“Whoachella” is the SPIN Magazine‘s Soundtrack for The annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival that kick off today in the California desert and it’s a three days event. So, if you’re not a subscribed reader of the Magazine, you can go on their site and giving up your e-mail, you’ll get this mixtape for free. Nice. 🙂 Features tracks from PJ Harvey, Cut Copy, The London Suede, Wire, !!!, Big Audio Dynamite, Glasser, The Chemical Brothers, Lightning Bolt and Erykah Badu, 10 tracks, perfect for a loud and hot party, Friday, Saturday or even Sunday evening. It has a warm taste of the sweet eighties, but the pulse of the now days indie. But hey! free stuffs are good stuffs and if you miss the event, this mixtape makes you move on. So, shut up and dance motherfucker!
Reviews
Amaranthe – Amaranthe (2011)
Amaranthe is a Swedish/Danish power/melodic death metal(core) band formed originally under the name Avalanch by vocalist Jake E. Lundberg and guitarist/keyboard player Olof Morck and the project began taking shape when singers Elize Ryd, (screaming) vocalist Andy Solvestrom and drummer Morten Lowe joined the band. They has released one 4-song demo on their MySpace profile, entitled “Leave Everything Behind†in 2008. In 2009 they change their name into the actual Amaranthe due to legal issues. They singed to Spinefarm/Universal Records and recorded during the summer of 2010 their debut album which was released on April 13th 2011 and it contains 12 intense, but melodious songs.
Actually the ace in the sleeves of this band is the ability to blend the classic heavy/power elements with modern, death and metalcore sounds and approach.Elize Ryd can sing like Agnetha Fältskog (Abba), but the guys bring force, energy and power and this mixture actually it sounds fresh and pretty convincing. Read more Amaranthe – Amaranthe (2011)
Somnolent – Renaissance Unraveling (2011)
Somnolent formed in 2006, positioning itself as a funeral doom metal band. Having time for four years to perform at many festivals in the cities of Ukraine and Russia, and issuing a few releases in this vein, including full-length album “Monochromes Philosophy” in 2008 on the label Solitude Production. The band changed their style in the direction of post metal, progressive, sludge, while continuing to experiment. In 2011 they released their second full-length album, this “Renaissance Unraveling” through Slow Burn Records.
This is a dark and gloomy material, preserving the mood and trademarks of the debut album, but including some interesting colors from sludge and heavy explosions of modern metal riffings, some technical death metal elements and interesting breaks and shiftings from different tempos and moods. Read more Somnolent – Renaissance Unraveling (2011)
New Discolour – Short Of Ink (2011)
Remains me most of Pantera, New Discolour bring a heavy blend of old-school metal, hardcore with a sort of modern and extremely intense approach, actually their put together a very powerful and exciting material.
Formerly known as She Is Malignant, started in september 2008 with only one EP released entitled “Silent Scream”, they changed their name to New Discolour and “Short Of Ink” is their debut album.
Coming from Kolding/Aarhus/Esbjerg, Vælg din region, Danmark, Artem Kushnirenko – vocals, Jesper Rasmussen and Søren Thomsen – guitars, Mayu Tharumann – bass and Lasse Mikkelsen – drums, put together a very promising material, cutting edge riffs, pumping bass and crushing drums with intense vocals make this album heavy, classy, but fresh and alive. Read more New Discolour – Short Of Ink (2011)
Last Chance To Reason – Level 2 (2011)
If you like bands as The Dillinger Escape Plan and Between the Buried and Me, it worth to give a try also to this Last Chance To Reason, you will have a very nice surprise. They are from Augusta, Maine, and their debut album, “Level 1”, was released through Tribunal Records in 2007. Their debut album heavily references video games, especially to “Super Metroid” and in the title of their album ‘Lvl. 1’, and song titles such as ‘Escape From Brinstar’, ‘Kraid Ain’t Got Shit On Me’ and ‘Destroy Mother Brain’ they refer to the game.
“Level 2” is a new take on both the concept album and the video game. The current line-up consist of Michael Lessard – vocals, A J Harvey – guitar, vocals, Thomas Waterhouse – guitar, Chris Corey – bass, vocals, Brian Palmer – keyboards , synth and drummer Evan Sammons. Read more Last Chance To Reason – Level 2 (2011)
Amon Tobin – Isam (2011)
Crazy, spooky thing. Experimental electronic. Noisy but still soft and abstract. He is best known for his use of sampling, where a small section of a previous recording is manipulated to produce a new sound. It’s a mixture of sounds, noises he’s blending different styles from IDM to drum and bass and from breakbeat to trip hop.
Amon Tobin – Amon Adonai Santos de Araújo Tobin – is a Brazilian musician, DJ, and producer of electronic music. In 2005, he created the musical score to Ubisoft’s critically acclaimed and successful video game “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory” as well as Sucker Punch’s game “Infamous”. His music has been used in numerous major motion pictures including “The Italian Job” and “21”. Tobin has created songs for several independent films, including the 2006 Hungarian film “Taxidermia”. He is also noted for his entirely field-recorded album “Foley Room” released in 2007 and he has released seven major studio albums since 1996 under the London-based Ninja Tune record label. Read more Amon Tobin – Isam (2011)
Fluxious – Why So Serious (2011)
Formed in 2009 at Geneva, Switzerland, Fluxious bring to the surface an intense blending of rock and metal with jazz elements, it’s more heavy than jazz, but still at the border of fusion and to make things a little bit exciting, guitarist Germain, bass player Guillaume and drummer Maxence put to the microphone a girl called Joana. “Why So Serious” is dynamic, heavy and kind of complex material, still it’s not bearish, it flows alright, hard rock moments are shifted by heavy riffings or melodious choruses, and Joana singing in the style and manner of Sandra Nasić (Guano Apes). 12 songs, good tempo and rhythm, some interesting turns and a few good themes, in short words this is “Why So Serious” about. Read more Fluxious – Why So Serious (2011)
Laika – Nebula (2011)
“Born in Paris of an Ivory Coast father and a Moroccan-Spanish mother, Laïka was raised mainly by women (her grandmother, mother, and aunt) in a Moroccan Jewish family. She leans towards her maternal Sephardic culture, open to different styles of music in the Mediterranean.” (MySpace) And as Malcom McLaren has sung: “Jazz is Paris, and Paris is jazz”, not quite surprisingly, Laïka got her inspiration from artists as Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae, Shirley Horn, Nina Simone and Abbey Lincoln. She collaborated with Sixun, Julien Lourau, Steve Williams, Antoine Roney, Michael Bowie, David El Malek, Richard Galliano, Toot Thielemans, Robert Glasper, Gregory Hutchinson, Peter Martin, Daryl Hall, Vince Benedetti and Claude Bolling’s big band. Laïka has also taken to the stage of theaters in a different guise, quite seriously and played in Claude Lelouch’s film “Hasards ou Coïncidences”. Leader of her quintet, Laïka bring back to us some of the shining and the perfume of the classic jazz, this “Nebula” taste like a good old record from the 40s. Read more Laika – Nebula (2011)
Alex Skolnick Trio – Veritas (2011)
This is a vibrating, soulful, jazz-rock fusion album. I admit, I didn’t follow Skolnick’s career for long-long time. Back at the end of the 80s, beginning of the 90s, I loved Testament, but I never was a fan of the so-called guitar heroes. In 1993, after 10 years thrashing, he left Testament and he joined briefly Savatage, the Stu Hamm band, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, made a guest appearance on Lamb of God’s “Ashes of the Wake” album. Skolnick fronted several projects in the Bay Area during the mid to late 1990s, such as Alex Skolnick and the Skol-tones, Exhibit-A and Skol-Patrol and also recorded two albums with Attention Deficit, a 3-piece featuring Tim Alexander from Primus.
Relocated to New York, began devoting all of his energies to jazz, enrolling in the jazz program at The New School and earned a BfA (class of 2001). At the New School where Alex Skolnick Trio was born. Their first recording, “Goodbye To Romance:Standards For A New Generation†(2002 US, 2004 UK and Europe) brought together the worlds of metal and traditional jazz in an unprecedented blend. ‘Goodbye To Romance…’ reached the top 30 on the US jazz radio charts. Read more Alex Skolnick Trio – Veritas (2011)
A Hidden Agenda – Pussy, Punk Rock and Pop*Tarts (2011)
A Hidden Agenda. Spell it otherwise A HA. But not from Norway, they are Americans and plays quick and straight punk rock, adding some pop touch as it expected now days. It’s nothing unusual, not outstanding, not mind-blowing or something, but it’s quite honest, full of energy and fun, much better than 9.99% of the same kind of stuffs you can get these days. And talking ’bout hidden agendas, some of us grew up with punk rock, we all want pussy – every man is a disguised lesbian 😆 – and most of us dreamed about being a pop star and quit our stupid nine to five jobs. Well, maybe once you bought a guitar but you never really believed it’s the extension of your soul, but a piece of wood with some strings on it, probably you did re-sell it long time ago or maybe you keep it in the attic, now you’re bold, you’re wife get fat and have mortgages to pay. What the fuck I’m talkin’ about?! Hopefully, Jerm and Danny-Boy will have the guts to go on this way and make their dream comes true. And well, we can have a beer (or two) and some fun listening A Hidden Agenda and maybe even dreaming sometimes. Read more A Hidden Agenda – Pussy, Punk Rock and Pop*Tarts (2011)
