Earlier this month, I interviewed Elephant Man, Jamaica’s wildest entertainer. We discussed his new album, Let’s Get Physical on Diddy’s Bad Boy Records label, and Ele revealed a few juicy tidbits that haven’t made headlines yet. So, of course, I’m happy to share them with you! He mentioned that the next single off Let’s Get Physical will be his collaboration with Chris Brown. Man, the ladies are just mad about this barely-legal RnB star! I get so many emails and comments about Chris! The song he did with Elephant Man is called “Feel The Steam” and you can listen to it here:

Elephant Man + Chris Brown - “Feel The Steam”

([More →])

Fans of extreme music, experimental electronica, ragga and grime - I have a fantastic treat for you! There is an excellent interview with The Bug over on the french DubStep website. Kevin Martin (The Bug) talks about everything - how he first got involved in music, his time spent working with Justin Broadrick (Napalm Death, Jesu) as Techno Animal, his brief stint with Warner Brothers, and a whole lot more that has led up to him being a brilliant pioneering musician that blends ragga, breakcore, dubstep, dancehall, electronica, and extreme noise into totally original music. ([More →])

Launching your artwork into the world can be a whirlwind of manic activity, especially when it’s your first time. Mr. J Medeiros is not new to releasing albums, he’s put out 3 albums as a member of the Procussions. But putting a solo work out into the world is a whole new game. ([More →])

Bjork! Bjork! Bjork! Dang nothing happened. I thought maybe I could conjure up the faerie queen. Well, she’s probably to busy right now to be conjured. She’s still touring and doing all kinds of press.

For starters, you can find a fabulous interview with Bjork in the amazing online magazine Dummy Mag. It’s a virtual magazine that you actually turn the pages of. I love these tree-free magazines! Her interview is on page 66, but you might not want to skip ahead. There are articles/interviews with Bonde do Role, Justice, Maccabees, Dizzee Rascal, Skull Disco and more with lots of big glossy looking photos. Surprisingly it loads super fast. I need to learn that trick. Must be a flash thing.

Over on the opposite side of the web (literally, from zmag.co.uk to apple.com) Alan Pollard profiled the technical arrangement of Volta for Apple Pro. Alan Pollard has an insider’s perspective as Bjork’s technical director for a full 10 years. He must be pretty good at his job. He’s in charge of the technical aspects of her music, and is especially important to her on tour. In this feature, he talks about how he packs the entire faerie kingdom into a laptop (lemme guess, a MAC laptop) and the details of how to make all her mechanization work seamlessly with her human performance. It’s a stellar read for studio and gear buffs.

M.I.A. Opens For Bjork In France

And, If you are able to catch her 2 shows in Nimes France in August, you will also get to see M.I.A. when she opens for Bjork at these 2 shows!

LINKS

Dummy Mag
Bjork Tech Profile
Bjork website
M.I.A.

7Grand Records artists Guru and Solar have been busy with the Jazzmatazz series, they are up to Volume 4 which compiles Common, Omar, Blackalicious, Raheem Devaughn and more. There is no release date set for Vol.4 yet, but there is a new treat from the superproducers - they recently gave the remix treatment to the Gym Class Heroes song “Cupid’s Chokehold” (which was #1 on the Billboard chart when GCH released it). The remix is not officially released yet, but GIANT STEP couldn’t wait to share it. You can download it from their page or listen to it on Guru’s music $pace.

Get more info at GIANT STEP. You can read or listen to an interview with Solar and Guru on the 7 Grand website. The 7 Grand website has all kinds of goodies by and about these 2, so you might want to spend some time wandering around there.

Technorati Tags: hiphop, music, news, download, mp3, remix

There is an excellent article in the UK Times Online today about the current reunion of Throbbing Gristle, a band which continues to be a huge influence on me in many ways. The Times discusses with the members of TG their reasons for reforming, their recent performances, and how easy it was to start working together again. They recently released their first album in 26 years, PART TWO The Endless Not which is available from their online store.

Tracklist For PART TWO The Endless Not

1. Vow Of Silence
2. Rabbit Snare
3. Separated
4. Almost A Kiss
5. Greasy Spoon
6. Lyre Liar
7. Above The Below
8. Endless Not
9. The Worm Waits It Turn
10. After The Fall

Last month, the group played with a choir of 20 singers at the Donau Festival in Austria. This last weekend, they played a live musical score for early Super 8 films by Derek Jarman. Chris Carter has a flickr page with photos from the Donau, likely he will be adding photos from the performance this weekend as well. But, there is still another chance to see them live if you are in London and it sounds as if they will be scheduling more shows in the future. According to the Times Online article:

“It seems to us now,” says Christopherson on their reasons for reforming, “that the record business is in as bad a situation as it was in the 1970s, if not worse. It’s not really able to make a statement unless it’s directly related to putting cute boys and cute girls onstage. We felt it was important that our message could be heard again, and people could realise that music can mean something.”

Cosey Fanni Tutti, who has remained active with a solo career as well as the excellent duo Chris and Cosey with fellow TG member Chris Carter (who also maintained an amazing solo experimental electronica careers - at times my very favorite artist, and one who I have been massively inspired by in my own musical efforts), went on to say in the article that it was incredibly easy to start working as TG again because each member continues to share the same desire and message to communicate through music. Christopherson elaborates by stating that the next project with TG is always the most exciting one. Good news for TG fans that would like to see a revival of their controversial interpretations on what popular music sounds like and how it is presented and integrated with the public sphere!

Shows

June 1-3 TG - The Desertshore Installation at the Institute Of Contemporary Art, London
TG return to the ICA London (ica.org.uk) for a series of public ‘Recording Sessions’.

Links

Throbbing Gristle
TG music $pace
Times Online article

Technorati Tags: TG, music, noise, news, album, experimental, electronica, Jarman, Cosey, Chris Carter

Psychic TV has a new album out, Hell Is Invisible…Heaven Is Here, which isn’t officially released until June 12th, but a limited number of signed copies will be available at the record release party tonight in NYC, AND can also be ordered directly from the Genesis P-Orridge’s website. Starting June 12th, you can purchase regular copies from Insound.
It’s PTV’s first studio album in 10 years, and it features Nick Zinner and Gibby Haynes as guest musicians on a few tracks! Gibby Haynes will be performing at the record release party tonight, but so far, there is no evidence that Nick will be present….

According to the band’s blog:

The record is complete and has been mixed by Baba Larriji in his ultra high-tech studio in California. It will be released in Sring of 2007. Only a coupla more months baby!
The record has 10 tracks. Some are older PTV tracks that were never released. These tracks have evolved through the process of the live detour of 2004 and have been boiled down to their essences, hopefully keeping the original ’spook’ whilst injecting them with retarded high octane insanorock. The rest are new, original PTV3 compositions that see Genesis digging deeper into her soul than EVER before. There are stories here that will tickle your freakbone till the sun rises, or till you die. Well, you know, everyone does! We have attempted to fuse all of our psychedelic and rock and roll dreams into one little silver disc. If we have, than bully for us! Please take with small psilocybin cap, or eat 4 pounds of bannanas and smoke all the peals! If we havent, well, ha ha….suckers!—–Posted by David

Track listing:

1. Higher & Higher
2. In Thee Body
3. Lies, And Then
4. Maximum Swing (i think this is the Gibby/Nick Z track…)
5. New York Story
6. I Don’t Think So
7. Hookah Chalice
8. Just Because
9. BB
10. Milk Baba

Deluxe 16 page color booklet with photos & lyrics!!

There is also an interview with Genny in the New York Press that you can check out. I love how it begins with G lamenting:

“No one ever asks me about my lyrics…I spend painful, ridiculous amounts of effort on them.”

Technorati Tags: PTV, news, music, album, YYY, NYC

Ozzy is making a move to stay at the top of the list of headlines this week! Within the last 24 hours, fellow MOGgers have posted news of Ozzy’s superb interview with the Telegraph and the official upload of the first single from his upcoming release, Black Rain, and here i am posting the latest Oz buzz :
Ozzy’s hometown of Birmingham is about to install its own Walk Of Fame, similar to the star-lined Walk in Hollywood. And who will they honour with the very first star on this stretch of glitter and gold?
Yep - Ozzy Osbourne will be inducted on the new Birmingham Walk Of Fame! Located on Broad Street, the star will be planted on July 6th, the same day that Ozzy plays his homecoming show at the National Indoor Arena.

More info, including how honoured the Lord Mayor of Birmingham is to be able to offer the first star to Ozzy, can be found at NME.

Technorati Tags: black metal, news, music, interview, Ozzy, album

Sizzla’s Judgement Yard website has posted audio from Irie FM’s “Entertainment Buzz” where Sizzla spoke about various projects that he is working on. According to Judgement Yard:

In the interview, Sizzla touched on everything from Rise To The Occasion III, his annual earth strong celebration which will be held this Saturday, May 19, 2007 on Windard Road, to ‘The Overstanding’, which is Sizzla’s latest album to date. Sizzla also answered questions directly from the fans who phoned into the show regarding various projects such as the development of the youths in Judgement Yard and the building of a new Tabernacle here, as well as current plans in the works for his new clothing line and magazine.

You can download the audio in 3 parts in mp3 format from Judgement Yard.

Technorati Tags: Sizzla, reggae, dancehall, mp3, radio

NPR Radio - Live Broadcast Plus New Interview/Article

Community radio giant NPR announced today that they will be transmitting a live broadcast of Bjork’s full concert from the United Palace in New York. It airs approximately 8pm ET on Saturday, May 5th. Until then you can get your Bjork fix for the day by reading the lovely article NPR has posted, where they discuss the upcoming album with Bjork herself. She relates more about the creative energy and turbid state that inspired this more aggressive and more political side of her. As she tells NPR at one point :

“It’s about being exhausted with the self-importance of religion, and thinking, ‘okay, wait a minute, maybe we are one tribe, and we’re actually part of nature, and trying to suggest some kind of patent for that.”

Definitely check that out on NPR. The concert series will also be broadcasting a solo concert by Ben Gibbard, live from Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club on Thursday, May 10. More about that on this NPR page.

Volta Audio Links

You can also listen to these songs from the soon-to-be-released Volta -

• Declare Independence

MOG posts that have Volta tracks :

• Wassonii posted “Innocence” and Declare Independence

• macdaddy n mog posted “Hope”

One More New Article And Interview In NYTimes

Plus, these audio interviews with Bjork from the latest NYTimes article:

• Speaking about Volta’s tribal aspects

• About her previous albums

It’s a great article with more snippets like these interspersed throughout. Check it out at NYTimes<

Finally, here is a video of Bjork performing “Innocence”, from the Laugardalsholl concert on 9th April 2007:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/GEtpJsEC12c]

Support Community Radio - SAVE INTERNET RADIO

If you like to get live concerts broadcast for free on public radio, and you would like to continue enjoying the great programming that stations like NPR provide, then you better get your rear in gear and SAVE INTERNET RADIO! Everybody is qualified to perform at least one of the actions being promoted to help stop the Copyright Royalty Board from sabataging our access to non-commercial radio from around the globe. To find out what you can do, visit SAVE NET RADIO - and hurry! There are only 13 days left until the retro-active fines are imposed. That’s only 13 days until the day the music died if we don’t speak up loudly!

read more about Bjork : news and updates

This is certainly the year for Bjork, and her fans are the ones benefiting from all these interviews, podcasts, videos, and everything that is allowing the world a closer glimpse into the faerie queen’s world! i have yet another interview to direct your attention to - Music For Robots posted their recent interview with Bjork today.
To whet your appetite, nibble on this morsel :

“Nowadays I work so much alone, writing the melodies, writing the lyrics, working on the computer that by the time I work with someone it is a real treat!”

Read the entire interview over at Music For Robots.

Here is video from her SNL performance of “Wanderlust” last weekend -
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/bbBoulH15yE]

read more about Bjork : news and updates

The Onion AV Club gathered question from their readers and asked them of Henry Rollins. Henry Rollins Answers Your Questions About Politics at the AV Club.
Just to get you juiced up, here is one of his answers, you’ll have to click over to read the question :

HR: The most messed-up political systems are the ones supported by those who say their system is the fairest and the best, to the point where they feel the need to spread that system to other countries without asking said countries what they think. These are the ones who seem to have no problem ignoring the hypocrisy and shortcomings of their system, but demand that others use it anyway. It’s like only selling damaged goods to people, then robbing them of the cost if they don’t want to buy the product. If you dare to point out the parts of the product that could be improved upon, you are told that you hate the product. That is pretty messed-up.

Subscribe to HearingTest