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Besides having a few songs featured in Drew Barrymore's Whip It , 2009 has been a bit quiet for JENS LEKMAN. But he'll be starting 2010 out right by playing three shows at Chicago's Empty Bottle starting New Years Eve.

12/31/09 Chicago, IL - The Empty Bottle (SOLD OUT)
01/01/10 Chicago, IL - The Empty Bottle
01/02/10 Chicago, IL - The Empty Bottle

Labels: Jens Lekman, secretly canadian

Columbia Records and Favorite Gentlemen are excited to announce the video premiere for Manchester Orchestra's second single, "Shake It Out," on MySpace. The premiere will last for 48 hours and begins on November 6 at 3pm EST. It can be seen at www.myspace.com/manchesterorchestra. The video is a brilliant homage to 1980's action films (tongue firmly planted in cheek).

The powerfully epic "Shake It Out," the second single from Manchester Orchestra's sophomore album, Mean Everything To Nothing, was just sent to Modern Rock radio and was met with great excitement. "I've Got Friends," the first single from Mean Everything To Nothing spent 26 weeks on the Billboard Modern Rock chart and reached the #8 spot at its peak. Alternative Press recently named the song as one of the top 100 songs of the decade.

Manchester Orchestra just finished hugely succesful tours with Brand New as well as Silversun Pickups. They will be joining Brand New and Glassjaw for their very special hometown show at Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, NY, on November 28th. They are off to Europe in November to open for Biffy Clyro and to do headline dates in Germany.

Upon their return, the band will be partnering with rock radio stations for the following holiday shows in December:

12/2
101.9 RXP Holiday Event
Hammerstein Ballroom
New York, NY

12/3
WBRU Holiday Bizarre
Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel
Providence, RI

12/5
WPBZ Buzz Bake Sale 2009
Cruzan Amphitheater
West Palm Beach, FL

12/6
97X Next Big Thing
Ford Amphitheater
Tampa, FL

12/12
KBZT Holiday Hootenanny @ RIMAC
UCSD Campus
La Jolla, CA

12/15
Q101 Twisted Christmas
House of Blues
Chicago, IL

Labels: Manchester Orchestra

On October 27, Matthew Ryan and Blurt present an exclusive stream of Dear Lover, available digitally on October 27th and in-stores on February 16, 2010 through CIMS/Junket Boy.

On Dear Lover, his twelfth recording, Matthew Ryan offers his most personal collection yet, navigating the intimate space between lovers where passion, doubt, fear and desire co-exist. This is the first release for The Dear Future Collective.



"Every now and then an artist you thought you knew and liked will suddenly, without any warning, release a disc that takes their art to a whole new level. Rarely has electronic and folk music been married so successfully. Dear Lover is Matthew Ryan's most daring, most remarkable, most compelling, and most emotionally wrenching album yet." - Joe Hill, author "Heart Shaped Box" and "Twentieth Century Ghosts"

"Dear Lover: listen to this. Then you'll know." - Kevin Roberts Saatchi & Saatchi World Wide CEO

Blurt is a quarterly magazine and multimedia website covering music, comedy, politics, culture and assorted debauchery. Blurt is brought to you by the creative team behind the lauded HARP Magazine (called "America's best music magazine" by NPR's Bob Boilen and "the best music magazine in the country and the one that musicians always read" by Foo Fighter Dave Grohl).

Labels: matthew ryan

Art vs Science isn't here to get a haircut. They're here to melt your mind!

They're also here to remind us that creating dance music is not just about bass-blowing electro-rock anthems (of which they have many); rather it's about taking those songs and in a live forum setting everyone's fire-retardant dancing kicks ablaze. If you walk away from an Art vs Science live show without an altered gait and/ or state-of-mind, you were clearly not paying attention.

Art vs Science's self-titled EP will core-drill itself into you mind and possess it with its hooky take on rock-infused, French electronica. In their native country of Australia, the EP has already garnered them a 2009 ARIA Award (think Grammy) nomination in the Breakthrough Artist category. The first of the EP's singles to be offered up as a FREE MP3 download is the criminally infectious, Parlez-Vous Francais?

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Something about needing more energy has me turning to the rock infused electric dance music. It gets my feet tapping and the adrenaline pumping. It's necessary when the little heart is running and trying to hum me into sleep at my desk.

Their music inspires intriguingly equal measures of curiosity and giddiness. Somebody give me a sparkler, I fancy myself a firefly at the moment! Thank you Art vs Science!

Listen:

Art Vs Science - "Parlez-Vous Francais?" (mp3)

Enjoy!

Labels: art vs science

Finn Riggin's stellar new album, Vs. Wilderness, released yesterday. To celebrate, please watch this amazing video for "Wake" which was made by Jason Sievers. His lovely stop motion animation videos and have been featured on Pitchfork.com and MTV and he's worked for bands like Built to Spill, The Universal and The Wrens to name a few.

The album was recorded, engineered and co-produced in May of 2009 by the band at AudioLab studio, an arm of Garden City, Idaho's Visual Arts Collective (or VAC, a non-profit gallery, venue, theatre and creative space with which Finn Riggins has become heavily involved in since relocating to Boise, ID in January of 2009) during one of their rare stints at home. True to form, the album was brought to fruition in this independently run, community-minded environment with the help of co-producer and Tender Loving Empire founder Jared Mees (who, by the way, has also toured on his own albums alongside the band.)

Listen:

Finn Riggins - "Dali" (mp3)

Enjoy!

Labels: finn riggins

I Like Trains begin the UK tour today in Liverpool in support of the new single 'Sea of Regrets' which was released on Monday.

Exciting news is that Sea of Regrets was used on CSI Miami on release day (12th October). The song was used in episode 804. The new season of CSI Miami will be coming to UK soon. In other sync news, 'The Voice of Reason' taken from the debut album (Elegies to Lessons Learnt) is currently being featured on the trailer to Hollywood film, 'Amelia' starring Richard Gere and Hilary Swank (as Amelia Earhart).

"Sea of Regrets" is such an incredible song. It's like a personal story set to music, well, I suppose most songs are that way. But the vocals are just delicious and the calm, pristine rhythm couple with the slow and precise guitar is just perfection. I wish I could share it, but it's not released for free download that I know of. You can hear the single on their MySpace page.

"Some things are better left forgotten, or the weight of the world will crush your bones"

The limited edition self produced/released single ‘Sea of Regrets’ is a new beginning for I Like Trains. Whilst still informed by a bleak world view, musical rays of light are starting to puncture the gloom. Inspired by the writing of preeminent environmental scientists James Lovelock and George Monbiot; ‘Sea of Regrets’ raises the question of our importance in nature’s great scheme. Guitars, vocals, violins and cellos combine for a soaring finale, an anthem to a hopeless future for humanity.

Dates are:

14th October - Liverpool Barfly GB
15th October - Manchester Deaf Institute GB
16th October - Leeds Cockpit GB
17th October - Glasgow King Tuts GB
19th October - Nottingham Rescue Rooms GB
20th October - Bristol Cooler GB
21st October - Oxford Bullingdon Arms GB
22nd October - London Garage GB
23rd October - Birmingham Hare and Hounds GB
24th October - Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms GB

Enjoy!

Labels: i like trains