Supervinyl/The Kings Of Novelty

Last week I finally received The King Of Limbs newspaper edition in the mail.  I've been listening to the digital version off and on since I preordered earlier this year...it's a very chill record, full of verdant yet somnolent vibrations.  The the vinyl translation is spot on, though there is something about listening to faux dusty vinyl back tracks on actual vinyl that I find humorous.  The packaging/presentation is elaborate and awe-inspiring...two 10" clear vinyl discs came in beautifully decorated sleeves, along with a sheet of blotter paper and a CD version of the album.  All of this was wrapped up in a "newspaper" containing lyrics and artwork.  Radiohead borrowed Tull's Thick As A Brick idea, modernized it, and made it their own.  No doubt it was not the cheapest record I've purchased this year, but I am quite pleased with what they've done - plus they not only offered an immediate download, but also have since followed things up with freebies for those who preordered, including a download of the Supercollider/TheButcher EP.

 

 

 

 

 

The Inspiration: Thick As A Brick original newspaper packaging - 1972

The Thing (Part I)

It's been over two weeks...why have I not yet written about The Thing In The Spring?  Life's been busy, and now that some time has passed it's pretty tough to figure out where to begin.  This year's Thing was epic, in both the traditional and annoying new-school context of the word; we saw bigger names than in the past, and overall a more organized and professional-feeling environment.

The Thing In The Spring is a four-year strong, weekend-long music festival in Peterborough, NH that focuses mostly on local artists - from New England and just beyond.  This year the festival kicked off on Friday, May 13th, at the Peterborough Historical Society with Bunny's A Swine - a fun, energetic, and quirky rock band from Northampton, MA.

"Whisky Lotto" by Bunny's A Swine - uploaded by Sameermo

The sound was a bit rough during their set but it fortunately smoothed out for the following acts.  The room in which the shows were held was quite pretty and well-sized for the event, though its acoustic properties presented a challenge to find the right balance of elements within the mix - blending electrically amplified signals with the unprocessed, natural sound coming from the stage.  Up next was Stephen Brodsky from Arlington, MA.  Stephen is a current member of Cave In and former member of Converge (amongst others).  I rather enjoyed his set of processed, slightly distorted, and sampled Guild F-65 acoustic/electric ditties - a unique approach and very well done.  Here's a track from the show...

Stephen Brodsky

The final performance of Friday evening was Flowers & Cream's first ever live set.  Flowers & Cream is a group put together by Thurston Moore, best known for one of alternative rock's most influential bands - Sonic Youth.  Flowers & Cream alternated between performing several tracks from Thurston's new record, Demolished Thoughts, and a mash-up of spoken-word free-form jams.  I know I am the odd man out when I say that Thurston's material doesn't blow me away, but I certainly appreciate his lyrics and what he does.  Some songs resonate deeper with me than others...here's one of my favoites from the evening...

Flowers & Cream

It was a bit surprising, and perhaps ironic, that someone like Thurston Moore, out of all the talent that were to perform during the weekend, would be fighting with a faulty amplifier.  It did, however, set a mood; this is real and raw stuff - there's no primping and pretending, and no rockstar attitudes.

Saturday was a vey busy day.  *Broke: The Affordable Arts Fair was magnificent, with artists from all over the region showing and selling peices of various formats/media - paintings, drawings, knitting, photography, textiles, clothing, jewelry, and much more.  To top it off nearly everything was priced under $50...and if that wasn't enough, across the common you could enjoy some delicious soup alongside a student art exhiibit at the Empty Bowls fundraiser at the teen center.  In the afternoon, Omoo Omoo, a spacey ambient/atmospheric group from Baltimore, MD, performed from the lower rooftop of The Toadstool bookshop, befitting the greying overcast sky.  Their music - droning backdrops supporting various acoustic-style ramblings.


Perfomances in the evening were split between three bands playing early sets at the Historical Society, and two more playing at Harlow's Pub.  I'll cover the first show in this post, and save the second to kick of Part II.  Things got rolling at the Historical Society around 6pm with Dan Ireton from Vermont, aka Dredd Foole.  While what Dan was doing wasn't really my thing, his comfort and presence on stage begged one to listen to his particular blend of folky americana.  Dan uses his voice as an instrument, not only singing words, but to create sounds and accent movements in his music. Following Mr. Foole, was 200 Years - a male/female duo: Ben Chasny & Elisa Ambrogio.  Ben can normally be seen in Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire, and Rangda, and Elisa in Magik Markers.  A big thank you to Eric Gagne for providing this information as I could not find anything about 200 Years elsewhere.  I highly recommend checking out all of their projects.  Megan Roy spun some Comets On Fire for me one day in The Toadstool, and I very much liked what I heard,  At The Thing, Ben & Elisa played a stripped-down, poppy, and interesting set.  Instrumentation included acoustic guitar, electric guitar, voice, and keyboards.

Photograph by Angus MacPherson

Last up was J Mascis, of Dinosaur Jr fame.  J's "acoustic" set was loud and filled with life; he tumbled through several songs without speaking much to us, letting his six strings and voice do most of the work.  We received a healthy variety of melodies and vocal styles, and at times J would employ heavy distortion to belt out a solo.  The difference in volume and harshness of tone was a bit much, though bearable.  Here's one of my favorite tracks from his performance...

J Mascis

J recently released a solo record, Several Shades of Why, on Sub Pop records, and is currently on tour with Dinosaur Jr. You can catch him in Northampton, MA on Summer Solstice - June 21st.

...Hmmm...not my best work, but I'm glad to have Part I finished.  In Part II I'll be focusing on the Mmoss/Coke Weed show at Harlow's Pub, the final show at the Historical Society, and my thoughts on The Thing 2010 versus 2011.  Cheers.

Foxes, Worms, Black Metal, and Much Ado About Streaming

I am reminded once again of just how awesome NPR Music is.  It had been a while since I checked out the site and on my return I found several amazing things.  For starters you can hear the entirety of the new Fleet Foxes record, Helplessness Blues, which is very very good...ok it's pretty amazing.  Here's The Plains/Bitter Dancer which is one of my favorite tracks from the album...

If you want more stream the whole record here, or do yourself a favor and pick up one of the best records of the year on vinyl while you still can.

I was also quite surprised to see some live audio of Portland, Oregon's Agalloch and San Francisco's Worm Ouroboros.  This was headliner Agalloch's first performance ever in New York City.  Having missed their stop in Boston this year I was rather glad to have the opportunity to hear them play live, and to top it off the entirety of both sets are available for download.  Head here to stream or download Agalloch's set, and here for Worm Ouroboros'.  Agalloch are often described as post black metal or post folk metal, which is not a bad way of putting it.  They borrow the crescendoing, layered, and atmospheric approach of post rock and metal and apply the practice to raw, gloomy metal.  Agalloch mix clean and harsh vocals and make use of acoustic guitars just as much as blast beats...and that is cool.  Here's Black Lake Nidstang from their latest record...

Worm Ouroboros are a female-fronted, atmospheric metal band.  They write lush, haunting tapestries of songs that incorporate medieval voicings and monstrous doom riffs.  Here's a sample, Riverbed...

Quality metal on NPR?  Indeed...and in fact NPR is also offering a first listen to Aesthethica, the second and latest from Liturgy, a very interesting black metal band from Brooklyn, NY.  They've dubbed their particular brand of music "transcendental black metal", and I must admit that I have not heard anything quite like it.  Liturgy explore all kinds of sounds, from noise to harmonized clean chanting vocals, offering an unusual and unconventional style - even to black metal ears.  I highly recommend listening to the album as a whole, here, but here's Returner...I like it more and more each time I listen...

Oh and if you didn't get to catch PJ Harvey on tour you can stream her entire performance from San Francisco here.  You can also choose to download a shortened version of the concert, which due to licensing restrictions, contains only songs from her new record Let England Shake.

Enjoy!

Ville d'Oiseaux

Yesterday was a long and busy day, but I still managed to find my way to 119 Gallery in Lowell, MA.  119 is a small artist's studio that offers a wide variety of events and exhibits such as theater, poetry, music/audio/art performance, film, fashion, and dance.  What prompted my first visit was The Bella Birds' album release show for their new record, Lost City.

I've been bugging the Birds for a while now to get a sneak preview of their latest, but they just wouldn't have it.  Lost City was engineered, mixed, and mastered by the band and Jeff Root; thus, last night was the unveiling of many many months of hard work and energy.  The result of their labors is a fairly diverse indie light rock record full of heart-felt words, and with just as much twanging and vocal harmonies as drum fills and power chords.  Lost City is a very open and straight-forward expression of three human artists, unafraid and unapologetic.  I find Lost City to be quite a refreshing listening experience; it's ten, well-paced and -sequenced tracks provide meditation, fun, and alot of soul.  There's such an honesty in their voices, words, and performance that makes these songs very special; they're real stories and real feelings.  My personal favorite tracks (at least today) are Wet Hot American Summer, Tomorrow Tomorrow, Crooked & Dreamless, and Never Came.

Last night's opener, Andrue Coombes, warmed up the audience with a inspirational rant and some quirky ukelele singalong jams as we stuffed our faces with delicious delectables from Eggroll Cafe.  Soon afterward, Clara Berry took the stage with her percussionist, Joe O'Neil, and bassist Elisabeth Hodge.  Twenty-one year old Clara, clearly a well-practiced pianist and vocalist, writes snappy, jazzy, and haunting pieces.  She works with dissonance in fantastic ways; Hodge plays off of these moments with dashes of slides and trills while O'Neil keeps things pretty dialed back, entertaining just the right amount of dramatic effect with cymbal swells and snare rim hits.  Quite impressed, I fell in love with her set and would highly recommend that if ever you have a chance to see Clara and her band play that you do.  Clara Berry's EP, Creature, is available for $5 here.

Bog Child by Clara Berry

Photo by Rich Messina

Third on stage were The Bella Birds.  Pam Craven, Chris Forgione, and Zachary Root played the entirety of Lost City for us, beginning to end, in what had become the sweltering heat of 119 Gallery.  It was a great introduction to the songs of the new album; Zack's bass-lines range from a finger-picked foundation to chord strumming madness, bridging the gap between Chris' extremely energetic beats and Pam's jingle-and-jangling six-string melodies.  Topping things off is the dynamic-duo of Pam and Zack's vocals which are very well-matched, smooth, and heart-warming.  For a couple of songs Tyler Bisson (aka TRAGWAG) joined the Birds to add some Mandolin flavor and much hair.  It was quite apparent the Birds were having alot of fun, as did we, celebrating the moment and a great record.  Unfortunately my long day had caught up to me and I resigned after the Bella Birds' set, missing performances by both Kristen Ford and TRAGWAG.  It is with reluctance that I must admit I cannot speak to their performances.
Wet Hot American Summer by The Bella Birds

I must end by thanking the Birds.  Their set certainly inspired me; it was another affirmation of why I need to follow my heart, and for this I am very thankful to the three of them.  You can get your very own copy of Lost City by contacting The Bella Birds.

Photo by Rich Messina

 "When your dreams get far away, close your eyes..."

Cinco de Cordero

Last night I received an air mail parcel from London...the new Lamb, 5.  I had been waiting quite patiently for this to arrive.  Back in January I preordered both the "special limited edition" CD as well as the vinyl LP version.  Yes, I know I am a hopeless fanboy.

The special CD edition, limited to 2800 copies, came in a very nice hardbound book containing not one, but two CD's, several pages of liner notes, and a fold-out poster.  The first CD contains the regular album, which I must say is quite good.  When a band comes back after such a long hiatus there is alot of expectation; I did my best to put my preconceptions aside and give the album a very open listen.  There is no doubt that this is Lamb, but this is no rehash or emulation of what they used to be.  They've shape-shifted, shuffling to one side or another of where they maybe saw themselves want to step.  Songs like Build A Fire and Rounds are just not like anything they've done before.  Some of the songs seem as though they could have used a little more time to simmer; I get the feeling that the creation of this record wasn't rushed, but moved along more quickly than perhaps it should have...or maybe I'm misinterpreting its of-the-moment-ness.  Regardless, 5 is a very diverse and exciting record.  Have a listen to Butterfly Effect...

The second CD contains two more new songs - Dischord, and Back To Beginning which was written and performed with Damien Rice and Carrie Tree.  It also contains alternate versions of several songs - most of which are presented as instrumentals - the vocal tracks stripped out.  There is an acapella version of Strong The Root, and demo version of Rounds.

The pages of the book contain several photos and a brief account of each song.  The photos range from shots of Andy and Lou, to studio equipment, to images that represent elements of the songs.  Lou's notes attempt to let us in on the creative process and meaning behind each of the songs.

 

The fold-out poster is the classic Lamb logo comprised of, in mosaic fashion, the 2800 names of those who preordered the album.  According to Lamb the album was partially funded by us, and while most of us would've been perfectly happy with just having another Lamb record, it was very cool that they went above and beyond to make the packaging and presentation so unique.  It's a keepsake to remind us that we're music nerds and quite proud to be so.  Thank you Lou and Andy!  I am quite happy to be listening to new Lamb.

I am a dork.