i think i’ve mentioned somewhere on this blog that i have an ever-growing obsession with bbc6 and this has had a really huge impact on the albums i’ve bought in the last year.  i love steve lamacq especially, and can’t wait to hear what he opens with every morning because it’s usually so rad that it causes me to use the word ‘rad.’

this anglo-audiophilia was further exacerbated by the pulp reunion tour this summer and the fact that i traveled to the uk to see them (minor obsession). i have a point. this nerdiness has expanded to include buying issues of NME, and this in turn led me to find out about finders keepers records. it’s all very artsy and i don’t understand it, but they seem to specialize in releasing old rarities that include bollywood and b horror film soundtracks.  since their stock went up in blazes along with that of many other small labels, they decided to release a 10 disc series curated by celebrity guests.  seeing that the first one was going to be jarvis’ picks, of course it caught my eye.  i don’t know yet whether i like the actual album. i find it really interesting and diverse.  there are some tracks that i really enjoy, but wouldn’t listen to it, say, driving to/from work (which is when most of my listening goes on).  i think to really appreciate something like this you need a comfy eames chair and some big-ass 70’s earphones, in a room with a shag area rug and records all over the floor.  but isn’t that what we’re all aiming for?

and then it was october.

last month, let england shake won the coveted mercury prize and pj harvey fans rejoiced.  with the exception of that one track where she sings too high and a bit shrill, i really love this album.  i enjoy listening to it in the car and mis-hearing the lyrics “the fruit is deboned children… the fruit is often children” maybe it’s just my muddled canadian ear.

admittedly there is a large gap in my pj harvey background knowledge. in high school, i thought ‘pj’ implied ‘dj’ and meant annoying dance music.  it’s funny how these things affect your listening choices. some random thing about the band or artist name strikes you in a particular way and you’re put off before you get to know them.  like, i have know idea who maroon 5 is and i don’t want to , because what are they? the prequel to eve 6? no thanks. meridian 8 forEVER!

but back to polly. god, you can’t help but love her. and the album ‘really makes you think,’ possibly.  with my low motivation to really analyze the lyrics, though, i just wonder why this anti-war stuff with the tanks and guns and UN is appearing now and not in 2002, for example.

my last comment and observation about this album is that it’s really well suited to autumn. it feels like yellow falling leaves, but with nice harmony and the occasional bugle.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px}

Tragically, Blonde Redhead’s newer material doesn’t seem to tickle most of the pre-existing fanbase’s fancy.  Joyously, the earlier material still exists.  Let’s not get all aggro over the change, but relish what already exists and is darn great.

I bought three Blonde Redhead albums at the Virgin Megastore in London, England, when I visited in 2005.  One of those is Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons.  It’s really lovely.  It may not be as thrashy as some of the other earlier albums (something I really liked about those albums was their skillful and not-constant application of thrashiness), but it exhibits the careful planning and high-calibre musicianship of the band.

I’ve had an annoying argument with a number of people regarding the lead female vocalist (Kazu Makino) and her voice.  I love it.  Some other people don’t.  Atonally on-pitch, occasionally squeaking, not-explicitly-haunting female vocals are kindof controversial and tend to divide likers of unique vocalists.  Luckily, I’m right and “some other people” are not.  I would totally spend my millionaire dollars on having her sing me lullabies.  If I were a millionaire.  I’m not a millionaire.  Sigh.

The lyrics of the album are also melancholily enigmatic, which I dig.  An easy lyric to find online and sample for coolness is “Hated Because of Her Great Qualities.”  Check out how it manages to be despairing without being whiny.  Also, check out how (as it is used in the song) the lyrics (like most of Blonde Redhead’s lyrics) are largely melody/rhythm-lead.  Awesome.  

Blonde Redhead’s musical style sets itself up like a series of constraints to its melodic, rhythmic, and lyrical content.  I like this, because it provides adequate boundaries to interlock the various musical and rhythmic elements of the tracks very solidly.  It also creates an appropriately cinematic atmosphere without having to blast your mind out with a bunch of orchestras and over-laid guitars, and there is SUCH AN ANNOYING TENDANCY for bands to equate “better musical content” with “more instruments playing more music at the same time.”  Way to go, year 2000 Blonde Redhead.

- e

Brief bio: a duo of independant American noise musicians living in Japan.  Instruments were purchased for the project.  It’s exciting to hear their first album.

Intentionally black, loops and walls of sound, creepy voices, rumbly bass and ripping guitar.  There’s something curiously industrial about a lot of the tracks on this album, but at the same time there’s a sincere drone factor and the timing of different elements of a number of tracks seems to be intentionally asynchronous.  It sounds great, tho lo-fi.

The pressing of this album was really limited, but you can find it on a blog or two on the internet.  You know how to find those, right?  I asked them, and it’s totally cool to download their album.  Seriously, they say it’s okay!  Search it out and download it.

Some parts of the album seem kinda tongue-in-cheek, such as the level of thematic bleakness and death-centred documents of somewhat Egyptian fantasy-horror.  Descriptive enough?  I hope so.  I worked really hard on that sentence.  You should be fascinated by this album.

You know what, when I have one around, I’ll post a link to their album up here.  I’m kindof hanging on insinuations of a new album, so I figured it’d be a good time to tell you to Check Putrid Pharaoh out!

Hey, it turns out you can buy this just about anywhere!

From the outset, I gotta say, this is an excellent album, and it has a stylistic but coherent crecendo from the beginning to the end of the album.

That said, ya know when you’re listening to noise rock or experimental whatever, and then one guy comes in with a saxophone?  Yeah, that always bugs me for some reason.  I mean, I’ve seen a few guys at Fake Jazz who really get technical and innovative with the way they sax their ophone, but when it’s just trills and tonal warping and harsh-on-the-ears-please-stop-that-saxophone, I can really do without it.

A chunk of the latter part of this album features such a saxophone player, but all other parts that don’t include them are fan-freaking-tastic.  Very well performed, Kim Gordon even sings a bit, avoids being contrived while structuring chaos into method, but features a really annoying saxophonist.

- e

I was down at Secret Location to see a whole bunch of excellent, heavy, independant Vancouver bands, but as local gigs in East Van have a tendancy to go, there was a ton of time between when the doors opened and when the first band played.

Luckily, there was a really cool (surprisingly old) guy manning the decks and playing some really great records.  Among the songs played was 999’s Homicide, which I had previously only heard on Error’s self-titled (and I think only?) EP.  Looking back at Error’s version while listening to the original, I had greater appreciation for the skill and ingenuity of that industrial supergroup.

Basically, Error is Atticus and Leo Ross, Brett Gurewitz, and Greg Puciato taking time off from working with Nails and Dillinger and other projects to make an excellent industrial album.  The production was expert, the packaging was cool, the songs are listen-and-relisten-able in a way one doesn’t usually find on such a short EP.  It smacks of metal, breakcore, and high-paced industrial, and each musician fills their role thoroughly, skillfully, and radly.

Honestly, if you’re looking for something heavy and complex, check this album out.  My favourite tracks are the cover of Homicide and the opening track, Nothing’s Working, and the remixes at the end of the EP are also really worth listening to.  It’s hard to find on music blogs because of the simplicity of the name, but I really recommend purchasing the album.  I know I did:)

- e

I’m presently sitting in the Honey Lounge near the Chinatown Skytrain station in Vancouver, and something crossed my mind.

That something was the phrase in three parts, “Oh! Right! Khanate!”

I’m somewhat a fan of doom metal, but I’m really picky about it. I usually find myself attracted to super-groups featuring members of Boris or Sunn O))) or Keiji Haino or other staples of doom metal and psychedelic rock, so when I came to hear a bunch of drone-rock bands at the Honey Lounge a few months back, I was amused to find myself drawn to a seemingly endless track which was at some times deafeningly sparse and at others sublimely discordant playing over the PA before the bands went up.

When I asked the guy controlling the music what it was, it turned out to be “Commuted,” the first track on Things Viral by Khanate. I looked the band and album up later and immediately bought it on iTunes. This album is gold.

Think Richard Horovitz (the voice of Zim among others) screaming ink-black lyrics parsed line-by-line over, with, and through insanely well-paced droning drone-metal bass and extremely apt drums. Think Golem screeching confessions to a torture-murder victim before dealing a final, mortal injury. Blind with darkness, perfected and extreme in its intensity.  Other such saccharine, over-stated platitudes, but warranted

It’s almost impossible for me to fathom how such judiciously-paced music could possibly be as tight as the 20-minutes-long tracks on this album display Khanate to be. Do a Wiki search, space your mind out, book off an evening, strap on hifi headphones, and marvel at this album.

iTunes being the bitch that it is, I have since been parted from my copy of this album. I’ll be buying it hardcopy the next time I can find it.

I’ve been thinking about listenable accessible music recently.  I get kindof aloof about my choices of music sometimes, and I figured it was important to review something that is both listenable and accessible while maintaining awesomeness of sound.

Despite the whole typical pop-alternative lyrics thing, all the musicians in Incubus are really great.  They answered a question that I felt was inherent in hip-hop-esque-rock-ish-bands-with-a-dj: what if the chord progressions were more interesting, the singer actually had a good voice, and the bassist and guitarist actually possessed skill?

Make Yourself remains my favourite Incubus album, though I’ll admit I’m partial to Science (though it kindof dates back to when they were opening for Korn).  Make Yourself is one of those albums that you can split down into composite singles but you can listen through the whole album quite comfortably.  It’s nifty-sound-infused enough to afford listening at home, but it’s light, pretty, and tonally lush enough that it’s good for walking around as well.

There’s just enough rock in this album to make it classifiable as rock, but I gotta stress that the musicianship and tonal palate make it a really good listen.  I know I’m stressing the whole “light” aspect of the sound, but an album made up entirely of power-ballads is bound to get pretty heavy in some aspects.

I was reminded of the lead singer’s voice by Dub FX, who uses a very similar singing voice.  Incubus kindof filters through a lot of good-male-singer non-r&b music with the rock sound offsetting a pitch-flawless voice, and I’m really glad it does.