As they celebrate their 20th anniversary, Mogwai announced the departure of guitarist John Cummings. The post-rock outfit from Scotland released the news through a post on their website saying that Cummings wants to focus on personal projects for the foreseeable future.
Here is the statement from the band:
“We are sad to announce that John Cummings has decided to leave Mogwai to pursue his own musical projects.
We will continue as a four piece of Dominic Aitchison, Stuart Braithwaite, Martin Bulloch and Barry Burns and shall be joined on our upcoming live shows by Scott Paterson and Luke Sutherland.
We wish John all the best with the future.”
Cummings joined Mogwai after they were formed becoming the fourth member of the band. This last summer, the group commemorated their 20th year as a band by the Central Belters box set of rarities and hits. They will continue as a quartet, but guitarist/vocalist Braithwaite has also started a side project with members from Slowdive and Editors called Minor Victories.
In the wake of the horrendous terrorist attacks Paris, Foo Fighters have cancelled the remaining dates in their European tour.
The band discussed in a statement, “It is with profound sadness and heartfelt concern for everyone in Paris that we have been forced to announce the cancellation of the rest of our tour. In light of this senseless violence, the closing of borders, and international mourning, we can’t continue right now. There is no other way to say it. This is crazy and it sucks. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who was hurt or who lost a loved one.”
U2 have also canceled the two shows in Paris this weekend they had set to be broadcasted on HBO. In addition, Coldplay postponed a live stream performance in Los Angeles Friday Night.
Poliça, Minneapolis-based synthpop group, have announced the release of their upcoming third album, United Crushers. The follow-up to the acclaimed Shulamith is set to be released on March 4th via Mom+Pop.
This album is the band’s third overall and was written during their break after two years of touring for Shulamith. Even though the music came from their hometown, it was recorded by the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas’ Sonic Ranch Studios.
The album announcement on the band’s website stated that the new record has themes that are “heavily political and deeply personal with thick references to social injustice, self-doubt and isolation, the rapidly increasing urban decline in gentrification, overcoming music industry machinations, and finding true and honest love in the wake of it all.”
They’ve shared the lead single “Lime Habit.” Drummers Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu keep the hypnotic beat while the synths keep the track floating. Even though there are dark tones in the lyrics(“I’m a loss a faith/ You’re a changed belief/ Scored the goods for my baby/ It’s enough, so we hurry to leave”), the bass line from Chris Beirden has the song falling into a slump. Listen in below via The Sunset People-directed video.
United Crushers Tracklist: 01. Summer Please
02. Lime Habit
03. Someway
04. Wedding
05. Melting Block
06. Top Coat
07. Lately
08. Fish
09. Berlin
10. Baby Sucks
11. Kind
12. Lose You
Poliça have also announced a 34-date tour in support of the album, beginning with record release shows in their hometown of Minneapolis.
Poliça 2016 Tour Dates: 03/02 – Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club
03/03 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
03/04 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
03/08 – Des Moines, IA @ Vaudeville Mews *
03/09 – Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room *
03/10 – Tulsa, OK @ The Vanguard *
03/11 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live STudio *
03/12 – Dallas, TX @ The Loft *
03/22 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Crescent Ballroom *
03/23 – San Diego, CA @ The Irenic *
03/25 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda Theatre *
03/26 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore *
03/28 – Portland, OR @ Dour Fir Lounge *
03/29 – Portland, OR @ Dour Fir Lounge *
03/30 – Vancouver, BC @ The Imperial *
03/31 – Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre *
04/14 – Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon #
04/15 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall Ballroom #
04/16 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall #
04/18 – Ann Arbor, MI @ Blind Pig #
04/20 – Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace #
04/21 – Montreal, QC @ Petit Campus #
04/22 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall #
04/23 – New York, NY @ Warsaw #
04/25 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer #
04/26 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club #
04/28 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle #
04/29 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West #
04/30 – Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge #
05/01 – Asheville, NC @ The Mothlight #
05/04 – Covington, KY @ Madison Live #
05/05 – Columbus, OH @ The Basement #
05/06 – Columbia, MO @ Rose Music Hall #
05/07 – Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck #
Jeff Buckley released only one album before he tragically died in 1997, but that was not the only material he recorded ever. Before making Grace, Buckley recorded demos to show his producers the direction he saw the album going. Now, Columbia/Legacy Recordings is planned to release some of the never-before-heard recordings in a new compilation named You and I.
Set out on March 16th, You and I will contain two originals, — demo versions of “Grace” and “Dream of You and I” — with eight covers going from classic rock to alternative to funk. The album has Buckley covering songs by Bob Dylan (“Just Like a Woman”), Led Zeppelin (“Night Flight”), and The Smiths (“The Boy with the Thorn in His Side” and “I Know It’s Over”). Also on the album are his takes on traditional songs like “Poor Boy Long Way from Home” and “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Cryin’.”
You can listen Buckley’s version of Sly & The Family Stone’s “Everyday People” here. The cover has his distinct bluesy twist on the classic, but still keeping the funk in the song as he sings, “And so on/ And so on/ And scooby dooby dooby.”
Listen to the song as well as the NPR “Morning Edition” report on the album that features a sample of “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side.” The full tracklist is below.
You and I Tracklist: 01. Just Like A Woman (Bob Dylan cover)
02. Everyday People (Sly & The Family Stone cover)
03. Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Cryin’ (First recorded by Louis Jordan)
04. Grace (original)
05. Calling You (Jevetta Steele cover)
06. Dream Of You And I (original)
07. The Boy With The Thorn In His Side (The Smiths cover)
08. Poor Boy Long Way From Home (traditional blues song, Bukka White cover)
09. Night Flight (Led Zeppelin cover)
10. I Know It’s Over (The Smiths cover)
Thomas Fekete, the guitarist for Surfer Blood, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer this year. The band is now raising funds to cover the cost 0f treatment for Fekete by selling unreleased songs by various artists.
Surfer Blood, Real Estate, Yo La Tengo, Guided By Voices, Julianna Barwick, Cults, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, … And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Lou Barlow, Nick Diamonds, the Drums, the Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, and Alex Somers (of Jónsi and Alex) all shared tracks. The tracks go from a GBV live cut from 1994 to a Cults outtake to a Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger song from 2009 when Mark Ronson was a member of the band. Nick Diamonds and Surfer Blood also contributed new songs.
Each track is being auctioned as a single lathe-cut vinyl 7″. All 13 tracks are available for download if you donate $10 or more. Find the tracklist below.
There are also items up for auction that have autographs from Yoko Ono and the Flaming Lips, Interpol and Shepard Fairey, Sleigh Bells, Sharon Van Etten, and Angel Olsen. Everything can be found here.
In May, Surfer Blood’s van was broken into as well. In addition to taking gear and personal items, the thieves also took donations that were collected for Fekete.
01 Guided By Voices: “Motor Away” (live)
02 Yo La Tengo: “Can’t Forget” (live)
03 Cults: “Hurting”
04 Real Estate: “Talking Backwards” (demo)
05 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: “Between These Boys” (demo)
06 Lou Barlow: “Sunshine / Money / Thirsty”
07 The Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger: “Rainbows In Gasoline” (unreleased version)
08 Nick Diamonds: “Be A Comedian”
09 Julianna Barwick: “Promise”
10 Alex Somers: “Well”
11 The Drums: “Help Him”
12 …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead: “F Train”
13 Surfer Blood: “Tidal Wave” (demo)
Legendary songwriter and musician from New Orleans, Allen Toussaint has died, the confirmed by his daughter to The New York Times. He was 77 years old. The cause of death was a heart attack, which he suffered from in his hotel room Tuesday morning in Madrid, Spain.
Toussaint wrote and produced classics such as Lee Dorsey’s “Working in the Coal Mine” and Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade”. He began performing in the 1950’s and in the 1960’s,and 70s, he collaborated with artists like Irma Thomas, Aaron Neville, the Meters, Dr. John, and Ernie K-Doe. Many of his songs were covered by the Rolling Stones, Herb Alpert, and the Who. He worked with the Band, Paul McCartney, and Elvis Costello as well.
He was inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 and was given the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2012. He continued to record and perform until the end of his life. He was on tour in Madrid when he passed..
Frontman for Passion Pit Michael Angelakos has come out as gay in a recent interview with author Bret Easton Ellis on his podcast, B.E.E., SPINreports. Agelakos told Ellis, “I am saying something that I’ve never said before publicly.” Listen to the entire episode here. (Angelakos addresses his sexuality at the 49:00 mark.)
He explained his decision to come out:
“I’ve told very few people in my personal small circles because I don’t know how to talk about it, you know? Talking with you—we’ve talked before—when someone understands what you do and what you make, it disarms you a little bit and you can just be yourself because you don’t have to defend your work. … This is the kind of situation every artist wants to be in—to talk to artists they really admire. When this was all happening recently, finally, I just decided it might be best to talk about it here. I don’t really know what happened, but it’s just one of those gut feelings. It’s the same gut feeling I had when I said, OK, I kind of just need to talk to people about the fact that I am. I’m gay. And that’s it. It just has to happen. This was exactly the type of situation where I don’t feel like I’m being threatened.”
He spoke a great deal about his marriage and divorce with stylist Kirsty Mucci, and how he came to terms with his sexual identity in the process. “I just wanted so badly to be straight, because I love her so much,” he told Ellis. “I think that was one of the most painful things when we decided to separate.”
Angelakos said Mucci had encouraged him to come out earlier this year. “When I decided to really deal with it head on—which was, I don’t know, in June—she was the one who spearheaded it in a way. … She said, ‘You need to figure out what’s going on with your sexuality because you can’t hate yourself anymore.'”
He talked about self-loathing, how he felt like he was not fully honest in his work, and much more.
Angelakos has discussed his personal life openly before. Back in January, he recorded a PSA for Glenn Close’s mental health awareness non-profit Bring Change 2 Mind, where he talked about his experiences with biopolar disorder.
Deerhunter went to the KCRW studio in Los Angeles to perform four songs from their October release, Fading Frontier. They played “Breaker,” “Living My Life,” “Duplex Planet,” and “Snakeskin,” as well as “Desire Lines” from the 2010 Halcyon Digest and a song they improved called “Escape From The Nursery.” After the performance, lead vocalist Bradford Cox talked extensively with the host of Morning Becomes Eclectic, Travis Holcombe, about the music industry’s politics and the distance he feels from it:
I never asked for anything. I never sent out a demo in my life. I never asked any label to pay attention to me. Do I look like someone who would ask to play your radio station? If you saw me as a 10-year-old kid, you would think, “I hope this kid doesn’t talk to me.”
Cox also gave the station a compliment and thank you for letting the band perform in the studio:
It’s nice that some radio stations still allow us to do what we want to do and not just carbon copy our album for some promotional scheme.
Grimes released her new album, Art Angels, via 4AD today. Spotify users can stream the album. It is also available through Apple Music.
The 15-track LP is Claire Boucher’s fourth following the 2012 Visions. The result of months of writing and time in the studio came only acter Boucher had scrapped an entire collection of songs.
One song on the album, called “Kill V Maim,” was written in the perspective of Al Pacino in The Godfather Pt 2. “Except he’s a vampire who can switch gender and travel through space,” she said to Q.
According to an interview with Dazed and Confused, there is a song “from the perspective of a butterfly in the Amazon as people are cutting down trees; there’s a song that’s from the perspective of angels who are polluted, so they’re crying polluted tears.”
Art Angels Tracklist:
01. laughing and not being normal
02. California
03. SCREAM (feat. Aristophanes)
04. Flesh without Blood
05. Belly of the Beat
06. Kill V. Maim
07. Artangels
08. Easily
09. Pin
10. Realiti ^
11. World Princess part II
12. Venus Fly (feat. Janelle Monáe)
13. Life in the Vivid Dream
14. Butterfly
15. Realiti (Demo) *
Big Boi appeared on today’s episode of ESPN’s “The Dan LeBatard Show,” where he asked Big Boi about the most memorable sports event he has ever played. After a seeing, Big Boi then talked about how OutKast were invited to play a the Super Bowl halftime show once but they turned down the chance because André 3000 didn’t agree to play anything but full songs. Listen to his comments here around the four-minute mark.
The songs they were to perform were “The Way You Move” and “Hey Ya!.”According to Big Boi, the organizers of the Bowl refused to give them enough time to perform both songs in full. Big Boi said,” [Andre] didn’t want to cut the songs, he wanted to do the full songs. He said, ‘Nah, can’t do it.'”
When Big Boi was asked if he tried to convince André to change his mind, Big Boi said: “A lot.” He also said they laughed about it recently. “Hopefully they invite us back,” he said.
Big Boi implies that they were asked to play the 2004 halftime show when the infamous “wardrobe malfunction” incident occurred during Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson’s performance.
The Melodic Tree 