music_phantom13

Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport



1. Surf Solar
2. Rough Steez
3. The Lisbon Maru
4. Olympians
5. Phantom
6. Limb
7. Space Mountain
8. Flight Of The Feathered Serpent

The otherworldly English ambient/noise rock duo Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power is back with a second release. And are opinions ever split on this one. The group’s debut, Street Horrrsing relied heavily on experimentation and loud noise to create a strange variation of ambient music that refuses to slip into the background. From the first listen of intro track Sweet Love for Planet Earth, listeners felt the music’s presence with the repetitive massively heavy synth chord played over a repeating keyboard melody that we’ve come to know and love as part of Fuck Buttons sound, and a layer of ethereal guitar distortion. The album contained screams and distortion to the point that any melody was virtually inaudible at times, and voices swept up into the mix that were never quite clear. The song Bright Tomorrow was the sole respite from the noise (until the last 2 minutes or so), coming in after a 30 some odd minute assault on ones eardrums and as a quick break before the powerful closer Colours Move.

But where Street Horrrsing was something like an experimental Xinlisupreme or an industrial Xiu Xiu, Tarot Sport finds the band conjuring more of an ambient, industrial, post rock sound, mixing in elements of glitch and even more than a few seconds of pure, clean melody. In fact, on songs like The Lisbon Maru and the last song Flight of the Feathered Serpent, the music is more reminiscent of Carbon Based Lifeforms’ psytrance and post rock invoking moments of pure beauty. The chugging, distorted synths are still there, but the ambient soundscapes in the back are exponentially clearer and easier to find.

Surf Solar: The album kicks off with a typical shimmering keyboard part that grows and expands over a quiet ethereal layer of chorus in the background. Strange werewolf howl like bending of sounds leads into the main melody of the song, with a house type bass drum beat (I think) and the first taste of the post rock sound the band really came to love on this album. The song starts cracking as distortion forces its way in after about 5 minutes, and before you know it the song has gotten quite heavy with something like a girls voice shouting very quietly underneath it all until everything breaks down into a minute of pure noise.

The Lisbon Maru: The song starts off with a typical shimmering Fuck Buttons keyboard riff and a hazy background sound layer, until the keyboards fade a bit and a distorted synth (I think) kicks in chugging along with a few repeated chords and some simple tribal drum beats. About 5 minutes, the keyboard is back, the drums have added a tambourine, and there is a guitar or something making another layer of ethereal distortion in a beautiful melody. This is the point, for me, where I knew the album was going to be as good as Street. The song ends with a battle type snare drumming and leads into…

Olympians: This is probably the most upbeat, happy song that the band has released to date. It starts off with a simple shimmering keyboard riff that is quickly accompanied by an electronic percussion rhythm. The song builds for about 3 minutes, at which point their synth busts in with a strange electronic organ sound to bring about a post rock vibe and imagery of sun bursting through clouds in the distance while a thunderstorm continues to rage on overhead. After a few minutes, the synth again changes to a shakier, electronic tweeting type voice. Then comes the distorted wall of sound, just in time to keep the song from becoming truly ambient and slipping into the background.

Phantom Limb: This is more of an experimental track than anything else on the album. Definitely has its share of glitch, with certain parts being composed almost entirely of glitchy sounds looped and layered to compose a bizarre dark industrial symphony of machinery. Towards the end a clean keyboard line finds its way out, and the song quiets down to close like a wave heading back out to sea after crashing down violently on the shore.

Overall, really, the album is just much more polished and electronic than noisy and raw like their previous release. Sadly, this probably lost them a few fans. I personally think it shows a solid progression for a band that could have faded into obscurity though, and that could very well be reinventing their sound on each album to come (There have to be more after the two we’ve been given so far). I don't know that it's any better or worse than Street, it's just quite a different album. This is pretty much Fuck Buttons giving a big middle finger to the sophomore slump.

8.9/10.0

music_phantom13

Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age



01 Intro/Magnetic Tales
02 The Be Colony
03 How Do You Get Along Sir?
04 Will You Read Me.
05 Reception/Group Therapy
06 A Quiet Moment
07 I See, So I See So
08 You Must Wake
09 One Million Years Ago
10 A Seancing Song
11 Mr Beard, You Chatterbox
12 Drug Party
13 Libra, The Mirror's Minor Self
14 Love's Long Listen-In
15 We Are After All Here
16 A Medium's High
17 Ritual / Looking In
18 Make My Sleep His Song
19 Royal Chant
20 What I Saw
21 Let It Begin/Oh Joy
22 Round and Round and Round
23 The Be Colony/Dashing Home/What on Earth Took You?

Ah, Broadcast. Thank god we have them; with Stereolab on hiatus I don’t know where else I’d get my dose of jazz influenced female vocal lounge pop. But Broadcast pulls of something Stereolab never did: this album is actually quite scary. It’s much more experimental and samples a lot of sounds, and a common tool is recording sounds and playing them back in reverse direction. There really aren’t too many tracks that are flat out horror inducing music. The thing about the album is, it ****ing puts you on edge, similar to the way that some of the music by Pink Floyd when they were recording with Syd Barrett. Relatively normal songs, but something’s not quite right. But it’s a lot creepier than anything by Pink Floyd because it tries to be. The best analogy of the music that I can think of, is it’s like walking through the woods and coming upon a graveyard in a clearing with an open grave and no one around. Morbid fascination will probably inspire one to walk up and look around and try to figure out what’s going on, and you know it could be dangerous, but the last thought to come to mind is that someone could knock you in. This album is not quite right in the same way that situation would be.

I’m not going to do any actual song reviews because there are 23 songs and this needs to be listened to as a whole. But I’ll go over the album quickly. The first actual song, The Be Colony, starts off sounding like it could come from Emperor Tomato Ketchup or Dots & Loops, but during a few parts of the song the vocals take on a strange echoing ghostly warble. It’s followed with How Do You Get Along Sir which opens with strange echoing vocals being played backwards on a crackling recording, and actually turns into a very melodic song. From here on out, the album is for the most part upbeat with dark undertones and rapidly changing sounds. A Seancing Song starts off with an eerie high pitched muddled, fractured background and Trish Keenan singing a strange chant type lyric over as sounds of someone trying to open a door over and over, a chair being slid around, and radio static come in and out in the background. It’s enough to leave you really trying to figure what is going on in the room where the song is taking place. Mr Beard, You Chatterbox has a definite free jazz sound with the same strange muddled, dark background in place, but goes through quite a variety of sounds before ending. A Drug Party sounds like the title implies, a party with dancing and all, but for spirits rather than living beings. As if to confirm it could all disappear in the blink of an eye, halfway through the song a dog starts barking and the only remnant of the party noise is a gusty wind. Love’s Long Listen-In is my favorite track. It has a very simple jazz bass line and an occasional jazz flute that sounds off for a quick few seconds, and has a strange aged layer of melody that borrows straight from Boards of Canada’s aged sound. We Are After All Here could be a recording of the lounge where souls go after death. The last track is The Be Colony – Dashing Home – What on Earth Took You and it’s pretty much the perfect end to the album. You’ve got a jazzy bass line underneath Trish Keenan’s vocals and a heavily avant garde jazz flue part. Some crickets come in, and a harpsichord or something picks up the melody and changes it just enough to sound a little unusual, and the album fades out to silence.

Really, I can’t stress enough how creepy it is. Right when it seems the music could be getting normal, they add in just one little change to the melody or one little loop or sample in the background that makes the hair stand up on your neck again. They even manage to turn I See, So I See So, a middle ages flute track with female vocals, into something very uneasy. Part of it, I think, is that at times the music just gets dark for a second or two, enough to disorient the listener and leave a question of whether it was the music or just the imagination playing tricks. Throughout the album, there is a loose sort of concept based on black magic and witchcraft, which manifests in songs like Reception – Group Therapy, A Seancing Song, A Medium’s High, Ritual – Looking In, and Royal Chant, but that never really completely disappears from the music. Definitely worth checking out if you like Stereolab or avant garde/experimental music.

8.4/10.0

jackhammer

It took me a good few listens to get into Stereolab but not because of the mish mash of styles, more the fact that I found that they weren't dynamic enough for me but I think they get better with each listen so this album is intriguing me. It's not just odd for the sake of it is it? Because there is enough worse than a band trying to be as out there on purpose but if it's all incorporated well into the music then I'm all for it.

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abdullah424

Great thread man.

I'm actually kind of dissappointing you've decided to stop posting your opinion on all of the new music coming out. I can definately understand why though b/c I've been doing the same thing lately (without posting reviews of course) but you do end up wading through a lot of garbage to find the gems.

I also totally forgot I wanted to check out the F*ck Buttons so thanks for the reminder.

music_phantom13

No not at all. Have you heard anything by Broadcast before? This is different because it's a collaboration album (well, technically a mini album but clocking in at 48 minutes I hardly consider it such) with The Focus Group. I haven't heard too much by them, but I know they make very experimental electronic music based heavily in samples of old movies and that music that was made for libraries where people could pay for the rights to it, and musique concrete. So, while Broadcast makes Stereolab like jazzy dream pop, it's The influence of the Focus Group that makes it odd. I think it's the witchcraft concept that adds a little bit of the creepy factor, but it's really not dominating in the album. I'll actually send it to you and you can decide.

And I haven't really completely stopped, more like just decided to cover the best albums and do full reviews of them. I'll try to get one up every day or two, if I can.

music_phantom13

Hmm time to try and get this going again, I'm lazy and inconsistent. Sorry I keep changing my mind, but now I'm going to do albums from the past decade, or maybe couple of years, that you should really listen to. First up:

Eureka Brown - ¡Digitalia!



1. Intro Dub
2. Full Speed Ahead
3. ¡Digitalia!
4. Just Got This Feeling
5. I Told You So
6. Alien Wars
7. Mystical Crystals
8. Yes No Maybe So
9. Come On Baby Here We Go
10. OMG

This one has been getting more than it's fair share of plays on my iPod. Eureka Brown started releasing tracks from his debut, Future of the Digital Universe, back in 2007 and apparently got the song Full Speed Head on a BBC Radio show on the net. Which is really cool, because he did it entirely by releasing songs on his myspace as they were made. The title of the album seems to be a small movement that believes in file sharing so all of their stuff is available for free somewhere (I found this on a blog though, don't know where). It's a mini album of only 10 short songs running for about 20 minutes sadly; I wish it was longer. I have yet to check out their debut, but I imagine the two in one playlist would make for a decent length listen.

So, on to the music. It's a mish mash of mod music, dream pop, space rock, and psychedelia all at once, and even with the short songs you're barely able to keep up with the changes in the music. From the second I heard the dubby distorted guitar in the intro track Intro Dub give way to the mod sounding keyboard part, very groovy drum beat, and jazzy bass line, I was hooked. It's a completely unique fresh take on pop that simply blew me away. From there, it just gets better, giving way to Full Speed Ahead, an almost tropical sounding lo-fi poppy song. Now that I think about it, this is easily the lo-fi album of the year, he takes what bands like Girls, Vivian Girls, and Summer Cats are doing and makes it exponentially better. This leads into the title track, which has his voice melded into the background with all of the other instruments, a very catchy guitar riff, and some of the best drumming I've heard in quite a while. The song goes from laid back, spacey psychedelic rock to lo-fi noise pop just switching from verse to chorus, and it is done unbelievably perfectly. Just Got This Feeling is a jangly, trippy pop song that includes some female vocals with a cool effect. Skipping ahead to Alien Wars. The song has a very Beck like acoustic part rocking under layers of keyboards, jangles, and some other stuff. It evens sounds a bit like Happy Mondays at times, utilizing the loud to quiet ingle keyboard note (that probably makes no sense, you'll know what I mean if you listen). Mystical Crystals starts off with a very cool synthesizer voice over an amazingly catchy bass line, and moves on to add in slide guitar to the mix, not sure how that works but it does. Quiet the infectious instrumental song. The outro track, OMG, is a nice calm end that sums up the album perfectly.

All in all, this album is a gem that will go largely unnoticed. They have a lot of stuff going on at once, and it's somewhat lo-fi, but never sound messy and muddled like any of the ****gaze bands. If you're not careful, you won't even be able to tell where one song goes into the next because the whole album has a very similar feel. But it's not because the songs sound the same, more like one 2 minute song will go through so many different melodies, bridges, etc. that you might not be able to tell at times where a new song starts. It will definitely take a few listens to digest and fully grasp everything that's going on, but that's not a problem because once you listen to it the whole way through and realize how short it is, you won't want to stop. This is one album I truly couldn't imagine getting bored listening to.

9.0/10.0

Sneer

I've been ashamedly lax in keeping up with peoples journals here. Going through this, it seems your's is one of the journals closer to my tastes. So you can be assured i'll be keeping a close eye on this.

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Fright Team radio show

music_phantom13

Thanks good to know someone's reading, I'll really make a serious effort to keep up with it this time around. For now, I'm going to tag my entire music library, which hasn't ever been done before. I'll be back in a few days

+81

Nice journal, phantom. A lot of stuff I'm into so I'm sure it would be worth my time to check out of these artist I haven't heard of.

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My Music on: Facebook Last.fm
My Last.fm
My Poor Ol' Neglected Journal

music_phantom13

Melt-Banana Live at the Rock N’ Roll Hotel with Abiku, Sugar Dunes, and Desert of Maine



So as you may know, I went to see Melt Banana last Friday downtown. I’m finally getting around to writing this up now.

It’s nights like this that make me realize how much I’m actually going to miss living near D.C. It’s quite the haven for experimental and noise rock. The city is the political center of the country, and as a result the majority of the people there are relatively conservative and feel a need to act professional. However, this general feel has also spawned a bit of an opposite reaction amongst people that go against this conventional attitude. As a result, the city is a breeding ground for experimental music and crazy **** like Melt Banana and the three local bands that opened for them. And while concerts can be really hit and miss (a lot of times, like Dinosaur Jr, hardly anyone moves), when they hit, they ****ing rock. That’s pretty much what happened this night.

I went with my friend Sarah, and we got there about 10 minutes after the start time, Abiku was just coming out on stage. I listened to their recordings and wasn’t really all that impressed, but they are a band that simply can’t translate the ferocity and insanity of their live concert to recordings. The band consists of two members, Josh on guitar and Jane on one of those keyboards worn on a strap like a guitar. They are a bit weird; when we walked in they were wearing black robes with glitter completely covering their faces. I’ve met Jane before so I knew what was underneath the robes, but it was interesting to see people’s reactions when they realized the voice doling out vicious yelps and brutal screams was a girl who probably weighs about 90 pounds while the six and a half foot tall giant rarely sang a word. As for the music, they’re kind of like a good version of Brokencyde (sp?), creating a strange concoction of heavy electronic music, noise, and post punk. It was a great intro to scare away all the annoying college kids from the bar upstairs. They played for about a half hour, then I introduced Sarah to Jane and we went outside and smoked a cigarette. Up next was Sugar Dunes, a experimental noise rock band that sounds a lot like post rock at times. They at times sing with almost staccato vocals and relatively standard alternative riffs before breaking down to shouts and whatever sort of loud bizarre sounds they can get out of the instruments. Much like Melt Banana, the drummer held the rhythm together the whole time. At one point, the singer and guitar player came off the stage and jumped into the middle of the crowd while playing, which was pretty cool. Desert of Maine used a lot of steel guitar, so we hung outside for most of them time while they were playing. It sounded interesting when they freaked out, but for the most part didn’t’ appeal to me.

Now for the part of the evening anyone might read this for. Melt-Banana finally came onstage around 11:15 with Phantasmagoria playing, lights strapped to their heads, shaking them around at the crowd which was neat. Stu mentioned when he saw them they didn’t really click, but there was none of that here. Maybe for 2 or 3 minutes of the entire concert they were a bit off, but the rest of the set they kicked ass. Everyone in the club was cheering, but ready for the band to jump into a song, and it was definitely the tensest moments of any concert I’ve seen. They went from that into Shield From Your Eyes, a Beast in the Well on Your Hand. The night truly kicked off the second the bass came in. The ensuing chaos was probably no different than what would have happened if an explosion went off in the club. Every single person in the relatively small venue, definitely no more than 100 people, went ****ing nuts. The ensuing hour and 45 minutes was absolute chaos at its best, just what you’d expect Melt-Banana live. Normally I’m not big into moshing, but I’m not sure how you could keep yourself from jumping in with this sort of music. The nice thing about seeing a show at a smaller venue is that you can get right up to the front and stand maybe 2 feet away from the band, which is where I spent the concert when I wasn’t in the mosh pit (which was probably about half of the crowd). When they played If it is the Deep Sea, I Can See You There I sang along; Yasuko got down on the stage right in front of me and sang right to me, which was ****ing awesome. They mixed in a few of their more experimental calmer songs and a few songs as Melt-Banana Lite, which was basically just a necessity to catch your breath seeing how it must have been 100 degrees (F, for you foreigners :p). What amazed me about that was, true to form, Ichirou had has surgical mask on the entire time; I was wondering if he was going to pass out at some point. At the end of the show, not a single person stepped back or left; we were determined to get our encore. They came back on and played several songs, including their kick ass cover of Monkey Man, and despite the fact that I think nearly everyone was about ready to drop dead from a combination of dehydration and exhaustion, the crowd was just as lively as at the beginning of the concert.

They wrapped up around 1, and the concert was over. We hung around for a few minutes, and I don’t think anyone didn’t have a giant **** eating grin on their face. Sarah and I drove home (our evening lasted a bit longer ) and that pretty much summed up what was, without a doubt, the greatest night of my life. In conclusion, if Melt-Banana comes to a town near you, the only excuse you have for not seeing them is being in a coma.