Birdwords is the solo project from Marc Burgess who has been releasing a lot of music lately. One of his releases Bones is a nine-song album that I hesitate to even call an album rather then a collection of songs. The songs as well the production is inconsistent and felt like a collection of loose ideas.
The album opens with “Faces Embedded in Synapses,” which feels like a prog rock jam session. I wasn’t feeling any emotion from the song in any direction. It felt neutral. The bass and drums are loud compared to everything else. The next song “Kafka's Flute” is about 4 dbs louder and sounds absolutely nothing like the first song. Burgess programs electronic elements such as arpeggiated synths while a synth flute sputters around the mix. It’s one of the highlights on the album. Up next is another complete deviation entitled “Crazy Ball” and it is about 5dbs softer than “Kafka's Flute.” Burgess sings on this song unfortunately the recording quality isn’t doing him any favors. “Swag Bag in Extremis” has a bit in common with “Kafka's Flute” in some ways and was another highlight amongst the batch and features decent guitar parts. That being said the guitar was too loud in the mix. The next track “Spinoza” is unlike anything that came before. It’s over seven-minutes long and revolves around reverent sounding piano and manipulated orchestral synths. There’s a new age vibe on this track. Then you have “Palm Stone” which is a dance song to some extent. It’s plays at a fast BPM and has a plastic feel to it in a lot of ways. I left Bones not knowing what to think. After some time I still don’t what to think. Everything on this album seems so random. Take a listen for yourself and if you can classify his sound into a genre then it’s one I haven't heard before.
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I last heard of Jay Kayle when I reviewed his EP Two. Since then he has released more songs with his latest being Four. One thing I can say right up front is that things are improving in a lot of ways when comparing Four to Two and not all of it is subtle.
The most noticeable improvement to anyone with a set of ears is his singing. He doesn’t sound as forced and just seems more relaxed with his delivery this time around. On top of that the production and recording quality has improved. His vocals sit inside the mix rather than on top of it. The general feel of these songs is aesthetically more pleasing to the ears. There is something softer and warmer about these songs and some of that may be because of reverb but also because of the way he strums his chords and the way he chooses to sing. A highlight on the an album “Anhedonia.” Anhedonia, which translates into the inability to feel pleasure, seems to revolve around this topic. Kayle’s lyrics are original and tap upon ideas instead of directly stabbing at them. He sings, “Anhedonia, find a better face Anhedonia, find a better face I don't like the capture and I sure don't like the chase Anhedonia, find a better face.” The song is melancholy yet hopeful and benefits from sounds like lap steel and synths. The next song “Morning Call” is a bit more festive and another success for Kayle. I was humming the vocal melody the second time I heard it. “It Gets Hard” keeps the ball rolling with an emotionally resonant song and impressive vocal performance. His lyrics are ubiquitously relatable to anyone who experiences life. He sings, “It gets hard to find a reason to stay It gets hard to ignore mirrors saying ‘run away’ I've a motor in my pocket and a tank full in the car There's an open road ahead, it gets hard.” Kayle closes strong with “Little Suicides,” which has a bit of a Johnny Cash vibe. It features a kazoo and it surprisingly works very well. There is not much more satisfying than seeing an artist evolve and improve and that's what you have here. Kayle is growing into his own.
Love is not always fun.
I don't know what it is about Recluse, the debut LP from British-born/California-based singer/songwriter Emily Gold that smacks of heartbreak. Maybe it's the line "I'll be your cyanide lollipop/sugar in your teeth," from the excellent single "Cyanide Lollipop" but bitter and sweet run hand in hand on this killer debut. Gold is drawing upon a blueprint of '90s underground moody psychedelia - most pertinently My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins - run through a blurry modern filter that will drive Beach House fans wild. The distant, dreamy, floating reverb seems to evoke a feeling of detachment, like your head is floating above your shoulders like Alice after too many toadstools.But this is not all glum and gloomy, however. Instead, this is the romantic distance of nostalgia and absence making the heart growing fonder. Gold is an absolutely killer musician and songwriter, which are gloriously captured in glowing fidelity. Everything is mixed to perfection with the growling, pyroclastic flow guitars meeting Gold's high, delicate vocals. Of all the underground, independent releases I've heard in the last six months, Emily Gold's Recluse has the highest potential of breakout success of any I've seen or heard. Recluse does sound like things you've heard before but configured in a new and personal way. If you love MBV, Beach House, or personal, dreamy, romantic, gentle music, you're going to flip out for this exceptional debut!
The debut EP Postcards & Paper Hearts by Theory In Context deals with a ubiquitous topic. The lone member Will Jackson says Postcards & Paper Hearts “ is a six-song EP of aggressive pop rock tunes that speak to the struggles of trying to find happiness and love in a world of depression and loneliness.”
Jackson makes straightforward pop-punk in which he plays all the instruments. The songs revolve around basic power chord progressions and Jackson has a nasally pop-punk type voice that won’t be winning any singing competitions but works fine with his music. Postcards & Paper Hearts is a demo quality release that isn’t competitive with the sound of a professional studio. That being said Jackson is able to give you a good idea of his basic style and what he is capable of at this point. The EP starts with “Elephant In The Room” which is a relatively short song that is just over a minute long. I was reminded of NOFX at times mixed with more contemporary pop punk. “Elephant In The Room” feels like an intro compared to the substantial “Rooftop Divinity (feat. KJ Barney).” “Rooftop Divinity (feat. KJ Barney)” is a pretty basic song which features some distinct vocal production tricks which worked out well. Towards the end of the song orchestral midi strings and overlapping vocal harmonies get to a boiling point. “Friend Of The Family” has some decent moments but the energy feels like it never takes off while “Machinery” utilizes clean guitars and midi piano. Jackson still has some work ahead of him if he hopes to be competitive with some of the more celebrated pop-punk bands out today. This style is as popular as ever and you have to bring something new to table or you most likely won’t gain a huge following. Postcards & Paper Hearts is a decent start but I would like to hear more energy in the future as well as a more distinct sound.
For the last twenty years lain Clarke has been active in the Yorkshire music scene. His latest effort is a DIY effort called Uneven Slices of Sky. His music sounds broad in a number of ways but falls under the category of pop/rock and if anything sounds more aligned with songs from the early ‘90s and ‘80s.
To be blunt the production and recording quality isn’t great. Uneven Slices Of Sky is a demo quality type release and the biggest issue throughout the album is that the vocals do not blend into the music. The vocals often sit on top on the music. As far as the songwriting goes it's varied from song to song. It did take me a couple of listens to appreciate some of the songs and I can’t say there were any that upon first listen I thought were really catchy to the point where I wanted to immediately listen again. The album kicks off with “Wake Up And Believe!” which reminded me of a song you might hear during a montage scene in a the ‘80s where the protagonist is getter better at whatever he or she is doing. Rocky and Karate Kid come to mind. Clarke’s lyrics reflect the energy and title of the song. He sings, “Don’t take the path that leads from your road, You gotta find your own way; Take or leave, sink or swim, fight or flight, love or anguish.” On the next track “Science and Religion” features Gemma Jarrett on vocals. The lyrics revolve around faith, free will and religion but also seem to contradict the very ideas, which are being stated. She sings about an unexplainable force that lurks in the background. It also seems to control her actions. She sings, “I can’t control my actions, thinking, feelings anymore, My movements aren’t my own, they make themselves.” The lyrics imply that the force she claims is there cannot be proved through technology, science or religion. She sings, “I don’t know what any of this means, But technology and faith they hold no key Whatever it is that takes control of me Is what science and religion just don’t see.” If you believe an external force is guiding your hand and cannot be explained through the conjecture of science wouldn't that be called “God” which is the basic premise of religion? Some of the songs work better than others. “Holding On” benefits from vocal harmonies from Lain and Jarrett, which reminded me of 10,000 Maniacs while “Falling” contains some restrained acoustic parts in the beginning, which works out quite well. The acoustic material continues to be their best songs as displayed with “The Air I Breathe.” I preferred this style over say “Freefall.” Uneven Slices Of Sky is a girth-y album that is hard to digest in one sitting. At thirteen songs with no filler this may have fared better split into two EP’s or even a double album. Not every song worked for me but there were a couple of inspired tracks amongst the batch.
There's that that unmistakable, mean muggin' grimace a guitar player gets in the midst of a particularly dirty solo. You know what I'm talking about. I pictured Thomas Nordlund wearing one of those many times while listening to his guitar driven, south of the border and ever-so-jazzy record, Divide Avenue.
That's not to say I found any parts of the album gratuitous or bogged down by show-off virtuosity—quite the opposite, in fact. Instead the live-recorded instrumental album variably brought back memories of that shared stage in the early ‘60s when jazz and rock guitar started to intermingle, as well as the wide open spaces and slow burning riffs associated with the American southwest. Nordlund's distinctively Tex-Mex sound could draw easy comparisons to the likes of Calexico or Spoon—the latter bearing quite the resemble, insofar as the at times spare-yet-biting guitar work is concerned—but those comparisons might sell Divide Avenue a little short. If anything, it most closely resembles Valley of the Giants, the early-aughts Canadian super group that melded post-rock with organic instruments and resulted in a vast soundscape also quite evocative of the southwest. The jazz element is also unmistakable with most songs clocking in around six-minutes long, and building layers towards nuanced, oft-monumental climaxes. While jazz can be such a general term, there's a distinct feel here in line with the aforementioned rock-jazz fusion—think Miles Davis' proto-funk A Tribute to Jack Johnson. While Divide Avenue absolutely feels like one big piece of work, there are still a couple of songs that stand out and stand alone well. “Iron John” oozes cool with a big, searing baritone guitar riff that drives the song forward, but leaves enough room for some horns and bass to dance in the gaps. Both the fifth and sixth tracks plow forward with the reckless abandon of a great jam session, picking up enough riffs and flourishes along the way to be something really epic by the time they work their way through the last few measures. The album was live-recorded at the Hideaway in Nordlund's native Minneapolis. Live recording can be a high risk, high reward business, but Nordlund and his half-dozen musical collaborators really pulled it off. Six or seven people playing together at once can create a big sound, but it can also fill a room so tightly that it becomes claustrophobic—the restraint and expertise showcased here create a vast, open space instead. It's the understated moments in between, when gentle flurries of keys or low rumbles of bass dot and define the landscape, alluding to vast space being created, that make it all the more worthwhile when its filled. Divide Avenue is an album I can easily and wholeheartedly recommend to fans of slow-burning southwestern soundscapes and live jazz alike.
Dear Other is a band from Ohio comprised of Marc (vocals/guitar), Rob (guitar), Brodie (bass), Caleb (keyboard), Biggs (drums) and Maura (vocals), Their debut release entitled The Exitus and Reditus of Andrew Darkstar Parrish is a diverse sounding rock album which has some inspired moments and others that fall a bit short.
The lead vocalist at times has a reserved vocal style that feels tongue and cheek. It’s not particularly commanding or aggressive. That’s not meant to be insult but it’s a vocal style that will work better in certain ways. That's one thing that keeps happening where things pan out very well and other times they just miss the mark by a few degrees. The band opens up missing the mark with “Exitus” which has the spirit of a Celtic punk rock song that would have been best delivered in a Dropkick Murphys kind of way. It starts off sparse and the vocal melody plays like a nursery rhyme or a traditional shanty song. The song attempts to get more aggressive but doesn’t acquire the visceral energy it reached for. “Exitus” is by no means a failure but just seemed liked it could have been a bit more. Luckily, the band completely delivers on “New to the Neighborhood” which is the best song on the EP. Everything worked on this song and the band seemed to really find their own natural style from beginning to end. The changing vocal harmonies are exceptional. The lead vocals are soulful but when the “neighbors” in tandem sing “Boy you've got to learn some self-control!” it’s pretty fantastic. I was reminded of The Shins on this song. “New to the Neighborhood” is a great song. The band finds more success but not as much with “The Emperor of Ice Cream.” There is a Ben Fold Five style breakdown as well as a very nice female lead vocal which sounded great. Another nice thing about the song is it has a unique structure, which you often don’t find with newly formed bands. They close with “The Shadow Met or Reditus” which felt like the most emotionally resonant song on the EP. I enjoyed the rumbling toms and kinetic energy of the song. Dear Other has a lot of things going for them. The lyrics are very creative and original, the songs are often catchy and creative and the band is technically savvy. You can tell the band hasn’t reached their potential at this point and are still growing into their own but The Exitus and Reditus of Andrew Darkstar Parrish is one hell of a first effort.
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There are piano players and then there are pianists like Beth Levin who fit into a different category entirely. Levin won’t be playing “Sweet Home Alabama” at local pubs with a mediocre rock band anytime soon. At the age of twelve she was already considered a prodigy and made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra. She would go on to learn from legendary pianists such as Rudolf Serkin, Leonard Shure, Dorothy Taubman, and Paul Badura-Skoda.
She went on to accomplish many things in her career but the latest is the release of PERSONAE which presents works from Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), Anders Eliasson (1947-2013), and Robert Schumann (1810-1856). If you are a fan of music in general I find it hard for someone to not at the very least appreciate the compositions that Levin performs. There is such a high degree of technical precision throughout PERSONAE that the rest of us mere mortals have to listen with a sense of awe. There is so much dynamic range within these pieces between the flourishing abundance of notes that it makes you realize the almost infinite capabilities of this instrument we call the piano. I will say if you aren't familiar with classical music that this album may take some patience. There are no hooks, no flair and it doesn’t feature the hottest rapper that the kids are listening into these days. In addition to that some of the songs such as “Disegno 2” are dissonant, jagged and on the verge of ominous sounding. If there was ever a difficult song to dance to it may be the songs on this album. Take for instance “Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35 "Funeral March": I. Grave - Doppio movimento” which feels sporadic like you're a doll being jerked back and forth in a tornado. That being said I think it would be cool to see a choreographed dance routine. PERSONAE is the antithesis of what mainstream music is in almost any form present to us these days. Instead of being at one consistent loud volume, it’s dynamic; Instead of relying on a repetitive hook it presents us with an ever changing myriad of notes that will be really hard to sing in the shower and last but not least may take your attention and patience to truly appreciate.
Kyle Lanter (vocals/guitar/piano), Luis Fermin (drums) and Jamie Ferrini (bass) are Spacebear. The band, which formed in 2014, plays high-energy rock songs but also throw in a couple of deviations along the way on their album Straight for the Sun.
The band gets moving out of the gate with the adrenaline pumping “Without You.” It wasn’t my favorite song on the album because there were times I was reminded of Nickelback during the chorus. The production and recording is great and the best moments come around the two- minute-mark where there is an impressive guitar action. One of the highlights is “Echoes Of Sunday” which I wished was a style they attempted more instead of the more commercial hard rock angle of the other songs. The verse is excellent and revolves around a creative bass line, piano, drums and vocals. Instead of running with the jazzy almost lounge-y vibe they plow into another heavy chorus. There are some inspired moments on “Electric Sheep.” Similar to “Echoes Of Sunday” the most original, inventive moments happen during the verse. I was impressed and reminded of Queens of the Stone Age when they rock out on this album. “Hopes Gone” is fairly straightforward which seems to follow a similar formula of keeping the verse creative and rocking out on the chorus. The biggest issue this band faces is following a similar formula to their songs. The soft verse followed by a loud chorus becomes too predictable after you hear it time and time again. Another issue I can foresee is that the band resides somewhere in between complete commercial viability or something more suited for the underground. It’s extremely rare for the band to be accepted in both spheres. If the band can refine their sound while also exploring other types of structure within their music they should be well on their way.
The music on Vicky Emerson's latest release Wake Me When the Wind Dies Down drips with folk, traditional country and even a bit of blues and pop. Her music is rich with instrumentation such as lap steel, fiddle, guitar, keys, bass and drums. That being said the instrumentation supports her very attractive, warm country style singing, which is undeniably attractive.
Things get going with a song that will make you get out of your chair entitled “Under My Skin.” This highly danceable and feel-good song feels pure and harks back to country from the ‘50s and the ‘60s and sounds great with contemporary refined production. There really isn’t much not to like about this infectious opener. Emerson slows things down with “Rattle Shake” which sounds good in a different way. When the fiddle combines with her voice it can give you shivers and maybe that's what she intended given the name of the song. The traditional/bluegrass shindig “Long Gone” is another song you could swing your partner to. I swear I heard some accordion in there and the spaghetti western guitar was a nice addition to some of the transitions. On the end of the spectrum you have “Silhouette” which contains beautiful guitar picking and I would say has a bit of New Age vibe. The juxtaposition from “Long Gone” was almost too much. Emerson continues to impress with country-tinged songs such as “Save All My Cryin’ (For Sunday Afternoons) and “Runaway Train” which solidify her talent. Wake Me When the Wind Dies Down is an album that is very easy to enjoy from beginning to end. The songs are well written and diverse which make it a pleasure to experience. |
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