Dutch singer/songwriter and pianist Laura Jansen will be releasing her new album, Bells, in March. What else happens in March? That's right, SXSW!
Laura will be hitting up SXSW this year just a few days before her album's release where she will be performing at showcases for Berklee College of Music, Dutch Impact Party and more!
Below, you can watch the video for Bells' first single, "Single Girls."
We got a chance to speak with Laura Jansen about her forthcoming album, performing at SXSW, tour stories and a few other things. Check it out below.
Bells arrives March 22nd and you can pre-order it Right Here.
You’ve been established in your homeland of the Netherlands for a while now. How does it feel to have a debut album in America and making a bigger mark in the States? I've been working on music for a really long time and, as any musician will tell you, it can be a tough road. The success of the album in the Netherlands has been so incredible and such a gift. It also really gave me the extra confidence I needed to start the process of releasing the album in America. I'm absolutely thrilled to finally do it and can't wait to get the music out there. It can be an intimidating process but I am lucky enough to have a team of people behind me who really believe in the music. It’s been an incredible experience to play for new audiences and to see that the songs are coming across well. It’s a huge undertaking but I cannot wait to get out there and play as much as I can. My number one passion is playing live so to do that in the States is my dream coming true.
What can we expect from your performance at SXSW and what do you think of the Austin music scene? Austin is such a well known town for live music and really has a culture of acceptance that breeds huge amounts of creativity. There is nothing in the world like SXSW. I've played it twice before and am blown away each time by the talent I get to see. This year will be slightly different for me because I'm there to promote the release of the record. I've got my band with me and the set feels really good. There's a good amount of nerves going into it, of course, but ultimately it’s the biggest party of the year. Making music in that kind of an environment raises the bar for me and I really want to play a set that reflects the whole spirit of the record. It’s a real mix of intimate songs and more lush band songs so I'm focusing on bringing both to the set. It’s an inspiring place to play music and we are really looking forward to going!
How was the experience touring with Joshua Radin and do you have any awesome tour stories? Joshua was really the first person to give me a shot at making and playing music full time. A few years back I was invited to sing and play in his band and that experience taught me so much. It’s a testament to the spirit of the Hotel Cafe community and the friendships we have there, that Josh invited me back out this year to open for him with my own music. His audience has been incredibly supportive and loving and they really listen to the core of songs. The opportunity to play for that kind of an audience is priceless. It was also amazing to be on the bus with my closest friends. Cary Brothers and Joshua's band members have been in my life for a long time so to tour together felt like vacation with your family. There were definitely some long nights on the bus involving whiskey and dance music. I can't implicate anyone by name, but let’s just say that if you fell asleep in the open areas of the bus, it was open season for pranks. Sharpies and gaffer tape were used often. Luckily never on me, but maybe by me.
What was the inspiration for the concept of the "Single Girls" video? Single Girls was such a document for me of the moment my heart was really broken for the first time. I wanted the video to reflect that as well as to have a sense of optimism. The end of a relationship can often look a lot like a crime scene where blame is thrown and evidence is left behind. My amazing director Brooke Hanson and I came up with the idea of a crime scene and decided to expand on the idea of the space left behind when someone is gone. I loved her vision for that and how sweetly she put together the scenes of everyday life and the space you leave behind. You carry that person with you, whether or not they're still there and we wanted to show that. At the end of the video I get to take that shadow memory and fold it up. I feel as though that is the best you can hope for at the end of a breakup. Somewhere along the way to recovery you're able to put the memory away and give it a more peaceful place. That’s how we wanted to end the video and I'm really proud of the way it came out.
Musically, who are some of your influences that contribute to your sound and overall artistic approach?
Im inspired by all kinds of music and have a pretty eclectic collection that I listen to. My mom raised me on Queen and Brazilian folk music. I discovered the genius of Joni Mitchell and the singer songwriter genre in my teens. I listen to a ton of Rufus Wainwright, Kate Bush, Radiohead, Bon Iver, Death Cab for Cutie and Peter Gabriel. I'm surrounded by some incredible artists through the Hotel Cafe who have played a really big part in the way I approach music and the work. One of my dearest friends is Sara Bareilles and I just think she's the bees knees. Some of the music I really love coming out of that community is Jesca Hoop, Greg Laswell, Holly Conlan, Brian Wright, Pedestrian, Jim Bianco and of course Cary Brothers and Joshua Radin. There are so many fantastic artists that inspire me daily.
SXSW Shows:
- March 18, 1:10 PM, Berklee College of Music Party, Friends Bar
- March 18, 05:00 PM, Dutch Impact Party, West Tent , Brush Square Park
- March 19, 12:40 PM, Universal Music Group Party, The Speakeasy
- March 19, TBA, Hotel Cafe Showcase, St David’s Historic Sanctuary
Yesterday, the FCC initiated a rule making proceeding to reinstate its prior video description rules with certain modifications, as required by the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (Act). The proposed rules would require large market broadcast affiliates of the top four national networks and most cable operators and DBS providers to provide programming with audio narrated descriptions of a television program’s key visual elements beginning as soon as first quarter 2012. Davis Wright Tremaine previously summarized the Act in our earlier advisory available here.
The Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) takes the first step toward restoring the video description regulations that the FCC previously adopted in 2000, but which were subsequently vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Now with explicit Congressional authorization, the FCC seeks to restore the video description rules by Oct. 8, 2011, as required by the Act. The FCC proposes a quick implementation, with the video description and pass-through rules beginning Jan. 1, 2012. The most significant elements of the reinstated video description rules are:
Broadcast affiliates of the top four national networks—ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC—located in the top 25 television markets must provide 50 hours per calendar quarter of prime time and/or children’s programming with video descriptions.
The top five national nonbroadcast networks must provide 50 hours per calendar quarter of prime time and/or children’s programming with video descriptions. The proposed rule would be applied to multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), including cable operators and DBS providers with 50,000 or more subscribers, and presumably then be applied to the top five networks through affiliation agreements.
“Live” and “near live” programming is exempt from the rules.
In order to count toward the requirement, the programming must not have been aired previously with video descriptions, on that particular broadcast station or MVPD channel, more than once.
All broadcast stations, regardless of market size or affiliation, and all MVPDs, regardless of the number of subscribers they serve, must “pass through” video description when such descriptions are provided and when the station or program distributor has the technical capability to do so.
In addition to proposing to reinstate the rules previously adopted by the FCC, the item asks many practical implementation questions about refreshing market rankings, applicability of the rules to low power television, and what constitutes the “technical capability” to pass through video descriptions. In particular, the FCC seeks to refresh the list of the top 25 DMAs, as well as update the top five national nonbroadcast networks subject to the rule. In determining the top five nonbroadcast networks, the FCC proposes to exclude from the top five any nonbroadcast network that does not provide, on average, at least 50 hours per quarter of prime time non-exempt programming, i.e., programming that is not live or near-live. The NPRM specifically seeks comment from any network that believes it should be excluded from the top five covered networks because it does not offer enough pre-recorded prime time or children’s programming.
The item also seeks input regarding the definition of “near live” programming, which the FCC proposes to define as programming performed and recorded less than 24 hours prior to the time it is first aired. Other than live or near live programming, the FCC proposes not to adopt any new categorical exemptions, but seeks input regarding an exemption based on a showing that compliance would be economically burdensome, similar to the existing exemption for closed captioning.
Finally, the FCC seeks comment on how to accommodate digital television stations that multicast multiple programming streams (i.e., whether it must include descriptions on all four streams), including if a station carries a top-four national network on another stream, and whether it should adopt quality standards for video descriptions, assuming that it has the authority to do so.
Comments in this proceeding will be due 30 days after the NPRM is published in the Federal Register, with Reply Comments due 60 days after publication. Interested parties may file comments with the FCC either in paper or electronically through the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System.
Perhaps it’s something of an irony, here on a site that heralds shiny technology, but there is a longing among many musicians to return to something raw and unvarnished in music. There’s discontentment in the ranks of the techno-futurists, enough to sow the seeds of rebellions. If that feeling could be given a voice, Anika would be a good candidate. A political journalist who found herself, entirely unexpected, at a session with Portishead producer Geoff Barrow, she is a vinyl-loving, politically-minded throwback, an antidote to everything that commercially-calibrated in music.
The first thing you should know about Anika’s self-titled debut is that some people immediately hate it. Others just as quickly fall in love with its tendency to sound as though it were made 30 years ago. It’s not retro as pastiche: the music is unrehearsed, largely unproduced, fed through cavernous spring reverbs and played on abused instruments and machines. It sounds like another decade because it was made in the way those records were produced. But it’s also divisive, something unprocessed enough that people can form strong opinions about how it tastes.
And, of course, there’s the question I knew I’d have to broach – the fact that the results sound rather a lot like Nico (of Velvet Underground fame). (The New York Times’ Ben Ratliff described the effect neatly as “healthily irritating.”) Barrow must have been pleased; the guy’s festival here in New York is “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” so you do the math. But it works, because the similarity is entirely organic. Anika, too, is German-born, here German by way of England with a hint of Welsh inflection, and intentionally over-pronouncing the lyrics she intones. She doesn’t sound like an imitator, but like a successor. (She also sounds a great deal more English and Welsh, for the record.)
When Anika was to do the photo shoot, she tells me, Geoff instructed the photographer to “make her look as rough as possible.” That might be the best way to sum up the musical performance and production here, too, a punk rock, just fell-out-of-bed approach to music. And like Nico, like Anika herself, no matter how rough the styling, the results are somehow oddly irresistible. (Anika, on the cover of the album, seems to channel Warhol.)
Producer Geoff Barrow, who gave us Portishead, BEAK>, and Invada Records, might be a surprising pairing on first blush. But his own sense of the importance of song-writing, of the album as a vessel for expression and not just mass-production, and taste-defying, upstream-swimming aesthetic here is perfect.
And I wouldn’t mention this here if I didn’t find this album relevant to the other techniques of production in a digital age. If it makes people angry, actually, that’d even serve its purpose.
I spoke to Anika in New York, where she was doing a series of DJ gigs. The night before, I saw her at Gallery Bar; she struck me as almost delicate with her collection of all-vinyl, no computer in sight. (She told me that she’s doubly careful because she’s actually clumsy, which I can appreciate as something of a klutz myself.) But for all the practiced carelessness of this record, Anika herself is careful and thoughtful. And I think, whether you’re in the love it or hate it camp as far as the music, what she has to say about musical expression and the industry will be very, very familiar to readers here.
CDM: Tell us a little about your background – before you got into promoting this record, you were really a journalist, right?
Anika: I was a political journalist. I had to give it up officially. It’s the Berlin-based news network – ESNA, it specializes in education and science policy, and I was the UK correspondent. We’re a news network, newspapers and policy makers buy our service. It’s on a very specialist scale.
I studied politics in University. I’m officially more of a political journalist. Music has always been there, but it was more of a hobby. I’ve been doing all sorts over the years. I did a bit of work for BBC Wales News, a lot of news stuff, worked for newspapers.
And this is something to which you intend to return.
It’s definitely something I’m going to back to. I was doing that full-time in Berlin up until October when I said, okay, I have to go back to England to rehearse, because the album’s actually doing alright. I recorded it not necessarily with the hope of releasing it. We did it as an experiment, more of a mini-rebellion for me against what I disliked about the industry at the time.
I can think of a pretty long list myself, but what was it specifically that you disliked?
I worked as a promoter. In Cardiff, I used to book bands for four bands in Cardiff and one in Bristol. I used to deal with entertainment for the venues, do all their graphic design, all their marketing, set up a label for them, release local bands in Cardiff. There were just a lot of things I really disliked about the scene, and about the way it works.
In England, people weren’t going to gigs. In my venues, the bands would always be secondary. One of the venues that I worked for, they got a sound restriction the minute I got there, which meant they couldn’t have live acts before twelve. They weren’t aloud to have any live music before midnight.
For the venues, music was always secondary. It wasn’t their biggest income, really. They knew it would only ever make ten pounds a night. Since people aren’t willing to pay for gigs, the most I could charge for a gig was four pounds – like, six dollars. People wouldn’t pay more, and they’d normally expect it to be free. And the way they run it, they never took the bar into account. I usually just break even. I don’t think I ever made money from gigs, ever. I don’t think anyone does.
I worked directly for the venue, so I was on salary. It was four venues. I had to make sure there was a band on every night in two of the venues. For the commercial nights, I had to come up with the concept, the graphic design, book the DJs. I had to do all the graphic design for the bars, the cocktail menus, the food menus, worked with the food and cocktail people to come up with good stuff. It was a lot of work for one person. I had to rep the gigs at night, as well. I’d come in at ten in the morning and I’d be working until about four or five in the morning. I’d go home, sleep for an hour, and come back to work. I’d normally work six, seven days a week. It was a bit much. I had to rep the gigs, so I had to cycle from one venue to the next to sort out the bands, give them their beer, cycle back, buy some more beer, give it to the bands, and maybe DJ at three in the morning and go home. And they’d always say, oh, well, you’re not structuring your time well enough.
So I quit, because I hated it. I was being absolutely taken advantage of. So now I know I only want music as a hobby and not as a career. And then a week later, I got a call from my friend saying, oh, yeah, my friend’s band are looking for a singer. Do you fancy having a go? I tried a few bands in Cardiff, not because I want to be in a band, but because I had a load of lyrics, and I wanted to see how it worked with music. I recorded stuff that directly rejected all the kind of stuff that most bands thought that they have to fit in. So on purpose, we rejected the whole imaging of it. The way I sang it, at first it was political.
How would you say it’s political?
In two ways. The songs I write are [often] directly political. It was also political in the fact that it was a statement for me. It was directly rejecting everything that pissed me off about the industry at the time. It didn’t fit. It wasn’t pleasant to listen to. For ages, in England, all the bands that were doing well were so pleasant and so nice, and they’d go on [BBC] Radio 1 and they’d have interviews and they’d be, like, oh, yeah, it was so nice, I love the record… It was great, and I think music like that is really important to have, but there was no alternative.
It’s great to have that, if you want to do the washing up or you want to do the Hoovering, fine. But there was no music that was any different.
When indie became music, rock music became mainstream, between 2000 and now,, for England, it is commercial rock, isn’t it? In England in the 90s, at least people did stuff that was more rebellious. It wasn’t so nicey-nicey all the time. What if you’ve got something to say? And people were too scared to make any statement, in case someone didn’t like it. There were scared to take a risk. And that’s the thing about this record. It wasn’t designed to be liked. It was designed to make people think.
It’s like “No one’s there.” Now it seems cliche, but when I first wrote it, it was when the English media was writing all these headlines … personifying the recession as if it was some wolf that was going to eat your children. It was just the politicians’ mistakes, and the fact that we spent beyond our means. It was scaring people so much that they weren’t spending any more, so it actually makes things worse.
It was just interesting reading people’s opinions on matters and how they’d been framed. I remember my housemates at the time making all these throw-away comments about religions that they didn’t really know anything about. It’s the same with the Recession. A lot of people didn’t know much about it and didn’t look into it and understand why. That’s the thing about “No one’s there.” It’s just saying you need to question what you’re told.
And I imagine there’s also the politics of the music itself – you had said that music itself had suffered.
The reason music was suffering was because the people going to gigs weren’t taking risks. Firstly, people stopped buying music, which was pretty shit. Gig goers in England weren’t taking risks. So I’d put on a really good band, but they hadn’t had that much press coverage that week. People follow too much what they’ve been told. So this year, at the moment, the BBC released their top ten bands of the coming year. So all the music media has been writing about these bands and no one else. They’re just so lazy. And now they will be the top years this bands because they’ve been told. It’s like the chicken and the egg – which came first?
All those people on that list have the whole package, they’ve got the photos, they’ve got the MySpace friends. It’s just so predictable.
So, really, it’s not only the press, but the listeners, as well?
It’s the chicken and the egg. What comes first, the apathetic listener, or the [press]?
Just thinking about the production here, too, do you think you can record rebelliously, as well?
You can record it rebelliously by not over-producing it. That’s exactly what we did. To try and get that, we had to go to extremes. We didn’t plan any of the songs before we turned up that day. We’d walk in – we’d go the night before and spend the night on YouTube finding things that we could twist into a completely different form, and then we’d go in the next day and say, look what I found? And then I’d go print out the lyrics, Billy would figure out the bass, and then Jeff do that and Matt would walk in, and then we’d try it out, and then the third take was the one that we used. And that’s why it’s not perfect, and that’s why it’s funny when people say oh, yeah, what is this? It’s not perfect singing or whatever. It’s like, oh yeah, it’s not. It was never meant to be.
Okay, I have to ask – obviously, the comparison is going to get made to the Velvet Underground. Was that a conscious influence?
It was really weird with the singing thing. A lot of people said oh it’s Nico and rubbish — like a rubbish, rip-off version of Nico. But firstly, I’d like to point out I’m actually half German. I learned German before I learned English.
When I was doing it, because I had a lot of political lyrics, and because some of the stuff we were doing was Bob Dylan, if anything, I tried not to sound American. So I over-pronounced everything, because I didn’t want it to sound American. And I happened to be living in Wales at the time, for the last five years. It actually sounds a little bit Welsh, but people don’t know that. And so that’s where it ended up where it was. It was me trying consciously not to sound American and then trying to sound Mockney. Mockney is like the London accent. And I didn’t want to have that, either.
I personally didn’t realize we were going to release it. I did it just for a bit of fun. I didn’t realize it was Geoff Barrow at first.
Wait – really? When did you find out that’s who it was?
[laughs] I thought it was just some guys that wanted to record stuff. And when I turned up, no one had borrowed to tell me that it was Geoff and people. I only found out after a few sessions.
My friend kept telling me, oh, they’re called, like Beep or something. I typed in Beep onto Myspace and I couldn’t find them. I think eventually it’s because Geoff gave me a CD in the studio. I was like, oh yeah, do you have one of those Beep CDs, and he said, oh, you mean Beak? And he gave me the CD. And so I went on their MySpace and I was like, oh, right, so that’s Geoff Barrow then… [laughs]
It was good, because I think we all just wanted to do something different. At first, they were just looking for a singer, I think, to do Beak stuff. But then, I just did stuff slightly differently and it ended up being a solo project.
Geoff just kept saying don’t practice. That was his only input, he said don’t practice. At first, it was just to get that kind of rawness, where we weren’t trying to fit it into anything. If I’d had more time, I probably would have had singing lessons, and it would have lost all of its vulnerability and everything. And it is vulnerable, because people can dislike it. It’s easy to go off and make stuff perfect, and then if people don’t like it…. At this sort of point, it is … [pauses] very vulnerable. It’s vulnerable to attack. Because it’s me, not necessarily feeling particularly one hundred percent when I was doing it, it makes it even more vulnerable. But at the same time, it makes it more genuine and more sincere.
It’s a rebellion against what we were told to be. We were told the right way, how best to produce a perfect record. I could have probably got singing lessons, gone to the gym a bit, got a haircut. And that would’ve been alright. And I could have fit it in.
I didn’t actually want to be a musician. I wanted to be a politician. I did it for kind of almost the right reasons. I wanted to do it for sincere reasons. There’s this hyped-up image of this amazing pop-star lifestyle. And because of these reality shows where the emphasis is only on the person’s voice, and then probably what they look like, and then nothing else matters. Nothing about what they want to say, the individuality. People often want to be famous, or they want to be musicians for completely the wrong reasons. And I think that’s why so many people have reacted strangely to the record. I know a lot of my friends at home who are used to mainstream records say, oh, this isn’t really my thing. And it’s fine. I know a few people have commented on my singing ability. And that was never really the point.
How did it come to be that you wound up going this route, then? You had been writing for some time?
I’d been writing loads in that year. It was in the years when I only had two hours at home a day to sleep, and I could never sleep. I was so shut down after work. So I ended up buying a rubbish guitar and trying to put structure to my words. I’d written for years, but never put much structure to them. Still can’t play particularly well, but it helps structure it. I used to just sit there for two hours in the time when I should have been sleeping. I think my housemates thought I was nuts at the time. But it was my way to unwind. So I wrote loads in that year.
I tried out with a few bands in Cardiff, just some jamming sessions with my friends. And it didn’t work because they had big electric guitars and would just drown out my lyrics.
I think it was because my Geoff said to my friend, oh yeah, we’re looking for a weird singer with a bit of a weird voice. And my friend was like, oh, I’ve got exactly the person.
When you did hear yourself on the album, did you say to yourself, oh yes, that’s really my voice, personally?
I didn’t listen to it. I just did it and didn’t listen. We just recorded and that was it. I just walked out of the room, went in the kitchen and made some tea, and didn’t even want to know what happened to it.
And then sometimes I’d say, oh, well that sounds really bad. I’d say, can I do it again, and we’d do it again, and we never used that one, because it just sounded, too …
I think the record can be quite enjoyable. But people seem to be one extreme or another – they’ll fall in love with it, or absolutely hate it. That to me is rather interesting.
I don’t mind. I quite like asking people why do you dislike it – because some people really do to an extreme. It’s always nice to hear why. It’s always good, because it’s made them think. It’s made them question why they don’t like it. That’s good. That’s an achievement.
I couldn’t listen to it for ages after. I just forgot about it, took up that job in Germany with the intention of staying, moving to Brussels to work in policy development.
That’s why I let [Geoff] do it. It was rejected all the pre-cut roles, how it should be. That’s why it worked so well. Geoff’s a bit of a rebel, as well. He doesn’t like fitting to what he’s told.
That’s why it’s good for me to do these DJ tours and only use vinyl. It’s really difficult for musicians at the moment … if you sell your soul and make knocking music and get endorsed by some big company, it pays for you to do that. But if you don’t, it’s really hard to try and afford to [be a] musician. I was fortunate that I moved to Berlin and managed to live. It’s really difficult how people don’t buy music any more. I know it’s really cliche to say, but it’s true. Especially with vinyl, that’s why it’s really important to endorse vinyl stores. It’s really important to buy.
So, to you playing vinyl isn’t so much about nostalgia or authenticity, it’s the economics around that physical object.
Yeah. That’s why I bought vinyl today. Even though I could probably pick up the phone and say could I have some vinyl, please. I think you need to put something back, because otherwise it’s not fair.
So many [shops] have shut down in the last years. And they do help underground music survive. They have in-stores, and they help promote records. And that’s why I was in Other Music. They helped with my record a lot.
That’s the problem with the whole downloading culture. It’s just a reflection of consumerism, how we want everything now.
What’s in Anika’s Vinyl Shopping Bag?
Anika and I met for the interview at Manhattan’s terrific independent music store, Other Music. (If you do prefer digital downloads, or happen not to be in New York, they also have a digital store – so, in fact, you can have it both ways after all.)
In fact, the very first thing she did was to show off her acquisitions. Here’s what she bought, with some commentary, via her Tumblr blog:
The Soft Moon Parallels 7” (This band played before me at Part time Punks in LA and i really liked them! I hadn’t heard of them before)
The Ross Sea Party is a typically unusual Los Angeles family. Five friends who wanted to transcend the disconnected and nonsensical nature of life in the city and create something consequential, the band built a home with hollow-body guitars, well-tuned drums, and a glockenspiel. Like its namesake, a little known yet heroic wing of Ernest Shackleton's famed 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition, the band can be characterized by their easy navigation across an ever-changing atmosphere.
Raised on everything from the idiosyncratic guitar work of Neil Young and the irreverent pop of The Talking Heads to contemporaries Delta Spirit, Arcade Fire and The Dodos, the Ross Sea Party is constantly inspired. While paying homage to their influences, the band has simultaneously managed to create an unmistakable and unique sound. Characterized by spacious instrumentation and singer Brady Erickson's unique voice atop energetic and pervasive rhythms, the songs remain simple, catchy and melodic at their core. Erickson began The RSP in 2009 with fellow LA scene veterans Michael Baumer on drums and multi-instrumentalist Will VanderWyden, adding Atlanta transplant Mark Tillman on guitar and LA native Jacquelyn Thropay on keyboards and glockenspiel the following year.
To get more info and stay up on all the happenings inside The Ross Sea Party's world, Click Here.
Who are your main influences? From a songwriting perspective, we're inspired by the classic American artists that have taken an often singular and deliberately simple approach to writing. The way that Buddy Holly and Minor Threat both found a way to infuse such a sense of personal character in very straightforward arrangements.
When it comes to instrumentation and aesthetic, though, the band tends to be very inspired by our immediate surroundings. We're all just as much fans of going to see live shows as we are listening to albums, and are very interested in the ways some of our contemporaries are pushing the boundaries of how a band can deliver a song. California bands like Castledoor, The Deadly Syndrome, and The Dodos are making incredible music that feels very right for this time and place. I think there's an important balance to find between respecting your elders and finding your own voice within part of a movement that's pushing the boundaries in interesting ways here and now. Much like visual artists have done successfully within movements like De Stijl or the Harlem Renaissance.
How did you meet? Michael and I were the first to work together. Another musician we know actually brought the few of us together when I was idealistically dreaming up this new band. As it happened, Mike and I had this immediate rapport and edged that person out. We were those 2 friends you introduce who suddenly like each other more than they like you. Will was a musician who I'd been acquainted with for some time, but the idea of working together hadn't ever come up, probably because we knew we were both creative Alpha-types. I think the promise of how good we felt this band could be, though, made the idea of collaborating suddenly seem exciting. Will plays guitar, bass, drums -- the whole lot -- so from that point we had the liberty of just looking for other musicians we had a valid connection with, which is where Mark came into the picture. We pretty much immediately responded to his approach to building music; it's a bit different than what I can often fall into, and the musical equivalent of the painter's irreverent splash of color across a carefully drafted canvas that unlocks the whole piece. Jacquie originally booked the earliest incarnation of the band at an underground arts warehouse party, and quickly became a member of the family. It actually took a while before we found out that same girl was an astounding musician - there was no question, she was in.
What is your biggest achievement as a band to date? Individually, the members of the band all brought a share of hefty achievements to the table - some albums on the shelf and shows that we tell each other about over and over. But being that The Ross Sea Party is a fairly new band, for us the biggest achievement has been finding this group of incredible musicians to work with, both within the band and the music community we've been immersed in. Over the last year, we've played some incredible live shows and I think being welcomed amidst other bands and crowds we have a genuine respect for has felt truly rewarding.
Where did the band name originate? The Ross Sea itself is a body of water in Antarctica that's notorious for being one of the most unpredictable places on the planet. We named the band after a group of explorers that were amongst the first to navigate through that region, which felt like a perfect metaphor for the creative process.
A few of us have spent large amounts of time overseas and have an affinity for going a bit further out than we feel comfortable. Kenya, Syria, Cambodia… I think there's a common thread amongst us that's romanced by the idea of exploration, both literally and creatively. As it turned out, the name was really hard to enunciate into a mic and so, though we didn't want to be a band with the name painted on the bass drum, ultimately we decided that was the price to pay for a name we really liked.
Favorite Bands? Lately, everybody’s into The Walkmen, Delta Spirit, The Dodos, Edward Sharpe, Lykke Li, and Band Of Skulls.
Plans to Tour? We’re getting things lined up now for a few shows at SXSW, and are in the midst of locking down early June dates from Los Angeles to Vancouver and back.
Plans for next release? We’ve been writing like crazy and playing like crazy, and looking for that time to get back in the studio to track some new songs that really feel like the next level for the band. It looks like we’ll be recording in July, with a release shortly thereafter.
Brit rocker juggernauts Arctic Monkeys have posted a new song/video on their YouTube channel.
"Brick by Brick" seems more polished than some other releases by Arctic Monkeys and the video features a vinyl being played while scenes of Los Angeles, the band (most likely) hanging on the beach, studio equipment and other not-so-obvious images.
"Brick by Brick" may be from the band's forthcoming follow-up to 2009's Humbug. Time will tell.
Deep-water trawlers, rejoice: Alola is back!
Founded in 1994 by Omid 16B, Alola helped bring about a revolution in depth in UK dance music, blurring the lines between house and techno with a roster that included the likes of Vince Watson, Trevor Loveys, Pete Moss, YMC, and SOS (SexOnSubstance, a trio of Omid 16B, Desyn Masiello and Demi).
From 1994 until 2003, Alola turned out a catalog brimming with high-quality dance music that cut across styles, finding favor with some of the world's best DJs. Their comments say it all.
Lee Burridge: "The list of DJs carrying Alola vinyl around the world encompassed everyone and anyone who ever professed to having a decent taste in music. Long live Alola!"
Hernan Cattaneo: "Alola was one of the finest house music labels coming from the United Kingdom in the past decade. High quality underground music on every release; Vince Watson's 'Mystical Rhythm' is one of my favourites from many, many great records."
Scott Richmond, Satellite Records NYC: "16B Productions' 'Secrets': one of the best deep house tracks of the '90s. When Omid created this, 'Trail of Dreams,' and 'Voices' in '95 & '96 he put the house-music world on notice.”
The house-music world is on notice again, as Omid relaunches the label amidst a general deep-house revival that takes more than a few cues from Alola's innovations. First up is a pair of mixes showcasing the label's classics, one mixed by Demi and one by Omid himself. This is the first time that any of the Alola catalogue has been made available digitally, and the remastered re-issues are only just beginning.
We reached out to Omid for an extended interview discussing the label's history; read on.
Delivered... sharnita | Scene | Fri 4 Mar 2011 4:33 pm
THE EASTERN ELECTRONIC FESTIVAL PRESENT
MULTI-AWARD WINNING SHAANTI SALUTES NASHA RECORDS// TRANSGLOBAL UNDERGROUND SOUND SYSTEM// PANJABI MC// SWAMI AND JOINED BY MENDI PRESENTS GLOBAL FUNK// BBCAN’S PANJABI HIT SQUAD// THE GOONIES// JR DREAD// K MAFIA
In a night hosted by the multi-award winning Shaanti, they pay homage to four of UK’s outstanding artists and producers who have made a significant contribution in the global eastern electronic music scene.
50 years of Penguin Modern Classics - more then enough reason to celebrate! For this special anniversary the publishing company have released this super ace Mini Modern Classics BoxSet which contains 50 of the best short fiction novels from the last century.
The BoxSet features some of the greatest classic works of fiction from the likes of Beckett, Orwell, Fitzgerald, Kafka, Nabokov, Saki, Updike and Wodehouse. The company state on their website: “Each little book is a quick literary hit, a satisfying shot of storytelling. And though they don’t take long to read, they’ll stay with you long after you turn the final page.”
This BoxSet is said to sell around £135 but we just saw it here for only 107 Euros! If you own most of these classics already you can also buy single editions for £3 each on the Penguin website.
Our favourite Swedish art-popsters Little Dragon are readying a new album for release in April/May, and they have titled it Ritual Union. The quartet based out of Gothenburg have been extremely busy in the last few years filling their time up with a heavy touring schedule, collaborations with Gorillaz and of course recording new music.
Erik Boden of the group revealed that the album would be more of a mix, "of the two albums that we’ve done so far. It could be a little bit rougher, maybe. I think we’ve been seeking to be more direct in a way, so hopefully it’s rougher and more direct. It feels like we’re putting some more of our homemade soul into it."
Since 2009, their more accessible and synth-filled sophomore LP Machine Dreams catapulted the band into a much wider audience, playing to audiences all across the world. Not much else is known about the new LP, but you will be able to hear new music on any of the up coming dates this year.
Whilst you're waiting for some new music, have a look at recently released video from Little Dragon for one of their older tunes, "My Step":
Little Dragon also performed this great tune at our Electronic Beats festival in Cologne last year, watch below:
Little Dragon's Ritual Union will be out on Peacefrog in May
Prepare to have your day/weekend/year made. Starting TODAY, our triumphant new issue, FILTER 43: "The Rise and Terrible, Terrible Fall of THE LONELY ISLAND" is available on stands everywhere! So if you don't have a yearly subscription yet (why wait longer?), head to your local Urban Outfitters, Barnes and Noble, Borders, independent music retailer, Bookstar, or wherever your source of choice is, and pick up the new issue! Be sure to let us know what you think of it over at facebook.com/FILTERmagazine; we have a feeling you're going to love it.
Where else can you see The Dudes trying to hold their own against a phantom Elvis?
Love,
FILTER
PS. Look below for an excerpt from The Lonely Island's article.
COVER
The Rise and Terrible, Terrible Fall ofTHE LONELY ISLAND Haunted By Elvis?
FEATURES
Humanizing the Missing Link: The Films of GREG MOTTOLA
Progeny Among the Poppies: LIAM FINN’s Progression
The Art of Cinematic Portraiture: A Conversation with JULIAN SCHNABEL
A Personal Universe: The Art of SAMMY HARKHAM
F-STOP
Transient Soul: The Ascension of LYKKE LI
TRIBUTE
SUEDE: Re-Introducing the Band
SOUND ESCAPES
SWITZERLAND: At Home in the Heartland
Here’s to the Silver Sea: Tradition and Tattoos Collide During Sailor Jerry’s 100th Birthday Celebration in HAWAII
If any of you had the chance to go and check out the astonishing Tron remake Tron Legacy, you'll also be aware that the music was composed by Daft Punk.
The soundtrack, whilst good but not amazing, will now be completely R3CONFIGUR3D with a bunch of very random artists pulling apart the album. Some of them are bland stadium fillers like Paul Oakenfeld, but then there are producers like the very little known, but fantastic Com Truise.
Filling out the rest of the CD is French shoe gazer M83, Boys Noize, Photek,Avicii plus some rather awful artists like The Crystal Method and The Glitch Mob. As we said, a truly random array of artists.
You can get the LP directly from the Tron soundtrack website, but you can also snap it up with added deluxe options which include tracks previously not on the soundtrack.
You'll have to wait a while longer to get your hands on any new LP material from those robot headed Frenchman, in the meantime you can get your mitts on these super cool Coke bottles designed by them.
Tron Legacy : R3CONFIGUR3D will be out on April 5th through Disney Records
Our new edition of Slices is going to be hitting the streets very soon, and it's a non-stop visual feast for the music fans out there. Our cover star this month is the .MP3, a word synonymous with almost everything we do in music these days.
For this spring edition of Slices we also get up-close and personal with French-born multi-talent Kangding Ray, Austrian rising star Dorian Concept and the legendary duo MMM from Berlin.
We also follow up with features on Foremost Poets, Skinnerbox, Paul St. Hilaire and Von Spar. The Slices crew also takes a closer look at the influential dutch label Rush Hour. The music videos in this issue come from Duran Duran, Gus Gus, Kollektiv Turmstrasse and Kanding Ray.
If you keep a keen eye on our website most video content will be available shortly but for those eager to get their hands on a copy, you can pre-order your issue of Slices 1-11 right here.
Chris Santiago & Tim Bush, aka Santiago & Bushido, have been at it for over five years, producing the kind of heavy-hitting house befitting a pair of Chicago MFs (also the title of one of their first EPs).
The video for their latest collaboration, "Give Something" feat. Collette, has caught a killer buzz in the YouTube world, and now we have the exclusive single—just in time for your Miami adventures! So sit back and check out some choice artillery from Santiago & Bushido.
In light of the recent spate of classic house reissues, The Guardian takes stock of house music's origins with the help of Ron Carroll, Andy Butler, Merwyn Sanders and JD Twitch. The piece also features Marshall Jefferson's views on lamb kebabs in the UK.
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