The Oedipus Project
Hysterical, the third album from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is scheduled for September.
It’s been over three years since we have last heard from this much-lauded Brooklyn-based quintet as they’ve been pursuing personal projects in the interim.
CYHSY is offering a free download of “Same Mistake”, the first track from the new album.
Sign-up below for yours.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4699″]
The band Yacht, not to be confused with the late 70s British New Wave band Yachts, hails from Portland, Oregon.
Led by the duo of Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans, their album Shangri-La is due next week.
“Dystopia”, an ominous song of environmental doom, is from the album and a free download.
“The Earth is on fire
We don’t have no daughter
Let the motherfucker burn”
[jwplayer mediaid=”4680″]
Battles is an experimental rock trio from New York with a strong emphasis on instrumentation.
Gloss Drop, their just released second album, is primarily instrumental, with vocals on only four tracks by guest performers.
The quirky infectious song “Ice Cream” features the voice of clubkid, DJ, producer Matias Aguayo and is a free download from Spin.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4669″]
Sharon Van Etten is appearing at Bonnaroo this weekend.
The music of this singer/songwriter from Brooklyn via Tennessee and New Jersey is included in a Spin free download of 20 Bonnaroo bands, along with the likes of My Morning Jacket, the Walkmen, Robert Plant and Twin Shadow.
The vulnerable beauty heard in “Don’t Do It” is from Van Etten’s 2010 album Epic.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4661″]
Bonnaroo, the four day music and arts festival, begins today in Manchester, Tennessee.
This is the tenth year and the lineup is stellar.
In celebration of Bonnaroo, RCRDLBL has released from their archives a free download of 24 bands performing this year including Arcade Fire, Florence and the Machine, Sleigh Bells, Best Coast, Iron & Wine, and the Black Angels among others.
Featured here is Twin Shadow, the nom de plume of George Lewis, Jr., who developed his chops in Boston before reinventing himself in Brooklyn.
“I Can’t Wait” is from his debut album Forget.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4633″]
The Shaggs are considered either the worst band of all-time or the greatest.
Three sisters from New Hampshire were forced by their father to form a band. The Wiggin girls recorded one studio album, Philosophy of The World, in 1969.
They couldn’t play and they couldn’t sing.
Adored by the likes of Kurt Cobain and Frank Zappa, the great rock writer Lester Bangs pronounced that the Shaggs were better than the Beatles. (Read his Village Voice review here.)
And now Shaggs: Philosophy of The World is an off-Broadway musical. (Read the New York Times review here.)
Listen to the title track from this landmark album. You be the judge.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4614″]
Hooray For Earth, a quartet of Boston transplants who honed their sound in New York, do not shy away from synthesizers or lush arrangements.
They impressively debut their album True Loves today.
Gorgeously rendered with layered sounds and horn accents, “No Love” is a free download.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4593″]
Cults is a duo from New York, not to be confused with the band The Cult.
Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin released a 3-song EP last year and their debut album, also called Cults, comes out tomorrow.
“Go Outside”, from both the EP and the new album, is a free from Amazon. “Abducted” was free from the band’s mailing list.
“Go Outside”
[jwplayer mediaid=”4552″]
“Abducted”
[jwplayer mediaid=”4553″]
Wild Beasts is an English quartet featuring the stunning falsetto of Hayden Thorpe.
“Albatross” is the first single from their recently released third album Smother.
This song and fourteen others, including music from the likes of Art Brut, Meat Puppets, and Dengue Fever, are free from the June issue of Spin.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4124″]
The Vaccines debut album What Did You Expect from the Vaccines? Is now available in this country.
One listen to this British quartet and their debt to the Ramones is evident.
As Joey Ramone would have told me: “They’re one of us”.
“Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra) kicks off the album at a perfect 1 minute, 24 seconds. Punk rock at its finest.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4036″]
Brendan Perry’s voice drifts through the open windows on a late summer’s eve with a warm melancholy breeze. You’re enveloped with the inevitability and beauty of the cycle of life.
The male half of Dead Can Dance, Ark is his second solo album.
“Utopia” is a free download.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4022″]
Bon Iver is a band but is known for the distinctive voice of Justin Vernon.
The name Bon Iver is a variation on the French phrase “bon hiver”, in English “good winter”, in some ways reflecting Vernon’s northern Wisconsin roots.
The eponymously titled second album is due in June.
“Calgary” is our first taste and a free download.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4012″]
The Joy Formidable album The Big Roar is an impassioned debut.
Ritzy Bryan-vocals, guitar, Rhydian Dafydd-bass, and Matt Thomas-drums make up this formidable Welsh trio.
We first featured their music here with their most unique Christmas song “My Beerdrunk Soul Is Sadder Than a Hundred Dead Christmas Trees”.
We spotlight them again with “Whirring”, their formidable single.
[jwplayer mediaid=”4003″]
Arcade Fire will release a deluxe version of The Suburbs this summer.
Included will be a 30 minute film by Spike Jonze entitled Scenes From the Suburbs, an 80 page booklet with photos and lyrics and two unreleased tracks: “Culture War” and “Speaking in Tongues”.
“Speaking in Tongues” features backing vocals by David Byrne. A tongue in cheek homage no doubt to the Talking Heads album of the same title.
Friendly Fires, England’s dance band with an edge, just released their second album, Pala.
Their first album, eponymously titled, was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2009.
Pala is a fictional utopian island in Aldous Huxley’s novel Island.
The discovery of the “Blue Cassette” and the stirrings of a long lost voice is from the new album.
[jwplayer mediaid=”3983″]
