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Monthly Archive for April, 2009

Protect Yourself from the Swine Flu

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on April 30, 2009
in General Communique and MP3
. Comments

n12901847_35378230_48 Protect Yourself from the Swine Flu

I’ve got my gas mask ready. What about you?

In the interest of preparedness in these uncertain times, the incomparable @NotNotoriousBIG on Twitter has procured a mask for you all to wear. The graphic below is a PNG file with transparent background, so all you gots to do is take your profile picture from your preferred social network, open it in the graphics program of your choice, and paste that lil’ dude about the mouth and nose regions. Can’t be too careful when it keeps looking like some 28 Days Later shit’s gettin’ ready to go down.

zOMG ZOMBIES!!!1 THUNDERKISS 65 ASTROCREEPZ 2000!!

cover_large Protect Yourself from the Swine Flu

Get prepared, ya’llz. Swine flu/Bird flu/West Nile/SARS/terrorism/E. Coli ain’t nothin’ to fuck with:

mask Protect Yourself from the Swine Flu

MP3 :::
Nothing People – Sickness
The N.E.C. – Old Medicine
Medicine – Till I Die
Disturbed – The Sickness (J/K LOL)

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The Bradford Cox Flickr

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on April 30, 2009
in Visual Aids
. Comments

The Bradford Cox Flickr

When I’m thinking of material to write for my fake Billy Corgan Twitter (sorry if you’re tired of hearing about it, but it’s a constant source of inspiration and amusement), I often do research to see what he’s up to. Recently, Voldemort Corgan developed a “subscription” service, wherein for $40 a month, you get exclusive peeks into studio sessions and any wankery he’s got going on. Fuck that shit. Rock stars are dead. The inaccessible stage god (from both the “indie” realms and the arena rock world) has no room in our current information-saturated paradigm. This is one of the many reasons I love Bradford Cox – he gets that.

Cox and the rest of Deerhunter have always been exceptionally great about making themselves extremely accessible.  Of course, you can always count on a constant torrent of new songs, demos, and micromixes through the Deerhunter blog.  And interviewing Lotus Plaza a couple of weeks ago was as easy as emailing Brian at Kranky and saying “Love me some Floodlight Collective, hook it up.” I booked bands for a while, and you wouldn’t belive how prevalent the diva persona is. Deerhunter doesn’t roll like that, and I really, really dig it.

I recently jumped on Fickr because Lanabear opened an account to share her knitting projects and photography, and it seems like a good place to stash my various graphic design work and any horrible things I see on 4chan. Sho’ ’nuff, Mr. Cox is also on Flickr, all of his pictures are public, and you get a real glimse inside Deerhunter – everything from the equipment they use (photo above – I want that Roland sampler), to different versions of album artwork, to hanging out with their best bros, to… well, just about anything that a Deerhunter fan would find interesting. Maybe it’s only interesting to me – I dunno. You should be aware by now that Kenny Bloggins is fo’ realz gay for Bradford Cox. WEB 2.0 LOL

The Bradford Cox Flickr

The Bradford Cox Flickr

The Bradford Cox Flickr

The Bradford Cox Flickr

Finally, according to the Deerhunter Forum, this may be the oldest live video in existence – circa 2005 at Atlanta’s The Earl. The sound quality isn’t great, but it’s cool to see nonetheless:

MP3 :::
Deerhunter – Famous Last Words

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Some Old School Panda Bear

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on April 28, 2009
in MP3
. Comments

jane1 Some Old School Panda Bear

For whatever reason, I still find Merriweather Post Pavilion really hit-or-miss. Miss the weird shit, I guess. As such, I tend to revert back to Danse Manitee for my Animal Collective fix, as well as their many side projects that had varying degrees of interest. One of the more overlooked releases was the record cut between Panda Bear and his best bro Scott Mou. The project was dubbed Jane. Scott and Noah worked at New York’s Other Music and recorded music together at the former’s apartment. They released a couple of albums, but Berserker was the only one with any distribution (since it jumped on the Paw Tracks catalog, obviously).

jane2 Some Old School Panda Bear

Berserker was released in the spring of 2005, between Noah’s Young Prayer and Person Pitch. You certainly hear some embryonic forms of what was to come – warped ambient textures over fractured, booty bass heavy beats.  Jane resembles an almost primordial Person Pitch… on lots of psychedelics.  Mou was a professional club DJ at the time, and they both considered Jane to be a “dance” project, as indicated on Noah’s description of Bersker via Paw Tracks:

We both really liked dance music and dance music from the very beginning and I mean stomps and shouts and claps and stuff like that. Of course we like all kinds of other stuff too, but it’s the dance that gets us going on Jane. We played once at the Animal Collective practice space, but found it much more pleasant to play at Scotty’s home in Greenpoint where he had his mixer and simple microphones and we would drink brews and talk about all kinds of things and then play. I would usually sing about stuff I was thinking about that day and Scotty would move with it, playing jams and it would all kind of pour out. We liked all the mechanical robo dance jams from Detroit and Chicago and Germany but we wanted to do something with less 0’s and 1’s and more souls.

Despite what he says, I would invite you to try to boogie down to this record. Take video and send it to kb [at] thedecibeltolls [dot] com so I can lol, por favor. But then again, I suppose “Slipping Away” does start to get pretty funky past the six-minute mark.

Anyway, Berserker isn’t for everyone, but if you slept on this release and/or miss the odd electronic explorations of Animal Collective’s pre-Sung Tongs material, the songs below are not to be missed. Moreover, it’s interesting to hear this album in relation to Panda Bear’s musical trajectory, especially since it was recorded during the transition between the acoustic-friendly Young Prayer/Sung Tongs era and the sample-saturated, dub-informed Person Pitch/Strawberry Jam period. In retrospect, it seems that Mou had a greater influence on Noah than anyone gives him credit for.

Jane’s Berserker is available through Paw Tracks. You should buy it so you can enjoy the Grateful Dead skulls on the back over.

jane3 Some Old School Panda Bear

Awesome.

For fans of: Aphex Twin, Odd Nosdam, Tim Hecker

MP3 :::
Jane – Slipping Away
Jane – Berserker

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The Nightblooms and their Summertime Shoegaze

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on April 28, 2009
in Contraband
. Comments

51dYpyGnxML._SS500_ The Nightblooms and their Summertime Shoegaze

Recently, I discovered I had quite a volume of unmarked CD-Rs lying about my personal caverns (closets, that is, not some strange sexual euphemism). Last night, I gripped L-Train’s industrial-strength Sony Walkman (remember those?) and went through 30 or so unnamed CDs. I found some amazing stuff – much of which I will share with you over the next few weeks. A lot of tracks I found were certainly of the older, rare, and/or out of print variety, as I pirated a lot of music from my former college radio station WRFL, where I dwelled for most of my college career. The station pretty much had a “don’t throw anything away” policy since its inception in 1988, so it’s a veritable museum (though certain titles were stolen at some point in the past obviously). This is why you see a new category called “Contraband.” Since the concepts are somewhat similar, entries from Cut-Out Bin Classics and Vinyl Finds have been consolidated into one easy, low-APR category. The MP3 categories, as always, refers to hawt new traxxx (or easier to find music).

The first awesome find in last night’s excursion is the 1992 self-titled album by The Nightblooms. The Nightblooms were, as often is the case, an underappreciated collective from The Netherlands who only released two albums. Shoegazing is certainly the easiest reference point, as the group concealed melodic vocals under massive Big Muff guitar sounds. However, the Nightblooms were not nearly as ethereal as, say, Lush – the group packed a crunchy punch… almost reminiscent of a sped-up stoner metal band. You also hear an amalgamation of fuzz, punk, noise, and twee a la The Vaselines. There’s very little information on the group and I have yet to find any interviews on the intarwebz. If you find something, please send it my way! Otherwise, enjoys these rare gems perfect for warming weather.

For fans of: Lush, The Vaselines, Velocity Girl, Aislers Set

MP3 :::
The Nightblooms – Panicle
The Nightblooms – 59#1
The Nightblooms – Slowly Rising

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Sibylle Baier – Colour Green

Published
by
Michael Hansen
on April 27, 2009
in Noise Consultations
. Comments

sibylle_mirror_lg Sibylle Baier - Colour Green

Discovery is a true commodity nowadays. It’s obvious when Bigfoot sightings don’t deliver and people claim to have found Atlantis using Google Earth, but luckily, there always seems to be relics of good music to uncover. Most recently, we soaked in the missed-connection allure of proto-punkers Death, but a few years ago, an equally remarkable keepsake was brought to light in the form of German folk songstress Sibylle Baier.

In the early 1970’s, during a “particuarly dark and moody period of her young life,” a good friend took Sibylle on a road trip through the Alps in Genoa. After returning with fresh vitality, she wrote and recorded a set of dark, fragile songs on her reel to reel device. Content with her life at home, she opted out of a singing career (and acting too, she appeared in Wim Wender’s Alice in the Cities), and so these intimate portraits of family and friends were never heard outside the ears of their respective subjects. Flash forward thirty odd years to find her son Robby having compiled her songs on CD, handing it out to friends and family as a gift, including one copy for an unsuspecting J Mascis, who, after realizing what he was holding, passed it on to Orange Twin Records, where it finally saw a proper release in 2006. These 14 gorgeous songs were assembled into Sibylle’s one and only album, Colour Green.

sibylle_cover_lg Sibylle Baier - Colour Green

This collection of skeletal folk is an austere study of domestic claustrophobia, pursed longing, and bittersweet optimism. Images of overgrown gardens and strained relationships color the album’s buoyant melodies. Sybille’s voice, a unique vessel in itself, strikingly combines Vashti Bunyan’s naive wonder and Nico’s taxed spirit into a haunting presence that would have stood tall beside either chanteuse if it had been available to the public. It forms a tapestry around her intuitive, deceptively simple guitar style, rooted in the narrative picking of Songs of Leonard Cohen but with a demure spin that fascinatingly contrasts her sharp observations. Case in point, Colour Green is an instant classic.

Unsurprisingly, the recent discovery of her work hasn’t seemed to phase Sibylle much, and there are no deadlines announced for a follow-up album, but she and her son Robby have been working on some new songs. About this time last year, the two reportedly entered the studio to record some piano pieces she wrote in the mid-80’s, after relocating to America. One of the new songs, “Let Us Know”, was included on the soundtrack for Wim Wender’s most recent film Palermo Shooting, and was released earlier this year. Check her website for updates on new material, and in the mean time do yourself a huge favor and pick up Colour Green, available now through Orange Twin.

For fans of: Vashti Bunyan, Marissa Nadler, Tara Jane O’Neil, Mount Eerie

MP3 :::
Sibylle Baier – Give Me a Smile
Sibylle Baier – The End

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Black Moth Super Rainbow – The Decibel Tolls Interview

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on April 27, 2009
in Interviews
. Comments

bmsr Black Moth Super Rainbow - The Decibel Tolls Interview

Black Moth Super Rainbow’s tacit ringleader Tobacco took a few minutes by e-mail to talk about their new album Eating Us and his love for the album Happy in Galoshes. I love to hear imaginative artists like Tobacco discuss enjoying things that make the hipster dorks cringe.

KB: What’s the origin of your name Black Moth Super Rainbow and your moniker Tobacco?

T: It just kind of popped into my head one day, before I had the idea for the band.  Then I wanted a band that would sound like that name.  Tobacco comes from a character that freaked me out as a kid.

KB: Eating Us seems to have a much more mellow and classic pop-focused vibe compared with the earlier full-lengths. Part of that seems to come from the addition of more acoustic instrumentation. Was that change something intentional or something that sorta evolved in the studio?

T: It’s good that a lot of people are noticing that.  I didn’t want to make another synth album because I was getting worn out on the sounds I could make within this kind of music.  There’s always been just as many guitars, and maybe even more acoustic guitars in the past, but the focus in the mixing is less on the synthsizers and more on the other instruments this time around.

KB: How did you hook up with the legendary Dave Fridmann?

T: Our friend Andy knew Dave and his wife from SUNY Fredonia, so we met up once a little over a year before we ended up making the album.

KB: How did you get interested in the old analog equipment that you all employ, like the vocoder and mellotron?

T: I wanted stuff that was more colorful than the regular guitar and attention-seeking-singer kind of bands.  It took a while to figure out what worked best, and now maybe it’s time to move on again.

KB: What can folks who come out to the shows this spring expect at the Black Moth Super Rainbow show if they haven’t experienced you all live yet?

T: Expect a bunch of people who are still uncomfortable on a stage with hopefully some decent visual distractions.

KB: How does the songwriting process defer between your Tobacco solo project and Black Moth Super Rainbow, besides working with the other members?

T: It’s strange, because there isn’t a difference.  The Tobacco stuff came about more from deciding that certain songs didn’t fit with what Black Moth Super Rainbow had become.

KB: Are you considering doing any more collaborations like you all did with the Octopus Project?

T: No, I prefer working alone.  That’ll probably be my first and last, but I guess you never know.

KB: What music, new or discovered, influences or inspires you as of late?

T: I feel like I get inspired by things that aren’t music these days.  But I really love the Scott Weiland double album.  While everyone else i talk to has their Animal Collective now, I’ve got my Weiland, and it feels great.

Black Moth Super Rainbow kicks off their month-long excursion May 19th in Lexington. Eating Us drops on Graveface Records May 26th, and it’s a sick jam (expect a full review soon).

MP3 :::
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us Medley
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Born On a Day the Sun Didn’t Rise

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Blank Dogs – Under and Under

Published
by
Norwood Derr
on April 26, 2009
in Praise and Malaise
. Comments

blank_dogs Blank Dogs - Under and Under

The hardest records to review are the ones that really don’t leave any sort of imprint on my temporal lobe. It’s not that these said records are complete garbage, it’s more that they end up on the mundane end of the aural spectrum. Blank Dogs‘ new record Under and Under picked at my senses for a couple of hours, always seemingly on the verge of a breakthrough. The one man show Mr. Blank Dog, simply couldn’t reach that highly sought after tier of captivation. Maybe it’s time for a Q-Tip, Norwood.

Little is known about the band’s only member “Mr. Blank Dog” who has probably put out more records than Zappa in four years earning him a significant amount of attention as of late, and a cozy spot on In The Red records. But then again what Brooklyn artist isn’t getting attention these days? Blank Dogs is trying to be The Residents of the 21st century, providing virtually no information about the identities of Mr. Blank Dog and his many musical patrons. This enigmatic caricature of a dude conceals himself at shows, which after listening to his music doesn’t really surprise me given this record’s uncanny feel.

Like I said, Under and Under is frustrating. It’s like the video game they play in South Park where they try to catch the Magic Dragon by shooting heroin as fuel to keep them going. No matter how close anyone ever gets to the dragon, they never catch it. There are moments on Under and Under when I think that I’ve got the dragon cornered, ready to embrace Blank Dogs’ genius, but that climactic sense of appreciation never really shines.

You can’t expect every record that comes along to “catch the dragon,” however Under and Under comes close at times. Mr. Blank Dog seems to be well versed in the art of subtle pop hooks which sound awesome buried under a bit of dissonant, lo-fi instrumentation. There are songs like “L Machine” that convince me that Ian Curtis is still alive, well and singing on this record. To take it a step further, some of the guitar and that feeling of hauntingly unfamiliar familiarity (get it?) is strikingly similar to that of Joy Division (especially on “Open Shut”). The poppy dissonance also reminded me a bit of Pere Ubu, as well as early Fall records. Blank Dogs show off their sensitive, fragile side as well on tracks like “Tin Birds” which sounds a lot like a sped up Cure song recorded on a four track.

But then the shit hits the fan. What is up with the unnecessary keyboard/synth? It reminds me too much of those 8-bit Nintendo samples that Crystal Castles use, and I really can’t tolerate any more of that nonsense. The intro of “L Machine” begins with the most ridiculously boring three note keyboard line I’ve heard in a while. Its details like this that Mr. Blank Dog should consider paying more attention to. He’s already managed to strike an interesting conceptual chord in his music, now with a bit of refinement his next release could be something to keep in the walkman.

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating
steelydan3 Blank Dogs - Under and Under

Under and Under will be available on May 26th via In The Red records.

MP3 :::
Blank Dogs – No Compass
Blank Dogs – L Machine

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Pterodactyl Take Things Worldwild

Published
by
Michael Hansen
on April 24, 2009
in MP3
. Comments

61cIr3GURuL._SS500_ Pterodactyl Take Things Worldwild

I connect with Brooklyn’s Pterodactyl because apparently we both like to name things by flipping to a random entry in the encyclopedia. Their new album Worldwild combines LA “Shit-gaze” sound with angular RISD art-punk riffs and candid vocal-play, which furthers my suspicion that every indie artist secretly wants to lead an a Capella troupe. There’s also a good deal of electronic interludage that evokes Caribou given the generally sunny tone of the album, although at this juncture I suppose Pterodactyl’s closest living relatives would probably be Health. All in all, it’s a satisfyingly guiltless guilty pleasure.

Tomorrow night, April 25th, Brooklynites can go to the album release party/video art show in Williamsburg. The band will be opening for Oneida while various videos projects are screened. Admission is a 5-10$ dollar donation, or free if you buy the album, which is a pretty legit way to go about business.

Worldwild is available now through Jagjaguwar and can be purchased at any of these upcoming shows.

4/25 – Brooklyn, NY – Secret Project Robot (Record Release Show)
5/02 – Cambridge, MA – MIT Senior House
5/16 – Hanover, NH – Dartmouth College
6/12 – Brooklyn, NY – Union Pool (w/ Aa and Sightings)

MP3 :::
Pterodactyl – No Sugar
Pterodactyl – December

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Lotus Plaza – The Decibel Tolls Interview

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on April 21, 2009
in Interviews
. Comments

lotusplaza Lotus Plaza - The Decibel Tolls Interview

Lockett Pundt is one of the guitarists and songwriters for the only hyped group fully deserving of said hype, Deerhunter. He’s also the band’s understated musical force. A lot is made of both Bradford Cox’s serious songwriting prowess and his on or off-stage antics. While Cox’s Atlas Sound extracts his signature sound from the Deerhunter burgoo, showcasing where the group gets their vivid lyrics and rigid pop structure, Pundt’s Lotus Plaza pinpoints where Deerhunter’s liquid, dreamy textures originate.

The Floodlight Collective is Lotus Plaza’s debut album, and it’s so fucking good.  The generally reserved Pundt was kind enough to take a few minutes out of the insanely productive Deerhunter schedule and discuss the origins of Lotus Plaza and the recording process.

KB: First, I want to congratulate you on getting this album out – it’s really incredible. I know many of the songs that ended up on The Floodlight Collective have been around for quite some time. What’s the origin story with Lotus Plaza and this album?

LP: Thank you! I guess the origin was when I started recording songs by myself during the last year of high school. I received a four-track for my birthday and tried to write songs. I have been doing it ever since. There wasn’t any real name to go with the songs I made until a few years ago. We all had kind of a pseudonym in Deerhunter and mine was lotus plaza. Around the same time, being Cryptograms era, I started to write a lot of the songs that would eventually go on the record. I had no real intention of making anything for an album really until my friends asked me what I was going to do with the songs. I hadn’t thought of releasing an album myself, but I was into the idea. I was kind of scared but I’m glad it worked out how it did.

KB: How does the songwriting and recording processes differ between Lotus Plaza and the full-band Deerhunter, save for the number of people of course?

LP: Most of the songs I write, I try to make them for Deerhunter. Songs that don’t really feel like they would fit are what end up being something that I might use. Like if the songs are too sample heavy or have more simultaneous instruments than there are members of Deerhunter, then I might end up using them. My songs are more of a recording project. I don’t really imagine the songs live as I’m recording them. Deerhunter songs have to have a live setting in mind during creation. You can’t add that sixth guitar track since it can’t be done in on stage with two guitars.

KB: The Floodlight Collective was an old band you were in, I understand. What made you decide on this name for your first solo effort?

LP: It was an experience that seemed to really initiate my desire to actually create and play music. I was a little unsure of my ability to do anything other than flub around on my Squire II Stratocaster and Crate GX-15 amp. It was the first time that I had really played music with a band full of people. I loved doing it on my own before but it seemed more of a fantasy to actually do it in a band setting. I don’t know to explain it properly other than it made music seemed that it was something I was capable of doing. I wasn’t so sure before I suppose.

lotusplaza2 Lotus Plaza - The Decibel Tolls Interview

KB: On the Deerhunter blog, it seems that “Dot/Gain” originated under the Lotus Plaza moniker but ended up, of course, on Weird Era Cont. Are there other songs in the catalog that started as you but ended up as Deerhunter?

LP:  No, not really. That was kind of a one time thing.

KB: Gotcha. So, I’m really fascinated by the tonality and lushness on a lot of the album, especially “Antoine.” I know that Panda Bear has said that Person Pitch was almost entirely created on the Boss SP-303 sampler and an 8-track. What does the Pundt gear arsenal look like?

LP: Well, I just got some new stuff actually. I used a computer to record the record almost entirely. The title track is actually all four track samples from drone tapes I made over the years, but even then it was turned into a MIDI sample and played on a keyboard into my computer. I have since stopped using it. I wanted to go back to tapes. I didn’t know that he recorded that album on an 8 track. I just bought one that records 8 tracks onto cassette, the Tascam 688. I love it! I hope to record my next album on it. You’re definitely limited as far as effects and processing options without the computer, but I think I’m ready for a change.

KB: Any chance of a Lotus Plaza tour?

LP: Who knows. I don’t think i would be a very entertaining show to watch. I think I’m going to play some shows here in Atlanta and take things from there.

KB:  Finally, what albums have blown your mind lately?

LP: I haven’t been blown away by anything too much recently. I bought this one Harmonia album, Musik Von Harmonia, that I hadn’t heard before and I love it. Another one that I have been getting back into recently after a long break from it is Ash Ra Tempel’s New Age of Earth. Completely amazing…

Lotus Plaza’s The Floodlight Collective is available now courtesy of the good folks at Kranky.

MP3 :::
Lotus Plaza – A Threaded Needle
Deerhunter – Circulation (Live @ Noise Pop)

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Web 2.0 is Still a Series of Tubes

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on April 21, 2009
in General Communique
. Comments

389198g6g60 Web 2.0 is Still a Series of Tubes

Remember the infamous Ted Stevens series of tubes speech during his testimony on net neutrality? Still makes me lawl.

Anyway, you may have noticed with the redesign (The Decibel Tolls v3.0, d00dz) that the blog is now all up on the social networks. Those corporate logos on the sidebar will whisk you away to a myriad of ways to contact us.

Twitter – You’ve GOT to follow us on Twitter, if for no other reason than Kenny Bloggins likes to update this under the influence (then will subsequently try to delete all tweets the next morning). Constant flow of entertainment and dialogue. Get on it!
FaCeBoOk Fan Page – Technically there’s no point in you becoming a”fan” of the blog’s page, other than showing your pride and stroking our egos
Last.FM Group – The haters who write and read this blog get together and compare notes. At least one member of this group is a Mike Jones fan. You can’t hide what you like on Last.fm

Hope to see you all on TEH INTARWUBZ. Still not a dump truck!

MP3 :::
Howard Hello – Follow

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