FACT Magazine Cassette Store Day reveals US releases, includes tapes from Vivian Girls, Dntel and Immortal @ Musique Non Stop |  |
- Cassette Store Day reveals US releases, includes tapes from Vivian Girls, Dntel and Immortal
- Stream Friday’s FACT at BBOX radio show, featuring special guest Geng Grizzly
- My Skeleton
- Trouble in Paradise
- Jack White’s Lazaretto is the best selling vinyl LP since 1994
- RBMA unveils mammoth Tokyo event schedule with Melt-Banana, Keiji Haino, Boredoms and more
- Thurston Moore enlists Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley and MBV’s Debbie Googe for new band
- Stream Actress’s slo-mo remix of Redlight’s ‘Cure Me’
- FACT mix 454: Daniel Avery
- Seth Troxler kicks off “indie label” Soft Touch Records
- Stream Grumbling Fur’s magickal new album, Preternaturals
- “This could be the most divisive recent event in UK music”: SOPHIE, Vessel, Rustie and more reviewed in the FACT Singles Club
- Stream Nicki Minaj’s Sir Mix-a-Lot sampling ‘Anaconda’
- Hyperdub announce 10th birthday party at Corsica Studios with Jessy Lanza, Cooly G, Kode9 and more
- Stream ‘Hard’, the B-Side to SOPHIE’s ‘Lemonade’
- Jessie Ware reveals Tough Love tracklist, release date
- A man bit off another man’s finger at Jay Z and Beyonce’s show
- Two dead and 20 hospitalised after Mad Decent Block Party in Maryland
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Posted: 04 Aug 2014 01:13 PM PDT
 Yeah we know, we know – there’s no such thing as a cassette store. Still, since Record Store Day has (for better or for worse, depending on who you ask) helped popularize the vinyl format once more, it makes sense that a group of tape addicts should at least try and stand resolutely for their format of choice. Clearly the wider world out there cares too, as the yearly Cassette Store Day is back for its second year and is being held on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s set for September 27, and we can now have a peek at what the American side of the equation is offering their participating stores. As expected, the list is varied to say the least – next to a hefty showing of black metal reissues from Nuclear Blast (Immortal, Enslaved, Testament etc) there’s an under-the-radar new record from Dntel entitled Human Voice Outtakes (which we’re guessing is outtakes from his Leaving Records full-length Human Voice), a reissue of the third Vivian Girls LP Share the Joy, a collaboration album from Peter Broderick and Yellow Swans’ Gabriel Saloman, a metric shit ton of compilation tapes, and a whole lot more. Have a look at the entire list over at the Cassette Store Day site, and marvel at the fact that the humble tape still actually exists. If you fancy a more pruned selection, check out Brad Rose’s monthly tape column, where he listens to a mountain of tapes so the rest of us don’t have to.         |
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Stream Friday’s FACT at BBOX radio show, featuring special guest Geng Grizzly
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 09:40 AM PDT
 FACT's US team returns to Brooklyn. Last Friday at 3pm ET, FACT's Chris Kelly and special guest/co-host Geng Grizzly made their way to the BBOX Radio studio in Brooklyn for this week’s episode of FACT at BBOX. Highlights include new material by Gobby, Airhead, Ziro, Young Thug and more, plus a stellar, white label-loaded set by Geng featuring unreleased heat by Strict Face, Air Max ’97, Cypher and more. You can stream the episode and check out the tracklist over at BBOX. This week, John Twells and Walker Chambliss will host the show, and they'll be joined by Matt Werth of RVNG. Intl, the reliably eclectic Brooklyn label. Make sure you head to the BBOX site at 3pm ET on Friday to tune in.         |
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Posted: 04 Aug 2014 09:32 AM PDT
 Available on: LuckyMe |
Subsequently, this material was refined and mixed at locations including Hudson Mohawke's studio in London and Kuedo's studio in Berlin, but it would be wrong to assume My Skeleton was in any way designed for club consumption. Instead, Turner's recent FACT mix – which eschewed beats in favour of twinkling drifts and droning computer music – offers a useful signpost to My Skeleton's contents. Present here is the fluorescent synth glow and ADHD maximalism that's common to his peers on the LuckyMe roster, but what's within is on a dreamy, ambient tip, melding classical minimalism, post-rock, kosmische synth and systems music with an eye for personal exploration and spiritual reflection.
Contemporary readings of such genres sometimes feel like the stuff of battle re-enactment, too studied to transcend their rich histories. On My Skeleton, though, Turner often takes pains to keep his music feeling living and breathing. ‘Tiger Woods’ and ‘Spectral Choir’ employ dancing Steve Reich patterns, but through these Turner laces weaving woodwind and ringing strings with half-heard field recordings from his travels, the bustle of a marketplace or the hum of traffic. There are songs, too: the melancholic twinkle of ‘Hold On’, featuring the folksy tones of female vocalist LW; or ‘Taj Mahal’, in which Turner takes the mic in a manner that reminds me a little of Phil Elverum's work in lo-fi experimentalists The Microphones, his sleepy and sincere words half-buried under droning soft synths and starbursts of heavily treated post-rock guitar. The title track breaks from the record's largely electronic recreations to employ a real string quartet, although thanks to pitch-shifting and diligent layering, there feels like no hard breaks between the real and the synthesized.
There is trauma here, too, albeit sublimated into these woozy folds of sound. Turner's trip was prompted by bereavement, and here and there My Skeleton takes a turn into darkness. The doomy post-rock build of ‘Prove You Exist’ apparently went by the working title of ‘Claude Speeed You Black Emperor’, while ‘Some Other Guy’, which vacillates between diaphanous ambience and harder Mego-like drones, is supposedly inspired by a visit to a tower of human skulls in Cambodia's Killing Fields. In the hands of some, this might come across slightly glib, a bit selfie-at-Auschwicz, but throughout My Skeleton, there's the sense that Turner is out to honestly communicate his own experience, even when emotions are embryonic, or sensations twisted by tiredness or fever. The result is a record that keeps the sense of a human being on a passage of exploration, its internal emotional landscape porous to the influence of the tumult and chaos of the world outside.
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 08:24 AM PDT
Available on: Polydor
The first image that springs to mind when La Roux is brought up is her narrow-eyed, sharp-quiffed march through the video for 2009's 'Bulletproof'. Elly Jackson’s stride was the constant forward motion against a shapeshifting landscape, just as her crisp falsetto was a straight-forward motion amongst a backdrop of zig-zagging ’80s synth lines. Together with her songwriting partner Ben Langmaid, Jackson shook up pop that year.
That's the primary image of La Roux that comes to mind because, in the five years since, Jackson has been near invisible. She drifted personally and professionally apart from Langmaid; developed panic attacks in response to fame and lost her trademark voice to muscular tension. On her solo follow-up Trouble In Paradise, which has been in the works for five turbulent years, the actual substance of her music has been re-shaped by anxiety: she's toned down the electrical surge of her falsetto, hitting a lower register with less angular melodies. The absence of Langmaid is strongly felt in the richer tropical hue (as well as embittered lines like "you're not my partner, no you're not a part of me").
But La Roux sill strides. On Trouble In Paradise's opening track 'Uptight Downtown', a soaring falsetto chorus and funky propulsive rhythm show Jackson's as much on a bulletproof mission as ever. The La Roux of 2009 is totally intact, complete with the characteristic disdain that leads her to ruminate in interviews about why she doesn't have any famous friends, as she bites her way through lyrics about people wanting to "move, move, move" with the observation that they probably have something to "prove, prove, prove." There are plenty of these moments: the bizarrely titled 'Sexotheque' has a chorus that calls out seedy men with all the clap-along joy of a ’60s girl group, while 'Silent Partner' is a violently upbeat rally cry. And yet, these tracks are cut through with a more sombre introspection than La Roux has shown before: the latter deals with the search for internal peace at night, begging for silence even as it builds frantically to the most crammed musical moment on the record.
Vocally, La Roux takes a back seat on tracks like 'Tropical Chancer', letting her voice glide from the bottom of her chest over the steel pans and funk guitars that carry the track's punch. She’s never felt more like a wallflower, but nor has she ever said such arresting, attention-grabbing things. Take 'Paradise Is You', another track that goes so hard for ’80 beach vibes that if you closed your eyes while listening you might wake up in Club Tropicana. Even as she's telling the song’s subject that they're all that's good in her life, Jackson's vision of paradise becomes oppressive: "darling, it's only you who can stop my heart from crying."
Throughout Trouble in Paradise, Jackson questions who she is and what she's doing. Sexuality is cruel. "Turn me into someone good, that's what I really need," she pleads on 'Let Me Down Gently', "tell me that I'm someone good so that we're not so far apart." And yet this is cushioned by mellow sustained chords and choral sighs that waft slowly like palm tree fronds in the breeze.
Back in 2009 La Roux was the pop album that a socially anxious person might put on when getting ready to go out; a steel mask of defiance, "going in for the kill" with its piercing falsetto and unrelenting sharp edges. For the same person, Trouble In Paradise might be the album to listen to when they get home, chewing over everything that just happened in that sleep-deprived half-dreaming state. It's all set to give you a pep talk, but it's not full of front: it will comfort you with visions of a tropical paradise, but won't bullshit you when it comes to feeling afraid or uncertain, allowing those feelings space to breathe rather than squashing them with titanium production. This is where Langmaid's absence is most obviously felt, and where the album slowly but surely astounds: in its moments of silence, of poignancy and detail. La Roux’s march may has slowed to a stroll, but she proves here that she can captivate at any pace.
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 07:52 AM PDT
The erstwhile White Stripe breaks a record previously held by Pearl Jam.
Released in June, the “Ultra LP” version of Jack White’s Lazaretto was an impressive undertaking, even compared to White’s previous record gimmicks: it featured multi-speed tracks, locked grooves, holograms and a variety of vinyl wonders.
According to Billboard, the LP has sold 60,000 copies, making it the best-selling vinyl LP of the year and the biggest release of any year since Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy was released in 1994. The second-biggest selling vinyl LP, Arctic Monkeys’ AM, has sold less than half that number, while Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories vinyl sold 49,000 copies in 2013.
The 60,000 copies represent 25% of the album’s total sales. For an artist who has recorded and released the world’s fastest record, released records on platinum and gold and released records via balloon, it appears that thinking outside of the box has finally paid off.
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 07:46 AM PDT
The official schedule for the autumn academy has been revealed, and it’s huge.
Red Bull Music Academy arrives in Asia for the first time this year, setting itself the task of exploring Tokyo’s huge musical legacy, from Japanoise to karaoke, sound art to video games.
The five-week schedule is an absolute monster and can be browsed in full over on the RBMA website, but highlights we’ve spotted so far include an improv show led by EYヨ of Boredoms and avant-garde composer Otomo Yoshihide, a livestream from karaoke hotspot Karaokekan Shinjuku, and a show exploring noise and silence with musicians including Melt-Banana and Keiji Haino. Meanwhile, a night at Tokyo’s famous Womb club will see international and Japanese artists exploring video game music from all angles.
As well as performances by this year’s Academy participants (including Mumdance, Xosar, Ossie and Zebra Katz), the programme also features Hessle Audio’s Ben UFO playing “stratovolcanic vinyl” from Japan’s 6,852 islands, plus South London’s Jah Shaka celebrating international sound system traditions with Kiwi dub outfit Fat Freddy’s Drop. Other faces on the schedule include Dorian Concept, Benji B, Holly Herndon and Untold, while electronic and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda will present a huge sculptural light installation.
There’s tons more, so check it out on the site. Tickets for all these events go on sale on August 23.
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 07:33 AM PDT
Sonic Youth might be on permanent hiatus right now, but it looks like fans might have something to look forward to.
The band have been quiet since 2011, following Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon’s well-publicized (and rather messy) split, but now news has emerged that Moore is about to team up with the band’s drummer, Steve Shelley for a new project.
Called, rather boringly, the Thurston Moore band, it will also feature My Bloody Valentine’s Debbie Googe on bass and British guitarist James Sedwards (of Guapo and Chrome Hoof among others) and the quartet’s first performance is set for August 19 in Amsterdam.
We’re going to guess that this all ties in with Moore’s proposed new solo album, entitled The Best Day, which is due for release on the Matador imprint in September. [via Consequence of Sound]
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 07:00 AM PDT
As ingenious as his albums are, it’s often on his remixes that we see the really, really weird side of Actress.
On his ‘Brown Weed’ remix of Redlight‘s ‘Cure Me’ – once a filtered chart-houser, ripe for the end of the night – Actress slows things down to the pace of a tired worker dragging concrete blocks on loop. If it’s ripe for anything, it’s a good night’s sleep, but you get the impression that this track’s leaves turned brown long ago – it’s gloomy as hell, and it sounds superb.
‘Cure Me’ is available for pre-order now.
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 06:54 AM PDT
There’s no gimmick with Daniel Avery, no hook. He is, as his Discogs page puts it, a “DJ and producer from England.”
And really, that should be the only hook you need. Since focusing on making music under his real name in the early ’10s (though he was DJing and producing for several years before then), the one-time studio assistant of Andrew Weatherall has been steadily developing from record to record, combining house and techno structures with dynamics that betray his love of oddball guitar music and ’90s alt-rock. Like Weatherall, and like Downwards’ Regis, Avery recognises the limitless potential to hypnotise by getting as weird as possible over a 4×4 pulse, and on his debut album Drone Logic (the clue’s in the name), he uses 4×4 as a canvas to paint Bosch-esque visions of disembodied voices, tripped-out rabbit-holes and more.
Of course, it also bangs when it has to – Avery’s no floor-clearer. In fact, he’s become one of the UK’s most celebrated DJs of recent years, contributing to the BBC Essential Mix series and releasing a mix CD for Fabric. Avery’s FACT mix – no tracklist, spotters – comes on the eve of a new residency for Fabric, Divided Love. The first Divided Love takes place on August 15, and features sets from hallowed electro unit Dopplereffekt, Helena Hauff and Factory Floor, Volte-Face and Avery himself.
"The club has been with me from the beginning so starting my own night there feels genuinely exciting”, explains Avery. “Divided Love will be about presenting acts who are doing something special… sonic souls, faith affirmers, music for the mind."
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 06:32 AM PDT
We know what you’re thinking – Seth Troxler already kicked off two labels this year, so why would he need another one?
Well Play It, Say It is specifically for club music, and his collaborative excursion with the Martinez Brothers, Tuskagee Music, is a vinyl-only imprint for “very special releases” – new venture Soft Touch Records is something totally different.
Realizing it could be a little much for people, Troxler clarified, saying “each of my new labels offers different ideas on what fascinates me and things I think are missing in today’s market.” The idea that Soft Touch focuses on, surprisingly, is indie music: “Soft Touch is an indie label putting out all sorts of random stuff- some folk, some rock, all limited editions. It’s about music by artists I’ve met over the years whose music is amazing but not finding its niche.”
It sounds like a pretty large shift for the predominantly club-focused producer and DJ, and the first release will be coming from the label’s A&R man and long-term friend of Troxler, Clarian. Entitled Is There Light At The End EP, the record came together after a struggle with homelessness in a cruel Montreal winter, and was recorded in his friend’s analogue studio “that looks like a spaceship hidden by trees.”
Is There Light At The End EP is due on September 29 on limited 10″ vinyl, via Soft Touch Records.
01 Is There Light At The End
02 Mirror of the Sun (feat. Jess Cardinal)
03 Promethean Eyes (Loose Mix) (Clarian And The Breezes)
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 05:06 AM PDT
Hear a fresh round of homespun psychedelia from the London duo.
Ahead of its release on August 11 through The Quietus Phonographic Corporation, we’ve got an exclusive stream of Grumbling Fur’s third album.
Preternaturals is the follow-up to last year’s very special Glynnaestra – one of our favourite records of 2013 – and sees Daniel O’Sullivan and Alexander Tucker digesting influences from Spacemen 3 and Faust to Ram-era Paul McCartney and Philip K. Dick, plus the obligatory fistful of psychotropics. The record also features a collaboration with Tim Burgess on ‘Lightinsisters’ and artwork by Turner Prize nominee Mark Titchner.
Tucker calls it “our pop record”, but adds that “every record for us is the same, it's about encapsulating the time during which it was made. It's about the place where it was made, too, at that point where Tottenham starts to become the suburbs, in a 1930s house owned by the artist Ian Johnstone."
"The house is imbued with magickal energy,” says O’Sullivan. “Its walls and the contents within are the materials which record the fibres of time."
Find out more about that house in our 2013 interview with the duo, which touched on mescaline, metaphysics and the “rich lineage of English wyrd, with a y”. More recently, O’Sullivan and Tucker have both contributed to FACT’s Forgotten Classics series – read their essays on two verifiably wyrd albums by Lifetones and Mr & Mrs Smith and Mr Drake.
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 04:50 AM PDT
Each week on the FACT Singles Club, a selection of our writers work their way through the new music of the week gone by.
With the way individual tracks are now consumed, the idea of what constitutes a single has shifted dramatically in the last half a decade, and its for this reason that the songs reviewed across the next pages are a combination of 12″ vinyl releases, mixtape cuts, Soundcloud uploads and more. Up on the chopping board this week? SOPHIE, Rustie, Azealia Banks, Vessel and more.
Use your keyboard's arrow keys or hit the prev / next arrows on your screen to turn pages (page 1/8)
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 04:31 AM PDT
The reigning queen of rap drops the next one from The Pink Print.
After causing an avalanche of thinkpieces with nothing but her bare butt cheeks last week, Nicki Minaj has unveiled the single that goes with that meme-ready cover art.
Based on a sample of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s ass-worshipping ’90s hit ‘Baby Got Back’, ‘Anaconda’ is produced by Polow da Don & Da Internz and finds Minaj back on sharp lyrical form after the sugary-sweet ‘Pills N Potions’. You can get it on iTunes right away, or check out the stream below.
There’s also a snippet of the forthcoming (NSFW-ish) video, which you can watch below, and check out Minaj’s appearance on the remix of Beyonce’s ‘Flawless’, which now contains a reference to the famous “elevator incident”.
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 03:13 AM PDT
The label’s 10th birthday continues with a night at Corsica Studios next month.
The award-winning Kode9 will be joined by Jessy Lanza and Cooly G, both playing live, plus recent FACT mixer Ikonika, Scratcha DVA, Okzharp and Videeo & Nitetrax. A live set from a special guest has also been pencilled in for the night, which takes place on September 3. Tickets are available now.
Hyperdub have just announced the third of their anniversary compilations, this time offering a selection of ambient tracks from the likes of Lee Gamble, Fatima Al Qadiri, The Bug and Dean Blunt. The previous album showcase the label’s songwriters and vocalists, while the first was all about the dance floor.
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 02:43 AM PDT
SOPHIE‘s second single ‘Lemonade’ has already done its damage this past week – now the B-side, ‘Hard’, is streaming.
Released today on Numbers, you can stream a healthy minute of ‘Hard’ on Bleep’s website. And is it just us, or does that vocal sound a lot like Hannah Diamond?
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 02:42 AM PDT
After a few months of teasing, Jessie Ware has revealed full details of her second album Tough Love.
Released on October 6 worldwide and October 21 in North America through PMR / Island, the album is executive produced by BenZel (a.k.a. Two Inch Punch and super-producer Benny Blanco). It will be supported by a run of live shows.
R’n'b singer Miguel contributes to ‘You & I (Forever)’, ‘Kind of…Sometimes…Maybe’ and ‘Champagne Kisses’, while Ed Sheeran features on ‘Say You Love Me’ and James Ford contributes production to ‘Cruel and ‘Want Your Feeling’.Nineteen85, producer of Drake’s ‘Hold On We’re Going Home’, is behind the boards on ‘Desire’, while Julio Bashmore writes and produces on ‘Keep on Lying’. The Invisible’s Dave Okumu, who featured on Ware’s debut album Devotion, appears on ‘Sweetest Song’ and ‘Cruel’.
Tracklist
01. Tough Love
02. You & I (Forever)
03. Cruel
04. Say You Love Me
05. Sweetest Song
06. Kind of…Sometimes…Maybe
07. Want Your Feeling
08. Pieces
09. Keep on Lying
10. Champagne Kisses
11. Desire
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 02:31 AM PDT
Police made 11 arrests at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles on Saturday night.
Along with eight arrests for public drunkenness and two for ticket scalping (seriously America, calm it down), the cops also brought in a man accused of biting off the tip of another man’s finger.
Roberto Alcaraz-Garnica, 25, was arrested inside the stadium on suspicion of sexual battery and mayhem, which is legally defined as disabling or disfiguring a part of a victim's body. The Pasadena Star reports that during the concert he groped a woman in her 20s; her boyfriend confronted him, and a fight ensued.
"During the altercation, the suspect bit the victim, causing serious injury to his finger," the police said. "He lost the tip of one of his fingers." Alcaraz-Garcia is now being held on $100,000 bond.
Beyonce referenced another violent altercation in her Nicki Minaj-featuring remix of 'Flawless', released yesterday, adding a lyric about what went down in the elevator between Jay and her sister Solange.
Posted: 04 Aug 2014 01:59 AM PDT
A second person has died following Friday’s Mad Decent Block Party in Columbia, Maryland.
The death of the 17-year-old man from Woodbridge, Virginia, follows that of a 20-year-old man, named as Tyler Fox Viscardi. The second victim was pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby hospital where 20 other festival attendees also ended up.
Both deaths and many of the hospitalisations are believed to be drug-related, though toxicology results are still pending.
Mad Decent boss Diplo responded to the tragedy on Twitter, writing: “our hearts go out to everyone impacted by yesterday's event. we are truly devastated.”
The label offered a statement about the event on Saturday morning. “We were shocked and saddened when we heard the news from yesterday’s event at Merriweather Post Pavillion in Maryland,” said a note on their website. “Our hearts go out to everyone impacted by this. Right now, we are waiting along with everyone else for more information.”
Concert promoter Seth Hurwitz released a statement about the incident.
“Our hearts go out to the family as they face the unimaginable,” he said. “As a parent, it makes me horribly sad beyond words to think of a tragedy like this. We can spend every minute of the day making perfect sense to our children regarding the obvious perils of drugs, but sometimes it is impossible to convince them that this is relevant to their world.”
“This particular type of incident is not the problem of those who should have known better…it’s the problem of those too young to believe it could happen to them,” he continued. “Sadly we find ourselves in the classic position of trying to tell kids not to do something they think is fun.”
Police at Merriweather Post Pavilion also made three arrests for “assault on a police officer, domestic assault, and possession with intent to distribute marijuana” and gave out 50 tickets for underage drinking. [via Billboard]
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