Album of the week: Bear in Heaven – I Love You, It’s Cool

Combining ethereal lyrics and unrelentingly poppy electronic work, Bear In Heaven creates an interesting hybrid sound that is at one moment immensely driving and at another an acid-laced lullaby. The Brooklyn- based psychedelic band delivers with their fourth album, I Love You, It’s Cool, with a strong electric presence that is the pulse to the entire album. Whether wanting pounding dance beats or deep, probing lyrics, Bear In Heaven offers a little bit of both.

Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne talks new album

In addition to Flaming Lips upcoming Record Store Day release, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, Wayne Coyne and company have a few tricks up their sleeves. In an interview with Pitchfork, Coyne talks about possibly adding collaborations with BMSR’s Tabacco and Death Cab for Cutie. With no official title, Coyne adds that the album is “beat-less” with “synthesizer-like church hymns.” Interesting, but when is a Flaming Lips album anything but.

Neil Young thinks music still sucks, but is offering a solution

As we talked reported a month or two ago, Neil Young thinks today’s music sucks. No, not the music itself but the way it’s made. Young is an audio purist and is doing everything in his musical arsenal to make music sound better. In a release it is stated that Young is spearheading the development of Pono, which is an audio system that more closely resembles how songs sound in the studio before being transfered to a digital format. In only a few years, mp3 might go the way of the 8-track tape.

Shut Up and Play The Hits to play in theaters this summer

Oscilloscope Laboratories announced on April 2nd that the documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits, which documents the final days and last concert of LCD Soundsystem, will be screened throughout the U.S. in the summer. The film will play one-night only engagements. Garnering much attention at Sundance and SXSW, this the music documentary that highlights what it really means when a band ends.

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West

Word around the celebrity water cooler is that Kim Kardashian and Kayne West are a couple. According to MTV, Kardashian was caught mid-walk of shame as she left Kanye’s apartment sporting the same clothes as she wore the night previous. Although this has no direct impact on music, the lasting effect on Kanye’s already massive ego remains to be seen.

Earl Scruggs remembered

Consider one of the last original architects of bluegrass music, Earl Scruggs, who passed away on March 28^th, was memorialized at a funeral service at the Ryman in Nashville, Tenn. The venue was packed with 2,300 of Scruggs fans and banjo greats including Charlie Daniels and Bela Fleck. The world of bluegrass has lost a legend.