If you were out for last year’s first installment of Dark Disco then you know what mayhem will ensue for it’s second edition! This party will also mark Dark Disco as a brand new quarterly affair from  Meanred and Good Peoples at club Element, which will be getting a total makeover to accommodate all the insanity!

Our good friend and collaborator The Vidiot AKA Yr Friend Matthew, from the Bloglin’s own Kill With Video series will be providing the club some new skin through a series of tripped out imagery edited from the series. It’s sure to send you to a higher level of being over 7 hours of non stop music come this Sunday.

Headlining the night is UK Garage legend, MJ Cole, who returns from a hiatus to continue the club scene onslaught he started in the 90s. He recently released the Riddim EP on Prolific Recordings featuring the above dance floor smasher, “Volcano Riddim.”

This mini-festival will also play host to Ikonika’s first performance on U.S. soil. Ikonika brings an innovative, glitchy 8-bit approach to the more ethereal, deeper side of Dubstep.Trust me if you’re a fan of Dubstep, you won’t want to miss her first appearance here! Check out Ikonika’s recent podcast for XLR8R featuring tracks from her debut album Contact, Love, Want, Have on Hyperdub Records.

But that isn’t all Dark Disco has planned for the evening. Among the clubs two floors you’ll see many more DJ’s including sets from Werk label founder Actress along with Worthy of San Francisco’s Dirty Bird. This is going to be one hell of a night that is going to lay one solid foundation for what will be one of NYC’s new premiere quarterly dance events.

Sunday May 30th 7pm
Element
225 East Houston St.
New York, NY
$20 Advanced /$30 at the Door

Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record (2010) [Arts & Crafts] // Grade: A

When I sat down to write this review of Broken Social Scene’s fourth full-length album, the newly released, Forgiveness Rock Record, I was listening to it via my laptop speakers. I couldn’t even get through opener, “World Sick” without switching to a proper stereo listening. This album needed to be allowed to boom, even if it was 6 a.m..

Now more than on any of their previous three releases, Broken Social Scene’s agenda is clear—to make music, for fans of music. Their line-up has shifted from as few as six members to as many as 19, drawing from a pool of storied indie names. Forgiveness Rock Record again boasts many contributors, amongst which are Feist and members of The Sea & Cake, Stars, DFA1979 and The Weakerthans. Unlike The New Pornographers, The Dead Weather and arguably most of the acts tagged as “supergroups”, Broken Social Scene eschew the notion of a singular sound, creating what is truly collaborative work, employing their contributors to bring their own ideas and sounds to the table, and allowing them to co-exist in one another’s company. The result on Forgiveness Rock Record is summarized in one word—variety. At it’s core it’s indie prog-rock, but it’s also everything else.

Opener “World Sick” is nearly seven minutes long, an astutely crafted juxtaposition of intensely quiet moments of barely there guitar and percussion that give way to sweeping vocal crescendos. It’s a chill-inducing dramatic kick-off that lets listeners know “epic” will be an earnest synopsis of the album by its close. Forgiveness Rock Record hops influences, passing through Southern-tinged classic indie-pop (“Texico Bitches”), lilt and churn dream-pop (“All To All”), lullaby blues (“Highway Slipper Jam”), and highlighted mid-way through by massive prog rock instrumental, “Meet Me In The Basement” whose premeditated abrupt end serves as the perfect intro to the female powerhouse of Feist, Emily Haines (Metric) and Amy Milan (Stars) on “Sentimental X’s”.

I’d be hard-pressed to name an overall weak moment on Forgiveness Rock Record. The instrumentation and vocals act as a support system for one another, and if one should ever falter, the other is waiting to pick up the slack. It’s grand achievement though is the ability to remain cohesive in the face of endless variety. The more of these indie rock “supergroups” that pop up, the more I realize that Broken Social Scene are the only one I need.

In season 3′s “bottle episode,” Vince Gilligan and crew brought on one of my favorite contemporary directors, Rian Johnson. The episode featured only Walt and Jesse and 99 percent of it took place inside the Meth Cave. What started out as a humorous scenario bordering on slapstick turned into one of the most suspenseful and reflective episodes of the season.

We’ve seen Walt’s OCD come out this season, most noticeably when he scooped trash out of a pool that didn’t belong to him. But his need to kill the fly to move on with his life was pure mania. As the blood he’s inadvertently shed begins to sink into his head more and more, we might see his compulsions become more extreme. The episode peaked when he was “holding” the ladder for Jesse as he started to doze off from pills. When he started to apologize to Jesse about Jane, my fists clenched. Walt has made admissions before under the influence (second cell phone), so him spilling the truth about Jane’s death wouldn’t have surprised me (Walt moved Jane onto her back, causing her to choke). It’s going to happen. When is the only question.

Jesse’s cancer story pushed Walt into talking about how wishes he had died. For someone who just wanted to make a pile of cash before he died so his family wouldn’t have to worry, he’s lived too long and so many people have been hurt/killed. His family has left him and now he simply goes back and forth from his model home to the Meth Cave. He’s a big and important cog in a massive wheel. But he’s a hollow version of his former self. Eventually (if Gus doesn’t decide to have him killed first) Walt will have more money than he knows what to do with. But that doesn’t matter if his family will have nothing to do with him. At least Jesse has some lowlife friends to hang out with.

Our good friend and multi-talented artist, Dust La Rock was recently the subject of a short video interview about his piece Occult of Personality for the Scion Installation Six Video project.

Installation 6: Video” challenged 10 artists to create non-narrative video installations that will transform five unique exhibitions. For ‘Installation 6,’ we unveil a full exhibition of video installations that illustrate how 10 emerging artists and creative icons see the world through vivid movement and color,” says Jeri Yoshizu, Scion manager, sales promotions. “In our continued support of independent artistic expression, we are eager to introduce audiences across the country to inventive works by leading talent in art, music and design who push the boundaries of creativity with every medium they explore.

For those of you who still may not know, Dust La Rock s the co-founder and creative director of Fool’s Gold Records. He’s been hailed as a “cult NYC designer” by Dazed And Confused Magazine, though I like to think of Dust as a future cult leader. Dust also serves as art director for renowned producer and DJ, A-Trak and has worked with brands like Nike, Red Stripe, and Kid Robot.  His work has been featured in art, music, and lifestyle publications, including Playboy, Billboard, XLR8R, Mass Appeal, Beautiful/Decay, Swindle, and Quest.

Dust also recently worked with Star Eyes on our Ov Curse Mix which you all should download if you haven’t!

The tour is coming to a grand finale in Brooklyn, opening June 4th at Eastern District and this installment focuses on Dust La Rock, Erik Nakamura, Saelee Oh, Funeral Fog (French & Alex Glass), PMKFA, Thomas Suberville, Josh Graham, Monihan Monihan, Sage Vaughn and Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo.

We hope you check it out! We know we will!

Friday June 4th, 7-10pm
Eastern District
43 Bogart St.
Brooklyn, NY 11206

A few months ago our boys from Ninjasonik invited me to take part in, and capture the making of their newest video, “Bars”. Tonight the guys are debuting the video at 9pm followed by a release party all taking place over at Fat Baby on the Lower East Side.

The party will include live performances by Johnny Nelson and Rocky Business and DJ sets by DJ School Boy, MeLo-X and Roofeo. It’s going to be a wild time and I’m sure as with everything Nijasonik does, somebody gonna get pregnant!

In the meantime why not enjoy the behind-the-scenes shots that I took during the filming of this epic evening over on my Tumblr page. Some, like the one below aren’t exactly SFW though… so you’ve been warned!

Monday May 24th, 9pm
Fat Baby
112 Rivington St.
New York, NY

Terror Bird is a duo of Nikki Nevver (also of Modern Creatures) on synth and vocal, with Jer Haywood behind the drums. Thy hail from Vancouver which seems to be a growing home to some of the best Independent music currently out there. Terror Bird are dark and melodic with a unique sound and vision. The band meshes dark and melancholy lyrics with sugary sweet pop hooks that brings to mind  The Cure or The Smiths who excelled at hiding a dark and brooding core behind a wall of catchy and upbeat pop.

Right now, Terror Bird has only one official release to their name. 2009′s Sociopath’s Are Glam came out on cassette via Night People for whom they have a full length planned for later this year. The cassette is long sold out at this point, but you should give this rough and complex piece of blackened pop a download. It’s a great taste of what to expect from a band who keeps getting better and better with each new release.

Speaking of new releases, “Shadows in the Hall” (above video) will be out as 7-inch by the end of the month as a co-release between France’s La Station Radar and Atelier Ciseaux. It’s a god momentum builder for what I’m sure will be a great full length later this year. And if that isn’t enough for you I recommend hitting the bands Myspace player where you’ll find three covers, Sonic Youth’s “Kissability”, Brian Eno’s “Driving Me Backwards” and an absolutely mesmerizing rendition of The Rolling Stone’s “Playing With Fire.”

Terror Bird is currently on tour in Europe and with the building buzz around the band I’m sure we will see them in the good ole U.S. of A very shortly.

Johnny from our Echo Park shop took a trip down to watch the ATOC ITT yesterday. For those of you who don’t know the ATOC, AMGEN Tour of California is an annual professional cycling event lasting 8 days, beginning in Nevada City and ending in Escondido, California The race is very much a precursor to the Tour de France. Johnny wrote the following recap for the Bloglin!

Bright, clear and windy is the best way to describe stage 7 of the AMGEN Tour of California. Stage 7 means individual Time Trial and this year it took place just down the street from us. Although bright and clear sure sounds nice, windy sure as hell doesn’t. Wind is something you despise as a Time-Trialist.

To make things worse for the cyclists; the two-lap 33.6km dog-bone shaped course was full of rough bumpy roads, tight corners, false flats, and a couple of 15 grade climbs. Nevertheless, the event was a lot of fun. There was a huge turnout and the guys did not disappoint. Here are just a few shots I got of the boys…

Cervelo Test Team’s Hunt Jeremy making a sharp right as spectators cheer him on.

Quick Step’s time trial specialist close up in front of the Philharmonic.

After all was said and done, Tony Martin the German rider for HTC took 1st place with a time of 41:41 making his average speed of 48.364 kilometers per hour,or 30.052mph for those of you who are kilometer illiterate, exceptional.

Teammate Michael Rogers came in second at 42:03 (+22) American David Zabriskie (Garmin-Transitions) finished third with a time of 42:08 and Levi Leipheimer (Radio Shack) finished in fourth, 33 seconds behind the leader.

Garmin-Transition’s cyclist with the team car in the background

Although Lance dropped out of the tour, Team Radio Shack did not disappoint.

HTC riders had the best day with Tony Martin And Michael Rogers finishing 1st and 2nd respectively.

Yesterday However, the 8th and final stage of the ATOC took place in Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village and Agoura Hills.The four 21mile circuit stage proved to be very challenging. And at the end of the 134.3 km stage, Australian Michael Rogers (THR) took the Golden Jersey with an end time of 33.08’30”. and the rest of the GC results were as follows: #2 Dave Zabriskie (GMR)+09” #3 Levi Leipheimer (RSH) +25” #4 Christopher Horner (RSH) +1’04” and Ryder Hesjedal (GMR) finished 5th +1’08” behind the winner.

Immediately after the Lost finale last night, I posted my initial thoughts. Now it’s time to go over the episode in more detail. Before we get started, I’d like to state that THEY WEREN’T DEAD THE WHOLE SIX YEARS. The Island wasn’t some kind of limbo. Jack died last night and many others (Hurley, Ben, Kate, Sawyer, etc.) got to live out their lives and died later on; years later; off camera (or maybe not, more on that later). The flash-sideways was an afterlife waiting room they all created so they could meet up and have a final group hug before going onto their respective fates.

For the majority of season 6, I found the afterworld to be more interesting than the Jacob/MIB drama on the Island. I got a lot of flack for that from some friends, but even after the reveal that it is a pseudo-afterlife, I don’t feel cheated at all. I thought it was brilliant. It explained why we didn’t see certain characters like Richard in the flashes. It makes sense that Richard would want to spend his afterlife with Isabella and why Ben would be afraid to enter the church and meet his fate. Although, Ben could have just been waiting outside for the people he really loved – Alex and Roussea.

There were a lot of meaningless deadends on the Island this season. Like the Temple and how the names on the cave wall basically meant nothing, since anyone could step up to bat and volunteer for the protector gig. Too much time was spent on running from one end of the Island to the next. And if one more person on the Island said “Just trust me,” I would have gone blind with rage. But the flashes always kept me engaged.

Now, the ending. It turns out that the Island is simply that, but sitting on some kind of electromagnetic geyser that needs to be corked. I’m okay with that. It brought these characters together, and these characters were explicitly given the spotlight last night. Mythology was swept aside in the end, and you can’t help but admire the enormous balls of Carlton and Cuse for playing it out that way. There’s no point in creating a laundry list of unanswered questions – we all have our gripes over what was left a mystery. The show has always been about these characters, their interactions, their flaws, and their search for some kind of meaning. In the end, that meaning turned out to be each other. I posted it last night, but again I feel like this quote from Christian hits it on the head and also reads well as the show’s thesis:

“This is the place you all made together so you could find one another. The most important part of your life was the time you spent with these people. That’s why you’re all here. Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you … to let go.”

For all the see-saw love and hating I did on this show during its final season, Jack’s death had me shaking. I don’t think I’ve been that shook since they killed off Chewbacca in Vector Prime. Dying in the same spot this whole epic began was an obvious bookend, but a touching one nonetheless.

Jorge Garcia delivered so so hard last night. I was keeping it together emotionally up until he told Jack that “he couldn’t do it,” referring to him becoming the next protector. Yeah, that broke me.

Crook texted me during the show to see if I picked up on the lesbian vibe going down between Claire and Kate. Kate asks Claire to let her help raise Aaron, then when they held hands on the plane I was screaming at the TV, “Kiss!” it would have been the ballsiest play in TV history!

While the credits rolled, shots of plane debris on the beach were shown. So it’s possible to speculate that Frank wasn’t successful in flying everyone to safety. Was this one last gift of mysterious from Carlton and Cuse? In my head it’s just a final nod to season 1.

What about you guys? Are you not entertained?

Sleigh Bells – Treats (2010) [Mom + Pop/N.E.E.T.] // Grade: B-

Sleigh Bells are a total headfuck. And not just ’cause they’re loud, compressed to the max, you know, levels pushed to the red and gritty raw. Not ’cause they come off as wicked cheerleaders, all heavy hip-hop stomps and Tony Basil, vocals like blondes so sugary and innocent until they shove a jawbreaker down your throat. Definitely not ’cause Derek Miller used to be in Poison The Well and Alexis Krauss spent some teen time in Rubyblue and how left-field is that? But rather: despite the Sleigh Bells hype and hysteria—despite objectively understanding that electro-noise/hip-hop pulse of Treats is good, or at least really fun—I simply cannot figure out if I actually like them.

These songs follow a natural progression. Draw a map; you can trace it. Atari Teenage Riot, Bis, Mocket. Julie Ruin and Le Tigre, onwards to the whole tangle of electroclash. M.I.A., Uffie, Banger house, Ratatat and then—right here, where it simmered all along—a vicious obsession with all things crunk. The trajectory is clear, and tracks like “Riot Rhythm” and the stomp-repeat of “Infinity Guitars” hit hard in its wake. All the stuff you might’ve loved, balled up by Miller and Krauss into a fresh little hell. They’re new, exciting. They make a big noise, and people like a big noise.

But big noise lives and dies by its ability to incite raw emotion—the visceral thrill of heavy beats, hard drops—and while an overwhelming number of listeners are clearly getting that from Sleigh Bells, I’m just…not. I’m like that kid for whom pot did absolutely nothing; my experience with Sleigh Bells is clinical at best. Treats, to me, feels too much like a shiny new toy, a boxed-up approximation of an obvious lineage—and though they haven’t manufactured even a bit of it, Miller and Krauss seem to know the influence they’re about to have. There’s no “we could rock/we could bomb/or we could try/like super-hard” here; Treats operates with a fair amount of cognizance. Objectively, it’s fine. Praise-worthy, definitely. But all that visceral, primal, blind day one stuff that makes an album amazing? All the stuff Sleigh Bells is said to epitomize? I don’t know. They might’ve hit the ground running just a little too fast to grasp that fleeting of a moment.

A Re-Up will be posted as usual tomorrow morning.

Lost ended about seven minutes ago and while the Hater Train pulls out of the station, I want to say that I’m totally content. From the opening montage to the closing fade-to-white, “The End” turned me on. Reactions are going to run the gamut of “love and hate” – my needle is sitting more towards “like and am thinking about asking to go steady.” It was seriously the final scene in the church that did it for me and the revelation that the flash-sideways was a type of afterlife everyone created so they could meet up after death. After six years of speculating and bitching over unsolved mysteries, the finale perfectly spotlighted the spine of the show: interpersonal relationships, connections, and love. Not so much four-toes statues and Walt’s powers (although those are awesome) As Christian stated:

“This is the place you all made together so you could find one another. The most important part of your life was the time you spent with these people. That’s why you’re all here. Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you … to let go.”

Jack died a hero’s death while Kate, Sawyer, Claire, Miles, Frank, and Richard got to live out the rest of their lives. Hurley protects the Island with his number 2, Ben. Fuck it, I’m happy. One of my favorite touches was Ben not going into the church. He’s obviously afraid of his ultimate fate, but at least Locke forgave him.

I’m going to bed. Full Re-Up tomorrow as usual.

PS: I’m free on Tuesday if anyone wants to hang out.