“Catalpa’s initial adventure into New York already had The Black Keys and Snoop Dogg headlining the festival at Randall’s Island on July 28 and 29, 2012. If that was not enough for you, the festival has included even more acts to get you excited.

Girl Talk, Matt and Kim, Cold War Kids, Hercules And Love Affair, Matisyahu, Dirty Heads, The Sheepdogs, Hook N’ Sling will be joining the headliners and TV On The Radio, two sets by Umphreys McGee, AraabMUZIK, City and Colour, The Big Pink, Felix Da Housecat and plenty more. Expect more artists to be announced on May 21. [...]”

Check out “Catalpa Festival Expands with Girl Talk, Matt and Kim and More”, as presented by Charles Poladian at TheMusic.FM.

Read the entire article here →

“The Guggenheim will host Divine Ricochet, a three-part music series that will feature Cold Cave, Zola Jesus and Grouper with Julianna Barwick. The music events will run alongside the John Chamberlain: Choices retrospective.

The series will kick off on April 13 with Grouper and Julianna Barwick. Cold Cave will play on April 27 and Zola Jesus will close out the series on May 10. Grouper will be playing a site-specific set titled Violet Replacement and will include ambient sounds incorporating tape loops that will bounce off the unique structure of the Guggenheim. Cold Cave and Zola Jesus will not play site-specific sets sticking to a more traditional live performance. [...]”

Check out “The Guggenheim to Host Musical Series Featuring Cold Cave, Zola Jesus and Grouper”, as presented by the people at TheMusic.FM.

Read the entire article here →

“The Australian duo, Bleeding Knees Club kept it short and sweet at Mercury Lounge. Pop punk played fast and loose, Bleeding Knees Club were easy to get into despite the painful sounding name that brings back plenty of unpleasant childhood memories.

Bleeding Knees Club could be a band that alienates due to their youth and sneering attitude. Instead, the band has a smile underneath that slacker facade and were perfectly at ease and having fun at Mercury Lounge. Bleeding Knees Club can soundtrack those aimless, late-night walk while passing a cigarette back and forth with nowhere to go and nowhere to be. [...]”

Check out “Bleeding Knees Club Have Fun at Mercury Lounge”, as presented by the people at TheMusic.FM.

Read the entire article here →

“Jane’s Addiction stopped by The Paramount in Huntington in support of its Theatre of the Escapists tour. These alternative purveyors of the perverse continue to deliver high energy and engaging performances that put many new, and much younger, bands to shame.

Jane’s Addiction seem revitalized following the release of their latest album, The Great Escape Artist. Four of the 15 songs from Jane’s Addiction’s set came from The Great Escape Artist, including the opener “Underground.” Considering that their previous album, Strays, is only represented by “Just Because,” is a testament to how proud Jane’s is of their newest offering. [...]

Read more of the review and the full gallery of the night, presented by the people at TheMusic.FM.

Start the Revolution Without Me would have been interesting a few years ago, due to it’s much ballyhooed releasing schedule, in which they let fans listen to about 20 tracks recorded on their website, then vote on which 10 deserve to be on the album. The results of which were released last year in the U.K. as The Future is Medieval, with four different songs than the set released in America. Either way, it should, logically speaking, be a fan’s album, and sales may prove that to be the case, if there are any die-hard Kaiser Chief fans left in America to put them back on the map. [...]”

Check out the full review of Start the Revolution Without Me by David Williams at TheMusic.FM.

Read the entire article here →

“The 21st Annual Tibet House Benefit was an eclectic and diverse affair at Carnegie Hall. Celebrating, creativity, passion and freedom for Tibet, Philip Glass brought disparate artists together for one beautiful cause.

The evening began with an invocation from monks studying at the Drepung Gomang Monasteries. The wordless song was visceral and immediate. The monks were motionless, letting their voices rise in harmony and create a powerful resonating moment of reflection. In previous years, instruments aided their voices but not this year. In some ways the unaccompanied vocals were more powerful, more affecting because of this stripped down presentation. [...]”

Check out “Tibet House Benefit Celebrates Creativity and Freedom”, as presented by the people at TheMusic.FM.

Read the entire article here →

But as impressively structured the tunes are, it speaks to how to perform passionately. Everything here is dense, and at times unexpected. “Dread Sovereign” the third track, for example, features overdriven guitars playing at a slow, burning pace that simmers quietly until the mighty, heavy chorus. Or consider the lone up-tempo track, “Immaculate,” which speeds along just below in the same way that driving just below the 55-mph speed limit is going too fast. It takes nearly forever for Animal Joy to leave an impression beyond its own moodiness, a kind of melancholia that is soulful, but isolated from really connecting. Perhaps because the lyrics and subject matter are so earthy and universal in nature, it doesn’t make an effort to really draw you in and surprise you. [...]”

Check out the full review of Animal Joy by David Williams at TheMusic.FM.

Read the entire article here →

Yet, in such a mix, many attempts at catchy riffs seem lost in the density of the attack, and instead, the band relies on interesting, wistful vocal melodies. “The Devil Takes Care of His Own” (perhaps the most memorable of the big, sludgy riffs on the album) indulges in this kind of vocal smoothness, as bassist Emma Richardson supports Russell Marsden’s nasal yelp and gives the vocal part a kind of jerky lilt that contrasts to the heavy metal thunder of the chorus. Paired with the quieter psych-folk tune “Lay My Head Down” after, it proves them to be one of the more unusual, but fine, harmonic duos in rock, but it also shows the band’s knack for moody, atmospheric songs. [...]”

Check out the full review of Sweet Sour by David Williams at TheMusic.FM.

Read the entire article here →

The Hold Steady and Arcade Fire are neck-to-neck in the race to see who will be the next Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band; Kevin Barnes is ready to assume themselves as the new Ziggy-era Bowie; and Man Man make a case that maybe Captain Beefheart’s stuff could have been somewhat accessible at some point. Dr. Dog, however, manage to stand above the fray by going for broke for everything at once, and just want to be your new favorite band. [...]”

Check out the full review of Be The Void by David Williams at TheMusic.FM.

Read the entire article here →

Though, you wouldn’t know it at first with the opening “Warsaw,” a track with some slightly overdriven guitars and a chord progression that recalls the more harder edged moments of Mazzy Star’s So Tonight That I May See (and it helps that Ms. Van Etten’s voice has some of the same sleepy-eye melodic drawl that Hope Sandoval has made influential, seemingly, only as of late). But that relatively tough beginning soon gives out for the predominantly acoustic “Give Out,” a song of post-relationship reflection on those first inklings of love that stir within, and offering some of the more sharp instances of the kind of one-sided conversation that folk tunes tend to have: “I’m biting my lip / as confidence is speaking to me. / I loosen my grip from my palm / put it on your knee.” And that’s before she admits to her lover, “you’re the reason I’ll move to the city / or why I’ll need to leave.” [...]”

Check out the full review of Tramp by David Williams at TheMusic.FM.

Read the entire article here →