From the Vaults Friday: Sparklehorse, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot (1995)

The Year: 1995
The Album: Sparklehorse, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
Who It Influenced: Ugly Casanova, Band of Horses, Iron and Wine, M. Ward, Bright Eyes, Bon Iver

In the days following Mark Linkous's suicide, as writers tried to find the words to evoke the decaying beauty of the Sparklehorse main-man's hushed alt-country, many turned to the simplicity of his tune "Sad & Beautiful World." The song is little more than its title; a repeated refrain —"it's a sad and beautiful world"— elemental in its simplicity. It even delivers a couplet that's doubled in profundity ever since Linkous put a bullet through his heart in a Knoxville alley: "sometimes days go speeding past/sometimes this one seems like the last."

"Sad & Beautiful World" is found on the debut Sparklehorse LP, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot. Though the album gained most of its attention, on its initial release, from buzzing, distorted, anthemic alt-rock numbers like "Someday I Will Treat You Good" and "Hammering the Cramps," its longevity, its influence, and its cult following came about through those sad, sad songs where Linkous whispered in a cracked voice over sparse guitars and swimming radio static.

Over the years, Linkous would refine his shadowy, atmospheric, mood-music craft, leading to collaborations with everyone from Tom Waits to Fennesz to Danger Mouse, and other classic cuts like "It's a Wonderful Life" (whose music video was, memorably, made by amazing Canadian filmmaking anachronist Guy Maddin).

But, nothing quite captured Linkous's abundant talents like his debut album; one that will continue to charm and inspire listeners long after he's gone.

• Full review: Sparklehorse, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot

From the Vaults Friday: Sparklehorse, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot (1995) originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 08:00:29.

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Source: | 12 March 2010 | 1:00 am

Neu! to Release Career-Spanning Vinyl Boxset

Few bands have remained as enduring and influential as Neu! Four over four decades, their influence has spanned across generations and musical movements, with everyone from David Bowie to Public Image Ltd. to Tortoise to Radiohead drawing from their graceful sense of repetition and the late Klaus Dinger's signature 'Dinger beat.'

Neu!'s first three albums —1972's Neu!, 1973's Neu! 2, and 1975's Neu! '75— are only verifiable classics, and those three LPs are soon to be boxed up on a limited-edition heavyweight-vinyl boxset that will house Neu!'s entire career output.

On May 10, German label Grönland will release a boxset retrospective including those records, the previously-unreleased (and previously disowned) Neu! '86, a single of live recordings from '72, a Neu! t-shirt, stencil, and booklet of photos. Completists, rejoice!

Photo © Anton Corbijn

Neu! to Release Career-Spanning Vinyl Boxset originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 08:00:22.

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Source: | 11 March 2010 | 1:00 am

Band of Horses Announce 3rd Album, Infinite Arms, Out in May

Southern-rock sentimentalists Band of Horses have announced the forthcoming release of their third album, Infinite Arms, on May 18. The first record for Ben Bridwell and co since departing Sub Pop, it will be co-released by no less than three entities (from smallest to largest): Brown Records, Fat Possum, and Columbia.

Produced by the band (of Horses) with help from long-time aide Phil Ek, it's also the first BOH LP to include their entire five-piece live outfit on it, and the first since Bridwell became a dad (in 2008).

No track-list just yet, but Band of Horses have already scheduled a mighty slate of tour dates to warp Infinite Arms around the people.

Horse (in the) Flesh:
March 15: Boulder, CO - Fox Theater
March 16: Denver, CO - Ogden Theater
March 18-20: Austin, TX - SXSW
April 8: Paris, France - La Fleche D'or
April 9: Brussels, Belgium - Orangerie
April 10: Rotterdam, Netherlands- Motel Mozaique
April 12: London, England - Koko
April 14: Köln, Germany - Kulturkirche
April 16: Oslo, Norway - Rockefeller
April 17: Gothenburg, Sweden - Tradgarn
April 18: Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega
April 23: Raleigh, NC - Walnut Creek Amphitheater
April 24: Raleigh, NC - Walnut Creek Amphitheater
April 27: Gainesville, FL - Rion Ballroom
April 28: Miami, FL - Fillmore
April 29: Orlando, FL - House of Blues
May 1: New Orleans, LA - Jazzfest
May 2: Memphis, TN - Beale St. Music Festival
May 27: Davis, CA - UC Davis Freeborn Hall
May 30: Bend, OR - Les Schwab Amphitheater
May 31: George, WA - Sasquatch! Festival
June 5: Bangor, Northern Ireland - Ward Park
June 9: London, England - Roundhouse
June 12: Glasgow, Scotland - Bellahouston Park
June 19: Toronto, ON - Olympic Island Concert
September 25: Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theater

Band of Horses Announce 3rd Album, Infinite Arms, Out in May originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 08:00:31.

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Source: | 10 March 2010 | 1:00 am

RIP: Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous

Mark Linkous, the Virginia-based singer-songwriter who recorded as Sparklehorse, committed suicide on Saturday. In an alley outside a friend's house in Knoxville, Tennesse, he shot himself through the heart with a handgun. Linkous was 47 years old.

The songwriter's boundless talent produced four Sparklehorse albums —the classic 1995 debut Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, 1999's Good Morning Spider, 2001's It's a Wonderful Life, and 2006's Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain— of weathered, cracked, fraying alt-country lullabies.

Over the years Linkous collaborated with a wide array of artists, including Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Daniel Johnston, and Nina Persson. Recently, he worked with Danger Mouse and David Lynch on the Dark Night of the Soul project. One of the many guest vocalists on that record was Linkous's friend Vic Chesnutt, who also took his own life, last year, on Christmas eve.

Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood offered these sentiments: "I was very sad to hear the news that Mark Linkous has died. He and his band toured with us in Europe, at the start of OK Computer, and they were great every night. His first two records were very important to me, and I carried his music from the tour into my life, and my friends' lives too. He was softly spoken, with an Old South courtesy I hadn't heard before: he introduced me to Daniel Johnston's music, and the West Virginian writing of Pinckney Benedict. Mark wrote and played some beautiful music, and we're lucky to have it. Rest in Peace."

RIP: Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 08:00:42.

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Source: | 9 March 2010 | 1:00 am

Introducing: Oh No Ono

Name: Oh No Ono
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Story: Danish electro hipsters reinvent themselves via audio excess
Sound: Baroque, genre-splattering, pseudo-prog grandeur

Malthe Fischer has a glorious, ridiculous falsetto. The afro-sporting frontman of kooky Danish outfit Oh No Ono hits some seriously high notes on the band's second LP, Eggs; his voice at wail over top of songs that seem to shift genres and styles at the drop of a hat. Sometimes, Oh No Ono sound like authentic '70s prog-rock revivalists, other times more like Shins/Elephant-6-loving power-poppers, Juttish tropicalistas, or MGMT-styled meta-ironists.

In all its baroque excess, Eggs is a far cry from their 2006 debut, Yes, a minimal electro-funk record produced by Junior Senior. This time, working in various states of isolation —recording on the isle of Møn, in a German mental hospital, and a centuries-old church— the quartet have made a dense symphony as rich in tiny details (field recordings of environmental sounds, backwards tape loops) as orchestrated grandeur (Morten Svenstrup, cellist of symphonic moodist Under Byen, helped them write full orchestral and choral scores).

Live, Oh No Ono rather resemble more of a ragged rockband, these days, and they'll be bringing their poly-genre jams and high, high harmonies to town for the suddenly-imminent SXSW orgy...

Giggs:
March 17-20: Austin, TX - SXSW
March 24: New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
March 25: Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall Of Williamsburg
April 17: Copenhagen, Denmark - Huset i Magstræde
April 30: Aarhus, Denmark - Train
May 22: Hamburg, Germany - Prinzenbar
May 23: Berlin, Germany - Comet Club
May 24: Cologne, Germany - Studio 672
May 25: Frankfurt, Germany - Nachtleben
May 26: Munich, Germany - 59:1
July 23: Aarhus, Denmark - Tivoli Friheden

Photo © Amanda Bashida

Introducing: Oh No Ono originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 08:00:56.

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Source: | 8 March 2010 | 1:00 am

From the Vaults Friday: Various, Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis (1968)

The Year: 1968
The Album: Various, Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis
Who It Influenced: David Byrne, Beck, Devendra Banhart, Beirut, Final Fantasy, Dent May and His Magnificent Orchestra

Last week, when reviewing the legendary 1978 compile No New York, I declared it the only compilation that can boast of containing almost the entire lifespan of a genre on one LP. True it is, but it got me thinking to those other rare Various Artists works that define movements, sounds, and times. Like, well, Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis, the 1968 record that laid the foundation stone —and lent its name to— the tropicalia movement.

In 1968, a movement of rebellious, tradition-razing, genre-straddling movement exploded in Bahia. Os Mutantes delivered their amazing self-titled debut. They collaborated with Gilberto Gil on his '68 LP. And Os Mutantes, Gil, Gil's long-time foil Caetano Veloso, the transgressive female singer Gal Costa (whose husky voice and progressive political lyrics stood at odds with the role women were 'allowed' in popular Brazilian music), and producer/orchestra/arranger Rogério Duprat collaborated on a compilation that would serve as a manifesto for tropicalia.

Mixing traditional Bahian folk music with Brazilian pop form, and taking influence from the studio-experimentation of the Beatles and the burgeoning sounds of psychedelic rock, the tropicalistas' transgressive music dared to buck tradition at a time in which a military dictatorship was ruling Brazil with an iron fist.

The music was considered so subversive that Gil and Veloso were arrested in 1969, and sent into exile in England. Over four decades on, and there's still a thrill to the experimental, genre-juggling, joyous, righteousness-in-protest music made in the fury of tropicalia's prime.

• Full review: Various, Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis

From the Vaults Friday: Various, Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis (1968) originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 08:00:16.

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Source: | 5 March 2010 | 1:00 am

Thom Yorke's New Band, Atoms for Peace, Readies Tour

When Coachella unveiled its 2010 lineup recently, Thom Yorke was officially billed as "Thom Yorke????" Those rows of question-marks have now been answered, with the Radiohead frontman's all-star 'solo' band taking on the name Atoms for Peace.

The band —whose celebrity ranks include Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, producer Nigel Godrich, Bech drummer Joey Waronker, and percussionist — are now named after a song on Yorke's solo debut, The Eraser (which was named after a US program in the '50s promoting peace via, um, providing nuclear reactors to nations like Iran and Pakistan). Taking such a name was, according to Yorke's blog, "bleedin' obvious."

So, what are these mighty men of music to do with such a name? Tour through the United States, in April, on their way to Coachella, of course!

Buy a Ticket and Get on the Train:
April 5: New York, NY - Roseland Ballroom
April 6: New York, NY - Roseland Ballroom
April 8: Boston, MA - Citi Wang Theatre
April 10: Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom
April 11: Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom
April 14: Oakland, CA - Fox Theatre
April 15: Oakland, CA - Fox Theatre
April 17: Santa Barbara, CA - Santa Barbara Bowl
April 18: Indio, CA - Coachella

Thom Yorke's New Band, Atoms for Peace, Readies Tour originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 08:00:45.

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Source: | 4 March 2010 | 1:00 am

Flaming Lips Announce New US Tour Dates

Last year, legendary Oklahoma oddballs the Flaming Lips followed up their sprawling, straggling double-album Embryonic with one of their weirdest gestures in a weird career. As a Christmas gift to their fans, the Lips (no stranger to strange Christmases), in collaboration with Stardeath and White Dwarfs (the band fronted by Dennis Coyne, nephew of Lips preacherman Wayne Coyne) covered Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety.

The Flaming Lips then took it further by covering Dark Side of the Moon, in order, in its entirety, on New Year's Eve in Oklahoma City. And they'll turn the trick, again, at Bonnaroo in June. Between then and now, they're also playing a bunch of regular Lips shows —if you could call explosions of confetti, fake blood, and Disney-esque forced-happiness 'regular'— around the US, and they've got a headlining spot at the Green Man festival looming in the future, too.

The Great Gig(s) in the Sky:
March 12: Austin, TX - Austin Music Hall
March 13: Denton, TX - Hickory Street Stage/NX35
April 15: Charlottesville, VA - Charlottesville Pavillon
April 17: Poughkeepsie, NY - Mid Hudson Civic Center
April 18: Ithaca, NY - Barton Hall/Cornell University
April 19: Montclair, NJ - Wellmont Theatre
April 21: Milwaukee, WI - The Riverside Theater
April 22: Bloomington, IN - Indiana University Auditorium
April 23: Kansas City, KS - Sandstone Amphitheatre
April 29: West Palm Beach, FL - SunFest
May 15: Gulf Shores, AL - The Hangout Music Festival
June 6: Houston, TX - Tinsley Park/Free Press Fest
June 11: Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo Music Festival
July 3: Oxford, ME - Nateva Music & Arts Festival
July 22: Lewiston, NY - Artpark
July 26: New York, NY - Central Park Summerstage
August 20-22: Brecon Beacons, Wales - Green Man Festival
September 10-12: Isle of Wight, England - Bestival

Flaming Lips Announce New US Tour Dates originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 08:00:47.

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Source: | 3 March 2010 | 1:00 am

Pavement Kicks Off World Tour

After years of speculation followed my months of anticipation, definitive indie-rockers Pavement have, like, finally kicked off their globe-spanning reunion tour. The quintet played their first show together since 1999 with a gig at Auckland Town Hall yesterday.

A semi-comprehensive chronicle of the show can be found on Spiral Stairs' very own blog. The setlist Spiral posted shows Pavement sticking closely to 'classic' cuts from their first two albums; much of which also turns up on their forthcoming 'best of' compilation Quarantine the Past.

Pavement have just landed in Australia —I'll be seeing them play next week! (although I'm old enough to have also done so numerous times in the '90s)— from where their world tour will roll on for most of 2010. New US dates have just been announced, and there'll surely be more to come as Pavement Reunion Mania lingers on.

Pavement Pounding:
March 4: Sydney, Australia - Enmore Theatre
March 5: Sydney, Australia - Enmore Theatre
March 6: Meredith, Australia - Golden Plains Festival
March 7: Adelaide, Australia - Thebarton Theatre
March 8: Perth, Australia - Metro City
March 10: Brisbane, Australia - Tivoli
March 12: Melbourne, Australia - Palace Theatre
March 14: Melbourne, Australia - Palace Theatre
April 7: Tokyo, Japan - Studio Coast
April 8: Tokyo, Japan - Studio Coast
April 10: Osaka, Japan - Zepp Osaka
April 12: Nagoya, Japan - Zepp Nagoya
April 18: Indio, CA - Coachella Festival
May 4: Dublin, Ireland - Tripod
May 5: Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowland
May 7: Paris, France - Le Zénith
May 8: Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso
May 10: London, England - Brixton Academy
May 11: London, England - Brixton Academy
May 12: London, England - Brixton Academy
May 13: London, England - Brixton Academy
May 15: Minehead, England - All Tomorrow's Parties
May 18: Brussels, Belgium - Ancienne Belgique
May 19: Berlin, Germany - Astra
May 20: Prague, Czech Republic - Palac Akropolis
May 21: Vienna, Austria - Arena
May 22: Munich, Germany - Muffathalle
May 24: Rome, Italy - Atlantico Live
May 25: Bologna, Italy - Estragon
May 27: Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Festival
May 30: Quincy, WA - Sasquatch! Festival
June 19: Toronto, ON - Olympic Island
June 25: Berkeley, CA - Greek Theatre
July 2: Gdynia, Poland - Open'er Festival
July 4: Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
July 8: Liege, Belgium - Les Ardentes Festival
July 18: Chicago, IL - Pitchfork Music Festival
August 12: Oslo, Norway - Oya Festival
August 14: Gothenburg, Sweden - Way Out West Festival
September 9: Broomfield, CO - First Bank Center
September 11: Kansas City, MO - Uptown Theater
September 12: St. Paul, MN - Roy Wilkins Auditorium
September 17: Philadelphia, PA - Mann Center for the Performing Arts
September 18: Boston, MA - Agganis Arena
September 21: New York, NY - Central Park
September 22: New York, NY - Central Park
September 23: New York, NY - Central Park
September 24: New York, NY - Central Park
September 26: Atlanta, GA - The Tabernacle

Pavement Kicks Off World Tour originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 08:00:15.

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Source: | 2 March 2010 | 1:00 am

Introducing: Oy

Name: Oy
From: Zürich, Switzerland
Story: Bizarre childhood tales become bizarre, childlike tunes
Sound: A clattering splattering of quick, quirky electro cuts

Joy Frempong had an idea for a project: she'd ask friends to send her strange memories from their childhoods, and then set them to song.

Frempong —a 32-year-old, half-Swiss/half-Ghanaian vocalist who's a veteran of the experimental set in Zürich— was shocked, amused, and inspired by the stranger-than-fiction tales she heard: of living in fear of the Toilet Witch, who'd pull you down into the bowl if you sat too long on the bog; of being terrified by the snake living under your bed; of boxing when walking around a corner just in case someone dangerous was lurking on the other side.

These silly, sweet stories of terror became First Box, Then Walk, Frempong's four-years-in-the-making debut solo album. Calling herself, kookily, Oy Rempong, then simply Oy, she matched these oddball tales to an array of odd compositions. Often, they're absurdist electronic miniatures shot through with such silliness that they recall, at times, bizarro electro circus-act Blectum from Blechdom, other times Frempong summons her hero Nina Simone with plaintive vocals and solemn piano figures.

First Box, Then Walk is a work rich in "The Artist's Preoccupation with Childhood and the Subconscious" (the title of Bat for Lashes' art-school dissertation, no less), and, sure enough, that's lead to comparisons with French filmmakin' genius Michel Gondry, whose career has been devoted to recapturing that sense of innocence and wonder of early life.

Frempong will be bringing her own charming take on childhood delusions unto the world at this year's SXSW rumpus, with shows on either US coast before and after. Though Oy may not've cracked my official 10 Acts to Watch at SXSW 2010, do know that she was close. Call Oy an honorable mention.

• Visit: Oy at Creaked Records
• Visit: Oy on Myspace
• Listen: Oy, "Snake (Sutekh remix)"

Introducing: Oy originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 08:00:42.

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Source: | 1 March 2010 | 1:00 am