DOWNLOAD: Junk Culture - West Coast (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: HEALTH - Die Slow (Tobacco RMX) (MP3) (via)

Junk Culture, which is made up of electronic artist Deepak Mantena and his younger brother Nitin Mantena on drums, got in position on stage and music immediately started flowing from the speakers. Everyone started dancing as if they were commanded to do so. They opened with a song which doesn't require any real dancing effort because your body starts swaying and your head starts bopping involuntarily with the beat. While they played, random videos like crashing ocean waves and a kid slalom skateboarding flashed on a large screen behind them. The random videos continued through the show with no pattern or theme, and later Deepak told me the videos were just '50s and '60s propaganda he chopped and assembled in the same fashion as he does music. [The Reflector on Junk Culture live Oct. 2009]

Junk Culture is the lo-fi pop/hip-hop beats project of Illegal Art's Deepak Mantena, with his brother Nitin on drums (they also make sketch comedy videos as Celery TV, see below). They'll be coming to New York this weekend as part of their tour with psychy indie-pop Common Loon, the Champaign, IL duo of Matthew Campbell and Robert Hirschfeld. Both bands play Friday, July 9th at Coco 66 with k.Flay and Ava Luna, and the next night (7/10) at Union Hall with the Diggs.

Junk Culture's West Coast EP came out in 2009 on Illegal Art (home of Girl Talk), and he has a new record due in the fall. Common Loons's The Long Dream of Birds came out in April - check it out streaming on their Bandcamp.

Coming up, Junk Culture has a September tour with Tobacco who are giving away a free mix tape, and whose HEALTH remix from the new HEALTH remix LP, you can download above. Tobacco's Manic Meat came out in May which is also when The Hood Internet released a free mashup EP using some songs from it.

Tobacco's Anticon labelmates Why? are playing the debut 2010 Pool Party on July 11th.

HEALTH are playing Santos Party House this summer.

Girl Talk is playing Camp Bisco.

Junk Culture videos and all tour dates are below...

Continue reading "Illegal Art's Junk Culture touring w/ Common Loon & then Anticon's Tobacco - dates, MP3s, videos & stuff"

Girl Talk @ Pool Party Summer '09 (more by Tim Griffin)

Girl Talk's label Illegal Art is offering all of the Girl Talk albums, and their entire catalog, as pay-what-you-wish downloads. Not all of the label's back catalog is up, but there is a release schedule (below) for the yet-to-be uploaded (including Girl Talk's debut Secret Diary). The label is also offering Gillis's 2006 break-out album Night Ripper for the first time on vinyl on December 8th.

With that news is also the news that Gregg Gillis will be at Meadowlands Sports Complex on May 2nd. That's the second night of the Bamboozle fest, which is being headlined by the recently-sidelined Weezer. Either the festival is becoming more diverse or the artists are appealing to a bigger fan base. The headliner for night one (consistent with what we know about Bamboozle) is Paramore (at least I think they are one of the headliners). As previously mentioned, tickets are on sale Friday.

Girl Talk's other upcoming US show is a sold-out New Year's Eve gig at Chicago's Congress Theater. He plays Australia and New Zealand this January. All dates and the Illegal Art Pay What You Wish release schedule are below...

Continue reading "Girl Talk playing Bamboozle (and other dates), pay what you want for Illegal Art"

DOWNLOAD: Junk Culture - West Coast (MP3)

"Junk Culture is a new project by Deepak Mantena, a recent signing to Illegal Art, home of Girl Talk, Steinski, Bran Flakes and more. Junk Culture's debut EP, "West Coast," features sound tapestries created from mixing fractured vocals with pop hooks and samples, all run through a handheld recorder, which gives his constructions a gritty, lo-fi, loop-based sound, and an overall euphoric warmth. Leading up to this release, Deepak would capture field recordings, samples of songs he really liked, and samples of himself playing instruments on a cheap pocket recorder, all of which sounded fresh to his ears. "West Coast" embodies these "fresh" sounds, and employs them for what Deepak describes as "a love letter to outer space -- it gets desperate and schizophrenic as the record plays out, but is a sort of celebration of spirit as a whole." It is essentially Deepak's manifesto of energetic raw sound that transcends rigid genres, and is textural, emotive and compelling."

Some may remember Deepak Mantena from his short stint in 2007 as a Brooklyn Vegan contributor (and a big Animal Collective fan). Check out the self-titled track from his new EP (out October 27, 2009), for free and legal/illegal MP3 download, above. His second still-unnamed EP will follow "in the spring of 2010".

Catch Deepak's label-mate Greg Gillis aka Girl Talk this Sunday, August 23rd, at the Williamsburg Waterfront aka this week's free JellyNYC Pool Party which I (and everyone) predict will be MGMT-packed (unless it rains maybe). Max Tundra and Wiz Khalifa open.

Catch Deepak (Junk Culture) when he opens for Girl Talk at three non-NYC shows in September. Those and other dates are below...

Continue reading "Junk Culture signs to Illegal Art (MP3) +++ Girl Talk Sunday"

photos by Bao Nguyen

"The D.J. Girl Talk has won positive reviews for his new album and news media attention for its Radiohead-style pay-what-you-want pricing, and on Friday night he is scheduled to play a high-profile gig at the All Points West festival in Jersey City. Not bad for an artist whose music may be illegal." [NY Times]

More photos from Girl Talk's weekend performance at Lollapalooza below...

Continue reading "Girl Talk - Lollapalooza pics, the NY Times & All Points West"