Mean Everything To Nothing is the second album from Atlanta’s Manchester Orchestra. It’s everything you want a rock record to be: raw, urgent, emotional, and 100 percent authentic: ‘There is nothing fake about this record’, says frontman and lyricist, Andy Hull. ‘There’s not one fake sound on it. We recorded it live because we wanted it to sound like a band, and I think it does: live and loud!’
Neil Young / Revolution Blues From On The Beach, this song totally wraps your body in its groove. And the lyrics are stellar: ‘I hear that Laurel Canyon is filled with famous stars but I hate them worse than leppers and I’ll kill them in their cars’.
One of the Australia’s most talented, technically proficient and versatile DJs/producers. Sampology will be bringing his Super Visual Smackdown show to the upcoming BACARDI EXPRESS concerts, a cutting edge A/V show that chops and cuts both audio and video in perfect harmony over the speakers and onto screens.
Boney M / Ma Baker Simply a track I will never get sick of. I can’t get enough of the groove on this one sampled by The Avalanches for Live at Dominoes. I have always had a bit of an obsession with tracks other people have sampled. Some might call it a dedication to music, I just think I’m a geek. The film clip is ace, as well.
The Shout Out Louds are working on a new album, titled Work, and the first single off it is called Walls. The band is have been oled up in a Seattle studio with Phil Ek (Fleet Foxes, The Shins, Modest Mouse).
Bob Dylan / She Belongs To Me Great lyrics. A different kind of love song. A portrait.
Acrylics was formed by Jason Klauber and Molly Shea in 2008 and evolved into a trio. Their debut album All of the Fire was produced by Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear at his church-studio in Brooklyn, Terrible Studios.
Bobbie Gentry / Reunion Most famous for her hits, Ode to Billie Joe, and the unstoppable Mississippi Delta, Bobbie Gentry is a sultry-voiced country singer who wrote and produced her own music in a time when it was rare for both women and country singers. Gentry talk-sings the part of a young girl at a large family reunion in this track off her Delta Sweetie album. We first heard it the day after Halloween while driving back to New York from upstate and it made our ride. Starting off with a seductively sparse hand-clap rhythmic figure, Gentry’s Mississippian belle rap, ‘mama can I huh’ enters next. More and more voices and sounds enter the party until we reach a cacophonous fever-pitch. The result sounds like a Charles Mingus arrangement of I Want Candy in a southern baptist church. The song quickly fades back to a whisper before the three minute mark.
It is 30 years since Visage released the seminal Fade To Grey. It was a huge dance floor hit, topping the charts in the UK and Europe. To celebrate this anniversary, Universal Music have announced the release of The Very Best of Visage, updated with 2009 remixes of Fade To Grey by Michael Gray – of The Weekend and Borderline fame, and Lee Mortimer, AKA Sawtooth Sucka and resident Ministry of Sound DJ, alongside the group’s complete chart topping hit singles and some of the classic and highly sought after original remixes and 12” versions.
Deadmau5 / Faxing Berlin This track introduced me to Deadmau5 and I have been an avid fan ever since. He is the only DJ I have gone to see perform. To people who came for his music, his gigs at 02 club “matter“ and at The Roundhouse in London, the sound and lights were the stuff of my dreams from my early ecstasy trips at acid house parties.
Sydney’s Cassette Kids are the final addition to The Big O bill. On the cusp of something big, Cassette Kids have already earned a fierce reputation thanks to captivating vocalist Katrina Noorbergen. They have toured with The Presets and shared the stage with Ting Tings, New Young Pony Club, Van She and many more.
Crystal Castles / Alice Practice This was the first track I ever heard from Crystal Castles and it blew my mind. The sounds and textures were unlike anything I’d heard before and the song had this attitude and energy that I loved immediately. As a vocalist, I loved how messed up everything sounded, and it made me want to hammer some vocals through an amp and crank up the distortion.
VV Brown is a dynamo self-starter: a songwriter and producer; a fashion maven with a retail website devoted to her personal eye for retro style in the 21st century, and a model, first signed through a chance in-flight meeting, and now represented by Next Models. Signed in 2008 to write and produce her own album, VV now lives in London in a quaint cottage with her sisters.
Bat For Lashes / Glass When I first heard this song, I fell in love. I knew all her other music, but when I first heard this, the voice was just melting. She is one of my favourite artists. The radio station KCRW performance is just unbelievable.
Julia Nunes has been a singer-songwriter since age 13. She plays guitar, ukulele, melodica, and piano, but she also uses household items, such as pillows, water bottles, tissue boxes or an old slinky, for extra percussion. Her charm is best displayed on stage or in the videos she posts on YouTube. Using video/audio layering and a unique approach to song arrangement, Julia has created over 60 music videos of originals and covers, most of which have been viewed an average of 650,000 times
The Early November / Hair When I listen to this song, I allow myself to be as cynical and damning of the world as I can possibly get, and still have a spring in my step. I envision a Barbie version of myself making her way through the world, becoming self aware and crestfallen with a smile frozen on her face.
Casper Bangs is the recording project of DC based vocalist and guitarist Rob Pierangeli. Named after the ex-lover that inspired many of the songs, Casper Bangs is a trip through the joys and downers of loving and being loved. The Whitespace 7” and s/t EP are a preview of Casper Bangs’ full-length record, I Woke Up. It was written and performed by Pierangeli at his desktop computer in the midst of relational bliss – it’s a document of a good thing that ultimately goes bad. The songs contain strong unaffected vocals balanced with harmony, layers of noisy guitars, and reverb.
Kurt Vile / Freak Train I love the speed and repetition on this song, the beat, the arpeggiating guitar line, and pulsating bass. And when Vile starts shouting ‘freak train’, it’s somewhere in between Springsteen and Dylan. Make no mistake, these guys bring it live, too.
The Good The Bad are three Danish desperados, bringing the finest New School Surf and Flamenco to the masses. In the space of just a year, were invited to play Roskilde Festival, German showcase festival Popkomm in Berlin, and do a Christmas mini-tour in London, followed by a quick jaunt to Norway. In 2009, after more English fun at Liverpool Sound City, Hop Farm Festival and a Harley Davidson European Rally in Latvia, TGTB rocked THE KILLERS aftershow party after their Royal Albert Hall gig in London.
The Sonics / Strychnine The production of this song and whole album Here Are The Sonics is, for me, the essence of the sound of rock n’ roll. It just sounds right.
My Secret Playlist is a music discovery website and weekly email publication. We invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs right now. These are their words on the music that inspires them.
