May | 2014 | The Answer Is In The Beat

Lidless Dogs: tape (Life Like, 2013)

May 4, 2014 at 11:04 pm | Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment

Lidless Dogs: tape

This is Jargon Scott. You guy’s don’t know what you’re missing. I got hot… Lidless… Dooogs.

Damned Dogs + Lidless Eye collaborated on a session, apparently Kuma Tapes and Green Records And Tapes have released different recordings of the same sessions, but this is the only one I’ve found. It starts out sounding like the tape is unraveling in my tape deck, then it suddenly straightens out and organs start droning. It definitely feels like everyone’s in a different corner of the room, it all blends together but there’s definitely pronounced room placement of the different instruments. The flutes/woodwinds are clearly in one part of the speakers, and the noisy synth parts are in another. Crashing drums are underneath everything, it sounds like barrels being bashed on the beach during high tide. The second side sounds so lonely and solitary, with bird-like synths chirping overhead, and clear, shining sun drone. The second part gets a little rougher and shiftier, with noisy bass pulses and growing feedback and tension. It gets pretty turbulent, but ends up shining and beautiful, before starting to get all warped and unravelly, just like how the other side begins. I could totally be wrong about which side is which. The Life Like Soundcloud has audio samples, plus the Green Records mix, but they sound a little different than the tape, but probably because it’s a tape and these are MP3s:
https://soundcloud.com/life-like-tapes/lidless-dogs-2
https://soundcloud.com/life-like-tapes/lidless-dogs-1

Liz Allbee/Hans Grusel: Strategies For Failure/Zuckerkrieg (Part I) split LP (Resipiscent, 2014)

May 4, 2014 at 10:23 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Liz Allbee/Hans Grusel: Strategies For Failure/Zuckerkrieg (Part I) split LP

Liz Allbee’s side starts with an ominous, bassy sine wave that hobbles along for a while, combined with softly spoken lyrics and screeching, yet muted trumpet. Then at 7 minutes it explodes into the best searing, shredding noise burst I’ve heard all year, just drilling into your ears at different angles with several different instruments with different serrated edges. It feels great. Then there’s spare notes of trumpet, spaced out over several minutes, then an elongated piano note, and slowly spaced out bass thumps, and strange spitting and scowling noises. Snorting, coughing, even meowing. Partly sung poetry about pills and your medicine lasting longer, and mournful trumpets. Hans Grusel’s side starts with building, overlapping heartbeat-like electronic thumps, crawls through some shifting electronic waves, then tapping rain and creaking sounds. The rain starts to feel like it’s falling backwards. It gets really windy. Then there’s crunching, squealing, glitching machine sounds, and thumpy beats. It gets swarming and intense and kind of queasy (I’m thinking like Cotton Museum but with more non-electronic instruments in the mix) but not overtly harsh. It swells up, but it doesn’t burst or really peak, and it just kind of fades out before the end.

Show #241 – 5/3/14

May 3, 2014 at 3:15 pm | Posted in The Answer Is In The Beat | Leave a comment

3:04 AM Swans ~ Oxygen ~ To Be Kind ~ Young God
3:12 AM Robedoor ~ Neutral Scum ~ mp3 ~ Deathbomb Arc
3:21 AM Good Willsmith ~ Now – Shower Put On All Black ~ The Honeymoon Workbook ~ Umor Rex
3:30 AM The History Of Colour TV ~ Left ~ When Shapes Of Spilt Blood Spelt Love ~ Saint Marie Records
3:35 AM Lightfoils ~ alovetodestroy ~ Hierarchy ~ Saint Marie Records
3:40 AM Dark Lights ~ Time ~ Dark Lights ~ Fur Tuxedo
3:44 AM Young Magic ~ Holographic ~ Breathing Statues ~ Carpark
3:49 AM Arto Lindsay ~ Complicity ~ Encyclopedia Of Arto ~ Northern Spy
3:53 AM Trick Mammoth ~ Delphine (With A Purpose) ~ Floristry ~ Fishrider
3:56 AM Thee Oh Sees ~ King’s Nose ~ Drop ~ Castle Face
4:02 AM Death ~ Open Road ~ III ~ Drag City
4:05 AM Ono ~ CQCQCQ ~ Diegesis ~ Moniker
4:12 AM Guy Stuckens ~ N 006 (Après Le Bonheur) ~ Magie Rouge ~ noise-arch.net
4:17 AM Psyche ~ The Crawler Theme ~ Re-Membering Dwayne ~ Dark Entries
4:19 AM CTI ~ Light Fantastic ~ A Sudden Surge Of Power ~ noise-arch.net
4:26 AM Ki: Theory ~ Open Wound (ODESZA Remix) ~ Kitty Hawk Deluxe Edition ~ Kringer Records
4:30 AM DJ 3000 ~ Bridge & Burn ~ Besa ~ Motech
4:35 AM Oneohtrix Point Never ~ Meet Your Creator ~ Commissions I ~ Warp
4:40 AM Mind Over Mirrors ~ Second Nature ~ Check Your Swing ~ Hands In The Dark
4:48 AM Liz Allbee ~ Strategies For Failure (excerpt) ~ split LP w/ Hans Grüsel ~ Resipiscent Records
4:56 AM Mobonix ~ Machine Man ~ Machine Man ~ XIL
5:00 AM Sub Liquid ~ The End Piece ~ Beneath Your Reflection ~ self-released
5:04 AM Chrome Sparks ~ Lost In The Chrome Forest ~ Goddess EP ~ Future Classic
5:08 AM Panther God ~ Make Noise ~ Golden Changes ~ Outside Recordings
5:11 AM Mark E ~ Eganix ~ Product Of Industry ~ Spectral Sound
5:15 AM Heterotic ~ Amniotic ~ Weird Drift ~ Planet Mu
5:19 AM HTRK ~ The Body You Deserve ~ Psychic 9-5 Club ~ Ghostly International
5:24 AM patten ~ Drift ~ ESTOILE NAIANT ~ Warp
5:29 AM Fennesz ~ Sav ~ Bécs ~ Editions Mego
5:36 AM Lost Here… ~ Trying To Sleep ~ Hospital Music ~ Fur Tuxedo
5:39 AM Lassigue Bendthaus ~ Relate ~ Matter ~ Dark Entries
5:43 AM Farben & James Din A4 ~ Lucifer Rising ~ Farben PResents James Din A4 ~ Faitiche
5:50 AM Jonas Reinhardt ~ Malevolence In Blue ~ Ganymede ~ Constellation Tatsu
5:56 AM Kangding Ray ~ Apogee ~ Solens Arc ~ Raster-Noton

Chicago Underground Duo @ Trinosophes, 4/30/14

May 3, 2014 at 12:46 am | Posted in Photos | Leave a comment

I forgot to take my camera last time I went to Trinosophes, so I remembered this time, because the Eastern Market area of Detroit is absolutely amazing and I wanted to take some pictures of it. I visited Supino Pizzeria, which is my new favorite pizza place.

Supino Pizzeria

Quatro Formaggi

Then I just walked around took pictures of anything that looked interesting.

Inside Tronosophes:

Chicago Underground Duo were incredible. Chad Taylor has such a fluid, effortless drumming style, and Rob Mazurek used synth, effects and cornet to create some illuminating sounds and rhythms.

a few phone pics of the stage before Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks played the Blind Pig a few weeks ago

May 2, 2014 at 11:53 pm | Posted in Photos | Leave a comment

instruments

skulls

more skulls

Arto Lindsay: Encyclopedia Of Arto (Northern Spy, 2014)

May 2, 2014 at 11:51 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Arto Lindsay: Encyclopedia Of Arto

2CD anthology of the solo career of legendary no wave guitarist Arto Lindsay, spanning 6 solo albums from 1995 to 2004, released on Bar/None, Rykodisc, and Righteous Babe. The liner notes list lyrics and songwriters/musicians (which include Brian Eno, Ryuichi Sakamoto, DJ Spooky, and many others), but doesn’t mention which albums the tracks are from or when they were recorded, forcing you to take his oeuvre as a whole, rather than dissecting it by era. Several tracks are in Portuguese, reflecting Lindsay’s Brazilian roots, and his vocals are always smooth and suave, and while there’s hints of his abrasive guitar shredding, the songs are mostly pretty laid back and accessible, but with their share of weirdness, and plenty of detailed, exploratory arrangements. There’s ventures into slow jam R&B (“Illuminated”), drum’n’bass (“Complicity”), trip-hop (“Ridiculously Deep”), modernized samba (“Personagem”), and airy, drum machine-driven indie-rock (“Reentry”). The second disc consists of solo live performances, stripping his sound back to his noisy, abrasive no wave guitar shredding, but still paying tribute to his influences, turning songs by Prince (“Erotic City”!), Al Green and Chico Buarque on their heads. If you prefer DNA to Arto’s slicker solo recordings, this disc will be of greater interest to you. The best moments are when he just attacks his guitar, throwing effects left and right through the speakers and ranting abstract poetry. The whole disc is just a bracing trip of no wave electro-shock therapy.

Lightfoils: Hierarchy (Saint Marie Records, 2014)

May 2, 2014 at 10:58 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Lightfoils: Hierarchy

The case for this album does contain lyrics for these songs, but they mostly appear to be dots and dashes with a few words sprinkled here and there. It’s hard to even identify these lyrics when listening; this band definitely seems to take a lesson from Cocteau Twins in regards to lyric comprehensibility. The music definitely works its way up to noisy, fast wall of sound shoegaze, but sometimes it starts out relatively clean and normal sounding (as on “Last One”), and sometimes there’s even hints of country slide guitar. “Diastolic” has more of an uptempo, vaguely funky rhythm, and “Mock Sun” kicks the guitars into MBV overdrive. Track 7 is a slow, drifting drone which sounds like it was created using Paulstretch. This crashes into “alovetodestroy”, a loud uptempo shoegaze anthem with a vocal melody that totally reminds me of early ’90s college radio, hearing something that I misremembered as being by the Sugarcubes but not recognizing it when I actually listened to that band’s albums years later. The album ends with another drifting piece, with backwards vocals and slide guitar, which stops suddenly, bringing the album to a sudden death.

Trick Mammoth: Floristry (Fishrider Records, 2014)

May 2, 2014 at 10:30 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Trick Mammoth: Floristry

Good old New Zealand twee pop. All songs between 2 and 4 minutes, all nice and sweet and catchy (almost commercial jingle catchy, sometimes reminds me of the “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” Coke commercial). Male and female vocals, very Pastels-y, lots of “la la la”s. Has its “awww, sweet” moments. A bit too many slower songs/ballads, but it’s enjoyable.

Crush Collision 5/1/14 – DJ Rashad Memorial Edition

May 2, 2014 at 9:13 am | Posted in Crush Collision | Leave a comment

Hour 1
10:01 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn ~ Transported
10:06 PM DJ Rashad ~ Nitemares
10:08 PM DJ Rashad & Addison Groove ~ Acid Bit
10:11 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn ~ Daydreamin (Juktronik)
10:13 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn ~ Rashad & Spinn Meet Tshetsha Boys
10:17 PM DJ Rashad & Gant-Man ~ Heaven Sent
10:19 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Phil ~ Every Day Of My Life
10:22 PM DJ Rashad ~ Well Well Well
10:25 PM DJ Rashad ~ Itz Not Rite
10:28 PM DJ Rashad ~ Ghost
10:33 PM DJ Rashad ~ Teknitianz
10:35 PM DJ Rashad ~ Ghetto Tek Muzik
10:38 PM DJ Rashad ~ Who Da Coldest
10:41 PM DJ Rashad ~ Walk For Me
10:46 PM DJ Rashad ~ CCP
10:49 PM DJ Rashad ~ Let It Go [this song is now more heartbreaking than ever]
10:54 PM DJ Rashad ~ Grace
10:57 PM DJ Rashad ~ Chicago
Hour 2
11:01 PM DJ Rashad ~ Go Crazy
11:05 PM DJ Rashad ~ Da Life
11:07 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Manny ~ Leavin
11:11 PM DJ Rashad ~ Rashad
11:14 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn ~ Space Juke
11:17 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Manny ~ Drums Please
11:22 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn & Taso ~ Feelin
11:25 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Earl ~ I’m Too Hi
11:28 PM DJ Rashad ~ Trap Bakk
11:30 PM DJ Rashad ~ Make It Happen
11:33 PM DJ Rashad ~ Shoot Me
11:35 PM DJ Rashad ~ Just Don’t Know
11:37 PM DJ Rashad ~ Can’t Hold Me Back
11:41 PM DJ Rashad ~ Fly Spray
11:45 PM DJ Rashad ~ iPod
11:49 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn ~ Broken Heart
11:52 PM DJ Rashad ~ On My Way
11:56 PM DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn ~ Show U How
11:59 PM DJ Rashad ~ Baby