The Charlatans' tenth studio album, ‘You Cross My Path', released 06/10/08, is nothing less than a masterpiece - only the latest triumph, in a career which has been positively stuffed with them.It was one of the most talked-about records in recent years, before anyone had even heard a note of it. It was first released in early March 2008 in MP3 format, via alternative radio station Xfm's website. In a revolutionary move, The Charlatans were charging their fans not a penny to own and enjoy their latest music. "I know some people have given their music away free before, like Throbbing Gristle, and Pete Doherty," says Tim Burgess, the band's singer, proudly, "but we're the first t...
T.O. Snob: First off, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us. You have a new EP, Bring On The Tambourines, coming out in September what can fans expect? Kim Ware: I think friends (I feel funny using the word "fans"!) can expect a collection of quirky pop songs centered around my everyday life. So some of it's funny, some of it's sweet, some of it's a little sad. But all of it's completely honest. They can also expect something a bit more fun and lighthearted than my first record, which was largely a break-up record.T.O. Snob: What inspires you to write? KW: Everyday life is definitely my biggest inspiration. I've alwa...
LAURIER TIERNAN is a French-Canadian, pop-punk singer-songwriter living in Tokyo. Since he released the new demo for his upcoming album, in the spring of 2008, it has been played by over 162 radio stations worldwide. Videos for the singles "The End of the World", "Epiphany" and "You Will Die as You Have Lived", were released this summer, and the video for "You Will Die as You Have Lived" will be released this fall. King International (Japan) have already offered a distribution deal, T-Toc (a Japanese major) have offered a full contract, and the full album will be released this November. ...
Band monikers aren't usually interesting enough to prompt a probing question, but a certain explosive Canadian alternative power-pop group will soon make all of North America wonder: What does it mean to "Play The Angel"? One thing's for sure, whether they're angels hiding their halos or demons in disguise, these four rock monsters sure don't play around onstage--in fact, they're downright "Indestructible," the name of one of the high octane tracks from their new five song self-titled EP and the working title of their upcoming full length debut album, due later this summer on Mungo Park Records. To assist them with their impending invasion of the U.S., they have holed up in the studio with acclaimed...
Vienna Falls is a 5-piece Hardcore/Screamo band from New York City. Influenced by a wide field of genres, VF has a truly unique sound they can call their own. Mixing hardcore breakdowns with melodic harmonized leads, along with reinforcing bass and ear pounding percussion. It is no wonder why Vienna Falls is moving so fast out of the tri-state area and spreading along the mid and east coast. In a 7 to 8 months period Vienna Falls already has played many of the well known venues in New York City and in other states such as Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Long Island and many more. Their devotion and dedication to music is what helps Vienna Falls strive forward in their goal to tour the world as a signed band. ...
Fearing they might alienate their fans and potential new audiences, most singer/songwriters would be afraid to reveal to the world their conclusion that everything is ultimately meaningless. For the uniquely twisted, emotionally compelling self-described "vocalist, pianist and cello rapist" TyLean, however, discovering she was a nihilist was a liberating creative flashpoint in a lifelong creative journey. Fast becoming known as eccentric and daring, willing to sacrifice popularity for the sake of art and musicality for atmosphere, TyLean's haunting voice is the emotional centerpiece of the full-on "despair art" (which she once referred to as "Piano Goth") recording Between 10 and 2, the haunting but strangel...
I grew up on a dairy farm in Sicamous, BC with my Austrian father, my English mother and my Canadian brother. My father, an accomplished violinist, taught me how to play the piano when I was very young. He liked nothing better than to play duets with me for any visitors that happened by. Paying no heed to the musical tastes of the times or our guests, my father would perform for his hostages, launching into a favourite Dvorak or Chopin, poking me in the back with his bow if I appeared forgetful, shy or unenthused. Mortified, I longed for giant flames to eat the piano and my father.I have since developed a more light-hearted relationship with music. My first band was The Vinaigrettes. We started as an all-girl foursome from Victori...
In the state of Minnesota lies a small town called Owatonna with roughly twenty-two thousand inhabitants. Within that city is a quiet road with a modest house. In that house there's an unkempt basement with no windows. Within those confines you'll find Adam Young of Owl City hard at work on his electronic and melodically infectious music of simple and singular beauty. Inside this "cave," as Adam likes to describe it, he has begun to quickly win over a large audience thirsty for something genuine, something sublime. The same adjectives could easily describe Owl City's first official CD - Ocean Eyes - poised for a mid-summer release.Being an only child in a small town, and having no musicians in his i...
If The Maccabees' 2007 debut ‘Colour It In' hadn't already confirmed the Brighton/South London band as a class apart, then second album ‘Wall Of Arms' - out May 4th on Fiction Records - should establish it beyond reasonable doubt. To those in the know, the five-piece are a truly special band, a British Arcade Fire or a melodic, song-based Animal Collective. To everyone else? Well, it's just a matter of time..."I definitely feel like there's more to this group than some people might have thought," says guitarist and co-vocalist Felix White. "That's something we want to prove this time out. There's something unique about The Maccabees and we want to work to make that apparent to m...
It may seem odd that a band with six studio albums, five 7-inches, two EPs, a live CD, a B-sides album, and numerous soundtrack and compilation appearances under their belts during the last TWENTY years would name their new album Agents Of The Underground. It doesn't seem strange to the members of Simi Valley, California punk pioneers STRUNG OUT, who will release their seventh studio album on September 29th via Fat Wreck Chords."With Agents Of The Underground, I wanted to acknowledge the fact that we are still alive and kicking just below the consciousness of the mainstream media and are celebrating our place here in "The Underground"," says Strung Out vocal...
The Strange Attractors' Sleep and You Will See is the second album by the Austin based band. The album delivers on the promise of their first, selftitled release with a set of exploratory yet smartly crafted modern psychedelic pop songs.We're reminded what might have happened if Spacemen 3 had been weaned on loud Texas garage rock. Songwriters Kevin Pearce and Jeremy Diaz played in various bands around Texas (including Diaz' time in the Riverboat Gamblers) until landing in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, where they started Dead Sexy with bass player Jen Tran.After Dead Sexy ended in 2003, Pearce joined The Sunday Drunks (Deadbeat Records). He then moved to Aus...
Let's talk about magic. Because music, at its best, is a kind of magic that lifts you up and takes you somewhere else. "I want my music to sound like throwing yourself out of a tree, or off a tall building, or as if you're being sucked down into the ocean and you can't breathe," says Florence Welch. "It's something overwhelming and all-encompassing that fills you up, and you're either going to explode with it, or you're just going to disappear."Florence writes her best songs when she's drunk or has a hangover, because that's when the freedom, the feral music comes, creating itself wildly from the fragments gathered in her notebooks and in her head. "You're lucid,&quo...
The third full-length album by New York's As Tall as Lions, You Can't Take It With You, is a thoughtful, textured tour de force of soundscapes, vocal harmonies, melodies and insightful lyrics about the modern world. The songs' subject matter faces head-on the politics of God, love, war, and the human condition while examining everyday struggles such as anxiety, isolation, and money." With You Can't Take It With You, the band; vocalist-guitarist Dan Nigro, guitarist Saen Fitzgerald, bassist Julio Tavarez and drummer Cliff Sarcona, has made its smartest and most impressive album to date.This might be in part to it being the most difficult to make. Before ATAL had made...
Once upon a time, in far away land, was a man they called Nathaniel Sutton. Born in Edmonton Alberta, Canada on September 27th, 1983, he grew up being a slave for that lovely sound called music. While in high school, he was offered a guitar class and the lightbulb above his head nearly exploded with ideas. A budding indie star was born. After a few years passed, Nathaniel felt strong enough in the way of the guitar, but wanted a greener musical pasture, so he took it upon himself and created a new challenge, He decided to learn how to play drums. He drove himself over the edge with this new instrument at his fingertips, and started playing in cover bands ("You gotta start somewhere, right?"...
"Look out! I've got too much soul for the world!" growls Hockey singer Ben Grubin on opening track "Too Fake" channeling the swagger of a raspy Rod Stewart. And judging by the spring-loaded bass line and buoyant drum keeping up behind him, this is the sort of hit song that comes around only once in an iPod's life cycle: it's the perfect meeting point between downtown New York and the seedy streets of London. But before you judge the direction of the Portland quartet's debut based on the gatecrashing first single, check out the curveball that is "3 AM Spanish," a funky composition with a spirit committed to both the fluidity of rap and the angstiness of Combat Rockinfluence...
Bread*win*ner -Noun 1: someone who has to learn what it means to be grown up.Crouching in her backyard garden, Shannon Stephens is poised for greatness. Although she ran from music for almost a decade, she's not hiding now. Recorded in her living room over the last year, The Breadwinner belies its humble roots; with themes of love, home, family, and a vision of the end of the world, the lush and exquisite sound of this album is anything but domestic.Shannon was born into a musical family. As a baby she would crawl under the piano as her mother played old church hymns; her father, on his sunburst Gibson, would host "hootenannys" for family friends with their guitars and banjos. Shannon tried the piano, bu...
Ghost Robot Ninja Bear, the newest vehicle for Nakatomi Plaza front man Oscar Albis Rodriguez, picks right up where the seminal DIY outfit left off with a pair of rip-roaring digital singles - four songs in all - crammed with post-hardcore excellence and punky energy. This short-but-sweet collection of tracks will do well to ease the loss of one of Brooklyn's best and brightest while proving that Rodriguez has a lot more fire left in the tank. The man is back with a vengeance and he is rocking skulls....
It might be too soon to declare In Prism the best Polvo record ever...but it might be okay by the time you're done reading this.It's de rigueur to ask the question, Why now? What makes a band decide to get back together for a few shows ten years later, and then for a few more? Well, I don't know because I didn't ask them, because the reasons don't matter, only the results. Isn't it pretty much always the same stuff anyway? "Because we could, because we thought it'd be fun, because we got asked."What I do know, and what every old fan will quickly realize seconds into In Prism's opener, "Right the Relation"--which is so much more "P...
New album from NYC's best party band, Forro In The Dark, featuring contributions the Brazilian Girls' Sabina Sciubba and singer-songwriter Jesse Harris out September 29 on Nat Geo Music. From the opening drum rolls of "Bandinha" to the last swinging guitar chords of "Just Like Any Other Night," it's clear that Light A Candle, the sophomore release from the Brazilian-born, NYC-based Forro In The Dark, is no lethargic, bedtime affair.This is party music, and the group, who were literally born at co-founder Mauro Refosco's birthday party in 2005, make music that, despite incorporating elements of country and western, dub, surf rock, and MBP, stays true to the or...
After a five year hibernation since 2004's The Handler, Har Mar Superstar, sexy as ever, is ready to unleash Dark Touches on the masses. On Dark Touches, Sean Tillmann - the singer, songwriter, and producer behind the Har Mar moniker - delivers his most club-friendly collection of jams yet. Tillmann's silky smooth croon and tongue-in-cheek lyrics lead a nonstop dance party that blends everything from synth-pop to R&B, with ample hooks around every corner.Dark Touches builds a bridge between the worlds of indie and top 40 dance music, thanks in part to an eclectic group of collaborators. The albums many guests include John Fields (Andrew WK, Jonas Brothers, Rooney), The Faint's beatmakers Clark Baechle and J...
Brooklyn's Tiny Masters of Today are hitting the road for a string of US dates, including The Sunset Junction Street Fair Festival in Los Angeles and Detroit's F*cking Awesome Festival where they play just before Thunderbirds Are Now. The Chicago performance will be particularly special as Tiny Masters Of Today serve as both opening band and backing band for Daniel Johnston's headline show. In Philly Tiny Masters of Today are set to open for DFA 's Free Energy. The band - who recently rocked out on the main stage at the Coney Island Siren Festival - are brother and sister Ivan and Ada (ages 15 and 13 respectively). Performing with them on stage will be drummer Jackson Pollis.It has certainly been an action packed journey...
A polyglot songwriter and singer with two critically lauded to her credit, Lhasa (aka Lhasa de Sela) has in part been appreciated for the variety of her identities: She was born in New York, grew up in Mexico, and has since become an internationally beloved mainstay of the Montreal indie-rock scene. Her music has been a unique composite of a diverse background and influences.The artists third album, however, is a departure, remarkable for its unadorned simplicity: It is sung only in English and recorded mostly live on analog tape with a small, acoustic band. Aptly entitled simply Lhasa, the album will be released in the U.S. September 15 by Nettwerk Records.Drawing upon American folk, blues and gospel, the new dis...
Latin For Truth consists of two twenty somethings taking the high road and three teens taking the low. The teens destroy, the elders think. The teens skate, the elders work. Together the five young men converge to find common ground through punk rock with a conscious. After mixed reviews of the the band's debut full-length and a tour cut short by a serious wreck, Latin For Truth has forged a new path.With help from their friends at Pitfall Records, Latin For Truth's tracked a three song digital EP entitled We Are Sick of Not Having The Courage To Be Absolute Nobodies. The free EP was meant to be a stop-gap while the band saved money, wrote and recorded. In reality We Are Sick of Not Having The Courage To Be Absolu...
Chicagoan Craig Klein, aka The Race, is readying himself for a killer tour with Televon Tel Aviv, AND the 9/8 vinyl and digi-only release of Exiles on St. Ives (the newest imprint in the Jagjaguwar/Dead Oceans/Secretly Canadian family of labels). We could not be more pumped, and would love to get you a digital copy....there's a great story behind the process on this one that involves the American Southwest, dusty roads, cans of beans, blown-up beats and deconstructed dobro, and Craig is amazing to chat with--just say the word, and I'll get you on the horn with him.In the meantime, I'll let him explain a bit about the record himself: "While touring on our last record, 2007's Ice Station (Flameshovel), ...
Even if you don't know Sydney, Australia modern rock trio Sick Puppies, you've probably seen their groundbreaking "Free Hugs," video, which has garnered almost 30 million views on YouTube.com since it started streaming on the site last year. The heartwarming clip chronicles the true life adventures of a man who walks around holding a billboard that reads "Free Hugs," the police who ban his humanitarian crusade, and the petition that earned him back the right to provide hugs to citizens in need. The "Free Hugs" video, which accompanied the band's song "All The Same," earned Sick Puppies exposure on Oprah, Jay Leno, "60 Minutes" and CNN, and inspired people around ...
There aren't many rock bands on this planet that wouldn't like to be regarded as unique. Of course, in these times of nostalgia and endlessly recycled ideas, very few actually deserve that description. Finland's Apocalyptica deserve it more than most. Utterly original in every respect, these classically-trained merchants of genre-shattering metal sound quite unlike anything or anyone else in musical history.Formed in the early '90s Apocalyptica chose an entirely individual path from day one. A few years earlier, while students at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, these young virtuosos joined a cello band that specialised in playing music by everyone from Bach to Hendrix. However, Eicca Toppinen and his three comrades had something...
As one of the world's only female Scotch whisky experts, Heather Greene has quite a life.Like most talented and aspiring artists, Heather was already building her career as a singer/songwriter of international acclaim when she discovered her passion for what has since become her "day job". After selling out venues throughout the U.S. and Europe and receiving exposure on major radio stations worldwide, Heather moved to Scotland to explore her heritage and work on her music. It was there that Heather discovered a zeal for whisky. Noticing the similarities between these two forms of craftsmanship, she threw herself into the world of Scotch, and her voyage of discovery led her to the Scotch Malt Whisky So...
"Susquehanna," "Skaboy JFK," and what came before themEclecticism has been the mission of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies from the beginning. The band came together in the gray light of the late 80's pre-grunge dawn, when singer/principle songwriter Steve Perry - then a chemistry major at the University of Oregon - proposed an experiment to fellow musician friends: what if a punk rock rhythm section joined forces with jazz-schooled horn players and a keyboardist? The beaker-busting result made a stellar EP, sold out local clubs, and soon drew comparisons to contemporaries like Fishbone, Faith No More, and Bad Brains. It also irritated the local PC police. When the moniker hit the streets of &quo...
Magica started in February 2002 as a project of Bogdan Costea, directly with the recordings for the 1st album "The Scroll of Stone" (having more of a demo purpose). After 2 months of intense work, the material was ready! 12 power melodic heavy metal songs, in the vein of Rhapsody, Nightwish, and Helloween, which show the high potential of the band. After the songs were ready Bogdan recruited the members of the band. The second album, "Lightseeker", has been launched in October 2004 in France through Underclass Music . Magica's first video, "Bittersweet Nightshade", was ready on February 10, 2005. Magica has been featured in the famous "Metallian" and "Rock Hard ...
THRASH OR DIE is the motto Lazarus A.D. have lived by since day one and their no holds barred attitude is equaled only by their will to become a leading force in modern metal. Their supreme level of creativity, musicianship and professionalism makes them an electrifying and engaging live act. Lazarus A.D. formed in the frozen tundra of southeastern Wisconsin in the spring of 2005. Dan Gapen (guitars/vocals), Jeff Paulick (bass/lead vocals), Alex Lackner (guitars), and Ryan Shutler (drums), redefine the phrase “alcoholism and aggression” in music. They subject metal heads to furious nights of head banging while drinking venues dry. Have no doubts that Lazarus A.D. is a thrash band, but merely in attitude as...
