One of the problems with having reached the pinnacle of composition on the album prior is that expectations are high, everyone is looking, and your songs can now be heard every Wednesday on NBC. But Explosions in the Sky marches onward, undeterred by such expectations.
Two new shows just for you. We have squeezed out two extended release episodes for this weekend to get you through this week. They contain mostly new songs but there's also new issues from the vaults. The first show features music from Rider/Horse, Mint Field, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Anastasia Coope, ISAN, Stone Music, La Securite, Bark Psychosis, Jon Rose, Master Wilburn Burchette, Umberto, Wand, Tim Koh, Sun An, and Memory Drawings. The second episode has music by Laibach, Melt-Banana, Chuck Johnson, X, K. Yoshimatsu, Dorothy Carter, Pavel Milyakov, Violence Gratuite, Mark Templeton, Dummy, Endon, body / negative, Midwife, Alberto Boccardi, Divine. Cow in Maui from Veronika in Vienna. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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This latest Birds of Delay communication shows a steelier hide than recent releases, the fluctuating red-hot treble liquefying the layers into a shimmering coating. Like 24/7 road works in your jawbone, this slow burner begins at the harsher, more dissonant end of the spectrum only for familiarity to find a sort-of melody and a kind-of arrangement.
Music that was made to illustrate a slide lecture on Hans Henny Jahnn's novel The Night of Lead, a tale of alienation and sado-masochism which was greeted with revulsion and largely forgotten. This is the first release under his own name by Hanno Leichtmann, though fans of his work with Static and Pole can listen without too much trepidation.
Last year's Sleep England, Michael Cashmore's first solo album under his own name, eschewed the verdant soundworlds of Cashmore's previous work as Nature and Organisation in favor of austere, minimal simplicity. This new EP is somewhat of a return to form, featuring lush arrangements and guest vocals by Antony, singing lyrics written by David Tibet.
The second album from Oneida's Bobby Matador and Erica Fletcher percolates the brain with its rich variety of effects and treatments. The songs themselves are pared down pop nuggets without a whole lot of structural variation. Even though there aren't a lot of different styles on display here, the palette of sounds used on this recording often surpasses that limitation.
The group's name suggests that the music is going to be like licking white hot, blistering, celestial comet trails as I soar through the universe in a multicolored ball of pure musical ecstasy. Unfortunately I am always disappointed by the "free" folk that greets me when I press play. On their second self-titled album, things have not improved much. There is nothing here to make me change my stance on the music; I still find them entirely impenetrable.
