ULTIMATE EARS PRESENTS… SETH & MAY
Michigan’s Seth Bernard and May Erlewine have been living, breathing and playing music together now for over 7 years. Their music has taken them all over the world but never too far from their roots in Michigan. Seth and May are on a lifelong musical expedition and their sound evolves and changes and grows with each new chapter. Their albums are full of beautiful song stories, produced and arranged with the utmost attention to detail and if you take a glance at their discography, you can only guess they love the process of making records. Listening to the tracks you can hear the love and dedication given to each song and each album as a whole work of art, but making records is only a piece of the work that Seth and May have cultivated. Their live performances and perpetual commitment to community empowerment and social-environmental activism is really where these two shine. Using music as a voice and a call to action Seth and May work hand in hand with organizations across the planet to promote positive change and awareness. The duo remains committed to making music not only to serve their creative spirit, but to serve the people.
Listen here:
Watch the trailer for When We Run - about their trip to Ethiopia:
ULTIMATE EARS PRESENTS…JACK DEEZL
“Glitch-hop mastermind of Philly’s underground dance music scene… Bass music is no unsifted sand for this young gun DIY beat maker.” -TheNewPhiladelphia.com
Jack Deezl, a 20 year old Producer/DJ hailing from Philadelphia, is on a roll. After having released over 40 tracks in 2011, some of them remixes for high-profile names such as Diplo, Amanda Blank and Drop the Lime, Jack has signed with Phiadelphia-based indie label Actual Records. He’s set to release a 6-track EP digitally and on 12” vinyl, titled Unrest, which he’ll be touring all across the U.S. in support of this summer. With more remix requests and concert bookings coming with every passing day, there’s no doubt that you’ll keep hearing Jack Deezl sounds.
ULTIMATE EARS PRESENTS… RA RA RIOT
And did I mention the new album yet… Stay tuned
Ra Ra Riot finds strength in subtlety and refraction. This is a band that cooks with indirect heat — melding taut rhythms with lush chamber pop, subtle psychedelia, infectious melodies, and lyrics that tell the story of timorous souls shaking free. The seeds of their latest album, the orchard, were sown over the course of a couple of years, and harvested when guitarist Milo Bonacci compiled every stray idea and demo the band had accumulated since releasing their breakthrough album, the rhumb line. After assembling all those loose threads, the band took residence at the titular peach orchard in Penn Yan, New York and embarked upon mammoth writing sessions punctuated by new adventures in cooking, playing bocce, and simply enjoying the benefits of country living. The orchard unfolds like origami — each undone corner revealing Ra Ra Riot’s collective knack for writing sterling arrangements, addictive hooks and subtle details. Furthermore, the orchard’s impeccable sequencing and scant running time (the album runs just under the 40-minute mark) hits an aural sweet spot that will inspire spinning this album over and over again, each listen revealing some new blossom, fruit, or lovely flying insect that you hadn’t noticed before.
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ULTIMATE EARS PRESENTS… AVATARA
Avatára, a native of Kingston, Jamaica , was raised in Toronto, Canada. A city known for it’s diversity. Popular for his speed in track & field and for his talent in drawing, he turned to a linguistic art form of expression while studying literature in Kent, Ohio. Fluent in French, Spanish, and Japanese, using his voice as a means of connecting with multitudes of nations came naturally.
Avataára, whose name comes from the term “desavatara” (Meaning a manifestation of a deity) & “Ra” (sun), believes that we reflect the light of a superior being, & therefore should manifest our true potential & return to excellence.
A Soft spoken Avatára relies on his powerful vocabulary & articulate wordplay to deliver his message as his smooth vocals glide over the beat. Avatara fortifies his even keel vocal resonance with cryptic word combinations then drenches the listeners mind under leagues of relevant content and frames it all in a causal/ tangible laid back delivery.
ULTIMATE EARS PRESENTS… TASHASKI MIYAKI
Short and sweet - we’ll let the music speak for itself. Mysterious California-based duo Tashaski Miyaki creates foggy dream pop for the ages.
ULTIMATE EARS PRESENTS… TALL SHIPS
Don’t miss the new album - coming soon….
Tall Ships, originally from Falmouth but now living in Brighton, have been garnering attention across the blogosphere, printed press and radio with their complex, layered and beautiful soundscapes and intelligent songwriting to create music that still manages to have the potential for mass appeal.
Elements of math rock and angular pop have drawn inevitable comparisons to the likes of Battles and Minus The Bear but the band cite the likes of Sigur Rós, Prince and Explosions In The Sky as their musical influences.
Live Tall Ships are a must see band, mesmerizing to watch, with such energy and deftness you can’t help but be amazed by them. They are fast gaining a well-deserved reputation as one of the most innovative and exciting live bands in the UK right now.
They tour relentlessly and have honed the show into a thrilling experience, both aurally and visually as layers of sound and vocals are cleverly and deftly assembled to startling effect. They have already supported the likes of We Are Scientists, Metronomy (in Brazil), 65 Days Of Static (throughout Europe), Maps & Atlases, The Futureheads, Minus The Bear, Three Trapped Tigers & Tubelord.
“The mathy skronk of Battles, Foals’ wounded hearts and The xx’s sense of space, all tempered by a freeness of mind that only comes from breathing a dose of sea air each morning” – NME
“Hit The Floor is biting, brilliant and certain to rope you in” – Q
ULTIMATE EARS PRESENTS… RYAN HUDDLESTON
Guitar Serenity – The Eras & Beyond is a relaxing journey through classical guitar masterpieces, intimately performed by Ryan Huddleston. After spending decades studying all types of music, he chose a fundamental set of compositions to rearrange, and deliver with a modern sound and approach. The Eras & Beyond is Ryan Huddleston’s long awaited debut album, with twenty-three tracks of beautifully emotive perfection. He introduces some of his original classical compositions, as well as performing a wide variety of classical favorites by notable composers such as: Bach, Carcassi, Tarrega & Vivaldi, and many more. His efforts are to encourage peaceful relaxation, while listening to the only musical genre proven repeatedly to stimulate neurological activity, harmonize the body’s cellular structure, and increase the power of healing with music.
Learn more about Ryan Huddleston and about all of his roles in the music industry:
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http://cultscultscults.com/
Cults:
Brian Oblivion
Madeline Follin
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(Source: youtube.com)
ULTIMATE EARS PRESENTS… LARRY KEEL
Larry is a legendary acoustic guitar flatpicker. You must listen and learn more!
Born and raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Larry Keel is a young veteran musician who has always been immersed in the traditional ways and etiquette of playing mountain music. Both Larry’s father and brother (themselves skilled and versatile acoustic musicians) influenced the younger Keel to thoroughly master the foundations of acoustic guitar (tune, timing, tone) before venturing into his own original territory. From a very young age, Larry made it his goal to honor and preserve the discipline of the Traditional Bluegrass music he knows and loves, while expressing his own ideas through acoustic music.
At 18 years old, Keel became a contracted musician to play Bluegrass at the Tokyo Disneyland theme park in Japan for 7 months (6 shows a day, 6 days a week). Back in the States, Larry joined up with like-minded Bluegrass pickers young and old to travel the festival and fiddler’s convention circuit of the entire east coast. Keel’s long time friend and banjo player Mark Vann (Leftover Salmon) encouraged him to travel to Colorado to attend the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and compete in its prestigious guitar competition. That year he won first place, and by 1995 he and long-time Bluegrass peer Will Lee (son of Ricky Lee from Ralph Stanley’s band) led their string band Magraw Gap to victory in the Telluride Bluegrass Festival band competition.
Over the years Larry Keel has become a world-class flatpicking guitarist, and that talent has earned him legendary status with fans and the highest respect amongst his musical peers. In recent performances Larry has led bands involving such industry icons as Tony Rice, Jeff Austin, Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, Curtis Burch (New Grass Revival), Vassar Clements, Joe Craven, Jim Lauderdale, and Tony Trischka; in addition he has played specialty sets alongside Darrell Scott, Keller Williams, and Sam Bush and guitar workshops along side David Grier and Jorma Kaukonen.
Keel’s distinct style of flatpicking the guitar is the tool with which he creates his original brand of songwriting and his peers have taken notice. Both Del McCoury and Acoustic Syndicate have recorded Larry’s original material. The Del McCoury Band recorded Larry’s ‘Mountain Song’ on their 2005 Grammy award winning release, The Company We Keep. Acoustic Syndicate recorded ‘Long Way Round’ as their title track for their 2004 release. In 2006, Larry and his wife Jenny teamed up with guitar virtuoso, Keller Williams to release the Keller and the Keels album, Grass. With extensive national airplay and selective touring to support the album, Grass found its way to the Billboard Bluegrass Chart, where it stood in the Top 15 for over 12 weeks.
Larry Keel has had for a very long time a very clear vision of what he wants to do with his musical talents, and the guiding principle is this: to nurture and preserve our American musical heritage while letting it inspire Keel’s own original writing and playing. As he pays his deepest respects to the masters who invented Bluegrass, Keel has become a master himself of Bluegrass, as well as of his own music. Larry Keel is a true heir to the Bluegrass legacy, and his talents as a guitar genius, as an innovative and expressive singer-songwriter and as a bandleader place him amongst the best of the purveyors of American Mountain Music.
Download this special edition of the album “Classic” - here in its entirety!
ULTIMATE EARS PRESENTS… MATHIEU SANTOS
Trained as a painter but best known for his role as a founding member (and the extraordinarily agile bassist) of chamber pop heavy-hitters Ra Ra Riot, Mathieu Santos has surprised himself by making a solo record. The songs that compose massachusetts 2010, to be released this summer, were first written — you guessed it — in 2010 in the great state of Massachusetts. Following their recording, however, those demos were set aside and left to sit while Santos spent time on the road with his main band. In the winter and spring of 2011, he returned to the 10 songs with fresh perspective and a critical distance from the context in which they were originally written. Applying his visual artist’s focus on only the most essential compositional elements, Santos borrowed a friend’s guest house in rural New Jersey and finalized the album in just a few days there. He worked quickly, maintaining the impulsive freedom of the original writing process but stripping down the palette and creating an arresting sonic environment that sparkles with tantalizing abstract imagery and finely-observed details, set against a backdrop of wide open spaces. As the album title suggests, these songs represent a particular time and place for Santos, and although the lyrics are largely impressionistic, phrases emerge regularly to make the album resonate with echoes of warmth, loneliness, love, regret, loss, and joy. Even if you weren’t there then, massachusetts 2010 is a place and time that anyone with ears and a heart can hear and feel.
