In 2011, DJ Shadow released the excellent The Less You Know, The Better, a return to form after five years of silence on the original-music front. He followed that up with Reconstructed, a “best-of” album, soon to be available in a limited-edition box set. Since then, he’s been touring extensively, bringing his wildly eclectic sound to cities the world over. His unique style of genre-mixing production is diverse and awfully difficult to reproduce.
Music
Blood on the danse floor: The Faint hits the road with new, tour-exclusive music
The Faint: Evil Voices 12-inch (Saddle Creek)
Dance-punk quartet The Faint recently started touring in support of Saddle Creek’s deluxe reissue of 2001 classic Danse Macabre. Though the tour is ostensibly to perform that album in its entirety, the band has announced that it’ll be performing new music as well.
And if you can make it to a show, a limited-edition tour twelve-inch will be for sale with the band’s first new tunes since 2008’s Fasciinatiion. Check out a stream and download of “Evil Voices” below.
ALARM is back in print! Subscribe and get Nov/Dec w/ Soundgarden, Refused, Converge
After relaunching for free this summer on the iPad, ALARM Magazine is back in print with more awesome shit. We’re psyched to have the mighty Soundgarden on the cover of our Nov/Dec issue, which includes interviews with and stories on Converge, Refused, Melvins, Dirty Projectors, Bloc Party, P.O.S, Squarepusher, Fang Island, and more.
Review: The Evens’ The Odds
The Evens: The Odds (Dischord, 11/20/12)
“King of Kings”
The likelihood of hearing another new Fugazi album grows increasingly unlikely by the year, but for a while, it seemed almost as unlikely to hear another new album from Ian MacKaye and domestic partner Amy Farina as The Evens. It has been six years since the release of Get Evens, which might be due to the two having their first child together — but the benefit of such a partnership is being able to pick up again without missing a beat.
Beastwars soundtracks the apocalypse in video for “Tower of Skulls”
Beastwars: Tower of Skulls seven-inch (Destroy, 11/17/12)
An eclipse is creeping closer. You see a desolate landscape, lonely monoliths in the middle of the desert, and a vague sense of foreboding. Either all that fake Mayan stuff about 2012 was right, or it’s a new video from Beastwars.
Relive your trippy science-class films with Lymbyc Systym’s “Prairie School” video
Lymbyc Systym: Symbolyst (Western Vinyl, 9/18/12)
What but a video inspired by 1970s and ’80s science specials would you expect from a band named after part of our nervous system? The first single from Lymbyc Systym’s Symbolyst, “Prairie School,” has a driving beat, bright synths, and a feeling of gradual movement upward, forward and inward.
“Mad about youth” in Wild Belle’s “Keep You”
Wild Belle: s/t EP (Columbia, 9/18/12)
Siblings Natalie and Elliot Bergman (also of Nomo) are the duo behind Wild Belle, whose sultry, funky dub pop picked up buzz after the band’s stint at this year’s SXSW. Now, after a deal with Columbia, the Chicago-based group is preparing its major-label debut, Isles, to be delivered early in 2013.