viddy well, little brother

People still make music videos. Did you know? I was surprised, really; thought that it was a bit of an anachronism in an age when people can't be bothered to look at an album cover, never mind commit themselves to a video. But they're happening, and they land in my inbox from time to time, and it's the holidays, and I'm still behind, so let's both take it easy then, right?

Mickey Brown - Soul Glo promo

Mickey Mickey Rourke- "Glo" from A.P. Fischer on Vimeo.

I can barely keep up with the emails I get, so I've fallen really behind on Mickey Mickey Rourke's manic release schedule (here as Mickey Brown, collaborating with Lester Brown). Which is really lame on my part, because his material is some of my favourite in "the genre", whatever it is. Droney, noisy, ambient, electronic, whatever. Y'know, that Oneohtrix Point Never / Emeralds / whatever psychedelic swath of sound. Fantastic stuff.

Listen to all of "Soul Glo".

Keith Canisuis - Inner blue, outer red

Keith Canisius - Inner blue, outer red from Keith Canisius on Vimeo

Speaking of psychedelic mess, good lord - I feel like should be dancing to this track but I'm afraid of my brain leaking out. So just sit tight at let this vaguely catchy, maybe danceable, wash over your ears/eyes. Very cool, lush electronic beats and synths practically drowned in delay and reverb. Almost like Panda Bear, only I promise you it's not nearly as boring.

More tracks/more albums and some of them are even free

Pregnant - Wiff of Father

Pregnant - Wiff of Father from Cinema Caldera on Vimeo

Very slick, even professional-looking video: the kind of which you might have actually seen on TV in an era gone by. Story-telling intercut with "performance" footage & what-have-you. Incredibly tight song, too, with hypnotically minimal guitar work and enthralling repetition that really hits its stride when the vocals come in. Lots of layers all barely fitting together, as maximal as minimal can get. I'm also super late on this one, so, like, is this guy popular yet? He should be. I'll definitely be writing more about this.

Hear more/buy more.

Hear Hums - Cerebellum/Woo

Cerebellum/Woo - Hear Hums from Hear Hums on Vimeo

Young Pilot Astray: getting to you two months late or within the day. No compromise. I guess Hear Hum lucked out, emailing me the same day I planned on updating. Or, rather, I guess I lucked out that such a fantastic band emailed me. I hate to equate bands with other bands other than for the sake of "check this out if you like x" (what no I didn't already do it in this exact post what are you talking about no), but I am obligated, personally, to carry this one out: this is the band I wanted Animal Collective to be. This is what they hinted at on Feels, this is the sort of sound they fleetingly held dear, and that is what really breaks my heart about that band is that they were so close to being something really cool. Instead, bless 'em, we have Hear Hum, who don't exactly reference that per se (ok ok Avey Tare comparisons will be made in the vocals, ok ok that's it, sorry), but have the same essence if I may be a complete jerk-off and use a word like that. It's a huge sound, it's an organic sound, it's full of discovery and wonder and bombast and between the introduction and the climax is all fits so remarkably naturally. Incredible. Definitely going to post their LP here ASAP.

pretend nothing happened oh wait it didn't

Planning For Burial/Lonesummer - Split

[black metal/doomgaze/whatever]

Recommended if you like: the colour black, emotions [negative]



Preview for Planning For Burial Lonesummer Split by Planning For Burial

OR stream/download/buy the whole thing here.

If you're anything like me - and I daresay any casual readers here are - then genre-blending (done correctly) is something that probably tickles you in a way. Mount Eerie's Wind's Poem, for instance, was my favourite album last year thanks in no small part to its sublime and entirely natural fusion of black metal and Elverum's trademark timid folk. Now if we could just get John Darnielle to drop a hyperliterate death metal opus, we can officially be done with music. But until then, I guess, the search goes on.

Planning For Burial should be familiar as the project that released one of my other favourites from last year, Leaving, which melted together some of my favourite things in the world (post-rock, shoegaze, doom, black metal) into a lurching beast of a record. He's back, with no-fi necromancer Lonesummer, who plays bedroom black metal with a big helping of sad on top, and together they've put out a fucking downer of a record which, of course, I implore you to buy.

The Lonesummer half is possibly my favourite Lonesummer material to date, opening with the absolutely punishing )ironic old-timey radio samples aside) "Joy is a Burden" and sort of pulls off a black metal/noise fusion that I really thought Wold were going to do after all this "herp derp My Bloody Valentine meets black metal" bullshit I read but no no no this is much better, don't let the Wold comparison scare you off; this is what I wish Wold were like. Elsewhere, "I Wish I Could Delete Last Night" is the poppiest black metal track this year and will make a really neat song for your Myspace profile. And yeah, "Your Eyes Always Shake Me" is nothing like either of those either - essentially the ballad of his batch - and yeah, yeah, and yeah. This is black metal loves black metal as much as it loves telling it to go fuck itself.

The flip side is the first new Planning for Burial material in too long and dials back the kitchen sink approach of Leaving into a more focused set of tracks, which is refreshing because it really makes this EP feel separate from the rest of his canon so far, as an EP should. Glacially paced, morbid and brooding and dense fog music that downplays the (comparative) bombast of the full-length. "Sleeping in Separate Rooms" is an entirely gorgeous daydream, all blurred and half-speed, and "If I Knew What to Say" eventually collects itself into a surreal, lush synth-heavy slowcore rumination.

Also worth mentioning is that Thom - Mr. Burial himself - put this split out on his Music Ruins Lives label, which is ideologically my best friend-turned-record company and has already put out a few really worthwhile releases (including a Have a Nice Life cassette and a full-length by blackened genre-mockers Airs), so pay attention and don't miss anything.

MUSIC RUINS LIVES

Yeah, we're doin' this

Oh man, what a month, man. And man, you would not believe the amount of things to which I had to attend. But, man, we're back, and thank you cats for keeping the submissions rolling in & I gotta say, the readership is on the small side but "quality of quantity" all the way because I haven't disliked a single thing I've been sent so far. I guess I'm not on the "master list" that gets a line every time a band drops an album, but instead I seem to get things on a case-by-case basis; people send things in after having read the blog & getting a feel for what I'll dig. & I dig it, cats, I dig it. So if you're in Cygnets, Mickey Mickey Rourke, Planning for Burial, Lonesummer, Bikini, Pre-compass, Dongles, Aura, The Slaves, or wow I am behind but I haven't forgotten.

True Womanhood - "Night Prowlers"

[dream pop, sort of]
Recommended if you like: reverb, beats, bass; all of the above but not in dance music



Download "Night Prowlers

nite prowlers by truewomanhood

If I can just quote the email I got from the band: "The song is almost entirely made up of samples we made by clanging pieces of metal around in a mile-long sewer tunnel + bass guitar, 808 drumz, and vocals- all run through a severely malfunctioning tape delay."... are you not already enthralled, allured, excited? This track really straddles the line between "totally bangin' good-time" and "dark experimental whatever", especially in the opening where the sewer-pipe Cthulhu beckons against ominous drones and drum machine clapdowns (of course). Then the whole thing eventually swells into throbbing basswork and that promised 808, which is I guess danceable but there's just so much going on all around the core here that it's hard to really tell what you're supposed to do. Well, to start, go download the track above & give it a couple listens, try to figure it out & grab the Last Rites 7" coming out soon.

TRUE WOMANHOOD

Hey folks, still here. Sorry if you've emailed me regarding wanting to be posted: it's actually super cool that I can't keep up with it. That sounds sarcastic, I admit, but I'm being serious. I'm now at the point where, if this pace keeps up, I'll be able to run this blog solely on artist submissions. So keep 'em coming. I've got a lot on the backburner right now, so if you've emailed me in the last couple weeks then just hang tight, it will be coming!

In the meantime, been five kinds of obsessed with this jam, so dig on it while I take care of life.

skinnypricks

High in One Eye - Skinnypricks
[noise rock, hardcore]
Recommended if you like: Lightning Bolt (but they feel too tame for you), Jesus Lizard (but they're not noisy enough for you)




















Download/stream here.

Less than 10 minutes of spontaneous, lo-fi aggression, apparently written and recorded in the space of two hours. This either is completely your thing or it is not at all, but it's free and less than ten minutes long, so make it your thing. It's surprisingly good for something more or less unplanned; there's a lot of really cool ideas going on. Especially in the drum-heavy assault and battery of "Tease" (best vocals on the EP?) or downright doom-laden "Jack-of-all-trades". Which eventually segues into 80's thrashy black metal worship before devolving into Daughters-esque dissonant riffing. But really, you saw that coming. Absolutely primal.

High in One Eye bandcamp page
(also includes another EP and a single up for free)

Neil Milton - Elements

[modern classical, ambient]

Recommended if you like: aching beautiful modern composition; elegant piano work; An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death by Eluvium

Neil Milton - elements (2mf012dd) by beneathusthewaves

Download "Air (or, The Dragonfly)”

Neil Milton is relaunching his label, Too Many Fireworks, with a personal EP dubbed Elements - devoting a track to each of the four elements and its finale to “Aether”- and talk about making a comeback: fans of Eluvium and early A Silver Mt Zion material should take note, because this is minimalist modern classical at its finest.

A brisk eighteen minutes divided into five tracks is ideal: enough time for thematic development and listener engagement without becoming rote like so much “ambient” music can. I'm not entirely sure if music this lovely can really command attention; I'd say it politely requests it and you'd have to be inhuman to say “no”. In any case, it never becomes background music, as each of the tracks does bring an idea to the table, like the fluttery “Air” or the appropriately weighty, tectonic “Earth”. Hands down the best part of the release is its subtle adherence to theme: “Air” doesn't begin with sampled wooshing and “Water” is entirely devoid of prefab waterfall recordings. Instead, a track like “Fire” excites with its vibrant strings and “Aether” is minimal, spacey and gorgeous. You're forgiven for your preconceptions, though, because such a broad and general subject matter could be handled entirely tactlessly. Thankfully (mercifully) Milton handled the concept wisely and colours his compositions with the concept instead of forcing them to fit it.

The whole thing streams for free right there, a few inches up, so you have no excuse to not already be listening to it. For your listening convenience, you can also download an MP3 of the first track. And if you're the type to do so, please support both Neil and his revived label. At the very least check out the stream: this is truly sincere and majestic music.

Buy the EP

Too Many Fireworks
Neil Milton

chin up

Former Ghosts - Welcome to Old Love
[electronic, synthpop, post-punk]
Recommended if you like: sad 80's bands (New Order, The Smiths), sad 00's bands that sound like sad 80's bands (Cold Cave)



Download.

I dare you to find an artist who is simultaneously as prolific while remaining as [relatively] unknown as Freddy Ruppert. This Song is a Mess But So Am I put out a ton of great, great music before he retired that moniker and started work on Former Ghosts, where he's finally beginning to get some of the attention he deserves.

TSIAMBSAI (oh, wow) was rightfully put to bed after it accomplished what it needed to, and its short but brilliant existence alluded to an incredibly heartfelt, sincere and disarmingly honest songwriter who, for a moment, seemed to have finished with music altogether. Luckily, he came back with Former Ghosts, which tackles much of the same musical territory but with perhaps a bit more reservedness, which is not meant to be a qualitative judgment in any sense. This Song was a deeply personal, cathartic outburst in the truest sense of the word: it was an outburst, it was violent, it was messy and noisy and tragic and equal parts full of energy and defeat.

Former Ghosts, by contrast, is more contemplative and refined, while retaining the personal intensity that Ruppert has become known for. And if the man has any other calling card, it's for working working working nonstop on whatever musical project he's invested in; I'd reckon Former Ghosts has more b-sides than album tracks. Welcome the Old Love culls together some outtakes from his forthcoming LP, New Love, again recorded with Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart and Zola Jesus, aka Nika Roza Danilova (who has since become a bit of a household name since the first Former Ghosts album dropped, I hear). Accompanying the b-sides are remixes and covers curated by Ruppert, highlighted by (personally speaking) "Chin Up" as remixed by Friendzone. Also worth noting is the unreleased "Old Love Introduction" featuring Sam Mickens and a blink-182 cover. Oh yeah.

'I don't wanna leave the swamp tonight'

Sun Hotel - Coast
[Post-gospel/swamp (indie-)rock]
Recommended if you like: the idea of country-doom era Earth having a teenage son with Fleet Foxes (oh yeah, we doin' this)



Download.

Sleeper hit of the year? I'm going there. Completely out of left-field, Coast arrived in my inbox recently and completely floored me, it came and perfectly filled a little void in my musical life where there was a quiet (hidden) craving for something uplifting and fantastically full of life. (Not to knock any of the brooding downers I've received lately - my heart is still with you cats (or not with you, if that's the more appropriate, brooding downing answer).

Seriously, though, click that big, blue link above and listen to "Palms". Go on, I'll wait. I'll even give you enough time to listen to it twice, because you will listen to it twice. You're welcome for that new mixtape staple. An absolutely perfect blend of melody, harmony, and dynamics; the sweetest, swampiest, most concise faux-post-rock you've ever heard. And that's it, you're hooked.

Sun Hotel have a wonderful energy about them, a youthful sort of abandon, but instead of throwing it all to the wind and hoping something comes out of it, there's an undeniable focus and maturity to the songwriting. There's adolescent desperation and earnestness coupled with sublimely refined vocal harmonies. I don't mean to tout my own analogies here, but really: give Earth a pulse and give Fleet Foxes some grit and you've got a vague idea of what's going on. Calculated clean guitar play can and will, at any minute, shift into tweedy Americana dirges and so to does the warm crooning twist into shouts and chants. This is probably completely brilliant live, so see to it that you catch them if they're in your town. Punk rock energy without punk rock bullheadedness.

Coast is really just an entirely charming record. Down-to-earth lyrically, undeniably infectious musically, and, above all, cohesive despite all its disparate elements. An incredible spark captured on tape - a bright, bright flash of brilliance and life you should already be listening to if you've read this whole entry/have faith in me. Have faith in me.

voiceless & floating

Mickey Mickey Rourke - Inner Gazing
[Ambient, drone, noise]
Recommended if you like: Birchville Cat Motel (but you wish Campbell Kneale didn't want to kill you with music), chill-as-hell dreamgaze or something like that I don't know


Download.

Massive collaborative introspective blissed-out drone excursions, boring straight into yr daydreamin' skull. Incredibly warm, full-bodied, slow-breathing tunes that will either pass right through you or entrance you, but eventually will add up to a meaningful experience. Not to say Inner Gazing isn't immediately gratifying - it absolutely is - but it's something you'll want to [digitally] spin a few times to let it sink in and really discover what the collaborators bring to the table.

If you're going to be uncooperative and demand immediate satisfaction, then just listen to "Stay With Me" (feat. Universe) because this is probably one of my favourite jams of the year. Maybe not the best representation of the album as a whole because it's decidedly darker in tone than a lot of what else is going on here, but it's insanely menacing, sort of in a Grouper or Giles Corey kind of way; a subtler menace. The Foxes in Fiction joint is pretty sweet, too - called "Koopa" - so a song featuring an artist you probably already know as being super cool and with a title referencing Nintendo should get you to at least check this out. I know you kids like Nintendo.

Additionally, there's a fairly expansive collection of Mickey Mickey Rourke tunes online, either for free download/stream or a dirt-cheap download, so if you're digging all this spaced-out drifting (and I can't see how you're not), then definitely check it out.

The Fading Voice Of The Old Era Speaks To Us, But Where Are The Ears Left To Hear It?

...And The Earth Swarmed With Them - The Fading Voice Of The Old Era Speaks To Us, But Where Are The Ears Left To Hear It?
[Post-rock/experimental/shoegaze]



Download.

Core members Mitchell Johns and Kat Stanbridge may not exactly be household names quite yet, but the fact that they've roped in Ted Parsons (Swans, Jesu, Godflesh) to play drums and Justin Broadrick to mix the thing certainly says something.

Admittedly, ...And The Earth Swarmed With Them sounds nothing like the help they've roped in (okay, aside from the Jesu-y intro) but instead go for the murkier, darker end of post-rock: no triumphant, cathartic crescendos, but instead brooding, slow-burning cascades, like the moody-as-hell opener "Everyone Will Fade" or the apocalyptic "The Slow Decay Had Already Begun". And not to underrate the rest of the EP - it's incredibly atmospheric and solid throughout - but it's the closing "Slow Decay..." that really elevates the album. It feels like the whole record was building to this moment, slowly introducing the tones and colours and voices for the first 15 minutes and then dragging it all together for the last 6. The incredibly smooth bass/violin interplay in the intro is cool enough, but the frankly earth-shattering full-band eruption - complete with wailing, chill-inducing female guest vocals - is astounding.

Really, the band is setting itself up for success: a free EP, with an all-star supporting cast and stellar artwork, all backed up with a unique sound and hints at even greater creativity. And don't doubt them because of the tags here: it's post-rock, but it's not formulaic; it's heavy shoegaze, but it's not Jesu-worship; and yeah, it's experimental, but it's far from pointless self-indulgence. Truly music from - or maybe causing - the end of the world.

Sick Twisted Fuck

Not music related, but if you're into gory, horrific, violent, misogynistic, misanthropic, disturbing films - the kind that only Japan seems to deliver good and proper - check out Sick Twisted Fuck. I'm a fan of his Youtube videos (under the moniker Sculpting Fragments), so its nice to get more reviews, and with added stills and (hopefully) clips and such.

I'm sorry, this number is no longer in service

It's no understatement to say that Robotic Empire played a big role in my musical development, way back in the early aughts when HXCMP3 was a thing and Robotic Empire and their artists gave away MP3s with reckless abandon. They had tons tons tons of exactly the sort of thing I was looking for at the time: mean, obscure, distinctive hardcore/metalcore/screamo/grind/whatever. Circle Takes the Square, pg. 99, Circle of Dead Children and Pig Destroyer are probably the most relevant names on the [huge] list, but I ate it all up, and there were tons of under appreciated gems in the mix - Transistor Transistor, Hassan I Sabbah, Pink Razors, Stop It!!, etc. (Side note: furthermore, for some completely inexplicable reason, Robotic Empire also gave me my first songs from Isis (huh?) and, erm, Opeth. Yeah, they put out an Opeth record. Back in my day...) But today is all about Employer, Employee. Finally.



For the uninitiated - and that seems to be far too many - Employer, Employee played, uh, metalcore, sort of. But with none of the windmilling, breakdown-ing, bass dropping, chug-chugging bro-core genre tropes that have come to define that sort of music as of late. Employer, Employee play an honest-to-god fusion of metal and hardcore, taking the heavy grind of the former and slapping it across the face with spastic bursts of the latter, all the while with some borderline-mathy chops to back it all up. Some of their most adventurous material came after their full length sic[sic], on the Mother Spain & the Wayfaring Myth 7" where the opening track contains this entirely epic string quartet interlude and if your primal instinct to tear shit up is not triggered the instance that the vicious "YOU'RE GONNA DIE" scream unleashes a fucking savage every-core assault in your face, then seriously reconsider your life and how you've lived it up until this point.

Their discography LP was released yesterday after literally years in the making (I checked out their Last.fm page out of curiosity, and saw my own post from January 2007 expressing my excitement for their undoubtedly soon to be released collection) and boy was it done up in style. For $12.99 you get a clear 12" record limited to 300 copies with a pin, a patch, an insert, and a free digital copy. Seriously. I got the 7" for $5 and have never been able to find the way out of print CD, so $13 for a beautifully made piece of vinyl with tons of free bonuses is an absolute steal. Snatch that up before Robotic Empire realizes how insane this price point is.

SERIOUSLY, GO BUY THIS RECORD.

Employer, Employee - Nil or the Nile
Employer, Employee - One Count of Mutiny

Carnival

Sleep In - Steady
Sleep In - Amorous
Sleep In - January

I really want to hate Sleep In. Not because I don't like the music - I do - and not because Hamish Duncan is a jerk - he isn't, at least, in my experience - but because he has accomplished so much with his music despite being only 19, thus making me look like a lazy, untalented jerk for also not putting out 4 full-length albums of shoegazey psychedelic meandering. Well, shoot.


And really, the whole discography is pretty grand. Incredibly solid. Unprecedentedly solid. It's a whole mess (in a good way) of genre-hopping/defying denies your (read: my) best attempts at pidgeonholing. It's noisy, it's trippy, it's vaguely catchy, it's expansive when it's not being minimal, it's straightforward when it's not being obtuse, and its the sort of thing that will take more than one listen to grasp (which is my excuse for not posting this much, much sooner after I said I would). From my experience, the whole Sleep In project is just a vast outpouring of ideas, the sort of project that really couldn't have existed, say, 10, even 5 years ago. Truly a product of the digital age, and certainly a musician who understands what it takes to be a musician in this era and, furthermore, knows how to take advantage of it. You can grab Sleep In albums for $1.75 from his own label, Nightgull Records (oh, yeah, he runs a record label, too. At this rate, the next Sleep In release is going to be "the cure for cancer") or get a digital double-album from Enemies List Home Recordings for $5. I literally spent more on bus fare this morning.

I've posted some tracks from Carnival - available with Pyramid from Enemies List - to give you the best 'snapshot' of the Sleep In M.O. From the spacey, wintery jams of "January" to the straight-ahead psych-rocker "Steady" (Magic Lantern would be proud (and also look for a disarmingly spot-on Thurston Moore impression), it's incredibly diverse but smartly unified. You know, they way they used to make albums.

All To-more-oh's Pah-tees

Woah, it's that time again already? The hell, man. All Tomorrow's Parties 2010 came outta nowhere. Partially because I hadn't planned it 4 months in advance, partially because the line-up was a smidgen weaker than last year, but all that aside, it was a stellar weekend as always.

Brief note from the editor: I kind of struggle with the idea of a festival review because all in all, it's a bit pointless. Concert reviews as a whole are also of limited use, and this is especially true of concert reviews in the blogosphere wherein the writing is more or less there to convey a sense of I was there and you were not, sucker. Plus, more often than not, it seems to slip into "my god, this was absolutely [pick one: life-changing/-affirming, transcendental, the show of a lifetime, an "experience"]" and general fanboyism turning from review into, y'know, fanboyism. Besides, of how much practical use is a live review? An album is a singular experience, more or less the same for everyone outside of personal set/settings. A concert, however, is subject to a million different x-factors: your state of mind that day, your physical condition, the conditions of the venue, technical issues, et al. The best I can do for you now is tell you "yeah, this show was very good, you should uh... have been there, because it will never, ever happen again".

The Scientists playing was apparently a Big Deal, and I wish I could've cared more, but honestly, by 6pm Friday night I was toast after working all day Thursday and then taking an overnight bus to NYC (and then another 2 hours on the bus to get to Monticello). I was asleep on my feet for most of their set. I also don't care about Mudhoney at all. Yeah, we're off to a good start here.

But hey, goddamn, were The Stooges a wake-up call or what. Iggy Pop is still one of the greatest frontmen ever, even now that he bears a striking resemblance to an actual mummified corpse. Pits were moshed, claps were clapped, choruses were sung along, you wouldn't really know that this material was some 35+ years old. Phenomenal set, spot on.

But really, just look around and look at the black tshirts and overgrown neckbeards: it's Sleep that are the band of the night. And boy do they ever uphold their reputation as metal's most blunted, with a solid 2:1 ratio of amplifiers to band members, moody green lighting and a background projection that looks like the most stoned glacier you've ever seen. Hell, even the attempted-but-failed classical guitar interlude was probably conceived in a pre-show session. Snafus aside, it was pretty flawless stoner doom, with resin-thick guitar tones and pitch-perfect raspy bellows. An absolute marathon of a set, too, clocking it at over two hours.

Beak> were a surprise highlight for me, having never heard them before and only knowing they, uh, had some connection to Portishead and Portishead is great. Really atmospheric electronic-based sort of stuff, kind of like Hail to the Thief-era Radiohead. Perfect balance of creepy moments with danceable bass grooves.

Apse had one hell of a light show, that much is certain. I only caught a bit of their set but it was pretty bizarre post-everything that probably warrants a closer listening than I gave 'em.

Everyone seemed to be all shaken as to how loud Fuck Buttons were, so maybe my hearing is just deadened at this point, but it didn't seem all that unbearable. I wouldn't expect anything less, really, because this brand of body-movin', uh, - power-drone? progressive post-techno? - demands volume.

Text of Light should've been really cool - Lee Ranaldo deflowering his guitar to avant-garde 70's film - but came off as too hyper-artsy for its own sake. There's a big deal made about the projections and such, but they're just there for aesthetics, really, because whatever unholy noise was being torn from those amps had little-to-no correlation to the visuals. And I reckon the "little" correlations were coincidental.

Another band outta left-field was Fursaxa, with her (their?) fantastically pretty-sounding folk based around drones, harp and cello. Sort of a toned-down Natural Snow Buildings-vibe, minus the viciousness that band sometimes finds itself in.

Now, when Tortoise are good, they're really damn good, but when Tortoise are mediocre, well, they're really average. Tortoise here were pretty average. Flawless musicianship, sure, but it's not exactly a thrilling live show. Maybe I'm missing something, because everyone else was super jazzed (ba-dum) about their performances.

Shellac was fucking Shellac. Shellac ruled. It was Shellac. Damn.

The Breeders were five kinds of fun. Not the Pixies, and they never will be the Pixies, but once I got past that it was solid pop. And hey, it was super neat to see 90's alt-rock staple "Cannonball".

Explosions in the Sky were every bit as cathartic as they are on record. Yeah, I could pan them a bit for being one-dimensional, but when it's as powerful as this, who cares? Even I think I'm a pretentious douche for bringing that up.

Sonic Youth aptly made up for their Eternal-heavy set from last time I saw them by busting out a setlist I only could've dreamed up. "Candle", "Hey Joni", "'Cross the Breeze", "Eric's Trip", "Cross the Breeze", "Stereo Sanctity", "Catholic Block", "Expressway to Yr Skull", "Death Valley -69", and more but you get the idea, this was perfect. Screaming fields of Sonic Love indeed.

NOW, BUILD YOUR OWN SUNN O))) & BORIS REVIEW:
Opening:

• "I had always heard that Sunn O))) were best experienced live..."
• "The lights dimmed, smoke filled the stage, and the Hooded Ones began to..."
• "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW"

Overwritten metaphor/quasi-genrefication:

• "Searing tarpit sludge assault"
• "Pangaea tearing itself apart"
• "Cosmic funeral dirge"
• "BRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIWWWWWWWWWWWW"

Conclusion:

• "Transcendental; a truly euphoric performance"
• "Merely describing it as a 'concert' doesn't do the band justice..."
• "GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNN"

I know you've read about Sunn O))) before. Yeah, it might have actually been a few of those things, but goddamn does the fetishization of this band in music criticism get a bit long in the tooth.

So yeah, all in all, 10/10. Great show. Check it out. You should've been there.

"CHAOS... REIGNS..."

I'VE BEEN BUSY, OK?

But with like, actual things, not the nonethings that tend to keep me away. Most noteworthy of which was attending All Tomorrow's Parties, which was fantastic and might warrant a write-up. Also, that whole Antichrist movie, I dunno what to make of it. I want to like it, what with all the incredibly moody atmospheric touches and bizarre torture (which may have trumped August Underground in my books for "most disturbing genital mutilation"), but at other times it borders on ridiculous and awkwardly "artsy". Worth a watch, though.


Something to check out right now: Silber is putting out a wicked cool webzine called QRD, which is basically the guitar nerd equivalent of "Dear Penthouse..." as some of the more innovative musicians out there (folks from Melt-Banana, Master Musicians of Bukkake, Tera Melos, etc) talk about their techniques, tricks, and, most importantly, their gear. Hop on it.

Things in the pipeline: Sleep In, America Addio, Kissing Club, etc.

Terrageist

Fielded - Another Time

A new track by [Lindsay] Fielded found its way into my mailbox the other day and hot damn does it not tickle the little soft spot I have for slightly left-field female vocalists with minor reverb fetishes (Zola Jesus, Terror Bird, Pocahaunted, No Art, et al.) Really, the female voice, in the right context, can have this sort of spectral quality that you can't get from that other sex. You know, that sort of menacing gentleness that would otherwise be just plain ol' menacing? Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, that Zola Jesus name drop is a good start: Fielded has the same sort of incredibly strong voice, only instead of love-lorn goth balladry its a bit less bleak, albeit with the same super warm, full synth lines. Ya dig? "Another Time" also locks into a faux-tribal tom groove and builds and builds on that with palm-muted guitar chugging (but not that nu-death sort of heavy chug chug chug) and more spot-on keyboard augmentations. Lush, full, strangely catchy, check it out.

The new Fielded album, Terrageist, is out on Catholic Tapes, so give them a shout if you want it - cassette limited to 100.

Fielded on MySpace

You looked like a religious man

Yeah, "electronic side-project from a metal musician" is a tough sell - with no thanks to Dauði Baldrs or whatever the fuck it is that Mortiis does - but thankfully, what Inachus sets out to accomplish isn't just a sloppy attempt at "dark atmosphere" but instead is a group of songs and sketches of ideas from Oceanus's bassist, Rob Honey.

Really, there's nothing "metal" about Inachus, despite the fact that, apparently, some of these ideas could potentially be worked into Oceanus material. Rather, it's all in the downtempo/ambient vein, and respectfully ambient at that, with the 7 tracks clocking in at a breezy 22 minutes instead of relying on their sheer undeniable girth to become "atmospheric" because, really, what doesn't create an atmosphere when you're subjected to it for 12 minutes at a time? But I digress. Ahem.

The EP is incredibly coherent despite the album info making it sound like a bit of an odds & ends affair, with dreamy reversed synth work fluttering about and tying together tracks along with the smart use of samples giving the work a distinct feel. The album works best when this all comes together, like in the gorgeous opener "I Stared Into the Sun" or when "Memento Mori" finally brings all its elements together. The rest of the pieces are shorter and, appropriately, contain smaller ideas, but all work together fantastically. Hell, I think "flow" is the word of the day here, because this is really smooth as hell and I feel like I should stop there before it sounds like I'm talking about more about a crisp Stella on draught, but it really is sublime how the last three songs work together, and not unlike that Belgian slice of golden heaven, you barely realize each one passing until it's too late and you're half in the bag the album's over. The pulsing, distant piano of "As The River Grew" sneaks up and blossoms right before your eyes in "Three" before folding back and snaking away in [the oh so aptly named] "A Logical Conclusion".

Download the entire EP.

And, as always, if you dig it, buy yourself a copy. Limited CDr with bonus tracks. You know you love that kinda stuff.

www.myspace.com/inachusuk

Seeding the clouds

Right off the bat, Whitesand/Badlands are a band that I'm going to get along with [ideologically]. Their debut double-LP is limited to 250 copies at a cool $20 (post paid), which immediately sends a couple of messages: first and foremost, they care about music as an art, and two, obviously put out a product they have to be proud of, because pressing vinyl - especially independently - does not come cheap or easy. You can also download this at high quality in a pay-what-you-can set-up where that 'what-you-can' becomes discounted from the price of the vinyl, should you choose to buy the physical record after loving it digitally. Which you will.

Like I said, putting out vinyl independently shows both dedication and pride in a piece of music, and Seeding the Clouds is such a fantastic piece that certainly deserves proper release like that. It brilliantly straddles genres or outright draws-and-quarters them as it sees fit, taking an overarching, dense shoegaze aesthetic and drenching it in beautiful natural reverb, ably throwing in vaguely post-rock complexities and elsewhere taking a kitchen-sink approach, like the heavy, doomy break towards the end of "Whale Song".

What really makes this album special is its albumness, it's natural flow and unified feel as an album, which is becoming an increasingly rare art form. Moreover, its an incredibly nuanced set of songs; you remember how your first spin of Loveless went, don't you? It's very much like that: at first, it's a one-dimensional blur of a daydream but one that begins to open up if its given proper attention, when the ghostly male/female vocals begin to coalesce and the riffs really begin to emerge through the vast space of this record and begin to sort of make a bit of sense (but not too much, not enough sense to lose it's spectral appeal).

So if you're going to come looking for choruses and climaxes and things all-together obvious then yeah, look somewhere else. You're not one of the 250 people this album was made for. But if you're the sort of person who is going to put into an album as much thought as the artists did, then you'll be plenty satisfied when the end of "Witch Hunting" pokes its head through the smoke or when "Brandspeakeasy" lures you in with its almost-nonsensically murky opening and then pulls your farther than you thought it ever could.



Whitesand/Badlands - Brandspeakeasy

Download/buy the album here.

Minor vacationing

Hey folks, you know how summer is, don'tcha? I've been busy, and for the next week I am actually out of town, so if I promised to post your stuff, I apologize sincerely and will be putting it up ASAP. Really.

Lots of super neat updates comin' at ya. Check back on Thursday, and then maybe Tuesday. Then things should get back to my loosely established "normal".

Songs to sleep next to

I've written about Devin Hildebrand (Dth) before, being quite found of his unique collage work, and was pleasantly surprised to hear that he had more new material so soon. Songs To Sleep Next To moves away from the focus on found sounds and, through that shift, really exemplifies some fantastic songwriting, something all too rare under the umbrella of "ambient".

Opener "Pruny Hands Felt Health" might be my favourite Dth track yet, absolutely lush, organic, intimate but sounding huge beyond its scope. It is a song to sleep next to, not a song to sleep on or with or under; it's music to take you to sleep, not put you there. The whole album is downright lucid, entirely dreamlike and weightless but it never lets go entirely, never succumbs to useless "ambiance" or droning wanderlust or forgettable meandering and is always aware, always in control. The smart collage work isn't entirely lost either, with half-imagined nature sounds uniting the first two tracks and vocal samples popping up later in the album's somewhat more abrasive middle section (featuring a collaboration with noise/drone maestro Chris Rehm, who, likewise, is doing tons of cool things in the genre on the more caustic side of things (Salivary Stones is an absolute must-hear.)

If you're feeling lazy and need some loose comparisons slapped together to condense my opinion into a sound bite, then boo on your lazy readership, but I will reluctantly tell you that if you like Atlas Sound at its absolute most somnambulant or the Sparklehorse/Fennesz collaboration, then you'll find tons to like here. And if that doesn't help you at all, then just listen to it anyway: it's short, it's free, and worth your bandwidth.


Stream/download the whole thing here.

When we finally fall asleep

Digital media is awful and that is a fact. You can get your "FLAC" or your ".WAV" or whatever bitrate or rip you want but it's so far removed from experiencing an album that it makes me cringe. Yeah, yeah, Ye Observant Reader, I do post MP3s (or M4As if I'm being a bitch), and they certainly have their advantages, namely their convenience. But it's a reproduction, at the end of the day, a snapshot of a sculpture; an introduction, a starting point, not an entire experience in and of itself. This might be coming off as horrendously pretentious, and maybe it is, but there simply some albums that are incomplete statements without a physical package.

We All Inherit the Moon understands this. Hell, lead member Adam - and honcho behind Future Recordings - seems to swear by this. Every single item he puts out - every CD, LP, tape, book - is so lovingly assembled and fairly priced that it's a shame he doesn't run music as a whole. We All Inherit The Moon releases get the slightest bit of extra love, too, and the new lathe cut 8" is fantastic in presentation and execution. Crystal-clear square vinyl (careful with those corners, though) and a succinct 4/5 minutes of music per side, with possibly my favourite WAITM material yet. Languid, almost shoegazey atmosphere with post-rock spirit that really breaks through in the absolutely gorgeous final stretch of the song when the strings come in full bore (well, as "full bore" as this sort of thing gets). Seriously beautiful music, occupying a lovely little niche between ambient and post-rock, being a million times more dynamic than the former without breaking out in full-on crescendo like the latter. Really, the band's only getting better and better as time goes on. Stellar stellar stellar, in every sense of the word.



We All Inherit the Moon - When We Finally Fall Asleep

Your favourite artist is going to die this year.

Sorry, it's true, but musicians are apparently on God's hit list this year (Jay Reatard, Mark Linkous, Dio, Peter Steele, Devon Clifford (You Say Party! We Say Die!), Malcolm McLaren, etc.). Tuli Kupferberg, leader of the beat-poetry nutters The Fugs apparently passed away today. He was 88, so at least it wasn't exactly untimely or completely left-field, but it's still a huge loss. I'll admit I didn't explore The Fugs all that much until recently, but even in such a short time it's easy to appreciate the man's talents.

The Fugs - Boobs a Lot

And apparently the man upstairs has moved on to comic book visionaries, too. Harvey Pekar also kicked the bucket at 70. If you haven't read any of his stuff, please, do yourself a favour, get down to your local library/book store/friend-with-good-taste's-house and check it out. Equal parts sad, funny, and always brutally honest. Imagine if Bukowski did sequential art instead of poetry and you've got an idea. If nothing else, American Splendor is a fantastic meta-biopic that's absolutely worth your time.

Pedestrian Pop Hits

So a lot of you folks have stumbled on this blog because you're looking for Ariel Pink's "Pedestrian Pop Hits", apparently. Now instead of being a constant disappointment, here it is. One huge sixteen minute barnburner, and yeah, needless to say it's pretty far removed from his compact acid-fried pop jingles. Massively layered/delayed vocal tracks spiralling skyward and crashing back down into a sadly understated murky ocean of bass work and nonstop guitar, alternating between silky smooth half-solos and jagged mildly-fuzzed out dissonance. Hey, is "understated ocean" simultaneously contradictory and a simply awful metaphor? Thought so. Oh, and John Maus on keyboards and lump of shimmery psychedelic nonsense. Boss.



Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Pedestrian Pop Hits

Lucky for you, you can still pick up a hard copy over at Southern (1000 copies, all numbered, plus a real swanky fold-out package. More origami-esque than your standard fold-out.) While you're there, also grab Mount Eerie's entry in their "Latitudes" series, it's fantastic. And while I was there I realized they also used both a water-themed metaphor as well as the word "shimmering", so there you go. Whatever.

I don't even

So, Kid Cudi did a song with Best Coast and Rostam Batmanglij (from Vampire Weekend, I'm told) to do a song for Converse. Er, okay then. Check it out. And Wavves did a song for Mountain Dew? What's going on? What's next? I'm don't mean to come off all like "derp, sellouts"; this just doesn't make sense to me. Though it does sort of offer up some fantastic possibilities: can we get the newly-reformed Swans to do a jingle for Doritos ("Blood, Honey and Spicy Cheese (Sha La La La)"? Also, have you ever seen so much bold in your life?

I'll assume you have that Converse ad playing right now and, if I know my readership, you're hopefully as baffled as I am. I wasn't sure how those three artists would collaborate smoothly at all, and it turns out they can't. It's like three entirely unremarkable b-sides stitched together because shoes said so, and the last time I took advice from shoes I had a whole lot of explaining to do. I guess we should be thankful that "All Summer" isn't explicitly about shoes, but rather, er... drinking water? And chilling the fuck out. Well then.

THIS WEEK IN CAPES: Sky Saxon wears a real gassy one in what I understand was a surprisingly popular single in its time. I hate to give credence those cro-magnon dullards who swear on their Led Zeppelin shirt collection that "music today sucks", but if a fuzzed-out barbaric assault like "Pushin' Too Hard" actually charted 44 years ago then maybe something is amiss in popular music.

Does this count as a real blog entry yet? Dagnabbit.

No words

Review: Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - "No Words"

Seriously, the [sorta] new Dead Letters etc cassette is fantastic. For fans of: ambient music not created with this.

An Index of Birds

How often has a band you liked changed for the better? Lateral, non-opinion changing changes don't count: the new Wavves stuff, for instance, is super polished and catchy as hell, but it's still fundamentally what Wavves was always trying to be, just suddenly accessible. And slow-burning changes don't count either, so A Silver Mt Zion's half-decade-plus growth from depressive chamber music to cathartic yelping Klezmer romp is out too. I think I've entirely lost sight of what I was getting at, but the basic point is the new Carta album is different and really damn good, so let's work from there.



Yeah, people have whined about the transformation from post-rock business to this new slowcore kinda sound, but ask yourself: how many more post-rock bands do we need, especially when criminally few are worth listening to? Carta, instead, have transcended with brilliant results, combining the grandiose post-rock composition with very Low-esque subdued vocals. It's fairly languid in an entirely positive way, but they've still retained their roots and the dense instrumentation swells and gives way in all the right places. It's beautiful, it's depressing, it's strangely catchy at times, and really just a fantastic record. If you're into that sort of "slowcore/shoegaze/post-rock" genre-straddling a la Low, iLiKETRAiNS (I'm still not sure if I love that band name or cringe every time I write it, but I mean, trains are neat) or Toma then give it a listen.



Carta - Building Bridges

As per usual, the fine folks at Silber are treating you well and offering the CD real cheap or a high-quality download even cheaper, so definitely check it out here. Read the other reviews, too, if for some reason you doubt me.

I'm livin' in the doldrums, yeah

Goddamn, when did people start caring so much about Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti? Recently? Around then?

Seriously, though, all of a sudden this man's everywhere, and it's blowing my mind. "Round and Round" is tearing things up, and rightfully so. It's got the chorus of the summer, of course, but retains a bit of the trademark strangeness and is sort of wildly progressive for a pop song. I mean, seriously, how many ideas are crammed into these 5 minutes? The entirely misleading introduction? Or the misleading first minute with the red-herring chorus? The weird segue telephone call? The strangely sincere-sounding quiet section? Have you heard the real chorus? Yeah, he deserves this sudden attention, no doubt.



(ok, reader, stop here and skip the next four paragraphs unless you either a) like Ariel Pink a lot, or b) like reading a lot of my writing. You've been warned.)

Now, I promise not to turn this into one a "I was there first!" sort of hipster pissing contest (I was tossing around some portmanteau of "hipster" and "pissing" but it would have been more of a visual pun), so I say this as a fact and not as a boast or "holier than thou" proclamation, but I have been listening to Ariel Pink for years. It's been a slow, steady evolution to where he is now - the ultimate refinement of psychedelic weirdness with 70's radio staples and off-beat humour - but I'm partial, either because of nostalgia or legitimate preference, to his earlier albums. BUT OH LAWD, when isn't that the case with anyone and their favourite bands? Yeah, yeah, I know.

The Doldrums is one of those albums for me, one of the records that can instantly take me back to a very specific time. Namely, at the end of high school where I was cautiously allowing some vague semblance of "pop music" into my library, no longer preoccupied with being as extreme/abstract/br00tal/outsider as possible (though whether I accomplished any of those is debatable). In any case, I checked out Ariel Pink on a whim, picking up The Doldrums and being, er, very confused. Not by the lo-fi aspect, I had expected and accepted that, but just the music. It was thrilling, really: when was the last time you were legitimately interested enough in an album to listen to it repeatedly to try to understand it? I don't need/want to get into a "back in my day when we bought our records" thing, but y'know.

Point is, it was album I worked at liking. Which I don't mean to be as image-conscious as it sounds. I mean, I liked the album, sure. I liked the aesthetics. I liked the sound. I liked the ideas. I just couldn't really reconcile it all. I couldn't understand Ariel Pink. I couldn't understand this weirdo no-fi beatbox-pop. And there weren't any resources to help, either. Now it's pretty clear who he is. And hell, he has a band. He has the actual Haunted Graffiti. All I knew when I had The Doldrums in my walkman was: 1) Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti is really just Ariel Pink, jamming/beatboxing into a tape-recorder, and 2) Animal Collective liked him enough to put out his albums.

TOTALLY SIDETRACKED FOR A MINUTE: Have you read the new Chuck Klosterman book? It's pretty cool. There's a whole chapter on irony and Weezer, focusing on how Weezer confuses people by being entirely unironic and earnest about their lyrics, and etc jaded society etc. Point being, I love this idea with relation to Ariel Pink, because I think I fell into the same trap. Not knowing a single thing about this man, I really couldn't tell how seriously I should take it. I think I want him to be completely serious. I want to believe he beatboxed all the drums because he had to. I want to believe he is entirely serious when he tells us that "good kids make bad grown-ups" in his pouty, childish whines of "growin' up means getting a job/oh, I don't wanna grow uuuup!". I want to never know why he refers to both "Kate" and "Cathy" on "For Kate I Wait". I love this complete mix-up of irony or earnestness and mystery and I am completely overanalyzing an album Ariel Pink shat out years ago.

(SPEAKING OF IRONY AND ARIEL PINK: the 16-minute track "Pedestrian Pop Hits" makes me giggle.)

So here it is, folks, one of my all-time favourites, in it's murky no-fi glory. One of very few albums I both like every song on and know every song on, intimately so. Just download it already.



ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI - THE DOLDRUMS

Leaving

Oh yes, I've been waiting to talk about this record proper for a while. Planning for Burial has finally gotten a proper release for the full-length Leaving, which has been in the making for quite some time, apparently. And does it ever show.

Leaving first dropped, to my knowledge, towards the end of 2009 with a fairly quiet online release that didn't get to nearly enough people but nonetheless blew the minds of pretty much everyone who heard it (myself included, natch). Among those people was Dan Barrett, one half of Have a Nice Life and owner of Enemies List Home Recordings (HANL, Nahvalr, American Addio, Afterlives, etc.). So rather than a modest online release and quiet home-pressing, Leaving got the EL Treatment, meaning: a) super-enthusiastic label support, and b) super-fantastic packaging. Seriously, if nothing else, this is a strong case for why you buy your goddamn music: hand-numbered, hand-assembled, stark but beautifully presented.



And yet there isn't nothing else, there's so much else, much more than this clumsy segue would have you believe. Hyperdespressive doomgaze, heavy in all the right places and impenetrable atmosphere throughout. It occupies much of the same ideological space of its labelmates, which is not to say it sounds like Have a Nice Life, but it's similarly fashioned faux-black metal aesthetics with doomy rumblings and shoegaze density (can I go ahead and coin "doomgaze" as a genre already? It sounds right. It feels right.) Really the whole thing is stellar throughout, but if you need to be convinced in the next five minutes that you need to own this, go ahead and check out "Memories You'll Never Feel Again", which is probably the heaviest waltz I've heard in a while. Heavy, heavy guitar work, enthralling piano banging, soaring melodies on top of it all before it collapses under its own weight into listless groaning and xylophone. Killer, killer stuff.

Planning for Burial - Memories You'll Never Feel Again

Buy it now while you still can.

This used to be a free release, but it doesn't seem to be now that it's gotten an official release, so I'm going to respect that (oh shut up) and point you towards this preview track and some Planning for Burial b-sides.

Please buy this, though. Really. Both the artist and the label deserve your support fully.

Next up: New stuff from Silber Media, who have also done a lot to get a bit of your hard-earned money.

My favourite nuts beginning with the letter "P"

1. Pecans
2. Peanuts
3. Pistachios

Pecans are the obvious choice, naturally, but the rest of the list was a bit difficult. The pistachio is a fantastic nut, don't get me wrong, but eating the thing is a whole other story. The shells are sometimes entirely closed, not split open, making extracting the actual nut a chore. You can put in your mouth and bite it, sure, but then you have to spit out the shell, which is both a pain and rude, depending on the context in which you enjoy your nuts. All the salt also tends to stick to the shell, meaning you have to put the shell in your mouth anyway. Delicious, but is the payoff enough to warrant all that?

Even a perfectly prepared pistachio, however, will still lose out to the peanut, if only for the latter's versatility. It's sort of the "classic nut", the ubiquitous nut; you can't really hate on the peanut, unless you're allergic, but I get the impression that peanut allergy is sort of a fake idea. Peanut butter also does wonders to the peanut's score. It really stomps all over the other butter spin-offs. Almond butter is a fairly disgusting rendition.

In other, music related news: I've been a bit uninspired lately, and rather than rhyme off some schlock and post a link, I'd rather give you, the reader, something to read, though I reckon 9 times out of ten you're just looking for that bold, blue link. Hmpf.

In any case, things will be coming. Let me tell you about them: some cool new stuff from Silber and a proper presentation of Planning for Burial.

I would also like to take this time to remind you that I am 100% open to artist submissions. I even encourage it. Send me your stuff. I will listen. I will talk about. A couple dozen people might read it. Cool, huh?

Also, did you know that The North Sea wrote a song for me? It's true! And it's a doozy.

The North Sea - Calvin

Reading

Do you enjoy reading? In particular, words I have written? Then this might just tickle your fancy.

If it doesn't, I'll update this soon, pinky swear.

Oh wait, here I am

Yeah, ok, the quasi-habitual bimonthly "here I am back to blog etc" obligatory whatsit. No really. I think I mean it this time. (Maybe.) There's been hell of circumstances, plus being all busy with my quote/unquote day job and my quote/unquote day life.

Speaking of tangents, I also thought, maybe, since music is all so totally my entire life (refers to generic treble clef tattooed on wrist and/or ankle, hearts and stars all surrounding it) that using it as an aid in brooding and mulling and other more foreboding ways of thinking that maybe just maybe that is something I shouldn't, y'know, do. Maybe it ain't good for me to have men who want to be suiciding or already have to be whispering sweet nothings in my ear[phones]. Maybe I need to be put in a more positive mind frame. Maybe less Joy Division, Giles Corey, Jandek, Scott Walker, Swans, Zola Jesus, Death in June, Former Ghosts, Hrsta, etc, etc, etc.

Run-on sentences and general blubbering aside, what do we do about this?



oh hell yes

Husker Du is what we do about this. New Day Rising is what we do about this. Sure, there are definitely some downers on here ("If I Told You"), but in terms of sound it's an incredibly life-affirming album. It's also perfectly acceptable to leave the title track on repeat for 15 times and call it a day, because goddamn, "New Day Rising" is as fierce and ambiguously hopeful/hopeless in its simplicity as anything on the album; really, the perfect title track/opening number.

New music, new attitude?

Maybe.

Whatever, Husker Du rules.

DOWNLOAD "NEW DAY RISING".

In case you haven't heard:

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR REUNION


Get yourself some live bootlegs to tide you over until you find out if you live in or near one of the "9 American towns" they'll be playing come winter.

I Hope I Can Feel Something Like That One Day

"Excuse" is an ugly word; it has connotations of lie, like a reason that is a lie, at least partially. But "I've been busy" isn't a lie, per se, it's just such a bad reason that it feels excuse-esque. So there's my reason (however poor) for not keeping up with this, though I'm sure it must feel like an excuse to one Devin Hildebrand who emailed me a few weeks back about his sound-collage project Dth. Excuse me.

A lot of this new EP seems to stem from forlorn distress, from the slightly heartbreaking title I Hope I Can Feel Something Like That One Day to the individual songs ("I Always Feel Like Crying (For Mom) is a knee-jerk " :'( "), but musically it isn't quite so hyper-depressive, nor is it as explicitly annoying/boring as sound collage can be. After the clusterfuck and appropriately titled opener "[!]" the album unscrambles and is surprisingly delicate and deeply personal, culling samples not just from random found-sounds but "From our VHS labelled "X-mas '95 / Jodi". It's all set to understated ambient instrumentation, some synth drones and acoustic guitar mostly, it seems, but nothing to overpower the star(s) of the show here (though that being said, cut-up sample set to a live drum beat at the end of the title track is a definite highlight). The whole album is beautifully balanced, between collage and composition, between the vaguely hopeful and the utter despair, between cacophony and ambiance but, somehow, it always ends up an entirely compelling and a quietly disturbing experience.

The highlight here is probably the closer, "Humans are like Ripples", which is probably the simplest in terms of structure and use of samples, but is strangely hypnotic as a whole crowd of people is asked "how was your day?". It sort of epitomizes the forces at work on the album, as the answers range from humorous to somewhat worrisome (sometimes simultaneously) and the music fluctuates accordingly, apparently with some science behind it:
Notes on a set scale (0-20, including halves of numbers) droned accordingly to numbers spoken in spontaneous dialogue prompted by "how are you feeling today, 1-10?"

Basically, I Hope I Can Feel Something Like That One Day is a wildly curious set of songs, which is meant entirely as a compliment. It's the sort of quiet headphone listening for one of those days. When you're not quite sure you want a pick-me-up or if you'd rather throw on Unknown Pleasures as a hold-me-down, then go ahead and try Dth. It'll kind of do both to you, and you'll like it, promise.



Click here to download/stream the whole thing.