Damon Albarn suggested several weeks ago that the next Gorillaz album would be created completely on an iPad, and now it's been revealed that this will be released for free on Christmas Day via the band's online advent calendar.

Speaking to Australian newspaper Perth Now, Albarn's Gorillaz co-conspirator Jamie Hewlett said: "On Christmas Eve a video for one of the new songs from the iPad album will be released. Then, on Christmas Day fans get the whole album downloaded to their computer for free as a gift."

Albarn, meanwhile, confirmed that the new album was very much a product of spontaneity: "I literally made it on the road in America over a month," he said. "I didn't write it before, I didn't prepare it. I just did it day by day as a kind of diary of my experience in America. If I left it until the New Year to release it then the cynics out there would say 'Oh well, it's been tampered with', but if I put it out now they'd know that I haven't done anything because I've been on tour ever since."

Gorillaz haven't confirmed which apps were used in the album's creation, but it'll certainly be interesting to hear how it sounds. As a side note, we pity the poor IT staff who'll have to on call on 25 December to make sure the Gorillaz advent calendar remains operational.

Source musicradar

Rounder Records is excited to announce that Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame legend Gregg Allman will release his first solo record in 14 years on January 25, 2011.

Called Low Country Blues for the coastal Georgia region Allman calls home, the record was produced by T Bone Burnett, recorded at his Village Recorder studio in Los Angeles and features Dr. John on piano, guitarist Doyle Bramhall II, and Burnett's brilliant go-to rhythm section: bassist Dennis Crouch and drummer Jay Bellerose.

Though constantly on the road, Allman has spent precious little time in the studio since the 2002 death of producer Tom Dowd -- the man behind the glass for much of his recorded career. Sceptical at first, Allman and Burnett quickly bonded and work began in January 2010. The powerhouse band ' which of course also features Gregg's own acoustic guitar expertise and trademark Hammond B-3 organ ' cooks up an earthy and atmospheric musical stew infused with gritty R&B muscle, spooky Southern psychedelia, and greasy deep soul grooves.

'When you have a new record it always feels different,' he says. 'Man, you gotta get out there and move the muscles, you gotta move it and shake it.'

't's been too long,' he adds. ' guess I was just born with a lot of gypsy in my soul.'

Allman'a Pan European tour kicks off in Spain 23 June through mid July, dates to be announced January.

Source music-news

The Swedish pop whistlers return with album number six next year.

Mostly unknown until their breakthrough smash ‘Young Folks’, the band spent some time apart in 2010 but have come together again for their next album, to be titled Gimme Some.

They told Clash that the album is a step in a new direction, and the first time they’ve worked with an outside producer.

Drummer John Eriksson said, “We had a big meeting and asked each other, ‘What can we do now after five albums?’ We have been producing our own albums, so we needed some new blood. We needed someone who can make us play differently, someone to remember to back up the hard drive".

That new someone is Swedish pop veteran and Cardigans collaborator Per Sunding.

Eriksson admits that Sunding put them on track for a more pop-sounding album following 2009’s Living Things.

He said, “We originally planned to make a punk rock album, but listening to it now it's definitely a pop rock album. But it sounds more punk rock when we play the songs live.”

Gimme Some will be released in March next year.

Source undercover

Beck is producing the new solo album from Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore.

Moore confirmed the news in an interview with Philadelphia Weekly, in which he also said that the new album will be titled 'Benediction' – it features contributions from violinist Samara Lubelski and harpist Mary Lattimore.

Moore said the album, his third solo effort proper, was, "recorded in southern California at Beck's home studio with him producing. Beck sings and plays a little bit on it. Samara and Mary both play on it quite extensively and very, very beautifully. Beck really put them through the paces."

Moore also said that 2011 would be a quiet year for Sonic Youth, but that they may record some new material. "We are starting off by playing a New Year's Eve gig in London with The Pop Group," he said, "then we go to Chile end of February for a week. That's it. We're laying low and preparing to record some secret sides."

Sonic Youth play London's HMV Hammersmith Apollo on December 31 as part of ATP's Strange Days event.

Source UNCUT

The Doors' late frontman Jim Morrison has been granted a posthumous pardon for a conviction of indecent exposure.

The singer was convicted of exposing himself while onstage at a show in Miami in 1969. Morrison denied doing anything wrong and was appealing the conviction when he suffered a fatal heart attack in Paris in 1971.

Florida's Board of Executive Clemency have now voted unanimously to posthumously pardon the frontman, reports CNN.

The singer's partner, Patricia Kennealy Morrison, who was against the pardon, said the outcome was not a shock. "Since the original charges and trial were a publicity stunt to begin with, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that the pardon should follow in those footsteps," she said.

She added that Morrison "did nothing to be pardoned for" and said that his record should have been expunged.

Outgoing Florida Governor Charlie Crist proposed the pardon and said the conviction should have been dismissed after Morrison's death "so that he was again presumed innocent".

"What I do know is that if someone hasn't committed a crime, that should be recognised," he said before the vote. "We live in a civil society that understands that lasting legacy of a human being, and maybe the last act for which they may be known, is something that never occurred in the first place, it's never a bad idea to try to right a wrong.

"A pardon corrects the fact that Mr Morrison is now unable to take advantage of the presumption of innocence that is the cornerstone of the American criminal justice system."

Source UNCUT

Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, has died in California following complications from multiple sclerosis. He was 69.

From 1967's Safe As Milk to 1982's Ice Cream For Crow, Beefheart defied convention and demolished genres to become one of the most revered and influential artists in music.

Born in Glendale, California, on January 15, 1941, Vliet spent his formative years in Lancaster on the edge of the Mojave Desert, quickly developing a rapacious interest in art, music and sculpture. In the 1950s he joined Antelope Valley High School where he met Frank Zappa. The pair bonded over their love of jazz, blues and R&B and began working on a movie script (Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People) and forming a band (Soots). Nothing was to come of either project, but Vliet, buoyed by encouragement from Zappa and the discovery of his Howlin' Wolf-growl, took the Captain Beefheart name and joined Lancaster native Alex St Clair in the original incarnation of the Magic Band.

The group signed to A&M in 1965 and released two singles the following year - a cover of Bo Diddley's Diddy Wah Diddy and the David Gates-penned Moonchild. John Peel, soon to become their most fervent supporter, remembered seeing the band for the first time at L.A.'s Whiskey A-Go-Go: "It was like hearing Elvis for the first time," said the legendary DJ. "I reeled out into the Hollywood night knowing that nothing would ever be the same again."

Dropped by A&M for being uncommercial, the band signed to Buddah and released their debut LP Safe As Milk in 1967. Later dubbed by MOJO as "an avant-garde pop masterpiece", the album's creation was aided by the influence of 20-year old guitar genius Ry Cooder. 1968's Strictly Personal was followed by the trepanning intensity of Trout Mask Replica - a double album recorded in one six-hour maelstrom and released on Zappa's Straight label in the summer of '69. Speaking about the making of the LP Beefheart said: "I don't like hypnotics. I want things to change like the patterns and shadows that fall from the sun."

The astonishing Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) was an equally experimental adventure, while Clear Spot (1972) and The Spotlight Kid (1972), although rooted back in the blues, proved that Beefheart and the Magic Band were still out there on their own. Speaking about his musical contemporaries at the time, Vliet was as enigmatic as ever: "They can catch a straight line, but they can't catch a circle. I don't work in straight lines." Record company squabbling, legal disuptes and line-up changes were ongoing during the recording of the poorly received Unconditionally Guaranteed (1974) and Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974), but his final trio of albums (Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), Doc At The Radar Station, Ice Cream For Crow) contain some of his greatest creations. Following his departure from the world of music in 1982, Vliet retired to the Mojave Desert and dedicated the rest of his life to painting.

In the ensuing decades his silence and those persistent rumours of ill health only added to the legend. Tom Waits, a man who has always cited Beefheart as a major influence on his music, said: "Once you've heard Beefheart, it's hard to wash him out of your clothes. It stains, like coffee or blood."

A full obituary will follow soon.

Source MOJO