Steve Carell & Tina Fey in 'Date Night' Trailer

Shout Out Louds Release New Album "Work" This February

Work is the 2010 album by Shout Out Louds. It will be released in the United States and Canada on February 23, 2010, in Scandinavia on February 24, 2010, and in Germany, Australia, Switzerland, and Austria on February 26, 2010. The first single was "Walls", which has been released as a free MP3 download through the band's website last year. The second single is "Fall Hard". The album is the band's third full-length release. It is produced by Phil Ek, the producer of American folk rock band Fleet Foxes' eponymous debut album, Band of Horses' Cease to Begin, and The Shins' Chutes Too Narrow and Wincing the Night Away.

'Work' Tracklist
1. 1999
2. Fall Hard
3. Play The Game
4. Walls
5. Candle Burned Out
6. Throwing Stones
7. Four By Four
8. Moon
9. Show Me Something New
10. Too Late, Too Slow

Here's the music video of "Fall Hard" :

The Radio Dept. "Clinging To A Scheme" Album Cover & Tracklist

Here it is...

"Clinging To A Scheme" Tracklist:

1. Domestic Scene
2. Heaven’s On Fire
3. This Time Around
4. Never Follow Suit
5. A Token Of Gratitude
6. The Video Dept.
7. Memory Loss
8. David
9. Four Months In The Shade
10. You Stopped Making Sense

Here's an audioclip of "Heaven's On Fire" :

Lali Puna Release New Album "Our Inventions" In April

First album in five years from this Munich experimental pop group, which includes members of the Notwist and Tied & Tickled Trio. Yellow Magic Orchestra's Yukihiro Takahashi guests.

"Our Inventions" Tracklist:

1 Rest Your Head
2 Remember
3 Everything Is Always
4 Our Inventions
5 Move On
6 Safe Tomorrow
7 Future Tense
8 Hostile to Me
9 That Day
10 Out There [ft. Yukihiro Takahashi]

Here's an audioclip of an old track "603" from their 1999 album "Tridecoder" and audio clip of new song "Remember".

Au Revoir Simone New Music Vide "Another Likely Story"

Taken from their "Still Night Still Light" album.

Hot Chip "One Life Stand" Album Review

By Christopher Monk

While the capricious, erratic behaviour of musical mavericks like Neil Young and Bob Dylan might enthral their followers, it's always nice when a recording artist behaves in a rather more sensible, rational way. Five-piece pop act Hot Chip are a case in point. From the listener's perspective, it seems as if Hot Chip have behaved rather like a customer services-orientated business: they've listened to their customers' complaints, and they've sought to remedy their faults. To explain: Hot Chip's last album, 2008's Made In The Dark, was a good record (it would certainly represent an all-time career best for Black Eyed Peas) but it never quite delivered the pop perfection promised by its predecessor album The Warning and its superlative lead-off single, Ready For The Floor. Made In The Dark was a purposely eclectic record, veering from the hyperactive disco of Hold On to ultra-sparse ballads like In The Privacy Of Our Love. But the album proved a mild disappointment not because of its all-over-the-place nature but rather because of its dearth of truly compelling songs. But, much like Marks & Spencer, it would seem that Hot Chip are willing to change their approach to please their customers. "I feel like the melodies on the new album are much more in-your-face, and it's more coherent," said vocalist Alexis Taylor in a recent interview. "The songs are a little bit 'straighter' than (those on) Made In The Dark, there's less craziness to it", echoed Taylor's bandmate Joe Goddard. And they're right, too: One Life Stand is more coherent and there is indeed less of the slightly self-conscious 'craziness' that occasionally threatened to de-rail Made In The Dark. One Life Stand comprises a concise 10 tracks, the standard of which is consistently high. This newly focused approach not only pays musical dividends; it also renders Hot Chip's status as a 'dance-pop' act increasingly redundant. Although their work so far has been reliant upon synthesisers (and you can dance to a lot of it, too), Hot Chip's most obvious musical antecedents on this record aren't the likes of Daft Punk or Depeche Mode but eccentric, intelligent pop acts like Scritti Politti or Robert Wyatt (the latter connection was cemented by the band's collaboration with Wyatt on a 2008 EP). Forget 'dance-pop' or 'synth-pop': One Life Stand is best defined as a pop-soul album. The first single and title track completes hat trick of ace lead-off singles for Hot Chip (see also: Over And Over and Ready For The Floor). The strutting, aggressive verses give way to a soulful, hip-swinging chorus, only for a harsh synth squiggle to drag us back to the dancefloor. Closing track Take It In displays a similar mastery of soft/harsh dynamics: the ominous verses are abandoned for a soaring, romantic chorus with an unashamedly sentimental refrain sung by Goddard: "My heart has flown to you just like a dove". Joe Goddard has claimed that one of the album's tracks was an attempt to emulate O-Zone's Europop classic Dragostea Din Tei (aka the one that goes "lay-ee-oh-hee, lay-ee-oh-haha"). He wasn't forthcoming about which track it is, but the clever money's on I Feel Better, which must surely be the second single. Goddard's Auto-Tuned vocals at first promise an homage to Kanye West's 808s And Heartbreak, but the brilliantly melodramatic chorus - sung by Taylor as if he's been waiting all his life to sing it - elevates the track to greatness. The album's two high points occur around its mid-point and both songs are Hot Chip's most organic (ie. least synth-bound) to date. Slush is a ballad performed (mostly) in a 6/8 time signature. It opens with a curious vocal exercise filling in for the expected guitar arpeggio. Alexis Taylor (in fine voice throughout the album) sings a sweet, if derivative, melody. And then, at the song's halfway point, some trembling steel drums arrive, Goddard loses all his vocal inhibitions and it transforms into a thing of staggering beauty. The next track, Alley Cats, is better still and it might - might - just be the best thing Hot Chip have ever recorded. Its continually-evolving melody and pulsing rhythm recalls previous career highlight And I Was A Boy From School. But the song's building blocks - Rhodes keyboards, sawing violins and dislocated, eerie backing vocals that recall Tusk-era Fleetwood Mac - hail from a different musical territory altogether. When the three vocalists harmonise on the line "There is no pain I don't know", it's a true lump-in-the-throat moment. This is great music. It's also very English music. In recent years the idea of 'English' music has been debased through association with the horrible, aggressively heterosexual music produced by the likes of The Enemy. But One Life Stand feels English in the best possible sense: it's cosmopolitan, unassuming and ever-so-slightly eccentric. Another record as good as this one and Hot Chip will soon be rubbing shoulders with Joanna Lumley and Stephen Fry in our pantheon of National Treasures.

Source : http://www.musicomh.com/albums/hot-chip-3_1209.htm#

Blacktzar "Rust"

The debut single from Glasgow trio Blacktzar is an intriguing mix of glossy '80s electro, gushing vocals and a sweeping chorus that tries its hardest to be a modern, chilled taken on electro pop. ‘Rust’ is a pleasant listen that does what it does well; it’s a compact little tune which means that it’s a delight at the time but is unlikely to really stick in your memory. While the band have got their sound moulded into an interesting form, this tune just lacks the killer hook that would allow that sound to really excite the listener.

Sambassadeur Release New Single, Album

Here's an audio clip of the first single "Days" from the new album "European", out this February.

Lucky Soul Back With New Song, Album Number 2

While most peoples’ “most anticipated albums of 2010″ lists read something like “Arcade Fire Interpol Strokes Fleet Foxes etc”, damn near the top of my list you’ll find A Coming Of Age, the sophomore effort from London’s Lucky Soul. Their 2007 debut The Great Unwanted, an irresistible piece of Motown/Northern soul-channeling pop glory, remains one of my favourite records of the past decade, so the follow-up has some mighty big shoes to fill but judging from the first couple of tastes, it’ll manage that just fine. Last March brought the first single in the disco-fied “Whoa Billy!”, which was as good as anything on Unwanted if not better, and they’ve just released a video for their new single “White Russian Doll” which brings a little bit (ok a lot) of Smiths into the mix. The clip was filmed on location in Berlin and features frontwoman Ali Howard dancing and karaoke-ing her way through the city, and Lucky Soul guitarist Andrew Laidlaw has put up a blog post detailing the mostly commando-style filming of the clip. That’s commando as in run-and-gun, on-location, no-permit; not as in rescue pre-teen Alyssa Milano from Dan Hedaya with lots of gunplay. Though that’d make for an excellent follow-up video.

Source : http://www.chromewaves.net/2010/01/lucky-soul-release-and-annotate-new-video/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChromewavesV75+%28.%3A+chromewaves+v7.5%29

Here's an audio clip of the first single "White Russian Doll".



Also, here's a music video of "Lips Are Unhappy", a track from their debut album "The Great Unwanted".

Love Is All Switch Label, Announce Album Three

The jittery, hooky Swedish postpunk crew Love Is All are back. The band has moved from longtime home What's Your Rupture? to new label Polyvinyl. And on March 23, they'll release their third album, the topically titled Two Thousand and Ten Injuries. Love Is All recorded the follow-up to 2008's A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night at their Gothenburg studio last summer. The Aislers Set's Wyatt Cusick and the band themselves serve as producers. That image above is the cover art, and you can hear the album track "Kungen" below. As well as CD and download, the album will be available on 180-gram vinyl, in three different versions. There's the classic black vinyl version, but you'll also be able to cop it on white vinyl (limited to 500 copies) and yellow vinyl (limited to 500 in Europe). The band has a tour announcement coming up, and their freewheeling live show is absolutely not to be missed.

Two Thousand and Ten Injuries Track List :

1 Bigger Bolder
2 Repetition
3 Never Now
4 Less Than Thrilled
5 Early Warnings
6 False Pretense
7 The Birds Were Singing With All Their Might
8 Again, Again
9 Kungen
10 A Side in a Bed
11 Dust
12 Take Your Time

Here's a video clip of "Wishing Well", track taken from their 2008 album "A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night".

The Crayon Fields "All The Pleasures of the World" Album Review

In a year that offered lots of mediocre albums, 2009 had so many new records that it was hard to digest them all in due time for reviews. Yet, I always intended to touch on this album, as I’ve loved The Crayon Fields since Animal Bells came out a few years back. “Mirrorball” made the list of our Top 50 songs of 2009, and it still draws a lot of power, months after it first hit our ears. Singer Geoff O’ Connor has a real breathy vocal projection (like a pop whisperer), one that will recall Colin Bluntstone of The Zombies for many listeners…it’s just one of the many touchstones for the group. One thing that differentiates the characterstics on All the Pleasures of the World from Animal Bells is that there seems to be a little bit of darkness lingering beneath each of the songs. On Animal Bells, you had songs like “Living So Well,” which were full of sunny beach pop and gang vocal effects, but this doesn’t fit here. On the album’s title track, amidst singing of pleasures, O’ Connor seems sort of resigned to see the pleasures, though not necessarily take part in them. Perhaps the extra layering of instruments has made a more dense soundscape from which the band took off this round (some of the best being from the solid bass work). Just a guess. When one comes across songs like “Celebrate” you can see how a Clientele reference might creep up in a review, but you might also note that the similarites are existant, yet polarizing. Where The Clientele often feels extremely cold, and their melodies have a sense of brooding danger, The Crayon Fields put a little bit of energy into their artistry. By this I really mean one thing: The Clientele gives you foggy melodies; The Crayon Fields blow the fog away with a touch of beach-side sunshine. You’ll also find a lot of the guitar-work of Glaswegians Belle and Sebastian lying beneath this album. You can almost pick up on the homage being given in songs such as “Disappear” where there is a hint of swing and sway to the general atmospheric creation. It’s not a bad thing to highlight, as I’m a fan of the former band, which also probably shows why I’m a huge fan of the latter. Really, is there any ground for originality nowadays? So, here I am, a few months after the release, though you will still find it hard to get a hold of All the Pleasures of the World in the U.S. Be that as it may, you’ll do yourself, and the dollar, justice if you go out to your local hotspot and purchase the latest from The Crayon Fields, and the last one while you’re at it.

Source : http://austintownhall.com/2010/01/05/the-crayon-fields-all-the-pleasures-of-the-world

It's Raining MEN

MEN is a Brooklyn-based band and art/performance collective that focuses on the energy of live performance and radical potential of dance music. MEN speaks to issues such as wartime economies, sexual compromise, and demanding liberties through lyrical content and an exciting stage show. The group began in 2007 as the DJ/production/remix team of Le Tigre members JD Samson and Johanna Fateman. When the duo began to write new songs, it made sense to merge their efforts with JD’s other new project HIRSUTE. JD and Hirsute members Michael O’Neill (Princess, Ladybug Transistor) and Ginger Brooks Takahashi (LTTR, The Ballet) now comprise the core of MEN, with Johanna and artist Emily Roysdon contributing as writers, consultants, and producers.

Active Child "She Was A Vision"

Active Child is the sprawling, ethereal creation of Pat Grossi and is a beautiful piece of work on delectable white vinyl. You need this in your life.