We All Want Someone To Shout For

The National just played a brand new song on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon called Terrible Love. It’s going to be the opening track on High Violet, and what a perfect choice. It’s a brilliant song that builds and builds until the song explodes to emotional heights. It’s pretty immense.

Jimmy Fallon already has the performance on their site, so if you missed it, we already have it for you to watch:

You can grab some of the promised goodies right now at HighViolet.com. There are videos showing some small clips of studio sessions. We get a small glimpse of new songs, but they are so short that you can hardly call them teasers. There are also 3 photos. One of which looks like the High Violet album art (which is posted above!). The other two look like the tracklisting for the album, but look closely and they are different. The people on the All The Wine forums are saying it shows the same songs just with the amendments that they made to them over time. Pretty cool documents eh?

Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot just got off the phone with Julian Casablancas. The front man of The Strokes confirmed that The Strokes will be playing Lollapalooza this summer.

He also projected a September release date for their 4th album which is started to wrap up.

Lucky Chi-Town folks. I hope that there is an All Points West this year, or else it looks like I am shit out of luck.

Read the article at the Chicago Tribune.

We have loads and loads of good free music given out today. Add a new Here We Go Magic song to that list. They announced that they will be releasing their new album Pigeons on June 8th via Secretly Canadian. The song is called “Collector”. It was given away for free on Secretly Candian for an email address.

I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure I heard Luke Temple and co. play this when they opened for Grizzly Bear at Town Hall last year (great gig). To me “Collector” sounds more fleshed out than a lot of the stuff on their debut album (which was a good album!). The production seems stronger, and having the full band record for this album definitely makes a world of difference. This sounds like a fuller, more colorful vision from Luke Temple, and I am a huge fan of this.

Didn’t expect anything new from them this early so this was a really nice surprise.

[mp3] : Here We Go Magic – Collector

Visit the band on their website.

Tracklisting for the rest of Pigeons is posted after the jump

Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Dog are offering the first single from their new album Shame, Shame for free. It’s called Stranger. They already gave us a cut from Shame, Shame with the excellent “Shadow People“. I didn’t think it could get any better, but it definitely did with Stranger. This song is dreamy with nostalgia dripping from every corner. The vocals are warm and sincere, coming close to sounding like a a 60′s ballad when those lovely backing harmonies kick in.

They really don’t make them like this anymore do they mom and dad?

[mp3] : Dr. Dog – Stranger

If you like what you hear, grab the album from insound on Vinyl or CD!

Green Label Sound released the new Neon Indian song, “Sleep Paralysist, for free download today. It was co-produced by Chris Taylor in Brooklyn. Taylor really has a knack for getting the best traits out of his artists. A true sign of a good producer.

It probably could have fit on Psychic Chasms. It sounds more glossy on the production side of things, which works in Alan’s favor. A decent one off single for Neon Indian, but it does leave me wanting a little more.

[mp3] : Neon Indian – Sleep Paralysist

I am embarrassed to say that I am late on the discovery of Phantogram. Better late than never. Chances are if I didn’t discover them until now, there is are a few of you who are in the same boat. We are all hear to learn, right?

Phantogram is the duo of Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter who are based out of Saratoga Springs, New York. It is beyond tough to find just one genre description to stick to Phantogram. How could you classify a band to one genre when their music has traces of trip-hop, hip-hop, electronica, and shoegazed rock all at once?

If you take nothing else from this post, please at least listen to this one song called “When I’m Small”.

“When I’m Small” is a song that is needed on every itunes best song of 2010 playlist. It is a song that should be easier to describe because of all the obvious influences, but they wear so many of them so well that it overwhelms the listener — in a good way. One things for sure, this song is not fucking small. “When I’m Small” is breathtakingly beautiful at moments, but smart, dark, grand, and sexy at others.

There is something about Phantogram that really makes them stand out from the rest of their class. They are just fresh and full of good energy. I just discovered them a few hours ago and can’t stop feeling good about it. I am really digging what they have to offer and I hope that this feeling expands even further.

Phantogram are currently on a short tour with Hot Hot Heat. They will then move on to SXSW, so be sure to check them out if your lucky enough to be in Texas.

[mp3] : Phantogram – When I’m Small

Their debut album Eyelid Movies, was released last month on the wonderful Barsuk Records. Support the band by buying their album from Insound on CD, Vinyl, or get a digital copy.

I think any music video featuring Zooey Deschaenl is bound to get tons of attention. This video suites this song pretty well. It’s…happy and cute. Have fun Zooey fans!

The National are playing Jimmy Fallon tonight (Wed – show starts at 12:35 AM – going into Thursday morning). They sent that info along with a cool little message via email to all their email subscribers. It said:

… And check out our dedicated-new-album-violet-colored-internet-stop after the
show for something special:
http://www.highviolet.com

Could this mean a new song is going to be played on the show, with a mp3 of the studio version upload to the site? Let’s hope. That would make this incredible week of new music, that much more incredible.

Amazon has short preview clips of all the new b-sides off of the Arctic Monkeys new EP/Single that you can listen to now. Joining The Dots sounds great with the rest of the band, although I am not sure how I feel about that guitar riff. I kinda like how stripped it was in the acoustic versions. They didn’t give us enough of The Afternoon’s Hat to really get a good impression. Don’t Forget Whose Legs Your On sounds pretty damn sexy.

I can’t wait for this EP! I’m working on getting a promo so I can give you guys an early review. Stay tuned. For now, visit amazon to listen to the previews. You should also buy the EP’s at the Arctics Online Store if you love them just as much as I do.

Brahms are an exciting band out of NYC who are bringing back the good parts of disco and creating a ultra fresh dance sound that I can’t get enough of. They are a band to watch for sure. I predict exciting things for these guys in 2010 and beyond!

Cale Parks, Eric Lodwick, and Drew Robinson are the members of Brahms and they all participated in this lovely interview. A big thank you to all of them for taking the time do this!

Will: You guys are a brand new band that came together at the beginning of 2010 right? Tell me abut how things came together for Brahms. Tell me a little about yourselves!

Brahms: We began jamming together in the end of 2009. We decided to launch as a new project in 2010. New decade. New music. Passion Pit are friends of Cale’s and asked us to open at Terminal 5 Jan 10. That was our first show. Excellent motivation to get to work as a new band

Will: My introduction of you was your opening set for Passion Pit at Terminal 5. How did you guys feel that set went? (and what did you
think of Tragedy?)

Brahms: That was such a fun night. Considering that it was our first show, we thought it was pretty good. Tragedy were pure fun. The crowd definitely got their money’s worth that night.

Will: How would you describe your sound to someone who is new to Brahms?

Brahms: Short set, long songs, catchy dance, hard workers.

Will: So far you have released two songs (now four!) for free download on your website. When can we expect to see some new songs, and official single/ep/album releases?

Brahms: More new demos are coming for free download this week (They came out a few days after Cale sent me the questions via email) As of now, we’re so new that our main goal is just continuing writing and we’ll see…

Will: What do you guys got on schedule for touring plans? I saw that you guys are going to be doing SXSW, that should be pretty fun!

Brahms: SXSW will be amazing. We initially thought we’d be too new to go down, considering all the tours down to Austin and back were booked before we technically existed. We managed to get on some great shows. We’re looking forward to bbq and sun, for sure!

Will: Are you guys a fan of music blogs as a tool for promotion, or are you opposed to them?

Brahms: We have a blog. At first we tried carrier pigeons, but they kept crapping all over our press releases, so we decide to try a blog. It seems to be the new way to reach people. We prefer blogs over newspapers or carrier pigeons.

Will: Any plans to duel tour with Aloha? I know that Cale is in Aloha, so some sort of collaboration would be pretty interesting. I know that I’d love to see it!

Brahms: There are no plans for a collaboration.

Will: What bands influenced your sound. Do I hear some small traces of New Order?

Brahms: Anything before 2011.

Will: You guys have been pretty exclusive to the NYC scene. How much does this play into your sound as a band. Would you call yourself a true NYC band, or just a band who happens to be located in NYC?

Brahms: We’re definitely a New York band simply because we all call it home. New York is the best place to raise a band. Sure rent is higher, but the opportunities that exist here are exponentially greater than any other place on this planet.

Will: What records are you guys listening to at the moment?

Brahms: Bear In Heaven, Wild Beasts, Apes and Androids, and lot’s of classics like Chuck Berry, The Ronettes, Roy Orbison, The Everly Brothers.

Will: Are there any unknown bands that you like that I should post about?

Brahms: Future Trends