Wild Beasts have been confirmed as the headline act at this year's Beacons Festival. Organisers of the annual music event, which takes place from August 17 until 19 at Funkirk Estate in the Yorkshire Dales, recently announced that Jessie Ware and Frankie and the Heartstrings will also be playing at the festival. The Beacons Festival Twitter page read: "We are more than delighted to announce that the incredible Mercury Prize Nominees @WildBeasts will be our Saturday night headliner!" The band later took to their page on the microblogging site, writing: "We're late in announcing this, but we're playing the new, excellent Beacons festival this year @Beaconsfest." The event will also feature acts such as Junior Boys, Errors, Factory Floor, Jane Coles and Roots Manuva. Last year's Beacons Festival was (more)...
- 3/19/2012
- by By Rebecca Davies
- Digital Spy
Dear Sos reader/listenership:
With Christmas approaching, and with Sound on Sight turning three years old (and yes, I know Iceage are pictured above holding four candles – deal with it), I thought it appropriate to create a “present” of sorts to thank everyone for their support, attention, and feedback. Earlier this year, partially thanks to my involvement with Sos (and the associated time commitments), I decided I had to step down from my volunteer position at Cjlo 1690Am here in Montreal, where I had been maintaining a weekly music show for several years – but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped keeping tabs on what I consider to be the best music of the year. So, in order to keep one foot in the music world, I started keeping a longlist of my favorite new tracks, with the ultimate goal of making a kickass year-end mix for you all.
Which I’ve now done!
With Christmas approaching, and with Sound on Sight turning three years old (and yes, I know Iceage are pictured above holding four candles – deal with it), I thought it appropriate to create a “present” of sorts to thank everyone for their support, attention, and feedback. Earlier this year, partially thanks to my involvement with Sos (and the associated time commitments), I decided I had to step down from my volunteer position at Cjlo 1690Am here in Montreal, where I had been maintaining a weekly music show for several years – but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped keeping tabs on what I consider to be the best music of the year. So, in order to keep one foot in the music world, I started keeping a longlist of my favorite new tracks, with the ultimate goal of making a kickass year-end mix for you all.
Which I’ve now done!
- 12/11/2011
- by Simon Howell
- SoundOnSight
Despite sharing their name with the term celebrity journalists apply to anyone who's ever been in television or film, the band Stars has carved out a large following. Anyone familiar with the Canadian band's blend of soothing melodies and haunting lyrics knows why: There are simply very few acts with male and female vocalists as well-matched as Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell.
The music that Stars has been making over the past decade is spare and nimble, intimate yet incredibly tense. In interviews with The Huffington Post, Campbell and Millan described their sound and looked back over 10 years full of albums and tours.
"I think we're interested in space in music," Campbell said. "We're trying to make something that simultaneously feels cold and distant and intimate or secretive, like some secret you happen upon."
The band is currently writing and recording at Mount Zoomer studios in Montreal, where Wolf Parade...
The music that Stars has been making over the past decade is spare and nimble, intimate yet incredibly tense. In interviews with The Huffington Post, Campbell and Millan described their sound and looked back over 10 years full of albums and tours.
"I think we're interested in space in music," Campbell said. "We're trying to make something that simultaneously feels cold and distant and intimate or secretive, like some secret you happen upon."
The band is currently writing and recording at Mount Zoomer studios in Montreal, where Wolf Parade...
- 7/27/2011
- by Kia Makarechi
- Huffington Post
If Junior Boys’ fourth album It’s All True proves anything, it’s that the Ontarian, indie-electro originals will never be fully defrosted. Their stealthy, dampened beat-work has kept them remarkably suave in a subgenre that generally softens up to a dorkier demographic – and seven years since Last Exit the band is as frigidly unflappable as ever, progressing nicely through their expected idiosyncrasies, while continuing to sound effortlessly and solitarily cool....
- 6/16/2011
- Pastemagazine.com
Junior Boys’ fourth album, It’s All True, caps the blue-eyed electro-soul outfit’s metamorphosis into a duo whose electronic pop is composed for the bedroom rather than in it. The deep bass synth that opens “Itchy Fingers” screams slinky seduction, and as the fidgety pulse quickens, Jeremy Greenspan’s breathy vocals leave little room for interpretation as to where things are heading. Fittingly, “Playtime” follows, dimming the lights via a syrupy slow mix of glistening synth and goopy keys. The track’s resonant spaciousness feels like a clear nod to James Blake, but the castoff, undone-collar vibes are pure ...
- 6/14/2011
- avclub.com
“Banana Ripple” is the epic, and unusually upbeat, 9-minute closer and lead single from the excellent new Junior Boys album, It’s All True. The Canadian synth-pop duo have been steadily churning out solid late-night jams for nearly a decade now, and their fourth album finds them at their most accessible without missing out on their distinctive air of melancholy. Here’s a surprisingly great fan edit set to, of all things, Jorodowsky:...
- 5/27/2011
- by Simon Howell
- SoundOnSight
Summer is our favorite season. Unfortunately, we love to soak up the lethal sun rays during these months. But fortunately, we also get to catch an endless amount of bands on their summer tour. With every good, there is a bad and summer is no different. Here goes one of our first summer tour announcements. Montreal producer Miracle Fortress, also known as Graham Van Pelt, has announced a North American tour with Junior Boys in support of his sophomore album, Was I The Wave? , which drops on May 17th via Secret City Records. Build up Miracle Fortress tour and album excitement by listening to the recently released Pantha du...
- 4/27/2011
- by lonnie
- ShockYa
M.I.A. wants to get people dancing to newly announced radio single "Xxxo," but I kinda only feel like shrugging. In a way, it's appropriate that the multi-talented songwriter issued a number of disses toward pop stars like Lady Gaga a few months ago, as if to set the stage and to roll the red carpet out for her own entry into The Club. "Xxxo" has a cold, rough-edged electronica approach, with the chorus boasting a catchy, looping vocal sample (which sounds copped, but is apparently original?). It's got the perfect Bpm, the deep-lung bass sound, a bit like the Junior Boys...
- 5/11/2010
- Hitfix
It's a rare feat for a song from 1980 to rocket up to No. 1 on a Billboard chart in, say, 2010, but Yoko Ono's "Give Me Something" has done just that. It sat at the top spot on the Dance Club Play songs chart for one week last week (only to be replaced this week by... Blake Lewis?). A track that originally clocked in at just over 1:30, "Give Me Something" had Canadian electronica geniuses Junior Boys' paws all over it to make it a full 4:52 -- and it still manages to sound like there's a lot going on....
- 4/16/2010
- Hitfix
2009 is coming to a close, which means it's time to look back on some of the best songs, albums, artists and moments that passed through our collective consciousness in the past 365 days. Stay tuned for more insights from the folks here at MTV News (including James Montgomery's list of the 25 best songs of the year), but we begin our 2009 retrospective with the answer to this week's MTV Newsroom poll question: What was the best concert you saw in 2009? Check out what the staff thought below, and let us know what your best live show was in the comments.
Sabrina Rojas Weiss
After missing many chances to see the Beastie Boys in the past two decades, I was super excited to finally see them at All Points West this year. Then McA had to go and get cancer. But as consolation prizes go, Jay-z wasn't too shabby, especially after we'd...
Sabrina Rojas Weiss
After missing many chances to see the Beastie Boys in the past two decades, I was super excited to finally see them at All Points West this year. Then McA had to go and get cancer. But as consolation prizes go, Jay-z wasn't too shabby, especially after we'd...
- 12/9/2009
- by Kyle Anderson
- MTV Newsroom
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