AGCS Tweets From Latitude Festival
We’re going to Latitude Festival! Well, 2/4ths of us are, and hopefully throughout the weekend, phone signals and battery levels permitting, we’ll send the occasional tweet over this way.
I was hoping to embed some nice little widget here to show you all those lovely tweets on AGCS’ front page, but tumblr has conspired against such an occurrence so unfortunately you’ll have to go to all the effort of scrolling down slightly and looking to the left of your screen in order to see our tweets. I am deeply sorry.
Anyway, stay tuned…
Jed. x
M.I.A. - /\/\/\Y/\
M.I.A. Where to begin… Whether she is waging a one-woman war on New York Times journalist Lynn Hirschberg for having the audacity to criticise her, or making daft pronouncements about the CIA being the mastermind behind Google and Facebook, M.I.A. has been getting attention of late for all the wrong reasons.
Despite this, behind all her agitprop sloganeering Maya Arulpragasam has always been a good artist. There was far more to 2007’s “Kala” than the now ubiquitous Paper Planes, with excellent cuts such as Boyz, Jimmy and Hussel proving that she could create great music across a number of genres. When M.I.A. was creating albums this good, it was easy to forgive her the occasional ill-informed political comment, especially as her heart usually seemed to be in the right place.
HALFWAY HOME - THE YEAR SO FAR
Back in January I wrote about some of the albums I was looking forward to in 2010. Now that we’re halfway through the year it only seems appropriate to reflect on how it’s been so far.
The Highs:
Owen Pallett’s Heartland, which I reviewed all the way back in January, has borne repeated listening well and remains the most ambitious record I’ve heard so far this year. Marking a major step up from the violinist’s earlier work and featuring the confusing but nonetheless intriguing concept of Owen as the all-powerful narrator of an ultra-violent farmer’s destiny in the fictional “Spectrum” world (told you it was confusing), this record is a blinder. Pretentious? Quite possibly, but that doesn’t make it any less brilliant. Read original review here.
Weezer’s Pinkerton Deluxe gets release date
I was worried that with Weezer enjoying somewhat of a comeback right now, Rivers Cuomo had decided to put Pinkerton Deluxe on the shelf. However it seems that it finally has a release date, with Amazon reporting it as October 5th.
So, what will the elusive second disk contain? Will fans finally get to hear the lost album Songs For The Black Hole? Here’s hoping. We’ll let you know when we do.
Greg
Ben Folds & Nick Hornby announce Lonely Avenue
Think we might actually be the first people to break this story; the heavily anticipated (at least by me) collaborative album by Ben Folds and Nick Hornby has an album cover and title; Lonely Avenue. Check out Huffington Post to listen to a demo of Levi Johnston’s Blues, with the album expected to drop in September/Fall.
UPDATE: The album is due to drop on Sept 28th, and there will be a tour according to Folds himself.
Greg
Sufjan Stevens working on new album!
According to the National’s Bryce Dessner, Sufjan Stevens is indeed hard at work on a new album and is currently recording in the band’s Brooklyn studio.
“We’ve played on some of the tracks and been listening to some of the stuff as he’s been working on it,” Dessner told Exclaim! in a recent interview.
Dessner, who described Stevens as “very solitary in what he does” and “one of my closest friends” didn’t want to reveal too much about the new as-yet-untitled Stevens album. But when asked if the new material sounded like Stevens’s older records, Dessner offered a resounding “no.”
“It’s going to be incredible,” he adds. “It’s going to probably blow people’s minds.”
Shamelessly taken from Exclaim, it’s Sufjan new album news, WOO!
Kanye West - Power
Fuck the haters, Kanye West is the best rapper of century twenty one, and I am hella excited about the upcoming release of LP5, Good Ass Job.
Today he’s uploaded the final mastered version of “Power” (leaked in unfinished form last week) to his blog for free download, but if you can’t find it there, this excellent blog has it on their servers for you to grab.
Greg, in California. (Sasquatch Festival review coming soon)
HOT CLUB DE PARIS - THE RISE AND INEVITABLE FALL OF THE HIGH SCHOOL SUICIDE CLUSTER BAND
At the start of 2010, when AGCS looked at what the year ahead might hold, I said I was particularly excited by Hot Club De Paris’ promise to release two EPs and an album this year. The first of the EP’s “With Days Like This As Cheap As Chewing Gum, Why Would Anyone Want To Work?”, came out in February and was pretty great (read review), but I’m pleased to say that on their new (but similarly interminably titled) release the band have done even better.
Best Coast - ‘Far Away’ & ‘Everybody’s Gone’
I’m giving you two songs by Best Coast because you deserve them. And because it showcases the diversity of a lo-fi band that could quite easily have written the same song twelve times over. No news on an album yet, but these songs follow a string of releases (which I’m sure you’ll find if you want it badly enough) slightly larger in sound and
Ghost Pants - Analogue Hearts
Ghost Pants, aka Dananananaykroyd drummer Paul Carlin, is giving away a free EP, entitled “Analogue Hearts”, and on first listen it’s pretty damn sweet. You can hear opening track Starts below, and if you like that then head HERE to get the whole thing. It’s free, so what’ve you got to lose!
Jed. x
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