I haven’t been more excited about a band since the Postal Service released their album, and that’s quite a while ago. Broken Bells is the collaboration between the guitarist and lead vocalist from the Shins, James Mercer and artist-producer Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse. Brian Burton is well know for his contributions in The Grey Album and producing albums for artists such as Gnarls Barkley, Beck, and the Gorillaz. James Mercer is the iconic voice behind the indie rock band The Shins, whose music was predominately featured in the movie Garden State.
The pair decided to work together after meeting at a Danish music festival in 2004 and finding they were fans of each other’s work. Mercer and Burton began recording together in secret at Burton’s Los Angeles based studio in March 2008 and describe their material as “melodic, but experimental, too”.
Check out the video for their single “The High Road”:
Saturday night I was DJing at a friends house party with over 200 people. Plenty of alcohol, beautiful people, great vibes all around. It all came to a halt minutes after playing this one song, just as cops busted the party and told us to leave. The song, Zero Machine a remix of the Smashing Pumkins by Le Castle Vania off the Voice Of Treason Album.
I cannot believe the positive feedback I got on this track after playing it, so I thought I’d share it with everyone. It’s a thunderous electro remix, great synth leads, heavy bass drums, and powerful guitars, perfect theme song to a night of mayhem. Check it out:
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Being an avid music listener and sometimes a self proclaimed trendsetter I am always scouring the blogosphere for that next best thing. I realized I must be lacking in that department, as this story only came into my periphery 3 years too late. But nevertheless, I am glad to share this with everyone. Music blog Stereogum has been teaming up with Australian music producer and mashup artist team9, to produce yearly mashup albums of the best tracks from that respective year and a few oldies. As they like to describe them, these ‘bastard pop’ albums are a real treat; free downloadable quality music. Here is a retrospective look at the last 4 years:
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MySplice 3: 2008 Mashed Up 1 “Britney Gets Bloc-ed” (Britney Spears “Womanizer” vs Bloc Party “Mercury”) 2 “B.F. Meets T.I.” (Ben Folds Feat. Regina Spektor “You Don’t Know Me” vs T.I. “U Don’t Know Me”) 3 “Good After Time” (Lykke Li “I’m Good I’m Gone” vs Cyndi Lauper “Time After Time”) 4 “Albert And Katy Sitting In A Tree” (Albert Hammond Jr. “GFC” vs Katy Perry “I Kissed A Girl”) 5 “Debbie Does Montreal” (Blondie “Call me” vs of Montreal “Id Engager”) 6 “Bang On A Milli” (Lil Wayne “A Milli” vs The Breeders “Bang On”) 7 “Lockdown Shelter” (Kanye West “Love Lockdown” Vs. The Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter”) 8 “Disturbed Youth” (Rihanna “Disturbia” vs Beck “Youthless”) 9 “Killer Mirror” (The Killers “Human” vs Arcade Fire “Black Mirror”) 10 “Crystal Holiday” (Crystal Castles “Magic Spells” vs Naughty By Nature “Holiday”) 11 “The Sound Of Roses” (Human Highway “The Sound” vs Guns N’ Roses “Paradise City” vs Stone Roses “Waterfall” vs Extreme “More than Words”)
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MySplice 2: 2007 Mashed Up 1 “It’s A Sweet Ghost Party” – (Band Of Horses vs. Guns N’ Roses vs. 2 Live Crew) 2 “M.I.A.-Team” – (M.I.A. vs. The A-Team Theme) 3 “Smalltown Apology” – (One Republic vs. Bronski Beat) 4 “Roc Knife” – (Jay-Z vs. Grizzly Bear) 5 “A Forest Prayer” – (Bloc Party vs. The Cure) 6 “Loose Dancing” – (Bangers & Cash vs. The Bee Gees) 7 “My Man My Bomb” – (Feist vs. New Young Pony Club) 8 “Smokey Fire” – (Arcade Fire vs. Smokey Robinson vs. The Gunsmoke Theme) 9 “Countdown To Girls” – (Europe vs. Sean Kingston vs. Calvin Harris) 10 “Ratatat Under Ether” – (Ratatat vs. PJ Harvey)
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MySplice: 2006 Mashed Up 1 “Swan Together” (Thom Yorke vs. The Beatles) 2 “Lets Make Love And Listen To Junior Boys” (CSS vs. Junior Boys) 3 “Daddy And The Thief” (Wolfmother vs. Gnarls Barkley) 4 “Cold War Fiasco” (Cold War Kids vs. Lupe Fiasco vs. Lily Allen) 5 “Silent Saints” (The Knife vs. U2 & Green Day vs. Spank Rock) 6 “Big School” (Hot Chip vs. Peter Gabriel) 7 “When Will My Cheated Heart” (Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs. Diana Ross) 8 “Flaming Clipse” (Flaming Lips vs. Clipse) 9 “Roscoe Eyes” (Midlake vs. Jimi Hendrix) 10 “Young Cats” (Peter Bjorn And John vs. The Cure)
I’ve watched Owl City slowly climb the charts as he blatantly rips off the Postal Service. Owl City is a watered down, stale version of the Postal Service by Minnesota born, Adam Young. In an interview with EW, laptop totting synthpop Adam Young admits his no. 1 single “Fireflies” and the Postal Service in general “are pretty similar,” but at the same time claims he’s “a lot more of a Death Cab fan.” For example, he’d only heard Give Up “a little bit” before people started pointing it out.
EW: A lot of people wish they would put out another album. Is that something you would look forward to hearing?
ADAM YOUNG: I think [Give Up] left everyone asking, “What are they going to do next?” Since no one has done anything quite like it, it’s almost like everyone is naturally saying this is the next step — maybe that’s me, maybe that’s this record.
Ian Cohen of Pitchfork said it best:
But I doubt Ben Gibbard is losing sleep over Owl City’s Adam Young squatting on what is essentially vacated property. Death Cab reportedly cleared $5.4 million in revenue during 2006, basically anyone who’s watched TV in the past three years has heard the Postal Service, and Gibbard is married to the fantasy of every guy this song [Fireflies by Owl City] was ostensibly written for…
Don’t waste your money and bandwidth on this guy. True, there is no new Postal Service anywhere in sight but Owl City should not be your rebound. Judge for youself:
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Following the very popular trending topic on Twitter, here is my musical suggestion for this glorious Monday.
Max Tundra Imagine yourself in a toy store full of kids banging on toy instruments and playing 8bit games. Keyboards, drums, guitars, old school Nintendos, all coming together into an organized chaos titled ‘Orphaned’. That’s exactly what Max (real name Ben Jacobs) does, he brings a child-like sensibility to what is an experimental glitch-pop tune.
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The xx These Londoners have been the recent recipient of much hyped praise from the blogosphere. Their stark melancholic pop tunes are dabbed with a hint of modern R&B, characterized by simple slow compositions and duets mostly about sex. The songs are not musically impressive but do hold on to you with their dark, sparse guitar textures and punchy bass lines.
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Conglomatron This was a great find by a friend of mine while browsing through a record store in NYC. I was instantly hooked upon first hearing it. Conglomatron is as stated in the title, a conglomeration of rappers from the Chicago area coming together to create an album. I like to consider them as geekyfied-scifi-futuristic hip-hop. Their song themes range from nostalgic cartoons to smoking weed with Chewbacca, instant hits on my book.
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It’s Tuesday, one of the most boring days of the week. But not anymore, here are a few of my favorite latests tracks:
Chromeo has been a staple in my dance mixes for a while now. This Canadian act can make even white people shake their ass. A mix of funk, disco and dance this is the perfect track for your next dance party.
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I know I Know, it’s Vampire Weekend, they were so summer ‘08. Many found them pretentious and untalented but I could not resist their afrobeat influenced pop tunes. They have finally announced a new album “Contra” and this is their first single.
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Speak of hidden gems, Delorean is such a breath of fresh air when it comes to electronic music. Their dark danceable pop tunes are a delicious cocktail of Passion Pit, Phoenix and The Field. They could have become my ‘09 summer soundtrack only if they were not too late in their release.
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Let me start by saying that this is Wayne Coyne nephew’s band, Dennis Coyne. Stardeath & White Dwarfs mimics many of The Flaming Lips space rock aesthetics but they are by no means a complete copy. Living under your uncle’s shadow must be hard but think of all the benefits, one of them being a deal with Warner Brothers.
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Max Tundra Imagine yourself in a toy store full of kids banging on toy instruments and playing 8bit games. Keyboards, drums, guitars, old school Nintendos, all coming together into an organized chaos titled ‘Orphaned’. That’s exactly what Max (real name Ben Jacobs) does, he brings a child-like sensibility to what is an experimental glitch-pop tune.
The xx These Londoners have been the recent recipient of much hyped praise from the blogosphere. Their stark melancholic pop tunes are dabbed with a hint of modern R&B, characterized by simple slow compositions and duets mostly about sex. The songs are not musically impressive but do hold on to you with their dark, sparse guitar textures and punchy bass lines.
Conglomatron This was a great find by a friend of mine while browsing through a record store in NYC. I was instantly hooked upon first hearing it. Conglomatron is as stated in the title, a conglomeration of rappers from the Chicago area coming together to create an album. I like to consider them as geekyfied-scifi-futuristic hip-hop. Their song themes range from nostalgic cartoons to smoking weed with Chewbacca, instant hits on my book.
