Malcolm McLaren R.I.P.

The music world lost one of its most charismatic figures yesterday (April 8) when former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren passed away. His influence spread far and wide, from work with the New York Dolls to the controversial near-nude pictures of 14-year-old Bow Wow Wow singer Annabella Lwin that decorated the band’s debut LP cover. McLaren also had a notable music career of his own, which principally centered on the 1983 Duck Rock album. The record helped spread the word about hip-hop to some far flung corners of the globe, and that work pinged right back to the United States as his “Buffalo Gals” single became a much-sampled staple. His other single from that album, “Double Dutch," paid warm tribute to a group of high-school age New York skipping champions, and remains a song of unbridled joy—it even pre-dates Vampire Weekend’s pilfering of “African” guitar rhythms by several decades.

Read full article here.

High Places Interview

Their origins may be in the still-thriving DIY scene in Brooklyn, but Mary Pearson and Rob Barber of High Places have always had a glassy pop edge to their music. Subtle stylistic shifts marked the transition from their earliest singles to their self-titled debut album, and further changes are afoot on the new High Places vs. Mankind. Their live set now features plenty of guitar playing from the pair, occasional vocal interjections from Mary’s sister, Laura, and even that most un-punk rock of instruments—the bassoon. DiS called High Places in their adopted home of Los Angeles, where we spoke about Judas Priest and Saturday Night Fever, their work on Liars’ Sisterworld, and how they felt about moving from New York to California.

Read full article here.

High Places - High Places vs Mankind: Review

High Places were always something of an anomaly in the Brooklyn scene. If music and art is intrinsically linked to the environment in which it is made, Rob Barber and Mary Pearson took one look at their surroundings and veered in the polar opposite direction. They appeared to be using their bucolic take on electronic music as a means of primitive escapism, as a way of wiping the grime of New York from their faces, to disappear for an hour or so into songs flooded with a rustic, agrarian light that you could never find in the city.

Read full article here.

Effi Briest Interview

Working in the visual arts can be a lonely experience. After completing an undergraduate degree at SVA, future Effi Briest songwriter and drummer Corinne Jones toiled away as a painter. The inherent creative confinement sparked an urge to push her art in a different direction, to connect with people and filter her impulses into a collaborative force. “It was so isolating, that way of working, and I needed to do something else, have another outlet,” she recalls over drinks at Soft Spot in Williamsburg. “So I just asked a lot of friends if they wanted to get together and make some noise with me.”

Read full article here.

The New Era of Pop Exclusitvity

Everyone hates an exclusive club, unless they’re asked to join or can somehow force themselves in. For a long time, the Internet has operated in direct opposition to such exclusivity-—it’s a free-for-all, where user generated content is king, and anyone with a half-realized idea can easily foist themselves onto the public for five seconds and then shrink back into anonymity. This way of working hasn’t been kind to the music industry, which once thrived on the removed other-ness of pop idols. Those kids in the '70s who spoke in awe-struck tones about David Bowie coming from another planet now seem impossibly naïve, their wide-eyed wonder replaced with an all-knowing savvy, because we’ve all been drawn so much closer to the people whose art has inspired us. We can even interact with many of them directly via MySpace, Twitter, Facebook or [insert name of preferred social networking tool here].

Read full article here.

Alex Chilton R.I.P.

The sudden death of Alex Chilton on Thursday (March 18) has sparked an outpouring of grief from the music community, with many friends, acquaintances and fans paying warm tribute to a man who has touched most of our lives at some point. Chilton was certainly a difficult man and a willful contrarian, but he didn’t need to speak to us through interviews or conversation—his deeply personal, sad, touching and sometimes funny songs did all the work for him.

Read full article here.

Rob Swift - The Architect: Review

In the hands of Queens native Rob Swift, the master turntablist who has collaborated with everyone from Blue Man Group to Mike Patton, hip-hop is a pliable tool, a genre to be warped and moulded and parlayed into a musical force shorn of recognisable boundaries. He first tumbled into Patton’s orbit as a member of the X- Ecutioners, who went into battle with the singer on General Patton vs. The X-Ecutioners in 2005, and has since toured with Peeping Tom. The Architect firms up that relationship by becoming Swift’s first solo release on Patton’s Ipecac label, which gives him a chance to pull deep from his bottomless pit of beats and move away from his jazz-y roots, instead forcing a symbiotic relationship between the worlds of hip-hop and classical music.

Read full article here.