Queeen Victoria

The Endless Night is a ten-song album recorded at strange hours in a basement in Pittsburgh. Everyone else was asleep. The music is made up of acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, drums and voice. The songs are written by Nick Malkin.

Well Hung

Finders Keepers break yet more ground with this, 22 stomping selections from the vaults of Eastern Europe's best kept secret, Hungaraton / Qualiton Records. This first ever compendium piles heavy psych, jazz, glam and funk onto a heaped spoonful dripping with the cream of the 60s/70s Hungarian rock scene - Omega, Metro, Locomotiv GT, Skorpio as well as Finders Keepers' very own jet-set fit-bit Sarolta Zalatnay.

The unique ways in which Hungarian rockers interpreted such sporadic and disparate influences and unknowingly mirrored embryonic developments in Western rock from behind a political blindfold is truly unique. The national pride of Hungary's pre-war musical heritage ensured that the state-owned label Supraphon's in-house studio was designed to immaculate classical standards with acoustic specifications that would put its surrounding Eastern European labels to shame. The quality of phonograph records, from a part of the world that was usually notorious for low quality pressings and repeatedly recycled vinyl, would surpass the European standards ensuring that the hand crafted sound of Hungary's futuristic pop music was light years ahead of its time and would stand the test of time for many (delayed) years to come.

The introduction of electronic instruments penetrated Hungary like a double-edged sword and polarised progressive pop aficionados over night. Where the introduction of Czechoslovakian electric guitars unified Eastern Europe's rock 'n' roll fantasists and spawned the rock in opposition movement in the mid 60's the spurious arrival of synthesizers ten years later spawned a host of new streams of hybrid rock which embraced funk, soul and disco.

The restrictions of communism coupled with the silver-spooned Westerners musical xenophobia, however, as good as guaranteed that no matter how close Hungarians got to the authentic rock 'n roll sound their music would still never safely make the journey over the language barrier. In recent years, as much as 15 years since the collapse of the iron curtain, the interjection of many forms of latter day communist era art into popular western culture has become apparent and increasingly well documented. Hopefully at some stage discerning palettes will develop a taste for Hungarian rock music in the same way that we have come to accept, champion and be inspired by Polish poster art and Czech cinema.

Fall Mix

It felt like Fall for a few days here in LA.Sorry for the lack of posts. A lot of good things coming soon!!

Fall Mix

1. Crocodiles - Young Drugs
2. HTRK - Marry Me Tonight
3. The XX - Heart Skipped A Beat
4. Cold Cave - Love Comes Close
5. Swishahouse - Luv Ya Girl RMX-(Screwed & Chopped version)
6. Blues Control - Tangier
7. Richard Hawley - Don't Get Hung Up in Your Soul
8. Greg Cartwright - Reptile Style
9. Kings of Convenience - Mrs Cold
10. The National - Ashamed of the Story I Told
11. Fleetwood Mac - Dreams
12. Lusine - Two Dots
13. Atlas Sound - Quick Canal (w/Latetitia Sadier)
14. Rameses III - I could Not Love You More Vinyl

Far East Family Band

Regarded by many as the first Japanese progressive rock group, the Far East Family Band featured the keyboardist and future new age composer, Kitaro. A keyboard-dominated space rock band, the Far East Family Band played extended compositions that brought comparisons to Tangerine Dream and early Pink Floyd.

The group's first album was released under the band name of Far Out. After changing their name, the band released The Cave Down to Earth in 1975. Their first European release, Nipponjin -- Join Our Mental Phase Sound (1975), featured re-recorded versions of material from the previous record and the album attributed to Far Out. The group's next record, Parallel Worlds (1976), was profoundly influenced by Klaus Schulze who Kitaro met on a trip through Europe. With the first track over 30 minutes long, the album bears similarities to Krautrock legends Ash Ra Tempel. Tenkujin (1977) followed and was the band's first and only American release. By this point, the band consisted of Miyashta (vocals, synths, guitars, bamboo flute), Hirohito Fukushima (guitar, vocals, koto), and Yujin Harada (drums, percussion). It would be the band's last record. ~ Geoff Orens, All Music Guide

A few years back, former Quiet Sun / Roxy Music / 801 behind-the-scenes mastermind Gill Manzanera--no relation to guitarist Phil Manzanera (whose real name is Philip Targett-Adams)--offered up a beguiling reminiscence of those heady days to the Swiss fanzine Sombre Reptiles:
"What we were trying to do, you see, was harness the future into the present. However, we were severely at odds with technology, a ring modulator on a Fender Rhodes and a bit of funny business through an analog synth being about as far as one could go then. The work with Quiet Sun was the foundation, then later Phil and Eno built upon that within Roxy and if only Ferry had acquiesced to Brian having a go at 'Bogus Man,' I think the results would have been stunning (as well as longer-lasting). But alas, so then for 801, the decision was to incorporate the progressive and avant garde through a chamber of fusion (so to speak), the results of which are undeniable. Mind you, this was all during the burgeoning punk era, so it took a bit of time for some to settle in with what was happening. But isn't that the future, really; someone has to be the first out the door to know if the rest of us will need a jumper or not. It was all quite brilliant in that way, absolutely so, I should think."

Hmm, well, that all sounds... quite English. Oddly enough, that sliver of quinine-sotted nostalgia could be used as a swab of historical DNA pap to describe the fantastic newest shimmer from Blues Control. While past releases have been beauteous extrapolations into the miasmic core of psychedelia and billowing fog of ambient space, Local Flavor is the one where all the chickens have come home to roost.

The opening track "Good Morning" is practically a sideways step into boogie rock (horn accompaniment provided by none other than Jesse Trbovich and Kurt Vile); with the proper seismic shift, it could almost be heard as an alternate reality take on "Re-make/Re-model." It's easily the band's longest stomp in the forest of rock since their debut cassette, and, man, them boots leave a bruise!

The remaining three tracks morph and ebb harmoniously--in true Blues Control fashion--the timbre occasionally elegiac, yet more often riffing on a plane that has yet to be transcribed. Local Flavor is 801 plus an extra one (8101, if you will), providing an unimaginable future that will take your breath away. So make sure you've paid your oxygen bill, because there are no free rides in the 82nd Century.

Phaseone

St. Louis producer Phaseone gained quite a following with his amazing remixes of Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Bloc Party, Banjo or Freakout, and more. He recently followed this up with a free album showing that he’s not too shabby at creating his own tracks as well. Click HERE for the free download of Thanks But No Thanks.

Tonstartssbandht

"Two brothers from Florida ... now in New York and Montreal. An international power duo without borders. High Rise disciples with angel voices. Here they've made an album of 12 anti-genre pop burners,An When. Thick with human voices. Choose your own single... Dad's on the cover" -Dœs Are

obfusc

STUNNING!!!!

Kreng

Shrouded in the mystery and the opaque, otherworldly quality we've come to expect from the consistently remarkable Miasmah imprint, this beguiling debut album has been wrecking our collective heads here in the office for some time. Pieced together from a plethora of unidentified samples, field recordings and found sounds, Kreng taps into a unique, almost indescribable corner of the musical universe that originates from, and proceeds to completely re-imagine, the world of music for film and theatre. The eleven pieces here were, indeed, originally made for a variety of theatre productions and retain that illusory quality that's so often associated with arts-based music, but without any of the site-specific pretension or impenetrability that you'd think goes hand hand in with this kind of material. There's an intensely overbearing darkness to this work, covered by a dense thicket of layered drones and fuzzy sound recordings, but as each piece progresses narrow cracks begin to emerge, letting in shards of colour and light painted through fragments of jazz and classical music re-painted in shimmering, luxurious colours. It's very hard to think of any singular points of reference, but there are elements here that remind us of György Ligeti, Cliff Martinez, Moondog, Arvo Pärt, Arthur Lipsett, Deathprod, Bernard Herrmann and Dictaphone - while really sounding very little like any of them. "L'Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu" is an incredible, utterly mesmerising collection of pieces that we have little doubt will entice, seduce and terrify you in equal measure and, needless to say, comes to you with our highest possible recommendation. ESSENTIAL

Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens virtually disappeared from the British pop scene in 1968, at the age of 20, after a meteoric start to his career. He had contracted tuberculosis and spent a year recovering, from both his illness and the strain of being a teenage pop star, before returning to action in the spring of 1970 -- as a very different 22-year-old -- with Mona Bone Jakon. Fans who knew him from 1967 must have been surprised. Under the production aegis of former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith, he introduced a group of simple, heartfelt songs played in spare arrangements on acoustic guitars and keyboards and driven by a restrained rhythm section. Built on folk and blues structures, but with characteristically compelling melodies, Stevens' new compositions were tentative, fragmentary statements that alluded to his recent "Trouble," including the triviality of being a "Pop Star." But these were the words of a desperate man in search of salvation. Mona Bone Jakon was dominated by images of death, but the album was also about survival and hope. Stevens' craggy voice, with its odd breaks of tone and occasional huskiness, lent these sometimes sketchy songs depth, and the understated instrumentation further emphasized their seriousness. If Stevens was working out private demons on Mona Bone Jakon, he was well attuned to a similar world-weariness in pop culture. His listeners may not have shared his exact experience, but after the 1960s they certainly understood his sense of being wounded, his spiritual yearning, and his hesitant optimism. Mona Bone Jakon was only a modest success upon its initial release, but it attracted attention in the wake of the commercial breakthrough of its follow-up, Tea for the Tillerman.

The 6ths

The 6ths are a side project of the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt, who produced and wrote all of the material on 1995's Wasps' Nest, as well as playing much of the music. He only sang one of the tracks, however, giving all of the remaining lead vocal slots to alternative rock faves like Barbara Manning, Dean Wareham (Luna), Georgia Hubley (Yo La Tengo), Chris Knox, Lou Barlow, Robert Scott (the Bats), Chris Knox, and Mary Timony (Helium). Brighter and poppier than his contemporaneous efforts with Magnetic Fields, it demonstrated (intentionally or inadvertently) that his principal talents are as a producer and composer, rather than a performer.

Subway

Amazing new album of krautrock-inspired beauty!



Subway II, the debut album by Subway on Soul Jazz Records, is a startling cosmic marriage of influences – German electronic rock music from the 1970s (Cluster, Kraftwerk, Neu, Harmonia, Ash Ra Tempel), 80s Detroit science fiction techno (Carl Craig, Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills) and a hint of Italian and European disco (Danielle Baldelli meets Cerrone, Space, Moroder and Jean Michel Jarre).

Subway are Michael Kirkman and Alan James and have been releasing music since 2000. Subway II was recorded at home in East London using a plethora of analog equipment and techniques that enabled them to create sound reflecting cityscapes such as Berlin, Dussseldorf, Detroit and Paris whilst at the same time creating a contemporary musical commentary of London in 2009.

This album is a cosmic progression of post-dance music, focused more on meditative thought and space than one made for the dancefloor, yet still encompassing the rhythm and constant beat at the heart.

Their most recent appearance is on Soul Jazz Records Singles 2008-9 alongside Kode9, Digital Mystikz, Tetine, Secondo, Ramadanman and other forward thinking electronic pioneers.

With three previous sell-out singles on Soul Jazz Records (Simplex, Satellites and 4410), an album ‘Empty Head’ (released in 2005) as well as a string of one-off projects, the group are currently name-checked by everyone from Hot Chip to DFA, Prinz Thomas to Carl Craig, with good reason.

‘Subway II’ is a fitting conceptual statement of their current sound. Cosmic, post-dance, organic, meditative and hypnotic.

Gnaw

Gnaw present their debut album This Face, viciously assaulting listeners with their unique brew of ultra-depressive, scathing, slug-paced extreme metal.

Formed in 2006 by Alan Dubin (ex-Khanate, OLD) along with Jamie Sykes (ex-Burning Witch, Thorr's Hammer, Atavist), Carter Thornton (Enos Slaughter), Jun Mizumachi (ex-Ike Yard: 80's NYC industrial legends) and Brian Beatrice (Emmy Award winning sound design/mix wizard),

Gnaw's debut album This Face is the sonic culmination of over a year of sound experimentation. It's a genre-destroying journey that almost defies description. Sykes is a percussive madman blasting out anything from tribal beats to ultra slow tom killings. Mizumachi is a sound designer for film and television and is a master of electronics including synth, factory noise, metal bashing and other craziness. Beatrice is also a sound designer and mixer for film and television and was responsible for mixing This Face, as well as experimenting and adding additional sounds of torture. Thornton is a crafty musician who actually makes his own instruments, contributing guitar, bass, piano and some unnamed homemade "things" to the album. Dubin rounds out the group with his gut-wrenching vocals, noise and arrangements. Screaming, singing, whispers and chants can be heard throughout This Face. Dubin's lyrics will mentally rape you.

Summer Time!!! 2009 Mix

Here is a nice little Summer mix. Go to the beach or pool and listen to this.
1. Milky Globe/Sorcerer - Soft Sea
2. Cluster- Stenthin
3. Desire- Dans Mes Reves
4. Royksopp- Silver Cruiser
5. Lee Fields & The Expressions- Do you Love Me(Like You Say You Do)
6. Odawas- Harmless Lover's Discourse
7. Crocodiles- Summer of Hate
8. Now - Last
9. The Halo Benders - Turn It My Way
10. Jubilee Singers- Gonna Like It
11. Dino Felipe - Stuck On You
12. Girls - God Damned
13. White Denim - Regina Holding Hands
14. Jane - Way To Paradise
15. Le Corbeau - Hibou

In The Country

Ambitious, epic and grand in scale, In The Country´s third album ”Whiteout” qualifies to be called their magnum opus. Most of the music was performed and written as a thank you, as is the tradition, after leader Morten Qvenild was awarded Kongsberg Jazzfestival´s prestigious Musician Award. Other receivers have included notables such as Nils Petter Molvær, Bugge Wesseltoft and Sidsel Endresen. Qvenild is already established as a writer with a strong signature, original and melodic with elements from many genres of music. His playing is rich in detail and dynamics but never dominant, and together with bassist Roger Arntzen and drummer Pål Hausken´s sensitive and inventive contributions we are in for a treat when it comes to trio interplay. These eight compositions are all between seven and twelve minutes and are given time to develop, much like the best exploratory jazz and progressive rock music. Another triumph from the band whose previous effort was dubbed ”one of the finest and most arresting albums to come out of Europe this year” by Downbeat.

The Halo Benders

Don't Tell Me Now sees Calvin Johnson's baritone and Doug Martsch's high-pitched whine working with and against each other to catchy effect. Lyrically obtuse, with subject matter praising draft dodgers as heroes and a supremely catchy theme song about themselves, the Halo Benders create a guitar-heavy indie poptopia throughout the album. Martsch might not attack his guitar in as epic a fashion as he does with Built to Spill, but his trademark sound is on display throughout. Built to Spill fans might consider this a Built to Spill album as recorded by Martsch at a circus. If that metaphor holds up, Johnson becomes the ringleader, singing about all sorts of mundane things and randomly spouting clichés. Martsch in turn becomes the more serious guitar god and a more realistic conscience. The album might seem scatterbrained, but the mix of vocal styles makes for charming harmonies amid mostly enjoyable hooks. God Don't Make No Junk might be a little more charming and The Rebel's Not In might be better produced and more melodic, but Don't Tell Me Now has more than a few diamonds in its rough. It might be smart to note that each album contains a contraction in its title, as the fractured nature of the music suggests a similar fusing of two styles: Johnson's arch wit with Martsch's brave sonic force and heartfelt emotion. Don't Tell Me Now isn't a great rock & roll album, but it's as fun to listen to as it must have been to record.

Steve Hauschildt

New limited edition solo album from Steve Hauschildt, dedicated to the Isley Brothers (?!)Critique of the Beautiful.. This is one of Steve’s most straightforwardly beautiful keyboard sets, with the kind of haunting, melancholy melodies of early Asmus Tietchens given treatments of rolling fuzz and choirs of heavenly synth. Somewhere between the devotional electronics of early Kraut thinkers like Harmonia, Cluster and Klaus Schulze and the technicolour drone work of UK outfits like Sunroof and Ashtray Navigations, this is a stunning set and comes with full-colour sleeve art by Steve.

City Center

Although this eponymous album may be the debut from occasional New Yorker Fred Thomas, he's far from a newcomer to the scene. Rather he has spent most of his life in search of the perfect pop music, first as the frontman/mastermind of Saturday Looks Good To Me and now under his oddly monikered solo project. Apparently the name comes from European tours where the sign 'City Center' was such a regular (and reliable) sight, but gives few clues to the unknown pleasures held within Fred's music.

Taking cues from the skewed pop music of Arthur Russell on one side and Brian Wilson by way of Panda Bear on the other, Fred has channelled an outsider pop masterwork. Thick waves of decomposing electronics and processed instruments (is it gamelan? Is it something else altogether?) crash and fizz beneath Fred's singular chanting vocals. There's a sense that someone, somewhere might be singing along to these songs, but hearing them on mainstream radio might be pushing it a little too far. Sandwiched in-between three-minute pop marvels such as opener 'Killer Whale' and the stand-out 'Summer School' are extended ambient experimentations, but unlike the occasionally academic workouts you might expect from Type these feel organic and distinctly home-brewed.

There is something magical about Fred Thomas's distinct and original musical creations, something that grabs you and won't let go. We're not entirely certain what that is but we're sure if you give City Center a try you'll feel exactly the same as we do. Pop music has rarely sounded so warm or quite so open hearted...

Waylon Jennings

Even though Waylon Jennings virtually disowned this album as a hoodwink job by RCA brass and some of these tracks were unfinished and others mere demos, Ladies Love Outlaws nonetheless has some very fine moments, including Jennings' version of "Delta Dawn," a fine emotionally wrought read of Hoyt Axton's "Never Been to Spain" (which Jennings claimed was never intended for release), and Mickey Newbury's "Frisco Depot" (one of the few tracks the singer considered complete). In addition, there's Ralph Mooney's (who plays pedal steel in this band) classic honky tonk anthem "Crazy Arms" and one of the reclusive Lee Clayton's best songs in the title track. Listeners also get a solid, moving duet version of "Under Your Spell Again," with Jessi Colter. These performances offer Jennings in deeply expressive terrain as a vocalist. He wrings emotion from songs rather than merely projecting them into a microphone, and his band, which includes bassist Norbert Putnam and drummer Kenny Butrey as well as guitarist Dave Kirby and pianist Hargus Robbins, turns the volume up a point or two and lends a slippery greasy hand to the entire proceeding. Ladies Love Outlaws is not a perfect Waylon album, but it's worth owning for the fact that while Jennings may have disliked the finished result, he proves to be no judge of his own work. In essence, this is the outlaw primer, and the beginning of the opening of the field.

D. Lissvik

As half of Sweden's foremost Balearic revivalists Studio, Dan Lissvik's already well known for poolside dance music that's more horizontally than vertically designed. But where Yearbook 1 and this year's remix collection Yearbook 2 found shape around the duo's bouncy, dub-infected rhythms, Lissvik's debut solo album 7 Trx + Intermission is, fittingly, more a one-man quest: a work intent on musically recreating a sense of beatific solitude.

Without vocals and with track numbers over titles, Lissvik foregoes Studio's emphasis on trance-clatter and repetition. In their place are rippling Factory Records guitars, the barest rhythms and a decidedly Eastern-influenced spiritualism, making for an album that nurtures the spare and serene. He draws shapes and symbols in the sand out of lean, serpentine guitars, each open to the listener's angle of sight. Without partner Rasmus Hägg's synth shading, Lissvik's imagery is fit more for the desert than the beach, designed around great clean spaces without people or moving things to distract, just sound and silence in an odd tandem.

Despite the emphasis on his ruminative side though, Lissvik hasn't completely neglected his band's taste for big-eyed joy. The album's longest excursion, "A3," shifts from boat holiday guitars into a breezy freeway spin atop hand drums and brawny bass, while "A4" makes easy Saturday night disco out of electronic piano and jaunty wood-cowbell rhythms, a kind of polyester anthem as cheap and delightfully fruitful as its opening chords suggest. "B2" best resembles Studio's knack for the hypnotic strut though; Lissvik filters quiet Eastern tones into a wanderer's dance jam, alternating the dim and contemplative with a more open-collared bass heavy approach.

But it's clear that Lissvik's relying on open-vista psychedelia to carry the mood for most of 7 Trx + Intermission. "A1" turns a Spanish guitar intro into a curtain parting for a Sergio Leone film—one of the tense train depot scenes before all hell breaks loose—while "A2" is dressed in enough vague mysticism and candle-lit ambience for an early Doors track. "B1" makes for a kind of mystical Bazaar interlude, swapping out Villalobos' ethnic playgrounding for more solitary spoils. Blending tropical bird noises and what sound like sampled hand-drum patterns into a calm morning alarm that might gently coax you from your sleep, it's "B3" that generates quite a spell for such short length.

For a member of a band that's always relied so heavily on the intoxication of repetition, this assured short-form design sometimes feels like a welcome new direction. After all: Yearbook 3 is probably still at least a year away. While we wait, Lissvik's solo debut marks not so much a holding pattern as a distraction well worth our winter attention on its own.