After opening the NME Radar stage at The Great Escape last month, Jamaica, the French duo formerly known as Poney Poney have announced the details of their highly anticipated debut album, ‘No Problem’.

Set for release on August 20th through Co-op Music, ‘No Problem’ was produced in Paris by Grammy Award winners Xavier de Rosnay (Justice) and Peter Franco. Contrary to what people might expect, there isn’t a synth in sight. In fact, the only rule when recording the album was “No synthesizers would be involved!”

‘No Problem’ positively erupts out of the stereo as opener ‘Cross The Fader’,  and debut single ‘I Think I Like U 2’ set the tone with  sleek melodies, rousing guitar riffs and crisp bass grooves. Jamaica stride through the album’s 11 tracks, slowing down the pace ever slightly on ‘Gentleman’ where the duo showcase their perfectly honed ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ melodies around Love Unlimited strings in a more hushed style. Closing the album with the climatic ‘When Do You Wanna Stop Working’, Jamaica end ‘No Problem’ the same way they started it, explosively.

The video for forthcoming single ‘Short & Entertaining’ – due August 16^th – will be directed by Jeremie Rozan & Martial Schmetz – from Surface2Air – (Justice vs. Simian, The Streets) and features Igor Cavalera, the drummer and founding member of the Brazilian Thrash metal band Sepultura.

Based in Paris, Jamaica are Antoine Hilaire & Flo Lyonnet. The palette of colours served up on ‘No Problem’ reflects the pairs quite differing musical backgrounds: Antoine’s inspirations range from Michael Jackson and The Beatles to 60s girl groups and Nirvana, whilst Flo is the electro head but holds a special place in his heart for the likes of Pantera and Rage Against The Machine.

This wide spectrum of influences gives Jamaica its distinct sound: sleek pop hooks and rock undertones alongside super tight electronic production. The album’s yacht rock sound – resplendent with guitar solos reminiscent of Daft Punk’s ‘Discovery’ – arrives just at the right time for summer.

Jamaica who play with a live drummer are currently supporting Two Door Cinema Club on their French tour.

Wichita Recordings / Cooperative Music are delighted to announce the signing of Californian duo Best Coast and the release of their debut album Crazy For You on 30th July (CD, LP, download).

Best Coast are 23-year old songwriter Bethany Cosentino and musical partner Bobb Bruno.
Their sun-kissed songs of love and longing have been attracting much attention over recent months following a string of now sold-out 7” releases Stateside on the independent labels Group Tightener, Atelier Cuseaux, Art Fag, Black Iris, PPM and Eskuche. The only place you’ll find these rare gems now is on eBay.

Over here, a hugely successful debut UK/European tour in May included a packed out show at Brighton’s Great Escape festival and culminated in a knockout performance at Primavera in front of 10,000 music fans.

None of the songs on Crazy for You have been previously released on earlier 7-inches. For the album’s sessions Cosentino brought in a collection of demos she had never sent to Bruno. “I wanted the record to be something completely fresh and new,” says Cosentino. “I just felt like my first record needed to be really special.”

Their LP was recorded at Black Iris, a studio in LA’s Echo Park neighbourhood, and produced by Lewis Pesacov of the bands Fool’s Gold and Foreign Born.

Those who clocked Abe Vigoda’s transition from 2006’s debut Kid City to 2008’s startling tropical-punk “Skeleton” should know the LA quartet aren’t ones for repeating themselves. To Skeleton’s hot-hot-hot template, they now add glassy shards of ‘cold wave’ pop, with synthesisers, sequencers and altogether broodier beats. Scorching temperatures, icy currents… CRUSH is a thermal column of vertiginous brilliance!

But let’s not get bogged down in categories. Just as Skeleton was difficult to define “Crush” is a similar collision of sound, another helter-skelter joy ride through four boys’ private party. Even so, there was a thought process behind this new surge. In 2009 Dane Chadwick replaced drummer Reggie Guerro, introducing a new style of regimented beats as well as other musical ideas to the table. “More than just rhythmically, Dane helped with melodies and most of the electronics on the album,” says vocalist Michael Vidal.

Meanwhile, guitarist Juan Velasquez had already posted the fact he dug UK dreampop and goth. To which Vidal adds, “My favourite kind of music is instantly nostalgic and emotionally confusing. And reverb has always been a big part of our sound. We were definitely inspired by cold wave and minimal wave stuff, as well as Arthur Russell.”

From the pell-mell pop of ‘Sequins’ to the New Romantic crush of ‘Throwing Shade’ and the title track’s MBV scree, “Crush” feels a long way from the Smell Club band scene of AV’s roots. For one, they’ve added so much emotion to their sonics, to which the album title bears testament – crush meaning both the infatuation kind of love and the act of destroying something… “Crush” is released 20th September on Bella Union… Check out new track “Throwing Shade” below

Download ‘THROWING SHADE’ <http://rcpt.yousendit.com/903536913/d6ff3ff857b622f56980e211e2c0fda1>

Please feel free to share this song!

Abe Vigoda’s UK & Irish debut, “Skeleton”, was released in Oct 2008 to great acclaim:

“Skeleton’s bustling rhythms are threaded with highlife guitars, chiming out writhing, hypnotic melodies, cutting a joyous calypso… A more charming and seductive album you’re unlikely to hear this year”
MOJO – 4 Stars ****

“Steeped in the sounds of Afrobeat, Tropicalia and Caribbean pop, Skeleton romps along at a joyful gait peppered with breathless harmonies and squalls of noise”
Uncut – 4 Stars ****

“Abe Vigoda are four LA kids who shunt their scratchy punk full of irresistible tropicalia rhythms and can’t stop going on about all the great fun they’re having.”
Vice – 10/10 (Album of the Month)

“It’s a bold, brash listen, and with a manic 14 songs in just over half an hour, it goes straight for the jugular”
NME – 8/10

“carnivale rhythms and breakneck pace… With spots of sunny calypso bursting out of the ethereal syncopations, it’s a thing of dizzying beauty”
Metro – 4 Stars ****

“Abe Vigoda are a tremendously energetic proposition, almost cartoonish in their musical execution and very, very entertaining on record”
The Fly – 4 Stars ****

“An exciting, unique record”
Artrocker – 4 Stars ****

“Abe Vigoda sound ready to be heard everywhere all at once… Skeleton finds the band expanding on and beautifying a sound very much their own: lush, tropical punk that’s swallowed as many strains of sound as the images it conjures”
Pitchfork – 8.3/10

He’s back!!! Oh yes… WAVVES returns this summer with “KING OF THE BEACH”, his defiantly brilliant new album, released in August on Bella Union records… (scroll down for ace artwork)

In the life of Nathan Williams, the year 2009 will go down as both a highlight reel and a total sh*t show. Meteorically, feverishly, and somewhat improbably, two albums worth of naïve punk rock he recorded behind his parents’ San Diego home as Wavves became a sensation in the world of indie music. As a result, passports got filled, capers got pulled and lots of good things got said about the music. At the same time, fights got fought, situations got hairy and people got indignant and mean.

Oh well. F*ck it. All of it.

What’s important now is that, in the early part of 2010, Williams has made “King of the Beach”, the new Wavves album…
“King of the Beach” is an adventurous and ambitious record. It cuts deeper into the bleeding throat catharsis and ’60s sunshine soul that Wavves is known for. It also unexpectedly flips out with elements of primitive electronics and psychedelic studio experimentation.

“There was a conscious effort going into this that I didn’t want to make the same record again. I already made the same record twice, with the same f*cking cover art,” says Williams. “It wasn’t overbearing, but I didn’t want to recreate something I’d done. I wanted to make something bigger, something stronger.”

Unlike Wavves’ previously released material, recorded in haphazard bursts on Williams’ laptop, King of the Beach was toiled over for three months at Sweet Tea Recording, a world-renown studio in Oxford, Mississippi. Sweet Tea is also the home of Dennis Herring, producer of the last two Modest Mouse albums, and the man who dismantled and re-assembled the sound on this record.

Another marked difference in the making of King of the Beach was that Williams wrote and recorded two songs with bassist Stephen Pope and drummer Billy Hayes, the duo who became his touring band at the end of 2009. Pope and Hayes formerly backed recently departed garage rock force of nature Jay Reatard. Williams met the two after his infamously disastrous performance at the Primavera Sound Festival in Spain. “I think we all agree that they squeegeed me up, because I melted down,” says Williams.

Though there is a confidence in the scope of the album – from the title track’s denim on sand anthem-baiting to the tweaked pop of “Convertable Balloon” to the unabashed prettiness of “When Will You Come” – Williams’ usual lyrical themes of
self-loathing are still impossible to ignore. “I think everybody feels that way sometimes. You’re a f*cking liar if you don’t,” says Williams. “It wouldn’t make sense if I’m feeling a certain way to not write about it. There are songs about hating myself, but there are also songs about driving in a car with a balloon and playing Nintendo too.”

In the end, though, King of the Beach is not an album for the miserable. While the verses of “Take on the World” enumerate the things Williams hates the chorus resolves into a simple repeated phrase: “To take on the world would be something.”

The album title King of the Beach isn’t meant to be ironic or a self-deprecating joke. It’s a declaration. “Without sounding cheesy, we all wanted to make something inspiring,” says Williams. “It’s the type of thing where you have this much, but you could have more, so go get it.”

“King Of The Beach” is released 30th July 2010 on Bella Union… Live dates to follow soon…

Grinderman will release their new studio album Grinderman 2 through Mute on September 10^th. Grinderman 2 was recorded in 2009 at London’s RAK, State of The Ark and Assault and Battery studios. Co-produced by Grinderman and Nick Launay, the album was mixed by Launay at London’s British Grove in August 2009 and LA’s Seedy Underbelly in April 2010.

Stay tuned for more exciting info…

www.myspace.com/grinderman
www.facebook.com/grinderman

We’re proud as punch of this one. Two Door Cinema Club make their US TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel, and what a stormer it was too – see for yourself below. Some slick new haircuts, and a stunning performance.

I Can Talk has been rocking  dancefloors and airwaves in Ireland for some time now, along with Undercover Martyn and Something Good Can Work, contributing to a 9 week stint in the Irish Top 75 album charts.

Onwards and upwards for these young chaps. You can expect their Oxegen show to be an absolute cracker. They just keep getting better live every time we see them.

Your favourite tune of the summer?

Yep, ours too.

If you don’t believe us, then maybe you’ll believe The Irish Times

Or, just make you’re own mind up.

See, told you we were right…

THE BLACK KEYS release their sixth full-length album, entitled “BROTHERS”, on 17th May on V2 / Cooperative Music… Recorded at Alabama’s legendary Muscle Shoals Sound with additional sessions at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound System in Akron and the Bunker in Brooklyn, the album sees production duties handled by The Black Keys, along with shared duties between the band, Mark Neill, and their old friend Danger Mouse, who lends his skills to a new track. Tchad Blake brings his sonic excellence into the fold to handle mixing duties… Muscle Shoals has produced iconic recordings from the likes of Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, and Wilson Pickett, among many others…

Carney admits Brothers is the album they’ve always wanted to make and taps into their creative force as a duo. “Dan and I grew up a lot as individuals and musicians prior to making this album. Our relationship was tested in many ways but at the end of the day, we’re brothers, and I think these songs reflect that.” The ghosts of Muscle Shoals inhabit Brothers’ 15 tracks. Of the album, Auerbach says, “We like spooky sounds… like Alice Coltrane, where a dark groove is laid down. That’s the headspace we tried to get into for this record.” The album includes the Danger Mouse-produced song “Tighten Up” and a cover of the Jerry Butler classic “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

It’s been an remarkable couple of years for THE BLACK KEYS… Their last album, 2008’s “Attack & Release”, was by far their most successful to date, and the year culminated with them playing a sell-out show at Brixton Academy in London… Early 09 saw Black Keys singer/guitarist DAN AUERBACH venture out on his own with a critically-acclaimed solo album, “Keep It Hid”, that covered a variety of musical styles from psychedelia and soul via gospel and bluegrass. Late 2009 saw the Keys spread their wings further with their celebrated BLAKROC project, an exhilarating collaboration between themselves and a star-studded line-up of influential hip-hop artists that included Mos Def, Q-Tip, RZA, Raekwon, ODB, Pharoahe Monch, NOE, Jim Jones, Nicole Wray and Billy Danze (M.O.P)

To download the lead single ‘Tighten Up’ click the link below:

http://www.yousendit.com/download/bFFQTGs4Tkw4NVZjR0E9PQ

MENOMENA MINES OUT JULY 26^TH ON CITY SLANG/COOPERATIVE MUSIC

LIMITED EDITION SPLIT 7” W/ HELIO SEQUENCE FOR RECORD STORE DAY

Menomena, the Portland, OR, based trio, will release their fourth full-length record, Mines, July on City Slang.

Additionally, the band has teamed with The Helio Sequence for a limited-edition 7” in celebration of Record Store Day 2010. The 7” features Menomena’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” and Helio Sequence’s “Converter”, a digital download code, and special letterpress cardboard packaging designed by Menomena and The Helio Sequence.

“Pilgrim’s Progress” is currently streaming at Pitchfork.

http://pitchfork.com/news/38413-menomena-announce-third-album/

Danny Seim, Justin Harris, and Brent Knopf perform, sing, arrange, create, and destroy Menomena songs. On stage, Danny usually plays drums and sings.  Justin usually plays bass, saxophone, MOOG, electric guitar, and sings.  Brent usually plays keyboards, bells, guitar, and sings.

http://www.myspace.com/menomena