Fatima Al-Qadiri is one of a recent outcropping of soundmakers who increasingly blur the lines between pop music and multimedia installation. These pop conceptualists are more likely to refer to themselves as “multimedia artists” than musicians, and their work is often illegible without reference to their visual and textual components. Sure, you could choose to listen to last year’s Genre Specific Xperience EP in a vacuum and ignore the associated video pieces and experimental web art , but that would be missing the point… no? Maybe not. Al-Qadiri also released the Warn-U EP under the Ayshay moniker last year, and ...

The Forum is packed to the brim, with a myriad of punters making themselves comfortable in every conceivable fashion, upstanding, sprawled on couches, positioned on stairs. It seems like Melbourne’s musical cognoscenti is out in force, with all manner of musos and fans of Brian Jonestown Massacre waiting next to each other in anticipation. The Raveonettes rouse the throng with “Beat City” featuring some uncomfortably loud feedback and a drum machine that drowns out the sound of live drums. The mood is set with the smoke machine in overdrive. Guitarist Sune Rose Wagner ’s between song banter is minimal ...

Tomas Barfod , better known as the drummer of Copenhagen's WhoMadeWho , is enamored with beats and solid pop hooks in equal measure. While WhoMadeWho is being sucked into an LCD Soundsystem–shaped vacuum, the market for Barfod's own productions is less clear. He aspires to the sensation of timelessness that defines pop while availing himself of production cues drawn from house and the overtly exploratory hip-hop associated with LA's Brainfeeder as well as new home Friends of Friends. Barfod's also a recent LA transplant, and calls on labelmates and locals like Shlohmo and Salva provide backup—and ...

Father John Misty isn't the new cult leader on the blocks, although from his sounds his would be a killer cult to get tied up in. No, it is the new name for J Tillman, one time Fleet Fox and now chillin on his own dime. He has a record coming out on Sub Pop called Fear Fun . Now, I never hated Foxes">Fleet Foxes - I thought their last two albums were OK, and they still go down as the first band I ever saw at a Glastonbury, and I was stoned, and they delivered - but I've never ...

Another Monday grind at the office. Short of planting a blow-up doll in your boss' bottom drawer, what else is there to do to get out of the doldrums? Watch some ace music videos, that's what! Va va VOOM! Royal Headache are touring the US, and have brought out this "tour diary" style video to put alongside their 'Girls' track off their excellent eponymous debut. Death Grips aren't wasting time after the blow-out success of Ex-Military , releasing The Money Store which you can get here (the cover art is rad). They are an incredibly formidable band, and if ...

Nico Muhly - ‘Part IV’ from Piano & Drones Commissioned by the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Piano & Drones is an upcoming EP from composer Nico Muhly, p roduced Valgeir Sigurðsson.   It’s an experimental recording where Muhly performs drones  with assistance from Joan K. Sharda on viola and  the New England Conservatory of Music,   for pianist Bruce Brubaker. “I started writing the Drones pieces as a method of developing harmonic ideas over a static structure. The idea is something not unlike singing along with one’s vacuum cleaner, or with the subtle but constant humming found in most dwelling-places. We ...

Guitarist and co-singer-songwriter Nick Finch talks to DOUG WALLEN about his obsession with death, balancing humour and horror and the hammer-and-chain as a “viable, actual instrument”. Live photo by ROBERT CARBONE . One of the more head-turning success stories in recent Australian music, Melbourne six-piece Graveyard Train have parlayed a brash live show and gravelly songs about monsters into unlikely national stardom. Piling on four singers and instruments like washboard and, um, hammer and chain, the band are at the front of a fertile crop of dark, country-inspired Melbourne acts. Following 2009’s The Serpent & The Crow and 2010’s The Drink The Devil & The Dance , their third album Hollow wrestles with the biggest monster of all: death. If certain song titles don’t tip you off, there are confronting lyrics like, “One day your eyes will see blackness for eternity”, and “No one has a soul/There is no great unknown.” And yet these timeless-minded songs are somehow empowering and fun. You have quite a few songs about death. Was there a point when you realised, “Hey, this is something we can write about”? I guess so. When we first started, we wanted to make it a horror country band. [But] we can make that whatever we want: we can do death or we can do monsters. It’s just gotta be dark, and we’ve gotta somehow make it horror. But as the years went on, we used up all the big monsters and all the schlocky stuff. All the Universal Horror monsters? Yeah. So the songs on this new album are definitely much more focused on death itself. Because I guess that’s the most horrific thing I can think of. [ Laughs ] It’s just like, straight-up, “Do we have a soul? No, we don’t. That is horrific. Let’s write a song about it.” Do people ever bristle at that? When I saw you guys live, one of you said, “You’re all gonna die!” I’m okay with hearing that at a gig, but some people might not be. That was me saying that. [ Laughs ] That’s one of my favourite songs to sing. People generally don’t seem to mind it. We played some festivals up in Canada, and I noticed a few people looking at each other a bit strangely and maybe not enjoying the points of the song. [ Laughs ] And what song is it? It’s called ‘All Will Be Gone’. Appropriate. Yeah, yeah. We’ve never actually recorded that song. We were thinking about doing it for this album, but it’s a real kind of live, interactive song. I really work off the audience and whoever I’m looking at. It’s a bit of a shame because it’s a really cool song. I don’t know, I’m just obsessed with death. Not like a goth or anything; I’m just constantly worried about ...

Featuring Samsung’s exclusive hybrid technology, Samsung’s new Audio Dock with Vacuum Tube Amplifier (model DA-E750) is the company’s first dual-docking system for the premium audiophile, and supports a broad range of Galaxy S and Apple devices including the Galaxy S2, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Player,...

Hectic personal life and hectic working life means my social life is taking a battering this week. As in, I don't have one. SO I'm locking myself away to reach deadlines and save cashola, all the while knowing there are at least four great shows on this weekend, three of which are one-offs (Eat Laser Scumbag! Nova Scotia! Keep On Dancins! Concentric Circuits! Erm...The Sips!) ARGH! So I really need encouragement. Here are some videos that are perking up my downward spiral... No surprises that the first cab off the ranks is one of my all-time favourites ...

The Cube, Bristol - Friday 4th May The goods of the first band Eftus Spectun were too sparse for my liking... they took a fragmented notion of jazz to its ultimate conclusion... Abstract chord flurry followed by abstract chord flurry followed by broken drum skids... scuttles... some lovely combos were falling around but simply left unresolved ... Normally, I'm quite susceptible to this kind of thing, as anybody that knows me knows I have an undying love for abstraction and awkward listens...but here I found myself constantly expecting it all to fly off in a grand melt of textural chaos ...

A juxtaposition of something you might find in a kitchen as well as the cylinders and tubes more kin to a science lab, BODUM mints the latest PEBO Vacuum Coffee Maker. Made from predominantly borosilicate glass, the vacuum design ensures that the aroma is strictly concealed within the machine itself. In addition to the obvious [...] Read more at Hypebeast.com

Two Video Vacuums in one week? Weird, right? But I'm not feeling terribly work-oriented, so what better way to waste time than to toke up and get psychedelic on everyone's asses? (NB: In case anyone from work reads this (IE slim to nil, but still...) I haven't really toked up. I have just rubbed my eyes really hard because I'm so tired from working outside work hours all night long, and don't want to fall asleep because I love my job sooooooo much...) Plus it's Austin Psych Fest weekend, so in lieu of not ...

Whoa, who has been watching NBC's The Voice? I know it's just another soul-sucking vacuum of a glorified talent competition/paycheck for tired celebrities/platform for brand-sponsored circle-jerks, but two really cool things happened last night. One, Cee Lo Green's Alma Mater (in a way), the Atlanta troup Mob">Goodie Mob reunited and performed a new single. We say "performed" loosely, because Green is the only one who looked like he was actually doing anything, but we love Cee Lo and his little t-re

Which Vacuum cleaner to choose? A question I manage to ask a bunch of of times instant I must admit I have always tended to buy cheaper floor cleaners but this could be considered a false overall economy. The Dyson choice of vacuum cleaners may not be exactly the cheapest around but they have a [...]

An curious Lp I found the other day which features interviews or short talks with Gerard Hoffnung the English humourist in the 50's from various radio programmes on the BBC. A cross between Count Arthur Strong and Boris Johnson. Probably hilarious at the time but now seems rather dated and quaint. Wikipedia says - "Gerard Hoffnung (22 March 1925 – 25 September 1959) was an artist and musician, best known for his humorous works. Born in Berlin, and named Gerhard, he was the only child of a well-to-do Jewish couple, Hildegard and Ludwig Hoffnung. He was sent to England, where he ...