dyvnzmbr

I'm a bit late to this, but one of my absolute favourite music blogs out there, DAYVAN ZOMBEAR, has started up a Kickstarter to fund DZ TAPES, the record label that's soon-to-be-a-thing. I can't tell you how much great, great stuff I've gotten from that page; it's an absolute goldmine of everything falling under the umbrella of "Experimental", from noise to pyschedelia to lo-fi pop with a whole lot of made-up genres that sound like exactly the sort of thing you want to hear. So with your contributions, DZ TAPES is going to be releasing original up-and-coming artists (oh god, "up and coming", did I really...) which, if the rest of the blog is any measure of taste, will all be fantastic.

Don't think I'd ask you to donate for nothing, though. For your donation of $8[US]/$10[CAN/MEX]/$12[THERE ARE OTHER PLACES?], you'll get a tape (and MP3s) full of ~exclusive~ tracks by a bunch of artists that fall into the (vast) DYVNZMBR vibe, including some big[ger] hitters like Foxes in Fiction, Sleep In, and Chris Rehm (who recently put out a killer record called Worries, etc which I have yet to write about and yes, I do hate myself for being so slow on it). The real cool part is that your donation also buys a tape for one of the contributing artists, so they have something to cherish/sell/show off for their efforts. And you're helping launch what's sure to be an incredible label. Win/win/win.

PUT YOUR MONEY HERE

blackout

Expo '70 - Blackout
[psychedelic, drone, space rock, noise]

Download/stream/buy here.

Two half-hour blissed-out excursions into whatever cosmic voids Expo '70 tore open in Ithaca and Manhattan (tracks 1 and 2, respectively). It's Expo '70 doing what Expo '70 do, have done, and will continue to do indefinitely at an alarming rate, made extra alarming by how good it is. Recorded live, allegedly "on less sleep than you can imagine", the duo takes things to the more weightless side of their sound with impossibly huge, dense celestial drones that refuse to be anchored by the comparatively timid drum machine. Two sprawling pieces of improvisation and neo-psych meanderings prove the band to be at the top of whatever game it is they're playing, if for some reason their expansive and curiously/appropriately highly-rated discography hasn't tipped you off yet. Stream it for free above or throw $8 out for a limited (200) CDr.

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.

I have no excuses.

Summer has been busy, and [some pun about pilots, astrayitude, etc]. But I'm hoping to buckle down now that the school year begins anew and my spare time won't be so occupied with summer things. You know how it is.

Anyways, how about Magic Lantern, eh?



I don't have much specific insight into this record, mind you. Nothing particularly profound or interesting or enthralling to share with you. Just some superb psychedelic jam stuff that will probably give you a contact high if you listen to it loud enough. Great fuzzy tones, great buncha musicians, all around a solid slab of improvisations. Think Acid Mothers Temple. You like Acid Mothers Temple, don't you?

Magic Lantern - Deathshead Hawkmoth

The hollow mountain

As I'm sure you may have inferred by now, I'm a big proponent of buying records and physically owning music: artwork and packaging is absolutely vital to fully experiencing an album the way it was meant to be heard. And what arrived in my mailbox the other day is, perhaps, the greatest affirmation of that fact: The Hollow Mountain by TwinSisterMoon.



Scans aren't quite going to do this thing justice, but give it a look. In person, the booklet is a huge 8"x8" piece of screen-printed gorgeousness, tucked inside a beautiful hand-screened sleeve with a slab of hand-numbered vinyl (19/105 here.) Let's just say thank goodness it came in a protective record sleeve.



I was almost hesitant to play this thing: what if my hand slips? What if the needle scratches this beyond repair? FUUUUUUCK. But yeah, eventually I found my testicles and played the thing and wow. Like most releases by Natural Snow Buildings and all related projects, this is truly a record to crank to 10 and get lost in.




The structure of this album is a lot like that on his portion of the 3-way split, The Snowbringer Cult: eastern-tinged drones interspersed with acoustic folk. The drone numbers are standard fare for Mehdi Ameziane, which is to say, fucking awesome. All matter of instruments I can barely pronounce ebbing and flowing like a Lightbright melting underwater on acid. Sure, it's pretty same-y to his Natural Snow Buildings stuff which, in turn, is pretty same-y to isengrind (aka Solange Gularte, aka the lady-half of NSB) but when it's all so great I can't really be bothered by it. It's the shorter, simpler folk tunes that make TwinSisterMoon stand out: although technically unremarkable and all following a similar arpeggiated chord pattern, Ameziane's falsetto is gut-wrenching, and to have the lyrics finally printed only adds to the experience, giving grounding to the otherwise indistinct wailings.

I daresay this is the most accessible material from the project, and certainly from the whole NSB collection: the folk songs are beautiful, and the drones are all soothingly psychedelic (as opposed to some of the stuff found on Nigh Coercion...) and in digestible lengths of less than 10 minutes (sorry, no 46-minute "Song for Laurie Bird" here). Probably the perfect gateway to anyone who's had this project. The vinyl sold out immediately, but there is going to be a CD version on Ultra Hard Gel with a bonus track to boot.

In the meantime, you can get your TwinSisterMoon fix with the 3-way split The Snowbringer Cult, still not sold out (?!) which is actually a better introduction to this French psychdronefolkgaze madness, so ignore what I said before.

From The Hollow Mountain:
TwinSisterMoon - Bride of Spirits
Note: Dull Knife, thankfully, made sure this LP was sold only to people who wanted the record, not to the notorious eBayers who re-sell these things at several times their original price. As such, I am respecting their wishes and only giving you the sample MP3 they have on their own site.

From The Snowbringer Cult
TwinSisterMoon - Amantsokan
TwinSisterMoon - Kingdom of the Sea