[sketches in a moleskine]

Swedish company ‘brothers’ have released the ‘Wall of Sound‘ and it looks like it could be the biggest ipod speakers ever to be produced. The 125 Watt, tube amplified, 28-element speaker measures in at about 3 ft x 4 ft. The speaker peaks at about 95db, enough to send any neighbour into hysterics. Oh and it weighs in at just under 100kgs. Cost? $4495 USD.

After digitally remastering and re-releasing all of The Beatles back catalog in September, EMI and Apple have announced that they will be creating limited edition Beatles USB apples, these will hold 14 beatles albums in FLAC 44.1 Khz 24 bit and MP3 320 Kbps formats. Limited to 30′000 with a release date of December 7th.

Albums included on the USB apple:

Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, The White Album, Abbey Road, Let It Be, Past Masters

As Julian Casablancas readies his debut solo album ‘Phrazes for the Young’ which is about to drop end of October, details have surfaced about the release of a special box set due out on the 18th December.

The boxset is to include:

• A 48-page classically bound storybook containing original and exclusive artwork, full album lyrics, B-Side lyrics, “phrazes” and photographs – each book will be personally signed by Julian Casablancas.
• A DVD containing filmed solo acoustic performances by Julian, an interview, the album trailer and the “11th Dimension” music video.
• 2 CDs: CD 1 will contain the full-length album and CD 2 will contain five song demos from the album and three B-Sides (demos only available in the Luxury Edition).
• A 180 gram vinyl LP of the album.
• A double-sided (24″ x 36″) poster.
• A Cult Records pin.
• The Luxury Edition is housed in a beautiful custom designed antique-style box.
• In addition, the Luxury Edition includes an immediate download of the album which will be available on the record’s official release date.

Here’s a video that takes you back to the 80’s, Justice’s remix of Lenny Kravitz’s 1989 hit ‘Let Love Rule’. The video starts where the film ends, I needed 2 viewings of this clip before I understood what Schofield was trying to do with this video. (Dir. Keith Schofield)

Charlotte Gainsbourg’s latest album should see a release in January 2010. Titled ‘IRM’ (which is MRI in french), the album is produced by Beck. The strange album title is in fact a reference to Charlotte’s frequent experiences with MRI’s after suffering a brain hemorrhage back in 2007 through a water-skiing accident.

Watch the teaser video, where Gainsbourg explains the whole phenomena, and beck talks about his involvement in the album too.

Kid Koala is back with his latest project ‘The Slew’. On tour through September and October in North America, he’s taken 6 turntables, 2 Rane Empath mixers, Radial Duplex DIs and an old Fender PA100 with two 4 x 8″ speaker columns, oh and he’s brought along Chris Ross and Myles Heskett (ex-Wolfmother) on bass and drums for the shows. The album should see an official release in the next couple of months. Check out the video for The Slew’s ‘It’s all over’.

I’ve been enjoying this track for a while, but just recently I came across the original music video for it from 1968! Enjoy!

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Came across this video a few days ago and was quite mesmerised by the sound of this band. ‘The XX‘ are four 20 year old kids hailing from South West London and happen to be graduates from the Elliot School (of performing arts) where the alumni includes ‘Hot Chip’ and ‘Fourtet’. With sell out gigs on their upcoming UK tour, hopefully they hit Sydney for a gig soon. In the meantime check out their video for ‘Crystalised’.

London artist Speech Debelle took the Mercury Award for 2009 for her album ‘Speech Therapy’ beating favourites Bat for Lashes. I can’t say I had heard of her prior to the award nominations but I’m glad she’s got exposure now, this girl is a real talent.

Grizzly bear’s just released their new album ‘Veckatimest’ on warp records and I have to say it’s freakishly good. Here’s a clip of the band performing ‘2 weeks’ on Letterman.