Weird black smoke, floating objects and a man in some very uncomfortable looking clothes fills the new video from Hooray For Earth.

The New York group teamed up with Young Replicant to direct their video which features a man traveling through all sorts of terrain, experiencing some pretty trippy things while the music for "True Loves" blasts in all of its beeping, heavy drummed, and vocal melody driven glory. Caution, this video is sort of a cliff hanger.

"True Loves" is the title track off Hooray For Earth's forthcoming Dovecote album which arrives June 7th.

Actor/comedian and director Michael Rappaport is bringing his A Tribe Called Quest documentary nationwide.

Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest follows the ups, downs and eventual break up of the band. It was orignially supported by the band but since has met some negative reactions from Q-Tip's front. Rappaport told Rolling Stone that the band hasn't seen the final cut and he hopes that they "get past all this."

Read the whole Rolling Stone article Here.

You're just going to have to go see the film and decide how you feel about it yourself.

Film Dates:

07/08 – New York, NY @ Sunshine
07/08 – New York, NY @ Empire
07/08 – New York, NY @ Magic Johnson
07/08 – Los Angeles, CA @ Arclight Hollywoof
07/08 – Los Angeles, CA @ Century City 15
07/08 – Los Angeles, CA @Criterion Santa Monica
07/15 – San Francisco, CA @ Metreon
07/15 – San Francisco, CA @ Kabuki
07/15 – Chicago, IL @ Century Centre
07/15 – Chicago, IL @ River East
07/15 – Chicago, IL @ CineArts Evanston
07/15 – Washington, D.C. @ E- Street
07/15 – Washington, D.C. @ Georgetown
07/15 – Washington, D.C. @ Bethesda Row
07/15 – Washington, D.C. @ Shirlington
07/15 – Washington, D.C. @ Magic Johnson
07/22 – San Diego, CA @ Hillcrest
07/22 – Boston, MA @ Kendall Square
07/22 – Boston, MA @ Boston Commons
07/22 – Boston, MA @ Embassy Waltham
07/22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Ritz 5
07/22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Ritz Center Voorhees
07/22 – Minneapolis, MN @ Uptown
07/22 – Atlanta, GA @ Midtown
07/22 – Atlanta, GA @ Phipps Plaza
07/22 – San Francisco, CA @ Shattuck
07/22 – San Francisco, CA @ Century Mountain View
07/22 – San Francisco, CA @ Marin Sausalito
07/22 – San Francisco, CA @ CineArts Santaana Row San Jose
07/29 – Dallas, TX @ Angelika
07/29 – Dallas, TX @ Angelika Plano
07/29 – Houston, TX @ Edwards Greenway
07/29 – Austin, TX @ Violet Crown
07/29 – Austin, TX @ Arbor
07/29 – Seattle, WA @ Pacific Place
07/29 – Seattle, WA @ Metro
07/29 – Seattle, WA @ Licoln Square Bellevue
07/29 – Portland, OR @ Cinema 21
07/29 – Milwaukee, WI @ Oriental
07/29 – Detroit, MI @ Uptown Birmingham
08/05 – Phoenix, AZ @ Tempe Marketplace
08/05 – Madison, WI @ Sundancen Cinemas
08/05 – Miami, FL @ Regal South Beach
08/05 – St. Louis, MO @ Tivoli
08/05 – Cleveland, OH @ Cedar Lee
08/05 – Cincinatti, OH @ Esquire
08/05 – Honolulu, HI @ Kahala
08/12 – San Antonio, TX @ Bijou
08/12 – San Antonio, TX @ AMC Huebner
08/12 – Columbus, OH @ Gateway
08/12 – Columbus, OH @ AMX Lennox
08/12 – Dayton, OH @ Neon Movies
08/12 – Kansas City, MO @ Palace
08/12 – Kansas City, MO @ AMC Studio Olathe
08/12 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Broadway
08/12 – Indianapolis, IN @ Keystone Art
08/12 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Regent
08/12 – New Orleans, LA @ Canal Place
08/12 – New Orleans, LA @ Elmwod
08/12 – Charlotte, NC @ Manor
08/12 – Raleigh, NC @ Colony Raleigh
08/12 – Chapel Hill, NC @ Chelsea Chapel Hill

'90s rave and pirate radio collide on the video for Toddla T's "Take It Back."

We hear plenty of hype about the Web’s power for artists, but what happens in the real world? That question is doubly interesting now that Topspin, already influential in its early test run, is available to everyone. Atlanta-based artist Tricil joins us for a special guest post to answer just that. It’s a chance to peer in the head of a Topspin power user. (If anyone wants to rebut this with the Bandcamp perspective, go for it.)

I was curious, having followed this solo electronica performer, how his use of Web promotion and commerce tool Topspin was working for him. I was particularly interested in how it compared to another Web tool, Bandcamp, which has a different scope but has also seemed ubiquitous in its use among independent artists. Amidst the galaxy of tools vying for musicians’ attention, these two do appear to be front-runners.

Tricil, aka Johnny Jacobus, answers all this for us. His answers are glowing; he even worried that this might seem a little too Topspin “fanboyish” to post. But no worries here: if people are loving a tool, I want to hear about it. Johnny, take it away. (And readers, have a listen to his music, too – another reason to involve him in this question!)

To compare Topspin to Bandcamp seems a little unfair to me, for the former has a multitude of tools that go beyond streaming and commerce. Both are used by musicians like you and I to “get our stuff out there.” Tim O’Reilly said that “Piracy is not the enemy [of the artist], obscurity is” and I think that’s true. Ed.: Actually, it seems that Seth Godin said that, and Tim O’Reilly didn’t. But Tricil just said it, and someone else might, too. -PK

Be it Topspin, Bandcamp, or even SoundCloud, there are a plethora of ways to get your music out to your fans ears in much more intelligent ways than having a myspace with some tracks or hosting downloads on your own site.

Bandcamp’s charm when they came out in the post myspace-era was an embeddable, music-centric streaming site that had built in social-sharing, almost like SoundCloud with a commerce function. With Bandcamp, you can set up “In Rainbows”-style pricing of pay what you want and even do a free in exchange for an email much like Topspin. The downsides to Bandcamp are a sandboxed site with little to no css customization, so it’s harder to create a more “branded” presence going the all Bandcamp route.

Topspin is different. They seem to be the pioneers of the “email for download” thing, which to me is your first price point. You could host them on SoundCloud, Last.fm or your own site and get 1000s of downloads, but wouldn’t it be nice to tell those 1000 people about your new album with an exclusive offer to download another new track? Anonymous hot-linking downloading is great, but having permission to go Direct to Fan is even better. This is the strength of Topspin’s email platform. Additionally, you can segment your fans so I can holler at my three fans in Peoria, IL about my next show there (TBA). Geo-tagging is done by clicking on a link in a confirmation email, COPPA-compliant. No spam here.

Bandcamp’s real appeal came from the universally embeddable streaming players that work via HTML5 and within Facebook as well. As you can see from a recent Topspin blog post that bizarrely features me, these are coming to the Topspin world as well.

Bandcamp has added email for download functionality as well, but I don’t think its email backend is as robust as Topspin’s. I believe it’s through FanBridge and that’s on a separate site, whereas in Topspin, it’s all self-contained in the same app, along with stats on plays, emails, geodata, and NextBigSound integration. (NBS is amazing, it’s like Google Analytics for musicians). Ed.: Finding the exact answer to this question on the Bandcamp side is difficult, and I think best left to a story that covers Bandcamp specifically. Bandcamp added this functionality in 2008, according to a site blog post, and continues to evolve, too.

Real case scenario: I put up One Day Soon for free download as part of an upcoming Atlanta show promotion on my site. [Ed.: See link above.] I emailed the Atlanta people on my list (about 15%) a link to download the sampler from all three bands and told them where to buy tickets and asked them to share the show info with their friends. I didn’t want to tell the other 85% about a show in Atlanta they can’t go to, so for them I gave them a link to my new song and made up a contest to make the cover art for One Day Soon (right now, the cover art is the flyer for the aforementioned show, and from May 15th on, that’s a little silly). The contest is cool, I think: you post your art on my Facebook wall, and whichever one has the most “Likes” and “TRICIL-ness” wins. One email campaign for one new song, split across the country in two presentable formats.

Speaking of Facebook, Topspin has an upcoming Facebook store that’s going to look a lot like their “spinshops” (which is something they offer for every artist, self-serve or not that works like a splash page for downloaded media, a sort of “while you’re here, maybe buy a T-Shirt?”). Commerce on Facebook, without leaving Facebook. Additionally, you have the option of sharing media for a Facebook Like or a Tweet. You can connect with your fans and grow your networks too, not just via email.

Speaking of T-Shirts, one thing that Topspin does in spades is physical media and merchandise. I know Bandcamp has that BCWax thing, which seems cool. [Ed.: It's a vinyl label, though with only two releases so far, it looks pretty tightly curated!]

Topspin lets you bundle, say, a T-Shirt with an artist’s entire discography in any format from MP3 to 24-bit wav and lifetime VIP access and iPhone ringtones, if you wanted to. This is exactly what I have setup, and it’s my highest selling item, outselling $2-$4 digital downloads. People still like tangibility and the music experience really is being re-bundled. VIP access is cool, you connect with a network like Google, OpenID, FB, Twitter, AOL, and you’re given access to download specific packages. A way to cater to superfans.

Finally, one last thing that Topspin has in the tangible realm is Ticketing. You print (or save the PDF on your iPhone) and bring out your ticket to a show, and you can use the Topspin iPhone scanner (no love for the Droid or BB folk, sorry) to check in your fans. Sell a bundle with a CD, an instant download, and some tickets and you just bypassed both Ticketmaster and a record label.

So, there you have it. Here’s a bit more reading on the latest from Topspin, and a nice live release to grab. I expect this will cause us to hear from Bandcamp (and others), and hopefully even better, real-world users of those services.

I’d like to hear what you think of the alternatives out there, what’s available and what’s missing, and even if you’ve found ways of working across sites. And I hope in the process, we get to discover some new music, too. Let us know. -PK

Topspin blog:
Major Updates to Streaming Player Coming Soon, Embeddable Store Offers

The Unbundling (and Re-Bundling) of Music – interesting business analysis, including some discussion of SONOIO, the artist who recently won recognition from Topspin and whose DIY synthesizer presents a very different vision of the technology of music distribution! (More on SONOIO soon!)

http://tricil.net/ – Tricil’s own Topspin-powered site

Last month, Radiohead released their free newspaper, The Universal Sigh, to celebrate the release of their new album, The King of Limbs. The band also informed fans of a forthcoming "Newspaper Album" which would arrive in May. It seems that newspaper album has already been sent out.



According to the pictures on this website, the pre-orders of the Newspaper Album have been sent out and they include the deluxe newspaper album contains two clear 10" vinyl records in a sleeve, a CD, many large sheets of artwork, 625 tiny pieces of artwork, and a full-color piece of oxo-degradeable plastic to hold the package together.

Click Here to see more images of the newspaper album.

If you don’t already have the King of Limbs album, Click Here.

You can also still "Pre-Order" the Newspaper Album Right Here which officially arrives May 9th.

MUTEK, Montreal's annual festival of experimental and electronic dance music, has announced its full lineup for this year's installment, reminding us once again why it's one of North America's strongest, most adventurous events. The big news is that Plastikman will be bringing his Plastikman Live show to the fest. It was at MUTEK 2004 that Hawtin first performed Plastikman Live as a dynamic audio-visual experience; that one-off served as the launching pad, in many ways, for last year's triumphant Plastikman Live spectacle, which culminated years of research and development. The full lineup displays an exciting range, from deep, dark techno (Deepchord Presents Echospace, Traversable Wormhole, Anstam) to psychedelic electronica (Four Tet, Gold Panda, James Holden, Luke Abbott) to the fringes of bass music (FaltyDL, Jacques Greene, Modeselektor, Siriusmo). Elektro Guzzi, Waireka and Rocketnumbernine push the limits of live electronic performance, while Mika Vainio, Pole, and Deadbeat + Lillevan can be counted on to stretch their trademark sounds in new directions. Add in a diverse set of artists like Arp, Badawi, Billy Dalessandro, Cobblestone Jazz' Danuel Tate, Floating Points, Akufen (in his Horror Inc. guise), Murcof, Radiq, Sutekh, and Terry Lee Brown Jr.—programmed across a range of stellar venues, including the outdoor Piknic Electronik, held outdoors along the St. Laurent river—and you've got the makings of five mindblowing days. (Click here for the full lineup.) The festival takes place June 1 through 5; see the official festival website for ticketing options.

Read more on Beatportal

Synthtopia readers vote the beastly Schmidt Analog Synthesizer as the best new synth introduced at this year's Musikmesse show.

When Sampo Axelson isn’t busy holding the reins of the amazing Flow Festival, he hides behind the DJ Anonymous moniker. He’ll typically mix up music which may not be all too familiar to the casual listener. In this case he sort of borders the line between MTV era new wave anthems and the obscure. This makes for an engaging listen attention grabbing panorama style synths, clouding the moody electro soundscape. Into the darkness, with joy!

The Planet Doesn’t Mind Mix from DJ Anonymous at Letsmix.com.

As a teaser to his debut album, Watch Me Dance, out later this year on Ninja Tune, rising star Toddla T drops the new single "Take It Back." Set high up in a council flat, the video evokes the sweeter side of rave culture—a fitting treatment for a song that's a nostalgic ode to breakbeats, pianos and Soul II Soul.

Watch this video on Beatportal

Have you been disturbed today?

The future is dark and hazy, and found footage videos are the perfect visual accessories. Both, Clams Casino and Salem have just dropped new videos for their recent releases. Clams Casino are rebranding 90s trip-hop with woozy, slo-mo beats to something we can probably call post-chillwave. Not long ago Clams Casino, who was responsible for Lil B and Soulja Boy's finest, eeriest beats, dropped a great instrumental mixtape which you should check here.

Now signed to TriAngle Records, Clams Casino's track Gorilla is less about the chop and screw and all about the goth/crunk beat. Which is handy, as there he can meet up with Salem: their new single called Sick, whi(t)ch is one of our top tracks from their debut LP King Night now has a self-directed found-footage music-video as well. The band uses distorted footage of hip hop videos and urban gang violence mixed with footage from their live shows. And his fits perfectly with their dark-hop sounds.

Make sure to keep both Salem and Clams Casino on your radar.

It's no secret that Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All have been heavily courted by the music industry as major players. Today we learned that the group have partnered with RED Distribution/Sony to form their own label, Odd Future Records. In the words of a press release sent out earlier today, Tyler, Hodgy, Leftbrain, Domo, Mike, Syd and crew will partner with Sony's RED Distribution arm to release music-based content consistent with their vision.

According to their manager, Chris Clancy, the group "will have 100% creative control of all aspects of their music, art, and release schedule with no 3rd party participation in outside business" Ringleader Tyler, the Creator is first up to release an album, with his second solo LP Goblin hitting shelves on May 10. The offering is part of a one-album deal with XL Recordings.

Plus: check out the video below and get an idea, how a meeting with the Odd Future Gang might look like:

We haven't been able to stop listening to Forever Dolphin Love, the debut album from New Zealand's experimental pop savant Connan Mockasin. Released a couple weeks ago on Erol Alkan's Phantasy label, it's a hazy shimmer of psychedelic pop that may remind you, in places, of acts as different as The xx, Toro Y Moi, Bibio, The Bees, and Gruff Rhys. The video above takes a while to get going, but it's worth it, once it does. And for DJs looking for something a little more floor-oriented, the Erol Alkan remix will do just the trick.

Watch this video on Beatportal

Jerome Sydenham and his slightly dodgy camera work captured Argy and Steve Jr. twinkling the ivories together at Ibadan HQ.

It's time for the Junior Boys to go bananas as they release the first single from their upcoming album It's All True.

Apparently inspired by a veritable smorgasbord of influences (namely Orson Welles, Howard Hughes, China, Shanghai, Japan, banana ripple ice cream, Carl Craig and analogue synths) 'Banana Ripple' is a slice of pitch perfect pop in the classic Junior Boys style.

Take a listen to the track below, and follow this link to grab a free download of 'EP' from the album.

Junior Boys - Banana Ripple by DominoRecordCo

In related news the boys will be embarking on a massive tour this year - check the dates below.

Jun 09 Toronto ON – Phoenix Concert Theatre

Jun 10 Ottawa ON – Mavericks

Jun 11 Montreal QC – La Salla Rossa

Jun 12 Cambridge MA – Middle East

Jun 14 New York NY – Webster Hall

Jun 16 Washington DC – Black Cat

Jun 17 Philadelphia PA – Johnny Brenda’s

Jun 18 Charlottesville VA – Jefferson Theater

Jun 20 Atlanta GA – The Earl

Jun 21 Nashville TN – Mercy Lounge

Jun 22 Louisville KY – Headliners

Jun 24 Chicago IL – Metro

Jun 25 Pontiac MI – The Pike Room at the Crofoot

Jun 30 UK London - XOYO

Jul 02 France Paris - Cabaret Sauvage

Jul 09 Holland Amsterdam - Pitch

Jul 14 Sweden Hultsfred - Hultsfred Festival

Jul 15 Germany Hamburg - Uebel & Gefährlich

Jul 16 Germany Gräfenhainichen - MELT Festival

Jul 17 Belgium - Dour Dour Festival

Aug 04 Austria Vienna - Fluc

Aug 05 Poland Katowice - OFF Festival

There's just over a month to go until Movement, Detroit's legendary electronic music festival, and Paxahau has announced an extensive list of 105 acts programmed for the three-day fest, to be held in Hart Plaza on May 28 – 30. “The Movement Electronic Music Festival is a global destination that recognizes the history of techno music in Detroit and its impact around the world,” said Festival Executive Director Jason Huvaere. “When booking artists to perform at the festival we take into account the various genres of electronic dance music and do our best to incorporate as many of them as possible into the three days. This year’s lineup represents every corner of the electronic music scene.” He's not kidding: this year's lineup ranges from Carl Craig (as 69) to Dam-Funk, DJ Godfather to DJ Harvey, Dubfire to Fatboy Slim, Margaret Dygas to Metro Area, Ramadanman to… Skrillex. The more you look at the lineup (Sven Vath! Soul Clap! Space Dimension Controller!) the more you're tempted to pinch yourself. (Hell, they've even got the Dirtbombs playing live—presumably, the Detroit techno covers from their recent album Party Store.) Weekend passes for the fest are $60, with VIP passes priced at $150; check out the festival website for more info, and keep reading for a full list of artists.

Watch this video on Beatportal