what a day that was: 2013.01

2013-01-29

The Daily Swarm - Mark Lanegan Joins QOTSA for New Album, Completes Classic Line-Up...

Hey, there might be some decent music from my musical heroes this year after all!.

Now, all we need is a release date...

New Prince - "Screwdriver"

A couple people brought this one to my attention, the new Prince song:

So I guess I can make that two of my favourite musician-legends putting out terrible music this year. The difference is at this point I expect Prince to be putting out music that's dashed off and terrible, whereas Bowie came out of nowhere to drop that turkey on us.

Bob Lefsetz fucking loves it, for what it's worth.

2013-01-28

New Lonely Island - "YOLO"

From SNL this past weekend, it's the best Lonely Island song since "Boombox", and maybe their best one ever. Great production, that's a super catchy beat.

It features an Adam Levine-satirizing Adam Levine, and Kendrick Lamar with a performance that bests the two live performances he put in on the same show.

A song that transcends the 'comedy song' label and is in fact, simply, a great song.

video: Tame Impala – “Mind Mischief”

A bit of a 1970s Pink Floyd/The Who feel to this clip.

2013-01-27

Saigon Sunday - Stone Roses "I am the Resurrection"

With the announcement of the Coachella lineup this week and the surprising inclusion of the Stone Roses as headliner on Friday, I thought I'd lay this one down. I wonder if they'll open with this one?

2013-01-26

Thrift Find Design on Etsy

Check out Jess's relaunched Etsy store, with baby stuff made from vintage fabric.

2013-01-25

Moog Sub Phatty: New Machine For Living

New music from Flying Lotus with some awesome animation. Here's corporate sponsorship I can get behind.

Radio Radio - Havre de grâce album

Hey, you can stream the whole album from their site, too. Sweet.

Radio Radio - Comment ça va?

New music from my favourite Canadian hip hop group, Radio Radio:

If it wasn't so damn good, from the beat to the rhymes, it would almost be hard to take seriously. I love the sense of humour, and the fact that they mash together three languages, English, French, and Acadian.

2013-01-22

REM's "Losing My Religion" shifted into a major scale

This is pretty strange, but interesting... It just sounds so wrong. Tempted to file this under humour as well.

Edit: this one was autoplaying, so I'm linking instead of embedding.

[via Boing Boing]

2013-01-21

The Oldest Recording Ever

Bobby Owsinski's Big Picture Production Blog: The Oldest Recording Ever

Talk about old school, here's a captivating PBS Newshour segment about the restoration by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory...

Very interesting.

2013-01-20

Watch: Devo Destroys Max's Kansas City in '77...

The Daily Swarm - Watch: Devo Destroys Max's Kansas City in '77...

It’s July 9, 1977 and a mind-blown audience (I was among them) sees and hears what David Bowie called “the band of the future”: Devo.
Satisfaction
Timing X/Soo Bawls
Mongoloid
Gut Feeling

This is about half of their second set. The video quality is rough but the sound is remarkably good.

Saigon Sunday - New Order "Perfect Kiss"

Here's a pretty austere clip from New Order for "Perfect Kiss"... I like that they actually played in the video instead of doing it all canned. When you shoot the video in the studio I guess you can get away with that.

You could argue that this version is better than the single cut which also appears on Substance.

2013-01-17

Yacht Rock Episode 12

This article over at the AV Club sent me into a smooth fit of nostalgia for the great web series Yacht Rock. Though I must confess, I thought I had seen all the episodes, and did not realize there was a twelfth!

Nicely wraps up (?) the series with a double-length episode.

Watch the whole series if you haven't seen it... the show is a great satirical take on the music they've somewhat pejoratively termed 'yacht rock'.

It's also the reason behind me adding 'so smooth' to my catch-phrase heavy rotation.

2013-01-16

The Daily Swarm - Best Thing You Will Read Today: 'The Only Black Guy at the Indie Rock Show...'

Great read.

There are a multitude of uncomfortable situations to deal with: being looked at like a dartboard after someone’s fifth drink in a dimly lit dive, New York Times think-pieces on “blipsters” (as if “hipster” were invented as a white-specific term). And let’s not forget the friendly condescension: “You like this kind of music? That is so cool!” they say, as if they’ve seen some sort of unicorn. All of these are (mostly) subconscious forms of cultural gate-keeping, a “separate but equal” doctrine for the iPod generation. As a genre historically panned for its straight white maleness, indie rock fans of color are hardly ever quietly and begrudgingly tolerated in the same way as women and homosexuals; whether positively or negatively, people are far more demonstrative about how peculiar they think it is.

2013-01-15

HMV Canada is fine... for now anyway

Definite sign of the times when yesterday seemingly every Canadian news outlet ran the story about HMV going into 'administration' (as they must call it in the UK) and not bothering to mention that the Canadian stores are under different ownership. This link has been updated since yesterday, but I imagine that some damage has already been done.

This is what happens when understaffed/intern-staffed newsrooms simply pick up wire stories from Reuters and publish them verbatim on their websites.

I just can't help but note the ironic congruity of two outdated media services - newspapers and brick-and-mortar music stores - swirling down the tubes together.

2013-01-13

Saigon Sunday - Talking Heads "Burning Down the House"

For Xmas I got a copy of David Byrne's new book, How Music Works. Not quite a biography, but an examination of music through the lens of his career. Great read so far.

Now Magazine's Top 50 Toronto albums of all time

The 50 Best Toronto Albums Ever

A lot of odd choices, but the main takeaway is that it was likely someone under 30 who had final say on the list. No other way to explain why Austra is even on here. I like them just fine but putting them in the top 50 doesn't make any sense.

The Top 10 is decent... but putting The Weeknd and Rush back to back on any list doesn't feel right, as great as those albums are. We need waiting periods for albums before they are dubbed 'best-something-of-all-time', sort of like the five year period after baseball players retire until they can be elected to the Hall of Fame.

Nice linkbait on the mag's part though. Some interesting conversations happening in the comments too.

2013-01-12

Using Social Media To Cover For Lack Of Original Thought - Onion Talks

The best satire is built on truth, friends.

[via]

The Daily Swarm - The Beatles' 'Love Me Do' Is Now Public Domain in Europe...

Charli XCX - You (Ha Ha Ha) [Official Video]

Catchy stuff, if not poor timing on the video. She's from England so I guess we can cut her some slack.

[via]

2013-01-11

2013 Oscar noms are up

Whenever the Oscar nominees are announced, the first I thing I do is check the Best Song, Score and the sound editing/mixing categories. I guess I haven't been keeping up with my films this year cause I haven't seen any of these. Skyfall is at the top of my list though.

I figure Adele will take Best Song on the extensive marketing campaigns alone. When the song first debuted there were countless stories about how it was "the greatest Bond song ever", when that just isn't the case. It's good, but doubtful it's the best ever, and it's even harder to just make that statement before the song has even been released to the public.

As for the other categories, I have no idea whatsoever. Alexandre Desplat has done some good scores, so maybe his track record gets him the award this year.

I'd vote for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack, but I'm heavily biased.

Magneta Lane back with a new EP - Witchrock

At Canadian Music Week 2006, I saw Magneta Lane perform as part of a showcase at the Horseshoe. I wasn't exactly blown away by their performance. They seemed stilted and awkward, more concerned with how they looked than how they played. I also have a memory of walking past them downstairs later in the night and saying 'great show' only to have the three of them stare blankly at me... *walks away slowly*

In retrospect, they might have been overwhelmed and intimidated by the setting. As the story goes, none of them were even 19 years old, so that would explain a lot. Industry legends, record execs and so on would all have been there... I forget who was on the rest of the bill, but it could have been Wintersleep...? Honestly that week was a bit of a blur so I can't say with any certainty.

In any case, the band has returned with a new EP, which was a surprise to me cause I had written them off after their last record.

So imagine my pleasant surprise to get a preview of Witchrock and hear that all this time they've been working on songs and refining their craft. Whereas their first EP leaned towards Strokes-like indie rock, this EP is a bit more in the Sleater-Kinney direction.

My favourite track is "Leave the Light On", a solid indie rock power ballad, which I'm always a sucker for. I'm also a sucker for anything resembling Stevie Nicks imagery (note the record title and video below).

It's a good move for a 'comeback' to start small and build back up from there. Hopefully by the next record they can ditch material like the final track "Lucky" which sounds like a leftover from their earlier era, and head further into carving out their distinct identity.

Magenta Lane's Witchcraft EP is out February 12

new Sally Shapiro – “Starman (feat. Electric Youth)” - GvB

New music from Sally Shapiro. Electric Youth were on the Drive soundtrack, which I finally saw last week. Reading the novel upon which the film is based now, which I also recommend.

That film had a great soundtrack, not just in terms of the Miami Vice-inspired tunes, but the sound design and editing were also fantastic. I won't spoil anything, but they made excellent use of dynamics in the film.

2013-01-10

The Daily Swarm - Why David Bowie's New Album Cover is So Radically Awesome...

I disagree, obviously.

The modern sound engineer

Not far from the truth, I imagine...

Vigilant Citizen: Thought of the Month (01/13): Mass Shootings and Mass Media

Thought of the Month (01/13): Mass Shootings and Mass Media

During the coverage of Sandy Hook, news sources continually referred to the massacre as the “second deadliest shooting in History” as if it was all a competition and, even stranger, as if he somehow fell short of #1.

2013-01-09

Wild Nothing was the most relevant & authentic band of 2k12 | Hipster Runoff

Praise for an album from Hipster Runoff...? *scanning for sarcasm*...

Wild Nothing was the most relevant & authentic band of 2k12 | Hipster Runoff

I had this as one of my favs of 2012, probably #2 behind Hot Chip though.

Born Ruffians in Ottawa

Here's a show I mixed on last year which has made its way online. I quite liked this one. Gotta catch these guys live some time.

Kendrick Lamar - "Swimming Pools (Drank)"

Apparently he's playing SNL January 26. I find that to be simultaneously odd and awesome. I imagine he'll play this track and probably "Good Kid"... "Backstreet Freestyle" and 'Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe' would likely need too many bleeps/edits.

It's official: Bowie has lost his mind

No words for this album cover... when I first saw it I figured it HAD to be a joke, but it's there on his official website...

For some reason the music press is falling over themselves to praise the new song that is in fact, not very good.

I will wait for the full album to pass judgment but at this point I'm stuck between rage and apathy with a dose of bewilderment. Why on earth would he release this?

If you follow the link to his website there's an interview with the designer of the cover that is absolutely ridiculous. I guess no one says 'no' to Bowie any more.

I also find it quite telling in all of these articles I'm reading that none of the writers or commenters are pointing out what a stupid idea this is for a record cover, and that the song really isn't that good.

His voice may sound decent but he's been processed all to hell and frankly he sounds a bit ill. I really hope this isn't the way he ends his career, I'd hate for him to go down the Bob Dylan career path.

2013-01-08

Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe

Horrible band name, but this is totally my musical bag.

Take it as a joke if you must, but I can't help but dig the smoothness of Pages slowed down and chopped up into what could be a track from Burial.

Almost sounds like Michael McDonald...

Bowie returns!

And he should have stayed retired.

I'm about as big a Bowie fan as there is, so you can take my opinion with some weight when I say this is really fucking terrible. Not quite Hours terrible, but I'll reserve judgment until I hear the full album. At this point I wouldn't be able to justify spending any amount of hard earned dollars on this piece of crap.

I'm hoping this is some kind of joke. Heathen and Reality would have been a nice two-album punch to close out his long, storied, illustrious career... but this... wow.

This sucks, and I'm bummed.

Andy Stott - "Numb"

From the album Luxury Problems. Incredible dark, atmospheric electronic music.

2013-01-07

Breaking Bad Season 5 music

While checking out the Breaking Bad Reddit thread, I came across links to all the music used on the show. That would have been pretty handy when the show was airing... Guess I'll be doing that when the show returns in July.

Berberian Sound Studio trailer

I've been seeing a lot of reviews lately for the soundtrack to this film. I missed it at TIFF but it holds particular interest for me as the main character is a sound designer on a film. Looks like it might have some meta-type elements, you know, like the film the character is working on actually is the film we're watching type stuff.

Can't find a DVD release for it, I'll just have to keep my eyes open.

2013-01-05

Carly Rae Jepsen - On Tour

If this sort of thing is your bag, check out this Carly Rae Jepsen show I mixed for Much last month.