My knowledge of electronic music is very weak and I don't possess a particularly good vocabulary to describe it. This album, however, is very good. I would classify Raleigh Moncrief as being somewhat experimental compared to a lot of the electronic music I hear. It's not particularly dance oriented but the songs do have strong beats and some really gross bass. Acoustic guitars play lazy lines while washes of synths fade in and out. Beach Boys-esque harmonies drive whole songs and lend the album a singer-songwriter quality. Plus you have to respect a DJ that remixes and samples Tera Melos songs.
It's very early in the morning. You put off your research paper / lab report / essay off for way longer than you should have, and you suffered a long night for it. You finish up, say "no" to proofreading it, and click on the "save" button at least eight times. You print this beast of a paper. What luck! Your printer is full of ink and paper. You feel warm with relief of finishing on time, and you sit in your chair, listening to the creaking of your printer's startup procedure, anticipating the sounds it makes that you know too well. Once it finally starts putting ink to the paper, you find yourself moving to the rhythms of your printer in a semi-delirious way.
This is that album.
Literally, it's the sound of printers. Supposedly this album took a few years of programming, and it shows. There are moments of a kind of satisfied calm (with your printer), and then there are moments of built up dread (from your printer). Don't think of it as a gimmick; it's a great listening experience.
I'm really proud of my "Sounds like" for this one because this band sounds exactly like Watery, Domestic-era Pavement with more yelling and skronky, slightly math-y guitars. This is the perfect way to describe them, nothing else is needed and I'm almost tempted to just leave it like that. I like to type though so prepare yourself, dear reader, for some filler. I don't think North of America get enough love, I never hear anybody talk about them but they're pretty killer. One of those bands that's really easy to get into if you're a music nerd because a) nobody's heard of them, and b) they've got 4 awesome albums that give you the "I wish I found out about this band sooner" feeling in the back part of your neck (does anybody besides me ever get that?). This is easily their catchiest album and at seventeen songs there's a lot to digest. They're a talented band and easily change from aggressive, energetic rockers to slow, pretty ballads (not really ballads, I can't think of another word though and I'm lazy. I wish I knew how to write). They've got great riffs, awesome guitar tone and their lead singer could easily win a Stephen Malkmus "I'm-pretending-like-I-don't-give-a-shit" contest.
Sounds like: Harry Pussy, Derek Bailey, Marc Ribot
Some more weird solo guitar 'cause I know everyone loves it as much as I do. I've been on kind of a kick lately. Bill Orcutt used to play in a 1990's noise band called (ahem...) Harry Pussy. I won't pretend that I listen to much noise but it's a good starting point for trying to figure out Bill Orcutt's new stuff as an acoustic musician. His guitar only has 4 detuned strings and I would say that he "rattles" on it as much as plays. In fact it's not entirely clear that he actually knows how to play guitar - as this Dusted review points out, he just sounds like Bill Orcutt. Sometimes melodic, sometimes furious, and all times challenging, How the Thing Sings ends up conveying a lot of different emotions despite it's austere approach. His previous LP A New Way to Pay Old Debts seemed liked it was an obvious next step for the former rocker, a stripped down version of pure ear splitting noise. This is more subtle, the space in between notes more pronounced.
Here's why I decided to write this up: I saw him this year at San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival and it blew my mind. Here's the setup: 300,000 people converging on Golden Gate Park for a good 'ol throwback to the down home music of the south, complete with a dried-up Robert Plant singing Black Dog (an octave lower cause he's old as shit) and fat, drunk moms and dads bumping into each other on the way to the Banjo Stage. One of the organizers (maybe somebody with a sense of humor) booked Orcutt at the small stage near the front entrance as the last act, meaning that most of the crowd got to listen to him as they walked to their cars. For such a huge festival the crowd in front of him was sparse and I think he was as bewildered as anyone about his presence. And it was awesome. For a festival that prides itself on emotional music, he fit right in.
This band is insanely catchy. I pretty much associate them with riding in a car by yourself with blown out speakers dimed and screaming along with the lyrics, overwhelmed with internal energy and wanting to jump around and mosh while they play. They've been around awhile (10 years?!??!) and have some pretty cool stuff in their back catalog, all conveniently download-able from their Bandcamp/website for whatever you feel like paying. This album, specifically, collects some of their older songs rerecorded for the uninitiated and is a great starting point. Apparently their old incarnations included trumpets and stuff but AFAIK they're basically a three piece nowadays, which is my favorite amount of people for a punk band. No frills, nothing too complicated, just straight up pop-punk energy in packaged in accessible <3 minute songs. All their stuff is good, check out OK Smartypants which is another one of their completely solid albums.
Genre: Experimental, Solo Guitar, Noise, Minimalist
Sounds like: Lounge Lizards, John Zorn
Marc Ribot is a weird semi-classical guitar player who switches genres enough that he's pretty hard to nail down. For anybody that's a fan of Tom Wait's stranger, "lounge band from hell" sound - a lot of that comes from this guy. He plays with a lot of other well known musicians (Elvis Costello, John Lurie) in a variety of functions and plays everything from bitchin' Cuban music to balloon-on-strings noise. I was really tempted to just do a huge link dump but those get overwhelming so I'll start with this - it's his most recent release and it sticks to him playing thin, haunting instrumental guitar songs. It's good music for a rainy day and really shows off his style. What I like is that while he's a well trained player, he knows when to settle down and go for mood too. The video I linked below isn't actually from this album but it's awesome and should be posted. It's cribbed from the Scorsese Blues documentary which was mostly full of well-known wankers covering classic blues songs in a way that would make the original artists spin in the ground at lathe-speed. Packed away on the extras disc is this video - Ribot reinterpreting Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark was the Night" and KILLING it.
So I'm going to try really hard not to just repost everything that Circling the Drain puts up but this will have to be an exception because I've been waiting for it FOREVER and it doesn't disappoint - besides that it's not longer. Zona Mexicana are a great mathy hardcore band from Purchase, New York with tons of raw energy and musical chops. They've released some sporadic splits and an EP which really just tease because of their length. This is really no different but I guess sometimes the fun is in the buildup. Every song on this thing is great - Watershed rips, Rain Therapy and Theme pack more riffs into <2 minutes than any band should reasonably allow, and Waking up with Dedication shows them going for the big choruses. Their drummer is a guy named Cameron Wisch who'll I'll affectionately describe as being a punk-rock version of Zach Hill (he's got some really good solo stuff too). I love Zona Mexicana.
