j's heaven

Michael the Blind

2012-02-18T14:36:00.001-08:00

Michael Levasseur toiled for years in obscurity as a solo singer/songwriter, before breaking down and compiling 'The Els' in the Spring of 2011, with his wife, RachaEL Renee, longtime friend and misanthrope NathaniEL Lee on drums, and J ELwood Johncox, on bass. While some doubters might criticize for succumbing to market pressures, for caving, The Els add depth and dimension, weight and heft, texture and nuance.

J Elwood Johncox invited me out to see them at the Spare Room Restaraunt and Lounge, an honest to goodness working-class watering hole in NE Portland that doubles as a karaoke bar other nights of the week. The event was curated by one Sam Densmore, who also played that evening. The night was hushed, intimate; the lights all turqoise, crimson, rose, like the memory of a dream of Miami. The scarce crowd spoke in a low murmur, between sets. A feeling of Deja Vu pervaded me, as i watched the bingo numbers reflected in the picture windows.

The combination of lulling voices, low lighting levels, and the open-air acoustics of the room, it was the perfect combination to experience the music of Levasseur and Co. for the first time. The Els' music fluctuates between early 90s folk jangle, like vintage R.E.M., faded denim barnstormers, and sweet melancholy balladry. Levasseur's beautiful Les Paul hollow-body guitar was gracefully accented by Rachael's auto-harp and vocal harmonies, with J Elwood holding down the groove with vintage McCartney basslines, and NathaniEL shuffling and skiffling in, around, and between the beats; a deft touch, not too pummeling, but not too scattered.

With all the various strands, threads, and tendrils of folk-infused music, its all about the little touches. Accentuating and flourishes can make or break what has essentially been done a million times before. But when the stars align, just right, when the voices and instruments are in tune, in time, it can become gospel, a new skin for the old ceremony, and the human spirit can radiate, shine like the brief, iridescent constellation. A random Thurs., nothing special, but its not coming back. The songs live and breathe, and the Els' made for the perfect bedrock with which these sparse, honest, heartfelt tunes could lift off.

I left the gloriously gaudy tavern, with a renewed appreciation for stripped-down, acoustic music, practically frothing at the bit to write faded campfire symphonies of my own.

If you were not one of the 20 or so people who were at the Spare Room, or even if you were, Michael The Blind and the Els will be playing twice next week: Mon. at the newly christened Elixir Lab, and again on Fri. 2.24 at the ever-popular Ella Street Social Club.

If you aren't from around these parts, Michael the Blind also has a new album, out on 3.20, on Alder Street Records, available on 180 gram vinyl and for digital download.

Michael The Blind Homepage

Facebook

Bandcamp

Blind Lovejoy

2012-02-16T11:06:00.001-08:00

Blind Lovejoy are Noah Johanson and Cayla Davis, from Portland, Or. They met freshman year of high-school, bonded over an almost creepy adulation of Janet Weiss, and a mutual disdain for Built To Spill's bloated prog pyrotechnics (although they can sound like Built To Spill, at times)

They were able to achieve the alien mind-meld possible to the very young; in essence growing up together. There is a simpatico, a wordless understanding, that is belied by their very different personas.

Noah is dreamy, misty, sweet, funny;

Cayla is spiky, sharp, determined, meticulous. Their sound does not water down either of these aspects, but rather is an alchemical aberration of the two, something wholly OTHER, that exists in the air between them. It is psychic, empathetic, and fucking hilarious.

Blind Lovejoy are part of the extended Goat's Head family; they've played shows over here, and shared bills with other friends' bands. They all went to college together, met during that awkward transitional freshman year of college phase, and developed a phase 2 mind meld, meant for young adults and those possibly deranged from mind-altering chemicals, which is the cosmic soup that i landed in, when i met all these folks.

I've had the opportunity to work with Blind Lovejoy, without hearing much of their music; some of my earliest attempts at recording a band. I'm extremely proud of the way its all turning out, we're almost done mixing now, and during the process of recording them, and getting to know them, i found that essence rare: two musicians with good taste and excellent skills, that know what they want to hear, and how to achieve it. To watch these two manipulate tone and mood, and make their aesthetic work together, has been revelatory.

Their music, that i have heard so far, mixes the abrasive with the smooth and sweet; rough, groddy guitars, reminiscent of early Polly Jean Harvey, spliced with a cutting, serrated stacatto skank. Their music moves. Noah and Caylah both play drums, as well, so their music is rhythmically very tight and focused, which can make or break a band. All in all, their music gives a sense of adventure, adrenaline; a night on the town. It is funny; it is sad. It is apologetically romantic. It will conjure landscapes in yr mind, both damp and dry.

Mixing this record, daydreaming with my friend Lily who is making the artwork, bouncing mixes back and forth, getting it all perfect. Getting everybody to understand one another, on the same page, becoming friends, has been one of the most rewarding experiences i've had so far, and i feel like the art comes out fully formed, effortless, from that understanding.

Blind Lovejoy is playing this saturday, 2.18.12, at Backspace, with another friend's band, Caroline (whom i discussed over here), which i'm tremendously stoked on, as i think Caroline and Blind Lovejoy will complement each other, and gain each some new fans. The show is to support Music in the Schools, a non-profit organization to raise funds for Portland Public Schools music progams. All shows are all-ages, a rare and precious commodity in PDX, and worth yr support for that reason alone.

...and just in case you can't make it out to Backspace, or if you don't live in the Northwest, Blind Lovejoy will be playing live, on the radio, on Seattle University's KSUB, on 2.24.12, which will be streamable via the internet. More info: here

BUBOTUCOTUMBO - 1 - ROOMFIELD RECORDINGS 2012

2012-02-15T09:52:00.001-08:00

A week or so ago, an anonymous correspondence, pertaining to js heaven. The title: Antimusic dilemma. Its author was the enigmatically named BuboTucoTumbo, who is a painter turned sound artist, looking for some insight on the electricity flowing through his veins and out his fingers. I can relate to the 'What have i done?' feeling of curiosity, awkwardness, pride, shame, fear, lust that comes from channeling the air, creating bizarre soundscapes, immaterial cinema firing through synapses.

On Roomfield Recordings we find three recordings clocking in at 12 minutes each, filled with honeybee electrical impulses, rootless granular drone, flickers of speech, field recordings, knocks bumps and scrapes. The overall effect is monochromatic, stark, extreme, silhouetted. It seems psychological; the drifting drone reminds me of being unable to concentrate, and having a broken tape loop in yr mind, that won't let you sleep. The pulsing electrostatic makes for a calming, analog influence in the miasma, tactile, familiar, as well as providing some cohesion to the tracks. The feeling i get when listening to this is of listening to early industrial music and tape culture, blind anonymous transmissions from a nocturnal realm; esoteric names, very little data. Tapes found at the bargain bin, or lost in a warehouse. Dusty, subjective, crumbling.

Listening to BuboTucoTumbo creates a potent air, like rich incense. It breathes and swells, particularly when one is alone. While most dark ambient, industrial, or experimental music makes you feel like yr in a slasher flick, like the guy with an ice pick is hiding behind the door, Bubo's music is more surreal, more artsy. More about the blurred lines, the grey zones. Its like a Brothers Quay full-length, rendered to tape. The odd rustlings and bumpings make it seem like something is happening, but yr not sure what it is, and the ubiquity of the electrical hum gives it an air of reminiscence, embodying the nervous system and its mysteries.

The question i ask, every time i come across a piece of media, whether its something i come across myself, or if somebody points something out to me is, do i like this? Do i enjoy listening to this? If i were to stumble upon this in a store, or on a friend's shelf, would i listen? I've had a number of atmospheric days listening to this recording, moving around the house like a specter, in some electrical zen somnambulism, listening through the floor boards, listening through the vents. It makes for pleasant company, and it works as both wallpaper music as well as active listening. I find it to be more effective when yr paying attention to it, there's a lot of nuances, and like with most 'experimental' music, it is best played moderately loud, to pick up on the details. Also, be advised, depending on who you live with, this music will most likely creep out yr roommates. Stacked up against more established dark ambient/noise musicians such as Wolf Eyes, Lustmord, Nurse With Wound, Non, it holds water. There is nothing incidental about this music, it has weight and gravity. It sounds good. S/he claims that these compositions are, 'quite primitive, and without aesthetic.' I would argue that artists are poor judges of their own creations, especially when one worships interesting sounds. I DEFINITELY hear aesthetic in this work.

I am intrigued and excited by this discovery. I like that he's just making sounds, with no career motivations or status to burn. He (?) (i'm not even sure if its a he) is just invoking visions, and doesn't understand them, so feels the need to put them outside of him/herself. S/he was even very humble and non-assuming, when contacting me, not expecting me to go through the canon. As such, i probably will.

I'm very pleased to have RoomField Recordings in my life, and the cavalcade of sounds to come. You can expect to hear more from BubuTucoTumbo here at Js Heaven. In the meantime, you can also get the rest at the Antimusic blog:

Ratordog.blogspot.com

Roomfield Recordings 2012

Lore Acts, 3 Moons, Meta-Pinnacle, The Ghost Ease @ Goat's Head Manor, 2.11.12

2012-02-13T18:11:00.001-08:00

Meta - Pinnacle

After much hard work, from all involved, i'm happy to report that Saturday's ceremony, here at Goat's Head Manor, was a success. A lot of people showed up, good weird music was made and listened to, allegiances were formed. Normally, my birthday season, and February in general, kind of sucks; its nice to herald in my personal new year with artistic, vivid projects and people. Running around town, putting up flyers, having rehearsals, making playlists; it just feels right, and i feel like i am finding my niche here in Portland. The basement looked rad as all get-out, the walls adorned with red and black, courtesy of Guild Works, and even more mojo was contributed by Arun Once Was Zygoat, owner of the Aruniverse, purveyor of fine tapestries, and he was also kind enough to bring Yule Bok, (Phabomet during the non-Yule season), to bring even more Goat Head-ed energy to our house.

My friend Jake and i called the corners, playing under the name Lore Acts. We have a mutual fascination with the inky black, the desolate, the holy and the unholy; the sacred and profane. We started hanging out and working together, back in the fall, using noise music as a bonding ritual, as a way to peer into each other's soul, and at least found the landscapes adjacent, if not exactly the same dark continent. Let's call them sympathetic eco-systems; we bring an odd and enjoyable mutation into each other's realms. Getting to know one another, making music together, has led into a real and much-appreciated relationship, a dark support network, a comfort when surrounded by daywalkers.

During this set, we opened with a dirty, sludgy cover of the gun club's 'Sex Beat', in derision and scorn for those that are slave to their desires, to their flesh. Our version replaced acerbic garage punk scorn of the original with something colder, deader, getting slower and more pummeling with each successive go 'round. Leaden, deaden, i've never played metal in front of a crowd, before, so it was nice to unleash my primal scream. From there, we played some middle-eastern trance sludge, where i called down the spirits, transforming the room into a lysergic subterranean temple. The air was thick as molasses, in the corner, where all the various wizards and witches hunkered down, and made their musickal magick. After the veil was ripped away, from materialized twenty minutes or so of alien noise sculpture, jake playing 'noise boards' of various treated insect noises and 80s horror synth, and myself pulling some power noise moves, with supportive atmospherics: cicadas, wind, distant drums. Our forest is uncharted, menacing, and full of possibilities. In Lore Acts' camp, you can be wild and free.

My friend Jeffrey played under the name 3 Moons, served up a blend of astral blues and dervish clarinet. The times i have seen him play solo, previously, he plays acoustic guitar through a battery of lo-fi pedals, and sings through a tinny, jc penny microphone. Like peeping through time, having a campfire sing-along with the time travellers you find there. Not quite here, not quite there; its somewhere in-between. I wish i could have listened more thoroughly, but i was off transforming into a leopard angel.

Meta-Pinnacle played next, which mostly comprises of my friend Lily and i, occasionally joined by others. We're pretty new-ish, still exploring our sonic terrain, our sympathetic and dissonant aesthetics. Still figuring out how to conjure inky, tendrilly figures from the void. I feel like this performance was like the culmination of meta-pinnacle 2.0. We played once before, a living room set, also here at Goat's Head. We were mostly acoustic, at that time, reflecting endless coffee-infused mornings sitting on the porch, playing guitar and blinking sleepily. We are starting to explore technology more, investigating our options. We are becoming more solid, more competent musicians, and this time around, we just went for it. Raw and ragged and real, not two fucks were given. We gave it our best, we are kind of ragged, homespun, honest people. We are precisely messy, and cheaply elegant. We played most of the songs that we know, so far, three originals by Lily, a couple of covers (Sia, Mazzy Star, Sneaker Pimps) and a quicksilver guitar noise drone wash to finish, something that i've been kicking around for a month or so, which was unexpected and beautiful, a wonderful encore.

Last up, The Ghost Ease; another band i've seen several times around Portland. In the previous incarnations, The Ghost Ease was just jem marie, coaxing a symphony of disembodies loops to hang in thin air and play nice together. Imagine my surprise when The Ghost Ease this evening, turned out to be spectral garage afrobeat band, instead. They had a horn section, sax and i think trumpet, plus guitar and drums, making an unbelievably rich, dense sound, that woke everybody up, made everybody move.

Unfortunately, Cult of Zir didn't get to stick around long enough to play, so i encourage to keep yr eyes out for upcoming performances, and keep weird music in Portland thriving.

Its so unbelievably satisfying to provide opportunities for this kind of thing to happen, a new mutant surrealistic mixture of art and magick. The sacred, and the profane, things holy and tender, spilling over on to unsuspecting party goers, who are just out looking for a good time. Too often, hermetics are too hermetic, too insular, too shut off, chanting in some lofty ivory tower, or up in the clouds. So unblemished, and pure. I have not found this too often, in my lifetime. Things tend to be muddy and messy and real. So many people just use the underground, and things like house shows, as a trampoline, to spring their way to 'legitimacy', and the revolution loses its fangs and claws. This kind of laid-back atmosphere, funky and homespun, makes all sorts of adventurous art possible. It doesn't have to be good, so it often is.

I'm so proud to have been a part of this. I feel like my life has commenced, is rolling along rails rubbed with crisco and vaseline. Thanks so much, for everybody's help, to all my Goat's Head family, who have made all my dreams manifesting possible. Thanks to Portland, for having such a vibrant scene. And for those who have been here for a while, look around! There's a lot of interesting things happening around you, and often times for free. Don't be apathetic.

Goat's Head Manor

3 moons

The Ghost Ease

Goat's Head Noise Show

2012-02-11T15:13:00.000-08:00

Hey hey y'all, for anybody that's actually out there who reads this spot, hesitantly or regular, i'm happy to say that i'm having a house show tonight at my house in Portland, Goat's Head Manor. Two bands i'm involved in will be playing, along with three of my local favorites: The Ghost Ease, Cult of Zir and 3 Moons, which is the solo project of my friend Jeffrey, whom i met playing with Fake Hospital at Ella Street Social Club. One of my favorite people, and i don't get to hang out with him enough.

The flyer was made by friend Lily, a last-minute explosion of ripped up color and coffee stains. It was fun hanging them up around town. This has been the most legitimate project i've been involved in so far.

My friend Jake and i have been making music since the fall, he's another resident of Goat's Head Manor. We represent the dark side. We got our shit together, to release a track on a Hermetic compilation, which is here, under the name Lore Acts, which we will be invoking again this evening. I haven't gotten around to mentioning these compilations yet, but i will, soon. I've released tracks on both of them, so far.

Meta-Pinnacle is me and friend Lily, who have also been making music since the fall. We played at the house one other time, more acoustic, with colorful lights. We've hung out on the porch a lot, like to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and wake up playing and singing. Along the way we figured out our voices sounded nice together, and we made music together well. We share a copasetic aesthetic; we vibe well. Tonight our sound is more fleshed out, more full: we are learning how to GET DOWN and make sound. Tonight we will be our full, weird selves.

Tonight is for the noise freaks, the awkward and the real. Those that like to sit around in their living rooms and make art, doing it for the fuck of it.

I'm fucking stoked to have been a part of this, and its gonna be fuckin' rad. If you live in Portland, and you happen to get this in time, come by! We live at Goat's Head Manor:

http://www.facebook.com/events/353685407994906/?ref=ts

Tonight's gonna be special. Expect to hear more!

Nothing Lasts Forever

2012-02-08T18:05:00.002-08:00

Head's up Portland. Tonight is this month's installation of Lovecraft's monthly noise series, Nothing Lasts Forever. This month features a couple of sonic terrorists from Eugene; Don Haugen, (Holy Rodent, Warning Broken Machine, ManDom) & M Scott McGahan (The NecroSluts, INRI, Vivimancer, Scrolls).

I have heard that they just open up the floor, allowing the artists to freak out and experiment as they see fit, which is how i have always found Noise to be at its purest, most adventurous, most sincere. It is where we are in our element.

I haven't been yet, and i've been climbing out of my skin all day, in anticipation, so you can expect to hear all about this, tomorrow! But who cares what i think, just come out and see and hear for yrself. As i always say: any excuse to go to the Lovecraft is a good excuse.

Super Fresh 3

2012-02-06T17:21:00.002-08:00

This is the 3rd time i've sat done, to write this article. My annoying 'serious journalist' voice was striving to take over, like some malignant tumor, and i was getting bored writing it, so i can't even imagine what it would be like to read. My nervous system literally won't let me put out stale, forced art.

I managed to talk my way into a guest pass for Super Fresh 3, which happened last weekend at Branx, which is on the bottom floor of the Rotture building, in the Produce Row section of SE Portland. Its grimy as fuck, and it fills me with a warm, decrepit post-industrial phosphorescent. I felt like a character in a William Gibson novel, i was wearing goggled and leopard skin, stalking the shadowy streets of Portland.

The posters for Super Fresh had caught my eyes, intrigued by the tag line Revenge of the Synths. For the past couple of months, i've been obsessed with minimal and cold wave, anything vaguely eastern european sounding, or resembling early industrial music. I can't even describe what it is about this aesthetic that is so intriguing to me, maybe the early electronic music seems SEXIER, more dangerous. There's a real sense of adventure and possibility in the early 80s, streamlined into the future. But the fact that it was an all ages dance party at Branx had me worried that it might be a furry ritalin rave for the pre adolescent, which is sort of fun, but it makes me feel old as dirt.

I was surprised and delighted to find Super Fresh 3 to be two days of analog goodness and weirdness. The whole spectrum of synth music was represented, something for the Harsh Noise freak and the candy raver alike. Highlights for me were Litanic Mask, the perfect blend of dystopian noise and raw beating heart. I loved the combination of weirdo synth tones and old drum machines with a woman singing ethereally over top. The combined whole was evocative and mesmerizing, and answered some lingering questions i've had about writing songs with unconventional instruments and sounds.

Another highlight for me, was Johnny X and the Groadies, who blended technical thrash death and black metal with cybernetic blast beats. It was like a race of warlords, attempting to invoke the Elder Gods, as a last ditch effort to stop a rampaging band of Terminators, accompanied by a dizzying onslaught of strobe lights, dayglo, flashing lights, fog. Paradise. Lost.

Radiation City, the headliners of the second night, were probably the band most people were there to see, a bright light on the event horizon of the fragmented Portland music scene. They are sort of friends of friends, but i hadn't heard their music yet. Kind of an anomaly in the mix, in that they were hardly electronic at all, yet they did have kind of a Stereolab retro-futurism vibe at times, with multiple Rhodes and Wurlitzers on stage. Their music is mostly a very luxurious, ornate, pop; rich as truffle groovy, smooth as satin. They have an infectious innocence, but also confidence, that probably got the people moving more consistently that any other band i had seen that weekend.

Honorable mentions to Vice Device, with a new New Romanticism. Echoes of early Cure, Erasure. Synth pops like a balloon, the future stands starkly revealed, looking into the mirror, examining its flaws. Which way forward? How to be young? I feel old.... A graceful, feminine heart, peaking through steel girders. Anoint thyself in iron and bronze, hide behind artifice and posture, and maybe the stones flung will not hurt so badly. And to the woman singer, i do not know yr name, or anything of yr biography, but you move me in an inarticulate way, and i like yr labcoat.

The rest were a hodge podge of live pa techno analog electronics and rock bands, with some degree of synthesis mixed in. I didn't hear a bad band in the bunch, i would advise looking at the flyer at the top, and doing some research. I left early the first night, i had a bunch of shit to do the next day, but i hear that Wampire are quite tremendous, and i will check them out, next time they play. I also really liked Truckasaurus, from Seattle. I love dancing to analog equipment, and i am astounded how i rediscover, on a nearly daily basis, how much i fucking love techno and every variant of electronic music, and also how good it is for me to dance.

This event was organized by a group called SuperNature, who do a monthly dance night. Portland brings out my inner goth kiddy, and the fact that there are events like this going on, at all, and there are places like The Lovecraft within walking distance from where i live, makes me a happy kitty indeed.

I heard a lot of haters, this weekend, and i wonder what the hell it takes to impress you people? I mean, really, what are you looking for? This was two days of interesting music for 10 bucks. Maybe they just don't like experimental music? Or sincerity? For my money, i thought everything i heard was worthwhile, and worth the price of admission.

Big big ups to Manny Reyes, for putting this together and for getting me on the guest list, and also to all the bands that played.

Threadbear, Sioux Falls, The Steven Lasombras @ Ella Street Social Club 2.1.12, Portland, Or.

2012-02-02T10:15:00.000-08:00

Last night's show at the Ella Street Social Club was pretty much a perfect end to a perfect day: groceries, dinner, art, music, city streets. Friends and conversation; hazy sunset. A freshly mopped floor. A good, and rich, life.

Arrived slightly earlier than usual, which is to say about halfway through the first band. I never know if 9 pm is going to be 9 pm in the rock 'n roll wormhole galaxy, which actually means, 'somewhere between 8:45 and 10:30, depending on hang-overs, broken equipment, traffic, bail,' or if they are referencing to the clocks that are generally calibrated to Greenwhich Mean. It always kind of fucks me up when shows start right when they are supposed to.

Threadbear were in full swing, upon arrival: 4 blokes, 2 guitars, 1 drummer, and one funky ass skeletal six-string bass, an electric piano. They conjured, in mid-air, visions of Hoover Towns, the ghost of Tom Joad, a brief recollection of '90s-era Dave Matthews. Rent parties in Dhalgren, anachronistic and cut-loose, post-modern folk songs, unrestricted to time or place. What you are left with, then, without specific codifiers, is something wholly human, almost archetypal. They were seasoned performers, and clearly knew their shit. I noticed, watching the guitarists, that they were mirroring and pirouetting around one another, stacking up contrasting melodies on different parts of the neck, which made for a rich, dense sound that was interesting and fun to listen to. I relaxed, the analytical part of my mind, that loves to label and categorize, and come up with catchy journalistic nomenclature, went to sleep, and i was left in the no-mind void where i remembered, 'i love to listen to sounds!' I was watching the fat, round bass-end weaving around the spikier, treblier guitars, dancing like a guppy ballet, and all need, all fear, all worry, disintegrated.

Sioux Falls were up next, whom i previous wrote about over here. This young 3-piece is impressively dense, considering the stripped down instrumentation; the bass was thick and luxurious, the guitar warm but still abrasive at the right moments, the drums satisfactorily pummeling. I still couldn't understand the vocals worth a damn, although there is a song about the singer's dog, apparently, and that is the common plight of the small indie club. My friend didn't much care for the homogenous tone of their music, found it to be consistent, to predictable, and to close to her natural state for comfort or interest. I found them to be slightly nervous at first, and then loosened up, and sounded pretty legit up there. Came to the conclusion that i love the drama of young men with guitars, trying to EXIST, to make their way in the world, to express what they're feeling, even though they don't know what they're feeling. I feel like if they worry less about promoting their band, and focus on the purity, intent, and message of their band, they will loosen up, and their sound will really be able to take off. They play next at Valentine's, on 2.13.

The Steven Lasombras was the main draw for me. I had seen William Justin Landers' doing a solo version of the steven lasombras during EsoZone, earlier this year, and was impressed by his one-man visionary noise guitar assault, and this time he had another fella playing guitar up there with him, as well. The first thing i noticed, in proper audio geek fashion, is this band has BEAUTIFUL GEAR, one guitarist playing through a beefy marshall bass cab, with Landers playing through a gorgeous, creamy Orange Amp. They had a small army of pedals on their stage, and to their credit, i could not immediately identify a single one. That's the thing with the steven lasombras, they defy easy categorization. There's no 'loop station' experimental indie preset, or fuzzy, sludgy big muff cliche to hang yr cloak on. Its a familiar line-up, two dudes playing noisy as shit guitars, occasionally singing, and it is just entirely unique. Its OWN THING. I stopped looking for comfortable tags, to shield myself from the experience of this unique Wed night, and let the music wash over me, unfold in my brain like some beneficent Transformer, like Valis beaming hard-coded schematics into my amygdala, to be deciphered at a later time. I relented to the sound, and became alive to the moment, to my life: the light started to glow with a back-lit intensity, as if from something very hot. I could see the pastpresentfuture, and things that have never been. There is something wholly unique about The Steven Lasombras. They are making experimental music, but they are deadly serious about it, or i should say dedicated, cuz William Landers is a very, very funny man. Even their comedic timing was spot-on. Everything about their performance was considered and well thought out. Their instruments sounded amazing, their timing was perfect, the songs were arranged well, keeping you guessing, keeping you on their toes, and from what i heard, the lyrics were thought-provoking and vision producing, also.

In short, i think i have stumbled upon the perfect noisy music, an undiscovered gem, and deserve to be heard by ANYBODY who digs adventurous, left of the dial sounds. And if you happen to live to Portland, lucky you. Go see them every time that they play!

My friend and i took off to the streets, to find a quarter and shoot some pool for an hour, in our dedicated quest to become Pool Shark Hustlers.

Sir Richard Bishop, Fishermen 3, Flash Flood & The Dikes, The Black Swans @ The Kenton Club, 1.28.12

2012-01-29T18:56:00.000-08:00

The Kenton Club is an honest-to-god working class pub in Kenton, which is a neighborhood in NE Portland. I used to stay about 5 blocks from there, when i first moved up here, and don't make it up that way much, these days, it always gives me a healthy dose of perspective, to see all the ways that i have changed, the direction that my life is moving, as i remember being a wounded nomad, wandering to the Cup & Saucer with a walking stick, Gandalf impersonation in full effect.

The Fishermen 3 were up first, and were exactly what my cochlea and timpanum needed, melancholy country folk, Southern Calfiornia style. Reminded me of the early Mojave 3 records, or Gregory Alan Isakov, from Boulder, Co. (who i talk about over here, if that reference means nothing to you.) Basically, i felt like dog vomit last night, half-sick; sick of people, sick of my thoughts, the sound of my own voice. Malnourished and bitter, i didn't really want to DO anything. Didn't feel like going out, didn't feel like lying curled up in a ball at my friend's house, either. It is a testimony to my friend Nate, who motivated me to get out the door, and to how much i love Sir Richard Bishop, that i went out. But it was a free show, with 4 awesome bands. Its just weak to pass something like that up, especially if you've been looking forward to it for a month. So the Fishermen 3 were a sunny respite on my otherwise bleak and bitter soul, a warm desert breeze, to dispel the dismal late-January ennui.

Flash Flood & The Dikes were an honest to god country band, and a good one at that! With hints of fiddle, musical saw, 4 part vocal harmonies, and pedal steel, plus an arsenal of Gibson hollow-bodies, these guys had their shit together. They did a full on country version of 'I had to much to dream last night,' by The Strawberry Alarm Clock (i have heard the strawberry alarm clock on record, but i've never seen it played live!), as well as a Michael Hurley number, who is one of my heroes, they had the room swaying and waltzing. It was pretty well packed at this point, and the room was warm and friendly. There was a pair of lesbians on the dance floor in front of me, who might as well have been fucking, ushering in the Valentine's Day bitterness a few weeks earlier than normal, but even then i realized i was being a curmudgeon, and managed to enjoy myself. It was nice to see country music played, without irony or chargrin. Just THE REAL DEAL.

Finally, Sir Richard Bishop, the moment i'd been waiting for! It turned into a war between those that were sitting, and those that were standing. Those that were standing eventually won, but i held to my guns and maintained full-lotus, spine erect. Occasionally, the giants would part and i could see Bishop's hands moving on his beautiful Les Paul. Sweet Jesus, i'm not sure if i've ever uttered these words on this page, and you know i avoid hyperbole like the plague, but this man is a fucking genius. A living legend. Over the span of 45 minutes, he ran the gamut of the entire solo guitar oeuvre, from Sonny Sharrock to J Mascis, but mostly hanging around the late and lamented Jack Rose's opium raga blues, which really caused me to remember, and lament, that master's passing. Jed, i take back what i said: nothing will ever replace that man. But Sir Richard plays the Raga visionary blues like a boss, a cross between ravi shankar and django reinhardt. His tone was as sweet as souvlaki, and he moved through effects pedals and loops seamlessly, effortlessly. Seriously, i have seen 1001 solo guitar dudes, great and small, and he was one of the finest i've seen. Total mastery. His music filled my daydreams with flying carpets and sandalwood incense, elevated me above my petty mortal problem, and like a bird, i was set free. And for that, Sir Richard, and all the rest, thank you.

Sir Richard Bishop is going to be opening for Michael Gira, for a few shows on the West Coast, in March. I would not miss those shows, if yr anywhere remotely close, or if you have some frequent flyer miles to cash in.

One of the last living masters, don't sleep, don't be passive. Do yrself a favor, and recognize genius.

4 WEST COAST SHOWS JUST ANNOUNCED

All shows with Michael Gira (Swans, Angels of Light)

3/15/2012 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall

3/16/2012 Los Angeles, CA @ Echo

3/22/2012 Seattle, WA @ Triple Door

3/23/2012 Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios

Apparently, he's got 3 new cdr's out now, also

After this, my briefly elevated mood ran out, and i left before i bit somebody's knee-caps, so i didn't get to see The Black Swans, but i hear they're good, also. I'll have to catch 'em next time. Me and my buddy hopped some barbed wire, to catch the last train downtown.

Graig Markel - s/t (2012, Recovery)

2012-01-28T12:57:00.000-08:00

I became aware of Graig Markel when i saw his band Dead Ship Sailing, at the Ella Street Social Club, in Portland. Apparently he liked the review i wrote of the show, (over here), and was kind enough to get in touch, and to send me a real, honest to goodness vinyl record of his new solo record!

Dead Ship Sailing sounded like The Jesus and Mary Chain being backed by suicide, so imagine my surprise when i unsheathed the vinyl to find a bare-bones, intimate acoustic record. Citing influences such as Nick Drake and Bruce Springsteen, circa 'Nebraska', these 10 songs make me feel like i'm driving through the prairie, in the middle of the night. Its probably winter out, the car window frosted and crystalline. Maybe you can see yr breath?

If you go into this record, thinking about the influences, about the labels, 'folky', 'lo-fi', 'blue-sy' you will miss the point. It will stream by you like headlights headed in the opposite direction. The devil is in the details, here, and when you slow down enough to get to know this collection of confessional ballads, there are treasures to be had, wisdom to be gained. Its like the quiet person at the party, off by themselves, who turn out to be a world traveller. Or perhaps a mystic.

Upon close examination, living with this record over the span of a couple of weeks, using it as company and a crutch to get through lonely nights, his craftsmanship and attention become apparent: the way he swaps out lyrics, rearranges structure, nuances and intricacies that reveal a tasteful ear and years working in the music biz. Graig runs a recording studio in Seattle, Wa. and this whole record was recorded to an analog tape deck. Its got tone out the tailpipe, the guitar playing is nice, not flashy but tasteful, and again, there are nuances that show a talented songwriter, odd discordant chords and subtle overdubs. Add pedal steel licks and the occasional piano stabs to fill in the cracks, and you are left with a nigh-on classic!

The consistent mood and tempo, the tenor of the vocals, create a hypnotic lull, but don't let it lull you into complacency. You can put this record on repeat, you can leave it play for hours and hours, and just let it create a mood, let it stain the air like late-afternoon sunshine.

Highly, highly recommended!

You can preview it over here
GraigMarkelMusic.com

i would also like to plug for the vinyl, gorgeously packaged in a raw paper sleeve. It looks, and sounds, amazing!!!

Also, if you are around Seattle, Dead Ship Sailing is playing at The Comet, on Capital Hill, on February 17th.

White Rainbow, Charles Berlitz presents The Garnet Tucan, Caspar Sonnet, Rene Hell Wed, 1/25: Valentine's

2012-01-25T13:02:00.000-08:00

Valentine's is a sweet, secluded spot next to Voodoo Donuts, in SW Portland. They have free live music every Sun., Mon., and Tues., and there's always interesting art on the walls. They apparently also serve Real Absinthe, for those that want to make like its Paris circa 1923.

I arrived typically late, to a surprisingly packed house, with the sounds of, (i'm assuming), Caspar Sonnet, already in full tilt. Two fellas, one playing unsteady electric guitar with the other on some ukulele like instrument and vocals. Their sound was akin to Math Rock, with a Jandek-ian vibe. They seemed to live in a world of their own, but their was a dream logic, an internal structure, and they were able to keep their mutant dirigible afloat, peeking in at verdant valleys previously unexplored. I admire people who do their own thing, doubly so in front of a crowd, and especially when they can PULL IT OFF.

My buddy Nate poked me in the back. He came out to see Rene Hell and White Rainbow, and i also ran into some friends from the House of Good Spirits, in Northeast Portland. It felt nice, a free weird show, a night on the town. Friendly faces.

Rene Hell up next, and it was not what i was expecting, AT ALL. I'd listened to his recordings quite a bit, and had been expected some dreamy, synthesizer scores; cyberpunk dystopianism, with a dash of nostalgic somnabulism, a la Emeralds or Oneohtrix Point Never. What i got, instead, were two dudes blasting out a furious smoothie of digital noise, like Squarepusher, but all the way broken, all the way down. The collective migraine of the information canals. Here, also, there was rhyme and reason, seasoned shamans of the digital id, this was a new jazz, albert ayler and sonny sharrock teleported to the end of the Mayan calendar. These guys were delicate listeners, and could pirouette like a ballerina, or a nascar driver at 117 mph. Quick. On their toes. The music ebbed and flowed, and occasionally rumbled into some broken machine funk, reminding me of Pole, but without the dub. My body began writhing and head-banging, involuntarily. A guy next to me nudged me, asked if i was actually DANCING to this music. I told him that i actually LIKED this music, that i thought it was good. He seemed satisfied, and after a thoughtful pause, added, 'its kind of refreshing.' We were friends, after that. Apparently Rene Hell are gonna be in Portland for the next month, so keep yr eyeballs peeled for future appearances. I highly recommend seeing these dudes live, and listening to their albums, as well.
(i read that Rene Hell was one person, but i swear there were two guys bringing the noise. I dunno what to tell you...)

Next up Charles Berlitz presented the Garnet Tucan, a daydream of an extra-terrestrial swamp, not a real extra-terrestrial swamp though. A daydream of a pixellated, technicolor extra-terrestrial swamp. This music was NOT trying to be genuinely ethnographic; again, two dudes, one guy blasting out crunchy, plastic African beats while the other played gamelan middle eastern scales on a cheap, destroyed keyboard, while a hazy image of a crescent moon and stars and night-time were projected on the wall, from an old overhead projector like you took notes off of, when you were in High School. The music was pleasantly evocative, rhythmic and trancy and made for some of the nicest furniture music i've heard in a minute, light conversations about the pictures behind our eyeballs. Beats the fucking movies any day of the week, if you ask me. (i like to go to the movies, too, don't get me wrong.)

Lastly, the Headliner, White Rainbow, infamous in Portland Town for 80s fetish sleazy funky dance parties. He was rocking an ableton set-up, with a swarm of controllers around, which he used to summon, and then mangle, disembodied bass lines, hip hop beats, and a VERY legitimate sounding 303 lead. All this to the good, but i was mostly struck by his stage presence, super real and down to earth, 'oh, adam, yr so good at making the ableton beat.', 'no, that one sucks.' cutting off jams midway, and then bringing the typhoon full-force. It seemed like a perfectly normal night on the town, DJing for yr friends, making beats in yr bedroom. In a word: pure, and in my world, that makes it good. I watched the fuckers dance for a while, swooning on a bar stool, not much into a dancing mood, too many heady visions coalescing in my synapses. Had a number of conversations with progressively drunker new friends, and thought for the millionth time, how glad i am that i don't drink anymore. Not that there's anything wrong with that, y'all do what thou wilt, but i will way that is much easier to not make an ass of thyself, when one doesn't drink, and the bartenders hate you a lot less.

Struck out into the streets or Portland with my friend Nate, who was pretty wasted at the time, and observed the bars vomitting out their revellers onto the streets, and the hustlers trying for one last score and one last taco before bedtime.

Caspar Sonnet
Rene Hell
White Rainbow

The Ghost Ease, Fingers Moen, Spun Monkey Patrol @ Ella Street Social Club, 1.19.12

2012-01-20T13:26:00.001-08:00

Arrived in time to hear the last of the Ghost Ease, always a pleasure, and sounded even better to this ears than the last time i saw her (more about that here). Earlier in the set, she apparently played with a sort of noisy, minimal guitarist, that sounded excellent, that had my friend enthusing at length. Sorry i missed it, have to see her again.

I also mostly missed Fingers Moen, whom i wrote about over here. My friend and i decided to duck out and get bagels with food stamps from Fred Mayer, while they were still open, and just barely missed a teargas incident. Everyone was standing out on the street, smoking cigarettes and talking. We thought the band had finished, but it cleared up and Fingers Moen went inside and finished. Sat outside on the steps and ate bagels and cream cheese and talked to my friends Jake and Matty about sarcastic crust punk while Matty tried vainly to chase down people entering the venue, in an attempt to get the $5 surcharge. (He wad working the door). I liked listening to Fingers Moen folksy Velvet Underground/Neil Young homage through the wall than actually watching them on stage. They had a bass player with them this time, as well, and i thought it helped fill out the songs a lot, although he was brand new and didn't know the tunes yet.

The last band, whom i surmised from Matty were to be an 'instrumental jam band'. Its funny, there's a part of me that groans internally when i hear those words in combination, although i tend to listen to a lot of hippy rock, at times, and even play that kind of music, sometimes. Its probably my inner music snob. That sound should be located and exterminated.

The Spun Monkey Patrol ended up being a talented instrumental funk/rock/electro three piece. All of the musicians were gifted on their instruments; the guitarist made love to his Les Paul, while the bassist kept it together with a solid thumpslapnpop, and the drummer bordered on Drum 'n Bass breakbeat exactitude. Everybody's tone was solid, they all had nice instruments that they knew how to play, and the sound in the venue was exactly right, levels in complete harmony, leaving no auditory afterburn afterwards. They encapsulated everything that is good and right about jam band music: its danceability, its optimism, its libido. They got a crowd of people moving on the dance floor, which was the first time i'd seen that go down at Ella St.

Seeing so much live music clearly illustrates the tug of war that goes on with my mind. Music is the air in which i live and breathe, i am pretty much surrounded by it all times, and it is interesting to see the different ways in which i relate to it. At times, i don't hear it at all. At times, it lifts me to the heavens. At times, in plunges me into the pit. The sound almost always wins me over, however, and i am elevated; my small self dissolves like a receipt in the rain. My eyes close. A small, sly smile will cross my face. My body will begin to move, of its own accord, and i am GONE, which is to say i am entirely present.

Just some random Thurs. night in the Pacific Northwest. Nothing special about it, except for that millions of years of evolution, and billions of cosmic dust, coalesced to form a cross-section of humanity and pick up the ritual that has been played through millions of times before, in a billion different ways, and is, inexplicably, brand new. The faithful gather, hoods up against the rain: in the sound, you can hear the echoes of all the saints, the children, angels and windstorms and holy whales. It amasses like a Mandelbrot set, deep and mysterious, and as you gaze, you reaize the term 'everyday consciousness' or 'waking thought' is such a fucking joke. There ain't no such thing.

Ex Girlfriends Club, Sexy Water Spiders, Di di mau @ Dante's, 1.18.12

2012-01-19T14:24:00.000-08:00

This has rather inadvertently turned into another Rock 'n Roll marathon for yrs truly, as Portland is teeming with interesting, free music, at the moment. I shall persevere, and continuously plunge into the bush, throwing myself out into the night, into the concrete jungle, and report what i find, to tell you who's worth a damn, and who isn't.

Was gonna go to Ella St Social Club last night, as there was something of interest going down, and i love that spot, but i noticed this show, instead. Tagged on pc-pdx under Noise and Riffs, and one of the bands was compared to YOB, i was sold, hook line and sinker. Besides, i'd never been to Dante's, and they have torches outside!

Dante's is a proper sleazy rock 'n roll den, it just makes you think of cocaine and hot hot sex. Lit up like an ocean of blood on the inside, with enormous chinese lanterns, they even have platforms for strippers and go go dancers to gyrate. After years of polite indie rock concerts, it is refreshing to dive into the belly of the beast. I was glad to be out, in the surprisingly temperate Portland nighttime air.

Ex-Girlfriend's Club up first: the singer was like some frankenstein's hodge podge of joey ramone, mick jagger, and iggy pop. He's about 9 feet tall, and he was the best performer i've seen in a minute. They tore up a homage to the early to mid 60s, at times extremely reminiscent of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, but laced with amphetamines and booze, to conjure the true theater of the absurd and dangerous. It was like some shamanic invocation, to tear a whole through time, space, and history, to that meta-reality where everything is happening simultaneously, and the spirit of cynicism, 'been there, done that.' has no room to breathe and breed. They ended with one of the most excellent stage dives i've ever seen, with the singer than running around the infernal theater, knocking over beers and singing into people's eyes. Tremendous. Highly Recommended! (They were also handing out free CDs that night, so expect to see that reviewed, sometime in the nearish future).

Sexy Water Spiders continued the Garage homage, this time focused on the herky jerky mutant blues of John Spencer, circa Pussy Galore. True fucking punk spirit, these guys were like animated marionettes, shambolic but somehow razor sharp. The singer had the finest, operatic sound check i've seen to date, before launching into some throat singing, and then into a rockabilly number. The mutants will always be my favorite, the spazzes, the ones that don't give a fuck. Last time i checked, rock 'n roll was not about looking good and fitting in. I seem to remember some rigamorale about 'revolution', and its nice to know that exists somewhere, even if there is pretty much a precedent for just about anything you could think to do, at this point. They ended up with a song dedicated to people high on resin, the singer and guitarist stumbling around the stage like a drunken zombie, or Pinnochio on Treasure Island. Again, highly recommended.

The last band i saw was Di Di Mau! who was the one i was most jazzed about. I had listened to a track online, and it was full of rumblings and ominous squeaks. It was oddball, murky, and opaque, and i was fucking drooling. Ooh, free noise weirdness on a Wed.! Even more confused and excited when they turned out to be a muscular, intense post-punk/glam band. I love having my expectations dashed. Especially when it comes to music. The singer was wearing an ian curtis shirt, and it was impossible to not let that cultural signifier color my impression of their performance. However, i was TRIPLY stoked when it seemed that these guys were focusing on the earliest aspects of Joy Division, when they were a loud, fast, aggressive band, before the cold and the despair took over, and then took everything. This singer was nearly so fragile and damaged as Ian, these guys were warriors. At one point, they kept fucking up the beginning of a song, the guitarist couldn't hear anything in the monitors. The audience was getting rowdy, starting to throw shit. They shrugged it off, and tore through the rest of the set with renewed fury. The drummer blasted out a funky disco beat, in triple time, like Stephen Morris on Unknown Pleasures, giving the whole thing a nice, danceable edge, and the bassist was pure punk rock speed, holding down the bottom end, playing to the audience. Everyone i saw that night were all excellent performers.

I headed out into the night, elated, to find an all night Kinko's, my faith and fervor for rock 'n roll, punk rock, post-punk, metal, and my fellow denizens of the night, in full bloom.

Dante's
Ex Girlfriend's Club
Sexy Water Spiders Live at KBOO
Di Di Mau!

Caroline, The Love Below, Yuin @ The Laughing Horse, 1.16.12

2012-01-17T23:41:00.000-08:00

Laughing Horse Book and Film Collective is a small but respectable book cooperative on 10th and Burnside, in SE Portland. Its an all ages venue, featuring mostly punk hardcore metal-ly things, which is so freakin' essential in this town, as it seems almost EVERY venue is a fucking bar. What are 18 years old supposed to do, smoke meth and stab grannies? On this Mon. evening, they got to rock out to four pretty legit bands.

My friend Leland plays in Caroline, who played first. Seeing as how i like the kid, and i know he's got good taste, and i already liked his guitar playing, i was predisposed towards liking his band, but i cannot ever completely check my journalistic integrity, and even if i like you, there is no guarantee i will not be disgusted by the music that you make. Thankfully, Caroline sounded really good this evening, so i didn't have to come up with nice ways of telling my friend his band sucked. I could definitely hear some of the influences i know Leland is into, i.e. Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, Place to Bury Strangers, Sunny Day Real Estate, in short angsty twitchy post-grunge, wiry and high-strung, this is the fury of a generation reared on adirol and japanese cartoons, 4 loco and marijuana and the confusion of being a young adult in a world where anything is possible, but nothing seems plausible. They absolutely TORE UP their fucking set, tight and intricate, sounded pretty rehearsed for being a shambolic spazzcore band, but i thought they sounded best when they were tearing into leaded metal shreds, like Dinosaur Jr., and the vocals veer too close to pop-punk screeching for these ears, and i would like to see them explore more of the shoegazery/slacker vibe. For a moment, Leland was writhing on the floor and it seemed like a bit of a spectacle, a bit of a put on. 'Here's the part where i'm supposed to writhe on the ground,' which may be authentic at other times, but it didn't last long, and they tore back into some unbridled pummeling, before too long. These guys have been playing a lot, getting a lot of shows, and they are definitely worthy of yr time and attention.

The second band, Yuin, were mostly a by the book speedpunk band, with some 'core vocals, which is really two strikes against yr band, in my world. However

they were genuinely antagonistic, 'what's the difference between jam and jelly? i can't jelly my dick down yr throat!' and then SLAMMING into brutal waves of sonic terror. You could tell the young, activist types were kind of offended, and then succumbed to the sonic violence. It was sort of beautiful, and i was reminded for the second (and not the last) moment why the hell i loved punk rock at one point. I probably wouldn't listen to these guys on my own time, that much, but i would see them again live.

After a string of pseudo-core bands, i was rather surprised by The Love Below, who were mostly a terribly legit thrashy trashy sludge metal band. Sort of reminded me of like Botch or Cave-In, that leaden post-hardcore thing, which is as alien as a Giger print to me, but fascinating and heavy as lead. They got the crowd going, and the Laughing Horse degenerated into a (mostly) good natured mosh pit. I managed to lose my glasses and all forms of government identification, not to mention my last two bucks, so i decided the whole night was officially rock and roll, and was satisfied.

I kept having this sense, this subliminal impression, during the whole evening, of young folks, tearing at the bit, just RACING into the future, trying so hard to be legit, to be tough and hardcore, even though their voices had barely changed, sometimes. Its like, yr 18, but you've already seen so much, possibly travelled to other countries, cut their teeth on every culture, and bombarded on all sides by their own. They are old souls, but they are still prey to the confusions of young adulthood (no web site to google yr way through that one, sorry bud.) and i was really moved and empathetic. In their fury, in their attempts to shock, to awe, to be legit, to not give a fuck and channel the powers that course through every rock n roll band, i felt set free. I no longer cared that i was probably 10 years older than the average mean of the audience, and that i am a speedy, twitchy borderline homeless music journalist, and just thrashed like i had a car battery connected to my spine. If everyone is afraid to make a spectacle of themselves, then there would be no bands.

Caroline
The Love Below
Yuin

edit: apparently i switched around two of the bands, which means that Yuin were second and The Love Below, which means that The Love Below has beautiful, mutant album art and plays awesome sludgy post-hardcore, which makes them pretty much aces in my book. I think they're on tour right now. Check 'em out!

Trauma, Ripper, ? @ The Know; 1.15.12

2012-01-16T03:45:00.000-08:00

There is something inherently hardcore about going to a show on a Sun. night. Double points for making it a punk/metal show, plus an additional two for going out in bitter fucking cold.

This whole week there's been a non-stop onslaught of badass, bonegrinding sonic assault at The Know, a slightly hipsterish bar on Alberta, in NE Portland. A lot of black leather jackets, but brandishing a decent jukebox, i didn't catch too many glares from the sunday evening drinkers. My mohawk must make me inconspicuous.

Turns out Raw Nerves had to cancel, which was a shame as my roommate had been talking them up to me for a while, but seeing as how i had no idea who any of these bands were, i wasn't too disappointed, or probably wouldn't have known the difference. Didn't really know what to expect, but was still somehow shocked and pleasantly surprised at an evening of relentless speedpunkmetalthrash, sharp as stilettoes and hyped up on adrenaline, suddenly this sunday evening grew some fangs. Suddenly all was fierce, and terribly alive.

The first band, i assume must be ripper, were a hardcore punk band that screamed in spanish and were tight and punishing as a tijuana druglord. The singer stalked the floor, as the crowd cringed, like a room full of children who hadn't done their homework. I got right up front, accidentally headbutted the singer (he didn't seem to mind). It was sort of like being dipped in a piranha tank. It was over before they had hardly begun, and you were left, nothing but calcium and sinew. Tense, high strung, high energy; bright and keen as a katana, these guys reminded me of why i used to like punk rock so much.

Trauma played next. Stripped down blue-collar punk rock, blasted out at 200 bpm! The crowd still did their best Monet impersonation, but my frail caffeinated body did its best to jerk along to the shuddering blast beats. They reminded me of this band called Coliseum, that i saw down in Texas one time, just like stripped down rock 'n roll, very effective, and very deadly. Like streamlined, focused; and it made me not afraid to play bar chords, or churn out distortion, or playing a flying V. There was a moment, as the band raised and crested like a schooner in a tsunami, as the crowd remained stoic and the band just played louder, faster, the singer on his knees, screaming at the sky. Just giving it, bringing it all, and there was this moment, where the band locked into this chugging groove, like a train full of napalm, and the music just released, like a butterfly from a coccoon, or a poem. Where no one was trying to get famous or fucked or fucking famous, it was strictly and utterly for themselves, and for the people that liked their kind of music. The guitar player watched his hands, and took joy in shredding.

I didn't catch the last band's name, but they were filling in for raw nerves, i guess. They were a three piece, again total blasting rock 'n roll fury, but this time gone feral, eyes shifty and dangerous. A girl in a studded leather vest played a bass that was as big as her, and was lower than the lowest heroing bender. The guitarist shredded, but the real icing on the fucking cake was their drummer, who looked like he could have been 16, but could grind like he was never gonna stop; the tightest, fastest double bass work i've heard to date, all the while just freaking the fuck out on the cymbals. It was amazing to watch, he was like a whirlwind, and together, they were like Swiss clockwork, lining up impeccably, hitting every nuance, every accent. Totally impressive. Their set, and the night in general, was the perfect length, tight and focused, no flab. Left you wanting more, ready to pour out into the streets, ready to hop fences and start fires. Inspiring.

Find out who they are, and then go see them. It will be like a scavenger hunt.

All in all, the night ranged from ecstatic psychedelic brain cleanse, to utter normalcy, making shopping lists in my head, planning my week. And for some reason, i love doing those things while i'm watching some thrash metal band twitch their fucking brains out. Its like having them over for a BBQ. Its like these people are my family, my black clad socially awkward family. And while i occasionally have reservations about how my family perceives me, and why in blue devils they just WILL NOT react in public, it is not my place to judge, and so, stare if you like, i will twitch and thrash hard enough for the all of us. The bands usually seem to appreciate my vigor, and i feel nice and scrubbed out, when i leave.

My ears are ringing and i am finally warm(ish). Punk rock, on a sunday. Well worth the five bucks.

Elliott Smith - Either/Or

2012-01-13T18:03:00.000-08:00

everybody's
gone at last...

There is something powerful in embracing darkness, when it arises. In not wasting energy pretending to be all happyhappy mr fucking sunshine, instead preserving that vital chi to go through whatever the hell is making you feel that way in the first place.

This inevitably occurs, in this lifetime, on the coattails of any prolonged ecstatic state, the smiling shadow of happiness; what goes up must come down. Simple physics.

Found myself plummeting from the summits, late last night, burned out, tired, hungry, lonely. Pulled out this dusty gem, Elliott Smith's third full length, Either/Or, to get me through, to see the sunrise. Like a visit from an old friend, that understands you completely, where you need not speak a word. The depth and weight of years and memories, wrapped me in velveteen wings, and i was... comforted.

At this point, i've been listening to Elliott Smith's music for years, and there is a nostalgia to this music, but it is not a trip down narcotic memory lane. This music breathes and sings. It gets better and better.

His music has taken on new depth and breadth of associations since i moved to Portland, where he spent a lot of his life, and recorded a lot of his famous work. Names, dates, and places from the city of roses litter his records, and his songs flow through my head as i wander and explore my new home.

I also hear his echoes and reflections in so much music that is coming out now. Its like he's hardwired into our generation's genetic code. The lush, yet still lo-fi, recording style, the introverted multi-tracking bedroom auteur, the self effacing lyrics. I hear it everywhere from M Ward to Stephen Steinbrink, not to mention a billion and one living room concerts. He's like the patron saint of lonely, self doubting artists everywhere.

As i get into making records of my own, i appreciate these records more and more. They sound fucking awesome. He was such a brilliant guitarist (i don't hear enough about his guitar playing), the sweet vocal harmonies.... everything tastefully placed, everything just so. It inspires me, every time i hear it; has me rushing for a guitar and a microphone.

You've probably heard this record before, but maybe you haven't. I like to occasionally remind people of old favorites, not to mention provide a skylight into my experience. I don't want this blog to be about the new, flashy trend. There is nothing like getting to know a record, over days and weeks and years; how it changes as you change, how you perceive with the eyes of different epochs and experiences. There was a point when i was listening to his albums, when i was hopeless and dead drunk, trapped in rural Indiana, no money, no future, drowning in depression and alcohol; it comforted me then, too. Now, 6 years on, i am living in the city where he made these records, and the sky is bright. That contrast, that experience, is what drags me out of the pits, out of the blues, what gets me through my days and lonely nights.

So maybe you've never checked out Elliott Smith. Or maybe its been a while since you've listened to this particular album. Or perhaps you might listen again, and wonder what its like to be me, and be lifted out of yrself for a moment.

Thanks Elliott, for all the beautiful music. Sorry you were so fucking miserable.

Either/Or

Opening Eye - Good Amount (Crash Symbols, 2011)

2012-01-12T20:08:00.000-08:00

"Christian Filardo, aka Good Amount, is more than just a friend, he's a blinking glowing media being... an internet chrysalid waiting to plug into the supermind. Opening Eye is a new manifesto of Filardo's ever shifting anticipation of that union; ambient soundscapes littered with clustered bell tones, projecting a sense of monoliths. Big ideas and big narratives to draw them out, from our digital hierophant, Christian Filardo." -Dwight Pavlovic

Opening Eye, the newest chunk of plastic and magnetized tape from the cassette label Crash Symbols, out of Phoenix, AZ. It arrived, anonymous as an orphaned child, all innocent in my inbox. Yet again had the thrilling moment of excitement, discovery, and connection, upon first listening and realizing that i actually like this music, and that Christian Filardo had actually taken a moment to read this blog, and figure out what my tastes are. Here's how he described the 4 tracks off this cassette, in the flying e mails that ensued:

OPENING EYE

The idea for “Opening Eye” came about one and a half years ago when I was studying printmaking on the island of Skopelos in Greece. I hadn’t been in a relationship with anyone for a while and was in love with this lesbian girl who I obviously couldn’t be with. So leaving Phoenix for Athens came as quite a relief despite the fact that at the time I was feeling quite morose. I chose to see my experience in Greece as one of reflection to get my life back.

All throughout Greece they have these blue and white eyes that people hang from their windows and put on the corners of there houses to ward off bad spirits. While my record is about the opening of my third eye, it is not in the conventional way. Essentially, this record is about my personal intimate journey in finding personal enlightenment in the country of Greece. I have broken down the record into four parts, which include everything from my journey through the historic Mediterranean to waiting in airports.

1. Closed: Closed is representative of the time period before and while I was in the process of getting to Athens. I walked the corridors of the Phoenix and Atlanta airports reflecting on life. Once upon the plane I got drunk off of box wine and spoke to this girl named Sarah who sat next to me about my issues. I couldn’t help just feeling like a depressing drunk. I remember falling asleep to that movie about Nelson Mandela and the South African Rugby Team and waking up in spurts of kids screaming.

2. Matter: Matter makes up the gradual heavy times and influential down times of the journey. The moments at coffee houses drinking espresso and Alfa beers. The trips to bars at night, walking down the city streets into the center of the city. The frequent questions about Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns I would get from locals. The meat and tiny experiences, endless countryside and Casino 777 billboards.

3. Gain: Represents all the “AH HA” moments or moments of obvious disbelief. Marveling at ancient ruins. A few things that come to mind are dolphins swimming along side the boat I took out to the Island of Skopelos, touching the Acropolis and being in awe of how big it actually is and feeling proud of Greece’s existence, and overall fascination of a cultures respect for food.

4. Opening: The realization of the value of life. Purity that lies within every person and animal. Enlightenment on how I was physically and mentally growing by being in such an important historical place. Deep desires and understandings turned simple and the feeling of bliss and happiness. A desire to never go back into the dark.

While i do not feel like music needs to have a backstory to be interesting, and sometimes there is this sense of tabloid drama in the marketing of records, i DO enjoy knowing what was going through the person's head, during the moments of creation, and going back and listening to the album, again, with a different headspace.

As far as the actual sounds on this cassette, it is mainly neue Kosmische keyboard ambience, Klaus Schulze on the beach, Mai Tai in head. A bit warmer, fuzzier than those Berliner cosmonauts, due mainly to the analog production and new age samples lurking beneath the murk (i hear whales! i hear loons! i hear waves! I KNOW WHAT YR DOING!) All in all, gives a sense of glo-fi tropicalia bliss drone. Fans of The Skater's axis, Tangerine Dream, Panda Bear, or Dylan Ettinger's neon daydreams, will need to have this.

You can download it, for whatever, off of the bandcamp, or own yr very own cassette for the low low price of only 5 dollars! Here's yr chance to reward honest, hard working, heartfelt musicians that are making sweet jams and running sweet labels. I'm looking forward to delving further into the Crash Symbols back catalog (looks like there's some good shit on there. Apparently they just put out a new Stephen Steinbrink joint, too, which you'll be hearing about shortly!)

Very nice work, christian filardo. thanks for getting in touch. its all about the connection.

Opening Eye

Sioux Falls, Fingers Moen @ Ella St. Social Club 1.10.12

2012-01-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

I am never disappointed by the Ella St. Social Club.

It doesn't matter what's going on there, most of the time i don't even know what's going on over there, but i know that the music will at least be interesting, there's likely to be some cool, friendly people over there, and that i will experience something worthwhile. Its a straight shot down Burnside from where i live, and the walk is just long enough to clear the dust and fallout from between my ears, gives me a chance to get some brainstorming done. In short, a valuable community resource!

Fingers Moen were playing when i arrived, typically late. They are apparently a brand new act, one guy sporting a tie dye and a headband and long, stringy hair, playing guitar; another guy, also wearing a tie die but without a headband, played bongoes. Two men, two instruments (with occasional warbles of harmonica and kazoo), stripped down naivete rock. Total 60s throw-backs, the guitarist/singer seems to worship at the altar of St. Barrett, and their set reminded me of early Pink Floyd, Velvet Underground's more saccharine moments, perhaps a bit of Arthur Lee (ugh, i hate name checking Arthur Lee. Who the fuck actually listens to Love?), maybe a couple of the European cosmonauts like Gong or the Soft Machine, via a bohemian coffee shop. I appreciated what they were doing, they knew a bunch of songs and knew them well, played them well together, but it was a bit innocuous for my blood, and i thought they played too long. Its not really something i'd listen to on my own time.

Sioux Falls, from Portland but originally from Bozeman, Mt, totally brought it for the 20 people that persevered through the 55 minutes of songs about bears and children. One review i read called them Doug Martsch Apprentices, and they list Modest Mouse, Neil Young, The Replacements, Weezer, as influences, (and also for some reason Agalloch), so you know right away what yr getting here: a heap of country fried rock, extended guitar soloes, serrated vocals. No real surprises, except for that Sioux Falls sound incredibly good, while offering devotion to the Rock Gods. The bass was perfectly loud, smooth and round, filling my abdomen, my asophagus. The guitar player fucking RULEd, and the drummer wasn't half bad either. The vocals were surprisingly clear and understandable, and each song faded into a pyrochlastic fury of guitar freakout, while the rhythm section kept it all together. The guitarist must've been a little TOO flailing (is there such a thing?), he broke a string after nearly every song, and had to pause to change them out. They stayed cool as preliminary pickles up there, not even resorting to nervous banter like most do, just hanging out on stage, maybe talking to the crowd a little bit. I've had equipment go wrong on stage, and let me tell you, it is fucking nerve wracking! These guys just did what had to be done, picked up where they had left out, and furiously rocked out some more!!! I think these guys are seriously ones to watch.

Me and my buddy Nate missed the last bus, so we ended up walking 54 blocks, back to his place, occasionally pausing to purchase microwave burritos with food stamps, pausing to admire architecture. A chilly, damp wind, the lights were velveteen and hushed, the evening had the sense of promise, of a new day rising. All this music, all these comrades, all these days and long nights pounding pavement, stalking streets. The long walks, long talks; the long jams before going out to listen to yet even more music. Friends becoming friends, old friends reconnecting, everything rich and wide-eyed; beyond labels and heart poisoning cynicism, mutant children tearing up the night like confetti, throwing it towards tomorrow, watching the swirl.

Life is rich and rewarding. The great work is at hand. It is good, being a music freak, living in Portland, OR.

Indie Cred by Sioux Falls

Ella Street Social Club

Archeology

2012-01-02T23:47:00.001-08:00

One of the greatest challenges i face when pretending to be a real music journalist, is when bands and labels contact me out of the blue, looking for exposure. A slight tremor of the hands, a little shortness of breath, as i unfold my in-box, faced with the possibility of telling some young hopefuls that there band is hopeless, and i, in fact, hate their music.

I was quite relieved that this was not the case with Portland's Archeology, (there's no second A), and that i, in fact, rather enjoy listening to them. Someone described them as 'power folk', which is kind of stupid, but kind of apt. Their sunny harmonies and acoustic strum reminds me most closely to Colorado's Bad Weather California, but perhaps that reference is a little obscure, so instead i will name drop and say they remind me of Yeasayer's celtic twilight and four to the floor pounce, with fleet foxes tight vocal stylings and my morning jacket's faded romance.

That is not to say that they are entirely a pastiche or homage, another faceless derivative indie act. They have four part harmonies and three guitarists, one of whom plays keys, so this band has layers, nuance, and PRESENCE. This, coupled with the fact that they released 5 ep's in 2009, they year that they formed, and toured extensively, suggests to me that this is a young indie band that is doing it right, paying their dues, plying their craft, and are deserving of attention.

I haven't been listening to this band for very long, but i've been spinning tracks off of youtube and facebook all evening, and haven't gotten tired of them yet. In fact, i'm intrigued, and i'm looking forward to paying closer to them, and the chance to see them live.

Thanks to Rian, from ipromotogoodbands, for the heads up on these guys, and allowing me to keep you posted on what's happening, here in Portland.

Archeology are headlining the Doug Fir Lounge 1.6.12
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Aerial Ruin - Valleys of the Earth (Vendlus Records, 2011)

2012-01-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

Listening to Valleys of the Earth, the first solo outing for Portland's Eric Moggridge, formerly of Old Grandad and Epidemic, is like wandering into some shadowed Canyonland, leading you further and further away from the sun, further and further away from the life that you knew. From everything certain, from everything logical... perhaps there are petroglyphs? A spent campfire? Like the amber album cover, and much of life, it is full of ambivalence.

I came across Aerial Ruin in a red lit basement, (chronicled here), he had a beard like a viking and a voice like a fallen angel. With only his voice, his words, a guitar, and the barest smattering of effects, he torched off black light past life regessions, behind my retinas. He set my hair on end, and rifled my skin with gooseflesh. After going to tens of thousands of concerts in my life, you would think i would be bored and jaded; instead, Aerial Ruin had me thanking Baal for checking pc-pdx that night, for following my nose and my instincts, and ending up at the bar maldoror, for the unholy spectacle, yet again.

Moggridge's music could be comfortably categorized as 'neo-folk', if it were not for the fact that there is nothing comfortable or categorizable about this music; if you enter this land with that mindset, you will not catch the whiff of sulphur and sandalwood. You will not find the beating heart, in the heirloom chest of a broken down barn. This music is all about contradictions and blurred lines, my favorite: dark romantic acoustic music made by a man who looks like a heavy metal berserker, who rights songs full of witchcraft and cryptic romance. These are songs from someone who has truly crossed the void, and seen things he does not know how to describe, let alone relate to the rest of the world. He described his stuff as 'drug music', as in soundtracks for closed eye inner visions, but it is not the easily identifiable brand of Kyuss worship of most Stoner metal.

What i can say, is that anyone who likes any of these abovementioned styles, will dig this record. Fans of Death in June or Current 93, Brendan Perry's solo material, or the lengthy desert journey of Sleep's Dopesmoker will have a new holy relic on their shelves. People that think in categories and don't really listen to music, will most likely just miss it entirely.

Looking around the interwebs, at what other journalists have had to say about this record, has left me wanting to puke blood. There's not much there, period, and i feel the previous criticism has been bland and generalized. There's been much mention of the monotonous nature of the vocals and guitar style, and i'll grant that it is a singular vision, and that's not to everyone's liking. But not once have i heard anyone mention, that the playing is SICK AS FUCK, and everything is gloriously, glowingly recorded, gorgeously mixed, everything in its place. Moggrodge harmonizes gloriously with himself, giving the record a rich, velvety depth, with just the subtlest flavors of effects, like reverbs and delays, a little phasing, cuz hey, this is psychedelic music! While i've got 10000000 records to listen to and write about, and usually i can't wait to be done with a writing assignment and move on, i can't wait to listen to this album over and over again. To know its twists and turns, to lose myself in its shadows.

Instant Classic. Pay Attention!
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Thunder Drums

2012-01-02T17:22:00.001-08:00

Got an exquisite two-fer fer you today. "What's a two-fer," you might ask? Find out...

Thunder Drums is a tribal stomp from Scott Fitzgerald, a bit on the New Agey sound, but perfect for cruising around on mesas, through cacti, watching sunsets, and possibly stomping yr feet.

The files posted here are an actual cassette rip that i made a while back, for a very special lady in my life. This woman i was married to, many strange aeons ago, and this was one of the tapes that was in our car during our endless, perennial road trips. We listened to this as we drove back and forth across this massive country, from sea to desert to mountain to forest, and then back again. This was the soundtrack for two souls waking up, intertwining. One thread in the vast symphony of awakening.

I just learned the other day that this dear woman, who has been saint mother lover sister and most importantly best friend is getting re-married. She was out on her lonesome for many moons, as i was busy falling in love repeatedly, committed to her soul, dedicated to evolution, to meeting god in this lifetime. As i tried repeatedly to bullshit myself, to drown myself in illusions, striving for normalcy and a typical life, and this woman would not leave me be, a perennial bedbug and a thorn in my side. "You promised to move mountains," she would say. "You promised to push the meteor from off thy head." She would not let me sleep.

Our relationship has not been romantic in a long, long time, but we have been thicker than blood. She has saved my life repeatedly, been a constant source of sympathy, understanding, and frustration in my life. I didn't figure i would mind at all, be affected at all, upon learning of her imminent nuptials, and was surprised to find a very poignant retraction in my soul, like watching some indigo meteor slip over the horizon. Like watching a loved one, turn and walk away, watching their back diminish.

I grew up with this woman. We became who we are today, together, birthed in the nuclear crucible of a thousand and one psychedelic nights. We found magick together, we found the land, we found our human family. We found a billion awesome bands together, and danced to sweaty exhaustion, over and over.

As i have moved towards health and human adulthood, my definition of love has expanded beyond what i can get from someone, what they can do for me. I am wholly whole, in this moment, a molecule at rest, and my heart and my mind and my soul can perceive these beautiful creatures i have known, i have loved. Beyond selfishness, beyond ego gratification. Just a simple, fond appreciation, like the blue velour blanket i used to wrap around myself as i slept.

So far all of you out there, here's a time warp, back to 1997 and further still, to when thunderous bison hooves rocked the sandy earth, like the first heavy metal band. Lovingly ripped from cassette by myself, and i'm told the cassette is far superior to the digital re-issue, for some reason.

This one's dedicated to Angela Romany, soul sister number one and bff forever! Remain in light! and blessings on each and every remaining breath!

Thunder Drums

Selected Ambient Works vol. 2

2011-12-23T00:20:00.001-08:00

People like to hate on christmas, venting about capitalism, christianity, family traumas, and other right-wing cacodemons. There is a lot to despise, and it is easy to get washed away in a grinch-green tidal wave of elitism and misanthropy.

Oddly enough, i have managed to dodge the bitterness bus this year; being far, far away from any kind of roots or history, being so far outside of mainstream society that i am just like a kid, agape in wonder at the window of some FAO Schwartz. I have been awash in sensuality, in aesthetics, marvelling at the christmas lights staining the misty evenings, watching hordes of drunken santa clauses take over the streets of SW Portland. Its been an oddly beautiful time, in my life.

This time of year always reminds me of another important, but weird, landmark in my evolution, that is far removed from families and egg-nogs; i started taking psychedelic drugs on christmas. I dropped acid for the first time on christmas, with a flickering candle-lit angel burning itself into my own private mythology. As we get into the opening stages of Capricorn, i feel the elegiac hum, a silent and timeless grace descend like a blanket of heavy Chicago snow, a feeling of REAL religiosity, that is weakly imitated by the hallmark holiday.

Around this time of year, my former wife and i would commemorate this anniversary, liked to hallucinate and trip out on the christmas lights. We had an abysmal daily grind, but loved each other tremendously while on these higher vibrations, and still do. One time, after going through a particularly rough spell, we dropped some acid and listened to Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works vol II', which has remained in steady rotation ever since, and decided that it was the best christmas music of all time. It was like we were able to see each other with fresh eyes, forget all the hurtful words and bullshit plastic holiday hustle and bustle, we were quiet, serene and timeless, whispering words that echo through lifetimes, through decades, and i hear them, even now. They remind me of the changing of the seasons, of timeless values like love and warmth and family, and i am child-like and in wonder, in my heart.

This music always reminds me to feel that way, far-away ghostly bells that are innocent but alien and eerie, at the same time. I had a friend get mad at me for lending him these disks, at one point, he had some sort of astral projection dream where he was whisked away to some alien airport, where he was being menaced. So if you like that kind of thing, i would recommend checking this out! These discs are some of the most gorgeous, emotional ambient minimalism i have ever heard. I have listened to them 150,000, and i never get tired of them. They plunged me into the deep end of ambient deep listening, an insatiable hunger for atmospheric sounds to stain the night air, to stain the shadows of my mind, until my dreams flicker and flame like a tree top angel.

Many of you have probably heard these before, but i would advise giving them a spin, beneath colored lights, perhaps with someone you love and trust. Have a quiet conversation, watch the spaces between the words. I will be playing both discs, on dec. 25th, to commemorate the occasion, and perhaps some of you can join me in the ritual, wherever you may be.

Disc 1
Disc 2

House Show @ House of Good Spirits

2011-12-16T15:06:00.000-08:00

A two-fer today, as i've been seeing boatloads of amazing music, and i happen to have a computer in front of me.

Received a last minute message from Million Brazillions, wondering if we would be able to host a show over here at Goat's Head Manor. The notice was short, and we were not able to comply, but thankfully they got it together, and did it at their place instead, a magickal spot in NE Portland sometimes known as the House of Good Spirits (H.O.G.S.). The line-up was 3 moons (Jeffrey from Fake Hospital), Baronic Wall, Harsh Niar, and Smoke on the Water.

Jeffrey is a new friend of mine, and is totally kicking out some sweet music these days. Interesting ideas, interesting textures, messy and cheap, just the way i like it. Last night, he was playing a battered classical guitar, through a spaghetti array of effects; singing through a microphone that looked like a guitar pick-up, that gave a cool cracked transistor radio effect, slathered in delay and echo. For some reason, i kept thinking of Jandek, although this music was much more colorful. Sort of like the cover for Ready for the House, put on a paint spinner.

Baronic Wall up next, who was having a barrage of technical complications. I listened to his wall of guitar noise through the wall of the house, having a fascinating conversation with Suzanne from White Gourd (mentioned previously), about embodying the major tarot arcana.

Harsh Niar, is Sewn Leather playing with a guitar player. Sewn Leather makes a distinctive cassette stomp, gnarled and trashy in the best possible way, playing tape loops through a ghetto blaster that looks like he got it from Chris Carter off of Ebay, and doing vocals over top, also through a barrage of cheap FX. He has made trashy cheap homemade into an art-form, almost a dogma, an aesthetic, that is not replicable by digital processors. He is waving his freak flag high, and i truly get the sense that he DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK. I like that. I also like his sounds. The beats crunch in just the right way, blasting off the cassettes, and he looked and sounded tremendous in this funky living room, with a giant stuffed bear and python in the corner.

Finally, Smoke on the Water, where some dude sat on stage and let a Gibson guitar feedback while he took gravity bong rips from a Nancy's yogurt container, while he occasionally played the 7 notes from Smoke on the Water. It turned into a test of wills, as he played for 20-30 minutes, and the obstinate noise freak in me was activated. I can outlast ANY performance artist. I have listened to 24 hours of Throbbing Gristle. I looked through their stellar VHS collection. I listened to the feedback. I'm pretty sure i caught a contact high.

I am so tremendously excited to be living here, to be meeting adventurous musicians and artists and metaphysicians. Not only am i meeting so many inspiring people, they are friendly! There is a sense of inclusion, here, or maybe i've surpassed some test in myself, that has made my artistic aspiration go from being distant pipe dreams to a burning napalm core of every breath that i take.

Thanks to all the awesome bands, the awesome house, the awesome dog Ratchet. Thanks to my new friends. Thanks to the city of Portland, and the unexpected sunlight today.

Fever, Dead Ship Sailing; 12.14.11 Ella St. Social Club, Portland, Or.

2011-12-16T14:27:00.000-08:00

Been getting into a good flow, making music and producing records during the day, hitting the streets at night, getting the chi moving, getting my head clear. Meeting other musicians, watching tons and tons of bands, a continual flow of new ideas, perspectives, approaches, and i return late in the night frothing at the mouth, ready to take on the next batch of challenges.

Arrived late at Ella St., (as usual), missed a set from Pale Tourist, which is unfortunate, as a few were raving, and it was apparently their last show, due to transpersonal conflict. The singer seemed assured that they would rise from the ashes.

Fever must've named themselves after the Nancy Sinatra song, they were a white hot blast of dripping southern heat in the spidery Northwestern chill. They sounded like Marc Ribot's solo on 'Jockey Full of Bourbon' dragged from the vinyl, and extended over 45 minutes. There was nothing mutant about their soul; they were just a tight, powerful five piece, festooned in black. Dare i say, classic? The Amy Winehouse comparisons are probably inevitable, with the shadowy tattoed presence of front-woman Natalie Valentine, but she seems less tattered; more Grace Slick than Janis Joplin. Her voice was clear, pure and strong, even if the lyrics were hard to understand, and it was perfectly ornamented by the impeccable mood and tone of the musicians; the barbed-wire surf twang of Timothy Valentine, the sexy bass-throb from Dhananjaya Zakheim, and even an organist in a pork-pie hat, as the icing on the fucking cake. Fever are straight up soul revival, not trying to re-invent the 45, and they had me swaying like Audrey Horn in the back of the room.

Last, but not least, Dead Ship Sailing, from Seattle. This was apparently their first show, ever, and i see interesting things for this band. They sort of sounded like Jesus and Mary Chain jamming with Suicide, two of them on guitars with an invisible drum machine clanking out vintage beats. Backlit by scathing white light, the pair cut a striking duo of silhouettes on-stage, becoming androgynous angels of rock 'n roll. Stream-lined, stripped down, sleek and barbituated; urbanity in its most guttural.

During their set, i was kicked back in the corner, reading James Joyce's 'Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man'. There was an endless rampage of infernal imagery, as a young Joyce fears and trembles for his mortal soul, after discovering the filthy joys of sex. Images of blackless caverns of never-ending despair, heaps of the damned, writhing in filth and flatulence, as i squinted in the dim light of Ella Street's antiquated light fixtures. That's one of the things i love most about this venue, is they can rock out, but you can also just chill, have a conversation, read a book. They play sweet music during set-breaks. The people are nice there. It doesn't tend to be too crowded, and the jukebox does not overpower conversation. It is a perfect spot for me to get out of the house, get some thinking and some writing done, and hear consistently fucking awesome music.

French Quarter

2011-12-14T17:52:00.000-08:00

A brief pause, from the recent barrage of reviews, to post something from my record collection. The input jack on my groundscored mp3 player went defunct, and i can no longer add any music, so i've got about 30 records that comprise most of my daily life. This is one of them. Its sort of a combination of a confidante, a security blanket, and a suit of armor.

I first became aware of Stephen Steinbrink, here recording under the name French Quarter, in Denver, where i saw him at the ever-funky Rhinocoperolis. My friend told me, 'he sings like an angel,'! He may have an angelic throat, but his heart burns with the fires of Tartarus. His veins flow with venom, but also honey.

These ten songs contain both innocence AND experience, romance AND hatred, and all the blurred margins in between. They convey the complexities of relationships, of living, which is very rarely black or white. The bitter really laces the sweet, a tangy and visceral listening experience, that has become my constant companion.

French Quarter addresses one of the most re-occurring questions in my listening habits: What seperates the wheat from the chaff? Why does one folksy singer/songwriter soar like icarus, while others fall like some embarrassing open mic mishap? Its all about taste and texture, on this record. Overdubbed guitars, sneaking in and out, at times sounding like slinky Ethiopiques out-takes, like on 'Debt', or the Arvo Part-like vocal chorales of 'Judgement', that sing like angels of the pit, of some of the most bitter and scathing lyrics i have ever heard. This one track, let alone the other 9 which are also brilliant, have helped me through some REALLY dark times, and there is hardly a day which passes without its gracing my headphones.

Being stuck with only 30 records to choose from, is forcing me to become intimate and familiar with them, and they really are becoming like friends, cheerleaders, philosophers. I am getting a chance to really delve and let myself become moved and influenced by this wonderful music, and this one is my particular favorite, which is why i posted it first. You can pretty much expect to see the rest of them here, in the near future, although you never can know what to expect, here at J's Heaven.

French Quarter - Self Titled
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The Ghost Ease @ Ella St. Social Club; 12.12.11

2011-12-14T01:28:00.000-08:00

Another fine evening at the Ella St. Social Club, confirming my suspicion that this hole in the wall ex-mortuary is my new home in Portland. Both shows i have seen there have been mesmerizing, and both times i have had friendly, cooperative conversations, like real human being status. There was even eye contact!

I have my buddy Jake for getting me to this one. I was on the ropes, reeling from my non-stop ambition, fatigued and road-burned, ready to give up the ghost and listen to Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips on Audio Book and pass out instead. Jake kept me honest, true to my samurai path of musical willpower and unflagging reserves of energy. I felt better as soon as we hit the streets.

Missed the first band, got there in time to catch The Ghost Ease from right here in Multinomah County; a fair skinned young woman, dressed in black, perched atop a tom-tom drum.

Inwardly, i groaned a bit: here was yet another solo delay pedal troubadour. I feel like i've seen about fifty of them in the last two weeks. I talked myself out of a tizzy, however, calling upon my credo of journalistic integrity to realize that judging someone cuz they are using a looper pedal, is sort of like judging someone cuz they're playing the guitar: you can do a lot of different things with the instrument. It seems samples and loopers are here to stay, and it is our job to figure out how to use this new tool, and some people are doing some incredible things, truly melding with their technology to do some interesting shit.

The Ghost Ease are doing some interesting shit. She has a lovely voice, and interesting lyrics, from what i could hear. She could effortlessly harmonize with herself, and would flow into birdlike trills, to make gorgeous and harmonically interesting choral symphonies, out of thin air. She also had a pile of noisemakers around her: tambourine, maracas,bottles, even a hammer dulcimer, which she used to construct her pyramids of sound. Lastly, but not leastly, a totally unshakeable stage presence. At one point, she lost her entire arragement from her pedal. She calmly asked if we minded if she began again. Cool as a cactus, but pleasant-like also. Totally glad that my friend got me out into the Dec. evening, and he was totally stoked on it as well. Did i mention this show was free?

The piece-meal layering of live looping lends itself to a swelling, hypnotic reverie. A Samuel Taylor Coleridge Mon. night on the town. The various sonics and textures lock up and intersect, forming clockwork gears in the imagination. I began to sway and weave in my candle-lit seat, losing myself, leaving my body behind, my cares, my worries. The music eroded my workaday manic consciousness, putting me in a pleasant theta wave trance, and in this lull, this woman directly plugged her emotions, her experiences, her interior, directly into my gaping soul. This is music for whispering, music for hiding beneath the covers, in the hope that everything will be all better, upon emerging. It is psychedelic and totally, bewitchingly ethereal, but there is a human, beating heart, at the center of its maelstrom.

The Ghost Ease have three albums available, on BandCamp. I totally dig her shit.

BandCamp
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*edit: i originally got the band name wrong, confusing The Ghosties, also from Portland, with The Ghost Ease. Necessary information has been amended, my feelings and observations on the music remain the same.

Concert Review: Barry Brusseau, Jin, Leah B, J and LIly, others; Goat's Head Manor; 12.10.11

2011-12-12T17:07:00.000-08:00

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

This was my second official house show, living at Goat's Head Manor, a house venue nestled in lovely south east Portland, Or. We only have one residential neighbor, and noise complaints are scarce, so we're able to get pretty primal.
This time, we were trying to steer in a new direction, bringing in quieter, listening music, as well as pandering to the party crowds, that usually come to our parties. The preparations were the most elaborate of any show, so far: we moved all the furniture in the living room, and made a sweet floor-sit space, hung up lovely fabric and lights, courtesy of GuildWorks (thanks Mar!) We worked really hard, tried to set up something special, to allow space for some exquisite music to take place.

My friend Lily and i kicked off the festivities, a short but very sweet and very rewarding set that people seemed to like. She used to live here, and for months we would sit on the front porch, drink endless cups of coffee, learn songs, talk about everything under the Milky Way. This set was a culmination of that phase, with her playing some nylon string guitar, and i played atmospheric gazey electric over top. We played mostly covers, with one original: we played songs by Mazzy Star, Sneaker Pimps, Sia, and The Delgados. I thought we sounded tremendous, especially considering the raw nature of the material and performance, being more spontaneous and less rehearsed. Its some of the best music i've been involved in, to date, and i'm totally stoked to finally be getting into thick, rich textural music, that i've been secretly nursing in my marrow for years.

My good friend Leah Bodenhamer played next, successfully bridging the cosmic and the earthly, as only she can. One woman, one voice, one guitar, this was raw, intimate, and very real. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and she totally rose to the occasion, surpassing nerves, sound problems, and atmospheric disturbances to conjure something sublime. A bunch of her classmates from the School of Forest Medicine were in attendance, and Leah left the stage, to sit amongst the audience, and lead everbody in some plant songs, frequently relinquishing the lead role, to become a voice amongst many. There was clapping, homemade rattles and shakers, a bit of stomping. The atmosphere began to shimmy and shake, the air became electric, shaded with the holy spirit, and i had that blessed sense of fulfilling my person, to help facilitate these musickal magickal moments to go off. Rock 'n roll church, indeed!

Next, and best for me, was the impeccable Barry Brusseau, featured previously here at J's Heaven. Getting him to do his thing at our house was what made me think of doing an intimate acoustic show in the first place. As usual, his detail and finesse were in evidence, with a liquid light show playing against the dripping windows. The room looked lovely, and a bunch of people showed up to see his set, seated comfortable on pillows and cushions all over the floor. The sound could have been a little better, as i couldn't hear his vocals that well, but even muddied up i was impressed by how polished and pristine his songs are, singing through different mics at different times, to have different effects. His classical guitar (so many classical guitars, in one house at one time!) was running through a classy Marshall acoustic amplifier, his tone was dry and delectable, hardly amplified at all. It is his presentation is what always strikes me about this guy, tone mood texture nuance clarity control. I'd also like to give a shout to his drummer, who hits all the right notes at all the right times. He can mute a crash cymbal like a classical pianist! For all the trials and tribulations, it was worth it to see Barry Brusseau in my living room, watching from a couch where i used to sleep. Labor of love, indeed.

The house was getting pretty packed, at this point, and i began to recede to the margins, watching in awestruck fascination as the party vibes from the dj's in the basement began to take over while Jin, a solo act, played every instrument under the sun, looping himself tastefully as he played guitar fiddle trumpet and other things, a one man gypsy troupe. It was getting hard for me to pay attention, but i liked what i heard, and will listen further.

At this point, the faceless party masses pretty much took over, and the whole house was elbow to elbow. Pretty awesome techno took place in the basement, courtesy of my roommate Jonah Lee, with my new friend Ky taking a spin behind the decks for a while as well. There was a 9 piece bluegrass that played in the basement, but i didn't see any of them, too many damn people.

We have this problem, here at Goat's Head, when we throw a party, and try and do something awesome, it ends up overrun by people we don't know. It degenerates into pure drunken debauch. During the course of the evening, we lost a whole bunch of holy holies, including my tarot cards and medicine pouch, as well as a beautiful glass piece. Someone stole a jade buddha, from the upstairs bathroom. Someone broke a mirror. If anyone has any of these items, i would HIGHLY ADVISE you give them. You can even leave them on the front porch, no questions asked. YOU DO NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE FUCKING WITH.

You cannot steal magick, it must be earned.

For many many years, i toiled away in solitude, crying out with all my heart for a scene to be involved with, to meet other musicians, to go to awesome shows, to throw awesome shows of my own. I would read with yearning stories from New York, from Chicago, from places that seemed so inaccessible. Miracle of miracles, and i fell into this sweet spot in Portland, and there's so much good shit going on AT ALL TIMES! So many people who give their whole lives, their whole hearts, just to make some good art, something of worth, that speaks to the finer things, aspires to higher truths. People are going to extraordinary lengths, and often times JUST GIVING IT AWAY, or for dirt cheap (like Barry Brusseau's record for 10 bucks.) I mean, we made 7 bucks at this show. We are not capitalists.

And then you go into someone's home and fuck it all up, and steal their precious things. What the fuck is wrong with you?!? Its time to wake the fuck up. Like, now. Any society that operates outside the norm must be responsible for itself. We must be accountable for our own actions, if we are to survive. I have total sympathy, i've done a bunch of fucked up shit, in my own life, and i am no saint now, by any imagining. If you don't feel good about doing something, don't do it. If you are mindless, and not paying attention, wake up! If these venues shut down, there is no place for awesome music to happen, and we will be left with strip mall limbo. Trust me, i come from strip mall limbo, you DO NOT want that to happen.

But, all in all, i met a bunch of awesome people, and saw a bunch of awesome music, and participated in some sweet jams, later on! For me, those cards are just cardboard, and i will get more. For the person that would take such a thing, take a look at yr life. This is a wake up call.

Cotton

2011-12-09T23:35:00.001-08:00

Cotton are a twee-some threesome group of livingroom misanthropes from Portland, Or. They are currently J. Han, Abe Wallis, and Cait Olds. This eponymous record is their third.

You've probably heard music like Cotton before. You may have even heard people who were better at it. The question is: Why should i listen to Cotton?

There are a number of answers to this question. First off, if you are already partial to confessional lo-fi folk pop, this is right up yr alley, and will make yr weekend.

Next, perhaps you are partial to obscure, unknown acts, possibly from friends and neighbors. DIY or die, and all that; if that be the case, than Cotton will also make yr weekend, and probably the week following.

Lastly, if you are already fond of the sound of twangy, biting acoustic guitars; twangy, biting sarcastic lyrics; bleepy synths and arid drum machines; if you have EVER listened to Young Marble Giants, if reading Elvis Costello lyric sheets is yr idea of a nice evening, than this will make yr 'Best of 2011' list.

As to why i give a shit about this band; i discovered them at a house show where i encountered the remarkable Barry Brussea, discussed earlier. I missed their set, unfortunately, but J. Han was kind enough to slip me a classy looking white paper sleeve, containing 10 songs. I was already leaning towards writing about bands i've seen, people i meet; there's so many fucking bands in Portland, i could fill 5 blogs with that alone. I gave their music a fair shake, but i am under no sort of obligation to like everything that passes through my fingers, and to be fair, this is not really music i would listen to every day. But, for the sake of journalistic integrity, and as i have been putting this post together, i have found many jewels under the creamy bed clothes of this humble, homespun record. There are interesting lyrics, unexpected twists and turns, such as 'lately you've been coming around/now my cock's hard as a fist.' on 'Mental Halitosis'. Gotta be quick here, kids, gotta pay attention. This music is sharp... it jabs. It really does remind me of the scathing moments of Elvis Costello's early material, mainly in its burning sarcasm. But just little things, like the tasty origami-logo on the cover, or the dusty little reverb on the organ on 'Pop - Ciclz'. These are the things which perk up my ears, then the intelligent and revealing lyrics rope me in, and i'm done, fallen under the spell of sublime pop music, yet again.

And lastly, the album opener, 'The Ghost' is elegiac perfection; simply arpegiatted guitar chords and ringing baritone vocals, as bells (literally) and organs caress their ways in and out. Two thumbs up, and well worth the price of admission, alone.

This is talented music by real people. Not re-inventing the wheel, but using the spokes to great effect. Hope it ripped properly, i suck at the whole tagging thing.

Cotton
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Some Love for the Streets

2011-12-07T20:19:00.000-08:00

Its amazing how often this track gets me through my days, gets me off my ass, out into the gray streets and gray skies of Portland, Or. The original is sweet, Slugabed's gnarly atari remix is also sweet. This track can be found on the Ninja Tune XX box set, and big ups to the always excellent Electronic Explorations podcast, for turning a brother on.
Thanks for the memories, pal.

Concert Review: Monopoly Child Star Searchers, Tenses, Fake Hospital, White Gourds; Ella St. Social Club, Portland, OR

2011-12-06T14:21:00.000-08:00

Egads, this place was hard to find! Turns out there's a SW 20th Place as well as a Street, and its one block south of Burnside, for some reason. This mission turned from, 'i'm gonna put on my boots and go to the show,' to 'i'm gonna go wander around in the shadowy nether-regions of Portland, racking my brain, mentally calculating how many amplifiers i can run with my sundry delay pedals.' En route, i listened to Skullflower, Jim O' Rourke, Future Islands, and The Beastie Boys, as i trekked through the damp chill of the Nov. evening. I was in prime condition for a noise show.
Ella St. Social Club is an old mausoleum; the walls flat burgundy, classy antiquated light fixtures cast cream dimness across the ceiling. The neon wurlitzer was playing 'Where is my Mind,' by the Pixies, before segueing into Cab Calloway, and i realized that i had found my new home in Portland!
Arriving early, the only people milling about were the performers for the evening. Eavesdropping, i listened to people about to depart for Los Angeles or Australia; watching people loading in gongs and record players. I felt at home in this world, in that moment; thanked my lucky stars for being an underground music junkie. Four awesome bands for five bucks. The guy at the door felt bad for taking my last five dollars on earth, and i glowingly told him i would give my last five bucks for awesome music, every time.
Tenses (featuring members of Smegma) played first, manipulating tabletop guitar and turntable to manifest soupy birdcalls and crackling hymns from thin air. People say that Ella St. is haunted, that the black drapery behind the stage conceals an elevator used for transporting the bodies for viewings. I like to think the spirits were given voice this evening; spectral vocals over the PA, from long ago and far away.
There was a sense of respectability during this set, more art house than sweaty basement show, as Smegma have been peddling their free noise associations since 1971. Finesse and nuance were in full effect, the two improvisors paying close attention, playing off of one another, against the backdrop of random images projected onto a screen. In this kind of music, its all about the subtleties, like the guitarist occasionally putting down his ax to play a bit of muted trumpet or windchimes, to seperate the gold from the endless leaden onslaught of mediocre harsh noise. There is nothing like age and experience, and i vowed to take a couple of notes from my elders.
I returned from a hurried meal at the Fred Meyer's across the street (another badass venue near a Fred Meyer's! Is this a trend in Oregon...) to bells and the sultry sounds of alto saxophone, creeping across the night as i smoked cigarettes i found in the ashtray. Returning inside, i found a lone woman in a cloak, performing against a backdrop of Atu IX, The Hermit, as she solicited a series of tones and squeaks from a saxophone, wind chimes, bowed gong, before climaxing into a bloodcurdling banshee wail, and looping the sound of ceremonial swords, sharpening. A+ for presentation and mood, however her loops were a little choppy and in this saturated world of antisocial looper artists, you have to be REALLY fucking good at what you do, to pull it off. Trust me, i am a novice sampler myself, i can't pull it off yet, either. This young lady is potent, and i will be watching expectantly to see what comes next.
I knew i was in for a treat when the third band pulled out a Dream Machine! Fake Hospital, also from Portland pulled off a set of middle-eastern trance panic pandemonium; clarinet, bamboo flutes, delay pedals and pulsating loops woven masterfully and magickally to coalesce in an event horizon of moment, slo-motion movement, reality running backwards, like flickering celluloid, stained technicolor with a psychedelic light show. Brian Jones would have been utterly stoked, as these two fine fellows brought a hint of vines and the rustle of bird-calls to the damp chilly evening. I could practically feel the Jaguar's breath, on the back of my neck.
Last, but not least, Spencer Clark's Monopoly Child Star Searchers. Spencer's infamous in the glorious glo-fi underworld, hypnagogic hierophant of Skater's fame, i was definitely not gonna miss this, but truly and utterly did not know what to expect. I've listened to MCSS quite a bit (see here for previous analysis) and had been bewitched by his plasticine bedroom devotional newage. He ended up playing a set of Atari gamelans, swooning keyboards pads and taiko drum samples, cresting like waves while you sip some cliche tropical drink. Except that drink would be laced with ayahuasca, because escapist easy-listening xxxotica this is not. Its cheap and funky and inspired, a stoned teenager's astral journey over antiquated National Geographics. In a way, this music is even more potent and beautiful than that which it is emulating, stodgy dusty field recordings from distant lands, because it makes no attempt at being authentic. This is music of the imagination, and the imagination is a powerful thing.
* * *

As i faded away into the city streets, high on hope and possibilities, i reached the conclusion that this was one of the favorite performances i've seen so far. Just the perfect combination of ambiance, inspired music, obscurity, and the random nature of how i ended up there in the first place. The people were all super friendly and accessible, most artists and musicians in their own right, eager to exchange ideas and contact information. It was like a cool breeze after dealing with the infernal heat of spiky metalheads, and i melted into the shadows, to collect bottles and cans.

Ella St. Social Club is the fucking shit, a total gem, and they have music almost every night of the week, often times for free. Their jukebox fucking rules, and i'm told their drinks are reasonably priced, although that has no relevance in my world. If you live in Portland, you should go there all the time. You'll probably see me there!

Monopoly Child Star Searchers
Tenses
Fake Hospital
White Gourd

Concert Review: Antikythera, Hungers, Sloths, Aerial Ruins @ Antikythera House & Megaton House, Portland, Or

2011-12-04T14:20:00.001-08:00

Six awesome bands, split between two awesome houses, smack dab in the middle of bleak, strip-mall sprawl, way the fuck out there in Northeast Portland. I was totally stoked to be seeing some noisemetalpunk, after a summer of forests and faery lights.
I killed some time in the monolithic Fred Meyer's across the way, bringing some nice french bread and bananas as my suggested donation; a novel concept for metalheads, who usually subsist on hops barley and adrenaline. I arrived in time for the first act, in the basement of the Antikythera, a solo acoustic act called Aerial Ruins, the solo project of one Erik Moggridge. The basement was steeped in infernal ambience, dripping red light, deer skulls suspended from the ceiling. Moggridge cast a dark circle, initiating the evening; a lone voice, suspended in cough syrup, creaking like old wood; a single guitar, anchoring it to this world. Like a haunted barn, or a cermony in the middle of a pine forest. Ethereal, yet rustic, these are the sounds i am obsessed with; that defy easy categorization and comfortable labels. It demands attention, to belch forth its treasures. It makes people uncomfortable. Hipsters out for a good time, or looking for a quick fuck on a Sat. night, are not necessarily wanting to be swallowed up in an amniotic cocoon of steel and string and teeth and venom; but for the devotees, his music will transport you. The 45 minutes of his set almost uncannily echoed what was writhing in my soul, and allowed me to be present for the rest of the evening, with all my mental confusion and exhaustion i was experiencing. He was kind enough to slide me a copy of his album, for review, so expect to hear more of this fellow, here at jsheaven.
Next up were Hungers, who summoned a gelatinous wall of headbang, like a hurricane of sparks and light, with a fragrance of wet fur; gently slamming you to yr knees, perhaps in gratitude, perhaps in preparation for execution. I was so keyed up from having to actually SPEAK to HUMANS, prying words like splinters of tinsel from eyeballs, and it was hard to get lost in their sound. I liked their mood and their tone, and i think they're from around here, so i'll have to check them out some more, and give them my undivided attention.

Sliding over to the Megaton basement to catch Sloths, who brought the much needed death twitch spazz release, tight and intricate as a trap door spider's machinations.

Here's a recap:
2 headbutts;
1 elbow to larynx;
3/4 waltz;
Insect Warfare Backpatch;
Pretty girl in white dress, slamming into my ribcage;
pogo;
fall, get up;
sweat;

My vision was greying out, and my chest felt tight, but i felt entirely free from fear. My body could be damaged, but you can never touch ME. I was entirely free. The whole night, i was watching my personality squirm like a tequila worm on a hot-plate, dealing with insecurity and jealousy and anxiety and poor nutrition, but i was the eye of the hurricane, always observing. I heard someone say, 'i'll always get my ass kicked for metal,' and that pretty well sums it up. This music is not about being comfortable. Its about pushing yrself and being strong. This night was the real shit, the total underground. Wild and unhinged. Sloths pulled me out of my 'objective journalist' headspace, and cast me down into the pit, reminded me of my quintessence.

Back to the first house, arrived early and listened to Growing over the house PA, pleasantly silent and calm now. Waiting for Antikythera to play, watching them set up. Watching people being uncomfortable in the silence. Jesus Lizard coming on the stereo giving me a sense of what i was about to get into.

Antikythera are more than the sum of their influences, however. I can definitely tell the presence of Swans Jesu Godflesh Melvins Nadja in their collective record collections, but theirs was a distinctive aesthetic; their own voice. The presence of analog synth kicking out the low end, along with multiple signal paths from the guitar, going into a mountain of Orange amps the size of Giza, all held down to earth by leaden drums, there to beat down whatever hope may spring eternal.

The sound was fucking tremendous. I felt eternally grateful to be a devotee of the underground, even if i was wading through a river of psychic vomit for much of the evening. It was like walking in on a Bardo Pond gig, or Acid Mother's Temple, but paid for with bananas and you can get to know the bands a bit, afterwards. This is my life, and i will gladly give every ounce of sweat and blood for these sounds, these bands.

For a decade, i have been battling with mind-splitting passion for albums and concerts battling with jealousy bordering on hatred, wanting so badly to be making music of my own. I feel the personality striving to coalesce around a particularly image or idea or persona, hoping to alleviate this malaise of insecurity, caught in a catch 22 rat's nest of mediocre art, mediocre writing, and i am left, bashing my head bloody against the fucking wall. This constant devotion to shamanic house show sat. nights, has brought me eye to eye with unavoidable truths about myself, and i have no choice but to see, and to move forward.

All 4 bands i saw were top-notch, talented and hungry. The real shit. They're still unknown, and if yr in the Portland area, available to be seen frequently and probably cheaply. Both venues are also sweet, and well worth the venture on the Max, even if it seems a long ways away (its not that bad, they're like 2 blocks of the 99th/Gateway MAX stop. I didn't get to catch Megaton Leviathan or Drunk Dads, whom i'm sure were both stupendous, but i had to dip and catch a train. I'll make sure to catch 'em next time.

Nintechno

2011-11-26T14:09:00.000-08:00

Finally got to attend my first Portland rave. Been a hot damn minute since i went out and danced to some bangin' techno. I've been to some introspective, gallery parties, as well as raves in the forest, but there is something primal in my heart that responds to hot and heavy warehouse parties. Its like its in my genetic, molecularly bonded from my adolescence. I love to watch a packed room sway and sweat.
I volunteered with Dancesafe, which was also a first. It was interesting to see a party from the other side of the table, to be there as a venerable elder, of sorts. Got a lot of love and appreciation. That was the main, discernable difference from my younger days of Jungle Warfare. Everybody very friendly, very open. Young people in neon and fur and body paint, meeting their friends. Sociable. People in Chicago would dress in black and go into their K Hole. I found that openness, that community very good for the music, for the scene, and i am very excited and grateful to hook into this community, as well as working further with DanceSafe. I think its a cool thing that they're doing. Information is power, and raves save people's souls. Free yr body. Free yr mind.
Musically, i found it interesting, watching the different permutations of dubstep, electro, and techno. Again, much brighter, happier, funner than what i'm used to, what i've seen in other parts of the country. There was a techno room and a dubstep room. The bleedthrough was a little disorienting, and at times it was like listening to 4 tracks at once. Between that, and people constantly flowing back and forth, it was a little hard to get into the zone. But hey, people in Portland are on the move, checkin' shit out! It was all for the good, all for the fun, and i walked out at 4 in the morning, glowing like 3 mile island. Walked home through industrial wasteland, past bag manufactures and people sleeping on the sidewalk. Walked by the Rose Quarter, walked by the Willamette River, and felt at home.
Thank you portland. Thank you gbe productions. Keep up the good work! I will be back.

Concert Review: Tune-Yards @ Wonder Ballroom; Portland, OR. 11.21.11

2011-11-25T10:45:00.000-08:00

In all my years as a makeshift journalist, this was the first time i ever actually got into a show for free. I had been e-mailing with Arrington de Dionysio, who was opening for TuNe-YaRds and Pat Jordache, at the Wonder Ballroom. Ended up getting on the guest list, at the last moment, under the false moniker J Andrews.

Didn't make it in time to see Malikat Dan Singa, which i really regret, but my buddy and i were holed up in the belly of Goat's Head Manor, summoning EVP noise collage; sometimes, you can't stop the flow. Better late than never, i got to see Arrington before the show, apologize for my tardiness, thank him for the admission, bullshit about Indonesia and trance music. He told me enjoyed the article i'd written, and that i was a talented writer. Between the guest spot, the noise music, the compliment, and the hilarity with my friend on the way over, i was sittin' on top of the world!

TuNe-YaRdS managed to pack the Wonder Ballroom; which is a large, antiquated ballroom with swank lighting and decor, nice wooden floors. Sounds excellent. Classy. Pretty good for a rainy Portland Mon. evening. I was somewhat familiar with their work, with their reputation, but i had no idea they were such a big deal, had such a large following. They sold out the show, and totally rocked the joint.

Pat Jordache was the first band that i saw. They had two drummers, and stage names. They reminded me of when i used to see Death Cab for Cutie, back in the day, playing small clubs. Both young indie bands, hungry, focused, ready to bring it to the next level. These guys are going places!

TuNe-YaRdS brought the Kenyan by way of Merriweather Post Pavilion sun worship. Front-woman Merrill Garbus began the ritual with an accapella chant, recalling everything from Billie Holiday to Bjork to Beth Gibbons, before segueing into a chorale of disembodies vocal loops. She is one of the smoothest, most talented live loopers i've seen thus far, singing and playing drums, looping and accompanying herself, with a tight rock band behind her, and a pair of Ethiopiques saxophonists behind her, providing tasty, crunchy horn stabs in the cracks, even harmonizing with each other! The whole band was incredibly tight, well rehearsed; it was one of those magickal nights, with a band on the verge of global conquest, but still playing to the devotees. The cramped quarters, the hot hot heat, the sweat, the uplifting trance music... all congealed to create a shimmery technicolor invocation, and had me calling out to my ancestors in gratitude. I belong to the coolest church in the galaxy.

Over burritos, i had an interesting conversation with my friend, who was not quite as ecstatic as i was, although he appreciated aspects of the performance. I was drunk on possibilities; he was looking for connection. At this phase of technology and culture, so much is possible, and the humans are getting more adept and virtuosic with the technology; a mechanical ballet. Its saliva inducing, what is possible, and it is so thrilling to watch people explore, master, genuflect. It shall be interesting, the alchemical marriage of plastic shimmer meeting the intimacy of a string quartet, or an electroacoustic improv set. Bombast vs. subtlety? Alien vs. human? As we gain mastery over the tools at our disposal, super-human feats of seeming magick are becoming possible. It shall be interesting, to see where we go from here.

TuNe-YaRdS, Pat Jordache, and Malikat dan Singa will be playing some shows in France, in January. Anyone from France? Check it out!

Public Service Announcement

2011-11-24T12:56:00.000-08:00

Got to invoke a long-standing ritual of mine; A Thanksgiving Prayer by William S. Burroughs, first thing upon waking, Thanksgiving Morning; after a night of making truly epic noise with my roommate jake. First of all, this ritual works best when i actually live somewhere, so as to better access the audio. Secondly, i must have my digital media archive somewhere near me, so as to better access the audio. Sends my mind scrambling to Thanksgivings past, and the inevitable gratitude which follows.

First off, this is the most exciting time of my life, thus far. Shit's coming together, and getting real, real fast. Its all in the service of artmagickculture, and a general optimism and concern for the planet and the living organisms in it (and on other's, for that manner). Living here, at Goat's Head Manor, is giving me the necessary launching pad to blast off into alien climes. While i may not be headed off to a cozy candlelit turkey dinner, with family and friends, i have loads of food in the fridge, coffee to make, cigarettes to smoke, and i'm hunkered down here in the bunker: writing, making records. The tools of production are at my disposal.

I inevitably turn to the year's prior, and while i am pretty cozy up here in my new house, there is a fondness for years living in the van, squatting a warehouse, celebrating holidays by not eating. I appreciate the opportunities available, and i'm not sure i would have that perspective, without the years of privation. So, here's a shoutout to my BFF and soul-sister Angela, i couldn't have made it this far without her. I have become grateful for the years of soul-searing and brow-beating; she would not let me get complacent. She would not allow me to bullshit myself, to stick my head in the sand. She kept tolerating me, and stuffing kindling down my shirt, like a Joan of Arc effigy; until i was finally ready, and the TRUTH swallowed me whole.

Lastly, my internet is somewhat spotty these days, so i will be writing when i can; it will be sporadic and kind of all over the place. I've been mining the depths of my library, recently, and realized that i have a ton of shit that i have collated from the lower rungs of the internet, from over the years. Oddball, eccentric, brilliant, hard to find. I have a lot of stuff, that i spent a lot of time collating. I also have a lot to say, on a wide slew of topics, and due to circumstances, i won't be planning grand conceptual arcs. Its gonna be more like a Jackson Pollock painting! Expect miracles.

Happy thanksgiving, humans. I am grateful for you!

Arrington de Dionyso in Indonesia

2011-11-20T14:05:00.000-08:00

Arrington's such a badass. He's been bringing the tuvan fire jazz funk ritual reverie since 1995, when he started Old Time Relijun, moving to form the ritual troup malikat dan singa, which i always describe to people as, 'mongolian shamanism fronting a no wave band playing african music.' Now, this descriptor may not mean much to some, but to some of us it goes off like a badly grounded neon sign.

I've had the pleasure of interacting a bit with Arrington, over the summer, due to some mutual acquaintances, and found him to be very real, very accessible, very knowledgeable and passionate about his craft. At one point, i saw him do his thing at Helsing Junction Sleepover, and i had a head full of cobwebs and demons, and he strutted and gyrated and carressed like James Brown, singing lyrics in Indonesian in a throat singing style. I was lost in the movement, lost in the sweat, lost in the throng. He calls it body music. I had no cobwebs or shadows left, when he had finished.

Arrington just got back from a tour of Indonesia, where he put together a scratch version of Malikat Dan Singa with local musicians, for a series of intense fire jazz gamelan panic attacks. Brian Jones would have been drooling, losing his shit! There are moments, when the musicians are hollering, clapping their hands; they are clearly feeling the spirit. He mostly plays his bass clarinet, over a backing gamelan, all cyclical hypnotic gongs and cymbals, tuned brass, building in freneticism, really getting in there, rising in pitch. It sounds like Albert Ayler jamming in a village square, against a curtain of chirping crickets.

Here's what he has to say about the project:

Hello friend! I am back from a month and a half in Java, Bali and
Lombok. I performed about ten concerts with a new version of Malaikat
dan Singa featuring local musicians, which was an amazing experience,
but perhaps even more incredible I was able to IMPROVISE with some
TRADITIONAL musicians. I've posted two "albums" to my bandcamp site
along with some notes.
"Lombok Island Improvisations" features Gombloh playing the preret, a
double reed instrument used in Sasak/Hindu temple ceremonies, and also
my first experience recording with a Sasak Village Gamelan.
"Trance Music of East Java" features some very raw and sweaty
recordings from two different concerts and a studio session with
"Jaran Kepang" groups, also known as "Kuda Lumping". This is an
incredibly rich and diverse tradition of TRANCE MUSIC involving wild
masks, dancers, and sometimes eye-popping spectacles such as the
eating of glass or live chickens, etc (I didn't actually see any of
that this time but there are plenty of youtube videos showing such
feats).
It goes without saying I feel incredibly honored and fortunate to
have been able to perform with these groups. These recordings
represent an attempt at true cross cultural collaboration, this is not
"objective" ethnomusicology, nor is it exactly "free" improvisation in
the usual sense of the term. Let's say it's the beginnings of what I
intend to be an ongoing engagement and experimentation with
re-imagining HUMAN music in the 21st Century.

All musicians were PAID for performances and recordings, thanks to my
kickstarter fund. I'm pretty damn close to broke upon my return, SO-
PLEASE- Listen, download, share, enjoy the music as much as you like,
consider making a donation of any size to help me continue doing work
like this through the bandcamp site, I'd love to hear any feedback or
questions!

thank you! Arrington de Dionyso
TWO NEW ALBUMS
http://arrington.bandcamp.com/album/lombok-island-improvisations
http://arrington.bandcamp.com/album/trance-music-of-east-java

Listening to these recordings reminds me of going to school in Chicago, first discovering Balinese music, reading about gamelan; trancing out in a corner of the library. I was becoming interested in how all these noisy/experimental electronic sounds i had been listening to were being influenced by traditional music; ethnographical recordings - deep dark mysterious corners of the world, murky field recordings that exploded my mind with visions; modern classical; electro-acoustic; improv free-jazz. I began to connect with so many different strains of humanity: African, Arabic, Chinese, Irish, Moroccan. I gained empathy. I wanted to know what it was like behind their eyesockets. I was falling, further and faster, down the rabbit-hole. I was (and remain) a wide-eyed musical zealot, drooling with appreciation and admiration. An initiate. A devotee.

All these years later, i remain in gratitude and humility, that so many amazing sounds pass through my ear canals, that my imagination is so richly fed.

Arrington has generously shared these records with everybody, for as much or as little as you care to share. This music will take you higher!

If you happen to be in the greater Portland vicinity, tomorrow, 11.21, Malikat dan Singa is opening for tune-yards at the Wonder Ballroom. Come see for yrself.

http://www.myspace.com/arringtondedionyso
http://www.krecs.com
http://www.panacherock.com
http://www.youtube.com/arringtondedionyso

Esozone Portland 2011

2011-11-19T02:50:00.000-08:00

EsoZone Portland is an annual event for mutants, occultniks and other weirdos. This year it’s taking the form of a hybrid conference/unconference.

What's an unconference, you might ask? Good question, i didn't know, either. The FAQ says it like this, 'An event with an agenda set on the fly by the participants. That isn’t to say there is no agenda and no schedule, only that it is created by the people who show up, when they show up, instead of by the conference organizers months in advance.
Sessions are proposed and scheduled by participants in real time, in real space. Sessions enable participants to find people interested in talking about or doing the things they want at Esozone.'

I became alerted to this eventuality it spacetime from a random and auspicious e-mail, lurking in my inbox this morning, from the editor of The Hermetic Library, to whom i had recently submitted an audio collage for inclusion on an occult themed compilation (more on that, real soon!). Totally stoked and immensely curious, i have never experienced a gathering of magickians, chaosites, psychonites, subgenii, discordians, or conceptual arts, even though i've been wandering around this lunatic fringe for over half my life now. It was even happening not far from where i'm staying, and it was free. Not a chance in Tartarus i would miss this!

I arrived a bit late for the lectures, but just in time for the music. Ran into my contact from The Hermetic Library, had an invigorating conversation about digital media, book fetishism, local resources, cohorts and allies, and such. Sucked a quick butt, eavesdropped on junkies and prostitues (no, i am not making this shit up!), arrived inside to the reverberations of the Duke of Uke.

To be honest, when i see a ukulele performance announced, i groan a little internally. I'm sure they're lovely people, and they have poetic, quaint souls, but its so fucking twee, so utterly saccharine, they make my teeth fall out (ha ha). Imagine my delight to encounter an older gentleman with a shaved head and black clothes, sweetly singing college rock staples of yore. The Duke of Uke shredded a set of classics by the likes of The Velvet Underground, Bowie, Iggy Pop, Alanis Morrissette, Amy Winehouse, Jane's Addiction, sung in a clear, unfaltering voice. He even remained unshaken when missing a chord change or flubbing a lyric. He had such a beatific presence, radiated such holy joy at singing and playing these songs that we knew and loved on a misty Portland Fri. night. This was folk music for kids with dyed hair and pierced ears. I felt like i was in the centre of the universe, and that everything is possible.

Reverend doktor dj princess starbright crystal initiatrix closed out the evening with a seamless ableton mash up set, smoothly moving from Fantomas to frogs chirping, lounge exotica to sludge metal to disembodied vocals to sneaky flute music. He dropped the beat, and dropped me to my feet. I disengaged from the stodgy gallery atmosphere, and my social anxiety, and quietly did the robot in the back of the room. A lot of the time, i'm not a fan of mash-ups, or Patton-esque ADD genre fuck, but this was super smooth, innovative, and thought-provoking. Truly using pre-recorded sound as a pallette and an orchestra, iniatrix has mad skills. I'm totally going to like him on Facebook.

I got over my nerve, and scheduled an unconference for tomorrow (today) at 2:15 pm, in the library, where we will be discussing Music and Magick. If any of you are out there, are in the hood, come on by and drop yr four cents (seriously, i need 4 cents!). Curious to meet other fringe-dwellers interested in exploring consciousness, the powers available from the ritualistic use of sound, and interested in joining forces and minds and hearts and souls. The cosmic egg has split wide open, for me, since finding community of souls, tuned to a sympathetic harmonic, and that i no longer feel an island, operating in a sea of fog.

Esozone, and the Pacific Northwest in general, has got me slavering bloodthirsty excited thrilled inspired! I'll be lucky to get 90 minutes of sleep, this week! Hope to see you there.

Review: Tom Waits - Bad As Me

2011-11-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

"All Aboard!" hollers the familiar rusty voice, on the caboose of "Chicago", the album opener of Bad As Me, and we are invited to climb on Mr. Waits first collection of original material since 2004's Real Gone. Over the span of 45 minutes and 13 songs, we are given a guided holiday through the unique landscape of Waitsian geography. Working with familiar collaborators such as Marc Ribot, Keith Richards, and his wife Kathleen Brennan, Bad as Me works more as a retrospective than a pioneering expedition, shoring up of a unique musical vision like the banks Lake Ponchartrain.

On "Hell Broke Luce," Tom Waits asks "How many ways can you polish up a turd," and that seems to be a question that he has been investigating for over 30 years. Bad As Me doesn't really break any new ground, like Bone Machine, Swordfishtrombones, or Mule Variations, and at times it seems like he has settled, gotten comfortable, sedantary; a self-caricature, a cliche. But even at the very least, a Tom Waits record is full of intricacies and nuances, gilded to perfection with sublime production, engineering, arrangement. This is not pop music, it is not disposable. It is not meant to be gleaned upon initial contact and quickly forgotten. Every Tom Waits record i have ever heard has become like an old friend, one that you've gotten to know over the span of years, decades even. Complex, deep, like a character in a Raymond Carver short story. As you let the 13 songs of Bad As Me wash over you like the waves of a crystaline pond, its merits unfolds, and it is shown that while Tom is not breaking new ground every 15 seconds, like some rampaging infinite shopping mall, he is a master of his craft. It raises the interesting question of innovation vs. mastery, in this internet day and age, it seems like something has to be totally unique to be worthwhile, even if the innovations are trite, superficial, and even a bad idea. As long as its new... Its like the worst aspects of capitalism. The cult of the new.

Tom Waits has become an old friend for me. I first became aware of his music when Phish would play Mule Variations during set breaks when i was touring with the summer of 1998. His music was the definition of ODDBALL, willfully eccentric, beatnik heir. I appreciated it, but i did not necessarily like it, nor did i listen to it much, in my daily life. It was not until i found myself living in New Orleans, where he has spent much time, when i saw his wise loser mystic beatnik bohemian messiah saints and junkie angels in complex 4D, and his music was blaring from tinny speakers out of every other doorway, when it became REAL. It became comfortable, familiar. I was now living in his universe. I had a jockey full of bourbon and confetti in my hair. I had slipped a rung further down the ladder of madness, and found many heart-stopping moments of poignant inspiration. This music is not for children, it has been around the block a few hundred times. It is like the stray cat in yr neighborhood, that is missing an eye and has kitty herpes, but is sweet as can be, regal and beautiful.

After several dozen considerations, i have decided that Tom Waits has not become a caricature of himself. He is like a grizzled sailor on the Crow's Nest, facing backwards, taking stock of the flat expanse of dark water that he has traversed and travailed. He is shoring up, taking stock, catching his breath, and hopefully blowing minds for another 3 decades.

For those in the greater Portland area, tonight at the LaurelThirst Public House is TOM WAITS for NO ONE, the third annual. A $10 suggested donation, and all proceeds go to The Jeremy Wilson Foundation Musicians Healthcare Fund. A few of my friends will be playing, and it should pretty much be hella rad.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/314578821901112/

Ectoplasm Girls - TxN

2011-11-16T01:32:00.001-08:00

Ectoplasm Girls are Tanya & Nadine Byrne, two Swedish sisters who attempt to wake the dead with cassette recorders and sewer beats. Apparently used sound collage and experimental music to help cope with the death of their mother, you can practically SMELL the gelatinous green world that materializes in front of yr eyes while listening.

I've been listening to this relentlessly, all fall, after a favorable and intriguing review in The Wire a couple of months ago. Happened to fall into my playlist as my interest in all things esoteric was re-emerging, and this album has been the soundtrack to many late night somnambulations and cross-eyed seances, beneath the sickly green light of a party bulb. Sort of like a party, sort of like catharsis... these two sisters are really rocking something unique and special here. An intriguing aesthetic, similar to things which have come before, but distinctive, hypnotic, mesmerizing.

As the autumn has descended, getting chillier, darker, wetter, i have been reminded of my darkwave roots, all smoky black candle lit wonder, dark romance alive in my heart, as i wander the streets of this new city, dusty beats all up in my ears, pavement beneath combat boots, candescent phosphorescent street lights cast multiple shadows, as i catch glimpses from the corner of my eyes. Stumbled into a whole new world, a whole new sound, a whole new crop on new and innovative artists that i am entirely, ravenously enthusiastic about! I've been wholly immersed in making my own music, of late, not to mention dealing with some personal issues, so i have not had as much of a chance to post up here, but i've got a bunch of shit that i want to write about, so wait for it!

And apparently, if you purchase TxN from Ideal Recordings, it comes with a free poster, so as always, support good music!

TxN
Info/Order

While You Were Sleeping

2011-10-10T11:51:00.001-07:00

Here's another somnambulent mix, for the late night confessionals.

Poetics aside, i'm really pleased with how these discs came out, some really lovely slo burners. A nice introduction to my early holy holies, Dead Can Dance and Cranes, mixed with more recent introductions to the canon like Michael Hurley and Vic Chesnutt. This is music that inspires and drives me, keeps me company while the rest of the world is sleeping. Peel back the curtain, and take a peek into my cellar...

A friend of mine was asleep on the couch, same locale as tender sweet enlightenment, a month before. I was thinking back on all that had gone before, love lost, love regained, love vanishing like some magician's cruel sense of humor. Kicking out the late night vibes, dreamy, mellow, lovely. My friend slept peacefully, breathing regularly. Together but alone.

And here's the real shit, the writing on the wall: what is love, anyway? Is it marriage and procreation? Is it physical? Is it practical? Does it make sense? I fell in love with a girl, doing my best to be bold and follow my instincts. It was timeless and revelatory. It cracked me open like Vesuvius. But the fact of the matter is that i never see this person, she is intensely tied up, living up to her destiny, and i have done my best to be respectful, low pressure, giving space where space is needed.

Then there's this other woman, my awesome soul sister. We drink coffee and smoke cigarettes in the morning, walk around town and make bizarre sound collages and talk about everything under the sun and the moon. Things in motion, unfurling like the banner of some dead empire; springing back to life, flowing with the dusty blood of poets, unfolding into mystery. Radiating in the inky blackness, glowing like a pierced heart, sparking like damaged telephone lines, dead voices reciting.

Undefinable, unknowable. Majestic. Mystical. Regal. Lovely. Something being born...

3 weeks ago, i was dead sure. I had LOVE pegged down, botanically classified. Put under glass. Now, i don't know my ass from a hole in the ground. Doing my best to do the next right thing, the thing in front of me. Right now, it is being honest and vulnerable, and spilling the soundtrack from a beautiful evening, so you can have a soulful night of yr own. From my brain, to yr living room.

Track Listing

Disc 1

1. Slowdive - Souvlaki Space Station

2. Cranes - Watersong

3. Dead Can Dance - The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove

4. Julee Cruise - Into the Night

5. Gregory Alan Isakov - The Stable Song

6. Chet Baker - My Funny Valentine

7. Cat Power - Say

8. Michael Hurley - Troubled Waters

9. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Feeling of Gaze

10. The American Analog Set - The Green Green Grass

11. Kronos Quartet - Psalom (Arvo Part)

12. Cocteau Twins - Oil of Angels

13. The New Year - Sinking Ship

14. Vic Chesnutt - ?

Disc 2

1. Hildur Gudnadottir - Overcast

2. Dreamer's Cloth - The Coconut Pearl B2

3. Flying Saucer Attack - My Dreaming Hill

4. Aerial M - Dazed and Awake

5. Colleen - Floating in the Clearest Night

6. Eluvium - New Animals from the Air

7. Dakota Suite - One Day Without Harming You

8. Thomas Brinkmann - LopLop

9. Hauschka - Weeks of Rain

10. Hauschka - Nadelwald

11. Fursaxa - Firefly Refrain

Somniative

2011-10-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

somniative is a maker of things whose raw materials are culled from places both near and far where the discarded and unused lie, awaiting the sacred return to the realm of human caring and love in celebration of life, beauty, freedom, and joy.

it is thru the merger of these materials and the magic they endure that trifling pieces of finery are created.

may these bring you joy.

Christopher Reitmaier makes beautiful things; installations, music, trifling pieces of finery. His is a unique alchemy; transforming rusty metal from the mojave desert into drool-worthy art, transforming discarded flowers into enormous devotional mandalas. His is an art of seeing, the fine art of living, living a good life, eyes wide open, heart wide open, to all the detritus around you at every moment. He reminds us all that we are constantly surrounded by gorgeous shit.

Flots-OM Jets-OM is a colloborative show between Christopher Reitmaier and Alison Foshee, @ Scrap. Both artists are experts at re-purposing unremarkable urban bric-a-brac into staggering, oftentimes mind-blowing visions. Both artists have a similar aesthetic, a similar sensitivity. The show looks great in Scrap's gallery space. It is eye-opening and inspiring, to see all the different uses these two come up with, for trash you wouldn't think to look twice at.

I met Christopher at Pickathon this summer. We instantly connected as human beings. This whole week, as i've been helping him put up this show, making music, hanging out; i've been reminded of being new to this town, of meeting all my new friends, and i've been so grateful to be a part of something so inspiring.

Flots - Om Jets - Om opens tonight, and will be up 'til Nov. Much of the art will be for sale, for a song.

Somniative
Scrap
come

Review: Barry Brusseau - A Night Goes Through (Gorbie International 2011)

2011-10-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

Now the heart of this record is the music, but the soul of it is in the senses of sight and touch. It's really hard to achieve the same aesthetic in any other medium. I wanted to make the kind of record you put on your turntable, and then sit down and experience the package. It's that chance to fully express your imagination (both yours and mine). - Barry Brusseau

Portland Singer-Songwriter Barry Brusseau definitely accomplished his goal on his first solo release, A Night Goes Through, released earlier this year on Gorbie International. My friend and i went on a mission to Mississippi records to pick this up, my first day in Portland, and it was permanently situated on the record player, my first week in Portland, scoring many exciting and confusing mornings and evenings, lodged in my head as i explored the streets of the City of Roses.

The packaging of A Night Goes Through is the first thing that catches yr attention, and quite rightly. The record comes with 13 art postcards, one for each song, with a pictorial representation on the front, and the lyrics on the back; each printed on beautiful matte paper. Ghostly images of autumnal trees and childhood photographs creates a mood of longing and nostalgia, a sense of mystery, that perks up the curiosity like raspberries on the tongue, guiding one into the nooks and crannies, the secret heart of the album.

This attention to detail is captured in the music as well, flourishes and nuances, like the call-and-response cello of The Promise, trumpet fanfares on Autumn, or the sweet lead guitar on Thrift Store Buzz
. The talented and sensitive arrangements help Barry Brusseau stand apart from the legions of tepid, uninspired cafe-dwellers, with nothing of import to say. A Night Goes Through is a record that you can spend some time with, gazing at its beautiful artwork, getting to know the lyrics, and vicariously, getting to know Barry Brusseau.

In this day and age of ultimate media glut, it is difficult to seperate the wheat from the chaff, difficult to keep up with the deluge of inspired art that is pouring out every second of every day. Care, quality, and craftmanship are becoming increasingly essential, the bar has been raised, and some are rising to the challenge. I admire this devotion to the music, elevating the world and the people in it by creating something amazing. Barry Brusseau has created something amazing here, saving 50 bucks a week for over 2 years to put this sucker out. He's selling the record for 10 bucks a piece, which seems almost certifiable to me. If yr around town, i'd recommend picking it up at Mississippi Records or Millenium Music, or some other fine purveyor of underground tunage. If yr not from around these parts, pick it up online, tell yr friends, and stop by and visit some of the amazing talent that's going on in the rainy part of the country.

A Night Goes Through is an inspired first release, with potential of even greater things to come. Don't sleep on this one, he only made 300.

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Earth @ What The Heck Fest?

2011-09-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

I headed out to Anacortes, Wa. from the Rainbow Gathering this summer. I knew i was gonna be in Washington, where i had been longing to be for several years, so i thought to see what musicians were up to. I have been obsessed with Mt. Eerie for the past year and a half, so i thought i'd see what Phil and Friends were up to. Turns out that they were throwing the last What the Heck Fest? in misty, maritime Anacortes, Wa. It was only about 300 miles or so from Gifford Pinchot National Forest, so i figured i'd start there, and figure it out.

It was while volunteering at What the Heck Fest? that i got the notion to look into what other music festivals were happening, and put me on the path that has changed my life forever. All navigated by the North Stars of Earth, Mt. Eerie, Arington de Dionyso, and some other names i was familiar with.

Homeless in Olympia, Wa. Taking the busses through sheets of rain. Broke and hungry and begging in Anacortes. Walking around, reading tarot cards at street fairs, hanging out at public libraries... throughout all of this, i blasted Dylan Carlson's signature monolithic rock into my eardrums, listening to album after album, as i walked through the landscape that emanated the tunes. Logging roads, towering pine trees, blankets of ferns. Slugs and birds and berries. Fucking wild. Like un-civilized. Big, bigger than you and i.

Earth makes music to get lost in, to explore. Primordial world-builders, Dylan Carlson has been conjuring imaginary landscapes from dust, for people to get lost in and find themselves, for over 20 years. Evolving from mono-chromatic doom drone that sparked a genre and hordes of lackluster imitators, to spiritual spaghetti western soundtracks that could have scored the movie Dead Man, if Neil Young had been busy, at the 26 year mark, Earth sound tighter and more focused than ever before. Having come through the shadows of addiction and depression, the title of Earth's new album Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light is entirely appropriate. Earth make holy music, that is not afraid of the darkness.

The current line-up consists of long-time drummer Adrienne Davis, with Karl Blau on bass and Lori Goldston on cello, most infamous for her performance with Nirvana on the Mtv Unplugged performance. I can't honestly remember if Karl played bass on their set or not. I seem to remember the whole band being women, other than Dylan. This femininity is a refreshing contrast to the nominally bro-tastic world of drone/doom, allowed for a sensitivity and nuance and inspiration amongst all the players. Earth headlined the second, and my favorite, day of Heck Fest, playing at the Port Warehouse, which was a massive wooden building on the waterfront, with huge cargo doors open to the elements, spilling massive misty night-time air into the room, spilling cavernous guitars out to serenade the seals. 50 or so people huddled and shivered and listened to this legendary group, appreciatively silent and mesmerized. They played late at night, for a long long time. We were all sleepy and tranced out, and they played brilliantly! Like seeing yr favorite band in a friend's living room: intimate, nuanced, spellbinding. The communal aspect of the festival attendees mingled with the elemental air spilling off of Fidalgo Bay, was the perfect setting to see Earth live in, for the first time.

During the course of my homelessness, my drifting, my life has slowed down to a glacial pace. Things take time, when you don't have any money. When you have no place to go, anyplace is as good as anyplace else. As i was exploring the rusted-out decay of Washington for the first time, i repeatedly got lost in the many different incarnations of Dylan Carlson's vision, over the years. It is in this stillness, that Earth speaks, where they're coming from. This music is all about details. Listen to it loud, or forget about it. Because Earth 2 sounds shitty and ignorable through laptop speakers, but it will devour yr mind if you turn it up and let it dissolve you. This music is the soundtrack to my dissolution in the forest; getting lost amidst the stumps and the devil's club and the salmon berries. It is the soundtrack of being a stranger. Of watching, and being moved by the world around you; from the people in it to the clouds in the stratosphere to the lichen on the rocks.

It is this slowness, this gentility, that i was seeking when i hit the road, and what i hope to maintain, as i re-acclimate to society. It has been my goal to pay attention to life, to drink in the details and be moved. I love music so dearly, and was so fanatically driven to reproduce the sounds of my soul, that i had every motive to change and improve as a human, to invite Quality in, and live a Quality life. Living in my conceptions of reality, living in my head, rushing from one placebo to the next, quite assured that permanent mystical enlightenment lie over the next hill, under next dale. Living out doors, living without money, living without expectations, my life slowed down to near hallucinogenic attention, consumed by the passing moments.

Earth reminds us to slow down and pay attention. They advise us to get lost. They command us to open our eyes and ears, to never turn away; to stare unblinking into the void.

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light

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Elliott Brood - Mountain Meadows (Six Shooter Records, 2008)

2011-09-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

Elliott Brood describe themselves as 'death country'. A 3 piece from Toronto, they breathe new life and dimensions into the standard guitar/banjo/drums line-up. These guys storm like heat lightning. They rage like violent water. They bluster and blow like whitecapped winds. Like wolves from the great white north, they emerge from the forests dressed in black, head to toe in screaming guitars.

I saw these guys open for Bill Callahan at Pickathon this year, and i was expecting another old-timey, footstompin', hoedown band. Yawn yawn, very nice, i will buy yr homemade cork coasters. Elliott Brood, however, were not so pleasant, or ignorable. Dripping with attitude, headman Mark Sasso swaggers and sways, possibly a knife in his boot; these guys are dangerous! Casey LaForet, on guitar, drools out the fuzziest, heaviest slab of acoustic that you've ever heard. Like Dinosaur Jr. or the Melvins, in the middle of the forest.

Its not all hell country out here, either. They write catchy, memorable songs, that you'd like to learn, to pass around the next campfire. Sweet, heartfelt acoustic ballads merge with murderous ballads that stomp like Black Sabbath. These guys have it all, for just about any music fan under the sky.

Mountain Meadows, their sophomore album, was released in 2008 on Six Shooter Records, and it was nominated for a Juno award. Continuing with the aesthetic of recording in various locations, that mythical 'room sound', the 13 songs work as a unified whole, but has an organic homemade quality, that will leave you feeling like you know these three young men, like you had been sitting on a bale of hale in the middle of the forest together. They've got a new record out, Days into Years, that just dropped. Check it out!

This is another post in the series showcasing highlights of this summer's music festivals. I hope to spotlight tremendous bands that deserve exposure, and to do a more detailed analysis of some of my personal stories, and cultural trends, in the near-ish future.

Heading out for Decibel Festival tomorrow or Thurs. Last one for a while, unless its not. Will do as much writing as i can, in the interim.

Elliott Brood - Mountain Meadows

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Mario Gonzalez - SueisFine (Already Dead Tapes)

2011-09-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

Been meaning to write this one up for a little while now, over-complicating, worrying too much, waiting for something to be more perfect and accomplishing NOTHING, like the idealistic procrastinator that i am.

Sueisfine was sent to me as one of three of the newest batch of Already Dead Tapes, out of Kalamazoo, Mi. and discussed previously in an article on Forget the Times. To be honest, the other two records, a new one by Forget the Times, as well as new releases by Lasso and The Philly Crawlers, but the other records were in .aiff format, and i'm living on borrowed time and borrowed internet, so i ended up getting to spend more time with this Mario Gonzalez record, instead.

A lot of times, i'll think, 'o, here's another tape release. that's nice.' or expect to hear another blast of white noise and bowed cymbals, maybe some warbly pop music. There's a standard of low production, and somewhat low expectations, in cassette culture. Its like, yr a cool dude, i'm gonna buy yr tape, whatever it is.

So i was quite stoked to throw this one on, and have my head pleasantly massaged by fuzzy glitchcore, breakbeats for the late night walk. Ominous, kinda fucked up, and downright sexy, like on [snuff record]. The production, the talent, and the creativity are impressively high, and totally different from the other acts i've heard on Already Dead so far. Made me wonder what was going on in Kalamazoo. I was listening to this the night that they had their record release party, and i was out stalking the streets of Portland, Or. Thinking how rad it is that all these folks are getting together, getting their own things going on, sharing with one another. That there is a sense of an archipelago forming, like minded individuals. That there is a common thread. To watch genres and boundaries dissolve, and the huge flourishing of creativity that is resulting, is astonishing.

Sueisfine by Mario Gonzalez is a damn fine record. You should purchase it, in whatever format you most prefer. Its a dark electro late night urban jungle prowl. It is dangerous. It is sexy. It is fucked up. It is brilliant. It is inspiring. If you like things like Third Eye Foundation, or vintage Aphex Twin, you'll dig this. Seroma (xxx) gets my vote as my official Single of the Month (you didn't even know i had those, did you?), its spooked, grimy paranoia the soundtrack to feeling homeless in a new city, not knowing many people, where i was, or where i was going.
Soundtrack to dumpster diving.
'if i'm goin' down/its with my boots on.'

Expect more detailed reviews of the other records, as i get a chance.
I really love these folks and what they're doing, and highly encourage you to support them, and any and every rad ass scene going on somewhere.

Sueisfine
support
Already Dead

For the heartsick

2011-09-19T03:37:00.000-07:00

Here's one for the inevitable shadow of love: the faded romance, the regret, the longing. The sleepless nights. Here's one for moving on, here's one for lingering; for remembering, for dreaming, for talking to someone who's not there. When you fall in love with someone, it breaks you open to the world, its like living without skin. It can be almost hallucinogenic in its intensity.

This is an 11-track compilation i put together, featuring the various stages and nuances of seperation. Celebratory, lamenting, hopeful, bitter. I covered as wide as a swath, to give as many lonely souls out there as possible something to latch onto.

The inevitable northwest rainy season is beginning, and the rosy hue of summer is beginning to seem like a beautiful dream. At times, i wonder if the things i have seen and felt and learned were merely delusions, ecstatic states brought on by too much sun and dancing and vegetables. I don't think so. Ultimately, this mix is for someone who you still miss, there is a thread of hope that cannot be drowned in 6 months of rain, which is why i closed out with The Angels of Light, Untitled Love Song, from How i loved you. This mix really starts to cook on the second half; the mixture of Arvo Part's fragile Für Alina with the rustic despair of The Handsome Family's Passenger Pigeons is about the closest i can get to describing how i am feeling, sitting here typing at 4 am, in a new state, tremendously missing somebody but appreciating where i am at. My heart hurts, but i am also enjoying myself. These songs sound perfect in my earholes, i am appreciating the quiet, appreciating the rain, making mixes for lonely people in the night. Yr not alone.

For the heartsick

Track Listing

1. Donald Woods & The Vel-Airs - Death of an Angel

2. The Vitones - The Storm (So Blue)

3. Lee Fields and the Expressions - My World is Empty Without You

4. Tom Waits - Who are you

5. David Sylvian - The Heart is Sure

6. Arvo Part - Fur Alina

7. Mirah & Ginger Takahashi - Pure

8. Joy Division - Atmosphere

9. David Bowie - Letter to Hermione

10. The Handsome Family - Passenger Pigeons

11. The Angels of Light - Untitled Love Song

Dock Boggs - Country Blues Complete Early Recordings (1927 - 1939)

2011-09-18T19:56:00.000-07:00

Not much charge left on this computer.

Went to my first bluegrass festival, this weekend, at Pendarvis Farm in Southeast Portland, where i began my recent adventures, of the last month and a half. Hangin with the pickers, around campfires, picnic tables, and barns was totally inspiring and educational to me, passing around home-made food, instruments, stories, and traditional songs, late into the night, early into the morning. Playing with excellent musicians, and having music be a normal function of everyday life totally opened the floodgates for me, allowing me to understand music and its performance in a way i never have, that has totally lit the fire under my kettle.

Returning to the site where my adventures began allowed me to take stock of a lot of things that have happened, and i have been psyching myself up and preparing to write about all the festivals and travels and bands and revelations that have occurred this summer. In the meantime, i give you some bleak bluegrass music. I'm a total beginner when it comes to bluegrass, a total infant; basically, i like the grateful dead and jerry garcia's solo stuff, a little bill monroe, a little ralph stanley sometimes. This album is the early recordings of Dock Boggs, who was a fantastic banjo player, totally gritty and real. He's best known for his inclusion on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. I love a good murder ballad...

Complete Early Recordings

wiki

Concert Review, as Magickal Ritual

2011-09-11T15:55:00.001-07:00

I was running late but i was in the flow. Feeling unhurried, soaking up the sights and sounds of Portland, Or. on a summer's night. I lived around here, years ago, and i had to leave, inadvertently. It was one of my life's big regrets, as i was digging the Northwest and wanted to check it out more thoroughly, but i still had some more learning to do. Now the universe had come full circle and deposited me back in Portland, and i rode the MAX in quiet reverie to see Neurosis play with Grails.

Music Fest Northwest has been going on all week, and earlier in the day i had been sitting outside of Pioneer Square, reading tarot cards and listening to Eluvium and Typhoon, a great Portland band, color the creamy hazy late afternoon. I met up with a new friend, walked around and had a fabulous dinner of baguettes and spinach salad, courtesy of Food Stamps, and watched as a hallucinogenic hunter's moon rose in the aquamarine sky. It was definitely a night for ritual, ritual was happening all over.

I could hear Explosions in the Sky playing at Pioneer Square as i calmly rushed to the Roseland Theater. I was late, and missed Akimbo and YOB, about which i was momentarily bummed, even contemplated turning around. I was down to my last 20 bucks on earth, just enough to get in the show. There was one ticket left, at the Will Call, and it was obvious that i was in the right place at the right time.

The Sight Below - It All Falls Apart

2011-09-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

This is the first, in a series of posts, where i will talk about some of the inspiring music and performances i've come across, working music festivals in the northwest this summer.

The Sight Below is the techno-ambient-shoegaze manifestation of Seattle-based musickian Rafael Anton Dirisarri. As The Sight Below, he incorporates elements of minimal house, a la Wolfgang Voigt, with warm ambient washes, strongly reminiscent of Christian Fennesz or Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's Love is a Stream that i wrote about recently. Where Fennesz and Ledesma give the sensation of being sun-dazed, heat-stroke, and loveworn, Irisarri has more of a late night quality; quiet, pensive, heartful. The steady propulsive beats prevent this from being an amniotic, dark-ambient affair. More like driving to the beach, in the middle of the night, to stare at the moon on the water. The music on It All Falls Apart has a similar enormity to Final and Deaf Center, that i have already posted about, but this is like the human reaction to such grandeur. Maybe its his home, in the Northwest, or maybe its just where i'm at, recently, but i get a real sense of people native to this place, of having immense respect for the elements, for the world around them. There is a sense of kneeling down to things larger than one's self, of humility and intense appreciation.

Seeing The Sight Below inaugurate the Ghostly International label showcase was probably the highlight of the weekend for me. I was working for the Decibel Festival, handing out flyers for the after-hours party with Claude Von Stroke, DJ Z Trip, and Four Tet, as a way to earn my ticket to Decibel, later this month. It was a lot of work, 2 8 hour days, and i was not really attending the festival as a festival-goer. I was there to work, to help this music happen, with whatever skills i have at my disposal. During this summer, i've done everything from building stages to tossing bales of hay to washing dishes, all for the sake of helping this music go off, helping other people have the transformative experiences i've had, finally finding out what it feels like to have meaningful work, to apply my energies to things that i believe in, similar to what i do here at this blogspot. Its all for the love, its all for the respect, its all about giving back.

As such, i was going to be working during the whole Ghostly International showcase, and i had resigned myself to not seeing any music, but it worked out that i got to just hang out and dance to the whole Sight Below set. I brought out the new Sufi vibes, spinning and whirling and moving like a tai chi wizard, throwing handfuls of glitter to the ether, to all the others attending. Blessingsblessingsblessings, to all those attending, blessingsblessingsblessings, on all those reading. Irisarri's live set was not really what i was expecting, didn't really know what to expect, to be honest with you, but was thinking it'd be more of a guitar drone set, and it turned out to be a minimal throw-down; taut, pillowy beats overlaid with oceanic washes of ambience, all against the enormous backdrop of swirling technicolor visuals, that he makes himself. The showcase took place in the Sky Church, at the Experience Music Project, a stunning venue, with killer sound. The room was not too packed, and those that cared to could dance to their hearts content. There were also plenty of families passing through, checking shit out, toddlers with industrial ear protection, riding on their parents shoulders, and i couldn't help but wonder what those memories would be like, for them, and how these children, growing up in this culture, are going to turn out. Irisarri started out the set with a bowed guitar, going into a laptop, to be processed and munged, and smoothly segued into a clean, crisp house set. It was like getting to see Gas or Fennesz, or perhaps both, at 3 o' clock in the afternoon on a Saturday. This dude is definitely up-and-coming, he's only got two full lengths out, so far, both on Ghostly International, as far as i'm aware, and a handful of singles and remixes, to his credit. Relatively new, relatively obscure, he possesses an immense talent, that is still accessible enough to be seen at intimate venues, for reasonable prices.

I am excited to listen to Rafael Anton Irisarri's work more, to bring it down into my life, to let it work its soothing magick. He also does sweet work under his own name, as well, which is more organic, less processed, seemingly more hands-on. Gonna be checking that shit out, as well. Going to all these festivals, this summer, was like a taste test, where i got a sense of the music that i'd be listening to, for this coming year, and i hope to use this space to spread the word, to spread some recollections, the pros and cons of these various events, and events to come. Been thinking about taking this 'journalism' thing up a notch, and i'm finding a happy middle ground between straight journalism and diatribe, learning how to write, learning how to listen to music. Learning how to live as a human on this planet, and these soundtracks have been my guides and mentors all along the way.

Lots more to come...

It All Falls Apart
Homepage
Band Camp

Getting back. Getting organized. Getting situated.

2011-09-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

Just returning from this weekend's urban jungle adventure in Seattle, for the Bumbershoot Festival. Just arrived in Portland, and am working out the logistics of getting situated out here, finding a place to live, making a bit of money. Figuring out how to get indoors, before the weather turns. Expect to see posts featuring a shit ton of amazing music, during my summer working with the music festivals: lots of great chunes, more autobiography, more divulging, reminiscing, wondering. Keep yr peepers peeled...
In the meantime, check this tune. You've probably heard it. You need to hear it again. I first heard this played late-nite at the helsing junction sleepover, and we rocked it in the Medicine for the People van, leaving Portland, heading north on the I-5 to Seattle.

Electric Band Marzipan

2011-09-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

i was recently contacted by electric band marzipan, with an email entitled 'want to help a chill indie/trip hop group out?', which of course i did. I have been rocking a lot of old tricky, portishead, massive attack recently, so i was sort of expecting soulful female vocals, vibes maybe, maybe some dubstep flourishes or something. This turned out to not be the case. I would not describe this music as 'trip hop' (sorry guys), but they did mention Dilla/Stones Throw Records as influences, and i think this music wears the 'instrumental hip hop' hoodie pretty comfortably.

What this sounds like is a stroll through the collective unconscious of anyone born 1970 and beyond. It is warm and fuzzy, and utterly surreal. Rather than being a smooth, sexy hip hop mix, instead this is like a straight up BEAT TAPE, from someone with a prime record collection and possible psychic disturbances. Disco, funk, african music, old television shows, it all pops and hisses wonderfully. The tracks tend to be a minute to a minute and a half, and the mixes, the cuts, the segues, are weird and wonderful. Unusual combinations, that create new musical pathways in yr brain, but they are always MUSICAL, LISTENABLE, in a new and interesting and creative way that i find really inspiring. What Electric Band Marzipan know, along with many crate diggers and beat junkies out there, is that pretty much ANYTHING off of vinyl sounds fucking dope, so if you are sampling from the black wax, you can use just about anything. Its refreshing, really, to hear something aside from the clean, pristine minutae of an ableton live mix, where the details and possibilities are endless, can drive you to nervous exhaustion. This shit is all about FLOW, heart & soul; intuition.

The last night i spent in Olympia, before moving on to Portland and the next stage of my adventurous life, i was rocking Clocks on Fire on my headset, pacing the streets like a caged jaguar, exhausted and frustrated and utterly defeated. I had been trying to get to Portland all day, waiting for a ride from Craigslist to re-appear, but i'm pretty sure he was eaten by Venusians. I had the lions share of my belongings stolen that night, had been having frustrating interactions and miscommunications all day long. I was fucking over Olympia, and just trying to get down to see my lady. Slept on a porch of a house where my friends used to live, and felt like a homebum, felt friendless and cold and hungry and stressed-out. I settled onto the couch, on the front porch, in the nimbus glare of a cast iron street lamp, settling into the fuzzy beats and heady bass, letting this music transport me to my childhood, to another time, another place; a funkier place, a grittier place, a friendlier place. All of a sudden, a black cat from the neighborhood decided he wanted to be my friend, jumped up in my lap and started purring like a furry outboard motor. In that moment, all my troubles disappeared; i was happy to be sitting outside, happy to be sitting in the light of that streetlight. Happy i don't have a house, that i was in washington, that i was gonna get to see my lady, eventually. This music transported me, changed my way of looking at things.

These guys are legit. Talented, creative, unusual, yr probably not gonna hear these tracks on XM radio anytime soon, but if yr here, you know better than that anyway, don't you. These guys clearly have their heart in the right place, they're in it for the love, and for the art. They are making the world a stranger and more wonderful place.

The Clocks on Fire ep is the most recent release, but i feel like all three releases so far are part of a seamless whole. You can get them all off of Bandcamp, paying whatever you like. Give these guys lots of money, they deserve it!

Electric Band Marzipan

Late Nite Romance

2011-08-30T00:15:00.001-07:00

So this is a fairly remarkable occasion to commemorate, my first mix CD on this blog. I did a halloween mix, last Oct., but that was mainly a sound-fx dj mix, whereas this is a good ol' fashioned mix tape.
I went over to my buddy Mark's house last night, to solicit advice on making mixes, at which he is most adept. He's got a dj setup and a killer vinyl selection, with tons of old soul, country, classic rock, reggae, and much weirdness (Mark is a fairly weird dude. He's from the same town as Capt. Beefheart.) We picked out a stack of records, put a blank tape in the boom box, i let him pick the first track, and two hours later, i had not one, but TWO mixtapes; glorious, romantic, weird, inspired, otherworldly messiness, made with 100% heart and soul. I was practically sweating with exhilaration, when it was all over. It inspired me to complete a digital mix i've been fucking around with for the past week, with smooth electronic jams, to rock yr bodies, exalt yr minds, soothe yr spirits, all yr tensions, all yr worries. In the night, you don't have to worry about the daytime, and what the daytime people do. You are free to be lovers, and poets and dreamers, and wild animals! and all those other things we hold so holy around here at Js Heaven. I wanted to make this mix because i have so much amazing music around, electronically, particularly electronic music, badass beats from near and far, and NOBODY can be expected to have all that DJ vinyl lying around their crib. But in the spirit of the mixes i made yesterday, these are kind of crude, far from perfect, but pretty damn good! Just imagine that they are all seamlessly mixed in Ableton Live, perfectly beat matched by Jeff Mills or Carl Craig or somebody brilliant. It will be good for yr imaginative faculties.
This mix has a little funk, a little house, a little folk, a whole lotta fuckin bass! Whereas we celebrate sweetness and light in these parts, we ARE NOT afraid to get down and fucking dirty, downright nasty at times. These are night-time jams, and night time is for lovers. Along the way, striving to dig out the perfect romantic techno tracks, i came across a new style, which is known as 'Lovestep', which is like the smoother, more soulful cousin of dubstep. Its still got the low-end, but its not being made for hooligans on ketamine, wielding machetes. It embraces dubstep's potential as BODY MUSIC, which is what i always loved about it, was willing to dodge drunken frat boys for. I am totally grateful to see dubstep, and underground dance music in general, moving forward, evolving. I have felt for the last ten years or so, that electronic music was the vanguard for brilliant, creative people, crossing multiple cultures and styles. It brings people together, and that's what this mix is all about: bringing people together. Love... its not just for couples anymore. Its something bigger than that, all encroaching, all encompassing. And this mix, its not only love, but ROMANCE, that most taboo of topics, previously only allowed in teenagers and effeminate men. Well, i'm here to say, i'm bringin romance back. It represents all the finest things in life. It represents a way of looking at the world, and when we are lucky, and when we are paying attention, the right person can open our eyes to this otherworld.
I've been accused of being a romantic, of being a daydreamer. Unrealistic. Impractical. Shallow, even. I'll wear that shit on my sleeve. I am a romantic, a poet and a dreamer and a lover. And i made you all a mix tape.

Late Night Romance

Track Listing
1. Overcome - Tricky; Maxinquaye
2. Teardrop - Jose Gonzalez; Teardrop EP
3. Dark & Long - Underworld; Dubnobasswithmyheadman
4. Wilhelm's Fucking Best - James Drake (james blake/drake mashup)
5. Slowly - Amon Tobin; Supermodified
6. Cockroach - Starkey; luvstep 2 mix
7. Freestylers ft. belle humble cracks (flux pavilion remix) - luvstep 2 mix
8. I Took 2 - Daedelus; Love To Make Music To
9. Something Beautiful - Trombone Shorty; Backatown
10. Thinking About You (s&s drunklove mix) - sticks&stones; webrip
11. Love is the Drug (Paris, Tx) - Burger/Ink; Las Vegas
12. Warm Windows - Casino vs. Japan; Go Hawaii
13. Adrift - Tycho (Shigeto's Adrift A Dream Remix)
14. My Angel Rocks Back and Forth - Four Tet; Live in Copenhagen

I like to imagine people driving around listening to this. It would make me happy if you did this. It would make me doubly happy if you told me about it. There's no cover art or anything on this release, as i'm not snappy enough yet to know how to do such things. Maybe next time... in the meantime, enjoy!

Carissa's Wierd - Ugly But Honest

2011-08-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

I was randomly reminded of the existence of this band, trolling through my record collection, remembered that i used to like to listen to them a lot. I've been in the mood for pretty folk music, lately, its what strikes my ears the best, so i thought i'd give 'em a shot.
Wandered off to sleep in the bushes, rocking this in my headphones, staring up at a tree, a few stars winking at me, and i was really struck by my life, truly in the moment, alive to my senses, and i realized a vital piece of my musical obsession that had been evading me: the heart. The mysterious, elusive quality that moves and stirs my soul, that cannot be described or quantified, and i really felt all that Carissa's Wierd were saying beneath their words, around the words, in the melodies, in the harmonies. I realized something vital, rising from my depths, lying out there in the ivy, that has driven me mad for years and years, which is to say, i'm never gonna get it right. All these years, all these hours, all these words dribbled, describing mesmerizing music for people i don't know, and i just cannot properly describe the wordless howl contained on all these records. Drifting off to sleep, these songs just killed me, floored me, would've driven me to my knees if i hadn't already been on my back.
This is the flip-side of burgeoning romance, love tainted with experience. Looking back, reminiscing; i've got all these intense feelings flowing through me, these days, and the thing of it is, is that i cannot turn off the love that has come before, cannot numb, coat, or pretend otherwise. I've loved before, i've loved a lot, and i've had my fucking heart broken into a thousand pieces. And i love these people still, although i don't talk to many of them anymore. Lying on my back, staring at the couple of twinkling stars, i could feel the weight of the years, of the memories, coming flooding back, until i was transported to sunny living rooms, or kissing beneath a street-light, and i wept for those memories, for those poor wounded children, one of whom was me.
These are songs of wisdom & experience & disappointment, from a band that was over almost before they were started, who would go on to bigger better things, like Band of Horses. Its got that faded, introspective quality similar to vintage Low, with glorious male/female harmonies, soaring strings, and badass fucking drumming. I hear the best qualities of '90s indie/post rock, la Slint or the Louisville, KY school, creating interesting, moving, emotional folk-rock. I was glad that i was reminded of this band's existence, as i was researching this album, and saw that they're doing a one-off reunion show at the end of Sept. in Seattle, at Neumo's, and it is rumored that they'll play this album in its entirety! Someone in a position of authority, put me on the guest list! I'm intent on going, one way or the other.
This album, this band, is truly an under-appreciated gem. Its brilliant, and soulful, and tremendously sad. Check it out.

Ugly But Honest

" think its better to keep in your head
all the things you tried to have
maybe we already had the good times
maybe we left them behind
so forget the way it made you feel
dont forget it made you want to die
and all these scars
just wont ever seem to go away
do you ever think about the way
all these things they used to be
i think i lost it all out there
i think you know exactly what i mean

so i'll never go back
do you wish they remember still
it can happen again
maybe you should save in your head
all the things you tried to hide
did you ever think about her
did she ever make you cry
and all these scars
just wont ever seem to go away
did you ever think about
the way these things they all just used to be
i think you lost it all out there
i think you know exactly what i mean"

- Carissa's Wierd - To Be There Now

Thao and The Get Down Stay Down - We Brave Bee Stings and All

2011-08-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

I first heard Thao & The Get Down Stay Down on the last day of Pickathon, when i was at my most jubilant; hopping and skipping in the sunlight. I had come to grips with darkness, pain, fear, loneliness the day before, while listening to Califone, Jesse Sykes, Future Islands; reading tarot cards in the blazing summer sun for 8 hours, forsaking food, water, and sleep. I felt renewed, cleansed; finally in a proper festival mood, and most of all, in love with MUSIC. Dear sweet music, my constant friend, my loyal travel companion, my north star. Holy of holies, if this was asceticism, it was the most delightful, delectable kind!
Thao's music skips and bounces in the sunlight; it swings and swaggers. It soars, it climbs, it grows and flourishes; music for the summertime. Music for health and well-being, and do please remember that bumps and scrapes and pressure are necessary to make us healthy and strong. It reminds me of a style of music which i can only generically identify as 'old-timey', bringing to mind bands like Beirut, the Be Good Tanyas, Paper Bird from Colorado. Its not strictly confined to denim and ten-gallon honky tonks, however, i can hear modern influences like The Strokes, on the 4/4 thump and clean guitars of 'Bag of Hammers', as well as the swinging nostalgia of M. Ward on 'Big Kid Table', with its rippling guitar arpeggios. Thao did not invent this style of music; she did not even rediscover it, but the genie's in the details, in this case. Textures, nuances, and details make this record stand out from legions of lackluster impostors: soulful horn stabs, rickety percussion, banjo pickin', layers of guitars and vocals. All the little flourishes, combined with strong songwriting, pristine performances, exquisite production, and interesting lyrics, make this a mandatory addition to yr record collection. I won't say yr life is incomplete without this album, just lacking. Yr life will be enriched if you get down with the Get Down Stay Down.
As i sit with these transformative experiences that have been occurring, letting their effects wash over me like a waterfall, i'm excited by the changes that are happening. Rather than spending my days in daze, coccooned in a haze of insane harsh-noise, pummeling my ego into non-existence, i find myself sitting outside on a nice day, listening to sweet soul music, gospel, sufi devotional chants. Rather than letting these visions pass like Dorothy's adventures in Oz, waking up to resume a routine of the same old shit, i'm noticing my personality shift, preferences changing, habits mending. I'm getting healthier, happier; certain things aren't bothering me as much. I'm making new friends. Feeling more creative, more confident, better able to focus on music and writing, and i am able to pass along the rewards to you, dear readers. Keep an eye out, things are just gonna get better and better, from here on out!!!

We Brave Bee Stings and All

Phosphorescent - Aw Come Aw Wry

2011-08-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Matthew Houck gets it right - the warm, bleeding low-down supersaturated intimacy of late-night confessionals, early morning optimism, late afternoon, slanted-sunlight reflection. Euphoric, reflective, somber, he captures such a rich, deft tapestry of emotions, that arise when Love rears its head; hope, fear, pride, jubilation, sadness. Innocence smeared with experience.

I played this record in a friend's basement, when i was getting to know my lady friend. It simmers like a burnt-out campfire, and its melodies and poignant lyrics are nearly as hypnotic as a bed of embers. Warm and fuzzy; tender but passionate. Phosphorescent sings my soul, my heart-song, and while i am tremendously excited for life, at the moment, i am haunted by the shadows of experience, and while i am celebrating the new life of love, i am also mourning those who have come before. Missed chances, lost hopes.

I love how he mixes traditional folk forms with elegiac choral music, sub-textures floating, timeless. It is this sea of complex emotions that provoked me to share this with y'all, like on the organ dirge Dead Heart. This is music for adults, not for children, not for the faint of heart. If you truly give yrself to the ocean, to be lapped up by the waves of the sea of love, you cannot shy from the shadows. You cannot shield yrself, hide from its daggers, you cannot protect yrself from ANYTHING. This is living as a raw nerve, stripped-down, naked. This is the challenge that is presented, and it is synonymous with being an artist. Wide-eyed, stupified, terrified, exalted. This is not a hedonism trip, for me; this is straight-up battle, and nothing will bring up yr demons quite like a new love. I'll stare straight into the face of my Shadow; i will not blink or falter.

Pride is actually my favorite by Phosphorescent, but this is the one i had on my iPod, so i've been stalking the streets of Olympia, reflecting on life and experience, weeping from memories, from a life-time of repressed emotions. I feel that i must say, in the spirit of journalistic integrity, that Aw Come Aw Wry no. 5, is my least favorite track from Phosphorescent, so far; a bit too up-tempo, a bit too jubilant, a bit too reminiscent of Beirut. But the laid-back gorgeousness of the rest of the record is the perfect soundtrack to lie around in the grass, with yr nearest and dearest, even if that is yr very own heart and soul (very good company indeed, and well worth adoration).

So i'm sending you all a sunbeam. I'm lighting a campfire. I'm praying for peace. You all mean the world to me. Blessings on anyone who finds this music, who reads these words. Don't shy away from yr own heart; it is worth it, even in its poignancy. Even in its terror. Even in its glory.

"i am not a heel
but i will turn turn

i am not a seal
but i been learned learned

i am not a lamb
but i will sweet sweet sweet
and curl and sleep
all at your feet"
-Phosphorescent, Not a Heel

Aw Come Aw Wry
Homepage

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Love is a Stream [Type075]

2011-08-23T18:41:00.000-07:00

I've got good news, and bad news, depending on who you are, and what yr disposition is. The good news is manifold, firstly, that i am still alive, down right flourishing here in the Washington wetness, and that i have recently fallen madly, deeply passionately in love, met the girl of my dreams during my wild, windswept journeys, and have been having a gorgeous, romantic, inspiring, passionate life lately. So, oddly enough, this is also the bad news, in that i am glowing and gushing, and unapologetic in doing so. You can expect to see romantic sonatas and soulful ballads popping up here, in the near future. If you are jaded or cynical, you might just turn right around now. Go check out Spreading Neurotoxins or something.

For starters, again picked out almost arbitrarily, is Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's Love is a Stream, released late last year. I was gonna write this up back then, when i first got my mitts on it, but everyone else was doing it, and i was having a mystical epiphany at the time, and losing teeth, and never quite got around to it. I listened to the album Shining Skull Breath damn near daily, during the entire autumn, as i was house sitting for a friend and pondering the nature of the universe, and was deeply impressed by Mr. Ledesma's alchemy: truly subtle yet achingly emotional noise music; human and otherworldly, simultaneously.
The same is true of Love is a Stream, perhaps less subtly, but with more heart and heat and flesh. Many people call this a noise pop record, but i'm not quite sure where they're hearing the pop. This is pretty much a fuzz record, from where i'm sitting; headcleaner; body music. What impresses me about this record, especially re-visiting it with a fresh perspective, is that most purveyors of wall-of-sound tend to be pretty gloomy; monochromatic post-industrialists, reminiscing on half-remembered nods. Cocooned, closed off, cacophonous, even violent at times. I mean, this music is definitely in the heritage of Masonna and Merzbow and Zoviet France, as well as the Shoegazer sect like MBV and Ride. But the Japanoise ilk shuts you down, blinds you, pummels you, more S & M than sunset picnics. And that is what i love about this record, and why i have chosen it as a flagship for this particular series of releases.

Love is a Stream opens you up, fills you with light, fills you with psychedelic romance. It will fill yr head with rainbows. It will fill yr dreams with owls and moths. It is reminiscent of new love, but its not just sex and romance, its love for all things and all people. And that's what i'm finding out here on the road. I'm so full up, so profoundly grateful for all the little things, that it spills over to all those around me, strangers as well as friends. That's how i interpret the title Love is a Stream, it is a motion, a fluid return to yr own essence. I am being dissolved in this stream, the edges of my "personality" are disintegrating, and there is less of a clear sense of where i end and you begin. While i have pursued much high magick and heady philosophy over the years, it has always been somewhat safe, removed, distant. I have kept you at arm's length, preserving my "self" at all costs. This love is killing me, and i am the most willing and grateful sacrificial lamb in the universe! I will offer up my neck to this beauty, any day.

Love is a Stream does a really nice job of simulating this state, this aspect of the human experience, but it can also help produce it, open up yr heart, open up yr mind, especially due its poetic and subjective nature. He uses the strengths and possibilities of noise music in a really innovative and masterful way, that is rare and special, thought-provoking and emotionally stirring. In short, really damn good, and it has been a total pleasure grooving on these technicolor waves all day, as the sun emerged from the blanket of clouds, turning into a really cheerful Washington afternoon. I'm a bit malnourished, at the moment, sort of floaty and in love, and this music just sounds awesome floating on the air here at my temporary office at Media Island. I got to see my lady friend yesterday, really unexpectedly, she's on the road, as am i, but she got an extra day off, and we got to kick it in Olympia, got to introduce her to some of my new friends, and we slept near the forest at Evergreen College, woke up and ran around in the woods, talking to the ferns and the snails. Perhaps you get the idea why i am so deeply smitten.

You can definitely expect to hear more about this, as i am learning new and challenging lessons every second, but also keep yr peepers peeped, as i have been out working a bunch of badass music festivals here in Cascadia, been hearing tons of new and inspiring sounds, meeting shit tons of amazing musicians, so i will update as much as i can, while i am around electricity, before i return to my hermitage in the forest. Bigbigbig ups to fucking Media Island, where i have the opportunity to write and collect my thoughts, organize my music collection, make coffee, etc. Give them all of yr money. I would if i had any. Make sure you save some for Jefre Ledesma, also. All of his releases that i have heard are incredible, and pretty much every thing he releases on his Root Strata label is also badass. Just amazing art, so inspiring. Love it love it love it.

So check back, when you get the chance. I'll try and put up new material as much as i can, while i have the chance. Also, check out my other new blog: http://there-again.blogspot.com/ for more stories from the road.

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Love is a Stream
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Prince Charming - Psychotropical Heatwave

2011-07-24T16:43:00.000-07:00

Remember when you used to like trip-hop? When illbient was a word you saw used in print, when DJ Spooky was new and raw and vital? When Massive Attack and Portishead seemed fresh and exciting, when you would stay awake all night, talking all night to laid-back grooves, secure in the supremacy of yr revolution, in the status of yr heart and soul? Remember when you felt young and sexy and alive and unpredictable? Capable of anything?

This under-appreciated gem from Prince Charming has been my number one, hands down, favorite jam of the last six months. I've returned to its late night, spectral world-beat over and over, an itch that can't be scratched, worried at like a missing tooth, like a buried treasure, a hidden message. Menacing, erotic, imaginative, it will take you places. Heaven and Hell. Nirvana. The jungle. This is proper jungle music, everything that exotica could've been, would've liked to have been. The bass kicks like a cannon backlash, disembodied voices howling like Dante's refugees, like a bathroom seance. Like psychosis. Unsettling, exciting, and entirely out of nowhere. This record came to me as a revelation, out of the blue, never heard of it before. A record of a lost civilization, a true underground document. I cannot begin to express, no matter how hard i try, how vital and real this album is, an underground gem, just waiting to be plucked like forbidden fruit.

As i've been wracked with philosophical revelations, striking me down like the Tower of Babel, as my tiny pathetic childish ego has been smitten, daily, repeatedly, i have returned to this album over and over, slipping on my headphones, roaming the streets like a vengeful spirit, into the early morning hours. Beating my head against the walls of infinity, beating my fists against my head, until i'm dazed and numb, breathing hard, sweating. I've let its basketball beats beat me into submission, sometimes nightly. I learn lessons hard, and i learn them repeatedly. This is the soundtrack of my annihilation, my surrender; until i am nothing more than a ghost with ears.

Haunt me, haunt me, do it again. Come on, let's take a ride. Into the night skies. Where the bats fly. Where the angels cry, where they fear to tread, and yr afraid that yr dead, or worse, that you never lived at all.

Psychotropical Heatwave

Final - Guitar and Bass Improvisations 1

2011-07-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

Listening to this record is like floating in a vat of warm gelatin, with occasional seismic reverberations creating ripples on the surface of yr skin. Now stay there 100 years, until yr skeleton drifts away, and you can taste every star, simultaneously.

This is Justin Broadrick's Final project, actually his first musical incarnation, started in 1983. They began as a consumer electronics-like power noise outfit, but have drifted beyond, to make the chillest and most grandiose dark ambient soundscapes. Here, Broadrick is stripped of the tethers of beat and formula, dreamier even than the already somnolent Jesu. Its like Brian Eno producing Skullflower or Stars of the Lid, and it is astounding that these sounds are coaxed from strings. JKB scores vast, inhuman spaces better than any i know, perhaps tied with Brian Williams, aka Lustmord, but more human and with more heart. Its like the humans wrestling with alien presence in Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, which Final also did a score for.

I pick this album almost arbitrarily, as i've enjoyed listening to it a lot in the past few days, and i'm bouncing back into the writing game. I'm a homeless traveller now, with many interesting experiences and revelations, and lots and lots of good music to succor and aid me. I've also been working on 2 other blogs, and hope to have all 3 working together, in tandem, and making some unusual and interesting art and revelations. All the better to eat you with.

Final - Guitar and Bass Improvisations 1

Black Sleep of Kali - Our Slow Decay

2011-02-18T23:47:00.001-08:00

Hey. I tried writing some cerebral fucking analysis of this sweet stoner metal band from Denver, Co, and it was giving me a fucking headache. This is not cerebral music, although it is intelligent and thought-provoking. They sing about reality and lions and snakes. The guitars churn and chug in all the right ways. The drumming is top-notch, and takes this band a cut above the legions of tepid imitators. With layers of harmony vocals, searing lead guitar, build-ups, breakdowns, and growling, Our Slow Decay never drags its heels, pushing you onward, compelling you further into the inky black night.

Metal has come a long ways from its tall boys, denim patches, and inverted pentagrams. These guys sound like 4 dudes trying to wake the fuck up, not content to swallow the bullshit pill of mediocrity of white-washed society. We're being sold a lie, and i am surprised that wakefulness and spiritual warfare is not embraced more of the metal cognoscenti. It takes some fucking guts to go against what all yr bosses, yr parents, yr teachers, yr roommates, the newspapers, the advertising are telling you. Some of us are fucking pissed (although in our better moments, we are peaceful about that fact.)

The real reason for this post, is to tell y'all that this band is pretty sweet, and if you happen to live in the greater Boulder/Denver metropolitan area, they're playing a pretty sweet show with some band called Orm and somebody else, at Astroland tomorrow. And if you are unfortunate enough to not be able to attend this event, slam on some headphones, and bang yr head against the walls of infinity.

Our Slow Decay

Don't forget to boogie!

2011-02-17T19:04:00.000-08:00

Not all of us were hip enough to turn onto minimalism via Steve Reich, La Monte Young, or even Dylan Carlson. Some of us came in through the back door; long, inspired nights, moving back the needle, falling into a repetitive cave, collapsing into the three chords that we knew. To some of us, ZZ Top were sages, bringing down riffs like clay tablets, from the top of Mt. Sinai, via West Texas.

This outstanding LP from famed Japanese improviser, which i understand is out of print, isn't afraid to show that he spent as much time with John Lee Hooker as William Hooker, not afraid to come out of the avant-improv ghetto, and make something other than squeaks and squawks with his six string. What we have here, is what Julian Cope would call the 'ur-boogie', the godhead of Texas blues, as channeled through a shamanic trance. Lengthy explorations of mood and tone and texture and energy, rhythmic and riffing, pummeling and sweet and most importantly, BADASS!

Discovering this album has been majorly refreshing for me, having spent the better part of the week with chilly, existential neo-classical albums, staying up all night, staring into the void. This week its been sunny here in Co, time to open the windows, get out the damn house, take the dog for a walk. Do some dusting. Hibernation be damned, its time to frickin move, and the rolling, rollicking transistor tones of Don't Forget to Boogie are just what the doctor ordered.

Unashamed, unabashed rock. Totally essential. This has quickly become a personal favorite.

Don't Forget to Boogie

Review: PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

2011-02-17T01:10:00.000-08:00

On Let England Shake, gives us a guided tour of her homeland; its landscape, its people, its history, conjuring images of rolling fog and sea-captain's graveyards and dusty books and corpse-littered battlefields. As a blushing anglophile, without case or a passport to visit the United Kingdom, being given a guided tour by Polly Jean is a pretty decent substitute.

She doesn't seem much in the mood to speak of herself, however, and those longing for a return to her primal catharsis roots won't find it here. What we find, instead, is an eagle-eye's vision of the British psychogeography, and while it sounds like it could be some bloated, Incredible String Band concept record, Let England Shake has enough rock 'n soul to sustain; at times funky, funny, quirky, rocking, moving, and strange.

PJ has never been one to repeat herself, to rest and grow complacent. In typical fashion, Let England Shake is a progression, but not a radical departure. She returns to lessons learned on previous work, assimilating their strengths, and delivering a confident, cohesive work. You can hear the heartfelt, piano-driven quirkiness of White Chalk on tunes like Hanging in the Wire or the first standout single, The Words That Maketh Murder, with its strummed autoharps and Shirelles beat. You can hear raw, dirty blues weirdness on In The Dark Places and Bitter Branches, that are the closest to vintage PJ that we all know and love, which is to say they fucking rock. We also find tunes like album opener, the eponymous Let England Shake with its afro-miramba bounce and The Glorious Land with throbbing kraut bass, detuned reveille brass and spookshow organ, that seem new and vital, and without precedent.

PJ Harvey is essentially a singer/songwriter, and is faced with the challenge: how does a guitar-centered, lyrically driven musician to remain pertinent in 2011, to create new and interesting songs and sounds? One answer is stunning arrangements. Working with long-time collaborators Mick Harvey and John Parrish (whom she described as her 'musical soulmate'), and mixed by Flood, she leaves enough space in her music to be filled with tasty brass accentuation, autoharps, mirambas, backing vocals, reggae samples, and the best bass and guitar tone this side of the river Thames. The music that results is textured and engaging, revealing new levels and interpretation on each subsequent visitation.

The other answer is amazing lyrics. With vivid descriptions of war torn battlefields and foggy fields, craggy mountains and the scent of thyme on the air, her language is poetic and detailed, practically manifesting imaginary landscapes before yr very eyes. I find her attempt to describe more universal, human affairs, and not to focus simply on small-person i, to be commendalbe, and it yields up some spectacular and unique results.

Much has been made of the reoccurring militaristic imagery found on this record, and have pigeonholed it as a 'protest record'. She has claimed that she is focusing on 'Humans and how they treat each other,' war included. The overall impression i was left with was of a landscape, to get out and wander around in. Yr not gonna see it all, the first time. I didn't totally get it at first, and did not totally love this record the first time i heard it, missing the earthy rage of Dry, but the nuances drew in me, meriting further investigation. I spent some time with the prior albums, leading up to this one, to understand the trajectory, to understand her commitment to growth and honesty. As a musician and creative type, working in this day and age when it seems like everything's been said and done, i am inspired and compelled by her ability to continually create new and challenging work, to find strengths in the old forms.

I'm looking forward to 20 more years with Polly Jean.

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Metamorphosis Girl

2011-02-16T01:02:00.000-08:00

A brief diversion from my usual musical ramblings, as a ralling cry behind Metamorphosis Girl, a superhero created by Aaron McKissen & Danielle Levin. She was created for a contest sponsored by Prismacolor, Todd McFarlane & Stan Lee, and the top contestants become optional for action figures, movies, comics, etc.

This is a chance to support some real, true bonafide independent art and artists, made by two lovely individuals who are trying to live their ideals, and bring something positive in the world. Not to mention the fact that they are two of the earliest and most devout supporters of my band, P38. Quid pro quo.

Metamorphosis Girl has the power of healing and regeneration, flying and radar, not to mention the strength and speed of a paleolithic butterfly. Clearly a formidable superhero. Clearly the top choice. Y'all know what to do.

Take a moment; vote here:

Review: Bright Eyes - The People's Key

2011-02-14T22:41:00.000-08:00

"You try and bring it together, you try not to cause division, you try and make it as a cosmos. Its a cosmos, but it unfolds as a flower."

So says Denny Brewer, credited with shamanic vocals, that are interspersed throughout, The People's Key, the eighth and, supposedly final Bright Eyes record. With lyrics spanning time travel, holograms, inter-connectedness and isolation, seems that this time around, Conor Oberst is more concerned with matters spiritual, than screaming about break-ups and disappointment.
For a certain generation, at a certain time, its like we have watched Conor Oberst grow up, the quirky, precocious kid from Omaha. Many of us have wrapped ourselves in his trebly catharsis on cold, lonely nights, and tracing his trajectory from bedroom confessionals, through roots rock, to The People's Key big screen production, is like tracing the arc of indie rock from the mid 90s to today. With recent records from indie stalwarts like Iron and Wine and Belle and Sebastien, the albums are growing grander, slicker, more produced, and while one hand it seems like we've lost something special, an obscure intimacy, it is also exciting to watch talented artists grow and evolve, better able to realize ambitious projects. In the case of Conor Oberst, along with long-standing members Mike Mogis on guitars as well as production, and Nate Walcott, along with a slew of guest musicians, he's a damn talented song-writer, and uses the broader pallette to his advantage.
The People's Key is sprawling and adventurous, genre-skipping like a smooth stone over still waters. From the grinding blast-beats of 'Jejune Stars' to the power pop of 'Triple Spiral' or 'Shell Games' to the raw folk of 'Beginner's Mind', probably the closest to vintage Bright Eyes that some of us knew and loved, one thing that they have in common is they are damn catchy, tied together with clever lyricisms that is at sometimes inspired, and sometimes awe-inspiring. 'Ladder Song' is the heart-chakra and center-piece of the record, recorded after a friend's suicide, when the album was almost completed, and its piano driven lament is heartbreaking and thought-provoking, and just goes to show that he can bare his soul and speak plainly, when the mood strikes, and that is the mark of an extraordinary talent, in my eyes.
Conor Oberst has the ability to harness the moods of a particular time, of a certain sub-strata of society, and to personalize it. An individual dealing with the world at large, very large, and his eloquence makes him a benefit to all of us who care, and puts him line with other poetic lyricists of a tradition, Dylan Cohen etc. A gifted person, in a place at a time. The personal as politcal. The politcal as personal.
Listening to Bright Eyes turning their eyes to the sky, to try and crawl out of the sewers of self-pity and apathy, is a journey many of us have taken over the last 15 years or so. To transcend the bitterness and nihilism of the 90s, and try and find enough hope to survive, and a way to do that. Many are probably gonna fucking hate this record, and his/their attempts at speaking plainly about trying to find something greater than themselves. But hell, we all gotta get through the night somehow, just trying to hold on as best we can. I was not immediately crazy about this record, some of it too glossy and slick for my tastes (i had similar issues with the last Belle and Sebastien record), as i played it over and over, collecting my thoughts for this review, i felt myself comforted and inspired by an old familiar voice. In a world with a non-stop barrage of new things and ideas and tricks and gimmicks, it is refreshing to hear someone who has been along for a good majority of my personal trajectory. That we are still alive, and trying the best that we can. Still growing and changing, and trying new things.

You can listen to the whole thing, here.

Owl Splinters

2011-02-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

When i was a young man, my friends & i used to like to drive out to the frozen beaches of Lake Michigan, during the winter. We would play on the treacherous shelf-ice, staying well after dark, watching nuclear sunsets over frozen waves, suspended in time. It felt dangerous, sure, but also exhilirating; wild, but also quiet and contemplative. Most of all, it seemed as if we had stepped into another reality, pulling back the purple velvet curtain of twilight; that we were the only people, anywhere.
I've heard Deaf Center's music described as 'desolate'. To me, it definitely has the feeling of examining something vast, something immense, but it does not strike me as empty nor malevolent. Erik Skodvin, one half of the Norwegian duo, is adept at evoking cinematic moods, whether in Deaf Center, or his myriad of solo ventures, such as Svarte Greiner. But where Svarte Greiner is dipped in pitch-black menace, Owl Splinters seems more Solaris than Fri. the 13th.
The pieces, as a whole, tend to flow into another, making a cohesive album, without a stand-out single, per se, although a listener new to their world might start with Time Spent, with its light, minor-key piano lament, or I Would Never Have with its swells of cello feedback, to get a sense of what these two are on about. Overall, the mood is one of a 70s kodachrome saturated thriller, like Satie furniture music observed through thin walls, something ominous, something sad. Most of the album consists of cello and piano, and perhaps it is the organic source of their sounds, and their classical backgrounds, that make Deaf Center stand head and shoulders above their stony, drony brethren. Great care is obviously taken with the placement of each note, the gaps filled with ambience, like reverbs and surface crackle; and musically, they are more adept than yr average bedroom-composer, with slight, masterful dissonances, creating even more mood and texture.
Everything i've ever heard by either of these guys has seemed wholly realized, a world unto itself. I was ecstatic when i realized that they had a new full-length out, as its been over 5 years since their debut, Pale Ravine. I fell in love, instantly, with the new record, and looked forward to listening to it over and over again, to write this review. I designate the status of Instant Classic, and i don't say these things lightly. Its like something just seems right, like you just found the record yr going to be sleeping to for the next 3 months. Most tellingly, for me, is that Deaf Center seems to manifest things from my subconscious, things i don't know that i know, or never quite knew how to say. Its like we're neighbors, in the same haunted hotel. No matter how many times i encounter this with music or art in general, it never ceases to amaze me, or fill me with gratitude.

This is a perfect 10. Check it, now! Then buy 5 copies. Give 'em away as Valentines.

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Brick Layer Cake - Tragedy Tragedy

2011-02-12T22:12:00.001-08:00

Brick Layer Cake is the solo joint of Mr. Todd Trainer, the zombie drummer that props up the kit behind Shellac performances. Apparently he plays every single instrument on the BLC albums, meaning you get more primal stomp, plus crunchy lead guitar and harrowing, monotonous vocals, to boot.

Tragedy, Tragedy reminds us that Shellac also covers Thin Lizzy, as well as industrial art rock like Swans and Birthday Party, and Brick Layer Cake is blue-collar glam. It stomps. It kicks. It spits. But it also sings. Most of this stuff is a pretty bummer groove, as most of Mr. Trainer's bands would suggest that he's not the most gleeful of characters. But what Brick Layer Cake also shows us that here's a remarkably talented musician, and this record has actual SONGS. Good songs, although the cumulative effect of listening in one sitting can be rather heavy, somewhat oppressive, similar to Shellac. But clearly he has a mission! He has a vision, and he realizes it remarkably well on Tragedy Tragedy. Steve Albini said it best, "think of Nick Drake on downers, fronting Black Sabbath, if Black Sabbath only played the good parts of their songs." What a way with words.

BLC was one of those Touch and Go bands whose name i would see in catalogs, but they escaped me, even as i was pillaging the back-catalogs of Killdozer and The Jesus Lizard, and i've been rather unhealthily obsessed with Shellac for 1/3 of my life now. But i'm just now, finally, getting a chance to get into this band, and richer for the experience. I noticed that there was not a quality rip of Tragedy Tragedy around, so i thought i'd fulfill a public service, and turn y'all on this rather neglected jewel.

If anyone out there happened to have a decent copy of Whatchamacallit lying around, from 2002, i'd love to hear it.

Brick Layer Cake - Tragedy Tragedy
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And They Lynched Him To A Tree

2011-02-11T21:22:00.000-08:00

"It is night. In a clearing by the roadside among the turpentine pines, lit by the headlights from parked cars, a Negro has just been lynched."

A woman in a white Victorian wedding dress, pulling yards and yards of red satin ribbon from her breast, as if disemboweling herself. A butoh dancer in a cage, painted like a zebra, jumping rope. Two young children, listening to a story, uncomprehending. A black man in tattered clothes, trembling and afraid.

This is the world of And They Lynched Him To A Tree, a collaborative multi-media theater piece, between the University of Colorado's College of Music and Department of Theater and Dance. Based upon a piece by William Grant Still, written in 1939, who was the first African
American to conduct a major Symphony Orchestra, and had over 150 compositions to his name, and was masterminded by Fred Peterband (choir direction) and Onye Ozuzu (choreography). Four installations, spread about the ATLAS theater building, create an immersive experience, where observers may wander about, to lose themselves in this world, like Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit brought to life. The audience is shoulder to shoulder with the performers, breaking down the traditional spectator mentality of stage and seats. Standing next to a black man, huddled and shaking on a freight elevator, with the narration of his brutal beating and narrow escape with the lynching rope, the luxury of the stoic observer was abandoned. I wanted to put my arms around the man. The audience filed, silently, from the elevator, after the piece. This was beyond traditional White Guilt, the piece asks only that we look, that we bear witness, that these things HAPPENED.

A strong stylistic consistency in design (a preponderance of red and white), the slow, languid movements of the dancers, as if watching something underwater, and the hushed atmosphere of the Theater provoked a strong, dreamlike ambience. Like watching a bad dream, that is heartbreaking but beautiful. The ATLAS Theater transforms, this weekend, into something otherworldly. Utterly professional performances, from all involved, remind us how lucky we are to live in a cultural vortex, where interest art and dialogue can occur. That these wounds of the past can be pulled out of the heirloom drawer, and witness paid, that maybe these wounds may eventually salve.

This is going on tonight and tomorrow, (fri and sat, feb 11 and 12) and may be attended for free, although it is recommended that you rsvp for tickets to the big finale, a half-hour multimedia performance in the theater proper. I strongly advise checking this out. It is truly special, and i am very grateful that i got to attend.

ps... the rsvp for the main performance has ended, but the website claims that it is worth trying to see the show, if you are interested, as many ticket holders don't show up.

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Skullflower - Orange Canyon Mind

2011-02-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

In 2005, the wire magazine described Matthew Bower's intimidatingly huge discography as "map co-ordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the '80s and '90s". I mean, seriously, this guy has done it all, he has done LOTS of it, he has done it 20 years ahead of his time, and has done and is still doing it better than those that are doing it today. There's something about those that had their tentacles in the UK '80s Industrial/Noise scene that is just so vital and immediate. Perhaps it was the sense of exploration, and of overcoming adversity, in spite of public opinion, that just made them rabidly hardcore.

I feel like Skullflower, Bower's incarnation after he hung up the
Total moniker, is the missing link between the '80s Broken Flag, power-electronics scene, with the likes of Ramleh and Whitehouse, and the noisy-drone rock brought on by the Dead C and Sonic Youth and a million offshoots operating today. Perhaps it is straddling numerous traditions that makes Skullflower's work some much more engaging than the host of imitators. A wider pallette to draw from, more chartreuse and ochre than the monochromatic seriousness of much of the noise underground.

This was probably the first drone rock record i heard, and it maintains a special place in my heart and record collection. I was dumb struck by the magnitude of the sound, the monolithic guitars and pummeling machine rhythms. It became a favorite past-time of mine to walk around, ensconced in headphones, letting Skullflower, the dead c, or black boned angel eradicate all thought. I also discovered that i liked to paint and draw, listening to this music, and it is this atmospheric quality which continually compels me towards such impressionistic, abstract works of art and music. Like a force of nature, constantly shifting and evolving, impossible to pin-down, and different every time. It will erode yr mental barricades, and irradiate you with the divine source. It will change you, inexplicably, if you let it.

Highly Recommended

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Review: LaserPalace2011

2011-02-09T23:09:00.001-08:00

About a year ago, i had my 30th birthday. I inaugurated the occasion by attending an album release party from local stalwarts Laser Palace, a Denver based cassette label and visual arts organ, centered around husband and wife dynamic duo Ryan McRyhew and Kristi Schaefer, then settled down to a year of getting focused, hunkering down and working on my craft. The fact that i am finally getting around to putting the spotlight on the Laser Palace just goes to show how far i have yet to go along this path. But it is this care, the craftmanship and attention to detail, that really shines forth from the Palace. Stunning packaging, bordering on neurotic (such as the Hideous Men/Via split that came with hand-knitted cassette doily for only $8. Sorry 'bout yr luck if you missed out on that one!)
LP is a collective of Denver-based freaks and spazzes. This is a collection of their best and brightest, their newest and shiniest. Predominately electronic, apart from the bong-rip garage punk of Night of Joy, these 14 tracks show the diversity in the electronic underground, a million different ways to manipulate a 4/4 beat. From the atmospheric vocal washes of VIA, to the glitch krunk of Mystic Bummer, to the corroded filter fuck of Jedediah Lodgson or Candescent, there's probably something here for any fans of synths or beats or cassette weirdness. There's even a Suicide cover (phonebooks cover Cheree). Strong on melodicism, these people know how to write a SONG, making the weirdest shit listenable and catchy. You may have never heard of many of these artists before, but they stack up against the likes of Emeralds, Oneohtrix Point Never, Ghostly International, a slew of chillwave holograms. Just goes to show that Denver has shit going on, and there's a collective of talented individuals who are hanging out together, trading ideas, doing splits, making art work, and essentially, cultivating a scene, which is what this whole thing has always been about.
I was at a show a while back, and a scary noise lady told me the internet was dying, people were getting bored, and they'd rather go to a show. The line noise is getting extreme, so to find such lovingly packaged artifacts, funky and handmade, is refreshing and probably essential. Most can be had for a song, and can be had via Itunes once they're all gone.
Download this, find out what its all about, then buy all their tapes!

Laser Palace 11
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review: Laura Goldhamer, Larians, & Princess Music @ Astroland

2011-02-05T01:00:00.000-08:00

Somewhat sorry to say, but this was only my second time visiting Astroland, Boulder's premier DIY funky arthouse venue. Nestled snugly in a pitch black auto repair plaza on the North Side of town, it has the vibe of a well kept secret, that maybe perhaps you are fortunate enough to be in on, which is probably for the best, as it is rather small, probably holding 75 people, max. Tonight's line-up, Laura Goldhamer and the Silver Nails, Larians, & Princess Music proved to be a warm oasis for a chilly week in Colorado, with inspired performances and friendly concert-goers giving that late night, living room ambience.

First to play was Laura Goldhamer and the Silver Nails, whom i had seen before at a stellar show, opening for Faun Fables and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Quirky is the first adjective which springs to mind, regarding Ms. Goldhamer's music, but fun, inspired, detailed, and sincere are soon behind. Playing a kind of avant folk, principally on banjo, with a standard rock back-up of drums, bass, and electric guitar, with a cello as a nice lagniappe. First thing to set her apart from the ilk is she frequently performs against a back-drop of stop-motion animation, that she makes herself, picturing a woman righting the lyrics to a song on a blackboard, or paper-mache birds and eggs. It is whimsical, and she has described her music as 'Edgy Children's Music', but it comes off as heartfelt and personal, rather than an ecstacy hangover. The next defining characteristic of her music is the tight arrangements, odd time signatures on the banjo smoothly segueing, a central pulse, never faltering, never dropping the beat, and perfectly accompanied by her voice and sensitive playing of her backing band. Tight, sharp, focused, yet odd and singular. The world needs more songwriting like this. And last but not least, a new addition to her set this evening, was a drum installation, where a laptop triggered speakers around the room, set-up to various snare-drums, doorbells, and floortoms, and triggered by loops from the machine. At one point, she handed out drum sticks to audience members, and made live loops that then triggered different devices in different parts of the room. It was a little ramshackle, but utterly fucking brilliant, and also got the audience involved, a common cure for the notorious indie wallflower syndrome, which thankfully didn't seem to come out and brave the cold, tonight. Her set was like a birthday party, a gallery opening, a rock n roll show, and a mad scientist's experiment, all wrapped up in one brilliant package, with a shiny bow of charisma, good humour, and great ideas, to top it all off. You should check out her music, her albums and dvds are cool, but really, her live shows are not to be missed. For anything.
Larians, the following act, was a bit of a yawn. Time to sit down on the fuzzy shag carpet in the middle of the floor and hope it was not to sullied. Doing a bit of a shoegazey, trancey electronic thing, somewhat reminiscent of Ulrich Schnauss, perhaps M83, without the arena rock, with droney, reverbed vocals. Performing on a variety of synthesizers and rhythm machines, with a battery of guitar stomp boxes, the sounds were cool, and the ideas were there, but somewhat washed out, unclear and unfocused. At times i was lost in the heart of the music, which struck me as melancholy and romantic, but it went on for too long, with no break in between songs. All in all, an electronic splatter fest, although i got to watch a knob twiddler at work (i think i own some of the same pedals), and had some rather cool thoughts, for the duration. The ideas and the potential are there, but need to be refined.
Princess Music brought the evening to a close, which turned out to be most of the members of the silver nails, rearranged and reconfigured. They also turned out to be a delight, a pleasant surprise, a real treat. Laura Goldhamer on Banjo, Tyler Ludwick on Telecaster and lead vocals, Jeremy Averitt on prog bass (i think he was playing left handed), Robin Chestnut on drums (i think... i guess) and the lovely finesse of Psyche Dunkhase and Rachel Sliker on cello and violin, they made a glorious, sprawling technicolor sound; a mishmosh of math rock, folk and bluegrass, with a splash of afro caribbean sunshine brought on by furious funky polyrhythm, a la Paul Simon's Graceland. But mishmosh suggests something sloppy and shambolic, and haphazard these folks most assuredly were NOT. Almost frighteningly sharp, verging on hive mindmeld, but at the same time, dripping with exuberance and passion and pathos and play. Tyler Ludwick's voice reminds me the most of local troubadour Gregory Alan Isakov, but for the rest of you, think maybe perhaps M Ward, maybe a cousin of Jim James. Warm and Faded, like loved denim, he tied the songs together (which i gather he wrote himself, for the most part) with emotion and wit, defying the clinical pitfalls of their proggy, mathy brethren, but the spiky arrangements and odd cadences and dissonances prevented it from becoming a total hippy orgy, either. And, like a warehouse version of the standing ovation, the room, it did begin to move. The audience, they did start to sway. Like a breeze blowing over still water, the people got down, and the whole night gelled, into a moment of friendship, ideas and inspiration, joking and confessional, quiet and extremely LOUD. In essence, it all came together beautifully.
Places like Astroland can give you the feeling of being in the right place, at the right time. They can remind us that not all history was created in dusty New York lofts in the 1960s, that these are our lives and we are giving it all we got. That we are doing the best we can. And Boulder's contribution to the DIY infrastructure is almost eerily devoid of pretension, with people smiling, talking to one another, dancing. I saw a lot of hugging. It is my knee-jerk reaction to shy away from such affection, from such sincerity, to retreat into a spiky punk-rock pretense, to remain guarded. But, i was won over, as i usually am, and reminded that i am happiest when i am lost in the crowd, dancing my skinny white ass off.

Check 'em out... show yr love... show yr support!

Laura Goldhamer & The Silvernail: http://www.myspace.com/lauragoldhamer
Princess Music: http://princessmusic.bandcamp.com/
Astroland:
Myspace
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Weird Tales for Winter

2011-02-03T11:05:00.000-08:00

Winter has a lot of festivities. Some live for Christmas. Some swear by New Years. Some freaks even seem to love Valentine's Day, that candy coated abomination. But weird people need weird holidays, and for this night-dweller, it doesn't get any better than Weird Tales for Winter, produced by perennial favorite Johnny Mugwump, on ResonanceFM.
The premise is simple, and sublime. Modern noiseniks, many of the hauntological persuasion, which means, of course, that they really like weird old samples, doing sort of 'radio plays' of Weird Fiction; flights of cosmic horror, classic ghost stories, steampunk dinner parties, and what have you.
For me, this series, now in its second year, as well as Johnny Mugwump's weekly radio show, exotic pylon, come as a real blessing, being utterly compelled by the likes of Ghost Box, Mordant Music, Broadcast, etc. but not really sure how to dig beneath and beyond the canon, to find the mouldering bones and angry spirits of the underground geist of the freaks that make this shit. Like a true Lovecraftian hero, i needed to know MORE! I have also had difficulty finding excellent Weird Fiction, many years ago having exhausted the piles of Lovecraft, Derleth, even Algernon Blackwood and Lord Dunsany, for chrissakes. I thought i would spend the rest of the days of my meager, pitiful existence spending my pennies on ratty pulp magazines from the 30s, trying to unearth some gems from the drek. But this wonderful crew of English eccentrics have come and saved the day, turning me on to M. R. James, William Hope Hodgson, Nigel Kneale, and others i look forward to diving into. Along the way, i have found out about new audio alchemists like Dolly Dolly, West Norwood Cassette Library, and Vindicatrix, besides new works from acknowledged masters like Baron Mordant, The Advisory Circle, and Belbury Poly. Really, it is phenomenal that Mr. Mugwump has gathered this remarkable cesspool of talent, and doubly so that they give this shit away for free. We all must really be insane.
Icing on the cupcake, there's an excellent facebook group to whip the butter into a froth, posting odds and bobs of weirdness, to make yr day more surreal. You can even find some of the artists, shoulder to shoulder with the audience, in rank exaltation of sweet delight. For me, it has made all the difference in the world. Hauntology struck a resonant chord in my soul, strange and spooky, but ultimately inaccessible. I'd heard all the burial records, the caretaker, even the whole ghost box catalog, felt like i'd fallen down a rabbit hole, and was not looking forward to the sudden, abrupt halt. To get to know some of the people making vital art, exchanging pleasantries and geekery and arcane wisdom, all wrapped up in a candy-colored bow, has been inspiring and delightful.
In short, i recommend you listen to every episode, and tune into exotic pylon as well. All the episodes are available for download, including last years season, and there's guest mixes available, to sweeten the pot.

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Mugwump
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Forget the Times - Escape from the Planet of the Llamas (Already Dead)

2011-02-01T00:13:00.001-08:00

Like a skronk version of Tortoise's Seneca or Eight Cognition from Six Organs of Admittance's School of the Flower, the :58 seconds of Early Morning Rabbit Hole heralds the arrival of Escape from the Planet of the Llamas, the most recent endeavour from Kalamazoo, Mi's Forget The Times. Of course, any band that lists Captain Beefheart, U. S. Maple, Derek Bailey, and The Dead C is probably not gonna give it up so easily, and they quickly dismantle the groove after the funky breakbeat opening of Ponchos and Python Boots. These young men are clearly the type who enjoy the unknown, experimentation, exploration, unexpected surprises and happy accidents.
Let me brief and to the point: you better fucking like improvised music, to give this one a spin. Luckily for me, (and for you), i do, and have invested a few hours this week, getting into the intricacies of these 8 tracks, and have found the experience to be reward, rather invigorating, i must say, a blast of fresh air, so to speak. The patient listener, the adventurous ears, are rewarded with moments of real fucking beauty here, like personal favorites Beausoleil Moon Frye (which gets my vote for song title of the year, so far) or Deinonychus Dreamland, either of which could be a Mogwai guitar work-out, with a ragged backbeat. But over the course of an hour, you will be subjected to funky breakbeats, guitar sturm and drang freak-outs, even the odd moment of humor, like the strange oompah cacophany of Flying V Gtr Made of Real Live Honking Geese which is another excellent name for a track. What really is the saving grace for this album is that these are clearly 4 experienced and sensitive musicians and improvisers, listening closely, and allowing the music to dodge and weave and warble and waft, soar and plummet, ready to dive into whatever challenge or nook or cranny or whatever that may present itself at each turn of the dime.
What is the utterly best thing, for me, about this release, is an exciting de-fibrillation of vital organs of adventurous musicks that have gotten soft and saggy and stale over time. They are able to employ the beauty that we all loved about Post-rock with its symphonic guitars, without resorting to a generic loudQUIETloud cliche, or the anything goes spirit of jazz that seems to have fled, or at least fled underground, for a long long time now.
Let me be blunt, one last time: i fucking love these musicks, and it is a crying goddam shame to see them get so stale and bland and marginalized. I cheer! yes cheer! to see d00ds from Michigan, breathing some fucking life into these Exquisite Corpses.

"The Goal of Our Music is for each player to reach that point [where they lose themselves in the music] every time we play and to maintain that feeling as long as possible." -Sean Hartmann

Escape from the Planet of the Llamas can be had for a measly buck, off their bandcamp, or like a fiver from their very own Already Dead cassette imprint, which appears to have pretty sweet packaging too.

On the . . . DL

bandcamp: http://forgetthetimes.bandcamp.com/
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Forget-The-Times/150283078342207

A Minor Update...

2010-11-28T12:05:00.000-08:00

"May You Live In Interesting Times" - Mark Twain

"Out With The Old/In With The New" - Lotus, Bellweather

No music today, just some thoughts. Relating to music, of course, cuz that's just how i am.
Saw the up-and-coming electronic jam band Lotus last night, and while i have heard them before, and even enjoyed their sounds, last night was the first time i really GOT IT. I've been watching people spar with their love of jam and rave, moody indie rock and classical soundscapes, for the better part of the last decade, to varying degrees of success. But, all of a sudden, in the last 2 years or so, i feel as if the shit has hit the fan, there are hordes of bands that are out just killing it, night after night, coming into their own style and sound. Mutant hybrids twining beneath the sun. This is a great time to be a music fan. This is a great time to be a human being.
But with great power comes great responsibility. I think many would agree that there's something special hanging in the air, these days, these are very interesting times indeed. Only the most hardcore nostalgist would pine for '70s, '80s, '20s, claiming that there's nothing interesting going on. We have increasing access to the history of every culture that has ever existed (that we know of), and oftentimes we have it in our pocket. Thanks to new software like the ever impressive Ableton Live, and the new battalion of grid controllers, we can lay our hands on sound direct, weave weft and warp. Genres and small minded thinking are melting like wax figurines in the oncoming pyrochastic flow.
Shit's coming down. The kids are growing up, and mastering their toys. An unprecedented amount of control and finesse is there, for those that would take it. But gone are the days of harsh task-masters, stern disciplinarians with iron rulers by yr side, waiting. You wanna overdose and die? No one's gonna stop you. You want to spend a decade on the internet, playing at being a genius, citing statistics at a parade of dinner parties? Go right ahead. We are moving into orbit, beyond the gravity well of castes and obligation. It is up to you to keep yr backbone.
I, for one, get lost in the data-stream, in a never-ending quest of ultimate knowledge. I want to know the songs and sounds of every inch of this globe, and others, if y0u happen to have it! But its never gonna happen. I'm never gonna burst forth in a silver Samaddhi of knowledge and wisdom. I feel my personal trajectory on this earth is one of creation; words and music being my favorite. No amount of study, no amount of preparation, is going to do that for me, or take away the fear of actually putting something in front of a human audience.
There are great rewards for those who would accept the challenge of this present, who would be brave and noble and wise. Let's not forget the virtues of the past, in an attempt to be absolutely modern. We've got to be more than kids, striving to have the new, flashiest toy. We can do anything we want, this time around.

Cave - Pure Moods

2010-11-27T10:03:00.001-08:00

One from the road...

After noticing an upsurge of interest of Cave's Psychic Psummer, discussed earlier, i thought i would dig up some more nuggets from these Chicago gruvmeisters. Dug out this 12" from 2010, chose it to inaugurate this particular homecoming journey.
I'd say Cave is perfect driving music, and it is, perfect... pummeling and repetitive and hypnotic, like 60 miles of highway blinkers, v-8s pounding burning petroleum through firing pistons, but i think it would be ever more accurate to say that Cave is the highway itself, an eternity of tarmac, stretching out to an infinitude of possible futures. Theirs is music of motion, rocking but calm, hypnotic but adrenalized. Its like being in the belly of a jetplane, thinking about what yr gonna do when you land, thinking about where you came from. 25 minutes, 3 tracks... this is a perfect, condensed vision of the group's sound and strengths. American kosmische, homage to a highway in Wyoming rather than the Audobon.

This was the perfect beginning for this voyage, got my motor's running, my engine revving. Got some momentum. Like a hummingbird, vibrating so fast i found some calm, some peace and contentment, to come back to my birthplace, to face family and long-lost friends, to stare down ghosts of former fuck-ups. I feel brave when i'm moving.
Once i landed, and found that old familiar stillness, and there will be more on that later...

Got a chance to get a computer, and i had prepared to write this one up ahead of time, so i took the opportunity. Going to see the band Lotus in Chicago tonight.

Pure Moods

Give thanks...

2010-11-25T21:29:00.000-08:00

Just to let y'all know i'm out of town at the moment, but will be back to homebase shortly, and back to beavering away. Hope everybody in the states had a good holiday.

Radio Show: Typecast

2010-11-15T12:12:00.001-08:00

For this week's edition of Radio Shows, i'd like to bring to attention Type Record's Typecast. Type Records, helmed by one John Twellis, is a hallmark of exceptional care and craftmanship, a true institution of the underground. Bringing out releases from divergent artists like Xela, Yellow Swans, Peter Broadrick, Svarte Greiner, the list goes on; with consistently gorgeous design, hand-picked to suit the microcosm contained on the grooves.

The Typecast is a good simulacrum of the label's aesthetics, where really, anything goes, and usually it goes really well. Many Jsheaven stalwarts have provided mixes: Xela, several manifestations of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, several incarnations of Brad Rose, William Fowler Collins, Svarte Greiner. During these hour-long shows, you may hear anything from harbor seals to Patsy Cline. The mixes stand up well against the test of time, you'll want to keep these, add 'em to yr commuting queue. Its kind of amazing you can get shit this good, for free. Sometimes its good to be an underground music fan.

typecasts

Shostakovich - String Quartets 4 & 5 (Manhattan String Quartet)

2010-11-13T13:16:00.000-08:00

"The monstrous disharmony of war has come to an end. Henceforth, the fingers of violinists will lay down the machine guns they have been gripping, and will again touch the obedient, singing strings of their violins-touch them with inspiration. Now sounds the bright melody of peace and creative work." - Dimitri Shostakovich

Yet things would not be as optimistic as Shostakovich, and many other Russian artists, composers, and film-makers would have hoped. These quartets, written during the period between 1946 - 1952, proved to be a dark one in Soviet History. Having already endured the pre-war purges and the grist-mill of WWII, artists hoped that the return to peace and security would allow Stalin and his cultural commissars to ease their grip on artists.

This did not prove to be the case, and millions were sent to Siberian labor camps, had their lives, families, and careers destroyed, under the cultural scrutiny of Andrei Zhdanov. In this climate, Shostakovich would not dare to undertake any symphonies or grandiose statements, having already been flogged by the critics for formalism, pretentiousness, modernism. Shostakovich served as a favored whipping post against the avant-garde, and other forms of 'dissident' thought.

During this period, Shostakovich frequently turned to string quartets and film music, which were considered minor and of less consequence, and thus paid less attention to. In these outlets, he would rage and poke fun, declaim his unbent spirit against totalitarian regimes, like 'signing' his work with his trademark 'DSCh' theme, a sequence of D, E flat, C, B natural, as notated in German, and standing for the composer's initials. This music is private and haunting, explosive and contemplative. It serves as a sort of diary, of a unique and troubling period in Human history, written by a man well-familiar with his emotional landscapes, and an eloquent tongue and pen, to set it down for all time.

Shostakovich's string quartets have been a personal favorite. The string quartet is one of my favorite instrumental combos, small and focused and intimate, allowing the performers to really vibe off each other, to reach soaring crescendoes of passion and revelation. I always find it invigorating, and thought-provoking to consider the risks that Shostakovich took, and the overwhelming urge to express himself and be true to his artistic vision. Often, i find his symphonies to be rather bloated and grandiose, as was expected of him, and of Soviet Realism. Militaristic, and democratic. Modern flourishes were considered self-aggrandizing, and degenerate. So he snuck it all in, in his quartets and film music.

I've been house sitting for a friend, during Nov. and have been allowed access to her music library. She plays cello, and played with a variety of New York ensembles, during the 80s and 90s. I offer this selection, to start, as its something i'm pretty familiar with, and i've been listening to a lot this week. I'm hoping to provide little slivers of insight and inspiration, in this space, pockets and corners of stories and lives. A brief glimpse behind the eyeballs, perhaps even a momentary consideration of what it is like to be someone else.

Music is all around us, every second of every day, and everybody seems to have their own passionate soundtrack. The idea of 'better' or 'best' seem to be rapidly disappearing, to be replaced by personal preference. Someone quietly murmuring, 'this is what its like to be me.'

I'm not really hoping to be authoritative, more like subjective or impressionistic, although i do hope to continue to hone my craft at writing, and making music of my own. I'm hoping to provide slivers of moments, melodies and moonbeams, pockets of prose and collected recollections.

Quartets

wiki

ps... the file name is slightly misleading, as its only the 4th and 5th quartets, but the quality is super good! I hope you enjoy.

Gonzales - Solo Piano

2010-11-12T03:22:00.000-08:00

Middle of the night. Can't sleep. Have to be up in a couple of hours. Not wearing glasses. Vision blurry.

The perfect compliment and antidote to this high-tensile situation; the solo piano record from Feist producer Jason Beck, aka Chilly Gonzales, aka just Gonzales. Here we have the maestro weighing in with 16 tasteful, masterful arrangements: graceful, subdued, classy. Apparently the man has been playing piano since he was 3, and it shows. Similar in mood to the piano reveries of the Erik Satie, whom i've written about before on this blog, or Debussy's lighter moments.

Tuneful, melodic, poignant, bittersweet, contemplative; if a picture is worth a thousand words, then an album of instrumental suites must be worth a million. I'm not gonna try.

I've been rocking this all week, quietly meandering about the house, watching the seasons shift through the window, the first fall of snow. My musical tastes have tended towards the subdued, so my posting reflects as such. Hopefully y'all are curled up by a fire somewhere, (or enoying the sunshine, if yr on the other part of the globe).

check it

ps... i'm not sure how the quality is on this one, i'm away from my main computer, and haven't had a chance to check this link. I'll re-up if its not up to snuff.

Fuzzy Lights - Twin Feathers

2010-11-11T12:43:00.001-08:00

Today, i bring you some more Fuzzy Lights, as glowingly referenced in yesterday's Wire Tapper post. As usual, i loved what i heard and wanted to know more. Hunted down a copy of their most recent record, Twin Feathers, released in Aug. on Little Red Rabbits Records.

Obscura, the track featured on the Wire Tapper starts thing off like an americana chamber ensemble, keening fiddle reels and bowed saws, apparently written on the fly after a late night's party. But they quickly take an abrupt right and morph into a dreamy, folk-rock band, for tracks Fallen Trees and Through Water. This seems to provide the roadmap for Twin Feathers; dreamy, folksy tunes interspersed with cinematic, instrumental mood pieces.

Fuzzy Lights, centered around husband and wife duo Xavier and Rachel Watkins and recently augmented to a 5 piece, have clearly absorbed a wide range of sounds and influences, and internalized them to make something unique and special. Obviously steeped in the sounds of traditional post-rock such as The Dirty Three and A Silver Mt. Zion, but equally indebted to British wyrdness like Fairport Convention and The Incredible String Band, and a healthy dose of classic Slo-Core like Yo La Tengo or Red House Painters, they take what is best from all those styles and make it serve their ends, avoiding cliche.

The best thing about this band, and drawing from such a broad pallette, is the wide range of moods, textures, and instrumentation it makes available. Hearing the interplay of viola and harmonium on Lucida, warmly recorded to cassette, is thrilling. The Museum Song, apparently improvised to accompany Chris Marker's film La Jetee, uses the viola's ability to tug heart-strings to masterful ability. You'd have to have a heart of stone, have to be the most jaded and cynical of hipsters, to not be moved by its beauty. The vocals are also wonderfully recorded, and, while the lyrics do not stand forth and proclaim themselves, i look forward to some intensive headphone research of this album, in the weeks to come.

Another reviewer claimed that every song built to a climactic wall of sound, and i disagree. Twin Feathers is not about bombast and fury, although it occasionally unleashes the storm. It is more about mood and ambience, creating a pastoral drift to explore and get lost in, like an early morning mist.

Fuzzy Lights - Twin Feathers

You can hear a mix that they recently did, for arctic circle, as well as a live set with some interviewage, over here: Arctic Circle Radio

bandpage

Little Red Rabbit