Webcuts Music

Ahead of the release of their second album, Future This, The Big Pink have recorded a set of five songs as part of the 4AD Sessions series. Bringing to life the anthemic qualities of the new album, the session is a showcase of the unabashed step towards stadium dynamics the band have made on Future This, while also displaying the often-curveball influences that continue to underpin their best work. The session captures what makes The Big Pink such an intriguing band. Effortlessly moving between the outre sounds of the underground and their love for shameless pop hooks, the band display the full scale of their creative ambitions.

The Too Pure Singles Club returns in 2012 with a bang (or is that a rattle) with the sound of Icelandic mantra magicians Dead Skeletons. For the uninitiated, Dead Skeletons came into existence in 2008 when band member Jon Saamunder needed music for an art installation in the Reykjavik Art Museum. Enlisting the help of friends Henrik Bjornsson and Ryan Carlson Van Kriedt the trio penned the songs which would eventually become the Dead Magick album, a 72 minute, 12 song journey through space and time, life and death. “Om Mani Peme Hung” is the sound of Neu! on a meditation retreat engaging in a spiritual hypno-chant. Now repeat after me… Om Mani Peme Hung, Om Mani Peme Hung, Om Mani Peme Hung… (subscribe to the Too Pure Singles Club here).

The Too Pure Singles Club returns in 2012 with a bang (or is that a rattle) with the sound of Icelandic mantra magicians Dead Skeletons. For the uninitiated, Dead Skeletons came into existence in 2008 when band member Jon Saamunder needed music for an art installation in the Reykjavik Art Museum. Enlisting the help of friends Henrik Bjornsson and Ryan Carlson Van Kriedt the trio penned the songs which would eventually become the Dead Magick album, a 72 minute, 12 song journey through space and time, life and death. “Om Mani Peme Hung” is the sound of Neu! on a meditation retreat offering up a spiritual hypno-chant. Now repeat after me… Om Mani Peme Hung, Om Mani Peme Hung, Om Mani Peme Hung… (subscribe to the Too Pure Singles Club here).

  Out of the Fiery Furnace and into the solo arena, Eleanor Friedberger released her debut solo record Last Summer last year to positive reviews (I’m pretty sure we liked it too). Currently enjoying an Australian summer playing a few shows and watching the tennis, Eleanor also found time to put together a video for [...]

Recent Rough Trade signings Howler stake their claim as a band to watch in 2012 (while coming across like a Midwest Strokes) with a brand new track “Back of Your Neck” taken from their forthcoming debut album America Give Up due out January 16. Download the song for free above and catch the band touring [...]

From her isolated upbringing in rural Wisconsin, comined with a passion for opera, philosophy and industrial music, Nika Rosa Danilova aka Zola Jesus has created a name for herself as being a successor to the great Diamanda Galas and Lisa Gerrard with her haunting, otherworldly vocal style. Over the past three years Danilova has reached the point in her career where she is no longer an experimental, teenage noise-maker but an internationally celebrated electro-pop artist. Her third album Conatus is her most accomplished work to date, pushing beyond the dark melodrama of Stridulum II toward something that is emotionally breathtaking.

For those of you who resided in Sydney, Australia in the Summer of 1992/93, Evan Dando‘s presence was a ubiquitous one. On a night off in Sydney, Dando recorded a set of songs in his Bondi hotel room featuring tracks that would later appear on Come On Feel The Lemonheads, along with covers of Love Positions and Smudge songs. Having recently unearthed the cassette, Dando deemed it worthy of release and the album, Hotel Sessions, is due out on January 9, 2012.

As the year slowly winds down we get reminded, we being Webcuts, of the albums we just didn’t get around to reviewing. Either because our plate was too full or because well… yawn, where does the time go? So, look, we’d like to apologise to Scottish indie-pop quartet Zoey Van Goey who released their second album Propeller Versus Wings way back in February for not expressly recommending it’s quirky brilliance and tender moods (walking the same halls as Camera Obscura and early Belle & Sebastian). “You Told The Drunks I Knew Karate” is more of the former, an adorably perfect tale of a night out gone awry now made complete with its own karate-themed video. The track is being released as a single through Chemikal Underground on November 21. A digital single that is. Not something small, plastic, and awesome. Sigh.

Ass-kicking rock n’ roll from Spain’s Layabouts. Not sure why we reviewed this, but hey, why the hell not.

They released one of 2011′s finest albums with the 20th anniversary celebrating The Double Cross and now my own personal rock n’ roll heroes Sloan are to release their first live bootleg LP. Titled Is That All I Get? the album documents the band ‘rough and ready’ style after a year of touring their debut album Smeared and features nascent versions of tracks which would later appear on the Twice Removed. Released in a limited edition of 300 hand-numbered copies and pressed on green marble vinyl, the album will be available for purchase on Monday November 14.