Listen up, boys and girls, and try not to wet your pants: HEALTH just dropped their new album Get Color yesterday, and you better move quick to get your hands on some of this. Just when we thought they couldn’t get any better, they toss out this gem of an album that is less gritty electhrash and more trapped in a hot cave of psychadelic paranoia with your heartbeat reverberating about the walls, shards of diamond raining from the roof, and clockwork locusts buzzing just around your peripheral. Now don’t you worry, they havn’t gone soft on us or anything; its still all madness and frenzy in there, just with a new enlightened perspective on things. Check out when we interviewed them.
Are you sitting on the edge of your seat now? Are you dying to see what the skinny-jean-vibrating, ear-drum-busting live experience is all about? Well then lucky you, because they happen to be playing the Troubadour tonight; I would be there in a millisecond had my scholarly obligations not been so cruel as to prevent me from attending, but do me a favor and go melt your mind tonight, for my sake.
HEALTH- Die Slow
thanks karen aragon & impose
If you like your tones filthy and your vocals interpretive then there’s really no need to look further than HEALTH. Los Angeles’ experimental dream team have picked up quite a bit of press over the past few years and on the cusp of releasing their second full length album we thought it’d be appropriate to check-in. I don’t intend for this to seem romantic, but a few weeks ago I had a sit down brunch with HEALTH, minus Jake, and Jake Friedman of Lovepump United. We met the day after the band played the Williamsburg Waterfront, when I wrote this, and the day before they took off for Europe. Previous to this I spent a few days with the dudes in Los Angeles assisting their shoot for “Die Slow” in our ol’ Out Of Asia warehouse putting us already a few Tecate and Kombucha deep into a lovely bromance story…
FMLY: What is Lovepump? I see it as a family.
HEALTH: Lovepump is family, that has always been the motto.
The fact that it’s music by musicians put forth as an effort from musicians is just the way to go about it rather than an industry dictating what music is. Jake, since it started with your band Glitter Pals are there any other labels or collectives that Lovepump works closely with?
[John] No. [pause&laughter] Actually, Cityslang. Starting tomorrow we’re hitting up Germany with them.
[german gibberish and some side conversation I shouldn’t talk about]
Speaking of dicks [told you I shouldn’t talk about it], who made the Lovepump logo?
[Jake] The Lovepump logo was made by SERIPOP who are a design team in Montreal and coincidentally two of the members in AIDS Wolf – one of the first bands we released on Lovepump. Yeah, I was the model but you know what, it’s not even about being a severed penis just as much as it’s not music for your mom and that’s kind of the way it should be. [John] I would have to agree with that statement. [BJ] I had no idea there was a dick bone.
[the next ten minutes was spent talking about large animals’ dick bones, Mr. Hands, keeping it up, horse dicks, whale dicks, internet hyped dicks, dudes cutting off their dicks online, etc…needless to say we scared away the dude sitting next to us in the cafe. interview continues after the jump]
HEALTH – Perfect Skin (Daytrotter live session)
HEALTH – Die Slow
Continue reading ‘don’t worry, be healthy’
another impose winner
It’s 4am and I thought that I was about to go to bed…then this “Die Slow” remix by Tobacco pops up. Standing somewhere between what a “Die Slow” remix should encompass and “Feel The Drip” Tobacco once again delivers an impressive interpretation of a difficult to dissect arrangement. Imagine walking into a 1980s themed club in the year 2300; the smell of stiff clothes, the way which your shoes slide across the floor and the novelty that has become a simulated memory. Tobacco has captured that discomfort, that subconscious dis-ease, and given it a sound.
Last month, HEALTH filmed their music video for “Die Slow” in FMLY’s Out Of Asia warehouse. The video hasn’t been released yet, but take a sneak peek at these photos.
HEALTH – Die Slow (Tobacco remix)
BNS
HEALTH – Die Slow
Height with Friends – Baltimore Highlands (Tobacco remix)
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Just For the Night (Laura Burhenn BMSR Remix)
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Feel The Drip
photo by Bao Nguyen
Playing a theatrical set sprinkled with a dope amount of HEALTH and a fair amount of Get Color, Health allowed the time to pass by for a half-enthusiastic crowd of head bobbers and Trail of Dead fans that certainly weren’t acting their age. Now don’t get me wrong because Health’s set was more than fantastic, but I felt like I was the only person in the audience who felt the need to publicly express my gratitude for their presence…and I hadn’t even hit up the beer tent yet. To get past my bitching Health rocked, the audience generally sucked.
Alright, sucked is a bit harsh, but when you’re checking out a band that is obviously pouring their heart into the music it’d be nice on your part to do a bit more than clap between songs and bob your head. At least uncross your arms! Thankfully, the nu-hippie standing next to me and his unshaven girlfriend shared the same anxiety to get moving so that’s exactly what went down. My highlight? “Perfect Skin” of course. I lost a moccasin and my arms were sore, but someone has gotta rep the Health love in New York. Black Lips also ruled, but it was a slow set for the folks that weren’t on the frontlines being covered in 40z and receiving security assault. And Trail of Dead had to cancel, lightning struck, I found cover in a nearby party with a human shield to protect the record spinning DJ. Great day.
Health shows coming up with Nine Inch Nails final performances and Lovepump label-mate Pictureplane, all dates on the MySpace.
HEALTH – Die Slow
HEALTH – Lost Time (Pictureplane RMX)
Other Health news? Our LA boys recently recorded their video for “Die Slow” in our own Out of Asia and I’ll be sitting down with them tomorrow afternoon to talk about the new album. Any questions for the band? Leave them in the comments or email me.
