FYF Fest reveals 2013 lineup

One of the country's more continually underrated music festivals, FYF Fest, has announced the stellar 2013 lineup - marking the event's 10th anniversary.

Leading the way are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On The Radio, My Bloody Valentine, and MGMT, with a strong line of notable mid-tier and undercard inclusions. Included are: Deerhunter, The Breeders, Death Grips, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Dan Deacon, Nosaj Thing, METZ, Yo La Tengo, Washed Out, Les Savy Fav, Shlohmo, Kurt Vile, and plenty more (plus comedians).

Click the poster above to see the full lineup, as of today. Passes for the two day event, which takes place August 24-25 at the L.A. State Historic Park in Los Angeles, start at a reasonable $99. Sales will begin at 12 p.m. pst, Thursday, May 16. Single day tickets will be available at the same time for $65.

New Beach House video - Forever Still (Short Film)

The release of Beach House's 26 minute-plus short film "Forever Still" probably has little to nothing to do with the Ravens winning the Superbowl last night, but the Baltimore dream-pop piece still seems to be reeling from the success of last year's Bloom.

The short film, in partnership with Pitchfork, was filmed near the Texas studio where the album was recorded. Four tracks were performed in the video; "Wild," "The Hours," "Wishes," and "Irene."

New Beach House video - New Year

As it is, welcome back and to 2013. It's been a long vacation for some, so getting back into it is endearingly necessary.

Earlier today, Beach House premiered the home movie video for the aptly-timed "New Year." The near six-minute video was filmed during the band's recording session for last year's Bloom at Sonic Ranch Studios in Texas. Cats included.

Check it out below and grab Bloom on Sub Pop today.

Bears and Bullets Albums Of The Year (Missed The Cut)

It's hard. It's hard man. With only a week left before Christmas and another before the new year, the final edge of 2012 is encroaching. And if you're familiar with the internet and all its goodies, this is the most important time of the year for music blogs and legitimate (pfft) publications. Lists matter. Too much, some might say.

So, as it is with every year since B&B has officially begun, it's time for some all too important end of the year album and songs lists. But before we go into the usual Top 25 Albums of 2012, I'd like to take a special note of what albums missed the cut:

New Beach House video - Wild

Before the European leg of their current tour, Beach House premiered the newest video from last spring's Bloom. "Wild," directed by Johan Renck, stirs through a gamut of emotions, none of which seem to be positive. Check it out below.

Albums of the Month: May 2012

Albums of the Month - May 2012

Without much question, May has been the standout month of 2012 in terms of new music. There have been quite a few masterful releases during the span, including the highly-anticipated Beach House and Sigur Ros albums. But just like last month, the most-expected releases didn't make my final three. Here are my three favorite albums from last month.

3.) Royal Headache (Self-Titled)
It's tough to say there's anything more to Royal Headache's self-titled reissue than conveniently well-packaged, murky garage rock. There's an inherit vagueness that plagues most of the lo-fi structure of the genre, meddling much of the West Sydney punk vocalist known as 'Shogun.' But despite the near-classic muffled choke of vocals, you can get an easy sense that there's more style thrown into the album than what the lo-fi template originally offered. Songs like "Down the Lane" and "Distant and Vague," despite following a fuzz-rush of garage punk tracks, stick to a soulful idea, sounding as eternally sweet as the other songs filter their vigor. The attachment is there, despite only 26 minutes of endurance to the album's more endearing finishers, culminating with "Honey Joy," the most sincere the band has ever sounded.

2.) Japandroids - Celebration Rock

There's a total vibrancy that comes with the exhausting youth that is Japandroids. Two men, Brian King and drummer David Prowse, sound bigger than themselves, parlaying echoed chorus in between energetic crashes, as they had on their previous release Post-Nothing. But with Celebration Rock (Insound), an album that follows much of the same structure (eight tracks, youthful sentiments), everything begins to resonate a little more. The fury is more clear, the emotions more bright and earnest. But what made Japandroids so profound in 2009 is the same in 2012; unhinged, accessible, and flourishing with potential.

1.) El-P - Cancer For Cure
It's not simply the verses for EL-P (Jaime Meline) that do him justice anymore, or since his last studio album, 2007's I'll Sleep When You're Dead. There's a chasm of industrial technique behind his Brooklyn-centric diatribes, not merely settling for dead-end typical hip-hop production. With the album's first half, culminating with all-star standout "Tougher Colder Killer" featuring Killer Mike and Despot, Cancer For Cure (Insound) kills as much with eye-popping verses as it does with claustrophobic metal beats. There's so much packed together within the first six tracks, that if it had stopped it there it would almost seem acceptable. But the songs continue to trek with sophistication unreal to the rest of modern hip-hop, spilling mind-out-of-matter lines from the alter egos that we, and El-P, understand.

Wednesday Bears: Beach House on Later ... With Jools Holland

Yesterday, Baltimore super-duo Beach House made another television performance after the release of this month's Bloom, this time on Later ... With Jools Holland. Once again, it's the album's lead single, "Myth," performed in accurate glory below.

Monday Bears: New Beach House - Equal Mind

Part of last Saturday's Record Store Day, Beach House released their "Lazuli" 7", featuring another fantastic cut from their Bloom sessions; "Equal Mind." Stream the b-side below and grab Bloom May 15.

Thursday Bears: Last adds to Pitchfork Music Festival

As usual with Pitchfork Music Festival, a large amount of late-adds have been etched onto the July 13-15 billing. Included with the previously mentioned big names of Vampire Weekend, Feist, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Hot Chip are a solid class of additions, which are:

Wild Flag, Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, Beach House, Real Estate, Dirty Projectors, Atlas Sound, Big K.R.I.T., Nicolas Jaar, Cults, Chavez, Oneohtrix Point Never, Youth Lagoon, King Krule, Dirty Beaches, Lotus Plaza, Lower Dens, Milk Music, The Psychic Paramount, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Outer Minds, and A Lull.

Familiar with Bears and Bullets and summer music festivals? Well, if you aren't, whatever acts play Pitchfork Music Festival cannot play Lollapalooza. That being said, while there are a few very solid acts I'd like to be able to see (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Atlas Sound, among others), the lineup doesn't take too much away from what Lollapalooza could end up being - which, by the way, will be revealed at midnight, Tuesday. Stay tuned for that.

Three-day passes for Pitchfork Music Festival are sold out, but single day tickets are still available. Check which acts are playing which days here.

Wednesday Bears: New Beach House - Myth

I guess this is as good of a warning as ever that Beach House are about to explode. Their upcoming fourth album Bloom already has a good deal of hype behind it, and now with yesterday's late-night release of "Myth," the album's first single, all signs point to the Baltimore duo becoming more and more well-known.

Listen to the single that made the band briefly trending world-wide on Twitter earlier today below, and grab Bloom, May 15.

Bears and Bullets Albums of the Year: Pt. V

We'll continue today with our top 25 countdown with albums #5 through #1.

#5: Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
In all honesty, the concept album isn't my thing. Too often the ideas of a concept album sweep away what could have been multiple tracks of endearing music, instead playing the hand of a story that isn't terribly interesting to begin with it. That's why 'essential' records like Tommy, Quadrophenia, The Wall, and Sgt. Peppers, for all their massive critical acclaim, don't truthfully pass through time as well as their super-fans would like to admit. Daring? Sure. But so was the first 'Tron' movie, and that looks terrible now. 

So, I had every right in my mind to be skeptical of Fucked Up's David Comes to Life project; a huge double-album about the omniscient David character and the pre-meditated sequence of events that follow upon meeting Veronica (both are identified in the album's second track "Queen of Hearts"). The problems that the band avoids is in their hardcore nature. While the song-writing is vital to the idea, Fucked Up thankfully understood that their punk sounds come first and foremost, not endlessly dragging through the four parts that make up the album. It almost feels like David Comes to Life destroys the concept of the concept album, playing with hearts instead of just minds.

#4: The Weeknd - House of Balloons
The man who should be on everyone's shortlist for Best Artist of 2011, Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, released three free records this year as part of a trilogy. Thursday and Echoes of Silence (released two days ago) were the final pieces, but it was his February debut House of Balloons that truly came out of no where to land him where he is right now, the best new voice in pop. Luckily, Tesfaye's edge isn't simply his voice, but his drippy, enriching production setting the pace for all three albums. The sampling is noticeable, like Beach House's "Master of None" on the seven-minute-plus "The Party & The After Party," but aren't the the most attachable portions of House of Balloons. That's Tesfaye's job, which comes through effortlessly and is hard to match.

#3: Shabazz Palaces - Black Up
Hip-hop too often settles with good, or just good enough. While some parts of the product remain pre-eminently consistent, truly pushing the boundaries isn't thought of as a necessary notion of the genre, it seems. For every great record that leaks through, there's another that just seems good, or passable, but not terribly imaginative. With the combined work of Ishmael Butler (ex-Digable Planets member) and Tendai Maraire, Black Up, the first studio release from Shabazz Palaces, is some of the smartest, most intricate, and deeply profound work the genre has seen in years. The narratives are existential tomes of race, materialism, and atmospheric elements only engraved in the deepest caverns of thoughtful construct. Combined with the other-worldly sounds the duo work with, and Black Up proudly comes out as one of the most imaginative efforts in recent memory.

#2: Bon Iver - Bon Iver
If there's one phrase that works for Bon Iver's self-titled release, it's "embarrassingly good." From the album's roaring opening, "Perth," to the slightly confusing, but heartwarming "Beth/Rest" (some won't agree with that), Bon Iver is too good even for the common cynic to thoughtlessly ignore. The sounds are too rich, Justin Vernon's voice is too sentimental, the craft is too perfect, the consistency is ... too consistent.

Every album has it's impossibly high moments ("Perth," "Holocene"), but rarely do they truly separate from the rest of the record, as it does here. From "Michicant" to "Calgary" to the aforementioned "Beth/Rest," fanfare is split to where the record stands tallest. But that distinction says more for Bon Iver's overall quality than anything else. It's a question worth asking, even if there's no direct answer.

#1: M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Expectations were pretty high for Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, M83's sixth studio release in ten years. The previous records were consistently formative, but usually ended up plateauing after a couple remarkable singles ("Run Into Flowers," "Kim & Jessie," etc.) There always seemed to be an innate ability for Anthony Gonzalez to not only replicate those stand-out moments, but captivate them with something bigger, something that required more time. And it's pretty easy to see how big Hurry Up, We're Dreaming is; nearly 80 minutes and two albums worth of material. You'd figure Gonzalez would fizzle somewhere.

The album scorches in the opening, with "Intro," "Midnight City," and "Reunion" - three tracks that have already marked their way through the past few weeks as singles, and the expectations are pretty much met. That pitch-perfect manifestation of imagination and childhood enchantment Gonzalez has a complete knack for are packaged in what could be perceived as a deluxe issue, unrelenting and unconscious. It's hard not to get completely lost on the first or second listen, but that's what a perfect record should do. It needs to be so good you don't care about anything else.



We'll continue next week with our Top 25 Songs of the Year ...

Tuesday Bears: New Air - Seven Stars (ft. Victoria Legrand)

Aside from the French duo's 2009 release of Love 2, one of their less-than well-received collections, Air have been quiet for some time. So word that the duo's next album, Le Voyage Dans La Lune (the 1902 film) will also feature help from Beach House front-woman Victoria Legrand gives some hope.

Check out the first single from Le Voyage Dans La Lune, "Seven Stars" with Ms. Legrand over at NME. The new album will be available February 6 (world) and 7 (states) via Astralwerks. 

Wednesday Bears: Bears and Bullets Top 25 Songs of the Year (Pt. III)

We'll continue our top 25 countdown with songs #15 through #11.

#15: Zebra - Beach House
The lead track off of Beach House's third album Teen Dream, "Zebra" perfects the Baltimore duo's ephemeral pop-scoping dream, collectively tying any of the looser knots heard on their 2006 self-titled debut and 2008 LP Devotion. While "Norway" and "10 Mile Stereo" may have been the beneficiaries of more word of mouth, "Zebra" is Beach House at their core; wildly impossible and poignantly conscious of what they do at their best - endlessly ethereal dream-pop.

#14: Ready to Start - Arcade Fire
"Ready to Start" isn't The Suburbs most defining moment. With what the album is, as a whole, it seems like "Ready to Start," is a bit of a misnomer, fitting beyond the group's three studio albums. It doesn't conjure the unbridled joy of "Wake Up," the childlike mystery of "Rebellion (Lies)," or the ascending propose of "Intervention," but what it first brings to the band's catalog is the idea of relentlessness - that a band so cued for for tight orchestrations and breathtaking execution can actually sound eager and engaged, and capable of so much more.

#13: Cold War - Janelle Monae
Janelle Monae's critically acclaimed debut The ArchAndroid brought a bevy of welcomed new approaches for the tiny contemporary pop starlet, namely Monae's casually unnerving approach for bigger and brighter sounds without compromising the integrity of simplistic perfection. "Cold War," behind the "Bombs Over Baghdad" drum roll, evokes strength in Janelle's apparent personal weakness. "If you wanna be free / below the ground's the only place to be," may be a bit bleaker than it sounds coming from Monae's soft, yet booming voice, but that's what sense comes here - the ability to transpose all those ideas in a tight, confound space, brilliantly pieced together.

Janelle Monae - Cold War



#12: Lovesick - Lindstrøm & Christabelle
This? It's the song from that commercial your not sure of that you think you might like. Maybe it's for a phone, I'm not sure, and at the rate that I write these, looking it up is a waste of both of our time. Regardless, "Lovesick" is one, for lack of a better term, one of the sexiest songs that is actually executed without throwing innuendo in the listener's face. Lindstrøm's well-spaced compulsion of sound, mixed with Christabelle's slow, whispery vocals connect to form a valiantly paced three minutes that end up sounding like it drifts infinitely.

#11: Power - Kanye West (ft. Dwele)
"Power" was most fan's first listen to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West's magnum opus album that would later dominate all others in 2010. It's a collective bash of the enigmatic march of "Jesus Walks" with a profound majesty that Kanye has been able to finally manipulate eight years into his notorious career. "Power" is a smack in the face, rather than that breath of fresh air that listeners always ache for, with it's tight-fisted blasting beats and menacing snarls, touching base on death and the delusion of power in the grandest of scales.

Kanye West (ft. Dwele) - Power



Stay tuned, we'll return tomorrow with songs #10 - 6.

Monday Bears: Beach House on Fallon

As mentioned last week, Baltimore's Beach House are set to release their Sup Pop debut Teen Dream tomorrow, January 26. The duo of Victoria and Alex made their television debut last week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (who's now getting his own Tonight Show rumors), performing Teen Dream's lead track, "Zebra."

The album, only a day from release, is already on the cusp of being referred to as "the best album of the year, so far" by no source in particular. We'll see how long that distinction holds out.

Beach House - Zebra (Live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)

Tuesday Bears: New Beach House

Baltimore dream-pop creators Beach House are gearing up for their Sub Pop Records debut and third studio album with Teen Dream, scheduled for release January 26 of next year.

Last year's album Devotion (via Carpark Records) was an immense progress for the duo, but word is that Teen Dream takes the serene, synth sounds of the band to a whole other level. The album's first single, "Norway," still has the well-known punches that Beach House regularly uses (poppy synths, dreamy progressions with subtle percussion's), but the chorus enchants beyond the group's previous work. A must listen.

Beach House - Norway - MP3

Tuesday Bears: Grizzly Bear and Victoria Legrand on Conan

Last night Grizzly Bear pretty much completed the late night cycle, hitting the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien stage alongside Beach House member Victoria Grand to perform Veckatimest standout "Two Weeks."

So far, every performance from this group has been near to or just dead on, like when they premiered "Two Weeks" over a year ago on the Late Show with David Letterman stage and last May's performance of the song on Later... With Jools Holland.

In other Grizzly news, the band also released the deluxe edition of Veckatimest that includes seven extra live sessions. Get it, or don't.

Grizzly Bear (ft. Victoria Grand) - Two Weeks (Live on Conan)

Grizzly Bear on Letterman

Grizzly Bear, continuing their reign of late night talk shows, appeared on Letterman last week (after having their previous performance pushed back) with another Veckatimest beauty, "Ready, Able", backed by the ACME String Quartet. As expected the sound is remarkable and breathtaking, but anything less of Grizzly Bear at this point would be obscene.

The band recently added a slew of new concert dates, including a visit to Philadelphia's Electric Factory October 7 with Baltimore's Beach House.

Grizzly Bear (ft. ACME String Quartet) - Ready, Able (Live on Letterman)