In what we’re calling our Freakshow Friday video, Grizzly Bear has released the video for “Two Weeks” off their acclaimed LP Veckatimest, which features some warped facial construction on members of the band, glowing mouths, and an explosive finale — literally.

For a song full of lush choir vocal arrangements, pretty piano, and foot-tapping percussion, it’s fun and a little creepy to watch such a warped-looking video for such a gorgeous song. Directed by Patrick Daughters, who’s also lent his cinematic skills for Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Feist, and Interpol videos, the guys in GB sit by their lonesome in church, sing to the camera, and get their faces owned. Our favorite part is at about the 3:02 mark. Watch below.

Grizzly Bear – “Two Weeks”

A short 27 hours, three minutes, and 44 seconds put Canadian producer and musician Gonzales as the new record holder of the longest solo concert in the Guinness Book of World Records over the weekend. Starting Sunday shortly after midnight, he played selections from such luminaries as Beethoven and Britney Spears, performing 300 pieces in total on the piano. Guinness did allow the 37-year old short breaks in between songs and 15 minute rest periods every three hours so that the man’s fingers would not fall off.

Gonzales’ first breakout was producing fellow Canadian Feist’s 2004 Let It Die full length, as well as doing remix work for Placebo, Daft Punk and Jamie Lidell. The record-breaking show, which was performed at Paris’ Cine Theatre 13, was streamed live via his website, which we recommend checking out if you would like to stay on top of the latest French Canadian ruffle shirt fashion. [via The Daily Swarm]

Yet as impressive as Gonzales’ feat was, he is no match for Masanobu Sato. At this year’s Masturbate-A-Thon (yes, a real event) in San Francisco (of course), Masanobu beat (pun intended) his old record and jacked it for 9 hours and 58 minutes. And as if to one-up Gonzales, no breaks are reported to have been given to Masanobu so that his fingers (or other extremities) would not fall off. [via dlisted]

Big concert, and currently, every mag large and small in New York is raving about how amazing it was. I had to come out to check out what was in store, as the lineup read like a who’s who of upper-echelon indie rock, crowned by Byrne, plus Sharon Jones!?!? Of course, when you pack this many acts into a night something has to give, and each artist performed four songs or less, sort of bite-sized micro-sets.

The highlights of the night were the David Byrne tunes from the Dark Was The Night comps over the years (including “Knotty Pine” w/ Dirty Projectors, “”Dreamworld: Marco de Canavezes” w/ Bon Iver, “Waters of March” w/ Feist and “Don’t Fence Me In” w/ drummer crew) which sounded amazing, the latter three evoking his African-cribbing heyday, an alternate version of “Flume” featuring Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), “Train Song,” Feist’s Vashti Bunyan cover from the compilation, and the finale where everyone came out at once to do “This Land Is Your Land” which got Sharon Jones REMIXED. I’m not usually one for venues this large, but the sound was incredibly crisp and clear. Lots of collabs, lots of memorable moments. I’ll let the other reviewers recount them to you:

BrooklynVegan
Stereogum
Rolling Stone
Happy Genius Heroes
PAPER mag
Metro Distortion
Quiet Color
Second Doubles
New York Rock Market
Music Mix, Entertainment Weekly
Black Raptor [w/ video]

Google Blog Search: Dark Was The Night

NPR is supposed to have video of the entire concert shortly.

We were only allowed to shoot for the first song of each act (ugh). Here’s what I came up with.

[Dirty Projectors w/ David Byrne]

[John Carlin of Dark Was The Night and Red Hot]

[My Brightest Diamond]

[The National.]

[Dave Sitek]

[David Byrne]

[intermission]

[Bon Iver]

[Feist]

[Sharon Jones]

[everyone]

Look who decides to make a cameo – Annie Clark (St. Vincent)!

To what degree is it absurdly patronizing that I didn’t take Laura Marling seriously because she’s a 19-year-old British female-folk/pop singer? Let’s call a spade a spade here: if you’re a young artist, you’re afforded little respect. If you’re a young woman, you’re afforded even less. These are entrenched stigmas in critical culture. It doesn’t help Marling’s cause that her songs are anchored on tales of failed or unrequited love. To sum it up: good-looking blonde teenager sings songs about her ex-boyfriend. Play coy all you want, but we both know transcending that persona on a critical level is pretty fucking tough. But we’re not talking about the Jonas Brother or Miley Cyrus here — we’re talking about Marling, who exudes a unique maturity in interviews; she is comfortable in the spotlight and admirably reticent. She doesn’t play to the camera; she plays to herself. She dismisses compliments about her maturity saying such self-analysis is unnecessary. And truthfully, she has little to nothing to do with her youthful contemporaries, but more with accomplished artists like Leslie Feist or Lykke Li.

So Marling wins points on personality, but points on songwriting? Definitely a few, but there’s plenty of work to do. She sings acceptable, innocuous folk songs. Lead single “Ghost” is Marling at her best with vulnerability on full display. But all the songs showcase this emotion to some degree, and they all basically sound the same: finger-picking guitar, accompanying piano or lead guitar, verse-chorus structure, gentle vocals. It’s tough to pretend like these songs differentiate from one another. Not to say they aren’t enjoyable, none are unbearable and none irritating — a listening experience not dissimilar to Coldplay — but ultimately, the listening experience is akin to a 38-minute coffee-shop performance. Alas, I Cannot Swim’s 12-tracks trot by without a change in momentum or character.

Marling’s touted maturity comes from her poetic maneuvering. She is clever and self-deprecating, but not self-pitying. Though unfamiliar hearing a 19-year-old dish existential advice, “don’t cry kid/ you’ve got so much more to live for,” she redeems herself often. It’s hard not to be charmed in the title track (hidden at the end of the disc) when she quips, “there is a boy across the river/ but alas, I cannot swim.” Her vivid imagery of ex-boyfriends is so accomplished that I can hardly believe they were written by someone so young: “At one in the morning the day has not ended/ by two, he is scared that sleep is no friend/ by four, he will drink but cannot feel it.” The best tracks bookend the album with “Ghost” opening and “Your Only Doll” finishing – both admirably earnest moments.

While the Avril Lavigne’s of the world claim to circumvent the “Label-Creates-the-Star” paradigm by maintaining personal autonomy, they reek of artificiality more than the Miley’s. But there is a real feeling Marling has nothing to do with them; she’s a talented bedroom musician being taken along for the corporate ride. Alas, I Cannot Swim is a satisfactory beginning; with character in check, and a knack for lyrics that feel ten times her age, Marling’s young career will hopefully evolve into something musically-original and artistically-engaging.

Astralwerks