Not much joy to be found

Day Joy is a band from sunny Orlando, Florida. But their music is certainly not sunny or joyful in any way. I'm totally ok with that. As a happy person that prefers his music depressing, Day Joy has released the perfect single for me: sad as all shit, with themes ranging from addiction to family disfunction. Yay!

Also, I welcome myself back to posting. Sorry for the lack of love, Internet.


Day Joy "Go To Sleep, Mess" from Michael Lawrence on Vimeo.

Patrick Swayze crawled inside her guitar?

Not surprisingly Torres is tough to track down on the internet.  To be more specific, el nino, _Pedro Torres_, and Honey Torres' facebook page are not hard to track down, but the musician Torres_ is.  What I've been able to sort out is that she's living in Nashville and just self-released a track called Honey.  Maybe the Honey Torres Facebook thing makes more sense now.  Apparently, and a bit like Cat Power minus the initial phase of international fame, she recently switched from an acoustic to an electronic sound.  Torres would have been a nice addition to our PJ Harvey playlist, but honestly I think she's got more going for her than another sound-a-like.  Hopefully more is on the way, but a soundcloud account with the song Honey was all I could find.  If more surfaces I'll post it to the facebook page.  Here's Honey by TORRES_

Can it be true, it must be true

Wax Tailor, the french trip hop king, is coming to Austin.  He's playing Red7 on Jan 29th.  You do not want to miss this show.  As seems to be the case with hip hop acts, busdriver, aesop, etc, I'm going to be out of town.  But, you can join Pete and Bob.  To warm things up, here's a new one (Time to go, from the new album) and an old one (Que sera).

Happy new year

Bring a bottle of whisky and get out alive

Dan the automator,  of "...yo it's three thousand thirty, I want y'all to meet Deltron Zero, and Automator..." fame, and Emily Wells, self-described classic hop violinist and singer, are working on a new collaboration called Pillowfight.  Both have a flair for the epic, which certainly comes out in the first single "Get your shit together."  An EP is coming and I wouldn't be surprised to see a Sx appearance.

Empress, back on the horse

New names appeared today in the ever-growing list for the next SXSW. I haven't looked at the list, I just started feeling preemptively overwhelmed. It did get me thinking, though, how it's time to start our own little tag for next year, and how this could be the perfect chance to get me back into posting.

Then I went to GvB and played the most recent video on it:

Empress Of playing a sweet acoustic version of "Don't Tell Me" for Yours Truly. Super easy sell. The original version (side B of her debut 7" Champagne -- free download) was great, but certainly not this lacrimogenous.

née Lorely Rodriguez lives in Brooklyn. But the last name, use of Colombian rythms (see #2 below) and lyrics in spanish (see #13) lead me to believe there's a richer story there.

Listen to all of her 15 "Colorminutes"down here.
Download "Champagne".
Visit her Craigslist-inspired website.
Keep an eye open for her when she comes next spring.

Can you type a backwards R?

In Dec 2010, Last Choice first heard Made in Heights.  Like a junky searching for the same high, I waited for another album.  When no sophomore effort appeared, I went out searching for something that gave me that the same dead pigeon, deep winter feeling.  Lorine Chia of the Cameroon doesn't really sound like Made in Heights, but she is similar.  So not unlike Swayze helping with pottery, I was reminded of Made in Heights.  Chia's self-titled, soulful first album dropped last week.  The video for he first single, Crazy Things, is below.  I couldn't glean from her online presence whether a tour is coming, but if she heads towards Austin I'll let you know.

Doom Soul

Cold Specks is a CandadioBritish "Doom Soul" singer.  Her new album, I predict a graceful expulsion,  is out now.  You can find more information and pick up the album here.   Cold Specks will be at the Mohawk next Wednesday (14th Nov).  On Halloween, Cold Specks released a video for the single Hector.  It features a white-eyed, pregnant Specks dragging the headless corpse of her lover down a grassy path.  I can only assume that Hector has the unfortunate pleasure of being said headless chap.

You will need somebody when you come to die

Don't dismiss it like it's easy.
Tell me what's so easy,
About coming to say goodbye.

Andrew Bird's Three White Horses from his just released "Hands of Glory."

Shanghaied by psychedelia

Long time friends of the blog, Cuckoo Chaos, just released a video for the B-side of their new 7" Skeleton/Shanghaied.

Shanghaied is a trippy tune, full of Cuckoo's usual sandy sensibility that only California bands can pull off so well. The video is a fun DIY/Psychadelic, full of bright paper cutouts and repeating images... epileptics beware and stoners rejoice.

You can find the 7" for sale here, and the mp3s on Itunes.
 
 
Cuckoo Chaos "Shanghaied" from Black/White Iris Music on Vimeo.

The genius introvert

I haven't hid my love for Keaton Henson on this blog. If you're not familiar, do yourself a favor and look at this and this.

It's crazy to think about, but the only live performance he has ever given was through what he titled "Gloaming," which was an art installation where you would stick your head in a box that would allow you to see a projection of Keaton playing a song live, only for you. Apparently he has major stage fright, suffers from panic attacks, and just doesn't dig playing live. Here's his comment in a rare interview for The Guardian (which you can read in its entirety here).

"When you develop a love for an album and entangle its narratives in your own life and experiences … going to a live show for me was like attending an orgy with your wife."

Yeah.

Keaton is releasing a new EP very soon and a new full length in February. His first album "Dear" has already been released in the US and you can find it on Spotify in all its lonely and sad glory.

I leave you with a new song from his unreleased EP, sounds more raw and loud than usual.

Kronos: