Posted in Indie Rock

Listen: Flaming Lips & Erykah Badu – “Now I Understand”

The Flaming Lips and Erykah Badu have worked together to create the song, “Now I Understand”. The band’s description of the song in Soundcloud is “Sound construction piece featuring Lips, Erykah Badu, Siri, and Biz Markie backwards. It’s called “Now I Understand” It’s funny and will be available on SoundCloud for one week only!!! Life is beautiful. Music gets you high.” The song also features sampled vocals from Apple’s Siri. This collaboration is a part of a huge compilation album that the Flaming Lips plan to release on Record Store Day. The Flaming Lips plan to collaborate with Nick Cave, Neon Indian, Yoko Ono and Bon Iver. Frontman, Wayne Coyne, also hopes to work with Lykke Li and Ke$ha.

Spiritualized Announce Tour

British shoegaze/space rock collective Spiritualized have announced a tour of UK and North America spanning from mid-March to late May. The tour will be in support of their new album, Sweet Heart Sweet Light, which will be released March 19th via Fat Possum (US) and Double Six (UK). Headed by ex-Spaceman 3 member Jason Pierce (J. Spaceman), the band is most well-known for their critically claimed 1997 album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. Check out the dates below:

Spiritualized 2012 Spring Tour

03-16 Nottingham, England – Rescue Rooms
03-17 Portsmouth, England – Wedgewood Rooms
03-19 London, England – Hackney Empire
03-20 Oxford, England – O2 Academy
03-21 Bristol, England – O2 Academy
03-22 Glasgow, Scotland – ABC
03-23 Belfast, Northern Ireland – Mandela Hall
03-24 Dublin, Ireland – Vicar Street
03-25 Manchester, England – Academy
05-02 Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
05-03 Chicago, IL – Metro
05-04 Detroit, MI – The Majestic Theatre
05-05 Toronto, Ontario – The Phoenix
05-07 New York, NY – Terminal 5
05-09 Boston, MA – Paradise
05-10 Washington, DC – The 9:30 Club
05-11 Philadelphia, PA – Theatre of Living Arts
05-12 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
05-13 Atlanta, GA – The Variety Playhouse
05-15 Dallas, TX – The Granada Theatre
05-16 Austin, TX – Emo’s East
05-18 Tucson AZ – The Rialto Theatre
05-19 Phoenix AZ – The Crescent Ballroom
05-20 San Diego CA – Belly Up Tavern
05-22 Los Angeles CA – The Wiltern
05-23 San Francisco CA – The Fillmore
05-25 Portland, OR – The Wonder Ballroom
05-26 Vancouver, British Columbia – The Rickshaw Theatre

Jack White to Release Solo Album

Jack White, former front-man of The White Stripes, always seems to be working on a music project. He has just announced a new solo LP that will be released April 24. The album is titled Blunderbluss. Listen to the first single, “Love Interruption”, below. You can also purchase the single here at 9 PM PST later today.

Below is extra information and what Jack White had to say about the album from a press release:

Produced by White and recorded at his own Third Man Studio in Nashville, Blunderbuss has been described by White as “an album I couldn’t have released until now. I’ve put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my name. These songs were written from scratch, had nothing to do with anyone or anything else but my own expression, my own colors on my own canvas.”

Lana Del Rey to Re-Release ‘Lizzy Grant’ Album

Controversial songstress Lana Del Rey‘s new album Born to Die hasn’t even hit stores yet and she’s already looking forward a new-ish release. In an interview with BBC, Lana states that she purchased the rights to her 2010 debut album, Lizzy Grant aka Lana Del Rey, with plans to re-release the record “maybe in late summer.”

That album, released under the singer’s real name, appeared online for about two months in 2010 before being pulled off. As Lana Del Rey has gained popularity and hype recently, many have begun to question the backstory behind this mysterious first record. She explained to BBC, “I had signed to an independent label but they couldn’t fund the release of it. People act like it’s so shrouded in mystery, the ‘forgotten terrible album.’ But if you look on YouTube, all 13 tracks are available with millions of views, so it’s not like no-one’s heard them. We were all proud of it. It’s pretty good.”

This goes against David Kahn’s, the album’s producer, earlier claims that the album was pulled in order to “to stifle future opportunities to distribute it,” end traces of her career as Lizzy Grant, and reinvent herself as Lana Del Rey, according to Billboard.

We’ll never really know what Lana’s team intended to do, but for now at least, we now they aren’t hiding anything by rerelasing the lost record back to retailers. Lizzy Grant’s first record as Lana Del Rey will be released on January 31 via Interscope Records.

Listen: Plants and Animals – “Lightshow”

This past week, Plants and Animals released a single for their upcoming album, The End of That, out on February 28th. One thing that makes me become obsessed with this band time and time again is the wide variety of songs they have. Throughout both of their albums La La Land and Parc Avenue, there is just such a variety in content. They can create such intensity through the most delicate melodies like in their song “Game Shows” or they can bring a spirit of rock revival like on “Jeans Jeans Jeans”. They produce such smooth and fluid music.

Their new single “Lightshow” reminded me a bit of Robin Pecknold from Fleet Foxes but with a more electric feel. You can listen or download below.