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Monthly Archive for July, 2009Page 2 of 3

Fuck Summer, Give Me Bleak Metal Instead

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on July 21, 2009
in MP3
. Comments

grief_no_absolution Fuck Summer, Give Me Bleak Metal Instead

Earlier this afternoon I posted a review and some tracks from sunny shoegazers The Legends, saying the album was perfect for these warmer months. But I failed to include the Sunn o))) fans in this conversation, many of whom probably find summer to be “lame,” and probably make up a healthy portion of this blog’s readership. Never fear, Chicago’s FSS label just dropped a new doosey by the metal-informed noise/power ambient Grief No Absolution.

Grief No Absolution is truth in advertising. This is suffocating, horrifying, paranoid music – the soundtrack you hear when you’ve been demoted a circle of hell or two for insolence. The group, who formed in 2008 in the orb of primordial ooze that rotates near the Earth’s core, makes Khanate look like more of a “pastel black.” GNA will be releasing two vinyl EPs next month, Eurostopodus Argus and Crypsis, which will also be available for purchase as a single package download. Both EPs play as a full single movement, so the MP3 below is simply an out-of-context taste of what you can expect. Enjoy the sample, then boogie on down to church.

Eurostopodus Argus and Crypsis are available August 10 courtesy of FSS. Celebrate good times.

For fans of:  Sunn O))), Wolf Eyes, Earth, Prurient

MP3 :::
Grief No Absolution – My Hands Are Your Fading Cinder

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The Legends – Over and Over

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on July 21, 2009
in Praise and Malaise
. Comments

the-legends The Legends - Over and Over

Back in 2004, The Legends released Up Against the Legends, a rather unfortunate band and album name for a body of work that was quite good. But the Legends have always had a sense of humor. When the record was first released, many were under the pretense that this group of C86 nostalgic bros were a nine-piece noise pop orchestra. That wasn’t exactly true, as The Legends are/is really a one-studio wizard deal a la Dungen by the name of Johan Angergård. While it’s easy to ignore The Legends since they’re Scandinavian and might be mistaken for some Stereogum overhyped garbage, you should not do this. Though not terribly groundbreaking, The Legends are awesomely interpreted sublime dream/shoegaze pop perfect for these warmer months.

The recently released Over and Over is a decidedly more polished effort than their ’60s garage fuzz pop centric Up Against the Legends, and leaps and bounds better than their dreadful Public Radio. The most intriguing aspect to Over and Over is Angergård’s ability to write gorgeous, sunshiney major-key vocal melodies while created a darker album. Over and Over is more spacious and moodier in its softer moment, while the noise and distortion is more grating in its wall of sound moments. This notion is best demonstrated with the title track and “Turn Away,” included below for your consideration. Over and Over, while not a mindblowingly original record, is a well crafted and fun-loving document of what was good about C86 and the poppier side of shoegaze.

Over and Over is available now through Labrador.

For fans of:  Shop Assistants, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Vivian Girls

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating
steelydan2 The Legends - Over and Over

MP3 :::
The Legends – Over and Over
The Legends – Turn Away

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Gone Fishin’

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on July 16, 2009
in General Communique
. Comments

Gone Fishin

Kenny Bloggins and L-Train are heading up to Chicago for the weekend for partyzeit and to hang with our favorite bros and broettes. I’m actually not covering Pitchfork – we just happen to be in the city for that weekend. Blog updates resume Tuesday. Peace greases!

P.S. Oh dear God! Look at the fish with the humoid teeth!

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Phantom Family Halo is Awesome

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on July 16, 2009
in Rockshows
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phantom Phantom Family Halo is Awesome

I halfway feel like no further elaboration outside the title of this entry is needed. But whatever, this is a music blog, so let me sHaRe mY feeLinGs.

I’ve heard for a couple of years that I need to see Phantom Family Halo. Like, everyone I know has told me I need to see them. So, instead of doing either Forecastle or Lebowski Fest last weekend, I opted to spend my money at Lisa’s Oak Street Lounge with the yokel locals to catch Phantom Family Halo’s opening set Saturday night for new Temporary Residence signing and stalwart Louisville boys Young Widows.

Is it cool to describe a show as trenchant? Phantom Family Halo were trenchant. For the uninitiated, Phantom Family Halo formed from the mighty and mysterious local freak folk collective Sapat and The For Carnation. Obviously, these guys are heavy hitters.

A large projection of, for the most part, some visual pastiche of anthropology films illuminated the stage and the band, which included two drummers and a guy whose sole function was to create insane noise from his keyboard and Boss SP-303. PFH were extremely loud, and while listening to their recorded stuff right now, are still extremely uncategorizable. Loosely speaking, Phantom Family Halo function as a psychedelic band. However, their live show is anything but navel gazing. The group becomes a breathing, menacing behemoth purveying nasty, swampy, ultra-distorted acid rock with a rhythm and vocal section closer to the urgency of a punk tent revival, like 154-era Wire informed by Six Organs of Admittance (or perhaps its the other way around).

Phantom Family Halo is awesome. I mean, if Julian Cope is stoked on the record, you know it’s good:

I’m also right blown away by the catchy and compelling all-purpose psychedelia of THE LEGEND OF BLACK SIX by power trio The Phantom Family Halo. I say ‘all purpose’ because this stuff is useful and should be available by the vat on prescription, because it’s good for the mental health. I say power trio, but this lot are greedy motherfuckers with a hefty set of auxiliary members. The sound is totally reminiscent of that 1970 period when no fucker could control the number of overdubs, and these guys pass through every stage from The Youngbloods and Kalackakra to a kind of Amon Duul PARADIESWARTS DUUL-informed take on David Voorhaus’ White Noise project via early (very early) Chrome on their way to the proto metal of ‘Electric God In Your Galaxy’.

If they come to your neck of the woods, make haste to see them. Their web presence is at good ol’ MySpazz.

MP3 :::
Phantom Family Halo – Child of Love
Phantom Family Halo – Black River

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Revisiting the Terrifically Loud Skywave

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on July 14, 2009
in Contraband
. Comments

29fb92c008a03b19934c8010.L Revisiting the Terrifically Loud Skywave

The now defunct Virginia-based Skywave is a name you might not recognize, but their lineage is rather important in the second generation shoegaze (or “newgaze” as it’s sometimes referred) movement. Synthstatic is certainly their best, and I first heard it my freshman year in college in 2003 when we received the record at the ol’ campus radio station. It was the loudest thing I had ever heard at the time, and I think I played a cut off it during my show every week for six months. It might still be the loudest record I own, save for maybe Guitar Wolf, which is just ridiculous. I don’t know, man – point is, it’s real goddamn loud.

Every song sounds as if the mix is utterly and completely in the red – at all times. It’s the type of production that would make most audiophile-sensitive producers shit. Skywave’s wall of sound is downright frightening. Throw “Angela’s an Angel” on your ghetto blaster and feel your tweeters jump about a quarter inch at the 1:22 mark. With that said, rays of light peak through the decibel decimation on sweet dream pop numbers like “Adore,” “Wear This Dress,” and “I Believe.” “Fire” is still my favorite track after all these years, though. That jam is evil.

As per a frame of reference, Skywave is a fine concoction of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s darker moments on Psychocandy, the more bombastic selections off of My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything, and the extremely tight rhythm of any given Echo & the Bunnymen record.

After Skywave split, the former members went on to form two bands you may be more familiar with – A Place to Bury Strangers and Ceremony. If you listen to the aforementioned, however, they both sound just like Skywave, right? Synthstatic is the all-in-one sinister jam hive to own.

I generally don’t do this, since I run a professional music blog, you see, and I always encourage our readers to support the artist. But Synthstatic is out of print and hustlers be tryin’ to flip copies of it for, like, $75. Hell naw; fuck that shit. Kenny Bloggins gon’ give it 2 u: Skywave – Synthstatic (ZIP archive, approx. 68 Mb). Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya.

For fans of:  My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, A Place to Bury Strangers

MP3 :::
Skywave – Fire
Skywave – Angela’s an Angel
Skywave – Adore

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City Center – S/T

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on July 14, 2009
in Praise and Malaise
. Comments

citycenter City Center - S/T

I was a little embarrassed to review this record a little late in the game (by music blog terms). Fred Thomas’ solo project City Center has been long-championed by music blogs I trust, such as Raven Sings the Blues and Forest Gospel. Shit, I even like his other band, the retro kitsch Saturday Looks Good to Me. So I have no excuse, other than being a mediocre blogger. My life is average.

City Center is a sample-based, blissed-out psychedelic entity – much like, well, Panda Bear and Lotus Plaza. While the aforementioned solo outings from Animal Collective and Deerhunter make sense in relation to those groups’ ethos of general weirdness, I didn’t expect this sort of album from the chief His Name is Alive/SLGTM songwriter. Maybe I should’ve, considering that Thomas’ other projects do dabble in lots of left of center sounds. Regardless, good surprises can be exciting. City Center is fantastic.

City Center was probably recorded underwater. I’m not sure how Thomas did this without shorting out his gear, but this record’s precise aquatic timbre and dark reverb could’ve only been achieve submerged, I believe. Czech opener “Killer Whale” with its intensely fluid exposition that would make Growing melt and drifting-at-sea folk acoustics and you’ll see what I mean. City Center begins a little slower and bland, but wait four songs in.

The record sprouts its wings with “Gladest,” which is everything correct about lush, soaring psychedelic pop. City Center keeps getting better from there with the three movement “Bleed Blood,” beginning as a heady electric folk magical mystery tour and ending in a wash of broadcast static and a penetrating sonic pastiche. “Summer School” brings in that breezy, lighthearted and fun in the sun psychedelia that High Places also masters and Animal Collective sometimes fails at (this is how “Brothersport” should’ve been done).

While Panda Bear and Atlas Sound and similar psychbros may have been on this tip previously and owned this sort of approach to sample-based music wholly, Fred Thomas’ surprising well-crafty entry to the field is anything but second-rate. City Center represents everything I like in modern music – melodic, vaguely accessible but sometimes challenging, and all kinds of trippy.

City Center is available now and you can grip it here.

For fans of:  High Places, Panda Bear, Lotus Plaza

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating
steelydan2 City Center - S/T

MP3 :::
City Center – Summer School
City Center – Bleed Blood

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New Jay Reatard Album Leaked

Published
by
Xavier Van Zandt
on July 12, 2009
in MP3
. Comments

jay_reatard New Jay Reatard Album Leaked

Nothing says instant cred like a leaked album and Jay Reatard’s forthcoming release, Watch Me Fall, is out there on the bit torrents.  The album was scheduled for an August 18th release on Matador but the self-proclaimed “young Meatloaf” announced the leak on his Twitter feed late last week.  As a sidenote, the dude is seriously spell-check challenged so I’m rethinking whether or not the spelling of his last name was accidental or intentional…

Of course the leak really shouldn’t be all that shocking given that Reatard was selling copies of the new release at his live shows.  But let’s face it, this ain’t exactly Chinese Democracy and I don’t see anyone going to jail anytime soon over this.  The tracks “Wounded” and “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” are already available for free download and point to a poppy, polished effort and a departure from the amphetamine-driven garage punk of prior releases.

Jay’s been touring in advance – er, in support – of the album and Brooklyn Vegan has some photos of the band in all its sweaty glory.  They make Tenacious D look svelte.  By the way, note the Grifters stencil on some of the road equipment.  I was just dusting off my copy of Full Blown Possession and wondering what’s happened to those guys.

MP3 :::
Jay Reatard – Wounded
Jay Reatard – It Ain’t Gonna Save Me

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Invaders – Floating

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on July 10, 2009
in Praise and Malaise
. Comments

invaders_floating Invaders - Floating

Louisville’s Invaders might just be my favorite local act. They certainly could be the second loudest (Lords takes first place for obvious reasons). Invaders triumphantly achieve the coveted position of being difficult to categorize, which should by default pique your interest. Floating, their recently released debut for local label Karate Body, is a treble-heavy, noisy, yet viscerally accessible and pop-oriented body of work.

Invaders certainly take advantage of, in some ways, the resurgence of the no-fi aesthetic a la Psychedelic Horseshit and Times New Viking. However, Invaders rely on extremely tight song structures compared to the loosey goosey dissonance of the aforementioned. Snakey guitar, heavily distorted and subdued vocals, punchy rhythm, and general scratchy psychedelia rule over Floating, and the record is able to weave through oft disparate tempos and moods while remaining consistent and cohesive.

Invaders drift in the drug laments of Spacemen 3 on “Head Full of Rocks” (accompanied by the excellent backing vocals of the Sandpaper Dolls’ Amber Estes) and the noise pop of really early Yo La Tengo on “The Flu.” “Charmer” amalgamates a garage punk ethos with a decidedly shoegazey flavor. “Centipede” is pure stoner rock – Hawkwind, Dead Meadow, etc. And the title track sounds exactly like it should – ride heavy percussion, 4AD evocative dreamy textures, and a vaguely romantic swagger juxtaposed against late ’60s acid melodies. Light a doob and get lifted.

Invaders evidently love all the same music I love. Hence, I love Floating.

For fans of:  Spacemen 3, Times New Viking, 13th Floor Elevators

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating
steelydan1 Invaders - Floating

You Louisville-and-surrounding-area bros and broettes can see Invaders August 7th on the Glassworks Rooftop. And guess the fuck what – they’re also playing the Marmoset show on September 18th at Skull Alley.

MP3 :::
Invaders – Charmer
Invaders – Floating

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The Decibel Tolls presents… Marmoset with Invaders and The Harlequins

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on July 9, 2009
in News and Rockshows
. Comments

marmoset_flier The Decibel Tolls presents... Marmoset with Invaders and The Harlequins

This show will be a killer, so save the date. You should already be familiar with Marmoset by now, and I’ll be giving you the jump on new Louisville act Invaders, who are releasing their debut this week on Karate Body, and Cincinnati’s The Harlequins.

The show’s happening at Skull Alley, which means that all ages are welcome. Skull Alley now serves a good selection of beer as well (with ID, of course). This will rule.

MP3 :::
Marmoset – I Love My Things
Marmoset – Peace in the Valley

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Nasty Psychedelic Dub Courtesy of Forest Swords

Published
by
Kenny Bloggins
on July 9, 2009
in MP3
. Comments

l_9752bee17e4f4144ad59c4cc5d665f40 Nasty Psychedelic Dub Courtesy of Forest Swords

If the preview of Sun Awar’s latest joint gave you a tingling in the solar plexus, then you’ve gotta hear what Forest Swords are bringing to the table (besides weed). From what one could ascertain from the few songs we’ve heard thus far, Forest Swords do not fake the funk and very much keep their shit extraterrestrial.

“Red Rocks Fogg” showcases heavy, mystic, syrupy dub pipped through fuzz pedals. “Down Steps” takes it one step further, introducing the trip as a sparse reverberated soundscape a la Ambient-era Aphex Twin, then organically builds the celestial grime into an ultra low-end groove so nasty that your face crunches up a bit and you expel a gasp of “daaaang, that’s nasty.” The title track from their forthcoming cassette-only debut Miarches comes correct with acid-damaged minor key pop sensibility, samples resembling some sort of outer space communique picked up by SETI, and actual vocals – giving the song a sort of space dub reinterpretation of early Indian Jewelry.

Forest Swords are sick. Be on the lookout for more from them. Miarches is available for preorder courtesy of Leftist Nautical Antiques.

For fans of:  Pocahaunted, Growing, Religious Knives, Scratch Perry

MP3 :::
Forest Swords – Miarches
Forest Swords – Red Rocks Fogg
Forest Swords – Down Steps

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