Music

Imaad Wasif With Two Part Beast and RTX have launched a joint tour together last week. The two acts kicked off their chain of shows last Thursday in California and will take their show on the road through to the beginning of July.

Sigur Rós have released the dates to an extensive world tour. The “hopelandic” quartet from Iceland look to bring their cosmic sound across the world for the duration of the summer and into the fall. From June to October, the band will be making stops in North America and Europe, while also stopping in Japan to play a handful of shows.

Out of Brattleboro, Vermont and Amherst, Massachusetts comes Witch. The four-piece, consisting of legendary Dinosaur Jr. guitarist J. Mascis on drums, bassist Dave Sweetapple, and guitarists Asa Irons and Kyle Thomas, was born out of a mutual desire to bring rock’n’roll back to their hometown, which had become known for it’s flourishing freak folk scene (including Thomas and Irons’ band Feathers). 2006’s self-titled debut on Tee Pee Records was so full of memorable tunes and heavy psychedelic riffs that as a whole, listening was a self-indulgent experience, the rock equivalent to premium ice-cream.

For anyone who still dreams of hopping in a jalopy and cruising the back roads of the American South, Jim White‘s Transnormal Skiperoo will make excellent road music. 

While most of us sit here idling our MacBooks and laptops, let us take a moment to reminisce about a time where computers were housed in separate buildings and took nearly a week to program a simple math calculation. In celebration of the 60th anniversary of “Baby,” a forerunner to all modern computers, the University of Manchester has unveiled the first computer-generated music recordings ever: a scratchy version of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and a truncated version of “In the Mood.”

In 2008, Vancouver-based indie-rock quartet Ladyhawk will unleash a veritable media assault on the public. In March, the group released its sophomore album Shots to widespread acclaim. Plans for extensive touring in both the United States and their native Canada are in the works. With a little luck, the band may even find themselves on tour in Europe this summer. Best of all, Let Me Be Fictional, a film documenting the recording of Shots, is making its way around film festivals.

Olympia, WA is home to The Old Haunts, a garage act in every sense. Their third full length, Poisonous Times (Kill Rock Stars) is very much a standard of garage rock with punk sensibilities and anger. The changing world around Old Haunts singer and songwriter Craig Extine led to an album full of discomfort and difficult realities.

After releasing the incredible plethora of bands that this year’s Lollapalooza will be showcasing, the three-day festival has finally released its day-to-day schedule. The shows, set on a number of different stages, will run August 1-3 in Chicago’s Grant Park and cover just about every genre of music you could fathom.

On August 19th, EMI will reissue Radiohead‘s complete catalog prior to In Rainbows on Limited Edition 180G vinyl. This is yet another stint from EMI, after releasing two different versions of Radiohead‘s Greatest Hits (once again, pre-In Rainbows).

On Science for Girls’ self-titled debut album, producer Darren Solomon, is complemented by a roster full of guest vocalists. Solomon’s chilled out lounge compositions take the listener from Brazil to Stratford-Upon-Avon, airlifted by the soulful and ethereal voices of singers Bronwen Exter, Renee Cologne and Hugh Wilson, among others. It’s a testament to Solomon’s skills as a composer that there’s so much variety on the album.