Archive for the ‘Beats & Pieces’ Category

Noiseweek: ATDI, Primavera, Iggy post-Pop and more

Sunday, January 24th, 2016

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.
As the northern hemisphere festival season gears up, so too do the reunions, with At The Drive-In now joining LCD Soundsystem in the quest for festival payola. ATDI’s anticipated comeback will see them embark on a huge tour of North America and Europe and release new material.

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Meanwhile Radiohead, the aformentioned LCD Soundsystem and Sigur Rós head up an enormous Primavera Sound line-up, with Shellac, Boredoms, Venom, Destroyer, Tortoise, Goat and about a hundred others also making the trip to Barcelona in June.

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If you had any doubt about the huge changes the music industry faces, mull this over for a moment: In 2015, ‘catalogue’ sales (i.e. releases more than 18 months old) outsold ‘current’ releases for the first time ever. Yet more copies of Dark Side of the Moon have been pressed and inflicted upon the world, with only Adele and Taylor Swift outselling Pink Floyd’s 1973 sharehouse must-have on vinyl last year. The times they are a-changin’. Or not.

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READ

Iggy Pop and Josh Homme Team Up for Secret Album | New York Times
“The collaboration started with a text message from Mr. Pop to Mr. Homme, who recalled, “It basically said, ‘Hey, it would be great if we got together and maybe write something sometime — Iggy.’”

Heathcliff Berru and Other Missing Stairs | Impose
“We owe it to ourselves, to our work, and to the listeners and readers who are interested in what we do, to fix the missing stairs instead of leaping over them, to truly address these issues when they are raised, to listen to these allegations with fair and open minds and take them seriously.”

Why Are the Eagles So Hated? An Explainer on the Immensely Popular Yet Divisive Rock Band | Billboard
“Some Generation X-ers and other post-boomers have begun examining exactly why they were expected from puberty to reject the Eagles. In his 1972 Newsday essay, Robert Christgau praised the band’s musical prowess, then famously shifted gears with the line, ‘Another thing that interests me about the Eagles is that I hate them.’”

LISTEN

Naðra — Allir Vegir Til Glötunar
Unpronounceable Icelandic black metal. Good.

Hopefully the first of many in the trove of Bowie rarities and outtakes to surface after his death — in which he impersonates Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and Tom Waits.

Fatima Al Qadiri — ‘Battery’

Wonky bass-driven electronica from the Kuwaiti producer, taken from forthcoming LP Brute.

WATCH

PJ Harvey teases new album The Hope Six Demolition Project with features lead single ‘The Wheel’ and album opener ‘The Community of Hope’. Out April 15.

Ty Segall and The Muggers — Live at KEXP
The garage god inaugurates the Seattle public radio station’s new studios with a half-hour set of material from new LP Emotional Mugger, released last week.

Noiseweek: RIP David Bowie

Sunday, January 17th, 2016

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

Perhaps the only good that comes out of losing an icon like David Bowie is that it gives us an opportunity to reflect on and revel in his genius. That his death came as such a shock and was felt so keenly by so many, should be no surprise given his unparalleled impact on music, flim, art, fashion and popular culture. The eeriness of final album Blackstar and the accompanying videos for the title track and ‘Lazarus’ with hindsight, quite obviously a ‘parting gift’ or goodbye letter to the world he dramatically helped shape. Noiseweek this week presents a collection of the best stories, tributes, and playlists honouring his life and work.

Sales of Blackstar have soared in the days since Bowie’s death, with Spotify streams of the icon’s back catalogue also experiencing a jump of more than 2800% in the past week, The Guardian reports. Unsurprisingly, this puts Blackstar at the top of the UK charts (his 10th No. 1 there), whileBillboard reports the album is expected be Bowie’s first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Will we ever here the demos for the reported follow-up album to Blackstar he was working on? Let’s hope so.

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SXSW founder Roland Swenson has fessed up to changing the Bowie Street sign to David Bowie St in downtown Austin. Read a collection of other, more conventional tributes on social media over at Pitchfork and great obituaries at the New York Times and Wire.

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A huge tribute show fronted by long-time collaborator and producer Tony Visconti is being planned for NYC’s Carnegie Hall, featuring The Roots, The Mountain Goats, Cyndi Lauper, Perry Farrell, Michael Stipe, Laurie Anderson, Cat Power and The Polyphonic Spree over two nights on March 31 and April 1.

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Fittingly, the Starman will be forever immortalised with a constellation named in his honour.

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Iggy Pop on David Bowie: ‘He Resurrected Me’ | New York Times
“A lot of people were curious about me, but only he was the one who had enough truly in common with me, and who actually really liked what I did and could get on board with it, and who also had decent enough intentions to help me out. He did a good thing.”

Henry Rollins: Bowie’s Blackstar Is On The Level Of Low and Heroes | LA Weekly
“The album is agile and nervy, challenging and masterful. It is unreal the poise and guts he displays in this collection of seven songs. Hopefully, he was able to get some feedback from fans all over the world.”

What It’s Like to Play Guitar With David Bowie | Pitchfork
“He created this atmosphere for me where I walked into the studio thinking the old way, and walked out with a set of tools that I didn’t even know what to do with. This goes to the core of things I did with Bowie that changed me forever.”

‘That was David: life and death were art for him’ – Bowie’s pianist remembers his friend | The Guardian
“Mortality wasn’t something David discussed, but he sang about it a lot. I think he saw the pain and felt the suffering in life more than most. Many of us put up filters and go into denial. I don’t think he ever did that, and that came out in his music.”

On David Bowie And Mortality | Stereogum
“We’re going to spend years figuring out what Bowie was telling us with this album. But certain things about Blackstar already seem stark and obvious in the wake of his passing. For one thing, the album’s catchiest song is named after Lazarus, the Biblical figure who rose from his grave. How could we not have seen that.”

LISTEN

The Quietus goes deep into Bowie’s discography in their ‘Beyond the Hits’ playlist.

Not sure how KEXP left The Melvins’ version of ‘Station to Station’ off their list of best Bowie covers, so here it is.

WATCH

David Bowie’s Effect on Music Videos – New York Times

Noiseweek: RIP Lemmy, Xmas Freebies and more

Sunday, January 3rd, 2016

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

Vale Lemmy. A great tribute from The Nation Blue/High Tension’s Matt Weston over at Noisey and a fantastic insight into his last days up at Rolling Stone. Fittingly, a memorial service has just been announced for the rock god at his favourite boozer, The Rainbow Bar and Grill on January 9.

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Turns out Deafheaven pretty much owned 2015, if the critics are to be believed. The divisive ‘blackgaze’ band might be false metal to some, but not the boffins at Pitchfork, who rated the band’s most recent full length New Bermuda as the best metal album of the year, and 26th in its overall poll. Meanwhile, Spin named the LA five-piece as their band of the year. Haters be damned.

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Punk’s not dead, it just deserves to be: With news that legendary NYC venue CBGB has been revived as an airport restaurant at New Jersey’s Newark terminal. As if the terrible film retelling the CBGB story wasn’t tarnish enough on the legacy of the once-great venue.

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Closet Metalheads: Neko Case | Decibel
“One thing about metal that people often don’t talk about but I’m always curious: How was there so much crazy sexism and homophobia in metal in the 80s and 90s yet people just refuse to believe that Freddie Mercury and Rob Halford were gay?”

LISTEN

AFX – ‘T17 Phase Out’
Richard D. James has too much eggnog, posts another AFX rarity to his ‘User18081971’ Soundcloud account.

Radiohead– ‘Spectre’
Not good enough for the latest Bond film apparently, but good enough to give away as free download.

DJ Shadow – ‘Swerve’
And another Festivus miracle. DJ Shadow treats the world to a bass-heavy ‘battle weapon’.

WATCH

Seven Sisters of Sleep – ‘War Master’

Lemmy’s last interview
In which Mr Kilmister speaks with trademark candour about terrorism, religion, 40 years of Motörhead, drugs, punk and all else. RIP.

Dave Cutbush’s Top 10 Albums of 2015

Thursday, December 24th, 2015

LIFE IS NOISE’s head honcho shares his favourite releases from 2015, with Elder, High On Fire and Shlohmo among the year’s best.

10. Sunn O))) – Kannon
The drone giants Sunn O))) return in 2015 with another crushing display in the form of Kannon. It is heavy, it is slow, it is fearful and it is imposing. My only criticism is that it is a little short. I wanted more than just the three songs. Who knows, perhaps this is just a tease for another Sunn O))) album in 2016. After all, six years is too long to wait for such epic majesty.

9. Echoes of Yul – The Healing
The Black Captain introduced me to Polish act Echoes of Yul. Ever since I have loved their work. You can read The Black Captain’s review here. I love the dreamy dark quality of this record. It is a melancholic masterpiece.

8. Windhand – Grief’s Infernal Flower
Windhand return with the their third record Grief’s Infernal Flower. As heavy as ever and featuring the hauntingly beautiful vocals of Dorthia Cottrell, Windhand have a great balance between the depth and crushing on one had and the ethereal and haunting on the other. Grief’s Infernal Flower is a consistently good album and confirms Windhand’s pre-eminence in the worldwide doom revival.

7. Church – Unanswered Hymns
My favourite debut album of the year came out of the blue from Church (or Chrch as they are now known). Unanswered Hymns has a musical bed of depravity and destruction with vocals that sound like a demon sacrificing a virgin on a satanic altar on top. An occult masterpiece from these Californian natives.

6. Sufjan Stevens – Carrie and Lowell
Sufjan returns to his folk roots on record number seven. He gets to me when he is super sad, and on this album he is at times at his most serenely melancholic. ‘Should Have Known Better’ is my favourite in this respect. It is what folk music should be and most often isn’t. Stripped away from the overburdening production of previous work, Carrie and Lowell gets down to basics. It has beautiful melodies and thought provoking lyrics. Dare I say it — a return to form for Stevens.

5. Ahab – The Boats of Glen Carrig
Funeral doom/nautical doom/progressive rock/post-rock whatever. The Boats of Glen Carrig may be an interesting fusion of styles packaged in their ever expanding worlds of boats and krakens and wrecks but when you boil it down it is just a great heavy record. Super riffs aplenty, great clean vocals and brutal growls. Super catchy in a destructive way.

4. Drowning Horse – Sheltering Sky
The latest Drowning Horse album is totally crushing. Read The Black Captain’s review here. No other words need be spoken.

3. Shlohmo – Dark Red
Shlohmo is a consistently amazing electronic producer. His latest album Dark Red is no exception to this. He inhabits a dark and weird world most of today’s beatmakers dare not inhabit. But the final word on this should come from the press release for the album, where we are told Dark Red would sound like “if Electric Wizard tried to make an R&B record, or if Boards of Canada met Burzum by the River Styx” – maybe not true but certainly an interesting concept.



2. High On Fire – Luminiferous

Lyrically mind-altering and musically earth-shattering, the latest effort from High on Fire is another pummelling journey from the metal three-piece and a great addition to their great catalogue. All members are in great form. Des Kensel’s drumming is relentless, Jeff Matz’ bass work is as always without fault and team leader Matt Pike’s vocals and guitar work have reached a new pinnacle. But with all the Motorhead-style fast fury, it is the slower tracks that stand out for me. ‘The Falconist’ has a sneering menace, while ‘The Cave’ is the standout for me. High on Fire have developed as a band with Luminiferous. There is power aplenty but listen further and you can reach other dimensions.

1. Elder – Lore
In 2015 nothing beat the power riffs and melodic mastery of Lore from Massachusetts band Elder. It is a tip of the hat to the iconic rock legends of the 70s but Lore is a furious modern stoner take on all things psych and doom. I love how Elder meld various passages in their songs so seamlessly. At times monolithic and bludgeoning and at others beautiful and delicate, Lore is impressive from first to last listen. It’s an album I have punished but continues to give me great joy every time I put it on. Thanks Elder – you just keep getting better.

Honourable Mentions
Vhol – Deeper Than Sky
Glowsun – Beyond the Wall of Time
Hope Drone – Cloak of Ash
Sumac – The Deal
Dungen – Allas Sak
Bell Witch – Four Phantoms
Tangled Thoughts of Leaving – Yield to Despair
Kowloon Walled City — Grievances
We Lost The Sea – Departure Songs
Ecstatic Vision – Sonic Praise
Built to Spill – Untethered Moon
Fourteen Nights at Sea – Minor Light
Joanna Newsom – Divers
Wrekmeister Harmonies – Night of Your Ascension

Cam Durnsford’s Top 10 Albums of 2015

Monday, December 21st, 2015

LIFE IS NOISE’s editor Cam Durnsford shares his top ten releases of 2015.

To pick just 10 records in a year with so many quality releases is not an easy task – here are my favourites as it stands at the moment, with honorable mentions for Royal Headache’s High, Protomartyr’s The Agent Intellect, Chook Race’s About Time, Power’s Electric Glitter Boogie and the self-titled debut from Terrible Truths. All more than deserving of a spot in this or any list.

1. My Disco – Severe
This really was untouchable as the standout release of 2015. The Melbourne band’s fourth LP – their first in five years – is both a major departure from their previous work and a logical evolution of their take on post-punk and math rock. It feels as though the monolith on the album cover could crush you under its weight during any of the loaded pauses the band utilise so well on Severe; the rush that comes when they break these silences is truly visceral. Robert Forster once said the classic three-piece lineup is rock and roll in its purest – here the archetypal power trio plumbs new depths of sound and form.

2. Föllakzoid – III
Chile’s Föllakzoid have been doing their take on the motorik rhythm for a while now, fusing it with space and desert rock motifs that are somehow distinctly Andean. It’s on III though that they’ve really found their groove – a propulsive and hypnotic beast of a thing that stays constant across three of the album’s four lengthy tracks. These are simple, repetitive songs that chug along at a dancefloor-friendly 120 bpm – they could very easily find their way into the crates of a minimal techno DJ as much as an acid-fried psychonaut’s bedroom.

3. Floating Points – Elaenia
I’ve been a fan of Sam Shepherd’s work since first hearing his earlier bass-heavy compositions a few years back – a long string of singles, EPs and production credits spanning deep house, techno, dubstep (think Burial, not Skrillex), and hip hop, so hopes were high for his debut LP. Elaenia completely surpasses these lofty expectations, despite being quite different from his earlier work, and better suited to introspective contemplation than losing one’s shit on the dancefloor. His absolute mastery of sound and love of jazz shine through; live orchestral arrangements result in a lush and immersive suite of songs that demand start-to-finish listening.

4. Gold Class – It’s You
Every so often a band emerges fully formed, seemingly from out of nowhere, ready to capture the attention of a public that didn’t even know they were waiting for said band’s emergence. Of course, it’s never that simple – it takes years of work to be an overnight sensation and all that – but all the same, Gold Class’ debut It’s You is an assured opening salvo from a band who seem to be destined for greatness. Much has been made of Adam Curley’s commanding stage presence and distinctive baritone (with good reason), though the incredible musicianship on display is really what sets Gold Class apart. Post-punk can be so broad a term that it becomes meaningless, though there’s certainly touchstones here of moody UK Rough Trade bands in style as much as delivery.

5. Lucy Cliché – Drain Down EP
With more than 10 years entrenched in Australia’s musical underground with bands like Naked on the Vague, Half High and Knitted Abyss, and previous, more experimental releases under this moniker, Lucy Phelan’s take on live techno was always going to resonate with the punk kids. The DIY assembly of hardware she uses to do this is a welcome change from the safety (and predictability?) of the omnipresent Ableton Live, or the quantized perfection of the modern digital DJ. Drain Down owes as much to Severed Heads as it does to Sleezy D – a kind of industrial acid techno that would go down just as well at Berghain as it does at The Tote.

6. Blank Realm – Illegals in Heaven
After 2014’s exceptional LP Grassed Inn launched the Brisbane avant-pop band on to the world stage, Blank Realm’s follow-up could have easily fallen victim to ‘difficult tenth album syndrome’. Thankfully Blank Realm don’t seem to give two shits about how they’re viewed by critics or the ‘industry’ more generally – they focus instead on crafting sublime songs with psychedelic flourishes and irresistible pop hooks, while never losing sight of their experimental roots.

7. Fuzz – II
It’s been an unusually quiet year for the ever-prolific Ty Segall, with only his contributions (drums and vocals) to Fuzz’s sprawling double LP and a Ty Rex reissue to show for it. II is much more than the product of a Segall side-project though – Meatbodies’ Chad Ubovich and Ty’s long-standing collaborator Charles Mootheart (Epsilons, Ty Segall Band et al) forming like voltron and employing a collaborative approach to writing the songs for their second LP. It’s not going to win many prizes for originality, but this is as good an example as you’ll find of Blue Cheer/Black Sabbath worship.

8. Taipan Tiger Girls – 1
Australian synth pioneer Ollie Olsen makes a welcome return to a live band setting and the result is some of the most exquisite noise you’ll hear. Skittish free-jazz drumming, mountains of demented guitar feedback and Olsen’s propulsive synth combining to give us something that sounds like the Large Hadron Collider powering up, just before it banishes us all to the black hole. It’s not all nihilistic though – you could just as easily imagine the whirling dervishes wigging out to TTG’s brand of minimal synth drone.

9. Batpiss – Biomass
Batpiss further refine their sludgy take on punk rock on album number two. I hear more Jesus Lizard in there than on their debut Nuclear Winter – not just the absolutely monstrous tone of Thomy Sloane’s bass or Paul Portal’s slide-inflected guitar parts, but a similar pathos on display here too. As constants on Melbourne’s live scene, this band has become a fearful live act – if you’ve somehow managed to avoid them you clearly don’t get out much. Rectify that.

10. Institute – Catharsis
Austin’s Institute had me with last year’s Salt EP – a definite 2014 highlight. Their debut LP – yet another outstanding release on the dependable Sacred Bones label – sounds less pessimistic than Salt, with an ever-so-slight polish on this collection of songs. There’s still a sense of foreboding here, and an anxiety writ large by song titles like ‘Admit I’m Shit’ and ‘Cheerlessness’. Another slightly deranged take on the great post-punk revival of 2015.

Noiseweek: Weedians, List-o-mania, Sunn O))), Oneohtrix Point Never + More

Sunday, December 13th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

Wondering what to get for the Sleep fan who has everything this Christ-myth? How about one of these incredibly detailed Weedian figurines? Dopesmoker cover artist Arik Roper worked with Unbox Industries to get every last detail right, down to the vape tanks. They might not ship until January, but who actually cares about christmas anyway? Meanwhile, Sleep keep adding dates to a Summer 2016 Europe tour which now includes Roskilde, ATP Iceland and Les Eurockeennes Festival in Paris in July.

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Speaking of the European Summer (almost), the mind-boggling Roadburn line-up just got a little more insane with the announcement that Converge will perform their 2001 masterwork Jane Doe in full at the 2016 festival, “for the first and last time”, as well as a special collaborative set Blood Moon “focusing on the band’s slower, more ambitious work”. They join Neurosis, Paradise Lost, Cult of Luna, Black Mountain, G.I.S.M., Full of Hell and a ton more at the festival in April.

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It’s that time of year – the lists keep coming. Spoiler alert: Windhand taking top spot on Consequence of Sound’s Top 25 Metal Albums of 2015 list; LA’s Volahn getting top spot on LA Weekly’s Top Ten and you should probably just read The Quietus’ 100-strong best of 2015 list. We’ll be rolling out our own lists from Thursday.

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READ

Enduring Love: Why Swans Are More Vital Now Than Ever | The Guardian
“Speaking as a journalist, it is difficult to ignore the amazing stories that have built up round the band over the years. Once, for example, an unfortunate sound guy made the mistake of asking the singer what he wanted the band to sound like. He replied: “Like this” and punched the hapless engineer in the chest.”

Phil Anselmo And The Business Of Heavy Metal Horror | Forbes
“A revered figure in metal who continues to draw live audiences, Anselmo gladly leverages his own brand to promote his Housecore artists by having them open for headlining tours with his own bands like Down and The Illegals. Fully aware of the effect his name has on his business, he actively strategizes how to use it to serve the label’s agenda.”

A Crushing Embrace With The Earth: Ecological Sound In 2015 | The Quietus
Sound and music also have key roles to play in this process, through highlighting the complexity, intimacy and emotional texture of the relations between ourselves and the rest of nature. In her 2015 paper Geopolitics And The Anthropocene: Five Propositions For Sound, political geographer Anja Kanngieser argues that sound makes visceral, even comprehensible, aspects of the world that normally lie beyond our perception.

LISTEN

Sunn O))) – Kannon
It’s here. And it’s immense, as you’d expect.

Extreme Misanthropy Crew – Revelations One
Featuring members of Sydney’s Making and Tanned Christ – nasty, noisy improvised post-drone.

Florian Schneider – ‘Stop Plastic Pollution’
The Kraftwerk co-founder samples a dripping tap as part of his bit to stop the Great Pacific garbage patch as part of the Parley for the Oceans campaign.


WATCH

Dinosaur Jr. – ‘Forget the Swan’
As part of a seven-night stand at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their debut LP Dinosaur. Guests each night have included Kevin Shields, Jeff Tweedy, Mike Watt, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Kurt Vile among others. Can we have a Deep Wound reunion next please?

Oneohtrix Point Never – ‘Sticky Drama’
All the end-of-year lists can be overwhelming, then you catch something you somehow slept on. Daniel Lopatin’s ‘Come to Daddy’ comes with its own prologue video.

Prologue

Video

Noiseweek: EOY Lists, A Love Supreme, Arca, Fourteen Nights at Sea, Sunn O))) and more

Friday, November 27th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS


The inevitable torrent of end-of-year lists begins in earnest, with Rough Trade first out of the blocks with their 100 best LPs of 2015. Bjork’s epic Blood on the Tracks break-up album Vulnicura took out the top spot, with Australian acts Courtney Barnett and Royal Headache both in the top ten at #3 and #8 respectively. British/German composer Max Richter’s eight-hour-long classical lullaby suite SLEEP surprisingly taking out fifth place, alongside more predictable fare like Father John Misty’s I Love You, Honeybear, Kamasi Washington’s The Epic and Jamie xx’s solo debut In Colour all among the top ten. Keep a look out for LIFE IS NOISE’s end of year lists in the next few weeks.

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Good news for a number of Melbourne’s favourite venues this week with the state government giving out $250,000 in soundproofing grants, with Cherry, Ding Dong, 1000 Pound Bend, Revolver, Bakehouse Studios and the Bendigo Hotel all sharing the spoils for soundproofing works undertaken between 2010 and 2014, The Age reports. The grants are being welcomed as another step in protecting and nurturing the city’s vibrant live music scene after the enactment of last year’s ‘Agent of Change’ principle in planning regulations, which shifts the expense of soundproofing works on to new developments where a dispute arises, rather than existing venues. In other words: we were here first, you deal with it.

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Synth nerds frothing over the collection of vintage analogue gear amassed by the newly established Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio (M.E.S.S.) will soon get their chance to tinker with one of the largest and most comprehensive catalogues of modular synths, drum machines, samplers and other rare and obscure instruments, with M.E.S.S. opening to subscribers in early 2016. Established by local sound artists Robin Fox and Byron J Scullin, M.E.S.S. will offer 500 spots in its inaugural annual subscription program, with plans for training courses, workshops and live performances later in the year.

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Arca’s Warped Beauty | Pitchfork

“Even more than Xen, which Ghersi now calls a “fragile” album, Mutant is made up of great extremes—the crushing bass of “Mutant” versus the viscous bliss of “Vanity”, or the metal chug of “Anger” versus the neo-classical strings of “Extent”. And one of the things that is so exhilarating about the record is how it’s constantly negotiating between two opposing poles. Tension is the air that Mutant breathes, and that is because Ghersi himself thrives on what he calls “those in-between states where you can talk to people about things that maybe aren’t OK to talk about otherwise—things that are taboo or repressed within us, things that we would never admit to ourselves.””

Seeing Through “A Love Supreme” to Find John Coltrane | New Yorker

“In the studio, there’s an undertone of serenity and also of composition that emphasizes the movement’s themes, of compression that builds the climaxes of a solo into repeated motto-like phrases or quick outbursts that soon resolve into calmer and more songful perorations. By contrast, the 1965 concert performance from France is full-throated, uninhibited, frighteningly wild and frenzied. It leaves a listener thrilled, shaken, drained; it’s a holy terror and a holy wonder.”

A Rational Conversation: How Do You Convince Kids To Listen To Vinyl? | NPR: The Record

“Our commitment or continued long-term participation to putting out vinyl records is largely based on our own emotional connection. Many of us who have been here for a while came of age listening to records even before the resurgence of vinyl that has happened over the course of the past five or six years. I talk to a lot of people I work with about this, but vinyl is freighted with this memory of the way you would listen to music. It’s less about what people talk about with the warmth or audio qualities of vinyl. It’s just about attention. If you can only fit 22 minutes of music of a side of vinyl, you’re doing little else during that time, and that’s kind of nice. So it’s definitely an emotional connection.”

LISTEN

Fourteen Nights at Sea — Minor Light

Get acquainted with the Melbourne post-rock mainstays’ latest release ahead of their shows supporting MONO in Melbourne and Sydney next week.

Roundtable — Dread Marches Under Bloodied Regalia

Yet another solid release recorded and mixed by Jason Fuller at Melbourne’s Goatsound studios, the trio’s debut full-length mines doom, stoner and classic prog and offers a contemporary take on the lost art of the narrative concept album.


WATCH

Sunn O))) — Boiler Room

Club kids the world over are scratching their heads as to what the fuck just happened, with last week’s Berlin set from Sunn O))) featuring on the hugely popular Boiler Room channel. There’s form there – they’ve featured Earth and Boris previously, though for the most part it’s about pretty young things dancing behind (read: annoying the crap out of) superstar DJs.

David Bowie — Blackstar

For those who’ve been in a coma for the last week: The first single and title track from the ageing iconoclast’s forthcoming LP shows he’s still capable of the reinvention that’s defined his long and storied career. Apparently he’s been listening to lots of Kendrick Lamar and Death Grips, though long-time collaborator/producer Tony Visconti says it’s not going to be a hip hop record (in case you were worried).

Noiseweek: David Bowie, Failure, Drowning Hose, Iron Maiden, Tortoise & more

Sunday, October 11th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS

Thank you to everyone who has expressed their condolences and celebrated the life of Pete Dunstan, AKA The Black Captain. Pete’s funeral service will be held at Fremantle Cemetary on Tuesday, with more details available on the Facebook event page. Pete’s co-presenters on Behind the Mirror presented a tribute show on Wednesday night, and Dave Cutbush dedicated his Thursday Out to Lunch show to Pete’s memory. Tangled Thoughts of Leaving have named their forthcoming EP The Black Captain in Pete’s honour, and you can read our archive of Pete’s thoughtful criticism here. Vale The Black Captain.

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Gail Zappa, the widow of Frank Zappa and the executor of the Zappa Family Trust, passed away this week at the age of 70. Rolling Stone have penned a touching obituary on Zappa, including quotes from an interview they conducted with her earlier this year about an Alex Winter-directed documentary about her late husband’s life which is due for 2017.

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The Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame has unveiled its 2016 nominees. Among those included in the list are Cheap Trick, Deep Purple, The Spinners, N.W.A., Yes and The Smiths, as well as more recently-eligible nominees Nine Inch Nails. Artists become eligible for nomination 25 years after the release of their first record. We’re now reaching the point where the acts at the centre of peak grunge and alternative — Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Jane’s Addiction et al. — are eligible for nomination, though they missed out this year. Fan voting is open now at the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame website, with the inductees to be announced in December.

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Continuing on the award beat, the ARIA Award nominees were announced this past week, with usual suspects Courtney Barnett and Tame Impala earning a handful of nods. The Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Album category leaves a lot to be desired — would it hurt to acknowledge something a little more boundary-pushing than In Hearts Wake or Northlane, when we’ve seen new releases from Tangled Thoughts of Leaving, High Tension, Dumbsaint, We Lost the Sea, Hope Drone and a buttload more I’m forgetting? Fuck it, maybe we’ll start our own awards. See the full-list of nominees at the ARIA website.

READ

Death and the Iron Maiden | NPR

“Whereas their forebears in Black Sabbath engaged the subject of mortality with low and slow misanthropy, Iron Maiden tackled it on frenetically paced, epically rendered cautionary tales, heralded by Dickinson playing the part of a maniacal prophet. The result has been one of metal’s most celebrated legacies, exuding a notion of the very glory and immortality the band’s songs depicted. Yet recently, Maiden’s lyrical themes, and that of many of their influential peers, have manifested as an unavoidable reality. The authors of the mortality narratives that have been heavy metal’s stock in trade for nearly 50 years are confronting their own.”

Why Noise Bands Are Playing at the European Organization for Nuclear Research | Motherboard

“The best parts in [Deerhoof’s] live shows are the points at which they push beyond the melodic and beyond the understandable, into the unknown, into the musical nether regions. But they do it from a basis. That was sort of what I noticed at their show and noticed that I had subconsciously understood the whole time—that a band like Deerhoof, they are doing what they do because they can’t help themselves. They want to start from a basis of well-known musical ideas and then want to push beyond that because they’re curious and they’re just pushing forward.
Which is really what we do here at CERN. The research that we’re doing here at CERN, we’re not doing this for a profit, we’re not doing this to make money. We’re doing this because we really just want to know what happened like a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. We want to know that. And to do that, we have to build a bigger detector to push back farther in time and higher energy to understand this. And that’s really the only reason why we’re doing this, because we’re curious.”

LISTEN

Tortoise — Gesceap

This beautiful synthscape is one of the most vital pieces of music Tortoise have released in their two decade-plus career. “Gesceap” is the first single from The Catastrophist, the follow-up to 2009’s Beacons of Ancestorship, marking the longest time between Tortoise albums. “Gesceap” bears no hallmarks of the jaunty rhythms that marked the previous record’s 11 tracks. This is soothing and uplifting, backed by jazz-inflected drum fills and a rich textural tapestry. The Catastrophist is out on January 22 through Thrill Jockey.

Drowning Horse — Echoes

Nothing comes easy with Drowning Horse. “Echoes” spends half of its length on building up tension, promising a cathartic release from a tension and menace that borders on unbearable. That release does come eventually on “Echoes”, though not in the form of a crushing crescendo as one might expect, but an otherworldly slow bleed of anger, like a resting predator that’s roused from its slumber only to return after a warning growl. The track is taken from Sheltering Sky, out October 22 through FalseXIdol Records and Art As Catharsis.

WATCH

Failure — Counterfeit Sky

Not many bands get a second shot at success — critical, commercial, personal, or however you define it. Even fewer make use of it the way Failure have. “Counterfeit Sky” is the most impressive and ambitious visual effort of Failure’s career. Forgoing Failure’s tradition of borderline cheesy performance-based music videos — the Undone and Stuck on You clips haven’t exactly aged well — this video is (or at least looks) big budget, high concept and timely in its release, given the hype around The Martian and NASA’s Mars announcements. It’s ironic that only now, two decades after the space rock opera that was Fantastic Planet, are Failure capitalising on the imagery of alien worlds. “Counterfeit Sky” is an appropriate choice for a single too; with that earworm of a chorus riff and the shimmering guitars in the bridge, it could fit on Fantastic Planet just as easily as The Heart is a Monster. With Troy Van Leeuwen back in the touring band for the next little while, there is no ceiling for the new Failure.

Tangled Thoughts of Leaving — Reprieve

The chaps from Perth’s most bizarre foursome push vans, flog merch, bang heads and generally faff about in this video for “Reprieve”, a compilation of tour footage from their most European jaunt. The track is taken from the aforementioned EP, The Black Captain, in honour of the late great Pete Dunstan. At the risk of being overly sentimental, I bet Pete would’ve loved this track. It’s a slow-burner in contrast from the majority TTOL’s recent output, but it’s a perfect encapsulating of the band’s ever-shifting dynamics — from tempered build-ups and understated riffage to a rousing but subtle crescendo that burns fast before giving way to a sombre guitar outro. The Black Captain is available now to those who pre-ordered Yield to Despair. Details on a full release are coming soon.

David Bowie — Blackstar

A one minute excerpt of new David Bowie music is still enough to get excited about. “Blackstar” accompanies the opening credit sequence of The Last Panthers, an upcoming British crime drama starring Samantha Morton and John Hurt. The series comes from screenwriter by Jack Thorne, whose credits include Skins, Shameless and This is England ’86. Bowie’s voice is sullen and sultry, like something between the Low, Outside and Hours eras, with more than a hint of menace. The Last Panthers debuts in the UK on Sky Atlantic on November 12.

Noiseweek: Hardcore Architecture, Flying Lotus, Windhand & Fait

Friday, September 4th, 2015

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.

Noiseweek: Nardwuar, Blank Realm, Ought, Gold Class & Minor Victories

Friday, July 31st, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS

33 1/3 have announced the longlist of pitches from their latest callout. Bloomsbury received a whopping 605 submissions for its call for submission which closed earlier this week. Included in the list were 8 pitches for for Tori Amos’ Boys for Pele, 6 for Weezer’s Pinkerton and 4 for Guns ‘N’ Roses Appetite of Destruction. There’s a fine selection of gems and modern classic’s in the list — Coil’s Scatology and Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders), Failure’s Fantastic Planet, two submissions for Fugazi’s In on the Kill Taker, Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Lift Your Skinny Fists… and The Cure’s Disintegration amongst the highlights. You can check out the full list here. Series editor Ally-Jane Grossan says she plans to compile a shortlist of 100 titles within two months before making the final selection of titles by the end of November. Check out the full long list here.

READ

30 Years Of Eclectic, Eccentric Interviews: Nardwuar On Nirvana, Snoop Dogg, Blur And More | NME

“Time and time again people don’t take Nardwuar seriously — they either wish to end the interview or simply become dismissive or antagonistic. But gradually Nardwaur will charm them into submission. This approach has created some incredible interviews over the years: his research left Pharrell utterly speechless whilst it caused Slipknot to walk off mid-interview. He’s asked Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins about their penises and become a personal favourite interviewer of Snoop Dogg. Dave Rowntree of Blur, meanwhile, managed to put in one of the most horrifying on-camera interviews ever committed to tape with Nardwuar. Trying to sum him up in words is tough though: “I have a hard time explaining myself to myself, so I can’t imagine people trying to explain me to others,” as the man himself explains… ”

Turning Bridges into Music | The New Yorker

“As part of her research-and-development process, Di Mainstone has experimented with the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge in Omaha, Nebraska, which produced “a beautiful zapping noise,” she says, like “Star Wars” lasers. She has experimented with Tower Bridge, in London, which made “the sort of sound that would make your ears bleed, static and screechy.” She has experimented with the Brooklyn Bridge, in New York City, including a movement test using modified dog leads for strings. Currently, she is organizing a road trip across America—a “mobile laboratory,” during which she will test and refine the Human Harp prototype on bridges and other structures all the way to the West Coast. “Imagine a farmer playing a giant grain silo in Idaho,” Mainstone says. “Or a musical old lady playing a wind turbine in Colorado!” Her ultimate goal is to release the Human Harp as an open-source design, allowing others to build their own version of the instrument so they can play any resonant structure in the world, from a submarine to the Eiffel Tower.”

How to put on a mega-gig: the production manager’s story | The Guardian

“It used to be different. Up until 10 years ago, the record companies would give us money to fund tours. Now, touring is the main income, which is obviously good for my business. It’s almost snowballed, in that bands have needed to play bigger venues to generate more income. The productions have had to become bigger to catch up. This has driven an industry of companies who design massive productions and have created the means of taking them down and putting them back up again very quickly. If I can do two or three more shows a month than another tour, we’re going to be making lots of money, and by creating greater income, you can move things very quickly. We’ve got to be able to build a massive stadium show from grass pitch to doors opening within around 48 hours and we’ve got to be able to take it down within four hours, and clear the pitch for the next day. As a guitarist finishes with one guitar, someone will be packing it away. We turn smoke machines and whatever that aren’t going to be used any more off, and they’re in their cases before the show is over.”

LISTEN

Ought — Men For Miles

The second track from Sun Coming Down sees ought frenetic and scattered, but it’s that unpredictability that makes the Montréal outfit so compelling. Tim Darcy may never sing like a regular vocalist, but he boasts a remarkable range, at once fragile, confident, disaffected and threatening over Men For Miles’ six minutes. Sun Coming Down is out through Constellation on September 18.

Blank Realm — No Views

Ever-evolving Brisbane outfit Blank Realm are a restless psych-punk war machine on No Views, the raucous, harmonica-laden single from the forthcoming Illegals in Heaven. That record takes its name from the present refugee crisis in Australia and the batshit response from all parts of the political spectrum, as the band explain in an interview with Noisey. No Views feels like a head rush, an eruption of pure adrenaline speeding down the Autobahn where destinations don’t matter. Illegals in Heaven is out September 4 through Bedroom Suck Records.

WATCH

Minor Victories — Film One

Film One isn’t strictly a music video. Nor is it a short film, a teaser trailer or a preview, but all of these things at once. Minor Victories is the new collaboration from Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite, Editors’ Justin Lockey and a series of co-conspirators-to-be (including Mark Kozelek), and this intimate piece — half of which is virtually silent — does a great job of building intrigue in what’s sure to be an excellent collaboration, especially if the track that starts at 2:30 is anything to go by. Colour me very interested.

Gold Class — Life As A Gun

Adam Curley is disaffected as the Christ figure in this knife-play-heavy clip for Life As A Gun. It’s a trait reflected in his vocal delivery — distant, at times overwrought, somehow disconnected yet always compelling as he plumbs emotional depths over a barrage of jaunty rhythms and nervous guitars to create a post-punk noir tapestry. The single is taken from the group’s debut, It’s You, out September 4 through Spunk.