Lightspeed Champion has returned with his second album, Life is Sweet! Nice To Meet You (15th February 2010). The follow-up to 2008’s Falling Off The Lavender Bridge is an epic collection of twelve pop songs, two instrumental intermissions and one piano étude. Written and arranged by Dev Hynes, producer and mixer Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley) assembles the eclectic grab-bag of influences: joltingly ‘70s guitar and synth sounds, classical piano, Greek choruses shouting reprisals, and at least one ukelele-driven moment. You can find out even more facts about Lightspeed Champion on the interwebs here. The 'Marlene' video directed by Ferry Gouw for the single of the same name taken from the new album was filmed in Death Valley on Halloween weekend last year. A group of 13 plucky souls drove out from L.A into the desert and camped out on Halloween night.
To celebrate what would have been Elvis’ 75th birthday, Lightspeed Champion gave away a free download of his version of the track Devil In Disguise (DOWNLOAD HERE), recorded in Avatar Studios in New York. Not one to sell himself short, Dev also made an accompanying video in LA which you can watch here.
Parades are Dan Cunningham, Tim Jenkins, Michael Scarpin and Jonathan Boulet from Sydney, Australia. Here's the colourful film accompaniment to 'Loserspeak In New Tongue', shot by Pharm productions taken from their debut album Foreign Tapes released in Australia in May 2010 on Dot Dash Recordings. More information about Parades go to their myspace here.
Click on the image above to stream music from 70s, 80s and 90s on Domino Records.
Click on the image to stream the Domino All-In sampler.
Villagers release a new single 'That Day' on 4th October, taken from Mercury Music Prize nominated debut, Becoming a Jackal. Here be the video directed by Marco Sandeman. Villagers have confirmed details of new UK tour dates for 2010 which include 5th October at Scala in London.
We couldn't quite believe it when word came that Robert Plant would be covering not one but TWO Alan Sparhawk (Low) written tracks in his new album ['Monkey' and 'Silver Rider' from 'the Great Destroyer']. And here we doth blink and rub our eyes watching Plant actually perform Silver Rider with Patty Griffin - oh and the guy on lead guitar on the left you can just about make out is actually Buddy Miller (swoon). Says Robert "I've been a fan of Low for a long time. That whole spook element. Monkey is such a great song - I don't think I could write anything half as good as that".
See the video for the original Low version of Monkey here.
[Tricky’s epic gangster promo for 'Mixed Race' directed by Fleur and Manu]
ALBUM: ‘MIXED RACE’ out 27th September 2010 |SINGLE: ‘MURDER WEAPON’ out 30th August | GIG: 10th October 2010 - Koko, London
Best known for his collaboration with Massive Attack on Blue Lines, Tricky previously released Knowle West Boy on Domino Records in 2008. Who better to describe his new album than the man himself. In Tricky’s own words: “The album’s called Mixed Race because being mixed race is the single biggest influence on my music. You sat down at the table in my house and you saw every colour. It’s made me much more open-minded than I could’ve been. I come from both worlds.”
This is most definitely the sort of video that YouTube was built for. Part of me is wondering if this is an elaborate ploy by management of Mercury nominated - Wild Beasts to promote the album virally - however, their manager's stunned reaction put pay to such a notion. So it's clearly a lad so enraptured by the tunes that he's embodied Alvin and the Chipmunk's and seen fit to share his moment with the World. We salute you nutter of the interwebs.
