Pitchfork

Pitchfork.tv spent a fun-filled evening with GZA and his son a short while ago, but now it's back to business for the Wu-Tang's resident Genius. Pro Tools, his forthcoming album, features some production assistance from the RZA, but "Alphabets" owes its murky mood and bell-like guitar/piano loop to producer True Master. The music is raw, straightforward, and simple, a functional backdrop for dense rhymes that touch on hip-hop, spirituality, and the creative process.

MP3:> GZA: "Alphabets"
[from Pro Tools; due 08/19/08 on Babygrande]

As Pitchfork news reported, Damon Albarn and animator Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz have collaborated on promo spot for the upcoming Olympic games in Beijing. The lush-looking two-minute video is up online now at the BBC Sport website.

Video:> Gorillaz: 2008 Oympic Games Promo

Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste has been hinting at a poppier mood for the Brooklyn experimental combo's forthcoming follow-up to the masterful Yellow House and Friend EP releases. As performed last night on "Late Show With David Letterman", new song "Two Weeks" is indeed "sunnier," as Droste had suggested, but it's also full of the soaring harmonies and sylvan intricacies that have made Grizzly Bear's previous works smarter (and awesomer) than the average. Accompanied by Thomas "Doveman" Bartlett, Droste & co. put bouncy Zombies keyboards over atmospheric guitars and clickety-clack drumming. "A routine malaise," Droste croons, a sentiment that's sunny only for a city where the building next door blocks out all your bedroom's natural light. Big thanks to ryann7739 and ratsnratsnrats! of atease web for the tip.

MP3:> Grizzly Bear: "Two Weeks"

Update: Here is the video:

Video:> Grizzly Bear: "Two Weeks" 

Nothing, and I mean nothing, warms the cockles of my heart like ominous, tribal, droning, post-punk abstraction. OK, a video illustrating the joyous energy all the tom-tom pounding and shrill noise-making can generate in a live setting actually does enhance the experience. The clip for These Are Powers' "Cockles", from the Brooklyn band's soon-to-be-reissued 2008 Taro Tarot EP, starts casually, with some live pre-song chatter and footage of fans with glow sticks. From there it's a rapidly edited compilation of shots from several of the band's raw-and-ready small-venue shows. Lead vocalist Anna Barie grins beatifically, closing her eyes as she bangs on a tambourine or sings, "It's all in your heart." Thus warming the cockles of said organ, regardless of your tolerance for "ghost-punk" or other made-up genres.

[from the Taro Tarot EP; out now on Hoss and due as a reissue 10/07/08 on Dead Oceans]

Photo by Jimmy Edgar

Remember the title of Metro Area man Morgan Geist's years-in-the-making solo jaunt when listening to the Italo-techno-r&b of advance mp3 "The Shore". From the Brooklyn producer's forthcoming Double Night Time on Environ, this phosphorescent track conjures moonlit desolation rather than tropical idyll, with Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan contributing limpid, mannered vocals (as he does elsewhere on the album). There can be a humbling beauty in walking alone by the water at night, but it's no day at the beach.

Unlike Geist's 2006 single with Greenspan, "Most of All", which had dreamy electric guitar, "The Shore" is almost exclusively electronic. A bassline of jittery funk trades off with flashing organ sounds on the verses, programmed percussion hissing like the waves down on the beach. The choruses find some release in ascending synth runs. "It's OK to let it out," Greenspan coolly repeats. Sustained keyboard chords recalling Hot Chip's "Made in the Dark" spread out toward the conclusion, made more disorienting by stereo-panned bleeps. Despite some clunky lyrical phrasing, it's here that Greenspan's narrator finds a way to forget-- at last!-- the person whose memory he's been drowning in these waters all along.

[from Double Night Time; due in September on Environ]

The Girls are five Seattle boys who aren't San Francisco's Girls. They're the Girls who are boys who like their new wave to be old-wave new wave, who like their old-wave new wave to be punk. The Girls carefully applied Cars synths like so much eyeliner over spiky Voidoids guitars on 2004's fine self-titled affair, and they're revving the Revlon up again on this song from follow-up Yes No Yes No Yes No. Yes, yes, "Transfer Station" may share its name with the buildings where garbage collectors deposit their garbage, but compared to many of the bands rummaging through similar dumpsters, it's reasonably hot garbage-- though it probably won't still smell as sweet as former Dirtnap labelmates Exploding Hearts (sigh, R.I.P.). "Paranormal overdrive," the Girls' frontguy Shannon Brown twitches, jumbling up my chronology by reminding me to ask where Syd Barrett lives (sigh, lived). But this isn't a history lesson, and it isn't a makeover, either. Reminder: You could be swinging on a Stellastarr*.

MP3:> The Girls: "Transfer Station"
[from Yes No Yes No Yes No; due 09/16/08 on Dirtnap]

It was flattering to see a few YouTubes of last weekend's Pitchfork Music Festival popping up on blogs, but over the next few days, Pitchfork.tv will have something even better: high-quality videos from every night of the Festival, taken straight from the live feed. First up is three performances from Friday night's Don't Look Back event, co-presented by UK-based concert-throwers All Tomorrow's Parties.

We begin with Public Enemy. We heard a great many sets described as a favorite over the weekend, but one thing that everyone seemed to agree on is that Public Enemy absolutely killed it with their live version of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. "Rebel Without a Pause" gives a good idea of how it went down.

Just before P.E., indie rock royalty Sebadoh performed their transitional Sub Pop LP Bubble and Scrape. Lou Barlow, Jason Lowenstein, and Eric Gaffney were all on hand, but Barlow performed his ballad "Think (Let Tomorrow Bee)" all by his lonesome, just the way it ought to be.

And kicking off Friday night was Mission of Burma, who tore up Union Park at the Pitchfork Festival two years ago, this time doing their album Vs. That album's moody builder "Trem Two" is a key piece of the 1980s underground puzzle. Stay tuned for more videos here on Forkcast and on Pitchfork.tv.  

Re-working an existing track is primarily about listening-- the best remixers hear something inside of a song not being served by the original version. In the case of Animal Collective's remix of Goldfrapp's "Little Bird", they heard something several shades darker than the urban moodscape of the original, something filled with mystery and maybe a touch of desperation. Stripping away most of the music in favor of a slowly accumulating web of percussion and noise, the track becomes a spooky campfire song for a Blair Witch kind of night.

[from the "Caravan Girl" single; out now on Mute]

This Chris Milk-directed video is completely crazy in just the right way. Surreal, funny, disgusting, even a little dramatic. Just watch. It's better than this one. (via Subterranean)

Video:> Gnarls Barkley: "Who's Gonna Save My Soul"
[from The Odd Couple; out now on Downtown/Atlantic]

Dan Frampton, a.k.a. Dusk, and Pitchfork contributor Martin Clark, a.k.a. Blackdown, have been churning out solid 12" singles for a minute. On first listen, the obvious thing to say is that this London-based production team's debut, Margins Music, is for fans of a Burial-style approach. But it's really much less moody than this, though, and the 2-step feel of "Focus" is an example of a different attitude.

A clip from the film 1984 opens the track, saying, "the resistance is very real". Too true. From the outset, it's evident that the tune does resist falling too far into the darkness. There's a definite cinematic eeriness here, as demonstrated by the strings that enter into the mix halfway through, but it's up-tempo enough to make it brilliantly danceable. It deserves to be turned up very loud. 

[from Margins Music; due August 2008 on Keysound]