Last we heard from the National, they were playing their High Violet highlight “Sorrow” for six hours straight (that means, 105 times) at MoMA, as part of the artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s piece “A Lot of Sorrow.” The band also has a new record, Trouble Will Find Me, coming out soon, so they took a break from their “Sorrow”-packed schedule to make this video for “Sea of Love,” a new single from the record, and premiere it today via a Reddit AMA with Matt Berninger and Aaron and Bryce Dessner. It’s a fantastic video – in a tiny room, the band do their best at a suited-up, energetic live performance, only to be upstaged by a cute kid with some great air guitar skills. Check it out.
From the hills of Navarre, Spain, the Basque trio dubbed Crystal Fighters continuously releases quality , energetic folktronica, and the first taste of their forthcoming sophomore album enticingly wets the palate for what is to come. The single “You & I” came out a couple of weeks ago via the group’s Soundcloud. It’s a joyous production, heavily influenced by live instruments and flowing uptempo vocals, and undoubtedly provides that ever-approaching summertime feel. GDD™ favorite Gigamesh has tried his hand at remixing the fantastic original, adding in a flickering, Kavinsky-esque synth — giving the track a much more electronic feel. Download the remix below and keep an eye out for Crystal Fighters’ album, Cave Rave, out May 27th.
Theo Keating AKA Fake Blood has been given the reins to the 69th episode of the legendary FABRICLIVE mix series, with the launch scheduled for this Friday at the killer London venue with sets from Fake Blood, Boy 8-Bit, and Paul Woolford. The mix CD will be released on the 20th and will feature a grip of new and exclusive material from Keating’s Blood Music. In a different promo twist, Fabric had Fake Blood take to the streets of East London to showcase another great ability of his, graffiti art. Have a look at the video above and watch out for FABRICLIVE 69.
We’re psyched to announce that we’ve teamed up with our friends at Austin’s Chaos in Tejas to help present a couple of amazing shows at this year’s fest, starting with one of our favorite / most important artists in the history of this site, Portland’s Grouper, along with Jessica Pratt and Silent Land Time Machine on May 31 at the beautiful Central Presbyterian Church in downtown Austin. We have 5 pairs of tickets to give away for this one: just let us know who you’re most excited to see at the fest in the comments below or on facebook, and we’ll pick the winners the week of the show.
The entire Chaos lineup is beyond stacked, as you can see here. Another show announcement coming soon; in the meantime you can buy tickets for this show here for only $12 while they’re still available, or grab a 4-day wristband that gets you into all of the Chaos in Tejas shows here.
• More big names for Electric Zoo NYC line-up • Watch RBMA’s Short Film on the History of DFA • Solomun to release new EP next month • Gods and memories: Zomby reveals the tracklist for new double-album With Love
More big names for Electric Zoo NYC line-up
Over three days in August and September, Electric Zoo will roll into New York City for its 2013 edition. Last month, the festival juggernaut dropped Phase 1 of this year’s bill, announcing that heavyweights like Tiesto, Armin van Buuren, Avicii, David Guetta, Above & Beyond and Bassnectarwere all locked in for the Randall Island bash. But they’re not stopping there.
So what else is new? Celebrating its fifth anniversary, Electric Zoo has upsized to five stages and for the first time, this year the festival is an 18+ event. “Every year we have been committed to improving the Electric Zoo experience for all of our fans,” festival founders put it. “This year we decided to celebrate our fifth year anniversary by going bigger and adding a second main stage with 30 more acts to celebrate our collective passion for dance music.” Check out the day-by-day breakdown of the lineup as it stands below, or skip to the text list to see the names in alphabetical order. Then get ready for the “many more” acts still to be announced…
As part of its month of lectures and events in New York City, Red Bull Music Academy will be doing its part to celebrate iconic NYC label DFA—home to LCD Soundsystem, The Juan Maclean, Gavin Russom’s many endeavors, Shit Robot, The Rapture, Holy Ghost!, Factory Floor, and YACHT, among many other noteworthy projects. In addition to commemorating the imprint’s 12 years of existence with a special party on May 25, RBMA has also put together a short film which chronicles the rise of the imprint so far, telling all of the tales that story entails. Entitled Too Old to Be New, Too New to Be Classic, the illuminating mini-doc breezes through the label’s origins and early history before focusing on its current operations; along the way, we’re treated to plenty of interview footage with label co-head James Murphy and many of DFA’s flagship artists. The full mini-doc can be watched via the player below.
Gods and memories: Zomby reveals the tracklist for new double-album With Love
Zomby fans: the tracklist for the slippery producer’s next album With Love has been made public.
The follow-up to his last album for 4AD, Dedication, With Love will be a 33-track double-album, feat. one guest appearance, from Last Japan. You never know how much a tracklist gives away, but if there’s a theme that stands out it’s the references to Gods and mythical figures (‘Isis’, ‘Orion’, ‘Shiva’, ‘Sphinx’).
Elsewhere, ’777′ could be the same ‘Untitled 777′ that was leaked last year, ‘Memories’ may or may not be related to the track of the same name that Zomby was hawking on Dubstep Forum back in 2007, ‘Digital Smoke’ appears to be the latest instalment of his spine-tingling ‘Digital’ tracks (see: ‘Digital Flora’, ‘Digital Fauna’, ’Digital Rain’ and ‘Digital Fractal’), ‘Entropy Sketch’ shares its title with a past Zomby mix for Dusk & Blackdown’s Rinse FM show and we’ve already heard ‘Soliloquy’ and ‘With Love’.
Tracklist: Disc 1 1 As Darkness Falls 2 Ascension 3 Horrid 4 If I Will 5 Isis 6 It’s Time 7 Memories 8 Orion 9 Overdose 10 Pray For Me 11 Rendezvous 12 The Things You Do 13 This One 14 Vanishment 15 VI-XI 16 VXV 17 777
Disc 2 1 Black Rose 2 Digital Smoke 3 Entropy Sketch 4 Glass Ocean 5 How To Ascend 6 I Saw Golden Light 7 Pyrex Nights (feat. Last Japan) 8 Quickening 9 Reflection In Black Glass 10 Shiva 11 Soliloquy 12 Sphinx 13 Sunshine In November 14 Vast Emptiness 15 White Smoke 16 With Love
The latest Scandinavian pop upstart to streak across our radar is Norway's Truls, and you're going to want to remember that name. On debut single "Out of Yourself", Truls introduces himself with cosmic star guitars and a heaven-on-earth falsetto that's honestly unlike anything we've ever heard. And best of all, THAT voice is coming out of THIS human. Amazing.
DIANA‘s beautiful, basically flawless soft-focus dance-pop dream “Born Again” finally gets some appropriate visuals, directed by Geoffrey Pugen, and starring Carmen Elle and other assorted psychedelic jungle dwellers. In other exciting news, DIANA‘s exceedingly lovely and timeless self-titled debut — without question one of the year’s best — is out August 20 on Jagjaguwar + on Paper Bag Records in Canada.
The Hot Natured and Anabel Englund single “Reverse Skydiving” dropped yesterday, as an added bonus we get this low slung remix from Berlin/Washington DC house duo Benoit & Sergio that manages to incorporate a playful bass and synth stabs to contrast with the sultry, chopped up vocals provided by Anabel Englund.
Trance superstar Tiesto (is he still really playing trance?) has teamed up with Acer in a commercial for their new ‘ultrabook’ but we’re not sure if we should laugh or cringe.
Even with the clever assistant-wants-to-be-tiestos-bro joke we’re not actually sure Acer needed his cameo to make any impact, that and he should stick to DJing versus his awkward moments throughout the ad.
The commercial is a bit run of the mill and looks to capitalize on the whoel US led EDM craze that will probably see candy ravers stock up on notebooks but whatever pays the bills right?
The latest Scandinavian pop upstart to streak across our radar is Norway's 