Battles - Gloss Drop

Battles are awesome, and now as a threesome they are arguably "better" because they still pull off amazing, complex tunes. Here is my review, touting Gloss Drop as something way more than decent.

A couple years ago, while Tyondai Braxton was still with the band, Battles had an album’s worth of material. When he left, the remaining members had to reinvent themselves and essentially make a new album. Gloss Drop doesn’t feature the polyrhythmic sensibilities that matched Braxton's sugary voice to the music; nor does it contain his compositional curveballs. Instead, this is the sound of Battles rising from the ashes. The vocal presence contributes to a significantly different feel. The sound often drives straight ahead, matching more muscular moments with the familiar overlapping guitar lines. And while this album isn’t as glued together as well as the last one, its level of talent, fun and ideas is still remarkable. If Mirrored was the wild stallion that one could admire for its beauty and unpredictability but never touch, Gloss Drop is the dependable thoroughbred that will more likely win the race when all is said and done.

Marcus Fjellström - Library Music 1

This man is a delight. I thought his last album was a bit stronger on the whole, but my review of Library Music 1 sings his praises.

Most of these tracks are around two minutes long, and behave as windows into strange worlds. The dense and varied elements Fjellström arranges make these glimpses feel complete. The off-kilter piano chords in “107” teeter and rattle like the legs of a mentally-ill millipede. They are backed up by skittery snare rolls, static, fizzy cymbals, and a deep corridor of alternative percussion. “109” features a liquified, electronic vibraphone that shapeshifts amidst faint ebowed guitars, echoing chimes, some kind of dulicimer and an ambient haze. Fjellström works digitally, but his work sounds dusty and ancient due to progam plugins which emulate the irregularities of analog tape. “103” and even “110” sound a heck of a lot like Amon Tobin’s atmospheric meanderings, with motorcycle engine pulses, insectoid accents, bowed cymbals and a faint orchestra and choir. With such similar production values, one could easily trick an Amon fan into believing “103” was one of his new, unreleased tracks.

Il Rumore del Fiore di Carta - Lesson 3 / How To Live Without Senses

Some folks on my staff really dig this album, but I don't agree. My review is revealing and maybe a bit harsh.

Instead of bold shifts or risks, Il Rumore del Fiore di Carta keep things simple for most of the album, abandoning their sense of adventure. This injures the listening experience, especially when an unnecessary pit stop like “Part-time Superhero” is tasked with carrying listeners toward the show’s eventual climax. Album closer "The Blind Cosmonaut Under The Sea” is a complete waste of time, sounding exactly like the end credits to a student film about an angry kid who whose father never loved him enough. This piano solo does not do the album any favors. Instead of ending strong, IRdFdC limps away with a track containing about as much emotional depth as a romantic comedy.

Explosions In The Sky’s All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone also ends with a track that dares us to get sentimental. “So Long, Lonesome” is a tame attempt at including piano for emotional effect, and Il Rumore del Fiore di Carta‘s latest album seems to be plagued by that same infraction. Coloring with accents and effects is fine, but as an instrument, the piano is too bold to sound this boring. It’s a big tease. Even the guitars seem to be playing in its shadow, and it isn’t quite working. The trumpet and the drumming/bass combo are Lesson 3’s saving grace, but it isn’t enough to get me out of my chair and race to the telegraph to tell you about this occasionally promising but ultimately pedestrian album.

Brian Reitzell & Alex Heffes - Red Riding Hood

Brian Reitzell is a fascinating score composer who fashions new instruments to achieve very specific moods and sounds. For 30 Days Of Night he doctored a pottery wheel with felt, mallets and tubing. Their eerie, grinding tones helped the film’s outstanding soundtrack to achieve a rich uniqueness. For Red Riding Hood, Reitzell teamed up with Alex Heffes, who always conducts his own scores and has quite a varied set of film credits (Last King of Scotland, The Rite). Perhaps he was the grounding force to Reitzell’s more avant guard approaches. As a result, Red Riding Hood has a balanced mixture of synthetics and orchestra. “Kids” contains straight ahead drumming, liquid guitar accents and music box melodies, while “Dead Sister” turns up the ominous vibe with bowed cymbals, cobwebbed strings, hallowed vocals and a creepy anklung-esque bit of percussion. The ever-mutating “The Reveal” features the most in-depth look into the collaboration, as analog hadrosaurs shudder in the shadows while ominous cellos and horns shift the mood in a delicious fashion. Retizell’s drum programming and analog treatments are quite captivating at times, carrying a ton of momentum and intrigue. Other choices like hammered dulcimer, ambient glissades and a beautifully lamenting guitar (from “End Suite”) ensure the work steers clear of typical soundtrack schlock. To choose Fever Ray as a lead musical voice for a major motion picture is exciting, and Reitzell’s production and sound choices match the group’s tribal electronics, seemlessly incorporating the music into the fray. A big surprise is how enjoyable Reitzell’s collaboration with Anthony Gonzales turned out to be, as the symphonics cleanly blend with the sweet boy vocals and the classic M83 fuzz and space whir. The vocal-based tracks are well-chosen highlights as opposed to awkward stand-ins. While soundtracks often sound like they are aping a film one can’t see, Red Riding Hood is an apt demonstration of how collaborations can produce a fresh and focused voice for a film one doesn't really need to see to enjoy.

Listen to this bizniss here.

Thai Elephant Orchestra / Dave Soldier & Richard Lair - Water Music

This review was the most difficult I've ever had to write. And it's not like I gave the elephants a poor review; I scored it high. It's just so difficult to articulate a judgment and analysis of creatures we don't understand as well. And I love animals so much; it was tough to be critical in any way. The album's music speaks for itself. It's simply magical and unique.

Many sound artists are bent on creating previously unheard environments, and the most successful exhibit an ease to their craft. Sometimes these elephants get a little too excited on the rain sheet or joyfully hit the gong a few too many times. But then they stop; they listen to each other. One hits the xylophone more softly, showing a little restraint. What are they thinking about? This isn't a bunch of children playing music. These are animals with musical minds, and quite often their seemingly haphazard playing is as striking as any recorded work done by Homo sapiens.

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.