We’ve got one copy of the incredible deluxe vinyl box set of Dark Night of the Soul to give away.
The album is a collaboration between producer Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley, Gorillaz), alt. rock band Sparklehorse and film director/artist David Lynch, recorded just months before Sparklehorse frontman Mark Linkous’ tragic death. Read Alex Silveri’s review of Dark Night of the Soul here.
The deluxe box set (pictured above) includes the Dark Night of the Soul album on CD, on double-LP vinyl, a CD containing instrumentals from the album, a 40-page 12″ x 12″ photo book (curated by Lynch), lobby cards, a limited edition photo card and an 18″ x 24″ poster.
To be in with a chance of winning, simply answer the following simple question and send it, along with your full name and username, to sputnikreviews@gmail.com with the tagline “Dark Night of the Soul contest.”
Question: What is your favourite David Lynch film?
NB: The contest is only available to residents of the United States, so please confirm that you’re resident in the country in the email itself to avoid confusion.Multiple entries will be ignored. Closing date is 23.59 on Tuesday, August 31.
This fall Cee-Lo will release The Lady Killer, his first solo album since 2004’s Cee-Lo Green…Is the Soul Machine. Appropriately enough, “Fuck You” is the first single off The Lady Killer, a song that soulfully belts about a gold digging woman in such a graceful fashion. Honestly, it proves how fickle curse words are and how beautiful they can sound. If you hadn’t figured it out, this song has a few curse words, so be mindful of your surrounding before listening, even though I’m sure no one will care, but rather sing along.
Color me confuzzled. Someone, apparently a Milwaukee group named Photon Wave Orchestra took Justin Bieber’s “U Smile” pumped up the reverb and slowed the song down 800%. The result is probably the best ambient track you’re going to hear all year, although the slowed down drums can get kind of annoying after a few minutes. Joke or not, what the track proves is, at its finest, ambient music takes all of the simplicity that makes pop music so accessible and lays it bare before us. It’s what Hammock does, it’s what Sigur Ros does, and apparently, in the second level of Christopher Nolan’s dreamworld, it’s what Justin Bieber does as well.
Yesterday on the blog, we previewed “High School Art Class,” the first track off Pretty Lights’ newest EP entitled, Spilling Over Every Side. Today Derek Vincent Smith, the mastermind of Pretty Lights, talks about his touring, latest and future works, and the experience of playing a show with DJ Shadow.
Ryan Flatley: I just downloaded your second EP, which is fantastic by the way, and I just wanted to know if Spilling Over Every Side and your other two EPs are linked in any way or are they separate entities?
Derek Vincent Smith: Well really what I’m trying to do is try to make three separate bodies of music that can come together as a whole. And I suppose what would unify them as a whole is the fact that (it’s) the music I wanted to create in 2010, and it’s kind of where I’m at in 2010. I’m really trying to use each EP as a way to push each style I’m trying to explore at that time. The second EP is different than the first, and trying a different approach on the third. I suppose I want the trilogy to be a glimpse into the ever-change, morphing vision of myself.
RF: Do you plan on doing that on a consistent basis, as in 2011 release music sporadically?
DVS: No, I want to make it different all the time, this year I want to do the three EPs. Next year I already have planned to do something…
Derek Vincent Smith, known by his moniker Pretty Lights, has blown up on the electro/hip-hop scene during the past two years. Supporting acts such as DJ Shadow in Dublin, Ireland along with playing nearly every major festival in the country for the past two years that it’s only a matter of time before Pretty Lights explodes once again. Tomorrow, I will post a full interview with Derek, but first, a preview of what Pretty Lights are all about. This track entitled “High School Art Class” is the first track off Spilling Over Every Side, the second of three EPs to be released this year, all of which can cost you as little as nothing to any amount that you would like to donate.
On September 29, 2009, DJ Shadow announced the DJ Shadow Remix Project, an open opportunity for DJs and producers from around the world to remix some of the most legendary material in the trip-hop canon. Nine-and-a-half months later, the anticipated child was born, a release from Reconstruction Productions featuring 19 tracks of remixes stretching across Shadow’s discography. Endtroducing and The Private Press get the largest overhaul, including two remixes of the classic “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt.” Featured here is the Ruby My Dear remix that speeds up the song for a frenetic, rapidly changing remix that goes from Venetian Snares to The Flashbulb to Bonobo in the blink of an eye, all while keeping the main purpose in sight–demonstrating the wide influence that Shadow has had and still has for emerging producers around the world.
Not far removed from the middle of winter in the southern hemisphere, it was a cold and wet Melbourne that hosted Jared Leto & Co. at Festival Hall. Touring on the back of their disappointing 3rd album ‘This Is War’, this tour was for some reason titled ‘Into the Wild’. I’d research why, but the fact this blog has been written 2 weeks after the event should tell you how motivated I am at present.
The best seat in the house?
The venue is not exactly much loved around these parts since (ignoring its summer air-conditioning issue which leaves it feeling like a sauna) it is spatially challenged. Spreading sideways instead of back, even some of the best seats in the house (ignoring a limited capacity balcony section which is centrally located) leave attendees with too much of a side view feel. Thankfully, yours truly had one of those best seats for this particular concert since there was no way I was going to submit my ears to the screaming 13 year old girls on the venue’s floor section… The fact that the floor section was also unlicensed is irrelevant… Well, not really, but anyway…
Arriving as the support band was playing their first song; it was not a great surprise to see The Art receive a lukewarm response. Previously known as The Follow, the Sydney outfit was a strange choice as supports since
Huge, yearning, beautiful. What the avalanches might have sounded like in 2010, where dilla may have been going. Star Slinger picks up where they left off, and, when he’s on his game, brings it to the moon. Four minutes of bliss.
“Bumpkin”
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I post this slightly poor-quality recording of ‘Suspect Device’ from an Ulster Television broadcast in 1978 not because it’s a particularly good representation of the song – in fact, it does very little justice to one of the best punk songs ever written – but purely because it challenges the myth of what “punk,” in its earliest form, stood for.
Here we see a decent-sized crowd of disaffected Northern Irish youths kitted out in the usual punk clobber – ripped shirts, shredded jeans, leather jackets and even the odd dog collar – and seemingly united in their desire not to be seen showing any form of emotion. You’ll notice a trio of lads jumping around in euphoria towards the middle of the video – rest assured they were not representative of the crowd and were soon removed from the venue.
It’s worth considering the context in which bands like Stiff Like Fingers and the Undertones entered the music scene: groups like the Sex Pistols and the Clash may have been infuriated by the extent to which their mummies didn’t pay enough attention to them, but these groups of Catholic Irish teenagers experienced real hardship and oppression on a daily basis, and they made a conscious choice to break the mould by fighting back with their music rather than guns and improvised explosives.
The lasting legacy of these groups’ music was to unite thousands of middle class teens from across the religious divide would unite against a bitterly unfair regime –…
I heard Salem’s “King Night” a little over a month ago when a few blogs started premiering it, but I have to admit that I hardly paid attention. To be honest, I have no idea how this did not draw me in back then. What was I distracted by? It could have been The Roots, Big Boi, Sleigh Bells, or any of the other incredible music I had been digesting around that time, but “King Night”, the first track released off of Salem’s forthcoming album of the same name, shows just as much promise as any of the great music that has already come out this year. It’s a post-dubstep masterpiece, and not in the way that Mount Kimbie makes a weak, watered-down mixture for the headphones. “King Night” moves the grimy underbelly of Burial to a cathedral, featuring none other than a choir singing “O Holy Night” with walloping, powerful bass as the choir’s accompaniment. It’s an inspired tour de force of music for the new decade.
King Night is released on September 28th.
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A recent New York Timesprofile of Brooklyn resident David, creator of the Pitchfork Reviews Reviews blog, gives an interesting insight into the online sub-culture that has sprung up in opposition to the influence of the internet’s most far-reaching music reviews site.
Early each weekday morning, the indie music Web site Pitchfork posts five new album reviews. Hours later a 22-year-old reader named David downloads them onto his BlackBerry, reads them on his way to work and muscles out a rambling but surprisingly fluid response using his phone’s MemoPad function: no links, no capital letters at the start of sentences, just adrenalized response.
In essence, what David does is turn the tables on Pitchfork: each weekday, he reads every new review on the site, comments upon it and assigns it a score on a scale of 0.0 to 10.0. Instead of “Best New Music,” he gives an award for “Worst New Review.” As far as satire goes, it’s only marginally more subtle than the Scary Movie series, but it is effective nonetheless. Furthermore, it’s the ideal subject matter for a shockingly impersonal medium like tumblr, where small communities choose to blog about each other’s posts rather than having actual upfront discussions.
It’s not so much ironic as it was inevitable that Pitchfork would reach this position. It was originally created as a counterweight to the hegemonic power of traditional media (your Rolling Stones and, yes, your New York Timeses), and any fule…
Oh you’re so silent Jens. How long has it been? 3 years since you last charmed us with Night Falls Over Kortedala? Where have you been? What have you been up to? Heartbreak, if “The End of The World is Bigger Than Love” is anything to go by. Staggering, string-laden heartbreak.
With each show, you are presented with a new experience, group of people, and likely venue. The only thing that remains constant is that you are attending, but your actions at a show can have potentially drastic consequences, both good and bad. This past weekend, a few of the marquee aspects of show etiquette were broken. Below, I have outlined the absolute necessities in order to be a respectful fan in a slew of environments. All of this is done to prepare yourself for every genre, because no one likes a push pit at a Modest Mouse show.
GENERAL COURTESY:
Regarding clothing, specifically shirts, perhaps the number one rule, is NEVER wear a shirt of the band you are about to see. Everyone knows you like the band because you’re at the show. If you do wear a band t-shirt, make it count, as in something that is out of that band’s genre. Also, sandals are generally a bad choice, along with any heavy clothing. The temperature inside a venue can be brutal, so consider that run from your car to the entrance in shorts during the middle of the winter.
Regarding height, if you are on the short side of the stick, know if the venue has some sort of in-house elevation, or get there early so you are in the front of the stage. Also, don’t complain when someone is tall, like myself, is in front of you. There are hundreds upon thousands of different spots that you…
Leading up to this weekend, shows have been hard to come by this calendar year, however that was about to change. On Thursday I was going to see The Antlers with Dinosaur Feathers while on Sunday I planned on seeing Cap’n Jazz twice, once with Lightning Bolt and No Age and the other with Gauge.
Thursday night, The Antlers played a free concert as a part of the Hudson River Park’s River Rocks concert series at Pier 54. The picturesque night started with melodious three-piece known as Dinosaur Feathers. While they will not blow anyone away with any sort of dramatic climaxes or intricate passages, Dinosaur Feathers make up for that with their precision and dreamy pop songs, such as “Teenage Whores.” Unfortunately for Dinosaur Feathers, the generator powering the show went down during the middle of their set, which caused a nearly thirty minute delay and Dinosaur Feathers to play at about a quarter of the original volume without electronically produced drums supporting their sound, all while organizers scrambled to get another generator for The Antlers’ set. Dinosaur Feathers could have easily stopped playing, but they persevered through the technical difficulties, and they deserve a heap of credit for keeping a somewhat disgruntled crowd happy.
Once The Antlers took the stage, another generator was in place and the sun was setting over the Hudson. Flowers lined two keyboards as “Kettering” began ever so softly. One detail that The Antlers do so well with their live shows is play their…
Oh you’re so silent Jens. How long has it been? 3 years since you last charmed us with Night Falls Over Kortedala? Where have you been? What have you been up to? Heartbreak, if “The End of The World is Bigger Than Love” is anything to go by. Staggering, string-laden heartbreak.
