Wednesday 30 April 2008

Bork , Tenturia , Daniel & Geo Fuchs , Adult Swim ,Ghostly International, Sam Francis



Enjoy the fantastic Wanderlust video! This is the 2d version, the 3d version will be available in physical format later in April.
Wanderlust is Björk's next single. The video was done by Encyclopedia Pictura.
Enjoy!

Watch | Björk - Wanderlust (2D Version)



Tunturia
Like the desolate yet majestic plains of the arctic north, Tunturia’s sound is at times both harsh and beautiful combining elements of post-rock, ambient soundscapes and experimental noise. Formed in late 2005 the band quickly became a vehicle through which it’s members were able to explore concepts and ideas through music. Intricate without being technical, grand in scope without the pretension, lush without losing intensity, the band forged ahead writing new material that at times teetered between the edges of progressive and hauntingly minimal

Mp3 | Tunturia - Panic Attack
Mp3 | Tunturia - Cast Shadows on Clouds



Record label Ghostly International and modern cult classic programmers [Adult Swim] have paired up for a compilation of new music and art.

A genre-busting 19-song collection, stretching the entire Ghostly International galaxy, Ghostly Swim explores the Avant-Pop style that the Ann Arbor/New York City label has been been championing for the past 9 years. Ghostly Swim features artists like Matthew Dear, Dabrye, Tycho and Aeroc and features new signings like UK cult band The Chap and NYC producer Michna.

The free collection also includes favorite friends of the label like School Of Seven Bells, and Detroit’s Deastro, Milosh (Plug Research), FLYamSAM (Warp’s Flying Lotus and SAMIYAM), and Dark Party (Mush). Along with the new music, BoyCatBird (Ghostly’s mascots) make their animated debut in the awesome “City Suckers” video by Daniel Garcia/Superfi.

Download the entire album Here

Mp3 | Kill Memory Crash - Hit and Run


Daniel & Geo Fuchs: STASI – Secret Rooms
14 March - 4 June 2008
Foam Fotografie Museum Amsterdam

From 14 March 2008 Foam presents STASI – Secret Rooms by the German artist duo Daniel & Geo Fuchs. The exhibition opens up the hidden rooms once used by the STASI, the infamous East German secret service, in a series of monumental photos. While much of the former DDR infrastructure has been destroyed, or given an entirely new function, the clandestine spaces that Daniel and Geo Fuchs photographed are still in their original condition. Offices, cell complexes, bunkers, living quarters and interrogation rooms: everything is exactly the way it was before 'Die Wende'. The typical East European interiors, with their functional furniture and sober colours seem remarkably stylised in retrospect. Yet above all, what this large, intriguing project shows is the symbiosis of architecture, power and impotence.


Sam Francis (1923) - (1994) | Ace Gallery

Sometimes considered a second-generation Abstract Expressionist, Francis’ work of the 1950’s and 1960’s was abstract, luminous and painterly rather than gestural. Influenced by the works of Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, Francis’ “signature” paintings of the early 1950’s are overlays of serial but asymmetrical biomorphic forms saturated with color.

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Tuesday 29 April 2008

Fuck Buttons , David Byrne Brian Eno - Moonlightin Glory , Teenagers From Uranus



The key to how Fuck Buttons pull this off lies in their creative origins: Brits Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power formed the group in 2004 with the goal of creating pain-inducing noise music, but soon became curious about mixing in prettier sounds, and adding structure and melody to their brutal tracks. Still, they never lost the aggression and abstraction of their noise leanings: They're not afraid to let a beat pound forever, or let a drone wash slowly, or let a pedal loop endlessly. Where more traditional groups might worry that a part goes on too long, Fuck Buttons seem fascinated by what will happen if it does, riding it just past the point of expectation before hitting you with the next big switch-up. It's a trick that gives Street Horrrsing a sense of constant tension, with another surprise detonation always looming around the corner.

The album begins with "Sweet Love For Planet Earth", whose sparkly synths and pulsing drone bring to mind Gang Gang Dance's starry-eyed explorations. The patient power of that track courses through the rest of this seamless record. It's in the drum circles and chants of "Ribs Out", the chopping drift of "Okay, Let's Talk About Magic", and the blown-out metal vocals of "Race You To My Bedroom/Spirit Rise", which seem to make time melt away. Throughout, Fuck Buttons stick religiously to simple ideas, but mix them in surprising ways. When you expect a scream to burst forward, a synth figure slides in, or a bass rumbles up from the background. Still, the duo's signature is devout repetition. And by the time the loops of album closer "Colours Move" finally dissolve, Street Horrrsing has become one big loop itself-- an unbroken sonic circle. Pitchforkmedia - Marc Masters, March 17, 2008



" Street Horrrsing " - ATP Recordings - 2008

Mp3 | Fuck Buttons - Sweet Love For Planet Earth
Mp3 | Fuck Buttons - Race You To My Bedroom



Video | Fuck Buttons - Bright Tomorrow
Video | Fuck Buttons - "Okay, let's..."@ Windmill, Brixton 02.06.07




Designed by Trollback + Company. A visual experiment where the graphics become the creator of the sounds rather than the reactive afterthought. The piece is set to "Moonlight in Glory," by David Byrne and Brian Eno

Watch | David Byrne and Brian Eno - Moonlight in Glory




Far, far away on the Planet Uranus, an evil Lord reigns. All hell breaks loose when he sends two Teenagers from Uranus to take control of the media airwaves in attempt to destroy the world. Written and created by Will Carsola and Dave Stewart, a twisted sketch comedy movie guaranteed to blow your head off. With the gore version of Municipal Wastes "Unleash the Bastards" video. Graffiti with Serf, Mint, Resk, Dr.sex, Mad, Rate, Goal, Host, Tenz, Lions, and more. Featuring the new hair bling, singing hobos, dmv drivers license pranks, rapping Jesus, Dr.Phil as a serial killer and other relentless parodies.

"This movie takes all that sucks on television and farts in its mouth"
-famous person.

Watch | Teenagers From Uranus

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livedaybyday

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Cosmic Motors - Trailer






Come explore the vehicle designs of a futuristic, faraway galaxy where hyperreality and hyperspeed exist as part of everyday life.
Daniel Simon is an internationally established car designer who has worked on futuristic concepts for such automakers as Bugatti and Lamborghini.
Cosmic Motors is a design book with 176 pages full of futuristic vehicles, many of them featured in this trailer.

Trailer | Cosmic Motors


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Cosmic Motors
Daniel Simon

Sunday 27 April 2008

mY Indie Soul # 23

mY Indie Soul # 23

Electronic | Experimental | IDM | Alternative | Punk | Electro

Artwork by Ray Caesar



Download | Listen

Raz Ohara and the Odd Orchestra - Where he at [ Apparat remix ]
" Apparat - Things To Be Frickled " - 2008

Raz Ohara is a native of Denmark who’s been resident in Berlin for some time. His first two solo albums for the Kitty-Yo label, Realtime Voyeur and The Last Legend saw Raz’s alter ego grow from quirky, original new-kid-on-the-block to confident, accomplished artist, consolidating the wit and intelligence which have made him an underground sensation. Flitting effortlessly between house, hip-hop, ambient electronics, reggae, downtempo, indie and Prince-esque soul inflections, Raz earned comparisons to US renaissance man Beck. Remixed by the likes of Richard Davis, Matthias Schaffhauser, Smash TV, Pier Bucci and Geiger, Raz Ohara was rightly earmarked for great things.
Raz Ohara and The Odd Orchestra is without doubt the most unusual album Get Physical has yet released, and it may prove to be one of their best. An album of real artistic integrity, this is avant-garde pop music at its most deep, timeless and affecting.



Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Seen
" Maander " - 2001

Kammerflimmer Kollektief began as the one-man experimental excursions of Thomas Weber. Trapping ambient noise, live and synthetic drums, guitars, strings, upright bass and keyboards into interlocking rhythmic explosions, Weber expanded the group to a live six piece in 1999 and has been brilliant and busy ever since. From their Karlsruhe, Germany home base, this ensemble effortlessly blends experimental electronic elements and moody free-form jazz to stunning effect.



Plat - Paling (Muse)
" Compulsion " - 2005

Plat is another in an ongoing stream of groups hailing from Iceland, but the group's sound is radically unlike that of its better-known compatriots Múm and Sigur Rós. To some degree that's attributable to Arnar Helgi Adalsteinsson and Vilhjalmur Pálsson's unusual creative approach as the duo records virtually everything they play and later sculpts the material into final form. Their hallucinogenic acoustic-electronic mix sounds both organically fluid yet deliberately considered—cool, experimental music perhaps, but one that never loses its soul.



Zoe Keating - We Insist
" One Cello x 16: Natoma " - 2005

Armed with just her cello and a small box of electronics, Zoë Keating has performed outdoors in the Nevada desert, in medieval churches, in punk clubs, and before thousands of screaming teenagers in mainstream rock venues across North America and Europe.

Classically trained from the age of eight, Zoë developed her signature style improvising for late night crowds in her San Francisco warehouse space. Her album "One Cello x 16: Natoma", which rose to #2 on the iTunes Classical and Electronica charts, is the direct result of that experimentation. Inhabiting its own territory somewhere between classical and electronica, Keating's works for layered cello have been called luminous, haunting and complex.



Apparat - Steinholz [ Monolake Remix ]
" Things To Be Frickled " - 2008

Apparat is the bridge over the German gap of melancholic glitch between Manchester and Laptop-USA. His smart wiring of emotions produces a virtual musical reality, which is based upon different genres, depending on the surrounding of the “apparat”. In his studio, dense, dark and majestic clouds of elegiac pop and heavy Electronica built up to a coherent and emotionally charged atmosphere. Live, on the other hand, the dance floor seems to be repelled to rave from the Bermuda Triangle with its axes Techno, IDM and Elektro. Those styles cannot necessarily be distinguished and heard on every of his releases, but since he started out with a much harder pace of electronic music in the early nineties, his influences are definitely Techno and Elektro as well.



Sebastian Tellier - Divine [ Midnight Juggernauts Remix ]
" Divine EP " - 2008

‘Divine’ is a supremely uplifting slice of electro funk with beach boy-esque harmonies and the single package comes complete with added doo-wop, and significant re-arrangement, in its new Radio version form and also with killer remixes from Australia’s Midnight Juggernauts and France’s latest exciting electronic producer/artist Danger.

Sebastien, France’s inspired choice as their 2008 Eurovision representative, will also perform Divine at this year’s Song Contest to be held in Belgrade on 24th May. !!!! This will be the first time in the history of the contest that the French entry will be sung entirely in English.

Now, even more than ever, Sebastien is the one true artist who clearly connects the vanguard of France's modern generations of musical magicians, from Gainsbourg to Air, through Mr.Oizo and the new electronic Ed Banger exporters. The gel which joins are the genial pioneers, Daft Punk, one half of which, Guy Manuel De Homem-Christo, has produced this and the seminal new album.



Tortoise & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Love Is Love
" The Brave And The Bold " - 2006

The Brave And The Bold chronicles an iceboat journey of co-captains Will Oldham and Tortoise into the charted but frozen waters of pop and rock’s thinning edges. As they soldier through, both singer and band rest and bathe in the comfort of what they've done recently and successfully. The rabid yodel of Oldham's quasi-Appalachian hillside adjudication, so predictably central to the Palace era, never once bubbles through the molasses yawn here. The languid drawl given to so much homespun obscenity pours itself in nicely empty molds of words by Springsteen, Elton John, and Richard Thompson, among others.



These New Puritans - Infinity Ytinifni
" Beat Pyramid " - 2008

In common with their influences, These New Puritans' sound is eclectic. In a recent interview with The Cuckoo Press Magazine, Jack said that "Wu Tang Clan are massively influential. "'Spitting the code', as Roots Manuva puts it, is what I do". While The Guardian said that "These New Puritans make stern threatening punk inspired by The Fall, Franz Kafka and Elizabethan magician John Dee". Artrocker Magazine has described TNPS as sounding like "Sheffield and Berlin synths, '90s alt rock Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo drones; Underworld beats, and all in the most contemporary of contexts," while in a review of Beat Pyramid, Vice Magazine said "Sharp, strange and enchanting, there aren't many bands around like These New Puritans. Contrary to this though the NME review of their album states "Somebody once attempted to convince us that These New Puritans are original. They failed: onstage, the guy looks and twitches just like Ian Curtis, and musically, they sound pretty much exactly the same as The Fall." Barnett often states that he really doesn't think much about influences.



Duchess Says - Ccut Upp (Original Version)
" Anthologie des 3 Perchoirs " - 2008

Duchess Says was created in late 2003 in Montreal by four influent members of the Church of Budgerigars who decided to collaborate together in a common musical project. Their goal was to insure a faithful representation of the message of the Duchess (or spiritual budgie) through a precise artistic dialog. Composed of A-Claude (vox, keytar, guit, programmations), Ismaël (keyboard,guitar, programmations), Phil (guitar, bass,feedbacks) and Simon Says (lo-fi beats, drums and doubtful noises). Duchess Says is serving a repertory of “moog rock” songs strong in images and enormoustly intense live performances! Their musical influences range from no wave, new wave, punk, to cinema and visual arts. If you pay attention, you could see them perform in the most unusual places such as golf courses, shop windows, vacant buildings, etc. Duchess Says has the mandate to decontextualise the rock and to promote simultaneously their Church on the way.



Does it Offend you Yeah - With a Heavy Heart i Regret to Inform You
" You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into " - 2008

Does It Offend You, Yeah? are often compared to dance-oriented acts like Daft Punk, Justice and Digitalism.[attribution needed] However, NME has also compared them to bands like Muse and !!! due to their heavier, more 'live' sound. The group are known for their raucous live shows, which often end in stage diving and broken instruments

The band revealed the origins of their name as being from British sitcom The Office. In an interview with NME.com, synth player Dan Coop explained: "Everybody thinks the name is some kind of statement but it's a quote from David Brent in an episode of 'The Office'. "When me and James Rushent first started writing music together we decided to put it up on MySpace. We needed a name to put as our profile name so just put what was the first thing that was said on TV, we switched it on and Ricky Gervais said 'Does it offend you, yeah? My drinking?' so we just went with that. No thought went into it whatsoever."



Digitalism - Yes, I Don't Want This
" Moshi Moshi EP " - 2008

DIGITALISM is dirty electro pogo shit hammered by the two studio junkies Jens "Jence" Moelle and Ismail "Isi" Tuefekci and comes directly from the underground electro-indie scene.
It all began a while ago when Jens was working in Hamburg's "Underground Solution" record store , same store where Kid Alex began his career as a record seller - when Isi stepped in the store and had a first chat with Jens. Shortly after they went in Jens Studio and DIGITALISM was born. Jens did have keyboard practice for around four years and vocal practice for a year. He is writing the lyrics and sings them in his post-punkish way while the music is written and produced by the two knock-out musicians together.



Holy Fuck - The Pulse
" LP " - 2007

Holy Fuck is a lo-fi improvisational experimental band from Toronto/Halifax, Canada. They are a part of Dependent Music, a music label/collective that began in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in 1994. Called “Toronto’s evil supergroup”, Holy Fuck includes, at various times, members of other notable bands King Cobb Steelie, By Divine Right, Wintersleep, Enon, and Blue Rodeo.

Holy Fuck mimics modern electronic music without using modern fail-safes like laptops and programmed backing tracks For 2005’s NXNE festival they armed themselves with a drum set, a bass guitar, a myriad of toy keyboards, guitar pedals, mixers, and even a 35 mm film synchronizer and hit the stage, without even rehearsing.



The Bloody Beetroots - Mac Mac
" I Love the The Bloody Beetroots " - 2008

The Bloody Beetroots are an electro/club collective currently ripping up Italy with their own heavy beats, and continuously throwing out remix after remix as they make themselves known to the rest of Europe.

As well as featuring on Hostage’s ‘Gluttony’ EP - along with Felix Cartal - The Bloody Beetroots have remixed tracks by the likes of Fox n’Wolf, Etienne De Crecy, The Toxic Avenger, and their own take on Michael Sembello’s ‘She’s a Maniac’

The Bloody Beetroots are currently making their way around Europe with a number of slots on the continent and in the UK.



Ascii Disko - Black Summer
" Total Destruction is The Only Solution EP " - 2007

Daniel Holc, born in Hamburg (Germany), known in electro-music world as Ascii.Disko.
He played guitar in the band Slown and now plays keyboard and guitar with his other band of indie-rock Sci-Fi, Venus Vegas.
He is able to do new sounds that fit between electro and indie, and his albums sound between acid house and 80’s techno, similar to italo-disco.
Ascii.Disko(2003) and recently Alias (2006) are his two albums.

Saturday 26 April 2008

Andrea Parker - Here's one i made Earlier ( 2007 )



"Here's One I Made Earlier is a fine collection of productions from Andrea Parker, recognised as one of the world's leading female electronic artists alongside Ellen Allien and Miss Kittin. The album showcases her keen ear for haunting melody, abstract rhythms, found sounds and subtle atmospheres. Predominantly recorded alongside her long time studio partner, David Morley, this collection of inspirational electronics unveils long deleted and rare lost gems from the vaults of such esteemed labels as K7!, R&S, Infonet and Quatermass. Known for her dark, experimental sets and sublime productions, Parker has pioneered sonic abstraction and electronic beats for some fifteen years now -- 'the grandma of electro!' An avid enthusiast of classic analog synthesizers and drum machines such as the Arp, Serge, Buchla, Fairlights and of course the 808, she chooses them over the current fashion for software. Early on she collaborated on some electronic adventures as Inky Blacknuss (with Alex Knight) producing timeless gems like 'Blacknuss.' Then formed 'Two Sandwiches Short Of A Lunchbox' with David Morley on Apollo/R&S and together they went on to produce the classic EP Angluar Art (Infonet) -- both of which can be heard on this new but old collection. In time she signed to Mo Wax, releasing the singles 'Melodius Thunk,' 'The Rocking Chair,' 'Ball Breaker,' and the full length album Kiss My Arp. Parker's productions have many emotions and sonic textures -- a fact not lost on the film and advertising fraternity who have used tracks from her output extensively. Their uses and users have been diverse, from a track on blockbuster movie Vanilla Sky where Tom Cruise is dancing to 'Too Good To Be Strange' and Patrick Moore's 'Sky At Night' to a documentary on NASA and a mugging crime re-enactment on Richard & Judy." forcedexposure

" Here's one i Made Earlier " - Touchin Bass 025 - 2007

Mp3 | Andrea Parker - After Dark
Mp3 | Andrea Parker - Angular Art


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Andrea Parker

Post Credit its coming out of your speaker

Thursday 24 April 2008

Datassette - Datassette ( 2008 )



Chances are you've heard of Datassette though his alias of 'Datashat' and the BusinessFunk series, a compilation of 80s corporate motivational songs turned into mixtapes that were inspired and daft in equal measure. John Davis' interest in goofing around hasn't quite died out on this long player, but the hours and hours he's spent in his bedroom studio over the last two years have clearly tempered his taste for the peculiar with a degree of seriousness and the kind of anorak passion that can produce the very best electronic music. Which is what this record is.

Datassette is all the more impressive for the fact it's John's first album. He's worked up to it with home-pressed CDR EPs and a split EP with Plant 43 back in 2006, also on Ai. But for a first proper outing, it's no exaggeration to say the 27-year-old web designer has done extraordinarily well. A fair chunk of Datassette is a lopsided take on electronica with a robotic fun(k) element to it, built around jerky breaky/brokeny/electro beats with odd noises thrown in. It's the kind of music you could easily imagine machines on a car production line dancing to, especially given the effects include what sounds like a big metal ball sliding down a big metal slide and hitting a big metal wall ('Worms') or an 'urghh' that resembles a piston beatboxing ('Fallblattanzeige').

But then just when you think you know Datassette, he shows you this whole other side, or rather I should say sides. The most impressive thing about the album is that John takes on so many different styles and nails them all. There's an Andy Stott Datassette on 'Damage Report', a track which seems to sustain itself with the just the slightest of neon flicks, and a New Wave Datassette on 'Minus Fourteen', where he picks up the tempo and adds in a spine-tingling guitar melody. 'Remains' and 'Running Away' have a stunning trashscape appeal, the latter of which reeks of Orchestra of Bubbles in the way the synths and horns seem to ripple up and out of the track and give you an Oh-so-Ellen moment, only now it's Oh-so-John (Yes, I know, that doesn't sound half as good).

The album's two slower tracks, Pluck' and 'Melting Faces' are equally mesmerising. 'Pluck evolves like a spiders web of harp strings, whilst 'Melting Faces', the last track on the album, could be the closing credits from Blade Runner. John's only tribute to businessfunk comes in the form of 'Box' which rocks in a frenzied computer says 'ERROR!' kind of way. But don't worry, that's about as close as we get to oversized shoulder pads, bar charts and permed hair. The rest of Datassette explodes beyond such semi-ironic tomfoolery and instantly establishes Mr. Davis as a serious talent to watch. Daniel Bates - Residentadvisor

" Datassette " - Airecords - 2008

Mp3 | Datassette - Minus Fourteen
Mp3 | Datassette - Damage Report


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Datassette

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago ( 2008 )



Justin Vernon moved to a remote cabin in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin at the onset of winter. Tailing from the swirling breakup of his long time band, he escaped to the property and surrounded himself with simple work, quiet, and space. He lived there alone for three months, filling his days with wood splitting and other chores around the land. This special time slowly
began feeding a bold, uninhibited new musical focus.

This slowly evolved into days filled with twelve-hour recording blocks, breaking only for trips on the tractor into the pines to saw and haul firewood, or for frozen sunrises high up a deer stand. All of his personal trouble, lack of perspective, heartache, longing, love, loss and guilt that had been stock piled over the course of the past six years, was suddenly purged into the form of song. The end result is, For Emma, Forever Ago, a nine-song album comprised of what's been dubbed a striking debut by critics and fans alike.

Bon Iver (pronounced: bohn eevair; French for "good winter" and spelled wrong on purpose) is a greeting, a celebration and a sentiment. It is a new statement of an artist moving on and establishing the groundwork for a lasting career. For Emma, Forever Ago is the debut of this lineage of songs. As a whole, the record is entirely cohesive throughout and remains centered around a particular aesthetic, prompted by the time and place for which it was recorded. Vernon seems to have tested his boundaries to the utmost, and in doing so has managed to break free form any pre-cursing or finished forms.

For Emma's tracks consist of thick layers draped in lush choral walls, with rarely more than an ancient acoustic guitar or the occasional bass drum providing structure. Vernon sings the majority of the record in falsetto, which painfully expresses the meanings behind its overt, yet strangely entangled words. This newfound vocal path acts as each song's main character and source of melody.

Despite its complexity, the record was created entirely by Vernon with nothing more than a few microphones and some aged recording equipment. This homemade aspect shows itself in sections as creaks and accidentals are exposed in the folds of the songs, but is hidden well by the highly impressive and almost orchestral sound that Vernon managed to produce by his lonesome, within the creaky skeleton of his father's cabin.



" For Emma, Forever Ago " - jagjaguwar 115 - 2008

Mp3 | Bon Iver - The Wolves (Act I And II)
Mp3 | Bon Iver - Flume

Video | Bon Iver - The Wolves (Act I & II)


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Bon Iver

Tuesday 22 April 2008

Classic Records - " Pink Moon " - Nick Drake


Pink Moon – 25 February 1972 (Island Records)

In the early hours of 25 November 1974, Nick Drake died at home in Far Leys from an overdose of amitriptyline, a type of antidepressant. He had gone to bed early the night before, after spending the afternoon visiting a friend. Around dawn he left his room for the kitchen. His family was used to hearing him do this many times before, but during this instance, he didn't make a sound. They presumed that he was eating a bowl of cereal. He returned to his room a short while later, and took some pills "to help him sleep". Drake was accustomed to keeping his own hours; he frequently had difficulty sleeping, and would often stay up through the night playing and listening to music, then sleeping late into the following morning. Recalling the events of that night, his mother later stated: "I never used to disturb him at all. But it was about 12 o’clock, and I went in, because really it seemed it was time he got up. And he was laying across the bed. The first thing I saw was his long, long legs." There was no suicide note, although a letter addressed to Ryde was found near to his bed.

At the inquest that December, Drake's coroner stated that the cause of death was as a result of "Acute amitriptyline poisoning—self administered when suffering from a depressive illness", and concluded a verdict of suicide. Though this has been disputed by some members of his family, there is a general view that, accidental or not, Drake had by then given up on the world. Rodney described his son's death as unexpected and extraordinary; however, in a 1979 interview he admitted to "always [being] worried about Nick being so depressed. We used to hide away the aspirin and pills and things like that." Boyd has stated that he prefers to believe the overdose was accidental. He recalled that Drake's parents had described his mood in the preceding weeks as having been very positive, and that he had planned to move back to London to restart his music career. Boyd believes that this levity was followed by a "crash back into despair". Reasoning that Drake may have taken a high dosage of his antidepressants in order to recapture this sense of optimism, he said he prefers to imagine Drake "making a desperate lunge for life rather than a calculated surrender to death". Writing in 1975, NME journalist Nick Kent comments on the irony of Drake's death at a time when he had just begun to regain a sense of "personal balance". In contrast, Gabrielle Drake has said she prefers to think Drake committed suicide, "in the sense that I'd rather he died because he wanted to end it than it to be the result of a tragic mistake. That would seem to me to be terrible..."

On 2 December 1974, after a service in the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Tanworth-in-Arden, Drake was cremated at the Solihull Crematorium and his ashes later interred under an oak tree in the adjoining graveyard of St Mary's. The funeral was attended by around fifty mourners, including friends from Marlborough, Aix, Cambridge, London, Witchseason, and Tanworth. Referring to Drake's tendency to compartmentalise, Brian Wells later observed that many met each other for the first time that morning. Molly recalled "a lot of his young friends came up here. We'd never met many of them." wikipedia



Mp3 | Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Mp3 | Nick Drake - Place To Be



Nick Drake - A Stranger Among Us Documentary

Watch | Part 1
Watch | Part 2
Watch | Part 3
Watch | Part 4


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Nick Drake

Sunday 20 April 2008

Black Strobe , The Dark Lords of Electro

To commemorate Audiopleasures 100 posts a special , on one of my all time favorites .

BLACK STROBE



What connects Norwegian death metal, French club anthems and London super-producer Paul Epworth? It sounds like a particularly intractable example of the six degrees of separation game. However, these seemingly irreconcilable points on the musical compass are linked by French dance rock four-piece Black Strobe. A simple enough answer. The explanation is going to take a little bit longer.

Not as long as it took the band – Arnaud Rebotini
(vocals and programming), David ‘Siskid’ Shaw (guitars and keyboards), Bastien Burger (bass and keyboards) and Benjamin Beaulieu (drums) – to record their debut album, however. Burn Your Own Church is a record ten years in the making. Happily, it’s worth the wait. Few bands manage to combine guitars and electronics as successfully as Black Strobe do here. First single Shining Bright Star is a stunning marriage of gut-butting bass guitar, droning synth and Arnaud’s menacing but melodic vocals. The opening track is called Brenn Di Ega Kjerke, Norwegian for ‘burn your own church’ and a nod to principal songwriter Arnaud’s fascination with the extreme sound of so-called black metal. Accordingly, it’s a crunchingly heavy song, pulsing synths colliding with guitars inspired by My Bloody Valentine’s 1991 album Loveless. It’s a darkly captivating formula repeated with great success on Blood Shot Eyes and You Should Be. The flip side to the band’s personality is Girl Next Door, as downbeat and spooky as a 4AM walk home. Perhaps most surprising moment is a high-octane electronic cover of I’m A Man by rock’n’roll icon Bo Diddly, which will be the second single. The sum of these parts is a jaw-dropping debut.



Burn Your Own Church may surprise anyone familiar with Black Strobe from early clubland hits such as Innerstrings and Me And Madonna. However, Arnaud sees nothing strange. “Especially if you think of Innerstrings and Me And Madonna, the album is a logical evolution,” he says. “Maybe people will be surprised because they think there’s not enough synth and too much guitar, but musically it’s a logical evolution. I like the idea that people will be surprised.”

Arnaud wanted to make a record that reflected the full range of his taste. “It’s the summing up of a long musical background,” he explains. “The idea at the beginning was to do an album you can listen to at home, not a dance record. I wanted to keep the dance side in Black Strobe, but not to produce everything with electronics; I wanted to use guitars as well. I wanted to have some freedom. When you’re doing dance music you’ve got to really follow the rules so the DJ can play it. But it’s not really free. You can’t do everything you want. This album is about breaking out of those rules and bringing something to the essence of Black Strobe that I can’t have when I’m doing dance music. Such as the blues. Or country. Or the roots of rock’n’roll. The hypnotic side of black metal bands. To have proper songs. Some slow songs, too. To have the kind of instrumentation they have in classical music. I wanted to write music I really liked and something that reflected the music I grew up with. The idea was freedom.”

Let’s go back to the beginning. Originally, the band was a duo comprised of Arnaud Rebotini and French DJ Ivan Smagghe.



They became friends in the mid-’80s after repeatedly bumping into each other in front row at concerts. Both went on to work in the dance section of the Rough Trade record shop in Paris. They decided to form a band. The first thing Black Strobe recorded was an acid house track called Paris Acid City, which was featured on the Sourcelab 3 compilation in 1996. They didn’t follow it up until 1999, when they released Innerstrings, which referenced early ’80s synth pop a good two years before electroclash was cool. Meanwhile, their third single, Me And Madonna, became one of electroclash’s anthems. Not that Black Strobe were ever part of the scene. They were always too spiky for that.

From the beginning, Arnaud knew that playing live was central to Burn Your Own Church. “When I started writing the album, I said, We need to be able to perform these songs,” he remembers. “I thought about what the songs would sound like live. I didn’t want to record the album and then have to think about how to play it live. If there were songs that didn’t work live, we didn’t put them on the album. There were five or six like that. Maybe some of them will be B-sides.”



As a result, Black Strobe have developed into a thrilling live act, with Arnaud an imposing, gravel-voiced front man – a thicker set Nick Cave, perhaps. However, Ivan was less comfortable with performing and decided to leave the band to concentrate on his DJ career. It was an amicable parting and his influence can still be heard on Burn Your Own Church – before he left he wrote most of the lyrics.

Burn Your Own Church may be heavier and more rock-oriented than anything the band have done before, but it’s not entirely without precedent. The B-side to Chemical Sweet Girl was The Abwehr Disco, which recalled nothing so much as Metallica making heavy metal with synths.



On the Black Strobe MySpace site, Arnaud says that he wants to make music that scares people. He’s joking, but only a bit. When he was young, Arnaud’s father was into soul, blues and rock’n’roll. As a teenager, he became interested in “noisy bands” such as Sonic Youth. The first band he played in was a death metal group called Swamp. His obsession with extreme music continues to this day, whether it’s pounding industrial noise like Nurse With Wound, the experimentation of Karlheinz Stockhausen or Norwegian black metal bands such as Burzum or Darkthrone. “They’ve made some really amazing albums,” says Arnaud of the latter. “People always talk about punk, but these guys are the only real punks left.”

He continues: “I like what Stockhausen said. That you can think of music as sonic objects and use those sonic objects to construct another sonic object, like building blocks.”

One of the other building blocks Arnaud used on Build Your Own Church is the epic sweep of classical music. Arnaud is a big classical buff, He works for GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales), a French organistion founded by Pierre Shaeffer, the French avant-garde composer and pioneer of musique concrete.



Helping Black Strobe assemble these wide-ranging and hugely ambitious influences was producer Paul Epworth, best known for his work with Bloc Party, Maxïmo Park and The Futureheads. Having written Burn Your Own Church in his home studio in Paris, Arnaud and the band recorded it at Epworth’s Eastcote Studios in West London over three weeks at the start of 2006. It was then mixed by Alan Moulder (U2, Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson).

“I learned a lot from Paul,” says Arnaud. “He makes electronic music as Phones, but also produces proper rock bands. He has a big studio knowledge. He was definitely the right guy for us. When I found out we could have him, I was like, Great.”

Only one question remains: what took them so long?

“Because it was quite difficult,” laughs Arnaud. “It was hard to find a good way to get out of dance music. We had to learn how to be a band. We had to learn how to play live. We had to take some time.”

Ultimately, it’s worked to Black Strobe’s advantage. Arnaud name checks Klaxons and The Horrors. “I think we’re quite close to Klaxons in terms of production, although maybe we are a little bit darker because of the low voice and the different influences. But we have the same mood, the same mix of synths and guitars.” Indeed, a hybrid of Klaxons and The Horrors isn’t the worst description of Black Strobe.

The last word goes to Arnaud. “The album is a collection of raw songs about love, addiction, (self) waste,” he says. “It’s an album made by guys who love burn their own church.” Contact music



" Burn Your Own Church " - Playlouder - 2007

Mp3 | Black Strobe - I'm A Man
Mp3 | Black Strobe - Blood Shot Eyes
Mp3 | Black Strobe - Girl Next Door



Mp3 | Black Strobe - Me and Madonna
Mp3 | Black Strobe - Chemical Sweet Girl
Mp3 | Black Strobe - Innerstrings / No Shufle
Mp3 | Black Strobe - Shining Bright Star [Phones Industrial Version]

Mp3 | Sweet Lightnin - Abusator [ Black Strobe Remix ]
Mp3 | Rammstein - Keine Lust [ Black Strobe Remix ]
Mp3 | The Rapture - Sister Saviour [ Black Strobe Remix ]

Download | Black Strobe - Live in da Mix 23-04-2005 Part 1

Video | Black Strobe - I'm a Man ( Bo Didley Cover )
Video | Black Strobe - Me and Madonna


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