Jan 14th 2010 - DiS mailout: Jay Reatard (RIP), Vampire Weekend, These New Puritans, Joanna Newsom...

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D R O W N E D 

I N _ S O U N D

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Hello,

Welcome to the first mailout of twenny ten. We hope you're having a great year so far. We might say this every year but it REALLY looks like this year is gearing up to be an amazing year for music with records due from the likes of Joanna Newsom, LCD Soundsystem and various other previous album of the year list toppers!  And hopefully it'll be another great year for DiS (in 2009 we had 3,391,666 Unique Visitors and 34,440,993 Pageviews!?!), especially as we'll be celebrating our 10th Anniversary in October. But before we get ahead of ourselves, next week we'll be offering our guide to the year, with the acts and records we think you should be looking out for!

If you were busy getting tiddly before the break and missed any of our review of 2009, including our albums, singles and songs of the year, with various Spotify playlists and staff & artist mixtapes which we lovingly crafted so you can listen to what we're banging on about, cast your eyes 'n' ear 'ols this'a way http://drownedinsound.com/lists/2009

Lastly, tune in to BBC 6Music at 6PM (GMT) tonight to hear DiS' editor reviewing records on 'Steve Lamacq's Roundtable' or listen back to him (who I kidding, me, I can't ruddy afford to pay anyone to write these mailouts!) nattering about music on Radio1 with the current UK chart-topper here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/reviewshow/

Here's what you might've missed if you've not been on the site over the past few weeks... 

• VAMPIRE WEEKEND

New album 'Contra' is out this week, here's a director's commentary-like guide to the album by the band.

// http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4138807-vampire-weekends-track-by-track-guide-to-contra 

• DiS NORDIC NIGHT - London

We're throwing a party with the Norwegian and Icelandic embassies, come discover some new acts and hear our editor 'DJ' on Jan 21st at the Lexington.

// http://drownedinsound.com/news/4138765-hej-hej-dis-goes-nordic-for-a-night-with-ja-ja-ja

• THIS WEEK'S SINGLE REVIEWS

Single of the week from These New Puritans and lots more from the ever wonderful Wendy Roby

http://drownedinsound.com/lists/singles

• THIS WEEK'S ALBUMS

A new feature, listen to this week's recommended new releases. 

// http://drownedinsound.com/news/4138808-this-week’s-albums--11-01-10

NEWS & AUDIO/VIDEO

• BBC apologises over Coldplay and U2 promotion

• R.I.P: Jay Reatard dies aged 29

• Confirmed: Joanna Newsom album WILL be released in February, titled Have One On Me

• Autechre announce new album and UK tour

• Watch: Girls - 'Morning Light'

• Listen: Download The Ruby Suns - 'Cranberry', taken from Fight Softly

• Watch: New M.I.A. song, possibly on the album

• Joanna Newsom leaves us hanging over new album

• Vampire Weekend to play free show at Somerset House. Outside. In the cold.

• Watch: Julian Casablancas behind the scenes of '11th Dimension'

• Blood Red Shoes reveal album details

• Watch and Listen: Darren Hayman covers Vic Chesnutt

• Listen: Download Eels - 'Little Bird', taken from End Times

• Dirty Projectors release limited edition 7", make available for free digitally

• Wooden Shjips to release Vol. 2 compilation, tour

• Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody to work with R.E.M and Belle & Sebastian members for 'countryish' album

• Lou Barlow announces European and UK tour

• Peter Gabriel's song-swap album gets release date, live shows

• Lightspeed Champion celebrates Elvis' birthday with a cover

• Watch: Animal Collective - 'Brother Sport'

• Laura Marling announces details of second album

• Ellie Goulding wins BBC Sound of 2010 poll

• Liars expanded Sisterworld to feature Thom Yorke, Melvins, Bradford Cox + more

• (MF) DOOM to play London as part of 'A Taste Of Sonar'?

• Listen: Pit Er Pat - 'Water'

• Santigold to produce Devo and climb Kilamanjaro

• Iggy & The Stooges and more for Matt Groening ATP

• Listen: Stream of Vampire Weekend's Contra

• Animal Collated: The round-up of what the criticis thought to 2009

RECENT REVIEWS

• Eels - End Times

• Race Horses - Goodbye Falkenberg

• Spoon - Transference

• Various - Pop Ambient 2010

• Owen Pallett - Heartland

• Various - Elevator Music Volume 1

• Malory - Pearl Diver

• These New Puritans - Hidden

• Sunburned Hand of the Man - A

• Paperplain - Entering Pale Town

• Various - Erased Tapes: Collection II

• The Whitefield Brothers - Earthology

• Kría Brekkan - Uterus Water

• Adam Green - Minor Love

• Various - Follow the Outline

• Shield Your Eyes - Shield 'Em

• Delphic - Acolyte

• Martyn - Fabric 50

• Lawrence Arabia - Chant Darling

• Vampire Weekend - Contra

• Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - The Road

• Olafur Arnalds - Dyad 1909

>> http://drownedinsound.com/releases/reviewed

http://drownedinsound.com

p.s. if you'd like a Facebook feed of our content, become a 'Fan' over at http://www.facebook.com/DrownedinSound or follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/drownedinsound or for a full site feed http://twitter.com/DiSfeed

Posted via email from seaninsound's posterous

The crocs in the major label music biz now in full-360 death roll.

I can't wait until someone invents a 740 deal, which labels can make double the money the artist is making from all the artist revenues. Obviously own stakes in MySpace Music, Spotify, etc helps matters.
The full article is a little more revealing than that video but the video reminded me why I find major labels a bit like puffins, sticking their chests out and hoping something sticks. All these 'partnerships' are what indie labels have been doing for years but this idea that an act has to turn up fully-formed is nonsense, pretty much the only acts majors're currently signing are those who've had £30-80k invested in them by management companies. Has it always been such a high-risk business for high-rollers only?
http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/11/news/companies/am_octone_music.fortune/

Posted via web from seaninsound's posterous

My/DiS' Song of the Day - Numbers 1-5 + Spotify playlist

This week, I launched a new feature on DiS. It's the bloomin' obvious concept and everyone's at it but I thought it high time we had a track/tune/song of the day on DrownedinSound. And if you add the below Spotify playlist to your playlists, you'll get the tracks automatically updated (if the songs are available).  Might have some guest choices, themed weeks and stuff like that, and will integrate it into the frontpage of the site when we have a new frontpage, which should hopefully be happening in February.

Anyway, here's what I chose for the first week of this feature...

#1 - THESE NEW PURITANS 'We Want War'
"...a sewer of brass and into a rabbit warren of beats"
http://bit.ly/DiSday1

#2 - YEASAYER 'Ambling Alp'
"...like, self-help in some back room with Purple Rain gone neon"
http://bit.ly/DiSaday2

#3 - BEACH HOUSE 'Norway'
"huh-hur-huh ay-'ey ..soaring strings bend in twilight"
http://bit.ly/DiSaday3

#4 - FRIGHTENED RABBIT 'Swim Until You Can't See Land'
"...the vitamin D factor... sun'n'whisky-sour-kissed bliss."
http://bit.ly/DiSday4

#5 - M83 'Don't Save Us From The Flames'
"...is a song I could happily crawl inside and die."
http://bit.ly/DiSday5

DiS' Song of the Day Spotify playlist: http://open.spotify.com/user/seaninsound/playlist/2X2pqoL4G7glBX4js6MU8K

Posted via email from seaninsound's posterous

A review of Arctic Monkeys @ Wembley that I just found in my Blackberry drafts

The durhhum-noo-noo-nuh-num-num-nurnur of the guitar strings twiddle and bend beneath the bullet-hail of drums, the combined to make the first three tracks sound surprisingly menace-zing. Twenny, maybe thirty feet away, beneath the spotlights and behind the smoke, Britian's best loved band take the stage...


Asses wiggle and rap hand gestures abound. Cameraphones snap-flash, hoping to create a perfect stop animation of Alex's hands alternating between strumming, mic holding and hair behind-ear-ing. The smartphone fireflies dissipate as the crowd does that changing tide push, crush and sway. Then, as a few breathes are caught, it continues anthem-ning it down! 'Brainstorm'  gets the entire arena "wuh-wuh"-ing its topline melody. Crash-crash and the bash. The thrash. The smash. Then the bang and the ass-walloping chorus of "I bet you look good on t' dah-antz-floor" which is gutturally uh-uhing from the chapped lips of every beer slingin' brawler with his eyes slammed shut, screaming "FER-ROM NINETEEN EIIIGHT-TEA FOUR-WAHHH!" Meanwhile, these geez's better-halfs point their chewed manicures stageward, poking at every offbeat of the drum riddim.


'Excuberent' (read: probably 'charlie' snaffling) pockets of the crowd are going nuts, bubbling apart like lava melting and bursting through ice as circle-pits open out and stray limbs swing, near-skanking showing themselves as deniers of their inner-Ska kid. Charged atoms thrust - skulls, hips and chests clash to the dur-dum-doom-doom of the Homme-enhanced, violence-threatening backdrop come hail of aural-projectiles.


Lightning tears of genius zap the room, yet the hollow headed chromedomes behind me yarble their "Play the fahhhkin first album-bum" yakkedy-yakking. They heckle and moan, yet excitedly spill or sling their empty plastic cups every time there's a false-ending (of which, tonight, there are perhaps a few too many). These shiny-headed Fred Perry-shirted REAL MEN are alone in their new album berating, as the skull-bashing 'n' bouncing merry ruckus on the floor below me attests. The sweaty throng bellow every sylabol. Damp fart/dark cloud of Be Here Now, this is not. No, this rebirthed, rocked-up, Badseeds indepted tomb-pop tomes, have the entire crowd - your humble scribe included - lost in awe.


The drone, the snake shadows on the walls, the steam train wooh-ooh-oohs become incantions for a collective snake hip wriggle as 'Potion Approaching' crescendos. And those drums, oh those drums, they even have the baldies behind me under their spell. 'Cornerstone' provides a moment of relative Christmas-single calm. Meanwhile, circle pit scores are settled and girlfriends cuddled.


On stage, few words are forthcoming as beers are 'swug' and guitars tuned. And on it rattles.... 'View from the Afternoon' shouldn't fit but, like a salmon-shirted man shimmying to the bar, the indie-pop jangle wrangles its way in. In fact, somehow, every track, be it via vernacular, dialectual dexterity or simple clack-clatter, fits together and coheres, perhaps not seamlessly so but it is not as scarecrow jackets as it could or should be. It's hit after hit, each one a night-we-met and warmest-party/festival memory rekindler.


Its been said a billion times before but they are Britishness destilled down to its soap scum, steamy mirrored, hungover in Whetherspoons simplest elixir. Tonight, it rolls on and rocks more than just a little until Alex sings "fool's on pah-raid, ca-vort and fook abaht" in a distant written song about the throng sweating before him - with an honourable mention to those nose-bleedin' in the gents.


Ending with an encore of 'Florescent Adolescent' which sends arms aloft, stirs the bouncey-bounce-bounce and has the room shouting "...in your fishnets... Night dress... Tabasco... Rascle..." before leaving the stage to my song of the decade: '505'... 


Click here to see the In Photos feature on DrownedinSound.com.

Posted via web from seaninsound's posterous

A date for your new diary...

I'm hosting the above show of Nordic acts in association with the Icelandic and Norwegian music export embassies. Really excited to see Sudden Weather Change again as they were amazing at Iceland Airwaves (my review) - they're a bit like Hot Hot Heat meets Q and Not U, Burning Airlines, Les Savy Fav and all those frantic-but-fun angular party bands! Have a listen to all the bands on Spotify here.

For more details and a chance to win a trip to Iceland click here. 

RSVP on Last.fm, Songkick, DiS, Facebook (coming soon) 

Thursday, January 21st
Ja Ja Ja presents...
7pm £6, adv £5

Leaves (Iceland)

Simon Says No! (Norway)

Sudden Weather Change (Iceland)

We are happy to announce that Ja Ja Ja will be blasting into 2K10 with another stellar line up of Nordic talent! On January 21st, 2010, at our regular establishment The Lexington, three more excellent bands will be strutting their stuff in a bid to impress the venue's upbeat mix of hipsters, industry insiders and regulars. 

Curated by Drowned in Sound editor and indie rock's man-about-town Sean Adams, the January Ja Ja Ja will showcase indie pop outfit The Leaves, Norway's fuzz-rockers Simon Says No! and dynamic Icelandic troupe Sudden Weather Change.

http://twitter.com/jajajanordic

Posted via web from seaninsound's posterous