With his first studio album in seven years, Day By Day, to be released tomorrow (November 18) via Mercer Street Records, Afrobeat legend Femi Kuti has announced a string of supporting US tour dates that will see him play venues from coast to coast in January 2009. In honor of the release, Fader and Mercer St. are hosting an exclusive stream of the album here.
M83 and School of Seven Bells played some spaced out intense sets at a sold out Webster Hall this past Friday. The most recent M83 and SSB albums, Saturdays=Youth and Alpinisms respectively, have landed them on most critics album of the year lists and led to sold out shows across the country. With both bands use of atmospheric experimental sounds mixed with a pop wall of sound, it has introduced a new generation of music fans to shoegaze and bridged the gap between groups like themselves and pioneers such as Spaceman 3 and My Bloody Valentine.
Kendal, England band Wild Beasts first LP Limbo, Panto is an impressive debut record from a band that wears their influences on their sleeves, but never allows the influences to block their individual contribution to the thread their borrowing from. Limbo, Panto takes notes from 80s bands such as XTC, Talking heads, and The Chills, but at the same time also has a theatrical element to it a la Antony and the Johnson’s or even Queen. This fusion of influences along with their ability to write adventurous jangly guitar pop with a hint of world music is what makes this album a pleasure to listen to, if not hard to classify.
Thanks to the fine people at Shockhound, we were treated to a free show of No Age and Titus Andronicus last night at Santos Party House. For those of you who couldn’t, or just plain didn’t attend, we’re returning the favor by providing you — completely free of charge — this video of No Age performing live.
Named for the Big Boys song and not the Beach Boys’, the punk-rock leaning music festival with a more reasonable ticket price than the “other Austin music festivals” kicked off it’s third installment last Friday in Austin’s Waterloo Park. In a twist of irony, arguably the biggest name on the bill was our On The Cover feature artist from two weeks ago, Bad Brains, who once had an infamous run-in with Big Boys lead singer Randy Turner. But the rest of the bill was just as strong, featuring some of our favorite touring and local TX acts. Thankfully, our resident expert Austin photographer Daniel Perlaky made sure to show us the fun, fun, fun we missed.
