The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.
READ
Inside Hardcore Architecture | Pitchfork
“Chicago-based artist and teacher Mark Fischer of Public Collectors has given us a strange and revealing new window on MRR and the ‘80s underground with Hardcore Architecture. Hardcore Architecture explores the relationship between the architecture of living spaces and the history of American hardcore bands in the 1980s. On his Tumblr, Fischer unites band info, demo tape, and record reviews culled from MRR issues from the ‘80s with Google Street View building images of the original contact addresses for bands. The juxtaposition of punk/hardcore/metal band names, ranging from the familiar (Sonic Youth, Judge, Didjits) to the unsung (Public Enema, Abra Cadavers, Death Puppy) plus text samplings from MRR’s quick hit reviews (“thrash” is inescapable) against images of fairly innocuous, sometimes charming, and often suburban homes (Fischer removes the exact street addresses from his postings for privacy reasons) gives us a different perspective on hardcore and its proponents. Ultimately, the blog tells a story about hardcore as a loose but passionate nationwide cultural network.”
How Flying Lotus Built Brainfeeder, His Spiritual Little Empire | The Fader
“This latest turn in Flying Lotus’ career hasn’t come out of nowhere. Born Steven Ellison, Steve to his friends, he has spent most of the past decade as the figurehead of the beat scene, an awkward term for a movement that sprung up in the late 2000s following years of experimentation at the edges of hip-hop and electronic music by artists such as Prefuse 73, Dabrye, and Madlib. A network powered by the internet and manifested through various physical nodes—the biggest of which remains Ellison’s hometown of Los Angeles—the beat scene reconfigured independent hip-hop by moving the focus away from rappers to instrumentals, and drawing on a wider sonic palette. It also helped make Ellison a household name, following a string of critically acclaimed albums on British label Warp Records and regular tours that had him circling the globe. In 2013, he was given his own radio station on Grand Theft Auto V, the fastest selling entertainment product of all time. He started 2015 with a six-month residency on BBC Radio 1. And now he has his own corner of a late night comedy show on U.S. television.”
LISTEN
Windhand — Hyperion
Windhand channel True Widow in this latest cut from Grief’s Internal Flower, which is shaping up to be a ripper of a record. It’s a surprise it took so long for that beautiful mix of doom and shoegaze to become in vogue, and her it works so well, with those ethereal vocals sailing atop an ocean of thick, plodding fuzz. And how fucking heavy is that riff? Grief’s Internal Flower is out September 18 through Relapse.
WATCH
Fait — Solace
Fait’s latest clip is low-budget — all harsh light and smoke machines in a darkened sound stage — but it’s an apt accompaniment for Elise Higgins’ latest offering of slow-burn builds and unresolved tension.
The Last Audio Cassette Factory
In this fascinating micro-documentary, Bloomberg Business profile National Audio Company, the Springfield, Montana, factory which now stands as the last bastion of audio cassette manufacturing. It’s a fascinating look into the staying power of analogue, the reversal of predicted technological trends and the business sense of defiant stubbornness in the face of presumed obsolescence.
Saturday August 2, 2014 Review by Matthew Tomich If you’re cognizant of local music in this city and you haven’t heard of Fait, you’re probably not playing attention. On the back of little more than hype and an amazing debut […]
Before embarking on her first Australian tour, Fait – the moniker of multi-instrumentalist Elise Higgins – will play an intimate show at The Bird this Saturday alongside Childsaint and Rachel Dease. If you haven’t heard of Fait yet, you’ve been […]