Cold Cave have a real treat in store for NYC tonight, and that is that they are releasing a super limited cassette, New Morale Leadership, in an edition of 300 copies (one hundred of each of the above, thanks mbv) that will  be available at tonight’s show at Le Poisson Rouge as well as on their upcoming European tour (and maybe select record stores….if there are any left).

Cold Cave have been busy since their signing to Matador with several 12″s to follow the wonderful Love Comes Close 12″ of last year.  Cold Cave’s dark wave synth pop is something that could only be created from a background in punk rock, hardcore, and noise music.   Wesley Eisold, Dominick Fernow, and Caralee McElroy  create a unique blend of these heavier styles styles that culminates to create dance floor sensation.

The newest release by Cold Cave (besides the tape mentioned above) will be a remix 12″ of their wonderful “Life Magazine” which set to be released on June 22nd by Matador.  Here is the original:

[mp3] Cold Cave- “Life Magazine”

MBV was able to bring us two remix tracks from this upcoming record, but reworkings of “Life Magazine.”  The 12″ will feature remixes by Optimo (a Glassgow DJ duo), harsh noise pioneer Prurient (aka Dominck Fernow, who is also a member of Cold Cave), ambient house musician Pantha du Prince, and the famed Arthur Baker (known for his work with Afrika Bambaataa and New Order).

[mp3] Cold Cave- “Life Magazine (Pantha Du Prince First Flash Remix)”

Arthur Baker’s use of Caralee McElroy’s vocals on this second remix is just killing me.  Pretty much amazing.

[mp3] Cold Cave- “Life Magazine(Arthur Bakers’ Not Going Back Remix)”

• Buy Cold Cave’s Love Comes Close (and eventually the Life Magazine Remixes) here.

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Again Cold Cave performs tonight, April 29th, at Le Poisson Rouge w/ Cult of Youth, Beaut, Max, and one of my favorite radio DJ’s Michael Goodstein of Choking on Cufflinks (WFMU).

• Buy tickets here.

While you are there snag one of those super limited Cold Cave tapes.  Should be a great show.  I won’t be able to make it, but  I’ll be trying to get a copy of that tape through much less direct avenues (for those not going who want a copy… I’m checking Other Music, Academy Annex, and Hospital Productions…those places tend to get the hard to find plastic).

UPDATE: New Morale Leadership cassettes are available in person at Hospital Productions (one per person), and on Cold Cave’s upcoming European tour only.

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• more on Cold Cave can be found here.

I wrote about Love Comes Close earlier this week, and how much I’m loving Cold Cave these days.  Love Comes Close is pretty much a perfect dance album at least for people who don’t typically dig dance music…some people might think it nods to New Order a little bit hard, but that doesn’t bother me one bit.

Cremations has finally been released on LP (the CD came out earlier this year), and it compiles many of the out of print more experimental musings of Cold Cave into one album (Como Potions LP, Electric Dreams Cassette, and the Painted Nails EP..among other things).  My special order has arrived at Permanent Records, and I plan on picking it up tonight.  From what I have heard of the album it really lets the heavier back grounds of Wesley Eisold and Dominick Fernow come out.  While it still has touches of the lighter uptempo music that I love from Love Comes Close it definitely brings the bands dark, almost industrial, side into perspective.

Cremations was released on Fernow’s very own Hospital Productions.  Here is what the label has to say about the release:

Vinyl LP edition. Cremations is a collection of early demo/live/and unreleased tracks from Cold Cave. From the projects isolated beginnings to the recent full band line-up the development of this singular musical entity is documented here in its icy electronic glory. From Cold Cave’s infancy sexual identity and oblique existentialism have been expressed through biting lyrics and electronic minimalism. Rarely has the human condition been exposed so brazenly as in “Sex Ads”. Melodies, noise and rhythms clash as stories from below the surface are retold. From the demo LP Coma Potion, which featured a rugged stripped down distortion, to the suggestive Electronic Dreams tour cassette (featuring the voice of Max Morton on the track “Heavenly Metals”). Cold Cave has developed its own brand of genre defying electronic music, without ever betraying its dark roots. Love and pornography, Industrial music and traditionalism, poetry and profanity all mix together in a hedonistic, cocktail of nihilistic nights and mournful mornings. Cremations collects all this work for the first and last time.

You might notice that the last line of this description says “Cremations collects all this work for the first and last time” and I don’t think this is an understatement.  Hospital Productions is know for their high quality limited releases.  If you have been loving Love Comes Close you might want to pick this one up when you see it.

[mp3] Cold Cave- “Gates”

[mp3] Cold Cave- “Chrissie Sally”

New Yorkers can find this one at Academy Annex in Brooklyn, Permanent Records, and of course Hospital Productions…while supplies last of course.

Or buy it from Hospital Productions here (click on the price and it takes you to paypal)…or, if you prefer, at insound here.

Links:

• more on Cold Cave here.
• buy music by Cold Cave here.

Previous mp3s:

• [mp3] Cold Cave- “Life Magazine”

In my last post I wrote about the discogs.com RECORDS iPhone App, and I mentioned Cold Cave and Gary War…two bands who have had a stellar year releasing music in 2009.  Gary War releasing two wonderful 12″s and a hand full of 7″s, and Cold Cave apparently releasing an un-countable amount of releases.

If you are a regular reader of this blog it should be no surprise that I’m writing about Gary War once again.  I’ve had a bunch of people finding the Great Pumpkin searching for Gary War’s fabulous track “Reality Protest.”  As far as I know this track was not released on an album, but was posted for free download on Gary War’s short lived blog.  I had posted a link previously to Gary War’s download link, but that one is no longer active…and decided that I will re-post it here.  I’ve listen to this song quite a bit over the past couple weeks, and it is starting to make it onto at least one mix I have been working on.

[mp3] Gary War- “Reality Protest”

Cold Cave is one of those bands that I had been reading about for a while, and all it took was downloading a couple tracks before I got hooked.  Cold Cave is the newish project from Wesley Eisold (who has played in several hardcore bands over the years including Some Girls) who is accompanied by Caralee McElroy (formerly of Xiu Xiu), Dominick Fernow (of  Prurient), Max G. Morton (celebrated author), and Sarah Lipstate (Noveller, ex-Parts and Labor).  Cold Cave makes noisy synth pop (cold wave or dark wave maybe), but in the end it kind of just reminds me of the 80′s in a really good way.

Love Comes Close has already become one of my favorites this year, and it has already gone out of print…but don’t worry Matador is re-issuing it!  The repress is coming out on November 3rd.  In the mean time listen to this:

[mp3] Cold Cave- “Life Magazine” (from Love Comes Close)

After you listen… Pre-Order it here.

Cold Cave also has an EP coming out before before the re-issue titled Death Comes Close on October 20th (more on this to come).  This will feature the title track Love Comes Close, and three unreleased b-sides.  Cremations was also just released on LP which compiles many of Cold Caves out of print recordings.  I can’t wait to get my hands on these.

Links:

• more on Gary War here.
• buy Gary War records here.
• more on Cold Cave here.
• buy Cold Cave records here.
• photo taken at Death By Audio’s Maze Installation.

I’ve been using an iPhone for about the past six months, and while there are somethings that I totally love about it…but it is not perfect, and I find that lots of applications are not nearly as useful as you would like them to be.

Recently Analog Apartment posted about a new iPhone app that uses discogs.com.  If you aren’t familiar with Analog Apartment it is a cross between Apartment Therapy and a techy audio file blog with a strong focus on vinyl.

The RECORDS iPhone App uses discogs.com to look up an album’s information quickly and efficently.  I don’t know if you are like me, but I’ve definitely tried to look things up on allmusic.com while at the record shop, and unless you are looking for reviews I’m pretty sure this application has what you need.

+’s:

The RECORDS app gives you a welth of information: Title, Artist, Record Label, Format, Country, Release Date, Genres, Styles, Notes (if applicable), and Track Listings.

Initially I was skeptical so I started off with something that was kind of obscure.  I typed in Cold Cave.  I wanted to see what info it would bring up.  I was slightly surprised when I get a whole bunch of results…it not only brought up the LPs, but also the CDs.   I chose Love Comes Close.  The results were pretty cool.  In the notes section on Love Comes Close (the LP on Heart Work) it said:

“Limited to 1,000 on black vinyl.”

At this point I was pretty impressed.  I’m interested in seeing what it says when the re-press comes available from Matador.

Next up I thought I would try something a little harder, and I punched in Gary War.  Just like Cold Cave I got a whole bunch of results (both searches brought up 7″s and eps).  I knew the pressing details of Horribles Parade, and thought that I would check it out.  The notes section on this one were equally impressive:

“Special edition with screen printed alternate cover art, a hand numbered insert, and an mp3 download code. Limited to 150 Copies.”

Almost every album I have looked up has cover art, and all relevant information. There are some problems though.

-’s

The information is pretty detailed, but  I have tried to stump it and I think that it runs into problems with re-presses.  For example when punching in Nobunny…I get one hit for Love Visions, and it says that it is a press of 200 copies…I know that this LP is currently in it’s 3rd press, but those were not mentioned.

Of course with the digestible format that discogs.com has created in this app it will fall short in some areas…for example if you are trying to figure out exactly what pressing of a Beatles album…the 20 or so listings for Abbey Road might be confusing, and in the end you might not be able to figure out exactly what you have in your hands when at the record shop.

Lastly…the search is sometimes case sensitive.  A little annoying, but something I can deal with.  This hasn’t happened every time, but when writing this review I had a problem searching Cold Cave until I used capital C’s on both words.

Overall:

Discogs.com is a community built database so the information will be getting better each day, and I really feel that it was a pretty good for the small prices of $1.99.  I highly recommend trying it out.  It might not have everything you need, but it has most of it…and it is a whole lot faster than trying to use the internet on your phone.  If you want the database to be better head on over to Discogs and join, and contribute to the information.

Links:

• Companion post with mp3s by Cold Cave and Gary War.
• Discogs
• RECORDS iPhone App
• more on Gary War here.
• more on No Bunny here.
• more on Cold Cave here.