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10 MP3s You Need to Download for Free This Week: Atoms for Peace, Angel Haze

By Tom Hawking on

It’s Friday, which means that we’re eating cold pizza and drinking beer at midday, and also that it’s time for another installment of our regular roundup of downloadable MP3 goodness from around the web. This week the Chromatics-fest continues with a cover of New Order’s “Ceremony,” and there’s also a new song from Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace project, if you’re clever enough to find the download link. Elsewhere, there’s the thoroughly welcome return of Flavorpill faves Radar Bros, a new (and relatively upbeat) Angel Haze song, pretty electronic textures from Mountains, new stuff from Beach Fossils and YACHT, Dan Deacon apeing Girl Talk, and a pretty ace mixtape from Johnny Jewel. Since all this costs precisely nothing, what are you waiting for? Click through and get a-downloadin’! … Read More

Music

10 MP3s You Need to Download for Free This Week: Chromatics, Hype Williams

By Tom Hawking on

It’s Friday, which means that another week is over — cue wild cheers! — and also that it’s time for another installment of our regular roundup of downloadable MP3 goodness from around the web. This week there’s a new track from the ever-prolific Johnny Jewel and Chromatics, along with Hype Williams’ suitably strange tour EP, various material from Australia, covers of varying quality from Wall and Nite Jewel, our very own Silent Drape Runners getting all Christmas-y, and various other action as well. Since all this costs precisely nothing, what are you waiting for? All the download links await after the jump. … Read More

Music

The 15 Best Musical Reissues of 2012

By Tom Hawking on

For some reason, the end-of-year listomania is starting early this year — the Guardian has begun its best-of-2012 list already, and we’re sure others will soon be following suit. In the spirit of getting onto getting onto such things ahead of time, then, we thought we’d commence our own end-of-year listing this week with a look at the best of reissues of 2012. In any case, it seems an appropriate time to be looking at reissues, because this month sees the (re-)release of Massive Attack’s classic 1991 debut Blue Lines, an album which we’re very excited to be able to get on nice heavy vinyl. So her are our picks of other reissues we hope you were laying your hands on during 2012. As ever, we’d be interested to hear your additions in the comments section. … Read More

Music

10 MP3s You Need to Download for Free This Week: School of Seven Bells, Charli XCX

By Tom Hawking on

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another installment of our regular roundup of downloadable MP3 goodness from around the web. This week’s MP3 landscape is a pretty barren one, to be honest, but never fear, we’ve still found a bunch of stuff that’s worth your time and bandwidth: the return of School of Seven Bells, new tunes from Jonti, Captain Murphy, and Steve Hauschildt of Emeralds, weird soundtrack-y goodness from Yves Malone, Factory Floor remixing How to Destroy Angels, and a couple of cracking mixtapes for good measure. Since all this action costs precisely nothing, what are you waiting for? All the download links await after the jump. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. If you were as taken with this cover of New York magazine as most of the world was, here’s Dutch photographer Iwan Baan describing how he captured the stunning image. [via Poynter]

2. MTV will air a fundraising special on November 15th called Restore the Shore. The one-hour show will feature cast… Read More

Music

10 Albums You’ll Love If You Like The xx

By Tom Hawking on

The xx’s understated, minimal approach to pop music has been one of the pleasures of recent years — in an era of turning everything up to 11, it’s rather heartening to see that a band can sell a heap of records with a sound that’s built on the virtues of subtlety and restraint. Their second album, Coexist, which dropped yesterday, isn’t a dramatic departure from the template they set out on their 2009 debut — it’s a record that provides subtle refinements of their sound, and works very well in doing so. And while that sound is distinctive, it certainly isn’t unique, so we thought we’d celebrate the release of Coexist by pulling together a selection of albums that will sit nicely next to it in your record collection — albums that have informed The xx’s sound, or that we think share stylistic similarities with it. Let us know if you have any to add! … Read More

Music

10 Auto-Tune Songs That Don’t Suck

By Tom Hawking on

Cat Power’s new album Sun dropped earlier this week, and the fact that she uses Auto-Tune on the track “3, 6, 9″ has generated almost as much interest as the album itself. For an ostensibly innocuous pitch-correction effect, Auto-Tune has generated a heap of controversy over the last decade, ever since Cher introduced it to the world during the chorus of “Believe.” Much of the opprobrium directed at the use of the software is entirely justified (Hi, Eiffel 65! Hi, Chris Cornell!), but that’s not to say that every Auto-Tuned track is a priori awful — so we’ve set ourselves the challenge of finding 10 tracks that use its sound in creative or interesting ways. And for clarity’s sake, we’re discussing Auto-Tune as an audible pseudo-vocoder effect here, not as a production tweak to correct an errant vocal — otherwise every chart song since the turn of the millennium would be eligible. Anyway, let us know if we’ve missed anything. First person to suggest “Believe” or anything by T-Pain gets a lump of coal for Christmas. … Read More

Music

10 MP3s You Need to Download for Free This Week: Guided by Voices, Marissa Nadler

By Tom Hawking on

It’s Friday, and we’re back with another installment of our regular roundup of downloadable MP3 goodness from around the web. This week there’s new work from Guided by Voices, Marissa Nadler, and 2:54, along with Pond working their magic on an old Motown track, the return of awesome Australian ambient psych duo Children of the Wave, a couple of remixes, and an entire version of Chromatics’ “Kill For Love” (sans drums). In other words, there’s plenty of interesting sounds awaiting you after the jump, and since they won’t cost a penny or land you an RIAA lawsuit, as your attorneys we advise you to start downloading immediately. … Read More

Music

10 Free MP3s You Need to Download This Week

By Tom Hawking on

Regular readers will know that the Flavorpill editorial crew spends its Monday mornings scouring the web for a selection of albums that are streaming for free over the course of the week. But what of tracks you can actually download? Never fear, because as of this week we’ve got that base covered as well — every Friday, we’ll be posting a selection of the best free legal downloads to have hit the blogs over the course of the week. Rejoice! And then click through and get downloading tracks from Karen Dalton, Barry Adamson, Mark Kozelek, Chromatics, and more. … Read More

Music

Flavorpill’s Most Anticipated Albums of 2012

By Tom Hawking on

With end-of-year listomania receding and release schedules starting to get locked down for the coming year, it’s time to stop looking back and start looking forward at the the most exciting albums due out next year. We’ve started with a selection of 15 records that have definite (or pretty much definite) release dates, titles, etc. — mostly in the first three months of the year — and also included a more speculative look further forward at a selection of albums that are rumored to be dropping at some point in 2012. So far, we have to say that it’s shaping up to be an excellent year — bring on January! … Read More