February 28, 2014 at 8:10 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Chicago Underground Duo: Locus
Latest from Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor. Modern experimental jazz with heavy electronics and crunchy drum beats. Recorded by John McEntire and definitely has that Tortoise sound, could easily appeal to fans of electronic music and forward-thinking instrumental hip-hop (Flying Lotus et al). “Locus” has an echo-heavy beat and kind of slurpy synths. “Boss” has fast, busy drums and a kind of mystic rhythm, over which Mazurek plays the cornet. “The Human Economy” is a short interlude of some rustling metal coil type sounds and cornet. “Yaa Yaa Kole” starts with distorted mbira and shaker, then drums and cornet come in. Has sort of a miniaturized Afrobeat feel. “House of the Axe” has a mysterious spacey feel, a blippy, thwacky drumbeat doesn’t come in until 2 minutes in. This lasts until about 4 minutes, at which point the lightly flickering synths take over, and the piece ends with a gently shifting wave of humming ambience. “Borrow and Burry” starts with several layers of thrashing, scraping and bamboo flute blowing over cold minimalist synth. Towards the middle, the word “the sky” is spoken, then it all goes quiet, except for some whistling, then the scraping and synths start again. “Blink Out” starts with some manipulated cornet, which pitches up and down while it’s playing, and there’s a distorted beat and pulsating synths. This mayhem continues for almost 6 minutes, and then “Kabuki” is another fast, frenetic puzzle of distorted mbira, crashing drums and snaking synths. “Dante” ends the album with another fast, distorted rhythm and amplified cornet freakouts, but this one’s way less messy and more together than some of the previous tracks.
February 27, 2014 at 9:44 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Carsick Cars: 3
Newest album from Beijing indie-rock group Carsick Cars, who are one of the most well known underground Chinese groups (they’ve played SXSW and CMJ and plenty of other gigs in America, and Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 mixed this record). I haven’t heard any of their older work but I’ve heard some of it is more noisy, or that these guys have noise/experimental side projects. This definitely has some arty post-punk influence to it (“The Best VPN So Far” is a very Krautrock-influenced instrumental) but it’s definitely hooky, repetitive, droney indie-pop by people who worship Sonic Youth, Stereolab and other poppy-yet-experimental indie-rock bands. Lyrics blur between English and Chinese, sometimes it’s hard to tell which. “15 Minutes Older” has clear English lyrics. “Everybody Comes To the City Now, Everybody Wants To Be Free But Don’t Know How” gets the most catchy and singsongy with the vocal melodies (which are in Chinese). “Midnight Driver” has more of an uptempo shuffle beat. The last 2 tracks stretch out longer than 5 minutes, with “She Will Wait” featuring a drum machine ticking underneath and sunny vocals, and “White Song” being a slow-building ecstatic blissout with slightly distorted Chinese vocals. Glad to finally hear something by this band after reading about them for so long.
February 17, 2014 at 11:05 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Burnt Skull: Sewer Birth LP
Austin duo whose name entirely matches their sound. Hard, noisy sludge-metal-noise-rock with ungodly vocal effects. This sounds every bit as dark and evil and hellish as it looks. Thick pounding drums, flaming guitars, and supremely devilish vocals. Sometimes approaches early Swans or Godflesh territory. “God Hole” and “No Cross” are faster, getting closer to horror-punk territory. Of the 4 instrumental tracks, “Uniform” is maybe the most industrial, “Lord’s Prayer Underwater” is a short noisy interlude with some submerged talking, “Abduction (Lost Underground)” is a REALLY noisy interlude, sounding like a barrel explosion in a sewer, and “Abysm/Rotting Plain” is an outro that sounds like scraping metal in a sewer. This one effectively burned my skull!
February 16, 2014 at 3:03 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Thug Entrancer: Death After Life
Hard-to-define mixture of juke, minimal techno, trap, acid techno, noise, and more. Lots and lots of 808 beats. Active and busy, but sometimes minimal and bassy. Tracks 1-8 are parts 1-8 of “Death After Life”. Part 1 is uptempo juke/trap. Part 2 is slow dubby minimal techno. Part 3 is a long uptempo simmering acid techno jam, which ends with a lazer-like noise jam for the last couple minutes. Part 4 is another slow simmering techno track, which sometimes erupts in flurries of uptempo drum fills. Part 5 achieves the simultaneous feeling of slowly floating (due to the bubbly synths) yet at the same time rocketing forward into hyperspace (with the fast hypnotic beats). Part 6 is midtempo dubby techno with some soft noise smears around the corners. Part 7 starts quiet and unassuming, then kicks into a thin, uptempo techno, with small melodies and lots of handclaps at one point. Part 8 is more beat-heavy, uptempo, kind of hypnotic, but also minimal. The last 2 tracks are 2 parts of “Ready To Live”. Part 1 is another slow, minimal 4/4 techno track, but has one of the more interesting melodies on the album. Part 2 is mysterious midtempo techno, a bit more submerged and crackly than some of the other tracks, and a bit more distant and paranoid. Always amazing stuff from
Software, and also I think this guy does web design for
Decoder, which I write for sometimes, so that’s awesome too.
February 11, 2014 at 7:30 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Supercollider 7″
Debut 7″ from WCBN alumni Aaron Smith and Rory. Tight, wiry, mathy indie rock. “Heartbomb/Detonate” has vocals (lyrics about a crush), and a perky mid-uptempo, “Tuliptree” is instrumental and starts midtempo, then launches into energetic doubletime, and even has room for some cowbell.
Facebook says Rory is moving to LA so I dunno if this band will be playing live anymore, but at least you can enjoy them on this
7″.
February 11, 2014 at 7:18 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
El Ten Eleven: For Emily EP
from long-running instrumental post-rock duo whose first album was on Bar/None back in 2005. This is a nice, upbeat, electronic-tinged collection of 5 to 7 minute jammers. Concise but complex, not too proggy, and definitely enjoyable, nothing too ponderous. “Yyes!” is the most electronic of the 3, starting with kind of scattered, blippy sequences that continue through the song, and some drum machine beats in the breakdown around 2 minutes, but still guided by flying-high guitar and bass guitar groove. “Reprise” is also kind of electronic, even dubby, and kind of breaks down around 2 minutes and pulls itself into a more straightforward rock section, then tumbles into some free-falling drum soloing, then bumps around some electronic beats and more tranquil guitar effects. All good vibes.
February 8, 2014 at 2:24 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Kasim Keto: Long Car Rides
Mostly instrumental hip-hop, but with sung vocals with ethereal vocal effects. Definitely has a repetitive highway-travel feel to it. After a short intro of a car revving up, “Antseed” starts things off with minimal beats and synths and kind of trippy textures. “Wounded Knee” has a bit of sung vocals, and trippy beats. “Rat Race” has more sung vocals, mostly just the title repeated. “Facing” has sparkly synth sounds. “Belong” has some more sung vocals, can’t really tell what they’re saying. “Pusher” has kind of spacey synths. “Through” is a little more downtempo, has a tiny bit of piano. “Long Way” has a slow tempo to the melody but a more uptempo broken-beat shuffle to the beats, and vocals singing the titular phrase in the background. “Tell-Lie-Vision” is slow-jammy and has some lazy, loungey, stargazey vocals. “Nova” is short but has a really cool choppy beat and lots of spacey echo on the vocals, and lyrics about exploding supernovas. “Who Knows” is over 5 minutes, has the “Synthetic Substitution” breakbeat, and has vocals that sort of gaze off into space. “Hishandsunderstand” is light and spacey. “I Can’t” is melancholy and has light guitars and has some minor sung vocals towards the end. “Cause & Creation” has more barely comprehensible sung vocals, but seems to be concerned about something. “Hurrywait” has a hard beat and kind of trippy synth sounds. “So much Pain” ends it with more kind of melancholy beats and a little piano and vocals. RIYL: Driving long distances at night, Adult Swim bumper music.
February 8, 2014 at 2:18 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Illum Sphere: Ghosts Of Then And Now
Ninja Tune debut from Manchester producer Ryan Hunn. His older stuff was closer to abstract instrumental hip-hop, but this album takes in a much wider scope of electronic music, touching on various current forms of “bass” music, R&B, house, Krautrock, and more. “Liquesce” is a shadowy, crackly, string-filled noir intro which has Shigeto drumming away in the background. “At Night” kicks up the tempo with light female vocals and edits, and 808 State-esque synths. First single “Sleeprunner” has more vinyl crackle than the first track, a nice Krautrock (via the last Portishead album) synth arpeggio, and a steady chugging beat which builds to juke intensity towards the end, along with vintage synths and strings. “The Earth Is Blind (Prelude)” is a spacey interlude leading into “The Road”, a downtempo R&B ballad with a stomping beat and frequent cut-ins from what sounds like a police radio, rhythmically sampled into the beat. “Ra_Light” has kicking beats, city-light synths, and a break in the middle with some excited-sounding voices, and then an outro of some slowed, echoed voice. “It’ll Be Over Soon” has a little more vinyl crackle, fast jittery beats, and a recurring sample of kids going “yeah!”, and later a robot voice repeating “game over” over a fast juke-inspired beat. “One Letter From Death” is a short, simple track with a rimshot-heavy beat, snakelike rattling percussion and bass synth. “Ghosts Of Then And Now” has a soft sensuous beat and organs, and gets more intense during the second half, which features atmospheric backup vocals. “Love Theme From Foreverness” is another moonlit R&B ballad, with midtempo beats. “Lights Out/In Shinjuku” starts out sounding like it’s going to be tense and frantic, but then really calms down during its second part. “Near The End” is the most uptempo, busy 4/4 dance track, with an upfront live-sounding beat and jazzy keyboards. “Embryonic” is one last vocal track, with a cumbia-esque beat and xylophones, and synth washes.
February 1, 2014 at 5:56 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Blackstone Rangers: Descendant
Texas shoegaze-influenced pop. Endless amounts of guitar effects, male/female (mostly female) vocals, and electronic beats. Opener “Descendant Of” does the endless drown-out guitar jam thing, but then “You Never” is a short surfy pop song, with a straightforward rhythm and upfront (but still too echoey to discern) vocals. “Judas Tree” has another uptempo rhythm, but clearer vocals, which sound excited and go “wooo!” at one point. “Frozen Echo” calms things down a little, has less electronic-sounding drums (but they’re still electronic), and the wordless vocals live up to the song’s title. “Nights//Days” is uptempo and anthemic, with assured, multi-tracked vocals and drums that even further blur the perceptions between live and electronic sounding. “Endless Sky” is another anthemic song with plenty of chorus echo on the vocals. The disc ends up sounding way poppier and less shoegazey than it seems like it will be at the beginning.
February 1, 2014 at 5:21 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
The Traps: Boom Pow Awesome Wow
First official release of a Providence garage rock band from 10 years ago. This definitely follows the Gories’ idea of garage rock being extremely primitive, stripped down, loud, and distorted. Very muddy and congested sounding, and of course the vocals are near impossible to discern. Most songs are around 2 or 3 minutes, but “Get Up” stretches past 6 minutes. Gets a bit bluesy at times, “Missed The Mark” approximates slide guitar, but it’s hard to tell if that’s actually what’s being played. “Illinois” is a fast stomper, and “Get Up” is a long low-down blues jam with more slide-like guitar. “Busalo” is a short, very noisy bashy jam with just a hint of the riff from “Paranoid” buried in there somewhere. “I Can’t Handle That” starts with a tiny bit of studio chatter, then has somewhat clearer vocals than the preceding songs. “How Long?” has a little more of the bluesy slide sound, and more constantly pounding, bashing drums, and vocals that sound more manic and rabid than before. “Beer Pinata” is one last bash, sounding as drunk and destructively playful as its title.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 