Mikal Cronin has finally escaped the clutches of Fuzz-Boy Ty Segall and is making his name known in the musical world with this year’s album MKII. Check out below his performance of Change last night on Conan.  We could still go for less fuzz-guitar (which is wasteful, overbearing and obfuscatory in the middle of the Conan performance).  Make sure you hang in for the post-fuzz string-embellished finale!

Moby has today released a haunting video for new song A Case For Shame, which is the first track to be released from his impending new album Innocents (releasing on October 1st).  Both the song and video involved collaboration with the multi-talented Canadian Cold Specks.  The video is Moby’s directorial debut and was shot by him at his home in Los Angeles. It features the masked characters from the album cover, Cold Specks and Moby himself under water.  Moby writes further about the song and video as follows:

“the video has a specific meaning for me, but i’m hesitant to say what that is, as it might have a very specific meaning to you, and it’s completely open to anyone’s subjective interpretation. just because i made it doesn’t mean that my interpretation of it is the right one. i’d love to hear what you think of it and what your interpretation is.

oh, and it goes without saying, but it’s certainly not a big, commercial video… it’s an experimental video, inspired by some of my early heroes of experimental film, like jack smith (who also inspired fellini and andy warhol, so i guess at the very least i’m in good company in citing jack smith as an inspiration, even if i’m clearly not fellini or andy warhol…)”

Bodes extremely well for Innocents, which you can pre-order HERE.  In addition to Cold Specks, other collaborators on the new album include Wayne Coyne, Mark Lanegan, and Damien Jurado.

The song’s lyrics follow the video.

Lyrics:

“Cut off your nose
To spite your face
Slowly send your palms away

Draw fire crawl out
And seek the shade
Slowly send your palms away

A fine line will set you apart
Swallow my name, swallow it down
Sing me a song

Shoot the breeze
Shake my hand
across the fire, I caught your stare

Sing me a song
you today

A beacon will send you home

A fine line will set you apart
Swallow my name, swallow it down
Sing me a song.
Shoot the breeze
Shake my hand
across the fire, I caught your stare
Sing me a song
You today
Cut off your nose
to spite your face
Slowly send your palms away
I heard you say
I will not shame
You today”

As we reported last week, LA’s Rhye is garnering gobs of deserved attention for their song Open and their debut album Woman.  Neo-soul/jazz at its finest.  Now comes a video of the band performing Open live at the Fortress studio in Los Angeles, but mixed with a video montage from their recent tour overseas.  Check it out below.  Rhye will play the following West Coast shows in August: Aladdin Theater in Portland on 8/7 and San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival in Golden Gate Park on 8/9.

Up-and-coming Seattle band Pickwick brings their subversive-soul sounds tonight to Soho in their Santa Barbara debut (courtesy of Club Mercy). Pickwick is out touring in support of their critically-acclaimed first album Can’t Talk Medicine. Erudite and aspirational songwriter-singer Galen Disston heads Pickwick’s modern soul-rock review, and is rightly renowned for the intensity of his stage performances.  To get a better feel for the band, check out below various vignettes of them this year from Hear Ya and the Lawrence High School Class Room Series.  And then get yourself on down to Soho. And see if you can clap along as well as the Lawrence High School students in the second video below.  Hot fun in the summertime indeed.  Get your tickets HERE.

Last night LA’s The Neighbourhood showed up on Conan and played their break-out track Sweater Weather (off their debut album I Love You).  Check it out below, but hold the sweaters.

One of our favorite soul-revivalists, Charles Bradley (aka “The Screaming Eagle of Soul”) and the stalwart Extraordinaires (formerly the Menahan Street Band) recently checked in to KUTX Studios and performed new song Confusion.  The beauty of Bradley is he may look and sound throwback (James Brown the most obvious touchstone), but he brings a uniquely keen sensibility and a hard-fought hardness to the musical surroundings, and never keeps you in the dark as to where his heart and soul lie.  Confusion is from Bradley’s new critically-acclaimed album, Victim of Love.  The song obviously has roots in The Temptations’ 1970 hit Ball of Confusion, (which you can listen to at bottom), but Bradley gives the state of affairs a more personal spin that is unrelentingly captivating.  Bravo Mr. Bradley!

Watch and listen below as national treasures Preservation Hall Jazz Band perform Dear Lord (Give Me Strength) live on KEXP.  The song is from their just-released album That’s It.

English sensations Alt-J have taken the world and America by storm.  To prove it, yesterday the band released their concert documentary An American Wave, which was filmed at The Midland Theatre in Kansas City, as directed by Julian Acosta.  Check out this fantastic young band below paying homage to Kansas City in An American Wave, and get out and buy their awesome album, An Awesome Wave.

Yesterday The Kinks’ mastermind Ray Davies and band performed a set of hall-of-fame songs at the British Summer Time Festival in Hyde Park, London. Check out below as Davies (and audience) perform two of the best songs ever written, Sunny Afternoon and Waterloo Sunset.

LA’s Local Natives have gone global and seem to fit in well wherever they wander. Last month the band played the Optimus Primavera Sound Festival in Porto, Portugal. Check out La Blogotheque’s Take-Away Show below of the band and their ethereal harmonies performing songs Wooly Mammoth and Ceilings in the streets and alleyways of Porto.  Beware: gratuitous mammoth visuals.  There may be some overdubbing here, but nonetheless impressive (particularly on Ceilings beginning at 5:15).