News: RJD2 Shares Details On New Hip-Hop Album, Collaboration With STS

Posted by admin on Apr 9, 2015 in Latest, News, Reads | 0 comments

–Written by Kevin Madert

Philadelphia-based instrumental hip-hop guru RJD2 is at it again: the long-time DJ/producer confirmed to Rolling Stone yesterday a new album is on the way. Out May 5th, STS x RJD2 will be a collaborative effort featuring rapper and fellow Philadelphian (Philadelphite?) STS. RJD2 describes the album as “soulful, honest hip-hop music,” and lauds STS for having “a way with words, and his own fully developed style…he’s one of my favorite rappers to make waves in the last three to four years.”

In Case You Missed It: Dance Gavin Dance – Downtown Battle Mountain

Posted by admin on Apr 8, 2015 in Editorials, Featured, Latest, Reads | 0 comments

For those of you that haven’t been paying attention, I’ve been going on and on lately about a new album coming out from a little band called Dance Gavin Dance. Instant Gratification will be the follow up to 2013’s Acceptance Speech, and their second album with Tillian Pearson (formerly of Tides of Man) on lead vocals. Pearson was an immediate fit with the band, they put out an album that made it sound like they’ve been making music together for their entire careers. It was a seriously impressive album, and proved to be the biggest leap forward for Dance Gavin Dance since their debut full length Downtown Battle Mountain. Which is incidentally, precisely what we’re here to talk about. There is a ton of hype surrounding Instant Gratification, but this is the perfect time to reflect back on one of the original classics that will always be a huge milestone in the history of the band.

News: Nocturnal Wonderland Announces Initial Artists for 20th Annual Festival

Posted by admin on Apr 8, 2015 in Latest, News, Noise, Reads | 0 comments

–Written by Kevin Madert

Long-running Insomniac venture Nocturnal Wonderland is set to take place for the 20th year this Labor Day weekend, and today announced the first round of artists who will be joining in the celebration. Bassnectar, Pretty Lights, and Armin van Buuren are among the headliners tapped to take the stage September 4-6  at the San Manuel Amphitheater and Grounds in San Bernardino, CA. Insomniac doesn’t appear to have the ability to go any way besides big, so expect much more to come between now and Labor Day.

Review: Hotel Books – Run Wild, Young Beauty

Posted by admin on Apr 8, 2015 in Featured, Noise, Reviews | 0 comments

I’ll be honest, I’ve been waiting for the new Dance Gavin Dance album for a long time now. Acceptance Speech was one of my highlights of 2013, and their follow up has been marked to top my album of the year list since it was announced. And of course, they released it for streaming last night. That’s the same night that I was supposed to review the new Hotel Books album, Run Wild, Young Beauty. I honestly wasn’t quite sure how I was going to do that. I wasn’t sure how I was going to stay focused long enough to not jump back to DGD. It’s not that I’m not a fan of Hotel Books, but the build up to the DGD album had proved to be a bit too much for me to handle, apparently. I could not have possibly been more wrong. Midway through the opening track I was eating my words. If I had no integrity in my journalistic presence, I would have simply just published my notes, but seeing as they are mostly comprised of the word “wow”, I figured I take a crack at writing something of some substance.

News: Frank Ocean’s Follow Up to Channel Orange

Posted by admin on Apr 8, 2015 in Latest, News, Reads | 0 comments

Frank Ocean hit the scene with the initial wave of Odd Future hype, and floored everyone with his very un-OFWGKTA mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra. It drew me in with the orange E30 M3 on the cover, but I don’t expect that to mean anything to the majority of you. He was a soulful, deep r&b revival-esq beacon of light lost in a wave of dick jokes. He was hard to ignore, and not many people even tried.

New Tune Tuesday (4/7/15)

Posted by admin on Apr 7, 2015 in Featured, Latest, New Tune Tuesday, Noise | 0 comments

–Written by Kevin Madert

A smattering of new music from across the genre spectrum. Did we leave out your favorite band’s latest material? Let us know!

Kill The Noise & Tommy Trash – Louder

Having lived a relatively math-free life since I skated a B- in my requisite lecture hall course freshman year someone may have to check my calculations here, but I’ll give it a shot. A longtime bass music powerhouse + a longtime house music don = one hell of a tune. Accompanied by Rock City on vocals, Kill the Noise and Tommy Trash turn in here a dark hard-electro tune that’s got a little bit of everything: growling basslines, massive syncopated drum hits, shouted lyrics, and a surprisingly nuanced drop that’s sure to tear up festival mainstages this summer. In tandem with the release, the duo announced a short co-headlining tour – including a stop at Washington, DC’s Ultrabar. You can find more information about that here.

News: New Desaparedicos Album, Tour, Single

Posted by admin on Apr 7, 2015 in Latest, News, Reads | 0 comments

You legions of Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) faithful out there will surely have heard of his short lived punk band, Desaparecidos. The band released a single album in 2002, and in true Oberst fashion, broke up because they were beginning to garner too large of a following. After that, they had a rather small reunion back in 2010, releasing a few tracks and playing a few shows, but that was really all we have heard from the band in over a decade.

Until now, that is. In a relative influx of Desaparecidos related news, they announced yesterday that they would be releasing a new full length album, their first album in 13 years, mind you, titled Payola, due out on June 23^rd via Epitaph Records. Additionally, they released the first single from the album called “City On The Hill”.

This incarnation of the band features a lot of big names, including Tim Kasher of Cursive, Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! And So So Glos.

But that’s not all! They also released a series of tour dates starting tomorrow featuring Brand New, Joyce Manor, Touche Amore, and Built to Spill on various dates, and a few festivals as well. Check out after the jump for their new single, along with all upcoming tour dates:

News: Grieves Announces Summer Tour

Posted by admin on Apr 7, 2015 in Latest, News, Reads | 0 comments

–Written by Kevin Madert

After a highly successful world tour in support of Winter and the Wolves, alt-hip-hopper and Rhymesayers regular Grieves is preparing to hit the road once more. The Out of the Rain Tour will begin May 19 and end June 25, making 26 stops along the way. Starting and ending in the Pacific Northwest (familiar stomping grounds for the Seattle native) Grieves will spend the time in between winding his way through the western half of the United States – sorry East Coasters.

Frequency of the Week No. 6: Defunk

Posted by admin on Apr 6, 2015 in Featured, Latest, Noise | 0 comments

–Written by Kevin Madert

Once in a while an artist comes along that captures you attention and refuses to relinquish it. Defunk – a native of Calgary and the topic of this week’s FotW – fits that description like a snug sweater. His arsenal of production tools is formidable even by 2015 standards and he possesses a unique dedication to re-imagining the music of yesteryear from a modern-day perspective. With the word “genre” nowhere in his vocabulary, Defunk is a multifaceted producer poised to carve out a serious niche for himself in the world of electronic music.

News: The Story So Far Debut New Song

Posted by admin on Apr 6, 2015 in News | 0 comments

For a few weeks now, all we’ve really had to work with regarding the upcoming self -titled The Story So Far album, due out on May 19th on Pure Noise Records was a short, 15 second clip. Seeing as I could only listen to that so many times before I realized 15 seconds just wasn’t quite long enough, the debut of the album’s first single, “Solo”, could not have come soon enough.

The band debuted the track yesterday on BBC Radio1, and has since hit the Youtubes to meet all of your replaying needs until the release of the album in May. It appears as though The Story So Far haven’t gone to any great lengths to reinvent themselves, but made steps to progress and mature as a band, further refining the sound that we’ve all come to love from them. This will definitely be a The Story So Far album, and I’m pretty sure we’re all quite excited about that.