Wahlheim - Songs That Are Not Part of Ambitious Musikdramen [pop, emo, home-recording]
Mid-fi mid-90's emo-pop with morbid goth sensibilities & irresistible melodies so you know you've already clicked that link. This is the first/only release by Wahlheim, a two-song digital 7" which might sound silly in theory but it's a 14mb download so divide that by sides A/B (i.e., 2) then go and collect the grey matter dripping out of your ears when you've realized what that means. It's shamelessly catchy and fairly upbeat but it's presented with such a killer aesthetic that you won't have a problem checking it out. Besides, Wahlheim sounds grim as fuck, so you know these infectious plague-bearing choruses are in good hands.
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.
Orange Blossom Flyover - Fast Reverse [shoegaze] Download/stream.
Short & sweet nine-minute EP of beat-driven shoegaze. It's an interesting take on the style, pushing the surprisingly lively beats to the front but it works, especially in the closer "Vicarious Rooms of Gold" where the guitars and vocals feel more rhythmic, too; those shoes are tapping. The whole EP is really just driven - it has a sense of momentum that, elsewhere in this genre, gets lost in the cavernous reverb and swirling modulation. It's about as focused as you can get while still feeling a million miles away.
Also worth checking out is the Fresh Horrors from Hades "EP", which is just the 7-minute "So By Your Spells": a gorgeous, hazy backwards-looking free-fall. The complete opposite of the above EP but absolutely worth a listen.
Sublimely catchy new one from post-indie forerunners True Womanhood. This is part of their immensely cool "Reel Too Real" series which is cool for reasons other than the dense punning I mean, look, all the songs are recorded on this. Did you see ? Yeah, this synth-heavy stuttering grove was done through that monstrosity and, I am explicitly told, not through Ableton. I don't have a strong grasp of how electronic music is made & performed, really, but I have the inkling that Ableton makes it easy and this was not and that's good: reverb-drenched analog anti-technology fun-times dance tune. Bear with me when I say it's not "obvious" dance music aside from the rave synths (Moombahton synths?); no grating 4/4 drum machine beatdown, just organic & beat-driven & incidentally danceable.
Tree Hopping - The Beat Band [tropical lo-fi] Recommended if you like: dancing in an exotic tin can telephone Stream it. Download.
Back to school back to work it's January oh man c'mon. Tree Hopping, though: we have Tree Hopping, thank god. The Beat Band is ferociously energetic and, despite being apparently composed mostly of loops and samples, is a coherent little package. It's a brisk half-hour but really, anything longer would've been exhausting because this LP is relentless, chock-full of funky rhythm and wooping and sloppy guitar and shimmery keyboards; really, all in all, an album put out in entirely the wrong season 'cause it's summer in a .zip. Or maybe this is entirely timely - rays of tropical post-punk shining through yr S.A.D. Yeah there's tons of "no-fi bedroom pop" or whatever making the rounds right now, but Tree Hopping has flavour rather than the drab dourness that is most of the contemporaries. Fun fun fun and really a feel-good record throughout; every bit as colourful as the album cover. If the first two tracks don't hook you then winter has claimed your soul and you need this more than you know.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Burialshould 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.
