Welcome to Radio Kurtodrome in its brand new format. A lot of new stuff has been released in the month and a half our lives were so busy we couldn't cram in an update that it's high time we'd bring you up to date.
Suggested playlist:
CODEX MACHINE - Man vs. Monkey
LISTEN WITH SARAH - Drum 'n' Berceuse
GOGOL BORDELLO - Supertheory of Supereverything
BLONDE REDHEAD - Top Ranking
SPOON - The Ghost of You Lingers
We love getting promotional copies in our mail and occasionally they even manage to get our pulse raising. Case in point: Codex Machine, the latest release on Womb Records. The 12" EP Man vs Monkey consists of 4 tracks, all sample-loving breakbeats. While the title track is very enjoyable, the fourth track You can never escape the underground made it straight to our heart. It's not often you get an EP where all four tracks are equally good, but this Codex Machine release hits the bullseye. Expect a diverse source of samples (from Bollywood to reggae) served with a highly addictive sauce of breakbeats and you know what Codex Machine tastes like.
Right now you can only hear two snippets from earlier releases ('Love Requiem' and 'Crunch') on the band's site, but then there's their MySpace where you can get a taste of "S.P.Y" and the title track "Man vs. Monkey".
You can also stream 'Man vs. Monkey' on the Womb Records site.
Speaking of Womb Records, you may remember Listen with Sarah from earlier episodes of Radio Kurtodrome (in earlier webforms or during our brief stint as online DJs - if you were our one and only listener, please contact us). Sarah is the wife of Peter Nelson (a.k.a. Womb Records) and you may be wondering how Sarah is doing anno 2007. (And if you weren't, we sure were.) The answer is just fine and there's even some proof of that. My Little Hula Girl is the latest Listen with Sarah release and contains three tracks: "My Little Hula Girl (WWW remix)", the enchanting "Animal Boum" (a mélange of animals sounds and the classic track 'Boum') plus the wonderful "Drum 'n' Berceuse" (which may just be our favourite LWS track so far).
You can get the EP on vinyl from Cherryade Records, or - if you're that sort of person (and, if you're reading this, chances are high you are that sort of person) - get it in MP3 format from IndieStore.
If our word for it doesn't suffice, you can always listen to the tracks yourself before buying them. The three tracks are all streamed in full on the Listen With Sarah site.
Speaking of bringing you up to date, have you heard about Gogol Bordello? They've been touring quite a number of festivals and the response is quite good. Their new album is called Super Taranta and is out on July 10 or 27 (depending on where you live). We've already heard it and it's lots of fun. Our favourite track is Supertheory of Supereverything. The band played an acoustic session of it on Pinkpop (see below), but there's also an MP3 which we don't want you to miss out on (just follow the link).
If you read our website, you'll have noticed the latest video of Blonde Redhead being posted there. The song is called 'Top Ranking' and you can find it on the band's new album 23.
Blonde Redhead have been touring Europe and their Belgian passage was quite nice. A pity they only came to a big festival: we really wanted to see more of them. And while the concert was nice, without the loudness of la Winehouse at the other stage we're pretty sure the concert would've been even better. As it is, we'll give it 7.5/10 and we'll focus on the new video.
The woman you'll see posing is called Miranda July. She is the director of the movie You and Me and Everyone We Know. (But not the director of this video, that's Mike Mills.) 'Top Ranking' proves one thing: we weren't too enthusiastic about 23 (the album, not the song) when we first heard it, but it's starting to grow. We don't think it'll ever rival Misery is a Butterfly, but then again, few albums can.
Enough talk, here's the latest Blonde Redhead video:
Tell me, have we run of out of good album titles? The latest Spoon release is called Ga ga ga ga ga. We'll just call it 'the new Spoon album' then. The album is quite nice and the sparse money you've left after visiting all those festivals could be spent worse than on 'the new Spoon album'. Speaking of festivals, Spoon is touring the US from July to October, but will appear on several European festivals in mid August. If you're European and there's big alternative concert in your area, better check if Spoon aren't playing and don't forget to visit them there.
The band's site is pretty much empty right now, so we headed off to their MySpace, where you could at least listen to two tracks of the new album: 'The Underdog' and 'The Ghost of You Lingers'.
The new track 'The Ghost of You Lingers' is even accompanied by a video, which mainly proves you shouldn't let Spoon too close to your piano. Watch out for some lovely distortion at the end of the track.
That is it for this episode, we'll return to you very shortly. Ta-dà!
