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.

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.

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.

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.

The Big Gloom

Comparing bands to other bands is Cloud Strife-sized double edged sword with a greased hilt. On one hand, sure, it's the easiest way to sum up a band's sound, to say they sound like Band X, Band Y and if Band Z had a baby with Band A while Band C cut the umbilical cord, but it also seldom does justice to neither Bands X nor whatever band you're trying to talk about. So when everyone compared Have a Nice Life to Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine, and Sunn O))) among others (I think I heard Swans somewhere), I did my best not to immediately shit myself 5 times and die, because how on Earth could a band live up to those veritable legends?

Well, shit, they just about did.

And the only reason it's "just about" and not "absolutely" is because this is still a young group.

So, instead, maybe that should read shit, they fucking will.



Poor formatting and excessive curse words aside, this band truly does combine the best of all the aforementioned worlds. Joy Division's uncomfortably depressing lyrics, My Bloody Valentine's wall-of-sound, Swans' repetitive, hypnotic song-structure, Sunn O)))'s... ok, this comparison has always been kind of lost on me, but whatever. Throw that in with a vague black metal aesthetic (the non-ridiculous kind) and a healthy DIY spirit and even a sense of humour (keep up with the Enemies List twitter) and I swear this description is still not off base: Have a Nice are indeed all of that, quite handily.

Though I feel like I'm already falling into the negative-side of this comma-happy band roll call: Have a Nice Life are still a unique force, and not merely derivative of any of the aforesaid.

"Hey now", said the Blogosphere, "this band is old news, mate. Remember early 2008, when everyone went totally apeshit over Deathconsciousness?"

Yes, but there's plenty of reasons for things to get apeshittier (?) now: grab a copy of the recently-pressed Deathconsciousness 2xLP, complete with huge explanatory booklet. Why the hell hasn't this sold out yet? Do your thing, internet. Or if you want some instant gratification, stream the whole thing here and then download the just-released b-side/demo compilation Voids. Worth your time and hard drive space, pinky swear.

Alright, I'm going to quite my fanboy gushing now. Dismissed.

As we fall into static our hearts sing

I'm not gonna lie, folks, I don't know where I'm going with this entry. I just got a bunch of kewl new muzak, but it's all on vinyl and I can't be arsed to find downloads or lug my turntable down here and make my own MP3s.

First item of business: Have a Nice Life's Deathconsciousness is finally on vinyl and up for pre-order! Get yourself a copy now; I know I sure as hell am not missing out on this again. If you haven't heard of this, it's basically a pitch-black shoegaze double album put out in early 2008 that took certain online music communities by storm (although it's fallen slightly out of favour and is not longer "album of the decade"). Lo-fi, homemade, and beautifully lush in a paradoxically dark way. It's a fucking beast of a record in every sense of the word. Download "Bloodhail" and start the Enemies List love.

Second item: yeah, I've splurged a bit and got me a handful of new records that I'll be talking about in the coming while. Prurient, The Mile End Ladies String Axillary, MV+EE, Woods, Nadja... if, for some reason, any of you have a preference as to which (if any) I write up, lemme know.

Final item: ok, I've got a thing! All this talk of shoegaze reminds me of a swell find: Toma. Unassuming name (although a quick Google search brings up "TOMA Foundation for Burned Children", which is equal parts horrifying, funny, and sad) and the fairly Explosions in the Sky-looking artwork aside (not an insult, mind you), this album is actually unique in the remarkably overcrowded post-rock genre. Shock! Gasp! Awe!

Opener "Sins Of A Solar Empire" sets the pace nicely, with a typical feeling post-rock sort of jam, but without the same quiet-build-intense formula; instead, Toma have some actual balls and keep it loud with a wonderfully blissed-out, expansive, and remarkably full sound. They mix up their other songs a lot, too, so if this record is anything, it's continually (and pleasantly) surprising: "This Day" is a fairly straightforward shoegaze song, not totally out of line with A Place to Bury Strangers (i.e. loud guitars, quiet vocals, good times), whereas "This is the End of Everything" is a beautiful, piano-led pseudo ballad.

One of the things that makes Toma stand out are the vocals. The singer (sorry, I can't find any proper credits for this record, so I'm going to continue making vague references like that. You know, when you're at a party and you forget a chap's name, so in a hilariously sitcom-esque fashion you do your best to always refer to him as "man" or "dude" or "brodawg"? Yeah, like that. I should also note that I am led to believe that this is a solo project, based on the write-up on the band's Myspace? If so, this whole shebang is fivefold as impressive as I thought. Holy fucking parentheses.) has an astounding, deep, rich voice perfectly suited for the massive music; sounds a lot like the fellow from iLiKETRAiNS (I still do not get that band name whatsoever), and times, like a slightly less polished Scott Walker (but to compare anyone to Scott Walker is sort of silly.) I can honestly say that, when he really pushes his voice, it's absolutely chilling; I literally got goosebumps in the climax of "Terrorforming", and it's definitely one of my favourite music moments of this year so far.

Could it get better? Hell yes it could: the whole thing is free. Do yourself a favour and give it a shot.

Like an amplifier should

Yes, here it is, back on track, for now. Sorry if the next few entries don't match the exceedingly high standards I started out with, but I am sick and tired and busy with you've heard all this bullshit before get to the music goddamn.


If there's one thing I really do like when it comes to music, it's shoegaze. Terrifically loud, noisy, dense, occasionally poppy, and even the general aesthetic is just so damn cool. A little pretentious, maybe, a little ridiculous, sure, but those are words I'm totally comfortable associating myself with.

Holler, Wild Rose! sort of fall under this umbrella. Sort of, yeah. "Marylawn Hair" is My Bloody Valentine worship at it's finest, with that frankly glorious wavering synth wading through the mix. And "Holler, Wild Rose!" has a fantastic, almost post-rockish explosive intro. But instead of falling into fuzz-on-ten, reverb-on-eleven, three-two-one-LOOK-DOWN tedium, Our Little Hymnal is one of the most delightfully varied debut albums I've heard in a while (even if I am several years behind on this one... oops.)



From the flat-out, wall-of-geetar gaze sounds to surprisingly delicate acoustics to spirituals to tastefully done ambient interludes to whatever sort of "indie rawk" you wanna call it, it stays interesting and, more importantly, stays good. It's loud, it's soft, it's melodic, uplifting, heartfelt; wickedly solid record. They should have a new one coming out sometime soon, and the only thing out there besides this is the limited-to-200 Yarn EP. which is a nice little stopgap between albums.

I did my best to give you some representative tracks, but as always, if you think you'll dig the rest of 'em, throw some dollars at 'em.

Holler, Wild Rose! - Marylawn Hair
Holler, Wild Rose! - Sun Vines

Cover version extravaganza! Part one.

I basically wrote this just so I can share what has become one of my favourite covers ever, but then decided it could (potentially) become a nifty idea to come back to in future entries (i.e., when I am too lazy to do something original (woah, meta.)

The cover song is a funny thing. It used to be the primary type of single in the early days of the music industry, where songs by black musicians would be stolen, reworked (and usually totally pussied-up) and performed by white groups, earning ridiculous sums of money for zero effort. Now, it's not quite as common for a band's biggest hit to be a cover (lol Gary Jules), but what's most alarming is that a discomforting amount of modern covers are not recognized as covers by the [dang ol'] kids these days [who won't git off my lawn]. I cringe when I think of how many 14 year old girls think My Chemical Romance wrote "Desolation Row."

However, the "cover" can also be fascinating when a band completely reworks a song and actually makes it their own; it's a fantastic way of paying tribute to an influence. And these are the types of covers I will be presenting.

Today's pick is "Only Shallow" by Nadja, song originally by My Bloody Valentine (but you knew that, right?) Both bands are known for their huge wall-of-guitar sound, with mouldy molasses-thick fuzz, barely-there vocals and just generally loud-as-fuck all-consuming soundscaping. I imagine a brief bio of the coveree would be superfluous to most of y'all, but regarding the coverer: Nadja are a drone/doom duo comprised of Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff based right here in Toronto (ok, right there in Toronto since I'm technically in a different city) and are, hands down, the most prolific drone-duo the city has ever seen (an oft challenged position, no doubt.) Not only do they have a fucking absurd amount of releases in an amazingly short amount of time, but they are almost unanimously high-quality.



With regards to the cover, I can't think of a band more fitting to cover thee almighty My Bloody Valentine (except maybe A Place to Bury Strangers). You can tell Nadja are deeply indebted to them, and their cover is a brilliant tribute. In a truly Nadjian move, the tempo has been halved; the [pseudo-]iconic opening drum roll of the song is slowed to a lazy pace, with the guitars and keyboard following suit. However, the slower speed works stunningly well here. Combined with the thousands of overdubs and no less than 5 fuzz pedals turned up to 12 (all figures are estimates), it proves to be even dreamier and more ethereal than the original. Completely mesmerizing, and completely worth the time for fans of either band, or folks who can dig a nice shoegaze tune in general.

Nadja - Only Shallow

Hey, whaddaya know, these cats just put out a whole record of covers. As always, buy what you like.