Anyone who happened to be paying attention to underground horror cinema in the late '90s is likely to remember their first encounter with the Blair Witch Project. Before the high-profile specials on Sci-Fi Channel, the marketing hype and the eventual realization that the film couldn't be real (sorry, spoiler alert) when the actors started to emerge, the Blair Witch Project circulated through the underground as an anonymous, unlabelled, grainy VHS bootleg. There's nothing quite like the chilling thrills of receiving a real mystery, something potentially wonderful, offering miracles, while also dragging the viewer through the darkest depths of human nature and the world that surrounds us.
With Mono Alto, the self-titled debut EP Mono Alto from Vancouver, BC's Matthew Eisenhauer, who recorded these four trembling, pummeling, mysterious midnight demos as a way to "gain perspective on their music" while preparing a proper full-length. Mono Alto is four slabs of unrelenting doom-y ominousness, beamed in from some Black Sabbath-nether Astral Realm, like a Sleep cover band teleported from The Darkside. Classic stoner/doom downtuned riffs are augmented with proggy jazz and slinky funky with "I Think I'm Done (Letting Time Muscle Me Around)"; weird, broken sci-fi electronics ("Living By A Book"), underscored with fuzz bass and broken beats with “Introcisions." Instrumental "Fear Of Comfort" closes things out with a gelatinous flanged guitar, while a lead cries like a damaged angel in the background to close things out. All in all, Mono Alto encapsulates all that is right and well and good and unholy in the realm of darkside rock. Metal, prog, jazz, night-time funk. Arty and smart to the extreme, while still having enough gristle and meat to pack a punch and raise the ambient temperature a couple of degrees - this is what it sounds like when the head and the heart come together - as the most successful psychedelia always achieves. Mono Alto is murky and mysterious, challenging and menacing in its way (particularly in its raw-ish demo-like sound quality), but there are miracles here, to be sure. This kind of rough gem is hard to come across, in the instant gratification world of the Internet. A little mystery, a bit of danger, causes a spark of wonder and thrill of excitation to burn in your mind, setting your imagination on fire, transporting you to the strange primordial realm captured on the sleeve. Mono Alto will be making grand statements of dark psychedelia before you know it. Get this demo now, and claim bragging rights. Mono Alto's a talent to be watched, for certain.
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Sam Burks (drums), Tom Clary (guitar/vocals), Jesse Campbell (bass) and Tim Bachmann (guitar/vocals) are The Contra Costas. The band has been around in some formation since they were seniors in high school and the members are apparently in their last year of college at the moment. According to their Bandcamp page their release Contra Costas was recorded in 2013 but just released recently. I’m not sure of why it took so long to release but it finally arrived.
For better or for worse Contra Costas is a demo quality release. It’s hard to make out the individual instruments besides the guitar on a couple of songs. If the drum set had a bass drum it's barely audible. This is a raw recording which gives you a good idea of what the band sounds like. No more no less. The first song “Blue Blossoms” is 101 style garage rock. I don’t think there is any denying that this song bares resemblance to The Strokes. That being said the song is well written and well delivered. The guitar strums a straightforward progression as the drummer serves up an inventive beat. I enjoyed some of the little builds and the vocals on the song even though it was hard to make out the lyrics. The song ends abruptly and goes into “Wanderlust.” “Wanderlust” is a good song all around and arguably the highlight. I liked the vibe on this song. The production is slightly better and I could make out the bass this time around even though the song is under two minutes they pack a lot into it. It feels somewhat frantic yet contained. The bass line hits a myriad of notes while the jangly guitar keep the momentum. “Portraiture” is aesthetically somewhere between the first and second song. There is definitely a garage rock vibe on this one but it feels slightly off center which is a good thing. This is another song displaying some potential and talent. They close with “Come (for/to) fort Zone” which is more lo-fi than their previous efforts. As someone who has studied engineering for twenty plus years now I’d say the next thing the band should be concerned about is increasing the recording quality of their next effort. If the info on Bandcamp is correct then they should hopefully be due for some new songs. The music while not groundbreaking is well written and the band has jangly garage rock sound with a tinge of Velvet Underground. I think this band has some potential so keep your eye on them .
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Jaunt is the latest release from David Rupley. I can say this album is up there with his best work. If you aren’t familiar with Rupley he makes instrumental music that veers towards the electronic side. There are a lot of synth, percussive elements and just a lot going on in general.
He starts with a six-plus-minute song entitled “Spin.” The song’s focal point is a lead synth. What changes throughout the song is everything else that is surrounding it. The lead synth pierces through strands of white noise, what sounds like distant piano and an ever changing array of pads. As the song progresses you start to get hypnotized by the sounds. Up next is “Moon” which is very atmospheric and ethereal. Angelic pads swell as a distinct beat keeps the music from floating away. Like the opener the more the element repeats the more you go into a type of trance. Rupley introduces more distortion and grit on “Cloud 9.” I don’t hear lead guitar too often from Rupley so I had to embrace it. He mostly solos across the soundscape which cuts through the soft pads. I was surprised to hear vocals on the next track “Rain.” His singing is soft and lies low in the mix. It’s awfully catchy and is reminiscent of the production you would hear in shoegaze. He goes back into purely instrumental music with “One.” His guitar playing is inventive on this track. The song is light, airy and serene. There are no huge crescendos or peaks just a mellow vibe. The most interesting part was towards the end where the song becomes dissonant. He closes with “Two” which I thought was the highlight. The song has an unusual beat and in fact the whole song is unusual. It may cause your brain to malfunction. Jaunt has a diverse range of material that feels cohesive. Each song has a distinct vibe but connected by the thread of the bigger picture.
Rock n’ roll bridges the gap 'tween high art and low class. Originally started as a youth revolt from glue-damaged greasers in the 1950s, sending American parents into paroxysms, rock n’ roll would go on to become the most polite of lifestyle accessories, soundtracking musicals and selling t-shirts at Target.
Rock 'n roll, like any artform, tends to build in complexity as time goes on - like the segue from the psychedelic hippy rock of the late '60s to the bloated proggy excess of the '70s. Eventually, the bloat becomes too much - like an ocean liner sinking beneath the weight of its barnacles - and a downsizing is required. In these periods, stripped down, gritty no-nonsense rock n’ roll becomes edgy, adventurous and avant-garde. Black Cat White Cat is a fuzzy, scuzzy garage outfit from Sheffield, UK. Black Cat White Cat blend the arch experimentalism and poise of rock n’ roll revisionists like The White Stripes with the late-nite menace of drug-addled aficionados like The Cramps or Pussy Galore on their album 9 Wild Lovers. The stripped down aesthetic is given an artful, bohemia edge by the female lead vocal, courtesy of singer Angela, who invokes the rock n’ roll artistry of early Patti Smith in her crooning spoken word and banshee wail. Like The Cramps or The White Stripes before them, Black Cat White Cat encourage a re-appreciation of early rock 'n roll, before all the bells and whistles and gimmicks and bows. Instead, Black Cat White Cat ply tasty, twanging surf-like guitars, scorching melodic leads and furiously falling bass lines. They speak to a misspent youth digging through musty old records, getting high and going mad off the spore fumes. They're a reminder that pure and honest expression is the most arty thing there is, doing more than any 6-figure recording budget could. Basically, Black Cat White Cat play really, really amazing garage rock with no artifice and just the right amount of pretension. They make you want to tease your hair, get a hammer and sickle tattoo and listen to Buddy Holly 'til 5 am instead of going to work. Excellent stuff! Very highly recommended!
I’m originally from Wisconsin which is not a place that’s high up on the list of states to visit as far as I know. But in the grand scheme of things Wisconsin is known for a few things, albeit cows, cheese, beer, and massive amounts of drinking. Oh and also having the greatest football team the world has ever known. And it also snows a lot there too. But football is what we’re concerned with here.
The point about football is that I’ve been to a lot of other places around the United States and it is well known that there is a Packer’s bar just about everywhere you go. It’s true. It has to be if there is in fact a Celtic folk/rock band based in Kona, Hawaii. This latter statement is also true. They’re called The Kilt Lifters and they were formed by front man/cross-cultural music pioneer Chris Carr, who after he came to the Big Island and found there were no Celtic bands around (not surprising but…) decided to start one. Since then The Kilt Lifters have played local pubs on the Big Island and done shows at St. Patrick's Day festivities in Hilo, and also on Oahu, where they played the Scottish Festival and Highland Games last year. The Kilt Lifters debut offering, the four song EP Jack in the Green, was written primarily by Carr who was influenced by the works of Ian Anderson. It’s a cross-cultural record of sorts with Carr wishing to emulate a “dance through the seasons.” The Ep’s opener is “Come Out Ye Black and Tans” a shot at the Britt’s who for so long had held power over the Ireland which most Americans don’t visit. In a sing song yet serious voice Carr pulls no punches with history, sticking it to the cowards who tormented the innocent. The title track “Jack in the Green” is a slow and symphonic dirge that is hard to avert your ears from. It unfolds like a tale sung by an ancient minstrel and gets down to the bone with the lyrics, “the cycle of life is a part of us all.” The EP gets bouncy and poppy with “Green Grow the Rashes” which is rich with drippings of that well fiddle but also some pretty tasty bass licks Traditional Irish music for most people seems to be relegated to one day in March although it really shouldn’t be. Listening to Jack in the Green reminded me of the power of one’s home and that ancestry and history are in our bones, no matter what the world around us would try and have us believe.
Novena is the solo effort from Phil Strangman. However, on the Bandcamp page for his album Vespers 16 it states that Kurt Helmer and Dan Meehan helped out on the album.
Before even listening to the album it was obvious there were going to be some major religious overtones. From the cover art to the fact that three of the songs have the word “lord” directly in the title. According to Strangman “Vespers 16 loosely follows the structure of an Antiochian Orthodox Daily Vespers service. Some lyrics are directly from the liturgy and others are from the perspective of a solitary individual who has stumbled into an Orthodox church.“ Strangman doesn't hold back his convictions on these songs. Some artists who are Christian such as Sufjan Stevens subtly emerge religious allegory into their songs. Suffice it to say Strangman isn't subtle hence these songs will most likely resonate with someone who already believes in a higher power. There's nothing wrong with that but his lyrics have implications that some people will either get behind or not. Musically, there is some great stuff on here along with some perplexing stylistic deviations. The album opens with “Proemial” which centers around some fantastic guitar picking work. This is his strong point and I was hoping to hear more as the album progressed. Luckily, the next song “Lord, Have Mercy” which is one of the highlights features inventive guitar work along with inspired vocal work. The song is slow moving and melancholy but fairly powerful. “Lord, I Have Cried Unto Thee” is another well written song. He mixes organ with guitar and drums and the results are smooth and palatable. His vocals again sound good and well delivered. “How Merciful You Are” is a builder in emotion that reminded me of something you might hear at morning worship. I thought I had accidentally switched to a different band on “Joyous Light.” He opens with a standard club beat. The song feels completely out of place and just doesn't fare well with his style. I think he should stay away from this style all together. Luckily he does for the remainder of the album. The closer “Holy Mighty” really has some soft, serene instrumental work which is where he thrives. Besides “Joyous Light” I thought the songs were not only enjoyable but deviated from a lot of the typical styles you associate with music that has a religious nature. Recommended.
The artist formerly known as J. Spaceman has explored nearly every branch of artful, druggy rock n’ roll over the span of several decades; first with the influential trance punk outfit Spacemen 3 and, more recently, with Spiritualized. Spaceman's connected the dots from the organic minimalism of LaMonte Young to the bleary, behind-the-scenes melancholy of Elvis Presley by way of The 13th Floor Elevators and Acid Mothers Temple.
While it's never the best to start an album review with a list of influences, Portland, OR's Brainwave Entertainment ‘s self-titled Brainwave Entertainment is clearly indebted to all of Mr. Spaceman's projects, weaving the beguiling, hypnotic guitar drones into kaleidoscopic new shapes and configurations on this ambitious one-person-home-recording-project of B. Langlois, formerly of the band Lunar Graves. This is great news for fans of those Spacemen 3 records, or the early Spectrum or Spiritualized albums, who've already worn through those hypnotic grooves. Brainwave Entertainment is eight tracks of pure guitar meditation, underpinned with mesmeric rivers of organs with backwards echoes and trance-inducing percussion dancing around the margins. B. Langlois goes much, much further than just plugging in some delay pedals and going for broke. Langlois laid guitar improvisations to tape - middle-eastern, meditative, droning and expansive - and then layers and smudges the six-string explorations into strange new shapes. To Langlois' credit - both as a musician and as an engineer - it's hard to place where those edits occur, as Brainwave Entertainment's self-titled debut Brainwave Entertainment seems cut from one celestial whole-cloth, comprised of eight illuminated chapters. Langlois is clearly heavily inspired by Spaceman's brand of starry-eyed rock and roll mysticism. That influence can become a little heavy-handed, at times, with Langlois even name-dropping Jesus, in a nod to Spaceman's blasted Christian apocalyptic nihilism. It's no deal breaker, however, when the source material is this obscure, and the memorial's this good. Frankly, anyone who loves Spacemen 3/Spiritualized wouldn't mind having another 100 records or so like this in their collections, so if that's the case for you, make sure to pick this up immediately! It will be interesting to see what comes, when Langlois steps out from beneath his heroes' shadows. He's studying under some enlightened masters, that's for sure!
Psychic Shakes is the solo project of Max McLellan who recently released his first solo effort entitled Psychic. He has been recording music for around six years but Psychic was written and recorded over a two day period.
Psychic is a lo-fi effort and does give you a little taste of his music. His rock is guitar based but drenched in reverb. I was reminded of a more lo-fi version of the band Real Estate. The songwriting is solid throughout with melodic guitar lines and palatable vocal melodies. He kicks things off with “Kings.” Right off the bat I was digging the groove. His vocals are slightly buried and distorted compared to the guitar which feels distant and atmospheric because of the reverb. “Kings” sticks with the initial vibe it starts with and rarely deviates from the main guitar part. “Holy Solitude” is faster with a bit more energy. A little more separation amongst the guitars. would have been good but the song is super catchy.. After my second listen I was addicted to the vocal melody. He takes the energy way down with “Stay Close To Me” where the drums are completely vacant. His guitar is notable here with lead and rhythm. I thought the song was a subtle deviation from the first two songs which worked out well. He gets the energy back up with the closer “In Ribbons.” The song is basically an instrumental piece with very sparse vocals. The song builds until it slowly fades. Psychic is far from perfect but is a solid start for McLellan. He needs to be aware of the comparisons he will get to Real Estate. Other than that I predict more good things from him.
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Twin Gable released their Bonds EP this year. This alternative rock act was inspired by what they call “external relations” - outer body experiences which clearly impacted them heavily and influenced what is truly an exciting, ethereal, otherworldly piece of art. It falls short at only four tracks, but the boys promise a debut album later this month. Hopefully that will showcase what is only teased on this EP. And what is teased is worth listening to.
“A Love” is an instrumental track - a vehicle through which Twin Gable play their cards close to their heart. Distorted guitar echoes and swooshes across my mind, drowning my mind in sound. This is truly what people mean when they say that music can still be beautiful even when it verges on the boundary of simply becoming noise. “Forgotten Strangers” is Twin Gable’s first true display of what they strive to be as a band. Surf-styled guitar, precise and punchy drums and throbbing bass lingering somewhere behind the scenes all someone converge to create quite a melancholic tune. The credit for this has to be given to the vocalist, whose pained, sweet vocals fluctuate from deep, hushed whispers to strained and emotive groans about love lost. “B Love” is a slightly more upbeat stab at pop stylings. Surf rock prevails, but it is approached in a slightly less emotional manner. Something melancholic always lingers in the vocals, nonetheless - the lyrics are always nostalgic and reminisce of times or people from the past, but instrumentally this track packs a little more punch. There is enough variety here to remain curious as to what will come on their debut album in less than a weeks’ time. “Life On One Knee” closes this little EP on a much more jovial note. Tempered, soothing vocal overlap a drowned beat and upbeat guitar chords strummed rapidly. The tone, as always, displays elements of darkness, but the overall ending seems hopeful. It is the perfect closure to an album of mixed emotions. This was truly an intriguing experience and one which prompts me to recommend that you not only spend less than 10 minutes of your time listening to these four tracks right now, but that you keep your eyes and ears peeled for Twin Gable’s debut album later this week.
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Toronto art-pop outfit Aniqa Dear is a project that is spearheaded by James Atin-Godden and Aniqa Qadir. The pair formerly played together in the 13-piece art rock outfit Copycat which included horns and an electric violin player. But on Neither Here Nor There, their debut EP together they seek to make ethereal synth driven pop to which Aniqa Qadir sets her pitch perfect and heavenly sounding vocals.
The opening track “Wake Up” has the pace of a slow moving river. As it winds its way along the pace shortens and quickens. There are both pianos and synths and hard click drum tracks which create a beautiful melody to match Qadir’s gentle vocals as she repeats the chime-like chorus “wake up darling.” Next up comes the slick synth pop fantasy of a song “Neither Here Nor There” which comes in waves and fits. It pounds along and then for just mere seconds stands still before repeating the motions. The pair slow it down a bit on “New Love” which is sometimes stark but still a very powerful piece that gets a lift from eastern music influences. They get into experimental mode on the oddly catchy “Hiding” which begins with a mild piano-synth rhythms and then about halfway through begins to morph into a more electronic state with blips of sound and prog synth tones. The band play by this strange experimental rule again on “Mouseman” which again starts out like a piano ballad and then shifts into a timid pop hit before turning into an all-out assault on what it began as. The closer “She” is pretty delicate and precise piece of pop perfection and sounds like the most wholly realized song on the album. Despite being an electronic two-piece on this recording Aniqa Dear is set to start performing live as a four-piece complete with drums and guitar. It might be nice to hear this collaboration on a recording. For as much as I enjoyed the six songs on Neither Here Nor There, I wanted to hear the drums and synths let go a little more . Overall, Neither Here Nor There is an impressive album. Recommended |
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