Vinyl Artist Update: Lake Inferior Bring the Free Download
Lake Inferior
Now that the end of the academic year is upon us, it would serve everyone well to take a look at what Vinyl Records recording artists Lake Inferior are up to. In the past few months, they’ve gone from self-recording tracks in their house to releasing the Lake Inferior EP with VR and being profiled on the national music website Aquarium Drunkard. Even though no one seems to be able to describe what Lake Inferior sounds like (there are, like, synths and pop and indie stuff, but not indie synth-pop), the band has still been a hit both in the local scene and the national scene. There are Youtube videos of teenage girls from California singing “Spiders” into the camera. The 30-year-old guy with mutton chops who always wears the Polvo t-shirt and works at the record store down the street raves about “Landlocked Surf Rock.” Lake Inferior’s audience is as all-encompassing as their style.
This summer, the band looks to test out that appeal on their East Coast tour, starting in Georgia and going up to New York. After that, it’s back to North Carolina to work on songs and eventually make the next Lake Inferior record, to be released next year. Talk around the office is that the band might even have a limited edition 7″ in the pipeline. The next year for Lake Inferior should be a fruitful one.
However, before any of that happens, LI will be playing at Local 506 on Thursday, May 7th. The night will be the EP release show for Aminal, with Schooner also performing. All three acts are well worth any trouble or money it takes to see them, so be there and be early, because we all know what happened the last time a Vinyl artist was playing an EP release at 506. Line stretching a block away, and people not getting to see Lake Inferior, that’s what.
Check out below, where we’ve got three free mp3′s from Lake Inferior: “Spiders” and “How the Wars are Won” from the Lake Inferior EP, and a live recording of “(I Have) Night Terrors.” Enjoy!
Lake Inferior – Spiders
Lake Inferior – How the Wars are Won
Lake Inferior – (I Have) Night Terrors (Live)
Vinyl Artist Update: Lafcadio w/ free downloads!
Lafcadio arrived on UNC’s campus with the voracity of a lion last September, quickly signed on as one of Vinyl Records’ inaugural artists. With boots made for walking all over anything that came in their way, Lafcadio immediately found themselves as part of the fierce vanguard of up-and-coming Chapel Hill musical talent–twang, vests, sultry vocals, and the kind of alt country that spans the entire gamut from KT Tunstall to Uncle Tupelo, with all the blues, soul, and balladeers you can think of in between.
Most recently, the band that shot back was spotted performing a primetime Thursday night slot at Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival to a wildly entertained audience consisting of members of the Holy Ghost Tent Revival and many a Cheerwine enthusiat. Soon after, the band graced the stage of music.mync.com’s Studio B for a live webcast available here to check out if you haven’t done so already. There’s no point in whispering once the Lion has growled.
After a May 9th show at The Cave, summertime will inevitably find Lafcadio going their separate ways only to reunite in August with new songs in preparation for their yet-to-be-titled sophomore Vinyl Records release. Be on the look out for a sound with more southern-fried fixins than ever before, with maybe even a hint of Jameson and Bailey’s to match as guitarist and one of the band’s songwriters Ryan Dowdy makes his way into the potato-famined lands of Ireland to study folk music during Lafcadio’s summer hiatus.
Don’t forget to check out the final Lafcadio performance for the next couple of months this SATURDAY MAY 9th at THE CAVE, and feel free to snatch up a few free downloads the good folks over at Vinyl Records have been able to muster up for your aural pleasure. Songs include the second single, “Seven Leagues” off of their debut EP, as well as two live tracks from January’s sold-out album release party at Local 506, titled “Nowhere to Fall” and a cover of “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.” Do download, and do share with friends.
Seven Leagues
Nowhere to Fall (live)
Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair
Download ‘Spiders’ by Lake Inferior Now!
album release party 1/30 at Local 506, doors 8pm
Here it is – the first true Vinyl Records song available to the public! Lake Inferior’s debut EP will be available for purchase in one week, but we thought we’d offer everyone who reads the Vinyl Press blog the first single – “Spiders” – as a free download. Tracks from Lafcadio and Apollo should be posted for download by the end of the weekend, so check for them as well.
If you like what you hear, please come out to the CD Release Showcase at Local 506 on January 30th and buy the album. We’ll have a Paypal account set up to order from this site as well, and all Vinyl Records releases should be available through iTunes and Amazon in digital format by early spring.
Without further ado,
- Matt Poindexter
Weekend Web Review: Unusual
The buzz on the net this weekend was a bit different than the standard fare. Sure, it was about leaked tracks and interesting cover versions, but the hype extends beyond that this week, specifically because of their owners. One of the two tracks spotlighted here was highly anticipated, while one wasn’t at all.
Probably the most highly-anticipated single cut in some time, “Another Way to Die” is the theme song by Jack White & Alicia Keys for the newest installation in the James Bond empire, Quantum of Solace. The recording at the bottom of the page was ripped from a Spanish-language radio program, so there is some talking at the end and it is a low-quality recording. What I find rather interesting, besides the Bondian horns and strings, is the call and response bridge. I saw it as a terrible attempt to do the Led Zeppelin, blues guitar line/vocal response, Jimmy Page & Robert Plant thing. And it came out laughably bad. Besides that, the song is stock Bond theme, and will do fine. I’m sure it will sound epic when they perform it onstage at the Oscars or Grammys or Superbowl or wherever things like this are performed onstage.
The other song for this week could be seen as the complete antithesis of the White & Keys duet. “All is Full of Love” was on Bjork’s landmark 1997 album Homogenic. So, who better to do a cover of a revolutionary Icelandic IDM song that made people rethink how string arrangements fitted in electronic music? Bitone, that’s who. Bitone is a Ugandan children’s center that provides hope for kids, many of the orphans. The way Bitone reimagines the electronic sound textures in “All is Full of Love” is quite impressive. They even maintain the same haunting sadness of the original. Watch the video from the original, then go listen to the cover.
Weekend Web Review: The Hype Machine
I should start off by saying that I love mp3 blogs. I love listening to electronic remixes of deceased country musicians, obscure covers of my favorite songs, and the newly leaked song by today’s best musicians. The best mp3 blogs can be like finding a dollar sometimes. And if they can be like stumbling over a dollar bill, then what does that make The Hype Machine? The answer: like finding Fort Knox.
The Hype Machine is the alpha and omega of Internet mp3 searching. Along with Elbows, The Hype Machine is a blog aggregator, making it easy for users to search and collect the hottest and most obscure tracks to be posted on music blogs from the Internet.
I’ve found The Hype Machine to be extremely helpful at finding out what has been most popular among music fans on the Internet that might not have been covered in the mainstream. The top track at The Hype Machine over the past week? Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown,” expected to appear on his next LP, 808′s and Heartbreaks, due December 16th. That is why The Hype Machine is so great – giving the masses the next Kanye jam months in advance.
Now, some of my favorite tracks pulled from this week’s additions to The Hype Machine.
Johnny Cash – “Straight A’s in Love [Troublermaker Remix]“
Panda Riot (covering MIA) – “Paper Planes”
Take care, and enjoy the weekend. Look for more here from all at Vinyl Records soon!
- Matt
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