Impose Magazine

(AM Gold) Sonny & The Sunsets, "Palmreader"

Dayna Evans — May 17, 2013

Sonny & The Sunsets have a dark, existential album coming out next month on Polyvinyl called Antenna to the Afterworld, and despite the heaviness of its title, all of the singles so far have been tinged with Sonny's ethereal lightness. This third single, entitled "Palmreader", is a SF-area throwback with its polite melodies and restrained snare crispness. In an epic ploy to get us to think about death without really thinking about it, Sonny & The Sunsets pose us with existe...

(Goldmine Sacks) Week in Pop: A Grave With No Name, Dead Times, Four Visions, Jarren Benton, Metaform, Pinegrove

Sjimon Gompers — May 17, 2013

The summer forecasts look fun and promising, as long as you look away from the lame main-feeders. Otherwise you get Jared Leto likening his band 30 Seconds to Mars as "an art project", then there is Thom Yorke joining up with Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja and Elbow's Guy Garvey in scoring a doc about avoiding UK taxes, and while Kanye West "ain't here to apologize to no motherfuckers", you can still catch him performing on tomorrow's SNL season finale. But ...

(AM Gold) Plastic Flowers, "Populists"

Dayna Evans — May 17, 2013

Maybe we're not in-tune enough with the Mediterranean music scene, and it's rare that we hear from bands stationed in Greece, but if this Plastic Flowers release tells us anything, it's that we need to start listening harder. The song is "Populists" and it comes from a recently released four-track EP from the band, and with it's lilting swaths of pastel-colored sound, it feels dreamy and shiny and heartbreaking all at once. The sweetness of the song is drenched in a sun...

(Fest Report) Downtown Festival 2013: Hefna Gwap, Ratking, Mr. MFN eXquire at Tammany Hall

Impose Automaton — May 17, 2013

On Saturday May 11, Tammany Hall played host to a Downtown Festival show featuring performances by Hefna Gwap, Ratking, Mr. MFN eXquire, Black Dave, and Awkwafina. Photographer Julie Schabel was there to capture it all of their performances for us. For more from Julie, please visit her website.

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(Scuzz) Vacation, "Candy Waves"

Blake Gillespie — May 17, 2013

Something in Vacation's "Candy Waves" triggered the words "Rock and Roll High School" to my brain, and not so much that the Cincinnati trio are biting into The Ramones legacy, but that I assume they have degrees from the school of rock. There's the quote from Vacation's Peyton Copes, "Jerri writes pop songs and I fuck them up", that shoots down inclinations to romanticize their station in punk. It began with good intentions, and somewhere in the process...

(Black Orchid) Harmony Korine's A Crackup At The Race Riots

Anthony Mark Happel — May 17, 2013

Filmmaker Harmony Korine is a cinematic dynamo and a cultural anti-hero of the first degree. The young man who gave us the screenplay for Kids at 19 has become more disenchanted with the world at large and the issues related to filmmaking as he’s grown older, and he’s become ever more alienated from mainstream Hollywood even as he dances around the fringes of it. His film, Julian DonkeyBoy does a fine job of blurring the line between reality and fiction, and his “retarded&rdquo...

(Scene and Heard) Shellshag at Death by Audio

Impose Automaton — May 17, 2013

On Friday, May 17th, Shellshag headlined a music and comedy show at Death by Audio in Williamsburg, in support of their latest album Shellshag Forever. There were comedy sets by Adam Newman and Chris Gethard in between performances by Black Wine, Swearin' and Shellshag. Shell, of Shellshag, introduced the acts except for his own band (Chris Gethard welcomed Shellshag to the stage instead). Shellshag will perform at Death by Audio again with Chris Gethard for "The Chris Gethard Show Pres...

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(Debut) People of the North, "Drama Class"

Blake Gillespie — May 17, 2013

There's a side to Thrill Jockey that aims to rattle cages and for those willing, achieve enlightenment. Among it there are gurus like Nick Bindeman of Eternal Tapestry, Sun Araw, and Kid Millions who use music as a opportunity for transcendence. Experimental maestros Kid Millions and Bobby Matador of Oneida operated their side project, People of the North, loosely from 2003 to 2010 when they released Deep Time. Since that record, the presence of People of the North held steady as an entity,...

(Scene and Heard) Jozef van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch with Noveller at Mercury Lounge

Impose Automaton — May 17, 2013

On Tuesday, May 7th, Jozef van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch headlined Mercury Lounge in New York, NY. Noveller (a.k.a. Sarah Lipstate) performed an opening set.

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(Just Heard) Titus Andronicus show in Athens disrupted by distribution of confederate flags

Dayna Evans — May 16, 2013

The Twitter feed of Titus Andronicus, at the helm of frontman Patrick Stickles, was full of a particular kind of outrage today when reporting on the band's show with the So So Glos in Athens, GA last night at the Theatre Rooftop. According to Stickles, who is not one to shy away from controversy or outbursts on his Twitter page, an audience member brought several confederate flags to the show and then apparently distributed the flags to audience members during "More Perfect Union"....