To celebrate 30 years of Depeche Mode, their fans worldwide try to bring Depeche Mode’s first single “Dreaming Of Me” back into the charts. Come on and support them!
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… and facebook event
Title:
Palaces Of Montezuma
Label:
Mute Records
Cat#:
MUTE449
Release Date:
14th March 2011
Format:
Vinyl & digital
Tracklist:
01. Palaces Of Montezuma (Cenzo Mix)
02. Palaces Of Montezuma (Barry Adamson Remix)
03. Palaces Of Montezuma (Album Version)
04. When My Baby Comes (Cat’s Eyes With Luke Tristram)
Info :
Palaces of Montezuma, the new single from Grinderman, will be released in March 2011. The track is the third single to be taken from the album Grinderman 2, which has been widely acclaimed as one of the top albums of 2010. Palaces of Montezuma will be available as a download and 12’’.
Grinderman have been invited to perform as special guests at the UK’s first “I’ll Be Your Mirror” event. Co-curated by Portishead and All Tomorrow’s Parties, the event takes place at Alexandra Palace on Sunday 24th July 2011.
Tickets are on sale at http://www.atpfestival.com
Having recently finished touring the US, Grinderman will be heading to Australia and New Zealand in January to play The Big Day Out Festival as well their own headline shows in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
A new video for the track Evil, directed by John Hillcoat can be seen at http://www.grinderman.com. Hillcoat’s video for Grinderman’s Heathen Child was recently nominated for The J Award Video of the Year (Triple J station in Australia).
Grinderman are Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos.
Listen:
“Palaces Of Montezuma (Album Version)”
“When My Baby Comes (Cat’s Eyes With Luke Tristram Remix)”
“Palaces Of Montezuma (Barry Adamson Remix)”
Buy:
MuteBank (vinyl)
Rough Trade (vinyl)
7Digital (digital)
iTunes (digital)
Amazon UK (digital)
Amazon GER (digital)
more soon
Websites:
Grinderman
Mute Records
Title:
Last Of The Country Gentlemen
Label:
Mute Records
Cat#:
STUMM326
Release Date:
14th March 2011
Format:
CD, Vinyl & digital
Tracklist:
CD1-01. Thou Art Loosed
CD1-02. Sweetheart I Ain’t Your Christ
CD1-03. Woman, When I’ve Raised Hell
CD1-04. Honeymoon’s Great! Wish You Were Her
CD1-05. Sorry With A Song
CD1-06. Country Dumb
CD1-07. Drive Her Out
CD2-01. Sweetheart I Ain’t Your Christ (Electric Version)
CD2-02. Woman, When I’ve Raised Hell (Electric Version)
CD2-03. Sorry With A Song (Alternative Version)
CD2-04. Sweetheart I Ain’t Your Christ (Electric Instrumental Version)
CD2-05. Woman, When I’ve Raised Hell (Electric Instrumental Version)
Bonus-01. Woman, When I’ve Raised Hell (Electric Version)
Vinyl-07 Last Of The Country Gentlemen
Track Bonus-01 is digital-only for UK. CD2 is extra stuff for Rough Trade Shop Exclusive bonus disc version is sold out. Track Vinyl-07 is vinyl-only and comes before “Drive Her Out”
Press Info:
Josh T. Pearson’s debut solo album is a collection of seven songs drawn from the lessons of what he describes as “a rough year”; songs that are personal, powerful, painful, songs that move with their honesty, that offer hope from the trials he’s suffered and survived. The songs were recorded in a Berlin studio in two nights, freshly written and committed to tape after Josh saw how they affected audiences when he played them. It is the bravest album you’ll hear in 2011.
But the story of Josh T Pearson begins a decade or so ago, several thousand miles away in Texas. It was there that the Lone Star State native formed Lift to Experience, who would cut a mesmerising double album for British label Bella Union, and perform a slew of live shows that left all who saw them changed – nights when the audience sang like choirs to their ache-laden existential hymnals, nights when their speakers burst aflame in sympathy with the deep portent of the mercurial trio’s music. So beloved by John Peel were they that he had them record three sessions in five months and were included in the Best Peel Sessions of all time.
The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads, their 2001 opus, came to Pearson fully-formed, the composer following the currents he felt guiding him to deliver what he describes today as “My own teenage symphony to God.” These crossroads were where spirituality and earthly angst collided, where Pearson led bassist Josh ‘The Bear’ Browning and drummer Andy ‘The Boy’ Young to crescendos of symphonic beauty and grand drama. Wholly earnest in their pursuit of Coltrane-esque levels of intensity and transcendence, they declared themselves “The best damn band in the whole damned land (and Texas Is The Reason)” as their sweeping, overdub-eschewing sound swelled to heroic volume. And then everything went silent. Lift to Experience vanished from the face of the Earth, leaving so much promise teasingly unfulfilled.
Josh T. Pearson describes the years that followed Lift to Experience’s dissolution as a period of “soul-searching… Music is really precious – it’s the most precious thing to me, it’s almost too precious to share. I needed to explore the world, discover some things. I just needed to grow up and be a man, you know? And I didn’t want to do that in public.”
Pearson believes a second Lift to Experience album would have brought a success to match the acclaim The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads had enjoyed. But such a prospect only increased Pearson’s growing ambivalence towards the role of “rock star” his music was seemingly cornering him into.
“Selling some records was probably the worst think that could have happened to us,” he says. “Out there in Texas, where there wasn’t anyone to hear the music, it was like art to me. There were no expectations, so we could do anything we wanted. When it became a commodity, and the idea of money got involved, and the other boys’ livelihoods were resting upon my shoulders, it sort of jumbled my head up.” A series of awful tragedies in the band-members’ private lives convinced Pearson “everything was gone on a road to Hell. If the band had continued, there would be consequences I didn’t want to be responsible for, in terms of souls.”
The group ended, and Pearson retreated as far from any kind of limelight as he could to a miniscule town deep in the heart of Texas where he took odd jobs to pay meagre rent. “I was scrubbing toilets at a church as a janitor, moving hay, doing construction work, for six dollars an hour,” he remembers. “I was volunteering at a Christian retreat centre out there, just helping how I could, fixing things and whatnot. I was making just enough to get by, and having the rest of the time to concentrate.”
In the absence of that second album, internet word of mouth built a legend around The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads, as the album continued to sell steadily to new fans with no hope of ever seeing Lift to Experience perform live. Out in the desert, however, Josh remained oblivious to his growing cult-dom. He never stopped writing music, he never stopped playing. But his new songs rarely left the bedroom where he’d pen them, and the audiences who heard him play were fellow musicians, amateurs, at guitar circles in town, where they’d strum rudimentarily through old Hank Williams tunes together, finding comfort within those chords and words.
As the decade wore on, Pearson left Texas, living in Berlin and, now, Paris. He would occasionally resurface to perform low-key but rapturously-received live shows, performing new songs and covers that would stoke anticipation that one of a series of unfinished projects might soon be released: a rumoured album of country songs, gospel covers, or the ‘Angels Vs Devils’ songs Pearson debuted during a solo tour of the UK in 2003, maybe.
But expanding his discography was not Pearson’s aim at this moment: “I played guitar live only when I had to, just for scratch, for 50 bucks here and there: ‘Blue collar’ playing, the circuit. I played Hull six times, way off ‘the grid’, to prove to myself that, as an artist, I could convince a room full of strangers that I was ‘the shit’. I say that humbly, with head bowed. I kept their attention with my complete honesty, absolute sincerity, and desperation. The material I was playing was just really painful, just kinda lost, angry stuff. There was an intensity there: this was stuff you don’t usually take out of the bedroom.”
Indeed, Pearson says he might not have recorded the songs that make up his debut solo album, had it not been for the response these songs enjoyed when he played them while touring with the Dirty Three in Ireland in December 2009. These starkly autobiographical new songs, as you can hear, speak with similar honesty, sincerity and desperation. Abandoning Lift to Experience’s widescreen wall of sound, they are sparsely arranged, Josh’s vocals and guitar lent an aching bitter-sweetness by violin accompaniment. Four of the seven songs run longer than ten minutes, because they examine the painful existential tangle of love and loss with a depth and emotional vividness not easily contained by the pop format. They are songs to be lived with and lived through, full of the pain and glory of life itself, searingly communicated by Pearson.
“I wrote these songs right everything within them was happening, singing from my own perspective,” he says, “and played them live on the Dirty Three tour because I thought it would good for me, as therapy, as something cathartic. I wouldn’t have thought of putting them out as a record, but two tough Irish blokes came up to me afterwards with tears in their eyes, moved by the songs… They were just strangers off the street, they didn’t know who the fuck I was, but they were crying. They were really tough on the outside, you could tell they wouldn’t usually do that kind of shit, but they came up and said ‘Thank you’, and let me know how moved by the music they were. And that’s when I thought that maybe it might be important to set aside my own personal feelings and put these songs out there.
“It’s funny, after all this time, to come back and release such a sad, sad record,” Pearson ponders. He’s not listened back to since it was finished, the wounds still too raw, too fresh. Still, he’s rightfully proud of the album. “I wanted it to be a record that, if I don’t put out another one for ten years, then it’s a good enough record to end on. It’s absolutely honest, full of despair. You really have to sit down and listen to it, and it takes something out of you, but it’s worth it.”
Lacerating it may well be, but it’s also the most remarkable album you will hear all year.
Last Of The Country Gentlemen is released on Mute in March 2011.
Free downloads:
The single “Country Dumb” will be the precursor for the album. Get a free paino version at www.joshtpearson.co.uk. Or download an alternative version of “Woman, When I’ve Raised Hell” at soundcloud.com.
Video:
Listen:
soon
Buy:
Mute Store (CD)
Mute Store (vinyl+cd)
Rough Trade (CD + exclusive Bonus-CD)
Rough Trade (Vinyl + exclusive Bonus-CD)
Amazon UK (CD)
Amazon UK (Vinyl)
Amazon UK (digital)
Amazon GER (CD)
Amazon GER (Vinyl)
Amazon GER (digital)
HMV (CD)
HMV (vinyl)
iTunes (digital)
7Digital (digital)
more links soon
Live dates:
23 February: The Slaughtered Lamb, London, UK
24 March: Queens Social Club, Sheffield, UK
25 March: Stereo, Glasgow, UK
26 March: The Workman’s Club, Dublin, IE
27 March: The Deaf Institute, Manchester, UK
29 March: Brighton Ballroom, Brighton, UK
30 March: Bodega, Nottingham, UK
1 April: Purcell Rooms, London, UK
4 April: Comet, Berlin, DE
5 April: Gruner Jager, Hamburg, DE
6 April: Studio 672, Cologne, Germany
7 April: Ponyhof, Frankfurt, DE
8 April: Motel Mozaique, Rotterdam, NL
9 April: Botanique – Witloof Bar, Brussels, BE
14 April: La Carene, Brest FR
15 April: Le Café de la Danse, Paris, FR
16 April: Chapelle Du Conservatoire, Rennes, FR
17 April: La Dynamo, Toulouse, FR
19 April: Le Colisée, Colmar, FR
20 April: L’Hospice D’Havré, Tourcoing, FR
Websites:
Josh T. Pearson
Mute Records
THE COMPANY WILL NOW UNITE RECORD LABEL, PUBLISHING COMPANY AND A NEW MANAGEMENT COMPANY
December 8, 2010 – New York, NY – Following the recent announcement that Mute has reached an agreement with EMI Music which sees the company, led by Daniel Miller, return to being independent, Mute now announces details of the new structure which sees the record label, publishing company and a new artist/producer management company brought together under the Mute name.
Says Daniel Miller; “I am excited about this new phase in our development. The things we value most – our relationships with artists and our desire to embrace new ideas and ways of working – can now be fully realised in a structure I have been aiming towards for some time. This is the ideal time and perfect opportunity to bring three key elements together under the Mute name”.
Angie Somerside returns to the company as Group MD, overseeing the already established record label and publishing company and will be charged with launching and running the new Mute artist management company. With her depth of experience in UK independent and major labels and as General Manager at QPrime Management UK, Angie brings a wealth of musical, marketing and management knowledge to Mute, where she actually began her career as a publicist.
Daniel Miller adds, “with Angie at the helm of the group of companies – recorded music rights, composition rights and a new artist/producer management company, I feel that we are in a great position to pool our collective experience and intelligence to best serve all aspects of our artists, writers and producers careers”.
With the launch of the new company come a host of new singings, including London five-piece S.C.U.M, Texan singer-songwriter Josh T. Pearson and Junip, featuring José González, as the first artists to sign to the invigorated company.
Alongside the new signings, Mute’s New York office is currently working with Moby, Liars, José González, M83, The Knife, Fever Ray, Erasure, Paul van Dyk, Andy Bell, Polly Scattergood, Recoil, Maps, and A Place To Bury Strangers.
A small number of artists will remain signed to and marketed by EMI Music, with Miller continuing to work with them in an A&R consultancy role with EMI.
Andrew King continues to head up the publishing company. In addition to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Grinderman and Liars, Mute represents writers such as Underworld, Juno Reactor, and Max Richter, and has recently taken on Sir Bob Geldof’s catalogue. Andrew King’s background was originally in management – he has managed Pink Floyd, The Clash and Ian Dury amongst others. Andrew will work with Angie Somerside in developing the management company within Mute. He is also Deputy Chairman of PRS for Music, and his wide knowledge of the industry will add to the new venture.
Mute’s New York office, headed by long term General Manager, Mark Fotiadis, will work closely alongside the UK company embracing both publishing and management deals. In addition, Mute has opened a new office in Germany led by Anne Haffmans, a long-time marketing director at Mute. Office space and marketing staff will be shared with Domino in the Berlin headquarters.
Since 1978, when he released the prototype electro single ‘TVOD/Warm Leatherette’ by The Normal, Daniel Miller has signed and developed an amazing array of innovative artists including Depeche Mode, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Erasure, Goldfrapp, Moby and Richard Hawley. With long term commitment to highly influential artists such as Liars, Diamanda Galás, Boyd Rice / NON, Simon Fisher Turner, Laibach and Can, Mute have shown that the guiding spirit behind their roster has always been one of artistic freedom and creative exploration.
New contact details:
US:
Mute, 330 West 38th Street, Suite 606, NY, NY 10018
Tel: 646-502-7462
UK:
Mute, 1 Albion Place, London W6 0QT
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 8600 7960
GERMANY:
Mute, Kopenhagener Straße 29 10437 Berlin
Tel: +49 30 440346 36
www.mute.com
www.mutesong.com
www.facebook.com/muterecords
Line-up:
Friday – live -:
Recoil
Nitzer Ebb
Richard H. Kirk
Carter Tutti with Nik Void
NON
The Balanescu Quartet
Pole
T.Raumschmiere
Thomas Fehlmann
Thomas Brinkmann
Komputer
Richie Hawtin with visuals by Ali Demirel
Friday – DJ -:
Daniel Miller
Moby
Richard Warren
Gudrun Gut
Barbara Preisinger
Saturday – live -:
Erasure and special guests
The Residents
Laibach
Liars
Alison Moyet (special guest)
S.C.U.M
Poppy And The Jezebels
SFT and Mira Calix
Big Deal
James Brooks
Peter Gregson
Maps and Polly Scattergood (Collaboration!)
Beth Jeans Houghton
Josh T. Pearson performing Mute songs
Richard Hawley (tbc)
Saturday – DJ -:
Martin L. Gore
Andrew Fletcher
Danny Briottet
Irmin Schmidt and Kumo play The Sound Of Can
Rex The Dog @ exclusive After show
Saturday – Films -:
Toni Schifer – “ON/OFF: Mark Stewart From Pop Group To Maffia” (2009)
Forsyth&Pollard – “‘Do you love me like I love you: The Boatman’s Call'”
Saturday – Talks -:
Gareth Jones – “Fast Forward/Pause/Rewind” – on producing Mute artists
Anton Corbijn – “Mute + Vision” – a presentation
Stefan Betke aka Pole – “An introduction into the science of mastering”
Flood – “demonstrates the arts and crafts of recordings”
Friday & Saturday – Installations-:
Schneiders Buero
Flies, Guyes and Choirs
Felix’s Machines
Workshop
Dirty Electronics
On the 12th May the German label Raster-Noton will do an opening night of 2011’s Short Circuit ending with “The Raster Noton / Mute Sound Halo” (consisting of sound loops created by artists from both labels) which link the two events.
Location:
Roundhouse, London (UK)
Ticket price:
Fri 13 May – £30 (6pm-1am)
Sat 14 May – £45 (12pm-12am)
Fri & Sat – £65
Limited Premium Ticket – £100
Info:
Mute will host 2 days – 13-14 May 2011 – at London’s historic Roundhouse as part of the annual Short Circuit Electronic Music Festival.
Featuring performances and unique collaborations from Mute artists past, present and future alongside talks, workshops, screenings and installations, the occasion will celebrate Mute’s unique and influential work as a label.
Tickets go on sale on Friday 3 December and will include a limited premium ticket, which will give access to both Mute days, entry to an exclusive aftershow party, as well as specifically created Mute merchandise that will only be available with this ticket.
Tickets are priced as follows:
Fri 13 May – £30 (6pm-1am)
Sat 14 May – £45 (12pm-12am)
Fri & Sat – £65
Limited Premium Ticket – £100
Mute was founded by Daniel Miller in 1978, and since then has signed and developed some of the world’s most influential recording artists – including Depeche Mode, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Goldfrapp, Erasure, Moby and Richard Hawley – and become home to a crop of emerging talent and recent signings such as Josh T. Pearson and Liars.
Whilst maintaining a firmly eclectic roster, from the earliest days of The Normal, Fad Gadget and DAF through to the techno era with artists such as Plastikman / Richie Hawtin and Speedy J, and to the present day with hybrid electronic artists such as Yeasayer and S.C.U.M, the label has always been a champion of electronic music.
Mute also looks after a catalogue of seminal electronic artists such as Can, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and Kraftwerk.
Short Circuit pays tribute to the key Pioneers of Electronic Music, recent festivals have hosted performances from artists such as the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Holger Zukav, John Foxx, Jeff Mills and Gavin Briars.
Listen:
Exclusvie merchandising:
Mute just announced 2 new releases available to buy exclusively at the Short Circuit presents Mute festival.
So there will be the 2 artist compilations “Konnecting” by I Start Counting/Fortran 5/Komputer and “This Is The Balanescu Quartet” by Balanescu Quartet. They are the first two of a series of compilations looking at the versatile and creative works of various MUTE luminaries. The compilations are remastered and compiled by the artists. The two compilations will not be released officially until August 2011 but it is possible to buy them on 13 and 14 May.
Additionally there is an exclusive pressing of the first ever Mute records – The Normal “Warm Leatherette” – in white vinyl and a special 10″ by Peter Gregson.
Running order:
(click for details)
‘Early Bird’ Prize Draw:
It is really worth to be early. On Saturday everyone who arrives before 1.30pm will be entered into a prize draw to win one of the following things.
Mute’s boss Daniel Miller will announce the winner at 2pm personally.
1st Prize – An exclusive MUTE synth
2nd Prize – 1x Traktor Pro 2 Software
3rd Prize – 5x Mute@ Short Circuit gift collection.
Order:
@Roundhouse
Download announcement:
#1 @mute.com
#2 @mute.com
Websites:
Mute Records
Roundhouse
Mute’s Short Circuit blog
