Hayden confirms new album release date and shares opening track teaser

14 December 2012

Toronto based singer-songwriter Hayden has confirmed his seventh studio album Us Alone will arrive on February 5th via Arts & Crafts. Hayden plays all the instruments in Us Alone, and as he explained, “I wanted the sound of five people walking into a room and playing a full set. With the exception of some stellar help from friends on a song or two, those five people were mostly just me”.
Speaking about the recording, Hayden said there are no stories around the album. “I didn’t go record in a Norwegian Village or at the bottom of a shrimp vessel. I walked upstairs where every instrument has a microphone and hit record. And, as usual, the songs came together over a long period of time.” Hayden’s music is dreamy enough to let us drift into places filled with warmth and delicateness.
Listen below to the lead single ‘Old Dreams’, and straight after check out the vignette for the album’s opener ‘Motel’.


Graph Rabbit unveil accompanying video for ‘Falling Snow’

13 December 2012

Graph Rabbit‘s debut album Snowblind, released last October via Butterscotch Records, won us over here at Cast the Dice and was one of our Album Picks of the Year.
Hot off the heels of the magnificent Snowblind release, the duo of Austin Donohue and Shy Kedmi have unveiled a fittingly stunning video to accompany the song ‘Falling Snow’, conceived and directed by Christopher Vetur, who had previously directed the video for ‘Make It Stop’. Filmed in an historical landmark theatre in Patchogue, New York, using the sets of ‘The Nutcracker’, snow machines and eight ballerinas, the video “creates a storybook tableau that takes the song fully into its intended fictional realm of snow and disorientation”, as the press release explains. In the video, Austin Donohue plays the lead role dancing as the “bewildered wanderer who is blown about and ultimately won over by the falling snow”. Here it is.

The Face’s debut EP free to download

13 December 2012

With the year quickly closing in, we’re glad the excellent debut EP from Los Angeles based experimental rockers The Face made its way to us. The self-titled EP came out in May via Sweet Tiger Records, and the effort is free to grab on their bandcamp.

Jose Castillo, Jeff Laos, Manny Madrigal and Tyler Morrisette, who make up The Face, draw influences from outfits like The Mars Volta, Flying Lotus, Os Mutantes, Portishead, The Octopus Project and other bands and art forms. With the four members hailing from different places – Peru, Mexico and the US -, The Face blend their tastes with their ethnic influences and cultural background.

‘Anesthesia’ is one of the incredible cuts from The Face EP and it was picked for a film called ‘What Maisie Knew’, featuring Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan and premiered in the Toronto International Film Festival last September.
Listen to ‘Anesthesia’ below and don’t let the other five opulent tracks from the EP slip away.

Dirty Projectors offer new video for ‘Offspring Are Blank’

13 December 2012

Dirty Projectors have just released a video for ‘Offspring Are Blank’, from their outstanding album Swing Lo Magellan. The video features footage from ‘Hi Custodian‘, their short film written and directed by frontman Dave Longstreth.
The band also announced they will release a limited edition Offspring Are Blank 7″ backed by a new song titled ‘There’s a Fire’. This release will be a white label pressing, available exclusively at their Carnegie Hall show on January 11th.
Now watch the video for ‘Offspring Are Blank’.

Noro gives away debut single Nightingale

13 December 2012

Born in Calgary and now relocated to New York, Samuel Hoeksema is the man behind Noro. We were eagerly waiting for the release of his two-track debut single Nightingale since it was announced last week. Nightingale saw the light of day yesterday via Mouser, and Noro is offering it as a free download here.

As we previously mentioned, Nightingale includes contributions from Austin Tufts (BRAIDS), Aaron Meyer (Honeybear) and producer Morgan Greenwood (Azeda Booth).
The single features the tracks ‘For Joy’ and ‘Armor’, a beautiful and heartfelt song. Listen to it below and don’t let your ears miss Nightingale.

New EP from collaborative project with Can members

12 December 2012

Can founding members Jaki Liebezeit and Irmin Schmidt formed a collaborative project with Burnt Friedman and Jono Pomdore called Cyclopean. As the release blurb reads, “the title provides a metaphor for the music: Cyclopean forms are beautiful, massive and intriguing structures that interlock, intersect and connect seemingly contradictory components”.

Mute will be releasing their self-titled debut EP on February 4th. The EP will be available on 12″ vinyl and digitally, and you can pre-order it here.

Here’s what the blurb says about the EP:
“Heavy, yet light, powerful, subtle, intriguing and playful. There’s also a flavour of the ancient in this music – an artefact from a sophisticated pre-culture perhaps. Extraordinary instrumentation – rubber band guitar, theremin, prepared piano – is unified through the monumental and unique drum patterns, as the characters of the four players are at once individually unmistakably and irrevocably intertwined.”

‘Fingers’ is Cyclopean’s debut track, listen to it beneath.