Photos: Alice Coltrane Ascension Ceremony [New York, NY; 05/17/07]

Photos by Stephen Lindley

Ravi Coltrane, Rashied Ali, Geri Allen, Brandee Younger, and more turned out at the appropriately spiritual confines of New York City's Saint John the Divine church last night for an Ascension Day tribute to the late Alice Coltrane, jazz innovator and wife to John, who passed away on January 12 of this year.

Check out Stephen Lindley's photos from the event below, and read/revisit Mark Richardson's words on Alice's life and legacy here.

RAVI COLTRANE


RASHIED ALI


BRANDEE YOUNGER


GERI ALLEN

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Neko Case to Tour With Rufus Wainwright
Plus: Magic Numbers, Sean Lennon, A Fine Frenzy, Sarah Slean, Joan as Police Woman

Rufus Wainwright's spring/summer/fall tour in support of the just-released Release the Stars has swelled to ginormous proportions, now a sprawling, continent-spanning, many-tentacled mass that whisks our "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" salesman from Paris to L.A. and very nearly everywhere in between.

One opener could not possibly stomach so much road-worn Wainwright, and one opener won't have to: merciful Rufus has enlisted a dozen or so like-minded musical entities to help keep his wiles in check while on tour.

Chief among them, Neko Case, who'll croon to folks on the August 8-17, mostly-Southern stretch of Rufus' campaign. UK softies the Magic Numbers take over for Case thereafter, while latest Tori torch carrier A Fine Frenzy bears the brunt of Wainwright's whimsy, sharing opening duties on both stretches. Lad of the Lennon seed Sean also opens a selection of pre-Case dates, and lucky peoples in Calgary and Vancouver get treated to the often enchanting Sarah Slean. Antony amiga Joan as Police Woman does a June NYC date too, and we think that's mighty swell.

Case has a basketful of Rufus-free summer dates as well, several of which we've previously reported. Both Neko and Rufus' dates are listed below for your geeking-out convenience. [MORE...]

Page France Kick Off Tour
Bonus! "The Ruby Ring Man" live mp3

Page France will celebrate the recent release of their third album, ...And the Family Telephone on Suicide Squeeze, with a short North American tour in late spring and early summer that kicks off tonight (May 18) in Brooklyn.

Their dates are confined to the East Coast, Midwest, and Ottawa, so West Coast fans of the Maryland band will either have to make the trek or constantly refresh their "Page France + live + 2007" YouTube searches. However, a trek with Bishop Allen is in the works for the summer.

As a bonus, check out an mp3 of Page France performing Family Telephone's "The Ruby Ring Man" live at Seattle's Crocodile Cafe by clicking on the link below. [MORE...]

Ex-Jurassic 5 Members Move On With New Projects

Jurassic 5 broke up, but if this is the first you've heard of the split, don't worry, because the rap crew's two coolest members are already at work on new albums.

Chali 2na-- the baritone-voiced, standout MC of the group-- is heading to the studio to work on his solo debut, Fish Outta Water. He will also appear at Bonnaroo as a special guest during New Orleans funk band Galactic's set, and he'll guest on that band's new album, scheduled for release later this year.

Turntable wizard Cut Chemist, who actually left Jurassic 5 last year to pursue his solo career, just finished a European tour as the opener for Shakira (?!); he'll continue to rock truthful hips at a handful of dates this summer in California and Japan.

The first of Chemist's shows is on May 26 in his hometown of Los Angeles, where he has enlisted fellow L.A. producer Mumbles to help him remix a Russian film live as part of PRAVDA: Shadow of Stalin, a night of DJs, artists, and musicians exploring the art of the Stalinist-era Soviet Union. And on June 24, Cut Chemist will join buddy DJ Shadow for "Brain Placement", a Hollywood event in which they will DJ using 45s almost exclusively.

Cut Chemist is also working on his next album, the follow-up to last year's The Audience's Listening. [MORE...]

Vanderslice Follows Yellow Brick Road to Emerald City

San Francisco producer/songwriter John Vanderslice will release his sixth solo full-length via Barsuk on July 24.

Titled Emerald City in reference to Baghdad's Green Zone (though we're not entirely sure why), Vanderslice wrote the majority of the record during a still-unresolved legal struggle with U.S. Immigration over obtaining a visa for his girlfriend, a French citizen he met in Paris.

Emerald City is also distinct for featuring the fewest tracks, at nine, of any Vanderslice full-length so far, as well as being his first album with his face on the cover.

Emerald City was recorded mostly live in Vanderslice's own Tiny Telephone studio, and in addition to Vanderslice, it also features the musical prowess of David Broecker, Dave Douglas, Ian Bjornstad, and Scott Solter. [MORE...]

Photos: Animal Collective [Chicago, IL; 05/17/07]

Photos by Sanchez and Kitahara

Last night, a couple songs into Animal Collective's set at Chicago's Metro, Avey Tare stared quizzically at the sound guy, tapped his microphone, and complained of the "weird noise" it was making. A curious gesture from a man who spent an hour-plus assaulting the gathered masses of future acid casualties with weirder than usual noises of his own creation. Heavy on the electron pulse-- thanks in part to the disconcerting lack of a single onstage guitar-- the often combative, occasionally tuneful, trance-inducingly beautiful show gave the sellout crowd a crack at watching three blank-faced dudes coax crashing thunder from their synths.

When they all-too-rarely dipped back, it was Sung Tongs tunes in a Here Comes the Indian style; an early-set spin through "Who Could Win a Rabbit?" erred closer to Outkast's "Gangsta Shit" than is fathomable the morning after, though set-closer "Leaf House" kept things proper. The abundance of fresh tracks showed a pulling back from Feels' elliptical ease; trunk-rattling bass, noise both white and kaleidoscopic, and one tune best described as a calypso scream. Avey seems to have let up on the scatting in favor of a genial growl, and Panda's underused melodies sound more oblique but no less ethereal than anything on Person Pitch. If these are Strawberry jams, Strawberry Jam's gonna blow some minds. But you didn't need me to tell you that.






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Clipse Released From Jive Contract?

While Clipse's label troubles have become one of their defining attributes over the past few years, it was only a matter of time before Pusha T and Malice wrangled themselves free of their contract with Jive. I mean, you don't diss your label in the single from your album and expect (or want) everything to be hunky dory.

That time has come sooner than expected, however, as Toronto publication Eye Weekly reports that Clipse and Jive have indeed parted ways.

"Right now Clipse are free agents. There are a few labels that are interested," Malice says in an interview on Eye Weekly's website.

A Jive representative had no comment about the matter.

Thornton brothers, consider this your offer to be the flagship artists on my own Love Snow Can't Ski Records. You will receive couch space and high fives if, in return, you rap for me as I microwave Hot Pockets and watch baseball games on TV.

In the world of things that will actually happen, Clipse are still scheduled to play the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago's Union Park on July 14. The rest of the Saturday lineup remains as follows: Yoko Ono, Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues, Iron and Wine, Girl Talk, Grizzly Bear, Battles, Califone, the Twilight Sad, Fujiya & Miyagi, Oxford Collapse, Dan Deacon, Beach House, Professor Murder, and Ken Vandermark's Powerhouse Sound.

Ex-Liars/Knife Skills Folk Form These Are Powers, Tour

From holding down the bottom end on the first Liars record to stirring up mayhem with n0 things to plucking strings alongside former Knife Skills axelady Anna Barie, Pat Noecker's got a peerless noise-punk pedigree.

Pat, Anna, and drummer Ted McGrath's recently-cobbled These Are Powers will show just what those powers are on a tour setting off May 21 in Pittsburgh. Judging by the recently-issued "Silver Lung"/"Funeral Xylophone"/"Crows of Troy" single out now on Elsie and Jack, our guess is those powers include skronk-rocking and making the mourning process fun and plinky. [MORE...]

Tobin, Cut Chemist, PB Wolf Play Disney/Stalin Rave
Plus: DeVotchKa, Petra Haden, Saul Williams do Russian chanson

It sounds like the setup to a bad joke: Mickey Mouse and Joseph Stalin drop some E and walk into a downtown L.A. rave. But the joke's on Joe, it seems, as some top-shelf dance musicians are sticking it to the long-departed murderous Communist dictator.

May 26, at Los Angeles' Walt Disney Concert Hall, the likes of Amon Tobin, Cut Chemist, DJ Spooky, Peanut Butter Wolf, J-Rocc of the Beat Junkies, and Dublab Soundsystem will perform remixes of the works of Stalin-era Russian classical composers 'til first light. They're calling it PRAVDA: Shadow of Stalin, and if it doesn't exactly sound like a blast just yet, read on.

PRAVDA-- named for the communist Soviet newspaper-- is meant as a celebration of the idea of artistic endeavors flourishing in an otherwise oppressive sociopolitical climate; hence, the night's focus on the works of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Mosolov, three composers who worked during Joseph Stalin's thirty-year reign as General Secretary of the Soviet Union. The KCRW-sponsored all-night event's music will be complemented by visuals from iconic Russian films, live onstage painting, and video projections by MC This.

A couple days before, on May 24, DeVotchKa and special friends Petra Haden and Saul Williams take the Disney Concert Hall stage to interpet Russian chanson tunes.

I'm sure all the nice people involved would like us to reiterate the event's fervent lack of endorsement of Stalin's regime, so there it is.

Interpol's Carlos D: Aspiring Film Composer
Also a fan of chick flicks and Disney animation, apparently

Interpol bassist Carlos Dengler (aka Carlos D) is well known for being an eccentric guy, but as a musician, he's pretty underrated. So it makes sense that he'd want to gain some respect and musical props in a purely functional role as a composer for film and television. But in his attempt to do just that, he set up a website dedicated to his composing career that reinforces everything we've come to believe about what a weirdo he is.

Exhibit A: His surprisingly adorable bio:

"Carlos is an aspiring film and tv composer in addition to playing bass and keyboards in Interpol. His understanding of harmonic principles and an ear for colorful orchestration have contributed notably to the Interpol sound and are integral to his work as a composer. Although working in a different musical environment, Carlos utilizes the same skills in scoring as he does in Interpol.

Carlos' influences include film composers Angelo Badalamenti, James Newton Howard, Alexander Desplat, and classical composers Henryk Gorecki, Arvo Pärt, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Carlos resides in New York City with his Italian Greyhound, Gaius. [SEE PHOTO] He works from his home studio on Logic Pro 7 and uses the Vienna Symphonic Library and MOTU Symphonic Instrument to simulate the sound of the symphony orchestra; one day he hopes to work with the real thing. He has scored one short film (The National Anthem) and is currently working on a Randall Poster/Search Party project for HBO to be announced late spring."

See? Even rock stars need resumes.

Exhibit B: The "Works" section of the website includes several samples of Carlos' work available as audio streams. "Goofballs in Kindergarden" (sic), which is "inspired by [the] 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' theme song and Danny Elfman scores for Tim Burton films" is, um, goofy, and vaguely creepy. "Opening Credits", "inspired by John Carpenter," would fit in an action movie starring Michael Douglas. In 1987. "Car Chase", also "inspired by John Carpenter," is a slightly more threatening take on "Opening Credits". So basically it's for the scene in which Michael Douglas chases the bad guy through the dark, rain-slicked streets.

Exhibit C: Golgotha. It's a short film written, produced, and scored by Carlos and directed by his friend Daniel Ryan, prominently featuring Carlos' menacing, Vangelis-like soundtrack (there is no dialogue). It can be summarized by the follow four themes, listed in chronological order of appearance:

1) Look, some buildings!
2) Homeless people exist.
3) White people sometimes gather in large numbers.
4) This church sure has some crazy shit!

Exhibit WTF: The "Works" section also features video clips from the films The Devil Wears Prada and Ice Age 2, the TV shows "Deadwood" and "The West Wing", and a commercial for planting trees in Atlanta. What, you thought Carlos D only watched foreign language thrillers from the 1940s or something?

However, none of the music in these video clips is what actually appeared in the films/shows/commercial. It's been replaced by Carlos' own interpretations of the sounds that would have fit the moments. Since the Pitchfork office copies of The Devil Wears Prada and Ice Age 2 are currently on loan to our Editor-in-Chief [God, Ryan, bring them back already! Other people want to watch Anne Hathaway make out with Adrian Grenier too!], we couldn't compare his work to the originals. But it seemed perfectly functional (read: not noticeable at all).

Apparently, the bass player in Interpol simply dreams of nothing more than what music would go best with an animated woolly mammoth's moment of introspection.

Don't expect Carlos to be able to do much work any time soon. Interpol's new album Our Love to Admire comes out July 10 on Capitol, and the band is going to be on the road pretty much straight through 'til September. [MORE...]

Wheat Finally Issue Kathy, Embark on Tour

Massachusetts maestro Scott Levesque and his veteran pet project Wheat-- recently pared down to a duo that finds Levesque alongside skinsman Brendan Harney-- will finally issue Everyday I Said a Prayer for Kathy and Made a One Inch Square May 22 on the Empyrean imprint (May 21 in the UK). The release date for the long-delayed, appellatively-long-winded follow-up to 2003's Per Second, Per Second, Per Second... Every Second-- originally slated for March 6-- was pushed back.

Levesque and Harney also got themselves their own tour dates, which kick off Gotham way June 3. [MORE...]

Moore, Gordon, Yoshimi, Merzbow Do No Fun Fest
Plus: Carlos Giffoni, Burning Star Core, Mouthus, Axolotl, Hair Police, Hive Mind

Just when you've run out of conversation topics for the beer pong line, here comes the No Fun festival and its reign of aural terror, kicking off tonight in Brooklyn. The fun-free fest, now an annual extravaganza, features an international selection of noisy sound. This includes modern composition, free jazz, no wave, and People Who Swallow Vocoders and Make Your Eyeballs Bleed.

Featured performers include Japanese noise pioneer Merzbow, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon with Boredoms/OOIOO phenom Yoshimi, Gordon hubby Thurston Moore, and Sweden's Enema Syringe, who will be playing their first show in over twenty years. There are also several collaborations afoot, including noise/destruction groups American Band with Air Conditioning, Burning Star Core with Zaimph, Mouthus with Axolotl, and Hive Mind with Damion Romero.

Other highlights: Carlos Giffoni, Hair Police, Sissy Spacek, and the a DJ set from the Olson Twins. Oh, if only it were that Sissy Spacek and those Olsen Twins.

No Fun Fest sprawls from this evening (May 17) through May 20-- provided your ears hold out that long-- and all shows go down at the Hook in Brooklyn. The full schedule lies ahead. [MORE...]

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