Listen to Cass McCombs’ new album now

Cass McCombs

Cass McCombs‘ second album of 2011 – Humor Risk – follows April’s WIT’S END on November 7th in the UK, and a day later elsewhere. In an era when our musicians and pop acts share so much of themselves with us, Cass McCombs’ good old-fashioned fondness  for the enigmatic (particularly in interviews) is actually kind of refreshing – it also allows you to focus on his music. You can do just that below – Humor Risk is now available to stream in its entirety. It’s a fuller, more musically-varied LP than the sparse and frail WIT’S END. Additionally, you can also take a look at the video for Humor Risk track ‘The Same Thing’ below. … Continue Reading

Joker – The Vision

Joker - The Vision

By Greg Salter

To be facing a significant of expectation before you’ve even released your debut album is not particularly unusual these days – for Joker the waiting, chatter and hype has been going on for long that it’s hard to believe that The Vision is his first LP. His early singles – starting with his Kapsize EP (first released in October 2007 – a lifetime in electronic music), through tracks like ‘Purple City’, ‘Psychedelic Runway’ and ‘Digidesign’ – were given a huge amount of praise as they melded dubstep with genres as broad as house, grime and R&B into a ‘purple’ genre all of his own that sounded both distinctly huge and excitingly fresh. … Continue Reading

Cloud Nothings preview new album with ‘No Future / No Past’

Cloud Nothings - Attack On Memory

Earlier this year, Cloud Nothings (aka Dylan Baldi) released a strong self-titled debut album – and he’s already preparing a follow up. In February 2012, Wichita will release the second Cloud Nothings album, entitled Attack On Memory. There’s a taster of the album available now – ‘No Future / No Past’ is available to stream and download below. As you may be able to tell from the band-in-a-room production values, Steve Albini produced. It’s an intense, raw opener, akin to PJ Harvey’s ‘Rid Of Me’ and certainly marks a definite progression for Cloud Nothings. … Continue Reading

Field Music announce new album

Field Music

Field Music – Sunderland siblings David and Peter Brewis – made one of our favourite albums of 2010 with Field Music (Measure), and the duo are lining up a return for next year. They’ll release their fourth album Plumb on Memphis Industries on February 13 2012 in the UK, and a day later in the US. Recorded over the last year, it is apparently a return to the succinct, fragmentary songwriting of their first two records after Field Music (Measure)‘s broader approach. As a preview, you can stream and download an album highlight, ‘(I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing’ below. … Continue Reading

R&S Records – IOTDXI

R&S Records - IOTDXI

By Greg Salter

Over the last few years, we’ve had a number of compilations from the labels that have brought us the most forward-thinking artists in beat and bass-driven electronic music. Back in October 2009 came 5: Five Years Of Hyperdub, a collection of new and old cuts that felt like something of a victory lap for a label that had emerged from the very beginnings of dubstep and, in the process, brought us Burial, Kode 9 and Joker. More recently have come compilations from labels that have since pushed electronic music beyond any particular genre – see Hessle Audio’s bass-focused 116 And Rising as well as Back And 4th, a collection of tracks from Paul Rose’s Hotflush label. … Continue Reading

Watch Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’ video now

Rihanna - Talk That Talk

You may have heard a thing or two about Rihanna‘s video for ‘We Found Love’ – a farmer in Northern Ireland didn’t take too kindly to her cavorting around in her pants on his land, as you may recall – and now you can view the finished clip. Click through below to view it. There’s drugs, poor cockney accents and topless frolicking – if this video’s anything to go by, she’s combining the trancey, carefree singles and “Ain’t sex good?” attitude of her previous album, Loud, with some of the “I’m very serious, let’s tackle issues” posturing and imagery of Rated R. Fair enough. Rihanna’s new album, Talk That Talk, is out in November. … Continue Reading

Florence + The Machine to stream sold out Hackney Empire gig

Florence + The Machine

Tickets for Florence + The Machine‘s only UK gig this year went on sale this morning – and sold out in one minute. But fear not, people who didn’t get tickets – the show, at Hackney Empire on October 25, will be streamed online for all to see, over at The Guardian in a special video player. The details:

“The gig will cost just £3.99 to view, and as part of the experience, fans can engage in a user chat function whilst watching the show, as well as gain exclusive access to download an official souvenir programme made available 24 hours post-event, including a signed set-list from the show, a unique live photo gallery of the event, and performance notes from Florence herself.” … Continue Reading

Radiohead – TKOL RMX 1234567

Radiohead - TKOL RMX 1234567

By Greg Salter

TKOL RMX 1234567 is a compilation of the remix 12s that Radiohead have been gradually releasing over the last few months, since their eighth album, The King Of Limbs, arrived in February. With the 19 tracks on offer here, the band have done a pretty good job of bringing together many of the most exciting names in (UK based mainly) forward-looking dance music. For its first half or so, The King Of Limbs already sounded like it had one foot on the dancefloor (albeit in a very ‘Radiohead’,
creepy-guy-on-the-dancefloor kind of way) – it twitched rather than raved, and many listeners may have seen this remix series as a way of pushing the band all the way into the dance/electronica genres that they’ve always insisted on folding into largely traditional song structures. … Continue Reading

Listen to the Massive Attack and Burial collaboration ‘Four Walls’ now

Massive Attack

It feels like this has been rumoured to have been happening for ages, but finally we can hear the collaboration between Massive Attack and Burial. On October 17, a limited edition 12″ will be released through The Vinyl Factory and Inhale Gold – Massive Attack vs Burial features two tracks ‘Four Walls’ and ‘Paradise Circus’. The collaboration seems to have taken a similar format to Burial’s ‘Moth’/'Wolf Cub’ 12″ with Four Tet from a couple of years ago. This release comes with a gold glitter screenprinted sleeve designed by Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja, will cost 25 quid and is available to pre-order now. You can listen to one of the tracks from the 12″, ‘Four Walls’, below now. … Continue Reading

Listen to new King Krule, ‘The Noose Of Jah City’

King Krule

King Krule – real name Andy Marshall and formerly operating under the moniker Zoo Kid – is gearing up to release an EP of new material on the Matador imprint True Panter Sounds on November 7. The self-titled EP will include ‘The Noose Of Jah City’, which you can stream below. The song is a ragged, though beautiful piece of story telling, with King Krule’s distinctive and deceptively fluid vocals backed by the kind of melancholy, late night atmospherics you might expect of The XX. He’s also got a few tourdates in the US and UK coming up – you can check those out below. … Continue Reading