Norwegian-Mexican artist and producer Carmen Villain makes atmospheric music made up of tapestries of field-recordings, flute, piano, vocals, zither, programmed drums and synths, culminating in her own distinctive sound combining elements of fourth world ambient, experimental pop with an electro-acoustic vibe.

Vidal was born in Santa Barbara, California, moved at an early age to Brooklyn, New York, and then to Ithaca, New York where she began studying violin. She started her first band, an all-girl punk group, while a student at Ithaca High School. Her band, Kiev (later changed to Kievan Rus to avoid name conflicts with a California band of the same name), played in two Warped Tour events,and toured briefly with Bad Religion, Anti-Flag, and Gogol Bordello. Bad Religion's Greg Graffin took an early interest in the band, and produced their EP Kievan Rus.
The band was cast in a series of Coca-Cola commercial called "Girl Band" directed by cinematographer Lance Acord that aired in 2005.Mike Viola provided lyrics and musical direction for the commercials, but 'Kiev's' music was used for the series of ads. Various articles referenced the Coke ad highlighting the DIY attitude of the band, the documentary style used by Acord for the Coke "Real" campaign, and the ironic juxtaposition of a real "girl band" in an advertisement being more "real" than the reality TV show "American Idol" during which it aired.
Vidal started a new project, Your Kid Sister, while an art student at Concordia University in Montreal. Your Kid Sister began as an homage to Rancid, her favorite punk band, and she covered Rancid songs in the persona of Tim Armstrong's fictional younger sister. Rancid's ...And Out Come the Wolves was a major influence and during the Your Kid Sister project, Vidal always performed while wearing a wolf hat. Her music video for the song, "Poison", was made during a summer class at Cornell University taught by animator Lynn Tomlinson.
In 2009, Vidal moved to Barcelona and began writing new material while continuing to perform Rancid covers as Your Kid Sister, and playing in other bands. She independently released the album 'Poison: 5 Rancid Songs That I Love' in 2010.

Legendary director and musician David Lynch is readying his second solo LP following 2011's Crazy Clown Time. The album is called The Big Dream, and it's out July 15 in Europe via Sunday Best and July 16 in the U.S. via Sacred Bones.
The Big Dream features 11 original songs, plus a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Ballad of Hollis Brown". In a press release, Lynch described the music of the album as "modern blues" and said, "Most of the songs start out as a type of blues jam and then we go sideways from there. What comes out is a hybrid, modernized form of low-down blues."
The vinyl edition of the album will come with a bonus 7", which will feature the Lykke Li track on the A-side and an etching hand-inscribed by Lynch on the B-side. The digital version will contain the Lykke Li track as well. Lynch said of Lykke Li in a press release, "She brought her own style to this song, which has a doo-wop sort of thing going on, but in a way it’s far-removed from the 50s."

Thee Oh Sees的多产大家已经是有目共睹了，去年刚发行了超囧封面+超高评价的专辑《Putrifiers II》，马上一张名为《Floating Coffin》的专辑紧随其后。
这张专辑将会在今年4月通过成员John Dwyer的Castle Face Records发行，这几个怪人再次用令人瞠目的惊悚封面刷新我们乐迷们的底线了。
谈到新专辑的风格，Dwyer说“这些歌的场景设定在战火纷飞的时代，总的来说非常黑暗，也比我们之前的专辑更加重。”
另外，Thee Oh Sees也将首度来到中国，参加2013年《觉》音乐+艺术节的预热演出。
旧金山迷幻车库乐队Thee Oh Sees中国巡演
【北京】
日期：2013年2月21日，周四
时间：21:00
场地：MAO Livehouse
地址：北京东城区鼓楼东大街111号
嘉宾：The Planets
票价：60元（学生）/ 80元（现场）
【上海】
日期：2013年2月22日，周五
时间：21:00
场地：390 Live
地址：长宁区番禺路390号，近法华镇路
嘉宾：Pairs和花搅乐队
票价：60元（学生）/ 80元（现场）

Soft Metals is an electronic duo formed in 2009 by Ian Hicks and Patricia Hall currently based in Los Angeles, California. They met in late 2008 at a DJ night hosted by Patricia in Portland. Work began on their self produced, self recorded 2nd LP Lenses in the summer of 2012. They sketched out what would become the song "Lenses" and work then continued into the fall and winter.

About Farewell is the fourth studio album by indie folk musician Alela Diane. It was released July 30, 2013 on her own Rusted Blue Records.

Zeitgeber is a German word that, loosely translated, means “synchronizer.” It’s also the new project of Electric Deluxe head Speedy J and Stroboscopic Artefacts’ boss Lucy. Both artists make some of the most forward-thinking techno around, but Zeitgeber sees them pushing together even further into uncharted territories. Freed of dancefloor considerations, the duo have constructed an album that breathes with life and rewards close listening.
That’s no surprise when you consider the artists involved. Speedy J has been around from techno’s very beginnings. Based in Rotterdam, his Electric Deluxe label has consistently released techno that has gleefully tugged at the constraints of the genre. Lucy, on the other hand, is a newer name to most techno fans, but his Stroboscopic Artefacts label has quickly made a name for itself as one of the leading purveyors of the stuff.
Unpredictable and exciting are two words for much of what you get on SA. And that most definitely applies to Zeitgeber the album as well. The album kicks into life slowly with “Closely Related,” a track that sounds like a motor unsuccessfully revving up, its attempts extinguished every so often by a plate of molten glass. “These Rhythms” lives up to its name – as long as the “these” of its title is pronounced in an incredulous way. “Skin” devolves into white noise by its fourth minute, pulls itself together (barely) and then slithers onward like a snake that’s stuck in a desert looking for someone to poison.
It should be mentioned (if you weren’t sure already) that none of these tracks sound like conventional techno. They’re typified by the careful and exacting sound design of much of Speedy J and Lucy’s work but it employed to almost completely abstract ends. It’s only on “None of Their Defects” that a beat proudly comes to the forefront. True to form, though, it’s heavily swung and eventually gives way to one of the most emotional melodies of the album. “From Here” follows a similar path, building from a few simple elements to a chittering and complex finale.
“Now Imagine” shudders and quakes across its ten minute length, every single one of them completely necessary to make its point. “Before They Wake” is a gentle lullaby that hides multitudes under the calm surface. The album concludes with “Display 24” a track which seems to have taken a choir from Popul Vuh and stretched it out to epic lengths underneath a clanking, industrial-sized rhythm. It’s a terrifying ending to an album that doesn’t often let the light in.
That’s by design, however. Because when Zeitgeber do let the light in, it’s all the brighter. You’d expect nothing less from two of the most talented producers in the techno world. The culmination of 18 months of work, Zeitgeber is an album that is a collaboration in the best sense. Two artists urging other to new heights and new sounds.

Limited Edition Digipak 2 CD/Double Vinyl LP version of Apollo Brown's production of Twelve Reasons To Die, originally available on cassette only.

The Keynote Speaker is the all new solo album from Wu-Tang Clan founding member U-God, his first release for The RZA's Soul Temple imprint (The Man With The Iron Fists Soundtrack, Ghostface Killah's critically acclaimed Twelve Reasons To Die both of which featured appearances from U-God). This is the gritty street-level hip hop album U-God fans have longed to hear. The album is Executive Produced by The RZA and features stellar appearances from Method Man, The GZA, Inspectah Deck, Styles P, Elzhi of Slum Village, Kool Keith and more...
2013 marks the twentieth anniversary of The Wu-Tang Clan. In addition to his own solo dates, U-God will be appearing with the Wu-Tang Clan on concert stages throughout the world.
Limited edition 7 track Soul Temple/Wu-Tang sampler CD on Disc 2, which includes "Execution in Autumn" by the Wu-Tang Clan (never before available on CD).

Hobo Rocket is the fifth LP from Perth, Australia based five-piece Pond. Made up of Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, Cam Avery, Joseph Ryan and Jamie Terry, the band set out to make a record that captures a portion of rock music's great, decadent history through a personal lens.
Hobo Rocket is brief and dark. It captures the live intensity the band cultivated during their tour across a large swath of the world around the release of 2012's Beard, Wives, Denim. "This album is supposed to represent that thrill that I get watching Youtubes from [the Beard Wives Denim] era," says Watson. "That thrill that we never had on record. This was our attempt to make it tuneful, not just yelling and throwing each other around."
While that album was made up of lush thickets of sound that untangled themselves into languid mini-epics, Hobo Rocket casts a shadow across that, bottling the confrontational energy of their live show, tightening up their arrangements and spitting them back as compact whirlwinds of sound.
"It was the kind of mindset of finding our own little place in music," says Allbrook, "and being more of a functioning band, which is what makes it noisier and denser. This one we went as brutally hard as we would at a show. We wanted the songs to sound loose and live."
Single "Xanman," long a live staple, is built on anthemic guitar stomp and drum breakdowns that warp into a vortex of loopy intensity. Allbrook's vocals whoop into drawn out yowls and almost-past-the-point-of-sanity distorted rasps that would sound pretty perfect blasting from the tape deck of a flame-decaled Camaro in just about any decade.
But Pond are not a retro or ironic band. They genuinely love what has come before in rock, but they don't have a problem skewering the genre in all its comically over-the-top glory. This love and perspective comes across in all the songs on Hobo Rocket, which is vital but reverent.
The impetus behind Hobo Rocket, like the rest of their back catalog, is to make music that their teenage selves would listen to, while still creating deeply layered songs that engage with their current interests. "There was more attention being paid to being our own band," Allbrook says, “rather than just doing the first thing that came to our heads which was also usually the last thing that had gone into our ears.” There's genuine love and perspective here - the tracks are messy, imperfect, jagged and real.
Hobo Rocket is a diverse album: from the groggy spoken word of the title track (featuring Perth fixture Cowboy John on vocals) to the glittery psychedelia of "O Darma" to the ominous Black Sabbath stomp of "Aloneaflameaflower." The record is, first and foremost, a deliberately fun listen, but it's worth digging deeper to discover a conflicted, sometimes sweetly sad, raucous love letter to a genre with no shortage of awesomely weird moments.