The Flaming Lips – The Terror (2013)

The Flaming Lips – The Terror (2013) This feels and sounds pretty much like a dark, modern, minimalist, but soulful Pink Floyd album. Maybe with a healthy addition of King Crimson taste. It has something from that glowing, thirsty 70’s spirit, but sound fatter, feels like nowadays. “The Terror” is the thirteenth studio album by The Flaming Lips, and it’s to be released the April 1st 2013 worldwide and April 2nd, after a four year gap.
Lead vocalist Wayne Coyne describes the album’s general idea on the band’s official site: “We want, or wanted, to believe that without love we would disappear, that love, somehow, would save us that, yeah, if we have love, give love and know love, we are truly alive and if there is no love, there would be no life. The Terror is, we know now, that even without love, life goes on… we just go on… there is no mercy killing.”
Well, this is quite a dark vision, but a realistic one. I guess. There is no love left in this world, it was all sold or stolen and although, eventually, there is love between two people or small groups as a family, there is definitively no more love between humans generally. So, yeah, I kind of get it, feel it. Everybody for himself and against everybody else. Read more The Flaming Lips – The Terror (2013)

Miranda – Asylum: Brain Check After Dinner (2013)

If you’re into the wildest Sonic Youth like rock experiments and generally, into borderless, adventurous, noisy and raw, garage rooted rock with additional contorted electronic layers, Miranda is exactly the kind of “girl” you’re looking for. Really “kinky” stuff for your ears.
Miranda is a three piece band from the south of Italy (calabria and Puglia), but they relocated in Florence, Italy, since 1999. Piero Carafa playes bass, Giuseppe Caputo guitar, voice, synth and sampler, while Nicola Villani drum, electr. drum and synth.
During the several years of activity they’ve run different musical directions. Miranda’s artistic vision has been described “radical and broadminded, disaggregated and oblique, their attitude mocking and alienated” (Blowup Magazine 2006).
They’ve released 2 albums on fromScratch (Inside the whale, 2003, and Rectal exploration 2006) and a split CD with the Canadian band Creeping Nobodies. Defined “one of the most interesting Italian underground bands” (Rumore Magazine, nov. ’07) they’re becoming a cult band of the no wave scene, thanks to their incendiary shows and to their personal and uncompromising research constantly carried on. Read more Miranda – Asylum: Brain Check After Dinner (2013)

Steven Wilson – Grace For Drowning (2011)

Steven John Wilson is a self-taught, yet twice Grammy nominated producer, audio engineer, guitar and keyboard player, playing other instruments as and where required, including bass guitar, concert harp, hammer dulcimer and flute. He is involved in many bands and projects such as Altamont, Karma, No-Man, Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, Bass Communion, Blackfield and not at least he is best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. Wilson appears on several other albums by artist such as Mick Karn, Indigo Falls, Fish, Marillion, Richard Barbieri, Anja Garbarek, Opeth, Yoko Ono, Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess, Orphaned Land, Anathema among many others as musician, sound engineer or producer.
“Grace For Drowning” is Wilson’s second solo album released on September 26th, by Kscope Records. The special edition of the album is going to release on Blu-Ray video disc with the music playing in 5.1 surround sound and accompanying visuals and videos for each track, making it the first-ever rock album released primarily as a Blu-Ray video disc.
The album features contributions by artist such as Nic France on drums, Steve Hackett, Robert Fripp, Tony Levin, Nick Beggs and Trey Gunn on guitar, Theo Travis and Jordan Rudess, and some jazz musicians. Touring members will include Marco Minnemann on drums, Nick Beggs on bass, Aziz Ibrahim on guitar, Gary Husband on keyboards, and Theo Travis on flute and saxophone. Read more Steven Wilson – Grace For Drowning (2011)

dEUS – Keep You Close (2011)

(Ain’t) “Living in a movie, but a franchise” – sing Tom Barman on the brand new dEUS album and once again, I’m thrilled by this Belgian band while I love them since I heard for the very first time “Suds & Soda” back in 1994. This music is not so complicated, but subtle and smoothly sophisticated, maybe they lost something from the biting wildness of their first period, but dEUS remains really alternative, truly indie – although singed to multinationals, and the same original outfit. Juggling between – and through – twisted blues, free jazz skronk, post-grunge dissonances and gloomy art rock explorations, dEUS delivered an unique blend of music. Perhaps “Vantage Point” back in 2008 was their smoothest release up to date, but still they have the magic power to hypnotize us.
Read more dEUS – Keep You Close (2011)

Tom Waits – Bone Machine (1992)

“Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes?”
Actually the future seems even darker now than back in ’92 while “Bone Machine” and it’s hypnotic textures, noisy percussion and experimental glows are still sounds fresh and its rich lyrics are still very actual.
“What does it matter, a dream of love / Or a dream of lies / We’re all gonna be the same place / When we die”…
What Tom Waits, Keith Richards, Les Claypool and David Hidalgo have in common? The bone machine. Several songs from the album were covered by several artists: “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” was covered by The Ramones for their last album, “Adios Amigos”, but also by Petra Haden and Bill Frisell on their album collaboration “Petra Haden & Bill Frisell” (2003), by Hayes Carll on “Trouble In Mind” (2008), and by Scarlett Johansson on her debut album, “Anywhere I Lay My Head” (2008). “Goin’ Out West” has been covered by Queens of the Stone Age, Gomez, Widespread Panic, Gov’t Mule, the Blacks and Australian blues guitarist Ash Grunwald. This song also is featured in the 1999 film “Fight Club”, while “Earth Died Screaming” is featured in the 1995 film “Twelve Monkeys”, and “Jesus Gonna Be Here” is featured in the 2005 film “Domino”, in which Waits appears. Read more Tom Waits – Bone Machine (1992)

Mansun – Six (1998)

The band was formed in Chester, England in 1995 by vocalist/rhythm guitarist Paul Draper and bassist Stove King. Originally called themselves “Grey Lantern” but changed their name to “Manson”, after the cult leader Charles Manson but were forced to change it to “Mansun” due to copyright issues.
After several EP’s and singles, their critically acclaimed debut album, “Attack of the Grey Lantern” was released in 1997 and it knocked fellow Parlophone act Blur’s self-titled album from the top spot of the British album chart.
The album’s sleeve art was a painting produced by Max Schindler, and commissioned especially for the album. It contains many references to personal interests and obsessions of the band, such as a TARDIS and an image of Tom Baker as Doctor Who, and Patrick McGoohan as Number 6, from The Prisoner. There is also a depiction of Winnie the Pooh standing close to a painting that may be a reproduction of Vinegar tasters, a Taoist allegorical painting. Guitarist Dominic Chad is known to be both a Taoist and a fan of A. A. Milne, and the album’s name is in fact a reference to Milne’s book Now We Are Six. Read more Mansun – Six (1998)

Man Man – Life Fantastic (2011)

Listening the fourth album by Man Man you might actually believe, feel, that life is fantastic. They have a glowing positive vibe, a charming perfume of the 60s with nice twist and turns of the 90s authentic indie sounds. Sometimes they sounds like a happy Tom Waits.
Formed in 2003 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Man Man’s frontman is Honus Honus, and its other members are Pow Pow, Chang Wang, Turkey Moth, and Jefferson, all the band uses pseudonyms. They’re known for their multi instrumental style that centers on the piano playing of lead singer/lyricist Honus Honus accompanied by a wide variety of other instruments played by the rest of the band. While on recordings, Honus usually plays piano, during the live shows he uses a Rhodes Piano or a Nord Electro 3. The rest of the band plays clavinet, Moog Little Phatty, sousaphone, saxophone, trumpet, French horn, flute, bass clarinet, drum set, euphonium, Fender Jazz Bass, Danelectro baritone guitar, xylophone, marimba, melodica and various percussive instruments including pots and pans, toy noise makers, chinese funeral horns, spoons, smashing plates, and fireworks. Read more Man Man – Life Fantastic (2011)

Trophy Scars – Darkness, Oh Hell (2010)

Trophy Scars – Darkness, Oh Hell (2010)

Trophy Scars – Darkness, Oh Hell (2010)Îmi dau seama că recomandările mele în mod frecvent n-au nici o relevanţă, lumea preferă brand-urile comode, marfa corporatistă de larg consum, ciunga ulimu’ răcnet asortat iPodului, însă aceşti Trophy Scars m-au lăsat cu gura căscată. Foarte proaspătul „Darkness, Oh Hell” este un amestec ameţitor de sonorităţi de la secvenţe Post Hardcore la Jazz şi Blues Rock, de la Indie realmente Alternative la orchestraţii subtile asortate perfect cu viori sau suflători şi au nervul absolut absent noii generaţii (pseudo) Punk. Oscilează pe o gamă extrem de largă muzical, riff-urile furioase nu exclud armoniile, pianul sau trompeta se îmbină cu cele mai incisive ritmuri şi răbufniri zgomotoase.
Catalogaţi Post Hardcore experimental, Trophy Scars mi-au amintit de geniul celor din Cop Shoot Cop, experimentele avangardiste ale celor din Crass, prospeţimea şi creativitatea celor din Sonic Youth (mai ales cu sonorităţile albumul „Dirty” – 1992), au ceva din abordarea celor din Rollins Band de pe albumul „Weight” (1994), dar mi-au amintit şi de Clutch şi Helmet presărat cu ceva din şarmul lui Tom Waits. Rădăcinile The Beatles se împletesc organic cu energia unor Converge (mă bucur că şi alţii au remarcat gaşca aceasta de Metal), dar şi cu sonorităţile experimental-zgomotoase ale celor din Eels în cele mai incisive şi frământate momente ale lor.
Muzica lor este o invitaţie de a explora lumea dincolo de aparenţe şi evidenţe, o lume ascunsă, vibrantă, uneori întunecată şi îmbibată de misticism şi magie. O magie pierdută, uitată, izolată în subconştient şi abandonată. Read more Trophy Scars – Darkness, Oh Hell (2010)