Magnetic Fields’ third Nonesuch disc, Realism, is the flipside to the industrial pop of Distortion, the quartet’s brilliant 2008 homage to, of all things, the clangorous sound of the Jesus and Mary Chain. While Distortion was recorded quickly and noisily in the stairwells and rooms of the New York City apartment building to which singer-songwriter-bandleader Stephen Merritt was about to bid adieu for California, Realism was cut in the distortion-free environs of a Los Angeles studio, and its sound is as pristine as a plein-air painting. There are no drum kits to be heard, and the fascinatingly varied instrumentation – guitars, accordions, violins, cellos, tablas, banjos, tuba, even a smattering of mellifluous falling leaves – did not need to be plugged in.
And, as with Distortion, the album credits emphasize: No Synths.
With tongue only slightly in cheek, Merritt has taken to declaring Realism his “folk” album. To get the point across, there is an upbeat, sing-along number early in the set called “We Are Having a Hootenany.” Merritt’s inspirations, however, were the orchestrated, mostly British folk of the late sixties/early seventies–which owe as much to sixties psychedelia as to traditional music–and the work of Judy Collins, who stretched the boundaries of “folk” with the chamber-pop arrangements of such albums as In My Life and Wildflowers. read more »
“Transference,” the follow up to Spoon’s 2007 effort “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga,” is as driven and manic as it’s predecessor, if not somewhat more sour.
There’s plenty of tracks that are signature Spoon, with uptempo staccato chords and singer Britt Daniel’s sandpapery whelps. But “Transference” brings it down a notch with a less polished sound that comes across more like a demo, which gives it more of an organic feel.
“Who Makes Your Money?” challenges the appeal of the overproduced track. “Is Love Forever,” echoes a chord progression that would solicit a smile from Queens of The Stone Age, but is arguably the best example of the standard Spoon track. read more »
It is almost impossible for us to imagine the pain and suffering going on in Haiti right now. As members of the South Florida community, it is especially close to our hearts and our lives each day bringing with it the incredible stories that literally hit close to home. In the coming weeks it will be easy for most of us to return to our daily lives of worrying about the relatively inconsequential; the rhythm of music and tweets and Facebook statuses insulating us from the continuing trauma o our neighbors to the south.
But we are hear to help fight compassion fatigue, and we hope you will commit to this battle with us.
This is the worst thing that has ever happened to Haiti. Think about that statement for a moment. The political corruption, coups, political likings, AIDS, poverty, umpteen hurricanes, tropical storms and floods are all overshadowed by the depth and scope of the January 12th earthquake.
So how do you help? Here area few ways.
The easiest thing to do is to donate to the Red Cross. You can visit their website at www.redcorss.org or text the word “Haiti” to 90999. This will automatically donate $10 on your behalf to the Red Cross.
If you are concerned about the political/corporate ramifications of supporting the Red Cross, you can also contribute to a great organization we believe in call Partners In Health. They have been working n Haiti for some time and know the lay of the land logistically and culturally. They also don’t cozy up to the big pharmaceutical companies and the like. We have a link on te fron page of our website to donate to them, and you can vist them and learn more at www.pih.org
Yéle is a charitable campaign started by Haitian musician Wyclef Jean which is also heavily involved in disaster relief. You can find more information on histhis organization at www.yele.org
Lastly, we wanted to leave you with an article written by Régine Chassagne. Régine is a member of one of our favorite bands, Arcade Fire. She was also born in Haiti and shares her perspective on the turmoil facing her homeland.
I let out a cry, as if I’d heard everybody I loved had died
by Régine Chassagne
from www.guardian.co.uk
Somewhere in my heart, it’s the end of the world.
These days, nothing is funny. I am mourning people I know. People I don’t know. People who are still trapped under rubble and won’t be rescued in time. I can’t help it.
Everybody I talk to says the same thing: time has stopped.
Simultaneously, time is at work. Sneakily passing through the cracks, taking the lives of survivors away, one by one.
Diaspora overloads the satellites. Calling families, friends of families, family friends. Did you know about George et Mireille? Have you heard about Alix, Michaelle etc, etc? But I know that my personal anguish is small compared to the overwhelming reality of what is going on down there.
When it happened I was at home in Montreal, safe and cosy, surfing the internet, half randomly, like millions of westerners. Breaking news: 7.0 earthquake hits Haiti near Port-au-Prince.
Such emotion came over me. My breath stopped. My heart sank and went straight into panic mode. I knew right away that the whole city is in no way built to resist this kind of assault and that this meant that thousands were under rubble. I saw it straight away.
I ran downstairs and turned on the television. It was true. Tears came rushing right to my eyes and I let out a cry, as if I had just heard that everybody I love had died. The reality, unfortunately, is much worse. Although everything around me is peaceful, I have been in an internal state of emergency for days. My house is quiet, but I forget to eat (food is tasteless). I forget to sleep. I’m on the phone, on email, non-stop. I’m nearly not moving, but my pulse is still fast. I forget who I talked to and who I told what. I leave the house without my bag, my keys. I cannot rest.
I grew up with parents who escaped during the brutal years of the Papa Doc regime. My grandfather was taken by the Tonton Macoutes and it was 10 years before my father finally learnt he had been killed. My mother and her sister returned home from the market to find their cousins and friends murdered. She found herself on her knees in front of the Dominican embassy begging for her life in broken Spanish. Growing up, I absorbed those stories, heard a new version every year; adults around the dinner table speaking in creole about poor Haiti.
When I was growing up, we never had the money to return. Even if we had, my mother never could go back. Until she died, she would have nightmares about people coming to “take her away”. My mum passed away before she could meet my future husband, or see our band perform and start to have success, and though I have dreamed of her dancing to my music, I know she would have been very worried to hear that I was travelling to Haiti for the first time last year.
It is strange that I was introduced to my country by a white doctor from Florida called Paul Farmer who speaks perfect Creole and knows how to pronounce my name right. He is the co-founder of an organisation titled Partners in Health (Zanmi Lasante in Creole). There are several charity organisations that are doing good work in Haiti – Fonkoze is a great micro-lending organisation – but in terms of thorough medical care, follow-up and combining of parallel necessary services (education, sanitation, training, water, agriculture), there is none that I could recommend more than Partners in Health. It takes its work for the Haitian people very seriously and, indeed, most of the staff on the ground are Haitian. PIH has been serving the poorest of the poor for more than 20 years with a curriculum that really astounded me, given the limited resources available in the area.
Visiting its facilities, I was overwhelmed by, and impressed with, the high-level, top-quality services provided in areas where people own next to nothing and were never given the opportunity to learn how to sign their own name. I was delightfully shocked to see the radically positive impact it has had in the communities it serves. Of course, during my visit, I saw some clinics and hospitals that were at different stages than others, but through it all, I could clearly see that PIH staff are very resourceful and set the bar extremely high for themselves. I know that, right now, they are using their full capacities to save as many lives as possible.
So in these critical times where death comes every minute, I urge you to donate to Partners in Health (www.pih.org) and be as generous as you can. I know from having talked to some staff that they are on the ground right now, setting up and managing field hospitals as well as receiving the injured at their clinics in the surrounding areas.
I realise that by the time you read this it will be Sunday. The cries will have died out and few miracles will remain possible. But the suffering survivors should not be abandoned and should be treated with the best care countries like ours can offer.
Many Haitians expect to be let down. History shows they are right to feel that way. Haitians know that they have been wronged many, many times. What we are seeing on the news right now is more than a natural disaster. This earthquake has torn away the veil and revealed the crushing poverty that has been allowed by the west’s centuries of disregard. That we must respond with a substantial emergency effort is beyond argument, but in the aftermath, Haiti must be rebuilt.
Ultimately, we need to treat Haiti with compassion and respect and make sure that the country gets back on its feet once and for all. Haiti’s independence from France more than two centuries ago should be thought of as one of the most remarkable tales of freedom; instead, she was brought to her knees by the French and forced to pay a debt for the value of the lost colony (including the value of the slaves: the equivalent of $21bn by current calculations). We cannot overestimate the strength and resilience of the brave people living in this country whose ancestors had to buy their own bodies back.
The west has funded truly corrupt governments in the past.
Right now, in Haiti, there is a democratically elected government.
Impossibly weak, but standing.
This is the moment where we need to show our best support and solidarity.
Since Haiti shook and crumbled, I feel as if something has collapsed over my head, too. Miles away, somehow, I’m trapped in this nightmare. My heart is crushed. I’ve been thinking about nothing else.
Time has stopped – but time is of the essence.
So I’ve been sitting here at my computer, food in the fridge, hot water in the tap, a nice comfy bed waiting for me at some point… but…
Somewhere in my heart, it’s the end of the world.
Régine Chassagne is a member of the rock band Arcade Fire
Mean Everything To Nothing, the second album from Manchester Orchestra, is everything you want a rock record to be: raw, urgent, emotional, and 100 percent authentic. “There is nothing fake about this record,” says frontman and lyricist Andy Hull. “We recorded it live because we wanted it to sound like a band, and I think it does: live and loud!” The blistering opener “The Only One” immediately gives way to the propulsive “Shake It Out” and the torrential first single “I’ve Got Friends,” followed by the anguished “Pride” and the menacing “In My Teeth,” before slowing down on the darkly funny read more »
As we know, that time of year is upon us again, the shopping grind, trudging from store to store, one big box retailer to the next. You look on the shelves and you find the same stuff, the same shirts, the same hats and the same music you find at every other store – nothing unique.
But there is an alternative.
Come on down to Uncle Sam’s on South Beach and get your hands on gifts, music and other accessories that will make your friends ask “Where ever did you find this?” T-Shirts like you’ve never seen, music you won’t hear in the aisles of big box retailers and crazy things like lunchboxes, wrestling masks that look like Bruce Lee, lighters, hats and everything else that separates you from the crowd.
And remember, if by some chance one of your clueless friends gives you a gift card from one of these evil, people-squashing big retail stores (like the red one with the target on it), you can bring said gift card to Uncle Sam’s on South Beach and redeem it for FULL FACE VALUE. No more being trapped by the uncool.
So there it is, your holiday shopping alternative for Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa and Festivus: Uncle Sam’s!
Dip a toe or two into The Asteroid Galaxy Tour’sFruit, and your mind will conjure up images of downtown Memphis in Outer Space, with a singing siren floating past in a levitating rolltop bath. Straight from the off, opener “Lady Jesus” combines the true story of a dubious Danish religious leader, who bought up and shut down one of the city’s well-known havens of subversive youth culture, with a decidedly non-Scandinavian horn section and Mette Lindberg’s irresistible high-pitched vocals on a bed of sonic alchemy fresh from Lars Iversen’s bedroom lab. Following on from the afore-mentioned “The Sun Ain’t Shining No More” and “Push The Envelope” (anything but a misnomer), “Satellite” allows for a bit of trippy respite complete with mesmeric organs and the promise to “blow your rain away”. “Crazy” displays the dubby side of The Asteroid Galaxy Tour, while “The Golden Age” offers a rare glimpse into Lars’ jazz piano playing past, albeit merged with a strictly non-orthodox hip hop beat. Fun fun fun.
The holidays are coming up quick and the new releases are getting thinner! Get in to Uncle Sam’s on South Beach and pick up the new, critically acclaimed BLAKROC as it’s an indie retail exclusive. You can also check out additional indie releases visiting our download store!
What does Damon Dash say when he wants to work with someone? “‘I wanna f— wit’ you all.’ That’s what he said,’ Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach tells Spinner. The unexpected phone call initiated BlakRoc, a collaborative effort between the blues-rock duo and the Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder that reeled in various wordsmiths from the hip-hop community to verse over the Keys’ music. Prior to the call, neither Auerbach nor his bandmate Patrick Carney had met Dash. As Auerbach puts it, “It was out of the blue.”
Booking time in Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Studio G with engineer Joel Hamilton, the trio put together a roster of MCs that would add verses to the Keys’ signature neo-rock sound including Mos Def, Q-Tip, RZA , Raekwon , Ludacris Pharoahe Monch, Jim Jones , NOE, Nicole Wray , Billy Danze and even the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard .
“Damon Dash signed him before he died and created a whole record that never came out,” Auerbach says. “So we were putting together people to come into the studio and he said, ‘Well, I got all these Ol’ Dirty Bastard songs that never came out. You guys want to hear some?’” Auerbach’s answer was obvious. The ODB track on the album, ‘Coochie,’ also features Ludacris.
It took Auerbach and Carney, who’ve released seven studio albums together, “a couple of days” to write the music before pulling the MCs into the studio. Once that happened, the BlakRoc album was finished in 11 days. “It just kinda happened,” Auerbach says. “They all have their characteristic styles and characteristic sounds so everyone just brought what they did to the table. That’s why it’s so interesting, because it all worked so well. Nothing was forced. It was just easy.”
Missy Elliot <http://www.spinner.com/tag/MissyElliot/> protege Nicole Wray can also take credit for moving things along, with Auerbach calling her “the lynchpin” of the project. “We used her like an instrument, like ‘Piano won’t work, guitar wont work, what about Nicole?’ And she was just there hanging out and just ready to improvise,” he says.
For the Keys, the collaboration was an adolescent dream come true. “We listen to a lot of straight up hip-hop and lot of old soul records,” Auerbach says. One soul group in particular is Memphis heavy funk act Blackrock. “They had a song called ‘Yeah Yeah.’ I played that song for Damon one night and he just kind of flipped out. I played it for Mos Def and he flipped out,” Auerbach says of the instrumental track that essentially provided a backbone to the project. “The idea was that we would do something raw and sorta heavy — that sort of music with rhyming on top of it.” The song would essentially inspire the name of the project. “When we were figuring out what we wanted to call it, we loved the Blackrock track. Us being the Black Keys, Damon had Roc-A-Fella Records — it was just like ‘Let’s call it BlakRoc.’”
Even Auerbach “lost his s—” while making the album. With Wu-Tang Clan <http://www.spinner.com/tag/WuTangClan/> making the guitarist’s top five bands list of all time, watching Raekwon put together his verses blew his mind. “He was sorta what I imagined watching Bob Dylan <http://www.spinner.com/tag/BobDylan/> work in his prime would be like. Raekwon came in, heard the music, got inspired and just sat down and started writing. He wrote like 20 verses, just like that, in 45 minutes. And everything that he says is so visual, such a story. His rhyme schemes are just insane.”
‘BlakRoc’ hits Uncle Sam’s shelves on Black Friday, Nov. 27.
It’s a big old pop-selling week here in new release land. Hmmm, were the AMA’s this past weekend? That explains the Rhianna, the Adam Lambert, the Lady Gaga and everything else that is groovy and accessible hitting the shelves in unison. Stuff your little sister’s stocking with these titles:
Magnetic Fields’ third Nonesuch disc, Realism, is the flipside to the industrial pop of Distortion, the quartet’s brilliant 2008 homage to, of all things, the clangorous sound of the Jesus and Mary Chain. While Distortion was recorded quickly and noisily in the stairwells and rooms of the New York City apartment building to which singer-songwriter-bandleader Stephen Merritt was about to bid adieu for California, Realism was cut in the distortion-free environs of a Los Angeles studio, and its sound is as pristine as a plein-air painting. There are no drum kits to be heard, and the fascinatingly varied instrumentation – guitars, accordions, violins, cellos, tablas, banjos, tuba, even a smattering of mellifluous falling leaves – did not need to be plugged in.
“Transference,” the follow up to Spoon’s 2007 effort “
As we know, that time of year is upon us again, the shopping grind, trudging from store to store, one big box retailer to the next. You look on the shelves and you find the same stuff, the same shirts, the same hats and the same music you find at every other store – nothing unique.
By Charley Rogulewski
