blog review

I was about to post something about how I'm still finding a ton of stuff to check out on a blogs, but that it's near impossible to find the new releases. I was going to use the new Arcade Fire Album, "The Suburbs", as an example but I captaincrawled it and even thought it's not even officially released yet I found it pretty easily, here.

Anyway, I thought I'd pass along some links to a few of the blogs I've been checking out.

Haven't gotten too far into exp etc but I've been digging the weird folk albums by Michael Hurley on here and really like the Susan Alcorn album, she plays spaced out ambient stuff off a pedal steel guitar.

I went through the entire radfriends blog and got some good indie rock scores, dude is a junkie musician in Florida, dig.

Also on the ambient tip, left out in left field is worth checking out, though you have to wade through some gay/pretentious dross to find the gems.

InTennisShoes is the final one I'll mention, I got Pill Wonder off this one.

Anyone else got some good ones?

You Weren't There: A History of Chicago Punk, 1977-1984

In case you missed it, Pitchfork has a documentary that came out recently about the early days of Chicago punk scene up on its site (only for 7 days), You Weren't There: A History of Chicago Punk, 1977-1984.

Meh... it's pretty good, worth watching. Mainly posting as I know some of my friends from Chicago are on here and may be into it, and some of you old school Chicago dudes this may hit home (Gabino/Clark Starr/Bill Zink, i'm looking in your direction)(Right? You are all Chicago guys?).

dc

"Shutter Island" score

I would highly recommend checking this one out for anyone into movie scores, ambient/atmospheric/instrumental music, or avante garde classical (or classical music in general). There are a couple of 50s crooner type tunes on there that don't really fit into the mix IMO, but it is a Scorsese movie after all.

For more background and details, check out this write up from the LA Times:

Critic's notebook: 'Shutter Island' as a new-music haven

I had a lovely headphone session with this classic. Fuck all the haters.




First time listening to it on vinyl, having just picked it up via Discogs a few weeks ago. The vinyl and cover/back are mint but a cat scratched up the spine - still a nice buy for $5.

Say what you will about the Dead but this is a decent album that is well produced. The title track is really the biggest disappointment for me - pretty cheesy. The rest of it has held up pretty well especially the Help on the Way ->Slikpknot! - > Franklin's Tower to open the album. I kept expecting the vocal flubs during Franklin's, common in so many live versions, and was happy they weren't there.

edit: - whoa to the new look of the blog!

Sir Richard Bishop/Sun City Girls

So Richard Bishop (what's up with the "sir"?) has had a residency at Zebulon this month, playing each Monday. I finally caught the show last night, braving a super-packed, very sweaty crowd full of hipsters and caught about a half hour before I had to catch up with friends outside who couldn't get in. The first couple of songs were way cool, open-tuning improv stuff, distortion, eastern scales. Then he sang this very weird but totally cool song about incest, which I wasn't expecting. He kept singing and that's when it got less interesting and I had to split. But would like to check out Sun City Girls, that blog bigfatsatanfest is no longer up, but I think I can find some stuff on captaincrawl, what should I check out?

Bed For The Scraping

If this song doesn't get you amped then I don't even want to know you, man...

Madlib Hotel Studio

Came across this picture again recently. Have i posted this before?

This is the rig Madlib used to create some of the tracks for Madvillain... Fisher Price turntable, an SP 303, and mixed it live to a clock radio tape player in a Brazilian hotel.



I love that. Keep your $20,000 mixing board and pro-tools rig.

dc

This looks to be good.

Matthew Dear - Black City Teaser from Ghostly International on Vimeo.

Rangda - False Flag

I've expressed my appreciation of Richard Bishop (guitar) in these pages before. I've been on bills with Chris Corsano (drums) a couple times, and he is simply the most amazing drummer I've seen. Ben Chasny (guitar - Six Organs of Admittance, Comets On Fire, etc.) I'm familiar with in name only. It is, in a term that I wish could be permanently stricken from the lexicon, a supergroup.

False Flag is clearly a product of the "quick and dirty" approach, but it doesn't suffer from that in the least: rather, it's the sound of three monster talents mixing it up, and the results are immediate rather than sketchy, focused rather than simplified. These are all fully realized pieces . . . which is not to say that, if allowed to germinate and grow, Rangda wouldn't be even better.

The reviews around on this are pretty clear and fairly accurate. There is a sound of Earth mixed with some of Bishop's Eastern tendencies on the slower, more atmospheric stuff, and the "noise" stuff has all the ferocity any junkie could hope for. And, more than just ferocious, there is a depth, soul, and color to the playing that is lacking on a lot of "noise".

And, as a couple people have mentioned in reviews, this will be a can't miss live show. Lexington is already on the schedule, and a friend is working on getting them at a joint within walking distance from the casa. I can't wait.

It's good stuff. Give it a try.

There are a couple good versions of "Bull Lore" on YouTube that I couldn't fit here - definitely worth a look.

Black Joker - Watch out!

This is one of the records i got in the Mimaroglu Music Sales blow out. This is a side project from Spencer Clark, one half of The Skaters, called Black Joker on Olde English Spelling Bee.

This blog has it, and here is the blurb my man posted for it: "Black Joker make pretty crop circles inside your head and disappears in the distant of moaning teepee chief outside the purple mayan temple under the glowing skies of pacific atmosphere bla bla wang chung mey kang toy ming sui!!!!!!111!!"

Uh, yeah. But i love shit like this. Probably too bugged out for some of you.

Blaaayyyyter.

d-sizzle

Tame Impala, MMOSS, Black Angels

Hi.
I just wrote a post about Tame Impala "Innerspeaker," but deleted it shortly after. I realized that I probably checked it out because one of y'all posted about it already. I feel so foolish.

Anyway, I have been walking around delivering mail in Rotterdam for a few weeks now, and I listen to it quite often. I like it a lot, and I pulled these two videos off of their website (they look very young):

Yourstru.ly Presents: Tame Impala (1 of 2) from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Yourstru.ly Presents: Tame Impala (2 of 2) from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Some other titles I've been listening to include:

The Black Angels - Directions to See a Ghost
MMOSS - i

I mentioned to a chum of mine that I enjoyed MMOSS, and he proceded to tell me that one of the fellows in the band was a former student of his at UNH.
That's nice.
Well, they are more of that retroey psychedelic stoney rock that I love. They will not blow your mind open with their new approach to music, but they are worth a listen. If you go here, you can name your price for their album >>> http://mmoss.bandcamp.com/

Yep, The Black Angels are also reverby and psychedelic, but more jangly in a dreamy pop sort of way. Does that make sense? Go to their website to inspect their wares. They are constantly streaming.

Thank you for your time.

New Tortoise EP

Did anyone know about this? http://www.nodata.tv/?p=5128

Apparently they're also involved with that Beck Record Club thing too I hear.

koen holtkamp "field rituals"

This is some exciting stuff for me. Koen Holtkamp, one half of WWALT favorite band Mountains (Thrill Jockey) has a pre-Mountains debut album called “Field Rituals”. It is totally Mountains-esque with acoustic guitar, loops, samples, plus field recordings in background. Apparently there is another solo joint out there, “Haste”, but the good Captain didn’t come through on that one.

Listening now and so far this is great.

Might as well use this space to talk about some more thoughts on the ongoing illegal download tip: I got hip to this release while perusing the Mimaroglu Music Site, deeeeeeep shit… if you think you know a lot of esoteric bands, check the “artists” page on this site and if you know 5% of them then you got me beat. This site is run by musician Keith Fullerton Whitman, whose “Lisbon” CD is fucking amazing if you haven’t checked it out.

Anywhosers, my understanding of retail is that Keith paid the artist or a label wholesale to get the product, then he’s selling it to me. So I’m not really screwing the artist, per se, but rather Keith for not buying from his site and downloading instead. I don’t feel bad in this case as 1) this is only for sale as a CD, and CD’s are pretty much worthless to me now. I would just rip to iTunes and then throw it away; and 2) I found this while digging through his best of 2009 list, and ended up dropping about $150 on LPs, Cassettes and 7-Inchers (ouch).

I feel like no one I discuss this issue with really mentions the affects on record stores in the debate and mostly focuses on the artist. I guess that’s because the profits go straight to the artist/label in iTunes or other legal download situation, and its kind of a given CD's are dead? I guess brick and mortar record stores are getting cut out of the equation either way when it comes to downloads, legal or illegal…

In any event, fans of Mountains should check out Koen Holtkamp stat, good stuff.

And I'm out.

DC aka “Double Rainbow”

Squarepusher/William Basinski

Scored this old Squarepusher album I had never heard, "Music is Rotted One Note", off this blog, some good stuff on here, including a Yesterday's New Quintet album I didn't have. The Squarepusher album is maybe the best thing I've heard from him, drum & bass meets early 70s Miles, really cool and far out.

Late night, nothing lately tops William Basinski and his austere ambient albums. I saw him do "Vivian and Ondine" a few weeks ago at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn Heights, it was in the old ante-chamber of a municipal building, laser lights rotating off the crenelated ceiling; the music is monotonous, washes of sound drifting into and away from each other, string instruments looped and run heavily through reverb, but it changes very subtly. It was cool to see it live, but it's best experienced sipping bourbon past midnight while reading.

Butter Thief?

You ever check out this list of names over here? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Who the hell is "Butter Thief"? Or Chialao? Don't even get me started on Big Steve.

The lurkers....

dc

?!!

You see this? Beck and Thurston Moore (and all-star cast of studio musicians) cover a Yanni album:



What a world.

dc

Blithe Field

I saw this:

AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

Dug the music, so found this:

http://blithefield.bandcamp.com/

Kind of liking it.