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You should have your copy of Season of the Sparks by now, but if not, here’s a reminder as to why you should. Live from the Dublin Mountains with a small hip-amp and all, Adrian sings ‘The Beekeeper’s Wife’. Directed by Souljacker.
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In between everyone buggering off to Primavera – where Wavves had a complete meltdown and Aphex Twin played a greatest hits set (Stay tuned to State.ie for Darragh and Loreana’s updates), a show from Final Fantasy consisting of more experimental, less melodic and more off-kilter new songs, one of the contenders for gig of the year in the superb Friendly Fires gig in Waterford, a Bonus Party show in Galway, and what’s to come: the Happy Valley festival in Thomastown, Kilkenny featuring R.S.A.G., David Kitt and SEBP and the Mad Daacent Soundsystem tomorrow night, I’ve found the time to devote my ears to Veckatimest over and over again. Here’s why:
Enjoy the sunshine – last week’s mixtape should do the trick. Big Nialler9 news next week.
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I woke up this morning to an almighty consistent clatter of metal on metal below my window. Disorientated and bleary eyed, I peered out over the balcony to see a dude in a high-vis jacket operating a large mechanical claw from the side of a truck. He was lifting what looked like large parking meters or vending machines into the back of the vehicle, piling them up like abandoned cars. He would send them crashing down on each other when the claw let go of whatever it was that was deemed unfit for public consumption anymore. Due to the fact that I had just woken up, my brain couldn’t comprehend what was actually happening.
It was a nice, strange illogical place my brain was occupying at the time. This visceral remix snapped me out of any trip to spaceland I might have had afterwards and manages to use that crashing-things-off-each-other ethos quite well. It’s from the Rough Trade c09 cassette which you can see at Dalston Oxfam Shop. Jewellry, Micachu’s debut is “a gloriously messy album, imbued with a sense of fun and abrasion”. I said it so it must be true.
I’m off to Waterford for Friendly Fires tonight and Galway for SEBP the next night.
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Julie Feeney’s new video for ‘Love is a Tricky Thing’ directed by Vittoria Colonna. Pages is released on the 5th of June.
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February marked three-years since the inspiring hip-hop producer J. Dilla aka Jay Dee passed away and this June sees another celebration in the form of Jay Stay Paid – a 25-track LP produced by Dilla’s mom Maureen Yancey aka Ma Dukes along with Pete Rock who serves as the presenter for the LP’s radio show format.
J$P is mostly instrumental but features rhymes from Black Thought of the Roots, DOOM, Raekwon, M.O.P, Blu, Havoc of Mobb Deep and little brother Illa J. Some of the material was pulled from old floppy disks & DATs in his studio and spans an eight year period from A Tribe Called Quest’s final album in 1998 to material written in hospital stays during the last months of his life. Jay Stay Paid is out on June 2nd on Nature Sounds.
Here is a 13-minute sampler from the album by the Beat Junkies and J.Rocc:
You can get Black Thought’s track here and Danny Brown’s track here.
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The Beasties were on Jimmy Fallon last night and performed Check Your Head cut ‘So Whatcha Want’ backed by the coolest-house-band-ever The Roots.
Wow, Fallon looks a little uncomfortable. Yesterday, the band announced via their mailing list that the new album was to be titled Hot Sauce Committee and they told Fallon it’s due out in September. Possible guests include Santigold.
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Temporary Pleasure might be under four months away from release (14th August) but SMD are sharing the infectious first single ‘Audacity of Huge’ which features Chris Keating of Yeasayer dropping pop culture references all over the shop.
It reminds me of Jesse Rose’s ‘Forget My Name’ a little bit. Also, bare in mind that it appears to be unmastered so as a result, it sounds a little flat.
Simian Mobile Disco – Audacity of Huge feat. Chris of Yeasayer
Temporary Pleasure also features guest turns from The Gossip’s Beth Ditto, Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, Jamie Lidell, Young Fathers, Telepathe and Gruff Rhys.
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Last week I asked my Twitter followers for their submission to a newTwitter mixtape or Twixtape for short:
What’s your perfect summer song for 2009?
There was about 50 responses or so and I had a great time collating as many tracks as I could for the mixtape below. There’s some crackers and belters right here: That Classixx Phoenix remix, the Alice in Wonderland electronic song, Atmosphere’s summery jam, the stupendous ‘So Far to Go’ from J Dilla, the clattering boogie funk of Dam Funk, an excellent tune from Wave Machines, an acoustic Yeah Yeah Yeahs a classic from Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and up-to-date indie hits from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Girls.
If I didn’t include your song, it’s because time or legalities didn’t allow it. Enjoy the mixtape. Hopefully, some of these songs will soundtrack your summer..
Listen to the mixtape >>
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I was out of Dublin for the weekend so missed Deerhunter, DM Stith (dreamt I was there though strangely), Jape and Africa Day but my trip included a visit to Belfast for Club AU where I saw the Belfast Egyptian Lover in the form of 19 year-old Space Dimension Controller rock his 808 and cowbell. Tremendous.
As you’re probably aware by now, Grizzly Bear’s new album Veckatimest is one of the albums of 2009 and as well as an the album being officially released, a couple of interesting related videos and bits popped up on Friday after I left. Number one – the sparkle exploding heads of weirdness video for one of my tunes of the year, ‘Two Weeks’ as directed by Patrick Daughters. Second, the glorious album is streaming in full on their Myspace and third, a Black Cab Session.
