keyCMND

Watch: Sleepy Sun - "Open Eyes"

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:38:00 -0700

We know, we know. We just posted an album review for Bay Area psych-rock sextet Sleepy Sun’s latest album, Fever, but we couldn’t resist doubling up on that action with this awesome video for, “Open Eyes.” Since Sean McCoy already penned 200-plus words on the band’s highly enjoyable new album, we’ll let this video speak for itself. Enjoy.

Sleepy SunFeverATP Recordings (2010) Genre: IndieRating: B+ Call...

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:00:00 -0700

Sleepy Sun
Fever
ATP Recordings (2010)

Genre: Indie
Rating: B+

Call it all-embracing, contemporary white-boy blues, or call it some hippie jam band that has their shit together, but they just call themselves Sleepy Sun. This San Francisco six-piece has released its second album, Fever, with nine earthy tracks rooted in enough soul that not even Peter Venkman can contain it.

What fuels this musical machine are the vocal compliments of Bret Constantino and Rachel Fannan. Their male/female harmonizing on “Rigamaroo” brings an element that is rare in the muck of all the auto-tuned yowling that usually floods the ears these days. Tracks like “Ooh Boy” ignite a grace typically found in old country and gospel tunes, yet you’re receiving it without Catholic guilt or Christian piety. “Desert God” switches to an epic nature, like attempting to score a thunderstorm. The track pokes lightly for a spell until the drums fall like brimstone with a harmonica solo that honestly shreds; those two quickly sit on low heat so as to reign in the might of some hefty guitar work.

From there, we’re privy to bass lines that hum like a a power plant (“Freedom Line”) and tribal percussion that could make any heathen dance like the devil (“Marina”). “Sandstorm Woman” closes the album with the feel of a smokey jazz lounge hidden away in some dingy back alley that panders to crowds rolling on psychedelics. Besides a stretch of abrasive guitar effects, this ender wraps up all of Sleepy Sun’s angles. Fever is an album that flows so sweetly it seems to be over before it begins—even though your ears have been blessed for the better portion of an hour.

-Sean McCoy

Listen:
“Open Eyes”

Sleepy Sun on Last.fm

Listen to a New Battles Song Now

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:27:00 -0700

Finally! It’s been over three years since NY’s prog-math-rock juggernaut Battles released its debut album, and really haven’t heard a fresh thing from the band since. We heard a while back that the quartet would be contributing a song to the soundtrack for the third movie in the teeny bopper-friendly Twilight series, Eclipse, and now we can finally listen to the song. Praise be!

After scrolling through songs by UNKLE, Beck and Bat For Lashes, Band of Horses, The Black Keys, Vampire Weekend, and other respectable tunes from the ‘indie’ elite, you’ll find “The Line” by Battles. The track starts out sounding quite similar to “Tonto” from Mirrored, but—what’s this?!—you can understand what Tyondai Braxton is singing and its not in a squealing impish pitch. We could go into more detail about how awesome “The Line” is, what with its accelerating tempo, epic turns of melody, and almost pop-friendly nature, but we’ll just let you make your own assessment of it here. And listen quick, because this is coming down tomorrow.

Ólafur Arnalds…And They Have Escaped the Weight of...

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 03:00:00 -0700

Ólafur Arnalds
…And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness
Erased Tapes Records (2010)

Genre: Indie
Rating: B

Classical music, in its current form, is a rather restrictive genre. It requires a deft sense of music-majorism and a flat out love for the niche in order to actively pursue it. A few big names—Steve Reich and Max Richter come to mind—have permeated today’s hipster-heavy world of music appreciation, but it’s never really caught on as a trend.

Ólafur Arnalds seems to be out to change that. The twenty-something Icelandic composer (and former hardcore drummer) has made way into the producer inner-circle by conducting the baroque sides of the otherwise un-classical likes of 65daysofstatic and metal bands the likes of Heaven Shall Burn. His latest foray as a solo artist, …And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness, is a series of piano-led compositions that—although coming from the modern-age school of minimalism and experimentation—never sacrifice any listenabilty because of it.

It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that Arnalds is very much like his Icelandic compatriots Sigur Rós; they both let their grandiloquent, permafrost songs drift into existence very slowly, which sometimes gets in the way of most rock-toned attention spans. But where Sigur Rós occasionally fails in stuffing its LPs with too many climaxes, Darkness is far more subtle. The buildup can be something as simple as a few shimmering strings, or an off-beat synth-ish buzz; imagine Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports, but with a pulse and destination. The album probably won’t convert the indie nation into neo-classical stalwarts, but it’s a good attempt and gratifying that Arnalds is doing his all to help sway the masses.

-Luke Winkie

Listen:
“Thú ert Sólin”

Ólafur Arnalds on Last.fm

Artist Feature: Mi Ami

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:54:00 -0700

For this new section of keyCMND, we are introducing a monthly feature of an artist we are excited about or have been totally into ever since their tunes crossed our ears. They may come in the form of an interview, or an editorial piece, or a series of photographs, because its the internet, and we can do what we want. We hope to continue expanding our coverage to fit more pieces such as this one.

Recently, keyCMND scribe Giovanni De La Cruz had the privilege of spending part of his afternoon speaking to Daniel Martin-McCormik of San Francisco’s Mi Ami. They conversed about the origins of Daniel’s band after Black Eyes disbanded, the group’s new album, Steal Your Face, and the state of America and how it relates to Mi Ami’s continually challenging music.

keyCMND: Your band started out as a two-piece. How did the band evolve into getting the last piece of the puzzle?

Daniel Martin-McCormik: We were playing as two piece and it was going pretty good for awhile, but we had this sort of idea when we started that it would be kind of like disco or something like that. You know we listen to a lot of Detroit techno, house, and disco and [wanted to] kind of be this amalgam of like dance genres that we were into. So we used drum machines, live percussion, guitar, keyboards and stuff. Then the band started to form its own identity. We were losing patience in our own set up. Our drummer didn’t have a kick drum and we had a drum-machine going with us.

So he was just playing snare and cymbals?

Yeah, and rotary toms and toms and we had the drum-machine going with the rest of the beat, and we wanted to play the beat on our own after a while, so we added a kick drum and we realized we still needed more of a full sound. Anyone that has played in a band with synthizers knows that they break all the fucking time, especially when you’re traveling. So it’s like we had this set up that was super precarious and worked very well in our practice space and didn’t work very well live. It didn’t give us the kind of freedom that we were hoping for, so we started to talk about, “Oh, what should we do?” Then it got kind of frustrating, so we kind of put out the word that we were looking for a bass player, and then Jacob got in touch. And it was kind of like, “Ahh man, we could have been playing with Jacob the whole time.” It’s like we were trying to make a sandwich with out bread.

How many shows until you realized that this two-piece thing is not conducive to your ideas?

I’d say about a year of playing shows before Jacob joined.

Wow! I didn’t know you guys were around for that long beforehand. So when you guys were doing the two-piece thing, was that on the East Coast or the West Coast?

It was in [San Francisco]. The band has been entirely SF.

I think the first time I saw you guys was at a house show in West Oakland with Casy and Brian and Religious Girls, but you guys were already a three-piece by then.

Yeah. That was when we played in the kitchen right?

Yeah. It was in the bottoms of Oakland. I didn’t even know who any of you guys were, and then a friend of mine mentioned your backround and I just couldn’t believe it. You guys were defiantly more bitchin’ live that night than any of the times I saw Black Eyes. What was your reason for moving to SF?

Well, I just wanted to live out here because it was really nice. And you know, living in D.C. and growing up in D.C. after a while—it was just time for a change. I was able to get this weird grant that was available. See, there’s no real public universities in DC, and this grant paid for your out-of-state tuition to go to any university in the country, so I figured I’ll go to SF and do music out there.

So was your grant to go to school for music or just to go to school?

It was just to go to school out here. The timing was right. I wasn’t in a band. It just kind of happened.

That’s awesome I didn’t know they did stuff like that in D.C.

Yeah, rare.

So when you moved out here you met Damon first?

Yeah, we were both playing this show he was playing with these two other guys. It was this trio and I was playing solo. We were both playing this experimental abstract music, which was way more angular. This was in 2006. I was playing guitar and he was playing synths, keyboards, and drums with contact mics and stuff. We were talking afterwards and we were both talking about dance music and feeling each other out, and then I mentioned that we should jam because it seemed like both out heads were in the same place. You know, we were both playing weird music and both listening to a lot of dance music, which to me sounds a lot weirder than a lot of experimental music. As soon as I met him I thought we should be in a together. And it’s funny cause the guys he was playing with, they came to see us later and they had no idea he could play like that. He’d never busted it out before. He was excited.

Sometimes you don’t really get to your full potential until you start playing what you really like listening to. That’s funny, so you guys were listening to a lot of disco house and techno? Like Derrick May, Juan Atkins, and Richie Hawtin?

Less Richie Hawtin, more Derrick May. Two years earlier, I’d just started getting into electronic dance music. Patrick got into it and Jacob also. We all listen to lots of stuff, not one thing. Patrick also listens to a lot of new age and Jacob listens to a lot of reggae and ’90s rock. I don’t think what we listen reflects on what we write. It doesn’t just have to be dance music. The internal dynamic of the band really has it’s own momentum.

I only brought it up because we were talking about the beginning of the band, and you said that’s what you and Jacob were listening to. Your music now sounds nothing like that, especially with Steal Your Face, which I want to get into next. So tell me about the cover? Did you guys have to pay any royalties? It’s such a bold and iconic cover.

Well, I made the cover, and had them print it up. So far no one has asked for anything. We haven’t tried to clear it with them or anything. The picture is a collage. I think there’s some law.

The Fair Use Act. Yeah, we don’t have to get into the logistics. I was just wondering if you had to pay big money.

So far we’re good.

That’s good. So you guys have been playing together for three years now. You guys recorded a bunch of stuff on your own, you put out a 12”, and then Watersports happened, and it got a lot of publicity for being kind of an abstract album. When I listen to it, it sounds like a jam band having a good time. Tell me about how all that happened with like recording with Phil Manley and stuff. Was it really comfortable? Or was it just natural? Or was it a lot of work?

Nah, it was pretty natural. Those are all loose songs on that record, and we wrote them that way. Going in there and recording and mixing it in five days, which is the same thing [we did] for Steal Your Face. I don’t know. I haven’t listen to it in a long time . You said it sounds comfortable and loose?

Watersports does. The new album, even though it’s still a loose album, sounds more focused to me.

Why would you say that?

Well the songs almost sound more poppy, almost.

Oh, OK. Well, with Watersports, the main difference that I could cite, and this is not speaking for everyone, [is that] when we recorded Watersports Jacob had been in the band for just under a year. We toured for like two weeks on the East Coast, and we had started writing new material at the beginning of 2008, so we recorded in August of 2008. That was like the first eight months of writing new material together, and probably would have been consistent if there wasn’t heavy touring. Our ideas would come together and gel, then we’d tour for 12 weeks. Seven weeks straight in New York, and then 5 weeks in Europe after that. And I feel like those songs on Watersports… Like, someone sent me a YouTube clip of us playing one of them, and I was like, “What song is this?” And then later, I could figure out what we were playing, but they got to this point where it was like they had a life of their own. Not that they would change everything. It was just a gradual change and revision [with] the live dynamic and the roles that everybody plays. The songs have filled out a lot more, and we have just become a lot tighter. So we wrote most of the album after we got back. That’s the main difference I hear. You know, cause live you want to be full on and play energetically and, like, get excited and engage the audience. I admire bands that stretch out live, and kind of be cool. It’s hard not to go for it totally and play as hard as you can, because if it’s exciting for you everyone gets excited.

So what sparked the seed for the album. What are most of the songs about on Steal Your Face? Lyrically, is it just what sounds good with the music or are the lyrics personal?

Half and half. It’s not a concept album. There is not an overarching theme. Our lyrics kind of pair off 50/50 into sort of more personal songs and then songs about living in America. They kind of fit hand in hand. The main theme is an examination of loss. One form of loss is loss of closeness in personal relationships: romantic and friendships. Watching people grow apart or violently break apart from each other.

That’s really apparent in your song “Secrets.” That’s such a great song.

Thanks! One of the other one I feel is the climate of America. What it feels like to live in America, how it bares down on you. You know, it’s difficult to be optimistic about the state of the planet today. Not to be a naysayer, I just find it hard to be optimistic about the direction humans are going in as far as our role in environmental and economical destruction. We may be out of the Bush regime, but it’s like America is still—even though it’s a very safe and amazing place to live in—it’s also a very terrifying and violent presence in the world and in each of our own lives in ways that are not so obvious, like the food that you eat everyday. It’s everything. You know, when you’re a kid you’re like, “America is the coolest place to live,” and as you grow older, it’s very slowly taken away from you if you allow it to be.

So basically, you’re saying you feel a lot of anxiety and hopelessness in your country right now?

Yeah, exactly. It’s really the two responses that, in a way, seem not necessarily healthy but obvious and totally understandable responses to living in America right now.

I can even hear it in your music. Just like chords you guys pick and whatever like dissonance sounds you guys are making. It’s there.

Interesting. That’s cool.

RatatatLP4XL Recordings (2010) Genre: IndieRating: B After...

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:00:00 -0700

Ratatat
LP4
XL Recordings (2010)

Genre: Indie
Rating: B

After releasing their first two albums, Ratatat and Classics, Mike Stroud and Evan Mast might have asked themselves, “Well, what do we do now?” LP3 came next, and while it was different from what they’d done before, to an extent, it was transitional. The band was experimenting with sounds and textures that it had not used before, while many of the elements from the duo’s previous work was there. Now, LP4 is here. While much of it was written during the LP3 sessions, and while it’s obviously still a Ratatat record, it’s even further down the road, leaving much of the band’s previous work barely visible behind it.

In interviews, Stroud and Mast have called LP4 “weirder,” and it might be that, but more importantly, it’s an example of a band expanding its horizon and utilizing an expanding palette to write instrumental songs. Ratatat is no longer a band that plays guitars over pre-fab beats with the occasional synth melody. One of the main differences between Ratatat’s previous work and LP4 is the relative absence of those trademark guitars. They aren’t gone completely [Editor’s note: It seems these guys could never let go of that “reversed” guitar sound.], but where they would have been used previously, they are most times replaced with synthesizers.

One of the tracks showcasing the trade of guitars for synths and looping, bouncing samples—with the exception of a strummed acoustic near the middle—is the opening track, “Bilar,” a song that begins ominously before opening into a crunchy, biting beat that could easily have a home on either of the band’s two remix albums. The first minute and a half of this song seems ready and waiting for some borrowed hip-hop vocals to be woven into the mix.

The record also showcases meticulous detail that was paid to the percussion. Bigger, thumpier beats of the past have been traded for smaller, more delicate pattering percussion in many cases, which provide more dimension and depth to the songs. “Neckbrace” features a mesmerizing and strange element as its centerpiece—possibly a manipulated vocal track or a processed bass guitar. But whether we can figure out exactly what it is or isn’t that is making these sounds is not the point; whatever it is, it’s captivating and effective.

Ratatat, like many instrumental bands, has to keep finding ways of exciting its listeners in lieu of a standard vocal and lyrical presence, which many listeners depend on for variety in music. Throughout LP4, there are bits of what the band built its name on mixed with chunks of new sounds and techniques they’ve picked up along the way. These methods of making similar but new sounds is what has kept the duo’s music relevant, and is what will keep people coming back for more.

-Todd Miller

Listen:
“Party With Children”

Ratatat on Last.fm

Outside Lands Headliners Leaked

Fri, 28 May 2010 13:14:23 -0700

It seems that truly no good (or somewhat decent) secrets can go unspoiled. While the rest of us have been sitting on our thumbs, waiting for “June 1 at 9 a.m. PST on sfweekly.com” to arrive, Spin magazine just went ahead and published an ad for Outside Lands 2010, which listed a small handful of the San Francisco festival’s top-billing headliners.

SF Examiner reports that among the names listed in the ill-timed advertisement are Kings of Leon, Phoenix, My Morning Jacket, “British band” The Gossip, Al Green, and BlackStar. As a side note, keyCMND would like to state that we’re happy to see Al Green and BlackStar included among the terribly “white” festival lineup, and The Gossip is definitely not from the UK. They are from Portland.

HEALTHDISCO2Lovepump United (2010) Genre: ElectronicRating:...

Fri, 28 May 2010 03:00:00 -0700

HEALTH
DISCO2
Lovepump United (2010)

Genre: Electronic
Rating: C+

HEALTH—definitely on my shortlist of current must-see live acts—and the band’s DISCO projects are two independently operating beings. One, an insane, spastic noise band out of LA, and the other, a remix project by musical contemporaries geared towards taking the cores of these abrasive cuts and reforming them into relatively accessible dance tracks. The second incarnation of the DISCO project achieves the same feeling of collaboration as its predecessor, yet the results are a bit lackluster. Granted, the task of breaking down a high-intensity noise band to a clubby electronic feast may be more than a bit daunting.

That is not to say this remix record does not come with some inevitable pluses. The mere fact that a band’s peers happen to be some of the more pertinent electronic artists guarantees as much. DISCO2 commences with the record’s one new HEALTH track (and only non-remixed piece), the overall standout “USA Boys.” It sounds like the song is crafted with the album concept in mind, as it strays from noise and leans on the softer electronics of drum-machines. The remix of “In Heat” by Brooklyn’s Javelin is a funky throwback with slap bass and synthy hooks that sound straight out of a Warren G track. Gold Panda’s take on “Before Tigers” is a more slowed down, almost emotional, wandering instrumental remix, while the CFCF remix of the same song swims in foggy vocals and echoing guitars bouncing around drum pads.

DISCO2 lends a haphazard feel with inconsistent results (Crystal Castles anticipated version of “Eat Flesh” gives us little more than a few seizures of blips and convulsive drumming to combat a largely sluggish piece), which may very well be an unavoidable product of the concept. Given the nature of HEALTH’s consistent vocal style, one of high reverb and drone, and the complete need to change the rest of the original songs to make them palatable for dancing, allows for extremely different interpretations from the remixing artists. As interesting as this may be for a sort of arty collaboration, it does leave the record without focus. And with some songs scoring up to three different remixers, little remains to let individual tracks keep their own identity.

-Dave Peterson

Listen:
“In Heat (Javelin Remix)”

HEALTH on Last.fm

Watch: Sugar & Gold - "Salty Seraphim (Live Acoustic Version)"

Thu, 27 May 2010 14:38:30 -0700

This video of Sugar & Gold jamming like it’s the late-’60s at Andy Warhol’s Factory is brought to us by The New Gay. In it, a few members of the San Francisco quintent jam out on an acoustic version of “Salty Seraphim,” one of our favorite songs from their latest release, Get Wet!. It’s kinda weird, a little funny, and totally makes us think Sugar & Gold needs to spawn a psychedelic jam band after it finishes touring for the new album.

Ty SegallMeltedGoner Records (2010) Genre: IndieRating: B- The...

Thu, 27 May 2010 03:00:00 -0700

Ty Segall
Melted
Goner Records (2010)

Genre: Indie
Rating: B-

The one-man-show-turned-full-band known as Ty Segall has a pulse throbbing with reverb and veins pushing the kind of fuzz so many have come to lust. Melted is an 11-track culmination of garage-rock anatomy that Segall—like a teenager heading down to the soda shop or swinging beach party, after maybe a joint or two—seems to know.

“Sad Fuzz” sits well as an introduction to the raw sound that could have snuck right out of the airwaves of the ’60s. The title track reaffirms that echo-box voice effects and some mid-tempo droning guitar can walk the psychedelic line without having to be too trippy. A love for surf rock sneaks in on “Imaginary Person,” where a strong Beach Boys vibe hides in the backbeat until the last third of the track.

Ty’s affinity for yesteryear is tried and true, but as with most revivals of an older sound something is missing. “Alone” fits the bill for all garage enthusiasts and its heart is in the right place, but unless you have one of those special Deloreans, enough asphalt to hit 88 MPH, and the means to cut an album back in ‘63, it’s just another rehashing. But don’t be fooled, Melted is running on all cylinders, and makes the cut in the world of garage-rock, especially as the brain child of one man. And that’s saying something for a genre that died before anyone recognized it was its own sound.

-Sean McCoy

Listen:
“Caesar”

Ty Segall on Last.fm

Hear Two New Arcade Fire Songs

Wed, 26 May 2010 14:30:00 -0700

The music world is always thinking up new ways to premiere music, so as to get the edge on your ever-assaulted ears, but this may take the cake. Somewhere in Glasgow, Scotland a double-sided white-label single was uncovered by one Chris Ward, preceding any official announcement or availability of two new songs from the epically minded Canadian indie-rock troupe, Arcade Fire.

“The Suburbs” and “Month of May” made their debut via BBC Radio 1, and were subsequently radio ripped for your convenient listening pleasure. We’re going to save any in-depth comments on the music for when official releases are made, but we’ll go ahead and say, Arcade Fire seems to be getting a bit back to is roots while keeping a mind on the stadium-sized sounds they love so much.

Listen to Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” and “Month of May” on OneThirtyBPM, here.

LCD SoundsystemThis Is HappeningDFA Records (2010) Genre:...

Wed, 26 May 2010 09:35:00 -0700

LCD Soundsystem
This Is Happening
DFA Records (2010)

Genre: Indie
Rating: A-

James Murphy, indie court jester turned household name, may be the only coherent, level-headed torchbearer of pop music. Murphy’s DFA label started organically as the brainchild of three studio savvy NYC kids with a clear mission: DIY produced well. DFA introduced us to The Rapture and Murphy’s own work, under the moniker LCD Soundsystem, and was in a large part responsible for the dance-punk of the early 2000s. After a self-titled double disc collection of the previous few years of work Murphy released Sound of Silver, a more polished and calculated attempt than its predecessor. The second record focused and cemented the sound that LCD would be known for: a pastiche of punk fueled electronic-heavy disco. The following year saw a string of singles, a slew of touring on the festival circuit, and a collective lauding by critics. Sound of Silver was a pop record. It achieved top-40 status in the UK, was heard in all but the most mainstream clubs from Brooklyn to Bangkok, and produced several radio-ready summertime party tracks.

Three years later, This Is Happening witnesses Murphy and Co.’s trudging off once again into the pop abyss, but more on their own terms. The previous rule is now the exception as “Drunk Girls,” the first released single, is the singular track reminiscent of the rock heavy hits of LCD past. The openness of the remaining album gives way to Murphy’s savant side. The guitars in “All I Want” scream Brian Eno (of Another Green World era), sweeping along with the analog sounding synths and monotone vocals. “You Wanted a Hit” has a slow ambient build of two and a half minutes before any remnant of a beat evolves (a common theme on a record with most tracks clocking in around seven to nine minutes) and moves on to bridges with clanging post-punk guitar chords straight out of early Gang of Four—achieving somewhat of a live mash-up version of a college radio DJ set. These references in a pop record serve as little reminders that the group could embody (while ridiculing) the current state of music and pretension.

Where Murphy’s insight is most keen is in the way that he realizes that he is dealing with a generation of listeners with external hard drives filled with every possible record attainable for the last 60 years of rock music. To make a quick search through one’s personal database of illicit b-sides and rare EPs is the proverbial “digging through the crates.” The record store geek no longer works at a record store. “I heard that you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody,” Murphy proclaimed years ago on his seminal spoken-word dance piece “Losing my Edge.” In that, he established an ironical “hip” hierarchy; one he smartly exists in while foraging through the darkness for an intelligent future for popular music.

-Dave Peterson

Listen:
“Drunk Girls”

LCD Soundsystem on Last.fm

Free Downloads and New Music From Warp Records

Tue, 25 May 2010 14:48:06 -0700

Massive UK-based electronic and indie music label Warp Records is hooking everybody up with free tunes today.

Affiliated online music retailer Bleep partnered up with the Barcelona music festival Sonar to launch a series of free MP3 downloads, which feature fellow UK-based artists that will be playing the music festival and their exclusive tunes. Among the list is Hudson Mohawke, Broadcast, The Blessings, Roska, and Fuck Buttons, the latter two of which are available now, here. Also premiering today is a new track from IDM pioneers Autechre’s forthcoming ten-song release, Move of Ten. Stream the song “y7” over here.

On a related note, keyCMND favorite Flying Lotus also hooked the world up with an unreleased piece of music, called “Heave (n),” which is only available to hear streaming in that player up top.

TobaccoManiac MeatAnticon Records (2010) Genre:...

Tue, 25 May 2010 03:00:00 -0700

Tobacco
Maniac Meat
Anticon Records (2010)

Genre: Electronic
Rating: D+

Maniac Meat, the latest album from Black Moth Super Rainbow front man Tobacco, is a little bit like living next to a construction site; it’s loud, abrasive, kind of annoying, especially in the morning, and it doesn’t really ever let up. This super synthy record is a lot to take in. Nearly every track features crunchy, fuzzy synthesizers on top of just as crunchy beats, intermittent textural additions, and mostly buried and/or manipulated vocals. There are some temporary reprieves though. The intensity is toned down on the third track, “Mexican Icecream,” where some of the randomness remains, but the sounds are cleaner—taking a break from the all-around disorder to showcase a sound that would have made the record stronger if it had been utilized more often.

Even guest spots from Beck couldn’t save Meat from spiraling into a cluttered mess. He provides vocals for two songs, “Fresh Hex” and “Grape Aerosmith.” Unfortunately, both songs are under two minutes long and are gone before they begin. The results are confusing, and way out of left field. The vocals are much less prominent, or nonexistent, in all of the other tracks, and all of a sudden Beck makes a brief appearance, which is over so quickly that it just doesn’t make sense.

Maniac Meat is definitely intense, but out of focus, as well. There are moments—though short and difficult to remember after 16 tracks—of great song writing. Those times, however brief, are almost always overshadowed by constant distortion, blaring volume, and a complete lack of direction.

-Todd Miller

Listen:
“Sweat Mother”

Tobacco on Last.fm

Stream the New Ratatat Album Now

Mon, 24 May 2010 13:12:17 -0700

Those two NY dudes with the guitars and the drum-machines and the overflowing sample bank, Ratatat has a brand-new album coming out soon. It’s the duo’s fourth album, so they felt calling it LP4 was good enough.

Not too long ago, Evan Mast and Mike Stroud hooked the world up with the record’s first single, “Party With Children,” and now we’ve all got a chance to stream the as-yet-unreleased new album in its entirety. Head over here to listen to LP4, thanks to NPR, and you can pre-order your copy before its released June 8 via XL Recordings, here.

Up Mine, SunshineLocus Amoenusself-released (2010) Genre:...

Mon, 24 May 2010 03:00:00 -0700

Up Mine, Sunshine
Locus Amoenus
self-released (2010)

Genre: Electronic
Rating: C-

Has your life been lacking the electronic nostalgia of Nintendo Entertainment System scores and themes? Do you also crave female vocal stylings that aim for beauty, but often miss the mark? Are you wanting more effect-laden keyboard and beat sounds that have been used to death in this day and age? Well, then look no further than Up Mine, Sunshine’s Locus Amoenus.

Matthew and Ashley Beck are the married couple that make up this amalgamation of cutsey talent that runs like a Mini Cooper shot to shit with a 12 gauge. “Pander Eyes” opens this lump blaring something like a theremin with an extra chromosome and a love for the Mega Man franchise. The NES-inspired synth tones don’t stop there; “The Exploding Plastic Avoidable” could have been lifted right out of Zelda before it was spliced with a broken Fischer Price piano. “Cherimoya” has a Pac-Man or even Super Mario Bros sound to it, but with enough fuzz to alert a garage rock lover or two. Now there’s nothing wrong with paying homage to video games with samples and 8-bit melodies, but that alone can’t hold up Locus Amoenus.

Ashley’s singing only sits well when tuned in with the actual music (”The Serpent And The Dove”), so as to hide her lack of immediate appeal. And it seems Matthew’s compositions can rarely get a toe to tap or slide a mellow feeling into the room. These unfortunate combinations leave an album that’s only truly interesting aspect is its title.

-Sean McCoy

Listen:
“Keep A Right Glow”

Listen to and Download Locus Amoenus For Free

To-Do List: Future Islands @ El Rio

Fri, 21 May 2010 14:28:05 -0700

We’ve been hearing a lot of great things about this band lately, and are pretty darn excited to have them playing here in San Francisco. Future Islands is a Baltimore three-piece band that play an emotionally intense and visceral style of, for lack of a better term, synth-pop. But you see, it’s not synth-pop; there are lots of synths and you can sing along with the low-register howl of Samuel T. Herring’s words, but the usual buoyancy that accompanies the average “synth-pop” group is no where to be found. Instead, Future Islands deliver cryptic lyrics atop barren electronics that sound pilfered from a lost Factory Records album.

We don’t have a flier for the band’s show Monday, May 24 at El Rio, but head to the venue’s website for the details. In the meantime, check out the single from Future Islands’ latest album, In Evening Air, below.

Listen:
“Tin Man”

Download as MP3

SolventSubject to ShiftGhostly International (2010) Genre:...

Fri, 21 May 2010 03:00:00 -0700

Solvent
Subject to Shift
Ghostly International (2010)

Genre: Electronic
Rating: B-

From the initial ping-pong drum machine, soda-pop synthesizer, and vocoder-splashed vocals on “Loss For Words” and its preceding intro, it’s clear that Subject to Shift is a synth-pop album through and through. Solvent has definitely calmed down from his less radio-friendly roots of his earlier work, and now six years after his last proper full-length, Jason Amm’s analog electronic productions finds good company with dance-snob blacklisters like Pet Shop Boys and Soft Cell.

One of the best songs to be found on Shift is surprisingly also the most club-friendly; the chugging, effusive, dancefloor-banger “A Product of the Process” has all the trappings of an electro-tinged pop hit, except for lack of vocals. Solvent lets his army of satellite-synths take the track into deep outer space, and that’s all he needs. Though, when singing is present, it hard sometimes to not find the retro-futuristic vocal filters a little cheesy. Sure, it worked on Daft Punk’s “One More Time,” but when Amm squeezes his voice through a narrow, robotic hallway on the “Tainted Love”-esque “Don’t Forget to Phone,” it just doesn’t fit in the way.

As far as dance-friendly electronic music goes, you could do a lot worse than Subject to Shift, even if it is hard to pinpoint exactly what niche it’s aiming for. It’s too subdued for the hyperactive club-kids, it’s too weird for the layman electro-enthusiast still raving to Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do, and it’s too traditional for the refined music major classicalists over at, say, Resident Advisor. Still, “A Product of the Process” slams, and that almost renders any other arguments mute.

-Luke Winkie

Listen:
“Loss for Words”

Solvent on Last.fm

Watch: FM Belfast - "Underwear"

Thu, 20 May 2010 13:35:45 -0700

Here’s a pretty funny and unusually awesome looking music video for the song “Underwear” from Iceland’s FM Belfast. The song itself—which is a relatively average bit of electro-pop we couldn’t exactly recommend—is actually overshadowed by some well-executed visual work directed by Daniel Scheinert & Dan Kwan, collectively known as DANIELS.

The two video makers turned a somewhat dull concept, boys and girls dancing alone in their respective rooms, and made it look amazing. Employing a few visual effects and some insanely high-quality footage, DANIELS made the embarrassing movements of awkward tweens into stellar looking visual art.

The Golden FilterVoluspaBrille Records (2010)Genre:...

Thu, 20 May 2010 03:00:00 -0700

The Golden Filter
Voluspa
Brille Records (2010)

Genre: Electronic
Rating: B-

I’ve confirmed two things via Wikipedia: Völuspá is an Icelandic poem describing the beginning and ending of the world according to Norse mythology, and Voluspa is the newest release from New York’s moody electro-pop duo The Golden Filter. Besides the familiarity in nomenclature, what one has to do with the other is iffy. For example, there is a disturbing lack of reference to dwarves, Odin, and apocalyptic destruction in The Golden Filter’s album, and I don’t feel the monk-scholar who composed Völuspá had discovered black lights and eyeliner by the time that poem was put to parchment in the tenth century.

Though some Nordic name dropping occurs on the album (see the confusingly upbeat tale of haunting on “Frejya’s Ghost”), it seems rather likely that the word “Voluspa” just sounded good to the pair as an album title (and a straight-up concept album could be an epic disaster). And this feels right when discussing the quality of the album itself: it just sounds good. The incredible attention paid to every floor tom hit, synthesizer arpeggiation, and string section is commendable, but also lends to a feeling of sterility; like a house that is almost artificially too clean, the album doesn’t quite feel lived in. Echoing the likes of Glass Candy, Goldfrapp, and even vintage Broadcast, singer Penelope Trappes’ voice is virtually monochromatic, staying within the range of a few notes and a few adjectives: anonymous yet seductive, whispered but distant—even alien.

Which brings me to point two: Voluspa just sounds good. Stephen Hindman’s production is as pristinely constructed as a snowflake, it is as ephemeral, and in the end, it is as disposable. The album as a whole feels like a series of disembodied gestures in front of a blank screen. The interlude “Kiss Her Goodbye” is an unnecessary minute-plus milieu of studio trickery that serves no purpose outside of taking up tracklist space. Maybe it is the lack of midrange to be found on the album, but Voluspa feels a little hollow and a little surreal. And I’ll venture to guess that is what The Golden Filter had set out to do.

-August James O’Mahoney

Listen:
“Hide Me”

The Golden Filter on Last.fm