Why? @ a 2010 Pool Party (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

WHY? was recently in NYC for their rescheduled Florence Gould Hall shows earlier this month. A video from this show is below. They'll return for a show at Le Poisson Rouge on March 16 with Danielson. The show is an event within Carnegie Hall's 2012 American Mavericks festival. Tickets are on sale now.

Speaking of Danielson, they released their take on "Visions of the Sugar Plum Fairy" for free on bandcamp as part of A Familyre Christmas - Volume 4. They'll also be featured on Joyful Noise's 2012 Flexi-Disc Series along with Akron/Family, Deerhoof, Lou Barlow, of Montreal, Tortoise, and others.

Why? video below...

Continue reading "Why? & Danielson playing Carnegie Hall show (at LPR)"

DOWNLOAD: Ben + Vesper - "Knee-Hi Wall" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Ben + Vesper - "My Father's Eyes" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Danielson - "Grow Up" (MP3)

Ben + Vesper at Knitting Factory (more by Benjamin Lozovsky)

Four years removed from their debut All This Could Kill You, the New Jersey husband/wife duo Ben + Vesper welcomed their follow-up, Honors, this week via Sounds Familyre. Check out a pair of songs from that record, "Knee-Hi Wall" and "My Father's Eyes", downloadable above and streaming below. And while you're down there, make sure and check out the video for "My Father's Eyes" which you can watch for the first time here.

Ben + Vesper will, so far, celebrate the release with a limited run of dates. The weekend before Valentine's Day (Feb 11th, 12th) will see the couple take at two shows in North Carolina, and the band has reserved a date for NYC: February 28th at Zebulon with Aaron Roache.

In addition, Ben of Ben + Vesper directed a video for "Grow Up" by Sounds Familyre labelmate Danielson. The song (downloadable above/streaming below) is the first single from Danielson's forthcoming LP Best of Gloucester County due on 2/22 and featuring appearances from Jens Lekman, Emil Nikolaisen (Serena-Maneesh), Glen Galaxy (Soul-Junk), Mark Shippy (US Maple), and Chris Cohen (Cryptacize). Danielson has an NYC show of his own in the near future too. He'll bring the clan to NYC to play Le Poisson Rouge on March 25th. Tickets are on sale.

More details on that Danielson LP are below, alongside all tour dates, song streams, and videos.

Continue reading "Ben & Vesper released 'Honors', Danielson releasing 'Best of Gloucester County' (both have new videos & upcoming shows)"

Pop Montreal 2009 (more by Ryan Muir)

POP Montreal, sort of like the CMJ of Montreal, but less industry-like, returns for the 9th time from September 29th to October 3rd. Check out the sneak peak of their intial lineup below...

Continue reading "Pop Montreal 2010 dates & initial lineup - includes SWANS"

photos by Ben Lozovsky

It doesn't' really matter who Daniel Smith plays with; whether its with his real family or indie all-stars (and protégés) like Sufjan Stevens and Yoni Wolf, the Danielson directive comes across loudly.

On Monday (3/8) at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, Smith's band was largely comprised of members from fellow tour-mates Ben & Vesper and Ortolan (Stevens was there, but only as a supporter). That reflected in the crisp and jazz-tinged renditions of standout tracks from Ships, which made up the majority of the Danielson set. There was still an endearingly petulant attitude to the music, especially during "Rubbernecker," an older punk-friendly number that saw Smith's ascending screech turn into a growl. Under Smith's helm, happiness grows a bite.

Slightly more tame were openers Ben & Vesper. They played an elegant, if not restrained, set filled with accordions and trumpet passages. Ortolan were fresh off their album release party the night before in Philadelphia, and used that enthusiasm to fend off any jitters during their performance. With soulful inklings and Motown girl-group aspirations, they performed tracks from their new Daniel Smith produced record, Time On A String, with titles too long they couldn't quite remember the full names. But it shows they have deeper thoughts that rise up throughout their youthful plaintiveness.

After this tour, Smith plans to finish up the near completed new Danielson album, recorded with members of his current band as well as some "special guests," as Smith promised after the show. Regardless of who shows up, it will most likely be the same beautiful tune.

Since the NYC show, the three bands toured to Texas and played SXSW.

"Daniel Smith's newest protege's are a four girl group called Ortolan. These are four fresh faced, small town hipsters who performed a set of quirky indie pop songs. Great harmonies with atonal elements and constantly shifting rhythms make this group compelling to hear. Though they claim a lead vocalist many of their songs feature dual lead vocals between the guitarist and keyboard player. At times they seemed surprised the SXSW crowed genuinely liked their music." [One21]

Danielson played Beauty Bar on Wednesday night (3/17) at 11:15pm and then Daniel Smith came over to watch his friends Serena Maneesh play their (extra late) set at the official BrooklynVegan SXSW showcase at Club DeVille (they were supposed to go on at 1, but went on at 2). Daniel contributed backing vocals to their 2005 album self-titled album. Serena Maneesh contributed to the 2006 Danielson album Ships. Sufjan contributed to both of those.

No pics from Texas, but more pictures from Knitting Factory are below...

Continue reading "Danielson, Ben and Vesper & Ortolan played Knitting Factory Brooklyn (pics) & SXSW"

DOWNLOAD: Ortolan - I'll See You There (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Ben + Vesper - An Honest Bluff (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Ben + Vesper - Especially We (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Danielson - Nice of Me (MP3)

Ortolan...

A Familyre Drive Spring 2010 Tour!!!
Ben + Vesper, Ortolan, and Danielson will all be packin' the van and heading off to make musical merriment at the fine cities below! Come on out! All three bands will have just released or will be soon to release new records, so come hear some fantastic new material, as well as some old hits!

The Sounds Familyre Records tour will kick of on March 7th in Philly and then make a New York City stop on Monday, March 8th at Knitting Factory. Tickets are on sale. It'll also be at SXSW. A tour poster is below.

The NYC show will serve as a release party for Ben + Vesper's new "LuvInIdleness" EP.

Sounds Familyre put out Ortolan's selt-titled, debut EP last July. A track from that is above. Daniel Smith (aka Danielson) produced their first full-length, Time On A String, which will be coming out March 9th (one day after the KF show). More on the band (which is made up of three sisters and a sister-in-law), below.

In December, Danielson put out a single for the song "Moment Soakers." The video for that song, Ortolan tracklist and info, and all tour dates are below...

Continue reading "Sounds Familyre (Danielson, Ben & Vesper, and Ortolan) touring & releasing new albums "

by Andrew Frisicano

DM Stith plays The Stone on X-Mas...
pictured @ 92YTribeca in October (more by Vincent Cornelli)

The Stone has a great lineup of innovative pop-based acts scheduled for this December. Curators Sam Kulik (multi-instrumentalist who plays trombone in Nervous Cabaret) and David Garland (singer & songwriter and host of WNYC's "Spinning On Air" and "Evening Music") are the month's guest curators at the space.

Let's get into some highlights.

Skeletons Big Band and Capillary Action bring their new large-ensemble compositions (which Skeletons have been playing out since September) to the venue on Sunday, December 6th.

Danielson will somehow pack his "family group" into the venue for a night of music on December 22nd. They just put out a new 7" single on his Sounds Familyre label. The video for its lead track "Moment Soakers" is below. Later that night, you can also see M6, a six-person vocal ensemble that performs the work of innovative composer Meredith Monk.

Sisters Ruth and Merrill Garbus (the latter of which heads tUnE-yArDs) will split an evening on December 23rd.

Diane Cluck is there on December 16th.
Larkin Grimm plays after David Garland on the 17th.

Rob Moose plays violin and other instruments with Antony and the Johnsons, My Brightest Diamond, Sufjan Stevens and others. He plays his first-ever solo show at the venue on December 18th.

Currituck County aka Kevin Barker is the late show on the 19th, and the one and only Dave Deporis will be there on the 27th.

And for those with an open Christmas Day, the venue presents an 8pm set from Asthmatic Kitty-signed songwriter DM Stith and a 10pm set that promises to be entertaining: David Garland (piano, clarinet), son Kenji Garland (some-input mixer) and guests present "Processing Xmas" which will features "Familiar seasonal songs processed and emancipated; family improvs; audience sing-alongs; a warm get-together on a winter night."

On December 29th Extra Life, typically a brooding, dark prog ensemble, will play as a duo, with frontman and guitarist Charlie Looker accompanied by the group's violinist Caley Monahon-Ward.

Then the month and year end with "JOHN ZORN'S ANNUAL END OF THE YEAR IMPROV" on Dec. 30th, and a TBA New Year's Eve event.

The Stone's full December schedule is below...

Continue reading "The Stone's December lineup (is really great) - Danielson, DM Stith, Skeletons, Dave Deporis, David Garland & more"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: I Was a King - Norman Bleik (MP3)

Oslo, Norway's I Was a King are headed to America for a fairly extensive US tour, including two stops in NYC: May 30 at Mercury Lounge (with UK's great The Wave Pictures) and May 31 at Union Hall. The band's self-titled debut came out earlier this month via The Control Group, who have released albums by The Figurines and El Perro Del Mar.

For all intents and purposes, I Was A King are a duo: Frode Strømstad, who's a Norwegian indie gadabout and owner of Hype City Records) and Anne Lise Frøkedal (who also fronts her own excellent band, Harrys Gym). The album was actually made in Brooklyn, at the Ladybug Transistor's Marlborough Farms studio with big help from head Ladybug Gary Olsen and fellow Norwegian Emil Nikolaisen of Serena Maneesh. Sufjan Stevens helps out on a few tracks, as does Danielson. Live, the band is fleshed out to a five-piece, including ex-Serena Maneesh member Håvard Krogedal on bass.

If you like '60s pysch pop, '90s psych pop (Elephant 6), Dinosaur Jr. and Teenage Fanclub, chances are you're going to like I Was a King. Teenage Fanclub, actually, are punnily namechecked on the band's first single, "Norman Bleik," which you can download at the top of this post. Video of them performing the song on Norwegian television and all tour dates below...

Continue reading "I Was A King (from Norway) - 2009 Tour Dates, video & MP3"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Danielson - Animal In Every Corner (Version) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Dan Zimmerman - Symbols In This World (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Dan Zimmerman - Everyday In My Heart (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Dan Zimmerman - Either Or (MP3)

Danielson (top, middle)& Dan Zimmerman (bottom)

Upon hearing Dan Zimmerman's music, his rich, distinctive, roasted baritone, somewhere in between Lee Hazelwood and Tom Waits, will be your first impression. It's all character, with nothing pretended or imposed. Dan's been singing since he picked up the guitar in 1957, and his resonance is pure experience. He's a Methodist preacher's kid turned '60s art-school van-gypsy, married by a swami, turned Northwestern mountain-man singing at lunch-hour for fellow workers at a tree-packing plant... And that's just the groundwork. Six years in the making, his new album, Cosmic Patriot, features Daniel Smith (Danielson), Emil Nikolaisen (Serena-Maneesh), Josiah Wolf (Why?), Joshua Stamper, Jason Kourkounis (Bardo Pond) and many more. It captures the band and the man perfectly.[Glen Galloway @ Sounds Familyre]

Dan Zimmerman has scheduled two upcoming gigs with label founder Danielson to celebrate the release of his new album, Cosmic Patriot, out April 21st on Sounds Familyre. One is at NYC's Mercury Lounge on Friday, May 15th. (Tickets are on sale now.

Zimmerman's new disc is his first since 2001's Great Small, which was the Sounds Familyre label's first non-Danielson (and second overall) release. As on that record, Danielson and "Famile" appear in supporting roles on Cosmic Patriot.

Last year Danielson released a retrospective album, Trying Hartz, and played a Halloween show at NYC's Knitting Factory.

All Danielson/Zimmerman tour dates, and an episode of Breakfast at Sulimay's where Danielson gets the Philly diner treatment, below...

Continue reading "Dan Zimmerman & Danielson - albums & shows "

Celebrate U.S. president-elect Barack Obama's election win with Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement. The disc features contributions by Bono, Stevie Wonder, Kanye West, and even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Senator McCain can console himself this week with the Abba: The Albums, the 9-CD box set from his favorite band.

Two releases slipped up on me this week. Barbara Morgenstern releases her new album BM, tomorrow, and powerpop darlings the Pillbugs drop Everybody Wants a Way Out. Both are at the top of my shopping list.

Other releases that have been sent my way that I can strongly recommend include Au Revoir Simone's Reverse Migration (remixes), Danielson's retroospective Trying Hartz, Deer Tick's War Elephant, Denison Witmer's Carry The Weight, the Postmarks' By the Numbers, and Vetiver's More of the Past EP.

Five remastered New Order albums are out tomorrow (Brotherhood, Low-Life, Movement, Power Corruption & Lies,, Technique), complete with bonus discs filled with demos, b-sides and live tracks.

Other reissues include the Led Zeppelin Definitive Collection, which collects the band's albums in a mini-LP format on CDs. The 13-disc Genesis Box Set 3 (1970-1975) completes Rhino's set of reissues from the band.

This week's "actors who sing" releases include Kevin Costner & Modern West's Untold Truths and Billy Bob Thornton's Christmas album with the Boxmasters, Christmas Cheer.

Any recommendations from the week's music release list?

Continue reading "Largehearted Boy's Interesting CD Releases This Week"

by Black Bubblegum

DOWNLOAD: Wovenhand - "Kicking Bird" (MP3)

The haunting Wovenhand has arrived, floating in to play the first of two shows with Silver Summit & Beat Circus... tommorrow (10/15) at the Middle East in Cambridge, MA and TONIGHT (10/14) at Knitting Factory! (Tickets are still available).

Primarily a solo vehicle for ex-16 Horsepower frontman David Eugene Edwards, Wovenhand is touring as a three piece with Pascal Humbert (bass, also ex-16 Horsepower) and Ordy Garrison (drums) along for the ride. The band recently dropped the Danielson-produced Ten Stones in early September via Danielson's imprint, Sounds Familyre. Check out the tribal rocker "Kicking Bird" from Ten Stones available for download above.

Danielson will be in town on Halloween, also at the Knitting Factory. Tickets are still available.

Wovenhand recently made an appearance at NPR for All Songs Considered, and played the Made Festival in Umeå, Sweden. Check out a video from that show as well as Wovenhand's full tour schedule below...

Continue reading "Wovenhand - MP3 & 2008 Tour Dates (tonight @ KF)"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Danielson - Animal In Every Corner (Version) (MP3)

Secretly Canadian on Danielson:

Over the next few months we will be releasing brand new videos, unreleased mp3s from live shows, radio sessions, and the vault, as well as much much more. To start we're announcing two joyous events: the first domestic Danielson tour in over two years and the release on November 4 (December 1 in the UK) of Trying Hartz (First Fruits '94-'04), a two-disc retrospective of the first ten years of Danielson's body of work. Aside from fan favorite album tracks, it includes previously difficult-to-find songs, alternate takes, new intros & outros, and a few very choice live recordings. Also included are notes on each individual song by Daniel Smith himself as well as liner notes by best-selling novelist Rick Moody (The Ice Storm, Garden State).

Danielson will swing by the Knitting Factory in NYC on Halloween for the inaugural date of a month-long US tour - tickets are on sale. Joining (as part of the Famile and on their own) will be '60s-influenced pop trio Cryptacize, whose debut Dig That Treasure came out earlier this year on Asthmatic Kitty. Asthmatic Kitty is the "sister label" to Danielson's own Sounds Familyre. All tour dates and the "Trying Hartz" tracklist & cover art, below....

Continue reading "Danielson - new album, 2008 Tour Dates w/ Cryptacize "