New Yorke
Radiohead frontman’s solo disc leaked to the web
Anthony Augustine
Thom Yorke — tinyurl.com/q7r2g
— Despite desperate pleas asking some heavy-hitting
bloggers to hold off releasing the album to the web, it appears
Thom Yorke’s solo debut, The Eraser, has hit cyberspace
in its entirety. The album is set for official release this
July, and fans of Radiohead’s Kid A and Amnesiac will
be pleased with Yorke’s focused yet stripped-down solo
excursion. Three tracks are available for download on this
site, while a simple search of the most popular tracks on
The Hype Machine or a quick look around your favourite peer-to-peer
network should give you easy access to the other six Eraser
songs. This is one of the highest profile releases to be leaked
this summer.
Junior Boys— obscuresound.com/?p=113
— Over the last few years, a number of bands (Gnarles
Barkley, The Arctic Monkeys, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Junior
Boys) have capitalized on an initial buzz fuelled by a number
of influential bloggers who quickly brought the public’s
attention to these relatively unknown groups. Gnarles Barkley,
The Arctic Monkeys and Clap Your Hands are still riding their
debut wave of success, but Hamilton’s Junior Boys are
set to release their sophomore album this summer. After hitting
the road solo and with Mouse on Mars, Jeremy Greenspan (vocals/guitar)
and Matt Didemus (drums, laptop) have spent the better part
of the last year recording and fine-tuning the eagerly awaited
So This Is Goodbye. The disc is set for release on Aug. 14
by Domino, but you can preview two new songs (In the Morning
and First Time) on this site. Representing a slight shift
in sound, In the Morning is anchored by bristling drums, swelling
synths, understated textures and Greenspan’s murky lyrics,
while First Time takes on a slower, more ominous feel.
Daft Punk Live at Coachella—
tinyurl.com/n6h5r
— First-hand reports and official reviews from the annual
Coachella festival unanimously agree that France’s Daft
Punk stole the show with its over-the-top theatrics in the
dangerously overflowing dance tent. Robots, spaceships, fractured
streams of light, powerful lasers and Daft Punk’s trademark
warped analogue techno had even the most stuck-up emo rockers
getting down to the duo’s machine shuffles and computer
screams. Download DP’s code-crunching set in two parts
from this site. Search around The Hype Machine if you want
the performance in one long MP3.
Ghostly Podcasts— ghostly.com/ghostlycasts/
— On my recent trip to Detroit to take in the Movement
festival, I was lucky enough to catch the final couple hours
of Ghostly’s Matthew Dear and Ryan Elliot unleashing
track after track of crisp, moody techno fresh from the Ghostly
studio on a tired but appreciative crowd who had made it down
to the late-night/early morning afterparty. While Ghostly’s
first two podcasts have focused on sensual machine music (its
self-created genre) and off-centre electronic pop music, you
can bet Dear and Elliot will be contributing tracks or mixes
to this fledgling podcast sometime in summer. Judging from
the material I heard between 4:30 and 6:30 a.m., it’ll
be worth the wait.
Anthony Augustine is a freelance music and pop culture writer
who spends way too much time in front of the computer. He also
hosts a weekly two-hour electronic music program on CKUW 95.9
FM Got a site you think he should see? E-mail him at anthony.alloneword@gmail.com. |
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