The Witzard

RE: Crates 001 by Pat Van Dyke "After the release of Technicolor HI-FI , the fellas from Open Crates approached me about recording some music to launch a series of 7-inch vinyl releases that would feature remixes, re-works, and edits of existing music... essentially, a series of "bootlegs" or "white labels." I'd been anxious to take a stab at recording re-interpretations of songs that had influenced me over the years, so I was keen to make it happen," self-described drummer, producer, and band leader Pat Van Dyke (PVD) wrote within a recently emailed statement. PVD has once again teamed up with his "It's Alright" collaborators Melinda Camille & David Stolarz , as well as bassist Josh David , DJ MentPlus, and horn players Bryan Beninghove, Ted Chubb & Peter Lin to collectively unveil Open Crates' premier edition of their RE: Crates 45 series. "A few months passed and we had a show at Brooklyn Museum performing ...

"You could fit the contents of Tony's previous releases on Slumberland and Matador [Records] onto one side of a 90-minute cassette and still have room left over for the eight offerings on CONFRONT THE TRUTH , but would you want it any other way? When Tony sings about "trying to move on but I just don't know how," no extension of the time it takes for him to bring that feeling across is going to solve the problem at hand. You're immediately thrust into the orbit of these songs; you know how he feels, and now you can relate. Transference is complete. You've got plenty of time left over to dwell upon them. The eight offerings on CONFRONT THE TRUTH notch a significant advancement in his style and approach. Almost completely absent from these new songs are the over-loaded guitar crunch of DISSED AND DISMISSED , or his earlier work with OVENS; it's replaced by gentle acoustic balladry, tasteful Mellotron and piano backing, the kind of musicianship that o...

After what even most die-hard Shins fans would consider a pretty lackluster album attempt, frontman James Mercer has reunited with producer-buddy Danger Mouse aka Brian Burton to write and record a new Broken Bells album, After The Disco . Broken Bells (1) was essentially Mercer's "solo" debut and once again, he's comfortably playing the Run-D.M.C. to Danger Mouse 's Rick Rubin ; who seems to play best with others, ie: Gnarls Barkley , Gorillaz, The Black Keys , Beck, Portugal. The Man , etc. Lead single "Holding On for Life," which was previously included within an album teaser, has been self-described by Burton as a mix between late 1980-90's Dr. Dre or Ice Cube and Bee Gees -style falsetto. After The Disco will become available this upcoming January 14th and will feature micro-appearances from Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes) on horns, Daniel Lupi -orchestrated string arrangements, man-made drum machine fills by Brian Burton himself, and...

When he's not busy making TOTALLY spaced out Prog Rock with My Morning Jacket , melding together some Neo-Soul sounds with Monsters of Folk , covering classic George Harrison tunes, or gettin' Funky with The Roots and Erykah Badu ... Jim James has been quietly fine-tuning a loose concept album called Regions of Light and Sound of God . James essentially based the album around a 1929 woodcut book titled Gods' Man , which he managed to morph into a "hazy dream that a fully-realized android or humanoid capable of thought might have when it reminisces about the good ol' days of just being a simple robot." Once he's done touring behind Regions, Jim James plans to re-group with his fellow My Morning Jacket bandmates in April or May to start work[ing] on their upcoming seventh studio album. Jim James self-produced the bulk of his solo record and played nearly every instrument on it; Effortlessly sprinkling in bits of Americana , Jazz-Funk, Disco ,...