I recently stumbled upon this dark and industrial remix of the Silver Columns tune “Always On” while perusing the site of our friends Nashville Nights. If you’re not overly taken by the first 30 seconds or so, as was the case with me at first, I think you’ll be really pleasantly surprised at how the song progresses. It becomes a straight up glitch factory in no time and consequently becomes extremely interesting to listen to I think. It’s almost like every single note at times is made up of some random split second sample all pasted together to form this sort of brooding sound that I can’t get enough of. I’ve posted a few songs recently that have a pretty similar feel to this (you can check them out here and here), and it’s really becoming one of my favorite sounds out there right now. Is there some sort of techno/electronic niche genre for this sound? If not, can Carles please create it? I didn’t know much about Jensen Sportag but for some reason though it was a Swedish person (at which point I was going to comment on how the Swedes have been KILLING it musically), but it turns out the act is from Nashville, although I haven’t yet been able to get a clear consensus on who or what Jensen Sportag is.
One of the many things I love so much about Foals is that their two albums, Antidotes and this year’s Total Life Forever, are both fantastic, but completely different in tone. While the first was an exercise in high-energy danceable tunes with clean and tight guitar melodies, the second was more of the softer side of Foals, with 6-minute growing epics and dance tunes alike, but with a sound not quite as recognizable as it was in their first album. So I was looking forward to seeing these two worlds collide in their live show.
I didn’t know what to expect from openers Esben and the Witch, but even if I had any expectations, I’m fairly sure I still would have been surprised. I’d say Esben and the Witch is a great combination of the old and new world. The melodies were haunting and tribal and subtle, but were then laid over completely modern electronic beats, most of which were made via loop pedals and guitar effects, that often came out of nowhere. It was a great contrast to hear these two themes going on at the same time and I can’t say it’s something I’ve ever heard before. I dug.
Foals began their set perfectly with the latest album’s title track “Total Life Forever”, a song that’s not too hard but that still gets the crowd into the mood and followed it up with “Olympic Airways” to let everyone know that they weren’t messing around. Lead singer Yannis Philippakis was not intimidated after a wipeout on stage and later into the set walked through the crowd out onto the patio, re-entering through another door atop a small staircase and, rather than taking the normal route back to the stage, climbed atop the large speakers and returned to the front of the room that way. He mentioned that the group would be crossing the border that night and would be bowling downstairs after the show and would be looking to get rid of their weed before crossing, to which the crowd cheered, but I was unable to verify if anyone took them up on the offer. The energy only increased as the set went on and the crowd responded appropriately with each buildup the band gave and it all reached a pinnacle with “Spanish Sahara”. The crowd was almost silent (maybe a first for the Magic Stick) as the quiet intro began, but as everyone knew what was coming up, the energy was palpable with each buildup, the crowd clapping and screaming along with Yannis before the big release. One of my favorite concert moments in a long time.
The group closed out the night with a non-stop barrage of in your face classic Foals madness that resulted in a last minute mosh pit and some crowdsurfers (my lack of interest in such was a great reminder of how old I’m getting) with the triple threat of “The French Open”, “Cassius” and “Two Steps, Twice”, during which Yannis again climbed the other tower of speakers, this time with guitar in tow (as shown in the last picture below), before a graceful Olympic style dismount using a bar suspended from the ceiling. Two friends of mine who weren’t too familiar with the band came to the show as well and both left pleasantly surprised. See these guys when given the opportunity. The Magic Stick, while a great place to see a show, is a grim venue for picture taking, so hopefully my description gave you all you needed to know.
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.
Surely you all remember from my review of the new Foals album Total Life Forever that one of my favorite tracks was “This Orient”. But holy cow, this totally beautiful remix by Silver Columns takes one of the most upbeat songs on the album and makes it at least a million times more upbeat. I think listening to this remix might be the equivalent of drinking a 5-hour energy (if that’s what you’re into), or at least 2 or 3 of those hours of energy. Or maybe you’re more of a 6-hour power kind of person. Or maybe you think they are all gross and don’t make me feel more awake but just prevent me from falling asleep when I finally want to (or maybe that’s just me). Either way, it is tough to deny the joy that can be found in this remix. Pure joy.
Silver Columns will be releasing their album Yes and Dance on May 31. Can’t wait to see what they’ve got in store on that bad boy.
Also, this one is a bit of a builder, so do not listen to the first 10 seconds and judge the bigness/joyousness of it all. Because it will get way bigger and way more joyous. Just wait for it. If you aren’t feeling the joy, throw on a pair of headphones and try again. I think the result may be different.
