Karen Elson is set to release her latest album, Double Roses on April 7 via H.O.T. Records Ltd. That's also the day she will take the stage in Brooklyn at Rough Trade NYC. See below for more details. You can pre-order the upcoming album HERE. Listen to "Call Your Name" and "Distant Shore" from the album below.
"I wrote maybe six songs but I'm very instinctual as a person and I knew that there was one puzzle piece missing that I hadn't tapped into the deepest part myself. I knew I needed to pull that out if I was going to make the record I needed to make." The turning point was "Distant Shore", and after that the floodgates were open, and things she'd kept bottled up for years began pouring out, detailing the emotional geography of her heart, always hovering somewhere between uncertainty and regret, without truly landing on either. But in the end finding out who she really was as a person. "At the end of the writing the album I felt liberated. I felt free. I felt like me," says Elson.
Check out video for "Idle Stranger from Miccoli. The single will be released on March 3. You can pick it up HERE. Check out the video below.
Miccoli, their name taken from the sibling trio's surname, formed in 2010 after spending most of their childhood studying and making music. Growing up in Birmingham, England, they were brought up listening to Simon and Garfunkel, Don Mclean, The Police, Fleetwood Mac and the sounds of Motown, to name just a few of their diverse musical influences.
Twin brothers Adriano (vocal and acoustic/electric guitar) Alessandro (piano, vocal and acoustic guitar) and their younger sister Francesca (vocal, piano and harmonica) have toured extensively, giving the band the opportunity to explore their musical identity and fine tune their live set - a compelling blend of haunting, melodic and eclectic sounds, interlaced with breathtaking harmonies.
Miccoli's new single 'Idle Stranger' is an epic slice of Indie Pop which showcases the band's vocal harmonies and ear for writing a catchy hook. Accompanied by a stunning video filmed in Venice, it's clear that Miccoli's artistic and musical vision is manifested through a rare and intense hypnotic beauty.
Check out "Creature", the new track from Astra The 22's. I'm willing to bet they'll be playing this track when they take the stage at Pianos on March 16. See below for more details and to listen to "Creature".
Mixed by Kato Khandwala (Blondie, The Pretty Reckless, Paramore, My Chemical Romance) and Mastered by Howie Weinberg (The White Stripes, The Cure, Aerosmith), Paris Love explores sex, narcissism, love, art and war on a global and personal level. The duo have done over a dozen interviews and performances on Latvian National TV/ Radio, and their songs are in regular rotation on radio stations in Latvia & Lithuania and performed at festivals including, Vilnius Music Week in Lithuania, the Gaizin Kalns Festival, and the KLANG! Rock Festival. In 2015, they performed at the Gold Microphone Awards show the biggest music awards show in Latvia. Both their debut and upcoming EPs, Blue Venom and Paris Love, were written while Kaleja and Jayk were living on apart, Riga and Brooklyn respectively. In 2016, Astra the 22’s relocated to Williamsburg, Brooklyn adding bassist Rebecca Silber-Capalbo and drummer Luca Bertaglia.
Conor Oberst released a video for "Till St. Dymphna Kicks Us Out" this week. The track is from his upcoming album Salutations that is scheduled to be released on March 17. You can pre-order the album HERE. Check out the Greg Marinaccio video below.
New York, Conor Oberst will be making a stop in Brooklyn at Celebrate Brooklyn! on July 20. See below for more details and tour dates.
Oberst has partnered with Plus 1 so that $1 from every ticket sold on US headline dates will go to Planned Parenthood and their work delivering vital reproductive health care, sex education, and information to millions of women, men, and young people in the US and worldwide. General on sale starts Friday, February 24th at noon EST. All tour dates below.
Tour Dates March
9 Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room Lounge (SOLD OUT) #
10 Kansas City, MO @ Madrid Theater #
11 Memphis, TN @ Minglewood Hall #
12 Tulsa, OK @ Cain's Ballroom #
14 San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger #
16 Spicewood, TX @ Luck Reunion
17 Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live #
18 New Orleans, LA @ The Civic Theatre #
19 Macon, GA @ Cox Capitol Theatre #
21 Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel #
22 Chattanooga, TN @ Track 29 #
23 Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse #
24 McMinnville, TN @ Bluegrass Underground
25 St Louis, MO @ The Pageant #
26 Iowa City, IA @ The Englert Theater #
May
12 Oakland, CA @ The Fox %
13 Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theater
14 San Diego, CA @ The Observatory %
16 Tucson, AZ @ Rialto %
18 El Paso, TX @ Tricky Falls %
19 Austin, TX @ ACL Live at The Moody Theater %
20 Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater %
21 McAllen, TX @ Cine El Rey %
23 Fayetteville, AR @ George's Majestic Lounge %
24 Wichita, KS @ Orpheum Theater %
31 Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Theater*
June
1 Nelsonville, OH @ Nelsonville Music Fest
3 Norfolk, VA @ NorVa*
4 Wilmington, NC @ The Throne Theater*
July
14-16 Louisville, KY @ Forecastle Festival
20 Brooklyn, NY @ Celebrate Brooklyn ^
21 Boston, MA @ The House of Blues +
28 Camden, NJ @ XPoNential Festival with Wilco and Hop Along
* Big Thief support # The Felice Brothers support % Phoebe Bridgers support ^ Hop Along and Big Thief support + Hop Along
Rhiannon Giddens is set to release her second full-length album, Freedom Highway, February 24...you can pick up the album HERE. In support of the new album, she has announced a tour. New York, she'll be at Alice Tully Hall on Saturday, May 13. See below for more details and a list of tour dates.
Catfight, written and directed by Onur Tukel,is the story of two former friends who after years of not seeing each other reignite an old feud within minutes of seeing each other. Veronica (Sandra Oh) is rich, drunk and oblivious. Ashley (Anne Heche) is struggling, bitter and abusive. They're not likable people when we meet them.
In your typical movie with two catty female leads, they'd generally yell, probably cry, hug it out, become friends again and we'd get some sort of life lesson. In Catfight, we get two women who beat the shit out of each other like two dudes in a street brawl...multiple times, laced with odd talk show moments telling us about the war that is going on.
This dark humored film shows a vicious cycle of anger, loss and an astounding amount of absurdity. After a spectacular smackdown that felt endless, Oh's Veronica wakes up to a dry witted doctor (Dylan Baker) who tells her she's been in a coma for two years and her former housekeeper Donna (Myra Lucretia Taylor) who sums things up for her with mock cheerfulness 'no family, no home and you're broke but you're awake and you look great...' Faced with both the loss of her husband (in an accident) and son (in the war) and with the help of Donna and a small box containing her worldly goods, Veronica realizes she wasn't nice, needs to be a better person and makes an effort.
On the flip side, Heche's Ashley has become a successful artist painting political and war inspired art. At no point do I find this character likable. Ashley is a rude, obnoxious mean person whether she's struggling or successful and takes it out on her assistant, Sally (Ariel Karouss). She and her girlfriend Lisa (Alicia Silverstone) are having a baby...life is great until Veronica's anger is sparked by one of Ashley's paintings and we get another smackdown that feels endless as well. This time the roles are reversed and Ashley wakes up to the same dry witted coma doctor and circumstances mirroring her rivals awakening. It's at this point that I feel the film lets me down. I don't ever feel like Ashley learns her lesson, even a tiny bit, or becomes a better person or even wants to be. I wanted to at some point like her, just a little bit but, I never reached that point.
Both Sandra Oh and Anne Heche give good performances and so does the supporting cast. Yet, the film at times feels disjointed and incomplete. The fight scenes, however, are cult classic status worthy. Unfortunately, by the time the final scene of these rivals beating the crap out of each other rolls around, what was dark and humorous becomes tedious.
Catfight opens in select cities and on-demand on March 3.
Synopsis:
One-time college pals Veronica (Sandra Oh) and Ashley (Anne Heche) run into each other at a party. The women, now in their forties and having not seen each other since school, find that their lives have taken radically different paths. Ashley is barely scraping by as a painter of politically charged canvases, while Veronica is married to a wealthy businessman who's about to profit hugely off yet another US-led war in the Middle East.
Within minutes of their reunion, a rivalry is revived, old wounds are torn open, and a Manhattan stairwell becomes home to a woman-on-woman brawl the likes of which are seldom seen outside of martial-arts epics. And now the gloves are off. The new feature from writer-director Onur Tukel takes a set-up that in most films would lead to a heartwarming story of female friendship — and uses it instead as the springboard for an outrageously madcap black comedy.
TRT: 96 min Director: Onur Tukel Producers: Gigi Graff, Greg Newman Writer: Onur Tukel Cast: Sandra Oh, Anne Heche, Alicia Silverstone, Amy Hill, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Ariel Kavoussi, Craig Bierko, Dylan Baker Distributor: MPI Media Group / Dark Sky Films
The Dig released their new album, Bloodshot Tokyo, on February 3; you can pick it up HERE. They're hitting the road in support of the record and will be making a stop in Brooklyn at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on February 25. See below for more details and dates.
The album, a virtual two-person effort which features Willie B (Brian Wilson) on drums and Moog bass, combines Coogan’s three-octave soprano vocals, electric guitar soundscapes and pointed social commentary into a fierce cohesive piece which combines the personal and the political, in a musical hybrid of rock, country, pop and classical opera into a unique whole.
There have been many attempts at rock opera in the past, but The Lonely Cry of Space & Time is something different. Call it operatic rock, a genre previously explored by the likes of Kate Bush, Jane Siberry, Lene Lovich, Yoko Ono and Freddie Mercury, among others. Coogan studied opera at the prestigious Mozarteum University of Salzburg in Austria, before moving to Seattle, where she worked as a fisheries biologist in Washington State and Alaska, which goes a long way to explaining her frequent use of water as a metaphor. In fact, a drought in the Finger Lakes region of New York where she lived in part was a factor in the immediacy she brought to the new album.
William Matheny is set to release his new album, Strange Constellations, on February 24. You can pre-order the album HERE. Check out the track "Living Half To Death" from the album below.
New York, he will be in Brooklyn at Union Hall on February 26. See below for more details and tour dates.
2/24: 123 Pleasant Street, Morgantown, WV (w/Ona, Adam Remnant)
2/25: The V Club, Huntington, WV (w/Ona, Adam Remnant)
2/26: Union Hall, Brooklyn, NY (w/Loose Cattle, Charles Bissell of The Wrens)
2/27: Bourbon & Branch, Philadelphia, PA (w/Dan Ex Machina, David F. Bello of The World Is a Beautful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die, Stephanie Cottingham of Ortolan)
2/28: DC9, Washington, DC (w/The Paranoid Style, Wylder)
3/1: Pale Fire Brewing Co., Harrisonburg, VA (w/Bishops, Uncle Bengine & the Restraining Orders)
3/2: The Green Lantern, Lexington, KY
3/3: The Country, Nashville, TN (w/The Barons)
3/4: The Caledonia Lounge, Athens, GA (w/Yip Deceiver, Casper & the Cookies)
3/7: Folk School Coffee Parlor, Ludlow, KY
3/10: Be Here Now, Muncie, IN
3/11: Water Main, Richmond, KY
3/12: The Burlington, Chicago, IL (w/MAKS the Fox, Mark Panick of Razorhouse, Kelsey Wild)
3/13: Growler’s, Memphis, TN (w/James & the Ultrasounds)
3/14: SXSW @ Beerland, Austin, TX (Keeled Scales day party)
3/15: SXSW @ The Hole in the Wall, Austin, TX — (Chicken Ranch Records showcase)
Matthew Logan Vasquez is set to release his new album, Does What He Wants, on April 21 via Dine Alone Records; the album can be pre-ordered HERE. He will be hitting the road in support of the new album making a stop in Brooklyn at Rough Trade NYC on April 29. See below for more details and tour dates.
This week, The Kills, who celebrated the 15th anniversary of their first live show, released a video for "Whirling Eye". The track is from their latest album Ash & Ice.
The VR video was directed by Sophie Muller using Omni, GoPro's synchronized 6-camera array...fancy speak for 'oh cool, I can watch it at a full 360-degree viewpoint'. Check it out below.
For the full 360-degree experience watch in Google Chrome, via your smartphone device or on a mobile VR headset. Explore by using your mouse or the ASWD keys.
Ash & Ice was released in June 2016. You can pick it up HERE.
Legendary band Blondie are set to release their eleventh studio album, Pollinator, on May 5; you can pre-order it HERE. They've recently released a video for the song "Fun" from the album. Check it out below.
It was recently announced that Blondie will be touring with Garbage in a tour dubbed the Rage And Rapture Tour. The tour will be making a stop in New York at the Beacon Theatre on August 1. Tickets go on sale TODAY, February 17 at 10AM Eastern. See below for more details and tour dates.
The Wintyr released a video for their song "This Water" this week. The track is from their upcoming album, Fury, set for release, March 10. Check it out below.
The Regrettes released their new album, Feel Your Feelings Fool! on January 13. You can pick up the album HERE. They are set to play Mercury Lounge on March 24. Tickets go on sale today at 12PM/Noon. See below for more details.
Solthrust announced their upcoming US tour this week. They'll be taking the stage twice in New York. On March 3, they will be at Rough Trade NYC and the following night, March 4, they will be at Mercury Lounge. See below for details and tour dates.
With their long-awaited third album, Slothrust deliver ten riveting anthems that reward repeated listens. The songs grab the ear and pierce the psyche with complex arrangements and lyrical depth intensified by guitarist/vocalist Leah Wellbaum’s penetrating vocal delivery.
Slothrust is Wellbaum, Kyle Bann (bass), and Will Gorin (drums). The trio first staked out their unique strain of jazz- and blues-afflicted rock as students at Sarah Lawrence College. The band’s 2012 debut Feels Your Pain, and its successor 2014’s Of Course You Do, established the band as a breed apart, serving up deceptively clever epics that veer satisfyingly between incandescent riffing and pop hooks, winsome anxiety and powerful heft.
“People have always had trouble comparing us to other bands, but someone recently described us as Nirvana meets Wynton Marsalis, and I loved that,” says Wellbaum. Even the band’s name inspires a beat of thoughtful consideration as the eyes take in the letters and the brain makes its snap judgement: Slo Thrust? Slot Rust? Slo Trust? Sloth-Rust.
We all studied jazz and blues, so I often use chords and voicings that aren’t quite as conventional for contemporary rock,” she continues. “Certain harmonic movement can get stale, so I try to incorporate colorful notes to give it more depth. The improvisational spirit of blues music is also something we try to always keep with us, even in more composed playing. I am drawn to musicians a bit further outside of the rock tradition, such as John Fahey, Elizabeth Cotten, D'Angelo, and Portishead. Growing up I listened to a lot of R&B and classical music. And musicals."
Tour Dates
03/01/17 Boston @ Brighton Music Hall*
03/02/17 Albany @ The Hollow*
03/03/17 Brooklyn @ Rough Trade*
03/04/17 New York @ Mercury Lounge*
03/06/17 Philly @ Johnny Brenda's#
03/07/17 Washington DC @ Black Cat Backstage#
03/09/17 Detroit @ Marble Bar#
03/10/17 Chicago @ Schuba's#
03/11/17 St. Louis @ Duck Room at Blueberry Hill#
03/12/17 Kansas City @ Tank Room#
03/15/17 Denver @ Larimer Lounge%
03/17/17 Boise @ The Olympic%
03/18/17 Portland @ The High Water Mark%
03/20/17 Seattle @ The Sunset%
03/22/17 San Francisco @ Bottom Of The Hill%
03/23/17 Los Angeles @ The Echo%
3/24/17 San Diego @ The Hideout%
* w/ IAN SWEET # w/ And The Kids % w/ Sons Of An Illustrious Father
