JJ Doom: Key to the Kuffs (Lex, 8/21/12)
“Banished”
In February, producer/rapper Jneiro Jarel and masked wordsmith MF Doom announced a collaborative album under the name JJ Doom, teasing us with “Banished” as well as a string of contributors such as Blur/Gorillaz front-man Damon Albarn, Portishead’s Beth Gibbons, and Jarel’s old Willie Isz partner, Khujo Goodie. Now the wait is over, as Key to the Kuffs finally gets its release on Lex.
Six Organs of Admittance: Ascent (Drag City, 8/21/12)
“Waswasa”
Six Organs of Admittance: “Waswasa”
An undulating, tripped-out space opera, Ascent is the latest from guitarist Ben Chasny’s psych-folk project Six Organs of Admittance — here joined for an electric, full-band lineup by his Comets on Fire bandmates Ethan Miller, Noel Von Harmonson, Ben Flashman, and Utrillo Kushner.
From the start, Chasny’s guitar comes alive with candescent color, invoking the avant psych-geist without pastiche. Rolling lines of finger play provide atmospheric breaks, and reflective pieces like “Your Ghost” prove that, despite the special guests, his softer sensibilities are undamaged. But make no mistake: the main focus here is the roar and reason of electric guitar.
Living here in Chicago, we’re not ready to give up summer until we’re good and ready. So even though the electronically inclined North Coast Music Festival purports to be “summer’s last stand” from August 31 to September 2, we’ll be living it up until the autumnal equinox.
Semantics aside, if you’re here with us, you can enjoy North Coast too, seeing artists such as Pretty Lights, Atmosphere, Big Boi, Girl Talk, The Rapture, Dan Deacon, YACHT, Rebirth Brass Band, People Under the Stairs, and many more in addition to some of dance music’s biggest names. See the full lineup here.
Despite a global outcry and support from high-profile musicians such as Paul McCartney, Madonna, and Sting, three members of Russian punk collective Pussy Riot were sentenced today to two years in jail for storming a Moscow church altar and performing an anti-Putin protest song.
The video for High on Fire’s “Fertile Green,” amazing in its ridiculousness, is a mini-masterpiece of psychedelic sci-fi. Follow “Balteazeen, the Christ Twin” in his quest to reach some sort of Goddess of the Sticky-Icky.
Minnesota rapper/producer and punk-hardcore musician P.O.S returns this October with the follow-up to his acclaimed crossover album Never Better, and the Doomtree co-founder likens the electronically infused album to an “anarchist dance party.”
Regarded as one of the greatest graphic-novel writers ever, Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Watchmen) has delved into the world of biography with Unearthing, an expansive narrative art-book. With photography by Mitch Jenkins, Unearthing “maps the lifetime of author, orientalist, and occultist Steve Moore, while simultaneously investigating the extraordinary history of South London with which that life has been intertwined.”
This content appears in the July/August iPad edition of ALARM Magazine. Download it for free and keep reading!
Puscifer: Conditions of My Parole (10/18/11)
“Man Overboard”
While the world’s been caught up with his musical prowess, Maynard James Keenan — the essential vocalist for Tool and A Perfect Circle and the creative lead for Puscifer — has spent the past decade teasing secrets from the soil of Verde Valley, Arizona, bottling stories squeezed from the vine.
In advance of next week’s release of Four, you can hear Bloc Party’s brand-new album — a harder, more aggressive take on the band’s sound.