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Yo La Tengo's 'Tom Courtenay' video makes HQ You-Tube Premiere
Today, we advance the cause of Matador’s Revisionist History series and the 25th anniversary reissue of Yo La Tengo’s Electr-o-pura via a fresh look at the “Tom Courtenay” music video. Recently exhumed from our sub-basement storage facilities, this clip will today make its HQ premiere on Youtube.
Recollections are hazy, but we can say with certainty that the video was aired at least once on MTV’s 120 Minutes. After that, who knows? Maybe you saw it on a 5th generation VHS bootleg. Maybe you squinted through a greatly bit-reduced version using RealPlayer. Well, squint no more! “Tom Courtenay” is now available to stream in crisp, clear, and glorious high definition.
The video is accompanied by a brand new interview, where Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew reflect on the film’s creation alongside director Phil Morrison (Junebug), who also helmed the much-loved YLT classics, “Sugarcube” (1997) and “I’ll Be Around” (2013).
Out this fall via Matador’s Revisionist History series, Electr-o-pura remains one of the most beloved works in Ira, Georgia and James’ catalog. Now in a gatefold sleeve and cut from the original 58-minute master, the new reissue is pressed for the first time on two LPs to ensure the highest quality of audio the album has had on vinyl to date.
The Lemon Twigs release intoxicating new song - "Moon"
The Lemon Twigs reveal the second single from their forthcoming third album, Songs For The General Public, entitled “Moon.”
The thrilling sax-driven track revels in hints of Bruce Springsteen and even fellow Long Islander Billy Joel.
“Moon” is preceded by The One which earned praise as “excellent” (Flood), “kaleidoscopic” (CoS) and “prodigious” (Paste) as well as comparisons to recent collaborator Todd Rundgren (Gigwise).
The D’Addario brothers wrote, recorded and produced the forthcoming album entirely on tape at their Long Island home studio, Sonora Studios in Los Angeles, and Electric Lady in New York City.
The prodigiously-talented duo first emerged as The Lemon Twigs in 2016 with their debut LP Do Hollywood, whose show-stopping melodies mined from every era of rock quickly earned fans in Elton John, Questlove, and Jack Antonoff. Go To School, the ambitious 15-track coming-of-age opus, followed in 2018 and solidified the band’s reputation for building grand walls of sound around an audacious concept.
Songs For The General Public, the 12-track album will be released on August 21 digitally and on CD, limited translucent red vinyl (only available via indie stores and the 4AD Store) and standard black vinyl.
Arca officially announces KiCk i
Arca has officially announced the details of her new album KiCk i, which is set for release this summer on XL Recordings: available digitally worldwide on June 26th with physical (vinyl/CD) to follow on July 17th.
Produced and recorded by Arca, KiCk i defines a new era of multiplex harmony for the Venezuelan artist, singer, DJ, performer and experimental music composer.
With appearances from Björk, Rosalía, Shygirl and SOPHIE, this is the first time Arca has invited collaborators into her world, previously having lent her sound to some of the decades most avant-pop artists.
With the release of Nonbinary kicking off the new era, today Arca shares the first single from KiCk i called “Time”.
“Time” originally premiered in September 2019 at Arca’s Mutant;Faith, a four-part experimental performance cycle at the new NYC performing arts space The Shed. The performance “stood to prove why Arca’s work is beyond innovative, and why her vision for the future of pop is so thrilling,” declared them., with Pitchfork revering Arca’s ability to “continue to create a singular world.” Captured on the fourth-day of Mutant;Faith performance cycle, the video for “Time” was conceptualized by Arca, Carlos Sáez and MANSON, who directed the video in front of a live audience at The Shed and on the streets of NYC.
KiCk i is a celebration not only of the joy Arca’s been able to find in her life, but the sometimes arduous journey it took for her to find it. Her struggles to reconcile her Venezuelan heritage and her trans Latinx identity emerge as reggaetón and pop en Español. But KiCk i isn’t just a pop record, or an experimental record, or even simply a mix between the two, but rather all of them at once- and so much more. Depending on where you drop the needle you’ll find bubblegum, harsh noise, electronic psychedelia, balladry, bangers, laughter, tears, passion, and expressions of faith – sounds and ideas that don’t simply blend together, but coexist simultaneously in quantum superposition made possible inside the sonic worlds Arca builds in her music.
“I don’t want to be tied to one genre,” Arca explains. “I don’t want to be labeled as one thing.” Where she is now, being nonbinary doesn’t end with her gender identity. It’s become a mindset where no one thing has to be just one thing, where multiple meanings, multiple realities can coexist in superposed balance. In this space between states, where one thing is the other, Arca has discovered a vast field of untapped creative power. KiCk i is the sound of her plugging in.
SOHN Releases New Single, 'Artifice [Live]' From Forthcoming Album
SOHN has shared ‘Artifice’ – a highlight from the 2014 album Tremors – from his upcoming live album, Live with the Metropole Orkest.
Late last year the British producer and songwriter shared a stage with the Grammy-winning Metropole Orkest and conductor Hans Ek for the opening night of Amsterdam Music Event.
Combining SOHN’s signature glacial electronics with the 54 person-strong orchestra, the one-off live performance at celebrated Dutch venue Melkweg brought to life his best-known songs such as ‘The Wheel’, ‘Conrad’ and ‘Artifice’.
Tune in on 22nd May at 2.30pm EST on YouTube and Facebook to watch the live performance in full, for one time only.
SOHN says, “It was an incredible opportunity to work with the Metropole on sculpting a very special evening in Amsterdam – the arrangements elevated the songs to another dimension, and luckily we recorded it all…. The album ended up being more than just a live record to me, it’s somehow a hybrid of dry electronics and rich orchestration and I’m very proud of how it turned out.”
Live with the Metropole Orkest will be released digitally and as a double vinyl LP on 5 June 2020.
caroline undertake infinite livestream of BRJ
“BRJ (forever edit) is a long-duration audio video event.
With this extended version of BRJ, we were interested in developing characteristics and ideas that we felt were latent in the original song. By pushing its duration to the extreme and making it impossible to listen to in one sitting, we like to think that the song melts into the background of things, becoming more of a low-level hum which can be either actively listened to or allowed to accompany other things. This way of thinking about the piece developed out of the original version, in which we felt like the empty space and repetitive loops enabled real world sounds from your environment to creep in and combine with the song as you listened to it.
In terms of the visuals, Jasper made the video in 2017 and it remained as a performance-to-camera until November of last year when we combined it with this extended version of B RJ. Both BRJ and the original video are experiments in building slow, glacial shifts and almost-imperceptible changes.
Combining them seemed to make sense.”
