I kid, I kid; I’m not a hater. Seriously though, Zac and brother Josh Farro really did leave the chart-busting Paramore last week. You can hear a clip of Zac’s new band, Tunnel, below. Tunnel is a duo comprised of Zac Farro and Jason Clark. It has tinges of Coldplay-esque vocals and the melancholy electronic dirge of some Paper Route tracks. None of that should be surprising, as Paramore and Paper Route toured together for some time, developing relationships on the road.

Check out “Hide Your Eyes” here, and let me know what you think. I’m digging it. I’d pay for it, which is more than what I could say for all but a few of Paramore’s tunes.

Hide Your Eyes by tunnelmusic

Zac Farro Quits Paramore To Make Music is a post from: wax&wires

“I Do Not Care For The Winter Sun”

And I share the sentiment. I grew up in Northern California, not too far from the bay area. We had lush deciduous trees that changed in color and form with each passing season. Our attire reflected the time of year out of necessity more than nostalgia. I woke up early to scrape the frost off of the windshield in the biting cold of morning before driving to school. All that and I never even had to fight the snow that many of you might have.

I haven’t lived an ideal winter like that since moving to San Diego 8 years ago. I think a lot of people glamorize the year-round-sun of southern California, but all it does is make me miss the smell of rain and sight of my own breath in the air. Winter doesn’t really count when people are wearing flip-flops and dripping sweat because they’re hell-bent on wearing scarves and sweaters just to make it feel like December. Seasons remind us to appreciate change.

So the closest I can come in this climate utopia is to shut myself in and pull the drapes to convince myself it’s not sunny out. Then put on some music that will cast clouds overhead and usher in the cold. This song sits well in that mix.

I’m a sucker for sleigh bells this time of year… and not the bit crushing Brooklyn duo, though I’ve been rocking Treats for a while. Grab this track if you need a little visit from Jack Frost.

Free Beach House – I Do Not Care For The Winter Sun is a post from: wax&wires

I first heard The Civil Wars live back in October in Waco, TX. Their chemistry and woo factor was potentially the best I’ve seen; very few artists can make a room of 1000 people feel like a living room. Joy Williams and John Paul White are a phenomenal musical pairing with beautiful moving harmonies, gut wrenching lyrics, and more emotion than a pregnant woman watching The Notebook.

You can grab their live album for free here, and the duo have just released two new songs today, which you can snag for free, here.

The Parlor has some great live footage. The last video on the page encapsulates the group best, with a few fun covers and then their new single performed flawlessly. Check it out here.

Here’s a video of their strongest original to date, “Poison and Wine.”

The Civil Wars – 2 Free Songs is a post from: wax&wires

During the week or two of sound-checks leading up to the recording, we worked through the songs and attempted to rewrite them with fewer and different tones. Listeners can judge whether or not we were able to make these ‘stripped-down’ versions mean something.

- Alex Scally – Beach House

I like the new takes on a lot of the tracks, especially Real Love, which was one of my favorite songs from Teen Dream. The minimal approach to this EP brings the listeners ears right to Victoria Legrand’s vocal, a stark difference from the studio albums, which paint landscapes of textured sound with less of a strict focal point in the mix.

Check it out, and be sure to give White Moon a listen here:
Beach House – White Moon (Itunes Session) by subpop

New Beach House Track – White Moon is a post from: wax&wires

From early Nirvana through Mudhoney and on to Fleet Foxes and The Postal Service, indie label Sup Pop has been putting out interesting and often fabulous music for decades.  But just like the rest of the recorded music industry, they’re having trouble these days getting people to pay for it.

To combat the problem, the venerable indie label is considering flipping the basic music sales proposition on its head. “Although Sub Pop is primarily known for its many fine artists and their really very fine recordings (also grunge), we’re not at all opposed to expanding into the fine world of t-shirts, hats, beer cozies, and key chains,” says Sub Pop general manager, Megan Jasper. “We used to give many of these tchotchke items away for free in an effort to entice people to pay for the music, but we’re considering flipping our strategy so that people pay for the toy and receive the music for free.”
Indie bands have already been experimenting with the concept of bundling downloads with a physical item, but this would be the first time that a substantial label made the shift.

Selling “A Thing Associated With The Music”

Jeff Kleinsmith, Sub Pop’s longtime art director already has a few unusual ideas for bringing Jasper’s sales strategy to market.  ”Regardless of age, there’s always going to be people who prefer to touch and make stuff that’s like, physical,” says Kleinsmith. “CDs may end up being little books. We’ve talked about this at work, where you might spend the time to do a cool package, it just doesn’t have a disc in it. And instead of a disc, you’ve got a little piece of paper that says ‘go here for your download.’ So you’re getting everything about it except for that plastic disc, you know. I would love to see that.”

But Kleinsmtih’s creative juices are just getting warmed up, “That could be a magazine, it could be a shirt, it could be a sticker on a banana, it could be anything, really, that has that download. It could be a poster, a thing associated with this music.”

SubPop Finally Realizes What Music is Worth: Nothing is a post from: wax&wires

You know what’s up. Amazon has Arcade Fire’s brand new album on sale today for $3.99. Seriously, less than 4 bucks. Forgo your coffee today and snag some great music.

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Wax Pick: Arcade Fire – The Suburbs is a post from: wax&wires

Digital Bang: The 2010 Sub Pop Sampler

FREE Sub Pop Sampler is a post from: wax&wires

I’ve been squatting on this pick for a few months, since I felt like I was bombarding you guys with pick after pick without putting up much other content. I just caught this New York duo when they were in town last week with The Antlers. It was a great show and I would definitely try to catch them live if they’re coming near your town.

Read more about them in their wiki bio.

My favorite tracks: When I’m Small & Futuristic Casket.

Snag it on vinyl or MP3.

Phantogram – Eyelid Movies

Wax Pick: Phantogram – Eyelid Movies is a post from: wax&wires

From the Merge Blog:

Spring has sprung and it is time for a new free Merge sampler! Featuring hit songs from the latest albums of Radar Brothers, Spoon, Let’s Wrestle, She & Him and more, visit amazon.com now to download all fourteen free songs with special cover art by Let’s Wrestle’s Wesley Patrick Gonzalez!

As always, you can find new albums from all of these artists and more in our handyMerge store.

Free Merge 2010 digital sampler track listing:
1. Radar Brothers – Horses Warriors (from The Illustrated Garden)
2. Let’s Wrestle – I Won’t Lie to You (from In the Court of the Wrestling Let’s)
3. Destroyer – The Very Modern Dance (from Streethawk: A Seduction)
4. Shout Out Louds – Fall Hard (from Work)
5. Spoon – Written in Reverse (from Transference)
6. Lou Barlow – Don’t Apologize (from Goodnight Unknown)
7. She & Him – Thieves (from Volume Two)
8. Superchunk – Learned to Surf (from Leaves in the Gutter)
9. Alec Bathgate – Glide (from Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox)
10. The Clientele – I Wonder Who We Are (from Bonfires on the Heath)
11. Caribou – Odessa (from Swim)
12. The Clean – In the Dreamlife U Need a Rubber Soul (from Mister Pop)
13. Wye Oak – I Hope You Die (from My Neighbor / My Creator)
14. Lambchop – Give It (from Live at XX Merge)

Free Music From Merge Records! is a post from: wax&wires

The highlight song is definitely the single, “The High Road,” a mid-tempo groove that is sure to get your head nodding. For a while, you could snag it for free on their site, but I think they might have taken it down once the album dropped.

You can pick up the album in a variety of formats, CD, MP3, Vinyl, as well as some deluxe options with video and extra packaging.

Broken Bells – Broken Bells

Wax Pick: Broken Bells is a post from: wax&wires

I know I already tweeted this album out a few times, but figured I’d still put it up on here since Yeasayer is gaining in popularity exponentially with each passing day, and the album has been on heavy rotation in my home and car for the better part of the past few weeks now.

Yeasayer is a Brooklyn-based group pumping out some great experimental electronic indie meets world beats. They started gaining steam upon a tour with Brooklyn buddies MGMT. Both groups feature highly affected falsetto vox, which I’ve unofficially deemed the new Brooklyn sound… solely based on a handful of groups hailing from the great NY. They first grabbed my attention a while back when Kevin Pereira was rocking “Sunrise” off the group’s first album, All Hour Cymbals.

I almost made that one a wax pick back then, but I didn’t feel like the album as a whole was as strong as I would have liked. It’s since grown on me a lot. Nonetheless, Yeasayer’s sophomore release, Odd Blood, is a very strong album and has a populace of gushing bloggers already forecasting it as one of 2010′s best.

My favorite tracks, the freebie Ambling Alp and O.N.E. The percussion will make you want to dance.

Yeasayer – Odd Blood

Wax Pick: Yeasayer – Odd Blood is a post from: wax&wires

Through a series of events involving Fleet Foxes, Sub Pop, and 4 LPs, I ended up with a bit of store credit down at M-Theory, the local record shop. I guess I didn’t really like the pants I had on, because I felt the urge to let my newfound inheritance burn a hole in my pocket as quickly as possible.

I asked the owner if he had any good albums that had just come in, and he had hardly uttered the words, “Beach House” before a fellow customer, a middle-aged hipster perusing the used vinyl interjected, “No, you don’t! That’s my copy, you better not be selling him my copy!”

Seriously though, calm down.

Mr. M-Theory proceeded to explain that he had two copies on hand, and had previously set one aside for Mr. Hipster.

Well if missing the opportunity to purchase a simple album was enough to elicit a near-violent response from a fellow music connoisseur, I figured said album must be well worth purchasing.

It was.

That’s why I love still going down to the record shop. You never know what could happen. I’ll probably find out next week when I’m in and the same “customer” is there that it’s some elaborate dog and pony show and I got played, but nonetheless, the album is stellar.

One of my favorite releases of the past few months, Beach House has crafted a simple and nostalgic album that oozes dream-pop beauty. Maybe it’s my wife’s fault, but them Frenchies always seem to get me. The duo hails from Baltimore and is comprised of Alex Scally and French-born Victoria Legrand. Their lush compositions and textures create a sonic space hearkening back to Brian Wilson’s hay day.

This is Beach House’s 3rd release, and their first on new label, Sub Pop. My favorite tracks are hands down, “Real Love,” and “Take Care.”

Snag it on vinyl if you can, it comes with the MP3s and a DVD with video content from various directors set to each song.

Beach House – Teen Dream

Wax Pick: Beach House – Teen Dream is a post from: wax&wires

In it, you’ll see hip hop legends and other artists like Public Enemy, De La Soul, Beastie Boys, etc. You’ll also witness the argument from the side of the artists who have been sampled including mister p-funk, George Clinton, Clyde Stubblefield and more.

Check your PBS showtimes for Independent Lens, as it begins showing on Tuesday (though I can’t catch it until Sunday)!

Copyright Criminals: This Is a Sampling Sport examines the creative and commercial value of musical sampling, including the related debates over artistic expression, copyright law, and (of course) money.

This documentary traces the rise of hip-hop from the urban streets of New York to its current status as a multibillion-dollar industry. For more than thirty years, innovative hip-hop performers and producers have been re-using portions of previously recorded music in new, otherwise original compositions. When lawyers and record companies got involved, what was once referred to as a “borrowed melody” became a “copyright infringement.”

The film showcases many of hip-hop music’s founding figures like Public Enemy, De La Soul, and Digital Underground—while also featuring emerging hip-hop artists from record labels Definitive Jux, Rhymesayers, Ninja Tune, and more. It also provides an in-depth look at artists who have been sampled, such as Clyde Stubblefield (James Brown’s drummer and the world’s most sampled musician), as well as commentary by another highly sampled musician, funk legend George Clinton.

As artists find ever more inventive ways to insert old influences into new material, this documentary asks a critical question, on behalf of an entire creative community:

Can you own a sound?

Copyright Criminals: This is a Sampling Sport is a post from: wax&wires

[via bang]

The Ting Tings are to work with Jay-Z on their new album.

The ‘That’s Not My Name’ duo have signed to the rap superstar’s record label, Roc Nation, in the US and he is reportedly set to give their career a huge boost by helping with them on their second album.

A source told Britain’s Daily Star newspaper: “Jay is hoping to lend his production skills to some of the new material.

“The Staccato rhythmic style of The Ting Tings sits well with what he does best, so that was the attraction.

“Jay can make them one of the biggest British bands in America.”

While the duo are thrilled with their deal, they are unlikely to be happy with the amount of time they will have to spend in America.

The group – made up of singer and guitarist Katie White and drummer and programmer Jules de Martino – recently said despite their huge success, they have been homesick since they started touring the world in support of their debut album ‘We Started Nothing’ in May 2008.

Katie said: “We’ve seen the world. God, we’ve seen it about five times. We were even flying over Siberia the other day, from the aeroplane there was just not one sign of life, not one tree, nothing. It was amazing.

“Japan, Hong Kong were great. America’s good, we do long tours there and you know, there’s some amazing cities there, but you’re driving for so long just to get to the next city.”

Jay-Z has also signed British girl group Sugababes to Roc Nation in the US.

(C) BANG Media International

The Ting Tings Collaborate With Jay-Z is a post from: wax&wires

Half a decade later, I was reintroduced to Danielson after really getting into Sufjan Stevens, and hearing of his ties to the band. I slowly started to get what it was that Daniel Smith was about, and what he was trying to do with his music. It finally clicked why he has such a fervent fanbase.

Today, Danielson releases a new 7-inch in partnership with Weathervane Music, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the social conscience with regards to independent music and artists’ rights, particularly in Philadelphia.

Check this video out too, for more of the technical info on the production process of Daniel Smith.

VIDEO: New Danielson Project is a post from: wax&wires