FRANCOIS VIROT "Yes or No" (Frenetic Records, 2008)
Is it possible to sound like an Animal Collective record just by the use of acoustic guitar strumming layers, an acoustic rain of hands on wood as percussion plus hand clapping supporting a pulsating voice? François Virot did it, and he pretty enjoyed playing it! Debut's "Yes or No" is a joyous / melancholic breeze blowing the genuine feelings of a genuine talent. Read carefully instructions, it can give side effects of addiction.
I felt in love with Our Brother the Native in 2005, when I had the luck to listen to their homemade EP “Cheer up my Dear, the Sun Will Shine Again”. A lysergic experience in a Native American's banquet with hallucinatory mushrooms and roots, located in a suburban psych-dream and disturbed by a tuning radio jamming cerebral transmissions. I think songs like “He Stood and Took Root” and “Old Oak Tree” are a masterpiece of the underground scene.
It was not a surprise to me they captured the attention of Fat Cat Records (label of such bands like Animal Collective and Sigur Ròs) that stumbled upon them thanks to Myspace and released their debut LP “Tooth and Claw” in the summer 2006. It absolutely confirmed my expectations about their pure talent. What impressed me most was the incredible music awareness for such young guys, ('86 John-Michael Foss, '88 Chaz Knapp, '89 Joshua Bertram) and their fresh gusto for experimentation, like searching out samples of interesting sounds they could find in the house, as well as AM radio signals/static or circuit-bent toys and running the noise through effects.
Their follow up LP "Make Amends for We are Merely Vessels" released in February 2008, marked a changing, from the rural freak-folk landscapes on the likes of Cocorosie to dense weave of layered sounds and slow building dynamics recalling the likes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
A five-track digital EP, "Parting Marrows", was released in October 2008 and is more immediate than previous records - dyed by shorter, summer-tinged compositions that are timeless, earnest and full of hope.
New LP, "Sacred Psalms", released in May 2009, is their most mature record that sees the band's combined influences simultaneously increase tenfold and be transcended by their ingenuity and intent.
The approach to Our Brother the Native may not be so immediate as much as it happened to me, but a tour in their universe is surely worth it.
"Tooth & Claw" (2006) - "Make Amends for We are Merely Vessels" (2008)
Karin Dreijer Andersson, known as one half of the acclaimed Swedish bro & sis duo The Knife, is the mysterious and enchanting figure concealed behind the moniker of Fever Ray. Although she is always been pretty much averse to show up in public unless dressing a mask (she says "I think the music should be able to stand for itself without interfering, like what the artist looks like") , in her solo project she yields to her subconscious feelings revealing such an intense, anxious, gloomy, claustrophobic yet so luminous, magic, evocative and dreamy landscape. Wrote after her second motherhood, and produced by the trusty hands of Christoffer Berg, this work is a colorless rainbow of freezing synths and distorted voice, that flutters in the air and blurs reality into imagination, giving you the privilege to color it according with your feelings. “Half of what the songs are about is the subconscious”, she says, “ideas of things happening. A lot of it is like daydreaming, dreaming when you’re awake, but tired; a lot of stories come from that world. I try to write when I‘m in that state - I’m very bad at remembering later, so I have to do it right away”. This record has been without any doubt a must of my 2009. Buy it. One more word deserves to be spent about her video clips: "Masterpieces".
Atlas Sound is the solo project of Bradford Cox, talented and prolific leader of Atlanta Nu-gaze four-piece Deerhunter, such a weakly body as much as shrewd to give a shape to his oblique sensibility for melody. "Logos", with a long and crooked gestation, is a more mature and conscious work than previous "Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel". Featuring such artists as Panda Bear (Amimal Collective) and Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab), what does emerge in this record is the personality of Cox to give an heterogeneous sound to beauty, and his skill to dissolve the pop structure of the songs into the glitter of a primordial dream, hanging in a timeless and perpetual changing dimension.
ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL by Sacha Gervasi (Abramorama, 2008)
Anvil! The Story of Anvil is a 2008 "Rockumentary" film about a Canadian Heavy-Metal band that enjoyed a brief heyday in the '80s and never made it big after that, focused on their attempt to make one last lunge for glory and recognition, undertaking a European Tour under the wing of an ardently well-intentioned as spectacularly incompetent manager and then trying to drum up record-industry interest in their 13th album. The relationship, as complicated and beautiful as a long rough marriage, between the two "die-hard" former members Robb Reiner (drummer) and Steve "Lips" Kudlow,(guitarist and singer), together with the devotion for their art and the will to do not give up on their dream, makes this movie so hilarious and comical but not mockery as a "This is Spinal Tap" sequel, as well as unexpectedly touching and inspiring. The director is the screenwriter Sacha Gervasi, England #1 Anvil fan and roadie for the band on the '82, '84 and '85 tours, who has the merit to pick up both the humanity and the passion of these underrated artists that may not quite merit full-metal glory, but don't deserve oblivion either, giving them a piece of that lost-fame they have been fighting for in the last 20 years. Heartbreaking! The movie features also tributes from rockers like Slash of Guns n' Roses, Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead and, after a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, it won the Audience Award at the 2008 Sidney Film Festival and Galway International Film Festival as well as receiving praise and high acclaim in many reviews. Michael Moore said that the movie is "the best documentary I've seen in years" and The Times called it "possibly the greatest film yet made about rock and roll". Highly recommended.
DOLPHINS INTO THE FUTURE "...On Sea-Faring Isolation" (Not Not Fun Records, 2009)
Field Recordings radical lovers cannot miss this debut vinyl, out on Not Not Fun, by Dolphins into the Future aka the one-man tape-loop blue-age ambient project by Belgian Cetacean Nation ambassador Lieven Martens, not to be confused with Dolphins into the Future the book (written by dimensional traveler Joan Ocean concerning her 20 years-longreal life spirit quest to commune with a school of 200 Hawaiian spinner dolphins). Surrounded by a tropical aura, marine murmurings and turquoise webs of billowing synth smoke curl dissipated into the wide blue horizons of open sea bubbling, you'll find yourself alone, diving into a fantastic voyage to the pan-dolphinic dawn.
A bunch of friends and underground musicians is behind this summertime showcase of psych beach-pop candies to soothes the winter's sorrows in a titbit, as well as a splash of an icy cocktail would refresh by the heat of the blazing sun. Real Estate, Ducktails, Julian Lynch, Sad City, Frat Dad, Pill Wonder, Family Portrait, just to quote my favorites in the record, are some of the last pioneer of this new tropical-pop scene that is getting hype stronger and stronger in the last years, probably thanks to Animal Collective, High Places and El Guincho resonance. But here the DIY identity and the low fi profile are solid enough to still keep them "underwater".
Videos took by Julian Lynch & Ducktails 7" Split EP
JACUZZI BOYS "No Seasons" (Florida's Dying Records, 2009)
I'd review this record in two words: No Seasons. Simple as that. Why? Listen to it!!! Are you a stressed "tie carrier " working in a glass cage, tired of the darkness of a rainy and cloudy metropolitan life, bored of the traffic jam swinging, wishing every morning to wake up on the women island? OK. Just let your imagination go and mould palms, sand and waves around you, jump in the "Jacuzzi" and press play...aloud please. No matter where you are, no matter what you are doing... get rid of your tie and "exhume" your bermudas... let's dance the summertime!!! I dig it.
Haunted George is the one-man band project of Steve George Pallow, previously member of the Beguiled. The murder by a drunk driver of the guitar player, Mike Ball, totally messed him up. He was like a brother to him and they were also sharing, along the Beguiled, an abstract noise project called "The Sound Lab" with the monikers of "Snuff Maximus" (Pallow) and "Radio Brain" (Ball), a 5 to 10 reel to reel tape recordings of various tape loops, beats and bass lines running, that is always been characterizing his works. A lot of this material actually took form in the Necessary Evils project with James Arthur from Fireworks, doing really good stuffs till they broke up after 4-5 years. That was the time he decided to go back to the origins, moving to Llano del Rio, buried in the Mojave Desert (CA), an helluva desolate area surrounded by nothing but Joshua trees, Jupiter trees, Cholla cactus and a dry horizon. That is the scenery where Pallow's interior peace took place. And so on, armed by a Silverstone guitar and a kick-drum set, he started his trip through western roots, writing punk-blues/death country howls about murder and ghost in the desert at night...and it's true. The first time I listened to Pile o' Meat (Hook or Crook, 2007) I've been swallowed in a Quentin Tarantino's movie, playing the character of a lost damned soul driving an American old school car in a Canyon, believing to be running away from a haunted pack of coyotes, as the unconscious delirium's symptoms of a flight/escape from ourselves. Rough and tough the way I like it.
Ursula Bogner was a German housewife with an eccentric electronics habit. She spent her life as a pharmacist, a mother and a curious explorer of the synthesizers' universe. She died in 1994 and her underwater glitch experiments has been collected, thanks to her son Sebastian and to Jan Jelinek, on a highly recommended posthumous album "Recordings 1969-1988", on Jalinek's own label Faitiche. A minimalist, analog chemical reaction wrapped up in a reel to reel tape that sounds like the gurgles, giggles and droning hums of an amphibian extraterrestrial wandering voyager. What sounded more like an hobby than a profession to her, it turned up a very avantgarde and prompting document for the new DIY electronic generation.
TWI THE HUMBLE FEATHER "Music for Spaceships and Forests" (Friendly Ghost Recordings, 2008)
Listening to this acoustic guitar trio from NYC, I discover myself plunge into the surreal background of a fantasy tale, that might take place both in the stratosphere and in a spellbound wood connected by a rainbow of chords. They are actually great musicians, creating percussion sounds just by hitting the strings and wood of guitar or using stratified chorus and strings scraping effects as an electronic device. A minimal universe made of suggestive adventures.
DENT MAY & HIS MAGNIFICENT UKULELE "The Good Feeling Music of Dent May" (Paw Tracks, 2009)
I love this dude, he is a young Elton John's caricature with Damon Albarn's voice, he twangs pop songs with his ukulele as if he's drinking pina colada on a Pacific Island; he's honest, authentic and self ironical, he has a 50's Doo-Wop appeal with a 20th century swing, he's a music genius posing like a nerd with the showman soul. Animal Collective first heard Dent May when they were recording "Merriweather Post Pavilion" in Oxford Mississippi in early 2008, and they quickly signed him to their label, Paw Tracks. "With excitement reaching a fever pitch, a new term has been coined:Dent Maynia".Catch it.
TONSTARTSSBANDHT "Dick Nights" / "An When" (Dœs Are Records, 2009)
"Tawn Starts Bandit" is the "scatterbrainchild" of brothers Andy and Edwin White from Florida, who represent the southern/eastern product of the "Beach Boys on acid" generation, waterlogging pop songs through the lo-fi wave and sprinkling fun with tropical colored synths, tribal drum grooves and psych tones. The final response is damn awesome, these records will stick on you like sand on the shore. I don't hesitate to define them the new Animal Collective, finally a gust of fresh air for my hipster ears.
Beach Boys are back!!! The way marked out by Animal Collective is taking here better defined outlines and shapes. Surf's up, waves calling, blond chicks parade, Cali's sun blazing. The band from Sacramento did a really good job, blending 60's chorus, acid pop, flowers' folk, garage roughness and psych nuance into the Woodsist's branded frame. Happiness breeze.
GROUPSHOW "The Martyrdom of Groupshow" (Scape Records, 2009)
Germany rules the electronic music scene, and that's probably a fact. But Groupshow is more than just a glitch collective. Known to play incredible improvisational live gigs, they have the skill to pierce your skin and flow through your veins like a liquid alien parasite, a short circuit of minimal, blips, loops, hums and beats, synthesizer tones bound into an extra terrestrial pop spiderweb. Jan Jelinek, supported by Hanno Leichtmann and Andrew Parker as a backing band on tour, is the captain of this invaders' spaceship, armed to conquer the "disco monkeys' floors". Another victorious bet by Scape Rec.
CASSOWARIES "Blessed Be is the New Godspeed" (Fuck your Records, 2009)
"Sung Tongs" multiplied multiple awesomeness. This little EP sized cassette is one of those creatures that reminds me how much I love pop jingles infected by the genuine freshness of home recording's creative prompting, but uncontaminated by the mainstream needs, so free to travel on experimental rails. Godspeed you, weird blue head birds, towards the new-weird zoo.
When a "150-ton meteorite", "not an Asteroid", crashes into a lonely man's life it might shift reality at the distance of "91 cm" from himself. The greek word "Skhizein" means "split" and is the root of the word "schizophrenia". Every man lives on the verge of two parallel perspectives, into ourselves and in the society, through our own eyes and by the outside lens. But when a meteorite, "for God sake", breaks this balance...well, we don't know anymore who we are, either where we are. Who is the center of gravity of our happiness? Are insanity or reality measurable? After "Une Histoire Vertebrale" - A Backbone Tale - (2004), another little gem on a 35mm format by the genius of the young french director Jérémy Clapin, with the amazing musics of Nicolas Martin, produced and distributed by Dark Prince. Winner of over 30 awards from all around the world, it's already considered a cult in the short animation genre.
Sore Eros is the musical vision of Robert Robinson, whose debut album "Second Chants" cradled me sweetly over the summer and still does. This is not a flat dream pop hash, rather a new light's splash. The lo-fi haze gives to it the print of old polaroids, as a crayon fragment of an awake sleep in the wind whisper. The psychedelic shading, added to melody strokes, season it into a multilayered dish of tastes and colors, as a conscious dream that offers us a glimpse into another world.
Babe, Terror a.k.a. Claudio Szynkier, hailing from São Paulo, is an exciting document of the Brazilian neo-tropicadelia. After the awesome self-titled debut EP, "Weekend" is the premiere release on his own label Perizes Dream. (Perizes is a neighbourhood of São Paulo). The Record evoke a disturbing dream, created almost solely through manipulated vocal loops and phased mouth drumming. Its soundscapes drew lysergic visions of a terrific run through the Amazon Forest as an adventure into the tapping echoes of subconscious.
AFRICA GERMANY GERMANY MEXICO TURKEY AUSTRALIA - s/t (Olde English Spelling Bee Records, 2009)
This is a psychedelic excursion into theexotic wildness of tropical landscapes, this is the pulsating beat of the earth, this is the animal instinct fighting for the survival, this is the fear of the morning awakening, this is the joy of the sun rising, this is the micro cosmos of an unknown world. (limited to 215 copies)
