Britt Daniels and his band Spoon recently released details about their new album, Transference, which is set to be released January 19 on Merge Records. Today, Daniels & Co. unveiled the album’s first single, the vintage-sounding “Written in Reverse”.
The single will be officially released January 5, but if you’d rather not use a fork to scratch the new-Spoon itch, you can stream it at the Merge Records online store. The band will also do a mini tour of the ‘States this December, including a gig at UC San Diego’s RIMAC Arena in La Jolla. Then, in February, they’ll head to sunny Europe. Dates are after the jump. Continue reading →
Does anyone remember an album called Funeral, released by a then-unknown band called Arcade Fire? I know you’re racking your brain to remember. Do you remember how you felt when you first heard it? The sheer jubilation you enjoyed when the anthemic chorus erupted and subsided, sending chills down your spine? Some might say this is a stretch, but I experienced that once again listening to the album Reservoir, by yet another unknown band named Fanfarlo. Continue reading →
Canadian rockers Metric are bringing their densely textured mix of psychedelia and electro to a city near you. They are currently on a nationwide tour in support of their critically acclaimed release Fantasies. Since I am located in the O&B Pittsburgh office, I’ll have the good fortune of witnessing the spectacle this Tuesday at Mr Small’s Theatre in what promises to be a nice mid-week kick in the pants. So get out of your cubicle, grab a cold one, and let the rock ‘n roll commence. The show starts at 8pm with Band of Skulls opening. Tickets are still available but going fast.
What’s that, you want more? Well, they’ve also just released an EP entitled Plug In, Plug Out, which features acoustic versions of five Fantasies tracks. Have a listen: Continue reading →
The Magnetic Fields are their own worst enemy. Beginning with 1991’s Distant Plastic Trees and ascending through classic albums Holiday and The Charm of the Highway Strip, the quality of the band’s output finally crescendoed to dizzying heights with 1999’s ambitious, unparalleled opus 69 Love Songs.
The monstrous album was so brilliantly exhaustive, and set the bar so impossibly high, that any followup from the band was destined to feel inconsequential by comparison. Songwriter Stephin Merrit sidestepped that problem by making his post-69 works, 2004’s I and 2008’s Distortion, intentionally microscopic. Whether starting all of his song titles with the same letter or dousing his compositions in uncharacteristic amounts of fuzz, Merrit has relied on thematic gimmicks to help neutralize high expectations. Continue reading →
It’s hard not to love Charlotte Gainsbourg. Even the film Antichrist, with its disturbing imagery, rampant misogyny, and charming genital mutilation couldn’t lessen our affection for her. She may not be the only indie musician/actress out there, but she is the only one who does both things well (take that, Deschanel). The ambidextrous Gainsbourg has once again put on her songwriter’s cap for her forthcoming album IRM. Her gorgeous debut, 5:55, was produced by none other than the great Nigel Godrich, but this time around Gainsbourg has enlisted Beck to produce and cowrite all the songs.
The star-crossed pairing has just yielded its first video, the Keith Schofield-directed “Heaven Can Wait”. Beck’s vocals feature strongly in the song, lending further weight to the idea that the record is a Gainsbourg solo album in name only. In the surreal clip, mundane interactions between people and bizarre creatures are interrupted by bizarre bouts of food fetishism and sudden acts of violence. IRM will be available stateside on January 26th via Elektra, and the smart money says it’ll be a good one.
