In our review of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s album Fordlândia, we called it his greatest work so far, high praise indeed for the Icelandic composer responsible for some of the most chilling and haunting pieces of the last decade. Fordlândia tells the tale of the Brazilian workers, forced into work by Henry Ford in the 1930’s to produce rubber on the plantation land bought for his company. The workers were treated as near slaves, all vices forbidden, their way of life threatened by the American way. We were fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to met with Jóhann, where we learn about his childhood in Iceland and encounters with the boffins at CERN. Continue Reading

Imagine being told that your homeland, some 10,000 square kilometres of land, no longer belonged to you. That it had been purchased by a rich American, intent on stripping away all natural resources to provide rubber for his car plant. Drinking and smoking become forbidden, even inside your own home, the way of life of your so-called benefactor forced upon you. Your food is nasty and American, cheap hamburgers providing little sustenance and leaving you feeling bloated and ill. This was the plight of the Brazilian workers who in the 1930’s, found themselves working for Henry Ford in Fordlândia, areas of plantation land bought for his company, and the subject of the latest album from Jóhann Jóhannsson. Continue Reading

Atlanta’s Bradford Cox has become something of an underground celebrity of late. From his loping gait and distinctive emaciated frame to his out-and-proud gay virgin sexuality to his much discussed accidental leaking of new material on the internet (and the subsequent ongoing message board meleé) Cox courts controversy at every turn. Whether this is intentionally or (as I believe) inadvertently, it has certainly intensified the interest on his various music projects. 

Nothing if not prolific, Bradford works constantly under a variety of monickers, the main two being solo ambientXcore project Atlas Sound and his four piece “ambient-punk” band Deerhunter. Continue Reading

Fred Nicolaus, with Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen, is one half of the beautiful collaboration that is Department of Eagles. Following the recent release of second album In Ear Park, we had the opportunity to pitch some questions to him, telling us about the band’s inspirations, how the two members work together, and the artistic concept behind their name. If you’ve not already done so, read our review of the album here. Continue Reading

New York duo Department of Eagles are sometimes, a little unfairly, thought of as simply being the “side project” of Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen. Featuring Rossen and his NYU roommate Fred Nicolaus, this collaboration actually prefigured the formation of the latter band, and In Ear Park is their second full-length release after their 2003 debut The Cold Nose. Continue Reading

Original photo here.

The Mountain Goats aren’t a complicated band. Admittedly, in recent times they’ve expanded their line-up from master songwriter John Darnielle and his guitar to encompass a drummer and bassist but they’ve stuck hard and true to a formula that has yet to disappoint. Take a bunch of well-crafted if unspectacular melodies, mix in some gleefully idiosyncratic lyrics and a generous dash of infectious enthusiasm and you’ve got yourself a hit; a kind of alt-folk Hold Steady if you will. Latest album Heretic Pride has divided opinion amongst old-time fans, some saying it lacks the lyrical brilliance of their previous work, but this tour de force of a performance suggests their live lustre only grows brighter. Continue Reading

Photographs by Simon Leak

In a match seemingly made in TLOBF heaven, Constantines were a late addition as support act for this much-anticipated show from the former Okkervil River side project - now exclusively the preserve of Jonathan Meiburg after the amicable departure of co-founder Will Sheff. Personally though, these dirty rocking Canadians were to be a new experience and my pre-conceptions were that their thundering might jar with Shearwater’s more tempered arty emotions. Wrong on both counts actually, since Constantines offered a much more focused thrash than expected, and Shearwater can bring the house down with the best of them when their varied repertoire demands. Continue Reading

We’re still on a bit of a Bon Iver high here at TLOBF Towers. After last weeks epic show and the announcement of an all new London show in December and what not. Anyhoo - just stumbling around the interweb and I found this. Via MySpace no less - a live session Justin and the boys did a week or so ago. It features four live tracks from the much loved For Emma, Forever Ago - the title track (which is also the new single), ‘Flume’, ‘Blindsided’ and ‘Lump Sum’. The version of ‘For Emma’ is especially lovely - a little more stripped back than the one heard live last week. Also, if you wander over to the MySpace page - you can watch all the videos plus some interview footage to boot. Neato.

Grap the EP here.

Words: Emily Moore / Photographs: Rich Thane

It’s been quite a year for live music, 2008; an emotional roller-coaster of euphoria and heady nostalgia and all sorts of superlatives you might reach for to try to describe a clenched throat that doesn’t know if it’s holding back ecstatic cheers or warm tears.

There was the 12 Bar last month, a fragile Edwyn Collins leaning into the protective, wiry shoulder of Roddy Frame, straining resistant limbs and lips into familiar old shapes for a tiny crowd of shiny-eyed Dundonians. There was the Roundhouse a few weeks before that, Kevin Shields’ mouth yawning wide and silent into the din, my skin rippling as though the waves that buffeted the front row were real and not mere sound. And there was the holy still air of St Giles church, in the balmy early days of June, when Justin Vernon raised a guitar to the heavens and 300 faithful erupted into triumphant thanksgiving. It’s pure luck to be granted one such fleeting, epiphanical moment a year, never mind two from one quiet Wisconsinite. Iconic performances seem to have littered the summer months like chewing-gum wrappers, and now another has just fallen at our feet and blown past, reminding me of Winnaretta Singer’s line about the rare and particular breed of music that reminds us that we have “a reason for living on this rock: to live in the beautiful kingdom of sounds.” Continue Reading

Last night Bon Iver played the biggest show of his career to date at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire. One of the most mesmerising shows TLOBF has seen in a long, long time. We think Justin was as moved as the few thousand people who witnessed it. Review coming soon - I for one am still finding it difficult to string a coherent sentence together… In the meantime - we have great pleasure in announcing this ‘lil tid bit. Literally just hit our inbox..

London, Friday 12 September 2008 – The critically acclaimed Bon Iver have today announced that they will be one of the first live music acts to perform a very special and intimate show at London’s Apollo Victoria Theatre on the 7th December.

Bon Iver (an intentional mis-spelling / adaptation of ‘Bon Hiver’, French for ‘Good Winter’) is the work of Justin Vernon, a former member of Wisconsin quartet DeYarmond Edison. Vernon, who wrote the material in 2006 whilst living in a log cabin, used very little equipment - just a couple of microphones, a baritone guitar, two drums, a horn, a reverb pedal. These few items, when combined with enough space, allowed the songs that form this record become far more than sum of their parts.

Vernon explains : “I recognize that the record is enigmatic and special in a strange way. I can’t take full credit for it, and I was the only one there.”

And there was much rejoicing!

Stereolab are one of those bands. Now on their 10th album, they have plowed their particular furrow for many years, constantly tweaking their particular mixture of dreamy french pop, soaring vocal lines, squelching moog synths and xylophone. Collaborations and members have come and gone, forming other bands along the way - many of them to be found on the bands own Duophonic label. With this label at their service to explore their more experimental meanderings, the band have delved back into their Gallic pop roots for their most recent long players 2004’s acclaimed Margarine Eclipse and now on Chemical Chords it is seeing the light of day again. Continue Reading

Our mates over at 4AD have had some rather grand news, that they’ll be releasing Deerhunter’s latest album, Microcastle, on October 27th outside the US of A (which gets the release via Kranky on the 28th).

Microcastle is the follow-up to 2006’s Cryptograms and was recorded in a week at Rare Book Studios in Brooklyn, NY with Nicolas Verhes.

It was recorded with the four-piece Bradford Cox (whose Atlas Sound solo effort 4AD put out recently), Lockett Pundt, Joshua Fauver and Moses Archuleta. Bradford features as lead vocalist on most album tracks except ‘Agoraphobia’ and ‘Neither Of Us, Uncertainly’ (both sung by guitarist Lockett) and ‘Saved By Old Times’ (vocal college lended by Cole Alexander of The Black Lips).

The first single to be taken off the album will be ‘Nothing Ever Happened’ which will be issued on limited edition 7″ vinyl and backed with ‘Little Kids (Demo)’. Release date for this will be confirmed shortly but will precede the album.

You can hear ‘Nothing Ever Happened’ and another album track ‘Never Stops’ on their MySpace page.

Tracklisting:
1. Cover Me (Slowly)
2. Agoraphobia
3. Never Stops
4. Little Kids
5. Microcastle
6. Calvary Scars
7. Green Jacket
8. Activa
9. Nothing Ever Happened
10. Saved By Old Times
11. Neither Of US, Uncertainly
12. Twilight at Carbon Lake

Deerhunter have also confirmed they will be supporting Nine Inch Nails on their US arena tour. More Euro-centric dates to be announced soon.

Department of Eagles, Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear alongside his friend Fred Nicolaus, have signed to 4AD across the World!

They will be releasing a new album on Monday 6th October, called In Ear Park, which features the additional help of two other members of Grizzly Bear, Chris Bear and Chris Taylor (the album was recorded in Brooklyn, NY by Chris Taylor).

The title track, ‘In Ear Park’, is available to listen to by clicking here.

In Ear Park:
1. In Ear Park
2. No One Does It
3. Phantom Other
4. Teenagers
5. Around the Bay
6. Herring Bone
7. Classical Records
8. Waves of Rye
9. Interlude
10. Floating on the Lehigh
11. Balmy Night

Bon Iver. Photograph by Sarah Cass.

The reputation of Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, precedes him like a particularly florid trumpet fanfare. Never mind the insular indie music press - if you’ve opened a Sunday supplement or flipped past Jools Holland recently, you’ll have seen his emotionally wrenching debut For Emma, Forever Ago hyped almost beyond the limits of logic or sanity. The tale of For Emma’s creation entered modern mythology pretty much immediately: Vernon had spent years chasing success with a number of bands, most lately Wisconsin four-piece DeYarmond Edison (true), endured a difficult breakup (true) and a nervous breakdown (untrue), retreated to a remote log cabin (true) and spent three icy months in total isolation, his only sustenance a few bits of melted snow and a deer he killed with his bare hands (almost true).

It hardly matters now what actually happened and what’s just wild exaggeration. Without even planning to record an album, Vernon emerged into the spring of 2007 with nine tracks of atmospheric, minimal acoustic guitar and octave-spanning vocals, layered into an intensely personal, primal sonic epiphany. (He’s said, beautifully and a little spookily, “I recognise that the record is enigmatic and special in a strange way. I can’t take full credit for it, and I was the only one there.”) He self-released For Emma to instant Pitchfork acclaim, was picked up by Jagjaguar in the US and 4AD in the UK and took this year’s SXSW by storm. Still, he’s a thoughtful, funny, humble soul who is more interested in international politics and music with a conscience. Continue Reading