As the year draws to a close, we picked our favourite Albums of 2013.
Xiu Xiu announce new album, drop first single
Avant-rock experimentalist outfit Xiu Xiu are releasing Nina, a cover album of Nina Simone songs, next month. But there’s no stopping them and the brainchild project of Jamie Stewart have already announced the release of a new album of originals in early 2014. Entitled Angel Guts: Red Classroom, Xiu Xiu’s upcoming album arrives on February 3rd in Europe via Bella Union and the following day in North America via Polyvinyl.
Named after a Japanese erotic noir film, the album is described as “the beginning of Xiu Xiu’s descent from grayness into the deepest blackness endurable. It is the sound of Xiu Xiu’s death.” Heavily marked by Stewart’s life in a dangerous Los Angeles neighbourhood where he’d moved to, “the aura of his new home bleeds into every pore of the album, each lyric and note bearing traces of its essence: the terrible beauty, the despair, the violence, the ultra humanity, the uncertainty”.
‘Stupid in the Dark’ serves as the first taste from Angel Guts: Red Classroom. Listen to it now.
Esmerine bring Dalmak to Europe, tour starts next week
Esmerine‘s glorious and wonderful fourth album, Dalmak, came out last September. In support of the album, the Canadian quartet are embarking on a two-week European tour, starting in Utrecht on November 29th at Le Guess Who? Festival. The UK leg of the tour includes shows in Bristol, Brighton, Sheffield, Colchester and London. Check all the tour dates and other info here.
This tour will see Esmerine’s core line-up expanded as they’ll be joined by 3 additional guest players on Turkish strings and percussion instruments, including Hakan Vreskala who had also helped to record Dalmak in Istambul.
To tease the upcoming tour, Esmerine have unveiled a trailer. Check it out below, and to entice you further, listen to ‘Barn Board Fire’ straight after, one of the magnificent cuts off Dalmak. Go to see them live if you can, they will shine.
Dalmak is out now via Constellation.
Les Claypool’s new project Duo De Twang offer first taste from upcoming debut album
The unique storyteller/narrator Les Claypool keeps himself busy with frontman/bassist duties in Primus and several other projects. The latest one, Duo de Twang, sees him pairing up with old friend and guitarist Bryan Kehoe, who amongst other common projects, was the main actor in Les’ jamband mockumentary Electric Apricot: Quest for Festeroo. The two have been ‘twanging’ some tracks and the result is the debut album Four Foot Shack, set to be released on February 4th via ATO Records.
Les explains how the twang duo came about:
“The Twang project is me exploring a lot of stuff that I personally listen to; Johnny Horton, Vernon Dalhart, Jerry Reed, Bob Wills, Eddy Cochran stuff like that – it’s another door for me to open. I’m doing this sort of Luther Perkins, Johnny Cash guitar-ish type part on my bass, by doing the old ding-dinka-ding, dinka-ding-dinka-ding on a lot of the stuff. It took me a little bit to get that. Now that I’ve gotten it, I can pull songs out of the air and it’s surprising how many songs easily succumb to the twang, and can be complimented by the twang. When all is said and done, it’s just a hell of a fun project for me right now. I’ll do it ’til it’s not fun anymore.”
Other than tracks from Primus and Les solo material, Four Foot Shack features covers from the Bee Gees, Alice In Chains, Jerry Reed, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Johnny Horton and The Chantays. “A lot of it is just stumbling across it,” said Les explaining how he picked which tracks to be twang-ified. “You’re twanging away, and then all of a sudden, something just comes out. And then you laugh about it…or you don’t. And then you move on. There are tons of songs that we’ve stumbled across, and these ones just happened to be the ones that stuck.”
Duo De Twang’s first single, a cover of Primus’s ‘Jerry Was a Race Car Driver’, serves as one hell of an awesome taste of what’s to come in February. Listen to it. A lot of times.
Sleepy Sun share video for ‘The Lane’ off upcoming new album
We already knew San Francisco psych rockers Sleepy Sun were set to release a new full-length album in early 2014. Maui Tears, which marks the quintet’s fourth album release, arrives on January 28th via Dine Alone Records.
“A combination of catchy, psych-tinged melodies, softer, dreamier tracks, and some of the band’s heaviest material to date”, as the blurb describes, Maui Tears “is a dynamic collection of songs from a new, bolder version of a band that’s torn down walls and built up confidence.”
Sleepy Sun dropped a two-track EP last month featuring ’11:32′ and ‘The Lane’, and both will appear in the album. The latter one is now being offered with a visual accompaniment, directed by Ron Robinson. Watch it below.
Get The Blessing tease upcoming fourth album
With this year soon coming to an end, we are already looking ahead to next year’s releases. One of the albums slated for an early 2014 release that we are highly anticipating comes from the hands of Bristolian quartet Get The Blessing, made up of bassist Jim Barr and drummer Clive Deamer of Portishead fame, and trumpeter Pete Judge and saxophonist Jake McMurchie. The foursome have announced the release of their fourth album Lope & Antilope, due out on January 20th via Naim Jazz.
The album was recorded in an empty pottery in Pembrokeshire, out of complete collective improvisation. Lope & Antilope is “the culmination of 4 days of recording, 3 years of gigging and 12 years of drinking tea and gin” as they described it themselves.
Get The Blessing are enticing us with ‘Quiet’, the first tremendously wonderful taste off Lope & Antilope. Listen to it now.
