Beach House On Sunday night, the fine folks at National Public Radio uploaded a free stream of Beach House’s Bloom, the local duo’s fourth album and its first since the breakthrough success of 2010’s Teen Dream. A first listen reveals an album that feels like a natural extension of Teen Dream, with tightly layered...
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Blaqstarr Blaqstarr dropped a new track yesterday (via his label Interscope) and there’s nothing Baltimore club about it. Which isn’t a big surprise; dude’s been onto something more for a while, even when you could properly call him a club producer. This is like a new strain of anti-R&B—lo-fi backgroundy production, a kind of...
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The Pilgrim, from Kickstarter I’ve seen some powerfully bullshit Kickstarter pleas over the past year or so from bands you will never hear of, wanting, like, major label-style money to record a debut record and various things several miles past the border of self-obsessed self-indulgence, but there’s also a flip-side to that of the...
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Irony Bosley, a young white hipster soul singer-slash-persona from Baltimore, tried to raise $20,000 on Kickstarter for this video, in which said performer walks around shooting people on Old Town Mall indiscriminately. It’s supposed to be a metaphor, I guess, though as far as metaphors go–and most anything else, for that matter–it has all the...
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An die Musik We were kinda worried that it was going to be worse: The jazz and classical venue‘s phone has been turned off since early in the week, after a Sunday night show cancelled. E-mails to club owner Henry Wong were bouncing back, and e-mails about cancelled and/or moved shows had started rolling...
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With apologies Tomorrow’s event at the Anne Arundel County fairgrounds is off, with organizers citing the big you-know-what presently lapping at the Georgia coast. “We have been watching the weather very closely this week,” says Kyle Muehlhauser, president of the Rams Head Group, in a press blast. “Safety for the fans, bands, staff and...
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The Hexagon Last week, the Hexagon Space, the Station North DIY gallery/music venue, announced it would be shutting down as of July 1. Its lease was set to expire, and it would not be renewed by the space’s owner, Joy Martin (of Club Charles/Zodiac fame). In a phone call to City Paper, Martin explained,...
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The Hexagon in its heyday The Hexagon Space, for a time an indispensable DIY performance/gallery space in Station North, has announced that it intends to shut down July 1. A posting on its web site reads: Sorry folks.  We’ve lost our lease.  Effective JULY 1ST, 2011, The Hexagon Space location at 1825 NORTH CHARLES...
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Not a real tattoo “I’m not cool; I’m not badass. It’s an intimidating thing to try and do,” says Jenn Wasner, prefacing Wye Oak’s cover of Danzig’s “Mother,” done recently for the Onion A/V Club’s Undercover cover song series (making them the only band invited back a second time). It winds up fitting the...
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Poor guy In which the white, privileged phenomenon known as “playing poor” reaches its establishment apogee. Broke-Ass Stuart is in town right now filming a television show for IFC, apparently to do with the “broke and beautiful” concept explored on “broke-ass stuart’s goddamn website” via such items as “Are Rock “Gods” Really That Bone-able?”...
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"Whore of Baltimore" Enjoy this new song/video from Baltimore’s Bethany Dinsick, making lovely out-folk ambience equal parts song and ritual: slow, falling-off guitar strums; honeyed, burrowing vocals; and background texture courtesy of an MRI machine (according to the video’s notes). Also: more, more, MORE triangles.  It seems like Disnick doesn’t appear out all that...
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Kitties The band Ponytail isn’t dead. The beachy, squealy art-punk force-of-nature even has another album coming out, a long-awaited follow-up to 2008’s Ice Cream Spiritual, this April, Do Whatever You Want All the Time. Dig this teaser video, an ecstatic barf of found footage, reappropriated pop imagery, and kitties. Be more excited about the...
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Still better cover art than /\/\/\Y/\ Weirdly enough, RYEot PowRR doesn’t come with much information–like a tracklisting or DJ/producer/guest MC info–but a few minutes in, the mix has already dashed between classic old-club banger, stripped nearly-naked rap, and heavy electro grind with that fucking Ninjasonik “I love art school girls” hook. It’s a different...
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By Ports Bishop Zomes, the current project of erstwhile Lungfisher Asa Osborne, will be releasing its second album and first since 2008′s self-titled debut this spring on Thrill Jockey, e.g. one of Baltimore music’s biggest label supporters. Expect this new batch of inner-space drone bliss, titled Earth Grid, April 12.
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Dog Leather First up, the first new song in years from erstwhile Baltimore spazz-punk band the Death Set. And it’s probably the heaviest, most breaking-things track the band’s ever done—Johnny Siera stops shrieking just long enough for a weird mechanical sampled chorus to cut in, backed by a guitar that seems almost metal. Punishing...
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Dan Deacon + Matmos This happened at last fall’s MoogFest in North Carolina: two improv jams between Dan Deacon and Matmos’ Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt, released yesterday via the indie live-recording vault Daytrotter. Warned by a comment from Schmidt on the Daytrotter posting that the second track “*really* isn’t very good,” I went...
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By Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez It wasn’t long ago that Dan Deacon was touring via Greyhound bus and living the unglamorous, underground art-collective lifestyle. Well, he still does. Mostly. But last week, it was announced that he’ll be scoring the new Francis Ford Coppola movie, Twixt Now and Sunrise, starring Val Kilmer. Late last week,...
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Dave Heumann Dunno the context for this aside from it being Dave Heumann sitting alone on a hill during the fall sometime. The song is “When Delivery Comes,” off Arbouretum‘s forthcoming The Gathering, and you’ve got to appreciate how heavy he can make it even minus all of the full band’s electric churn and...
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By Jonathan Purvis Well, here is a thing that makes total and complete sense but, at the same time, none whatsoever. Dan Deacon is set to score a new Francis Ford Coppola film called Twixt Now and Sunrise. Which is a league away from Ultimate Reality head-tripping but, anyone who’s paid deep attention to...
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urbanmusicdirect.com Rap beef? Bossman doesn’t even have time for that now. He’s on to the Ultimate Question. The answer? “Live life, religion’s all a mind game.” The beat is as heavy as lead, and his delivery is kinda insane, darting all over feverishly and only coalescing a few times into lines like the above....
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