09/27/2012

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros @ Royal Oak Music Theatre 9.25.12

What’s up bros? Last night, the wonderful tour bus commune lovefest that is Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros rolled into my neighboring city of Royal Oak for their first trip to the area since that killer show at The Crofoot a few years back. I definitely didn’t give their latest album as many listens as their debut which was one of my faves that year, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t stoked to see them live again so close to home, though at a much bigger venue than last time.

It definitely didn’t hurt that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah would be opening up the show. Surprisingly, I think they were the loudest act I’ve heard in that room. Despite that, it reminded me that I really liked this group and had totally forgotten about them. I even bought their debut on vinyl and took a cheesy picture with them like one of those annoying people who does that. And I listened to it tonight. And it was good.

And Alex Ebert and crew kinda brought the house down with their set that nearly reached 2.5 hours with very little breaks in between. Perhaps it’s the catchiest of folk melodies that all sound like you’ve known them for years, or the 12 person ensemble on stage who must have played 2 or 3 different instruments, or the enthusiastic crowd (those youngsters are good for something at shows, I guess) that was actually even dancing a little, but if you don’t walk out of the doors feeling at least a tiny bit better about the world (if only temporarily), you are probably some sort of emotionless sociopath. They played a great combination of all of the greatest tunes from both albums along with a new song or two and a few misc jams, all seeming to break out into a quick tempoed singalong with each chorus. The loyals who stayed until the bitter end were treated to the customary Alex Ebert sitting in the crowd final song. But man, the kids these days are just so much more obnoxious about it, more concerned with instagramming themselves making a rock and roll face next to him than listening to the song. But anyway, yeah, see them if they come to a town near you.

As promised last time, I tried to make a few animated gifs out of photos from the show because I think it’s lame and funny, so check those out below, along with a lot of pictures in dreadful to photograph red lighting with lots of grainy noise.

And now some less vomit-inducing stills.

Share
1 comments

09/10/2012

September Digest


Remember that time when I was like, “I don’t really want to blog anymore, but maybe I’ll just do a big giant post once a month or something,” and nobody, including myself, thought I ever would? Well, it’s happening, right now. Think of this as a mini digest of some posts I might have done individually had I still felt the spirit. We have a lot to talk about.

First off, Beat Culture, a veritable dailybeatz regular this year, has finished his debut LP Forgive and is trying to release it on vinyl, because vinyl is awesome. He’s raising funds via indiegogo and we are big/huge fans of his stuff and want to have it in our record collection, so please help out if you can, even if it’s just a few bucks. He’s raised over $2,500 so far but still has just under $1,000 with only three days left. And you know how these things work – unless you reach your fundraising goal, you don’t get any of the donations, which is why it’s super important that we help him reach that goal. You can donate some funds here and everything helps, even if it’s just a few bucks. He’s streaming this track as a little sample and to help promote the fundraising efforts, so please help out this talented rising artist if you can, because I want to have some Beat Culture on vinyl, y’all.

Next, we are going to talk about a couple of songs that have not left my head for the better part of 2-3 weeks. These tracks are certainly not underground (or even new, for that matter) but I guess I just needed to make sure every person has heard them, just in case. And there are no rules to blogging (isn’t that the whole point?), and ESPECIALLY no rules to not blogging, which is what I do now, so shove it.

The first is “Yet Again” from the soon-to-be Grizzly Bear album Shields, currently streaming on NPR. This track is one of the catchiest little ditties I think the band has put out to date. As Carles put it, a more mainstream track to appeal to NPR Cool Dads. I guess if I wasn’t relationshiply challenged, I might be an NPR Cool Dad, so maybe Carles wasn’t too far off. Anyway, it’s a completely fantastic and upbeat number, and the rest of the album is pretty darn lovely as well. Go ahead and ask me if I care if this has been on a million blogs already or whatever.

The next track is the oldest of the bunch and it’s from my main homegirl Jessie Ware. She doesn’t really know she’s my main homegirl but believe me, she is. This track has been floating around the interwebs for months now but I didn’t actually hear it until I listened to her debut album Devotion a few weeks back, surprising to me since I’ve posted her a few times over the last few months. This is certainly a standout track from that album, and I’ve surmised that at the right volume, this could even be woven into your friendly neighborhood dance party playlist. I literally had 2 near sleepless nights last week because this song and the song above it refused to leave my thoughts no matter what I tried. Ms. Ware is such a fresh voice in the quasi re-emergence of some true R&B and she’s got the voice and the style to make it happen. You should also check out the full album because, just like the new Grizzly Bear album, it is also pretty darn lovely.

And the last of the tracks you’ve probably heard that I’m sharing with you just in case is one that’s rather hot of the press, just released this past Friday but already logging in 130k+ plays on Soundcloud. It’s from the UK’s Disclosure (the UK has been EFFING KILLING IT THIS YEAR MUSICALLY, by the way) and our first taste of their upcoming debut LP to be released next year. This song sort of has the same vibe/beat as Sam Sparro’s “Black and Gold” from a few years ago, a track I loved, but the chorus of this song is undeniably huge, due in part to Disclosure’s heavy beats and in equal part to Sam Smith’s impressive vocals. After Disclosure’s The Face EP earlier this summer and this track, this is definitely high atop the most anticipated albums of 2013 list. Especially since I don’t really know of many others yet. But man. Just turn the volume way up and let this one rip. You don’t get the full impact of the huge chorus without that volume. I normally turn off the comments on Soundcloud but I just flipped back over and caught a comment pop up that said, “You guys just understand dance music.” So true. So true.

And last but CERTAINLY not least, let’s take a stroll to perhaps the greatest audiovisual experience I’ve witnessed in person in some time. Yes, I’m talking about none other than Amon Tobin’s ISAM 2.0, which I saw live in the flesh last night at the Royal Oak Music Theatre. The funny thing is, up until a few days ago, Amon Tobin was nothing more than a name I’d heard a bunch of times, but then a friend posted a preview of ISAM 2.0 and I knew instantly that I had to see it for myself. Imagine a giant three dimensional game of Tetris on stage with some high tech projection mapping creating some of the coolest visuals I’ve seen at a show, all atop heavy, heavy beats. And because these projections were so perfectly placed on each and every angle of this structure, it often looked as though the structure was see through, or moving, or opening and closing, or doing one of a million other actions. Some straight up cool ass shit, to be quite technical about it. And Amon Tobin lives in the middle of it all, appearing from time to time to remind you that it is not all a machine.

**DISCLAIMER: There is no way any photograph (or video, for that matter) could ever do this any justice. So I just posted a few pics. But use the internet and find more videos of this beastly set, and if it comes to a town near you, you go see it.

Also, I made an animated gif, as seen at the top of this post. That means I know how to make animated gifs now, so every show I shoot from here on out will feature at least one animated gif.

Since I know how to make gifs now, I just made this one of my friend (and Audiovole.com editor) Sarah walking in front of a Palm Springs estate during our recent Coachella adventure 5 months ago.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this rare September digest. The tunes may not have been the rarest, but they are all of the highest quality. See you next week/month/year/never.

Share
2 comments

07/24/2012

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Only In My Dreams (and other assorted thoughts)

This post should be subtitled, “Or, how I’ve become completely out of touch with the music world.” Surely you’ve noticed that I haven’t been showing my face much around here lately. This is due to some combination of apathy, home ownership, work and general summer merriment. I’ve completely abandoned my inbox and only scan it for any personal messages I might have gotten and I find myself missing blogging less and less but am still keeping this thing around for whenever the spirit moves me. I’m currently de-mp3ing the first several years of this site because I don’t really care enough to continue to pay for the hosting, and I almost exclusively post soundcloud embeds anyway. I’ve been trying to think up some new format that provides maximum impact with minimal posting, but until then you’ll just have to deal with whatever you get, which in most cases will be a whole lot of nothing. Anyway, yeah, I’m kinda over this, but might still put stuff up from time to time.

Before I talk about a song, I’d like to talk about last week’s Beach House show. Instead of writing a longform analysis like I really want to, I will just mention that the dimensional lighting was totally on point, and that when Victoria LeGrand sang “collecting silver coils” during “Silver Soul” (my favorite Beach House song), she belted out the loudest note completely out of the blue and held it for what seemed like an eternity, but was really just the last few seconds of that phrase. I can’t stop thinking about it, and have been scouring the internet daily for another glimpse but all those phone recorders who blocked my view by recording every song in its entirety seem too shy to post their works to youtube. I’ve watched a few other versions of that song live, so I know it’s not “one of those things she does whenever she sings that song.” It felt special and spontaneous, and I loved it. The band also mentioned that in their 500+ shows, their last show at The Crofoot will live in their minds forever because it’s the only time someone has crowdsurfed at a Beach House show. It’s weird how obsessed I am with them as a 29 year old person. But that’s the magic of music, right? Something that elicits these crazy emotions that you can’t explain or control. I’m about to say this. Beach House is my favorite band. And has been for at least a month. I feel like with 4 albums under their belts, I’m allowed to say that. Even though I really only listen to 2 of them regularly.

So anyway. That brings us to this song that I like a lot. It comes to us from everyone’s favorite on stage temper tantrum throwing lo-fi superstar, Ariel Pink (and his Haunted Graffiti). His upcoming album Mature Themes actually sort of sounds like he’s maybe finally matured. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy his previous albums, because I certainly did. But this just seems to be the most polished and least lo-fi of his endeavors. Sure there are still some way out there tunes, but the songs like “Only In My Dreams” have the mother effing catchiest little guitar melodies that you don’t even need the most out of fashion outfit in America and a shitty attitude towards others to enjoy. Pretty weird, right? Hopefully the name of this album is a testament to Pink maturing himself, primarily on stage, just as his music assuredly has. I kind of felt like Before Today was the most accessible Pink album we’d see, but Mature Themes does a pretty good job at debunking that theory.

But for real, I got all excited about this song yesterday only to learn that Pitchfork had BNMed it two weeks ago which means everyone has probably already swooned over it and forgotten about it. This wouldn’t have happened several months ago. But it’s really better this way, because I’ve been finding myself moving slightly away from bzzbnds and getting back to my roots with the artists I first loved before I found out about blahgs and myspace links. Not that there’s anything wrong with bzzbnds because everyone has to start out somewhere. But I am kinda feeling like it’s getting weirder how we go nuts over these bands that have literally one song total (and I am super guilty of this).

And while we’re on the topic of Mr. Pink, let’s talk about this photoset of images from some circus-themed show where he performed a while back. Mr. Erez Avissar, a super cool photographer, took some pretty neat pics of that show, and you should look at them. I clearly borrowed that image for his post, but I wrote a whole paragraph crediting him, so that’s got to count for something, right? I wish I could do double exposure bitch pics with a digital camera, because I would.

Share
2 comments

07/12/2012

Hype Machine Hunting vol. 17 – Heat

It’s been quite some time since I put together one of these posts, but since I post MAYBE once every other week these days, due to some combination of home ownership, enjoying summer, and a generally blah attitude toward it, I figured a mini-mega post featuring everyone’s favorite internet music blog discovery game might make up for some of it. That’s right, we’re back with a brand new edition of Hype Machine Hunting (formerly known as Hypem Hunting), where I pick a random word, search for it on Hype Machine, and find a bunch of cool songs that I’ve never heard before to share with all of you. You can search to the right to find the first 16 volumes if the spirit moves you, and it should because there are some real hidden gems in those numerous posts.

And since the world is ending via crazy extreme weather of all kinds over the last year or two, including a non-existant winter that I didn’t really miss even though I know it was totally not OK for the circle of life in general, and since it has barely dipped below 90 degrees for a high temp for the past 1-2 months, today’s word is “heat”. Because we haven’t had enough of it lately and we all need a lot more of it in our lives. I bet you were hoping that the word was going to be “air conditioning”, which it was, but there weren’t too many Hype Machine search results for that one, so Heat it is. So let’s take a closer look and listen to some of the rad songs I found. Since I’m trying to go quasi-mp3 free on this site moving forward, I’ve included links to hear all of the songs on the very site that was the namesake for this music blogger game.

First up is a neat little instrumental track from German producer Sven Weisse who goes by the name EWOK FUR. “Vhs Sahara Heat” (and lots of his other tracks) have a pretty solid African influence, and he’s giving away all his tunes over at his Bandcamp page. If you dug this track, check out the rest of his tunes and show him some love over at his Facebook page as well.

Listen to the “Vhs Sahara Heat” on Hype Machine
[via Grufftrade]

Normally, the beauty of these posts is that there I end up with 4 or 5 songs that have nothing to do with each other and represent a crazy wide range of sounds. However, in this case, it just so happened that the first two tracks I found and liked both had some sort of tribal influence. “A.M. Heat” by Young Island is sort of the minimalist version of a tribal chant with the barely there music and is perfectly named because it sounds like it could be the soundtrack to one of those shots in a movie where the sun is rising over the African plainsand the heat waves are rising from the baking ground slightly distorting the larger than life bright red orb that is the sun as the silhouette of a gazelle darts across the screen. Pick up Young Island’s iii EP for whatever price you want.

Listen to “A.M. Heat” on Hype Machine
[via Believe In Sound]

Let’s now take a trip back in time to the wonderful decade that was the 80s courtesy of Japan’s :visited. “Touch Your Heat” features a nostalgic and funky groove that make me long for neon windbreakers and hairspray. Hit up their Bandcamp page for even more tunes inspired by the decade of my birth, which you can even buy on cassette, the official medium of the 80s.

Listen to “Touch Your Heat” on Hype Machine
[via No Modest Bear]

Last but certainly not least is a track from Sweden’s very own Heat And White, because as I’ve mentioned several zillion times over the past several years that this site has been in existence, Sweden (and Scandinavia in general) is by and by my favorite musical region. They just seem to kill it time and time again. And “Sea-Through” is no exception with its lo-fi vocals laid over those recurring notes that fall and rise again with each musical phrase. I’ll most definitely be checking out the rest of the group’s 4-song release on Zeon Light Tapes.

Listen to “Sea-Through” on Hype Machine
[via No Fear of Pop]

And as a very special bonus, a track that I (and probably you) have heard many times already and the song that instantly came to mind when I settled on the word “heat”. Yes, that’s right, I present to you a link to listen to a stream of a song you probably already own because you have such great musical taste. Of course I’m speaking of Little Dragon’s “Brush The Heat”. Dig it on Hype Machine.

When you can complete an entire Hype Machine Hunting post without even clicking onto the second page of search results, you know you’ve picked an amazing word. Until we meet again, which will hopefully be less than two weeks from now….

Share
1 comments

06/29/2012

Erika Spring – Hidden (Jensen Sportag Remix)

One of the upcoming releases on the unbelievably consistent Cascine label is the self titled EP from Erika Spring, who you may know better as Erika Forster, who you may know better as one of those girls in Au Revoir Simone. I think the main one. Was there a main one? I guess we’ll never know for sure. The EP is pretty great on it’s own, especially on these nearly unbearably hot summer days. I will never call a day unbearably hot. Because summer is what this music was made for, and as long as I have a pool or a garden hose or a lake, I say bring on that heat. And that’s exactly what the Nashvillian duo of Austin Wilkinson and Elvis Craig bring us with their remix of “Hidden” that is anything but. Right around the one minute mark is when things get pretty serious for a nice stretch there. In honor of the NBA draft today, I’d like to go ahead and guaranSheed that this song will be on the next mix I make, no matter what the theme or occasion.

Share
0 comments

06/22/2012

Luvian Sound – My Life

Not sure if you noticed, but we’ve been skewing super heavily towards really dope, often sampled-based electronic tracks lately. These tracks come from all over, but more often than not there is some UK connection, and these sounds from Brighton’s Luvian Sound are no exception. You had me at vocal samples and quasi church bells and beats. Let’s hope this guy keeps making more sounds for us all to enjoy. Seems there may be an EP on its way in the near future.

And don’t hate cuz I don’t “write a lot on blog posts”, cuz I’m not a writer and I don’t want to be a writer. I’m just a guy who likes music a lot, and I respond to sounds more than words.

[via Gluttony Is The New Black]

Share
0 comments

06/20/2012

Oli Chang – Maaam

I’ve been holding off on posting for a while now for a couple of reasons. First off, my computer decided to go batshit to the point where it would randomly type/highlight/delete anything I was typing, even if I was not even touching the computer. I took this as a good excuse to treat myself to a brand new one. Shoutout to Apple store’s 12 months no interest financing. The second reason was because I’m still giddy over the Radiohead post and the fact that I got to shoot them, and I can now die a happy amateur photographer. I just couldn’t bear to see that post move down from it’s coveted number 1 position on the blog. But, enough is enough.

So then I did a quick glance through my inbox (which these days is used more to unsubscribe from emails than to read them) and saw an email from Oli Chang, who I remembered from his wonderful and beautiful Trippple Nippples remix a while back (accompanied by an equally beautiful video), and kinda digging his newest track “Maaam”, one of a few he’s been putting together as his other project, High Highs, is preparing to release their debut album. Also, it’s hot as balls today, and this song seems good for that kind of weather.

Share
0 comments

06/12/2012

Radiohead @ The Palace of Auburn Hills 6.11.12

Last night, I saw Radiohead for the fourth time. However, considering the first three were at Lollapalooza, Coachella, and from the lawn at Blossom Music Center in Ohio, I’ve never actually seen any members of Radiohead, up close at least. But that all changed last night in what was perhaps the highlight of my life as an amateur photographer as I got to take pictures right up close of one of my favorite bands in the history of bands.

It had been 15 years since the band had been to town for whatever reason, but better late than never I say, and it was definitely better with over 20 songs played over the course of 2+ hours and 2 encores. It’s always the most exciting to see a band in my hometown, especially the ones that come to town just after I’ve convinced myself that they never will. The show was phenomenal as expected, giving a pretty even mix of everything OK Computer and beyond (though skewed a bit towards the newer material of course) and Mr. Yorke did acknowledge that it had been a hell of a long time since they’d come to town. Because sometimes it’s nice just to hear it from the band itself.

Anyway, check out a bunch of shots below from what will likely go down as my happiest/proudest moment as a freestyle music blogger. It was funny chatting before the show with the professional photographers who shoot everyone and their brother trying to act like it was no big deal for me, all the while jumping up and down inside uncontrollably. If there was any downside to the night, it was the fact that I showed up just too late to shoot Caribou, and then heard from several people how insane their set was to start the night off. But it was all worth it in the end. Here’s a few rad Radiohead remixes to stew on as well. I hope it’s not another 15 years before the band comes back to town.

Share
3 comments
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »