Seekae - +Dome

While Australian three-piece Seekae have prepared to perform as a live band, their second full length album sounds like the experimental bug shooed a lot of the live instruments away from the studio. Processed vocals somewhere between helium and female are turned into drum pads on "Blood Bank". Indulgent segue "Underling" pairs a sampled string section with a series of square-waved glissandos. One of the best tracks, "Gnor", grooves with overlapping synth modes, bass synth lines, clickity rim shots and live drums. Can't knock these guys for the variety, but therein lies the issue: the endless directions could have been intriguing, but instead they distract from any overall cohesion. "Reset Head" sets the pace wonderfully with cerulean ambience and minimal drum programming before a beautiful melody tandem enters via synth and shimmery guitar. It's one of the highlights, but then things grow more experimental again; the band forges ahead and away from a good thing. No two songs on +Dome are alike. Sometimes the capriciousness of a band is what sells the music, but Seekae don't stick to one sonic pallete, and the myriad sounds aren't compelling enough to define all their edges. It may seem unfair to say, but the production is too clean and innocent for such off-kilter electronica. Most of the drum programming refuses to hit a groove, choosing instead to skitter around, teasing us with a moment that might never arrive. This moment does arrive once. For two glorious minutes in "Yodal", the groove starts as an insistent, shark-skinned laptop shredder, breaks for a cloudscape, and then continues on its razor juice tirade. +Dome is half as long as Seekae's behemoth debut album, but the obvious skills and risks never feel grounded. If this band went straight ahead more often, they'd have more of my attention.


Seekae - Blood Bank - +Dome by Rice Is Nice

Mountains - Air Museum

This album jams. Read my long review at The Silent Ballet. It's one of my better writing pieces in a while, I think.

Air Museum’s strength lies in its ability to change tone drastically while maintaining an overriding voice. I was initially caught off guard by the album's sequencer rhythms, as I had become so accustomed to hearing the duo paint with soft brushes. The synthetic pulse's ebullient and deliberate voice is a gamble, and it’s easy to write off on first listen. In the ambient field, one could almost call this “rocking out”. Given the chance to pass through the folded arms and cell walls, such moments end up being the album's most memorable.

Post-Rock Paper Scissors Podcast

Steve and I did an Internet radio show with Armand.

Episode 67: Curated By Nayt Keane & Steve Sherman by Post-Rock Paper Scissors on Mixcloud

Colorlist - The Fastest Way To Become The Ocean

I like this record. But not a ton. Its brevity (26 minutes) allows for me to play it and not commit too long to Colorlist's occasional missteps, which is nice because I like what the band is up to. The track with the Tortoise guitar player is smokin'. My review is ok. I love the Serein label.

The Fastest Way To Become The Ocean definitely fits the bill as a spring time record. There are darker undertones from the winter beneath the surface, cobwebs to brush away, seeds in the ground that we have worried will not survive the frost, but in the end, the pastels and dewy wonder of a fresh start pervades. The last track “What We Have Left” features some light hearted vocals from Liz Payne, and while the track borders on being silly, knowing what Colorlist were going for helps the track’s disparity make more sense. Still, when taken in context with the longer suites of burgeoning sax revelations, “What We Have Left” feels out of place, like it belongs somewhere different - like Sesame Street. The beef of the EP is great, and the two shorter tracks kind of fill in the gaps with decent material, leaving the entire album feeling like a collection of good music by Colorlist, but not as cohesive as hoped for. EPs, however, are the battleground for experimentation, and given the talent and risks that this band is willing to take, I delight in the next journey they go on.

Vocaloid Hatsune Miku: The Hologram Pop Star

When I put three piercings in my eyebrow my parents were probably perplexed. Why would our child do this? My parents had tattoos in their world (they would never get one), but the advent of body piercing really didn't become a thing until I was a young adult. They probably also wondered about raves, and parents before them were confused by chia pets, and rug burn and leather bars before that. I was starting to think that I've got a pretty radical take on the world and as I age, I still have a finger on the pulse of what young people are into and why (even if I've outgrown some things).

Until this. Watch the clip and be amazed at a sold out concert hall rocking out to a computer generated voice singing songs, with an animated pop star representing it. There is a live band, but wow, the focus is obviously on this machine that some Japanese folks invented that can learn and sing songs. Look at those glow sticks! I kind of get it? Who cares if the computer can sing? I suppose I listen to a lot of wacked music with electronics being the main voice. It's just the arena of the icon worship that electronics really haven't ventured into. Not like this. Rock stars have been human until this. Gorillaz dabbled, but this is full on.

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is a singing synthesizer application and its female character, developed by Cypton Future Media. It uses Yamaha's Vocaloid 2 synthesizing technology. Her name translates to something like "Voice of the Future." I was hoping the videos I saw were just staged and that this wasn't really all that popular, but I was wrong. It's a world wide phenomenon. She's performed in Singapore recently. It's growing. Learning... compassion.

In a way, this pop star is perfect. It can't get chased by the paparazzi. It doesn't do drugs or make bad choices after a show. It doesn't get tired or go through the fame gauntlet, leaving it messed up for the rest of its life. It's always going to perform. Once the computer refuses to perform, the world will have effectively changed forever. Usually, people make mechanical or 3D versions of humans, but here, we see humans fetishizing the machine and dressing up like her. It's a total role reversal, and one that I am barely clinging to for some kind of understanding. Why would anyone really care how high a computer voice can sing? How is it that when a certain song begins at this show that everyone's voices rise in appreciation? It's manic, and I feel that gap forming between old fogey Nayt and what kids of the future are into. It's happening. I'm 32 and I feel like I'm already cut off.

Who Is Arcade Fire

I am in love with The Suburbs record, and since The Arcade Fire won a grammy for best album of the year, there has apparently been a large pouting backlash against them due to their apparent obscurity next to acts like GaGa and Bieber and such. Kids be appalled that the band won and they hadn't heard of them. Anyway, if you are at all stoked that a band you kind of (or really) like actually won one of these awards for once (even Trent Reznor won a grammy this year for chrissakes!), then you will probably find this funny.

Who Is Arcade Fire media tumblr. Even Dog The Bounty Hunter's twitter weighs in.

Zomes - Earth Grid

Asa Osborne has something going on here, but I fear many will not care. These are lovely meditations on timbre and melody. They seem to be educational studies, even. My review is full of praise, but something doesn't quite happen unless you're in the proper mindset or on drugs.

Earth Grid impresses by not trying hard to be something it is not. It behaves like a miracle or the advice of an elder, natural and at ease. The album's nature can feel oppressive and dull, but citizens of the technosphere aren't going to be ready for mystical mantras sung from peasant amplifiers. How often have we lost our concentration on something vital to a frivolous distraction? Food is industrialized, SUVs are named after eradicated Native American tribes, and the next thing you know Stonehenge is causing global warming. This album is a calming agent, striking chords (literally and spiritually) with the aim of focusing one's energy inward so that one's subsequent actions will be full of beautiful intention. Even the cover art, born of white tape on black paper, is more than the sum of its parts. It's not a perfect album, but considering how little is going on, it has an undeniable inertia that defies conventional reason.

Powerdove - Be Mine

I thought my buddy Malcolm might dig this stuff, as the folk component is actually tempered by experimental work in the background. I can't really get into much folk music because of its devotion to that very hippie-christian methodology that only allows for guitars and mandolins to really have any part of the narrative.

As social primates, we need each other. When we are yearning to break our fossilized fears, it often takes a loving companion to help see the light. Annie Lewandowski’s wispy voice and spartan acoustic guitar carefully crawl up the walls of a dark spiderwebbed lair, bringing light to places that have only known darkness. Her earnest, husky explorations into intimate settings are greatly enhanced by her textural backing. Jason Hoopes is the bass player and Alex Vittum the drummer, but that's just the beginning of the story. Bells, bowed cymbals, trombone, clarinet and feedback support Lewandowski’s haunting and sun dappled lyrics. Be Mine strikes a pleasant balance between the gloomy corners of the mind (“Resting Place”) and the playful impressions of life’s oddity (“No Carpet”). While this record is not easily digestible, it is cut from an honest cloth, and makes for a profoundly physical listening experience.

Birdsong

Annie Lewandowski (voice/guitar), Jason Hoopes (bass), and Alex Vittum (percussion)

Valentine's Day 2009

Area C - Map of Circular Thought

This record is perhaps better than I suggested in my review. A real brain massager and provoker. This dude knows his shit.

Good ambient music often isn’t really all that ambient. Decent musicians set up a scaffolding of sorts that repeats and then play within it, delighting in the details. Area C has a lot to offer on the periphery of carnality. It serves a wholly different purpose than, say, Destiny’s Child, attempting to turn fragments of mind into entirely physical manifestations. The physical aspect of these sounds gives them power, much like the work of William Basinski. It’s no surprise that Carlson is an architect and has been making installation art for years. He's a student of sound in space; he’s even scored pieces for National Geographic, the NASA RI Space Grant Consortium and the LEF Foundation. This person isn’t just sticking to the studio or his bedroom; he’s involved in spheres where his music truly overlaps and makes sense. It’s inspiring to see what many could call an “obscure” kind of music be afforded so much importance in telling the stories of the world.

An After Image by Area C by Preservation

A Setting Sun - Flower Garden of Rejuvenation

What a mess! Ok, it's not so bad as to say it's useless or a white washing of the senses, but... my review is a combination of kind and head-shaking.

Tonally, Rejuvenation contains themes of beauty and brutality, agitation and repose, personal struggle and loss. The rather obvious re-tooling of the original album’s title indicates that there was no theme for the remixers to emulate. This is reflected in the disjointed nature of the tracks. As fun as it may be to send one's tracks to like-minded music freaks and have them souped up and transformed, the remix album is taken to the next level when everyone is on the same page.

Aidan Baker - Lost in the Rat Maze

I have a special place for Mr. Baker in my heart, and I am not often inclined to go there. He's got more releases than I have days in a year, so I can say that this album is a decent place to link up with Aidan's dreamdirge style. I wrote a large review of it, too.

Despite the rather uninviting image that graces this album’s cover (taken by the artist in question), the music has quite a wealth of variety. Piano and flute sounds appear, which give Aidan Baker’s typically guitar-centric robo-drifts some expanded topography. Overall, the compositions are different enough from each other as to designate ‘songs’ as opposed to one long drift (as on albums like Green And Cold or Pendulum), and the album as a whole benefits greatly. The dismal yet gentle palette is peppered with variable drum lines, boyish exhales and indistinguishable lyrics, as well as an overall playfulness. Baker once again sounds like he is in total command of his world, and it’s nice to hear so many sides of his work in one place. The album’s cohesiveness throughout its experimentation is testament to Baker’s ability to maintain a narrative focus on every project.

Pleq - The Sound of Rebirth

By the time you read this, Pleq will have released another album. Perhaps many more. Those in the electronic music world have the opportunity to be highly prolific, as Sound of Rebirth is the Polish sound architect’s fifteenth LP or collaboration, roughly. Sharing similar down-tempo palletes with the likes of Benge and Arovane, Pleq’s sound here is fulcrummed on jazzy piano lines immersed in chilled, soft-focus electronic foyers. The tracks that work best feel like sound accompaniments to the exploration of long-abandoned, but furnished houses, the air flecked with the novelty of curiosity fulfilled. Female voices appear as apparitions, whispering or breathing through walls, like on “A Very Gentle Death.” Pleq’s penache for writing alluring pieces that bloom gracefully as they progress is quite lovely. On the other hand there are a few tracks where the female vocals dominate, and their breathy waywardness feels more an intrusion. No more is this true on the opening piece, “Black Dog”. Hiiro-tent’s voice may be compelling in another context, but here it meanders and contradicts any flow the song might have had. Ghostly siren Natalia Grosiak flutters about more purposefully on “Raindrop”, fitting in much better with the album’s overall framework. Overall, the record has great songs, but the arc of the album is broken up by weaker or unfleshed-out tracks, or just a case of too many different sounding songs bogging down the main themes. The violins on “Swell_Bliss__Downtempo_Edition_” are a great addition, but they appear so deep into the procedings that it sounds like a different album alltogether. I thought the album was over several times before it was. One thing is for sure: With Sound of Rebirth close to 74 minutes, Pleq doesn’t skimp on the quantity.

Apparat Organ Quartet - Pólýfónía

I wrote a gushy review about this incredible album. The return of AOQ! It's a happy one.

The robotic vocals that appear throughout Pólýfónía would be a crutch for most bands, but here they make a perfect match for the analog machines. There really are four organ players, all darlings of the Icelandic artistic community. When Jóhannsson founded the band, he joked that there was no precedent for an organ quartet album, and they were forced to invent the genre. Listening to each of their individual melodies interact and weave together is a joy to the ears. The apexes AOQ reach while ascending square rainbows and tossing cubic pixie dust are so high, it’s like eating really good chocolate, while driving in space, while orgasming (ok, choose your own hyperbole). By the time the corny and endearing “123 Forever” appears with its robo-Sesame Street singalong, we are best friends with these guys, and we can forgive any dissimilar tastes or oddball choices, because 98% of the other ones were purely awesome. Closer “Söngur geimunglingsins” is a near seven-minute acid burner that moves into sky-opening, prog rock territory until it fizzles out into a static-encrusted puddle of radiation and then disappears. At this point, replaying the album seems the only option. It truly is an irresistable listen.

Lavinia - There is Light Between Us

Don’t let the Roman goddess name fool you into thinking this mini album has much in common with ancient lore. Depressive and bright at the corners, the debut EP from Boston four-piece Lavinia wears its heart and its influences on its sleeve. Guitarist/vocalist Nate Shumaker (formerly of Eksi Ekso) sings in a style much similar to the darker evolutions of the late 1990’s pop metal vocalists (think Cold or Staind without the abrupt screams of angst), and aches himself into lyrics of loss and heartbreak. The music combines elements of that 90’s era with flights of post-rock and post-metal. The influence-worship comes into full effect on “Fires”, sporting that unmistakable, liquid, reverberating bass that often defined the ISIS sound. Lavinia breaks free a little toward the end of the EP, where banjo and slide take predominant roles, but even here it reminds the ear of Red Sparowes. Closer “Bone & Arrow” presents the biggest ray of hope, both in atmospheric quality and in originality. Here Shumaker’s vocals are seldom, often leaving the banjo and slide to carry the voice duties. The blistering wall of tremolos reinforces that this band features members of Eksi Ekso, Caspian and a few other Boston post rock acts. The song goes beyond these parts, however, offering the most diverse array of internal dynamics on the EP. It’s a decent effort overall, and while the EP sounds great, and I want to root for the band, I cannot help but think that this release is going to fade away under the sheen of Lavinia’s future output. There Is Light Between Us feels more like an ode to the last decade in rock music, and is more of a stepping stone for a developing band than anything memorable.

Video: Boom Bip - Last Walk Around Mirror Lake (Boards of Canada remix)

My 2-year old was so amazed by this video we had to watch it twice. The track is from a Boom Bip remix album, Corymb, which in my estimation, is still one of the best remix albums ever made. It's much better than the album Seed To Sun. It contains a few new Boom Bip originals,
as well as remixes from Boards of Canada, Four Tet, Clouddead, Mogwai, Venetian Snares, Lali Puna, and a couple Peel Sessions with the legendary John Peel. It's an impeccable set of songs that are greater than their sum when listened to all together. I never knew there was a video for this song. Boards are always putting amazing physical feats into their videos, so this makes sense. The video makes the song even more sublime.