2014, albums, Bandcamp, music, Portland, reviews

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

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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”

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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”

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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

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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”

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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

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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

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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//

 

2014, contemporary classical, miscellaneous, music, news, personal, thoughts

Remembering Claudio Abbado

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Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado

Symphony No. 9/IV

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/04-Symphony-No.-9_-IV.-Adagio.-Sehr-langsam-und-noch-zuruckhaltend.mp3]

I’m going to take some time today to write about something that I have been wanting to write about for a long time now. I think that it is time to start introducing some posts that aren’t about varying levels of obscure-guitar driven plugged-in music. Today, though unfortunate given the circumstances, seems like the perfect day to start introducing some non-indie rock writing.

When I started college I found myself working toward a degree in music composition. Now, when I say that I “found myself” doing it, I mean that one minute I hadn’t been involved in music at all and then the next minute I was in a program with a slew of serious musicians that knew far more than me about everything. The composition students in particular were known for their breadth of knowledge (as they should be), and someone like me, with little to no knowledge of concert music, found themselves listening to anything that they could get their hands on in order to keep up with the rest of the crowd.

One work that kept coming up time and again was Alban Berg’s opera “Wozzeck.” For those of you that don’t know, and I’m not about to give a synopsis here, the opera is incredibly dense, complex and difficult for all involved. As it would turn out, this was maybe the first opera that I ever connected with. I’m still not particularly interested in opera much to this day, but there was something about Berg’s that really grabbed me. As I watched on VHS in the library, I noticed something interesting about the conductor. During the interludes, since the camera had nothing on stage to focus on, it panned through the pit, and fixed itself on the conductor. As I watched him work I noticed that he never for a second looked down to glance at the score. As I kept watching I got a quick look at his podium as the camera angle changed and I noticed that there was no score even on the podium at all. At that point in time I couldn’t even fathom the possibility that someone would be conducting anything from memory, let along a piece of music as dense and complex as “Wozzeck.”

I kept watching that performance. Come to find out it is the preeminent performance of the opera. It’s always the one that people refer to, and for what it’s worth, it is up in its entirety on youtube. As I watched and grew as a musician, I slowly realized that there was a lot more to conducting than simply memorizing the score (which hardly any of them even do. Abbado was particularly gifted), their job is not just of interpretation, but of working with the musicians day-in, day-out for months and months ahead of the performance. They shape the lines, possibly change dynamics (or sometimes more) in the score in order to bring out details in the music that they find important and interesting, they decide on tempi, how drastic any changes in dynamic are going to be, they cue instruments during the performance, they are in charge of the action, everything, everyone is literally taking their cues from the conductor.

There was something about the emotive power of that opera that really got me. It’s an extremely intense piece. Later, when I discovered the music of Gustav Mahler, I found myself drawn once again to the recordings of his symphonies that were conducted by Abbado. Mahler’s works are all intensely colorful, descriptive, emotional, and powerful in general, and Abbado was, in my opinion, able to bring out all of those qualities more effectively than any other conductor that I have heard that has recorded Mahler’s works. There was just something about Simon Rattle, Leonard Bernstein and even Bruno Walter’s (who worked with Mahler) recordings that weren’t able to capture the same magic as his.

Listening to Mahler’s 9th Symphony today, my favorite work of his, I could hear all the beautiful contrasts, the delicate shading of timbre, the drastic shifts in tempo and dynamics and in articulation. There are parts in the middle of the first movement that are so transformative one can’t help but pay closer attention. Mahler’s works, due in part to their length, are very immersive works, and nobody helped the listener to become more immersed in these great works than Claudio Abbado. Just listen to the ending of the last movement of Mahler’s 9th symphony with him at the helm. The diminuendo at the end is executed so perfectly, with such delicacy and precision as to transport the listener, to nearly physically move them. I know that I can’t help but sit in silence for at least a little while after hearing that movement in particular come to a close.

I have listened to many of his recordings over the years, I have grown up as a musician with him, and I learned so much about what it means to interpret a work because of him. I was truly saddened today when I heard of his passing and there will be a large void in his place that won’t soon be filled. He was great for reasons that far exceed my own personal feelings, Abbado was a champion of new music when there were very few people that supported the avant-garde. He conducted orchestras through the works of Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Nono, Maderna, as well as the works of Verdi and Rossini. He was programming experimental music when none of the other big orchestras were doing so. He insisted that concert repertoire is not simply for the upper-class, and would bring his orchestra to factories to play for the people. He worked with children to foster a love for the arts and to encourage their interest in music. Claudio Abbado was a man that was interested in making connections and sharing a universal language.

For these reasons and many more, I think that it is important to take a step back and realize the contribution that he has made to our culture. Take a listen to the final movement of Mahler 9 above (all 26 minutes of it), and check out the video of him conducting the interlude to “Wozzeck” with the Vienna State Opera in 1987 as well. His obituary can be read here.

2014, albums, miscellaneous, music, personal, thoughts

In Memoriam Sonic Youth Part IX: “Washing Machine”

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Sonic Youth – “Washing Machine”

The Diamond Sea

Not that I knew it at the time, but this would be the last Sonic Youth album I would listen to regularly for a while. They started to fall off significantly after “Washing Machine” came out and Sonic Youth and I started to part ways for a while. It definitely wasn’t because this is a bad album, because it isn’t. I think that this is one of the stronger albums in their oeuvre. They seemed to attach themselves a little bit more to that wide open and thinner aesthetic that showed up on “Experimental, Jet Set…” The sound of “Winner’s Blues,” if you will, became the guiding voice. At least that is how I hear it.

Everyone that’s reading this already knows that the wheels started to come off not long after this album was released. A lot of gear was stolen (stolen SY guitars are still turning up here and there) which found the band not just investing in new instruments, but a whole new approach given the instruments that they had at their disposal. More on that later.

This album is most notable, not only for having, strangely, their most instantly recognizable cover art since “Goo,” but also for the magnum-noise-opus “The Diamond Sea.” It was no surprise, yet still an odd choice, to release the 19+ minute track as the single off the album. Obviously it needed to be edited down significantly for mass consumption, which seemed like something very un-Sonic Youth, while at the same time sending out a song such as “The Diamond Sea” as a single is very Sonic Youth.

One definitely got their money’s worth when they purchased this album. At about an hour and 8 minutes the album is only a minute or two short of maxing out a CD. Come to find out even the 19+ minute version of “The Diamond Sea” is an edited down version. The fact of the matter is that it stands as one of Sonic Youth’s most intensely beautiful and emotionally driven tracks. It sounds like an ending, a farewell of sorts. If I had been old enough to think about such things when I was 14 and hearing this for the first time I would have been worried if it was going to be their last album. What a way to go out, with 10+ minutes of pure guitar feedback and a wall of noise.

The whirling cloud of howling guitars is at once acknowledgement of past work, looking back from an entirely different world. It’s a farewell of sorts, and little did they know exactly how fitting that farewell would be for at least a little while. I think that a song that epic, especially when used to conclude an album, can’t help but sound like a closing off of something, or maybe everything. It has so much power that everything afterward can be viewed as a coda in their career. They had made it this far, 13 years and 9 albums, without a misstep. Maybe “The Diamond Sea” is the band reminding us that even after a career that at that point had surpassed nearly all their contemporaries in longevity and (relative) commercial success.

Whereas “Bull in the Heather” was a “hit,” a song that even people that didn’t know Sonic Youth, knew; “The Diamond Sea” resonated deeply with long-time fans. At least this is how I perceived it when I was hearing “Washing Machine” for the first time.

It would be a few years before another “proper” Sonic Youth release, meaning another release on DGC. Two years after “Washing Machine” was released the band started working on their SYR series of albums, showcasing their instrumental and more experimental material. To me the albums are sonic sketchbooks, where material for future albums will occasionally appear within different contexts. That was the power of “The Diamond Sea,” it fits well within the context of a mass market album, yet guides us smoothly into the band’s own world of music exploration.

 

2014, music, news, songs

Stream: New Releases from Already Dead Records & Tapes

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mchtnchts - "The Spoiled West and its Freshly Minted Infants" on Already Dead Records
mchtnchts – “The Spoiled West and its Freshly Minted Infants” on Already Dead Records

I used to consider myself to be firmly in the camp of anti-tape. I just couldn’t understand why it was that people were bringing back such a (thankfully) dead medium. The angle that I was looking at was, well there is a reason that I always buy stuff on vinyl and it’s because it sounds better and is a more authentic representation of the actual music than a digital representation from a CD or mp3. It seemed to me that recording stuff to tape was simply an effort of creating nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, and it just seemed completely backwards.

Not long ago, though, I was reading about how the community that has sprung up around creating tapes considers them to be an act of rebellion of sorts. It’s much cheaper and easier to distribute tapes than it is to record vinyl, and it doesn’t require nearly as much technology as is required to create digital files. That is something that I can get down with. If it is a means for more people to get their music out there, and in a medium that is tangible, then how could anyone not support that. I think what finally sold me was when I got a pair of tapes from Crash Symbols. Sure, the nostalgia is there, but the tapes and the artwork for Julie’s Haircut and Exotic Club are so captivating. How could I not love it? What is going to happen though is that bigger bands are going to try to cash in on this, creating tapes for no reason other than “they seem to be getting more popular.”

Well, this isn’t about me. I was just pointed in the direction of a label, Already Dead Tapes & Records, and discovered that it’s a pretty good place to poke around. According to the site Already Dead Tapes was founded by Joshua Tabbia and Sean Hartman. The label is run by Joshua Tabbia, Sean Hartman, Ray Jackson and Alex Borozan and they are a DIY record label releasing cassettes, vinyl and fine art in small editions.

What specifically brought me to the site was a tape by mchtnchts. “The Spoiled West and its Freshly Minted Infants” is a fresh blast of noise from bent circuits and analog sources from a pair of musicians from the Bay Area. There’s a sample on the page. Make sure you act quick though, the release is limited to 40 tapes…well, 39 tapes.

Looking around a little more there’s some bouncy garage rock from Panda Kid’s “Summetry” 12″. I think they are from Italy. I feel like Italian indie rock is stalking me, or maybe it’s the other way around. That one is pretty fantastic and worth a listen. They end up sounding like a roughed up Beach Fossils in some ways, with similarly breezy and carefree aesthetic, though taken to some strange dark places at times. Only 30 of those available. And then there is the art-rock weirdness and bass heaviness of Comfort Food’s “Dr. Faizan’s Feel Good Brain Pills” tape. Both great and for very different reasons.

Have fun checking out all the stuff on Already Dead’s site. To get to the bandcamp pages for the bands, just click on the “i” next to the play button on each page. I have yet to come across something not worth hearing. Follow the links below and check out the bandcamp pages linked above. All of these releases are extremely limited, so if you are thinking that you want to get something, you’d better grab it while you can. Otherwise, grabbing the albums digitally on bandcamp might be a good contingency plan, but I think supporting this great small-edition label is definitely the best way to go.

Already Dead//mchtnchts//Panda Kid//Comfort Food//

Better than Pitchfork.