Upcoming CareFusion Jazz Festival Shows at LPR

This year LPR is hosting two CareFusion Jazz Festival events. You can learn more about the shows below, and head over here to find out more about CareFusion!

TORTOISE
file under: jazz, experimental, post-rock, indie, minimal

Formed in Chicago in 1990, Tortoise is often considered one of the most influential post-rock bands of the last two decades. Unlike many of their indie-rock contemporaries in the mid-‘90s, they favored Krautrock, dub, jazz, and minimalism over more traditional rock and punk influences. Also notable was their choice of instrumentation, which often included two bassists and three percussionists switching between drums, vibraphones, and marimbas. They released Beacons of Ancestorship, their first album in five years, in June of 2009. Check out the music video for “Prepare Your Coffin,” one of the tracks off of that album, below.



Click here to get tickets for their show on June 23rd with Aethereal Bace and DJ Nick Hook.

REVIVE DA LIVE BIG BAND WITH SPECIAL GUESTS NICHOLAS PAYTON AND TALIB KWELI
file under: hip-hop, jazz

Since its inception, Revive Da Live’s mission has been grounded in the exposure and education of jazz music among larger, younger audiences and the influence of hip-hop on jazz music today.

On June 24, the series continues at (le) poisson rouge as part of the Care-Fusion Jazz Festival, with Brooklyn rapper Talib Kweli joining New Orleans trumpeter Nicholas Payton and an 18-piece big band featuring some of the city's most electrifying young lions of jazz, not to mention the jazz-oriented dance crew Tap Messengers. "Collaborations like this are what's natural—they make perfect sense to the true musician and the true fan," Kweli notes in an e-mail. "I consider myself both." An aficionado of seminal jazz singer Nina Simone, the always-polemical raconteur's recently released Revolutions Per Minute reveals his jazz roots on several tracks produced by frequent collaborator Hi-Tek. "If Miles Davis was alive, he'd be a gangsta rapper," Kweli declares. "Different generations are influenced by different things and use different instruments, but the passion and the sentiment are the same."

Read more over at The Village Voice.

Check out the below video of Revive De Live Big band performing Dizzy Gillespie's version of "A Night in Tunisia" and Gangstarr's "Words I Manifest" the last time they were at LPR.



Click here to get tickets to the show.

Beck Recruits Thurston Moore and Tortoise for Next Record Club

It was just announced that Beck will be collaborating with Tortoise and Thurston Moore for his next installment of Record Club- an ongoing project in which he enlists other musicians to cover an entire album in one day and posts the results on his website. No word yet on what album they'll do, but the current one features St. Vincent, Liars, and Os Mutante playing INXS' Kick. Check out a video from that below.

Record Club: INXS "Never Tear Us Apart" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

Tortoise perform at LPR on June 23rd. Get tickets here.

Via: Pitchfork

Upcoming Post-Rock Shows at LPR

Here's what's coming up at LPR in post-rock.

MATMOS and SO PERCUSSION
File under: ambient, experimental, post-rock, electronic

Recording under the name Matmos, M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel have always been known for their unique choices for sound sources, which over their career has included, among other things, amplified crayfish nerve tissue, human hair, plastic surgery, frozen steam thawing in the sun, latex clothing, and a steel guitar recorded in a sewer. They recently teamed up with the percussion quartet So Percussion, who they will also be performing with at LPR on June 9th, to record Treasure State, which will be released on June 13th. In the meantime you can download “Treasure,” the quasi-title track from the album, over here!

Click here to get tickets for their June 9th show.

TORTOISE
file under: jazz, experimental, post-rock, indie, minimal

Formed in Chicago in 1990, Tortoise is often considered one of the most influential post-rock bands of the last two decades. Unlike many of their indie-rock contemporaries in the mid-‘90s, they favored Krautrock, dub, jazz, and minimalism over more traditional rock and punk influences. Also notable was their choice of instrumentation, which often included two bassists and three percussionists switching between drums, vibraphones, and marimbas. They released Beacons of Ancestorship, their first album in five years, in June of 2009. Check out the music video for “Prepare Your Coffin,” one of the tracks off of that album, below.



Click here to get tickets for their show on June 23rd with Aethereal Bace and DJ Nick Hook.

AKRON XTENDED FAMILY
file under: folk, indie, experimental, post-rock, jazz

"Akron/Family's hushed left field pastoralism invite comparison with the loose US scene of folk-derived weirdness ... Immaculately interwoven electronics and the care with which each beautifully recorded track unfolds recall Chicago post-rock ..." (The Wire, 2005).


Akron/Family is a folk-influenced experimental rock band. Their records feature everything from field recordings and static to guitars and glockenspiel, while their live performances rely heavily on improvisation and three-part harmonies. At their performance at LPR as a part of Vision Festival XV, they will be joined on stage by jazz musicians William Parker and Hamid Drake. Get a better idea of what their live show is like by checking out the below video of them performing “Everyone is Guilty” at last year’s SXSW.



Click here to get tickets for their June 30th performance with William Parker's Southern Satellites and [the] slowest runner [in all the world].

ON FILLMORE
file under: jazz, indie, experimental, post-rock


On Fillmore is duo comprised of upright bassist Darin Gray and drummer Glenn Kotche who create compositions using field recordings in addition to their respective instruments. While their commitments to other projects (Jim O'Rourke, Wilco, and solo work) have limited their time to record together, they have still released four albums and scored several films since forming in 2000. Pitchfork on their latest album, Extended Vacation:

These seven interwoven pieces delight: Accessible but not pedestrian, complex but not esoteric, Extended Vacation feels improvised in spirit, but, in both structure and sound, it reveals two focused, imaginative composers and performers. The melodies and the warped sounds-- a vibraphone blurred into an organ, animal samples sculpted into a symphony, xylophone lines fashioned into music box tunes-- make Extended Vacation the most instantly likable On Fillmore album yet.

Check out their video for “Master Moon” below

"Master Moon" by On Fillmore from Secretly Jag on Vimeo.

Click here to get tickets for their July 15th performance with Rachel Grimes.

Interview: Tortoise

For nearly two decades, Chicago's Tortoise has been defying expectations, winning fans to its eclectic mash-up of prog-rock and post-rock, without the benefits of lyrics. After a couple of albums in the wilderness (if you give credence to the opinions of music critics), Tortoise made a strong statement with Beacons of Ancestorship, its sixth proper full-length, released by Thrill Jockey in June 2009. Multi-instrumentalist Dan Bitney checked in from the band’s current tour to offer some thoughts on returning to form, high-concept music, and the impossibility of re-creating classic Springsteen on late-night television.

Read the rest of the interview over at Prefix.

Tortoise will be performing at LPR on June 23rd as a part of the Carefusion Jazz Festival New York. Get tickets here.

Tortoise Interview and Video

Check out this video from Pitchfork and interview from PopMatters with Tortoise, who performed earlier this summer at LPR.

Tortoise at LPR: Review and Pictures

This review from a blog called stare out sleepily completely bummed me out, because I missed this Tortoise show here last week:

"Ok then, just getting up and need to recuperate my mind after having had it erased and reformatted by Tortoise last night at Le Poisson Rouge. Had just a brilliant time... Holy Fucking Shit. Holy Fucking Cockroach Stomping Jesus and Muhammad in front of a throng of transfixed Jainists. That might seem like a pretty horrific way of illustrating my point, and if you know anything about Tortoise you know that they get into some of the funkiest most alien rhythms as well as some of the prettiest melodies as much if not more than they get "heavy". But that's the point, they're heavy dudes from the first note to long after the last, and seeing and hearing them live not more than 20 ft away from you is an altogether more intense experience than 99.9% of any other active bands out there now."

What a great review!

And how about this from nyctaper:

"Post-rock pioneers Tortoise are back with a vengeance. Their June 2009 release Beacons of Ancestorship is easily their most powerful album since 2001’s Standard. The recent reports from the 2009 shows have been glowing, and on Tuesday night at Le Poisson Rouge, those reports were confirmed and more. Tortoise performed a stunning seventeen songs, including an unheard-of two encore segments of five total songs. The set consisted primarily of Beacons material with a nice selection of older material towards the end of the set.

We seriously acknowledge the continued excellent [sic] of Le Poisson Rouge as a venue. Their diverse and eclectic artist bookings continue to impress, and their sound system has continued to improve in quality."

And here are some pics courtesy of Frank M. Siringo (see more here):

Tortoise in The Decider

"Tortoise formed in Chicago in 1990, which means the American post-rock institution is approaching its “platinum” anniversary. While none of its records have earned that same designation in terms of sales, the predominantly instrumental five-piece has been incredibly influential over the past two decades, carving out a sound that has favored, in turn, Krautrock, jazz, dub, electronica, and the cinematic. Tortoise’s new Beacons Of Ancestorship is not only the group’s first proper LP in five years, but it’s the first to take a grittier, almost hip-hop-tinged tack. That’s not surprising considering that in the interim between albums, Tortoise percussionists Dan Bitney, John Herndon, and John McEntire recorded a breakbeat record, Bumps, for indie-rap label Stones Throw. In that time, the band also released A Lazarus Taxon, an acclaimed four-disc set compiling B-sides and remixes. In advance of Tortoise’s July 21 show at Le Poisson Rouge, Bitney—who also plays vibes, guitar, bass, keys, and sax—spoke with Decider about his band’s sixth album, critical backlash, and getting older."

Read the interview here.

Tortoise will be performing at LPR tomorrow night, Tuesday, July 21 at 7pm.

Tortoise's "Beacons of Ancestorship" Reviewed on Pitchfork

From Pitchfork:

The funny thing is that for most bands, Beacons of Ancestorship would be the very definition of an ambitious record-- commanding, aiming for conceptual unity and broad scope. But this mode seems to come naturally for Tortoise, and their mastery of it accounts for the record's broad successes and slight drawbacks alike.

Read more here.

Tortoise will be at LPR on July, 21.

Just Added: Grey Reverend as support for Tortise

ON SALE NOW

Grey Reverend, the pseudonym of solo acoustic guitarist and singer/songwriter L.D. Brown. Possesses melancholy, muted vocals, modest stage demeanor and emotive finger-picking guitar style. Recently collaborating with such musical minds as Jason Swinscoe(of The Cinematic Orchestra), and Cynthia G. Mason(producing) this Brooklyn minimalist has been playing to a variety of crowds throughout the U.S, Canada, and Europe, including such venues as the Coachella Festival(2008), and the world famous Royal Albert Hall in London(with TCO). "Music lovers are music lovers.This is a performer I believe has the raw talent and internal emotions to be as equally affecting as the artists his music can readily be compared to. Mellow, honest and surprisingly optimistic for such a seemingly morose sound".RIYL:Mark Kozelek, Jose Gonzalez, Nick Drake, Sam Prekop, Elliot Smith........... Grey Reverend A Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter, this guy will undoubtedly turn heads. He is a great, witty lyricist and a top finger picker. He writes subtle simple songs, but has an edge; there's nothing too clean or pretty. Jason Swinscoe (The Cinematic Orchestra)................... Grey Reverend, the moniker for singer-songwriter L.D. Brown, his unique blend of heart-wrenching folk ,armed with a very humble stage presence and a unique way of picking his guitar, Brown is a serious talent to be considered in the world of acoustic songwriters. Reminiscent of a certain musical icon by the name of Elliott Smith, Brown's chord progressions have the ability to uplift his otherwise sullen themes to a feeling of optimism. However, it is Brown's lyrics that will elevate him into a realm of truly great musicians. The songs are incredibly raw and honest, with Brown wearing his emotions on his guitar. His knack for being able to tell a story through his play on words is matched by his ability to place the necessary emphasis on certain words in order to maximize emotional impact. "After about an hour (including a well deserved encore), Grey Reverend left old and new fans begging for more while pondering the meaning of his thought-provoking lyrics. With song titles like "Altruistic Holiday" and "Begging to Borrow," a song that unfolds with the burning question "Isn't it something when we've got nothing left to say?" it is obvious that the good reverend has plenty to tell us. By David Terra of Beyond Race Magazine. 11/8/07"........

To Build A Home(Live in Paris)


More info here

Free Preview of new Tortoise Album from Other Music

Other Music is offering a free download of the track "Prepare Your Coffin" from their forthcoming album Beacons Of Ancestorship.

Download this track and then get your tickets for Tortoise's July 21st show at (Le) Poisson Rouge.

Just Announced: Tortoise

On Sale Now



The great majority of artists spend their formative years (if not their entire careers) working to shake off the gravitational pull of their predecessors, and the many masters and masterpieces that came before them—what the literary critic Harold Bloom called “the anxiety of influence.” For musicians, in particular, this tendency is especially pronounced, for reasons having to do with the nature of their craft and materials. Unlike the contemporary novelist or filmmaker, say, there is presumably a finite number of choices remaining to the artist making music in the 21st century that have not yet been exhaustively mined after 500 years of popular and semi-popular song. It is for this reason that, when we are asked to describe what a piece of music sounds like, we inevitably talk not about the thing itself, but resort to the trope of metaphor or analogy—“a little Brian Wilson, a little Pink Floyd, a little bit of Kraftwerk.” Rare indeed is the artist who outgrows their early influences, and instead become one of the markers by which other groups are measured. Almost alone among bands of the last two decades, Tortoise is a group that resists easy metaphors and analogies, who can be described as sounding like only themselves and no one else. Twenty years after its founding, the band’s signature and singularly inimitable sound—a fluid intersection of dub, dance, jazz, techno, rock, and classical minimalism, with no part overwhelming or dominating the whole—remains an American and international original. Even more unusually, they seem to have arrived at their sound with almost no apprenticeship to speak of; to judge from their early singles and albums alone, they seem to have come into being with their musical identity and DNA fully formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Further, while the group has spawned countless imitators, heirs, and followers—sincere, flattering, and otherwise—Tortoise remains unique in the world of contemporary music for their boundless intellectual curiosity, their unmistakable compositional voice, and their synthesis of seemingly contradictory sound worlds far from their doorstep.



More information here.