Monday.
It’s Monday again. Groundhog Day life.
A routine that weighs heavy.
Music disrupts that which tends to stagnate our minds.
Looking forward to new tunes from this crew of misanthropes.
Mrs Magician “There Is No God”
Tag Archives: music
Hanni El Khatib “Moonlight”
There are so many great fucking records coming out this year it’s hard to believe we’re already seeing new tracks from albums in the future. The sentiment that the music industry is choking through the last breath as the life drains out seems paradoxical. Despite the evisceration of the “middle class” from music (and main street Amerikkka) new artists are making bold statements.
Hanni El Khatib’s album Moonlight isn’t due out till January 2015 but he’s just released the single and its great and the video is haunting and strangely provocative.
Viet Cong – Cassette
Vietcong
“Cassette”
Mexican Summer
Listen at Viet Cong – “Cassette”
After the tragic and untimely death of Christopher Reimer (isn’t death always untimely?), ex-Women members, bassist/vocalist Matt Flegel drummer Mike Wallace formed Vietcong in 2012 with guitarists Scott Munro and Daniel Christiansen. Is it difficult to outrun the shadow of your former selves? Maybe the best solution is merely to stand a few feet ahead of the shadow, one eye on the future/present and a toe in the past. On Cassette, Vietcong manage to escape the velocity of their previous band, Women while remaining in geosynchronous orbit of their criminally overlooked underappreciated former band.
Cassette maintains a meticulous attention to dissonance, noise and abrasiveness coupled with a healthy respect for post-punk standard bearers like Chairs Missing-era Wire and the more experimental songs of Joy Division; “Atrocity Exhibition” and “Decades” pop up on the simil-o-meter. Rather than derivation, the band comfortably iterates on previously chartered themes.
On “Oxygen Feed” traces of Velvet Underground DNA weave throughout the song’s chorus.
The final track, “Select Your Drone” is a trip into a Wendy Carlos-inspired ocean of synth. A staccato heartbeat drives the song forward in half-time, accompanied by biting angular guitar stabs (fuck that description in it’s music journalist butthole). This is one of the more interesting tracks on the record as it recalls at times the more somber work of long time David Lynch collaborator, Angelo Badalamenti
If you think a Vantablack pair of 511’s would fit well in your wardrobe and may or may not have at one time owned a vintage type writer you used to punch out DMT-fueled prose, then this album would be a nice compliment to your expanding collection of sonic ephemera. If you like Velvet Underground, Joy Division and the occasional dalliance with Burroughs’ epic Western Lands trilogy, pick up a copy to soundtrack your silent existential crisis at your local record store.
These New Puritans “Fragment Two”
Space and melody.
This band continually astonishes me.
Their album “Hidden” is one of my favorites of the last decade.
In that it they expand upon preconceived notions of composed music, resisting the need to immediately satisfy with an easily identifiable hook.
An elastic expression of sound. Music for music.
In my estimation, TNP are beyond the outer reaches, demolishing expectations.
I’ll do a cheap Music Journo thing here and hyperbolize: TNP be doing Radiohead better than Radiohead.
Wovenhand “Field of Hedon” – from Refractory Obdurate
16 Horsepower was a mythical band when I lived on Capitol Hill in Denver, CO. Story goes, they lived in Leadville, an old mining town, just on the other side of the ski resort, Copper Mountain. They lived in a house on a few acres, made their own whiskey, brewed their own beer. Hunted game. Deer and fowl. They made the kind of music that wasn’t easily identifable, except to say it was uniquely Rocky Mountain or “Colorado” with the constant being the voice of principal songwriter, guitarist-vocalist and arranger, David Eugene Edwards.
Two decades later, Edwards and his now-established musical incarnation, Wovenhand has released their seventh studio record, Refractory Obdurate, on Deathwish Inc (home of Converge, Deafheaven, Oathbreaker, etc). Former members Chuck French and Neil Keener of the post-hardcore band, Planes Mistaken for Stars, are now part of Wovenhand with Neil on bass and Chuck on guitar.
If someone told me there’d be a band that slightly resembles the conceptual (musical) DNA of McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and hauntingly reflects the ghost town’s of the rocky mountains, I’d call that man a liar and fill him with lead–then I’d hang my head in shame as I dropped the needle on the latest from Wovenhand.
Little Dragon “Klapp Klapp” the Dead to Life
Celebrate the second most superfluous hallmark holiday today (St. Pat’s is number 1) with this creepy new Voodoo Priestess/purple fire/raise the dead on the four beat track, “Klapp Klapp” from synth noir geniuses, Little Dragon.
Your god damn summer ear worm, in the form of Nabuma Rubberband, the fourth LP from the disgustingly good looking band, will be released via Loma Vista 5/13.
Does It Explode – Live at Tin Can Alehouse February 22, 2014
The punk rock collective, of which I provide guitar sounds for, Does It Explode, will have their live debut, Saturday Feb. 22 2014 at the Tin Can alehouse. We’ll be playing with our compadres in Flying Hyenas and Deep Sea Thunderbeast.
9pm
$5
21+
Record of the Month Club – January 2014
The Fraternal Auditory Illumination Society convened for what would be our inaugural coterie in January at Maier’s Laier. We toasted frosted brews and played many tunes.
Brother Muu brought two tasty growlers from local hops specialists, Societe Brewery.
On glass that night was Harlot and another, mystery brew.
Brother Dan offered his audiophile rig (Music Hall mmf 7, Outlaw RR2150 and Ascend Acoustics Sierra 1s) and it sounded in-crediballs!
We recorded audio for a potential future Podcast but need to work through some kinks before we unleash it on an unsuspecting public who probably don’t want another (or care for) podcast about music from music nerds.
(Spitballing in the digital void here) It’d be pretty rad to do something similar at the Whistle Stop once a month and have it curated by folks like JP, Tim Mays, M Theory, Off the Record, folks from Casbah, Soda Bar and Tin Can. It’d be like a Vinyl Social.
The only rule would be “vinyl only.”
No genre limitations. The more eclectic the better.
I gave Brother Dan the download from my vinyl edition of Women’s Public Strain.
Happy to report he loves it nearly as much as I do.
(RIP Christopher Reimer, you were gone too soon but what you left was magical. Friends/readers you can donate to the CR Fund at http://christopherjohnjosephreimer.com/)
Check out Women “Eyesore” live. Wish I could have seen them live.
Here are the tracks we played:
Seaweed “Service Deck”
Savages “City’s Full” and “She Will”
Chelsea Wolfe “Pale on Pale”
Fear “New York’s Alright”
Buy Contortions “Designed to Kill”
Women “China steps” “Venice Lockjaw”
Jawbox “reel”
Beefeater “Trash Funk” and “Reagonomix”
Bl’ast “Only Time Will Tell”
Abused “Drug Free Youth”
Mose Allison “New Parchman”
Hailu Mergia “Anchin Alay Alegn”
Pharaoh Sanders “Karma” b side
Goat “Run to Your Mama”
Peter Tosh “Get up Stand up” “Stepping Razor”
Polica “Very Cruel”
Wrestling worms “Intaglio”
Savages “City’s Full” and “She Will”
Chelsea Wolfe “Pale on Pale”
Fear “New York’s Alright”
Buy Contortions “Designed to Kill”
Women “China steps” “Venice Lockjaw”
Jawbox “reel”
Beefeater “Trash Funk” and “Reagonomix”
Bl’ast “Only Time Will Tell”
Abused “Drug Free Youth”
Mose Allison “New Parchman”
Hailu Mergia “Anchin Alay Alegn”
Pharaoh Sanders “Karma” b side
Goat “Run to Your Mama”
Peter Tosh “Get up Stand up” “Stepping Razor”
Polica “Very Cruel”
Wrestling worms “Intaglio”
Fiction International Real Time/Virtual Relase Party – With Tunes by Shane
Next Wednesday, I’ll be playing some records at the annual Fiction International book release party.
Spinning afro-beat, avant noise, post-punk, prog, trip hop, R&B, doom, etc.
To annoy and titilate.
Hit the Ground Running in 2014 – Does It Explode (music)
I’ve been working on a project with Gary, my editor for Caustic Soda, on a new musical endeavor called Does It Explode. Mark, with whom I played in Cabron is also in the band as well as my friend, Veronica. Veronica did a few covers with Awakeners, including a slamming version of Portishead’s “All Mine.”
When Gary and I began writing for this project we both wanted to do something outside our comfort zone. Gary is a lead guitar player mostly but plays bass in D.I.E. and I am a mostly rhythm guitar player, but in D.I.E. I’m playing my version of “lead” guitar.
Earlier this month we did a rehearsal studio recording with my friend and creative collaborator, Dan Maier. The tracks turned out quite well. In fact I’m really proud of it. Demos are great because they are raw and help formalize the songs as well as create ideas for refinement of what eventually, will become studio tracks. No overdubs. We did several takes and on both songs, used the third. Minimal editing. You can hear one ‘wrongstring’ flub in the pre-outro in Pink Crosses.
LISTEN at http://doesitexplode.bandcamp.com/
*Photo courtesy of Charles Shannon
A Coat of Red Paint In Hell 