The Bulletin: Arts & Culture News | 20 February

BILLY CORGAN'S MUSICAL CHAIRS
Billy Corgan: self-styled frontman of the Smashing Pumpkins, dubiously qualified new-age guru, poet, unlikely wrestling promoter and now... furniture salesman. In a story first reported by the Chicagoist, it was revealed that Corgan has leant his famous cranium to minor furniture chain-store Walter E. Smithe, in a bid to cross-promote their sturdily-built furniture and his own Resistance Pro Wrestling league.

In the bizarre low-budget advertisement, Corgan and Smithe employees play musical chairs inside a wrestling ring. Corgan becomes visibly distressed when a fight breaks out, and a chair is about to be broken -- he objects, and is joined by "stars" from the Resistance Pro lineup. It's a bizarre little clip, and a powerful reminder of Bill Hicks' views on artists who advertise: "You do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll-call forever." Hicks may have been overstating the case a little, but we'll let you decide how far....

NEW MUSIC: ATOMS FOR PEACE, HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS, LUSINE, BLACK PUS, SHLOHMO & HOW TO DRESS WELL
Pitchfork have an exclusive album stream up on-site of the debut album by Trent Reznor's How To Destroy Angels project, Welcome Oblivion. Read our review of the band's second EP from back in November. Early listens suggest the album delivers on the band's early promise in spades, featuring just enough of the old Nine Inch Nails pop-industrial production magic in the mix alongside Reznor's trademark serial killer whisper, nestling alongside his wife Mariqueen Maandig's ethereal vocals. Stream the whole album now and read The Skinny's full verdict in the next few days. It's released on 5 March.

Another album currently available for streaming is Amok, the debut album by Thom Yorke's 'supergroup' project Atoms For Peace, featuring Chilis legend Flea, R.E.M/Beck drummer Joey Waronker and Radiohead's longterm producer Nigel Godrich. We took an early look at the album, but you can finally hear it for yourself now in full below. Amok is released on 25 February.

Ghostly International released Lusine's The Waiting Room earlier this week you can now stream the entire album from Hype Machine. It includes a cover of Electronic's Get The Message, a hit for Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner in 1991. 

Brian Chippendale is the drummer for noise-rockers Lightning Bolt. But in his other life, he's a one-man band who delights in the charming nom-de-guerre of Black Pus. He has a new album out on 18 March, and as a teaser, he's giving away a free download of new song 1000 Years via Soundcloud. Stream and grab yourself a copy below.

Shlohmo is a Los Angeles-based beat-maker and field recording fiend whose dusted, cinematic production skills have earned him a loyal following in the US. He's teamed up with Chicago alt.R'n'B producer How To Dress Well for a track, which will serve as the opener on his debut album Laid Out, due in March. It's a melancholic piece of understated, dreamy electronica with HTDW's trademark fragile falsetto vocals. Stream below.

FESTIVAL WATCH: TOMORROWWORLD, GREEN MAN
Tomorrowland bills itself as the world's largest and most popular music festival dedicated to electronic music. Taking place yearly since 2005 in the small town of Boom, Belgium, the festival annually welcomes over 100,000 revellers to watch the upper echelons of the house and techno fraternity to battle on the 1210s. This year's festival (26-28 July) reportedly sold out pretty much instantly, so you'll be unable to see the likes of Knife Party, Jeff Mills and Dave Clarke in Belgium unless you already have a ticket.

However, this year, the organisers are planning a second festival, to take place in an as-yet undisclosed location outside of Belgium, from 27 to 29 September. Their rather intriguing way of announcing the new festival -- dubbed TomorrowWorld -- is the following clip, depicting a 'message in a bottle' containing a "secret formula required to produce the super festival" is currently en route to the site where the festival will be held. Once the location is announced, news about the lineup will follow. Watch the trailer below.

In other festival-related news, Mercury and Brit-nominated singer-songwriter Ben Howard has just been announced for Green Man (15-18 August) -- he joins previously announced headliners Band of Horses. Also announced this week for Green Man are Villagers, Erol Alkan & Daniel Avery, Veronica Falls, Rachel Zeffira, Half Moon Run, Sweet Baboo, Jacco Gardner, Teleman, and Annie Dressner, joining the likes of The Horrors, Fuck Buttons, The Pastels and Andrew Weatherall. Tickets are on sale now.

THE CHANGING ROOM IN STIRLING TO CLOSE?
The Changing Room is Stirling's creative hub for visual arts - a gallery space showing new work by emerging artists, which has been part of the arts scene in the region since 1997. Today, news reached us that Stirling Council's latest round of funding cuts mean that the gallery may now face closure. The gallery, which has displayed new and early work by the likes of Karla Black (now exhibiting at the Saatchi Gallery in London), Charles Avery (whose ongoing project The Islanders visited The Scottish National gallery of Modern Art), and Torsten Lauschmann, is a vital nexus in the network of Scottish galleries dedicated to displaying new and ground-breaking work by emerging artists.

In a letter from 'a concerned artist' in the region sent to The Skinny, some very good points are made about the erroneous thinking behind cuts to arts budgets: "People will characteristically see arts as a fringe area, an indulgence, seemingly unconnected with economic health, unaware of the massive effect of fashion, games design, music industry, visual art and design, etc. on the nation's economy. This myopia affects the highest level of educational strategy." The un-named artist goes on to tell of the proposed cuts, which would see slashed wages for Changing Room staff, with the result that it may be forced to close. There is a meeting at Stirling Council on Thursday this week to discuss the proposed budget cuts -- details can be found here. Artists and those with a passion for the arts living in the region are being asked to email their concerns to councillor Neil Benny, and oppose the cuts. 

NEW VIDEOS: BAT FOR LASHES, DIPLO, ALARM BELLS
Natasha Khan aka Bat For Lashes -- whom we interviewed back in October -- has unveiled the new video for Lillies, taken from her recent third album The Haunted Man. Featuring some fantastical, monster-like creatures reminiscent of Where The Wild Things Are dancing with Khan, combined with psychedelic animations. Watch it below.

Eternally in-demand Mad Decent founder and M.I.A. producer Diplo also released a new video this week, via the new POTATO YouTube channel he has set up with fellow producers A-Trak and Skrillex. His new cut Butter's Theme, featuring vocals from Gent & Jawns, was released on his latest EP, Express Yourself. The theme of the video? Erm... booty-shaking and balaclavas. Just because.

Alarm Bells is a new project from former members of Dananananaykroyd, the celebrated 'fight-pop' band known for their insane live shows. They released their first 12" via Bandcamp in January, and are about to set off on a tour that will see them come through Glasgow (Stereo, 21 March) and Edinburgh (Fresh Air Festival, 22 March). Their video for their track Speeding Ticket, out this week, can be seen below.

INTERZONE @ THE WHISKY BOND
Interzone, a weekend of art, music and 'happenings' organised by Glasgow artists Diane Edwards and Kenny Love. The event will be "exploring the boundaries of perception through synaesthesic installations of sound, light, video and performance," creating "a multi-sensory immersive environment of electric surrealism" at The Whisky Bond in Glasgow. Expect video projections, experimental noise artists and abstract experimentation from artists such as Rachel Maclean, Jack Wrigley and Lea Cummings, and musicians Flaccid Haus and Stephan Blomier, among others. For a full lineup, visit the event's Facebook page Interzone begins at 6pm on Friday 1 March, and continues over the following weekend.

TRAILERS: OBLIVION, THE ABCS OF DEATH
Three new trailers for you today. In the first, which could have been ripped out of the pages of an L. Ron Hubbard novel, Tom Cruise plays a rugged, silver-suit wearing future guy doing 'drone maintenance' on an evacuated, depopulated Earth. He's quite happy playing in the ruins of civilization, much like Will Smith in I Am Legend and the forthcoming After Earth, until he meets a race of subterranean refugees led by the evil Morgan Freeman (you can tell he's evil because he wears an eye-patch).

It seems that with the advent of CGI, more and more science fiction projects involve one mult-billionaire movie star with a massive ego romping around The Future to a backdrop of video game-inspired dystopian carnage, while the rest of the cast is confined to voice-overs, crowd-scenes, or the occasional villain. So far, so boring. But the spaceships look nice, and what the hey, stuff explodes. Could be good? Decide for yourself -- take a peak at Oblivion below.

Next up, another addition to the recent speight of 'anthology' horror movies - The ABCs of Death promises "26 directors, 26 ways to die," and from the trailer it looks pretty comprehensive. There's that old chestnut, the axe to the head, the familiar decapitation by Samurai warrior, death by giant robot machine gun (always a favourite), and naturally, death by plasticene sandworm. There are a few more creative deaths in the trailer too, from being beaten by a dog at Fight Club, to being electrocuted by a fox dressed like a stripper. Good clean family fun - although it's unlikely you'll see this in cinemas, it will be widely available through on-demand services. Featuring writers and directors from the world of comics, such as Kaare Andrews, and Ti West, one of the masterminds behind successful anthology-horrorV/H/S (which The Skinny reviewed here), it could well be worth a look for gore and suspense fans.