual experience,” Jennifer says. “I had to let go, trust the process, and allow an energy beyond my control to be present.” In writing and recording, Jessie handled the bulk of the instrumentation and Jennifer handled the lyrics and melodies — it was important to the Clavins that the entire record return to their dynamic as sisters.
Producer Shane Stoneback (Vampire Weekend, Sleigh Bells) helped open every door to experimentation, wanting to be exploratory while keeping the sound singularly Bleached. The resulting LP is explosive, grappling with the past; its twelve tracks mark some of the sisters’ most visceral, rawest songwriting to date — and some of their best. The album glimmers with inspiration found in touring with the likes of The Damned and Paramore whose arena-ready, incisively catchy pop was a palpable influence helping to push Bleached’s sound in a new realm.
This new direction is clear with “Hard To Kill” and previously released “Shitty Ballet.” As described by Jennifer, “Hard to Kill” is about “staring down the road towards death and realizing I needed to wake up and get out of my selfish patterns of self destruction.” The video, directed by another sister team, Juliana and Nicky Giraffe, depicts the Clavin sisters in defiance of the shadows of their past, utilizing their talent and wit to set themselves free into a liberated new beginning.
The exclusive Dead Oceans preorder bundle includes limited edition black/red/brown tri-colored LP (only available through this bundle), cassette, and a getaway car accessory pack with a “Valley To LA” bumper sticker, “Somebody Dial 911” air freshener and Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough? metal keychain.
Watch the Video for “Hard To Kill” –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQYgcc02m5c
Pre-order Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough? –
bleached.ffm.to/dontyouthink
Watch “Shitty Ballet” Video –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8pGMcSylH4
Don’t You Think You Have Enough?Tracklist
1. Heartbeat Away
2. Hard to Kill
3. Daydream
4. I Get What I Need
5. Somebody Dial 911
6. Kiss You Goodbye
7. Rebound City
8. Silly Girl
9. Valley to LA
10. Real Life
11. Awkward Phase
12. Shitty Ballet
Bleached Tour Dates:
Mon. May 20 – Chicago, IL @ The Vic Theater *
Tue. May 21 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant *
Wed. May 22 – Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall *
Fri. May 24 – Denver, CO @ Gothic Hall *
Sat. May 25 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Union Events Center *
Tue. May 28 – Pomona, CA @ Fox Theater *
Fri. May 29 – San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park *
Thu. July 11 – Los Angeles, Ca @ Moroccan Lounge
Thu. Aug. 22 – London, UK @ The Lexington
Sat. Aug. 24 – Reading, UK @ Reading Festival
Sun. Aug. 25 – Leeds, UK @ Leeds Festival
Sat. Sept. 7 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
Mon. Sept. 9 – Austin, TX @ Barracuda
Tue. Sept. 10 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
Wed. Sept. 11 – Houston, TX @ Satellite Bar
Fri. Sept. 13 – New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa
Sat. Sept. 14 – Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade (Hell)
Sun. Sept. 15 – Raleigh, NC @ Motorco
Tue. Sept. 17 – Washington, DC @ U Street Music Hall
Thu. Sept. 19 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere
Fri. Sept. 20 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA
Sat. Sept. 21 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
Mon. Sept. 23 – Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
Tue. Sept. 24 – Columbus, OH @ The Basement
Wed. Sept. 25 – Nashville, TN @ Exit In
Fri. Sept. 27 – Urbana, IL @ Pygmalion Festival
Sat. Sept. 28 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
Sun. Sept. 29 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
Tue. Oct. 1 – Kansas City, MO @ Riot Room (Outdoors)
Thu. Oct. 3 – Denver, CO @ Globe Hall
Sat. Oct. 5 – Boise, ID @ The Olympic
Mon. Oct. 7 – Seattle, WA @ Crocodile
Tue. Oct. 8 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
Wed. Oct. 9 – Portland, OR @ Star Theater
Fri. Oct. 11 – Oakland, CA @ New Parish
*= w/ Refused and The Hives
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L7’s highly anticipated and long-awaited new album, Scatter the Rats, will hit us like a boot to the face on May 3rd. They’ve already announced a U.S. tour for this summer, and now they’ve released another single to make us hungrier for the full album – “Stadium West.” It’s a solid cut covered in menace and danger. You can check out the video here.
Keep your mind open.
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Ty Segall is pleased to announce special 2019 residencies in Los Angeles, New York City and different European cities. Joined by the Freedom Band, each night of the residency, Segall will perform select albums from his catalogue in full, including Melted, Goodbye Bread, Emotional Mugger, and Manipulator, plus a to be announced set.
Segall will bring his fervent live show to the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles every Friday from July 26 – September 27. The first 500 people to purchase 3 or more tickets to different LA shows will receive a limited 7” of new, unreleased music. Next, he will play five consecutive nights at New York’s Warsaw October 1 – October 5. The first 500 people who buy 3 or more tickets to different NYC shows will get an exclusive, limited poster created and signed by Segall in New York. Following New York, Segall and the Freedom Band will head overseas to play Paris, London, Berlin and Haarlem, NL.
Ty Segall & Freedom Band Tour Dates: Fri. July 26 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (Ty Segall plays ??? + Melted) Fri Aug. 2 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (Ty Segall plays ??? + Melted) Fri. Aug. 9 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (Ty Segall plays ??? + Melted) Fri. Aug. 16 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (Ty Segall plays ??? + Goodbye Bread) Fri. Aug. 23 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (Ty Segall plays ??? + Goodbye Bread) Fri. Aug. 30 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (Ty Segall plays ??? + Emotional Mugger) Fri. Sept. 6 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (Ty Segall plays ??? + Emotional Mugger) Fri. Sept. 13 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (Ty Segall plays ??? + Manipulator) Fri. Sept. 20 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (Ty Segall plays ??? + Manipulator) Fri. Sept. 27 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (Ty Segall plays ??? + Manipulator) Tues. Oct. 1 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw (Ty Segall plays ??? + Melted) Wed. Oct. 2 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw (Ty Segall plays ??? + Melted) Thurs. Oct. 3 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw (Ty Segall plays ??? + Goodbye Bread) Fri. Oct. 4 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw (Ty Segall plays ??? + Emotional Mugger) Sat. Oct. 5 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw (Ty Segall plays ??? + Manipulator) Wed. Oct. 9 – Paris, FR @ La Cigale (Ty Segall plays ??? + Melted) Thu. Oct. 10 – Paris, FR @ La Cigale (Ty Segall plays ??? + Manipulator) Fri. Oct. 11 – London, UK @ Oval Space (Ty Segall plays ??? + Melted) Sat. Oct. 12 – London, UK @ Oval Space (Ty Segall plays ??? + Goodbye Bread) Sun. Oct. 13 – London, UK @ Oval Space (Ty Segall plays ??? + Manipulator) Tue. Oct. 15 – Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg (Ty Segall plays ??? + Melted) Thu. Oct. 17 – Haarlem, NL @ Patronaat (Ty Segall plays ??? + Melted) Fri. Oct. 18 – Haarlem, NL @ Patronaat (Ty Segall plays ??? + Manipulator)
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Tickets are on sale for the first announced shows at the Austin, Texas Levitation Music Festival. Powerhouses like Russian Circles, John Cale, the Black Angels, Chelsea Wolfe, Red Fang, Warish, Here Lies Man, Kurt Vile, Dinosaur, Jr., Black Moth Super Rainbow, A Place to Bury Strangers, and the KVB are already scheduled.
Weekend general admission passes are $395.00, but they have tickets for individual shows if you’d rather not drop that much cash. Don’t wait too long to get your tickets. Many shows sold out last year.
See you there.
Keep your mind open.
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Norwegian producer André Bratten is pleased to announce his new album, Pax Americana, out June28th via Smalltown Supersound. Additionally, Bratten shares the funk-beat driven lead single, “HS.”
Listen to “HS” —
https://soundcloud.com/smalltownsupersound/andre-bratten-hs/s-GKRBI
In just five years, Bratten has established himself as a mercurial and uncompromising figure in modern-day electronics. After earning a reputation as a serious performer with a dark, cavalier side through his live shows and DJ sets on the European club scene, Bratten moved from the center of Oslo to the suburbs. The change of scenery had a positive effect on every aspect of his life, allowing him to focus on his young family and studio work. It took him a year to build his new studio in his garden, and then another year to patch all the hardware together again and relearn his music-making process. The first tracks to emerge from his suburban base surfaced last year on Smalltown Supersound as a series of three 12-inches. These are lush, driving funk cuts swaddled in curdled synthesis that find Bratten exploring a new way to conjure the spirit of the acts he loved in his early teens: Boards of Canada, Autechre, and the late Drexciya producer James Stinson’s The Other People Place and Transllusion projects.
Pax Americana presents three of the series’ softer tracks, alongside three new numbers which add a shade of menace to the record. Following his debut LP Be a Man You Ant released on Oslo label FullPupp and his previous Smalltown Supersound releases “Math Ilium Ion” EP and Gode, Pax Americanapresents Bratten using a pragmatic approach. He deliberately produced these track in an old-fashioned, analogue fashion, restricting himself to an 808, an old sequencer, a reel-to-reel tape and a vintage mixer that once belonged to ABBA in the 1980s. Bratten bought the desk from a rockabilly musician in Norway who’d acquired it from a Swedish TV station. Describing the bubblebath boogie of Pax Americana, he says: “I was trying to make a steady dance record without being swooshy. When I started listening to techno as a kid there wasn’t this melodic stuff, so the record is more of a vibe, a feeling.”
Across a handful of sketches, Bratten has sketched out an enchanted vision of the world – a kind of psychedelic dystopia – as he seeks to fuel his lifelong obsession with sound. “I’ve always been fascinated by how a sound can make you feel, without being something you can touch,” he says. “I’ve always been more interested in sounds than music.”
Pax Americana Tracklist:
01. HS
02. Pax Americana
03. 426
04. Commonwealth
05. Ranx
06. Recreation 26B
Pre-order Pax Americana —
http://smarturl.it/sts356-preorder
Keep your mind open.
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Bleached – the Los Angeles-based rock duo of sisters Jessica and Jennifer Clavin – return with a new single, “Shitty Ballet,” and an accompanying video. “Shitty Ballet” is the first taste of new music from the band since 2016’s “highly melodic and often sunny” (Los Angeles Times) Welcome the Worms and 2017’s Can You Deal? EP.
“Shitty Ballet” is the first studio work from the Clavins relying heavily on acoustic guitars. Written in just a few hours in a deluge of heartbreak, the striking emotion of the demo stuck. They stayed true to its stripped-down original, starting off with minimal instrumentation before bursting through with a full band. The accompanying one shot video, directed by Giraffe Studios, shows the Clavins awash in soft, violet-tinted light, performing as masked ballet dancers, young and old, twirl alongside them.
“Bleached has always been a pretty loud rock band so we felt it was time to explore a more stripped down style of playing,” says Jennifer. “With the vulnerability of the lyrics we decided to carry that into the instruments as well for the first time recording with just an acoustic guitar and vocals. Sonic change is important to us right now. More of that coming soon.”
Bleached will be supporting Refused on the road this May. The band have scheduled an intimate underplay in their hometown of Los Angeles on July 11th at the Moroccan Lounge. More Bleached announcements are on the horizon.
Watch “Shitty Ballet” Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8pGMcSylH4
Bleached Tour Dates: Mon. May 20 – Chicago, IL @ The Vic Theater * Tue. May 21 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant * Wed. May 22 – Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall * Fri. May 24 – Denver, CO @ Gothic Hall * Sat. May 25 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Union Events Center * Tue. May 28 – Pomona, CA @ Fox Theater * Fri. May 29 – San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park * Thu. July 11 – Los Angeles, Ca @ Moroccan Lounge *= w/ Refused and The Hives
Keep your mind open.
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