Weekly News Roundup - 05/05/13 - Ft. Sigur Rós, Fleetwood Mac, Wolf Alice

It's been a pretty bitchin' week for music y'all.

Fleetwood Mac has released a new EP - you can stream it via NPR right here.

She & Him are streaming their new album 'Volume 3' right now, over on NPR, before it's release on 7 May.



Tamp Impala did a pretty excellent cover of OutKast's 'Prototype'.

Sigur Rós are soundtracking an episode of the Simpson on 19 May - intriguing...

From the Sigur Rós website:

in the episode, entitled “the saga of carl,” homer, moe, lenny, and carl team up to buy a winning lottery ticket, but after carl snags the ticket and flees to his home country of iceland, the guys head there in hot pursuit. the band’s music scores homer’s visit to iceland, marking an unprecedented musical collaboration between the show and a band; with this episode, sigur rós have written and performed more original music for the simpsons than any other outside band in the show’s history.
says simpsons creator matt groening, “i’m a longtime fan of sigur rós, and we’re honored to bring their icelandic, ambient moods to our goofy cartoon show.”

Youth Lagoon and CocoRosie will be co-headlinging the Barbican on 20 July. Dead excited about this already! The Barbican's website states:

"American duo CocoRosie returns with a powerfully poetic blend of organic and electronic in their fifth studio album, Tales Of A GrassWidow (City Slang), produced in association withValgeir Sigurðsson (Bjork, Nico Muhly). 

Expanding on the woozy psychedelia of his 2010 debut The Year of Hibernation, Trevor Powers aka Youth Lagoon presents Wondrous Bughouse (Fat Possum) – an album which stems from an increasing fascination with 'where the spiritual meets the physical world."

Spectrals streams ‘A Heartbeat Behind’ from his new album Sob Story which will drop via Wichita on 17 June:

Wolf Alice are streaming their new single 'Bros'  which is set for release on May 20th via Chess Club Records.

Weekly News Roundup w/ CocoRosie, Gum, Deerhunter, M83, Dirty Beaches, No Joy, The Besnard Lakes and more!

Pretty stoked to hear that CocoRosie are back and will be releasing their fifth studio album, Tales of a Grass Widow, on May 27.  Taken from their forthcoming release, eerie, off-kilter After the Afterlife, is a treat in weird, fairytale melancholia. Have a listen:

Deerhunter has dropped a video of the title track 'Monomania' from their upcoming album release. It's an upbeat, grungy, jangley number - so we clearly love it. 

One of our favourite new bands Gum who we interviewed over Xmas have released their first official video. Check it! They also play 333 Mother Bar on May 11th. 

M83 has released a movie soundtrack for the latest Tom Cruise film Oblivion - isn't life great sometimes?



Dirty Beaches has unveiled new track Landscapes in the Mist. They're releasing a double, yes double, LP pretty soon, entitled: Drifters/Love is the Devil. 



No Joy are back in the game and releasing Wait to Pleasure on 22 April. Booyakasha! In the meantime, check out track Hare Tarot Lies; your day will win:



Au.ra - our New Band of the Week a while back, has released a new video for Pyramid:

Aussie grunge-poppers, Scott and Charlene's Wedding has announced a brand new full length record, due out in July on Fire Records. They've got a bunch of European dates coming up, including one with Upset the Rhythm on 6 July. 



Probably the best band from Canada ever, The Besnard Lakes, have their new album, Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO, streaming in full over at Pitchfork. Click through on the below image of their album artwork to listen.

The Field have remixed At The Drive In's One Armed Scissor! Need we say more.

SNH top gigs of 2011 - CocoRosie + Ólöf Arnalds - Sydney Opera House - 25/01/11

Because we like you so much, dear readers and Scene Not Herd enthusiasts, over the course of this month, we will be bringing you the highlights from our year.

As promoters, it’s always nice to go to someone else’s gig and let them do all the hard work.  We have, as a collective, and independently, been to A LOT of shows this year. Some have been stupendous; some have, well, just been shit.  But, in the spirit of SNH (and Christmas) we’re just going to talk about the performances that we’ve enjoyed and loved the absolute most. So let me get started...

In January, on a whim, more or less, I decided to go to Australia. I think I went to about three or four gigs while I was there – but this one has completely stuck with me.

I really wanted to go to a concert in the Sydney Opera House while I was down under, so I paid $59, to go and see a band I’d actually never got around to listening to – CocoRosie – rationalising the slightly excessive spending with the argument that if it’s in the Opera House, it must be good. 

Opening, and the act that I really want to focus on, was the enchanting Icelandic songstress Ólöf Arnalds; who is perhaps better known for her role in the electronic act múm.

 

Beguiling, with an air of simplistic innocence, her crystalline voice cut through a transfixed audience as she recited pieces both in English and her native tongue. There was a charming purity to her song 'Vinur Minn', which commences with a passage from an Icelandic poem before transitioning into a joyous, uplifting melody which consists solely of ‘la-la-las’; she later joked that it wasn’t like we understood her singing in Icelandic anyway. Throughout, Ólöf cracked jokes, explained songs and even experimented with the venue’s acoustics; which only served to endear her further to her onlookers.

 

I think one of my favourite parts of the night was the song ‘Klara’; which, she explained, she had written for her sister’s 18^th birthday. The other highlight for me was Ólöf’s delicate interpretation of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’ which was sung with an earnest honesty and full of depth.

 Ólöf Arnalds - With Tomorrow / I'm On Fire by One Little Indian Records

 

Throughout her set, what struck me was the audible silence of the crowd; whose encapsulation said more than a million applausive handclaps.

 

As you may imagine, Ólöf was a hard act to follow. The lights dimmed, in what I thought was in anticipation of CocoRosie. I was surprised, instead, to be treated to a fifteen minute intense bout of beatboxing, courtesy of super-human French beatboxer Tez. In his set he managed to deliver phenomenal looped beats and complicated synth melodies which had his onlookers captivated in awe.

 

Enigmatic sisters Bianca (Coco) and Sierra (Rosie) then joined the beatboxer on stage. Surrounded by helium balloons, their fairytale capes glowed and shimmered under bright florescent lights. Behind them, visuals were projected conveying random images that added a eerie, otherworldly layer of occult weirdness to their playful aesthetic.

 

Amalgamating various genre interpretations including pop, folk, hip hop, opera and electronica, into their eclectic sound, they proceeded to wow their audience with a set, consisting largely of songs from their release, 'Grey Oceans'.

 Grey Oceans by subpop 

 

The girls commenced with the downbeat, insular 'Lemonade', which contains moments of dark tenderness, juxtaposed with Sierra’s upbeat chorus. Highlights from their set included the up-tempo 'Hopscotch'; with the girls playing handclaps together and dancing around on stage; as well as the sad and moving 'By your Side'. 

The great thing about CocoRosie is the girls' uniquie ability to play off each other; balancing two extremely different types of vocal, one opera, one childlike, to create a combination so affecting. 

 

I think this is my concert of the year, because I came away, musically, with so much more than I went in with. Both Ólöf Arnalds and CocoRosie, have become two of my absolute favourite artists. Had I not gone, I wouldn’t have known or cared about either act at all and I am extremely grateful that I do (and now you do too).

 

Honourable mentions must go to: Shugo Tokumaru at Cafe Oto; Primavera Sound 2011; and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at Scala - SA