Gus Reviews

ʄ≜uxmuℭica - HiFi ♮ SciFi ♮

2011-04-12T03:41:00.000-07:00

ʄ≜uxmuℭica - or the more pronounceable "fauxmusica" - goes by a veritable slue of pseudonyms that only enhance the inaccessibility of his persona, and by extension, his music. You may find him under the name Yorba Zergot, Bobby Briggs, glamour4love, and about a dozen other aliases that serve to distance his net-projection from "real life".

Yet the reality of 27-year-old Zane Michael O'Brien's existence and music is a truly bizarre combination of rustic, basic, level-headed and completely normal upbringing meets pseudo-spiritual-enlightenment via. intravenous force-feeding of the Occult and Magickal realm into his brain. Exposure to the modern Fucked Up World, partly through travel, but largely through the internet with its plethora of conspiracy theories and otherworldly ideas, have formed a very confused and complicated ego that churns out some of the strangest music you will ever hear.

I have a brief yet intense history with the man behind one of the 21st Century's most perplexing solo projects. It's hard to describe the music without also describing this person. I have spoken to him through Skype once, and a million times through little interactions on Facebook. When confronted with a video image of an unshaven man, about my age, scraping hash resin from a bowl in the dark basement of his father's house in Wisconsin whilst we talked about deep and fascinating subject matter, I could easily see both where he finds the time to be online almost 24/7, and why his music is so completely Caved In. There are no two better words to describe ʄ≜uxmuℭica. The music closes in on you from all sides and from the first note makes you want to just immediately hit stop and put the whole thing in the trash.

But there are two qualities I possess that have led me to a higher appreciation of many things that others would never listen to again: I like to be challenged musically, and I often find that what I have a knee-jerk reaction to hate, I grow to love.

In this way I would say, for me, the most comparable sound to ʄ≜uxmuℭica is Cradle of Filth's early material. Like the promising symphonic black metal albums of "Cruelty and the Beast" ilk, "HiFi ♮ SciFi ♮" feels like the beginning of something, something extraordinary.

At least, not-ordinary.

Despite his music clearly defying pigeonholing, Zane is a lover of tags; he labels his own music as "crunkgaze", "ghost-step", "post-whatever", "triangle-core" and many other delightfully unique yet utterly weightless terms. However, there is one tag that demands immediate attention in relation to ʄ≜uxmuℭica, and that is "witch-house".

Witch-house is a phenomenon that has grown from humble and genuine beginnings - of including Qabbalistic Symbology, Occult references, and Magick in musical creations - but that has now exploded into a disgusting "scene", whereby the coolness of your music is determined by how many uni-code symbols you can squeeze into a title.

Zane is as sick of this scene as I am, and I notice he no longer tags his own stuff as "witch-house". He has alienated himself from the scene, and looks down on the posers who have hopped on the bandwagon hoping to find success and glory. Yet he still uses symbols instead of letters wherever he can. Why?

Now we get to the nitty gritty, the true essence of what "fauxmusica" means. It's fake music. Everything from the timbre of the synth sounds he uses, the structure and melody of the songs, and ultimately the project's position in the "witch-house scene" - is fake. In that Skype conversation he was talking about how he felt like a "Spiritual Airport", not possessing any personality or ideas of his own, but merely acting as an air-traffic-controller for the terabytes of data that float in and out of our brains every day.

In this way, Zane holds a DarkMirror up to the world. What you hear when you listen to ʄ≜uxmuℭica is a reflection of modern media. It's as simple as that. In a stroke of genius he picked up the dead carcass of the witch-house scene and threw it back in the faces of those that created this sub-pop-culture bullshit, and we lapped it up.

I have listened to HiFi ♮ SciFi ♮ maybe 4 times now and only about half an hour ago did I manage to make it to the end. It's truly terrifying and horrible to listen to, but as a landmark in recent history it stands tall and proud as A Work of Something. It's not outrageous enough to be Art, not experimental enough to be avant-garde, and not musical enough to be, well, music. Tag it with weightless words and spam it on Facebook. Whatever the fuck it is, it Works.

Works, a term often used to describe a Magickal Happening... Magick is one of the greatest revelations a human can come across. It is not for everyone, a surety that can be illustrated by this very paragraph: some of you will simply stop reading once I start talking about Magick, others will "get it", and most inspiringly, others will be confused yet plough on in the hopes of learning something.

Magick is not for everyone and this album is not for everyone, yet in its Qabbalistic, spiritual alignment it stirs something within the air your speakers vibrate when you play this stuff, and performs Works. It doesn't need describing to the initiated, and it doesn't bother pandering to the disbeliever. It is also probably too inaccessible for the merely curious, save the bravest of them.

Above all, the highest of compliments I can attach to this album is to reiterate its absolute weightlessness, both in the treble-heavy, vacant synth lines' tone, and in its complete lack of emotion.

It is therefore a Work that truly reflects. It reflects how you feel at the moment. It reflects your agitation. It reflects your disdain for pain and anxiety and synths that sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.

It reflects your soul, for it is a DarkMirror.

Out now for FREE... I don't recommend this album, but you're going to listen to it to see why.

See what he did there?

HiFi ♮ SciFi ♮ <------ Direct Link to instant, free Mediafire download.

ʄ≜uxmuℭica Is part of the escc9 net-label, a Yorba Zergot initiative.

Terry Springford - Pretty Girls

2010-10-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

Listening to "The Damage Done" you could swear it's a cover of "The Sandringham Line" by The Lucksmiths, but you would never hear the famous Melbourne band's frontman Tali White singing "Fuck a stranger at the monster's ball" with such quiet intensity as Terry does. Drawing influences from such fellow Melbourne acts as The Lucksmiths, and by extrapolation, The Smiths, as well as the general oeuvre of bands that have "that sound" like Suede and Pulp, this gentle album at first sounds like a lovely Sunny Sunday Afternoon Pub Album, yet delving into the lyrics one finds there is a sinister edge to the upbeat melodies. For example the lyric "Pretty girls are ugly inside" can be easily missed if you are merely paying attention to the lilting, carefree tone of Springford's voice and the soft, warm acoustic guitar.

The drumming on this album is exemplary and is part of what gives the entire timbre of the songs that "pop-y", upbeat sound, that is so delightfully deconstructed by the dark lyrical moments. To compliment this, the truly uplifting sentiments such as the track "With Love" shine like a lighthouse in their sporadic unexpectedness. Terry says he spent "Nearly 6 months recording and mixing in my mountain forest home studio", and it certainly shows in the gorgeous production that includes piano, organs and string sections. Yet it his wistful voice that encapsulates you, and makes his message, should you choose to listen, a powerful one that is truthful to the bone. "How can I make change? With poison in my blood. Waiting for change. It will free me. Waiting for change. It will come".

This delicate collection of deeply poetic and moving pieces is available for only 10 dollars at http://terryspringford.bandcamp.com/album/pretty-girls and I highly recommend it for anyone with a soul.

Pendulum - Immersion

2010-09-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

It's extremely hard to listen to Immersion and not compare it to Pendulum's epic Hold Your Colour, the world's best selling Drum n Bass album of all time. Not because long-time fans and newcomers alike were dying to hear how Pendulum have developed their sound in 2010, but because the similarities between the two are manifold.

I had to listen to this album about 5 times before I really got into it, and after that I couldn't stop listening to it. The similarities abound, from an intro that has almost the exact same feel to their debut's, to an opening track that could very well be a remix / combination of Slam and Fasten Your Seatbelt, easily the two best tracks on Pendulum's 2005 album – everything from the tone of the lead synth to the key structure and breakdown immediately scream these two tracks at you. But as you progress further into the album it is exactly this aspect of the music – basically lifting things from Colour and updating them - that makes this release so tantalisingly good.

5 years have passed between the two albums, and what that has done is basically turn Immersion into a re-imagining of Hold Your Colour, as if the boys from Perth simply pushed their first album out of their minds completely and, in laying down some new tracks completely ignored any notion that they may be re-hashing old material. The album stands tall and proud as a poetic statement as if it were Pendulum's first unveiling upon the world. This gives it a very fresh, exciting and “shiny new” feel. This time 'round, armed with a noticeably more powerful arsenal of breaks and grooves, the re-imagining ends up being rock solid by simply taking what has been done before and improving on it.

This is what a large part of music is all about. Without Howlin' Wolf there would be no Rolling Stones, and without With The Beatles there would be no Abbey Road. Emulation and building on solid foundations are what make great albums great, and this album is great. Cliched loops, overuse of the amen break and floating vocals were all there on Pendulum's first album; Immersion merely extrapolates these, adding a few flairs like Dubstep and Tech-House ramblings to the familiar bass-lines, synth melodies and drums that are unmistakably “The Sound Of Pendulum”, whilst constantly keeping you intensely engaged with intriguing side-steps, breakdowns and sharp corners.

Simply put, Hold Your Colour is a 5 star, outstanding album, but if I were on a desert island and had to choose between it and Immersion, it would be the latter without question.

Available from CD stores, iTunes, etc. through Warner.

emorej - General Electronica

2010-08-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

This album is kindly available from the illustrious emorej as, to quote directly from Bandcamp, a "Pay what you want or download for FREE. your choice" download.

I decided this album was worth exactly 7 dollars and 77 cents. It's not just because it's great music that I decided to pay a higher price than what I normally would for pay-as-you-wish downloads (in fact most of the time I accept the "free" option), but also that the mystical, often haunting sounds I heard whilst listening on the player aligned my aural mechanics with the movements of the planets, or something, and made me decide that three lucky 7's were the go.

It's kind of hard to put into words, but before you listen to emorej's stuff, and afterwards, you are a different person. I am currently the sort of person that imagines giving him $7.77 for the privilege of owning his album will have some profound and positive karmic resonances with the man behind the music and, like a butterfly flapping its wings in The Amazon, will ripple its way through the cosmos to create peace and harmony on Romulus. Or something.

Like I say, it's hard to put into words, but from the first note I heard of this guy I just thought "Fuck yea, this is what music is." He is unmistakably a genius, and I am hardly surprised that this album, "General Electronica", so humbly named yet gloriously sculpted, amazes me at every turn. I now own all of the albums he has put on Bandcamp and am damn proud to have them in my music collection, not only standing next to, but shining brighter than, more everyday names like Infected Mushroom and Boards of Canada.

The electronic flavourings of emorej are somewhere between the extremes of mind-bending psytrance eg. the above mentioned Infected Mushroom, and chilled vibes from those Canadian Board Guys, yet it is distinctly original. It is so, so, so easy for "electronica" to sound unoriginal, detached, and, well, like it was made on a computer. Yet in every emorej album I have heard so far I feel nothing but original, complex, scintillating, organic, evolving, and completely enveloping music that deserves a better tag than "electronica".

So, I am hereby labeling it, despite all my disdain for tags and out of a necessity for succinct descriptions, especially since I just joined Twitter: "Fantasgamazinga".

If you want to hear these Fantasgamazing sounds simply head on over to The album's page on Bandcamp and grab your FREE copy, or whatever price you put on it.

For me it's "Seven Dollars And Seventy-Seven Cents For A Five Star Album That Stimulates The Senses"

emorejemorejemorejemorejemorejemorejemorej!

Last Nights Vice - The Perfect Little Noise

2010-08-03T06:14:00.000-07:00

This album is like a joint made only with tobacco with a small patch of weed in the middle. Such little of the good stuff stuff that it's easily completely overlooked, perhaps mistaken for a simple cigarette and stubbed out, and certainly not bringing the high to the party. Sure there's one guy who got that hit and is zoning out but that's it - and that one hit, to also elude to the word's other meaning, is track 11, "At Sunset She Strips". This has the potential to climb many a chart with its rockout-ness. Yet the rest of the songs are pure fodder. When Brandon Flowers sung "It's Indie Rock and Roll for me", I don't think he meant this sort of music. I hope he didn't. Naff, unoriginal, derivative, melodically detached, yet superbly produced.

I cringe to have written that last sentence for they seem like really really nice guys, and I want so much to like their music, but it's hard to like. I applaud their enthusiasm and honest hearts, though. Not only are they actively involved in many charity events, but they strive to be the best that they can and their music is truly about pleasing the fans. Unfortunately the fans that migrate to this sort of music tend to care more about things like haircuts and guitar stances than tension and resolution in chord changes. This is their profile picture on Last.FM:

Hmmm… To quote from their bio, "The guys pride themselves on their do-it-yourself mentality, taking charge of their own recordings, websites, videos, promotions and show-bookings", and from a sound-engineer's point of view I couldn't commend them more for the quality of their recordings. The whole thing is a professional package from the polished sound to the pimped-out homepage and attention to hairstyles, yet unfortunately when you open the box it is mostly styrofoam.

If they release "At Sunset She Strips" as a single they're bound to lure some fans in, and for a rock band brimming with enthusiasm and positive vibes they sound like a live show would be a fun night out. No memorable experience to cherish forever, any more than a listening of the album is, yet they ooze a confidence and energy that would translate well to live shows. This energy shows in the recordings where songwriting skill doesn't, and earns the boys 5 stars for effort.

To the guys from Last Nights Vice: don't let any crappy reviewer's words sway you from your course, you're doing good things and you've just started. There's plenty of room for growth here and I look forward to more engaging releases in the future.

Album available to listen to at the band's website, with "The Perfect Little Noise" set to release on iTunes and other such stores on 31st August.

5 stars because the effort speaks reams more than the music. Rock on.

Ralph Buckley - The Art of Magick

2010-07-05T09:03:00.000-07:00

I love and have a great interest in art and I live for and am constantly surprised by the concept of Magick, so I was naturally drawn to this latest release by Ralph Buckley. The album's evocative title immediately forms connections with listeners who haven't even downloaded it yet.

With such a powerful title I expected something completely different to what I found my ears wrapped around, yet therein lies one of the secrets of magick: that paths open up before you that you never knew were there, and lead you to amazing places.

From the very first conga tap of the opening track a vibe is set, of luscious valleys of soft vocals, strong undercurrents of molten guitar lines, and gorgeously shaped bass clouds, all set to the grandfather clock tick of the simple yet outstanding percussion. One only needs to close their eyes and drift on the vibe and this album performs its Magick.

Journeying into frantic hunts through the forest side-by-side with howling wolves, taking hot air balloon rides over velvet seas of emotions, caressing the heavens at some points and pounding at the earth at others, this amazing release that talks of The End, of The Tree of Life and of Awakening will strike a chord deep within that few musicians can evoke, but that Ralph Buckley manages to pull off with both outstanding finesse and a deep respect for and understanding of the nature of the Universe.

Transcendental. Download it now, FREE.

Hox Vox - Mjöllnir

2010-04-12T03:26:00.000-07:00

Structureless chaos that is yet coherent and comprehensive.

Hox Vox is an artist whose roots are in DaDa-ism, yet consistently pumps out the antithesis of DaDa: The Concept Album. He is a strange one to pin down and describe, not least because his music is absolutely and completely, irrevocably, inaccessible. Yet he doesn't care. With an intellect rarely found he composes vast works of epic proportions that are meticulously sculpted to instil the most severe sense of unease in the listener. And yet, it is thoroughly enjoyable.

In this latest instalment of the bizarre series of works that is Hox's discography, we journey through several intriguing portraits of Norse Gods, and eventually find ourselves on the battlefields of Ragnarök. Having been dealt an onslaught of arpeggiated midi notes, barrages of drum fills, ever shifting keys, innumerable time changes and mind-boggling blitzkriegs of unintelligible sounds, we arrive at the end and say “What the fuck just happened?”

A work with such power is a diamond in the rough.

Mjöllnir comes with a .pdf booklet, a gorgeous treasure with breathtaking artwork and liner notes with information about each track. For a concept album without lyrics this is a convenient way of portraying the portraits and storyline. Had I have been listening without reading this booklet I would be lost amidst the swirling notes and complete lack of consistency in tonal and modal qualities. As I said, it is inaccessible. Yet it is the combination of the booklet and the music that creates coherence, and makes for a compelling, engaging experience. This is not surprising from an artist who is also an extremely competent video producer. His whole schtick is multi-media in the true sense of the word “multi”. His art aims to immerse as many of the listener's senses as possible in imagery to convey his message.

But what is his message? Well here we get back to his DaDa roots. DaDa was the art that defied art, and I have always felt whilst listening to Hox Vox's music that it is a product of entropy - a breaking down of preconceptions of what art should be, whilst at the same time raising the stakes of what is expected of a listener and their engagement with the work. I say entropy because in the end we have two polar opposites – breaking down perceptions and building up imagery – that meet comfortably in the middle, at a point of stasis. Whilst the sounds coming from this album are like a tornado, the eye at its centre is the solid, unwavering conclusion of “lofty ideal meets pragmatic delivery”.

In case you can't tell, this music gives me a lot to think about. I have often thought as I listen to Hox Vox's albums that they are dissecting me more than I am them. If you want to know what the fuck I'm talking about, download this album, completely free, from Jamendo. It can also be legally bit-torrented, which is a fantastic way of getting the music out there (yes people are seeding it, I got it in 30 minutes).

Northcape - Captured From Static

2010-04-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

I lie down and listen. I listen intently and critically, and I soak up the vibe. Time passes, and I feel If I didn't have my lava lamp to look at, I would get bored very quickly. Yet that is part of this album's charm. It teleports you to the whole “lava lamp era” of sitting on suede couches smoking joints, where not only was everything in Skye and Rainchild's apartment visually oriented to make you zone out, sounds were too. S&R would casually spin Tubular Bells whilst making a pot of coffee, and you would lie on their black and white swirly rug and stare at their colour-shifting array of ceiling lights. Just, zoning out.

At least, that's where the album takes me, and I didn't even grow up in that era. I think, however, this is a testament to the depth of the vibes coming from this album, its ability to conjure scenarios in the head of the listener that are externally sourced. The sounds do more than just stimulate memory or imagination, they add to the mind's repertoire of imagery. Northcape has always described his music as depicting and reflecting nature, and I think this is the essence of it: it's music that depicts the world we live in, from those psychedelic loungerooms to the moors of Scotland, a quiet urban street at midnight to a backyard pergola and a windchime in Autumn. All of it is part of nature, part of our world, our collective consciousness, that we can thus associate with.

The deep, mellow, and layered sounds strike a chord with the part of the soul that is in tune with nature, with the earth, and is perhaps just the medicine required in today's pacey world where people like me get bored without a lava lamp to look at. 4 stars.

Freshly released today, available from Sun Sea Sky Productions. Enjoy.

Wormrot - Abuse

2010-03-29T03:56:00.000-07:00

I am 16 again. I'm angry, the world hates me, and Wormrot are the only guys that sound like I feel. Their flesh-eating riffs and eviscerating drums relentlessly pounding my ear-drums are the only thing I look forward to after a day at school of being teased and enduring painfully long classes. No one understands me, yet these razor sharp guitars, these guttural screams of desperate insanity, are the only thing I can connect with. It is the only thing that has meaning.

Fast forward 8 years and I'm a competent reviewer who's been given a release to listen to. Although young I am past my days of anger and despair, and look at the world optimistically. For 24 year-old Angus Maiden, Wormrot's latest release, in all its rage and fury, is just damn fun to listen to.

With songs averaging 50 seconds long, these dudes from Singapore take a less-is-more approach to songwriting, decimating the concept of structure in favour of gunning down your ear lobes. The longest song on this 21-minute album is 2 minutes 15 seconds. The shortest: 15 seconds. Yet balancing this less-is-more approach to the actual form of the song, is a definitively abrasive more-is-more stance on what that song should sound like. More power, more brutality, heavier guitars, more more more death and destruction.

When I first heard this album I immediately posted “Grindcore: where have you been all my puberty?” on Facebook. So admittedly I'm new to the genre. I'm ashamed to admit I only just got into Cannibal Corpse recently, and haven't heard much else of the genre. The bands label, Earache Records, blurb about Wormrot that “The new rulers of the genre display a jaw-dropping mastery of the dynamics and art of blasting which will literally shock even the most seasoned of grindcore veterans.” and for this I'm gonna have to be a bit negative. It's the reason I started my post with a flashback, and the reason for the sarcastic Facebook post about puberty; for a teenager this sort of music is literally shocking, and does mean everything in the world, but I am not even “a seasoned grindcore veteran” and I find nothing “shocking” about this release. To most of the people reading this blog, grindcore is simply fun fast and furious music to put on to wake up to or when gearing up for a night out; nervertheless, Wormrot's latest album “Abuse” is a fine example of it. Three and a a half stars.

Out April 5th through Earache Records.

QPA - Meta Dawn

2010-03-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

I listen a lot to di.fm, an internet radio station specialising in electronic music, where you listen to a specific style of music on one of their many stations, eg. The Trance Channel, The Tech House Channel, The DnB Channel, etc. My favourite channel is the Psy-Trance Channel, I often put it on and sink into a reverie of bass and bliss. Whilst listening I am not looking for meaning, or hair-raising moments of poignant vocal prowess; there is no tempo change, there are no surprises, simply really good bass feeding through my really good subwoofer and really good trance lines synchronising my heartbeat to the rhythm of the psy-cosmos. It is a very interesting listening experience and adverse to what I would call my “intent” listening experience, whereby I listen to lyrics, bathe in the different moods of different songs and the different tempos, tonality and dynamics that come with them.

Qubenzis Psy Audio or QPA for short, with his latest album “Meta Dawn” is a di.fm sort of listening experience. As linear and one-dimensional as it is, it nevertheless stirs something deep within me. The preamble to the album is that of aliens broadcasting messages from the depths of space, of cosmic music born from the ether of a timeless, tribal “Worship Of The Vibe”, as I like to (since just now) call it. A theme often found in psy-trance is that of two seemingly opposing concepts: Aliens and Earth. It's either about reverence for The Mother or acknowledgment of Extraterrestrial Intelligence already embedded in our culture through music and dance.

QPA's spin on psy is a curious mix of the two. To quote directly from the album's “Total Disclosure”:

“Knowledge = freedom. Whatever is hidden must be brought into light. The truth is for all to know. Openness and transparency is the only way to go. To embrace the forthcoming age of trust, honesty and love is the only way we can save the planet from… us!.
Until the [meta] dawn we dance and trance into the parallel timeless dimensions of eternal sound and light.”

In psy-trance there has always been this sense of Unity and Light. Whether it be from cosmic E.T.s showing us The Way or by lying on a field of grass staring at the sky with headphones on, it's about the deep Vibe running through our veins and showing us something that may not have existed before it manifested in our minds. This speaks of The Great Mysteries, of psychedelic experiences (with the obvious connotation of and connection with drug usage) and of Love for our planet and all Life.

“Meta Dawn” is a vastly optimistic and spiritual journey as good as anything I listen to on di.fm. It may be linear and it may not be everyone's cup of tea but if you're into mushrooms whack this on with your next bag. If you're into magick whack this on as you cast a circle. And if you're just a chilled sort of person lie down in your loungeroom, and yes, whack this on. But whichever way you listen, there is only one pre-requisite: it has to be Loud. Let the bass wind its way up your feet all the way to the cerebral cortex. You will feel Ascended. Let the Light flow through you.

Available from QPA's site, where you can stream the album, download it in 128kbps MP3s for free, or purchase it at ultra high quality for true audiophiles (this is also an interesting marketing idea that I sincerely hope works for Qubenzis).

“A Psychedelic Trance sonic universe delivering imaginatively, intelligently mind-bending, kick ass, electronic dance beats.” - QPA

3.5 stars

emorej - Songs For And From The Heart

2010-03-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

The very first thing that I thought of when I listened to this album was “Air”. Not just because the dulcet downtempo beats reminisce very strongly of “Sexy Boy” by the French trip-hop group, but also because the substance of this music is very much like the element of the same name. Paper thin, so fragile it feels like it would crumble at the slightest touch, it yet holds an enveloping feel to it. One could say the music evokes the feeling of floating in a sea of paper cranes. In gentle ebbs and flows it embraces you like a silk sheet on a mild Summer night – the perfect temperature regulation that the situation calls for.

As I lie in the fading Autumn light at the end of a hot Melbourne Summer, nothing connects more with my state of mind than this sort of music. Entitled “Songs For And From The Heart”, it certainly captivates the essence of that organ that infuses the whole body with warmth. Soft and gentle, soothing and tranquil, the musical energy of this album flows through you like blood, and you can bask in it like a lizard does the sun. Over and around you, it is a delight to feel the closeness of the driving yet perfectly paced rhythms, the high-end chimes running trilling patterns, complimented by a smooth bassline and sunny swirling pads, all held together by a simply sublime voice. I can't tell if it's male or female, which causes some confusion as “emorej” is a play on “Jerome”, the first name of the creator of this music. Perhaps it is a duo with a female singer, or perhaps he simply has a high voice, or perhaps it's pitch-shifted, or my interpretation that “Jerome” is a male name is completely wrong.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. I don't need to do any research on this music as I may have to in other reviews to flesh out what little I can say about it, as the music itself speaks volumes. A highly recommended 5 star album. And guess how much it is? 1 dollar. You get that in change from your coffee or soft drink, so just do it. And if you're feeling generous there's the option to pay more.

Support independent, talented musicians like emorej and buy this album at Bandcamp. Mellow, engaging, calm waves of airy bliss await your appreciative ears.

Red Friday - Worthy Of Lust

2010-03-08T04:19:00.000-08:00

Red Friday claim to be the inventor of a new genre, "Street Rock" - angsty music you can dance to. This self-proclamation is not befitting of a humble band who's first album was completely free, who treat their fans with the utmost respect and who churn out simple yet amazingly good music. Let's not get carried away guys, this is not a new genre, it's just rock.

That being said, there is not a single other negative thing I could say about these guys or this album. Having given a glowing review of their first album, which was and still is completely free from their website, they successfully gained a fan for life, and I was happy to hand over 8 bucks for this next release of theirs.

With eager ears I listened, sticking to my dad's favourite axiom: "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and expect nothing". I was hoping for the best and that wasn't what I got on first listen, I felt more like "hmmm, not bad". It was far from the worst, and it exceeded more than satisfactorily the expectation of nothing. For there is something almost ineffable about the way these guys put their music together, the shortness of the songs, the layering, the production, that although may not be a whole new genre, is certainly fresh enough to excite eardrums that have been flogged to death by every type of music out there.

Then I listened again, and again, and again; and "the best" that I had hoped for began to reveal itself. It's one of those albums that simply grows and grows on you the more you listen to it, as you peel the layers of the onion, getting deeper and deeper into the sounds, sweeter and sweeter.

As I've said there is an ineffable magic about this music, something really great that you can't quite put your finger on and can't quite be verbally expressed; but I think one aspect of it is the ability to take idea and expression from the past and not just copy and paste it, but breathe new life into it. Although they say they are the innovators of a whole new genre, the music in fact builds on the various facets of rock music that have come before it and spurns it into a new setting, a new sound for the now truly taken-off new millennium.

On their fan forum The Red Army they have even admitted to using a completely borrowed guitar line from another song, and have turned it into a competition, offering a free signed copy of the CD for the person who recognises the line and what song it's from. There is honesty here and respect, two highly admirable virtues; there is a recognition that those who have come before have made the band what it is, something really special.

Admittedly the "we're a whole new genre" thing annoys me, yet their music is highly original. The downbeat drums, the watery shapeshifting guitar, the hollow soothing voice, the voluptuous bass, all meld together to form something that at once seems far away and detached in tone and effect, yet formidably close in theme and correlation with the audience. Another impressive thing about the band is that this closeness extends towards their personality, making them extremely likeable guys who take a true interest in their fans. This is embodied in the hoards of dedicated street-teamers who help spread the word about every little going on of Red Friday. Combine this fan enthusiasm with solidly good awesome rock, and you've got "The Next Best Thing".

Red Friday's latest album "Worthy Of Lust" is out now available on their website www.redfriday.com

Definitely worth $8. 5 stars.

30 Seconds To Mars - This Is War

2010-02-28T13:25:00.000-08:00

I can not stop listening to this amazing album. I haven't heard anything so good since OK Computer.

Radiohead's pinnacle of success has often been described as the best album of last century, and whilst "This Is War" is simply outstanding, there's a lot of century to go before we can make any claims similar to those surrounding OK Computer.

Yet it is also curious that 30 Seconds To Mars' latest release, put out in December '09, sounds distinctively like the beginning of something, like the beginning of a great era in music. This is 2010. This is now. The first decade of the millennium was plagued by a horrible President of USA, by the biggest recession since the great depression, and the foundations of the music world were utterly smashed by the arrival of the MP3 and file sharing. "This Is War" stands tall and proud as an epic statement to the world. As the title suggests, it's declaring something.

For me, part of the very first generation to grow up with the net, the album defiantly declares war on the past, and embraces the future. The lyric "The war is won, lift your hands toward the sun" off the title track sends shivers down the spine as a military-style snare rattle builds up to an epic take-off. I almost burst out crying everytime the outstanding vocals on the second track, Night of the Hunter, yearn "Pray to your god, open your heart, whatever you do don't be afraid of the dark". And as each song progresses the lyrics just keep tugging at those heartstrings: "Tell me would you kill to save a life". This music is Shakespearean in scope, timeless. And although it's not entirely clear on a first listen what 30 Seconds are declaring war on, it unfurls as you dig deeper and deeper like the most poetic of Elizabethan plays. The outstanding "100 Suns" states "I believe in nothing, not in satan not in god, I believe in nothing, but the Truth in who we are". For me this sums up what "The War" is about, it's about a new world order, where religion and belief systems no longer harbour the hearts of most of the civilised world; where people are looking inside themselves for Truth and not being dictated what they should believe anymore. A war on the past, and embracing the future. With the advent of the internet people are moving closer together, old values are replaced by true individuality as accessibility to information allows us to make our minds up for ourselves about the big questions.

The fact that this is a commercial release, under a major label, means nothing. Everyone knows you can get it for free if you want, and I think the lads from 30 Seconds know this too. I can imagine when they finished this album they realised they had made something truly special that would resonate throughout the land and earn them not money, but artistic merit. The recording industry has changed whereby the success of an artist is not determined by how many records it sells but by how many people are Tweeting about them. A new world order. Declare war on the past and embrace the future. It's 2010 everyone! Rejoice! "Darkness floods, here comes the rain, to wash away the past."

I have seen many people slagging this album for departing from "their earlier style", and I have to admit I have no idea what that earlier style is, for this is my introduction to 30 Seconds To Mars, and it's a fuckload of a good one. Get this album, by whatever means. It will change your life.

Dear Noel - Party Fouls / Hope You Get To Heaven Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

2010-02-28T11:51:00.000-08:00

Dear Noel are technically proficient and professionally tight, they have a good grasp of songwriting, hooks, and rhythm, and both EPs have top-notch production.

So why does it suck?

Quite simply, these guys are playing in the wrong key. The tonality and action of their guitars are aligned for heavy metal, as is the drumming with its heavy kick drum and outstanding fills. All is aligned for neck-snapping flat-fifths and dark, minor chords. Yet they're playing this major key happy pop stuff. With heavy palm-muted guitars. !? It is just completely incongruous. And ugly, totally ugly, devoid of life or passion, and impossible to like.

The engineer of these albums is the only one with any vision, utilising fantastic production techniques that make these packages radio friendly for sure, but the stations that play this kind of stuff, wellvomitpukeergh oh excuse me.

You get the idea. Guys, if you're reading this: STOP with the happy pop crap and do a complete 180 into the heavy metal you were born to play, even if it means firing your current songwriter, for this incarnation of Dear Noel is a dead end.

I have nothing more to say.

Both EPs "Party Fouls" and "Hope You Get To Heaven Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" are available from Simple Stereo, if you want to listen to some really, really naff music.

Building Rome - Nightmare

2009-12-20T23:15:00.001-08:00

The first track off this album immediately soars to my top 20 tracks of all time. Epic in scope and majestic in realisation, it's flat out a hit. Perfect production, absolutely flawless execution of riffs, vocals and rhythms, a politically driven message, and an absolutely outstanding breakdown makes you want to play it over and over again. It's spine-tingling stuff.

Unfortunately the whole album, whilst passionately created and something I myself would be extremely proud of, doesn't hold the same power as the opening track. There is a sense of commercialism about this album that just doesn't quite click with me, but, for woe, will with the masses.

It feels that they followed a formula. Heavy rock track followed by upbeat pop track followed by ballad, have a bowl of cornflakes and repeat. The lyrics could be produced by a computer that had listened to lots of Britney. The riffs are extremely catchy, they know exactly what they're doing but sorry guys, it's just a bit naff. There is nothing spontaneous, raw or exciting about this album.

Except the first track!

It's almost as if they wrote and recorded that track and thought "Holy shit this is amazing, let's quickly write some more stuff and get it recorded and sell an album!"

But perhaps part of me is just jealous of the absolute precision with which these guys have velcroed together their target audience and their music. This will be a popular album and it will make them lots of money, and hey good on 'em because a lot of time and effort has gone into this and it really shows. But at the same time it's sad, because it makes me realise we're still in the era of boy bands and girl power pop, except in the approaching new decade it's clear that "Indie Rock" has taken the reigns from the RnB and Pop guys.

This is future of commercial music, and it's pretty banal.

Except the first track!

!

!!

So... have a listen and buy the tunes for a very reasonable price at iTunes or by going to buildingrome.bigcartel.com

If you're a fan of "Story of the Year" / "Fallout Boy" sort of stuff you'll love the whole album, and if you think like me you'll cringe. But seriously, that first song: wow. Alone in it's incandescent brilliance it outweighs the naffness of the rest of the album. For that I doff my hat to Building Rome, who have shiny roads of success ahead of them. Well done guys.

-Building Rome's MySpace-.
-Their Website-

PIXSID - Atoms Apart

2009-12-06T23:16:00.000-08:00

"Atoms Apart" by PIXSID is a project that has been a year in the making; being the combination of the extraordinary talents of San Francisco based producer DJ Sid-The Apocalypze and Australian vocalist Marie Craven aka. Pixieguts. Despite the vast leagues of physical distance seperating the two, and the timespan spent producing the album, the overall sound is of something much, much more close and intimate. It is as if the two locked themselves in a studio for a few weeks surviving on stale bread and water, accompanied only by the burning passion for making music that would drive them either to insanity, or to produce a gem of an album.

The intimacy comes neither solely from Sid's lush, velvety rhythms and textures - complete with gorgeous vinyl crackle, brass sections, sounds found in nature, jazzy drums, and bass like slipping into a warm bath - nor solely from Marie's universally-acknowledged crystal clear, enchanting and seductive voice, but rather from a unique blend of the two. To me it is akin to a salad dressing of oil and vinegar. Both are good ingredients on their own with distinct uses, yet as part of the dressing you couldn't imagine one without the other.

The style they have chosen is trip-hop, or rather, the style seems to have chosen them. The album is very natural and flowing, indicating a very smooth sense of spontaneous improvisation, again as if they just walked into a studio together and music flowed forth, not heeding any rules; as if it just became what it is of its own accord. Yet in the year-long production and taking into account professional mastering by Canada's Crimson Death, every single beat and phrase sits absolutely perfectly in the mix. Constant variation and evolution keeps the listener engaged whilst retaining a strong sense of continuity. It is the attention to detail in this ever-changing scenery that elevates the album into equal steading with trip-hop legends such as Portishead and Massive Attack.

Simply put, if you want to get someone into bed put this album on. Not only for its veneer of sexy, smooth, and silky atmospherics, but for its ability to alter your mood, no matter how ratshit or anxious you feel, into warmth and comfort.

Soulful music made by masters of their craft. Intimate and close. Pure sex.

Available in physical form from cdbaby.
High-quality downloads from Bandcamp.
And preview the album here.

Corrientes - Breathe/Respira

2009-11-29T02:40:00.000-08:00

I was in a chatroom with Ivette Torres aka. EV, singer, multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer of Corrientes fame - the chat room is part of a weekly show called Neon Beatz where you can listen to a stream of independent music and chat to the listeners, who are often artists themselves - a song of theirs came on and someone said that EV had a "smiley voice". I think this is the perfect way to describe her voice. It is just so unbelievably uplifting, fun and beaming.

EV sings in both Spanish and English, and this latest album is a lot more Spanish-orientated, which seems to lend itself naturally to "smiley voices". The syllables roll off her tongue like crystal clear water in a fountain, exuberant and bubbly, accompanied for the first time (on a recording) by a full live band. I understand they went through a few drummers before settling on the current one, and he’s a good choice - a cowbell here and there, just the right amount of hi-hat and snare, very jazzy and upbeat - altogether very suited to the whole "Latin feel" of the band. Also a first for a recorded album of this amazing New York City band is electric lead guitar, playing Santana-esque lines sporadically yet appropriately. The whole feel of this album is of delicacy and subtlety. The bass sits low in the mix yet moves around, you can forget it’s there if you stop listening to it yet it is the cornerstone of the chord progressions, strummed on a bright guitar by the lovely EV herself.

Mixing a project like this is a hard task: lots of drum mic-ing and many different frequencies competing for space. Yet in the hands of EV, who has mixed and produced all of Corrientes’ albums at her home studio, it sounds absolutely mint.

There have always been two aspects to Corrientes: their live performances, featuring less instrumentation and more intimate, acoustic sort of stuff, and their studio albums which have often involved a hefty electronic element to it. Breathe/Respira manages to combine the crystal clarity of professional digital mixing with that intimate live feel to produce a very pleasant album. I had never heard much Spanish/Latin music until I heard Corrientes, and was immediately delighted. It’s unfamiliar territory for an Australian but I understand it’s quite prevalent in America. Whether you’re a newcomer to the soulful upbeat sounds of Latin American music or are sick to death of hearing it, I would recommend this album either way. It’s top notch, refreshing and joyous.

I can be quoted regarding Corrientes’ January ’09 album "Underlying Truth" that "I don’t need to hear anything else in 2009 to say that this is the best album of the year." And it still holds true. There are no electronics in Breathe/Respira and it’s something that seems missing, making "Underlying Truth", complete with luscious synthy elements, a better album in my opinion (full review of that one coming up); but it’s a new approach for the band, they’ve found members that they like and are sticking with, that form a cohesive "live entity", and it is also the first time that they’ve decided to branch out and sell their music.

For a band that has consistently delivered professional, excellently produced, highly creative, and inspiring material for free, they deserve a quick visit to the online store for this album.

EV has also provided some more tasty information regarding the mixing of the album, as well as lyrics:

You can see the info about the recording here.

Lyrics here.

And you can listen to EV speaking about the recording on Mixposure’s Center Stage Presentation here.

Smiley music to make you smile. Get it.

Nervous Existence - Reparations

2009-11-21T21:37:00.000-08:00

This may not mean anything to most of you out there, but the riff that opens up the first track of this EP, "Terminus" is in a Phrygian Major mode. Musically, it is the equivalent of Peking Duck. Exquisite, exotic, and soooo soooo tasty. It is in fact my favourite mode in the plethora of ways that you can connect notes together. Its Eastern-tinged sense of melody immediately evokes a sense wonderment and awe. And then, about 8 bars in, they throw in a diminished-fifth chord, the penultimate metal-god’s tool of destruction, discord and delight. ORGASM! This guitar was played with The Devil’s fingers. And I love The Devil.

Pretty soon the voice kicks in, suitably demonic in tonality, and it holds its own with any other awesome death-metal voice I’ve heard, independent or commercial. There’s nothing astonishing about it yet I know from trying to do the demon voice myself it’s quite a gift to simply possess it and be able to deliver it.

These guys are certainly gifted in both the songwriting and playing department. Their sense of structure is engaging and thought-provoking, and the music shifts and changes in all the right places to create a beautiful sense of tension and resolution. The dual-guitar riffing never ceases to twist and turn in a multitude of interesting ways, heavy and intriguing, and occasionally breaking out in solos with the beauty of instrumentality that has been truly mastered. All whilst keeping solidly clicked with the rhythm section - the drums and bass - that are great at what I believe they’re supposed to be great at in metal music: keeping time, staying back in the mix, and supporting the more hyperactive attack and counter-attack of the vocals and guitar.

Their sound on this 5-track EP could have been captured better: more bass on the vocals, better drum mic-ing and a bit more compression to give the mix some breathing space, yet there is something beautiful about the slight muddiness of the recording. It takes me back to the days of listening to Darkthrone et. al. who sound like they were recorded with a single mic hanging from the garage ceiling. If not quite that lo-fi, the recording at least captures the essence of that sort of music: immediate and raw.

Great music is always born deep underground, and I feel like the incredible songcraft, musicianship, and attitude of Nervous Existence has just poked its head through the soil, and is looking verdant and healthy. They haven’t flowered yet, but they will, and when they do they will be a force to be reckoned with.

Check out their very professional Myspace page to grab the EP "Reparations". Excellent stuff. If you like Opeth, Lamb of God, or Meshuggah you will love Nervous Existence. And if you haven’t heard of those bands, then it will be a great introduction to truly good metal.

Nezumi - The principle of relative constancy in metamorphoses

2009-11-03T21:32:00.000-08:00

The true meaning of ambient is not “elevator music”, which unfortunately it has come to mean, and even more unfortunately is what a lot of its purveyors continue to flavour their music as. The dictionary definition, from dictionary.com, is:

ambient

[am-bee-uh nt]

–adjective

1. of the surrounding area or environment.
2. completely surrounding; encompassing.

This music envelopes you. If you close your eyes it takes you to another place, a place fabricated from the tonality and texture of the pieces, that are “of the surrounding area or environment”. Yet it is a surreal environment, a place that doesn’t exist in the “normal world”. This is true ambience, yet there are no chirping birds or wind through bamboo to be found here. The music takes your hand, quite gently at first, and leads you to a door to another plane. If you resist it grabs you more firmly and pushes you through.

Haunting, disquieting, the ghost-like atmosphere of this compelling album is made up from a variety of only vaguely familiar sounds, like the dropping of water in a deep cavern, yet not quite. Like two discordant notes played on a sitar, yet not quite. And the whole time, there is an emptiness that conveys vast reaches of uninhabited space. Merely the Universal Hum of something borne of chaos. With swirling dynamics and disparate textures this powerful album comes at you from all sides. It is often quite scary, feeling as if everything is closing in on you, yet that is part of its magick.

Nezumi is a lover of the metaphysical, the mystical and the unknown. His attempt at creating soundscapes that depict the multitude of parallel universes and dimensions, so far away from normality yet always deep within our souls, is realised quite incredibly on his latest album.

When I first listened to a release of his in late ’07, it sounded like a kid toying with midi for the first time. Although I could tell there was so much he wanted to convey, the instrumentality was primitive and thus did not do his imagery justice. A few years and two releases later (that I’ve heard, there are more), I’m amazed at how he has progressed as an artist.

This music is truly the definition of ambient, “completely surrounding; encompassing”. And of course, I wouldn’t be raving about it so much if it weren’t my favourite sort of music: Dark. Very, very Dark.

Set to release in early 2010, this album is now available as a pre-release from sendspace.

(that link will expire so get it quick)

The Ambience has spoken, and it demands you take a trip through another dimension...

http://www.sendspace.com/file/j7nbif

Nezumi's artist page at LastFM

HealeyIsland - Not Afternoon, But Evening

2009-10-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

Utilising tones that are at the same time familiar yet veer towards an alien, otherwordly sound, the highly evocative imagery of this album is beautifully rendered in instrumental delight; describing scenes, places and moods with just a title and the music. When you listen to such tracks as "Red Car Crossing A Dimly Lit Bridge", a 1930's-style moving picture plays in your head, complete with glorious scratchings upon warm amber-hued film.

A bizzare mixture of textures and beats combine to create a copmplex tapestry of genre-defying music. A rich barotone voice floats in and out, sitting back in the mix as if it's lounging in a deliciously comfortable armchair, making the lyrics hard to fathom. Yet lyrics are unneccesary for music that carries with it such an incredible ability to conjure concepts, themes and emotions from a purely instrumental perspective. The warm bass, at times squelching and playful, at other times deep and resounding, remind me of heavy, tired footsteps on the pavement at night. The jazzy, light piano is reminiscent of a warm streetlamp, pushing away the darkness, providing solace, yet the whole time aware of the empty blackness only meters away. Link these elements with extra-dimensional soundscapes, and both insanity and bliss are constantly within arms reach.

There is an edginess about this music that, when resolved in fleeting moments of sheer harmony, send shivers down the spine. The edginess comes from the strange tonality that is prevalent throughout the whole album: notes that sit next to each other that don't quite fit (deliberately so), jostling for position in the forefront, arguing with each other. Despite the general first impression of a lax, drifting attitude, the album can be quite aggressive at times due to this discord. Yet tension and resolution are the keystones of great music, and the album manages to keep the tension just long enough that you feel uneasy; and then, with perfect timeliness and inclination, segues into harmonic resolution.

Described as "Light Music meets Dark Electronica", HealeyIsland's latest album "Not Afternoon, But Evening", is suitably titled, the whole thing feeling like the fading daylight leading into encroaching night; where shapes and figures are blurred, silhouetted, undefined, and the air holds an essence of change, of limbo, purgatory: twilight.

It's not afternoon, and something is lurking in the shadows, yet the familiar lull of downtempo shuffling tricks you into thinking this is gonna be a smooth ride. You could pay to see some blockbuster movie that tries and fails to keep you on the edge of your seat, or you could buy this album and feel the chilling, haunting vibes strangely coupled with moments of calm, beauty and peacefullness; and feel the imagery of your dreams, nightmares and fantasies become reality. A must have for those who understand that normality is banal, and strangeness: Divine.

Out now through White Label Music.

Dr. Slaggleberry - The Slagg Factory

2009-10-25T23:50:00.000-07:00

I was trying to think of a way to describe this music, not being a fan of genres and tags, but recognising that people want to know what to expect before they listen to something. The best tag I could think of was “stoner-rock-tech-doom-metal”, but then I read the accompanying press-release that the lads from Dr. Slaggleberry kindly supplied me with the CD. They describe their music as math-rock. Of course! It all makes sense now. I’m a bit of a noob when it comes to genres, or more specifically I prefer to ignore them, but I know what math-rock is and it is very becoming of this album. Math – these guys like numbers! I cannot even begin to imagine the practice time required to nail this type of music. Just trying to keep track of the tempo-changes and modal shifting is a head-spin, and in the end this music is just so damn calculated, so precise, so intricate, that it’s almost overwhelming.

Furthermore, the first thing that comes across when you listen to this is that it is fuckin’ HEAVY! The powertude of their riffage is unrivalled by anything I’ve heard this year. And they don’t even have a bassist! With just two guitars and drums, this outstanding three-piece manage to fill the frequency spectrum with growling low-end subwoofer delight and high-end free-wheeling lead breaks, cemented solidly by the meat in the middle. It sounds like at least a 4 piece band, but there is no layering. It’s just guitar vs. guitar vs. drums. I say ‘versus’ very appropriately, as the whole album sounds like a battle between the different instruments. Math rock evolved from the fusion of technical jazz and rock. Where listening to a jazz CD conjures up images of the musicians dancing together, listening to something as heavy as this brings forth a different sort of image, a different sort of dance: that of gladiators in the ring, circling, striking, parrying; the dance of Death.

All the while there is still that sense of “calculation”. It’s so intricate it seems that if you got out a pen and paper and dissected this music, you would discover some secret about the nature of the universe. But that is not the intended effect. It is so complex that you just can’t follow the sharp twists and turns, and thus ends up sounding like pure, raw, Chaos. I’m a lover of Chaos Theory, fractals and the like, and as I listen various thoughts propel themselves to the forefront from my subconscious: from chaos comes order (for example, the branches and leaves of a tree spring out randomly, yet the tree is ultimately symmetrical), yet this music reveals that from order comes chaos. There is no doubt that these guys have arranged the music precisely, they know exactly where each note is gonna land and when. Yet, it does sound like something from another plane of existence; otherworldly, all over the place, from somewhere so chaotic it’s almost too much.

This brings me to my final point: unfortunately I feel it is a bit too much. No sooner do you grasp an awesome hook than it falls through your fingers to be replaced by something else. The moment you start head-banging to a solid 4/4 beat it is replaced by 13/8 time. It’s the reason why a lot of people don’t like jazz. Too much change, not so much “songs”, as “shifting patterns”. I feel, however, that the more I listen to this album the more familiar it will become, and although I may never be able to fathom the mysteries written in the bizarre numerology of this music, it’s heaviness will always make it a great wake-up album and these amazing musicians will always be held in high esteem through my eyes.

The Slagg Factory by Dr. Slaggleberry is out now through Crash Records, and is highly recommended for anyone who likes something different.

polarOPPOSITEbear - p014r0pp05it3b34r

2009-10-24T07:04:00.000-07:00

Yea. Really, yea. Like, a lot.

My last review of these guys ended on the high note of wanting “to watch their future releases with intrigue”, having picked apart both their flaws and better attributes. This 4-track EP is one of those future, now present, releases.

I think the title of the album is a good place to start: it’s something a person hurled forward in a time machine from even as recent as the 80s would just say “WHAT?!”, but we’re all tech-savvy net-linguists these days and we know exactly how to pronounce the name. Say it with me together guys, “p014r0pp05it3b34r”, because chances are, if the winds are favourable, you’ll be hearing it around. The title reflects the music: youthful embracement of a new era, cutting edge stuff that only the select few of us, that are still quite comfortably weathering net-waves and web-squalls, will understand. An age where you don’t need to understand the lyrics because immediacy is more important than longevity. The guy has a really nice voice and it compliments the music: immediate reaction equals happy face. No I’m not gonna rush out and buy a physical copy of the EP for the precious liner notes with lyrics, but nonetheless there has been communication.

The communication comes mostly through the delightfully playful interaction of bass and guitar, with a simple message that says, “I am alive”, uplifting yet heavy at the same time. My review of their previous release, “The Cre EP”, noted the bass as being outstanding whilst the guitar was “exceptionally well played, even if monotonously composed”. In this release not only does the guitar appear to have considerably more thought put into its execution of riffage, but is layered with (itself? another guitar?) in a subtle, intriguing and progressive way, and together with the bass craft a familiar yet nonetheless utterly pleasurable soundscape from the solidest rock there is, that being: Rock!

Admiring the well-hewn rock from afar, one notices etchings of “progress”, the noun that appears in the adjective “progressive”, that is thrown around nilly-willy in the contemporary music scene. Yet what does “progressive” really mean? It means it evolves. The song writing on this release is about 450% better than their last release. Each song builds and builds, morphing and twisting, the melodies and root notes summoning wreathes of charisma about their undulating forms to hit your brain at the exact same time as the final part of this manifold creation: the drums; and hit it does.

The drumming on this release is about 875.6% better than their last release, and also highlights the winning factor for me: production. To a sound engineer’s ears this EP is heaven. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard an underground rock drum kit captured so well. Props to the engineer of this EP.

And massive props to the band for delivering on their promise that the next EP would be much, much better. I’m very impressed.

Say it with me, guys, “p014r0pp05it3b34r!!!!”. Yea. No, really: YEA!

Available for free from POB's MySpace

Muse - The Resistance

2009-09-23T01:39:00.000-07:00

I’ve never been a fan of people who decide whether music is good or not based on popularity. On one end of the spectrum there are those that simply don’t know that any music but commercial popcrap exists, but even worse in my opinion are those who immediately cast a shadow of doubt on music just because it’s popular. Now I’m not talking about the genre “pop”, we all know that top-40 stuff sucks, but it’s just insane to say, as I have heard many times, that an amazing alternative rock band like Muse are “too popular”. That has nothing to do with the fact that their latest release, “The Resistance”, is amazing; popularity and quality are mutually exclusive. Sure it’s not as good as some of their other albums, namely “Absolution” or “Origin of Symmetry”, but it pains me to see people get so caught up in haughty arrogance and independent elitism that they would actually claim that this album sucks.

Frontman Matt Bellamy’s voice is pure heaven. I once asked a friend if he liked Muse and he said “No, because the guy sings in falsetto.” Well… W. T. F. That would be like saying you don’t like Van Gogh because he used a wide paint-brush, or the Eiffel Tower is ugly because of what metal it’s made out of. It’s a style of singing, and not only is it perfectly warranted as a part of Muse’s overall sound, it augments it. He has the ability to bridge the gap between the higher register and the lower seamlessly, something that takes a lot of practice and dedication to the art of singing. And it doesn’t stop with his voice; anyone who has seen them live can attest that his piano and guitar skills are ludicrously good, and on their studio albums the layering of these elements is nothing short of divine.

But hang on, aren’t there more members in the band? Yes, and they are, too, incredibly talented. I especially like Chris Wolstenholme’s bass and always-in-the-background yet never unnoticed backing vocals, and drummer Dominic Howard is simply outstanding. Yet Bellamy’s voice will always be the defining thing about Muse, and on this album it delivers, with soothing, uplifting and soaring timbre, the usual message of love and regret, themes of world unification, disestablishmentarianism (I’m sorry I couldn’t think of a better word), and conspiracy theories.

The album holds together very well, a thoroughly enjoying experience from start to finish, and you wouldn’t expect anything less. I think where some people get their dislike of this album from is that they don’t realise Muse are not a “heavy rock” band. They have always shone on softer tracks like “Falling Down”, “Screenager”, and who could forget “Unintended”. This softness is interwoven very deep in the fabric of the album, probably off-putting newbie Muse fans who expected the slightly harder-edged nature of their previous release, “Black Holes and Revelations”, yet it is done in a gorgeous way, utilising string sections, sweeping pads and lush vocal layering. This is particularly evident in the three-part magnum opus of the album, “Exogenesis Symphony”. Symphony is definitely the right word to use here, although Muse has been known to label their music rather strangely (Bellamy has been cited calling “Supermassive Black Hole” an RnB track).

All in all it’s another Muse album and another winner, simple as that. People will look back on the 00’s and remember Muse as legendary, and fans the world over, myself included, sincerely hope they continue making great music like the luscious, scintillating, operatic and 5 star album that is “The Resistance”.

muse.mu

Red Friday - Nothing Is Free

2009-09-22T06:24:00.000-07:00

I get very excited about great music, and often my reviews are hyperactively praising, but this time there’s really just not enough I can say to justify this album. I am blown away. I wish I could go back in time and tone down the enthusiasm of some of my earlier reviews to give this album the relative standing it deserves. VAST’s self-titled album was amazing. “Nothing Shocking” by Jane’s Addiction was more amazing. “Mer de Noms” by A Perfect Circle: exquisite. But holy fuck, Red Friday’s debut release, “Nothing Is Free”, is better than all three combined.

Those three names came to mind as I listened again, and again, and again; not just comparing the production values and composition of this jewel to those classic albums, but also because of what the sonic scope incorporates: warm yet heavy guitars, a voice that expresses, soothes and provokes; that is raw yet clean - segueing easily between different styles - carrying lyrics of hefty weight and emotion whilst still somehow retaining a hauntingly cold distance; drums that punch straight through the mix and combine with a positively droolifying bass to get that spinal action happening; and the light, albeit perfect amount of, electronic elements.

It’s a special sort of sound that a lot of bands aim for and miss, and that a rare few like the ones I’ve mentioned nail, yet at 25 minutes long, this 8 track album manages to compress all those juicy elements into the sweetest fruit possible. All killer, no filler, engaging for every single second, superbly produced, and an album you simply cannot live without. So it’s a good thing this album can be downloaded in its entirety from their website (free), for without it life would just be… less.

www.redfridayband.com
Red Army (Red Friday's fan site)

The Aether Tree - The Children's War

2009-09-20T01:20:00.000-07:00

I have put off reviewing this album for a long time, because there is so much I want to say about it, yet so little at the same time; more than anything I want you to merely listen to it. For this guy pours his heart and soul into his music; but rather than sieving it, kneading it and cookie-cutting it into a perfectly produced popcrap album, it spills over the edges, it gets smudged with dirt, its raw emotion shows through like bone in a deep wound. And this is exactly what makes it so beautiful. An artist’s toil is the pursuit of a perfection that can never be attained, and nothing is more admirable in a work of art like this album than what I call “beautiful imperfection”. His voice is rough and out of tune, his timing is off, the lyrical themes are disjointed and the guitar and piano playing is sloppy. But I beg of you, do not take this as a bad thing, for beneath the unpolished surface is a core that shimmers like a sapphire. The lyrics are absolutely gorgeous because they’re disjointed, the guitar is loose and freewheeling as the piano is whimsical and expressive because they’re sloppy; and his voice, oh his voice - such bittersweet poignancy will never grace the lips of any commercial singer - beauty in imperfection. On top of this there are glimpses of elements like soothing pads, saxophone, and found-sounds, plus a killer rhythm section, that all work together to produce something truly unique and beautiful. I hold this album very close to my heart, something about it touched me and moved me in a very deep way, and all I can say is “Listen”. Listen.

The Aether Tree has a cosy little homepage.

Gravity Euphonic - [Self-Titled]

2009-09-08T08:58:00.000-07:00

There’s nothing spectacular about this music but it got me turning it up to 11 and rocking the fuck out. Industrial music can often carry with it a swathe of petty goth-core imagery and try-hard darkness, yet apart from slightly clichéd lyrics these guys are solidly awesome without any pretence. The guy’s voice works well with this style of music and the production is simply astounding. Hard hitting bass and synth lines and heavy guitar backed up by perfect drums. I often write reviews of albums then leave them on the shelf, but I feel like this one will stay in rotation for a fair while. I’m normally very verbose and flowery with my language but I think the simplicity of this music warrants a succinct statement: “Fuck yea, Rock! Get it.”

Gravity Euphonic homepage.

Titee - Natural Kangaroo

2009-09-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Listening to Titee’s music, one gets the feeling that he is a man so advanced in wisdom that he has learned how to be a child again. His approach to melody, tone and rhythm is that of a wide-eyed, innocent child, exploring and playing make-believe. Going to and fro and in and out of blast-beats and arpeggios, smooth pads and deep bass, and the occasional (yet perfectly placed) vocal, the music defies normality vehemently and evokes pure, youthful imagination. Yet behind this curtain of playfulness is a dark undercurrent that reveals the intense and mad ramblings of an insane genius, and makes it something effervescent, something cosmic. There are moments of pure terror such as the monstrous rumbling of “Panntha Tooth”, and moments of delight as in the fantastically upbeat “Loosy”.

“Natural Kangaroo” is an appropriate title to describe the bouncing nature of this album. It hops and hops and hops, sometimes in a smooth, adventurous way, and other times in a startled leap as if the high beams have been suddenly flashed at the music. Natural is another word that becomes this album very well; one can imagine the furious chopped melodies and beats physically attached to Titee’s hands, being spun and woven effortlessly, the arms and fingers sweeping and swaying in a flurry of energy. Often fast paced yet very appropriately mellow at times (especially the brilliant closer track “Relax and Spin”), this album is the essence of an artist who lives in a colourful, enchanting and magickal world, a beautiful mind and soul that he allows a rare glimpse of with this gem of an album.

Outstanding work.

Free download: http://www.last.fm/music/Titee/Natural+Kangaroo

The Yalla Yallas - Act Of Defiance

2009-08-25T04:52:00.000-07:00

It's been done before, but it's so damn good, it demands to be heard: punk rock demands fresh young blood. Generations after Joe Strummer at the same time belted out his anti-establishment, anti-racist, anti-military message whilst also feeling jaded at catapulting the genre into the mainstream, he would have been happy to hear that there is still truly underground punk rock n roll happening, and they share his message: Keep it real, fuck the system, put your faith in the kids, don't hate each other.

The Yalla Yallas manage to stay faithful to the ever-present punk scene, "burning the city streets tonight", yet colour their adoption of the style with a modern take on things. A fierce rejection of drugs and the hippie culture was a strong point for The Clash, yet in these modern times punks think slightly differently. "I never was an addict, I can take it or leave it." is a lyric from the second song that stands out in my mind and highlights how the punk scene has morphed. In general, it has morphed towards more acceptance of things, which I think is positive. Yet another path broke off from the Clash / Sex Pistols Era, warping the original message into the sort of narrow mindedness that allowed ugly things to work their way into the punk scene, namely Neo-Nazism.

The lyrics of this album are all up-beat "Can we do it again?" / "I've never seen a girl like you before", etc. Certainly disestablishmentarian at times (after all, the album is called "Act Of Defiance"), yet it's more about good, fun times and music, and never about hating. I think this positive message is exactly what seperates a truly good modern punk rock band like The Yalla Yallas from bands who still cling onto skewed notions of pure anarchy and hatred.

Anarchy will never reign; as a message it is pointless, and racism is just stupidity. Yet music will always be there, and as long as bands like The Yalla Yallas continue to attach a positive message to their music, and stay underground, even genres as old as punk rock will remain fresh and bright-eyed, and change with the times, towards a better future for all.

Good, fun, rock n roll. Get into it.

Available from The Yalla-Yallas homepage.

The Hi-Nobles - Shake

2009-08-02T02:40:00.000-07:00

Music doesn’t have to be original to be good, particularly in the case of bluesy rock. In this age where synthesiser and software technology is getting sharper by the minute, it’s very refreshing to hear a 12 bar blues progression, and to hear it done faithfully, and with passion. The 12 bar blues, the pentatonic riff, that perfect amount of guitar distortion: these things will never die.

The Hi-Nobles carry off their highly polished blues rock sound with more than just finesse, it has an amazing sense of soul, mainly highlighted by the singer’s fantastic, up front, slightly gravely, and simply irresistibly bluesy voice. Wow I just used three adjectives in front of the word “voice”. This band, and this album, deserve many positive adjectives, so I’m just gonna throw them into the melting pot: energetic, fun, rockin’, rollin’, rambunctious, paced, tight, shakin’, uplifting, intelligent, and last but not least, musical.

I choose that last adjective as the most important because being musical, and more specifically; naturally, effortlessly musical, is something that some bands just don’t have. The Hi-Nobles know exactly where a chord should go and how the bass and organ should drive it, the singer knows exactly what notes he’s hitting and how they should be intoned and the drummer knows where to add a flair or a fill. Throughout the whole album they never once falter. This ease of musicality is what makes this album so damn fun to listen to. Just listening to the roaring solos, the driving organ, the rolling toms and crashes, you can almost see the smiles on the musician’s faces as they play. These guys breathe, drink and eat music for breakfast, you can just tell they’ve been doing it a long time and it pours so effortlessly from their fingers.

It rocks, it rolls, it bluesifies. It is the essence of good music in a bottle. Drink it up.

The Hi-Nobles at MySpace

Love Like This - [Self-Titled EP]

2009-07-01T05:04:00.000-07:00

The bane of good music's existence, the dreaded "pop", rears its ugly head, turns towards you with a smile, and says "Don't hate this until you rate this, it is actually really good."

Despite being obviously "pop", these guys do something with their structure that I always love: rather than going A B A B C A, the tried-and-true method, they go "Fuck it we're gonna chuck an X in there... Yea, A B X C Z B A". It's the mark of musicians that are completely confident with their sounds and where they want to push them.

"Love Like This" are one of the best pop acts I've heard recently, despite being so instantly recognisable as "radio fodder". I guess when you break down pop into its constituent parts you get: the hook, the thing that immediately gets you nodding your head; the production, the thing that blows your mind if you have surround sound, and the simplicity. Love Like This manage not only to warp the simplicity into something more intensely original, but also bypass the dreaded 4th aspect of pop that I shudder to even have to type: commercialisation. These guys are underground, yet it's not "indie", it's not "vegetarian grindcore", it's just simply "pop"; I can only hope they don't land a major record label, selling their souls for bling and sequins, and end up taking the road of mediocrity. What they have at the moment is good.

Highly recommended EP.

Available for FREE from SimpleStereo.com

Baskyl - Monochrome Rainbow Snorters

2009-07-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

My first review of Germany's electroid Baskyl was drooling with praise over his lush soundscapism, incredible sense of melody and rhythm, and amazing ability to morph and evolve.

In doing my second review of this artist, the tantalising journey that is "Monochrome Rainbow Snorters", I would be repeating myself if I merely heaped praise on him. Let it be known he is an incredible composer and musician, and we shall move forward from there.

But how shall we move forward? Well, I hate to be a wanker, but I am, so I'm gonna start talking about red wine...

The previous album I reviewed, "Far Beyond Home", is a merlot. Often scoffed at by intellectuals who consider their taste refined, the merlot is nonetheless a delicious grape that yields a seductively sweet, full-bodied wine that hits the palate in all the right areas. It is my favourite grape, and like opening a bottle of expensive merlot I relished in the delights of sound akin to whirling tastebud sensations as I listened to Far Beyond Home. I know it is the sort of sound that some people will indeed consider flat and boring, just as the poor merlot grape is so often labelled. Yet it is in the simultaneous simplicity and power of these sounds that I found beauty and intense enjoyment.

Now as I crack open Baskyl's "Monochrome Rainbow Snorters" I find myself comparing it to a shiraz. From the get-go it hits you in the front of the palate, close to the nose, sending you reeling from the force of it's effervescents, yet behind this initial contact is a deep and soothing aftertaste that lingers in the senses like, well... a bloody good bottle of shiraz.

Baskyl has evolved in complexity and originality a great deal since I first reviewed him last year, yet on a very subtle level. Any newcomer to electronic music is like a newcomer to red wine: they will not know the difference between a merlot and a shiraz, yet I consider myself rather seasoned in my music taste and can say with certainty that this album has been pieced together with much more emphasis on the subtle things that make great electronic music great: "How loud should this snare hit be?" ... "What attack time do I set my compressor to?" ... "If an ant is crawling westwards on a knife on a train heading eastwards..."

It's a strange paradox that the subtle complexities of the composition and the mix are scientific and technological yet the overall effect is that of something organic, something that breathes. And, like "Far Beyond Home", "Monochrome" breathes, evolves, adapts, lives; like, and I'll say it again: a bloody good bottle of wine. Some people don't like red wine and some people don't like electronic music, but if I were to pick one underground example of this rather broad genre I couldn't think of anything better to recommend than this album.

Available for free at www.last.fm/music/baskyl/monochrome+rainbow+snorters

Telemachus - Only On Earth

2009-06-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

In a field like technical death-metal, it’s very rare to find truly underground, little known music, churning out sharp, cutting-edge riffage that you would expect from the giants of metal. Yet so blissful was said riffage to my ears that I held off reviewing this EP for some time, knowing I would need to summon all of my inner powers in praise of the beauty found on this recording.

These guys are almost good enough to be held in accolade alongside modern day legends such as Arch Enemy, In Flames or Amon Amarth. The riffs are original and raw, driven by amazing double-kick and churning bass. The singer has one hell of a growl too. I’m pretty much at a loss for words to describe how awesome this music is. They find a way to take all the clichéd bits that metal has churned out over the decades and breathe new life into it. It sounds modern, yet you can feel the weight of behemoths like Lamb of God and Death behind each guitar stab and kick. This is heavy, gut-wrenching stuff that kicks you in the soul and makes you want to start a band just to be able to play and feel the force of one perfectly timed guitar/bass/drum triplet.

I think the only reason they’re not famous is a mere few things: the singer is mono-tonal, it would be great if the pitch of his voice moved around a bit with the guitars. The drumming is slightly “lazy”. One thing that makes an incredible band incredible is when you don’t notice the drummer - because they don’t make mistakes and keep perfectly in time - but unfortunately this guy just stays slightly off pace, and although they’ve obviously been playing together long enough for the guitarists and bass to allow for this, and at first it sounds tight, repeated listens reveal that there are some timing issues here.

The main factor, though, contributing to their apparent lack of success would have to be their “packaging”, and no I’m not talking about what’s in their pants. I mean their overall “sheen”. They have on their MySpace a free download of this EP, but clicking on the link takes you to a Rapidshare download, where you will find a .zip of the 7 tracks, poorly tagged, and 2 Ableton Live documents which appear to have been added accidentally. This coupled with a slightly “sloppy” online presence seems unprofessional. I would suggest www.archive.org as a good place to offer free downloads, and I strongly advise releasing under a Creative Commons license if you want it to be free but still want basic rights like attribution and non-commercial use. Also, getting the tagging consistent would just make things seem a bit more professional.

Having said that, I feel that the amateurishness of this band contributes to making it so good. They’re fresh, invigorating, and we are assured on their MySpace page that “the best is yet to come”. I look forward to that immensely. Underground death metal is alive and kicking, it appears, and kicking hard.

http://www.myspace.com/telemachusmusic

Sic & Mad - Songs for the Revolution

2009-05-18T06:12:00.000-07:00

There are two things that spring to mind immediately when I listen to this recording:
1) This stuff would be so much better live.
2) No one over 19 listens to this stuff.

Keeping these things in mind, I listen to the lyrically-driven ska stomping of syllable upon
syllable and the plonk, plonk, plonk of the guitar, bass and drums, and try and find some enjoyment in this music. But although the frontman Michael "Happy" Weininger delivers his message with a certain sense of zeal, the two things above can immediately be applied to his voice and lyrics: the latter is immature, not as much of a social and political commentary as I think Happy believes it is (rather a pubescent, awkward dribbling), and the former is just so not captured properly on this recording.

To further that notion, I can tell this band absolutely goes off at a crowded punk bar with plenty
of booze: they are pure energy. I love that sort of shit, so it is with great sadness that I find
myself cringing at more than every second song because there must have been a vampire-energy-sucker lurking outside the studio; they just sound FLAT. Really really flat, often in pitch but more importantly in energy levels. The drummer is hitting those skins as hard as he can, the bass is driving, the guitar chops, and the vocals pump, but somehow the collective oomph of the band just dissapated into the atmosphere.

Furthermore the songs just aren't that great. If the lyrics were mind blowing, or there was
something different or original about the songs, rather than just - ska. ska. ska. plonk. plonk.
plonk - it could save this record from mediocrity, but unfortunately these things are not to be. To
conclude I return to my original thoughts on the recording: teenage ska kids will love this stuff,
because the lyrical intelligence is on par with their c-grade English essays, and if you're a bit
older and the band is playing near you I urge you to go see them live and get wasted with them.

However, do not bother with this rushed, awkward, backyard studio job of an album, unless you're looking for something to bore you or are interested in sound engineering and want to know how NOT to capture the essence of a band.

Buy the CD

Their MySpace

polarOPPOSITEbear - The Cre EP

2009-04-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

This is a good album. Good like the warm water between fire and ice, quite suitable for a band called polarOPPOSITEbear, and I use this analogy because this album does indeed contain polar opposites: those of win and those of fail. As many outstanding shining, burning elements there are in this EP, there is an equal amount of shit, both woven together to produce the satisfactorily simple “good”.

To get it out of the way, let’s talk about the shit first. These guys don’t know how to write a song. They know nothing about tension and resolution. Each song save the last one (we’ll get to that) sounds almost deliberately lifeless, as chord changes fail to bring out any resonance in what little melody there is in the foreground, and the background drums just repeat, and repeat, and repeat, yet they end each song with an epic “guitar stab wind down” as if something awesome has happened, when it hasn’t really.

Now for the outstanding parts. Bass. Fuck. Yes. Both the sound of this bass guitar and the guy who plays it are incredible. ‘Nuff said. The guitar too is exceptionally well played, even if monotonously composed, yet it’s master must pay attention to vocals as well (I do my research) so there’s props to that. These guys do post-punk indie rock stuff, which can be hard to capture in a studio environment as it always resonates with a live crowd better (and this style of music was born from the live scene), but the production on this is a whole step (like, a big step, like on one of those pyramids) above most of “those” bands, producing the overall quality of an effervescent, shimmering jewel amongst the drudgery of indie rock out there.

Last but not least, and to end with a positive note, the last track on the album shows that these guys perhaps can actually write a really good song, or at least magically or accidentally pull it off once, for the 5th and final track, “5100 and One Hundred and 3” is flawless in all it’s structural, emotional and soundscapanal majesty. I will be watching their future releases with intrigue on account of this one perfect piece of polar pie.

POB at MySpace

Drugzone - Digital Screams

2009-04-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

My first reactions:

"Yes yes, yes!"

"Wait, what? Don't wuss out on me now with the vocals..."

(Still on first track: "Welcome to Sin City")

"...Eugh I know I'm welcome in Sin City but you're not, lead singer..."

"...I really wish this was either purely instrumental or death-metal growled."

Moving further into the album, I applaud the lyrics, which are intelligent, and I empathise deeply with this guy wanting to present his message in his own voice. But that's just the problem- this is a band, and the lead singer successfully detracts all the attention away from the awesome beats, bass, blips and bizarre guitar.

Things start to make more sense as I realise that the singer is, in fact, female. Nothing against female singers but it just doesn't suit this style of music. It reminds me of Evanescence, and that's a bad thing.

After it becomes clear that the awesome bass blips etc. is what they do for every song, I strain to find anything exhilirating in this album.

Having said that, there are some good moments that fall fairly shy of spine-tingling, sort of like lower-vertabrae wiggling. When she really lets her voice go she gets a great gravelly sound out of it that, rather than grabbing attention, sits nicely in the mix, and there are those nice gothic piano moments essential to counteract the wall-of-sound production that prevails the rest of the time.

And some of these tracks have a "fun evil" sense about them. I like bands that look at things from more than one angle, and "fun" is a good way to look at evil. But that means that overall, taking these guys too seriously is a mistake, and not just because that could lead someone to mass murder
with tracks like "I Hate Humans" and "Make Me Kill", but because the whoopy whirls and soaring synths sort of demand light-heartedness (*whispers* I don't think that's what the band is going for though).

As the album draws to a close and I actually look forward to not having to play these guys again, having endured some rather banal tracks, I decide to do some research, and stumble across some photos. They're dressed in typical black, they all have black hair, the girl is, of course, covered in goth makeup to excess (so she stands out from the others who are only wearing a standard amount of goth makeup), one guy has one of "those" (black) beards and one guy is actually deliberately looking away from the camera like Southpark so awesomely sent up in that one episode. Sorry, guys, but Automatic Fail.

If the music was at all gripping, intense, and awesome you could forgive their image, but in the end, they're just trying too hard sonically as well as visually. The only track that I would recommend is "Rose Petal", an interesting gothic take on blues, that falls just before the closing track, being an only-ok remix of an earlier track. I would listen to "Rose Petal" again, but apart from that, not recommended at all.

Drugzone at VampireFreaks.com (it's the first page that crops up with a Google search, go figure)

Max Brody - Passout EP

2009-03-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

As much as I love two things that are often prevalent in music, there is no concept or story to this EP. But the EP as a thing, that emerged out of necessity for cheaper record production (but then evolved into its own statement) has always had its own special aura about it. When records were actual records there was the LP and the EP, and the artist that knew what they were doing delved deep into concept and theme on LPs, and EPs were a way of saying "Here's a taste of what we're capable of. Want some more?" With the difference in running length meaning zilch in today's digital world the EP has become even more a sort of "taster", yet it has come to mean more specifically "This is the tastiest of what we're capable of. You don't need any more." Radiohead are a prime example of this. Their EPs are incredible and stand out far more than their albums. They're juicy, they're thick. They're covered in Worcestershire. But hey we're not talking about Radiohead we're talking about Max Brody.

But we are talking about steak... so if we compare this selection of songs - and I realise I haven't said it yet, so I'll say it now: it's a DAMN fine collection of songs - if we compare this selection to a steak it's an eye fillet. Now that happens to be my favourite cut yet there are so many ways it can be buggered up when it comes to the cooking process. In terms of song structure, soundscaping, instrumentation and what I'm gonna refer to (since this is a steak analogy) as grain, grit, or gristle (the "oomph", the momentum, the wackedness), the cut is better than one I would buy at my world-class local butcher. But the production side of things, where the delicate mix of natural fats, muscle and oils (the "raw sound") mingle with touches of seasoning (EQ, compression, dynamics) and most importantly: convert that grainy, gritty, gristly stuff into "omg I'm fully licking this stuff off my fingers" residue... in the end it's all just a few minutes away from being a perfect steak. It's hard to say whether it's over-cooked or undercooked, but it's more like some other ingredient accidentally got thrown into the cooking process.

Having said that, an eye fillet is a fuckin' eye fillet man, and they taste delicious. But if Max Brody had a good producer behind him this shit would be "cooked" perfectly and I wouldn't have much to say in this review except "zomg steak drool", which I often do when I come across a really, really good collection of songs. So in the end it's missing something, mostly on the production side, to make it amazing, but is nevertheless very very tasty. 4/5 stars.

Max Brody's MySpace

King Django - A Single Thread

2009-02-27T13:05:00.000-08:00

Wow. It's at exactly 4 tracks in to "A Single Thread", the title track, that you have to do three things, 1: turn it up 2: take a step back to say "holy wowfuck" and 3: start listening even more intently (as if you weren't gripped excited and laughing for joy from the very beginning). As the album progresses, words fail. This is unclassifyable, ineffable. I therefore shall talk about the imprint of the album on my memory rather than the album itself, for to feel like I'm talking about the sounds alone is like trying to describe water. We all know it's the most amazing thing on the earth, but you can never do it justice, you just drink it, encourage others to drink it, and feel it doing amazing things to you. So, the imprint: I feel cleansed. I have taken a journey. I have discovered one of my new favourite artists. I feel an incredible zest for life. I feel like life has given me a gift. Sorry this isn't much of an objective review, but holy wowfuck. Just fuckin' get this album. King Django - A Single Thread. Ok I'll throw words at you but it's not gonna do the sounds justice... Sparkle magic glowstick usurped by tribal midgets cute and funny laughing at the sky ploughing fields on temperate days surrounded by palms glorious sunshine amazing lyrics don't even feel the need to have sex. Complete. Joy. No moment of reflection, churning flutes and shakers through a monkey-grinder's organ being played by a cat, dog and rat who love each other with the intellect of stephen hawking the pride of a lion the savannah hosting a party sword fighting on a pirate ship the carribean is a myth compared to the reality that exists inside your head when you listen to this album. I'm not even on drugs. I still don't feel the need to have sex, maybe not ever again. Joy. Complete. Amazing. Listen. Then listen again. Holy wowfuck.

You can buy this album here. King Django also has a fancy homepage with gig listings etc.

Predator Dub Assassins - The Hardest

2009-02-27T05:52:00.000-08:00

There's something about reggae dub that fascinates me: it gets you up, by "getting down". This works in a metaphorical sense as well as a strict musical sense. The bass and kick drum falls on the down beats, dragging with them, as they sink, the chords and snare/rim shots (that sit on the upbeats), into a sort of lull, a spiral, that makes you casually nod your head in a downwards motion, traveling through your spine until, if you're standing, you find yourself swaying, and if you're sitting, you tap your foot and bounce around on the chair. The overall feeling is that of being pulled towards the earth, of being grounded, and the mood of this sort of music, by directly engaging with your body, makes your soul soar: you can't help but smile. That's the overall metaphysics of dub in general and as an album made up entirely of dub, "The Hardest" hits those vertebrae just right. But is there anything original going on here? No. It's the kind of stuff that is constantly verging on being great - often due to the incredible rasta flow of the vocals, and the smooth production - but never gets there; and in terms of song structure, well, I find it hard telling one track from another. Frankly, the album is saved from the drudgery of repitition by only a few things: the amazing guitar lead and piano that both remain distinctly behind the scenes, yet shine when they take the stage, the occasional interesting instrumentation ie. harmonica and saxophone, and the chilled and very smooth voice coupled with down-to-earth, cosy lyrics, that are uplifting and inspiring ("You'll never know until you try" is floating around in my head). In the end, it's not the sort of music you would pay for an album's worth, but would turn up if you heard one song on the radio, and would absolutely love if it were played live in front of you, especially if you were high. Having said that though, I've got a massive smile on my face now and never felt the urge to skip a track. Breezy, easy, flow: getting you up by getting down, but just not great album material unless you're a hardcore reggae dub fanatic, in which case you'll love it.

Available for purchase at CDBaby

Bomb Town - ?!INTERROBANG?!

2009-02-27T01:51:00.000-08:00

When I receive a new album, I rarely play it immediately. I'm either afraid I'll hate it, or love it so much I will listen to nothing else for weeks until I get sick of it. Unfortunately, the infectious mix of awesome bass that immediately grabs you from the word go, "punk to the floor + dub to the step drums" that follow swift tempo changes to the letter, incredibly slick vocals, bright horn sections and absolutely droolable keys, combined with just outstanding songwriting and production, means that alas, I will indeed be listening to nothing else but this album for some time. With this release Bomb Town manage to at the same time completely chill you out with their reggae approach - which manages to thread its way into even the hardest, punkiest songs, and maintains a prevalent presence throughout the album, thus giving it a distinct "upbeat" flavour - and yet maintain a certain funevilness that is engaging, and even at times confronting. I love that shit, and it's the thing that will make sure I don't get sick of it. The left-hook of sinister lurking beneath the tangy, rich, positive flavoured jabs. I'm not sure quite how to describe it, but the music is groovy and yet daggy at the same time, life-affirming yet destructive at the same time (destructive in a very subtle way, as if taking apart a molecule piece by piece for scientific investigation rather than out of recklessness), and there's a feel of basically "hard rock plus reggae equals more than the sum of genres, a step above anything you'll hear from either of the aforementioned". The CD came with a .pdf that I was wary of at first: utilising military inuendos to propogate imagery of "hitting a town with a shell of music"; I thought the music would be a lot angrier, yet it's unmistakeable that the destructiveness of this album is more about breaking down barriers and destroying egos, than numb "kill that fucker" stuff. The ultimate message, again carried through the reggae-ness that is always there, is of peace. Peace, fun times, chillin' out, yet slapping you on the head with that evil every now and then to make sure you're still riding the wave, and testing your ability to stand upright in a sea of punk. Brilliant stuff, highly recommended.

Available to purchase at CDBaby

Baskyl - Far Beyond Home

2009-01-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

Let's talk about The Journey. It may be a cliche to say this, but it is more important than the destination. Having just finished a deep contemplative listen to "Far Beyond Home" in surround sound I sit, flabbergasted, in silence, and let me tell you, silence just ain't cutting it. I just want more. I want to hear these amazing sounds again, and again, and again. Having said that, I'm restarting the album right now while I continue to type...

...ah that's my fuckin' fix right there...

Now, some journeys are arduous, some are mild, others are wild and many are boring. But "Far Beyond Home" is an apt title for the journey you go on when you listen to this album. Instant teleportation has arrived my friends, and its name is Baskyl. From the word go this album transports you to the glowstick-neon-laser-fueled nights of Germany's club scene, to the most intense rave you've ever been to, takes a left turn to downtempo paradise, lifts you up into deep brooding bass heaven, then whacks your head into "FUCK YES!" nod-mode and your feet into "THEY'RE DOING IT ON THEIR OWN!" shuffling, takes another meandering side-road into Chilltown and then drops you into a veritable bottomless abyss of "HOLY SHIT I WANT MORE!" four-to-the-floor; all the while completely trancing your pants off. I rarely use capitals like that but you have to remember I am listening as I type and by the power of the Almighty Glowstick I feel it. Shit yeah, I feel it.

Not only is this album hard hitting and "fuck-yeah", but it is extremely musically intelligent. Baskyl's real name is Wolfgang, and after listening intently to this album I believe he deserves the extra title of "Amadeus". One thing I've always liked about Mozart's, I mean Baskyl's, music is the way it evolves. His melodies and bassline grooves metamorphose as if sentient, growing twisting and curving, and have a beautiful lush, organic nature to them that is still reminiscent of classic techno square-wave and acid riffs that we all know and love. His beats are solid and catchy whilst remaining intuitive and original, at times strapping you in for a rollercoaster ride and sometimes just throwing you off a cliff in the most orgasmic way possible.

Germany's Wolgang Amadeus Baskyl, or "Wolfy" as I like to call him, regularly sends me tracks on Last.FM which I thoroughly enjoy for the ride; and now having the pleasure of listening to an entire album that maintains this incredible evolutionary morphing feeling is pure bliss. The tracks seemlessly flow from 1/16th note arpeggios to deep house bass to psy and hardstyle flings within their own timeframe, yet on top of that they merge together to create a highly cohesive album. The cruising chillgrooove tracks act as the perfect breather before your next slam-dunk into fuck-yeah, and the whole time the trance never lets go of your pants. Screw Armin Van Buuren and his monotonous tones, "Far Beyond Home" is the true meaning of trance, a Journey.

DJs, Rave Organisers, Night Club Owners the world over, I beseech thee: Grab this album and spin it till your decks are smoking. There can never be too much of great electronic music like this.

All of Baskyl's music can be downloaded for free at his site at LastFM

Reconsiderate - Niche Work

2009-01-20T04:05:00.000-08:00

Juxtaposition, division, conflict; tools often utilised by the skilled artist to create a piece of work that directly challenges the observer. This album cannot be listened to casually. It is a challenge. I knew it would be from the moment I opened up the cover of this CD and read the words on the inside cover: "Dear subconscious..."

The album is a challenge to figure out, a challenge to listen to and an even greater challenge to like; but I enjoy challenges, and it's what's kept me coming back to listen to this album time and time again until I felt comfortable enough to like it (let alone write about it!). In the end it is a piece of art, as perfect as a piece of art (being the pursuit of a perfection that will never be attained) can be. It is complete. Here's why:

Reconsiderate has addressed this album to his subconscious, and we can thus assume that the addresser is his consciousness. This is evident in the poetry of the lyrics and the structure of the songs and melodies, all of which are highly intellectualised and thus come from the conceptual, conscious foreground of the mind. Yet, the way in which the content is delivered: vocals that surge up and are then swallowed by the surrounding textures, start-stop rhythms that bang you around, and bowel-churning beats, all appeal to the subconscious, to something inheritly tribal and non-conceptual.

This is where the division comes into play. Whilst Reconsiderate states both on the inside cover blurb and in the lyrics, that his subconscious is "not his friend", the relationship between these two parts of the mind work together, in a fantastically poetic way, by opposing each other. This happens on both a lyrical and musical sense.

In some ways, you could say this juxtaposition is music vs. lyrics, but having listened to this album many times I can see that even in the lyrics, there is evidence of subconsciousness, of spontanaeity and instinct, as much as consciousness, conceptualisation, intellectualisation. When the desperate surging voice cries out "What where you thinking?" or "You need me!" it leaves the listener wondering exactly which part of the brain it is carrying these words. But in all cases, the harsh, often angry sounding, vox is definitely directed at it's polar opposite.

Musically, the fragments of major-key melodies sit side by side with rumbling minor-key bass, they swirl around each other, circling and engaging as if they too are part of the inner conflict.

So how is this album complete, how does it achieve near-perfection whilst being seemingly so conflicted? Simply put, the lyric, "I guess you're just not god enough."

Here, as I see it, the two halves of reconsiderate's mind sing this in unison. Both subconscious and unconscious agree, that whatever they are and whatever shortcomings both have, all of which are explored throughout this album, they are both part of a human being. In a letter accompanying this CD Recon stated that the album was about one's "life's work", and it is this striving for perfection, the thing that keeps any artist going; the accute feeling of "trying to keep it together" both in a conceptual yin and yang (subconscious and conscious) way, and in an emotional, immediate way, that screams humanity; ultimately, it opens a window into the private world of Reconsiderate.

That's just my perception of it, although what makes a great piece of art great is the ability to spawn many different ideas and vantage points depending on the observer's previous experiences, thoughts and feelings. If you want to be challenged and learn something about yourself I couldn't recommend a piece of work more.

Thank you Recon for making what I'm sure people will look back on as they did on Van Gogh and say, "Shit, this guy was good."

Available to purchase (and lots of free tracks) from reconsiderate.com

Yet Another Beat Maker - [Self Titled]

2008-12-18T05:04:00.000-08:00

I was very excited the other day to receive two brand new shiny CDs from my net-friends Reconsiderate and Tom Rex aka. Yet Another Beat Maker as part of the "holiday season CD swap".

I am fairly familiar with Reconsiderate's music so I decided the first one I would listen to is Tom's, which I had never heard before.

His (debut?) CD is entitled "Yet Another Beat Maker": a name that screams humility, as much of an oxymoron as that is. And indeed, it is quite humble. I'm not exactly sure what the word "minimal" means but it's a word that cropped up in my mind as I listened to the first few tracks.

Now, I have the great fortune of having surround sound with an awesome sub in my loungeroom, and it was for a good slab of time that I could lie down and listen to this album that I have been waiting for this last few days. Having listened, I can surely say that if sub-woofers could ejaculate my loungeroom would be covered in spoof, for it surely had an orgasm, as did my ears at certain points.

Now don't get me wrong, this isn't ground-breaking stuff. As I've said it's very minimal, and the first 5 tracks have the distinct feel of someone playing around with a drum machine for the first time; yet the pulsating, syncopated rhythms are highly intelligent yet playful, spontaneous and almost child-like, taking you back to the early days of Kraftwerk et al, yet with cutting-edge 21st century mastering that has your spider-bass-senses absolutely drooling. This playfullness and feel of experimentation carries on right through the album, and although it may not have been such a process for the artist, to me, this album is all about exploration and discovery. Or in my case, re-discovery, of the simple, the droning, the repetetive lull. Lull as in lullaby. It's soothing and gentle yet jerky and nervous at the same time.

As you move into the middle few tracks you have a certain feeling of wading through the water at land's edge, constantly looking outwards. And then bang in the middle of the CD at track 6, "No Rush", you suddenly turn your head around and realise you can't see land anymore; but with the feeling of floating merrily towards some as of yet unknown location, you are happy.

Having said that, there are moments in this album that frustrated me, but that's due to my restlessness and not any failing on the artist's part. I'm referring to the repetitiveness. It made me want to get up and roll a cigarette just for something to do. Often I was like "where's the action?" Yet one thing I am gradually learning to do is to be content with simplicity. Not only is the simplicity of this album beautiful, but also beneath the sheer veneer of 'bang-bang-bang", there is in fact an incredible array of multi-layered facets and twitches that carry you on towards the horizon, until finally, at the album's close (Mystic Embrace) you realise you are standing on solid ground again, an island in a sea of swirling sounds and moments of pure, well, what other word can I say that fits but: realisation.

Plus, your sub-woofer has just spoofed all over your loungeroom, and together with it's last dying hum, you lie down and absorb what you've just heard in post-basscoital bliss.

Thanks for the CD Tom, it feels like the beginning of a very merry holiday period for me and I will be listening to it a lot.

Available to purchase from CDBaby

Next up: review of Reconsiderate's "Niche Work"