Broken Bells Update

Here is the first song from the upcoming album (see post below).

album out March 9, 2010


The High Road

Rihanna and Shy Ronnie - SNL Digital Short [HD]

Sam Cooke(Blockhead Edit)

James Mercer & Danger

When Danger Mouse and the Shins’ James Mercer met backstage at Denmark’s Roskilde festival five years ago, the unlikely duo quickly discovered a mutual fandom. “As soon as I heard the Shins, I wanted to do something with James, no matter what,” Danger Mouse explains. Their partnership took time to develop, but in March 2008, Mercer began a peripatetic recording odyssey, sequestering for weeks on end at Danger Mouse’s Los Angeles home studio. Both were coming off of a series of high-profile, high-pressure undertakings — Danger Mouse had recently finished producing Beck’s Modern Guilt, while Mercer was coming off a controversial, radical reshuffle of the Shins’ lineup. As a result, they covertly began making music that resembled nothing either of them had ever done.

The result is Broken Bells, what was until now a top-secret collaboration. Maverick musician/studio maven Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Burton) explains this latest effort is no one-off art project like Dark Night of the Soul, his much-hyped joint endeavor with Sparklehorse and film director David Lynch from earlier this year. And while he’s well known for producing the likes of Gorillaz, he claims it’s not a Shins album as produced by Danger Mouse; nor is it a trading-computer-files creation à la Gnarls Barkley, his acclaimed partnership with Cee-Lo. Nope, both Danger Mouse and Mercer agree that Broken Bells is, in fact, a band. “We just didn’t get anybody else in it but ourselves,” explains Danger Mouse. “We’d never worked together before, but then we did one song and it was great.”

Danger Mouse and Mercer make all this clear as they linger between shots during a spooky late-night video shoot for Broken Bells’ first single, “The High Road”: in the clip, the duo stalks a dark desert road with flashlights, encountering surreal characters like a burlesque dancer gyrating in a wood shack. It’s an appropriate visual for sounds that might’ve been beamed in from another dimension, one where electronica textures collide with psychedelic harpsichords and eerie Pet Sounds harmonies. “It’s melodic, but experimental, too,” Danger Mouse says of Broken Bells’ upcoming, as-yet-untitled album, which will be released via Columbia in early 2010. “We experimented a lot.”

That exploratory tendency rings clear in haunting tracks like “The Ghost Inside” and especially “Sailing To Nowhere/Deviant Sister,” which forges folk-soul apocalyptica out of carnival organ, spacey sound effects and lushly layered vocals that Mercer calls the “Age of Aquarius thing.” As such, when Mercer sings about “the guts on your blouse,” it’s obvious this is the darkest material either has made yet. “That song is really murderous — there’s some really sinister, nasty shit going on in there,” Mercer says.

Danger Mouse — infamous for mashing up the Beatles with Jay-Z on his 2004 Internet bootleg sensation The Grey Album — forsook his trademark sampling for live instruments (”Everything was played live,” he says); Mercer, meanwhile, found himself expanding his vocal style, debuting soulful falsettos and a ghostly lower-register croon that had never made appearances on his previous recordings. “There are a number of times on this record where you’d never guess it’s James singing,” Danger Mouse notes. “I’m doing things I’ve never done before,” Mercer adds. “When you’re the master of your own domain, it’s easy to fall into patterns. But with this, there was a freedom to try stuff and not worry about what it would mean for this identity I’ve created. And it just sounded cool.”

“We wanted to be in our own little world for this thing,” Danger Mouse concludes, “and it worked.”

Matt Diehl (Rolling Stone)

BON IVER w/ Megafaun

Bon Iver "Blood Bank"


Megafaun "The Fade"



Going to this show tonight. Been waiting a long time for this one.

Funny Everytime I Watch It

Nice Video

Nyle "Let The Beat Build" from Nyle on Vimeo.

One of the more creative videos, I've seen latley.

Summer Monsoon Mix

Here is a little mix I made to compliment a summer rain storm. I made this mix in real time as the rain was coming down here in Phoenix. I have more volumes ready to go as this mix is kind of the calm before the storm hits. Enjoy.

Tracklist:

1. Washed Out + Feel It All Around
2. Kurt Vile + Beach On The Moon ( recycled lyrics)
3. CFCF + You Hear Colors
4. Timber Timbre + Lay Down In The Tall Grass
5. Empire Of The Sun + Walking On A Dream
6. Holiday Shores + Reruns
7. The Generationals + When They Fight, They Fight
8. Real Estate + Fake Blues
9. Lymbyc System + Fall Bicylce (Album Leaf Remix)
10.Gold Panda + Quitters Raga
11.Volcano Choir + Island, IS
12.Taken By Trees + Taken Too Young
13.Spanish Prisoners + Los Angeles Guitar Dream
14.Memory Cassette + Asleep At A Party
15.Neon Indian + Deadbeat Summer
16.Rainbow Bridge + Big Wave Rider Final

San Francisco

Mos Def + Madlib + Slick Rick

Beastie Boys "Check Your Head" with the Roots

Thom Yorke remixes Doom

Nowhere near as good as the Dilla-produced, Moroder-sampling original (which is one of the best hip-hop tracks of the year), but still, it's Thom Yorke remixing DOOM.

Bubb Rubb and Lil Sis

Band To Watch In 2009 part II

01-Charlie Darwin.mp3

Band To Watch In 2009

Violens - Violent Sensation Descends.mp3

Animal Collective-Merriweather Post Pavilion

This is Animal Collective's 8th album and with each one the hype builds.
I don't think they have ever lived up to the hype, but I do think that this is their best effort. Many websites and blogs have already proclaimed this the album of the year and we are only in January. The mighty Pitchfork gave this album an 9.3! It may be tough to live up too such acclaim but they are getting there.

Josey

This my new dog and my favorite purchase of 2008.

Stats

Breed: Labrador
Gender: Female
Color: Black
Age: 3 years
Height: Above my owners knees but below his junk
Weight: 74 lbs
Favs: Fetching my glow in the dark ball in the backyard, Fetching the tennis ball at the dog park with the ChuckIt, pretty much anything involving fetch... other favs include getting treats, pets, and rubbed on my belly and behind my ears.