Toronto’s indie rock collective Broken Social Scene are known for creating high art. Embracing sonic detail, seamlessly connecting vast dimensions of sound, and exploring untouched atmospheric landscapes is inherent. The frighteningly brilliant masterpiece that is Forgiveness Rock Record (May 2010) is a gorgeous example. Finally gravitating towards the pop tendencies that the group have toyed with for almost a decade, never have Broken Social Scene sounded so joyous, excited, and in love with the music they create.

Whereas earlier albums consist primarily of instrumentals, Forgiveness Rock Record finds the band playing with cryptic lyrics and elliptical word patterns, making this Broken Social Scene’s most accessible album yet. The tracks invite you to sing along, not just absorb. The album as a whole is more mature and direct, with a thematic bend that lends a sense of gravity to the music. Each song is a complete artistic piece, with all the integrity, allure, and complexity that fine art inspires. Rarely do songs sound so full. That is the nature of BSS. Each song is greater than the sum of its parts.

Broken Social Scene is known for bringing together a vast collective of musicians to fill out their sound. What began as an ambient post-rock collaboration between founding members Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew (the band’s 2001 debut Feel Good Lost) slowly evolved into the gorgeously fragmented super-collective sound nurtured in the mid-decade by the chaotic overdriven production style of David Newfield on 2002’s You Forgot It In People. The spiritual connection between the individuals, who at points have numbered 17, can be felt on each of the band’s 6 releases (4 full length albums, 1 B-Side album and 1 EP). The injection of inspiration from a mass of adventurous players creates huge washes of sound full of multi-colored textures that may overwhelm the casual listener. Forgiveness Rock Record sets itself apart by leaning on a slightly tighter group, while the “additional members” and “guests” number 31 strong. Longtime contributors Jason, Collett, Leslie Feist and Emily Haines make appearances along with special guests including Sea and Cake’s Sam Prekop, but the lion’s share draws from frontmen Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning with Sam Goldberg, Lisa Lobsinger, Justin Peroff, Charles Spearin, and Andrew Whiteman. The greater focus begets music that unabashedly hits harder. The songs may be more succinct, but the band still sounds like it contains multitudes.

Since the collective’s 3rd release in 2004, individual members of the collective have made names for themselves outside of the confines of BSS. Feist became a rock diva after releasing Let It Die in 2004, Whiteman hit the road with Apostle of Hustle, Drew and Collett released solo albums, and Amy Millan and Emily Haines elevated their side projects Stars and Metric to even greater notoriety. Forgiveness Rock Record is lush and romantic and as eclectic as the members who create it. Each track has a distinct sound, embracing their endless ability to craft clever, soaring pop songs. This is no doubt enhanced by Tortoise’s John McEntire who produced the album.

“World Sick” is one of the catchiest songs the band has ever written. Harmonics and power chords swell and boom as the band both embraces global and personal yearnings. Drew’s voice leads the collective as they cry “I get world sick / Every time I take a stand / I get world sick / My love is for my land.” “Chase Scene” strings together old west guitar rumblings and horn filled climaxes with certain tension, set upon cryptic lyrics that mirror the band’s musical complexity and the gripping chorus, “I think I’m ready to fight for the scene of my life”. “Texaco Bitches” devises a joyous melody as vocal ascensions ride marching beats and atmospheric tings. “All to All” climaxes with a wave of female vocals led by Lisa Lobsinger married with a pulsating staccato base. Her angelic voice soars above electronic atmospheres like a phoenix as she has fun with words “It’s like the all to all, the all to all the ultimatum”. “Highway Slipper Jam” brings to mind one of my favorite bands, The Slip, and recalls older BSS. It’s slow and easy as high harmonies roll along and an array of subtle sounds merge together to create the end’s lullaby. “Ungrateful Little Father” shows unabated love for alliteration. The pulsing beat of “Sentimental X’s” is filled with Haines’ sweet vocal meanderings and marks the first time in the group’s history that Amy Millan, Emily Haines, and Leslie Feist have collaborated on the same tune. “Sweetest Kill” is dark and seductive, with echoes of Drew’s voice giving up deflated melancholy upon gorgeous guitar lines which closely follow his vocal tones. The album closes with an ode to masturbation aptly titled “Me and My Hand.”

mp3: Broken Social Scene – World Sick
mp3: Broken Social Scene – Ungrateful Little Father
mp3: Broken Social Scene – Sentimental X’s

Forgiveness Rock Record rounds up the BSS diaspora and serves as a robust reminder of the band’s commitment to their identity as an art collective. One of the many things that strikes me about BSS is how their free-form, chaotic approach to creating music transforms into beautiful song structures which unmask a deep understanding of when to embrace and when to subvert standards of pop songwriting. Forgiveness Rock Record follows in this vein, often to spectacular and inspiring effect. It is easy to fall for Broken Social Scene. They make accessible and challenging pop-art, they are unequivocally prolific as a collective, they spring from Canada, and over the years have become one of the most iconic and forever-evolving indie super-groups around.

On August 9, 2010 Broken Social Scene unveiled plans for their “All to All” remix series, which includes 5 different versions of the Forgiveness Rock Record track. Every Monday, a new remix was made available exclusively for 24 hours via a different online collaborator. And on Monday, the band released the provocative video for “Texaco Bitches” featuring a bizarrely sexual, oil fed wrestling match. The video’s eccentric take on today’s oil companies is coupled with a hilarious, unforeseen ending.

mp3: Broken Social Scene – All To All (Skeet Skeet Remix)

Don’t miss the opportunity to contemplate this collective in motion on their winter tour.

Broken Social Scene Winter 2011 Tour
1/16/11 London, ON @ The Music Hall
1/18/11 New York, NY @ Terminal 5
1/29/11 Edmonton, AB @ Freezing Man Festival
2/10/11 Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre
2/11/11 Tampa, FL @ Ritz
2/12/11 Ft. Lauderdale @ Revolution Hall
2/13/11 Orlando, FL @ Firestone Live
2/15/11 New Orleans, LA @ Tipitina’s
2/17/11 Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
2/18/11 Austin, TX @ La Zona Rosa
2/19/11 Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
2/20/11 Tulsa, OK @ Cain’s Ballroom

Stream Forgiveness Rock Record

Website | MySpace

Download Forgiveness Rock Record through iTunes

Freelance Whales released their sweet and honest debut album in September of 2009, but audiences are still getting acquainted with this tenderhearted quintet from Brooklyn.

Frontman Judah Dadone (lead vocals, banjo, acoustic and electric guitar, synthesizer, bass) drew on inspiration for the band’s name from a near drowning incident in the Sea of Galilee when growing up in Jerusalem. He was seeking to grasp a rock to prove that he reached the bottom, but found it difficult to regain the surface. The Israeli fisherman who pulled him out called him in Hebrew a “freedom whale”, which then metamorphosed into the increasingly familiar name. The reference to the musical mammal and the gesture to a do-it-yourself attitude ties Dadone together with bandmates Doris Cellar (bass, harmonium, glockenspiel, synthesizer, vocals) (lead vocals, banjo, acoustic and electric guitar, synthesizer, bass), Chuck Criss (banjo, bass, synthesizer, glockenspiel, harmonium, acoustic and electric guitar, vocals), Jacob Hymn (drums, percussion, vocals), and Kevin Read (acoustic and electric guitar, glockenspiel, mandolin, synthesizer, vocals).

The members of Freelance Whales found each other through friends of friends and through Craigslist in 2008 as a result of Judah Dadone’s posts aimed at musicians who might fill his imagined sounds on unusual instruments. The band further bonded at a remote, eerie, abandoned farm colony on Staten Island where a friend suggested they videotape a performance. This late 2008 evening marked the first time the 5 brought their acoustic instruments together and performances throughout the mazes of NYC subway system evolved from the experience.

The collective honed their sound almost exclusively on the stages and subway platforms of New York City. At 2009′s end, the band journeyed on their first tour supporting the highly-orchestrated, swelling indie pop of London’s Fanfarlo. Several crowded performances at SXSW brought the band’s buzz to new heights after Spin named them one of 50 “Must Hear Bands at SXSW” and NPR simultaneously referred to them as “a band to watch this year” after a live appearance on All Songs Considered. 2010 saw an April re-release of Weathervanes on both Frenchkiss and Mom + Pop, the later which houses hot indie sensations Sleigh Bells, Metric, Tokyo Police Club, and Ingrid Michaelson. “Generator ^ First Floor” and “Broken Horse” were heard on NBC’s Chuck and the CW’s One Tree Hill. Soon audiences found Freelance Whales on tour with Bear in Heaven, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Shout Out Louds, and Tokyo Police Club.

Weathervanes is beautifully poetic and full of pastel imagery that somehow make stories of ghosts and nightmares enchanting. “Generator ^ First Floor” begins the bundle of storied tales which wrap the listener tightly for the album’s 46 minute duration. Dadone softly sings, “We’re finding every day several ways that we could be friends, And in our native language we are chanting ancient songs, And when we quiet down the house chants on without us.” This youthful optimism reveals the core of Weathervanes. “Hannah’s” chorus tempts the artful dreamer by calling “if you’re attracted to the night sky, if you’re vaguely attracted to rooftops”. “Location” follows Dadone searching for his ghostly sweetheart with mood filled lyrics contrasted with honeyed harmonies and hopeful banjo strums within the interludes. “Starring” is reminiscent of Ben Gibbard’s Postal Service with its infusion of electronics and synths mixed with Dadone’s soft vocals creating an electro pop gem with rolling choruses and a banjo solo to briefly interrupt the electric flow.

mp3: Freelance Whales – Location
mp3: Freelance Whales – Starring

The poetic story within “Broken Horse” follows the animal’s wintertime journey away from confinement with haunting, intertwining, and overlapping vocals. “Danse Flat” is strangely sparse and slightly spooky as it lures the listener into the depths of a deserted house with the sweet tune of a music box turning. “We Could Be Friends”‘s powerful ascending guitar lines, keyboard meanderings, and rock beats lift the song’s luscious lyrics, “I am convinced that we should be friends, We compare our hearts to things that fly, But cannot land.”

mp3: Freelance Whales – We Could Be Friends

Throughout Weathervanes, Freelance Whales make the most of each moment where vocals are absent to imbue the sound with numerous effects, xylophone tinklings, and atmospheric murmurings. The songs rest among similar tones, which create a sweet whole while deeper listens allow the distinctions to settle in. Most of these differences lie within lyrics crafted from Dadone’s childhood memories and dream journals.

Freelance Whales is currently on their 3rd U.S. tour following summer performances at Sasquatch! and Lollapalooza. Try not to miss them before they rise to another level and the intimacy now to be gained is gone.

Remaining Fall Tour dates…

Mon, Nov 27th – Hi-Dive / Denver, CO
Wed, Dec 1st – 7th Street Entry / Minneapolis, MN
Thu, Dec 2nd – Lincoln Hall / Chicago, IL
Fri, Dec 3rd – The Basement / Columbus, OH
Sat, Dec 4th – Brillobox / Pittsburgh, PA
Sun, Dec 5th – Mohawk Place / Buffalo, NY
Tue, Dec 7th – El Mocambo Club / Toronto, ONT
Wed, Dec 8th – La Sala Rossa / Montreal, QC
Thu, Dec 9th – Middle East / Boston, MA
Fri, Dec 10th – Iron Horse / Northampton, MA
Sat, Dec 11th – Lily’s Pad / New Haven, CT
Tue, Dec 14th – Johnny Brenda’s / Philadelphia, PA
Wed, Dec 15th – Webster Hall / New York, NY

Website | MySpace

Download Weathervanes through iTunes

Brooklyn-based indie-rockers Bear Hands have been working the scene since they emerged in 2006 and broke out as a New York buzz band in 2007, after the release of their debut EP. Four year straight at CMJ and three years at SXSW plus opening slots for a number of influential indie artists have provided them fresh fans along the way, but the release of their first LP, Burning Bush Supper Club (Cantora Records, 2010) is the long-awaited piece solidifying the band’s locale on the indie map. Bloggers went crazy for the album’s two singles, “Crime Pays” and “What A Drag”. The full record was released into the atmosphere on November 2nd.

Like fellow labelmates MGMT, Bear Hand formed as a result of their Wesleyan University connection. All four members graduating from the Connecticut school. TJ Orscher (drums/vocals) and Val Loper (bass/percussion) used to be members of an emo hardcore band called In Pieces. In August of 2006, Rau (vocals/guitar/keyboard), arguably one of their biggest fans, asked the two to flesh out some of his musical ideas and record a demo with him. The three rapidly realized that there was potential for a band and Bear Hands was born. Ted Feldman (guitar/percussion) joined soon after to fill out the sound. The four members of Bear Hands grew up listening to punk music and together meld those young influences into their driving, melodic, and vocal rock heavy explorations.

The band’s quirky, hook-filled new record is filled with distorted, reverb heavy guitar lines, pulsing beats, and Rou’s soulful falsetto. His gritty, strangely melodic vocals bring up comparisons to Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock and MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden. Abstract lyrics also form the basis of BBSS and lend to its artfulness. “Tablasaurus”’s cryptic lines meld with layers of sound atop a hypnotic tabla sample. The album ebbs and flows between atmospheric tracks like the deeply textured “Wicksey Boxing” and the slow-building “Julien” and rock-heavy screamers like “Blood and Treasure”. “What A Drag”, the album’s standout pop track, contains solid images that tease and pull you until the song’s infectious chorus about her “goddamn long nails” forcefully hits.

mp3: Bear Hands – What a Drag
mp3: Bear Hands – Tablasaurus
mp3: Bear Hands – Julien

The band’s sound has evolved since the release of the Golden EP in 2007. The band’s early instrumentation was founded upon two guitars, bass and drums. Since then, the songs have become more danceable and rhythmically oriented with additions of keyboards, samplers and programmed drums. This was partly due to the influence of Chuck Brody (Lykke Li, Santigold) who produced both albums.

Over the past three years, Bear Hands has opened for a long list of indie sensations including MGMT, Vampire Weekend, The XX, Les Savy Fav and has toured across North American and Europe with Passion Pit, Obits, We Were Promised Jet Packs, Hockey, Manic Street Preachers, and Mayer Hawthorne and The County. Dylan Rau was classmates at Wesleyan with MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, who selected Bear Hands on numerous occasions to be one of their opening acts. Bear Hand’s shows are known to be deeply powerfully and sonically textured.

Stop by the Larimer Lounge to catch them live on Wednesday, November 24th. The band will be finishing up their fall tour at locales across the midwest and northeast through mid December.

11/24 – Larimer Lounge, Denver, CO
11/26 – Schubas, Chicago, IL
11/27 – MOTR Pub, Cincinnati, OH
11/28 – Lager House, Detroit, MI
11/29 – Sneaky Dee’s, Toronto, ON, Canada
11/30 – Casa del Popolo, Montreal, QC, Canada
12/1 – Great Scott, Allston, MA
12/2 – Pearl Street Clubroom, Northampton, MA
12/3 – The Met Cafe, Pawtucket, RI
12/16 – Lilly’s Pad at Toad’s Place, New Haven, CT
12/17 – Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY

ITN – New York indies Bear Hands

“What A Drag”
I’m smearing a look, in a bottomless pit.
I am sending my love, but they won’t let it in.
You are dragging me down, I am punching a tree.
When I fall back now, deeper and deeper.

You’ve got them long nails, I’m dreaming of your god damn long nails.
You’ve got them long nails, I’m dreaming of your god damn long nails.
You have your finger so deep.

Listening is really just a valueless deed.
When you live underground, it’s the way that you sleep.
It’s the light in your hair, it’s the weight of the breeze
and when I fall back now, deeper and deeper.
deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper.
deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper.

You’ve got them long nails, I’m dreaming of your god damn long nails.
You’ve got them long nails, I’m dreaming of your god damn long nails.
You have your finger so deep.

Website | MySpace

Download Burning Bush Supper Club through iTunes

If you are a Weezer fan, the fact that the band will make 2-day stops in 5 major U.S. cities to lay down both of their first two albums is alone an thrilling notion. The So-Cal rock outfit will perform its self-titled debut, also referred to as “The Blue Album,” on the first night of each tour stop, and its sophomore release, the cult favorite Pinkerton, on the second night. The band will also play other material from its catalog after performing each album in its entirety.

Add in tour support by both Best Coast and Free Energy and the elation expands. Best Coast is affable live but Free Energy’s shows are an explosive rock punch. The Philly band has made a name for themselves in 2010 playing SXSW and touring nationwide with artists including Titus Andronicus, Delta Spirit, and Ra Ra Riot. The band is tight, wide-eyed, and brimming with enthusiasm. They diligently offer power-pop and sunny, guitar driven anthems that are pure, non-stop fun. Free Energy’s debut album, Stuck On Nothing (March 2010), was produced by none other than LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy. And on top of it all, Rolling Stone named them in March one of the best new bands of 2010.

On October 22, frontman Rivers Cuomo announced on the Weezer forum that Best Coast would open the L.A. shows, and that Free Energy would support Weezer in Boston and New York. “I love these bands!” wrote Cuomo. Best Coast leader Bethany Cosentino and Cuomo also recently collaborated on a track that is yet to be released.

Weezer Tour Dates:

11-26 Los Angeles, CA – Gibson Amphitheatre *
11-27 Los Angeles, CA – Gibson Amphitheatre *
11-29 San Francisco, CA – Nob Hill Masonic Center
11-30 San Francisco, CA – Nob Hill Masonic Center
12-14 Boston, MA – Orpheum Theatre ^
12-15 Boston, MA – Orpheum Theatre ^
12-17 New York, NY – Roseland Ballroom ^
12-18 New York, NY – Roseland Ballroom ^
01-07 Chicago, IL – Aragon Ballroom
01-08 Chicago, IL – Aragon Ballroom

* with Best Coast
^ with Free Energy

mp3: Free Energy – Bang Pop
mp3: Best Coast – Make You Mine

Weezer Website | MySpace

Free Energy Website | MySpace
Download Free Energy’s Stuck On Nothing through iTunes

Best Coast Website | MySpace
Download Best Coast’s Crazy for You through iTunes

Leave any attachment to cartoon characters behind. Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s animated oddballs served as an interesting concept at the onset and propelled the intrigue of their project into the mainstream, but on the third Gorillaz release, Plastic Beach (2010), it seems they’ve left behind the idea that Gorillaz is purely a vehicle for a cartoon fronted federation. The former Blur frontman has transcended the futuristic wiliness of the original image, creating one of the best records of 2010, one that is innovative, powerful, eclectic, and soulfully diverse. Truth be told. Gorillaz are real.

Damon Albarn and British cartoonist Jamie Hewlett started the fictional cartoon band in 1998. The band was instantly successful with their self-titled debut album (2001) which included songs “19-2000″ and “Clint Eastwood”. The concept band was composed of four animated members: 2D (lead vocalist, keyboard), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar), Noodle (guitar, keyboard, and occasional vocals) and Russel Hobbs (drums and percussion). The character’s fictional universe is explored throughout the band’s website and music videos. The due released Demon Days (2005) with smash hit “Feel Good Inc.” and “Dirty Harry” and five years later, Plastic Beach.

Filled with guest cameos from the likes of Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, De La Soul, and the enigmatic Little Dragon, Plastic Beach rides on the formidable musicality and flawless production Gorillaz lovers have come to rely on. The album’s scope and depth as it meshes hip-hop, electronica, and pop is more engaging as a whole. It’s a concept album with a clear message about the Earth’s deflowering by pollution and snowballing technology. The record marks the first time Albarn has produced a Gorillaz album in its entirety after yielding the boards to Automator and Danger Mouse on previous efforts.

Plastic Beach opens with a dramatic, orchestral intro yet quickly runs into the sexy “Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach” featuring none other than the saucy, one and only, Snoop Dogg, dogmatizing that the “revolution will be televised… push peace and keep it in motion”. Look through the doom to behold the beauty beyond is the manifesto held in Albarn’s world.

mp3: Gorillaz – Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach (feat. Snoop Dogg & Hypnotic Brass Ensemble)

“White Flag” reveals more of Albarn’s imaginings via hard hitting, hip-hop wrapped in samples and the lyrical prowess of Brit MC’s Bashy and Kano juxtaposed with sugar sweet melodies unraveling from The National Orchestra for Arabic Music. “No war, no guns, No corps, just life, Just love, no hate, Just fun, no ties, Just me and my mind, Just me and my wife.” No walls and jails on this paradise that rains condoms.

Albarn’s voice leads “Rhinestone Eyes” as he voices climatic concerns with syncopated fluidity atop electricity filled synth lines. And there’s “Stylo” with soulful vocals from Albarn and Bobby Womack plus raps from Mos Def expertly meshed with swirling electronics and unrelenting beats pushing you further into another dimension. Electric is the love.

mp3: Gorillaz – Stylo (feat. Mos Def & Bobby Womack)

“Superfast Jellyfish” is light and silly. Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys & De La Soul collaborate on this microwave-meal-fast-food biting spoof adding another dimension to the album’s already apparent multiplicity. And then the dreamy “Empire Ants” begins, easily taking the title of most compelling and gorgeous track on the record. The slow, subtle intro by Albarn leads to a fully electrifying song body rich with the alluring vocals of Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano. The beats are to die for. “Empire Ants” the perfect soundtrack for a spontaneous dance party on the street with your car speakers blaring.

mp3: Gorillaz – Superfast Jellyfish (feat. Gruff Rhys & De La Soul)
mp3: Gorillaz – Empire Ants (feat. Little Dragon)

“Some King of Nature” stands out with deftly spoken lyrics from luminary Lou Reed who adds something entirely bizarre and psychedelic to Albarn’s cough syrup dripping choruses. “Melancholy Hill” causes the energy to drop off, but “Broken” picks it back up again with eerie melodies leading into nighttime driven musings about distant galaxies. The slow pace is irresistible. The album winds and turns through the rest of it’s 18 track sand then swiftly drifts into two movie score ready tracks, “Pirate’s Progress” and “Three Hearts, Seven Seas, Twelve Moons”.

Plastic Beach captures your imagination and triggers a full-color, 3D listening experience. The album is stunning in its entirety and is one of Albarn’s most fully developed musical conceptions yet. The pretense of the animated band has clearly been surpassed. And there might be more to come. Albarn recorded more than 70 songs for this release, and the designing pair is apparently considering sequels.

Gorillaz debuted Plastic Beach at Coachella 2010 and arguably played one of the most dynamic sets of the festival. Live, the band includes Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of The Clash along with Cass Browne (The Senseless Things) and a number of talented musicians and guests, which at Coachella included Mos Def, Bobby Womack, De La Soul, Little Dragon, and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. The 35-date international tour in support of the album began this October with 5 U.S. dates still remain including Denver, Phoenix, L.A., Oakland, and Seattle. Catch them if you can. It just might be one of the most epic shows you see all year.

Oct 24 – Wells Fargo Theatre, Denver, CO
Oct 26 – Dodge Theatre, Phoenix, AZ
Oct 27 – Gibson Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA
Oct 30 – Oracle Arena, Oakland, CA
Nov 2 – Key Arena, Seattle, WA

CHECK OUT: The official video for Stylo featuring none other than Bruce Willis.

Gorillaz Live at Coachella

Website | MySpace

This is probably the most stunning festival video I’ve laid eyes on. Sam O’Hare has pulled together incredible clips of the festival igniting and climaxing. By speeding up the film and using aerial shots, O’Hare turns ordinary movements into something quite spectacular. The end result is astonishing. Starting with attendees assembling their temporary homes and storming the gates to audiences roaming through the grounds, lazing in the grass, and cheering for the headliners, each scene is sweetly chosen. Throughout, the gorgeous structures that cover the property look utterly surreal. And for a moment, the enormous event that is Coachella looks miniature.

The music was oddly enough produced by a music and sound design initiative called Human. The company creates inventive pieces for commercials, film, and television. From their site, “We embrace technology as a means of expanding the boundaries of genre, location and culture.” This is exactly what O’Hare’s creation coupled with Human’s music adeptly achieves…

Coachella

As El Guicho explains at the beginning of his new video, we are about to journey to “explore the cosmos in a ship of our imagination… [and] the ship will take us to worlds of dreams.” This video must be the visualization of Díaz-Reixa’s dream world. He launches a golden cassette tape off a cliff and takes us on a psychotropic trip filled with innumerable bare breasts, sexual innuendos, a woman lighting a cigarette from a match poised in a bird’s beak, the murder of a stuffed panda, a beauty painted entirely in gold and many things purely unexplainable. The video is stimulating and complex, the song familiar albeit futuristic.

The piece serves as the trailer for a film that shares the name “Bombay” and evokes filmmaker Nicolás Mendez’s interpretation of El Guincho’s 2nd release, Pop Negro. It begins with El Guincho playing astronomer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan, parodying Sagan’s idiosyncratic documentary style, and ends with the expected, more beautiful bare breasts.

EL GUINCHO | Bombay from MGdM | Marc Gómez del Moral on Vimeo.

Spanish musician Pablo Díaz-Reixa is El Guincho. He spent his early days on the Canary Isles, alienated from the 80s pop culture. Primarily a boy of the beach and the ocean, he eventually discovered his passion for film and music, which he then nurtured in Paris and Barcelona. The resulting sound infuses styles as disparate as Animal Collective and Os Mutantes and relies heavily on interlocking samples, auto-harmonizing pop choruses, and heavily syncopated beats. Díaz-Reixa describes his music, imbued with island sounds, the bouyancy of tropicalia, and pop precision, as “space-age exotica”.

His breakthrough record, Alegranza (2008), launched the Spanish artist high into the indie music blogosphere and sent him to perform several highly anticipated shows at Austin’s SXSW. “Bombay” is off Díaz-Reixa’s recent release, Pop Negro (2010). His second album, like the first, is a mix of afro-beat percussion, world music samples, uptempo beats, and exotic production. Díaz-Reixa began producing the album shortly after the release of Alegranza and it became 18-months in the making. Three months into the recording process, at Berlin’s infamous Planet Roc studio, Díaz-Reixa returned to the Canary Islands to serve as a wind surfing instructor in order to raise the money to justly finish the project.

Take a listen…

mp3: El Guincho – Bombay – Pop Negro (2010)
mp3: El Guincho – Soca Del Eclipse – Pop Negro (2010)
mp3: El Guincho – (Chica-Oh) Drims – Pop Negro (2010)

Díaz-Reixa has extended his reach into a variety of other projects, including adding music to Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, performing with his rock band, Coconot, and working in Spanish film and television.

El Guincho appears in the U.S. this week with two L.A. dates (Oct 7 – The Standard Hotel and Oct 8 – Spaceland) and one in San Francisco (Oct 9 – Elbo Room)!

MySpace | Website

Phish will give its first television performance since 2004 tonight on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.” The appearance is part of a Rolling Stones’ tribute week to their 1972 album Exile On Main Street. Each night on Fallon a different band will cover a song from the classic album. The show starts tonight at 12:35 / 11:35 CST on NBC.

The tribute week concides with the May 18, 2010 deluxe release of a remastered version of the album featuring 10 previously unheard tracks including “Plundered My Soul”, “Dancing in the Light”, “Following the River” and “Pass the Wine” as well as alternate versions of “Soul Survivor” and “Loving Cup”.

Throughout the week artists will sit in with hip-hop artists The Roots, Fallon’s house band since March 2009. Other musical guests this week included Green Day, Keith Urban, Sheryl Crow, Taj Mahal, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, and Rolling Stones’ keyboardist Chuck Leavell. LL Cool J is appearing tonight along with Phish.

The million dollar question: What will Phish play? So far nothing has been announced. The rock legends played Exile in its entirety at Festival 8 over Halloween this past fall, so anything is possible.

Check out this clip of “Rocks Off” from Festival 8.

Looking forward to the unveiling of Phish this evening!

Irwin Barbé and Luna Cedron sent me their fashion video set to a High Places song called “From Stardust to Sentience.” The video features Luna’s Venus in Fürs designs. I’m in love with how the images embody the music. I also adore that 17-year-olds from France are sending me their artistic creations…

VENUS IN FURS the summer wasting from Irwin Barbé on Vimeo.

Check out more from this amazingly talented young designer. Luna’s ethereal creations feature floral fabrics, draping cords, and t-shirts covered in fantatsical childlike drawings. Luna loves live music, meeting musicians and giving them her designs. MGMT and Foals are already part of her following.

Clothing by Venus in Fürs …
Venus in Fürs’ Facebook
Check out this interview with Luna in Dazed.

Barbé’s visuals are equally preternatural. Here’s a video he directed for Gang Gang Dance’s “Vacuum”.

For more from Barbé… Irwin Barbé…

mp3: High Places – From Stardust to Sentience
mp3: Gang Gang Dance – Vacuum

High Places: MySpace | Website
Gang Gang Dance: MySpace | Website

I recently caught Phantogram within the gorgeous IFC Studio at SXSW and the experience has held onto a special place in my memory. The duo created a unique vibe in the small blue-imbued 50-capacity space that I became wrapped within until the last notes of their set. I’ve been craving that feeling since and will experience it again on Monday when they surface at the Fox Theatre in Boulder on their tour in support of The Antlers. The group is hitting major cities and smaller ones as well between now and June.

Phantogram is the sonic manifestation of junior high friends Sarah Barthel (synth and vocals) and Josh Carter (guitar, samples, and vocals). The two came together in 2007 to push boundaries of indie-electronica with their unique style of atmospheric dream-pop. The sound walks a tightrope of genres as they weave sampled and electronically-generated hip-hop beats with shoegaze, trip-hop, R&B, indie/emo and pop. With their thudding beats, lush synthesizers, psychedelic art-rock and interchange of male/female vocals, Phantogram creates expansive, dazzling sounds of unfaltering quality that float.

While the band’s sound implies the city, the duo resides in the small town of Saratoga Springs, populations 26,186. To write and record, the two drive further into rural lands of upstate New York to a farmland barn they call Harmony Lodge. The unconventional space acts as their homemade studio/practice-space/think-tank, equipped with various samplers, tapes, records, synths, drums, and percussive and stringed instruments. It is here that Phantogram melds metropolitan influences and those of their natural surroundings to create their textural, psychedelic, beat-driven pop.

The band’s debut, Eyelid Movies (Barsuk Records, 2010), is filled with grand ideas and even better songs. In speaking of the record’s title, Barthel explains: “We ran across a description of dreams somewhere that used the phrase ‘eyelid movies’ – and it really struck us both as something that fit our music.” “Daydreams, the spots you see moving around when your eyes are closed tight, and the shapes you see in the world – those are the kinds of things we want to surface in your mind when you hear a Phantogram song,” adds Carter. Barsuk Records is home to indie greats including Death Cab for Cutie, Rilo Kiley, Ra Ra Riot and Viva Voce.

There tends to be an undercurrent of loneliness and isolation in much of the band’s work, counter-balanced by awe-inspiring moments of untethered bliss. “Mouthful of Diamonds” is one of those highpoints on the record. Its gorgeous guitar melodies, repeating samples, and Barthel’s astounding voice could lift any mood. In case you were wondering, the band’s intriguing name refers to a type of optical illusion that brings 2D images into 3D, creating a lovely parallel with the rich music that this duo brings to life.

mp3: Phantogram – When I’m Small – Eyelid Movies (2010)

Phantogram’s Spring Tour
Apr 23 – BLIND PIG (w/ The Antlers), Ann Arbor, Michigan
Apr 24 – ROCK ISLAND BREWERY (w/ The Antlers), Rock Island, Illinois
Apr 26 – FOX THEATRE (w/ The Antlers), Boulder, Colorado
Apr 28 – CASBAH (w/ The Antlers), San Diego, California
Apr 29 – DETROIT BAR (w/ The Antlers), Costa Mesa, California
Apr 30 – THE TROUBADOUR (w/ The Antlers), Los Angeles, California
May 1 – INDEPENDENT (w/ The Antlers), San Francisco, California
May 3 – DOUG FIR LOUNGE (w/ The Antlers), Portland, Oregon
May 4 – THE BILTMORE CABARET (w/ The Antlers), Vancouver, British Columbia
May 5 – NEUMO’S (w/ The Antlers), Seattle, Washington
May 8 – WILLAMETTE VALLEY MUSIC FEST, Eugene, Oregon
May 10 – KILBY COURT, Salt Lake City, Utah
May 12- THE BELLY UP, Aspen, Colorado
May 13 – LARIMER LOUNGE, Denver, Colorado
May 14 – RIOT ROOM, Kansas City, Missouri
May 15 – RACHEL’S CAFE, Bloomington, Indiana
May 17 – GROG SHOP, Cleveland, Ohio
May 18 – MAXWELL’S, Hoboken, New Jersey
May 19 – THE BOWERY BALLROOM, New York, New York
May 20 – WRBC BATES COLLEGE, Lewiston, Maine
May 21 – JERKY’S, Providence, Rhode Island
May 22 – NORTHERN LIGHTS, Clifton Park, New York
May 31 – SASQUATCH! MUSIC FESTIVAL, George, Washington
Jun 1 – GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC HALL (w/ The XX), San Francisco, California
Jun 2 – GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC HALL (w/ The XX), San Francisco, California
Jun 3 – HENRY MILLER MEMORIAL LIBRARY (w/ The XX), Big Sur, California
Jun 5 – HENRY FONDA THEATER (w/ The XX), Los Angeles, California
Jun 6 – WILTERN (w/ The XX), Los Angeles, California

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