Girl Band Announces East Coast Dates, Set to Play New Material

Dublin's Girl Band will return to the US this April for a string of dates in Brooklyn, DC and Philadelphia, where the quartet is set to debut new music to live audiences. The band will be recording a new album this summer. Full itinerary below.
This marks their first US shows since early/mid 2016, which included dates in New York, Pitchfork Music Festival, and supporting Parquet Courts on the West Coast. The band’s live set has become a thing of legend, with their few short stints Stateside being lauded by NPR, SPIN, Stereogum, Consequence of Sound, and more.

Girl Band Tour Dates:
April 17 - Brooklyn, NY - Saint Vitus
April 18 - Philadelphia, PA - Milkboy
April 20 - Washington DC - DC9

Photo Credit: Mark McGuinness

Clark Shares New Song "Hoova" For Free Download - Death Peak Out 4/7 On Warp

Clark returns this Spring with his new album Death Peak. To celebrate, he’s made  pivotal album cut Hoova available via free download. The track plays out a crucial moment on the album, it bridges the album's early, lighthearted accents and leads into Death Peak’s darker more corrosive tones.

“The trance riff on this hung suspended with no beat for ages. It’s sort of fashionable to do this at the moment, to avoid the hardest part of dance music, the actual drums. For me the drums are the hardest part to get right, and I couldn’t resist the challenge, I thought “stop being a wimp get some kicks underneath the beast.”

— Clark on "Hoova"

Clark will also take Death Peak on tour this year with Com Truise, view dates and trailer below.

Clark Tour Dates

May 1 – Santa Ana, CA – Constellation Room @ The Observatory

May 2 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst Atrium

May 4 – Portland, OR – Holocene

May 5 – Vancouver, BC – Imperial

May 6 – Seattle, WA – Neumos

May 7 – Eugene, OR – Wow Hall

May 9 – San Francisco, CA – Mezzanine

May 10 – Santa Barbara, CA – Soho Music Club

May 11 – Los Angeles, CA – The Regent Theater

May 12 – San Diego, CA – The Belly Up

May 13 – Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf

May 14 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater

May 16 – St. Louis, MO – Firebird

May 17 – Nashville, TN – Exit In

May 19 – Washington, DC – U Street Music Hall

May 20 – Boston, MA – Together Boston Music & Arts Festival

May 21 – Hamden, CT – The Ballroom

May 23 – Baltimore, MD – Ottobar

May 24 – Philadelphia, PA – Coda

May 25 – Brooklyn, NY – Warsaw

May 26 – Montreal, QC – Theatre Fairmount

May 27 – Toronto, ON – Velvet Underground

May 28 – Detroit, MI – Ghostly Intl/Warp Movement Afterparty @ The Shelter

May 30 – Pittsburgh, PA – Rex Theater

June 1 – Indianapolis, IN – The Hi-Fi

June 2 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop

June 3 – Chicago, IL – Concord Music Hall

June 4 – Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line Music Café

June 5 – Omaha, NE – Slowdown

June 6 – Kansas City, MO – Record Bar

June 7 – Dallas, TX – Trees

June 8 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall

June 9 – Austin, TX – The Mohawk

June 10 – Mexico City, MX – Sala Corona

Clark

Death Peak

WARP282

01. Spring But Dark

02. Butterfly Prowler

03. Peak Magnetic

04. Hoova

05. Slap Drones

06. Aftermath

07. Catastrophe Anthem

08. Living Fantasy

09. Un U.K.

Actress Announces New Album, Shares Lead Single, 'AZD' Out April 14th via Ninja Tune

Actress, real name Darren Jordan Cunningham, known to friends as DAZ, returns with a new album, now on Ninja Tune and a new music system called AZD (pronounced “Azid”), a chrome aspect journey into a parallel world. An artist who has always preferred to make music than to talk about it, in AZD he has achieved another remarkable landmark, one which is as resistant to interpretation as it is demanding of it. Following on from his previous albums, R.I.P, Splazsh and Hazyville, an epilogue poem attached to the press release for Ghettoville was construed by media, commentators and spectators that Cunningham had retired. This led him to conceptualize this mass of conclusion as the key to “Giving power back to identity.”

So a few pointers, or possible ways to think about AZD. The album is themed around chrome – both as a reflective surface to see the self in, and as something that carves luminous voids out of any color and fine focuses white and black representing the perfect metaphor for the bleakness of life in the Metropolis as suggested by Anish Kapoors Cloud Gate.

Another way to approach would be through the art of James Hampton and Rammellzee (who inspired “CYN,” which Cunningham also sees as a vision of New York in reverse…) – both of whom, though of different generations of the African-American slave diaspora, created art through “Sourcing castaway materials from their environment and re-interpreting them into absolute majesty given from the fourth dimension.” There is also the career-long influence of the Detroit techno pioneers, something which becomes clear on this album “there is a contrast in the type of glow or reflection”.

Alternatively, you could write your PhD thesis on Jung’s Shadow Theory and AZD: “Lots of ideas come from dreams, this isn’t new, but sometimes the conscious mind starts to meld into the universal consciousness through constellation tunneling.” If that sounds too taxing then you could always fall back on Star Wars and, in particular, the Death Star: “It has a dark dystopian backdrop, with highly sophisticated technology, but it is fading into the ether, still holding on and emitting a powerful energy. The music remaking the embers, binding them together and pulling them apart again.”

Alternatively, just listen. That “glow” Cunningham talks about makes this in some ways more immediate than previous Actress releases. Take lead single, “X22RME” (pronounced “Extreme”) which elegantly plays between the lines of Oriental classic rave and Balinese warehouse Techno machined in a Rotherhithe lock up welding the grooves into a seamless cracked joint.

At the other end of the spectrum is “Faure in Chrome,” a byproduct or development from his collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra, in which he “repatterns” aspect of Faure’s Requiem into a piece which sounds like the very institution of classical music being encased in electronic ice and scanned through a high frequency bandwidth. In between are gems like “Runner,” a personal re-soundtracking of Blade Runner “its from the deleted Fade Runner scene where AZD in a Peckham Cafe realizes his barber has over the years etched a faded scroll into his head using early 80s African synthpop as a vexing serum“, or “Falling Rizlas,” an alienated music-box ballad. It’s a remarkable piece of work, that harks back both to Actress’ previous productions and to earlier iterations of the (broadly conceived) “techno” project without being beholden to anything but Cunningham’s forward-facing, individual and disembodied vision.

As if the record itself isn’t enough, Cunningham is currently preparing a new live show, to be debuted at as part of Convergence at Village Underground on March 24th. Presented as AZD, Cunningham says it “will be a test frame for linking circuits using various forms of language — Midi globalized language, Lyrical language, Tikal Graffiti code and various other Synthesizer language — to create one intelligent musical instrument called AZD, if successful it will produce the first translucent, non-soluble communication sound pill synergized through impressionistic interpretations of technological equipment. This is the music vitamin of the Metropolis.”

The simplest you could say about AZD is that it’s art – the unique creation of a unique mind. There will be few more distinctive, brilliant or visionary suites of music released in 2017. Call him what you will, this is the year that Darren ‘Daz’ Cunningham - aka Actress, aka AZD – asserts more clearly than ever before his complete independence.

Actress  AZD

(April 14th- Ninja Tune)

1. NIMBUS

2. UNTITLED 7

3. FANTASYNTH

4. BLUE WINDOW

5. CYN

6. X22RME

7. RUNNER

8. FALLING RIZLAS

9. DANCING IN THE SMOKE

10. FAURE IN CHROME

11. THERE’S AN ANGEL IN THE SHOWER

12. VISA

Pre-Order AZD

https://actress.lnk.to/azd

https://actress.lnk.to/azd/applemusic

https://actress.lnk.to/azd/spotify

https://actress.lnk.to/azd/itunes

https://actress.lnk.to/azd/ninjatune

https://actress.lnk.to/azd/bandcamp

Saltland Shares "Forward Eyes II" Feat. Warren Ellis - A Common Truth Is Out 3/31 On Constellation

Cellist, composer and veteran member of Montréal's tight-knit independent music community, Rebecca Foon is to release a new album as Saltland. A Common Truth, shall arrive on Constellation, March 31st. 

Today Saltland has shared “Forward Eyes II,” a gorgeous instrumental composition that features Warren Ellis (Nick Cave, Dirty Three). The song is at once dramatic and minimalist, with ambient keyboard underpinning a plaintive cello melody. It was premiered by Discreet Music on RBMA Radio hosted by Sam Hockley-Smith. In their recent review, The Wire noted the song blossoms “with convincing beauty and hope. Its sweetness however fails to quell the feeling of anger pervading this [album’s] call to arms.”

Saltland – A Common Truth

(March 31st, 2017 – Constellation Records)

1.    To Allow Us To Breathe

2.    Under My Skin

3.    I Only Wish This For You

4.    Light Of Mercy

5.    Forward Eyes I

6.    Magnolia

7.    This Other Place

8.    A Common Truth

9.    Forward Eyes II

Pre-order A Common Truth: cstrecords.com/cst123

Hear the previously shared “I Only Wish This For You” HERE and “Light of Mercy” HERE.

New Video from Jacques Greene, Debut Album Out Now On LuckyMe, Tour Starts This Friday

Jacques Greene’s debut album Feel Infinite was released this past Friday via LuckyMe and today he shares the video for “Afterglow/Feel Infinite,“ which originally premiered this morning via CoolHunting (watch here).

With “Afterglow,” directors Mauriès Matos present an impressionistic love story. An unwavering celebration of youth and the discovery in a nightclub - a pure environment to get lost within. Shot on 16mm film following a local cast of real club-kids in parties and studios throughout JGs beloved Montreal, Mauriès Matos have created an evocative watercolor of the liberated art spaces dance music was designed to serve. “Afterglow / Feel Infinite” features a recital taken from the Montreal-based writer and futurist Arthur Kroker’s book “Spasm” - the cult 90s fiction piece about virtual reality.

The film closes with the first sample of the album’s title track “Feel Infinite.”

Europe

3/17/17 - Rome - Goa Club

3/18/17 - Rotterdam - Bar

3/21/17 - Copenhagen, DK - Vega

3/23/17 - Glasgow - Center for Contemporary Arts

3/24/17 - Manchester - Soup Kitchen

3/25/17 - London - Brixton Electric

3/27/17 - Brighton, UK - Patterns

3/31/17 - Berlin - Gretchen

North America

4/4/17 - Los Angeles, CA – Resident*

4/5/17 - San Francisco, CA - Swedish American Hall*

4/7/17 - Seattle, WA - Barboza*

4/8/17 - Portland, US - Liquor Store*

4/9/17 - Vancouver, CA - Fortune Sound Club*

4/12/17 - Washington, DC - Flash*

4/13/17 - Brooklyn, NY - Good Room*

4/14/17 - Montreal, CA - Newspeak*

4/15/17 - Toronto, CA - The Velvet*

* w/Sucicideyear