Episode109 - Taking Chances



Episode109 - Taking Chances
"♫Makin' a soundtrack for another planet to hear♫" on Episode109 - Taking Chances which features brand new sounds from Adanowsky, CUZ, Saintseneca, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Cody ChestnuTT, Gary Clark Jr., Gentlemen, Octopus Project, Hauschka, TOY, HABITATS, Black Diet, Sharon Van Etten, Holy Wave, Thievery Corporation and Pillar Point...



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Previous: Episode108 - Keep On Shining

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♬Liner Notes♬: An otherworldly mix of music from all around the world that will make your brain dance as a much as your ass! Featuring Sharon Van Etten, Octopus Project, HABITATS, UMO, TOY, CUZ and many mare things in ALL CAPS! Let's PUTV!

Adanowsky
"Dancing to the Radio"
'ADA'
Everloving, 2014
Note: "As the son of Alejandro Jodorowsky, Adan Jodorowsky had the advantage of running in creative circles early in life. James Brown instructed him in his first dance lesson and George Harrison gave him his first guitar. Jodorowsky learned his lessons well, bringing soul to his electro pop dance tunes. It’s all about pleasure on ADA. “I wanted something sweaty and gross. I wanted to feel the drugs on this album. I’m not a drug addict at all but I wanted people to feel that same kind of high in the music.”"
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CUZ
"Tamatebako"
'Tamatebako'
Bleeding Heart, 2014
Note: "Since his emergence as the bassist of the influential punk combo The Minutemen, Mike Watt has engaged himself in a wide range of musical projects that have taken him, geographically and stylistically, to all kinds of new territories. The latest of these projects is CUZ, a collaboration with guitarist Sam Dook (The Go! Team) that began in 2006 when the two met at Australia’s Big Day Out festival."
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Saintseneca
"Happy Alone"
'Dark Arc'
-ANTI, 2014
Note: When we first heard Saintseneca two weeks ago, it was a live cut from KUTX. So now let's listen to what the studio album sounds like... "Imagine sitting by a lake within the Appalachians in southern Ohio, among dense forestry with maybe a deer or two in sight. Bust out your guitar, grab a few musical companions, and the resulting sound would resemble the quintessential tree music that is Saintseneca... Dark Arc is the band’s Anti- debut and the studio effort we’ve been waiting for..."
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Unknown Mortal Orchestra
"Swim And Sleep (Like A Shark)"
'II'
Jagjaguwar, 2013
Note: They're still getting some attention for their now-over a year old album, so they must be doing something right. It's their third appearance on PUTV and third cut from the album 'II'. "Unknown Mortal Orchestra's Ruban Nielson has a tattoo of an eye on his neck – specifically, on his throat chakra, said to rule communication. Somewhat surprisingly, the 32-year-old New Zealand-born, Oregon-dwelling musician claimed to music website Pitchfork recently that he is not a hippy... Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark), the album's first single, also conjoins sleep, prettiness and unease..." They were just in Portland opening for Little Dragon and someone I know was not a fan. They're the first of four bands on the show this week that are playing this weekend’s Austin Psych Fest.
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Cody ChestnuTT
"Gunpowder on the Letter" (w/ Gary Clark Jr.)
'Landing On A Hundred: B Sides and Remixes'
Vibration Vineyard, 2014
Note: Last heard way back on Episode032, the ATL troubadour returns with new old music featuring guitar firebrand "Gary Clark Jr for the bounce-inducing church blues of “Gunpowder On The Letter”, his first drop from the upcoming B-Side & Remixes cut of his stellar Landing On A Hundred LP. Clark and ChesnuTT trade off sliding licks and croon supreme all over this shuffling rocker, perfectly melding each of their strong suits..."
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Gentlemen
"Gentle Duke"
'Night Reels II' EP
Week Of Wonders, 2014
Note: This is the UK group's second release... "Taking note of the heavy psychedelic British bands of the late ’60s and refining their sludgy fury into something more precise, London’s Gentlemen continue the lineage of those bands with their bold, slightly-warped jams... “Gentle Duke” may owe some debt to Gentlemen’s psychedelic predecessors, but by relying on the same kind of musicianship that’s held true in the genre for decades, they more than make them proud."
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Octopus Project
"Sharpteeth"
'Fever Forms'
Peek-A-Boo, 2014
Note: "Somewhere in the far-out, Seussian world where art, music, rock ‘n’ roll and electronica meet, you’ll find The Octopus Project... three years after the release of the ambitious, multi-media exploration Hexadecagon... The record is a joyful, experimental electro-pop album...few of the songs represent the sound and feel of the record better than the closer, and second single “Sharpteeth.”... They’ve made it past 10-year mark as a band, their new album finds them still in fine form." They're playing their local Austin Psych Fest and we thank them again for the tweet love!
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Hauschka
"Craco"
'Abandoned City'
City Slang / Temporary Residence, 2014
Note: "Last year, [German composer] Volker Bertelmann (more commonly known as Hauschka) played a show at the Bristol Proms, a series of concerts designed to demonstrate to classical music audiences young and old that classical music was not dead, merely presented in the wrong way... it's an example of the decidedly wobbly lines that Hauschka's music is still straddling, ten albums in... Loosely conceived as a tour of deserted metropoles (each track has the name of a different existing city, with the exception of 'Elizabeth Bay' and 'Who Lived Here?'), the album's greatest strength is in conjuring up the image of its subjects... 'Craco' has its feet directly planted in the Ludovico Einaudi camp of accessibility."
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TOY
"It’s Been So Long"
'Join The Dots'
Heavenly, 2013
Note: We heard "Endlessly" from TOY back on Episode093. "London’s TOY are intentional in ways that most psychedelic bands aren’t these days. The group likes to jam a lot, building huge walls of sound out of guitar effects. But their jams tend to go somewhere, reflecting the subtle pop attitude that lurks beneath all the atmosphere. TOY seem equally smitten with the Cure, My Bloody Valentine, and ’60s psych–there’s a reason their second album is called Join The Dots... “It’s Been So Long” treads this line well: the guitars and drums roar like a jet engine, but there’s a bittersweet element..." They're also playing at this weekend’s Austin Psych Fest.
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HABITATS
"Diamond Days"
Club Fandango/Fierce Panda, 2014
Note: "Like Foals and Bombay Bicycle Club, HABITATS resound, on their debut single release, with the same catchy caliber dished out by many of the UK-based dance-rockers. Situated in Hampshire and the London area, the mayhem-causing, beard-loving, quartet...have been creating infectious dance-beats to escape from the generic environment of popular music... Blooming with kinetic energy, “Diamond Days,” their newest song, is a groovy track that will knock you off your feet (if you aren’t already dancing; which, if you’re not, you totally should be), and launch you, head-first, into an experimental, tropical-rock cosmos."
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Black Diet
"Nothing To Say"
'Find Your Tambourine'
Piñata, 2014
Note: And the soul-loving sounds keep on comin'! "Black Diet is a garage/indie/soul band with a sartorial flair. Indebted to Stax records, they put on shows that look like Baptist church services held at punk houses. Part of a stream of vintage sounding acts coming out of Minneapolis' Pinata Records, they're spitting out sharp, testimonial jams for the masses."
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Sharon Van Etten
"Taking Chances"
'Are We There?'
Jagjaguwar, 2014
Note: "The track is the first to be taken from her new album 'Are We There?'... The video was directed by Michael Palmieri and plays homage to Agnès Varda's 1962 film Cleo from 5 to 7. The mystical promo sees Van Etten reading tarot cards... Van Etten's new album, 'Are We There?', which is set for release on May 26... Speaking to NME recently about the new album, Van Etten revealed that she used instruments used by John Lennon and Patti Smith in the recording of the LP."
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Holy Wave
"Do You Feel It"
'Relax'
self-released, 2014
Note: Pay no mind to the obvious bites from Jimi Hendrix and 13th Floor Elevators, just feel that fuzz wash over your third eye. "[Austin's] Holy Wave are clearly students of the fuzz 'n' Farfisa branch of psychedelia...but their commitment to a properly expanded mind never seems less than total..." Our fourth and final this week, they're also appropriately playing this weekend’s Austin Psych Fest.
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Thievery Corporation
"Quem Me Leva" (w/ Elin Melgarejo)
'Saudade'
ESL, 2014
Note: "Thievery Corporation has hit the reset button with their seventh full length album, Saudade. Named after a Portuguese word with no direct English translation, “saudade” refers to a nostalgic longing for something which has been lost." We heard a teaser track last month from the DC legends, now the full-length has landed on their own Eighteenth Street Lounge label. They seem to flip back and forth between ultra-political and just smooth, international dance.
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Pillar Point
"Eyeballs"
'Pillar Point'
Polyvinyl, 2014
Note: "Named for both a bay in California and a town in Washington, Pillar Point was first conceived as an outlet for songs Seattle’s Scott Reitherman felt wouldn’t fit his other project, indie pop group Throw Me The Statue. Decidedly more darker and dance-oriented than that band’s catalog... “Eyeballs”, a smooth, melodic track that splits the difference between early 2000s’ bedroom electronic music and early ’80s New Wave, benefits from a clockwork construction..."
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This week's b-sides: Wye Oak, Marissa Nadler, Holy Esque, Badbadnotgood and Steve Gunn

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Tix on sale now! @SpoonTheBand, @girltalk, @HAIMtheband, @Phantogram, @tuneyards, @runjewels and more at @MUSICFESTNW
This time next week we'll be in #LosAngeles for @itsmorrissey and @RealSirTomJones!

(Thanks again to @KEXP, @KCRW, @KUTX, @TheKeyXPN, @TheCurrent, @TwilightCircus1 and you!)