Tasty Bits

New York City's Tristan Perich builds the circuitry that plays his album, so, rather than record tracks and convert them to a digital of stream of ones and ohs, he creates ones and ohs that become music.
Tristan Perich - One Bit Symphony


Parisians, Chateau Marmont --named after an historic CA hotel, tend toward lusher strings than their lo-fi American counterparts like Worchester, MA's Dom or Princeton, NJ's Com Truise.
Chateau Marmont - Solar Apex

Get Music

Sometimes it's great to have reasons to like music, sometimes it's better just to like it regardless of didactic trumped up meaning. Trump up the volume knob, that's what I say, how about that. Life is better when you remember to load up your portable music device or burn discs for your car. I forget sometimes then end up stranded in traffic at the mercy of NPR. Friends, the radio will not be enough, get plenty of what you love and slather it in your ears. You must remember, it will be worth it. Is that the romantic view versus the classic view? I'm feeling very holistic right now. Must be the location of the moon in relation to the stars or maybe something in a fortune cookie stuck to my bones more than just the bland vanilla substitute. There's some fortune cookie lines in these songs I guess: "Love is stronger than pride." Or "I was made for you and there's nothing I can do about it." Or "It's so sexy to be living in America."
So, here's some love songs for the gushy heart:
Warsaw Polish Brothers - Love is Stronger Than Pride

Trampled By Turtles - Empire

Linda Rondstat - Blue Bayou



And, in honor of the bonds of brotherhood and friendship here's a couple more from a good friend:
Com Truise - Sundriped


Dom - Living In America


Also, check out my review of Chicago rawkers Panther Style, who just released their first full length !Emergencia!

Disarming Space

During its early American renaissance, folk was considered a weapon to combat war and political bull honky: folk was, in many places, considered a sort of gun of ideas. The initial idea of American folk seemed to be a celebration of simplicity, directness, and grassroots independence: the idea that you can take your guitar and speak anywhere/anytime. With the evolution of tech (where simplicity does not necessarily mean “acoustic guitar”) and the massive expansion of the cultural conversation towards a global community (particularly in the US) to encompass a much wider social sphere, listeners can look to style and intention rather than instrument set-up. Folk is at once psychological and simple. It is conversational and personal, and in that sense, it is political and cerebral.

This mix is not made to lay a groundwork for a new definition of folk, rather, I wanted to create a vein here of musicians that use the power of speech, a conversation implied between musician and listener, to convey force and emotion in music. In the case of From Monuments to Masses and The Books, this conversation is crafted using sound clips, creating a more psychological effect. In Britain’s Protein Window and San Francisco's Enablers, the verse is an elegant, semi-narrative free form rich with undertones, and the chorus is a shimmering wall of distortion that the listener fills with her own thoughts and verse. In This Will Destroy You, the notable lack of lyrics creates a wide headspace and pacing towards a personal conversation for the listener (leading to perhaps the ultimate and incidental goal of these great musicians: listener revelation.)

Bill Callahan and Leonard Cohen have a consuming, immediate lyrical style that is stripped down so that the delivery and quantity of verse unfold layer after layer of subtext, a style mirrored in PW and the Enablers but with a post-modern buzz.

In Washington D.C.’s Weird War, lead singer Ian Svenonius playfully wields a powerful vocal style that is more speaking than singing. It’s engaging and slightly atonal, but also filled with jokey, sometimes throwaway lyrics that give listeners space to shout over, to drink over, to talk over. Perhaps this is the gift and evolution of past folk, not to be a gun of ideas and to sharpen the political opinion of groups as it once did, but to be a disarming space for individual expansion of identity and interpersonal armistice.

The Books - An Animated Description of Mr. Maps

From Monuments to Masses - Sharpshooter


Protein Window - Diptych Dipstych


This Will Destroy You - Freedom Blade

Weird War - Girls Like That

Enablers - Blown Realms & Stalled Explosions


Leonard Cohen - The Stranger Song

Between Verse and Chorus

Rhythm, tone, and nuance are natural to vocals, so much so that, for many musical aspirants looking to trap beauty between verse and chorus, there is a strong belief that the pop dream of creating lucid powerful music can be idiot savant short wired vis-a-vis Jim Morrison with the right mix of booze, noise, and brain candy (which sometimes it sort of can). So, what happens when you take the vox out of the equation? In the hands of less dynamic musicians, you get chakra meditation drones and music suited for the beflowered Target listening station.
Not so for Brooklyn's Ensemble, Et Al. whose compositions march with patient strength, and thrum with firm, deliberate insistence. The resonant, tonal pallette of chimes, bells, and percussive ringing instruments (like vibes, marimba, and Indian Cowbells) effectively drum across the tightwire between post-punk textures, airport spaces, and the endless grass fields of the mind. Clearly these gents listen to a lot of music because there is a pop sensibility in their work that keeps their tunes engaging throughout, bobbing bouyantly on the ocean limn of awareness and sometimes submerging briefly and, sometimes, bringing you with them. Their commanding compositions are balanced perfectly to weave in and out of consciousness, which reminds me:

When Andrew Kenny of Amanset discovered Explosions in the Sky, he sent the tape to their label, on it scrawling the words, "This fucking destroys." What a thing to say about instrumental music.
Counterintuitively perhaps, instrumental music can be so powerful and raw, so emotive, edgy, ripped, mean and real, so punk rock. I'm not just talking about metal drone walls either and classical symphonies, (which are more "metal" perhaps...:P).
There's two reasons for instrumental music's punk power: One, it can be demanding to listen to. It's not part of our natural FM pop programming where vox are mixed like Sinatra and everything else is compressed to kazoo hum in the background. Two, I think it reminds us that music has so much power to speak more than just what the words are expressly describing, and instrumental music (particularly saavy intrumental post-rock) reminds otherwise pop listeners how much there is in the composition and how much there is to experience outside of our usual array.
I saw Explosions in the Sky at a small spot in Tucson and I remember thinking how loud they were, then a moment later, I heard the crisp snap of someone in front of me opening a beer: the music wasn't loud, it just felt loud.
My acid test for killer instrumental music is if I realize suddenly during the middle of the song that my mind is off somewhere else; good instrumental music lubricates thoughts, it unlocks corridors to the less traveled pathways of the mind. It goes it's own way. That's pretty fucking punk rock. If I had to classify Ensemble, Et Al, that's how I would do it: pretty, fucking punk rock.

...
Here's a school of tasty tracks flapping their fins in similar eddies and currents of EEA...
The Six Parts Seven - Stolen Moments

Appleseed Cast - Last In Line

Unwed Sailor - Cuckoo Clocks. The Call of the Windmill

Mark Mothersbaugh - Let Me Tell You About My Boat

Chicago Love Mix

I love it when bands decide to rock. Is it a decision decided via pow-wow over peace pipe? Is it democratic, taken to a vote? Perhaps it is more transcendental than that, the guitar speaking to the hands through the amp or some other ghosts of rock and roll spiriting through the windy corridors of the city. These are all Chicago bands, so I have to think there must be some back room politics, palm greasing, and ubiquitous eye winking.

The Halamays were formally Katie & Pat. This incarnation sees them rocking harder and beefing up their multi-instrumental sound with more thumping rock drums and gushing synth rivers. The theme of the two songs on the Zombies EP is, well, surviving a zombie apocalypse. It frames the understated, direct lyrics of the band in a post-apocalyptic world, making their emotive verse playful and sometimes a little funny.

The Halamays - Zombies


Another Chicago band getting their feet wet in the making-waves pool. Sleek and richly tonal Chicago rock, I've got more on 'em here in my full review.

The Pear Traps - The Pear Traps EP


Guitarist Jay Ziegler unloads tasty licks galore in this bar filth 80's blues inspired party rock album to add a razor edge to Neil Turk's punk laments and gritty heartbreak ballads. Bassist Matt Cushing's torpedo rides and thick train rail lines glue these tracks to the back of your mind. Several songs feature School of Rock drummer Kevin Clark saddling the kit.

Top Shelf Lickers - Head First


Another great Chicago band who just rocked the Do Division fest which is reknowned for its hula hoop crazies and tattooed hotties stripping off sweaty layers near the free cigarette booth. This is the newest single from California Wives. For their EP review and tracks, there's more here.

California Wives - Tokyo

Composition Clip: Making Electronic Music

Writing music certainly is not always glamorous work. Still, there’s something to the process that sometimes begets spectacular results. The most inspirational composition clip I've seen is the classic Dylan documentary scene from Don’t Look Back where Joan Baez is singing for the camera from the back of her throat while Bob Dylan is rocking back and forth to his own rhythm, trying to punch out a new song of his own on a typewriter. Whenever I feel overwhelmed with distractions, I just think of Bob and Joan.

One of the great excitements of a live band is seeing a work come together. This is particularly of note for electronic bands in an era where Apple's Garage Band program (which comes installed) has made beat programming as simple as selecting adjectives. Finding out that killer music has a killer composition process can amplify the effect. There's a resonance psychedelic electric indie group Cloud Cult taps into at their shows by having painters on each side of the stage concocting murals Bob Ross style while the band spins their tunes.

I’ve always liked electronic music where the human element shines through. I crown Vangelis the king of this postand perhaps my heart, at least for the duration of his Love Theme. While he may not be the earliest synth composer (that title goes to Wendy Carlos Williams), he exhibited to the masses the full power of strong synth voice in classic soundtracks like Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire.

I used to have a Blade Runner tape that I’d listen to in my car, and it was, in fact, the last cassette to work in it. The tape deck slowly gave up as the tape itself wore thin. Still, even as conditions degraded, somehow the music sounded good with the rhythm in the wear and the gradual warp as the circuits slowed. The tones morphed so that my tape deck’s swan songs were surprisingly sweet, unique performances.

Vangelis - Love Theme (From the Blade Runner Soundtrack)

Among the occult apocrypha that veils Boards of Canada’s heady electronic cuts in folklore mystery are backwards samples from cult leader Amo Bishop Roden. In Kid for Today, BoC builds the beat as you listen, spellbinding you into the trance of the song.

Boards of Canada - Kid for Today

Mu-ziq’s Mike Paradinas meticulously programmed the sounds and sequenced every trip beat and break. With so many ideas and explorations in his ecstatic candy modem melodies, these tracks still ring prophetic and futuristic .

Kraftwerk (German for power plant or power station) and early techno bands prided themselves on the shiny robotic throbbing metallic beats. More recent electronic groups like Flying Lotus, Baths, Talk Demonic, and Groundislava sometimes feature slightly off kilter beats, played either by hand with a beat pad or deliberately staggered with cycled rhythm loops or swaggered programming. This sound gives normally autonomous sounding beats a human hand to them, an organic texture.

Baths – Animals

Flying Lotus – Brainfeeder

Talkdemonic’s live drums and violin bring warmth to the electronic sounds and by matching the nuance in programming with their own playing achieve a heady, cerebral sound that carries powerful emotional push.

Talkdemonic – Mountain Cats

I'm following up Talkdemonicwithgroundislava, and I’m putting the whole Groundislava album here because it’s a classy ride all the way through. It’s at once electronic and organic. Jasper Patterson’s frenetic and perhaps slightly ADD composition process sounds like he jammed a Commodore 64 sound chip into a Never Ending Story VHS and recast the whole shebang on the limn of a sexy Biggie hot tub party.

The headspace this music traverses is vast, but the sounds are always immediate and visceral, so that to plug into it is to be taken on a journey. It’s great to put on if you like to listen to something while you write or while you dance or in my case, where your girlfry creams you in Doctor Mario and then while you act like it wasn’t a big deal.

When vocals come into the mix, the soundscape and the vox themselves are cleverly mixed, maintaining the continuity of the album as a whole. In Panorama featuring Weary, Patterson runs vocoder on Weary’s voice to sway his singing into the electronic realm. This effect, rather than weighing down the vox recasts the entire palette of sounds into a choir of Patterson’s own making.

Like a piñata, this album is filled with candy and suprises, still, in all its nuance, it’s cohesive and driving enough to bear heavy rotation.

Groundislava

The Fuck Buttons compose their sound on a medley of equipment featuring toy keyboards and vocals screamed into a children karaoke tape recorder.

Fuck Buttons – Bright Tomorrow

The first time I saw the Roland SPDS sampling pad, I was in smitten. Though I did procure one, it did not survive the rigors of my life. In the end, it was probably a blessing that my SPDS broke when it fell off the couch arm: My schedule opened up and I was subsequently able to get my life back in order.

The show that lit that fuse for me was Themselves. I’m including the track here where you can really hear the hip hop influenced finger beats stroked out of a sampling pad. Watching the beats form before me opened the idea of the lyrics to me, this unleashing of the id, this natural punch and flow. By seeing the process, I began to understand something more in the music. I saw that the lyrics themselves were playful, that meaning was in the act itself.

Themselves – It’s Them (1999)

Tobacco, keyboardist from Black Moth Super Rainbow, polishes the folky synth sound from BMSR to drive heavy, huge lead lines. BMSR's combination of lo-fi guitar and thick vocoder give them a sound that is seventies electronic wonderland brewed with swamp shed folk. Tobacco and BMSR have huge bodies of awesome work that reward spelunkers mining deep.

Tobacco - Hairy Candy

Black Moth Super Rainbow - Roller Disco

Casino Vs. Japan is one of my favorites. I’m always a sucker for the slow, kick-heavy beats. The big open tempos create a space where veils of synth can flutter from polyrhythms into a wash soundscape where samples unfold. Here a simple beat can become a sea of ideas.

Casino Vs. Japan – Single Variation of Two

Italo Disco: Musical Subterranean Metropolis

I'm happy to announce Stereo Delay's inauguration of guest writer Jay Ziegler. Ziegler, one of the founding writers for Consequence of Sound, is the ripping soloist in Top Shelf Lickers and also fellow mellow axe wielder in Wooden Wing. Here's his take on the elusive electric music that soundtracked the motion of hips at the height of the pill popping era. I think because it ushered in the birth of my favorite console music, Italo Disco will always have an unfair advantage when fighting for king of the mountain in my ears. Take her away Mr. Ziegler:

T.Ark - Under Cover Lover (Germany)


Throughout the cosmos of time, music has always possessed the amazing ability to crossbreed and assimilate multiple genres, in essence creating newer ones. One genre that came out as a sense of discovery during my final year of college at Florida State was the long lost form known as Italo Disco. Found by sheer accident one day during a routine trip to and from the campus, Italo Disco struck a raw nerve deep within me. Split between my classical training, my love for rock music and keeping up with the college Joneses in regards to the newer breeds of music, Italo Disco had that rare combination of approachable dance rhythms, pulsating electronic basslines and an over-the-top 80s sense of not taking itself too seriously. More and more I listened, this specific genre held more than meets the ears.

After finding about ten Italo Disco "Best Of" compilations on numerous websites, it was definitely apparent by this point that there was a whole world stuck in the underground. Even the term itself, "Italo Disco" referred to the European landscape as well as alluding to the off-putting nature of the music. Throughout the 70's and up until the early 80's, most popular dance music came from the U.S., UK and Australia. Bear with me as I'm paraphrasing. The term Italo Disco, while it started as an Italian phrase, came to encompass all dance music and early house/disco music that was purely not from the UK or the US (which later proved to have some exceptions from these nations respectfully). In the midst of all this craze, you have changing time periods from the 70's to the 80's. As a result, nations such as Poland, Italy, Germany, Russia, Canada, France and even the Scandinavian countries came together and created their own musical subterranean metropolis.

The elements of Italo Disco are purely 80's, purely tongue-in-cheek, and purely science fiction. Put it to you this way, Rick Deckard in "Blade Runner" could pop this in his car while looking for "replicants" and you'd think nothing of it. So sleek and natural, yet highly refined. What makes the elements of this particular brand of dance music lie in the arrangements. While most disco employed a good amount of horn sections (Santa Esmerelda, The Trammps) as well as string sections via synthesizer (Donna Summer, The Bee Gees), Italo Disco contained a much more minimalist approach. Artists such as Chris Luis, who's 1983 single "The Heart Of The City" employed a thick drum & bass straight beat with heavy saw synthesizers. No guitars, a minimal bassline and dueling synth and keys set the stage for Luis' soulful and controlled vocals. What makes this song tick is not just in Luis' limited vocal range, but the synthesizers give the song much more dynamic and allude to imagery of a lonely single man looking for love in the heart of a gigantic city (think from Chicago to Cairo).

Chris Luis - The Heart Of The City (Italy)


Another example of Italo Disco's enigmatic mastery of genre mashups is "Man To Man" by Italy based band Scotch. Implying multiple poly-rhythmic electronic percussion, Scotch also use the futuristic synthesized wave sounds to create an upbeat and almost impossible beat to escape from. The robotic quality of the drumming as well as the vocoders used by the singers add more drips of eastern Europe's influence over the genre. By taking the spacy elements found in rock, dabbling much more rhythmic inflection and adding dashes of quality synthesizer, Scotch also have a great knack for creating intense loops of bass driven riffs. In "Man To Man", the bass takes over and has it's own quarrel war with the keys while the drumming picks up and chugs away like a Sherman tank. I don't want to give the whole thing away, but needless to say, it's a treat you'll loop for the next twenty minutes.

Scotch - Man To Man (Italy)


There are literally hundreds of these similar artists that make the whole treasure hunting experience so worthwhile. Some recommended artists to check out include:

Ken Laszlo - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 (Italy)


Linda Jo Rizzo - Heartflash (Tonight) (Germany)


Chester - Hold The Line (Italy)


Dust Man - King Of The Ghetto (Italy)


Cleo - Go Go Dynamo (Italy)


Fake - Frogs In Spain (Sweden)


Laserdance - Humanoid Devotion (Netherlands)

Dismantle Slash Build

I just read a J.G. Ballard story about a man who lives in a psychiatric complex by a hospital. He quits his job and begins to lie to his wife so that he can spend more and more time sitting on the veranda separating things that he sees from space and time. He does this so that he can no longer identify them as anything more than shapes and colors, a psychedelic and introspective break from reality. Eventually even the distinction of shape and color fade away and he disappears into his mind. (Actually, he walks into a lake after "dismantling" his wife.) It's beautiful to hear Ballard describe the process of dislocation, but as you read, you begin to realize the destruction that comes with absolute commitment to dissolution. A little bit of dislocation gives you perspective, but, as the man's friend tells him "by any degree to which you devalue the external world so you devalue yourself."
I think this battle between destruction and construction is explored with a sometimes sad but always beautiful elegance in Phosphorecent's songs. I'm including a couple here because of the breadth of his work and because they're so good. When I hear them, I get that feeling of Friday afternoon dissolution of the universe, hip-up to a wooden bar. Stepping away from the sometimes tightening screws of day to day life feels so good, but in time you can disconnect completely.
Algebro steps away into a land where Algebro is king, to the dreamland where he's perfect. The song itself hints at the beginning at what it will become, delicately transporting you on the steady disarming platform of Thom Cathcart's voice. It's interesting that Algebro and Phosphorescent both lament rhyming in their songs.
In the Civil Wars' video, John Paul White's loose bow tie says it all. That visual should be the centerpiece of this mix, a stepping away from formalism, crossing the border. The Civil Wars go down into Barton Hollow, a mythical space where the devil lingers and a baptismal river runs through.
These songs examine the idea that to cross over to another place or another way, you must release your old definitions while building new ones. The risk and the gamble is that you could lose your grip on the world as you know it but you could also grow into a whole new sphere of better experiences more integral with who you are.
Buke and Gass dismantle listeners expectations on a visceral level, turning the song structures inside out and exploding sonic expectations so that we leave with a different perception of how songs can twist and turn. Heavy and lithe at the same time, Buke and Gass perfectly illustrate the concept of dismantling and relocation so that their spinning melodies leave listeners standing at ninety degrees to the world they knew before the song.
All this heady talk about breaking away from reality and gripping back, I had to end on a joy note. There's something about the solos in Delicate Steve that playfully jibe with the borderlands. There's no vocals for definition but colorful sound shapes lurching and shifting in myraid prismatic combinations. "Go ahead," they say, "toy with reality."

The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow


Phosphorescent - The Mermaid Parade

Phosphorescent - Reasons To Quit

Algebro - Algebro is King

Buke and Gass - Your Face Left Before You

Delicate Steve - Wondervisions

Fist Pump v. Soft Touch

What separates the most recent waves of folk from sixties and seventies folk and even revivals of that folk are that new acoustic musicians are responding to now classic rock forms that have developed in the years between –not even revolting against them in most cases, but stylistically stripping song forms down to their bones, making them more supple, versatile and sometimes more expressive.
Madi Diaz, I find striking not for the particularly unique instrumentation, but for the vulnerability and straighforwardness of her songs. The lyrics and chords have a midnight FM directness to them, a song built from the open chord DNA of the last thirty years of American songwriting that could sneak into the back of your mind while your eyes have you locked in the dashed rhythm of the road.
This duo, Madi Diaz and guitarist Kyle Ryan, met while honing their chops at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Their style is quiet and simple by deliberate direction, make no mistake, and Ryan’s emotive accentuation highlights this.
Turn back the dial, probably ten years ago or so, I remember when a gaggle of punk bands started releasing acoustic albums. I don’t want to debate the meaning of punk here, regardless these were bands that were getting a lot of juice out of chunky electric distortion and noise. Many of them started covering older songs, still playing traditional punk bar chord down strum style. While some of these compilations may not stand the test of years (and sometimes months), they sometimes hit the alleyway joy of raw busking, and the musicians were on to something they liked, something in the punk ethos, the idea that songs could be reduced to the simplest elements and gain a new shimmering, raw and delicate power.
I like Madi Diaz’s songwriting because, with a couple more players and a few practice sessions, it could easily be blown out into a four piece radio rock band, but, thankfully, this is not the direction the band chooses. They appear, instead, to be searching for something much rarer, something that must be captured with boldness and finesses. Sometimes a soft touch says so much more than a fist pump.

Madi Diaz // Part 3 from The Parlor on Vimeo.

Leather Headed Snare

I've been meaning to get these links up on here since my trip up to see this show in Mil-town last weekend. I'll admit some bias since the Schaefers let me shack up in their place on the trip... still, I think these tunes speak for themselves.
Benjamin Schaefer drums with both Wolfgang Schaefer and with Vitrolum Republic, and did at Linneman's, though the Wolfgang video here is from one of his older solo performances.
Benjamin's drumming complements the sparkle of Wolfgang's finger style with expressive, explosive bursts of syncopated drumming across a full palette of artfully selected percussion. You might notice his kit in the VR video, cobbled together from the myriad kits he's had over the years with pieces that make his favorite sounds. Of particular note is the specially outfitted leather headed snare that he plays usually with brushes or by hand.
Also, if fiddle is the Southern way to play a violin, then surely strumming is the way of the Midwest.

Wolfgang's voice has a rich texture and it matches well with the tidal ebb and flow of sound that emerges from his unique playing. His voice and the guitar work closely together, rising and falling at the same time to create a singular effect.

Castle Thunder has an interesting, Radiohead-influenced sound with synth punches burbling through crisp walls of chords. With the bumping drums and filled out sound, this music is crafted with a little something for everyone.

Closer To Utopia

This Brooklyn based Jagjaguar band is just wrapping up a two month US tour. The samples and sets of keys illuminate their music with a haunting ethereal quality, but beneath it all thrums a locked and pulsing live drum and bass groove. This excerpt from Small Black’s blog gives a sense that the band is aiming higher than just party synth rock, and helps offer meaning and direction in understanding the collection of bands characterized as chillwave:

“In 2008, I was floating around from job to job, thinking of what sorts of songs to do, where to do them. I ended up in Greece on the island of Santorini, minding after a little bookstore called Atlantis Books. Through the kindness of the shop's patrons, I was able to stay there rent free for the winter, working on music, gazing out onto the Mediterranean every morning as I woke, organizing & reading through the books, shelved below the bed where I slept. Have never been closer to utopia! Probably won't be again!

My time there was hugely instrumental in coming up with the songs that would become the first Small Black material. Songs like Hydra & Baby Bird Pt II are loaded with samples of field recordings I'd make on my hikes around the island. The calm of my simple life there gave me the space/clarity to focus. And the blind faith the small group of friends had in creating the shop is beyond inspiring.”

Rainbow Chorus Effect

Okay, sweet music Friday time...
Agesandages: a Portland band in the midst of a big US tour, cruising along the cold weather states and even poking up into that syrupy dollop of land on top where beer is expensive and good bands are ubiquitous. You can really hear the Portland string collective kind of sound here, but this crew is an evolution on it, not only in that it's ebullient music flowing from beneath those overcast skies, but also that they play together melodically, so that we get blasted with angel choruses of sound (rather than distinct counterpoint melody lines wiggling against each other). Plus, they can all really sing, so you get a rich rainbow of sound (without the group yelling effect that some bands use). I think the talent and tightness (along with the bumping rhythm(lots of parenthesis today (it is Friday though, so the rules are a little more flexible))) here is what gives the sound an almost classic rock feel.

It's not really fair, because they hooked me with their space art. Still, it always comes back to Milwaukee, bringing it again with synth-rocktastic Faux Fir. My favorite track so far is Unhappen. I like how this band breaks away from just four four rock with keys on top. They vary the drumming, evolve the key sounds, and take moments in their songs to let the sound drop away and change. Overall, a really strong EP, particularly in the back end. Last three tracks knock it right out of the park.

Also, I've been clicking this video for Summer Camp over and over. I love the aesthetic, and the synths. The pieces come together wonderfully here, with the guitar bubbling through at perfect moments and the resonance of Elizabeth Sankey's and Jeremy Warmsley's vocals complementing the tone. This is an unassuming and beguiling song, just when you try to lock in on a part, it fades away, drawing you in further and further into the moment.

Someone Just a Little More Funky

The open mics here are replete with singers trying to emulate Bob Dylan circa Highway ’61 Revisited. Maybe it’s just a Chicago thing, but I seriously doubt it.

It’s not so blatant as Elvis impersonators zipped up into white bejazzled jump suits. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even on purpose. We all know a friend or two who has spent several hazy months under the impression that he was Bob Marley. Such mistakes can be common.

Surely this flattery, if imitation is considered the greatest form, is in part because Bob Dylan seems a cinch to sing along to. Caricatures of his rough and reedy voice are breezy to emulate after a couple cigarettes and a hearty snifter of whiskey neat. That his singing is easy to mimic correctly is a common misconception. He was a good singer pretending to be bad, though for all of us romantics, it's more fun to consider it the other way around. Still, I’ll try and keep ease of delivery in mind for the mix. (No Muse.)

I’ve set out to compose a mix of more modern singers --whose bag of tricks seem pilfer worthy-- in hopes of spurring a little more current inspiration. These vocalists use approaches that come across more like a response to modern tropes in contemporary radio and a celebration of current modes of playing and recording, rather than a direct response to music birthed in the 1950's and to Woody Guthrie (who is a legendary and historic singer/songwriter, no doubt).

Blitzen Trapper – Furr

The clever lyrics and casually gruff delivery sound deceptively easy to pull off, something definitely worth aiming for. Listening to the wolf-like quality in the melody, the note slides that almost sound like howls.

Ben Sollee – It’s Not Impossible (Boys Don’t Cry)

Sollee got his start playing cello with Bela Fleck when he was twenty one, so there’s an unmistakable prodigy element in his cello playing, but it's not the overwrought tune-smithing, like many arduous progressive rock bands or jazz mills. If anything, the elegance and warm simplicity of his songs illustrate his talent.

His voice captures a soulful bluesy, almost classic sound, while still ringing fresh, direct, vibrant, and young. His style is lyrical and lucid. (The creativity and fun in his singing style might be two elements for tyro singers to capture first perhaps, even before trying to sing in key.)

Olof Arnalds – Klara

While her high register may not be easy to emulate, her deliberate approach and enthusiasm certainly are. With her pure, clear tone, she brings to mind the singer Jonsi. (His voice remains so effective, even outside of his recordings.)

I recommend Olof here to new singers despite her quite hard to match register. For Olof, it's not just that she's endowed with a beautiful voice, it's that she wields it with the power required of a less naturally gifted singer. I love how she hums around 1:20.

Wooden Birds – Hometown Fantasy

Andrew Kenny formerly sang with American Analog Set, perhaps the most underrated band of all time in at least one person’s humble opinion. His subtle vocals have much to be admired and still sound fresh, bearing years of repeated listenings. (The kick-patter-snare style pioneered by original drummer Lisa Roschmann is a game changer for the Shoegaze genre and its influence still seems to shine through in Kenny's new band.)

American Analog Set- Punk as Fuck

M. Ward – Paul’s Song

His delivery is so emotive and feels so casual, so simple. I keep returning to this theme of simplicity. People may love complicated music, but they don’t want it to feel complicated. It’s like watching a slam dunk: we want it to seem easy, even if we can’t do it ourselves. Though, I would say that a little emulation of M. Ward would bear much fruit and, while his style is certainly his own, borrowing gently from it won’t make you sound like an impersonator.

The album this song was pulled from, the magnificent Transistor Radio (which will mend broken hearts and keep you dry between raindrops) has a Beach Boys cover and a rewrite of “Here Comes the Sun.” Perhaps this was Ward’s way of tipping his hat to the legendary vocalists that have come before him, while sidling along on his own path. (This might be a good place to note that that Olof Arnalds has a beautiful cover of Brian Wilson’s That Lucky Old Sun.)

Bon Iver – For Emma

Why does it always come back to Wisconsin? This band lit the fuse to a musical explosion. Lead singer Justin Vernon’s falsetto isn’t hard to emulate, it’s just totally his signature. There is always a push to be original above all as a singer. I think this is the right direction but slightly misguided. Rather than trying to be original, sing as an individual, sing as yourself.

... Everyone Must Get Stoned...

In the end, they’re going to compare you to Bob Dylan anyway, so if you’re going to sing like Bob Dylan, try and capture some of the sublime effervescent joy that couldn’t help but sneak into the most majestic of his tunes.

And just for fun…

Just Like Waking Up Mix

“I was running through a bad dream, but now I’m waking up…”
-Lady Lamb the Beekeeper

I made this mix to cheer up a gloomy-rain/fog-clouded afternoon. I think it's working. Give it a try.

I like these songs because they achieve grandeur through relative simplicity; they sparkle with that rare ideal that is increasingly lacking in our marketing culture: authenticity.

The Boy Who Spoke Clouds is the moniker for Aussie Adam Casey. His sounds arrive at the hyper resonant acoustic aesthetic through Euro-folk along the lines of England's I Am Kloot (Hear the breathtaking Proof.) and Scotland's Meursault (Gorgeous folk cacaphony in Crank Resolutions.). TBWSC, compared to Steve Reich and envisioned perhaps more as "shamanic-folk" than folk pop or anti-folk, emerges from the largely slowcore electronic pre-chill-wave (:P) label Sun Sea Sky.
BWSC appears to spring from a different vein than Iowa native Laurel Sprengelmeyer of Little Scream, who is, perhaps, influenced more by Iowa's rich folk heritage (i.e. Greg Brown). Or there's Portland's Lady Lamb the Beekeeper. Look to Portland's Black Prairie for indications of some of Lady Lamb's melodic glamorously downplayed sound.
Cotton Jones (from once all-time-most-killer indie label Suicide Squeeze) and The Idaho Falls (California country western) help highlight the pop sweetness in this mix. CJ and IF sometimes realize the orchestration that the other singer-songwriters beautifully insinuate with their more tonal sounds and amped-up reverbs and delays.
I ended the mix with Damn Choir because lead singer Gordon Robertson hails from Ohio but is Scottish by heritage, thus an international folk ambassador of sorts for this collection of songs. Also, Katy Myers' outstanding cello parts in "Stars on Strings" capture the heady effect of the tonal echoes and orchestral insinuations heard in some of the other songs here. Katy also achieves an immediacy with her playing that gives the song room to breathe but prevents it from fluttering away altogether. This immediacy is elusive to many capable musicians and avoided by the capable but less courageous.


Little Scream – The Lamb

The Boy Who Spoke Clouds – Fill This Room

Cotton Jones – Egg On A Sea

The Idaho Falls - Hard Weather

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper – Almond Colored Sheets

The Damn Choir – Stars on Strings

Subvert Your Sadness

When I started on this mix, I had a couple songs with unique acoustic guitar in mind thus I proceeded under the guise of a “folk” mix. As I put in more songs, including Tallest Man on Earth and Devil in These Guys, from Sweden, and British lads Vadoinmessico, I thought maybe this could be a walk around the world in a pair of folk shoes made out of acoustic guitars. At this point, though, I realized I’ve broken a couple rules and stepped on a couple toes, since Those Darlins would definitely be a bunch of lady garage rockers and Vadoinmessico goes by the term “Anti-folk,” which, according to Wikipedia, “takes the earnestness of politically charged 1960s folk music and subverts it.” Cool, whatever that means.
What I like about this set of songs is that they stand on their own two feet: good lyrics, intriguing guitar style, and in the case, particularly of Houston’s Ms. Cook and Chicago’s own Mr. Pug, deeply expressive vox.
For the linchpin song, I ended up in Durham, NC. Megafaun’s “Volunteers” is one of my 2010 top songs of the year. If you’re in a hurry, check that one out, though you may be late to where you’re going if you end up playing it three times in a row.

Tallest Man On Earth- King of Spain

Vadoinmessico – Curling Up Your Spine


Those Darlins – Wild One

Sarah Cook – Love Approached


Joe Pug – Unsophisticated Heart

Devil in These Guys – Den Storsta av sma segrar

Megafaun – Volunteers