New David Bowie Single/Video: “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”

By Less Lee Moore

As if working on a new album for two years in secret wasn’t enough of a coup, now David Bowie has a new video for the song “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” featuring Tilda Swinton and models Andrej Pejic and Saskia de Brauw.

For fans of both Bowie and Swinton, this is fairly amazing, as their remarkably similar, androgynous looks have been the subject of endless Internet memes as well as the Tumblr blog Tilda Stardust, which seeks to prove that the two are the same person.

For those who follow fashion, the appearance of both Pejic and de Brauw is nearly as fascinating as the two are perhaps the biggest Bowie androgynes after Swinton herself.

Although Bowie has been declining various public appearances over the years (The Victoria & Albert Museum retrospective, the London Olympics Closing Ceremony), he’s clearly not been ignoring pop culture in his “increasingly reclusive” life. Not only does he include Swinton, Pejic, and de Brauw in the video, it’s directed by Floria Sigismondi, who is responsible for the decidedly Bowie- and Velvet Goldmine-influenced film The Runaways. (It’s all so meta!)

Intriguingly, Swinton doesn’t play Bowie in the video (that would be too easy), but Bowie’s wife. As they go grocery shopping together, she praises their “nice life” after he remarks that the people on the cover of a tabloid are “more exciting than anything we’ve got around here.” (For more self-referential material, check out the photo in the upper right corner of the fake tabloid.) The song’s commentary on celebrity, stars, and transformation is made manifest visually through some brilliant editing and costumes.

One can even imagine Bowie laughing at that Daily Mail article from last fall and that this video is his response. Clearly he’s pulled off the biggest transformation of his career and bested us all, yet again.

The Next Day comes out on March 12.

Music Review: Las Acevedo, Homemade Cookies EP

By Chelsea Spear

Sometimes judging a record by its sleeve yields unexpected rewards. While reading the blog Puerto Rico Indie in search of news about a rumored upcoming release by Rita Indiana, I came across a free compilation put together by the up-and-coming band Las Acevedo. The hand-drawn and collaged sleeve art, with its depiction of a purple-haired, antlered girl snuggling a guitar, drew me in, and within a matter of seconds I found myself purchasing their EP Homemade Cookies from their Bandcamp site.

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New Remixes, Videos From Parenthetical Girls

By Less Lee Moore

It’s been just a week since the release of Parenthetical Girls‘ Privilege* album (review), but we want more! Luckily, there are two remixes and a video performance to help the greedy ones.

Los Campesinos! have transformed “Sympathy For Spastics” by adding a sprightly synth beat while amplifying and repeating the song’s original, already haunting piano track.

“Young Throats” has been tackled by YACHT, who have replaced the opening wave of keyboards—and most of the vocals and other instruments—with a sparse, robotic drumbeat and synths, while keeping the spine of the track intact.

The band also recorded a live performance of “Curtains” in this video on a decrepit, long-retired riverboat in the first of a four-part documentary video series.

Parenthetical Girls will begin their North American tour on March 6 at Holocene in Portland, OR. For more visit the new Privilege Abridged website or the Parenthetical Girls website.

Music Review: Emily Bindiger, EMiLY

By Chelsea Spear

Before Kate Bush or Fiona Apple, there was Emily Bindiger. While on summer leave from the High School of the Performing Arts in New York, Bindiger was cast in the legendary, star-making French revue Double V. She dropped out of school and traveled to Paris alone to appear in the show. Through Double V, Bindiger met Michel Polnareff, who introduced her to the members of the psychedelic pop band Dynastie Crisis. Bindiger’s lone solo album, EMiLY, was released through Pathe in 1972. In honor of the album’s fortieth anniversary, British label Cherry Red has given EMiLY its MP3 debut.

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DVD Review: Paul Williams: Still Alive

By John Lane

Bar none, one of the sweetest documentaries that anyone will view in a lifetime is Stephen Kessler’s Paul Williams: Still Alive, just released on DVD. The bar had been set extraordinarily high when 2010 saw the release of Who Is Harry Nilsson? (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him). After years of our culture pumping out salacious VH1 Behind-the-Music-style garbage about musicians, I had all but assumed intimate portraits with heart were doomed. The Nilsson documentary restored my faith that an honorable rendering could be done; Kessler’s film on musician/entertainer/actor Paul Williams solidifies that feeling for good.

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Assemblog: February 22, 2013

Inside Llewyn Davis

New this week on Popshifter: Paul takes Men’s Rights Advocates to task in his article on Women in Gaming and tells tales of pro wrestling redemptions; Chelsea loves Lady Lamb the Beekeeper’s first full-length album RiPLEY PINE; I fawn over new releases from Parenthetical Girls, Dawn McCarthy & Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and Iceage, share the latest from Big Black Delta, and review French Horn Rebellion’s newest EP Love Is Dangerous; and Hanna admires both the humor and scientific methods found in The Marriage of True Minds from Matmos.

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Music Review: Matmos, The Marriage of True Minds

By Hanna

One of the best things about Matmos is their enduring sense of the wacky. It’s rare to find truly challenging and avant garde music, but rarer still to find some with a sense of humor. One of the ways that expresses itself is in their penchant for bizarre—almost gimmicky—methods of making music and collecting sounds.

This time this is focused less on the use of weird noises, but on the entire way of making the album. The buzzword for The Marriage of True Minds is telepathy, continuing from The Ganzfeld EP from last year (review). Both works were made using ganzfeld experiments; a pseudoscientific method of tapping into the psychic senses by limiting regular sensory perception and creating a ganzfeld effect; an effect similar to sensory deprivation. It’s characterized by the halved ping pong balls placed over the eyes, like the beginnings of a Crow from MST3K cosplay. By carrying out ganzfeld experiments on their friends over the years and recording the results, the basic structure of this album was formed.

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Music Review: French Horn Rebellion, Love Is Dangerous EP

By Less Lee Moore

In 2011, French Horn Rebellion released The Infinite Music of French Horn Rebellion. The 14-song album was a schizophrenic mixture of EDM, disco, synthpop, guitar solos, smooth jams, stark piano pieces, feedback, radio interference, and I’m pretty sure I heard some humpback whales in there. For an album described as “an intergalactic narrative that tracks the physical and emotional journey of an unknown French horn player” this seems completely logical.

Yet French Horn Rebellion aren’t zany for the sake of it, as there are some beautiful moments on The Infinite Music, particularly the vocals of the hilariously named “Mawson’s Peak” (reminiscent of Martin Gore’s Depeche Mode songs) and the sweet, wistful ’80s pop of “Last Summer.”

French Horn Rebellion’s latest single, “Love Is Dangerous,” features The Knocks’ Jpatt, and is an unrelentingly hook-heavy disco stomper. The song—along with two remixes from Chrome Canyon and FHRekles—appears on the EP of the same name.

Love Is Dangerous includes another awesome track, “Cold Enough,” with the vocals of none other than Jody Watley. It’s got a more mellow groove, but is still a siren song to get asses on the dance floor.

Love Is Dangerous was released on December 12, 2012 and can be ordered from the French Horn Rebellion website.

Upcoming Shows:
March 21: Treefort Music Fest 2013 in Boise, ID
Thu Apr 18: Red Room, Cafe 939, Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA\

Music Review: Iceage, You’re Nothing

By Less Lee Moore

When we last heard from Iceage in 2011, they were causing quite a stir with their debut album New Brigade (review). Encapsulating yet confounding the parameters of post-punk and hardcore in this new millennium, critics and music fans took notice. Now Iceage has returned with You’re Nothing, which does all it can to beautifully obliterate New Brigade, while still retaining the spirit that made that album so good.

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Music Review: Dawn McCarthy & Bonnie “Prince” Billy, What The Brothers Sang

By Less Lee Moore

It could easily be argued that without The Everly Brothers, the history of rock & roll would be vastly different. When Don’s baritone and Phil’s tenor were combined in their unique, close harmony singing style, it provided an enormous influence on the vocals of Lennon and McCartney, Simon and Garfunkel, and countless others. Don’s open-G guitar tuning inspired no less a musical dignitary than Keith Richards, among others.

Their talents translated to the Billboard charts as well. “Wake Up Little Susie,” released in 1957, ascended to #1 on the Country, Pop, R&B, and Canadian charts, as well as #2 on the UK charts. Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, the Cadence Records songwriting team, wrote the track while the brothers were on the Nashville-based label. In the late ’50s, under the stewardship of music publishing house Acuff-Rose, the brothers would enjoy chart success with more Bryant-penned hits on Cadence like “Bird Dog,” “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” and “Devoted To You.”

However, feeling stifled by Rose’s demands, the brothers left for what they thought were greener pastures at Warner Bros. in 1960. Although they were no longer privy to Bryant compositions, Don’s composition “Cathy’s Clown,” released in 1960, reached #1. The brothers would enjoy success in the UK through the early part of the decade, but their appearances on US charts began to diminish. One-digit chart hits turned to three-digit ones and soon ceased altogether. By the time the Beatles were breaking chart records in 1964, the Everlys’ biggest successes were behind them, with the exception of their #2 UK hit “The Price of Love” in 1965.

The singles-based musical economy of the time meant that radio and incessant touring were part of the daily grind; this had begun to take its toll not long after the brothers left Cadence for Warner Bros. Drug addictions, suicide attempts, nervous breakdowns, broken marriages, and estranged children eventually dampened much of the youthful exuberance of the Everlys, who had been performing music nearly since birth, under the tutelage of their father, Ike. (The senior Everly had his own radio show in Iowa—on which his sons appeared—and his fingerpicking guitar style fostered a big influence of its own.)

Tensions escalated to a boiling point, culminating in a notorious alcohol-fueled spat during a 1973 Knott’s Berry Farm concert in which an enraged Phil smashed his guitar and stormed offstage, leaving a shattered Don to sober up and finish the set solo. It would be ten years before the brothers would even speak to each other, much less record or play together. They eventually made up, playing a reunion show at the Royal Albert Hall in 1983 and releasing two critically acclaimed albums later that decade, even continuing to tour together throughout the next two decades. Though their relationship remained cordial and at times, strained, the incandescence of their musical partnership has never dimmed.

Now to the present day, and a different pair of singers and musicians: Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie “Prince” Billy (a.k.a. Will Oldham). The duo, who have performed together and separately, enlisted the help of an impressive array of their own former collaborators as well as much-respected Nashville session musicians to create What The Brothers Sang, a tribute album to the Everly Brothers.

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