New Music: Purity Ring “Obedear” From Shrines (2012)
I love everything about the way Purity Ring has approached their first release.
The slow and staggered tracks releases stumbling about the internet.
The build up of their live show into a two person explosion.
And
of course
the actual songs… Brilliant sparse works of electro-pop sparked up against lyrics so dense they consume you.
Can’t wait for this release.
Download Purity Ring’s Obedear
(Via P4k)
Daily Doses: Elvis Depressedly “Crazier With You” From Disgraceland (2011)
Label: Self Released
Well, this is just a delightful treat.
Mat Cothran (of Coma Cinema) has released a third and (apparently) final EP as Elvis Depressedly.
“Crazier With You”, the second song on the EP is exactly the kind of twisted that makes me love all of Cothran’s stuff. A delicate malaise colored with the feeling of freezing to death.
I think that might be love.
Download Elvis Depressedly’s “Crazier With You”
Download Disgraceland for a “Name Your Price” fee From Bandcamp
Daily Doses: “Somebody” Walsh Feat. Persona La Ave From Don’t Want 2 Fall In Luv (2011)
This delicious little EP by Nashville’s Walsh (aka Brandon Biondo) just hit recently, and is everything I could have hoped for.
Give a listen to the track above. Somebody, the second track on the EP, is a fantastic collaborative effort with Persona La Ave. Colored up with funk and slammed home with some delicious synth work, it’s just kinky enough to be make you want to listen, and just grooving enough to make you start moving.
Download Walsh’s “Somebody” (Feat. Persona La Ave.)
Download Don’t Want 2 Fall In Luv on a “Name Your Price” basis at Wash’s Bandcamp
Daily Doses: Keep Shelly In Athens “Lazy Noon”
Keep Shelly In Athens recently announced they would be coming out with a new 12” EP, Our Own Dream (Fall, 2011, Forest Family). From this I have finally realized there has to be some sort of greater power, and it likes to give me good music.
Then I realized that would mean It’s the same greater power that likes to put love seats in the middle of the freeway so that I can run into them at 2:00am.
I guess it’s a wash.
(Via GvsB)
Daily Doses: Flashing Red Lights “Weekdays” From Faster Horses (2011)
This is the best noise you’ve ever heard.
On Flashing Red Lights’ last E.P., Various Successes I’ve Had (2011) , Mack played hard with programmed beats over stunningly intimate vocals to beautiful effect.
And from the clattering ambient distance in “Conviction 1” to the soaked sadness in “Gold Light”, I have to admit, I kinda thought he had conquered sound about as much as was possible given the restraints of recording every part himself in his bedroom.
Little did I know he was just showing off his control of it.
Here he let’s it run wild.
I’d say Faster Horses sounds like Industrial smashed into Instrumental Hip-Hop, bled over with singer/songwriter before it’s drowned in a pool of Eno’esque (it’s a word) ambient noise.
In other words, it sounds like nothing else I can put my finger on.
Album opener “Weekdays” opens with a guitar that sounds like caged beast, raging against the world in the middle of an iron factory. Meanwhile a mournful vocal waxes and wanes with lines as poetic as:
“I come home from work and you come home from work, and we lie dead as leaves and dull as Winter.”
And as bluntly honest as:
“You spent Christmas Day getting drunk alone.”
It’s a track that captures the feeling fading connection and increasing emotional distance by counter-pointing the softly sung vocals with all the rage smashing into the background.
And ain’t that just the way it is?
Download Flashing Red Lights “Weekdays” from Faster Horses (2011)
Download Flashing Red Lights Faster Horses From His Bandcamp
Daily Doses: Gem Club “Breakers” From Breakers (2011)
I am beyond happy to be posting this new track from Massachusetts’ Gem Club, Comprised of Christopher Barnes, Cellist Kristen Drymala and additional vocalist Leva Berberian.
Coming on the scene last year, the trio released one of the best E.P.’s of the year with their haunting and stunning debut, Acid And Everything. They also contributed one of my favorite tracks in the first We Get By release, Collaborations, collaborating with Holy Spirits for the track Fingertips. AND started work on a full length.
I love these guys.
In talking to Christopher, I knew the full length was coming along… But receiving an announcement from Forcefield PR that it would be through Hardly Art was one of the most welcome sites I’ve ever seen in my inbox.
Breakers, featured here, is the title track from their 9 song full length debut which will be released Sept. 27th 2011.
The depth of emotion that Christopher imbues in every song always blows me away, and this is no exception. Falling in gently with rolling piano waves and cello bouys, his voice sinks gently into the mix. It’s the effortless depth of the ocean as it reaches towards the shore. So much strength, and so much longing…
Kills me.
Daily Doses: Balam Acab “Oh, Why” From Wander / Wonder (2011)
I love labels that champion a specific sound.
Much as most of my favorite records are concept records which sound out a story, the labels that tell the story of a sound are very near and dear to my heart. And near the top of that list for me would be Tri-Angle Records.
Comprised of Balam Acab, o0o00, How To Dress Well, Holy Other, Stalker, and Nowa Huta, Tri-Angle artists tend to embrace haunting solitude with abandon. And any new release I see coming out from one of their artists always gets my hopes up (in a melancholy way, obviously).
Enter Balam Acab, and their new album Wander / Wonder. Balam Acab’s first E.P, See Birds, was stunning (And my fourth favorite E.P of last year), which is a hard act to follow… Or, I would have thought. However this new track quickly tossed that theory out the window.
“Oh, Why” Dances by with subtle beauty, drifting lines, and gorgeous extensions as if intent on fulfilling and expanding on the promise of See Birds all by it’s lonesome. By the time it collapses to the ground, I was in love.
So, there you go.
My favorite track of the year so far.
Bravo.
Download Balam Acab’s “Oh, Why” From Wander / Wonder
(Via GvsB)
Daily Doses: Chelsea Wolfe “Mer” From Ἀποκάλυψις (2011)
I just wanna fall in love with a track.
I want it to twist around and find someplace in me where it can set up shop for about 20 listens until it fully assimilates and becomes something new, something I need to hear every day at least once.
But, of course, that’s hard to find. Even harder with a full length release. So far Tune Yards, and Sun Glitters are the only full length’s this year that have really blown me away. Weeknd’s House Of Balloon’s is screaming with potential, and has 3 or 4 tracks that hit it right on, but just doesn’t have enough dynamics as an album. Tyler The Creator’s Goblin, while containing 4-5 tracks that absolutely slay, also falls way flat on the other 13 tracks, sounding in the end like what it is. A record that was rushed to take advantage of buzz.
Half complete.
So seeing there was a new Chelsea Wolfe track was like an oasis in the desert. Far from those casualties of hype, carelessly packaged and tossed out half formed into a world desperate for substance, Chelsea has been carefully building herself and her style both in the bay area and Los Angeles for years, only recently getting talked about in the kind of places she deserves.
In “Mer”, Chealsea speaks in apocalyptic tongues over bending guitar sounds and enough rolling drums to make Danny Carey from Tool get a little bit excited. The end result steeped in end of the world sounds, feels both completely confident, and completely complete.
Artists out there take note. I know you think it’s important to keep the quantity of new tracks up in order to get noticed, but make sure once you start getting a little notice you can change gears and start upping the quality as well.
Or just ask yourself if you’d rather have an amazing three album run that lasted 5 years years or 60 tracks that were posted during that same period on some blogs, 5 of which were pretty good?
Download Chelsea Wolfe’s “Mer”
(Via P4K)
Daily Doses: Seabright “Brule” From The Spring/Summer EP (2011)
From the beginning of this track, all I could think of was French New Wave comparisons.
Colliding transitions, voices overwhelmed by volume, thunderous movements made subtle by context. Like a beautiful movie trying to escape the confines of a soundtrack.
This is the first release from Seabright, AKA Justin Morales’, upcoming EP Spring/Summer.
Daily Doses: Giraffage “Eschaton” From The Pretty Things EP (2011)
Poppin’ bottles in the club…
There’s a point a little before hammered and right after buzzed where everything just gets a little hazy. Not out of control, but just a little surreal. It’s brief, like that last point before the sun hits the horizon, but if you keep an eye out for it, you’ll feel it.
The track’s on Giraffage’s debut E.P., Pretty Things remind me of those points. Not too far gone, but not entirely there either.
Ephemeral yet strikingly present.
An indicator of crazy things to come.
Download Giraffage’s “Eschaton” From Pretty Things
Download Giraffage’s Pretty Things For The Price Of Your Choosing From His Bandcamp
