Wixel - Winter

01. Acoustic Hum
02. The Bergeron Process
03. Winter Waltz #1
04. Dawn Chorus
05. Aesthetics Of Clouds
06. January 4th
07. Stumbling Music #2
08. Melsbroek
09. Winter Waltz #2
10. Vaarwel
11. Stumbling Music #1
12. Aerosan
13. Stumbling Music #3
14. Winter Sun
15. Reading Music

Welcome to the first edition - January - of my awesome and/or stupid 2009 project. It’s a project in which I force myself to record and release a record within each month of the year 2009. There are certain rules and guidelines which I must obey. You can find those at the wixel website. Due to the limited time of recording, and the constant output, this thing will feel very much feel like a personal journal. I have no clue whether it’s going to be interesting or not. It will just exist, I guess. Some months will be more interesting/better sounding than others. I’ll always explain in these liner notes what’s going on each month. 

For the first record my setup included nothing but an acoustic guitar, a microphone and the ableton live software used as a traditional multitrack recorder. No fancy effects, nor fancy plugins. Just the basic controls of recording, cutting, pasting and adjusting the volume. I thought a constraint in options would result in getting more out of less, and at some points I did come across some marvelous sounds. ‘Melsbroek’ for example is nothing but a few hundred recordings of various singles notes, with the volume turned down at each beginning, then slowly turned up while all notes are placed in a way so the guitar starts to sound like an organ. I quite like the effect. 

The record is titled “Winter” because I feel it could be a nice compagnon for the “Herfst” ep I did with Wixel a few years back. The pictures included were all taken during the month of January. It rarely snows this much in Belgium. I like winter...www.2009.bandcamp.com

Great Lake Swimmers - Lost Channels

1. Palmistry
2. Everything Is Moving So Fast
3. Pulling On A Line
4. Concrete Heart
5. She Comes To Me In Dreams
6. The Chorus In The Underground
7. Singer Castle Bells
8. Stealing Tomorrow
9. Still
10. New Light
11. Rivers Edge
12. Unison Falling Into Harmony

Heeding the invitation of historian/photographer/mondo Great Lake Swimmers fan Ian Coristine, Tony Dekker and his folksy crew took a field trip upstream to the Thousand Islands region of Ontario last year. There they recorded in churches, community centers and even a castle, basking in the picturesque environs and getting artistically inspired in general. Those recordings make up the bulk of Lost Channels, the group's fourth album. Lead single "Pulling On A Line" reveals how the group spent its 
river vacation: chiming mandolins, subtle harmonies and an easygoing beat combine to make the ultimate sonic postcard. Wish we were there, indeed...www.prefixmag.com

Lady Sovereign - Jigsaw

01. Let’s Be Mates
02. So Human
03. Jigsaw
04. Bang Bang
05. I Got You Dancing
06. Pennies
07. Guitar
08. Student Union
09. Food Play
10. I Got The Goods

Dozens of musical genres have come to favor and disappeared since Lady Sovereign's debut Public Warning hit in 2006, and now she's back, trying yet again to launch grime into the American mainstream with her new album, Jigsaw. The album's first single, "I Got You Dancing" sounds like M.I.A. filtered through Dizzee Rascal, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it remains to be seen if it can breakthrough further than her hit single, "Love Me Or Hate Me." The album is thefirst for Sovereign's Midget record label...www.prefixmag.com

Cursive - Mama, I'm Swollen

01. In the Now
02. From the Hips
03. I Couldn't Love You
04. Donkeys
05. Caveman
06. We're Going to Hell
07. Mama, I'm Satan
08. Let Me Up
09. Mama, I'm Swollen
10. What Have I Done?

The band notes that due to the extremely short turnaround between today and the release, vinyl will not be ready for a simultaneous release on March 10th. The band is promising "180 gram vinyl and cool deluxe packaging." The album was also described like this:

Mama, I'm Swollen finds Kasher at his literate, lyrical best, where references to both Poe (“Going To Hell”) and Pinocchio (“Donkeys”) are intertwined seamlessly within his own tales of characters grappling with the moral quandary of being human, adult, and playing a role in ‘civilized’ society. Musically, Cursive is as smart and sophisticated as ever, the songs’ rousing, cerebral content complemented by moments alternately hushed and exhilarating (the cathartic “From The Hips,” the noisily melodic romp “I Couldn’t Love You”), eerily moody and jaunty (the almost prayer-like “Let Me Up,” “Mama, I’m Swollen”) – moments that often occur within the very same song. 

From the charging bass lines of album opener “In The Now” to the quiet first chords of confessional closer “What Have I Done?”, Mama, I'm Swollen is a natural progression that remains distinctively Cursive: a fluid amalgamation of the band’s sound past, present, and future – a band that both your punk kid sister and English lit grad student best friend can call their own.