With its new Orient Apple flavor, Absolut combines crisp apple sweetness with ginger spice. It’s a fusion we’re so enamored with that we created a soundtrack for it. Our Perfect Fusion compilation features an equally inspired blend of artists and sounds — and the whole thing is yours for free.
It includes UK folk-pop darling Emmy the Great, Aussie psych upstarts Cloud Control, and our latest tropical crushes, ChuCha Santamaria y Usted, plus mainstays like TV on the Radio, Bon Iver, and UNKLE. Check out the mixtape now and treat yourself to a taste of Orient Apple. Click through for the full track list and your free download.
1. Thanks to our friends at the Public Art Fund, a shiny, life-size statue of Andy Warhol by Rob Pruitt went up yesterday afternoon in front of his old Factory studio in Union Square. We think he’d approve. [via Gothamist]
2. Watch a 30-second teaser trailer for TV on the Radio’s movie Nine Types of Light— a companion piece to their album of the same name which is due out next month on Interscope. [via Vulture]
3. According to Jane Lynch, her character Sue Sylvester (who has already tackled Madonna and Olivia Newton-John) will channel David Bowie in an upcoming episode of Glee; we’re hoping this somehow involves a Ziggy Stardust-inspired tracksuit. [via TV Squad]
4. Has HBO cancelled In Treatment? Not exactly. While there will be no fourth season of the show in its current format, Deadline is reporting that it may continue on in “a new incarnation,” keeping Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) but ditching everything else.
5. PETA has asked the city of San Francisco to rename the Tenderloin neighborhood with something more “appropriate.” Their suggestion? The Tempeh District, because “the city deserves a neighborhood named after a delicious cruelty-free food instead of the flesh of an abused animal.” [via Gawker]
If you didn’t manage to make down to Austin this week, we have just the thing to fill the gap in your concert-marathon-free life. That’s right: a mixtape! But not just any mixtape. This week we’ve got some hotly anticipated songs from Lil B and Mac Miller, plus some delicious hints of albums to come from TV on the Radio and Junior Boys. Prepare yourself for the next Texas invasion, right click + “Save As” to download individual tracks, and, as always, scroll to the bottom of the post to snag the whole mixtape at once. Bon appetit!
1. After much speculation about where he’d land, word is that Keith Olbermann will be heading to Current TV, Al Gore’s cable channel, and Vulture has got the scoop: “According to a source at the network, Olbermann’s deal would give him a show and equity in the network. The deal is expected to be formally announced at a planned conference call Tuesday morning.”
2. TV on the Radio, who have been enjoying a year-long hiatus, just announced that their new album, which is called Nine Types of Light, is coming out on Interscope in the spring. They’re also playing a show at Radio City Music Hall on April 13.
3. Did you realize that Christopher Guest directed that controversial Tibet-related Groupon ad that ran during the Super Bowl, and that it was meant to be a joke? [via AV Club]
4. Get your first glimpse of Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. [via Deadline]
5. After waiting in vain for Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark to finally open, most papers have decided to go ahead and run their reviews today — and it ain’t pretty. Check out what critics at the New York Times, Newsday, New York Post, the Daily News, the LA Times, and the Washington Post all have to say.
[Editor's note: For the next two Fridays, Flavorwire will be counting down our 20 most popular features of 2010. This post, which originally ran on January 19, 2010, comes in at position number 16.] Inspired by Lauren Leto’s “Stereotyping People By Their Favorite Author,” we realized the incredible potential for a mercilessly judgmental list of indie band stereotypes. It is a common fact that Cormac McCarthy readers are men who don’t eat cream cheese, but what about those who listen to The XX on repeat and The Flaming Lips on hallucinogens? They need labels, too. After the jump, in collaboration with contributor Jeff Luppino-Esposito, we lay down the reckless assumptions.
It may seem difficult to imagine now, but Brooklyn hasn’t always been a world-famous hub of independent music. In fact, it was only in the late ’90s, as artists and musicians began to cross the bridge to Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and beyond that it became the mecca it is today.
Photographer Emily Wilson was there to see the borough’s music scene rise to international renown, and her debut book, Grand and Lorimer: Brooklyn’s Art and Music Scene 1998-2005, provides an inside glimpse into that exciting time. Featuring delightfully spontaneous photos of everyone from crossover sensations like Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio to more experimental bands such as Liars and Black Dice, the book is a record of North Brooklyn’s glory days — when artists could still afford to live there, and before every other building was half-empty high-rise. Click through for a gallery of photos from Grand and Lorimer, one of which, improbably enough, features Marilyn Manson. The book comes out November 20th, and New Yorkers can stop by Pete’s Candy Store between 4-7pm the same day for the release party.
TV on the Radio’s David Andrew Sitek indulges his dancier side with Maximum Balloon, a collaborative project featuring vocals from Karen O, David Byrne, and Theophilus London.
The eponymous album also includes appearances by Sitek’s bandmates Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone, but he keeps things clear of darker TVotR territory by lacing the tracks with bright, dance-floor ready beats and bleeps. As with most multi-vocalist undertakings, the results vary with the contributors themselves, but Sitek’s skill as a producer shines throughout.
The blizzards in New York and Chicago might have moved on, but the streets are nowhere close to being cleared of snow. Looking out the window of the Flavorpill offices, we’re suddenly nostalgic for times when a constant blur of bicycles would whiz by below, delivery boys and commuters alike pedaling freely toward their destination.
Taking a recommendation from our @flavorpill Twitter followers, we’ve compiled a playlist of the best songs about bicycling, perfect for a commute, reminding you to get out and ride once the big melt is over. Or use it as fodder for imagining Anthony Kiedis or Tom Waits cruising along on a ten speed. Either way.
With their fifth album, trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack return to their roots, delivering a brooding song cycle with contributions from Damon Albarn, Hope Sandoval, and TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe.
Other guests on the album include Elbow frontman Guy Garvey, Martina Topley-Bird, and longtime collaborator Horace Andy. Additionally, Heligoland marks the return of original member Grant “Daddy G” Marshall to the fold, helping the group re-discover the energy that made 1997′s Mezzanine a high-water mark for its field.
