take a look / listen
Imagine an alternate universe, one where prog music is the dead sexiest thing on earth, dripping with pheromones, adored by legions of swooning females and respected by swarms of envious dudes. Yeah, high school would have been a lot easier for us if that were the case, but somehow Oslo’s Gazpacho seem to have willed just such a universe into existence around themselves. Using the backbone of prog, a genre most commonly associated with ponytails and music theory excesses, the band tweaks and contorts its music until barely recognizable, creating a stew of majestic, complex, we-feel-weird-saying-it-but sensual melodrama. And with Muse going the way of NFL soundtracks, Gazpacho’s hypnotic new record Tick Tock couldn’t come at a better time. 
With the High Holy Days behind and Hanukkah around the corner, no time like the present to connect with your Judain sisters and brothers.On November 2, Girls in Trouble will join forces with Eli Valley vs the Sway Machinery at Joe’s Pub in the multi-media mash up The Temple of Self Hatred, a music-meets-visual art set. The night will feature a reading from the winner of the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers and other guests and surprises. You can also catch Girls In Trouble’s performance at their album release party at Brooklyn’s Public Assembly on November 11. The event will be also be a fundraiser for Julius Caesar Press and will feature additional guests including Franz Nicholay of The Hold Steady and Pepe Ginsburg.Girls in Trouble is a folk-inspired indie group featuring inviting experimental string arrangements, lead by vocalist/violinist Alicia Jo Rabins.
The record, initially a song cycle for a master's thesis, features mystical lyrics telling the stories of obscure Biblical women. Rabins finds a way to make the struggles of the ancient woman her own while grounding them with alluring hooks
Set for release on JDub Records on November 3, the Girls in Trouble debut was recorded in rural North Carolina with the help of three of her closest friends: Aaron Hartman (Old Time Relijun, K Records) on upright bass, Tim Monaghan on drums and Jascha Hoffman on keys and glockenspiel. produced by Scott Solter (Spoon, The Mountain Goats, Okkervil River).
Check out Girls In Trouble’s
”Secrets / You’re Always Watching” MP3.
Fresh off the success of Livin’ a Treme´ Life, Kermit Ruffins is ready to add a little New Orleans jazz to the upcoming holiday season. Produced by Grammy Winner Tracey Freeman, Have A Crazy Cool Christmas is Kermit Ruffins’ bold foray into Christmas music. The album runs the gamut from yuletide classics like “Silent Night” and “Jingle Bells” to Kermit’s own rollicking originals like “A Saints Christmas” and “Crazy Cool Christmas.” This album is an essential for any jazz fan with the Christmas spirit
Brooklyn-based, six-piece indie-rock group, Kittens Ablaze, are bringing their raucous live performance to The Lager House on Friday, November 6th.MCB has a few copies of the latest to offer up to 5th / 7th emailers
motorcityblog@earthlink.net
Featuring a violin, cello, and a drumming lead singer, Kittens Ablaze have drawn such comparisons as Ra Ra Riot, Cursive, and The Decemberists. And with their buzz only beginning to rise with praise from magazines like Vice and Rolling Stone, in addition to a variety of music blogs and publications, Kittens Ablaze will soon be scorching the country side with their newly released album “The Monstrous Vanguard.
Download “Gloom Doom Buttercup”
Midnight Masses is an ever-expanding collective of mostly Brooklyn-based artists, led and formed by Autry Fulbright in the wake of his father’s untimely death in 2008. On any given night the band could be a lean ensemble of its core members or an imposing 14-piece collection of string players, organists, and guests pulled from any number of Brooklyn’s finest bands - including Trail of Dead’s Kevin Allen, Jason Reece and Conrad Keely, TV on the Radio’s Gerard Smith and Jaleel Bunton, the bewitching Katie Eastburn, Peter Hale of Here We Go Magic, and more. Midnight Masses is preparing to gather once again for Rapture Ready, I Gazed At The Body, their debut EP, set for release on November 10th via Collect Records. 
DOWNLOAD "The Uncomfortable Truth."NNEKA -- CONCRETE JUNGLE
(Yo Mama/Decon/Epic, February 2, 2010)
Pop music is a “here today, gone tomorrow” world.
A starburst of YouTubenotoriety and then oblivion. Or at least it is for most.
But when your journey has been as long and extraordinary as Nneka’s – when you’ve travelled 10,000 miles and are still only just starting out - then instant celebrity is the last thing on your mind. When your heart is as big as your Afro, when your talents stretch from teardrop soul-singing to freestyle rapping to a first-class degree from a top Continental university, when you’ve got so much to say about so much, then you are in it for the long haul.
Nneka is this artist.
Every year since her musical career took off in 2005, this Afro-German warrior princess has built on her successes, stretched her muscles, and widened her range. Her debut album, Victim of Truth (released in the UK in 2007) - an inspirational mix of hot loops, black consciousness and 21st-century soul music with equal parts Bob Marley, Nina Simone and Erykah Badu in the mix - was garlanded with praise by the British media. ‘As good as The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,’ said UK’s The Sunday Times. Her sophomore release, No Longer At Ease, stepped up the game, generating a growing fan-base across Europe and beyond, building strong foundations France and Germany, as well as putting her center-stage on tour with the likes of Lenny Kravitz among others.
Nneka’s first US release, Concrete Jungle (in stores February 2, 2010), stands as an offering of love, hope and optimism dedicated to the people of Warri & the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Holding it all together is the emotional focus of her beautiful voice, located in a place somewhere between yearning and rage.
Nneka fans number in the hundreds of thousands across two continents, as she divides her time between homes in Lagos and Hamburg, Germany. Get ready to add a third continent to the mix, as Nneka prepares for her U.S. debut. With everything we’re going through here these days, the timing of Nneka’s optimistic message couldn’t be better!
THE WHIGS"In The Dark"
HEADLINING TOUR ANNOUNCED
PREMIERING SONGS FROM UPCOMING ALBUM
Athens, GA garage rockers The Whigs are very excited to hit the road this month and premiere songs from their upcoming album, In The Dark (ATO Records). The headlining tour covers 29 cities in seven weeks and The Features, The Dead Trees, and Mean Creek will support the run at different stages. NO DETROIT DATE
Set for an early 2010 release, In The Dark follows up the highly successful album Mission Control, a record that captured the raw and gritty spirit of rock n roll and had countless critics scrambling to praise the band’s no-holds-barred, bare-boned aesthetic.
Download 'Puzzles' MP3 - HERE
Download the first single 'Dare' - HERE
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The Mary Onettes launched their career in 2004, and were signed by Stockholm's groundbreaking Labrador Records in 2006 (The Legends, The Radio Dept. and Little Big Adventure) , who released the 'Lost' EP in the fall of that year, with the debut album following in 2007. Even though things have been going well for the band, they had their share of misfortune. While recording 'Islands' last year, and with 5-6 songs almost finished, an unlikely series of events occurred - the computer on which they recorded the songs got stolen, and at the same time, the back-up drive broke, which meant they had to start again from the very beginning. As unlucky as it seemed at the time, it was probably a blessing in disguise as 'Islands' might not have turned out quite as amazing as it did if this hadn’t happened! The re-recordings are more lively, and they used more organic instruments like strings, pianos, and children’s choirs than they had originally intended.
The year 2008 was characterized by the deaths of close relatives and friends of Philip Ekström (singer and songwriter of the band) and on 'Islands' he’s put more focus on the lyrics. 'The Disappearance Of My Youth' and 'Cry For Love' were written on his girlfriend’s mother’s estate and most of the songs on the album are highly marked by his time in Stockholm after her death. “The songs are almost too personal and I’ve had a hard time playing them for friends. It’s like all I want to do is keep them to myself.” (Philip). The lyrics are retrospective themes of lost youth, transience and death.
www.themaryonettes.net
www.myspace.com/themaryonettes 
Download "Dekinai" Available Here!
Yura Yura Teikoku are a bonafide institution at home, arguably the only 'underground' psychedelic group in Japan to have achieved 'overground' success. They've attracted a huge following over the past 20 years yet became progressively stranger and more ambitious, cramming weird and classic influences into a unique, potent form. Like the Boredoms’ relation to krautrock and Boris conquering stoner metal, Yura Yura Teikoku have put their uniquely Japanese spin on all forms of FM/AM classic rock music to dizzying effect.
Hollow Me, their tenth studio album, abandons the ecstatic, blown-out approach of their earlier work for a far more subdued and streamlined palette of sounds. The songs were composed to impart a general feeling of emptiness or "hollowness." Sakamoto's fierce guitar work is legendary in Japan, yet the album shockingly contains not a single guitar solo. The band set about by their own dogmatic set of rules and stuck close to them. Influences come at you in strange disguises, templates taken from everyone from T-Rex to ESG to Can to 10CC. All of this comes together without seeming gratuitous or forced, no small feat indeed. And what we are left with is one of the most cohesive new rock LP’s in any language.
Like all previous Yura Yura Teikoku releases, Hollow Me and the accompanying Beautiful EP were masterfully recorded at Nakamura Soichiro's (of Japanese psych legends White Heaven) Peace Studio, and produced by You Ishihara (also ex-White Heaven).
DFA is honored to introduce this instant classic to fresh ears, and have a strong feeling that, even if you don't speak Japanese, you'll be singing along somehow after a few listens.
we are so far behind on these new music drops but catching up quick
more to come blagh!
