Archive
Sufjan’s Sofia’s Song / Strong Bad Game
Unrelated…
Sufjan Stevens has posted a new essay and song, “Sofia’s Song,” to the sidebar blog on Asthmatic Kitty. Read it HERE. The song can be downloaded from HERE.
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And Telltale Games has just announced pre-order for the DVD of their previously download-only game Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People. You can read more about the pre-order combo pack specials HERE.
~Dan – np: Pissuk Rachav – Eretz Hakodesh
Ellery, Peter Mulvey, My Brightest Diamond
A trio of new music news…
Cincinnati lush-pop/folk duo Ellery is hitting the studio soon with Malcolm Burn (http://www.malcolmburn.com). Malcolm is a Grammy-winning producer who has worked with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, Kaki King, Rachel Yamagata, Sarah McLachlan, Gillian Welch, Ryan Adams, and more. This will be their follow-up to the fantastic debut, Lying Awake from 2007. They’ve got a special “help them make a record” thing going on at ellerystimulus.com. I’ve plunked down my cash… wish I got to see them as often as when I lived in Cincinnati, but regardless I’m glad they’re hitting the studio again.
For more info on Ellery…
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Milwaukee/Boston singer-songwriter Peter Mulvey is putting the finishing touches on his next album, Letters from a Flying Machine. Of the glut of singer-songwriters, Peter has a place in my heart (and ears). He’s entertaining, intriguing, great storyteller, and a great sense of humor. If you’ve never heard of him… do yourself a favor, and hear of him… http://myspace.com/petermulvey
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The third installment of My Brightest Diamond‘s A Thousand Shark Remixes is hitting iTunes on Tuesday, March 31st. It’s remixed by Roberto C. Lange. Remix EP #1 (by Alfred Brown) and #2 (by Son Lux) were pretty tasty. EP #4 (by DM Stith) should be out in a few months, and all four will be made available on a physical CD with likely some tasty packaging. Maybe vinyl, too… but that’s just me throwing a marble in the rumor mill.
~Dan – np: Brown Wing Overdrive – ESP Organism
My Brightest Diamond @ Le Poisson Rouge (Dec 2008)
I’m reusing this press photo of My Brightest Diamond, because I think it’s rad…
Baeble Music recently recorded My Brightest Diamond‘s entire concert at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC last year (12.13.08). I’ve only watched the first few songs so far, but it is fantastic. The setlist is very similar to the Eugene show that I went to in late November 2008, with a few songs swapped around in the order.
** Watch the full concert at baeblemusic.com **
** Watch the full concert at baeblemusic.com **
** Check out the blog & photos from the show as well **
I can’t get the embedding to work (WordPress.com blogs are like that sometimes on non-YouTube/Google videos); so just click the link or picture above. Baeble Music has tons of other live shows that they filmed on their site as well. Check ’em out: http://www.baeblemusic.com/
And as an unrelated side-note…
…the February 1 [2009] interview with John Zorn on WNYC‘s Ear to Ear with David Garland is excellent. It’s 76 minutes of new John Zorn music and insight into the overworked, overjoyed musical genius. It is available in its entirety for download over at WYNC’s website:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/eveningmusic/episodes/2009/02/01
It features some recent music [fall/winter ’08] and some as of now unreleased music. Score!
~Dan – np: The Beatles – Let It Be
SC3 @ the Great American Music Hall
Well, I was proven wrong for my naysaying only a week later, the Secret Chiefs 3 have followed up on their promise, and the live DVD is officially set and ready to go. This was posted to the Web of Mimicry store on Friday:
Live at the Great American Music Hall captures Secret Chiefs 3 in concert with what many consider to be the best of their many line-ups in 14 years of playing.
Shot in 2007 at one of the band’s favorite haunts, in San Francisco, this DVD does justice to a group whose live energy usually exceeds the recorded medium. Renowned for their ultra-elaborate CD productions, Secret Chiefs 3 has also garnered a reputation for the power and immediacy of their live shows. Their fanbase has swelled in recent years and grown accustomed to this live incarnation (the Secret Chiefs 3 bootleg scene is thriving), and they demand an official release! Not just some audience-hand-cam and stereo-mic-job thing, this DVD boasts a pro six-camera shoot with live sound mixed by Billy Anderson, with the multi-channel outs mixed for DVD by Trey Spruance and Randall Dunn (producer of Earth, SUNN O))), Kinski, Wolves in the Throne Room, etc). And it comes with a really nice six-panel gatefold digi-pack with original artwork. At the show, Secret Chiefs 3 performs a set of both familiar and as-yet-unreleased music. The line-up includes Ches Smith (Xiu Xiu, Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog), Shahzad Ismaili (who also plays with Graham Haynes, Laurie Anderson, and Tom Waits), Timb Harris (Estradasphere), Rich Doucette, Peijman Kouretchian, and Jai Young Kim.
Live at the Great American Music Hall DVD also includes an award-winning and seriously dimensionally altered 80-minute stop-motion animation feature film directed by Tawd Dorenfeld that uses Secret Chiefs 3’s live show as a soundtrack.
It’s a pre-order for a March 3rd release. Mine’s on order… yay…
Oh, and a side note… the Fol Chen CD out on Asthmatic Kitty (entitled Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune’s Made) is really really fun and rad. It’s poppy-electronic-indie rock goodness. Quirky, yet melodic. Totally a gem in 2009, if you ask me.
~Dan – np: Jamie Saft – Black Shabbis
Shark Remixes & Holy F’s Mia Remix
Last fall, Asthmatic Kitty released My Brightest Diamond‘s Shark Remixes Volume 1 (by Alfred Brown). It is a great remix EP… yet, the initial press release said something about a Vol 2 in Nov and Vol 3 in Dec. Well, our Thanksgiving gift has now arrived…
Shark Remixes, Volume 2 is done by Son Lux. It’s only $1.99 on iTunes for four songs… you can try out two of the tracks for free over at Asthmatic Kitty’s website (right click links below, “Save As”):
- Inside a Boy (remixed by Son Lux)
- To Pluto’s Moon (remixed by Son Lux)
- the other 2 songs are on iTunes
Our Christmas gift (i.e.- Volume 3)… well, maybe March? Whenever it comes out, I’m sure it’ll be great…
EDIT / UPDATE (1/28/09): a 4th volume was just announced, and the four EPs are slated for a hardcopy release in the spring/summer.
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And, in true blog fashion, as I’m writing one up I stumble on some other good news…
Canadian live electronic / post rock band of awesomeness, Holy Fuck, have done a remix of Mia‘s “Paper Planes.” You can get a copy of the track over on Nialler9’s blog.
~Dan – np: AsvA – Futurists Against the Ocean
My Brightest Diamond – Daytrotter Session
Brooklyn-based pop-stress My Brightest Diamond (aka Shara Worden) came through the Daytrotter studios for a 2nd go round. Four songs, in-studio for FREE…
http://daytrotter.com/article/1515/my-brightest-diamond-encore-session
1) From the Top of the World 2) Inside a Boy 3) Apples 4) The Gentlest Gentleman
If you like what you hear, she’s got some great albums on Asthmatic Kitty Records.
Past Daytrotter Sessions I’ve blogged about (and dug):
- Damien Jurado
- Talkdemonic
- Aimee Mann
- Ani DiFranco
- The Bad Veins
- Kaki King
- Holy Fuck …and David Bazan, My Brightest Diamond, Erin McKeown
~Dan – np: Noctaluca – Still the Wicked Rest
a new John Zorn book & more MBD
A biography John Zorn by John Brackett is available by Indiana University Press. John Brackett is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Utah. This is the full-length study of avant-garde American composer John Zorn.
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=84773 (paperback)
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=84699 (hardback)
“Brackett’s groundbreaking book . . . confronts Zorn’s contradictory modes of expression that couple the aesthetics of Stravinsky, Boulez, Duchamp and Godard with the transgressive sexuality and violence of Bataille, Genet and Maruo, brilliantly demonstrating how these powerful dualities of thought-real yet fantastic, pleasing yet horrifying-synergize to make Zorn’s compositional voice unique and seminal in the 21st century.” -Severine Neff, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Check out the Table of Contents
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And to be totally nonsequitur, here’s a cute new animated video for My Brightest Diamond‘s song “Inside a Boy“:
Oh, and by cute, obviously that is to mean killing aliens with marbles slung from a slingshot…
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Oh, and go vote. Tomorrow is D-Day…
~Dan – np: Piano Magic – Dark Horses -EP-
Ty Tabor, MBD, Sufjan/Dessner/Brams
Ty Tabor, guitarist from King’s X, will have a new solo album out in early December. Balance…
It will be streaming from his MySpace page shortly. Also for more info on his music, be sure to check out http://www.myspace.com/tytabor.
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Asthmatic Kitty (AK) just released a new My Brightest Diamond remix album digitally. It’s called Shark Remixes Vol 1 – Alfred Brown. It’s the first of four remix EPs. The other three remixers are DM Stith, Son Lux and Roberto Carlos Lange. For more info on this digital release, check iTunes or AK’s website.
AK also released a new compilation for Habitat for Humanity with a collaboration from Sufjan Stevens, The National’s Bryce Dessner, and AK co-founder Lowell Brams. Their trio is called Tidal River. For more information on AK’s Habitat compilation, go here.
~Dan – np: Medeski Martin & Wood – Radiolarians I
My Brightest Diamond doesn’t look down…
Well, actually she does look down…
First off, it may seem like I’m blogging like a fool the past few days… well, I apologize to fill your RSS feeder with so much blog kibble, but there’s a lot going on in the world of my favorite musics.
This blog goes specifically back to my second favorite Asthmatic Kitty artist My Brightest Diamond (Sufjan Stevens being my first favorite, but only by a banjo neck). Shara Worden (the brightest diamond) plays on top of a rooftop with her string quartet OSSO. It’s part of Pitchfork TV‘s Don’t Look Down series:
(Part 1 – click pic above)
Golden Star
Apples
(Part 2 – click pic above)
From the Top of the World
Black & Costaud
4 weeks until I get the chance to see MBD at WOW Hall in Eugene… woot!
~Dan – np: Fujiya & Miyagi on Seattle’s KEXP Live podcast
From the Top of the World
A Reminder
My Brightest Diamond‘s From the Top of the World -EP- is out today on iTunes. It’s the single for the title track plus 3 French songs. Here’s my original post about this release with all of the INFO…
$2.97 if you only want the new songs. But if you don’t have A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, you might as well get that one, too. You know you want to…
~Dan – np: My Brightest Diamond – From the Top of the World
Even More Brightest Diamond
UPDATE (9/1/08): She’s playing 11/21 @ WOW Hall in Eugene. Yay!
Though not listed on her tourdates page (yet), yesterday’s email from the Doug Fir Lounge (in Portland, OR) mentioned… Thursday 11/20, My Brightest Diamond (Shara Worden). Yay! \ 0 / I’m still holding out hope that she’ll play The Shedd (in Eugene), as it’d be a great venue for her. But a PDX gig ain’t a bad option.
Oh, and Portland, Maine… you know what you can do? You can go to… see her on October 30th.
This will be the first time seeing her out on her own. My last few times seeing her were as an opener for Sufjan Stevens, with Sufjan’s band, or as part of a music fest with Sufjan. I guess I’ll miss Sufjan, but Shara’s got her own good thing going on. String quartet OSSO will be My Brightest Diamond’s backing band on this tour. I saw them play chamber arrangements for Sufjan’s Enjoy Your Rabbit electronic album (as mentioned in the music fest review link above). Clare & The Reasons are the openers.
Also, here’s the new, minty fresh video from “From the Top of the World” from her latest album, A Thousand Shark’s Teeth:
She performs “Padam Padam” and “The Gentlest Gentleman” here:
More of her tour dates (from Pollstar, as her tour dates page is not in an easily copy-n-paste format – all dates subject to change)
Mon 09/15/08 London, UK Soho Arts Theatre
Fri 09/19/08 Isla Cristina, ESP Auditorio del Parque
Sun 09/21/08 Amsterdam, NET Melkweg
Mon 09/22/08 Hamburg, GER Molotow
Tue 09/23/08 Berlin, GER Lido
Wed 09/24/08 Schorndorf, GER Manufaktur
Fri 09/26/08 Vienna, AUT B72
Sat 10/04/08 Groningen, NET De Oosterpoort
Mon 10/27/08 Hamden, CT The Space
Tue 10/28/08 Northampton, MA Iron Horse Music Hall
Thu 10/30/08 Portland, ME SPACE
Fri 10/31/08 Fall River, MA Narrows Center For The Arts
Sun 11/02/08 Buffalo, NY Big Orbit Soundlab Space
Mon 11/03/08 Oberlin, OH Oberlin College
Wed 11/05/08 Grand Rapids, MI Calvin College
Thu 11/06/08 Danville, IN Royal Theatre
Fri 11/07/08 Chicago, IL Schubas Tavern
Sat 11/15/08 Salt Lake City, UT The Paladium
Wed 11/19/08 Seattle, WA The Triple Door
Thu 11/20/08 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge
Fri 11/21/08 Eugene, OR W.O.W. Hall update
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http://www.mybrightestdiamond.com/
http://www.mybrightestdiamond.com/tourdates/
http://www.myspace.com/mybrightestdiamond
http://www.myspace.com/ossonyc
http://www.myspace.com/claremuldaur
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In rumor mill squashing, Shara didn’t help Barack Obama choose Joe Biden as his VP running mate.
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~Dan – np: Medeski Martin & Wood play John Zorn’s Masada Book Two – Zaebos
More Brightest Diamond
I saw this on the Asthmatic Kitty website…
I don’t know if it’s a new CD, new vinyl, new iTunes, or new multi-platform release… regardless, it’s Shara / My Brightest Diamond -and- MORE SONGS. :)
The info…
While Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond retains a French vocabulary more comparable to that of an African Grey Parrot than to Victor Hugo, oh how she does love to sing French songs from the 1930s. Borrowed melodies from Worden’s favorite French sparrow, the inimitable Edith Piaf, “Adieu mon Coeur,” and “Hymne A L’Amour” have become standard concert repertoire for My Brightest Diamond in recent years.
After having fled Germany to escape the Nazi’s in 1933, composer Kurt Weill penned the music for “Youkali:Tango Habenera”. Years later, Roger Fernay added lyrics describing a vagabond trip to an island of bliss called Youkali, whereupon landing a fairy would act as one’s personal tour guide. Youkali is a land of happiness and fulfilled desire, a place where all the stars shine brighter. But the dreamy mists dissipate in the second verse of Fernay’s piece, as life progresses only tediously while poor human souls seek to escape to the mysterious utopia in vain.
With the help of co-producer / ear candy man Zac Rae, a longstanding Diamond collaborator, these recordings take new flight with his host of reversed pianos, paint can snares, and warbling theramins.
1. From the Top of the World
2. Youkali: Tango Habanera
3. Hymne Á L’Amour
4. Adieu Mon Coeur
My Brightest Diamond’s From the Top of the World is out Sept 23rd, y’all.
~Dan – np: Orange Tulip Conspiracy – Orange Tulip Conspiracy
a thousand shark’s teeth
update (4/26/2008)
My Brightest Diamond has posted the first sample of the album to come on her MySpace page HERE: http://www.myspace.com/mybrightestdiamond
It’s called “Inside a Boy,” and it quite rocks more than I was expecting (seeing as I heard rumors of this record being more operatically bent). Yay!
~Dan
original post (2/28/2008)
a thousand shark’s teeth… a thousand shark’s teef… a tousand shark’s teet… zähne tausend haifischs… d’les dents mille requins… dientes de mil tiburones…
In an increasingly troubling manner (me being just short of reviewing something before it’s out), here’s another hypothesis (in the alternative form): Shara Worden/My Brightest Diamond‘s upcoming album, A Thousand Shark’s Teeth (Asthmatic Kitty Records), will be a fantastic record.
Shara Worden’s vocals are utterly sublime. It’s quite compelling to witness her singing in a live setting… she brings operatic vocal training to the indie rock scene.
We’ll be able to test the null hypothesis, H0: A Thousand Shark’s Teeth = not fantastic, against the alternative hypothesis starting Tuesday, June 17th (seventeeth?). I imagine we’ll be able to reject the null hypothesis with statistically significant results (p-value < .001).
Yeah, too many accounting research papers for me this week…
MBD: http://www.mybrightestdiamond.com/
MBD on MySp: http://www.myspace.com/mybrightestdiamond
~Dan – np: Drumcorps – Grist
asthmatic
an Asthmatic Kitty-related blog…
There’s a nice hour-long streaming interview and sampling of Sufjan Stevens‘ new instrumental piece, “The BQE” (the Brooklyn Queens Expressway). This piece was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and has its worldwide premier the first weekend in November 2007. The link to the interview/sample is here –> http://www.wnyc.org/stream/spinning/spinning102807.mp3
In My Brightest Diamond news, here’s a beautiful clip of her performance on Manchester’s City Centre Social:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1127703951/bctid1213891068
~Dan – np: celldweller & subkulture “erasus” collaboration
-Eyvind Kang
-Frank Zappa
Amazon.com mp3 downloads
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