Posts filed under ‘Listen’
MEET CYGNETS: NEW-WAVE REVIVALISTS FROM EDMONTON ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM ‘DARK DAYS’
Cynets are a staples in their homeland of Canada, as they’ve shared the stage with high profile indie acts such as You Say Party! We Say Die!, and Shout Out Out Out Out. Breaking big in Edmonton, with significant national radio play, and coverage from high profile press outlets, the trio are ready to take over U.S. soil. It’s about time they make it here with their brand of new-wave-meets-electro-meets-post-punk style in tow.
The band, fronted by Logan Turner, is the culmination of many years of hard work, as a songwriter and musician who worked privately writing and recording hundreds of songs before deciding to explore a group dynamic. This collaboration was finally realized in close friends Chris Bruce and Dan Snow. Bringing textured, inspiring guitar work and bright, catchy synthesizer hooks, they compliment and enhance Turner’s ambitious songwriting style and singular, melodic vocals.
Favorable comparisons have included The Smiths, Joy Division and Depeche Mode, but the band undoubtedly has a uniqueness of its own, contrasting danceable, uplifting beats with darkly personal lyrics.
The forthcoming follow up LP ‘Dark Days’, is due for release on March 6th will also be available for FREE, preceded by the killer synth-punk anthem ‘Teenager. Listen to/download the track for free:
http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F35473478&show_artwork=true
February 10, 2012 at 12:49 pm Melissa Nastasi Leave a comment
THE BRUTE CHORUS Are Prepared to Bring Their Unique Brand of Indie Rock to the States!
British indie rock sensations, THE BRUTE CHORUS, are finally making their way to the United States!
On the verge of announcing several official SXSW showcases, THE BRUTE CHORUS are ready to take to the stage for their first American shows. THE BRUTE CHORUS are James Steel, Nick Foots, Mark Austin and Dave Ferrett. The band cut their teeth with a residency at Camden’s infamous Hawley Arms, a watering hole popular at the time with the likes of Amy Winehouse and Kate Moss. Championed at a very early stage by The BBC and NME Magazine THE BRUTE CHORUS’ wild blend of garage rock, blues, and folk music with lyrics populated with characters from Greek mythology and Grimm’s fairytales quickly broke the indie guitar band mould. Their accessible sound has so far managed to escape any generalized genre pigeon-holing as they have gone on to carve out their own genuine, word-of-mouth buzz from their frenzied live shows.
And what shows! The band have taken it to the people gig by gig across Britain and Europe and have surely proved they can keep up with the big boys through their many support shows for acts as diverse as ART BRUT, IDA MARIA, THE WOODENTOPS, MARTHA WAINWRIGHT, and THE RUMBLESTRIPS. Their live rep has seen them stand out among the crowd at almost every British music festival of the last three years and they even recorded their debut album LIVE, in one take at London’s prestigious Roundhouse venue.
At the end of 2010 the band had released their sophomore album, How the Caged Bird Sings, to further critical acclaim from the likes of NME, Drowned in Sound, Clash Magazine, Artrocker, The Fly, Zane Lowe, Marc Riley and Steve Lamacq among others. The band’s popularity on radio was boosted when they became Artists in Residence on John Kennedy’s XFM show for a whole week at the start of 2011 where the famed DJ played live session tracks alongside album cuts, highlighting the standard of the band’s live performance and raw rock n’ roll spirit. They’ve also performed live sessions for Radio1 and Radio 6 whilst on TV Channel 4 screened a mini-doc on the band featuring clips of them playing live in Glasgow. Videos for the likes of ‘Birdman’ (Single of the Week on Kerrang! Radio and Q Radio) received heavy rotations on blogs around the globe as well as being aired on MTV Iggy here in the US. Everyone certainly wants a piece of THE BRUTE CHORUS, and now it’s time to get yours.
With such a reputation for their stellar live shows, you can check out what THE BRUTE CHORUS has to offer by getting a glimpse of their live footage from The Roundhouse in Camden, featuring the unbelievably catchy song “All the Pilgrims.” Make room on your SXSW schedule to check out THE BRUTE CHORUS live. You will NOT want to miss these shows.
Modern Mystery’s Year End List 2011 (Albums & Songs)
Yes, we’re a little late on this, but here is our Year End List(s) in all of their glory.
TOP ALBUMS of 2011
1. Real Estate - Days
Literally the most beautiful album we heard all year. Everything about Days is near perfect. Haunting guitars and echoing vocals provide a stunning LP that will hold the test of time. Real Estate put out the essential record of 2011 and will hold a place forever in indie music history. Congratulations to these guys for pouring their heart and soul into a record, and letting the listener hear every beat, every emotion, and every ounce of perfection.
2. Beirut – The Rip Tide
A close runner up, Beirut proves that they have staying power on their highly anticipated second album. They certainly lived up to the hype and brought the indie rock game to a whole new level.
3. The Drums - Portamento
Catchy, and a little deeper, The Drums plunge into the ocean, not to go surfing this time but to get a little heavier. The outcome? Amazing.
4. Sloan – The Double Cross
Always a MM favorite, the best foursome since The Beatles provide another album of blissful harmonies and catchy riffs. Sloan manages to do it again.
5. The Strokes - Angles
It may have taken 5 years for this little gem, but it was certainly worth the wait. We hope the next album is a little more cohesive, a little more “Strokesy,” but hell, it’s still one of the best records our ears came across this year, not to mention the most anticipated.
6. Neon Indian – Era Extraña
An incredible sophomore effort, that had us dancing around the apartment, the office, the car, etc. Alan Palomo knows what makes our hearts tick, and it’s his infectious brand of chillwave.
7. Ryan Adams – Ashes and Fire
The second anticipated musical act out of retirement this year, Adams put out a tear jerking album of all acoustic material, this time without his infamous Cardinals. Gorgeous as always, that man cannot write a bad song.
8. Bright Eyes – The People’s Key
What may be the last album under the name Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst and company pull out all the stops on this intriguing and somewhat eerie album. Oberst is better than ever, just when you thought that was impossible.
9. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Mirror Traffic
Stephen Malkmus albums always equals a win. Pretend to be surprised. The Beck produced record caught our ears this year. Nice one Malkmus, as always.
10. Sam Roberts Band – Collider
Another great album from SRB, the band is on a hot streak of great releases. Always a little under the radar, this cult favorite is winning over hearts and ears quickly. Jump on in.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Atlas Sound – Parallax
Toro Y Moi – Underneath the Pine
Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Destroyer – Kaputt
Youth Lagoon – The Year of Hibernation
Cults – Cults
Fucked Up – David Comes to Life
Panda Bear – Tom Boy
James Blake – James Blake
Top Songs of 2011
1 The Strokes – “Undercover of Darkness”
2 Neon Indian – “Hexx Girlfriend”
3 Real Estate – “Green Aisles”
4 Bright Eyes – “Shell Games”
5 Chairlift – “Amanaemonesia”
6 Sloan – “The Answer Was You”
7 The Drums – “Money”
8 Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – “Senator”
9 Beirut – “Santa Fe”
10 Washed Out – Amor Fati
11 Joy Formidable – Whirring
12 Girls – “Honey Bunny”
13 Unknown Mortal Orchestra -”Ffunny Ffriends”
14 Real Estate – “It’s Real”
15 Cass McCombs – “Country Line”
Catching Ghosts with Juviley.
Imagine a pitch black screen.Seconds later, a electronic music voyage kicks in.Glimpses of avatar ghosts start popping up in the window. According to Juviley,there are no rules. A transplant from Israel, he is the brainchild behind a conglomeration of his album Our Choices Rhyme camouflaged inside of a video game. Juviley’s voltage of futuristic beats, and bending synths combine as a project that takes the listener in a progressive labyrinth of winning the game, in order to win a free download of the album. Bravo!
Check out Juviley’s video “My Blood” below
Catch ghosts here!
-Viktorsha Uliyanova
PLAYTIME! : SIMON SPIRE LIBERATES OCCUPY WALL STREET! EXCLUSIVE VIDEOS INSIDE!
Watch Simon Spire’s “Liberate Your Love”
Live at Occupy Wall Street
Watch the Occupy Wall Street Photo Video featuring “Today”
Occupy Wall Street is one of the most important movements of this generation. It’s time to stand up for what we believe in. SIMON SPIRE is here to help support continuing dialogue and change as he takes to Occupy Wall Street in New York City to play a very special performance with Occupy Yoga. Featuring a stripped down, acoustic version of the catchy single “Liberate Your Love,” Spire sits in with the Kundalini Yoga Group at Occupy Wall Street, a group that stands for change and transformation from within. Filmed at Zuccotti Park, the video not only highlights Simon’s stunning musical performance, but also shows how people are coming together to make a difference. This touching performance will surely move and inspire you.
Simon recently wrote about the event on his website, saying, “I was excited to be part of a new dialogue that, in my mind, asks the questions, ‘What kind of world do we want to create together?’ and ‘What do we want our lives to stand for?’ ”
Fans of Simon’s have also created a music video for his song “Today,” which features the uplifting song as the soundtrack to a mini photo documentary of the positive events at Occupy Wall Street. Simon opened his performance at the Occupy Yoga 11/11/11 event with this song. As he explained on the day, “The song is about resolve—the resolve that opens the way for both individual and collective transformation. It’s about the opportunities for change that accompany times of challenge, and moving through the challenges to create something new.”
Simon has since made the track available for free download HERE!
It has also recently been announced that Spire’s track, “A Four-Letter Word,” from the upcoming album, Four-Letter Words, has been selected as a finalist in the Rock category of the USA Songwriting Competition. Winners will be announced next week. This is Simon’s fourth song to be selected as a finalist.
Watch the videos above as Simon liberates Wall Street for Modern Mystery. Be prepared to get inspired. Now is the time to make a difference.
November 28, 2011 at 3:30 pm Melissa Nastasi Leave a comment
Royal Baths Drown Bowery Ballroom
Opening up for a sold out show with eruptive headliners like the Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles sets out towering expectations on a Friday night at Bowery Ballroom. One of the opening acts, a recently migrated San Francisco quartet Royal Baths hyped the energy with their multi-layered screeching guitar rips and liquidating phased vocals, building a brooding wave of ear-candy distortion. A brainchild of shoe-gazing low-pitched drum progressions and scorching melodic ranges, Royal Baths are a change of taste in the New York horizon.
Viktorsha Uliyanova
WIN AN OFFICIAL TAPE FROM THE SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN “TAPE CLUB”
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin is obviously the #1 band around here at Modern Mystery (Hey we named the site after them, right?), and we have an AMAZING contest for you to enter, that hell, we’re dying to get a piece of ourselves.
Feast your eyes upon the exclusive, original, Tape Club tape from the month April (2006), that Polyvinyl was nice enough to hook us up with. Not only will you win the rare tape from the old club, but also a copy of Tape Club, their new album of demos and unreleased songs due out October 18th on Polyvinyl. Your choice of Black Vinyl or CD. A 26-song double album that spans 10 years of SSLYBY greatness.
The title is a direct reference to the subscription service SSLYBY started in late 2005 to raise money for tour while copies of their debut Broom (which they had just self-released) were quickly selling out. In exchange for signing up, fans were treated to cassette home recordings of unreleased songs packaged in handmade covers.
To Enter, please E-mail us at MODERNMYSTERYBLOG@YAHOO.COM by Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at Midnight with your Name and Address. You must live in the U.S. to enter.
You can listen to Tape Club in it’s entirety at http://sslyby.bandcamp.com
LA RESISTANCE Play Second NYC Residency Show This Week! Release Covers EP
Covers usually never do a song justice, but LA RESISTANCE is out to prove you wrong. The band has just released a brilliant EP collection of covers titled The Candidate, that will surely make the way onto your Year End lists. The covers that appear on the album are sultry and seductive. From the opener “Lips Like Sugar,” from Echo and The Bunnymen to “Disorder,” by Joy Division, every track somehow outdoes the other. A great accomplishment to say the least.
For New York fans, the band are in them midst of a two week residency at the infamous ARLENE’S GROCERY on SEPTEMBER 28TH and OCTOBER 5TH.
**DOWNLOAD “THE CANDIDATE” FOR FREE**
http://www.laresistancemusic.com
Frontman Greg Summerlin offered some words on the album, which come from a very personal place.
“I wanted to pick a time period and a group of bands that had some sort coherency to them and also were major influences of mine. So, I decided to pick a group of bands from the UK that were really influential in the 80′s that I have become obsessed with at some time or other in my musical history. In my opinion, these are the five greatest bands in the UK from this era,” says Summerlin.
“Lips Like Sugar” – Echo and the Bunnymen
“I went to go see them in Atlanta a couple of months ago and left the show wondering how these guys are not considered one the greatest bands ever. Their body of work to me stands up with any of the great bands in rock history.”
“What We All Want” – Gang of Four
“To me, Gang of Four is one of the most original bands that came out of the 80’s post punk era. The guitar work on this song is incredible and Andy Gill had a great sound and really unusual guitar riffs.”
“Cries and Whispers” – New Order
New Order is probably the band out of this group that has had the most influence on the way I tried to make the La Resistance record, (Philosophy) sound.”
“Head On” – Jesus and the Mary Chain
“The way they just pushed the limits on the amount of reverb and guitar feedback they used influenced all kinds of shoegaze and other bands that came after them. But, they also wrote great pop songs and to me this is one of their best.”
“Disorder” – Joy Division
“This is one of my favorite songs of theirs because the bass riff is great, but the whole song is fantastic and Ian Curtis’ vocals and lyrics are haunting and really give us a great idea of what was going on his head at the time.”
TOUR DATES
OCTOBER 5TH10PM- ARLENE’S GROCERY- NYC
Oberhofer Premiere “Gotta Go” On Pitchfork, Sign To Glassnote Records
Brad Oberhofer is on a roll. Recently signed with Glassnote Records, Oberhofer will be releasing their debut album in the early months of next year. While we wait for that, he just premiered on Pitchfork the single “Gotta Go,” which will be released through White Iris and will come out physically on October 4th. You can get “Gotta Go” HERE.
On top of that, the band will be joining Les Savy Fav on stage on September 6th at the Music Hall Of Williamsburg in New York after a year touring with bands like Twin Sister, Sleigh Bells, Neon Indian and Bear In Heaven. Needless to say, the Tacoma native has the indie music scene at his feet.
September 20, 2011 at 11:23 am Sedera Ranaivoarinosy Leave a comment
Surfer Blood Make Tarot Classics
On October 25th, West Palm Beach based Surfer Blood will release Tarot Classics, an EP that marks the band’s first major release since their 2010 debut Astro Coast. Down below you can take a listen to the EP’s lead single “Miranda” and look over the band’s upcoming tour dates.
Tour Dates
8/31 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
9/16 Echoplex – Los Angeles, CA
9/17 – The Getty – Losa Angeles, CA
9/21 Crowbar – Tampa, FL
9/22 Double Down Live – Gainesville, FL
10/27 The Wellmont Theatre – Montclair, NJ *
10/28 Asbury Park Convention Hall – Asbury Park, NJ *
10/29 Palace Theatre – Waterbury, CT *
10/30 Hampton Beach Ballroom – Hampton Beach, NH *
11/1 State Theatre – Portland, ME *
11/2 The Armory – Rochester, NY *
11/3 State Theatre Center for the Arts – Easton, PA *
11/5 Paramount Theatre – Huntington, NY *
11/6 Grand Opera House – Wilmington, DE*
11/7 Ottobar – Baltimore, MA
11/8 War Memorial Auditorium – Greensboro, NC*
11/9 Louisville Palace Theatre – Louisville, KY *
11/10 Tennessee Theatre – Knoxville, TN *
11/11 North Charleston Performing Arts Center – North Charleston,SC*
12/8 The Brixton Academy – London, UK ^
12/9 ATP – Somerset, UK
* w/ The Pixies
^ with The Vaccines
September 12, 2011 at 12:08 pm wesleyambrecht Leave a comment
Pepper Rabbit, “Murder Room”
Introduced the other day on Stereogum, “Murder Room” is a new song from LA’s Pepper Rabbit and the latest preview track from their new album, Red Velvet Snowball, which came out August 9th, on Kanine Records. Penned by Xander Singh and described as the most straightforward pop song he’s ever written, “Murder Room” talks that talk and walks that walk. There’s not much else to say about it: hot potato synth, hot potato drums, and some pretty harmonies. Nothing in the song is sustained, it just bounces along, proud of its poppiness. You can look forward to hearing it live on Pepper Rabbit’s Fall tour with Calgary art-rock group, BRAIDS.
Tour Dates:
September 6, 2011 at 12:02 pm aitorzabalegui Leave a comment
A New Chairlift Track for You to Enjoy
New York City’s Chairlift are back to work after some “time off” collaborating with the likes of Das Racist and Washed Out. The duo have released a new single featuring the title track off their upcoming album, “Amanaemonesia.” Currently, the single’s A-side is available for streaming on their website, but you will likely have to wait or shell out eventually for the B-side, ”Peculiar Paradise.”
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