tome to the weather machine

Ngibalale inkhukhu

2011-07-09T04:07:00.000-07:00

RMH - 7/9/2011

I have blood on my hands. Literally. As many of you know I have been a vegetarian for the past five years of my life. Some of you know the story as to why I made this decision like the back of your hand. I can recall your eyes rolling as I would re-hash it over and over again at parties, dinners and other social events in response to the inevitable question of why I became a vegetarian. The question of why I became a vegetarian is much less exciting than why I stopped being a vegetarian.

One of the reasons why I stopped being a vegetarian was completely logistical. I couldn’t imagine explaining to my host-family in my extremely limited SiSwati that in my country we have the luxury of choosing our diets and what soy/gluten based alternatives to use to supplement the existential longing of having a protein as part of a full and balanced diet. I just didn’t feel like full integration meant opting out of a very important part of Swazi culture. Seriously important, livestock is a direct expression of livelihood and status among Swazis.

The main philosophical/spiritual/political/environmental thrust behind the decision to eat meat comes from the fact that (I thought) eating meat in Swaziland would not come with the same philosophical/spiritual/political/environmental baggage that eating meat in the States brings with it. For the most part I was right, most of the meat is raised locally on the homestead, and if not on the homestead at least 200 or so miles from the purchase point.

I believe deeply that every creature on earth is a sentient being worthy of our acknowledgement and respect. The act of taking another life for your own sustenance has long been viewed as a one-to-one transferal from life to life that came along with the appropriate reverence and respect for that transaction. Most indigenous peoples have built communal and spiritual practices built on this reverence for life. My unique sect of Christianity teaches a similar doctrine, that every life is sacred and that meat should only be eaten in moderation (in times of famine or winter specifically, a sadly overlooked tenant) and with thanksgiving. With the advent of industrialized agriculture in Western culture, we have seen that one-for-one transference eroded to a commodity-based transaction where the life of an animal is reduced to how cheap you can get it at the super market. Not only does this harm our overall spiritual worldview, but also it has consolidated mass amounts of capitol in the hands of the few corporations whose only objective is to acquire more capitol. This drive for the bottom line has introduced horrendous, institutionalized and wholesale disregard for the life and well being of the animal as well as a mind-boggling amount of chemicals, steroids and antibiotics required to keep an animal alive in such squalid and hellish conditions. The environmental considerations of converting most of our pasturelands to feed lots, most of our nation’s corn harvest to feed and shipping meat from slaughterhouses in Ohio to Whole Foods in California are staggering to say the least.

This separation from the process of growing, feeding and slaughter to brightly wrapped, pink meat-product in your chain grocer’s “butcher” section allows us to eat meat without even considering the animal it came from (in some products like hot dogs this rings even more true). So, that is why I felt like I had to kill a chicken. If I am going to continue eating meat I needed to know what it felt like to take a life. And so I did.

MDuduzi and I selected a chicken that was old, no chicks and past egg laying age. He held it by its feet and wings. It lay prone and motionless. I said a little prayer of thanksgiving, audibly thanked the Chicken for its life and then took a knife to its trachea and with about 30 seconds of sawing I cut through its neck. It flapped its wings for a few seconds, and then with all its life expelled in a glinting flash of red, it was over.

It was over. I didn’t feel any sort of sorrow or regret. I was nervous, but that eventually gave way to focus on the task at hand. I really didn’t feel anything. Comfortably numb is a good way to describe it. If you have ever carved a turkey it is not much of a different experience.

Killing something (or witnessing something being killed) and then eating it is a necessary experience if you are comfortable making the decision to eat meat. If the process horrifies you, or fills you with an overwhelming amount of pathos, maybe you should reconsider your decision to eat meat. Industrialized agriculture is ubiquitously evil, but there is a better way. Look for ways to buy and eat locally from local farmers and ranchers. Farmers markets and food co-ops are great places to start. If these are not available to you, remember, you can always opt out entirely. It is incredibly easy.

The TOME Has Moved!

2010-08-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone - just a quick note to let you all know that Tome to the Weather Machine has moved! You can now find us at:

http://tometotheweathermachine.com

Please update your bookmarks accordingly, and holler at yr friends!

See you there!

Rickolus

2010-08-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

Youngster (Circle into Square, 07.2010)

For: Paper Airplanes, Modest Mouse, Son, Ambulance

Byline: Jacksonville native, and frequent Ben Cooper collaborator, pens a touching and instrumentally grand ode to childhood.

Youngster, if you haven't already guessed is an album about childhood. Thematically, Youngster, doesn't tackle the topic of childhood as a tangible object per se, but childhood as a memory filtered through the perception of a young man awkwardly lurching into adulthood. I certainly can relate. Youngster succeeds is making Richard Colado's (aka Rickolus) personal recollections of specific childhood events universally applicable everykid activities. Rickolus does this by embedding simple, childlike melodies into the backbone his songs, relaying a sense of playfulness and innocence at the structural level. Lyrics tackle childhood (obviously), growing up, and nostalgic pangs for the freedom lost with early onset adult responsibilities. Ultimately, Youngster is about moving on.

It is easy to imagine someone like Colado putting out a record like this. The well-made video for "Photograph" depict Rickolus dancing like a kid two sizes too big for his body. His arms flail aimlessly without any relation to the rest of his body, his coordination just a little off of the syncopation of the music. And on one hand, this image of a kid trapped inside of an adult's body serves the album well. It helps us pass off songs like the pirate-lullaby "Grog" as a youthful indescretion. The pre-teen, lovelorn Colado on "The Story of Love" we can chalk up to the same. But time and time again Rickolus demonstrates an incredibly deep emotional awareness on songs like "Kid" and "Photograph" in which his sentiments are very much those of an emotionally attached adult. It should be stated here that Colado plays and performs every instrument on Youngster. That is saying quite a bit. Youngster's orchestral swells, intricate back-up singing, and all together fantastic production is very, very grown up. While the core of his songs, usually performed on an acoustic guitar or piano are deceptively simple, his instrumental flourishes are steeped in complex, layered, moves. In fact, many songs rival Paper Airplane's 2007 ode to childhood and Arcade Fire-esque ballads, Boyhood, for one of the most immediate, cathartic and nostalgia filled concept albums.

Leaving for work this morning I threw this on my i pod and got half-way down the block when I realized the irony of the situation, here I was trudging, joylessly to work while listening to an album extoling the virtue of exploring and taking risks that we all did without hesitation when children. Had I really turned into one of "those" adults? I turned around, grabbed my skateboard and skated to work like I was back in middle school. Well done, Ryan.

Ryan H.

Rickolus - Photographs from Circle Into Square on Vimeo.

Markus Mehr

2010-08-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

Lava (06.2010, Hidden Shoal)

For: Fennesz, Tim Hecker, Kevin Greenspon

Byline: Blissed out tones and buzzing guitar drones define this album by German ambient-drone musician Markus Mehr.

The Pace is Glacial was both the title of Seam's 1998 album and an obvious in-joke describing nineties slowcore band's propensity for writing meandering, molasses paced songs. Markus Mehr's aptly titled Lava is cut from the same cloth, an apt title as well as a transparent jab at his wandering, ambient compositions. Mehr builds monoliths out of buzzing, oscillating swells of metered noise cutting deep crevices across the porous surface of cooling granite-slab of the mind. Yes, it is that kind of thing. Mehr's compositions are submerged beneath a tumultuous sea of swirling guitar tones that ride the biting edge of gorgeous and foreboding. The whole listening experience is spent in anticipation of the moment when that menacing snarl hijacks the pretty subtones, and reversed-jet engine propulsion and turns it back on itself creating head-exploding blast-beats and reverse time-lapsed nuclear explosions. None of that really happens though, Mehr keeps riding that knife edge deep-sea diving into yawning abysses of ghost-like skeletal guitar drones and no-input noise feeds. It would be easy to classify this solely as music for the mind, the incandescent sustained tones of "Hubble" and rhythmic pulse of droning static of "Costeau" certainly suggest this, but the most maligned track "Up Sturz" has the most tangible relation to the earthbound. "Up Sturz" tracks Mehr's homemade recording aesthetic closest to its source. Comprised of ear-splitting dial tones pitch-shifted to the brink of listenability, Mehr filters these harsh tones into a rhythmic ebb and flow of menacing, cracked industrial beats that reach a cacophonous climax that eventually wind itself down into a magma-like death crawl to the end of the track. As the album title predicts, Lava takes its time getting to places. The off-axis drift is felt more than a steadily canter towards some sort of definable goal. In this blissful wanderlust Mehr succeeds in spades creating a completely engrossing, engaging and all together reliable album full of the most powerful ambient-drone tracks this year.

Ryan H.

Markus Mehr and visual artist Stephanie Sext

Koes Plus

2010-08-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

Dheg Dheg Plas & Volume 2 (Sublime Frequencies, re. 2010)

For: The Beatles, Os Mutantes, The Kinks

Byline: The Brits invaded Indonesia, too. And holy wow, am I glad they did.

Koes Plus, Indonesia's most beloved pop music treasure, has an incredibly interesting history. Aside from the fact that this is a 70's Indonesian band unmistakably influenced by the British Invasion and that they were successful and popular enough to record over 40 albums during the 70s alone and spawn dozens of tribute bands over the years while remaining largely unknown throughout the rest of the world (peaked your interest yet?), the group's tale is somewhat legendary. Politics, rebellion, arrests, destroyed recordings, plane crashes… it's all very well documented in the liner notes to this smart package from Sublime Frequencies that collects the band's first two records (1969's Dheg Dheg Plas and 1970's Volume 2) following its reformation from the ashes of the all-brother Koes Bersaudara band. But as interesting as all that stuff is, it's really not the point of Koes Plus. The point is that this record is a damned good time.

The first half ("Dheg Dheg Plas") features a straight-ahead early Beatles approach. Songs like "Kelelewar" and "Awan Hitam" are stone-hits complete with snappy, highly danceable/sampleable backbeats and delicious four-part vocal harmonies. But even when the band is at its easiest to draw the Beatles comparison, the group adds its own little eccentricities… something just a little bit off, slightly obscured with the fusion of traditional Indonesian melodies and forms, not to mention the band's native language in the lyrics. In this way, the legacy of Koes Plus seems not unlike Caetano Veloso and the Tropicália movement during same time period in Brazil. Sometimes these eccentricities are just bizarre, like the completely random drum solo during the slow and sweet "Tiba Tiba Aku Menangis" (seriously, when's the last time you heard a drum solo during a ballad?). "Volume 2" showcases the Koes Plus as a different beast altogether, incorporating a multitude of different styles from ska rhythms to raucous punk and even a hint of Sabbath that comes as a hilarious and awesome surprise. The playful, Ray Davies-like nature of the songwriting makes this second half a little better, if also a lot weirder...

...This window into the wondrous world of Koes Plus shows the band was so much more than a mere carbon copy of Western influences, taking brave chances in experimenting with different styles and instruments within its geographical heritage to subsequently have a massive impact on what the indigenous music of Indonesia would become. They were also often just a brilliant band of completely talented musicians and gifted songwriters. The whole super-intriguing ethnomusicology thing is the icing on the cake.

Crawf

This review originally published at Foxy Digitalis. Used by permission from Digitalis Industries, Inc. Read the full review here.

Sublime Frequencies Website

Woah... these guys brought it live too. YEOWW!!!

The Books

2010-08-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

The Way Out (Temporary Residence, 07.2010)

For: Okapi, Dth, Sam Amidon

Byline: A steady return by the NYC collage duo. I promise the album is a lot more exciting than this byline.

You know that old question: If you were stranded on a desert island what album would you bring? I have given this ridiculous question some thought as of late. By no small feat I chose The Books' 2003 release Lemon of the Pink. That album more than anything in their collection balances the buzzing hive of sampled and manipulated human voices that range from hilarious to heart-breaking in a single song when placed inside of, above and beneath an equally manipulated ace guitar/bass/cello/electronic work. I never feel lonely when I listen to that record, even though the vocal samples are ripped out of their context and placed at the mercy of two pranksters/deeply sentimental humanists. You would basically have the whole range of human interactions before you every time you put on your headphones. They would become friends by the time you are rescued or your batteries run out.

With that said The Books fourth full-length album and first on Temporary Residence (what strange bedfellows) follows in a similar trajectory as their equally experimental predecessors. Per capita The Way Out has much more song-songs than the cut-paste collage experiments of their past work. These songs showcase Nick Zammuto's relentlessly clever songwriting and newfound vocal confidence. His voice ranges from creaky frontporch folk on "Free Translator", to commanding band-leader indie swoon on "All You Need is a Wall". These two songs rank as career highs for the duo's musicianship with Zammuto taking the lead with clunky, percussive gutitar lines and Paul De Jong filling in the corners with pathos-filled bowed cello lines and electronic manipulation of recorded brass instruments and sound effects. These songs speak to their delicate interplay as musicians more than any of the electronically produced scattershot of disco/funk/house styles that support their collage tracks.

"A Beautiful World" is in a league all of its own. A hymn to an irregular number disguised as a proto-disco track but with huge, rafter shaking canto-like multi-tracked vocals that owe more to Gregorian chant than to the languid back beat and instrumental flourishes. Incredible in every aspect.

The collage work. Yes, the Books are "that" band. And for the most part these tracks are solid, funny, sad, etc...Everything you would expect from The Books. A majority of the album pulls its best belly-laughs and thoughtful ruminations from self-help hypnotists and new-age gurus. But, The Way Out hits its biggest returns when it pulls from sources that are uncomfortably close. It is easy to externalize the yogis, and self-help masters as members of a sub-culture beyond ourselves. But when we hear the pathetic, and all too recognizable, longing swelling up beneath the message left on "Thirty Incoming" we realize that could be any of us at our most needy, or most nostalgic. The sincerity is too personal to be mocked, we end up feeling the phantom pangs instead, wishing we could fill that own void in our own lives. "Cold, Freezin' Night" is a classic Books song that showcases their deft interplay between the duo's acoustic instrumentation and perfectly edited sound effects and electronic production. The violent revenge fantasies of the young boy and girl, probably recorded in a fit of silliness, defy the subject matter by sounding like innocent little solipsisms spurred on by the thrill that the object of their hate may find and hear it someday. They probably didn't count on a (modestly) huge audience listening in. You are so grounded.

But that is how it goes when you commit your thoughts to tape, paper, film, whatever. They are no longer your property. Your lack of physical prescence disallows any context outside of the one the listener decided to place it in. Since it is no longer yours it remains safely in the hands of the public (isn't that right Gertrude Stein) or as a wav form on The Books hardrive just waiting to be used for their fifth full length.

Ryan H.

e

2010-08-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

You Are A Brilliant Flower That Ever Blooms (???, 2009)

For: Robin Walker, Grimes, Neutral Milk Hotel

Byline: Acoustic, bedroom lo-fi gold from an unknown talent... insight, plz?

I'm what you call a hoarder. I keep shit. All of it. I recently realized this (or, perhaps I just finally admitted it) during my last move, which took forever and caused me great pain and grief. I have so many old clothes (a shirt that says "I ♥ Tater Tots" is among the worst..), old essays and articles from school years ago, little trinkets picked up here and there, countless posters... oof, and for some reason I still have all of it. A lot of it I keep for sentimental reasons—items that were given to me by someone special or maybe marked a momentous occasion in my life. But some of this crap (well, not crap) is puzzling. Where did this little green glass ball I have on my dresser come from? What is this furry little seal figurine on my nightstand? There's a plastic elephant picture above my bedroom door... why?

Well, my iTunes library is no different. It is officially out of control. So much music, and most of it I have a pretty decent idea of where it came from. But if you're like me, surfing around, checking other blogs (see right for a neat and tidy list of the ones we at the TOME frequent), on Facebook a lot checking out what other folks are sharing... you just start clicking. Well, I finally got around to hitting play on this album by an artist simply known as *e*. I don't know where it came from, who gave it to me, why I thought it might be a good idea to download it, how it magically had the awesome artwork with it... WHO. Who, I ask, gave me this gorgeous nugget of acoustic, lo-fi gold? More importantly still: WHO. Just who, may I ask, are you, *e*?

I'm not sure I'll get an answer here—*e* is a name that is basically impossible to Google. A search for this album's title yielded one blog post that offers little in the way of information, other than the fact that *e*'s real name is likely *e*-lizabeth Hill. MySpace, Facebook, Bandcamp... nothin'. So if anyone out there has any ideas on this for me, I'm all ears. For now... a quick review:

*e*'s music is as mysterious as to the reasons I've stumbled across her path. Acoutic guitar-based folk songs that are sometimes stark, sometimes quite full—of noise, rumblings, drums, synths, bass, stray voices, flutes, clitter-clatter, mallet instruments... The effect is one of weirdness in your general freak-folk-weird sort of way. But *e* doesn't really push away the way others in the freak-folk arena have been known to. *e*'s songs often begin with beautiful chords and hummable Jeff Magnum-like tunes, and then let the creepies set in to eventually overcome them altogether. But mostly, *e* chooses to let these songs get overwhelmed with beauty rather than ugly, stacking oddities and outlying sounds and effects that find supple harmonies within themselves and resonate deep.

This album is quite clearly DIY—tape hiss, static, slightly skipping glitchy digital info, "testing"'s, etc. "Phantom O' The Opera" is a bit excruciating, though the organ is quite nice. Same goes for closer "pretty kitties .deux," which is a gorgeous song, rudely chopped in spinning static. There are probably a handful of actual copies in existence, and one of those was miraculously uploaded to the throughs of the worldwide web from a scratchy CD-R. But like most treasure, this can also be beautiful because of its blemishes. You Are A Brilliant Flower sounds old and weathered, though the metadata from the mp3 files reveals this came out only last year. Like an old photograph, its the image that's what is important: an imaginative voice and one of the more creative songsmiths I've heard in months (and I've heard a lot of good ones) that is unmistakeable, if a little fuzzy. I'm sad to say that I have no idea why I even have this wonderful album. But like most of the piles of old stuff I've been going through in the past week, I'll find a dusty trunk to wrap this up in a blanket and gently tuck away somewhere inside my brain, in some deep corner of my subconscious. It's already there, waiting for me to open it up and remember... that time I forgot. Thanks, *e*. Whoever you are.

Crawf

Download You Are A Brilliant Flower That Ever Blooms here.

Derek Rogers / Sparkling Wide Pressure

2010-08-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

Minor Phase Patterns (Kimberly Dawn, 2010)

For: Evan Caminiti, Sean McCann, Pop-era Gas

Byline: A beautiful ambient painting on the canvas of a 3" CD-R. Don't have a CD spindle? Get one.

I feel a little guilty reviewing this, as the release from the 3" CD-r label Kimberly Dawn Recordings is (perhaps unsurprisingly and indeed unfortunately) already sold out of its limited run of 50 copies, and the only place I've been able to track down that has even but a five-minute excerpt from the piece is a YouTube video that's embedded into Kim Dawn's blog. So it's troubling to me that many who read this may never get the chance to hear this work in full, as Frank Baugh (aka Sparkling Wide Pressure) and Derek Rogers' ambient effort is quite the treasure. Minor Phase Patterns layers long, slender guitar and synth tones against one another, allowing individual voices to kind of massage themselves together. It creates a homogeneously smooth and creamy hum with flashes of fleeting melodies you almost create for yourself subconsciously. Beats and rhythmic devices are sacrificed in favor of very slowly developing chord progressions, tonally fluid and morphing with the waxing and waning of textures so soft and slight (much like the works of composers like Wolfgang Voigt or William Basinski), changes barely go noticed. The music does follow a trajectory, though, a remarkable feat for a sound that remains so consistently firm in volume and overall girth—it's never fat or lean, starving or engorged—simply full. Elements breathe for themselves and are independent, but they work in a delicate tandem to operate like an organism, all singularly participatory in contributing to a common, well-rounded and balanced whole...

...I have to admit, most of my music these days is either downloaded, loaded into my slot-fed laptop, or, you know, I'm always partial to vinyl. So it was a task for me to find a way to hear Minor Phase Patterns. But interestingly, I was also immediately drawn to this little gem. These 3" discs are hip artifacts—folkloric vessels in a way, transporting music to an emerging subculture through a stylized material format. They empower ritual in art, emphasizing specifically planned, exclusive sorts of listening practices, encouraging more interpersonal moments of sharing that the internet age might be guilty of destroying. These CDs can be a pain in the ass to enjoy for those of you with nary a tray nor spindle, but they're also a beautiful pain in the ass, completely worth the effort whatever you have to do to hear them.

Crawf

This review originally published at Foxy Digitalis. Used by permission from Digitalis Industries, Inc. Read the full review here.

Kimberly Dawn Blogspot (Lots of great stuff here - and these sell out quick. Get on it!)

An excerpt from Minor Phase Patterns for your listening enjoyment:

Heinali and Matt Finney

2010-08-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

Lemonade EP (Self-Released, 07.2010)

For: Jesu, Gary Soto, Charles Bukowski

Byline: A huge, but bleak, statement of addiction and loss from the southern spoken-word artist Matt Finney and Ukrainian musician Heinali.

Matt Finney, who made up one half of this years most startling discoveries Finneyerkes, is back with another bout of spoken word from the economically, spiritually and emotionally crushed everyman. This time, however, he is paired with Ukrainian musician/soundscapist Heinali. The dramatically heavier and ominous tones of Heinali's electronically manipulated industrial/post-rock replaces Randy Yerkes' skeletal passages and underscores the equally dramatic (but not so surprising) turn in Matt Finney's utterly bleak spoken word/poetry passages. This turn towards the ugly side of human nature isn't something that Finney shied away from on past releases. On the anachronously titled Lemonade, however, Finney narrates tales of addicts and drunks with violent pasts and even more violent dreams and fantasies. Men (and only men in this collection) who abuse themselves and the ones who depend on them through substance and emotional abuse aren't let off the hook here. There is little hope (narratively at least) and no redemption for these men and those who are caught in their downward spiral of self-hatred and self-destruction. The survivors turn to the same coping mechanisms to erase their memories and cover their own pain at realizing they have become the monsters they once hated. While Finney may at times lean heavily on tired references like "houses on fire", and "waking up with your own blood in the sink" he also delivers some lines that rank among his best.

This isn't a complaint. I work with homeless youth in Salt Lake City. The familiar tropes of a never ending spiral caused by an undeservedly shitty childhood are not lost on me. While I was more than fortunate in my upbringing I see the effects of drug use, neglect, and instability in those formative years manifest themselves in the risky (and sometimes outright irresponsible) choices of kids I work with every day. After an especially emotionally high strung day I listened to Lemonade on repeat. The emotional catharsis was immediate. Somewhere between Finney's honest portraits of a stagnant southern existence and the nihilism of his characters I began to see patterns forming between the behaviors of his characters and the all too real examples I had before me. Suddenly the cycle made sense. Sometimes there is no redemption. Thats just how it is. Kids O.D from a drug they have been using since 11. Nomadic adolescents running away from affluent but abusive families fall under the wheels of the freight train carrying them across the country to the freedom of a Northern California summer. Bad things happen to good people. Some get past it. Some don't.

I realize this review has been way too personal. Heinali's musical underpinning works for the most part. Heinali often comes as overbearing in his use of industrial beats and stultified chugging-guitar riffs that can't seem to move past post-rock 101. But, when he is on, and he is most of the time, he is really on. "Lemonade" begins with a glowing, shimmering swell of sustained guitar tones, a signal to a final crack of daylight through Finney's bleak prose, only to be shot down by another of Finney's deadpan recital of all things dreary. "After the flood comes .... drought." Damn ... Really thought we had something going there there.

On a more positive note, Finney's contributions seem a little better integrated than they did in the Finneyerkes project. Instead of coming in via a clicked on tape recorder, Finney's contributions are edited into the songs themselves. Slipped in unexpectedly, sometimes put through a filter or some sort of sound manipulation. The result is a more seamless contribution.

Lemonade isn't a suicide note. Not yet. While it may walk exclusively with its head down on the shady side of the street, at least it is going somewhere. Finney dwells on these negative emotions to take ownership of them, embody them for a time, and then moves past them, culminating in one of the more emotionally devastating, yet, cathartic statements of the year.

Ryan H.

Download/Buy Lemonade Here.

Patrick Porter

2010-08-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

Bachelor Pad Blue; Bent Pants & Stray Cats (Unreleased, 2009/10)

For: Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Giant Sand, Little Fyodor

Byline: Greyday rejected this? ... wtf?

Patrick Porter is one of those rare artists. He's a brilliant poet, a published writer, accomplished painter (word is that the drummer from Slipknot bought a ton of his work... which makes little sense to me. Even more perplexing is Porter's claim that he threw bananas at the band during the transaction), and a great songwriter. He's also incredibly prolific at all of this while somehow being something of a vagrant. He tours on Greyhound buses, holes up in vans or tiny studios, and manages to always keep his wandering mind focused on recording his memories in one way or another. Sometimes those are beautiful memories, sometimes ugly, nightmarish even, hilarious or sometimes they're just plain weird. All in all, Porter tells the stories of himself, and if you can bet one thing when you get a Patrick Porter disc spinning in your CD player, it's that it will be something honest. Whatever happened to him, what he was going through, if he's angry or uncomfortable where he is, even if it's unreasonable, he'll let you know.

His last extended stint (during which time these tunes were laid to tape) brought him back to Colorado where he slept in the extra room of an old friend's apartment, frequently played gigs at places like Wax Trax Records and the Skylark Bar for meager audiences quietly admiring his commanding (if also modest) presence at relating the world as he sees it unfolding all around him. I knew Mr. Porter during this period, and I found him to be remarkably friendly, incredibly interesting, highly intelligent, very funny, but, indeed as this record indicates, there was something a little off about him, too. He would hang around Gabor's Bar a lot back then, his A Swan at Smiley's LP was in the jukebox there, and we had some great times over games of rummy and bouts of Miles Davis, but I never really saw the loneliness his record harps on... which is a little sad to think about now, actually. I wonder how well I really knew him. But then you hear this record, and it's a window into who Patrick Porter really was on a much more total level at this specific time in his life.

And the record doesn't sound all that sad all the time, either, so don't worry, I think Patrick's doing alright. Opener "Hello" tricks you into thinking Porter's shifted gears to some kind of folk-ambient sound before blasting into a ho-down of an introduction, screaming and yelping "HELLO!"s to anyone who'll hear his story. And with a following spoken-word welcome, explanation of the record, an extended dedication, and a tip of the hat to Denver, I think Porter right off the bat wants to make sure he tells folks that no matter what happened during this "very feverish time... a time of great strife and complexity" (as he says), he wasn't taking any of it too seriously.

Still, lines like "Make my next meal a loaded gun" are delivered cold enough to shake you to your core. There's plenty of sadness and a lot of frustration to be found in tunes like the toe-tappin' "Big Frowny Face," which is something of an assault on an ex-girlfriend. "Zero" and "No One's Ever Gonna Love Me" are pity parties that Porter's pitching to no one but himself through country balladry twinged with the sting of stark lonliness and ghostly backing vox. Sometimes doubled vocals are off-tune just enough to grate the nerves, which might mirror Porter's own internal, ugly demons. Another plus is that Porter's tales are well adaptable to a range of styles from prettier, hazy ballads to more uptempo banjo or guitar-based riffs. Then there's a healthy share of stone-gorgeous moments that make it all worth it. "Fogelburg" is a simply wonderful light-rock tune, and "Lizzy Turtle Laylo," aside from being about a turtle that actually lived in my apartment for a few months, might just be the purtiest piece of music I've heard all year.

Sorry for the lengthy post here, we usually try to keep them below 500 words.. I don't owe Porter anything, and he doesn't owe me nothin' neither, so maybe it's a little odd that I had this much to say. I guess this record just resonates a little more deeply on a personal level. And the best part is I have a feeling it will do the same for a lot more pairs of ears if they're willing to put up with the guy... many have tried and failed (even his own record label, Greyday—they rejected this album). I don't think Patrick wants any of us to feel sorry for him. But it's a pretty interesting thing to hear him being sorry for himself for some reason. Plus, it's usually positively beautiful, even when he's at his weirdest.

Crawf

Patrick Porter Official Bandcamp (stream/buy this here)

p.s. Dear Patrick, plz come back to Denver.

Julian Lynch

2010-08-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

Mare (Olde English Spelling Bee, 06.2010)

For: Real Estate, Ducktails, Green Gerry, Sufjan Stevens

Byline: An unexpected mini-miracle album full of hazy drones, horns, and delicate compositional flourishes from the second best musician from New Jersey. Queen Latifah being the first, duh.

Mare, although we are a month late on it, feels like a mid-summer nights birthday party; a celebration, a gift, an often overlooked cultural event. The native New Jersy-ian (and bffs with Real Estate, Ducktails, etc..) and current ethnomusicology grad student at the University of Wisconson-Madison has created an astute bedroom-pop album fixated on ambience and texture but with its feet planted firmly on steady ground of airtight song structure. Mare is a glorious pastiche of pop hooks underneath a chemical bath of lo-fi haziness and restrained washes of omnipresent guitar drone. Lynch is at his peak of perfection when he extends his laid back breeziness into his meandering bass lines, buried percussion, and left-field spontaneous instrumentation. While Lynch sinks his voice beneath the fidelity level of most of the instruments on this album it is still pretty easy to call this a pop record. But where most drone-pop luminaries choose to let their fragile compositions falter beneath the pall of guitar fuzz, Lynch's delicate instrumentation is clear, discernible and remarkably deep.

Take title-track "Mare" for example, the drumming in that track, while not too far removed from a quasi-ethnic raga, thud and pop like distant fireworks. Exploding behind, underneath, and over the top of all the hazy drones encircling the track providing a unique three-dimensional listening experience. The saxophone, trumpet and a bevy of woodwind instruments, especially on tracks like "A Day at the Racetack" and "Ruth, My Sister" have the tendency to steal the show. The non traditional instrumentation doesn't call attention to itself like a reflexive-song-and-dance-in-the-middle-of-a-heady-drama type thing (like 10 word hyphenated beast in the middle of a sentence does), but punctuates, garnishes, and deepens the already bottomless track. Oh, and the guitar solo on "Ears". Totally kills it dead.

With Lynch's degree in ethnomusicology it comes as no surprise to hear some less than obvious influences crop up on just about every track. "Interlude", for example, starts out with a vaguely raggae/soul-sounding dub template before some slack guitars and a grooving bassline tie the whole thing back to a mid-seventies Bronx jumble of intertwining tropical and American influences. Equal parts "The Harder They Come" era Jimmy Cliff and David Gates

Above everything, Mare is polite. An unobtrusive, dreamy little mid-summer gem of a record. Something that has been a companion through countless, stupid SEO articles and provided more goosebump raising, smile inducing, deep listening moments per capita than perhaps any other record this year. Totally worth your time and attention. Did I mention the guitar solo on "Ears" slays it? Phew.

Ryan H.

JULIAN LYNCH "IN NEW JERSEY" from OLDE ENGLISH SPELLING BEE on Vimeo.

Stream/Buy Mare Here

Menomena

2010-08-04T21:32:00.000-07:00

Mines (Barsuk, 07.2010)

Byline: Menomena's most mature post-DEELER album.

For: The National, The Walkmen, The Shins

Menomena make music for diminished men. If I Am The Fun Blame Monster was about being scared as hell about embracing adulthood with any sort of openness that didn't bifurcate experience into the two camps of lovely or terrifying, Mines feels like a resignation letter to the better competitors in life and a manifesto of being content with just existing. Sorry ladies, this a mans record. Not that you wouldn't like it. In fact you should listen to it. But there is something about being an object rather than the subject in your own story that men need to hear. Lyrical allusions to being "not the most cocksure guy" and being scared to death of a female counterpart who doesn't weigh more than 100 lbs, to wanting nothing more than "to go home" when we are expected to be brave, witty, and strong, speak to a deep masculine insecurity that Menomena explore brilliantly throughout the bulk of this album.

With that said, Mines is by far Menomena's lushest, grandest, and most mature album to date. No qualifiers on that, this isn't lush, grand, or mature in the way Friend and Foe was in Menomena's own weird way. This is straight up High Violet pretty. In fact, forget you ever heard The National. This is your new NPR, hip-thirty year old, critically lauded album. This makes sense in a way. Pre-Mines side projects of Brent Knopf's Ramona Falls and Danny Seim's Lackthereof, hinted towards an individual sense of compositional maturity at the expense of actual exciting music (barring of course Seim's incredible cover of "Fake Empire". Listen to that now.) Collectively Mines doesn't have that problem. Songs like "Tithe", "Dirty Cartoons", and "Sleeping Beauty", while restrained, are audibly some of the most interesting things Menomena have ever produced. Gone are the aleatoric moments of the DEELER software days, or the goofy/terrifying emotional transperancy of I am the Fun Blame Monster. Mines embraces the pop song structure without sacrificing the experimental give-and-take of Knopf's gorgeous ascending piano lines, swapping instrumentation, electronic blips-and-bloops, group melodies, and the signature saxophone on almost every track. If High Violet took 6 months to track, I can't even guess how long this took. This onion has layers. Just when you think you have got to the bottom of a track you find more vocal harmonies, oddball percussion, and strangely tuned guitars.

Mines disappoints when it comes to the burners. "TAOS" and "BOTE" swap the barely contained rage-cum-fragility of IATFBM with typical muscular rock-band drumming (which is remarkably punchy and huge) and classic rock influenced guitar licks. The most brilliant moment on an album full of downright jaw dropping moments is the album opener "Queen Black Acid". There is so much ground you can cover without a single power chord. Plus, Knopf's near Graceland white-guy vocal scatting fits in a weird way between the distant firework thud of Seim's drumwork and into the open space of the cavernous production.

With as much growing up as Menomena has done in the three years since their last album, they haven't sacrificed their fierce exploration of how much sound they can cram into a single song or between three friends. Mines puts Menomena back on the map of being one of the most innovative and talented bands in the indie-rock landscape.

Ryan H.

Free Download of "Five Little Rooms" (Courtesy of Barsuk Records)

An Announcement...

2010-08-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

Good day, lovely TOME readers!

First, another thanks is due for continuing to read our blog here. Our stat counter thingie is currently broken (lord... we hope), but we're quite certain you're all out there looking at these funny little characters we type about the wonderfully wild and weird world of music.

We love doing this so much that we've decided to up our game. With the help of our beautiful friends Kinsey Hamilton and Eric Peterson, the TOME you've grown to know and love is about to undergo a major makeover. We have a brand new site layout and design, as well as our very own fancy-schmancy tometotheweathermachine.com URL, and we can't wait to show it all to you on August 22nd. So mark your calendars! To celebrate, Tome to the Weather Machine is throwing a site re-launch party in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver at Crawf's favorite watering hole Gabor's. The fateful date will also mark the release of a new set of mix CD-r's we will have prepared and lovingly placed in the bar's famous juke box, complete with nerdy notes about why we chose which tracks. I also plan to burn several copies of the last mix Crawf had in there for folks to take home as a parting gift. Drink specials, friends, and fun. Your three favorite things, remember?

So stay tuned, big changes are a-comin', and we hope to see you at Gabor's bar on August 22nd.

Thanks,

—Crawf and Ryan H.

Tome to the Weather Machine Re-Launch Party - Facebook Event Page

p.s. Endless thank yous to the lovely Danni Chandler for helping us organize this momentous occasion! She's also in a rad band we plan to post on in the coming days: The Manxx. Meeeeeoww!

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Dead Drums

2010-08-04T12:22:00.000-07:00

Carousin' USA Single (Self-released, 2010)

For: Neon Indian, Talk Talk, Zola Jesus

Byline: Last "summer jam." Triple-promise.

Here's a quickie but a goodie. Baltimore's Dead Drums and its new single "Carousin' USA" sounds like what our generation's front porch rocking chair music will be when we're all old and fat and lazy (can't wait). Slow, easy-going, delicate, and beautiful. It's damn-near the simplest song I've heard all year—two bass notes, mild-pop groove between a bass and snare samples, and gently wafting strums of a tremolo-drenched guitar. The voice comes from behind you, almost massaging your shoulders as you lounge the evening hours away in a coma-inducing swelter. "Perfect" is a word I hate using. I'm using it now: this is so perfect.

You can download this hot little number via the link below at Dead Drums' Bandcamp page. It also comes with an amazing remix of a track called "Edna" that makes use of some really unique rhythmic ethno-hop beats a-la Tortoise' John Herndon.

Dead Drums Official Bandcamp Site (download here)

p.s. I downloaded Dead Drums' Fashion Defense EP from last year, and it's also quite good, however much different - lots of weirdly dark ambient sounds. Dead Drums could really take their sound with either this, or the "Carousin' USA" route and I'd be happy. Also, Dead Drums mastermind Caleb Moore has another similar project called Lands & Peoples that is definitely worth a listen.

—Crawf 8/4/2010

The Letterbox Project

2010-08-02T21:29:00.001-07:00

And Everything Feels so Sublime (Self Released, 07.2010)

For: Washed Out, ARP, Holy Ghost!

Byline: A huuuugee step forward by a talented, young electronic artist.

I honestly did not see this coming. Tyler Bate's last album, Memory Static, while endlessly listenable, was easily tied to the burgeoning chillwave genre of 2009-2010. Almost too easily. And Everything Feels so Sublime, approaches the genre with a similar toolset: submerged, chopped percussion, keyed-up vocal samples, perennial focus on nostalgia, childhood, and summer, and a relaxed grip on composition that allow his tracks to meander into a sun-streaked beach photo. While the first half of the album lives up to most of the characteristics mentioned above, there are some moments of pure brilliance on this record where Bate's strikes out on his own, expanding, stretching, and generally improving every aspect of his chillwave repertoire. Sublime samples freely from a broad range of sub-genres of dance music incorporating Balearic and downtempo grooves into his underwater soundscape.. Bate's palette sounds infinitely deeper, with much more attention paid to glorious vocal melodies and hidden sub-grooves hidden beneath the de-throned percussion-as-king of Memory Static. Even on tracks like "Sunday Dreamer", whose soulful hook and postivist-lyrics are tied closely to a number of artists trying to recreate Person Pitch, sound remarkably deep with a number of ridiculously well placed vocal samples running deep beneath the track's tranquil surface.

The last half of the album is what kills me. Endlessly blissed out, Bate's mostly wordless compositions warp his sun-drenched synths and percussion samples through the fractured scanning lines of the VHS jilting, distorting, and occasionally submerging the California sunset in closing titles of a taped California Dreams rerun. The image retains some of the same pastoral scenery but is put through a heavy filter of time-defining modifiers. Seriously, the marching-band drums slowly fading into the heralding synth lines on "Learning Curve"....I could live in that moment forever. This is a remarkable leap forward for a young TOME favorite.

Ryan H.

Stream And Everything Feels So Sublime Here

M. Ostermeier

2010-08-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

Chance Reconstruction (Tench Records, 08.2010)

Byline: A microcosm of ambient-classical prettiness .

For: Labradford, LaMonte Young, Kyle Bobby Dunn

Punk, inherent in its form, is manifesto driven. With every molecule of available sound-space taken up it leaves no room for dialogue. A closed form. Aggressively ideologically driven, wielding a treatise like a meat cleaver. This sort of monolithic propulsion of sound, however, has no place in M. Ostermeier's exploratory ambient-classical compositions. Ostermeier weights and counterweights his ideas with a copious amount of silence allowing the listener to fill in spaces with whatever he/she brings to the table. For me, it was a prevailing sense of nostalgia, and not really the warm, 3rd grade photo kind. I filled Ostermeier's open-ended arrangements with a strange sort of nameless and untraceable lament for missed opportunities with loved ones. That sort of general sadness that people have to die. I can't even describe where it came from. But, compared to the heavy-hitters in the for section (whom he ranks up there with), Ostermeier's compositions carry the most emotional weight out of all them as he explores ambient fields full of glitching, sputtering beats, low-end destroying rumble-drones, and skeletal piano and guitar lines that ostensibly create the backbone of each track. But like any good writer, Ostermeier's gets by with saying more by saying less. In fact, there is little, except for what is piling up well below the surface, to tie the listener to each relatively short (in drone-time length) track. This is why, at only 35 minutes, Chance Reconstruction feels three times as long. This isn't meant as a slight in any way, it is so easy to fall into the lapping, building drones beneath the readily-audible piano/guitar lines, that extracting yourself from them is a difficult task.

By the way, this the debut album for Tench Records (TCH01!!!!). And Tench Records, thank you immensely for the gorgeous packaging on the M. Ostermeier, as I am consuming more and more media digitally (the name of the game in music blogging sadly) it is so nice to get something as aesthetically beautiful and mood setting as Chance Reconstruction. Photo credits to James Luckett Tench and M. Ostermeier, you're doing it right.

Ryan H.

M. Ostermeier Tench Page

Coma Cinema

2010-07-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

Stoned Alone (Self-Released, 2010)

For: early Destroyer, Elliott Smith, Belle & Sebastian

Byline: Heart wrenching lyricism and a hyper-direct approach to songwriting flood Coma Cinema's debut cassette. Sadness is contagious. And addicting. Oof, it's a flat-out painfully good record.

I haven't met Mat Cothran personally, but listening to his band Coma Cinema's latest release (via cassette) makes me feel as though we'd known each other our whole lives. Like we're... soul mates. Yeah, that all sounds a little homo-erotic and emo and everything, but damnit, Stoned Alone feels like our breakup record. Mat, are we breaking up? Already? Maybe it's because I'm going through some pretty heavy changes in my own life right now, or maybe it's because Mr. Cothran is going through something (actually, it definitely sounds like he is), but either way, for the past two weeks Cothran's lyrics have slowly seeped their way into my melancholic head as if they were written in a secret diary I found but shouldn't have. A man comparing being high with suicide and finding a comfortable spot there. He's lonely, but is loneliness just his place? Cothran's work is personal to the degree that it's not inviting listeners in, rather offering up something of a self-portrait meant to be looked at, almost pushing away sympathetic ears. Instead, Stoned Alone is empathy in sound. It's gorgeous enough to draw a tear, and no matter how hard he pushes, you'll still want to be closer to Coma Cinema.

The first thing I noticed about Stoned Alone is how direct it is. The album's tracks rarely offer listeners an intro or reference point; they simply start with the band and Cothran's meek and charmingly off-tune vocals, which remain largely at the front of the mix, emphasizing the beautiful poetry to be found within. The band is only modestly good here, as well. But take that statement for what it is (read: not a diss). The drums sort of stumble into rhythmic stasis through some off-kilter fills, and light arrangements of horns creep into the production in a way that sounds definitely self-taught, performed, and recorded. But a sparkling kind of sound would not suit Coma Cinema's aesthetic, which is grounded in things like honesty, modesty, and shyness. As such, the parts here add up to a refreshing whole that is neighborly, bedroomy, young, and impressionable. The songs themselves are often genius, especially "Come on Apathy!" with its revolving-door flow of verses. In all honesty, this was one of the hardest records in recent memory to come up with a set of "RIYL" artists to compare to, and though the ones I chose sort of work, there's really not a lot out there that sounds quite like Coma Cinema, even though the music is so consistently approachable and familiar (the closest is probably City of Daughters-era Destroyer). With some truly beautiful ballads, light indie-pop, and a refreshingly honest approach, this introduction to Coma Cinema is just about perfect, and it's because of its imperfections, not in spite of them. A gem you can loosely file in "indie" without necessarily pigeonholing the band unfairly... not so common these days.

—Crawf 7/30/2010

Coma Cinema Official MySpace

Coma Cinema Official Website (free download here)

Coma Cinema - Only from Tyler T Williams on Vimeo.

Lotte Kestner

2010-07-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

China Mountain (Silber, 07.2010)

For: Edith Frost, Tiny Vipers, Laura Gibson

Byline: An arresting collection of portable pacific northwest melancholy kept simple and beautiful on an acoustic guitar and looped vocal accompaniment.

China Mountain can be found on a map. Right...There. Lotte Kestner's musical influences are traceable as well. On China Mountain we hear echoes of early nineties slowcore bands like Idaho and Hayden, we get the sense of the strong female singer-songwriter signed to Sub-Pop, K, and Kill Rockstars record labels, as well as flashes of the faraway hazinesss of Laura Gibson's latest ambient/improvised project with Ethan Rose. China Mountain, like its musical influences are rooted in the northwest. China Mountain is a floating island in the sky, untracable, unlocatable, umapped. Felt more than seen. Recorded on an 8-track in the middle of Marfa, Texas, Kestner takes her quaint, closed, influences and rolls them across the expanses of Texas-plain nothingness. Her minimal compositions sound vast, big enough to get lost in, but quiet enough to sound like someone singing in the motel room next to you. Singing close to the microphone, Kestner's voice seems to overwhelm on the first listen but tapers back on subsequent spins allowing a more three dimensional soundscape to emerge. Were those trumpets on "Compasses"? Sleigh bells on "Leif Erickson"? I am not going to ruin the suprise. Kestner's voice, while often adorned with only skeletal guitar lines and occasional looped vocal arrangements, swirl and form into a cloudy Wang Hui painting, all mist shrouded and depth-perception challenged. It is hard to imagine Kestner's voice accompanying the mundane, repeated acts of domesticity. Frequent nature allegories tie this record to the expanses of a dusk-fading field or a choked forest full of man-sized ferns and moss-covered trunks. Take this album for a spin. A hike. A walkabout. A pilgrimage. A hadj. You will be in good company.

Ryan H.

P.S "Leif Erickson" is an Interpol cover.

Lotte Kestner Myspace

Sun Kil Moon

2010-07-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

Admiral Fell Promises (Caldo Verde, 07.2010)

For: John Fahey, Nick Drake, Samamidon

Byline: A subdued masterpiece of nostalgia and virtuoso guitar work. Finally, a proper solo Mark Kozelek album.

There is something approaching perfection in Mark Kozelek's voice. Cutting through the obvious effects (reverb, multi-tracking) there is something like crystalized sadness at the core of it. Kozelek transcends the hubris of the over-indulgent schlockiness of the perennial sad-sack singer-songwriter in a couple of important ways on his latest Sun Kil Moon vehicle Admiral Fell Promises. First, in all of his Red House Painters stuff and continuing onto the sophomore album of his new band (let's face it, it is all Kozelek) he fills his somber meditations with names, places, and proper nouns by pinpointing his sadness to certain places, people, and events in reality and history. Red House Painters painted a picture of Kozelek as the lonely Kerouac-ian poet wasting away in new coffee shops that used to be needle galleries, playing strung out to yuppies in a gentrified nineties San Francisco. Ghosts of the Great Highway returned to his home state, drawing references from childhood and analogies from historical boxers who bloodied the mat for fame, but now only exist in obscure song titles. All of this brings us to 2010's curiously titled Admiral Fell Promises. Like the RHP and SKM albums (as well a couple of self-titled cover LP's and EP's) before it, Admiral Fell Promises roots itself in places Kozelek has visited or resided. His aperture is at full-wide here, illuminating details both mundane and expansive. On "Third and Seneca" he utters "ferries in the puget sound" with "scenesters with beards and tennis shoes" in the same breath, somehow beautifully capturing Seattle in a single sentence. Song titles range from places like "Alesund" (Norway), "Half Moon Bay" (CA), and "Third and Seneca".

The second aspect that lets Kozelek gets away with being pervasively depressing, but haphazardly beautiful, is his virtuoso guitarwork. This has been a divisive feature on Admiral. Opinions on the delicate-picked, nylon-stringed, post-Fahey noodling and flamenco flourishes range from tacked on, perfunctory guitar exercises to undeserved moments of real beauty by a musician not afraid of totally owning his instrument, and letting us know it. These little flashes of brilliance show up on every song in more or less obvious ways. They may feel clunky when Kozelek ramps them up for display purposes only, the intro to "Alesund" and the coda to "Bay of Skulls" critics point to as the worst offenders. I, however, can't stop listening to them. They feel like undeserved treats that live and breathe, and flash luminescent and crazy-eyed under double full moon reflections. Kozelek succeds most admirably when he embeds these virtuoso flashes full-scale in the DNA of his songs. The gorgeous James Blackshaw-like drones on the title track "Admiral Fell Promises" don't get any more gorgeous.

With an album that feels as sparse as an Australian winter, Kozelek doesn't leave us without a few escapist moments of hope in just about every song. Without the full-band and full on jam-tendencies on Ghosts, we are forced to hang on any glimmer of salvation, these range from his vowel-heavy inflection of the name"Leeeee-oooona" on "You are my Sun" and the upbeat guitar picking on "Admiral Fell Promises". For most of the album we swim alone, totally drowned by melancholy. Sometimes thats ok.

Ryan H.

Sun Kil Moon Myspace

HEALTH

2010-07-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

Disco 2 (Lovepump United, 06.2010)

For: See Below

Byline: The LA noise rocker's second album, Get Color gets the remix treatment on this monolithic, occasionally brilliant, collection of contributions from some of the innovative artists working in electronic music. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from inyourspeakers, LLC.

Please Read Full Review Here.

At its best HEALTH’s second remix album is a peek into the compositional soundness of one of 2009’s best albums, Get Color. That album, with its sheen of post-industrial guitars and atonal blasts of noise punctuating, rather than designing, the group’s songs, gestured towards a greater level of accessibility, and hinted at a band that really wanted to make dance music. DISCO 2 is an exercise in further turning down the caustic dread and repackaging seven out of Get Color’s nine songs (Death+ and We Are Water are curiously left out) into compositions that range from Miami Vice synth-scapes via Javelin to chopped and screwed nü-goth a la Salem.

At its worst DISCO 2 is the aural equivalent of everyone showing up to the office Halloween party all dressed up as the same thing. Eleven contributors, who instead of embracing HEALTH’s noise-barbed explosions, tend to ignore them as tantrums from an ill-tempered child and zero in on the band’s pummeling, frequently insane, percussion. Instead of extrapolating the tonal-rich interplay between the shrieking electronics and pulsar wave guitars, most of the contributors (many of which were part of the Chillwave explosion of 2009), tend to focus on the percussion-heavy elements of Get Color to the exclusion of much else....

....Heavy hitters Tobacco, Pictureplane, and Gold Panda put their own personal stamp on Get Color’s biggest “hit,” “Die Slow”. Tobacco filters “Die Slow’s” industrial luster through his characteristic manic-motorway synth lines that rip ragged holes through the entire composition. He does right by isolating and accentuating the breathy Cocteau Twins-like vocals and trading the songs primitive two-beat thud for more layered, heavily textured percussion. Where Tobacco highlighted “Die Slow’s” vocals, Pictureplane, the Denver purveyor of swampy chillwave, glitches the vocals up, chopping them into indecipherable chunks of Burroughs-esque word-virus and layers them over vaguely tropical beat with a heavy low-end. The albums most anticipated track, Gold Panda’s remix of “Die Slow” is also the most glitched-out, but in a manner more informed by 20th century electronic music. Gold Panda turns HEALTH’s characteristic polyrhythmic drumming on “Before Tigers” into an endlessly sampleable palette of breaks, and then a clinking, clattering percussion line reminiscent of electronic artists on the Kompakt label or Pantha Du Prince’s microhouse groove....

....Blindoldfreak, Salem, and Crystal Castles represent a trifecta of bands who take HEALTH’s din and dread seriously, producing three of the best tracks on the album. Blindoldfreak, guitarist for former HEALTH tour mates, Nine Inch Nails, produces the album’s most minimalist track, full of escalating, pitch-shifted tones and naked, isolated vocals, resulting in one of the most oddly triumphant tracks on the album. Crystal Castles, who are no strangers to HEALTH remixes nor to dance-heavy noise, stick relatively close to the script by layering on tempo-shifted, absolutely bonkers drumming, calming vocals, and a bevy of household/medical found sound. Salem’s remix of “In Violet”, Get Color’s least abrasive track, takes advantage of the song’s surging rhythm, turning it into something dark and sinister, not unlike the repackaging of industrial music that HEALTH succeeded in conquering on Get Color.

HEALTH’s own contribution, the most electronic sounding song of their career, “U.S.A Girls,” is more than worth the price of admission and often, when played in the context of the album, overshadows the rest of the contributions.

Ryan H.

2muchachos

2010-07-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

Summer Vacation EP (Self-Released, 2010)

For: Múm, Yo La Tengo, a vox-less Spacemen 3

Byline: 2muchachos make a quick return for a July album perhaps better suited to a summer in Russia than a summer in Denver...? But I don't know, really... any ideas on what the weather is like in Russia right now?

In my own personal summer-state experience even as we speak, it has thankfully cooled down for the last couple of days here in Colorado. We had a solid two-week stretch of scorching weather, and I was stuck in the house (don't ask) over a long weekend when 2muchachos sent me the follow up to April's positively lovely Prespring EP. But it just wasn't the right time yet. When Prespring hit my headphones initially, I just had to get it out as my environment (and thus, your environment, I felt) demanded its immediate attention. But now that the rain has slowly creeped its way back into regular rotation around Denver, everything feels so much more comfortable. Even though the overall temperature is still relatively high, the coolness of the moisture on the pavement is enough to satiate my skin's thirst. Now is the time. So again, make haste and download this while the air is just the right temperature. It's much too cool of an EP to attempt to enjoy in a sweltering delirium. The term "chill" comes to mind. Chill with it.

If Prespring was all budding flowers, Summer Vacation is the band in full bloom, widening out their palate of sounds with warm bass tones beneath its starry, glittery synth patterns, expanding into subtly delicate moments of sampling and centering in on a more prominent rhythmic core. Summer Vacation is the soundtrack to their own summer, and you can almost make out each part of a July's day for the group track-by-track. From waking up with "Follow the Sunbeams" and it's auspicious glow of layered synths that gleam in gentle streaks, to spending the day traveling about with friends in "Fruity Journey," a track that makes use of a bass drum's perpetual motion and light brushes on the snare to signify a day-time drive (maybe to a neighboring town's fruit stand(?)). The is rest full of carefree what-have-yous: swimming, basketball, or finally just lounging on the couch to re-run television shows into ungodly late hours, quietly drifting off into tomorrow's busy day of doing nothing. Remember, there's no school tomorrow, so don't sweat this one. Just let it simmer.

—Craw'z 7/21/2010

Free Download of Summer Vacation EP

2muchachos Official MySpace

Alcest

2010-07-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

Ecailles de Lune (Prophecy, 2010)

For: Jesu, Wolves in the Throne Room, Pyramids

Byline: Gorgeous, sprawling tracks that move from shoegaze to black metal and then back again. Highly recommended.

Ecailles de Lune, by the french shoegaze/black metal duo Alcest, works so well because it offers so many points of access. Alcest pen huge, sprawling tracks that move from multi-layered, major chord nu-shoegaze of A Place to Bury Strangers and Jesu, to post-rock influenced hardcore breakdowns a la Envy and Rosetta, to the soul-cleansing blast-beats and tremelo picked heaviness reminiscent of Wolves in the Throne Room. The above name-dropping shows just how easy it is to plug your personal favorite bands/subgenres (I just thought of three more writing this sentence. Hmm..I Haven't used Cave-In as a reference for awhile) that dominate the growing trend working to bring metal into a broader musical lexicon by pairing it with more accessible and, quite frankly, more interesting sonic elements. Alcest succeed on this level by using moments of classic black metal dynamics to bring their long-playing tracks to an ultimate cathartic conclusion. Alcest go from Slowdive to Darkthrone in a matter of seconds.

While only comprised of two members with single-word monikers, Neige and Winterhalter, Alcest possess an unbelievably encompassing sound that never really moves away from saccharine sweet layers of processed guitar work through all its disparate moves. This gorgeous, layered guitar work accompanies Neige all the way from his gentelest croon to his cracken-unleashed banshee screech necessitated by black metal. This beautiful-ghastly dichotomy works wonders on "Percees de Lumiere", which relies heavily on mid-tempo (for a metal song) drum part and repeating guitar lines over Neige's most tortured vocal delivery. A gorgeous study in contrast. For most of the album, Neige's voice takes on an ethereal coo that floats in and out of center stage, leading tracks like "Sur l'ocean Couleur de Fer" and floating underneath the weight of songs like "Ecailled de Lune - Part 1". Ecailles de Lune is an album whose beauty and power come out of nowhere, I wish I could say, however, that the sheer "whoa" factor didn't wear off after the 5th listen. While enjoyable to pick apart and savor, nothing comes close to that rush that comes with the first few seconds blast-beat craziness. Music as heroin, we will always be chasing that dragon.

Ryan H.

Alcest Myspace

Boxharp

2010-07-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Green (Hidden Shoal, 2010)

For: His Name is Alive, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Brian Eno

Byline: Spacey atmospherics, booming bass, and gorgeous melodicism. Could you ask for more?

Boxharp is the band of one Scott Solter, a man who's tagged himself producer of such artists as John Vanderslice, Superchunk and the Mountain Goats. But Boxharp, his project with singer Wendy Allen, sounds nothing like any of these. In fact, it's difficult to put any one finger on the prismatic set of influences that add up to the band's expansive yet direct aesthetic. It's "expansive" in that each song starts with a fuzzy blanket of warm, Eno-like ambience that eventually swallows melodies whole. It's "direct" in that those melodies are still very much there, rising from the mist with delicate immediacy, slipping their way gently into the folds with gorgeous harmonies and ghostly effects. Boxharp also highlights an intriguing divide somewhere between the celestial and worldly. The Green jumps from songs that employ West-African rhythmic devices (with drums so wide and cavernous they might have come from the bottom of a dried-up well), haunted ship sea-shanties, twinges of celtic folk song, and pop tunes, too. But each of these styles reaches out beyond the stratosphere; even when the groove is locked in deep, Boxharp still hovers.

Aside from the andante swagger of "Kannarock, VA," paces are kept lullingly slow throughout The Green, something that works for the band's sound but ends up holding the record back at the same time. Probably the closest thing I've heard to Boxharp is His Name is Alive (lord, it feels amazing to type that band name in a blog post), but even those guys knew how to ramp up the tempo and drive one home with some energy. Regardless, The Green comes out as a focused set of lullabies, and really, it's been maybe since Marissa Nadler's Songs III: Bird on the Water that it feels right that way. The Green is late nights, fireplaces, ghost stories and legends, all rolled up into a NyQuil capsule of a record. Your dreams have never sounded so good.

—Craw'z 7/20/2010

Boxharp Official Website

Hidden Shoals Recordings Official Website

Free MP3 of "Leatherwing Bat" *note: this track is supremely beautiful.

Max Richter

2010-07-18T16:56:00.000-07:00

Infra (Fat Cat, 07.2010)

For: Johann Johannsson, Machinefabriek, Henryk Gorecki

Byline: Infra-rad

I am sure it was a pleasant surprise for all of us hearing post-classical statesman Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight" played during Martin Scorcese's latest film Shutter Island. The same goes for his haunting and elegiac contributions to the dream-like 2009 Israeli film Waltz With Bashir. Max Richter possesses a certain timbre, a certain approach to melody and repetition that is at once recognizable and accessible enough to lend itself easily to any sort of visual accompaniment. I don't know what it is about them. His compositions evoke a difficult to describe emotion, somewhere between the poles of hopeful and soul-crushingly nostalgic. Like photos of ghosts. It is this chameleon-like cloaking device that lends itself so well to context. I am not saying that this a prerequisite to listening to Richter's new album Infra or any of his magnificent body of work, but when trying to put the pieces of Richter's enigmatic emotionalism together, it is a place to start.

Last time we weighed in with Mr. Richter was the release of his 2009 soundtrack to a film that no one saw. It appears that the only evidence that Henry May Long actually exists is a scarcely viewed IMDB entry. Infra, however, moves from the world of the screen and into the realm of ballet. Scored for The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House in London (London, England, mind you), Infra's pieces move between eight "Infras" and five "Journeys" that are interspersed throughout the album. It would be easy to classify the "Journey" set pieces as having one distinct quality from its "Infra" counterparts, but Richter doesn't make it that easy. Infra is split between short-wave radio interference, squabbling minimal electronic drones, and soaring, heaven-bowed pieces written for strings and piano. There is little distinction between the two sets of tracks. Richter lets his penchant for electronic clatter take control of a track for awhile before piercing the vale with a soaring, bowed cello or violin line that, while we have heard them on every album, is nonetheless as emotionally devastating as the first time we heard it. Richter's classic repeated melodies (I have a hard time calling this minimalism) are on full display on "Infra 5", the album's most celebrated track. Contrasting violin and cello lines are incrementally layered as the track progresses, each one upping push-pull tension between elegiac and triumphant. A frantically bowed violin towards the three minute mark and the characteristic radio static full of un-locatable voices push the track to an inhuman climax full of pathos and regret without a relapse in dynamic tension. Is something this good humanly possible? Yes. 1,000 times, yes!

Ryan H.

Why leave the comfort of your home to go to the ballet. Thanks youtube!

DTH

2010-07-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

Songs to Sleep Next To (Self-Released, 06.2010)

For: Early-Animal Collective, Brian Eno, Wolfgang Voigt

Byline: How exactly do you approach an album tagged "haiku-ambient" or "collage-ambient"?

One thing I have learned about Dth, the New Orleans native most noted for his Books-like collage recordings, is that he is all about the exposition. Dth's albums thus far have been been packed to the gills with other, non-musical, considerations in order to make the album a listening experience, rather than a disposable piece of musical ephemera. For example, with every digital file comes a one-sheet with a haiku written for each track, as well as some crude pen-drawings designed as a kind of guide through the album. But when taken on terms of pure musicality Dth succeeds magnificently here even more so than on I Hope I Can Feel Something Like That reviewed here at the TOME only a few short months ago. Although in close proximity to IHICFSLT, Songs to Sleep Next To is miles away musically and thematically. Dth carved a nice niche for himself in musicality, garnering overwhelmingly positive reviews for his remixological audio collages, as well as suturing this nicely to a tangible theme of memory and loss. Songs to Sleep Next To tackles trickier terrain. Songs, if I am interpreting the title right and the lucid, ambient tracks correctly, is about dreams, or dreaming, or that wonderful place when you are between them. Or at least the music lends itself to that interpretation. Shying away from putting his pre-recorded audio samples in the forefront, Songs starts with "Pruny Hands Felt Health" and "You Are in the Grass" which features the atonal strumming and airy, pitch-shifted vocals that made Sung Tongs such a delightful record. This sets the stage for the rest of the album, tones fluctuate from keyed-up weirdness to an amazingly deep low end. "Honesty is God" is a collaboration with another TOME fav. Chris Rehm whose album Salivary Stones was rightfully touted as a game changing 2010 album. Things don't really get better than this. Rehm's washes of white noise are filtered through Dth's percussive editing sensibility and chopped into a percussive instrument while Dth fills in the gaps with a variety of strange electronic bat-swoops and dives. When Dth uses the recorded voice, he slips them into his compositions without location. Voices swirl in and out of a dreamscape laced with subconscious memories and overheard conversations. This is a step back from IHICFSLTS, but a huge leap forward in letting his compositions speak for themselves. The album closer "Staring Games" is unbelievably good, falling somewhere between an understated Peter Broderick sort of strummer and a shuffling, muttering sort of Phil Elvrum. While probably wary of hearing his own voice so naked and stark on tape, the track is nonetheless a career high point for Dth, a true act of honesty and fearlessness. Fortunately, it completely hits its mark.

Ryan H.

Download here from Bandcamp.

Green Gerry

2010-07-14T14:04:00.000-07:00

Odd Tymes (self-released, 2010)

For: Castanets, Mt. Eerie, Atlas Sound

Byline: A bedroom album of gothic-folk, haunting found-sounds, sudden shifts in mood and color, and startling beauty.

The lessons of my mother are finally coming to fruition: dying is a part of living. There’s an anecdote on Green Gerry’s MySpace page that relates the etymology of the word “lunatic,” referencing the cycles of the moon and their relationship to madness. To listen to Odd Tymes is to be buried in sand. It’s sense-tickling, heart-racing, arresting, but ultimately cool, comfortable and somehow extremely safe. In that order, over and over again. A gentle set of feminine fingers strokes your hair as your air-supply slowly vanishes, reviving your spirit in an endless float. It appears in a dizziness; a hazy, vaseline-smeared lens of an audible field, all gauzy and vibrant and terrifying. Sometimes it’s key to let the frightening bring you to the brink and then let go, hover into the next dimension where the storms are tamed, just beautiful rainbows on the other side.

Athens/L.A.-based songwriter Green Gerry captures all of these emotions with a laptop and an internal mic on his debut effort, gently cranking a tumbler with your guts locked inside. You’ll die and be reborn several times over as Odd Tymes gracefully shape-shifts between moments of calm, guitar or ukelele-based folk tunes, haunting reverb-drenched spiritual-like choral arrangements, and distorted crashes of drums and amps that absolutely terrorize. And sometimes, these shifts take place within the span of a single song. No matter how high you’ll climb, never fear—you’ll always land soft.

Overall, Green Gerry succeeds in crafting a record that’s as diverse and multi-faceted as it is singular. There’s swaying indie-twinged tracks like “Cozy Space Mugz” or “Linked Sausage is Delicious” to satisfy the Bradford Cox lover in all of us, and the harangue and excitement of thunder and lightening reminiscent of Mt. Eerie without ever being overpowering or redundant. Finally, despite the sense of community crowding the arrangements—the amount of instruments and voices etc. to be heard throughout the record—Odd Tymes manages to be immensely personal and even a little lonely. Green Gerry stresses the use of headphones for maximum listening enjoyment, and I think this has less to do with production value (it’s pretty lo-fi, and creative use of stereo space doesn’t seem to be of as much concern as sheer tunefulness and lyrics—oh yeah, the lyrics... see below), and more to do with enjoying this album for and by yourself. Let the reverb echo into your subconscious, let the songs surround you, lift you up, give you a shake, and bring you back down softly. Call this gothic folk, call it lo-fi, gospel, indie, art, call it what you will... file this one under “yours.”

—Craw'z 7/14/2010

I’d like to share some of my favorite lyrics from the album — taken from “Song Fur Thunderstorms”

sleep my baby sleep

sleep my babe don't peek

tonight the air is cold

don't fear what is unknown

there's demons in the trees

they reach to grab at thee

who lays silently asleep

in the grass deep in a dream

stay safe wandering about

keep safe traveling down south

the scared might speak real loud

just place your hand upon your mouth

fall into the lost dark sea

let the salt cure all your worries

let the waves cover your body

its depth is never ending

giants they set fire to the fields
do not take cover upon the hills

though their howls may sound wretchedly ill

the flames you see are not real

to stay I cannot see

my thoughts they get real lonely

if more could I just be?

if less would they not haunt me?

awake my love awake

the tyrants they have all gone away

today the sun invited them not to stay

the light forced them to fade

Pay-What-You-Want Download of Odd Tymes via Bandcamp

Green Gerry Official MySpace

The Douglas Firs

2010-07-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

Haunting Through (Self-Released, 07.2010)

For: Julian Lynch, DM Stith, Neil Finn

Byline: Haunt Me, Do it Again Haunt Me.

Haunting Through, it certainly does. The Douglas Firs, the singular musical vision of Aberdeen Scotland's Neil Inish, is a fully engrossing, totally possessing 20 minutes full of auditory tricks, floorboard creaks, and a legion of musical voices whose locations are impossible to pin down. Finding an entrance point into Inish's dense compositions is a tough task; tracks flow from traditional folk songs bursting with accordions, gang vocal sing-alongs, barroom piano, and a general townhall tavern looseness on "The Quickening". To the electronic tinged, saxophone inflected, "Grow Old and Go Home", to the ambient "Future State". Inish underpins "Soporific" with a humming drone and a host of acoustic and electronic instrumentation. Haunting Through is not a record of some ego-maniacal genre-hopping showoff. Inish's compositions, even when moving through the most dispirate of genres, are held together by a sense of spatial awayness. Haunting Through is an album mostly made up of sounds that range from organic field recordings to crowded barrooms, to bedroom drone and tape experiments. It is easy to imagine Inish standing outside of these moments, either being puzzled by a sense of false-camaraderie or totally entranced by nature. Either way Inish stands beside the listener, gazing in at his own piece trying to infer meaning. When Inish takes control of his songs he uses his commanding (and often multi-tracked) voice, which often floats in and out of the compositions like a ghost, like a lynchpin to tie everything together. These feel like undeserved moments of beauty, even if Inish remained aloof from his tracks, Haunting Through would largely glide by on its own merits. When Inish steps in, however, he proves to be a commanding band leader, even if the only musicians in his employ are himself and his huge ideas.

Ryan H.

The Douglas Firs Myspace

Blogspot

FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! Hot Cross

2010-07-09T06:45:00.000-07:00

Cryonics (Level Plane, 2003)

For: Light the Fuse and Run!, Tubers, The Refused

Byline: Wildly Inventive hardcore discovered during a formative four month span.

I realize that most of my contributions to the TOME have been little more than subjective gushings about music that I love. While I try to keep a sense of journalistic objectivity for integrity sake, sometimes I can't separate the context in which I hear a record and the music itself. That's why these Friday Nostalgia reviews are so much fun to write, I get to dig into a time when a record meant something to me for a specific reason. All of us have those. It's why we love music. It's we create or secretly yearn to create music. To repackage those emotions into something original and personal. There isn't much of a difference between a musician and a rock critic, when we heard a song that left an indelible impression on us, some of us picked up a guitar, others a pen. Will Sheff said something like that.

I take this lengthy introduction as a roundabout way to say, I'm gonna get real wit'chu for a sec. I realize that for most of us the first year of college is a time of unbridled hedonism. Finally cut free from living at home it is a place to experiment from all manners of illicit substances. I, however, spent my first semester of college at an extremely conservative, highly religious university in Southeastern Idaho. I am not saying it was a bad experience, or that I didn't make incredible friends, but for the most part I bristled against the conformist power structure of student-run honor code committees, a huge streak of naivety among the student body. Obnoxious outward displays of nonconformity or rebellion have never really been my bag, so while some of my newfound College friends were trying to "fight the system" I mostly burrowed into myself and discovered a new kind of rebellion. Noise music. Largely thanks to Amanda Romans, who I want to reconnect with (if you are reading this somewhere, lets chat!), 2003 was the year I discovered legendary grindcore bands like Daughters and Pig Destroyer, extremely influential screamo acts like Pg. 99 and Orchid, and listened to some of the most brutally misanthropic hardcore that had no place in Southeastern Idaho. The chaotic, nihilistic, time signatures and emotional content defied the orderly and strange Twin Peaks happiness of that school. It helped me find a comfortable middle by spending each day straddled between two camps. I left after a semester, but still retain pleasant memories of that place.

Hot Cross was one of those groups and their album Cryonics as well as their EP A New Set of Lungs seem to crystalize that time for me. The late-great Hot Cross out of Philadelphia were a band poised with that indefinable mix of agression, accessibility, and experimentation with both the form and texture of hardcore to become a veritable crossover success. This never quite panned out in their almost nine years of on-again-off-again existence. But what we have in Cryonics is a unique vision of what could have been. Hot Cross utilizes the dueling screaming/singing vocals of Billy Werner and Matt Smith. While most of the arrangements stick close to the verse-chorus/brutally heavy breakdown of hardcore, songs like "A Tale for the Ages" find Hot Cross experimenting with slower, more sprawling, song structures replete with a swirling pastiche of effects driven guitar work, recalling another genre-bending Philly hardcore/post-metal band Rosetta. "A Tale for the Ages", while removing much of Greg Drudy's start-stop, math-influenced time signatures, isolates Werner's gravelly scream allowing him to carry the weight of the song. Cryonics was probably intended for, but not really meant to be consumed en masse by the public. Cryonics is literally bursting with too many big ideas musically for it to be totally embraced as a quintessential hardcore record, yet way too hardcore to heralded as a perfect crossover success. But for those kids like me, who were already torn between two camps, Cryonics was a rallying cry, an anthem that it was ok to share ideals from a variety of sources. An allegiance to one didn't necessarily mean an abandonment of the other. Thanks Hot Cross.

Ryan H.

P.S Hot Cross trivia time. Did you know that Greg Drudy was Interpol's original drummer and started Level Plane Records?

Hot Cross Myspace

Kevin Greenspon

2010-07-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

Bracing (Obeast Tapes/Family Time Recordings, 2009)

For: Jasper, TX, Flying Saucer Attack, The Fun Years

Byline: One of most unabashedly gushed about records of (last) year. Full of warm and inviting guitar tones with a dangerous streak of harsh noise running beneath

Bracing, as the title indicates, is an album fraught with anticipations and expectations that are either fully delivered or assiduously withheld from the listener. For example, the opening track "Softened" opens with a swell of harsh noise, the sound of a brittle chasm opening wide, gaping wounds in the earth. But, as delicious as this would be, it is only a warning shot just to see if you are paying attention, letting you know that Greenspon could, if he wanted, turn his shimmering, sunbathed guitar into a Norse-God hammer or Merzbow's laptop. With the Sword of Damocles dangling just above, or surging just below the surface, Greenspon is delivers on his most faithful of promises, 9 songs of gorgeous, hazy guitar drones that have nary an equal.

Kevin Greenspon's guitar tones inhabit that between-world of nyquil induced sleep-comas where every sound seems far away, without form or location. Songs like "Petty Dream" and "Sundowner Lane" hold onto remnants of that place, coming through in shimmering guitar lines and delicately structured drones that stream in with the rays of dislocated beauty from another world on their wings. Vocals, when present, swim somewhere deep below the sub-basement fidelity finding companion with the warm vinyl cracks and tape hiss. They sing with the guitar melodies instead of competing against the warmer tones.

In terms of delivering and witholding, much of Bracing gets off on withholding. Allowing harsher, darker tones to seep through for a few seconds, only to be ushered back into the shadows by a legion of warm/washed out beach-bummer guitar tones. All listening enjoyment is filtered through a dangerous promise that this could be smashed up by moments of harsh noise. Greenspon delivers halfway through the title-track "Bracing" when those harsh tones come out from beneath the surface and make their roaring (second) debut. The first time is unexpected, all subsequent times you brace impact.

Released in 2009, I heard a rumor (somewhere?) that this is going to get a 2010 re-release. If it does, this is a strong contender for album of the year. In fact, this is the best exploratory guitar/drone album since The Fun Years dropped Baby It's Cold Inside, or Chris Rehm's ridiculously strong Salivary Stones. And while the TOME wasn't around then to be on the receiving end for that masterpiece of warm/sullen guitarwork, it is safe to say that I have the same enthusiasm and all out gushing for this 2009 release by Kevin Greenspon. So here it is. You need this album. In fact, you (along with me) need to check out Greenspon's extensive back-catalogue, we (I am talking to you the reader) should get together and have listening parties. It has been too long. I can bring the sour-cream green onion dip, if you get some fruit/cheese platter around. Great, glad we could do this.

Bracing is limited to 100 copies so get on this!

Ryan H.

So much good stuff here. Kevin Greenspon's website, where this and other releases can be obtained. Also Family Time Records is putting this baby out on CD.

Here is a charming mixtape that Kevin Greenspon currated. It can be downloaded on his site.

Cherry Chapstick

2010-07-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

The Line b/w Precious Necklace (Be Good to Me)

For: Toro y Moi, Javelin / Daft Punk, Alan Braxe

Byline: Love the high you get from chillwave, but hate the depressing comedown? This smart single package has the best of both worlds and manages to leave you up. Way up.

There's something depressing about the whole chillwave aesthetic in general. I mean, the beats themselves are actually depressed. There's been a trend in the past year or so of artists (see Toro y Moi, or even Bibio to an extent) providing grooves that are sunken in on themselves. Beats like these a have real, massive sort of gravity that pulls the listener/dancer deep into its trap: a trampoline on quicksand. Montreal's Cherry Chapstick have absolutely mastered this style, taken the best pieces from the world's top players, and wrapped them up into a neat little package of a song they call "The Line." And the reason stuff like this works so well is that these beats that swirl in on themselves with pulsing, throbbing volume shifts in the bass, jive perfectly with the effectual melancholic backdrop of music. Cherry Chapstick themselves called it a "night-drive jam." Alone, driving at night - yes. That's where this song happens. A lone voice lamenting a recent break up. Time to think. But there's something there to pick you up just as your face is about to scrape the floor: a tambourine. It's there—silvery, glittering, unwavering: so there. Hope. God, I love that tambourine.

The second track is a remix of the band's "Precious Necklass" as refigured by Silly Kissers. If you needed a bit more of a pick-me-up after your little night-drive sesh, a beat the lifts up instead of sagging down, well here's your perfect cure. An punchy, poppy track with the fanfare synths of Alan Braxe and the syncopated, bouncy bass lines of Discovery-era Daft Punk. In fact, this one gives a track like "Aerodynamic" a run for its money.

Best of all, you can download this one for free. So do that, take it with you to the club, and whether or not your girlfriend just dumped you, pick your poison. Either way you'll be dancing.

—Craw'z 7/7/2010

Listen to "The Line":

Free Download of "The Line" Digital Single

Cherry Chapstick Official Myspace

p.s. The name of the guy who sent this single to us is Julian. I have no idea why I love that so much, but I do. It's just... perfect.

Invisible Elephant

2010-07-06T07:14:00.000-07:00

The Lights Go Out (Sonic Reverie, 06.10)

For: Windsor for the Derby, Warpaint, Jesu, Mogwai

Byline: Incredibly dreamy, atmospheric post-rock from Blackpool, UK with dark suggestions of noise-influenced undertones. Name possibly taken from an X-Files episode. What is there not to love?

Invisible Elephant are at their best when their elegiac, free-floating post-rock, replete with swirling guitar tones, reverbed-out everything, and heavy, druggy guitar drones, are in the jaws of a malevolent undertone of unrestrained noise brooding just below the surface. It is not that those gorgeous ambient passages would float by unnoticed without the threat of being engulfed by a tidal wave of squalor; reeling feedback, and no-input tonal freak outs, but the fear that they could totally collapse suture those your eardrums, wringing out every last moment of beauty. Fortunately Invisible Elephant only dangles that sword over its lovely post-rock/shoegaze tracks with no intention of letting it drop. When Invisible Elephant get noisy, and they do, it comes in measured waves of unadulterated awesomeness. Opener "Communication (part II)" contains an arching, feedback-drenched, guitar line that is all glistening teeth, flashes of muscle and steel under the moonlight, that only hints at the tensile power that could of been released if you, lonely traveler, hadn't brought a gun loaded with silver bullets.

The slow jams, there are plenty of them as well, run the gamut from ethereal, early Galaxie 500 long-players, an oddly placed tribal drumming, chanting, dubstep-incidental percussion laced segue, and an auto-tuned acoustic track. For the most part these are totally unexpected and beautiful departures. The aforementioned auto-tuned "Lost in the Woods" is full of shimmering, cascading James Blackshaw-like atonal strumming and auto-tuned vocals that showcase the beating human heart in the cold, processed machine of robotic vocal work. The last heavy track of the album, starting with a wash of processed guitar noise gives way to the hushed vocals before an aching, feedback impregnated guitar line punches a hole wide open in the composition. A sound and a move clearly directed by the heavy hand of bands like Ride and Swervedriver who inform the aural textures and tones of Invisible Elephant. A highly recommended, extremely rewarding listen.

Ryan H.

Invisible Elephant bandcamp page. Download or buy here.

I have seen every episode of the X-Files. All nine seasons. I am not particularly proud of this, nor am I totally stoked that I know this trivia. But the band name Invisible Elephant seems to make reference to an X-Files episode in Season 2 where animals are turned invisible as part of some alien abduction plot that is never really explicitly stated. The teaser to the episode begins with an invisible elephant smashing through an electrical worker's truck. Am I right to assume this? Insight please.

Baths

2010-07-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

Cerulean (07.10, anticon)

For: Gold Panda, Passion Pit, Daedelus

Byline: On his auspicious debut for Anticon, 21-year-old Will Wiesenfeld makes all the right moves by marrying chopped acoustic instrumentation with massive hip-hop beats and showcasing his impossibly high falsetto. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from inyourspeakers media, LLC.

....Baths, like his real world namesake, is easy to slip into, but ridiculously hard to get out of. I have overplayed this record, overplayed it to death, but I still don’t want to give it up. I have been trying to figure why this is. Personally, Baths simultaneously hits all of my auditory pleasure spots: chopped up electro-acoustic arrangements, massive beats, left-field vocal samples, and an impossibly high falsetto voice. It is as if Gold Panda, Passion Pit, and Daedelus are all performing in some sort of single-monikered supergroup. I can understand if this doesn’t generate the same level of unabashed gushing, but there is something undefined about Cerulean that erases any sort of subjectivity on the part of the listener. The unrestrained joy, intricately crafted hooks, and playful experimentation assure similar returns across the board. Listen to this record, you will feel happy, wistful, nostalgic, confident. Your head will bob. You really won’t have a choice in the matter.

Cerulean is one of those records that makes you feel like you have wasted your life when you find out that Wiesenfeld is only 21. The record, while representing a legion of different voices, is a solid and mature vision sutured by a few elements that Wiesenfeld has mastered. First and foremost, Baths is a beat maker. He reigns in the propensity to let auxiliary instrumentation and formless segues wreak havoc on his airtight beats by never straying too far out of a lock-step, definable beat pattern as a sturdy backbone. Baths’ use of sampled acoustic guitars, organic, household sounds, and piano lines often fall a half-step behind the propulsive beat, deepening the texture, but they always support and lend to the musical superstructure.

Coming in half-way through the album, “Hall” starts out as a delightfully twisted, lo-fi freak-folk strummer before being edited percussively into the rhythm and time signature of the beat. If we can compare Baths to recent Chillwave artists such as Toro y Moi and Washed Out we can do so favorably in terms of Wiesenfeld’s use of non-percussive rhythmic elements to augment his beats with which he creates a disorienting underwater headphone trip. Pretty amazing stuff.

The surprisingly stronger second half of the album utilizes Wiesenfeld’s multi-tracked falsetto in the fantastic pop songs “Plea” and “You’re My Excuse to Travel” while brooding over the somber, hiccupping “Rain Smell”. The human voice is never absent, either as another instrument or the songs main vehicle. Wiesenfeld’s’ voice packs an emotional weight, whether pushed to the brink of human hearing with an inhuman falsetto, mumbled into a microphone much too close to his mouth, or buried under a landslide of filters and tracked infinitely, it never goes unnoticed...

Ryan H.

Read Full Review Here

FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! Popol Vuh

2010-07-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

Einsjager & Siebenjager (Kosmiche, 1974)

For: Dungen, Niagara Falls, Journey (on a dangerous level of codeine), Stag Hare

Byline: If only...

This friday nostalgia tag is a little misleading. I did not grow up listening to krautrock , nor am I any sort of expert on the most dubious of hooks used by lazy music journalists to attach to a vaguely rhythmic minimal approach to making music when they don't feel like extrapolating it further. Hey, I'm guilty too, I used the misplaced "K" word when describing the new Aloha album. Aloha?...I guess The title of krautrock expert goes to TOME main-man Crawford P. Direct all your questions to him. I very recently stumbled upon Popol Vuh and their world-hopping exploits through this album Einsjager & Siebenjager which works as a kind of bridge between their early ambient experimentation and their later ethnic excursions into full-blown New Age Book Store quasi-mysticism. Einsjager & Siebenjar which makes obvious tips of the hat to both camps, finds a comfortable convergence in the kind of mid-seventies long-playing instrumental rock that is on all of our parents shelves, but we never heard them play. Early cuts from Journey, or more closely Traffic come to mind as the boilerplate for instrumental rock influenced by classical music or jazz. That is all well and good, and tracks range from the four-minute formulaic album opener "King Minos" that comes in mid-piano major chord riffing, to the awesome, rubbernecking dual guitar-monies on "Wurelspiel", to the drone-raga, epic 15 minute long-player "Einsjager und Siebenjager" that the rest of the album is a footnote to. Vocals, appearing only in the afore mentioned track, are low in the mix, a female voice cooing almost unintelligible vowel sounds.

I always get the impression that krautrock was a sort of Urban Music for Germans before Urban Music existed. An orderly, monolithic, and computerized futurist-urban Utopia ran by machines, full of computerized cars cruising the autobahn at night. Popol Vuh's compositions defy any sort of Germanic-futurism, are far from motorick and do just about everything but drive. They meander, they saunter, they mince, they plod, they drag, but there is never much of a destination in mind that would require the use of an automobile. If Einsjager & Siebenjager yearns for any type of utopia, it would the life of of a far-flung Greek outpost during the height of the Roman Empire. The immensely open and pastoral orchestral elements (this was fortunately before the pan flute, but not before the ubiquitous seventies rock-flute) embody sun-bathed coastlines, endless vineyards, and the casual hedonism of greek life. Einsjager & Siebenjager, all things considered is still kraut, and it is one of the most engaging records I have heard in a long time. If only I discovered this 10 years ago.

Ryan H.

Popol Vuh Myspace

Wolf Parade

2010-06-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

Expo 86 (Sub Pop, 06.2010)

For: See: all Wolfy P's related side projects

Byline: The Montreal band returns with their third effort—a rock-solid set of rock-hard rock tunes that, for better or worse, reign in the penchant for serious emotional weight that once made the group so instantly compelling. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from inyourspeakers Media, LLC. Read the full review here.

....Wolf Parade represents Spencer Krug’s most rockin’ of rock bands, and it’s easy to see why the quartet’s output might rank among his most celebrated work. And rock Expo 86 certainly does. He and his partner Dan Boeckner are back to their Wolfy ways for the new album, and Expo should satisfy fans to the extent that they were perhaps expecting. The bummer is that Expo fails to ever exceed those expectations. The album’s general mood aside (this is a decidedly darker affair than the group’s last effort, 2008’s At Mount Zoomer), Wolf Parade is still an indie band bringing the synth back into the forefront of the mix, the keys and their various textures driving the compositions in both melody and harmony. Guitars and drums are stacked up appropriately to fill out the band’s sound, matching the song’s more anthemic moments with a beefy mix that bolsters big sounds from all directions.

As lofty as their ambitions are on Expo 86, the band succeeds by never over doing it. And maybe that’s because, compared to some of the more goose-bump raising moments on their debut, their ambitions aren’t so lofty after all. Still, the new album is emotional without letting those emotions overpower the songwriting itself, which is consistently satisfying throughout, and only gets better the further you dig into the record. “Pobody’s Nerfect” is a highlight with an airtight guitar riff that stretches itself over the bar line and makes use of some sparser arrangements, dropping instruments here and there to give the song shape next to the frequently planar texture that fills out much of the album. Wolf Parade finishes strong with “Cave-O Sapien,” ramping up the energy into a driving drum beat and smart, tri-harmonized melodic movement.

But Wolf Parade really aren’t taking any daring chances here, opting instead for locked in, airtight song structures, solid performance (some really kick ass drumming, by the way), and a series of tracks that are all good enough. Maybe I’m just spoiled, and I’d be kidding myself if this was some new band’s debut and I wasn’t salivating buckets. But for a third album, Wolf Parade should be experimenting, pushing the envelope the way Krug has proven he’s more than capable of in his other projects. Don’t forget, Wolf Parade, that wonderful time when you, along with others like the Arcade Fire, reminded us that it was OK, awesome even, to let your emotions get the better of you. Instead of letting go, Expo 86 feels somehow sheltered, holding in....

Read the full review here

—Craw'z 6/31/2010

Wolf Parade Myspace

Braden J McKenna Superpost: WYLD WYZRDZ + Weighted Pines

2010-06-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

A partial list of Braden J McKenna's varied musical projects include: Navigator, WYLD WYZRDS, Sleepover, Mario Kart, and Braden J McKenna, as well as frequent collaboration with members of High Country and Stag Hare to name a few. With such a storied back catalogue I am dipping into 2009 to showcase two albums that slipped by me last year when I was so busy trying to keep up with the landslide of amazing music coming out of SLC. The pace of amazing music coming out of SLC has slowed this year (I blame the economy), allowing me to play catch up on McKenna's insanely prolific output. First up...Weighted Pines.

Weighted Pines

Weighted Pines (Magic Goat, 2009)

For: Sad, Sappy Sucker-era Modest Mouse, Beach Fossils

Ever wondered how the misanthropic, bedroom tape-recording Isaac Brock went from singing into answering machines and primitive four-track recorders into becoming the misanthropic, mega-rockstar Isaac Brock? This is a question that McKenna takes up on his bedroom pop experiment Weighted Pines. The spirit of the earliest incarnations of Modest Mouse haunt these collections of songs, which often sound like they are coming from a basement bedroom where a young man plays crouched over his amp, trying not wake his parents. Calling McKenna's output anything but lo-fi up to this point would be a mistake. His output has ranged from the self-parodied, fidelity-as-incendiary-weapon with Mario Kart to his recent forays into cleaner fidelity with WYLD WYZRDS. Weighted Pines disregards low fidelity as an aesthetic choice and recalls the days when strictly analog was a strict necessity. Coming in at 14 tracks in almost as many minutes, Weighted Pines is a study in conservative pop songs. Not that there is anything necessarily conservative about the sound, McKenna nicely utilizes the four-tracks provided him, and fills in every possible nook and cranny with fuzzed out guitar lines, cavernous drum fills, and his barn-door creak of a voice. Brief squelches of noise punctuate "Trick or Treat" and "low" while the rest of the album rests on about one single hook per song. That is all McKenna really needs, and usually that hook is strong enough to demand repeated listens. This may be my favorite of all McKenna projects, that is until he re-emerges with some new creation spiraling out of the WYLD WYZRDZ universe. Until then I am latching onto this project as my go-to for nostalgia tinged, 90's inspired bedroom pop.

Ryan H.

Download Here

WYLD WYZRDZ

Millennium Breeze (Magic Goat, 2009)

For: White Rainbow, Silver Antlers

WYLD WYZRDZ, McKenna's ambient drone project, has always displayed a keen sense of timing. Millennium Breeze is a 25 minute track with a traceable ark from gorgeous buzzing, chirping ambient guitar sounds into a tribal/free-jazz tribal dance party, and then back again. The first six minutes of Millennium Breeze begin with a sustained guitar tone that gradually stacks guitar drone on top of guitar drone with ample amounts of volume swells bringing the whole anthill of sound to the absolute peak in how much beauty the guitar is allowed to produce until the immediate (somewhat jarring) introduction of tribal beats and single note guitar lines break the tension and ushers in the sea change that Millennium Breeze goes through. Then, just wait for it, a gorgeous alto saxophone makes it's triumphant palm-sunday march into the track. If you thought the saxophone killed music in the eighties, like some unnamed TOME contributor, and have held a grudge against its place within the realm of rock and roll, be prepared to have your ears cleansed in the celebratory revelry of Millennium Breeze. Sax-slayer Jake Birch displays some serious talent and virtuosity to sustain a twelve minute improvised solo while still riffing in and out of McKenna's fresh beats. The beats stop suddenly, and Birch's sax fades gently into the resurgance of McKenna's gorgeous guitar tones. Top-notch stuff, and as always it can be downloaded for free at Magic Goat. Link below.

Ryan H.

Millennium Breeze

Keith Canisius

2010-06-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

Openness Is Dreaminess & Everything In Between (Pen & Pad/Darla, 06.2010)

For: Ride, M83, Cloudland Canyon

Byline: Perennial Danish TOME fav. drops a salivating dream-pop EP before his third full-length

"Openness is Dreaminess & Everything in Between"... yep, that pretty much covers it.

Keith Canisius, who captured our hearts with his so (x 1,000) good remix of Aarktica's "Autumnal" on the In Sea Remix album and his 2009 Waves album, has a body of work that is an addendum filled tome, from the multi-layered exploratory percussion, to buried-under-an-avalanche-of-effects to clear-as-a-bell assured guitar lines, to his multi-tracked, often keyed up but always confident voice. Canisius' oeuvre is rooted in a nostalgic nod to shoegaze and dream-pop acts of the eighties and early nineties while repackaging these influences through a relentless exploration of texture and spatial positioning filtered through the underwater fidelity of 2009 chillwave acts. There is something to be said about persistence of vision. While we are on the topic, this four song EP is a poised and elegant step in the direction of 2009's textured Waves. Mr. Canisius knows how to write hooks, but also knows when to open his compositions up to fuzzed out guitar drones, drum n' bass seques, a cicada-hive of buzzing synths, and at least one semi-disturbing vocal sample rife with pre-teen angst. The EP's title track opens with a ridiculously cheerful, tip-of-the hat to "Sweet Child of Mine" type guitar slaying before being swarmed with a hive of fuzzed out synth lines and Canisius' characteristic nasally, effects-laden voice. "Until we Have Sunshine in our Hearts" is all swirling guitars, propulsive drumming that dips and resurfaces beneath the multi-tracked, shoegaze guitar work. While bands like Ride, Jesus and the Mary Chain come easily to mind it is easy to hear Madchester scene's nouveau brand of psychedelia holding a commanding sway. Early Verve and New Fast Automatic Daffodil, even Brian Jonestown Massacre show up in these songs' aggressive guitar work. The Album closer "Second Thoughts" strips away all the auspices of a rock and roll track to reveal the floating, gorgeous ambient tones and textures that underpin every Keith Canisius track. This may be the most revealtory moment on the album and answers the most questions about who Keith Canisius is.

Ryan H.

Pre-Order EP here

Family Trees

2010-06-25T12:16:00.000-07:00

Dream Talkin' 7" (Father Daughter, 2010)

For: The Supremes, Beach Fossils, Cass McCombs

Byline: Dear winter: Piss off.

Question: Do the seasons dictate the music or is it the other way around? This week, Denver hit its first extended stretch of 90 degree weather, and also, California's Father Daughter label sent over this Brooklyn band's debut 7" record for us to have a listen-see. Coincidence? Probably. But as soon as I threw this on ol' lady iPod and told her to jam, I started sweating. But it was a nice sweat... nothing unbearable—almost cool and shady. Inside-and-out warmth, but not scorching to the touch. Flip flops, straw hats, sunglasses, iced tea, the whole deal... closing your eyes, swaying with this band's light breeze and finding yourself 'neath the palm fronds is just about the easiest thing to do in the entire boiling-hot planet. For a band that sounds lo-fi, Dream Talkin' doesn't sound very lo-fi at all. The electric guitar shimmers like salmon in the lake with whispers of tremolo, the bass is deep and hollow, and the drums are just there... nothing super special, but nothing on this record really is, and that's what makes it so super special. Three simple songs, a lightly nostalgic eye for Motown days, and hummable tunes that necessitate the frequent use of your playback device's repeat function. I prefer the manual approach, personally: Play, sip, flip, repeat. Play, sip, flip, repeat. Yeahhh.... it's summer alright.

—Craw'z 6/25/10

Family Trees Official MySpace

Listen to Dream Talkin' here

Father Daughter Records (Buy Dream Talkin' here - limited to 400 copies!)

Elektryk Bestia

2010-06-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

Elektryk Bestia (Self-Released, 06.2010)

For: Pink Floyd, Beta Chicks, King Crimson

Byline: I finally break down and use psychedelic as an adjective. But this time I mean it. Synth-based prog rock out of NY state.

Writing for a small blog like the TOME yields itself to some pretty interesting tangents. If you look at our previous posts the breadth ranges from misanthropic noise acts like the Drowner/Sterile Garden split to Platinum selling Swedish pop acts (see Robyn below). Submissions come to us from just about everywhere, exotic places like Norway, Japan...Denver. I am not, in any way, trying to sound boastful; but finding, and subsequently listening to and interpreting music that I would never hear any other way is the single most rewarding thing about writing for this blog. If you are ever thinking about starting one, do it.

I have been trying to get a pulse on which vein of sub-categorized music floating out there in the interwebs the TOME assiduously covers, and have been coming up with nothing... and everything. I am using this sentence, as well as the first paragraph, to temper and justify one of the latest submissions into the TOME's growing arsenal of bands that I guarantee you have never heard of before you read this. Enter...Elektryk Bestia, from Binghamton, NY. Elektryk Bestia came to my attention by the way of Jarod Goff, a friend with impeccable music tastes. He was at a bar one night and heard Elektryk Bestia play what can only be called the most anti-bar rock imaginable. Bar Rock by definition is supposed to be grating, driving patrons to drink in order to drown out yet another cover of The Doobie Brothers "Give Me The Beat Boys." Elektryk Bestia sound more like a house-band to the milk bar where Alex and his droogs drink in A Clockwork Orange. A polished veneer, full of psychotropic atmospheric properties, but with a very real, and very dangerous, violence boiling beneath the surface.

Elektryk Bestia are at their best when they are at their most exploratory and experimental, utilizing two keyboards to fashion Vangelis-like synthscapes with broad strokes of psychedelic (I know I am a hypocrite for using this word) noise experiments. Think lengthy introductions of sound-art were lost with Dark Side of the Moon? I couldn't help but geek out to the totally awesome recording of a train panning from left to right on the album opener "Enter Bestia." Like I said, Elektryk Bestia succeeds in spades when they let their tightly structured proto-prog numbers slip into free-form, expansive improvised segues that allow the keyboards and lead guitar to wander into various slipstreams of textured ambience and improvised riffing. With that said, the major scale keyboard lines work best when kept out of the drivers seat. The guitar work is amply strong enough to carry the weight of the compositions, it is a wonder why the keyboards aren't kept as simply an exploratory vehicle, shading and filling in where the guitar and bass can't reach. Elektryk Bestia is also at its best when their songs are purely instrumental, the vocal driven tracks carry with them the typical trappings of your everyday rock band. Not bad if you are into that kind of thing, but as developed as Bestia's music is, the vocals feel cumbersome and expected. Bestia seem like they have just about anything up their sleeve, extended improvised bridges stretch out infinitely, synth lines Genesis would covet, and dark, textured atmospherics that literally appear out of thin air. Adding vocals full of double negatives, narrated drug trips, etc... seem too bald-faced, too apparent for a band thriving on doubling back on your expectations.

While such psychotropic milk bars don't exist (except probably somewhere in Holland) Elektryk Bestia will have to settle for setting the faces of bar patrons and basement show attendees afire in Binghamton, NY.

Ryan H.

Elektryk Bestia Myspace

Robyn

2010-06-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

Body Talk Pt. 1 (Konichiwa/Interscope, 2010)

For: Madonna, Prince, Annie

Byline:Part one in a forthcoming trilogy of pop records sets a high bar on one of the Swedish star’s finest works of to date. Originally published on http://www.inyourspeakers.com/. Used by perimission from inyourspeakers, LLC. Please read full review here

It’s dizzying how much good can fit in such a small folder within the depths of your ever-shrinking hard-drive space. Body Talk pt. 1 is at once painfully short, and packed to the brim with songs that run the gamut from scorching hot to ice cold, and it’s all so pristinely executed in both production and performance. Robyn’s Body Talk series, a forth-coming trilogy of albums all expected to be released this year, represents the finest in pop-song economy, freeze-dried but fully flavored to the max, offering a titanic punch to the gut that’s perfect for your busy schedule (or possibly your daily workout routine). It’s all this and not much more: banging beats, gorgeous singing, sentimentality, humor, heartbreak, and sass all for the modest price of half-an-hour of your time. Impressive, no?

But more impressive is what we can all learn from Robyn in such a short period. How to be cool, how to be reserved, how to be explosive, how to be fearless, how to write a melody, how to hire the right producers, how to make people dance, how to ask someone out on a date, how to do “the robot,” what the hell “dancehall” actually means, how to sing a ballad better than anyone else on the planet, how to speak some Swedish (or at least what a beautifully musical language Swedish can be), and why no matter what, Prince will always be the greatest pop star of all time.

Robyn straddles the line between over-confident hubris and humility-laden honesty, backing up her call-outs when necessary but also letting her emotions get the best of her just when you think she’s being a bit too cocky for her own good. It strikes the perfect balance; she’s your BFF who treats you like shit sometimes but only (you realize later) to make you a better person and because she needs your friendship just as bad as you need hers. But like most pop musicians (and like most movies or TV shows with bitchy characters), she’s most fun during her more scathing moments. In fact, the album’s one and only weak spot might be “Cry When You Get Over.” The textured, lazy synths sound great, and the verses have some truly goose-bump raising moments, but the chorus feels like one of those chord progressions you’ve heard enough times in emo pop-punk to last you the rest of your life. Matched with the live-love-and-learn lessons that aren’t even trying to be disguised, the tune might have you thinking Junior High all over again (and seriously, who wants that?)....

Please read the full review here

—Craw'z 6/23/2010

Florene

2010-06-22T06:56:00.000-07:00

Homemade Extacy (Waaga, 06.2010)

For: Crystal Castles, HEALTH, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Buttons

Byline: Electro beat-terrorism from Denton, TX. White hot.

I have pretty nice headphones. I think I'ver bragged about them in past posts, but still, they are my pride and joy. Even the most malevolent noise-distortion, buried-under-an-avalanche-of-tape-hiss bands sound unbelievably deep and well mixed. It's all in the headphones. With how much I love those guys, there have been two instances where I have thrown—literally hurled them—across the room in terror. And for that, I apologize. The first was when I watched the Spanish horror film Rec. on my laptop while my wife was studying. If you've seen that film you know what I am talking about. The second time happened just yesterday, and was 10-times scarier than the incredibly terrifying final image of that film. I had unwittingly turned the iPod and volume knob to maximum volume before I put on the ol' cans. Everything was turned up to 11. Unfortunately, so was Florene. I put them on unknowingly, and with the first stab of post-industrial beats on the album's title track "Homemade Extacy" I was subjected to something louder and more visceral than the U.S government's experiments in noise-as-torture in Guatanamo Bay.

Florene is loud. Loud in that corporeal sense of chest crushing, breath-shortening oppressiveness of sound. The beats, which sound refreshingly cracked, snowed under, and homemade, are pushed to the absolute front of the mix creating a buzzing, rearview-mirror shaking front end that is informed by the post-rave of Crystal Castles and the industrial grandeur and grime of HEALTH. And Florene stacks up as a worthy contender to both in terms of both power and ingenuity. But where the aforementioned bands use electronica in its form as a launch pad into music with a dizzying amount of qualifiers, Florene is less hyphen-jammed and more likely to fall squarely into the realm of electronic music, albeit in a twisted, fractious way. While Florene's relationship to electronic music is less tangential than their predecessors, they still spit fire with the best of them. "Invitation To Sailing" is full of dizzying climaxes, false summits, and an "omni-tempo maximalism" that justifies the almost 8-minute electro-jam. Vocals, while always present, float freely beneath the cavernous beats, ascending synth lines, and post-punk bass lines in wordless jabbering, Aztec war-cries and whoops. Guitar work comes in washes of processed noise, swirling drones and gorgeous noise swells with a body count. While unhinged from the serpentine melodies on the surface, the human voice recorded low in the mix is the only thing that makes Florene three-dimensional. Without it, Florene would be all in-your-face percussion; pure beat aggression. While doing nothing to soften the exposure of being so close to a nuclear explosion, they do help to give their drawn-out compositions some much needed depth. So far Homemade Extasy has been one of the most exciting and downright jarring releases of the year. This 2010 album, released on Waaga alongside the also-promsing FUR, and soon to be released Sunglasses, represents only the glacier tip of their limited-run, self-released cassettes and CD-R releases. Homemade Extasy is a best-foot-forward kind of introduction into the musical populous. Welcome!

Ryan H.

Download "Space Cadets"

Florene Myspace

Holy Ghost!

2010-06-21T10:37:00.000-07:00

Static On The Wire EP (DFA, 05.2010)

For: Justice, FLASHLIGHTS, Cut Copy, Double Fantasy

Byline: Brooklyn's dynamic disco duo most notable for their stellar remixes drop their long-awaited EP on DFA records.

Indie-dance music, or whatever you want to call it, for how insular and pigeon-holed it is, has its share of certified club bangers—those songs that get the biggest returns from DJs when played in the club. It'd be a waste of our time to rattle off a list here, if you know what I'm talking about you know what I'm talking about. Agreed? If there has been one group that has been setting the dancefloor ablaze with their minstrel-like take on disco-house, diving head-first into minimalist interpretations of Kraut heroes NEU! through the sexed up glitter-jams of Prince it is...Oh man, I totally lost interest in that sentence. Let's start over: Holy Ghost! are two Brooklynites who make beats but are mostly known for their stellar remix work. The remix of Panther's "Goblin City" is transcendental, spiritually edifying, "like looking into the face of God and him telling you that you are his most treasured creation," or something to that effect. They've established themselves as credible remixers of the stars, doing choice cuts for MGMT, Moby, Phoenix, and just about every band to ever be attached to the DFA roster. So to hear these dudes doing their own thing provides some insight onto the group's overall aesthetic: Static On The Wire jives well with their remix history, sporting long droning beats over cheesy 80's influenced synth lines and even cheesier guitar shredding courtesy of John MacLean (of The Juan MacLean). None of the songs are too obtrusive; polite little numbers that would fit in well in any DJ's set (and their July appearance at Fabric in London should prove this). But on the whole, these tunes fail to garner any real satisfying rewards. That is, until "I Will Come Back" drops. That song has a vocal hook that is structurally designed to be remixed into the next century—hot as the center of the sun itself. Holy Ghost!'s music is athletic, has the energy of a jazzercise class, and the steely, locked in gaze of Don Johnson's Miami Vice Ray-Bans. You've been warned, but by the time you catch your reflection in the mirrored shades, it's over.

Indie-dance may have its hits, and Holy Ghost! has remixed probably about half of them, but this time, they're about to add a few of their own.

Ryan H.

Drowner / Sterile Garden

2010-06-18T12:36:00.001-07:00

Split CD-R (Basement Tapes/What We Do Is Secret, 2010)

For: John Weise, Christian Meth, Supersilent

Byline: ...WHAT?!

So today is Friday, and I guess I just needed my ear drums blasted out. You ever get that way? You come into work, your boss is hammering you for just about anything he can/wants to, you're exhausted, you have a shitty lunch waiting for you in the freezer, the phone is ringing off the hook and you just want to get out? Of the office? Of your life? Scream, shout, run your nails on a chalkboard, make everyone around you just shut the cuss up? I need something to drown out the ambient stupidness of office life. Ah, here we go. Meet Drowner and Sterile Garden—a friendly pair of ear-splitters by way of Seattle, WA and Ft. Collins, CO (respectively) who are helping me out today with my little problem. This disc is full of high-pitched squeals, terrifying feedback, windy wooshes, creepy wooden knocks and enough unsettling static to fill a department store-full of broken TV sets. Drowner is admittedly the louder of the two, unabashed, unapologetic, and unbelievably deafening. This side feels more industrial with hissing pipes, yards of tape, flickers of coded messages in atmospheric frequencies, and dank, wallowing pit-of-dispair sewer-like settings. This music, with its pulsing, beating, throbbing volume gives you the urge to grab your hair in anguish: Yes. You are going insane right now. Sterile Garden represents the stormier, moodier, creepier set of compositions. Three tracks that remind me of Blair Witch Project for some reason (or maybe some other budget horror movie...) - dark, cold, lonely, a sound filtered through old scratchy film, and Sterile Garden also captures a suspenseful tension that will make your spine simply crawl. That deep yellow-brown color of the paper the artwork was printed on paints an appropriately hollow landscape for the sounds—old, sepia-tone, and haunted with ghostly apparitions. Oddly enough, with all this horrific (TERrific) noise, the result of playing this one through is somehow sheer silence. Nothing else is there because nothing else can fit in my head. Sorry boss, I'm busy not hearing you right now. Leave a message.

—Craw'z 6/18/2010

Buy this here: Basement Tapes Blog

Free Download of Drowner/Sterile Garden Split (limited time offer!)

Beach Fossils

2010-06-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

Beach Fossils (Captured Tracks, 05.2010)

For: Real Estate, The Clientele, Yo La Tengo, Sleepover

Byline: Breezy, summery lo-fi sweetness from the indomitable Captured Tracks label.

Summer albums. You either love to hate them, or you hate that you love them so much. I am going to tip the scales here and say I am absolutely in love with this album. No begruding "yeah, it's goood, buuut..." I am smitten. Released on Memorial Day, Brooklyn's Beach Fossils revel in ubiquity... the clean single note guitar lines, cardboard drumming, and washed out vocals are designed to tread lightly, as to not intrude on your beach party, summer road trip, or back deck kegger overlooking a moonlight beach (as beer commercials have lead me to believe happen on a regular basis). When it comes to hooks, Beach Fossils choose to embed these deep into Dustin Payseur's rambling guitar lines instead of the standard verse-chorus arrangement. In fact, aside from the strong vocal melodies on each song, there is nary a vocal hook on the whole album. Things get dodgy when Payseur's floating vocals try to compete with the already overstated guitar lines. This misstep occurs only occasionally, most notably on the album's most grating song "Vacation". Other than that Beach Fossils is pitch-perfect. The 11 songs swim by in a way that simultaneously enraptures you while lulling you into the haze of a sunset captured on 8mm film. Things don't get much brighter or warmer.

While not having much ambition to rise out and above the current musical landscape of similar lo-fi summer boardwalk bands, there isn't much to complain about either. Musically astute, Payseur's guitar work is top notch, creating memorable, hummable hooks that serve vehicle for the album's emotional weight. Beach Fossils evoke an emotion, it is just difficult to categorize what that is. While incessantly up-tempo, a pervading sense of nostalgia saturates the album. Perhaps Beach Fossils (as the name would imply) isn't so much a summer lived in right now, but an adolescent summer vacation remembered through a picture album stored in the wood paneled living room of your parents house. Either way, Beach Fossils is the best summer album of 2010, or 1993.

Ryan H.

Beach Fossils Myspace

The Devil Whale

2010-06-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

Young Wives EP (Kilby, 06.2010)

For: The Animals, Blitzen Trapper, John Wesley Harding era Bob Dylan

Byline: While only a six song EP, the classic rock-inspired SLC group's latest effort is the most accomplished and instrumentally lush album of their career. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by Permission from inyourspeakers, LLC.

Please read full review here.

....On paper, Young Wives seems like it could fly apart at any second. A stylistic expansion, an about-face in lyrical content, an attempt to incorporate diverse instrumentation while playing looser than they ever before—all of this crowded beneath the backyard wedding tent of a six song EP. Young Wives is centrifugal in scope, keeping all the spinning plates fixed at an unmoving center by an abundance of incredible hooks. Hooks. The Devil Whale have got ‘em. And while the hooks on Young Wives are tantalizing moments of pop melodic brilliance, they are often too huge to reel in. They drag the listener, almost unwittingly, into the heavy undercurrent of a composition like “TV Zoo” in which a swirling woodwind section and Rhodes piano make grand overtures to artists as diverse as Lou Reed and Efterklang. Moments like these, are wholly unexpected, and ensure residual returns because of the steady foundations of classic instrumentation and wide-eyed experimentation Young Wives is built on.

Aiming at a more refined sphere musically, Brinton Jones’s lightly twanged, gravelly voice (sounding like Ryan Adams before he became a parody of himself) and songwriting corral everything into a fluid, moving composition. Characteristically subdued, Jones’ AM-Gold voice makes his vocal-chord shredding audible on the bluesy chorus “Barracudas”. A much-needed burner on an EP full of gorgeous, fully formed songs. Jones’ songwriting is at its best when he decides to bunt rather than go for the grand slam. His sparse phrases that rely on subtext more than description pull more emotional weight than his clown-car jamming of nouns and last-verse desperation in songs like “TV Zoo” and “Barracudas”. While overly verbose at times, these moments don’t come often, and in this case a swing and a miss is more admirable than playing it safe would have been.

Young Wives, although relatively short, is informed by a pedigree of albums produced in the late 1960s-1970s that were meticulous in their exploration of sound. This weekend, I found myself on a long drive with nothing but a Journey three-disc compilation to listen to. While being completely eye-rolling at times, I couldn’t help make similarities between early Journey songs and The Devil Whale, not that they sound anything alike. Listening to those songs I began thinking, “man, they don’t make songs like these anymore”, songs with meticulous attention to detail and space enough to fill with handclaps, oboes, group sing-alongs, and bottomless instrumentation. The Devil Whale makes those songs. Don’t stop believing.

Ryan H.

Devil Whale Myspace

The Philadelphia Experiment - Kurt Vile, Rosetta, Free Energy

2010-06-15T07:52:00.000-07:00

Greetings! - Back from the Keystone state and I would like to dedicate this section of the TOME to two good friends, Theo Wheeland and Devin King, both residents of Philadelphia, PA. This goes out to them, and to all those of you living in the City of Brotherly Love. These three albums came out this year, were written about by me and Crawf, but have yet to see the light of day on the TOME, so with out further ado....

Kurt Vile

Square Shells EP (Matador, 05.2010)

For: Bruce Springsteen, Wooden Shjips, Blues Control

Philly's Constant Hitmaker's 2009 release Childish Prodigy was rightly praised up and down on the TOME last year. Mr. Vile's combination of strumming singer-songwriter looseness and blues madman howl paired with his psych-drone experimentation (ran through the ubiquitous analog fuzz of 2009) was incredibly refreshing take on the genre, yielding some immediate summer jams. Square Shells largely picks up where Childish Prodigy left off, but with this new batch of songs, the omnipresent lo-fi pall of tape-hiss is gone, leaving Vile's unadorned voice to carry the bulk of the songs. Kurt Vile is one of the few singers in this realm, who, when stripped of the auspices of the lo-fi aesthetic, has more than enough talent to remain a listenable and downright talented singer. No Age pulled off a similar transition last year with their incredible Losing Feeling EP. Vile's voice strikes a keen resemblance to the lazy strummers of Lou Reed, the nasally sneer of Bob Dylan, and a less-paranoid Nebraska-era Bruce Springsteen (minus the obvious Suicide influence). The bulk of the album is made up of strummed acoustic numbers are interspersed throughout the EP. Kurt Vile, more than anything is known as a talented and innovative guitar player, a close listen on most of these laid-back acoustic songs reveal a buzzing hive of guitar drones, looped effects, and deep-buried backwards weirdness that characterized the amazing Childish Prodigy. These moves are less apparent on this EP, but the hardest found corners of backtracked bizarreness offer the greatest rewards. One track that shows its hand on its onset is the album's most memorable song, "Invisibility: Nonexistent". Starting with a 4-4 electronic beat and a distorted wash of guitar that gradually fades into a picked acoustic guitar line and a bevy of sustained guitar tones floating in and out, the song reveals itself, for the first three minutes at least, as Kurt Vile's best written song. His voice has never sounded this naked, or honest, and his lyrics are the most heartbreakingly candid of his career, he sings, "there is no peace in the songs they sing/maybe comfort is to come traveling/I find it in a dog/I find in a drug/I find it, but I don't know where to put it/then it's gone." After these confessions Vile retreats back behind his wall of noise guitar drones, letting his eastern-influenced guitar ragas be his voice in communicating a palpable feeling of sadness. Kurt Vile is ingenious, here's to hoping the full-length exceeds our already lofty expectations.

Download Square Shells for free via Matador

Ryan H.

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Rosetta

The Determinism of Morality (Translation Loss, 05.2010)

For: Isis, Pelican, Envy

Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from inyourspeakers, LLC.

Please read the full review here

In a recent and excellent interview with SLUG magazine, Rosetta guitarist Matt Weed said, “I’m getting more intentional in figuring out how you can communicate hope in the format we are using.” The format, for those unfamiliar with the Philadelphia quartet, is genre-blurring metal that relies heavily on atmospherics and soaring shoegaze-influenced guitars to create sprawling tracks that move from brutally heavy to immediate and cathartic. A Determinism of Morality coalesces the ambient segues and straightforward metal of their wildly ambitious debut double LP and expands on the melodic genre-meld of 2007’s Wake/Lift...

So where does “hope” exist in a genre so casually associated with violence (both musically and lyrically) and cultural isolation? How does a metal band turn the conceit back on itself without, you know, going all Stryper on us? I can pinpoint it down the exact second. After about 1:30 of subtle major chord riffing over Bruce McMurties all-over-the-place snare rolls and plodding bass drum kicks on the song “Revolve,” titanic gang vocals rip through the track at 1:43, in a moment that splits the difference between a rolling-in-the-aisles Pentecostal outburst and a gladiatorial war cry. It is in this moment that Rosetta’s mission, their whole raison d’etre, makes sense. A declarative statement of purpose and personal evolution coming out of a genre so rigidly transfixed in its own cultural baggage that expressing anything outside of the basal line of general worldly dissatisfaction seems impossible and woefully uncool. A total abandonment of principles, man....

....It is safe to say that Rosetta are not working in a vacuum. While being informed by peers Tombs, Cave-In, Balboa, and Pelican, Rosetta stand apart in their ability to combine their influences seamlessly while pushing into sonic terrain that is relentlessly optimistic, exploring emotions that exist on the periphery of metal....

...Being a non-musician in the world of music journalism sometimes has its advantages. For example, most music, no matter how ill-executed, still retains a sense of mystery for me, just for the sheer fact that I can’t do it. While I rely heavily on musician friends to help me navigate through some of the technical aspects of basic musical structure, I still engage music on a purely emotional level, a subjective knee-jerk reaction tempered by years of over-analyzing and a commitment to listening to an album at least three times before even beginning to formulate an opinion. Hearing Rosetta for the first time is an experience in which the pure emotional release cuts through any formulaic breakdown of the elements going into the music. All other considerations go out the window; sometimes it is better to listen to music in a cloud of unknowing.

Rosetta Myspace

Ryan H.

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Free Energy

Stuck on Nothing (DFA, 04.2010)

For: Girls, T. Rex, Citay

Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from inyourspeakers, LLC.

Please read the full review here

Free Energy are a new band out of Philadelphia, and one with the luckiest luck in the entire free world, getting miraculously placed on the distinguished DFA record label, and having its debut album gorgeously produced and released by the one and only James Murphy. Or—and this is the one I’m having trouble with—Free Energy is just a truly kick ass band. Why is it so hard for me to admit one, and recoil with defeat on the other? Does the good outweigh the bad, or is this one just not even worth your time?

For one, and I’ll get this over quick, it’s a bit disheartening and totally annoying that you can hum “Louie Louie” over several of the album’s tracks (especially “Bang Pop”—a clear exercise in simpleton, numskull high-fivery). It’s also a bummer that both “Dream City” and “All I Know” are extremely close to being utter ripoffs of T. Rex classics—see the latter group’s “Mambo Sun” in particular. “Dark Trance,” has a melody I swear Rivers Cuomo owns the copyright on... the list just goes on and on.

But the band gets some bonus points for sounding amazing, which is likely due primarily to the production work of James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem. Guitars are not only appropriately shredded track to track, dueling and solo alike, but they’re also mixed and processed wonderfully in brilliant hi-fidelity stereo. Everything is thick, full, and crisp. “Bang Pop” makes use of subtle effects like slap-back that make the guitars pop like neon colors. Some clever arrangements of strings, horns, and auxiliary percussion save a track like “All I Know,” keeping some of the less-than-original compositions at least mildly interesting. And I have to give some love for the panning drum fills on “Bad Stuff”—just cheesy enough to raise a smile.

Additionally—and this is the key to Free Energy—there are the lyrics to buoy this one up a bit. Ultimately, there’s nothing terribly evil going on with Free Energy—at least nothing as insidious as with a band like Jet. At first, it seems like these guys are performing a similar function, writing pop tunes about getting wasted and chasing tail. But upon repeated listens, there seems to be an underlying optimism that finds its way into these tracks’ subconscious. And it’s a feeling that uplifts, excites, and inspires, rather than just give the listener a boner. “If you wanna get high, just open your eyes” is the kind of line that reminds us it’s not simply enough to be alive, but rather, it becomes endlessly important in this soul-sucking media overload of culture to recognize that we’re alive and remember why that is important. This album is about seizing life moment by moment through a refusal to sit still. It is about abandoning authority, and championing a neglect for inhibitions above all else. It’s wind in your hair, foam in your glass, and a summer’s worth of freedom.

—Craw'z

Free Energy Myspace

Blank Dogs

2010-06-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

Phrases EP (Captured Tracks, 2010)

For: Blessure Grave, The Crocodiles, Joy Division

Byline: Goth-bedroom pop

Captured Tracks has really made some headway this year releasing consistently amazing records and perhaps single-handedly ushering in a first-wave goth revival. The label's newest acquisition to their already stellar roster is this 2009 slacker/goth-pop blog fav. Blank Dogs. We're backtracking a little bit here in anticipation of the band's third, forthcoming full-length (and first for Captured Tracks) this month, but what we have in the way of this four song EP is leaving us salivating... so much so we had to say something. Given the above comparisons you probably already have an idea of what Blank Dogs are working with. Coming out of 2008's summer fuzz-pop explosion, Blank Dogs steer these new tracks out of the warm analog hiss and into the cold, bored austerity of 80's post-punk and pop. Joy Division is almost too easy of a comparison, with lockstep bass line-following, ice-cold synth lines and consistently wicked guitar riffing. But where Joy Division and their black-clad minions were consistently bleak, Blank Dogs find ways to filter the "what-do-we-care" surf bum mentality of those summer '08 lo-fi luminaries through the icy landscape of a Brooklyn winter. The result is more akin to Echo and the Bunnymen type jangle-pop melancholia, especially on the album standout "Blurred Tonight." A backwards steel drum comes out of nowhere, punching a hole in the the angular guitar playing and constant click track. This recent prospect of a new wave of bedroom-goth bands making names for themselves, most of them associated with Captured Tracks (with Blank Dogs, Blessure Grave, Soft Moon, and Crocodiles) has me thinking it might be time to dust off that old Killing Joke T-Shirt.

Ryan H.

Blank Dogs Myspace

Tame Impala

2010-06-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

Innerspeaker (Modular, 2010)

For: The Clientele, Dungen, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix

Byline: I guess "psychedelic" is a 4-letter word. Oh well. These guys are psych-tastic.

So... time to be confrontational: Ryan H. hurt my feelings. In his recent review of Woodsman's new Mystery Tape EP, Ryan said he "hates" using the word "psychedelic."

Should I feel bad about using the word myself, like millions of times throughout my reviews here on the TOME? Should I feel bad about wanting to use said 11-letter/4-letter word like a gazillion times in my review of this Aussie trio's debut LP? Well, even if I should feel bad, I'm not going to let that stop me. So SOR—RY, Mr. Hall... there's so much reverb, delay and swirling textures saturating these 11 absolutely beautiful songs, it's impossible to not at least recognize that listening to Innerspeaker is the audio equivalent to soaring gracefully high on LSD—seeing shit that's not really there, feeling a little uncomfortable and yet wonderfully at peace with the cosmic riddles of the universe and finding the beauty in just about everything that crosses your eye's (and ear's) path. The sounds are so visual, visceral, buzzingly buoyant (edit: sometimes... see the heavy Zeppelin-stomp of "The Bold Arrow of Time"), hyper-colorful, and radioactively glowing. And the good thing is that Tame Impala's music is also grounded in the wonderful world of pop — 70's riff-centric rock song structures and a heavy focus on melody tether the band before they take off into tempestuous, rip-roaring improvisational feedback-laden noise jams. Tame Impala's axe is actually a chainsaw—motorized, sputtering and searing with a deadly abandon for something you might consider "clean." Tame Impala continues on where Dungen sort of left us all sitting there slack-jawed and wide-eyed from Ta Det Lungt, and holy wow did we ever need for that to happen (Don't get me wrong, 4 is a gem, too, just for different reasons). The 70's just don't seem to want to go away, and another dose is anything but unwelcome, especially when the aesthetic is so perfectly captured—Harrison, Hendrix (yeah, OK, late-60s, too), and Page (and all those other awesome dudes on those fabulous Nuggets compilations)? They're all faithfully memorialized here, and this writer, for one, couldn't be happier.

Oh, and for the record, I only used the "P" word... twice! That's pretty good, right?

..........PSYCHEDELIC!!! YEAH!!!! WOOOAHHH!!!

(*thrice)

—Craw'z 6/11/10

Tame Impala Official Website

Funki Porcini

2010-06-10T12:12:00.001-07:00

On (Ninja Tune, 2010)

For: Amon Tobin, Squarepusher, Bonobo

Byline: Ninja Tune turns in another winner despite dangerously flirting with the "lounge" tag as James Bradell's latest runs a wide gamut of electronic styles alongside wistful improvisations. ***Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from Inyourspeakers, LLC.

Theoretically, could a robot play jazz? Like any other genre as old and storied as jazz in all its various permutations throughout the years—such a vigorously, consistently studied, practiced, and performed art—this style has endured largely through its cultivation and use of certain basic properties. Many of these have to do with sheer mechanics—what tones are produced through which instruments, the rhythms used, the essence of rolling-triplet swing, the ballad, the burner, the 12-bar blues, the 32-bar A-A-B-A form, etc. It makes sense that any mechanical attributes to a style of music could indeed be emulated by a computer processing unit, and this simple fact, from classical to rock, to hip-hop, to disco and dance and back again, has created a massively huge macro-genre of electronically generated music, (perhaps foolishly) blanketed simply as “electronica.” But there’s something cold behind a lot of electronic music, that icy beating heart of a metronomic calculator regurgitating simply what it’s been programmed to do. And jazz is a bit different—there’s something else there; something less predictable, inherently tied to the emotional and imaginative responses of which only the human brain is truly capable. This, of course, is the style’s ultimate calling card: the art of improvisation. That wonderful, whimsical way an artist can use technical mastery combined with the creative human spirit to make something wholly unique with each go around—to tell a different story each time.

It is this element that James Bradell, a.k.a. Funki Porcini, wisely clings to in his moody, meditative compositions, and indeed what shines most brightly on this, his sixth official release for the cult-followed experimental hip-hop label Ninja Tune. And actually, this is really the only element of jazz that carries through to Bradell’s work (except for swing... yeah, he can do that. Hard.) Much like his contemporaries, Squarepusher and Amon Tobin, his Funkiness seems to be on the cusp of jazz music’s next step, dropping a traditionally structured format, traditional band setups, etc. and opting instead for a visceral, modal approach, creating soundscapes based on simple motifs—generally bass and drum grooves—and building from there, layering soft textures and harmonic undertones to solidify the feel before allowing an instrument to head off to the races—a synth, a vibraphone, a piano, a demonically processed saxophone (Charlie Parker... in Hell?). Instruments flow from the recognizable—found in the bewilderingly precise, bop-tastic drumming, walking upright bass-lines, and scattered horn samples—to the mysterious, synthetic, and obviously processed, including his trademark time-stretched manipulations of vocals...

...Computers will (hopefully... let’s not get into “Terminator” conspiracy theories quite yet) never be without their organic components—the men and women who so painstakingly connect their brains with circuit boards to create recordings for us to ponder and enjoy. Those in the Ninja Tune coup (which is currently on a refreshing upswing with the release of Bonobo’s notable Black Sands earlier this year), are thankfully putting in the extra effort to connect with listeners in a way that is undeniably human. Funki Porcini is nowhere without his laptop, but his style simply can’t be divorced from what comes naturally to a true musician: the creative, mindful spirit that is overflowing with fleeting, in-the-moment ideas that blurt forth with both excitement and control.

Please read the full review here.

—Craw'z 6/10/2010

Funki Porcini Official MySpace

Ninja Tune Records Official Website

Woodsman

2010-06-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

Mystery Tape EP (Lefse Records, 06.2010)

For: High Country, Wooden Shjips, Emeralds

Byline: Blissed-out, wooly drone-psych from Denver, CO. containing one of the best singles of the year. See below.

Greetings from the Keystone state! I am in Troy, PA visiting my wife's family for the week. Crawf is holding down the fort so I am going to be brief. But I just couldn't wait to get this off my chest. Do we have a treat for you in the way of a stellar EP from one of Denver's most distinguished (in terms of the sheer amount of semi-mainstream media gushing) export in the last couple of years.

The surprisingly long EP, five songs at thirty minutes, is split between three nomadic, psych-drone compositions that bleed into each other. A sort of emulsified poultice made out of rainbow blood and dirt. Woodsman is all murky tones, distorted feedback loops conjured out swirling guitar drones. Vocals, when present, are buried deep within the troths of infinite waves of analog warmness. Side A holds a truly magical moment for me, all the quasi-spiritual imagery aside, "When The Morning Comes" is a hot contender for best single of the year in 2010. Starting with a rocksteady 4-4 time signature and some Enigma-like tribal singing, a wash of noise comes rumbling across the headphones slowly, like watching a thunderstorm gather over a prarie, until it envelops all sound, sucking noise from every possible outlet until the absolute breaking point. When it breaks, it breaks like a levee of creative possibility. The quartet breaks out in just about every direction. The "Return To Innocence" shouting intensifies, the drums break into a deeply hypnotic groove, and guitars swirl, double back on themselves, layer feedback upon no-input distortion laden passages, with some Tone Loc-style vinyl scratches thrown in for good measure. Holy wow, what a great song.

The record's latter half and bulk of the album is a slightly more psychedelic affair, as much as I hate using that word. But when I say "psychedelic" I don't mean some lazy, journalistic term used to describe something hazy and free-floating, I use it to tie this album into the timeline of rock-and-roll itself. With obvious references to their Kraut idols, "Balance" and "Smells Like Purple" are instrumental long players that utilize the standardized tools within the rock-and-roll garage kit. Anchored by a heavy rhythm section, guitars and weird sampled noises are set loose like a 16 year old behind a wheel, with just about the same sense of reckless wonder. Deep washes of Pink Floyd, Amon Düül, and Can appear on the last, and triumphantly placed, side B.

Ryan H.

Free MP3 Download — "When The Morning Comes"

Woodsman Myspace

Tjutjuna

2010-06-08T13:22:00.000-07:00

Tjutjuna (Self-Released/Fire Talk, 2010)

For: Pink Floyd, Acid Mothers Temple, Tortoise

Byline: Q: Can a mythical beast be found in the stars? And if so, does he wear rainbow sunglasses, and why would he do such a thing? A: Probably “yes” to both. I would think. And I have no idea why he would do such a thing. Shut up and download this.

So I’m going to go ahead and call this self-titled effort a debut. Now, this Denver quartet has been around the block, there’s no question. When I first met these fellas, they went under the moniker of “Mothership.” The group has been together as Mothership for quite some time now, growing up together in the mountainous town of Evergreen, Colorado, spending almost every summer BBQ holiday together, and jamming epic space-prog since high school, or even possibly further back. So when the group dropped the previous name for the much more awesome “Tjutjuna” last year, I guess it was meant to signal a change. What happened, here, you may ask, to this band you’ve never heard of before (except that amazing vinyl single you never actually ordered... remember that one?), and is now being blogged about on the cusp of the group’s first-ever (finally) tour of the Southwest with friends and co-producing cohorts Woodsman (currently riding some recent buzz and on the brink of a brand new EP out through Sacramento’s Lefse imprint)?

Well the first thing they did was drop the vocals entirely. Tjutjuna is now an instrumental band, and this is a very welcome change of internal structure. The band revolves around the band now more than anything else, and even with all the swirling effects, digital noise-noodles and clouds of distorted ambient bliss, they somehow manage to sound more like a true quartet than many... you know, other quartets. Bass, drums, guitar, and synth-noise. It’s as simple as that, and when stripping down and zeroing in on musicianship and texture first and foremost, the fruits of a more intensified, detailed look at each of these elements pays off in spades with moments of psychedelic swathes that streak across starry skies and traverse thickly wooded marshes. Tjutjuna’s songs are cyclically structured, centering around simple chord progressions, hypnotically repeating bass lines, and hard driving drum grooves that run a breadth from jungle-treading low tom jams to astral-gliding, motorik krautrock. But the guitar tones are what sets this band apart—so full, robust, and thick, but also weightless, floating and achingly beautiful. Warping textures throughout the record’s short span ensure that even the 9-minutes of “Riseset” remain hopelessly engaging, so easy to get lost in while you’re subconsciously banging your head against the wall to its throbbing forward motion, and its hard-rocking sections will all but force you to throw up the horns to boot. But the best is saved for last with “The Swish” and “Tatanka Spirit," which recall the beautiful harmonies Pink Floyd always seemed hellbent on force-feeding devotees. No matter what type of groove Tjutjuna chooses to champion (alliteration!!) from track to track, the band remains uncommonly focused for a “psychedelic” outfit, and with the benefit of time and experience, they've reemerged on record as truly a fully-formed grouping of talented artists and devoted, detailed tone-smiths, thus proving to be the next big thing in the world of prog-rock. This is neither presumption nor prediction. This is certainty. You’ve got a chance to hop on the bandwagon early before this thing gets picked up on a label and all your friends have to buy what you discovered for free. Head to Tjutjuna’s blogspot and download this............................

..........right....

....................................now.

—Craw’z 6/8/2010

Tjutjuna Official MySpace

Tjutjuna Official Blog

Shugo Tokumaru

2010-06-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

Port Entropy (P Vine Records, 2010)

For: Sufjan Stevens, Pastels/Tenniscoats, Miki Odagiri

Byline: Japanese multi-instrumentalist flexes his songwriting muscles to the max in this endlessly fun, gloriously upbeat and optimistic album of which you won’t understand a word

*Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from inyourspeakers, LLC. Please read full review here.*

Hi there! How are you? It’s so good to see you! My day? Well, thanks for asking! Yeah, my day was good. You know, the Gulf of Mexico is spewing oil at an unsettling rate, and has been for well over a full month now. President Obama just ordered a bunch of troops to the border to monitor illegal immigration. That’s pretty cool. Also, the stocks fell today! I got yelled at by my boss at work again—sales are down for the company for about the sixth month straight! Oh! And I listened to this Port Entropy album by Shugo Tokumaru, like, five times straight. So, me? Yeah, life is good... life is just great! How could it be bad?

What’s that? You feel rotten? Down in the dumps? You feel like life is caving in all around you? You don’t know where to turn? Well my buddy, my chum, my pal... I don’t blame you. But hey now, there are steps you can take toward a sunnier, happier life, and one of them is to listen to this music—these accordions, toy pianos, ukeleles, steel drums, glockenspiels, strings and more; these sugary-sweet melodies, these upbeat poly-rhythms, these playful stoccato patterns and floating acoustical musings. You can, and you will, smile. You’ll smile wide; ear-to-ear, goofy-looking, shit-eating grins, that’s what you’ll have. I don’t have a single clue in the world what this Tokumaru fellow, this Japanese multi-instrumentaling, indie folk-pop, singer/songwriting guy is saying to me in my headphones. He could be telling me to go to hell. He could be telling me to purse-nap the next little old lady I see walking down the street. Somehow, though, these scenarios are very doubtful. Take “Lahaha,” and “Rum Hee”—a one-two punch that represents the musical equivalent of laughter itself. To listen to Port Entropy is to know Shugo Tokumaru as little more than the sweet, sensitive, effortlessly jubilant young man he likely is. He wants you to feel better, look outside at the gorgeous spring weather, go swimming, eat an ice cream cone, and above all enjoy your life, because it is beautiful.

Port Entropy opens with “Platform,” a short instrumental piece that fades in softly, as in a morning sunrise over a rolling prairie landscape before the entire environment comes to life with banjos, synths and a stately tempo. The instruments, which are many, varied, and all excellently performed (instantly recalling the work of Sufjan Stevens), take on certain personalities within Port Entropy’s careful and manifold song arranging. They assemble an animated, bubbly cast of cartoon characters that skitter and dance about the album’s more upbeat numbers. Sometimes, the resulting effect is a bit much, like in the closing seconds of “Laminate,” which ends the beautifully sentimental ballad with a quirky xylophone scale that almost trips over itself with excitement. But on the whole, these instruments are chosen carefully and wisely, providing a full and lush backdrop for Tokumaru’s breezy songwriting to sit in a warm, and comfortable nest of sound....

...I’ll admit, my last two experiences with Japanese culture have not been quite so upbeat. First was my renting of, watching of, and subsequently bawling over Louis Psihoyos’ compelling and excellent, yet completely depressing documentary about the Japanese dolphin industry, “The Cove.” Next was “Battle Royale,” a sunny little tale about a Japanese government who forces a middle school class of children to fight to the death on a deserted island using various weaponry with brutally grotesque results. Yeah, that one improved my outlook. The point (not that these two films in any way represent some overarching doomsday aesthetic for the culture as a whole) is that it’s refreshing to have this product of Japanese art in my life that’s not quite so dismal, especially right now. We could all use a good, healthy laugh; something heartwarming, full of curiosity, hope and joy. Even if that’s not what this album is all about, that’s what this album is all about. If you can scrounge up the 2,500 yen and shipping costs, this one is absolutely worth the effort to seek out and find yourself falling into like the soft, pillowy bed of feathers it is. Or, we can all just start a petition to get this thing released stateside. Let me know... I want vinyl.

Please read the full review here.

—Craw'z 6/7/2010

Ellen Allien

2010-06-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

Dust (BPitch Control, 05.2010)

For: Apparat, Kraftwerk, Pantha Du Prince, LCD Soundsystem 45:33

Byline: Leading lady of German electronica cuts loose from the dance floor and creates an insular, contemplative masterpiece.

There hasn't been too much press on Ellen Allien's latest album Dust put out on her BPitch Control label this year. What a shame, because as much critical fawning as Pantha Du Prince and Four Tet got this year (myself and Crawf included) Dust is just as enjoyable, reveling in the same deep, understated minimal production and self-turning excursions, instead sweaty dancefloor rave-ups. Dust is all driving, motorik time-signatures, rarely varying in its tempo and range, creating a type of surging hypnotic sway that locks you into the tractor beam of its laser-eyed focus. Perhaps without the same indie recognition of Pantha and Four Tet, her fame pretty much lies with fans of German experimental electronica and those who still follow the Morr Music label religiously. So, with all that exposition of those who probably won't hear this album (i.e 99 % of us) let me make a broad appeal to all of you thinking about not reading any further (LOLCats can wait). Here it is...

Ellen Allien is good for your health.

You may not care about the physical regimes of two music bloggers, but Ellen Allien has been a most welcome running companion for both Crawf and I this past week. Like I said earlier, most of her tempos are locked into a steady 4-4 motorik pattern that is just swift enough to think you can match its pace. Just even tempoed enough to keep you chasing that dragon. Not blazingly fast like Aphex Twin, or novacaine slow like Burial, her most easily accessible rhythmic counterpart is straight forward rock and roll. Persistent driving, tracks have enough lyrical flourishes (Allien's cold German sounds soooo good autotuned on "Sun The Rain") and bottomless instrumentation to keep your mind occupied trying to figure out what is going on in there. Like is that a lap steel? Kalimba? Should I stop? I think I threw up a little. No. I am fine. Keep running. (If this is any indication of my inner monologue - I am a super hardcore runner)

The rock oriented "Sun the Rain" is a perfect example, a throwback to the early 2000's IDM coming out of Willhelm, Germany when groups like Lali Puna, The Notwist, and Ms. John Soda were layering thick slabs of buzzing guitars and driving bass lines over bubbling, mictrotuned electronic beats and programmed synth lines. On your run, you might want to skip "Should We Go Home" unless you are running with a super nice set of headphones - the sheer awesome ambience running underneath the track might be missed. But, if we are operating on the sheer basal line of beats, Dust has those in spades. Each track seems to be working with a completely different sound palate, with a echoing "tubular bells" type thing spanning several of the albums most killer tracks. Is it me or does album opener "Our Utopie" totally sample Clinc's organ line on "Harmony" off Walking With Thee? Either/or, a fantastic move.

Bottom line. Obesity kills. Diabetees is affecting our generation at an unprecedented rate. Buy this. Because summer is coming and you want to look good for the babes.

Ryan H.

Frog Eyes

2010-06-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

Paul's Tomb (Dead Oceans, 05.2010)

For: Sunset Rubdown, Blackout Beach, The Evangelicals

Byline: Carey Mercer leads his bandmates into the catacombs of his psyche, emerging with the most triumphant and exhilarating album of the group's career. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by Permission from inyourspeakers, LLC.

Please Read here for full review.

...Every promise of 2007’s excellent Tears of the Valedictorian is fulfilled in spades on Paul’s Tomb. Carey Mercer’s beguiling vocal vamping achieves undiscovered decibels of war-cry whooping. Mercer and Ryan Beattie’s dueling guitar lines reach heroic levels of arena-sized excesses, all while sounding their most accessible and engaging. Frog Eyes walk that razor-thin line of schizoid prog-pop exuberance and structurally sound songwriting, stretching their compositions beyond the six-minute mark. Paul’s Tomb largely picks up right where the last half of Tears left off, with Mercer hitting those impossible falsettos and sea captain slurs of deep baritone in the inverted vectorscope of his vocal range, his voice weaving its way in and out of sprawling arrangements that made up side-b of that album.

Recorded in the same studio as Tears with only limited equipment changes, Paul’s Tomb roars out of the gate with what is easily the album’s strongest track. The first introduction we have to Mercer’s legion of musical voices within the sliding pitch scale comes about ten seconds after some fuzzed out preliminary guitar work on “A Flower in a Glove”. Mercer’s thundering screech is followed closely by a bass drum kick that claps like a starting pistol, signaling the start of an Iditarod of 21st century attention spans. With four songs running longer than six-minutes, Frog Eyes make themselves relatively easy to keep up with. Mercer’s closed-eyed rants grab you by the lapels and pull you beneath the sea of tumultuous time-changes and splintered power chords. Fear of drowning be damned, you are in it now. Formless, shape shifting spans usually play out each track with dual guitar drive bombs and swells floating along to Mercer’s most impassioned and expressionistic deliveries. These moments would command a certain sense of awe, if one could save himself from being swallowed up of the sheer hugeness of it all....

Review continues here

Ryan H.

Frog Eyes Dead Oceans Page

Rangda

2010-06-01T16:17:00.000-07:00

False Flag (Drag City, 05.2010 )

For: AFCGT, Orthrelm, Jackie-O MF

Byline: A bifurcated album of pure guitar brilliance split between all out noise attacks and eastern influenced psych-folk improvised beauty.

The above for: category above could have read something like this. All of your favorite guitarists on acid. For example: The opening riff on "Waldorf Hysteria" sounds like Dick Dale, on acid, playing a demented surf riffs. The hyper-kinetic, swirling solos smearing expressionistic tonal freakouts into disciplined structuralist breakdowns on "Bull Lore" sound like Jimi Hendrix...on acid. The eastern-influenced 15 minute long "Plain of Jars" is Peter Walker...on acid. Given that most of these artists were on acid during much or most of their careers playing music, why don't their technical bravado enter into the sheer disregard for life, limb, or eardrum (Rangda is one of the many reasons I will go deaf before I am 40) explored on False Flag? Perhaps it has to do something with cosmic timing, the star alignment or some vaguely mystical something-or-anoher that brought together three of the most daring muscians under the mas(k)thead of the frighteningly astute supergroup Rangda. Rangda is Sir Richard Bishop, one time band leader for noise legends Sun City Girls and now czar of ethnic guitar studies for the indie-rock crowd (and owner of one of the best and most apt album names ever, While My Guitar Violently Bleeds) Chris Corsano who has drummed for Bjork, Sunburned Hand of Man, and Jim O'Rourke to name a few, as well as Ben Chasny, psych-master behind Six Organs of Admittance and Comets on Fire. Phew, that is some pedigree. Getting these three in the same room is impressive, but what these three do on False Flag is nothing short of miraculous.

Coming in with six tracks, False Flag has a distinct A-side/B-side album break punctuated by the flying-off the handle, scathing "Fist Family" on track three. Completely abandoning any semblence of melody, the duo's guitars drone and squawk, circle like cicadas the size of B-52's while Corsano goes absolutely bonkers on the drums. Before that comes "Bull Lore", which sounds like a metal version of an Ennio Morricone spaghetti western soundtrack, is given some serious muscle by Corsano's blitzberg triplets methodically placed under Bishop's and Chasny's interweaving guitar lines. Fortunately, a well-earned reprieve comes in the form of the last-half of the album. "Sacophagi", "Serrated Edges", "Plain of Jars" borrow heavily from Chasny and Bishop's recent solo psych-folk guitar explorations. "Serrated Edges", while picking the tension back up, have moments of inhuman technicality when Bishop's finger-tapped modal scales meet Chasny's heavily distorted tremelo picking. Ending on a contemplative and oddly triumphant note, the 15 + raga "Plain of Jars" plays us out, a fitting coda to an album split between its nature to destroy and to nurture. It may be early to throw around "best of" nods, but this is looking pretty good.

Ryan H.

Rangda Myspace

Introducing... Justin Couch + Phonogram Vol. 1 & 2

2010-05-31T22:11:00.000-07:00

Remember when I mentioned Justin Couch in my review of Gayngs Relayted album? Remember how he is that saxophone hating curmudgeon who attests that the saaax ruined music in the 80's? Well, turns out Justin is a fantastic writer, a passionate comic book afficienado, and has the most encyclopedic knowledge of all things music out of anyone I ever met. Justin and I met in a sophomore AP European History class in High School. Justin was a gateway to all those formative indie rock bands that you listened to in High School. Remember your first time listening to Built to Spill....Justin Couch. Modest Mouse...JC. Uh, do The Fugs count?....Couchman. Anyway, Crawford was his roommate in college, we met at Justin's wedding (how romantic)...and the rest is history.

Now, he has offered to lend his writing talents to the TOME, you should read his and Ben Martin's movie blog. The Movie Advocate. His weekly column will focus on all things music culture. His first installment is an in depth look into the comic book Phonogram Vol. 1 & 2 which explores music, its devotees, and all of its mystical properites. So, with no further ado....This is Justin.

Phonogram Vols 1 &2 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie (Image Comics, 2007, 2010)

For: Anyone who loves music and has had even a passing interest in comics

Byline: Music is literally magic

If you're a regular reader of Tome, then you probably already know that music is magic. I'm not talking magic in the high fantasy sense, but in a broader, more grounded sense. Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta) contends that ALL creation is magic, that the act of bringing something into being from imagination to something that exists corporeally is magic in itself. Music has major transformative properties - you can be a complete skeptic and believe that. You know this if you've experienced a moment of clarity at show, if you've ever been at a party and someone put on just the right record, or when you hear an album for the first time but it's already as familiar as your favorite old t-shirt. 7 inches of vinyl can alter your path in life dramatically.

The premise of Phonogram as a whole is that there are magicians, Phonomancers, who use music as a way of channeling mystic energies. But I really don't want to say that for fear that all of the sudden, this may be a little too nerdy. It definitely is a little nerdy, but the magic angle is simply a device for explaining why we're obsessed with music, and what it can do to us under the right circumstances. At this point, I want to give some disclosure, I'm a total comic geek, I read about 50 of comics a month covering nearly every genre. I also totally understand why you don't read comics, and it's OK, trust me, you're going to love this one. I'm not trying to win you over to comics. Frankly, I could care less, but you really really need to read this one if you love music, trust me – it's the message not the medium we're concerned about.

I recommend starting with Phonogram Volume 2, The Singles Club. You don't need to have read the first book to understand what's going on. This volume is more accessible both in terms of comic book convention and the music discussed requires less specialized knowledge. The premise is that 2 phonomancers are doing a DJ set at a club and there are 3 rules: no music will be played with a male vocalist, if you have legs – you must dance, and no magic. The trade paperback collects 7 issues each focusing on a different person over the course of the night, stories overlap, the time line is consistent, and you get to see how the different characters relate to the music being played. If there is a song that seems a little off, chances are one of the characters actually shares your opinion. For instance, the first issue focuses on a vapid party girl who wants nothing more than to dance to “Pull Shapes” by The Pipettes, while I'm totally gay for this song, some of the characters in the comic talk about it derisively like I know a lot of people do.

If “Pull Shapes” seems like kind of a dated choice, that's because the comic actually takes place in 2006. Which was something about this book that actually gave me a much stronger connection to it. I was the same age as most of the characters at the time this comic takes place. I have fond memories of going to dance parties and playing these songs or dancing to these songs, or begging whoever had the i-pod to play these songs. This was also probably the last year that I followed music as intensely as the music obsessed in this comic.

Where this comic excels is through Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's ability to convey the different experiences of listening to music. Listening while you're dancing, when you're distracted by someone else, when you don't fit in to the scene, when you're the one picking the music, when you're using music as emotional fuel, when you listen to music alone in your room, and when you totally get high on the energy of a song. Each issue focuses around a different song, and each one is absolutely appropriate and wonderful. Without giving too much away, my favorite issues were “Konichiwa Bitches,” (after the Robyn song) which immediately captured the drunken bravado of batting .900 when DJing, and “Ready to be Heartbroken,” (after the Camera Obscura song), which I related with way too much.

The first volume of Phonogram, Rue Britannia, has a more traditional a to b story. It follows David Kohl, a supporting character in volume 2 as he confronts ghosts from his past particularly relating to second wave Brit-Pop (Oasis, Blur, Pulp, etc.) Essentially, David's magic center is the Goddess of Brit-pop, Britannia who appeared for the Bristish invasion in the mid-60's as well as for the resurgence in the 90s before unceremoniously dying as Brit-Pop ebbed in popularity. This story takes place in about 2002 as it looked like another aborted attempt at Brit-Pop was coming to fruition with The Libertines and The Arctic Monkeys. This is symbolically portrayed as Britannia being resurrected far too early as flesh droops from her face and bones are exposed. It's quite funny and is a really good device. Additionally, there's a B-Plot involving one of David's ex-flames and needing closure from the old part of her life shown through the lens of the mysterious disappearance of Richey Edwards from The Manic Street Preachers.

Aside from the engrossing and engaging plot, the comic deals with broader themes of reconciling the present to the past, even the embarrassing parts. One phonomancer, Indie-Dave has an extremely unhealthy obsession with and inability to move beyond Joy Division, he's portrayed as a Golem-like caution. The book contains a wealth of wisdom and endless fascinating ruminations on living in part by defining yourself off of what you listen to and what happens when your scene dies. As David Kohl says in volume 1, “Being an indie kid is a little like Catholicism. You never quite get over it.”

No matter how deep you are into this indie thing, no matter what your background is with regard to music, no matter how many new albums you listen to a month, there's something here for you and I humbly ask you to take a chance outside of your comfort zone. Each collection costs less than a CD, and used bookstores usually pay pretty well for lightly used comic trades if you don't like it.

If you take a chance and end up enjoying Phonogram and are interested in more music related comics, I would suggest David Lapham's Young Liars and Brian O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series.

Justin Couch

Justin plays in a band called Lil' Slugger in Denver. Check em out here.

New Project! + FLASHLIGHTS

2010-05-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. Ryan H. here, I have a new side project/side blog-thing going on. So when you check the TOME, why don't you just take a second to see what I've got going on at VIDEODRONZ (that is videodrone without the "e" and Videodrome without the "m" and the weird snuff films). The idea is that I post a couple of rad music videos/visual art projects from across the internet that are beautiful/breath-taking/terrifying and allow you to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my hard labor. Sound cool? Need a break from a work? Want something to post on your facebook page to show how cultured and quirky you are (OMG...LOOOOVE THIS!!!)? Then come on over to VIDEODRONZ. Have a suggestion of something I should check out? Or better yet, did you make a music video (all tracking shots, video overlays, and abandoned buildings, plz)? Let me know! I will gladly oblige. Now...on to the music.

FLASHLIGHTS Flashlights EP (05.2010, self-released)

For: Javelin, Hollagramz, Memory Tapes

Byline: So hot right now.

This is how I imagine Phoenix would sound if they weren't from Versailles and instead formed in a dank basement somewhere in the midwestern U.S. Actually, that is pretty much exactly how FLASHLIGHTS sound, to their credit. Somewhere, is in fact Boulder, CO, much more known as a playpen for the million-dollar babies of Marin County Democrats to stop bathing or wearing shoes and starting Grateful Dead cover bands than it is known for spawning deliciously sweet glo-fi basement party jams. But here we are. Granted there isn't an easy reference I can point to past 2009, but still, these three songs hold a lot of promise. Endlessly listenable and incredibly catchy, it is clear this duo listen to the right stuff and know how to process it through laptops and midi controllers. Sam Martin's spaced out synth lines revel in a deeply syncopated discohouse groove that makes it impossible not to imagine laserz and smoke machines. The strength of the music comes from how processed it is (an acoustic guitar line on "Diving Bell" is kind of embarassing), even down to Ethan Converse's oddly robotic voice, but you know, a sexy robot. A sexbot. Filtered but unbowed, Converse's falsetto is a compelling homage to Prince and Noah Lennox, and is one of the most flattering components of the album. Three songs, more than worth downloading, which you can do.....here.

FLASHLIGHTS Myspace

Ryan H.

FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! — Isis

2010-05-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

Oceanic (Ipecac Recordings, 2002)

For: Neurosis, late-era Converge, Red Sparrowes

Byline: The game changing post-metal album that started it all.

With the news that the 13 year run of Isis is coming to a close this summer (no SLC dates or Denver!?) we thought it would be fitting to dedicate this round of FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! to the undisputed kings of cerebral post-metal. I am not even sure what prompted me to pick up this album a few years back, I have never been much of a metal fan, in fact in the past couple of years has seen a huge upswing in tolerance for the musical violence so casually associated with metal. Perhaps that is what attracted me to Isis in the first place. Isis is heavy, at times even brutal, but the long, sprawling tracks on Oceanic have something that most metal albums previous to 2002 didn't have. Space. Moments of dead air between massive power chords and chugga-chugga riffs that let the sheer heaviness sink in, to let it settle deep in your chest. Climaxes that have equal valleys to their mountains of loudness. Metal, to me, has always seemed like a race with itself to get to the end of the song, hardly stopping to enjoy the nuclear-blast dystopian wasteland it was ferrying the listener across. Oceanic, at eight tracks, spans almost an hour, pitching massively heavy riffs, locked-in-time drumming, and Aaron Turner's gruff singing (somewhere between a bark and a tuneless howl), with a sprawling sense of glacially-timed pacing and atmospherics. Waves of noise crash on the brittle the shores of distortion-filled swells like a moon-tide ebb and flow, matching the indecipherable lyrics full of maritime imagery. A mist-shrouded ambient segue breaks up the heavier side-A and the more fluid side-B. A disembodied female voice floats in and out of the album's b-side, giving rise to the speculation of the albums lover-scorned thematic arc. Oceanic was the start of something huge, the start of metal dudes who weren't afraid to wear their post-rock and shoegaze influences on their sleeves. The huge slew of similar sounding bands and albums that all use Oceanic as a touchstone is evidence of the far reaching influence of this album. Although informed by bands experimenting with pacing and heavy-soft dynamics before them, Oceanic is a gem in the glowing crown of early 2000's post-metal. An absolute must hear before you die album.

Ryan H.

Trans Am

2010-05-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

Thing (Thrill Jockey, 2010)

For: NEU!, Kraftwerk, Man or Astro Man?

Byline:Twenty years is a long time to be doing the same thing. Luckily, more of the same is just what fans want, and these Thrill Jockey vets deliver on nearly every front.

*Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from inyourspeakers, LLC. Please read full review here.*

...Is it a difficult thing to be a true Trans Am fan? It’s not that the band isn’t talented. To the contrary, the veteran Thrill Jockey trio has enough mega drum fills, frenetic synth lines and gnarly guitar work to fill that basket nicely. It’s not that they don’t have great songs. Coming up on 20 years of life and nine full-length albums deep now, the band has been known to put together a plethora of punchy, positively catchy tunes. They pull from familiar places—krautrock, classic rock, prog, electro—and they combine them in a way that is geek-meets-muscle, sometimes atmospheric, sometimes motorik, and often sweaty, electrically charged and intense. So why aren’t these guys as popular as, say, Tool—their unlikely headline-buddies on tour a couple of years back? What’s kept Trans Am with the same label for such a long time? Why does the band fail to truly grow?

It might be that Trans Am is a bit ridiculous. Just look at the album artwork for Thing. It’s full-on 80s future-retro sci-fi horror. Look at the silliness of the song titles—”Naked Singularity,” “Interstellar Drift,” “Maximum Yield,” to name a few. Listen to what’s going on in the album—odd time signatures for the sake of odd time signatures, way over the top drum cadenzas (with roto toms... remember those?), and weird, dated vocorder vocals. The key to Trans Am is to recognize their inscrutable sense of humor, and Thing succeeds largely along these lines: the band has found a consistent path following their tongue-in-cheek, unabashedly nostalgic ways, and exploding that course in ways that are technically bewildering, unapologetic and focused and showcase a seasoned tightness that can only come from having such a long and storied past. Therefore, Thing’s pitfalls are only apparent if you haven’t bought into the Trans Am phenom first. As is often the case, the best way to get into the band would be to pick up their earlier records before attempting to fully digest Thing’s wide-eyed science-fiction-fried tracks. Trans Am takes some work, but the labors are rewarding on many levels.

Granted, there’s nothing here that one would call remotely revolutionary, even (and especially) by the band’s own standards. Twenty years have given the group a solid formula, and it’s one that stays largely intact throughout Thing’s twelve tracks. Drumming is predictably top-notch, the bass drum absolutely locked in to the swerving syncopation of the staccato’d synth-bass stabs (see “Bad Vibes” specifically). The tones used are more of the same too—the band does little to explore the sonic palate beyond simple Korg synths that are saturated with buzzy, scuzzy effects and phased with moderation between right and left channels. Guitars take a more prominent stance toward the end of the record, which offer the album’s more accessible (if you can call them that) and rewarding tracks, like “Interstellar Drift” which harkens back to jams as old as “Ballbadaos” from their debut.....

Please Read the full review on (www.inyourspeakers.com)

—Craw'z 05/27/2010

Trans Am Official Myspace

First Dog To Visit The Center Of The Earth

2010-05-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

On Every Machine (Never Come Down, 2010)

For: Mouse on Mars, Boards of Canada, Gold Panda, Excepter

Byline: Pt. 2 in our ongoing obsession with the adventurous dog and his endless quest for subterranean spelunking.

Woah there, First Dog to Visit the Center of the Earth. Woah there, Boy Fruit. Wha’ happen’ here? You may recall back in March, when the TOME was first made privy to the existence of this wildly creative, talented regime of off-the-charts experimental noise-scramblers that Boy Fruit was the one making the singles, not FDVCE. Well, the tables have evidently turned. Boy Fruit’s latest (reviewed here) sunk his muted songs even deeper into the mud than before, circumventing the need for real melodic motifs with a wallowing texture that stewed humbly in its own tasty porridge of gloppy sound making for an at-least-as-satisfying listen to its predecessor, Repulsive. And so here, on the flip-side of things, is FDVCE, not half a year after the release of the amazing Colossus Archosaur, with an album that finds the artist really discovering the advantages of stabilizing noise and a seemingly random, multi-faceted palate of textures into a more rhythm-centric approach with some surprisingly banging beats and very compelling melodic hooks to front. FDVCE: we’ll make a producer out of you yet. Now, this of course isn’t always the case with On Every Machine, but it’s at least noticeable on a fairly large scale... and make no mistake, none of these are “pop” songs in the slightest. But check out the raga-stomp of “P-Queen”—though rife with machine-gun, percussive stabs and a rhythmic variance that rivals Aphex Twin in complexity, underneath it all is a head-nodding, driving forward motion that’s all but unstoppable. “Inner Dudsmind” and (the hilariously titled) “God Damn it, My Neighbors are Barbecuing?” find success in a similar way, the latter especially, having a faster groove with outer-space synths and nervous triangle patterns. The track sounds like the follow-up single to Geogaddi that Boards of Canada couldn't quite figure out for The Campfire Headphase... but you know, weirder. And harder. “Gator 6” meanwhile draws on a techno base, utilizing similar textures as Mouse on Mars did on Idiology, but again... weirder. So I guess the point is that none of On Every Machine will likely make it into your local discotec, lest the cool crowd in your town happen to be a bunch of freaky-deakies. But you and me and some other like-mindedly geeky music nerd friends of ours should be able to rock this one down in my mom’s basement next weekend at my birthday party. We'll just have to keep the volume down, and lights out by 11:00. We're going to freak out and it's gonna be amazing.

To me, what’s most impressive about FDVCE is his keen sense of space, timing, and volume—how each sound is so distinct and direct, yet mixed with constant and complete proportion to whatever else is going on, even while pieces and parts rise and fall and constantly fluctuate in texture. Some sounds are just so awesomely loud and robust, they’ll rattle your skull until your brain is mush, which is a much more pleasant experience than it might sound. Listening to On Every Machine is like being Neo in the Matrix movies (oh no I didn’t!) and seeing everything in digital binary to the point where all the random 1’s and 0’s come together to magically create a beautiful, harmonious din that surrounds your very essence. I’ll sum up shortly and sweetly... you’ve already waited long enough to get obsessed with First Dog to Visit the Center of the Earth. If you’ll notice, there’s no shiny, glimmering link down below that says “free download” anywhere on this post. That’s because both FDVCE as well as his equally inventive buzz-cousin Boy Fruit are both officially on a (really sweet looking) Chicago-based label. It’s not too late for you, however... you should absolutely visit the Never Come Down label’s site and haul in as much from these two astounding young men as your little hard drive can carry. GO!

—Craw’z 5/26/2010

First Dog to Visit the Center of the Earth Official MySpace

Never Come Down Official Website (buy here)

Directed by Ryan Watson

Holmes

2010-05-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

Have I Told You Lately That I Loathe You? (Haleri/Black Star Foundation, 06.2010)

For: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Tobias Fröberg, The Devil Whale

Byline: File under: Another Swedish band doing our music better than us.

Coming from the same fertile soil and label that produced Lars Ludvig Löfgren's excellent 2010 release Heterochromia, Holmes sophomore album Have I Told You Lately That I Loathe You is a tightly-wound package of melancholy Americana transplanted in central Sweden. The bleak existential loneliness of midwestern America/Canada that inspired Neil Young and Alan Sparhawk is infused into every tale of heartbreak and betrayal from this Vänersborg quintet. Sounding like he just came out of a hellacious break-up (if you couldn't tell by the title) , Holme's vocalist Kristoffer Bolander's accented and affecting croon broods on the quiet numbers and soars above rafter-shaking crescendos with cathartic heroism on the noisier ones. Most of the output on HITYLTILY is filtered through subdued sense of sadness, rife with lap-steel punctuated moments of lilting beauty that accompany the exquisite pain in Bolander's voice. "Afar" finds his vocal register climbing into the Jonsi Birgisson-range falsetto if Birgisson sang flannel-shirted alt-country. Holmes gets loud, occasionally, the Young accolyte comparisons seem to stick the most. "The Strangest Calm" showcase the bands mastery of pacing and delivery, weaving dueling guitar melodies that hold on single notes over the din of reverb-drenched guitar feedback. Have I Told You Lately That I Loathe You gets major points, aside from ripping off Rod Stewart, in producing something that sounds totally honest. Honest and sad. But doing it without the self-aware pretension that is stuck so righteously to a majority of the alt-country ghetto. Bolander doesn't have to fake a country accent, or prematurely destroy his vocal chords to produce that haggard two-pack-a-day-since-fifteen croak in order to produce authenticity. The honesty of Holmes comes from their ability to play with real emotion, packing enough throat-tightening catharsis in the second act of the album closer "Breathing" to satiate my once fond feelings for the genre. I guess it just took a group of Swedes to show us that we were doing our own music wrong.

Ryan H.

Download The Strangest Calm

Holmes myspace

Gayngs

2010-05-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

Relayted (Jagjaguwar, 05.2010)

For: Prince, CFCF, pretty much the whole Dirty Dancing soundtrack

Byline: Midwestern supergroup (feat. Bon Iver, P.O.S, Solid Gold, Megafaun, Prince?) create a sprawling record filled to the brim with easy-listening, bedroom soft rock, with jaw dropping results.

**Note: The above picture is not the official Relayted artwork. Rather, a rad, commissioned portrait of the band.**

My good friend Justin Couch (more on him later) once said that the saxophone ruined music in the 80's. While I am inclined to agree with him, I can't say enough about the saxophone's welcome contributions to Midwestern supergroup Gayngs' debut album Relayted. While the very appearance of a saxomophone may bring on cringe inducing memories of man perms, open collared button up shirts, and pretty much anything Michael Bolton related, the brassy timbre of the baritone sax on Relayted push the already saccharine smooth jam studio session into, "this couldn't get any more chees....OMG, that is a saxophone"...And so it begins. Gayngs' music, while an already head-scratching enough tribute to the FM dominated soft rock of the late eighties/early nineties, is even more perplexing given the impressive 23-member roster that makes up the band. Some of the most notable members include Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver, Minneapolis rappers P.O.S and Dessa, freak folk outfit Megafaun, electro-glam outfit (and masterminds behind the project) Solid Gold, as well as various members from Leisure Bird, The Rosebuds, and Digitata. These members share a common loci, and apparently (who knew?) an affinity for the music played during steamy, red filtered, made-for-tv love scenes.

The question you are probably asking is: Does it work? I am here to give a resounding yes in their favor. Yes it is totally self-aware, at times tongue-in-cheek (just check out P.O.S spoken word outro confession on the album closer "The Last Prom on Earth"), but on the whole, the album rises above the weight of its influences and pens some incredibly gorgeous tracks. The album is significantly more than the sum of its members, there is hardly a scrabbling for top-billing, everyone's voice is heard either as the revolving door band leader or somewhere in the liner notes. Megafaun's drawl and slide guitar bow gracefully to autotuned vocals, vaguely safe 808 hip-hop beats and smooth jazz guitar solos, all while the buzzing keyboard driven undercurrent unearths sounds we haven't heard since Eric Carmen's "Hungry Eyes". There are some delicious anachronous moments that rear their head in the course of the hour +, year long studio experiment. The discordant, tribal-drummed, gorgeous mess of "False Bottom" is all squawking horns and dive-bombing synths. A pretty welcome reprieve from a polite but almost too nice of an album, an album that you wouldn't mind buying a used car from but would never let your sister date. "Faded High" is a watermark moment on the album, a relatively upbeat number replete with multi-tracked falsetto vocals by Dessa. "Spanish Platnium" begins in typical Gayngs fashion, hollow sounding drums with a liquid solo guitar breezily panning from headphone to headphone, some saxophone in there (why not?), but oscillating beneath the surface is a swirling guitar drone gluing the whole thing together. The 21st century is not lost on Gayngs.

If Bon Iver fronting a soft rock band had you at "Bon," Vernon's vocal contributions do not disappoint. To those already familiar to his experiment in making autotune software cry on "Woods" off of 2009's Blood Bank, his exclusively auto-tuned vocal contributions on "Spanish Platnium" and elsewhere are no surprise. But I think all of us took a step back when he trades Bone Thugs n' Harmony (midwestern legends shamefully not called into the studio)-style call and response machine gun fast raps with P.O.S on the excellent, excellent, excellent album closer "The Last Prom on Earth" ... Best musical moment of 2010. In fact lets call this one of the best albums of 2010, saxophones and all.

Ryan H.

FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! — Braid pt. 2 and UPDATE!!!

2010-05-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

Heyo there all ye' faithful TOMErs. This is just a quick note to tell you: We are tired. We wanted to have an extra special-cool FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! post today... but alas, we just weren't able to crank a new one out for you to feverishly devour. If you'll notice, the TOME is now on track for a post every single day, and we couldn't be more proud to have you visiting us often for reviews on the exciting world of music we're constantly being immersed in, so thank ye' kindly. We really appreciate the readership and the comments peppering our little blog here, and are especially grateful for the wonderful bands and musicians sending new music our direction every day!

A couple of reminders — As always, we are looking for talented writers to join team TOME! If you think you share a similar taste and passion for music as either Ryan H. or Craw'z and have a knack for the written word, please feel free to e-mail us with a sample of your work: tometotheweathermachine@gmail.com. Don't be shy now. Second, you may have noticed our flashy little badge on the right-hand side of our page... yes, we totally caved and set up a Facebook account for the blog. Feel free to "fan" us or "like" us or whatever as you see fit by clicking on the badge—the Facebook page allows for folks who don't necessarily visit every day to see in a flash what today's post is all about. Go ahead, join the party... you know you want to.

And now, just so we don't leave you empty handed on this glorious Friday afternoon, please enjoy pt. 2 of Ryan H.'s healthy obsession with that wondrous proto-prog/emo outfit Braid by reading his in-depth interview through SLC's (completely awesome) SLUG Magazine. Enjoy, and happy weekend!

SLUG Interview: Ryan H. on Braid

Read Ryan's previous gush on Braid in an earlier FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! post here

—Craw'z 5/21/2010

The Pirate Signal

2010-05-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

No Weak Heart Shall Prosper (Self-Released, 2010)

For: Anticon, The Prodigy, Massive Attack

Byline: Craw’z takes on the Pirate Signal... My greatest challenge yet.

I’ve had this monkey on my back. This “Pirate Signal” monkey... it’s been haunting nearly every single one of my days for the past three weeks solid. It’s not that I didn’t want to review No Weak Heart Shall Prosper. I’m all for supporting Denver artists and musicians in any way I can.... but being an unpaid music critic and blogger certainly has its limitations, especially in regards to good ol’ fashioned Craw’z time. Matched with this ridiculous amount of music in my “2010” custom iTunes playlist (yeah... go ahead, call me a freak), my brain is seriously addled as of late. So then there’s this hip hop album, and I find myself staring at a blank document, trying to gather my thoughts on it... a style of hip hop I don’t typically find myself jamming on a regular basis. It’s jagged. It’s hardcore. It’s edgy. In YO’ FACE, y'know? At least it’s in my face...

The Pirate Signal knows how to bring the party, but it’s not the sunny, ecstasy-laden bliss-fest many might hope for. The Pirate Signal has an additional project known in these Denver parts as the “Blackhearts.” They rap about the blackness of their endlessly black lives and personas—hearts, dyed hair, clothes, shoes, etc... quite a bit. And like the Blackhearts moniker might suggest, No Weak Heart Shall Prosper is generally dark in its assessments of socio-politically charged, topical issues (see “Love in the Time of Swine Flu”), murky subject matter seeps into the production like rain through warped floorboards in a crumbling house. Most beats are massive, atomic blasts, underscored with deep, low synthetic dirges that paint a thick curtain of opaque and grim textures. Samples are used if you listen close for them, but largely they’re disguised in attempt to create what the Signal would hope is a unique hip hop aesthetic, which is modestly successful here... but there are still some tired tricks (like the auto-tuned vocal hook of “The Saga of Dirty Street Kids) used that weigh Abraham’s original voice down a bit. “Darker, My Love” finds the group digging into a Michael Jackson neo-soul/funk groove that chugs along nicely, complete with a compelling vocal hook... it’s a hot track, and a shame Yonnas doesn’t take more advantage of it, spitting only one full verse this time around. “Automatic,” meanwhile incorporates Kraftwerk-via-Afrika Bambataa influence with a forceful, propulsive beat that lays the path for a biting, rhythmic lyrical flow.

Rapper Yonnas Abraham’s delivery is a mish-mash of styles that come together to fuse a singular vision—there’s the grim, raspy growl of Dälek, the matter-of-fact rock-ready shout of Run DMC, and the faster, syllable-cramming bounce of Twista, too... all excellent tools with which Yonnas can mollify his cultural frustrations while simultaneously gettin’ folks in the crowd to reach for the sky. If you’ve ever seen a Pirate Signal show, peeps go bonkers over this. Overall No Weak Heart Shall Prosper is a winning formula, but Yonnas surprisingly keeps this one close to home: “I’m a Col. Boi” and others are shout-outs to Denver and Denver only, which is curious... this stuff has the ability to spark some serious raves on a national scale, and it makes you wonder how far the Signal sees this one reaching for themselves. Showing regional love to your hometown is standard operating procedure in hip-hop, but The Pirate Signal have the chops take this one out of the stranglehold of the no-coast region and out to the masses…2010 and beyond.

—Craw'z 5/20/2010

The Pirate Signal Official MySpace

Download the teaser EP for No Weak Hearts Shall Prosper here

Sightings

2010-05-18T22:15:00.000-07:00

City of Straw (Jagjaguwar, 04.2010)

For: AFCGT, These Are Powers, The Dead C

Byline: The noisiest, busiest, dirtiest no-wave noise punk this year in a year full of great noisy, busy, dirty no-wave noise punk albums.

Holy wow. Give me a second to compose my thoughts while I pick my guts off the floor. City of Straw is a massively disjointed, disemboweling masterpiece of snarling, minimalist electronic beats and precision timed noise terrorism. Distributed through Jagjaguwar after a long stint on Load and Oneida's Brah records (who own probably the coolest brand image imaginable), it is hard to imagine City of Straw fitting into the discography of the record label behind Bon Iver, Julie Doiron, and Okkervil River. Even as I write this, however, Jagjaguwar is in the process of distributing new albums and back catalogues of improvised noise giants The Dead C, Richard Youngs, not to mention their long-standing relationship with Oneida and the release of 2008's best slice of fuzz-pop Women. I suppose label acquisitions play little into the 8 + year existence of no-input art-squalor of Brooklyn's Sighthings. Sighthings sound like a bizarro-Nirvana, processing and capturing the massively dirty swells of fuzzed out power chords and playing them back through a million blinking sequencers in the catacomb-like sewers beneath New York City. Guitars are played like bowed violins of sweeping noise swells, resonating with a low end hum that give these waves of noise and a grimy, yet often inexplicably graceful, arc of distortion laden screeds. Beats split time and are triggered by live drumming spit glitched-out, drunken, binary manifestations of nightmares a la Burial meets Atari Teenage Riot (esp. on "Weehawken" and "Saccharine Traps". yikes.) "Sky Above Mud Below" is an anthem in the truest sense of the world with impossibly-fast triplets stereo pans along to Mark Morgan's tortured howl. Sighthings often sound like a band that is ostensibly immune to easy comparisons or relationship to anything considered pop music. But with a classic rock band three piece (guitars-vocals, bass, drums) and discernible verse-chorus song structures in a majority of the album it is clear that Sightings work with the same toolset that their labelmates own, but they constructed a mechanical, fire-breathing pterodactyl about the size of a young whale out of theirs.

P.S Did I mention this was produced by Andrew W.K? As if this couldn't get any more rad.

Ryan H.

Tar and Pine

Sightings Myspace

Constellations

2010-05-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

Lady Coast/Reflection Mandible (Self-Released, 2010)

For: Autechre, Public Image Ltd., Burial

Byline: Denver proto-dance-punk-electro band returns as a “nationwide collective” ...finally. Plz and thx.

In a world where there’s no shortage of bands that make things look easy (and I hate most of them for it), Constellations purposefully make their music sound hard. That’s because music is hard... especially for this gang, the once Denver-based dance-punk-gone-electro-infused outfit that made serious waves on the scene before ever having the chance to release a full-length record. As members began piling on the projects and other members began to disperse about the country, hopes for an official LP from the band were nearly dashed altogether. But just like the challenging nature of their dark, highly intellectual, intensely layered, syncopated, grinding beats and scathing textures, the group’s reemergence as a “nationwide collective” represents a refreshing tenacity—some things are just too good to give up on, distance-obstacles be damned. Several years in the works now, this single is at once a welcome return for the band, but it’s also, frustratingly, only but a taste—but a morsel of that sickly-sweet’n’sour mix of sound that’s somehow progressed fantastically beyond expectations. Lady Coast is über-meticulous, fascinating, but maintains an extremely high level of listenable gusto.

For those new to the band: Expect dark. Expect beats. Expect electronics. Expect rad (uh... really rad) bass lines. Expect haunting vocals. Expect piercing guitars. With Lady Coast, you’ll get all this and more, though—Constellations is certainly parts and pieces, but it’s uniquely whole and individual. Instruments and elements simply wouldn’t survive without their symbiotic partners... Constellations is an electro-ecosystem. Real drums rely on their glitchy, gated counterparts, synth lines flow relative only to threnody drones, and so on. See those “For” artists listed above? Yeah, those guys all certainly had something to do with the overall sound of Constellations, but this band’s got something else... these are but primers pieced masterfully together to (at the risk of being cliché here) sound one of a kind. Nothing else today comes across quite like it—an extraordinarily, uncommonly unique blend into something new... and thank Jebus for that.

The songs themselves find the band largely slowing things down and really pulling from the monstrously massive dinosaur stomp of dub-step. A new-jack swing feel finds its way into hi-hats alongside a biting backbeat that lays the path for the bass to flicker in and out with catchy snippets. Zack Brown’s hushed, creepy whisper will have you following his every command in your nightmares. The best part is the detail with which programmer Cory Brown so painstakingly saturates his work. Uncrackable codes and rigorous trial and error surely worked to ensure that nothing sounds the same twice, as beats and tones are cut up and scrambled with the complexity of a calculus equation. The music constantly, consistently evolves itself, tricking you into looking for patterns where there aren’t necessarily any. This’ll have you digging for days to unlock its mysteries... but you may never be able to go quite deep enough. Accompanied by a couple of remarkable remixes, Lady Coast is one of those don’t-miss-the-boat releases of the year. Plus, it’s free, so you don’t really have an excuse.

—Craw’z 5/18/2010

d-d-d-Download this

Constellations Official Facebook

Good Weather for an Airstrike

2010-05-16T19:20:00.000-07:00

Signals (Sonic Reverie, 2010)

For: Max Richter, Eluvium, Kevin Greenspon

Byline: Winchester, UK ambient musician battles Tinnitus, emerges with masterpiece of nocturne beauty.

Being a recent college grad thrown into the hostile world of job-seeking in a down economy is a tough gig. I often am lured into job fairs and expos with little more than my resume and haircut to try and convince large corporations that I can write convincing enough prose to sell their products. I mean, I write a blog! Tome to the Weather Machine! It is pretty soul-sucking work and every once in awhile I am trapped in a room with former CFOs and Database Programmers forced to listen to a motivational speaker before getting our chance to pitch ourselves to HR reps from some company that nobody wants to work for. These speakers usually work on the format that a once debilitating blow actually inspired them to work harder than they ever had and achieve success they never thought possible. As cliché as it sounds, it is usually the most interesting and inspiring part of the program.

Tom Honey a.k.a Good Weather for an Airstrike could probably get up there with a power-point presentation and do the same thing. Diagnosed (if that is the right word) with tinnitus, which resulted in a long bout with insomnia and hearing issues. A story similar to, although way less dramatic than, TOME fav. Aarktica who lost all hearing in his right ear and sought to make music that replicated the far away, underwater sounds that made up the way he interpreted sound. The result was 2009's masterpiece of graceful tonality In Sea. Signals follows a similar trajectory, gorgeous warm tones of synth and guitar-based drones punctuated with moments of classical beauty via bowed violins. The idea was to create a short record of songs to help him fall asleep. The experiment would be a success if the album wasn't so engaging and heartfelt. I'm not sure if it is easy to fall asleep to staccato picked guitar lines, but album opener "Hand In Hand Into the Ocean Blue," while elegant in its delivery, seems to defy the premise of the album. Not a bad way to start an album by pretty much destroying the listeners expectations of complete Steve Roach-esque snooze-fest. "We Fall Back into the Ocean" strays the farthest from the tried and true guitar and synth based drones featured on the album, the minimal bowed violins and impeccably-timed piano lines recall Max Richter in mood and pacing, and at its best, Arvo Part in emotional weight. "Beside Me Today" and its ambient-drone cohorts are slow-drip stalactites of crystalline swells and ebbing moontide purity. Honey's compositions sound almost too perfect, sometimes allowing sound to pass right through a flawless prism instead of some needed refraction and distortion around the rough edges to keep things dangerous. With that said, for an album whose stated purpose to put the listener (or in this case the musician to sleep) often doesn't quite know how to approach this. Self-titled "Signals" and "A Last Farewell and We Shall Run," with their angel-cooing synth lines serve this purpose almost too well, while "Beside Me Today" and "We Fall Back..." are simply too engaging to let go of. So, GWFAAS, I hope you got some sleep, I hope you are feeling better, but I really hope you keep putting out records like this nocturne collection of post-classical lullabies like you would never sleep again without them.

Ryan H.

Good Weather For An Airstrike Myspace