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