No Eyed Bird

IVG is the third release by French label Poutre Apparente featuring more than a baker’s dozen of tracks split between various artists. This CD version put out by Born Bad Records (tracks are in a different order) is for those who prefer listening digitally to their experimental music. The themes and sounds of the CD are certainly disparate, spread across the release in haphazard fashion. Blending together tracks from some of the most experimental of the avant-garde artists of the time, IVG shows us the temporal uncertainty of an almost undefinable genre, being created in a time that was post-industrial, post-modern, and certainly post-punk. Instead of being melded together as a cohesive movement, the electronic, poppy, and punky tracks on the CD are like islands reaching towards each other through the receding waterline, almost-but-not-quite joined. In this same way, we see all the different types of influences to New Wave/No Wave on the release. A few different tracks stand out for different reasons. For example, track 4 “Indicateur Ou Drageur” by Nini Raviolette references French mod pop and 1960s rock ‘n’ roll with its fuzzboxes and heavy reverb. Track 11 “La Roue De Bicyclette” by D.D.A.A. is a droney, minimalistic presentation of hypnotic repetition. Finally track 12 “Le Manoir Du Chat Noir” by Atom Cristal is quite synth-heavy, exploring the on-the-verge world of synthpop atmospherics and analog drum machines. IVG is by no means an easy listen, and even at its roughly 40 minutes might seem lengthy. However, with each new listen, one can find beauty and musical order in the apparent abrasiveness of the tracks, and come to understand a whole era of music a bit better.

Bitcrush is a solo project of Mike Cadoo, focusing upon rock-based musical elements. Shimmer And Fade is a remastered reissue of the 2005 digital release of the same name (this time out on CD, limited to 1000 copies) and it includes 4 bonus tracks. The art references the original, but it is slightly different, being a bit cleaner.

Moving on to the music, the CD begins with dissonant, droney guitars layered over each other, signaling the album’s mood, austere and introspective, and set over sludgy, spacey rhythms. Distant and melodic, Cadoo’s music slowly explores harmonies and textures without making the music too experimental and unforgiving. Reminiscent of rock/metal-based shoegaze projects such as Jesu, Cadoo favors instrumentals over vocals, and makes sure that guitars don’t overpower the sound, using them only as a way to layer smooth, complex polyphonies over each other. The tracks also incorporate Cadoo’s previously honed skills and know-how of breakbeat rhythms and glitchy production. While most of the tracks are Warp-worthy, the real gems are (surprisingly) the tracks that sound a lot more rock than electronic. Warm and optimistic, they are listenable and easy to follow. For example, track 3 “No Bridge No Water” is a five-minute exposition of brightly melodic synths and strong alternative rock guitar riffs. More pop-structured than the other tracks, the song unabashedly skirts the line between accessibility and sophistication. Track 10 “When Swallowing Becomes Difficult” sounds like something off Ghostly International, being cute yet introspective, with a touch of bittersweet euphoria. These two tracks stand out from the others and bring to the album a bit of avant-pop energy from within a much more downtempo sound.

Bitcrush - When Swallowing Becomes Difficult (30s clip)

Marvin Ayres is a British composer of ambient soundscapes, mixing together minimalistic, yet dynamic melodies that swirl around different genres. A master of polyphony, Ayres draws from the harmonic traditions of Medieval plainchant, to the glory of Renaissance vocal works, to the ultra-experimental pieces of the musical genius Gyorgy Ligeti. By combining the breathtaking beauty of repetitive melodic themes with the movement of sound flowing in and out of dramatic tension, Ayres creates music that resides between glorious and muted, pious and indifferent, beautiful and worn. The CD opens with “Androgynous Weave,” an almost perverse reversal of the sacred minimalism of Arvo Part. Repetitive and hypnotic, it certainly leaves a mark on the mind, but with a decidedly barren tone. Track 8 “Do You Hear Me Now?” sounds like Medieval plainchant, but with a beautiful mix of polyphony, building up to an almost sacrosanct wall of piety, but pulling us out of our dreams of the old by layering a thick barrier of reverberation and clean-cut audio. Most of the CD brings a sense of barrenness and austerity to the listener, with a slight touch of pessimism. However, by listening close, one can find the shimmering light of emotional apex at the beginning of track 2 “Soured Alchemy,” bringing to the audience a sense of finality and peace, executed beyond the bounds of temporality.

Yet another offering of electro from the French label Kitsune Music, German duo Jens Moelle and Ismail Tuefekci (Digitalism) adds a bit of power-pop flavor to the wider genre of electro-house with the CD album release Idealism. With Daft Punk’s experimentation of using less sample-based production in favor of more synths, Digitalism carries the ball further, using synths to replace the traditional role of guitars without being as abrasive as their predecessors. For example, track 3 “I Want, I Want” is a jangly post-punk little number, complete with that classic drumset groove, divorcing the sound from the hold of drum machines that dominates the whole electro-house genre. Track 7 “Pogo” on the other hand, sounds like a poppier Joy Division song, reminding one of The Killers with its power-pop straight rock drive, and 1/8 note basslines. The duo even manages to touch upon the sounds of 80s New Romantic with track 12 “Apollo-Gize.” However, even apart from the virtuosity of extracting the essential nostalgia of the 80s, Moelle and Tuefekci really bring that magical groove that is so necessary to disco-variations. Track 5 “Digitalism In Cairo” shows off the duo’s skills in chopping up samples, and track 14 “Jupiter Room” just lays down a humongous house groove epitomizing the electro-house style. In all, Digitalism’s release Idealism is a danceable, yet melodic piece of work.

Digitalism - Pogo (YouTube Video)

Two experimentalist groups from New Jersey collaborate in “Hear Less/ No Good Trying:” Dälek, an alternative hip hop duo comprised of MC Dälek as vocals and Oktopus in production, and Ifwhen, ex-All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors with Merc (guitar, production, vocals), Kentaro (bass), Mary MacDowell (keyboards, viola), and Yuko Sueto (optical controller).

“Hear Less (Seymour)” opens with a twang of a guitar, grinding bass, a jarring organ, and drumbeats, set in minor key. This track exudes a dark atmosphere, reminding you of original hip hop meets Phantom of the Opera. Both groups are influenced by shoegazer band My Blood Valentine and it shows in this opening track with the distortion and droning riffs during the bridge, emulating The Beatle’s psychedelic rock song “Revolution 9.” In the end, the jarring organ and bass are emphasized in a repetitive, dissonant melody that eventually dissolves with the guitar ‘twang’ heard in the beginning.

The second track “No Good Trying” opens with a heavy bass like the first track, a drum machine and acoustic guitar which emphasizes the percussionist techniques, similar to Kaki King’s “Ritual Dance” as heard in August Rush. The melting styles of Dälek and Ifwhen produce yet another song that brings about a feeling of inertia or reverse momentum. When they introduce an electric organ, it gives the song a Celtic feel. The bridge shifts from a slower tempo hip hop to a faster vibrating organ blending with keyboard and guitar, bringing in a jazzy ambience seemingly set in 3/4 time. Beginning with guitar riffs and ending with cymbals, this is another experimental track fusing sampling and shoegazing.

The third track is a Deadverse Remix of “No Good Trying.” Opening with celestial keyboard, drums and intensifying echoing vocals, the song eventually distorts the vocals to the point of incomprehensible language and dissolves completely. In the last track, the Deadverse Remix of “Hear Less” opens with lyrics sung in echoing acapella. The drums enter, as the song alternates snippets of an electric organ and a pan flute set in different beats, creating yet another psychedelic ambience.

Overall, the collaboration of these amazing experimentalist and alternative hip hop groups produce unique industrial hip-hop, effectively using their sampling and shoegazing to exude a dark atmosphere of dissonant and amorphous sounds. Yet, it only makes you want more of this fusion of alternative hip-hop and psychedelic rock.

Unsettled On An Old Sense Of Place is a release by Gustavo Aguilar, experimental percussionist. Throughout the CD, Aguilar pieces together different bits of avant-garde electronic, jazz, and percussion to create challenging tracks of various lengths. Although comprised of only 6 tracks, each track contains plenty of complex ideas made for the listener to digest. Aguilar employs the help of other very accomplished artists to help with vocals, strings, and a variety of other instruments to bring forth the essence of tonal balance through the scraping, the tapping, the plucking, of various materials. In track 2 “Contrafactum For Scelsi,” Aguilar puts his percussionist tendencies to use as he taps out a series of sounds from the different surfaces available on a guitar, going beyond what is normally thought of as playing (on the strings). He shows off his virtuosity in percussion by showing us syncopated, accented notes, building in intensity as he presents the whole range of energies present in such a performance. Track 6 “Wendell’s History” is a track featuring poet Wendell Berry’s work, crisp vocals layered over hypnotic, sparkling glockenspiel-playing. Quite possibly the most amazing track on the CD is track 4 “Dirac’s Theory,” (named after physicist Paul Dirac) a unique 3-minute long drum solo. Playing only a snare drum, Aguilar shows us once again not only his virtuosity on percussion, but also the possibility of sounds that exist (or can exist) within one single instrument. The tracks on this CD might be slightly abrasive at times, but they certainly yank the listener (and the musician) out of their comfort zones, showing them the possibility of sounds that are not popularly utilized.

Gustavo Aguilar - Dirac’s Theory (Clip)

KFJC will broadcast live from Earthdom in Shin-Ohkubo, Tokyo, Japan. The live broadcast will start at 2am PST(6pm Tokyo time) both days and will be rebroadcast starting at 6pm Pacific Time each day (Monday August 25th and Tuesday August 26th 2008).

KFJC is committed to bringing our listeners an unique experience in radio, netcast and video streaming. For many years the Japanese underground music scene has been active and innovative in creating compelling sounds. Unfortunately many of these music projects will rarely perform outside of Japan. KFJC is traveling to Japan to shed some light on a few of these more unknown projects, to provide an opportunity for them to share their creativity in a live setting with listeners all over the world

Band Line Up:

Wildly schizophrenic, Venetian Snares latest offering Detrimentalist can best be described as auditory cocaine. Alone, all nine songs are 4-6 minute breakcore panic attacks, yet when listened to in order an uncanny cohesiveness emerges. As a genre breakcore has an incredibly liberal interpretation, but Detrimentalist may be one of its few quintessential examples. Uninhibited and wildly abstract, the album thrives in its own recklessness. It is laden with arcade style passages and will sound familiar to anyone who has played UGA’s video game Rez, in fact I’m damn surprised Venetian wasn’t on that soundtrack.

Any album with a song named “Poo Yourself Jason” must be approached with a degree of levity, but don’t be fooled into thinking that Venetian’s not going to deliver some epic cuts. Namely the culminating “Bebikukorica Nigiri,” which I’m certain would be the song playing if MegaMan and Link were ever fighting to the death on top of a New York highrise. “Nigiri” differs from other tracks because it has a motive which comes back more ornamented and inspired each time around. Yet, the contrapuntal textures Venetian massages into songs like “Sajtban” and “Circle Pit” demonstrate his versatility and are equally engaging.

Detrimentalist’s longest and most sporadic track is “Flashforward,” a 400 second tour de force reminiscent of the earlier, rawer Chemical Brothers. “Flashforward” is in effect a microcosm of the entire album; Atonality coaxed into confluence by an artist who is often eccentric, but never dull.

Julie Fowlis is a Gaelic singer from the island of North Uist, in Scotland. In Scottish Gaelic tradition, individuals compose little songs to reflect the events and mundane business of daily life. Fowlis in this album Cuilidh puts together a collection of 12 songs taken from the compositions of others on the island. Slightly rustic, and intensely personal, the album is a deep dive into the oral story-telling tradition of the culture. The melodies are moving and the characters memorable, and weave together a small microcosm of the people on the edge of the world. All the songs are sung in Gaelic to preserve the original forms, but the booklet luckily provides English translations for everything, allowing the general audience to peer into a language that is now spoken by about only 60,000 people in the world. Deeply touching, the songs touch upon lost love, hard lives of patriotic war vets, long journeys at sea… Track 2 “Mo Ghruagach Dhonn” for example is a love song lamenting a man’s lover going abroad to Australia. A beautiful ballad, the song reminds me of the medieval troubador music of Bernart de Ventadorn and his song “La Douza Votz” with their similar themes of lost love and acceptance. Track 9 “Oran Nan Raiders” is a song about a group of men who were promised land if they fight in the war (WWI). However, they are betrayed by the government and they decide to take matters into their own hands by attempting to seize the land themselves. Track 6 “Set Of Jigs” sounds like something straight from a medieval village, drawing from traditional European dance music structures. A big chunk of 6/8 time music, joyful tracks like these offset the more bittersweet and more tragic songs on the CD. Traditional and personal, the album is immediately accessible to the general listener with its focus on how folk music can fit into modern pop acoustic. (Believe me, medieval ballad/troubador music influenced a LOT of modern music!)

No Eyed Bird interviewed Sa DingDing on Saturday, July 19th when she played a short set at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.

The show in San Francisco was Sa DingDing’s first in the US.

The review of her album Alive is available here.

Here is a transcription of the interview: (More after the jump, audio clips included!)

Read the rest of this entry »

Looking for lounge and dancefloor music? “BatBox” is surely the album you’re looking for. Released in early February 2008 by Miss Kitten, also known as Caroline Hervé, a French electronica singer-songwriter and DJ, the songs are sung nearly entirely in English, reveals a blatant influence from goth culture and mixes diverse electroclash melodies with pop and ska vocals. The cover art is designed by Rob Reger, creator of the character “Emily the Strange.”

The opening track “Batbox” emits a feeling of mod culture with its new wave elements, and simple yet attractive spacey music. But wait, this is just the opening track! “Kitten is High” opens with a fast beat introduction, with vocals similar to Katy Rose’s “Watching the Rain.” Her singing style is reminiscent of a poetic feel. Enhanced with melodies and beats of party dance techno, it gives you a feel of the nonconformist individual at the party scene who dances to her own beat. The lyrics are simple, short, and succinct, a repeating style Miss Kitten uses as she tells of a fun goth epic.

In the third track “Solidasarockstar,” using synthesizers, drums, and industrial music produced by whirring electric sounds, it seems to tell of a story of identifying and abusing a rockstar. Combined with the industrial melodies, it gives you an image of Edward Scissorhands turned into a rockstar. The next track “Grace” opens with drums and cymbals, followed by clapping that signals the next overlaying instrumental–a low bass. With the reoccurring snippets of a grinding steel background, an organ, and a rumbling low bass, this haunting echo of a three-layered melody is reminiscent of Run Lola Run. “Grace” tells of meeting grace by losing herself in bass.

The fifth track “Barefoot Tonight” opens with grinding bass met with a mix of clapping, ethereal male and female vocals. She sings of her interest in guitars and lyrics, and her rise as a kick-ass barefoot vocalist. Towards the end she brings in the clapping once more, while shouting “Shout!” This gives me an image of Nana meets Wir Sind Helden. The style reminds me of “Guten Tag” by Wir Sind Helden. This song interweaves goth, metal, and pop.

The next track “Wash ‘n’ Dry” opens with slow ethereal vocals and just as haunting echoing beat met with repetitive industrial interludes. In this song, Miss Kitten’s vocals emulates the style of ska, especially Gwen Stefani in No Doubt. She brings in synthesizers, an electric keyboard, and slows the music down a notch. The bridge is reminiscent of her favorite use of bass produced with low, gutteral sounds. Overall this song is spacey with organ elements in the background, especially near the end. This depressing song juxtaposed with “Pollution of the Mind,” the seventh track, has resounding differences. In “Pollution of the Mind,” it opens with a fast beat and vocals similar to “Kitten is High.” Met with a lower fast drum tempo and a third layer with an organ, the organ is let go when the chorus is sung full out. Keeping the first two melodies the vocals begin again, bringing cymbals, and organs whilst singing of motivation “You, lost in sadness and pain/ Sun can shine again…” As the end approaches, she loses each melody layer by layer until only the first beat is left.

“Machine Joy” opens with record scratching and blatant hip hop influence with a bass of extremely low beatbox. Singing about DJ-ing, and introducing drums, this song is similar to the 80’s hip hop, particularly Michael Jackson. The melodies only contribute to the picture and feeling of the resounding chorus “Joy is in the rhythm of the machine.” She ends the song with a fast sixteen-beat drum and beatbox.

“Metalhead” opens with three melodies, two drum beats and an overlaying short spurts of an organ. The beats are yet again reminiscent of hip hop dance music. The bridge introduces metal industrial music, and surprises you giving an eerie feeling as she whispers, “Let’s take a record play it loud and fool around.” The finale ends with metal industrial melodies turned techno. This song is a great juxtaposition of metal and techno.

The eleventh track “Sunset Strip” opens with drums and rap. Met by a techno interlude, the low drum bass is mixed while the chorus is sung ethereally. Again, this is another fine example of the juggling and brewing talents of Miss Kitten with opposing styles of techno and pop.

The last track “Playmate of the Century” opens with a fast 16 beat and sings about the truth of the music industry. Mixing a drum producing similar music as a bongo drum, and an organ, the song ends with much energy and the style is reminiscent of 80’s music met with spacey undertones.

Overall, Miss Kitten’s “Bat Box” screams “diversity!” She mixes electroclash and New Wave (mainly ska) very well, and brings some pop and definite goth culture influence. However predictable the melodies are, they are fun to listen to, with surprising tones of industrial and metal music.

Check her website for lyrics and more! If you want to buy her album, go here!

Death in June is Douglas Pearce, and Douglas Pearce’s new album is another offering of brooding neo-folk entitled The Rule of Thirds. Against a backdrop of only a strumming guitar and an array of subtle, but ominous sound effects Pearce croons through thirteen haunting tracks. The hollowness of Pearce’s voice is similar to that of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, though he does not possess the late singers prowess for songwriting. For an album with such scant instrumentation to be compelling it must contain lyrics that are nothing short of poetic (i.e. Leonard Cohen, early Dylan), and while there are breaths of thoughtful prose on Rule, it is clear that Pearce is no James Joyce. The lyrics on songs like “Good Mourning Sun”; And on this Winter’s Day/I can’t drink it away/I feel it’s here to stay/The rains they seem to pour and pour/And, what is more I’ll always settle to score, and “Idolatry”;You come and go/You’re the Emptiness/That was meant to be/The missing piece/Of the Puzzle of Me left me wanting and a little disappointed that the 52 year old Pearce could not contrive some more introspective verse. That being said, there are a couple creditable tracks on the album, namely “My Rhine Atrocity”; which sees Pearce’s minimalist style adding hues to his sobering words, and the angst-ridden “Takeyya,” which pits a catchy chord progression against Pearce’s biting British accent. The most resonant cut is the finale “Let Go,” a song that flourishes in its languorousness, and finally accomplishes what I imagine was Pearce’s intent for the album as a whole. The Rule of Thirds would be ideal to put in your player on a sunny Sunday hangover afternoon, as you sentimentally muse bad decisions and analyze the state of your failing life, but if you’d prefer not to enter this dark realm, I’d just suggest a cup of coffee.

Canada’s Kataklysm has always been somewhat unique, a band characterized seemingly by their extremity but also their versatility. Yet, their new album prevail, only seems to showcase these talents to a minor degree. “Prevail” opens with the title track, with a quote from Last Man Standing, the 1996 film inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, where a young Ronin pits two gangs together in order to save a town. While they have sampled film clips for their songs before, this seems unorthodox source material for a death metal band indeed…and it seems as though this is a sign that Kataklysm is flirting with the intellectual or highbrow as it did in previous albums. But it doesn’t account for a whole lot of deviance from standard death metal tropes on the rest of the album.

The quote itself is the perfect beginning to the pounding, and unrelenting furor of the first track, blurting “went to hell…everybody ends up dead, it’s just a matter of when.” Yet the song itself seems to be about prevailing through this hell, and thus it seems about the futility of such an action, which is curious considering the power incited by “Prevail.” Its inconsistency is perhaps saved by the lyric “I will be discouraged and turn it into rage…” Perhaps another lyric of theirs that can sum up part of their approach on this album was “there’s no time to contemplate/settle this hate to devastate.” Which is characteristically consistent with their brand of death metal, but it occasionally seems immature for a band known to release multi-themed, multi-faceted songs such as those from 2006’s “Temple of Knowledge” These lyrics are interesting indicators of the rest of the album: a good effort marred by some inconsistencies in theme and the execution therein, but altogether redeemed by certain qualities.

The album is solid, and an indicator that Kataklysm hasn’t lost its edge on this eleventh album. What follows is a very good, if perhaps uneven and just-above-standard death metal album, featuring tangible Iron Maiden influences, which is usually a sign of quality for any Death Metal band, and Kataklysm is no different.

Guitar solos appear to be somewhat sparse on this album, which is unfortunate, because Jean-Francois Dagenais ‘s lead guitar work is at times, excellent, evocative of Katakylsm’s roots. The solo from “Blood and Heaven” seems the spawn of “The Thing That Should Not Be” and any Dimebag Darrell solo from “Far Beyond Driven” on…and an astonishing outro that shows that Kataklysm have not forgotten their other obvious influences: Maiden, and Death. So many bands claim to garner inspiration from such bands, but Kataklysm’s “Prevail”, like many other new albums by artists on Nuclear Blast, actually has song construction similar to their forefathers. Listen to the brilliant instrumental track on the end of the album, “The Last Effort,” which recalls Maiden’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Furthermore, sweep arpeggios on “The Vultures Are Watching” are in league with some of the best, proving that death metal bands can still hold their own against power metal’s ridiculous instrumental prowess.

That being said, what is most refreshing about this album is their frequent bursts of melodicism in many of the songs on their album, especially on “Tear Down the Kingdom,’ and “Blood in Heaven.”

Maurizio Lacano, vocalist since 1998’s “Victims of the Fallen World,” continues to pound home his death metal growl that never comes close to the idiotic “cookie monster”: sounds that other bands use simply in order to call themselves death metal. But Lacano is definitely the real deal… and some of his growls and high screams harken back to those of Chuck Schuldiner, incorporating backing vocals that work far better than one would expect.

Mark Duhamel’s blast beats make an appearance but for the most part are underemphasized, and he shows remarkable restraint at many points, slowing down tempos to give off strangely simple yet effective 4/4 rhythms.

The lyrics, unfortunately, do not match up to the musicianship, and they can be as uneven and awkward as some of Dave Mustaine’s weaker offerings, or those of fellow Nuclear Blast Records devotee Alexi Laiho. But the musicianship of “Prevail” is almost enough to overshadow this, like most albums of the aforementioned artists, whose songwriting qualities almost always have, well, “prevailed” over their dubious lyricism. And So does Kataklysm.

Still, the songs are not perfect, “The Throne of Sorrow,” for example, contains an intro riff that seems to belong to a nu-metal band, and the following unrelenting pre-chorus tremolo riffs seem to simply exist for the sake of repenting for this mortal sin. Fortunately, this and other songs come out swinging for all their flaws, versatile, never quite similar. “The Throne of Sorrow” shifts into a melodic mode for a semi-clean riff leading into a melodic distorted riff and then a great guitar solo, so these flaws are somewhat negligible.

But only somewhat.

3.5 of 5 devil horns

For more on Kataklysm, check out www.kataklysmrocks.com

Ebb and flow. Dissonance and Consonance. The Denouement’s full length debut Low Tide is an exercise in dualism. The Denouement is an indie rock band currently based out of Azusa, CA. While they claim to sound like Felix the Cat or King Kong, (the cartoon and movie, respectively) a more apt comparison might be a combination of the free earnestness of The Arcade Fire with the exploration of dissonance and loud/soft dynamic present on Cursive’s The Ugly Organ, and classic rock textures comparable to The Wall-era Pink Floyd. In reality, though, these comparisons simply fall short of describing the band’s sound, as they present a voice that is truly only their own.The album opens with “Addition,” a track that alternates between the calm before the storm and alarming urgency. While this kind of comparison is rarely side by side in the same song after this point, the rest of the album fulfills the varying promises made by this track and more.Every track here is a carefully woven tapestry of sound, but of course there are standouts. “Saddest Joke” drops a perfect dose of pop exactly when it is needed after slow-burner “Sleepwalking,” with singer Malachi Ward proudly proclaiming that: “my life, it doesn’t fit into a straight line.” Instrumental “12 Minutes” presents a richly textured sonic thesis. “Shake Off” mutates from ominous dirge to Cursive-inspired dance-off. Closer “Keep Hunting” bids the listener farewell from what feels like a journey along hidden path of the soul. And it truly is a path that will occupy the soul- Low Tide rides the big questions of existence, asking questions of meaning that all have pondered, but never offering the easy answers that ruin so many works of art that could be described as “issues music.” A friend described this album as “agnostic rock.” Maybe, but where The Denouement are concerned, I consider myself a believer.

The year is 1970. James Brown has just released his single “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine.” One year earlier, Sly and the Family Stone changed the funk world forever with their masterpiece Stand! It feels like funk is on the verge of being the soundtrack to solve all of the world’s ills, a reminder to keep strong and keep optimistic in an era of increasing national unrest. Along comes Breakestra, the natural culmination of the urgent need to combat despair through music.

Wait. That’s not it.

The year is 1993. This “hip-hop” thing is emerging from a street undercurrent to a prominent social and political voice. Groups like De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest are pushing hip hop forward as a true art form and a forum to combat the negativity and violence prevalent in American street culture, with language steeped in both fire and love, and a gave both forward and backward to the funk forebears to whom they derived philosophical lineage. In the midst of this changing musical landscape, Breakestra emerges, melding the best of funk optimism with a very 1993 hip-hop sense of beat dynamics.

That’s not it either.

The true story:

Breakestra was formed in 1996 as a jam session by leader Miles Tackett,  and released their first full-length, The Live Mix Part 1, in 1999. The child of a shared love of aforementioned early 1990s hip-hop and 1960s-1970s funk, their second album, 2001’s The Live Mix Part 2 captures both sounds completely and effortlessly. So-named for its hybrid production featuring live intrumentals performed by the band, sampled and mixed and then retranslated for live playing to capture both the breakbeat, sampled concepts of their hip-hop heroes along with the soul inherent to live funk. The album starts off with a 9-track break mix sampling the varied talents of Herbie Hancock and Jimmy Smith among others. The mix takes on a life of its own, and if I may indulge in a blasphemous moment of hyperbole here, manages to exceed the sum of its prestigious parts (no small feat). The rest of the album plays largely as a best-of set of funk covers, reinterpreted here for a post hip-hop generation, but maintaining the raw soul of the original compositions. While this could have easily resulted in the kind of underwhelming triteness seemingly inherent to a “covers” album, the tracks take on a life of their own in this context, momentarily making you forget that these aren’t original works through the earnestness of the performance. Truly great funk of this magnitude hasn’t come around in a very long time, and The Live Mix Part 2 will make you believe in 1970. Or 1996. Or 2001. Whatever.

You may not know it yet, but Delta Spirit is your new favorite band.

San Diego genre-benders Delta Spirit are poised to bust out of obscurity with their first full-length album, Ode To Sunshine. The band has brought their A-game on the new disc, setting themselves apart from the pack with an enigmatic and exciting debut.

Working with a decidedly rustic sound, Ode To Sunshine blends elements of jazz, folk, funk, surf, Brill Building pop and so much more, bubbling over with crisp, clean harmonies and delicious hooks.  The album is a calculated mess; and singer Matt Vasquez howls with cathartic conviction over buzzing strings and distant drums.

There is one thing that Sunshine makes clear: these boys know their way around a hook.  The verse-chorus-verse construction of “People C’mon” is irritatingly catchy, but the simplicity of its structure is refreshing and alluring.  The raucous “Trashcan” inspires a spontaneous joy with its scream-along chorus.

Delta Spirit can also create moods like no other band out there these days.  An out-of-tune piano over the clatter of barware charms the listener in “House Built For Two”, and the endless-summer feel of “Strange Vine” conjures up images of the band’s San Diego heritage.

The album’s centerpiece is no doubt “Bleeding Bells”, a departure from the rousing battle-cry of the songs that surround it on the album.  “Bells” is a slow, shaky dirge punctuated by serene horns and Vasquez’ solitary whisper. The usally brazen frontman trades in his noisy audacity for a shy and vulnerable murmur, making it the standout track on what is already a near-perfect album.

San Diego has long been a sunny utopia for artists of all types, but its knack for fostering creativity is often lost in nearby Los Angeles’ neon glow.  Skeptics may pass them off as another ‘indie/folk’ act from some granola town in California, but all the proof you need to negate that idea is in Ode To Sunshine.  From start to finish, every song is eye-opening; maybe even life-changing.

Sa DingDing, one half Han and one half Mongolian (two different Chinese ethnicities) releases Alive to the world. With her Chinese and international appeal, Sa’s US release is ambitious and perfectly timed as the Beijing Olympics commence near the album’s release date. Sa uses the various languages of Mandarin, Tibetan, Sanskrit, and her own self-created language to weave together a complex mix of musical styles that spans across pop, electronic, and the traditional music of the various ethnicities of China. For those who don’t know, there are 55 different ethnicities (minorities!) that are officially recognized and categorized by the Chinese government. In China, cultural identity is not as simple as it may appear on the surface. In this way, Sa works to bring together different cultures with the melding of different styles of music. The opening track “Mama Tian Na” shows off the variations of styles that she is capable of, from muted chants to epic drums to driving soundtrack beats reminiscent of various movements in the works of Harry Gregson Williams. This epic style is repeated in the two versions of “Alive” (tracks 2 and 8), which is delicately layered with a mix of traditional Chinese instruments along with modern rock beats and basslines. Track 7 “Flickering With Blossoms” is one of my favorites on the album, incorporating lyrics written by a woman who submitted them onto Sa’s blog, and employing a sultry downtempo instrumental track. Track 6 “Lagu Lagu,” is also of note, written in her own self-created language, binding the album together and allowing her to completely appropriate her own music in a work that is unique to Sa DingDing.

Lucibel Crater is a New York 3-piece band, cranking out bits of funk and jazz elements along with some indie shoegaze. The Family Album is a 10-track exploration of eclectic elements coupled with lush instrumentals and Leah Coloff’s singing/spoken word. Oftentimes moody and mysterious, the music definitely does not drag. For example, track 6 (”Blue Stationwagon”) is a long jazzy instrumental piece, sounding like semi-improvised explorations of sound set on top of brilliantly frenetic drumming. If The Doors had known shoegaze, they might have made something like this, bringing a harder edge to “Riders On The Storm.” Track 9 “Swimmers” broods on for the first 3 minutes of the track; the guitar theme then mixes with the drums at the 3-minute mark, congealing into a catharsis of dissonantly beautiful melodies, before abruptly ending at around 5:30, shaking the listener out of its kaleidoscope of manic action. The best piece on the CD is arguably track 7, “Where You Are,” showing off Coloff’s excellent vocal talents and enveloping the listener with a haunting, repetitive melody. Perhaps not as focused as it could be, The Family Album nonetheless showcases the project’s excellent musical ideas.

The Mountain Goats have tiptoed back onto the scene with Heretic Pride, another dreamy album of hushed acoustic pop. On Heretic Pride, The Mountain Goats touch on everything from pretty girls, cryptozoology, and singer John Darnielle’s own personal history. Darnielle writes lyrics with a remarkable candor and honesty, offering glimpses into some very personal and very specific moments. His untrained vocals add an air of earnest authenticity, and as the album goes on, you begin to feel as though he is sitting on a lawn chair in your backyard, a beer in one hand, telling these stories amongst good friends from your own hometown.

Fans will be accustomed to Darnielle’s confessional style of writing, but to unfamiliar ears, his nostalgia can become overbearing at times. While much of the tracks sparkle with Darnielle’s and bassist Peter Hughes’ distinctive chemistry, songs like “San Bernardino” and “Marduk T-Shirt Men’s Room Incident” are constantly walking the line between poetic and sappy. Both songs about long-lost lovers and relationships gone wrong, the choruses hop back and forth from cute to clingy to creepy, and just when you’re ready to skip to the next track, back to cute again.

Though the Mountain Goats perform in their usual acoustic style on Heretic Pride, they are masters of mixing it up. Their sound shifts greatly from track to track, showcasing the skills they’ve honed from a decade and a half as songwriters and performers, and proving that a simple six-string can be one of the most liberating and flexible instruments around. The Goats still sound as fresh as ever, and establish on Heretic Pride that they remain a force to be a reckoned with, and a benchmark for every kid who quits their day job in pursuit of a musical career.

On his full length debut with Stones Throw, James Pants absolutely oozes groove. There’s no other way to describe the Spokane, WA DJ/Multi-instrumentalist’s approach to music. Pants deals not in songs and hooks, but grooves that slowly creep at the edges of your brain. This is not to say that Welcome is a hookless album. The synth bass of “We’re Through” and the quietly irresistible vocoder riff of “Cosmic Rapp” will nab the listener like a bear trap on first listen. Rather, these obvious hooks service an atmosphere so thick you can breathe it. James’ layered keys and funked-up beats create an aural world so nasty and sexed up as to be almost pornographic. This strength becomes Welcome’s only major weakness as well. Pants occasionally becomes so enamored with atmosphere that he forgets to come back to earth and bring the listener along or the ride, “Prayers of the People,” in particular, overstays its welcome as more of a 2 and a half minute long experiment than an actual song. Throughout the album, Pants seems to fall in love with his own oddness and the vintage of his synths and sometimes forgets to fall in love with actual songcraft. Still, within the larger album context, “Prayers” makes a lot of sense, and most of Welcome’s finest moments come in the form of a slow creep: sounds that didn’t catch in your head the first time, but pull you further down the rabbit hole with each subsequent listen. The more time the listener gives Welcome, the more likely the listener is to fall in love with the same oddness and sounds that Pants has himself.

Producer Simon Smart’s project Sonanaut is focused on music that could be classified as ambient house/acid jazz chillout. Not quite as funky as Ninja Tune (acid jazz), nor as mainstream-sounding as Naked Music (deep house), and certainly not as experimental as Eno (experimental ambient), Smart crafts music that rests between all of these genres, incorporating clean, layered soundscapes along with some dubby beats and slow, sludgy trip-hop sonic aesthetics. In addition, he samples other sources to link to the bigger musical community. Track 8 “Don’t You Know?” is quite possibly the best one on Sinking Upwards, and brings together beautiful electronic drumbeats, phased-and-filtered synthesizers, and complex harmonies, into a piece reminiscent of some of Morgan Geist’s more abstract work. Through Smart’s smooth movements and transitions between tracks, we hear rehashes of musical themes that make up the core of previous tracks on the CD, bringing compelling coherence to the entire release. This is definitely good music for chillout fans, and many others will be interested in the collection of Sonanaut music videos as well.

When one thinks of Scandinavian 5-piece bands, they usually think of The Cardigans, which is a pretty hard act to follow. However, with The Cardigans making most of their greatest songs in the 90s and waning since then, The Beatitude, a five-piece Danish band, crashes onto the scene with some fresh new tunes. Whereas The Cardigans referred back the the 1960s mod scene with its cool, calm instrumentals and cute vocals, The Beatitude refers back to the alternative rock and grunge bands of the 1980s and 1990s with its collection of loud songs. Apart from being Scandinavian and being very good at imitating retro music (yep, 90s music is “retro” now, and I hear Nirvana songs being played on classic rock stations now), the musical styles of The Beatitude and The Cardigans aren’t too similar. Instead, The Beatitude sounds like a mixture of Weezer, The Pixies, and The Breeders, with its poppy distorted guitars and hilarious lyrics. Somehow, opening track “Jump!” reminds me a bit of Morningwood’s “Nth Degree” with its loads of fun punk energy and its very listenable melodies, giving a glimpse of the sound that makes up the rest of the CD. Not obnoxiously political, The Beatitude intelligently discusses some pretty hefty philosophical arguments with tongue-in-cheek humor. For example, in track 2 “Hymn To The Hen,” singer Karin Jonch Clausen questions the view that there is uniqueness or agency in individual consciousness (aligned with Nietzsche, Althusser, Foucalt, etc) with its critique of 18th century French Enlightenment assumptions (as well as the views of Denmark’s own Soren Kierkegaard). In track 8 “Dualism Fails” the band questions the philosophical stance that the world is separated into material and spiritual worlds; in short, they argue that the spiritual world cannot exist outside of what we can see. Hegel, of course, would not be happy. However intellectual the lyrics can be, listeners can definitely enjoy the CD at a musical level as well. Other songs of note are tracks 7 and 10 (”The World Is Wrong” and “Blown Away”). “The World Is Wrong” has a good guitar melody and a nice driving beat, whereas “Blown Away” is a cover of the song by the same name originally done by The Pixies, at a much faster pace and with a cleaner sound. Throughout the whole album, The Beatitude plays some very cool music that is definitely worth a listen. The only gripe I have is that some of the lyrics are hard to hear and it would be awesome if they were included with the packaging. In any case, if you like early 90s alternative rock and grunge, this is for you!

The fourth album from the Mars Volta finds the band pondering a difficult, but common predicament. When your last album brought a step down in both critical and commercial reception after a career previously marked by enthusiastic fans and even more enthusiastic rock journalists, how do you go about putting the pieces back together?
For The Mars Volta, the answer seems to be to go back to what has worked before. Gone are (previous album) Amputechture’s individualized songs and thematic inconsistencies. Bedlam features the return of the album as capital-A Art. Featuring a backstory involving (the band swears) a production process plagued by an evil spirit, TMV returns to the single-story concept album format with songs that are mixed to run together, much like De-loused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute before it.
The return to form is both the source of the album’s greatest strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, the songs presented are just as strong as anything on their much-lauded first two albums, and the few truly new moments definitely stand out. Especially successful is the increased emphasis on instruments other than guitar, as wildly tweaked keyboards dance throughout the entire album and tracks such as “Soothsayer” feature beautiful string and horn arrangements (and do I hear a clarinet in there?) by guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. A stronger sense of melodic focus is also both evident and welcome. However, the album feels a bit like an epileptic fit, forgoing the slower melodic breaks usually inserted by the band, and causing The Mars Volta’s trademark freneticism to grow a bit tedious at times. Bedlam can also at times feel all too familiar, as the band seems to fall back on tricks that they know will work. To be fair, though, who can blame them? The Mars Volta has returned to what works because, well… it works.

7/10

Today, we end this three-part editorial with two reviews of some very amazing, very fresh artists in the electro-house genre. Even with electro-house being relatively new (10 years young), it has had time to permeate into mainstream culture. The following two projects, however, are examples of ones that bring back the old Daft Punk - Homework aesthetic; I bring to you Justice - † (Cross) and Boys Noize - Oi Oi Oi!

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I spoke a bit about Daft Punk emerging during a time when artists such as Alice Deejay and ATB were popular. Today, we will look at electro-house itself as a genre in more detail.

In 1997, French musical geniuses Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo released the influential album Homework with its cutting edge mix of warm, funky 70s disco and cold, harsh 80s synthesizers. By layering samples on top of each other and adding in generous helpings of buzzy sounds (not the mention samples of some very famous drum machines), Daft Punk reinvented disco for a new generation that was eager to digest it (in contrast to the more established, older American population who hated disco all throughout the 80s). Fortunately, music fans got it, and understood the tongue-in-cheek, slightly eccentric way of expressing nostalgia for the older tunes. Daft Punk would go on to influence other musicians that worked around the same electro music aesthetic.

This wave of funky, cut-up disco music came be known as “French house” with its touch of heavy compression and filter sweeps. Ishkur humorously claims in his famous Ishkur’s Guide To Electronic Music that “If anything of value has ever come from France, it’s this music right here. At this point, you can’t NOT [sic] deny the genius that is Thomas Bangalter. He is the only reason why the world does not sack France.” However, France did not and does not have a monopoly on the upcoming resurgence of disco music… Read the rest of this entry »

As you all know by now, the Germans lost 0-1 to the Spanish in the UEFA Euro 2008 soccer championships. German soccer fans, please do not fret! Click here for the consolation prize to all you second-placers: Corenell Vs Lisa Marie Experience - Keep On Jumpin.’ This is a remix/cover of a disco track of the same name by Patrick Adams. Enjoy the cheesy music and the cute soccer babes, and forget the German loss! More after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

Healamonster crafts warm electronic with a bit of hip-hop in the release Nine Tons Of Blood with a bit of help from longtime collaborator Tarsier . Tracks 3 and 8 are more drum/beat-oriented, and are only fairly interesting with their spoken word layers. Better tracks would be tracks 4 and 5, with the former track (”Didn’t Even See”) including audio samples of a nostalgic childhood (who the child is we do not know), and the latter track (”Ghost Tale From New Brunswick”) telling us a masterfully-crafted story with an interesting, but ambiguous conclusion. The best tracks are tracks 2, 7, 9, and 10, which feature musical collaboration with Tarsier. With these, one can hear the influences from electronic music heavyweights Lali Puna and Solvent. Tracks 2 and 10 are the same (”Home”) with the last track being an instrumental version. Persuasive melodies and simple vocals from Healamonster and Tarsier make this the best track on the CD. Warm and melodic, the music on this CD is certainly worthy of a listen.

Already out of press vinyl release on Sweet Rot Records by heavy distortion folk band duo from Portland featuring “Meth” Matt Hunter (guitar) and “Teeth” Kyle Raquipiso (drums) should freak you out with the cover art alone. Likely the work of Raquipiso, former art school student and recipient of Sub Pop’s Loser Scholarship, the sickly orange bus paint color and balloons with killer 70’s cartoon smiles are just gently held by a buried dead hand. Meth Teeth could plausibly be buried alive, and if they are, what they create underground is a hyper hoped up retreat into blown out speaker paper 70’s folk without the creepy drone of the Vancouver WA street people they idolize. Meth teeth are horrible abominations of disgust and nightmares to all the pretty indie children frolicking Portland with their crest white strips not to mention that actual pictures of the teeth are fucking rancid. The analogy is thus: Normal teeth are folk music, clean and innocent, but after the band corrupts them with filthy distorted garage musical style over them, they become Meth Teeth. It ‘s actually the exact way the band came to be as Hunter originally began the band as an acoustic folk solo project. The group is supposedly a trio now, so for the sake of this review, lets call them a four-piece.
-johnny darko