I am completely in love, perhaps an agape love, with the new song Broadcast has been ending all their shows with on the current tour. You know the one I’m talking about… the one with Trish Keenan shredding on a customized electric dulcimer. Like, total “My Dear Companion” meets “Astronomy Domine” meets “Autobahn” meets “Fight For Your Right (To Party)” action. Ya know, the krautrock hoedown. With the help of Pretty Creatures‘ warm analog tape bootleg of the show (you can download it here), I grabbed the finale, cleaned it up a bit (with just a couple of compressors, filters, and a peak limiter – no manipulation of the actual sound), and am providing it below for maximum damage (you can grab the cleaned-up-a-bit version here). No one knows the actual name of this song yet, so I’mma call it “Dulcimer Jam.” Because it features an amplified dulcimer. And it’s a jam.

MP3 :::
Broadcast – Dulcimer Jam [Wexner Center, Columbus, 10.25.09]

Shiver me timbers. Reader Benjamin in Atlanta shot me a message letting me know that Broadcast has a tour EP available called Mothers of the Milky Way (as you might’ve inferred from, ya know, the title of this entry). Anyway, I did not see this EP at the Columbus show, as the band had no merch presence, so I’m a little bummed I wasn’t able to grip a physical copy there. It totally rules, as is expected. Mother is the Milky Way is, in some ways, a continuation of Witch Cults, though I’m not sure if The Focus Group was involved in its recording.

Turns out the second song they played in the show’s second half Sunday night was “In Here the World Begins” from this EP.

MP3 :::
Broadcast – In Here the World Begins

I believe that, technically, Atlas Sound is the headliner, but I’m treating this show as if Broadcast was. I love both artists, obviously. However, Bradford Cox, to quote The Spirit of Truth, makes his “ass very available,” whereas Broadcast hasn’t been around in a minute. So for me finally seeing Broadcast, after being a huge fan for six or seven years, is quite huge. They were also the primary motivation for making the three hour trek up I-71. I’m pleased to report that the goods were thoroughly delivered.

Opening was The Selmanaires from Atlanta. They were rad. Think of Gang Gang Dance. Now imagine a non-shitty version of Gang Gang Dance. That’s The Selmanaires. The majority of the set consisted of ambient layers by way of their Mini Korg, which eventually ascended into Mercury Rev-style ornate pop with pervasive, intricate rhythms and nasty low end. Oh, and djembes everywhere. While The Selmanaires were fairly cosmic, they do indeed like the nightlife and/or like to boogie.

One thing I really dug about the Wexner, besides being a nice college facility, was the total absence of fucking around. There was virtually no changeover time. After The Selmanaires finished up their 40-or-so minute set, the crew wheeled out the screen and flipped on the projector. The title card illuminated the screen – Winter Sun Wavelengths. And in the upper left hand corner was the Ghost Box logo, which pretty much guarantees that you’re about to see some shit. Some shit is also known as brain burning hauntological visuals from Julian House’s celestial brain.

So the Broadcast show takes a big fat page from the Wizard of Oz. Actually, spooky technicolor performance piece is a more accurate description, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll keep referring to it as “show.” Anyway, the “show” was divided, as suggested, into two segments. The first was a 20-minute, highly structured dissonant noise jam set to high contrast black-and-white visuals of opitcal illusions, eye exam cards, sine waves, and barren trees. During the epic psych slam, Broadcast was surprisingly loud. I’d put them on my top ten loudest bands I’ve seen list. Of course, their loudness is different than, say, Dinosaur Jr. Their loudness was dependent on frequencies and wavelengths that hit your ear in a very intense fashion rather than Mogwai-style pure horsepower. The permeating zone-out transmissions pulsated hard. My dome turned in to a cottonball and my balls retracted, not unlike my reaction toward My Bloody Valentine’s Holocaust Section (though Broadcast’s was less demonic).

Then, very suddenly, the barren trees faded – replaced with swirling pastels and a lead in to “Corporeal.” This was the latter half of the show. Broadcast treats their set as one long piece, so most of the songs faded into each other. After some atomic deep sea diving, we were treated to more Tender Buttons action a la “Black Cat,” as well as “Lunch Hour Pops” from Haha Sound, and… gobs of new material. It seems that Broadcast is now distinctly within motorik dream pop realms laced with the type of ambiance found on Witch Cults, meaning that the forthcoming effort(s) will be decidedly different than their pre-HaHa Sound retro-futuristic lounge as well as the glitchy IDM of Tender Buttons.

The highlight of the evening, however, was the finale. Trish Keenan strapped on a dulcimer, which is one of my favorite simple acoustic instruments. For the non-musician types, a dulcimer is a popular tool in traditional Appalachian music. It’s a rather quiet instrument, and one that you can often find with build-it-yourself kits for $30 or so. Hence, I figured we were going to get a break in the stratospheric jams and take a load off with a quiet ballad. No fucking dice. That dulcimer was amplified. Wut chu kno bout an electric dulcimer?!

This, folks, is a krautrock hoedown:

Lana put it best I think. She said something to the effect of “Band did not dick around. Girl sets up, throws up hands and cusses at the sound guy, walks on, says hello, rocks out, bumps into the mic a couple of times, gives a grateful thanks plus buh-bye, and they were out.” She also mentioned she felt “haunted,” and I’ll agree with that. This is art. Broadcast slayed it.

Atlas Sound closed out the evening. B Cox, of course, came out with some his world-famous banter while setting up. The Selmanaires returned to the stage to act as Bradford’s full backing band. I was impressed at how Cox reinterpreted his catalog for the live show. The best way to describe it would be “shoegaze Americana” or “truly cosmic American music” (a play on the Gram Parsons quotation) or “kinda like The Byrds but with more effects pedals.” Harmonica and twangy, tinty guitars were given the same amount of exposure as Deerhunter’s ad infinitum stage drones and effects pedal tweaking. It was a good time, but we had to dart shortly after “Walkabout” so we could get home before 4 a.m. and I could be at work Monday morning without being a total zombie. Besides, I love ya B Cox… but it’s fucking hard to follow up Broadcast. I mean, their live set was Old Testament. I still had crazy tinnitus ringing in my ears during Atlas Sound, ya know. Gonna miss those frequencies.

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with my usual bellyachin’ about how my camera leaves much to be desired. However, I think the camera’s fuzziness in low light, combined with the high contrast visual element of the show, actually worked to our benefit this time. These photos, perhaps ironically, truly capture the telescopic mood of the show better than, say, a big boy camera like the Canon Rebel. I’m extremely pleased with how these turned out, considering troubles I’ve had with concert photos recently. Lana took ‘em all, so please send her some love on her Flickr page.

::: BROADCAST (a.k.a. <3 U TRISH KEENAN!!!1)

::: ATLAS SOUND

Broadcast, in some ways, seem to have followed rather stridently along a solid trajectory. The group started as a quartet firmly planted in haunting ’60s vocal pop and garage ballads, augmented by lightly arranged vintage atomic age samples and Trish Keenan’s silky and distant vocals. The latter was, of course, the only thing that ever remained consistent, as Broadcast became more divergent through the years, ending with 2005’s glitchy, noisy, electronics-heavy and cosmically surreal Tender Buttons.

Perhaps it is simply a new direction or the influence of Julian House from The Focus Group on this latest effort, but Witch Cults of the Radio Age acts as the bridge between the organic retro-futuristic pop of Work and Non-Work and the more chaotic latter repertoire, with extra ornate instrumentation courtesy of House. This is a spooky, gorgeous record, and probably the most accessible effort from the “library music” camp (i.e. the Ghost Box/Mute/Warp family that both samples and draws inspiration from the classic BBC Radiophonic Workshop – see Barry 7’s Connectors and the Ghost Box site for additional reference).

With the exception of Keenan’s contributions that channel Margo Guryan and The United States of America, it’s hard to distinguish where Broadcast ends and The Focus Group begins, other than the weirdo samples that House is wont to incorporate into his instrumentals (including a slew of Conet Project snippets, which is major thumbs up). The collaboration is seamless and refreshing, and has added to an extremely strong addition to the nearly flawless curriculum vitae for both Broadcast and The Focus Group. I’m not sure if I feel this way because I’ve been listening to the same Broadcast catalog for four years and this disc is new, but Witch Cults of the Radio Age might just be my favorite Broadcast release thus far. Hence, I’m getting very excited for the full length due out on Warp some time next year.

No need to give Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age our normal rating or any of that jive. This is absolutely essential listening that earns its one billion smiling Donald Fagens. It’s total insanity.

You can purchase the digital release right now at Bleep, and/or grip the physical release on October 26. Get on it!

POSSIBLY RELATED :::
Praise Ye Jehova… Broadcast is Back in Action

MP3 :::
Files removed per request

Without any fanfare, Broadcast just released their first new material since 2005’s Tender Buttons, um, today. I was correct about the title, it’s called Witch Cults of the Radio Age. That’s the cover up there. And… it’s a collaboration with Julian House! House is, as you may know, not only the graphic designer for all of Broadcast’s album and poster imagery, but is also a member of Ghost Box “library music” powerhouse The Focus Group.

Though it’s a “mini album,” or EP, or “primer for proper forthcoming full length,” or whatever they’re categorizing it as, Witch Cults spans 23 tracks (though I’m sure some of them are segues and analog tomfoolery). Here’s a preview. Shit is space age!

This is going to be so good. I haven’t heard it in full, but I’m currently downloading it RIGHT NOW from Bleep. You should do the same.

Majorly stoked on the Columbus gig October 25. Perhaps the press pass fairy will pay ol’ Bloggins a visit for that one. Pretty please?

Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age:
1. Intro/Magnetic Tales
2. The Be Colony
3. How Do You Get Along Sir?
4. Will You Read Me.
5. Reception/Group Therapy
6. A Quiet Moment
7. I See, So I See So
8. You Must Wake
9. One Million Years Ago
10. A Seancing Song
11. Mr Beard, You Chatterbox
12. Drug Party
13. Libra, The Mirror’s Minor Self
14. Love’s Long Listen-In
15. We Are After All Here
16. A Medium’s High
17. Ritual / Looking In
18. Make My Sleep His Song
19. Royal Chant
20. What I Saw
21. Let It Begin/Oh Joy
22. Round and Round and Round
23. The Be Colony/Dashing Home/What on Earth Took You?

Hey Trish and James,

It’s Bloggins. Many moons since we’ve heard from you all. I mean, it’s been a minute. I wondered what happened to you dudes. I mean, Broadcast drops this brilliant album, Tender Buttons, back in the fall of 2005. It made my solar plexus tingle. You all toured a bit on that jam hive. Good times. But then you guys, like, bounced. Just straight up peaced out. I feared you might’ve broken up. I went through five stages of acceptance.

But now you’re touring again – first time in ages. That’s great news. I guess I would’ve known about this sooner if I followed the Fun Fun Fest lineup, but unfortunately I didn’t/don’t give a shit about it. Perhaps I should be better about shit-giving. But anyway, you’ve roped in Deerhunter bro Bradford Cox’s Atlas Sound. Excellent choice. Does this mean that a new album is to follow? I hope so. You guys need to show the indie rock retards how it’s done. I know that a new EP is getting ready to drop on Warp. And that Focus Group had something to do with it? Sweet cinnamon and biscuits! It’s like Christmas up in this bitch.

Anyway, enough gabbin’. I do see you’re playing a club called The Black Cat, too. That’s funny. A hardy lol was muttered from this side of the table, no doubt. Hope the tour goes well, and I’ll be seeing you guys in Columbus or Chicago. Haven’t decided which yet. Wish you had, like, just one open date on the east coast so I could help bring you all to Louisville, but somebody’s got some type-A-personality booking goin’ on. I ain’t mad at ya, though.

TTYL,
Kenny Bloggins

All dates below are with Atlas Sound and The Selmanaires. No word on the official release date or title of the new EP, but I think it might be called Witch Cults of the Radio Age. If you poke around their MySpaceTime, you’ll probably ascertain why I think that. Anyway… dates…

10/15 Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
10/16 Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
10/17 Washington, DC @ Black Cat
10/18 Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church Sanctuary
10/20 New York, NY @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
10/21 Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (CMJ)
10/22 Boston, MA @ The Paradise
10/23 Montreal, QC @ Le National
10/24 Toronto, ON @ Lees Palace
10/25 Columbus, OH @ Wexner Center
10/26 Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
10/27 Northfield, MN @ The Cave
10/30 Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
10/31 Seattle, WA @ Neumos
11/01 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
11/03 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
11/04 Los Angeles, CA @ The Troubadour
11/05 Phoenix, AZ @ Rhythm Room
11/07 Denton, TX @ Hailey’s
11/08 Austin, TX @ Fun Fun Fun Fest

MP3 :::
Broadcast – Black Cat
Broadcast – The World Backwards

Only a few years into his career, understated folk alchemist Stephen Wilkinson aka Bibio already has three stellar full-lengths under his belt. That’s a tall order to add on, especially considering the most recent one dropped a couple months ago, but I guess Wilkinson doesn’t sleep, because his next installment is already prepped to go. In hindsight, you could look at this spring’s Vignetting the Compost as the final word a trilogy of albums, because having perfected his blend of folk, ambient electronica, and other lush antiquities into a seemingly effortless recipe, Wilkinson makes a crossover bid towards synthetic wilderness on Ambivalence Avenue.

This debut for Warp Records (where Wilkinson can now release music beside his heroes the Boards of Canada), is built around the same aesthetics of past albums, but then chopped and chewed into both awe struck and knee-jerked forms of electronica, glitch-hop, folk/funk, and straight dance. He is not afraid to flex his production skills like on the Dilla/Prefuse inspired “Fire Ant”, which marries his love of IDM and ambient nostalgia into a seriously soulful crowd-pleaser. If anyone picked up Bibio’s remix of Wax Stag’s “Folk Rock”, you have a pretty good idea of what the up-tempo segments of this album will sound like.

But then again it wouldn’t really be a Bibio release without some textural ADD, and there are a few interjections of his singer-songwriter persona throughout, like the frail warble of “The Palm of Your Wave”. Individually, these songs are all evidence of a high point in Wilkinson’s adventurous output, but when you put them side to side it’s difficult to imagine a similar creator, with a few exceptions. “Cry! Baby!” makes a strong case that Wilkinson has a concrete vision for integrating his folk arraignments into an IDM platform. Of course, with the title Ambivalence Avenue, it’s obvious that this album was intended to be an exploration of the contrasts and compliments of these disparate genres.

Other points of interest include the howling lo-fi banger “Jealous of Roses” that sounds like the alumni of an Ariel Pink-run class on funk classics, and “S’Vive” which if it had only come out a few months earlier could’ve been a contender for the now-announced Warp20 tracklisting, boasting a euphoric Hudson Mohawke-esque spindle of glitchy drums and tweaked vocal snippets.

We’ve been a believer in Bibio for a long time now and we haven’t had to eat our words yet. This LP isn’t as conceptually dense as Fi or Hand Cranked, but basically, your car’s stereo is fiendin’ for this album, and even the pop-oriented segments can’t escape being colored by Wilkinson’s warm psychedelic leanings.

Ambivalence Avenue is out June 22nd on Warp Records.

Oh, and just for kicks/reference, here’s a vid of Bibio dusting off his MPC back in 2007 under his Duckular project:

MPC chopping

MP3 :::
Bibio – Fire Ant
Bibio – Cry! Baby!

Our first taste of big things to come was the live-debuted “While You Wait for the Others,” which tipped us off to several shifts occurring in the Grizzly Bear control room. The arraignment felt comparatively sparse, focusing largely on texture, and the pace seemed much more motivated. Indeed, at least some of the culture shock that comes with the first listen to their third album Veckatimest is in part due to the changes in the instrument palette. Still with us are the splintering guitars, gossamer vocal harmonies, and dark bass heavy strings, but the woodwinds and other orchestral ammunition are largely forgone in favor of a more economical rock band, and after several listens through, it’s still hard to pin down the group’s intentions. One part of me finds these 12 tracks to be fascinating attempts to derive monumental results from a modest four-piece set-up, but the creeping alternative reality is that of a band whom, approaching the release of their make-or-break with the mainstream album, have constructed an airtight vessel to carry themselves through the transition at the cost of the human, fallible elements that gave Yellow House its haunting presence.

Veckatimest opens as a pretty natural sounding progression with “Southern Point”. It’s sufficiently disorienting, and has a jazzy departure that compliments Dan Rossen’s locomotive picking, but the swells and crashes feel strangely fixed, grasped tight by some omniscient puppeteer. These tracks, while gorgeous as ever, swing straight for hook with heat-seeking melodies, and without the patience exemplified on earlier efforts, the ecstatic focal points of this album feel less deserved. One example is the hair-rippingly dull “Two Weeks”, an awful rock-hop that if released by any other band would be looked upon as mediocre. It’s inherently rigid structure is somewhat complimentary to Ed Droste’s lead vocals, but hardly to Dan’s, which feel extremely awkward against the rising tempo and forced pop posture. Sure, the singles like this are pretty and nicely wrapped, but so what? It feels like lazy perfection. All the turns are cornered, almost quantized, and in this new songwriting prowess that they exhibit, listeners gain a faith in Veckatimest that can quickly translate to boredom. Yellow House, and even Horn of Plenty to a degree, were fairly unpredictable listens, and in that way they were exciting no matter how many times you heard them. Now, with the obvious divide in creative control between Rossen’s loose folk tendencies and Droste’s secret desire to turn the sepia-toned period piece pop that he helmed first on “Knife” into a caricature of itself, it all feels uninhabited, and leaves only the faintest impression after you lift the needle off the record.

Now, with that in mind, it is safe to say that Veckatimest also holds some of Grizzly Bear’s most accomplished work. In many ways it is comparable to Merriweather Post Pavillion, “About Face” sounds directly influenced by Sung Tongs era AC, but the two are also very similar in terms of how they stand in context with the earlier releases. The production of the entire album is impeccable, and relishes in that undeniably classy sound that these boys have staked out for themselves over the past two albums. “Fine For Now” is simply stunning. The glass harmonics of the guitar and the tumbling bass form a flexible interplay that cruise sublimely into Rossen’s gentle refrain of “We’re all faltering/How’d I help with that?/If it’s all or not/Just let me go”. There are even a few case’s when Veckatimest succeeds in it’s dash towards a large-venue sound, like on “Ready, Able” which somehow manages to strike a compelling contrast of rollicking palm mutes and chamber-pop furnishing that builds palpable tension, giving the bridge that Je ne sais quoi which proved unattainable on many other attempts. “Dory” also makes good on its potential with an infectious bent melody and warped vocal harmonies that sound alien and almost reach for the paranoid splendor of recent tour mates Radiohead.

The somber closing piece, “Foreground”, punctuates Veckatimest in a similar way that “Colorado” did for Yellow House. It sounds tired, defeated, humble, in awe, and ultimately cathartic-if only they’d recorded all the songs in the same way. On its own, it’s a gut wrenching song, but it hardly summarizes the preceding experience, which has diminished into vapor trails by the time we arrive at the end. Though the album is not a wasted effort, housing both their most ingenious and bland arraignments, it is impossible to overlook the void of adventurous nature. Veckatimest is entirely confident in its form, strategy, and aesthetic, but with the self-imposed safety-parameters, it fails to allow itself to really breathe, and in the end, permits us only glimpses of the ghost in the machine.

Veckatimest is out now on Warp Records.

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

[Editor's Note: Grizzly Bear has gotten so big that they now return a higher rank in a Google search than the animal grizzly bear. Day-amn. Oh, and dudes, have you seen Werner Hertzog's Grizzly Man? Dude lives with big fuckin' bears (not the band)! Crazy!]

MP3 :::
Grizzly Bear – Dory
Grizzly Bear – Fine For Now

I was raised on Warp. During my very first job at a hole in the wall lawn & garden shop my boss used to put on the Richard D James Album whenever it was a slow day (i.e. every day except Arbor Day). But all my nostalgia aside, there is no other label that has promoted more discussion, mystique, or innovation to the world of electronic music than these guys right here, and after going 20 years strong, it’s time to fucking celebrate.

Here’s how they’re rolling it out. Right now, instead of reading this, you could be helping to decide the track listing for the Best of Warp compilation! This 20-song cd will have 10 tracks chosen by co-founder Steve Beckett, and the rest are up to us. Each person can vote up to 50 times (but only once for each track) from now until May 8th. My first vote just went to Squarepusher’s “Iambic 9 Poetry”.

What would a birthday bash be without some crazy guest appearances? Kicking off in Paris on May 8th will be a limited tour with a drool-worthy lineup featuring: Aphex Twin, arriving either by tank or submarine depending on location, and sharing the stage with him is wonderkid Tim Hecker, also !!! (chk chk chk), Pivot, Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke, and that’s only who they’ve revealed so far (I’m lookin’ at you, Boards of Canada). Most of the dates are in the UK, but the crew will make one stop state-side in New York on July 20th.

[Editor's Note: You too can see the spectrograph demon Richard James hidden in Windowlicker. What a creep! Read more here.]

Now, that’s already enough excitement for us faint of heart, but it doesn’t stop there. This autumn, Warp will also be releasing a collection of “new and unreleased tracks from the majority of the current Warp roster, as well as some of the finest artists from our history.” Quantities are said to be “extremely limited” so stay tuned in for details if you wanna beat me to it. Viva la Warp!

[Editor's Note: Fuckin' love Warp, dude. I just voted for Broadcast "America's Boy", Seefeel "Spangle," Aphex Twin "To Cure a Weakling Child" and Two Lone Swordsmen "Punches and Knives," four incredibly sick songs that I've included below for your consideration. Vote for 'em! If it ain't Warp, it ain't worth a shit!]

MP3 :::
Squarepusher – Iambic 9 Poetry
Boards of Canada – Drive Left Side
Broadcast – America’s Boy
Two Lone Swordsmen – Punches and Knives
Seefeel – Spangle
Aphex Twin – To Cure a Weakling Child