The Witzard

"+ fyi - every song on this album is a completely different style, so ["flesh without blood"] isn't a 'representation' of everything, just a taste of a vibe," @Grimezsz recently revealed on Twitter following the unexpected premier of her first Art Angels double-singe, "Flesh Without Blood/Life In The Vivid Dream." Grimes' long-awaited and previously scrapped follow-up to her critically-acclaimed album Visions (2012) has rather interestingly been described by Claire Boucher herself as: "it's all "real instruments," half of the tracks are diss tracks, there's a Nu-Metal track with a Taiwanese rapper, the whole thing was inspired by Billy Joel , there's a song about a gender-fluid vampire Al Pacino ," of course, paraphrased and reinterpreted a bit by the good people over at Stereogum . On the heels of "Flesh Without Blood" & "Life In The Vivid Dream," Grimes called in BBC Ra...

I must admit, I was initially drawn to "Post-Punk" band Merchandise because a recently-penned Ad-Hoc article likened their sound to that of The Smiths , who just so happen to be on of my favourite bands. Between their rapid-fire 2012-13 albums, Children of Desire and Totale Night , the band's membership quickly multiplied from three to five; now including Carson Cox, David Vassalotti, Elsner Niño, Patrick Brady , and sax player Chris Horn . Marking the announcement of their new-found partnership with Indie label 4AD , Merchandise unleashed a limited run clear 12" for "Begging for Your Life / In The City Light," a 14-minute track which was previously released on a split Chelsea Light Moving tour cassette. While 1,000 12-inches were briefly available for pre-order, set to ship on February 25th, 4AD almost instantly sold out and "Begging for Your Life" is now alternatively available on iTunes and a number of other digital retailers. For ...

Purity Ring - "Belispeak II" (Danny Brown) While Danny Brown has already worked with non- Hip-Hop cats like The Big Pink and The Streets The D.O.T. , he recently Tweeted : "Everybody I wanna work with don't wanna work with me, so I gave up on asking people to do songs with me a long time ago." Mr. Brown then proceeded to list The Weeknd and Purity Ring amongst his dream collaborators. Nearly 1 month later @ 12 midnight Oct. 9-10th, Purity Ring quietly debuted "Belispeak II" online, which just so happens to feature Danny Brown ! Back in August, Corin Roddick mentioned to Pitchfork that his production work's influenced by Soulja Boy, Justin Timberlake, Clams Casino , and that he'd "really like to get into producing for Hip-Hop and R&B artists." " [Danny] Brown , who first saw Purity Ring on their summer tour, expressed interest in wanting to work with the band via Twitter and the two then exchanged ide...

While stylistically, Indie Rock and Hip-Hop really don't have all that much in common, the 2 genres are actually fairly similar... aesthetically. Since their now "ancient" inceptions, Indie and Hip-Hop have always been marked by D.I.Y. roots and word-of-mouth promotion; It also seems as though the various musicians and fans of the respective genres maintain a mutual respect for each other's craft. All the while (since about 1980), they've somehow managed to co-exist and thrive as separate, yet similar entities. So, when Indie/Hip-Hop just so happen to intertwine, it usually isn't THAT much of a shocker. Speaking with NME back in August 2011, The Big Pink mentioned that Hip-Hop was shaping up to be a major influence on their upcoming sophomore album, Future This ... more specifically, Dr. Dre . A few months later, Cordell-Furze and 4AD then proceeded to recruit MPC Instrumentalist [beatsmith], AraabMUZIK to re-work lead single, "Stay Gold....

"Yesterday, Ariel Pink released "Witchhunt Suite for WWIII," a one-off digital single. LA native Pink (born Ariel Rosenberg ) first began writing and recording the 16-minute sprawling epic 10 years ago while the events of September 11, 2001 began to unfold. "Witchhunt Suite for WWIII" was originally released in 2 parts on a limited tour-only CD-R in 2007 entitled Yas Dudette ... But Ariel Pink wished to make a newly-recorded version of the song available in its entirety in tribute to the 10th anniversary of 9/11. "Witchhunt Suite for WWIII" is now available to buy exclusively from iTunes . Watch the Animal Charm with Ariel Pink -directed music video for the one-off single below." - 4AD (Beggars Group)