This week’s Free Music Friday is dedicated to the memory of Donna Summer. Although she gained the title of Queen of Disco, Summer grew up on a steady diet of rock and roll, the influence of which can be heard throughout her musical career. And in turn, she influenced many of the singers that would follow her. Donna Summer died of cancer Thursday morning in Naples, Fla. She was 63.
To celebrate this September’s release of his new solo album The Ringmaster General, singer, songwriter and guitarist Dave Stewart will perform four shows throughout the U.K. The tour kicks off September 3 with a special homecoming show at the Empire Theatre in Stewart’s Sunderland hometown and includes stops in Birmingham, Manchester and London. While in London, Stewart will also shoot a private performance at The Hospital Club on September 6.
By J. Brown
When one of your favorite artists performs in front of a local crowd full of friends and family of the band, then you know you’re in for a good night. That was the case when The White Buffalo (AKA Jake Smith) recently performed in Solana Beach at the Belly Up Tavern. The performance lasted well into the wee hours of the morning, and it was as if The White Buffalo and his band didn’t want the night to end. The crowd loved every minute of it, and in turn, that night’s performers clearly fed off the energy of an adoring audience.
One of France’s most acclaimed young artists and composers, Emilie Simon, is set to release her exquisite new album, Franky Knight, in the U.S. in August 2012.
With acclaim that includes three wins at France’s prestigious “Victoires de la Musique” (French equivalent to the GRAMMY Awards) and nominations for the Prix Constantin and Cesars (French equivalent to the U.S Academy Awards), Emilie Simon has blazed a path in her native France as a forward thinking composer, singer/songwriter and dynamic electro-pop musician as well as one of the country’s best selling female recording artists.
The brainchildren behind two of Sweden’s most beloved musical projects have combined to form one artistic force, the result being an infectious pop revolution. Smile is the collaboration of Björn Yttling, world-renowned writer, producer and bassist of international indie-pop powerhouse Peter Bjorn and John, and Joakim Åhlund of bear-masked electro outfit Teddybears. The duo is excited to announce the May 29th release of their debut LP, A Flash in the Night, as the first artist album from the Swedish artist collective, Ingrid.
Hi everybody and welcome to another edition of Project Rhythm Seed’s Free Music Friday. Today we dug deep to find you two great new artists. The first, Megan Reilly, took a five year hiatus between her last album and her latest one, The Well, which released at the end of last month. Today we have a track off that album called “Throw It Out” to share with you. The second artist, Ian McGlynn, is a writer’s writer and a Berklee School Of Music alumni. His newest album, Now We’re Golden, drops on June 5th, but today we have a track called “Gold Morning Mend” available for you.
Explosions In The Sky just released an incredible new music video for “Postcard From 1952“, from their fifth studio album Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, released on Temporary Residence Ltd. Directed by Annie Gunn and Peter Simonite, “Postcard From 1952″ employs yet another expansively cinematic track from Take Care, Take Care, Take Care as the perfect compliment to an indelible visual experience. Gunn and Simonite re-create a series of vintage Polaroid moments with painstaking care to every detail from vintage styling to flash cube lighting for a trip back in time that explores moments before and after these memory fragments were captured. Watch the new video below.
Matisyahu blasts off with Spark Seeker, a bold new studio album that finds him exploring new, uncharted territory with help from an expansive cast from around the globe. The album is produced by multi-platinum Brazilian songwriter/producer Kool Kojak (Nicki Minaj, Travis Barker, Ke$ha) and includes collaboration with Belizean rapper, Shyne and many others. The album mixes ancient traditional sounds with futuristic electro beats, rapping with singing, and songs of the spirit with songs of the body.
The Wallflowers have announced they are back in the studio and putting the finishing touches on a long-awaited new studio album that will be released by Columbia Records this fall. Currently recording in Nashville at Dan Auerbach’s (The Black Keys) Easy Eye Sound studio, the new album finds frontman Jakob Dylan joining original band members Greg Richling (bass) and Rami Jaffee (keyboards), with Wallflowers’ longtime guitarist Stuart Mathis and drummer Jack Irons (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam) rounding out the lineup. The album is being produced by Jay Joyce (Emmylou Harris, Cage the Elephant) and mixed by Rich Costey (Bruce Springsteen, The Shins).
We are saddened to report that musician, rapper, activist, director and awesome human being Adam “MCA” Yauch, founding member of Beastie Boys and also of the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits, and film production and distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories, passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer. He was 47 years old.
By Mallory Leisten
Firstly, I want you all to know that We Are Serenades has Swedish blood. So Swedish in fact that when I ask Adam Olenius “Where are you from?” I hear on the other line “Well, I’m calling you here from Stockholm.” He informs me much later that he actually lived in a neighborhood very close to mine in Seattle, Washington for two years and toured in the US with the popular pop punk band, Shout Out Louds.
A group shrouded in almost complete secrecy, The M Machine continue to reveal themselves across some of electronic music’s biggest stages. After summer gigs throughout 2011 at EDC, Electric Zoo, and Global Dance Festival and opening slots for Empire of the Sun, Miike Snow, and Pretty Lights, the San Francisco trio has just unveiled the first part of their debut album, Metropolis Pt. 1. With rave support from some of the biggest names in the industry, including Benny Benassi, Skrillex, and Porter Robinson, The M Machine are proving themselves to be as captivating and original as they are mysterious.
Lumerians are garage scholars of the weird. The Oakland-based quintet could be named for Lemuria, the long-lost sunken continent ruled by primitive mystics. But note the spelling: Lumerians, not Lemurians. Sure Lumerians dig lemurs plenty, but they love lumiere—especially son et lumiere, the fusion of sound and light that is one of the hallmarks of deep trance and media. Lumerians play droning dance music for the soul you forgot you had – the noise of the billions of switches in your brain shutting off and on in perfect harmony. Last year Knitting Factory Records released their debut full length Transmalinnia, an immersive odyssey beyond the senses five.
Hi everybody and welcome to another edition of Project Rhythm Seed’s Free Music Friday. This is our favorite day of the week, not only because we head into the weekend, but also because we get to share some great free music with you, our viewers and listeners. Right now all of us here in the northern hemisphere are in the height of spring, the time of the year when everything is blossoming and flowering. The music business is also flowering right now, with multiple releases coming out every week (Monday in the UK and EU & Tuesday in the US). Consequently there is lots of new music hitting the airwaves, record stores and internet; a great time of the year indeed!
Welcome to another edition of Project Rhythm Seed’s Rhythm Seed Artist Spotlight.Today we are happy to bring some attention to a new band called Sunless ‘97 The band returns with their second release, this time on brilliantly diverse UK label Not Even. The two tracks further display the honest eclecticism found at the heart of the three-piece band’s music. Sunless ’97 is from London, England and started out as a solo project of leader Edward Leeson.
Martin Scorsese’s new documentary George Harrison: Living In The Material World, which premiered on HBO last October, is getting a proper release on May 1st. Universal Music Enterprises will be releasing the film on DVD, Blu-ray, and a Deluxe Edition that will include the DVD, Blu-ray, special packaging and a 96-page book of photography to accompany the film.
By J. Brown
Sometimes the best concert experiences are instances in which a band takes you by surprise because you hadn’t planned on seeing them, and it must be said that accidentally stumbling upon musical awesomeness is one of those few unrivaled feelings that put a smile on my face. The band Big Harp in particular fits this description. I had never heard of this husband-and-wife duo but they were one of many performers at the Hotel Café in Los Angeles recently and their set was outstanding.
Danish sextet Alcoholic Faith Mission has debuted the video for the title track off of their forthcoming Ask Me This LP, out May 1st on Old Flame Records (MillionYoung, Letting Up Despite Great Faults). Produced by Guy Manly, “Ask Me This” follows their first two videos ‘Running with Insanity,’ and ‘Into Pieces‘ released earlier this year. Starring Sharry Underwood, who was a professional Broadway dancer in the 1940′s, the video’s concept was birthed from the “iconic images of the WWII generation returning from overseas, young, full of life, confident, and in love,” says Manly. “In today’s world I think the elderly are neglected and hidden, our idea of beauty is to be young, our idea of quality is to be new.” “Ask Me This” isn’t as preoccupied with death as it is with the memories of life that we hide away.
To commemorate their induction this year into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, multi-platinum rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers will release a very special digital-only EP, entitled We Salute You, on May 1st via Warner Bros. Records. It features six songs from previous Hall of Fame inductees, all of whom have influenced the band musically: The Ramones, Iggy & The Stooges, Neil Young, David Bowie, The Beach Boys, and Dion & The Belmonts. See below for full track-listing.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is an album from a long, long time ago, when the world was different. This is an album that is part of my history – it goes back to the wee hills of Scotland where it was formed. It’s an album called RAM. It reminds me of my hippie days and the free attitude with which was created. I hope you’re going to like it, because I do!”
Paul McCartney, 2012
