In honor of the tenth-anniversary of his label Arts & Letters, Broken Social Scene’s leader Kevin Drew and his folks put together the Field Trip Festival which was held yesterday in Toronto. Following up on their performance on Fallon on Thursday, Broken Social Scene and Feist both appeared at Field Trip.  From Field Trip, watch Broken Social Scene perfectly perform their spectacular Lover’s Spit.  It’s a love-fest with horns and Kevin Drew killin’ on vocals. After, check out the ever-checkable Feist performing her song Anti-Pioneer. Oh how the girl can sing… and play guitar! Oh to have been there. Chapeaux!

Summery LA-band Cayucas is playing Muddy Waters tonight courtesy of Club Mercy.  Check out some vignettes of the band and get down to Muddy Waters tonight to kick off summer properly and with the right band.  Watch them on NPR at Palm Springs performing High School Lover unplugged and then their recent session for KCRW. And cme on down to the little Muddy.

Atoms for Peace have been stamping out snippets of scenes of the band setting the stages for their impending tour, and today they released a vignette in which they’re rehearsing their namesake track (Atoms For Peace) from Thom Yorke’s The Eraser.  Check out Yorke’s sinuous vocals and Flea’s percolating bass in particular.  Coming to the Santa Barbara Bowl on October 17th.  We can’t wait.

One of the highlights of the Arts & Letters X (that label’s 10-year anniversary commemorative album mentioned yesterday) is Chilly Gonzalez & Stars’ Nothing Good Comes to Those Who Wait.  Gonzalez is the fantastically-gifted arranger/composer/pianist/now-rapper and Stars are, well, Stars (including the always-compelling vocals of Amy Milan).  It’s a counter-Proverbial beauty. Check it out below.

As alluded to in my post earlier this week, this is the inaugural post of what will hopefully become a weekly guest spot by yours truly, Jeune Lefort, featuring the most interesting electronic music out there (well, at least what I think the Lefort audience would like or at least stomach).  A perfect segue then is to use remixes of recognizables, and especially Lefort favorites.  In honor of Atoms For Peace’s (Thom Yorke’s and Nigel Godrich’s anyway) DJ-set on KCRW this morning (which you will eventually be able to hear/watch HERE), we begin with a band whose songs are ever-evolving into electronic music: Radiohead.

Radiohead has released a number of albums containing only remixes of their tracks, and both of the songs I’ve chosen are from a remix album for The King of Limbs and are, therefore, Yorke-approved.

The first track comes from Canadian artist Jacques Greene. “Do what you want” Yorke whispers, and Jacques Greene apparently wanted to make a very dancefloor-friendly percussion arrangement of the track and layer it with reverb-heavy samples of Yorke’s voice.  And it works.  Check it out below.

The second song, also comes from a Radiohead-sanctioned remix album and is by another Canad-“eh”-n, the Montreal-based Caribou.  On this re-mix of Little By Little, Caribou keeps much of the vocals from the original, but distorts and chops them into new and bizarre bits and then adds a haunting harp lead over all of it.

And finally, just for fun check out a hip-hop re-purposing of Thom Yorke’s Eraser by the promised super-group, but current one hit wonder, CRS which is made up of Pharrell, Lupe Fiasco, and Kanye West.

Hope you’ve enjoyed Electronic-ish Friday.

Jeune Lefort

This morning Atoms For Peace’s Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich were the guest-DJs on KCRW for a one-hour session.  You will eventually be able can listen to (and maybe watch) the session HERE.  Or below. Great stuff from the boys.

It’s been a great week in late night music (see our last few posts), but by far the best of the lot was last night when Canada’s best performed on Late Night with Fallon Show.  Two of our all-time favorites, Broken Social Scene and Feist (an original member of BSS), took over the Fallon studio and simply slaughtered. BSS is taking an extended break from action, but to celebrate their label Arts & Crafts’ 10-year anniversary (and the release of the commemorative album entitled Arts & Crafts: X), they have reunited to perform at this weekend’s Field Trip Festival in Toronto.

We have written repeatedly about this entrancing entourage and their ebullient live shows before (including 2o11 at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass).  Now check them out on Fallon where they performed Almost Crimes from their epic You Forgot It In People album, followed by the web-exclusive of their classic 7/4 Shoreline from their 2005 eponymously-titled album. Check out Kevin Drew in standard fine form, a de rigeur leg-kick from Brendan “Can Can” Canning, the ferocious Feistian vocals, and the remainder of the lads driving the message home. This is a great band that we hope reunites permanently. Long live BSS!

You can go HERE to stream and buy Arts & Crafts: X. Or, stream it at bottom.

It’s been a busy music week on late night TV this week.  In addition to last night’s Houndmouth showing on Conan and tonight’s bound-to-be-epic performance by Broken Social Scene and Feist on the J-Fallon Show, this week has brought Local Natives to Letterman, Divine Fits to Conan, Savages to Fallon, and Noah and the Whale and new Br”it”-band Disclosure to the Jools Holland Show.  Check them out in that order below, and let us know your pick of the litter.

Louisville’s own Houndmouth showed up on Conan last night and performed their song On The Road from their first album From The Hills Below The City.  We have been hounded by what we have heard from Houndmouth heretofore, and their performance on Conan did nothing to dissuade us.  Check out the Muscle Shoalsy vibe on Conan and the fine vocal interplay between the lead singers. [Minor concern:  between Katie Toupin’s vocals and the band’s sound, they hew a little close to Alabama Shakes’ affects here.  Things could get “interesting” when they perform together with Alabama Shakes later in June.]  Houndmouth is out on tour now and plays a free show (huh?) tonight at Bardot Hollywood in LA.  They’ll be back to Cali in August to play the High Sierra and Outside Lands Festivals.

We last heard from guest blogger Jeune Lefort (the electronic music-maven formerly known as Derp) in early 2012.  Jeune has emerged anew from his extended rave-cave hibernation to give us an electronic music update.  Check back every Friday for Jeune’s electronic track-of-the-week.  Without further adieu:

MSMR (pronounced “Miss Mister”) is a New York-based duo consisting of vocalist Lizzy Plapinger and producer Max Hershenow. They just released a new album entitled Secondhand Rapture in May.  The new album includes their three previously-released singles, including the very dance-able Hurricane.  The song of the summer, however, is this Chvrches- remix of Secondhand Rapture’s opening track.  It turns this melancholy and slowly building song into a pop/disco dance hit.  Warning: Your feet, head, and/or hips will start involuntarily begin moving when you listen to this song.

For an example of MSMR’s original work check out the Lana-del-Rey-esque Dark Doo Wop, which is the standout track of the album. The song holds beautiful vocals with a building background that keeps gaining energy throughout and right up till the end.  Check it out HERE.  Looking forward to catching MSMR at the Outside Lands Festival in August in San Francisco.

Taking an abrupt exit from the previous musical road the next track that’s been on my mind is Miasma Sky by Baths [Lefort:  Baths opened for The Postal Service at their show we caught in San Luis Obispo in April; not bad at all].  This track is off Will Wiesenfeld’s second album Obsidian and is a dark and brooding follow up to 2010’s Cerulean.  Miasma Sky is a haunting song about life and death, which (like much of the album) was written after a lengthy illness last year that left Wiesenfeld bed-ridden.

To end this update on a much lighter note, the last track is a house jam by the German duo Booka Shade. From their 2006 album Movements, Body Language is a synthed-out gem.  Not The Lefort Report’s usual fair but will nonetheless undoubtedly capture your attention.

Don’t forget to check back on Friday for my electronic-track of the week.