Posts in Music

I’m sitting in a friend’s studio and he asks me what would you love to hear really loud since he has an amazing setup and my first reaction is wanting to hear the guitar’s right after the intro of where Slowdive’s Souvlaki Space Station drops in. I’ve always wanted to hear this song live over anything in my life.
After that, i wanted to compare that sound to The Verve’s spaced out Gravity Grave so i can compare in my opinion the 2 ultimate shoegaze tracks. It was lovely, almost as good as it being live in a few parts.
Then, to really take it to a dark and heavy side we put on The Reflecting Skin’s (who is pictured above) Year of the Knife which is an absolute monster. You look at movie trailer’s these days and they end up using some weak heavy metal track or some bad sped up Orbital rip off electronic track from the mid 90’s, why not something with more of an emotional connection that people won’t forget? The latest trailer for the movie Watchmen was perfect, i think it sounded like Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins, it couldn’t of been a better pick for the footage shown, I still remember it now perfectly clear.
As for the last track, it’s an edit that Addled did for M83’s You Appearing, i felt like i couldn’t of posted these songs without an M83 track but needed a song that was exclusive for you guys, you can download the song on Addled’s myspace. The original is very similar to this but he added the perfect touch to the rhythm section so its a little more driving.

Slowdive – Souvlaki Space Station

The Verve – Gravity Grave (Extended Version)

The Reflecting Skin – Year of the Knife

M83 – You Appearing (Addled edit)

The new French Kicks album Swimming has been out for a couple months now and I’ve had a chance to give it some proper listening time. I thought Songs From 2000 set the bar pretty high so anything coming after that would need to be pretty good to surpass it. While Swimming is a great collection of songs, I don’t think it really lives up to the previous release. Although being subdued is sort of the Kicks’ hallmark, this offering just seems a bit overly subdued for my taste.

The band apparently recorded and mixed this record themselves, which is a pretty commendable feat; it really does sound great and the overall vibe is pretty unique. From a technical perspective the record is interesting, most of the parts sound like they are room recordings, big and airy with a lot of ambience. The album opens with what I think is the strongest track, you can really hear the recording style shine here with the big boomy bass, it almost sounds like a really good live take.

I am not sure what’s going on with this album cover. I’m definitely not a fan of the style or execution; just seems rather boring. Looks like some stock art from an Ikea wall hanging or something.

French Kicks – Abandon

If you’ve been following any of the slowed down disco that’s been in alot of peoples ear you usually hear about talented Europeans like Prins Thomas, Todd Terje, and Lindstrom. Well, California has its own trio in my eyes Hatchback and Sorcerer who make up Windsurf and Rollmottle who is part of Project Sandro with Tony Watson. Alot of their music comes out on the wonderful “California Soul” imprint Sentrall Records where it feels like windsurfing and collecting original vintage synthesizers have become 2 hobbies that are inseparable. I first heard about all this music thru my favorite group Broker/Dealer which have been doing music similar to this for awhile now, they were making these kind of tracks in the early 2000’s. I hope you can enjoy these spaced out jams while you go about your day today. As for the art above i grabbed it from Sorcerer’s myspace and there is plenty more where that came from on Dream Chimney’s Sleevery section which Scott loves to grab from.

Windsurf – Pocket Check

Project Sandro(Rollmottle + Tony Watson) – Blazer

Sorcerer – Surfing at Midnight

Hatchback – Everything is Neu

I posted on the new Wolf Parade album a while back so after letting that sink in I thought I’d post some tracks from their first album, Apologies To The Queen Mary. I do love the Queen Mary album, although I have to say I am partial to the new one, At Mount Zoomer. I ran into the guys from Better Propaganda last weekend and we got to talking about bands we’re currently listening to. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t convince them that Mt. Zoomer was a better record than Apologies. They actually seemed indignant at the mere suggestion that this new one could be better. I then ran that same crazy idea by another friend who knows a lot about music and got the same response. So apparently I’m crazy, but I feel like Zoomer has a decidedly darker tone, it sounds like the product of a maturing band finding their way out of the somewhat crowded category that I felt Apologies placed them squarely in. Apologies is a brighter, more energetic album to be certain, but I guess I’m not really looking for bright or energetic from this band.

At any rate, they are both classic albums in my book with a razor thin margin separating the two in regards to their relative quality. The beauty of the set is that they make such good companions to each other; play them back to back and you have a very fulfilling listening session.

Wolf Parade – Grounds For Divorce

Shine A Light

Just djed in Kentucky last night and now i’m winding down with some old favorites. Ulrich Schnauss‘ “Stars” off his latest LP from last year was a great listen always on roadtrips. He recently just collaborated with A Shoreline Dream on a track called “Neverchanger” but I posted one of their older tracks that first caught my ear. They have a very nice old Verve sound to them, with all the shoegaze essentials like swirling guitars and wall-after-wall of sound.

As for Farben(aka Jan Jelinek) and Mujuice, I don’t think these could be any different from the other two tracks. The cover above is from a Farben 4x vinyl boxset called Starbox which included 4 photos of different bank robbers from the 70’s, i think they were all German but I may be wrong. I loved the layout of the whole package, if you get a chance to ever see one at the record store, pick it up and open it.
As for Mujuice i having nothing else by him but this track, I found it on a Russian internet radio station called deepmix.ru which I highly recommend if you like this track.

Ulrich Schnauss – Stars

Farben – As Long As There’s Love Around

Mujuice – Over the Rainbow

A Shoreline Dream – New York

Cloudland Canyon – Dambala

Grizzly Bear – On A Neck, On A Spit

Takagi Masakatsu – J.F.P.

Here are 4 pretty guitar focused musicians that i think have nothing really in common that i’ve always shared with people in the past on mixtapes or as new music to get into.

Christopher Willits i don’t think could of made a fuller sound than this, usually known for his 12k glitched out guitar pieces before this release on the album Surf Boundaries. All the way thru he just packs in the drumming like Caribou and the guitar at 3:26 couldn’t be anymore insane and lovely, it really comes down to the detail in this track, i can’t imagine recording it all.

Ricardo Villalobos usually known for his 14+ min South American influenced minimal techno puts together one of my favorite tracks on his Alcachofa LP which is the artwork shown above and also a nice change up for techno fans and really opens the door to having new fans of the music. You can find more Villalobos on the Erlend Oye DJ Kicks compilation and his remix of Depeche Mode.

As for Sun Kil Moon, it’s a side project for Red House Painter’s Mark Kozelek, i’m not a good follower of lyrics but i think its about a true story of a boxer that died in a match named Duk Koo Kim, this song is a must have, it might be abit intense like most Mark Kozelek songs in an emotional way but even at 14:33 i end up pressing rewind to hear it again, make sure you have a nice upbeat track to follow it up.

The Boats barely have a guitar in this song but i’m guessing there’s a bass guitar and a harp sample in there thru most of it. This song always reminded me of if Portishead had to play unplugged or if Matmos and Bjork came back together for another release.

Christopher Willits – Medium Blue

Ricardo Villalobos – Waiworinao

Sun Kil Moon – Duk Koo Kim

The Boats – And There are Stars that Fell from The Sky

I always wondered how much of an influence the music i grew up listening to had on the sort of stuff I gravitate towards now days. I hope some of these “oldies” are a nice change of pace for everyone, hey i might even link this post to my Dad.

Talking Heads – This Must Be The Place

The Police – Synchronicity I

Rush – Tom Sawyer

Paul Simon – The Obvious Child

All the tracks today are remixes, all in which i feel stand strong comparable to the original track.
This Burial remix of Bloc Party is by far a favorite of mine in the last week, also i can’t find a digital version of it anywhere. I think what attracts me to Burial’s sound is the softening and quietening of that UK Garage low end, its done so well by him.
The Erol Alkan remix of Midlake sounds like a Fleetwood Mac cover to me but i just can’t put my finger on it. I’m glad its not this club bomb or noisy edit, he actually does add a great fullness to the track that is riding a thin line to being an AM Gold/beard and tinted glasses/amber lit wooden studio jam which isn’t a bad thing at all (puts on a Gordon Lightfoot LP and watches this commercial on mute).
Praveen does wonders with the track Pinconning, the resonance from the kick drum and accordion makes it sound like your listening to it while your underwater.
I was hoping with this last one that i could find an Album Leaf song that Album Leaf fans didn’t have, hopefully i did for some of you. As for the song it makes me jealous that i don’t have a xylophone or vibraphone to play on everyday but if i did have one i’d probably never get anything done.

Bloc Party – Where is Home? (Burial Remix) – purchase

Midlake – Roscoe (Erol Alkan Remix) – purchase

Benoit Pioulard – Pinconning (Praveen Says Stay Remix) – purchase

The Album Leaf – The Young Machines (The Album Leaf Remix) – purchase

Micro-House, Minimal, whatever you call it, Fabric 13 (named for the London nightclub) was my first proper introduction to a style which I’ve really come to appreciate for it’s stripped down compositions and attention to detail. I’m a self-confessed maximalist when it comes to my own music so I really admire the producers of this genre for building so much energy and emotion into these seemingly simplistic sonic landscapes. Geiger’s wonderful mix of I Think About You isn’t quite as restrained as Villalobos’ offering, but a similar ethic permeates both tracks. My only complaint is that Geiger’s mix gets cut short just as it seems to be hitting it’s stride, but I suppose that was the point, damned minimalists! Another stand-out track from Fabric 13 you may remember is Jackson’s mix of Run Into Flowers which I posted on a while back.

As for the cover, I’m not such a huge fan of the haphazard-collage / inexplicable-gaussian-blurring / drop-shadow look, and it doesn’t really speak to the vibe I’m getting from the music inside, but at least the type is well executed.

Heiko Voss – I Think About You (Geiger Mix)

Ricardo Villalobos– Easy Lee

[audio:easylee.mp3]
A quick note: I’ve installed the beta version of Martin Laine’s Audio Player WordPress plugin (thanks Karl for the heads up). This new Flash MP3 player replaces the old one and should do away with some of the quirks people were experiencing before. Please let me know if you have any issues with the new player.