2009 December | The Decibel Tolls

Monthly Archive for December, 2009

Happy New Year!

Published

on December 31, 2009

. Comments

We at The Decibel Tolls wish you nothing but the best in Madden 2K10. Hope you party hard tonight in celebration of the Gregorian calendar and feel like hell tomorrow. That’s my plan (thanks, Cabo Wabo). If you’re not sure how to most effectively and efficiently party, have Andrew WK help you understand supply-side partynomics (though they’re planning a birthday party, you can apply the same principals to properly observe this holiday). Keep it crunk but keep it positive:

MP3 :::
Wooden Shjips – Auld Lang Syne

Bay Area Bubblegum Garage Noir From Maus Haus

Published

Kenny Bloggins

on December 29, 2009

in MP3

. Comments

l_5b8bcf39bc79436e9997c55d2c10a53d Bay Area Bubblegum Garage Noir From Maus Haus

Diggin’ on the odd Nuggets vibe I’m getting from San Francisco’s Maus Haus. Maus Haus is certainly a quirky burgoo. The vocals reminds me a bit of Jason Lytle from the much missed Grandaddy, accompanied by a backing back of dudes with reverence for retro kitsch, sci fi movies, old modem sounds, theremins, and grimy garage rock. The melodies are firmly planted in major key, instantly hummable, almost bubblegum hooks. Yet something sinister brews under the surface that remains somewhat intangible. Hence the paradoxical “noir” label immediately following “bubblegum.” Therein lies the reason Maus Haus is an interesting listen.

Though they haven’t ventures too far out from the Bay Area, they’ve opened up shop for heavy hitters such as Black Moth Super Rainbow and Wooden Shjips. The group has a full length called Lark Marvels that you can grip through their MySpazz.

MP3 :::
Maus Haus – We Used Technology (But Technology Let Us Down)
Maus Haus – Rigid Breakfast

Noise Therapy

Published

Daniel Krow

on December 29, 2009

in Noise Consultations

. Comments

sinewave Noise Therapy

Back when I was in high school, I had a friend named Sam who used to brag about his love of Nurse With Wound. Whenever he had one of their tapes in his Walkman, he’d hand me his headphones and wait for my reaction. All I heard when I put them on was what sounded like an torturous mix of TV test patterns and fingernails on a chalkboard. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to listen to such noise. When I asked him what he enjoyed about it, he told me he found it “calming.” He had ADD and, according to him, the high pitched feedback soothed his nerves. I remember shaking my head in disbelief and thinking “this kid’s kind of a freak.”

Now, eight years later, I know exactly what he was talking about. I don’t have ADD, but I do have serious anxiety issues and it’s quite easy for me to feel overwhelmed. When my neighbors play their music too loud or I’m stuck on a noisy bus, I tense up and panic sets in. If I’m listening to anything remotely melodic on my stereo or my iPod, it begins to irritate me, because I can’t focus on a linear melody with two or three competing sounds in the background. But if I’m listening to something noisy and repetitive, like drone or noise music or certain kinds of doom metal, I’m far more able to calm down and ignore the extraneous noises around me. Because the music is repetitive, I’m able to relax my need to follow a melody, and because it’s noisy, I’m able to take comfort in the fact that nothing around me could be noisier than what I’m listening to.

Another benefit to listening to this kind of music to drown out outside distractions is that once you turn it off, your calm won’t be easily disturbed. The feeling of calm you get from listening to something like Stars of the Lids’ Avec Laudenum can be punctured by something as innocuous as a knock on the door, whereas if you’re listening to something as clamorous as Prurient, it might take an air raid siren to really unsettle you. Maybe listening to noisy music can be a way of training our nerves not to tense up when we hear loud and unwelcome noises. I can just imagine group therapy sessions where everyone sits on the floor and tries to relax as horrible grinding sounds blast out of a PA and an instructor screams through a megaphone.

And you thought yoga made you feel relaxed…

MP3 :::
Sunroof! – Untitled
Nurse With Wound – Two Mock Projections

Supervising New Movements in Psychedelic IDM Pop

Published

Kenny Bloggins

on December 28, 2009

in MP3

. Comments

awesome-ektachrome Supervising New Movements in Psychedelic IDM Pop

Just got a track sent to me from Cleveland’s Supervisor, which was a bitch to try to Google (and after all the searching, found out that this mysterion has no website, MySpace, photos, or any other contact info outside of Soundcloud). Regardless, I’m stoked to have this track and the intrigue. This is some very righteous… what would you call it? Psychedelic post rock meets glitch IDM, much like Caribou when he was known as Manitoba and Aphex Twin’s more focused ambient work. While this recipe was certainly popular during the early part of the decade, during the zenith of groups like The Swords Project and Mogwai circa Happy Songs, this is a musical movement I’m more than happy to see return. Terminally blissful. Suck it, Neon Indian.

For fans of: Manitoba/Caribou, Koushik, The Helio Sequence

MP3 :::
Supervisor – Detronome

Liars – Sisterworld

Published

Kenny Bloggins

on December 24, 2009

in Praise and Malaise

. Comments

liars-sisterworld-aa Liars - Sisterworld

A quick and barely coherent review, as I’m groggy from holiday travels and a bit buzzed from holiday libations. But seeing as Sisterworld leaked almost 24 hours ago, we had to get this review up a.s.a.p. Hopefully Web Sheriff won’t shut down down like he/she did last year at this time for the Merriweather leak. So, moving forward…

I’m not sure if Liars often find themselves in the same conversation as some of the most revered names in contemporary music. Probably not (though they don’t need the overhyping). Their trajectory runs quite parallel to, say, Radiohead and Wilco. Liars, like the aforementioned, began their journey as something accessible, and over the years, acutely turned into something more unique and significant. At the height of the dance punk craze, Liars’ released their boring debut They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top. It was loved and fans were engaged. Then, the band got very interesting and released They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. It was a Lou Reed moment – the album was strange and bore no resemblance to their previous jam hive. I loved Drowned personally, but it was generally disliked. Liars honed in their experimental sensibilities in a more focused and acclaimed work through Drum’s Not Dead, then followed up with their more straightforward eponymous record one year later. Many distinct movements, all without jumping the shark. Sound familiar?

Sisterworld finds Liars taking another turn. The noise bursts of their latter work is gone, and so is the rhythm of their early releases. Sparse, epic, eclectic, shape shifting, and somewhat optimistic, Sisterworld is accessible and bizarre. It’s even pretty at times (see the, like, almost tender vocals and Cocteau Twins-like synth swells on “Too Much Too Much”). “Here Comes All the People” boasts cinematic strings, and “Drip” is a slow burning, glacial lament to lull you before being slung against the wall on “Scarecrows on a Killer Slant.” The trademark chanting of Angus Andrew stamps “Proud Evolution” – the only mark that this is a Liars track, as this song acts as the group’s first real foray into remarkably majestic dream pop. “I Still Can See An Outside World” adopts the popular ’90s post rock quiet-loud dynamic, yet while looking to the future (for example, the guitars are tuned in a way in which the riffs sound backwards… take a listen below). Epic shoegaze punk finds its way on “The Overachievers.”"Goodnight Everything” begins with samples of, perhaps, androids being built on the assembly line over a snaky guitar line, which snowballs into a battle march. Raping and pillaging ensues.

So, the common denominator here is that Liars have moved from the garage to outer space. Sisterworld is large and expansive, sounding close to some sort of vague concept record without coming off as pretentious or wanky. Liars drop another nickle in the awesome jar, and perhaps have earned a spot on the “most underrated” list over the past decade.

MP3 :::
Liars – I Still Can See An Outside World
Liars – Too Much, Too Much

Merry DMXmas (and Regular Xmas, Too)

Published

Kenny Bloggins

on December 23, 2009

in Super Swingin' Mix

. Comments

n12901847_38696215_6475 Merry DMXmas (and Regular Xmas, Too)

It’s a tradition in the Bloggins home to celebrate DMXmas (wherein we enjoy our favorite introspective canticles from DMX over some hard cider or nog) in tandem with the more traditional interpretation of this most magical holiday. I’ve curated two fine mixers to mark both distinct occasions. From our family to yours, we wish you nothing but the best yuletime tidings. Merry fucking Christmas, dorks. Hope none of you all find the xx album in your stocking. That would be barftastic.

DMXmas Mixer
MP3 :::
DMX – One More Road to Cross
DMX – Love That Bitch
DMX – Bring Your Whole Crew
DMX – Lord Give Me a Sign

Xmas Mixer
MP3 :::
Cocteau Twins – Winter Wonderland
The Flaming Lips – Christmas at the Zoo
The Sonics – Santa Claus
Banjo or Freakout – White Christmas
Wooden Shjips – O Tannenbaum
Mogwai – Christmas Song
Low – Little Drummer Boy
Can – Silent Night
Esquivel – White Christmas
Lee Scratch Perry – Santa Claus
Sonic Youth – Santa Doesn’t Cop Out on Dope

[Recording] Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell – 12.18.09

Published

Kenny Bloggins

on December 20, 2009

in Probably Unrelated

. Comments

brown-lady-ghost-picture [Recording] Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - 12.18.09

Since there seemed to be a lot of interest in my recording and archiving Art Bell’s sparse appearances on Coast to Coast AM, I’ll keep it up whenever possible. It’s worth mentioning that I left a party (with food and booze!) early to make sure I was home in time to record this. So you guys totally owe me.

The sound quality is not as good as the last recording I did. That massive and gnarly winter storm that basically shut down DC for the weekend passed just east of Louisville and, of course, AM reception is greatly affected by weather. Hence, there’s a fair amount of static. I cleaned it up the best I could. It’s definitely listenable, and gets better after you, uh, hear me adjust the tuning in the second segment.

The show recap from the Coast to Coast AM website.

Filling in for George Noory, Art Bell was joined by Brendan Cook & Barbara McBeath, of the Ghost Investigators Society, who presented a collection of newly recorded ghost voices, known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). The pair, who noted that this is their 10th year appearing on Coast, shared a plethora of sound clips that were played throughout the night and included chilling recordings of a crying baby, a singing woman, and even an EVP left on an answering machine.

One spooky exchange, captured at a Civil War battleground in Tennessee, saw the investigator ask for a ghost to stand in front of his camera. Following the request, a voice asks “why, because there’s a bullet in it?” Cook speculated that perhaps the entity thought the camera was a gun because, when it was alive, it had never seen a camera. Another EVP contained an investigator asking to hear from a ghost and the voice of a child plaintively responds “please talk to us.” The duo noted that this sense of frustration coming from the spirits is a common attribute of these recordings, since the entities appear to be trying to communicate in real-time but the investigators do not hear them until later when the tape is played.

Perhaps the most compelling clip of the evening contained both ghostly sounds heard by Cook on location as well as what appear to be animal noises that surfaced when he played the tape back later. During the incident, Cook, who was alone inside of a house, heard footsteps on the floor above him. Leaving the recorder on the first floor, he went upstairs to investigate. At that point, a crash can be heard, followed by a sound resembling a pig squealing. Returning to the first floor, he remarks that there was nothing going on upstairs. As soon as he says that, the footsteps became a loud banging sound. Cook remarked that he rarely feels uncomfortable on an investigation, but “this one freaked me out. I did not like this.”

Unfortunately, I missed the last hour because I accidentally passed out. Wine makes me do that, though it’s usually red, not white, that zonks my shit out. Whatever, not important. Enjoy the majority of the program below.

POSSIBLY RELEVANT :::
[Recording] Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell – 11.27.09

MP3 :::
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell – 12.18.09 – Part 1
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell – 12.18.09 – Part 2

The Year End List 2009

Published

Kenny Bloggins

on December 18, 2009

in Year-End Action

. Comments

yearend09 The Year End List 2009

Time again for the obligatory year end list. However, ours is a bit different than others you may have seen. For example, this list is not enumerated. Empirically ranking albums rather trivializes the music, yes? Nor is the list in any particular order, save for the fact that we assembled it based loosely on aesthetics – meaning, we encourage you to mash on the little javascript media player in the bottom left-hand corner and enjoy our best-of picks as a mixtape or an uninterrupted block of music. Not only is this a fine collection of altered states laments, but each and every one of these albums is better than the Grizzly Bear borecore collection. Believe it!

>>>>> FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2009
The full length jam hives that we found the most innovative, intriguing, enjoyable, or all of the above.

Broadcast & The Focus Group – Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age

Outside Trish Keenan’s traditional channeling of Margo Guryan and The United States of America and Julian House’s spooky samples, it’s hard to distinguish where Broadcast ends and The Focus Group begins. The collaboration is seamless and ornate, and is a strong addition to the flawless curriculum vitae for both Broadcast and The Focus Group.
The Be Colony | Review

White Rainbow – New Clouds

Did you know ambient music can be funky? When White Rainbow drops the tablas on his bliss outs, it’s time to hit the floor.
All the Boogies in the World [excerpt] | Review

Tickley Feather – Hors D’oeuvres

A more optimistic and concise effort, yet still saturated with her signature melted synths, junky keyboards, cough syrup vocals, and general underwater timbre, Hors D’oeuvres finds Tickley Feather as the compromise between Movietone and Ariel Pink.
Trashy Boys | Review

A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Ashes Grammar

Explosive dream pop with a slight electro edge, A Sunny Day in Glasgow burn the best sounds of Flying Saucer Attack and Cocteau Twins together in the same white-washed celestial head stew.
Failure

Nothing People – Late Nite

A west coast sludgy summoner of stoner rock, Nothing People’s Late Nite is a less spastic and noisy sophomore effort, straddling the median tremolo-saturated, syrupy acid rock and shoegaze – another definitive post-millennial primer for more ominous trips down the rabbit hole.
It’s Not Your Speakers | Review

Woods – Songs of Shame

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Songs of Shame is more extroverted and less antiquated than 08’s At Rear House, and is pushed out of the womb with such fervor that I can finally get behind the strained falsetto, Elliott Smith experiencing zipper-trouble vocals.
Gypsy Hand | Review

Amen Dunes – Dia

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More and more artists are paying homage to Thoreau lately and recording their music in the midst of a hermetic retreat. Many return with nothing more than a bruised ego and a full beard. Damon McMahon returned with Dia after his pilgrimage in 2006 to the Catskill Mountains. Both insular and cavernous, this debut LP is an uninhibited trek through McMahon’s psychedelic mindscapes.
Patagonian Domes | Review

Lotus Plaza – The Floodlight Collective

The aural equivalent of an Ektachrome dusk, Lockett Pundt proves himself as Deerhunter’s understated force and the the undeniable ying to Bradford Cox’s yang, pinpointing exactly where and how the band gets its balmy, sedated atmosphere. A gorgeous second-wave shoegaze statement.
A Threaded Needle | Review

Disappears – Live Over the Rainbo

Reverberated fuzzy guitars, punchy rhythm, a shoegaze aesthetic, totally damaging heaviness, and a touch of retro chic on acid – Chicago’s Disappears are everything that’s great about rock and roll. They lit a fire under my ass so severe that I still keep the Solarcaine stocked.
Hearing Things | Review

Phantom Family Halo – Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die

Phantom Family Halo’s sprawling 2LP post-apocalyptic lament is evil and would make you think Louisville is a scary place or something. While the entire body of work can be classified as psych garage rock or acid rock, the record’s all over the place within the parameters of brain melting. A bit of Boards of Canada style ambient explorations here, a bit of krautrock motorik rhythms by way of Faust there… and then insanely reverberated crunchy guitars ascend from the primordial ooze scary enough to make Fever Ray poo her trou. These dudes are sonic warriors.
Child of Light | Review

Real Estate – s/t

Phased surf guitar working and a dejected tropical attitude operate in tandem with autumnal acoustic overtones and gossamer melodies to produce something along the lines of a slacker Yo La Tengo.
Fake Blues | Review

City Center – s/t

City Center was probably recorded underwater. I’m not sure how Fred Thomas did this without shorting out his gear, but this record’s precise aquatic timbre and dark reverb could’ve only been achieved submerged. Another gold star for the sampsycore camp.
Bleed Blood | Review

Sun Araw – Heavy Deeds

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Ever since Scratch Perry lost his goddamn mind, we’ve needed someone to don the dub crown. We nominate Sun Araw.
The Message | Review

Bachelorette – My Electric Family

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New Zealander Annabelle Alpers’ debut for Drag City, and second proper album, has been described by a couple of writers as a sort of quirky “bedroom pop.” I wholeheartedly disagree. My Electric Family is expansive, radical, and ionospheric. Packed with reverb, sweeping moods, and surrealistic lyrical motifs, Bachelorette is way too large for any bedroom. It also has a hypnotic quality so acute and permeating that we can safely say that Alpers has invented “cult pop.”
The National Grid | Review

Times New Viking – Born Again Revisited

51HAVdsdUnL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

The Columbus total damage trio makes Robert Pollard look like Phil Spector. Punk as fuck. And underneath all the shit – great pop songs.
Hustler, Psycho, Son

Fungi Girls – Seafaring Pyramids

seafaringpyramidscover The Year End List 2009

If there’s anyone that can remove the fashion-conscious aspect of noise-pop that creates filler and polarizes bands like Wavves, it would probably be a bunch of kids in their basement playing to no audience. Recently championed by Psychedelic Horseshit as “the greatest band in the country,” Fungi Girls are these kids, and they’re surprisingly more nihilistic and creeping than most of the recent shitgaze bands who paved the way for them.
Crystal Roads | Review

Oblisk – Weather Patterns

51HXkHvGg-L._SL160_AA160_ The Year End List 2009

True-to-cannon heavy shoegaze with a cavernous and dramatic eastern flair, all focused through the ominous looking-glass of their native Detroit.
Tiger Fighter | Review

Kurt Vile – Childish Prodigy

41Pm04BxRSL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

Gentle fingerpicking, bright tonal sprays of analog synths, and an impeccable ear for vocal melody holds every song on Childish Prodigy. A disciple of both Neil Young and R. Stevie Moore, Vile’s amalgamation of influences is arresting in both its musical scope and bravado. All the while, Vile’s signature, a bourbon-soaked Avey Tare croon with a shot of impenetrable confidence, steers and unites this eclectic, cohesive work.
Inside Lookin’ Out | Review

Lightning Bolt – Earthly Delights

While the Bolt hasn’t exactly gone verse-chorus-verse on us just yet, the newfound tightness Earthly Delights is much more structured and, at times, almost hummable compositions. That is not to say that LB has lost any edge, but simply that Earthly Delights throws a little Occam’s Razor into the mix. The group’s opting to keep their disposition a bit simpler and less freeform.
Transmissionary | Review

Atlas Sound – Logos

41grv%2B4FbvL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

Dream folk like “Criminals” makes Logos a good album. Epic motorik anthems mixed in, a la Cox’s collaboration with Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier on “Quick Canal,” make Logos a great album.
Quick Canal | Review

Nudge – As Good As Gone

While the subterranean groove and minor key construction evoke a more haunting, nighttime-appropriate flavor, there’s also a visceral optimism that runs underneath the LP like groundwater. Perhaps it’s the playfulness between genres and moods, or the freewheeling construction of the songs… or perhaps not all noise/freak psych kids like to make nihilistic records. Not to be confused with The Nuge.
Two Hands | Review

Tara Jane O’Neil – A Ways Away

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While some of her recent work has adopted a more intimate and traditional folk approach, A Ways Away is lush, weird, and engrossing. Psych folk is the closest reference point, yet TJO is also entirely something else. In a way, A Ways Away is a return to form and a maturation. The crafty utilization of space and syrupy slow tempo is reminiscent of the Louisville scene in which she came, while at the same time, TJO is fully owning her sound. The result is a beautiful and accessible work that relishes in desolate sounds and bucolic late night wandering.
Beast, Go Along | Review

Castanets – Texas Rose, The Thaw, and The Beasts

61xeV0oorGL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

Strongest effort from this definitive freak folk collective since Cathedral, and certainly the most ominous of his career and a textbook example of brilliant use of sonic space. Sometimes it’s the notes you don’t play.
On Beginning

Fever Ray – s/t

61AGlT5Y1TL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

Scary-ass Bjork releases a spacious and minimal analog electronic creeper that’s better than The Knife, and comes equipped with the best/funniest lyrics penned in quite some time. Still can’t listen to this shit at night without getting all paranoid in my head tech.
When I Grow Up

Black to Comm – Alphabet 1968

Closer in spirit to experimental figures of yesterday like Moondog and Bernard Herrmann than current artists, Marc Richter seems dead set on completely disorienting our frame of reference. Richter does manage to arrive at moments of extremely cinematic avant-garde music that’s unlike much we’ve ever heard before.
Rauschen | Review

Eric Copeland – Alien in a Garbage Dump

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Even in an increasingly noise-tolerant music culture, this is an adventurous listen, and that alone should have your earbuds watering by now.
Auto Dimmer | Review

Ducktails – s/t

Ducktails masterfully crafted an album with a lulled but not quite hypnotizing quality, similar to the nature documentary sound that Boards of Canada achieve, with occasional lo-fi tape tinkering like on “Backyard,” with its phased bucket-toms and Robert Fripp inspired distortion shifting. Beautiful.
Dancing With the One You Love | Review

Tune Yards – Bird Brains

Bird-Brains is completely demented and angular, kinda like Xiu Xiu, but without treading the blurry line between “artistic vision” and “sonic bullshit” that Mr. Stewart always straddled firmly. Everything from dub to yoddeling finds itself on what I’d guess you could call a kitchen sink freak folk album. Whatever it is, this shit is gospel.
Fiya | Review

The Flaming Lips – Embryonic

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We’re very pleased to hear that, seemingly, the band is taking acid again.
Worm Mountain

Psychic Ills – Eyes Closed

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Mind altering modulating jungle boogie bogged down on purple drank and tribal bangin’ replete with sinister ragas and general skulduggery, Mirror Eye is one of the more pleasantly evil releases reared in ‘09.
Eyes Closed | Review

Dragon Turtle – Almanac

Dragon-Turtle-150x150 The Year End List 2009

Dragon Turtle’s debut, Almanac, is an expansive 45-minute trek that explores an alternating fear and awe of the natural world, and everything in between. They didn’t pack lightly either, hoarding a curious mix of folk, kraut rock, post rock, and small touches of calypso.
Belt of Venus | Review

Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us

The massive arsenal of antique analog equipment that defined BMSR’s first three albums remains in tact – the vocoder-saturated vocals of Tobacco, the thick and swirling novatrons and mellotrons that cultivated a general feeling of sunshine and old 8mm films about nature, etc. However, Eating Us showcases a more organic band, incorporating more acoustic instrumentation and mellow moods without disregarding the group’s traditional glitchy, Technicolor timbre.
Iron Lemonade | Review

Roj – The Transactional Dharma of Roj

The original keyboardist from Broadcast peaks out from his lair to release another fantastic testament for Ghost Box who, like Motown and Creation, created a whole new aesthetic in music. Roj has distinguished himself as the tinty, rhythmic, retro-futuristic sci fi voice in hauntology.
What I Saw

Peaking Lights – Imaginary Falcons

Super positive rural psychedelia best experienced with peace pipe in hand and vision quest in front. Made from warm tape excursions from them to you. Feels good to vibe this hard.
All the Good Songs Have Been Written

Wetdog – Frauhaus!

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The girls’ new album Fraushaus! has one foot in the shit-gaze movement and another recalling the gleaming-amateur looseness of the Shaggs, complimented by unexpected touches of found sounds and flea-market synths.
Round Vox | Review

>>>>> FAVORITE EPs OF 2009
Though no longer than 20 minutes a piece, these nuggets of joy deserve some mention

Pigeons – Lunettes

There are certain sounds synonymous with the Summer of Love, but what about the winter that followed? Bronx trio Pigeons have a decent guess in mind. Their account of classic psychedelia is a much colder affair than most’. Stringing together a bizarrely addictive mix of paranoia, mystery, and seduction, their new tape-splintered 7? Lunettes is something I could only describe as psych-noir.
Tendress | Review

No Age – Losing Feeling

No Age demonstrates here, moreso than Nouns, a mastering of their craft in profound ways. They’re no longer trying to capture the sound of My Bloody Valentine’s early EPs. They’re becoming completely their own thing – dream punk.
Losing Feeling

Bardo Pond – Peri

The Philly subterranean brooding fuzz plus flute collective does no wrong, and their contribution to the Three Lobed subscription series is no exception. Do you know what a Bardo Pond is? Me neither, but it’s probably where God kills Republicans.
The Path

Vibes – You God It

We could tell the girls of Pocahaunted were getting antsy when they started injecting dub and dance hall elements into their trademark campfire drone sessions on last year’s Island Diamonds. To remedy this, they’ve teamed up with members of Sun Araw, Robedoor, Magic Lantern, and Fantastic Ego to ditch the delay pedals in favor of some wah-wah.
Honeycomb | Review

The N.E.C. / Jovantes 10″ [split]

Sloppy yet lush psychedelic punk that hits hard. Consider Atlanta’s The N.E.C. the southern response to No Age.
Old Medicine

Banjo or Freakout – Upside Down

Lush arrangements, non-grating noise walls, and oceanic melodies, Banjo or Freakout is the tech-savvy, post-millennial incarnation of Slowdive. Looking forward for the full-length!
Like You

Ganglians – Blood on the Sand

Super retro, super cinematic crunchy garage stomp with interstellar overtones, dramatic turns, and harshed mellows. Blood on the Sand is exactly what is sounds like – beach times gone wrong, Weekend at Bernies style.
Blood on the Sand

Bibio – Ovals & Emeralds

Ovals & Emeralds is full of disorienting growths of sublime field recordings, toy-chest noises, and coarse synths. Bibio’s signature creekside guitar is barely present, but here he has crafted his ambient work to equal perfection. The sun goes down on his usual idyllic pastoralism to bring out a bleaker landscape with a slightly menacing air to it like the meditations of Wolfgang Voigt.
Carosello Ellitico | Review

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Cheyenne Mize – Among the Gold

Not to be cliche, but no other piece of music partied like it was 1879 harder than the vinyl-only issue Among the Gold.
Silver Threads | Review

Lucky Dragons – Open Power

No, The Books didn’t take the bad pills. Lucky Dragons are the jovian trance music of the century after next. With woodwinds.
Power Melody

>>>>> FAVORITE REISSUES/COMPILATIONS OF ‘09
Our ten favorite that needed to be heard again

Everything on Sublime Frequencies

416QCAH6LNL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

Everything you all do is amazing. Great job! Keep ‘em coming. Fans of weird field recordings and anthropologists owe you a big batch of homemade cookies at the very least.
Night Recordings From Bali – Peliatan Night Walk

V/A – Give Me Love: Songs Of The Brokenhearted, Baghdad, 1925-1929

518c7yfxLeL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

Honest Jon’s compilation of 1920s Iraqi recordings is truly a gem, but it’s not for everyone. It isn’t the type of “world music” employed for NPR bumper music or in the living rooms of people who like to feel “cultured.” Documenting very otherworldly dance and, for lack of a better word, Middle Eastern blues music, these recordings were remastered from some of the earliest 78s ever pressed. This disc features ardent vocal performances over violin, hand percussion, an occasional lute, and not much else, relying more on raw performances that, at times, resemble a prophetic view of west coast folk and free jazz.
Badria Anwar – Lega Taresh Habibi

39 Clocks – Zoned

While their timeline coincides with New York’s no wave movement, their Deutsche no wave is something else entirely. Amalgamating the dadaist cool and nervous energy of Suicide, their homeland’s motorik rhythm, the loud and detuned psychedelics of Spacemen 3 (whom 39 Clocks actually predate), the organ-as-diving-rod experimental pop ethos of Silver Apples, and a Nuggets-ready proto-punk punch, the mensch of 39 Clocks chew up kraut and psychedelic subsets and spit them out into a ball of drug-riddled prophecy and rock and roll shenanigans.
Dom Electricity Elects the Rain | Review

Kraftwerk – The Catalogue

41LSfdJ1FTL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

A lot of people complain about Kraftwerk, saying “oh, I can do that.” Yeah, well, they did it first, and you didn’t. Everything between Autobahn and The Man Machine rules hard and sounds beautiful, so shut the fuck up. It’s worth mentioning, and perhaps is a bit ironic, that the sound of Kraftwerk is slightly more powerful with the analog recordings, if for no other reason than to provide a timeframe. How ’bout that? Regardless, it’s nice to have all their best work in one place and sounding awesome.
Antenna

Guru Guru – Kanguru

414Pr8%2BpELL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

The landmark 1972 record that should’ve included them in the same sentence as Faust, Can, and Neu, but for some reason didn’t. Perhaps it was because they sounded too much like Blue Cheer? Either way, Kanguru’s reverence is long overdue.
Oxymoron

V/A – Warp20

41AhGWEV6iL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

You put Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, and Broadcast on the same release, and it’ll end up on a best-of somewhere on this blog. Like the Movern Collar soundtrack, but without the shitty movie that accompanies it.
Boards of Canada – Amo Bishop Rodan

Red Red Meat – Bunny Gets Paid

61HS5kKkCjL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

Believe it or not, Califone was Tim Rutili’s calmer project compared with Red Red Meat’s shit-blues zenith Bunny Gets Paid.
Rosewood, Stax, Volts, and Glitt

The Beatles – Mono + Stereo Remasters

51VIwKeqjEL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

This band was awesome. You can talk about how rad [insert hawt buzzband here] is until you’re blue in the face. But guess the fuck what. The Beatles did it first. Thanks for playing. While the only difference I can tell between the Remasters and the original is the volume, MagiMystour always gets royal treatment on this blog.
Flying

The Vaselines – Enter the Vaselines

51detw0JnuL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

The Vaselines were one mighty contradiction – a massive sound crafted by only two people, double entendre lyrics sung with coyness, gritty production and sloppy instrumentation coupled with truly soaring, gorgeous melodies – this duo was a real gem.
Lovecraft | Review

Death – For the Whole World to See

51l8n8B1xGL._SL160_AA115_ The Year End List 2009

A combination of bad timing, arguments with the label over the band’s presentation (namely, well, their name), and a generally ill-prepared state of music allowed this missing-link of punk rock to fall through the cracks until Drag City intervened this year. A remarkably well-aged time capsule of hefty hooks and driving power, For the Whole World to See is a blistering proto-punk artifact.
You’re a Prisoner | Review

Summer Headrushes for The Holidays From James Ferraro

Published

Daniel Krow

on December 18, 2009

in MP3 and Noise Consultations

. Comments

James+Ferraro+PICT0028 Summer Headrushes for The Holidays From James Ferraro

In the infamous Wire article on hypnagogic pop, James Ferraro had at least two incredible quotes. The first was about his membership in the “first church of Lenny Kravitz”: “My membership there has helped me with this process: trying to download someone else’s headspace–sometimes the most extreme being that of a virtual celeb image–opened up different aspects of consciousness and life potential and interactions beyond my wildest dreams.” The second concerned his interest in so called “trash” culture: “I think aspects of human culture that some people regard as unimportant actually operate within a really deep system of ancient symbolism and human archetypes. Hard Rock Cafes, strip clubs, gyms, celebrities, etc, are all great examples of this, of roadside temples. My albums are like downloads from that body of information…”

Whatever you think of these quotes, you’ve got to admit that Ferraro has done something few artists making new age instrumental drone music can do: create an aura about themselves. You could argue it’s ridiculous to attach all these ideas about trash culture and downloading celebrity “headspaces” to what sounds like a sixth generation tape dub of a “Sounds of the Ocean” meditation tape (or a warped Betamax of a Jane Fonda workout video), but music has always been a conduit for fantasies and meditations. Drone and ambient music have always been difficult genres to describe without resorting to vague cliches like “trippy” or “chill” or “stoned” (something I’m certainly guilty of); that’s why brilliant albums like Infinity Window’s Artificial Midnight or Super Minerals’s Multitudes so easily slip through the cracks–they’re gorgeous, impeccably made instrumental drone albums, but without a larger context (a scene, a sound, a crazy live show) to connect them to, they don’t stand much chance of being heard outside certain small circles. By creating a context within which to hear his music, Ferraro has made sure that his music won’t be ignored.

Released in October and November, The Summer Headrush series so far consists of the following albums: Rerex 1 and 2, Body Fusion 1 and 2, iAsia, Wild World, Son of Dracula (the only one I haven’t heard yet), and Hacker Track. Rerex 1 and 2 sound like Ferraro’s most conventionally beautiful records, Discovery, Clear, and Marble Surf. This side of Ferraro is closest to the new age ambient music of Tangerine Dream or Eno, full of fluttering keyboard arpeggios and whale sound synths. With track titles like “Shemale,” “Angel Alien,” and “Species Within,” Body Fusion 1 and 2 are darker, sounding a lot like wholly electronic versions of Popul Vuh’s soundtracks for Herzog’s “Aguirre, Wrath of God” and “Heart of Glass,” all minor key drones and eerie bell sounds. Wild World, probably my favorite of the series, is very similar to earlier Ferraro projects like Lamborghini Crystal’s Roach Motel, sounding like an unholy version of the music to a 1980s action movie, with seriously creepy audio samples of the members of the Heaven’s Gate cult talking about their group suicide. iAsia sounds similar to Wild World, though the vocoder vocals on “Casino Neptune” are something I don’t think I’ve ever heard from Ferraro before. Hacker Track sounds like a dub version of The Skaters, Ferraro’s long running collabo with Spencer Clark, adding a ton of reverb and phaser and water-in-a-bucket sounds to that group’s clattering drones.

You can brown Ferraro’s extensive catalog and purchase the good via Volcanic Tongue.

MP3 :::
James Ferraro – Casino Neptune
James Ferraro – 3 [edit]

Deerhunter Gives Away a Bunch of Free Shit This Weekend

Published

Kenny Bloggins

on December 13, 2009

in MP3

. Comments

3792891622_29cc3946bc Deerhunter Gives Away a Bunch of Free Shit This Weekend

Deerhunter are generous motherfuckers, especially this weekend. The band’s blog not only posted a bootleg of (what I think is) Lotus Plaza’s second live show in Atlanta, but we were also treated to the very first recorded evidence of Deerhunter – a CD-R called Carve Your Initials. It’s much more electronic than any of their latter stuff, and seemingly was recorded after a few hits of acid. Maybe not, but it’s delightfully fucked. “Snow Dogs” is particularly awesome, in part because the jam reminds me of my favorite Cuba Gooding Jr. flick. You can grip the whole guy here.

So yeah, in case you weren’t aware, now you know. Enjoy.

ZIP :::
Lotus Plaza – Eyedrum, Atlanta, 12.11.09

MP3 :::
Deerhunter – Snow Dogs
Deerhunter – Three Dolphins Melting Into Orange Wax