Magnet Magazine
To celebrate today’s crop of releases, here are new mp3s from Active Child, CSC Funk Band, CSS, Curtains For You, Ganglians, D. Gookin, I Break Horses, Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks, Stephin Merritt, Nazca Lines and Sea Of Bees. Also, vote for your favorite of today’s new releases.
of Montreal’s music is hard to define, given it changes more often than frontman Kevin Barnes’ sequined and feathered outfits during a live show. One album might be heavy on the drum machine and synthesizer, while another showcases Barnes’ best high-pitched Prince wail with more traditional strings and percussion. The Atlanta band boasts a prodigious body of work; in a decade and a half, Barnes and Co. have churned out 10 albums, eight collections and 29 singles and EPs, including their most recent effort, thecontrollersphere (Polyvinyl). Barnes and of Montreal’s two art directors—wife Nina Barnes (a.k.a. geminitactics) and brother David Barnes—will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Nina: The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adèle Blanc-Sec by Jacques Tardi is by all means a graphic-novel extraordinaire. Tardi’s fantastical story evolves around writer Adele, who suddenly finds herself investigating a series of strange events on the streets of Paris. Tardi ”forced” her to cryogenically hibernate during World War I, Tardi explaining, “Her feisty nature made it impossible to provide her with a place in the war. She would not have been allowed to fight and could no more have settled for being a nurse than she could have remained home rolling bandages.” This lady is so fierce and cool and such a deadpan kind of hero. You end up wanting to be her, as you find yourself wishing Paris still was filled with pterodactyls and occult-obsessed madmen. Perhaps it is—what do I know? The art in itself is freaking brilliant!
Video after the jump.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#71: The Breeders “Shocker In Gloomtown”
For a hot minute in the mid-’90s, Dayton, Ohio, was not the center of the musical universe. But it was on the map, thanks to Guided By Voices and the Breeders, whose Kim and Kelley Deal, along with drummer Jim Macpherson, are also Dayton natives. The Breeders’ 1994 cover of GBV’s “Shocker In Gloomtown” is no “Cannonball” in terms of recognizability, but it’s a neat artifact of the pervasive hat-tipping in the glory days of indie rock. Incidentally, the Breeders’ 1994 EP featuring “Shocker In Gloomtown” also sported a cover of Sebadoh’s “The Freed Pig”; GBV’s Bob Pollard and Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow had a fairly benign but real rivalry around that time based on who was the better songwriter.
of Montreal’s music is hard to define, given it changes more often than frontman Kevin Barnes’ sequined and feathered outfits during a live show. One album might be heavy on the drum machine and synthesizer, while another showcases Barnes’ best high-pitched Prince wail with more traditional strings and percussion. The Atlanta band boasts a prodigious body of work; in a decade and a half, Barnes and Co. have churned out 10 albums, eight collections and 29 singles and EPs, including their most recent effort, thecontrollersphere (Polyvinyl). Barnes and of Montreal’s two art directors—wife Nina Barnes (a.k.a. geminitactics) and brother David Barnes—will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Kevin: Few artists seem to actually get better with age. Luis Buñuel is the rare example of someone who continued to mature and develop his craft well into his middle/old age. He was 74 years old when he made The Phantom Of Liberty—74!—and that wasn’t even his last film! He is a great inspiration for all artists who simply want to follow the path of illogical possibilities. Logic is the vampire of art; it sucks the blood and essence from it. Buñuel is the embodiment of the surrealist spirit, the spirit that is at the core of our human condition. Whether the Tea Party knows it, they are fulfilling the promise of Buñuel’s presentment of absolute absurdity in The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie. They are the unsuspecting dinner party that discovers themselves, with terror, in front of the applauding expectant audience, waiting for the punch lines that never come. I suppose the punch line is that the Tea Party is far too stupid to realize that they are slapstick comedians. That is one thing that, if he was still alive, Buñuel surely would not have missed.
Video after the jump.
After a six-year absence from the music scene, Tom Vek returns with sophomore album Leisure Seizure (Downtown). Saam Farahand, a U.K. director who’s worked with the xx, Klaxons and Simian Mobile Disco, conceptualized a video for LP track “Aroused” that would make anyone want a cigarette. Says Vek of the meaning behind the imagery in the smoke-filled video, “It’s a nod to the way in which smoking is used heavily and quite innocently in art and fashion. In the video, it represents feelings of being overwhelmed and extremities, both of which tie in with the sentiment of the album.” Leisure Seizure is currently available digitally, but look for a physical release on September 13.
http://vimeo.com/26542579