Blue Note Records released the Floratone collective self-titled debut on August 14, 2007.
Floratone is a brilliant, groove-heavy album by a four-member collective of the same name that features the instrumental teamwork of drummer Matt Chamberlain and guitarist Bill Frisell with producers Tucker Martine and Lee Townsend serving as equally significant imaginative forces. An 11-song collection of original soundscapes, Floratone also features a superb support team of bassist Viktor Krauss, cornetist Ron Miles and violin/viola player Eyvind Kang.
The Floratone sound is, in the words of Townsend, “futuristic roots music,” at turns jazz-vibed, swamp-funky, intensely rocking, ambiently grooved. The music drips with grit, lopes with a sweet lyricism, bursts with surprising turns, sinks in with FX’d beauty. There’s an aesthetic of euphoric journey as well as a nasty get-down-and-move sensibility. While steeped in the past, Floratone is cutting-edge, teeming with rhythmically charged music for the now. The album also spotlights Frisell’s multifarious guitar voice that ranges from straight jazz in the vein of Wes Montgomery (on “Swamped”) to spiky metallic rock (on the grinding number “The Future”) to sound-washed atmospherics (on “The Wanderer”).
“Floratone” Streaming Audio:
http://bluenote.edgeboss.net/wmedia/bluenote/floratone/floratone_128k.asx
http://bluenote.edgeboss.net/qtime/bluenote/floratone/floratone_128k.mov
Floratone Media Player:
http://www.bluenote.com/floratone
http://www.bluenote.com/floratone/index2.html
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Fresh off of his latest White Stripes album, Jack White is already knee deep in a new Raconteurs record. Here are some thoughts on the recordings from White and bandmate Brendan Benson:
“The ‘teurs have a lot of new songs in the works people, the writing and structure of them has dissipated and reinvigorated many times over since we came home from our last shows.”
“The new songs are coming along strong. I’d hate to even begin to describe them,” said Jack. “It would be like dancing about architecture,” Brendan jotted in before Jack becoming more specific, ” or singing about girls.“
No info on titles or release dates, but the band seems excited about everything so far, which is good enough for me.
Source: Ultimate-Guitar.com
True to form, Underworld tread their own path through modern electronic music – nodding to current trends but exhibiting an élan unmistakably their own. On Oblivion with Bells, the Underworld palette is richer than ever: epic techno nestles next to frail acoustics, beatific prose next to sharp, urban observation, amazing sound texturing mix with mobile phone recordings.
“It takes just a few seconds of gauzy synths for the kick drum to enter, followed by a minimal bass groove,” said Pitchfork of “Crocodile,” the album’s first single. “…the track spreads out like an evening on 90s-style intoxicants.” For the accompanying video, Underworld once again tapped Simon Taylor. (Like Underworld’s Rick Smith and Karl Hyde, Taylor is a founding member of the creative studio collective Tomato.)
Underworld will launch an extensive world tour on September 7th in San Francisco, CA, marking their first U.S. show since 2003. Live, the pair blend aural and visual elements into an unforgettable experience that more resembles a journey than a concert. “Billowing chords, brooding melodies, thumping beats and vocals that crooned in one song and jabbed in another were all juxtaposed in Underworld’s two-and-a-half hour set,” said The New York Times. “Mr. Hyde worked up the fans like a gospel singer.”
It’s been five years between studio albums, but Smith and Hyde haven’t exactly been idle. They have collaborated on a slew of projects including Underworld’s 1992-2002 anthology album, two major film scores (Anthony Mingellas’ Breaking and Entering and Danny Boyles’ 2007 Sunshine), a self-published typographic journal (In The Belly of Saint Paul), a series of pioneering digital-only releases, internet-radio broadcasts and a groundbreaking live web-tv broadcast and gig in partnership with Apple and Frankfurt’s techno giants Cocoon. All the while crafting the songs for Oblivion with Bells and gigging relentlessly around the world.
While Oblivion with Bells is Underworld’s fifth studio release, it is the debut album from the new Side One Recordings imprint. Distributed through RED, Side One Recordings is an offshoot of Red Light Management in conjunction with ATO Records.
”This is a landmark work from one of the seminal acts of the past decade, and we are thrilled that it will be the first release to carry the Side One Recordings imprint,” said Red Light Management/Side One Recordings’ Phil Costello.
The track listing for Oblivion with Bells is as follows:
1. Crocodile
2. Beautiful Burnout
3. Holding the Moth
4. To Heal
5. Ring Road
6. Glam Bucket
7. Boy, Boy, Boy
8. Cuddle Bunny vs. Celtic Villages
9. Faxed Invitation
10. Good Morning Cockerel
11. Best Mamgu Ever
UNDERWORLD LIVE - 2007
September
7 San Francisco, CA The Warfield
8 San Francisco, CA The Warfield
9 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Bowl
11 Denver, CO Red Rocks Amphitheatre
14 New York, NY Central Park Summer Stage
15 Boston, MA Bank of America Pavilion
October
4 Dublin, Ireland Tripod
5 Dublin, Ireland Tripod
6 Belfast, UK Kings Hall
8 Southampton, UK Guildhall
9 Birmingham, UK Academy
10 Norwich, UK UEA
12 Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Northumbria University
13 Glasgow, UK Academy
14 Nottingham, UK Rock City
16 Manchester, UK Apollo
17 London, UK Roundhouse
18 London, UK Roundhouse
19 London, UK Roundhouse
26 Munich, Germany Tonhalle
27 Prague, Czech Republic Electronic Beats Festival
30 Vienna, Austria Gasometer
31 Bratislava, Slovakia Electronic Beats Festival
November
1 Frankfurt, Germany Cocoon Club
3 Berlin, Germany Columbiahalle
5 Rotterdam, Germany Massilo
6 Koln, Germany Paladium, Koln
8 Hamburg, Germany The Docks
9 Amsterdam, Holland Heineken Music Hall
10 Gent, Belgium I Love Techno
21 Osaka, Japan Zepp
22 Osaka, Japan Zepp
24 Tokyo, Japan Makuhari
PLAY
