DOWNLOAD: South Central - Higher State of Consciousness (Josh Wink cover)
Adding a few air horns to a pop punk band does not rave music make, a realization exhaustively evinced by Klaxons, their followers, and hordes of Justice clones. So imagine my surprise when Brighton rockers South Central managed to push one the best known rave tracks, Josh Wink's "Higher State of Consciousness," so far into the red I had to remove my head phones to gasp, "What manner of beast is this?" Like an electrified icepick to the brain (or Justice's "Stress" with sadistic qualities), South Central aim for the ear drums with increasingly intense swathes of vocals/synth/guitar/drum machine noise roughly carved into the shape of Josh Wink's classic track. Not for the faint of spirit; you must be this crazy to ride.
Sounds like: Whitehouse gone rave, a pissed off Prodigy, Justice possessed
South Central - Higher State of Consciousness (Josh Wink cover)
FEATURED: Live Pivot Video At The Warp RCRD LBL Blog
Over on their RCRD LBL blog, our buddies at Warp have posted a live video of Australian band Pivot absolutely killing it at France's La Route Du Rock festival. They're jamming their tune "O Soundtrack My Heart," from their album of the same name, and, honestly, the drum break at the 4:24 mark is the heaviest thing I have heard all day. Period. Buy the album at Warpmart and Bleep.
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Zola Jesus - Last Day + Sea Talk
Remember when Scarlett Johansson put out a record? No tragedy by any means, if memory serves me right, but it did all seem a bit dismally comfortable in the end, what with David Bowie’s dad-like presence and Dave Sitek’s tendency to wrap the actress’s throat in so much layered sound she may as well’ve been singing through a scarf. Now, imagine if Anywhere I Lay My Head had been produced by U.S. Girls’ Megan Remy and featured a singer raised on arias and no-wave. Struggling? Try jamming “Last Day” – running barely beyond a minute, it’s a shotgun funeral of a song. “Sea Talk”, meanwhile, marries depth charging bass with delicately keyed ephemera in the same way that Telepathe do on next year’s Dance Mother LP – but instead of Busy Gangnes and Melissa Livaudais coolly recounting forest-bound death f*cks, there is singer Nika, with swollen heart melodrama. Evoking all manner of things – cigarettes in the rain and the lost glamour of old Europe; Toto and Suicide – Zola Jesus conjure cinema from the longing of lo-fi sounds for more expensive fidelity, Nika breathing sweet everythings through the mist into your cold, undeserving ears.
Sounds Like: Nite Jewel, the 1980s, The Hospitals
DOWNLOAD: Pivot - Didn't I Furious
Posted 11/12/2008 2:15 PM by Samuel Duke
Tags: Samuel Duke, electronic, indie, rock, industrial, noise
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Australian band Pivot are groovemasters of the industrial; their techy, sledghammer noise-rock sounds like Throbbing Gristle if they'd lasted long enough to collaborate with Portishead, a band content on damaging ear drums with treble-heavy gusts of noise but smart enough to throw some feel behind the cacophony. The band's debut album O Soundtrack My Heart came out in August via our friends at Warp, who've kindly shot over what they think is the album's essential deep cut, "Didn't I Furious". Over a guitar riff that sounds like a drill overloading itself in tune, the boys have thrown some slo-mo disco thump and enough distorted samples to make Fuck Buttons clear out their computers. Head over to the Warp blog for their thoughts on the track, and pick up a copy of Soundtrack at their site.
Sounds like: Throbbing Gristle, Fuck Buttons, Battles
Download: Pivot - Didn't I Furious
Pivot's "Didn't I Furious" At The Warp RCRD LBL Blog
Previously:
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Bonne Aparte - Media + Two More
When are more bands going to start ripping off Ministry? Does it take Metro Area including them on their new Fabric mix for this to start happening? Dutch band Bonne Aparte, who I discovered by bumping around MySpace, sound like Al Jorgensen’s weed-smoking sons, kids who love the freakish tones of industrial noise but also probably own the first two Liars albums and maybe even saw No Age a few times on their last tour. The British group was kind enough to send us over some exclusive jawns, and I will personally say that I think these tracks are insane, like Crystal Antlers if they ditched the psychedelic fascination and just listened to Killing Joke all the time. For those that still jam to The Land Of Rape And Honey, this is your new favorite band.
You can buy a copy of Bonne Aparte's self-titled album from Dutch label Wham! Wham Records right here.
Sounds like: Ministry, Killing Joke, Liars, Crystal Antlers (sort of)
Exclusive Download: Bonne Aparte - Media
Exclusive Download: Bonne Aparte - Taste My Snow
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: An Albatross - ...And Now Emerges The Silver Pilgrim + Floodgates Released
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According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the second definition of “albatross,” (the fist being a large-footed bird) is “a constant, worrisome burden.” I bet if Wilkes-Barre, PA’s An Albatross shacked up on your mother’s living room floor, she would probably feel much the same. That’s not fair—I’m sure they’re nice boys, she would say—but if the band’s annihilating mélange of spazcore rhythms and chalkboard-shattering six-strings is anything to go by, these guys are probably out of their goddamn minds. “Floodgates Released” is the best D-Beat hardcore song with an organ in it ever. It sounds like the Birthday Party if they’d magically discovered the Hot Snakes discography. “…And Now Emerges The Silver Pilgrim” is an even less hard to pin down, posing as saxified post-punk one minute before winding around itself like a hyperkinetic tetherball. The An Albatross Family Album—the band's new long-player—drops next Tuesday through Eyeball.
Sounds like: Hot Snakes, Melt Banana, Fuck Buttons
Exclusive Download: An Albatross - ...And Now Emerges The Silver Pilgram
DOWNLOAD: Vivian Girls - Where Do You Run To + Tell The World
Just a few weeks ago I saw Vivian Girls play the Cake Shop in New York and it was so great. You know the shows during which something so sweet hums from the stage that people are inevitably drawn closer? It was one of those. Man, was that great. Their vocal harmonies were airtight and the shoegaze-y swells they drifted in on were appropriately brooding. They were very rocking and I developed a minor crush.
Unless you've been able to snag one of their seven inches at shows or in record stores, their tunes are scarce right now. All the more reason to enjoy and share the jams that you are about to download below. Keep major tabs.
Sounds Like: The Jesus And Mary Chain, The Raincoats
FEATURED: HEALTH at Pitchfork's Guest List
LA-based noise rock troupe HEALTH were featured on Pitchfork’s indie-prestigious “Guest List” column today, where bands talk about their favorite tracks, films, books and influences. Among discussing Crystal Castles, DIY venues across the country and, um, freemasons, HEALTH professed their love for Baron von Luxxury’s remix of “I Always Say Yes” by Glass Candy, which we released a few months ago. It’s quite an amazing modern disco tune, so we thought we’d roll it out for the occasion. Check out a couple of HEALTH tracks as well…
HEALTH at Pitchfork's Guest List
Download: HEALTH - Triceratops (Acid Girls 2STEPS2FREEDOM Mix)
Download: HEALTH - Triceratops (Before Dancefloorasauruses Ruled the Earth Mix)
Download: HEALTH - The Problem Is (Lab Remix)
Download: Glass Candy - I Always Say Yes (Baron von Luxxury Remix Parts II and III)
FEATURED: Apache Beat and HEALTH open for Crystal Castles tonight
If you were one of the lucky ones to score tickets to the Crystal Castles/Apache Beat/HEALTH/Team Robespierre noise-punk extravaganza at Mercury Lounge tonight, good on you for your concert-going skills. If you missed out well, we have consolation for you, in the form of free MP3s! A while back we released tracks from both Apache Beat (who played a leather bar at SXSW this year) and HEALTH, so here they are again.
Download: Apache Beat - Tropics (Bitchee Bitchee Ya Ya remix)
Download: HEALTH - Triceratops (Acid Girls 2STEPS2FREEDOM mix)
Download: HEALTH - Triceratops (Acid Girls Before the Dancefloorasaurases Ruled the Earth mix)
Download: HEALTH - The problem Is (Thrust Lab remix)
The first time we saw Apache Beat is was opening for Crystal Castles and Studio B last year, and the performance has been seared into our memory forever (and not just because of the strobe lights, ya dig).
DOWNLOAD: Ecstatic Sunshine - Little Big Dipper
If Beethoven had a.d.h.d. and tourette's and an advance copy of Please Kill Me, maybe "Fur Elise" woulda been "Little Big Dipper" instead of a McDonald's commercial. Reinforcing the "Baltimore got something in the water" theory, Ecstatic Sunshine virtuosically shred and shit on everything that came before them with playfully violent instrumental send-ups and throw-downs of classic punk ragers, playing with form like Lennie played with mice. It looks like this. It sounds like this:
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