The Hylozoists- L’Île de Sept Villes

January 20th, 2009 View Comments

featured release big The Hylozoists LÎle de Sept Villes

Artist: The Hylozoists
Title: L’Île de Sept Villes
Label: Outside Music
Release Date: 2.3.09
UPC: 623339904322
Territories: World

By: Michael Madavi

The Hylozoists were conceived by producer/multi-instrumentalist Paul Aucoin in 2001 when he wrote and recorded the debut album La Nouvelle Gauche at his studio in Nova Scotia. A Halifax-heavy line-up of backing musicians was then assembled to perform the songs at a variety of festivals and other dates. However, the project was soon relegated to the backburner as Aucoin turned his focus to responsibilities both in the studio and on stage with The Sadies.

Relocating to Toronto in 2004, Aucoin drafted a new compliment of Hylozoists from bands such as The Weakerthans, FemBots and Cuff the Duke. Having already commenced production on a sophomore effort, he ultimately abandoned the work-in-progress. For Aucoin, it was essential that he start fresh and capture the collective sound of his new legion of collaborators. At that point, The Hylozoists shed the shackles of “solo project” and blossomed into a full-blown supergroup.

Back a new, fuller sound, The Hylozoists’ third album, L’Île des Sept Villes‘ music surrounds and transports you to a lush and complex forest. Each instrument carefully adds to the overall tone of a song, thus describing a single “sound” for the Hylozoists would be almost impossible. Every song expresses emotions so complex and personal that even on a first listen, one realizes this isn’t your stereotypical instrumental band. Yes, it has some of the epic builds and swells of Explosions in the Sky, but imagine that matched with a playful Sigur Ros, and a great jam band with an enchanting strings section and a lighthearted vibraphone. This truly is a band you have to hear to understand; it’s almost meaningless to describe all the different textures that compose their fantastic and original songs. It sounds wonderfully instrumental without forgetting that it’s also a band. Anyone can find something unique and intimate in this awesome record and what surely must be an unforgettable live show.

You can preview much of the new album via their myspace.

Here’s a preview of what they’re like live:

Digital Digging: Charlie Parker

January 16th, 2009 View Comments

digital digging big Digital Digging: Charlie Parker

By: Corey Deines

Artist: Charlie Parker
Title: Bird in Time 1940-1947
Label: ESP Disk
Release Date: 1.25.08
UPC: 825481040501
Territories: World

I Found a New Baby: [audio:http://www.iodamarketing.com/mp3s/01_04_I_Found_a_New_Baby.mp3]

Introduction / Ko Ko: [audio:http://www.iodamarketing.com/mp3s/04_10_Introduction__Ko_Ko.mp3]

“Bird in Time 1940-1947″ is more than a remarkably extensive collection of rare and extraordinary Charlie Parker recordings; it is a chronological record produced by Bebop Jazz Historian Michael D. Anderson that outlines Bird’s playing and even some of his personal life during the period when he was a leader and pioneer of bebop music. This collection features many tracks with Bird playing with several fellow jazz legends including Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstein, Coleman Hawkins, Cootie Williams, and more. Also included in this unprecedented collection are several interviews with Roy Porter, Max Roach, Teddy Edwards, and even Parker himself illustrating parts of his life and his music.

While many of the musical recordings can be found in other collections, these rare interviews cannot. Because these 105 tracks are in chronological order, it’s intriguing to listen to how the sound quality, as well as Parker’s playing, changes over time. Addicted to heroin and other amphetamines since his late teens, the quality of Parker’s playing slowly began to decline towards the later years in his life- as evidenced by some of the included 1946 recordings. Although there are no recordings of Bird playing his famous (or infamous) Grafton plastic alto saxophone in this collection, there are a few seldom-heard recordings of Parker performing on a tenor saxophone. By virtue of Charlie Parker’s undeniable musical genius, zeal for innovation, and just plain sexy sax playing, this collection of his recordings would be great regardless. The chronological order of the tracks and exclusive interviews, however, are what make this collection truly fascinating because it allows the listener to observe how Bird’s music was influenced by his friends/fellow jazz musicians and personal experiences over a period of time.

Bird in Time 1940 - 1947 Charlie Parker, The Jay McShann Band
“I Found a New Baby” (mp3)
from “Bird in Time 1940 – 1947″
(ESP Disk)

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Digital Digging: Charlie Parker

Mike Relm- Everytime Video

January 16th, 2009 View Comments

priority update big Mike Relm Everytime Video

Check out the video for “Everytime” directed by Mike Relm for the lead single off of his latest release, Spectacle. View it below or at IODA’s YouTube Channel.

It is one long take that tells a very twisted and entertaining story. He talks about the shoot on his website here.

Mike Relm
“Everytime (feat. Del the Funky Homosapien & Adrian Hartley)” (mp3)
from “Spectacle”
(Radio Fried Records)

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Mike Relm Everytime Video

Digital Digging: Deltron 3030

January 14th, 2009 View Comments

digital digging big Digital Digging: Deltron 3030

By: Erik Nava

233086 72 Digital Digging: Deltron 3030

I used to venture into the dollar record bins on a weekly basis, pushing through stacks of the “never hit wonders” searching for who I was and what I thought from each relatable sound. Each record was important. It’s impossible to think that the next generation of digger nearly lost their chance to experience one of the most important hip hop albums of the millennium.

Deltron 3030, the sci-fi conception brought to you by Dan The Automator and Del the Funky Homosapien, sat in wait for 8 long years before it was finally available for sale in MP3 form. Now that it’s here, the sounds of satisfaction can be heard from the underground to the arcade. You can replace that old CD that has tons of scratches, and always skips on the first track with a fresh version from your favorite online music store.

Digital digging is as simple as typing words into a search bar, and the only dusty fingers will be caused by the filth on your keyboard. It sure is nice to know that kids in future generations will have music otherwise lost in the shuffle of tech development or, for physical products, natural deterioration. Can you really imagine the future? What will it be like in 3030? More importantly could you imagine a future world without a digital copy of Deltron 3030? We didn’t think so.

What other music can we dig up?

[audio:http://www.iodamarketing.com/mp3s/01_10_Mastermind.mp3]

Del The Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator
“Mastermind” (mp3)
from “Deltron 3030″
(Deltron Projects)

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Digital Digging: Deltron 3030

The Sound Culture Episode 41

January 12th, 2009 View Comments

A brand new episode of The Sound Culture is up at TheSoundCulture.com featuring The Tones, Mike Relm, Shanghai Restoration Project and more.

1.
The Tones
“The Movemeant” (mp3)
from “Dreamtalk”
(PLUG Label)

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The Sound Culture Episode 41

2.
Mike Relm
“Everytime (feat. Del the Funky Homosapien & Adrian Hartley)” (mp3)
from “Spectacle”
(Radio Fried Records)

icon landing page The Sound Culture Episode 41 More On This Album

3.
Zodiac The Shanghai Restoration Project
“vOX (feat. The Virginia Sil’hooettes)” (mp3)
from “Zodiac”
(Undercover Culture Music)

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4.
Y La Bamba
“Alida St.” (mp3)
from “Alida St”
(GypsyPop Records)

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The Sound Culture Episode 41
5.
Below Zero - Minus 1 Karmacoda
“Make Like Mine” (mp3)
from “Below Zero – Minus 1″

(Below Zero LLC)
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The Sound Culture Episode 41
6.
I'm Your Computer Justin Johnson
“I’m Your Computer” (mp3)
from “I’m Your Computer”

(Southern Vice Recordings)
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The Sound Culture Episode 41
7.
Sinewaiver
“Socket” (mp3)
from “Sinewaiver”

(My Sonic Temple)
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The Sound Culture Episode 41
8.
J Courage
“Too Deep” (mp3)
from “Too Deep (Juju Remix)”
(Trenchant Dubs)

icon landing page The Sound Culture Episode 41 More On This Album

The Sound Culture Episode 41
9.
Orlando Julius
“James Brown Ride On” (mp3)
from “Super Afro Soul”

(Blue Scholars / Light in the Attic)
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The Sound Culture Episode 41
10.
Ky-Mani Marley
“Yesterday” (mp3)
from “Many More Roads”

(Fractal Entertainment)
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The Sound Culture Episode 41
11.
El Tigrillo Palma
“Alegre Me Ando Paseando” (mp3)
from “Mis Rolas Mas Chidas Vol 1″

(Aries Music Entertainment Inc)
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The Sound Culture Episode 41

Listen to James Brown’s Socket Computer here.

Review: Doug Randle- Songs for the New Industrial State

January 12th, 2009 View Comments

featured release big Review: Doug Randle Songs for the New Industrial State
By:Michael Madavi

Artist: Doug Randle
Title: Songs for the New Industrial State
Label: Light in the Attic
Release Date: 1.13.09
UPC: 844185095198
Territories: World ex-France, Australia

[audio:http://www.iodamarketing.com/mp3s/01_02_Coloured_Plastics.mp3]

Once in a blue moon we are lucky enough to stumble upon a forgotten treasure: an old sports car sitting for decades in some barn, a guitar your dad only played once in the 60’s, or a great album that everyone somehow managed to miss the first time around. Doug Randle’s Songs for the New Industrial State is just such a treasure. Originally released for purchase in 1971, long time composer and multi-instrumentalist Randle created a fantastic and challenging sunshine pop album for a new era he saw dawning in the world around him. Randle’s album is a revolt from the monotony of the work week; he refuses to be just another suit getting up every day to do the same thing as yesterday. The album was picked up by Seattle-based Light in the Attic records (Rodriguez, The Black Angels), who have quite a knack for finding overlooked masterpieces from the past and reissuing them.

Randle’s music fits in perfectly with the most heralded recordings from the late 60’s and early 70’s, working in the same musical vein as the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds with its intricate production, harmonies, and pop sensibilities, but with an arguably more matured and veteran musicianship that highlights Randle’s compositional background and a touch of 70’s soul. While much of his contemporaries’ music dealt with more microcosmic issues, Randle attempts to react to the newly established megacorporations and emerging technologies of the 70’s, inspired by the insightful commentary of John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1967 book, The New Industrial State. Randle begins his album with “Isn’t it a Pity” by noting the situation and context in which he operates, observing pretty girls and pretty boys are too shy to interact, but warning of the change on the horizon. One of the album’s most ironic and memorable moments is arguably “Coloured Plastics.” Randle sings, “Coloured plastics, stronger than steel, why do they always break when I need them? Colored plastics, brighter than a thousand suns, why do their colors always fade away?” The psychedelic pop tune draws from Simon and Garfunkel’s “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme,” claiming that the message of the 1966 song has been downplayed and almost forgotten since the herbs are now unimportant when compared to the colored plastic containers they sit in. It is lyrics just like this that qualify Randle’s music: he has mastered the stylings and compositional forms of past songs, then applied them to supply a soundtrack to the abandonment of those very values due to the changing industrial world around him. Some may take the album to be dark, but its music is like no other: a combination of Randle’s ironic and striking lyricism with his unarguable ability to compose. Randle seems unaffected by fashionable trends in the changing music industry but aware of the best parts of what came before him, creating a collection of songs assembled from musical elements from numerous genres and instruments. Anyone seeking a fantastic psychedelic recording, an album from stereo’s golden years, a taste of sunshine pop, or a unique soundtrack for the protest of a changing world will find Songs for the New Industrial Age invaluable. Just as the track, “Warm in the Sunshine” states, “The Earth will turn, turn, turn full circle,” and with the remaster of Doug Randle’s fantastic album, the world has graciously turned enough for us to experience this masterpiece once again. This time we should be careful not to make the same mistake by overlooking such an original and unique gem again.

PromoTrack after the jump…

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Review: Faunts- Feel.Love.Thinking.Of.

January 7th, 2009 View Comments

featured release big Review: Faunts Feel.Love.Thinking.Of.
By: Michael Madavi

Artist: Faunts
Title: Feel.Love.Thinking.Of.
Label: Friendly Fire Recordings
Release Date: 2.17.09
UPC: 844185024792
Territories: World

[audio:http://www.iodamarketing.com/mp3s/01_01_FeelLoveThinkingOf.mp3]

“With its effervescent guitars, mathematic loops and synthesizers, surging drums, and seemingly nomadic bass lines, Feel.Love.Thinking.Of., the second full-length from Canadian up-and-comers Faunts, is both more ambitious in its conception and more focused in its execution than anything the band has done before.”

In their first album, the five members of Faunts managed to achieve a potent and tangible landscape with their music, capturing some of their native Edmonton, Alberta’s cold and expansive scenery without feeling hopeless and down. In fact, the band’s tracks seem to add a filling warmth to their musical fields, as if they take you to a beautiful and vast locale but give you a comforting winter coat and personally lead you through. They use a unique formula to create their shoegaze, blending an at-times psychedelic guitar with the swells and echoes of new-wave synth, even occasionally hinting towards late-70’s rock. This isn’t your typical lush and ambient shoegaze band; Faunts have something new going. You could compare them to certain parts of other bands: the swelling walls of sound created by label-mates Asobi Seksu, the enchanted optimism of certain Smiths songs, Brian Eno’s gentle breezes from his groundbreaking Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Erik Satie’s calming touches of piano, an Uber-distorted guitar from My Bloody Valentine; yet they have combined these elements to create an uncommon and individual sound.

The band is clearly capable of creating a variety of omnipresent, encompassing musical landscapes that surround their listener with unique and powerful moments. Whether they create down-tempo, calming waves to gently float you forward or intense thrusts of distorted, passionate mixtures of guitar and synthesizer to engulf you in a powerful energy that feels like it came from some genuine, untapped source, Faunts clearly demonstrates an ability to create soundtracks for the most emotional and memorable experiences in life. This quality to compliment powerful narratives was properly utilized to anchor the 2007 Bioware RPG title, Mass Effect as the game’s final musical piece for an unarguably epic ending. Faunts write in their Friendly Fire Records bio that they hope to, “create perfect music for the twilight hour between wake and sleep.” Take a hint from the boys and throw them on your headphones as you lie down to sleep; if your dreams end up like their albums, you’re in for quite a moving slumber.

Their latest album, Feel. Love. Thinking. Of., takes their dreamy, individual sound to the next level by further emphasizing the elements which make Faunts unique. The album was written while the band toured across America, drawing from the eclectic experiences found on the road and unique landscapes and metropolises found in their neighboring country. Brothers Steve and Tim Batke’s vocal tracks are now more present and important to the songs. Rather than using his smooth, round voice to add another layer of sound to their music as he did in past records, Steve Batke explores more territory as the band’s vocalist, seemingly assuming a front man role. The synths have also evolved: no longer employed primarily to wrap the songs in that warm ambient blanket, they now take a stronger new-wave inspiration, becoming in certain tracks the lead instrument in their melodies while the guitar is used more to coat their musical canvas with a background, then switching places for the next song. This, in combination with more aggressive, upbeat drumming and drum machines makes many songs peppy, even danceable which is hard to say for any other shoegaze, post-rock band. They feel more like an incarnation of New Order with sweet and charming vocals than their previous sound. Perhaps they learned from the release of their Remix album that when one takes the best elements from their previous work and adds a spark from more upbeat, dance oriented music, a fun result occurs. Fans of their beautiful night-drive soundtrack songs will still be pleased with “So Far Away” while those seeking to relive 80’s synth-pop abandon will love the album’s title track. Faunts has always created music that is clearly emotional and moving; they have simply worked with new emotions for their latest LP, which can only be described as healthy and successful. The listening experience is still overall pleasurable and inspiring, but through a different vein. While their previous albums may be best suited for putting on your headphones and having a moment to yourself, Feel. Love. Thinking. Of. is something you can have a great time to with others. Faunts retains their individuality while moving to a new sound with the same pleasing result.

Download a Faunts PromoTrack after the jump…

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IODA Marketing Team’s Picks for Best Albums of 2008

December 18th, 2008 View Comments

What a year 2008 has been! As all of the Best Of lists have been flying around the music world, each member of the IODA U.S. marketing team took a stab at narrowing down their favorite albums of the year to only five! We cheated a little and let reissues released in 2008 count!

Burial was the king of IODA’s best of lists last year, but in 2008, not one release made it on to more than one marketing team member’s list (although there was overlap when you include the client relations team).

From the rave throwback release by Zomby, the lost gem of a reissue from Rodriguez, the avant classical of Max Richter to the karmically balanced hip-hop of MC Yogi, IODA was all over the place with their top picks. It just goes to show the wide variety of top notch independent releases that hit the digital shelves in 2008.

Adam Rabinovitz

•Rodriguez- “Cold Fact” [Light in the Attic]

•Steinski- “What Does it All Mean?” [Illegal Art]

•Max Richter- “24 Postcards in Full Coulour” [Fat Cat Records]

•School of Seven Bells- “Alpinisms” [Ghostly International]

•Y La Bamba- “Alida St.” [GypsyPop]

Greg Beshers

•Hymns- “Travel in Herds”
[Blackland Records/ High Wire Music]

•Delta Spirit- “Ode to Sunshine” [Rounder]

•location location- “Snow Covered
Morning EP” [Dogjaw Music]

•Curumin- “JapanPopShow” [Quannum]

•Larry Norman- “Only Visiting This Planet” [Solid Rock]

Oz Okter

•James Blackshaw- “Litany of Echoes” [Tompkins Square]

•Akimbo- “Jersey Shores”[Neurot]

•Disfear- “Live the Storm” [Relapse]

•Grails- “Take Refuge in Clean Living” [Important Records]

•Saviours- “Into Abaddon” [Kemado]

Craig O’Neill

•Evil Nine- “They Live!” [Marine Parade]

•Gecko Turner- “Manipulado” [Lovemonk]

•Spam Allstars- “Introducing Spam Allstars”[Introducing]

•Benja, Bo Marley, Disrupt- “Bo Marley vs.Disrupt” [Jahtari]

•V/A- “Objektivity Volume 1” [Objektivity]

Matt Wright

•Zomby- “Where Were You in ‘92?”[Werk Discs]

•Mrs Jynx- “Standoffish Cat” [Planet Mu]

•The Chap- “Mega Breakfast”[Ghostly International]

•Dykeritz- “Rearrangerologystics” [Lucky Madison]

•Starfucker- “Starfucker” [Badman Recording Co.]

Jillian Putnam-Smith

•Son Lux- “At War With Walls and Mazes” [anticon]

•The Black Angels- “Directions to See a Ghost” [Light in the Attic]

•Hauschka- “Ferndorf” [Fat Cat Records]

•J. Tillman- “Vacilando Territory Blues”[Western Vinyl]

•Three Trapped Tigers- “Three Trapped Tigers EP” [Blood and Biscuits]

Alyssa Fredericks

•Herman Dune- “Next Year In Zion”
[Everloving]

•MC Yogi- “Elephant Power” [White Swan]

•V/A- “People Take Warning!: Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs 1913-1938” [Tompkins Square]

•dan le sac Vs. Scroobius Pip- “Angles” [Strange Famous]

•The Carter Family- “The Carter Family” [Sphere Records- Nashville]

Erik Nava

•Siah & Yeshua dapoED- “The Visualz
Anthology” [Head Bop Music]

•Michna- “Magic Monday”
[Ghostly International]

•Restiform Bodies- “TV Loves You Back” [anticon]

•Tobacco- “Fucked Up Friends” [anticon]

•KMD- “Bl_ck B_st_rds” [Metal Face Records]

Justin Johnson (Client Relations Representative/ Podcast Producer)

•Zomby- “Where Were You in ‘92″ [Werk Discs]

•Rodriguez- “Cold Fact” [Light in the Attic]

•Prince Jammy vs. King Tubby- “His Majesty’s Dub’ [Original]

•School of Seven Bells- “Alpinisms’ [Ghostly International]

•DJ Nomad NYC- “Lights Out (Remixes)” [Cable Recordings]

Lizy Reierson (Client Relations Representative)

•King Khan and the Shrines- “The Supreme Genius of King Khan and The Shrines” [Outside Music/Vice]

•Rodriguez- “Cold Fact” [Light in the Attic]

•Grails- “Take Refuge in Clean Living” [Important]

•Terakraft- “Akh Issudar” [World Village]

•Various Artists- “The History of Northwest Rock, Vol 2 – The Garage Years” [Jerden]

Theresa Andersson- “Hummingbird, Go!”

December 17th, 2008 View Comments

priority update big Theresa Andersson Hummingbird, Go!

We wish we could have this much fun in our kitchen.

Raised in Sweden but based in New Orleans for over a decade, Theresa Andersson mines her sonic roots of both homes on her gorgeous album Hummingbird, Go! (Basin Street Records), an intriguing blend of breezy, 60s-era pop combined with soul, gospel and Motown that features guest appearances by fellow Scandanavian Ane Brun and legendary New Orleans producer and composer Allen Toussaint.

Theresa’s “Birds Fly Away” has been an NPR song of the day and was KCRW’s top tune in August.

Watch out for Theresa in early 2009: She will appear on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” on February 4, performing “Birds Fly Away.” “Birds Fly Away” is a featured track on the upcoming Starbucks compilation Have You Heard, which will be available in all Starbucks locations starting in January. If that wasn’t enough, Theresa was just in the studio with David Byrne, recording some material for his upcoming CD (due late 2009).

Theresa Andersson
“Birds Fly Away” (mp3)
from “Hummingbird, Go!”
(Basin Street)

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Theresa Andersson Hummingbird, Go!

Featured Label- Western Vinyl

December 16th, 2008 View Comments

As 2008 draws to a close, many of us are compiling our best of lists. One label that seems to be popping up frequently is Western Vinyl. Based out of Austin, TX the label has an ear for stunning, stark, experimental beauty. Western Vinyl has launched some truly amazing bands over the years, including Dirty Projectors. 2008 may have been the strongest yet for the label, as they travelled from the elegant post-chamber rock of Balmorhea, the psychedelic bliss of Tetuzi Akiyama, the hauting soulful musical interplays of Callers, and closed off the year with J. Tillman’s much revered effort, Vacilando Territory Blues.

We hope to see the label expand its already diverse catalog in 2009, and if the first release is any indication, the months ahead will only see the label win over more fans. Here We Go Magic, S/T, is the newest recording from Brooklyn’s Luke Temple. Sounding like Paul Simon playing with his favorite analog gear, in a long lost attic, Here We Go Magic presents plenty of warm weirdness coupled with one of the most acclaimed voices in indie today.

Balmorhea
“San Solomon” (mp3)
from “Rivers Arms”
(Western Vinyl)