Olive Music

Isengrind - Night of Raining Fire (Blackest Rainbow, 2011)

2012-02-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

The French duo Natural Snow Buildings have become a staple in modern psychedelic music, not only through their longevity but in their distinct overlapping of folk and drone as well. Amassing a wealth of official and limited-quantity releases since their 1997 gestation, they've consistently brought melodic acoustics of yesteryear into the limitless realm approached by many in the experimental underground. Its members have their respective solo ventures: Mehdi Ameziane as Twinsistermoon, and Solange Gularte as Isengrind. Both projects express Ameziane and Gularte's individual whims and forge trails to the marriage embraced as Natural Snow Buildings.

This claim could be applied to Isengrind's latest effort Night of Raining Fire, but Gularte's penchant for atmosphere and expanse appears more prominently than it does in duo form. Embodied in its forbidding Bosch-esque cover, the album is encircled by a particularly archaic mysticism stemming from graceful, free-flowing orchestration and choral harmonies. Evocative and spectral, Gularte's voice doesn't bear any actual words, leaving behind intangible arrangements that confound as well as they elate.

Listeners descend into Gularte's pseudo-medieval fairytale at the start of "Lost Girls," a bittersweet meditation woven by threads of electric and acoustic guitar. This track and its potential cousin "Ascending" are stellar excursions in blossoming psychedelia, though Night of Raining Fire captures more than one tableau. "Valeria Underground" features a series of bowed oscillations as bellows of strained guitars rumble beneath. At an even greater distance from this dark detour are the rhythmic and strummy numbers such as "Lit By The Rain" and "White Bone Snake" which resonate just as hypnotic in each overlapping repetition. Night of Raining Fire leaves such a remarkable impression because every direction taken is not only testament to Gularte's versatility but also proves that innovation can still be made in an ilk seemingly growing by the second.

[Stream/Buy Night of Raining Fire from Blackest Rainbow Records]

Hum of Gnats - Purge the Weevil From Yer Midst (Strungaphone, 2011)

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

The outer reaches are dangerous and alluring territory. Music begins to unfold into pure sound as the notion of formulation dissipates. Whether engaging in ruminative audio-research or an unfettered freak-out, the audience is often brought to unfamiliar realms. Due to this fascination, more artists have been drawn to exploration, nudging the unconventional into a more tangible range. It makes one wonder: Will adherent and outsider worlds ever cross paths?

Hum of Gnats are close to answering the question, with an affinity for disorient by way of structure and amorphousness. The duo's inception Purge the Weevil From Yer Midst covers appreciably more ground than its 4-movement, 44-minute tracklist entails. Members Ezio Piermattei and Napo Camassa exercise their multi-instrumental capabilities indulgently to form high-saturation refrains and cacophonous hodgepodges. No matter the intent, Hum of Gnats exert the same idiosyncrasy.

Purge's cover may suggest that its appeal is to be derived from maximal Dada worship, but there's an inscrutable tact beneath Piermattei and Camassa's eclectic sound-collage. That thought may not come into view during the ramshackle "Hop Score" in which its field recordings and obtusely trudging rhythm are subject to mismatched overlapping as opposed to frictionless convergence.

It's in the thick of the album where flux becomes evident. Clouds of saxophone delay overhang the introduction of "Hey, Rube!" as murmurs and miscellaneous found-sound (bells, doors closing, what could be a printer) stir foreboding. A demented schoolyard melody tugs at separate ends of the structure, finally tearing it in two as fragmented jolts of percussive sputters and strained guitar are scattered abroad. At its least stunning moments, Purge sounds like what it is, a debut, but also attains experimentalist etiquette one would expect only a group of greater age to have.

Hey, Rube! by Hum of Gnats
[Stream/Download Purge the Weevil From Yer Midst from Hum of Gnats]

Pierrot Lunaire - Theme for Ascension and Eternal Love (Hooker Vision, 2012)

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

Pierrot Lunaire and I have been trading tapes, CD-Rs, and digital files now for awhile, and I'm pleased as punch to present Theme for Ascension and Eternal Love, his first vinyl release. This lovely green wax was released by the awesome Hooker Vision label on the first of the year, and it only seems fitting that one of the first releases of 2012 I've heard so far has been this one. I'm honestly not 100% sure what to think of myself as I sit here on my couch, dog in lap, typing this review of what is possibly, one of the strangest records pressed, or, at least, that I own.

The record starts out with strange squeals, blown out tape loops, and swirling voices, and then the sax comes in. I was reminded of Pharaoh Sanders, a broken radio, and that one time I drank too much cough syrup. It wasn't bad, but I was glad when it was over. It was an intense trip to say the least. The B-side (MUCH more preferable) was essentially the same set up, but seemed to flow much better and be less... intimidating? It was a bit more mellow, but just as psychedelic. The ending of the record is amazing, with this weird swing trumpet sample floating over the haze that the rest of the track developed.

While not entirely 'well developed', groundbreaking, or limit-pushing, I can honestly say I have never heard anything like this before and I can only hope that Pierrot Lunaire continues to grow as an artist, because he has something seriously amazing in his head that will only continue to pour out of a blotter-sized hole. This guy is so ahead of the curve, he's behind it. Keep an eye out in 2012 for Pierrot Lunaire, because this guy will be tripping out even the most experienced acid eaters in what can only be described as Stephen King's wet dream meets Stephen Hawking's worst nightmare.

[Pierrot Lunaire Bandcamp]
[Buy Theme for Ascension and Eternal Love from Hooker Vision]

The Caretaker - Patience (After Sebald) (History Always Favours The Winners, 2012)

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

There is a scene in The Pianist where Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Jewish pianist in hiding during World War II, is caught by a German officer. In the swollen tapestry of a run-down slum consists a piano, and soon after Szpilman is caught, he's asked by the officer to play a piece on it. It's an engrossing, utterly haunting piece, and every time I put on The Caretaker's music, I'm echoed of its memory. Szpilman's condition is devastating and his ballad is somber, yet there's a ghostly beauty to it all; a man on his last leg, with all circumstance against him, releasing such elegance through the keys of music. “Everything is on the point of decline” states the opening track of Patience (After Sebald), a statement that not only translates to the album itself, but how The Caretaker approaches music. In Szpilman’s case, his life was in shackles, a complete decline in every sense, but when he was playing the piano he was free, somewhere else completely despite his circumstance. The Caretaker’s music is the product of time-regressed vinyl, forgotten and decayed as years turned into decades, yet the music he creates out of his damaged sources cradles a delicate fragility, and despite their condition beauty is the result of its own decline.

As The Caretaker, Leyland Kirby has been developing a sound since the late '90s uniquely his own. Inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Kirby takes fragments of obscure turn of the century ballroom 78's and warps them into surrealistic, dream-like reminisces of the time in which they came. These compositions generally work in one of two ways: one, as a repetitive loop of a gently woven phrases, lulling the listener into a slightly comatose state of trance; or two, as a longer succession of blending phrases that appear and reappear in a dizzying aural sentiment. Last year's An Empty Bliss Beyond This World embraced the latter, and proved his music could reach a wider audience, as the album was met with a surprising amount of critical praise. An Empty Bliss acted as a welcome introduction to his more challenging back catalog; where The Caretaker’s music is in every sense of the word, colder.

Though taken into consideration, Patience (After Sebald) is a different beast in The Caretaker’s catalog. The album is a soundtrack to Grant Gee's film of the same name (who also directed Radiohead’s Meeting People Is Easy), which documents the work of influential German writer W.G. Sebald. Gee describes the film as a "multi-layered essay on landscape, art, history, life and loss", while Kirby has stated his soundtrack is "more of a winter album" and "a lot darker". Taken in as an album, Patience doesn't necessarily feel like a set of songs attached to a film, rather a loose interpretations of the gripping surrealist black and white frames of the movie. Though because the film is relatively dark in subject matter, the tone of the album is much bleaker than that of its predecessor, like the wide-eyed portrait of a hanging willow tree shrouded in a blanket of snow, or the monochrome hallucinations of Chaplin-era cinematography.

The most notable difference between Patience and other Caretaker albums is that it consists heavily of century-old recordings from classical genius Franz Schubert, deconstructed, warped, and re-imagined in typical Caretaker fashion. This gives Patience an unsettling sense of romanticism; the piano melodies are lighter and more sparse, as opposed to the often weighted density of previous albums. Gone is The Caretaker’s signature ballroom affair, replaced by unsettling avant-garde classical numbers and noise obscured black and white memories. For the most part the change in sound is less abstract than previous material, though the way Kirby constructs these songs follows the challenging bleakness of his earliest work, making it less immediate, while still maintaining his signature haunting atmosphere; like the ghosts of another Stanley Kubrick film, Barry Lyndon.

The album’s darkest arrangements introduce confronting elements to the music, such as the wall of noise hissing throughout the depths of the album's opening number, or the thick vibrations of sunken choral drones lingering throughout “Now the night is over and the dawn is about to break”. These foreboding characteristics can be heard harmonizing with one another on “No one knows what shadowy memories haunt them to this day”, as an opaque veil of static looms amongst the bellow of a cloaked and faceless choir. Further down the spiral, alienation is suggested as the equivalence of death on “I have become almost invisible, to some extent like a dead man”, as a suspenseful piano melody sparsely resonates its dire allegory, while time slowly advances through the faint ticking of a clock.

Occasionally, though, we are pulled out of the depths of these somber melodies by a number of uplifting pieces, yielding a fine rosary amidst the grieving sorrow. “A last glimpse of the land being lost forever” may be The Caretaker’s most straightforward recording to date, yet it commands such a heartbreaking ambience. Similarly, there’s an emotionally endearing quality within the innocence of a track like “Increasingly absorbed in his own World”, which sounds reminiscent of the whimsical piano melodies heard on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, evoking a kind of unsettlingly sentimental wonder. When it comes to sheer aching beauty, “When the dog days were drawing to an end” rivals anything The Caretaker has ever recorded, leaving the listener vulnerable to a flood of incandescent memories, as the sparkling simplicity of a repeated succession of keys drowns sorrow into the recesses of the mind in which it came.

One of Leyland Kirby’s strongest assets as a musician is his ability to contrast moods, themes, and concepts, and on Patience he manages to find an intriguing balance between beauty and hostility. This makes the opposing moods sound believable and relatable to the listener, like Wladyslaw Szpilman’s tender ballad against Jack Torrance’s hallucinatory downfall. This is one of the most powerful aspects of the album, and though it is technically a soundtrack, Patience doesn’t rely on the accompaniment of a visual aid to be effective, for it works just as well as a standalone album as it does a soundtrack. Though it’s bleaker and less immediate that its predecessor, Patience is the first Caretaker album that doesn’t follow in shadow of previous releases, expanding his sound beyond the ballroom while retaining the wide-eyed beauty and ghastly haunt that’s made him such distinct personality in the world of ambient music. Patience (After Sebald) is as much a document on life as it is on loss, ultimately rewarding those willing to listen a little closer, for The Caretaker proves that with every new listen, hidden within the recesses of our mind await memories worth living and dying for in our mortal story of perpetual decline.

[The Caretaker Bandcamp]
[Buy Patience (After Sebald) from History Always Favours the Winners]

Loma Prieta - I.V. (Deathwish, 2012)

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

I.V., the latest full-length from Bay Area-based quartet Loma Prieta makes few attempts to rid itself of screamo's typical bearings-- pained screams and angst-driven emotions abound-- but if any one of its traits falls into the divergent boundary, it's the sonic design. The band's production mainstay Jack Shirley coats the album in overdrive, rendering each feedback interval and guitar scrape more abusive with progression. It's no surprise that I.V. has found a home on Jacob Bannon's Deathwish label, because its in-the-red visage places the band in league with earlier Converge output.

Loma Prieta exhibit many preexisting facets of post-hardcore, screamo, and metal, but how the album intertwines them is what makes their presence so remarkable. The uncompromising temperament of pg.99 and corybantic interplay a la Orchid come to mind during these 24 minutes. To claim that either of the aforementioned acts have found a direct passage into Loma Prieta's inspiration would be a stretch, because a prevalent sense of singularity pervades I.V.

"Fly By Night" exerts a sharp, persistent pummel and attains hope before bowing out. Not only serving as an exhilarating introduction, the song violently tugs the listener from one mood to another at a breakneck pace. And brevity is one of I.V.'s most redeeming characteristics, prominently tackled throughout the mid-album trilogy: "Momentary" savagely blasts and exhales, snowballing into the daunting blitzkrieg of "Half Cross", its vehemence elevated on "Forgetting", where its volume reaches a corroding summit.

As maximal as the suite is, Loma Prieta are at their most profound during the closing triptych. Aching guitar chords pierce in tandem with an acute rhythm section in the midst of "Aside From This Distant Shadow, There Is Nothing Left". Fervent melodies punctuate "Biography"'s vigor in a course comparable to that of Touché Amoré. The forlorn dirge "Diamond Toot" closes I.V. as it trudges onward into silence. Unjustly lodged into a corner of music condemned for sappy sentiments, Loma Prieta counter that stigma with towering amplification and sincerity.

[Loma Prieta Myspace]
[Buy I.V. from Deathwish Inc.]

Celer - An Immensity Merely To Save Life (Self-Released, 2012)

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Drone is an often misunderstood genre, one taken for granted and victimized by naysayers who regress to easier, more digestible audible escapes. Though taken into consideration, if escapism is indeed what a listener craves when sinking into a new album, logic would sway more towards drone’s underlying aesthetic, as escaping reality is the one of the key objectives of the genre. Without a voice, lyrics, or often times definable instruments, the music relies heavily on hypnotic elements such as sunken tones, swaying hums, and lucid textures to convey its message. It can be a truly mesmerizing effect, and on An Immensity Merely To Save Life, Celer demonstrate how to effectively render the concept of escapism into music, by gently guiding the listener through a soothing cosmos of warm structures and loose memories, to somewhere far away in the deep recesses of a bygone state.

Though only consisting of two tracks, An Immensity Merely To Save Life is a full and well-rounded listen, with each track evoking shared cohesive elements throughout, yet maintaining discreet characteristics as individuals. “Of My Complaisance” opens the album on a dreary note, with forlorn emotions gently scarring the hanging backdrop. The faint reminisce of strings can be heard sirening through the foggy arrangement, contrasting the damp atmosphere in search of life as gorgeous earth-toned textures further steal the composition of breath. The ghosts eventually evaporate, and amidst the shrouded aftermath looms the “Gusts Of Hysterical Petulance”, a considerably more uplifting piece guided by the drowning echoes of a submerged synthesizer. Following the flood are expanding vibrations that accent the watery downfall, closing the album with a strange contrast of comfortable unease.

I assume this isn’t the first time Celer have successfully vehicled consciousness, as they have an immense catalog full of what looks to be promising material, though this is the first album I’ve heard from the group. Despite their clearly frequent output, this is an album from start to finish that is extremely well put together, like every muted pulse, delicate murmur, and blurry vibration was enlightened by the dimly tuned knob of a physics major. Their awareness of space and how to fill it is a vital factor throughout, as the slightest change in pitch or tempo would derail the slightly mutating repetition of misted phrases off its beaten path. There’s no clear conceptual drive here, but after listening there’s certainly a chance you’ll feel like you’ve been somewhere else altogether, like the shadow of something indescribable.

Though this is music that consists of confronting subtleties and opaque subject matter, it doesn’t have to be clouded beneath the majorities comfort zone. This is surprisingly immediate ambient music that anybody could appreciate, whether familiar with the genre or not. These are sounds that on the surface, barely exist, but as time goes on feel intimately real and close to the mind as they wash out of their respected source, transporting the listener through a calming loop of aural bliss. Drone is as much a conscious effort as it is an audible one, and it’s albums like An Immensity Merely To Save Life that put this idea to the test, and if you give it a chance it can take you somewhere else completely.

Of My Complaisance by Celer
[Celer, etc. Website]
[Stream/Buy An Immensity Merely To Save Life from Celer]

Rollie Daedal - Blázni (Self-Released, 2012)

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

Let’s take a trip back to Houston, Texas in the early ‘90s. Inside a studio on 7717 Cullen Blvd., the contemporary concept of hip-hop was being deconstructed, literally, by a man named Robert Earl Davis, Jr. though he’s better known as DJ Screw, the big-bang theorist of screwed and chopped music. Essentially Screw’s innovation consisted of taking the heavy soul and g-funk samples of the day and slowing them down to a thick, pasty molasses. The once proper syndication of beats, rhymes, and rhythms was stricken into a hallucinogenic comatose; a surreal dream-like aurora of bouncing cars, massive egos, and endless wealth. In many respects, screwed and chopped is hip-hop’s psychedelic sub-genre.

Now nearly two decades later, the fundamental sound is still evolving. Relative newcomer Rollie Daedal’s concept of hip-hop is much like Screw’s, slow and psychedelic. Though where Screw’s bulky production gave his mixes an energized spin, Daedal takes a considerably more minimalistic approach. On Blázni, he strips the decaying mixes even further by spacing out the production, allowing the mixes to breathe amidst the damp soundscapes.

The beats are consistently heavy throughout; ringing amongst The Roots-slowed opener “UNIverse at War” as drowsy samples and fragile sonics flow gently above the thick and pumping low-end. On “Wassup” he slows down A$AP Rocky, bridging Clams Casino’s dreamy atmospheric production with Rocky’s flaunting gangsta prowess, and slowed down it highlights these elements with a thick, purple magic marker, elevating the mix far beyond the original. Rollie Dadeal’s use of contradictory elements gives the album an eerie tone that resonates freely throughout. Blázni mixes lush aesthetic, psychedelic unease, drowsy plunderphonics, and the signature slowed-down ecstasy, giving real songs a new and sophisticated life beyond their origin.

[Rollie Daedal Facebook]
[Download Blázni from Rollie Daedal]

Clint Heidorn - Atwater (Ashes Ashes, 2011)

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles composer Clint Heidorn put forth his debut Atwater this past year with only mystery and allure to grace its presentation. The cover starkly displays an inverted cross, arranged with tree bones, glued to an LP sleeve smeared with an earthy brown paint hue. Though the album's logo illustrated on the sticker could easily lead a black metal die-hard astray, the rest of the package is very much emblematic of Atwater's musical content-- the sticks acting as a relic from the environment Heidorn elucidates, and enabling the intimacy of artist-to-listener interaction.

The environment in which the music inhabits is barren-- leafless trees and twigs scattered across dry soil as a bleached sky lingers above. Atwater's nine instrumentals conjure this landscape by employing space and silence. Rarely do the arrangements intend to harmonize and instead suggest desolation within their thoughtfully spare pacing. This patience bestows subtle poise upon the music as well. Such a close relationship between these facets underpins Atwater's immensely overarching motif.

Despite its largely well parsed and spacious recording, Atwater has its apexes. Nominous violin brings implicit triumph to the guitar refrain of the second track; the fourth movement adds to its minimal canvas with sweltering strings and nearly romantic saxophone soloing. These moments draw arcs of varying height and drama upon the album's otherwise nebulous flow, which refers primarily to its unhurried fluidity.

Perhaps not only to attain a sense of mystique, the absence of titles among these pieces give way to the album's cohesion. How Heidorn presents Atwater, not unlike how he composes its content, comes with great consideration. Consistency is exhibited in the vicinity of downcast melodies and barren, forlorn evocation. The album's introduction and close happen upon kindred ground, with sprawled guitar arpeggios that accrue vastness as additional instruments creep underneath. It's almost as if Atwater's sweep is endless, and if that is the case, I'm content with where I'm left.

[Stream/Buy Atwater from Clint Heidorn]

Lou Reed & Metallica - Lulu (Warner Bros., 2011)

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

Tommy Wiseau's The Room (2003) is a universally recognized example of the worst film ever made, a claim made by just about anyone who's ever sat down and watched the 99-minute portrayal of the fall and collapse of film-making from title to credits. But from that unfortunate notion comes a comprehensive personality that oozes out of every pore of the film; the painfully flat soundtrack, fragmented editing, confusing story, nonsensical script, and lifeless characters behind utterly derelict acting made The Room an unintentional cult classic. It's the rare representation of absolute failure, a serious attempt at drama turned into pure, inadvertent comedy gold. And there lies the attraction, because within all of its unrelenting inadequacy, the film emits a surreal edge above even the most concrete standards of poor filmmaking. It’s a kind of subconscious instinct we share, our fascination in watching someone, or something completely collapse beyond relation.

It’s no mere coincidence that an outlet like YouTube rose to become the multimedia mammoth it is today based considerably on content of people making fools of themselves, or why someone like Rebecca Black and her notorious ode to the best day of the week became embedded into the popular culture. It’s our strange, yet alluring interest in infamy. And now, this perplexing truth may have finally met its audible equivalent on Lou Reed & Metallica’s Lulu. Yet as time has passed since its bloody delivery, the public has spoken blindly through instantly bottomed-out ratings and scornful fists-in-the-air inspections of a body of work, though richly scarred and undoubtedly wounded, deserving of a second opinion.

What makes Lulu a considerably different beast is, rather than the disposable talent of the aforementioned examples; it brought together two revered acts, each with an abundantly respectable catalogue of work spanning multiple decades. And because of that pressure was automatic, though whether your expectations were high or low is irrelevant, because in reality Lou Reed & Metallica fell off the cliff as soon as they entered the studio. Everything from the grotesque cover art, absurdly extensive runtime, and very nature of the bizarre collaboration was questionable. But then there was the music behind it all. If Lou Reed & Metallica were genuinely serious about making a deep, poetic heavy rock album, they do a respectable job of hiding it throughout the recording Lulu.

When Lou Reed forgot to attend his monthly obligation to the AA, spent his senior government-aided allowance on hard whiskey and a (rumored) bootlegged pint of Appalachian Moonshine, and showed up in the studio with a six hundred and sixty six post-it notes of forgotten scat-poetry he came up with after pub-crawling local mental hospitals during the recording of Metal Machine Music, why didn’t James and the boys stop him? Why didn’t they simply pull the silly old man (clearly in a wasted state) from the shaking microphone for those 87 minutes? Taken into consideration; it was all an experiment, an ugly backwoods bastard-child of an experiment. “I would cut my legs and tits off when I think of Boris Karloff”, “Puking my guts at your feet”, “Please spit into my mouth”, “Like a colored man’s dick, blood spurting from me”, “I am the table”. Avant-garde proto-metal lyricism for the ages, all we need now is a theatrical version of such wit, where Lou Reed can be heard frantically dubbing in dialogue at the last minute.

Lulu was a failure on nearly all levels, a confusing collaboration between two appreciated acts who were confident within a body of work that didn’t go where they wanted it to go. But where it fell afterward sets Lulu contrary from just another bad album. On the “The View”, Lou and the boys do a bit of classy nostalgic digging on those memories we can all relate too, of listening to your buzzed grandfather’s faux-poetic ramblings at a mid-'90s Gen X Monster Truck Rally event catered by Turbo Fuel Maximum Energy Soda; Suck, Swallow, Release. Those were novel memories, and that’s what Lulu reveals when you strip it down to its barest essentials; an obscure little experiment that far too many took far too seriously. There’s too much unbelievable material here to make you question in disbelief, or laugh out loud with to cast it all away as forgettably flawed material. I plan on revisiting Lulu often, to bask in its disfigured glory until all that's left in its shadow is an empty bottle of whiskey on the table, and the humming reminiscence of a brimming power chord.

[Lou Reed & Metallica Website]
[Buy Lulu from the Lou Reed & Metallica Webstore]

Fervid - How? (JVGM, 2011)

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

So this CD comes in the mail, and sometimes, I wonder if people read the reviews I write for this blog, or just send whatever they can to whoever they can (an effective strategy if you believe there is no such thing as bad press), because I usually write about the more 'avant-garde' and 'underground' releases (plus 10 pretentious points), and typically I review music that I feel deserves attention, because life is too short to listen to bad music, right? Right, so when looking at this CD, I was confused. This looks like something that came straight out of the 90's, and not in a cool 'indie-sludge' way, but a boring 'alt-rock' way.

What really bothered me wasn't the lack of interesting album art, the press release that basically said 'Hello, this is a compact disc full of music', or the back cover photo in an astonishing resolution of 72 dots per inch, but the track titles. With songs names like "Walls Of Jericho", "The Message", and "God Caught Her Stealing A Heart In The Morning", I had no choice but to gulp. Was this really... Christian Rock? If you're still reading by this point, you're probably expecting me to rip this album apart. The truth is, it's actually not bad.

The album is your basic rock-'n-roll band, clean four-chord power-pop instrumentation, bland yet catchy lyrics, and the occasional guitar solo. What makes it slightly above the bar I set so high is how well it all sounds. This album is produced incredibly well (though again, it's nothing new or groundbreaking, your basic rock band set up), by the band itself I presume (no producer was listed in the credits). I even found myself nodding my head to most of the tracks on this one. The guitar work is pretty good, and the vocals are great as well. All in all, it's slightly above average and, if it is religious, I couldn't tell. The standout track is also the title track, "Why?", which is your basic shout-rock anthem, but is pretty good nonetheless. If you do decide to give this one a home on your CD spindle or hard drive, (which I wouldn't specifically condone or warn against), you'll want to avoid the acoustic tracks (or as I call them, snore ballads). All in all, Why? was a humbling and interesting experience, but to be honest, I'll probably never listen to this again.

[Fervid Webpage]
[Buy How? from JVGM]

Favorites of 2011

2011-12-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

Despite many of us having differing tastes in our favorites, we came together with a top-20 summation of our separate lists from Alisa Rodriguez, Brandon Greter, myself, M@, and Tyler Chambers. Consider this list a guide to our all-encompassing highlights of the year, and enjoy!

20. Dope Body - Nupping (Hoss)
From the ruins of rap-metal, Dope Body have shown that there's no reason you can't improve on your source material. With an outstanding drummer, a guitarist the love-child of Tom Morello and Arto Lindsay, and a barking bro-tastic drill-sergeant lead singer who rarely keeps his shirt on, Dope Body are too weird for the frat, and too cool for the schooled. --M@

19. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica (Mexican Summer/Software)
Replica seems to be the first piece of Daniel Lopatin's work to polarize, though is also the first to distance his Oneohtrix Point Never project from just about any other synth-rekindling artist today with a beautiful, haunting, and bewildering crossbreed of kosmische and plunderphonics. --Carter Mullin

18. Givers - In Light (Glassnote)
It's not surprising that Givers' debut name-checks Talking Head's classic Remain In Light, considering its make-up: three vocalists, short-circuit guitar playing, and a skewed Afro-beat sensibility. Givers' infectiously upbeat album was has broad, full-band widescreen feel refreshingly different than the cloistered bedroom pop of recent years. --M@

17. John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Ribbon)
I've been a huge fan of John Maus' since 2009. It was understandable to see people ripping on him for making weird synth pop and singing songs about having sex on top of cars. Personally this is not my favorite release from him but I think he still does a fine job at making haunting and catchy synth driven tunes. It's still a little weird how everyone is in love with him now but it's about goddamn time. --Alisa Rodriguez

16. Skoal Kodiak - Kryptonym Bodliak (Load)
Who knew raw noise could be so danceable? Like Holy Fuck led by a schizophrenic karaoke robot, or Black Dice congealing into a fragrant new concrète, this band occupies a uniquely disorienting space between cold, harsh electronics and pulsating human junk. --M@

15. Death Grips - Exmilitary (Third Worlds)
The cunning Death Grips gang are to be credited for defying hip-hop stereotypes to boundary-pushing heights. With subject matter regarding obsessions with drugs and sex, references to Minutemen and Sonic Youth, and becoming your inner demons, Exmilitary conjures noise-rap reckless abandon backed by abusive and intricately designed beats. --Carter Mullin

14. Balkans - Balkans (Double Phantom)
I have a tendency to underrate "pop" music (with the notable exception of UMO, below), and it's hard to say exactly why; is it because nowadays albums seem singles-based, or because I lack the attention span to enjoy an entire album of "pop" music? For whatever reason, this classic twin-guitar/drums/bass lineup captivated me from the start, and reaffirmed my love of albums made up of well-crafted, singable, danceable, enjoyable music. --M@

13. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L (4AD)
At a time when pop music seemed boring and dull, this band came out head first with a creative punch in the face! Loved by 'indie kids', bloggers, soccer moms, and music haters everywhere. --Brandon Greter

12. Real Estate - Days (Domino)
Real Estate make it sound easy-- almost *too* easy, but that's sort of the point. It wouldn't work so well if the band wasn't so self-aware-- as singer Martin Courtney sings on "Green Aisles": "those endless drives down green aisles/our careless lifestyle/it was not so unwise." Beneath all the sunny jangle there's a real melancholy for a youth that's either fading away, or-- sadder still-- already gone. --M@

11. Apollo Brown - Clouds (Mello Music Group)
How Apollo Brown managed to make it all sound so simple, yet so god damn effective from start to finish I still don’t know. Holding a simplistic approach in hip-hop has for a long time meant a stripping of creditable, artistic merit. Apollo Brown comes out on Clouds with every gun loaded, drum-machine and sampler in hand, with 27 loop-based project beats, guided by whirling cosmic-lite synthesizers and sentimental orchestral samples, that simply don’t miss a beat. If a consistent lyrical flow is what makes a good MCee great, then the same is true for an instrumental hip-hop artist consistently delivering quality beats. --Tyler Chambers

10. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up (Sub Pop)
Hip-hop has blossomed and ventured into daring realms in 2011, and none more cerebral than Shabazz Palaces' particular journey. Referencing his days in Digable Planets and lamenting the decline in quality of the genre he's long championed, Ishmael Butler voices poignant commentary on our current musical state while Tendai Maraire transmits the message through an abstract, metaphysical, and cosmic lens of production. --Carter Mullin

9. Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair (Dead Oceans)
I heard this album described brilliantly as "the sound of Tears for Fears turning themselves inside out." A wonderful example of how a band can embody and combine their influences while at the same time being entirely and inimitably themselves. --M@

8. Grouper - A I A: Dream Loss/Alien Observer (Yellowelectric)
A I A feels like an odd step for Liz Harris. Contrasting the clarity that graced 2008's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, this double-LP submerses the scope of her pattern-developing songs through the obscuring murk of Wide or Way Their Crept. Grouper has struck a perfect medium through this coupling of old and new visages, though, as Harris' austere voice is blanketed by her fervent guitar melodies. Dream Loss wanders into malaise, whereas its successor, Alien Observer, is tangibly comforting. --Carter Mullin

7. Battles - Gloss Drop (Warp)
A lot of people seemed to be upset when Tyondai Braxton left Battles. After all, he was the lead vocalist but he was certainly not the focal point of the band. With Gloss Drop, Ian Williams, Dave Konopka, and John Stanier managed to make the most energetic and outstanding record of their music careers. Almost every other track features a guest vocalist who adds an extra twist on the vibrant instrumentals. One of the highlights is Blonde Redhead's singer Kazu Makino's vocals on "Sweetie & Shag", which could be considered as the first pop song Battles has undoubtedly perfected. "Sundome" is the mind-blowing finale that features vocalist Yamatanka Eye from Boredoms, howling gibberish onto a layer of cheesy 80s synths and a pulsating drum beat. I wouldn't call this album a sequel to Mirrored but more of a step up from their dark, post rock sound. It's Battles without chipmunks. --Alisa Rodriguez

6. Doomsday Student - A Jumper's Handbook (Anchor Brain)
Generally speaking, I would anticipate my noise rock album of the year to explode with detail, but Doomsday Student's execution remains straight and narrow throughout A Jumper's Handbook, with piercing guitar leads, pummeling drum assault, and vulgar ramblings; nothing I could expect more from the men once behind Arab on Radar. --Carter Mullin

5. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners)
There’s a scene in The Pianist where Władysław Szpilman, a Jewish pianist in hiding during World War II, is caught by a German officer. In the swollen tapestry of a run-down slum consists a piano, and soon after Szpilman is caught, he’s asked by the officer to play a piece on it. It’s an engrossing, utterly haunting piece, and every time I put on An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, I’m echoed of its memory. Szpilman’s condition is devastating and his ballad is somber, yet there’s a ghostly beauty to it all; a man on his last leg, with all circumstance against him, releasing such a delicate elegance through the keys of music. The Caretaker created an entire album of such quality, ultimately rivaling any ambient release I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. It’s entrancing, emotional, and timeless music that anyone with two ears and a pumping heart can get completely lost in. --Tyler Chambers

4. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
Four years after In Rainbows, one of the most reliable acts in rock music unveil The King of Limbs, an opus with not a single "Bodysnatcher" in sight and almost devoid of rock essentials. Radiohead pursue an unforeseen procedure of songwriting, basing Thom Yorke's sprawling croons over meticulously looped cadences. As another chapter in the discography should do, The King of Limbs continues to define the spirit of Radiohead while baffling devotees all the same. Considering the fluctuating accompaniment of "Bloom" and "Little By Little" the band feels so incredibly comfortable in this state that it seems effortless, spawning anxiety for forthcoming efforts despite the album's final words. --Carter Mullin

3. The Field - Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)
In many ways Looping State of Mind is the unintentional dance pop sequel to Gas' Pop. The way the album takes lush, fragmented loops of deep sonics and almost subconscious drones is astounding. Its subtle incorporation of nature samples, which often times is difficult to decipher whether or not it's coming from your own backyard, creates the ultimate effect of entranced disillusion. The Field's Looping State of Mind is similar, in that repetition is key, though replace the deeper low-ends and nature samples of Pop with thicker beats and subtle vocals samples. Looping State of Mind is the kind of dance album that's bound to be a rewarding listen, as subtle complexities and woven grooves are distinguished in given time. Ladies and gentlemen, this is real trance, not that it fits the particular genre, but the very essence, the very definition of the word. --Tyler Chambers

2. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Fat Possum)
Their debut manages to be irresistibly funky, weird, ramshackle and consistently fun with every listen. The name's a hint at the sound; like a golem cobbled together with old 45s, UMO is both warmly familiar and utterly strange. --M@

1. Grooms - Prom (Kanine)
Grooms debuted two years ago with Rejoicer, a vivid snapshot of seminal acts that peaked before the turn of the millennium, from Sonic Youth to Polvo. And though Prom is deeply rooted in nostalgia, the band exhibits its darker facets-- times of insecurity and angst. It's gnashing and visceral but equally colored by beauty and grace; frontman Travis Johnson puts it best before "Aisha"'s tense close: "These are my primitive feelings on sophisticated dealings." --Carter Mullin

Favorites of 2011: Tyler's Selections

2011-12-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

Honorable Mentions:

AraabMuzik - Electronic Dream (Duke)

Destroyer - Kaputt (Merge)
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)

Mastodon - The Hunter (Reprise)

The Midnight Eez - The Midnight Eez (All City)

SebastiAn - Total (Ed Banger)

The Stepkids - The Stepkids (Stones Throw)

Toro y Moi - Underneath the Pine (Carpark)

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Fat Possum)

Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning (Kscope)

25. Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin’ (Columbia)
Raphael Saadiq is on a mission (whether he knows it or not) to supply the mainstream with the most universal music he can, through the only way he knows how; soul baby, soul. His relativist act could be dismissed as novelty, but Stone Rollin’ is proof Raphael is indeed the real deal. He’s a man of pure, raw talent; armed with a set of golden pipes, and an acute ear for sounds that would sound just as relevant 50 years ago as they do today. He rarely misses a beat on Stone Rollin’, and it's oh-so refreshing to see the mainstream taking notice of his flawless singles. Raphael is like a rain-check to pop music, because when all’s said and done, no matter how far you progress, no matter how high up the ladder you get, you can never forget where you came from. And that baby, is universal.

24. John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Ribbon)
Soaring somewhere high above the clouds, John Maus gazes down upon the dampness the hidden land below. His songs are in many ways a deconstruction of pop music; an unfiltered, castaway collection of synth-pop crooners that sound neither here, nor there. Ideas of ‘80s-pop revivalism are irrelevant, for Maus’ songs don’t hit the same way the over-saturated indulgence of the day did. It’s sorrow music for the upbeat; catchy hooks and vintage instrumentation pull the listener into something deeper, something darker than what’s heard on the surface. Atmosphere is key here, as everything else fuels Maus’ eerie memory without an easy association.

23. Omar S - It Can Be Done, But Only I Can Do It (FXHE)
When I began compiling this year-end list, finals week was in full throttle. In the midst of the boiling pressure that was, during a lonesome night at an unholy hour, I began studying for my Algebra exam. It was going to be difficult test, despite any fluffy mental substitution that said otherwise. As time continued to tick, I began to set up; overwhelming Algebra text-book open, 12 clean sheets of college-rule notebook paper on side, and a finely sharpened pencil wielded. Amidst the sparkling workplace, something was missing… a soundtrack; noise, background, filler, something to keep this interesting, something to fill the void. Omar S and his misunderstood It Can Be Done, But Only I Can Do It immediately came to mind, after several respectable yet hesitant listens. I knew something was there, beneath the shaded lull of consistently challenging house. After a tireless night of dim-lit questions, equations, and solutions, Omar S cradled me into a mental state I hadn’t thought possible; a cinematic night of crunch-studying. It was motivation in numbers, guided by sunken textures, pulsating rhythms, and the utter audible aroma that oozes out of every pour of this album. Off the dance floor and into your mind; Omar is there waiting patiently around the corner.

22. Stendeck - Scintilla (Tympanik Audio)
How can an artist manage to spark such a wide array of noise? How can an artist manage to spin, twirl, flatten, and crease the spark into such varied templates of mood? How can an artist manage to control it all, as the seamless by-product of an ape-shit mad scientist with a heart of gold? Questions loom, Scintilla remains. It’s an album driven by its own impending doom, only to be swept gracefully by a starry cosmic force, with its feet stuck on the ground and mind high up in the air. In the process harsh magnets crash, light explodes into fragments, dusk-ridden beats flash a dizzy pattern, and as contraction is stretched, pulled, and released from its throbbing mount, one thought remains; there is beauty in chaos.

21. Andy Stott - We Stay Together (Modern Love)
If you’re ever attempting to come up with synonyms for the word “Dark”, skip the thesaurus, and look no further than We Stay Together. Glum, somber, arcane, deep, cryptic, abstruse, dismal, morbid, the list goes on. You’d have to be a burning pessimist, a raging sociopath, or a sore anti-socialist on a steady diet of low-grade soy milk to enjoy the sounds of such music, no? How about a suburban teenager at a crossroads, or a 30-something as life begins to regress. In other words, this is music that can be appreciated by anybody. All you need is a little adventure in your belly and an eye open enough to see conventions flipped upside down. And on this level, We Stay Together is a revelation.

20. Maybeshewill - I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone (Function)

Post-rock is a relatively fresh genre taking time into consideration, and like any genre, eventually pressure has been laid on the fundamental sound to strive for further over-zealous concept, creativity, and ambition. Call it natural evolution, but as we’ve seen in the past decade, less and less “groundbreaking” post-rock albums have been released, which ultimately begs the question; how far can you take a genre? The answer lies within albums like I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone. Nothing here is the particularly awe-inspiring, sprawling, and climatic monsters of the late ‘90s / early ‘00s, though Maybeshewill aren’t out to drill away at past glory. Here they ground themselves on shorter structure and tighter arrangements, and as a result the band wastes absolutely no time in composing superbly effective little nugget anthems. The instrumentation is flawless throughout; whimsical orchestral tones in constant heat with grinding piano lines and escalating percussion, balancing a fine line between erratic and calm sentiment. It’s why no other post-rock album this year was better, and it’s why the genre will continue to strive long into the future.

19. DJ Rashad - Just A Taste Vol. 1 (Ghettophiles)
While Clams Casino was spotlighting atmosphere, BADBADNOTGOOD were creatively fusing jazz and hip-hop, and AraabMuzik was dipping beats in gooey trance, DJ Rashad reimaged bass-drilling juke in what was easily the most overlooked instrumental hip-hop album of the year. While it’s a tougher pill to swallow than the aforementioned acclaim, Rashad was completely short changed this year after managing to seamlessly mix a unique formula of 70s soul samples, repetitive vocal blips, project-approved g-beats, and furious low-end proficiency. Just A Taste is the perfect merger of soulful ecstasy and gangsta prowess, Rashad tipping his cup of hypnotic plunderphonics somewhere distant to those willing to take the first sip.

18. Irrelevant - I’ll Be OK (Kokeshi)

Slowly swaying in the view past your soaking window wipers, a hooded figure looms in the dead of night. You’re in a make-shift downtown of rotting lofts and smoky sewer pipes, unable to tell if the figure you plant your fragmented scope on is there to help, or hurt you. I’ll Be OK recorded, looped, and played with emotions. Grave textures haunted long structured atmosphere, dissonant voices echoed in despair, rhythm was molded into a mood. Cold, bleak, haunting, beautiful, that was up to you, what wasn’t was the woven drones of unsettling melancholy drifting throughout the album that persuaded a simple gesture, how much can you take until your response to it all is just.

17. Zombi - Escape Velocity (Relapse)
Zombi are the epitome of a modern group embracing the vintage aesthetic to electronic music. In the land before time, there were pioneers such as Klaus Schulze, Ashra, and Tangerine Dream embracing their work around progressive rock’s electronic rational. Zombi compose the whirling electronic psychedelia of their ‘70s kraut-ancestry in a more controlled and simplistic linear pattern. Beyond just its primal sound, what really set Escape Velocity apart from other electronic releases this year was its unrivaled consistency and pacing, that any electronic musician, whether young, old, vintage, or future-forward, should take cues from.

16. Fucked Up - David Comes To Life (Matador)
About a month ago, you couldn’t have convinced me this album would have made it on the list, absolutely not. It was long and those damn vocals were too abrasive. But oh was the guitar work just lovely, and hey it was pretty catchy too. After a chance revisit to David Comes To Life, nearly every negative I had embedded in me was replaced with positives. It’s a catchy, powerful, sprawling, and utterly magnificent album that manages to sound so coarse and raw, yet maintains its ambitious conceptual sprawl of a man and woman vs. the world. Though concept or not, Fucked Up managed to put out one of 2011’s most powerful musical statements.

15. Causa Sui - Pewt’r Sessions 1 (El Paraiso)
Pewt’r Sessions 1 breathes the same way a live album does. It sounds raw and untamed, yet there is structure and hold to the chaotic sandstorm that is Causa Sui. It very well could have been improvised, as there’s no doubting how high this band’s musicianship is. In reality, nobody jammed quite as hard as Causa Sui did this year; their post-rock leaning build-ups consistently gave goosebumps, for once they reached that shimmering gold-plated monolithic solo 40,000 feet above consciousness, there was no turning back. If this session is a testament of anything, it’s of a band with no foreseeable limits, whether it was a blazingly psychedelic solo or a reflective moment in the wind, Causa Sui were the chosen ones for those 46 minutes.

14. Apollo Brown - Clouds (Mello Music Group)
How Apollo Brown managed to make it all sound so simple, yet so god damn effective from start to finish I still don’t know. Holding a simplistic approach in hip-hop has for a long time meant a stripping of creditable, artistic merit. Apollo Brown comes out on Clouds with every gun loaded, drum-machine and sampler in hand, with 27 loop-based project beats, guided by whirling cosmic-lite synthesizers and sentimental orchestral samples, that simply don’t miss a beat. If a consistent lyrical flow is what makes a good MCee great, then the same is true for an instrumental hip-hop artist consistently delivering quality beats.

13. The Field - Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)

In many ways Looping State of Mind is the unintentional dance pop sequel to Gas' Pop. The way the album takes lush, fragmented loops of deep sonics and almost subconscious drones is astounding. Its subtle incorporation of nature samples, which often times is difficult to decipher whether or not it's coming from your own backyard, creates the ultimate effect of entranced disillusion. The Field's Looping State of Mind is similar, in that repetition is key, though replace the deeper low-ends and nature samples of Pop with thicker beats and subtle vocals samples. Looping State of Mind is the kind of dance album that's bound to be a rewarding listen, as subtle complexities and woven grooves are distinguished in given time. Ladies and gentlemen, this is real trance, not that it fits the particular genre, but the very essence, the very definition of the word.

12. The Weeknd - Thursday (Self-Released)

Thursday should be heard by all current and aspiring pop artists, as a reminder of how to get the job done. The opening two tracks embody a perfect balance of borderline commercial appeal and Abel’s signature broken-strobe, gorgeous R&B haunt. The rest digs in deeper and darker territory; smoky corridors of club ridden aftermath, parties where people with persona’s like his have never ventured. To just about any other contemporary artist, a second album within the span of a year would be a cheap victory lap from the success of the first, but that’s not the way Abel works, and Thursday is evidence he’s an artist first, entertainer second.

11. ArtOfficial - Vitamins & Minerals (Self-Released)

ArtOfficial create hip-hop that effortlessly exudes a level of confidence that was simply unmatched this year. Featuring multiple MCee’s and a complete live jazz band, their music is packed to the brim with saucy smooth jazz, catchy live beats, and more soul than voodoo night in east New Orleans. Being such a huge year for hip-hop, it’s appalling to see ArtOfficial remain so overlooked. It’s painful, it really is, because Vitamins & Minerals is the best hip-hop album of 2011, and not enough realize how good these guys really are.

10. Elder - Dead Roots Stirring (Meteor City)

Elder describe themselves as "a sonic interpretation of the forces that surround us; the pounding waves of ancient seas, the weight of stone colossi rising up from the earth and the endlessness of inflamed, majestic skies." Dead Roots Stirring proves their poetic self-description is truth. Elder's balance of doom-heavy bombast, bulky metal, and long, structured monoliths of massive, slow-burning charcoaled incense makes for what I can only call the best doom album of the year "The waves of ancient seas" act as the foundation in which their songs are layered upon, "the weight of stone colossi rising up from the earth" as the copious, blackened adrenaline of their massive guitar riffs, and "the endlessness of inflamed, majestic skies" as the mythic, earth-toned atmosphere signaled from their self-created, smoke filled sky above. Elder continue to push the limits of rock music, taking melodic heaviness to a completely new level of musicianship.

9. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
Radiohead unfortunately have live up to an unholy amount of hype every time they release an album. This year we were treated with an album that seemingly came out of nowhere; enter The King of Limbs, arguably Radiohead's most challenging set of songs yet. Most of this frame lies within the first half of the album, where glitchy atmospheric rock and subtle dub electronics scatter the plot. For most, these are songs that won't click right away. However the second half is much mellower, trading the darker vibed textures for harmonic acoustics and vocal delays. I was first on the fence with The King of Limbs for a number of reasons; it's their shortest album by far, from a production stand-point easily is their most sunken, and it packs a lot of new modern influences with it. So it's not much of a surprise why this album is so polarized amongst fans. Although, The King of Limbs is Radiohead's most cohesive work to date; its hypnotic tone glides effortlessly from song to song. It took me 6 months to come to this conclusion, though most great albums have a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it. I always enjoyed it, but never to the extent I do now. And what's most striking of all is; after almost two decades, Radiohead are still a fresh and magnificant band who manage to record subtle, unique, and complex recordings to devote fans, and wide commercial audiences alike.

8. Submotion Orchestra - Finest Hour (Exceptional Blue)
Finest Hour is the sound of ethereal ships-in-a-bottle, once in the hands of humanity, now guided by the free flowing fate of nature’s whimsical embrace. Voice acts as a guide of the trumpet’s distant siren, and it’s a gracefully mellow journey to the very end. Cold resonating brass, sweeping orchestral tones, trembling, guttural low-end, and Ruby Wood’s lush vocal fragility escort the unrelenting beauty throughout. Taking all into consideration, it's a bold statement to call your debut album Finest Hour, though Submotion Orchestra demonstrate their point to a fine, glossy print with this piece of majestic finesse that may very well be their finest hour.

7. Rich Aucoin - We’re All Dying To Live (Sonic)
In the process of recording We’re All Dying To Live, Rich Aucoin compiled over 500 musicians, friends, and fans from across Canada. The album acts as a musical scrapbook of his trek to completion, sonically documenting where he’s been, who he’s met, and what’s happened to him along the way. Aucoin is an artist who on his debut album, sounds like he wants to start something new, something big, something universal. The evidence is all here; as it shouldn't take long to realize We're All Dying To Live isn't your typical indie rock album. His influences are clear; the climatic grandiose of fellow Canadians Arcade Fire and the infectious robotics of Daft Punk, though he translates them into a unique cohesion that bleeds throughout the album, as a splurge of genre-melting sonic’s mold into a completely thrilling and captivating hour of music.

6. Leyland Kirby - Eager To Tear Apart The Stars (History Always Favours The Winners)
Leyland Kirby's drowsy orchestrations of emotional unease and underlying drone eject a stark contrast between merciless beauty, and unforgiving hostility. Unrestrained delicacy, a soft haze of static electricity, gorgeous piano reflections, and frail murmurs of vaporized liquid succession harrow through the distressing climate that is Eager To Tear Apart The Stars. “We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of time. And there are but two means of escaping this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose." - Charles Baudelaire. There are those who will listen and hear pleasure background ambient music, and there are those who will listen closer, and hear mind-altering sonic perceptions of their own lives. Both are equally acceptable conclusions to come to after listening, it's simply a matter of finding out which side you're on. I found the latter, and as a result the album reached a level of emotional consciousness few have ever reached.

5. The Weeknd - House of Balloons (Self-Released)
There's something mysteriously appealing about Abel Tesfaye. His smooth, sensual, and haunting compositions of stripped down R&B, depicting bleak, black and white romanticism, reflects his shattered imagination on love and loss. Structure is thrown out, continually allowing itself enough time to properly express emotion, rather than fall victim to vacuum-packed reflections of tired ideas. His mix of dwelling phantasm with engaging, borderline commercial appeal is as heartfelt as it is fresh. As a result it’s not your typical R&B album, more a scatterbrain anticipation of where it's heading. Tesfaye is indeed the real deal, and with House of Balloons, he’s created the latest standard for R&B in the 21st century.

4. Swarms - Old Raves End (Lodubs)
“The only place I get hurt is out there. The world doesn’t give a shit about me.” Sorrow, regret, and pain; ideas that can be difficult to truly express through electronic music. The operator is human, with emotions and a pulse, the hardware is not; wired and cold, completely lifeless. A debate often sparks on whether or not emotions can be conveyed through synthesizers, drum-machines, and laptops. The answer lies within albums like Old Raves End. From start to finish, Swarms created a flawless emotional rollercoaster. The tone is often faint, as cloudy textures of atmospheric low-end, descending drones of fallen reflection, and ethereal rays of hope shine down on the foggy perspective below. Ultimately where Old Raves End succeeds most is taking the concept of cohesion to new levels; a shining example of how to translate a persistent, yet distinctive sound throughout an album on each and every single track.

3. Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty)
Julianna Barwick is proof there is beauty in within the simplest of things. She takes a shockingly stripped down approach to ambient music, and by incorporating sunken choral drones, subtle acoustic delays, and her gorgeous looped siren, The Magic Place struck a deep emotional chord within me. It’s an almost unexplainable feeling, the feeling of being atmospherically one with your surroundings. Whether it was on the computer or a simple walk around the neighborhood, every time I listened, The Magic Place spoke a solemn, unforgiving message of peace; an ease of mind. Feeling was a memory, pain was an illusion, and no matter where I was or how I felt, I was consumed in her mysterious place of majesty.

2. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners)
There’s a scene in The Pianist where Władysław Szpilman, a Jewish pianist in hiding during World War II, is caught by a German officer. In the swollen tapestry of a run-down slum consists a piano, and soon after Szpilman is caught, he’s asked by the officer to play a piece on it. It’s an engrossing, utterly haunting piece, and every time I put on An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, I’m echoed of its memory. Szpilman’s condition is devastating and his ballad is somber, yet there’s a ghostly beauty to it all; a man on his last leg, with all circumstance against him, releasing such a delicate elegance through the keys of music. The Caretaker created an entire album of such quality, ultimately rivaling any ambient release I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. It’s entrancing, emotional, and timeless music that anyone with two ears and a pumping heart can get completely lost in.

1. M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (Mute)
“I just turned 30 and I think it was the right time for me to go for it and try something like this … something I'd remember all my life." If there was one massive achievement this year in music, M83’s sprawling synth-pop epic was it. The album managed to bridge catchy pop-aesthetic in a seamless flow of unbridled ambition, making it a thunderous, unstoppable pop juggernaut. If the music here is a product M83’s urge to appeal to a wider audience, while continuing to grow increasingly more confident within his work, he succeeds in every way possible. But widening your sound doesn’t have to mean flaunting to the capital regression of artist merit, because whether it was a whirling synthesizer portrait, a mountainous percussive build-up, or a reflective pond of atmospheric adolescence, this was an album that journeyed into an ambitious scope of music’s many audible horizons. M83 dared to dream big, and in the process created a world of waning sorrow, irresistible pastoral finesse, and inspirational fireworks, exploding into an unrelenting sense of intimate nostalgia. It's my final catharsis for 2011, a place of peace only in dreams, yet despite it all this is a dream I refuse to wake up from.

Favorites of 2011: M@'s Selections

2011-12-29T05:59:00.000-08:00

Honorable Mentions:
Deaf Center - Owl Splinters (Type)
Marcus Fjellström - Schattenspieler (Miasmah)
Hella - Tripper (Sargent House)
KK Rampage - Crawlspace (Self-Released)
Kreng - Grimoire (Miasmah)
Liturgy - Aesthethica (Thrill Jockey)
Mr. Dream - Trash Hit (God Mode)
Satanized - Technical Virginity (Skin Graft)
Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread (Drag City)
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - The Tape Club (Polyvinyl)
St. Vincent - Strange Mercy (4AD)

25. Dope Body - Nupping (Hoss)
From the ruins of rap-metal, Dope Body have shown that there's no reason you can't improve on your source material. With an outstanding drummer, a guitarist the love-child of Tom Morello and Arto Lindsay, and a barking bro-tastic drill-sergeant lead singer who rarely keeps his shirt on, Dope Body are too weird for the frat, and too cool for the schooled.

24. Givers - In Light (Glassnote)
It's not surprising that Givers' debut name-checks Talking Head's classic Remain In Light, considering its make-up: three vocalists, short-circuit guitar playing, and a skewed Afro-beat sensibility. Givers' infectiously upbeat album was has broad, full-band widescreen feel refreshingly different than the cloistered bedroom pop of recent years.

23. bbigpigg - Phantom Photography (Self-Released)
Okay, it's just an EP, but bbigpigg (along with Doomsday Student, The Men, White Suns, Dope Body, Satanized, et. al.) are an affirmation that despite the pull of chillwave's sun-kissed nostalgia, there is a rising tide of noise more indicative of the world as it is, not as we'd wish it to be.

22. White Denim - D (Downtown)
While a lot of credibility is placed in a band's "consistency," there's definitely something to be said for the band talented enough to pull off the kitchen-sink approach so effortlessly. With a second guitarist, White Denim embraced all its proggy tendencies, while still showing they can write the hell out of a damn good pop tune as well.

21. Braids - Native Speaker (Kanine)
Sure, this album is pretty shamelessly Animal Collective, circa Feels, but Braids take AC's modern shamanism into tougher territory: contemporary suburbia, and like Avey & co., they're able to capture all the strangeness and wonder of what it is to be human.

20. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up (Sub Pop)
I'm not much of a hip-hop aficionado, but that further underscores Black Up's universal appeal: it's just that good. An *album* in its truest sense, the songs are amazing, the pacing is perfect, and it conjures a place unto itself.

19. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)
A lot has been made of this album's cover and the way it was recorded, but moreover, to me, it's about what Hecker does best: makes gorgeous sentient drones that sound bigger than any set of speakers can reproduce.

18. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L (4AD)
I was afraid that the lo-fi quirkiness of Merril Garbus' debut was part of its charm, but her follow-up showed that it had more to do with her amazingly elastic voice, great arrangements and smart songwriting. A political album without beating the listener over the head with it, Garbus questions gentrification, violence and sexuality without sacrificing a single song.

17. Battles - Gloss Drop (Warp)
Speaking of reinvention, what does a band do when they lose one of their most recognizable members? In Battle's case, they made the smart move of hiring great collaborators-- among them, Gary Newman?! I didn't expect such a cerebral band to make such a goofy album, but it's living proof that Battles too just wanna have fun.

16. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
It may sound crazy to say, but you've gotta feel a little bit sorry for Radiohead. After the complete genius one-two punch of OK Computer and Kid A, everybody expects them to both: A. completely reinvent themselves; and B. make another masterpiece. Isn't consistency a great thing for such a long-lived band to have? Maybe Radiohead have set the bar too high for themselves, but overall, they're too consistent for us to take for granted.

15. Real Estate - Days (Domino)
Real Estate make it sound easy-- almost *too* easy, but that's sort of the point. It wouldn't work so well if the band wasn't so self-aware-- as singer Martin Courtney sings on "Green Aisles": "those endless drives down green aisles/our careless lifestyle/it was not so unwise." Beneath all the sunny jangle there's a real melancholy for a youth that's either fading away, or-- sadder still-- already gone.

14. The Men - Leave Home (Sacred Bones)
The Men's singer was seriously ill at the time of this recording, and it shows (in the best way possible). Careening from the shoegauzy opener to the immolating storms of "L.A.D.O.C.H." and "Bataille", this is the sound of a band coming apart at its seams. But, like any good punk-rock catharsis, there's redemption to be had here-- both exhausting and exhilarating, this album shows off the eternal power of youthful bile.

13. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners)
Better than any other album, this one best exemplifies "hauntology." Using old pre-war 78s, Leyland Kirby accentuates the surface qualities of the old vinyl-- the pops and scratches-- and gives us only the ghosts of the songs themselves. The songs endlessly loop fragments of hazily recollected tunes, and create something that's cozy familiarity is slowly eroded by the tension of their own trapped dementia.

12. TV Ghost - Mass Dream (In the Red)
TV Ghost's lead singer, Tim Gick, doesn't so much sing as he does *channel*. While Gick and co. are creators of the music's haunted-house paroxysms, he sounds less like a willing participant and more like a terrified bystander. But as their name and album title suggest, they're here to tell us that sleepwalking through what's real may be the scariest thing of all.

11. The Psychic Paramount - II (Thrill Jockey)
Like Liturgy's amazing track "Generation" (also from this year), no other band rocked a single chord so fully, so inventively and so completely. With the "post-rock" tag being applied to seemingly everything without vocals, here's an entirely instrumental band that could finally lop off that overused prefix and both reclaim and remake "rock" into something new and yes, utterly rocking.

10. Balkans - Balkans (Double Phantom)
I have a tendency to underrate "pop" music (with the notable exception of UMO, below), and it's hard to say exactly why; is it because nowadays albums seem singles-based, or because I lack the attention span to enjoy an entire album of "pop" music? For whatever reason, this classic twin-guitar/drums/bass lineup captivated me from the start, and reaffirmed my love of albums made up of well-crafted, singable, danceable, enjoyable music.

9. United Waters - Your First Ever River (Arbitrary Signs)
An album so organic sounding, you can scarcely believe anyone had to actually record it. An ambient album with actual hooks, but ones buried under others, rendering the entire experience nearly subliminal.

8. Doomsday Student - A Jumper's Handbook (Anchor Brain)
What if your favorite band came back after a near 10-year hiatus, and instead of sucking, in fact rocked harder than ever before? If it's not completely unprecedented, someone please email me both chapter and verse, as I'm still not entirely sure this recording is real.

7. Colin Stetson - New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation)
In a day when looping technology has become commonplace, the fact that Colin Stetson built this album with a single saxophone and his breath is nothing short of heroic. And it *sounds* heroic; insectile clicks, deep, sonorous drones, shimmering ostinatos-- often all happening simultaneously while Stetson is *singing* through his instrument-- this is an entirely different breed of soul music.

6. Skoal Kodiak - Kryptonym Bodliak (Load)
Who knew raw noise could be so danceable? Like Holy Fuck led by a schizophrenic karaoke robot, or Black Dice congealing into a fragrant new concrète, this band occupies a uniquely disorienting space between cold, harsh electronics and pulsating human junk.

5. Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair (Dead Oceans)
I heard this album described brilliantly as "the sound of Tears for Fears turning themselves inside out." A wonderful example of how a band can embody and combine their influences while at the same time being entirely and inimitably themselves.

4. Grouper - A I A: Dream Loss / Alien Observer (Yellowelectric)
Not just one, but *two* amazing albums from Liz Harris; the first disc harkens back to her darker drone work, while the more redemptive second album capitalizes on the hushed hymnal grace of her more recent recordings.

3. Grooms - Prom (Kanine)
Their debut album was a favorite as well, but didn't prepare the listener for the depth and complexity of this follow up. A concept album with a subtly small 'c,' this group of songs perfectly captures the bittersweet confusion in bloom that is high school.

2. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Fat Possum)
Their debut manages to be irresistibly funky, weird, ramshackle and consistently fun with every listen. The name's a hint at the sound; like a golem cobbled together with old 45s, UMO is both warmly familiar and utterly strange.

1. Amen Dunes - Through Donkey Jaw (Sacred Bones)
From the opening chords of "Baba Yaga", this album casts a spell that lasts its entire duration; it's a place, and its own transportation device, as every great album should be.

Favorites of 2011: Carter's Selections

2011-12-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

Having posted at Olive Music for a mere two years, I don't consider myself all that experienced of a writer, and I'd venture to say that I'm still scouring for my "voice." If 2011 is proof of anything, it's that I've grown better at expressing my perception of certain sounds, even if it's far from where I'd like to be. The year has been home to plenty of outstanding and obscure music to where my last unfavorable review dates too far back to recall. There have been disappointments: Polvo's indicatively titled single "Heavy Detour" comes to mind, and lest we forget the bumpy ride from "Yonkers" to Goblin. What 2012 holds for modern music is a vast topic, but I'd rather indulge in what fascinated me this past year.

--

First off, much of the most engrossing releases of 2011 were distributed in unfortunately limited quantities on the cassette format. Since these tape-based selections are nearly unobtainable, they've been granted their own list:

Cassettes:
10. Toning - Pitch the Drone (Stunned)
9. Hubble - Hubble Linger (NNA Tapes)
8. Xiphiidae - Honeyguise (Rotifer)
7. Basked Unit - Talc Plates (Housecraft)
6. Sean McCann - Sean McCann (Ekhein)
5. Peat Raamur - Currants (Rotifer)
4. Endless Caverns - Sensei Deprivation (Existential Cloth)
3. Thoughts on Air - Lazy Haze (Cloud Valley)
2. Venn Rain - Place in World (Tranquility Tapes)
1. Pierrot Lunaire - Turn Back the Hands of Time (Hooker Vision)

EPs:
5. Fielded - White Death (Sophomore Lounge)
4. Andy Stott - We Stay Together (Modern Love)
3. Orchal and Vir - Orchal and Vir (Elestial Sound)
2. Benoît Honoré Pioulard - Plays Thelma (Desire Path)
1. bbigpigg - Phantom Photography (Self-Released)

Honorable Mentions:
Cloud Nothings - Cloud Nothings (Carpark)
Ducktails - III: Arcade Dynamics (Woodsist)
Joan of Arc - Oh Brother (Joyful Noise)
Korekyojinn - Tundra (Magaibutsu Limited/Skin Graft)
The Men - Leave Home (Sacred Bones)
Zac Nelson - The Same Hypnotic Point (Debacle)
Chris Rehm - Worries, etc. (Chinquapin)
Ricardo Donoso - Progress Chance (Digitalis)
Submotion Orchestra - Finest Hour (Exceptional Blue)
Wye Oak - Civilian (Merge)

25. Skoal Kodiak - Kryptonym Bodliak (Load)
Skoal Kodiak are fresh blood for Load Records' burgeoning thirst for frenetic and jarring rock evisceration, fed through a swarm of circuit-bent muddle and dance-informed tumult, and their introductory full-length Kryptonym Bodliak encapsulates the eccentric, playful, and terrifying all at once.

24. Real Estate - Days (Domino)
As evinced by Days' cover, the blue skies that adorned Real Estate's self-titled album have been eclipsed by gray, but the band manages to derive as much enthusiasm from the dreary and drab as they can. Reflective guitar lines, gentle rhythms, and saccharine vocals constitute the embellishments of their sophomore outing.

23. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
Four years after In Rainbows, one of the most reliable acts in rock music unveil The King of Limbs, an opus with not a single "Bodysnatcher" in sight and almost devoid of rock essentials. Radiohead pursue an unforeseen procedure of songwriting, basing Thom Yorke's sprawling croons over meticulously looped cadences. As another chapter in the discography should do, The King of Limbs continues to define the spirit of Radiohead while baffling devotees all the same. Considering the fluctuating accompaniment of "Bloom" and "Little By Little" the band feels so incredibly comfortable in this state that it seems effortless, spawning anxiety for forthcoming efforts despite the album's final words.

22. GDP - Useless Eaters (Run For Cover)
GDP is one of modern hip-hop's least sung heroes: his exigent inflection and dense, claustrophobic instrumentals are an instant earshot, but his lyricism holds just as much water. He addresses provocative social commentary ("My mind is a gun, body is the bullets / Bodily fluids are a communion to the village") and voices some divertingly quote-worthy humor ("She came on stage and then I came on stage"). Useless Eaters is a comprehensive view of GDP's character, creatively presenting a multitude of captivating emotions and sentiments.

21. Xela - Exorcism (Self-Released)
Putting the final nail in Xela's coffin, Exorcism undergoes absorbed layering of field recordings, synth, and effects whisked into John Twells' dingily opaque monolith. Heavily enveloping and stirring, these 47 minutes patiently amass and stun with thoughtful progression.

20. Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair (Dead Oceans)
Bursting with rain-soaked guitar delay and thudding drum pads comes Colorado duo Gauntlet Hair, who propose a billowing ilk of pop that dips its toes into fortes claimed by Animal Collective and Cocteau Twins. As irresistable as their tunes may be, the band's self-titled debut prompts a challenge to locate the music immersed within smoggy production. Rather than a deterrence, it allures, eliciting equal attention to Gauntlet Hair's adroit ear for melody and atmospherics.

19. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners)
I would consider Leyland Kirby's latest release as the Caretaker "uneasy listening." Aged vinyl surface noise crackles like an open fireplace and repetitive, constantly unresolved classical passages permeate Bliss, removing consciousness of place and embedding only its brief phrases in your memory.

18. Ford & Lopatin - Channel Pressure (Mexican Summer/Software)
Equipped with Juno-6's, 808's, and Casios, Tigercity's Joel Ford and Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin detail a fictitious Joey Rogers' descent into technological brainwash through the eyes of 80's pop anachronism. While tunes like the rigid "Emergency Room" stun on impact, the beatless instrumentals in the character of "Dead Jammer" amorphously unfold, allowing listeners to absorb Chanel Pressure's digital pastoral.

17. Givers - In Light (Glassnote)
It'd be easy to claim that Givers came out of nowhere if they didn't flirt with the craft of world-informed indie pop from the likes of Dirty Projectors and-- to a lesser extent-- Vampire Weekend. Otherwise, the band saturates In Light with astounding guitar work, glistening electronics, and staggering structures, Givers aren't wholly unique, but that their songwriting stands out among most is a statement to prevail undisputed.

16. The Field - Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)
Axel Willner's latest work as the Field plays as another comparable entry to a lengthy catalog of expansive techno excursions, though its title aptly describes his current approach. Here, subtle variation and reverberating cycles of audio samples stand as testament to to the narcotic immersion that Looping State of Mind embodies.

15. Balkans - Balkans (Double Phantom)
On their debut, Balkans produce a set of sharp, straightforward indie rock songs that don't define their own mien as much of it does reinstate the brilliance of early Strokes and Walkmen efforts. It may be blasphemy to suggest, but the 10 songs presented on Balkans rival that of the aforementioned acts, which prompts curiosity of its reception given another decade.

14. Grouper - A I A: Dream Loss / Alien Observer (Yellowelectric)
A I A feels like an odd step for Liz Harris. Contrasting the clarity that graced 2008's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, this double-LP submerses the scope of her pattern-developing songs through the obscuring murk of Wide or Way Their Crept. Grouper has struck a perfect medium through this coupling of old and new visages, though, as Harris' austere voice is blanketed by her fervent guitar melodies. Dream Loss wanders into malaise, whereas its successor, Alien Observer, is tangibly comforting.

13. Algernon Cadwallader - Parrot Flies (Big Scary Monsters)
My affection for Algernon Cadwallader's second full-length refers directly to my experiences with their previous; sparkling, hypermelodic guitars; half-shrieked-half-sung, nostalgia-centric lyricism; and punchy cadences comprise Parrot Flies as well as everything that I value in modern emo. Good music + good components = good album.

12. Death Grips - Exmilitary (Third Worlds)
The cunning Death Grips gang are to be credited for defying hip-hop stereotypes to boundary-pushing heights. With subject matter regarding obsessions with drugs and sex, references to Minutemen and Sonic Youth, and becoming your inner demons, Exmilitary conjures noise-rap reckless abandon backed by abusive and intricately designed beats.

11. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica (Mexican Summer/Software)
Replica seems to be the first piece of Daniel Lopatin's work to polarize, though is also the first to distance his Oneohtrix Point Never project from just about any other synth-rekindling artist today with a beautiful, haunting, and bewildering crossbreed of kosmische and plunderphonics.

10. Gay Beast - To Smithereens (Skin Graft)
Their previous exploits are remarkable stabs at no-wave revivalism, but Gay Beast really hit their stride on their third (and possibly final) To Smithereens, achieving stellar hook prowess and constantly shifting arrangements.

9. Apollo Brown - Clouds (Mello Music Group)
Leaving hip-hop to solely its instrumentals is an immeasurably challenging tightrope act for a producer, but it seems to be a total breeze for Apollo Brown. Clouds' 50 minutes and 27 tracks emit more sentiment than the accompaniment of an emcee could, rendering their interpretation universal yet consistently provocative.

8. Doomsday Student - A Jumper's Handbook (Anchor Brain)
Generally speaking, I would anticipate my noise rock album of the year to explode with detail, but Doomsday Student's execution remains straight and narrow throughout A Jumper's Handbook, with piercing guitar leads, pummeling drum assault, and vulgar ramblings; nothing I could expect more from the men once behind Arab on Radar.

7. Boris - New Album (Tearbridge/Daymare)
Rather than churning out -2BPM doom chords (as many would bargain on) Boris produce a sonically hyperactive foray into J-pop brimming with creativity and even rivaling their most acclaimed material.

6. Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil (Polyvinyl)
Deerhoof have refined their music tremendously since their noise-ridden beginnings. 2007's Friend Opportunity may still hold the title of their poppiest album yet, but Deerhoof vs. Evil ranks in the same league. As understood by plenty, though, Deerhoof are as eager to experiment as they are to organize: their whimsy for unmistakable pop is keener than ever, and the aid of elaborate production has opened the doors for innumerable structural shifts, which the band relentlessly takes advantage of.

5. Sean McCann - The Capital (Aguirre)
Sean McCann is, in my eyes, an ideal musician: To have put such forethought into so much output within a single year calls for great admiration. It may also intimidate new listeners, for the question of locating his finest work has yet to be answered. The Capital is my favorite of his and what I consider his most immediate yet; its first side is characterized by tonal outpour, as strings and electronics revel in sheer harmonic ecstasy; the closing two pieces are the remnants of the preceding fervor, gradually accumulating color. The Capital embraces a dichotomy of volume and restraint, and is an unbelievably moving listen from start to finish.

4. Bibio - Mind Bokeh (Warp)
Stephen Wilkinson puts his music at risk on his latest album under the Bibio moniker: Mind Bokeh, in its title, notes what is given the most attention-- the background. From there, it provides a vast array of sounds, in which few of these sounds share a link. That variety illuminates Wilkinson's appetite for experimentalism and the momentum within each transition.

3. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Fat Possum)
Unknown Mortal Orchestra amalgamate past and present styles into a blend only they can claim, which is really all one would hope from a modern outfit. From the fuzzy vintage fidelity to the creative refrains, UMO envision a distinct spin on pop.

2. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up (Sub Pop)
Hip-hop has blossomed and ventured into daring realms in 2011, and none more cerebral than Shabazz Palaces' particular journey. Referencing his days in Digable Planets and lamenting the decline in quality of the genre he's long championed, Ishmael Butler voices poignant commentary on our current musical state while Tendai Maraire transmits the message through an abstract, metaphysical, and cosmic lens of production.

1. Grooms - Prom (Kanine)
Grooms debuted two years ago with Rejoicer, a vivid snapshot of seminal acts that peaked before the turn of the millennium, from Sonic Youth to Polvo. And though Prom is deeply rooted in nostalgia, the band exhibits its darker facets-- times of insecurity and angst. It's gnashing and visceral but equally colored by beauty and grace; frontman Travis Johnson puts it best before "Aisha"'s tense close: "These are my primitive feelings on sophisticated dealings."

Favorites of 2011: Brandon's Selections

2011-12-27T06:00:00.001-08:00

Year-end lists have always bothered me. There is still so much music I have not heard from this year, I feel it would be impossible for me to judge fairly, or to be unbiased based on other people's opinions. I've read the others' lists, and it's impossible to make one without taking other reviews into comparison. I don't want to spout the same old same old indie band hyping as you've read on every other list, but I don't want to plug a bunch of limited noise tapes no one has ever heard. Not to mention, but my tastes are constantly evolving, and I've discovered love for lots of other bands and styles this year, things ranging from old school rap to classical jazz, and who's to say that hasn't influenced my love of new pop music? So take my list with a grain of salt. The reason I haven't written a four page essay on each thing listed here is simple: these are, in my opinion, the BEST ALBUMS OF 2011. They should speak for themselves.

--

Honorable Mentions:
Battles - Gloss Drop (Warp)
Bee Mask/Envenomist - Split (A Soundesign)
Bent Knee - Bent Knee (Self-Released)
Bile and Horseman - The Blood Porter (Self-Released)
Jandek - Where Do You Go From Here? (Corwood Industries)
Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)
Mike Shiflet - Sufferers (Type)
Sleep ∞ Over - Forever (Hippos in Tanks)
Toro y Moi - Underneath the Pine (Carpark)
Tyler, the Creator - Goblin (XL)

10. Tom Waits - Bad As Me (Anti-)
2011 Had been enough of a long damn wait, the world needed more Tom Waits, and he delivered everything as expected.

9. Opeth - Heritage (Roadrunner)
It had also been too long for a new Opeth album, and this may be their most honest effort since Damnation. Åkerfeldt's lack of growls made this equally good and disappointing.

8. Yellow Crystal Star - Our Mother Jaguar Tongue (Rainbow Bridge)
Not only one of the coolest and weirdest tapes I've heard all year, but one of the best performers I've seen this year. Long live drone!

7. tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l (4AD)
At a time when pop music seemed boring and dull, this band came out head first with a creative punch in the face! Loved by 'indie kids', bloggers, soccer moms, and music haters everywhere.

6. Blouse - Blouse (Captured Tracks)
Throw the Cocteau Twins in a blender with Peaking Lights, add a dash of dreamy-haze, and you will have the most critically (and dare say I, criminally) underrated band of the year.

5. RxRy - Alpha (Sweat Lodge Guru)
It's no secret that we love this band here at Olive, and for good reason. This band's full-length delivered as promised, and oh so much more.

4. Wolves In The Throne Room - Celestial Lineage (Southern Lord)
I've always joked that WIITR was 'Pitchfork-approved black metal', but damn, this band combines hatred, bleakness, and beauty in a way I've only dreamed of. In nightmares.

3. Bee Mask - Elegy For Beach Friday (Spectrum Spools)
Bee Mask has long been a favorite project of mine, and it's great to see his output this year gain so much attention. With this massive double LP, it's easy to get lost in reverb-heaven forever.

2. EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrainian Transmissions)
I had been waiting for this for a long time, being a HUGE fan of Gowns, and I'm glad that EMA has put out such a powerful record. This is certainly her most realized work to date, and I'm excited to see where she goes next with her new found 'indie-cred'.

1. Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact (4AD)
Waiting for the newest Gang Gang record has always been like waiting for Christmas, and this year, Christmas came in the summer. This record does not disappoint. Seriously. Fuck the haters. Go. Buy. This. Record.

Favorites of 2011: Alisa's Selections

2011-12-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

Honorable Mentions:
Allbrook/Avery - Big 'Art (Spinning Top)
The Babies - The Babies (Shrimper Records)
Blues Control & Laraaji - FRKWYS Vol. 8 (Rvng)
Cut/Copy - Zonoscope (Modular)
The Men - Leave Home (Sacred Bones)
Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will (Sub Pop)
Run DMT - Dreams (Culture Dealer)
Toro y Moi - Underneath the Pine (Carpark)
True Widow - As High As the Highest Heavens and From the Center to the Circumference of the Earth (Kemado)
Warm Brains - Old Volcanoes (Marshall Teller)

25. Sic Alps - Napa Asylum (Drag City)

24. Dope Body - Nupping (Hoss)

23. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (Sour Mash)

22. Panda Bear - Tomboy (Paw Tracks)

21. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica (Mexican Summer/Software)

20. Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair (Dead Oceans)

19. WU LYF - Go Tell Fire to the Mountain (Self-Released)

18. Bass Drum of Death - GB City (Fat Possum)

17. Smith Westerns - Dye It Blonde (Fat Possum)

16. Ducktails - III: Arcade Dynamics (Woodsist)

15. Death Grips - Exmilitary (Third Worlds)

14. Real Estate - Days (Domino)

13. Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread (Drag City)

12. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (XL)

11. Rangers - Pan Am Stories (Not Not Fun)

10. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Mirror Traffic (Matador)
Mirror Traffic is probably the finest album Malkmus has written since his Pavement days. I feel like he can write perfect pop songs without breaking a sweat. What a jerk.

9. Grooms - Prom (Kanine)
This is one of those albums where you gotta listen to it on a drive at night. Reminds me of the Smiths Meat is Murder era. Grooms is definitely one of my favorite bands I've discovered this year.

8. The Horrors - Skying (XL)
Once again, the Horrors made another masterpiece. Shifting away from their shoegaze vibes on Primary Colours, Skying is filled with psychedelic pop gems that your weird Pink Floyd obsessive uncle will approve of.

7. Big Troubles - Romantic Comedy (Slumberland)
I've been playing this album for a solid three months now. Every track reminds me of when I was 16, listening to britpop bands and pretending I was Noel Gallagher. I still don't get the hate for this album but everyone should give it a chance 'cause you're really missing out on something special.

6. John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Ribbon)
I've been a huge fan of John Maus' since 2009. It was understandable to see people ripping on him for making weird synth pop and singing songs about having sex on top of cars. Personally this is not my favorite release from him but I think he still does a fine job at making haunting and catchy synth driven tunes. It's still a little weird how everyone is in love with him now but it's about goddamn time.

5. Arctic Monkeys - Suck It and See (Domino)
Suck It and See is the fourth album by the Arctic Monkeys and it's their finest and maturest album to date. There's really nothing too much different from what they've done on their past releases but they've continue to make solid indie rock hits. I recall listening to this album about eight times on the day it was released. I think I choked up a bit around the third listen.

4. Iceage - New Brigade (What's Your Rupture?)
At first, I didn't understand the hype around this band. In fact, I don't understand a lot of hypes but whatever. New Brigade is an exciting post-punk record made by a group of eighteen/nineteen year-old's from Denmark. It's only twenty four minutes long but it's enough to keep your attention.

3. The Field - Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)
I was never the biggest fan of the Field until this album came out. The first track, "Is This Power", is the most infectious dance track I've heard all year. I'm shit at explaining electronic music but Looping State of Mind is a beautiful, atmospheric record that could be labeled as Axel Willner's masterpiece.

2. Atlas Sound - Parallax (4AD)
Parallax is Bradford Cox' most personal and greatest album to date. Definitely not as experimental as Logos but the songwriting has improved. They're simple but memorable. Songs like "Praying Man" where Cox sings, "Kick me while I'm down, why don't you? Stick me in the ground, I'll rise again" show more of his religious side. Parallax is a grower but it's well worth it in the end.

1. Battles - Gloss Drop (Warp)
A lot of people seemed to be upset when Tyondai Braxton left Battles. After all, he was the lead vocalist but he was certainly not the focal point of the band. With Gloss Drop, Ian Williams, Dave Konopka, and John Stanier managed to make the most energetic and outstanding record of their music careers. Almost every other track features a guest vocalist who adds an extra twist on the vibrant instrumentals. One of the highlights is Blonde Redhead's singer Kazu Makino's vocals on "Sweetie & Shag", which could be considered as the first pop song Battles has undoubtedly perfected. "Sundome" is the mind-blowing finale that features vocalist Yamatanka Eye from Boredoms, howling gibberish onto a layer of cheesy 80s synths and a pulsating drum beat. I wouldn't call this album a sequel to Mirrored but more of a step up from their dark, post rock sound. It's Battles without chipmunks.

Favorites of 2011: Covers

2011-12-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

Aesthetics constitute much of an album's initial appeal, and 2011 housed some prime examples-- some enigmatic, simple, and/or remarkable. The following 25 covers are a display of what we felt ticked all said boxes:

Action Bronson & Statik Selektah - Well-Done (DCide)

AIDS Wolf - Ma vie banale avant-garde (Lovepump United)

Asobi Seksu - Fluorescence (Polyvinyl)

Boris - New Album (Sargent House)

Cut/Copy - Zonoscope

The Drums - Portamento (Frenchkiss)

Kyle Bobby Dunn - Ways of Meaning (Desire Path)

Helm - Cryptography (Kye)

Hobo Cubes - Timeless/Mindless (Debacle)

Holiday Shores - New Masses For Squaw Peak (twosyllable)

Jesu - Ascension (Caldo Verde)

J. Mascis - Several Shades of Why (Jagjaguwar)

John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Upset the Rhythm)

Sean McCann - The Capital (Aguirre)

Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (Sub Pop)

Thee Oh Sees - Castlemania (In the Red)

Radio People - Hazel (Mexican Summer)

Serengeti - Family & Friends (Anticon)

Seziki Tetrasheaf/Quiet Evenings - Split (Hooker Vision)

Mark Sultan - Whatever/Whenever

Tomutonttu - Elävänä Planeetalla (New Images Ltd.)

Toro y Moi - Underneath the Pine (Carpark)

Total Abuse - Prison Sweat (Post Present Medium)

U.S. Girls - Island Song (Calico Corp)

Young Widows - In and Out of Youth and Lightness (Temporary Residence)

Bibio - Mind Bokeh (Warp, 2011)

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Consistency: a standard that most music critics have placed highly on their checklists, and a green light toward listeners' sticklerisms when on the topic of Stephen James Wilkinson's fifth full-length. Irked by the departure from Ambivalence Avenue's thematic romanticism and fusion of folk and electronic models, the Bibio fanbase has been given an opportunity to criticize Mind Bokeh for its many musical flavors. Being such an easy target to locate, this very fault-finding has been done all too routinely to maintain validity.

Wilkinson's latest effort is both a mixed bag and a grower, for each of its anomalous counterparts require time and reassessment to set their full effect in motion. Given eight months of frequent rotation, I've arrived at a position of nearly full comprehension of Mind Bokeh's intent, which doesn't deviate too far from that of past efforts. Amidst a wealth of these tracks, Bibio delivers flecks of his accustomed lyricism: Outdoorsy nature references, delicate sensory details, and amorous open-ended dialogue are abundant and wrapped within a penchant for nostalgia-tinged analog production.

The root of Mind Bokeh's variety can be traced in the labyrinthine musicality. Leaping from off-kilter IDM to electro-funk to ambient, you'd be hard-pressed to believe that Wilkinson didn't have diversity in mind when arranging this album. Following the ominous drum clutter of "Excuses", the mood brightens drastically with "Pretentious"'s seductive wah strum underscored by witty verbalizing, "You pretend that you pretend / You don't know that you know that you don't know that." Just about all on-lookers could concur that the masculine rock anthem "Take Off Your Shirt" arrives as a firm left-hook, and has been declared one of Bibio's greatest offenses, but its incessant cowbell and galloping verse melody charm these ears more than they do affront.

Mind Bokeh is subject to streamlining but within interdependent assemblies of tracks. Wilkinson acknowledges his partiality to vintage sounds on "Pretentious", "Light Seep", and the mall muzak-ready "K Is For Kelson", and the haze-ridden euphoria of "Wake Up!", Baths-esque "Artists' Valley", and meticulous guitar reiterations of "Saint Christopher" could all be attributed to current electronica and its inclination toward subtle compositional stratum. Rather than surveying every avenue of a singular approach to songwriting, Bibio sees fit to boldly attach his quirk to as many sorts as his irresistible melodies will allow. For that, it's best to consider Mind Bokeh on its own terms, because it's consciously withdrawn from the etiquette of what's adjudged to be properly constructed.

[Bibio Blog]
[Buy Mind Bokeh from Warp Records]

Total Fucking Blood - Real Demons (Candy Dinner, 2011)

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

Despite dwelling in the same league of extremity, Total Fucking Blood are not to be mistaken for Pennsylvania grindcore act Total Fucking Destruction. When comparing band names, though, Total Fucking Blood has a much more brute connotation to it, and their music is testament to the suggestion. The quartet's debut Blaze the Lord has the axiomatic ratio of 11 tracks and 16 minutes of sub-drop-D-tuned blitzkriegs holding about as much equal-handed terror and comedy as a series of nods to "You Suffer" could. It was indulgent but charming, and evinced massive potential that could be achieved with further honing.

Five years later, TFB finally seize that prospect with Real Demons. Time is milked from the very start, with a minute-long introduction of cymbal pitter-patter prefacing the sudden eruption on "Freedom Week", and bassist Pete Biasi manically leaps from inhuman screaming to an affronted bark. His bipolar inflection is unparalleled, but the greatest upswing is to be drawn from the outfit as instrumentalists. Propelled by two drummers, TFB bring forth multifaceted percussive torrents from track to track, and guitarist Adam Burt is spotlighted often on solo duties, such as "AIDS Nazi" and "Youth Attack", where sweltering feedback tantrums take center stage.

Musicianship is found in no better hands than in those of the title track, which, considering its concentrated cadence and the album cover's potential Neu! reference, could be a rare incarnation of kraut-metal grandeur. Endowed with aggressive, driving ambition, no-frills riffage, and a constant intricate beat, Real Demons is brought to a sweeping close. While the repetitive foundation billows, the groove is gradually deconstructed by dysfunctional guitar skronk and tape manipulation provided by Neil Weir.

Real Demons is a grand furtherance of Total Fucking Blood's abstractions. Where the din of their debut widened eyes and provoked some giggles, the followup begins to carve out a niche for the band and propose uncharted experimentalism to the metal genre altogether. It's been confirmed that Real Demons will find a home on wax, but until then, free digital distribution, TFB's new-found ingenuity, and a rather pummeling cover of Minutemen's "Paranoid Chant" are more than enough to warrant an inquiry from patrons of extreme music.

[Total Fucking Blood Myspace]
[Download Real Demons from Candy Dinner]

Xela - Exorcism (Self-Released, 2011)

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

Exorcism is the final offering from Xela, the nom de plume of Type Records co-founder Jonathan Twells, who describes this farewell as a therapeutic release, recorded in his childhood home in efforts to illustrate the "dank griminess" of Walsall, UK, an area he dubs the "Black Country". As the result of a Pro-One synthesizer, FX, and a laptop, Twells closes the doors on the project with the impeccable Exorcism priced at absolutely nothing, though just as deserving of a large physical release as any of Xela's vinyl outings.

The first of the album's three movements, "Charm" opens faintly with gong-like intonations and chimes. Field recordings, captured in the Park Lime Pits of Walsall, are scattered across separate channels, crackling, squirming, scraping. The undercurrent becomes denser, and the overcast blackens. Cycling mid-range pitches enter the foreground and regress into opacity. The aforementioned chimes begin to encircle all elements, and what were once purely reverberating have gathered enough murk to account for in volume.

A somber chorus arises, giving way to "Recitation", gracefully ascending and sinking. These resonant moans mystify and persist a challenge to define their spirit, whether they be angelic or dismal is a ceaseless question. Oscillations of synthesizer manifest timbres in character with their clouded environment. Voices disperse, leaving behind a hollow, vertiginous whirr, as if all disorient has ceased and unearthed a cheerless sight beneath the fog canopy.

Abandoned with nearly nothing to emit, "Potion" carries the bare conclusion of its predecessor onward. To the left, a descending melodic pulse emerges to bestow shape upon the nebulous firmament as it loops itself to the right. Harnessing repetition, Twells keeps these at the crown while introducing sharp oscillations below. A recording of trickling water escalates to predominance as the instrumentation deteriorates; the sound of the album literally becoming drained out of existence. Twells pensively layers Exorcism piece-by-piece, far from simple, engulfing its listeners in an impenetrable miasma.

[Xela Website]

[Stream/Download Exorcism from Xela]

Armstrong - Armstrong (Grotto Mimosa, 2011)

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Jeremy Ross Armstrong is typically known as an artist most often working in the field of tattoo design. Bearing in mind his sharp outlining and meticulous shading, to assume that his musical endeavors sound just as vivid would be inaccurate. His surname-titled debut is a personal affair, one of recordings (culled from 2001-2007) that haven't withstood the tests of time, masked in deterioration. This is far from an inimical trait, for the album proudly sports its messy visage. This isn't Armstrong merely pinning himself to the lo-fi model, either; these are memories, worn into mutant hallucinations.

The 13-minute opening dirge "Release" functions like its title: an exhausted liberation, sauntering through a sloppy chord and indecisive drums-- both of the components mauled by cassette weathering. Reversed carousel keys on "Clypei" deform their childlike air as the structure is led astray amongst interjections of noise. The track calls forth an untold story of blurry nostalgia; a loss of pleasant reflection, told in Armstrong's dialect of disjointed sonic piquancy.

Proceeding excursions abstain themselves from this melancholic elicitation. Centerpiece "Shaded Seven" is a lengthy albeit captivating exercise in audio tampering. Reels spun beyond seemly speeds, abrasive guitar garble, and mercurial swells all inhabit it. Pounding rhythms are essentially chopped and screwed on "Flourish", which almost acts as the opener's reprise. A slippery loop gains throbbing momentum in advance of disintegrating, ending Armstrong in a saccharine puddle of acoustic guitar. On the whole, Armstrong purports endearing and inquisitive audio manipulation with glimpses of unique profundity, which prompts curiosity of what future undertakings will entail.

[Jeremy Ross Armstrong Blog]
[Buy Armstrong from Grotto Mimosa]

Sean McCann - The Capital (Aguirre, 2011)

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

Like 2010's respectable smattering of exploits, Sean McCann has had himself another sensationally productive year. Alongside well-deserved reissues, a CD-R on his own Recital label, and cassettes galore, McCann unleashed two proper albums this year, his latest being Sincere World. In retrospect, these past few months have been home to his finest material yet, and none have clung to my memory more tightly than The Capital has-- a questionable declaration to make considering the rivaling quality of each subsequent production.

The prevalence of musical anachronism is majorly conveyed in the case of yesteryear's styles presented by modern-day artists; Sean McCann employs orchestral and reinforced electronics into a single realm, a majestic amalgamation of antique and current humanity. Comparably Ravedeath, The Capital blossoms lustily with euphonic catharsis to a nearly violent breadth. Elegance remains salient, though, even at the album's most sonorous.

Wistful strings rest suspended in air on "The Vanilla Maiden" imbued with glints of synthesizer and scrambled clamor. The anomalous "Unfolding Angels" is beset with unsettling croaks underpinned by stifled murmurs. Not only serving as a nearly aharmonic prelude to the fervid "Star Charge", the piece is fascinatingly elusive in solitary view, neither taking shape of a fantasy nor nightmare. Something so intangible may seem ill-suited alongside the reflective melodies constituting most of the album, yet it performs as an ideally nebulous intermission.

Just as pensively thought out as his compositional approach is McCann's sense of sequencing. Following the dramatic apex of "Star Charge" are slowly plucked strings and stumbling vibrations, like the debris left after a joyous gala, sweeping across an emptied locale. Anxiety evanesces before a warm hush. And if The Capital's ambition didn't seem staggering enough, it's accompanied by the Sky Is Filled With Incredible Wishes cassette which lies on the precipices of a companion piece and a collection of bonus opuses. Regardless of its peripheral's significance, The Capital stands as a breathtaking effort that stands out not only amongst others in the McCann archive but within the boundless world of outer sound.

[Sean McCann Discogs]
[Buy The Capital from Aguirre Records]

Gay Beast - To Smithereens (Skin Graft, 2011)

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

An indefinite hiatus and latent breakup currently confront Minneapolis trio Gay Beast. Keyboardist, saxophonist, and vocalist Daniel Luedtke left to pursue his art career (testament to this can be found on the album cover) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; guitarist Isaac Rotto and drummer Angela Gerend are now functioning as a duo under the name of Hasps while awaiting Luedtke's possible return. If Gay Beast do eventually dissipate, their third full-length, the could-be pertinently titled To Smithereens, will have been a more than satisfying cessation.

In the same vein as 2009's Second Wave, the band exercises a complex, angular brand of no-wave revivalism that fans of the now-defunct Silver Daggers, Night Wounds, and Ex-Models would yearn for in this day. Gay Beast run counter to these acts due to their hint of palpability imparted by Luedtke, who sweetens intricate drumming and dissonant guitarwork with his infectiously contorting holler and quirky keyboard. In the case of To Smithereens, tunefulness has become a greater proclivity while maintaining just as much freak-flag flying as preceding albums.

"Poverty Witch" scurries about a spiraling guitar line and intervals of stomping electronic hysteria to brace for its elastic and creatively articulated chorus, "Overpriced, she's overpriced / Location is nice but she'll tear out both your eyes." Being the remarkably syncopated trio they are, Gay Beast venture into concise instrumentals, like the explosive gallop of "#" and saxophone-driven "Poly ASX". Notwithstanding their variety, the band's fervent poise overhangs every track.

The second side of To Smithereens is rife with more of the band's pop genius, incited by "Smithereens"' droning lullaby where its uneasy lyricism brings the album title full-circle, "When I'm in his grasp, feels like a metal trap / He could crush me to smithereens." On the following "We Keep Our Victims Ready" palm-muted apprehension skulks along spare keyboard phrasing, later erupting into a strident, alarm-like guitar march. To Smithereens' centerpiece is found situated at the close-- and for good reason-- Gerend applies an irresistible drum roll to the 6-minute "Goodbye World", and a polarity of sawtooth jabs and rich saxophone harmonies comprises its final moments, affirming that this potentially final chapter represents Gay Beast's most compelling work.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://gaybeast.bandcamp.com/track/poverty-witch"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Poverty Witch by Gay Beast&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>
[Gay Beast Bandcamp]
[Buy To Smithereens from Skin Graft Records]

Archers By The Sea - Aloha! (Solid Melts, 2011)

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

French experimentalist Vincent Caylet has wedged himself into nearly every corner of the cassette underground. From his beginning monikers Archers By The Sea, The Pistil Cosmos, and "V" tactfully exploring mind-expansive drone and ambient work to the electro exploits of Cankun, Caylet has dipped his toes into palettes both psychedelic and dance-worthy. Amidst a wave of Cankun cassette and CD-R releases, Archers By The Sea has crossed paths with the project on its latest tape Aloha!, an aural exploration spanning a continual 23 minutes.

Evidenced by an effervescent key cluster of an introduction, the piece ventures toward immersion at exceptional momentum. Smudged guitars glimmer overhead as their arpeggios uncurl into a mist of chords. A faint rhythm lurks its way underneath the radiant elation, providing definition for an otherwise frenzied loop. Hushed and haunting, Caylet bedims his voice in delay. His wordless hum sinks into the background just before a sole keyboard enters the foreground for a sparse, ghostly 2-minute detour. In a brightened resurgence, bouncy synth and springy transmissions circulate sparkling pulsations.

Aloha! best exhibits Caylet as a performer rather than a composer as last year's more refined They Were Floating Over the Mountain, They Were Kings professed, which, in its brevity, could deftly reel in a new listener base. More or less it encapsulates the essence of a live performance, where loops are bound to evolve and crescendos are destined to be met. With gradual layering and bewildering psychedelia, Archers By the Sea brings forth one of its most expeditious recordings to date (alongside its beko_dsl contribution), and a gripping precursor to the project's forthcoming swan song.

[Archers By The Sea Blog]
[Stream/Buy Aloha! from Solid Melts]

Andy Stott - We Stay Together (Modern Love, 2011)

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

Andy Stott seems to revel in the art of mystique. The UK producer leaves his album artwork enigmatic and their titles ambiguous; a stark presentation to entail what bleak milieu lies ahead. Many use symbols, logos, and typefaces to characterize their mystique, but Stott's distinctly bare choice of imagery is what remains inseparable from the music's desolate air. Appropriately yet imprecisely his material is commonly associated with dub techno, a variety in which Stott utilizes many of its principal elements, but the term "techno" and its inextricable attachment to electronic music are rather distant from the primal nature of Passed Me By and We Stay Together, Stott's two 2011 efforts.

With his 2006 debut Merciless, Stott attained an instrumental foundation of synthesizer refrains overlying plush, subtle rhythms. Passed Me By is a self-evident transformation-- a progression by way of regression. Its greater impression is warranted by austerity, with its focal point ascribed to the percussion. At the hand of Merciless' melodic penchant deteriorating came a loss of humanity as its followup had grown ugly and obscured by a pall of dust, distinguishing Stott from a great stretch of other producers. Months later, a companion piece has been uncovered to coexist in this freshly viscous atmosphere.

From where its predecessor emerged as an astonishing proposal, We Stay Together thickens, innovates, and excels. The near-formless opener "Submission" is smitten with degradation, awash in a static tide, and its successor "Posers" accumulates pace through a mutant, sinister stomp. "We Stay Together (Part One)" alternates between a four-to-the-floor pulse and a warped snare roll, amassing stratum with each earth-shattering measure. At the tail-end, "Cracked" possesses the closest semblance of a tune with a quivering smudge of voices. We Stay Together is a challenge to the ilk which it bestrides, too measured to fully encapsulate the avant-garde and too unearthly to find a home on the dancefloor; visceral and cerebral all told.

[Andy Stott Discogs]
[Stream/Buy We Stay Together from Modern Love]

Pete Swanson - Man With Potential (Type, 2011)

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

The expansion of electronic music is a subject too pervasive to bother detailing. Its consequences are much more unpredictable, though, namely its diffusion into the noise underground. Much of those who once upheld psychedelic, harsh noise, and PE scenes alike have pawned their contact mics for sequencers: Ricardo Donoso neglected the frenetic textures of his duo Perispirit in pursuit of Scandinavian trance and Goa sounds on Progress Chance; God Willing's Ren Schofield eradicated his amorphous composing tactics in aspiring to produce the techno-oriented Container; and Amanda Brown, co-owner of Not Not Fun, commenced Silk, a sublabel devoted to the school of vintage disco.

None of these transitions have transpired more smoothly than that of Pete Swanson, ex-member of ambient-noise-hybrid conjurers Yellow Swans. After parting ways with Gabe Saloman, Swanson self-released a series of brief cassettes, containing distortion-fed drone work in a vein very similar to the band that was later pressed onto his Where I Was album mid-2010. His typically tape-level fidelity was enhanced earlier this year on the funnily titled I Don't Rock At All. Now we're here: Swanson's debut for the UK-based Type label, Man With Potential, a beat-propelled jaunt of synth and guitar.

Pete Swanson doesn't present what many would attribute to the principles of these components; the disciplines of structure and chaos overlap, encrusted in dial-tone grit and begrimed rhythmic timbres. His greatest application of synthesis is professed on opener "Misery Beat", where fevered digital gurgles make a carom against a cutthroat pulse. Remnants of Swanson's guitar drone linger over "Far Out", and his sharp feedback loops overhang an enfolded thud throughout the title track. Nonetheless, these forays prompt listening involvement congruent with his prior noise endeavors.

While favoring both noise and dance models so diligently, Man With Potential doesn't transmit the impression of a 180 for Swanson. To reference some of his earliest work with Yellow Swans isn't much of a stretch, either, considering the industrial backdrops located on Bring the Neon War Home and Psychic Secession. Its impact still prevails, possibly exceeding that of those albums, as the marriage of sweltering electronics and foreboding guitar echoes stands a more ingenious strategy, because it refuses to side with any modes already installed as defined genres. It resembles, it occupies faint likenesses, but on no account does it emulate.

[Pete Swanson Discogs]
[Stream/Buy Man With Potential from Type Records]

Doomsday Student - A Jumper's Handbook (Anchor Brain, 2011)

2011-11-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

Part of Doomsday Student's newfound notoriety is indebted to ex-Arab on Radar member Mr. Clinical Depression, who voiced that this relighting of the band had excluded him from the lineup and stolen his writing contributions, deeming them a "fraudulent band playing in the likeness of AOR." It's amusing to find an accomplished musician claiming a band with such pioneering members to be guilty of swindling, aware that outfits such as AIDS Wolf, bbigpigg, and Gila Monster are abound.

As reprehensible as an act like this is, I wouldn't condone it if the crime's product weren't so outstanding. Doomsday Student made their presence known by releasing the opener to their debut, A Jumper's Handbook: an instance of aligned stars for followers awaiting anything that would at least have the caliber of a postscript to Yahweh or the Highway. Composed of a primal cymbal-snare whirlwind, ferociously sour guitar dueling, and Eric Paul voicing his obscene assessment of creation, "Ape In Love" possessed all of Arab on Radar's well established features and rectified their very marginal flaws.

Clocking in at 20 minutes, the succeeding tracks are further testament to the renovations made of the AOR format. With newcomer Paul Vieira and Steve Mattos (also of Athletic Automaton) maneuvering guitars, they favor a considerable deal of low end, and at their highest frequencies (ex: "Dime Store Horsey") strike tortured shrieks. Eric Paul's dirty-minded lyricism no longer exists in the foreground, now acting as a narrative buried deeply enough to be phonic noise to accent the instrumental fury. When audible, Paul's hyper-sexual ramblings are just as comprehensible as they were when shrouded by the band.

A Jumper's Handbook is a return to simplicity, for the betterment of conjuring a potent, noisy, sweat-drenched atmosphere, however, it doesn't address itself to extremity. Possibly adopted from Eric Paul and drummer Craig Kureck's time spent in the Chinese Stars is a prominent rhythmic foundation in which the guitars are rooted, best represented by the start-stop disco of "Her Hairy Graveyard". With age, the members of Doomsday Student have documented themselves to be adroit at their craft, welding together the finest traits of their past ventures into a coherent whole. While we're on the subject of craft, Handbook is arranged with an album's intent, as it closes out with a swelling apocalyptic repetition led by a wretched mantra, "he don't wanna stop."

[Doomsday Student Website]
[Buy A Jumper's Handbook from Anchor Brain]

Rich Aucoin - We're All Dying To Live (Sonic, 2011)

2011-11-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

Rich Aucoin has been recording We’re All Dying To Live for nearly three years, compiling over 500 musicians, friends, and fans from across Canada. The album acts as a musical scrapbook of his trek to completion, sonically documenting where he’s been, who he’s met, and what’s happened to him along the way. It combines two of his previous EPs and other material, but it certainly isn’t a compilation album. That fact is even easier to take in as the cohesive nature of the album is understood, for Aucoin has been building up to this moment for a long time. Fresh out on his debut album, Rich Aucoin wants to start something big. Whether that something is a full-blown revolution or just a really ass-kicking party, Aucoin spills his ambition all over these tracks. The result is a raging liquid cohesion, as a splurge of genre-melting sonics mold into a thrilling and captivating hour of music.

Aucoin wears his influences shamelessly, the most notable being the kaleidoscopic jams of The Flaming Lips, the infectious robotics of Daft Punk, and the climatic grandiosity of fellow Canadians Arcade Fire, though he translates that palette into his own ringing statement. The interlude “Even If All Your Friends Abandon You SMiLE” is a clear nod to The Beach Boys, both grammatically and sonically, as lite-tropical rhythms ride Aucoin’s surfing harmonies, before sailing into “Brian Wilson is A.L.i.V.E”. The harmonies of the interlude are greeted by a group of rocking UFOs, as the track turns into an elevated electro-banger. It’s a marvelous pop song, and one can only wonder when it will break into the mainstream.

It’s important to note how interludes and segues are used throughout the album, as some may mistake them for filler. This isn’t an album that’s meant to be heard through individual tracks, it’s meant to be heard as an album. The shorter tracks only add to the sprawling nature of the album, building and building into its varying statements. For example “The Little Creatures Know” is the opener of “It”, a vastly orchestrated track with a towering chorus. “The Greatest Secret In the World” takes that sound and subtly bows it out, before being engulfed by the Chemical Brothers-esque beats of “Watching Ice Station Zebra for the 151st Time”. Rather than a set of songs, We’re All Dying To Live is a full experience from beginning to end.

While the album shoots in all kinds of directions sonically, there are two constant themes here amongst the rubble: life and death. In a recent interview Aucoin stated, “It doesn’t have to be a sad feeling. Thinking about death is also thinking about how great life is.” We’re All Dying To Live is proof of his claim, and while the music deals with grave and somber subjects, the music is always gratifying, optimistic, and affirming. It’s a bold statement not only in a musical sense, but in a conceptual sense, and when the two merge it evokes a feeling only the best can attain-- goosebumps.

[Rich Aucoin Website]
[Buy We're All Dying To Live from Sonic Entertainment]

Benoît Honoré Pioulard - Plays Thelma (Desire Path, 2011)

2011-11-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

Thomas Meluch, whose name is often veiled by the alias Benoît Pioulard, displays great diversity throughout his body of work. Indication of this doesn't need to be derived from great analysis of his catalog, either: last year's Lasted built densely upon the makeshift folk template with analog-treated atmospherics and intricately concrete lyricism. Those traits, paired with Meluch's naturally gorgeous vocal layering, professed extraordinary imagination that hoisted him to a summit not reached by contemporaries.

By contrast, Benoît Honoré Pioulard's latest self-proclaimed mini-LP Plays Thelma opts for simpler ornamentation. This 23-minute offering attains many facets from Lasted's interludes, where singing, percussion, and the multi-instrumental foundation are taken aback to give prominence to the rustic landscape illustrated by Meluch's effected guitar loops. Sensibly published by the recently founded Desire Path imprint, the EP falls into a league similar to the outer sounds presented by other artists on the label's roster, though holds compositional lineaments specific to itself.

While preserving its consistent submission of guitar-based orchestrations, Plays Thelma remains a varietal effort. "A Land Which Has No End" consists of sedate, gradual bows overlapping themselves seamlessly into a droning conglomerate serenity. Diverging from the calm is the following "Hushes Gasp", a stressed and stumbling vignette. What may be the strongest movement is the pulsating, respiratory cadence of "Calder". No matter the drift, Meluch creates a sense of solidarity with graceful transitions from one sublime excursion to another. Plays Thelma proves that the Benoît Pioulard undertaking is characterized by stellar versatility and loses none of its luster post-shapeshift.

[Benoît Honoré Pioulard Website]
[Buy Plays Thelma from Desire Path Recordings]

Submotion Orchestra - Finest Hour (Exceptional Blue, 2011)

2011-11-16T06:00:00.001-08:00

Back in the early-to-mid ‘90s, there was a sound developing through the cultural underground of the emerging hip-hop and veteran jazz scene that sought to combine the two. It was a sulky and atmospheric collaboration of genres, peppering in elements of soul and funk, slowing the pace, and increasing the tension. Massive Attack, Portishead, and eventually DJ Shadow would go on to put the genre of trip-hop on the map, updating the sounds of jazz, soul, funk, and hip-hop for a new generation. Since then the genre’s creative roots have branched into numerous sub-genres, and as a result its fundamental sound has been progressed upon to near un-recognition. Though this is bound to happen with any successful genre, a new force seeks to balance the best of the old and new, updating the rich sounds of trip-hop’s past from their vantage point high in the sky.

Hailing from the United Kingdom, Submotion Orchestra are here to prove the sound is far from a lonely regression of the past. They’re a fresh ensemble of seven musicians, each holding a rich jazz-tuned style of play, along with knowledge of slick electronics and dub-laced beats. The album opens with “Angel Eyes”, which starts as a serene affair guided by vocalist Ruby Wood’s effortless soulful vanity, before the mix is met by smooth low-end rhythms and a subtle backing orchestra. This is followed by the purely instrumental “Back Chat”, a mysterious number ushered by distant piano hallows, expansive electronics, and a blistering trumpet that sounds like it's echoing through an Italian mobster scene. Moments like the piano line on “Hymn For Him” call back to the Massive Attack’s Protection, and work as an excellent interpretation of snow-filled nights colored by the faded hues of street lights above.

The instrumentation throughout the album is somewhat reminiscent of the cool jazz of the 1950’s, the cold atmosphere of resonating brass coming to mind throughout. Strings are also used to considerable effect, accenting the lush structures to an emotional depth, beneath the fluid audacity. The beats and rhythms are low and forceful, bordering dubstep, yet subtle and respectful of the treble surrounding them. The core of Submotion Orchestra’s sound is Ruby Wood’s vocals, her voice drifting somewhere between Sia Furler’s playful croon and Beth Gibbons’ cold ambient prowess, though she cradles a lush fragility, escorting the unrelenting beauty throughout.

When that quality is harmonized on tracks like “All Yours” and “Suffer Not”, her voice oozes an organic smoothness that transcends their pioneering contemporaries. It’s the sound of ethereal ships-in-a-bottle, once in the hands of humanity, now guided by the free flowing fate of nature’s whimsical embrace. Voice acts as a guide of the trumpet’s distant siren, and it’s a mellow journey to the very end. Taking it all into consideration, it's a bold statement to call your debut album Finest Hour, though Submotion Orchestra demonstrate their point to a fine, glossy print with this piece of majestic finesse, and it shall be interesting to hear how they follow what very well could be their finest hour.

[Submotion Orchestra Website]
[Stream/Buy Finest Hour from Exceptional Blue]

Skoal Kodiak - Kryptonym Bodliak (Load, 2011)

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Considering technological evolution, musicians have found mastery in recording and producing more tangible than ever. This is evident when glancing at the abundance of electronic music present today, and one could assume much of it to have been made on a laptop within a day or so. The electronic variety has also sprouted a cornucopia of subgenres both applicable and ill-defined, but each of which carrying artists who have found their own niche audience to cater for. Achieving stature has never been simpler.

Enter Minnesota trio Skoal Kodiak, the antithesis embodying the struggle to grasp definition. Like Mindflayer and Neon Hunk before them, Skoal Kodiak are electronic music for the Load Records listenership-- a spirit lost somewhere between dysfunctional punk tumult and cocaine-inspired grooves. Their debut Kryptonym Bodliak is a massive assemblage of aggressive psychedelic whimsy. Even when attributing the band to the minuscule subset of noise-informed dance they're abidingly one in a million.

Skoal Kodiak concisely shell seven blusterous boogies across 35 minutes, equipped with bass, drums, and paramount knob-twiddling. Opener "Teapot" exploits a funky drum lilt punctuated by slippery gadgetry and electro-damaged vocal yowls, and its successor "Hollidazzle" applies this configuration to a tune perceivably from the vault of the late and great Mayyors. As much as Kryptonym Bodliak is inherent in peculiarity, "Tomah Triangle" raises eyebrows by its aberrant tunefulness of a haunting keyboard refrain and harmonic chorus.

Each of Kryptonym Bodliak's tracks deserves its own helping of appraisal. With unfaltering kinetic force Skoal Kodiak explore every avenue of their dynamic; an undertaking justified for an outfit six years active. Unlike their aforementioned predecessors, Skoal Kodiak array a more congenial employment of riotous circuitry, fulfilling their shortage of patience at album's length. In challenging the merits of most debuts, the band showcases an unmistakable and elastic design to their complexion while bearing little to no foibles.

[Skoal Kodiak Myspace]
[Buy Kryptonym Bodliak from Load Records]

Bent Knee - Bent Knee (Self-Released, 2011)

2011-11-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

Bent Knee sent me a CD in the mail recently, and I was instantly curious. Being described as "Nine Inch Nails with Bjork as the lead singer," I was a bit scared and even a little turned off, but the gorgeous packaging and cryptic press release made me listen. After carefully peeling off the wax seal, I was greeted with much more than a CD. Cryptic poems (I'm assuming lyrics), poured out of the cardboard envelope, printed on semi-transparent paper, along with a pro-printed (not burnt!) CD. I was scared initially by how 'dark' this band seemed to be trying to appear, but I popped it in my CD player and went for a drive anyway.

I was initially met with gated drums, with huuuuge gaps of silence between them. At first, it was all 'dark, industrial' sounding, and I was really starting to sigh, but then the synths, guitars, and strings came in (suddenly), and all of a sudden this album had a certain quality to it that I couldn't quite place my finger on... So I listened onwards.. I was soon met with something rather strange indeed. The music pouring out of my speakers was in fact dark, mysterious, and.. dare I say, beautiful? I was reminded of The Fiery Furnaces, The Mars Volta, Tera Melos, and yes, even Bjork (though if you were to ask me why, all I could say was it had a 'BIG', sound to it). The worst part of this album is that it is criminally short. Personally, I cannot wait to hear more from Bent Knee, and I hope they'll be in Ohio soon.

[Bent Knee Website]
[Buy Bent Knee from Bandcamp]

Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair (Dead Oceans, 2011)

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

Despite their accounts to have been playing together for fifteen years, Gauntlet Hair had their splash onto the scene timed a little too perfectly to have tackled this aesthetic. On their debut, the duo are sounding current, relevant, though not presenting themselves as a simply au courant act. It's uncommon for a project to attain such modernistic height without any novelty impeding upon it, but alas! To deem Gauntlet Hair a buzz-band would undermine the dense sonic makeup and keen songcraft of the nine tracks at hand.

Cohesion sits atop the totem pole, overlooking vocal-obscuring delay, pounding electronic drums, and exuberantly chiming guitars. The album's first three function almost as a triptych, sharing key and mood between one another while building upon the model with succession. The album is opened with hymnal hollers and rhythmically lashed chords on "Keep Time", while "Top Bunk" treks along a mesmeric groove in its bridge, and Gauntlet Hair's vocalist takes shape of Avey Tare, from his peculiar enunciation to his ear for melodicism. A palatable summation of the preceding forceful and adrift temperaments is found in the vicinity of "Mop It Up", with equal-handed dance-pop sashay and punk grit.

The tenor suddenly transforms on the following "My Christ", a steadily rocking number with an emanation of early 4AD singles, though laced through the band's established cavernous production. The album's most transient piece, "Overkill", scores a slapback-fed melody not unlike Skeleton-era Abe Vigoda along a heavy-handed rhythm section. Concluding the album is the stuttering "Shout in Tongues" which flaunts a hypnotic vocal refrain in its chorus before a return to the darker character of the opening tracks. As defined as their motifs are, Gauntlet Hair wrangle a multitude of flavors together, all of which comfortably ease into their formula.

Considering that much of its highlights reside at the very start, the album's incongruous sequencing hinders the momentum. Despite the front-loaded immediacy, Gauntlet Hair's less raucous counterparts compensate with adhesive, hum-prompting hooks and their consistently grandiose presentation. The project weaves together abstractions both pertinent in today's music circles and specific to themselves, which leaves us with a debut both rough and incomparable. Renovations are challenging to call for when there are so few setbacks to locate.

[Gauntlet Hair Website]
[Buy Gauntlet Hair from Dead Oceans]

Octo Octa - Let Me See You (100% Silk, 2011)

2011-11-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

"It's dance therapy-- Docta Octa is in, checking yr pulse, charging by the half hour." Octo Octa's therapeutic new EP barely clocks over the 20-minute mark, though in its short amount of time manages to carry four soulful dancehall burners somewhere between careless drug-induced ecstasy, and deep, entrancing du-disco. Let Me See You's gracing cover reveals an explicitly retro haze must be evident amongst these tracks, and while at times it feels like a classy throwback to the sounds of early '90s house, the progression and instrumentation tell an exceedingly different tale.

Octo Octa drops the needle on the title track; an accenting vocal sample and late-'80s hip-hop rhythm greet you as you enter a red-flared club below a sleeping city, before a disco ball drops and an utterly infectious synth line ladders up and down the now booming rump-shaker. Following it is "High Reflection", as a heavy synthesizer hit bleeds into the mix over variously disguised beats and rhythms. The track hits a peak as a vocal cue paints the mix with a lapsing sense of ambience; like liquid pressure. Octo Octa's knob twists deeper on "I'm Trying", keeping the signature vocal delay under carbonized rhythms and curling electronics. This leads to the atmospheric finale, "Coldwaves", waving the mix goodbye with subtle tribal rhythms and lite, airy drones, like the high of a drug encompassing night slowly drifting away.

From the varied sounds displayed on Let Me See You, Octo Octa have a keen ear for balancing atmospheric ambience with contagious danceability. Using this as a starting off point, it will be interesting to hear what Octo Octa will develop into once they put together a full-length of their cloudy, retro-tuned, and velvet-laced interpretation of dance music. Though for now we've got Let Me See You to enjoy until that happens, and whenever it does, they sum it up best themselves; "For the ball drop, the balloon drop, the moments after we're sweat-soaked, covered in glitter, standing in a room full of strangers and lovers and memories all fading into a fog. And the DJ played on. Turning this house into a home."

[Octo Octa Bandcamp]
[Buy Let Me See You from 100% Silk]

Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica (Software, 2011)

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

In the span of four years, Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin has amassed a considerable fanbase with his dependably grand and elaborate synthesizer compositions in character with science-fiction imagery akin to Blade Runner, with towering, rigid skyscrapers and advertisements displayed on brightly lit LCD screens. Lopatin's futuristic metropolitan fantasy world stemmed from his monumentally dizzying drones and fixation on warm, vintage timbres. Along with his equally notable contemporaries Emeralds, Oneohtrix Point Never became a steadfast patron of new age's engagement to the avant-underground.

This year has brought forth many synth-wielding experimentalists, and to see Oneohtrix Point Never divert from the omnipresence of electro-psychedelia is unsurprising. At odds with what many would forecast to follow the dance-pop of his Channel Pressure collaboration with Joel Ford, Lopatin has opted to take a remarkably imaginative approach to his recollection of retro-futurism. Replica is a predominantly sample-ridden concoction of audio gleaned from television ad compilations and nuanced by his trademark down-tuned synth swells.

Despite Lopatin's logically new direction, it's amply polarizing to give his followers an inkling that Replica is a misstep, as distinct as it is. Opener "Andro" and "Submersible" stand as OPN's habitual offerings which appear somewhat anomalous when observed within the album's context. Comparable to The Field's latest Looping State of Mind-- especially its closer "Sweet Slow Baby"-- the album keenly exploits repetition in an off-kilter, stuttering fashion. "Sleep Dealer" bounces on an anxious piano phrase and chopped, breathy cuts and is sweetened by quirky analog keys and sweeping undulations. It has a stark and ghostly mien, clashing with nostalgic quirks. "Nassau" follows a hiccuping cadence and pairs it with slurps, splashes, and woozy piano thuds.

On the other side of the coin are tracks like "Up" and "Child Soldier" that channel Lopatin's humorous side: "Up" grooves along tom rolls and a goofy uttering of the title while "Child Soldier" bravely filters the astuteness of IDM through a punchy stop-start throb of children and lasers. These dissimilar squiggles and repetitions don't necessarily alloy, but if not for their schizophrenic arrangement, Replica's beautifully haphazard and jittery mania wouldn't exist. Lopatin employs unparalleled artistry on this effort, bearing a flash in the pan and a compatible addition to the OPN catalog. Like the TV ad compilations from which it pulls, Replica is an open trove of past relics.

[Oneohtrix Point Never Website]
[Stream/Buy Replica from Software]

Playlist: Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

Whether or not you agree with the motives behind the Occupy Wall Street movements, two things are clear: it's impossible to ignore, and seeing people stand up for what they believe in will always be a wonderful thing. Some of the best music has been inspired by protest, police brutality, civil unrest, and dissent. I offer you a Spotify playlist to listen to while reading about, or taking part in protests.

[Occupy Music]

Grooms - Prom (Kanine, 2011)

2011-11-04T06:00:00.001-07:00

Prom, the sophomore effort from Brooklyn's Grooms, may not be news to readers by now. If unaware, however, now is a much more proper time to discuss it than its summer release date, because its cold, dreary disposition propels itself toward scenery of overcast and bare trees. By contrast, 2009's Rejoicer (even considering the title) had a liveliness in its '90s alt-rock stride, and the band seasoned their stentorian anthems with linear compositions and expansive detours that prompted worthy, if small, discussion.

By way of roaring bass "Tiger Trees" opens explosively into a fluid arrangement of gentle arpeggios and steady, swift drums-- an altogether simple yet compelling ease into Prom's ethos. "Expression Of" manifests an infectiously somber guitar dirge coupled with swooning bass, listlessly sustained until an anxious finale of escalating keys climaxing into silence. Grooms grow uglier on "Into the Arms", culminating into a thunderously distorted homage to early Sonic Youth, followed by the bassist Emily Abruso-fronted "Sharing", a fleetingly brighter ditty that wouldn't sound out of place on a Vivian Girls album if not for her detailing of car crashes and a mysterious hooded figure.

Frontman Travis Johnson bears striking lyrical prowess on Prom, in which his phrasing is as essential as what he illustrates, best exemplified in the interchangeable portrayal of "red rope licorice in trails (entrails)." On the title track, he vividly recounts memories of teenage interest, "17 is the whole world / in my room, the Smiths and girls." At other times, Johnson is decidedly vague for mysticism's sake. "Aisha" voices what could be a tale of cheating in cryptic passages like "down the hall, parents wishing they were dead / because someone, somewhere, put a promise in your head" followed by a chorus that nervously asks "Does it feel alright?"

Grooms' follow-up is the fruit of refinement. The production has been thickened by deeper frequencies, choruses have been defined, and priorities have been set. It's more accessible in principle, but Prom's depth stretches further than its predecessor in melody, songwriting, and other fundamentals found in weighty albums. Its outreach to a more sizable audience amounts to a molehill amongst the marketable mountains in the greater scheme of independent music. The adjustments made are very fine, yet singularly pivotal.

[Grooms Bandcamp]
[Buy Prom from Kanine Records]

Elder - Dead Roots Stirring (MeteorCity, 2011)

2011-11-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Bible - The Journey of Enoch (Rubber City Noise, 2011)

2011-11-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

As the owner of Experimedia, one of the most laudable distributors of ambient and experimental music, Jeremy Bible didn't achieve this extent of notability in an instant. One of the label's first releases was The Journey of Enoch, a limited CD-R and digital release that emerged in 2004 and accrued over 22,000 downloads since its outset. To keep the relevance unwavering, Akron label Rubber City Noise couldn't have been more timely in reissuing the album, because the 2011 underground has shown an enormous growth in interest of synthesizers and the cassette format.

Despite its great significance and cult legacy in experimental music circles, the album's history isn't meant to insinuate an impact in which The Journey of Enoch found its way into modern day synth work. Contrary to the melodic, sequence-fed nostalgia shared by many, Bible's electronics function as a purely tonal entity, stark and lustrous. The album's most compelling facet is in the absence of connotation in Bible's textures, for they elicit neither sublimity nor disquietude. These are ululations of pure emptiness, a locale parsed well enough to consume its observers.

[Jeremy Bible Website]
[Buy The Journey of Enoch from Rubber City Noise]

The Tikiyaki Orchestra - Aloha, Baby! (Future Primitive, 2011)

2011-11-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

"As always we hope you enjoy your stay in paradise, thank you for drinking with Tikiyaki Airways, and aloha baby!" the captain of a Waikiki bound plane announces over the intercom of the opening track of The Tikiyaki Orchestra's Aloha, Baby! It's a welcome introduction to the gently swaying, Hawaiian exotic heard throughout the album. Essentially the album works as a soundtrack for careless, sun-soaked vacations under breezy, tropical decor. Though there's more to Aloha, Baby! underneath its ocean dunked instrumentation and tropic atmosphere, where everything from retired couples on holiday, '60s suburbia, and neo-noir crime mafias are accounted for.

After being whisked away to a tropical island far, far away on the opening track, "Polynesian Village Love Theme" basks in the sun, peacefully letting go through soothing vibraphones and palm tree-tuned guitars. It's the sound of tranquility, laying somewhere between Bikini Bottom and Goo Lagoon. Picking up the pace is "La Hula Rhumba", as an upbeat, jazzy interpretation of the sounds of the jungle is played in what could only be a cocktail lounge. The vibe of the album slowly segues on "In Search of Mei Ting", as a mysterious shade of black-and-white instrumentation gathers evidence from a scandalous Hawaiian crime. The bandits are revealed and chased down vigorously on "Kono's Revenge", a tune that wouldn't sound out of place on John Zorn's Naked City (minus the grindcore onslaught), as a perfectly placed police siren drones in the backdrop of a banging chase scene.

Though things eventually cool down, as a glass of liquor is downed on the smooth lounge-jazz of "Lotus Operandi". Beyond the aforementioned sounds are tunes like "Mysteria" and "Chateau Leilani", that sound bound for 70s game shows, and soundtrack of calming summer days in 1960's suburbia; palm trees a'waving and baseballs a'flying. Throughout Aloha, Baby!, The Tikiyaki Orchestra manage to hold a consistent groove of their signature ocean canopied exotica, but with each song give that sound a different resonance. Whether it's through tropical atmospheres, wave running surf rock, mysterious spy-jazz, or lounge cocktail smoothness, Aloha Baby! is some of the most fun I've had listening to an album all year, and proves no matter which end of the world you're at, music is universal.

[The Tikiyaki Orchestra Myspace]
[Buy Aloha, Baby! from Future Primitive]

Podcast: 10/31/11

2011-10-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

This month, we've culled a larger selection of tunes than what we usually provide in this mildly Halloween-befitting playlist.

Andy Stott - "Execution" from Passed Me By (Modern Love, 2011)
Oneohtrix Point Never - "Sleep Dealer" from Replica (Mexican Summer, 2011)
United Waters - "Platetectonics" from Your First Ever River (Arbitrary Signs, 2011)
Gauntlet Hair - "Keep Time" from Gauntlet Hair (Dead Oceans, 2011)
DJ Rashad - "I'm Gone" from Just A Taste Vol. 1 (Ghettophiles, 2011)
Beastwars - "Lake of Flies" from Beastwars (2011)
Monster Rally - "Surf Erie" from Deep Sea EP (Gold Robot, 2011)
Submotion Orchestra - "All Yours" from Finest Hour (Exceptional Blue, 2011)
Real Estate - "Green Aisles" from Days (Domino, 2011)
Big Troubles - "Make It Worse" from Romantic Comedy (Slumberland, 2011)
Rob Crow - "Sophistructure" from He Thinks He's People (Temporary Residence, 2011)
Weekend - "Hazel" from Red EP (Slumberland, 2011)
Ayshay - "Warn-U" from Warn-U EP (Tri Angle, 2011)

[Download this podcast in 320kbps]

DJ Rashad - Just A Taste Vol. 1 (Ghettophiles, 2011)

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

For those unfamiliar, ghettotech is indeed a legitimate genre. It has a respectable, yet relatively obscure history that spans back to late-'90s pioneers DJ Assault, DJ Godfather, and Disco D, along with Bitch Ass Darius; who would stamp the genre into the Chicago underground a few years later on his landmark Follow The Sound. The genre itself consists of hyper-induced techno rhythms, ultra-repetitive samples, fat Miami bass, and sexually explicit lyrics (booty and bitches are generally the topical icebreakers). Now well over a decade old, DJ Rashad pumps new life into ghettotech by declaring "I came back to let you know / Ghettotech's runnin' shit" on the fervent sweat of "Ghetto Tekz Runnin It". The former lyric samples Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do For Love", and the latter samples Chicago lyricist Add-2. This merger of soulful ecstasy and gangsta prowess is what DJ Rashad's latest cup o' hypnotic plunderphonics is all about.

Soul samples are everywhere throughout Rashad's Just A Taste Vol. 1, and together with its dominating Chicago house influence, they bring a weighted emotional density to the sped up, drug-induced techno aggression of his arrangements. You can hear Al Green's tender croon repeated under a thick dose of low-end on "IIIIIII HIIIIIIII", as a spew of miscellaneous rhythms form a melodic cohesion. The late Gil Scott-Heron is resurrected on the aptly titled "I'm Gone", as his soulful wail confesses "I left three days ago / But no one seems to know I'm gone", while a throbbing bass line stirs in the background. "Go Crazy" features a sweeping flutter of borderline-industrial tech, as hand claps and a tight g-funk synth swell engorge the mix; before the cork goes bust and out pours a Marvin Gaye sample, accenting the sugary rhythms.

Though the album arguably wouldn't be true ghettotech without at least one profane affair, and "You Azz" delivers; disrespectfully plunging the decency of the mix while soccer moms and moral republicans cover their ears as "You Azz / You Azz Bitch" fills their ears. The album's repetitive sampling technique is likely to sound grating to the ears upon first listen, but rest assured there is a rich complexity to be found within the skewed beats, that settles in once (possible) initial backfire occurs. Essentially, DJ Rashad's Just A Taste Vol. 1 is an accelerated labyrinth of varied rhythms, beats, and patterns, creatively updating the sounds of early '90s techno and house to a steaming virtuosity, and mixes '70s soul and rap samples to an entrancing repetitive proficiency, resulting in a future-forward dismemberment of instrumental hip-hop.

[DJ Rashad Soundcloud]
[Buy Just A Taste Vol. 1 from Ghettophiles]

A Winged Victory For The Sullen - A Winged Victory For The Sullen (Kranky/Erased Tapes, 2011)

2011-10-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

A Winged Victory For The Sullen consists of modern classical pianist Dustin O'Halloran and Stars of the Lid's Adam Wiltzie. Considering O'Halloran's minimalist and highly atmospheric piano works throughout the past decade, reminiscent of both Glass and Chopin, and Wiltzie's influential work with Stars of the Lid, one of the premiere ambient groups of the modern era, A Winged Victory For The Sullen is with abiding evidence, an ambient supergroup. Both use the fabric of ambience through respected passages; O'Halloran as a raw and sentimental statement of conflicting emotions, and Wiltzie through deeply-laced textures of haunting and nostalgically tuned bliss, as subtleties sway ever so slightly over dream encompassed worlds.

On their collaborative debut, O'Halloran and Wiltzie take those aforementioned ideas and mold them into a classical score of wide-eyed pastoral rapture and subtly passionate euphoria. The album opens accordingly with "We Played Some Open Chords", as an ethereal orchestration conducts a deep, eternal drone, before being swept away by O'Halloran's beautiful piano remedy. These songs often times resonate film score's of sweeping melodrama, tasteful romance, and childlike sentimentality. The two part "Requiem for the Static King" nourishes a heartbreaking drone of classical orchestration, scoring what could be the reflections of a middle-aged life-in-crisis, overcome by memories of the past. On arguably the album's most atmospheric moment, "Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears", a soft layer of what sounds like a plane gliding through the sky looms in the distance, as lite-piano and string arrangements hover around it, like the thick clouds of an unassuming summer day.

"All Farewells Are Sudden" reads the final track on the album, and it couldn't be a more truthful message. While A Winged Victory For The Sullen is an emotionally dense and somber listen, it doesn't overstay its welcome. It gives itself just enough time to lay out its orchestrated drones, emotive atmosphere, and expansive quality before packing its bags and walking off into a dusk-illuminated horizon, silhouetted in a starry gaze. A Winged Victory For The Sullen gloomily dim the lights and orchestrate a sentimental, angelic, and utterly human response to the world around us, leaving those willing to appreciate its fragile charm and ecstasy in awe and wonderment; because timeless music yields timeless results.

[A Winged Victory For The Sullen Website]
[Buy A Winged Victory For The Sullen from Kranky Records/Erased Tapes]

AIDS Wolf - Ma vie banale avant-garde (Lovepump United, 2011)

2011-10-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

"Ignorance is bliss": a proverb followed by many, and particularly critics, and even more so in the case of Canadian skronk mongers AIDS Wolf. The release of the once-quartet, now-trio's debut Lovvers LP elicited chatter, albeit largely negative. These writers have appropriately evidenced this, too: AIDS Wolf cater to a niche market, residing between listeners itching to hear dual-guitar cacophony akin to Arab on Radar and a noise-loving audience unfamiliar with AoR. For that, their two following efforts were glossed over despite possible renovations, and their fourth, Ma vie banale avant-garde, is likely to suffer the same fate, intent on fucking minds for over an hour's breadth.

AIDS Wolf appear more intent to polarize their audience this time around, to a degree that it may play the role of the Ma vie banale avant-garde's theme. The French title translates to "my boring avant-garde life," seemingly poking fun at the growing prevalence-- and perhaps, ubiquity-- of experimental music. AIDS Wolf's sense of cynicism can also be perceived from the disjointed form of their passages. These 24 onslaughts were realized through the trio's reinterpretations of improvised work found on crudely recorded cassettes. The anomaly continues, as AIDS Wolf grant Weasel Walter the task of mastering and take production duties themselves. As mentioned by Lovepump United, the double-LP marks a formative stage for the band.

Despite these alterations to the AIDS Wolf regimen, they've more or less returned to Cities of Glass's overblown and claustrophobic temperament. The album's "single", "Please hold the line" begins with a call-and-response between vocalist Chloe Lum and a pervasive rattling, escalating into an apprehensively queasy guitar and drum workout: it's on this track where Ma vie banale avant-garde stands at its shortest distance from normalcy. On tracks "No Females on Board" and "I've had such an acrid taste in my throat" Lum doesn't howl atop the band's accustomed noise; her execution of muffled monologues over a crackling, roughly textured backdrop brings sound-artist Jessica Rylan and her Can't moniker to mind.

AIDS Wolf exercise the 'noise' end of noise rock to its fullest capabilities, summoning what could be heralded as their most assaulting effort to date. Their incorporation of electronics into the lineup has served for more than just compensation of a guitar, but allows the band to make a slight digression from the somewhat commonplace guitar and drum makeup of their peers. In the face of impromptu jam sessions and sporadic freak-outs, much of the album is partial to a crossroad mindset of suspense and narcosis, equating to overall disorientation. What is shared on Ma vie banale avant-garde isn't desultory; a direction is prevalent, though what that direction leads listeners to is a mystery.

[AIDS Wolf Website]
[Buy Ma vie banale avant-garde from Lovepump United]

Orchal and Vir - Orchal and Vir (Elestial Sound, 2011)

2011-10-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

With merely two releases under its belt, the newly founded Floridian label Elestial Sound has already established a promising catalog of colorful, imaginative electronic music. Alongside the inaugural City album by Dillard Wiseheart's Floating is the debut EP from Gainesville duo Orchal and Vir.

Though appearing as a new name amongst many, its makeup consists of no outsiders. The first of which is Kane Pour, who has proposed multiple spellbinding cassettes across Gainesville's finest backyard labels under his birth name, Pospulenn, and in the duo Tricorn and Queue with Jeffry Astin. Tristan Whitehill's previous work is much more in line with the sound of this new duo, under the name Euglossine Industries and formerly operating as Ostral.

Despite falling short of reaching a half-hour of material, Orchal and Vir encapsulates a vast assortment of flavors. The pairing of punchy snare hits and tranquil harp chords on "Flash Fabric" epitomize the EP's exotic milieu of digital flora and fauna. "Quincy Starlet" opens boisterous and lush in the midst of an exuberant tempo before metamorphosing into synth-funk, with a quirky groove and lustful keys. Orchal and Vir reserve their most greatest ambitions for the closer, the poly-melodic and hip-hop-esque "Hotlantis", which seamlessly morphs into a driving 8-bit rhythm before returning to square one.

Pour and Whitehill opt not to side with any particular approach to electronic music and instead embrace eclecticism to furnish an incarnation both heady and immediate. The EP is a comprehensive yet accessible view of the duo's influences, with not a single conceptual clash in sight. Structurally, much of these nimble electronic compositions attain an effortlessly fluid, jazzy air. Creativity and imagination loom large amongst the EP's five tracks, to such an extent that any instance of stagnancy has been eradicated.

[Stream/Buy Orchal and Vir from Elestial Sound]

Pallers - The Sea of Memories (Labrador, 2011)

2011-10-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Johan Angergard's mixed projects throughout the years (including The Legends, Club 8, and Acid House Kinds) have all held one virtue foremost; 1980s synth-pop. Angergard's latest project Pallers (alongside Henrik Martensson) holds similar influences, though there is a striking emphasis of ambiance within these recordings. Pallers' ethereally charged nerve is what successfully sets them apart from their modern synth-pop contemporaries. Angergard and Martensson manage to take their obvious 80s influences and pour them into a frothy cup of elecro-laced indie pop and cosmic ambiance, swaying somewhere between distant cavernous solar systems.

Opening with the frosted, lush climate of "Another Heaven", The Sea of Memories is blanketed by a dense powder of smooth electronics and chilled rhythms, maintaining this quality throughout. Following the opener is the title track of their 2008 debut EP, and three years later, "Humdrum" remands the strongest moment on the album. Featuring a tight synthesizer melody, illuminating rhythms, and soft melting vocals; it's an enchanting interstellar lullaby, before the mix is engulfed by a halogen beam of oceanic guitar accents. Angergard's vocals throughout the album are reminiscent to that of fellow electro enthusiasts Royksopp, in particular their 2001 album Melody A.M.; both emphasizing a downtempo approach to traditional dance music.

While The Sea of Memories isn't a particularly varied effort, it doesn't feel like it needs to be. They have their mix of ambient house, downtempo, balearic, and synth-pop down so well, the album's consistent vibe of these elements sails smoothly across a wave-induced silhouette, peaking off in the distance. Occasionally it's catchy enough for a dance, and occasionally it's nothing short of harmonic mood music; relaxing and free of mind. This is a debut album brimming with potential, full of confidence and promise, and if they can progress properly they could have a breathtaking album on their hands. Though for now, get lost in the immense sea-side cosmos that is Pallers.

[Pallers Website]
[Stream/Buy The Sea of Memories from Labrador Records]

Apollo Brown - Clouds (Mello Music Group, 2011)

2011-10-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Detriot beatsmith Apollo Brown has been a busy man since his 2007 debut Skilled Trade. Every year since, he's been releasing low-key beat albums to strictly underground audiences. Thus, until last year's The Reset, which escalated him to a considerable amount of acclaim throughout the blogosphere. Where The Reset managed to successfully counterbalance tarnished and grime-exposed beats with soothing, pastoral instrumentals, Apollo Brown's latest album is flourished in the latter; beautifully strung by blue-sky beats and sentimental instrumentation.

Right from the get-go Apollo wastes no time in painting us a picture of how he wants Clouds to sound. "Have you ever dreamed of a place / Faraway from it all / Where the air you breathe is soft and clean, and children play in fields of green", a soothing vocal croons on the opener "Sound of Guns". These are lyrics that perfectly depict the sounds heard throughout the album, and they range widely, but all encompass the core fundamental ideas of optimism, youth, and nostalgia. One of the best examples of this is on the aptly tiled "Father and Son", carrying life-lessening orchestration under stripped percussion and a spring-tuned piano line that folds gently in the distance. On the sultry "Black Pearls", a waving trumpet glides in the air as orchestral lines sharply paint the melody, creating a mildly hallucinating effect. One of Clouds' most impressive moments is on the ever-hypnotic "Balance", piloting UFO signaled electronics to a low, gelatin-like drum 'n bass.

At a colossal 27 tracks thick, one may worry Clouds would suffer from its own length, though exactly the opposite is true. In fact there isn't a single track on the album that exceeds the three-minute mark, most commonly tracks clocking in at just over two minutes each. It makes for a quickly paced listen; it's smoothly layered instrumentals gliding in and out to flawless transition. And despite boasting so many tracks, not a single one feels out of place or lackluster. Clouds is undoubtedly one of the most fully-rounded releases of the year, shunning the cold grips of time as almost an hour of music floats by in an eased gorgeousness; making it the instrumental hip-hop album to beat in 2011.

[Apollo Brown Webpage]
[Stream/Buy Clouds from Mello Music Group]

Parhelion - Midnight Sun (Cyclic Law, 2011)

2011-10-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

Taking the particular route of icy, semi-aquatic landscapes and a borderline-religious respect for nature’s power and fragility in the wider context of one’s ambient music can be a risky thing to do. Fairly often it can come off seeming a bit cheesy somehow, like the artist has thought for a few seconds that their work needs an identity… a hook… something to tie it in with some epic subject matter or other… and a few Biosphere cover images, National Geographic photography competition entries or forced ‘Arctic’ (or equivalent) mental associations later, this link can seem as solid as it would if the tones had been carved out of the cerebral core of the North Pole (or equivalent) itself.

Sometimes listening to the music, swooning over the photos in the liner notes and considering art and nature’s way of providing an almost synaesthetic binding for the whole package actually works, and a genuine profoundness can be glimpsed within. Ihor Dawidiuk is a Canadian artist doing the darker-side-of-ambient thing, succeeding not only at satisfying the musical criteria that come with such a tag, but at justifying the kind of association described above.

‘Midnight Sun’ is his debut album under this solo moniker, having worked previously and still within the group Tunturia. Some may already be familiar with the name – in 2008 he provided a track entitled "Forgotten Outpost" for the now defunct Phantom Channel label’s debut compilation. An ultra limited and self-released CDr album Odes To A Barren Land followed some time after and now Cyclic Law bring us that same album, remastered, retitled, repackaged and in a far more deserving run of 1000 CD copies.

Following a short blast of caustic noise that opens the album, the title track offers a succinct consolidation of all the elements that make this album fantastic. Reverberated and delayed high register guitar notes cast gentle ripples in a swirling mist of synths and subtly doomed chord progressions, starkly punctuated with soft thuds of percussion. There is a distinct sense of isolation lurking throughout most of the record, and especially in this track. To place such drama so early on makes this the equivalent of an extremely gorgeously shot film that opens with intense, irreversible tragedy.

Following this, there is no let up on darkness as melody is all but foregone in exchange for resonating metallic tones and drones in a duo of alien interludes, before "A Lament For Whales" expands the stasis into an increasingly noisy texture that is as much of the earth as it is of the cosmos.

At no point are any of the elements too overbearing-- at its least melodious there is still some abstract musicality; at it’s most noisy there is an ambling pace that keeps it from getting too bleached out. The atmosphere is thick and often unrelenting but dynamic and breathy, a lot of the time simultaneously.

When the second half of "Meditation Over Open Waters" creeps out of the preceding sonic onslaught, it already feels like so much has happened. This gentle, utterly beautiful section is so drenched in emotion it’s unreal. It blends then into similar territory, etched out through minimal guitar picks, thumps and floating chords… following this is a stretch of disorientating drone that encapsulates a couple of tracks and makes up the most sustained aggressive portion of the album.

When it seems one is about to be lost under the static, it suddenly drops away to silence in preparation for "Forgotten Outpost", the penultimate track. In a similar way to the title track, this has a way of expressing all the album has to offer in one composition-- a strong sense of place crafted through musical and non-musical sound, melody and noise working together to reach that elusive midpoint where foreboding forces meet their softer emotional counterparts. Chiming, key-like notes and clean guitar spell the pretty, glistening repeating melody whilst calls and sounds of nature whine and clatter their way into the climate, never becoming the focus but forming an essential part of the overall sound-world. After a wheezing, wind blasted pause in the music a surge of distorted guitars are awoken and proceed to heave the track into its conclusion…

Ending here, the album would be nothing short of amazing, but Ihor’s decision to place a sunnier, resolving twelfth track really caps things off with enhanced grace. Like waking from a weirdly exotic, unsettling dream this closer provides a warming contrast to the previous stormy and unsettled tones, keeping a similar level of noise but swapping the melancholy and loneliness for unrestrained majesty.

Very few ambient based albums say enough to push themselves up over the heads of the middle majority… through near-perfect execution Parhelion’s Midnight Sun, however, has done. It is haunting, deeply emotional, simultaneously graceful and aggressive and, most of all, worthy of its associations with the drama and tumult of the natural world.

[Parhelion Myspace]
[Buy Midnight Sun from Cyclic Law]
Watch a promo video on YouTube here.

- Originally written for Fluid Radio (March 2011) by Daniel Mackenzie

Björk - Biophilia (One Little Indian, 2011)

2011-10-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

After nearly two decades into her career as a solo artist, it's safe to say Björk is in a league of her own. Every album she's released has solidified her glass-encased trademark of combining electronic wizardry in boldly stated structure, ethereally lurking beside her glaciered vocals. Biophilia is no different, though it marks what is quite possibly her most experimental album to date; from an artist who's left-field nature is the crème de la crème. It's an exciting progression from 2007's Volta, an album that suffered from critical backlash as writers attempted to fill their deadlines to write about an album that requires more than a week of public consciousness to settle in and appreciate. The same goes for Biophilia; a future-thinking, forward-adapted, post-post-modern pop album the world may not be ready for. Despite this, it's risen from a deep, deep sleep inside the ice cold, bio-carbonized pressure tank of its creation; and a unique beast has been released.

All it takes is the last 40 seconds of "Crystalline" to realize Björk is onto something here. Throughout the track, playful metallics reside as electronics wisp, curl, and sweep about the landscape under throbbing bass hits. Though it eventually falls victim to "Crystallophobia", as judgment day arrives in the form of surging drills, exploding bass tones, and hardcore electronica; stealing its innocence within a matter of seconds. Björk foreshadows a similarly violent effect by opening with, "I shuffle around the tectonic plates in my chest" on "Mutual Core", where a bleak organ tone paints an ill-fated picture. All the while her monotone slowly building to a wailing aggression, and before she can warn, "This eruption undoes stagnation / You didn't know I had it in me", abrasive electronics and unforgiving bass collisions break the sonic tectonics, bursting into a formless lava of digitally threatening noise.

These effects are exclusive to the aforementioned tracks, as the music that surrounds them ranges anywhere from blissfully lush to difficultly afflicted. "Dark Matter" is the furthest example of the latter, sounding as bleak and hopeless as anything she's ever recorded. It ignites harsh low-end and blackened drones through a cosmically inspired poem, as her voice slowly transforms in a shivering torment. Following the inferno is "Hollow", bringing with it orchestral inspired percussion and a striking cathedral organ; maintaining the dreary atmosphere of its predecessor. It's interesting to note these raw, slow burners are placed in the middle of the album, as the tracks that surround them all sound relatively optimistic. "Moon", "Cosmogony", "Virus", "Sacrifice", and "Solstice" all carry the stripped-down nature of Björk swan-song Vespertine, but sound distinctly biophilic, cradling childlike instrumentation and her smoothly free-flowing vocal cure.

Like an intelligent experimental release, Biophilia refuses to reveal itself from a passive first listen. For most it will siren attention to its subtleties and loose-end structure, ultimately resulting in a resonating and memorable listen for those willing to dig deeper. It's the kind of album that's likely to sneak up on you when you least expect it. Sadly, it may end up with a similar fate to the likes of Volta; fans mistaking its experimental and oddball nature for lackluster music. Although because of tracks like "Crystalline" and "Mutual Core", many will come back for more, causing the subtle architecture surrounding the album to fully reveal itself. Biophilia is remaining proof that experimental music is alive and well within today's mainstream, and once again Björk continues to test the fabric of pop music, and how far it can truly be stretched.

[Björk Website]
[Buy Biophilia from the Björk Shop]

Rangers - Pan Am Stories (Not Not Fun, 2011)

2011-10-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

Joe Knight's Rangers project burst onto the scene in 2009 with two limited-edition cassette releases on which the music and presentation seemed to go hand-in-hand. With titles such as "Europe on TV" and "Volvo Jungle Mist" placed on j-cards featuring vintage photography of automobiles, Knight's infatuation with saturated analog was beyond question. Comparisons to Rangers' former Olde English Spelling Bee labelmates are a given, but particularly Ferraro's Grippers Nother Onesers LP is what much of his attributes recall: muffled vocal hooks, heavyset slap-bass, and the latent pop marketability if it hadn't been recorded onto overused Maxell c90's. The breakneck excitement over Rangers was transparent, as Joe Knight had uncovered a hidden realm of VHS psychedelia whose present-day documentation would have seemed dubious without prior knowledge of Ariel Pink.

His first proper album Suburban Tours displayed immense refinement in its over-two-track length and larger semblance of conventional songwriting. Its authentic late-'80s-early-'90s veneer didn't garner all of the praise, though. Peppering his looping phaser-soaked guitar backdrop was Knight's voice slathered in reverberant, mind-expanding distortion that elicited a spellbinding loss of conscious. In an anachronistic sense, the album fused groovy nostalgia with the druggy exploration shared by many on the Not Not Fun roster. Much of that compositional prowess and hypnotism has transferred to Pan Am Stories, though its twofold length and saga-like title are testament to Knight's elevated ambition, and one would need to look no further than "Zeke's Dream" to find evidence of this. No longer do the jams plateau and instead explore the entrancing capabilities of repetition as well as fluid transitions between variant phases.

As the title would suggest, Knight allows his music to soar, whether it be in a given song's expanse or the sheer mood. Just a shade away from mall muzak is "Jane's Well", where echoing guitars glide above a bubbly tempo cleansing the listener of unease while their cross-continental travel smoothly advances. That, as well as an ample number of Pan Am Stories' boisterous space-rock vignettes attain an even greater inclination toward familiar framework than that of Suburban Tours. On the second suite opener "Zombies (Night)", his lyricism is elucidated in playfully illustrating a struggle for survival, "On the full moon, onto the city streets, entertained most easily / I saw you climb the ladder, I saw you climb the tree." Considering the extent of Rangers' newly acquired dynamics, Pan Am Stories could be assessed as an eclectic pastiche of past pop culture, with channels frantically riffled through and their common bond discovered all-inclusively.

[Rangers Myspace]
[Buy Pan Am Stories from Not Not Fun]

Srodek - Förfall (ATMF/A Sad Sadness Song, 2011)

2011-10-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

It's not often I appreciate the sounds of black metal, though when something comes across the underground that clicks just right, I find myself wrapped up in its chaotic woes and blackened steam. After having a similar experience to Burzum's 1994 classic Hvis Lyset Tar Oss earlier this year, I was fueled on a determined quest to find something of similar impact. Looking back I don't recall where I found it, but I do remember why when I came across Srodek's Förfall, I had to listen to it. It was the album's desolate cover art, like a photographic interpretation of what black metal should sound like. Though soon after it was the music behind the photograph I really came to appreciate.

There's something pleasantly appealing about Förfall that sets it apart from its closest of relatives. The album is a mellower listen throughout, with simplistically grimy instrumentals that hold a strong emphasis on atmosphere, rather than blazing-fast tempos and scorching guitar riffs. On the aptly titled "Bleak", its sappy melancholy lo-fi is kept at a moderate tempo, as Srodek wails his cursed lyrics from beyond the grave. The album keeps a relatively easy-tempo'd pace throughout, but the sprawling "Vågtjärns Svarta Vatten" is evidence that melancholy can be a lion-hearted affair of grandiose instrumentation. Though the album's strongest attribute is the nestling, acoustic-tuned rage of the album's title track, evoking an oddly nostalgic sense of exhilaration.

Even in all of Srodek's villainous fury, sounding like what might as well be a distant Ganondorf from The Legend of Zelda series, there's something wildly comforting about the album, like a cozy fire in the heart of a snow-draped forest, that manages to run through the blood of all of these tracks. Oddly enough, the album sounds reminiscent of a black metal-slowcore outing (or simply a black metal Red House Painters), or an early 90s alternative band in corpse paint. That sense of familiarity is the torch that potentially non-black metal or even non-metal fans could appreciate within the album. And if it's worth anything, Förfall is one of the most engrossing metal experiences of the year.

[Srodek Myspace]
[Buy Förfall from ATMF/A Sad Sadness Song]

Talvihorros - Descent Into Delta (Hibernate, 2011)

2011-10-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

London native Ben Chatwin's Talvihorros moniker has only been generating material since 2008, and during these three years of recording and performing under the name, Chatwin had kept his releases and live shows as two separate practices: the former employing layers of various instruments, and the latter orchestrated solely through guitar and pedals. His latest outing Descent Into Delta marries both concepts, ornamenting what was captured from select solo-guitar pieces with instruments culled in editing and arrangement.

The barrier between these practices isn't entirely unintelligible on Descent Into Delta, but more so binds the resonant amp rumble with glimmering, pristine acoustics in an angle that renders his compositions otherworldly. It's almost a circumstance to assume of the album and track titles, as a subaqueous environment feels to be an ideal image to connect to the five pieces. "Theta"'s 10-minute excursion floats gracefully, yet encounters tense swells that vanish too suddenly to interpret impending chaos. Bewilderment could only be induced by its unearthly appearance.

Because Descent is such a sprawling venture, the magnitude of its tact and subtlety is difficult to gauge, though unmistakably present. Despite their separate origins in recording, each instrument at Chatwin's disposal is applied with keen insight and at great distance from one another, as he opts to challenge their consonance. During circulation these elongated, amorphous melodies cross paths and form an unaccustomed habitat. As incessant as the analogies may be, the buoyant, murky textures abound suggest an exemplary route of processing material from Talvihorros and contemporaries: immersion.

[Talvihorros Website]
[Stream/Buy Descent Into Delta from Hibernate Records]

The Weeknd - House of Balloons (Self-Released, 2011)

2011-10-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

There's something pleasantly mysterious about Abel Tesfaye (a.k.a. The Weeknd). A 21 year-old out of Toronto, Canada, Tesfaye first released three tracks anonymously onto YouTube in late 2010, to relative success considering the humble circumstances. Four months later he would release six additional songs, plus the original three, in what would would become his first mixtape House of Balloons. Since then the mixtape has been featured on the final season of HBO's Entourage, promoted by several big names throughout the game, and shortlisted for the 2011 Polaris Prize. Talk about climbing the latter, though it's all in good reason.

The Weeknd creates smooth, sensual, and often times haunting compositions of stripped down R&B, laying vulnerable and illuminated after morosely drinking the night away. On the revealing "Wicked Games" Tesfaye confesses, "I love to watch you dance / Take you down another level / Get you dancing with the devil", and later "Bring your body baby, I could bring you fame / That's my motherfucking words to you", expressing an almost satirical view of the portrayal of women in trashy radio joints. His music justifies this, as it's simply too damn honest and full of soul to be anything but above his contemporaries. His unique sound fundamentally lies within the spooky quality flowing through much of the album, like the ghostly drones over "Calming Down", the fluttering breakdown of "Loft Music", and the bleak, black and white romanticism of "What You Need".

What House of Balloons manages to do best is mix that dwelling phantasm with engaging music that as heartfelt as it is fresh. It's not your typical contemporary R&B album, more a scatterbrain anticipation of where it's heading. Throughout the album there's less of a focus on structure, continually allowing itself enough time and energy to properly express its emotions, rather than fall victim to vacuum-packed reflections of tired ideas. Tesfaye's shattered imagination is the real deal, and so is his music. With House of Balloons, he's created the latest standard for R&B in the 21st century, and I'm confident in saying that it's one of the most impressive albums to come out of the genre in a long while.

[The Weekend Website]
[Stream/Download House of Balloons from The Weeknd]

Satanized - Technical Virginity (Skin Graft, 2011)

2011-10-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Joyous news from the music world of 2011: it's back. The horrifying disembowelment of rock has made its resurgence, and recent albums from Dope Body, Pre, Pygmy Shrews and White Suns are willing to testify to this. Hell, even Arab on Radar have announced an excitingly undeviating reincarnation. Amidst this new wave of discord, what idiosyncrasy does recent Skin Graft signees Satanized display that is specific to them only?

For a group comprised of the barest essentials-- vocals, guitar, bass, and drums-- they function like no other quartet associated with such instruments. The guitar embodies both mutilated steel shards and virtuous, jazz-like solos. Both components of the rhythm section have no relation to one another: the bass, an incoherent, stop-start warble, and the percussion, a bombardment of contrasting tempos. Muffled beneath the noise are agonizing wretches, with only amorality not to be lost in translation.

While these traits may be of very meager distance from conventions, how Satanized organize each barrage is of equal significance. "Arnaud de Verniolle" leaps from enveloping blast-beats to incomprehensible deconstruction spotlighting the guitar's angular sweeps. Following a choral drone, all members twitch like malfunctioning machinery on "Raise the Flaccid Horn", where the title becomes a mantra shouted among a blur of cymbal pitter-patter and ticking harmonics. Instances on "Clause of Nature" and "Pain is My Barometer" allow the boundary between off-kilter and on-point to be obscured beyond cognizance.

Satanized have adorned their 2007 debut Sickness and Hellth: The Secular Chansons of... with much-needed embellishments, for the no-frills passage of works such as "Purple Pickle" have been eradicated on Technical Virginity. In contrast to many, the band has expressed more than a mere reiteration of forerunners. Their impact may be lost amongst the newly formed sea of abrasive bands, but Satanized bring this subgenre into more morbid and disfigured territory.

[Satanized Myspace]
[Buy Technical Virginity from Skin Graft Records]

The Field - Looping State of Mind (Kompakt, 2011)

2011-10-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

In many ways, The Field's Looping State of Mind is the unintentional dance-pop sequel to Wolfgang Voigt's ambient masterpiece Pop. The album was released under his alias Gas just a little over a decade ago, and yet its connections to Axel Willner's latest sketch of subtle microhouse are interesting to note, and help in trying to understand his music. Gas' Pop is simply one of the most intriguing ambient albums ever recorded. The way it used lush, fragmented loops of deep sonics and almost subconscious drones was, and still is astounding. The album's subtle incorporation of nature samples, which often times is difficult to decipher whether it's coming from the song itself or your own backyard, created the ultimate effect of entranced disillusion. It's the state of being completely withdrawn from your surroundings, enraptured by lush repetition and subconscious atmosphere.

Looping State of Mind is similar, in that repetition is key. Right from the opening number, "Is This Power", we are thrown into a seemingly irrelevant electro-loop, which quickly forms into a pleasant modulation as a deep bass groove confidently follows it. Throughout its course there is a gently layered film of what sounds like VHS-drone, most audible as the song unwinds towards its middle half, before becoming drenched in a another muted bass line and its original loop. The equally structured "It's Up There" tosses around harder beats, psychedelic drones, and hazy vocal blips, imitating the sounds of a strobe-frenzied club while all of its swinging inmates are high on combination LSD, ecstasy, and codeine. In contrast the album has its moment in the moonlight on "Then It's White", featuring a reflective piano melody and lightly cascading vocal pattern that gently glides across the soft arrangement, creating a mournful and utterly disorientated sound.

Looping State of Mind is the kind of dance album that's bound to grant rewarding listens, whether it's blasted through the loudspeakers of underground clubs, or the headphones of a casual listener. Such diversity allows you to sit back and study it, or get up and shake your ass. Though no matter how you experience it, its subtle complexities and woven grooves make it a different experience every time. Looping State of Mind clearly holds the deep, subsonic traits of minimal techno and microhouse, although I must respectfully conclude that this is what real trance music should sound like. Not that it fits the genre, but instead the very definition of the word, as it's all too easy to get lost into the looping state of mind.

[The Field Myspace]
[Buy Looping State of Mind from Kompakt]

Necro Deathmort - Music of Bleak Origin (Distraction, 2011)

2011-10-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

It doesn't take much to realize you're in for a rather unpleasant experience when approaching this album (see band name, album title, album cover). Unpleasant as in, not for the faint of heart. Essentially this is for those looking to either-- A. increase their audible horizons, or B. rise ancient beasts of lore from their sunken graves. Please note results from the latter are not typical. Necro Deathmort's latest LP is a straight nosedive through blackened caverns of maniac hellfire and charcoaled sonics, combining elements of doom metal, drone, and industrial electronica.

Music of Bleak Origin is a two-sided beast; for one you have its raw, fleshy side (thick, brooding guitar drones) and opposite its horned, monstrous scale (damned electro-beats and remote synthesizers, stirring beneath vicious earth). That clash of seemingly polarized genres is what makes this such a compelling listen. The album functions like a colony of exiled science experiments; some tracks act as sonic overlords, heralding massive amplifier feedback to its electronically distorted, beat-driven counterparts. It's a parasitic affair, the more (dare I say) club-orientated tracks feed off of the abrasive interludes, store the sonic abundance, and release it through carefully arranged linear structures. Music of Bleak Origin's emphasis of varying genres, adventurous sonics, and ambitious production leaves plenty of space to be explored in its mountainous cavern of doomed electro-metal; whether or not you're willing to take the first step inside.

[Necro Deathmort Myspace]
[Stream/Buy Music of Bleak Origin from Distraction Records]

Big Troubles - Romantic Comedy (Slumberland, 2011)

2011-10-04T06:00:00.001-07:00

Big Troubles is a 4-piece band from New Jersey. You may have heard of them back in 2010 when they released their debut album, Worry off of Olde English Spelling Bee, a label that often signs bands that try too hard to sound like Ariel Pink. It was a decent lo-fi record that made me feel as if I were listening to a collection of lost Jesus and Mary Chain recordings. Although I have to admit, the lo-fi production was pretty daft. At the time, bands like Wavves and Ariel Pink were ditching their 4-tracks and going into expensive studios that Pitchfork paid for under the table (not true but that would be funny right?). Recently, I was a little worried that Big Troubles were going to record another cliche noise pop album but they didn't! Hallelujah!

The opener "She Smiles For Pictures" makes me want to cry because I didn't write it. It's a simple jangle-pop song that screams, "We took a time machine to Liverpool in 1990 and wrote this tune with Lee Mavers." Almost every song on the album is oozed with memorable riffs and stories about heartbreaks. The highlight track "Time Bomb" almost got me in a car accident. There's police sirens near the end of the song and I freaked out. The receptive chorus, "Ticking like a time bomb waiting just to blow" will definitely give you an earworm. I once got it stuck in my head for three hours.

Sometimes it really sucks when bands change, but for Big Troubles, it was the best move they could've made. I've checked to see what other people have said about this album to use as a reference for writing this review (hint: that was a joke) and most of them feel that it's a forgettable album. Okay, maybe they're not up there yet with fellow brit-pop revival bands such as the Smith Westerns and Viva Brother but I will say that this album will sadly be overlooked by the end of the year.

[Big Troubles Website]
[Buy Romantic Comedy from Slumberland Records]

Millipede - Realms (Dead Pilot, 2011)

2011-10-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

Three albums inward we find Millipede proprietor Joseph Davenport at his most cogitative and well-versed mode yet. It's a logical advancement, too: 2010's Full Bloom proposed a bittersweet contrast of enrapturing chords fed through grating amplifier convulsion. Realms is blanketed in a parallel feedback, but a newly dismal introspection lies beneath.

Forever in-the-red, Davenport's knack for veiling warm refrains in abrasive timbres is a feat not seized by many of his contemporaries. Much of Realms' coarseness doesn't imply menace, but rather a tenor derived from the drones themselves. Given this, the illusory setting created here seems all the more tangible; because of its outwardly organic origins, this universe feels almost within reach-- a nearly perceivable sense of comfort, barricaded by harrowing disorientation.

Opener "Heathen Horde" startlingly introduces sorrowful, rumbling keys as obscured howls ululate in the midst of the dismay: the gravest portrayal of Realms' motif. Conversely, "Magma" and "Gateway to Another World" resemble the spiraling, hectic euphoria of the earliest experiments launched from the Karl Bauer cannon. At its least captivating, "What Was True" is a light, airy detour rendered meandering when compared to the expertly pared-down, desolate guitar raga "Skyy Blue". Realms is both an advancement and fitting chapter in Millipede's discography. Davenport's overdriven atmospherics have remained in tact, yet their ambitions have widened.

[Millipede Blog]
[Stream/Buy Realms from Dead Pilot Records]

Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi (Domino, 2011)

2011-09-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Talk of Anna Calvi's spot on BBC's "Sound of 2011" poll, similarities to PJ Harvey (as her longtime collaborator Rob Ellis produced this album), praise from Brian Eno, and emphasis of "Sound Pictures" have oppressed reviews of her debut album since its January release. Well, all of that and her fire-red lipstick. First of all, taking a look at the artists on BBC's poll after a good amount of time has passed reveals how irrelevant it was in the first place (simply put; Jesse J won). Secondly, the similarities to PJ Harvey are certainly there, but more in her lovesick, sinister songwriting than how she actually sounds. Thirdly, if Brian Eno is a fan it makes sense, for there's a striking attention to atmosphere rousing through her songs that Eno would likely appreciate.

Though the most accurate of claims is that Calvi attempts to construct film score-esque compositions. Not John Williams-par cinematic epics, but the kind of Chris Isaak, blues-ridden twang of David Lynch's Wild At Heart. The album is full of bluesy moments, but the guitar-picked instrumental "Rider To The Sea" is best; evoking pictures of scarlet lounges and dim-light bars, as lasso-wielding nighthawks guard exhausted deserts. What's impressive to consider throughout the album is it's Calvi on guitar, and she's quite talented. Not only that but her trembling chops give these songs a sense of black & white noir, a behind the dusty shutters kind of drama that results in a number excellent moments. The anthemic holler of "Desire" is a quality example of this, as Calvi builds her shivering vulnerability into an operatic climax, completely letting herself go.

The album's second half leans towards softer, more spaced-out territory than the album's first half, though it doesn't tamper the lusty sonic narrative she carries throughout. The soothing reflections of "The Devil" spotlight this through internal conflict, resembling sorrow as the late Jeff Buckley once did. As far as debut albums go, Anna Calvi is one of the most promising of the year. Her blues-dipped guitar resonance, moonlit compositions, and elegant, windswept vocals are illuminating factors for what's certain to be a bright future for one of England's freshest artists.

[Anna Calvi Website]
[Stream/Buy Anna Calvi from Domino Records]

Pure X - Pleasure (Acéphale, 2011)

2011-09-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

Pure X (formerly known as Pure Ecstasy) are an Austin, Texas trio who perform breezy, apathetic rock, closely drifting between shoegaze and ambient. Two years after their first self-released EP and a number of singles, Pure X have made a few changes. They've abbreviated their ever suiting title, and successfully developed their originating lush aesthetic into an obscurity of cloud-imbued melodies and instrumentation. Their debut LP is a direct result of that progression, showcasing the trio's gently cascading atmospheres and subtle, barely there arrangements.

During Pleasure's satisfying run, we are introduced to ten songs that are essentially a single entity. Each song features similar elements of reverb-laden guitars and foggy, atmospheric production, yet the album manages to stray away from routine patterns, as it's easy to get lost within its dazed state. That state is in ode to Nate Grace's effortless vocals, which carry a kind of drizzling ambiance throughout the album. On the aptly titled "Heavy Air", he resembles a lovesick Thom Yorke, reaching his subtle pipes through dream-immersed fantasies. Adding to the fantasy are guitarist Austin Youngblood's bountiful psychedelic effects, which are best utilized on the flourishing waves of "Twisted Mirror", while Grace demonstrates his siren-like falsetto.

In many ways, Pleasure is the sound of a band following the atmospheric rock of the late '80s and early '90s. Much of the album can be traced to sonic innovators like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Galaxie 500, and Spacemen 3. Although it's not complete emulation; it's a band wearing their influences on their sleeves and attempting to develop a unique sound from that, and in this case it yields successful results. With Pleasure, Pure X manage to evolve that sound with a greater emphasis on ethereal-noise and psychedelic ambiance, resulting an effervescent flow of virgining textures, descending slowly down to the grounds from which it came.

[Pure X Website]
[Stream/Buy Pleasure from Acéphale Records]

James Pants - James Pants (Stones Throw, 2011)

2011-09-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

James Pants has constructed a hazy hypothesis for psychedelic pop. His sound is inexplicably vintage, and in many ways; an audio representation of obscure '70s experimentalists attempting to fuse together the long-studied paradox of left-field esteem vs. pop sensibilities. Although his roots lie firmly within the ongoing bedroom neo-pysch class, which is beginning to form into a respectable entity as focus is placed on entire album's worth of material, and less on word-of-mouth blog-hit-wonders. On his latest self-titled effort, James Pants spikes these ideas into a single beaker; one part inaudible vocal feedback [gaseous], two parts dreamy escalator pop [liquid], and three parts dazed lo-fi distortion [solid].

What sets Pants apart from his easiest of contemporaries (Ariel Pink, John Maus, Toro Y Moi) is his always altering aesthetic. While all of James Pants could essentially fit into the same genre, each song branches out of its essence and flocks for varying grounds. Opener "Beta" arrives within the drenched smog of a quarter-laced downtown arcade, as police vehicles fly down the street corners in search of Pants' vocal feedback. When "Screams of Passion" appears, vintage synthesizers pulsate a gloomy rhythm, as Pants lazily echos beyond the horizon. Contradicting this is the frequent-flyer-groove of tunes like "Kathleen", which slaps its way through dream restrained clouds of lusty narrative.

Ultimately James Pants is a strikingly flexible listen, consisting of cohesive elements arranged through the eye of a kaleidoscopic lens. Whether it's lush chords laced with subtle, aired vocals, murky indie-pop resonance, or atmospheric lounge jams; I would be hard-pressed to name a single bad track on this album. Its only flaws are a result of its disconnected and independent nature, although even the cheaper sounding beats and processed vocals give the album a certain dizzying aura, a psychedelic charm of sorts. If this is indeed how James Pants' hears the world around him, it may sound something like a cross-processed impression of relentless grooves, vintage lounge funk, and fading hues of vague nostalgia. May it all flow free through the red oceanic skies of its gracing cover.

[James Pants Stones Throw Page]
[Buy James Pants from Stones Throw]

Sean McCann - Open Resolve (Orange Milk, 2011)

2011-09-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

Sean McCann has remained a hot topic in experimental music for the past couple of years. His catalog displays ample quantity and quality, accrued by release after release of perfectionist compositions. With this degree of prolificacy, it's rational of McCann to prevent his earlier, limited releases from being eclipsed by impending albums. What received a well-earned vinyl treatment happened to be one of his strongest works to date-- Open Resolve, an initially small cassette edition on the recently deceased Stunned Records imprint has finally seen new light.

The motif that makes Open Resolve such a peculiar release is in its title: a flurry of melody adorned with every note in the key. Perhaps McCann's greatest feat on the album is his colorful taste for anachronism, pairing choral and electronic hemispheres. Despite Open Resolve being somewhat of an anomalous speck in his discography, not all six pieces sprawl alike. "Cottage Coffee Patch" is an angular, shrill swarm of strings and digital skronk, and "Broken Replicator"'s damaged synthesizer barrage bursts open in an instant, equal parts jarring and harmonious.

McCann's keen ear for arrangement has diffused into his album structuring, too: "Dissolving Memory" makes way for a pared-down, somber deviation from the A-side's three previous euphoric exercises. The 16-minute centerpiece "Pass Away" captures Open Resolve's ethos, with effervescent piano, decaying moans, and percussive debris overlooking a cloudy 100-acre pastoral. Its intermittent dissonance kindles an air of chaos, but the unabating polyphonic surges imply hidden benevolence.

Considering Sean McCann's intimidating archive, Orange Milk's vinyl reissue of Open Resolve grants wider access to what may be his greatest flash in the pan. As its cover alludes, the album exhibits a smattering of hues, with its influences alloyed into a confusingly mesmeric canvas; a diverse selection of hi-octane soundscapes that ooze fervency. If there's anything to be gathered from this album, it's that even in an age of worshiping and/or mimicking our archetypes, music continues to evolve and look toward a bright future.

[Buy Open Resolve from Orange Milk Records]

Dirty Beaches - Badlands (Zoo, 2011)

2011-09-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Dirty Beaches is the solo project of Taiwan native Alex Zhang Hungtai. It's interesting to note his origin, because when listening to Badlands it's easy to forget you're listening to a man of Taiwanese descent, and not the offspring of say-- Roy Orbison or Ian Curtis. Badlands is essentially his first proper album after a series of admirable, but limited LPs and cassettes on smaller labels. Hungtai appropriately tones down the caustic elements of his preceding work resulting in Badlands; an atmospheric set of hauntingly saturated lo-fi, fluently balancing a fine line between experimental abrasiveness and hallucinogenic pop.

Throughout most of Badlands, vintage guitar loops dwell in its vignette of ghostly 50s parlour shops and oil stations. The first three tracks all utilize that quality to accent their subtle rhythms. Opener "Speedway King" gradually revolves a series of fragmented machine loops under a steamy drone, before a train blows loudly in the distance; allowing the rest of the album access through its spectral railway. "Horses" guides that cold, repetitive nature through a friendlier route, until the album's grooviest-- "Sweet 17"-- tightly rides a 60s surf riff, evoking drowsy polaroids of sun-soaked beaches. Hungtai croons his dusty pipes throughout these songs, and for the most part he's indecipherable; achieving a consistent phantom-like status in the process.

The album is most effective near the end of its relatively short run time, on the tracks "True Blue" and "Lord Knows Best". These are somewhat different entities compared to the often unsettling nature of the tracks that surround them. "Lord Knows Best" features an innocent sounding piano melody as Hungtai grieves lost love, sorrow, and forgiveness, until a subtle harmony mends the distress to a haunting melancholy. It's the kind of song the credits roll to. Although, the most overwhelming moment on the album is "True Blue", where Hungtai sounds as if he's tributing the rolling landscapes of lost highways, as Elvis rises from the dead to preform one last set; in a smoky, velvet-furnished lounge for a few deserving fans.

Badlands is an extremely promising album; securing a sense of excellence to come from Dirty Beaches in the future. The only thing holding the album back is a couple of its instrumentals; which sound like directionless experiments that don't to fully satisfy. Though these tracks as a whole work together effectively, each track pacing fluently into the next. At its core, Badlands is an album completely encased around its atmosphere; that thick haze of sentimental lust. Its varying moods throughout manage to melt into an equally gratifying impression of sorrow and reflection. In thought-- there's a man in the distance, behind the smoky veiled nostalgia and his foggy perspective, gray as night; he asks for acceptance, in an ever-confusing world.

[Dirty Beaches Blog]
[Buy Badlands from Zoo Music]

Leyland Kirby - Eager to Tear Apart the Stars (History Always Favours The Winners, 2011)

2011-09-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

James Leyland Kirby is an artist who has remained undoubtedly prolific throughout his career, from his early origins as V/Vm in the mid-'90s, to his ongoing, and currently most acclaimed project, The Caretaker. Where V/Vm was a noise-colliding mad-scientist hybrid of experimental sounds and oddball remixes, The Caretaker is a ballroom-inspired affair of pre-war parlour jazz seen through modern eyes; where once cheerful and optimistic sounds filled the air, haunting and cerebral memories reside, fallen victim to time. Most recently Kirby has begun to release music under his own name, starting with 2009's Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was; a three-part juggernaut of fascinatingly clear-headed, pastoral scores of ambient. This work is somewhat collateral to The Caretaker, as both can evoke strong emotional qualities through their subtle conceptual themes of time and memory. Although where The Caretaker's dark and time regressive recordings utilize vinyl noise to capture lost memories, Leyland Kirby's drowsy orchestrations of emotional unease and underlying drone eject a stark contrast between merciless beauty, and unforgiving hostility.

That contrast is essentially the key to understanding Eager To Tear Apart The Stars. It's interesting to note how similar its cover art is to The Caretaker's An Empty Bliss Beyond This World; like they should been seen as companion pieces. Although this is hard to believe, because Tear Apart the Stars is diverse in an entirely different way. Its six recordings each manage to embrace a varying set of tones, moods, and instruments. The album opens with "The Arrow of Time", striking deeply embedded piano keys that harrow through a distressing climate, while whimsical drones softly sweep away the damp debris. It's a deceiving first impression of the resulting elegance that follows it. "This Is the Story of Paradise Lost" drowns the opening affliction in a stream of gorgeous piano reflections, escorted by frail murmurs that vaporize the liquid successions. That seemingly unrestrained delicacy is guided by a soft haze of static electricity, subtly meandering in the distance.

Not only is there a clear contrast from song to song, but also within songs themselves. This is best noted on "They Are All Dead, There Are No Skip At All", where childlike vibraphones carry an innocent melody through a body of arresting harps, as meteor-encompassed static plunges to the ground, resonating an almost forceful contrast between opposing moods. That opposition can lead to questioning the very purpose of the song, unaware if it's supposed to be uplifting, or disheartening. Although precisely what that opposition does to is it creates a consistent harmony between differing moods; like an unsettling swan-song. This may sound a little far-fetched, but even the title of the song suggests this. "They Are All Dead", a blatant and depressing phrase joined by, "There Are No Skip At All", which could be a deliberate grammar mistake to evoke the childlike innocence of its instrumentation.

"We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of time. And there are but two means of escaping this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose." - Charles Baudelaire. That quote can bring a great understanding to Eager to Tear Apart the Stars. There are those who will listen to it, and hear pretty, pleasurable background ambient music. And there are those who will listen to it, and hear mind-altering sonic perceptions of their own lives, and will become interested in working to hear all it has to offer. Both are equally acceptable conclusions to come to after listening to Eager to Tear Apart the Stars; it's just a matter of finding out which side you're on.

[Buy Eager to Tear Apart the Stars from History Always Favours Winners]

1958-2009 - 1958-2009 (Amethyst Sunset, 2011)

2011-09-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

What started in 2009 as a cassette triptych of releases (not including the Live tape) dedicated to the late-and-great King of Pop, Ekhein and Jugular Forest label owners Matthew Sullivan and Alex Twomey unified their separate monikers as Earn and Mirror To Mirror to generate vast, reflective interactions by marriage of guitar and synthesizer. Closing the doors on the collaboration, 1958-2009 have unveiled their final and most proper output on vinyl, presenting two 20-minute pieces extending across their respective sides.

The thought of a two-man act feels far-fetched when listening, as any boundaries between the employed instruments are rendered nonexistent. Looped arpeggios introduce themselves almost too smoothly to bear semblance to a guitar, and conversely their timbre and dependence of acoustics are inseparable, veiling any hint of electronic association. With unwavering correspondence all voices align with one another, migrating to each phase harmoniously. Weaving together every phrase is a simple yet effective resonance. Be it the dimensions of the recording space or a commonality between Sullivan and Twomey's pedal chains, shimmers and rumbles birth a multifarious and coalescent pastoral.

Any connections to Michael Jackson-- aside from the recording date of 1958-2009, on the one-year anniversary of his death-- seem to be a mystery. Their final cassette release in the series consisted of "Songs for the helicopter ride from the UCLA to USC medical centers." Perhaps the self-titled LP is an audio representation of MJ's final moments. If not, the meditative pacing of reverberant, string-like chords elicits an experience akin to ascension perceivable to anyone. As pensively as the album sails, its delicate fluctuations permeate every second.

[Buy 1958-2009 from Amethyst Sunset]

Guardian Alien - Guardian Alien (Swill Children, 2011)

2011-09-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

Given their enigmatic presentation, New York's Guardian Alien offer very little background aside from an abstract paragraph explaining the origins of their debut LP, a gleaning of studio and live recordings at Brooklyn's Shea Stadium. When compiled into two 20-odd-minute sides, these performances merge into two sprawling explorations by way of synth, guitar, drums (provided by Liturgy's Greg Fox), and vocals.

Guardian Alien dodge basement dweller aspirations of merely freaking out on record and opt to travel along both steep and downward slopes. Lighting the A-side is a swirl of kosmische-esque loops, buzzing vibrations, and spiritual vocal moans. With elevating turmoil, suspense becomes its most turgid amongst a surge of psych-rock cataclysm. With quavering guitar atop, the group enters a phase of disconnect before an ultimate spate denoted by harrowing screams and blast-beats.

The B-side floats upon a queasy hum, frantic bows, and tumbling drums, patiently adapting to a moreover coherent cadence veiled by a blurry mantra. In contrast to its precursor, the second half is more or less a departure from an evolution-minded route and veers its head to the hypnotic potency of meandering; not aimless, but sprawling. Evading conventions, Guardian Alien is nearly absent of the high volume often associated with many improvisational outfits, fulfilling only the diligent.

[Buy Guardian Alien from Swill Children]

Ricardo Donoso - Progress Chance (Digitalis, 2011)

2011-08-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

Leafing through Ricardo Donoso's background proves his towering versatility. Manning the Semata Productions imprint, serving as half of noise-duo Perispirit, and providing drums and electronics for the metal outfit Ehnahre constitute much of his creative output aside from his solo operations. In the midst of producing a score for an upcoming film, Donoso was eager to tackle new sounds. His appetite for nostalgia led him to assemble an album inspired by techno, Goa, and Scandinavian trance music once explored in the Brazilian rave coterie.

Progress Chance is simple in theory but ambitious when presented. Donoso's intended detachment of the genre's customary rhythm section grants the album an extraordinary flavor, easing it supplely into the contemporary Digitalis camp of electronic music. While diverse Progress Chance is a withal consistent 33 minutes, as the manipulation of chiming, percussive synth timbres remains at the heart of each piece.

Progress Chance is perhaps the least misleading title applied to music this year, as compositional evolution is Donoso's primary intent. "Baiting Disappointment" leaps across hard-panned chords and oscillating thrums. The lengthiest, "Morning Criminal", accumulates its drama unhurriedly with low plucks elevated by tremolo-like synthesized strings. The title is pertinent, as the 8-minute piece accomplishes its work in a swift and meticulous manner.

Though every track attains a subtle component of its own ("Klatu"'s muffled chatter, the fluttery pulses of "The Deck of an Ancient Ship"), their designs have an overarching likeness. Flickers of variety appear within reach of the end, in the vicinity of "The North Quadrant (Ascension)"'s high-frequency squeaks and its successor's foreboding moans. Due to its concision, Progress Chance avoids redundancy while maintaining a dedication to distinctly rhythmic sequences, tucking melodies within others and accenting each passage with textural transmissions.

[Ricardo Donoso Website]
[Stream/Buy Progress Chance from Digitalis Recordings]

Podcast: 8/30/11

2011-08-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

After a week-long break, we've compiled yet another amalgamation of tunes-- have at it.

Garrincha & the Stolen Elk - "Tower of Babble" from Void (Weird Forest, 2011)
Ricardo Donoso - "Chrome Decadence" from Progress Chance (Digitalis, 2011)
Endless Caverns - "Guitars in the Sun" from Sensei Deprivation (Existential Cloth, 2011)
Seziki Tetrasheaf - "Side A (excerpt)" from Keys to Kishore (Rotifer, 2011)
Ford & Lopatin - "Emergency Room" from Channel Pressure (Mexican Summer, 2011)
Hella - "Headless" from Tripper (Sargent House, 2011)
Amen Dunes - "Bedroom Drum" from Through Donkey Jaw (Sacred Bones, 2011)
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - "Tigers" from Mirror Traffic (Matador, 2011)
The Drums - "Money" from Portamento (Moshi Moshi/Island, 2011)

[Download this podcast in 320kbps]

Hella - Tripper (Sargent House, 2011)

2011-08-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Zach Hill is a bastard. His futuro-eclectic rain on fire drumming antics over the past decade on 50 and counting full-lengths and numerous EPs have solidified high praise to both wide-eyed percussive fanatics and studied sound-scholars. His current project Hella (currently only two members strong after multiple lineup shifts) is a haven for noise-bred experimentalism. Some would shout 'Math Rock', but Hella's latest would be an ape-shit gorilla on tranquilizers if it were chained to such links as structure, principle, and law. Therefore, no gorillas were shot in the making of Tripper.

Right off the bat, the album throws you into its claustrophobic chamber; letting no time pass as the rumbling of Hill's percussive taunts fill your ears. His hyperactive drumming is the meat on the bones, but Spencer Seim's left-field guitar frenzy is the marinade and spices that keep the game filling and flavorful every time it's slapped on the plate. Halfway through the album there is consequence from the constant noise, as "Netgear" slowly spirals into an overheated warp of collected noise; strung out to a pulsating vibration. Through techniques like that, Hella play off each other in a dizzying set that, once finished, feels like a mass of repetitively broken discord, unless appropriately given time to reveal its rewarding submissive complexities.

Tripper is the kind of record that can potentially unite an assorted amount of fans. Metal heads could appreciate its heavy distortions and collapsing technique, electronic fans its eclectic sonics, jazz devotes its attentive percussion, and avant-gardists could be taken aback by its oddball mix of varied sounds. Although it could just as easily turn people off, as any free-thinking record should. Ultimately Tripper is the sound of turbulent grindcore, alternatively tuned guitars, and sweltering-beneath-the-surface hard rock; finally pay John Zorn to wave a baton around, and prepare to enter the flailing madness of a two-man juggernaut.

[Hella Bandcamp]
[Stream/Buy Tripper from Sargent House]

Overlooked & Underrated: 50 Recommendations (2000-2009)

2011-08-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

In the process of seeing music rise in significance with the aid of critical acclaim, umpteen others go unnoticed. Readers' standards of accolades may not resemble mine, but I've selected 50 releases worthy of more attention.

Les Savy Fav - Emor (Rome Upside Down) (Frenchkiss, 2000)
Many recognize LSF for their work on 2007's Let's Stay Friends, which lead to the neglect of their earlier (and overall better) material.

Libraness - Yesterday ...and Tomorrow's Shells (Tiger Style, 2000)
Polvo frontman Ash Bowie seemed to have saved most of his best songs for this solo effort, an eerie and haunting album.

Oxes - Oxes (Monitor, 2001)
While this trio could have been one of math rock's poster children, they released two albums and an EP that rivaled For Respect-era Don Caballero.

Self - Gizmodgery (Spongebath, 2000)
Self were the only group with the audacity to record a pop album entirely with toy instruments, and succeed.

An Albatross - Eat Lightning, Shit Thunder! (Bloodlink, 2001)
Known for their more extensive material like Blessphemy, An Albatross' goofy 11-minute spasm used brevity to its advantage.

Erase Errata - Other Animals (Troubleman Unlimited, 2001)
I'd imagine that fusing The Raincoats with Teenage Jesus & The Jerks would give you something similar to Erase Errata's 2001 masterpiece.

Godzik Pink - Black Broccoli (5 Rue Christine, 2001)
Along with Zs, Little Women, and Normal Love, Godzik Pink brought jazz into obscurer territory and applied their own minimal mindset to it.

Jeromes Dream - Presents (Alone, 2001)
After the vocalist's damage to his vocal chords from screaming without a microphone, Jeromes Dream's final effort was looked down upon in authoritarian hardcore circles due to the lack of screaming. Come on, people.

Shiner - The Egg (DeSoto, 2001)
In the same league as Chavez and Jawbox, Shiner somehow didn't catch on.

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - Bob Dinners & Larry Noodles Present Tubby Turdner's Celebrity Avalanche (Communion, 2001)
TFUL282's diversely quirky breed of rock is challenging to categorize and ignore, so how did this happen?

Tourettes Lautrec - Red All (Swami, 2001)
With this clever of a name, you can only expect the sharpest, most ferocious energy from this band-- perhaps what too many acts had aimed for in 2001.

Corn on Macabre - Chapters II & II + Deleted Scene (Magic Bullet, 2002)
Featuring members of pg. 99 and Darkest Hour, this quartet delivered high-octane metal coated with silly lyricism.

Forcefield - Roggaboggas (Load, 2002)
Forcefield's premier Load full-length consists of 17 tracks of the squiggles and beeps that later became the blueprint for noise from the likes of Black Dice.

Oneida/Liars - Atheists, Reconsider (Arena Rock, 2002)
Little did we know, Liars could play Oneida with more tact than Oneida.

Q and Not U - Different Damage (Dischord, 2002)
Q and Not U's sophomore album did receive decent coverage, but it could have been big. I mean, *big*. Surpassing its predecessor in variety, the loss of a member only led to more forethought and innovation. Swift drumming, grooving bass, and searing guitars are abound.

Ex Models - Zoo Psychology (Frenchkiss, 2003)
I suppose that Frenchkiss Records' fans weren't prepared for no-wave revivalism in 2003.

The Joggers - Solid Guild (Startime International, 2003)
I blame the record label.

Kaito - Band Red (spinART, 2003)
What may have prevented Kaito's noisily charismatic songs from getting noticed was identity confusion. (see: Japanese electronic artist Kaito)

The Natural History - Beat Beat Heartbeat (Startime International, 2003)
"I blame the record label."

Soiled Doves - Soiled Life (Gold Standard Laboratories, 2003)
Ex-Blood Brothers vocalist Johnny Whitney has found his way into many projects, but Soiled Doves is plausibly his most obscure foray.

Starlight Mints - Built on Squares (PIAS, 2003)
Starlight Mints' grand, baroque-like presence isn't unlike what you would hear from newer bands, but their keen ear for adherent melodies are at the root of their definition.

Zs - Zs (Gilgongo, 2005)
Zs' latest and greatest, New Slaves, has been given praise aplenty, but the outfit's back catalog hardly resembles that barrage.

Gang Gang Dance - Gang Gang Dance (Fusetron, 2004)
While GGD's later output gained accessibility, their first full-length consisted of two lengthy 20-minute jams, exploring every nook and cranny imaginable.

Gorge Trio - Open Mouth, O Wisp (Skin Graft, 2004)
Fronted by John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez of Deerhoof, Gorge Trio provided explosive vignettes of guitar squall.

Necronomitron - Necronomitron (Load, 2004)
Providence, RI trio Necronomitron are one of the most bizarre acts I've heard in metal. Multifarious African-like percussion aligns with dissonant noodling and horrific shrieks.

Yowie - Cryptooology (Skin Graft, 2004)
Strings are bent, pushed against pickups, and further tortured alongside elastic rhythms.

Hella - Church Gone Wild (Suicide Squeeze, 2005)
Divided into two solo ventures, Zach Hill's magnum opus seemed marketed as a companion piece than its own album.

Daniel Higgs - Plays the Mirror of the Apocalypse and Other Songs (Open Mouth, 2005)
Known for fronting Lungfish and recently collaborating with The Skull Defekts, Daniel Higgs presents a sparse Raga-inspired hour of recordings.

The Howling Hex - All-Night Fox (Drag City, 2005)
Neil Hagerty's Howling Hex project based all eight of this album's songs on instrumental repetition, making for an equally hypnotic and involving listen.

Tiny Hawks - Fingers Become Bridges (Coreleone, 2005)
This Rhode Island duo were as tumultuous as any hardcore five-piece, delivering their intense melodicism in under 15 minutes.

Axolotl - Way Blank (Psych-O-Path, 2006)
Karl Bauer's Axolotl moniker has amassed a hefty discography, but Way Blank strikes a euphoria that his other efforts cease to encompass.

Dmonstrations - Night Trrors, Shock! (Gold Standard Laboratories, 2006)
Dmonstration's idiosyncratic punk is filled to the brim with skronk and discord suited only for seizure-like dance moves.

Hototogisu - Chimärendämmerung (DeStijl, 2006)
Matthew Bower's Hototogisu and Sunroof! projects display versatility in volume from release to release, and this 2006 disc straddles both the spiraling psychedelia and blistering noise dispersed amongst his body of work.

Mikaela's Fiend - We Can Driving Machine (Strictly Amateur Films, 2006)
Mikaela's Fiend are simple in theory, yet the result is ear-splitting: an effect-heavy guitar-drums duo bursting through all conventional confines.

The Punks - Unanimous Bangers (5 Rue Christine, 2006)
To put it simply, No-Neck Blues Band-esque basement jams by way of irony-enthusiastic goons.

Skullflower - Tribulation (Crucial Blast, 2006)
Skullflower provide an indefatigable shroud of guitar feedback, progressively increasing its grate, track after track.

Fatal Flying Guilloteens - Quantum Fucking (A Fictitious Real Life Account of Young Love in the Streets) (Frenchkiss, 2007)
This Texan band cherry picked from the finest in noise rock and applied them with an unmatched precision.

True Primes - We Have Won (Locust Music, 2007)
True Primes are the only boy-girl duo that I know of that doesn't follow the route of indie pop. Much of this debut consists of dizzying vocal loops and distant drumming.

Winning - This is an Ad for Cigarettes (Ache, 2007)
If Al Johnson's shaky croons in U.S. Maple were ever alienating to you, Winning's deconstructed rock ballads may help you reconsider.

Bulbs - Light Ships (Freedom To Spend, 2008)
Like Mikaela's Fiend, Bulbs consist of the fundamentals-- guitar and drums, yet push the envelope even further. Featuring William Sabiston (of Axolotl) and Jon Almaraz, Bulbs' debut full-length comes closest to off-kilter electronics, while the resonant guitar tones maintain an organic element of their own.

Haust - Ride the Relapse (Fisysk, 2008)
Norway's Haust made hardcore fun again with driving rhythms and anger-inducing riffs.

volcano! - Paperwork (Leaf, 2008)
This trio's hook-smothered, fun-loving sophomore effort must have been too boisterous for its own good to have not been more revered.

Broadcast - Mother is the Milky Way (Warp, 2009)
In the midst of Broadcast's collaboration with The Focus Group being released, their equally odd tour EP was left unheard by many.

The Double - The Double (Thimbleful, 2009)
The Double were inches away from popularity with Loose in the Air in 2005, but since leaving Matador Records the group's mangled pop tunes haven't reached many ears.

Evan Miller - Transfigurations on Lap-Steel Guitar (Arbor, 2009)
Evan Miller's vinyl debut: a gorgeous offering of various guitar exploits. Side 2, track 2, "Asphodel" must be one of the greatest songs I've ever laid ears on-- imagine Eno's "Deep Blue Day" sans structure.

Grippers Nother Onesers - At Slimer Beach (Olde English Spelling Bee, 2009)
This is a reissue one of James Ferraro's earliest attempts at making a pop album under the Lamborghini Crystal guise, and it's undoubtedly the catchiest.

On Fillmore - Extended Vacation (Dead Oceans, 2009)
When not performing with Wilco, Glenn Kotche enlists the help of Darin Gray, creating subtle, percussive jazz experiments.

What's Up? - Content Imagination (Obey Your Brain, 2009)
This Sacramento duo's debut is fun of the foreign sort; punchy rhythms and melodies are transmitted through exotic filters and electronics.

V/A - Adult Swim Singles Program 2011 (Williams Street, 2011)

2011-08-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

Adult Swim, home to some of the most hysterical shows on television, have been quietly releasing compilations (usually free-of-charge) since the underground hip-hop guide Chrome Children. Since then, they've collaborated with labels such as Definitive Jux and Ghostly International, and have fostered circles in independent rock with Warm & Scratchy and Metal Swim. Williams Street, Adult Swim's music proprietor, launched the Singles Program last year, with eight uniquely designed digital singles for artists including Cults, High On Fire, and the long-absent Madvillain.

This year's program features ten tracks released over the course of ten weeks-- some exclusive to this compilation-- each of which featuring playfully detailed illustrations linking to form a panoramic display of monsters, swamp-goers, and trick-or-treaters. The only potential dud in this series may be Best Coast's "Gone Again", as we find Bethany Costentino's lyricism status quo ("a gloomy day and I'm feeling low/don't know why 'cause I just got high") but others contribute flavors amassing a diverse buffet of singles.

How To Dress Well conjures melancholic, abysmal R&B, followed by Mastodon's ferocious ilk of metal taking the shape of Mike Patton on "Deathbound". The Tallest Man on Earth's Kristian Matsson once again proves the uncomplicated force of songwriting, and Lil B's most recognized producer Clams Casino puts together a sample-less instrumental of frigid synthesizers beneath a surging beat.

Remarkably, Williams Street reserve the centerpiece for the end: El-P's ambitious "drones over BKLYN": a densely constructed rhythm of synth, piano, and organ beneath Jaime Meline's hectic verses, even making room for a guitar solo reprisal. William Street and Adult Swim's efforts to lead independent music to greater numbers of ears have been triumphant. Eclipsing last year's series, the 2011 Adult Swim Singles Program is a creative, colorful, and inexpensive mixed bag.

[Stream/Download the Adult Swim Singles Program 2011]

AraabMuzik - Electronic Dream (Duke, 2011)

2011-08-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

You are now listening to AraabMuzik. Behind those dope beats and quasi-anthemic-trance spirit is Abraham Orellana; a modern hip-hop producer let loose in the studio, left to his own devices. The pressure-driven music found on his debut works like a playlist for a sweaty club, but instead of mindless beat-harping bangers, the crowd below cries for smoothly enveloped electronics around those easily digestible beats. AraabMuzik translates that modern-euphoric approach to producing hip-hop into a series of abbreviated clusters of free-flowing, cascading textures; ultimately adding to an extremely consistent set of contemporary instrumental hip-hop.

The music on Electronic Dream is not completely instrumental, in sense. Most of its tracks feature backing female vocals, strung out in a familiar repetition of club-ready lyrics like, "Fall in love with music, fall in love with dance, fall in love with anything that makes you want romance." These vocals complement the trance ambiance oozing from the album, because of course it's not about what these ladies are saying, it's about how they're saying it. Take "Lost In A Maze", where voice is utilized as progression of its beat; being the subtle breathe in between each 808, to give the track a nice tension in the album's closing moments.

Electronic Dream carries a few consistent vibes throughout it's short run-time, relating to how each song is introduced. A track either begins with a simple line of lyrics, or a microphone call reminding us, "You are now listening to AraabMuzik," or vice-versa, before a heavy beat drops to establish the rest of the track. The microphone call will most likely sound contrived and self-indulgent to most listeners, because it bears the question, "why do we need to be reminded of whom we are listening too?" The answer is, this reminder gives the album a radio station vibe; as if you're tuned to 103.3 AraabMuzik. This little effect is pretty unique, and while it may end up aggravating more people than its intent is worth; it manages to glue the tracks into a tighter, more cohesive mix.

Overall Electronic Dream doesn't go without its flaws; it neither shines in ambition nor originality. Although this isn't an album expecting to live up to any kind of hype, or break any ground; it simply works as a set of consistent instrumental hip-hop tracks that echo a dreamy trance-like demeanor. It succeeds as an easy-going alternative to the sounds of modern hip-hop; minus the foolish braggadocio of ineffective lyrics. The modern sheen on contemporary beats, soothing club ecstasy, the pathos of late century Detroit, all exemplified, in a crash course known as the Electronic Dream.

[AraabMuzik Myspace]
[Buy Electronic Dream from Duke Records]

Korekyojinn - Tundra (Magaibutsu Limited/Skin Graft, 2011)

2011-08-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

People in-the-loop of the technical Japanese acts on John Zorn's Tzadik label are most likely well-aware of Korekyojinn, a prog-centric trio fronted by Ruins drummer/leader Yoshida Tatsuya. For those less conscious (including myself), the group's sixth full-length effort Tundra was recently provided U.S. distribution by 'now-wave' term-coiners Skin Graft. Korekyojinn, while not sharing the greatest commonality with the label's most recognizable American acts, remain a well-placed inclusion in the catalog.

Tundra stands as 55 minutes of unyielding virtuosity, presenting every backflip, cartwheel, and pole vault with an almost mechanized rigor. Analogies to rollercoasters are a given, but the vivaciously melodic "Swan Dive" pays no mind to preparation, immediately accelerating downward at an unfathomable velocity . The eight-minute behemoth shape-shifts speedily from tempo to tempo, signature to signature. How do these miniatures connect? It's difficult to gauge, and there's high probability that they don't.

The name Kore-kyojinn translates to "this giant," a fusion of two groups imagined to be influences, as the trio derive from the experiments of This Heat and the progressive blueprint set by Gentle Giant. Akin to Ruins, Korekyojinn aren't the most serious of bands. Their almost academic interplay is a product of their kinetic might. This becomes most evident on the brief "Zebra Crossing", where the band unequivocally enters surf-mode.

With an average track length spanning six-to-seven minutes, Tundra is quite fatigue-inducing, and saves its reserved detours for the closing half: the sinister "Xenon" falls into humming guitar chords and cymbal pitter-patter, and "Abandoned" seductively opens with the jazziest passage of the nine. This exhaustion ceases to spoil the album, though, as the stamina present here is bound to trigger any listener's inner-spazz. Korekyojinn's exuberant syncopation will keep heads tilted and bobbing from start to finish.

[Buy Tundra from Magaibutsu Limited/Skin Graft Records]