The Raveonettes’ sixth studio album, Observator, shares a common thread with its previous five: it’s ethereal, haunting, and dark, which perhaps is not surprising considering how songwriter Sune Rose Wagner went about developing the nine songs. “I [spent] four days in a Benzo trance, drinking, eating, talking, and soaking up the real lives of the people I encountered,” he wrote about his process.
The result, recorded over seven days at Los Angeles’ famed Sunset Sound, is a hodgepodge of disconnected emotion, soul, and — yes — observation. In charmingly Danish-inflected English, Wagner enthusiastically speaks about the making of Observator, adding a “gloomy” piano, and The Raveonettes’ status as an influential band.
The 2013 Austin Psych Fest, already packed to the gills with great music, has added another batch of standouts including Om, The Raveonettes, Os Mutantes and more.
In light of its forthcoming sixth studio album, Observator, Danish indie-rock duo The Raveonettes has released a video for the album’s first single, “She Owns the Streets.”
Watch the inspiration for this song — a street dancer named Loan — as she makes her own fun on the streets (and subways) of New York.
From the Peoples Temple’s mass suicide in Jonestown in the 1970s, to the violent end to David Koresh’s born-again hedonists in Waco, Texas, cults have been a dark chapter in America’s history. Though the organizations themselves claim to offer hope and promise to its members, something much more terrible has been covered by promises of self- fulfillment and spiritual rejuvenation. True to its name, then, Brooklyn-based duo Cults has a bit of this duality as well—offering music that’s blissful, summery, and full of promise yet tinged with an underlying darkness.
The band, though, has no problem balancing these contrasts. In fact, throughout the duo’s debut album, Cults’ gorgeously crafted summer-pop songs are layered with recordings of Jim Jones’ infamous “death speech.” The second track, “Go Outside,” wallows in its own instruments, buzzing to life while Jones’ words state, “To me, death is not a fearful thing; it’s living that is treacherous.” It then explodes into Madeline Follin’s hook-driven vocals, Brian Oblivion’s hazy guitar tooling, and an inescapably catchy xylophone — evoking a sound somewhere between Best Coast, The Kills, The Raveonettes, and The Beach Boys.
And though that juxtaposition helps define Cults, the band moves forward, track after track, offering catchy pop rock — the kind that makes you want to throw some belongings in the car and hit the road until you reach the coastline. And, in that sense, that’s the scary part of Cults: the songs are infectious — enough to brainwash you into liking it immediately.
Ever since 2002, Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince, better known as The Kills, have been etching their names in the minds of listeners thanks to their abundance of menacing, freaked-out rock. But on Blood Pressures, the band’s latest effort, The Kills’ typical rough-sewn, scatterbrained freak rock is pared down. Unlike past efforts — where the focus of songs may have been more bent on making raucous, balls-to-the-wall mishmashes — the new album plays to The Kills’ strengths, as the veteran witch/warlock duo constructs an impressive collection of dark, decadent indie rock.
Mosshart, who has become a household name in the indie scene thanks to the immense popularity of her Jack White-helmed side project, The Dead Weather, once again teams with her cohort, Hince, who has lately found his way into headlines (in Britain, anyway) for his recent engagement to Kate Moss. Once again, the two have come together to devise a simultaneously explosive and subdued collection. Mosshart’s familiar vocals are as confident and as fierce as ever, while Hince’s flexed musical muscles show off an assortment of multi-instrumentation and sonic diversity.
The Raveonettes: Observator (Vice, 9/11/12)
The Kills: Blood Pressures (