The world lost a singular artist on March 6, as Mark Linkous passed away from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 47 years old. The singer-songwriter had produced six albums with his band Sparklehorse, and over the past fifteen years played and worked with an amazing array of icons, such as Radiohead, Tom Waits, the Flaming Lips, Cracker, PJ Harvey, Vic Chesnutt, Daniel Johnston, Julian Casablancas, Frank Black, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson, the Brothers Quay, and Guy Maddin — and no doubt, Linkous stood deservedly tall among these fellow talents. More recently, he collaborated with David Lynch and Danger Mouse on the Dark Night of the Soul project, which we profiled previously and will be released this summer.
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Emcees Goyo, husband Tostao, and brother Slow claim Colombia’s oft-overlooked Pacific coast as home and their positive energy easily translates to themes of greater unity on Oro, the trio’s U.S. debut. Synthesizing two releases, from 2007 and 2009, that are available only in their native nation, Oro incorporates many styles, demonstrating the dexterity of this trio — not to mention the excellent production from honorary Colombian Richard Blair (of Sidestepper) and Ivan Benevides. Just crank the dubby first single “De Donde Vengo Yo” and these well-seasoned emcees reveal a hidden Colombian rhythm. The dance-floor bangers of cumbia are traded in for the funky raga behind Goyo’s velvety smooth delivery on “Alguien Como Tu” and the spitfire rhymes of the piano-driven “Pescao Envenenao”. Choc Quib Town champions a localized sound layered with global influences, and Oro, like golden honey, hits a sweet spot.

After the jump, check out the video for “De Donde Vengo Yo”.

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Last month, we were lucky enough to catch these Scottish upstarts at one of their sold-out New York shows at the new Knitting Factory Brooklyn. Outside, snow may have been falling in large soggy clumps, but the dismal freeze could not stand up to the buzz burning inside. Taking the Williamsburg stage, these four Edinburgh natives looked relatively out of place, more resembling brawny hooligans than the hypersensitive hipsters that constituted their audience. As the band briskly moved through highlights from last year’s debut, These Four Walls, such as “Moving Clocks Run Slow” and “Roll Up Your Sleeves”, thoughts of compatriots and FatCat label-mates the Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit were inescapable. But the band’s penchant for angular guitars also evokes comparisons to Bloc Party, while their urgent melodies at times inch toward the terrain of U2’s earliest anthems. This last reference point seems even more suitable with We Were Promised Jetpacks’ new EP, The Last Place You’ll Look, which will hit stores on March 9.

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When you are a young, smart group, whose initial recordings are done without much supervision, there is a good chance your later albums will turn out sounding entirely different. This is the case with Northern California’s The Morning Benders. For the band’s follow-up to 2008’s Talking Through Tin Cans, group leader Christopher Chu takes on co-production duties with Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor. Attempting a lo-fidelity approach again (as on Tin Cans), Big Echo crackles with the hiss of purported vinyl. “Cold War (Nice Clean Fight)” is the most upbeat with a bouncy acoustic guitar and thrumming bass drum tightened by a simple chorus. “All Day Daylight” has a bit of a bite with edgy riffs and hand claps. But for the most part, Big Echo is slow and calculated, the rhythms moving at a leisurely pace. This unhurried attitude is also adopted by Chu’s vocals, which harmonize fluidly, reverberating with the others. Keeping with Tin Cans’ spirit of brevity, none of the songs on Big Echo take too long to get to the point — or labor it once they arrive there. The Morning Benders may not win any originality points, but they have climbed up a few rungs on the songwriting ladder.

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Nowadays, underground bands typically do something fancy to get noticed — creating baroque arrangements and baffling song structures or using whacked-out instrumentation to impress. So it’s particularly refreshing when a band like Local Natives comes along and does something brilliant without really doing anything radically different. Gorilla Manor, their debut album (which finally hits U.S. stores this week, after building a buzz in import exile) simply has the catchiest songs you’ve heard in a long time, underpinned by fantastic, creative drumming and three-part vocals veteran bands would kill for. At first blush, it sounds like My Morning Jacket performing songs by The Shins, with soaring crescendos that provide gravity to would-be pop songs. While it’s a reference point for their sound, this critic’s “short cut” fails to peg the immediacy this Silver Lake, California quintet creates, like an old musical friend you’ve heard before but aren’t sure where. The early standout “Sun Hands” trickily vacillates between subdued and exuberant, both delicate and raucous, while “Airplanes” trots along nostalgically, nicely measured out. It’s a safe bet that the first part of their name will become a misnomer, as the world beyond California, and even the US, takes notice of this gem in the months to come.

Check out the “Airplanes” video after the jump.

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Tuesday night, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I watched a 77-year-old woman perform a three-hour rock concert at full tilt. She danced, shook, shimmied, sang, screeched, howled, and cajoled and charmed the crowd, all while beaming with lightness and pixie playfulness — she even dropped some major doses of universal love and unity on us throughout the evening. Who was this enlightened septuagenarian banshee? Yoko Ono, of course.
     The occasion was a multi-pronged celebration: Yoko’s upcoming birthday; 2009’s release of Between My Head And The Sky (which marks a new beginning for her and John Lennon’s seminal Plastic Ono Band); a reunion with some of the original band’s members after nearly forty years (Eric Clapton and Klaus Voorman!); her collaboration with son Sean; and life itself. Joining the celebration were the band’s new members — fairly evenly divided between cutting-edge Japanese noise pop musicians (Yuka Honda, Cornelius, Haruomi Hosono, and others) and downtown New York experimentalists (Erik Friedlander, Shahzad Ismaily, Michael Leonhart, to name a few) — along with a list of heavyweight special guests: Paul Simon, Harper Simon, Bette Midler, Justin Bond, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Mark Ronson, and Scissor Sisters. Needless to say, it was a memorable, possibly historic show.
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Mythical, mystical-sounding albums always seem to demand larger-than-life tales of their own. So we were hardly surprised to encounter the provocative back-story to Holly Miranda’s spellbinding new record. According to the accompanying promotional literature, Miranda grew up in Tennessee and Michigan, where she attended church five times per week and was not allowed to indulge in “secular music”. She escaped to New York at the age of sixteen in pursuit of singing stardom and was soon offered a record deal, only it was with a label linked to the mafia. Miranda quickly sought refuge with family in Detroit before eventually returning to New York and succeeding (relatively) with the Jealous Girlfriends, a band that happened to rehearse next to the studio space of one Dave Sitek, a veritable deity in the Brooklyn music scene. Five years later, the now 27-year-old Miranda is releasing her solo debut, an album produced by Sitek and reportedly recorded over a three-week span between the ungodly hours of 7 p.m. and 9 a.m.

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Buraka Som Sistema do it as well live — if not better — than in the studio. Taking the input of Angolan analog techno and modern Portuguese dance, and mixing it with the almost forgotten experimentation of kuduro, the Portuguese collective has created a ferocious new animal. This mixture is explored in-depth on its full-lengths From Buraka To The World and Black Diamond. Buraka’s installment in the FabricLive series showcases what it does live. Raging electro stabs and belching basslines race through this devastating mix. Skream’s “Fick” honks away as Zomby’s “Dynamite Sandwich” rubs and flutters its way to the declarations of Crime Mob’s “Rock Yo Hips” and the hiccups of DJ Malvado’s “Puto Mekie”. The best bits on FabricLive 49 are Buraka’s own compositions and remixes. These escalate the energy level to another place, crunching and smashing everything in their path. The mix moves rapidly, giving you only the choice parts of the selected cuts. This is done skillfully with tracks so appropriate, it propels you around the dance floor — the rapid shifts unfelt.

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 Charlotte Gainsbourg was nervous. She had never toured before, and no one knew what to expect as she took to the stage last weekend, at what must have been the most crowded concert to date at the Hiro Ballroom. But as the show went on, Gainsbourg’s confidence grew, aided by cheers coming from the crowd, in both French and English. On IRM, Gainsbourg’s new album written and produced by Beck, her ethereal voice wafts and wanes over eerie melodies reminiscent of Beck’s own Sea Change. It’s no surprise then that Gainsbourg’s sold-out appearances at Manhattan’s Hiro Ballroom and Brooklyn’s Bell House drew such attention. She’s one of the most interesting artists working today — giving a heart-stopping performance in Lars von Trier’s film Antichrist and creating one of the most beautiful albums released in the last year. And to top it all off, she is simply one of the nicest, most gracious people we have ever interviewed.

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Long ago, classical music ruled. Over centuries, musical iconoclasts found many ways to deviate from this sonic bedrock with jazz, rock and roll, hip-hop, reggae, and other popular flavors, relegating classical to something highfalutin, placed on a pedestal for anyone nerdy or old enough to pay attention. Foreshadowed by Anthony Burgess’ visionary novella A Clockwork Orange, a bastardized version of classical music has again become en vogue, ironically in hipster, cool-kid circles. Artists like Sufjan Stevens, Joanna Newsom, and Eric Matthews hybridized with “chamber pop”, making equal use of folk, rock, and classical instruments and song structures. Owen Pallett (née Final Fantasy) is another luminary of this genre, as evidenced by his latest full-length, Heartland, (not to mention his orchestral arrangements already heard with Arcade Fire). The song cycle is adorned with lush details: string flourishes, woodwinds, brass, and even bells. More than just ornamentation, these meticulous touches are the glue (and attraction) of this jigsawed sound. Heartland shows Pallett’s penchant for mixing bygone instruments with newfangled electronics, sometimes giving his songs a retro-futuristic feel. “Lewis Takes Action” (stream below) sounds like a ’60s girl-group classic interpolated by the hands of a philharmonic; the centerpiece “O Heartland, Up Yours!” surprises with its semi-soulful groove. Another example of the place classical music still holds in pop culture, in measured doses.

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