We have finally cleared out the backlog of great music and present some new episodes.
Episode 711 features music from The Jesus and Mary Chain, Zola Jesus, Duster, Sangre Nueva, Dialect, The Bug, Cleared, Mount Eerie, Mulatu Astatke & Hoodna Orchestra, Hayden Pedigo, Bistro Boy, and Ibukun Sunday.
Episode 712 has tunes by Mazza Vision, Waveskania, Black Pus, Sam Gendel, Benny Bock, and Hans Kjorstad, Katharina Grosse, Carina Khorkhordina, Tintin Patrone, Billy Roisz, and Stefan Schneider, His Name Is Alive, artificial memory trace, mclusky, Justin Walter, mastroKristo, Başak Günak, and William Basinski.
Episode 713 brings you sounds from Mouse On Mars, Leavs, Lawrence English, Mo Dotti, Wendy Eisenberg, Envy, Ben Lukas Boysen, Cindytalk, Mercury Rev, White Poppy, Anadol & Marie Klock, and Galaxie 500.
Skolavordustigur Street in Reykjavík photo by Jon (your Podcast DJ).
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Not a single thing about this metal trio is particularly distinct ororiginal, but somehow that just doesn't matter. Peter Larson, FumieKawasaki, and Dave Sahijdak churn out destructive and catchy riffs witha powerful delivery, sticking to the straight and narrow path burnedopen years ago by other well-known guitar wizards and drunken partyfreaks. Bulb
Despite all their references being established and well-knownperformers of years past, their music is hard to shove aside as justrip-off material or more-of-the-same rock music. 25 Suaves obviouslylove what they do and their newest record is a blast to play at highlevels and head bang with. "Turn Up the Music" opens the record likethe mission statement every boy and girl has ever dreamed up whilelistening to their favorite guitarists, vocalists, and drummers: "Mylife is making rock / from underground / I pray my life to have time /to make this sound / Loud, I want it Loud." Images of beer spillingeverywhere and technicolor mohawks spring immediately to mind andbefore long the molasses-thick guitars and abused drums turn intohypnotic layers of rock holiness, dedicated to the destruction of everything established... to hell with the details. With titles like "Born Dead" and "Let it Burn," the thematic elements of I Want it Loudare right on the sleeve and the music doesn't even remotely fail tolive up to those teenage concepts. Maybe 25 Suaves are playing on somerather immature impulses and all that other nonsense, but in that waythere is absolutely nothing hindering their thunderous sound: noweighty concepts or overly complex rhythms and riffs overshadow theeffect that the music has. Each song is completely energizing andworthy of broken chairs, bruised bodies, and police officers raidingunderage drinkers in their best friend's uncle's basement. Repeatedlistens don't actually inhibit the record from being any more fun,either. Playing it in the car, at home, while cooking dinner, and whilebeing alone and secretly rocking out like I was part of the band haveall shown I Want it Loud to be an insanely and confoundinglyexcellent record through and through. All of these songs should soundstandard and absolutely boring with their repetitive and imitativesound, but all the power and recklessness this album harbors onlyreminds me why I was so addicted to rock n' roll in the first place.
Though they are inevitably described as the weird, Funkadelic-stylelittle sister band to !!!'s Parliament, ever since the release of2002's Street Dad,Out Hud have always seemed like their own entity.Kranky Their peculiar,eclectic recombinations of rock, dub and dance music idioms that seemedat once retrograde and startlingly new was truly something to behold,and Street Dad was one of the most cleverly arranged, performedand mixed albums in recent memory. Their music was buoyant, playful,and experimental; appealing on a cerebral as well as a visceral level:complex, cluttered, effects-heavy arrangements with a solid backbone ofrubbery basslines, resounding drums and uncannily clever rhythmprogramming. The debut album was so perfect that anything Out Hud didfor an encore was almost bound to disappoint on some level, though theycertainly have every right to grow and change as a band. The big riskthat Out Hud take with their sound on Let Us Never Speak Of It Againis obviously the introduction of vocals from Phyllis and Molly. Ontracks like "It's For You," the vocals have the effect of introducingfar more structure into an Out Hud song than we might have come toexpect, and the song is reduced to radio-friendly length. The dualfemale vocals, liberally dropped into the echo chamber, add a sweet,innocent sexuality to the music, akin to Tom Tom Club or the morerecent Chicks on Speed. At first I was disappointed by the vocaltracks, still wistfully recallling the weird, amorphous, kitchen sinkinstrumental approach on the first album. Much of that anarchic spiritis indeed alive and well on Let Us Never, but the album isunmistakably tighter and more restrained, a strategy that seems to payoff brilliantly, even if it seems alienating at first. Take for theexample a track like "Old Nude," with a meaningless vocal refrain thatimmediately places the listener in seemingly comfortable pop territory.But Out Hud have other things on their mind, placing the vocals into ahall of mirrors and using each cadence as a jumping-off point for theirjarring eclecticism: mid-80s Prince-style distorted synths rubbingshoulders with On U-Sound sound dynamics, with lots of little squiggly,digital details buried in the mix. Then Molly's trademark, expressiveArthur Russell cello comes into the mix, introducing the song'shaunting coda. All of this in the span of four and a half minutes; I'mimpressed. Of course, there are also some instrumentals here that soundlike they could have fit in perfectly on the first album. "The Song SoGood They Named it Thrice" picks up where "Dad, There's A LittlePhrase..." left off: a grandiose, unfolding musical drama that seems totake in the entire history of dance music in its scope, creating aninfectious and indescribably funky mix of early house, epicMoroderesque disco, motorik Krautrock and Detroit electro, togetherwith sudden, death-defying plunges into cavernous echo and distortion.The hilariously named "Mr. Bush" is the album's most epic track, andthe one that I've found myself returning to most often; an unstoppableleftfield rhythmic structure serves as a foundation for a series of OutHud-style variations on a theme, undertaken with the same vivacity andspirit of experimentation as early Chicago house, but ending up in anoddly beautiful, neoplastic discotheque of their own totallyidiosyncratic creation. Even though the album initially seemed to be anattempt to rope in a wider audience, after a few listens I couldclearly see that Out Hud are still flying their freak flag, makinggloriously incomprehensible music that is eminently danceable in spiteof itself.
Richard D. James may have made the most clever move of his entire,inconsistent career with the release of this series of twelve 12" vinylEPs. Only the first five are available as of this writing, but it isalready obvious that the grinning, tank-driving egotist is producingmusic that is unashamedly and resolutely anachronistic, kitschy andretrograde.Rephlex For an artist like RDJ, who almost out of the gate wasbeing referred to by overenthusiastic critics as a mad genius, beingcalled "maestro" and drawing comparisons to Mozart, it must berefreshing to produce music that is in no danger of ever being referredto as genius by anyone. The music on the Analordplatters is vintage AFX, produced with analogue beatboxes andsynthesizers, recalling early 1990s underground Detroit and Chicagoacid techno. These tracks do not represent an attempt to reinvent thewheel, nor is it a hyperkinetic digital blur of fractured, overcomplexrhythms. No prepared pianos were harmed in the production of thismusic, and there are no self-aggrandizing, aggro-industrial pop singlesalong the lines of "Come to Daddy" or "Windowlicker." Mostrefreshingly, these five pieces of wax contain no financially motivatedremixes of major label artists or annoying post-gabbercore dancehalldrum n' bass mashups. Instead, each contains a full compliment ofsquiggly, buttery retro-acid groove, each track more deceptively simplethan the last, all of them eminently entertaining. Thick, rubberybasslines slide over subterranean keyboard melodies echoing throughabandoned metal buildings. At turns slinky, sexy, seedy and druggy,this is a pitch-perfect recreation of the classic underground technosound that informed all of RDJ's early work. Ever since the release of I Care Because You Do,Aphex Twin seemed to be involved in a dialogue with his critics andfans, constantly trying to live up to the ridiculously exaggeratedpraise heaped upon his merely competent work. The Analordseries is a conscious step out from under the shadow of his reputation,and though this will inevitably draw ire from critics and fans whothink RDJ owes them a masterpiece, I'd rather listen to these fivesingles than nearly anything that Aphex has released in the last fewyears. "SteppingFilter 101" immediately creates a paranoid underseaatmosphere akin to the finest work of Drexciya, all old-school drummachine kicks and slippery, lubricated acid lines with beats randomlydropped into the echo chamber. AFX's intuitive sense of simplistic,almost subliminal melody is in fine form throughout the five platters,most especially on the killer sidelong retro-electro oddysey of"Phonotacid." I almost started laughing when I first heard "Pissed Upin SE1," a cheesy, emotional new wave excursion that shamelessly laysit on thick and maudlin. The beautiful "Bwoon Dub" submerges distanthorn fanfares into a thick, substantial stew of dubby, infectioustechno. Analord 03 ups the Nintendo quotient by severaldegrees, sounding like childlike tossed-off videogame theme music on"Boxing Day" and "Midi Evil Rave." "Halibut Acid" is a particularlycompelling track from the otherwise tame fourth volume, and the fifthsingle is possibly the weakest of the lot, containing only two tracks,which both seem a bit too hyperactive for their own good. At their veryworst, however, the Analord EPs are always fun and energetic,effortless in their ability to recall the days when underground technowas fun and hadn't yet been co-opted by pedantic critics and fascistIDM listees.
Absence is the heaviest hitting release to date from hip hop'sloudest collective. For the first time, the words come close tomatching the sounds in weight. According to the eponymous frontman, therecord is a statement on hometown Newark, NJ, and suffice to say itwon't be promoted by the Chamber of Commerce.
Proficiency at editing is just as prominent on the list of this quartet's skills as is their songwriting ability. Rather than presenting results along the way since recording commenced in 2002, Akron/Family have waited and produced a work that lends the project the air of appearing fully formed from out of nowhere.
If the truest goal of any one artist is to have as much completecontrol and freedom over their art as possible, it would seem this Seaand Cake frontman is as close as it gets, and the results are nothingshort of inspirational. If Sam Prekop's total artisticvision—writer/arranger/musician/singer and artwork painter—was ajoyride on his debut solo album, this time he's apt to changeperceptions and set the whole image on its side, making the wholelistening audience second guess every move.Thrill Jockey The same musicians whoworked on the debut return, but with a completely new captain at thehelm, as Prekop creates a truly original work with shifting stylesmid-song, laid-back rhythms, and super smooth accents that surprise asmuch as or more than they entertain. These songs are not completelydifferent from what he has done before, but merely the logical nextstep and expansion of what he does best. The album's fourth track"Dedications" starts out like a lost Motown groove hit of the 1970suntil his voice and bright playful guitar come in. Next it's asingalong on the choruses, where universal feelings touch a chord thatall can appreciate, double-tracked vocals matched with the rightharmonies. Then, almost imperceptibly, at the end of the song, a blendof synthesizers appear from out of nowhere to close out the track in anigh-drone that instead tickles the cerebral cortex. One song, unlikeall the others but that still fits, as every track fills the formula bynot being like the last. Instruments come in and out, tempos change,and the whole sonic color wheel might be askew from before but it'salright: Prekop never treats the song like a mistress, using thetechnique and casting it aside. Every tone, every word, every note,every beat is a faithful lover, just with different back stories. "ASplendid Hollow" builds to a gorgeous climax from a quiet beginning; "C+ F" is pure pop with handclaps and thudding bass; and "Density" isalmost hip-hop, but done with pure lounge grooves instead of big beatdrums and processed bass notes, with the always welcome addition of RobMazurek. Some of the songs don't hit right the first time through, butthat's mainly because the intricacies of the arrangements are notimmediately apparent. This is becoming Prekop's strongest suit, and thelack of a question mark on the album's title is a sly wink, as well.It's a statement, as in "Sam Prekop is your new professor," and classis in session.
DFA This week brings three new slabs of heavy DJ vinyl from DFA Records,with this one by Black Leotard Front sounding the most adventurous tomy ears. "Casual Friday" is a massive 15-minute groove that starts outas ingratiatingly slick metropolitan disco and ends up asingratiatingly slick deconstructed electro-funk from planet weird.Justlike last year's "Yeah" by LCD Soundsystem, "Casual Friday" puts all ofthe obnoxious stuff right up front, as if to scare off potentialsquares: world-weary whispered French narration with a mind-numbinglyrepetitive, despondent chorus of "Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour, bonjour,comment allez-vous." The track slowly shifts into more interestingterritories as a glassy synth peal announces the arrival of thejuiced-up funk combination of bass and guitar. The frankly laughablelyrics about putting on a dress and taking off an overcoat aremeaningless, merely an excuse to keep things focused on the glitterysurface of things, so that it comes as a shock when the vocals aresuddenly stretched into monstrous, echoing shrieks and a snarlingGerman voice pops into the mix. The track shifts through a series ofdistinctly Moroder-esque transformations, recalling a halcyon time whenrhythmic Krautrock synthesizer workouts were not in a vastly differentworld from mainstream NYC disco-sleaze. Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russomshould be familiar to DFA enthusiasts who sought out their fine "ElMonte" single, and together with artists Christian Holstad and DanielSchmidt comprise Black Leotard Front, a performance art dance troupe.Those who expected another synth-only, Tangerine Dream-esque affair maybe disappointed by the more dancefloor-friendly aspirations of "CasualFriday," but careful attention to track provide weird thrills aplenty,especially when the cheeky vocals are stripped away on the single'sinstrumental flip side, which in my humble opinion is vastly superiorto the vocal version.
This new single from The Juan MacLean has the distinction of being theDFA label's first 10" release, even though the music itself is notterribly distinct otherwise. "I Robot" is a significant departure fromJuan MacLean's familiar brand of floor-filling electro-dance, most ofwhich had a live, analog feel.DFA This time around, and true to thetrack's title, MacLean clears a more cybernetic causeway, creating a Trans-Europe Express-on-methamphetamineenergy that pushes the track into dizzyingly hyperactive and syntheticterritory that might have been better left unexplored. Along thisfuturistic highway, MacLean takes a few short off-ramps into stutteringbeat deconstructions, intriguing vocal samples and Commodore 64anachronisms, but ultimately the trip left me with nothing more than asore ass and a coin tray empty of toll money. "Less Than Human" on theflip side is even more self-consciously retro, a vaguely Teutonic(again) house exploration heavy on the analog side of things, thatfeels like it was tossed off very quickly and cheaply. This is notnecessarily always a bad thing, but in the case of this single, alittle more attention to detail might have been in order. Juan MacLeanhas a full-length LP due out this summer, and I can only hope that this10" is not an indication of a complete style change, as I honestlypreferred the early stuff.
By the End of Tonight have been tagged with a variety of sub-genres intheir short existence: math rock, prog, emo, metal, thrash, post-rock.All of this labeling has resulted in the coinage some interesting andunique hybrids like "math-prog." Such intricate taxonomy can make anymusic critic both gag and delight at the same time but rarely doesjustice to a band's sound.Temporary Residence By the End of Tonight's style is mostreminiscent of mid-90's post-rock maestros like A Minor Forest and DonCaballero. The songs are generally instrumental indie-rock suites withvarious parts making up the whole. The marriage of these parts withinthe suites is where the band sometimes missteps. Individually, theseparts sound great. But when coupled together or sequentially followingone another, they sometimes clash and lose a little of their logic and,thus, their impact. The mashing together of these parts is akin totoddler jamming unmatched jigsaw puzzle pieces together, creating aforced harmony and an unnatural synthesis. The band's music writinglacks a certain discipline just as the toddler lacks a certain jigsawpuzzle faculty, but the absence of this discipline lends something elseto the music which is largely lost on similar bands: youth. By the Endof Tonight have a youthful brilliance and vibrancy which is entirelyrefreshing and fun. When you get beyond the kitsch of drummer JeffWilson using a child's drum kit, the band's youth is better consideredan advantage than a detriment. Though the songs can result in anentropic collection of sound, there is a lot to appreciate within them."4's, 5's, and the Piano That Never Made It Home" is a custom-built,hardcore-band opener. It begins contemplatively with dueling guitarparts, a measured bass line, and drums which set the pace humbly for awhile and then break out in an eruption of primordial pounding. Theother instruments follow obediently. Halfway through the song, thetempo switches glaringly and this is when you first get the sense thatthe band's glue does not always hold the songs together perfectly."Stop, Drop, and Roll Does Not Work in Hell" begins calmly enough butis heralded soon by some distant emotive vocals (shouted at instead ofinto the microphone) and then explodes into some more metallicsignatures, all the while remaining quite playful. The most memorablesong is "Setting Sail in April" because the song's syntax is the mostjarring and pleasing at the same time. The disparate parts here are notwelded seamlessly and yet they are so catchy and compelling that itdoes not matter. There are moments of pure pop-punk beauty here. Oneminute into the song, you could be listening to The Descendents. Twentyseconds later, there are guitars so triumphant it could make even themost hardened indie-rocker shout out in unrestrained optimism. The songthen descends (or, perhaps, ascends) into a mathematic jam sessionuntil, with about a minute left, there is an unamplified guitarbreak-down worthy of the most sentimental Blink 182 riff (dispel yourprejudices about Blink 182; their sometimes careful tunesmithing canproduce some honest pop punk gems and their membership in the emo clubis hardly ever recognized justly). It is a fitting benediction for thesix-minute suite. The final two songs follow along in a similar styleand do no less to both confound and contain the listener'sexpectations. By the End of Tonight are endlessly playful, surprisinglyenergetic, and certain to stimulate either ire or interest with thislatest offering.
Why does it seem to be necessary to remove any affection or humanemotion from a musical composition in order to sound modern orfuturistic? As of yet, the future isn't composed of robots or oiledhearts (well, ok...) and there's nothing particularly appealing aboutthis record's aversion to personal feeling or even soul. Lars Finberg,Erin Sullivan, and Min Yee play a distinctly steel and automatic brandof music marked by some ultra-repetitive drumming patterns and melodiesthat are pumped out monotonously and monophonically one after anotheron the bass and six-string.Sub Pop The performance on A Frames' latest couldbe called sloppy, except it follows an annoyingly predictable patternof basic and pounding rhythms and excessively dissonant melodies thatgo nowhere and barely change over the course of a song. Sullivan'svocals are bellowed out over this rather noisy cascade of sound likesome campy narration of a bad Frankensteinmovie and the result makes me want to flip straight through many ofthese already short and narrow songs. "Black Forest I" and "Experiment"aren't too bad in and of themselves; the first begins like a factorygetting ready to churn out the most evil and nasty of monsters and thesecond is an all-engines-firing burn that wheezes by in a haze ofstatic and bumping low-end frequencies, but Black Forest rarelyescalates into anything exciting beyond those tunes. Half way throughthe album (when the dull gray color of the entire album begins to showthrough most strongly) I'm ready to turn it off and by the end I'mtwiddling my thumbs waiting for something to happen that I didn't seecoming from two songs away. Over time certain songs become moretolerable, like "Galena" and "Death Train" or even "U-Boat," but in theend the whole package just sounds like an underperformed, cold, anddistant take on the basic formula of guitars, drums, and voices.
Absence is the heaviest hitting release to date from hip hop'sloudest collective. For the first time, the words come close tomatching the sounds in weight. According to the eponymous frontman, therecord is a statement on hometown Newark, NJ, and suffice to say itwon't be promoted by the Chamber of Commerce.Ipecac Absence isperfect background music for urban blight: the dirty drum breaks andjazz loops hung on walls of blinding white noise and screechingindustrial droning are as hard and unpalatable as the Garden State'swater supply, and simply seethe with anger and indignation. Risingbarely discernible above the din comes Dälek's lyrics, denouncing thelandscape around him, without stopping at the Turnpike for social andpolitical damnation. With a new, savage directness reminiscent ofBoogie Down Productions and Public Enemy, he tackles all comers in acultural "war of survival." Poetically, Dälek is still in a class ofhis own, dealing the complex and varied material with aplomb and brutalhonesty. Justified white anger scalds on "Permanent Underclass": "What,now we equals cause we have a King's holiday?/ Coming storms here tostay/ They turned the noon sky heron gray/ Africans into slaves/ Say wefree/ but if we speak like Malcolm X they assassinate"; and "Culturefor Dollars" paused to muse but still demands tough answers: "Whotrades his culture for dollars?/ The fool or the scholar? Griot? Poet?Or White collared?" The newfound lyrical directness is a welcomechange, and perfectly suited to such in-your-face music. Dälek stillrequires considerable fortitude from their listeners. "Distorted Prose"alternates lyrics with noise in a chaotic call and answer that aftersix minutes leaves the aurally weak begging for mercy. War of survival,indeed. However, out of all the madness seep bizarre harmonies—thesymphonic hook in "Ever Somber" is hypnotic and absurdly catchy, arevelation that surprises and rewards an unsuspecting ear. Absence is Dälek at their best: consistently harsh, grim and bleak but disquietingly irresistible.