So after checking Björk’s website everyday since February for some form of life or status on the Voltic CD/DVD release for the US, I finally get my wish. June 23rd baby! Being released in five different physical configurations, Voltaic is a two years worth of video and audio of highlights from the Björk’sVolta tour as well as key remixes from Volta.
Nonesuch Records will release it in the US. One Little Indian in the UK and Universal for the rest of the world. I will obviously be dishing out the cash for the full package. Nothing less for my girl
Voltaic DVD 1 contains filmed highlights from the Volta tour, recorded in Paris and Reykjavik, with performances of songs from Volta as well as tracks from previous albums including Hunter, Joga, Army of Me, and Hyperballad.
Björk’s band on the Volta tour included Mark Bell (LFO) on computers and keyboards and Damian Taylor on keyboards and programming. Drums and percussion were played by Chris Corsano (Sonic Youth, etc.); Jónas Sen played piano, harpsichord, and church organ; and Björk’s all female Icelandic 10-piece brass section rounded out the group. A dynamic, grand live experience, the Volta tour has been acclaimed around the world. As the Guardian (UK) said in its five-star review, “Björk delivers a performance as visually spectacular as it is musically innovative. Fifteen years into her solo career Björk remains the least compromising and most fantastical pop superstar talent.”
Voltaic DVD 2 features all of the Volta music videos, including the “Declare Independence” clip directed by celebrated Oscar winning French director Michel Gondry; the “Wanderlust” video directed by encyclopedia pictura; and the “Earth Intruders” video directed by renowned French animator Michel Ocelot.
Voltaic CD 1 is a selection of songs from the Volta tour recorded live at the legendary Olympic Studios in London, just before Björk’s headlining show at the Glastonbury Festival in 2007. It was recorded in one afternoon, and the whole set was played live and captured in one take before being produced and mixed by Björk.
Voltaic CD 2 features key remixes from Volta, with versions of “Earth Intruders,” “Declare Independence,” “Innocence,” “Wanderlust,” and “Dull Flame of Desire,” by the likes of Simian Mobile Disco, Matthew Herbert, Graeme Sinden, Ghostigital, and Modeselektor. [bjork.com]
Amorphous Androgynousis another name used by the members of the dance duo, The Future Sound of London, originally used to release experimental techno material on the album Tales of Ephidrina, which was released between Accelerator and Lifeforms. More recently they have used the name for a change in musical direction away from the pure electronica sound of FSoL to the use of real instruments and a softer more psychedelic electronic tone for albums like The Isness and Alice In Ultraland. This past February, Amorphous Androgynous released a double disc set entitled A Monstrous Pyschedelic Bubble, which is filled with atmospheric and super psychodelic music guaranteed to stimulate your senses and take your brain to places it’s never been before. The whole thing has been compiled by the band and has been praised by the likes of Noel Gallagher (Oasis). Highlights include Pop Levi’s Blue Honey, Donovan’sBarabajagal (Love Is Hot), The Amorphous Androgynous’Light Beyond Sound, Miles Davis’Rated X, Tim Buckley’sI Never Asked To Be Your Mountain, Devendra Banhart’sLazy Butterfly and many more.
Garry Cobain (sometimes styled as Gaz Cobain) was kind enough to take some time to answer this week’s Kuestionnaire. This isprobably one of the most entertaining and best Kuestionnaires so far.
1. Of all the bands/artists in your CD/record collection, which one is your most cherished?
WE try not to cherish anything . .
we like to remain healthily disrespectful of the whole history of music, favouring no-one. This way we can simply find what is ‘working ‘ for us,
right NOW . . .revelatory , unexpected. This is the true joy of the discovery of music. We don’t want to be ‘experts’, we like being open-minded seekers. Also most truly genre defying music only happens sporadically . .therefore the tracks we are choosing for MONSTROUS PSYCHEDELIC BUBBLE are one-off tracks on albums.In other words we don’t necessarily like the whole album . or the artist over his or her whole career,.we live in a truly DJ culture now . .pick and mix. . .find the moments of genius, discard the rest,
2. What have you been listening to lately?
Hours and hours of potential music for Monstrous Psych Bubble Vol2 . . we’re getting sent a lot of music from new bands now as well so there is a lot of listening to do.
40 years of cosmic space music to catch up on . .
at the moment some pagan folk music and some Yugoslavian prog-rock . ..nice ! Right at the moment like TODAY . .some FOCUS and some MELANIE ! 2 albums I bought this weekend in Glastonbury village!
3. What’s your favorite local band?
What does local mean these days . .we’re global maaAAN ! I have psychedelic stuff sent from Germany alongside folk from Iceland but . . .
I’m in France at the moment so local ? . .not very much here to be honest . . although I like the accordian . . .if you mean UK . .well quite a good few bands at the moment . .but they don’t play in my local pub cos I don’t go to a local pub . . . hmm . .confused by ‘local’ in a truly global time . . .
4. What was the last show you attended?
My own . .we performed an FSOL concert via ISDN on Friday . Since then I hung out in Glastonbury for the weekend and listened to a harp player while I ate brown rice . .so technically that would be the last show !!
5. What was the greatest show you’ve ever been to?
Ananda Shankar in the 90s coming to the Uk for the first time having made his defining records in the 70s . . that was triumphant and very moving and sadly just before his untimely death several years later. That was a pivotal moment plus Brian Wilson’s ‘SMILE’ .
6. What show are you looking forward to?
A MONSTROUS PSYCHEDELIC BUBBLE 7 hour extravaganza at the Green Man Festival this July. We are curating 7 hours of bands and djs ! Should be kaleidoscopic to say the least !! Oasis at Wembley cos we’re Djing at the after show party !! Noel Gallagher is a huge fan of our MPB album and mixes and we’ve just done a MONSTROUS PSYCHEDELIC BUBBLE 22 minute remix of the Oasis new single FALLING DOWN, so it’ll be great to meet him and spin the tunes at his party . . .
7. What musician would you like to hang out/work with for a day?
Many actually . . John McLaughlin ( guitarist with Mahavishnu Orchestra), Hariprasad Chaurasia ( Indian flautist ), Betty Davis on vocals, Bob James on keyboards and Devendra Banhart.
8. What four albums you would bring to a deserted island?
MPB Vol 1/ Vol2 or any of our MONSTROUS PSYCHEDELIC BUBBLE mixes ( available from fsoldigital.com download only ) . .cos they represent our philosophy of ” anything and everything goes as long as it BLOWS in the juxtapose” . . .albums normally bore us after a while apart from maybe classical music like CHOPIN/ Debussy or flute ragas from India. On a desrt island we would probably use it as an opportunity for absolute silence something we really crave. Yes we love music this is true . .but maybe our new music on the desrt island would be the tide and the air rustling through the trees and the moon turning to sun. All music would be annoying . . .we’d probably make our own instruments from trees and vines anyway and a sitar from a pumpkin !!
9. Would you call yourself a music geek?
I try not to be for the reasons given above. Purely by searching music and then buying it on vinyl though means that inevitably you do become a little ‘geeky’ about it, proud even. When I get like that Brian normally slaps me cos it gets in the way of just being objective and not caring beyond simply if its’ brilliant’ or NOT ! Does it move my heart and soul OR NOT !! Simple . .there is nothing else . . .hmm . .let me see . .whos on drums on this album ?? ha h a . . .hmm . .whos the producer and what year was it ?? STOP IT . .never be an expert !!
10. Any favorite music-related videos/DVDs you own?
Love all rockumentary stuff and fantastical music stuff really . .from DIG to La Planete Sauvage to Yellow Submarine to Black and Blue the Stones documentary film.
11. What’s the last book you read?
Reading about 10 simultaneously . .its not that I have attention deficit disorder I like it this way.One of them will become my priority soon. At the moment I have everything from a book called WEIRD SCIENCE and bizarre beliefs to FOLK MEDICINE to
SWINDLED ( the dark history of the food cheats ). You can see where I’m coming from !!
12. Do you prefer live performances or recording in the studio?
I love being at home but then live communion is very important so I value both. They are both meaningless without the other. I’m more comfortable in the studio though I suppose if you were to push.
13. Any embarrassing moments on stage you’d like to share
Yes . .we use some computer backing on certain tracks as Amorphous Androgynous which is a combination of the studio meeting some of the truly great musicians we have been honoured to collaborate with. On one occasion there was a problem with our monitoring on stage . .we couldn’t hear the computer . . we were playing the best jam we’d ever done but when we stopped triumphantly anticipating audience hysteria we heard the computer backing coming from the speakers that the audience were listening to ( at a distance from the stage ) .
To our horror.we’d been playing to the wrong backing track completely out of time !!
14. Any favorite tour locations?
Anywhere where the people are friendly and open minded and open hearted. Yes if there happens to be a place of outstanding natural beauty nearby for after the show that would be a bonus. We like the diversity so we take good with bad, ugly with beauty, they give each other meaning. Its a great opportunity to see the world . .our preferences are India/ San Francisco and we’ve been very fortunate to have visited Russia on many occasions.
15. Lastly, what have you done today?
Fed the baby, changed the babies nappy and answered these questions, talked about music on the phone with friends and colleagues.
You may know Son of Robot as either a 5 piece mock-hop-rock outfit from Brighton or the band that did the music for the video She Farted and Created the World (or you may not know them at all, which is likely). It may all sound a bit immature, but in reality Son of Robot make extremely catchy robo-rock that goes beyond ridiculous music videos and lyrics about sleeping with crossdressers. Download their entire Spring EP right here and be on the look out for their upcoming LP, Nipples.
Son of Robot Tour
May 6 2009 8:00P
Mr Wolfs
Bristol, Southwest
May 7 2009 8:00P
The Perfect 5th
Taunton, Southwest
May 13 2009 8:00P
The Albert
Brighton, South
May 30 2009 8:00P
Hectors House
Brighton, South
Son of Robot – Simplification-Master-Station
Son of Robot – The End
Son of Robot – She Farted And Did Not Make It On The Soundtrack
Berkeley’s annual Hip Hop in the Park is here again with some great performers. Blu & Exile, Bambu, J-boogie, Bayonics, Bayliens, Rising Asterisk, and Da Magic Foolbus are all coming out for the thirteen year strong tradition of genuine and innovative hip-hop. It runs from noon ’til 5pm on Saturday at the People’s Park, so bring friends and enjoy yourselves.
Tonight has Mos Def and dead prez kickin’ it at the Mezzanine. Tomorrow, reggae legend Alpha Blondy plays The Independent. Tuesday Cold War Kids play the sold out Fillmore and Grouper performs at the Totally Intense Fractal Mind Gaze Hut (best venue name ever?). Ladytron and The Faint co-headline the Fillmore both Wednesday and Thursday. Surf rockers NODZZZ play El Rincon in San Fran on Wednesday. The insane garage rockers known as The Black Lips and Flowers Forever will be at The Great American Music Hall and Thao with The Get Down Stay Down rock The Independent on Thursday. On Friday, the very talented Yann Tiersen and Asobi Seksu will play The Great American Music Hall and Maria Taylor and The Whispertown 2000 will perform at Café du Nord. And consider yourself lucky if you’re seeing Van Morrison at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre on Saturday.
Remember that thing called Coachella that happened last weekend? Well if you’re like me, you’ve been keeping up with other music blogs and websites on how everything went. Over at Speed of Dark you’ve got a plethora of live tracks and performance reviews from the festivities. Over at losanjealous they’ve got some pretty sweet pictures of Crystal Castles, The Cure, Okkervil River, and more. Oh and then there’s this naked batshit insane wizard hippie getting tased by some cops (NSFW).
Speaking of crazy festivities, Lollapalooza’s line-up was announced this week. Nothing new aside from Lou Reed and few others deciding they’d like to jump on the festival bandwagon. Most of these artists are already on plenty of festival line-ups so it seems everyone will be getting their fair share of TV on the Radio, Beastie Boys, and Band of Horses.
Band of Horses – No One’s Gonna Love You
courtesy of merkley
dredg put out another new song this week entitled, I Don’t Know. Apparently it’s about not knowing anything about the origins of our existence and humbly admitting so. It’s got that “ring” to it that would make it a pretty good single.
Not too much going on when it comes to new releases last week. Brit-punk band Art Brut released Art Brut vs. Satan, Depeche Mode released Sounds of the Universe, Empire Of The Sun goes worldwide with the US release of Walking On A Dream, Jane’s Addiction releases their b-side collection called A Cabinet of Curiosities, and Manchester Orchestra impresses me again with Mean Everything To Nothing.
Here are some videos from the insanity that took place last night during the Dan Deacon show at the Great American Music Hall. If you kept up with my twitter feed last night…you kind of have an idea what to expect. Also Dan took a bit of spill yesterday morning resulting in a dislocated shoulder, yet he still brought the house down. What a trooper!
Kata Rokkar is a place where you can download free mp3 from artists and bands that I currently love and listen to. They are only for sampling purposes and to influence you to go out and support these artists by purchasing their records and going to their concerts. If you are a record company or an artist that is displeased with a song being displayed, feel free to contact me and I will remove it ASAP. Thank you and enjoy!
You are currently browsing the Kata Rokkar blog archives for April, 2009.
So after checking Björk’s website everyday since February for some form of life or status on the Voltic CD/DVD release for the US, I finally get my wish. June 23rd baby! Being released in five different physical configurations, Voltaic is a two years worth of video and audio of highlights from the Björk’s Volta tour as well as key remixes from Volta.
Björk – Nattura [Switch Remix]
Not too much going on when it comes to new releases last week. Brit-punk band Art Brut released Art Brut vs. Satan, Depeche Mode released Sounds of the Universe, Empire Of The Sun goes worldwide with the US release of Walking On A Dream, Jane’s Addiction releases their b-side collection called A Cabinet of Curiosities, and Manchester Orchestra impresses me again with Mean Everything To Nothing.
