How HP Lovecraft Took Over The World

Tonight in Roanoke, VA there is one great event going on.

Its title: "How HP Lovecraft Took Over The World."
Its purpose: To have an exposition on local talent. Artists, writers, and musicians all group together to celebrate a great man and his work. Namely, HP Lovecraft

Happenings: A book release of Mike Allen's "Cthulhu's Reign", Lovecraft inspired art by Bob Snare, a live theatrical performance, a visual work, and music by local musician Arte Povera (with a special cover just for the night)

This is going to be yet another perfect installment in the event series of the Emerging Artist Series. As always, it's a free show at the main library in Downtown Roanoke starting around 6:30 PM. These shows never disappoint, and this may be the best one yet.

So, come out for a horrificly creative night.

Here are some links:
Facebook Event Page
Arte Povera's Myspace page
Emerging Artist Facebook Page
Buy Cthulhu's Reign

The Radio Dept.

"Clinging To A Scheme" by The Radio Dept.
Twee/Post-Punk Labrador 2010



Download Clinging To A Scheme

2010 is shaping up to be a great musical year already, with great new albums by The National, The Hold Steady, Band Of Horses, Tree No Leaves, and lots more. There are even some great albums by smaller rising bands, such as The Radio Dept.

This is one band that should be watched, sonically they fall right between twee bands like Beat Happening and slightly electronic post punk music such as The Cure. Like any well influenced band, they blend these things together very well while maintaining a great original sound (see The Depreciation Guild, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, or most any great band ever).

The song here to really pay attention to is "Heaven's On Fire". This song is a great example of what this band can accomplish through great layering, great vocals, and respectable dynamics. I can see this song at a top of a lot of list of great songs of 2010.

Oh yeah, and they're Swedish and every Swedish band is amazing. Great music is coming out of that wonderful country.

For Listners Of: Melpo Mene, Kings Of Convenience, Letting Up Despite Great Faults, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Beat Happening, New Order, The Cure, The Mary Onettes, The Embassy, The Legends, Moscow Olympics

Band Of Horses

"Infinite Arms" by Band Of Horses
Indie Folk Columbia 2010



Sorry no download (this just came out)

Recently released Inifinite Arms is another staple by under-rated staple indie band Band Of Horses. Akin to other indie folk bands of their kind, this band boasts great dynamics and great song writing.

Infinite Arms opens up with one heck of a song called "Factory", a great song that sounds like a mixture of the Yo La Tengo great "The Story Of Yo La Tengo" and any great Fleet Foxes song. The album opens up with strong with several great dynamic songs and starts to quiet down around track six with the only song of questionable quality ("On My Way Back Home" kinda sounds like a Hannah Montana song.) They pick it back up with the quieter title track and ride into the sunset with the last closing tracks.

Band Of Horses is a band that obviously enjoys what they're doing and doesn't feel like they need to experiment or find a new sound. (Because they might fall flat on their faces like with MGMT's newest effort)

Another thing to point out, in context of the music industry as a whole, is that the popular music review site Pitchfork gave this a low score. It could be said that they did this because Band Of Horses is on a big label now, it could be said that Pitchfork are just a bunch of assholes. What should really be learned here is that never should a review site be taken so seriously, it is your opinion that matters to yourself after all.

Cheers

For Listeners Of: Fleet Foxes, Beirut, Iron And Wine, Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart, The Decemberists, Akron/Family, Plants And Animals, Neutral Milk Hotel, Bright Eyes

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

"The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart" by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Shoegaze 2009 Slumberland



Download The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

What The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart prove, along with other bands like Fucked Up, Titus Andronicus, and The Depreciation Guild, is that when you mix shoegaze techniques with a few other genres, you can get something amazing. Here The Pains mix Shoegaze with Dance Punk and 80's pop. They do this with great avail, from Kip's gret singing, to Kurt's energetic drumming, to Peggy's great job of being the token cute asian.

This self-titled album is a teenage oddsysey through angst, good times, and greater music. The album is filled with great lyrics and adolescent anthems. Each song is catchy, a great sing a log, and high energy, so this album is perfect for your next road trip.

What the album does best is not lean too much on any of its chosen influences, never does it sound too much like My Bloody Valentine, nor The Cure, nor The Pyschedelic Furs. At all times, one can hear these influences at work to create their unique sound. Again, it isn't just the influences at play here, these guys are truly unique talented musicians.

They also share members with the amazing band The Depreciation Guild (whose album In Her Gentle Jaws we covered some time back)

All in all, if you've somehow missed this here album, make sure to check it out. Maybe download it for free with the above link.

Happy Listening,
My Warm Blood

For Listeners Of:My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, The Cure, The Psychedlic Furs, Fucked Up, Titus Andronicus, The Depreciation Guild, The Smiths, The Rapture, Surfer Blood, Cymbals Eat Guitars

Loveliescrushing

"Bloweyelashwish" by Loveliescrushing
Shoegaze/Drone Projekt 1999



Download Bloweyelashwish

Few artists capture the word "Desolation" like Loveliescrushing does. Lovesliescrushing is an artist that sonically exists perfect shoegaze groups as My Bloody Valentine and drone artists such as Emeralds.

What is interesting about Loveliescrushing are the unique sensations that are evoked with the music. Never with any other artist have I been walking a huge crowd of people and felt completely alone and cold. Lovesliescrushing is a master of creating his own lonely worlds.

Bloweyelashwish album is an interesting romp through Lovesliescrushing's sound craft, with songs ranging from 40 seconds to 10 minutes. Some of the shorter songs seem a bit superfluous, but ultimately add to the ebb and flow of the album as a whole. Bloweyelashwish is a great memorable album as it utilizes similar themes throughout and truly explores them with techniques similar to Classical composers.

For Listeners Of: My Bloody Valentine, Flying Saucer Attack, Stereolab, Astrobite, Emeralds, Infinte Body, Remora, Star, Auburn Lull, Bethany Curve

Slowdive

"Souvlaki" by Slowdive
Shoegaze Creation Records 1993



Download Souvlaki

Other than My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive is probably the most accesible of shoegaze bands. This album is testament to this fact. Souvlaki is an odyssey through a perfect stylized genre blending and an example of shoegaze worthy to be in the same sentence as Loveless.

What adds to this album's greatness is its production work, by none other than the great Brian Eno. With his help, Slowdive created an album of smooth sounding atmospheric pop song craft.

Slowdive's accessibility can be attributed to a lack of harshness in sound and great male-female vocal styles. There are some great songs to be found here, such as the Slowdive classic "Alison", the epic borderline post-rock "Souvlaki Space Station", and the intimate acoustic "Dagger".

Conclusively, Slowdive is one of the great shoegaze bands and should be regarded with great esteem because of this. Souvlaki is one album that should never ever be forgotten.

For Listeners Of: My Bloody Valentine, Spiritualized, Pale Saints, Chapterhouse, Ride, Lush, Bethany Curve, Lovesliescrushing, Flying Saucer Attack, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, The Depreciation Guild

Swirlies

"Blonder Tongue Audio Baton" by Swirlies
Shoegaze/Noise/Twee Taang! 1993



Download Blonder Tongue Audio Baton

These days in indie music, there is a movement of bands that sound down-right shitty in their recording techniques and their tones, like Wavves and Times New Viking. This is nothing new, and credit must be given to the originators of this movement.

Introducing Swirlies

Swirlies creates music akin to My Bloody Valentine, just a bit rougher and cuter. They have the same elegance in sound and atmospheric bliss included, just with some angry stuffed animals thrown into the mix. The main way to describe Swirlies's aesthetic is "I'm late to school! I don't give a fuck!".

Swirlies has great song writing masked by unrecognizable buzzes and noises and lots of fuzz. This is heavily apparent in the songs "Pancakes" and the borderline post-rock "Jeremy Parker"; these are my favorite songs on this album, but the whole thing is great.

Music history goes in circles, and this is proof that even the weirdest of genres have some sort of foundation. Nobody is really that weird, and Swirlies helps you realize that.

For Listeners Of: My Bloody Valentine, Beat Happening, Times New Viking, Sebadoh, No Age, Wavves, K Records, Cool Rays, The Go Team, The Halo Benders, Lilys, Astrobite, Medicine, Drop Nineteens, Black Tambourines

Professor Murder

Professor Murder "Rides The Subway"
Dance Punk/New Wave Kanine Records 2006



Download Rides The Subway

No this isn't some horrific gangsta rapper, nor is it metal

Professor Murder is a New York band that creates amazing dance punk EP's. One of the immediately memorable things one notices is their incredible use of cowbell.

'Nuff Said.

Just kidding, this isn't one of those here's album art and a free link blogs!



This short EP, clocking in at 16.4 minutes, succesfully creates a flash party. The album comes and goes in such a small party, it is reminiscient to a thirty minute rave with three hundred people in one tiny dorm room. Not only is this music fun and catchy, it's well made and there's love put into it.

The guys in this band seem like they grew up in the 80's and never grew up from partying and dancing. This is expressed through syncopated drums, great vintage synths, repetitive on purpose vocals, and the recording techniques.

The only bad thing about the album is that it leaves you wanting more as it comes and goes so quickly. Looking at the band's discography, with three EP's just like this one, it seems that this is their job. As most music goes, form fits the social context, so maybe Professor Murder as a band just shows up at parties blows people away with amazing dance music and leaves.

Ultimately, nobody will ever say "Needs More Cowbell"

For Listeners Of: The Rapture, Interpol, Tokyo Police Club, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, !!!, The Faint, LCD Soundsytem, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Q and Not U, The Kills

The Notwist

"The Devil, You + Me" by The Notwist
Indie/Electronic Morr Music 2008



Download The Devil, You + Me

The Notwist is a German group that sneakily makes music in whatever genre is great in the underground, starting with Grunge in 1990, metal in the late 1990's, and Indie Electronica in the 2000's.

Now, The Notwist is a band who makes subtle electronic music. This is the first of genre wandering with which they have achieved relative success. They do it so well that it's hard to believe they use to be a Metal band. I for one think they should stick right where they are for the rest of their careers (instead of making Lady Gaga music like one might next expect).

What makes The Notwist so great is the combination of their great song-writing and Marcus Acher's voice. With his voice, he creates the sort of "makes me wanna cuddle" music that other indie electronics do well or try to do well.

Their songs are a mixture of guitar and electronics, with some wavering between the two. Some songs are predominately guitar, such as album opener "Good Lies" and some are almost all electronics, such as "Sleep".

The Notwist is one band within the genre that can give The Postal Service a run for their money. In comparison, The Notwist is much more consistently good but lacks one amazing song such as "Such Great Heights." This rivalry is apparent in the fact that when I was a good bit younger and had sketchy .mp3's I had a mislabeled Postal Service sond that was actually a Notwist song, and it was one of my favorites.

But, I recommend listening for yourself.

For Listeners Of: The Postal Service, Dntel, James Figurine, Four Tet, Caribou, Electronic Radiohead, New Order, Depeche Mode, Slut, Blackmail, 13 & God, Console, Tocotronic, Lali Puna, Ms. John Soda,

Fortress Of Swatches

"Captains of Captains" by Fortress of Swatches
Math/Twee/Hardcore Self-Released 2007



It is a rare occasion, but every once in a while you catch a local band that blows your mind. Fortress of Swatches is one of those bands. I went to a show once to see my friend’s band play, and Fortress was headlining said show. When the husband-wife duo went on, I was thinking “Please don’t play brainless indie rock, I’ve seen this one too many times…” They then went on to play one of the most mind fucking sets I have ever seen. I literally spent the rest of that night rethinking everything I knew about music, I didn’t think two people could generate that much noise.

Later as I became friends with Joe and Selena Kelley, I continued going to their shows and buying their records. “Captains of Captains” is their second album. It shows a mature mix of many styles of music, some songs so quiet you have to turn the volume up, and others ear drum destroying-ly loud. They can be as gentle as a twee pop band, and then in the same song play with more intensity than any hardcore band I’ve seen.

The couple shares duties, some songs featuring Joe on guitar and Selena on drums, and then vice-versa (which also makes an interesting part of their live show). Throughout the album the lyric contents change from captains to thieves and cobblers, their lyrics are as varying as their songs. Overall, this is a great mixture of math, indie rock, punk and even more. But really, Fortress of Swatches transcends most labels, and is really just damn good music for the listening.

For Listeners Of: The Minutemen, Shellac, Maps and Atlases, Lightning Bolt, Hella, Dilute, Don Caballero, Fugazi

The Depreciation Guild

In Her Gentle Jaws" by The Depreciation Guild
Shoegaze/8-Bit/Pop Kanine Records 2007



Download In Her Gentle Jaws

The Depreciation Guild is a rising band for good reason, few bands have a more unique, refreshing sound than this New York 8 Bit/Shoegaze Band. That genre hybridization is a shock at first, thinking My Bloody Valentine (see previous old post) mixed with Pac-Man.

But fuzz and blips has never sounded sooooo good. This thrown in with a pop/dance punk aesthetic and you have one awesome nerd turned indie god sounding band. Sounds a heck of a lot like The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart (partly because the drummer of The Pains is the singer/guitarist for them) with a bit different approach.

What's great about this mixture of Famicon, Fenders, Fuzz, and Reverb is that no song leans to heavily on one of the weapons. Every song is the perfect blend of each aspect, which makes every song sound well balanced and awesome. They also boast a very strong, but small discography (as this album being their first release was released in 2007).

I've seen this band live and watched a few of their live performances, and one thing that makes them even more awesome is their live performances. One would expect a shoegaze band to stand there and be somber, hence the name, but this band does not leave out opportunity to impress. The band has a great stage presence that's not pretentious, good energy, and very friendly mixed with a awesome visuals of digital collages and flashing colors that fits the aesthetic. This is one band that has their artistic direction down pat.

The only negative that could be said about this album is that the quality of songs, ironically enough, Depreciates in quality. In other words, the great memorable songs are right in the front and the second half is still good but doesn't match the first.

All in all, this is an amazing unique band that nobody should look past.

For Listeners Of: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Sweet Tripp, Ringo Deathstarr, Letting Up Despite Great Faults, Airiel, The Radio Dept., The Fauns, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Swirlies, Brand New

Death Cab for Cutie

This song is just so amazing that I needed to post it. State Street Residential is definitely one of my favorite songs of all time. It's also reason as to why Death Cab got so damn famous.

90's emo mixed with 90's indie/early post-rock/slowcore with the quintessential Death Cab flavor, so hard to beat.



Enjoy

Ambient Music - an introduction and summary

Ambient Music is described by Wikipedia as "a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality."

Ambient music is very different for a lot of people, it can be anything that is "chill", "crazy-sounding", or "meaningful". Few genres have this large scope in reactions, some love it to death and give their life to ambiance and some think it's boring and move on.

With slow focused music such as Ambient and Drone music, the composer creates a more realistic approach to music making and is less filtered as other genres are. What else is important from a composers perspective is that you are not forced to immediately impress as the song in its entirety and the world you create is what is truly important. This all creates much more heartfelt, genuine pieces. Few ambient pieces are gratuitous attempts to make the music just to be cool, all pieces are true expression.