The Answer Is In The Beat

Pursuit Grooves: Modern Day Minerals tape (What Rules, 2014)

July 13, 2014 at 10:29 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The newest Pursuit Grooves album has been available on Bandcamp for a few months now, but I found a copy of the cassette at June Records when I visited Toronto for NXNE, and I couldn’t be happier. This tape shows the now-Toronto-based producer doing what she does best, with unconventional beats and rhythms, mysterious dialogue samples, and soothing synth tones. A few tracks flirt with guitar-like sounds and harder-edged beats, but not in an overwhelmingly hard way. “Carbon Elements” rides skipping beats over swerving bass, sounding like it’s suspended in air, high above the ground, but still with a consistent rhythm. “Traces Of” has a dubby echo riddim and sublime organ, and a voice popping up that says “that doesn’t change a thing.” “Gem” closes the album with a more straightforward drum machine sound, rather than the found-sound rhythmic patterns that most of the tracks are constructed from, and voice that simply intones “beautiful”, which is all that really needs to be said. So good. Also worth mentioning (also on the same label, and also which I found at June Records) is SlowPitch’s Dimly Lit Existence tape, which features a Pursuit Grooves vocal cameo, and is a different take on abstract downtempo rhythms, with dusty scratching, cinematic pacing and more mysterious dialogue samples, with an offbeat pop song (“Robotic Rain Cells”) thrown in for good measure.

Bubblegum Octopus: Critters tape (Moth Life, 2014)

July 13, 2014 at 8:05 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

I probably should’ve posted this before, but everything on the Bubblegum Octopus Bandcamp is set to “name your price” for another day or so, so if you’re interested, you can grab a bunch of awesome releases for free. Critters is the first physical BGO release in a while, and his first tape (as far as I know), and it looks like it’s still available. It’s only 10 tracks and 20-something minutes, but it’s pretty packed with ideas and spazzy tempos and blippy melodies. Opener “Gems In The Dirt” takes its time to build, eventually settling on craggy splittering beats and high-pitched vocals. “Critters” starts with detuned Seinfeld bass slaps, then quickly descends into digital thrashing and growled vocals. A few tracks have hard-trance atmospherics, and others have choppy, obliterating drums and chiptune textures. “You Asperse Me” is surprisingly more straightforward grindcore than usual for the project. All awesome stuff, nobody really blends sweet, menacing and spazzy/unpredictable like BGO.

Xeno & Oaklander: Par Avion (Ghostly International, 2014)

July 13, 2014 at 3:06 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Wierd Records disintegrated a few years ago, so fortunately Xeno & Oaklander have aligned with the Ghostly empire for their newest work. The Brooklyn minimal-synth duo’s sound hasn’t changed much, which is fine because it’s perfect the way it is. I saw them at SXSW last year and their set seemed more like a continuous dance mix, which surprised me a bit, but their albums still consist of concise synth-pop songs of various tempos. “Sheen” and “Jasmine Nights” are the most straightforward 4/4 dance tracks, there’s some excellent speedier tracks (“Lastly”, “Nuage D’Ivoire”), but what stands out the most are the horror-atmospheric slow-jams: “Par Avion”, “Reflections” and “Providence” The latter 2 are short instrumentals, suggesting that this band should look into doing soundtrack work, if they haven’t already. Sean McBride’s voice is absent for most of the album, only appearing on the album’s first 2 tracks, as well as its last; otherwise Liz Wendelbo takes the lead, except for the instrumentals. I’ve listened to this dozens of times this week, it’s just so addicting and I never get tired of it. Now that they’re on Ghostly, maybe they’ll play in Michigan sometime soon? Please?

Matt Kivel: Days Of Being Wild (Woodsist, 2014)

July 9, 2014 at 9:44 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Second solo album from a member of the bands Princeton and Sleeping Bags (neither of whom I’m familiar with). Woodsist lo-fi indie-psych-folk-rock, with falsetto vocals, lazy tempos, and reverb and stuff. Not out of the ordinary for this label, and not anything really surprising, but decent for this style. Honestly I think the songs with drums and more song structure work better than the more folky drumless songs. “Open Road” is the most the guitars get turned up, which either makes it a standout or makes it misleading. “Blonde Boy” and “Days Of Being Wild” have vocals melodies that flirt with pop, I feel like he’s almost trying to sing some early ’90s pop songs that I can’t remember. Laid-back and slightly downer-ish, but not too much. It grew on me a bit.

Cold Beat: Over Me (Crime On The Moon, 2014)

July 7, 2014 at 2:59 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Bay Area indie/post-punk group featuring members of Grass Widow and Erase Errata. Short, taut, dreamy indie-pop with airy vocals, good melodies, and uptempo drumming. A couple songs (“Rain”, “Abandon” which is slower) have drum machines, and a few towards the middle of the album have cello. Quality stuff, not too different from Grass Widow.

Signor Benedick The Moor: El Negro (self-released, 2013/Deathbomb Arc, 2014)

July 7, 2014 at 2:55 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This was originally released as a free Bandcamp download last year, but it’s made enough waves that Deathbomb Arc just released it on CD with a bonus track. Angry experimental Shakesperean college-age bedroom-recorded prog-rap. A bit of Danny Brown in his voice, but a decade-plus younger. Plenty of punk influence in some of the tracks (especially “Existential Humanitarianism As A Fashion Choice” and “Lecherous, Senseless, Debauchery”), but also orchestral scores (“Aristotelian Reptilian Pavillion (Opening Titles)” is a dramatic classical-inspired instrumental). One of the best rap albums (not just debuts) in recent memory. Seriously creative and accomplished and ambitious and well worth your time.

Guides: 7″ EP (self-released, 2014)

July 6, 2014 at 5:36 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Debut 7″ by a new band featuring people who have played in Death Cab For Cutie and Radar Brothers, but this a bit more noisy and mathy than those bands. “Be The One I” starts off deceptively fast and noisy, but cools off once the vocals come in. Nice and hazey-gazey, but still restrained and chilled. “Careful, I Was Every Sin” has tricky drum patterns and sheets of metallic guitar. “Ergo By Sunset” is more soft and dreamy and is my favorite track here.

Jandek mega-post

June 29, 2014 at 12:56 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

WCBN owns almost the entire Jandek discography, but for some reason we haven’t received any new releases since 2012’s Indianapolis Saturday. But now that Corwood Industries has online mail order and an email address, I asked the representative to send us all of the new releases, and he did! I’m in total worthless recluse mode right now so this is a huge gift to me. Catching up chronologically, we start with 2012’s Maze Of The Phantom, which sounds somewhat like Jandek’s attempt to compose a Chinese opera, with cooing female vocals, gentle harp, shakers and percussion, and cello. Very beautiful, calm, meditative music music. The work has 6 parts, and there’s 2 rehearsals included at the end of the second disc. All of the tracks sound pretty similar, but Part Six gets unexpectedly scatty/jazzy, yet still operatic.

Following that, we have Atlanta Saturday, a live recording from 2007. This one consists of an eight-part (plus a prelude) work called Outcast Of Civilization, and I’m guessing it’s a total coincidence that it was recorded in the same town that Outkast is from. As you might expect, this is a really lonely and depressing yet beautiful piece, which lasts 2 hours and features piano, strings, flute, soft drums (mostly cymbals and chimes), and sporadic vocals, which are mostly spoken word. Part One is kind of a perky chamber-jazz jam, and Part Six is spazzy and chaotic for the first half, until Jandek starts doing his lonely spoken word bit. Part Five is where his prose gets downright scathing. “If you can’t find a place here, what are you? The outcast of civilization. The unbeliever. One who couldn’t conform even to nonconformity.” Excellent work, will make you ponder existence and wonder why everything feels so empty inside.

Richmond Sunday is also from early 2007. It seems like he’s been releasing his performances roughly in order, although I don’t think his 2007 SXSW concert that I attended has been released yet. This album has 6 long pieces, with the first 2 (“This Dream” and “Another Mystery”) approaching a half hour each. Loose, rambling and free-jazzy, with bass, sax, drums, and guitar, and some spoken vocals. Intensely isolated, yet also loving and thankful. The third track on both discs (“What She On” and “The Ditch”) are the most intense and free-jazzy, and are even kind of furious.

After this, Jandek dropped a bomb on us in the form of a 9 CD box set called The Song Of Morgan, with each disc consisting of an hour-long piece for solo piano, with no vocals. He’s released solo piano music before, but not to such a grand scale as this. The pieces are all “nocturnes” so expect them all to be moonlit and solemn. Generally pretty slow-moving, definitely no Liberace showmanship here. There isn’t really any use in dissecting each disc, not because there isn’t any variation, but there’s just so much of it that typing out “this is where it gets faster, this is where it gets quieter” would be kind of moot. It’s all lonely solo piano music, perfect for extended sulking. Or try playing multiple discs at the same time and see what happens.

Athens Saturday is a newer recording, documenting a 2012 gig at the Orange Twin Conservation Community. So of course there’s several Elephant 6 alumni backing him up, as well as Bradford Cox. The entire concert consists of a single 100-minute piece called “Waiting To Die”, which is split between the two discs. This is one of the most beautiful, sad, brutal, and life-affirming Jandek works I’ve heard yet. The words are basically a dialogue between a depressed recluse and a happy man who’s trying to cheer him up. The recluse doesn’t like to do anything, he doesn’t go to the movies, he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t have friends, and he’s just basically sitting around waiting to die. He says that living is dying and the only variable is time. It’s so harsh and depressing, but at the same time it’s such a moving story. I feel like if I was actually at this concert, it probably would’ve changed my life. Tied with Where Do You Go From Here as my favorite Jandek recording.

His newest live release is Houston Saturday, which is a different end of the cathartic-yet-brilliant spectrum. This set was recorded a year ago at something called the Free Press Summer Fest, which sounds like an entirely inappropriate venue for a Jandek concert. So it’s a relatively short concert for Jandek, just consisting of one 35-minute piece called “Excited” (although the work itself seems to be called I Know I’m Alive), with Jandek sounding as happy and celebratory as he can get. “I’m so excited! I’m so alive!” Never have these words sounded more terrifying. But wait, then Jandek tells us “stop the train! but neverrrrr I won’t get off.” After lots of soloing, he starts to tell us how he really feels. “Take away my senses… my mind is craaaazzzyyyy!!!” Definitely feels like some sort of therapy session. Love you Jandek.

As soon as these CDs came in the mail, I checked the Corwood Industries website and found that there’s an even newer release available, called Ghost Passing. This one’s a 6 disc box set, which I assume is more piano solos. According to discogs.com they’re all titled “Fantasy” 1-6. Word on the street is that this one contains theremin, so naturally I can’t wait to hear it.