Saturday, August 8, 2009

Snob's Music

Snob's Music

Link to Snob's Music

Jamie T announces second album

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 10:34 AM PDT

Yoni Gordon and the Goods: "Turning Chaos Into a Career" MP3

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 08:44 AM PDT

Anna Ternheim: album streaming, download El Perro Del Mar remix

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 07:04 AM PDT

Casy and Brian: "Catbees" album review

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 03:27 AM PDT

Whatever happened to: Malhavoc?

Posted: 07 Aug 2009 10:06 PM PDT

popwreckoning updates

popwreckoning updates

Link to popwreckoning

Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 04:12 PM PDT

So what’s up with , that folk four-piece that got your toes tapping with the exuberant ray of sunshine “Five Years Time”? They are back this fall with their second album entitled The First Days of Spring, which comes out at the end of August in the UK, but we Americans have to wait until early October. NATWFDOS

The album begins with somber drumming paired with sparse guitar and violin work on the title track. You begin to ask yourself, “Is this really a record?” Then the voice of Charlie Fink comes out of the shadows, like the welcome twinkling of a faraway lighthouse, and it all makes sense. The fragility of Fink’s voice, so memorable in their debut album Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down, is combined with emotion-building instrumentation and still hits the spot in this sophomore effort.

Recorded at Rak Studios in , this album overall has a richer sound in comparison to Peaceful…. Choral backing vocals lend an almost church-like atmosphere to several tracks – hear the joyous “Love of an Orchestra”. is still on violin, but it’s his piano-playing that is more prominent here. Charlie’s brother and NATW drummer Doug Fink wasn’t kidding when he told us in an interview back in April to expect music that would be “more mature, more electrical, more experimental.” Don’t misunderstand me: there are still plenty of those trademark NATW melancholy, pensive moments. Sometimes your insides ache from the heartbreak, loneliness, and sadness dripping from Charlie Fink’s voice and the violin passages of Hobden – see “Our Window” and “My Broken Heart”.

But this would not be an album about Spring, the season for rebirth, without a chance for new beginnings being chronicled in an uplifting song. Better days are ahead with the appropriately optimistic “Blue Skies”: “this is a song for anyone with a broken heart / this is a song for anyone who can’t get out of bed / oh, I’ll do anything to be happy / oh, ‘cos blue skies are calling / but I know it’s hard.” And the band has branched out further cinematically with a Charlie Fink-directed film that utilizes the album as its soundtrack. It debuted at Suffolk, England’s alternative, artsy music Latitude Festival in July and will be shown at the band’s upcoming gigs. The film (starring English model Daisy Lowe, daughter of Bush’s Gavin Rossdale) will also be included in the deluxe CD/DVD version of the album when it comes out later this year. But for now, you can watch the England-iana trailer here, complete with “Blue Skies” in the musical background.

The First Days of Spring will be available in CD and deluxe CD/DVD formats and released on 31 August in the UK and 6 October in the U.S. Following September and October gigs that have the band traveling all over Britain, the band have hinted on their official website that they will be returning stateside for additional concerts on this side of the pond in October.

Tracklisting:
01. The First Days of Spring
02. Our Window
03. I Have Nothing
04. My Broken Heart
05. Instrumental I
06. Love of an Orchestra
07. Instrumental II
08. Stranger
09. Blue Skies
10. Slow Glass
11. My Door is Always Open

: website | myspace | Noah and the Whale with Anni Rossi and Ferraby Lionheart @ Black Cat, Washington DC | Interview with: Noah and the Whale

The First Days of Spring
Price: USD 35.49
1 used & new available from USD 35.49

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Music in the Blood

Music in the Blood


SIMILARITIES OF SONG: MEGADETH AND METALLICA

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 04:46 AM PDT

Megadeth Song: Metallica Song: Similarity:
Looking Down the Cross Ride the Lighting Riff
Mechanix The Four Horsemen Whole song
In My Darkest Hour For Whom the Bell Tolls Opening riff
Hangar 18 The Call of Ktulu Riff
Dawn Patrol The God That Failed Riff
This Was My Life Phantom Lord Bass riff
She-wolf Disposable Heroes Opening riff
FFF Motorbreath Riff
When The Call of Ktulu Opening riff
Go to Hell Enter Sandman Riff and lyrics

Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Link to Cyclic Defrost

OBFUSC – Inverted Island 7” vinyl (Static Caravan)

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 12:53 AM PDT

OBFUSC - Inverted Island

Yet another fantastic release this month from "the UK's biggest small label 1999-2009", Static Caravan always seem to get the balance right, whether it be format and artwork, or DIY aesthetic and pristine production. I can't remember the last time I was disappointed by a release from the label, even if its left of centre, it grows on you, and before you know it its another Static Caravan classic.

I've never heard of OBFUSC before, but this has an instant appeal, leaving me wanting more. Very reminiscent of the Boards Of Canada style organic audio sketches, encompassing lush warm electronics that pulse and simmer, creating a warm glow, with great hip hop style beats and acoustic flourishes. This sums up the day mix of “Inverted Island”, it oozes a pastoral warmness.

The flip side has the night mix of “Oceanic Flow”, a trance inducing synth melody, more rolling understated hip hop beats, eastern percussion and shoegaze style guitar washes.

Static Caravan deliver freshness and originality yet again, and OBFUSC get added to the "up and coming" list of bands to listen closely to, check them out at www.staticcaravan.org. Magical.

Wayne Stronell

Tim And Sam’s Tim And The Sam Band With Tim And Sam – Summer Solstice 7” vinyl (Static Caravan)

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 12:49 AM PDT

Tim And Sam's Tim And The Sam Band With Tim And Sam – Summer Solstice

Could this be the most extended, confusing and silly band name ever? Probably, but its on Static Caravan, so that is no deterrent for me. It's a mouthful, so for the purposes of this review they'll be referred to as Tim & Sam… This is the second release from the Manchester based post-folk four piece act, perfectly suited for the Static Caravan label, after the debut EP on Full Of Joy Records.

Tim & Sam ooze enchanted melodies, rustic tones, sweet strings and pulsating drums portray a vibrancy yet pastoral simplicity, with influences from James Yorkston, Shady Bard and Sufjan Stevens. Their psych-folk flourishes and slow burning pastoral sounds have been championed by Elbow's Guy Garvey, and the final track on this EP is actually an Elbow cover version, aptly.

A great EP from one of my favourite labels.

Wayne Stronell

Free Choice and Mental Powers – split 7” vinyl (fifth-column.net)

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 12:38 AM PDT

Free Choice/Mental Powers

Gorgeous printed sleeve for a split 7" vinyl release on fifth-column.net. Not much information about either band on the internet, except for the label’s myspace, but they are Australian!

On side one, Free Choice with “Green Groove” has a pulsing ambient krautrock groove with infectious synth melodies, layers and layers of electronics with a naive 80's sensibility, like a cross between early 4 A.D. and Tangerine Dream. This track really does have an infectious hook that reels you right in.

On side two, Mental Powers with “Appear/Juniour” is a rhythmic acoustic outing that threatens to burst into a post-punk burner, but never breaking from its acoustic backdrop.

A great 7", investigate more at www.fifth-column.net, when there is content on the website…

Wayne Stronell

DJ Kompact – Return Of July 7” vinyl (Sonido Ojo Rojo)

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 12:25 AM PDT

DJ Kompact - Return Of July

The first in a series of 7" vinyl singles from Vienna based DJ and producer Kompact, limited to 500 pieces, containing a digital download card and poster cover (collect ll the posters to create the 180cm x 84cm full size poster).

The a-side has a western theme, rough beats and an MS-20 bassline, it sounds just like Morricone with beats, an older instrumental track from the Kompact vaults. The b-side has a mellow stance, reminding me of mid-nineties MoWax productions.

Rider Shafique and Caroline Scott feature on vocals for the b-side, Rider has a unique mellow and conscious style and rhyme, punctuated by Caroline's sweet voice. Nice and mellow.

Wayne Stronell

David Ahlen – We Sprout in Thy Soil (Compunctio)

Posted: 07 Aug 2009 10:45 PM PDT

ahlen
It is hard not to revel in the paradox of We Sprout in Thy Soil We Sprout in Thy Soil, both at once humbled and uplifted by the sheer beauty of the work. David Arhlen manages to convey the emotional sense of a spiritual world in a stripped down simplicity displaying a raw and unafraid voice. The obvious fragile beauty and wide range of his voice, well wrought guitar phrasing and fastidiously clear full production all create a listening experience that may silence Richard Dawkins, if only momentarily. Often nowadays, with the plethora of 'experimental electronicia' and radical forms of music, it feels like being in the midst of a unending renaissance that it is only with the arising of a voice like Ahlen's to remind us of the existence of other musical forms beyond the encapsulation of technological and structural.

That is often conceived as a thin limb on the tree to step out onto so perhaps another way into the album. To consider it as minimal acoustic guitar with a 'miked-up' resonance, as a warm backdrop to unfold the Hymnal poetics, vehicle for Ahlen's vocal range. The clarity of the recording along with the subject matter may lead to the question of confusion of subject matter and presentation. 'Alter', presented with double bass and supporting vocals is a paean to spiritual content entering and forming the sense of a life, reflected in the precision and skill of the form of the music. 'Ocean' features a Spinet (harpsichord) as focal instrument, beyond Ahlen's voice and the backup choral moments. Such touches as with "Stir our Hearts' with the presence of the Uppsala Cathedral Boys Choir adding backing moves the song construction to a sense of reminiscence that locates back to the pivotal music ages of the Ars Nova and early Renaissance.

I must admit to be fully primed for the content of We Sprout in Thy Soil We Sprout in Thy Soil, other kind souls may view the world with a different light and may see the content as something other than a positive reading. However even if all the words merely described the electronic states of ADSL switches at telephone exchanges Ahlen's singing and compositional skill could not fail in conveying a pure beauty and conviction.

Innerversitysound