The Professor Murder on a Desert Island saga continues with “Civilization Three”, the excellent new exclusive track off the EP the band put together for RCRD LBL. It’s an upbeat number that sounds like a blissed out, sun drenched Operation Ivy, with the chorus cry of “Do you hear me?/I hear you!” resonating throughout. It perfectly highlights the appeal of Professor Murder, and why they’re so compelling and fresh—they take elements of punk, indie, calypso, disco and funk and craft something completely singular, that no one else is even coming close to at the moment. The only band that actually comes to mind as a comparison is some of the A Certain Ratio stuff from the early ‘80s, and P Murder are even on top of that to some degree. Anyway, no more words, let’s let the music speak for itself.
Download: Professor Murder - Civilization Three
Download: Professor Murder - Flex-It Formula
Image by Bao Nguyen
Like a bunch of punks at a calypso block party, Professor Murder are releasing their newest exclusive MP3 on RCRD LBL, an instrumental version of their single “Flex-It Formula”. Obviously the two are similar, but the absence of vocals on the new MP3 let you focus on the amazing percussion P. Murder use to make their audiences shimmy and shake. Believe us, if you have ever seen these guys live, you’ll know what we’re talking about. Download both the original “Flex-It Formula” and the instrumental below, and stay tuned for more tracks from the band’s exclusive RCRD LBL EP, Professor Murder on a Desert Island.
Download: Professor Murder - Flex-It Formula (Instrumental version)
Download: Professor Murder - Flex-It Formula
In addition to being a member of ultra-cool RCRD LBL band Professor Murder, Michael Bell-Smith is also a stunning visual artist, creating all these meticulous and beautiful animations of light, texture, pixels and geometry seemingly out of thin air. Today, his second solo exhibition, Bouncing Lights Forever, opens at Foxy Productions is Manhattan. We urge you to go check it out, there’s more info and the Fader blog and the Foxy Production Website.
Michael Bell-Smith at the Fader blog
Michael Bell-Smith at Foxy Production
Stay tuned to RCRD LBL later this month, as we will be debuting a brand new track from the Professor Murder on a Desert Island EP and an instrumental of "Flex-it Formula" in the weeks to come...
Download: Professor Murder - Flex-it Formula
The Brooklyn-based band Freeblood (the post punk pairing of ex-!!! member John Pugh and fashion designer Madeleine Davy) have just signed on to tour America with Hot Chip, which is a real coup for the underrated outfit. The first time we saw them was at Studio B (after hearing friends rave about them for literally years) and they took us aback with their minimal electro funk. Both members sing and John plays stuttering, slimy basslines, akin to old school post punk bands like 23 Skidoo and Maximum Joy. The Music Slut (them again) featured some Freeblood stuff today.
Freeblood at The Music Slut
Fool’s Gold has gone remix crazy and are featuring accapellas from a couple tracks off of Chromeo’s Fancy Footwork LP, so fans can mess around and create their own iconic dance jams. Check it out and send them your best work, who knows, maybe you’ll make the next international dance floor banger…
Chromeo at the Fool's Gold RCRD LBL blog
Without further ado here's our first ever top 10 list. It wasn't easy coming to a consensus between the 5 contributors over here but in the end we think a quality, representative list came through. Also none of the bands on our top 10 list have animal names (name another blog's without one!). Send your hatemail to whogivesafuck@seen.com, otherwise leave a comment below (jk...not about the comments though). CLICK HERE to see our top 10...
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The recent resurgence in dance-rock bands (originated by the Rapture and carried out this year by bands like Friendly Fires and Foals) can be traced back to one legendary band--Leeds' Gang of Four, whose 1979 debut album Entertainment! completely defined the genre. A large part of the band's sound comes from Dave Allen's funk bass lines (not to suggest that Jon King's vocals, Andy Gill's acerbic guitars and Hugo Burnham's drumming don't carry their weight wonderfully), and Dave was cool enough to share some of the band's new demos with us, which we are in turn giving away to you guys. Here are a few words from the man himself, along with the download links to new clips from their studio demos. We're super excited!
It's true, Gang of Four is making new music again after many years. In 2005 we released a version of our own "greatest hits" Return The Gift a CD of songs that we revisited from our back catalogue. The band is without a record label which is very refreshing as in effect it leaves us with a Tabula Rasa. There has been much talk lately of the end of the music business some of which must be taken with a pinch of salt but it is an undeniable fact that music sales, especially on CD, are in fast decline. A legacy band such as Gang of Four has many options when it comes to getting our music to our fans - new and upcoming bands have far less options which is a challenge. While we ponder releasing digital EPs, vinyl with MP3s and specialty packages of CD/DVD combinations, the job of finishing our songs in the studio goes on. In the spirit of radical transparency we are posting some edited rough demos of new material, literally work-in-progress, with the proviso that these songs will still be tossed around in the hopper and be baked until done. Or not. You can read more of my thoughts on the process and track our musical progress at my Pampelmoose blog. And you can follow Gang of Four fans feedback and comments here.
The recording session in London took place in five days in November 2007. The MP3s are posted here to allow you to download them and then compare them to the progress we make on these tracks prior to their release. PC users right click and Mac users control click to download the MP3s. All the song titles are working titles and will inevitably be changed.
Also, here's an interview that Jon King did with a Dutch radio station in 2005
If that's not history than we don't know what is.
Download: Gang of Four - Second Life
Download: Gang of Four - Password
Download: Gang of Four - Faking It
Download: Gang of Four - American Man
The relative silence of dirtybird can mean only one thing: they are impossibly busy.
All four main elements of the camp are involved in different projects soon to come, particularly the "Hyphy House" style they are protecting in their studio.
Most recently, they leaked the new single "Groundhog Day" from Christian Martin and Claude VonStroke. Rather than a digital tease, though, they dropped the 12" vinyl in only three locations: Juno (UK), Freebase (Frankfurt) and Tweekin (USA).
Only 500 are available as clear vinyl and each comes with an equally-limited remix from the hotly-tipped Chaim on the flip.
We spoke with Martin on the webternet. Read the interview after the jump here
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We've been fans of Chromeo for quite some time now, and it's cool to see the Montreal duo of Dave 1 and P-Thug finally get some international recognition. Liverpool-based blog Check the Availability featured superstar indie remixers L.A. Riots' rework of their 2007 single "Bonafide Lovin'" so check it out at the link below.
Chromeo at Check the Availability
