tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52671541931578668612024-03-12T18:57:19.685-04:00WRMC 91.1 Middlebury College Independent RadioWRMC Middlebury Collegehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12081026775394442733noreply@blogger.comBlogger506125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-87728097806574775762013-04-14T16:10:00.002-04:002013-04-14T16:10:25.852-04:00Hey! WRMC has a new webpage/blog!!!You should go to <a href="http://wrmc.middlebury.edu/">wrmc.middlebury.edu</a> and check our awesome new website.<br />
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Much love.Alan Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11336489703859164876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-90458690139075848282013-02-03T05:04:00.004-05:002013-02-06T12:41:21.134-05:00Buy the new My Bloody Valentine album!!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's been 22 years, aka longer than my entire life, for legendary Irish shoegazers My Bloody Valentine to release a follow-up to <i>Loveless</i>, one of the greatest LPs of the 1990s/all time. Seriously -- there are books about that album, probably thousands of bands directly inspired to start making music by that album, Sofia Coppola films whose sole purpose is to provide visual accompaniment to that album, and tearjerking essays all over the internet about its life-altering capabilities. It is sex and drugs and cotton candy and dreams and heavy rock music all at once. In 2012, reports surfaced -- including on this very site -- that the band was recording a new album, which they tantalizingly hinted could be finished "in two or three months."It took a bit longer, but given that nearly everyone assumed the reports were wishful thinking at best and a cruel prank by Kevin Shields & Co. at worst, that's just fine. Last night, the album went live on the My Bloody Valentine site. The site crashed within seconds due to high traffic, a testament to their rabid fan base (yours truly amongst the guilty parties, sadly pressing "refresh" for hours in the middle of the night). Now the site is up and running, and you can purchase the new album, entitled <i>m b v</i> (that's the cover art above) in three different packages: a digital download (FLAC, WAV, or MP3); a CD + digital download; or vinyl + CD + digital download. I am listening to it now; it's difficult to gauge quality from the first listen but while obviously not better than <i>Loveless</i>, it certainly holds its own. As dreamy and heavy as ever. Go forth and buy <i>m b v</i>! You've certainly been waiting long enough. Here's the tracklist below, and a Youtube of My Bloody Valentine's "Sometimes":</div>
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<i>m b v</i>:</div>
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1. She Found Now</div>
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2. Only Tomorrow</div>
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3. Who Sees You</div>
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4. Is This And Yes</div>
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5. If I Am</div>
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6. New You</div>
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7. In Another Way</div>
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8. Nothing Is</div>
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9. Wonder 2</div>
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Sam Tolzmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11619712891066074209noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-74131147359741371072013-01-28T08:25:00.001-05:002013-02-03T08:02:33.961-05:00UPDATE: The Knife just released a totally insane ten-minute video for their new single, "Full Of Fire"Watch it <a href="http://pitchfork.com/news/49304-watch-the-knifes-epic-video-for-full-of-fire/?utm_campaign=search&utm_medium=site&utm_source=search-ac"><b>here</b></a>, courtesy of Pitchfork. See below for more details on the Knife's comeback! Enjoy not sleeping ever again.Sam Tolzmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11619712891066074209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-15696005092247663322013-01-24T14:47:00.002-05:002013-01-24T14:53:56.995-05:00Hear "Full Of Fire," the new single by The Knife<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you're a fan of Swedish duo The Knife (Karin Andersson + her brother, Olaf Dreijer) -- and, let's face it, with 2004's steel-drum-brandishing dancefloor crossover smash <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ow0bA4H3BQ">"Heartbeats"</a></b> and one of the best, most stylistically innovative LPs of the 2000s (2006's <i>Silent Shout</i>) to their name, who isn't? -- then you already know that it requires patience (and a strong stomach). Since the malevolent classic <i>Silent Shout</i>, Andersson released her haunting and brilliant solo debut as Fever Ray and Dreijer's dabbled in straightforward techno work, but the only thing the siblings have released together was a strange, inaccessible 2010 opera about Charles Darwin (???) called <i>Tomorrow In A Year</i>, a collaborative effort with Planningtorock and Mt. Sims. Then, a few weeks ago (UGH FINALLY), they cryptically announced a new album due in 2013, <i>Shaking The Habitual</i>. The nine-minute first single, "Full Of Fire," just leaked and holy shit is it awesome or is it awesome? Answer: it is awesome!!!! Thing bangs <i>hard</i> like it's Joy Division's "She's Lost Control" on MDMA. <i>Stereogum</i> has a Youtube of the track right now, click <b><a href="http://stereogum.com/1243691/the-knife-full-of-fire/mp3s/">here</a></b>. Listen quick, it'll probably get taken down soon, but never fear; if it does disappear, I will update this post as soon as it resurfaces! You won't want to miss this incredibly talented duo's big return.Sam Tolzmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11619712891066074209noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-72326444478169868492013-01-21T21:38:00.003-05:002013-01-21T21:39:07.927-05:00Astronautalis Interview<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I sat down with Jacksonville FL rapper, Astronautalis
("but for the love of God, call me Andy") before his set at High
Ground last month. He spent September and October on tour with Flobots and he's
now on tour in Russia. He crafts music that blends hip-hop, folk and indie rock
into something really unique and engaging. His most recent album "This Is
Our Science" was released last fall and has been his greatest success yet. He talked to me about his recent success as
well as his artistic progress and the journey he's had throughout his 15-year
career. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Your album came out a
year ago, how has it been since then?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's been an insane surprise actually. I don't think anybody
expected the album to do as well as it did.
We didn't have a marketing push or anything like that and it blew up. It
was on a label called Fake Four, but there are only two employees. It outsold
everything I've ever done in the first month and it was a great affirmation that
people gave a shit.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>You music spans
across genres-how do you classify it?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I still consider myself a rapper because that's what I grew
up doing, even though the music I make isn't always rap. The music that I make
isn't really rap music anymore, but I still will approach a country song like a
rap song. It's not really my job to classify it-that's everyone else's job. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>How did you get
started?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I started rapping when I was 12 or 13- I taught myself
through freestyle but I didn't really write a song for about 8 years. From
there I got invited to bigger battles around the country and to open for
different artists. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>And you went to
school as well, right?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I went to Southern Methodist University in Dallas and
studied theatre- I wanted to be a director and lighting designer for theatre,
opera, and ballet. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>How did that tie in
to the rapping- you were doing at the time?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Battling isn't like an art form-it's a craft. So I was
studying this craft in my free time and this art in the daytime. It took me a
while to find a place where they fit together. I didn't grow up jamming in a
band so my artistic process is the artistic process I got from theatre. - When
I make my records I use that formula. I still use my theatre training every
single day as a rapper now. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I'm really obsessed with melodrama and large scale- nothing
that I do is subtle and I like broad strokes. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I've been going to Europe a lot in the pat few years- more
into central and Eastern Europe. That's my favorite- it's an interesting time
for that region. Once the USSR split up they became these little petri dishes
of nationality. It's not a lucrative place to tour, by any means, but it's an
interesting time to travel through there. I got there to learn- driving through
Eastern Europe and bribing cops and shit? That's stuff I won't get to do
anywhere else. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Is there a large
difference with the crowds there?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
People in America go to shows to sing along with a band-
they try to figure out when the headliner's going on and get there right before
theat. Over there, it's a loyalty to a club and they'll see everything and to
discover new music.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Are you working on
any new music?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are two new bands I'm working on- one with Justin
Vernon and Ryan Olson and Sean Kerry. And I'm working on an album with P.O.S.
that we've been working on for a long time. I'm all over his new album but
we're working on a record together that we've finally had time to work on and
hopefully put the nail in the coffin. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>With "This is
Our Science" was there a different theme from your other albums?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Each album I work on has a concept- I work better in
limitations. What opens that for me is the language; I try to change the
language of every record. The second record was really with prose and raw
emoting- it was literary, like a collection of short stories circling around
the myth of Persephone. The latest record was supposed to feel like having a
glass of whiskey with the audience.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>How do you create
that connection with your audience and fan base?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I try to be really frank about my artistic arc. I try to
make it so they can see the artistic line through my albums so that they have a
context. But ultimately, it just becomes trust- letting it out into the ether
and hoping that it lands on people's hearts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Astronautalis- Dimitri Mendeleev</div>
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<!--EndFragment-->WRMC Middlebury Collegehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12081026775394442733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-34837618910229899802013-01-16T11:22:00.000-05:002013-01-17T17:37:30.460-05:00Albums we can't wait to hear: Winter 2013 EditionDear DJs, readers, listeners, et. al.,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Welcome to J-Term! Whether you're living the Admissions-brochure dream (sledding on dining hall trays, partying every night, leaving the Snow Bowl only once a week to attend your workshop "The Lost Art of Italian Cupcake Decoration"), opting to "challenge yourself" by taking Orgo or a foreign language (lol...no), or putting your career first by taking an internship at Goldman-Sachs/an "internship" at your hometown's local cafe, you're gonna need some music to soundtrack those dreary, minus-10-degrees-Fahrenheit-and-that's-not-even-with-windchill days which, do not forget, are THE BEST OF OUR LIVES. Played <i>good kid, MAAD city </i>and <i>Celebration Rock</i> ad nauseam lately? Hoping for some new sounds on your winter playlist? Fortunately, unlike the film industry, January is as prime an album-release time as any other. Below, learn which albums due out in January, as well as February and March, you can anticipate brightening up your seasonal-affective-disorder-ified VT winter. Stream them online, pick 'em up on iTunes or at a record store (...), or just tune into WRMC 91.1 FM, where they'll likely be in Rotation. Happy J-Term!<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>A$AP Rocky, <i>Long.Live.A$AP </i>[1/15, RCA]</b><br />
The second full-length from increasingly hip rapper A$AP Rocky has been in development hell for some time; here's hoping it actually gets released at all, let alone on time. RIYL: Danny Brown, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Danny Brown, SpaceGhostPurrp.<br />
<br />
<b>Atoms For Peace, <i>Amok</i> [2/26, XL]</b><br />
Thom Yorke named his new supergroup, featuring legendary producer Nigel Godrich and members of R.E.M. and Red Hot Chili Peppers, after one of his own songs (from the Godrich-produced solo album <i>The Eraser</i>). Which, I think, tells you a fair amount about what this album will sound like, and even more about Thom Yorke. RIYL: Thom Yorke, Nigel Godrich, Radiohead.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Autre Ne Veut, <i>Anxiety </i>[2/26, Software]</b><br />
This Brooklyn R&B singer-songwriter's amazing 2010 effort went unregarded, but as that genres gained more traction in his home borough, anticipation is rightly building for his follow-up. If mind-blowing lead single "Counting" is anything to judge by, this one's gonna be a knockout. RIYL: AlunaGeorge, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Ford & Lopatin, Grimes, How To Dress Well, that one Usher song.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Beach Fossils, <i>Clashing The Truth </i>[2/19, Captured Tracks]</b><br />
The Captured Tracks flagship is back with, we assume, more spindly guitars, wistful emotions, and lovely album artwork. RIYL: the Cure, Craft Spells, DIIV, Minks, the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Veronica Falls, Wild Nothing.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Blue Hawaii, <i>Untogether </i> [1/22, Arbutus]</b><br />
A side project for Raphaelle Standell-Preston, frontwoman of the Montreal band Braids -- who were responsible for this writer's favorite album of 2011, the stunning <i>Native Speaker </i>-- Blue Hawaii channels that band's eccentric vocals, spacey keyboards, aquatic found sounds, and bracingly intelligent lyrics about the ecstasies and, mostly, agonies of sexuality into shorter, more distilled pop form. RIYL: Bjork, Braids, Eleanor Friedberger, Grimes, Purity Ring, Twin Sister.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Broadcast, <i>Berberian Sound Studio (Original Film Soundtrack) </i>[1/4, Warp]</b><br />
If your tastes run to the psychedelic, the spooky, and the sophisticated, this horror film soundtrack by legendary British duo Broadcast -- completed after the untimely death in 2011 of frontwoman Trish Keenan -- should fit the bill. RIYL: Animal Collective, Bell Orchestre, the Focus Group, Goblin, Nico, Stereolab, Twin Sister, the United States of America.<br />
<br />
<b>Christopher Owens, <i>Lysandre</i> [1/15, Fat Possum]</b><br />
The Girls frontman is back following that band's recent breakup, with what we can expect to be another batch of instant-classic pop-rock gems. RIYL: The Beach Boys, Best Coast, Big Star, Elvis Costello, Girls, Mac DeMarco.<br />
<br />
<b>David Bowie, <i>The Next Day </i>[3/12, Columbia]</b><br />
The glam-rock god's return from retirement is most definitely the biggest music-related event of the season. Do I need to qualify why? RIYL: David Bowie!!!!!!!!!<br />
<br />
<b>Destiny's Child, <i>Lovesong</i> [1/19, Columbia]</b><br />
The only record that can challenge the claim I just made about David Bowie. RIYL: Destiny's Child!!!!!!<br />
<br />
<b>Devendra Banhart, <i>Mala</i> [3/12, Nonesuch]</b><br />
Back when "freak-folk" was a thing, Devendra Banhart was its Christ figure (no, seriously, look at pictures). Since "freak-folk" ceased to be a thing, no one has mourned the loss of yet another dumb sub-genre tag, but many have mourned Banhart's lovely, lightly psychedelic, T. Rex-aping folk music, which took a turn for the worse around the same time. <i>Mala</i> presents a chance for Banhart to get back in the good graces of critics and fans alike. Alas, however, former lover and partner-in-peacoats Natalie Portman (http://themiddledistancerunner.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/natalie-portman-and-devendra-banhart.jpg) has moved on and gotten married to someone else. :( RIP Hip Couple Of The Millennium. RIYL: Bert Jansch, Fleet Foxes, Joanna Newsom, T. Rex, Vetiver.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Ducktails, <i>The Flower Lane</i> [1/29, Domino]</b><br />
Matt Mondanile is better known as a member of Real Estate, but his fourth album as Ducktails is being released on high-profile indie label Domino suggests he poised for a big break as a solo artist. RIYL: Atlas Sound, Avey Tare, Julian Lynch, Mac DeMarco, Real Estate.<br />
<br />
<b>Eels, <i>Wonderful Glorious </i>[2/5, Vagrant]</b><br />
I have no idea if this band is still any good, but man they used to be great so cross your fingers. RIYL: Badly Drawn Boy, Big Star, Elliott Smith, Sparklehorse.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Ellen Allien, <i>LISm </i>[3/12, BPitch Control]</b><br />
The stone-cold maven of Berlin minimalist techno is back, so dig out your black leather pants. RIYL: Bjork, Daphni, Felix Da Housecat, Pantha Du Prince, Simian Mobile Disco.<br />
<br />
<b>Esben And The Witch, <i>Wash The Sins Not Only The Face </i>[1/22, Matador]</b><br />
In 2011, British goth-rock trio Esben And The Witch released one of the least pleasant music videos in recent memory, for their track "Marching Song," in which the band members' faces became increasingly battered and bloody as the stark, forbidding, absolutely fearsome post-punk tune slowly built to an earsplitting climax. The track and the video both made for powerful art. The album that spawned them, <i>Violet Cries</i>, unfortunately did not live up to that standard, instead delivering "Marching Song" and ten derivatives of its elegant formula of minimalism and aggression. Especially given the cultural currency of goth rock in the pop scene since 2010 or so, the reviews were understandably lukewarm and audiences failed to latch on. However, hopefully the band have learned from their missteps and corrected them on their sophomore album; their live show, at any rate, is supposed to be phenomenal, terrifying, and cathartic, so even if this album isn't your cup of tea, see if you can't get a ticket. RIYL: Tamaryn, Zola Jesus.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>FIDLAR, <i>FIDLAR</i> [1/22, Mom and Pop]</b><br />
Really loud, scrappy, high-energy punk rock about drinking in basements? We'll take it. RIYL: Black Flag, Japandroids, Nirvana.<br />
<br />
<b>Foals, <i>Holy Fire</i> [2/12, Transgressive]</b><br />
This band consistently puts out albums of mediocre post-punk revivalism touted as "experimental," "genre-bending," and, least explicably of all, "math-rock." But, ok, we'll hold out for Foals; maybe they'll make good this time. RIYL: allegedly, Battles; actually, Bloc Party.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Grouper, <i>The Man Who Died In His Boat </i>[2/4, Kranky]</b><br />
Oregon-based Liz Harris, aka Grouper, makes haunting, reverb-soaked drone-folk about dragging dead deer up hills (among other things); it's more mesmerizing and lovely than that might make it sound to the uninitiated, I promise. RIYL: Belong, the Caretaker, Julianna Barwick, Mount Eerie, Sleep-Over.<br />
<br />
<b>How to destroy angels_, <i>Welcome oblivion</i> [3/5, Columbia]</b><br />
The latest effort from Trent Reznor's post-Nine Inch Nails group will hopefully sound a little less like NIN with a different singer than their two EPs. RIYL: The idea of NIN with a female lead singer.<br />
<br />
<b>Iceage, <i>You're Nothing</i> [2/19, Matador]</b><br />
Danish band continues to blend punk, post-punk, hardcore, goth, and doom metal into a bracing, at times grueling, but successfully accessible pop package. Meanwhile, presumably, noses (and guitars) will continue to be regularly broken at their shows. Allegedly, these barely-legal Danes incorporate piano into their new material and even wrote a "ballad"; I'll believe it when I read a report of a keyboard smashing someone in the face at an Iceage concert. RIYL: Ceremony, Cult of Youth, Holograms, Fucked Up, Joy Division, Wire.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Jamie Liddell, <i>Jamie Liddell</i> [2/19, Warp]</b><br />
While critics were heaping praise on James Blake's elegant cut-and-pasted R&B aesthetic in 2010, longtime fans of Jamie Liddell everywhere sneered collectively, "Yeah, and...?" Now, they're wondering if this album from glitch-happy '70s/'80s soul devotee Liddell will put those upstarts in their place, or at least validate Liddell in the context of a trend he prefigured years ago. RIYL: Autre Ne Veut, James Blake, Junior Boys, Max Tundra, Moby.<br />
<br />
<b>Javelin, <i>Hi Beams </i>[3/5, Luaka Bop]</b><br />
Javelin are the world's answer to the Avalanches after Avalanches went on indefinite hiatus. Javelin's sample-based grooves hew close to the earlier band's territory but are a little more relaxed and have a more pronounced hip-hop bent. RIYL: Air France, Avalanches, Delicate Steve, Unknown Mortal Orchestra.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Jim James, <i>Regions Of Light And Sounds Of God </i>[2/5, AMO]</b><br />
This man, who you may know as the frontman of My Morning Jacket, has a voice like honey AND the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, at the same time! RIYL: Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Cat Power, Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes, My Morning Jacket, Phosphorescent.<br />
<br />
<b>Johnny Marr, <i>The Messenger </i>[2/26, RCA]</b><br />
LEGENDARY SMITHS* GUITARIST RELASES SOLO ALBUM OMG. RIYL: The Smiths, except not Morrissey. *Also Modest Mouse, but I'm not about to all-caps that.<br />
<br />
<b>Lisa Germano, <i>no elephants</i> [2/12, Badman]</b><br />
The high-art stalwart gives us what is, presumably, another collection of lovely orchestral pop. RIYL: Julia Holter, Kate Bush, Nico.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Local Natives, <i>Hummingbird</i> [1/29, Frenchkiss]</b><br />
Well this'll be fun. RIYL: Born Ruffians, Fang Island, Male Bonding, Port O'Brien.<br />
<br />
<b>Major Lazer, <i>Free The Universe</i> [Mad Decent]</b><br />
Destined for never-ending rotation at Brooker dance parties. RIYL: Diplo.<br />
<br />
<b>Mark Kozelek, <i>Like Rats</i> [2/19, Caldo Verde]</b><br />
Mark Kozelek is maybe getting to prolific for his own good, since the late '00s/early '10s have seen each successive record diluting his once-devastating brand of sluggishly-paced angst into an unhealthy mixture of laid-back acoustic noodling and, like, Dashboard Confessional. RIYL: Cat Power, Red House Painters, Smog, Sun Kil Moon.<br />
<br />
<b>Marnie Stern, <i>The Chronicles of Marnia</i> [3/19, Kill Rock Stars]</b><br />
It is bewildering that Marnie Stern is not a superstar. She certainly has the talent, the pedigree, the verve, and the singularity. She's like a cheerleader with anger issues who can, by the way, play the electric guitar more skillfully (and, perhaps, more strangely) than anyone else in existence -- if you're unfamiliar with her work, think power-metal meets high school pep rally meets Abstract Epxressionism. Or, if you prefer, Sleigh Bells with fewer amps and a LOT more technical ability. Prepare to be dazzled and confused (and also, maybe, emotionally wrecked). RIYL: Death Grips, Sleigh Bells.<br />
<br />
<b>MillionYoung, <i>Variable</i> [2/12, Old Flame]</b><br />
Getting a head start on beach season, I see. RIYL: 2009.<br />
<br />
<b>Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, <i>Push The Sky Away</i> [2/19, Anti-]</b><br />
After his time in the brash, crass side project Grinderman -- which found Cave recovering the swagger and snarl of his early records with backing band the Seeds as well as his early-1980s days fronting the Birthday Party -- fans everywhere are crossing their fingers for a new album that puts the "Bad" back in "Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds" (and, yeah, the "Nick Cave," too). From the appropriately vicious sound of early singles, be careful what you wish for! RIYL: Pixies, Swans, Tom Waits.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Phosphorescent, <i>Muchacho </i>[3/19, Dead Oceans]</b><br />
Sad, bearded man with acoustic guitar writes bleak, lushly arranged folk-rock. There's a lot of that in the world, but few of those bearded men are as sad as Phosphorescent, and few of their songs are as bleak or lushly arranged as his. RIYL: Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Mark Kozelek, Sigur Ros, Willie Nelson.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Pissed Jeans, <i>Honeys</i> [2/12, Sub Pop]</b><br />
Sub Pop gets back to its original business of releasing wild, abrasive, and wildly, abrasively fun rock. RIYL: Black Flag, the Jesus Lizard, Nirvana, Pixies, Slint.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The Ruby Suns, <i>Christopher</i> [1/29, Sub Pop]</b><br />
All I know about this is that it's more from the pleasant, '60s-worshipping, Afro-inflected group. RIYL: The Dodos, Here We Go Magic, the Morning Benders, Vampire Weekend, the Very Best.<br />
<br />
<b>Shout Out Louds, <i>Optica</i> [2/26, Merge]</b><br />
This Swedish sextet has always had trouble finding an audience, and their critical reception has tended toward the lukewarm. However, they've got some absolute gems in their back catalog -- especially the 2010 anthem about overcoming depression, "Walls" -- and perhaps <i>Optica</i> is the release where their impeccable taste, rich arrangements, and knack for melody coalesce. RIYL: Jens Lekman, Peter Bjorn and John, The Shins.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Tegan and Sara, <i>Heartthrob </i>[1/29, Warner]</b><br />
I can't talk about this band without insulting them or their target audience. But they have a new album out... RIYL: I can't. I'm sorry. I just can't. I don't want to be mean.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Toro Y Moi, <i>Anything in Return </i>[1/22, Carpark]</b><br />
It's been interesting to see what the figureheads of the much-maligned "chillwave" trend c. summer 2009 have done with their careers since their signature sound became deeply unfashionable. Where Washed Out went Air, Neon Indian went M83, and Memory Tapes went to shit, Toro Y Moi has had by far the most interesting career arc. His last album, <i>Underneath the Pines</i>, naturally extended his original sound into a collection of digitally warped, New Age-y soul-funk; he claims that <i>Anything in Return</i> is his most full-on "pop"-oriented collection yet. RIYL: Gnarls Barkley, Jamie Liddell, Memory Tapes, Neon Indian, Washed Out.<br />
<br />
<b>Ulrich Schnauss, <i>A Long Way To Fall</i> [2/12, Domino]</b><br />
The ever-dependable Schnauss can be expected to deliver another swoon-inducing batch of lush, shoegaze-indebted instrumental electronica expertly calibrated to make driving through the wintry VT landscape ten times more glacially epic. RIYL: Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Caribou, M83, Sigur Ros.<br />
<br />
<b>Unknown Mortal Orchestra, <i>II </i>[2/5, Jagjaguwar]</b><br />
These guys kicked 2011's butt and now they're back for more. Their second LP contains more of the weird melodies, psychedelic vibes, instant sing-along-ability, and fuzzed-out speaker-shredding beats as their first, so mind your eardrums and buckle up. RIYL: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Sleigh Bells.<br />
<br />
<b>Veronica Falls, <i>Waiting For Something To Happen </i>[2/12, Slumberland]</b><br />
UK indie poppers blend studied/studious early-'90s twee mannerisms, white-hot shoegaze guitars, and a goth-y lyrical outlook; their 2011 debut was a non-starter due to lack of inspiration, but the band's singles are strong and suggest a more mature album awaits us in February. RIYL: Beach Fossils, Minks.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Widowspeak, <i>Almanac </i>[1/22, Captured Tracks]</b><br />
Widowspeak made a splash in 2011 with their retro album art, menacing basslines, stark sense of distance and longing, and haunting Chris Isaak cover/uncanny Hope Sandoval impression, but their debut album failed to deliver. Perhaps they fare better (and copy Mazzy Star less) on their sophomore effort. RIYL: Beach Fossils, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Lower Dens, Mazzy Star, Tamaryn.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Yo La Tengo, <i>Fade</i> [1/15, Matador]</b><br />
Yep, indie rock mainstays YLT are still at it, and given their near-perfect, multi-decade track record, their age shouldn't be much of an issue. RIYL: Deerhunter, the Fiery Furnaces, the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Real Estate.<br />
<br />
<b>Youth Lagoon, <i>Wondrous Bughouse</i> [3/5, Fat Possum]</b><br />
Even though this album title encapsulates everything that Youth Lagoon detractors such as yours truly find vomit-inducing about this band, there is of course the chance that it's a feint and Youth Lagoon's latest will leave the saccharine cliches behind while still deftly conveying both wonder and humility. RIYL: Beach Fossils, Perfume Genius, Wild Nothing.<br />
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That's a lot of albums! It's looking to be a great three months for music fans. And that's hardly all -- also be on the lookout for new work by Autechre, Deptford Goth, Foxygen, Girls' Names, Holopaw, Jessie Ware, Lil Wayne, Low, Mogwai, New Order, Nightlands, Nosaj Thing, Pantha du Prince & The Bell Laboratory, Parenthetical Girls, Psychic Ills, PVT, Ra Ra Riot, Raekwon, Rhye, Starfucker, Suuns, Ty Segall, Wavves, and many others!Sam Tolzmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11619712891066074209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-43816120117401603042013-01-10T17:36:00.002-05:002013-01-10T17:36:13.203-05:00WRMC's Top 20 Albums of 2012Welcome back! It's J-Term (yay-term, play-term, etc.), which means we all have plenty of free time to catch up on whatever music we might've missed in the hustle and bustle of fall semester! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: justify;">This year in music brought us an impressive slew of new releases from both old favorites and new starlets. Veteran rock-gods like Swans and Converge reimagined their genre with monolithic guitar rifts. Rising international sensations like Taylor Swift and fun. arguably saved pop music. For fans of hip-hop and rap, releases from Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus introduced a new standard of soulful sophistication. Indie-pop endured with dreamy, reverb-drenched records from Beach House, grand orchestrations from Grizzly Bear, and modernized folk ballads from Mumford & Sons. All in all, 2012 was a swell year for music of all genres, as artists challenged conventions and surpassed expectations. Check out our twenty favorite albums of the year... </span><br />
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<a href="http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/intersections/files/2012/10/mumford-and-sons-babel-review.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/intersections/files/2012/10/mumford-and-sons-babel-review.jpeg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: justify;">20. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: justify;">Mumford & Sons, </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: justify;">Babel</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Riding high on the success of their 2010 debut S<i>igh No More</i>, British indie-rock sensation Mumford & Sons once again took the charts by storm with a new set of rousing folk revival tunes. With electrifying guitar rifts and heartfelt lyrics that routinely reference Shakespeare and Steinbeck, frontman Marcus Mumford refuses to fall victim to the sophomore-album-slump. The record is nominated for four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">19. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Dan Deacon, </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">America</i></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In an open letter to his fans prolific electronic musician Dan Deacon confesses, “I never felt American until I left the United States”. His latest release undoubtedly<i> </i>echoes this sentiment, drenched in a panoramic nostalgia for his homeland. The ambitious four-track orchestral movement that closes the album identifies Deacon as <i>composer</i> beyond jam-master, and is arguably the best thing he’s written to date. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">18. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Jessie Ware, </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Devotion</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">British singer-songwriter Jessie Ware first emerged singing vocals for SBTRKT and Joker, but soon made a strong name for herself with the standout single “Wildest Moments”. Ware’s smoky voice and modern R&B stylings have earned her a distinct spot in the indie-pop milieu. <i>Devotion </i>was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize, placing Ware among notable soul sensations like Adele, Amy Winehouse and PJ Harvey. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">17. Taylor Swift, <i>Red </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Country starlet and mainstream-pop sensation Taylor Swift once again stole America’s hearts with her expansive genre-bending <i>Red. </i>From electro-pop breakup anthems (“I Knew You Were Trouble”) to classic country arrangements (“Stay Stay Stay”) to brooding British indie-rock ballads (“The Last Time”), <i>Red </i>has something for everyone. This is not to say the album is scattered or overproduced; rather, it is telling of Swift’s natural ability to cross boundaries and bridge wide musical gaps with her compelling narratives and unforgettable hooks. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">16. Bat for Lashes, <i>The Haunted Man</i> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In an interview with the Quietus, Bat for Lashes’ leading lady Natasha Khan stated that her latest album was about “letting go of the things that haunt me”. While <i>The Haunted Man </i>does resonate with mourning and tragedy, it also rings with empowerment, empathy, and ambition. Khan’s new release reimagines and refines the progressive-folk dance numbers for which she is known, culminating in a sincere and soulful set of dark pop standout tracks. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">15. Cat Power, <i>Sun</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Chan Marshall’s confident, cool and undeniably dance-able <i>Sun </i>was the last thing we expected from the brooding blues-rock super-starlet. Nevertheless, the album channels 80s synth anthems and Joy Division to create a brilliant collection of off-beat party music. Emotional, risky, and rewarding, <i>Sun </i>proves that the once volatile Marshall has finally come into her own as an artist. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">14. Animal Collective, <i>Centipede Hz </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Following their critical and commercial breakthrough with 2009’s <i>Merriweather Post Pavilion, </i>cult superstars and veteran weirdos Animal Collective returned with the ambitious <i>Centipede Hz. </i>Both overwhelmingly busy and static at the same time, <i>Centipede Hz </i>seeks to embrace the 21st century sensory overload and digital drone. With this release, Animal Collective pushes their maximal aesthetic to the extreme, and the results are undeniably rewarding, however surprising. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">13. Fun., </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Some Nights </i></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Fun.’s lead vocalist Nate Ruess is no newcomer in the world of indie-pop; the singer-songwriter gained a notable cult following with his early-2000s outfit, The Format. It was until Fun.’s second studio release, however, that Ruess attracted a mainstream audience. <i>Some Nights </i>teems with energy and personality, earning the band 6 Grammy nominations, three for the single “We Are Young”, two for the album itself and one for Best New Artist. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">12. Purity Ring, <i>Shrines </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With futuristic pop melodies and dark dub beats, Canadian duo Purity Ring has made a name for themselves amongst the slew of electro-pop artists that took 2012 by storm. Vocalist Megan James draws in her audience with affecting narratives of unrequited love, debilitating addictions, and supernatural phenomena. As the duo’s debut album, <i>Shrines </i>leaves listeners pining for more of James’ reverb-drenched melodies crooned over dark and haunting dance beats. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">11. Japandroids, <i>Celebration Rock </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With rousing, call-and-response hooks and offbeat arena anthems, Japandroids are 2012’s most ambitious new artist</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">—</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">and they aren’t new! The Vancouver duo has been making music since 2006, but their most recent release, <i>Celebration Rock</i>, identified the group as indie rock superstars. The album, riddled with demanding melodies and powerful lyrics, is entirely the product of two hardworking musicians pushing themselves to unbelievable lengths. And by god, does it work. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10. Grizzly Bear, <i>Shields</i> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With their fourth album, Brooklyn avant-garde pop sensation Grizzly Bear bulk up their standard orchestral harmonies with thundering rhythms, overwhelming ambient drones and passionate lyrics. <i>Shields </i>is both the band’s most collaborative and cohesive to date, full of baroque compositions and polished with meticulous production, earning its place on international charts and countless year-end lists. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">9. Converge, <i>All We Love We Leave Behind </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Even as veteran hardcore rock gods, Converge still manage to deliver an intensely manic, aggressive and raw energy for all thirty-eight minutes of <i>All We Love We Leave Behind. </i>But with a second listen, you’ll hear the thoughtful compositions and technical mastery which first positioned the band among metal’s biggest and best. The album reimagines the punk standards of vocalist Jacob Bannon’s youth into something both fresh and familiar, making it an irrefutable success. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">8. Flying Lotus, <i>Until the Quiet Comes </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Throughout his last five years as Flying Lotus, Steve Ellison has lead the way in electronic music construction and production, crafting smooth and atmospheric beats. On his latest album, Ellison moves effortlessly from futuristic jazz to heavy synth dance rhythms to. <i>Until the Quiet Comes </i>is undeniably elegant in both conception and execution, securing Ellison’s status as one of the greatest sound engineers in contemporary music. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">7. Grimes, <i>Visions</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In 2012, Canadian avant-garde princess Claire Boucher rocked the music world with her weirdly danceable bizarro synth-pop. The wildly ambitious <i>Visions </i>successfully bridges all sorts of gaps—between R&B and EDM, human and computer, commercial and cutting-edge. The album earned Grimes universal critical acclaim and a cult internet following. Whether hollering a medieval chant or crooning a sugary-sweet melody, Boucher manages to amaze and astonish listeners with every track. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">6. Swans, <i>The Seer</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When Michael Gira’s band of post-punk pioneers reunited in 2010 after more than ten years on hiatus, listeners expected great things. As their second release since the resurrection, <i>The Seer </i>does not disappoint: the album is cinematically extravagant. Mostly acoustic, the album relies on these musicians’ raw aggression to provide a grueling eleven-track adventure. <i>The Seer </i>showcases exactly what Swans does best: not just challenge the boundaries between violence and beauty, music and noise, but ultimately transcend them. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">5. Dirty Projectors, <i>Swing Low Magellan </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">David Longstreth is famed for delivering demanding arrangements, jammed packed with complex harmonies, flashy dissonances, and surprising meter shifts. But <i>Swing Low Magellan </i>proves that Longstreth’s formula for the fantastic isn’t all show. Nominally stripped down, the album highlights Dirty Projector’s technical skill, lyrical genius, and undeniable sincerity. With <i>Swing Low, </i>Longstreth seems to be saying that, even after a decade-long run, his thirst for musical exploration is far from quenched. </span></div>
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTwPPNyD-fNRbF5CoWkzd1ztq1SM_t7abiytMOYdhz3JHsQaJWl7g" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTwPPNyD-fNRbF5CoWkzd1ztq1SM_t7abiytMOYdhz3JHsQaJWl7g" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">4. Kendrick Lamar, <i>good kid, m.A.A.d. City </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kendrick Lamar’s sophomore album was arguably the most talked about major-label rap record of the year, and with good reason. The Compton rapper delivers vidid narratives with gripping lyrical technique, spewing stories that cover everything from the pure excitement of young romance to the harsh realities of gang violence. Selling over half a million copies within its first two month on shelves, <i>good kid </i>secured its status as not only a hit record, but easily one of the most important rap releases in nearly a decade. </span></div>
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQVAEgutE8A0nrFf5K96-8cdFcNoNkFxeG7vtTBiKLZY-2y-IJi" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQVAEgutE8A0nrFf5K96-8cdFcNoNkFxeG7vtTBiKLZY-2y-IJi" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">3. Beach House, <i>Bloom</i> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With their latest release, Baltimore duo Beach House has managed to win over everyone from college radio stations to Jay-Z and Beyonce to Billboard 200. The duo’s undeniably knack for blending brooding lyrics with blissful melodies has earned them universal acclaim and a cult following. Drenched in Victoria Legrand’s eerie contralto and Alex Scally’s hypnotizing guitar licks, <i>Bloom </i>presents itself as arguably the best dream-pop album to date. </span></div>
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQQZAyvTo_r1ueuImp33dI9muHgfFg8xAgPw3Hhp9H4VPTQxpKo" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQQZAyvTo_r1ueuImp33dI9muHgfFg8xAgPw3Hhp9H4VPTQxpKo" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2. Frank Ocean, <i>Channel Orange </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2012 met 25-year old singer Frank Ocean with a whirlwind of headlines and hype, and the Odd-Future member handled it with undeniable cool. Ocean’s <i>Channel Orange</i> feels both timeless and incredibly <i>now</i>, spinning tales of West Coast decadence, strip clubs and unrequited love. The record not only marks one of the most exciting R&B breakthroughs of the decade, but promises budding genius from a young artist on the rise. </span></div>
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSXAqzMzpmLEf2EbGtmmxS3t-NRHsM_97t9TWkmlQXtHhxbhdt6" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSXAqzMzpmLEf2EbGtmmxS3t-NRHsM_97t9TWkmlQXtHhxbhdt6" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1. Fiona Apple, <i>The Idler Wheel...</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Fiona Apple refused to settle for ‘one-hit-wonder’ and her picture on the front of <i>Rolling Stone</i>’s 1998 “Year of the Woman” issue. The 35-year-old has spent the last fifteen years as something of an emblem for self-empowered female musicians, but her latest release makes clear that Apple is more empowered than ever, shedding the shackles of her past. <i>The Idler Wheel...</i> is raw, unfamiliar, and strikingly beautiful in all of its simplicity. Apple has refined her lyrics, her voice, and her performance, resulting in an indisputable success. For Apple, 2012 is not “The Year of the Woman”, but simply <i>her </i>year. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-41430318655836505312012-11-30T00:07:00.000-05:002012-11-30T00:07:00.798-05:00Vacationer Interview<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last month, WRMC introduced the first annual Grooveyard- a
new tradition for the radio to host a concert on Halloween weekend. I sat down
with Kenny Vasoli, the singer of Vacationer, the show's headliner. An old-timer
in the music scene, Vacationer is Vasoli’s new project hailing from Philly, with
a shoe-gaze, Beach House-inspired vibe. The band's album "Gone" was
released in March. We talked about everything from the band's conception to
"pumpkin pie almonds"..Here you have it. Many thanks to Kenny for
sitting down to chat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>What do you do
musically in the band?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm the singer and I'm the bassist and writing wise I wrote
the bass lines and the guitar lines and the vocals. And I have two writing
partners— Matt, who's playing vibraphone with us, and his partner Grant. They’re
in a band called Body Language and I started writing with them in the summer of
2010 and that's how this came about.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>That's really cool.
Where are you stationed?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, all of us, besides Matt, we live in Philadelphia. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>So how do you fit
into the music scene there? Philly isn't really what I think of when I think of
the music from vacationer.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No, no [laughs] yeah, we've pretty much cut our teeth
playing in new york and Brooklyn so we've only played Philly three times so
we're trying to, y’know, trying to build up a scene there and um trying to
throw some parties and get the word out and sort of cut our own little notch in
Philadelphia but it's still a work in progress<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>With this type of
music– you said you wanted to do electronic– were there any certain influences
that drove you to that point or is it just sort of wanting to do something new?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well I'd always really liked electronic music, since like
2005. I think it was around then that I started discovering, y'know, Four Tet
and Aphex Twins, even Venetian Snares and all sorts of stuff like that, and I
was always a huge radiohead fan . I always loved the way they integrated
electronic music in with rock 'n' roll. And then once 2009-2010 rolled around,
then I started getting heavy into bands like Beach House and Radio Department–
the shoe gaze side of electronic music.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The idea of
"vacationer"- you guys have songs called "Trip" and "Gone"-
do you see this band as a concept project or is it just a result of writing low
key music</b>?<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It definitely- the concept is pretty apparent ...it almost
feels like concept is kind of a dirty word.But, I think it's more just the
"vibe", y'know?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we set out to do this it was really something just so I
could get away from the usual music that I was playing and sort of give my ears
a vacation from, like, such loud banging symbols and distorted guitars and
stuff like that, and having to not yell at the top of my lungs, y'know? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>What is it like
having the anonyminity of a new band-If you try to look you guys up online
there is zero!<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yeah and there's way more now that there used to be. When we
released "Trip" there was <i>nothing.</i>
And I was so thrilled that people started listening to it and started blogging
about it not knowing that it was me.
Like, certain people had hints because they knew my voice well enough. But
that made me really excited that I could still write music that people would be
excited about just by hearing it- not like, having to ride the coattails of
things that I'd done before.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>As far as the songwriting
goes, how does it work? You said you do the lyrics and the bass- do you guys
all just sit down, do you come with different pieces and try to piece it all
together?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have. Yeah, it kind of spans everything as far as that
goes. More times than not, Matt and
Grant will be up at their studio and they'll just kind of be in the box on
their computer just messing around and then they'll send me one minute loops,
30 second loops. And then I'll take the loops and I'll put them into my
computer and cut them and paste them in a little bit of a different way, or just
extend them and then put my guitar, bass, and vocals on top of that and send
them a rough idea of what I have. And then they'll be like "Alright, this
is good" or "maybe not this" or something like that- just throw
me a bit of direction. And usually, by that trade and correspondence, we will
get together and lay down the final version.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Are you on a label or
is it self-released?</b><br />
We're on downtown records. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>And how did that come
to be?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once we released "Trip" then we were reached out
to by a few labels and Downtown was one of the first ones. And by that point we
were like "wow". We were like "what could really be a more ideal
label for us than them.” And they don't really sign many bands, so they were
very excited about having us on the label. And very quickly— once we realized
we were one the same page as them and that they had the same vision for the
band that we did— we pretty much just made that our home.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>What can we expect
from a live show? What's the- well, I don't want to say "vibe" because
the vibe is pretty apparent from the music but...How does it switch up from the
recordings?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'd say that the danceabiity is a little more apparent live once
you see us kind of grooving to it. And
with all the live instruments it's slightly more hyped up than the record. Like the record is pretty minimal as far as
instrumentation goes. We expand on that.
We try not to crowd the sound but we just try to have it a little more dynamic
live and have it pop a bit more. We also
have some visuals too.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Yeah, I saw the big
screen set up for the show!<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yeah, we have like old archive, basically vacation footage
that we tripped out with some after effects. It's like psychedelic vacations.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Did you just find the
footage?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yeah, most of it is found. Some of it is from movies- just from
like public domain servers. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Ok I'm going to do a
quick round of "Halloween Favorites" because this <i>is</i> our Grooveyard concert. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Favorite scary movie?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"The Shining" is really great... Kubrick is great.
Anything Kubrick. I don't know if you'd
consider it a scary movie— I like <i>creepy</i>
movies like "Blue Velvet,” any Lynch films. Yeah, stuff like that. And we
just saw one of Kronenberg's first movies called "The Brood"; we took
our projector into a hotel room and Mike had "The Brood" on his
computer and we were watching it on the hotel wall and it was <i>so freaky.</i> I definitely recommend it
around Halloween time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Favorite Halloween
costume?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Uh, I've been a Frenchman the past two years- we didn't
realize that it was a costume party! So we dropped the ball on that. But the French
man, if you have a striped shirt and a beret an eyebrow pencil then it's a
pretty cheap and easy costume. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Favorite Fall Food?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh man... Oh, you know at my supermarket they have like
these pumpkin- covered almonds? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>How do they even do
that?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's just like pumpkin pie flavored almonds. This is like
chocolate covered almonds but take the chocolate and make it pumpkin flavored. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Ooh that sounds so
good.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh yeah, it's <i>really</i>
good. I've been annihilating them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b> Well on that note, I guess I'll let you get
dinner. But thank you for the interview.; it was awesome. Talking to you. Thank
you. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yeah, great talking to you too. Thank you very much!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Vacationer-Trip</div>
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<!--EndFragment-->WRMC Middlebury Collegehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12081026775394442733noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-41097524941371696902012-11-16T10:21:00.000-05:002012-11-16T10:21:08.215-05:00Mr|Tots New Original Series<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mB-weHMm7Qg/UKZVC4UxGoI/AAAAAAAAAhY/Me60jCL3XJI/s1600/mrtotslogo200px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mB-weHMm7Qg/UKZVC4UxGoI/AAAAAAAAAhY/Me60jCL3XJI/s1600/mrtotslogo200px.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
The Middlebury Radio Theater of Thrills and Suspense (Mr|Tots) produces live audio drama every Saturday from 6:00pm-8:00pm on WRMC.<br />
<br />
This week will feature Part Two of the original series<i> The Wild You</i>, written and directed by David Seamans, scored by Dustin Lowman. <a href="http://soundcloud.com/david-seamans-1/the-wild-you-part-one">Listen to Part One here.</a><br />
<br />
A description of the show:<br />
<br />
<i>For two years Jay has forgotten his self and his past, hitching across
the country. But when an ill-tempered train conductor breaks his leg,
he's forced to recuperate in a desert trailer park named Starport. While
he struggles to hold his wild self at bay, Jay rediscovers music,
friendship, and love. But is it enough to stop him from destroying
himself and Starport with him? Written and directed by David Seamans.
Music by Dustin Lowman. Recorded live with the Middlebury Radio Theater
of Thrills and Suspense. </i><br />
<br />
Suspensefully, <br />
Mr|Tots<i><br /></i><br />
David Seamanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09639590817325875241noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-4385941957469628752012-11-12T13:20:00.003-05:002012-11-12T13:22:30.447-05:00The La’s – The La’s. Get listening. People should give a brit about these Liverpudlians.<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: red;">The past few weeks have seen the ‘Don’t Give a Brit’ boys
cover the 90s in three short slots. So, in true ‘Don’t Give a Brit’ style, I am completing this lack of an overall and
thorough assessment in writing this week’s blog on an album released in the
1990 which fails to actually adhere to many of the iconic musical sounds that
defined the remainder of the decade. I do not wish to eclipse the great music
acts of Oasis, Blur and the like who came after this band, but I do wish to
suggest that they owe a big debt to the Liverpudlian four-piece. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">When
you think of a Liverpudlian four-piece, it is not The La’s that immediately
spring to mind. The band embodies this distinct Merseybeat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersey_Beat)
sound and as a result could not avoid comparisons with The Beatles. This
genuine, rootsy and authentic sound is achieved through The La’s unadorned
acoustic arrangement. However, the friendly rhythm guitars mask the less
pleasant inner-meaning of songs such as “There She Goes” – the song that forms
the basis of the band’s identity. The song’s lyrics, such as “pulsing through
my veins,” have immersed it in a reference to Mavers’s previous heroin
addiction. Nonetheless, the implicitness of these references mean that each
song’s lyrics could easily be emulated by an adolescent boy with a draw-string
guitar standing on the lawn of the girl he’s trying to win the admiration of at
3am as you regularly see in films. Yes, it would be correct to presume that
these guys are a hit at soppy wedding functions. The La’s sound is relatively
simplistic, but its in-sync guitar work and catchy looped riffs are just made
to seem effortless by the quartet. For example, in “Looking Glass” the tempo is
slowly raised throughout the song to give it a momentous ending. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q2oIBJ4pl9s/UKE9IZLj2WI/AAAAAAAAAA0/PrlSx_nbNcU/s1600/las_161631349.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q2oIBJ4pl9s/UKE9IZLj2WI/AAAAAAAAAA0/PrlSx_nbNcU/s320/las_161631349.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: blue;">However,
the relative ease in constructing and playing each song did not save the
group’s dynamic from turmoil. The core duos tumultuous persona of Lee Mavers
(guitar, vocals) and John Bower (bass backing vocals) made for a frequently
changing line-up, with this lack of stability eventually causing the band to
enter into hiatus after the debut album, with only haphazard reformings since.
This instability was manifested in the numerous debut album recordings.
Mavers’s personality made working with producer Steve Lillywhite extremely
problematic. Mavers’s obsessive, particular and perfectionist mentality was the
root cause of this. Mavers, for instance, scrapped multiple recordings of the
band’s debut album. He also became aware of Lillywhite’s decreasing patience
and told the rest of the band not to play to their full potential whilst
recording. However, the entire next LP recording was ironically the LP that
eventually got released after relations declined with Lillywhite to the point
of collapse. This is why, for example, at the beginning of “Freedom Song” the
guitar work sounds fairly disjointed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background-color: black; color: red;">Mavers’s
trajectory was much the same as the band he fronted. Mavers was originally
witty, playful and driven but quickly grew into dropping out of the limelight
completely, becoming a social recluse. The short lived success of the band is
also due to their inability to find a place in the 90s musical lineage. They
seemed to just float on the periphery through being distinctly different to the
late 80s/early 90s British bands such as The Stone Roses. However, they
evidently influenced the Britpop influx that was to come from bands such as
Oasis, Travis, Stereophonics and The Charlatans and other future Liverpudlian
bands such as The Coral and The Zutons. The La’s were in fact a “Timeless
Melody” – indebted to the past yet not encompassing futuristic traits. This
self-made void is created through the band calling upon hooks and harmonies of
the mid-sixties whilst also maintain the friendly classiness of the Britpop
90s. However, it would be wrong to say that the band were nostalgic; they were
not hindered by tradition; they were liberated by it. They used simple elements
to construct their own identity; an extremely alluring the identity, as bar
staff at British weddings are far too familiar with I’m sure. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"> There
we have it guys, a blog and show that sets out to portray the British 90s as a
whole in a short space of time, yet not achieving its purpose. The La’s do not
fit the general category for 90s sound, embodying timeless elements which could
place them in any decade that we have covered in ‘Don’t Give a Brit.’ Odd
choice then for the iconic 90s, but I picked them to stay in line with the
general vibe of the show – unpredictability. This unpredictability is like a
successful blind-date, which is why you should tune in every Thursday from
1-2pm on WRMC 91.1FM Radio. We do not believe in order, which is why there is
no playlist to accompany the show, we live for the moment. However, we cannot
keep this bureaucratic anarchism up forever which is why you should listen to
“Timeless Melody”, “Doledrum” and “Feelin’” by The La’s. I would suggest “There
She Goes” but you’ve probably heard it copious amounts of times at family weddings. </span> </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05211214680280697249noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-74988910692613163952012-11-05T22:17:00.002-05:002012-11-05T22:17:23.791-05:00Dreams and Nightmare, Meek Mill, 10/30
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">The summer of Rick Ross’s <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1C1CHFA_enUS484US484&biw=1268&bih=633&tbm=isch&tbnid=-9iMcxp8fBYQwM:&imgrefurl=http://www.rap-up.com/2012/06/27/maybach-music-group-takes-over-106-park/&docid=8KOhftkrfqr3XM&imgurl=http://cdn.rap-up.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/mmg-106-park.jpg&w=475&h=315&ei=En-YUPawCsTG0AGGxIDYCA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=134&vpy=197&dur=2258&hovh=183&hovw=276&tx=86&ty=59&sig=113796407032974279532&page=1&tbnh=146&tbnw=224&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:86">Maybach Music Group</a> spills into the fall with the first album from the group’s biggest up and comer, Philly’s Meek Mill. Meek has released a ton of mixtapes over the past few years, most notably <i>Dreamchasers </i>and <i>Dreamchasers 2</i> in 2011 and 2012 respectively. He’s also appeared on many tracks with Ricky Rozay on the <i>Self Made </i>compilations, in addition to making the rounds on records with other members of the MMG roster, including Wale, <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.21518/title.gunplays-armed-robbery-caught-on-tape-rapper-could-face-life-in-prison">Gunplay</a>, Stalley, and Rockie Fresh. On October 30th, Meek dropped <i><a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.18731/title.meek-mill-dreams-nightmares-deluxe-edition-tracklist-cover-art">Dreams and Nightmares</a></i>, a 14-song album released through Maybach Music Group/Warner Bros.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">The album’s <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.21614/title.meek-mill-explains-concept-behind-dreams-and-nightmares-intro">concept</a> revolves around the two sides to Meek’s rising success in the hip-hop game; on one hand, the luxury he can now afford and the satisfaction of making it all the way from the bottom, on the other, the horrors he has seen and experienced along the way and the willingness instilled in him through those memories to defend what he has made for himself at all costs. The album’s first track, also titled “Dreams and Nightmares”, communicates this split, and when the beat drops halfway through, Meek turns up the intensity about 30 degrees, taunting his detractors, “so much money all yo friends turn inna enemies, and when its beef I turn my enemies to memories”. It’s a strong opening, largely because it demonstrates Meek’s greatest asset, his captivating energy on the mic. It is an undeniably infectious talent, and his energy is enough to carry several of the album’s stronger tracks, such as the lurking “In God We Trust”, which honors money’s all-powerful hold over the Philadelphia of Meek’s youth.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">However, <i>Dreams and Nightmares</i> is proof that Meek still has a lot to figure out about parlaying an elite and identifiable skill into a full, compelling album. There are a couple of absolute duds, such as the star-studded “Maybach Curtains” and “Young and Gettin’ It”. “Amen” and “Lay Up” are both decent, with the latter getting a great boost from the <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&rlz=1C1CHFA_enUS484US484&biw=1268&bih=633&tbm=isch&tbnid=lrBxg0jbmMI2KM:&imgrefurl=http://wn.com/Pop_Rocks_Rick_Ross_Talks_Irish_Groupies&docid=D-L9T64O2j-HnM&itg=1&imgurl=http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_rRPb5dosiA/0.jpg&w=480&h=360&ei=koCYUIPzNsi_0QG46IGwDQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=255&vpy=153&dur=45&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=180&ty=87&sig=113796407032974279532&page=1&tbnh=135&tbnw=153&start=0&ndsp=17&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:72">Teflon Don</a> himself, but they are just missing something. In general, the songs that don’t feature Meek Mill at the height of his aggression feel flat, half-assed in a way.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">The good news, and what really saves the album, is that Meek does show signs of being able to adapt his high intensity delivery to different subject matters and kinds of songs. On “Traumatized”, Meek raps about the death of his father and how it set the tone for the nearly constant killing of people in his life (“prolly part of the reason we drink ‘n we get high, when I find the nigga that killed my daddy know I’ma ride, hope you hear me I’ma kill you nigga”). “Who Your(sic) Around” expresses disgust and bewilderment at the abandonment and money-grubbing of his supposed homeys and features a solid assist from Mary J. Blige. “Tony’s Story Pt. 2” demonstrates Meek’s surprisingly strong story-telling abilities in the follow up to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVGmLbXVr2A">“Tony’s Story”</a> off of <i>Dreamchasers 2</i>, and although it’s not nearly as strong as the first, it showcases one of Meek’s most impressive technical skills, his use of a sort of half-half-full bar (or short-short-long, I don’t know the musical term for this) rhyme scheme, which is both jarring and highly listenable (seriously, listen to "Tony's Story", linked above, for this, you'll see exactly what I mean).</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">All this is to say that <i>Dreams and Nightmares</i>, though spotty, is a decent album, and worth listening to if you’ve heard any of Meek’s stuff in the past and feel as strongly about his energetic flow as I do. He’s got a lot of work to do, but his ability to distribute his strengths across a variety of songs is promising evidence that he can keep improving.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Best Line: “But he got killas lurkin outside of your home tonight, and they gon’ hit the crib and kill the kids, oh that’s Kony right?”--Meek Mill, “In God We Trust”</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Also worth checking out: <i>Priest Andretti</i>, Curren$y (free download at <a href="http://datpiff.com/">datpiff.com</a>)</span></span></div>
Lukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962797911210803081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-716167923859612892012-10-26T15:17:00.002-04:002012-10-26T15:17:24.906-04:00good kid, m.A.A.d city, Kendrick Lamar, 10/22
<br />
<div class="p1">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SxFAnD1UEzw/UIrhrsmLNdI/AAAAAAAAABg/Fu6h7WGDi3M/s1600/imgres.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SxFAnD1UEzw/UIrhrsmLNdI/AAAAAAAAABg/Fu6h7WGDi3M/s1600/imgres.jpeg" /></a><span class="s1"><span style="color: #666666;"><i>good kid, m.A.A.d city</i> is the first major studio album from Compton’s Kendrick Lamar, but it seems like he’s been around for a long time now. As a member of the Black Hippy crew along with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1ppVqfwV4&feature=related">Jay Rock</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnnYiW5dnhQ">ScHoolboy Q</a>, and <a href="http://pitchfork.com/tv/musicvideos/1969-pineal-gland/">Ab-Soul</a>, Kendrick won considerable props across the board following his releases through the independent Top Dog Entertainment label, <i>Overly Dedicated </i>and <i>Section.80</i>. <i>Overly Dedicated </i>earned the attention of the West Coast’s hip-hop Zeus, <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?num=10&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1C1CHFA_enUS484US484&biw=1124&bih=625&tbm=isch&tbnid=Dqm7ZMYJKydZ4M:&imgrefurl=http://www.lipstickalley.com/f15/does-dr-dre-beat-his-wife-398763/index3.html&docid=KYR8WiE6y92-OM&imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aP23KSEkFgA/ToVBeavU1CI/AAAAAAAAA_g/YZg0LjxQWXI/s1600/dr-dre-2.jpg&w=538&h=579&ei=PN2KUM3mKMig0gG8r4DYBQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=244&vpy=166&dur=273&hovh=233&hovw=216&tx=146&ty=105&sig=113796407032974279532&sqi=2&page=1&tbnh=134&tbnw=111&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:86">Dr. Dre</a>, who expressed interest in mentoring the young MC. All of a sudden, every hip-hop blog, magazine, and enthusiast seemed unable to go a single media cycle without gushing about this new prodigy, and Kendrick was appearing on songs with everybody from Rick Ross’s entire <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3C-i3mcPwE">Maybach Music Group</a> to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1qynLqN53U">Lady GaGa</a>.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #666666;">When word came out that Kendrick would be releasing <i>good kid </i>this fall, as a joint release through TDE, Interscope and Dre’s Aftermath label, excitement reached a near frenzy. To be honest, I was kind of confused. I had heard the two tapes, and they were pretty good, but it was hard to identify what exactly the big deal was other than the fact that Dr. Dre was cosigning on his dopeness. It seemed like a lot of engineered hype about somebody who had, to date, done nothing except put out some pretty good music, which a lot of dudes do.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #666666;">That skepticism endured up until my first listening of the <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.21375/title.kendrick-lamar-good-kid-maad-city-tracklist-cover-art-production-credits">release</a> this Monday, which left me with just one thought: <i>good kid, m.A.A.d city </i>is an amazing album. It features the subtitle of “A short film by Kendrick Lamar”, and the 12 songs successfully function as a narrative following Kendrick’s experience growing up in Compton. On the first track, “Sherane a.k.a Master Splinter’s Daughter”, Kendrick immediately puts his effortless, yet urgent, <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.21605/title.kendrick-lamar-freestyles-on-big-boys-neighborhood">flow</a> on display, describing a teenage romance. But even the innocent experience of being “17 with nothing but pussy stuck on my mental” brings Kendrick into danger. The song ends with our narrator confronted by two gang members waiting outside Sherane’s house and cuts immediately to a voicemail from Kendrick’s mom asking him where he is. This skit is expanded upon throughout the album, and it creates genuine tension unlike anything I remember hearing on any rap album of recent issue.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #666666;">Although the concept of the album revolves around the struggle of growing up in an area riddled by gang violence and police harassment, it avoids being preachy or heavy-handed in the way that most <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.21561/title.kendrick-lamar-addresses-being-labeled-as-a-conscious-rapper">“socially-conscious”</a> rap is. <i>gkmc</i> steers clear of that territory by remaining within the consciousness of a frustrated teenager with nowhere else to go. As a result, Kendrick is able to contrast the care-free attitude of youth against the backdrop of an environment with very real dangers. “The Art of Peer Pressure” brings those two elements to a head, as Kendrick raps about an empty afternoon cruising around with his boys, which ends with them breaking into and robbing a house, and Kendrick smoking a blunt laced with PCP. On “good kid”, Kendrick speaks about being caught in the middle of the struggle between cops and gangs, with both sides flashing red and blue as a means of intimidation.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #666666;">Despite its recurring themes, <i>good kid</i> is never repetitive. “Backseat Freestyle” sounds like Kendrick Lamar’s take on the megalomania of <i>Watch the Throne</i> (“I pray my dick get big as the Eiffel Tower, so I could fuck the world for 72 hours”), banging <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfM_wS7qYfY">Hit-Boy beat</a> and all. However, within the context of the album’s concept, the track is given more weight, for in it we hear the testosterone charged ambitions of a teenager who wants everything <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/interviews/id.1641/title.kendrick-lamar-the-west-coast-got-somethin-to-say">he sees</a> in the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JZom_gVfuw">“Juicy”</a> music video. The album’s second single, “Swimming Pools[Drank]”, is similarly far more enjoyable as the 9th song on the album, as opposed to the 9th song on a summer playlist. The voices around Kendrick urging him to drink tons of liquor are more oppressive and convincing after the frantic, near mania of “m.A.A.d city”, a two part track in which Kendrick uses abrasive internal rhymes to capture the madness around him.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #666666;">As with all things Kendrick Lamar, there is already an enormous amount of hype surrounding this album. <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.21610/title.kendrick-lamar-discusses-comparisons-between-good-kid-maad-city-nas-illmatic">Comparisons to <i>Illmatic</i></a> will not be endorsed in this column, but <i>good kid, m.A.A.d city</i> does capture this moment in hip-hop to a remarkable degree, not only musically, but in the very way it came to be. Kendrick’s rise is very much the blueprint for success in the internet era of hip-hop: make some successful free mixtapes, catch the eye of one of hip-hop’s gatekeepers (Dre), gain momentum on blogs and features, all leading into a major studio album. In an era when its pretty much unheard of for anybody outside of Kanye, Ross, or Lil Wayne to do well in sales, <i>gkmc </i>is projected to sell more than <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.21621/title.kendrick-lamars-good-kid-maad-city-projected-to-sell-more-than-200000-copies-in-first-week">200,000 copies</a> in its opening week. So yeah, it seems fair to say that K.Dot has nailed his come up. And honestly, I couldn’t be happier.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #666666;">This is a sharp, intelligent, musically fantastic album, with a strong and relatable message. I didn’t grow up in Compton, I was never pressured to join a gang (shocking, I know), and I haven’t watched any of my childhood friends <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.21617/kendrick-lamar-explains-combining-sing-about-me-im-dying-of-thirst-tupacs-influence-on-good-kid-maad-city/">bleed to death</a> on the sidewalk. But I, and I think most people, can relate to feeling pressured and claustrophobic in trying to figure things out as a young person. <i>good kid, m.A.A.d city</i> captures those feelings in what is undoubtedly the hip-hop album of the year. Anybody who enjoys hip-hop of any era needs to hear this album, especially people who think there’s no meaningful rap being put out these days. This is a remarkable first large-scale showing, certainly a strong step towards Kendrick becoming a true star, and if subsequent releases live up to this one, we might remember <i>good kid</i> as Kendrick's first step towards greatness.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #666666;">Best line: “And they wonder why I rarely smoke now, imagine if your first blunt had you foamin’ at the mouth”, Kendrick Lamar, “m.A.A.d city”</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="color: #666666;">Also worth checking out: <i>The Man With The Iron Fists </i>(Official Soundtrack), the RZA</span></span></div>
Lukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962797911210803081noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-89507937836324208492012-10-25T16:41:00.004-04:002012-10-25T16:43:03.668-04:00Math in Words (Part 3)<br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="color: white; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>This
week's Math in Words attempts to subject an individual t</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>o
the kind of intellectualizing he made a career out of rejecting. </i></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://images.drownedinsound.com/resized_images/628x250/59630.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: white;"><img border="0" height="127" src="http://images.drownedinsound.com/resized_images/628x250/59630.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Writing
any kind of introduction to a piece on musician/pundit/engineer/
Steve Albini is a task which is incredibly marred by the many
ventures he is/was involved in and his determination to avoid such
academic scrutiny. It is however essential to my project that I
attempt to contextualise his accomplishments and work during the 90s.
As an exponent of Touch & Go Records (an institution he once
referred to as the “only responsible label in America”), Albini's
involvement is indisputable in the engineering of math rock as a
genre (pun totally intended). Whilst insisting he receive no credit
or royalties from musicians (a reflection of his belief that he is in
no way responsible for conceptual ideas, just the capturing of them),
we must note that distinctively math rock records such as <span style="font-size: small;"><i>Owls,
American Don, </i></span>and <span style="font-size: small;"><i>Ron </i></span>just
could not exist as they do without him. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sketching
an accessible profile of Albini is near impossible; the hellacious
amount of information available and the sheer volume of his
contributions means any attempt to do so will invariably become
limited due to its subject matter. To avoid repeating countless
articles and committing this piece to the more banal features on
Albini, I figured a closer inspection of his recording principles and
music journalism would at least be a little more original and
conducive to a study of math rock. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="color: white; font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="color: white; font-size: medium;">The
adulation of any self-respecting music-tech undergraduate, Albini’s
approach to recording is tirelessly emulated, but never truly
reproduced. Unlike the uniform and multi-tracked approach adopted by
many modern studios, Albini privileges analogue apparatus for live
recordings over digital, tailoring his sessions towards the sounds
and intentions of the artists he works for (to suggest Albini works
'with' artists seems to me counter-intuitive to his project).
Strategically placed microphones (each selected independently for
their appropriateness) and the exiguity of the kinds of effects made
ubiquitous by major studios combine to produce a sound which, however
unconventional, seems a great deal closer to the sounds of a band
playing than the versions offered by more traditional studios. Unlike
the kinds of recordings saturated by studio gimmickry, Albini
presents the kind of sound which complements the characteristics of
math rock perfectly; the punch of a dynamic shift is totally lost
once its been processed by an unnecessary compressor.
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="color: white; font-size: medium;">Albini
ostensibly acknowledges a division of responsibilities in the
creation of records, choosing to remain impartial w/r/t to production
(preferring the designation of ‘recording engineer’ to
‘producer’) and allowing total freedom to the bands he works
with; the bands perform in their respective creative capacities
whilst he resolves any technical issues which may affect the desired
sound of the record. This separation ultimately allows for the
intentions of the artists to be more clearly communicated through
their distinct lack of any compromise; Albini effectively operates
less as an honorary member with artistic license and more like a
trusty intermediary between the band and listener, relaying as
accurately as possible the sounds coming from his revered home
studio.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Characterized
by an intolerance of pretentiousness and a certain iconoclasm,
Albini’s journalism frequently confronts the questionable ethics of
major labels and the shared malpractices within the music industry.
Regularly contributing to a variety of zines, Albini promoted through
many essays his belief that analogue loyalists would survive despite
the growing affinity for digital production. This preference for
format still exists in Albini's work today, a remarkable achievement
when you consider how this kind of approach has become all but
obsolete due to the likes of music software Protools and Logic.
Albini is likewise critical about the dubious intentions of music
journalism more generally, suggesting in one interview that: “there
is no one that actually works on stories, there may be feature
articles about bands but there is no one, for example, trying to
uncover the abuses in PRS society. There is no actual journalism
going on.”</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Albini's
journalism and punditry has subsequently led him to become something
of the anti-philosopher for D.I.Y exponents and fans of math rock.
Heralded as some kind of demigod, Albini has unfortunately become
trapped by a fame which is as ironic as it is deserved; whilst
reluctant to be affiliated directly with the albums he engineers,
Albini's name has become something of a short-cut for band's
desperate to validate their status as a respected identity in their
field- Albini appears to acknowledge and refute this kind of
glorification in his 1986 Forced Exposure essay by suggesting that:
“I don't give two splats of an old Negro junkie's vomit for your
politico-philosophical treatises, kiddies. I like noise. I like
big-ass vicious noise that makes my head spin.”</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What
ultimately seems the most refreshing quality to Albini is his
willingness to engineer just about any record he finds in some way
interesting; charging bands on their circumstances means that, in
theory, anyone from U2 through to the precocious kids down the street
indulging in atonal sonic-experiments could have themselves a great
sounding record, providing their ideas captured his imagination.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This
ethos is arguably an inherent part of math rock; if such producers
didn't exist, it's unlikely anyone else would have taken the risk of
engineering records that would find their market only once fans had
consumed the vast amount of material already available to them.
Whilst Albini may be reluctant to accept credit, it's at least a
little encouraging to have an anti-hero who's prepared to work
endlessly on records which however unpopular or inaccessible they may
often be, are all important and respected by their fanbase. To offer
a 'suggested listening' to end this piece seems to me a foolish move
(his catalogue rivals Dante's), so I figured I'd just recommend a
listening to Slint's debut record, <span style="font-size: small;"><i>Tweeze. </i></span>Whilst
no record Albini has engineered can truly operate
synecdochally,<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Tweeze</i></span> features a stock
of his 'trademarks'; the sounds of the band talking through a take,
huge leaps in dynamics, and a mix which is only identified as his own
because no one else would dare try it that way. </span></span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08616077063120164987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-66159915475883622572012-10-24T21:41:00.004-04:002012-10-24T22:25:18.420-04:00I Can Feel Brit Coming ‘In the Air Tonight’<br />
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<span style="color: red;">I know what you’re thinking - blog posts from ‘Don’t Give
a Brit’ are synonymous with blog posts about drummers. In effect, I have even tunnelled
my concentration to a larger extent than my last post on a single musical artist in
dedicating this latest blog post on just the famous Phil Collins song ‘In the
Air Tonight.’ I am not intentionally showing my ignorance of the excellent
music that was produced during these sublime decades; it is simply poor
management on our side. We are not advocators of bureaucracy on our show, we
tend to side with arbitrariness. </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">The 1980s saw the rise of the
New Wave musical movement and in another all too typical trait of our weekly
show, I have chosen a song which is the antithesis of much of the music that
dominated the radio airwaves at the time. This dark, eerie song stands as a
binary to much of the upbeat, electronic 80s. But then, if those old rascals
Cliff Richard and Tom Jones were still knocking around in the 1980s, I can surely
dedicate this blog to ‘In the Air Tonight’… </span> </div>
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<span style="color: blue;">The
title ‘In the Air Tonight’ provokes many thoughts in the minds of its
listeners. Is Collins documenting his flatulent habits? Do you think of <i>Miami Vice</i>’s famous scenes from its
first episode? Do the numerous attempts at the final mission of <i>Grand Theft Auto: Vice City </i>come to mind?
Perhaps the Mike Tyson scene from <i>The
Hangover</i>? Or maybe even Cadbury’s 2007 dairy milk gorilla advert (located
at: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo</a>)?
Judging by all these instances I have just rekindled your memories over, it
would be true to say that this song has been widely used in popular culture.
The numerous interpretations of the song have been considered in its use in popular culture. Its wide use makes it hard for a
listener of the song to solitarily relate it to just one moment in that
culture. The track’s inscrutable nature makes it so powerful. </span></div>
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<span style="color: red;">As well as the multiple
interpretations in popular culture, the song’s lyrics have also been met with
multiple interpretations surrounding their meaning. In consequence, there have
been many pervasive urban legends regarding the song’s undercurrent. These
urban myths have included whether Collins was writing about a man who watched
another man drown. This urban myth gathered cultural credibility through Eminem
referencing it in his song ‘Stan.’ Some also argue that a young Phil Collins
witnessed a man drown. Over time these two myths became more and more
farfetched to the point where it was claimed Collins hired a private detective
to find the man who witnessed the drowning, sent him a free ticket to his
concert, and premiered the song that night with the spotlight on the man the
whole time. The implausible tendency that these myths developed removed their
validity and their falsity lied exposed. This led to Phil Collins publically
stating that the song was written about the feelings he had surrounding his
1979 divorce from his first wife. This very reason is also why Collins left
Genesis for a short time. The lingering tension of the ins and outs of a
complicated divorce is structurally mirrored in the song, cumulating in the
explosive drum solo at the end. However, with the atmospheric guitar work,
simplistic keyboard chords, a prolonged, sequential drum beat and dystopian,
Big Brother-esque video (located at: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkADj0TPrJA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkADj0TPrJA</a>)
it is hard to ignore these credible myths surrounding the song’s creation.
These techniques also builds upon the freakiness and macabre already created by
the song’s lyrics.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">‘In the Air Tonight’ was
Collins’s first single as a solo artist as the rest of Genesis felt it was too
simplistic to be released as one of their own songs. However, the intense
passion that Collins put into the song led the album </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">Face Value</i><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">, of which ‘In the Air Tonight’ was the title track, to
sell more copies than any other prior Genesis release. It seemed the ‘genesis’
of the song was something that the band had not picked up on prior to this and that caused the group to move in a different direction. ‘In the Air Tonight’s’ raw
emotion was typified in that the song’s lyrics were simply an impulse and were
not written down prior to Collins’s first play of the song. </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">So at this point of the blog,
I would generally suggest checking out some other music that relates to the
blog post. However, in choosing to do my latest blog on a single song I have
removed any potential doing that. Similarly, no other Phil Collins song comes
close to achieving the greatness, mystery, popularity and acclaim of ‘In the
Air Tonight.’ Likewise, I cannot point you in the direction of a playlist as we
did not construct one from this week’s show. Stepping into the studio is about
where our bureaucratic duties begin and end. </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">However, having said that, we will be
releasing a podcast for all those listeners who are occupied from 1-2pm on a
Thursday. But then what things in life are more important than hearing why you should give a brit in life?</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05211214680280697249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-70355199165392907112012-10-16T15:40:00.001-04:002012-10-16T15:40:45.118-04:00WRMC featured on NPR website!In some of the most exciting station news of the semester, WRMC is currently featured on the NPR music site for our help in curating their 2012 CMJ Preview Mix. Dylan Redford, our general manager, was approached earlier this fall about collaborating with other prominent college radio stations on this mix and brought the project to the station's music directors (Carly Shumaker and Stephanie Roush) with much delight.<br />
<br />
The music directors were asked to choose their favorite song of 25 artists from a list of about 100 artists that are all playing at the CMJ Festival this week (October 16-21) in New York City. CMJ represents the foremost opportunity in the college radio world to connect with other stations as well as the music industry as a whole.<br />
<br />
This WRMC collaboration with NPR Music is a step forward for the station in terms of establishing WRMC as one of the best college radio stations in the country. Hopefully, this will help the station gain recognition not only among other college stations, but with music promoters and music labels alike. With NPR under our belt, who knows what could happen next.<br />
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Check out our NPR playlist <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/10/09/162165483/the-mix-your-guide-to-cmj-2012?ps=mh_frimg1">here</a>.WRMC Middlebury Collegehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12081026775394442733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-65693558743929436062012-10-16T15:36:00.002-04:002012-10-16T15:36:31.563-04:00Ghost EP, Sky Ferreira, EMI, October 16th <br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cBobUYssS_I/UH22UwOG0BI/AAAAAAAAABg/bEaWp0D29YE/s1600/artworks-000032062674-prba0s-crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cBobUYssS_I/UH22UwOG0BI/AAAAAAAAABg/bEaWp0D29YE/s200/artworks-000032062674-prba0s-crop.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">For fresh-faced twenty-year-old pop icon Sky Ferreira, embodying America’s Sweetheart was never an option, much less the goal. At a young age, Ferreira breeched the music scene via MySpace, winning e-audiences over with racy tracks like “Sex Rules” and “Lolita”. Her second extended play solidifies the singer’s image as a natural-born rebel. In the past two years, Sky has capitalized on growing internet phenomenons like ‘soft-grunge’ and ‘pastel-goth’, blending bubble-gum pop beats with a Kim Gordon-esque edge. It comes as no surprise then that </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://soundcloud.com/skyferreira/ghost-ep-continuous">Ghost</a></i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> registers as an eclectic collection of teen-blogger anthems. In a recent interview with fashionista and </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Rookie</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> founder Tavi Gevinson, Sky declared that she “wanted to make something different...and [wanted] it to speak to younger women”. While </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Ghost </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">undoubtedly caters to the adolescent female audience, my initial listen left me feeling disoriented, and ultimately unsure as to whether Ferreira was writing for herself, the producers she collaborated with, or the anonymous internet following that has come to define her fan-base.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Ghost</i>’s opening track, “Sad Dream”<i>, </i>lures listeners in with a smooth lullaby, as Ferreira’s voice glides effortlessly from a surly alto to wistful soprano. The song is simple, almost too simple to work; it is a trick that the track’s producer, California-born songwriter Cass McCombs, has pulled off countless times</span><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;">: </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">give listeners something clean and familiar, leave them contented at that. The trouble is, “Sad Dream” ends up sounding more like McComb’s creation than Ferreira’s. Her voice is shrouded in Cass’s dreamy acoustic riffs, making for a strong track, but one that lacks a distinctly “Sky” quality. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Similarly, grunge-girl anthem “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoCqCrH8aBM">Red Lips</a>” feels drenched in co-writer Shirley Manson’s (of Garbage fame) influence. The crunchy bass line and whispery vocals sound uncannily like Garbage hit, “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N29vkIT3eo">Stupid Girl</a>”. Ferreira’s delivery is effortless—she sing-speaks jibes like “you’re ten a penny” with an undeniable cool before the chorus erupts in a wave of power-chords; nonetheless, I find myself disappointed, waiting for Sky’s synth-pop edge to resurface. The track is a far leap from the crooning ballad that starts the EP, and almost left me wondering whether I was listening to the same release. It is for this very reason that <i>Ghost </i>feels disjointed and almost unfinished. Rather than building on the successes of her 2011 release, <i>As If!</i>, Ferreira forfeits her creative ownership and offers too much authority to the producers. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With ominous electro-pop tracks, “Lost in My Bedroom” and “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jtTeMgWNhA">Everything is Embarrassing</a>”, however, Sky holds her own. Here, Ferreira revisits a style she mastered when she first entered the music scene at fifteen</span><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;">: </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">a careful balance between catchy dance beats and melancholy atmospherics. Accompanied by a booming bass and tight snares, Sky sings wistful melodies of racing minds (“lost in my bed, and I’m lost in my head”) and unrequited love (“maybe if you let me be your lover”). The tracks are definitively teen-angst, definitively Sky Ferreira, and arguably the best on the EP. With these modern girl anthems, she holds nothing back; she sounds sure of who she is as an artist, unafraid to wear both her true bubble-gum-pop colors and a grimy layer of smudged black eyeliner. By the time <i>Ghost </i>draws to a close, “Everything is Embarrassing” gives listeners a glimpse of Sky’s promise. The track shows Ferreira for who she is, a rising commercial-avant-garde starlet who owns her image without apologies. And although disappointed that the EP as a whole fails to showcase Ferreira’s potential, I am hopeful that her upcoming album <i>I’m Not Alright</i> (still awaiting a release date) will give testament to Sky’s capability as a dark-pop girl wonder. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-27349883926652434282012-10-12T23:50:00.000-04:002012-10-12T23:55:08.336-04:00Numbers, MellowHype, 10/9<span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #999999;">Los Angeles’ </span><a href="http://oddfuture.tumblr.com/"><span style="color: blue;">Odd Future</span></a><span style="color: #999999;"> collective (officially Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All), burst on to the scene formed in 2007, and it quickly gained a considerable audience following frontman Tyler, the Creator’s release of his debut album </span><i style="color: #999999;">Goblin </i><span style="color: #999999;">in 2009. But interest in the group truly exploded following the posting of Tyler’s </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbZidsgMfw"><span style="color: blue;">“Yonkers”</span></a><span style="color: #999999;"> music video on YouTube (seriously, watch this if you haven't seen it already) and his </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHc3rsAZG9Y"><span style="color: blue;">appearance</span></a><span style="color: #999999;"> on </span><i style="color: #999999;">Late Night with Jimmy Fallon</i><span style="color: #999999;"> with fellow OF rapper Hodgy Beats. On Tuesday, Hodgy Beats and producer/occasional rapper Left Brain dropped </span><i style="color: #999999;">Numbers</i><span style="color: #999999;">, their third album as the duo MellowHype.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="color: #999999;"> </span><span style="color: #999999;">First off, </span><i style="color: #999999;">Numbers </i><span style="color: #999999;">is overall a good album. It’s consistent in every regard, it’s sufficiently diverse, and it has a definition not common to many contemporary hip-hop albums. But listeners hoping for the chaos, anger, and general depravity of Odd Future’s early music will likely be disappointed. </span><i style="color: #999999;">Numbers</i><span style="color: #999999;"> takes a decidedly more stable tone than Tyler’s releases, or even previous MellowHype joints </span><i style="color: #999999;">YelloWhite </i><span style="color: #999999;">and </span><i style="color: #999999;">BlackenedWhite</i><span style="color: #999999;">. That’s not to say that the duo is attempting to transition to the </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxszlJppRQI"><span style="color: blue;">mainstream</span></a><span style="color: #999999;">; rather, it feels as though we’re hearing their maturation as it happens. Its just that what they’re maturing from, a delinquent gang of anarchist skaters celebrating their rape fantasies, was pretty darn entertaining. Their early work was so startling and captivating that </span><i style="color: #999999;">Numbers</i><span style="color: #999999;">, which has more than its share of aggression and creepy allusions to satanism, comes across as relatively tame.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>That being said, there are many strong aspects of <i>Numbers. </i>Left Brain’s production, which is featured on all 16 of the tracks, is consistently enjoyable. He rarely uses samples, and the built from scratch quality works well, for he rarely tries to do too much. His jumpy, dissonant sound is unique and effective when paired with Hodgy Beats’ nervous, almost compulsive delivery. Hodgy has certainly chilled out a bit, his rapping is more controlled than previous efforts, in which he often seemed right on the edge of dropping the lyrics and just screaming. He is technically sharp throughout the album; indeed, its hard to think of one poorly delivered verse, and his newfound precision makes his more aggressive lines cut sharper (“On a one to ten, you like an average 8, blow job, you suck, shall I, elaborate?”).</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="color: #999999;"> </span><i style="color: #999999;">Numbers</i><span style="color: #999999;"> starts out hitting on all cylinders, with assists from OF big shots Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt on “Astro” and “P2”, respectively. Earl’s verse is fantastic, despite being the consensus best MC in the collective, his flow and content has evolved. Again, this isn’t your high-school self’s Earl, there’s nothing on dismemberment or </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78_loMbmKJ8"><span style="color: blue;">vomiting blood</span></a><span style="color: #999999;">, but he explains, “Last year I didn’t know what the cost of a coffin was, so now I’m often buzzed, in the apartment bummin’”. Left Brain pulls out all the stops on “Grill”, with an awesomely twitchy, smokey beat and a rare verse, which is pretty average, but his spacey, deep voice is a lot of fun to listen to. The segmented “65/Breakfast”, which couldn’t be any more different than </span><i style="color: #999999;">BlackenedWhite</i><span style="color: #999999;">’s </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWMOEVdXR2o"><span style="color: blue;">“64”</span></a><span style="color: #999999;">, unless it was performed by the </span><a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1C1CHFA_enUS484US484&biw=1191&bih=633&tbm=isch&tbnid=DvvZSQOghgNTEM:&imgrefurl=http://hipholitics.info/throwback-thursday-banned-in-the-usa-2-live-crew/&docid=OL4tquyR4gQagM&imgurl=http://hipholitics.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/2livecrew-thumb-350x349.jpg&w=350&h=349&ei=XuN4UMGdI4ioyAG1_YF4&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=437&vpy=132&dur=630&hovh=224&hovw=225&tx=189&ty=92&sig=113796407032974279532&page=1&tbnh=140&tbnw=140&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0,i:162"><span style="color: blue;">2 Live Crew</span></a><span style="color: #999999;">, is also quite strong, as are most of the album’s tracks. Left Brain and Hodgy Beats are just simply both very skilled at what they do.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="color: #999999;"> </span><span style="color: #999999;">There are weak spots, such as “Snare”, which sounds like MellowHype covering a rejected Talib Kweli cut, and “Gnc”, a hip-hop 101 piece filled with familiar rap tropes. And when Hodgy urges us to take care of our families and loved ones on “Nfwgjdsh” (your guess is as good as mine), it feels forced, and honestly, he’s not somebody I would ever consider taking advice from concerning the organization of my life. In these instances, MellowHype strays too far towards the middle of the pack, but they always find their way back, close to their unique place. Over the course of “Leflair”, “Untitled L”, and “Monster”, Left Brain deftly pulls off 3 beats which move through electro-freak-out, to a Lex Luger style blast of snares, to a Tyler-esque classic OF sound. Hodgy ramps up the intensity, bringing the album to a darker, </span><a href="http://www.who-shot-ya.com/gallery/2011/OFWGKTA+-+First+Unitarian+Church+"><span style="color: blue;">moshier</span></a><span style="color: #999999;"> place. On these tracks his rhyming is most impressive, sometimes so rapid as to demand multiple rewinds, other times excruciatingly slow, scratching out every syllable. In an era in which guest spots from producers attract more attention than guest verses, there is a definite and refreshing flow to the way MellowHype’s two members move through the album together.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="color: #999999;"> </span><span style="color: #999999;">Again, </span><i style="color: #999999;">Numbers</i><span style="color: #999999;"> is a really solid album. But, fair or not, it didn’t quite satisfy the itch that builds up as the release date for an Odd Future album approaches. I found myself pausing in the middle of songs and looking up old classics like </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21hp9amp5ZE"><span style="color: blue;">“Drop”</span></a><span style="color: #999999;"> and </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWWyWI3xUL8"><span style="color: blue;">“F666 the Police”</span></a><span style="color: #999999;">. This is not a knock on </span><i style="color: #999999;"> </i><span style="color: #999999;">MellowHype, so much as a testament to the degree to which Odd Future occupied such a specific spot in hip-hop. I really like </span><i style="color: #999999;">Numbers</i><span style="color: #999999;"> as a showcase of Hodgy’s evolving skills and Left Brain’s unique touch, but I can’t help but feel a touch of nostalgia for the good old days, when you could count on two words to be screamed in every MellowHype song: “Fuck...you!”.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="color: #999999;">Best Line: “I said...niggas be takin life to serious, that’s why my music be takin’ lives (uh) period”-Hodgy Beats, “Astro”</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="color: #999999;">Also worth checking out: <i>Wu-Block</i>, Wu-Tang Clan and D-Block, presented by Ghost Face Killah and Sheek Louch</span></div>
Lukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962797911210803081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-69832472854985035332012-10-09T14:12:00.002-04:002012-10-09T14:13:15.738-04:00Math in Words (part 2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><i><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">In the second installment to Math in Words: the confused attempts to contextualize and assess the significance of Don Caballero and their third record, </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">What Burns Never Returns<i>.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Released on Touch and Go records in 1998,<i>What Burns Never Returns </i>is the third record by Pittsburgh’s Don Caballero. The album is characterized by the many features which established them in 1993 as a formative component of math rock; complex structures, abrupt time signature shifts, diverse rhythmic measures, and more layers of guitar than pretty much every record released in the past decade combined are all testament to the complex mechanics of the genre. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Reviews of <i>What Burns Never Returns</i> seem largely to hesitate on broad abstractions and theatrical language which denies any kind of plain speaking with respect to the record’s merits and achievements; “thought-provoking”, “totally mind-bending”, and “unlike anything you’ve ever heard before” are all fair approximations, but a little reductive and vague nonetheless. I figured that a more critical review, which seeks to identify the influences and investigate the composite elements of the record, would instead be more useful. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Like the first viewing of <i>Mulholland Drive </i>or possibly <i>Nights of Cabiria, What Burns…</i>can often leave the newly initiated with a sense of disorientation and an inability to articulate exactly what was interesting or enjoyable about the experience. This isn’t to say the record is purposefully designed to alienate its listener, but it is certainly dense with the kind of ideas which only repeated listening can fully expose and make any kind of sense of. It would be a disservice to describe the record as “chaotic”, “panicked”, or even “confused” once you grasp the meticulous composition of each of the respective fragments. It’s less analogous to three individuals competing for precedence inside of a rehearsal space and more like four separate musicians pursuing ideas which, however unique, correspond to each other in incredibly subtle ways. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Whilst at once creatively aligned with Fugazi, Voivod, and early Metallica, Ian Williams, the band’s lead guitarist, lends simultaneously from minimalist-loopers Steve Reich and Terry Riley (this orchestration and experimentation with guitar motifs would return on his final record with the band, <i>American Don).</i> The unorthodox application of guitar pedals throughout the record demonstrates Williams’s ability to successfully sequence and negotiate with existing technologies and the conventions of songwriting without coming off as purely inaccessible -He had only the year before released the self-titled LP with the avant-garde Storm & Stress, an arguably less palatable project that, despite of its greatness, takes an even greater patience to access and enjoy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Complementing and often starkly juxtaposing the many microcapillaries produced by the guitars and bass is the overt and ostentatious ‘drumming’ of Damon Che. It seems to me a little unfair to limit Che’s role to that of a mere percussionist when you consider how frequently he deviates from such responsibilities in order to create entirely new architectures in a far more independent fashion than your conventional drummer. In <i>Delivering the Groceries at 138 BPM </i>Che performs in an anti-drum solo of sorts, providing an interlude which illustrates his ability to utilize the entire kit for the purpose of an almost melodious shift, meanwhile allowing Williams to demonstrate his unusual and iconic mode of finger-tapping as he keeps time. It is arguably these kinds of inversions of the traditional roles which makes <i>What Burns… </i>a truly interesting record. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">The record is by no means an isolated instance of brilliance, but is instead part of a larger genealogy of releases which all exemplify a band developing a system of ideas over the course of a few years. Critics often use the analogy of the middle sibling with <i>What Burns…,</i> a cute and fitting observation which seems somewhat accurate; if <i>Don Caballero 2 </i>is the precocious younger brother, and <i>What Burns </i>the competitive middle child, then <i>American Don </i>is certainly the elder on his return home from music school. What seems incredibly significant about these records is the distinct lack of a framework available to describe them; it would be foolish to imagine that the tired cliché of listing similar bands could come anywhere close to articulating how these records sound.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Whilst still performing today, it is only Damon Che who remains from the original 90s line-up; the tumultuous dynamics of the band are second only to fan contentions surrounding the legitimacy of the ‘original members’. To fully appreciate the band’s relationships around this decade and to access some truly great rock journalism, it’s worth at least glancing over Fred Weaver’s account of his time with Don Caballero before their original line-up disbanded in 2001. As with anything which falls under the umbrella of math rock, Don Caballero’s contribution is one which ironically escapes the ability to be lucidly defined in terms of words and insists on an intense listening experience. I may have just undermined my entire essay, but you may now be listening to the record. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08616077063120164987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-61958284088415649912012-10-08T12:41:00.000-04:002012-10-08T12:41:25.954-04:00John "Bonzo" Bonham, Should we Give a Brit?<br />
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<span style="color: red;">Welcome to the second edition of the ‘Don’t Give a Brit’
blog that tries to take something rational from a completely arbitrary show.
For the past two weeks we have split the show into two halves of the musical
seventies in Britain. Typifying the overarching structure of the radio show,
there was no chronological rationale to this split, it was simply a merge of
acts from across the decade; creating a diverse show each time. To avoid this
complicated diversity, in this blog I have chosen to stick with one absolute
legendary pioneer from the era, the late John Bonham – the greatest drummer of
all time. So you’re now thinking, that is quite a statement to make, but Bonham
was at the forefront of Led Zeppelin’s distinctive sound, which is why the band
has received much critical acclaim over the past 45 years. There was plenty of
subject choice for this decade, with the rise of British punk and glam rock –
now the brunt of many fancy dress outfits. However, I chose to leave the
glitter and flamboyancy behind to concentrate on more conventional rock n’
roll. I also did not want to give out the wrong impression to my blog
readership in covering the now infamous Gary Glitter in just my second week… So
then, Bonham was the standout candidate for me. With his death being in 1980,
it would be wrong of me and an insult to his musical calibre not to cover the
great man’s final decade.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Bonham was the epitome of everything good about rock
music. His drumming skills covered many bases – it was a distinctive, powerful
sound encompassing an instinctive rhythm and furious velocity (especially
through his fast right foot!) To magnify this sound, Bonham would use the
longest and heaviest sticks money could buy. It is no wonder that, thanks to
his revolutionary double bass style of drumming, Bonzo has been proclaimed the
greatest drummer of all time by <i>Rolling
Stone </i>magazine and many similar magazines. With other instruments, it has
been much more difficult to grasp who was the best ever; such as the debate
surrounding guitarists – is it Duane Allman? Jimi Hendrix? Eric Clapton? B.B.
King? It is just not so for drummers— there is no debate about who has been the
best that has ever graced the musical world. Bonham revolutionised the entire
sense of the word drumming, there is no two ways about it. He has influenced
modern drummers such as Dave Grohl, Brad Wilk and Chad Smith, but to name a
few. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">Bonzo
just had a tremendous feel for rock n’ roll. His living-on-a-knife-edge style
of drumming was perfectly complimented by his faultless and completely in-tune
rhythm. The obvious song that illustrates this perfection is “Moby Dick”. This
is a song in which Page and Jones simply build towards Bonzo’s mind-blowing
mega-drum solo. It would often last for 30 minutes when the band would perform
the track live. Bonham once said that “Not everybody likes or understands a
drum solo, so I like to bring in effects and sounds to keep their interest” and
“Moby Dick” really stays true to that sentiment. Its live performances
regularly featured Bonham’s use of bare hands to achieve different sound
effects. Heck, I bet he would have whacked his drum kit with a whale if he
could. With the complete absence of Robert Plant’s voice in the song, you would
think it would a futile task in asking people who have never heard the song
before to attempt to guess who “Moby Dick” is by. However, as a result of John
Bonham’s drumming capabilities, it becomes almost as recognisable as Plant’s
screaming voice. </span></div>
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<span style="color: red;">What
makes Bonham’s tale all that more remarkable is the fact that throughout a vast
amount of his live performances he was intoxicated. The fact that he kept this
resolute rhythm under the influence of alcohol is some achievement. However, it
would be wrong of me to praise his effective actions after drinking alcohol as
it was alcohol that finally killed this magnificent musician. Prior to a tour
of the US in 1980 Bonham drank spirits excessively during rehearsals, beginning
early in the morning. After one of these heavy drinking days, Bonham died in
his sleep. It seemed each shot he took was another step in his stairway to
heaven. The autopsy confirmed that Bonham had consumed the equivalent of 40
shots of vodka in the drinking session that eventually killed him. He was 32
when he died, meaning he is not another member of the infamous 27-club. </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Bonham
was simply irreplaceable to Led Zeppelin, who split with immediate effect after
news of Bonham’s premature death. The band are now limited to reunion tours in
which Jason Bonham steps in for his father. To truly understand Bonham’s raw
musical talent I would advise you to check out Led Zeppelin’s entire
discography. But if I had to narrow it down, Bonham’s finest drumming pieces
are located within “Moby Dick”, “Immigrant Song” and “When the Levee Breaks.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">In
next week’s ‘Don’t Give a Brit’ show we will be covering the 1980s, so we’ll be
leaving behind the moshing rockers of the seventies and replacing it with
glowsticks, synthesizers and bad haircuts. In the mean time don’t forget to
check out our most recent playlist located at: <a href="http://wrmc.middlebury.edu/playlists/16765">http://wrmc.middlebury.edu/playlists/16765</a>. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05211214680280697249noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-37060401165413652362012-09-26T16:52:00.000-04:002012-09-29T17:39:29.894-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p1ZbthbxH40/UGNpZ49uG-I/AAAAAAAAABQ/401Xq2Hyoj8/s1600/FreddieGibbsBabyFaceKilla.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p1ZbthbxH40/UGNpZ49uG-I/AAAAAAAAABQ/401Xq2Hyoj8/s320/FreddieGibbsBabyFaceKilla.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><i>Baby Face Killa </i>marks Freddie Gibbs’ third major mixtape in the last four years, following up well received joints <i>The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs</i> and <i>Cold Day In Hell</i>. The Gary, Indiana native has impressed with his relentless, meticulously efficient flow and a distinctive voice steeped in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary,_Indiana">desolation</a> of his hometown. <i><a href="http://www.datpiff.com/Freddie-Gibbs-Baby-Face-Killa-mixtape.392391.html">BFK</a></i>, presented by the <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.20169/title.freddie-gibbs-says-hes-going-to-restore-that-prestige-to-gangsta-grillz-brand">omnipresent</a> DJ Drama, features guest spots from vets such as Young Jeezy, Krayzie Bone, and Jadakiss, as well as up and comers, SpaceGhostPurrp, Kirko Bangz, and YG. But no matter who’s on the track with him, Gibbs’ verses dominate <i>BFK</i>’s 18 cuts, thanks to his gravelly delivery and ability to overcome at-times mediocre beat-making.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>With the tape’s first track, “BFK”, first time Gibbs’ listeners will likely find his style familiar, for his voice and flow recall the deep, syrupy deliveries of Southern greats Bun B and Trick Daddy. It’s this flow which carries the album’s opening tracks, making up for some pretty played-out hooks and mediocre production. Several of the tracks feel as though they’re one or two simple flaws away from being exceedingly enjoyable. “Money, Clothes, Hoes” features one of the album’s best beats, a synthy, oscillating nightmare from Feb.9, and Gibbs matches it by slowing down from his usual rapid-fire delivery with a well-executed mix of thuggery and creepiness. Unfortunately, the hook features Gibbs chanting the song’s title for almost a full minute, and we’re left wishing that the attention Gangsta Gibbs pays to executing technically flawless verses could be applied to creating a more innovative chorus. The next number, “The Hard” has more great production from Feb.9, a spacey beat laced with haunting operatics, which lends perfectly executed Gibbs lines (“this glock ain’t got no safety, the owner got no patience, so please don’t make my finger and this trigger make relations”) a surreal feeling. But unfortunately, the hook is basic and repetitive, and the featured <a href="http://danawilliamsofficial.tumblr.com/">Dana Williams</a> sounds like a dispirited Rihanna impersonator.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The album’s all around strongest track is undoubtedly “Kush Cloud”. SMKA’s smoked out beat alone is enough to keep me coming back to this song, and it’s haziness makes another routine hook from Gibbs sound appropriate in a hypnotic way. When Freddie drops in out of nowhere, “Mo murda, mo murda, in the Tahoe with my burner”, his voice cuts into the ambience of the beat like a face looming through a cloud of smoke. He shouts out Bone Thugs ‘n’ Harmony near the end of his verse, and Krayzie Bone, the Cleveland group’s most successful soloist, responds with a very strong showing of his own. Old school fans will be satisfied to hear that he hasn’t lost a step, and he leaves us wondering how he manages to seemingly never take a breath (especially given the habit he’s discussing). Finally, Florida’s SpaceGhostPurrp ends things by slowing the song down to a codeine-tinted, psychedelic crawl, a very effective finish after the non-stop efforts from Gibbs and Krayzie Bone.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>As the second half of the tape progresses, Gibbs’ strengths become increasingly clear. Although his rapid-fire flow is very impressive in its consistency, he’s at his best when he slows it down a measure and allows us to hear the gravelly street in his voice. On the Outkast inspired “On Me”, Gibbs deftly mixes up the pace of his delivery, as well as the length of the rhyme scheme. Same goes for “Tell a Friend”, featuring Curren$y, on which Gibbs routinely changes speed within one rhyme, making “Put my brother through college on this ski mask shit, told him while he was in class I was with smokers lightin’ up glass dicks” into a cohesive bar. Young Jeezy provides a solid spot on “Seventeen”, with a clever hook and a verse that recounts his days of drug dealing with an insomnia-addled sound, asking “14 grams in my attic, the dilla or the user, who’s really the addict?”. Finally, <a href="http://allhiphop.com/2012/05/31/rack-city-producer-dj-mustard-defines-ratchet-music-for-a-new-hip-hop-generation/">DJ Mustard</a> ends the tape with a minimal, eerie beat for "Every City", with lonely piano strokes which makes Gibbs’ play-boy lyrics seem more severe and threatening.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><i>Baby Face Killa</i> is definitely an enjoyable mixtape, but it’s not one that I would necessarily listen to from beginning to end. That said, I do look forward to throwing it on when I’m in the mood for a solid, hard-core street sound. Freddie Gibbs’ vocal abilities obscure <i>BFK</i>’s obvious <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://day1pro.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/kirko.jpg&imgrefurl=http://day1pro.com/?p%3D705&h=300&w=575&sz=74&tbnid=_KSEGTeq3DWSIM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=173&zoom=1&usg=__D_zzXoAOdQr721L1goY2VGZE6qc=&docid=1LEFt74r2Um3ZM&sa=X&ei=lWhjUNqNGMq50QHZr4CgAw&ved=0CEUQ9QEwBw&dur=43">deficiencies</a> in most instances, but even his captivating flow isn’t enough to make me want to hear snoozers like “Krazy” and “Middle of the Night” ever again. It’s important to remind oneself that it’s mixtape, not an album, and there is far less thought given to what is included and what isn’t. But at it’s highest points it does a great job of showcasing an exceptionally talented rapper, and that is well worth the lows.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Best line: ““Grind til you put your moms in a new spot, on the block with the bomb it was too hot, on the block with the bomb it was so cold, sellin’ dope in the snow til’ my toes froze”, Freddie Gibbs, “Bout it Bout it”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Also worth checking out: <i>Food & Liquor 2: The Great American Rap Album</i>, Lupe Fiasco</span></span></div>
Lukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962797911210803081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-57524625697573834602012-09-26T17:33:00.004-04:002012-09-26T20:07:43.706-04:00Crystal Castles announce new album, release new single, give you nightmares with "Plague" video<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Big news from Toronto's least friendly, most danceable goth duo, Crystal Castles (sorry, <b><a href="http://vimeo.com/34667198">Trust</a></b> -- nice try!). Crystal Castles producer Ethan Kath and vocalist Alice Glass have been dropping hints about their third album for a few months now, but at last, they've provided the world with details. Out November 5 via Casablanca/Fiction/Universal Republic, the new record will, like its two predecessors, be self-titled (Crystal Castles' #1 favorite thing is to be difficult), and henceforth will be known in practice as <i>Crystal Castles (III)</i>. That's the cover art above, featuring what <i>Pitchfork</i> tells me is "<b><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/17111673">an award-winning image by Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda...taken after a street demonstration in Yemen on October 15, 2011</a></b>." It "pictures a woman...holding her son...who suffered from tear gas." Seem bleak? Well, of course: Crystal Castles' #2 favorite thing is to be depressing, and the following statement from Alice Glass suggests that <i>III</i> will find her and Kath at their most gloomy and antagonistic:<br />
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"Oppression is a theme, in general.... A lot of bad things have happened to people close to me...and it's profoundly influenced my writing as I've realized there will never be justice for them.... I didn't think I could lose faith in humanity any more than I already had, but after witnessing some things, it feels like the world is a dystopia where victims don't get justice and corruption prevails. I'm one step away from being a vigilante to protect people and bring justice to the people I love. I've thought about it."<br />
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Okay, so what I get from that is: yikes, Alice Glass is terrifying. If you encounter a tiny, very angry 20-something woman dressed sorta like a bat in a Toronto alleyway, run the f away before she destroys you! If you need more convincing, <b><a href="http://soundcloud.com/crystal-castles/crystal-castles-wrath-of-god">click here to DOWNLOAD (for free!) the new single from the album, entitled "Wrath of God"</a></b> (...um, help!). Kath's production on the track, as with the earlier single "Plague," continues to blend 8-bit, shoegaze, and nu-rave textures with danceable yet melancholy results, rendered psychologically disturbing by Glass's hysterical vocal work. <a href="http://pitchfork.com/news/47948-crystal-castles-announce-new-album-iii/" style="font-weight: bold;">The richer, dreamier sound is probably the result of the acoustic recording processes and all new keyboards Kath employed during the recording sessions for <i>III</i></a>. He said in a statement that he "wanted the album to have a completely different sound," which we can safely assume is code for "Alice Glass threatened to eat me alive if my tracks grew repetitive and stale."<br />
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A new album, a new album cover, a new single, and a new reason to be afraid of Ms. Glass is already a lot of new information from this famously cryptic pair, but WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Have you been sleeping soundly at night? Are your dreams pleasant and relaxing? Remedy these conditions by watching the reeeeeeally, really upsetting new music video for the first single from <i>III</i>, "Plague," which came out on 7" this summer. Depicting a possessed woman's final throes, a ballet lesson gone demonically awry, and an unexpected, decidedly unpleasant use of milk (ew), this is seriously freaky stuff, freakier even than the song that soundtracks it. The video is embedded below; do not let a child see it.<br />
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UPDATE: The video was directed by a fan, and the band liked it so much they made it the official video for the track, which tells you all you need to know about their taste. The footage is actually from a 1981 horror film called <i>Possession</i>. (<b><a href="http://pitchfork.com/news/47969-video-crystal-castles-plague/">Information courtesy of <i>Pitchfork.</i></a></b>)<br />
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Sam Tolzmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11619712891066074209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-54238741278114702212012-09-24T21:22:00.000-04:002012-09-24T21:22:00.230-04:00Don't Give a Brit about the Sixties<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: red;">Welcome to the first ever blog edition of the ‘Don’t Give a Brit’ show that airs on WRMC 91.1 FM at 1-2pm on a Thursday afternoon. I, DJ Phil the Rush, will be constructing a weekly blog post on a particular aspect of the show that we’ve touched on that week. For those of you that are unaware of the miniscule method in the monstrous madness of the ‘Don’t Give a Brit’ show; myself and my fellow British comrade are taking Middlebury College (and the surrounding area) through the briefest, most crass history of British music ever experienced. For instance, we began this week in possibly Britain’s finest musical decade – the Sixties – and in doing so completely disregarded the existence of musical acts preceding this era. Consequently, to anyone who is a big fan of Cliff Richard and the like, I hold my hands up and apologise. Quick tip though, if you walk into your local greeting card store and open up the nearest card, I can almost guarantee “Congratulations” will be blaring out of it. His famous song containing the lyrics “congratulations and celebrations/congratulations and jubilations” is a massive hit with Hallmark as inserting Cliff’s voice into the card effectively does their job for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: white;">The obvious place to begin these series of British themed blogs is with what is now regarded as the British Invasion of the 1960s. British musical artists completely dominated global airwaves during the decade and Beatlemania spread internationally and most famously in the US. On 4<sup>th</sup> April 1964 for example, The Beatle’s occupied each top five position in the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in a feat that has not been matched since. Their easy-listening popular sound was a</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span><span style="color: white;">breath of fresh-air for US listeners who longed for a change in the nation’s musical direction. </span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: blue;">It did not end there for the British music industry; The Beatles were soon to be followed by the successes of The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clarke Five, Donovan, The Animals, the timeless, never-ageing Tom Jones and many many more. This arguably cumulated on 8<sup>th</sup> May 1965. On this date, the US Billboard top 10 was made up of entirely British acts in all but one position. The contemporary British music industry, through such auto-tuned, anti-poetic, mainstream pop acts as The Wanted, Jessie J and One Direction would be lucky to even reach the periphery of this famous top 10. I’m not even going to subject my fingers to typing about Cher Lloyd’s musical ‘contribution’… Alas, I digress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: red;">This onslaught of British music was mainly caused by British youth’s real feel for the rock-and-roll idiom and anyone-can-play aspect of the Skittle craze from across the Atlantic in the decade before them. These charming invaders tinkered with American rock-and-roll music and returned it to within its borders – redressed and restyled – to a generation largely ignorant of its historical and racial origins. For example, “The House of The Rising Sun” shot to top spot in the US in September, 1964 and was the first British Invasion number one not to be connected to The Beatles. However, what is fascinating is that it was a re-jigged traditional American folk song from the 18<sup>th</sup> Century. The smoke screen that was placed over this evident American influence is part of the reason why the British Invasion was so creative and intricate. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: white;">However, it would be wrong to assume that these British acts were carbon-copies of each other and/or shared distinctive and similar sounds. Take The Rolling Stones for example; Jagger, Richards and co. did not follow the same popular music sound as their other successful British compatriots. The Rolling Stones were a more dark, unusual and less parentally accepted band that explicitly made their blues and African-American influence known – an American musical style that had largely been ignored by the mass US population. The name of the band, the shorthand of their character, was taken from “Rollin’ Stone,” a song by the African-American blues musician Muddy Walters. Likewise, Mick Jagger evidently modelled his trademark dance moves on minstrelsy shows of the late 19<sup>th</sup> Century and early 20<sup>th</sup> Century. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: blue;">Regardless of which musical direction these British bands went in, they undoubtedly helped cement the now conventional formation of the rock band – with guitars and drums at the forefront. These acts revolutionised music during the most culturally changing era of recent history. Their presence today is as real as ever, with The Rolling Stones arguably the most sought after live band after inspiring generation after generation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: red;">Songs to check out: Literally anything by The Beatles and The Stones; Dave Clark Five “Because”; Donovan “Sunshine Superman”; The Animals “The House of The Rising Sun” and if you must, Tom Jones “It’s Not Unusual.” Plus, any of the tracks from the ‘Don’t Give a Brit’ playlist this week located at</span> </span><a href="http://wrmc.middlebury.edu/playlists/16626"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://wrmc.middlebury.edu/playlists/16626</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: white;">In Thursday’s show we will be covering one half of the British 1970s, as there is just simply too much material to cover in a one-hour sitting. You’ll get another blog post from me within the next fortnight about an aspect of this fascinating decade, which, believe it or not, contains way more famous material than the Sixties and touches on many more musical bases. These include: Progressive Rock, Glam Rock, Heavy Metal, Glam Rock, Synth Rock; plus many more!</span> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05211214680280697249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-68198766645046624392012-09-24T21:16:00.002-04:002012-09-24T21:17:47.186-04:00Math in Words<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Calibri;">'Math in Words’ is a fortnightly series tracing the development of math rock through the 90s. In the first installment the focus is on Slint’s 1991 record, Spiderland.</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Math rock as a genre largely eludes a definitive exposition; critics generally apply the term when left scratching their heads and finding themselves unable to make comparisons to more familiar styles and structures. Fans are equally ambivalent; any entry on YouTube titled ‘math song’ is more often than not burdened by users commenting on what makes the song distinctively ‘not math’ without offering any elucidation on the subject. Paradoxically, many of the musicians frequently associated with the genre are as reluctant to accept the term; instead turning it into something of esoteric joke. Writing about individuals who are suspicious of such journalism is just another irony I have to accept as part of this project. </span><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Such frustrations ultimately deny a conventional study of the genre and insist on a more abstract approach. I figure the most logical way to do so would be to have a broad view of the principle characteristics of the bands I will be documenting. These include the use of, but are not limited to: asymmetrical time signatures, idiosyncratic structures, and a privileging of instruments over voice.</span><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">In fortnightly installments I hope to assess as chronologically as possible the more accessible records which contributed to the movement whilst still alluding to those which however formative may be considered difficult, or, in some instances, ‘unlistenable’. As tracing the genre through its many antecedents would require a vast, labyrinthine casebook, I’m instead going to focus more specifically on the bands which emerged in the early 90s as I consider this loose collective to be of particular importance when attempting to reach some kind of answer to the question of what math rock is.</span><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To begin unraveling the subject I’ve decided to take a look at Slint’s second and final record, <i>Spiderland.</i></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Released in 1991, the record possesses all the hallmarks of what is often considered a truly math rock record: The guitars oscillate between angular rhythms and scratchy riffs, the time signatures are often irregular, and the dynamics shift in a totally unpredictable way. The complexity of each song’s architecture demands total engagement; I tried to listen to it whilst writing this piece and just found myself unable to divide my attention. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Produced by Brian Paulson, the record reflects his raw, live approach to recording which makes for a far more natural sound than the mechanical rigidity of many new rock bands. The production led Steve Albini, the producer of their first effort, <i>Tweeze,</i> to suggest that “</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The crystalline guitar of Brian McMahan and the glassy, fluid guitar of David Pajo seem to hover in space directly past the listener's nose. The incredibly precise-yet-instinctive drumming has the same range and wallop it would in your living room.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Released under Chicago’s Touch and Go Records (a self-published zine turned label only ten years prior to <i>Spiderland</i>’s production), Slint joined the indie roster responsible for the likes of Big Black, The Jesus Lizard, and </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Don Caballero; three bands whose involvement in the progression of math rock is indisputable, not matter who says otherwise. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Spanning less than forty minutes and totaling only six tracks, the record serves as a veritable model for the genre. Each track is replete with dichotomies: mumbling spoken word narratives to rasping yells, melodic chiming guitars to discordant and distorted stabs, ambient instrumental sections to crowded vocal arrangements. </span><span class="reference-text"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Piero Scaruffi describes them as</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> “</span>masterpieces in rock history… Leveraging from experiments of preceding years, Slint is now completing a more sophisticated search on rhythm and resonance, culminating in an almost transcendental quality”, an accurate statement.<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">The album artwork is equally unsettling; the members all treading water in black and white, offering what many music journalists may describe as a “brooding extension of the album’s existential angst”. Really it is just a reflection of the band’s autonomy and their investment in every faucet of the record’s production. It may not be your traditional ‘concept album’, but it certainly offers some continuity in everything from artwork, linear notes, and the songs themselves. The band’s self-awareness is evident in the, “this recording is meant to be listened to on vinyl” stickers they included as part of the CD release; it is this kind of engagement with the listener which heightens the intensity and personal feeling of the record. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Whilst truly innovative in more ways than one, the record it is not without its debts. The narratives McMahan delivers in <i>Good Morning, Captain </i>and <i>Breadcrumb Trail</i> are entirely reminiscent of Sonic Youth’s <i>Goo</i>, released only the year before. The guitar arrangements sound at their cleanest to borrow from early Gang of Four records, and at their heaviest, Black Sabbath in drop-tuning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Spiderland </span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">has in more recent years acquired the critical reception it rightly deserves. Whilst largely ignored upon its initial release (which great records aren’t?) it now ranks highly in respected music publications when charting records which actually changed the musical landscape. The band’s limited output of only two records is unfortunate, but no less defining as a consequence. </span><span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Evidence of Slint’s influence can be seen in the works of JUNE OF 44, Polvo, and </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Drive like Jehu; three bands credited in equal measure for their involvement on the math rock scene of the 90s. More recent traces can be heard in Mogwai, This Will Destroy You, and 65daysofstatic. As I can think of no conclusion more fitting than that of Steve Albini, I will quote him again here, which is to say, “</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Play this record and kick yourself if you never got to see them live."</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">-</span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Oliver Pearson</span><span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08616077063120164987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-43374950672510357202012-09-19T14:15:00.002-04:002012-09-19T21:30:41.893-04:00Cruel Summer, Kanye West and G.O.O.D Music, 9/18<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="s1">Welcome to the premiere of This Far, a column which I'll be writing every two weeks here on the WRMC blog and moving over to the new website once it airs on the web. In this column, I will be reviewing a recently released hip-hop album, with the occasional mixtape thrown in, in an attempt to help you wade through the <a href="http://www.datpiff.com/">flood</a> of beats and bars that hit the internet everyday, so that you only listen to the dopest of the dope. I will be reviewing a range of albums, from the obscure to the mainstream, from the socially-conscious to the <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1C1CHFA_enUS484US484&biw=1138&bih=621&tbm=isch&tbnid=B3vpg8qPpDSBQM:&imgrefurl=http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/crossfade/2012/08/rick_ross_rapper_dissed_freeway_ricky_ross_feud.php&docid=-UEvmQs5L2fzhM&imgurl=http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/crossfade/rick%252520ross%252520terry%252520iced%252520out.jpg&w=560&h=375&ei=nBxZUOGjHLOH0QHB_oD4Dw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=825&vpy=326&dur=43&hovh=184&hovw=274&tx=214&ty=167&sig=113796407032974279532&page=2&tbnh=127&tbnw=141&start=18&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:18,i:183">Ciroc-and-kush-induced</a> unconsciousness. If you have any requests, suggestions, complaints or props for This Far, please give me a shout over email, or on Twitter, @LukeAdirondack.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">To kick things off, I'm going to be taking a look at <i>Cruel Summer</i>, the long anticipated collabo album coming out of Kanye West's G.O.O.D. (Getting Our Our Dreams) Music label, a subsidiary of Island Def Jam. Kanye founded the label in 2004 and has been accumulating an increasingly impressive roster of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOD_Music#Artists">signees</a> ever since. <i>Cruel Summer</i>, which dropped on Tuesday after several delays, features many of these artists, both producers and rappers, in a <a href="http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/39354/the-neighborhood-rap-crew-a-grantland-appreciation">posse</a> album whose members seem to have little in common other than thick ol' stacks.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Previously unreleased “To The World” kicks things off (two of the <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.20523/title.good-music-cruel-summer-tracklist-cover-art-production-credits">listed</a> producers have the $ symbol as part of their professional names), and, bizarre R. Kelly hook and all, it sets a pretty representative tone for <i>Cruel Summer</i>. The heavy beat with dramatic swaths of piano and pounding percussion give the track sort of brave new world sound; granted, a world in which the self-proclaimed "God of rap"(Kanye) can compare himself to Francis Ford Coppola and criticize Mitt Romney in the same breath. This leads into the four big singles, with which most hip-hop followers will already be familiar, "Clique", "Mercy", "New God Flow", and "Cold", with new release "The Morning" thrown in. As might have been guessed, these four tracks hold as the highlights of the album. "Clique" overcomes a bit of an obnoxious <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88p62C7JAJU">Big Sean</a> hook with solid verses from Sean, Jay-Z, and 'Ye, as well as a banging, varied beat from the red hot <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.20694/title.hit-boy-hitstory-album-stream-download">Hit-Boy</a>(of "Niggas in Paris" fame). "Mercy" reminds why it was unequivocally the <a href="http://www.vibe.com/photo-gallery/10-most-successful-rap-songs-summer-2012?page=11">official summer jam</a> of 2012. "New God Flow" features great verses from Pusha T, formerly of Clipse, and Ghostface Killah, while Kanye takes self-worship to astronomical new levels. This trend continues on "Cold", on which Kanye professes his love for Kim Kardashian (the song first leaked in the Spring), and the fact that the two are now <a href="http://www.vibe.com/photo-gallery/kanye-west-and-kim-kardashian-spend-qt-hawaii">together</a> seems to confirm "Cold"'s message: if 'Ye can say it, 'Ye can get it. Unfortunately, from there the album seriously falls off. Another great Hit-Boy beat is wasted by The-Dream's horrible hook on "Higher", and mundane, "promised Kanye I would appear on this one" spots by Common and John Legend provide only disappointment. Low-level G.O.O.D memebers, such as CyHi the Prynce, Teyana Taylor and D'banj bring very little to the table. "The One" provides a bright spot; in fact, it is probably the track on the album that most recalls <i>College Dropout</i> and <i>Late Registration </i>Kanye, both in production, flow, and lyrical content. Big Sean and 2 Chainz provide good support, especially Chainz, who impresses with a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atHekn9KE18">surprisingly</a> reflective verse. Finally, the posse remix of <a href="http://rapfix.mtv.com/2012/09/16/chief-keefs-instagram-shut-down-sex-picture/">Chief Keef</a>'s "Don't Like" is tacked on, sounding ridiculous after John Legend's, wind-chime laced "Bliss". Still a banger, but absurdly placed.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">However, it feels almost appropriate that <i>Cruel Summer </i>should end with such an ill-fitting song that was clearly included because Kanye and crew like it. The album is chiefly about self-indulgence, both in its musical choices and in the lifestyle that the music celebrates. Part of that indulgence is not catering to the expectations of old-school Kanye fans. The album's heavier beats don't resonate with his early work, nor does the intensely ostentatious boasting. This is no longer a man lamenting his basket-weaving course. That, in the end,<i> </i></span>is the value of <i>Cruel Summer</i>; it represents one of the musical geniuses of our time celebrating the ability to make whatever music he wants, and to put on whomever he wants. That being said, I wouldn't blame you for standing pat if you've already downloaded the major tracks. I don't think 'Yeezy will mind.</div>
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Best line: “My girl a superstar all from a home movie!”-Kanye, "Clique".</div>
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Also worth checking out: <i>Shoot Me or Salute Me 4</i>, Waka Flocka Flame (Mixtape)</div>
Lukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962797911210803081noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5267154193157866861.post-83908182586847754052012-09-04T17:06:00.000-04:002012-09-05T17:14:50.504-04:00Interview with Conduits<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7e5p5syroPI/UEfAsW5laVI/AAAAAAAAAE0/ipWvgjInFZ4/s1600/TL-57(3x3_300dpi).jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7e5p5syroPI/UEfAsW5laVI/AAAAAAAAAE0/ipWvgjInFZ4/s320/TL-57(3x3_300dpi).jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>I recently had a conversation with Jenna Morrison, lead
singer of the Omaha-based band Conduits. We talked about the formation of the
hazy, shoegazy quintet, and their debut, self-titled LP, released this past
March. We also touched on bringing the raw energy of live performance to the
recording studio, and an epic Godspeed You Black Emperor! show. </i></div>
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<b>WRMC: I’ve never been to Omaha, or even Nebraska, but I'm wondering if
your hometown had some influence on your sound?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Jenna Morrison of Conduits: Not on the surface. I'm sure there is some influence because we've
been around it so much, but our sound is definitely not really like anything
else around here. There are a lot of really great bands coming out of Omaha and
Lincoln. We definitely strive to be good and seeing musicians playing well and
making great music pushes us to do the same. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>WRMC: How has your music experience in the past and songwriting in the
past influenced what you're doing with Conduits?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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JM: I got together with Nate and JJ and… in our general vibe we just
instantly meshed. It just came kind of natural to us. That probably sounds kind
of cheesy, but really the general vibe of the stuff that I used to write and
the stuff we're doing now is kind of the same. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>WRMC: It makes total sense that if you found some guys you jived with, that
would come into something. Since Omaha's influences didn't necessarily do so
much for you, what did you listen to growing up and when you started your
musical career? If that's not particularly relevant, who has been relevant as
an influence for conduits? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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JM: Each band member has different influences, so it’s kind of a hard
question to answer. As far as the band goes I would say Spiritualized, My
Bloody Valentine, Radiohead. There's quite a few. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>WRMC: Have you guys felt like you've learned anything in the process of being
on tour and being exposed to other musicians? I’m wondering what you guys have
picked up in that process, and if during that process you've realized things
that you would like to change from the first album, and how you might like to
move forward in the future?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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JM: I would say that it definitely helped shape a little bit how we
perform live. I think that playing every day has made us all more comfortable
with who are and what we do on stage without having to put thought into it.
That I feel has been really beneficial. I wish we could play shows every day,
all the time, honestly. As far as our sound goes…The way I sing things live and
the way I sing on the album sometimes differs a little bit. And that might come
out a little bit more in the next album.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>WRMC: What exactly is the difference between your voice when you're
singing live and on the album? How might that style you have live come out on
the next album? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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JM: You probably noticed on the album that there’s a lot of
instrumentation on the songs. The band has a tendency to get pretty loud, and
sometimes, live, I have to sing louder than I do on the album, just to come
across. I think, on the next album, I'd like to have more songs where I'm a
little bit less demure, slightly more rock n’ roll. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>WRMC: Interesting to hear how the live shows opened up new avenues for you
by virtue of you being forced to sing over your bandmates. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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JM: Yeah, out of necessity. I'd like that to come across more in the
recordings the next time around. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>WRMC: Can you tell me a little bit about your personal background and how that's
fed into this music and the part you played in creating this first album. What
your role was in the creative process.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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JM: I mean for the last, I don't know, I guess probably nine years, I've
been playing in bands or singing in bands, mostly backup vocals. Eventually I
became a backup vocalist for Son, Ambulance, which I feel opened up a lot of
avenues for me. I did that on and off for years, but in-between there were
other projects that I worked on and recorded for and wrote for. I don't know, I
would either drop the ball, or lose or interest, or something wouldn't vibe
well with me and you’d kinda, you know, move on. Nothing really ever stuck for me previous to this band.<i> </i>And
then of course I met Nate and JJ and instantly jelled super well with their
style and what they wanted to do. It made perfect sense. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>WRMC: What are some landmark bands that helped shape what you wanted your
sound to be like. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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JM: I remember I went to a Godspeed You Black Emperor! show when I must have been seventeen or something like
that.<b> </b>That show really hit me in a certain way. The vibe of the
music, the feeling I guess, definitely geared me more towards the type of music
that we are making now: stuff that's moody, almost emotional without being like
outright lyrically emotional– just kind of powerful music. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Their music is almost droning without actually being droning. I just
remember being at this show and kind of feeling completely overtaken by the
music. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>WRMC: So what are you guys thinking about the future? What's your timeline
looking like for this next album, if you have one at this point? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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JM: People would like to have a new album out by next summer. I know
we'll be recording stuff as soon as possible. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>WRMC: It was cool to hear that you had played for so long and it took you
finding a couple of guys who were doing the same kind of thing you wanted to do
in order to come together and make a full-length album that you're happy with. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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JM: It feels really
good. I feel really fortunate that I've been able to make music with these
guys.</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Moss Turpanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10989066455637153446noreply@blogger.com1