Link: http://www.areweapons.com/

New York’s A.R.E. Weapons are back from a hiatus since 2007’s Modern Mayhem, and they are out for revenge or maybe just a little personal justice.

Spitting out words like they were Nick Cave, it’s a little too fanboyish to hear a song like “Jeffrey Lee” and think more about “Stagger Lee” and immediately realize that The Bad Seeds do it much better. “Don’t You Fucking Die On Me” continues that renegade behavior in storytelling form and although not bad, I cannot help but imagine Cave pulling the mic away, telling them how to do it right. Although this song encapsulates the New York grove better than the opener.

You hear the New York influences in Darker Blue from Television to Feotus to ZZZ, who do the psycho-sexual noir rock better. “Subway” is the closest homage to a Dead Milkmen song that I have heard, telling the tales of a cockroach riding the subway in Milkmen-ish humor writing fashion.

What A.R.E. Weapons are good at is instilling a paranoia within their synth-like rock structure, much like Trans Am does, but Darker Blue never goes that far. They take the same steps that Lydia Lunch takes, but this is not an ‘80s deconstructed New York environment, nor is it Warhol’s Trash. With that Darker Blue by default is diluted into the echoes of the past and the want to be on the fringe while never reaching either’s goals.

But in the context of A.R.E. Weapons, its one of the better albums they have put out.

Link: http://www.afrobeta.com/Home.html

It is one thing if Afrobeta asked the question, “Do you like to party,” because honestly, who does not like to party. But the initial perception is “Do you party?” If you do not, Afrobeta’s goal is to change that habit fast. And coming out of Miami, getting the party started is like saying you are going outside to get some sun.

Their club-scene antics, poppin’ beats, and electro pop is easy for you to dig in. It’s not the title track that makes you use a disco ball like an semi-automatic, although the Miami bass does make the booty shake like a circus act. But we get three versions of the song to instill it in our minds. The strong points of the EP is “Two Different Worlds” where Cuci Amador lets her vocal talent shine instead of spitting out words thinking she is Ke$ha as in the title track.

“As Long As You Like” is even better, bringing out the best in both Amador and Tony Smurphio’s ecstatic power rock and electro funk choruses, a pivotal moment that I hope is further explored on their full length, due to be released later this fall.

Link: http://www.ghostly.com/releases/you-ep

Gold Panda’s debut delivers us with an introduction that is starkly glitched-out and electronically progressive in a non-progressive sense.

Only two originals mark this EP with the rest being remixes of “You” and  a digital bonus remix of a song called “Killing Yourself On A Beach” which has nothing to do with the other original “Peaky Cups.”

I am probably making it more confusing than it really is so let me break it down. If it were not for the remixes, this EP would fail bases solely on the two originals presented. It’s the remixes of “You” that bring out the potential of the song and expand it into an expansive frame of mind. When you listen to the original, you feel like something is lacking. The vocal strobe effect turned-Hindu chant sounding gets old after a while and you feel like Gold Panda did not know exactly what direction to take it. The remixers know exactly where to take it.

But “Peaky Caps” is the highlight. It’s like watching water glisten in the sun. Your mind will wonder to all sorts of sensations as you let Gold Panda guide you with this downtempo ambient shangri la. If only they continue to do something in this realm, only the future will behold.

Link: http://www.myspace.com/tobacco

I sometimes have dreams about my face melting off. This has been ongoing since first seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark and the end scene with the German soldier’s face turning into a bloody version of melting wax. Not that this is completely a bad thing because I never thought of it to hurt, at least in my dreams, but it’s the whole sequence: face melting, brain turning to goo, monster emerges.

But never in my life would I have envisioned an album that sums up these dreams. But Maniac Meat is the sound of your brain melting. Hell, the album cover is simply frightening enough yet it entrances you (kind of like something out of a classic Troma film) to give it high markings alone.

The album doesn’t really begin. It’s like it has been playing for an eternity and you just so happened to pick up the transmission. And with a song title like “Constellation Dirtbike Head,” you cannot even imagine. The vocals would make Gibby Haynes yell “Oh shit!” as Tobacco warps the words “Don’t eat the berries around you,”while latching on to the back of your skull and leaving you sitting there drooling. Not only is his voice warped, but the sequencer pitch warps the hell out of this man’s words beyond the common filters he uses.

Coming from the leader of the illustrious Black Moth Super Rainbow, it’s not shocking to hear something as bizarre as this. Even some of Tobacco’s songs sounds more like Black Moth Super Rainbow songs: “Heavy Makeup,” and especially “Six Royal Vipers.” It may be on the edge, but these songs are no where at its point of breaking maintaining a sense of accessibility in its danceable rhythms and beats, like “Sweatmother,” which is the equivalent to what I assume to what taking acid and listening to White Zombie would be like.

Beck even makes an appearance for “Fresh Hex” (a song that sounds kind of like the lyrical style of “Loser,” if Beck had balls and wasn’t trying to be the anti-hero of alternative music) and “Grape Aerosmith,” which barely has Beck on it so it almost does not count.

Analog sounds will shred your nerve endings, filters are pushed beyond its breaking point, and words will fizzle like letting your ears ingest a box of pop rocks and Zots all at once. Tobacco has created a mind-altering puppet, and that puppet is hypnotized into thinking it is you.

Link: http://darla.com/?fuseaction=item_cat.ecom_superitem_detail&item_cat_id=37398

Two people who need little introduction. Little Windows is the finale to a trilogy of albums (A Song For Lost Blossoms and Candylion), and contains a fresh array of lush ambient songs just in time for summer.

With part of Little Windows recorded for “Echoes,” the nightly music soundscape from Public Radio International and the other in Clive Wright’s studio, the two occasions combine flawlessly.

The album begins like an ocean breeze blowing inland as the sun blindingly blazes downward, the swaying of “Plumade” sets the mood for the album that turns into a convex of guitar notes bending in and out of shape as “Prelucid” sounds like the best soundtrack to any ‘80s movie love scene, not only because of its elusive mystery but its gently beauty. “Queens of Cydonia” burns like a hot Louisiana summer afternoon. The slight touch of a slide guitar styling radiates with humidity. But that could be the effects of Joshua Tree, California, having effect on their mood.

The album takes slight obscure turn when Budd churns out three piano numbers for the ending of this album (“Tong War” “Sweet Earth Flying,” and “Damask, Then”), whimsically meandering around the keys, almost making you forget that anything happened before this. Budd succeeds in getting you lost within his own mind thinning things out until their is nothing left but silence.

And even though the two work together well to create an agreeably auditory experience, the songs tend to cut themselves off before the next one comes in making transitions not as smooth as other ambient albums have established as trend. When you understand that these are dainty thought compositions the music tends to flow easier through the ears. The two have already proved everything they need to, Little Windows is just a fun exploration into sound the way they like to do it.

Link: http://ghostly.com/artists/mux-mool
The Viking Funeral EP is a free download on the Ghostly International website.

I just found an old promotional video for the Xanadu architectural project (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQOHVOduYX8). in the 1980s, Bob Masters and Roy Mason built the house of the future made of a foam-like material in two locations: Kissimmee, Florida, and the Wisconsin Dells. On my many trips to Walt Disney World throughout the ‘80s, the pamphlet located in the front lobby display of any motel would entice us with curiosity despite the reality that we Disney World trumped a visit to the house.

Touted as the “Computerized House Of The Future,” inside the house it was ran by now vintage Commodore computers and served more like a walk through “Tomorrowland” outcast. For the house, the future was 2001, and voice-activated machines would make your meal plans, adjust the temperature of the house, and plan your day.

While enjoying the interesting oddity and although still futuristic conception now antiquated technology of the house itself, I so happened to have Mux Mool’s Skulltaste on in the background. And for a distinct moment, the two were synced up perfectly. It was then I realized that Mux Mool’s vintage electronics were indeed the sound of the future and the comforting analog that filled my ears was a timeless commodity that, if presented in the right atmosphere, could never go stale.

It was a slightly different story when I first heard it. With Skulltaste, you have to adjust your eardrums for an expectation. Sometimes Hip Hop in nature (“Hog Knuckles”), sometimes infectiously disco-tinged (“Enceladus”), while other times glitch electro-funk (“Death 9000”) or songs that could be confused with Spacetime Continuum’s work (“SFW Porn”), Mux Mool spins the strange and quirky into something mostly interpreted as cool even if it’s all a geek fest by the time it’s over.

I wondered if everything Mux Mool did was as sterile beautiful like “Dandelion” or geeky in a Short Circuit or Zapped kind of way like the title track was. So I dug into Viking Funeral to get an alternative view of Mux Mool’s vision. “Teal Trim” supports New Age ambiance with upper class coolness. The Live Edit of “Ladies Know” explore more into Pop territory than anything else he has done, but still leaves a Mux Mool imprint to the song. And “Goblin Town” makes me wonder if he spent way too much time watching cartoons in the ‘80s. Turn off that Dungeons & Dragons dude. Okay that vocal version of “Death 9000″ does the trick.

But this proves that Mux Mool can adapt to about anything and everything he thinks is cool and morph it into his idea of electronic music to a great deal of success.

Links:
Golden Ages: http://www.myspace.com/wearegoldenages
Deerhaus: http://www.deerhaus.com/

I recently saw an article in the online edition of Scientific American. It was this cool hipster flash splash of the 12 event that could happen in our century. One of them was the event that we communicate with extra terrestrials. I will not spoil you with what they think the likelihood of that happening, but within the article spliced together interviews from SETA and the fact even with more powerful telescopes and there is still no action in outer space does not mean that it’s quiet. You get to hear some of the amazing sounds of space. And they are incredible while being somewhat frightening.

That’s what Golden Ages has done. Tradition will surprise you with their intense sounds that invade your eardrums while maintaining a sense of roughly construed pop. Both come together to create something raw, unashamed and exploratory.

From the same geography that brought you Philadelphia’s Aspera Ad Astra, Golden Ages continues the tradition that sounds like space age pop only if an astroid came smashing down all over it. The title track sounds pressurized with a murky sound mixing. The treble is too high, normal sounds sound white hot, yet the song ends up being meditative. Even more so is the lovely dissonant “The Knife House.” “Grow Kid” further expands the song into a barrage of chaos that flashes with a frightening brilliance.

Don’t let things pass you by. Sit down and listen to songs like “Everything Will Be Allright” and you will hear amazing pairings of sonic structures

This album is for the late night stargazers who celebrate the coolness of a summer night being blanketed with a universe above them and endless imaginary possibilities.

Links:
Solvent: http://ghostly.com/artists/solvent

One thing you can say about Jason Amm is that he’s constant. His post-techno talent from album to album has remained top notch, and Subject to Shift stays true to that statement.

The songs on Subject To Shift seem to be more accessible than his stretched out electronic instrumentals and more synth-poppish than what we heard on Solvent City, but they are indeed staple Solvent material and everything you come to expect and want from Amm.

Utilizing antique Roland sounds on “Formulate” to the simple drum thumping on “A Product Of The Process,” the acidic synthesizers will burn holes in your brain as Solvent dares you to indulge yourself in the Euro-style dancefloor coolness as he builds from one layer to transition over to the next while keeping the basic posturing intact.

His collection of vintage synthesizers get plenty of play on this album, giving us the best of ‘80s synth-pop without been righteously overbearing about it.

Subject to Shift has its memorable moments with plenty of standout pieces like the ghostly communicative “Don’t Forget To Phone,” a reply to “Don’t Forget To Phone,” or the robotic “Caught A Glimpse.”

But when it comes down to it, there is not a bad song in the lot and a testament to Solvent’s long-lasting talent.

Links:
The Superions: http://www.myspace.com/thesuperions
Happy Happy Birthday To Me: http://hhbtm.com/

Gone is the lost art of ‘80s snarky rock. We don’t really have the cavalier of the Dead Milkmen producing new songs nor do we have the out of space snuff of say a Sigue Sigue Sputnik. But at least we still have Fred Schneider on the loose, and he’s spunky.

Teamed with Noah Brodie and Dan Marshall, The Superions’s Totally Nude Island is everything you expect from a band like this, especially if you bought those two solo albums Schneider did. And if you have that expectation, you won’t expect too much from Totally Nude Island.

Really only consisting of three songs (the other four songs are just remixes), they are modest renderings of goofball lyrics filled with ideas that are usually the least of our concerns. “Who Threw That Ham At Me” is a disco-tinged rebuking on the silliness of shoplifting, while the title track takes Polynesian stabs by utilizing sexual innuendos and up-front bantering from Schneider, who doesn’t really sing (even in the unconventional sense) as he takes a stab at the art of spoken word. When he whips out words like “naked sensuality” or “lovers in the throws of ecstasy,” you cannot help but giggle a little.

Despite its ridiculousness, the songs are fun in its own special way with some of the remixes making them a little more pleasurable.

Links:
Ellen Allien – http://www.ellenallien.de/
BPitch Control – http://www.bpitchcontrol.de/

Ellen Allien’s latest electronic monarchy is a scattering of gentle pulsating odes that will get into your head. You may not know it but after you listen to Dust, you will want to listen again with the hopes that you can dig deeper into Allien’s electronic thoughts.

We haven’t really seen anything prominent from the German composer since 2006’s Orchestra Of Bubbles. Sure there was the cool Fabric mixing and the The Other Side release that ventured into Euro coldwave electronic blip dances. It proved that it’s impossible not to think of Ellen Allien when you think of the German electronic music scene.

Dust feels more solemn as it does deep. With an album like this the beats mean more as does the thoughtfulness. It all goes hand in hand to make an album that you may not immediately realize but will feel that this is something that will pass the test of time.

Accessible but not quite, “Our Utopie” is a transcendental journey that forms New Age-like elements with Allien’s brand of mixing to get your mind in the right mood. Once she has you, “Flashy Flashy” twists it around with electronic minimalism. It may barely get a hip to shake, but you will be entranced equally so.

She really gets down to business with “Sun The Rain” blending in indie rock ethics into a dance party atmosphere. It continues in “Ever” and “You.”

I really didn’t appreciate the true charm of these songs beyond its subtle glimmer. These are not easily accessible songs. It’s rare that you find an artist willing to push beyond what is easy while maintaining an identity. Ellen Aillen continues to do this confidently and successfully. And she does all of this without having to flaunt nothing but her talent. You cannot go wrong here.