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Aurora Borealis image from California by Steve

Look up

Music for gazing upwards brought to you by Meat Beat Manifesto & scott crow, +/-, Aurora Borealis, The Veldt, Not Waving & Romance, W.A.T., The Handover, Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri, Mulatu Astatke, Paul St. Hilaire & René Löwe, Songs: Ohia, and Shellac.

Aurora Borealis image from California by Steve.

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LA SOCIETE DES TIMIDES A LA PARADE DES OISEAUX, "LE COMBAT OCCULTE"

Sunday, 26 June 2005

Jonathan Dean

Music

This is the second La STPO release to surface on Portland's Beta-LactamRing Records, the new home for this strangest of French prog-rockensembles. La STPO, whose name translates literally as "Shy Society atthe Bird Parade," were discovered by legendary French experimentalistsDDAA (Defecit Des Annees Anterieurs—"The Deficit of Former Years"), whoreleased the band's first EP on their own Illusion Productions back in1986.

Okkervil River, "Black Sheep Boy"

Sunday, 26 June 2005

Joshua David Mann

Music

With Black Sheep Boy,Okkervil River offer their first consistently brilliant albumresounding with themes and cascading with conceits. Neutral Milk Hotelseem to be an oft-repeated and more often misapplied referencepresently, but the structure of Okkervil's latest album unmistakablymimics In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

Aranos, "Throat Clearance"

Sunday, 26 June 2005

Lucas Schleicher

Music

Considering the lyrics on the No Religion7", I was surprised by some of the music and the packaging on thelatest full-length from Ireland's most whimsical gypsy. The musicsounds and feels entirely religious through the first four tracks and,to a great degree, recalls the gothic architecture and monolithic scopeof the more astounding and awe-inspiring cathedrals of the world.

The Rita, "Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence"

Sunday, 26 June 2005

Lucas Schleicher

Music

Noise, even more so than metal, shares a strange relation withviolence, death, sex, drugs, and any combination thereof. In fact itseems as though bands like Merzbow, Masonna, Whitehouse, et al.represent the extreme edge of violence and sexuality in their artwork,titles, influences, and lyrical output. I sometimes question just howmuch this fact determines the popularity of such acts seeing how manyof their releases just don't impress me.

Esmerine, "Aurora"

Sunday, 26 June 2005

Administrator

Music

Esmerine are an outfit for the end of the world: their songs arepowerful meditations on loss, pain, and dread. At their core are BeckieFoon (A Silver Mt. Zion) and Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You Black Emperor!and Set Fire to Flames). Their second album, Aurora,is the black smoke that arises from the rubble. Here, bleak orchestralmovements slowly build to breathtaking conclusions, such as on theopener "Quelques Mots Pleins D'Ombre," where pulsating cellos gatherforce and speed, culminating in a few brief moments of controlled furyon top of a barrage of drums, bass, and piano.

oneida, "the wedding"

Sunday, 26 June 2005

Administrator

Music

Oneida's gaze is fixed firmly on the 1970s, but rather then being allawash in overblown solos and misguided mythology, theirs is anall-encompassing view, surveying both the well known and the obscure."Lavender," with its insistent kick-drum and anthemic guitar heroics,is Oneida's call to arms with Kid Millions spouting off nonsense aboutlavender on winter days and braiding pubic hairs.

Lali Puna, "I Thought I Was Over That: Rare, Remixed and B-Sides"

Sunday, 26 June 2005

Administrator

Music

I Thought I Was Over That not only comes off the heels of a successful LP and tour, but the tracks included are of a varied enough nature to please devoted fans who missed a single here or there and curious newbies alike.

Elliott Sharp/Merzbow "Tranz"

Sunday, 26 June 2005

Administrator

Music

Elliott Sharp may be a very unlikely collaborator for Merzbow's MasamiAkita, but that's part of this CD's interest... and ultimately itsfailure, though the meeting is intriguing, even when it falls on itsface. Tranz is structured in a way similar to many of Merzbow'sother collaborative albums: two tracks are composed by Merzbow usingSharp's sounds as source material, and two by Sharp using Merzbow'ssounds.

Fantomas

Sunday, 19 June 2005

John Kealy

Concerts

I've heard some odd intros over the years but last night was a new one for the books.

Sensational, "Speaks for Itself"

Sunday, 19 June 2005

Chris Roberts

Music

Veteran MC and onetime Jungle Brother Sensational's Speaks for Itselfgave me pause when I first heard it. It's so bad that there just HAS tobe more than meets the ear. Is it all a big joke, a hip hop farce,taken to an unlistenable extreme? Is it a deliberate ploy to shedlisteners or to get dropped from his label, a la Bob Dylan's Self Portrait?Or has Sensational really been a geek off the street with no ear forthe beat or knowledge of recording all this time (since 1993!) and he'sbeen fooling us all along? In any case, Speaks for Itself won'tfool anybody. It's just plain awful.