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Check out the brand new video from Mt. Desolation, the alt-country side project of Keane’s Tim-Rice Oxley and Jesse Quin. The video is for the single and lead track, Departure and was directed by Tom Palliser. Shake it like a polaroid picture.

Mt. Desolation, which also features members of Mumford & Sons, Killers, and Noah and the Whale are preparing to release their debut album, “Mt. Desolation on October 19, 2010 on Cherry Tree.  Read more...

By Katrina Nattress
Foals have been busy lately. After releasing their highly acclaimed Total Life Forever, the Oxford quartet has been continuously touring and producing music videos.

The fourth video off the record is for the whimsical, meandering ballad, “2 Trees.” The video was created by Adam Bizanski as part of his “Singalong Paul,” series, which also includes music videos for Radiohead’s “You and Whose Army,” and Alan Arkin’s “I Like You.”  Read more...

By Myles Crawley
A few weeks ago we met up with Portland, Oregon’s The Upsidedown. It was a last minute thing that blossomed into a wild happening on the roof of a historic old bar in San Diego called The Tower Bar. I’m not sure how we all ended up on the roof. It just seemed like the place to be. There’s quite a few people in The Upsidedown (2 drummers, three guitars and bass), and we brought along another six or so people and a bunch of instruments, recording gear and cameras. And then their friends showed up… We were all a little worried about falling through, but everything turned out okay. They jammed, we recorded. Life was beautiful.  Read more...

Coming on like a teenage Joan Jett with a drum machine, all Pulp Fiction bangs and kaleidoscopic baton swinging, Zowie is a futuristic cheerleader from planet Wow. A whip-smart 22 year old karate-proficient Antipodean with a penchant for percussion, a hyperglycemic imagination and a dizzying creative ferocity.

Described by one music critic in her native New Zealand as “a tiny dynamo of electrifying, positive energy” Zowie has distilled a bubbling mix of vintage synth-pop, shimmering electro, playground chants and rock n roll swagger to create a moxy-fuelled sound all of her own.  Read more...

By Brian Hiatt
Rolling Stone
Roger Waters is about to launch a tour where a 36-foot-high wall will rise up each night between him and his fans — and right now, you wouldn’t blame him for wishing the thing was a bit more portable. The former Pink Floyd leader has just ducked his still-gangly six-foot-three-inch frame into a town car for a ride to a midtown Manhattan restaurant, and it is immediately clear that the driver is way too excited to see him. Waters braces himself. “Been a fan all my life, man,” says the driver, a baseball-capped, middle-aged dude named Fred, with a broad New York accent. ” ‘Wish You Were Here’ — I was backpacking in Europe when I got turned on to it. I was like, ‘This is the best album evvuh!’ It must be an unbelievable feeling to know what an impact you made on my generation.”  Read more...

Chicago’s Maps & Atlases are excited to debut “Solid Ground” today, the first video from their debut full-length Perch Patchwork and announce tour dates this November across the midwest and east coast.

Directed by Taryn Gould and Emily Kowalczyk, “Solid Ground” depicts the quartet attempting to lure lead singer Dave Davison back ashore while he drifts between states of consciousness.  Filmed over a weekend in the beautiful Berkshires in western Massachusetts the video debuted earlier on MTV2′s Subterranean and MTVu.  Check it out below:  Read more...

The Dead Weather will be releasing three versions of their single “Blue Blood Blues” this week including, most excitingly, on a brand new format entitled the Triple Decker Record™.  The Triple Decker Record ™ designed by Jack White and assembled by United Record Pressing Nashville, TN is a unique 7” version of the single embedded inside a 12” version.  Triple Decker Record ™ will be available in a limited edition of 300 copies, 100 of which will be on-sale at the Third Man Records store in Nashville, and the  remainder available randomly through mail order and at select brick and mortar vinyl dealers worldwide.  Read more...

Produced by Myles Crawley. Video shot and edited by Paul Giret. Audio recorded and mixed by Alan Sanderson. Photo by Danica Waters.

By Myles Crawley
Today is day 2 of our Josiah Leming coverage. His album released yesterday, and from what I hear it is charting well. Now its time for the second half of the material that we recorded with him on a recent visit to San Diego. This footage was shot at a little Irish pub in town called Stout.  Read more...

Video shot and edited by Paul Giret. Audio recorded via Pro Tools by Alan Sanderson. produced by Myles Crawley.

By Myles Crawley
A few weeks back we met up with Josiah Leming at a little pub in San Diego called Stout. He was in town to play three consecutive nights at Lestats Coffee House. I met Josiah a few months back at Michele Clark’s Sunset Sessions. Project Rhythm Seed recorded a series of live cuts with him and presented the majority of them here on this site. We’ve stayed in touch since then. So when I heard he was starting his tour here, I suggested that we get together again.  Read more...

Every bit as powerful and insightful as their classic work, Content, the new album from Gang Of Four, sees founding members Jon King and Andy Gill continuing to deliver intelligent, powerful and liberating rock & roll that is both provocative and simply thrilling. “What we’re trying to do is keep it totally stripped down, where everyone in the band makes an equally intense contribution,” says King. With the simple but tough and loud sound of drums, guitar, bass and vocals on new tracks like “Who Am I?,” “You Don’t Have To Be Mad,” “I Can’t Forget Your Lonely Face” and “I Party All The Time,” the songwriting on Content is just as challenging and unconventional in 2010 as it was in 1978.  Read more...

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Third Man and Nonesuch Records announce the release of the new album from Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Wanda Jackson.  The Party Ain’t Over, produced by her friend Jack White, will be out January 25, 2011.

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An artist praised by KEXP as “the best of Brooklyn’s experimental rock scene,” Brian Bonz is preparing for the upcoming release of his new album The Triborough Odyssey. Set for an October 26th release on Triple Crown Records, THE Triborough Odyssey was produced by John McEntire (Broken Social Scene & Tortoise) and is the follow up to Brian’s debut album From Sumi To Japan, which won over critics and fans with what Alternative Press described as “concepts that are immersed in an entirely refreshing context, producing delicately experimental ornate indie pop.”  Read more...

“It’s an interpretation of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Mercy Street’. We made it more intense and faster to fit our eccentric percussionists and energetic live musicians. It is a monotone track but we worked with the dynamics trying to make it sparkle. I listened to it a lot when I was around 15, and it still moves me. It made me start reading Anne Sexton too.”
- Karin Dreijer Andersson  Read more...

By Lukas Clark-Memler
Consistency and longevity are words often undervalued in the music world. The perpetual and obsessive search for the ‘next big thing’ has created, what I like to call, a debut generation. Most current artists don’t make it past the debut, and many listeners simply refuse to commit to an act long enough to see them past album number one. This has resulted in record labels furiously hiring and firing – churning out debut after debut.  Read more...

Crocodiles released the free instrumental EP Fires of Comparison today. The San Diego duo who were brought together by their shared love of girl groups and punk, and feelings of small-town-alienation, have announced a US fall tour in conjunction with the release of their new album Sleep Forever, out September 14 via Fat Possum.  Read more...

The Germans are continuing to make their mark as a place of cultural relevance in the music and festival scene, not only in Europe, but around the world. This past SXSW ’10, several German organizations hosted a lunch that brought together the best and brightest in German music. Now, Germany is celebrating their best in music, as well as International artists, with the upcoming Berlin Festival.  Read more...