I forgot to mention: I recently made an 8tracks account. I’ve only put a couple of mixes on there so far, and I’ll probably post only sporadically, but I wanted to get used to putting together playlists without getting bogged down in minutiae, so feel free to check it out.
(Source: 8tracks.com)
Song of the Week
The Great Imposter - Tell Me. What? Tell Me Again
I had this sent to me after I posted the Stoney review. Unfortunately I’ve lost the message so I can’t remember who sent it - if you read this, please shoot me an ask so I can credit you properly!
Pianos are a seriously undervalued instrument in rock music. Sure, they’re a common tool of the trade for plenty of comedy rockers (Tim Minchin, Axis of Awesome et al), and god knows how many hours of schlock have been filled with mopey white twenty-somethings hammering out ballads. But as a straight-up lead it’s generally eschewed in favour of the guitar.
And that’s a shame, because I think the piano can lend a certain immediacy of tone to a song that most other instruments can’t. There’s a reason it’s the instrument most often called upon for ‘scare chords’ and the like - a couple of discordant notes can be all that is needed to set the listener on edge for the entirety of a song (for more fantastic evidence of this, I highly recommend checking out The Paper Chase).
The piano used by The Great Imposter fulfills a similar purpose. It’s upbeat, certainly, but at the same time there’s a hint of menace to it that subtly turns the songs from straightforward swinging rock numbers into something more sinister. It’s a delicate balancing act, which comes off best on songs like ‘Tell Me. What? Tell Me Again’, which adds in some slightly unhinged lyrics and crazed horns to make my favourite kind of song - a chaotic one. Very appropriate, given the EP name.
The Great Imposter have a Facebook page here, and a Tumblr page here.
Cut Copy x Ellie Goulding - Lights^2
For the past few months I’ve been messing around in Ableton, just learning the ropes, getting the hang of the controls, and every so often grabbing two songs and seeing how well they’d mix (usually: not very).
Then this weekend I had a sudden flash of inspiration, and the last 5 days have been spent making this - a mashup of ‘Lights and Music’ by Cut Copy and ‘Lights’ by Ellie Goulding. Originally I just tried it because of the name similarities, but as it turns out they fit together really well.
Be aware that this is the first project of this type I’ve actually taken to completion, so it’s not perfect, but still I think it turned out great.
Posting this here too because I really am pretty pleased with it. It’s rough as hell around the edges, but just the fact that I was able to take two disparate songs and make them sound good together is pretty gratifying.
Do iTunes still do their ‘Single of the Week’ feature? Because back when I was still getting into music, that was my obsession. Every week I’d eagerly await the new single, and usually download it immediately.
Not because of the opportunity to discover new artists, or broaden my tastes, but more because my thought process was something like ‘More music equals bigger music collection equals…?’
I never really figured out that last part, but still, I accidentally ended up discovering some pretty great bands. Ghosts and The Hedrons are still in my collection, for example, and it was also my first exposure to Enter Shikari.
Actually, I hated Enter Shikari.
But anyway, the prize discovery was ‘Holds the Stars’ by an unknown artist called Stoney. A brilliant combination of matter-of-fact, straightforward verses with an anthemic rock chorus, consistently shifting dynamics but still flowing. It entered my regular rotation of songs and pretty much stayed there indefinitely, for any time I felt like air guitaring around my bedroom.
Fast-forward several years. I’m trying to cull the singles from my collection, and in doing so I end up finding the full album, The Scene and the Unseen, on Bandcamp. I download it on a whim, doubtful that it’ll have anything that matches the excellence of ‘Holds the Stars’.
I’m instantly proven wrong.
For an indie rock album primarily recorded in a bedroom. The Scene and the Unseen is staggeringly varied. We open up with ‘Jailbird’, which throws choral chants and what sounds like Indian-inspired folk on top of a typical rock base, then dissolves halfway through for a kind of sparse, snarled interlude, then reforms. This is followed up by ‘Soap in a Bathtub’, which builds around a swinging bassline, then repeatedly builds up from a whispered verse to a multi-layered chorus, then collapses back to its disparate parts again.
Every song has it’s own signature style, throwing something new into the mix. The third track ‘Until You Leave’ uses an upbeat, faux-rap style, which perfectly fits the workaday lyrics based around going out, getting drunk, and generally falling into unshakable routines:
There’s nothing to do.
You either get pissed up or you move.
It’s hard to believe.
But you don’t see it ‘till you leave.
‘Best Laid Plans’ slots cleanly between the two rowdier tracks, providing a quiet moment of respite, then we shoot off again with ‘Holds the Stars’, still as brilliant as ever. And so it goes on, a tour through the eclectic best of music, as bits and pieces of Beck, Bowie and Britpop come together.
The final track is also the longest. ‘Underdog’, a sweeping, indulgent piece with twinkly keyboards, an extended outro and the repeated sentiment ‘God bless the underdog’. Sadly, it seems this was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy for Stoney, since while the album was quite rightly critically praised, it fell though the cracks and became mostly forgotten.
But hey, it’s never too late to catch up! The Scene and the Unseen is still available on Bandcamp, on a pay-what-you-want basis. So, as I often say, you’ve got no excuse.
Song of the Week
Coldcut - Man in a Garage
I had real trouble deciding on what song to pick for this week. Artist and album were easy - I’ve been listening to Coldcut’s fantastic Sound Mirrors repeatedly the last few days. But I just couldn’t decide which song off the album I wanted to showcase. It eventually came down to the opening track ‘Man in a Garage’ or the beautifully downtempo ‘Walk a Mile in my Shoes’.
Eventually the former won out, less because of its overall quality, and more because the chorus is one of the most perfectly formed things I’ve ever heard.
No, seriously. When the vocals transition seamlessly from their original, almost bored air to something pleading, and the guitar goes from slightly listless plucking to a beautiful melody…
Wait, wait. It sounds like I’m insulting the rest of the song. I’m trying not to, but…I think this is a song that needs to be imperfect half to time. It needs something for that chorus to be compared to. Go back and listen to the opening again. Frankly, every time this song starts I almost get put off. The singer’s voice sounds so flat, the backing sounds so lifeless. Which makes the point where everything lifts off far more magical than it has any right to be.
Every time I’ve walked into uni over the last few mornings, I’ve opened my walk with this song. That chorus kicks in, and the transition makes me feel like I’m being lifted off my feet. It’s cathartic, and those of you who’ve read my writing before know that catharsis is one of the most important things anyone can find in a song.
…Yeah, this is an odd one, and I’m really struggling to articulate why I love this song so much. I just think it’s interesting when a song’s imperfections are what make it such a great song.
Song of the Week
The Uncluded - Delicate Cycle
Folk and Hip-Hop are two genres that rarely do much more than awkwardly paw at each other across instrumental tracks. Rarely do you find a full on rap song that shuns the turntable in favour of acoustic guitar. This is one of the reasons that this mashup of Aesop Rock and Sufjan Stevens is so uniquely fascinating. Different instruments bring out new aspects of a rapper’s flow and lyrics.
Well now we have even more to enjoy, and this time the genre-blend is official. The Uncluded is the collaboration between Aesop Rock (straight off the high of last year’s Skelethon, one of the best albums of 2012) and Kimya Dawson, and they play music about washing machines and plane crashes, superheroes and Edward Scissorhands, all in a charmingly unique style. The duo complement each others styles - Aesop sounds relaxed and carefree, albeit just as lyrically obtuse as ever, which contrasts with Kimya’s very straightforward narration.
‘Delicate Cycle’, the first single off their debut album (which is not actually out yet) really showcases this. Compare the start to Aesop’s first verse:
I can take my finger off
Old dog, old trick, new twist
Like actually take the finger off
Wrap it in a blanket as you would a severed horse head
Mail it to a friend you wanna pinky swear more with
With Kimya’s:
My Mom was a lunch-lady When I was in elementary school
She was outside during recess; she had a whistle and I thought that that was cool
She was really nice to all the kids who didn’t have a lot of friends
She would give them hugs and tell them jokes or she’d play catch with them
That’s quite a difference. But it works. When the two styles - straightforward song and roundabout rap - come together for the chorus it’s just utterly disarming. The lyrics, meanwhile, focuses on the camaraderie that comes with lacking certain amenities in life, and the community that naturally builds around disadvantage, whether unpopular kids gravitating towards each other or people naturally making friends at the local laundromat. It’s a gorgeous and catchy song, which explains why I’ve had it on repeat for the last week.
Oh, also the music video is excellent, as is Kimya’s hair.
Over the last few years, Bandcamp has gone from being a fairly niche platform to a vital tool for independent artists who want to get their work noticed. The freedom it gives artists has resulted in a mind-blowing amount of variety on its digital shelves, from one-man bedroom projects by bored teenagers to massive scale multi-person experiments, from traditional acoustic numbers to bizarre electronic brain-fucks.
There’s something for everyone hidden somewhere on the site, and I felt like sharing a few of my favourite things I’ve stumbled across at one point or another, to showcase the ways in which people pushing the boundaries.
Note that I already covered a few Bandcamp artists in the first follower shoutout, so go read that if you want more along similar lines.
Pavel Enzi - Not Far From Our Imagination [$5 / Link]
Bandcamp is a great place to find merges of various genres. With music software getting ever more user-friendly and flexible, more people can experiment to their hearts content. Pavel Enzi, for example, takes elements of folk, glitch and ambient music and combines them to create soundscapes that weave between serene and melodic, and twitchy and unpredictable. Opening single ‘Look for the Brook’ features a gorgeous combination of keyboard and xylophone that occasionally jumps and cuts, creating an organic experience.
Good Amount - Opening Eye [PWYW / Link]
Bandcamp is also a place for artists and even labels to experiment with distribution methods. Crash Symbols are a bandcamp-based label who have created a tight-knit group of artists who release everything only on carefully preserved cassette tapes (as well as digitally). They have a strongly DIY aesthetic, but the music they release is still complex and layered. Opening Eye is only 4 tracks long, but travels through multiple layers of the ambient spectrum along its half-hour length: From the dark psychedelia of ‘Closed’ to the spacey clutter of ‘Gain’.
Karizma - Nothing is Noise [Free / Link]
“I couldn’t have done this without God, a pen and a piece of paper.”
Any hip-hop fan worth his salt knows that often the best rappers are found on the outskirts. Karizma even states upfront that his work is ‘not for the masses’, and Nothing is Noise covers many topics that radio wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. This is an album about inner demons and turmoils, and tracks like ‘Her Story’ and ‘Potion for the Pain’ are absolutely heartbreaking.
But don’t get the wrong idea - this is a fantastic album. The rhymes are inventive, the beats varied and professional, and the topics as wide-ranging as they are thoughtful. It’s the best kind of hip-hop: The kind that stays with you long after you finish listening.
Single Mothers - s/t [$5 / Link]
Single Mothers are a completely different kind of catharsis: 12 minutes of driving guitars, shouted lyrics, and general kicking-down-doors anger. “We’re not a band, motherfucker we’re a gang!” yells Andrew Thomson on ‘Hell (Is My Backup Plan)’, just before the, um, band launches into yet another assault of feedback-driven punk rock. This isn’t the most nuanced music, but if you’re looking for something to pump yourself up, this should work wonders.
Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe [Free / Link]
Even after researching it, I still haven’t got the faintest goddamn clue of what vaporwave is, but apparently this is a good example of it. All I know is that this is infomercial music put through several dozen filters and possibly also Hell, until it becomes music’s version of the uncanny valley. I think if you were to actually make an infomercial using this music the salesperson would only communicate in alternated whispers and screams, and halfway through his head would rotate 180 degrees and he’d start speaking in tongues. I don’t even know if I like this album any more.
The Dead Pirates - Malevolent Melody [£3 / Link]
I discovered these guys before I even knew what bandcamp was, through a free poster I grabbed on my first day at uni. Fronted by artist mcbess, they play fantastically tight, catchy garage rock, with upbeat guitar-driven melodies and great drumming.
The real draw though, is the music video for ‘wood’; animated by mcbess, it’s smoothly animated, wonderfully surreal, and probably one of my all time favourite music videos. It’s a brilliant exercise in world-building and aesthetics, which just happens to have a kickass song to go with it. The moment where a single piece hanging note turns into a driving guitar riff is just unbelievably perfect.
Chiptune x3 Combo!
Slime Girls - Vacation Wasteland EP [PWYW / Link]
Starscream - Future, Towards the Edge of Forever [$5 / Link]
Disasterpeace - Rise of the Obsidian Interstellar [$2 / Link]
I love chiptune music, but I’ll freely admit that a lot of it can sound somewhat samey. Thankfully, bandcamp once again comes to the rescue with artists that are freely experimenting what can be done with the genre.
First off, Slime Girls. Slime Girls are just happy as shit. Combining chiptune with more classic instruments, they create music that sounds like every invincible power-up and sunny beach you could imagine. It might be old hat to compare them to Anamanaguchi, but I’m going to do that anyway because they really are just that upbeat and awesome.
Starscream, meanwhile, is the frankensteinian combination of two genres that would never normally touch: Chiptune and Post-rock. Sweeping orchestral statement mesh with 8-bit bleeps and trills. It’s the kind of thing that really shouldn’t work nearly as well as it does - and it really, really works.
Finally: Progressive Chiptune-Rock Concept Album. If that description didn’t intrigue you I really don’t know what else to say. Rise of the Obsidian Interstellar tells a story about space travel, fated meetings and mysterious forces through nothing more than some track titles and brilliant music. And there really is a story here, albeit one that is partially left to the listener. I can hear the confrontation in the wretched hive that is ‘Club Wolf’. I can feel the loneliness of the lost soul in ‘Adrift’. I can hear the urgency of the travelers in ‘Wagering Lights’.
Not bad for a wordless 8-bit album, huh?
Nirvana’s first live performance of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’
History in the fucking making.
Song of the Week
Daft Punk - Get Lucky
I know I usually don’t usually write about recent releases on this blog. There are several reasons for that:
But all that’s going out of the window this week, because oh my fucking god.
If the new Daft Punk album doesn’t come out soon I think I’m going to go crazy. I can’t remember the last time I was this excited over an upcoming music release. And ‘Get Lucky’ is only making the wait worse, because it might by the best song I’ve heard to far this year.
I think one of the reasons that Daft Punk are so endearing to both music critics and music listeners alike is that everything they do carries no trace of irony whatsoever, which in this post-internet era is an increasingly rare thing. Everything they do, from their appearance to their music to Interstella 5555 is gleefully bombastic and Life-affirming, yet done completely straight-laced, without any kind of winking side-smirk to the audience (for a similar example, see Andrew W.K.).
So when ‘One More Time’ grabbed a great handful of cheesy disco, threw some vaguely uplifting vocals over the top, and somehow turned out to be a total masterpiece, you get the feeling that Daft Punk weren’t trying to make a statement, or win awards. They just wanted to enjoy making music they loved and get people dancing.
And now, with ‘Get Lucky’, we see a similar effect. Bouncing, instantly catchy hook? Check. Gorgeous vocals by Pharrell Williams? Check. Robotic backing vocals? Fantastic guitar work by Nile Rogers? A million tiny effects that are completely essential yet almost unnoticeable? Triple check. In the hands of almost any other band, it could feel clinical, designed, obvious single fodder. Yet in the hands of the masters it turns into a warm, enveloping swirl of disco and funk that just happened to be released as a single.
Actually, there may be one irony in the story of Daft Punk - that two people dressed as robots make some of the most human electronic music ever put to tape.
Listen. You’re dreaming. It’s a calm ocean.
Listen. Simplicity is the key to beauty. The same few piano keys can create discord or harmony. The smallest changes can turn something melodic into something warped. So embrace the simplicity. Let the piano keys envelop you.
Listen. You’re not alone any more, just you and the keys. There are others here too. The strings are a message. A prelude. But for now, they are content to stay beneath the surface. The steady current that keeps you aloft as you soar above the waves, the piano chords guiding you.
Listen. The chorus swells. The sun is rising. An orange glow on the horizon, piercing the blue of the sea and the sky and the shade.
Listen. There is an inherent glory in the crescendo. An innate implication of growth, and change, for the better or for worse. When you’re flying above the ocean, all you can do is head towards the ever-brightening horizon. The sun will guide you on until morning.
It’s a calm ocean. You’re dreaming. Listen.
Song of the Week
Norrin Radd - Anomaly
I’m sorry! I want to do a longer post but right now I’m too busy freaking out about the Analysis exam I have tomorrow and I really can’t think straight long enough to write a proper review.
So while I try to cram an entire courses worth of maths into my brain, here’s some chiptune death metal by Norrin Radd.
Because let’s face it, you can’t consider your life complete until you’ve heard what chiptune death metal sounds like.
Why are the lyrics to this album so fucking hard to find?
I swear, every lyrics site is taking cues from the same unknown source, which explains why they all have the same misspellings in the same places.
And that would be fine, except that they are clearly not the lyrics! They’re related, definitely, and they’re poetic, but if you can listen to this and hear this, then your ears are lying to you.
It’s one of my favourite albums and I just want to know what the fuck it is they’re screaming.
By the way, I’m currently planning on a piece on some of the things I’ve found on Bandcamp, but it’s going to have to wait until after the analysis exam I’m dreading next Monday. Watch this space.
Song of the Week
Live Band of the Week
Swans
“The weird thing about that song is that you wouldn’t recognize it at the start of the tour, and in a few weeks you probably won’t recognize it again.”
Michael Gira, onstage.
But that’s not important or interesting, so instead I’m going to grab a few drinks and rave about how fucking amazing the Swans show I just got back from was, while I wait for my hearing to return.
I named The Seer as my favourite album of last year (and I stand by that), so I been awaiting this show eagerly for some time.Thankfully, I managed to get right up to the front of the stage using my usual tactic, which I call ‘being a small motherfucker’. So I got a great view, and the full brunt of the assault (probably should have worn earplugs).
The opening act was Xiu Xiu (just Jamie Stewart), who sat alone onstage dressed to the nines in suit and tie. Ignoring the mounds of instruments and amps surrounding him, he used only vocals and guitar (along with some strange ambient sounds played over the speakers), but both were so warped and wrenched by pedals and loops that they sounded inhuman. A taste of what was to come, perhaps.
Side-note - one of my favourite parts of the evening was when he casually packed away all of his sheet music into a Hello Kitty folder. That is a man who gives no fucks.
So, the main event. The band assembled (after multiple group hugs which I could see at the side of the stage), and began a slow build up. Michael Gira began to sing - I’m not sure which song it was, for reasons I’ll get to. The volume grew steadily for 5-10 minutes.
…aaaaaand then I thought my eardrums might burst.
The next 20 minutes at least were a crushing wall of sound - I’m not exaggerating, I felt like I couldn’t breathe at points, and I had to keep popping my ears to stop the pressure building up. Every time it looked like it might let up, Gira led the band in another attack on the senses.
After the crowd was sufficiently deafened, Swans settled a bit. Of course, that still means that every song was full of atonality, drones and general ear-fuckery, but at least there were discernible riffs and rhythms to headbang to, with Gira alternating between soft whispers, melodic singing, and harsh barks.
I think I may have been in a trance for much of it. It’s amazing how much intricacy and variety is possible for a band while making music that is so fucking terrifying and deafening. Layers of reverb, constantly changing instruments…at several points I saw the drummer pick up a clarinet or trombone for a while.
It’s been mentioned by the band before that they consider their albums still unfinished, and their tours are equally important to the shaping of their songs. That was quite obvious tonight - I could make out familiar rhythms, riffs and lyrics (the opening to ‘Mother of the World’ in particular), but it was clear that there was a large amount of improvising, experimentation and ad-libbing at work, with Gira as conductor, leading his band members along and ofter ‘dueling’ with one of them for a while.
After the show (Swans played for a good 2 hours), which ended with Gira introducing his bandmates, introducing himself as ‘Justin Beiber’, then leading a bow, several members stuck around for a while. I shook hands with two of them, then outside Gira was signing autographs, prompting me to grab a poster along with the usual shirt.
(Right click > View Image to see the rest)
Damn, this whole show was one hell of an experience. Maybe not one to repeat to often - my ears couldn’t stand it - but certainly one of the best shows I’ve been to.
I suddenly remembered last night that there exists a melodeath metal cover of ‘Smash’ by The Offspring and I had to share it with everyone
I’m not going to do any kind of jokey April Fool’s stuff here because a) April 1st is much less interesting to me than April 4th (my birthday) and b) I already know what the best April fools joke is.
So instead I’m going to challenge myself. I chose a random album from my collection and now I’m going to write a short review about it. And of course, the album I get is sparse, bizarre and sung entirely in a different language. Great. Here we go then.
According to her biography, Québécois Geneviève Castrée ‘finds English boring’, and instead deigns to sing only in French, the language in which she can be most poetic. Thankfully this presents no problem, since the emotion and pleading in her voice shatters the language barrier. When her voice cracks in triumph during the midpoints of ‘Aéroport/Évolution’, it’s impossible not to feel affected.
Genre wise, Ô Paon are difficult to place. At their roots you’d find a blend of folk and post-rock - GY!BE with nothing but an acoustic guitar and drum - but there’s much more to it than that. Aside from Geneviève’s voice (which permeates through every song no matter how thick the fog of repetition gets), the most prominent force at work is the looping pedal. Most of the songs are structured similarly - beginning with voice and acoustic twang, which is built upon itself layer by layer, with occasional ambiance provided by an organ or sudden thunderclap of a drum.
The overall effect is startling. The album feels alternately sparse and choking, like watching a wasteland become overrun with vines. It’s a unique experience, and shows (like House of Stone did one year later) what can be accomplished by experimenting with layers and loops.
“I do not see really myself as a visual artist nor a musician. I just make things and they happen to be what they are” says Geneviève. Ô Paon have been fairly quiet since releasing Courses, but hopefully this will not be the end of this particular experiment.
