I think it’s fair to say that Chris Glover aka Penguin Prison has been a pretty major up and coming act in 2010. But for those of us anxious to hear his full debut album, it seems that we may have to continue waiting until next year. However, in the meantime, Penguin Prison has released a few EPs and countless remixes that have only increased the anticipation for the album. The lastest single being released next month is “Golden Train”, a tune that continues with the instantly catchy Penguin Prison sound that we’ve grown to know and love. To make things even more exciting, it’s been remixed by a bunch of good folks such as Jakwob and Diskjokke and we’ve been lucky enough to hear a sneak preview of another remix of the song by London’s The Royal Palms, and we just so happen to think that they’ve done a pretty nice job with it. While all of this has been great in keeping us appeased, that full length album needs to make its way from the studio to our ears ASAP.
Even though The Temper Trap was the official headliner of this past Monday’s show at St. Andrew’s Hall, for me, it was all about Delphic. Their debut album Acolyte is sure to make it into my top albums of the year against some stiff competition and, as you recall, I was slated to see them live for the first time back in April at Coachella, but thanks to Icelandicvolcanogate 2010, this was not to be. And after seeing them live, I’m sure that an early afternoon Coachella set would have been epic beyond epic. When I found out that The Hundred in the Hands would be rounding out this stellar lineup, I knew it was going to be a pretty great night.
Jason and Eleanore of The Hundred in the Hands got things off to a great start with their high energy blend of guitar, synth and beats that I remembered so well from my first time seeing them back in the spring opening for The Golden Filter. I was pretty sure most of the crowd had never heard of them before, but I’m sure that they definitely have some new fans after this one. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person besides themselves to make it to attend both of their Detroit shows, so hopefully I’ll keep that streak alive. I was slightly embarrassed for my city when I mentioned to Jason after the show that I was at that first show to which he commented, “That was…an interesting show”. No doubt in reference to the less than abundant crowd. Hopefully my city will step it up a little in the future, but the joke was on all them who missed out on that extremely intimate performance with THITH and The Golden Filter.
I could hardly contain my excitement as the stage was set for Delphic to perform. You have to remember that they went from top 5 most anticipated Coachella acts to acts I never thought I’d get a chance to see to acts amazingly coming to Detroit two months from now to acts I was about to see in 5 minutes. The band’s four members took the stage about 15 minutes after their scheduled slot (which I think sadly resulted in a 30 minute performance rather than 45) and immediately opened up with the opening notes of “Clarion Call” and it became abundantly clear that they’ve gone to great efforts to make sure that their densely layered album did not suffer in the live show, as every member had both traditional and electronic instruments set up in front of them. They moved through “Doubt” and “This Momentary” before the beautiful “Red Lights”, complete with the band bathed in, you guessed it, red lights, but it was much less cheesy than it sounds. It’s not often that I can’t control myself within the confines of the photo pit, but I don’t even think I could have stopped dancing if I wanted to. The last three songs played were continuous and almost seamless from one to the next and the band finally stopped to announce “Halcyon” which went straight into their closer “Counterpoint”.
I talked to a few girls before their set began and they asked me if I’d heard the band playing next. At which point I obviously went into a ten minute dissertation on what I love so much about Delphic and how high my expectations were for their live performance. And when I saw them again after the set, they confirmed that everything I’d told them about the band was spot on. I only hope I get to see them again under full headlining circumstances. In summary: high expectations met/exceeded, and I like Delphic way more than is OK.
Last up was The Temper Trap. Despite headlining, I don’t really know much about them other than a few songs, but was pretty sold after talking to the guy next to me raving about their Bonnaroo performance. I did catch some of their set at Coachella, but I was far back and not really paying much attention as it was just arriving early for Eddie Sharpe & Co. But I gotta say they’ve got a flare for the dramatic. The set began with a backlit silhouetted band playing slow tribal beats before breaking into some more high energy tunes. They offered us the only slow moment of the entire evening, but it was in the context of a big buildup, so I allowed it. The lighting throughout the show was pretty fantastic and probably the best I’ve ever seen at St. Andrew’s Hall and near the end of the set, they pulled out some Blue Man Group shit when they backlit everyone while lead singer Dougy Mandagi wailed on a liquid-topped drum sending streaks of light in every which direction. I wasn’t particularly excited about their set as I was the least familiar with their tunes, but they definitely gave me something to think about. All in all, a stellar triumvirate of bangin tunes, and a pretty nice way to spend a Monday night in Detroit.
As you hopefully recall, last month, we put together our first ever mixtape entitled A Blogwave Summer which was curated by 20 of our favorite music blogs, each contributing a track of their own and mixed together by none other than myself. Well, I had so much fun putting that together that I decided to do it again with a bunch of tracks of my choosing. There wasn’t really a theme at the onset, it was just a lot of mostly high energy (and, for the most part, extremely bright) tracks that I love, most of which I hadn’t heard until I started this site last May. When I gave it a listen this past weekend on a 4-hour solo drive up to Traverse City, I decided it made pretty great driving music, especially on a sunny day, and thus, Summer Drive was born.
I could have also very well called this mix dailybeatz 101, because for someone who doesn’t visit the site regularly, it’s a fantastic representation of exactly the type of music that we love here. In fact, most of these songs have been posted on this site at one point or another, so you may have heard many of them here already, but I must say there’s something to be said for the way that juxtaposition can really change the feel of a song.
Special thanks to CrystalSister whose picture I used for the mixtape artwork.
Just like last time, you can right click/save as the zip file below which includes the mix split into individual tracks as well as front and back covers. Or, you can download the full mix from the soundcloud player below (this is what I recommend as you are sure not to encounter any split second gaps between tracks which really hurt the flow) and you can save the front and back artwork from this post. Either way, I really hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and please please PLEASE let me know what you think. I apologize for naming every mixtape “summer” something, but it’s what I love, and what the music sounds like for me. Check out the track list below.
Or listen and download one continuous file from the Soundcloud player below (what I recommend) by clicking on the down arrow on the right side of the player.
Here’s a sample track from the mix that’s become one of my favorites the last few days. It’s the beautiful, flowing “We Ah Wi” by Javelin, which sounds like a breezy summer afternoon.
So many great remixes making their mark as of late. And one of my favorites is this reworking of Penguin Prison’s “The Worse it Gets” by RAC, aka Remix Artist Collective, which is led up by Portland resident Andre Allen Anjos who does most of the remixes himself. He always does a great job of picking out subtle pieces of the songs he’s remixing and highlighting them. It is often the case that subtlety is much more challenging than in your face beats (though we like those too). Since we are friends on the google talk (gtalk? gchat? I think I like calling it gchat the best, don’t ask me why), I asked him if he could take a few moments to talk about what his inspiration was for this remix and why he chose this song.
Something that I love about Penguin Prison is that it’s shameless pop. As it should be. Pop music can carry a negative image with lots of people and I’m glad there is somebody doing it ridiculously well. With this remix I just tried to bring out those elements with a little more focus on the groove. I’ve been wanting to do a track win an “Around the World” bassline and this is my take on it.
I kind of have to agree that sometimes we just need some shamless, shameless pop. So what’s next for Andre? Well, he shared with us that he’s in the middle of working on the second album of remixes. It’s a bit too soon for him to reveal anything about the album or what songs may be getting the RAC treatment, but he did say that there are lots of big name artists involved. If you can’t wait that long, he also informed us that he’s working on another Edward Sharpe remix and in the even nearer future, he will be releasing a Temper Trap remix, so keep an eye out for that. Sounds like there’s lots of good stuff to be heard from Mr. Anjos in the near future.
One thing we especially like besides good music are artists who just seem to be nice, down to earth people, and we feel that Andre is one of those people, so show some love to him and the RAC if you got it.
