Very organic” is how Kid Rock described his upcoming album, “Born Free,” when he sat down for a video chat last week at Billboard’s Music and Advertising conference in New York.
At the moment the new album is due out on September 7, but the still doesnt know if its going to be 2 albums or just a 14 track album.
Enjoy the interview.
Kings of Leon have just announced their fifth album, Come Around Sundown. The new album will be released on the 19th October via RCA records and if the previous album is anything to go by (1.9 million copies sold) then this should be another success.
In an interview with Billboard, frontman Caleb Followill stated that the band expanded their sonic palette with Come Around Sundown, adding lap steel, fiddle, and trumpet to many of the new tracks:
“I think every one of them really complements the songs and I think having done that, it’s really gotten us excited for the future and where we can go with the band and what we can do.”
Previously it was reported that Radiohead would be releasing their album later this year. However, during a recent interview about his upcoming solo album, Radiohead drummer Phil Selway provided an update on the band’s follow-up to 2007′s In Rainbows: “It’s not finished yet,” the drummer told EW . “It’s still ongoing. We like where we are so far.”
Selway went on to say that the studio seesion had been very productive, but the band was now thinking about taking the summer off.
As for when the album might be completed, Selway kept things vague.
“Oh, I don’t know. We keep on hitting those points where you think, ‘We’re there.’ And then you think, ‘No, it’s not.’ We’re having a break from it at the moment… and then we’ll come back to it later in the summer and see where we are.”
I dont think they will make the year end release like they were planning, but Im sure a few extra months isnt going to really matter. However, big possibility this could be out just in time for the Christmas rush.
Speaking to the BBC, Portishead multi-instrumentalist Geoff Barrows said that he’ll begin writing the band’s fourth album this summer, that the band has signed with a new label, and how music festivals can boost album sales:
“I’m writing for Portishead through July and August… I just want to bang on and get another record done… It’s with a major. It’s with the biggest record company in the world. It’s with people we trust, which with a band is the most important thing… We did the Third record, it did incredibly well. We got very little support from the UK as we don’t represent a certain demographic of people, but we did Coachella [festival] and that was amazing.”
30th December 1915 – this is thought to be the date when a Public Address system was first used. It is humbling to know that a leap of only one hundred years takes us to a world of acoustic music by default. In this bygone world loudness is only available to large ensembles; a man alone can no longer fill a stadium with his songs or his kazoo.
Back in 2010, in southern England, there is a movement spreading named Pure Acoustica. This is not a record label or a genre as such; it is instead a collective of artists shepherded by the term’s founder, and fellow acoustic musician, Nick Tann. Nick is devoted to encouraging and promoting independent musicians – in particular acoustic musicians – and has a well-subscribed podcast that musicians/bands from around the globe are welcome to submit music for. Pure Acoustica is the alignment of Nick’s championing of independent artists with an ethos: the performance of music without microphones or amplifiers. While the pursuit of purity is nothing new, the intimacy that can be found in filling a room with an unaided voice is something worth pursuing. An audience must quieten to hear it; a performer must project their voice to an open space, not murmur softly into a hyped microphone like a latenight DJ.
But this article is not about a live performance, it is about singer-songwriter Tom Caulfield’s mini-album Bare Bones, recorded under the umbrella of Pure Acoustica. So how does Pure Acoustica translate to recording? An explanation can be found from Tom’s Bandcamp page.
[Bare Bones was] recorded the Pure Acoustica way; just a pair of nice microphones, all one take, no overdubs or drop-ins. No fancy effects, not even reverb. Just as if Tom was playing in your front room.
There is a problem when working to a strict ethos – it can sometimes sound better on paper than it does in practice. Audiences love to ‘see’ live performances, to match the artist’s physical effort with every nuance of the sound. But the abstract world of recorded sound is a cold blind place and it is for that reason that the quest for warmth and character on record has been so far-reaching.
Listening to Good You Got Away, with its hints of Bon Iver and its vivid storytelling, I am not wholly convinced by Tom’s vocal. I am sensitive to him holding back on some lines, while others flow much freer and without being able to watch him perform, the only story I can follow is what the vocal gives; the subtext of a man giving a single take is soon lost and forgotten. I’m inclined to wonder what it could have sounded like without the pressure of nailing it ‘all-in-one’ and with the facility to add a little reverb on his voice. This may have made an already sweet song even more magical.
Doomed To Be Beautiful is evocative of Tom Waits but lacking the incredible warmth of his recordings or grit of his voice. I do not think Mr Caulfield should aim to copy Mr Waits, but instead find a character to hang this delicate song upon. Personally, I would have loved to have heard some cello singing against Tom’s parched take. Catholic Girls confirms that Tom has a feel and talent for lyrics. ‘Everyone knows what Catholic Girls are like’ is a wonderful turn of phrase for a chorus and is a highlight of the album. Miss Valentines Last Stand continues with the rush of rhyming Jesus with Margaritas – very impressive – and the album closes with a gently funky guitar instrumental. I can’t help but wish it had some harmonica, or whistling or anything accompanying it, lovely though it is.
While Bare Bones is a fine document of Tom’s songs, this album trades magic for its ethos and this effectively stops it from flourishing. Pure Acoustica’s mandate makes excellent sense for live performances and I can thoroughly recommend going to see Tom and other Pure Acoustica artists live, in their natural habitat. For future recordings, I would suggest they either go to the great lengths of hiring chapels and candles to attempt the ultimate in one-take-wonders, or allow themselves a little more creative flexibility.
Buy a ‘Bare Bones’ CD (or download for free) here.
Learn more about Pure Acoustica here.
Find out more about Nick Tann’s podcast here.
Well Im sure you already know that Eminem is back! His album Recovery was out June 22. If you havent already had a chance to head out and get the album, then here is a preview for you. Dr Dre produced and called Ridaz!
Drownedinsound has reported that the Klaxons new album will feature a lolcat as their coverart.
This is one of the best cover art images I have ever seen! The Klaxons new album Surfing The Void is released on August 23 and is preced by a single, ‘Echoes’, released a week earlier.
Here are some tour dates:
15/6 – Paris, Nouveau Casino
13/7 – Glasgow, King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut
14/7 – Manchester, The Ruby Lounge
27/7 – London, Village Underground
Hip hop legends Public Enemy have been trying to raise $250,000 through fan funded platform SellaBand, but it seems as though that amount was unrealistic! Now Public Enemy is only after $75,000 for their new album.
“We have learned that the fan funding model is still not fully developed and, as a result, a $250,000 fund raising effort, while possible, will take too long to accomplish,” explains a new post on their SellaBand page. “We now believe that a $75,000 fund raising target will fulfill the needs for a new recording project and is much more appropriate for the strength of the existing SellaBand model and the current economic climate.”
They have removed sales and marketing expenses from the budget, which I find a little strange. Public Enemy are now 74% on their way to reach the $75,000 they require. Services like SellaBand seem to be getting a huge amount of hype in the last year or so, but no one has come up with actual results. Some of these new music revenues models seem to be just all talk!
Oasis will be soon releasing their greatest hits album, Time Flies, and it will play ‘like a gig’ says Noel Gallagher.
Gallagher revealed the track-listing to Time Flies… 1994-2009 in a video on the band’s official Youtube channel. He also explained his strategy behind the final sequence of tracks that make up the 27 singles featured on the compilation.
Time Flies…1994-2009 will be available June 14.
Time Flies…1994-2009
CD1:
CD2:
We reported on seminal rapper/poet Gil Scott-Heron’s new album a few months back, and others took a far more active interest in his new work, including one Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, AKA Nas – the famously controversial Hip Hop artist. He’s remixed one of the tracks from GSH’s album ‘I’m New Here’, called ‘New York Is Killing Me’, and you can download the file via Pitchfork’s website by clicking here: Gil Scott-Heron: “New York Is Killing Me” [ft. Nas].
