Constellations

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

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

FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! — Gastr Del Sol

Camofleur (Drag City, 1998)

For: Oval, Jim O’Rourke, US Maple

Byline: A definite contender for my favorite record of all time. A true work of art.

One day, I’ll have a book written about Camofleur. This is a record with so much to unpack, it’s daunting... where to start even? The instrumentation? The formless-forms? The dada-patchwork lyrics? The ingenious electronics? The nakedness of it all, the hollow moments? The fact that to this day, over a decade later, nothing sounds remotely close to it in scope, beauty, or vision? One day... one day, I’ll write a book about Camofleur. Today, I write a blog post. I write a blog post because I fear that Camofleur is in danger of becoming lost and forgotten. It’s the strange and obscure side-project of the magical Jim O’Rourke—his somewhat unlikely collaboration with the post-punk innovating Squirrel Bait’s David Grubbs. O’Rourke’s had his hands in enough masterpieces to solidify his immortality by now. But it’s depressing that he may not be remembered for his greatest achievement. So this is just a little nudge. A little reminder.

Camofleur... This is folk. Gorgeous folk. This is electronics, ambience, free-floating dream sequences, space-station static. This is backwards delay effects. This is trumpets, trombones, saxophones, pianos, organs, slide guitars, strings, woodwinds, accordions, steel drums. This is rock, this is celtic jams (that segue into the most beautiful 3:38 of recorded music I think I’ve ever heard), this is kraut, ballads, this is... pop. This is rubato guitar interludes. This is timing, surprises, twists, turns, jokes, tragedies. This is drums—grooves you’ve never heard or dreamed possible. Best of all: this is emotions. This is poetry, imagery, allegory... wait, wait. Emotional. What a terrible, derivative, cliché word used to describe music these days. It’s not even cool to be emotional (unless you're the Arcade Fire or, more recently, the Antlers) anyway. So, distinction: Gastr Del Sol is not emotional. This is one of the only bands and one of the only albums I’ve experienced that makes me truly emotional. You see, “emotional” in music usually ends up being nothing more than sympathy or empathy. Like watching a movie—you cry for those whom you’ve seen suffering sadness. You cry for others—nothing has really happened to you. Camofleur happens to you. Camofleur makes you suffer. Camofleur makes you joyous. Camofleur makes you scared. It makes you wonder, and inspires your imagination. It is both impressive and expressive. It makes you breath with it, live with it, die with it. “As corpse” is a phrase that will haunt me for the rest of my days.

Hallelujah, Drag City somehow still has this available on LP... grab it up before it’s too late. Study it. Grow with it—let it grow you. After Camofleur, nothing seems impossible. Gastr Del Sol represents the limitless potential of music and the unique hyper-creative abilities humans have in artistic expression. One day, I'll write a book about Camofleur... today I just haven't done it justice.

—Craw’z 5/14/2010

Adelyn's pick of the month: Parallels

Visionaries (Marigold, 05.2010)

For: Class Actress, Golden Filter, Madonna

Byline: An unapologetic journey into the day-glo heart of Eighties dance music.

There is an internal logic to the dance song that I will never understand. Something with the ever ascending chord progressions, relentless back beat, an infinite upwards spiral of un-arced energy that I can never keep up with. Something about having an unwound internal clock and subsequent lack of rhythm, a born-with immunity to calculated and controlled kinetic release that has vexed me. With that said, Toronto's Parallels defy my genetic predisposition to swim in safe waters of rhythm-less ambience and face-flattening blast beats and unlock the side of me that always wanted to be a dancer. All mesh tank-tops, Jehri curl, and fingerless gloves.

Parallels is the brain-child of ex-Crystal Castles drummer Cameron Findlay and Toronto muse Holly Dodson, who participated in a Postal Service type musical relationship before circumstances led Findlay to team up with Dodson to unleash their uncompromising take on 80's synth-pop. Where their contemporaries sometimes experience an identity crisis in making tongue-in-cheek nods to synth heavy pop groups while at the same time try to update a musical style most fondly remembered as nostalgia, Parallels rarely run into this wall, placing all their eggs in the basket of Dodson's chartreuse-like Madonna, Tiffany, Lauper mall-pop voice and Findlay's fine balance between monotone synth pad rhythms and soaring lazer beam synth lines. There is no coy wink in these songs, they hopped in that Deloreon and are broadcasting live and direct from the gilded age of excess. The occasional use of the vocoder on Dodson's voice, while used conservatively, is a cheesy effect that nevertheless stops me dead in my track. The ghostly remnant of a twin-tracked, pitch-shifted voice gives the more subdued tracks of "All We'll Ever Know", "Magnetics" and "Dry Blood" a haunting sense of emotional weight that is hinted at across the whole album. This isn't "Material World" Madonna, this is True Blue era Madonna when she had something to say. This is by far the best synth-pop album I have heard this year, and I have heard a surprisingly large number of them. For how much my wife loves the sticky sweet pop of modern hip-hop radio and for the platinum blond excess of the eighties, this has quickly climbed to the number one most requested album in the house. Move over Usher.

Ryan H.

Future Islands

In Evening Air (Thrill Jockey, 2010)

For: Frog Eyes, The Knife, xx

Byline: The Baltimore trio rise to the occasion, creating soulful and boundary pushing electro-pop to match the throat-rending howl of their lead singer. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission by inyourspeakers, LLC.

...Having a scene-stealing frontman is clearly not a point against the Baltimore based trio. Future Islands recently signed with Thrill Jockey (who already swooped fellow Baltimore band Double Dagger) this year after attracting buzz in the already teeming beehive of artists associated with Dan Deacon’s Wham City art collective. Future Islands have enough backlog musical stock to benefit from a single “must hear” facet rather than running the risk of folding under the weight of miniature horse gimmickry. To wit, J. Gerrit Welmer’s austere synth work never falls into the synth-pop dungeon of infinitely repeated minimalist chord progressions. While decidedly minimalist in scope, Welmer’s keyboard tackles a variety of different textures and sounds within a traditionally closed shop of elaborative possibilities. For example, the album is book-ended with refreshingly original takes on the genre: “Walking Through That Door” features swirling church-organ lines that peal off bassist William Cashion’s lock-step bass. The finale “As I Fall” is built on sampled vocal choir lines that ebb and flow just enough to be considered rhythmic while Cashion reinterprets the menacing rhythms of Jeff Ament’s proto-grunge pounding bass work.

Welmer’s contributions often serve to counter or at least keep grounded Herring’s full cast of vocal personae. The ambiguously Caribbean sounding instrument (steel drum? Gamelan?) that punctuates Herring’s most vocally expressive track, “Tin Man,” keeps the track climbing steadily as Herring tears his heart (and throat) out with near sobs and a roaring chorus. There has been a lot of talk of a first-wave goth revival with bands like Blessure Grave, Crocodiles and The Soft Moon making significant strides in 2009-2010, and if we are to favorably compare Future Islands to this group we can do so, not in terms of the dispassionate gloom that these bands exude, but with the subtle turning of synth-pop back on itself. Instead of providing an escapist vehicle for the kids of baby boomers to blow their inheritances on soft drug habits and expensive shoes they will end up vomiting on, Herring unleashes a wail from the catacombs of warehouse art galleries and high school theater clubs. Herring’s vocal histrionics move from the glass-in-the-throat growl of “Tin Man” to his near Elvis-sounding sneer on “Long Flight,” to a baffling English-accented talk-sing on “An Apology.” If you find the vocal intonations of Casey Mercer too tame and predictable you may be ready for Future Islands....

Please read the full review at here.

Ryan H.

Kyle Bobby Dunn

A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn (Low Point, 2010)

For: William Basinski, Stars of the Lid, German Shepherd

Byline: Slow-blooming, gorgeous ambient drones from the young Brooklyn composer... easily the best of its kind this year.

Names can be deceiving... The fact that the artist in question was born “Kyle Bobby Dunn,” coupled with this record’s (kind of hilarious) title, A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn had me fully expecting this to be either shit-kicker country or hushed, gentle folk tunes from an aging artist perhaps long forgotten and retrospected on a two-disc collection long after his fabled hey-day of yore. Wrong. Kyle Bobby Dunn is rather a Brooklyn-based ambient/drone composer. And he’s a damned fine one at that. And the fact that this guy is only 24, and that many of these compositions have been in the works for six years is astonishing and a bit humbling. Americana, he ain’t...what they in the music biz call “legit,” he certainly is. This collection can serve as an exemplary introduction to someone who’s sure to master this style even more throughout his potentially massive career than he already has... these 12 tracks in and of themselves represent something close to a masterwork already, but my guess is the best is yet to come.

“Composer” is an interesting word being thrown around these days, especially when used for this genre... it’s so difficult to imagine these songs on the printed page. Key signatures? Rhythm? Measures? Even something as fundamental as individual notes or chords seem irrelevant here... in the case of Kyle Bobby Dunn, none of that really matters. The result is a music that is much more about visual imagery than it is musicality or theoretical mastery... but don't tell him I said that. I'm sure Mr. Dunn has had plenty of Classical/Romantic-period music education to back up that "composer" handle, and it has indubitably paid off.

Discernible instruments are definitely here—bright trumpets, mellow horns, organs, pianos, strings... but largely they are not. Long-tones are held to such lengths that the physical frequencies emitted from the bells of horns and the strings of cellos become the true “instruments” that Dunn actually plays. They are living, breathing entities which Dunn fathers and attentively nurtures. He watches them grow up and mature with a tactful eye, sculpting each individual sound in such a way that lofty potentials are fulfilled in gloriously glacial monuments that reach high and rumble deep below. Layering and intricate details are subtle and gentle—so much so that they're hardly noticeable—but the big picture is stunning: tones overlap to the point where he’s creating and orchestrating something as natural as an outdoor day, but it's all synthesized in the concert hall, on a stage and in a room that is deep, wide and cavernous.

A couple of suggestions: listen to this album indoors, listen to this with noise-canceling headphones, and listen to this music often and at different volumes. The music has a keen relationship to nature—as most evident in “Promenade,” which features samples of a trickling creek and cricketing insects—but it’s best to let KBD create the images for you, rather than trying to suture the music with your immediate surroundings. Patience is also key, as these songs are long, for the most part hovering nonchalantly around the ten-minute mark (the album in full clocks in at over 2 hours). But as with most ambient music in this vein, forbearance rewards in spades: this music has the ability to wash over and fully consume you as textures segue with relaxed swooshes and sways, here and then quickly gone. If only they did that from track to track as often... some of these pieces just conclude a bit too abruptly. But with closed eyes and deep, nasal breaths, being lost in the world of Kyle Bobby Dunn is no different from being found: it’s just where you want to be.

—Craw’z 5/11/2010

Kyle Bobby Dunn Official MySpace

Buy A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn Here

Flying Lotus

Cosmogramma (Warp, 05.2010)

For: J Dilla, Charles Mingus, Four Tet

Byline: Legendary producer takes jazz head on, but never loses any of his beat heavy production. I think my neck is broken.

Three important events happened last week that have a direct relationship to each other. 1) At the ripe old age of 25, I graduated from college. I know that most of my colleagues of this age have already graduated and are working real people jobs or are completing graduate degrees or PHDs. That is cool, but cut me some slack, I took two years off and graduated with two degrees. 2) Flying Lotus released his latest album since 2008's genre-defining masterpiece Los Angeles. 3) I acquired a skateboard. I am going to learn to skateboard and be a skateboarder. Don't judge me, this is the form my quarter-life crisis has finally taken. After growing a pretty nasty pseudo-beard and getting addicted to Zelda for a week, I should be so lucky that this is what it has amounted to.

So, what does this have to do with Steven Ellison dropping his most anticipated album to date? Well, graduating college hastened my onset quarter-life freakout, and with that brought my new passion for learning to skateboard. And how can you skateboard without a dope instrumental hip-hop soundtrack? I can understand if you cry "foul" here. Ellison's compositions are near academic studies in beat composition blurring the edges between jazz and hip-hop right? Surely, the musical heir to Alice Coletrane would never sink so low to have his work accompany something so pedestrian as landing my first kickflip, right? I doubt FlyLo would think so. For as awe-inspiring as Cosmogramma is (and oh my, it is) there is a free-flowing playfulness throughout the entire album, a sense that Ellison, while a structuralist at heart, has no problem taking his music back to the baseline: the beats. Cosmogramma's beats are never what they appear to be on the surface. Something as straightforward as rhythm is opened up and unraveled the deeper we get. The syncopated "Computer Face" has fractured half-beats and hiccuping sitar lines that run just about every way but with the propulsive rhythm line. "And the World Laughs with You" features a largely improvised and totally buried vocal contribution by Thom Yorke. Instead of giving top-billing to one of the biggest rock stars in the world, he simply packages Yorke's voice as another instrument, giving it little more spotlight than the descending, squiggly synth lines. I think this says something about this album, as incredible as Ellison and his guests are, everything is auxiliary to the beats. Ellison's left-field vocal samples, twinkling piano lines, and world-hopping instruments are simply there to augment the beats at the core of the compositions. Even if those beats are as far into outerspace as the Cat's Eye Nebula.

I am not an expert on jazz by any means (any jazz related questions should be directed to our resident musical theorist/history genius Craw'z) but from what little I know I can easily point out FlyLo's mission to bring hip-hop and jazz into some unifying theme. The deep hits of an upright bass take the aural rigidness of programmed beats and gives them a deeply organic "swinging" feel that permeates the album. Playing his influences and mentors close to his chest is what makes Cosmogramma so thrilling, but the way that FlyLo never lets himself take these too seriously is what makes Cosmogramma such a game changing masterpiece. These are song-songs and this is an album that feels like an album, with a traceable arc of post-jazz funkiness finely diced by the scalpel of dubstep's chopped percussion, laced with the playful wit of streetwise Tennyson. All this while being one of the most accessible and easily loved albums of the year, worthy of the aplomb of austere music aficionados as well as choice guest spots on the next Shorty's skate vid. So, if you see some dude cruising the streets of SLC unsteadily and on a skateboard, first get out of his way, second, realize that he is probably deeply absorbed by some liquid beat by 2010 Flying Lotus. Just wait until I turn 50...BMX bikes? Agressive inline skating? Yikes.

Ryan H.

Flying Lotus Myspace

An Interview with Lars Ludvig Löfgren

Well, if you're upset at us for not providing another installment of FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! this week, I'm not sure what to tell you... 'cause this week we have something much, much better. Swedish-born and based songwriter Lars Ludvig Löfgren made us seriously swoon back in January with his Häleri debut, Heterochromia. It's the type of album that swells your heart two-sizes-too-big for your chest it's so good. Sweet, charming, up-beat, a little nostalgic, and a ton of fun... all words I'd use to describe its wholly cohesive and focused sound. Lars Ludvig Löfgren is one of those rare artists who knows just what he wants from his songs, and buys into a very specific style with so much enthusiasm that it's impossible not to hear an honest sincerity in the music, even if cute or silly might be a hasty, knee-jerk impression. One thing's for sure, Heterochromia is damned addicting... the record's found its way miles out in front for most plays of the year on my iTunes library in a year already chock-full of excellent releases by a number of excellent artists.

Mr. Löfgren took the time to answer some of our questions via e-mail this week, as we asked him about his geographical history, the virtues of American pop, and the possibilities of running into him stateside any time soon. Don't forget to visit his bandcamp page to download the latest record, and please enjoy our exchange below!

—Craw'z 5/7/2010

THE TOME: What town are you from in Sweden? Did you grow up there? Can you describe the music scene where you’re living? What are some other artists in your area we should be checking out?

L L L: My family comes from a town in Northern Sweden called Luleå, I grew up in a small, shitty place called Vänersborg close to Göteborg. Later, I moved to Umeå. At the moment, I live in the middle of Sweden in a city called Karlstad. The music scene in Karlstad is nothing special, but for my songwriting it doesn't make any difference at all. In general, I like bands who don’t look at trends and stuff like that, so I don't have to live close to a cool city to write music. Last year I stayed in New York City for two months and wrote some songs. I could live there, but I could live in the forest as well.

Why do you choose to write your songs in English?

It feels stupid to not let the rest of the world know what you're saying, that's why I don't sing in Swedish. But it's also easier to sing in English. I think it would be more naked in Swedish, but I prefer English.

I’d like to know a little about your creative process. Where did you record the album? Did you write everything yourself? Where do your songs come from exactly?

I recorded my album last year in a studio in Göteborg, Sweden. On the album I play all of the instruments except the drums and the guest appearances. I wrote all the songs and lyrics on the album. I used to like writing songs with someone else, but for this project I like to decide every tune by myself. The good thing about this is that I don't have to compromise; the negative side is that you might miss some cool ideas for your song. After all, I don't have anyone else to blame.

Your album is all about guitars, which is something I love. Have you ever considered using any electronic instruments or production?

Well, on my next album there might be some electronic elements. Why not? It's not like I have to have someone's permission for having electronic instruments. On my last tour, in January, I brought my keyboard and performed some songs with that. That was fun, but my songs mostly sound better with guitar. Haha!

What are your goals for breaking into the American market, and what’s the best way for you to do that? Do you plan on touring North America any time soon?

I know you have a show called American Idol. I might try that, otherwise I'll just wait and see what happens. I'm going to tour around Europe this summer, but I don't know when North America is ready for me.

Your MySpace influences list ranges from sitcom to soccer stars. Are those more of a joke, or do you really draw inspiration from all of these places? Your only musical reference is Madonna... gotta admit, I don’t hear it...so much. Where did that come from? Who are some of your real musical heroes?

Hm, I see why people get a bit confused by reading my influences. But I'm 100% serious about my influences. I've been listening to so many different types of music through the years, and after a while I got tired... These days I'm mostly listening to Motown groups like Sam Cooke, Temptations, Supremes, etc... What else? I like the indie music of the 90's, like Pavement, Ride, Lemonheads, My Bloody Valentine, etc. Ricky Gervais is an idol. Did you know he was a singer in a band called Shauna Dancing in the 80's? He was also a manager for Suede. I think you could be influenced by whatever you want, you just have to open your eyes. It's up to journalists to find out my influences, some of them do but most of them don't.

How did you get started with music? Where did you find your band mates—is there a rotating cast of characters there, or have you formed something fairly solid?

I started to play piano when I was 5 years old. Later on I played the clarinet, but I never liked the clarinet. After I heard Nirvana for the first time I wanted to play guitar, write songs and be in a band. That was at the age of 10. For almost a year I've been surrounded by the same musicians. It's good to have it that way. I like to meet new people but it's easier when you're going on tour and you know the people you're traveling with. But the live line-up could be changed, I'm not addicted to anyone.

How has your experience with Bandcamp and the “pay what you want” scheme been working for you? Are people paying any sum of money for your album? How has Häleri Records been helpful for you?

Actually I don't know that much about Bandcamp or how much people pay, you'll have to ask Häleri about that. In Sweden, they don't have many record stores left, so the most money comes in during concerts. I like the fact that you can find my album on Spotify, so Häleri has been doing something good for the rest of the world. Häleri is a small company with a lot of contacts.

What do you admire about North American pop music, and what do you dislike about it? In your opinion, is your take on pop somehow different from what is going on this side of the world?

Wow... that was a hard one. I mean punk, hip-hop, grunge comes from America. That's a lot. And everything that was going at the CBGB'S in the 70's. The alternative music scene would be nothing today without Velvet Underground. I like the D.I.Y. attitude in America. From what I've heard, it's much harder to tour in America than in Europe. With my hand on my weak Swedish heart I can't come up with anything negative.

I love the last track on your album, “My Kid Could Paint That.” Does the song reference the documentary of the same name?

Thank you! I've never seen that documentary, but I've heard from a lot of people who asked me about the same thing, so I better check it out. I once had a discussion with some friends about art, when one of my friends said: "my kid could paint that." I like the sentence and I like the song. A good song deserves a good name.

Your song “Opportunity Knocks,” sounds like it might be about yourself. What are you “tired of,” and what opportunities are helping you develop a new attitude towards life?

An opportunity is often something you can't control and when you least excpect it, opportunity knocks. It could be about anything or anyone. I write most of my songs from a "I-perspective" but "I" doesn't necessary have to be about me. In this case, it's more about everyone, a common fact. I hope I'll have the opportunity to come to America soon.

What if folks out there wanted MORE Lars Ludvig Löfgren? What would you recommend they hear from you, and where would they go to get it?

People should come to my shows. To see an artist live is a feeling that you can't download. Otherwise, I don't know how to help them. They should pay my MySpace page a visit every now and then and they should read Tome To The Weather Machine daily. I'm going to record some songs this summer, I might post something on MySpace during that period.

Onward: what’s next for your project? Are there any other bands that you play with?

At the moment I don't play in another band. I don't have time for that now. I sometimes play with some friends for fun, nothing else. There will be a new Lars Ludvig Löfgren album next year, that's a promise!

Finneyerkes

Gather and Sing / Without End (dotcontemporary, 2009)

For: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Aarktica, Machinefabriek

Byline: Whoa.

Do you remember the first time you heard "Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed and you nearly lost control of all bodily functions when a disembodied voice rose from sustained guitar tone saying, "the car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel"?. Or when Jim Caviezel's narration from Terrance Malick's "The Thin Red Line" pierces through the epic breakdown on Explosions in the Sky's "Have You Passed Through This Night"? These chilling moments were so effective because of their conservative usage, they came, delivered, and you never heard anything like them again. Now, imagine listening to an entire album built on this idea of the spoken word punctuating, and in a sense narrating, subtle passages of skeletal post-rock, providing and accumulating meaning to the brooding instrumental segues. That, in essence, is Finneyerkes. Finneyerkes is composed of Matt Finney from Millsboro, Alabama and Randy Yerkes from Virginia (Finneyerkes, get it?). Randy supplies the gorgeous, brooding music that moves fluidly between dual guitar melody driven post-rock to Labradford-inspired ambient passages, that underpin Matt Finney's raspy, southern accented poetry. For being both geographically displaced and coming from completely different backgrounds (Yerkes: music, Finney: literature) the disparate parts of Finneyerkes never compete for space or top billing. Finney's tape recorder clicks on, punctuating (if there is a better word I haven't heard it) Yerekes delicate passages with his perennially somber (and strangely sexual) glimpses into politics, the dark side of human nature, and geographic isolation. Yerkes music is clearly in the drivers seat in these compositions, channeling the melancholy, delicate prettiness, and overall structure for the compositions. Finney provides the details, the overarching themes and story line. He is the navigator, pointing us straight into the southern heart of darkness. If you think that an album full of these seriously serious flashes of spoken word moodiness gets diminishing returns on repeated listens, you are wrong. These relatively short EP's gain meaning on repeated listens, even when you know where and when a line is going to absolutely floor you, destroy your once hopeful optimism, Finney still delivers. Just like "Dead Flag Blues", you know it is coming, but nothing ever prepares you for it.

Ryan H.

**Editors note: We usually review albums that came out in 2010, but for something this amazing we backpedalled a little bit. Please download the albums below.

Download their entire discography here

Ambassador Engine

Live Dismally EP (Act So Big Forest, 2010)

For: Fennesz, The Books, Tim Hecker

Byline: “Live Dismally” is the new “Live Hopefully”. Download this.

It has occurred to me, in writing these funny little posts about the weird and wonderful world of musical meanderings, that you, the readers, may be interested to know more details about the histories behind some of the artists that we cover here at the TOME. Come to think of it, I myself would like to know more about the histories behind some of the artists we cover at the TOME. Alas, there is sometimes, of course, a problem with this, and that is that often we just don’t know anything about the artists we are covering here at the TOME. These folks are just sending us their records without nary a word, nary a notion, nary a Wikipedia article on who they are or where in the hell they are coming from. They’re wondering if we’re going to read, wondering if we’re going to listen, and then patiently wondering if we’re going to post. Well, our friend Ambassador Engine here is worthy of a post. Likely, if his upcoming full-length on the Fort Collins-based Act So Big Forest Collective’s label follows on the promise of this quite pleasant Live Dismally EP, the dude is worth two posts. He is also, therefore, worthy of probing research, and since there's not a whole lot of info on him or his work, I have decided to do my best to construct the life and times of a young man who calls himself “Aaron,” casually, and “Ambassador Engine” formally. With this, I present to you, a brief history of Ambassador Engine, as pieced haphazardly together through MySpace blog notes and his newest release, Live Dismally.

*shuffles notes*

June 6th, 2007 - In which a child named Sand Castles is born in the town of Greeley, Colorado. His birth is both immaculate and phenomenal, the event occurs with a small spark that builds gradually toward a blinding light charged with kinetic harmonic frequencies, finally exploding into fireworks of beautiful pain—brief, fractal images appear before his mothers eyes and terrorize her ears in manic stereo; It’s her entire life flashing before her in a whirlwind moment where time itself is reduced to a three-second final orgasmic flash. The exhaustive experience is enough to kill her, and after the doctor cuts the umbilical cord he brands something onto his forehead: the words “Save the Date” are written backwards beneath the letters “A” and “E”. Sand Castles is born into sadness. He has no father or mother, and immediately recognizes the smell of death that constantly surrounds him from the meat processing factories that pollute the airs of his hometown. The rest of his life will be barren, hollow landscapes interspersed with colorful characters whose fleeting appearances will guide him through his journey. From the first day of his life, he knows better things are waiting for him, something he’s reminded of every day he looks in the mirror.

July 16th, 2007 - In which the four-week-old child who ages and matures with a magical, fast-forward pace is put up for adoption and shipped over seas to Niigata, Japan where he will spend the early part of his life. He is taken in by a native of the region who teaches him Japanese and explains the healing, empowering and emotional potential of playing the drums. Sand Castles takes his drumset with him everywhere he goes from that moment forth, and records himself playing in train stations... train stations of the future. These are trains that use maglev technology to travel at supersonic speeds across vast distances and at times speed gracefully through underwater tunnels. Sand Castles controlled, linear drumming become a catalyst for his educational career, as he learns the intricate secrets of controlling electronic tones, collected samples, and flickers of static. He can hear his dreams, and he is cultivating skills to document them. He is learning that life is a journey, one that is short in reality, but long and broad in imagination. His destiny is becoming clearer by the second.

September 21, 2008 - In which Sand Castles completes his training in Niigata and returns to Colorado. Realizing his prophecy as previously foreseen by the man who aided in his miraculous birth, Sand Castles changes his name to Ambassador Engine.

September 30th, 2008 - In which Ambassador Engine takes a job driving semi trucks between Ft. Collins and Greeley, Colorado through the night. He does this for two years, living in a world harmonic stasis where time is signified in flashing truck lights whirring by his driver-side window. He is only awake at night. The trucks that pass are ghosts; they’re not really there. Ambassador Engine is sad in his current state of reality, but his drums are there to comfort him. He discovers tempo, and locks into a stately march toward an unknown goal, his chin up. It helps him get by. It passes the time. His prophecy has only been partially fulfilled up to this point. There must be something better on the horizon, and he knows this to be true.

May 17th, 2010 - In which Ambassador Engine has quit his job of driving trucks and time travels to the future in hopes of finding more for his life. Though he’s dropped into a future of a world devastated, one plagued by economic crises across the ocean, and oil slicks dividing the seas into models of filth, he still calls this chapter “Live Hopeful.” His document of the trip paints an expansive terrain that folds over itself slowly, progressively. It’s spliced with diaphanous synths that trickle a lightly beautiful melody, and build in volume and speed. His life is reaching an apex he’s never imagined or envisioned until just this moment. His heart is racing. He wants to help the world, and he knows just how to do it. His scatter-shot drums can give hope to the world. His melodious synths can give hope to the world. His droning guitars can give hope to the world. He sketches his final notes on a sonic tablet of tape and returns home.

April 16, 2010 - In which Ambassador Engine travels back in time to the present, and has just closed the first book in a forth-coming volume about his life that is still currently in the works. It’s a brief, vibrant summation of the first four years of his existence and chronicles seasons of change, growth, maturity, melancholy, creativity, heart, and optimism. His life up to now has been a dramatic crescendo, the first of more to come, he realizes. He gets on his computer, which has just finished mixing down the final cut of Live Dismally, and composes an e-mail...

—Craw’z 5/5/2010

Free Download of Live Dismally EP

Ambassador Engine Official MySpace

Act So Blog Forest

**Note: Almost none of the above is true. Except the parts about how good this music is.

Javelin

No Más (Luaka Bop, 2010)

For: The Go! Team, Junior Senior, Max Tundra

Byline: Chillwave marches on, but in an intriguing new direction, pulling samples and stylistic influences previously unexplored within the genre, resulting in a uniquely fun experience sure to find its way into indie-kid mix-tapes for months to come. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission by inyourspeakers, LLC.

Please read full review here

...Javelin are at their best when their ideas are grounded, focused, and fully realized, and at their worst when they’re not, and the divide is fairly easy to recognize. The more clear-cut, single-worthy tracks find Javelin in top form. The best of these, “Oh! Centra,” is marvelously done—infectious, fun, and well constructed with a catchy hook, goofy rap (in a weird, hilarious chipmunk voice waxing about kangaroos, cats, and strange yet-to-be-coined dances like something called “the monkey foot”), and overall flow of a great hip hop track complete with stylish breaks in the beat and culminating with a wind down in the mix....

...But if we can indeed treat this as the singles collection it sounds like, we can start to dig into where No Más is an exciting triumph. Musically, Javelin provide a lot of flavors to digest, and they’re all equally tasty, defined, and blended to proportionate perfection. There’s soul, R&B, electro, breakbeat, hip hop, funk, and even old school sit-com-like themes: Javelin’s influences are fractured, diverse, and combine abstractly in a way that manages to be weird without delving into outsider territory or holding pop culture at arm’s length. “Intervales Theme” and “Susie Cues” have the feel of the Go! Team jamming on the corner of Sesame Street while “Dep” finds the band slowing the tempo down into a soulful ELO-style ballad complete with mellow cellos and wah-wah-ed and warbled guitars. The beats have a percussive pep as snares are always kept appropriately tight and crisp making the backbeats really pop while samples and instruments remain varied and diverse, ranging from flutes to kalimbas, offering a uniquely layered, multi-textured sound....

—Craw'z 5/4/2010

Javelin via Luaka Bop Official Website

Mi Ami

Steal Your Face (Thrill Jockey, 04.2010)

For: Black Eyes, Pre, Suicide, "Lightning Bolt meets reggae" (thanks Mike Black)

Byline: A little more than a year after 2009’s Watersports, the no-wave rockers returns with a sprawling, menace-filled album that combines abrasive noise-punk with a heavy, dub-influenced rhythm section. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission by inyourspeakers, LLC.

Please read full review here

...Fully engaging Steal Your Face is a tricky thing to do. In just over a year Mi Ami have managed to gut their dub-heavy, post-punk African polyrhythm and emerge with something that shoves the abrasiveness, no-wave guitar squalor, and percussion-as-weapon drumming to the front of the mix. The unrestrained viciousness that rode shotgun to Mi Ami’s deeply rhythmic drum and bass tracks on Watersports is now in the driver’s seat. Intense? Yes. But while Mi Ami may be hard to keep up with, they have never sounded better. It is difficult to conceive of this massive amount of sound coming from a trio; every member seems to be playing at least two other roles. Take singer-guitarist Daniel Martin-McCormick, it is hard to imagine him even being able to hold a guitar while he unleashes his characteristic banshee screeches and semi-coherent babble. But here, even when his vocal gesticulations are turned up to 11, his guitar grinds, spews razor sharp shrapnel staccato riffs, and plays gorgeous tremolo picked post-rock build ups…all within the first minute of the album opener “Harmonics (Genius of Love)”. The colossal rhythm section of bassist Jacob Long and drummer Damon Palmero bolster Martin-McCormick’s ecstatic, straight-to-the-jugular diatribes on secrets, Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen and hipster cynicism by laying down thick grooves of menacing third-world doom.

This is how Steal Your Face operates, never willing to be pinned down or to come up for air, each movement is shoved under the bus of each approaching explosion. The polyrhythm groove that dominated Watersports are still here in spades, but have been pared down enough to allow a busier, hotter, and noisier Mi Ami to bulldoze their cavernous drumming under a teetering monument to visceral sound blasts. Six songs long, with five-certified burners, “Dreamers” is a much needed reprieve after two hyper-kinetic long players. “Dreamers” is just dreamy enough to be compared favorably to Algeria’s finest “Desert Rock” band Terrakaft, who marry fractured blues riffs with native tribal drumming. Mi Ami are heirs to an era that saw The Clash’s pilgrimage to Jamaica and Fugazi’s big F-U to skinheads by playing unabashedly funky bass lines during their break downs. Far from breaking ground, and they know it, Mi Ami pushes their noise-dub freakouts to the limit, just to see what they can get away with...

Ryan H.

Mi Ami Myspace

XLR8R Interview: