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Like Pioneers – Oh, Magic

webmaster — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:02:51 +0000

Mount Eerie – Clear Moon

webmaster — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:02:51 +0000

Future Islands Heads East

Willie Almack — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:29:19 +0000

Baltimore synthpop trio Future Islands will be playing tour dates along the East Coast and in Canada this spring. The tour is in support of the band’s third album, On The Water, which was released last October to many a critical thumbs-up. Check out those dates below, as well as the video for “Balance,” a choice cut off of On The Water.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tour Dates For Future Islands:
04/20 – Georgetown, TX – Corbin J. Robertson Center
04/25 – York, PA – The Depot *
04/26 – Middletown, CT – Eclectic Society *
04/27 – Providence, RI – AS220 *
04/28 – Boston, MA – Paradise *
04/29 – Portland, ME – Space *
04/30 – Quebec, QC – Le Cercle *
05/01 – Montreal, QC – Il Motore *
05/02 – Ottawa, ON – Mavericks *
05/03 – Toronto, ON – Horseshoe Tavern *
05/04 – Rochester, NY – Bug Jar *
05/05 – Albany, NY – Valentine’s *
05/06 – Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church *
* with Ed Schrader’s Music Beat

Santigold Announces North American Tour

Laura Pulgarin — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:30:39 +0000

Photo by Sean Thomas

Santigold, whose sophomore album, Master Of My Make-Believe, will be out May 1 via Atlantic/Downtown, is heading out on tour. The tour focuses mainly on U.S. cities and festivals, with a couple of stops in Canada. Check out the dates below.

The new album marks the return of the multi-genre artist, who since 2008′s Santogold, had not released any solo material. Watch the March-released video for “Disparate Youth,” a track off of the upcoming album, to see what’s in store.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tour Dates For Santigold:
04/30 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
05/08 – Philadelphia, PA – The Trocadero
05/09 – Providence, RI – Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel
05/11 – Portland, ME – State Theatre
05/12 – Clifton Park, NY – Northern Lights
05/15 – Toronto, ON – Kool Haus
05/16 – Buffalo, NY – Town Ballroom
05/25 – George, WA – Gorge Amphitheatre (Sasquatch Festival)
05/26 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
05/28 – Salt Lake City, UT – In The Venue
05/29 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
06/04 – Phoenix, AZ – The Crescent Ballroom
06/06 – Dallas, TX – House Of Blues
06/07 – Houston, TX – House Of Blues
06/09 – Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo
06/10 – Indianapolis, IN – Egyptian Room
06/12 – St. Louis, MO – The Pageant
06/13 – Columbus, OH – Newport Music Hall
06/15 – Cincinnati, OH – Bogart’s
06/16 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE
06/18 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
06/19 – Baltimore, MD – Rams Head Live!
06/22 – Boston, MA – House Of Blues
06/23 – New York, NY – Governors Ball Music Festival
06/29 – Cleveland, OH – House Of Blues
06/30 – Rothbury, MI – Electric Forest

White Arrows Tours With Beat Connection, Releases Video

Willie Almack — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:21:43 +0000

LA psych-pop group White Arrows has announced a tour alongside fellow synth tinkerers Beat Connection. The tour will begin on the West Coast, before meandering through the South, up the East Coast, and back westward via the Midwest. Before the June/July tour, White Arrows will also open for Givers in California and White Denim in Europe.

To garner support for their busy tour, White Arrows has released a video for “Get Gone,” a single off their upcoming EP, Fireworks Of The Sea, out April 3 via Votiv. The spiraling, tropical jam is paired with a video of the band performing beneath multihued kaleidoscopic overlays. Check out the EP’s tracklist, video and tour dates for White Arrows, all below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tracklist For Fireworks Of The Sea:
01. Get Gone
02. Coming Or Going
03. Fireworks Of The Sea

Tour Dates For White Arrows:
04/15 – San Francisco, CA – Slim’s *
04/17 – Visalia, CA – Cellar Door *
05/10 – Brighton, UK – The Great Escape
05/11 – London, UK – Koko (Club NME)
05/12 – The Hague – Walk The Line Festival
05/18 – Liverpool, UK – Liverpool Sound City
05/19 – Glasgow, UK – Stag & Dagger
05/21 – Bristol. UK – O2 Academy Bristol #
05/22 – London, UK – HMV London Forum #
05/23 – Manchester, UK – The Ritz #
05/24 – Leeds, UK – The Cockpit #
05/26 – Brussels, BE – AB Club #
05/27 – Oosterstraat, NE – Vera #
05/28 – Doornroosje, NE – Nijmegen #
05/29 – Amsterdam, NE – Melkweg #
06/15 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst %
06/16 – Los Angeles, CA – The Troubadour %
06/17 – San Diego, CA – Casbah %
06/18 – Phoenix, AZ – Rhythm Room %
06/20 – Dallas, CA – La Grange %
06/21 – Austin, TX – Red 7 %
06/22 – Houston, TX – Fitzgerald’s %
06/23 – Baton Rouge, LA – Spanish Moon %
06/24 – New Orleans, LA – Circle Bar
06/26 – Tampa, FL – The Orpheum %
06/27 – Miami, FL – Bardot %
06/28 – Orlando, FL – Will’s Pub %
06/29 – Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade Hell’s Stage %
06/30 – Raleigh, NC – King’s Barcade %
07/01 – Washington DC – DC9 %
07/03 – Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie %
07/04 – New Haven, CT – BAR Nightclub %
07/05 – Brooklyn, NY – Knitting Factory %
07/06 – Cambridge, MA – TT the Bears %
07/07 – Montreal, QC – Il Motore %
07/08 – Toronto, ON – Drake Hotel %
07/10 – Pittsburgh, PA – Billobox %
07/11 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop %
07/12 – Chicago, IL – Schuba’s Tavern %
07/13 – Detroit, MI – Majestic Café %
07/14 – Milwaukee, WI – The Cactus Club %
07/15 – Minneapolis. MN – 7th Street Entry %
07/17 – Denver, CO – The Hi-Dive %
07/18 – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court %
07/19 – Boise, ID – Reed Boise %
07/20 – Portland, OR – TBA
07/21 – Seattle, WA – Capitol Hill Block Party
07/22 – Vancouver, BC – Media Club %
07/26 – Santa Ana, CA – Constellation Room

* with Givers
# with White Denim
% with Beat Connection

Dead Oceans Announces New A Place To Bury Strangers LP

Willie Almack — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 17:30:19 +0000

The Brooklyn shoegazers of A Place To Bury Strangers are releasing a new LP called Worship. The album, coming out June 26 via Dead Oceans, was written, recorded, mixed and mastered all by the band.

Bassist Dion Lunadon had this to say about the upcoming album in a press release: “Every sound on the album is made by us and our tools; tools created by us, used on no other recordings and purposefully built for this project. This is real.” And real indeed sounds the first unveiled cut from Worship, a song titled “You Are The One,” streaming below. The song sees APTBS offering an ’80s goth take on sounds previously explored, namely the car-crash distortion of the Jesus And Mary Chain over a propulsive Krautrock beat.

Worship‘s tracklist and APTBS’s upcoming tour dates are below.

A Place To Bury Strangers – “You Are The One” by Dead Oceans

Tracklist For Worship:
01. Alone
02. You Are The One
03. Mind Control
04. Worship
05. Fear
06. Dissolved
07. Why I Can’t Cry Anymore
08. Revenge
09. And I’m Up
10. Slide
11. Leaving Tomorrow

Tour Dates For A Place To Bury Strangers:
04/05 – Bologna, IT – Locomotiv
04/06 – Moncalieri, IT – Audiodrome
04/07 – Milan, IT – Mezzago
04/08 – Saint Jean De Vedas, FR – Secret Police
04/09 – La Rochelle, FR – La Sirene
04/10 – Bordeaux, FR – Le Krakatoa
04/12 – Lyon, FR – Le Ninkasi
04/13 – Chelle, FR – Les Cuiines
04/14 – Reims, FR – La Cartonneire
04/16 – Cologne, DE – Gebaude 9
04/18 – Copenhagen, DK – Loppen
04/19 – Oslo, NO – Blaa
04/20 – Stockholm, SE – Strand
04/21 – Malmo, SE – Debaser
04/23 – Hamburg, DE – Hafenklang
04/24 – Berlin, DE – C-Club
04/25 – Weinheim, DE – Cafe Central
04/26 – Lausanne, SUI – Impetus Festival
04/27 – Barcelona, SP – Sidecar
04/28 – Murcia, SP – 12 & Medio
04/29 – Madrid, SP – Moby Dick
05/01 – Utrecht, NL – Tivoli De Helling
05/02 – Nijmegen, NL – Doornroosje
05/04 – Antwerp, BE – Trix Club
05/05 – Courtrai, BE – De Kreun
05/06 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso
05/08 – London, UK – Cargo
05/09 – Birmingham, UK – Hare And Hounds
05/10 – Manchester, UK – Sound Control
05/11 – Glasgow, UK – King Tuts
05/12 – Newcastle, UK – Cluny
05/13 – Leeds, UK – Cockpit
06/24 – Atlantic City, NJ – Metallica’s Orion Festival, Bader Field

Dirty Projectors’ Sixth Album Coming This July

Laura Pulgarin — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:49:39 +0000

Photo by Jason Frank Rothenberg

Brooklyn’s own Dirty Projectors will be releasing its sixth album, Swing Lo Magellan, July 10 via Domino.

The quintet, which at the moment consists of frontman David Longstreth, Amber Coffman, Nat Baldwin, Brian McOmber and Haley Dekle, put together the album in a 12-month period of constant writing and recording in New York’s Delaware County. The 12 tracks on Swing Lo Magellan were singled out from 70 new songs and beats that Longstreth produced and from about 40 finished demos. “It’s an album of songs, an album of songwriting,” Longstreth said in a press release.

Below, check out the tracklist for Swing Lo Magellann and listen to “Gun Has No Trigger,” the first released track off the album.

Dirty Projectors – Gun Has No Trigger by DominoRecordCo

Tracklist For Swing Lo Magellan:
01. Offspring Are Blank
02. About To Die
03. Gun Has No Trigger
04. Swing Lo Magellan
05. Just From Chevron
06. Dance For You
07. Maybe That Was It
08. Impregnable Question
09. See What She Seeing
10. The Socialites
11. Unto Caesar
12. Irresponsible Tune

Metronomy @ Irving Plaza: March 30, 2012

Willie Almack — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:14:04 +0000

Photo by Adela Loconte

It was a Friday night, very little English was spoken, and everybody danced. These are a few important preliminary facts about Metronomy‘s show at Irving Plaza on Friday night. The wonky pop stars from England were exceptional throughout their hour-long set, much to the delight of the pop-and-locking crowd. Well, at least I was locking and/or popping.

Opener Friends got the crowd in an appropriately funky mood. Blogosphere-approved and relatively young, the Brooklyn band possessed tightness beyond its years. Frontwoman Samantha Urbani strutted, climbed a stack of PA speakers, tightroped the stage barrier and offered swigs from her bottle of Jameson. Although the Dance Gods did not seem to bare their rhinestoned presence until Metronomy took the stage, Friends certainly did its part in fostering the mood-to-groove.

The crowd was largely European, making me feel unduly sophisticated. But that’s exactly what Metronomy’s brand of off-kilter synthpop is. Each melodically addictive song, mostly drawn from last year’s The English Riviera, kept the movement on the floor going. Their look was as precise as their performances, making the idea of geek-chic seem suddenly not so passé. Pinned on their lapels were white orbs that flashed in rhythm to the songs, a Metronomy staple that contributed to the whole nerds-from-space vibe. Eminently catchy singles from the band’s sophomore release, Nights Out, like “Heartbreaker,” “Radio Ladio” and “A Thing For Me,” brought the house down. Metronomy even dug out “You Could Easily Have Me” from its first release, Pip Paine (Pay The £5000 You Owe).

This was the band’s second night in a row at Irving, the previous night added when the first-announced show quickly sold out. Band-leader Joseph Mount was sure to acknowledge Friday’s crowd as distinguished from the “Johnny-come-latelys” who failed to acquire tickets in a timely manner, as true fans should, of course. Devotees or not, it’s certain that the crowd was barely sated by the end of the encore.

Photos by Adela Loconte

Kishi Bashi @ Webster Hall: March 31, 2012

Christine Werthman — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:13:54 +0000

K Ishibashi co-founded the band Jupiter One in New York back in 2003. The group released two albums of guitar-driven, generic pop-rock songs that featured Ishibashi’s voice but said little about his expertise on the violin; he flaunted that talent mostly as a touring violinist for artists like Regina Spektor. But his name and his instrumental skills are scooting to the foreground this year with the release of Of Montreal‘s Paralytic Stalks, on which he handled the string arrangements, and with the upcoming debut of his first solo, Kickstarter-funded album as Kishi Bashi, titled 151a (Joyful Noise). Under the wing of Of Montreal’s mad scientist Kevin Barnes, Ishibashi trained his attention on expanding the sounds of his violin. And on Saturday night, he shared his progress, unleashing a torrent of loop-based music at Webster Hall.

Lots of teens and early 20-somethings comprised the crowd of the 18-plus, sold-out show, starring Of Montreal—who knew teenagers cared so much about a ’90s-formed band of oddballs?—and though there was some chatter at the start, most people shut up once Ishibashi began. The American-born performer of Japanese descent, who calls Norfolk, VA, home, wore a button down, dark jeans, a blue-and-orange-striped bow tie and a printed scarf as a belt—a look that was like J.Crew through a funhouse. His mullet-meets-mohawk hair stuck straight up from his head, giving the impression that, had the sides of his head not been buzzed, he might’ve looked like he’d survived a cartoon-style electrocution. Ishibashi played alone, but if you had closed your eyes, you wouldn’t have guessed it; his violin and vocal loops gave the impression of there being more players. They weren’t enough to suggest a full band though, and it would’ve been nice to give the guy a rhythm section.

Ishibashi’s pop with Jupiter One was straightforward, but he’s much more avant-garde with his solo material. You could hear the Of Montreal influence in the way his violin played with dissonance and skittering instrumental sounds without ever walking away from a strong melody. It showed up in his singing too: Though Ishibashi’s vocal has more meat to it than Barnes’s, he can sing in that floating, detached way that Barnes does. Some of his song titles could also fit in with the Of Montreal catalog: “I would like to do a love song for you guys,” he said. “This song is called ‘I Am The Antichrist To You.’”

During his short set, Ishibashi plucked, bowed and strummed his violin, attempted some beat-boxing, toyed with the pedals at his feet and threw in some Japanese verses. He was at his playful best on “Bright Whites” and “It All Began With A Burst,” two of the strongest tracks from 151a. By the time he got to his closer, “Manchester,” it seemed like his enthusiasm almost got the best of him, as his violin playing almost outpaced the beats he’d set with his violin loops. But how could you not come close to running off the rails when you’re playing such unabashedly joyous music? Ishibashi’s set left me feeling so energized that I had to leave halfway through Loney, Dear’s first song, afraid that the drab folk would kill my buzz.

Xiu Xiu And Dirty Beaches Do Joint 7″ And Tour

Zoe Camp — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 21:46:13 +0000

Xiu Xiu’s new album, Always, is out now on Polyvinyl, but the San Jose band is still churning out new tunes, namely, a split 7″ with tourmates Dirty Beaches. The vinyl release is being offered as part of Record Store Day and consists of two covers: Xiu Xiu’s spin on Erasure’s “Always” and a Dirty Beaches cover of Françoise Hardy’s “Tu Ne Dis Rien.” Take a listen to the 7″ tracks and peep the tour dates below.

Xiu Xiu – Always by Polyvinyl Records

Dirty Beaches – Tu Ne Dis Rien by Polyvinyl Records

Tour Dates For Xiu Xiu:
05/01 – Raleigh, NC – Kings Barcade
05/02 – Washington, DC – Rock and Roll Hotel *
05/03 – Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church *
05/04 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom *
05/05 – Cambridge, MA – Middle East Downstairs *
05/07 – Northampton, MA – Iron Horse *
05/08 – Portland, ME – SPACE Gallery *
05/09 – Montreal, Quebec – La Sala Rossa *
05/10 – Quebec, Quebec – Le Cercle *
05/11 – Ottawa, Ontario – Mavericks *
05/12 – Toronto, Ontario – Lee’s Place *
05/14 – Pontiac, Michigan – Crofoot Ballroom – Pike Room *
05/15 – Grand Rapids, MI – The Pyramid Scheme *
05/17 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall *
05/18 – Madison, WI – Memorial Union Terrace *
05/19 – Minneapolis, MN – Triple Rock Social Club *
05/20 – Des Moines, IA – Vaudeville Mews *
05/21 – Omaha, NE – Waiting Room *
05/22 – Lawrence, KS – The Jackpot Saloon
05/23 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater *
05/24 – Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge *
05/27 – Seattle, WA – Neumos (Barboza room) #
05/28 – Vancouver, British Columbia – Biltmore Cabaret #
05/29 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge #
05/31 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom Of The Hill #
06/01 – Los Angeles, CA – Center For The Arts, Eagle Rock #
06/02 – San Diego, CA – Soda Bar #
06/05 – Marfa, TX – Padre’s #
06/06 – Austin, TX – The Mohawk #
06/07 – New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jacks #
06/08 – Birmingham, AL – Bottletree #
06/09 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl #
* with Dirty Beaches and Father Murphy
# with Yamantaka // Sonic Titan and Father Murphy

Arborea (Lewiston, ME)

Laura Pulgarin — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:59:59 +0000

Known for its woods, blueberries and fishing, Maine has a long-standing tradition of folk music, with artists like Patty Griffin, Ellis Paul and Jimmy Cox hailing from the New England state. Coming from this Maine tradition of folk are Shanti and Buck Curran, the husband and wife who form Arborea. Both Shanti and Buck are multi-instrumentalists; Buck playing the guitar, slide guitar, bowed strings, flute, banjo and vocals while Shanti provides lead vocals, banjo, ukulele, bowed strings, harmonium and percussion. These sounds are found on Arborea’s Red Planet, released in 2011 via Strange Attractors Audio House as a follow-up to the 2009 House Of Sticks.

Red Planet by Arborea

Arborea lists “wind and water, grass and sky, trees and poets, sex and wisdom, family and life” as its inspiration, and yes, this may sound like the typical description for a folk band and its music, but Arborea is so much more. The duo mixes folk, rock and alternative music to create acoustic songs that lean toward ambient music with Shanti’s Bjork-like voice creating an escape to Arborea’s magical wooded wonderland. Its songs tell chilling stories of the forest, nature and life, and this is translated to cinematographic music videos like those for the tracks “Black Mountain Road” and “River And Rapids.”

Though most of Arborea’s songs only feature Shanti’s vocals, those that feature Buck’s voice show how musically conjoined the pair is. The Currans draw from the sounds of classic rock and infuse these with contemporary inspiration as they list Led Zeppelin, Pentangle, Devendra Banhart and Espers as influences. This mingling of cultures and sounds can be heard in tracks like “Seadrift,” where the acoustic guitar seems to resemble the strumming heard on Pink Floyd’s “Money,” in a track that Arborea catalogs as psychedelic folk.

Arborea brings its experience of nature, family, love and music to its sound. There’s plenty of psychedelia here, but the acoustic blends and chilling harmonies seem to recreate the scenery of the state the duo represents.

Click here to view the embedded video.

New Zine Features Unreleased John Maus, Dirty Projectors

Zoe Camp — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:10:04 +0000

Who said that zines were only for ’90s riot grrrl bands? Domino and Ribbon—two household names among independent music labels—are teaming up to release a zine that includes five Flexi discs of previously unheard tunes by the likes of Dirty Projectors, Cass McCombs and more. Electronic wunderkind John Maus has contributed a track to the zine as well: a re-worked, refurbished version of demo track “No Title (Molly),” streaming below.

John Maus – No Title (Molly) (Smugglers Way FlexiZine) by Ribbon Music

The release marks both labels’ contributions to Record Store Day, which is going down April 21. In addition to new tunes, the zine will also contain art, poetry, short stories and other goodies all by Domino/Ribbon artists. If you’d like to take a sneak peek at the zine before you buy, and want to find out what the hell a Flexi disc is, check out this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Balam Acab Tours With Active Child

Sean Flack — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:32:08 +0000

Balam Acab, the electronic musical project of Alec Koone, has announced a co-headlining tour across North America with Active Child this spring. Koone will be touring in support of his 2011 debut LP, Wander/Wonder, on Tri Angle.

Get yourself in the proper mindset for the tour by listening to “Oh, Why” off of Wander/Wonder below, and check out the tour dates.

Oh, Why by BALAM ACAB

Tour Dates For Balam Acab:
04/27 – Pomona, CA – Glasshouse
04/28 – Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
04/29 – Tucson, AZ – Club Crongress
04/30 – Santa Fe, NM – Sol At Santa Fe Brewing Co.
05/02 – Norman, OK – Opolis
05/03 – Dallas, TX – Sons Of Hermann Hall
05/04 – Austin, TX – Fitzgerald’s
05/05 – Houston, TX – Fitzgerald’s
05/07 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl
05/08 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
05/09 – Washington, DC – Black Cat
05/10 – New York, NY – Bowery
05/11 – New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
05/12 – Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall
05/14 – Montreal, QC – Il Motore
05/15 – Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace
05/16 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
05/17 – St. Louis, MO – Firebird
05/18 – Lawrence, KS – The Jackpot Saloon
05/19 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater
05/20 – Fort Collins, CO – Aggie Theatre

First Aid Kit @ Webster Hall: March 28, 2012

Brandon Specktor — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 19:11:21 +0000

Photo by Brandon Specktor

“We’re going to try an experiment,” Klara Söderberg informed the audience halfway through First Aid Kit‘s sold-out set at Webster Hall Wednesday night. “We’d like you, if you can, to just be really quiet for us for a minute.”

The crowd hushed, Klara disengaged her acoustic guitar, and Johanna Söderberg vacated her keyboard. The duo took a front-and-center spot at the stage edge, but before the sisters sang a duet of “Ghost Town” from their debut, The Big Black And The Blue LP, Klara asked those in the crowd to sing along if they knew the words, which many did. Humming with a thousand voices, Webster Hall became a sudden-onset prairie campsite, the stage’s neon starlight twinkling along.

Unplugged and unobstructed, the sisters Söderberg’s atmosphere-puncturing harmonies are just as chilling as when wailed carelessly into a microphone. But even if their experimental singalong had fallen flat, that Klara and Johanna even attempted it is a testament to their adoration and understanding of Americana tradition. Big ups to opener Peggy Sue, the U.K. trio of Rosa Rex, Katy Klaw and Olly Joyce, which put on an excellent, floor-stomping set in its own right. But where Peggy Sue takes a darker, rockier shot at post-folk harmonics, the Söderbergs approach songwriting past with such a reverent appetite there comes a palpable, undeniable love embedded within every lilting note they deliver. This love for their work makes a First Aid Kit performance a borderline transcendental experience. But then, their hair helps too.

Can we talked about their hair for a minute? It’s organic—the way Klara slashes her razor-straight locks through space in an auburn blur when she’s lost in one of her rare instrumental reprieves, or the way Johanna’s voluminous mane ripples in pillowy tufts as she orbits about her keyboard. This reviewer suspects if you shaved off the sisters’ blooming plumage—each encroaching on two, three-foot-long territory—it’d probably achieve sentience to form a band of its own, and it’d sound just as rich as First Aid Kit.

Anyway. The set was a balanced mix of tracks from The Big Black and First Aid Kit’s recent The Lion’s Roar LP, focusing on leading hits like “Blue” (given a thundering kickdrum drive by touring percussionist Mattias Bergqvist) and the name-checking country love song “Emmylou.” Beyond the unplugged “Ghost Town” singalong, the set’s surprise highlight was a cover of Patti Smith’s “Dancing Barefoot,” which the duo performed for Smith at Stockholm’s Polar Music Prize ceremony in a reportedly “life-changing experience” last year. While Klara maintained the melody, Johanna delivered the song’s spoken-word breakdown with a low, brutal confidence previously obscured by her tender duet work throughout the evening. Following this up with the celebratory “King Of The World,” also the closing track on The Lion’s Roar, First Aid Kit left the room twitching. As capable of performing unplugged country campfire fare as raw protopunk poems with chilling aptitude, Klara and Johanna Söderberg are two versatile voices just getting warmed up.

Music News, March 29, 2012

Kate Shapiro — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:15:58 +0000

Feminist writer Naomi Wolf thinks Katy Perry’s new military-themed music video is “a total piece of propaganda for the Marines…I really want to find out if she was paid by them for making it…It is truly shameful.” Is Katy Perry really that diabolical?

Madonna’s new album, MDNA, comes out next week. It’s supposedly a hark back to her house music days and is predicted to debut at No. 1 on Billboard.

That song “We Are Young” by Fun. is still the No. 1 track in the U.S.. See? Indie bands can be money-makers too!

While Pandora’s listener hours have doubled in the last year, the site is still profitless, its stocks are plummeting, and the U.K. still won’t let them in.

The Morning Benders changed its name to POP ETC because in Europe the word “bender” is a derogatory term for a homosexual male. Whoops!

The Mid-Atlantic College Radio Conference (Macrock) will kick off on April 6 in Harrisonburg, VA. The full lineup includes Valkyrie, Elephant Child, Ostrich, White Laces and more.

Google is really pushing its new “Play” feature. Google Play is basically just a rebranded Android market bundled with its cloud service. You can also buy books, movies and music on it, like a Google Amazon. Let’s hope it doesn’t go the way of the Plus.

Here is the full text of Bruce Springsteen’s great keynote speech at SXSW. And for the visually inclined, here’s the video.

Vevo chief Rio Caraeff said the war on Internet piracy is like the war on drugs: Both are unwinnable wars. After making that sweeping statement he said, “But that’s not necessarily the opinion of the industry, but I think the solution is to provide access to entertainment to as many people as possible, through a variety of different models—including the free models.”

Odd Future’s Loiter Squad debuted on Adult Swim on Sunday. It was “an awkward comedy puree of Jackass jackassery, Trigger Happy TV trolling and Portlandia character-driven parody sketches.”

Industry Wrap is a weekly CMJ column covering industry-related music news. Send tips to Kate Shapiro at kshapiro [AT] cmj [DOT] com.