New Music
New Music / The Polyphonic Spree
June 16, 2009 | New Music | 
by Ron English |
A religious experience tailor made for the soul hardened agnostic hipster scene would be a good way to describe a Polyphonic Spree concert. Tim Delaughter’s unabashed joy is infectious enough to cultivate a Dead Head-esque cult of Jesus-robe-wearing followers, who have, throughout the band’s history, been allowed to join in on the on-stage festivities. Read more
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New Music / Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs
June 15, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs are primarily remembered for the song Wooly Bully, but I’ve been incessantly listening to Little Red Riding Hood. As a metalhead, any song that features howling makes me happy.
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New Music / Rubble Collection: Erky Grant & the Earwigs
June 11, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak 
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I’ve been listening to Volume Seven of the Rubble Collection, an expansive compilation of rare and obscure psychedelic pop and garage music from 1960s Britain. The track I’m a Hog for You by Erky Grant & the Earwigs is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard, but I can’t seem to find out much about the band, who seem to have put out just one single in 1963 and then disappeared. It’s hard to get the simple, playful, and suggestive lyrics out of your head, and the strangely majestic riff in the chorus gives the song an inexplicable depth and tenderness not usually heard in similar op songs of that era.
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New Music / Miike Snow
June 11, 2009 | New Music | by Kate Barnett |
Miike Snow is a collaborative effort from three well-established producers — Andrew Wyatt, Christian Karlsson, and Pontus Winnberg. Together they are a powerhouse, producing electro pop classics for huge artists. They penned Britney Spears’, Toxic, for instance. Though we won’t hold that against them. Their first solo album is vastly different. It’s an incredible multi-layered masterpiece, far deeper than any of the chorus pop pieces they’ve written for other artists.
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New Music / Amazing Baby
June 9, 2009 | New Music | by Casper Johansson |
Rewild is the new album from Amazing Baby, as apt a mission statement as the Brooklyn collective could get. Says lead singer, Will Roan, of the recording: ‘We are fascinated with escapism and creating small worlds that can stand alone or be connected as stories within the context of our album. We write the songs for fun’.
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New Music / Death Vessel
June 8, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
The chapel at Philadelphia’s First Unitarian Church — a functioning place of worship that is also one of the city’s best music venues — was the perfect place to see Brooklyn’s Death Vessel. The first time I saw frontman Joel Thibodeau play, he was alone on stage at the Mercury Lounge in New York doing an moody, introspective, all-acoustic set. This time, he was backed by a full band that threatened to outnumber the tiny audience — an upright bassist, a lead guitarist that sometimes switched to a banjo and a ukulele, a violinist, and a drummer. The tunes they played, mainly from the new album, Nothing is Precious Enough for Us, were markedly more uplifting and dramatic than I had remembered, country rock shot through with expansive balladry and a gentleness that exploded into twangy, desert-evoking electric guitar rock-outs. A lot of people make a big fuss about how Thibodeau sounds like a girl, but to me, his soprano is beautifully genderless. At one point, one of the amps on stage buzzed with an AM radio frequency, which though unintentional, fit the performance perfectly, further driving home the sense that we were riding with the band in an old pickup somewhere on a dusty highway.
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New Music / The Move
June 6, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
I’ve been listening to The Move for the past few days. The British psych rock group, heavily influenced by the Beatles and Motown, were super popular in the UK, but never got traction in the US. The final line-up of the band went on to form Electric Light Orchestra. Their 1970 album, Shazam, which at times almost sounds like Zeppelin, at others like the more gospel-y Stones tunes, is one of the best classic records I’ve heard in a while — it’s the last release to feature original vocalist, the late Carl Wayne, who sounds like a cross between Neil Diamond and Robert Plant.
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New Music / Dragging it out with The Kingpins
June 4, 2009 | New Music | by Xavier Toby |
Women dressing as men dressing as women, then performing. Confused? You shouldn’t be. The Kingpins plunder all that’s cringe worthy and noteworthy from 1980s music videos for their live performances and video clips. After beginning in the Sydney drag scene, they won several competitions and have now gone on to tour internationally. Their live shows are known for skimpy outfits and intense energy, and often feature copious amounts of cock-rock which embodies a sarcastic brand of misogyny. The high-quality videos then cast that same judgmental eye over everyday spaces and the bland repetition in most people’s lives.
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New Music / The Phenomenal Handclap Band
June 2, 2009 | New Music | by Casper Johansson |
The Phenomenal Handclap Band is a collection of musicians and artists from Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who perform live as an eight-member powerhouse, creating an eye-popping spectacle more akin to a spiritual church revival than a rock show. We have their single, 15 to 20, available for free download via the Music Download section of Lost At E Minor.
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New Music / Bonfire Madigan
June 1, 2009 | New Music | by Lost At E Minor |
Starting on cello at the age of nine, Madigan Shive began her composing career at fifteen in the Pacific Northwest Riot Grrrl scene, releasing music with indie record labels K and Kill Rock Stars. Performing under the name Bonfire Madigan, Shive has established herself as a trailblazing performer, blending folk, art, punk, classical and avant-baroque styles. Her latest release, the Lady Saves EP, was produced by Shawn Biggs (Little Echoes) and features remixes by Neotropic and Dub I.D.
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New Music / Cattle Decapitation
May 30, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
San Diego death metal band Cattle Decapitation are a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. Their schtick is pretty silly — they are anti-human vegetarians who pound out grinding, churning, vomitous songs about mankind getting its comeuppance (I can’t help but chuckle at song titles like Bukkake Tsunami). While fans of ultra-technical metal may look down their noses at these guys, the couple times I’ve seen them, they’ve been loads of fun, with frontman Travis Ryan convulsing and spitting like an epileptic in Times Square. Their latest album, The Harvest Floor, is their heaviest and most technically proficient yet, and while they may still be too silly for the metal elite, anyone who wants a good, entertaining slab of brutality should check them out.
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New Music / The Boom and The Arty
May 30, 2009 | New Music | by Zolton |
He’s totally unknown, but French trip hop artist The Boom and The Arty creates the kind of slippery, polished and beautifully minimalist music that sounds like the work of some genius kid sitting in his bedroom punching out beats and melodies on a recording system stolen from a 1987 garage sale.
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New Music / The Antlers’ Hospice
May 28, 2009 | New Music | by Lost At E Minor |
Brooklyn indie rockers The Antlers self-released the sublime album Hospice — a record about caring for the terminally ill, even when they’re mentally abusive — earlier this year and were quickly snapped up by New York’s Frenchkiss Records who have re-mastered the album for a digital release on June 23. We have the first single off the album, Two, available fror free download via the Music Download section of Lost At E Minor [psst, it's in the third column of the site. It is. Really]
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New Music / Yacht’s Psychic City
May 28, 2009 | New Music | by Lost At E Minor |
Damn this song is catchy! Yacht is the cunning alter-ego for duo Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans — an accomplished science writer, artist, and veteran of the LA noise scene. After they recorded a tongue-in-cheek love letter to LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy in the form of their track, Summer Song, Murphy signed them to DFA Records. All of which brings us to their new album, See Mystery Lights, and this track off it: the bouncy, raga tinged Pyschic City. We have it available for free download via the Music Download section of Lost At E Minor, along with new tracks by La Snacks, Magic Wands, Polly Scattergood, and Reed KD.
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New Music / Black Orphan
May 27, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
Calling Black Orphan electropunk is like calling a monkey a catapult just because they both throw muck. Uh, yeah, most of what little has been written about these guys from rural Michigan is pretty incoherent, reflecting the brain-numbing effect of the band’s sound — a warbly, disharmonious mess pounded out of cheap keyboards, blown-out guitars, and a basic drum kit, all processed through malfunctioning effects pedals and probably recorded haphazardly on a four-track. At times copping goth-punk dissonance, at others laying down primitive pop riffs, the mysterious outfit seem to be mocking music all together, while managing to create toe-tapping and even danceable tunes that sound like shards of coherence poking through the haze of a robotrip.
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It must be in the jeans. The offspring of musical hedonists Richard and Linda Thompson, Teddy Thompson is one hell of a talented songwriter. Since his debut self-titled album came out in 2000, Thompson has been busy working on collaborative projects (including the ‘I’m Your Man’ tribute to Leonard Cohen) and solo recordings. His latest album, Up Front & Down Low, is a typically skittish and melodic collection of folk tinged melodrama. We spoke to him recently. Read more
Ian Brown has never been a man to look back. Formerly the lead singer of the Stones Roses - an eclectically talented group that never quite reached full potential - he has since carved out a successful solo career, moving well beyond the poppy melodrama of Fools Gold and into a more left-field sonic terrain. Read more
Presented as a tableau of vignettes, the work of UK illustrator Jody Barton is executed in a variety of techniques and mediums, yet manages to run the gamut from delicately bold watercolors, to thoroughly noir black and white ink drawings, to child-like, and endearing, colored pencil scribbles.
Woohoo! Another flash game that actually tests your cognitive abilities. LightBot is a difficult, but satisfying game in which you direct a little robot using a system of simple commands in order to light up various squares on a grid. The first few levels guide you through the seemingly easy process, but when there are multiple sets of directions requiring you to write what are essentially codes, it can get pretty hairy.
I’m really excited about the Melbourne band Plug-in City. They remind me of Belle & Sebastian, The Kooks and Cut Copy all in one. What more can us New Yorkers ask for?
Not to be outdone by Kuala Lumpur or Taipei, Moscow is soon to be home to the largest building ever built. Read more
Aussie streetwear label Zanerobe create the most wearable t-shirts around. Not only are they soft like the fur off a particularly smooth peach, they look mighty sharp too. Read more
WE'RE RESPECTING
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Produced by In The Yellow, this six and half inch tall vinyl toy by Luke Chueh is limited to just one hundred pieces and comes in clear colorway with silver eyes.
When I did the Master Cleanse diet a few years ago — the one where you consume nothing but lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper for ten days — I sat at work looking at pictures of food as if they were porn. Scanwiches would have gotten me hot and bothered like nothing else.
Chris Ware is my favorite comic book artist. If there’s a new Chris Ware book out, I buy it, no questions asked. He writes the most somber, sad stories about the simplest of people, but they’re written and illustrated with such beauty and elegance. All of the text and graphic design is done by hand. It’s absolutely mind blowing. Read more
Guido Daniele’s amazing hand painted animals
Italian artist Guido Daniele creates the most surreally brilliant portraits of wild animals using little more than body paint and a hyper-realistic imagination. Read more
Muraida, Radioactive Green Edition
This wicked new villain, Muraida, from the OSK line is a 10 inch vinyl with six points of articulation. It comes in a combination of solid and clear vinyl, and is packed with more punch than a thousand GI Joe’s.
Legendary pop culture artist and Agit Pop founder Ron English will be a guest compiler of an upcoming issue of our email newsletter, writing about his favorite cultural discoveries. To read Ron’s edition of Lost At E Minor, simply sign up to our weekly newsletter. It’s free, you win!
Struth! We’re now stocking the beautifully designed and overtly Australian range of products by Aussie illustrator, Eamo. Perfect for those of us living abroad, who miss the taste of Vegemite and the smell of the beach, or those whose fleeting connection with the big brown land has left them longing for more, the Aussie Map Wall Clock and Aussie drink cooler are a great addition to walls and barbeques everywhere. Read more
Discuss
- hdacvt on "The Relentless Eye"
- Stomp on "Gutter Twins Announce Sideshows"
- JamieD on "Melbourne Bride Wedding Expo"
- shoebuy on "art in shoes"
- lucebaz on "Freelance Graphic Designer in London"
- lucebaz on "Freelance Graphic Designer in London"
- JaneAbma on "The Grafik Museum"
- teacut on "Illustration vs fine art"
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