While the 2009 musical landscape is teeming with C86 and new wave revivalists, none do it quite as well as The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Although they have been compared to a staggering number of disparate hipster touchstones (I personally think they sound most like a ballsier Field Mice), their youthful exuberance and melodic sense gives them a freshness that often transcends and surpasses their influences.
Give us an hour, we'll give you music to remember. This week we bring you an episode with brand new music from Softcult, Jim Rafferty, karen vogt, Ex-Easter Island Head, Jon Collin, James Devane, Garth Erasmus, Gary Wilson, and K. Freund, plus some music from the archives from Goldblum, Rachel Goswell, Roy Montgomery. Rubber ducks and a live duck photo from Matthew in the UK. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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Industrial-damaged dirge-metalers Gnaw promise to be "as ugly as sound can get" and they inarguably deliver on that. This Face is a visceral, bilious, crawling, throat-shredding mangled nightmare of an album. Their singular devotion to being unpleasant deserves respect and admiration.
Few sounds are as exhausting and as exhilarating as the voice of Carey Mercer. Whether with Frog Eyes, with myriad other projects, or solo, he conveys joy and bitterness, anger and bliss, with an allure and conviction few can equal.
Splitting off briefly from usual drummer Chris Corsano, Burning Star Core's C. Spencer Yeh and experimental jazz elder statesman Paul Flaherty embarked on a brief Northeast jaunt in the closing months of summer, 2007. Taking full advantage of the abandoned rhythm section, the violin and saxophone duo lose none of their power or chaotic potential while skillfully wielding the precise interactions allowed for in such an intimate musical setting. A logical addition is found in trumpeter Greg Kelley's inclusion on two of the pieces, as his breathy playing fits neatly in with the obtuse sonics explored throughout.
The already mysterious musical world of Loren Connors is made even more so by these recordings, finally unearthed after being lost for nearly 30 years. Of course the loss would not be nearly so poignant if it weren't for the fact that the recording shows Connors serenading the grave of Midnight Mary, the ghost of whom will apparently kill anyone who remains in the graveyard after midnight. While Connors clearly came out the other side alive, it does give these delta-drenched chants a certain weight as once more a bluesman—albeit a fairly loose interpretation of one—once more play games with the devil in search of musical ends. Keeping consistent with the folklore, it works yet again.
This documentary is a fascinating glimpse into the life, works and working methods of the late, great composer. The footage is all taken from the period prior to Ferrari’s death but despite a lack of archival video footage, this film is full of fantastic insights and sounds from all across his career. Due to Ferrari being such a fun subject, the film is as entertaining as it is spellbinding.
After coming first coming together for one absolute monster of a collaboration, guitarist Michio Kurihara (best known for his exquisite playing in Ghost) again joins Boris for what is essentially a disappointing album. The two long pieces featured here form two ends of the same spectrum; one highlights how powerful a simple, noisy drone can be and the other shows just how bad self-indulgent guitar freakouts can be.
If I didn't know better, I would swear that Mono hail from Viking territory. Their latest full length conjures up scenes of great Norse ships sailing through the fog past coastal villages that have been set ablaze.
Calder refracts the Northern Lights of the Icelandic countryside—where Lower was recorded—into music as beautiful and arresting as the Aurora Borealis itself. Fusing acoustic instrumentation with electronic instruments is not a new concept. To say that it has been done well, in an era of ubiquitous self released CD-Rs and instant digital downloads, is not usually warranted. The music available far outweighs the music that is listenable. Larus Sigursson and Olafur Josephsson take the simple elements of guitar, piano, and glockenspiel, along with a handful of other instruments and transform them in a process that is best described as alchemical.
This album combines two pieces from either end of Ferrari’s catalogue. A piece from his classic late 1960s period is paired with a more modern composition from 2000. Both pieces show how there is no distinct sound to be associated with the composer and how he did his best to innovate consistently during his career. The album has been lovingly put together and is one of the better posthumous releases that have seen the light of day.
