Atmospheric rock bandWater & Bodies are releasing a new album on Jan 13th at Doug Fir in Portland, OR. It’s the second part of a dual album titled The Rain City Sessions. If you don’t live in Portland and can’t make it to the release show you will be able to purchase the new album online soon after Jan 13th so keep posted. If you live in Portland, come out to the show, purchase a beautiful limited edition hand screen printed Water & Bodies poster and get the album for free.
Above is a behind the scenes video of the band in the studio.
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[mp3] Water & Bodies – Free World from Water & Bodies EP (2009)
Monday edition! Okay yeah I’m late on the Bay Area post but if you saw how my weekend went you’d understand. Anyway, if you made it out to the Laura Stevenson show last night, consider yourself lucky, she’s a special gal. Keep an eye on her. Okay, lets get started!
Tonight Coldplay heads over to the Shoreline Amphitheatre to entertain the white people, post rock heroes Tortoise and Pit Er Pat are leaving the The Great American Music Hall in awe, folk metal band Wolves in the Throne Room hit up Slim’s, Tori Amos plays the Paramount Theatre in Oakland and the San Jose Center For The Performing Arts on Tuesday, also Summer Cats and Magic Bullets perform at The Knockout tonight, New Zealand rockers The Veils and indie pop act Foreign Born crash the Bottom of the Hill.
Tuesday features Blonde Redhead at The Independent for two nights, the beautifully reunited Azure Ray play Nickel City Arcade in San Jose, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head rocks Café du Nord,…oh yeah and some website called Kata Rokkar presents post rockers Gifts From Enola with Winfred E. Eye and Glaciers. That should be fucking awesome!
Wednesday we have the lovely Laura Veirs at Café du Nord, instrumental group Pink Mountain play San Francisco’s Amoeba Records at 6pm, and Tears for Fears stop by the Mountain Winery in Saratoga.
The Mission Creek Music Festival featuring Judgement Day, Evangelista, Ann Magnuson, Jessie Evans, Shogun Kuntoki, William Winant, Weasle Walter, Moe!, Staiano Trio, Pop Noir, Ink Blots, Nacotheque, Juan Son, Curly Lou, Clara Gustavson, Dead Meadow, Xoel Lopez, Mranda Lee Richards, the Extra Action Marching Band and many many others will be pretty much all over the city from the 15th to the 22nd of July. More on that later on in the week.
Also going on this week is the The Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival with Amanda Palmer, Lucero, Poor Man’s Whiskey, Loco Bloco, etc. I had no idea what this was until just now. It looks wild. The event will take place In Oakland right off the West Grand Avenue exit, between at the Oakland Army Base and the East Bay MUD Facility, at the corner of Wake Avenue and Engineer Road.
Thursday will have me visiting the Great American Music Hall to see Azure Ray and Cursive’s Tim Kasher. It wil a nice evening of calm heartfelt music on O’Farrell Street. Psychedelic rocks Thee Oh Sees with Meth Teeth (best band name?) at The Eagle Tavern, and indie punkers Girl in a Coma play the Bottom of the Hill.
Friday, Brand New returns with Dios at Slim’s, Infected Mushroom plays at The Grand Ballroom At the Regency Center, thrash rocks Sabertooth Zombie rip-up 924 Gilman St., indie hip-hoppers Cage and Yak Ballz come to destroy The Great American Music Hall, THE VERY BEST (Radioclit & Esau Mwamwaya) come to party it up at Mighty, noise rockers Pterodactyl perform at the Hemlock Tavern, and the Great Northern and Eulogies show at Mezzanine is canceled.
Saturday, progressive art rocks Water & Bodies and Ambiance play the Hotel Utah, lounge DJ Bonobo will be at Mighty, and Three Mile Pilot crashes at the Bottom of the Hill.
Water & Bodies (ex-Kaddisfly) finally released their much anticipated self-titled EP this past week. They put art, integrity and diversity into a sleek tapestry that blends progressive, aural collages into a rock based concept. Each song it’s own story, they’ve drawn comparison to everyone from Quicksand to Sparta, while remaining uniquely Water & Bodies. For them, the journey is more important than the destination.
You can purchase the album here, which will be available on vinyl in the near future. You can also catch them on tour in their home state and opening for the mighty Far…
Jun 6 2009 8:00P
The Space (w/ Diamond Liars)
Salem, Oregon
Jun 21 2009 9:00P
Ash Street Saloon
Portland, Oregon
Water & Bodies – Something I Can Grasp
Alright! I can finally go nuts about this record that I’ve been listening to the past few weeks; Jeremy Enigk’sOK Bear. It’s fantastic! I would say this is a greatest hits (although it’s not) of Jeremy Enigk’s work. The record combines the brilliant songwriting of his Sunny Day Real Estate days (April Storm) with the raw emotion of his previous solo material (Vale Oso). You can even catch a little Fire Theft in the poppier songs (Late Of Camera) on the record. I am very happy with this one and it definitely will end up on the End of Year list for me. The record came out this past Tuesday so run to your nearest record store and pick it up.
Other records to check out that came out this week are Bloc Party’s Intimacy Remixed which can be heard in full here, the beautiful Hanne Hukkelberg released Blood from a Stone, the physical release of Papercuts’ You Can Have What You Want came out, and San Francisco based experimental alt-country band Trainwreck Riders released The Perch (highly recommended).
Happy Record Store Day! So what’s going on in your neighborhood? Here in the bay we’ve got Amoeba Records hosting Kylee of Loquat at 2pm, Kelley Stoltz at 3pm, John Vanderslice’s DJ Set at 4pm, and Aesop Rock’s DJ set at 5pm. Up at the Rasputin Berkley, Silversun Pickups play at 4pm and Mr. Loveless play Rasputin Concord at 5pm.
Oh and here’s my favorite quote on Record Store Day by Gavin Hayes of dredg, “Record stores are cultural gathering places where people go to share a common interest…their love for music. They are nostalgia and hot summer days. Record stores are ditching class to buy a record the day it comes out. They are Amoeba, Rasputin, and Aquarius and the distinct smell of the old records in the basement of the local mom and pop store. The record store is Run DMC on cassette tape. They are Iron Maiden posters, metal t-shirts and the magazine rack. The record store is a yellow and red Tower Records bag littered with CD labels. They are the listening stations, in store performances/signings, and staff recommendations. They are the used and local section and the free publications and zines at the front door. They are distributors of a product made up of dreams, effort, and heart that have the capability to change lives and outlooks, determine individuality, and divide or unite.”
Oh and this one by Patton Oswalt, “The idea of, ‘The journey is the destination’ is put into action by browsing in an indie record store. Besides, a human being is a much better guide than a ‘More Like This’ link on the internet.”
John Vanderslice – My Old Flame
If you have noticed that some of our mp3 have mysteriously disappeared…you can take it up with the hosting site Boxstr. We are currently using Box.net from this moment on until they figure things out.
Feel free to follow us at Kata Rokkar. We’re kind of new at this so…tweet?
A handful of exciting releases this past Tuesday.We’ve got The Boy Least Likely To’sThe Law Of The Playground, Ida Maria’sFortress Round My Heart, Metric’sFantasies, Papercuts’You Can Have What You Want, Silversun Pickups’Swoon, and Medeski Martin & Wood’sRadiolarians II. I highly recommend the new Metric and Papercuts albums. In fact, I’ve really been digging Papercuts with their Dinosaur Jr meets Notwist sound. Plus they’re local, so that’s a plus.
Metric – Help I’m Alive (The Twelves Remix)
Silversun Pickups – Panic Switch (Chin and Troublemaker Remix)
Papercuts – Future Primitive
Atmospheric rock band Water & Bodies (ex-Kaddisfly) have released some new tunes and they seem to be finding their niche. I hear potential, but these tracks still need to grow on me. We’ll see…
Jeremy Enigkhas released yet another song entitled Life’s Too Short from his upcoming album, OK Bear on his myspace page. The vocals are similar to Return Of The Frog Queen but the song is way heavier than anything off Frog Queen. I am loving this direction he’s going in. May 12th Baby!
As previously posted on Stranger Dance; local venues like Bottom of the Hill, Great American Music Hall, Slim’s and Café du Nord might have to be forced to shut down unless they can meet the ABC’s requirement stating that half of their sales come from food. However, according to this recent article at SFgate, it seems as though there will be some peace and understanding among the ABC and San Francisco business owners. Including talks of a new type of license. This is very good news for the Bay Area concert goer, so we’ll see what happens over the next few weeks.
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!
Monday edition! Okay yeah I’m late on the Bay Area post but if you saw how my weekend went you’d understand. Anyway, if you made it out to the Laura Stevenson show last night, consider yourself lucky, she’s a special gal. Keep an eye on her. Okay, lets get started!
Alright! I can finally go nuts about this record that I’ve been listening to the past few weeks; Jeremy Enigk’s OK Bear. It’s fantastic! I would say this is a greatest hits (although it’s not) of Jeremy Enigk’s work. The record combines the brilliant songwriting of his Sunny Day Real Estate days (April Storm) with the raw emotion of his previous solo material (Vale Oso). You can even catch a little Fire Theft in the poppier songs (Late Of Camera) on the record. I am very happy with this one and it definitely will end up on the End of Year list for me. The record came out this past Tuesday so run to your nearest record store and pick it up.
A handful of exciting releases this past Tuesday.We’ve got The Boy Least Likely To’s The Law Of The Playground, Ida Maria’s Fortress Round My Heart, Metric’s Fantasies, Papercuts’ You Can Have What You Want, Silversun Pickups’ Swoon, and Medeski Martin & Wood’s Radiolarians II. I highly recommend the new Metric and Papercuts albums. In fact, I’ve really been digging Papercuts with their Dinosaur Jr meets Notwist sound. Plus they’re local, so that’s a plus.
As previously posted on 
