Shackleton
Music Drawbar Organ CD
Woe To The Septic Heart

The spaciously dark and minimalistic 5 parts from his "MUSIC FOR THE QUIET HOUR" project, as well as cuts from his 3 EP's comprising "THE DRAWBAR ORGAN"

Purchase Music Drawbar Organ CD here:








Madteo
Recast 12”
Meakusma

Brooklyn's Madteo has been seeing his profile grow considerably after some serious releases on Meakusma, Workshop, and most recently Joy O's Hinge Finger label. Here the leftfield dance producer gets remixed by Kassem Mosse, Marcellus Pittman and Shake!

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Actress
R.I.P. LP
Honest Jons

Between sleep and the void lies the electronic interzone of Actress. Following the noted 2010 album Splazsh (HJR 049CD/LP) (voted #1 in The Wire magazine's "Top 50 Releases Of The Year") South London producer Darren Cunningham returns with a suite of electronic laments, tone structures and dream-time rhythms which all carry his unmistakable fingerprint. R.I.P. comprises 15 tracks painstakingly crafted by Cunningham in his London studio over recent years, with a conceptual arc taking in death, life, sleep and religion. Right from the debut album Hazyville, Actress' music has carried deep tinges and pockmarks of London's rave music heritage. But after the angular dynamics of Splazsh, R.I.P. heads out into deep space. The rhythms and pulses are smudged or blurred, or are hinted at by their absence. Two-step garage is collided into gamelan, and freeform interludes explore microtonal spaces and imagined string instruments. The fifteen chapters of R.I.P. begin with ascension and the Book of Genesis, played out through gardens, serpents and mythological caves. Appropriately for exploring the myths of creation, the sounds Actress creates are completely sui generis. There are no soft synths or plug-ins, and instead he uses meticulous manual sound-tinkering to create tones, tunings and textures. The ghosted rhythms and free tunings of these tracks live in a parallel universe to the conventional rigors of the dancefloor. Unlike the sterile sound-spaces rendered in so much laptop sound-product, these tracks carry traces of the endless mouse strokes that made them. The album begins with the title track, a short tonal requiem for the dead, before drifting into another beatless meditation, the rippling minimalist structure of "Ascending." "Holy Water" and "Marble Plexus" introduce rhythm, although these percussive tics could be equally sourced from sub-bass speaker stacks or marbles rolling around a bowl. "Jardin" and "Serpent" are origami-like constructions which orbit around what could be pizzicato strings or harps. Last-but-one is "IWAAD," whose pulsing 4/4 rhythms and warm hits of low-end vibration hint at a return to the real. R.I.P. underlines Actress's reputation as one of the most eloquent voices to emerge from the sub-bass nexus of London dance music.

Pencil this in gang – this Malcolm X Day (19 May, 2012) there’s going to be a closing reception at the gentlemen’s shop, Brightwell, for artist Douglas Walker’s Aesthetic series. Douglas Walker was a member of Little Egypt’s (Southern Illinois) screamo/hardcore band, The Livingston Project, and Secretary.

Best Coast's The Only Place comes out next week (pre-order from Amoeba here). Without spoiling it too much, I can say Bethany Cosentino, Bobb Bruno and producer Jon Brion have produced the album you hope for, with Cosentino's voice maturing markedly over gorgeous cleaned up sonics, while the lyrics retain the directness and charm that made Crazy For You so appealing. I spoke to Cosentino a bit about what went into making the album, and asked her to produce a list from her beloved "Dad Rock" genre, which she graciously did. (See Best Coast with Abe Vigoda at the Wiltern May 18!)

PST: How has the way the vocals are presented on record changed? Does the way that has changed have to do with confidence, or was it always an aesthetic choice?
 
Cosentino: The vocals are just more present and up front — which has a lot to do with confidence and me just learning how to use my voice in other ways. Singing on stage every night for the last three years has given me the confidence to sing differently, and I wanted that growth to be showcased n this album. I’m a singer — that’s what I’ve always been, and I want people to hear that.
 
PST: “The Only Place” (download free from Amoeba) to me sounds like what I want to hear when I cross the state line into California. It has a similar vibe to a number of California songs but I think feels more L.A. specific because of its punkier feel, kind of like a fantasy of California mixed with the real thing. What was the goal with that song?
 
Cosentino: I wanted to write an homage to this place that makes me so happy and relaxed and I wanted to make other people feel the love I have for California. In a way too, I wanted To write a song that would make people be like “whoa wait — California seems awesome.” I’m trying to get the state tourism board to accept it as the new CA anthem!
 
PST: “Dreaming My Life Away” sounded really cool and different in its earlier version, sort of more overtly melancholy and somber than some other Best Coast songs. How does the new recording change things?
 
Cosentino: It has a pretty creepy feel to it, almost like David Lynch or something. The original recording had the same sort of feel, I just think the new recording includes a few new elements and sounds better than the first because it’s sonically better and my singing is stronger.
 
PST: What influences did you tap into on this record that you think are new influences or you didn’t tap into as much before?
 
Cosentino: I listened to a lot of Fleetwood Mac while making this record, and though they were a band that I loved while recording Crazy For You, I don’t think the influence was very obvious. It might be a bit more on this record. I also just got really inspired by female vocalists, and I used those influences to sing to he best of my abilities.
 
PST: You stayed as a three-person live band sans bass for a long time but recently switched to a four-piece and worked with orchestral pop maestro Jon Brion. Was that important to keep Best Coast as its original form for as long as you could? How do you think you’ll continue to expand upon what Best Coast means, either live or on record?
 
Cosentino: We stayed as a three piece because we didn’t have time to add another live member — we literally toured for two years straight, and we knew we wanted a bass player, we just were like — when the fuck are we going to find the time to do this? When we went in to record the new record, we wanted to change it up, and we had the time to put together a new line up and we wanted to have a stronger live show, so we worked on that a lot. The band all always be Bobb and myself — we will never add another permanent members. That’s something we agreed upon from the start.
 
PST: Speaking of Jon Brion, he certainly makes the list of producers (like Steve Albini, Alan Moulder, Dave Fridman etc.) who really make their presence felt on a record. How did you balance what he brought to the record with your own style?
 
Cosentino: Jon didn’t want his fingerprint on this record — he didn’t want it to sound like a Jon Brion record — he just wanted to make a Best Coast record with a more sonically enhanced sound, and I think that’s exactly what he did.
 
PST: Would you consider making us either a list of songs or top 10 albums of your favorite Dad Rock?
 
"Dust in the Wind" - Kansas (from the album Point of Know Return)

With the sad news today of the passing of famed children's book artist Maurice Sendak (Splendid Nightmares), I remembered this enlightening video clip interview from a few years ago of the illustrator talking in detail about his childhood, his work, and his inspirations. Rest in peace!

Read full story on Sendak's passing here c/o New York Times.

Amoeba Music is proud to present Patrick Watson at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles on Friday, June 8th at 9pm!

Patrick Watson first broke through to audiences in 2006 with his album Close to Paradise. The album went gold in Canada and won numerous awards, including the Polaris Prize. It saw international release in September of 2007 and has since sold over 100,000 copies worldwide. His core four-piece band began to take shape in the wake of the self-released Just Another Ordinary Day in 2003, and before long buzz on their live show had lead to performances with an impressively diverse group of artists, from Phillip Glass and Steve Reich to Feist.

Watson's latest album, Adventures In Your Own Backyard, was just released May 1, 2012 on Domino Records, and was recorded entirely in his Montreal apartment after a whirlwind five-year tour. The result is an album that is still ripe with the touchstones one has come to expect from Patrick Watson and his collaborators, but permeated with a greater sense of patience and confidence. It's an attempt by Watson and the band to simplify their sights—to make music a bit more close to home in every sense of the phrase.