Results tagged “download”

We'll forgive you if you cringe as we preface this review by saying we'll be discussing a local funk / soul band, but please stick with us. While the majority of bands under that label play uninspired mimeographs there are a handful that are truly talented and reaching out for something honest and new. The Right Now is one of the groups looking to save the soul from the Bro-town ghetto. more ›

We've always had trouble figuring out why a band that creates as beuatiful music as Holy Fuck does would, well, choose a moniker that might keep that music out of the hands of the masses. Their mixture of hympnotci ro0ck and electronics swerves from soothing to epic and effortlessly takes over and, honest to god, lifts our mood.every time its pumped through our speakers. more ›

Title Tracks' It Was Easy isn't a forceful album at first. We didn't go scrolling through out tracklists seeing out its tunes. And every time we stumbled back across one of the group's tracks, we had to ask ourselves why we waited so long to give them another listen. more ›

The new album from High Places, High Places vs. Mankind isn't out until April 6, but the band is giving you a taste of what to expect with the free single "Can't Feel Nothing (Remix)." The track won't appear on the album, but it will be collected with a 12" of remixes called Can't Feel Born at some point. more ›

Look, we don't even have the energy to make the effort to knock the stuff Billy Corgan is putting out any more, so if you're actually interested you can grab the latest track he's releasing under the Smashing Pumpkins' name, "A Stitch In Time," below. more ›

The Laureates don't seem to believe in taking things easy. They just celebrated the release of their new EP No Knotrol over the weekend, and they're currently amidst a run of releasing a free MP3 cover song to fans every month throughout 2010. January found them putting their own spin on The Velvet Underground's "I Can't Stand It" and February's offering was the creeping Breeders nugget "Do You Love Me Now." more ›

Drink Up Buttercup's debut Born And Thrown On A Hook throws all of the band's copious influences into a murky psychedelic pop stew. They are just as liable to snag a faux-operatic tenor as they are to bang on a harpsichord or wail like so many mod kids hooped up on pep pills. more ›

The Candles is the solo project of Josh Lattanzi, who's best known for a number of recent high profile gigs as a sideman with Albert Hammond Jr., Ben Kweller, The Lemonheads, and Tinted Windows. Lattanzi recently finished recording The Candles' debut Between the Sounds, and it's a collection of pleasant Americana-tinged power-pop in the vein of, well, recent tourmate Evan Dando. more ›

It's been a while since we saw any bands passing through Elbo Room that piqued our interest, but tonight sees not one but two promising bands appearing on the club's basement stage. more ›

Recently Skybox shot a video for the lead single off their latest album Morning After Cuts, "In A Dream." It involves Ultraman, a crowd-surfing giraffe, a dancing chicken, and a seven-foot drag queen. And those are the more normal elements of the video. more ›

Swedish combo Shout Out Louds release their new album Work next Tuesday, and from what we've heard it's another breezy but bouncing bundle of bubbling pop. They allowed one of the album's tunes, "Fall Hard," to fall into the hands of the dance rockers in Passion Pit. The Passion Pit boys actually slow the tune down, strip it of it's effervescent rush and replace that with a lurching groove, turning a giddy song to spin to into a darker tune more suited to a sweaty make-out session. more ›

We love Cobra Verde. We love Dinosaur Jr and pretty much everything J. Mascis' guitar touches. So when we heard about Sweet Apple -- combining singer / guitarist John Petkovic and guitarist Tim Parnin from Cobra Verde with Mascis and Dave Sweetapple, his bassist from Witch -- we had huge expectations. more ›

We love Menya. The trio from NYC creates terrific original electro-pop, and their flips of popular pop tunes are always tops.(One of our faves is their evisceration of 3OH!3 in "Ho's Revenge.") their latest takes emo-pop tyke Justin Bieber's innocent "Baby" and sexes the hell out of it. After watching it we recommend you download Menya's latest disc The Sleepover Series (vol. 1) for free. more ›

At first the notion of a Pavement "best of" album made no sense to us, but then we realized not everyone owns every single thing the band put out like we do. in Pavement's ten years as a working band it's fair to say they birthed the final wave of the truly independent movement in music and it's hard to understate their influence on the generation that followed. more ›

Listening to ShellShag's debut Rumors In Disguise is akin to being in high school, driving on a cold winter night, windows cracked to allow some of the cigarette smoke choking the interior to stream out, lungs warm and nostrils iced. The songs are rooted in the days just before alterna-rock went mega and recording budgets were low but the music was immediate and solid. Girl / boy vocals tussle and wrestle over guitars locked in attack over thudding, basic, and perfect drums. more ›

The Kleptones' 2006 release 24 Hours was on our list of favorite albums from that year, so we've been waiting quite a while for it's follow up to arrive. The DJ collective, primarily fronted by Eric Kleptone, operates within the framework of mash-ups but unlike many other mash-up DJs they don't tweak the tunes for novelty's sake. Instead they truly re-contextualize the source material and rework it to create sweeping mood pieces and sometimes, as on 24, actual narratives. more ›

We stopped by Post in Pilsen Saturday night to see Tiny Concepts, a solo minimalist experimental act who just happens to be a delicate little French girl from Brittany. But we were delightfully surprised to find that local outfit, YAWN, was headlining this discreet gallery show. Their performance was truly the highlight of the night and they proved that, despite their youthful appearance and demeanor, they’re actually serious, experienced musicians. more ›

We were big fans of the debut album from New Jersey boys Titus Andronicus with its swirling vats of blood spattered and screeching arena punk. Their new album, The Monitor, is set to come out in early March and it's a slightly more focused affair in that it's production is a little more polished, but that hasn't rubbed the rough edged delivery away. In fact, sonically, the new disc bears a resemblance to Conor Oberst's Desaparecidos* had that group gained a penchant for penning 6+ minute epics churning with fury and the fearlessness to throw whatever works, including boozy brass sections, into the mix. Call it what you will -- we're going with prog-punk -- we think you'll agree it's pretty arresting. Here's an advance treat of the new disc for you to swim around in. more ›

Oh Snap!! has updated their hilarious paean to hipsters "Funk Dat" -- itself a re-up of Sagat's hit from the early '90s -- for the new year. more ›

It's Friday and it's time to kick the weekend into gear. We at Chicagoist are unapologetic about our love for certain strains of pop and say what you will about Ke$ha's bubblegum Uffie impression on her hit "TiK ToK," you have to admit it's pretty catchy. It's been remixed near to death already, but we just got our hands on one of the few that stands out above the crowd, so feast your ears on the exclusive premier of Deluka's sightly rockin', slightly retro reimagining of "Tik Tok." more ›

We've told you in the past about the multiple ways you can keep track of us at your computer and on-the-go. Now, for you iPhone and iPod touch users, there's a new way to follow us - and other sites in the 'ist-a-verse - while you're away from the computer. Today, thanks to some hard work from the Gothamist Tech Team, we've launched the first version of the istaverse iPhone app. You can select any of the Gothamist network's 13 sites to keep track of while you're out and about and, best of all, it's FREE. more ›

Wilco is offering downloads of two full shows from the past year for free on their site, and in exchange they're asking fans who snag them to donate a minimum of $15 tp either OXFAM or Doctors Without Borders. That is over 4-1/2 hours of music for a measly fifteen bucks towards two worthy causes active in helping those in need all over the world, including Haiti. more ›

What would Passion Pit sound like if they were fronted by Miley Cyrus? Thanks to the boys in Yes Giantess, now you know. (Though we have to admit, this treatment of "Party In The U.S.A. is still KING!) more ›

The newest free track off the slowly forming new Smashing Pumpkins album Teargarden by Kaleidyscope dampens our hopes -- after a promising start -- that this endeavor would actually be an interesting experiment. "Widow Wake My Mind" only serves to remind us what's wrong with the current incarnation of the Pumpkins. Missing is the inventive and propulsive drumming of Jimmy Chamberlin's, replaced by a plodding beat that only serves the drag down this wisp of a song. Add to that canned orchestrations and laughably simplistic lyrics underpinned by melodies that make nursery rhymes seem intricate, and you end up with "Widow Wake My Mind." more ›

We admit we've sort of lost touch with the super chill jazz-hop of The J. Davis Trio in recent years. We followed them pretty closely in the early aughts, often catching them with The Baldwin Brothers at shows packed with sassy ladies and sharp dressed dudes grooving to each other to the J. Davis Trio vibe. The group has just dropped it's latest album, These Things Happen, and judging by the band's first single "Breezay" they haven't changed their approach one whit. Groovy. more ›

Well, you already know we like OK Go's new album. And you know the band has a penchant for releasing inventive videos, so it should come as no surprise that the second single off their new disc would include a delightful live performance of "This Too Shall Pass" with a marching band. Though we can't help but wonder where they got the inspiration from ... was it Fleetwood Mac or Andrew Bird? more ›

The collaboration between Lindstrøm and Christabelle, Real Life Is No Cool, has been stuck in our modern hi-fi the last few days. The album is a playful exchange between the two principals and their back-and-forth results in what we can only describe as schizoid cohesion. The beats would fit wel on a beach whose waves are gently licking the shoreline, but they are also equally at home sliding up and down icicles making their way off precarious rooftop perches. Pristine yet organic seems to be the key feeling behind Lindstrøm's beds of sound, and Christabelle's coolly in control vocals ride the same line of duality. It's beach music that works on the slopes of Aspen. more ›

Dave Cantor sent us this mix of him digging around his "digital crates" a few weeks ago and we were holding onto it until the time was right. Until the time had arrived that we just couldn't listen to another holiday tune. Until the time that the weather was burrowing into our bones making it impossible to shake of its chill and get comfortable. So NOW is the right time to hit you up with sunshine rhythms to help you remember that now the nights are getting shorter and summer is slowly making its way back to us. more ›

Pelican's latest album What We All Come To Need further refines the band's approach to sculpting mighty slabs of atmospheric metal. The band started out playing dive-y clubs in Wicker park and Ukranian Village years ago and gained a decent following pretty quickly by being scrawny indie boys playing instrumental metal. It was kind of interesting in a landscape of post-rocker and proto-hipsters. But what seemed slightly gimmicky at first turned out to be based in a real passion for taking sound and making it into monoliths eclipsing their audience. While their music has grown ever more precise through the years, it's never lost the passionate base that makes it something more than simply stoner math rock. more ›

Our inbox got a heaping dose of Moneypenny yesterday as the lovely ladies were giving away a Christmas single and a Christmas mix for free. We can't really endorse the single, which includes a sort of a washed out cover of the Vince Guaraldi Trio's classic "Christmas Time Is Here" and an ill-advised remake of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart, but if you really want to give it a listen for yourself you can grab it here. It's not our thing but, who knows, maybe you'll like it. more ›