I’ve been really kind of liking this Canadian post-punk band’s third and latest album (the first for me), which is called Science Island and it’s coming out early in March on Last Gang Records.
I still might write about it somewhere, but meanwhile, I’m thinking some of you guys (Simon, are you out there?) might like this bristle-y, abrasive video (which reminds me a little of that Thrill Jockey band, Double Dagger). I haven’t gotten all the way through it, because it takes forever on dial-up. Still the first 15 seconds (which I’ve watched about 30 times) are awesome.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Jane, you ignorant slut
Two perspectives on the new Aurelio album, Laru Beya, up today at Blurt. One of them is mine…I said:
“Martinez's second album, Laru Beya brings in not just the Garifuna influences of Martinez's childhood, but, through guest appearances, a global palette of sounds. Youssou N'Dour, who was assigned to Martinez through the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative, sings on some of the tracks, memorably on "Wamada." Senegal's Orchestra Baobob supplies a sinuous swing in others. There's an island-slinky, reggae-esque horn line swaggering through "Nuwaruguma," a butt-shaking samba beat under the West African call and response of "Ereba." The title track juxtaposes back-slanting, upbeat-popping Caribbean rhythms with a melting warmth and ease.
None of that would matter if the songs weren't good, but the fact is that they are. In any case, the songs fit together so well that you can't even tell where one tradition begins and the other ends. If it's all one world, as the cliché goes, and perhaps it's all one song as well.
The remainder of my review
The other guy, who apparently got liner notes and credits (I got an unmarked disc in a paper sleeve) concluded:
Belizean producer Ivan Duran, long experienced in Central American music adds sparkling technique, tastes and sounds to some masterful tunes. His tremolo guitar adds a special glow and extra texture. Beside Aurelio's virtuoso vocals and the wonderful backup singers, the star is the massive percussion. Everything under the sun is here - congas, maracas, shakers, tama drums, Garifuna drums, saber drum, turtle shells, calabash, bongos, conch shells and of course the jawbone of an ass - all artfully recorded and presented. A minor masterpiece has arrived, dedicated to Andy Palacio and presented with love to the Garifuna people.
Lee’s review
“Laru Beya”
“Tio Sam”
Also, Evan Hanlon from Dusted really hates the new White Fence, which I still haven’t heard yet, but it sounds like he wouldn’t have liked the first one either. We both still like the Soft Pack though, I think.
His scathing review.
“Martinez's second album, Laru Beya brings in not just the Garifuna influences of Martinez's childhood, but, through guest appearances, a global palette of sounds. Youssou N'Dour, who was assigned to Martinez through the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative, sings on some of the tracks, memorably on "Wamada." Senegal's Orchestra Baobob supplies a sinuous swing in others. There's an island-slinky, reggae-esque horn line swaggering through "Nuwaruguma," a butt-shaking samba beat under the West African call and response of "Ereba." The title track juxtaposes back-slanting, upbeat-popping Caribbean rhythms with a melting warmth and ease.
None of that would matter if the songs weren't good, but the fact is that they are. In any case, the songs fit together so well that you can't even tell where one tradition begins and the other ends. If it's all one world, as the cliché goes, and perhaps it's all one song as well.
The remainder of my review
The other guy, who apparently got liner notes and credits (I got an unmarked disc in a paper sleeve) concluded:
Belizean producer Ivan Duran, long experienced in Central American music adds sparkling technique, tastes and sounds to some masterful tunes. His tremolo guitar adds a special glow and extra texture. Beside Aurelio's virtuoso vocals and the wonderful backup singers, the star is the massive percussion. Everything under the sun is here - congas, maracas, shakers, tama drums, Garifuna drums, saber drum, turtle shells, calabash, bongos, conch shells and of course the jawbone of an ass - all artfully recorded and presented. A minor masterpiece has arrived, dedicated to Andy Palacio and presented with love to the Garifuna people.
Lee’s review
“Laru Beya”
“Tio Sam”
Also, Evan Hanlon from Dusted really hates the new White Fence, which I still haven’t heard yet, but it sounds like he wouldn’t have liked the first one either. We both still like the Soft Pack though, I think.
His scathing review.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Shipping News
I’m a bit late on the Shipping News’ One Less Heartless to Fear, which came out last November on Noise Pollution Records. Better late than never, though, because this is exactly the kind of bass-clanking, drum-battering, politically-engaged rant that I like best. Slint and the rest of the Midwestern post-rock contingent are the easy reference here, since the principals all come from Louisville, Kentucky. Jason Noble and Jeff Mueller were in Rodan with Tara Jane O’Neill. Todd Cook, the bass player, used to be in June of 44. You can also hear links to the heaviest, most abrasive sorts of post-punkers – Gang of Four (early on), Volcano Suns and, in a more modern vein, Black Helicopter.
The single, which is called “The Delicate,” is fierce and noisy and uncompromising, maybe the best song on the disc. It’s available on Soundcloud if you want to check it out.
There’s also a live video of “The Antebellum”
The single, which is called “The Delicate,” is fierce and noisy and uncompromising, maybe the best song on the disc. It’s available on Soundcloud if you want to check it out.
There’s also a live video of “The Antebellum”
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Demdike Stare’s Tryptych
A pretty amazing three-CD compilation from this U.K. electronic duo, Tryptych makes available, in one set, three previous albums Forest of Evil, Liberation Through Hearing and Voices of Dust, plus considerable additional material. Demdike Stare is a collaboration between Sean Canty (of the Finders Keepers label) and Miles Whittaker (aka MLZ and part of Pendle Coven). There’s a dark, chilled, underwater vibe to many of these compositions…which comes clear, really, only on the headphones. (Don’t try this stuff in the car.) I’m never really sure, with this kind of music, whether you’re supposed to appreciate the sounds themselves (painstakingly located through crate-digging) or the way they’re put together (also rather tricky and difficult). The tracks I like best, “Bardo Thodol,” for instance, and “Hashshashin Chant,” are built around very interesting, middle-eastern-sounding source material and given a glaze of electronic modernity.
The two “Forest of Evil” tracks, are also excellent. Dusted’s Bernardo Rondeau described them like this:
Purportedly inspired by library music, Forest of Evil‘s two, side-long suites feels less like a chapter of the Demdike trilogy than its extended overture. From the cavernous gusts rushing through side one, ringing stalactites like wind chimes, the aforementioned “Dusk” solidifies into spacious, echo-drenched syncopations. Meanwhile, the juddering, migraine mandalas and steel-plated monsoons of side two (“Dawn”) makes for its doomdsday, dubstep-paced foil. Between the two, the perimeters of planet Demdike Stare is mapped out in all its terrifying vastness.
Read the rest of his review here.
I haven’t listened to this nearly enough to get to the bottom of it. It’s two hours and forty minutes long, for one thing, and way outside my zone of knowledge, for another. (Also, I’m not sure it has a bottom.) Still it’s been a very interesting diversion over the last couple of weeks, and while I may not know enough to write about Tryptych, I can, in any case, recommend it.
The two “Forest of Evil” tracks, are also excellent. Dusted’s Bernardo Rondeau described them like this:
Purportedly inspired by library music, Forest of Evil‘s two, side-long suites feels less like a chapter of the Demdike trilogy than its extended overture. From the cavernous gusts rushing through side one, ringing stalactites like wind chimes, the aforementioned “Dusk” solidifies into spacious, echo-drenched syncopations. Meanwhile, the juddering, migraine mandalas and steel-plated monsoons of side two (“Dawn”) makes for its doomdsday, dubstep-paced foil. Between the two, the perimeters of planet Demdike Stare is mapped out in all its terrifying vastness.
Read the rest of his review here.
I haven’t listened to this nearly enough to get to the bottom of it. It’s two hours and forty minutes long, for one thing, and way outside my zone of knowledge, for another. (Also, I’m not sure it has a bottom.) Still it’s been a very interesting diversion over the last couple of weeks, and while I may not know enough to write about Tryptych, I can, in any case, recommend it.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
My favorite paragraph from my review of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s Love Is a Stream.
As a founding member of Tarentel, the proprietor of the Roots Strata label and a sometime participant in kraut-ish Alps, Cantu-Ledesma is well versed in the use of drone and repetition. Repetition is a kind of short-hand for eternity; the same small phrase reiterated continually can shed its particulars and reach for the universal. Yet, with Love Is a Stream, Cantu-Ledesma seems to go beyond repetition into a kind of spiritually enlightened stasis. Layers of sound seem to co-exist not sequentially but simultaneously, the prominence of altered vocals, guitar sounds and wavering curtains of tone shifting forward and back. “Where You End and I Begin,” the most compelling of these tracks, juxtaposes a hauntingly distant vocal melody against the tension of guitar static, so that both exist at once, in varying relative strengths, for most of the song’s duration. Listening to the song is like glimpsing a world outside of time, where everything exists at once, eternal and unchanging.
Read the rest at Dusted.
And a non-video of my favorite cut “Where You End and I Begin”
’
Two feet of snow coming today, oh boy! Break out the shovels. (And the brandy)
As a founding member of Tarentel, the proprietor of the Roots Strata label and a sometime participant in kraut-ish Alps, Cantu-Ledesma is well versed in the use of drone and repetition. Repetition is a kind of short-hand for eternity; the same small phrase reiterated continually can shed its particulars and reach for the universal. Yet, with Love Is a Stream, Cantu-Ledesma seems to go beyond repetition into a kind of spiritually enlightened stasis. Layers of sound seem to co-exist not sequentially but simultaneously, the prominence of altered vocals, guitar sounds and wavering curtains of tone shifting forward and back. “Where You End and I Begin,” the most compelling of these tracks, juxtaposes a hauntingly distant vocal melody against the tension of guitar static, so that both exist at once, in varying relative strengths, for most of the song’s duration. Listening to the song is like glimpsing a world outside of time, where everything exists at once, eternal and unchanging.
Read the rest at Dusted.
And a non-video of my favorite cut “Where You End and I Begin”
’
Two feet of snow coming today, oh boy! Break out the shovels. (And the brandy)
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Scott Tuma
I’ve got a review up at Dusted of Scott Tuma’s Dandelion, a sort of ambient, atmospheric exploration of folk and blues from the Souled American and Boxhead Ensemble guitarist.
Listening to Dandelion is much like wandering through someone else’s subconscious, brushing past fragments of melody, mood and evocation as you move from room to room. Tuma’s trick is to make deeply familiar sounds – a music box, a few guitar chords, the plink of banjo – sound mysterious, meaningful and, perhaps, a bit frightening. The music box that plays gently in “San Luis Free 2E” is fraught with emotion, a scrap of memory that evokes childhood innocence, even while surrounding it with an ominous hiss. Likewise, “Old Woman” submerges the strum of guitar in cloudy overtones, dissonance building a wall between the listener and the resolution he or she seeks. There’s a sense of loss as familiar, well-loved sounds recede into the distance.
More
Here he is playing some non-album material with a bunch of Chicago luminaries (well, a coupla guys from Califone anyway).
Listening to Dandelion is much like wandering through someone else’s subconscious, brushing past fragments of melody, mood and evocation as you move from room to room. Tuma’s trick is to make deeply familiar sounds – a music box, a few guitar chords, the plink of banjo – sound mysterious, meaningful and, perhaps, a bit frightening. The music box that plays gently in “San Luis Free 2E” is fraught with emotion, a scrap of memory that evokes childhood innocence, even while surrounding it with an ominous hiss. Likewise, “Old Woman” submerges the strum of guitar in cloudy overtones, dissonance building a wall between the listener and the resolution he or she seeks. There’s a sense of loss as familiar, well-loved sounds recede into the distance.
More
Here he is playing some non-album material with a bunch of Chicago luminaries (well, a coupla guys from Califone anyway).
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