Friday, May 27

Read "A Media Blitz for Cory Arcangel"

By Colin Dabkowski for the Buffalo News: Cory Arcangel, the Western New York native and Nichols School grad who has a high-profile show opening this week at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, has been all over the arts press lately. He was the subject of a long profile in this week's issue of The New Yorker, a profile and a (rather middling) review in The New York Times, another long profile in New York Magazine. Seldom has an artist "arrived" with such fanfare. And if you read all these pieces, you'll begin to see what all the fuss is about.
Locally, Arcangel's work will be on view starting on July 1 as a major part of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery's boundary-pushing exhibition "Videosphere: A New Generation," in which the gallery will showcase its small but potent collection of new media art. The show also serves as a sort of declaration by the museum of its committment to collecting new media art much more going forward.
Look for more coverage of that show -- and other interesting developments at the gallery -- as its opening approaches." 

Cory Arcangel's Beige Records performed an "art battle" with Paper Rad at Soundlab on Novemember 9, 2002.

Watch Jonathan VanDyke Do Nothing for 5 Days

From the AKAG press release: Starting on May 28, the artist Jonathan VanDyke will perform The Long Glance, a work in which he will stand and contemplate Jackson Pollock's Convergence, 1952, for forty hours over five days. VanDyke will remain in the same spot each day from 10 am to 5 pm, with only slight movements and just one twenty-minute break. Visitors are welcome to watch the artist's silent performance or view the painting alongside him. The performance will also be broadcast on the Gallery's website.
 On Friday, June 3, as part of M&T FIRST FRIDAYS @ THE GALLERY, VanDyke will reprise his performance from 1:30 to 5 pm, and give a talk about his experience at 7 pm.

Tuesday, May 3

Listen to Junior Boys' new nine-minute track "Banana Ripple"


By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:
It's All True, the new album from the Canadian synthpop smoothies Junior Boys, is due June 14 around the world and June 20 in the UK, via Domino. Here, the nine-minute, album-closing soul odyssey "Banana Ripple" is streaming. Before the album drops, the group will release "Banana Ripple" as a 12" single on May 30 in the UK, with remixes by the Field and disco edit pioneer Tom Moulton.
Junior Boys hit Soundlab on 11/03/09 with Wooden Hand.

Monday, May 2

Read "Q&A With Rusko: 'I Don't Think I've Ever Made A Deep Or Serious Track In My Life.'"


By Puja Patel for the Village Voice's Sound of the City blog:
Dubstep is the first thing that comes to mind when people mention Rusko, and that's almost become a disservice to the young UK-born DJ. While Chris Mercer is certainly credited as an innovator of the wobbly, bass-thwarting, and often numbingly gloomy genre of electronic music, he left the darkness behind a long time ago. Growing up in a Leeds, the young producer was immersed in local reggae and dub scenes; eventually he adopted those sounds and pushed out his experimental electronic tracks alongside co-conspirators Caspa and Skream. The sound caught on quickly among dub fiends, drum-n-bass heads, and even jungle lovers because of the way it gave the masses a more relaxed groove to soundtrack their dimly lit warehouse raves. But slow and steady is not what Rusko is about. Not too long after the genre's inception Mercer veered away from its sticky basslines in search of uptempo beats and melodies, then took the hybridized results to audiences outside of the underground. And so far, it's been working.

We caught up with the DJ while he was rehearsing for his tour--which arrives in New York tonight--to talk about his newest dub finds, "bro-step," and his work in pop music.
Read the interview here. Rusko played Soundlab on 12/05/09 with RX & Chae Hawk, Big Basha and Steve Kream.

Sunday, May 1

Read "Oneida Complete Trilogy With New Album"


By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:
On June 7, Jagjaguwar will release Absolute II, the new album from Brooklyn experimental rock scene elders Oneida. Absolute II is the third and final album in the band's Thank Your Parents triptych, which also includes 2008's Preteen Weaponry and 2009's Rated O.

Oneida's Bandcamp page includes an overview of the entire Thank Your Parents project, which the band calls "an aesthetic object, a historical meditation, and a narrative experience." A buzzing excerpt of the track "Horizon" is up above, for your listening pleasure.

Even though Oneida has an absolute beast of a drummer in Kid Millions, a press release promises that the four-track Absolute II includes no audible drums. It also lacks any "identifiable 'rock' music." That's the album's cover art above Listen to an excerpt here.
Oneida performed at Soundlab on 08/03/06 with From Monuments to Masses and Sleeping Kings of Iona