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Claire Boucher (aka Grimes) has handed over her third album, Visions, to NPR to get the streaming treatment a week before it’s official release on 4AD. The album features an interesting blend of electronic beats and nearly-twee vocals that stand out from the more typical pairing of beats and soulful singers. Like a more goth-y version of Lykke Li.
Stream the album at NPR.
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Last nights Grammy awards had plenty of predictability (Adele swept everything, tears for Whitney Houston) and a couple surprises (Skrillex nabbed best new artist, lots of women want to get beat by Chris Brown). And then there was the much anticipated collaboration with between The Foo Fighters and Deadmau5, who performed the remix of “Rope” which was nominated or Best Remix (Skrillex nabbed that too).
And while only the second half of the tune got the remix treatment (a whole 1:30 seconds), it certainly didn’t offend the sensibilities like some predicted. The producers were even smart enough to dress up some suits in the audience with Mau5heads, showing that they at least understand part of dance music’s current appeal—playing dress up.
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Dance music has always gotten a bad rap or being apolitical (as if the rest of the pop charts is any better). But that didn’t stop Mark Stewart of legendary post-punk agitators The Pop Group from teaming up with Primal Scream for “Autonomia,” a new tune about Carlo Giuliani, an protestor killed in the 2001 G8 demonstrations in Genoa, Switzerland.
And while the original tune had plenty of Primal Scream’s riffing guitars over funky madchester beats, with Stewart and Bobby Gillespie chanting “keep the dream alive,” the remix by Optimo’s JD Twitch takes things is a direction more reminiscent of Meat Beat Manifesto proto-techno.
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Frite Nite label head Salva and Fade to Mind duo Nguzunguzu (en-goo-zoo-en-goo-zoo) have announced a fourteen-stop North American tour spanning the month of March, with two stops in Canada. Once Salva returns from his current UK/European tour with Shlohmo, he will meet up with Nguzu in Los Angeles and hit up the Pacific Northwest before heading south to SXSW and a handful of other locations.
Check out mixes by Salva for the Fader here, and Nguzunguzu for Transmusicales here. Follow the jump for a full listing of tour dates:
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Taking a break from his myriad minimal tech personas, Francis Harris, a.k.a. Adultnapper a.k.a. Lightbluemover a.k.a. one half of Frank n’ Tony, is starting out 2012 by not only launching a new imprint, dubbed Scissor & Thread, with Shawn Schwartz owner and curator of the almost-legendary Halcyon records in Brooklyn, but also by releasing a personal record under his own, personal, name. A softer, and as he describes it, “quieter” turn from his firmer, more aggressive alter egos, Harris’ “Leland” is not only fraught with, as Urb found out, intricate cinematic and literary qualities, but is a tribute to the life and memory of Harris’ father. Revealed brilliantly by the voice of Danish vocalist and former FM Einheit collaborator Gry Bagøien, the story of Leland is intimate, comforting, and surprisingly uplifting in the end. We spoke to Harris …
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