Saturday 25 June 2011
YACHT: Tiny Desk Concert
For some acts, stripping a sound down to essentials is easy: Strap on the acoustic guitar, and maybe use brushes instead of drumsticks and a snare instead of a full kit. It was different for YACHT; it's not a simple guitar-bass-drums band.
YACHT began as the solo project of Jona Bechtolt — he's the guy who gets gum on his nice pants during the Tiny Desk Concert, but that's another story — but, like a happy family, the band has multiplied. These days, for example, it's hard to imagine YACHT without Claire Evans.
Evans is one of the most striking performers I've seen in a rock band, and you get a glimpse of that presence in the 16-inch space she had to maneuver while facing the single stereo mic which captured YACHT's Tiny Desk performance.
The group spent more time than most getting comfortable behind the desk, trying to sort out its arrangements on two keyboards, a single guitar and a shaker. Two of the songs here are from YACHT's new album Shangri-La, and were not yet seasoned by stage performance. (You can hear that record in its entirety as part of our First Listen series.)
YACHT's music is certainly infectious, but the words are important, too: The band's refrains and stories are filled with science fiction and dark musings. But the result adds up to big fun.
Download (Audio)
Bob Boilen @'npr'
Do-It-Yourself Dark Side of the Moon
Friday 24 June 2011
You Are My Symphonic - I Found Your Faces Of Montreal
Release Date & Launch Event: June 25th, 2011
The Loyola Chapel, Montreal, CanadaLive Set, Visuals, Cocktails for Charity
The follow up to 2009's 'Afternoon Birds Of Arima' which was one of my fave releases of that year and has been a constant on my iPod since.
May 1968 Posters
In May 1968, demonstrations against the French government spread across Parisian universities, and then to factories and other workplaces, resulting in a general strike of eleven million workers that brought the country to a virtual standstill.
Among the students were a group who called themselves the Atelier Populaire, who produced hundreds of posters to encourage the protestors and to report on police brutality. Beauty Is In The Street reproduces over 200 of these posters which have become landmarks in political art and graphic design. Also included are a wealth of photographs, many published for the first time, and translations of first-hand accounts of the clashes between the students and strikers and the police.
Read more about the book at the following websites:
The IndependentThe Guardian
I-D Online
Dazed Digital
@'Four Corners Books'
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