This week marked the exclusive iTunes movie release of Nina Simone: Great Performances – Live College Concerts & Interviews, a documentary collection of rare performances and interviews with the legend.  Recorded primarily in 1968, the film features live shows from The University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and Atlanta’s Morehouse College, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called home.

Nina expresses her strong political views in these intimate interviews, as well as offering moving renditions of “Strange Fruit,” “Suzanne,” and “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” the latter which she dedicates to the African American members of the student body she’s performing for.

Watch the trailer here, and buy the documentary to remind yourself why Nina Simone is considered one of the greatest voices of our time (but really, you shouldn’t need a reminder - just buy it so you can relish in her musical and lyrical splendor repeatedly)!

The chillaxed Orange County based four-piece known as Japanese Motors, whose all new digital-only EP Perception of Reality drops March 3rd, have announced they will have some very special touring buddies in the coming months. The quartet will act as the main support for the mighty Modest Mouse and their 19 date US tour. It kicked off this past weekend in Oakland, California and will make its way to Terminal 5 in New York City almost three weeks later.

After the Motors bring their raucous live show to the big apple, the group will be heading to South By Southwest for several shows yet to be announced. The most recent addition to the Vice Records roster, these four boys have cooked up a recipe equal parts gritty garage rock and Beach Boys inspired pop. Fronted by pro-surfer Alex Knost, whose skills were featured prominently in the 2003 surf doc Step Into Liquid, the group stays true to the roots of surfer rock: poppy hooks, group vocals and hand claps. Tour dates after the jump. Totally tubular, duude.

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Fuzz Americana folkies La Strada are celebrating the release of their debut six song sing-along La Strada this week on Ernest Jenning Record Co. Having dropped on Tuesday, the record features lead-off single “The Sun Song,” a swooning, swing-heavy shanty reeking of maturity and confidence for such a young group; “I’m not afraid to open the door, anymore.” The release is garnering the band comparisons to fuzz folk legends Neutral Milk Hotel and new-worldies Beirut; no small feat by any means!

While the band is destined to share the spotlight with the likes of Beirut and Devotchka, they bring to the table a unique Americana spirit not often found in the average Brooklyn buzz band. Huffington Post claims, “La Strada offers up the best of the New York indie scene: interesting music made by talented people who have a point of view and a love for what they do.” The consensus is that the septet have crafted a field study on the old world, rooted in the street corners of Paris and the snowy mountaintops of the Balkans as much as it is squarely fixated on their native NYC. Catch them this March for their record release show in Brooklyn and during several dates across the country.

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Depression, losing a friend and album collaborator to lung cancer, a nasty breakup, and living on an air mattress for three months has armed rapper Cage with more than enough real life inspiration for his new record Depart From Me.  Having “.. sabotaged relationships so [he] could write about it,” Chris Palko offers an art-imitates-life set that’s poised to be the “realest” record of his career, dropping June 30th on Def Jux.  Scheduled to play SXSW at the Biz3 showcase at Club DeVille alongside Kid Sister, Lady Sovereign, Chin Chin, Hollywood Holt, Thunderheist and Asher Roth, this tormented wordsmith is ready to hit the scene with the followup to his acclaimed 2005 release Hell’s Winter.  Fresh off a Pitchfork feature, his new single “Nothing Left To Say” is buzzing just about as hard as his tortured rhymes. Featuring lyrics and production from the late Camu Tau, Sean Martin (ex Hatebreed) and underground Hip Hop phenoms El-P and Aesop Rock, Depart From Me is 14 tracks of real, emotionally scarring and therapeutic life stories over mostly sample-less and progressive beats.  CAGE IS BACK IN FULL EFFECT!!!  Check his videos and select tracks from the album on his myspace.

Want to feel like you are in New Orleans without leaving your home? Then A New Orleans Mardi Gras, Vol. 1 is for you.  The album has an eclectic mix of artists that span styles and generations, all of which can effortlessly transport you from your street to Bourbon Street.

The opening track, “Mardi Gras In New Orleans” by Professor Longhair is complete with a whistle intro and upbeat tempo that makes you want to take a stroll down a riverside boardwalk. Bunk Johnson recreates the standard, “Tiger Rag,” a classic ragtime song and favorite among many jazz lovers.

After an impromptu session of playing around on drumsticks, ashtrays, and coke bottles, The Dixie Cups created “Iko Iko,” which quickly became a hit.  It speaks about a parade collision between two “tribes” of Mardi Gras Indians and is one of the catchiest songs on the album. New Orleans Mardi Gras ends beautifully with Louis Armstrong’s “When the Saints,” with his uniquely raspy, deep voice gliding over the track.

Why go to Mardi Gras when you can have it come to you?!

Full tracklist after the jump.

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The new sensation out of (you guessed it!) Brooklyn, La Strada just debuted their brand spankin’ new music video for “The Sun Song.” The fuzz-folkies collaborated with 99 Dollar Music Videos to produce the star studded, multi-million dollar Spike Jonze directed music video! But seriously, the site has a noble cause; they help the best and brightest indie bands create quality music videos for just 99 dollars (even CNN and peers are stoked). Other artists getting in on the action include Lowry (Engine Room Recordings) and Project Jenny, Project Jan (Might Records). The video combines the septet’s penchant for the European-style accordion music you might expect to hear on la strada with the picturesque New York City backdrop they call home. If you are like us here at the Rind and wonder how it could have been made for just 99 bones, direct your attention to the included behind-the-scenes clip. Both tasty videos are available for you, oh faithful reader, after the jump.

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Golem!
Citizen Boris / JDub Records / BUY

NYC based folk-punks Golem! come at us with unmatched enthusiasm, flaunting their old world influences through a whirlwind of sound less listened to than it is experienced. With the release of their new LP Citizen Boris on JDub Records (the follow up to 2006’s appropriately titled Fresh Off Boat), the rag-tag gang manage to capture the energy of packed bar show sing-a-long, filled with sweaty dancing and roars heard down the block.

Culture comes first and foremost for this 6 piece, considered a Klezmer band (a musical tradition that combines Hasidic and Ashkenazic Judaism). Next in the new tradition of new world alternatives, Golem! manage to successfully cultivate a ridiculous good time while staying true to the sound of their homeland. Along with gypsy punks Gogol Bordello, they’ve created a hybrid sound that bridges both generations and continents, a tribute to their culture and an irresistible invitation to anyone in need of a good time. In addition to English, vocals on Citizen Boris are belted out in Yiddish, Ladino, or Slavic tongues. Lyrics are often silly in content, such as on their tribute to fine cabooses, “Tucheses & Nenes,” but often have serious undertones, lamenting over hardship and cultural struggle. On “Mirror Mirror,” female vocals shine on fun verses “no meat to cook with, no mascara/no toilet paper, no diamond rings” and croon on the choruses, “oh god/why did you have to make me so beautiful?”

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This incredibly rare, never before released documentary spotlights the woman, the force, the legend Nina Simone at her finest.  Featuring nine classic songs by the Grammy-nominated “High Priestess of Soul,” Great Performances – Live College Concerts & Interviews was recorded in 1968, with the majority of live footage being taken during performances at both The University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and at the alma mater of the great Dr. King, Morehouse College in Atlanta.  With highlights like “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” “Black Is The Color,” and Nina’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s hauntingly beautiful “Suzanne,” this documentary is both a treat for the avid fan and an excellent introduction to one of the most incredible artists of our time.

Along with the plethora of amazing music that she created (over 40 live and studio recordings that span the genres of jazz, soul, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop music, to be exact), Nina Simone is also highly regarded as one of the most important voices of black America.  Always one to speak out about her feelings towards injustice, she offers strong viewpoints and political statements throughout the intimate interviews that are featured in the film.  Nina Simone: Great Performances – Live College Concerts & Interviews [Artwork Media] will be available exclusively on iTunes February 24th.

Watch the trailer right here.

Steeped in the fingerpicked-guitar rudiments of folk music, inspired by the expressionism of classic jazz vocalists, and finding common ground in the minimalism and ear-taunting of the avant garde, with Beasts of Seasons (February 24th, HUSH Records), Laura Gibson offers up an intimate affirmation of mortality; both vulnerable and courageous, ordinary and extraordinary.

“Beasts of Seasons is nothing short of a masterpiece, both for its flawless and often haunting execution and for its inspired statements on the human experience. Broken into two parts, “Communion Songs” and “Funeral Songs,” the album opens with a foreboding burst of feedback and static. If it’s the sonic equivalent of darkness and what may be lurking there, then Gibson’s fragile voice and plaintively strummed guitar soon emerge as a flicker of light. It’s a mesmerizing contrast, as the curtain rises for Gibson’s beautifully gloomy and arresting meditations on life and death.” - NPR

NPR loves this record so much, in fact, that as of this week it’s available as an on-demand stream at NPR Music.

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Paper Bag Digital is proud to announce the addition of Montreal native, Montag, to their growing digital family with his worldwide release of EP Hibernation this week! Montag is the solo electronic music project of Antoine Bédard. After the successful release of Going Places in 2007, word quickly spread as Montag toured all over the world. Not one to keep his hands idle, Montag’s many side projects in 2008 included a diverse set of collaborations with contemporary dance and theatre artists in Vancouver and Montreal, scoring an animation film and releasing a series of remixes for the likes of M83, Au Revoir Simone, You Say Party! We Say Die!, Stars, I’m From Barcelona and more.

2009 will see the release of a new full-length Montag album, but to warm up these winter weeks (and hold you over), Paper Bag releases this self-produced EP that was previously only available in very limited release on mini-CD.  Hibernation features mostly instrumental tracks, combining orchestral arrangements with vintage keyboards.  Montag’s EPs allow him to experiment with new ways of composing while exploring familiar themes: memory, love, the passage of time and of course, winter.

See what all the excitement’s about!

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