Tony Maimone of Pere Ubu, They Might Be Giants, Bob Mould, Frank Black, Lucinda Williams, etc, Carla Kihlstedt of Tin Hat Trio, Tom Waits, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, 2 Foot Yard, and many many more, producer/engineer/guitarist Joel Hamilton (Elvis Costello,unsane,Frank Black,sparklehorse,Shiner, Players Club, etc) and Matthias Bossi of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Skeleton Key, Vic Thrill, etc) are the core members of this project.
Collaborators are including Tom Waits, Mike Patton, David Thomas, Blixa Bargeld, Jon Langford, Carla Bozulich, Norman Westberg(Swans), Dave Curren (Unsane), Megan Reilly, Cat Oberg, Zeena Parkins, etc. Already quite impressive, isn’t it?
And the result – the music – is similarly colourful, gloomy, shape-shifting, flowing and floating “something”. Something charming, hypnotizing or sweet like poison. Read more The Book Of Knots – Garden Of Fainting Stars (2011)
Monthly Archives: July 2011
My TV is Dead – Freedomatic (2009)
One more exciting band from Belgium after Thot , I, the Phoenix , Black Spires , Nox etc. And well, all these bands – and few others – are interesting in different ways, they are all “digging” in different directions.
The duo consist of Amaury Massion – vocals and guitar, and Joel Grignard – guitar, bass and keyboards start the project at Berlin during a week of performances at the famous Tacheles and by this debut album entitled “Freedomatic” they taking the world one by one, country by country, front by front, releasing it till now in Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and France. Read more My TV is Dead – Freedomatic (2009)
Against Me! – Black Crosses (2011)
Punk Rock anybody?
“Total Clarity” is a collection of demos and unreleased songs from the 2005’s “Searching for a Former Clarity” recording sessions, released through Fat Wreck Chords, label which also released “The Original Cowboy”, an album of demos from the band’s 2003 album “Against Me! as the Eternal Cowboy”, in 2009.
Following the band’s decision to create their own record label, they decided to re-issue their fifth full-length album, “White Crosses”. The re-issue contains a second disc titled “Black Crosses”, a collection of demos from 2009 and acoustic sessions from 2010, serving as an inaugural release for their newly launched record label, Total Treble Music.
One one hand we’ve got a lot of releases and that’s nice, but it also smells like some record labels try to cash-in, don’t matter what. Zappa were joking about this – we’re only in it for the money – but too many jerks and dickheads are actually really don’t give a shit about music anymore…
On the other hand, I really enjoy listening demo collections, it shows sometimes a different face of the band, the sound mainly are not so polished, the edges are not rounded by (over) production and mainly on the demos we can actually hear what the band had in their mind and not what the record label, some producer and their manager expect from them. Read more Against Me! – Black Crosses (2011)
No Made Sense – New Season/New Blues (2011)
Before saying anything else: you can download this album for free and at top quality from the band’s Bandcamp page, “name your price” actually means that you can “give” even zero. It’s not fair, not even elegant, but… I still believe work and mainly creative ones should and must be rewarded substantially, but well, I’m a fucking weirdo.
Off-topics (and not so): I don’t know why nowadays people get together to make some noise, start a band. Lately, and more and more it seems everybody play, nobody listen and for worst, most of the bands are obsessed by the same (stupid) patterns, labels, boxes, genres, whatever. It’s fucking haunting me: “Punk’s not dead / It just deserves to die / When it becomes another stale cartoon / A close-minded, self-centered social club / Ideas don’t matter, it’s who you know / If the music’s gotten boring / It’s because of the people / Who want everyone to sound the same / Who drive bright people out / Of our so-called scene / ‘Til all that’s left Is just a meaningless fad / Hardcore formulas are dogshit / Change and caring are what’s real / Is this a state of mind / Or just another label / The joy and hope of an alternative / Have become its own cliche” (Dead Kennedys – Chickenshit Conformist). And if Jello Biafra saw this back in ’86, what can we say now? Looking back, the 80s smells like blooming creativity while today… shit. Really. If I have to listen just one more metalcore act, I kill myself!
Fortunately there’s always the exception that proves the rule. Read more No Made Sense – New Season/New Blues (2011)
ATO Records Free Summer Sampler
A total of 12 tracks, one by each artist: Mariachi El Bronx, Ben Ottewell, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, My Morning Jacket, Bobby Long, Drive-By Truckers, Alberta Cross, Gomez, Vusi Mahlasela, 311, Dawes and John Butler Trio, it’s the free summer sample offered by ATO Records if you’re willing to gave up your e-mail address – confirmation required. Get your copy from the label’s official site.
I believe it’s just perfect for your car stereo or iPod and it’s a nice opportunity to listen some artist, get a batter taste of them.
Some – Gomez, 331, My Morning Jacket, etc – are quite familiar ones, I wrote about their recent albums, others might be fresh acquaintances, anyway, nothing’s better than a free ride, isn’t it? Read more ATO Records Free Summer Sampler
Taken By Cars – Dualist (2011)
Taken by Cars is a Filipino indie band and “Dualist” is their soft-more second full length album.
43 minutes, 11 tracks, a tasteful, indie pop, alternative dance mixture delivered by Sarah Marco on vocals, Bryce Zialcita on lead guitar, Derek “Siopao” Chua on rhythm guitar, Isa Garcia on bass guitar, and Bryan Kong on drums and sampler.
Founded in 2006, Taken by Cars made waves with their underground demo “A Weeknight Memoir (In High Definition)†which attracted attention and hit number one on a local rock radio station in Manila. They singed to the local indie label Party Bear Records and they released their debut album, “Endings of a New Kind,†under Warner Music distribution in early 2008. Read more Taken By Cars – Dualist (2011)
Crushing Axes – Ascension Of Ules (2011)
Crushing Axes actually it’s the one-man-band of Alexandre Rodrigues from São José dos Campos, Brazil.
He make annual virtual releases and the albums are always available for download. The lyrics explore themes like Norse mythology and the dark side of the human mind and soul while the music is a mixture of heavy, black, doom and death metal elements with many different other artifacts from folk to traditional and classic music. It’s an interesting and exciting blending of musics and elements, quite unique in a particular sense, Alexandre managed to create his own style and atmosphere.
Read more Crushing Axes – Ascension Of Ules (2011)
Dir En Grey – Dum Spiro Spero (2011)
It has been passed 2 years and 9 months since “Uroboros”, Dir En Grey previous studio album and fans are quite on fire waiting their eight album. They can surpass themselves? Delivering 14 tracks and over one hour of music, “Dum Spiro Spero”, I think worth the waiting. Dir En Grey remains the same gloomy, impossible to label, but intense and contorted, genreless, but colourful music band, one minute they can sound like a psychotic death metal band and in the very next moment they just simply switch into a pop theme. Songs like “Yokusou Ni Dreambox” will bring you through all of this and even more. God blessed hell of a journey. Read more Dir En Grey – Dum Spiro Spero (2011)
Gomez – Whatevers On Your Mind (2011)
Ten tracks, the seventh studio album by Gomez has been born quite differently, it was demoed, written, arranged, and recorded over the Web, each of the members uploading ideas on which the others could work. It might be unusual, but while currently the band are spread out across 2 continents, split between the UK and US with Ian Ball residing in Los Angeles, Olly Peacock in Brooklyn, N.Y. and Paul Blackburn, Tom Gray and Ben Ottewell in Brighton, England, this working process comes quite naturally. But this working practices didn’t actually effect in any way the music of the band. Perhaps because Gomez since their very beginning in 1996 never have a leader, but three singers and four songwriters out of five members. Read more Gomez – Whatevers On Your Mind (2011)
NaRick – Suburban Industrial Landscape (2011)
Stumbled into at Absetzer by mistake or luck, “Suburban Industrial Landscape” is a quite contorted release balancing between powernoise grindings and trance themes, rhythm noise and industrial butcheries.
Eight tracks of intense aggression, no mercy. Interesting, good mixture of noisy elements and the more musical textures. In a club this rip off your head and still, it’s quite danceable.
This seems to be the third album from Russian one man band NaRick – Nariman Kagermanov -, including tracks written between 2009 and 2010.
Read more NaRick – Suburban Industrial Landscape (2011)
