All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu was written and produced by Rufus Wainwright with two songs produced and one co-produced by Pierre Marchand, who also mixed the album. The two last collaborated on Rufus' Poses album.The album is hugely personal, deeply emotional and all channeled through Rufus' fingers, his voice and a piano. Rufus admits recording All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu was one of the most difficult things he has ever done. "After hiding behind a 70-piece orchestra with my opera you can blame everything on the tuba player. With this album, when the curtain is raised it's me on my own," says Rufus.Strapped with a resounding emotional heft ...
Pops hottest young phenomenon got his start after turning down offers in modeling AND artist development. "It's not that they didn't offer me enough money, or anything like that," he said, "I've just never been a behind the scenes type of guy. I was born for the spotlight and I was born to party!" The charismatic young star has a reputation for doing things his own way and turned down "more than one" management deal this year alone! "It's simple. I love music and I've been doing it my whole life, so I'm going to see how far I can get on my own before I start signing deals." Jay Aura is set to debut this winter with a number of his singles being released internat...
It takes a special kind of mind to leap from Ireland's recent smoking ban to ancestral bones and urban sprawl in the space of a single folk anthem, and to get the entire bar singing at the top of their lungs at the same time. But leave it to Tuam County Galway's The Saw Doctors and their inviting, guitar-rich, punk-infused rockabilly songs that mix pub roots with the astute Springsteen-like observation and an effortlessly popular appeal."Our song, ‘Out for a Smoke' was trying to capture the way things had changed in the country," explains group founder and guitarist Leo Moran in a recent interview for the band's latest DVD. "That was a dramatic change, the ban on smoking in bars. It changed th...
Hailing from the ever blooming Athens, GA scene, Twin Tigers are ready to unleash their dynamic sound unto the universe. Along with other elements of the past five decades of rock music, Twin Tigers blend noise textures with pop structure and shoegaze overtones shaping a sound that's all new. Formed by co-workers at the Michael Stipe-owned Grit restaurant, guitarist/vocalist Matthew Rain and bassist Aimee Morris began Twin Tigers as their previous bands dissolved. In February 2008,Curious Faces / Violet Future EP was released to great reviews. The band quickly started building a solid fan base throughout the southeast and played shows with Deerhunter, Dead Confederate, Jay Reatard, Black Lips, Dungen, Woods, Snow...
There isn't a self-respecting gutter punk, hardcore kid or subcultural miscreant alive who hasn't seen the GBH logo emblazoned on the back of a leather jacket, a denim vest, or a torn-up t-shirt. And now the world will be slapped upside the head with another reminder as to exactly why GBH is so important, in the form of Perfume and Piss, the legendary and iconic punk band's first album for Hellcat Records.Barn-burning, fist-pumping, palace-gates-storming tracks like "Kids Get Down," "Cadillac One" and "This is Not the Real World" carry the torch forward with the band's trademark fury that is alternately nihilistic, optimistic, pessimistic, anarchist, violent, humorous and deadly serio...
"There was this feeling inside me going into making this record that we'd never made an album before," says guitarist/vocalist Scott McMicken of Dr. Dog's Shame, Shame, their Anti- debut and the first album made outside the safe confines of their home studio. "Four albums ago, we set out with this unspoken or unconscious mission, and I feel like we accomplished that to our own standards of fulfillment. With our last record [2008's Fate], there didn't seem to be the next logical step with the general set of sensibilities and aesthetics that we'd been working from up until that point. It felt like a closed book."As a band that has traditionally built their scrappily spirited albums layer...
Much like the ascending Koonyum Sun ushers in a new day in New South Wales, the record of the same name by world son Xavier Rudd carries a similar aura of refreshment, of rebirth.From 2002's To Let, his first studio album, through to 2007's White Moth, Rudd gradually refined his globally-influenced collage of world music - a matchless mixture of reggae, funk, blues, folk, and nearly every other sort of song with the ability to stimulate people's spirits. With 2008's Dark Shades of Blue, though, the world was welcomed into a darker, more somber side of Rudd's music. The album was indeed musically rich, with an international influence still inherent; however, the overall aura carried a different tinge compa...
In another life, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Imaad Wasif might have been a poet or a priest. He draws inspiration from beyond the veil, seeking connections and cosmic patters in the hopes of expressing the simplest but most profound message to his listeners: We are not alone. The urgency of that communication, and his need to convey it, give both his delicate guitar ballads and his fervent rock songs a ferocity and focus that resonates with every note.Wasif goes far beyond the here and now in his music, but he is very much of this time. He is a rock musician who came of age in the Coachella Valley of the 1990s. Early on he played live and in the studio with Lou Barlow's Folk Implosion. In 2006, Kill Rock S...
The Fed Pennies have been breaking through the independent music scene since their 2004 inception. Founders Jake Smith and Aaron Farr, previous ECMA winners with Halifax international recording artists The Jimmy Swift Band, decided it was time to branch off on their own in order to explore a new musical direction. With that in mind a new definitive rock sound was born. The group is influenced by various genres of rock including: punk, garage and alternative. Their influences vary as much as their individual tastes including Black Sabbath to the Beatles. Backed with solid melodies, disenchanted lyrics and playfully angry bass lines this band is definitely worth checking out.The Fed Pennies current lineup consists o...
Hypnotic and haunting, like sound being injected directly into your bloodstream, CARI CLARA's new mini album You Better Run continues the moody love story which began on their recent full-length It's Our Hearts They're After. Displaying an artful mastery of storytelling, as well as song composition, Eric Diedrichs puts you on the edge of your seat with heartbeat-like rhythms and ghostly string arrangements which are deeply rooted to your heartstrings. His voice is drenched in yearning and the music is loaded with matching tension and beauty, not unlike a deeply emotional cinematic trailer. Mesmerizing, mysterious and magnetic, You Better Run hits all the right buttons with its self-searching melancholy, textural experime...
ESKAMON is the new collaboration project between Amon Tobin (Ninja Tune) & Eskmo (Warp, Planet Mu) and the duo's first single - "Fine Objects" - is set for release April 5th on Eskmo's own imprint, Ancestor Media. "Fine Objects" is the result of the pair's unique take on sonic exploration and the manipulation of field recordings. From the onset, the two went out with a recorder, gathering sounds from around the house, yard and studio. Material recorded out of the studio included sounds from a parking garage elevator, a broken harp and the droning tones from a discarded piano. These were combined with more home-centric sounds to form the central theme to the song. Musician, programmer, rec...
Coming from Atlanta, the members of Attila were influenced by a wide and eclectic range of artists from dirty south rappers to assorted metal bands. Their new album showcases the impression the Atlanta music scene instills with the band. Regarding the meaning behind RAGE, lead singer Fronz stated, "The title can be perceived in many ways, one obviously being a state of extreme anger, and the other being its more obvious slang meaning - to party! I have always been a fan of play-on-words and double meanings, and that's what drew me to this title more than anything." The party metal band hails from Atlanta, but have spent the past two years touring full time. After wrapping up a four week tour in Europ...
Christopher DeShun Ward was born on February 16, 1988 in Tyler, Texas. He is the only child to his mother is Pamela Ward. Shortly after his birth, Shun’s mother relocated to Houston, TX. At 3 years old his mother and great grandmother discovered that he loved to sing. He had an incredible voice and a talent for remembering church songs. At 5 years old he was invited to sing and travel with the New Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church Choir. They performed at many churches around Houston. As they traveled, Shun became known and respected around...
As the 100 degree heat shimmers in the twilight over the lakes and valleys of West Texas, you can hear the plaintive howling of the coyotes. But what's that din? The clanking of metal on metal, the grind of heavy machinery. A factory? An oil rig running at full blast? No, it's the band GRADY, the self proclaimed kings of a new musical genre, Cowboy Metal.From the Gulf of Mexico, to the most Northern reaches of Canada, GRADY tells the story of a man obsessed. He's a trucker whose "eyelids are bringing me down". He's a man in love with Annie Lee, whose "love made a mess outta me". A story of kings and queens, boots or hearts, rivers of whiskey, blackass women, and saints and sinners. GRADY is as ...
"Set up the tables and/Let it begin now... I'm alive."Singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Josh Kramon is a go-to musician who has played for several bands and released a pair of indie albums as a solo artist. Kramon also boasts a number of impressive credits as a composer and writer of TV theme songs, including the cult hit "Veronica Mars," for which he composed music for three seasons and which continues to generate fans of Josh's work to this day.His new album, Say It Now (to be released on March 9th on Soul Shout Records,) is about being honest with who you are and living your life true to yourself so that at the end each day you're left with no regrets. Touching on the spi...
In the wake of their new band's self titled Columbia Records debut charting at #7 and selling just shy of 50,000 in its first week (and reaching as high as #1 on iTunes), James Mercer and Brian Burton a/k/a Danger Mouse have confirmed Broken Bells first ever tour. The dates commence May 18 in San Diego and will include stops in 16 North American cities.In addition to being the year's highest charting debut album by an alternative/rock band, Broken Bells' has met with an insanely and unanimously positive critical reception: Rolling Stone has hailed the album as "the year's coolest left field pop disc" in a 4-star lead review, while Wired described it as "crazy good stuff" and Entertainment W...
"My brothers and I were surrounded by music growing up," explains Kamtin Mohager, the genre-jumping singer/multi-instrumentalist behind The Chain Gang of 1974. "Not Beatles albums or anything like that; more like the Persian records our parents played all the time. And when we got older, it was up to us to discover everything." Born in San Jose and raised in Hawaii, Mohager spent his first 13 years playing inline hockey and dreaming of being drafted by the NHL. His thoughts shifted to music soon after a move to Colorado, however. All thanks to the sinking feeling he felt after seeing the final scene in Real Genius. That'd be the part where ...
The world is a swirling arrangement of sand and water, elements that sing and crash. From the deserts of the Sinai to the drowned islands of Indonesia, these fluid forces of life and destruction guide the emergence of a new post-cataclysm harmony of people and music, serenity from out of the deluge. Kartick and Gotam pull the threads of this microcosm and weave them into a new tapestry as a gift to the world on their latest creation, Business Class Refugees (U.S. Release: May 11, 2010), from Chennai-based EarthSync. Business Class Refugees features not only their groovy downtempo style, reminiscent of Zero Seven, but also a host of South Asian artists who take center stage and lead the listener on a journey of experienti...
Known for being every other band's favorite band, EARTHLESS features members Mario Rubalcaba (ex-Rocket From the Crypt, Hot Snakes, Blackheart Procession, Clickatat Ikatowi) on drums, Isaiah Mitchell (Nebula, Drunk Horse) on guitar and Mike Eginton (Electric Nazarene) on bass, and deliver one of the best live shows in all of modern, heavy rock today.In April 2008 Earthless was featured at the Roadburn Festival held annually in Tilburg, Holland. The festival is a celebration of tube-driven distortion, crackling electrical guitars and the many fans that come to celebrate the mighty riff. Earthless embodies the true essence of Roadburn so it came as no surprise that the band was invited to play in the 2008 edition. ...
house of daggers are two uk drum and bass , techno artists , dj tone and dr. wonky who teamed up with a canandian alternative indie artist nothingilistic , by facebook . they have never met except by email ...
Ask New Jersey native PJ Bond about DIY ethics, the underground punk scene and toiling in relative obscurity for nearly ten years and you're likely to hear a thoughtful, forthright response that could fill a book. Or at least a chapter in a book that's overflowing with the hard-knock stories of similarly under-appreciated artists whose contributions have also been woefully ignored.Once a member of the hard-touring indie band Outsmarting Simon (Triple Crown Records), Bond cut his teeth on the road, traveling in overcrowded vans and playing in hundreds of dive bars, art spaces, coffee houses, sweaty basements and just about anywhere with a stage and a P.A. system. Much to the chagrin of fans that reveled in the outf...
The Classic Crime isn't limited to scenes, trends or even genres -- at least not to anything more specifically than "rock" (like say U2 or the Foo Fighters). They may hail from the rich music scene of Seattle, but they aren't hipsters and they don't play grunge. With giant infectious melodies and occasional dalliances with prog-math and a newfound sense of whimsy, The Classic Crime is for everybody.The band's debut, Albatross, boasted the biggest first week sales for a new band in Tooth & Nail's history. They've done the Warped Tour (twice) and hit the road with Owl City, Relient K, MxPx, Anberlin and Emery, but it is with their third album, Vagabonds, where they have truly hit...
Don't be fooled by the warm welcome. SHE BEARS aren't just here to entice you with memorable lyrics and catchy refrains. That's not their aim. Layering their debut I Found Myself Asleep with crushing piano melodies, powerful guitar work, subtle electronica and diary-relatable lyrics, She Bears claim ownership of their own undeniably honest brand of musical mastery. This energetic indie rock six-piece finds themselves immersed in a menagerie of life's ups and downs, lifted hearts and letdowns. Exploring the raw reality of pushing through life without knowing where one's path may lead, She Bears succinctly capture the feeling of young adulthood. Internal dialogue is never expected to be shared or delivered with such emotio...
On BISON b.c.'s latest slab, Dark Ages, relentless touring - with the likes of Priestess, Baroness, 3 Inches Of Blood, and more - has fine tuned the band's dedication to the riff to metallic perfection. Dark Ages breathes like a rabid animal that you'd find tied up in WINO's backyard. It's Flying V's, analog perfection, loud & sludgy, played by hairy dudes in dirty denim jackets.A bison is "a big, hairy, strong animal," says James Farwell, who plays guitar and sings for Bison b.c. That could as just as well describe the band, which rose from the ass-end of the continent in Vancouver, Canada, to utter its doomed, plaintive call, and tramples through the constellations on its four shaggy limbs...
With the volume, technicality and intensity that embodies heavy metal and the overarching catchiness and longevity of stoner and classic rock, Barn Burner capture a signature sound that cannot be easily placed or categorized. Cultivating the principles of partying and the ever lasting might of the riff, Barn Burner creates a live atmosphere that render an audience incapable of standing still. Whether it is giving your best friend a well-deserved swill of beer or lovingly smashing the bottle over his head to the sound of a ruthless riff, Barn Burner will fulfill the demands of its listeners. Having recently signed to the landmark heavy metal label Metal Blade records, Barn Burner are bound to continue on a path unhindered...
Ryan States delivers a modern-rock meets adult alternative collection of earnest, honest pop-rock craftsmanship. Though guitar driven, the songs also prominently feature piano and horns, taking songs from sparse to lush when the melody calls for it. But, the album also has a very 80s feel and sound to it, which is a direct goal of States, who wanted to make an out record that shined a light on a time when Out Music wasn't necessarily that 'out.'His name is Ryan States. And, with his debut full-length, "Strange Town" (Drooling Class Records), he has made the first album recorded and mixed on a circus train, where he lives and works, in a train yard near you.The result is a record that pays homag...
After returning from a cross-Canada tour with Jon-Rae Fletcher, both as his backing band and his opening band, Alphababy packed their bags and moved from Kelowna to Vancouver. Big changes lead to new beginnings, and with that, the band changed their name to Yukon Blonde, signed to Toronto-based Nevado Records (Bahamas, Fox Jaws), put their 300 show history behind them (including performances alongside Ladyhawk, Black Mountain and Women), and set out to write all new material, which they recorded in Vancouver with Shawn Cole (Bend Sinister, You Say Party! We Say Die!).Almost a year later, the result was a set of 14 songs. Borrowing from the best, the band looked for influence in 60...
United by "the boredom of an overcast city going through the indie rock motions," and "a common goal for things bigger, better and more colourful," MAY68 formed with aim of being the antidote to Manchester's musical malaise, but may just take the world too."My Ways" is their debut single, and a perfect introduction to their groove-driven, good-time electro-pop. With its call-and-response vocals shared by uber-cool singer Jude Wainwright and French-born drummer/singer Camille Bertin, it concerns a failed relationship started in a club and it's a modern disco-edged electro hit-in-waiting: fast paced and fun to dance to.On the B-side of the 7", "The New You" is spac...
After the acclaimed release of their debut single/EP ‘Decisions', Blitz Kids' flourishing career continues with their follow up; ‘Scavengers'. The band's former release saw them described as having hints of "the powerful punch of Thursday" (Kerrang!), sounding like "Lostprophets massacring about seven different bands" (Punktastic.com) and significantly, as the type of band that will have you "headbanging, shaking your arse and singing along all in the same breath" (Rock Sound). It also saw them championed by XFM, Kerrang! Radio and Scuzz - who selected the band in their top acts to watch out for in 2010. Step forward a few months and ‘Scavengers' prov...
Having spent the last two years touring the world in support of their critically acclaimed debut - A Book Like This - Angus and Julia Stone return with their eagerly anticipated sophomore release Down The Way.On Down The Way they make their debut as producers, and develop their sound without losing the spirit of their debut. There's been a subtle shift in gear, evidence of a growing confidence - the music gravitates from sparse to rich and textured arrangements yet never loses its etherealness and charm. Travelling has been an integral part of the Stone's musical story so it's not surprising they opted to record in a number of diverse locations around the globe - an old sawmill on the ri...
