FFFF: The Soft Pack - Parasites

Here's this week's (to be known hereon out as) Fast & Furious Friday Feature! This actually isn't especially fierce, so I'm failing the theme already. OH WELL. But this song is awesome and pretty rockin', so here you go. The Soft Pack - Formerly known as The Muslims. This track sounds a lot like The Fat Truckers'Superbike being played by a full band. Definitely a good thing:

SwännS))) 3rd Rehearsal Download

We had our third amped up SwännS))) rehearsal on Monday; a big 4 hour session working on distilling the ideas from the previous sessions and restructuring them into different songs.  We have a 20 minute ‘set’ piece we’re trying to get together and a few other ideas that won’t fit so, so in all we had about 10 song/pieces.

In this track we were working on a bit of a darker bass riff, trying to creep ourselves out with some sinister electronics – so it’s called Avian Argento; Download from Last.fm or Bandcamp:

www.bit.ly/Swanns3
www.swanns.bandcamp.com

(I made us a Bandcamp to see what it’s like, and now moreso because there’s no streaming from Last.fm)

Hope you like!


GxMx & C-B-

Tame Impala - Runway, Houses, City, Clouds

Tame Impala are a band from Perth, Australia. At first the name really put me off and I never followed up on them, but then for no apparant reason it kept popping into my head until I decided I really liked it then the very next day, in spooky synchronicity this track appeared on RCRD LBL.

7 minutes of phaser heavy spiralling psychedelia offset by a freefalling alternate ambient song embedded in the middle and end.  Really trippy.

I think something in the cosmos was definitely speaking to me.  Stop me from having a moment if you must but listen to this and stare deep into the artwork first, then come back to me on it. 

Best Coast - Our Deal

This may be all over the blogs by now but I couldn't go without reposting here. The cleanest recorded clearest eyed Best Coast song yet that leaves just as big a lump in the throat as others, if not more so because of the clarity.  And I never thought I'd hear myself say that.

After the jump:

http://blackiris.tv/brightfalls/

Evan Caminiti Artworks

Evan Caminiti - Member of Barn Owl, Higuma and many other outfits is not only a supremely adept sound artist but he is pretty handy on a canvas too.  He's exhibiting a load of his artwork at the Tartine Gallery, San Francisco from 6th May along with music performances on the opening night from Barn Owl co-member Jon Porras.

Again, for all our Bay Area readers, here's a preview just for you!

EVAN CAMINITI 

DustMay 6th - June 10th

Tartine Gallery, San Francisco
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 6th from 9pm - 11pm
Musical performance by Jon Porras at 10pm

www.electrictotem.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/electrictotem

VIDEO: White Ring - Roses

It's Friday in the PM, time to get something fierce on! Gonna start doing this every week from now on, round about this time posting up something juiced to kick it up a little. Last week I did Sleigh Bells, this week its White Ring. Looks like a massive part of this year is going to be all about Witch House for me - dark, spooky werehouse & beat-heavy keygaze! Get ready to herald in a load of occult-oriented takes on olde gynrys!

No, I'm not apologising for that.

Look out for the Disaro label, oOoOO, Mater Suspiria Vision, Deep Cave, Gr†LLGR†LL, twYlYZoNe -but for now, White Ring:

This may not be super fast but it carries the intensity of a thousand moonless nights; sounding like Crystal Castles getting k-holed into a corner and fighting their way back out again. Danceable, really pretty, pretty ugly, totally fucked.

VIDEO: Hljómar - Bláu augun þín. (Your blue eyes).

Olafur Arnalds recommended Icelandic prettiness. Some beautifully pale and snowy calm, before the beautiful filthy dirty storm I have coming up later.

DOWNLOAD: NFR Mix 2 - The Bee Roared Meat

The Bee Roared Meat

NFR Mix 2, April 2010

DOWNLOAD

For the second in our new series of monthly downloads I've made a deep droney psychedelic trip that dusts you up a bit before spitting you on your way.  For some reason I am really struggling to explain why this mix is and exactly what is does. It’s meditative, the tracks are generally long psychedelic repetitions of cycles, earthy and connected to natural rhythms, animals, totems.  These could be the sounds of nature fetishists, people in thrall to the dual enormity and insignificance of being, recordings with a sense of scale that draw the listener up in their mass, or reduce them to a speck.  Or it could just be my ode to the Microphones In The Trees blog.

Thanks for downloading.  Enjoy!

MxBx

Tracklist:

Barn Owl - I (Smoke Loom Ceremony, Blackest Rainbow)

Cabinet of Natural Curiosities - Glass (Searchlight Needles, For Arbors For Satellites)

Ulaan Khol - Untitled 3 (I, Soft Abuse)

Blues Control - Good Morning (Local Flavor, Siltbreeze)

Sun Araw - Canopy (Geneva Hits, Mental Groove)

Partli Cloudi - Tantum (Rotten Wood, Folkwaste CDr)

Pocahaunted - Singing Color (Rough Magic, Blackest Rainbow)

High Wolf - Parallel Vision (Supermodern Temple, Krayon)

Ben Frost - Híbakúsja (By The Throat, Bedroom Community)

Infinite Body - Dive (Carve Out The Face Of My God, Post Present Medium)

Order of Samples:

Claire Kremen: Honey Bee Pollination Crisis

John Cale - Circa 1979: A Signal to Noise (Tuned To The Hum)

John Cale - Circa 1979: A Signal to Noise (Saturnalia Again)

Bill Drummond - Battle of Ideas: Turn That Racket Off

Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show on Earth

Artwork:

Untitled photograph by Ellen Rogers

NFR/SwännS))) DJ Set @ Oneohtrix Point Never

I've been confirmed as DJ for the Penthouse, above the Freebutt for the night that Oneohtrix Point Never plays.  Will be me and Chris, so it will effectively be a SwännS))) DJ set.  Since we consider this an awesomely special event, we'll probably be recording some special SwännS))) track for the night to play upstairs and will be doing a bit of live action jiggery fuck-aboutery in a psychedelic decks 'n'n fx style. Sort of.  It will be a pretty special event, but we promise it will be totally listenable.

Thursday 27th May
Oneohtrix Point Never with Tomottontu
Penthouse DJs - Me(atbreak) & Chris

DOWNLOAD: ihopeyousuffer - ihopeyousuffer ep

DOWNLOAD HERE

We first came across ihopeyousuffer, an American solo post-rocker through free-download netlabel Pocket Change Records, when they released his first album This Is A Collection Of People To Ruin and he was amongst our favourite artists from that label.  There was a sense of alienated brooding that darkened the tone of the first album, giving the usually expansive sound of post-rock a more claustrophobic form that really intensified on the second release Gold, Oil And Drugs with the track I Could Move Mountains For You - a brewing violence raging within it's boundaries like a churning storm cloud. All appropriatly evocative imagery to suit the post-rock tag, but a description that well fits the sound, and the solo artist form. The restraint charges the music with a greater presence that it might otherwise have it it went all out for the crescendo. 

For his third release, the eponymous ihopeyousuffer, this characteristic remains unchanged but the mood has lightened somewhat. The first song - immensely titled Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet - starts with a keening tone and near-audible sample of a rugged male voice bemoaning the lack of intoxicating pills (maybe more listens will make more sense of it), then a spirited beat kicks in speeding off with guitars and bass in tow creating that giddily emotional rushing sensation that makes this kind of music so addictive.

It's free to download, with, if you haven't caught our beat, 4 essential pieces of highly evocative instrumental music. There's no reason not to let it get you.