Category Archives: miscellaneous

Crash Course in Music Theory: Modulating to distantly related keys with Titus Andronicus

I’ve been wanting to do a post like this for a long time. I think that periodically it will be fun to actually write about music theory stuff, considering that is what I am going to school for. I’m going to try to cover stuff that I find in rock tunes that I think is interesting, things that I would teach to my class. I’ll try to do this as clearly as possible. The main purpose, for me, is to maybe take some of the mystery out of music theory and also to help people possibly develop a little bit more of a critical ear.

The first song that I am going to use is “Arms Against Atrophy” from the first Titus Andronicus album “The Airing of Grievances” from 2009. Here’s the song:

Arms Against Atrophy

Now, the first guitar we hear is playing two Cs an octave apart, and the 2nd guitar part comes in playing an A-flat major chord. So we can visualize it this way:

 

Screen shot 2013-08-24 at 11.11.53 PM

 

Based on the chord progression through the verse, an oscillation between A-flat major and F minor, we can say that this section of the song is pretty solidly in the key of A-flat major. Notice the key signature of 4 flats (B-flat, E-flat, A-flat and D-flat) and that neither an A-flat major chord or an F minor use any accidentals outside of that key signature, because both chords are diatonic, in other words – they belong to the key. The A-flat major chord is built on scale degree 1 while the F minor chord is built on scale degree 6, so in theory terms we would call these chords tonic and sub-mediant respectively. Basically the A-flat major chord is the most important, everything leads back to it.

Now, when I say that the chord is “built” on certain scale degrees what I mean is that the scale degree, of which there are 7, serves as the pitch that the rest of the notes in the chord are based on. Chords are formed by stacking thirds. For example the A-flat major chord would begin with A-flat and then a third above that (staying in the key) is C, and a diatonic third above that is E-flat.

A-flat major scale
A-flat major scale

 

Above we have the A-flat major scale. Scale degree 1 is A-flat, 2 is B-flat, 3 is C and so on all the way back up to A-flat. So if we stack thirds on top of each of these pitches we have something that looks like this:

Diatonic triads of A-flat major
Diatonic triads of A-flat major

From left to right we have tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, and leading tone triads. The ones that we are going to focus on are the tonic and submediant. I won’t bother going into Roman Numeral analysis here to try to keep things simpler.

Looking at the diatonic triads we can see that the pitches in the A-flat major tonic triad are A-flat, C and E-flat; while the pitches in the submediant triad are F, A-flat and C. We can see that both of these chords have two pitches in common, the A-flat and the C.

Thinking back to that opening guitar line, the 1st guitar part that strums the C octaves in eighth notes. That C is a common pitch shared between both chords that appear in the verse, which allows the 1st guitar to keep those eighth notes constant throughout the verse. This is important to how the song is going to modulate.

When we say that a song modulates we are saying that the song is changing key. The most common modulation for a song that begins in a major key is to modulate to the dominant. One of the reasons that this is so common is because the keys are so close to each other, in a manner of speaking. The key signature for A-flat major, for example, is 4 flats, as we have seen above. The key signature for E-flat major (the dominant key) is 3 flats. The tonic chord of E-flat major can be taken directly from the key of A-flat major without changing anything, it remains E-flat, G, B-flat. We would say that these keys are closely related because they are next to each other on the circle of fifths. 

Without going completely off course here, the circle of fifths is the way that we think of key relations. Basically this means hopping from one dominant to the next. For example A-flat, E-flat, B-flat, F, C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, G#/A-flat …that is the complete circle of fifths beginning on the key that we are looking at here for this song. The further away from your home key, the more distant the relationship between the keys and the more chromatic alterations are necessary to maneuver between the two.

A modulation to a distantly related key, i.e. more than 2 steps on the circle of fifths, can be accomplished a few different ways. Again, I’m not going to go too far into it, because things get complicated pretty quick. One of the ways that you can, however, is through the use of a common pitch that exists in both of the keys. “Arms Against Atrophy” modulates to the key of C major in the bridge (2:20). Thee’s that C again.

Let’s compare the two scales, A-flat major and C major:

A-flat major scale
A-flat major scale
C major scale
C major scale

Note that the C major scale is lacking flats (or sharps, for that matter) in the key signature. This is because it is 4 steps away on the circle of fifths. Tonic of C major, C, is the same pitch as the mediant of A-flat major. Remember how A-flat, C, E-flat and F, A-flat, C made up the two chords of the verse, A-flat major and F minor respectively, with that C common between the two? Well the bridge here moves to a C major tonic: C, E, G. We know that it is a modulation and not just using the mediant triad because of the chord progression that follows that establishes the pitch C as the focus, or tonal center. Think of it like the center of gravity that all the pitches are drawn to. The chord progression in the bridge moves from tonic to dominant to subdominant and back to tonic again. We say that this progression establishes the tonic because it basically (simplifying again here) moves toward the dominant and returns to what is now being called tonic.

We would say, then, that “Arms Against Atrophy” by Titus Andronicus modulates from A-flat major to the distantly related key of C major through the common pitch of C. You can even hear the shift that happens, listen to the very beginning of the song. Hear those opening Cs, and then hear how they fit into the chords that guitar 2 introduces. Now go to 2:15 and listen to those very same Cs and hear how guitar two comes in now.

As a quick conclusion, you may be asking, “well the song returns to the verse after the bridge so…how do we get back to A-flat major tonic? I don’t hear the C-octaves again.” Well, first off I would say that it is true. Hey, you can’t keep doing the same thing over and over, right? The final chord of the bridge is F-major, or the subdominant in the key of C major and is made from the pitches F, A and C. Notice that this is only one pitch away from the F minor chord (F, A-flat, C) that was 50% of the verse. The last line of the bridge “…and she’s got the nail clippers at my throat,” (3:04-3:07) is where we are preparing to move back to A-flat major. The F major chord is used underneath “…and she’s got the nail clippers at my” and then they drop the A of the F major chord down a half step to A-flat on the word “throat” to create an F minor chord. That pitch, A-flat, then rings (3:07-3:17) alone until the verse picks up again with an A-flat major chord and we are up and running again, establishing the original tonic again. To be more technical this is referred to as a chromatic mediant relationship.

I hope that you were able to follow along here and that I could help you to understand the way that this song works and how music can work in general. This is only one tiny subject of many so I expect that I’ll be doing more of this in the future. Thanks for reading.

 

When Good Bands Go Bad: Maps & Atlases

Maps & Atlases
Maps & Atlases

When I first heard the EP “Trees, Swallows, Houses” by Chicago’s Maps & Atlases, I couldn’t get enough. All of the tapping (pre-Marnie Stern era…and yes, I know she wasn’t the first to do it, or the most well known, but it will be a cold day in hell when I start talking about Van Halen on this blog) the melodies and breakdowns. Everything about that EP is brilliant. I mean, I still can’t listen to it enough.

I remember around that time (2006), on Myspace, repeatedly checking their page. I was waiting for a follow up, or at the very least hoping that I would see them on one of my many trips to Chicago. The EP’s frenetic nature really hooked me. I would drive around all summer with it blaring from the speakers. My friends probably started to get sick of me playing “Songs for Ghosts to Haunt To” over and over while doing the typical “wait…hear that?…I mean this!?..this” with my words effectively preventing them from hearing (and consequently caring) about what I was even talking about.

Songs For Ghosts To Haunt To

The perfectly synchronized guitar parts, the prog/math-rock nature of the whole affair, the punch of the drums and the deft bass playing. Everything on that song wraps up the entire EP solidly. The only thing I could think to compare it to in order to try and sell it to my classic-era British-prog of the 70’s loving friends (and yes I was not too long before that in their shoes) was to say that the song kind of sounded like Yes. The virtuosic guitar, the busy bass work, the singer with the weird voice, tricky meters. I at least got some of them to listen.

It took 4 long years to get a follow up to that EP. “Perch Patchwork” was released, with lead single “Solid Ground.” That song was immediately underwhelming. It wasn’t even that the song seemed like it would be a grower. “Solid Ground” never, well, leaves the ground and the album is full of mid-tempo dirges that sort of lie flat. “Will” starts the album off on a note that distances itself severely from anything that appeared on “Trees, Swallows, Houses.” With it’s finger picked acoustic guitar and the generally more spacious aesthetic, it’s surely a huge leap in the direction of developing a different sound, and it certainly comes as a surprise. This is not the album that I think anyone was expecting. Certainly not I.

Solid Ground

To be fair, the album does show the band thinking in much larger terms. They seemed more interested in creating a narrative arc, or at least an aesthetic arc, that connected each song across the album in a much different way than previously attempted. That the songs are considerably more straight-ahead and poppy, even repetitive, is somewhat disappointing. It seems as though the bottom fell out, energy-wise. “Perch Patchwork” just hobbles along. Granted these songs are well crafted for what they are, but it left me wondering about what could have possibly led to this drastic shift in sound? Had they run out of ideas for their previous writing style? Did they want to avoid being pigeon-holed and therefore decided to ditch one of the things that truly made them stand out? I mean, what happened in those 4 years between EP and LP? Where there was once not a wasted second there were now filler instrumental tracks like “Will,” “Is,” and “Was.” “Carrying Wet Wood” and “Pigeon” start off promising, but only come close to capturing the band’s former glory before backing off. Both tracks turn into these strange, neutered, watered down Rusted Root sounding fake folk.

2012’s “Beware and Be Grateful” is really no better. The album focuses more and more on  Davison’s vocals and spaciousness. Again, the energy just isn’t there anymore. The sound of “Perch Patchwork” is developed now to include sterile production and even less instrumental work. “Silver Self” seems to go on for an eternity, bringing in terrible sounding synthetic drum loops and layers of vocals. The Talking Heads did this type of thing so much better 30 years ago. Not even a flashy guitar solo (that goes on far too long, wandering well into masturbation territory) can help the track. In fact I would say that in that case it does more harm than good. “Remote and Dark Years” takes its cues from the bombast of 80’s production values, rendering it simultaneously introspective and overblown. One saving grace may be “Winter,” which is actually a good song as far as verse-chorus-verse things go. Good changes, nice arrangement and interplay amongst the entire band. Though, unfortunately, “Winter” is the anomaly. When they return to something energetic like “Be Three Years Old” it does away with the rawness and urgency that the band used to be so good at capturing.

Be Three Years Old

The point, if there is a point, is this: when the energy left and the band stopped highlighting their strengths and what set them apart, that is when they gave in to mediocrity. It’s hard for me to understand why any band would seemingly make an effort to start over almost from the beginning. They went from standing apart, perfecting their fresh and exciting sound, to instead hurling themselves headlong into a vast ocean of bland rock music.

Benefit Comp featuring unreleased tracks by Thee Oh Sees, Cave Singers, Elf Power and more

Coming Together for a Cure Vol. 2
Coming Together for a Cure Vol. 2

We all love music, that much is obvious. It’s why you are reading this, it’s why I’m writing this. Sometimes music has the opportunity to really make a difference. Those differences can come in the form of small things – helping to make mundane chores bearable, perhaps giving us some new perspective on the world, showing us beauty in new things, new sounds and on and on. And sometimes music is able to do so much more, something that is bigger than all of us.
 
This compilation gives us all a chance to let music make a huge difference in the lives of so many. One such person is Ryan Benton, diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy at the age of 3, who is the curator of this compilation that puts together a ton of unreleased tracks from more great bands than you could even conceive of. In Ryan’s own words:
 
I was given a life expectancy of late teens to early twenties. I am currently twenty seven.  In the fall of 2008 I traveled to Costa Rica to be treated for the first time with adult stem cells. I had to travel out of country because the all natural treatment was then and currently now not available in the states. After receiving my first treatment I began gaining back strength and have since gone back on seven separate trips for continued treatment.  
With the help of Air House Records, I have put together a benefit compilation featuring fifteen amazing tracks from national artists such as Thee Oh Sees, Cave Singers, Elf Power, Shine Brothers and The Wonder Revolution. Proceeds will go entirely towards helping fund adult stem cell therapy and research.
 
So in buying this album you will be helping Ryan as well as countless others that find themselves in the same situation. We all know that stem cell research will provide us with answers to medical problems that many Americans face every single day, yet it is currently outlawed in the United States. So why not take a stand against the ridiculous state of affairs that is the American Health Care System Inc. and buy this compilation for a great cause. Ryan continues:
 
Stem Cell Therapy is the first form of medicine that has ever truly helped with the digression of this disease. Stem Cell Therapy is one of the most promising and revolutionary forms of medicine to date. I can attest to this first hand after seeing the positive effects it has had on my debilitating health. Along with my disease it has shown great promise and potential in treating other fatal diseases. We need to embrace this remarkable form of medicine here in the U.S. and outlaw its ban. I am almost certain that without these treatments I would not be alive today.
 
The comp will be officially released on October 29th via Air House Records. You can listen to a sample of “The Factory Reacts,” a track previously unreleased by Thee Oh Sees, below.
 
The Factory Reacts
 
The compilation features unreleased tracks from not only Thee Oh Sees, but also Elf Power, Springs, Miracle Days, Cave Singers and a whole bunch more. I whole heartedly encourage everyone to buy this album to help support a cause and also to maybe discover some music that you may have not heard before. I’m listening to it right now and it’s a really solid collection of songs.
 
If you would like to know more about Ryan, watch the short documentary below. You can also listen to and purchase the first installment of this compilation at comingtogetherforacure.bandcamp.com.
 
Remember: October 29th is the official release and all proceeds will go to the Aiden Foundation to help fund adult stem cell research and therapy. I’ll remind you through Facebook and Tumblr.
 
Air House Records//Bandcamp//Youtube//Learn more about Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy//

Stream/Download: Mincemeat or Tenspeed

Mincemeat or Tenspeed
Mincemeat or Tenspeed

You may not imagine a tiny blog like mine that nobody reads would get a steady stream of free music sent to their inbox, but I do. It takes a lot of effort (that 9 chances out of 10 is not worth it) to comb through all of the music that I am thrown on a weekly basis. Hundreds of hours of music.

I get into these moods where I want to listen to something that I have never heard before, or even heard of before. That’s where Burn Down the Capital comes in and never lets me down. I met the dude that not only runs that site, but also puts together crazy shows of the most outside music you could ever imagine across Toronto, several years ago. So, that link might be of a bit more help to you if you live in and around the Toronto area if you’d like to actually check out any of the shows that are posted to the site.

Last week the email he sent out included info about a gig that Philadelphia’s David Harms, aka Mincemeat or Tenspeed, was putting on. I checked it out and got exactly what I wanted. Noisy, challenging music. If you are a fan of early Dan Deacon or Merzbow (or both) then you should check this out. He creates music with “No synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machines, computers, musical instruments.” His only tools are effects pedals and a mixer. What he does with that limited inventory is pretty amazing.

Ranging from pure noise-ambience to electronic pulsations of distorted glitches, he’s got it covered from top to bottom. And the truly great news for you is that there is a great deal of his music that is available for download for free. If you are having a hard time trying to decide where to start, I think that “Live in Black Ops,” “The Tower,” and “Dungeon Master” are where to go. Interesting sidenote that the Soundcloud page claims Providence as his location (perhaps that is more current?) and that the “Dungeon Master” album includes the track “Mindflayer,” also the name of fellow Providence noise master Brian Chippendale’s bands. Check out some of these tracks and then head over here and download.

Web//Facebook//Soundcloud//Tumblr//Bandcamp//Twitter//Purchase//downloads

 

New songs: Sharon Van Etten – “Live at Pickathon 2013”

Sharon Van Etten
Sharon Van Etten

Sharon Van Etten recently played the final show of her tour here in Oregon. The Pickathon is a yearly music festival that happens outside of Portland. This year the festival was on August 4th and we have a really good recording of the entire set. Even more exciting is that this recording provides some really high quality versions of a few new songs that Sharon played that afternoon.

The first song, on my recording simply labeled “New Song” as she opens the set with it and doesn’t introduce it, but I think a fair bet is that the song is going to be called “I Know.” It’s a great choice for a set opener with just Sharon singing at the piano, her voice confident and stronger than ever. She moves effortlessly between a subdued, soft voice drawing us in, and a powerful full-voiced near shout at the top of her range before seeming to calm herself down singing “I know…..I know.” The dynamic play pushes and pulls us through the song, while melismatic turns casually float by before coming to an end with Sharon softly singing “all I ever wanted was you.”

I Know

Abut the other new track, “Tarifa,” Sharon explains,

 
 “this next song is about a vacation, it’s a new one that we’ve been working on, it’s call Tarifa….it’s [in Spain] on a fucking cliff overlooking Morocco,  but it is amazing – in the middle of nowhere. There was a bunch of bulls, that I was afraid of, in the pasture next to me, but they could give a shit that I was there. They didn’t try to run me over or anything weird. I had to ask my boyfriend, I was like ‘can I wear red? Are they gonna charge at me?’ They didn’t. I tried it out. It was fine. Anyway, this song is about that.”
 

It’s more fleshed out than “I Know,” beginning with Sharon and her guitar, and the rest of the band soon following. The verses move through a gentle waltz, while the choruses are more concerned with driving straight ahead.

Tarifa

And while you are checking those out, you should also head over to this site to purchase a t-shirt designed by Sharon with all of the proceeds going to charity.

 
“The artwork used is one of my early contour drawings when I first moved to New York and the charity chosen is Women in Need (WIN). WIN transforms the lives of New York City homeless women and their children by providing a holistic solution of safe housing, critical services and ground-breaking programs they need to succeed on their own – so the women can regain their independence and their children can look forward to a brighter future.”

 

 
Sharon Van Etten designed Yellow Bird Project t-shirt
Sharon Van Etten designed Yellow Bird Project t-shirt

So there you have it. Two new songs and a way to help a great charity. This is where I would normally say “you can catch her on tour” but, like I said, the tour is over. Look for the album within the year. You’ll forget by then, but I’ll remind you.

Web//Twitter//Facebook//Shirt//

Ongoing Projects and thoughts

I’ve been working on a bunch of different things lately, album reviews, show reviews, and I’m always busy transcribing and analyzing music, trying to dig into everything as deep as I can. That’s what it means to be a music theorist. Our job really is to try and figure out how music works, or why music works. Sure it can all get pretty subjective sometimes, but if one really gets down into it music analysis is really as much science as it is art.

I’ve got several projects going right now that I’ll just mention briefly, as I don’t know exactly what they are going to turn into just yet. One ongoing project that I began last term involved transcribing the music of Women. Friends of mine already know that I listen obsessively to this band, and that obsession has given way to an intense desire not only to figure out specifically how the songs on their 2 albums “work” as far as guitar voicings are concerned, but also how all the elements of their sound come together to form a cohesive whole. I’m interested in exploring their formal structures, the counterpoint, the chord progressions, pitch collections, use of noise, how things were recorded, how the songs were conceptualized, just everything. Beyond that I’m interested in finding what the music really says, beyond just the sound and all the elements that I just mentioned. This is the project that I have made the most progress with, I’ve taken several different analytical approaches to many of the songs, and written page upon page of descriptions and come up with some possible conclusions. At least I’ve begun working towards conclusions is what I really mean.

As a music theorist I’m always interested in how the music comments on culture, and how the things that the music does describes some sort of philosophical standpoint, how the music stands to represent an idea, how it proves, disproves, or calls into question an idea. It’s in this way that we keep evolving our thinking, and I like the idea that music can be some small part of that.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about the music of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. After listening to the album “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven” several times a day for several weeks in a row I started to wonder about how those songs are held together. This of course means that I have to take that first step and start transcribing, which is going to undoubtedly prove to be a considerable challenge, because it’s hard to tell even how many people are playing from track to track, minute to minute – not to mention that the songs go on for 20 minutes at a time in most instances. But I have learned a few things about their typical construction and it won’t be nearly as difficult as I once feared. I’m looking to discover similar things with their music as with the Women project. There is also an element of what I’ll call here “spiraling”, or Jacob’s Ladder type construction of bass lines. It’s a small detail that would take much too long to explain here, but it’s an element that appears in their music quite a bit that I am going to look into how it effects the bigger picture. So much can be said about their music, how it moves, how it doesn’t move, how it is all held together. It’s really fascinating and I’m excited to uncover these things and talk about them.

Which brings me to the other point of being a music theorist. Sure, discovering all of these things is great, and strengthening those findings with scholarship in other disciplines, but the field is admittedly not inviting to those that are not involved in music scholarship. It’s a very insular group, much like anything scholarly. I’m sure not too many of us are interested in reading the findings of university physicists, microbiologists and mathematicians in our spare time. The difference, in my opinion, is that music is something that we all share. We all experience it differently, we all share our opinions on our favorites with friends, and in that way music spans that divide between scientific and non-scientific thought. One doesn’t have to have a degree in music in order to discuss music, and one doesn’t even need to be a musician to be involved in discussions.

I think that there is a great opportunity to bridge that gap and create an avenue for greater understanding and appreciation of music in a way that doesn’t alienate music fans, but also doesn’t compromise. There is still a lot more that I am thinking about as far as this is concerned, and I’m busy filling notebooks with my thoughts on these things. There are definitely things that I despise seeing, hearing and reading about music, and there are things that I absolutely love. I’m sure that I will get into those specifics in future posts.

All of these things that I have been thinking about have also lead me to think about what I want this blog to be. I do enjoy providing album reviews and news blurbs, but there is always this nagging feeling that I’m wasting my time because almost all of the information that I provide as far as news goes can be found in several other places on the internet, and those sites (Stereogum, Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan etc.) get far more traffic than my site can ever hope to get. So I’m left thinking about what I have to say, what sets me apart, or what is going to set me apart? I guess I really don’t know the answer to that. I only hope that the content on my blog speaks for itself and takes a different angle than most other places around. I’m starting to get less concerned with hits (because I’ve never really gotten that many) and more concerned with just continually producing the best content that I can regardless of who is or isn’t reading. I’ve changed my perspective to doing this for myself, and if other people find enjoyment reading it, and appreciate my opinion then that is great. If not, that’s fine too.

What I really need to do now is continually work. That means more writing, more analysis, more listening, more reading… it’s only through continually doing these things that I will get better and I hope that some of you will follow along. I do want to do more posts like this where I share opinions and other things that are going on with me. Though one thing that I refuse to do is talk about anything that isn’t music related. I also am trying to strike that balance between posting too much, and not posting enough. I am only one person, and in my desire to provide unique content I want to avoid simply reposting things from other, aforementioned, sites. Trust me, if I simply took every press release that came into my inbox and every request from every person with a bandcamp that I got in my inbox every day I would be able to simply copy and paste with relatively little effort and have 10 posts a day. Being that that is typically how one gets their blog to get a lot of hits, through incessantly posting, is something that I struggle with accepting. I know that typically the text on any music blog is ignored while the reader searches for the free mp3 download or stream. I’m painfully aware that few people have even bothered to read this far (1,100 words now) into this very post, but it’s something that I am not willing to change.

Music has a lot of things to say that goes beyond the attention span required to listen to a 3 and a half minute long pop tune. It should be the duty of the music writer to go beyond simple description and meaning to try and tie a song and an artist to a much larger and relevant narrative. We should be thinking about how all of the pieces fit and not just how to sell a few more records, or how to get a few more people to go to a show. Change the narrative, change people’s expectations, increase the level of discourse. That’s what I hope to do. Some day. Many things have to happen before that though.

There are a couple other projects that I’m working on that I didn’t mention in this post, but I will talk about them soon enough. Thanks for reading.

 

Pitchfork Music Festival 2012 Preview Pt. 1

As is tradition for me around this time (almost) every year, I take off to Chicago to catch the Pitchfork Music Festival that has been happening every year since 2006 in Union Park. Though I didn’t have a chance to go last year, due to an expensive cross country move that I was going to be partaking a month after the festival, I am excited to return to the tradition again this year. Just as I did in 2010 I’m going to break the weekend up into 3 posts, one for each day of the fest, detailing each of the acts that I am looking forward to catching and hopefully helping you to discover some new acts even if you aren’t going to the festival. With any luck I’ll be able to update after each day of the fest to inform you as to what exactly went down, with links to any pictures and video (of at least reasonable quality) that I can find.

Friday July 13, 2012:

Tim Hecker, with the release of “Ravedeath 1972” in February 2011, blew pretty much everyone away with his expansive ambient drones. For me, as someone that doesn’t normally sit and listen to ambient music, there is something very intriguing about the sound of this album. It’s dense, complex, gritty, it may seem simple on the surface but there is a lot to dig in to. It’s an album to which I keep returning. I’m looking forward to his performance on Friday, but I’m also a little bit nervous that his brand of atmospherics may get lost to an outdoor venue. There’s a lot of subtlety to his music that may be hard to grasp in an open air venue. Typically the crowd at the festival knows (I’m making an assumption here based on my own personal feelings after years of attending) the music fairly well so I’m sure it will go as well as it can, but there is still a chance that it will end up like the disastrous (and BORING!) Panda Bear set from 2010.

 

Japandroids, are definitely not ones to disappoint. After the release of their first album “Post-Nothing” this Vancouver duo played the side stage of the festival in 2009. The energy of their songs and the catchiness of their hooks seemed to endear them to everyone. Every shout along chorus seemed familiar and inviting even to those in the crowd that may have only come to know the band that day. Not much has changed in the 3 years since that album was released. They have a new LP out, the aptly titled “Celebration Rock”, that is perhaps the best release of the year so far. The new one is even more exciting than the last, and that Japandroids have spent the majority of their time on the road has certainly helped. There is no question that this set will be fantastic, though I can’t hide my disappointment and frustration that Pitchfork has decided to once again relegate them to the smaller stage.

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/07.-The-House-That-Heaven-Built.mp3|titles=The House That Heaven Built]

Dirty Projectors seem to be in step with Japandroids. The last time we heard from Dave Longstreth and company was the same summer that the Vancouver duo released “Post-Nothing”. Both albums fought for my attention that summer, and neither one surpassed the other in listens. I loved (and still do love) “Bitte Orca”, and being that a stream of the latest Dirty Projectors album, “Swing Lo Magellan”, was just released yesterday (and it sounds fantastic) I’m sure this will be another hard fought battle for the summer. The official release date for the album comes just before the festival (July 10 on Domino Records), and may push Japandroids around for their spot as “best release of 2012 so far”. But all that is ok. This will also be a repeat performance, as they played in support of “Rise Above” in 2009 just before the official release of “Bitte Orca”. That was my first ever introduction to the band, and now that I am more familiar with their stuff (as is everyone else) I’m sure to get a lot more out of it.

As for the rest of the performances on the first day of the festival, I have never really been the biggest fan of Feist. I found “The Reminder” quite boring and because of that I haven’t even bothered checking out her new one, “Metals”. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised.  Though earlier in the day I am going to have to check out The Olivia Tremor Control as they have been in the back of my mind forever as a band that I definitely need to check out. All that I know about them is that they are one of the original bands in the Elephant 6 collective. That alone is enough to get my attention. I also realize that I lose about a million hipster cred points for not checking them out sooner.

 

 

New track: Chelsea Light Moving – "Burroughs"

(Originally posted to Tympanogram on June 26, 2012)

Chelsea Light Moving
Chelsea Light Moving

As a Sonic Youth obsessive, I take it as my duty to inform everyone that Thurston Moore has formed another new project. The name of this new venture is Chelsea Light Moving and they popped up out of nowhere late last week on the Matador Matablog.

Thankfully the band sounds like they are interested in more of the late Sonic Youth aesthetic than they are in the solo Thurston Moore sound. The track, “Burroughs,” comes off sounding like a B-side for The Eternal or Rather Ripped, with an upbeat and noisy verse, sharp guitar stabs, and an extended exploratory coda. This track captures the energy that I believe is missing from Thurston’s Demolished Thoughts effort. It sounds raw, exciting, and it doesn’t even matter to me that this is probably the millionth track attributed to the influence of William S. Burroughs that Moore has penned.

The band is rounded out by Keith Wood on guitar, Samara Lubelski on bass, and drummer John Maloney. According to the Matador press release the track was recorded and mixed May 18-20, 2012, by Justin Pizzoferrato at Sonelab, Easthampton, MA. And there are some (very few) dates posted for Thurston, with no mention if it is him appearing with solo material or with new Chelsea Light Moving tracks. We are promised another track in a week though, so be sure to check back and grab that one as well.

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/chelsea_light_moving_burroughs.mp3|titles=Chelsea Light Moving – Burroughs] Chelsea Light Moving  | Blog
Upcoming Thurston Moore US dates:
June 24 – Missoula, MT  The Top Hat
June 27 – Bouler, CO  Boulder Theater
June 29 – Denver, CO  Larimer Lounge

Carrie Brownstein on WTF Podcast with Marc Maron

Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Brownstein

Carrie Brownstein of Wild Flag is featured on this week’s WTF Podcast with Marc Maron. If you aren’t a fan of the podcast now would be a perfect time to start checking it out. Marc presents 2 episodes a week of conversations with comedians, actors, writers that are sometimes funny, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes revelatory and always entertaining.

On this episode (No. 267) Carrie and Marc discuss Carrie’s years with Sleater-Kinney, awkward meetings with Peter Buck of R.E.M., meeting Fred Armisen and creating Portlandia, guitars, pets and a whole bunch of other things. Check it out.

Also, as an incentive to listen, Marc gives his listeners a 20% discount on the Merge Records website. That discount covers everything on the site from vinyl, CD’s and merch to digital downloads, so take a listen and find out how to get that discount.

Check out the WTF Podcast with Carrie Brownstein  here

Download from iTunes. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast, it’s regularly great.

Wild Flag is currently finishing up their tour. There are still some shows coming up on the West Coast, and Mexico, through May. Check them out if you can.

Marc Maron and the WTF Podcast: Web | Twitter | Facebook | iTunes

Carrie Brownstein: Twitter | Wild Flag | Wild Flag Facebook Page | Wild Flag Twitter

Download: Titus Andronicus Mixtape Vol. 1

Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus has released a mixtape through their tumblr presence that not only includes properly recorded versions of two new tracks, but also a whole host of collectible material from their early days prior to the recording of their first album, outtakes from their 2010 masterpiece The Monitor, acoustic demos and even some Weezer (?!) covers. It’s travelling around the internet already, so grab it while it’s hot and pump yourself up for more new material from Titus Andronicus, but I would warn you against following Patrick Stickles on twitter as that dude stays up late and can be really annoying, but then again he also announces stuff like this via twitter so….consider yourself warned.

By the way, following the download link to their tumblr page will also provide you with several new live video clips. Be sure to check those out as well.

Download the mixtape.

Titus Andronicus:  Twitter | Tumblr | web

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Titus-Andronicus-Upon-Viewing-Oregon’s-Landscape-with-the-Flood-of-Detritus.mp3|titles=Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape with the Flood of Detritus]