Portland’s Red Fang will release its 3rd full length, “Whales and Leeches,” next week (October 15 to be exact).
Right off the bat you should know that if you like Mastodon then you would be very interested in giving this album a try. Though there are some pretty key differences in their sound (even if they do seem to both like whales), the overall bone-crushing guitar assault as foundation is pretty much the same, but Red Fang tends more for the straight ahead riff based tunes than Mastodon’s comparatively prog-heavy tendencies.
“Whales and Leeches” finds a lot of room to move from one side of the metal genre to the other. A song like “Blood Like Cream” finds strength in a major key with an anthemic chorus, and an uplifting bridge, resembling at times the qualities of hard-core punk. But then take into consideration a track like “No Hope” that follows. It starts off with jarring dissonance before launching directly into another wall of pummeling guitar distortion. Nothing but metal on this track. Full on, take no prisoners thrash metal.
The 7+ minutes of “Dawn Rising” slows things down a bit, multiplying the heaviness exponentially. I think that it has been proven (though I don’t have the formula handy at present moment) that the slower a song and the lower the tuning (sounds like they are all the way down to C or something on this one) the heavier the song. I’m trying to place the guest vocal on this one, but I can’t quite do it. It may very well be someone else in Red Fang and I’m just not in the know, but whoever it is they have a perfectly gnarly metal sneer and an awesome, powerful high register. Think Bon Scott crossed with Dio.
Really though, I think that the breakout riff-rocker on this one is the album opener, “DOEN.” Great way to start off an album. It’s a punch right in the face. Heavy. Fast. Unrelenting.
The entire album is like that. Heavy and unrelenting with riffs to spare. It’s the way that metal is supposed to be, in my opinion. It’s not formulaic and not every song needs a guitar solo, but in the tracks that do have one they are done particularly well.
“Whales and Leeches” is out on Relapse Records on October 15 (October 18 Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. October 21 in the UK and rest of the world), available as a CD/Deluxe CD/LP/Deluxe 2xLP/Digital or Deluxe Digital. Check the links below to order the album. Limited Edition deluxe CD and LP contains a lenticular/moving cover, expanded packaging and TWO bonus songs.
***All dates from Oct 09- Oct 18 with Helms Alee***
Oct 09 Sacramento CA Harlow’s w/ Dog Shredder
Oct 10 Los Angeles CA The Troubadour w/ Dog Shredder
Oct 11 San Diego CA Brick by Brick w/ Dog Shredder
Oct 12 Tucson AZ The Rock w/ Dog Shredder
Oct 13 Albuquerque NM Launchpad w/ Dog Shredder
Oct 14 Denver CO Bluebird w/ Dog Shredder
Oct 15 Salt Lake City, UT Urban Lounge w/Gaytheis
Oct 16 Boise ID Neurolux w/Gaytheist
Oct 17 Spokane WA The Center w/Gaytheist
Oct 18 Bellingham WA The Shakedown w/Gaytheist
Nov 09 Seattle WA Showbox at The Market
Nov 10 Vancouver BC Rickshaw theater
***All Dates w/ The Shrine. Nov 30 to Dec 14 with Indian Handcrafts***
Nov 30 San Francisco Slim’s
Dec 01 Santa Ana CA The Observatory
Dec 02 Tempe AZ Club Red
Dec 04 Austin TX Red 7
Dec 05 Houston TX Fitgerald’s Downtairs
Dec 06 New Orleans LA Siberia
Dec 07 Atlanta GA Drunken Unicorn
Dec 08 Raleigh NC Kings Barcade
Dec 09 Philadelphia PA Underground Arts w/ Cancer Bats
Dec 10 Cambridge MA The Middle East w/ Cancer Bats
Dec 11 New York NY Bowery Ballroom w/Cancer Bats
Dec 13 Montreal QC Cabaret Mile End w/ Cancer Bats
Dec 14 Toronto ON Lee’s Palace w/ Cancer Bats (Announce Cancer Bats 10/21)
Dec 15 Detroit MI The Shelter w/ Cancer Bats, Radkey Dec 16 Chicago IL Logan Square Auditorium w/ Cancer Bats, Radkey
Dec 17 Minneapolis MN Triple Rock w/ Radkey
Dec 19 Colorado Springs CO The Black Sheep w/ Radkey
I’ve been listening to this album a lot lately, and though I don’t typically like to do reviews this long after an album has come out (“Exai” was released back in February), some things came to mind when I was listening to it last week (not necessarily related only to this album, but to their other work as well) and I thought that they were worth sharing. I also feel that a duo such as Autechre that creates music that is unique, thoughtful, challenging and intricate is always worth talking about.
On “Exai,” more so than on past releases, Autechre finds a balance between repetition and eccentricity. Unlike the tracks on “Confield” (my personal favorite of theirs, though this album is working its way up the ranks, for sure) where the object of each song, or most of them anyway, seems to be to explore temporality and shifting time-streams. Though these explorations are not done in the same way as phase music, rather they do so in way that is akin to the work of Elliott Carter or Conlon Nancarrow where melodic lines of different lengths are performed at different tempi only to line up at a specific, calculated point.
These intricate, premeditated rhythms became the basis of “Confield.” Songs like “VI scose poise” bring out these temporal shifts to a degree, opening with a delicate timbre that resembles a spinning top, or a ceaselessly spinning quarter on a table. This track in particular, its opening, makes use of metric borrowings, switching to tuplets, and sometimes tuplets inside other tuplets, which gives the the listener the impression of varying tempi despite the constant pulse (remember what I said about Pink Mountain?). In this way our sense of time, our temporal footing, is disturbed. Not too many artists take full advantage of realizing the potential of this kind of effect, or manipulating this dimension in music.
Moving to “Exai” the foundation of the tracks relies mostly upon shifts in complexity, from the fairly straightforward “bladelores” to the densely layered and highly complex “jatevee C.” The trick with listening to Autechre, and this album in particular, is to listen for things one may not usually listen for in music. For example, changes in density, subtle color shifts over melodic lines akin to klangfarbenmelodie. Speaking of those color shifts, the overall timbres used throughout “Exai” are, for the most part, decidedly darker. I mean darker in the most specific way possible, referring to the characteristics of the soundwaves and where the harmonics are amassed.
Although there are brittle, piercing resonances. For example throughout “YJY UX” there are sounds in the extremes of the high register that are balanced by other melodic lines in the mid-range. This, to me, is an interesting component of Autechre’s music and the way that they construct songs. When there are extremely high sounds, the complex percussion often creates the low foundation which leaves a nice bit of space in the mid-range for any motion, or melodic activity.
Listening to “YJY UX” one can hear certain bands of frequencies dropping out to make room for other melodic lines that are of more interest to fill in those spaces. The highest pitched material does serve as simply a ceiling of repeated high gestures that soar over top of everything, yet they are not rawn to the ear as a melody. The line is the highest, and in some ways periodically the loudest as a result) and yet it manages to steer clear of becoming the primary focus. By and large this is not the case in most other songs – not just most other songs on the album, I mean in general.
The music of Autechre is a music that resists all passivity. One can not listen to anything by Autechre passively. The activity and complexity of the music demands our attention. Listening passively is nearly impossible, and certainly pointless. The duo has even made it difficult to recognize songs by track name, often times appearing to be random letters, numbers and other ASCII characters. A lot of the track names apparently come from file names of samples that are used in a song, while others may be from inside jokes between Brown and Booth.
Album opener “Fleur” begins with a wildly energetic rhythm that eventually fizzles to near silence. “T ess xi” features some nice chord voicings at the beginning that make use of different resolutions of a suspended pitch to create motion through a standard 8 bar phrase. The first 4 bars end with a dissonant resolution, and that is finally resolved the next time around in the final measure of the next phrase, connecting it to the beginning again. After each cycle of this chord progression another layer is added. From skittering drums to bright syncopated stabs in cyclical rhythmic patterns that are lined up such that they accentuate the aforementioned suspensions. The melodic material shifts and swirls around these elements, building to its highest density before taking a step back by stripping away material. The final section of the song distills the essence of the opening chords to only two alternating harmonies that work to accomplish the same forward motion as the beginning, this time re-appropriating it as closing material.
“nodezsh” resists all attempts at finding a steady pulse, but the more that the song comes into focus the less it can hide. The track features similar metric borrowing as “VI scose poise” but the hi-hat sound keeps the rhythm a bit more honest, giving the listener something to hold onto at points. There is also another element at work in this song and that is the manipulation of distance. Some of the timbres in this song are notably more echoed, providing the listener with a sense of distance, we feel that the sound is coming from further away than some of the other elements that may be up front. This is not just a result of levels in the mix, but about changing the profile of the sounds. Think about the doppler effect, or how distant sounds in the real world are effected by the space between you and the sound. Certain frequencies travel further than others, so the more distant a sound the fewer frequencies will make it to our ear, subtly altering the overall sonic profile of the sound. It’s about overall volume, but it is more about the ratio of certain frequencies to one another.
Though some may disagree, I think that “Exai” is one of the group’s most enjoyable albums. Clocking in at just over 2 hours it’s safe to say that the scope of the album is epic. Three tracks break the 10-minute mark, while there are several over 6 minutes. I don’t see this as putting the album at a disadvantage though. There is so much to listen to and so many interesting ideas flowing through each of the tracks, though not necessarily one overarching m.o. If you’ve been scared to get into Autechre, or haven’t really heard much by them that grabs you, start with “Exai.”
There is also a new EP coming out on October 28th, “L-event,” which can be ordered by clicking the link below. “Exai” is out now as 2xCD, 4xLP or iTunes download.
The first time that I heard Bill Callahan’s music was in 2011, not too long after the release of “Apocalypse,” the album that (to me) featured the song “America!” That initial listening experience was something that I won’t soon forget. There was something about Callahan’s voice that was shocking to me at first. It seems strange to even say that because he has one of those unassuming voices, nothing overtly shocking about it, nothing over the top etc. Maybe that was just it for me. Maybe I wasn’t used to hearing such a bare, unencumbered voice.
And that quality of his voice is what the music is all about. There is a solid confidence and honesty present in all of Bill Callahan’s songs. His rich baritone sits somewhere between singing and speaking at points. It’s placed way up front in the mix, I don’t want to say invading your space, but it’s definitely placed perfectly to grab your attention. When you listen to Bill Callahan, he is speaking directly to you. There isn’t any echo placed on his voice, it’s stripped bare. That was what shocked me the first time I heard him. He is not hiding behind anything. If he were to sing a wrong note (he doesn’t) it would be right out there in the open, there is no room for mistakes in his recording style. There’s confidence without bravado. It’s modesty more than anything.
The songs themselves have that honest characteristic to them as well. In “Small Planes” he repeats “I really am a lucky man” in between short verses where his voice is heard to trail off at the ends of phrases, giving the impression that he is lost in thought, or maybe even thinking out loud. This is a common quality of his music; his songs are able to portray a sense of thought and thoughtful consideration.
Understated guitar, minimal percussion and most importantly his voice, that is what the sound is all about. Callahan’s music follows his words, and his voice is the anchor of his entire sound.
Though, it’s not always 100% understated on “Dream River.” The track “Summer Painter” builds to a somewhat loud and chaotic middle section, which is surprising coming from a song that begins with guitar and long, low flute tones. “Rich man’s folly and poor man’s dreams, I’ve painted these” he sings, later finishing the thought with “the rich or the poor, who am I working for?” There are so many moments of quiet contemplation and soul searching on this album. More so than the songs on “Apocalypse” that seem to come more from an observers perspective, from a man surveying his homeland and doing such in a way that only a folk storyteller can. Where “Apocalypse” looks out across the vast country, “Dream River” turn decidedly inward.
On “Winter Road” Callahan sings of persistence and learning to “just keep on.” When the music grows and starts to sway with his voice it’s quite a moving experience, but soon the guitar takes a bit of a turn, throwing everything into a bit of a different direction with a simple descending minor 6th. The perfect depiction of the song’s meaning. This, more than anything else on the album (though they all do to a degree) recalls the sound of Jason Molina’s Songs: Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co. album. The somber yet hopeful vocal, the violin that provides periodic commentary before turning into faithful accompaniment, it creates a very similar atmosphere. Though the songs on “Dream River” come more from a place of introspection and honesty followed by hope.
The album is out now on Drag City. Check out the tracks “Small Plane”and album closer “Winter Road” below and follow the links to purchase “Dream River.”
Hard hitting 2 song 7″ from Olympia, Washington’s Survival Knife. The “Divine Mob/Snakebit” 7″ will be released through Kill Rock Stars on October 15.
The band consists of Justin Trosper and Brandt Sandano from Unwound, Meg Cunningham from Blues Druid and Kris Cunningham from Western Hymn.
The quick one-two punch starts with the slightly sinister sounding riff of “Divine Mob,” that turns out to actually be upbeat, only to turn again after the addition of the vocals (and with the help of some palm muting). The great thing here is the way that the band shows themselves finding ways of adding to the basic initial idea. A contrasting guitar line is added as the song opens up, eventually landing in an extended bridge. The overall sound of the track is heavier than hardcore punk, bordering on metal.
The heaviness is brought out even more in the second track, “Snakebit,” which has Meg Cunningham taking over vocal duties. The choppy cut of the guitars moves to angular dissonant sounds, alternating throughout the verse. The highlight, for me, is the extended coda that takes us through the last minute of the song. Noisy, driving, and energetic.
Those three words actually nicely sum up the 7″ as a whole.
Check it out above, and then head to the Kill Rock Stars bandcamp page at the link below to pre-order the download for $2. Vinyl pre-orders are expected to begin shipping the week of October 15.
A few weeks ago I talked a bit about one particular track from Tim Hecker’s latest album, but now that I have had the chance to spend some time with it I feel that I can give it the proper review that it deserves.
There is more of a focus on not only the ambient sound that envelops the music, but also on percussive effects and layered timbres. Now, when I say “percussive effects” I guess what I am really getting at is that the sound of piano keys is recorded such that one can actually hear the striking of the string.
Hecker leaves some mysterious clues for us as audience to piece together, or at least some things that we should think about, not just as we listen, but things that we should think about the world around us. I’m not saying that each of these tracks are tone-poems by any means, though perhaps that is the way that Hecker composed them. There are a few questions raised in at least a few of the songs.
I’ve already talked about the track “Live Room” in some detail. The main point that I made was that by using Steve Reich’s motive from “Piano Phase” as source material, though detached and disjunct he was demanding us as listeners to think about the connections between that early minimalist piece and “Live Room.” Considering that could result in any number of conclusions.
Though that is only the beginning of the trail that is left for us. There are also the implications of the cover image that seems to allude to an famous picture of a prisoner being tortured at Abu Ghraib. It’s not very much of a stretch to see that those two photos are related, though Hecker places his figure inside what looks to be a church. Several things come to mind when this is investigated further. Obviously there is the surface level implication of modeling the album art after a picture with such loaded, dark and heavy implications. As soon as you notice it, it’s going to conjure up all sorts of thoughts. Perhaps you had forgotten all about Abu Ghraib, or maybe you mistook that for something that happened at Guantanamo. Either way, you are going to come to a shocking realization that both of those things happened/are happening. Right now. We live in a world that allows those things to happen.
Torture at Abu Ghraib
Then there is the fact that the album is called “Virgins” and the album cover seems to place this figure inside a church. The prisoner’s pose, as well as the figure on the cover, are like that of Christ on the cross. And all of this combined with the fact that songs have been given titles such as “Incense at Abu Ghraib,” “Stigmata I,” “Stigmata II,” and going with the latter two – “Stab Variation” that closes out the album.
That’s a lot to consider and we haven’t even started thinking about the music.
Hecker is at the helm of a larger, more varied sound palette throughout “Virgins.” Sudden shifts in timbre and dynamics intercut with his usual, decidedly ambient sound. The percussive nature of the piano is really brought out in the tracks “Virginal I” and “Virginal II,” where it is found to weave in and out of focus first in front of any drones and then behind them. Though, in “Virginal II” the minimalist piano percussives become a static pattern, though a bit off kilter in the same manner as “Live Room.” The mixed timbres and layered lines creates a crystalline shimmer like perpetually shattering glass, before a thick, low square-wave synth comes in toward the end. Again, the palette of evolving timbres as a compositional device is evident.
“Prisms” comes careening into view as the opening track, immediately bringing to our attention dense harmonies, motion and shifts in timbre. It’s the set up to “Virginal I,” where the piano comes into play. “Radiance,” “Live Room,” and “Live Room Out” work as a nice parenthetical aside between the “Virginals.” A nice little trilogy that restates the opening idea of the album.
The piano returns on “Black Refraction,” though (again) with a different timbre than before. This time the bare piano is played sans all harshness, sostenuto, with the overtones collecting in the lower register over a repeated pattern. Minimalist repetition seems the M.O. across many of the tracks on “Virgins,” but there is great care taken to break down the patterns, cut out parts, divide them up into smaller pieces that are then repurposed, electronically manipulated (there are some pitches that are synthetically drawn out for emphasis on “Black Refraction,” allowing certain lines to be brought out in a different way without necessarily changing anything musically, only changing the timbre) buried and then brought back.
Closing the album with “Stigmata I,” “Stigmata II” and “Stab Variation” (the last of which I can’t help but think is another reference to help create the image of Christ on the cross with the stigmata being related to the violence of being nailed to the cross) just brings us back full circle. We are still left to wonder what the connotations of the music and imagery that is put forth on this album could ultimately mean. As “Stab Variation” comes to a close, is that the vague remnants of Reich’s theme buried in the background? Does the minimalist repetition go with the torture and christ imagery in an effort to say that this isn’t the first time that humans have brought upon horrible atrocities to other humans, and this won’t be the last? Is it that we are forever doomed to a never ending cycle only periodically broken? There are any number of unanswerable questions raised throughout this album. It’s up to us to decide what it all means.
The album is set for official release on October 14 as a CD or double LP and can be pre-ordered through Kranky (Kranky 153) by following the link at the bottom of the post:
Catch Tim Hecker live, currently out on tour:
December 14 / Chicago, IL / Constellation
December 8 / Rio de Janeiro, Brazil / Oi Futuro
November 16 / Minneapolis, MN / Walker Art Center
November 8 / Seattle, WA / Chapel Performance Space
November 6 / Los Angeles, CA / Human Resources
October 31 / Paris, France / Théâtre du Châtelet (TBC)
October 17 / Vancouver, Canada / Vancouver New Music Festival October 12 / Chicago, IL / TBC
October 5 / Essen, Germany / Denovali Swingfest / Weststadt Halle
October 4 / Milano, Italy / Centro Culturale San Fedele
October 2 / Bologna, Italy / Palazzo Re Enzo Web//Kranky Records//Twitter//
After taking somewhat of a different path for the past couple of albums, moving away from the reverbed, garagey jangle of the first few albums, that sound made a return on the latest EP, “Soothsayer,” from The Fresh and Onlys.
The 6 song release covers a lot of ground, from the surf rock of “God of Suez” to laid back catchiness of “Drugs,” with a bombastic chorus following a more subdued verse. “Violence, violence, is that all that we are?” It isn’t so much a verse as it is a pre-chorus of comparatively sombre material that is made to sound all the more subdued after the chorus comes crashing in. The chorus’ bluesy burst of fist-pump inspiring energy is reminiscent of “Peacock and Wing” from the bands debut release.
The final two tracks on the EP sound like they came out of the same basic idea. It’s as if “The Deluge of War” picks up exactly where “Drugs” left off. It’s a great way to end an EP. It works really well after some of the
Though it’s always unfair to continue comparing a band to their first release, and I know that I am constantly guilty of making such comparisons, but “Soothsayer” is a completely different animal. The psychedelia has been toned down in spots (“Forest Down Annie” and “Glass Bottom Boat”), and the poppier, upbeat hooks have been dialed up, which I think is a good compromise. Those more subdued tracks are placed well at the center of the EP. And those two tracks, “Forest Down Annie” and “Glass Bottom Boat,” are not to be forgotten about either; they both have a relaxed sentimental quality to them. The fade-out of “Forest Down Annie” is a particular highlight.
Though they have just wrapped up a West Coast tour, there is still good news: a new full-length is forthcoming. Keep an eye out for that one. I’m sure that I’ll be writing about it when it is released. Check out the “Soothsayer” at the Spotify link below, and order a copy from Mexican Summer, it’s out now.
Anyone that has been paying attention to this blog for the past couple of months already knows that I have been eagerlywaiting for this album to come out.
Well, tomorrow is the day that Kill Rock Stars will officially release Quasi’s 9th studio album. “Mole City” is not only the band’s 9th studio album, but also an album released on their 20th year as a band.
The album is stacked, for starters. Not including the bonus EP of cover songs that comes along with the album there are 24 tracks spanning over an hour of music. Right out of the gate after the brief initial organ solo opening of “*,” the track “You Can Stay But You Gotta Go” begins with a low rumble and charges through with ultra-fuzzed, guitar that (I think) has been run through a whammy pedal, or something similar, to send the pitch down an octave. I mean, it could be a bass guitar, but there are times when the line goes above the range of the bass…of course I could be wrong.
Anyway, that’s not the point. I’m getting off track here. The album amps up Quasi’s early rock influence with several tracks built upon a bar-room piano riff foundation overtop of which squealing, howling guitar noise is placed. This is exactly the structure of “Fat Fanny Land,” with the added shuffling backbeat laid down by Weiss. It’s built on a standard 12-bar blues form, with Coomes’ vocals and rhodes piano adding a nice dose of grit to the mix. And there’s even more blues piano on “Headshrinker,” which presents an interesting case. The song builds so slowly, taking the majority of its 4-plus minutes to get to it’s wildest. And what is done during that slow, steady build is even more interesting (to me at least) in that this build consists entirely of one chord. When the Brian May type doubled guitar sol enters toward the end of the song it’s a real breath of fresh air. That solo is also the only part of the song that really moves away from the primary chord.
That’s quite a feat. It’s a challenging thing to create a song on a single premise without straying from that idea or adding to it while at the same time holding interest, avoiding monotony. Coomes and Weiss, however, manage this with relative ease.
There are some other blues based rockers, such as “Nostalgia Kills,” a song that also benefits from the slap-back echo on the vocals. “Nostalgia Kills” would be right at home on classic rock radio, with a guitar riff that sounds like something straight out of Molly Hatchet, or Lynyrd Skynyrd. Another country/blues guitar jam, “Bedbug Town,” features the spot on harmonies of Janet. Their voices work so perfectly together, and Weiss’ harmonies are always spot on. Speaking of Weiss’ voice, she has the chance to take center stage, singing the lone vocal on track “R.I.P,” with only a country style finger picked steel string guitar. Later in the album the track “One and Done” matches the sound of “R.I.P” with its quick guitar work in a similar finger-picked style, though this time considerably brighter with the addition of the slide guitar doubling.
Because of their inclusion of the honky-tonk style piano and ultra fuzzed out guitars or the distorted Rhodes, those songs often sound like they are coming out of a saloon in the wild west on acid. Though, lyrically, the songs are often dark and/or heartbreaking. That darkness is often hidden behind bouncy piano lines and early blues rock guitar hooks. In “The Goat” Coomes sings, “where’s the crime in tryin’ to get you to love me again?…I’ll be the goat if it makes it any better,” obscured in exactly this way. There are moments, such as in “Geraldine,” where the darkness is let to sound loud and clear.
Short bursts of noise such as “*,” “Chrome Duck,” and the sound collage of “Mole City” break the album up nicely, serving to create convenient divisions in the album that serve as waypoints guiding the listener through the album.
Finally, the addition of the covers EP (available to those that pre-ordered “Mole City”) makes total sense in creating the connections between the Quasi sound with bands like Queen and Black Sabbath, as well as Marvin Gaye and Nick Lowe. Come to think of it though, after listening to the dark lyrics of the preceding album Queen’s lyrics “don’t stop me now, I’m havin’ a good time, havin’ a good time” can’t help themselves but sound a bit ironic. But anyway, if you haven’t heard their cover of “Heaven and Hell” that appeared as a bonus track on 2010’s “American Gong,” then do yourself a favor and check that one out. Janet’s ability to replicate Keith Moon’s style couldn’t be closer to perfection.
Mole City is out October 1st (ie tomrrow) on Kill Rock Stars and can be found at your local independent record store or at the link below. The album is available on vinyl (coke-bottle clear while supplies last, otherwise black) CD or as a digital download.
Earlier this month Califone released the follow up to 2009’s “All My Friends are Funeral Singers” on Dead Oceans.
You can listen to a track, “Frosted Tips,” below. The song starts out unsuspecting enough, steel string acoustic guitar, then add in some horns and a catchy chorus and you’re there. Right? Not quite. The song builds up to a fairly noisy ending while the hook “…watching the new world die,” repeats. It’s always interesting when bands choose to go with a mood for a song that doesn’t quite seem to match the lyrics. For example, one would probably not expect a song such as this that sounds so upbeat on the surface to have lyrics that talk about death. The dissonance that is created between the construction of the song and the lyrics adds depth to the character of the song.
Califone’s Tim Rutili explains that though the writing and recording began in Southern California, the album was finished in Arizona and Texas (marking the first time that no part of the song-writing or recording process for Califone took place in Chicago) saying “those dry landscapes and beaches and hills and shopping malls all made it into the music.”
Listen to “Frosted Tips” below and check out the last few remaining tour dates of small living room shows in Milwaukee, Denver and Colorado Springs. “Stitches” is currently available for download as well as CD and vinyl.
It looks like that Viet Cong post is the gift that keeps giving, as one of the members of that band comes from another Calgary band, Lab Coast.
Their bandcamp page currently has their tape “Editioned Houses” streaming, and for purchase. The tracks on this EP include hard-to-find 7″ numbers, sneak peaks from their latest album “Walking On Ayr”, early versions of tracks from that album, and a couple exclusive to this tape, including the side-long B-side jam.
Most of the tracks on here sound like little sketches, or miniatures. Ideas that needed to be worked out, though they still work well on their own. There is a fine layer of chillwave ambience present on all the tracks, no doubt a result of producing straight to tape. The echoed, swirling “Better Than Me” reminds of of the sound of the Paul A. Rosales fronted Wonder Wheel. The guitar attacks just sort of disappear behind the ambient sound, turning everything into a whirling cloud.
All but two of the songs clock in at under 2 minutes, plenty of time to get through at least one catchy melody. Take the breezy, hook laden “Guessing Anyhow,” or the folk-blues of “Don’t Want to See You” that manages to pile catchy melody onto catchy melody and even build up to a guitar solo and backing vocals in under 2 minutes. Shaping a song to include all of those elements in such a short amount of time is quite the task.
The track below is the album opener for their latest, “Walking on Ayr.” “As Usual” has a similar early rock, catchiness to it as the tracks on “Editioned Houses.” The main difference, of course, is that the songs on “Walking on Ayr” are more polished, but similarly concentrated into 2 minutes or less.
The entirety of “Walking on Ayr” can be heard above and on the bandcamp page for Mammoth Cave Recording Co. If you are into garage-y, catchy and laid back rock (reminds me a lot of The Fresh and Onlys – another band you need to familiarize yourself with if you haven’t already) then this is an album that should be in your collection.
Suddenly the sound of Viet Cong is making a lot more sense. Head over to Labcoast’s bandcamp for “Editioned Houses” or head to Mammoth Cave Record Co.’s bandcamp for “Walking on Ayr.” And, if you haven’t heard Fresh and Onlys, I suggest you get on that too.
Released April 28, 2009 Pink Mountain’s “Untitled” 2nd album represents an intriguing and, in my opinion, inviting blend of contemporary composition and improvisation techniques within the rock idiom. Despite its unique qualities the album remains woefully unknown and underrated, unappreciated and overall unlistened to since its release. To that end, when it was released only 500 copies of the vinyl were produced, and it remains available from Sick Room Records as of this writing.
I first learned of this album through Signal To Noise magazine, which is a phenomenal publication for any of those that may be interested in experimental and otherwise unknown music. That magazine has dubbed itself “The biannual journal of improvised, experimental and unusual music” and as far as I know it is the best of its kind. Though subscription service is currently suspended I truly hope that they begin publishing regularly again. Times are tough in the publishing industry, and I’m sure that publishing a magazine with such a specific target audience is even tougher.
It was in issue #55 for Fall 2009, to be specific, that I came to learn of the existence of Pink Mountain in a piece entitled “They’re Only in it for the Music.” Both that title as well as the subheading that states that they have “zero hope for mass appeal” summoning the specter of Frank Zappa. Though their music is a similar mix of art-rock there are many notable differences. For starters, where Zappa was influenced by and mimicked (to death) the compositional styles of Stravinsky and Varese, Pink Mountain are a bit more current with their influences. They work with contemporary, American influences; influences that don’t sound like they originate in the downtown scene of New York, but rather lie with the improv techniques of the West Coast, specifically the experimentalism and improvisatory techniques that come out of Mills College in Oakland. The album explores heavy use of noise and free form improv over layers of tight foundational work that cycles regularly in shifting tectonic plates of polymeter and minimalist repetition.
I remember playing this album for a friend that’s pretty into “out” jazz, and he remarked nearly immediately that he couldn’t handle it. He said that it was “a bit too far for me…I don’t know if I can get into this.” Perhaps it was the distortion, or the way that the album opens with near chaos that continues to build, that got him, or rather didn’t get him.
There are tracks that are more to one side of the experimental-rock rift and those that swing far to the other side. And, as expected, there are those moments that manage to bridge that gap.
“Foreign Rising” is a clever renaming of the James Tenney piece “For Anne (rising)” that makes use of a Shepard Tone, which is an aural illusion that sounds like a continual ascent that could potentially go on forever. Think of it like the sound equivalent of one of those barbershop poles where the stripe seems to continue to rise out of the bottom for as long as you look at it. Of course this is a re-imagining of the original electronic piece by Tenney that is a lot more stripped down than. Pink Mountain adds a bit of an accelerando, jazz drumming that grows continually more complex as the piece continues and some other ringing harmonics, and various other buzzing or otherwise distorted sounds (and vocals) over top.
“Fine Print” screeches and squeals over a rock-solid drumbeat with woodwinds that ties the end of the album to the beginning , making the cloud of atmospheric noise a contorting leitmotif of the work as a whole. The lyrics of “Fine Print” are concerned with the inner non-workings of the music industry, which are then combined with instrumentation and composition practices that eschew most of the principles of rock music writing. The breakdown in the song features the a ragged bass sound with drums that are locked into a constantly shifting 7/8 that is in some respects rock steady, while simultaneously it is anything but.
It’s a diatribe against the commercial music industry in every way possible. Basically, the entire album is, but it doesn’t make a point of addressing it overtly until this song. In a way it is like the band is saying, “yes, we are aware of the limited potential for recognition with this album, and this is how much we don’t care.” The song aligns them philosophically with Steve Albini’s famous tirade (that I reference every chance that I get).
Speaking more to the polyrhythmic structure that is present throughout most of the songs, “Howling Fantods” (an “Infinite Jest” reference no doubt. It matches nicely with the Pynchon nod in the title of their song “V.,” a creepy instrumental with what sounds like bowed cymbals (?) and tense, brittle harmonics. And their music matches that post-modern mindset, sudden shifts of texture, several layers of action, the re-working of concepts [re-packaging, if you will] and the steady, fluid mixture of high-art with low in that rock and jazz influences are thrown in a blender with well thought out contemporary classical compositional techniques [prepared piano, Shepard Tone, different levels of metric borrowing/time streams a la Elliott Carter, and the list goes on) marches dutifully into the prog realm with its additive rhythm that appends an increasing number of strong beats to the end of a 7/8 measure, stretching out the phrases before once again collapsing into a controlled chaos. The moments that don’t feature that persistent additive rhythm stretch time in their own way by at first dropping any sense of beat altogether, while hinting at the motive melodically, and later slowing time in a complex metric modulation.
The most obvious and aurally shocking element that Pink Mountain puts to work is the mind-warp pulse shifts of “Eternal Halflife” and its reprise “Eternal Shelflife” where a steady 4/4 meter with the usual (for rock tunes) strong accents on 2 and 4 starts off unsurprisingly with a clear texture of understated drums with a seemingly half-hearted guitar that sits on one chord, non-chalantly strumming eighth notes. After two measures, easily enough time such that one’s mind settles into passive acceptance, the guitar shifts upwards while the drums subdivide each half-note into 5, giving the impression of a tempo increase, but that is only another illusion (they seem to be making a theme of aural illusions on this album what with the Shepard Tone that I have mentioned a few other times and now this jarring metric shift that feels like a tempo shift but it isn’t. I would classify this as maybe a form of different simultaneous tempo streams), as the snare drum continues to accent beats 2 and 4. The pattern is then repeated but with each bar divided into 3 this time, seemingly slowing the piece. It would be an understatement to say that this is simply an interesting phenomenon to experience. The first time that I heard it I came to the realization that I had never experienced anything like that in music before. And that is quite a rare circumstance indeed when you can actually experience something in music that you have never heard before.
The main meter shifting section of “Eternal Halflife” where beats 2 and 4 are accented and the upper voice borrows from other meters. (notes are only to indicate rhythm. Quarter notes are kick drum and snare while eighth notes represent the hi-hat)
The band does play with tempo and rhythm across the entire album, so much so that there is no point of reference for what “normal” might mean. Even in moments where there isn’t anything particularly interesting (that’s, of course, a relative term) happening, say for example in certain parts of “Thee Red Lion.” The texture in that track is sparse for the most part, but the band takes the opportunity to really lean back in the bar. They are pushing that meter back and making those bars last as long as they can without changing the number of beats in a measure and also without changing the tempo. To my ear this element of their playing makes that track sound even heavier that it would be if it was played square.
Perhaps that is one of the reasons that I am so attracted to this album. One of the reasons that I continually go back to it. Funny tidbit: Sam Coomes, the singer here, is also in the (comparatively much more well known) band Quasi (another band that I have talked about ad nauseum on this blog) with Janet Weiss. Janet was the drummer for Sleater-Kinney, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, and now Wild Flag (in addition to Quasi). The point is that I have known of all of those bands, except for Quasi, which I only came to know after becoming very familiar with Pink Mountain. I tend to do things backward sometimes.
The mixture of stylistic approach on this album reaches far beyond the classification of rock or jazz or classical. It combines elements of all of those things in a fairly tight package. There isn’t one song that showcases a single one of those elements, as they are all mixed evenly throughout. As I have mentioned before on this blog, one of my goals in writing and in studying music is to show that the categories and the classifications that we heap onto music are, for the most part, meaningless. The intermingling of elements is an important part of the post-modern aesthetic, and is showcased on many albums of the past ten years. Pink Mountain’s “Untitled” is one such album that not only defies classification, but seemingly obliterates it.
