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23.4.11

The Generationals - Actor-Caster


The Generationals are an indie-pop band from New Orleans. Behind the scenes of the indie world, Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer are far from those the press covers praise, those that we hear (and see) too much. Astro-Caster, their second album, will not be a tube machine for radios this summer, you get it. However...
However, this year The Generationals shake up the scene, too much dibs for too little talent today... Knowing their chords on fingertips, they bombard us with their damned good songs : Ten-Twenty-Ten or You Say It Too for example. You may think of The Beach Boys while listening, and that would be normal, Joyner and Widmer are huge fans. Of The Beatles too by the way, you'll hear that. 
We may, one day, find one these songs in a commercial for a bank or a toothpaste (sigh...), meanwhile let's savor their unpretentious and energetic pop. 

Dirty Gold - Roar


Dirty Gold are from San Diego, California ; Roar, their first worldwide EP, was released a few days ago and may quickly become the must-have CD for this summer. Surf Pop and Lo-fi combined with afro sounds, their songs are sweet invitations to tread the hot sand of a beach and slice some waves. Understood ? Order a mojito, leave the flip flops and listen.
Close to Beach House and Vampire Weekend, this duo is, in only five songs, already very persuasive. They are not enough famous yet to get any more information, so we expect their first album with huge impatience.

PS : you can also find on their Bandcamp a link for a free download of their cover of TV Girl's On Land.

18.4.11

Our Childish Souls










The Fruhstucks - Sorry, We Are The Fruhstucks


The Fruhstucks (apparently from the german word Frühstück meaning Breakfast) is a band formed in 2008 that works in a quite odd way : Sutja Gutierrez and Miguel Boxerinlove, the two founding artists, live 3107 miles (5000 km) away from each other. One of them lives on the Mediterranean Coast and the other lives in the Canary Islands. It might seem complicated or even impossible to compose in such conditions, yet the distance is far from being a handicap for The Fruhstucks. This hardworking and effective duo performs a very pleasant electronic dark wave music melting analog voices and fuzzy keyboards. 
This Sorry, We Are The Fruhstucks EP contains three tracks showing the great talent of both artists.

(Bonus : There is also a link for a free download of the Parade, I don't Care EP directly provided by the band.)


Space Is Only Noise - Nicolas Jaar


Nicolas Jaar is a young (20 years old) American-Chilean musician. He was born in NY but quickly relocated to Santiago de Chile with his mother and finally came back as a teenager. His childhood was marked by the popularity of his parents (his father, Alfredo Jaar, is a famous filmmaker ndlr), and became very dependent on his parents' artistic tastes. Portishead, Beck and Radiohead albums were listened again and again at home. Then, very influenced by Erik Satie, Nicolas started to make organic electronic music at the age of 14. His real debut was at 17, when he released The Student EP. Sometimes compared to Fever Ray, he is soon considered as an audascious promising musician, and is even elevated as a reference by some wise music lovers. 
Nicolas Jaar is currently Junior at the prestigious Brown University where he studies comparative literature. He is also the owner and founder of his own label Clown and Sunset...
His first full-length album is called Space Is Only Noise. Slow, mysterious, hypnotic, modest, aerial, modern, pioneering, melodious and quiet are all adjectives that describe this perfect album. You can't miss it.
To conclude I'd like to share with you this excerpt from an interview he gave to Les Inrocks : 
"I wanted a record where the songs could be jealous from each other, where some may even hate each other. There is for example this very pop song in the middle (Space Is Only Noise If You Can See) wich has little to do with the others, but could be the one most downloaded on iTunes. So the other songs would regard it as the whore of the disc. People do not spend anymore time to buy and listen a full album, they are happy with only one song, so I'm helping them by dragging this glib song in an experimental set. Tricky..."

Granny's Bedroom






17.4.11

Starfucker - Reptilians


Starfucker, an electronica band from Portland (USA), released this year their third album (if you consider that Jupiter is not an EP but an LP) intitled Reptilians. You may remember their famous sweet cover of Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Want To Have Fun that boosted their popularity in 2009. These four young americans led by Joshua Hodges are often (wrongly) compared to MGMT. But their electronic dream pop is far more sweet and delicate than the pop tart (a bit too commercial) of the two New Yorkers. 
The group's name seems to be meaningless or at least doesn't have any real explanation (even from the members who were in fact "curious to see how far the band could get with a stupid name like that"). Although they tried to change the name into PYRAMID and then Pyramiddd, they finally reverted to Starfucker
Reptilians consists of twelve festive songs (+ two bonus tracks) between pop and electronica, as such as Bury Us Alive, that you can listen to from the dancefloor till your iPod.



16.4.11

Connan Mockasin - Forever Dolphin Love


Connan Mockasin is a psychedelic blues'n'pop musician from New Zealand. Originally the formation was a group called Connan and the Mockasins. Formed in 2005, the band was firstly concerned in blues production, shyly touring in New Zealand small theaters. In May 2006 they relocated to London and became more and more influent in the English blues scene till 2007, when they released a third album, Sneaky Sneaky Dogfriend, that get a rather big success in Northern Europe.
Then the line-up of the band was deeply affected by departures and replacements, so it became a solo act under the name Connan Mockasin with the leading figure of Connan Hosford. He started touring with members of Late Of The Pier, Pete & The Pirates, The Veils, and more recently Mystery Jets. The group's popularity skyrocketed and so it was highly time for Please Turn Me Into The Snat, the forth album, to be released (in 2010) in UK and New Zealand. The rest of Europe waited till 2011 to get a re-edition called Forever Dolphin Love
This album is surely one the most beautiful thing I've ever eard. Connan's universe is simply amazing and his songs are all masterpieces you could loop listen tirelessly. By the way, this universe is very well transcripted into the clips that are splendid. That's the word.



Moriarty - The Missing Room


Moriarty is a French-American group formed in 1995. Rosemary, Arthur, Charles, Thomas and Stephan draw together inspiration from traditional Irish music, blues and country, playing instruments like double bass, harmonica or kazoo to wich they add a caravan and nomadic atmosphere drafting sounds with typewriter, pieces of wood or hotelbells.
After a stripped-down and beautiful cover of Depeche Mode's Enjoy The Silence in 2008 and a top-notch album intitled Gee Whiz But This Is A Lonesome Town released in October 2007, the band started a very successful tour all over the world : it spanned 19 countries through more than 270 concerts. Songs such as Jimmy, Private Lily or Motel (by far the best song of the band in my opinion) have been appreciated by millions of people, convincing everyone with this original poetry in music and lyrics.
Restless fans couldn't wait anymore to discover this second album, and they will be pleased. The themes and sounds remain faithful to the first album, The Missing Room will not disappoint anybody. Moriarty can be sure of a new success thanks to so much quality and originality.



Battles - Gloss Drop



Battles is an american band, founded in 2002 in NYC. Tyondai Braxton, Ian Williams (formerly of Don Caballero), Dave Konopka (formerly of Lynx), and drummer John Stanier (formerly of Helmet) performed since their excellent debut album Mirrored (2007) one of the most gifted math-rock on stage as well as on records. Famous songs like Tonto or Atlas show how deep their mastering of instruments and musicality is.
Besides in August 2010, the band announced that Braxton would leave to focus on his solo work.
The departure of lead singer in a band can lead to complete disappearance or to the fall into indifference, but it's not the case of Battles. The remaining members didn't give up and decided to continue with its project and to release, four years later, a second studio album. In order to fill in the lack of a singer they invited Matias Aguayo (from Kompakt), Gary Numan (formerly of Tubeway Army), Kazu Makino (Blonde Redheadand Yamantaka Eye (Boredoms) to add vocals on some tracks. 
The result is impressive. Battles experiments all the possibilities they can reachand pushes away the very boundaries of math-rock. For having seen them in live a few days ago, I can say that the loss of Braxton didn't disabled the band. Stanier and his battery on the front of the stage to do the show, the group gave very high quality concert.
So there is no need to worry about the future of Battles, after such a good album, it bodes only good things.


15.4.11

The Baked Mixtapes//vol.1

In terms of mixtapes, the principle is simple: I gather songs of the last few months to share with you the best releases of the moment. Listen to The Baked Mixtapes on 8tracks.

Here is the first one (from January to March 2011) :


Selection of tracks taken from albums released between January and March 2011. If you missed them, catch up now.




  1. High Together - Siriusmo
  2. The Monkeys Are Coming - Does It Offend You Yeah?
  3. Wild Child - We Are Enfant Terrible
  4. Youth Knows No Pain - Lykke Li
  5. New Beat - Toro Y Moi
  6. Bury Us Alive - Starfucker
  7. Garden - Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
  8. Space Is Only Noise If You Can See - Nicolas Jaar
  9. Mexican Grand Prix - Mogwai
  10. My Punk Is Alive - The Fruhstucks
  11. Limit To Your Love - James Blake
  12. It's Choade My Dear - Connan Mockasin
  13. Lotus Flower - Radiohead
  14. Johnny B Fool - Smoke Sellers
  15. Smash Them All (Night Visitors) - Minuscule Hey
  16. Love My Name - The Young Knives
  17. Badaboom - Tapes'n'Tapes
  18. Machu Picchu - The Strokes
  19. Ten-Twenty-Ten - The Generationals
  20. Done In Secret - The Pigeon Detectives
  21. The Dark Line In The Middle Of Hope - Moriarty
  22. Forever Dolphin Love - Connan Mockasin
  23. Au Café - Sonic Youth
  24. Little By Little - Radiohead
  25. Lasdehnen - The Retuses
  26. Clementine - Moriarty
  27. Apartment - Young The Giant
  28. Freak Out - Tapes'n'Tapes
  29. You Say It Too - The Generationals
  30. Punching In A Dream - The Naked And Famous
  31. Las Den Vogel Frei! - Siriusmo
  32. Household Goods - Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
  33. We Are The Dead - Does It Offend You Yeah?

14.4.11

Vernissage

Here we are, today's the "vernissage" of WE ARE TOUGH COOKIES. Photography, mixtapes, sharing, cooking (hell ya, coming soon), and fucking mess (can't stop the 4chan trick).
The very first photos are online :

P1000041image-4_2image-3_3image-1_2image_2image-3_2
image-2_2image-6image-1image-7image-5image-16
image-14image-13image-11image-2165056_1751929365553_1458463344_1890060_8343544_nimage-8 - copie
image-12 - copieimage-26image-21image-17image-14image-16
Fullness of the Void, a set on Flickr.

And my first mixtape is ready for the inauguration as well.
Prick up your ears :



More publications very soon : sharing content, photos and maybe some vids. So check out from time to time. You can also follow us on Twitter or Facebook if it's not too mainstream for you. Thx.

And finally, because a vernissage is nothing but shit without a party, let's have one right now. Just click here and join in.

K. JB