There are probably million different point of views, different perceptions of America. All of them are simultaneously right and wrong and that might be the “secret” of “the land of hope” and that’s why nobody is indifferent about America. On the other hand, I believe we don’t actually know enough about America as we actually do not know enough about each other generally speaking. Just for example, probably most of the people may thought that the official language of America is English while the truth is that America have none official language at federal level and English is only de facto national language. Everyone identify America by something, most of us by some products such as Coca-Cola, Marlboro or McDonald’s, others might think about country music or blues… In one way or the other, all these are icons. And speaking ’bout blues, Bob Dylan is one of the most respected and loved icons. And Dylan is not only a singer-songwriter and musician, but also poet and painter as well.
As a huge Laibach fan I read about this project of the U.S. Embassy in Ljubljana on their web site and I didn’t hesitate to write an e-mail to obtain my free copy of the CD: [email protected]. One week later – this morning 🙂 – I received the CD and a beautiful 78 pages booklet. Read more Project Bob Dylan – celebrates Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday and more!
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Channel Zero – Feed Em With A Brick (2011)
Often referred to them as “the Belgian Metallica”, “Feed Em With A Brick”, the band’s fifth studio album comes after “Black Fuel” released 14 years ago, engineered and produced by Attie Bauw, a Dutch producer who worked previously with Fight (Rob Halford). Channel Zero split in August 1997.
Singer Franky De Smet Van Damme, drummer Phil Baheux and bassist Tino De Martino are back with full force while original guitarist Xavier Carion due to a traumatized ear will be replaced by Mikey Doling (ex-Soulfly). And “Feed Em With A Brick” is another classy, powerful and groovy metal album, fans will be delighted. Read more Channel Zero – Feed Em With A Brick (2011)
Heroin and Your Veins – Lovely Bone Structure (2011)
I stumbled into this accidentally on the Bandcamp, but well, I still don’t believe there is anything accidental in this life, so…Heroin and Your Veins is a one-man band started in 2006 by Janne Perttula in Tampere, Finland and Solina Records released the debut album entitled “Dead People’s Trails” in August 2007. The second album is called “Nausea” and it was released in April 2009 by Verdura Records. It is available also on Bandcamp for 8 Euro. “Lovely Bone Structure” is one single track last for 48 minutes, it was released on 19 April 2011 and only available in the internet at Bandcamp and “name your price” actually means that you can downloaded even for free typing zero. Well, it’s not quite polite, but… I think art and artists deserves our support in a world where everything becomes more and more plastic, fake and prefabricated. Read more Heroin and Your Veins – Lovely Bone Structure (2011)
DJ Clonepa – Courroux (2011)
Mixing breakcore with classic, symphonic music and sometimes with jazz, DJ Clonepa actually make pretty interesting blending of music. Nathaniel Marlow, from Richmond, Kentucky, started in 2007 his mixing and “Courroux” is a pretty exciting and intense material, an explosive collision of groovy and twisted drums with smooth, harmonic symphonic orchestral constructions and jazzy musical inserts. Sometimes this blending is smooth, sometimes the drums overlapping everything creating hell of a noise, but still, there are some extremely interesting moments, good twists and turns, the gloomy, kind of authentic Baroque/Gothic atmosphere and these contorted rhythms and breaks are making an unique and exciting pair.
Following the tradition of precursors as Venetian Snares, DJ Clonepa bring to the surface some extremely intense and exciting mixes and there are a few very good tracks. Read more DJ Clonepa – Courroux (2011)
Brian Eno with Rick Holland – Drums Between The Bells (2011)
In 1992, Eno talking about his interference with Roxy Music and his musical career, said: “As a result of going into a subway station and meeting saxophonist Andy Mackay, I joined Roxy Music, and, as a result of that, I have a career in music. If I’d walked ten yards farther, on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now”. In life turning on a particular point to left or to right, sometimes makes the difference. Eno took the right turn and went on his own way. He didn’t get along with Bryan Ferry, he quit the band on completing the promotion tour for the band’s second album, “For Your Pleasure” in 1973, but he becomes an important musician, composer, record producer, music theorist, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.
Eno’s solo work has been extremely influential, pioneering ambient and generative music, innovating production techniques, and emphasizing “theory over practice”.He also introduced the concept of chance music to popular audiences partly through collaborations with other musicians.By the end of the 1970s, Eno had worked with David Bowie on the seminal “Berlin Trilogy,” helped popularise the American punk rock band Devo and the punk-influenced “No Wave” genre, and worked frequently with Harold Budd, John Cale, Cluster, Robert Fripp and David Byrne, with whom he produced the influential “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” in 1981. He produced and performed on three albums by Talking Heads, including “Remain in Light” in 1980 and produced seven albums for U2, including the famous “The Joshua Tree” (1987), and worked on records by James, Laurie Anderson, Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Paul Simon, Grace Jones and Slowdive, among many others. Read more Brian Eno with Rick Holland – Drums Between The Bells (2011)
Helms Alee – Weatherhead (2011)
Helms Alee were formed in 2007 by Ben Verellen (of the Harkonen, Roy, and These Arms Are Snakes), Dana James and Hozoji Margullis. “Weatherhead” is a boiling mixture of fury and beauty melting together vibrating and smooth acoustic elements and raging post-hardcore riffings, delivering perfect balance of what we mainly labeled as “alternative rock” and post-metal. Dana James have a powerful and expressive voice, she both singing and howling while Ben Verellen sometimes bring some extreme raw vocals as support. “Weatherhead” sounds cutting, dirty, full of energy, but still, they built in smooth and beautiful moments which gives a gloomy shining and more dynamics to their songs and this powerful album.
The trio sliding between styles and genres, switching from metal to psychedelic, from hardcore to folk, but they do all this extremely fluidly. Read more Helms Alee – Weatherhead (2011)
Thievery Corporation – Culture of Fear (2011)
While Brits have Massive Attack, Americans have Thievery Corporation. In 1996 Thievery Corporation released “Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi”, their debut album, and with it they defined an entire genre of music and crystallized their distinct “outernational sound” aesthetic. Thievery Corporation was formed in the summer of 1995 at Washington D.C.’s Eighteenth Street Lounge by Rob Garza and Eric Hilton. Over the next 14 years the duo would write and record four more critically acclaimed studio albums (“The Mirror Conspiracy” – 2000, “The Richest Man in Babylon” – 2002, “The Cosmic Game” – 2005, and “Radio Retaliation” – 2008), three remix albums (“Abductions and Reconstructions” – 1999, “Babylon Rewound” – 2004, and “Versions” – 2006), and various DJ mixes and film soundtracks (“The Outernational Sound” – 2004, and the recent Babylon Central Film Soundtrack). On the album “The Cosmic Game” featured high-profile guest singers including Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction, David Byrne, and Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips.
In 2006, the band also recorded “Sol Tapado” for the AIDS benefit album Silencio=Muerte: Red Hot + Latin Redux produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 2006 they toured around the United States, playing at Lollapalooza and they were the opening act on August 1, 2009 for Sir Paul McCartney at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland. Read more Thievery Corporation – Culture of Fear (2011)
Anitek – Mind Express (2011)
Flowing and glowing, Anitek brings to the surface a smooth and colorful mixture of jazz, trip hop, downtempo where classy sounds and modern textures are overlapping and completed each other. Dave Nunez aka Anitek is a Trip Hop Producer from Morristown, New Jersey. He has been playing piano for 15 years, along with cello, clarinet, guitar, bass, drums and is also a scratch DJ. His main influences are Rachmaninoff, Dvorak, Medeski Martin, DJ Krush, Bonobo, Amon Tobin, DJ Shadow, Rjd2, Bonobo, Photek, Danny Elfman, John Williams and Fat Jon. He often incoperates genres such as Orchestral, jazz, funk, Electronica, Lounge, Ambient, and Underground Hip hop into his music, creating a lush, melodic Soundtrack for either lyricists, commercials or film, but also writes classic music as well. Read more Anitek – Mind Express (2011)
Echofikibausik – Addicts of chillout (2011)
Echofikibausik comes from Kraków, Poland and mixing dubstep, dub, downtempo, raggae, jazz, chillout, trip-hop, ambient and nu-jazz into an exciting sonar cocktail. You can grab for free his latest release from his Bandcamp page for free, this smooth and groovy five track album entitled “Addicts of chillout”.
I didn’t manage to dig out any background information about Echofikibausik, but the music is quite enough. “Addicts of chillout” is a slow glowing, sparking material with smooth jazz perfume and nice electro and ambiental textures. Read more Echofikibausik – Addicts of chillout (2011)
Proyecto Mirage – Slaves Of Capital (2011)
Reminds me of Atari Teenage Riot and their latest release, “Is This Hyperreal”, “Sleves Of Capital” is the 6th full-length album by this duo from Madrid, Spain, consist of Alicia H. Willen and Francisco Planellas. Proyecto Mirage was founded in 1990 and took off from the sound and style of the classic electro-pop bands of that time. Influences comes from bands such as Esplendor Geometrico, Whitehouse, SPK and in the journey to found they own sound, Proyecto Mirage merged both pop and industrial orientations of industrial music with drum´n´bass, techno and Rock elements delivering harsh, hard electronic music.
Once again, the spanish duo delivered an excellent album full of noisy, extremely explosive techno-industrial, complemented with classic ebm, hardcore techno, 80’s electropop and contemporary electronica components. Read more Proyecto Mirage – Slaves Of Capital (2011)
