Odds and Ends

A few short things that don’t merit full posts on their own…

I picked up a great stack of music at Amoeba a week or two ago, when I was down in SF meeting up with some of my compadres from EM411.com (pics by John). Some Jaga Jazzist, the Morr Music Slowdive tribute compilation, the new Doseone album, Owen’s last album, a Hood promo single, and the last Funkstorung (with brilliant multilayered packaging). All quite fun, especially the Doseone. I had a promo copy of the Funkstorung album (Disconnected) at some point, and the tracks were layered over with spoken commentary in order to discourage piracy, so it’s nice to have an unmarred copy now.

I’ve also been slowly collecting more music through, ahem, more illicit means. How have I not listened to the Jim Yoshii Pile-Up before?They’ve really got the classic emo formula down, in a way that’s not overwrought, but sort of refined and dramatic. I’d group them more with classic Karate than other emo bands though, really. And that’s a good thing.

Also managed to acquire the new Why? album, Elephant Eyelash (and I can see by my referrer logs that a lot of people are curious about this one as well). All I can say is, buy it. It’s good. Did you like Sanddollars? This is like that; quirky, off-kilter, accessible pop music with that good ol’ Anticon Flava. Seriously, album of the year contender.

On the topic of my own music: slowly plucking away at a few projects, including a new track for a compilation that will be out in Novemeber. Thent he 2 EP projects that are next in line, and a spot on a Sonic Youth tribute, with no fixed release date yet…

Also: the Apparel EP has been picked up for re-release by the lovely netlabel Kendra-Unique, and should be available on their site soon. Check out the other music there, from Samarah and the Great Mundane while you’re at it. Some fine folks to be associated with…

The Comics Blog is comig along nicely, but the whole reason I started it is so you wouldn’t have to read about that sort of thing here if you didn’t want to. So click thorugh if that’s your sort of thing.

More later, as I think of it.

Fiery! Choiry!

Listening to a leaked copy of the new Fiery Furnaces record, featuring Grandma Friedberger joining Eleanor and Matthew on (mostly spoken) vocals. The album is titled “Rehearsing the Choir,” and my first thought is “Maybe you guys should have rehearsed it a little more.”

Either that or a more strenuous audition process…Jesus.

More later.

Before I Forget

A couple of things I didn’t write about as they came up, just so I don’t forget them.

Saw Autechre, SND and DJ Rob Hall at the Mezzanine in San Francisco, almost a month ago. It was a great show, one of the best live electronic shows I’ve seen. SND played a nice long set, and were a lot different than I thought they’d be live. On record, they always strike me as clinical, distant, and sort of minimal, with lots of textures on the edge of perception. Live, amplified over a huge PA was a whooooole different story. The comparison I thought of at the time was like this: Imagine looking through a microscope at a minute but highly textured surface, like a flake of rock or something. There are cracks and fissures and nicks that are invisible to the naked eye, but the closer you look, the more detail you can see in them. This is SND on record. Now, imagine being shrunk down small enough to hike these tiny microscopic cracks as if they were canyons. This is SND live.

Autechre was amazing too, with an hour-and-a-half non-stop, all hardware set vaguely based on some of the grooves and ideas from Untilted. I hate to make this comparison, but it was almost rave-like, in a way. Of course, minus all the ridiculous outfits, pacifiers, lightsticks, and drugs (well, ok, minus some of the drugs, most likely), and all the other bullshit essential to a rave. Not that I’ve ever been to one, but that’s the impression I get.

Abrupt topic shift: The Woods, by Sleater-Kinney.

Picked this album up while in Seattle, and I’ll admit I was pretty excited about hearing it. I’d heard so much about how raw the album was, and how it was the best of their career, and a new direction, and blah blah blah. So I made it a point of hunting it down, and picked up the limited edition version w/DVD.

And it sounds terrible.

Seriously. This is one of the worst recordings I’ve heard in a while. It takes the trend of loud, overmastered, brick-wall-limited rock albums to ridiculous extremes, especially the opening track. Everything is pushed so hot that there’s no dynamic variation to much of the material, and even the “quieter” parts max out the available headroom on the CD. I know they were going for “extreme”, and “loud” and “rocking”, but you can have that without sacrificing dynamics. You can make things sound rough, and edgy and yes, loud, without making it a mass of square wave distortion. Which is a real shame, since some of the songs are great. Not the best I’ve heard from them, but there’s definitely some quality material here. But as it is, I don’t think I’m going to be listening to this album again.

What really disappoints me is that Dave Fridmann, their producer, should know better. He’s made some brilliant sounding records (Come on Die Young, the Soft Bulletin, etc.). He flirted with this direction on the last Low album, the Great Destroyer, and it was almost palatable there. I think the difference was mainly that the Low album was a huge change for a band mostly known for their quiet, sparse, haunting sound that barely rose above a whisper. The wall of sound on the Great Destroyer works fine as an artistic statement, and although it was a bit loud for my tastes, it wasn’t uncomfortably so, especially since the band’s playing preserves some of the dynamic variation.

I heard that at TapeOpCon, someone told Dave Fridmann that it sounded like the Woods was mastered through a Rat distortion pedal. Sounds pretty accurate to me.

Day Six/Seven

More Cheese Blintzes and hash browns for breakfast. Good times.

Serene went off to visit her Grandpa on Friday, and Joey needed to get some work done for his latest web client, so Emily and I went out to the University district to do some browsing and shopping. I finally found a new CD store (you’d think it would be easier here), and an all-used CD store, and picked up the new Sleater-Kinney (limited edition with DVD), Daedelus’ Exquisite Corpse, and Jawbox’s Jawbox and For Your Own Special Sweetheart. Also went over to the University District branch of Zanadu comics and snagged a copy of Penny Century #6 and a bunch of Palookaville comics.

University Street in Seattle is packed with little boutique clothing stores, and I could easily go broke shopping at them. Well, if I was the type to spend $62 on pants and $112 on a sweater. But it seems like there’s tons of outlets for small-run designer t-shirts in a variety of styles. One shop we stopped at even had a few Tokidoki shirts in stock. There are also some pretty cool used/vintage stores in the area, and I snagged a Duck Hunt T-shirt at the Buffalo Exchange.

Later in the evening, it was back to Blue C Sushi for another excellent meal. There was a bit of a wait for a table tonight, so we went upstairs for some cocktails first. I had a Kappatini, which is essentially a cucumber martini. Soooooo refreshing. And we chowed down on the seemingly endless supply of sushi and tempura and noodles and puff pastries, and more cocktails (of course) before picking up a couple bottles of champagne and heading back home.

Saturday was the Sasquatch festival in George, Washington, at the Gorge Ampitheatre. Basically, the Gorge is a large stage set against the backdrop of the Columbia River gorge, and incredible view of dropped into the middle of some flat, ugly badlands in central Washington. It’s a pretty amazing place to see a show. We ended up arriving at about 2 or 3, after the first few bands had started, but we got there in time to catch the Arcade Fire’s set. They were pretty cool. I hadn’t heard them before, and they’re probably not something I’d listen to on my own, but they were inventive and energetic (especially the guy running around banging a crash cymbal wildly). Wilco came on shortly after, and played a long set with lots of songs ending in prolonged washes of noise and feedback. It was weird to see them in such huge venue, but it worked pretty well.

There was a bit of a break between bands we wanted to see, but the next act was Joanna Newsom at 7:00. I was excited to see her, but I was afraid this venue wouldn’t do her justice at all. Fortunately, she was on one of the smaller side stages, where we could get up pretty close and the sound was nice and clear. She opened her set by walking to the front of the stage, past all the mics and monitors, and singing as loud as she could into the audience, making eye contact with a lot of the crowd and getting everybody to clap along for her. Then she sat at her harp and played “Bridges & Balloons,” to overwhelming response. She proceeded through most of her album, as well as a B-side (from the “Sprout & the Bean” single) and an amazing new song that seemed to go on forever. The crowd was great, and everytime she asked what we wanted to hear, there were all sorts of enthusiastic shouts from the crowd.

The final stretch of the evening was Modest Mouse and the Pixies. I missed about half of Modest Mouse’s set due to being stuck in a food line for about an hour, but I could still hear them from where I was standing. I was surprised to them as a 6-piece band when I finally got back to the green with my cheeseburger. Whatever happened the good ol’ power trio days? Although the added cello and 2nd drummer were kind of cool…

Amazingly enough, there was a bit of a mass exodus after Modest Mouse’s set. Philistines. The setup for the Pixies took forever, and I’m convinced the front-of-house engineer was just showing off by directing the mixing over the PA (“OK check….check…Uhhhhhhhh….We can take down 250 a bit in channel 9….and boost about 2db at 1200 on Kim’s monitor….”). It was worth it when they finally took the stage though, sprinting through a tight set with hardly any full stops between songs. The setlist was a Pixies fan’s wet dream, with all the big hits you would expect, and a few great oddball songs. Nothing too out there though.

The 2-hour drive back to Seattle at midnight was a little daunting, but we pulled it off, mostly with Serene behind the wheel. We staggered back home exhausted, dehydrated, and totally spent and collapsed on the floor.

Not sure what’s in store for today. Serene & I apparently slept in until 2, and Joey and Emily had taken off somewhere. Not sure what they’re up to, or when they’ll be back, but we’ll see what the day brings, I guess. Might go see John’s friend Kyle do a broadcast for KEXP sometime later. We shall see….

More later….

Mutant Pet Sounds

Hippocamp Ruins Pet Sounds, the new project from one of my favorite netlabels, Hippocamp, is finally out. Featuring 14 electronic artists from around the world deconstructing, reconstructing, remixing, reimagining, and just plain fucking up one track each from the legendary pop record. It ranges from dancy electro pop to glitched out funk, to minimalist soundscapes, to nrrdcore rapping, all tied in to the spirit of the original. Highly highly highly recommended, and a pretty definite slot on a top albums of the year list.

The Haul

Made yet another trek down to Amoeba Records on Sunday, and spent far too much time and money there, as usual. But I got a fat stack of CDs that I’m really happy with so far. The haul is as follows:

• Hrvatski: Irrevocably Overdriven Break Freakout Megamix
• Boards of Canada: A Beautiful Place Out In the Country (which I had on vinyl already, but picking up the CD for $4 seemed like a good deal)
• Boards of Canda: Peel Sessions
• Squarepusher: Maximum Priest EP
• Pole: 1
• Sonic Youth: SYR 2
• Christopher Willits: Pollen
• Channels: Open EP
• A Minor Forest: So, Were They in Some Sort of Fight? 2xCD
• Cex: Know Doubt
• Hood: You Show No Emotion At All Enhanced CD single
• Various Artists: All Tomorrow’s Parties 1.0
• Two Gallants: The Throes
• Stereolab: Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements

…hmm. I feel like I’m forgetting something.

(UPDATE: Yes! I forgot Jaga Jazzist: the Stix!)

Anyways, I also picked up a US Postal Service Letter Carrier jacket at Aardvarks’ on Haight when I was down there, so score! So stylish, with my reflective striping going on…

In other news, Fiona Apple’s new album, Yankee Hotel F… er, I mean Extraordinary Machines, (you know, the one that Sony won’t release because they don’t hear a single) hit the internet a while back, and I finally got a decent copy of it last night. Not bad, and definitely very pop, so I don’t know what Sony is thinking. Jon Brion’s production is nice, as usual. Nothing extraordinary, but very crisp and accomplished. I’ve never been a huge Fiona Apple fan, but after the teapot tempest surrounding this record, it was worth a listen.

Working on remix kits for a few people. Should be sending those out this week.

More later….

Snared

So, I suppose I’m officially a Venetian Snares fan. As I said in my year end musical round-up, I’ve never been too into him, up until Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding hit last year. He’d done some interesting work previously, but he’d always struck me as something of a smart-ass noise terrorist, in the tradition of Kid 606 or Aphex Twin, without the serious side to back it up with and the range to branch into subtler forms (like the Kid’s Why I Love Life and Mille Plateaux records, or the Twin’s Ambient Works). He’s certainly talented, and he’s amazingly prolific, but he always seemed somewhat one-note to me.

But his new record, the frustratingly titled Rossz Csillag Allat Sz?letett is truly a step beyond his previous work. The idea is a lttle gimmicky. It’s basically all orchestral samples that sound like they originate in film scores, mostly in the Bernard-Herrman-does-Hitchcock vein, coupled with sliced up Amen breaks. At a glance, it reads like a variation on one of a thousand Amen records, notable Hrvatski’s breakbeat workout/deconstruction Oiseaux, ’96-’98, which mined similar territory.

There are two things that set this record apart though. First, almost every track is in 7/4 time. I know Aaron Funk is widely known for working in odd rhythms, but the songs flow so naturally here. 7/4 can be an awkward time signature in the wrong hands, but here he hits every accent perfectly, slicing single beats out of staccato string passages with no apparent effort, and leaving a perfectly grooving piece behind. There are no lagging, stuttering feelings to be had from the shortened meter, and in fact, most non-musicians will probably notice nothing rhythmically out of the ordinary.

The second is the thematic content. These tracks are all Songs, not just tracks. Somehow, Mr. Funk has managed to create a record that adheres very well to pop structures for the most part, without sacrificing the grating, experimental style he’s known for. He’s broken away from the noise-for-it’s-own sake genre and brought the aesthetic over to the realm of artistic statement. Previous work like Find Candace have toyed with thematic, almost narrative cohesion, but here, through a clever selection of vocal samples and liner notes, the entire album is unified in concept, and even the over-use of the single most iconic breakbeat in electronic music makes sense.

In a way, this is Funk’s most cohesive and personal statement yet. If, as the liner note imply, this album was inspired by moments of grief or loss, then my condolences. And on the other hand, I also want to offer congratulations on what I think is a high point in his constantly multiplying musical output.

Unseen Shows

Last night was the best debut show of an all-female punk band that I’ve never attended. No that wasn’t a typo. Siiiiigh. It was supposed to happen, but it looks like it wasn’t in the cards. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to catch the Laurie L’s (name change pending, perhaps?) at their next show, hopefully one that involves significantly less last minute schedule changing and general dramarama. Oh yeah, and maybe a little less not-actually-happening-after-all, too.

But still. It was the best show I didn’t see all year.

So a bunch of us ended up back at my place, strangely enough, with too much coke (of the cola variety, of course) and not enough Southern Comfort. my bottle’s almost empty, so it looks like it’s about time to change my newest sidebar section again. (Oh yes, there’s a new sidebar section devoted to my drinking habits. As if this site wasn’t insular and narcissistic enough as it is. Yeah, well fuck you, get your own blog).

So, I could be in San Francisco seeing my current musical obsession as I sit here typing, but I didn’t know about Joanna Newsom, her music, or her two sold out sets at Noise Pop until too late. But that’s not going to stop me from listening to her fucking brilliant, beautiful album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, and gazing longingly at the photo of her torn from the cover of the Bay Guardian currently hanging on my wall. I know, I know. Sad. But that should come as no surprise.

But seriously, when I say obsession, I’m not kidding. I listen to her every night when going to sleep now. And most mornings on my way to work. And most lunch breaks. And on random walks around Cotati at odd hours. And while blogging. Considering that I almost canceled the download of her album as soon I heard her voice for the first time, this is pretty amazing. At this point, there is exactly one song on her album that I don’t absolutely adore. I can’t remember an album that has captured my attention like this since maybe OK Computer, or one that has so perfectly filled an emotional niche in my life since Low’s Things We Lost in the Fire. Fucking amazing. Fuck. And once more for good measure. Fuck.

My EP has been mastered now, and it sounds phenomenal, if I do say so myself. Mad props to John at panicStudios for working his magic on my little tracks. Now It’s all down to me deciding on my website/packaging design, and it’ll be available and out of my life. In a way, the songs already feel like they’re behind me now, part of the past, and I can start working on something new. I even have a rough conceptual idea and a handful of partial/completed tracks for my next project, which may be another EP, or maybe a full length. I even have a working title that I’m enamored with at the moment, but we’ll see if it sticks. I’m not going to reveal the title right now, because I don’t want people to worry about me. Hehe…

Jesus, I always write more than I intend to here. I should try writing less, but more often. Or not. It’s not like there’s an audience out there slavering for my tender witticisms to fall from their bloggy branches like overripe pears. And that sentence alone should tell you why.

More later. We should shine a light on.

Shuffled

A little blogmeme game I picked up from somewhere else….Pandagon perhaps? Anyways….

Fire up iTunes or comparable music library program, put that sucka on shuffle, and post the first ten tunes that come up. Here goes:

1: Jon Brion – “Sidewalk Flight” (from the Eternal Sunshine soundtack.
2: Fredo Viola – “Friendship Is”
3: Aphex Twin – “Mookid”
4: Depeche Mode – “Shake the Disease”
5: Disastrato – “Tet (Haiku 2)”
6: Neu! – “Neuschnee 78″
7: Gas – “Pop 1″
8: David Bowie – “All Saints”
9: Slint – “For Dinner…”
10: cLOUDEAD: “I Promise Never To Get Paint On My Glasses Again (Pt. 1)

OK then. Right. More eventually….

Ex Mass Roundup

Christmas was nice. Sedate, if anything, filled with Scrabble, tea, presents, family, and Nanaimo bars. My best scores in the gift department were a Marshall MXL 990 microphone I’ve been fiending after for a while, and Robert Bringhurst’s essential Elements of Typograhic Style. I’ve already torn through a couple hundred pages of the latter (100 or so on Christmas itself, much to the bewilderment of my family). Apparently, my Mom looked everywhere in the store for it, before being informed it was housed in the Art section.

My Marshall mic is soon to be joined by a few companions (2 Nady CM90 small diaphragm condensers, a DM90 dynamic kick mic, and assorted accessories), my gift to myself this year. I’ll finally have a decent selection of mics to record, say, a full drum kit adequately. Still haven’t set up Cubase or any other multitracker on my new-ish laptop, but I may do that tonight, post-blogging, so I can be prepared tomorrow when the first batch of equipment arrives. OF course, I’ve finally picked up a good vocal mic while I have a nasty persistent cough (seems to be an annual thing for me).

Oh what else? Picked up a bunch of good music through legal and illicit means in the last little while. Les Savy Fav’s Pop Frenzy Tour EP, the Blow’s Poor Aim: Love Songs EP and Jaga Jazzist’s A Livingroom Hush are some of the recent faves. I picked up a bunch of jazz discs too, including some Max Roach Trio, some John Coltrane (an album I only had on vinyl till now), and some Thelonious Monk. Every once in a while I just get into a bit of a jazz mood and have to pick up a few more albums, to expand my slim collection. I’m even working on an Airliner tune that has a pretty jazzy feel to it at the moment.

Speaking of Airliner, I have a new collaboration tune available, a three-way track between myself, the Celibacy Club from Washington, and rowboat from Florida. I might expand my section of it at some point, as I’m pretty happy about it. We’ll see. I need to finish my clothing EP first.

In more Airliner news, I’m looking to set up a website strictly for Airliner related business, but alas, the domain name I really wanted was taken. Anyone with ideas for a domain name that ties into the “Airliner” name, but isn’t something stupid like “airlinermusic.com”, feel free to drop me a line.

Oh! Saw From Monument to Masses again, finally, at the Bottom of the Hill. Their new material is quite awesome, and their next release should be plenty interesting. They’re threatening to play at the Tradewinds in February. Fingers crossed….

Um…yeah. That’ all, I guess. More later….