Posts in Music

This week David Byrne and Brian Eno released something for the first time in 30 years, the album is called “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today” and the last song posted “The River” is from it. I just picked it up online and pretty much made yesterday a whole day of Byrne + Eno and wanted to share a few tracks from The Catherine Wheel score. As for the new record, i found a lot more straight forward and vocal which is great but i personally wanted more rhythmic sounds accompanying each track since they are both genius in my opinion when it comes to percussion.

Brian Eno/David Byrne – Black Flag

Brian Eno/David Byrne – My Big Hands (Fall Through the Cracks)

Brian Eno/David Byrne – Dinosaur

Brian Eno/David Byrne – Eggs In A Briar Patch

Brian Eno/David Byrne – The River

Also, If you haven’t seen this already, David Byrne made an organ that sits in the middle of an abandon building that triggers parts of the building to make a sound, it’s really interesting, sadly it’s not too far from me and all my trips and plans to make it out always fall thru, I might just go by myself.

David Byrne – Playing the Building

Tristan Perich is a visual artist and musician doing some very interesting work in both fields. His music project, called 1-Bit Music, is an actual circuit that plays back music at 1-bit. All you electronic musicians and engineers will know that 1-bit is the lowest possible representation of digital music, meaning that the resulting audio is quite stripped down from the analog form we know and love. You may recognize the sound as reminiscent of old console games from the ’80s many of which were at 8-bits. Although I wouldn’t be listening to this in my car, it’s interesting to hear someone pushing digital audio in the other direction while the rest of us record in 32-bit floating point. Listen below for Tristan’s version of Fischerspooner’s Just Let Go. Visit his site for more songs.

Tristan Perich – Just Let Go (Fischerspooner)

Perich also does machine drawings using a pen apparatus he designed. You can see some examples above or check out his site for more.

Via YDEK

I have some new favorites to share, some unreleased but downloadable here and some that the original might of come out before we we’re born.

I know it says Alan Parson’s Project but don’t pass this up because there’s this talented musician that does amazing edits to songs called Pilooski. Almost everything i’ve heard by him is worth picking up. This one is my favorite, its a 8+ min slow burn.

I’m not sure if you’ve been in the record stores last week but the Wolfgang Voigt – Gas – CD+Book hit the shelves. It’s probably worth every penny plus it has unreleased Gas material on the CD. I bring this up because debuting his first release is The Sight Below which has a very similar feel except it’s more guitar/shoegaze based. He is giving away a 3 track EP for free, definitely worth downloading and each track features a different cover compliments of Michael Cina from WeWorkForThem. You can also see him debut Live with Tycho in Seattle in September.

As for this The Blue Nile track it’s a deep slow jam from 1989 that i heard this Friday night around 4 am at a bar in Brooklyn called Coco 66. I have a feeling this sound will be redone by DFA post Hercules and Love Affair maybe late 2009. Also, it reminds me of the tracks by Hatchback and Rollmottle that i posted earlier this month.

Alright, now something upbeat and catchy, Sweden’s Tennishero is in the same vein as maybe early Royksopp, the dangerous thing is how this vocal gets stuck in your head. One thing i love about the formula for this track is that its a dance track but he keeps it close to pop music length. If all this melodic dance music that i think is better than most top 40 ever wanted to get bigger people need shorter edits and it could probably make a great impact in the music industry but the versions that come out are usually 6 mins+ which is enough time to take a great melody and wear it out.

The Alan Parsons Project – I Robot (Pilooski Edit)

The Sight Below – With Her Kiss (I’d Pass The Sky)

The Blue Nile – The Downtown Lights

Tennishero – Midnight Love (Original)

If you haven’t picked up this Kevin Drew record, it’s a must have in my book, great to put on if you have friends over and you ran out of Junior Boys or Kings Of Convenience to play and you played out your old Broken Social Scene CD. Its got alil more rock but its the perfect amount.

This Gang Gang Dance track is pretty gnarly, its one of more beautiful art rock tracks out there that doesn’t neglect the audience and it’s really inviting if you can take on the intense parts.

This track doesn’t make any sense among the others but it’s a nice follow up to Scott’s post the other day. I saw Soviet on tour maybe 5 years ago with about 8 people total at the show and i thought they we’re super entertaining and had this unique look that wasn’t all too 80’s or neon hipster sh*t show like half the crap thats flying around right now.

I don’t know much about M. Ward, one thing i noticed was it reminded me of a cleaned up version of Bibio.

Kevin Drew – Safety Brick

Gang Gang Dance – Egowar

Soviet – Modern Love

M. Ward – You Still Believe in Me

I always try to find electronic songs that are perfect to play for everyone since the genre has such a bad rep. Don’t get me wrong about 85% or even more of electronic music is pretty bad but that doesn’t the whole genre has to be set next to all the trance compilation CD’s at Best Buy. I picked this Portable track because it has these lounge/world sounds that people are use to hearing, so why not nudge people closer to something that is on the lighter side of deep tribal house.

As for Lusine, he might be one of my favorite producers when it comes down to making all his sounds sound so good each and everytime. Every bell and kick sounds like its right in front of you straight out of the box.

Shigeto is brand spanking new, i find myself always skipping straight to this song on my mp3 player. The beginning is soo crunchy & loose, it sounds like it wants to start up but the track keeps falling apart in your ear. At the 2 min mark is what i wait for, its the ultimate lush opposite of what you started out listening to.

Efdemin doesn’t need much help with any plugs, this record was on every electronic publication’s top 10 list for 2007, i thought maybe if anyone missed out that here’s another chance to check it out for free.

Portable – Down Stream

Lusine – Dr. Chinme

Shigeto – Helicopter In The Sky

Efdemin – April Fools

Last night I was working on a poster for the upcoming Terrabyte 3 show (L.A. Sept. 14). I had the MP3s on shuffle and Ladytron’s Mu-Tron came up. It prompted me to go back and play the rest of their 2001 release 604 in it’s entirety. It’s not that I really forgot about Ladytron, I guess I just forgot how good they are. Maybe I played them out back when Light and Magic was in full swing. They have a new album out entitled Velocifero which is in the vein of their previous record Witching Hour. Both albums are a departure from the 80’s inspired electro sound of 604 and Light And Magic. It’s good that they evolved (the two latest albums are superb in their own rights), it’s just sad that we won’t be getting any more gems along these lines:

Ladytron – Playgirl

Ladytron – Mu-Tron

This is part 2 of what was posted the other day about a few other producers that make some of the best hip hop instrumentals.

J Dilla – Airworks

Madlib – Mystic Bounce

Metal Fingers – White Willow Bark

Madvillian – Monkey Suite

Bullion – Untitled (Beach Boys?)

Jaylib – The Official (Instrumental)

Here are who i think might be the best indie hip hop producers at the moment when it comes down forward thinking, more on the electronic end and catchy. Its great to see that a few went the extra mile and got a proper designer for album covers like Dabrye’s WK Interact artwork and Eliot’s someoddpilot artwork.

Flying Lotus – Roberta Flack (feat Dolly)

Dabrye – In Water

Eliot Lipp – The Outside

Daedelus – Get the Door (Live)

So I’ve been really getting into Mike Oldfield lately. This album is his second follow up to the wildly successful Tubular Bells, but has a slightly more “world” sound.

Since each of the two tracks is almost 20 minutes long, I pulled a 2:00 excerpt.

Mike Oldfield – Ommadawn

Everybody’s got a little soft spot for some Italo Disco, and you really can’t miss with Kano.

Unfortunately it’s a little hard tracking down his (or any Italo Disco) original singles without paying a small fortune, but luckily Unidisc compiled the duo’s best stuff onto CD.

It took me 10 minutes to pick which track to put on here. I still haven’t decided, but I’m throwing this one up. Luckily there’s a great video for It’s a War, so you get a double dose. Lucky you.

Kano – Now Baby Now

Kano – It’s a War