Category Archives: 2014

2014, week in review

Week in review: January 27th-31st, 2014

Leave a comment

In case you missed a few posts this week, here is a really quick rundown of what was going on:

Monday: Some experimental instrumental jangly art rock in the style of Women and Captain Beefheart. Check out Herbert Powell’s release “Hell and Sebastian” on their bandcamp.

Stream: Herbert Powell – “Hell and Sebastian”

Tuesday: The tenth part of my continuing series that recounts growing up with Sonic Youth. This week I talked about their 1998 album “A Thousand Leaves.”

In Memoriam Sonic Youth Part X: “A Thousand Leaves”

Wednesday: New psychedelic synth work from Black Unicorn and Cane Swords, both out of Akron, Ohio, and both with tapes coming out on Portland’s Field Hymns.

Stream New Music from Field Hymns: Black Unicorn and Cane Swords

Thursday: Take a listen to Spray Paint’s abrasive detuned sound with songs from their latest, “Rodeo Songs.”

Stream: Spray Paint – “Rodeo Songs”

Friday: Check out the perfect pop of Jasmin Kaset whose album “Quiet Machine” was just released this past week.

Stream: Jasmin Kaset – “Quiet Machine”

2014, albums, Bandcamp

Stream: Jasmin Kaset – “Quiet Machine”

Leave a comment

I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to start off this post. I mean listening to all of the tracks it is pretty easy to hear that Kaset has no trouble spinning out melodies in understated, yet expansive arrangements. But then I came across this quote on her website:
Quiet Machine is to be released in January of 2014. Jasmin also tours extensively as one half of the filth-country duo Birdcloud.
If you haven’t heard Birdcloud, then I’ll let you look up some tunes on Youtube. The reason I bring it up is because Birdcloud was my first opportunity to hear Jasmin’s work, but at the same time I don’t think anyone walks away from a Birdcloud show praising their understated, introspective lyrics. The first time that I heard a track from her solo recordings, they blew me away.

“Porno Mtn” is the kind of excitedly hopeful track that just screams to be played on a summer road-trip. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum the rumbling piano on “I’m Tired” provides the perfect backdrop to a poignant and personal vocal.  And there’s something Beatles-esque about the verse on “The Salesman.” The waltzing tack-piano sound is very “Ob-la-di-ob-la-da,” and the next verse builds on that with a chugging string section and horns. It’s all very George Martin sounding. Similar in style is “Throw it all to the Dogs.”

From the synth-pop of “Strange Traveller” to the  lush “Bangalore” everything that Kaset does she does really well.

If streaming from bandcamp isn’t your thing, you can check out the video below and watch Jasmin, as well as some of her friends and family, listen to the album in its entirety. It’s got action and suspense, and at one point an apple is eaten. Sorry to spoil it for you.

You can order the album now on vinyl. It’s limited to 250 copies. It’s also available digitally from everywhere ever. You can find all those links on Jasmin’s site.

2014, albums, music, songs

Stream: Spray Paint – “Rodeo Songs”

Leave a comment

Here comes another dose of aggressive, detuned raw post-punk energy. Stumbled across this one while bumming around Soundcloud and it really grabbed my attention.

My knee-jerk reaction whenever I hear a band that extends what it means to use the guitar as an instrument, where they realize that it is so much more than just the notes, that it’s about everything else, is “Sonic Youth.” The tone, the slack-stringed jangle with harmonics that ring out alternately with a wall of inescapable noise.  But really after about two seconds my thoughts quickly turned away from my beloved Sonic Youth and towards something more like Wire.

“I Need a Bag” starts us off with incessant guitar abuse; bashing the daylights out of the strings so much that the pitch bends. But, in addition to the overall “Wire-ness” there is something about the abrupt vocal delivery that calls to mind The Blind Shake. Definitely a good thing.

Then we come to the even noisier “Bring Dumpster Back” and “Trollin the Lake.” The latter of these starts with some calm–relatively calm–though somewhat unsettling ambience. A few stray notes here and there, a few open strings before suddenly everything explodes in a fiery ball of aggression in the form of dissonance in every aspect imaginable. This is pretty much the stuff that I live for. Polvo-like guitar tunings, early Sonic Youth’s energy, up front and bordering upon hostile vocals. Really great stuff.

Of course, check out the tracks above, or head over to the soundcloud page to hear them and other fantastic stuff from S.S. Records. This is the band’s 2nd full-length, and if you want one you had better act fast because it seems that S.S. can’t keep these things on the shelf very long. Their first LP has already burned through a couple of pressings. “Rodeo Songs” is available on vinyl right now.

And below you can check out the official video for “Yawn Factory” from the band’s first album. There’s also some really great footage of them live online as well.

2014, albums, Bandcamp, music, Portland, reviews

Stream New Music from Field Hymns: Black Unicorn and Cane Swords

1 Comment

Some brand-new, not yet released, stuff coming your way today from Field Hymns records. I’ve written about some of their releases before and I’m always impressed with what I hear. In case you aren’t aware, Field Hymns is a small label based out of Portland, Oregon, and they release a fairly steady stream of electronic and experimental tapes. Today I’ve got two new ones to share with you.

Black Unicorn - "Traced Landscapes"
Black Unicorn – “Traced Landscapes”

First up is Akron, Ohio’s Black Unicorn with their album “Traced Landscapes.” Trance inducing, retro synthed out 8-bit landscapes come in and out of focus. One minute pulsing delicately, while buzzing melodies cut through the atmospherics the next. Tracks are focused squarely upon one idea, and that singularity holds time in place for just a little while before it’s gone, only to be replaced by the next hypnotic transcendence.

Listening to a track like “Seafowl in Silhouette” one can’t help but focus their thoughts inward. Think of Boards of Canada slowed down 100x. The waves of sound don’t so much crash over you as they do envelop you. Black Unicorn is able to create the kind of sonic space that, in some pretty amazing ways, completely shifts our temporal perceptions.

There are also songs like “Trans-Dimensional Railway” that pay due to Kraftwerk. The kraut-rock, electro pulse is definitely there, even floating there in the background after everything around it completely falls apart, leaving us with the sensation of temporarily floating through space. It’s as though the ground has been pulled completely out from under us and instead of falling we float off into the night sky. Pretty interesting way to have temporal considerations create the divisions between sections of a song.

 

The next release that I have is “Temple Swords” by Cane Swords (also from Akron), a self described “synth exploration.” Comparing and contrasting with Black Unicorn, Cane Swords also create music that breaks free from music’s traditional treating of temporality, but they are doing so in completely the opposite way. Where once there was a homogenous landscape that created hypnotic trances, there is now an ever changing and intricately woven fabric of sounds that whirl in and out of range. Much more spacey, ethereal and in a lot of ways, kind of intense. Recommended if you like Morton Subotnick, as it says on their release, is pretty accurate. Tape composition practices are given an updated process, creating similar highly descriptive sound collages.

They do also have their darker, more ambient moments. Slower development across a long form composition, such as the “Telegraph One” and “Telegraph Two” suites, take a bit of a different approach to sound collage, stripping away some material to create a more homogenous sound. Overall the entire tape is full of some pretty enchanting stuff.

Both these tapes will be released on February 14th and will make the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for that special person in your life. Check out all the stuff that Field Hymns has to offer over on their site, including info on future releases, and listen to the tracks above. There are plenty more on the Field Hymns Soundcloud and Bandcamp pages.

2014, albums, miscellaneous, music, personal, thoughts

In Memoriam Sonic Youth Part X: “A Thousand Leaves”

Leave a comment

Here we go. Things are going to start getting dicey from this point forward. This is pretty much the official beginning of their divisive albums. Die hard fans that absolutely love everything that the band does hail this one as the band taking a turn, revealing a new side of their song writing; while more conservative fans yell about how there isn’t enough punk energy and noise.

Well, there is noise. The first track sets us up for the album oddly, but appropriately. Sonic Youth is letting us know right off the bat that they have been doing some experimenting outside of the major-label system (“A Thousand Leaves” was released in 1998 after the release of the first 3 records in the SYR series) and that they were now going to bring even more of that to the studio than ever before. That this was the first album they recorded in its entirety in their own studio, Echo Canyon, also shows them as straddling the corporate world while trying to hold on to their independent spirit.

I vaguely remember when this album came out. I was in high school and because it had been 3 years since I had heard an album from the band I was starting to drift away. It was around this time that I was listening to a lot more metal, getting really heavy into Megadeth, Morbid Angel, and even a little Cannibal Corpse. If you were to ask me how I got from Sonic Youth to Cannibal Corpse I wouldn’t even be able to begin to tell you.

Sonic Youth- Sunday

Despite all that, I do remember catching SY on Austin City Limits. If memory serves, they performed material off of SYR1 and I remember remarking to my brother that even though the songs sound so random and messy and disorganized on the record, they were able to replicate them fairly closely live. This was way before I knew anything about music, obviously. I was far too young to really appreciate any of the things that the band was doing.

But even with that appreciation and knowledge now, I still just can’t make a connection with this album. Other than the song “Sunday,” the single that was released from this album, I honestly can’t remember a thing about it. Listening to it now I think I can honestly say that Thurston has the stronger songs, or at least the more memorable ones. “Wild Flower Soul” has a familiarity to it, though that is mostly because it is played on the same guitar as “Sunday” which means the same tuning, which means that he uses some similar gestures and harmonies. The faster part of the song is just the “Sunday” riff with one note changed.

What I’m thinking now that I am listening to it, since I don’t really have many memories of listening to this album when it came out, is that they really need to just pick one musical direction and stay with it. On the one hand I absolutely love the noisy and bombastic tunes, and “French Tickler” is about as close as we get to one of those–sounding like a “Dirty” or “Washing Machine” leftover at different points. But on the other hand I really like the formless, obtuse and ultra-dissonant tracks, but it’s hard to make much of an album that swings so wildly from one side to the next. Sure there are good moments and maybe even a good song or two, but I would prefer now to hear a lot more cohesion.

Heather Angel

“Hoarfrost” has some pretty moments, and breaks up the arty-Kim stuff and the Thurston mello-punk tunes. Lee has always had a way, even now with his solo material, of being able to situate himself in both of those worlds without flipping back and forth from one to the other. Surprisingly Lee has more than one track on the album, and they are two of the strongest. Aside from “Hoarfrost” he has “Karen Koltrane,” which is a pretty interesting through composed tune (though it too goes on far too long).

All in all I think that this album only has a few moments that I can really connect with. It’s a bit too long, trying a bit too hard to cover all the bases, and thankfully I know that they are able to trim some of this fat on “Murray Street” later. Unfortunately there have to hit their nadir before they can come back. I also wasn’t really on board for their next album, and we started to grow apart. But that is a story for another post.

 

 

2014, Bandcamp, EP, music, reviews, songs

Stream: Herbert Powell – “Hell and Sebastian”

Leave a comment

Lo-fi, jangly, experimental instrumental tunes coming your way today courtesty of Herbert Powell. The influence of Women (and latter day Women offshoot Cindy Lee), Polvo, and maybe some Beefheart and Jandek, are worn proudly on their sleeves. I can’t help but hear a little shade of Do Make Say Think in there too, maybe not so much in the guitars, but there is definitely something about the drum sound that makes me think of Do Make Say Think.

De-tuned, coarse, loose, but never falling out completely. Quiet and unassuming in timbre and volume – no squealing bursts of feedback, no ultra distorted fuzz-tone. I don’t even hear so much as a delay pedal. Just a little bit of echo from the room and they are off and running.

What I like most about bands that are able to make this kind of music well isn’t so much how much noise they can make, or how far out they can go with their harmonies, but how much they can stretch the structure of a song without losing the listener completely. For all the ramshackle quality on the surface there is still an obvious bit of planning that is going into these songs. Just listen to the bass. The bassist is almost hiding in the back of the mix, but it’s really anchoring everything.

Speaking of Beefheart, the track “Snout Mask Replica” shifts between a spacious and slow section and a contrasting fast and rambunctious one. Dare I say it that there is even a part that functions like a bridge. Great shapes all around. And check out the counterpoint going on at the beginning of “Cider Goth.” The song just starts to form out of a cloud, picking up steam as it goes. Guitars wrapping themselves around each other, coming together, falling apart again, grinding to a halt, pushing forward. The entire song works like the outro of Women’s “January 8th” (which in itself is taking an idea from Velvet Underground’s “Heroin”) where the tempo is in flux, speeding up as the song takes off and then slowing as things start to come apart again. It’s all pretty tightly controlled though.

Finally, “Aldo Huxley” is an oddly touching way to end. Despite the chugging guitar that attempts to eschew delicacy, there are some moments in there where the guitars match up in such a perfect way. Those little moments happen periodically throughout not just this closing track, but the entire release. If you listen for those, giving everything a really close reading, you’ll be glad you did.

Head over to Bandcamp to download this gem. It’s only £1 ($1.64), but you can always feel free to throw in a bit extra. You can stream it above, or on the bandcamp page.

 

2014

Week in review: January 20th-24th, 2014

Leave a comment

In cased you missed it, here’s what was featured on the blog this week:

Monday: The 9th part in my continuing series recalling growing up listening to Sonic Youth. A tribute to the pivotal, and recently broken up progenitors of art-rock

In Memoriam Sonic Youth Part IX: “Washing Machine”

Tuesday: Paying tribute to one of the most important conductors of the 20th Century, the late Claudio Abbado, who passed away on Monday at the age of 83.

Remembering Claudio Abbado

Wednesday: New music from Athens, Greece based label Inner Ear. The dance pop of Fever Kids; the laid back garage-rock of Melt Mountain and the Decembrists/Neutral Milk Hotel-like music of Egg Hell.

Stream: New music from Inner Ear Records

Thursday: New music from White Fence collaborator Jack Name, and the dark pop of Yuri’s Accident.

Stream: New music from Inner Ear Records

Friday: The new album by Austin’s Abram Shook, “Sun Marquee,” covers a mix of genre’s with Shook’s virtuosic bass playing at the forefront.

Stream: New music from Inner Ear Records

 

2014, music, reviews

Stream: Abram Shook – “Sun Marquee”

2 Comments


I find it really hard to believe that, according to last.fm, Abram Shook has fewer than 500 plays, with only 171 people (including myself) having scrobbled at least one of his tracks. His album “Sun Marquee” is full of laid back, sunny tunes that any listener would find impossible to resist. With his laid back delivery and lush production this is the kind of album that deserves to be in heavy rotation, and might even help to quell the depression that usually sets in this deep into the winter.

Saying that his delivery is laid back might be somewhat misleading, as his delivery isn’t anything less than earnest, but one can be earnest and delicate at the same time, can’t they? The delicate delivery, and the precision of the guitar line, not to mention the production on tracks like “Taken” bring to mind Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s sound-world. But in there, amongst the swirl of guitars and the hushed vocals is a bass-groove that eases its way to the fore with flashes of grooving virtuosity. Take “Hangover,” a song that is, at least instrumentally speaking, completely driven by the bass. While the guitar and voice work together to create layers of melody and harmony until they mix together in an ethereal wash of sound, the bass envelops that entire sound and takes the lead. And “Distance,” from above, is much the same way with an effortless bass-line taking hold, sounding like Nate Brenner (tUnE-yArDs) is laying it down.

Every single track opens up new possibilities. Following “Hangover” is “Coastal,” where we find Shook’s voice moving from Washed Out territory to that of Mark Bolan. The falsetto is the same, but the overall timbre, and the doubling, bring out some previously hidden, rougher, attributes.

Throughout “Sun Marquee” a jazz influence is right out front, and when you take the mastery of an instrument that is required for playing that repertoire, combine it with a little rock and chillwave production, then the resultant sound is pretty captivating to say the least. It’s a complex collage that is impossible to pinpoint exactly. With all the comparisons listed above, we can add that “Black Submarine” adds a little Dave Longstreth to the vocals, and even to the guitar playing, with playing that takes sudden dramatic and unexpected shifts like one would expect from Dirty Projectors.

“Sun Marquee” is out now via Western Vinyl as a CD or LP that includes a digital download. Check out the tracks above and click the links below to learn more.

Western Vinyl//Facebook//Twitter//

2014, albums, music, songs

New music from Jack Name and Yuri’s Accident

2 Comments
Jack Name - "Light Show"
Jack Name – “Light Show”

First thing’s first, I’ve got a couple tracks today from artists with albums that have just come out. The first is a video that comes to us from Jack Name, one of the guitarists currently working with (one of my personal favorites) White Fence. The album, “Light Show,” is out now on Drag City through Ty Segall’s “God?” imprint. There are samples of each of the songs over on the Drag City site, but over on Youtube there is a video for the track “Out of Sight.” The video is basically a collage of what seems to be part found footage, part Live-Leak videos and other such ephemera. The song matches the video in tone, or I suppose that it’s the other way around, but either way there is an air of darkness all over both. A monotonously repeated melodic pattern on a gritty sounding analog synth supports the entire track with a vocal that is haunting in its higher register. Everything about this track and the accompanying video is elegiac and hypnotic. For me, it called to mind the work of Paul A Rosales and Wonder Wheel. You can check out that video below.

Next up is a band from Athens, not Georgia, but the real Athens. Yuri’s Accident may not be dark in the same way that Jack Name’s tracks are, but there is an aura of 80’s dance-pop that comes off sounding a little darker. That the band has relocated to London before releasing these tunes explains them sounding a bit, maybe, like Depeche Mode with guitars, or earlier songs by The Cure; or maybe I’m picking up a little more on a post-punk/Interpol kind of vibe. Either way it’s kind of two heads from the same coin. Dark-ish, brooding guitar driven rock. This 2 track single was also released earlier this week, on January 20th and you can check it out below. There’s a video for A-side “Lights (on her eyes)” as well. The single is available for download from the Yuri’s Accident bandcamp, which can be found here.

Both albums are available now so check out the links in the post above and head over to Drag City to pick up Jack Name’s album on vinyl or as an MP3 or FLAC file. You can also head over to bandcamp to download the Yuri’s Accident tracks.

2014, albums, EP, miscellaneous, music, reviews, songs

Stream: New music from Inner Ear Records

Leave a comment

Instead of three short posts, I think I’d rather just do one post that will (most likely) introduce you to some bands being released through the Greek indie label Inner Ear based out of Patras.

First up is the electro-dance pop of Fever Kids. Their single “Holding Grass b/w Peter, Debbie, Mary” is a shot of chillwave with the itinerant 80’s vibe that brings to mind Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer,” especially with the palm-muted guitar and vocal harmonies. “Holding Grass” just captures a dark quality that is occasionally brightened up in the chorus. This is their first official release, which came out just two weeks ago on January 8th, though the band has been together and writing since 2011. You can check out both “Holding Grass” and its b-side, “Peter, Debbie, Mary,” that moves into Eurhythmics territory with a lead vocal giving us its best Annie Lennox. Pure-pop, and worth checking out.

Next up is the super-fun beach-rock of Melt Mountain. Their self-titled 7″ was released the same day as the Fever Kids single. This is an EP full of jangling, reverbed guitars and echoed out vocals. Actually, it stands somewhere between a single and an EP. With about 10 minutes of music over 4 tracks the music runs the gamut from the playful insouciance of “Golden Brooms and More Hopes,” to the downtrodden and defeated sounding “Try” that closes out the release.


Lastly, a full-length from Egg Hell. “Once Part of a Whole Ship” is fairly understated in its delivery. Clean guitars and expansive arranging that calls to mind, perhaps, The Decembrists, or (dare I say it) a touch of Neutral Milk Hotel. The lead vocal is confident and shouting one second, shaky and tentative the next. “Suffering” calls to mind the Decembrists in particular, while the string arrangement on the track that follows, “Gingerhead,” shows the band striving to achieve something more. And, the entire album comes off that way. It sounds like a band that is reaching out, fixated on a distant goal and just going for it. In certain ways “Once Part of a Whole Ship” doesn’t sound like a debut album at all, as the songs and arrangements are all expertly executed. With a little bit of luck the band could have an album full of viable singles on their hands. You can listen to the entire album below.

All the releases above are available as digital downloads for only a couple bucks, or physical copies (though U.S. people, be aware that the shipping charges get kind of out of hand, so maybe the digital download would be the best way to go). There is also plenty more music to check out at the Inner Ear bandcamp page. You can get anywhere you need to by following the links below.

Fever Kids//Melt Mountain//Egg Hell//Inner Ear Bandcamp//Facebook//Soundcloud//Web//