BLAKROC = The Black Keys + Mos Def, RZA, Q-Tip, Raekwon, ODB, Pharoahe Monch, Ludacris, Jim Jones, Nicole Wray, NOE, Billy Danze (M.O.P), Released November 27th on V2/Cooperative Music.

BLAKROC is the thrilling new collaborative project from The Black Keys and a star-studded line-up of influential hip-hop artists that includes Mos Def, Q-Tip, RZA, Raekwon, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Pharoahe Monch, Ludacris, Jim Jones, Nicole Wray, NOE and Billy Danze (M.O.P). BLAKROC will be released on 27th of November Ireland on V2/Cooperative Music, the same day as its US release  (to be dubbed “Blak Friday” by the independent record stores that will sell the album). Of the album, The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach said “no samples were used on the record, it’s all live instruments and live vocals.”

Sessions began in early summer in Brooklyn with Mos Def’s songs among the first put to tape… Over the following weeks the ten other artists joined the party to play their part in what is unquestionably one of the most forward-thinking and exciting hip hop records of recent years…

“It was fun and refreshing to work with The Black Keys on the project… We all had one common denominator – The Love of Music” (RZA)

“Experimenting with different sounds and genres of music has always been important to me. While collaborating in the studio with The Black Keys and Damon Dash may seem like an unusual fit, it felt natural. We were able to bring our own unique strengths and experiences together, that signifies the true artistry of music. I think this is something that all fans of music will appreciate.” (Q-Tip)

“What it meant to me was something I always knew; great rock music and great hip-hop music fused together can create undeniable greatness.” (Pharaohe Monch)

For more informations on Blakroc visit their continually updated website here or their myspace here.

 

 

FEEDBACK Festival 2009 – Curated by Lakota Media in association with Whelan’s, in aid of Peter McVerry Trust.

Lakota Media and Whelan’s are delighted to announce the lineup for our first FEEDBACK Festival, taking place on Saturday, December 5th in Whelan’s Main Venue and Whelan’s Upstairs. FEEDBACK 2009 will shine a light on some of the Irish acts that have broken through this year with fantastic album releases. The festival will also feature some Irish bands that are due to release their debut albums in 2010, but have already been causing quite a stir. Finishing off the party, and providing plenty of entertainment between bands, we are delighted to welcome a selection of the finest resident DJs from SoundCheck – Ireland’s best weekly club night.

FEEDBACK will take over Whelan’s Main Room and their Upstairs venue for the night, showcasing the work of 8 critically acclaimed Irish acts this year. Not only is the entry fee just €10.00 to the whole event – running from 8pm to very late! – but all proceeds from the night will go to Peter McVerry Trust – a Dublin-based charity that provides services and support for young homeless people.

Main Room -
Cap Pas Cap
202s
The Dead Flags

Upstairs -
Valerie Francis
The Holy Roman Army
The Sick & Indigent Song Club

Upstairs Late -
SoundCheck DJs
David Turpin
Patrick Kelleher & His Cold Dead Hands

2 Door Cinema Club New Video and Dublin Live Date!

Here is the great video for new single from Two Door Cinema Club I Can Talk, the Guys have just confirmed a live date on Thursday December 17th in Crawdaddy!

For more info on Two Door Cinema Club head to their myspace here.

Laura Veirs Announces details of her new album July Flame – released January 8th 2010 through Bella Union Records!

“July Flame” explores the emotion of mid-summer. Drenched in wood smoke, sunlight, pastoral dales, fireworks and warm nights, the lyrics explore the dichotomy between one’s desire for permanence and security and the realisation that such things rarely exist.

“July Flame” is a magical and flawless collection of songs, highlighting Veirs’ masterful finger picking guitar and confident vocals. “Laura’s like the queen bee and my ear is her hive; she nests and makes honey in the hairs of my cochlea,” says Jim James of My Morning Jacket (who sings on several tracks).

The album breaks from Veirs’ previous full-band efforts, although many of the same players make appearances on the album, including long-time collaborators Karl Blau and Steve Moore. String arrangements are featured more on this album than on others; the brilliant improviser Eyvind Kang plays viola on many songs and legendary arranger Stephen Barber composed hauntingly beautiful string quartet arrangements for three songs.

July Flame is the sixth album that Laura and producer TUCKER MARTINE have made together. Recorded and mixed at their home, the song-writing, arrangements, production and performances create a fully realized piece of art that inspires reflection and calm in a world that spins unsteady.

July Flame is released on January 8th 2010 through Bella Union Records!

For more information on Laura Viers visit her website or her  myspace.

 

Two Door Cinema Club new single I Can Talk released 23rd of November and New Album early 2010!

Two Door Cinema Club are a music-mad trio who’s rhythmic alt-pop draws on electronica, rock and Afro-beats and fizzes with invention and sparkling tunes… Their limited edition debut single – “Something Good Can Work” – released earlier this year, was bursting with hooks and a bona fide pop melody that bounces, swings AND rocks, sounding jittery, dreamy and urgent. Snapped up by KITSUNÉ following their performance at Glastonbury, TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB are a band on the rise…

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB release their first single for Kitsuné – “I Can Talk” – on 23rd November… Another deliriously catchy gem, the single will be released in both 7” and 12” formats and comes backed by a number of remixes by the likes of Crystal Fighters, Golden Bug and French Horn Rebellion. Their new album title and release tbc will follow the single release!

For more information on Two Door Cinema Club check out their Myspace here.

Romance is Boring the new album from Los Campesinos! Released on Febuary 1st 2010 through Wichita Recordings.

Los Campesinos! are proud to announce the title and track listing of their forthcoming album.  ‘Romance Is Boring’ will be released 1st February 2010. through Wichita Recordings. The single ‘There Are Listed Buildings’ which is currently available exclusively on the band’s UK tour dates, will precede it, on the 2nd November 2009.

The track listing is as follows:

In Medias Res
There Are Listed Buildings
Romance Is Boring
We’ve Got Your Back (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #2)
Plan A
200 – 102
Straight In At 101
Who Fell Asleep In
I Warned You: Do Not Make An Enemy Of Me
Heart Swells/100-1
I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know
A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State; or, Letters From Me To Charlotte
The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future
This Is A Flag. There Is No Wind
Coda: A Burn Scar In The Shape Of The Sooner State

“Romance is Boring” was recorded and mixed between March and June of 2009 in Seattle, Connecticut and Monmouthshire with producer John Goodmanson. It features guest appearances from Jamie Stewart, Zac Pennington and Jherek Bischoff.

The album also reveals the bands first experiments with brass and far wider instrumentation than they have employed before and according to the band is a record “about the death and decay of the human body, lost love, mental breakdown, and football.”

Romance is boring will be released on Febary 1st 2010 on Wichita recordings.

For more information on Los Campesinos! check out their website here or their myspace here.

BEACH HOUSE return in 2010 with their third album “TEEN DREAM”, on Bella Union records!

Beach House return in January 2010 with “Teen Dream”, their third – and first classic – album, on Bella Union records.

The Beach House you’re about to meet isn’t the same as the one you’ll remember from before. Lives have been shuffled, tangled and re-aligned. When Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally returned home to their hometown of Baltimore last winter, they were worn out from touring and travel. But deep inside them hot energies were incubating, ideas they had been whispering back and forth in the wake of their sophomore full-length, 2008’s “Devotion”. By spring they began handing themselves over completely to these impulses, holing themselves up and exchanging ideas in a new, secluded practice space for dangerously long periods of time. As the songs that would become “Teen Dream” began to live, breathe and take shape, the duo were compelled to leave much of their personal lives behind them. “We were forced to let go of people and things we were holding onto as individuals” Legrand muses. “We were dropped into a wilderness, but we had more clarity than we’ve ever had before”.

Still driven to avoid distraction, the two marched further into isolation, deciding to bottle all those wild visions away from home. They packed up their lives and settled into a converted church in upstate New York with producer Chris Coady. For a month they continued the birthing process, sweating and pushing out sounds inside a cocoon of their very own weaving. They chased down songs and dark rushes, the creative telepathy that Scally and Legrand share together taking a strangely physical hold. “There’s a different level of intimacy, and physicality, on Teen Dream”, Legrand explains… “Rhythmically, there’s a new motion. This record touches you”.

“Teen Dream” is the sound of a band bursting at its creative seams. It is without question more expansive and moving than anything they have shared before. “Teen Dream” is released 25th January on Bella Union records. Beach House have recently signed to Sub Pop in the US.

Acclaim for Beach House…

“Beach House take up the opiated fuzz of dream-pop pioneers past – My Bloody Valentine, Galaxie 500, Spiritualized – then distil it and drizzle it over skeletal torch songs, deserted-ballroom waltzes and Motown soul choruses… Beach House are a beguiling beauty – a real vacation for the mind”

NME

“Fans of Mazzy Star, Cat Power and Galaxie 500 need Beach House in their lives…”

The Fly – 4 Stars ****

“These are fabulously woozy melodies worth lingering over, infused with Legrand’s languorous vocals and pedal steel, while their retro keyboards are especially atmospheric… they should make you melt”
Metro – 4 Stars ****

“the Baltimore duo’s narco-pop drifts over lazy organs and twilight waltzes… A lush mix of sun and shade”The Independent – 4 stars ***

“Delicate, lovelorn pop”
Pitchforkmedia – 8.5/10

“a record of autumnal beauty, all golds and browns, which evokes with extraordinary vividness a picture of a seaside resort shutting up shop and preparing for less populous months to come… A great new find.”
Sunday Times

“evoking the autumnal hues of latter-day Yo La Tengo… a slice of unadulterated dream-pop joy”
Rock Sound – 8/10

“Drifting into view on waves of slide guitar and a chorus of dreamy harmonies, this is seductive music, built in Baltimore with love and care”
WORD

“a lovely, rewarding listening experience, transporting you a million miles from our frantic modern lives”
The Sun – 4 Stars ****

“should be the soundtrack to a misty French film… deeply atmospheric and stirring”
The Guardian – 4 stars ****

“To say this record elevates the band far above the swollen ranks of shuffling shoegazers currently doing the rounds is putting it mildly”
Drowned in Sound – 9/10

“Ever wondered how Nico might sound after a day’s sunbathing? Well, wonder no longer because the gorgeous debut album by Beach House gives you some idea…”
The Times

“Classic 60’s pop arrangements filtered through the fuzzy prism of a dream… All of it as high on charm as it is on lo fi”
MOJO
“magical folk-pop from Franco-American duo. Recorded in Baltimore but haunted by opium dreams of Paris… there are exquisite moments here that recall Mazzy Star, Nico-era Velvets and even Radiohead.”
Uncut

“like an album’s worth of Femme Fatales”
Q

“Mellow, sunny and intimate… Nine tracks of soft focus music half sung / half whispered that sound like a late night transmission from the stars… broadcasting to Earth folks relaxing below a hazy late summer Sun”
Clash magazine

Teen Dream is released on  January 22nd 2010 on Bella Union Records!

For more information and news on Beach House check out their website here

MIDLAKE return in February 2010 with their much-anticpated third album: “The Courage Of Others”

One of Bella Union’s most successful and celebrated acts – MIDLAKE – make their long-awaited return in February 2010 with “THE COURAGE OF OTHERS”, their extraordinary third album…

It’s ironic that Midlake’s new album is titled “The Courage Of Others” because, if anything, the courage is all theirs. Namely, the courage to do what feels right and stay true to the spirit of artistic independence whilst ignoring any pressure to conform to expectations. The result is the Texas quintet’s third album, their most complete and beautiful body of work yet, best appreciated as a whole in the old-fashioned sense of an album – which makes perfect sense when you know Midlake linchpin Tim Smith’s fondness for the look and feel of past times.

So what’s changed since The Trials of Van Occupanther, their second, hugely loved breakthrough album? Just as that record was in part inspired by the soft(er) rock of the early-to-mid 1970s – from Neil Young and America to Fleetwood Mac – so Midlake’s new album also looks to a slightly earlier, and definitely British, trad-tainted folk sound. It may share the same gorgeously analogue-warm electro-acoustic template as Van Occupanther but it’s a slower, darker and more carved record, both eerier and dreamier. Perfect, in other words, for its February release date, at the height of winter.

Neither do the new songs feature any hermit-scientists like Van Occupanther, or the mythical Roscoe. The songs that constitute The Courage Of Others, Tim says, are closer to his heart than those of their first two albums because, “I don’t feel I’m looking at the songs through someone else’s eyes. I’ve tried to keep it as true to myself as I could.” Guitarist Eric Pulido adds, “We didn’t want to make the same album as Van Occupanther, so we carried on moving and creating and pushing for a newer sound and emotion.”

“The Courage Of Others” is released on Bella Union records on 1st February 2010. Track-listing below…

Acts of Man

Winter Dies

Small Mountain

Core of Nature

Fortune

Rulers, Ruling All Things

Children of the Grounds

Bring Down

The Horn

The Courage of Others

In The Ground

Press acclaim for “The Trials of Van Occupanther”…

“The songwriting is rich, delivering an almost hallucinatory mix of pianos, horns, guitars and painfully wistful reminisces… One of 2006’s best.”

The Guardian – 4 Stars ****

“It’s so rare for an album to come from nowhere and sound as if it has existed for ever, but Midlake’s extraordinary second release is just such a gem. This deserves to become a major word-of-mouth hit.”

Evening Standard – 4 Stars ****

“This unimpeachable record is a part-pastoral, part-rock curiosity, with trace elements of Neil Young, America and Grandaddy. All exquisitely sung and played, and as with Sufjan Stevens’ “Illinoise”, we’re dealing with an invigorating, many-faceted work of diverse instrumentation and durability.”

MOJO – 4 Stars ****

“Skilfully textured and beautifully written… Fans of Flaming Lips, Wilco and Grandaddy should get it immediately. And fall in love.”

WORD

“This Texas quintet could fill the gap left by Grandaddy. It’s all here: the dreamy folk-rock, the sadly stoical laments for the simple life progressleaves behind, the gentle and pastoral shadings. Mapping the territory between Neil Young and Mercury Rev, their warm, charming and wistful second album seems to glow from within.”

The Independent (Information) – 4 Stars ****

“Texans Midlake deliver on their gorgeous, escapist second album – an organic, pastoral thrill that updates 1970s Fleetwood Mac and Crosby, Stills and Nash for a new generation. Classic, elegant songwriting.”

Metro – 4 Stars *****

“Midlake seek to uncover the spiritual magic hidden beneath the veneer of everyday life… Singer-songwriter Tim Smith imbues his songs with a beguiling mystery. The results recall the genial eccentricity of Van Dyke Parks”

The Independent – 4 Stars ****

“This is one of those rare albums that comes out of nowhere and knocks your socks off! Midlake combine warm West Coast harmony rock with the wonder and mystery associated with sonic explorers like The Flaming Lips. Exquisite.”

The Sun – 5 Stars *****

“The Trials of Van Occupanther is a bona fide classic, a record that unites Mercury Rev-styled psyche eccentricity with smooth rock’n’soul. Out on the ever-inspiring Bella Union, its very existence makes the world seem a better place”.

NME – 8/10

“Midlake make music descended directly from the golden era of American folk: the prairie-wide melodies and plaintive harmonies of Fleetwood Mac and Neil Young… This rocks.”

The Telegraph

“this is a collection of songs that will never sound dated, because they absolutely exist outside of the cycles of trends and fashions… incredibly engrossing”

Drowned In Sound – 8/10

The Dead Flags “Anymore” Single Out on CD/Download, November 6th, 2009

Sligo-based pop-punk masters The Dead Flags release their second single, the blistering, catchy, energetic ‘Anymore’, on November 6th in Ireland.  The band has been going from strength to strength since the release of their debut single “O My Love! O My God!!” and their EP “We’ve Got Ways And The Means”. Through non-stop touring and a top 30 singles chart position they have earned both an ever-growing following and increasingly enthusiastic critical acclaim in the past twelve months.

“The Dead Flags are not just good, they’re irritatingly good. Your daddies died in the punk wars for this” – Jackie Hayden, HOT PRESS Magazine

Produced by Karl Odlum (Ham Sandwich, Fionn Regan, The Frames, Mark Geary and The Aftermath) and mastered by Kevin Metcalfe (The White Stripes, Supergrass and Snow Patrol), this single represents The Dead Flags at their absolute finest and is the first sampler from their eagerly anticipated debut album. The song is inspired by, according to vocalist Billy, “those Eels or old Smokey Robinson songs where the lyrics are down and sad but the music is really upbeat and energetic”.

The Dead Flags are Billy (vocals, guitar), Dave (bass, vocals) and Kevin (drums, vocals). The band spent the summer of 2009 touring in Europe, with dates in Germany and Holland, as well as playing shows and festivals in Ireland.

To celebrate the release of this single from their forthcoming album, The Dead Flags are launching ‘Anymore’ at Whelans, Dublin on Wednesday, November 11th. The band is then setting off on a tour of Ireland, including dates in Belfast, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Donegal and Sligo.

Anymore is released in Ireland on Friday, November 6th 2009

For More Information on the Dead Flags visit their Website,

or check out their Myspace here.

The Sick And Indigent Song Club New Album – Punch Drunk Released November 6th On Millennium Boy Records.

Long-time Dublin live favourites The Sick And Indigent Song Club are set to release Punch Drunk, their long-awaited second album, on Millennium Boy Records.

Rightly celebrated for their brilliant live performances, the band brings the energy and vitality of their stage show to fourteen tracks that showcase brilliantly the versatility, musicianship and wide-ranging influences that have made them one of Dublin’s most popular bands.

Punch Drunk – which will be launched at The Sugar Club on Sunday October 18th at 8pm – shows off the song-writing talents of the band’s chief vocalists Gary Fitzpatrick and Angie McLaughlin, from the steamroller opening of Fitzpatrick’s Hudson Dusters to the drawing-room chanson of McLaughlin’s The Merry-go-round Song that closes the album. In between you’ll find every possible influence from old-time American music through blues, country, jazz and even Shane McGrath’s Pan-European The Night The Clock Fell Off The Wall.

Each song is a story in its own right, from the anguished self-admonishment of the title track to the joyful, innocent sibling-worship of (I Wanna Whistle Like) My Sister Kate – one of the best evocations of childhood you’ll hear this year – all hung upon almost criminally infectious melodies and fine, sensitive musicianship from a collective that have a rare intuition for the whole ahead of the individual.

Building on their live reputation and the success of their sold-out debut album The Instoige Folly, Punch Drunk catches the Sick and Indigent Song Club on top of their game.

For More information on the band visit their myspace here.