There are horns on this and this short message from Charles on their facebook page. At this point the long winters might get something completely out before them but lets see.
This was the last song finished (a week ago Sunday) and up to the night before, tried to fit this back into the larger song but just couldn’t make it work. This was the final version, now playing at 1 halfstep down (instead of three like the previous snippet) but still slower than the orig. But even this is still sort of an unfinished mess between the diff. drum takes playing, the vocals recorded at diff. speeds, the 12-string in the L speaker cutting out. So in the end, out it stayed.
ALBUM REVIEW: It’s not a very long climb to imagine once you are there and in the case of Minor Alps it’s was a journey worth waiting for. The two voices of Matthew Caws and Juliana naturally layer on the music contained on their debut together called Get There that they co-wrote together. As much as two celebrated and hard working songsters can write a song together. The magic happens once you put their voices together as you listen it’s impossible hard to tell who originated kernel of the idea if you were not there. At which point it does not matter because the pastiche becomes it’s own original color. They have perfectly blended together and not just for a celebrated show-me the money single, but for a whole bunch of songs, where in the universe where we revere celebrities these two souls have figured it out. Not an easy task. Granted both with their fair share of alternative hits in their not so far past. It can’t be easy to be humble enough to make something like this light touch album that proves the concepts can work in a variety of flavors. A real drummer here and drum machine there. The years of craft and balance are present.
There are lots of intimate lyrical moments like two lovers exchanging thoughts and memories. We’re lucky they have let us in. We’re all very lucky that they went through so much for us. Start with the rock radio tune then work your way inside their heads and like us we’re already looking forward to the next set of tunes.
Juliana and Matthew have made a metaphorical musical union that if your ears know justice and some of the anarchy happening in music. This is the kind of justice that will GET you THERE with them away from ignorance of what is completely wrong. FUCK YOU PITCHFORK your ignorance is bliss to help the rest of us filter out the noise. The rest of you fans should own this perfectly crafted pop album made with the engineering and the co-producer cranium skills of Tom Beaujour.
ALBUM REVIEW: Firesuite – You’re An Ocean Deep, My Brother delivers on all sorts of levels. Imagine postal workers being let loose in an empty warehouse full of your unopened mail. With so many possibilities in these communications this band is here to make the rounds. Their stories are told through chilling guitar notes and none are spared during the assault of this shoegaze firestorm and a fire suit is indeed needed! The machine-gun tactics of the track “Sammy Davis Jr Jr” will wake your ass-up in a Municipal Waste company kind of way causing a ruckus when your hung-over in a earthquake in-between the dreamy guitar and male/female singing inter-play spread throughout this record’s songs. They are fallen angels putting you in a rock trance direct from the ministry of Heaven. The track SDJJ is actually named after the dog in movie the Everything Is Illuminated and the tune will surely get your attention as it rocks you out of the pleasant scene of your dream into an entirely different level. The 2112 bass playing drives some Toolesque sounds with a healthy walloping of guitar flange in particular on songs like “Beneath the roses.” In all this music will uplift your day and make it go much better like a pleasant note from a loved one on the fridge. You’ll hear the choruses and before you know it you’ll nod out to that dream again where some hot actress is singing Sci-Fi Lullabys in your ear.
Firesuite’s story is a “normal” one. Connected by equal parts melody and noise. Chris Anderson (vox, guitar), alongside Chris Minor (bass), Sarah Griffiths (vox, guitar) & Richard Storer (drums) deliver some pretty thick music all in here. Anderson met Storer dressed in white (not sure if they were his summer whites) and Minor while they were both unemployed taking a music course. They were fans of Griffiths’s who sang in a band called Bolster and they asked her to join. She’s been playing with the group for better part of year now. Influence wise it’s a eclectic mix. Anderson been listening to soundtracks, recently like “Inception” by composer Hans Zimmer. Storer listens to a lot of Jaco Pastorius and Sufjan Stevens, Chris Minor and Sarah listen to oodles of 4AD bands and the songs from Pingu. Which I think is part of the magic when the music comes together in this warm cocoon because if we all listened to just the Ramones we’d look like Joey Ramone as a butterfly. I asked Anderson some of the bands they think are very cool or need championing and he candidly mentioned two of Aereogramme’s new bands; Athletics and The Unwinding Hours are very, very cool. Mogwai’s new material sounds wonderful and Vessels.” Much inspiring which leads us to their video/single “Amity” cut by newbie auteur “Euston Piret“, which is the musical alter-ego of Ray Russell. This very cordial tune reminds us of a noisy mix of Stereolab and Sunny Day on that alone you should all be all over this band like hippies are to the 60’s to this re-imagined homage to The 90’s.
This music reminds of: Pillars MP3 by Sunny Day Real Estate’sHow It Feels to Be Something On (1998) or anything of their s/t pink one like Friday MP3 [Buy] Code Breaker MP3 by The Sleepover Disaster from their 2009 release via Devil in the Woods called Hover. TSD are from San Joaquin Valley in California and their music is vast like a desert storm. Kyberneticka Babicka Part 1 MP3 by Stereolab from Fab Four Suture [Buy] Knut MP3 by The Unwinding Hours
SINGLE REVIEWS: The inbox has been flooding with music on a daily basis so the listening queue is getting longer and longer. So if I don’t get right back to you please don’t take it personally. When my ears perk-up like a dog that hears a sound with that sound is when I get excited and reminded why I do this for ya’ll. To be fair though and as a general FYI I grab everything and put it in a For Review playlist and do the due dilligence and drop the needle in there and listen. Here’s a bunch of tracks and bands that have stood out recently in said playlist. We might do this monthly to give everybody a chance. Not sure what I’m going to call it but it will definitely not feature well known groups but it will be the farm team and it will always be good. No point in writing about stuff that sucks.
Here’s a Tacoma, Washington band called SLOWWAVE via the kind folks Savings n Loan Records with a track called “Pour” from their new EP Drag Lake Sin this week. The mellow like garfunkel vocals and found folky zipher sound builds on this track. After bridges you might find yourself in a dream sequence sounscape that reminds me of something in-between In Rainbows & Misery Is A Butterfly. Stalk them for sure. Download:Pour MP3 by SLOWWAVE
Kraftwerk inspired keyboard thonking with a Of Montreal Depeche mode-ish vocal delivery is what you get from James Curd Presents Ziggy Franklin’s disco. This track is as much song as you could squeeze out of one 80’s underground dance beat but when “Shelter” plays it reminds me that alternative dance music scene was cool and you’d listen because you got to wear black a lot. Download:Shelter MP3 from No Need To Fight About It [Buy it from Smash Hit Music Co]
San Francisco’s Shuteye Unison have come a long way from their post-punk daze. Here’s the title track from Our Future Selves that can best be described as a enigmatic dose of rock. Big word we know but it is what happens when music is distilled this well. You’ll be a fan if you like Silver Pick-ups or that Canadian Broken Social Scene. Awesome record. Download:Our Future Selves MP3 by Shuteye Unison s/t [Buy]
EP 2 MUSIC REVIEW: If you would have told somebody you could play this many notes in the 1930’s they would have thought you were an octopus or a carnie but yet here you are on the eve of closing out yet another decade and metal is alive and well. Not that you’d know what metal was then but if you want to call Gondoliers prog metal you’re more than welcome to do it in this decade whilst you can.
I’m going to reserve sticking these Somerville Mass experi-metal (yuk yuk) geeks in any one particular sub-sub genre for right now because they mutated again into something deeper and beautifully darker. When they go-off the rails they are in the wires – reconfiguring the mess. Twisting out the guts from some random piece of roadkill and then proceeding to schredd and serenade the double octavewave pedal in celebration of their carnage and physical feats. These are your neu metal duo geeks with fast machine gun like reflexive notes playing the soundtrack of your prom copulation in discordant Glass like un-harmony. The noise is free but the sting of the memories will only last this life time so dig in and get weird cuz punk is sorta dead or at least the 1980’s version. Did I mention it’s fast like Don Caballero and precise like a razor and yet dumb like bull for everyday use? If not pardon moi let it rip.
In no particular order of hipness or musical taste. Was just cruising for some new music up on elbo.ws and came across these folks plus a few of my normal mp3 haunts. hypem.com has been too elitists recently. So enjoy the rock as this fan of music fans is fickle.
Lets Sexy Fighting – always gotta love weird blog names that make no sense sober but have good taste. dig it.
TOP SINGLES IN THE GREAT ESCAPE POD: Learn to Surf – Superchunk – Mac has not lost his touch. Kids please take a rock guitar lesson from your lame gitter twanging. I want you to know – Dinosaur jr.- dude nobody makes rock like this anymore Let Love Rule 2009 (Justice Remix) Lenny Kravitz High Class Slim Came Floatin In – Tortoise – a little annoying bit the retro keyboards do the trick Straight To Hell (The Clash) By Bill Janovitz I’d pay 10 bux to see him perform and I hate singer songwriters except for Glen Hansard from the frames. Yours Truly, The Commuter s/t by Jason Lytle solo record(grandaddy) giving AIR a run for their frenchy money.
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