Litany: Music News Covering Skinny Puppy, Download, ohGr and Related Projects

cEvin Key will be making his triumphant DJ return to Japan in April with four dates in Tokyo along with fellow Subconscious recording artist Djoto!

April 16th Club MOTION Shinjyuku w Djoto/ Coppe/ lego friendly
April 23rd Wildside w Djoto
April 24th Tokyo Decadence w Djoto
April 28th Marz Shinjuku w Djoto + special guests

Mr. Ogre himself wanted to share this tidbit with the Litany populace, thinking it might be to your liking. You may know Bill Moseley as Ogre's screen brother in Repo! or from his turns in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and House of 1000 Corpses, but he is probably most familiar to readers as the author and voice of the spoken-word poetry that frames the songs of ohGr's Devils in My Details like a delicate latticework. Bill has a new collaborative project with Rani Sharone of Puscifer and Stolen Babies entitled Spider Mountain. Take a listen to some tracks at the Spider Mountain Myspace. Including one song from the soundtrack to the upcoming film starring Bill and Ogre, 2001 Manics, the thirteen song album No Way Down is available for pre-order here. The first five-hundred will be signed and numbered by Moseley and Sharone.

Just a friendly reminder that the cEvin Key / Dead Voices on Air mini tour kicks off next week. Also, remember that the Dallas and Austin shows also feature sets by Phil Western, making this the first time the three surviving founding members of Download have performed on the same bill in over thirteen years. If you're anywhere near one of these gigs, don't you dare miss it. Each will surely be a night to remember. I'm still trying to work out whether I can fly in for the Austin show myself.

Here are some links:::

The Church in Dallas

tickets for The Elysium in Austin via Secret Oktober

The Larimer Lounge in Denver

The Fez in Portland

If you're in the LA area you now have plans for Saturday night. Baseck, of the Beyond the Vault album Creatures, will be performing live as part of a massive bill. This is the type of show I wish was still happening in my area. I was lucky enough to hear Baseck's set before Puppy's show in LA, so trust me when I say it's worth your while to make it there. See the quick and dirty cut and pasted details below or visit here for more info.

BREAKCORE / HARD DRUM & BASS / EXPERIMENTAL / DUBSTEP / SPLATTER GABBER / METAL / GAMEBOY THRASH / TURNTABLISM

BASECK + SO SIMPLE present:

TECHNICAL ITCH
Tech Itch Recordings / Ascension / Tech Freak
http://www.techitch.com + http://www.myspace.com/techitch

DJ SKULL VOMIT
Tony of Eustachian
http://www.myspace.com/djskullvomit

EMU
Smog / Basshead / 10bag
http://www.myspace.com/emudubstep

MIYUKI
Radiobomb 90.7FM / The A.I.U.
http://www.myspace.com/lil_miyuki

NAHA
Naha Army
http://www.myspace.com/nahaarmy

BASECK
Subconscious Communications/ Darkmatter Soundsystem
http://www.myspace.com/baseck

18+

Sat. Feb. 20, 2010

9pm - 3am
651 S. Anderson St.
Downtown LA 90023

$10 w/rsvp before 11pm
rsvpbaseck@gmail.com
(only one name per email)
$15 at the door

Limited Capacity. Arrive Early

Here's wishing cEvin Key another healthy and happy year on behalf of everyone at Litany! I hope it brings him many, many hours of XM Area related enjoyment.

Cast your minds back to the heady days of August 2006. A world of Plutonians mourned the loss of their globe's planetary status. Mel Gibson endeared himself to police and Semites. A young Samuel L. Jackson entertained us all in Snakes on a Plane. Amidst this swirling maelstrom of history's tapestry being woven before our very eyes, a user in Litany's IRC chat room named TheParanoid (aka Noid) did two things that would impact this very post you are reading here and now. First, he stole my pizza. Second, he had an idea for a compilation album of Litany's members' music and shared it with the channel. It's been a long time but that idea has finally come to fruition in the form of the downloadable Litany: a User Compilation album collecting the musical and visual efforts of a number of Litany readers and forum posters. The compilation has been assembled, mastered, packaged, and hosted freely all by Litany readers. Go here to get it and to find out more information about all the many folks responsible for putting this thing together.

For absolutely no good reason at all that I can recall, I somehow skipped over posting photos from the Austin tour stop back in those crazy days of fun, frivolity, and goopy stage-blood. This has now been remedied. Visit the Litany.net Facebook Page to wax nostalgic along with me and get yourself excited for that town's March 5th cEvin Key, Phil Western, and Dead Voices On Air show.

And, hey, Sasha, that guy up there in the hat who has worked very hard to bring you those shows tour after tour and kept me alive on the road, is going to be undergoing some more neck surgery in the coming weeks. Please send some positive energies his way.

A new cEvin Key DJ set / Dead Voices on Air combo gig has been announced for Denver on March 6th at the Larimer Lounge.
Go here for tickets.

In addition we also now have some gorgeous fliers for the previously announced Dallas and Portland gigs below.

After the monthish out on the road with Skinny Puppy I returned to the dusty quiet normalcy of my real life greeted by a small pile of accrued junk mail. Somewhere amidst that stack of shredder-destined wastes of postage was a most welcome copy of Collide's new album, These Eyes Before. The record consists entirely of covers. Although I tend to enjoy these outings (I've been hoping for an ohGr covers record for years), I was initially surprised at the selections that reach further into the classic rock world than I had anticipated. But the band allays any fears about the song choices with the superb treatments they offer these tracks. Statik's programming depth, familiar to Puppy fans from his co-authorship of songs like I'mmortal and Pro-test, subtly married to live instrumentation as a setting for kaRIN's singular voice remains the strength of Collide's sound, here applied as a vehicle for some inventive reinterpretations. With its subdued, slinky groove, Collide's Come Together is easily the best cover version of the song ever set to tape. Nights in White Satin, featuring Curve's Dean Garcia on bass, is majestic and ethereal, kaRIN's voice propelled by searing live guitar. It's a pairing that will make you forget classic rock radio ever existed. Bowie's Space Oddity is reborn as a tour de force of programming and effects. Throughout the album, they manage to highlight the strengths of the originals. Their rendition of Radiohead's Creep draws out the song's inner shoegaze core while Depeche Mode's I Feel You writhes in sexy tension. The blistering Comfortably Numb finds the retroactive crossroads of industrial and progressive psychedelic somewhere in the style of a late seventies Eno record. Few artists can pull off a Bowie or a Pink Floyd cover without descending into self-parody and embarrassment, let alone add something unique and interesting of their own. With These Eyes Before, Collide avoids cliches and breathes fresh life into songs that you might have thought too familiar. It only further demonstrates how far above the crowd this band remains.

These Eyes Before is available now from Noiseplus Music.

In addition to the March 5th Austin combination gig featuring cEvin Key's DJ set, Phil Western's live set, and Mark Spybey's performance as Dead Voices on Air advertised by the gorgeous flyer above, another such three-way show has been added for Dallas on March 4th at The Church. Go here for tickets and info.

There's also been a further Key and Dead Voices On Air set (without Phil) added for Portland on March 7th at Fez Ballroom. Get tickets here or via Corrosion Records.

Mark Spybey's Dead Voices on Air will be joining a three-date tour in Slovakia and the Czech Republic later this month. The Music Laboratory meets Ear Chewing tour features a large lineup of aural and visual artists.

January 22, 2010 Zilinia Stanicia Zariecie 20:00
January 23, 2010 Bratislava A4, 20:00
January 24, 2010 Praha XT3, 20:00

Go here for complete information on the tour dates with artist links and an offer for a free CD compilation.