So jammy this jah?
Time is a Mountain’s II LP popped up on my radar and I’ve been nodding along every since. Just had to share.
Sweden does good heady stoner krautrockish vibes.
You can find copies of the LP on Discogs. Grab one while they’re luke warm.
Angel Olsen’s new record and third full LP, My Woman, has pushed through the noise to the top of the pile. It’s so good I want to drown in every reverb drenched guitar note. This has been an excellent year for music and My Woman will probably make a few dozen top tens.
London-based musical collective, Savages are preparing to unleash Adore Life, their follow up to their critically acclaimed (rightfully so) debut, Silence Yourself.
Seeing them this summer at the Casbah was like a gift. Their urgency and musicianship are transformative. Presence, immediate. I can’t help but fall madly in love with their magnetic and dynamic energy.
The manifestos of the past become the vapor ware in the fight for the present.
To be present. That is the appeal of Savages.
Turn off your screen. Turn up the volume.
Eternity is now.
I love the original but man, what a fucking great cover by Gang of Youths for Like A Version on Triple J.
Sometimes I’m late to the party. Most of the time. Actually. The river is deep and the valley is low in music. The internet, for music, is the cool older brother most music dorks wish they’d had.
Mi compadre and No Bad Songs alum, Eddie Tesla, turned me on to the exquisite dark wave beauty for Pac North Westers Nightmare Fortress who released their debut The Wanting earlier this summer on translucent vinyl, no less. I impulse bought the LP without considering I might want the t-shirt too. Fuck. It was a steal. That and the Mr. Tube and the Flying objects record today. I’m almost glad I inadvertently forgot about the release of Chelsea Wolfe’s Abyss record (nice write up in the latest issue of High Times for the Wolfe).
Nightmare Fortress exists in that Dark Wave realm but it’s really just Goth/new wave revisited. They could easily share a bill with Cold Cave or Chelsea Wolfe. Sweet spot between Siouxsie and the Banshees Join Hands and Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration, two perennial favorites in the No Bad Songs oeuvre – plus I’m partial to the nostalgia b&w weirdness of the “A Question of Time” music video, having danced the smurf shuffle to the tune at Ground Zero in Boulder in the long-time-agos.
So. The party started and I was there when I got the invitation but I was distracted by something else, some other pretty thing in the hallowed screen, and missed the introduction to Nightmare Fortresses when I got the link to the KEXP performance…But, timing man, it has a funny way of penetrating the noise. Like when a song hits you and you’re like, “How the fuck haven’t I always heard this song – looking at you Ryan Adams “Give Me Something Good” and QOTSA “The Vampyre of Time and Memory.” Is there a theme here?
No Exit is a play by Jean Paul Sartre about three souls in the waiting room in hell attended by a functionary. They suffer in mediocrity. Banality. Bored by one another’s company. Unable to feel pleasure. Unable to escape the stupidity of themselves or their companions or their confinement. Perceived confinement.
“No Exit” by Nightmare Fortress is a song about possession. Control. A struggle between everything and nothing and reconciling those experiences. Existential ennui. Of course. A dysmorphic reaction to the externality of the self. This KEXP performance is pretty spot on to the recording. No fidelity loss and the studio version is note for note except for a pop of breath on the mic windscreen.
The LP is great. Got a purple trans version on the way. Gonna do the smurf-toe dance late at night and dream about clove cigarettes and crunchy energy drinks.
I CAN’T BREATHE IN 16 CHANNELS!
Schrader’s Music Beat is bear in heat rippage.
You’ll be sweatin’ warm after this one friendos.
Break apart the world with this punctured pop tune from Japanese guitar spaz duo, Xinlisupreme.
I wonder what their “No Bad Songs” album is?
Word to Warren Ellis for the spot on referral and his Orbital newsletter. Brilliant.
If you like comics, tech and salty Brit writers, go sign up for the weekly routine at http://orbitaloperations.com/
Philly expat, Brian Christinzio (Sharon Van Etten, War On Drugs) released How To Die in the North earlier this year to critical praise. It shares some sonic DNA with 70’s iconoclast, Skip Spence and his record, OAR. Folky acoustic intro with a chorus nod to Jim Ford Harlan County boogie rock make up the meat and bones of “Grim Cinema.” Toss in a wicked little synth guitar breakdown at the mid point and you’ve got a clever hodgepodge of a tight pop song. But for those unfamiliar, think Beck meets Tame Impala with a dash of Brian Wilson-style vocal arrangements. The video is a perfect mirror for the song comprised of found footage and lots of swinging tassels. Yay tassels!
Tour dates and info at http://bccamplightmusic.com/
Suffice to say Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There bubbled by brains for the better half of 2014.
Late in 2014 I picked up Strand of Oaks Heal, on the title track, Showalter name checks Van Etten “my headphones on And I listend to Van Etten Sing You gotta give out, give up…”
Van Etten has a voice that seeps. Fills in the seams.
The way her voice wraps around words or, trying to explain Are We There to a friend when playing the “No Bad Songs” game in that irritating dancing-about-architecture explanation of music that is so subjective and personal I thought, man, even though I’ve only recently discovered Van Etten I feel like I’ve been listening to her my whole life.
Okay, enough with the exposition. Here’s a new track she released. Oh, and if you haven’t seen her and Shearwater’s performance of the Petty/Nicks “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” do yourself a favor and consult the oracle.
Counting the days until this Calgary band makes the gradually warming drive south to San Diego for their performance at the Soda Bar.
In the meantime, I’ve got this charming Dario Argento-worship music video for their song “Continental Shelf” to keep me guessing.
A Coat of Red Paint In Hell 