A new documentary on of Montreal, called Family Nouveau, will premiere at Chicago’s CIMM Fest (Chicago International Movies and Music Festival) on March 5th. This 45 minute documentary, directed by Spenser Simrill Jr., chronicles of Montreal’s 2009 European tour. Tickets are available at the CIMM website now. Here’s the trailer:
April 6 – Oxford, MS – The Lyric – 18+
April 7 – Tallahassee, FL – The Moon – 18+
April 8 – Tampa, FL – The Ritz – AA
April 9 – Miami Beach, FL – The Fillmore – AA
April 10 – Orlando, FL – Firestone Live – AA
May 22 – New Orleans, LA – Howlin Wolf – 18+ **
May 23 – Austin, TX – The Mohawk – AA **
May 24 – Dallas, TX – Granada Theater – 14+ **
May 25 – Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom – AA **
May 26 – Columbia, MO – 9th Street Summerfest – AA ** FREE
May 27 – Lexington, KY – Buster’s – 18+ **
May 28 – TBA
May 29 – Philadelphia, PA – Theatre of the Living Arts – AA **
May 30 – Waterford, CT – B.O.M.B Fest – AA
May 31 – Charlottesville, VA – The Jefferson – AA **
June 1 – Richmond, VA – The National – AA **
June 2 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle – AA **
Today Orange Twin artist Madeline kicks off a tour which will guide her throughout the South and Southwest, in conjunction with the vinyl and digital release of the Madeline Tour EP, to be released by Orange Twin Records on March 4th. The EP, previously a tour-only release (as you probably figured out for yourself), features appearances by members of Architecture in Helsinki and Mt. Eerie. A sampling, as well as tour dates, follow:
Dressy Bessy continue to offer a complete video accompaniment to their album HOLLERandSTOMP – here’s their latest, just unveiled, for “Roundabout”. You can watch the other videos here. Attention anyone in the Denver area: they’ll be playing City Hall at 1144 Broadway this Saturday.
It’s been known – for years – that Beulah frontman Miles Kurosky was assembling, post band breakup, a solo debut album, but earlier this year (while this website was caught napping) a title, release date, and tour dates have been announced. And while you have to wait until March 9th to get ahold of The Desert of Shallow Effects (via Majordomo Records), a promo-style EP by the same name is available now on iTunes. Think of it as an appetizer. Below you can find a track listing, live dates, and the full press release highlighting the main course. For more info, head over to the Miles Kurosky website, or if you’re headed out to see him live, make a song request at his Facebook page.
The Desert of Shallow Effects,
by Miles Kurosky
1. Notes From The Polish Underground
2. An Apple For An Apple
3. Dead Language Blues
4. I Can’t Swim
5. She Was My Dresden
6. Pink Lips, Black Lungs
7. The World Won’t Last The Night
8. Housewives And Their Knives
9. Dog In The Burning Building
10. West Memphis Skyline
03.16.10 – Dallas, TX @ The Cavern
03.17-19.10 – Austin, TX (SXSW)
03.20.10 – Houston, TX – Rudyards
03.22.10 – Nashville, TN – The Basement
03.24.10 – Washington, DC – DC 9
03.25.10 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
03.26.10 – New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
03.27.10 – Allston, MA – Great Scott
03.29.10 – Pittsburgh, PA – Brillobox
03.30.10 – Columbus, OH – The Basement
04.01.10 – Chicago, IL – Schubas
04.02.10 – Minneapolis, MN – 400 Bar
04.03.10 – Omaha, NE – The Waiting Room
04.05.10 – Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
04.07.10 – Los Angeles, CA – The Echo
04.08.10 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom Of The Hill
04.09.10 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
04.10.10 – Seattle, WA – The Tractor
Miles Kurosky, former lead singer and songwriter of indie rock heroes Beulah, has announced that his first solo album, titled The Desert of Shallow Effects, will be released March 9 on Majordomo Records, an imprint of Shout! Factory. Produced by Kurosky and engineered by former Beulah member Eli Crews (Deerhoof, Why?), The Desert of Shallow Effects is a meticulously crafted, ambitious gem, utilizing a cast of more than two dozen musicians (among them several ex-Beulah members) playing a vast array of instruments. The album release will be followed by a national tour.
For Kurosky, the six years since the demise of the San Francisco-based band have been the best and worst of times. Miles married a woman he met during the final Beulah tour, wrote the most personal and sophisticated music of his career, and recorded his first-ever solo album, The Desert of Shallow Effects. Along the way Miles suffered from severe shoulder problems that made playing the guitar impossible and required two reconstructive surgeries. Then, just as he was recuperating, he began to suffer from kidney problems that also required hospital time.
Painful as the hiatus may have been for the artist, fans of Kurosky’s previous work with Beulah finally have something to celebrate. Although it took all of those years for Kurosky to regain his physical strength, he slowly but willfully managed to put together The Desert of Shallow Effects. In some ways the album is a continuation from where Kurosky left off in his career, but at the same time it heralds a giant leap into the new and untried.
“When I wrote lyrics before, for Beulah, they were of an esoteric nature, but this time, I wanted them to read like stories,” says Kurosky of the compositions that populate The Desert of Shallow Effects. The album’s title itself comes from a quote by the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Its 10 tracks are rich and intricate, panoramic and cinematic, yet undeniably intimate and deeply revealing. Viewed as a unified entity they tell where Kurosky has been and where he is today, but they do so in a way that is never contrived or precious.
The critically praised San Francisco–based Beulah was formed in 1996 by Miles Kurosky and Bill Swan. The band released four albums and was very influential in the indie-rock world, gaining fans with their contemplative lyrics and catchy, ’60s-influenced melodies. Beulah toured with Cake, Wilco, Guided By Voices, Of Montreal, and The Apples in Stereo, and were by all accounts on their way up in the rock world, dubbed “the best band you’ve never heard.” They appeared on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, made Magnet magazine’s list of Lost Classics and The Onion A.V. Club’s Hall of Fame, and their album When Your Heartstrings Break recently came in at #37 on Amazon’s 100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums of all time.
However, nearly ten years into their career, Beulah decided to go their separate ways in 2004, after a final tour in support of Yoko, their most highly-praised album, as documented in the film “A Good Band Is Easy To Kill.” Beulah left behind an important musical legacy which Miles Kurosky will continue, beginning with The Desert of Shallow Effects.
The Apples in Stereo’s latest album, Travellers Through Space and Time, will be released by Yep Roc/Simian/Elephant 6 on April 20th. In April & May, the band will be hitting the road in support of the album, accompanied by friends The Generationals (from New Orleans) and Laminated Cat (from Athens, and the young psych masters who recently released Umbrella Weather on Garden Gate Records). Below are the dates, along with the complete press release for the album.
04.16.10 Lexington, KY @ Cosmic Charlie’s
04.17.10 Morgantown, WV @ 123 Pleasant Street
04.18.10 Washington, DC @ The Rock and Roll Hotel
04.20.10 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
04.21.10 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
04.23.10 Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Underground
04.24.10 Ithaca, NY @ Castaways
04.25.10 Rochester, NY @ Bug Jar
04.27.10 Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
04.28.10 Pontiac, MI @ The Pike Room
04.30.10 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
05.01.10 St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
05.03.10 Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall
05.04.10 St. Louis, MO @ Billiken Club
Travellers in Space and Time,
by The Apples in Stereo
1. The Code
2. Dream About the Future
3. Hey Elevator
4. Strange Solar System
5. Dance Floor
6. C.P.U.
7. No One in the World
8. Dignified Dignitary
9. No Vacation
10. Told You Once
11. It’s All Right
12. Next Year at About the Same Time
13. Floating in Space
14. Nobody But You
15. Wings Away
16. Time Pilot
Studio-obsessed indie rockers The Apples in stereo are celebrating the start of a new decade with the release of their seventh studio album, Travellers in Space and Time, their most hi-fi and hook-laden production to date. Described by frontman Robert Schneider as “retro-futuristic super-pop,” the album is the official follow-up to 2007’s New Magnetic Wonder, and the band’s second studio release for Elijah Wood’s Simian Records. The album will be released on April 20 via Yep Roc/Simian/Elephant 6.
Travellers contains sixteen piano-driven tracks, bubbling over with vocoder harmonies and sci-fi sound effects, like 70’s AM radio filtered through a UFO; including the robotic first single “Dance Floor”, the four-on-the-floor dream-scape “Hey Elevator”, the Hall and Oates-tinged “Told You Once”, and the epic, yearning “Dream About The Future,” among many instant hits. The musical theme heard in these songs is strung throughout Travellers: intense pop hooks and electronic sounds, mixed with a pumping, get-up-and-moonwalk beat.
“I wanted to make a futuristic pop record, to reach out to the kids of the future,” Schneider relates. “It is what I imagine their more highly-evolved pop might sound like: shiny soul music with robots and humans singing together, yet informed by the music of our time. So we are sending a pop music message through time, hoping they will decode it and be into it.”
It is the first studio album from The Apples in stereo to feature new drummer John Dufilho, lead singer of Dallas indie rockers The Deathray Davies; and sees Bill Doss (Olivia Tremor Control, Elephant 6) and John Ferguson (Ulysses, Big Fresh), longtime Schneider collaborators, as full-time keyboardists in the band, alongside veteran members John Hill (guitar) and Eric Allen (bass). Original drummer Hilarie Sidney left the band in 2006.
Anyone familiar with The Apples in stereo’s career will know Schneider’s ever-evolving production process is as intricate as the recordings he generates. Engaging the same primary engineering team used to record New Magnetic Wonder, most notably Bryce Goggin (Trout Recording’s vintage recording wizard), as well as many studio-savvy friends and cohorts, the band spent well over a year in the studio recasting their signature pop sounds in chrome-plated futurism, all while adding a dance-driven vibe channeling ELO, Barry Gibb, Wild Honey-era Beach Boys and Off The Wall-era Michael Jackson.
With Travellers in Space and Time, Schneider continues experimenting with his recent invention, the Non-Pythagorean musical scale based on the logarithm, a mathematical function. Schneider is a passionate student of mathematics, and recently composed music based on prime numbers for a play written by world-class mathematician Andrew Granville, performed at the hallowed Institute for Advanced Study (home of Albert Einstein) in Princeton, New Jersey. Travellers includes “C.P.U.,” the first pop song ever to incorporate this novel scale.
In addition, the album features songwriting contributions from all of the other Apples, including “Wings Away” (Bill Doss/John Ferguson), “Next Year At About The Same Time” (Eric Allen), “No Vacation” (John Ferguson/Robert Schneider), “Floating Away” (John Dufilho), and “Dignified Dignitary” (Robert Schneider/Bill Doss/John Hill).
The 2007 hit album, New Magnetic Wonder, spawned late night performances on Conan and Colbert, commercial placements for The Apples‘ music (Pepsi, New Balance, Samsung, and numerous others), invitations to perform at many prestigious festivals and venues (All Tomorrows Parties, Pitchfork, Primavera Sound, R.E.M. Charity Tribute Concert at Carnegie Hall), and a world tour that took the band as far away as Taiwan – not to mention a polished performance of their hit song “Energy” by the contestants on American Idol.
Since then, the band has been increasingly busy, gaining ownership of their spinART Records back catalog and readying the albums for re-release, compiling the best-of #1 Hits Explosion, and releasing Electronic Projects for Musicians, an album of rarities. Schneider also made his children’s music debut with 2009’s Robbert Bobbert and the Bubble Machine (Little Monster Records), which made it to many Year-End Best Of lists; made numerous mathematics convention appearances; released Buddha Electrostorm (Garden Gate Records), an album of lo-fi garage-psych recorded with his brother-in-law Craig Morris (who played and engineered on Travellers) under the name Thee American Revolution; and topped it all off with his featured keynote talk and Australian debut performance at the Big Sound Music Conference, where he was featured alongside many musical luminaries, including noted Brian Wilson collaborator (and one of Schneider’s heroes), Van Dyke Parks… and all of this while hard at work on The Apples‘ most ambitious studio production yet.
Julian Koster’s house-to-house Christmas caroling tour is currently scheduled to hit the following cities on these dates:
Confirmed Caroling Path:
12/5 – Atlanta / Rome, GA
12/6 – Nashville, TN (early) / Louisville, KY
12/7 – Indianapolis, IN (early) / Champaign, IL
12/8 – Chicago, IL
12/9 – Kalamazoo, MI (early) / Detroit, MI (and area)
12/10 – Toledo, OH (early) / Cleveland, OH
12/11 – Buffalo, NY (early) / Geneseo, NY
12/12 – Ithaca, NY (early) / Monterrey, MA / Easthampton & Northampton, MA (late-night)
12/13 – Boston, MA (and area)
12/14 – Providence, RI (and area)
12/15 – Riverside, CT / Purchase, NY / Marlboro, NY
12/16 – New York City, NY
12/17 – New York City, NY (and area)
12/18 – Manalapan, NJ (early) / Philadelphia, PA
12/19 – Baltimore, MD (early) / Washington, DC
12/20 – Eagle Rock, VA (early) / Lynchburg, VA
12/21 – Chapel Hill, NC / Raleigh, NC
12/22 – Athens, GA
Merge says: To find out the address of one of the homes in your area who will be hosting the carolers, please email musictapescaroling@gmail.com for the address and general time of the performance. Invitations are still being accepted at musictapescaroling@gmail.com for Nashville, Louisville, Indianapolis, Champaign, Cleveland, Providence, Baltimore, D.C., and Chapel Hill/Durham.
And courtesy the Merge Records blog, here is Julian performing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”:
Julian Koster – Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Not personal enough? Not enough about you? Invite Julian and the singing saw to your home for Christmas caroling! Details here, and projected dates below:
December 7th, 8th, 9th: Georgia, Tennessee, Indiana & Lower Half of Illinois
December 10th, 11th, 12th: Chicago, Illinois, Michigan
December 13th, 14th, 15th: Ohio, Pittsburgh, Western NY
December 16th, 17th, 18th: Upstate NY, New England (CT, RI, VT etc)
December 19th, 20th, 21st: Philadelphia, NYC, Baltimore, DC, Chapel Hill
Here is the first official video from Thee American Revolution, “Grit Magazine,” taken from their new album Buddha Electrostorm. Writes American Revolution mentor William Shears: “While the band has apparently upped the ante here for professionalism, I would like to note that to my eyes and ears they are still the roughly-hewn group I began to coach some years ago now in the art of heavily rocking. It is only due to the directing prowess of young Jas Osborne and to my own newfound skill editing footage on an electronic computer, that the band appears so cinematically polished in this short film, which Garden Gate Records has posted to YouTube just this morning, in advance of the band’s Lexington concert tonight with the stellar art-pop band Big Fresh and those young purveyors of psychedelia, Laminated Cat, at Al’s Bar for the Garden Gate Records Party.”
Thee American Revolution – Grit Magazine
As Mr. Shears stated, if you’re in Lexington, KY, tonight, head down to Al’s Bar for the Garden Gate Records showcase. (Also note that The High Water Marks are playing there November 28th.) Buddha Electrostorm is available now from the Garden Gate Records website.
