Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Masha Qrella - Speak Low
1. I Talk To Trees
2. My Ship
3. Speak Low
4. One Life To Live
5. On The Street Where You Live
6. Drunken Scene
7. Wandering Star
8. Im A Stranger Here Myself
9. Little Prince
10. September Song
11. Saga Of Jenny
Masha Qrella is known for her diversity. She performs solo as well as with band, writes film soundtracks, has her own studio
and has re-interpreted Broadway pieces by Kurt Weill and Frederique Loewe. These interpretations can be found on her new solo album Speak Low which she will present at her Berlin concert being the record release party at the same..
O+S - 2009
01. New Life
02. Permanent Scar
03. The Fox
04. Toreador
05. We Do What We Want To
06. Survive Love
07. Haunts
08. My Friend
09. Knowing Animals
10. Lonely Ghosts
O+S is a new project by Orenda Fink (Azure Ray, Art In Manila) and Scalpelist (aka Cedric LeMoyne of Remy Zero). Orenda and Scalpelist, long-time friends from their shared hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, have created a record that combines the haunting, ethereal music of a David Lynch soundtrack with the cinematic art-pop of 10cc. With the elemental & adventurous production of Michael Patterson (Beck, Notorious B.I.G., Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), O+S delivers a unique sound that is more than just a sum of its parts. Look for the March 24 release of their debut album on Saddle Creek Records.
Saint Etienne - Method Of Modern Love
1. Method of Modern Love
2. Method of Modern Love (Cola Boy Remix)
3. Method of Modern Love (Richard X Join Our Clique Mix)
4. Method of Modern Love (Acapella Version)
5. This is Tomorrow (Original Version)
A brace of new tunes produced by electro-pop genius Richard X to celebrate Saint Etienne's latest greatest hits package, 'London Converstions.'
'Method of Modern Love' is the star of this AA sideshow, a slice of melancholy disco with Sarah Cracknell cooing sweetly about falling in love like the perennial teenager she seems to be. 'This is Tomorrow' is a reworked version of the title track from their documentary on the Royal Festival Hall from 2006 and, while a diverting ode to a splendid building and modernism in general, feels a bit limp next to it's more tuneful partner.
Those two are your lot for the 7", but of the bonus stuff available over other formats I urge you to check out 'Method of Modern Love (Richard X Joins Our Clique Mix)'...www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk
Monday, March 30, 2009
Soul Jazz Records Singles 2008-2009
Cd1
01-Ramadanman - Carla
02-Tetine - I Go To The Doctor
03-Kalbata feat. Clapper Priest - Solution
04-Cotti - The Search
05-Subway - Simplex (Gatto Fritto Mix)
06-Warrior Queen and Heatwave - Things Change
07-Kutz - Drums Of No Return
08-Bulgari - Everything Is Changing
09-Kode9 - Stung
10-Ramadanman - Core
11-Cult Of The 13th Hour - Wickedness (Version)
12-Matias Aguayo - Rita
13-Tayo - Style And Trend
14-Secondo - Kuwait
15-Kalbata feat. Warrior Queen - Shooting Range
16-Goth Trad - Genesis
Cd2
01-Ramadanman - Dayrider
02-Cult Of The 13th Hour - Wickedness
03-Pinch - Fighting Talk
04-Bulgari - The Laws Of Physics
05-Kutz - Travelling
06-Tetine - I Go To The Doctor (CSS Remix)
07-Silkie - Dam 4
08-Cotti - The Truth Hurts
09-Secondo - Macula
10-Matias Aguayo - 99 Seconds
11-Digital Mystikz - Theif In The Night
12-Tayo - Choppa Riddim
13-Kalbata feat. Clapper Priest - Saxon Londinium
14-Pinch - Chamber Dub
15-Subway - Hal
16-Cottis vs Chefal - Latest Technology
Cd3
01-VA - Live Mix CD Mixed By Kris Jones
Featuring exclusive Soul Jazz Records singles spanning 2008-9 for the first time on this monster 50-track triple CD (which includes a one-off pressing free limited-edition mix CD), all for the price of a single CD !
Some of the finest artists around have chosen to work with Soul Jazz Records in the last two years and we are proud to present these exclusive tracks here. As well as featuring once again the cream of the UK’s Dubstep master producers such as Kode 9, Digital Mystikz and Cult of the 13th Hour (Kevin Martin AKA The Bug and Space Ape), this triple-CD also features many second-generation artists such as Pinch, Cotti, Ramadanman, Kutz and more.
Soul Jazz also continue to release the very best in new forward-thinking electronic music – be it glitchy house, baile funk, italo-disco and more - by the likes of Subway, Matias Aguayo, Tetine (with a killer remix by CSS), Secondo and more - and these all also feature here.
This album brings together all the exclusive 12” vinyl releases on Soul Jazz Records over the last two-years alongside a super-limited mix CD featuring lots of extra tracks...www.souljazzrecords.co.uk
El Perro Del Mar - Love Is Not Pop
1 I Gotta Get Smart
2 Change Of Heart
3 L Is For Love
4 Let Me In
5 Heavenly Arms
6 Is It Something (To Have Wept)
7 A Better Love
A savvy artist knows when to change things up, when to lay in the cut, and when to get some new publicity photos. We weren't the only ones lukewarm on the last El Perro Del Mar album, so we're happy that Ms. Perro Del Mar, Sarah Assbring, is taking a chance with her waif-is-me shtick.
Her new seven-song mini-album, titled Love Is Not Pop and recorded with one half of Balearic funk duo Studio, Rasmus Hägg, is a welcomed mini-curve ball. The set will come out in Sweden on April 1 via Licking Fingers (U.S. release date coming soon) and the new song "Change of Heart" is currently streaming at the EPDM MySpace. She's got a few bleached-out new publicity shots, too.
In a confessional post on her website, Assbring goes into detail about the making of Love Is Not Pop, and reveals details behind two more tracks on the record: a cover of Lou Reed's "Heavenly Arms" from 1982's The Blue Mask and "It Is Something (To Have Wept)", inspired by River Phoenix, sometime Calvin Klein photog Bruce Weber and poet G.K. Chesterton. She also mentions Hägg is working on a solo album featuring all sorts of live instrumentation and refers to her work with the producer as "magical." Well, shucks.
EPDM will take part in a couple Morrissey tribute nights in Sweden at the end of this month, and she has a few local gigs lined up for March and April...www.pitchfork.com
K-os - Yes
01. Mr. Telephone Man
02. The Avenue
03. The Aviator
04. Uptown Girl
05. 4 3 2 1
06. Whip C.R.E.A.M
07. Astronaut
08. Zambony
09. Burning Bridges
10. Fun
An amazing emcee with a reputation for innovation, K-os repeatedly reinvents his style as an musician, songwriter, singer, and super producer. In his own words the album includes “break beats - strings- tabla’s- and keyboard wizardy to be exposed..” an offer he is sure to deliver on.
Weaving Rock’n'Roll and Hip Hop with a string of different styles and production techniques seemlessly allows K-os to captivate audiences winning six Canadian Urban Music awards, a Source award, and a Grammy nomination along the way among many more...www.verygood.com.au
El-B - Ammunition & Blackdown Present: The Roots Of El-B
1 - Ghost - The Club
2 - Ghost - Ghost 2000
3 - El-B - Express
4 - El-B feat. Jucie Man & Simba - Show A Little Love
5 - Ghost - Lyrical Tempo
6 - El-B feat. Jucie Man - Digital
7 - El-B feat. Jucie Man - Buck & Bury (Original Mix)
8 - Zed Bias feat. Jucie Man & Nicky Prince - Time Out (El-B Remix)
9 - Zed Bias - Neighbourhood (El-B Remix)
10 - Brasstooth - Celebrate Life (El-B Remix)
11 - El-B feat. Rolla - Serious
12 - El-B - Cuba
13 - El-B - Cruiser
14 - El-B - Amazon
15 - El-B - Among The Stars
As some folks might say, “Nine years since it all began in Streatham, the king of new dark swing drops his long player. Tracklist and sleeve notes by me, design by Stu, hard graft by Soulja. Unfinished business duly finished”. And you can hear that this is a bit of a labour of love and this compilation of early works sounds anything but old or jaded.
In fact, quite the opposite so whether your into d’n’b, grime, beats or dubstep and don’t know of El-B I think you’d be impressed with this retrospective of the ultra rare white labels, lost remixes and dusty DAT tapes produced from a garden shed in Streatham.
It’s not exactly UK garage and it’s not exactly drum’n’bass but El-B tracks were on compilations like MOS’ UK Garage - The Sound of 2000 along with Craig David, The Artful Dodger, DJ Deek Kline (now known as just Deekline), So Solid Crew et al. As Ghost (with J Da Flex), their sound was not fully Metalheadz or UK garage as you can tell from the opening two tracks from 2000, from a much sort after 12”, ‘The Club’ and ‘Two Thousand’. The best of the Ghost tracks is ‘Lyrical Tempo’, self-described as “the brand new thing”, this could have been on a album called The Roots ofStereotyp and Tikiman! And he took this one step further with the collaboration with Juiceman, particularly on ‘Digital’ and ‘Buck n Bury’ and the track ‘Serious’ (with Rolla) and ‘Cruiser’.
Another leader in the pre dubstep leftfield garage was Zed Bias and before he hit it big with Feel It Out album on Hospital, he had a hit 12” called ‘Neighbourhood’. The El-B’s remix sounds so good, it’s wonderful good and now! And I was doing a Alexander Nut type compilation, ‘Neighbourhood’ the El-B remix would have to be on it; along with the Arabian Sun Ra jazz’n’bass of ‘Among The Stars’.
It’s said that El-B was a big influence on other South London dubstep producers who are better known than Beadle today, like Kode9, Skream and Burial. The CD finishes with some contemporary quick [dub]step tracks like ‘Cuba’ and ‘Amazon’ (that was on the first Tempa Dubstep Allstars mix CD by DJ Hatcha) so it’s good to have the full tracks here.
So this album is a timely release and evidence that good will out in the end but I think I’ll be going back to get the vinyl version to hear the tracks in all their heavyweight glory...www.flyglobalmusic.com
Untold - Sweat/Dante
1. Sweat
2. Dante
The latest addition to Hot Flush's swelling roster follows up his techy mix of Toasty with a plate of brand new gear. I guess this is what we could call the later artcore movement of Dubstep, centred around the rebranded Hot Flush, Hemlock, and Hessle Audio imprints, with shades of old style Peshay and Danny Breaks bringing more complex arrangements and jazzy touches to an upswinging and 2-step informed style of dubstep which has shed any real connection with the rawer and more vibrant Grime and Dubstep that preceded it. Martyn would also be a major touchstone for this release, from the jazz licked infiltrations and interlocking garage groove of 'Sweat' to the smooth rolling subs and spacious dub tech arrangements of 'Dante' on the flip this is definitely one for conoisseurs of Pangaea, Martyn, Appleblim and the rest of that crew. Big twelve!...www.boomkat.com
Mr. Meeble - Never Trust The Chinese
1. Fine
2. Raindrops
3. Cultivation of the Imagination
4. Dragonfly
5. It All Came To Pass
6. Every Thing is Good Part One
7. A Ton of Bricks
8. I Fell Through
9. Everything is Good Part 2
10. Until I Grasp the Second
11. 100 Pills
12. Forget This Ever Happened
Flying in the face of earthly convention, Mr. Meeble issues a warning to everyone who checks out their indie debut album: Never Trust The Chinese. Between its title and content - this Phoenix based trio’s sensual and soulful pop meets dark electronica record is bound to drop jaws, turn heads and offend, oh, maybe about a billion people.
But it’s nothing personal… well, except for the one nameless female who inspired this collection of songs that tell stories of the denial and despair of lost love, personal accountability, remembering, mourning and finally, just maybe, a glimmer of hope.
Like their nearest ‘sounds kinda like’ cousins, Mr. Meeble incorporates both stellar instrumental work and an ethos of lyrical authenticity. Reminiscent of fellow French band Air, NTTC has moments of smooth, breathy vocals over spacey synths, chilled-out Rhodes and orchestral strings. At other times, it sounds similar to Thom Yorke’s Eraser with its emotive, pained vocals over minimal, tense electronics. Those familiar with Massive Attack’s Mezzanine will identify with NTTC’s dark, plodding and ominous vibe. The curious mix of stops, glitches, pops, whizzes, bleeps, stutters, and scratches together with sweeping, sometimes unnerving, visceral emotion is as close to opposites becoming singularly effective as you will find in music, or any art form, for that matter...www.myspace.com
Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work
01 Something Good Can Work
02 Do You Want It All?
Two Door Cinema Club: a young, plucky, three piece originating from the seaside resort of Bangor, Northern Ireland making brilliantly hooky, melodic guitar pop.
Postal Service, Vampire Weekend and Broken Social Scene seem to come up when people talk about the band’s sound, but of course TDCC (like all the great achievers), are doing their own thing...www.recordstore.co.uk
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Brian Borcherdt - Coyotes
01. While I Was Asleep
02. Scout Leader
03. Coyotes
04. The Drugs
05. Evil Twin
06. Means of Escape
07. Tiny Mouths
Why is there an owl on the cover of an album called Coyotes? And how did Holy Fuck’s Brian Borcherdt manage to squeeze in making a new solo record into his ridiculous international touring schedule? Neither mystery compares to those wrapped inside this treasure of a record, the anti-thesis of Holy Fuck’s instrumental freak-outs. The most intimate of his personal recordings yet — you can hear his fingers move over the fretboard, the creaks of his chair — Coyotes is the cry of little things as captured by one voice and guitar in someone’s living room. On the plaintive title track, his vocals break — liberated, finally, by the simplest of string accompaniment. This gives way to the sorrowful melodies of “The Drugs” and “Evil Twin,” buoyed by piano and ethereal background vocals, respectively. Not so much haunting as haunted, these seven songs demand you lean in closer. And while it can be claustrophobic in there, trapped with Borcherdt’s anxieties and unease, the music’s fragility is never tentative or too precious. On Coyotes, Borcherdt’s expletives are no less potent for being hushed...www.eyeweekly.com
Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
01. Glass
02. Sleep Alone
03. Moon and Moon
04. Daniel
05. Peace of Mind
06. Siren Song
07. Pearl's Dream
08. Good Love
09. Two Planets
10. Traveling Woman
11. The Big Sleep
Mythic songstresses these days seem about as few and far between as needles in haystacks. Yet flying the dreamy, hallucinatory flag for the British Isles stands Natasha Khan, defiant. Whilst Klaxons’ ‘myths of the near future’ may have fended her debut off from the fabled Mercury Music Prize, two years into the near future Khan’s myths appear to have blossomed into reality. Whilst organic alternative gems of genius Prescilla and What’s A Girl To Do fit comparatively conventionally into the most sober of daytime playlists, Two Suns sweeps emotion over swathes of sonic beauty worthy of National Trust protection, playing minimalism off the back of Khan’s haunting vocals encrusted with enchanting mystery.
Khan can hardly be said to have strayed from her path of wonderment she’s been plotting over the past few years since quitting her job as quite possibly the most thrilling teacher a nursery school has ever come across and comparisons with quintessentially great British eccentrics are as rife as her festival appearances are sure to be following Two Sun’s release come April. Yet when Kate Bush chimerical harmonies meet off-kilter broken pianos and static-driven synths the odd PJ Harvey reference can be dusted off like bats from an uninhabited mansion on a moonlit hill. Opener Glass paints an audio landscape of late nights and early mornings in misty, deserted forests as powerful as any Monet whilst single Daniel subtly rocks, ebbs and flows into the amalgamation of impeccable harmony, where 90s Casio tones whirr off the back of haughty string sections.
As if Khan’s work weren’t audacious enough to prick the hairs on the back of the coldest of necks, the tenacity of drafting in a gospel choir on Peace of Mind opens the gate to a field inhabited solely by a certain Jason Pierce. The icing on the cake? Closer The Big Sleep, a track that betters even the most subdued, touching moments of Fur and Gold, as Khan seems to have conjured a duet (featuring the endlessly prolific and wondrously offbeat Scott Walker) worthy equally of airtime on Classic FM as Radio 1, where breathtaking composition meets astounding execution.
Bat for Lashes defies conventionality and perhaps rationality yet the result is a record devoid of time and space and where Khan flies occasionally terrifyingly close to the sun, Two Suns is as compelling a release as you’ll find from these shores in 2009...www.virgin.com
Golden Silvers - True Romance
1. Another Universe
2. True Romance (True No. 9 Blues
3. Magic Touch
4. The Seed
5. Here Comes The King
6. Shakes
7. Queen Of The 21st Century
8. Please Venus
9. Arrows Of Eros
10. Fade To Black
Hotly tipped London newcomers Golden Silvers are set to release their debut album 'True Romance' on April 27th. The group caused a stir last year with some cracking shows and a series of wonderful singles. Containing the same synth driven beauty that drives MGMT, Golden Silvers have their own uniquely English voice.
Singles on independent labels such as 'Arrows Of Eros' and 'Magic Touch / Another Universe' led to a bidding war, with XL
Recordings winning the band's signature. Golden Silvers have been holed up for some time working on their debut album with Lexxx, whose CV includes both Crystal Castles and Esser.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Harry Axt - Planet Axt
01. Calipso
02. The Pianist
03. Crazy
04. Planet Axt
05. Pick A Chick
06. Bigbanditos
07. Keep it Mine
08. Solarius
Daniel Sternberg, eightyaxt years old, born naive and innocent in Berlin, has been a DJ and producer since the early 90's. Since then, using the artist names Daniel Steinberg and Harry Axt, he has produced numerous tracks, remixes, and a mix-CD on labels such as Kiddaz.Fm, Front Room Recordings, Micro.fon,, and Leftroom. His debut album, Planet Axt, comes out on 02.03.2009 on the label of his booking agency Rompecabeza. The Vinyl version presents eight as of yet unreleased tracks...www.music-head.de
Pangaea - Bear Witness & Mosaix
1. Bear Witness
2. Mosaix
When we last left Pangaea, he'd just turned out one of the highlights (if not the highlight) of a great 2008 at Leeds' Hessle Audio: "You & I / Router." His first release for 2009—this time for Scuba's Hotflush Two—pursues the same rain-soaked, melancholy take on the jungle/garage continuum.
Meaty bass patterns and a jagged high-end give "Bear Witness" its teeth. This track, however, is more haunting than aggressive, delicate quivers of synth pad complementing the rhythm's more urgent anxieties with a contemplative wariness. Pretty and pummeling with real crossover prospects, "Bear Witness" is a thoroughly appropriate follow-up to "Router"'s emotional crescendo.
An out-of-kilter, warped-LP loop of upright bass winds through B-side "Mosaix." Even after a succession of effects and treatments melt it into something more pliable, the bluesy sample lends some gutter grit to this jazzy track. It's as brooding as any Pangaea production, with an overlay of melodramatic keys sounding faintly like French horn, but the spotlight is on tough, punchy drums.
As for the future, dubstep-obsessed internet hangouts are franticly abuzz with the imminent release of Pangaea's acclaimed "Memories" (though I tend to think "Bear Witness" is a more exciting release), and next up for Hotflush Two is new material from Untold...www.residentadvisor.net
Savath y Savalas - La Llama
1. Intro
2. La Llama
3. Las 7 Sendas
4. Carajillo
5. Una Cura
6. Pavo Real
7. El Colleccionista
8. Sounds of Bowery
9. La Loba
10. Pajaros En Cadaques
11. Me Voy
12. Untitled
13. Barceloneta
14. Postlude
15. No Despiert
16. Adeu
Savath & Savalas is Guillermo Scott Herren (perhaps best known as Prefuse 73), Eva Puyuelo Muns and Roberto Carlos Lange. We’ve been experimenting with some different ways of releasing our records, just as Guillermo Scott Herren is experimenting with a new way of releasing Savath & Savalas, his Catalan acid-folk project which even pre-dates Prefuse 73.
Monokle - Tesaurus
01. Bear and Mug
02. Steppe
03. Warm Control
04. Seven
05. Fir
06. Friday
07. Magic Go!
08. Nut Brain
09. Maya
10. Transit
Music can act as something like an emotional anchor. Listening to some old songs will conjure up past experiences, situations and moods and will transport the listener into that state of mind he was in back then. Monokle celebrate exactly this quality of music. Their nuanced and agreeable mix of the most different references from 1970 to today, from Can to Plaid, from New Order to Maniacs of Noise, from prog-rock via new wave and pop to ambient and electronica is about a wee bit more than just piling up quotations. In their own, very original, sometimes minimal, sometimes opulent, but always highly detailed style Monokle play with virtuosity on the keyboard of the listener's memories, triggering long-forgotten images and sensations by the second, teasing out thoughts of afternoons spent with C64 games, of weltschmerz and heartaches, of great plans and little gifts until you can hardly decide whether to go for euphoria or nostalgia. Happily we therefore continue to lie at anchor, pull a sunlounger and decide to stay just a little longer. Who knows when all this will happen to cross our minds once again.
Au Revoir Simone - Still Night, Still Light
1. Another Likely Story
2. Shadows
3. All Or Nothing
4. Knight Of Wands
5. The Last One
6. Trace A Line
7. Only You Can Make You Happy
8. Take Me As I Am
9. Anywhere You Looked
10. Organized Scenery
11. We Are Here
12. Tell Me
In 2007, Brooklyn's Au Revoir Simone seemed to be everywhere. The trio of Heather D'Angelo, Erika Forster and Annie Hart had
just put out The Bird Of Music to wide critical acclaim, D'Angelo guested on the also critically acclaimed Boggs album Forts and they found themselves playing shows with the likes of Air and Peter, Bjorn and John. But aside from a remix album, the trio has been relatively quiet on the recording side of things ∙ until now.
Produced by Thom Monahan (Vetiver, Little Joy), and recorded in various studios between Brooklyn, NY, and Los Angeles, CA, the result is their third album, entitled Still Night, Still Light, released on their own label, Our Secret Record Company on May 19. Au Revoir Simone will be playing this year's SXSW, with a Still Night, Still Light supporting tour throughout America to follow this spring.
From the press release: Although featuring songs written by all three ladies, the album has a tremendous thematic cohesion, as if composed by a singular voice. The collection of twelve songs sees our three keyboard-wielding heroines creating something that could only be called ЇelementalЎ. Gone are the bells and whistles of The Bird of Music, and in their place is a stark closeness, as if hearing a secret from someone you love for the first time. It's a record that details reflection, seeking, questioning and losing one's place on the page while looking for the right way home. It has some of the band's most quiet moments (see the glacial grace of ЇThe Last OneЎ) while also containing some of their most raucous (see the dizzying exuberance of 'Anywhere You Looked'). Indeed, Still Night, Still Light is the band at their most exposed, relying mainly on their keyboards, drum machine, and effortless voices to create a folk record without folk instruments, humming with resilience and wonder.
The Wave Pictures - If You Leave It Alone
1. If You Leave It Alone
2. Canary Wharf
3. My Kiss
4. I Thought Of You Again
5. Tiny Craters In The Sand
6. Bumble Bee
7. Come On Daniel
8. Too Many Questions
9. Bye Bye Bumble Belly
10. Softly You, Softly Me
11. Strawberry Cables
12. Nothing Can Change This Love
Their debut album Instant Coffee Baby was released to moderate success but strong acclaim and this year see's the release of their next studio length, If You Leave It Alone.
The album is due May 4th with a single of the same name due a few weeks before on April 13th. The trio set out on a UK Tour at the beginning of April, starting off in Reading on the third and finishing in London on the fifteenth.
We at Strange Glue are quite looking forward to this release and that means that you should be too (because we happen to be Demi-Gods from an unknown parallel universe where knowledge is power). Check below for the tour dates...www.strangeglue.com
Ghinzu - Mirror Mirror
1. Cold Love
2. Take It Easy
3. Mother Allegra
4. Mirror Mirror
5. Dream Maker
6. The End of the World
7. This Light
8. This War Is Silent
9. Je T’attendrai
10. Birds in My Head
11. Kill the Surfers
12. Interstellar Orgy
Ghinzu was formed in 1999 by a group of musicians who had been on the Belgian rock scene for a number of years.
Mirror Mirror is Ghinzu new album that'll be release this March 30th.
2. Take It Easy
3. Mother Allegra
4. Mirror Mirror
5. Dream Maker
6. The End of the World
7. This Light
8. This War Is Silent
9. Je T’attendrai
10. Birds in My Head
11. Kill the Surfers
12. Interstellar Orgy
Ghinzu was formed in 1999 by a group of musicians who had been on the Belgian rock scene for a number of years.
Mirror Mirror is Ghinzu new album that'll be release this March 30th.
Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
1. Jim Cain
2. Eid Ma Clack Shaw
3. The Wind and the Dove
4. Rococo Zephyr
5. Too Many Birds
6. My Friend
7. All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast
8. Invocation of Ratiocination
9. Void
The tragicomic songs of Bill Callahan are always an engaging listen, and this 13th album touches on many of the themes he has returned to throughout his career. Brian Beattie provides somber accompaniment with a number of string and horn arrangements, and the mood of the record follows the resolutely downbeat tone of Callahan’s earliest ventures as Smog. His deep-throated bellyaching is, as always, laced with various witticisms, and he proves once again that he is a consummate songwriter whose work often resembles some kind of grimly humorous mélange of Leonard Cohen, Jackson Browne and Randy Newman...www.prefixmag.com
Friday, March 27, 2009
Death Cab For Cutie - The Open Door EP
1. Little Bribes
2. A Diamond And A Tether
3. My Mirror Speaks
4. I Was Once A Loyal Lover
5. Talking Bird (Demo)
Death Cab for Cutie have announced the upcoming release of their new EP, The Open Door. It features five tracks - four previously unreleased songs and a demo version of Talking Bird (from their album Narrow Stairs).
The Open Door is scheduled to be released online via all digital retailers on March 31st , and physical CDs will be available at venues starting at the April 7th Philadelphia show. The EP will be available in retail stores on April 14th...www.deathcabforcutie.com
Fredo Viola - The Turn
1. The Turn (A Pagan Lament)
2. The Sad Song
3. Friendship is..
4. Red states
5. The original man
6. Risa
7. Robinson crusoe
8. K thru 6
9. Moon after berceuse
10. Puss
11. Death of a son
12. Umbrellas
Fredo Viola's debut album The Turn, released March 16th 2009 on Because Music, is an inspired marriage of 21st century electronics and the oldest of musical instruments, the human voice. Combining traces of singer-songwriter pop, ambient electronica, classical, religious hymns and mediaeval folk ballads, but with a strong and singular style entirely his own, Fredo says, "When people ask, I usually say Beach Boys meets Sigur Ros."
Kromestar - My Sound
01 Galaktic War
02 System Log
03 Poltergeist
04 Pass The Light
05 Repitched
06 Go Away
07 Weak
08 8 Ball
09 Aston Martin
10 My Sound
11 Medievil Warrior
12 Frenemy
13 The Truth
14 Demon Slayah
The long awatied album from the king of Dubstep has finally arrived. After a long line of releases behind him like Kalawanji, Rainy Dayz, Attenshun and Bad Man, Kromestar now delivers My Sound on F-One's imprint, Dubstar Recordings. This album is Dubstep at it's finest and purest form. Horns and flutes, pads and swirls, heavy beats and deep vibes, this album will take you on a truly pleasurable experience. The album has been getting support from the likes of N-Type, Reso, Mary Ann Hobbs, Rinse FM, Skream, Radio 1, 1xtra, Benga, Tes La Rok and Mala but to name a few.Watch out for this one as it is going to be massive...www.ukrecordshop.com
Woods - Songs Of Shame
01 To Clean
02 The Hold
03 The Number
04 September with Pete
05 Down This Road
06 Military Madness
07 Born to Lose
08 Echo Lake
09 Rain On
10 Gypsy Hand
11 Where and What Are You?
Fourth full length rips deeper with both 90 second & 10 minute forays into skeletal psychedelia. This is not to say the idiosyncratic songwriting style & vocalizing of Jeremy Earl is not present in spades but expanded, colored, & twisted into a tie-dye of soundscapes. Having toured incessantly over the last 12 months as a four piece, many of the songs on "Shame" benefit from having been road worn, windblown, & deeply grooved.
Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas - II
01. Cisco
02. Rothaus
03. For Ett Slikk Og Ingenting
04. Rett Paa
05. Skal Vi Proeve Naa?
06. Gudene Vet + Snutt
07. Note I Love You + 100
08. Flue Paa Veggen
Scandinavian disco kings Hans-Peter Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas are set to release the follow up to their widely acclaimed eponymous debut this year.
The duo have had quite a journey since the release of their debut three years ago, with Thomas completing countless remixes and seeing his Full Pupp stable go from strength to strength, whilst Lindstrøm went on to release his solo cosmic disco opus, Where I Go You Go Too. Both of them have been busy in the studio together during their time back in Oslo, and the fruits of their labour are now finally ready for release.
Whilst Lindstrøm has always been one for using live instrumentation in the studio, Thomas' gradual shift into using more and more live elements in his solo work has meant that their second collaborative album, entitled II, has a much looser, organic feel than the first record. The original intent stands, however, as they merge their italo, Krautrock and disco influences into a lush singular whole, imbuing them with their characteristically warm production sheen. Released just in time for summer, it looks as if the Nordic duo are looking to compete for part of your personal sunshine soundtrack this year.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Lawrence - Jill
01 Jill
02 Jill (Reprise)
03 Hamtramck
04 Sunrise
Lawrence has made a career out of the minor key, his epicend-of-the-night deep house for depressed clubbers is now a cottageindustry. His formula for the title track here is much the same as it has seemingly always been: "Jill" is a slow-moving tune that languidly lays out a soft beat perfect for the starry-eyed, tinkled synths that interweave with one another. Its yet another fully-formed song ripe for the warm-up.
Kersten knows his audience, which is why its followed immediately on the A-side by a reprise of the same, taking the kick out and showcasing how well his melodies hold up without a steady thump behind them. Its reminiscent of Kaitos beatless album for Kompakt and the effect is the same: Light, airy and perfect DJ tool fodder.
Things pick up as much as they can on a Lawrence EP on the B-side with "Hamtramck," which plys a similar tone as "Jill" with a tiny bit more urgency behind the beat. Ultimately, though, the track falls into the trap that much of his output has recently: Its easy listening house, with melodies too simplistic to give it a specialness that extends it beyond its modest aims. Far more successful is the bell-laden ambient work "Sunrise" which again takes Kaitos sound and runs with it. If Mule and Lawrence arent plotting a release of more ambient-driven material they ought to: Painting Lawrences sound in a new light, it offers up proof that theres life in his sound yet.
Silversun Pickups - Swoon
01 There's No Secrets This Year
02 The Royal We
03 Growing Old Is Getting Old
04 It's Nice to Know You Work Alone
05 Panic Switch
06 Draining
07 Sort Of
08 Substitution
09 Catch and Release
10 Surrounded (or Spiraling)
Swoon is the forthcoming second album by Los Angeles indie rock band Silversun Pickups. The album was produced by Dave Cooley who had worked with the band on their first album, Carnavas. Recording began in July of 2008.
After a completing their Carnavas/Pikul tour in Christmas 2007 the band took a break until February of the next year. They began recording in their own studio named The Dark. During the recording process the band laid down as many as 17 songs which were eventually cut down to ten for the album. On February 17 the band posted a list of the songs expected to be on Swoon Myspace Blog.
The album sees a US release on April 14. The first single, "Panic Switch", is still expecting its release on iTunes.
Two singles off of the album, "Panic Switch" and "It's Nice to Know You Work Alone" are going to be downloadable content for Guitar Hero: World Tour as part of a track pack releasing "right before the record's release"
On March 6, 2009, the band released "Panic Switch" onto the internet via their MySpace page...www.wikipedia.org
Pick A Piper - Pick A Piper EP
01. Yellowknife
02. Bechtel Park
03. Rooms
04. Dene Sled
Caribou, which ursitoarele gifted him with some talent, it embarked on a new project with a lot of chocolate in consistency African and tribal percussion psychedelic called pick a pepper. more details, after pressing the button commment...www.chestionabil.ro
Throw Me the Statue - Purpleface EP
1. That's How You Win
2. Written In Heart Signs, Faintly
3. Honeybee
4. Ship
Throw Me The Statue’s four-song downshift Purpleface maintains some of the unique texturing of their acclaimed debut Moonbeams, but it also unfortunately presents a jaded frown. Dwelling on the losses and improbable dreams of the shy, the EP staggers under wavering guitar distortion and injured piano chords, befitting of bitter Sunday errands. And while the stories are memorable and sincere, there’s little of the compulsion that would effortlessly exude from Throw Me The Statue’s lighter work.
The melancholy is most damaging on "Written In Heart Signs Faintly," which originally appeared on Moonbeams as a thin, intimate acoustic guitar lament. On Purpleface, the song is buried in attic dust and rotary telephone distance. Flattening the vocals and guitar to make space for anxious tin-can drums and a beat up organ leave the tracked drained of its blood. Lines like "Another girl’s eyes got wet/ I was a total fool" sound emotionally removed, since-rationalized, coped-with, and accepted. Next, singer Scott Reitherman’s abandonment sees him sleep-talk through "Honeybee," as the band members interject their most defeated wanderings. Failing to unify, Throw Me The Statue stray from an undefined path until the song collapses in on itself at the three-minute mark.
Closing the release, "Ship" chugs along to a regimented snare cadence before giving way to the EP’s shiniest moment. Oscillating lead guitar blends with subtle horn ruffles and plastic-coated synth taps as the sun pours through an uncurtained window during the song’s chorus. The window doesn’t open though, and the group remains confined while Reitherman chants, "Oh she comes alive, breaking the hearts of all men."
Claustrophobic and sorrowful, Purpleface feels like a short bout of seasonal depression. Hopefully after crying into the pillows here, Throw Me The Statue can pick their heads up and return with something brighter next time, because the despondency isn’t working for them...www.tinymixtapes.com
Peter Von Poehl - May Day
1· Parliament
2· Dust Of Heaven
3· Forgotten Garden
4· Near The End Of The World
5· Carrier Pigeon
6· Mexico
7· Mexico Part II
8· Moonshot Falls
9· Mayday
10· Wombara
11· Lost In Space
12· Silent As Gold
13· Elisabeth
14· An Eye For An Eye
Peter von Poehl s exile blues has been cured thanks to his music, which has built him a roof under which he has been able to cultivate a well-adjusted sensibility. Not that he s become a homebody his constant touring over the past few years has seen him regularly leave his lair but he has understood that it s only good to hide away if you then allow yourself the freedom to escape at a moment s notice to (re)discover the world. May Day embodies the jubilation of a man who, while discovering the edges of his own universe, has not been afraid to throw open the windows of his inspiration. May Day is a constant, voluptuous back-and-forth between the desire for an interior world and that of projecting oneself out into the exterior. You feel it immediately with Parliament a song whipped up by a wildly beating rhythm section and horns played with gusto. All von Poehl s virtues are on show: his classically elegant sense of melody, his ideally dosed melanges of instruments, his unique vocal touch, and his intensely personal way of mixing together words and sound. Yet the process through which all this is revealed is different, quite simply because a breath of fresh air has blown through Peter von Poehl s music, which has become less hermetically sealed.
Nothing People - Late Night
1. When I Drink
2. It's Not Your Speakers
3. Stick In The Mud
4. Pushing Buttons
5. 1-11
6. Crunch Time
7. Another Rattle
8. Janet
9. There's Sun In Your Eyes
10. Late Night
"It's been ten months since the Nothing People's debut album Anonymous came out and since then we've heard nothing but praise. In fact, the record wound up on many a Best of 2008 list. We are thinking that Late Night, their second full length, is gonna make even more people happy. From the sci-fi, psych, proto punk bombast of the first, the Nothing People shift gears into a moodier, darker, and creepier existence. Here you get the influence of Dream Syndicate's Karl Precoda and the later f-ed up work of Scott Walker. The record does sound like a late night, on a deserted highway, maybe somewhere around the farm town of Orland, CA, where these three -- nope four (they added a former Monoshock keyboardist!) -- are from. And that cover art? It is by Ilth. The Nothing People have released singles on S.S. and HozAc, as well as the aforementioned Anonymous, which is now in its second pressing."...www.ear-rational.com
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers!
01 Quasi: "Beautiful Things" (3 Ds cover)
02 Les Savy Fav : "Precision Auto" ( Superchunk cover)
03 The Shins: "Plenty Is Never Enough" (Tenement Halls cover)
04 St. Vincent and the National: "Sleep All Summer" (Crooked Fingers cover)
05 Broken Social Scene: "Complications" (The Clean cover)
06 Ryan Adams: "Like a Fool" ( Superchunk cover)
07 Bright Eyes: "Papa Was a Rodeo" (Magnetic Fields cover)
08 Lavender Diamond: "New Ways of Living" (Destroyer cover)
09 The Apples in Stereo: "King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 3" (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)
10 Laura Cantrell: "Cowboy on the Moon" ( Lambchop cover)
11 Bill Callahan: "Santa Maria" (Versus cover)
12 Barbara Manning: "Through With People" ( Portastatic cover)
13 The Mountain Goats: "Drug Life" (East River Pipe cover)
14 The New Pornographers: "Don't Destroy This Night" (Rock*A*Teens cover)
15 Tracey Thorn and Jens Lekman : "Yeah! Oh, Yeah!" (Magnetic Fields cover)
16 The Hive Dwellers: "My Noise" ( Superchunk cover)
17 Ted Leo & the Pharmacists: "The Numbered Head" (Robert Pollard cover)
18 Okkervil River: "All You Little Suckers" (East River Pipe cover)
19 Death Cab for Cutie: "Kicked In" ( Superchunk cover)
20 Times New Viking: "Neighborhood #1" (Arcade Fire cover)
Merge is twenty years old. Part of the larger "Score!" subscription-based box set, this CD is an amazing collection of songs spanning the label's existence, covered by some of the most popular (non-Merge) indie bands around, such as Quasi, Les Savy Fav, The Shins, Ryan Adams, Bright Eyes, The New Pornographers, Okkervil River, Death Cab For Cutie, Times New Viking, and many more. This collection is the first of only two commercially available pieces from the box set. Limited to 7,500 copies...www.mergerecords.com
Maclean - Talker
1 See
2 When I Saw Her Twirl
3 Failure Of The Positively Good Man
4 Much Better People
5 Fee Fie Foe Fum
6 Talker
7 Don't Forget
8 Lighthouses Lighthouses Lighthouses
9 Conversations
10 Off My Mind,Everett
11 Paper Courage
12 Oh To Be
A comfortable silence is the mark of a well-adjusted relationship. Developing such a relationship is the result of significant investments of both time and work. In a similar way, Maclean has invested considerable time and work into developing this relationship with the music it creates, now reaching the point where they understand the particular kind of music they write: the kind of music that calmly self-asserts that mediocrity is no longer a viable option.
It's been an interesting several years since the band's creation late in the summer of 2005. The considerable success of the band’s freshman release “Hang This On Your Wall” (2007), coupled with national recognition on the competitive stage and enthusiastic reviews in numerous, credible industry sources, have all left members Denver Harris (Vocals, Guitar), Drew McTaggart (Vocals, Guitar), Steve Sawatzky (Bass, Keys), Scott Neufeld (Bass, Guitar), and Mac Carlson (Drums, Glockenspiel) with a resounding sense of appreciation for the support they've received over the years and awe at the places their simple love for creating and sharing music has taken them.
The upcoming release (February 21, 2009) of the band’s second full-length album will prove to be the most defining moment to date in the ongoing biography of this group of young artists. At once marked by a distinctly matured sound and a much weightier depth of material, the latest Maclean project is testament to the nearly two years of elapsed time since their first release. This extended break was marked by a long period of sampling ideas and hammering song frameworks out of the simplest of concepts to form lush, heavily textured fragments of an album later to be titled "Talker" as a reflection on the way conversation interprets every experience. Nearly a year of hiatus from playing shows allowed band members to experience many things that would later inform the stories their artwork records. The past several months have been spent tracking, compiling, editing and mixing these songs in locations ranging from a Montreal cathedral to a home studio in Coquitlam, all to yield the music Maclean is now proud to release to the world. From its most momentous peak to the subtle tinker of its most intimate moments, Talker tells the stories of this band in vivid musical detail. And yes, there are a few comfortable silences.
2 When I Saw Her Twirl
3 Failure Of The Positively Good Man
4 Much Better People
5 Fee Fie Foe Fum
6 Talker
7 Don't Forget
8 Lighthouses Lighthouses Lighthouses
9 Conversations
10 Off My Mind,Everett
11 Paper Courage
12 Oh To Be
A comfortable silence is the mark of a well-adjusted relationship. Developing such a relationship is the result of significant investments of both time and work. In a similar way, Maclean has invested considerable time and work into developing this relationship with the music it creates, now reaching the point where they understand the particular kind of music they write: the kind of music that calmly self-asserts that mediocrity is no longer a viable option.
It's been an interesting several years since the band's creation late in the summer of 2005. The considerable success of the band’s freshman release “Hang This On Your Wall” (2007), coupled with national recognition on the competitive stage and enthusiastic reviews in numerous, credible industry sources, have all left members Denver Harris (Vocals, Guitar), Drew McTaggart (Vocals, Guitar), Steve Sawatzky (Bass, Keys), Scott Neufeld (Bass, Guitar), and Mac Carlson (Drums, Glockenspiel) with a resounding sense of appreciation for the support they've received over the years and awe at the places their simple love for creating and sharing music has taken them.
The upcoming release (February 21, 2009) of the band’s second full-length album will prove to be the most defining moment to date in the ongoing biography of this group of young artists. At once marked by a distinctly matured sound and a much weightier depth of material, the latest Maclean project is testament to the nearly two years of elapsed time since their first release. This extended break was marked by a long period of sampling ideas and hammering song frameworks out of the simplest of concepts to form lush, heavily textured fragments of an album later to be titled "Talker" as a reflection on the way conversation interprets every experience. Nearly a year of hiatus from playing shows allowed band members to experience many things that would later inform the stories their artwork records. The past several months have been spent tracking, compiling, editing and mixing these songs in locations ranging from a Montreal cathedral to a home studio in Coquitlam, all to yield the music Maclean is now proud to release to the world. From its most momentous peak to the subtle tinker of its most intimate moments, Talker tells the stories of this band in vivid musical detail. And yes, there are a few comfortable silences.
SumOne - Oblivion
A Oblivion
B Hide Your Faces
C Sad Spirits Meditation
D Hell Is...
Planet Mu welcomes US junglist SumOne to the fold with a sinisterly affected single of refried Burial style steppers and Breakage shaped forward D'n'B. 'Oblivion' makes no bones about it's influences with a Burial styled dark and ethereal stepper, all clocking woodblocks and grimy textured atmospherics with serious darkside overtones that will sit perfectly next to your S.Y.N.K.R.O records or the brilliant Spatial 10". 'Hide Your Faces' is one for the clandestin warehouse crew, with an electrified revision of Breakages junglist reductions formed from staggered snares and liberlally applied delays, while 'Sad Spirits Meditation' combines melancholy Mu-ziq - alike IDM melodies with tricky percussive rolls for intricate stepwork. Final track 'Hell is...' reminds us of the brilliant Amit, with a mean halfstepped D'n'B roller displaying some impressive subbass prowess and frankly evil atmospherics descending into voodoo junglisms. Fans of Breakage, Amit, or Burial will adore this record...www.boomkat.com
Sega Death - 16 Bits From Hell
01 Street Fighting The Machine
02 Antagonising The Devil
03 Paperboy Delivers Us Acid
04 Life In A Bedroom
05 Exploding Mummy Organs
06 Cheat Codes And Blunt Smoke
07 Ironic Dance Music
08 Screen Garble
09 Alien Radar
10 Bongo Punks
11 Ufo Incomming
12 We Just Sat There
13 Ghoul Sounds
14 Kill Me Five Times
15 99 Cartridges Later
16 Hip Hop Sega Jazz
Nothing in this album was sequenced, no outboard effects were used.EVERYTHING is from the sega genesis audio out, recorded directlyinto a computer. some bits of silence and excess noise were cut out.using a sega genesis, if the cartridge is pulled out while thegame is playing and music is audible you will hear a tone.this tone can be looping, a portion of a song looping, or evena tone that seems to fade out to near silence.next, you must find a cartridge that works with the one you pulled.this is done purely by testing and seeing if they match.once the cartridge that works is inserted you will noticea drastic change in sound.anything from noise, to drum patterns, to full songs.these songs may contain elements from either cartridge or both.or they might sound completely new and distorted.we have experienced everything from volume increases,to distortions, to voice samples, piano sounds, horn sounds,ambient sounds, classic video game sounds.but nothing sounds like it did on the original cartridge.upon inserting the same game as you pull out, sometimesthe original song will continue to play as it would.sometimes the original song will be altered and you gainextra polyphony!
Super Minerals - Clusters
A Oxygen Bombs
B Clusters
The whole tape consists of two side long pieces. The first,"Oxygen Bombs," is as near as I can tell all piano arpeggiation for the first 20 or so minutes. The whole thing lilts beautifully in a yellow haze of sun-drenched clairvoyance. I'm not sure who's playing here but it's wonderful. Fragments of minute and lush melodies present themselves before dissolving once more into the overtone swell of the work. You know that point in La Monte Young's "Well-Tuned Piano" (say, I don't know, 15 minutes into the six hour show...) where he's playing the "cloud" parts and all of his piano tunings are meshing into thick swabs of hum that he controls by moving faster and faster? Well that's about right, just spacious, arms wide tonal bliss. Soon enough though, the whole thing fades out and is replaced by tape loops that seep across some skeleton gamelan moves. Total bleak situation in some Cambodian forest, Skaters-style even but with way less momentum. Just sit back and sip the spiked cocoa water. Beautiful, and it gives an unnerving and curious quality to the tape flip which the other piece alone might have obstructed had it been so vast and unending.
"Clusters" makes up side two and is as filled out and spacious as the first side. Piano trickles out of some small forest spring while tape loops and bells tingle outward, careening in and around each falling note. The duo's really on point with this one, and builds up to hold it, restful, exactly where it's gotta be... upwards but not all there. The tension is ridiculous before it slips away into another haze of piano drift. Absolutely gorgeous, they really took it up and out on this one. Absurd that this is the same group that put out The Piss, but their ability to do each with such confident poise blows me away. One of the best of the year so far for sure and still available from Phil, though who knows for how long.
Minilogue - Animals (Remixes)
1 Animals (Luciano Remix)
2 Animals (Tolga Fidan Remix)
3 Animals (Beat Pharmacy' Into The Wild Dub Mix)
4 Animals (Beat Pharmacy Six Feet Under Mix)
The four versions of the homonymous LP title represent, at the same time, the whole bandwidth of contemporary electronic dance music. Starting with a quirky house mix from Luciano, followed by multi-national Vakant artist Tolga Fidan and his highly percussive prime time techno approach, whose oriental imprinting is not cagey about the turkish roots of the Paris-based producer and – with the spoken voice reminding discreetly of Minilogue’s 2008 club hit “Doiicie". A completely different direction is chosen by Brendan Moeller aka Beat Pharmacy. The South African-born protégé of NY House legend François Kevorkian on his Deep Space Media label is interpreting “Animals” within a mythical hypnosis of slagged Deep House and deep Dub Techno, somewhere in between Nu Groove and Basic Channel, being one of the most visionary tracks in the beginning of 2009...www.wordsandsounds.de
Electricity In Our Homes - Gymnastics/Motorbike
01. Gymnastics
02. Motorbike
4AD welcomes Electricity In Our Homes, joining the label for aone-off limited edition 7 single (this is a promo cd of it).Formed and based in London, Electricity In Our Homes areutilitarian in sound and vision. Taking inspiration from thebest of British DIY, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth and Prince,they wear identical minimal attire and their lives shows arean exercise in conciseness (then been known to play ten-minutesets), often teetering on the edge of chaos.
Butcher the Bar - Sleep At Your Own Speed
1 Get Away
2 Sex Szene
3 Gumble
4 You Know Everything
5 House/Home
6 New Nest
7 Opening Night
8 Bike
9 Leave This Town
10 Head's Contents
11 Ball Point Skin Notes
12 The Boy You Miss The Most
13 Rounds
My personal fave...x)
After delivering one of Morr's most memorable 7" releases in recent memory (Getaway/Leave This Town), singer-songwriter Joel Nicholson has come up with a full-length for the Berlin label, compiling thirteen home recordings largely focussed on whispered vocal and softly plucked acoustic guitar. Former A-side 'Getaway' sets the album underway with a slightly more expansive palette than that, pairing lo-fi fuzztone guitar with simple percussion to evoke a writing style that's somewhere between Smashing Pumpkins and Elliott Smith. That latter name will pop into your head repeatedly over the course of listening to this album. For one thing, Nicholson's voice occupies a similarly hushed register to Smith's in his demo recordings, but beyond that, the melodic content of pieces like 'House / Home' could hardly be more explicitly informed by the late American writer. Nicholson is no one trick pony though: the harmonised voices and carefully fingerpicked guitars of 'Leave This Town' and 'You Know Everything' suggest a strong creative kinship with Iron & Wine's Sam Beam, while 'Bike' and 'Ball Point Skin Notes' are coloured by shades of Sufjan Stevens. It might seem a little tiresome to constantly cross-reference the work of a new singer-songwriter with that of various others operating within the same genre, but it's an almost inevitable part of being a new artist that such comparisons should be invited, and "Sleep At Your Own Speed" is strong enough to survive any familiarities it might carry with it - Nicholson's writing is personal and intimate enough to remain distinctive regardless of what other records come to mind while you're listening. There's a subtlety and honesty to this music that'll keep you returning to it for a good long while. Highly Recommended...www.boomkat.com
It's a Musical - The Music Makes Me Sick
01-Pain Song
02-Ball Of Joy
03-The Music Makes Me Sick
04-What Do I Know
05-Lazy
06-Dinosaur
07-Dudu
08-You Make Me Real
09-The Circus
10-Bad Day
11-What All People Know
12-Take Off Your T-Shirt
In recent years Morr Music seems to have been on a trajectory that's found the label continually encroaching on outright pop music. It's been no bad thing either: we've had the likes of Seabear, Benni Hemm Hemm and Masha Qrella all contributing some absolutely cracking material to the Berlin label's estimable catalogue, and now It's A Musical, a duo made up of Ellinor Blixt and Robert Kretzschmar continue in this fine tradition with a collection of highly memorable pop ditties driven by largely traditional, non-electronic instruments, with only a handful of tracks ('You Make Me Real' and the almost CSS-like 'Ball Of Joy' being two such examples) permitting synthesizers a central role. While the album deviates wildly from the Morr electronica templates of old it still retains the impeccable homespun production aesthetic and general sense of intimacy that characterises all the best releases on the label. Smashing...www.boomkat.com
Monday, March 23, 2009
Lawrence English - A Colour for Autum
01 Droplet
02 Watching It Unfold
03 The Prelude To
04 The Surface Of Everything
05 Galaxies Of Dust
06 Stillness In Motion
07 ... And Clouds For Company
A Colour For Autumn is the second in a series of editions from Australian sound artist Lawrence English that trace the experience of seasonal transit. Following on from For Varying Degrees of Winter (published by Baskaru), A Colour For Autumn reflects on and explores the transitory nature of Autumn - counterpointing the uniformity of the ‘term’ with the varied qualities expressed by landscapes in different countries.
Like all environmental phenomena, seasonal variation is highly localised, and expressed not only visually through vegetation etc, but also sonically as insect life, leaves under foot and fauna all change in response to the climatic shifts. Northern and southern hemisphere experiences of Autumn are strikingly different and it’s also this contrast which rests at the very centre of A Colour For Autumn.
Recorded between 2007-2009, this series of pieces acts almost as small auditory portraits of given spaces in the often gentle throes of Autumn - ‘Droplet’ for example features field recordings gathered in Notre-Dame De La Garde in Marseilles, capturing the infamous ‘Mistral’ wind as it blows the first cooler breezes of Autumn into the city in 2007. By contrast ‘Watching It Unfold’ measures a more Australian experience of Autumn - a series of open static phrases, shifting ever so slightly - a reflection of the slow changes of the season around English’s home of Brisbane.
Working with a range of analog approaches, A Colour For Autumn is a tonally rich affair, sourcing much of it’s sounds from a mixture of instruments, field recordings and assorted electronics. A Colour For Autumn also features contributions from New Zealand’s Dean Roberts (whose vocals adorn the opening moments of the album) and Viennese musician Christian Fennesz, who offers intricate clusters of electronics in ‘The Surface Of Everything’.
This is an album of subtle variation, graded hues and tonal warmth, all of which act as an invitation for the listener to consider their own localised transition of Autumn...www.12k.com
Wolf Eyes - Moods In Free Time
1. Untitled 1
2. Untitled 2
3. Untitled 3
4. Untitled 4
Wolf Eyes began as a solo project of former Nautical Almanac member Nate Young, with Aaron Dilloway joining in 1998, and John Olson in 2000. During this time, the band also briefly relocated to New York City and at one point enlisted Andrew Wilkes-Krier, now known to the public as Andrew W.K. The group is to have released over 150 recordings in their relatively short lifespan, on labels such as Bulb Records, Troubleman Unlimited, Fusetron, and Sub Pop, as well as on Olson's American Tapes label, Dilloway's Hanson Records, Mike Connelly's Gods of Tundra label and Nate Young's AA Records. Connelly (also of Hair Police) replaced Dilloway in early 2005, due to the latter's departure for Nepal to make arrangements for his marriage. Dilloway is no longer an active member of the group but he did some production work on their 2006 Sub Pop album Human Animal and has performed with them on at least two occasions (Empty Bottle Chicago, IL 2/25/2006 and No Fun Fest Brooklyn, NY 3/18/2006). John Olson also performs in Dead Machines with his wife Tovah Olson. Nate Young performs solo as Hatred and with Steve Kenney and Alivia Zivich in the visual music group Demons.
Wolf Eyes' first two major tours were with Sonic Youth and Andrew W.K. They have also collaborated with Anthony Braxton.
And now they release the newest cd tour..www.wikipedia.org
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