Tag Archives: graveface
Blue Water White Death – Self-Titled (Music Review)
Blue Water White Death
Self-Titled
Graveface
Rating: 4 out of 5
Link: http://bluewaterwhitedeath.com/
When Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart is involved in a project, you will walk in with an expectation that comfort is not an issue. Stewart maintains a sense of brazen sharp-tongued, although a little more comforting with Blue Water White Death than his Xiu Xiu moniker.
Backed with Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg, the dissonance and white-eyed sounds that haunt these songs can scare the goosebumps off of you.
“Song For The Greater Jihad” reminds me of Faultline with its unearthly sounds floating in the background as both share vocal duties sharply bouncing off of each other like an argument or fair warning. “Grunt Tube” adheres more toward a traditional Xiu Xiu song and Stewart’s most notable lyrical style.
Stewart maintains an immediacy towards the social issues and taboos of modern society. Sex and violence still remains a constant towards his verbal lashings and contemplations.
“Nerd Future” is iconic at bringing the two musicians together to showcase the best of both talents. It’s a beautiful and creative song that brings in element of filmwork soundscape and the avant garde while laying silent at the bottom of the pool looking up as the musical textures ripple about.
It’s more shocking to hear Meiburg in this format than Stewart as we are used to Shearwater being in a broader alt-rock landscape. The two feed off each other to create a greater project that will appeal more to Xiu Xiu fans than they will Shearwater fans.
All in all, Blue Water White Death is a masterful creation that will be refreshing to some and expansive to others.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (7.2MB)
Monster Movie – Everyone Is A Ghost (Music Review)
Monster Movie
Everyone Is A Ghost
Graveface
Rating: 3 out of 5
Link:
Monster Movie: http://www.myspace.com/monstermovie
Graveface: http://www.graveface.com/
Have you ever stopped, looked around, and thought “is this really the world I live in? Is this what it’s supposed to look like and be like because in my mind, I have a completely different picture.”
This is the metaphysical concept that Christian Savill and Sean Hewson ponder with the dew-laced lonely pop of Everyone Is A Ghost.
“Outside of the strip mall, I feel confused. It’s enough,” they sing as “Bored Beyond Oblivion” intros the album with a fuzzed-out and noisy shoegaze gem. I want to define this album with this song. However, that would be delusional as Everyone Is A Ghost primarily sounds less than this highlighted opener.
“Have you noticed, all the people around here are always sad and lonely…are we living in a ghost town” brings us back to that alienated feeling that dominates this album. The acoustic folk-space pop gives us something so familiar but vaguely out of touch which only accentuats the creepiness of their words.
If a name sounds familiar, it’s because you have at least one Slowdive release tucked in your collection somewhere. And if you expect the greatness of a band like Slowdive to leach over into Monster Movie, you might be disappointed. But if you look at this album to contain the talent of a musician who had the opportunity to be in Slowdive, then you will look at this album for what it is, its own entity.
And even though something like “A Place In The Mountains” sounds like a really bad Alice In Chains B-side, and the mega-synthesized sound of “Fall” blends Erasure aesthetics with what sounds like a homage to the film Ladyhawke, there is “Down, Down, Down” and “Silver Knife” that I don’t think I could live without now that I heard these songs.
A little less desired than their potential, Everyone Is A Ghost could have been much, much better.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.4MB)
The Seven Fields of Aphelion – Looking In From the Outside
The Seven Fields of Aphelion branches out from the roots of Black Moth Super Rainbow. A key member of that group, Periphery (Graveface) is not so much a side project as it is an exposure of personal identity. The album shines from within containing musical moments caught in time and stretched out beyond the conceptual landscape, giving us lush electronic sounds is yellowed by vintage synthesizers and ghostly piano. The sound is a guide through the thought forms of The Seven Fields Of Aphelion’s looping textures and tones. She tells us of how it all came together.
What made you want to deviate from Black Moth Super Rainbow and construct the type of sound that you hear in Seven Fields of Aphelion? What did you personally get out of this album?
It’s kind of the other way around. I was writing this kind of music before I joined up with Black Moth Super Rainbow. BMSR has always been Tobacco’s creation, and the rest of us mostly just help to bring those songs to life in a live setting. So this album is a true representation of my sound, rather than a deviation from it. Some of these songs were started as long as five years ago and I’ve always kept them to myself. After awhile, I felt like they were cluttering up my mind – like I couldn’t move forward and work on new stuff until I let these go. So putting this album out there was really a way to help clean out my head and move on.
How did the idea for Seven Fields and the album begin? What brought you to this place?
I’ve played the piano since I was a very young, but it never occurred to me that I could write music. I just never thought that was something I would be able to do. So I never really gave it a try until I was in college and I had to write a song for a grade. I found a state of mind that worked – locked myself in a dark room with a piano – and essentially forgot about myself until something else was able to get through. After that first song, I just never stopped. I have notebooks upon notebooks of songs and I finally felt like I had to let some of them go to make room for more.
On “Periphery,” you use vintage equipment to build the structure to the songs within. Can you tell me what were some of your favorite things about using this equipment and how it got the sounds you wanted?
I let the sound drive the songwriting. If I’m not into the sound completely, I won’t be able to come up with anything. There’s something very raw and unpredictable about the sound of an analog synth – almost as if it’s alive and breathing and has its own will. And I love those moments where the instrument falters – the tuning wobbles – and you have no control over it.
You are a photographer, as well. What attracts you to still images, and how did it affect making this album?
I prefer to shoot on film, rather than digitally, and I really enjoy not being able to see the result until it’s too late to change it. It’s another exercise in the knowledge of not knowing – becoming invisible – I have to give up control and let the subject speak for itself. So I think the process of writing music and taking photos is a very similar thing for me. Leaving certain aspects to chance because I know that I do not know best.
What is it about Pittsburgh that keeps you motivated and inspired to create the music that you create?
I am obsessed with maps and getting lost and finding those little hidden places that I never knew about. Pittsburgh has the craziest roads – they really make no sense at all – there’s no grid system here and so many of the roads just twist around or end suddenly. There’s so many hills that have great views and creepy stretches of industry along the river. I just never run out of places to explore here. And for some reason, finding these places is always a spark for me.
I know you have to have an image in your head of where the song will take you, but how do you want your vision to translate to the listener (and not to say that I want you to answer how the listener should perceive your music) and in what context does that relationship transcend, which to me seems like a satisfyingly personal feeling?
It’s strange…I really don’t have a vision or idea in mind when I sit down to write. A lot of people probably start with a melody in mind or some sort of vision, but I don’t work that way. I try to let the instrument speak for itself. For me, it’s more like translating something rather than coming up with an idea or writing a song for the sake of writing a song. So if a listener can listen in a similar way – rather than coming to it with all of these ideas of how they want it to sound or how they think it should sound – then I think it would be more meaningful for them. I’m not attempting to write a certain style of music or attempting to please a certain audience, so it would be ideal if someone can hear it as it is, rather than listen with an agenda or over-analyze it. Because that’s not how I do it.
With the titles to a lot of your songs (“Wildflower Wood,” “Lake Feet,” “Starlight Aquatic,” for example), you concentrate on an environment. Even with “Michigan Icarus” you deal with the nature of the natural setting and the modern world within the video you created and the album cover. How do the two blend, and what is the purpose for your focus on these types of elements?
(I can’t take credit for the name ‘Lake Feet’ – that song is a BMSR cover.)
I think those types of places are my favorite to discover – the places that are left to decay. The places we push to the periphery and choose not to focus on, even when they’re in clear view. I have a recurring dream of this abandoned factory tucked in a valley and in this dream, I know the terrain so well. I have the whole map memorized. There’s a mountain lion that lives there in the tall grasses and there are trees growing out of the broken windows. I’m always looking for this place – and sometimes finding this place – in my waking life.
When you are working on a song, how does that idea become a song for you? What’s the process involved? How much experimentation is involved until you get the right textures that please you?
I have to clear my mind completely and almost become invisible. I have to shut off that constant voice inside and just become silent so that I can listen. I feel like if I try to dictate exactly how things should be, then I’m limiting the possibilities of what could be… That I’m shutting something out. I want to be transparent instead, to let the light in.
What makes you keep doing what you do? How does the idea of “discovery” play into the creation of your songs?
I guess it’s not a decision to do this – it’s just something I do whether anyone is listening (or looking) or not. When I don’t feel moved to write, I simply don’t. So I’m not sure exactly what drives me, and I’m certainly not always driven. But as long as I can wrap my head in silence, I think I’ll be able to hear.
Is this a project you want to continue and expand on?
I will be continuing, but I can’t promise that I’ll always be sharing it publicly. I’ll be writing more, but I really don’t want deadlines and planning and that sort of stuff to get in the way. I’ll have to see when it’s time whether I’ll let the songs go or keep them close. I’m not really sure that it’s entirely up to me…
A Look Back At 2009′s Best Ambient and Electronic Releases
It’s February 2010, and I’ve already got a month of the latest ambient and electronic releases of the year at hand, despite having little time to make my 2009 list. To that end, I now finally get around to displaying my fifteen favorite releases of last year (in all musical genres). These were the releases I listened to most in 2009. In no order:
Alva Noto—Xerrox, Vol. 2 (Raster-Noton)
An incredibly immersive album sure to appeal to fans of what we used to call glitch or microsound in olden times as well as folks who like their ambient music with meat and volume. Raster-Noton also released Atom™’s fine Kraftwerk homage, Leidgut, which almost made this list.
Papercuts—You Can Have What You Want (Gnomonsong)
I guess you could call this indie rock, but what does that even mean any more? It’s kind of similar to what Beach House are doing, though a little more on the hypnotic drone side of things. Spaced themes, plenty of reverb, and a faded-out sixties vibe. I played this one incessantly.
The Church—Untitled #23 (Second Motion)
They’re my favorite band, sure, but I wouldn’t put them on the list if I didn’t like the music (example: the execrable Shriek soundtrack they did last year). See my full review here.
Ducktails—Landscapes (Olde English Spelling Bee)
This LP-only release was a breath of fresh air to me this summer. I can’t say I’m convinced that “glo-fi” or “chillwave” is the next big thing in trendy indie music (if it is, I hope they give it a new name)—it’s just too hypnotic, and that never sells records to the kiddies, in my experience. Anyway, this had some great post-punk guitar tracks amidst Tang-Dream mandala sequencing and even some Ariel Pink inspired goodies.
Oneohtrix Point Never—Rifts (No Fun Productions)
The Russian Mind LP would have been on my list had it not been contained inside this mammoth double-CD compilation of most of the rest of the Point Never catalog. I love the new “classic” electronic music coming out right now. We who’ve been into it for years think it’s about time Schulze and Göttsching and Hoenig started getting some credit for making brain busting space drones years and years before many of us were born. Now if Steve Roach and Michael Stearns began getting some press, we’d really be going places….
Mokira—Persona (Type)
I found this album length paean to Spacemen 3 wholly bewitching. It runs the gamut from classic Fax Records style ambient, to William Basinski/Wolfgang Voigt classical loop echoes, to full-on Sonic Boom guitar phasing. This record is a classic from start to finish.
Animal Collective—Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
I know, I know, this one was everywhere, and it doesn’t need me adding to the hype. Look, I’m thirty-three years old and I was the oldest guy at their local concert last year. I did not belong amidst the robo-tripping teens and the afrobeat text-dancing. I had no idea about any of this. But I sure played the latest Animal Collective CD a lot in 2009, even if it did make me a little more “NPR” inside. I’m not positive how much real longevity this record will have, but it would have been disingenuous for me not to include it on this list.
Sleepy Town Manufacture & Unit 21—No Traces (Infraction)
This one dwells in the hinterlands of ambient, all spooky samples and Biosphere-esque imaginary landscapes for films that never were (you can also insert your own overused stock description for ambient music here). Infraction is the ambient label to watch—classic material reissued, acclaimed artists supported, new and wonderful music unearthed. They deserve your support.
Celer—Engaged Touches (Home Normal)
Celer just got better and better last year with a string of memorable ambient releases on a variety of new and interesting labels. While several of their works were great in 2009, this was undoubtedly my favorite, two thick slabs of ambient classical vignettes, sad and haunting and eternal. Unfortunately, this CD went out of print, but those who are curious to know the unique sound of Celer are directed to their other fine 2009 albums on Low Point, Slow Flow, and Sentient Recognition Archive.
Tim Hecker—An Imaginary Country (Kranky)
Tim Hecker is probably the best way to get your wayward friends into listening to ambient and electronic music. His records have a backbone and it’s a great taster for those who can’t seem to initially find interest in the harmonic tone float background music of a lot of other material. While An Imaginary Country doesn’t represent the great stylistic leap forward of Hecker’s previous album, it still proves that he’s one of today’s best in “the field”—this one’s a titanic swath of cleansing distortion that suggests impressive alien vistas.
The B12 Records Archive; (7 volume, 14 CD set on B12 Records)
I used to dream about getting this music when it was all rare 12″ vinyl back in the grand old days of Warp. Who could afford the £200 price tags on that crap? The generous B12 guys come through with a vast set of everything they ever released on the label. All fourteen CDs are essential purchases for those who love Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series, GPR, the A.R.T. stable, and the sound of Detroit techno …
Belbury Poly—From an Ancient Star (Ghost Box)
The hauntology “genre” seems to be a bit hard to pin down, though the Ghost Box label is determined as the core source for the scattered sounds of library music, Ron Grainer, 70s supernatural TV programming, original Doctor Who or The Tomorrow People, and BBC logotones. Belbury Poly are my favorite Ghost Box act and this album is perhaps their best—a zippy and fun collection of themes to British shows about psychic detectives that never were. If you grew up in the seventies and early eighties, and were a total nerd, you’ll know just want I’m talking about within a few minutes of putting From and Ancient Star on the player. You can almost see Jon Pertwee board his hovercraft …
Black Moth Super Rainbow—Eating Us (Graveface)
BMSR are hard to pigeonhole and it’s one of the reasons I enjoy their stuff so much. Too poppy to be experimental, too weird to be indie rock … it’s a little of both and not really either. There’s a decidedly Electric Company PBS vibe about what they’re doing—maybe it’s all the vocoders and patently false hippy lyrics. I think they’re a love-it or hate-it affair. Check out my last podcast and see what you think.
Adam Pacione—2009 “Still Life” 3″ series
I think the most incredible ambient music of 2009 came out of Adam Pacione’s archives this year, in the form of his fourteen volume Still Life series of 3″ CDRs. Every last one of them was good, and some were downright transcendent, like “Ending Titles.” This guy has my full attention, and if you like traditional ambient, he should have yours too.
White Rainbow—New Clouds (Kranky)
Adam Forkner was on a fake “shit list” in the back of my mind for talking a slight amount of trash about Steve Roach on his shareblog. Kids have some nerve dropping a deuce on the masters of a genre of music they owe total allegiance to, is the way I see it. It’s like those new age vs. ambient wonks going around the internet a few years back. That kind of discussion is just preposterous. Nevertheless, this latest album of four solid White Rainbow tracks is quite excellent, if perhaps a bit too indebted to Ashra here and there. It’s still a mighty fine listen, and way more new age than ambient, in a good way.
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us (Music Review)
Black Moth Super Rainbow
Eating Us
Graveface
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
For Black Moth Super Rainbow and their fourth album, the song does not remain the same.
Enlisting Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev producer Dave Fridmann, he was able to pluck out the band’s ‘70s psychedelic moments and put them into a more glossed-over studio production, while adding extra distortion to blend the smoothness with the band’s identity of fuzzed-out psychedelic space sounds.
So does this arena rock style approach help a band who has spent most of their career in the garage and living rooms of their homes? What Eating Us shows is that even though Black Moth Super Rainbow sound best rough and tumbled with a sound that is more haunting in nature, they can logically progress into their futurist environment without sounding tired or bleached out by a big studio production.
One thing that does remain the same is consistency for this band. “Born On A Day The Sun Didn’t Rise” begins the album with about as much punch as you can possibly get, throwing you into this album with all the gusto this band can produce. Once you hear it, you will not forget.
But as the album progresses, bombastic beats transform into a blooming of sound. “Tooth Decay” shoots you up into the sky with otherworldly theramin-like sounds and a Trip-Hop beat structure. As “The Fields Are Breathing” differs with a very French-infused pop song that is Jacques Dutronc in outer space.
And by “American Face Dust,” you are left standing with the same expectations about this band as you went into this album. Like a breeze that blows you around, not knowing if you are going to be shot straight up in the air or twirled around with their cosmic synth sounds, this album combines the playful with the powerful even in their brightest hour thanks to studio subtlety.
