Archive for the ‘Steve Albini’ Category

Noiseweek: Neurosis, Baroness, Chelsea Wolfe, Primitive Calculators + More

Friday, December 18th, 2015

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

Neurosis have announced a return to Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio Studio to record their eleventh full length, and added more dates to their US and Europe tour schedule for 2016. Founding member Scott Kelly is also setting out on a string of solo dates with Colin H. van Eeckhout of Amenra in Europe in January.

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Speaking of Steve Albini – listen to the man himself in a wide-ranging conversation with Woody McDonald at Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre last week. Great stuff.

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File under: quirky xmas presents for the hirsute metalhead in your life (see also last week’s Weedian figurines) – Norway’s Borknagar have launched their own line of beard oil. Made up of “a blend of 100% natural and highest quality jojoba, sweet almond, hazelnut, castor and hemp seed oils” Borknagar’s beard oil will be no doubt be filling stockings all over old Norse territory.

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Sub Pop’s Best of 2015 lists are pretty hilarious too.

READ

Stage fright hasn’t sidelined singer Chelsea Wolfe | CNN
“Performing was something that I had to learn. I could barely handle being onstage for the first few years, and it’s the reason it took me so long to start my career as a musician,” she said. “I started writing songs when I was 9 years old but didn’t release an album or do a tour until I was 25.”

Streaming War Pigs: Apple, Tidal, Spotify, & The Year In Music Services | Stereogum
“And with that, you’ve got the story of streaming in 2015: artist as product or artist as propaganda. Like Zuckerman’s Famous Pig in Charlotte’s Web, musicians today are being fattened either for slaughter or for show, but make no mistake: The beneficiary of all this shiny pink flesh is Zuckerman.”

The Near-Death Of Raves: The Fate Of Independent Music Venues In 2015 | The Quietus
“The pressures on independent musical and cultural spaces are also symptomatic of more fundamental threats to under-represented and marginalised groups within society. There’s the soft bigotry of rhetoric around “British Values” and the like, implying that cultural worth is singularly-defined and divergence fundamentally suspect.”

LISTEN

Baroness – Purple
Out today, making a late entry on a bunch of end-of-year lists, and streaming in full for you here.

Primitive Calculators – ‘I’m Fucked’
More snarling synth-punk from one of the originators of the genre – their trademark misanthropy and willingness to tell it like it is on display once again.

Black Tusk – ‘God’s On Vacation’

The seasonally appropriate first taste of the Georgian trio’s final release recorded with founding bassist/vocalist Jonathan Athon, who died in a motorbike accident last year. Equal parts stoner sludge and hardcore crossover.

WATCH

Deaf Wish – Live on KEXP
Melbourne’s Deaf Wish making an unholy racket on the Seattle public radio station on their recent US tour.

Baroness – Making Purple

A 11-part making-of video series in case you want a bit more release-day hype.