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Showing posts from April, 2018

Ear Coffee Gig List: 4/30/18

Want shows? We got them. Here is your list for gigs happening in the Twin Cities this week. Monday: 4/30 Rolling Blackout Coastal Fever - 7th Street Entry Broken Dead - Hexagon Bar Matt Blair - Icehouse  Tuesday: 5/1 theyself and they self - Amersterdam Bar and Hall Constellation Band - Palmers Bar Whosah - 7th Street Entry Wednesday: 5/2 Kevin Morby - Cedar Cultural Center The Dead South - 7th Street Entry The Bad Companions - Lee's Liquor Lounge Thursday: 5/3 Kitten Forever - Loring Bar and Restaurant Naked Giants - Turf Club Melvv - 7th Street Entry Friday: 5/4 Unknown Mortal Orchestra - First Avenue Mainroom Trampled By Turtles - Palace Theater The 4onthefloor - VFW Post 246  Saturday: 5/5 Trampled By Turtles - Palace Theater The Cactus Blossoms - Hopkins Center for the Arts Rebel Queens - Nomad World Pub

Calvin Heights Release New Music Video, Announce New Album

 Taken from the band's Facebook page. Releasing an album, an EP, and a single in less than a year has simply not been enough for the mad scientists behind the indie rock band Calvin Heights. Today they released a new music video and announced a new record titled Talented Sun . The single is called "Era Vernacular," and it is a track that bridges the gap between Worst Calligraphy and single released in December of last year . It has all the dissonance and chaos one would find in a recent Calvin Heights release, but it is stuffed into more of a focused package. Talented Sun does not have a release date yet, but we can hope that the band won't make us wait to long. Watch the music video below.

Deafheaven Announce Track List For New Album

Last week , blackgaze pioneers Deafheaven announced they were releasing an new album. Along with the album announcement they dropped the 12-minute epic "Honeycomb" to their eager fans. Thankfully, the band did not wait to long before releasing more information about their forth coming record titled  Ordinary Corrupt Human Love . An image was posted to Deafheaven's social media with what appears to be a track list on it. The new single appears along with six other songs.  Ordinary Corrupt Human Love will be the band's fourth full length release with their last record, New Bermuda , being in 2015. "Honeycomb" sounds more akin to the bands critically acclaimed sophomore album  Sunbather. The punishing blast beats are still there, but Deafheaven gives more focus to their melodic side. You can see the social media post, track list, and "Honeycomb" music video below. The response to Honeycomb and OCHL has been overwhelming. As weeks pass, we

Gig List 4/23/18

We may have missed last Monday's gig-list, but we are back at it again this week to help you find a concert to go to this week. Monday 4/23 Almighty American - Turf Club Hurray For The Riff Raff w/ Waxahatchee - First Ave Valinor Excelsior w/ Threat Signal, Joey Muha and More - Lee's Liquor Lounge Tuesday 4/24 Rainbow Kitten Surprise w/ Caamp - First Ave  Langhorne Sling - Cedar Cultural Center Joan Shelly - Turf Club Wednesday 4/25 No Age - 7th Street Entry Transmission w/ Jake Rudh - VFW Post 246 The Moth Story Slam - Amsterdam Bar & Hall Thursday 4/26 King Lil G - The Cabooze Straya and Yazan - Eagles Club 34 Edward the Confessor, Candid Kid, and More - Mortimers Bar Friday 4/27 Franz Ferdinan - First Ave Indigo Girls - Varsity Theater Jeff Rosenstock - Coffmen Memorial Union (U of M) Nick Check and The Dead Century - The Pourhouse Saturday 4/28 Bon Jovi - Xcel Energy Center Mia Dyson - Cedar Cultural Center Kamelot

In Pursuit Of Something Interesting: The Northern Hues Self-Titled EP

This week on In Pursuit Of Something Interesting we are going to take a step away from the Drag City Records roster. I just could not do another record like last week's Scene Creamers review . However, we will be returning to Drag City for one last album before we move onto something else. The EP we are going to dig into is one that I did not find on my own. Ear Coffee editor Wes Muilenburg mentioned The Northern Hue during this week's podcast and I thought that they would be worth giving a shot. The Northern Hues was an indie rock band fronted by Dan Avidan. Many of you may know him from the YouTube channel Game Grumps and the comedy rock duo Ninja Sex Party . But before all of that, he wrote for and fronted a couple "serious" bands. The first, which is the focus of today's column, released a single self-titled EP in 2004. The second, the indietronica duo Skyhill, released an album and a single. From the get go, The Northern Hue EP sounds like a contemp

Deafheaven Release New Single

We finally have new music from blackgaze pioneers Deafheaven after a three-year drought ( New Bermuda was a highlight of 2015). The new track, "Honeycomb," comes with a 12-minute video. Representatives of the band confirmed to Pitchfork that the group is working on their hotly anticipated third LP with longtime producer Jack Shirley. According to sleuths on reddit , the album may/will be titled Ordinary Corrupt Human Love and be released on July 13. Fun fact - Jack Shirley produced Remo Drive's Greatest Hits , one of Ear Coffee's favorite albums of 2017! Cool! Anyways, check out "Honeycomb" below.

New Music Friday 4/13/18

Not quite as many releases as last week, but there's still reason to be excited. Mostly for Many Rooms' debut, but also the other stuff! Many Rooms - There Is A Presence Here (Other People) Brianna Hunt's debut as Many Rooms is finally here. I say 'finally' like it has been widely anticipated, but it's really only been anticipated by me and Stereogum. Regardless, the follow up to 2015's excellent Hollow Body EP is sure to satisfy fans of ambient-inspired folk pop that deals primarily with issues of faith (which I realize is a quite narrow audience). Includes the singles "Danielle" and "Which is to Say, Everything." Listen on Spotify here . Listen on Apple Music here . A Place to Bury Strangers - Pinned (Dead Oceans) The fifth album from the Brooklyn experimental noise rock group and third for the Dead Oceans label. It is the band's first album with new drummer Lia Simon Braswell, who also contributes vocals. Addi

In Pursuit Of Something Interesting: Scene Creamers (Weird War) "I Suck On That Emotion"

Another week and another deep dive into the  Drag City Records  vault for something interesting. While trying to pick the record for this week, I came to the conclusion that most of Drag City's catalog is either Ty Segall's massive collection of records or someones one-off release from the early 2000s. The Scene Creamers (now called Weird War) album I Suck On That Emotion is a little bit of both. Segall is not involved with the record or the band, but the 2003 release from the band sounds like a template for what Segall would be releasing eight to ten years later. The Scene Creamers is an Ian Svenonius project started in the early 2000s as an anti-authoritarian collective. The collective did not turn out like they had hoped, but Svenonius did get a band out it.  For those not familiar with Svenonius, he was the frontman to a number of seminal punk bands in the 1980s and '90s with the most famous being The Nation of Ulysses. Since then, Svenonius has gone on to establi

New Music Friday 4/6/18

Holy buckets, that's a bunch of albums! Too many, dare I say. Hop Along - Bark Your Head Off, Dog (Saddle Creek) Third record from the inimitable Philadelphia indie rock quartet. Self-produced by the band's guitarist Joe Reinhart, Bark Your Head Off, Dog is the somewhat long-awaited follow-up to 2015's excellent Painted Shut . The new record includes "How Simple" (one of my favorite songs of the year thus far) and "Not Abel." Listen on Spotify here . Listen on Apple Music here . Cardi B - Invasion of Privacy (Atlantic) It's here. Cardi B's debut full-length album. Following the massive success of last year's "Bodak Yellow" (included on the album, obviously), Cardi armed herself with a lion's share of the most popular producers and rappers for her defining statement. The album features 21 Savage, Migos, Chance the Rapper, YG, SZA, and more. Listen on Spotify here . Listen on Apple Music here .

In Pursuit of Something Interesting: Loose Fur's "Born Again In The USA"

With the recent news that Drag City Records has added a majority of their catalog to streaming services, I thought that "In Pursuit of Something Interesting" could be revived with a long winded and poorly written dive into the record label's massive list of artists. For those of you unfamiliar with the Chicago based label, Drag City Records focuses on more the left of center bands. Their most recent poster child, Ty Segall, has a prolific catalog that spans many genres ranging from lo-fi garage to psychedelic to glam rock. Digging into this label will be just as much as an experience for you as it will be for me. So using the formula established in previous articles, I used chance to land on the band Loose Fur and their album Born Again In The USA . Now, before this article I had no prior knowledge of this band, but using knowledge I had about Drag City Records, I assumed they were some sort of fringe act. Boy was I surprised when I learned Loose Fur was a side pro

The Ear Coffee Podcast

Ear Coffee has been a entity for at least eight months. Wes and I (Joe) started it as an outlet write about the music we love because it is something we spend a majority of time focusing on. To work as a companion of sorts to the blog, we had the idea to start a podcast. Both Wes and I worked for our college radio station so why not use those skills to help give Ear Coffee some more personality. And so in September of last year, we made a test episode and uploaded it to Soundcloud. Boy, was that podcast something. Neither of us were completely happy with the episode so we put it on hiatus. Now, we are back with a new and improved (sort of) podcast, AND we are on iTunes, Podbean, and Stitcher. You have no reason not to listen to it. For the third episode of the Ear Coffee Podcast, Wes and I sat down to discuss our rubrics for reviewing albums and then applied that rubric to the Preoccupations album New Material . You can expect these discussion-style episodes will be released twice