Last week, Joe and Dingo introduced me to Big Black Delta - conveniently just in time to travel to LA to visit Dingo and happen to catch their show at the Satellite as part of an every-Monday-night-in-September residency. (The show was amazeballs, by the way, and I totally wish I was there tonight for the final, erm, night.) So now I pass the favor along and possibly introduce you to Big Black Delta.
This is the most recent single/video/whatever you call it in this day and age, "Capsize":
Said track is taken from the just released - as in, today - debut album proper, appropriately entitled 'BBDLP1'. You can order it from the site on any number of formats - including a lovely slab of vinyl in your choice of mauve or speckled blue - and, as should be standard these days, any physical format comes with an immediate digital download, again in any format you could possibly want. (I went FLAC to get the best of all worlds.)
If you act now - for this week only!, etc., etc. - you can download the album in mp3 for free from the site and give it a test drive. Or you could take my word for it and buy the ultimate fan package. Your choice.
Dingo and Joe, I am once again in your musical debt.
According to the band themselves, today is Duran Duran Appreciation Day. I have no idea what that means but I do know that I will be spending a chunk of the day with the New Fab Five blasting from the speakers.
In honor of this momentous occasion - or something - they have made a proper Night Version of album track 'All You Need Is Now' album track "Other People's Lives" available for download from their website, free of charge. My first thought upon hearing the album back in December was: "Girl Panic!" needs a full-on Night Version; while this isn't exactly it, it's pretty damn close.
Even better, the mp3 comes tagged with "All You Need Is Now - Night Versions" in the album tag. More to come?
(You are almost forgiven for the insanity of the formatting of this album. Almost. "Girl Panic!" and/or "Runway Runaway" might do it.)
Some free music to start the week off right. First, kind of out of nowhere Gruff Rhys made a new single available for the cost of an e-mail from his website. Entitled "Shark Ridden Waters", it sounds a bit like 'Candylion' visiting the set of a 60's beach party movie and is a vast improvement over SFA's 'Dark Days/Light Years' but still a bit underwhelming. There's supposedly an album coming early next year, but until then you can also pre-order the 12" directly from him - though no mention of a track list yet. I'm curious to see how this surprise develops.
Also seemingly out of nowhere, A Sunny Day In Glasgow have made their third full-length album, entitled 'Autumn, Again', available for a free download. You can also donate money towards the cause via a Paypal link and/or order an LP version.
School of Seven Bells broke my heart this weekend.
I'll go into this in more details later - once I can stop crying every time I think about it - but let's just say what was supposed to be the tour of the year/decade/lifetime has turned into FAR less. Boo.
However, there's still the matter of that split 7" with Active Child to contend with, and in that regard they pass with flying colors. If you haven't been paying attention, they're each taking a stab at the one of the others' singles - they're remixing his "I'm In Your Church At Night" and he's going all choral over "Heart Is Strange". Both remixes have now appeared in the internet-ether, and they are both as incredible as you might imagine. Each has basically transplanted their single onto the others - "I'm In Your Church At Night" is now a "Heart Is Strange"-esque club banger, and "Heart Is Strange" is now a gorgeous "I'm In Your Church At Night" chill-fest. (Watch for that coda - A-mazing.) You can grab an mp3 of the Active Child remix of "Heart Is Strange" at the Lefse Records site - where you can also pre-order the 7" for a very reasonable $7 - and the Walrus Music Blog (among others, I'm sure) as the School of Seven Bells remix of "I'm In Your Church At Night".
This almost makes up for the tour. Almost. (No offense to Active Child - you were amazing. Or SVIIB, for that matter. Part circumstance - get well soon, Claudia - and part poor decision making - lose the live drummer and find a new sound guy, and quick.)
On May 31, To My Boy have a new album coming out. It is called 'The Habitable Zone' and you can see the [very busy] artwork to the left and - for the price of an e-mail address - can get a free mp3 of album track "Antarctica" at their website - which is not, as I initially mis-read it - tommyboy.co.uk, though that would be a completely different type of interesting. While there, you can also pre-order the album for a very reasonable price range of £8 - £10, depending on your delivery zone. [See what I did there?] They're apparently doing it on their own this time and their debut was a favorite around here, so I'd highly encourage supporting them if you like the freebie. Which you will because it's fantastic.
If you need more convincing, here's the video for "Hello Horizon", which is the first "single" [whatever that means these days]:
This is a busy weekend for free downloads, apparently.
Ash is smack-dab in the middle of their 'A-Z' single series, and to celebrate they're releasing a CD compilation, appropriately titled 'A-Z Vol. 1'. It contains the first thirteen singles plus four bonus tracks.
There are also a pair of digital EPs to go with the release. The first - which is not free - is a 7-track acoustic EP featuring songs from the first half of the project. The second - which is free - is a pair of live tracks, project highlights 'Arcadia' and 'Space Shot'. Those can be grabbed here for the cost of an e-mail address, and while you're there check out the other bonus material they've got on the site - some free, some for a nominal fee, all fantastic and well worth your time.
For those keeping track, a Japanese edition of the CD was released a few weeks back and features two additional bonus tracks - so far only available on that set though bound to appear on something else eventually - along with a bonus disc that contains selections from the three digital EPs released in support of the project so far as well as an exclusive remix of "Neon".
I initially thought this project would be easy to keep track of and relatively inexpensive to complete. I apparently thought wrong, though I can't deny that I'm having a bunch of fun trying.
In a wise and very welcome move, Blur have made their new single "Fool's Day" available for download from their website for the cost of an e-mail address.
Whew.
Truth be told, the song is more memorable for being the first new Blur material in seven years than for being a great Blur song, but it's nice to have a high quality version available - though who uses wav format anymore?
Now, if the Pet Shop Boys would take note and do something similar for their Record Store Day single, we'd be all set.
Thanks to Dean for reminding me - and Seattle - of Pay TV's amazing "Refrain Refrain":
There's a free download of later single "Fashion Report" on last.fm if that's your thing, and you can find various singles from various digital retailers.
In anticipation of their forthcoming second LP - which can't get here fast enough as far as I'm concerned - The Whip have set up a fancy new web site. At said web site, you can stream and/or exchange your e-mail address for an mp3 download of a DJ Mixtape by members Bruce and Fee.
A nice way to start the spring as far as I'm concerned, though it is a bit sad they didn't sneak in a preview of new material in the set. Oh well.
A little behind the times - as usual - but the excellently-named Fear of Tigers have made his/their/whatever debut album "Cossus Snufsigalonica" [what he said] available for free download from his/their/whatever Facebook/MySpace/label/etc. You should grab it because - like his/their/whatever remix of The Sound of Arrows' "Into the Clouds" - it is fantastic and well worth your bandwidth.
Can't get any easier. You'll buy it when it comes out properly, right? Because that's the right thing to do. Good.
The early 90's dance revival is kicking into full swing and I think I like it. Imagine if he/they/whatever remixed a track off the new Alphabeat album? A-MAZING. Someone make it happen, especially if said track is "This Beat Is".
Bishop Allen's third LP "Grr..." is up for pre-order from their website. If you order it from them - which you should - it will be shipped to you for it's March 10th release date AND you will get emailed a download link a week prior on March 3rd. They did that with their last album as well, which is always nice. Hooray!
They've also posted 2 mp3s on their website from the album to tide you over even until then - album opener 'Dimmer' as well as 'The Ancient Commonsense of Things'. Both are, of course, completely charming in that Bishop Allen way, and both bode well for the LP.
However, there's no LP pressing this time. Sad. :(
Last week, Joe and Dingo introduced me to Big Black Delta - conveniently just in time to travel to LA to visit Dingo and happen to catch their show at the Satellite as part of an every-Monday-night-in-September residency. (The show was amazeballs, by the way, and I totally wish I was there tonight for the final, erm, night.) So now I pass the favor along and possibly introduce you to Big Black Delta.
