Band announces west coast tour dates in January 2008 with Dan Deacon, White Williams. Remix of HEALTH’s “Triceratops” by Acid Girls available now!HEALTH, the L.A. underground music quartet whose -- ahem -- infectious music is catching like, well, like that winter cold going around, has been nominated for the illustrious 2008 Plug Awards in the Avant Album of the Year (LINK) category. Also, Pitchfork picked the video clip for “Heaven” (VIDEO) off of the band’s self-titled debut for its Top 50 Videos of 2007 (LINK) feature. Top top it all off, Spin Magazine recently featured HEALTH as its Artist of the Day (LINK). These accolades follow the band’s immensely successful fall tour and labor-intensive seven shows during the CMJ marathon in October.
HEALTH took a brief respite from the road recently to take XLR8R Magazine on a very thorough, revealing and occasionally sickening tour of its choices for “Best of L.A.” for the publication’s January issue. Shortly after XLR8R hits shelves, HEALTH will launch a west coast tour with Dan Deacon and electro-pop sensation White Williams (see dates below.) Details on further dates stretching into springtime with Crystal Castles will be announced soon.
The band has also set up a separate MySpace page from its regular band site (LINK) for all of its myriad remix/collaboration projects. Check out the HEALTH remix site HERE. The impressive word-of-mouth excitement about HEALTH has quickly become an international phenomenon. In late summer, the band ripped a swath across the U.K. -- garnering praise from the NME, BBC radio and many more -- and healed cynical souls all across the U.S. in October. The band’s live shows are sweaty, packed fits of beautiful noise that could perhaps be best compared to Liars, Animal Collective and latter-period Black Dice.
HEALTH’s self-titled debut full length on the ultrahip Lovepump United label hit shelves on September 18th, while L.A. based Cold Sweat Records (Battles, Phantom Family Halo, This Moment in Black History) issued the vinyl version of the album in early December. As if that weren’t enough HEALTH activity, the band has announced a slew of commissioned remixes following hot on the heels of the album. The impressive list of remix collaborators includes Pink Skull (Minneapolis), David Gilmore Girls (Amsterdam), Crystal Castles (Toronto), Curses! (NYC), Toxic Avenger (Paris), CFCF (Montreal), Juiceboxxx (Milwaukee), Narctrax (Tokyo), Lovely Chords (Buenos Aires), et al.
The group’s surging notoriety is also due in part to the magic of the Interwebs. “Crimewave” was the #2 most blogged about song according to Elbo.ws. Likewise, HEALTH was recently the #5 most blogged about band according to that blog aggregator, and #9 on Hype Machine. Anthem Magazine shot a recent amazing live performance of the song “Glitter Pills” at The Smell in downtown L.A., which can be seen HERE. Additionally, director Nik Mercer shot a collaboration between HEALTH and Aa (Big A Little a) reworking the band’s “Crimewave” that can be viewed HERE. Plus, Paper Thin Walls recently posted a raving track review for “Glitter Pills” HERE.
Regarding the remix onslaught, the band issued the following statement: “HEALTH likes to make scary noises, we like to chant until our faces go red, we like to beat on drums until there’s blood on the floor. But we also like to boogie, and sometimes we need help from people we admire. There is a great big world full of music and there is no excuse for standing in the corner with your eyes closed. You can always make friends with the other kids in class, even If your favorite band is Slayer and theirs is Bell Biv Devoe, so let’s hold hands.”
An MP3 of the CFCF remix of “Triceratops” is available now as is the Acid Girls remix (MP3) of that same track.
Instead of finding a room where the only thing one can hear is their heartbeat, HEALTH recorded its debut full length in one of the band’s favorite places. The Smell is an all ages music venue in downtown Los Angeles. It is open and brick and dirty and dark, but when you sing a church hymnal or hit a drum as hard as you can the sound is beautiful. They did both of these things on the record. They also went out and found equipment built the same time as The Smell, mostly ribbon microphones designed by the BBC for radio broadcasts in the 1930’s, things George Martin liked to use, and other things they didn’t know about. The record is 11 songs in less than thirty minutes - on it there is new music with old sounds.
HEALTH was six months old the first time they played for real people. Before that, there was more talk than music, mostly about art, food, sex, animals, records, drugs, politics and sleeping. After two more shows in Los Angeles, the group self released a 7’’ and went on tour. While they were traveling, people told them their music was weird. When they got back they played on a bill with Ex-Models and Death Sentence Panda. They felt like grown men. After that, people let them play shows more often, mostly at all ages art spaces like The Smell and Il Corral. They became friends with other L.A bands like No Age, The Mae Shi, Mika Miko, BARR, Captain Ahab, Anavan, and Abe Vigoda. Then they went on three more tours and a trip to SXSW.
HEALTH has also had a hand in 8-bit glitch duo Crystal Castles’ recent success. In addition to a Crystal Castles/HEALTH split 7” (released concurrently on Lovepump United with HEALTH’s LP), Crystal Castles highly anticipated CRIMEWAVE EP is named for a HEALTH remix for which the two bands recently shot a video (LINK).
HEALTH Live:
* w/ Dan Deacon
% w/ White WIlliams
01/15 Los Angeles, CA El Ray*
01/17 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall*
01/18 Oakland, CA 21 Grand
01/19 Davis, CA Delta of Venus
01/20 Sun Reno, NV The Studio on 4th
01/21 Chico, CA The Crux Arts Collective
01/22 Olympia, WA Voyeur
01/23 Vancouver, BC Media Club%
01/24 Seattle, WA Chop Suey%
01/25 Portland, OR Holocene%
01/26 Eureka, CA The Vista
01/27 Santa Cruz, CA Blue Lagoon
01/28 San Luis Obispo, CA Tridosha Healing Center
01/28 Los Altos Hills, CA KFJC Radio 89.7 FM
01/29 San Diego, CA Casbah%
01/30 Goleta, CA Biko Co-op Garage Performance Space
02/01 Los Angeles, CA El Ray
02/02 Bakersfield, CA Narduccis Cafe
HEALTH Tracklisting:
Stream The Album HERE
Released: Sept. 18, 2007
01. Heaven (VIDEO)
02. Girl Attorney
03. Triceratops (MP3) (CFCF Remix MP3) (Acid Girls Remix MP3)
04. Crimewave (MP3)
05. Courtship
06. Zoothorns
07. Tabloid Sores
08. //M\\
09. Glitter Pills
10. Perfect Skin (MP3)
11. Lost Time
Tools & Hi-Res Photos:
www.fanaticpromotion.com/current/health.html
On The Web:
www.healthnoise.com
www.myspace.com/healthmusic
www.myspace.com/healthdisco
www.lpurecords.com
www.myspace.com/lovepumpunited
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