New music - Blonde Redhead, Les Savy Fav, Grinderman, Kes Trio, possibly Lauryn Hill

by thawking on Jul 28 2010, 01:00PM

There are few things that The Vine is looking forward to this year (musically speaking, anyway) more than the return of Blonde Redhead. Their album is due out later this year on 4AD, but for now, the most excellent folks at their Australian label Remote Control are giving away the first single as a free download via their blog. Get involved.

More largesse on the behalf of a great local label: Melbourne indie Mistletone are giving away a new track by Kes Trio free to The Vine’s readers. Featuring the endlessly prolific Karl “Kes” Scullin along with Lehmann B Smith and Julian Patterson, Kes Trio have an album called Black Brown Green Grey White due out on 18 September. The track you can snaffle is called ‘Wise Eyes’, and it’s a delicate, atmospheric late-night slow-burner. We likes it a lot. You can get it via this Sendspace link.

Not so into the whole free downloading thing are Les Savy Fav, who’ve started a Twitter account called u_took_my_music, which professes to be “the ghost of Les Savy Fav’s new record Root for Ruin” and promises to follow everyone it suspects of stealing the record after it leaked over the weekend (it’s out in September). So far it’s following 58 people. Twitter stalking? We like their style. If you want to hear something off the record legally, head to the band’s label Frenchkiss Records, where you can surrender your email address and in return download first single ‘Let’s Get Out Of Here’.

The embodiment of Nick Cave’s ongoing midlife crisis - ie. Grinderman - also have a new album due in September, and you can hear first single ‘Heathen Child’ now on Soundcloud. Apparently the b-side (which isn’t on Soundcloud, sadly) features a version that includes a solo from guitar god Robert Fripp. Yes, he was in King Crimson - who are kinda too prog for The Vine’s tastes - but he also did some mindblowingly amazing work with Brian Eno during the 1970s. If you haven’t heard it, go out and Google No Pussyfooting. Now.

And finally, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported this morning on the appearance of what purports to be a new Lauryn Hill track on YouTube. As the paper points out, there’s no evidence that it’s not an out-take from her late ‘90s output - but then again, there’s no evidence that it is, either. Make up your own mind here: