+++ Hercules & Love Affair member Aérea Negrot will release her first solo album Arabxilla in September. You can download and stream the album track “Love You From The Brain” right here (if you’re able to find the little signs in the black window below):
+++ JD Samson’s MEN (interview with Catch Fire here) have just recorded an awesome 4-track-set with new songs for Daytrotter.com. You can download it here by signing up to the site (which is completely worth it) +++
+++ †DRESSER is a pretty weird and funny “witch house / drag” spoof project from Berlin. The guys have just released they’re first single “It’s a Choice”, a queer reaction to Gaga’s “Born this Way”. You can watch the video here and download the song via Bandcamp +++
+++ I also proudly present the new video by Blood Orange, whose wonderful song “Dinner” I posted here a while ago. “Sutphin Boulevard” is the first single from the forthcoming album “Coastal Grooves” released on Domino Records. The video was shot by Alan Del Rio Ortiz, who happens to have a very nice blog on his homepage by the way.
I interviewed JD Samson about three weeks ago for the Mai issue of the Berlin’s gay city magazine siegessäule. She and here band MEN had just finished their tour. Here’s the (nearly) uncut version of the Skype conversation we had, JD talking about topics like the importance of touring for the band, the new member Tami Hart, the tour costumes, activism, and the inevitable Lady Gaga.
You had the last show of your tour yesterday as far as I know. What does it feel like, are you happy, exhausted, sad?
I’m really tired because we had 14 shows in a row, so I need a rest and I’m really excited to sleep in tomorrow, but at the same time I’m kind of sad, because we had such a wonderful time on tour and yesterday I just woke up with such a great feeling and I knew that the show would going to be great. And we were really all in such good moods and came together on stage, so the energy in the room was just incredible.
You played a lot of shows in general, didn’t you? I have the feeling it was a really important thing for the whole project. You played three Berlin shows for example…
Yeah, we just play whenever we have the opportunity, and when people invite us to come we figure out if it financially makes sense and if we’re even gonna make a dollar with it usually we’ll do it. I mean we don’t like to loose money, but it’s really good for us to just continue playing, I think I’ve seen this project as really a live thing. We started off playing live before we had any music out, so I think that that’s really how people make money right now in the music industry, but also the way that this band really can succeed.
Catch Fire will take a break until December 20 – enough time for you, dear followers, to choose your favourite video shown on this site in 2010. Last year I called the voting “Queer Music Video Award“, but I’ve decieded to rename it, since (although I think all videos are queer in one way or another) not all the artists nominated this year actually would consider themselves as “queer”. You find all nominated videos after the poll below the jump or on this page. I hope you enjoy this kind of look back at 2010 as much I did when I did the preselection. May the best one win!
Vote For Your Favourite Music Video 2010!
Antony And The Johnsons: Thank You For Your Love (17%, 16 Votes)
ceo: Come With Me (9%, 8 Votes)
Diamond Rings: Show Me Your Stuff (3%, 3 Votes)
Former Ghosts: Taurean Nature (6%, 6 Votes)
Jónsi: Do Go (9%, 8 Votes)
Kasper Bjørke: Efficient Machine (1%, 1 Votes)
Kim Ann Foxman: Creature (13%, 12 Votes)
Koudlam: Brother (2%, 2 Votes)
Male Bonding: Years Not Long (3%, 3 Votes)
MEN: Off Our Backs (5%, 5 Votes)
OK Go: This Too Shall Pass (Rube Goldberg Machine Version) (3%, 3 Votes)
Owen Pallett: Lewis Takes Off His Shirt (7%, 7 Votes)
+++ 2011 will start with new records by Hercules and Love Affair (“Blue Songs”), MEN (“Talk About Body”) and Toro Y Moi (“Underneath The Pine”). All records will be out in January / February and as you can see above will have nice cover artworks (MEN cover via Expatriarch, Toro cover via XLR8R) +++
+++ Kim Ann Foxman has recorded a free mixtape for The Fader, which includes both her Mr.Intl songs “Creature” and “What You Need”. The tape has been uploaded on Soundcloud by DIY, click here for the original source and the playlist.
Another nice event at Berlin’s Hebbel theater: Tim Stüttgen, editor of the “Post Porn Politics” reader I mentioned here earlier this year, is curating an event called “Body Language”, the third edition of a series called “Life is Live”. I quote from the English introduction on the theater’s website: “For three days ‘Body Language’ will explore the question if queer role models are capable of expressing criticism about sexual normalisation in the medium of pop culture, without at the same time giving up the claim for a change. What exactly is happening when gestures serving the self-understanding of subcultures meet pop culture’s universal mechanisms of appropriation? Can this encounter be told as the story of an appropriation that happens over and over again? Which are the constructive perspectives of queer interventions into pop culture?”
I’m a little late with this: Drag legend Vaginal Davis is currently showing a 10-day-long performance piece at 122, a performance space in New York. Following the text on the PS 122 website the show “re-examines the heyday of 1970s American daytime television chat and variety programs. (…) Ms Davis isn’t interested in assimilating into the mainstream entertainment complex, but instead wishes to dissect a kind of TV staple and reconfigure it by presenting an array of live and Skype guests from the various worlds of literature, dance, theatre, film and art.” Amongst the illustrious guests of the upcoming evenings are Bruce LaBruce, Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens, Slava Mogutin, JD Samson & MEN, Johanna Fateman, Genesis Breyer P-Orrigge and Joel Gibb. More about the show on the website of PS 122, Vaginal Davis’ blog. You also find a few pics of the appearence of Brian Kenny and Gio Black Peter two days ago on Slava Mogutin’s blog. The picture on top of this post is part of this series.
+++ Yesterday MEN have played a concert for an alternative cooking show called “Dinner With The Band” that is produced by the IFC. Seems like Johanna Fateman is not part of the project anymore and JD Samson found herself two nice new band members. You can watch the clips of the show here +++
+++ London-based Kitsuné-act We Have Band are going to release a new album in spring 2010. You can already download a new track called “Honeytrap” on their website. Click here for the video (via Big Stereo) +++
+++ And they are not the only ones: Folk-songwriter Sam Amidon has announced a new album for May 2001 co-featuring Beth Orton, Nico Muhly, ShahzadIsmaily and others. Click here to listen to and download his beautiful new track “How Come That Blood” that sounds as if Arthur Russell was reborn (via Pitchfork) +++
+++ The blog Hype and Sick I just found is a great source for new electronic acts, downloads of free tracks and remixes and most of it all: fancy videos +++
+++ Life Is Not A Rehearsel has posted this great video by Sydney-based duo The Presets today. It’s already half a year old but I think it’s worth being reposted here. There you go:
Loading ...
