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Featured Music Midnight Juggernauts release album, fold lots of paper

November 18, 2010 - 11:16 am

Not quite sure what they’re putting in the water over there, but Australia seems to have become a distribution hub for the kind of shoegaze dance pop that invariably puts you in a good mood every time you listen to it. What started in the ’80s with groups like Severed Heads continues today with groups like Cut Copy, The Presets and Melbourne’s very own DIY kings Midnight Juggernauts, whose latest full-length, The Crystal Axis, is in heavy rotation over here in the ChinaShop offices. Currently on tour–check the bottom of this post for dates near you–the three scruffy gents with a penchant for vintage synths and paper-folding (check the video after the jump) took some time out from being stranded in Miami to answer some questions about the new record.

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Music Holy Sons’ Emil Amos shares his Survivalist Tales

by Rich Thomas

November 11, 2010 - 11:37 am

Since 2007, Emil Amos has had a hand in 15 records released across six different bands and eight labels. (There may be more, I don’t know.) Prolific doesn’t even begin to describe his game, and when you take into account the sonic and thematic diversity between his three main groups—Grails, OM and Holy Sons—you begin to see that each outlet reveals a very different part of Amos’ creative subconsciousness. Though he’s most often credited as a drummer, Amos’ abilities extend far beyond percussion, and he’s become a master of the kind of low-fi sturm und drang that would make Tom Waits jealous. We chatted with Amos about his latest album as Holy Sons, Survivalist Tales!, and how it lines up with the rest of his recent work.

Holy Sons – “Slow Days”

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Gallery Music Vanaprasta’s CMJ Photo Diary

by Rich Thomas

November 4, 2010 - 10:08 am

A month-long residency at the Echo and a headlining slot at the Key Club during the Sunset Strip Musical Festival confirmed for the LA masses what us at ChinaShop have known for quite some time. Vanaprasta—the sometimes proggy, sometimes psychedelic, always rocking band with the name that’s really hard to type out—has officially arrived, and with a full-length debut already recorded and due for release sometime in 2011, they’re poised to break out big time. The boys were kind enough to snap some pics of their recent sojourn to New York for CMJ, while Cameron Dmytryk (guitars) and Taylor Brown (bass) sorted us out with an interview and an MP3 of “Minnesota,” a track off their album.

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Music Black Heart Procession

by Jeff Nau

January 6, 2010 - 11:17 am

Temporary Residence, Ltd. | There’s a lot of different kinds of music to love in San Diego’s The Black Heart Procession. A little of the Victorian-era, a bit of Voltaire (the musician, not the philosopher); even some of that keyboard could be the soundtrack to a carnival freak show, complete with Lynchian, calliope imagery that brings Merrick himself to mind. There’s a lot of the circus to BHP, too — they’re kind of the musical equivalent of Barnum and Bailey, with five extremely versatile musical stunt artists.

Black Heart Procession – Rats

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Music Ocote Soul: Music For the Eclectic… and the Insane

by Jeff Nau

January 4, 2010 - 1:34 pm

ESL Music | As self-described “coconut rockers”, Ocote Soul play the kind of Latin-flavored music that has its heart in the sounds of jazz and Afrobeat, and lyrically, in the pain of heartache and loves lost. They’re a different kind of indie rock band whose world-music flavor can open minds, and tracks like “The Revolt of the Cockroach People” can prove simultaneously crazy yet ominous, even anarchic as instrumentals. Their respective bios prove interesting enough: Martin Perner is a legendary producer who has worked with the likes of Antibalas, and in his spare time worked as a keen environmentalist, creating the first biodiesel factory in New York City. The dude even converted his sta

Music The Slew

by Jeff Nau

November 9, 2009 - 11:02 am

Puget Sound | Funky, rough, and riff-based, there is something blatantly bluesy and rocked-out within The Slew’s hip-hop sound. A spoken-word chorus, repeated on top of “It’s All Over”, revels in the band’s dedication to interweaving 70′s hard rock with modern turntable anarchy. It laments the absence of people power, in its own way calling all of you to band together and embrace their new sound on 100%. Assisted by musicians formerly of the Grammy-award winning Wolfmother, Slew hopes to gain a little more retro, Marshall-amped credibility to add to their hard rock status.

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Music Githead Gives it Just as

by Jeff Nau

November 4, 2009 - 10:56 am

Music Scott Hardkiss

by Jeff Nau

October 15, 2009 - 11:58 am

Giant Step | Mixing different styles of electronica, techno, trance, and more, many of S cott Hardkiss‘ song titles are both self-explanatory and satirical: Beat Freak encompasses a wide variety of different beats, both percussive and synth-based, while others like The Revolution Has Begun are less genre-bending revelations than catchy, quirky observations on electronic music’s self-indulgent obsession with retro effects. Star Power, with its satirical view of trite celebrity fashion concerns, could be a newer mix between Right Said Fred and Rick James, while What We Got is somewhere between self-deprecating and genuinely just plain fun.
On Technicolor Dreamer, Hardkiss breaks a bit further away from his God Within moniker to focus more on this specifically solo musical venture; fans familiar with his jazz and funk influences will find a great deal more of both at play than on other outings. But Hardkiss seems intent on both covering familiar ground as well as surprising the listener: On tracks like It Comes From Above, many of those familiar Euro-pop elements mix with a simple five-word mantra, all in praise of electronic music’s more intangible and ethereal qualities.

Words by Jeff Nau

Scott Hardkiss – Intro

Scott Hardkiss – Come On, Come On

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Music The Mary Onettes

by Shop Keeper

September 25, 2009 - 5:19 pm

The Mary Onettes’ critically acclaimed debut was described as the perfect mix between A-ha and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Now they are back with a grandiose new album. Imagine a Swedish equivalent of The National on a diet of speed, Planet Earth DVDs, and 80′s guitar pop singles and you’ll have a vague idea of how amazing this is.

The year 2008 was characterized by the deaths of close relatives and friends of Philip Ekstrom (singer and songwriter of the band) and on Islands he’s put more focus on the lyrics. ‘The Disappearance of My Youth’ and ‘Cry for Love’ were written in his girlfriend’s mother’s estate and most of the songs on the album are highly marked by his time in Stockholm after her death.

The Mary Onettes – Puzzles

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Music Blaq Poet

by Shop Keeper

September 15, 2009 - 10:40 am

“There’s not a lot of dudes making me rewind these days. Everything now is fast forward, next song. Everybody wants to go in the studio and not write their rhymes. What good is not writing your rhymes? It shows!” Blaq Poet’s words drip with venom, his face contorted like some mask in a Greek tragedy when discussing the current state of rap music. This is hardly a new diatribe. But the verbal slings take on renewed vitality when voiced by an artist who has participated in one of rap’s greatest feuds —the Bronx vs. Queens— as spearheaded by KRS-One and MC Shan, respectively. In this derivative era of MCs with their noses open, their eyes closed, and their imaginations overactive, Blaq Poet’s unapologetic streetwise bluster is refreshing and welcome. And the irony of getting back to rap’s essence —“bangin’ boom-bap, crazy lyrical content”—as something novel isn’t lost on the grizzled Queensbridge native.

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