Considering that the album sold surprisingly well for such a weird concept, it’s strange that Iggy now finds himself releasing his newest album Apres, which is very much in the same vein, independently with no label support.  First off: who the hell is in a position to tell Iggy Pop what he can and can’t do at this point? And secondly, this album is actually less bizarre than Preliminaires was; ignoring the fact that it’s immediately less surprising because he’s already done it once before, it also happens to be a covers album, and less than half of the songs are in French.  Nope, instead we get crooning versions of American folk classics, The Beatles, jazz standards and….Yoko Ono.  Okay yeah, and there’s also four French songs, but they’re pretty common and recognizable – “Le Vie en Rose”, anyone?

So yes, refusing to release this album is pretty baffling on Virgin EMI’s part, especially because the album is quite good.  It’s quirky and fun despite the fact that most of the songs have a pronounced brood to them, and Iggy’s crooner voice is surprisingly well-developed, a deep baritone that is both totally idiosyncratic and a welcome departure from his usual punkish drawl.  The sound of the album has diminishing returns – most of the songs have the same general dark jazz feel, and it’s a really refreshing sound at first but gets less and less interesting as the album goes on.  Still, Apres is the sound of Iggy Pop doing exactly what he wants to and the fact that he can make a 180 degree switch like this and still retain his characteristic swagger and conviction is a feat to be celebrated.

The most fun I had with this album was listening to the heavy synth sections paired up with a metal drummer. The electronic drum kits that trance music uses are fine and fit the genre, but the computerized nature of them take something away from the performance. Pairing up the vast soundscape of trance with a sweaty, pissed off metal drummer is something you only realize is long overdue after you have experienced it. The genres of melodic death metal (Silent Descent) and new hardcore (Dance Gavin Dance) are noted for their juxtaposed vocals; unintelligible screams and clean, melodic singing play off each other in most songs. It only makes sense to balance out super powered, crunching guitars with a clear and piercing synth line.

“Psychotic Euphoric” has a good synth hook with a classic metal guitar riff to back it up. “Breaking the Space” has the dystopian tag line of “Eat, defecate, sleep, procreate” spoken by a computerized voice with a dub-step beat stepping in during the verses. The most head banging you will do to classic double bass kicks comes in the track “On That Trip”, which also features some of the best trance/metal mixes on the album.

Silent Descent is not for everyone, they are still a death metal band, so do not expect to enjoy their music just because you play around with a synthesizer every now and then, but they are doing something innovative.

No matter how much the band claims to abhor happy songs, it’s apparent that they are by no means averse to upbeat tracks at the very least. With a sound quality best described as the vocal urgency of Tokyo Police Club combined with the evocative instrumentals of Funeral-era Arcade Fire, Grouplove succeeds in creating, for the most part, a collection of songs that make a person want to get up, get out, and parade away. The first half of the album, in particular, sees songs that feature swelling choruses (“Itchin’ On A Photograph”), vibrant and varied bass lines (“Lovely Cup”), and a slick rolling lyrical style interrupted by the occasional wail (“Colours”). The tracks may not be happy but they are loud, they are beautiful, and they feel remarkably cathartic.

That being said, the album is not without missteps. Middle track “Slow” lives up to its name, and is wholly inconsistent with the rest of the album. The ethereal quality proves to be a stark change that leaves the track appearing to have been conceived of by a completely different band, and gives the impression of trying too hard to create an alternative sound. Later “Betty’s Bomb Shell” is a much better attempt at a slow interlude for the album, maintaining the sound and style genuinely unique to the band and consistent to the album, but executing them to a lesser extreme.

Given that the band is a relatively new act and, as has been well-documented, were friends first and a musical ensemble second, the oversights are by all means forgivable. From that perspective, Never Trust A Happy Song is everything a fledgling offering should be — a collection beautiful moments and awkward spills that will probably culminate in a smooth first flight. The fact that they sound pretty good in the meantime is just a bonus.

TOUR W/ UNKOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA + NXNE + RECORD RELEASE SHOW

OSHIN DUE JUNE 26 FROM CAPTURED TRACKS

Following the success of recent singles “Sometime”, “Doused” , and “How Long Have You Known?” (All three earned Best New Track from Pitchfork) you may be asking yourself, what kind of drugs do I need to take to make music that good? Is it really that magical ratio of one part THC and two parts MDMA? Well, the music video for “How Long Have You Known?” intricately details the making of that special drug. Just don’t try this at home kiddos. Watch the Cole play mad scientist in YouTube spotlight video for “How Long Have You Known?” here.

Recently inked to the uber-reliable Captured Tracks imprint, DIIV created instant vibrations in the blog-world with their impressionistic debut “Sometime”; finding it’s way onto the esteemed pages of Pitchfork and Altered Zones a mere matter of weeks after the group’s formation.

Enlisting the aid of NYC indie-scene-luminary, Devin Ruben Perez, former Smith Westerns drummer Colby Hewitt, and Mr. Smith’s childhood friend Andrew Bailey, DIIV craft a sound that is at once familial and frost-bitten. Indebted to classic kraut, dreamy Creation-records psychedelia, and the primitive-crunch of late-80′s Seattle, the band walk a divisive yet perfectly fused patch of classic-underground influence.

One part THC and two parts MDMA; the first offering from DIIV chemically fuses the reminiscent with the half-remembered building a musical world out of old-air and new breeze. These are songs that remind us of love in all it’s earthly perfections and perversions.

A lot of DIIV’s magnetism was birthed in the process Mr. Smith went through to discover these initial compositions. After returning from a US tour with Beach Fossils, Cole made a bold creative choice, settling into the window-facing corner of a painter’s studio in Bushwick, sans running water, holing up to craft his music.

In this AC-less wooden room, throughout the thick of the summer, Cole surrounded himself with cassettes and LP’s, the likes of Lucinda Williams, Arthur Russell, Faust, Nirvana, and Jandek; writings of N. Scott Momaday, James Welsh, Hart Crane, Marianne Moore, and James Baldwin; and dreams of aliens, affection, spirits, and the distant natural world (as he imagined it from his window facing the Morgan L train).

The resulting music is as cavernous as it is enveloping, asking you to get lost in it’s tangles in an era that demands your attention be focused into 140 characters.

Since that fateful summer, the band have waged a full throttle attack on the nation’s venues, where the mellow, sometimes melancholic vibes of those early transmissions morph into a manic, crashing thing, providing an apt preview of DIIV’s debut LP Oshin due on Captured Tracks on June 26th.

DIIV has also just announced new tour dates including NXNE and their record release show in Brooklyn. A rotating cast of characters including Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Killer Mike, Frankie Rose, Spectrals, Grimes, and Wild Nothing are accompanying DIIV on various tour dates. Check out all the stops below and make sure to get off the couch when they come through your town!

Watch – “How Long Have You Known?”

DIIV
Oshin
(Captured Tracks)
June 26, 2012

01 (Druun)
02 Past Lives
03 Human
04 Air Conditioning
05 How Long Have You Known?
06 Wait
07 Earthboy
08 (Druun pt. ii)
09 Follow
10 Sometime
11 Oshin (Subsume)
12 Doused
13 Home

Tour Dates

5/01/12 @ Magic Stick – Detroit, MI *
5/02/12 @ The Shop Under Parts and Labor – Toronto, ON *
5/03/12 @ Valentine’s – Albany, NY *
5/05/12 @ Mercury Lounge – New York, NY * !
05/24/12 @ Brooklyn Bowl – Brooklyn, NY %
05/25/12 @ FUEL @ Dartmouth College – Hanover, NH
06/09/12 @ Rock and Roll Hotel – Washington, DC #
06/11/12 @ Johnny Brendas – Philadelphia, PA #
06/12/12 @ TT The Bears – Cambridge, MA #
06/13/12 @ Il Motore – Montreal, QC #
06/15/12 @ Lee’s Palace (NXNE) – Toronto, ON
6/23/12 @ Glasslands – Brooklyn, NY (Record release show!)
8/09/12 @ RiverRocks at Pier 84 – New York, NY ^

# = w/ Unknown Mortal Orchestra
% = w/ Killer Mike, High Highs
* = w/ Frankie Rose
! = w/ Spectrals
^ = w/ Grimes, Wild Nothing

Serj Tankian Releases Official Music Video for “Figure It Out”

Harakiri, New Studio Album, Out July 10th

Today Serj Tankian released the official video exclusively on AOL for his first Harakiri single, “Figure It Out.” The video was directed by Ara Soudjian. “It’s a comical political song talking about abusive capitalism and the differences created in economic stature and the reaction to it” says Tankian about the video. “CEOs have gotten away with murder, until now…”

Harakiri, the new studio album from singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, poet and political activist Serj Tankian is set to be released July 10th on Reprise Records/Serjical Strike. Harakiri, a Japanese word meaning ritualistic suicide, is the follow up to 2010′s Imperfect Harmonies and the third solo release from the System Of A Down frontman.

“Harakiri proves that Serj Tankian is not just one of the best vocalists in rock and metal, but one of the most passionate and provocative artists at work today.” – Revolver

Harakiri is presently available for pre-order on the singer’s official website. $2 from the sale of each pre-order will be donated to a non-profit organization to fight global hunger. The single, “Figure It Out,” is available digitally at services including iTunes, Amazon and Spotify. Fans can also check out the lyric video on YouTube.

Serj and the rest of his bandmates in System of a Down will be performing a handful of dates in August.

Confirmed System Of A Down Tour Dates:
08/02 Philadelphia, PA – Susquehanna Bank Center
08/04 Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center
08/05 Wantagh, NY – Nikon at Jones Beach Theater
08/07 Washington, DC – Verizon Center Arena
08/09 Boston, MA – Comcast Center
08/11 Montreal, QC – Heavy Metal Festival Parterre @ Parc Jean Drapeau
08/12 Toronto, ON – Heavy Metal Festival Downsview Park
08/14 Detroit, MI – DTE Energy Amphitheater
08/15 Chicago, IL – Allstate Arena

Firstly, analyze and decide on the schedule. There will be conflicts with regards to which artists you want to see and when. You’ll be able to find out schedules from the guides at the various booths, but plan ahead and get to the front of the stage by quickly checking below.

You can catch performances which are happening simultaneously, but make sure you have it properly planned. There can be delays, and of course, the Gorge is a vast area to walk around. With that said, Sasquatch! is phenomenal year after year. So grab yourself a drink and choose your stage. Don’t forget some sunscreen too.

Secondly, plan your showers carefully. The showering area will get extremely crowded if you don’t time it perfectly. With tens of thousands of other campers, you’ve got to get in where you can. The same applies if you need to restock from the convenience store. Although they rarely sell out of items as they have a steady amount coming in, it always makes sense to grab what you need when you can. The same applies to official clothing merchandise, except once it’s gone – it’s gone. There were some fantastic zip-up hoodies that went last year that I’m still pining over.

With the festival kicking off on Friday, the music will be starting of course later than usual.

Of course you shouldn’t forget to check out Of Monsters and Men at 6:05pm on the Sasquatch stage and HoneyHoney at 5:05pm at the Yeti Stage. But the Sasquatch stage will intensify at 6:10pm as Santigold transitions into the always fantastic Girl Talk and concludes with Pretty Lights.

The Bigfoot stage (2011′s best stage) will open with Yellow Ostrich and conclude with Explosions in the Sky, but not to be forgotten will definitely be the Banana Shack with STRFKR (kicking off as Santigold winds down) and Beats Antique‘s dance performance set (well worth watching).

The official Sasquatch Friday schedule:
Sasquatch Stage: 5:00pm Allen Stone 6:05pm Of Monsters and Men 7:10pm Santigold 8:30pm Girl Talk 10:15pm Pretty Lights	Bigfoot Stage: 5:15pm Yellow Ostrich 6:30pm Poliça 7:45pm Mark Lanegan Band 9:15pm Explosions In The Sky	Banana Shack: 6:40pm Little People 7:45pm STRFKR 9:00pm Beats Antique
Yeti Stage: 4:00pm Sean Wheeler & Zander Schloss 5:05pm HoneyHoney 6:10pm James McCartney	The Maine Stage: 4:30pm Scribes 5:35pm Metal Chocolates 6:40pm The Physics

“[Beat Connection] finds the warm, quivering heart of electronic music…equivalent of a sunset-to-sunrise ecstasy trip and the wistful day after.” MTV Hive

Download ‘The Palace Garden, 4am’

Seattle-based Beat Connection has debuted “The Palace Garden, 4am,” the first single off of their debut LP, The Palace Garden, out June 19 with Moshi Moshi / Tender Age. This single follows the album’s expansive track ‘Think/Feel’, an early introduction to the album which The FADER dubbed, “a song that’s easy to swallow but suddenly expansive the more you get into it” – a fitting description for this album as a whole. Beat Connection will appear at Sasquatch Music Festival this Sunday May 27th, two weeks before launching their first headlining North American tour with White Arrows. The band performed at SXSW this year, after touring with STRFKR this past fall where they played to sold-out rooms and earned rave reviews for their fantastic live set. Beat Connection will revisit these markets and more, ushering in the summer with an LP that finds the group meditating on the idea of unattainable beauty, an idea that encases magical evenings, flooding happiness, and heavy regrets.

The group began when members Jordan Koplowitz and Reed Juenger met in 2008 as freshmen at the University of Washington and started making late-summer-appropriate house music in Garageband. Crafting dorm-room beats and venturing into DJing gigs, together they worked towards their last year’s Surf Noir EP, which received accolades from Pitchfork, KEXP, Death + Taxes, The Seattle Times and The Seattle Weekly, deeming them “Best New Band of 2011.” With the recent addition of Tom Eddy as lead vocalist, and drummer Jarred Katz, Beat Connection is ready to hit the road as a full band.

Beat Connection Live in Concert

5/27 – George, WA – Sasquatch Music Festival – Banana Shack @ 4:40pm
6/14 – San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Stop*
6/15 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst Atrium*
6/16 – Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour*
6/17 – San Diego, CA – Casbah*
6/18 – Phoenix, AZ – Rhythm Room*
6/20 – Dallas, TX – La Grange
6/21 – Austin, TX – Red 7
6/22 – Houston, TX – Fitzgerald’s
6/23 – Baton Rouge, LA – Spanish Moon
6/26 – Tampa, FL – The Orpheum
6/27 – Miami, FL – Bardot
6/28 – Orlando, FL – Will’s Pub
6/29 – Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade – Hell
6/30 – Raleigh, NC – Kings Barcade
7/01 – Washington DC – DC9
7/03 – Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie
7/04 – New Haven, CT – Bar Night Club
7/05 – Brooklyn, NY – Knitting Factory
7/06 – Cambridge, MA – TT the Bears
7/07 – Montreal, QC – Il Motore
7/08 – Toronto, ON – Drake Hotel
7/10 – Pittsburgh, PA – Brillobox
7/11 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop
7/12 – Chicago, IL – Schubas Tavern
7/13 – Detroit, MI – Majestic Cafe
7/14 – Milwaukee, WI – The Cactus Club
7/15 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry
7/17 – Denver, CO – Hi Dive
7/18 – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court
7/19 – Boise, ID – Reef Boise
7/22 – Vancouver, BC – Media Club

* w/ MMOTHS & White Arrows

Bethany Cosentino’s voice is mid-pitch comfortable on the ears, even in the longer-than-really-necessary refrains in songs like Why I Cry. The title track opens brightly, moving along and introducing Cosentino’s followup album to 2010’s Crazy For You by declaring California, specifically Los Angeles we presume, is the center of the known universe. I’ve lived there and it’s an alright place, but I didn’t write any songs about it. Still, the group’s happiness about where they are comes through full-throatedly and its an infectious sentiment. Of the thirteen tracks, they could have left off a couple fillers: Last Year is appropriately titled and Do You Love Me Like You Used To tries to be a sentimental look at relationship, but ends up just whining a bit too much.

Cosentino and partner Bobb Bruno have a Spectresque girl-group sound, which shines with producer Jon Brion’s hand mixing lo-fi basslines and rhythmic percussion. Better Girl and Let’s Go Home are the best examples of the evolving “west coast” sound. Both songs speak to the yearning to have everything be the way it once was without being maudlin or syrupy and are two outstanding examples of Best Coast’s evolution.

Dreaming My Life Away slows the tempo and has a crystalline acoustical track backed by some nice orchestral work. Not a song to drift off to sleep to, but one to listen closely to and reflect on where the hell your life is going. My Life has similar inspirations, but is much more up tempo with a pretty catchy tune to go along.

If  Crazy For You  was more about a girl alone in her room writing scraps in her diary about the boys she liked and wondering if she was pretty enough, this is probably that same girl a few years and heartbreaks later, still writing in her diary but maybe not letting us see every entry.  There is still hope, apparently, for love to find her and for life to turn out OK. We may have to wait for the next album to find out but in the meantime, this will tide us over quite well.

This compilation features a lot of electronic music is not the kind most North Americans have grown accustomed to for the past few years. Sure, there are a lot of similarities: synths, bass, and just pure garbled sci-fi sounds, but many of these tunes possess a unique Argentinean flair. It may be the sampling of Spanish vocals, or it may just be the whole beat of the song. Tremor’s “Malambo” falls under this category, with some heavily distorted bass – but it doesn’t force a fast beat down the listener’s ear canals. It allows the instruments used to speak for themselves. Frikstailer’s “Guacha” is the track that most resembles something from America. Less flair, and more of synth-fuelled track than anything.

One of the highlights of the album may be its most obscure track on the record: “Se Pixelo el Vinito” by Super Guachin sounds like something hauled from the days of Nintendo’s Entertainment System. Chiptuned with added percussion and vocoded vocals, this song is incredibly fun. Maybe I’m just a gamer at heart and I appreciate this tribute to our 8-bit past, but I think a lot of people will dig this.

However, some tracks do fall flat. Any compilation album will have its share of misses.”Cumbiatron” by King Coya is too lethargic, and maybe a little too worldly for my tastes. Same goes for La Yegros’ “Viene de Mi,” as it just doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the album’s rhythmic attitude.

That’s the problem with this album: half of it is some really great electronic music, but the other half is something completely different. It’s a nice experiment, and some tracks work well together. But overall – I’d suggest only purchasing what you really enjoy from the album, as it’s not worth a total purchase. Future Sounds has something special about it, but the vision isn’t fully realized.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre is a band that has been around the block a couple of times and is probably the best example to answer the above questions for this reason. Starting in the early 90’s as a small band in San Francisco, bandleader, Anton Newcombe, has done well to create a band that highlights electric rock instrumentation and mild rhythmic syncopations. In essence, what BJM is trying to illustrate in their music is rock influences from major rock bands from the 70’s like “The Rolling Stones,” “Bob Dylan,” and even “The Beatles.” That’s not saying that their music is only ancient rock history. Their neo-psychedelic rock combined with indie folk and experimental rock style not only gives them an old time rock n’ roll sound, it also gives them a contemporary feel.

The songs from their 13^th studio album, “Aufheben” captures these elements at their core. “I Want To Hold Your Other Hand” is a clear representation of their influence from “The Beatles,” and similar 90’s bands like “The Dandy Warhol’s” and even “The Velvet Underground” in their headnodic, psychedelic rhythm. “Stairway To The Best Party In The Universe,” yet again exemplifies the highly psychedelic sound, subtle vocal harmonies, and repetitive melodic lyrics.

So what does this have to do with appeal? Well, listening to BJM is like getting hit with a blast from the past. Rarely do you hear old and relatable sounds like theirs anymore that appreciates the combination of soft-pop rock, progressive, experimental and psychedelic sounds from the 60’s and 70’s, but that has a modern twist to appeal to the newer generation. They’ve truly captured the best of both worlds.