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Noiseweek: Stars of the Lid, Battles, We Lost the Sea, Chelsea Wolfe, Lycia

Friday, July 24th, 2015

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

READ

How Stars of the Lid Made Two Ambient Masterworks | Rolling Stone

Sometime after the release of their sixth studio album, 2001’s The Tired Sounds of the Stars of the Lid, Austin-borne drone duo Stars of the Lid quietly, patiently moved from obscurity into semi-obscurity, renown as the most acclaimed ambient musicians since the heyday of Brian Eno. The three-LP opus featured more than two hours of melancholy, wistful orchestral drones that swelled and dissolved, a home-brewed sound with the ambitions of minimalist composition and the insularity of indie rock. It didn’t make too much of a ripple upon its release beyond raves from alt-leaning press, but it slowly spread. In the 14 years since, a generation of similarly evocative composers — Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Ólafur Arnalds — have risen to prominence in Stars of the Lid’s wake. Vinyl copies of follow-up, 2007’s Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline, have sold for more than $200.

My Internet Band Signed a Record Deal Without Ever Meeting IRL | The Daily Beast

“The fact that we’re even in a band is a little crazy. For one thing, I live in Colorado. Our singer lives in Brooklyn. Our bass player lives in New Jersey about two months per year and spends the other 10 months touring the world with his other (very successful) band, Revocation. Our drummer lives in Virginia and also tours internationally with his other (also very successful) band, Municipal Waste.
As if geography weren’t enough to overcome, consider this: I knew the singer and the bass player, but had never met the drummer. Our drummer knew the bass player but had never met me or the singer. Our bass player knew me and the drummer, but had never met the singer. The singer knew me, but had never met the bass player or the drummer.
Confused? Let me put it this way: there wasn’t a single person in the band who had met all three other members. By the time I met the drummer—making me the first member to have met all three of my bandmates—we already had the bulk of an album written and had a handful of demos recorded and released, and we were considering signing to one of two labels.”

Unpopular Opinion: Jack White is the Worst Thing that Ever Happened to Rock | LA Weekly

“It’s not just Jack White’s music that I hate. I hate everything about him. I hate him for making Eric Clapton look like Son House. I hate his stupid hats. I hate his “Look at me, I’m so obscurely retro!”–shaped guitars. I hate that his entire career is built on matching outfits and twee appropriations of what is actually good music. I hate him because Brochella is filled with guys in bucket hats and koi sleeves who know every White Stripes song but have never heard The Mooney Suzuki, The Oblivians, The Delta 72 or the approximately 50,000 other bands who did the same thing Jack White tries to do but way, way better.”

LISTEN

Lycia — The Fall Back

At a little over two and a half minutes, The Fall Back sounds like an interlude — but that doesn’t make it any less devastating. Lycia remain masters of soul-crushing soundscapes, and even with the odd major key melody, Mike VanPortfleet’s dispassionate delivery over makes for a truly depressing yet truly beautiful listening experience. The track is taken from the trio’s forthcoming album A Line That Connects, out August 21 through Handmade Birds.

We Lost the Sea — Departure Songs

Sydney outfit We Lost the Sea lean towards the blues on their first instrumental album. While lead single and opening track A Gallant Gentleman feels like a celebratory eulogy for the group’s late frontman Chris Torpy, the rest of the record takes on a distinctly more downbeat tone. Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise: the album’s copy describes the record as inspired by failed journeys, and the uncertain tone that permeates the record’s five songs seems like appropriate company for a road trip across uncharted territory. In any case, it’s a journey worth taking. Departure Songs is out now through Bird’s Robe and Art as Catharsis; see them on tour with Hope Drone this July and August.

WATCH

Battles: The Art of Repetition

Step backstage with Battles in this Ableton-sponsored as the trio work on their new record, La Di Da Di, out September 18 through Warp Records.

Chelsea Wolfe — Dragged Out (Live)

It’s remarkable that Chelsea Wolfe can capture the menace of their studio sound in a live setting. In this professionally shot footage of Dragged in Amsterdam from the forthcoming Abyss, Wolfe and her band plod through the song’s droning, sludgy verses while eerie samples — either sonically manipulated field recordings of wind, or a voice twisted and imbued with the creepiness of horror cinema — sound out beneath the deluge. Abyss is out August 7 through Sargent House.

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Noiseweek: The Decline of Western Civilization, Black Wing, Protomartyr, REW

Sunday, July 19th, 2015

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

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The Punk Director: Penelope Spheeris Revisits Her Decline of Western Civilization Trilogy | Pitchfork

“I like to think about society as being a flock of birds: There seems to be a common consciousness in different time periods, and the new common consciousness reacts to the old standards. Punk rock was tearing down traditional rock’n’roll and totally pissing on disco, then heavy metal came in and squashed the punk rock, and then grunge came in and squashed the heavy metal. It’s an organic way of making our musical society evolve.”

How Live Aid Ruined My Life, by John Doran | The Quietus

“The screen I’m watching is only four inches across and part of an upright turntable and cassette recorder hi-fi combo. The technology that is allowing today to occur is blowing my fucking mind. Stu’s Mum comes into his room carrying a tray of roast chicken legs. Adam Ant walks on stage. “Yes!” says Stu. “Yes!” I say. He isn’t dressed as a pirate or a highwayman wearing makeup but as some kind of rockabilly duffer but it doesn’t matter because nothing can ruin this moment of righteousness and vindication. What is he going to play? ‘Kings Of The Wild Frontier’? ‘Prince Charming’? ‘Mohok’? Two billion people are waiting. They play ‘Vive Le Rock’. “What?” I say but by the time he does a scissor kick I know the 80s and my childhood are over.”

LISTEN

Black Wing — If I Let Him In

Black Wing is a sonic typhoon, and on this preview from …Is Doomed, Dan Barrett is at once gentle, devastating and heart-breaking. Barrett is the man behind Connecticut post-punk outfit Have A Nice Life, as well as Giles Corey and a slew of other acts. Black Wing is his digital-only moniker

If I Let Him In is awash in a digital haze as a cacophony of metallic synths envelope Barrett’s disembodied intonations and a simplistic beat. This is one of the most moving pieces of music you’ll hear all year. …Is Doomed is out September 25 through The Flenser.

Protomartyr — Why Does It Shake?

Joe Casey oozes sarcasm in the newest slow-burner from Detroit’s Protomartyr taken from the quartet’s upcoming third album, The Agent Intellect. Why Does It Shake? is post-punk at its most essential: low-key and brimming with nuance, frustrated yet reserved, intellectual and visceral all at once. The Agent Intellect is out October 9 through Hardly Art.

WATCH

REW — Swan’s Melody

There’s nothing kinetic about the low-key piano refrain of Swan’s Melody, yet it’s a beautiful accompaniment for the mirrored footage of the New York Trapeze School, which sees its acrobats disembodied and reformed in a monochrome kaleidoscope. Swan’s Melody is taken from Olive Skinned, Silver Tongued Siren Sings Swan Songs, available now on Bandcamp.

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Noiseweek: Windhand, Scalphunter, Making, Ought

Friday, July 10th, 2015

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

NEWS

NME is set to become a free weekly magazine. In a blog post on Monday, editor Mike Williams outlined the magazine’s plans to rebrand, expanding its focus to cover cinema, politics and technology, and increasing its circulation to 300,000. The new edition launches September 18.

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The entire archive of pioneering punk zine Slash Magazine has been uploaded online at Circulation Zero. The LA-focused punk zine ran from 1977 to 1980 and birthed the punk label Slash, which put out records from Fear, L7 and X in its earlier years. We can thank Austin-based archivist Ryan Reynolds for the upload, who was also responsible for the digitisation of Star Magazine and a number of other prominent early fanzines.

READ

The Wall of Sound | Motherboard

“It was a signal moment in the history of sound that set in motion a years-long work in progress that would culminate in what’s arguably the largest and technologically innovative public address system ever built, and it started not with a bang, but with something of a casual, stoned proposition. This singular work of engineering would come to weigh over 70 tons, comprise dozens and then hundreds of amps, speakers, subwoofers, and tweeters, stand over three-stories tall and stretch nearly 100 feet wide. Its name could only be the Wall of Sound.”

The Anxious Ease of Apple Music | The New Yorker

““These services treat you like a criminal,” Steve Jobs said of streaming-music companies, in an Apple keynote address in 2003. “And they are subscription-based, and we think subscriptions are the wrong path. One of the reasons we think this is because people bought their music for as long as we can remember.… When you own your music, it never goes away.” Jobs was introducing the iTunes Store, which updated the old model of the recorded-music library. Purchasing a digital track or album, Jobs said, was now “the hottest way to acquire music.” For some years, it was. Then streaming services began to claim an ever greater share of the market, even as they struggled to turn a profit. Last week, surrendering to the apparently inevitable, Apple introduced Apple Music, its own subscription music bundle. For $9.99 a month, you win unlimited access to a library of more than thirty million tracks, from Michel van der Aa to ZZ Top.”

Why Films About Musicians Leave So Much Music Off Screen | NPR

“Music-focused cinema could provide something radical: a close view of the processes of composing and performing that reveals the work behind what seems, to listeners, like magic. Instead, like almost any other kind of cinema, it tends to focus on human relationships: on the interpersonal, not the inner personal. This understandable tendency has resulted in many great explorations of how musicians get along with each other, cope in the world, affect social change and build legacies. Yet it means that most music films (with a few exceptions) still sidestep what’s unique about music-making: the mix of obsessive practice and spontaneous experimentation; the balance between listening and self-expression; the sensual experience of living through the ears. Making music a character allows us as viewers to relate to these narratives, but it also simplifies something worth keeping complicated.”

LISTEN

Windhand — Two Urns

This week’s doom fix sees Richmond, Virginia outfit Windhand merge shoegaze and hypnotizing fuzz into a rich and dreamy sonic tapestry. “Two Urns” is the first cut from Grief’s Infernal Flower, the quintet’s third record, which is out through Relapse Records on September 18. This radio edit clocks in at a drivetime-unfriendly six minutes, but wouldn’t your daily commute be so much better when with tectonic riffs like these?

Ought — Beautiful Blue Sky

Ought are nervous and Wirey on this oddly catchy preview from the forthcoming Sun Coming Down. Tim Darcy repeats the meaningless platitude of small talk over feverish guitars before uttering the song’s central line: “I’m no longer afraid to die / because that is all that I have left,” before a prolonged wind-down. It’s relieving to know amongst all the post-punk revivalists who sought to dilute the genre with forced hooks and asinine lyrics about dancing to Joy Division, there are still bands like Iceage and Ought using that aesthetic to write off-kilter, moving and vital music. Sun Coming Down is out September 18 through Constellation Records.

WATCH

The View From Here: Scalphunter

Part nine in RTRFM’s 12-part video series moves out of the studio and into the courtyard of The Bird a raucous 15-minute set from Scalphunter.

Making — Come 2 Me

Maybe it’s just the cold front coming in but I got chills watching this kaleidoscopic visual headfuck. While everyone’s talking about the surrealism of Google’s Deep Dream, Making are constructing technopocalyptic visions that Google couldn’t even summon in its nightmares. It’s a long time coming for the Sydney noise rock outfit — on a Facebook status posted yesterday, the band detailed the label woes that delayed the release, the long and short of which is that the album was finished a year ago and pressed by October with a national tour lined up to support it, but radio silence from the label pushed the process back a year. Now, with the support of TRAIT Records, Making next record is going to print again.

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Posted in Amy Winehouse, Apple Music, Grateful Dead, Guitars, Making, Noiseweek, Ought, Scalphunter, Windhand | Comments Off on Noiseweek: Windhand, Scalphunter, Making, Ought

Noiseweek: Dumbsaint, Caspian, Hope Drone and Marky Ramone

Friday, July 3rd, 2015

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

NEWS

X-Press and The Music Perth have merged. The July 1 issue from this last Wednesday was the last print edition of The Music’s Perth arm, and will now be fully digital going forward while becoming X-Press’ print portal. X-Press will continue to be published fortnightly. The Music Perth’s editor Dan Cribb penned a farewell to the publication speaking with past editors and eulogizing its nine-year run which you can read here.

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Headline acts are getting old. Or at least so says the data assembled by The Economist amidst the deluge of Glastonbury talk over the last week. The average age of a festival headliner (using the age of the solo artist or the lead of a band) was just over 30 in 1996; now, it’s over 40. Glastonbury’s three headliners ran the spectrum of generations; Florence Welch is only 28, Kanye West is 38 and Roger Daltery of The Who is 71. It comes as no surprise seeing as fewer artists capture the zeitgeist in their salad days, and the demand for headliners to top the bills of the absurd number of festivals, combined with dwindling royalty figures and the lucrative allure of the touring market has brought about the reunion culture of legacy acts that dominates today.

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Speaking of reunion culture, English comedian / writer Stewart Lee has been announced to curate next year’s ATP 2.0 Festival in North Wales next April. The event will follow ATP Festival’s return to the UK — and the first under this nebulous 2.0 banner — Nightmare Before Christmas, which takes place at the end of November. Though given that line-up is largely free of the usual reunion types — Courtney Barnett, Built to Spill, The Album Leaf and Lightning Bolt are all towards the top — perhaps ATP’s all about the salad days.

READ

Where Have All the Music Message Boards Gone? | Noisey

“Mess+Noise, “A Local Music Magazine dedicated to showing Australian music in a different and evocative light,” hasn’t updated for a month, but its messageboard, nicknamed the Shame Cauldron for its boarders’ uncompromising attitudes, is still simmering. It’s the most visible example in Australia of the decline of music messageboards. Anybody could tell you why they’re dying — the people entering the music industry now came up on Tumblr and Twitter, reblogging and retweeting each other endlessly with additions to the discourse, or on Facebook with private groups sharing bangers and turning over festival lineups, or on subreddits like /r/music, listentothis, hiphopheads etc., upvoting quips about Kanye West – but why does it matter?”

I Went to Jame’s Murphy’s New Wine Bar and All I Got Was More Confused About the State of the Music Industry | Pitchfork

“Is it fair to poke fun at Murphy for cashing in on his cred? As an indie-label impresario, you never go Full Brand, right? Or do we just accept that this is the music industry and culture we live in now? “This is an industry that makes zero sense. It made zero sense ten years ago and somehow we’re [DFA Records] still chugging along, doing the weird thing that we do,” Murphy said in a 2013 interview with Billboard. “As long as we just hang out and don’t do terrible things that seem gross I’m happy.””

How Video Games Changed Popular Music | The New Yorker

“It’s hard to listen to some of these decades-old sounds and not feel a sense of giddy nostalgia. This fall, Data Discs will reissue the soundtrack for 1992’s beat-’em-up classic Streets of Rage 2 as a deluxe vinyl edition. It’s a spellbinding document of its time, full of the composer Yuzo Koshiro’s chirpy interpretations of the era’s bleeding-edge sounds: scaled-down club tracks, a nod to Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without a Pause,” an almost note-perfect interpolation of Inner City’s “Good Life.” It’s the sound of a familiar, age-old musical story: cherished genres translated into new idioms, young visionaries butting up against someone else’s constraints. It was the first time some heard techno, and it was the music they had been waiting for all along.”

The Last Ramone: Marky Carries the Punk Rock Banner | Observer

“All four original Ramones are dead. But the drummer for most of their records, Marky Ramone, who replaced Tommy from 1978–1983, was booted for alcohol abuse and band dysfunction for a few years and then rejoined in 1987 and remained until the end, including induction into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Marc Bell was also a founding member of Dust, played with Wayne County and was an original Voidoid while Richard Hell invented the punk rock look. Born in Brooklyn, lord of the East Village, King of New York. We ate at DBGB’s.”

LISTEN

Caspian — Sad Heart of Mine

Caspian have always played the kind of post-rock that requires patience. Yes, there are build-ups and crescendoes and tremolo picking and pretty pianos, but where your standard fare Mogwai emulator would throw those elements around willy nilly, Caspian experts at moderation. When those tools are wielded well as on Sad Heart of Mine, the result is an exalting moment of serenity. This is the way great music is supposed to feel.

Hope Drone — The Chords That Thrum Beneath The Earth

The latest cut from Cloak of Ash certainly doesn’t feel ten minutes long, which is a credit to the maturation of Hope Drone’s songwriting between their last record and their upcoming Relapse debut. The opening three minutes of brooding guitars make for some of the most ominous music released this year, and the explosion of blackened fury that follows is so compelling and nuanced it both embody and transcend that genre’s tropes. I’ve got a feeling Cloak of Ash is going to be one of the best albums of the year.

WATCH

Dumbsaint — Cold Call

DUMBSAINT — Cold Call — 2015 Short Film from Dumbsaint — Music & Film on Vimeo.

In a culture where effort is uncool, Dumbsaint’s ambition is admirable. Cold Call is the first track from from the Sydney outfit’s forthcoming long-player, Panorama, in ten pieces, and with the song’s debut comes an accompanying short film, a small portion of the 60 minute film that will accompany the full record. It’s beautifully shot, albeit a little student-feeling, and the song itself is a nervous and frenetic whirlwind of clashing guitars. Remarkably, the effort was self-funded; it’s reassuring to know that in a culture as small, insular and unprofitable as Australia, there are artists like Dumbsaint dreaming big ideas and following through. Panorama, in ten pieces. out August 7 and available for pre-order now through Bandcamp.

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Noiseweek: Chelsea Wolfe, Sannhet, Scott Kay and French Rockets

Sunday, June 28th, 2015

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

READ

The 40 best post-metal records ever made | FACT

“Around the time grime was evolving from garage – in the simplest terms – so too was post-metal emerging from noisecore. Noisecore was the culmination of the fast-and-complex style of thrash and metallic hardcore. Between 1997 and 2000, bands like Botch, Kiss It Goodbye, Dillinger Escape Plan and Coalesce were twisting hardcore and metal into increasingly technical shapes, blurring the brutality with jazz, pop and, well, Gregorian chants. Eventually, the time passed for noisecore, and those young intellectuals decided to slow it down, growing oddly tender at times.”

Insomnia, anxiety, break-ups… musicians on the dark side of touring | The Guardian

“For many, the contrast between the highs of a successful show and the anti-climactic low that often follows can be hard to adjust to, a phenomenon that has been termed “post-performance depression’, or PPD. Mental health professional John C Buckner writes: “When the body experiences major shifts in mood, it is flooded with several different neurotransmitters, resulting in a biochemical release that leads to a feeling of ecstasy. After these moments the nervous system needs time to recalibrate itself to prepare for another release. After an exciting performance the body starts to balance out the level of neurotransmitters, and therefore it is not releasing the same level that caused the exciting feelings, resulting in the lingering sadness. In normal day-to-day life, biochemicals are released and rest/recovery follow, causing the typical ups and downs of life. In the case of PPD, the process is more extreme with higher highs and lower lows.””

Does the Struggle of Making Art in America Make for Better Art? | Pitchfork

Only now as I’ve made my permanent home in the U.S. have I begun to understand what kind of determination and resources it takes to have a successful band, career, and meaningful artistic life. This land of opportunities with no public funding and a queue of talented young musicians lining up for the big time is very, very brutal, albeit exciting and nowhere near perfect. My first year in Los Angeles I damaged my thumb in a wood cutting machine. The medical bills totaled $6,000. The real dark side of being in America, the aloneness of it, how one error or unlucky turn could set you back was terrifying. I remember being in an apartment in West Hollywood lying in the dark in the middle of summer, forcing myself to try to sleep so I could avoid the fact that I had no prospects. Everyone networks very blatantly here. Handing out business cards, and striking up immediate friendships (very un-Danish). Everyone hustling, promising, hyperbolizing everything. My gut-terror and this bazaar-like atmosphere also gave me an energy. There is something about trying to fight through the masses of people and reach the sprawling musical tapestry, sometimes failing intensely and sometimes not.”

LISTEN

French Rockets — Pulling Metal

“What repeats makes me stronger.” Such has been the ethos of Perth synaesthetiacs French Rockets, and it continues to serve them well on “Pulling Metal”, the second single from new ablum Arc. Rather than build layer upon layer for the Great Wall of Sound that’s been the group’s calling card for the last several years, this song is about subtraction; the bass drops out to give way to wiry electronic philandering emerges, returning to fill the rhythm once the guitars drop out. And while repetition serves them well, French Rockets have perfected another part of their artillery here: how to write a catchy-as-fuck hook. Arc is out on June 29.

Scott Kay — Stargazer

Your weekend meditation comes courtesy of Scott Kay, better known as the guitarist of metal outfits Voyager and Statues. There are no axes here on Stargazer, though; just seven minutes of exultant celestial atmosphere built around a simple but striking piano motif. The track is available for $1 and all proceeds go towards Women’s Community Shelters which helps women in crisis find safe spaces, so if you enjoy it throw a buck towards a good cause.

WATCH

Sannhet — Atrium

The latest clip from Sannhet’s under-appreciated Revisionist makes for uncomfortable viewing but a welcome reminder to delve deeper into the Brooklyn trio’s brutal and beautiful sophomore record.

Chelsea Wolfe — Carrion Flowers

Keeping with the trend of disturbing black and white montages is the first video from Abyss, Chelsea Wolfe’s forthcoming new record. Shot on what looks to be several different cameras, the clip is an assemblage of growth and decay, industry and nature, punctuated by striking imagery — honestly, how amazing is this shot? Wolfe’s material has been getting darker with every record, and the drum-and-guitar combination on this track — which is emphasized here with some clever editing — is utterly haunting. If it’s any indication of how the rest of the album will sound, Abyss is shaping up to be one of the most bleak collections of music in a long time.

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Noiseweek: Black Sabbath, Mogwai, Lanark, Spirit Level

Sunday, June 21st, 2015

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

READ

At Breaking Point: Black Sabbath’s Sabotage Revisited | The Quietus

“It was also almost inevitable that at some point the band would reach a creative crossroads. Iommi wanted to keep experimenting in the studio and investigate new directions, while Ozzy hankered after the early years of knocking it out in a few days and then hitting the road. The spectre of the emerging American FM radio sound also looms over Sabotage as the band’s popularity in the US continued to mushroom (my favourite example of the apparent disconnect between Sabbath’s proto-doom metal and the stadium rock culture they were increasingly living inside is their performance at the California Jam show in 1974 – Ozzy implores the audience, “C’mon, let’s have a party!!” while Iommi stands in front of a giant rainbow grinding out the opening chords to ‘Children of the Grave’). All of which makes for an album that’s reaching out to more mainstream rock tastes (without fatally over-balancing yet) while also trying to pull new rabbits out of the hat – the fact that it’s as enjoyable, and at times genre-defining, as it is shows how imaginative and resilient Sabbath were even under considerable duress.”

Eric Avery Talks Selling Out | The Talkhouse

“In spite of being raised in a household financed by a struggling actor, I didn’t learn anything useful in my young life about the challenges of living on an artist’s unreliable income. In my adolescence, punk rock taught me that you never sell out. Ever. Of course, things like selling out were entirely theoretical at that point. No one was trying to pay me a salary to make music — I couldn’t even yet imagine it. Just a few years later, though, I was able to leave my last day job selling Dr. Martens boots at a small store called NaNa’s. The surprising popularity of my band, Jane’s Addiction, and the money we made in spite of the fuck-all attitude of our decision-making, enabled my youthful, uncompromising artistic worldview to extend far beyond my adolescence. I hadn’t yet found a replacement that incorporated both the creative life and its newly acquired dimension of regular employment. Artist, not yet artisan.”

Looking at 20 Years of Mogwai | Pitchfork

“We tend to believe that art is—or at least should be—an all-encompassing thing: If you’re doing it right, you aren’t doing anything else, and your identity can’t help but be consumed in the process. But Mogwai’s longevity suggests that good art isn’t synonymous with self-destruction or self-delusion; nor is it endangered by normalcy or decency—in fact, it can be built on those things.”

LISTEN

Spirit Level — Wanderer

There’s an intoxicating quality to Spirit Level’s simple repetition. The jangly acoustics almost recall the tinny treble of old video game soundtracks, and I can’t tell if the images of landscapes conjured on my head are of real meadows or waves of pixel green. In any case, this latest taste from Lyndon Blue and Rupert Thomas is perfect zone-out music for lazy Sunday afternoons.

Facemeat — Compliments To Your Band

Like some kind of Mr. Bungle-soundtracked Lynchian nightmare, the first track on Questions for Men induces furrowed brows, indigestion and inexplicable feelings of arousal. Facemeat are the antidote to easy listening. Questions for Men is out August 25 through Art as Catharsis.

WATCH

Lanark — Mojave (Live at Foxhole Studios)

Judging by their recent live shows, Lanark’s new material has taken a sinister shift, forgoing Damian Diggs’ celestial vocal melodies for an alternating synth/guitar assault that moves from comfortably sublime to nervous and unsettling several times a song. Last month, the quintet debuted another new cut at the recently-opened Foxhole Studios, forwhich the pro-shot video has just emerged. There’s a welcome heaviness to the track, and though it’s likely a good half-year before anything’s put to wax, exciting things are ahead for one of Perth’s best-kept secrets.

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Noiseweek: Black Sabbath, Mogwai, Lanark, Spirit Level

Sunday, June 21st, 2015

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

READ

At Breaking Point: Black Sabbath’s Sabotage Revisited | The Quietus

“It was also almost inevitable that at some point the band would reach a creative crossroads. Iommi wanted to keep experimenting in the studio and investigate new directions, while Ozzy hankered after the early years of knocking it out in a few days and then hitting the road. The spectre of the emerging American FM radio sound also looms over Sabotage as the band’s popularity in the US continued to mushroom (my favourite example of the apparent disconnect between Sabbath’s proto-doom metal and the stadium rock culture they were increasingly living inside is their performance at the California Jam show in 1974 – Ozzy implores the audience, “C’mon, let’s have a party!!” while Iommi stands in front of a giant rainbow grinding out the opening chords to ‘Children of the Grave’). All of which makes for an album that’s reaching out to more mainstream rock tastes (without fatally over-balancing yet) while also trying to pull new rabbits out of the hat – the fact that it’s as enjoyable, and at times genre-defining, as it is shows how imaginative and resilient Sabbath were even under considerable duress.”

Eric Avery Talks Selling Out | The Talkhouse

“In spite of being raised in a household financed by a struggling actor, I didn’t learn anything useful in my young life about the challenges of living on an artist’s unreliable income. In my adolescence, punk rock taught me that you never sell out. Ever. Of course, things like selling out were entirely theoretical at that point. No one was trying to pay me a salary to make music — I couldn’t even yet imagine it. Just a few years later, though, I was able to leave my last day job selling Dr. Martens boots at a small store called NaNa’s. The surprising popularity of my band, Jane’s Addiction, and the money we made in spite of the fuck-all attitude of our decision-making, enabled my youthful, uncompromising artistic worldview to extend far beyond my adolescence. I hadn’t yet found a replacement that incorporated both the creative life and its newly acquired dimension of regular employment. Artist, not yet artisan.”

Looking at 20 Years of Mogwai | Pitchfork

“We tend to believe that art is—or at least should be—an all-encompassing thing: If you’re doing it right, you aren’t doing anything else, and your identity can’t help but be consumed in the process. But Mogwai’s longevity suggests that good art isn’t synonymous with self-destruction or self-delusion; nor is it endangered by normalcy or decency—in fact, it can be built on those things.”

LISTEN

Spirit Level — Wanderer

There’s an intoxicating quality to Spirit Level’s simple repetition. The jangly acoustics almost recall the tinny treble of old video game soundtracks, and I can’t tell if the images of landscapes conjured on my head are of real meadows or waves of pixel green. In any case, this latest taste from Lyndon Blue and Rupert Thomas is perfect zone-out music for lazy Sunday afternoons.

Facemeat — Compliments To Your Band

Like some kind of Mr. Bungle-soundtracked Lynchian nightmare, the first track on Questions for Men induces furrowed brows, indigestion and inexplicable feelings of arousal. Facemeat are the antidote to easy listening. Questions for Men is out August 25 through Art as Catharsis.

WATCH

Lanark — Mojave (Live at Foxhole Studios)

Judging by their recent live shows, Lanark’s new material has taken a sinister shift, forgoing Damian Diggs’ celestial vocal melodies for an alternating synth/guitar assault that moves from comfortably sublime to nervous and unsettling several times a song. Last month, the quintet debuted another new cut at the recently-opened Foxhole Studios, forwhich the pro-shot video has just emerged. There’s a welcome heaviness to the track, and though it’s likely a good half-year before anything’s put to wax, exciting things are ahead for one of Perth’s best-kept secrets.

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Posted in Black Sabbath, Eric Avery, Experimental, Face Meat, Guitars, Jane's Addiction, Lanark, Mogwai, Noiseweek, Spirit Level | Comments Off on Noiseweek: Black Sabbath, Mogwai, Lanark, Spirit Level

Noiseweek: We Lost the Sea, Sunn O)), High on Fire and more

Friday, June 12th, 2015

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

NEWS

Sunn O)) have launched a new Bandcamp page to document their live recordings. The collection spans from 2002 up to their most recent UK run last month, with each show going for $5 a pop.

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Buzz Osborne tore into the latest contribution to the Kurt Cobain mythos at The Talkhouse last week, calling Montage of Heck “90%” bullshit. Now Osborne has elaborated on his critique in an interview with Riff You, questioning why people would ever believe Courtney Love and claiming people’s incredulity towards his position stems from his lack of wealth: “One of the biggest problems I’ve had with this scenario is that I am not really rich. If I was really rich, the respect with that would come…people would believe me more. Because I’m not, they don’t believe me. So be it. That’s 100% the truth. If people think I am gaining something from this, they’re out of their minds.”

READ

High on Fire Talk Aliens, Acid and Why New Album ‘Doesn’t Suck’ | Rolling Stone

“I read a David Icke book, and it kind of woke me up a little bit. It doesn’t mean that I believe everything David Icke has to say, but I definitely don’t disagree with the guy when it comes to certain esoteric aspects of how I perceive the world. There’s too many credible people who have been abducted by aliens. There’s too many things that have been written in ancient scrolls and ancient tablets, things that Zecharia Sitchin brought to light. I’ve been to Peru, I’ve been to Egypt… a civilization builds ziggurats and pyramids that we couldn’t build today, and you’re going to tell me that they used stone-age building materials? It doesn’t make any sense. There’s a lost history of mankind; I find it fascinating, and I tend to sing about it.”

Mark Kozelek and Feminist Guilt: Why I Won’t Boycott Sun Kil Moon | SPIN

“So, what do I do now that Kozelek has directed his infamous ire at a peer? Am I supposed to be surprised? I’m not. I didn’t need a chauvinistic email to reveal it. But are the events of the last week — year, even — supposed to make me cut ties with Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon indefinitely? Is it my duty to embargo his music as a woman?”

Music Festivals in Your Thirties | The New Yorker

“St. Vincent opens her show with an announcement read by a Siri-like computer voice stating, “Please refrain from capturing your digital experience.”
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “Boo! How am I supposed to enjoy this show if I can’t hold up my phone to record it, thereby blocking everyone’s view, and then never watch it again?!”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “Sensible and pragmatic. I approve.””

LISTEN

We Lost the Sea — A Gallant Gentleman

The first track from We Lost the Sea’s third album opens like the beginning of a eulogy — somber, reflective and reverent, with gentle guitars that ripple like breaks in still water. But what emerges as the track unfurls is triumphant, as choral harmonies breathe vitality into the song’s earnest tones, and before long this is not a eulogy but a celebration of life and triumph and, quite simply, one of the most moving pieces of post-rock I’ve ever heard. A naive reading would suggest this is a tribute to the band’s late frontman, Chris Torpy — in any case, it’s a remarkable deployment of post-rock’s sensibilities and an exciting preview of what’s to come. Departure Songs is out July 23 through Art as Catharsis.

Goatsound Studios cover Black Flag’s Damaged

Last month, Jason PC Fuller of Melbourne’s Goatsound Studios / The Ruiner gathered together 15 artists to reinterpret Black Flag’s Damaged to benefit Sea Shepherd. That collection is now available on Bandcamp under pay-what-you-want pricing, though aficionados are encouraged to donate as all proceeds go to Sea Shepherd. The collection includes a rare vocal performance from Hotel Wrecking City Traders on “Thirsty and Miserable,” a plodding sludge cover of “Police Story” from The Ruiner, a ball-busting rendition of “Gimmie Gimme Gimmie” thanks to Acid Vain and contributions from The Kill, The Sure Fire Midnights, Watchtower and more.

WATCH

Jerusalem In My Heart — If He Dies, If If If If If If

The next release from Constellation Records is the second record from Jerusalem In My Heart, a transcontinental, multi-lingual collaboration between Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and Charles-André Coderre. Much of the Constellation Records catalogue remains mysterious to me, owing to the diversity and multi-disciplinarian tendencies of its various artists, but there’s a beauty in that mystery in this age of knowledge. The above teaser is unsettling but fascinating and ties into Coddere’s visual art practise, which involves re-photographing images and chemically treating them. If He Dies… is out through Constellation on September 4.

FÓRN — Suffering in the Eternal Void

In an act of ultimate doom, funeral sludge outfit FÓRN played a show in a cave, and yesterday, they released their entombed performance as the official video for Suffering in the Eternal Void. Unsurprisingly, the acoustics in a cave are awful, but the visual document is compelling — how many people can say they’ve played in a fucking cave?

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Noiseweek: New Order, Kathleen Hanna, Chelsea Wolfe, KEN mode and more

Sunday, June 7th, 2015

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

READ

Believe In A Land Of Love: New Order’s Low-Life 30 Years On | The Quietus

“Even as New Order were gearing up for a new phase in their career, the shadow cast by Joy Division still loomed large on the cultural landscape. Indeed, the bleakness of post-industrial Manchester that informed Joy Division’s music soon spread across the UK like a black, ominous cloud thanks to Margaret Thatcher’s administration. 1985 proved to be a watershed year. March 3rd saw the end of the year-long miners’ strike. The bitterest of British industrial disputes, the strike had seen communities torn apart and the increased levels of violence accompanying the dispute were broadcast with a sickening level of regularity on the TV news. Later in the year, both the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham and Toxteth in Liverpool were engulfed in terrifying riots. Sandwiched in between on May 29 was the Heysel Stadium disaster that saw 39 people crushed to death following crowd violence – an event that was broadcast live on national television and beamed into homes across the world. More than any other year, 1985 can be seen as the year that the lid was finally closed on the coffin of the optimism and liberalism that had been born in the 1960s. But not only that, the Conservative party jettisoned the idea of one-nation conservatism in favour of competition that led Thatcher to eventually declare that “…there is no such thing as society.””

I interviewed Mark Kozelek. He called me a ‘bitch’ on stage | The Guardian

“But in this life, Kozelek trades in sucker-punches. He impugns online “bitching and whining”, but hides behind one-way email exchanges, balks at the idea of his peers speaking about him and issues tirades (and sometimes, sexual advances) from the cowardly remove of the stage, with the get-out clause that it’s a performance. He can use sexually violent language to reduce female critics to the status of groupies, knowing that while male musicians’ misogynist acts are examined for nuance and defended as traits of “difficult” artists, women and those who call them out are treated as hysterics who don’t understand art. “The world don’t owe us shit, I learned that real fuckin’ young,” he sings on Universal Themes’ Little Rascals. If anything remains to separate Kozelek from his work, it’s that his music preaches that the least we owe one another is decency.”

Feeling Myself: Kathleen Hanna Get Back to Work | Pitchfork

“At the end of the Julie Ruin’s recent set at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound, frontwoman Kathleen Hanna makes for the wings, as if she’s about to let the rest of the band play out the final minutes. It seems like a strange end to her first performance on the continent in a decade, but it’s a feint: She suddenly turns, cartwheels back into the center of the stage, and lands in a perfect split. Within a few hours, a GIF of the moment is circulating online.
Not only is Hanna 46 years old (who among us can truly say they’ve ever been able to do that?), but this time last year, she was in bed, struck down again by a side-effect of Lyme disease. She’s been battling the chronic illness for years—her struggle can be seen up-close in the candid 2013 documentary The Punk Singer—and that latest relapse forced her to cancel what would have been the Julie Ruin’s debut European dates. “There was a period where I could barely do anything except paint watercolors in my journal,” she told me over the phone two weeks before the festival.”

LISTEN

Chelsea Wolfe — Carrion Flowers

Our second taste of Chelsea Wolfe’s forthcoming record is perhaps her most ominous effort to date, replete with a menacing, digitized beat like something out of a disaster film’s trailer. Carrion Flowers is one of several tracks to feature Russian Circles’ Mike Sullivan on guitars, returning the favour from Wolfe’s guest vocal appearance on the closing track of Russian Circles’ Memorial. But here, Sullivan’s trademarks are all dialled back — instead, his guitar is barely distinguishable, woven seamlessly into the simple bit foreboding rhythms that dominate the track. Expect this to be a top contender for album of the year.

KEN mode — I Just Liked Fire

The final preview from Success is KEN mode’s most tributary. Between the rapid-fire industrial guitars, Jesse Matthewson’s rabid bile-spitting and the song’s relentless speed, the Canadian trio are more than comfortable exposing their Jesus Lizard influence, but they do it almost better than anyone else (because, let’s face it, about 90% of noise rock bands are trying to write Shot).

Failure — Mulholland Drive

Failure have a tremendous task ahead of them with The Heart is a Monster, their first album in almost two decades. 1996’s Fantastic Planet was almost perfect, and I’d argue that its final five tracks make up possibly the best 25 minutes of music released in the 1990s. Tracks like Mullholland Drive and the previously released Hot Traveler are interesting, but leave me unconvinced — is it worth diluting a tremendous albeit obscure legacy with a comeback record that’s just OK? Then again, Failure have always been an album band, best enjoyed in large doses; Frogs and Macaque and Blank work so much better when placed in the ebb and flow of a 40-minute collection. Mulholland Drive retreads that familiar Failure territory of low-key balladry that’s steadily transforms with powerful guitars, staccato piano chords, unexpected melodic turns and distant atmospheres. And it’s good, but is it good enough?

WATCH

Chill out with a 20-minute studio set from dream-pop trio Dianas on the latest installment of RTRFM’s The View From Here.

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Noiseweek: Hope Drone, Neurosis, Swans and KU?KA

Saturday, May 30th, 2015

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

NEWS

Every Tuesday is now Record Store Day, sort of, thanks to the American Association of Independent Music. Participating retailers will now devote the second day of the working week to specialty vinyl releases, new vinyl pre-releases ahead of other formats, reissues and special pressings.

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Alex Griffin — who you might know as a life is noise contributor, Tiny Mix Tapes writer, Ermine Coat player or just a general top bloke — has launched his own zine talking about all things musical over at Bonzerzine. He’s kicked it off with a review of Perth outfit Verge Collection and an interview with the fine folk of Shit Narnia. Dig it.

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In jealousy-inducing festival news, Riot Fest has revealed the bulk of the line-up for the 2015 iteration which takes place in Chicago, Denver and Toronto over three weekends in August and September. Iggy Pop and Motorhead get top billing at multiple stops, while the festival’s biggest leg in Chicago appearances from Faith No More, Drive Like Jehu, L7, Echo & The Bunnymen, Death, Indian Handcrafts and a slew of yet-to-be-announced acts. You can check the full line-up at riotfest.org.

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Seoul is now host to a tremendous public vinyl library with over 10,000 records. The venture is the latest in a series of library projects by credit company HyundaiCard and follows on from their Design and Travel Libraries. The Music Library also carries over 3,000 books and every issue of Rolling Stone from the last half-century. You can check out the website here. [via FACT]

READ

Why Swans Whipped Sheet Metal and Licked CBGB’s Floor to Make ‘Filth’ | Rolling Stone

“Although the band’s initial release, 1982’s Swans EP, built off of the city’s dying no-wave scene, the ensemble came into its own with its debut full-length, Filth, the following year. Full of lumbering rhythms created by two bassists, two drummers, one guitar, a whipped metal table and some suffocating tape loops, the record is primal art rock at its most vitriolic, anticipating industrial, sludge and noise-rock in one fell thump. More threatening, Gira intermittently snarls imperatives about power – “Flex your muscles!” “Take control and keep it!” “Don’t talk until you’re spoken to!” – in a way that made Henry Rollins sound like Olivia Newton-John at the time, as the band dismantled rock to its most threadbare essentials.”

Feurio!!!! The Strange World Of Einstürzende Neubauten | The Quietus

“There are many legendary bands who name is a shibboleth for a certain kind of taste or knowing insiderism, but whose recorded output is less adequately attended to than it deserves to be. High on that list of bands are avant-noise German collective Einstürzende Neubauten, a band from West Berlin born from the apocalyptic Cold War paranoia that gripped that city for decades, whose music is famous for the explosive din produced its unusual and repurposed instrumentation. Over their three and a half decades of operation this has included jackhammers, sheet metal and fire, an instrumentation perfectly suited to the broken terrain of a city smashed into submission and never properly rebuilt.”

LISTEN

KU?KA — Flux 98

Is Laura Jane Lowther synesthetic? The intensely lush textures that fill every space of Lowther and company’s songs are so rich in sensory detail that it feels like she’s almost translating the taste of colour into soundwaves. Flux 98 is the third single from her forthcoming EP, Unconditional, and channels sounds from above the clouds and below the ocean’s surface, awash in high-end synths and Lowther’s distinctive heightened falsetto. Unconditional is out August 14 through Midnight Feature.

Hope Drone — Every End Is Fated In Its Beginning

Australia’s Hope Drone — who you may have heard are now signed to Relapse fucking Records — have released the first taste of their forthcoming long-player, Cloak of Ash, which is due out July 14. The 9-and-a-half minute track is brimming with the ecstatic dread, marrying ferocious black metal intensity with hazy ambience over a daunting two-chord refrain. Expect big things.

WATCH

Neurosis — Times of Grace at Maryland Death Fest

MDF is consistently one of the strongest heavy festivals of the year. If you’ve been following the LIN Facebook, you probably saw our commander-in-chief’s live updates from the front lines with YOB, Conan, Ufomammut, Melt Banana, Full of Hell, Inter Arma and a metric fuckton of metal’s finest. Professional live footage has been hard to come by, but this crowd clip from Neurosis’ set is nothing to sneeze at. Even from 100 feet back on video, Neurosis is a stunning and exhausting behemoth of a band.

Sam Prekop — A Geometric

Like a degraded VHS tape playing old Windows Media Player visualisations, the video from Sam Prekop’s A Geometric is an analog-to-digital mindfuck of colours and shapes. There’s something vital lost in our HD aesthetic, and the lo-fi strobing geometry from video artist Nick Ciontea is a perfect match for Prekop’s pulsating and oscillating synths. A Geometric is taken from The Republic which is out now on Thrill Jockey.

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Posted in Alex Griffin, Beats & Pieces, Einsturzende Neubauten, Experimental, Guitars, Hope Drone, Kucka, Neurosis, Noiseweek, Sam Prekop, Swans | Comments Off on Noiseweek: Hope Drone, Neurosis, Swans and KU?KA

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