The Other Music Update

Having trouble viewing this email? Go to othermusic.com/2013february28update.html



	February 28, 2013


	FEATURED NEW RELEASES Beach Fossils The Asphodells Atoms for Peace Autre Ne Veut Hair Police Shout Out Louds		Johnny Marr Bomba Estereo Mount Moriah Shindig! Magazine #31 PRE-ORDER Stornoway Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/othermusicnyc Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/othermusic

MAR

Sun 24

Mon 25

Tues 26

Wed 27

Thurs 28

Fri 01

Sat 02

		WIN TICKETS TO DAEDELUS This Saturday, Daedelus returns to New York, the West Coast electronic producer/purveyor playing a live set at Le Poisson Rouge, along with Salva, Ryan Hemsworth and Samo Sound Boy -- the night presented by MeanRed Productions. Other Music is giving away two pairs of tickets to the show and you can enter for your chance to win by emailing tickets@othermusic.com. SATURDAY, MARCH 1 LE POISSON ROUGE: 158 Bleecker St. NYC

MAR

Sun 03

Mon 04

Tues 05

Wed 06

Thurs 07

Fri 08

Sat 09

		CHELSEA LIGHT MOVING IN-STORE PERFORMANCE Thurston Moore's new band, Chelsea Light Moving, are swinging by Other Music this Sunday, March 3, to perform an in-store before hitting the road for their month-long tour. We have to say that their self-titled debut is awesome and the group will have copies for sale that night, a few days before its official release on Matador. This one's not to be missed, so we'll see you on Sunday! SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 7:30 P.M. OTHER MUSIC: 15 E. 4th St. NYC

MAR

Sun 03

Mon 04

Tues 05

Wed 06

Thurs 07

Fri 08

Sat 09

		WIN TICKETS TO INDIANS With a much-anticipated debut full-length, Somewhere Else, just released on 4AD, Copenhagen's Indians (the nom de plume of Soren Lokke Juul) will be making a return to New York City, performing at Mercury Lounge next Thursday, March 7, with Night Beds opening. Other Music is giving away a pair of tickets to this great double bill so enter right now by sending an email to giveaway@othermusic.com. THURSDAY, MARCH 7 MERCURY LOUNGE: 217 E. Houston St. NYC

MAR

Sun 10

Mon 11

Tues 12

Wed 13

Thurs 14

Fri 15

Sat 16

		SHOUT OUT LOUDS TICKET GIVE AWAY With their brand new album, Optica, just released (and reviewed below in the Update), Stockholm's Shout Out Louds will be coming through New York playing at Brooklyn's Music Hall of Williamsburg on Monday, March 11. The show is SOLD OUT, so if you slept on getting tickets you'll be happy to know that Other Music has a couple of pair up for grabs courtey of Merge Records to this great night! Just email contest@othermusic.com for your chance to win. MONDAY, MARCH 11 MUSIC HALL OF WILLIAMSBURG: 66 N. 6th St. BKLYN


	$12.99 CD $14.99 LP+MP3 $14.99 LP - Deluxe Edition		BEACH FOSSILS Clash the Truth (Captured Tracks) "Generational Synthetic" "Burn You Down" For my money, the ace up Dustin Payseur's songwriting sleeve is drummer Thomas Gardner. With a mathematical sensibility and quick wrists that rattle off stunning rolls, Gardner acts as the scaffold for Payseur's silky guitar leads, as well as the engine that shoots Clash the Truth far past the group's mellow 2010 debut. Gardner's intensity and precision recall the stick work of Gary Baker when he drummed for McCarthy, the British indie band from which Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier would graduate to form Stereolab. And just as McCarthy combined cathartic guitar pop with a leftist political identity, Payseur has imbued the songs here with electrically charged lyrics that fully complement the group's livelier sound. On "Generational Synthetic," one of the many standout songs on the album, Payseur wonders aloud about the ethics of licensing songs atop a militaristic rat-a-tat from Gardner's snare drum. "Trade a fortune for a song/what we wanted all along/all your words are so magnetic/generation apathetic," he sings, confronting the uneasy relationship between music and commerce the Beach Fossils way -- with guitars that seem welded to chorus and echo effect pedals. "Sleep Apnea," a lovely acoustic track that has the drippy psychedelic vibe of the last Atlas Sound record, sounds like the scribbled thoughts of a mind scattered by months of constant touring: "I'm staring at the sky, but I can't tell which way my thoughts are traveling." Clash the Truth hits a vigorous stride with a trio of powerful songs in the middle of the album: the aptly-titled "Burn You Down" acts as the galloping intro to the distortion-heavy "Birthday," which blooms beautifully into "In Vertigo," a track that features vocals from Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead and sounds like a lost Lush b-side. I love the stark, understated production on this record, especially the way that Gardner's drums don't so much "boom" as "punch," the way late-'70s/early-'80s post-punk drums did, and the way the guitars cut without slicing apart Payseur's vocals. Clash the Truth is the definitive Beach Fossils album to date, and highly recommended. [MS]


	$17.99 CD $24.99 LP		THE ASPHODELLS Ruled by Passion, Destroyed by Lust (Rotters Golf Club) "Never There" "One Minutes Silence" The Asphodells is the new project from one of the originators of the 'indie-dance' genre, Andrew Weatherall, along with his recent collaborator Timothy J. Fairplay. Weatherall is a pioneer of IDM and leftfield techno, and he flirted with crossover success in the late-'80s as the go-to remixer and producer for a few choice British bands, like Primal Scream, Happy Mondays and New Order. This new project takes elements from his best-known dub/dance incarnations as Two Lone Swordsman and Sabres of Paradise, as Weatherall creates a throbbing, pulsing, dark and dubby mix of Kraftwerk-inspired electronica with flourishes of acid house, techno, and new wave. Ruled by Passion, Destroyed by Lust (great title, btw) is a perfect update of the aesthetic embraced by labels like Italians Do It Better, Minimal Wave or Dark Entries, yet with a modernist, almost timeless touch and an intrinsic understanding of how electronic dance music fits into the rock equation. The record seamlessly moves between vocal and instrumental songs with a few versions and dubs added; one moment the feel is dub-disco reminiscent of something the Knife might dream up, while the next opens up into memories of John Foxx or early Human League. There's even a great cover of A.R. Kane's deep album cut "A Love from Outerspace." Incorporating live instruments (keyboards, bass, guitar, melodica, and percussion) along with lots of crisp and tasty programming, the sound and mood feels spot-on sitting next to many younger bands attempting a similar cross-genre palette. Fairplay handles the programming with a vibrant flair and solid swing, helping Weatherall clearly accomplish his fusion with clean and precise rhythms that never come across as sterile, not to mention that Weatherall's moody, distant vocals never feel deadpan. Like a combination of his now classic Nine O'clock Drop compilation and the Masterpiece collection of his remixes for Ministry of Sound, this is the best kind of retro update: mature, skilled and flawless from start to finish. Those who like recent albums from the Liars, Matthew Dear, Chromatics or LCD Soundsystem shouldn't hesitate checking this one out; Weatherall is now one of the elder statesmen of the indie-dance genre and he shows the younger generation how it should be done. Definitely a 10 out of 10 in my book, and it gets better with every listen. [DG]


	$12.99 CD $16.99 CD - Deluxe Edition $19.99 LPx2 $33.99 LPx2 - Deluxe Edition		ATOMS FOR PEACE Amok (XL Recordings) "Before Your Very Eyes..." "Stuck Together Pieces" As the mouthpiece of perhaps the most highly cherished, hyper analyzed, and relentlessly "important" chart-topping band of the modern era, one can imagine why Thom Yorke might want to blow off some steam with a side-project now and then. From their songs to their sound to their stage sets right down to their release formats, nothing Radiohead does escapes the klieg lights and microscopes of their obsessed fans, and really, whatever your feelings it's not hard to see why; Radiohead are one of the more meticulously conceived and executed artistic projects in pop culture today. That band is a fiercely ambitious collaborative group that has continually reinvented itself throughout its 20-year career, and at each turn, both their commercial and critical success only seems to deepen. As such, it was easy to "forgive" Yorke's 2006 solo outing, The Eraser, for its relatively minor stature; as guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood has used his time away from Radiohead in recent years to craft a series of subtle film soundtracks, Yorke has similarly seemed to purposefully avoid the spotlight with his extracurricular activities. The Eraser was a low-key album of laptop pop, and besides a handful of live performances with the same group of guys who have now morphed into Atoms for Peace, Yorke's occasional solo gigs have usually been small-venue DJ sets. Atoms for Peace grew out of The Eraser live act, including longtime Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, and well-established L.A. session dudes percussionist Mauro Refosco and drummer Joey Waronker, but despite the all-star cast and the newfound "band" esthetic, this is in almost all discernable ways a follow-up to that record. It has a more fleshed-out sound than The Eraser, and it best hits the mark when these talented players are not kept in the background; despite what many of Yorke's more sensitive fans may feel about Flea, the dude is both supremely talented and pretty damn tasteful here. The songs were developed in a very similar way to how this group realized The Eraser tracks live; starting with Yorke's laptop productions, the band jammed in the studio, adding textures and groove to the songs, riffing on Afrobeat and vintage funk without ever overwhelming the original whispered nature of the compositions. Set opener "Before Your Eyes" really shows what Atoms for Peace can do best, with a complex skittering rhythm and hypnotic melodic guitar riff serving as a bed for Yorke's gentle crooning, and while it's masterful and quite satisfying, I can't help but wish they would just go a bit deeper, a bit heavier, and that might be my criticism of the whole record -- it too rarely digs in. Regardless, this is lovely, original and engaging stuff, and while Atoms for Peace in the final analysis can only be viewed as a side-project, fans of Yorke, or really any of these guys, should give a listen. [JM]


	$10.99 CD $16.99 LP		AUTRE NE VEUT Anxiety (Software/Mexican Summer) "Counting" "Gonna Die" Given where he's been and what he's done thus far, the strangest thing about Arthur Ashin's second LP under his Autre Ne Veut moniker is how deliciously natural it sounds. I realize that, for some, pegging Anxiety (his first LP for Daniel Lopatin's Software imprint), a bright, glossy album drenched in synth-pop and R&B overtures and Ashin's take-it-or-leave-it falsetto, as a relatively straightforward affair seems like a stretch. And while he does have a penchant for disrupting his tracks with bizarre discordant guitar stabs and disruptive, pitch-shifted vocals, the ten songs gathered herein display the mark of a talented pop craftsman and a producer with an unflinching knack for tiny details. Opening with a stunning one-two punch of "Play by Play" and "Counting," Ashin wastes no time setting the stage for what's to come, adorning his songs with skittering drum kicks and a dizzying array of keys that only build in intensity to match his fevered vocals. From there, he works his way through "Ego Free Sex Free," which if you squint a little sounds like it could have been cooked up in parts by The-Dream. There are even a few moments here that would seem to channel some restrained old school sophisti-pop, with tracks like "Gonna Die" taking a more beatifically understated route (in all but the vocals, of course). At any given moment, each of these songs balances a fine line between careful execution and overcooked mess. It's a credit to Ashin's abilities, though, that all that's left when Anxiety concludes is the lingering taste of his undeniable hooks, drum blasts, and sweet synth stabs. [MC]


	$21.99 LP		HAIR POLICE Mercurial Rites (Type) American Midwest outfit Hair Police return for the first time in half a decade with a heavy, heavy dose of skull-cracking, brain-melting psychedelic noise rock for the Type label. Mercurial Rites is an album not for the squeamish, with its blend of slow, pounding and cavernous ceremonial percussion, shredded vocals, swollen drones, and dripping, crackling, sonic textures coming together in what sounds not unlike a pagan ritual hotwired through dripping beer cans and fluttering VHS copies of The Holy Mountain and Halloween. The vibe is dark yet clear, mixed with a streamlined sense of space that lets each claustrophobic element breathe down your neck, leaving the listener constantly looking over their shoulder for something lurking in the shadows that will inevitably bring them harm. It's beautifully crafted, taking an atmosphere that could easily come off as shock tactics and sniggering in-jokes, and instead shows itself here to be respectful of true and proper composition and arrangement. It's obvious that there was time and thought put into each of these pieces, and while fans of their back catalogue and other refusenik noise merchants will no doubt be jumping toward this with eager, sweaty palms, listeners who have enjoyed recent dispatches by the Blackest Ever Black and Death Waltz labels, not to mention the likes of Psychic Ills, Swans, and even Coil will perhaps find these shadows quite comfortable to blanket themselves under. [IQ]


	$14.99 CD $18.99 LP+MP3		SHOUT OUT LOUDS Optica (Merge) "Sugar" "Blue Ice" This long-running Swedish indie-pop group has gradually refined their approach over the years, adding more cool melancholy and subtlety their sugary sound, but the hooky songwriting and simple pop joys that always defined the band remain on Optica, the Shout Out Louds' fourth full-length. This self-produced new album continues on the trajectory of 2010's Work, with an icy sheen and slick production sound that brings to mind mid-'80s Cure, or any number of their gloomy British contemporaries, but without abandoning the manicured drums, chiming guitars and radio-ready orchestration that producer Phil Ek brought to the last one, and the band have returned just enough of their former ragged joyfulness to give Optica a welcome jolt of adrenaline. Let yourself swoon into the one-two punch of album opener "Sugar" and its heart-tugging guitar riffs, followed by the electro-pop bounce of "Illusions," and see if the mopey teen in you can resist -- I'm guessing it can't. [JM]


	$14.99 CD		JOHNNY MARR The Messenger (New Voodoo) "Upstarts" "Sun and Moon" As half the creative force behind the Smiths, Johnny Marr's songwriting and iconic guitar sound had a profound influence on music and culture across Britain and the world -- so much so that he was recently named a "Godlike Genius" by the NME after basically coasting as an axe-for-hire for the past 25 years. Now, after years of excellent if not exactly defining session and tour work with any number of great bands, Marr's first proper solo album puts that incredible tone and talent in a new context, as he writes, plays, sings and produces a full LP of classic Britpop jangle. A love letter to his history and influences, Marr harnesses the ghosts of Marc Bolan, Ray Davies, and perhaps more overtly, any number of the chart-topping groups that followed in the Smiths' footsteps, giving the album more of a nostalgic '90s vibe than anything else. Opener "The Right Thing Right" melds his trademark penetrating hooks with some enchanting Northern soul. The autobiographical "New Town Velocity" delivers a meditation and musing that one could imagine might be sung by Steven Patrick Morrissey -- though of course the prose would be slightly more morose. "Upstarts" is punchy Buzzcocks pop that relies on the riff and the spike of the hook. "European Me" is dripping with lustrous new wave brilliance, and a classic frenetic solo. It's a solidly enjoyable album and any fan of Marr's playing will find much to get lost in; if it's not exactly breaking any new ground, well, I guess at this point you can leave that to the mortals. [MF]


	$14.99 CD		BOMBA ESTEREO Elegancia Tropical (Soundway) "Bailar Conmigo" "Lo Que Tengo Que Decir" Bomba Estereo are a contemporary Colombian ensemble who blend cumbia and champeta music with a more modern, clubby production aesthetic; their newest record, Elegancia Tropical, sees them using cumbia and soukous rhythms and melodies as a starting point for what is essentially a raucous yet sleek electro-pop album with heavy dance floor intentions. Those looking for the rough-riding rhythms of traditional cumbieros will perhaps be disappointed, but that's not really the point with these guys; they're taking the music of their roots and presenting it to a newer, younger audience in a context that they can perhaps better understand, with layers of liquid keyboards, fuzzy bass grooves, and percolating percussion played both live and via programmed beats. The glue holding this all together, though, is singer Li Saumet's chameleonic presence -- she coos, cries, struts, and even raps her way through this party, and proves to be one of the more versatile and talented vocalists I've heard in a while. Fans of genre-smashing club pop acts like Buraka Som Sistema (with whom Bomba collaborates here), Santigold, and even M.I.A. should check this out, as it's exploring similar ground, but from a different approach, while those who are looking for some solid electro-pop sounds with a bit of a twist will also find much to love here. [IQ]


	$13.99 CD $18.99 LP+MP3		MOUNT MORIAH Miracle Temple (Merge) "Bright Light" "Rosemary" The second full-length from North Carolina's Mount Moriah, whose founding members Heather McEntire and Jenks Miller are veterans of Bellafea and Horseback respectively, two noisy ensembles each in their own right and far from the American folk, country and southern rock-n-roll sounds that inform this group. Picking up from their 2011 debut (Holidays for Quince) and adding bassist Casey Toll to their ranks, the now-trio's latest is more fleshed out than its predecessor, with ringing electric guitars, keys, violins, pedal steel and drums backing the heartfelt croon of McEntire, who sings personal, timeless tales of desire, heartache and betrayal with wonderful nuance and emotion.


	$8.99 MG		SHINDIG! MAGAZINE Issue #31 (Shindig!) Great new edition of Shindig!, here's what's inside -- "Shocking Blue: Long And Lonesome Road: The Dutch Pop Machine That Ate the World; The Rolling Stones: Into the Dark Heart of Their Satanic Majesties Request; Iain Matthews: From Fairport to Southern Comfort and Beyond; Jellyfish: Short-lived Saviours of Retro Pop with a Sting in the Tail; The Choir & Cyrus Erie: Back to the Mod Roots of The Raspberries. Plus: Richard Thompson, The Association, The Mynah Birds, Jefferson Airplane and much more!"


	Pre-Order $13.99 CD $17.99 LP		STORNOWAY Terra Firma (4AD) Stornoway's sophomore album refines their already highly refined pop productions, pushing boundaries both sonically and lyrically, pining for adventure while looking deeply inside one's own heart and soul; heavy, heady stuff, it's a great new album, and you can pre-order your copy now! (Will be shipped to arrive at your door on or near its March 19th release date.)


	PHONE ORDERS Phone orders are accepted at (212) 477-8150 (ext. #2, mailorder) Mon-Fri, Noon - 7pm EST EMAIL For general inquiries or other information please email sales@othermusic.com. Do not reply to this message. REMOVE This is an automated list. If you would like to be removed for any reason: Click here to unsubscribe		THIS WEEK'S CONTRIBUTORS [MC] Michael Crumsho [MF] Michael Fellows [DG] Daniel Givens [IQ] Mikey IQ Jones [JM] Josh Madell [MS] Michael Stasiak THANKS FOR READING - all of us at Other Music

Newsletter Design Big Code