Chicago’s annual North Coast Music Festivalhas announced its (almost) full lineup. They’re still keeping some acts secret for now.
North Coast is a mostly electronic music festival that’s promoted as the last fling of summer (It’s the first weekend of September.) before another depressing Chicago winter and Bears season wallops the city.
Some of the biggest names on the bill are Deadmau5, Damian Marley, Big Boi, Gucci Mane, and Ween. They’re already offering tickets and layaway plans, so get your tickets while they’re cheap and still available.
Last year the Raveonettes decided to create a “anti-album” by composing and releasing a new track digitally every month. These tracks have now been compiled into their new record – 2016 Atomized. It will be available April 21st for the first time as a complete collection.
A lot of the tracks on the record have a strong synth / electro feel instead of the psychedelic fuzz you’re used to on a Raveonettes records, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s good to hear them stretching out.
Keep your mind open.
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DEBUT ALBUM, EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECHNIQUE,
OUT JUNE 9TH ON TENDER LOVING EMPIRE
(photo credit: Jaclyn Campanaro)
“…a cloud of weightless synths anchored by a danceably funky bass groove.”
— Stereogum on “Do You Want Love?” Dave Depper, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist for Death Cab for Cutie, is excited to share “Communication,” a new song from his forthcoming debut solo album, Emotional Freedom Technique, out June9th on TenderLovingEmpire. The single, which premiered earlier this morning via Uproxx, is a perfect representation of the album as a whole: amidst intertwining minimal drum patterns and warm, melodic synthesizers, “Communication” addresses the strain and toll distance, along with a life on the road, brings to relationships. Depper says:
Musically, “Communication” began the day after Prince passed away. I decided to a pay a small musical tribute to the man by attempting to create my own minimalist funk song in the Minneapolis style, hence the LinnDrum beat and sparse instrumentation. The whole thing came together in a couple of hours.
At the time, I was in a long distance relationship with a woman that had, as those things so often do, devolved into communicating almost exclusively over text messages and social media. Conversations would abruptly end, only to be resurrected hours or even days later. The more we seemed to communicate using only blue bubbles of text, the less real she seemed to me. It dawned on me that this was not communication at all, just a facsimile of real interaction. I poured my frustration into the track I was working on, and the song wrote itself from there.
If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, don’t miss Depper’s two special album release shows: Wed. June 21st at Barboza in Seattle and Thu. June 22nd at Mississippi Studios in Portland. Tickets for both are on-sale now.
Dave Depper Tour Dates: Wed. June 21 — Seattle, WA @ Barboza (Record Release Show) [tickets] Thu. June 22 — Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios (Record Release Show) [tickets]
A strong contender for my favorite album of 2017 has arrived in early spring. Kelly Lee Owens’ debut self-titled album is a refreshing, sensual, and dreamy electro album that’s a great change of pace from all the EDM and dubstep ripping through festivals every weekend and seemingly everywhere. I don’t mind those genres at all, but Ms. Owens has crafted something that stands out and finding such records in EDM and dubstep is tough nowadays.
“S.O.” sounds like something Vangelis might’ve crafted until Owens’ incense smoke-drifting-through-sunshine vocals appear. Poppy beats that sound like electric tablas root the track, but it will make you float on your feet or in your chair. “Arthur” begins with birdsong and rainfall and looped moans as the beat builds and the song becomes a beautiful mist you can feel but can’t quite see.
I think “Anxi.,” which features Jenny Hval on lead vocals, is about anxiety. Hval sings about “keeping it together” and “doing Barack badly.” Does she worry about not living up to expectations she set for herself during Obama’s presidency or ones set by others, like the family she mentions? I’m not sure. All I do know is that the bass at the halfway point of the track is so damn funky that all anxiety you might have is washed away because you’re too busy dancing.
“Lucid” is a good name for the next track, because it’s like something from a dream. “Different from the rest. Don’t you see it? Where we ought to be. Lucid, lucid,” Owens sings in some of her clearest vocals on the record. She seems to urge a potential lover to see the love she’s offering that’s right there for the taking but is going unnoticed.
“Evolution” should, by all rights, be tearing up dance floors in various remixes by now. It’s a great mix of industrial dance music, EDM, and synth-pop. “Bird” throws you for a loop by starting with a synthesized strings and tubular bells. Then, dear God, that synth-bass wallops you upside the head and you’re practically drifting around the astral plane. “Throwing Lines” continues the poppy electro beats, but the vocals are reverbed to the moon and back (which is great).
I don’t know what “Cbm” stands for, but I do know it’s a floor-stomper of a track that speaks of colors in motion – which only adds to the trippy atmosphere. “Keep Walking” reminds me of old Chemical Brothers tracks (the ones on the mellow side, at least). It’s full of deep bass, fuzzy guitar, clockwork beats, and lovely female vocals. The tenth, and final, track is called “8.” Only Owens knows why. It has nothing to do with the length of the song (9:39), but perhaps it’s a reference to infinity or a Mobius loop. The song is definitely spacey enough to justify that guess.
I don’t know where Ms. Owens has been hiding all this time, but I’m glad she’s here and has given us this album. This has to be one of the best debuts I’ve heard in a long while. All other 2017 electro albums will have to bring their A-game to match or top it.
Electro legends New Order are offering their new double album, NOMC15, through a PledgeMusic campaign that includes some neat bundles for purchase.
The album is a recording of one of two sold-out shows in November 2015 at Brixton Academy. It features eighteen tracks that include classics like “Blue Monday” and “True Faith,” rarer cuts like “Your Silent Face,” and new stuff like “Tutti Frutti.”
Some of the PledgeMusic campaign bundles include triple LPs, double CDs, T-shirt and print packages, and even Live at the London Troxy, which is a recording of a 2011 show that was the band’s first concert in five years.
Get the deals while they’re hot. The new record drops May 26th.
DEBUT ALBUM OUT THIS FRIDAY, MARCH 24TH, ON SMALLTOWN SUPERSOUND
“[Kelly Lee Owens’] melodies are effortless, romantic and repetitive; its atmosphere replete with pastoral open spaces and the kind of spiritual longing at the heart of human intimacy.” – NPR Music’s “First Listen”
“The self-titled record is a confluence of enveloping club tracks and underwater transmissions—roiling currents, sonar bass pulses, and a sense of chaos teeming beneath a pristine veneer.” – Pitchfork “Rising”
“. . . gently pulsing beats, ghostly vocal melodies, and synthesizer hooks that are both chilly and enveloping.” — Entertainment Weekly’s “Breaking Big”
“Rumbling with frustrated energy, Kelly Lee Owens’s “Anxi.,” featuring Jenny Hval, sounds mystical and mad.”
— The FADER Kelly Lee Owens, the 28-year old London-based producer, is set to release her self-titled debut album, next Friday, March 24th via Smalltown Supersound. Leading into this Friday’s release, the album is available to stream via NPR Music’s “First Listen.” Additionally, Kelly is excited to present the music video (her first!) for “Anxi” ft. Jenny Hval. Directed by visual artist Kim Hiorthøy, it’s a perfect compliment to the song’s “steady pulse of techno-inflected thumps and bright melodies” (Pitchfork).
Before starting work on her self-produced album, Kelly Lee Owens turned her keen ear towards dance music after working in a record store with techno producer Daniel Avery. Her voice and contributions can be heard on Avery’s Drone Logic. Since then, she self-released two white label 12”s, with last fall’s “Oleic” EP to follow. Her self-titled solo album is first and foremost Owens’ vision — it bridges the gaps between cavernous techno, spectral pop, and Krautrock’s mechanical pulse, and it brims with exploratory wonder. It delves into a variety of moods – sadness, anxiety, and darkly shaded ecstasy – with a trippy-eyed clarity and confidence. Stream Kelly Lee Owens via NPR Music – http://n.pr/2mayKmi
It was with sunburned legs and neck that a friend of mine, Scott, and I headed into downtown Phoenix, Arizona for the annual Viva PHX festival. It’s an impressive undertaking by the city. 100 bands play in 18 venues around downtown in one night. The style of acts ranges from jazz funk to thrash punk, so you can see just about anything (even lucha libra wrestling).
After dining on a turkey burger and a chicken quesadilla, Scott and I walked to the Valley Bar. A friend of his had described it as a “dive bar” you had to access through an alley. She was right. We walked down an alley, past a dumpster, and down into a basement bar mostly lit by candlelight. It was a neat place, and the pear cider there was outstanding.
The doors to their mid-size music hall opened a bit late, but I was happy to see some Orange amplifiers on stage and everything else already set up and ready to rock. Jjuujjuu opened with a good set of mostly instrumental psychedelia. Shame on you if you missed it because they were a great way to start the night. Scott, who had never heard of any of the bands playing, enjoyed their set.
Jjuujjuu
Froth were up next and laid down their “California vibe” psych-rock. This was the first time I heard some of their new stuff, and there were some good rockers in there. Scott thought Froth’s lead singer was too much of a perfectionist (due to his frequent requests to get the levels right in his monitor), but didn’t think their set was bad.
Froth
I got up close for Deap Vally. I told Scott that they were “going to be loud as fuck” in the small venue, and I was right. They played a set of tracks from their excellent sophomore album Feminism and one (“Walk of Shame”) off Sistrionix. This was the first time I’d seen them in a small venue and with Julie Edwards on drums. I also spoke with Ms. Edwards before and both she and Lindsey Troy after their set and they were delightful. They were the only band that hung out in the merch area the whole night and they were swarmed after their killer set. I always feel bad for any band that has to follow them because they take no prisoners. Scott was impressed.
Deap VallyLindsey TroyJulie Edwards
He was also impressed by Night Beats, even though they played a short, four-song set. I don’t know if they got in late and thus lost some of their set time or if they had to cut out early to make it to another engagement, but four songs live by Night Beats are better than twenty by many other bands. It was nice to see them grinning after having reported a lot of their gear had been stolen in Tijuana a couple nights earlier. They threw down hard and then were gone in the blink of an eye, almost like a firework exploding.
Night Beats
Temples closed the Desert Daze Caravan show. I’d seen them on the main stage at Levitation Austin in 2014 and was surprised by how heavy their set was. I wondered if they’d be just as much in a small venue. They were, but they were also crisp. It was one of the better engineered sets I’d heard from anyone in a while. Scott wasn’t much a fan of their British psych sound, but I thought they had one of the best sets of the night, and the crowd was crazy for them.
TemplesJames Bagshaw
Yacht weren’t part of the Desert Daze Caravan tour, but they were the “afterparty” band at the Valley Bar that night. We almost left before their set, mainly because it first appeared they weren’t going to set up for another hour, but they zipped onstage as soon as all of Temples’ gear was gone and dropped a fun electro set that had the crowd bouncing. Scott said, “I wasn’t into it at first, but they grew on me.”
Yacht
I spoke with the man who made all the psychedelic light effects for the Desert Daze Caravan bands. I thanked him for the nice work. He shook my hand and said, “You saw a good one. The spirit of rock and roll was here tonight.”
We emerged from underneath the city around 1:30am. Were it not for the bits of trash, traffic barriers, and the gear vans still here and there, you wouldn’t know a music festival had just taken place. It was eerily quiet. All you could hear was the spirit of rock and roll.
Keep your mind open.
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(photo credit: Jaclyn Campanaro)
“…a cloud of weightless synths anchored by a danceably funky bass groove.”
— Stereogum on “Do You Want Love?”
Everyone knows DaveDepper.
The perennial side man, Depper began his music career with a white lie. On a whim he decided to buy a Farfisa organ off of Craigslist, an organ that just happened to belong to the founder of HushRecordsand member of BlanketMusic, ChadCrouch. Crouch asked if Depper wanted to play bass, and despite not playing bass or owning one, he said yes. From there he went on to become the connection point between a staggering number of Northwest bands, playing with Menomena, FruitBats, Mirah, CorinTucker, and LauraGibson. Tapped to join Ray LaMontagne’s touring band in 2014 and then snatched up to become a full-time member of DeathCabforCutie, Depper solidified his role as the go-to guy, the man next to everyone on late night.
One night he and his friends decided to play a game where they each had to write 20 songs in 12 hours, and come back together at the end of it to listen to everyone’s efforts together. From that session came a slew of songs. When Depper presented them, though, almost everyone picked up on the synth-pop beat of “Never Worked So Hard,” a nascent but catchy tune half-finished and unlike any of the music Depper had played before. EmotionalFreedomTechnique began there.
Straddling the line between pop and despair, EmotionalFreedomTechnique is a letter to the broken heart that won’t mend but still beats. It is a portrait of what happens when someone is flung across the world on tour – grateful to be there, grateful for the success and the adventures, but ultimately lonely. The most straightforward pop song, “Your Voice on the Radio”, features friend and former bandmate LauraGibson adding vocals about unrealized and unsatisfied love over bubbling bass and sparkling, multiplying shakers and synths that build to a deceptively joyous chorus. Songs like “Do You Want Love”, which premiered this morning on Stereogum, and “Communication” lean forward on cutting deep, propulsive grooves. Grappling with loneliness, the longing for human connection and the fear thereof, Depper strings ornate synth melodies together into simple hooks that speak to the most relatable reasons we listen to pop music – to remember we aren’t alone, and to still have a good time with it.
Emotional Freedom Technique is out June9th on TenderLovingEmpire. Dave will play two special album release shows: Wed. June 22 at BarbozainSeattle and Thu. June 22nd at Mississippi Studios in Portland.
EmotionalFreedomTechnique tracklisting:
01. Do You Want Love?
02. Communication
03. Lonely With You
04. Your Voice On The Radio (feat. Laura Gibson)
05. Never Worked So Hard
06. Anytime, Anywhere
07. EZ-101
08. Summer Days
09. Hindsight / Emotional Freedom Technique
Dave Depper Tour Dates: Wed. June 21 — Seattle, WA @ Barboza Thu. June 22 — Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Chicago’s third annual Mamby on the Beach festival has released its lineup for 2017. Just some of the powerhouses scheduled are MGMT, Miike Snow, Flying Lotus, and Cut Copy.
Tickets are still available at decent prices, so don’t wait to snag some. I have a lot of bands to research before June 24th.
Hailing from Portland, Oregon, but currently based in L.A., Yacht are an electro duo who were first on my radar with their 2009 album See Mystery Lights. I’ve heard a couple singles from them since that time, but I’ll admit I’ve missed out on their last couple records. I was delighted to see them on the VIVA PHX lineup, and surprised to see them finishing off the Desert Daze portion of the festival. It should make for an interesting post-psychedelic freak-out afterparty.
Keep your mind open.
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