Some American

Song of the Day: Battles - Snare Hanger Mirrored was released...

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:49:18 -0400

Song of the Day: Battles - Snare Hanger

Mirrored was released 5/22/2007 on Warp Records.

Song Of The Day: Sam Cooke - Another Saturday Night I should...

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:04:43 -0400

Song Of The Day: Sam Cooke - Another Saturday Night

I should add that I came across this track because of my good friend Brett I, whose blog is can be found at DayVanZomBear.blogspot.com.

What Is Up: DC Edition 7/26 - 8/01

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:34:19 -0400

Some good shows going down this week, and a few of them still aren’t sold out (surprisingly,...

Audio Download: Shigeto - What We Held On To EP

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:31:19 -0400

Audio Download: Shigeto - What We Held On To EP: This free EP from electronic music artist Shigeto...

Song Of The Day: Holy Fuck - Red Lights From the album Latin,...

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:09:06 -0400

Song Of The Day: Holy Fuck - Red Lights

From the album Latin, released May 11th, 2010 on XL Recordings.

Playlist Foundation: Fake Teeth and Bathing Suits

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:24:56 -0400

So, some friends of mine regularly put together a when-they-feel-like-it collection of songs that...

Music Release List: July 20, 2010

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:26:37 -0400

Standing in stark contrast to last week’s release list, which included Danger Mouse and...

What's Up - DC Edition: 7/19 - 7/25

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:48:00 -0400

The live calendar this week is basically overflowing, and some of DC and Baltimore’s finest...

Quick Hit: Fol Chen - Part II: The New December

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:16:42 -0400

This week I picked up Fol Chen’s latest release, Part II: The New December, which was...

What's Up - DC Edition

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:22:00 -0400

Welcome to the return of the “What Is Up” post, something that I have not done for a...

Audio Download | Mondo Generator - Dog Food (Feat. Dave Grohl)

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:08:20 -0400

Audio Download | Mondo Generator - Dog Food (Feat. Dave Grohl): This cover of the Iggy Pop track...

Song of the Day | Beck - Lost Cause Out of the many, many...

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:06:00 -0400

Song of the Day | Beck - Lost Cause

Out of the many, many albums released in recent memory, Beck’s Sea Change might be one of the most aptly named. It is also one of the most important. Yes, being an album inspired by a break up is hardly remarkable, but the poignance of Sea Change carried so much weight because it came out the same guy who wrote “Devil’s Haircut”, something that could have easily rendered it irrelevant. By trading in willful idiosyncrasy and bizarre iconography for stripped back composition and ~~misery inducing~~ somber tone on his eighth studio release, Beck achieved something few would have ventured he was capable of: subtlety.

As the lead single, “Lost Cause” definitely isn’t the most adventurous choice from this collection, but as with most Song of the Day posts, it was chosen in order to draw potential readers/listeners toward the album as a whole. “Lost Cause” summarizes the intent and perspective of Sea Change perfectly, and why bother supplanting the artist himself in deciding which song best accomplishes that task?

Sea Change was re-released in re-mastered form by the Mobile Fidelity Soundlab in June of 2009. It was named one of Rolling Stone’s “Top 500 Albums of All Time” in 2003.

Song Of The Day | Bit Shifter - Hexidecimal Genome So this...

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:20:00 -0400

Song Of The Day | Bit Shifter - Hexidecimal Genome

So this song, “Hexidecimal Genome” by chiptune (?) artist and 8bitpeoples cheiftan Bit Shifter, is beyond killer. I make no secret of the fact that I have been into video games my whole life, and everything about this takes me all the way back to the days when I would spend hours in front of my tv, playing the hell out of Streets of Rage and the like. My affinity for the sounds and textures of this track probably has a lot to do with the amount of game music I absorbed from the legendary Yamaha YM2612 FM chip inside the console.

There is a huge glut of musicians in this genre, but so much of what they produce fails in the same way a lot of amateur music does; its one note and lacking in originality. What Bit Shifter does so well is to take the limited, quirky tones and textures of a Nintendo Game Boy and meld them into something with a huge amount of forward momentum and energy. Call it chiptune for the rest of us.

The collection Information Chase is available for free via 8bitpeoples.

Song Of The Day | The Arctic Monkeys - Dangerous Animals I shy...

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 09:56:08 -0400

Song Of The Day | The Arctic Monkeys - Dangerous Animals

I shy away from most “it” bands and their related projects, and usually with good reason. In worst case scenarios they are almost overwhelmingly contrived, to the point of being completely obnoxious (Vampire Weekend) or in best case scenarios, they can simply fail to deliver on their promise. The latter applies to Arctic Monkeys, a band once hailed as the “next Beatles” in some circles, and their third album Humbug. Produced by Joshua Homme (of QOTSA fame) and purported to “completely defy any expectations or presumptions and explore the depths of what the band can reach when stepping foot outside their accepted styles,” the album wound up sounding like a solid band doing their best interpretation of Rated R. I think much of this had to do with the producer, who has a track record of dominating every musical relationship he gets involved in. I guess this is hardly a surprise, as Homme has made or participated in some of the most exciting and unique rock records of the past decade. I probably wouldn’t have been able to stand up to him on a creative level either.

Not to say that the album was a total wash, as “Dangerous Animals” demonstrated. The thrust/retreat tempo of the off-kilter drums and bass that sounds like it is swimming in motor oil interplays nicely with the somewhat suave delivery of frontman Alex Turner’s vocals, lending the whole affair a drunken, smarmy quality. Like the whole band is on an acid bender while being carted around in the back of a Rolls Royce. I typically find that Turner’s lyrics verge on being overly clever and feature imagery that does its best to get in the way of just enjoying a song, but “Dangerous Animals” is one of the few examples on Humbug that doesn’t suffer from this affliction.

(The) Arctic Monkeys have stated that they would be interested in working with Homme again, should scheduling permit. I think they should consider going in their own direction, or at least enter Rancho De La Luna with the mindset that they are making their own record, not someone else’s.

Humbug was released August 24th, 2009 on Domino Records.

Song Of The Day | My Name Is John Michael - The People That...

Sun, 30 May 2010 12:58:00 -0400

Song Of The Day | My Name Is John Michael - The People That Come And Go

So our song of the day today comes to us courtesy of New Orleans’ own My Name Is John Michael (MNIJM henceforth), one of two or three bands from the city that seem posed to set the larger music community ablaze.

“The People That Come And Go” is kind of like cliff notes for the band’s debut of the same name. Somber lyrics and mellow vocal delivery provide an engaging counterpoint to effervescent melodies played across a variety of instruments, electronics, and found objects. Given that the six members of MNIJM are all veterans of other seasoned touring acts, the tight, practiced vibe that comes across on the whole collection is hardly a surprise and the care that went into crafting these densely layered songs is readily apparent. At the same time, the incredible amount of nuance and subtlety never seems to take away from the sense of joy. If you need a visual summation, imagine what Carl Sagan might have been like on the monkey bars as a kid. How’s that for an abstraction?

I am really looking forward to seeing what the band puts out next, and although a recent postponement is a bit of a downer, I have no doubt it will lead to something pretty extraordinary.

The People That Come And Go was self released in the spring of 2009.

Audio Download | The Mynabirds - Let The Record Go

Sat, 29 May 2010 10:22:59 -0400

Audio Download | The Mynabirds - Let The Record Go: From the newly released What We Lose In The Fire...

Song Of The Day | Deftones - You’ve Seen The Butcher I...

Sat, 29 May 2010 09:53:00 -0400

Song Of The Day | Deftones - You’ve Seen The Butcher

I think that the Deftones are the Radiohead of metal. I’m serious. I know, I never would have thought that a band who were mentioned in the same breath as KoRn and Limp Bizkit throughout the mid and late nineties would be capable of producing anything worthwhile either. But they have been for over a decade now.

Starting with the seminal White Pony, the difficult third ~~album~~ masterpiece, and moving to their more recent Saturday Night Wrist, which was my favorite metal album in a year that included Mastodon’s Blood Mountain, the band has created some of the most atmospheric and evocative music in the metal genre. By consistently borrowing stylistic elements from the best of hardcore, prog, and electronica, the Deftones make music that is at once accessible, dense, familiar, and entirely inimitable.

“You’ve Seen The Butcher” is the fourth track from Diamond Eyes, the band’s newly released sixth record and their first without bassist Chi Cheng, who has been in a coma since the car accident that derailed the sessions for the band’s unreleased Eros album. While I do feel it represents the album as a whole, with it’s rhythmic structure and its emphasis on the damaged crooning of Chino Moreno, choosing a single song to play out of context was a difficult task.

Diamond Eyes was released May 4 on Reprise Records.

The Mynabirds latest is perfect late night listening. We’ll link it in the AM, or out...

Sat, 29 May 2010 03:34:23 -0400

The Mynabirds latest is perfect late night listening. We’ll link it in the AM, or out...

Off Topic: Finally got to start watching Treme. Contemplating packing up and heading back this...

Sat, 29 May 2010 03:34:23 -0400

Off Topic: Finally got to start watching Treme. Contemplating packing up and heading back this...

Chip tune music is so boss hog when it is done properly: check out “Hexidecimal Genome”...

Fri, 28 May 2010 22:54:49 -0400

Chip tune music is so boss hog when it is done properly: check out “Hexidecimal Genome”...