Archive for January, 2009|Monthly archive page
Oceana – The Tide
Filed under: music | Tags: post-hardcore, post-rock, screamo
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Oceana are a very young and interesting post-hardcore band, sounding quite focused and passionate. The sound is hard to classify as it goes between screamo, a few clean melodies, metal riffing and drumming, prog licks and post-rock instrumental atmospherics. Still don’t expect them to be particularly catchy, the music takes a lot to really grasp but I always feel that something in it is holding me to keep listening, even though I’m not a particular fan of music with screaming vocals.
Beirut – March Of The Zapotec / Holland
Zach Condon aka Beirut returns with two short EPs, one recorded with a brass funeral band from Oaxaca, another being, er, indie synth pop. I think the first is more interesting, although to me it actually sounds like a second-rate Balkan brass band playing without a few members by the end of a wedding/funeral. This is probably a just a step in Zach’s hopefully long musical journey; it wouldn’t be fair to expect an album like Gulag Orkestar or Flying Cup Club every year.
Omar Rodriguez Lopez – Old Money
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Song titles such as How To Bill The Bilderberg Group and I Like Rockefellers’ First Two Albums, But After That… sure do promise a great blast of prog rock and free jazz? After listening to Omar’s music (At the Drive-In, De Facto, Mars Volta, solo works) for almost ten years now, this album brings yet another taste of familiarly unknown.
The Bronx III
There have been so far two essential rock’n'roll howls in my life that I always return to: those of At The Drive-In and Icarus Line. I think I’ve just found the third. The Bronx are compulsory.
Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
When Twiligh Omens ended, it was fourth perfect modern pop rock song in a row from the start of the album. I worried what kind of a beast it is going to become. A few songs later, I was, to bo honest, relieved – they were good but not as brilliant as the openers, so fortunately these guys are really human. But then, it’s the third album of all these rhythmic clever short songs… they have to do something strange, they can’t go on like this forever! Finally, yes, they dissolve in the 7+ minutes long Lucid Dreams from a sound feast into a most primitive mechanic beat. In Dream Again, they’re back to do a simple and beautiful mostly vocal Beach House-style tune repeating “I live to dream again”. Wrapping up with Katherine, an acoustic guitar, talking about what we will never get. What we do get however, is Franz Ferdinand’s best album period.
Pink Floyd – 1967 Singles Sampler
I think some of these songs are not that easy to find actually? Here’s the tracklist:
- Arnold Lane
- Candy and a Current Bun
- See Emily Play
- Scarecrow
- Apples and Oranges
- Paintbox
I didn’t have them at least, and I like Syd Barrett, so there.
DJ Shadow – The 4-Track Era
There’s a very cool limited edition release from DJ Shadow out there that’s slowly been appearing on the torrent scene. It’s 4 volume set of his early mixes that he originally made on his, you guessed it, 4-track recorder.
My favourite here is the first volume prepared in 1991 for a Bay Area radio station, which consists of two long streams of upbeat hip-hop remixed in an already recogniseable Shadow moody manner. The second disc has got his mixes of the best music from the early 90s era.
I’ll update this post when I find the remaining two volumes.
download vol1 and vol2
The Aliens – Luna
Filed under: music | Tags: experimental, pop, psychedelic, rock
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A great release from The Aliens, whose members stem from Beta Band. The album goes on for more than an hour, two songs over ten minutes, but this album is in fact a constant stream of different musical ideas – sometimes they’re pieced together in one song, sometimes they split, lose the focus a bit and wander off. The essence of Luna are vocal harmonies in differrent styles, from glam, funk and ballad to Syd Barret-flavoured pop psyche, with lots of effects and layered instruments playing behind. Would be a great live experience I imagine.
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
Merriweather Post Pavilion is one of those albums which, after you’ve listened to it for the first time, you don’t really remember a lot, it leaves you overwhelmed with sounds but you just know that you’re gonna love it as you listen to it again and again. My ticket to the strange world of Animal Collective was the adorable Panda Bear’s solo album.
The songs here are a constant overlapping celebration, odes to joy wrapped in synthesized sounds. Most of the sounds actually come from various electronics, yet there is no sense of artificial or alienation – on the contrary, it is so much more human than anything. Like our thoughts and feelings, they unpredictably meander and twist between familiar (the sky-high melodies) and unknown (the psychedelic electronic sounds). It’s most likely one the albums which will mark the year ahead of us.
The Herbaliser – Same As It Never Was
Same as it never was begins as if it’s an instrumental hip-hop album. And hip-hop really is the root of Herbaliser’s music, played by a mini orchestra around Londoners Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba. But only a couple of seconds later it reveals its true kaleidoscopic face, made of glaring elements of funk, jazz, soul and backed by beats that knock on every hip club’s door. By the time catchy Can’t Help This Feeling is over, you’re most likely going to be completely in love with Jessica Darling’s absolutely stunning and timeless voice. Instrumentals though is how Herbaliser lads started, and there’s handful of them here too. They are an intriguing experience, and more than once I thought that the music could end up on a James Bond soundtrack.
