Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
transfigure
ARCHIVE
Take My Head
I'm kinda on the fence with most of this female-fronted pop rock groove whatever album. It's quiet in spots, I like that. It rocks out in other spots, which is fine. It just feels kinda gimmicky or something. Like "Woman," "I'm a woman/you're a man."... I don't know. But I do like like like the uppy groove "Love in Summer," which is a uni-chord jam that crescendos with synths & everything else.
BUCKETHEAD
Pepper's Ghost
Hey, it's Buckethead's fortieth new album today. Obviously it rules.
BASIA BULAT
Oh My Darling
I only grabbed this 'cause her name reminded me of the band Beirut. But, this ain't that, exactly. She does share some soundground with them bwahs but this her own deal. Although, um, I guess they both do do kind of old-timey other-worldly folk-tunery, using old-timey etc instrumentation like strings and acoustic everything. And liberal use of handclaps, just like, wow... Beirut. So maybe I was right after all.
Basia Bulat Myspace
DE-PHAZZ
Days of Twang
This is one of those groups/artists that, once discovered, makes you/me slap your/my head & cry "where have you been all my/your life?" It's possibly banal groove electronica. Formerly known as 'dance music'. Whenever I start to think that there will never be another new album of this type of music that I like as much as the class of 1997-98 (early Fatboy Slim, Propellerheads, Daft Punk), along comes De-phazz to straighten me out. So, thanks for that. I can still get down when I need to. "Rock 'n' Roll Dude" almost sounds like Theeee Art of Noise & their old "Peter Gunn" thing. Nice. Nice, it's all nice.
HEAVINESS
Heaviness
Using My Bloody Valentine "Loveless" worship as a starting point, this-here album is fwacking gwargeous. I mean, look at the blueprint, y'can't go wrong there. "Not Yet" is the dancey moody swoony swoopy opener. Unapologetically MBV-mad. The dude's voice even sounds like Kevin Shields. "Saddest Colour": yep, more of the same. "Your Velvet Wrapping," "How You Avoid the Sugartraps," down through "Touchlast." Sexy, right down to the lo-fi flute samples!
Heaviness Myspace
JESU
Conqueror
Seriously, I might never stop listening to this wonderful wonderful beautiful gorgeous album. Sigh. Conqueror, will you gay-marry me? "Stanlow" is so awesome.
NINE HORSES
Money for All
Y'know, I've been listening to this for so long, I forget that it's still 'new'. Obviously anything that's Touched By The Hand of David Sylvian is bound to be fucking excellent. This release has a few new tracks and a few in-house remixes by Nine Horser Burnt Friedman. And I think that's Stina Nordenstam singing on "Birds Sing for their Lives." If it's not her, it's someone doing an uncanny impression of her. Which does seem to be today's theme, after all. Fun fact: the Nine Horses song "The Banality of Evil" is apparently featured in the newest Jim Carrey movie, 23. Playing over the end credits. How's that for some weird-ass shit. Um, getting back to this EP or whatever it is, it's just fucking fucking great. The first mix of "Get the Hell Out" sounds like old old Skinny Puppy or even first-album Nine Inch Nails laying down an old Wax Trax type-o-groove. And Sylvian has never sounded more accessible. I'd be okay with this one quietly going platinum. Em, yeah right. In another universe.
fan-made video for "Atom and Cell" from the first Nine Horses album, Snow Borne Sorrow
SIMPLY RED
Stay
Dude, I've loved Simply Red since their first album. And in the mid/late 1980s, when I should've been listening to, I don't know, the Smiths or Morrissey or Joy Division, I was exploring (& later colonizing) my Smooth Jazz Side. Sort of. I've actually heard the new Simply Red single "So Not Over You" on the local smooth jazz radio station a few times, which is a strange thing for me to say. But, hey. We live in the present. The new track almost almost sounds like Mick Hucknall goes full circle. After the last couple of albums of up-to-the-minute pop music tricks & traps & techniques like mash-up (that one song used a whole ole Hall & Oates track), the new one is mostly just a full band. It's almost like a return to the disco, funk, soul band side of things. I always like his songwriting too. What can I say, I'm a fan.
Simply Red- Oh! What a Girl!
SKINNY PUPPY
Mythmaker
More ass-shakin', head-scratchin' than life-changin'. But you'll have that & as usual, it's probably more my fault than theirs. It's cool. It rocks, certainly, more than most of the rest of their trax. I just wish they'd been this accessible back in the day. The catchiness is wasted on me now.
Take My Head
I'm kinda on the fence with most of this female-fronted pop rock groove whatever album. It's quiet in spots, I like that. It rocks out in other spots, which is fine. It just feels kinda gimmicky or something. Like "Woman," "I'm a woman/you're a man."... I don't know. But I do like like like the uppy groove "Love in Summer," which is a uni-chord jam that crescendos with synths & everything else.
BUCKETHEAD
Pepper's Ghost
Hey, it's Buckethead's fortieth new album today. Obviously it rules.
BASIA BULAT
Oh My Darling
I only grabbed this 'cause her name reminded me of the band Beirut. But, this ain't that, exactly. She does share some soundground with them bwahs but this her own deal. Although, um, I guess they both do do kind of old-timey other-worldly folk-tunery, using old-timey etc instrumentation like strings and acoustic everything. And liberal use of handclaps, just like, wow... Beirut. So maybe I was right after all.
Basia Bulat Myspace
DE-PHAZZ
Days of Twang
This is one of those groups/artists that, once discovered, makes you/me slap your/my head & cry "where have you been all my/your life?" It's possibly banal groove electronica. Formerly known as 'dance music'. Whenever I start to think that there will never be another new album of this type of music that I like as much as the class of 1997-98 (early Fatboy Slim, Propellerheads, Daft Punk), along comes De-phazz to straighten me out. So, thanks for that. I can still get down when I need to. "Rock 'n' Roll Dude" almost sounds like Theeee Art of Noise & their old "Peter Gunn" thing. Nice. Nice, it's all nice.
HEAVINESS
Heaviness
Using My Bloody Valentine "Loveless" worship as a starting point, this-here album is fwacking gwargeous. I mean, look at the blueprint, y'can't go wrong there. "Not Yet" is the dancey moody swoony swoopy opener. Unapologetically MBV-mad. The dude's voice even sounds like Kevin Shields. "Saddest Colour": yep, more of the same. "Your Velvet Wrapping," "How You Avoid the Sugartraps," down through "Touchlast." Sexy, right down to the lo-fi flute samples!
Heaviness Myspace
JESU
Conqueror
Seriously, I might never stop listening to this wonderful wonderful beautiful gorgeous album. Sigh. Conqueror, will you gay-marry me? "Stanlow" is so awesome.
NINE HORSES
Money for All
Y'know, I've been listening to this for so long, I forget that it's still 'new'. Obviously anything that's Touched By The Hand of David Sylvian is bound to be fucking excellent. This release has a few new tracks and a few in-house remixes by Nine Horser Burnt Friedman. And I think that's Stina Nordenstam singing on "Birds Sing for their Lives." If it's not her, it's someone doing an uncanny impression of her. Which does seem to be today's theme, after all. Fun fact: the Nine Horses song "The Banality of Evil" is apparently featured in the newest Jim Carrey movie, 23. Playing over the end credits. How's that for some weird-ass shit. Um, getting back to this EP or whatever it is, it's just fucking fucking great. The first mix of "Get the Hell Out" sounds like old old Skinny Puppy or even first-album Nine Inch Nails laying down an old Wax Trax type-o-groove. And Sylvian has never sounded more accessible. I'd be okay with this one quietly going platinum. Em, yeah right. In another universe.
fan-made video for "Atom and Cell" from the first Nine Horses album, Snow Borne Sorrow
SIMPLY RED
Stay
Dude, I've loved Simply Red since their first album. And in the mid/late 1980s, when I should've been listening to, I don't know, the Smiths or Morrissey or Joy Division, I was exploring (& later colonizing) my Smooth Jazz Side. Sort of. I've actually heard the new Simply Red single "So Not Over You" on the local smooth jazz radio station a few times, which is a strange thing for me to say. But, hey. We live in the present. The new track almost almost sounds like Mick Hucknall goes full circle. After the last couple of albums of up-to-the-minute pop music tricks & traps & techniques like mash-up (that one song used a whole ole Hall & Oates track), the new one is mostly just a full band. It's almost like a return to the disco, funk, soul band side of things. I always like his songwriting too. What can I say, I'm a fan.
Simply Red- Oh! What a Girl!
SKINNY PUPPY
Mythmaker
More ass-shakin', head-scratchin' than life-changin'. But you'll have that & as usual, it's probably more my fault than theirs. It's cool. It rocks, certainly, more than most of the rest of their trax. I just wish they'd been this accessible back in the day. The catchiness is wasted on me now.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Thursday, March 08, 2007
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