Second Cup | Cansei de Ser Sexy

from: Brazil (so maybe they'll win this year's World Cup?)
current release: ‘Cansei de Ser Sexy’ out July 11th

Some kids from Sao Paulo...ya might have heard them already, but if you haven't, you should check em out...

mp3: Cansei de Ser Sexy- "This Month Day 10"


QT: Cansei de Ser Sexy- "Paris Hilton"

They'll be making their way to Southern Cali in August, til then, explore their sites.

official site: Cansei de Ser Sexy
My Space: Cansei de Ser Sexy

Today's Brew | Dabrye

From: Ann Arbor, MI
current release: "Two/Three" (released June 13, 2006)
type of music: IDM

Dabrye is one of the aliases of Tadd Mullinix.

mp3: Dabrye- "Truffle No Shuffle"
mp3: Dabrye- "Encoded Flow" (featuring Kadence)


QT: Dabrye featuring Beat 13: "Smoking the Edge"

official site: Dabrye
My Space: Tadd Mullinix

Coming to LA:
With Percee P
July 22, Saturday to Spaceland

Today's Brew | Cat Power

I was quite disappointed upon the news that Cat Power cancelled her show earlier this year at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre here in LA, but fret not, at least sorta.
The upside is that she's in town to play tonight at the Ford Amphitheatre.
The downside, she isn't bringing the Memphis Rhythm Band with her, so it'll be a solo show.
But if you can't wait for that, she was on tele, as some would say, BBC2's "Later With Jools Holland" on June 23.


YouTube: Cat Power- "The Greatest" (featuring the Memphis Rhythmn Band)

re: 1996

photo by FutureMrsBawkbagawk
Beck will be playing here in LA for 2 nights at the Wiltern, starting tonight.
UPDATE: NME reports that Beck's new album will be more "Hip Hop" and will be produced by (the unofficial member of Radiohead) Nigel Godrich. Read the full article here.

In celebration of this occasion, we continue our "re:" series, and look back a decade to the album that captured a broader audience as well as the critics. The album is "Odelay".

"The name Odelay was inadvertently invented by a sound engineer who was working on the album. He misheard the Mexican slang phrase "órale" in one of the songs as "Odelay" and transcribed it as such. Beck liked the name, and used it." (source: Wikipedia)


"Devil's Haircut"-directed by the music vid guru- Mark Romanek:
QT: Beck- "Devil's Haircut"


QT: Beck- "Where its at"


official site: Beck
My previous entry of "re:" ovah here.

Today's Brew | Chocolate Swim

featuring Lady Sovereign- "Hoodie" (Spank Rock Remix) and Vast Aire F/ MF Doom- "Super Friendz" (Edan Remix)

Adult Swim Promotional- Free EP Download

Late Weekend Brew | The Fever

The Fever
From: NY
Current release: "City of Sleep"

(Some screen shots from the video "Waiting For The Centipede")
The video reminds me of the early 20th century art collages of the Dada/ Surreal movement.
Each frame of the video is so beautifully composed.






From the album "City of Sleep":
QT: The Fever- "Waiting For The Centipede"

official site: The Fever
My Space: The Fever

Late Night Brew | Figurines

QT: Figurines- "I remember"

Yes, I'm back for some more thrills and chills...and again, I really don't post anything on the weekends, but here we go again, with yet another weekend post...sorta.

Figurines.
They recently toured with Tapes N Tapes and Cold War Kids, and their album "Skeleton" came out a few months back...yes, I'm a bit late on this one as well, but oh well...
They are from Denmark...and yes, there are four of em...at least that's what I'm told.
Could be more hiding somewhere...

mp3: Figurines- "The Wonder"
mp3: Figurines- "Rivalry"

official site: Figurines

Second Cup | Band of Horses "The Funeral"

Its become one of my favorite songs this year...

From their album "Everything All The Time ":
QT: Band of Horses- "The Funeral"

official site: Band of Horses

In LA:
Friday June 30th
Echo Los Angeles, CA

Today's Brew | Ellen Allien & Apparat

Just started to listen to the album by Ellen Allien & Apparat "Orchestra of Bubbles".
Chemistry. As two of German's IDM forces join in this collective effort.
I'm familiar with Ellen Allien, from her last album "Thrills", and not too familiar with Apparat. A very textural sound as you move from track to track. I'm still attempting to absorb it all, so perhaps I'll have to get back to you on what I thought of the album overall.

From the album "Orchestra of Bubbles":
mp3: Ellen Allien & Apparat- "Do Not Break"

official site: Orchestral of Bubbles


From Ellen Allien's 2005 album "Thrills":
Down Video
This could be a start of a new sport...


official site: Ellen Allien

Second Cup | The Long Winters

From: Seattle
Current release: "Putting the Days to Bed" (July 2006)

It's a four piece ensemble from the Pacific Northwest, they've had some minor changes in the line up within the past, but seems that the band is fronted by John Roderick.
I'm still a bit mixed on whether I like em or not...


official site: The Long Winters
The song "Pushover" off their upcoming album is on
My Space: The Long Winters

Today's Brew | LA Film Festival: Music

Not sure I'll be around to check this out, but could be worth checkin if you're in town.


Weapon of Choice: The Music Videos of Fatboy Slim
Music Video Showcase
Program Running Time is 75 min
Mon 6/26, 9:30pm
UCLA James Bridges Theater
$10


A Leonard Cohen Evening
Martha Wainwright will perform live, followed by a screening of Lian Lunson’s Leonard Cohen I’m Your Man.
Sat, Jun 24
8:00 pm
John Anson Ford Amphitheatre
$10 | Door only

Also:

The Filth and the Fury Live!
Hosted by Steve Jones
The music will be provided by the Like and the Vacation, and the film is Julien Temple’s The Filth and the Fury.
Sat, Jul 1
8:00 pm
John Anson Ford Amphitheatre
$15

For ticket or other screenings info: LA Film Fest

I want my....

The folks over at Pitchfork compiled their list of the "awesome" music videos (100 of em), courtesy of YouTube. One can say YouTube is convenient (I even use it), but to view them in low rez quality doesn't do much justice with the actual video, especially to show that they are "awesome". There's a big difference listening to music fed from 128kbps as opposed to 64kbps. And one may argue whether the videos they've selected are considered "awesome" or "awful".
Anyways, I like lists, so I figure its worthwhile to see what they've compiled.

Pitchfork : 100 Awesome Music Videos

Second Cup | Casey Dienel

Today is the Summer Solstice.
Wikipedia defines it as "The summer solstice is the day of the year with the longest daylight period and hence the shortest night."


from: Boston
current release: Wind-Up Canary

My Space: Casey Dienel
Daytrotter has some free songs available by Casey Dienel. Also included a Pavement cover, which she cites as an influence to her music.
Also stream some songs at her My Space.
NPR has a quick blurb about her song "Doctor Monroe".

Today's Double Shot | Wax Tailor + Clover

Okay I finally got the album "Tales Of The Forgotten Melodies" and been listening to it in its entirety. Some would argue that its sounds a bit too familiar, and that its not treading on any new ground, but I'm still enjoying its peculiarity.


+featuring the vocals of Charlotte Savary from the French Band Clover on the Portishead-esque "Our Dance".
My Space: Clover
official site: Clover

QT: Wax Tailor- "Our Dance"
+might take a while, depending on how fast your bandwidth is, since its in a large screen format.

Second Cup | Wax Tailor

I don't know much about Wax Tailor, the only thing I know is he combines movie and music in a peculiar way, thus called "cinematic hip hop".
I heard about him from KEXP's DJ: Michele Myers, and was blown away.
Stream the music on his site.

official site: Wax Tailor

Re: 1995

In 1995, Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands went from being known as the Dust Brothers to the Chemical Brothers with their debut album release "Exit Planet Dust".
UPDATE: Not to be confused with The Dust Brothers from the States.
Their good friend Tim Burgess, from the Charlatans lended vocals to the song "Life is Sweet", and later to be remixed by Daft Punk.
Interesting backstory as the Chemical Brothers ran into the Gallagher brothers (Oasis):

In August 1995, the Chemical Brothers DJed for Oasis at a Sheffield gig. The gig began to backfire when it became apparent that Liam Gallagher didn't seem to like any of the tracks they were spinning. The closest that they could come to pleasing him was the Happy Mondays' "Wrote For Luck". Gallagher proceeded to kick the Chemical Brothers off the turntables and procured a friend from The Verve to continue to DJ. He subsequently favoured obscure psychedelic material to the displeasure of the crowd. Some viewed it as a "one person dancing" night, the "one person" being Jarvis Cocker, from Pulp. Later, Simons put on Leftfield's "Check One", which removed Jarvis from the floor. (text from Artistopia)



images from the video "Life is Sweet"

From their album "Exit Planet Dust":
YouSend: The Chemical Brothers- "Life is Sweet" (for a limited time)

Buy the album ovah here.
official site: The Chemical Brothers

Today's Brew | Thom's "Shitlist"

If you haven't heard the news already, Thom wrote an interesting entry over the weekend about their recent concert in NY at Dead Air Space (radiohead's blog site which gets updated quite often).
It appears that one of the President's daughters came out to the show to watch Radiohead in concert.

(click image below to get a closer look)


My previous entry of Thom Yorke ovah here.

Late Night Brew | Tapes 'N Tapes "Insistor"

Real: Tapes 'N Tapes- "Insistor"

My previous entry about them ovah here and here.

Sixty Thousand Albums Coming Soon...

An interesting read, ovah at Pitchfork, regarding some new developments on the World Music Scene.
Article written by Chris Dahlen.
A firm in San Francisco is about to dump 60,000 records of Chinese music on the Internet. What are we going to do with it?

"There was a big underground jazz movement in the 1960s, during the Maoist Cultural Revolution, and this type of music was outlawed. The masters were supposed to have been destroyed," says Arnold. "But apparently a lot of this stuff was locked away...and is rumored to exist in the archives. It's pretty exciting to think that in the next decade or so, a lot of these things will come to light."

Read the full article ovah here.

Today's Brew | Dylan & Friends

A spillover from my previous entry, here's a live concert footage of Dylan and a cast of some of the most talented musicians around...

Quite an amazing performance. Check it out.

Extra Weekend Brew

It's a rarity for me to ever post an entry on the weekends, especially a weekend night.
Damn, what's wrong with me...haha.
But I thought I do it since, I got home at a reasonable hour, and discovered some interesting read after randomly browsing through the bookstore. One interesting find was the current issue of Paste Magazine.



Paste Magazine has compiled a list of the Best Songwriters, based on a readers' poll. The survey was based on 18,000 readers...wow.

I thought I hightlight the Top 10, and maybe some honorable mentions, since we all love lists. I sure do. And good songwriting isn't bad either.

And here's the Top 10 Songwriters according to Paste Magazine readers:
1. Bob Dylan
2. Neil Young (be sure to check out his current album: Living With War)
3. Bruce Springsteen
4. Tom Wait
5. Paul McCartney
6. Leonard Cohen
7. Brian Wilson
8. Elvis Costello
9. Joni Mitchell
10. Prince

----some highlighted mentions-----
16. David Bowie
20. Van Morrison
24. Jeff Tweedy
27. Radiohead
46. Sufjan Stevens
66. Rufus Wainwright

Second Cup | Starflyer 59

"I WIN" EP (3 songs)
Art by Matt Maust (Cold War Kids)

Jason Martin (Starflyer 59) produced Cold War Kids' EP "With Our Wallets Full EP".
I've written and talked about Starflyer 59 previous, numerous times...

Read my blurb about the Cold War Kids: OC Connection

Their new album "Island" is due out in September.
Stream their new song "I Win" at My Space: Starflyer 59

the big buzz

I heard something similiar to this report on NPR a few days ago or so.

"It was named the 'Mosquito' because the sound resembles that of a buzzing insect. And it works by emitting a harmless ultra sonic tone that generally can only be heard by people aged 25 and under. In trials, it has proven that the longer someone is exposed to the sound, the more annoying it becomes." (text courtesy of BBC article)

mp3: Mosquito Sound

Read the full article:
BBC: "The Sound That Repels Troublemakers"

Today's Brew | Herbert "Scales"

Just started to listen to his album "Scales".
According to his site, the album is quite an ambitious project as "among the 723 objects sampled on these lush tracks are coffins, petrol pumps, meteorites, an RAF Tornado bomber, and somebody being sick outside a banquet for a notorious London arms fair."

Here's a series of video clips as he attempted to record the drum sound at various sites:


Recording attempt of drum sounds at a underground cave.
QT: Matthew Herbert- "Scales- Recording Sessions Part 1"

Recording attempt of drum sounds on a hot air balloon at the height of 2,000 ft.
QT: Matthew Herbert- "Scales- Recording Sessions Part 2"

Recording attempt of drum sounds at the British Channel during the winter months.

Watch the rest of the Scales- Recording Sessions ovah here.

Stream some of the music from Scales ovah here.

Previous entry about him ovah here.

Today's Brew | Bjorkestra

Last time I visited their site, they were known as "Bjorkestra" but now they are called "Travis Sullivan's Bjorkestra".
A pleasant surprise since I was hoping they would make their first ever appearance to the west coast. I'm intrigued by the idea of full jazz orchestra that reinterpets the music of Bjork.

West Coast tour: This August
Thursday August 3rd - Harlow's / Sacramento, CA
Friday August 4th - Great American Music Hall / San Francisco, CA
Saturday August 5th - The Attic / Santa Cruz, CA
Wednesday August 9th - Belly Up Tavern / Solana Beach, CA
Friday August 11th - The Knitting Factory (Main Space) / Los Angeles, CA

mp3: download: Travis Sullivan's Bjorkestra-"Army of Me"
(Live at Symphony Space)

official site: Bjorkestra

Kids Wanna Rock

I finally cracked open the current Newsweek that gets delivered to me via mail, and found an interesting article on the "new kids on the block". And I'm not talkin' the boy band most people remember.
If you have the magazine, its on page 13, under the Periscope section...check it out.

Also, mention of mp3 blogger Gorilla vs Bear.
Read the article online: Newsweek: Music- Middle School of Rock

Newsweek feature: Tiny Masters of Today
band features: Shane (9 yrs old- writes the songs), Hunter (12 years old- writes the music) and Brian (46 years old- just the drummer).

My Space: Tiny Masters of Today

Second Cup | Dirty on Purpose

Okay, I'll confess to you that I love dream pop.
For those who are unfamiliar with that term, Wikipedia defines it simply as, "a type of alternative rock that originated in the early 1980s when bands like the Cocteau Twins began twisting New Wave melodies into sonic, echoing textures and mumbled vocals." Although there has been a resurgence of dream pop in a smaller scale throughout the vast music landscape, the mumbled vocals have been less apparent. The texturing of sounds has adapted other elements but faint traces are still heard upon hearing the particular characteristics that defined the dream pop sound.

If you've enjoyed the dream pop element sounds of Asobi Seksu, here's a band that incorporates some dream pop elements and also from the same city- Brooklyn, NY.

From their album "Sleep Late For A Better Tomorrow"(2005):
mp3: Dirty on Purpose- "Mind Blindness"
From their album "Hallelujah Sirens"(2006):
mp3: Dirty on Purpose-"Light Pollution"

official site: Dirty on Purpose
My Space: Dirty on Purpose

Today's Brew | Lily Allen "Smile"

Real: Lily Allen- "Smile"

Previous entry: here

Today's Brew | Say Hi To Your Mom

Since I don't normally write alot, due to time constraints, I always like it when I can find material that already exists. I find ways to incorporate them into my entry (credits included).
And I make it appoint to find material that's interesting enough for one to read...so hey, I found some here...

(text below courtesy of the band's site)
Why is Impeccable Blahs about vampires?
Because they threatened to bite us on the neck if we didn't make a record about them.

Hey, are you the guy?
Depends who is asking.

I'm still confused about how many people are in Say Hi To Your Mom.
Eric started the band in 2002 and played most of the instruments on the first three records. He was able to do this because of super advanced recording technology. Chris and Jeff joined the band in 2005 and contributed to the fourth record. Despite this fact, super advanced recording technology was still employed in making the fourth record. Nevertheless, Eric hopes that people will start asking Chris and Jeff if they are 'the guy.'
(to read more, visit the band's site and go to FAQ)


From their forthcoming album "Impeccable Blahs" (July 25):
mp3 download: Say Hi To Your Mom- "These Fangs"
(courtesy of insound)

official site: Say Hi To Your Mom

Buy/ Preorder the album ovah here.

re: 1988

Today, Sonic Youth officially releases "Rather Ripped". Which appeared on my Half Year list of the Best Albums so far).
To celebrate their 20th album release, we look back to the classic masterpiece "Daydream Nation" (their 6th album).
Pretty amazing for a band that's been together for about a quarter of a century and also contribute in the fine art world as well.




QT: Sonic Youth- "Silver Rocket"

QT: Sonic Youth- "Candle"

YouSend: Sonic Youth- "Rain King" (for a limited time)

official site: Sonic Youth

Get the album from ovah here.

My previous entries about Sonic Youth are ovah here and here. and here.
Last week's entry on re:.