It’s Coldplay week! With the band’s bombastically titled new long-player, “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends,” officially coming out in a mere six days (this is after the leak, of course, and the stream), fans of giant rock across several continents are preparing to spend all summer thrilling to the poetic fulminations of Chris Martin and his dudes. Sure, the tour was delayed, but bully for us — L.A. is now the opening city! After that free show in New York, grrr.

Making life even better for little Apple Martin, Dad’s new single, “Viva La Vida,” is burning up the iTunes charts and almost — not quite — toppling Top 100’s reigning couple, Lil’ Wayne and Leona Lewis. And if you haven’t downloaded the thing, you’re singing it anyway, because it’s in the bestest iTunes commercial ever. Sorry, Bono!

All of this makes Amy Kuney’s new cover of “La Vida” all the more pleasurable. The California-based ingenue has some fine tunes of her own; if I were Eleni Mandell, I’d be a little bit worried about keeping hold of my niche. Kuney, who’s only 22, loves to cover songs as much as the next YouTube habitue. (Anyone remember Marié Digby?) This is Kuney’s latest more-than-karaoke moment.

What makes this clip special is her harmonizing with herself (something she also did covering the Ellen Page-Michael Cera duet from “Juno,” playable on her MySpace page) and especially the private quality of the performance — though her voice is especially lovely, her delivery’s quite plain and inward-turning, like someone singing to herself. Which is what so many people are doing right now, thanks to Martin’s maddeningly hooky chorus about formerly ruling the world.

So, enjoy Amy Kuney reflecting the reality of singers in the shower across this fine land.

– Ann Powers

Contrary to even our own expectations, we here at the ‘Board still haven’t gotten sick of “Lollipop” or “Shake It” quite yet. But if this year’s crop of summer songs isn’t cutting it for you and you’d rather while away the punishing heat indoors with headphones and the fan on, we heartily suggest “Nah Und Fern,” the recent box set of reissues from German electronica soundscape pioneer Gas.

Before he founded the techno stalwart Kompakt Records, Wolfgang Voigt released four albums built around a distant four-on-the-floor kick drum and glimmering, hissing ambience wrested from manipulated samples. The originals have been nigh impossible to find, but now Voigt’s given them a lovely reissue treatment on CD and fetish-ready vinyl on Kompakt. 2000’s “Pop” is a great place to start, but all four of the discs are packed with spooky, uncanny shimmers guaranteed to wash away the strains of “Love in This Club” for at least an hour or so.

– August Brown

Photo courtesy Kompakt Records

“[Filmmaker Andrei] Tarkovsky… has a very good quotation in his book about the function of art being a function of communication directly between an artist, in this case, and the community. I think that’s really important to the way that I work… I value very much the contact with the local people who are organizing the gig and finding out what their conditions are like and what the music in that area is like and I also value contact with the audience directly… If you’re an improviser, you need to have feedback. You can’t exist in a vacuum.”

– musician Fred Frith in the 1990 documentary, “Step Across the Border”

In French video director Vincent Moon’s world, music is an intrinsic part of the landscape, as permanent and immutable as the artists he films performing on rooftops, urban street corners, tenement hallways and abandoned churches.

“Everything is spontaneous,” he said from his home in Paris last Friday. “It should be. I’m going to the reality… I’m not trained to get the shot… more of an improviser.”

Today, the online video channel, crackle.com (Sony Pictures’ new foray into web entertainment) begins hosting a four-”season” series of Moon’s “Take-Away” videos. Over 40 were informally shot at music festivals around the country specifically for the series.

American audiences can check out his faux-documentary style in past videos for such artists as R.E.M., the National (click on the video below), Grizzly Bear, Sufjan Stevens, Tegan & Sara and Beirut.

Read Full Story

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak — what’s more controlling than dictating what happens after you’ve kicked? — has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I’m sure about so far is “Days” by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it’s natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell’s “High and Low” is one such song.

First released on “Through Toledo,” the San Diego-based singer-songwriter’s seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, “High and Low” isn’t necessarily about someone who’s literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell’s deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive’s step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you’re better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of “High and Low” appears on Laswell’s EP “How the Day Sounds,” released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, “Three Flights From Alto Nido,” out July 8. He’s also part of this summer’s annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

– Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

A few years ago, post-rock was the music of the future. With bands such as Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Icelandic heavyweight Sigur Ros leading the scene, it seemed like lengthy, crescendoing guitar instrumentals would be the soundtrack of choice for catharsis-seeking teens and meditative filmmakers alike well into the new millennium. But with an exception or two — Explosions in the Sky’s score for “Friday Night Lights” and the continued success of Sigur Ros’ pro-vocal, pro-glacier epics — the post-rock bubble has long since burst.

As one of the few bands to ascend beyond the genre’s aesthetic and commercial boundaries, it’s no surprise that Sigur Ros’ latest single breaks new ground. Or rather, old ground. The appropriately titled “Gobbledigook” (Icelandic for “Gobbledigook”), which the band released for free on its website today along with an NSFW video, steps away from the band’s usual iciness in favor of an acoustic campfire vibe, all click-clacking, double-time drumming and frantic guitar strums. It’s the sort of rough, tribal music that’s helped nature-centric bands such as Animal Collective and the Dodos replace post-rock as the outsider sound of choice but Sigur Ros are hardly copycats.

Unlike Animal Collective’s lo-fi romps, “Gobbledigook” maintains the band’s usual pristine production, letting singer Jónsi Birgisson bounce over a bed of high-pitched harmonies. His melody is both catchy and high-flying, avoiding the aforementioned bands’ frequent problem of burying their singers. It does the group good to add a little energy to the mix: the song clocks in at a scant three minutes, which is barely enough for an intro in typical Sigur Ros time. Older fans might find it dizzying but for a band once willing to repeat itself ad infinitum (or at least for eight-minute intervals), it’s a breath of fresh air. The band’s fifth album, “Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust,” is due June 23. More of this, please.

–David Greenwald

Photo of lead singer Jon Thor Birgisson by Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

It’s been a quiet nine years for Q-Tip, the charismatic on-again off-again frontman for the seminal Queens, New York, hip-hop quartet A Tribe Called Quest — one of the most respected rappers to ever rock a mic.

But that doesn’t mean the Abstract Poetic hasn’t been keeping busy. While largely staying out of the public eye during that time, the hard rhyming, famously adenoidal MC recorded two never-released, widely bootlegged albums (“Kamaal the Abstract” in 2002 and 2005’s “Open”) and bounced between every major hip-hop record label with the exception of Island Def Jam before landing at Universal Motown this year. July will finally greet the arrival of Q-Tip’s long gestating CD, “The Renaissance,” his first album to see a commercial release since 1999’s gold-selling “Amplified.”

It’s a monster of a record, with guest appearances by Norah Jones, D’Angelo and Raphael Saadiq — as well as a vocal contribution by Barack Obama in what must certainly qualify as his first hip-hop “collabo.” But more on all that in a future article.

Over an omakase sushi dinner in New York last week, Q-Tip revealed to The Times that he doesn’t intend to keep up his J.D. Salinger act any longer; the rapper is planning to go back into the studio before the end of the year to cut another album. And although Tip self-produced “The Renaissance,” he’s enlisting the help of a heavyweight Grammy-winning producer for its follow up.

If you’re imagining any of the usual rap rainmakers — Timbaland or the Neptunes, Pete Rock or DJ Premier — you’d be wrong. Try Nigel Godrich, the British engineer-producer whose densely layered, atmospheric sound has become closely identified with Radiohead. In fact, Godrich is sometimes referred to as the morose Brit rock group’s “sixth member” for producing every album it’s put out since 1997’s “OK Computer.” But he’s also racked up an impressive list of characteristically downbeat, brooding albums for the likes of Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Air and Pavement.

Godrich is hardly the no-brainer choice for Q-Tip — himself a Zelig-like figure who turns up all over the pop culture grid and has never been confined by a narrow view of what hip-hop is and isn’t supposed to be — although it remains to be heard how the two’s musical sensibilities will mesh.

“He’s a big fan of rap,” Q-Tip said of the producer. “It’ll be cool working with him. We’re going to make a film out of the project too.”

And the charter member of the Native Tongues rap collective seems untroubled by the notion that Godrich’s dour sonic palette might detract from rap’s abiding party hearty aesthetic.

“He’s just on some real hip-hop [stuff]. It’s gonna be a lot of sampling,” the rapper said, adding an encomium not often associated with Godrich. “He’s really dope!”

– Chris Lee

Photo by Stephan Osman / Los Angeles Times

How do you become an instant celebrity in Los Angeles? Punching out a B-list actor at a pre-Grammy event in February is a nice way to start, especially if TMZ cameras are there to capture it all, but U.K.-born “rapper” Mams Taylor wants to be known for more than popping “Desperate Housewives” star Jesse Metcalfe right in the kisser.

Taylor recently dropped the video for his first single, “L.A. Girls,” on his rapidly growing group of “friends” on MySpace, featuring such notable, um, “girls,” as Carmen Electra and Mila Kunis. Musical collaborator Joel Madden of Good Charlotte also is in the video and on the track.

Taylor moved to Los Angeles four years ago and clearly positioned himself in the right music industry circles. The tattooed, menacing-looking rapper-singer was most recently dating actress and musician Taryn Manning, but the pair have split, Manning’s publicist Siri Garber confirmed Thursday. To help heal his wounds, Taylor took in a private Prince concert Sunday, attended by “maybe 30 other guests” at the artist’s Bel-Air mansion, according to his MySpace blog. Taylor has also already lined up respected DJ Tiësto to remix “L.A. Girls,” all without support from any major label (Taylor is currently unsigned, as far as we know).

However, judging by his first real single and video, Taylor still has a ways to go before he becomes the next Justin Timberlake. Lyrically, the cautionary tale (actresses doing cocaine in L.A.? You don’t say!) of “L.A. Girls” leaves much to be desired. With embarrassingly bad lines like “baking in the California sun/man I think I gotta get me one,” we’re pretty sure Interscope isn’t going to be beating a path to Taylor’s door anytime soon.

Still, Taylor seems to have charisma in spades and name recognition to boot (among the tabloid-watching teen set, anyway). And really, what guy hasn’t dreamed of landing that perfect punch that drops a dude straight to the ground? Just like MacGyver!

Meanwhile, Taylor’s ex has her own new music out. Manning’s band Boomkat released its first single in four years, the haunting “Runaway,” in early April. A second single/video, “Stomp,” will be forthcoming this summer from her record, “A Million Trillion Stars,” which should be out this year on iTunes.

So, where do we stand re: Mams versus Taryn? Right now, we’re siding with team Taryn’s music (so far, anyway). Unless Mams comes up with something just a bit more hard-hitting this year, that is. (Please don’t punch us for that one, Mams.)

– Charlie Amter

When Soundboard first heard the insidious, summery jingle advertising Subway’s new (and recession-friendly!) deal for $5 foot-long subs, we had no choice but to admire its weird pop craftsmanship and go buy a bunch of sandwiches. The weird, muted vocal harmonies, that unexpected Beatles-y shift to a minor modality in the verse; seriously, if Earlimart wrote a similar song about foot-longs as a tribute to Bingo, the mayor of Silver Lake, it’d be the smash single of May. But when we discovered that there is an extended dance remix available for download right now, we were forced to ask some uncomfortable questions about pop music: Are the sandwich-centric lyrics the only thing preventing this from being boilerplate respectable blog-house? Who out there is currently on the fence about Subway sandwiches, but upon hearing this dance remix, will be convinced of their need for a Veggie Delight on honey oat bread? Am I that person? Are commercial jingles the ultimate expression of pop utilitarian bent, or its most insipid? In an age where the sellout stigmas have lost their fangs and even radical leftist indie acts gladly license tunes to Nike, what will become of the professional jingle auteur? Did I really just devote 182 words to blogging about a sandwich-promoting dance remix? Either way, Happy Gilmore is stoked right now.

– August Brown

The Echo can seem like a smarmy place, host to an implausible number of meaningless hookups, unfriendly elevator eyes and worst of all, bands that pass off little that’s genuine and true. But that’s on a bad night.

On a good night, someone like Thao Nguyen, 23, blows in, with her black hair, laidback strumming and a set of charmingly downplayed lyrics that seem lived in, cozy. Don’t miss her opening for Xiu Xiu tonight at the Echo. Tonight will be a good night, a showcase for her mellow, absorbing Kill Rock Stars debut, “We Brave Bee Stings and All.”

I talked with Nguyen last week as she was tucked into a van in the middle of Texas with her band, The Get Down Stay Down.

–Margaret Wappler

So you’re in a van somewhere outside El Paso. Do you enjoy touring?

It’s so fascinating, such an unnatural lifestyle. It can be amazing and it can be awful. At any point, either good or bad, you say to yourself, “I can’t believe this is my life.” You harness it in a good way… when it’s good, it’s the best thing you could think to do. When you’re with a really warm crowd, who know all the lyrics to your songs, it’s totally worth it.

Read Full Story

The local noise-freak quartet HEALTH is one of L.A.’s most volatile and virtuosic live acts, but almost to a fault. They’re so busy sending every song in a thousand different directions (nearly all of which are interesting) that as soon as you hear a sound you like, it’s already over. But beneath all those whiplash twists and turns, there’s a sense of rhythm and haunting repetition that suggests they’d be a great dance band if they’d just sit still for a few minutes.

Turns out, HEALTH thought so too. “HEALTH//DISCO,” out in May,  is a compilation of the many (and pretty ace) remixes of cuts from their self-titled album that have been floating around antagonistic dance-punk circles for a few months. We’re particularly fond of the Missy Elliot-evoking Pictureplane’s remix of “Lost Time” and the NOSAJ THING edit of “Tabloid Sores” that sounds like a sebastiAn track made entirely with a Galaga machine. This is the rare remix album that holds up with (and in many places, surpasses) the original article.

– August Brown

Photo courtesy Fanatic Promotions