New Bonobo album announced, The Revival Hour’s debut and Emancipator’s new release out now [News]

Si Green Bonobo

Bonobo returns with The North Borders

Bonobo The North BordersThis is old news if you saw it posted last week, but Bonobo makes a return this April with the release of his new album The North Borders. With the announcement he’s unleashed new track Cirrus as a free download. It’s got real groove and sounds a little more experimental than anything we’ve heard before from Simon. I’m especially looking forward to this one as it’s always been fascinating to see how Bonobo has evolved over the years. The artwork’s brilliant (click on the image to see the hires version for those who don’t want to ruin there eyes). The video for Cirrus is also worth a look with some great visuals that marry to the music perfectly. Don’t forget to do your music library a favour and grab yourself the free single.

The album’s due April 1st (2nd in North America), lets hope it’s not an April fools! There’s also some new live dates to accompany the new album, to make things easy head over to this link for a full (and fairly extensive) listing. Continue reading

Gold Panda – Trust EP [Listen]

Gold Panda

2013 is off to a good start with album announcements left, right and centre. It seems we’re in for an excellent year in electronic music, in particular with Emancipator and Bonobo having announced new albums and free singles to accompany press releases. After a scattering of 12 and 7″ releases, Gold Panda is joining them and making a return after 2010′s joyous debut Lucky Shiner with his Trust EP, the first new material released since last May.

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Houses – A Quiet Darkness [News]

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Houses have been very quiet since their debut album All Night (2010). They’re one of my favourite ambient / electronic artist, and I had the pleasure of seeing them live last year in London. Finally there’s some movement from within their den; a video preview of their new album A Quiet Darkness has creeped out, and is due to be released on the 16th of April via Downtown Records. Continue reading

The Lumineers – Boots Of Spanish Leather (Bob Dylan) [Listen]

Being a Dylan fan I couldn’t resist from sharing this very nice cover of Boots of Spanish Leather by The Lumineers. One of the wonderful things about Dylan’s ballads is how approachable they are to cover by other artists – providing they can step up to the mark.

Similar to Dylan’s version from the landmark album The Times They Are a-Changin (1964), The Lumineers opted to record their version solo with an acoustic guitar. The Lumineers had a fairytale of a year in 2012 with chart topping singles and sell out tours. Hopefully we’ll be hearing more from them soon.

Until then, enjoy Wesley Schultz dusty vocals in this live recording. It’s good, but still doesn’t beat my all time favourite cover of Moonshiner by Bob Forest which featured in the film I’m Not There (2007).

Bonus track:

Emancipator – Minor Cause [News/Listen]

Here’s a nice midweek surprise, Emancipator will be releasing his new album Dusk to Dawn on the 29th January. Yes it really is that close!

Emancipator Dusk to Dawn announcement

The record drops on Doug Appling’s new imprint Loci Records (which had it’s debut release last month with the rather superb TorDrum Therapy).  It’s been a while now since 2010′s Safe in the Steep Cliffs and after the extensive touring that followed the album it’ll be nice to hear some brand new tracks starting with the first single Minor Cause. The track is a free download over on the Loci Records bandcamp page and it’s a gorgeous slice of lush downtempo with beautiful instrumentation including the trademark strings, trip hop elements and electronics bubbling around in the background. It’s beautiful and if this is anything to go by January 29th will be an exciting release for Loci Records.

Check out Minor Cause below and head over to bandcamp to grab yourself a copy.

Nick Urata – Ruby Sparks [Listen]

It’s safe to say Little Miss Sunshine was a huge and well earned success, but who would have thought it would take the directing duo, Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris six years to make another film?  I wasn’t aware they had a new film out, It was only when I was flicking through movies on an in-flight entertainment system that I saw that Ruby Sparks was the product of these filmmakers. The storyline goes: Continue reading