Kimberly Korn Plays The Bitter End on Saturday, April 3rd.

What is sort of sad is the picture below was used as the "video portion" for one of Kimberly Korn's songs that was posted to YouTube and YouTube has the video marked with the 'warning' that "This video or group may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube's user community." You gotta love that censorship is alive and well - If the PMRC were still around, this label alone would get the video thousands of plays.

Kimberly Korn plays edgy pop-rock with points of comparison being The Runaways, Lauren Harris and Pink.

She is playing some shows in advance of her debut EP (recorded with Tommy Faragher and Chris Rojas) coming out later this Spring and has an afternoon in-store performance at Best Buy in Union Square this Saturday (@ 1PM) followed by a set at The Bitter End that night. Cover for the show at The Bitter End is $10 and the show starts at 8PM.



New York City-based singer/songwriter Kimberly Korn has been an avid performer since she was a child. She began dancing at 2 1/2 and started doing musicals at age 5. She wrote her first song in 5th grade and soon took up the piano and drums. At 14, she began commuting to New York to attend the Joffrey Ballet and soon after started doing open mic nights in the East Village. She moved to New York full time to attend NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and began performing her original music around the city. Kimberly is currently releasing her debut EP this Spring and plans to tour the Northeast region this Summer.

Links:
Kimberly Korn

Boris - Japanese Heavy Rock Hits, Vols. 1-4 Review (Southern Lord)

In the fall last year, Southern Lord announced the release of a series of vinyl 7" singles by Boris. The 'kicker' with this announcement was that if you purchased the set in advance, you received a limited edition purple vinyl pressings of the first three singles along with a bonus one-sided single that was only available to subscribers of the series. For anyone who missed out on this series, the first three singles are available on (presumably?) black vinyl from Southern Lord and iTunes.

There is nothing 'typical' about Boris' music as it varies from disc to disc and sometimes from track to track. In the case of this three 7" set, Boris seems to touch on all of the genres of their last few releases.

Japanese Heavy Rock Hits Vol. 1 starts out strong with with "8" which is a five minute+ throwback to the alt-rock pop of Dirty-era Sonic Youth. The song starts with some ambient echo-drenched power chord riffs before switching directions and kicking into some shredding guitar work, pounding drums and soaring melodic vocals. "Hey Everybody" is a driving, hard-rock take on the alt-rock formula that is one part bubblegum and one-part industrial dance.



On Japanese Heavy Rock Hits Vol. 2, Boris start things out with the c*ck rock anthem "H.M.A. (Heavy Metal Addict)" which is complete with hand-claps and the repeated chorus of H.M.A. Boris then completely shifts gears on "Black Original" which is a slinky industrial dance songs that has has a catchy groove backed by some solid guitar noodling.



Japanese Heavy Rock Hits Vol. 3 is probably the strongest single of the set and it is a return to the slow, lo-fi drone sound of Boris' early releases. The single starts with “16:47:52” which is a subtly beautiful song that features Wata on vocals backed by a minimalist piano, guitar and snare drum. It is a toss-up between "16:47:52" and "8" as to which one is the strongest cut of the Heavy Rock Hits set. "..and Hear Nothing" rounds out the single with 5+ minutes of feedback drenched, crashing monolithic drone.



The final one-sided single "Seasons" is dream-pop song in the style of early Belly. This is the first song in this set where Wata's vocals are clearly up-front in the mix. Her vocals along with an angular (almost surf) guitar gives this song a somewhat melancholy but catchy alt-pop groove.

Links:
Boris

Boris Release First 7" from Japanese Heavy Rock Hits Series (Southern Lord)

Boris has just released the first 7" from their Japanese Heavy Rock Hits series on Southern Lord. Over the course of the next three months, three exclusive vinyl-only 7"s will be released. If you purchase the three-single package from Southern Lord (which is available only until the second 7" is released), you will receive a bonus fourth single. This bonus 7" contains an exclusive unreleased track and an etched b-side. This bonus track, "Seasons", will be included ONLY in this package and will not be available anywhere else.

"The first 7", Volume One, "8", features two newly recorded tracks. On Side A, the title track "8" continues the spacey hard-rock sound established on their classic albums Pink and Smile, building from a mono, lo-fi wall of feedback into a ripping, slab of lush vocals, crunchy guitar and thunderous drums. Things get switched up on Side B with "ねえエヴリワン/Hey Everyone", a chewy bit of power-pop bubblegum that sees the band mining a much lighter source for their sound. It's a reminder that the most daring thing this band can do is record something so straight-forward it could easily be misconstrued as "alt-pop". Dont fret its still got a dark core and is unmistakably Boris! Gorgeous tip-on, heavy-weight cardboard jacket designed by Stephen O'Malley."

Boris' only US show this year was at All Tomorrow's Party and here is some quality live footage from the show that was posted to YouTube.



Links:
Southern Lord
Boris' MySpace Profile