Pendulum are about to embark on their first American tour, including dates in the United States, Canada, Brazil and Mexico. The aptly named ‘Tour of the Americas’ will kick off in Brazil on September 27 and finish with a CMJ Music Marathon showcase at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom on October 26th.
Pendulum have been winning even more fans over with some fantastic live festival performances this year. Their hard-edged amalgamation of big beats, massive guitars, and powerhouse hooks, merging the best of heavy rock and drum n bass in the process.
Recently, Pendulum made British headlines with their cover of Coldplay’s “Violet Hill” on Radio 1’s Live Lounge. The show itself dubbed it, “the best Live Lounge to date” and the track immediately earned itself a slot on the channel’s A-List alongside “Other Side,” the band’s current UK single.
American audiences received their first sample of Pendulum’s brand new sound when the band made a triumphant U.S. live debut at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this April.
Since their formation in 2002, Pendulum has caused quite the stir in both the hard rock and dance music communities around the world. The band’s 2005 debut, “HOLD YOUR COLOUR,” was an international breakout success, with sales in excess of 225,000 in the UK alone, where it still sits in the Top 40 album chart today.
“Granite,” a featured track on their current album, “IN SILICO,” topped the UK’s Dance chart while also reaching the UK top 30 Singles chart.
PENDULUM
Tour Of The Americas Concert Dates
SEPTEMBER
27 Sao Paolo, BR Skolbeats Festival
OCTOBER
1 Boston, MA Middle East
3 Chicago, IL House of Blues
4 Toronto, ONT Kool Haus
5 Detroit, MI I Rock
7 Milwaukee, WI Turner Hall Ballroom
9 Denver, CO Bluebird Theater
11 Salt Lake City, UT Murray Theatre
13 Los Angeles, CA The Mayan
14 San Francisco, CA The Fillmore
18 Mexico City, MEX Motorkr Festival
19 Guadalajara, MEX Motorkr Festival
22 Atlanta, GA The Loft
24 Baltimore, MD Ottobar
25 New York, NY Webster Hall
26 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom
Jem Haynes - The Altitude EP, released on Fat! Records
Jem Haynes is currently making a name for himself as a top DJ in the UK and in Ibizan clubs such as Space. But his own releases are something to write about too.
The Altitude EP comprises of 4 new tracks - Agogo, Prophet, The Birds and The Tiger That Came For Tea. Each with an indivdual sound spanning house & techno. Agogo and Prophet work best for me.
Agogo starts with a filtered beat, a gentle floor-filler to get those pants swinging. A delicious, smooth and funky bass line comes out of the mix; and you can close your eyes and imagine a sun-kissed Ibiza night ready to kick into life. The Birds offers a similar gentle techno house ride.
Prophet is similar in genre - house intwined with soft techno, but is altogether a more powerful beast. Driven by a stomping ‘four-to-the-floor‘ bass drum and a more menacing dark and moody bass line.
All four tracks on The Altitude EP are currently available to listen to on Jem Haynes MySpace page, along with his wonderful unofficial remix of Alison Limerick’s Where Love Lives.
Music experimentalist, Max Tundra is to release a cover version of Rogers and Hammerstein’s So Long Farewell, from the musical The Sound of Music as a b-side to Will Get Fooled Again as a limited 7″ vinyl and digital download on 29th September.
Will Get Fooled Again is taken from Max Tundra’s forthcoming third album Parallax Error Beheads You, which will follow on 13th October.
When asked about working with Max Tundra, Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy, ex-Arcade Fire and Last Shadow Puppets arranger) said:
“Max and I met in Barcelona in 2005 at Primavera Sound. His slot was at 4am. He put on a mask, wrapped himself up in tape, and played forty minutes of music made mostly using Amiga sample tracker software from the late 1980s. There was virtuosic melodica playing, Pointer Sisters-style singing, and an eight-minute version of “So Long, Farewell” from The Sound Of Music. I was wasted and ended up passing out on a beach in my underwear. When the sun rose, I woke up with dried merengue and sand glued to my hair, and in a daze, I realized that I had just witnessed nothing less than the best music performance of my life.”
On 8th September, UNKLE will release ‘Remix Stories (Volume One)’ - released as a 12″ and digitally, exclusively via Beatport for the first four weeks after the release.
The 12″ features four previously unreleased remixes of tracks taken from the last two albums (’War Stories’ and the recently released ‘End Titles… Stories for Film’).
The deliberate decision to make this release available on 12″ was made in a bid to go back to UNKLE’s roots (of dance music, pre-digital age) and to make ‘Remix Stories’ a collectible item for long standing fans.
Remixes come courtesy of legendary dance duo Layo and Bushwacka!, renowned house DJs and remixers Innervisions, and one of today’s most prolific producers Radio Slave.
The track listing is as follows:
Trouble in Paradise - Variation on a Theme (UNKLE Remix)
Hold My Hand (Innervisions Orchestra Remix)
Twilight (Layo and Bushwacka! Remix)
Chemistry (Radio Slave Remix)
Rather Sound Than Safe aka RSTS are making some big electronic waves. RSTS is Sif and Rasmus Neo and hail from Denmark. They met in Copenhagen in 1996 and are creating electronic based music from deep electro pop to housey trance.
Rather Sound Than Safe have just released their debut single, Fairytale. It is a darky, brooding electronic track reminiscent of an industrial metallic version of Massive Attack, complete with Sif’s cool, soft sensual vocal.
Fairytale is taken from their forthcoming album, Rebirth, to be released in October. The album has been appropriatelt titled Rebirth as it sees RSTS reworking earlier tracks. The result promises to be more polished and better produced than their previous versions.
The three tracks on their MySpace page certainly gives a clear indication that their music takes on different shapes and sounds. As well as Fairytale there is the funky house / minmal trance of Funkateer and then the dub mix of Rise and Fall which conjours up a late night/early morning warehouse party in full swing.
Great though Sif’s voice is, its obvious RSTS have more to offer than electronic pop songs. I’m looking forward to hearing the album and seeing how their different sounds work together, or whether Rebirth will simply concentrate on one style.
