Big Black Delta‘s Tour EP was one of my Top Ten faves of 2012, so I’m thrilled to hear news of an upcoming album. The self-titled disc will be released on April 9 on CD, digital, and vinyl via Masters Of Bates.
The first single, “Side of the Road,” is fantastic and features the same Big Black Delta hallmarks that I loved on their EP. It’s a synthy, spacey, and surprisingly emotional track that proves Bates knows how to do Autotune the right way (in part because he can actually sing).
Big Black Delta, a.k.a. Jonathan Bates, will be performing at this year’s SXSW, on Wednesday, March 13, at Cedar Street Courtyard. For details, visit the SXSW schedule page. You can also listen to another track on the SXSW website.
For more on the band, check out the Big Black Delta website.
It was only last month that Suede released a track from their upcoming album Bloodsports and now the official single and video are out.
It’s Suede, all right. Monochromatic, smoky, everyone looking dour. No longer the pretty young things (except for Richard Oakes, perhaps), but that’s not only fine, it’s preferable. We always loved the music the most, anyway. The song is also very much a Suede single, and actually improves towards the end when they sort of let loose. I’m looking forward to analyzing the lyrics to this and “Barriers” when the album is released.
Now who’s going to make an animated GIF of Brett Anderson’s slow clap? Because I need that in my life. Bloodsports is out on March 18.
The third single from Jesca Hoop‘s amazing The House That Jack Built album (review), is out now and there’s a video to go with it.
“I’ve been a fan of Banksy for ages,” explains Jesca. “This song is a splatter of inspirations that I have gathered from his pieces round the world. There are four or five specific pieces that inform the lyrics. I named the song ‘Ode To Banksy’ because, as a huge fan, I much prefer to keep the mystery of his identity alive . . . and while I was writing the song there were big press blasts to reveal his identity . . . which I ignored. I’ll keep him masked, thank you! This song is like pop art itself . . . for art’s sake. I am also a big a fan of Bobbie Gentry and her song ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ is a long time favorite of mine . . . the thought of the death of a great intrigue gave me a good excuse to write my own Ode.”
“Ode To Banksy”—with its catchy chorus and insistent guitar riffs—is another perfect example of the beautifully diverse talents of Ms. Hoop. If you haven’t yet heard The House That Jack Built, I highly recommend it.
Jesca Hoop will be supporting I Am Kloot on their February tour of the UK.
Tour Dates:
Feb. 12 – GLASGOW, Oran Mor
Feb. 13 – LEEDS, Irish Centre
Feb. 14 – MANCHESTER, The Ritz
Feb. 15 – MANCHESTER, The Ritz
Feb. 18 – NOTTINGHAM, Albert Hall
Feb. 19 – LONDON, Barbican
Feb. 21 – BRIGHTON, St Bartholomew’s Church
Feb. 22 – CAMBRIDGE, Junction
Feb. 23 – BRISTOL, Trinity
Feb. 24 – COVENTRY, Warwick Arts Centre
Photo © Griffin Shot
Iceage, who blew a lot of people away with their 2011 debut album New Brigade, have a new single. There’s not a proper video for “Coalition” per se, but you can listen to it on YouTube.
If you haven’t yet heard Iceage, this is a great intro. They’ve clearly kept the same aesthetic that made New Brigade so exciting, but “Coalition” sounds ever so slightly more mature (and not in a stodgy, old fart way).
The band’s second album, You’re Nothing, will be out February 19 on Matador. You can pre-order it on the Matador website. The band is also embarking on a massive tour beginning January 24 in Connecticut. For more, check out the band’s blog.
Tour Dates:
Thu. Jan. 24 — Middletown, CT @ Wesleyan University (Eclectic House) – FREE SHOW
Fri. Jan. 25 — Brooklyn, NY @ 285 Kent
Sat. Jan. 26 — New York, NY @ Home Sweet Home
Thu. Jan. 31 – Berlin, DE @ CTM Festival
Fri. Feb. 1 – Amsterdam, NL @ Grauzone Festival
Mon. Feb. 25 – Glasgow, UK @ Broadcast
Tue. Feb. 26 – Liverpool, UK @ Shipping Forecast
Wed. Feb. 27 – Sheffield, UK @ Shakespeare’s
Thu. Feb. 28 – London, UK @ Electrowerkz
Fri. March 1 – Brighton, UK @ The Albert
Sat. March 2 – Nottingham, UK @ Chameleon Arts Café
Mon. March 4 – Paris, FR @ Espace B
Tue. March 5 – Brussels, BE @ Les Ateliers Claus
Wed. March 6 – Eindhoven, NL @ Area 51
Fri. March 8 – Munster, DE @ Gleiss 22
Sat. March 9 – Gronigen, NL @ Vera
Sun. March 10 – Hamburg, DE @ Hafenklang
Wed. March 20 – Vancouver, BC @ the Biltmore w/ Spectres
Thu. March 21 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza
Fri. March 22 – Olympia, WA @ Capital Theater (backstage)
Sat. March 23 – Portland, OR @ Star Theater
Mon. March 25 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop w/ Merchandise, Wet Hair
Tue. March 26 – Oakland, CA @ New Parish w/ Merchandise, Wet Hair
Thu. March 28 – Bakersfield, CA @ Munoz Gym w/ Milk Music
Fri. March 29 – Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex w/ Milk Music
Sun. March 31 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah w/ Milk Music
Mon. April 1 – Tempe, AZ @ Deadhorse Warehouse w/ Milk Music, Destruction Unit
Thu. April 4 – Denver, CO @ Marquis Theater w/ Merchandise, Wet Hair
Sat. April 6 – Grinnell, IA @ Grinnell College w/ Wet Hair – FREE SHOW
Sun. April 7 – Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock Club
Tue. April 9 – Madison, WI @ University of Wisconsin – FREE SHOW
Wed. April 10 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle w/ Final Grin
Thu. April 11 – Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups
Fri. April 12 – Pittsburgh, PA @ 6119
Tue. April 16 – Burlington, VT @ Monkey House w/ White Lung
Wed. April 17 – Boston, MA @ TT the Bear’s w/ White Lung
Thu. April 18 – New Haven, CT @ Lilly’s Pad (Toad’s Place Upstairs)
Fri. April 19 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church w/ White Lung
Sat. April 20 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom w/ White Lung
Thu. May 30 – Sun. June 2 – Austin, TX @ Chaos in Tejas
In case you hadn’t heard, Adam Ant has been touring the UK and the US throughout the last couple of years. He’s also got a new album ready to drop on January 21 in the UK. The first single, “Cool Zombie,” was released November 21 along with the accompanying video.
If you’re an Adam Ant fan, you probably know this already. Inevitably, though, there has been and will be a lot of chatter along the lines of, “Adam Ant is still around? I thought he was crazy and/or dead.”
It would be impossible to try and sum up all that’s transpired over the past decade or so regarding Adam’s musical career—not to mention his mental, emotional, and legal struggles&mdsh;in a few paragraphs. The man has been to hell and back and to brush it off as merely a rough patch would be incredibly disrespectful.
If you’ve not seen or heard Adam in a while, you might cringe at this song and video. But get over it (and yourself) because it’s actually a good song. I didn’t think it was that catchy when I first heard it, but when I found it stuck in my head for a few days, I changed my mind.
No, he doesn’t look the same as he did 20 years ago. Yes, he’s gone bald and gained some weight. Check out some of the YouTube clips of his recent live performances, though, and you’ll quickly figure out that he’s the same fantastic performer he’s always been, albeit a little older and wiser.
The new, long-anticipated and much-delayed album, Adam Ant is The BlueBlack Hussar In Marrying The Gunners Daughter, will be out next Monday. You can pre-order it on Amazon.co.uk. You can also order the single on iTunes. Check out Adam’s Facebook page for links to articles, videos, and other goodies.
By J Howell
The new Atoms For Peace single, “Judge Jury and Executioner” isn’t a radical departure for Thom Yorke—think three-quarters of the way between the mostly-electronica of The Eraser and the partial electronica of recent-vintage Radiohead. Recognizable as the work of Yorke and longtime producer Nigel Godrich within seconds, “Judge Jury and Executioner” is hypnotic, somewhat cold and compelling. The track may not surprise longtime fans, but it is likely to please. Yorke’s voice, layered and reverberated as a background instrument itself throughout, is simultaneously familiar and slightly unsettling.
“Judge Jury and Executioner” is available for download now at the Atoms For Peace website and iTunes, and a 12” single with the non-album B-side “S.A.D.” is available for pre-order as well, to be released March 19. Atoms For Peace’s debut album, Amok, is available February 26.
By Cait Brennan
It came like a bolt of lightning in the dead of night: news of a new David Bowie album, his first in a decade, announced with no advance notice in the wee hours of his 66th birthday. The Next Day, Bowie’s 30th studio album, produced by Tony Visconti (!), will be released March 8 in Australia, March 11 in most of the rest of the world and March 12th in the US, with a new single, “Where Are We Now?” available on iTunes now.
Watch the full video on Vimeo.
After health issues sidelined Bowie in 2004, fans have been hoping against hope that the singular rock and roll icon would one day return to music, but there was scant evidence it would ever happen. His suitably theatrical return sent social media into a frenzy, putting him atop Twitter’s trending topics within minutes. Radio stations around the world scrambled to play the track first, with BBC 6Music earning honors as the World Premiere play, edging BBC Radio 2 by a few short minutes.
“Where Are We Now?” is a meditative ballad of “a man lost in time, walking the dead,” recalling in both lyrical geography and atmosphere his Berlin trilogy, coupled with a sound reminiscent of his most recent albums Reality and Heathen. The track is accompanied by a hearteningly weird video filled with expressionist imagery and the Thin White Duke himself transformed into a tiny malformed creature with two heads, one of which is a girl.
Henceforth, Christmas is officially moved to January 8.
The album is available for pre-order via iTunes in both standard and deluxe editions (the latter featuring three bonus tracks). Visit davidbowie.com/the-next-day for the latest.