The Northside Festival got underway last night with acts including Wavves, Cloud Nothings, DOM, Fang Island and Millionyoung playing all over the borough of Brooklyn.  We’re a day late, but we’re highlighting our picks for the rest of the weekend:

Friday: Dailyvinyl.com Presents Minks at Union Pool at 9 PM

Saturday: Titus Andronicus, Male Bonding and Cults at Newtown Barge Park @ 1 PM

And the show we’re MOST excited about — Sunday: FREEwilliamsburg Presents Keepaway, Hooray For Earth, Glass Ghost and Oh Land at Brooklyn Bowl @ 6 PM

A little preview of Sunday’s show, which promises: a night of dancing, drinking, and making out with strangers to the tunes of the following musical talents.  How can you skip that?

Keepaway – Yellow Wings

Hooray For Earth – Surrounded By Your Friends

Glass Ghost – Mechanical Life

Oh Land – Heavy Eyes (Kasper Bjørke Remix)

If you haven’t already heard, Hooray For Earth’s EP Momo dropped this week.  And if you haven’t already heard it, you can stream it right now on Spinner HERE.

The boys played the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Tuesday night, opening for The Futureheads, for their record release party.  And it was magic.  Joined by the ladies of Zambri for a few songs, crowd favorites that night were title track “Surrounded By Your Friends” (which we were), “Rolling/Nectarine” (new favorite!) and – OK, all of them.

If you didn’t get to catch them live because you don’t live in NYC, they kick off their tour with The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and Surfer Blood TONIGHT (dates below).  And if you didn’t get to catch them live but you do live in NYC, do not fret – the boys will be back soon!

Here is some sick ride + puppet friends + outer space visual goodness for you:

“Surrounded By Your Friends” by Hooray For Earth from Johnny Woods on Vimeo.

06-03 Milford, CT – Daniel Street
06-04 Rochester, NY – The German House
06-05 Buffalo, NY – The Tralf
06-06 Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom
06-08 Memphis, TN – Hi Tone Cafe
06-09 Birmingham, AL – Bottletree Cafe
06-10 Tallahassee, FL – The Engine Room
06-11 Orlando, FL – Club at Firestone
06-12 Miami, FL – Grand Central
06-13 Jacksonville, FL – Jack Rabbits
06-15 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
06-16 Washington, DC – Black Cat

My name is Noel.  I’m in a band called Hooray For Earth.  I’ve been invited to occasionally contribute to forthebeat, so I’m going to.

This is about the Danish group Oh No Ono.  Most people that know me have heard me rave about them.  The short version of my story is that their second LP Eggs was released in Denmark (they are Danish) in April 2009, and I luckily stumbled upon their gripping, colorfully grey video for the first single “Swim” (thx Johnny Woods) just a few days after the album release.  I was unaware of Oh No Ono before then, but they became one of my all-time favorite bands within a couple hours of discovery.  The songwriting and production are vast and constantly on a journey.  It’s just magic!

This past Fall, they signed to Brooklyn-based Friendly Fire and made their first trip to the states for a few shows in January (one at Mercury Lounge w/ Bear In Heaven, wonderful night).  We immediately became friends and can say only amazing things about them.  Eggs has since been released in the U.S., they returned for SXSW and some more NYC shenanigans, and so on and so forth.  A few weeks ago they released the Internet Warrior EP, which includes Eggs track “Internet Warrior” and a slew of remixes by the likes of Caribou, Zambri, Phenomenal Handclap Band, The Depreciation Guild and more.  Unfortunately it’s not currently available (yet?) in the U.S., but you can grab a few of the tracks if you take 2 seconds to search the internets — but first, below is the “Eleanor Speaks” remix by Zambri.  It’s a sprawling edit-frenzy of vocals and identifiable/unidentifiable noises layered on top of re-arranged instrumental bits with washy reverb and driving-but-not-in-a-hurry beats.

Oh No Ono – Eleanor Speaks (Zambri Remix)

Find all sorts of Ono info and music at ohnoono.com and check out the video for “Swim”:

Coma Cinema is one of my favorite artist discoveries of 2010, actually, Coma Cinema is one of my favorite artist discoveries ever. Mat Cothran’s musical magical talent is amazing. I love his songs, all of them, yes all of them. I could listen over and over for hours, and I do. His first album Baby Prayers was beautiful, if you haven’t already, listen to the entire thing and download for free, and start here with Flower Pills. Immediately after falling in love with it, we were fortunate enough to have Coma Cinema come up from South Carolina to play their first NYC show at our spring showcase (with Hooray for Earth & Sunglasses).

Coma Cinema will release their second album, Stoned Alone, on June 1st  (album artwork pictured above). You can catch some of the tracks on their MySpace page now and I’ve listed some below. I can’t pick a favorite track or even a few favorite tracks, I pretty much love them all. The album collectively feels like a dream-like state of clouds floating past your cheeks, tiny hairs stand up with excitement, on the edge of looking out into darkness that responds with lightness floating in a dream the bubble that bursts and fast forwards and then rewinds until you’re standing still but upside down. Yea, that about sums it up.

Highlights of the shimmering excellence:

Blissed – beautiful dreamy float into space close your eyes/open your eyes/close them again delicious nightmare you dont want to wake from and seems to go on and on forever but when you wake you realize it was just under a minute or in this case under two, clocking in at 1:56

Stoned Alone – listen for yourself but a perfect ending to every beginning

Black Birthday Cake – reminds me why i love to cry when i find things emotionally beautiful you know like a waterfall or hot sun on your naked skin before you dive into cold water that kind of stuff that shakes you unequivocally

Her Vore - female vocals on this track along with Mat’s is a perfect pair. This one makes me feel like I’m starring out into a darkened abyss with nothing but everything left unseen all at once.

The album is being released on cassette tape (awesome) and digitally June 1 via Arcade Sounds Ltd, same label as Magic Man, who will be playing forthebeat’s next show on June 11th at Pianos.

You should listen to these LOUD.

Coma Cinema – Her Vore

Coma Cinema – Black Birthday Cake

Coma Cinema – Stoned Alone

OH NO ONO are hard to categorize or even explain. I’ll be listening to them and think they remind me a lot of Empire of the Sun, but then I’ll play a different track and something completely different comes to mind. Seeing them live at Union Hall in January, I thought all four of them reminded me of David Bowie in Labyrinth / a 70’s dance party cast to the rising sun…

When you listen to Oh No Ono for the first time, you try to imagine how they might interact on stage and how they might sound live, but seeing them in-person affirmed all of my positive thoughts on this strangely wonderful act. Hailing from Denmark, they are eccentric both musically and aesthetically.

It was a true honor having Malthe Fischer join Hooray for Earth on stage last week at the spring forthebeat show. The night opened with Coma Cinema (visiting from South Carolina), Sunglasses (visiting from Atlanta and just signed to Lefse Records (Neon Indian, Keepaway, etc.), then Hooray For Earth joined by Fischer and members of Zambri, followed by The Royal Chains. The night was amazing. All of the bands rocked and forthebeat wishes we could re-play the evening over and over again. Special thanks to our DJs as well.

Spring’s been good to us, so now we’d like to be good to you:

Oh No Ono – Internet Warrior

Photo Credit: ROB LOUD

forthebeat presents…

HOORAY FOR EARTH
COMA CINEMA
SUNGLASSES
THE ROYAL CHAINS

APRIL 1ST (NO JOKE)
@ HOME SWEET HOME @ 8PM
131 Chrystie Street (between Delancey & Broome)
Lower East Side, NYC

$10 at the door with an open Svedka bar from 8-9 pm to get you there ON TIME.

♥♥♥download this mix featuring each band on the show♥♥♥

This is what it sounds like:

Sunglasses – Whiplash
Coma Cinema – Daffodils
Hooray For Earth – Surrounded By Your Friends
The Royal Chains – Lucy Takes The Dare

RSVP to forthebeat@gmail.com

1. sayCet – Opal (Error :: Love – Opalowsky Remix)
DCUP – Style (Rainbows Of Death Remix)
3. Gorillaz – Stylo (Alex Metric Remix)
4. Hooray For Earth – Form
Classixx – I’ll Get You (Gigamesh Remix)
6. Coeur de Pirate – Comme des Enfants (Le Matos Andy Carmichael Remix)
7. Air – So Light Is Her Football (Breakbot Remix)
8. Efterklang – Modern Drift
9. Coma Cinema – Cop Caller
10. Beach House – Silver Soul
11. Neon Indian – Should Have Taken Acid With You (Future Rock Remix)
12. Little Dragon – Twice

Hooray for Earth, a band we’ve been working with for a few weeks now, was recently chosen for eMusic Selects, a monthly program featuring exclusive music from handpicked, unsigned new artists.  They’ll be featured for the months of December and January, along with the band Best Coast.

This week, eMusic teamed up with our friends over at ABC News to feature Hooray for Earth on Amplified.  Check it all out here, where the band talks about high school, braces and frontman Noel Heroux’s benevolent dictatorship.  Also, stick around for ABC News anchorman Dan Harris accompanying the band on a mean tambourine.

Here’s the first single “Surrounded by Your Friends” off the EP Momo, which you can download at eMusic here.  Also, check out the video for the song here.

Hooray for Earth – Surrounded by Your Friends

We’ve started working with two amazing bands, Paul and the Patients and Hooray for Earth.  PATP are working on a new EP, which should be ready for the masses in the coming weeks.  Meanwhile, you can check out their May 2009 release To the Lions, available on iTunes.  Hooray for Earth is working on a full-length, also coming out in the next few weeks.  We’ve heard a bunch of the new tracks, and we’re excited to share them soon, but you can hop on Insound now to find their self-titled 2008 reissue.

If you are in New York City tonight, you are very lucky because both bands are playing.  Hooray for Earth will be rocking Santos Party House at 6:30 PM and Paul and the Patients are playing The Studio @ Webster Hall at 11 PM.  Here are two little teasers for you:

Paul and the Patients – Tiny Red Light

Hooray for Earth – Take Care