Songlines Festival

Photo by Lauren Dukoff

King of the Beach, the new Cali punk album from Wavves, hits iTunes tomorrow, other digital stores July 13, and physical stores August 3, all via Fat Possum. And right now, the whole thing is streaming at this website. Have at it.

And speaking of Wavves, the Nathan Williams Experience will spend the next two months touring across Europe and North America, and we've got the dates below. Stagediving encouraged!

Wavves:

07-15 Cologne, Germany - Sonic Ballroom
07-16 Berlin, Germany - White Trash
07-17 Münster, Germany - Gleis 22
07-18 Hamburg, Germany - Astratube
07-20 Ravenna, Italy - Beach Mini Festival
07-21 Paris, France - Fleche d'Or
07-23 London, England - Cargo
07-24 London, England - 1234 Festival
07-25 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso
07-26 Leipzig, Germany - Sweat Club Leipzig
07-28 Copenhagen, Denmark - The Gun Club
07-29 Emmaboda, Sweden - Emmaboda Festival
07-31 Trondeim, Norway - Brukbar
08-06 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle *
08-07 Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza
08-12 San Diego, CA - Museum of Contemporary Art
08-13 Pomona, CA - The Glass House
08-14 Portland, OR - Berbati's Pan ^
08-16 Santa Barbara, CA - Soho
08-17 Santa Cruz, CA - Crepe Place
08-18 San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop
08-25 Seattle, WA - Neumos
08-26 Vancouver, British Columbia - Biltmore
08-27 Victoria, British Columbia - Sugar
08-30 Sacramento, CA - Sol Collective
08-31 Visalia, CA - Howie and Sons Pizza

* with Harlem, Fergus and Geronimo
^ with the Cool Kids

Front page photo by Don Felix Cervantes

Swanlights, the new album from Antony and the Johnsons, is coming October 11 in Europe on Rough Trade and a day later in the U.S. from Secretly Canadian. (It's been pushed back a week from its originally announced release date.) Antony has now let loose with the album's tracklist. And oh snap, look at that: Fellow otherworldly wailer Björk shows up to duet with Antony on "Flétta". This won't be the first time Björk and Antony have hooked up; Antony previously duetted with Björk on her songs "The Dull Flame of Desire" and "My Juvenile".

As previously mentioned, Swanlights will also come in a special art-book edition from Abrams, which will include a 144-page book featuring Antony's paintings, collages, photography, and writing. Check below for the album's tracklist.

In other Antony news, we'll soon hear his version of "Returnal", the title track of the new album from synth-drone titan Oneohtrix Point Never. On August 31, Editions Mego will release the "Returnal" 7" single, which will feature Antony's version of the song, which includes Oneohtrix dude Daniel Lopatin backing Antony on piano. The single's B-side will feature a remix of "Returnal" from fellow experimental guru Christian Fennesz, and the single will feature artwork from Sunn O))) man Stephen O'Malley. That's a lot of out-music big dogs on one 7"!

Swanlights:

01 Everything Is New
2. The Great White Ocean
3. Ghost
4. I'm in Love
5. Violetta
6. Swanlights
7. The Spirit Was Gone
8. Thank You for Your Love
9. Flétta (with Björk)
10. Salt Silver Oxygen
11. Christina's Farm

Last year, the L.A. Times broke the news that the estate of composer and songwriter George Gershwin had enlisted Beach Boys sonic visionary Brian Wilson to complete unfinished music that Gershwin had left behind when he died in 1937. The resulting album, Brian Wilson Reimagines George Gershwin, will hit stores on August 17 via Disney Pearl, with a vinyl edition coming August 24.

The LP features two songs that Wilson built from Gershwin's unfinished music, "The Like in I Love You" and "Nothing But Love". You can hear "The Like in I Love You" over at Wilson's site for the price of an email address.

It also features Wilson's versions of classic Gershwin compositions like "Summertime", "I've Got Rhythm", "They Can't Take That Away From Me", "Someone to Watch Over Me", and "I Loves You Porgy". Wilson's usual band backs him on most of the album, but the whole thing opens and closes with Wilson's a capella version of "Rhapsody in Blue", which whoa.

In a press release, Wilson says, "Along with Irving Berlin, Gershwin basically invented the popular song, but he did something more. He had a gift for melody that nobody has ever equaled, yet his music is timeless and always accessible. This is the most spiritual project I've ever worked on." And he worked on Pet Sounds!

We've got the album's tracklist below.

Brian Wilson Reimagines George Gershwin:

01 Rhapsody in Blue /Intro
02 The Like in I Love You
03 Summertime
04 I Loves You Porgy
05 I Got Plenty of Nothin
06 It Ain't Necessarily So
07 'S Wonderful
08 They Can't Take That Away from Me
09 Our Love Is Here to Stay
10 I've Got a Crush on You
11 I've Got Rhythm
12 Someone to Watch Over Me
13 Nothing But Love
14 Rhapsody in Blue/Reprise

Yesterday, Fab 5 Freddy revealed on his Twitter that art-rap pioneer Rammellzee had died. Today, Stuart Argabright, Rammellzee's collaborator in Death Comet Crew, confirms that sad news. He was 50 years old.

A legendary graffitti artist, fashion designer, and rapper, Rammellzee remains best known for "Beat Bop", his 1983 single with K-Rob, which was produced by famed artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. But his long, varied career encompassed much, much more than that.

"Beat Bop" was probably the furthest-out piece of work the genre had produced at the time, a 10-minute odyssey featuring Rammell rapping impenetrable silliness ("RPMs, my noooose don't care about the rhythm that breaks") over spaced-out bass pings and discordant violin scratches. Throughout, Rammell rapped in an exaggerated nasal honk, a style that the likes of the Beastie Boys' Ad-Rock and Cypress Hill's B-Real later used to became hugely popular. Vinyl copies of the "Beat Bop" single eventually sold for thousands. Rammell also collaborated with producer Bill Laswell, and Death Comet Crew released an album on the noise-rock label Troubleman Unlimited in 2004.

Beyond rap, Rammell was also famous as a visual artist and as a notoriously elusive, mind-bogglingly odd raconteur. Many consider him one of the pioneers of graffiti art. He appeared in the 1982 cult-favorite film Wild Style wearing a black trench coat and toting a shotgun onstage. His work, done in a style he called "gothic futurism", has appeared in galleries and museums worldwide.

Director Jim Jarmusch, who cast Rammell in his 1984 film Stranger Than Paradise, once called Rammell "the kind of guy you could talk to for twenty minutes and your whole life could change, if you could only understand him." Dave Tompkins' phantasmagorical new vocoder history book How to Wreck a Nice Beach ends with a chapter of Rammell dropping impenetrable science.

The man was a mysterious freak of the highest order, and you can see some YouTubed evidence of his truly singular life below (all via Tumblin' Erb):

"Beat Bop":

Rammell's Wild Style appearance:

Rammell performing live in 1983:

Rammell talking and showing off his art:

Photo by Ryan Dombal

There seems to be at least some possibility that Yo-Landi Vi$$er, the tiny female member of brain-wrecking South African dance-rap crew Die Antwoord, could go from being an object of YouTube fascination to the star of a big-budget movie in just a few scant months. Vulture reports (via The Playlist) that Se7en/Fight Club/Benjamin Button director David Fincher might just have a big role in mind for her in the American big screen adaptation of Stieg Larsson's hugely successful crime novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

According to Vulture, Fincher has been telling people that Vi$$er looks and acts the way he envisions Lisbeth Salander, the title character of the book. Salander is a hacker punk with Asperger's Syndrome and a tortured past who becomes a private investigator (thanks, Wikipedia!). An Education's Carey Mulligan and Twilight's Kristen Stewart have been rumored for the part.

Vulture says it's unclear whether Fincher actually hopes to cast Vi$$er in the movie or whether he just plans to keep her in mind as a character model. Either way, the possibility is enough to get our heads spinning. Vulture also say that other filmmakers are increasingly expressing interest in Vi$$er's acting skills.

When we interviewed Die Antwoord back in February, they mentioned that they were being flown to L.A. to discuss film projects, including their own movie, "a high-energy, totally next-level, rap-rave feature film called The Answer," which they described as "District 9, but just with more rave and more rap."

Fincher has a history of making some pretty weird casting decisions-- consider, for example, Meat Loaf with boobs. And playing a hacker punk worked out pretty well for Angelina Jolie. Besides, if Vi$$er does get cast, maybe her Die Antwoord partner Ninja could land a part in some future Ninja Assassin sequel, which would obviously be the best thing ever.

Photo by Kevin Westenberg

Radiohead drummer Phil Selway has stepped out from behind his kit to give us Familial, his solo debut. Up above, you can click to hear "By Some Miracle", the prettily still album opener. Selway is also giving the song away on his website; you just need to tell him your name, email address, and homeland.

As previously reported, Familial drops August 30 on Bella Union in the UK. And now the album also has an American release date: August 31 via Nonesuch. Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, former Soul Coughing bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and Lisa Germano all contribute to the LP.

Selway also has some solo shows coming up in Europe and Japan, including a few opening for Wilco. We've got those listed below.

Phil Selway:

08-26 Tokyo, Japan - Duo Music Exchange
08-27 Osaka, Japan - Club Quattro
09-04 Stradbally, Ireland - Electric Picnic Festival
09-10 North Dorset, England - End of the Road Festival
09-11 Isle of Wight, England - Bestival
09-13 London, England - Bush Hall
09-14 London, England - Royal Festival Hall *
09-15 Newcastle, England - O2 Academy Newcastle *
09-16 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowland *
09-20 Amsterdam, Netherlands - TBA
09-21 Brussels, Belgium - AB Club
09-22 Paris, France - Le Boule Noire

* with Wilco

Yesterday afternoon, the music industry consulting firm Milk Money posted the following on their Twitter: "Deerhunter here in Maze with Ben Allen mixing new LP. Everybody's excited about the sound."

The Ben Allen in question is the guy who engineered and mixed Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion and Fall Be Kind EP, helping that band reach new levels of bass-heavy blissout. He also worked on Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere. (Maze is Allen's studio.) We don't have any further details yet, but that already seems like plenty of reason to get amped.

-- The Quine Tapes is a six-LP live box set that documents the Velvet Underground onstage in 1969. VU super-fan and future Lou Reed guitarist Robert Quine recorded the shows, and the set includes posters, handbills, and rare photos. It's coming soon from Sundazed.

-- Brian Eno has picked Iceland-based producer Ben Frost as the winner of the music portion of the 2010-2011 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, which means Frost will get to collaborate with Eno for a year. As previously reported, DJ /rupture was also up for the honor.

-- Garage rock survivors the Hives have a new covers EP called Tarred and Feathered coming as a digital download on July 2 and as a 7" single on July 9. Right now, you can sign up for a free download of one of the EP's three tracks at the Hives' website. The band tackles songs by the Zero Boys, Flash and the Pan, and Joy Ryder & Avis Davis.

-- P.S.1, the Museum of Modern Art's Queens outpost, has announced the lineup for its super fun annual series Warm Up, which goes down every Saturday from July 3 to September 4. This year, the schedule includes live performances from Delorean, Oneohtrix Point Never, Blondes, Prince Rama, Glasser, Janka Nabay, and These Are Powers, as well as DJ sets from Animal Collective, James Murphy and Pat Mahoney, ?uestlove, DJ /rupture, Ratatat, Air France, John Talabot, Gavin Russom, Kingdom, ARP, CFCF, Korallreven, Tim Sweeney, and Holy Ghost!

Home page photo courtesy of Ryan Muir/Stereogum.com

As we gave you a heads up about last week, Mount Wittenberg Orca, the collaborative mini-LP from Björk and Dirty Projectors that resulted from a NYC benefit show last May, comes out today.

You can purchase the record right here (all proceeds go to the National Geographic Society), and you can also stream its closing track, "All We Are", above, via Domino Records' Soundcloud. The track is very vocal-heavy, featuring a stirring duet between Björk and Dirty Projectors leader Dave Longstreth near its end.

You've seen the cat-tacular cover, and you've heard a very, very loud new song. Now, there's another cut from British reformed rave-rockers Klaxons' forthcoming sophomore effort, Surfing the Void, for you to check out.

The radio edit of opening album track "Echoes" is streaming now at Modular's website, and it's a little closer to what we've come to expect from the band; that is, a catchy tune with a vaguely dancey feel (only, not as many siren sounds).

Surfing the Void drops August 23 in the UK via Polydor.