Back when I profiled Brian Miller's now defunct solo project Back To The Future The Ride, I made the point that Miller is a veteran of the LA scene who has scene tides of hype come and go. His numerous bands, solo and side projects now number in the double digits, while his continued stewardship of Deathbomb Arc Records has provided a crucial outlet for the fringes of the Southern California underground scene. For the past six years, Foot Village has occupied the center of Miller's musical universe. A four piece all percussion group, [...]
Pure X: "Back Where I Began" Tonstartssbandht: "Orange Miss You" Forma: "2303
German-born Robert Raths is an explorer of the avant-garde, a pioneer of undiscovered music. In early 2007 he founded London-based Erased Tapes Records , unearthing a global spectrum of transcendent and diverse, electronically reformed, organic music. This summer brought us Erased Tapes Collection III , the third in a series of annual compilations of recent releases, and our introduction to Codes In The Clouds’ “Street Lights In The Distance (iambic Remix).” British experimental minimalists Codes In The Clouds create instrumental post-rock with ambient psychedelic and cinematic tendencies in the manner of La Monte [...]
Secret Colors - Rewinder from Secret Colors on Vimeo . Seattle's Secret Colors , aka Matt Lawson, is currently readying his first LP for the recently profiled Brooklyn imprint Group Tightener . To tide us over, he's cooked up an animation for album cut "Rewinder," a bubbling swamp of soft guitar noodlings that's bound to lap at the pleasure centers of your brain until you finally agree to check out for lunch. If you're watching this video, that might take the form of taking a few minutes to think really [...]
Seattle's Secret Colors , aka Matt Lawson, is currently readying his first LP for the recently profiled Brooklyn imprint Group Tightener . To tide us over, he's cooked up an animation for album cut "Rewinder," a bubbling swamp of soft guitar noodlings that's bound to lap at the pleasure centers of your brain until you finally agree to check out for lunch. If you're watching this video, that might take the form of taking a few minutes to think really hard about what it would be like to skateboard inside a kaleidoscope. Words: Emilie [...]
On a new cassette release entitled You're With Me on his own Treetop Sorbet imprint, Arches guitarist Julien Rossow-Greenburg - aka J R G - turns snippets from his loop pedal into slow-burning, hazy guitar jams. Fuzzed-out riffs on lead track "Going Away" sizzle in the song's atmospheric heat wave and loop through listeners' ears while Julien's slow lyrical drawl lends a feeling of exhaustion to the narrator's assertion of escape. "I was trapped in a dream, but now I'm going away" may not be the most eloquent lyric of all time, but it [...]
If you are going to be in Los Angeles this Friday, a strange convergence of worlds will occur at local arts space Dem Passwords . Rapper Riff Raff SODMG will do a rare live performance amongst the likes of Extreme Animals and James Ferraro. To give you a sense of the absurdity of it all, Riff Raff is best known for his brief stint on MTV reality show From Gs to Gents . The premise of the show is to transform hip hop fashion casualties into high class gentlemen. Riff Raff's comittment to his [...]
Vehicle Blues ' Gabe Holcombe makes the kind of noisy, small room lo-fi that brings all sorts of images into a solitary listener's mind. On last Fall's " 177 ", Holcombe used throbbing rhythms and tape hiss to create a sense of breaking out of a claustrophobic cage. Here on "Oscar Bought a Boat"- - a track set for release on a brand new cassette for Bridgetown Records -Holcombe is escaping yet again. This time around, the situation seems much less dire. Guitars well up in balls of feedback and static and bounce merrily around the track while Holcombe gently croons out [...]
Florida's Space Ghost Purrp makes hip hop with a Sci-Fi slant. His samples include everything from Mortal Kombat sound effects, to the peppy "Hello!" that is often blared from ice cream trucks. In the oh-so-slow "Fish", Purrp explores a sinister mechanical realm. The low tempo vocals sound as though they are coming from a long dead dinosaur who was resurrected by a machine. The roars and somber piano tappings give the track a gothic funhouse effect. Like his West Coast contemporaries OFWGKTA, Purrp's lyrics often deal with the uglier things in life. One of the most memorable lyrical moments is [...]
Philadelphia's Purling Hiss do snarling guitar rock so well that they almost seem like a concept project about shredding. Infectious as they can be, the song structures on their first two LPs were minimal point of hard rock caricature, and always seemed more of a frame for Mike Polizze's unchained, stream-of-consciousness guitar acrobatics than focal points in themselves. "Voices" a track from the band's new six-track EP on Mexican Summer , sees the frontman wielding his axe in more of an ornamental spirit, searing bluesy curlicues above a hulking power chord progression and some lackadaisically delivered lyrics [...]
Iowa City duo Goldendust seem to have found a happy home on Night People . At the end of last year, Rose Quartz brought the newly formed band to our attention in spotlighting the label owner’s year-end list . “After The Smoke Grew Thick” is a selection from Digital Skies , the 2011 precursor/demo cassette to their upcoming Night People long-player release this summer. We enter a bleak, immersive atmosphere suffocated by thick clouds of smoke. Distant, sorrowful vocals might bring comparisons to '80s dark wave bands, or even recall the affectedness of [...]
No Pain in Pop just sent over this new single from London five-piece Echo Lake , who first appeared on our radar when Dan Nixon of 20 Jazz Funk Greats made a video for them using Kinect technology. "Another Day" tips the wall of sound vs. popcraft ratio in the latter direction, pushing Linda Jarvis' vocals to the front of the mix alongside a lead guitar melody that is actually distinguishable. Despite frequent comparisons to the Cocteau Twins, Jarvis' delicately acrobatic vocal line is more likely to recall the melodic sensibility of The Cranberries [...]
Tonight, Los Angeles bids adieu to Show Cave , one of its most vital and active DIY venues. Founded by Eric Nordhauser and Hazel Hill McCarthy in 2006, and located at 3501 Eagle Rock Boulevard, it was the kind of place locals would pack into on a Friday night to catch musical performances, video art shows hosted by pygmy goats, dance parties, and people in little black wigs doing god knows what. Tonight's send off features performances by Zones favorites James Ferraro and Matthewdavid , in addition to some ghostly electro from Octavius and a plethora of dark dance [...]
Ekoplekz: Uncanny Riddim from Jade Boyd on Vimeo . While video artists utilize high definition for a crisp and clean look, those who work with analog technology often basque in exactly the opposite. Although people often highlight the "warmth" of analog video, what often makes it notable to me is the sense of the sublime; that there might be some unexpected energy, or presence infiltrating your footage. Jade Boyd's video for Ekoplekz's "Uncanny Riddim" explores the darker dimensions of this. Through video feedback, we are introduced to several shadowy presences. One is a female [...]
Madison, WI's Wes Doyle-aka Slow Loris -serves up some of the most impressively well crafted bedroom pop from the internet-ether on his new release Routine Glow . Although not terribly far removed sound-wise from last year's Extra Colors , these songs feel more fully realized and swell with a rare confidence and swagger. Doyle no longer seems interested in dabbling with dizzy, one-off track experiments and instead presents a cohesive long player; equal parts exciting and chill. Album closer and highlight "Madeline" showcases his full-form vision well. [...]
If you've seen Sun Araw recently, then you have seen and heard Barret Avner, the tall India Harpist with long blond hair. Sadistic Candle is Barret's solo adventure. "Last Holiday", his most recent track, treads on some very proggy ground. After being greeted by a thick wall of feedback, we are pulled further into the mix by some high toned guitar wailing. Imagine Yes filtered through vintage Casio electronics, and you will be on the right track. On his cassette on Sun Ark Records, which was simply titled Sadistic Candle, Barret explored the aesthetics [...]
Last Fall, 20 Jazz Funk Greats spotlighted "The Coptic Sun," a horizontally unfolding synthesis of Vangelis -era New Age and Hillage guitar stylings that had been deposited in the blog's inbox by a mysterious Uruguan entity called International Feel. Turns out that the track was somewhat mislabeled: International Feel is not a band, but an imprint, and "The Coptic Sun" is a missive from IFEEL Studio, a project from label head/producer Mark B, who records out of his studio in Punta Del Este. On July 18th, International Feel will release a follow-up to that [...]
Saying Mikey B-aka UK'S Waskerly Way -sounds a mess on his new EP, Wind Shear , can only be meant in the most endearing way possible. This nine minute title-track giddily prances around a seemingly endless barrage of disparate sounds held loosely together by a keystone guitar riff and an unrelenting drum beat. The enduring riff-beat combination steadily marches through the length of the song while he piles more and more sonic ingredients on top of the heap. Swirling electronics, thick feedback, and a healthy dose of reverb all collaborate here; coming together in [...]
"Own Myn Own" is a track off of Born to Fully, the first solo tape from Andy Boay , who is one of the brothers behind Tonstartsbandht . If you're familiar with Andy's other project, the mantric guitar psychedelics of this song should come as no surprise. Tonstartsbandht's drumlines are a signature element of their sound. Since "Own Myn Own" lacks those pulsing drum thumps, it manages to skip your hips and go straight to your head. The video's chroma key heavy psychedelics evoke television musical performances from the height of the psychedelic era. [...]
Who doesn't love a good, old-fashioned audio "Fuck You!"? Lantern's "Nothin' Comes Easy" is all raw rock'n'roll emotion and Quentin Tarantino movies. Blistering guitar rages through its two-and-a-half minutes while drums pound and tambourines shake. The cassette's liner notes name Zachary Fairbrother as the track's furiously wailing vocalist, burning off the frustration of life's one and only truth that we all learn sooner or later. Nothing comes easy, and like the rest of us, Fairbrother just "wants to break free." He revels in the satisfaction of telling some unknown entity that he "doesn't owe them shit," and we revel with [...]
Visitation Rites
Stream: Disclosure – When A Fire Starts To Burn
You’ve GOT to Hear This: “Enemies”
Prince ensaya con “Even Flow” de Pearl Jam
