Interview: Kris Kristofferson

Kris Kristofferson’s new album Closer To The Bone is so good and refreshing that we decided to put him in the Gen F section of our latest issue. For that story, we spoke to Kristofferson over the phone while he sat at home in Maui. Yes, we were jealous. But it’s hard to hold it against him when the conversation goes from his songwriting to his Texas childhood to World War II, Oxford, Obama, Johnny Cash and ultimate fighting. The whole thing kind of made us want to retire and be his personal groundskeeper/buddy. After the jump, read the interview and see the video for the album’s eponymous single. And when you’re done, make sure to check out Kristofferson’s excellent new Daytrotter session.

Read More

Q+A: Tony Blankets of Restless People on Family Edition

In one form or another, most of the members of Restless People have been in our magazine. Whether it’s when we wrote about Professor Murderin F41, Michael Bell-Smith in F61, The Brothers production duo in F53, or one of the million and a half times we’ve covered Tanlines on this very site. Now the dudes have a site/free online-only record label/collective called Family Edition. Thus far they’ve released music from Restless People, mysterious lo-fi weirdos Newborn Huskies, an upcoming series of original ringtones and also a YouTube video of a dude at NASA trying to give another guy a high five. After the jump read our conversation with Restless People member Tony Blankets about the label, music and what may or may not be an actual story behind a certain Rolling Stones album.

Read More

Q&A: Becoming Real + “Left it Alone” Remix MP3 Premiere

Yesterday we got on the phone with Toby Ridler, bka Becoming Real. The UK-based artist who blends hyper-personal quavering vocals with dense layers of busy electronics that are informed as much by the homemade K Records aesthetic as they are by the world’s recent obsession with dubstep. After the jump read our Q+A with Ridler and download his remix of Banjo or Freakout’s “Left it Alone” below.



Download: Banjo or Freakout, “Left it Alone” (Becoming Real Remix)

Read More

Advertisement

Exclusive: Pictureplane Creep 5 Mix MP3 + Denver Sampler + Q+A

Until Pictureplane, we did not think about Denver as a place where anything except skiing happened. Forced to imagine the music a Denver citizen might make, a combination of John Denver and the Supremes after they lost all their original members came to mind. But apparently Travis Egedy, the man behind Pictureplane, is holding a torch for supreme blunted electronic weirdness. A goopy mix of house, Annie Lennox, glam, The Cure and whenever Madonna was wearing a lot of white lace, Pictureplane’s brand new debut Dark Rift is unmistakably a one man project, all of the desires of a single, uncompromising mind manifesting itself over what we imagine is probably a lot of free time and open space. We asked him to make a mix and he offered to make two—Creep 5, a mix of his current influences and peers and an unmixed sampler of his Denver comrades. Download links, tracklists, artwork and our gothy Q+A with Pictureplane are after the jump.

Read More

Q+A: Youssou N’Dour on I Bring What I Love

For four years, Senegalese singer, Youssou N’Dour let cameras follow him. The resulting documentary, Chai Vasarhelyi’s I Bring What I Love is an intimate portrait of the international superstar, one of the most compelling and important figure in the huge slice of culture we call world music. In town for a performance at Brooklyn’s BAM to coincide with a screening, N’Dour sat down with FADER contributor Simon Greenberg at a recording studio where they spoke about the importance of African music’s evolution, of making the film and what makes N’Dour such a fiery performer. I Bring What I Love is playing in cities through the summer, check their site for screening information.

Read More