[News] Studio Killers Launch Kickstarter Campaign To Fund Live Shows

In their current state, electro-pop outfit Studio Killers have been confined to computer screens all over the world. If the group has it their way, however, that won't be the case for very long. In addition to the announcement that they would perform live at two festivals in Finland, a few days ago the trio launched a Kickstarter campaign in hopes to raise £50,000. At the time of this post, the campaign currently sits at close to £15,000, with 9 days left to reach their goal. While it seems like a hefty chunk of change to ask of their fans before they even perform their first live show ever, the band hopes to cover the costs of bringing their characters to life using state of the art technology courtesy of design company Immersive Ltd.. The firm's previous clients include: Jason Mraz, Bon Jovi, Knife Party, deadmau5, and many more. Additionally, per the band's Kickstarter page, they hope to use the funds to bring their live show various international locations as well. 

I for one hope they reach their goal. In fact, I've kicked in £60 because I feel like their live show would be something worth bringing to the masses. Their latest single, "Grand Finale" hints at a promising follow up to their self-titled debut, which makes me want to see the group through until they're standing on their own two pixels performing wherever they're loved the most. In terms of incentives, you get a little love regarless of how much/little you give. I'm personally very excited that my £60 will get me a limited print from Cherry since I've yet to experience her art in person (their gallery installation was in Helsinki). 

If you need further convincing, enjoy a snippet of "Grand Finale" below. 

[News] Pulled Apart By Horses Announce UK Tour

Cast your mind back to the year 2012. It's not that hard. Back to February in that year. That was the last time the UK was graced with the noisemakers known as Pulled Apart By Horses on the live circuit. They've been busy making brand new music for our ear holes but ahead of that they've gone and got all excited and have decided to treat fans to some previews on the road before release. Guitarist James Brown says:

After spending most of 2013 writing the new album, we are now so close to finishing it that we can't wait a moment longer to get sweaty with you guys. So we're excited to announce an intimate little UK warm-up tour. Think of it as some much needed exercise.

Tickets are on sale this Friday 8th Feb., or you can peek a pre-sale on Thursday 7th by checking pulledapartbyhorses.com for more info. You can check out the dates after the jump.

As well as that we can all expect some news about their third album in the very near future. Get excited and prepare yourselves for some awesome new sounds.

Pulled Apart By Horses 2014 Tour

April

24 Aberdeen Tunnels

25 Dundee Beat Generator Live!

26 Hartlepool Studio

27 Hull The Welly

28 Leicester The Musician

30 Oxford Art Bar

May

01 Norwich Epic Studios

02 Stoke Sugarmill

03 Leeds Live at Leeds

04 York YO1 Festival

06 May Cambridge Portland Arms

07 Aldershot West End Centre

08 Kingston New Slang @ McClusky's

09 Brighton The Great Eascape

10 Southampton Cellar

12 Exeter Cavern

13 Plymouth White Rabbit  

14 Bath Moles

15 Cardiff The Globe

[Listen] Breton - "S Four"

Photo Credit: Kieran PharaohEarlier today, Breton unveiled a new song from their upcoming album, War Room Stories, due out on February 3rd. Of all of the tracks we've heard so far from the new album, "S Four" most appropriately showcases the growth that the band has seen since 2012's Other People's Problems. The band has clearly thought out which edges were the right ones to smooth out and which ones to keep jagged and sharp. Where "Got Well Soon" reminded us of the band that we've grown acquainted to was still capable of, "Envy"  and "S Four" (below) are demonstrative that you don't always have to sacrifice complexity for palatability, or vice versa. It's no small feat the way the band can weave their usual layered beats and instrumentation alongside the likes of orchestral movements and sounds as basic as knives scraping against the pavement (which finally explains that teaser clip from last year). It's executed in such a seemingly effortless fashion that it takes several careful listens to stop taking all of these details for granted. It took me until the third listen to hear the knives sample, for example. 

If you've got a hankering for more newer Breton songs, you can also grab their Force of Habit EP  that they released for their US tour (that unfortunately was rescheduled for later this year). 

Make sure you pre-order War Room Stories now, because that's what nice people do.

Breton On Tour

06/02/14 - West Rock, Cognac, France - http://tinyurl.com/bretoncognac
07/02/14 - Charada, Madrid, Spain
08/02/14 - Be Cool Club, Barcelona, Spain
09/02/14 - Le Bikini, Ramonville St Agne, France - http://tinyurl.com/bretontoulouse
10/02/14 - Rockstore, Montpellier, France - http://tinyurl.com/bretonmontpellier 
11/02/14 - Ninkasi Kao, Lyon, France - http://tinyurl.com/bretonlyon
13/02/14 - Lanificio 159, Rome, Italy 
14/02/14 - Covo Club, Bologna, Italy 
15/02/14 - Magnolia, Milan, Italy 
17/02/14 - Komplex Klub, Zurich, Switzerland - http://tinyurl.com/bretonzurich
18/02/14 - Les Docks, Lausanne, Switzerland - http://tinyurl.com/bretonlausanne
19/02/14 - La Laiterie, Strasbourg, France - http://tinyurl.com/bretonstrasbourg
20/02/14 - MTC, Cologne, Germany - http://tinyurl.com/bretoncologne
21/02/14 - FIREWORKS! FESTIVAL 2014, Roubaix, France 
22/02/14 - La Nouvelle Vague, Saint-Malo, France
23/02/14 - Botanique, Brussels, Belguim - http://tinyurl.com/bretonbrussels
24/02/14 - Übel & Gefährlich, Hamburg, Germany - http://tinyurl.com/bretonhamburg
25/02/14 - BETA, Copenhagen, Denmark - http://tinyurl.com/bretoncopenhagen
26/02/14 - Privat Club, Berlin, Germany - http://tinyurl.com/bretonberlin
28/02/14 - Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands - http://tinyurl.com/bretonamsterdam

03/03/14 - The Louisiana, Bristol, UK - http://tinyurl.com/bretonbristol
04/03/14 - Soup Kitchen, Manchester, UK - http://tinyurl.com/bretonmanc
05/03/14 - Village Underground, London, UK - http://tinyurl.com/bretonlondon
06/03/14 - La Cigale, Paris, France - http://tinyurl.com/bretonparis
07/03/14 - Le 106, Rouen, France - http://tinyurl.com/bretonrouen
08/03/14 - L'Echonova, Saint-Avé, France - http://tinyurl.com/bretonvannes
20/03/14 - Treefort Music Fest 2014, Boise, ID, US

[Watch] Muse - "Plug In Baby" Live At Rome Olympic Stadium

Earlier this year Muse played some huge stadium shows around Europe and it was honestly one of the biggest spectacles I've witnessed, even by Muse's standards. Their show at Rome's Olympic Stadium was recently released as a full on 4K recorded audio/visual extravaganza in cinemas and as an early Christmas present the band have uploaded a clip of them paying their classic hit "Plug In Baby" at the Italian show. Having dropped the majority of their older material in their recent shows, this track is a staple no matter what, with "Stockholm Syndrome" and "Hysteria" usually alternating nightly via a giant roulette table. If you've never seen Muse in a live setting it's sure to give you an idea of what these guys do on a nightly basis, and if you have, well, you know that you're about to hit play on a video from one of the best live bands in the world.

Along with this lovely little live tidbit, the band have stated that a follow up to last year's The 2nd Law could see the light of day as soon as early 2015. They've also stated that it could be a little more stripped back, with Matt Bellamy saying: "I have this strong feeling that the next album should be something that really does strip away the additional things that we've experimented with on the last two albums, which is electronics, symphonics and orchestral work and all that kind of stuff." 

We'll keep you posted with more news on that but for now, enjoy the classic guitar hit below.

[Watch] Queens of the Stone Age's Full Bridge School Benefit Show

Organized by musician Neil Young and his wife, Pegi, every year the Bridge School Benefit Concert is held every October at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. All of the proceeds directly benefit the operations of The Bridge School and year on year a host of truly amazing artists play for the cause. This year one of the bands on the bill set to perform an acoustic set was Queens of the Stone Age who played a range of songs old and new in their 30 minute set. From opening with "Long Slow Goodbye" to a spine tingling rendition of "Kalopsia", it's a joy to watch the band run through tracks in a stripped back manner like this. Their latest album ...Like Clockwork is out now and if you haven't picked it up yet then why not?!

In other QOTSA related news, you can get excited for an interactive video coming from the band tomorrow.

[Watch] Biffy Clyro - "Sounds Like Balloons" (Live Video)

I've gone off on numerous rants on Twitter regarding people at gigs that seem to watch the entire show through the 3 inch screen of their phone instead of watching the big picture that's happening right in front of their very face a few feet away. Take a quick snap if you like, and then be done with it. Don't spend the entire gig filming shoddy low quality video that you're never going to use. Chances are you're at the gig with people you'd show the video to anyway so just stop it. Cheers. Anyway, Biffy Clyro have taken my pet peeve and used it to their advantage by having fans send in clips from their UK arena tour and used them to compile a live video for "Sounds Like Balloons" patched together with some pro-shot footage. It does work pretty well at giving you a snapshot into what it was like down in the crowd on the tour and all in all, it carries across the energy too. I'm still not a fan of the ever growing use of phones at gigs but it's the times we live in. Check out the video above and be sure to check out one of my favourite albums from this year, Opposites, which came out back in February.

[Watch] Arctic Monkeys - "R U Mine" & "Snap Out Of It" Live on Jools Holland

It's probably fair to say that Arctic Monkeys are the biggest UK band of the past 10 years? I open the floor for your take on it but seeing them go from tiny clubs in Sheffield up the road from where I grew up to them now, this very evening, headlining to 23,000 people at Manchester Arena 5 minutes from where I currently live as an adult, it's pretty crazy. The Sheffield boys done good were guests on last night's mid week episode of Later... with Jools Holland on which they played my (still) favourite track of the past few years "R U Mine" and album track "Snap Out Of It". Having come through the awkward stages of being thrust into the lime-light at a young age, the Yorkshire band seem to have blossomed into arena dominating live machines that deliver on point performances night-on-night. 

Their new album AM is out now and it's a treat of maturity and development from a band that once sang about getting pissed in local clubs and getting beaten up by bouncers. As an added hump-day bonus you can check out an acoustic performance of "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?" that was uploaded yesterday over here.

[Watch] Breton - "Got Well Soon" (Official Video)

Just this past weekend as Liz and I were hanging out I half joked, "We should totally train up in the gym so that when Breton comes to town we are in tip top shape to dance super hard all night long at the show." 

That was prior to experiencing that which is the new Breton single, "Got Well Soon". 

Now I think we should have been training since the day the band first Vined a snippet from the studio around the beginning of the summer. I had a ballpark idea of how much I thought the band had matured and progressed in the year-ish that Team SKOA has been following the artist, but now I regret underestimating them like that. This first single is a compilation of the things that I have always celebrated about the band: it's dark, showcases a lot of depth and complexity, and is semi-gloomy yet electrifyingly bassy so there's no chance in hell that, at the bare minimum, your hips won't be swaying back and forth juuuuust a little once it hits your eardrums. On top of this solid initial offering from a musical standpoint, the accompanying video unveiled yesterday is yet another powerful visual that the band is well-known for. What they've managed to capture in under 5 minutes is so striking that I was invested immediately in the story and pretty much had my jaw on the floor by the time it ended. To date, I would say this is their best work overall.  

Per the song's premiere on BBC 6 Music yesterday on Mary Anne Hobbs' show, the album is slated for a February 2014 release and was recorded in Berlin. From what I can tell from the several videos and Vines that the band has teased throughout the past few months on top of this first single, it is going to be one doozy of a followup to their 2012 debut, Other People's Problems. 

The band will be heading out on a small string of dates starting next Wednesday (10/16) in support of Local Natives before playing a small handful of festival and North American gigs. Team SKOA will be training up for their Glasslands show on December 13th, so look for us there. We'll be the ones dancing the hardest, obviously. 

Enough yapping, check out "Got Well Soon" below: 

Breton Tour Dates

16/10 - Waterfront, Norwich, UK - w/ Local Natives
20/10 - Sage 2, Newcastle, UK - w/ Local Natives
21/10 - Arches, Glasgow, UK - w/ Local Natives
22/10 - Limelight, Belfast, UK - w/ Local Natives
24/10 - Olympia, Dublin, Ireland - w/ Local Natives
25/10 - Leadmill, Sheffield, UK - w/ Local Natives
26/10 - The Ritz, Manchester, UK - w/ Local Natives
27/10 - O2 Academy, Bristol, UK - w/ Local Natives
29/10 - University, Southampton, UK - w/ Local Natives
30/10 - Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands - w/ Local Natives
31/10 - AB Club, Brussels. Belgium - w/ Local Natives
12/11 - Zenith, Paris, France - w/ Foals
23/11 - Goodgod, Sydney, Australia
05/12 - The Lexington, London, UK
13/12 - Glasslands Gallery, Brooklyn, US
14/12 - Il Motore, Montreal, Canada