CONTESTS: Insound & THE CULTURE OF ME Soundscreen Design summer 09 t-shirt

So excited to finally be talking about this! We've been wanting an opportunity to work alongside the guys at Insound for forever (we even applied for a job there a really really long time ago). It's finally here you guys, because Soundscreen Design has curated and developed an exclusive, seasonal, limited edition line of t-shirts, hoodies and tote bags, featuring original designs from three studios for nine prominent indie-rock artists. Insound has teamed up with us, THE CULTURE OF ME, and eight other rad-as-fuck web sites to run a contest where one lucky winner will get his/her hands on the design/band choice that particular web site has cherry-picked.

We, of course, picked Fucked Up and their amazing t-shirt designed by Seripop. Seripop also designed stuff for Deerhoof and Handsome Furs, and the other two studios, Hand Held Heart (Gang Gang Dance, Liars, No Age) and The Bird Machine (Battles, The National, Pelican) both make up the remainder of the Soundscreen line.

All you have to do to get your prize is enter on the contest page here and wait until next Friday, June 5. We'll announce that one lucky winner then.

About the line:
Driven by the desire for impeccably designed band merchandise pro­duced in an eco-friendly manner on high quality garments, Sound­screen Design approached 3 highly regarded design studios and asked what musical artists they are inspired to design for. Simply put, they’re putting the art back into band merchandise.

(mp3)    Fucked Up - Epiphany (No Age remix)

Godspeed!

Download: Passion Pit - "Little Secrets (Carpe PM remix)"

Carpe PM is the producing team that pairs two of New York City's finest--and maybe most religiously followed--DJs: Jess from the indie/new wave/glam goliath "Trash!" and DJ Bastard (left), who commands the crowds every Tuesday night at Happy Ending. For shame if you actually don't know who these guys are (or maybe you've just never been to New York City before and then even more "for shame"s for that one) but let's change all that right this minute with a rocking remix of "Little Secrets" by Passion Pit, off of maybe the year's best record, Manners. It's dippy, totally new wave and you'll probably be caught by co-workers/friends/loved ones/strangers bopping over and over to the edit.

(mp3)    Passion Pit - Little Secrets (Carpe PM remix)

Godspeed!

News: Dada Life to reveal first album in the fall

Sure it's a ways away, but the September 8 release of the first "artist" release for Stockholm duo Olle and Stephan aka Dada Life, Just Do The Dada, already has us excited enough to stave us off for a few months' time. If you've seen the clip for album track "Happy Hands & Happy Feet", something tells us your fire will be stoked with this news, too. It's a straight-up melange of disco, electro and terrifyingly brutal samples, swatches and scrapes, all meshing together to create heart-thumping anthems your body, mind and soul simply cannot escape. Sounds pretty rad, right?

Tracklist:

01 Don't Feed The Dada
02 Happy Hands & Happy Feet
03 No Need For Machines
04 Love Vibrations
05 Don't Snort The Yellow Snow
06 Let's Get Bleeped Tonight
07 Cheap Thrills For A Lost Generation
08 Sweet Little Bleepteen
09 Perfect Itch
10 So You Wanna Be A Prankster
11 We Set You Free
12 Right There

(mp3)    Dada Life - Happy Hands & Happy Feet

Godspeed!

News: Dublin Duck Dispensary offers up Yykes Basket EP for free

(photo by Gerard Duffy)

For one day only this Saturday (tomorrow!), Ireland's only tragically brilliant noise pop archetype, Dublin Duck Dispensary, will offer his latest EP, the 8-song, barely-twenty minute Yykes Basket, for a free download to anyone who logs on to Rack & Ruin Records. The 3" CD version of the effort--DDD's seventh release--sold out quite quickly in its original pressing, so a free digital download sounds just plain great to us. Yykes Basket is as beguiling as it is rewarding, with a mix of everything you yourself could imagine being musical, from strummy ukuleles or wound-too-tight snare drums to distorted walls of washing sounds. Yes yes yes, this is bedroom-produced next-level shit. If you go onto the dude's MySpace and take one peak at his cover of the ABBA classic "Mamma Mia", you're mind will melt into your spinal fluid. This, naturally, is a good thing.

(mp3)    Dublin Duck Dispensary - Toy Factory

Godspeed!

Photos: Famous Friends at Studio B on May 24

For Memorial Day this year, the kids at Famous Friends wanted everyone in NYC to throw away their stress and just party the hell down. And how'd they pull that off, you ask? Well, by throwing a free party at Studio B in Brooklyn and pulling in one of the breakout acts of 2009, VEGA, who were playing their first-ever live show in New York City, alongside a DJ set from Bradley D of Flashmen, VDRK, Amsterdam's Hugo Van Dyck, Shaun Slaughter, the Finger On The Pulse dudes and a few of the Girls & Boys residents, rekLES and Kids With Snakes. Pretty good attempt to de-stress if you ask us, and we have a feeling if you were to poll the tons of people who came out, they'd agree wholeheartedly. VEGA destroyed, we danced till we bordered on sickness and it was more than likely the best FF party we'd ever been too. Perhaps.

(mp3)    Flashmen - Little Wildkat (Jemex remix)

(mp3)    VEGA - All Too Vivid

Godspeed!

Download: DJ Forefit - "It's A Forefit Summer!" mixtape

Now that Memorial Day has come and passed and has ushered in the not-so-official jump-off of summer 2009, we thought it best to make sure that you checked in with DJ Forefit, who just sent us his thirteen-track, 100% 80s inspired mixtape, It's A Forefit Summer! And it's way way rad you guys. There's Prince on there, the Treasure Fingers remix of Chromeo's "100%", hell, even the seminal 80s cracker "She's A Maniac" to close it.

Tracklist:

01 Belle Stars - Sing On The Times
02 Videeo - Closet Freak
03 Janet Jackson - What Have You Done For Me Lately
04 Break Machine - Break Dance Party
05 Lamelle - You Got Something Special
06 Exquisite Taste - It's You That's Happening
07 The Creations - Kinky Girl
08 Rick James - Give It To Me Baby
09 Chromeo - 100% (Treasure Fingers' B-LIVE Pemberton mix)
10 Elke - Blue Dream Lover (Mr Mittens remix)
11 Boy Crisis - L'homme
12 Prince - When Doves Cry
13 Michael Sembello - She's A Maniac

(mp3)    DJ Forefit - It's A Forefit Summer! mixtape

(mp3)    Kanye West - Paranoid (DJ Forefit remix)

Godspeed!

Live: School of Seven Bells tour with Black Moth Super Rainbow + new remix

(photo by Amanda Merten)

We've never posted about Brooklyn's own School of Seven Bells, and, basically, it's because we're idiots. We've listened to them for a long time, have seen them live and have spoken their praises to friends, but never a post. What gives? Did we want to keep a secret? No. Did we overlook them? Don't think so. Maybe we just couldn't find the right words to fully describe how the trio have created--and will continue to create--ethereal, dreamy, open-spaced independent rock music that's so fluttery and gorgeous, it just seems to crawl into your person and then, just like that, it's gone. The band have a new single, "My Cabal", along with a video for the track, and they're heading out on the road in support of Black Moth Super Rainbow, so something tells me that you, us and everyone we all know will have plenty to say about them in the future tense to make up for our lack of coverage. Oh yeah, and we also just got our hands on a track that appears on the single, a remix of the band's "Face To Face On High Places", remixed by Jesu.

Dates:

May 22 Minneapolis, MN Triple Rock Social Club*
May 25 Seattle, WA Sasquatch Festival*
May 26 Portland, OR Holocene*
May 28 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill*
May 29 Los Angeles, CA Troubadour*
May 30 Costa Mesa, CA Detroit Bar*
May 31 Phoenix, AZ Rhythm Room*
Jun 02 Austin, TX Mohawk*
Jun 03 Denton, TX Hailey's*
Jun 04 Little Rock, AR Sticky Fingerz*
Jun 05 Nashville, TN Exit In*
Jun 06 Columbus, OH Circus*
Jun 12 New York City, NY Bowery Ballroom
Aug 07 Tokyo, JP Summer Sonic Festival
Aug 08 Mashima, JP Summer Sonic Festival
Oct 02 Austin, TX Austin City Limits
Oct 04 San Diego, CA Casbah
*w/ Black Moth Super Rainbow

(mp3)    School of Seven Bells - Face To Face On High Places (Jesu remix)

Godspeed!

Download: Rainbow Arabia - "Omar K (Max Justus remix)"

(photo by Elena Lacuesta)

This is a tremendous collaboration to bear witness to you guys, pairing the yelpy, wispy female vocals of Rainbow Arabia's Tiffany Preston and her and her husband's tropicali-pop arrangements with the 8-bit cartoonish mad science of Max Justus, who will never ever become capable of disappointing. Your late night summer jam prescription has been filled and is waiting for pick-up.

(mp3)    Rainbow Arabia - Omar K (Max Justus remix)

Godspeed!

Live: Crushed Records destroys Glasslands tonight

To celebrate the impending release of the label compilation You Been Crushed Vol. 1, Brooklyn's finest talents have put their roster on-call for tonight, which finds them all playing Glasslands Gallery in Williamsburg Brooklyn (289 Kent Ave), kicking off at 10pm.

All this talent and It only costs you the viewer $5. On the bill for tonight are live performances from Nic Xedro, Leif and Purple Crush plus plus plus DJ sets from Cobra Krames, WZRDZ (Mark flew all the way in from LA to do the show with partner Mike Genius), Flashmen and Chaz & Jason Of Palms Out Sounds.

We're super stoked to see the WZRDZ boys hit the decks for the first time in front of our eyes as well as getting big ol' hugs from Bradley D of Flashmen. And you know that Purple Crush's Jared and Isla will bring the booty, the bass and--naturally--the beast.

(mp3)    WZRDZ - For The Ladies

Godspeed!

Video: The Color Turning - "Where The Sky Ends (acoustic)"

We have to tip our hats to the guys over at Tucson, AZ site Welikeit.indie for providing us with this video and the introduction to a very special band. The guys in LA-based experimental rock act The Color Turning rely heavily on samples, computers and electronics to fill the voids in their sets with layer upon layer of haunting, raucous, sometimes undulating and visceral pop music. The beauty of this video, though, is that the guys from WLII asked that the band play an intimate, acoustic set as their AZ date and the guys had to literally over-manipulate all sorts of utilities to make the sound happen, turning the arrangements on their heads and forcing a "sound" to come from unusual places (actual handclaps, a two-person drumstick-struck guitar), creating a wonderful experience, as shown in the accompanying video. The Color Turning's debut record, Good Hands Bad Blood (produced by Scott Weiland) will see release in August.

(mp3)    The Color Turning - Me Versus Me

Godspeed!