Thee Oh Sees Stream Full LP

Thee Oh Sees Stream Full LP On Pitchfork

Floating Coffin Named #1 Most-Added at CMJ

Playing Coachella

New LP Out April 16th On Castle Face Records

Click Here To Stream 'Floating Coffin' On Pitchfork Tour Dates 04/05/13 Roxy Benefit Verdi Club - San Francisco, CA 04/14/13 Coachella - Indio, CA 04/21/13 Coachella - Indio, CA 6/21-6/23/13 Sled Island Festival - Calgary, AB Links Website Facebook

BIO We all know the type:  Prolific bands who commit every loose thought, stray idea and 90-second song fragment to tape. Bands who pay no attention to little inconveniences like "release cycles" or "self-editing," and instead decide that quantity equals quality, creating a discography more labyrinthine, imposing and – ultimately – exhausting than the cast of creatures in a sci-fi novel. Here is why none of that applies to Thee Oh Sees. Because each of the dozen-plus albums they've released since 2004 are possess a distinct personality and represents a different point along the path of John Dwyer's slow transformation from auteur of woozy bare-bones four-track psychedelia to goggle-eyed garage rock marauder backed at long last by a band that both shares and stokes his singular vision. Because drop a needle on any record and – to their great credit – it takes several songs before you're convinced it's Thee Oh Sees. The seasick hundred-bottles-of-rum shanty "What the Driven Drink," from 2007's delirious Sucks Blood exists in a different galaxy than the rollercoastering "Chem-Farmer" from last year's Carrion Crawler/The Dream; the doomy doo-wop of "Blood on the Deck" hardly seems like the product of the same band who delivered the yelping "Ruby Go Home" in 2009. And the band who made last year's engrossing Putrifiers II seems like a distant cousin to the band delivering Floating Coffin -- arguably the most varied and textured Oh Sees record to date. "These songs occur in the mindset of a world that's perpetually war-ridden," Dwyer explains.  "Overall, it's pretty dark, and much heavier than our other albums." You can hear that sense of foreboding in "Toe Cutter – Thumb Buster," which churns and sloshes like an ocean of ink, Dwyer's ghostly falsetto an eerie contrast with the song's sub-basement groove. "That one's a song about war," Dwyer explains, "It's like people take less notice of those horrors anymore. Dark goings-on are so ever present that they can just wash over you every day." Chalk some of the band's cunning chameleonic ability to Dwyer's 20-year resume.  The driving force behind such beloved and sonically disparate bands as Coachwhips and Pink and Brown, Dwyer's increased fidelity to Thee Oh Sees and only Thee Oh Sees is evidence of a newfound sense of purpose and focus. Where once Dwyer used to funnel his divergent artistic ideas through a host of different channels, lately he's been finding ways to make all of those impulses function within the framework of Thee Oh Sees -- who have in turn grown closer and tighter and sharper with each eye-popping, jaw-dropping live show. As Dwyer puts it: "The family that plays together stays together." That sense of unity is palpable throughout Floating Coffin. "Strawberries 1 + 2" is a blinding flash of sound, the band first locking tight into a frenetic, palpitating rhythm then downshifting suddenly into a loose, hypnotic drone. "I could have made the second half of this song last for hours," Dwyer says. "This is another song that's wary of the outside world, about humans staring down technology." "Tunnel Time" opens with a short-circuiting synth sound before diving into haywire blast-furnace punk rock made more manic by Dwyer's split-second hollers and howls. The skeleton waltz of "Minotaur," which opens with Dwyer sighing, "Oil slick in my dinner," gradually gives way to a distinct sense of optimism. "That one's relatively less ominous," Dwyer explains. "It's about dream-hunting – being the person you feel you were meant to be." That sense of release is summed up in a single lyric, which shows up just after a squad of swooping strings provides an impromptu serenade: "Stay home today – go to the beach instead." It's moments like those that underscore just how unique this band is – each new layer of their persona that's revealed only hints at the thousands that still remain. Floating Coffin is the next chapter in the story of Thee Oh Sees, the one where they fix their fury against the onrushing night. It's another blistering demonstration of Thee Oh Sees greatest trick: they're the only prolific band who doesn't put out records often enough.

Vestal Village 2013

The Knife have released a short film 'The Interview'.

Release Short Film ‘The Interview’

The Knife have released a short film 'The Interview'.  Created in conjunction with Marit Östberg who directed the “Full of Fire” video, it goes some way to explain their intentions and thought processes behind their startling new album Shaking The Habitual, released this week to wide critical acclaim.

You can watch the film HERE.

“We didn’t plan to make another album

We wanted to do something again but had to find a purpose

Music can be so meaningless

We had to find lust

Started to improvise

to find something less predictable

to let go of what we already knew about music

explore what we didn't

without requiring complete answers

letting go

step in to oblivion

to forget expectations

by entering the work process with an open and inquiring mindset, the record turned in to something completely different than it would have been if the end goal had been a finished album all along

Once you stop caring about rules.”

You can buy Shaking The Habitual now from http://theknife.net/shaking-the habitual or http://www.itunes.com/theknife

…………………………………….

"The record thrums with libidinal energies and animal instincts as well as mutable electronic frequencies"

“Instead of sharing different heartbeats, she and brother Olof Dreijer are once again quickening them."

"A frenetic techno pulse runs throughout Habitual, but while most of the dance-music world is mad about MDMA, they're more interested in DNA, in the way that electro-stimulus can work its mutating magic at the cellular level, resequencing genes according to the logic of an undulating oonce-ooncebeat."

-SPIN

"-a fearless piece of work with its own logic, one that shears away all safety nets."
-NME

"The reclusive duo's new album is an epic, occasionally haunting tour de force." 
-Billboard

“Shaking the Habitual is, inarguably, an achievement.

It is the Knife's most political, ambitious, accomplished album, but in a strange way it also feels like its most personal”

-Pitchfork 8.4, Best New Music

"...the Knife has created a work of art that’s not just a dream waiting to be realized, but a living, breathing reality that’s waking you up to what’s possible in the wildest of imaginations."

-PopMatters 9/10

"Shaking The Habitual isn’t an album that you can consume piecemeal; it’s an album that demands that you get in its level."

–Stereogum

"This music has deep weirdness but incredible will and charisma."

-New York Times

The Knife: Website | Facebook | Twitter

 Mute: Website | Facebook | Twitter

 

The Thermals' Desperate Ground Streaming

The Thermals' Desperate Ground Streaming At Pitchfork Advance 

Additional Summer Tour Dates Announced 

Stream: Desperate Ground via Pitchfork Advance   

The Thermals are set to release Desperate Ground via Saddle Creek on April 16. In anticipation of the release Pitchfork Advance is running an exclusive album stream a week before street date. The Thermals have just extended their summer headlining tour to include additional stops in the south and west coast. The tour will make stops in all major cities including New York, Atlanta, Seattle, Chicago, Washington D.C. and more.

The Thermals' sixth LP and debut for Saddle Creek was produced by John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth) in Hoboken, NJ. Agnello and The Thermals completed the record and evacuated the studio just hours before Hurricane Sandy ravaged New Jersey, a fate quite fitting when you consider the product. Desperate Ground is a true scrappy and scratchy return-to-form for The Thermals, with all the raw power and unhinged adolescent energy that made their early LP's so insanely enjoyable. Spin said the album's lead single "Born To Kill" is "a burst of primal, head-clearing punk akin to their first three full-lengths, 2003's More Parts Per Million, 2004's Fuckin' A, and 2006's The Body, the Blood, the Machine."

Lyrically, Desperate Ground is a brash and irresponsible ode to human violence, a black celebration of the inevitability of war and death. A dark and yet joyous affair, Desperate Ground tells the (murky) tale of a lone rogue in the night. One man, one path, one sword. An unceasing urge to destroy. A never-ending battle against the forces of nature. A destiny impossible to avoid.

The Thermals Tour Dates

04.20 - Portland, OR @ Branx

04.25 - Seattle, WA @ Neumos

04.26 - Vancouver, BC @ Fortune

04.27 - Bellingham, WA @ Wild Buffalo

05.10 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court

05.11 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater

05.13 - Omaha, NE @ Slowdown

05.14 - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry

05.15 - Iowa City, IA @ The Mill

05.16 - Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall

05.17 - Ferndale, MI @ The Loving Touch

05.18 - Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom

05.19 - Buffalo, NY @ Tralf Music Hall

05.21 - Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern

05.22 - Montreal, QC @ Il Motore

05.23 - Cambridge, MA @ Sinclair

05.24 - New Haven, CT @ The Space

05.25 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer

05.28 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom

05.29 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom

05.30 - Washington, DC @ Black Cat

05.31 - Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506

06.01 - Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn

06.02 - Nashville, TN @ Exit In           

06.03 - Birmingham, AL @ Bottle Tree           

06.05 - Baton Rouge, LA @ Spanish Moon

06.06 - Houston, TX @ Fitzgeralds           

06.07 - McAllen, TX @ Thirsty Monkey

06.08 - Austin, TX @ Mohawk           

06.09 - Dallas, TX @ Dada           

06.11 - El Paso, TX @ Low Brow Palace

06.12 - Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent

06.13 - San Diego, CA @ Casbah

06.14 - Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room

06.15 - Oakland, CA @ The New Parish

For more info, please visit:

http://thethermals.com/

http://saddle-creek.com/

Pony Boy “Greatest Unknown”

Pony Boy

“Greatest Unknown” Single Released Today!

“Greatest Unknown” Video Drops w/ Refinery 29

 “Sultry, smoky and soulful vocals...” – Lucky Magazine

“Her blend of country, blues, and rock might just make her the next big crossover artist…” – VICE

“Those infatuated by Nancy Sinatra and Loretta Lynn's darker sides should fall in love with Pony Boy's brand of blues.” – Refinery 29


Click Image Above To View Video

Pony Boy is Marchelle Bradanini, a sultry songwriter with seductive vocals who isn’t afraid to explore her dark side. With twangy guitars and smoky melodies, her music calls to mind the desolate landscapes of the old west, littered with danger and mystery. Having won over audiences and critics alike last year with her single “Not In This Town,” Pony Boy releases her beautifully eerie new single, “Greatest Unknown,” today! The single is available via iTunes.

“Greatest Unknown” features twisting and turning vocals above booming percussion and buzzing electric guitars. The track’s accompanying video gives an intimate look into Pony Boy’s world, showing her vulnerable side as she croons the song to an anonymous audience. You can check out the “Greatest Unknown” video where it premiered with Refinery 29 today or HERE, and we encourage you to post & share!

Having played with a rotating cast of diverse and talented musicians, Pony Boy has shared stages with Saddle Creek band The Mynabirds and performed in 2012’s New Yorker festival. Stay tuned for more from Pony Boy, coming soon!

Maria Minerva "Bless" EP

 

MARIA MINERVA

Photo Credit: Marko Krunic

Maria Minerva is back with a new EP, Bless, out now on 100% Silk and streaming in full at SPIN, who call it a "woozy disco prayer" with "hypnotic vocals and crisp beatwork that handily blurs the line between brazen experimentalism and pop-oriented dance music." 

Click Here To Stream Bless On SPIN

Hailed by Pitchfork as a "dancer synth wizard," Maria Minerva crafts a seductive and bewitching blend of electronically-based, hook-laden tracks. FACT calls Bless a mix of "perky, precise pop music. The pulsing electro instrumental and hooky sloganeering make 'Black Magick' one of the more upfront things she's done in a while." FADER see first single, "Black Magick" full of "hazy grooves" in which "delicate vocals cavort over Minerva's nostalgic vibrations." 

Click Here To Download "Symbol Of My Pleasure [Form Of My Pain]"

Second single "Symbol Of My Pleasure [Form Of My Pain]" can also be downloaded via SPIN, who call the track a "gothic-tropical rager" that is "one to be reckoned with." 

Click Here To Watch The Video for "Black Magick" on BULLETT

The video for "Black Magick," directed by the legendary Alice Cohen, puts a surreal yet comedic touch on the track by incorporating magic and the occult, something BULLETT loves even though the "video’s occasional goofiness may be a jarring contrast against the song’s haunting simplicity, but it’s a symbiotic relationship that will get you thinking—or at the very least, smiling."

Minerva will be playing a show this April in her new home base of Brooklyn, with more dates to be announced.

Maria Minerva (neé Juur) was born in Estonia, studied in London and now calls Brooklyn home. Now set to release Bless, a new EP due April 2nd, 2013 on 100% Silk, the record builds on her aesthetically-minded, intellectually-driven blend of electronic pop and is a further reminder of the sheer enigma and presence of this artist. With a career in music that only begun in 2011, the artist has been featured in New York Times, The Guardian, NME, Uncut, Vice, Pitchfork, Dazed & Confused, Vogue and countless other publications. Gathering descriptions as diverse as "hypnagogic abstractionist" and "dancer synth wizard" (Pitchfork) to "dance-pop made sallow and creepy" (New York Times) and "dub-savvy, gothic electro-pop the likes of which we've never heard," (FACT Magazine,) Maria Minerva has a sound that is quite impossible to define. Having signed with acclaimed Los-Angeles based independent label Not Not Fun in 2011, she has since released an impressive collection of songs, beginning with her debut "Tallinn At Dawn" on cassette, as well as two LPs, Cabaret Cixious (2011) and 2012's Will Happiness Find Me?, and two EPs, 2011's Noble Savage and the following year's Sacred and Profane Love. She has also found time to tour extensively in the US, Europe, Australia and beyond, playing festivals as diverse as Sonar and the Melbourne Writers Festival to MoMA PS1 with Thom Yorke and The Royal Albert Hall in London. With an aesthetic, sound and philosophy informed by her previous work as an art and music critic at The UK's Wire Magazine, as well as a Masters degree in Aural and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, University of London, Maria is currently working on an upcoming full-length album and mastering the art of comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade.  Links / Maria Minerva Official Website Maria Minerva Facebook Maria Minerva YouTube 100% Silk Not Not Fun Records

Bless Tracklisting / 01. Black Magick 02. Space 4 U 03. Symbol Of My Pleasure [Form Of My Pain] 04. Soul Searchin 05. Black Magick (Lady Blacktronika's Garage Trip Mix)  Spring 2013 Tour Dates / 04.18.13 - Cameo Gallery - Brooklyn, NY *04.20.13 - Public Works - San Francisco, CA # 05.04.13 - New Museum's Ideas City Festival - New York, NY  * with Rioux, O Paradiso # with Butterclock  Previous Press / "Dub-savvy, gothic electro-pop the likes of which we've never heard…The music of Minerva is, yes, very self-aware, very meta, but it's also beautifully rafted, and works sincerely in its own right - it really is catch as hell, and you can actually dance to it." FACT Magazine "Hazy, anachronistic electro beats….roughed-up, feel-good sound from a generation ago, dance-pop made sallow and creepy, its tempos intact but its sheen wiped off." New York Times "Murky disco, full of reverb and delay, disco from a distant decade, decayed, dismayed, frayed" Guardian "Seductive, shimmering and downright great…a pretty glorious take on h-pop, without getting too retroistic about it…anti-sleaze while reminding sultry, flirty yet with a message that teeters on the edge" NME  "Dancer synth wizard...bedroom-disco chanteuse" Pitchfork

WIRE new book new tour CHANGE BECOMES US

AND FINALLY!

After what seems to have been an epic journey, the copies of the "Read & Burn" book finally hit State 51's offices this morning and are being despatched as we speak! This means all bundles of "Change Becomes Us" which included the book will be sent out over the next couple of days. Please be aware that this accounts for the majority of sales of the "special edition" to date and so there is a lot of packing going on in East London. However, some of those within easy postal range should be getting their packges tomorrow/Monday and the rest should start arriving during the course of next week.

Now we have stock, the book is also now availble as a seperate item from the Greedbag store.

++++++++++++++
NORTH AMERICAN WIRE TOUR - PLUS MORE LIVE DATES AND SESSIONS

We are now able to announce some North American dates for July.

July 9: Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, USA 

July 12: The Sinclair, Cambridge, Mass, USA 

July 13: Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, USA 

July 14: Black Cat, Washington, DC, USA 

July 16: Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY, USA 

July 17: Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, OH, USA 

July 19: Pitchfork Festival, Chicago, IL, USA 

There are more dates to confirm but please note that this leg of the tour is for the East Coast & Midwest only. The plan is to come back to the West Coast in November; obviously, no dates for November can be shared at this time because we don't know any!

We are also announcing another date in London:

April 20th: Sister Ray Shop, London - Record Store Day Event

photo: Angel Ceballos