DOWNLOAD: Pantha Du Prince - "A Nomad's Retreat" The Slight Below Remix (MP3)

Pantha Du Prince released a new album on Tuesday via Rough Trade. "XI versions of Black Noise is comprised of re-workings of tracks originally on Pantha Du Prince's album Black Noise by friends and contemporaries including amongst others Animal Collective, Moritz Von Oswald, Four Tet, Efdemin and North American pioneer Hieroglyphic Being. Pantha Du Prince also does his own new version of "Lay In A Shimmer"." Check out the fifth track on the LP, The Slight Below remix of "A Nomad's Retreat" above. The full tracklist is below.

Pantha Du Prince is now on a North American tour that concludes in NYC at Good Units at Hudson Hotel on April 22nd. it's a FIXED event, and Pantha is playing "live", as are The Sight Below (who remixed the above track). JDH and Dave P will DJ. Advanced tickets are on sale. All Pantha tour dates are listed below.

Four Tet will appear at Gowanus Grove at the end of May, and at EMPAC Studio 1 in Troy, NY with Jon Hopkins on September 15th.

Animal Collective just announced a Prospect Park show and other dates. The Brooklyn show goes on AmEx presale today (4/20) at noon. An updated set of tour dates is below.

Continue reading "Pantha Du Prince released an album of re-workings, on tour now (MP3, dates & updated Animal Collective dates too)"

Jonsi @ Terminal 5 (more by Dominick Mastrangelo)

Along with that Godspeed You! Black Emperor announcement, two Wordless Music Series-presented shows included, came this:

"Look for a full 2010-11 Wordless Music season announcement in the coming days, including world and U.S. premieres of new music for orchestra by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, Jónsi and Kjartan of Sigur Rós with Alex Somers of Riceboy Sleeps, Kronos Quartet, The Hilliard Ensemble, Latvian National Choir, Tyondai Braxton, the Wordless Music Orchestra, Joshua Rifkin, Deerhoof, and the U.S. debut of the Carl Craig/Moritz von Oswald/Francesco Tristano Schlimé Trio, as well as collaborations with Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Library of Congress, Walker Arts Center, and Emerson College for concerts in New York City, Washington D.C., Boston, and Minneapolis."

Stay tuned for more details. Meanwhile, tickets are on sale for both NYC Godspeed shows.

Voluptous Horror of Karen Black (w/ more clothes on than usual)

The lineup for the New York Dolls show at Warsaw in Brooklyn on Saturday, May 22nd has been filled out with opening acts performance-art/punk Voluptous Horror of Karen Black and party glam band Foxy Shazam. Tickets are still on sale. We have two pairs to give away as well. Details are below.

The Warsaw has a bunch of other shows coming up too. Details on those (and ticket links) and videos of both NY Dolls openers (including a brand new "What's In My Bag?" at Amoeba with Kembra Pfahler of Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black) are below...

Continue reading "Voluptous Horror of Karen Black added to NY Dolls show (win tix), Au Revoir Simone & other bands playing Warsaw too"

words by BBG, photos by Greg Cristman

No one minded that the Moritz Von Oswald Trio had five members when it made its American debut on Saturday night at Le Poisson Rouge, part of the Unsound Festival New York and the Wordless Music series at the club. The trio is an alliance of techno and ambient disc jockeys and programmers doing what they don't do in D.J. booths or remix studios: playing instruments together in real time.

Mr. Von Oswald was surrounded by keyboards and synthesizers. Sasu Ripatti, also known as Vladislav Delay, was at a percussion kit with conga drums, bells and cymbals. Max Loderbauer, a k a N.S.I., was at his own analog synthesizer. And with them were another two renowned D.J.s: Carl Craig, a pioneer of Detroit techno, on synthesizers, and François K, a patriarch of house music, providing mixing, effects and additional sounds.

Their shared improvisation only hinted at the dance floor. It was sci-fi ambient music, with a background wash of pink noise like interstellar dust and puffy tones, pitched and unpitched, arising out of the static. The group's D.J. instincts governed the perpetually evolving structure: riffs appeared, drew responses, repeated, became foundations and eventually dissolved as new ones arrived. -[New York Times]

Moritz Von Oswald Trio were joined by DJ Eric Demby (aka Treeboy) and the LPR Orchestra, who played reimagined versions of Ravel's "Bolero" and Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" at LPR on 2/6.

Unsound rolls on today (2/9) with the experimental electronic beats of Zavoloka, NYC artist Bora Yoon, and the ambient noise of Poland's Zenial at Issue Project Room. Tickets are still available.

More pictures from the Moritz Von Oswald Trio show are below...

Continue reading "Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Carl Craig & François K played LPR (pics) & the Unsound Festival continues "

by BBG

Carl Craig, one of the many artists at Unsound 2010

Since 2003, Unsound Festival, Poland's most adventurous music festival, has brought a bold and uniquely modern program of music to Kraków. Now, with seven festivals in their native city under their belt (and outpost events further east in cities like Minsk),
Unsound is coming west to New York for their first ever North American edition. Unsound Festival New York's mission is to forge new links between music genres, between generations and even between artistic practices.

The driving force in the assembling of the New York program has been Unsound Festival's commitment to forms of music and sound art that involve experimentation and risk. Unsound Festival has made a worldwide reputation by breaking new ground while dealing with vibrant electronic, experimental, independent, post-classical and club music scenes from around the world.

The festival will kick off on Thursday, February 4th, with the first ever US performance from Vladislav Delay + Lillevan as well as Sebastian Meissner + Kwartludium as Solid State Transmitter. The former will perform their "ongoing series of electronic music and video improvisations", while the latter will reimagine SST Records (yes, that SST) through the eyes of a classical composer (wow, awesome). The FREE show will take place at David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center.

Feb 5th begins the start of Warhol Program, a series of pieces designed for and in tribute to Andy Warhol. The great Carl Craig will join nsi. for live soundtracks to "Blow Job" and "Kiss" respectively during a pair of screenings that night at The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater> Tickets are currently on sale for both the first showing at 7:30 (tix), and the second going down at 9:30 PM (tix). The show will be the US debut of the pieces, with nsi.'s piece being it's world debut. For the night owls, the party continues at Public Assembly, who will house Bunker parties on that night, 2/12, and 2/13. More details about the Bunker parties are at their site.

The Warhol Program continues the next day (2/6), when Groupshow (Jan Jelinek, Andrew Pekler, Hanno Leichtmann) will lead a free eight-hour (!) improvisation to Andy Warhol's film "Empire" at LPR. Maybe hook up a sack lunch?

After eight hours of improv, LPR will make way for A Century of Dance Music featuring the US debut of Moritz Von Oswald Trio:

Berliner Moritz Von Oswald is well known for his work as part of the duos Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound as well as for his own "M" series of recordings. He could be labeled the inventor of "dub techno," if that weren't too narrow a tag to define the scope of his music and accomplishments. Moritz Von Oswald is highly ranked by many critics and fans alike as one of the most original electronic music producers of the last two decades. [On 2/6] Von Oswald unveils his new trio featuring Vladislav Delay on drums and Max Loderbauer on electronics in their first ever North American performance. Last year their debut album was released by London's Honest Jons.

In tribute to Von Oswald, the evening opens with New York City's Ensemble LPR - the flexible house band of the venue (Le) Poisson Rouge which is led by LPR's two young founders - David Handler (violinist / composer) and Justin Kantor (cellist) along with fellow Manhattan School of Music graduate Orlando Alonso (conductor / pianist). The Ensemble will perform new renditions of Ravel's "Bolero" and selections from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" based on remixes Moritz Von Oswald and Carl Craig assembled in 2008 for the Deutsche Grammophon album "Recomposed" (released only in Europe).

Doors are at 10PM, and tickets are on sale.

We'll post more details on this festival, but for now, dig on the full lineup (below) and a few videos. In addition, you can download a copy of the Unsound digital compilation for FREE for a limited time. Get on it!

Continue reading "Unsound Fest - Feb 4-14 in NYC"