- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/reuterboddy-pure.jpg)
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/heckerladysleep.jpg)
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/lowdestroyer.jpg)
Songs like "California" and "Everybody's Song" are instantaneously catchy, and it doesn't take many listens to easily sing along. Finding a cool comfort in a quieter approach are songs like the haunting re-recorded "Silver Rider," originally released on the "Murderer" single, and "Cue the Strings," which could easily be a nod to the Secret Name version of "Will the Night" with its use of (no surprise here) strings. Towards the end, the album lightens up with two fictitious autobiographies, "When I Go Deaf," where Alan sings about all the benefits of going deaf, and "Death of a Salesman," where he faces the doubts that nearly all musicians have at one point in their life.
Low have done a complete 180 degree turn on The Great Destroyer, as their deeper subjects tackled are the loudest rock tunes and the sillier lighter things are the quiet, slower numbers. The biggest criticism people have been giving (and all it takes is a few web searches or to be signed up on an email list to witness) has been "this isn't the Low I love." As music listeners, we're all guilty to some degree of taking a certain "ownership" of music, especially when it isn't multi-platinum hitmakers that everybody in your family or office knows. (Oh, that's "Jon" music they say around me, and I'm sure many people reading this have had the same thing happen at the home or office.) My criticism isn't with the musical choices the band took, as Low still sincerely dedicate themselves to perfection within the pop/rock framework, but with the production. Dave Fridman, the overrated knob twiddler for Flaming Lips who nerdy hipsters drool over, has seemed to fail to keep up with Low's enthusiasm. Layers of distorted guitars and beefed up drums get out of hand and sound like they're clipping at overdriven levels. If they wanted to sound amateurishly distorted, then they've done a good job, but there are moments on the album that sound way too accidentally muddy. Regardless, this is an album that I have grown a great fondness for in the short time I've been listening.
It's not entirely unexpected from Low, but it's easy to see that executed in such a bold contrast to their trademark can go either way: treasure or trash. This album is an elephant in the livingroom and people will undoubtedly have a hard time getting around it without an opinion.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/nursedrunk.jpg)
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/oh_no-the_dirsupt.jpg)
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Hipshot
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/mike_cooper-reluctant_swimmer_virtual_surfer.jpg)
His long-standinginterest in Hawaiian steel guitar, Pacific culture and exotica reachedits apex last year with the release of his Rayon Hulaalbum, a fascinating experimental work combining dizzying loops fromold Arthur Lyman records with Cooper's impressive improvisation onsteel guitar.
Cooper's new limited CD-R release on his own Hipshotlabel is a recording of an October 2003 live performance at animprovised music festival in Rome. The live set is composed of onelong, slowly evolving piece combining field recordings, real-timesampling, digital treatment and loops with live improvisation onCooper's 1920 National tri-plate lap steel guitar. It's a richlyevocative work that meanders lazily through oceanic expanses ofelectronic twitters and drones, to lush jungle landscapes filled withexotic birds and hypnotic curls of delayed steel guitar. Twice duringthe performance, all of the disparate elements gel unexpectedly intogentle vocal songs.
The first is a cover of Van Dyke Parks' "Movies IsMagic," and Cooper transforms the nostalgic ode to old Hollywood into awarm and nuanced thing of beauty, with his lazy ripples of guitar givenjust the right touch of digital processing. The other song is"Dolphins," a track by 1960s folk singer Fred Neil (though TimBuckley's haunting rendition is probably the most notable), whichCooper gives a soulful rendition against a backdrop of abstractelectronic noise and sparse, minimal guitar. At times during thelengthy experimental interludes, especially during the "Virtual Surfer"section, the dense noisy textures, animal sounds and psychedelicelectronics sound remarkably similar to Black Dice's recent Creature Comforts.
The album is incredibly rich and evocative, and as a live performance,it's utterly flawless. Cooper takes live guitar processing and samplingas his raw material, using it to build something complex andsubstantive, full of ideas and surprises, not just abandoning ithalf-formed. Everyone who thought Fennesz' last record was the best of2004 would do well to listen to Mike Cooper's Reluctant Swimmer/Virtual Surfer,to hear similar musical strategies brought to their full potential by aveteran musician in his artistic prime. As usual, the only way to get acopy of this limited CD-R is to send the artist cash inside a birthdaycard to Hipshot headquarters in Rome. Frankly, I find it incrediblethat one of the many trendy experimental record labels in Europe hasn'tsnatched up Cooper's last few albums for a wider release.
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/beequeen-the_bodyshop.jpg)
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/larsen-play.jpg)
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/skuggevolume.jpg)
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/karkowski_antimatter-khz.jpg)
samples:
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/images/bibio-fi.jpg)
Read More