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120 DAYS |
| 120 Days had its first rehearsal autumn 2001 in their small hometown, Kristiansund, on the northwest coast of Norway. The band consisted of the four 19 year old friends Jonas Dahl, Arne Kvalvik, Kjetil Ovesen and Ådne Meisfjord. They called themselves The Beautiful People. Not much could happen in Kristiansund, where the bars are full of cover bands if they played music at all. They would have to move to Oslo to on the map. more... |
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BLACK LIPS |
| The Black Lips new album is titled Good Bad, Not Evil and comes out on Vice Records. The title Good Bad Not Evil is inspired by the Shangri-Las song "Walk Right Up To Him (Give Him A Great Big Kiss). The album was recorded in their hometown of Atlanta at The Living Room studios aided by the band's friend Ed Rawls, a bartender at the nearby Drunken Unicorn bar, just around the corner from where fellow Atlantans Outkast work. more... |
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BLOC PARTY |
It was, thought Kele Okereke, good to be home.
Bloc Party had been away on tour for almost two years. It had been a long time and a long way, but it was all great stuff. One million people had bought the band’s debut album Silent Alarm. British music weekly NME made it their Album Of The Year in 2005. more... |
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BOREDOMS |
| Of all the artists in Japan's thriving noise-music community, the Boredoms undoubtedly had the most fun. Although their maniacally extreme cacophony was by no means accessible listening, it was underpinned by a gleeful sense of humor that helped them find a limited (but still surprisingly wide) audience among alternative rockers. A typical Boredoms track might feature massively distorted guitars, squealing synths, any number of odd found-object noisemakers. more... |
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CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG |
| It is a measure of the extraordinary esteem in which she is held that Charlotte Gainsbourg, one of the brightest stars of modern French cinema, should make an album in partnership with such luminaries as Jarvis Cocker, the French duo Air, The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon and celebrated English producer Nigel Godrich. more... |
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CHROMEO |
| Crossing the Gaza Strip of Sexxx Jams Chromeo is Pee Thug and Dave 1: best friends since their Montreal adolescence, virtuoso musicians, walking hip hop encyclopedias, and the only successful Arab/Jew partnership since. As Chromeo, they fuse their penchants for two sorely missed musical genres into a wholly new thing. Pee, the brown-skinned Quebecois street tough, brings analog synth basslines and drum machine wizardry à la Cameo and Prince. more... |
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DARK MEAT |
| Combining such ludicrous and disparate sonic obsessions as Albert Ayler, Neil Young and Neu!, Athens Georgia’s Dark Meat radiates a sound as layered, multivariable and insane as its improbable membership roll. The band’s hometown scene, in fact, makes key attitudinal contributions to its expansive sonic tumult: Dark Meat inherits much from the halcyon days of Elephant 6 psychedelia. Not only has the band contained, at times, several key E6-ers, they’ve also taken big cues in musical methodology: the band operates as a creative collective, with members coming and going, crossing over from other projects and other locales to contribute a dense air of aesthetic diversity that a homogenized, more self-contained band would sorely lack. more... |
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DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 |
| "We wanted our band to be like an elephant in your living room," proclaimed Jesse F. Keeler, bassist of Toronto's Death From Above 1979. That could explain why they give themselves pachyderm trunks on album covers, but it also speaks to the ferocity with which they sing and play their instruments. DFA 1979 is a gale-force blast of rock intensity, vicious yet remarkably danceable. more... |
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FAVOURITE SONS |
"This band exists to talk about
the things you go through when you confront
the big stuff: love, regret, fear," says Ken Griffin, the singer and
principle songwriter of Favourite Sons. "We’ve all been right to that edge,
pushed through it and now we're back to show people the other side, as
brutal as it might be."
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JAPANESE MOTORS |
Reigning from Costa Mesa, California, The Japanese Motors are made up by main vocalist Alex Knost, guitarist Nolan Hall, bass player Chris Vail and drummer Andrew Atkinson. Making a unique brand of rock The Motors are renown for throwing parties and shows that draw crazers of all sorts - beach bums, surfers, skaters, models, actresses, fashion dorks, arty crowd, music nerds, stoners, underagers and overages.
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JUSTICE |
No one can say they didn’t see these two brats coming! Justice, who’s name the world (well at least that part of the world that loves to dance) chants with emotion and whose first album is awaited with bated breath ever since the French duo revolutionised dancefloors with two radically different hits. First, the housey and uplifting “Never Be Alone” which plunged clubbers into full on hedonism. Then, two years later, the striking and screeching “Waters of Nazareth” that brought darkness onto clubs worldwide with its glitchy rhythms and sombre mood. more... |
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KING KHAN & THE SHRINES |
Who is this manic Master of Ceremonies who openly confesses to the two grand black bohemians said to be lunatic Sun Ra and George Clinton, and whose antics certainly remind us of a young Herman Sonny Blount and his Solar Arkestra? more... |
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PANTHERS |
| It’s seemingly impossible to orchestrate a complete refinement in a band’s sound these days. Fortunately, Panthers have returned from the sprawling highs of their 2004 LP Things Are Strange with a follow up record so concisely intense it demands attention from all areas, from jaded riff-rock devotees to the most indifferent pop listener and everyone in between. more... |
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RAVEONETTES |
Coasting is the easy option. Having the balls to recognize that things aren’t right and doing something about them is much harder. It may have taken Sune and Sharin a little while but they made the right decision in the end- both personally and creatively- and ‘Lust, Lust, Lust’ is where the two worlds collide. more... |
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RUN THE ROAD |
Grime is a seismic new chapter in UK music. Burning brightly from the grimey satellite communities of central London - Hackney, Tottenham, Bow, Peckham - a fresh scene is thriving, and the longer it continues to do so the deeper it continues to infiltrate popular culture and set root in the English culture. That scene is begrudgingly labelled grime, and the Run The Road albums are the first catalogue of its most gifted exponents and their already seminal recordings. more... |
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THE STILLS |
An evolving The hiss of tape may seem nostalgic in the land of digital recordings and MP3s, but for Montreal’s The Stills it’s more than an scratch from the distant past. That hiss recalls the band’s very beginnings, because without a simple, chunky-looking four track tape recorder The Stills just wouldn’t be. more... |
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THE STREETS |
Seeing that the fourth Streets album is called everything is borrowed, and remembering the world-weary mood of its brutally honest predecessor, The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living, the wary listener could be forgiven for expecting a cynical expose of the second-hand nature of 21st century experience. more... |
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