like downed telephone wires
August 29, 2008
Filed under mp3s, reviews
Tags: Brooklyn, download, entertainment, free download, Kentucky, La Societe Expeditionnaire, Matt Bauer, mp3, music, review, Tent Girl, The Island Moved In the Storm
It’s not often that beauty comes from tragedy, but The Island Moved In the Storm achieves just that. Inspired by a woman known as Tent Girl, who was found deceased on the side of a Kentucky road in 1968, Matt Bauer creates an obscenely intimate and haunting album.
Banjo, acoustic guitar, and female backing vocals make up the core of Bauer’s sound, with the occasional warmth of horns, strings, and slide guitar added for depth. The songs are often fairly simple, but the devil is in the details and ghosts come through on the often otherworldly vocals.
A creepy-through-context girl choir joins in with Bauer’s broken, strained whisper on “Barn Owl” as he croons things like ‘the snow blows like a bridal train / sideways through the pines’, while the two work in a push-and-pull harmony during “Blacksnake in the Carport”. The girls hit their peak on the 24-second title track, beckoning one to ‘come, I will tell you where the island moved into the storm’, opening a gateway to the cloy of “Florida Rain” and the pretty but deadly “Foxgloves” and ‘hummingbirds with ruby throats / invisible wings / invisible notes’.
Bauer gradually grows his sound on the final three tracks of the album, starting with the introduction of electric sounds on the very sonically interesting and powerful “Old Kimball” and continuing through the slide-guitar-laden country lament “(Corolla) The One You Love”.
Extremely well put-together, The Island Moved In the Storm is a broken fairy tale, a fever dream.
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The Island Moved In the Storm drops 09/02/08.
Download “Don’t Let Me Out” and visit his artist page here.
i want to go back in time and dance on hullabaloo
August 26, 2008
Filed under videos
Tags: entertainment, glam rock, Hot Chip, Hullabaloo, Jaguar Love, John Hughes, music, Noah & The Whale, Stars, the 60s, The Cure, The Last Shadow Puppets, Thriller, Vampire Weekend, video, Wes Anderson, Yacht Rock
Vampire Weekend – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (John Hughes, Yacht Rock, Thriller, The Cure)
Stars – Bitches In Tokyo (“Never let shampoo touch your hair. Ever.”)
The Last Shadow Puppets – Standing Next to Me (the closest you’ll get to a time machine)
Noah & The Whale – 5 Years Time (I am drawn to things that emulate Wes Anderson’s style)
Hot Chip – One Pure Thought (reminds me of my late 80s/ early 90s childhood)
Jaguar Love – Highways of Gold (an illustrated play)
by the end you’ll be believe me
August 25, 2008
Filed under reviews
Tags: entertainment, music, New York Nothing, review, The King Left, The Vines
The King Left’s latest EP, New York Nothing, is a nonstarter. Its first single – “The Storm In A Teacup” – has desperate vocals marked by betrayal, dancey guitars, and hi-hat-heavy drums, but somehow never manages to quite get to the next level.
“A Dead Ringer” and “In the Sunlight” are both energetic, but have a late 90s/early 2000s vibe that doesn’t manage to shine any light on the style. It’s been done before, and done better. The tracks call to mind an updated version of The Vines, and I’d rather just dust off Highly Evolved and give that a spin.
Closer “By the End, Juggling Wolves” gives itself away in the title – it stretches for the epic and abstract, but comes out as total nonsense. New York Nothing ends on guitar noise, distortion, and disjointed spoken word that just seems out of place on such a short and straightforward release.
All is not lost, however, for The King Left. Though the EP wasn’t impressive, it wasn’t terrible either. There’s definite live potential for the songs, and with some time the band might be able to fine-tune their sound into something that excites instead of just passes.
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New York Nothing dropped on 05/05/08.
Visit their official website for more info.
join the jaguar pirates
August 22, 2008
Filed under mp3s, reviews
Tags: Blood Brothers, download, entertainment, free download, Highways of Gold, Jaguar Love, Matador Records, mp3, music, Pretty Girls Make Graves, reviews, Take Me to the Sea
I love being kicked in the face. Well, musically anyway. On their debut LP Take Me to the Sea, Jaguar Love (comprising members of Blood Brothers and Pretty Girls Make Graves) does just that with assaulting guitars and arresting vocals.
Single and album-opener “Highways of Gold” makes the band’s roots fairly apparent. The mix of styles is evident to anyone who was familiar with Johnny Whitney’s, Cody Votolato’s, and J Clark’s previous bands, presenting itself as a friendlier Blood Brothers sound or a razor-edged Pretty Girls Make Graves one. The anthemic battle-cry “Jaguar Pirates” slices through the listener’s headset, though at times Whitney’s voice is almost comically high. On “Humans Evolve Into Skyscrapers” a snotty, scathing vocal delivery is cradled by electronic beats and gritty guitars that evolve briefly into a shiny, happy pop sound before descending back into the grime.
Other standouts on the album include “Georgia”, which begins as an organ-laced rock tune on which Whitney mercifully brings his voice down a few octaves to ask ‘Oh Georgia, can you feel my heart explode?’ before the track melds to become a pretty departure tinged with hints of The Cure and TV on the Radio, and the vaguely-50s-esque ballad “Bonetrees and a Broken Heart” which would make an excellent theme for any zombie prom.
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Take Me to the Sea dropped 08/19/08.
Click the player below to hear “Highways of Gold” or click here to download.
i am hidden in plain sight
August 20, 2008
Filed under mp3s, reviews
Tags: entertainment, Jarvis Cocker, Merge Records, mp3, music, Now or Heaven, Prince, review, Something For Kate, Spoon, The Broken West
As it turns out, the west is not broken. On sophomore release Now or Heaven, LA’s The Broken West offer up a highly polished mix of rock and pop. Though not audio gold, it’s a solid album that draws on sounds from the last twenty years.
Sounds similar to those of Spoon and Something for Kate dominate the first section of the album. “Elm City” carries the percussion of a rainy, late-night autumn walk, strings and darkness brushing your cheek, while the quick drum beat and thudding left-hand piano on “Auctioneer” proves itself an excellent single.
The latter half of the album is more 80s dominated, but not with the angular, artificial sound that usually jumps to mind with the term. Swagger, plunking piano, and fuzzy guitar reverb marks “House of Lies”. Closer “Embassy Row” has a slinkiness to it, and on “Terror For Two” one could almost mistake the vocalist for Jarvis Cocker.
Unfortunately, Now or Heaven suffers one major misstep with “Got It Bad”. The minimal bass, synth, and echo on the tune is Prince-influenced, but comes nowhere near even reaching an homage. The track is superfluous and probably should have been cut from the album or at the very least included in the form of a bonus track.
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Now or Heaven drops 09/09/08.
For more on The Broken West, check out their MySpace page.
Click on the player below to listen to “Auctioneer”.
