Swänns))) / Potemkjin Village - 6th Rehearsal (17th August, 2010)

Me and Chris had our 6th rehearsal of the band on Friday - we're now called Potemkjin Village, so this will be the last you hear of Swänns))).  I made a Last.fm, but I'm still using the same Swanns bandcamp for now:

http://www.last.fm/music/Potemkjin+Village

http://swanns.bandcamp.com

This rehearsal we spent the first half hour playing around with bass riffs against the guitar lines, then matching them up to the parts I'd thrown together on the drum machine; all of which was totally undermined by breaking a bass string while tuning up, with no spares - total amatuer. Sounded o.k. in the room despite that, but the tone in the recording is quite thin sounding because of it. The beat patterns need a bit of work but we've got a good idea of the structure now. Need a good intro to set the scene and add some more colour; work out some killer riffs for the ending and get the noising off more structured but overall things are starting to come together now: so that's 'needs a lot of work' then!  We're both agreed that this is the first time our stuff isn't embarassing, at least.

Making progress.


Here's the track for y'all.  If you're this way inclined, the album download on Bandcamp comes with our Potemkjin Village remix of Del Shannon's Runaway.

LAST FM THREAD OF EXCITEMENT

this weeks dual DiS/blog last.fm stats post

Mist And Sea Spray

01. Indian Jewelry -55

02. Twin Sister - 35

02. Sleeping Peonies - 35

04. Winterfylleth - 31

05. Best Coast - 29

06. Washed Out - 24

07. Women - 22

08. Sing and Sign - 21

08. Luggaldimerankia - 21

10. Black Mountain - 20

10. Samamidon – 20

1 – Why did no one tell me how awesome this band are; I thought they were going to be a bunch of jangly hippies, expecting High Places I get Blank Dogs dosed out on witch house.

2a – the genre I call simply ‘Vintage’

2b –Excellent vocals, no-wave influences, French romanticism: Norfolk UKBM all the way.

4 – Transformative new album of English Heritage Metal

5 – Still digging it, even in the rain

7 – So subtle, each song a proper euphoric progressive little wonderbolt

8 – violent, feral subterranean black metal horror – the UK’s answer to WOLD.

10a – new album is o.k. Got a couple of rockers and a lot of filler on first couple of goes. I was totally wowed by In The Future, and this isn’t that.  I maintain Old Fangs has an organ sound that got a lot of Nine Inch Nails to it, deliberately or not.

10b – still haven’t got his new album, but I don’t want to risk breaking the magic of All Is Well in case it’s nowhere near as good.

Track of the week:

 

The Sword - Tres Brujas

The Sword confirm tracklisting, giveaway track from new album http://dlvr.it/2hvy1

That's some fucking awesome Roger Dean artwork right there (he did the Psygnosis logo back in the 80's - games developers of my all time favourite Amiga classics Shadow Of The Beast and Lemmings!). We're in the dystopian future right now aren't we?

Tracklisting:
1. Acheron / Unearthing The Orb
2. Tres Brujas
3. Arrows In The Dark
4. The Chronomancer I : Hubris
5. Lawless Lands
6. Astraea’s Dream
7. The Warp Riders
8. Night City
9. The Chronomancer II : Nemesis
10. (The Night The Sky Cried) Tears of Fire

VIDEO: Golau Glau - Restraint

You like Golau Glau? You like Betty Boop and cartoon innuendo? You probably don't generally like restraint, but you will probably like the Restraint in this video.

Here you go:

Golau Glau - Restraint

Theme From 'last.fm thread'

This weeks twin DiS/Blog Last.fm stats post

Awakens He, Bereft Of Kinsman

A lot of ties this week, a lot of previous weeks that I’m still well into, so I’ll keep it brief. I’ve got all into black metal again: there are loads of new bands outside the top ten. I hadn’t scrobbled all week, so this was quite a surprise. Thought there’d be more grimnity up here.

01. Clair Cassis - 48
02. Sing and Sign - 38
03. Wild Nothing - 30
04. Eluvium - 24
04. Emeralds - 24
04. Best Coast - 24
07. Women - 21
07. Twin Sister - 21
07. Sleeping Peonies - 21
10. Winterfylleth - 20


01 – Josh & Angela of Velvet Cacoon’s new band. Released 2 albums/eps this year then disbanded. The guy is certified genius of the genre – he calls this project ‘luxurious black metal’.
07 – Norfolk black metal! Sound like Alcest/Circle of Ouroborous – post-punk/Manchester grey/shoegaze influenced shrieking.
10 – The Mercian Sphere is brilliant – trance riffs, solar burst beats and the weight ancient heritage.


Track of the week
(just one example of many)

VIDEO: Of Montreal - Coquet Coquette

"Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation"

DOWNLOAD: oOoOO & N Marco De La Vega - 120 Minute Mixtape

Marco de la Vega (sideA) oOoOO (sideB) made this mix for a new club in SF called 120 minutes

Jump: www.bit.ly/b3Tbea

REPOST FROM ALL I EVER WANTED (WAS EVERYTHING)

sorry it’s been a second… and then some. i’ve been working on a lot of projects. one of which was this mixtape. i actually finished it weeks ago, but again, the overwhelming crazy that is my life as of late has kept it on the back burner. but here it is, in all its random glory… the particularly amazing part is that side b was mixed by none other than oOoOO… yep that’s right, one of the high priests of witch house has helped to bring you a fabulous romp through crazytown filled with everything from creeptastic meena kumari remixes to britany spears…

Side A: Click to download

Ol’ Dirty Bastard-Goin’ Down
Nite Jewel-Want You Back (Phaseone Remix)
Autre Ne Veut-Bossy
Captain Beyond-Thousand Days of Yesterdays
Bruce Haack-Means Old Devil
Memory Tapes-Green Knight
O’Children-Dead Disco Dancer (Golden Filter Remix)
Health-Lost Time (Pictureplane Remix)
tape collage noise-BIG ANT (RIP)
John Maus-Do Your Best
Nocera-Summertime, Summertime (WhITCH Summers Over Edit)
oOoOO-NoSummer4U
Scott Walker-Plastic Palace Syzzurp (Haloperidol Edit)
Grace Sings Sludge-My Heart Was Really Breaking
Dead Prez-Wolves
Angelhood-Tauros (Demo)
Black Lips-Veni Vedi Vici (Diplo Remix)
Light Asylum-Shallow Tears
Devin The Dude-See What I Can Pull
Die Antwoord-I Don’t Need You
William S. Burroughs-Love Your Enemy


Side B: Click to Download

method man - tical
meena kumari - alb paa (oOoOO DreamMix)
marina & the diamonds  - oh no! (active child remix)
crystal castles - celestica
briny spears - get naked (i got a plan)
kylie minogue - all the lovers (xxxchange remix)
memoryhouse - to the lighthouse (millionyoung remix)
robyn - dancing on my own
sky ferreira - one
the xx - basic space (pariah remix)
+++++
modern witch - not the only one
hype williams -  mvp ‘94
pocahaunted - follow i
sleep ∞ over - outer limits

VIDEo: Detour 1 - Mike Celona

A performance experiment consisting of nearly 3 hours of home video footage arranged in an edit timeline and manually scrubbed at high speed in an attempt to generate random sensory impressions similar to memory fragments within the viewer's mind from which a personal subliminal narrative can be derived, similar to that of a recovering amnesia patient.

Are you going to see Kong tonight?

Brighton. Prince Albert.  Be there.

The Great Park - If You Can Hold It You Can Throw It

Brighton based folk label Woodland Recordings has just put out their 31st release, and it comes from one of my favourite local artists; The Great Park - the solo work of Stephen Burch. The album is called If You Can Hold It You Can Throw It and is now available to buy from their website here:

http://www.woodlandrecordings.com/work.html

Recorded in Berlin between April and August and featuring fellow Brightonian folk musicians Birdengine and Fee Reega - this has 9 songs dragged out with acoustic guitars, electric guitars, foot stamping, melodica, chains, old shoes and a trumpet street band.

The label are giving away a free teaser mp3 of Song For A Coalman, a song written especially for a Dutch museum. Download it here:

The Great Park - Song For A Coalman

The albums have been pressed in an initial limited edition of 100 numbered copies with printed lyric sheets and thought up things to stamp on each CD. This label specialises in gorgous homespun packaging which is always worth owning, but if you miss out on the physical copies

you can download the uncompressed audio in pretty any much any digital format you want for just £5 from The Great Park's Bandcamp here:

http://thegreatpark.bandcamp.com/album/if-you-can-hold-it-you-can-throw-it

DOWNLOAD: Gone In 60 Seconds (A Collection of Short Songs From Friends & Devotees of I Heart Noise)

Gone In 60 Seconds 

(A Collection of Short Songs From Friends & Devotees of I Heart Noise)

DOWNLOAD

Gone In 60 Seconds is a huge free-download compilation of over 40 micro-tracks released by one of the best Noise blogs out there - I Heart Noise. This album contains a wealth of styles of music, not just blasts of grinding death distortion - though of course there is plenty of that – there’s an almost cartographically thorough inclusion of everything across the noise landscape with contributions including neo-folk, hardcore, dark ambient, industrial and spoken word.  Most of the tracks were specially recorded for this compilation through invitation and open submission; no idea how many submissions they received but the quality of the tracks on this is consistently great, the only unpositive thing I could take away from this is some artificially abrupt sounding editing that I suspect is due to keeping tracks within the 60 second limit. There is a lot of punky hardcore which I’m not a massive fan of but these only last for 60 seconds or less and that I can take because they make for good punctuation. I am much more familiar with the Noise vernacular and there’s a depth and immediate submersion in atmosphere in the tracks of Rectum, Guanoman, and Drone Forest; other standout moments include the minimal ambient glitch from Collapse Under The Empire; absurd gospel pop metal from Down I Go and their operatic cousin FEASTofFETUS.

It will take you longer to read this that to listen to them yourself, so you may as well get on it.

Last.Fm

Rank. Name - Number (minimal)


01. Sing and Sign - 83 (entertaining)
02. Gayngs - 79 (rapey)
03. Best Coast - 42 (simple)
04. Richard Skelton - 36 (desolate)
05. Burl Ives - 34 (innocent)
06. Wild Nothing - 30 (cavernous)
07. Bon Iver - 27 (solitary)
08. Volcano Choir - 26 (radiating)
09. Washed Out - 25 (soporific)
10. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - 24 (audacious)
11. Drum Eyes - 22 (primordial)
12. Menace Ruine - 22 (feral)
13. The Body - 20 (arcane)
14. Table - 18 (cryptic)
15. Gonjasufi - 17 (hippy)
16. Black Mountain - 16 (trippy)
17. Midlake - 12 (antiquity)
17. Nightbringer - 12 (kvlt)
17. Superqueens - 12 (cutting)
20. Vetiver - 11 (roadtrip)
20. The Goner - 11 (journeyed)
20. Castevet - 11 (gnarly)

Guardian Music Blog lnks to NFR DiS WitchHouse Thread!

Guardian Music blog ran a fairly skim-shallow feature on Witch House today over here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/aug/11/bands-names-symbols


They linked to my thread on Drowned in Sound. Definitely should have written that more thoroughly if it's going to be the mainstreams only point of reference!! 

DOWNLOAD: The Goner - Bitemarks ep

The Goner
Bitemarks

DOWNLOAD

German DIY psych folk label Dying For Bad Music have put out a free download re-release of the orphaned Bitemarks EP from The Goner.

I have been slightly obsessed with their Behold A New Traveler album released on Deep Water Acres earlier this year, and this is an interesting addition to their canon, providing a sense of progression from a starting point - all the more poignant considering he title.  So, this was the beginning, or thereabouts. Five different pieces showing the Swedish band’s mastery from crafting simple acoustic folk songs to the construction of walls of sound. Psychedelic folk tales from the dark age, mystic and natural without being retro-visionary or overdramatic. The center piece of this EP, Lost Summer, starts with a shimmering organ drone chord and shifts into a moving tribal theme. The theme of traveling is picked up again in Oakmulgee Creek which leads to the end of this wonderful EP. The Goner leave you alone with a peaceful field recording of lonely bird calls.

VIDEO: Teeth - See Spaces

I already waxed lunatic about the remixes of this track the other week, and now there's a wonderfully garish video to go with the hypercolour tune. Feast your eyes ad ears upon London's fearsome Teeth!!!!:

Gayngs

Don't really know what to say about this. As in - speechless.  I'll let Jagjaguwar do the talking over the who/what/where/how and leave you and your jaw to hit the floor.

GAYNGS

custer's last.fm

This weeks DiS Last.fm post

Pretty even spread of listening this week I'd say. 

01. Best Coast - 52

02. Blackbird Blackbird - 36

03. Dream Boat - 34

04. Arcade Fire - 32

05. Wild Nothing - 31

06. Burl Ives - 28

06. Ikonika - 28

08. Laurel Halo – 27
09. Pears - 26

09. Mountain Man – 26
09. Castevet – 26

12. Conan - 23


03 / 08 - Dream Boat ep on AMDiscs is amazing as is the Laurel Halo ep - both Chillwave/WitchHouse/Hypnogogic pop straddling artists with emphasis on different aspect.

04 - New Arcade Fire is really nice - like the deadpan electronics in it, like the slightly subdued sense of grandeur - bombast is still there but toned down, muted, restrained.

06 - Baby Syd loves Burl Ives - especially this

09 - Pears are another great AMDiscs band - sound a little like Vampire Weekend in a way I can stomach

09c - Best black metal album I've heard for a while integrating crusty grind into the taut transcendental trance of the frozen North

12 - awesome inspiring UK Doom band with a lot of tricks up their sleeves, and the most incredible vocals.

Track of the week:

Has to be this:

VIDEO: Velvet Davenport - Get Out

Here's the all new bug-eyed technicolour tripped out video from US psych Anglophiles Velvet Davenport. It's the lead track of their new shdwply 7" recorded in gutter fuzz troubador Gary War's flat straight to 8-track with GW and nu-psych luminary Ariel Pink adding vocals and various instruments. Look out for their new full length Warmy Girls lp on Moon Glyph soonish

Watch the vid then cut out and keep the full track from HERE

DOWNLOAD: Stop Making Séance (NFR Mix 05, August 2010)

Stop Making Séance
NFR Mix 05, August 2010

DOWNLOAD

Witch House looks like it is becoming a tangible genre about to whip into a full eldritch storm when the TriAngle twin release and SALEM albums drop in September. Best not be sitting on the Hate side of the fence when that hits.  This has taken me ages to do and I’ve surprised myself by missing out some of my favourite tracks from massive scene shiners like White Ring, TEARIST, Passions, SLEEP∞OVER and others, but I wanted it to be a tight, focused & fully effective freak of a mix instead of a full primer style overview, which I think it is now; but trust me, it hurt to do it.  Someone already told me I should do another one with just the hits. Maybe.

So much to say about this; such little inclination to decry the negativity at this point; if you keep up with the blog you’ll have read my opinions and know my position. This is a sound I’ve been waiting for for years – it’s been in my head forever and if you’ve heard about Witch House / Haunted House / Spook / Ghost Drone / Drag or whatever it’s getting called on the blogs you read you’ll have the gist of the genre – multi-roomed subterranean crypto-occultism with an indecipherable debased aesthetic.

Listen to this mix and tell me there’s not meat to chew off them bones


Tracklist:

De/Void – The Spooning Couple (Self-Release)
†‡† - gOth bb (Self-Release)
SALEM – King Night (King Night, IAMSOUND)

FFFF: Castevet - Grey Matter

Today's Fast and Furious Friday Feature is another grim one - Castevet's Grey matter from their Profound Lore relased album Mouth of Ash.

A USBM band utilising shades of hardcore and grind - dropped shoulder bunched up muscle headcharges of testosterone injected into the tense tranceouts of the black metal template.

DOWNLOAD: SALEM - I BURIED MY HEART INNA WOUNDED KNEE

REPOST FROM XLR8R

No strangers to the world of fucked-up, screwed-down internet mixtapes, Salem has just released their I BURIED MY HEART INNA WOUNDED KNEE set of weird-sounding shit, which you can download here. No tracklist, no description, no nuthin'. Just some rope.

DOWNLOAD: Blackbird Blackbird - Until Dawn Takes Flight

Blackbird Blackbird has just posted a new track off his/their forthcoming EP Rarities.  In a similar vein to previous tracks, which means it's harmonies float on gentle effervescent melodies and a firm beat base. Pretty pretty.

DOWNLOAD: Until Dawn Takes Flight

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tumblr
Bandcamp

DOWNLOAD: One Unique Signal - Gora

NFR Favourites One Unique Signal have another song to give you, entitled Gora. It's their shortest track yet at a blink-and-you'll-miss-it 2 minutes, but that doesn't mean it's no less intense for it, losing no time in slamming metal against metal in a torrent of wah and triple guitar rhythms.

Recent shows have had copies of this strictly ltd ed track on "pointless floppy disc format", but it's also available as this far more sensible, but less sweaty free download version, packaged with a live version of Villains - which has the far more sensible running time of 17 minutes, giving you plenty of room to breathe in the expansive swirling mists of sound, yet at the same time sucking all the air from the room in its turbulence.


Get it here: DOWNLOAD

Thunderforce IV

I think the gaming me is reviving itself. Off the back of the Ikonika album I have been remembering past games with awesome soundtracks and this is probably the best ever.

Ikonika - Contact, Want, Love, Have

I am just getting heavily into Ikonika's  Contact, Want, Love, Have album now. It's so busy with ideas and a complete lack of seriousness but at the same time it just blows away loads of nerdy versions of the same kind of stuff, shifting chiptune (if not the actual genre then at least, 8-bit nostalgia) into a dubstep environment in a more sophisticated way than similar artists like Quarta330 who seem to just drive the plasticky sound hard without tricking it out with the kind of depth of structure or tone that is on this record. Herein lies a wealth of polyrhythms, melodic counterpoint and samples - the Streets of Rage owned R.E.S.O.L.; the amphetamine pulse rush of  They Are Losing The War; the pixellated airehorns pushing the warehouse jump up of Sahara Michael; all utter genius - almost timeless in the way they straddle generationakl eras of technology.  I was a bit skeptical when someone in The Wire included Joy Orbison under the Hypnagogic umbrella, but listing to this album that makes more sense - the timelessness here is the refraction of the Megadrive/SNES sounds through all the dance musics of the last 10 years and pushed through a future/modern filter, thus creating that distorted sense of a past imagined a discombobulated, recency-influenced rememberance, the essence of hypnogogia.

So yeah, I am well into this record, and for the now this is my favourite track by far:

DOWNLOAD: Nute Records - Putetiden -II- C60 (c60005)

Nute Records just added another spankin C60, Putetiden -II
All sorts of quality toonage from Shaolin Wooden Men, Thomas Dinger, Tones On Tail, among others:

SOUNDCLOUD

The Horror Factory - Intro
Shaolin Wooden Men - Brother Ray (On The Radio, Joe!)
Silo - Those Adopted By People
Whirlywirld - Window To The World
Telex - Pakmoväst
The Cosmic Nanou - The Miraculous Intervention
Thomas Dinger - Ballgeflüster
World Of Skin - Breathing Water
All About Eve - Some Finer Day
Suicide - New City
Piratio - Boil Into UV
Children Under Hoof - Tactical Assault 2
Thread Pulls - Cycle Path
Ollie Olsen - 00:09:26
Tones On Tail - Rain

Scene Not Herd Noise on Noise All-dayer

Massive total repost for this jaw-dropping mind-blowing freakfest happening in London this Saturday

Scene Not Herd is proud to present the Noise on Noise All-dayer: a ten hour spectacular featuring the best new bands the UK has to offer. This tirade of awesome musicality will be accompanied by an archive film mash-up of video-art oddity; regular art oddity; fabulous arty zines; and a wonderful agglomeration of delicious merchandise.

Advance Tickets: £7.50 from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/86453
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=125583207483417

The Others Warehouse, 6-8 Manor Road London N16 5SA
http://www.theothers.uk.com/

\\\\\DRUM EYES/////
A collective arranged around the Shigeru Ishihara (better known as DJ Scotch Egg) and E-Da (Ex-Boredoms drummer), Drum Eyes combine dueling drums, cornets and game boys to form a devastating live show.
With their debut album released on 9 August, anticipation for the record is feverish after the band blew away audiences countrywide with their insatiable, mind expanding live performances. Drum Eyes are a band who are impossible to pigeonhole in any category other than fantastic. (Last FM)
www.myspace.com/drumeyes

\\\\\SCREAMING TEA PARTY/////
STP is more than just a band, it’s an orgy of clashing and crashing, of sounds and cultures colliding like a beer-soaked bodyslam. Your hosts flip from swirling, fairground folk to ferocious riffing like it’s no big thing. (NME)
www.myspace.com/screamingteaparty

\\\\\TEETH OF THE SEA/////
Teeth of the Sea create a turbulent, fiery and atmospheric instrumental brew that encompasses searing cosmic psychedelia, melodramatic giallo soundscapes, mariachi melancholia and kraut-tinged droning occultism. (recordstore.co.uk)
www.myspace.com/thewrongjaws

\\\\\GUM TAKES TOOTH/////
Gum Takes Tooth is a single-headed beast with two bodies: a duo of Thomas Fuglesang on live trap drums, physically wired into home grown electronic instruments, bare circuit boards, tweaked, moulded and mangled in real-time by Jussi Brightmore (Infants). Frequent double drum live action with second kit from Valentina Magaletti ($hit & $hine) Always a totally live symbiosis of unique and manually manipulated home grown electronics driven by a dense and expansive percussion attack; NO GUITARS, BASS, KEYBOARDS, BACKING TRACKS OR LAPTOPS FEATURE IN GUM TAKES TOOTH (www.copsandrobbers.net)
www.myspace.com/gumtakestooth

\\\\\COLD PUMAS/////
These tropical punks create a vicious, infectious sonic snarl. This is day-glo, psychedelic flower-punk, all tribal beats and off kilter harmonies. Imagine Shellac with a sense of fun and you’re nearly there. Cold Pumas are neither subtle nor clever and it works just fine. (TLOBF)
www.myspace.com/coldpumas

\\\\\RICA MINAMI/////
Rica Minami is a singer songwriter based in London from Japan. She playing piano like a cat tapping the keys and she sing like a innocent child. her amazing band members are from Wales and Italy. This mixed cultural band makes contemporary cinematic pop song with floating female vocal. (Green Man Festival)
www.myspace.com/ricaminami

\\\\\LOVESICK TEENAGERS/////
Lovesick Teenagers specialise in scuzzy, floaty , sweet, romantic, dreamy, lucid pop. Once of our favourite finds of the moment so catch them before everyone else realises how good they are.
www.myspace.com/lovesickteenagers

Dirty Bingo (DJ)- www.myspace.com/dirtybingo
The 405 (DJ - http://www.thefourohfive.com/
Scene Not Herd (DJ)- www.myspace.com/scenenotherdevents

Italians Do It...

...Warmer, actually. Germans do it better.

NFR mentioned in Source Magazine's 'Brighton's Best' feature!

This cities out-and-about bible Brighton Source magazine has a slightly sombre tone this month (along with an amazing cutting Modern Toss cover!) with a feature on the depressing dual collapse of live music venues and rise of supermarket chains across the city.  As a counterpoint to that they have run a side feature on what is truly and enduringly great about the place and we were seriously chuffed to see Not For Resale get a mention along with other estimable music blogs 20 Jazz Funk Greats and The Recommender.


Here's what they said about us:

NOT FOR RESALE
Is there anyone in Brighton that has such a need for new music as Meatbreak and Fokkawolfe? Food, air, and demo tapes – that’s what they live on. Their next Penthouse night is on Friday 20th, or keep up with their almost-daily blog.

Read the full article and list of our city's heroic contributors HERE

And if you're a Brightonian who isn't among their 2000+ twitter followers you should jump on them now:  http://twitter.com/BrightonSource


Thanks Source Mag!

DOWNLOAD: Laurel Halo - King Felix EP

Laurel Halo

King Felix EP

DOWNLOAD

--(OFFICIAL LINK EXPIRED - ORDER THE 12" FROM HIPPOS IN TANKS HERE)--

Laurel Halo is definitely an artist to keep your eyes and ears pinned to, whether you are into this whole Witch House thing or not. The solo Brooklynite has been causing a few ripples across the web with Forkcasts on Pitchfork, contributing sinh (Something I Never Had) to the TriAngle Let Me Shine For Me compilation and an increasing presence across The Blogs - which I am more than happy to boost up with this post.  She is in the habit of giving her tracks away for free via her website or last.fm and now she has put out this whole EP of new material to download for nothing.

Listening to King Felix  puts me in a similar headspace to Oneohtrix Point Never, with multiple layers of tone bubbling and effervescing across each others surfaces, slipping off in differing directions of sound - some pulling out angelic resonance and euphoria, other dragging the tone down into dissonance and noise, then passing back into each other through distorted wormholes to a harmonious communion. Which makes sense considering he described her music as "really intricate, really ornate synth-pop" in an interview with Pitchfork

Beyond simple synth pop, they both mine a seam of deep hypnagogic cosmia, using oscillation to mirror and refract brain waves, sucking listeners into parallel universes, distorting perceptions of time and spatial awareness - a disorienting bubble of shimmering liquid colours, glassy, brittle, fragile, and delicate; hanging like a portal towards the two otherworldy realms of light and dark - Witch House and Hypnogogic Pop.  Laurel Halo straddles both worlds and produces an improbably rich soundworld because of it.

MySpace

Website

Conan - Horseback Battle Hammer

Conan have been anointed the genre caveman battle doom. Primitive and crushingly heavy it is also pretty nimble when they want to be. They use quick changes in tempo like a killshot. Their album Horseback Battle Hammer is available on vinyl from Throne Records and CD through Aurora Borealis.

The album is one of the most riveting and exciting doom releases I've heard for some time with many majestic and arresting moments spread across the record; The whole vocal performance it's unique; it's always a long distant lonely cry echoing through the wilderness/across the battlefield; almost anguished but not piteously, almost Ozzy Sabbathesque but more mournful - a howl into the winds of the North. Maybe the best Doom vocal I have ever heard. Musically the tempo changes fuel the more euphoric moments; The switch up from crawl to canter in Satsumo, 3:25 into Dying Giant when the sludgy head nodding plod breaks into a even more catchy and densely grinding riff, on to a peak where the drums bludgeon along savagely, double kick coming in shortly after to drive the climax upwards. Then, just as you feel like you have heard all this bands tricks they drop a blitzed white out guitar scree around 8:30 into the final Sea Lord, cascading a sheer torrent of noise down off the speakers unexpectedly before intensifying relentlessly out to the finish. Inspired.

These three guys do the crushing:

Jon Davis - Guitar / Vocals
Paul O’Neill - Drums
John McNulty - Bass / Vocals

Here's a video of their first live show in January 2008, but youtube just won't do the weight of this band justice, you really have to go and get this for yourselves.

Swänns))) - 5th Rehearsal (26th July, 2010)

It's been a long time since we had a practice/jam with the band and you'll notice we've gone from 3rd to 5th rehearsal - what happened to the 4th? We asked ourselves the same question, it was fucking terrible, a total write-off so there as absolutely nothing to show for that one. Even so, it's been nearly two months since the last one, but we've been rethinking our approach, practicing solo, coming up with ideas and finally, last week, we got the chance to put them together. So here from my transparent band project in which we post a piece from each practice (so long as it’s not total shit!), is a track from our 5^th rehearsal session.

In this rehearsal we pretty much played The Song over and over again jamming over a few ideas for bass riffs, developing the structure. I think we’re getting there with it. The version I’ve uploaded is the last time we played it before our session ended; although it isn’t the tightest or hardest we played it, it does have the most developed structure and developed narrative, which is the version I think this transparent band idea calls for.

We’re also planning on changing the name, or have already changed it, one of the two. I haven’t updated Last.fm or Bandcamp or anything on that one though, so it’s still Swänns))) everywhere but soon it will become POTEMKIN VILLAGE.

Here’s the track:

This time Last(.fm) year

I made this weeks DiS Last.fm thread

How do we know who gets to kick off the last.fm threads?  I enjoyed last week, but is it o.k. if we go back to numbers for the pinch-punch-first-of-the-month?

1. Wild Nothing - 87

2. Twin Sister - 73

3. Imperium Dekadenz - 63

4. Sing and Sign  - 52

5. Mountain Man - 35

5. Gonjasufi - 35

7. Arcade Fire - 32

8. Forest Swords - 30

9. Endless Endless Endless - 29

10. Ikonika – 28

1 – Mélange of chillwave and shoegaze revival sounds make for an arrestingly deep album.

2 – I call this Vintage – all kinds of classic sounds melted into one band – post-rock/spector-pop/balaeric/italo disco/chillwave/chamber-pop. 

3 – German black metal as expansive euphoric and hymnal as it is claustrophobic and bleak, all the while with some meaty riffs. Good acoustic passages too.

5 – Just getting in to this all girl Appalachian band. Magical stuff

7 – liking this a lot so far. Subtle yet significant change in tone and sounds, specially tha BEATZ

8. new single amazes – real pea souper of an atmospheric artist

9. Anti-Gravity Bunny says “Tons of spacey synth blorps and glitchy star static that sometimes makes for a blissed out trip with cryogenic dreams or an unsettling paranoia filled nightmare”

10. Finally got hold of this too. Really really good. A lot of serious ideas going on under a 100% fun surface.

Bonus bit if you can be bothered:  List your Top 3 Artists for this week last year, week ending Sunday 2 August 2009:

1. Velvet Davenport - 54

2. Awesome Wells - 45

3. Wild Beasts - 20

Wild Beats was my number 1 album of 2009. That was a good summer back there.

gxmx