6 posts tagged “ambient”

Longtime readers to W♥M will note how we really love Sia (I reviewed Some People Have Real Problems, Gus wrote Zero 7, and Christopher thinks Sia sounds like Kimya Dawson). When I heard that latest release will be a live DVD called TV Is My Parent (to be released next week, May 19^th on Monkey Puzzle Records/Hear Music), I had to get my hands on this for review.

Sia - Academia 1 comment Destiny 6 comments

Looking over the setlist from this show, I recognize most of these songs from her later works, from her recent album and her collaborations with Zero 7 (check out "Destiny"!) to Colour the Small One (the crowded loved "Sunday"!).

The entire one hour show, includes a "pretend encore" encore (The Zero 7 song, "Distractions"), was shot at the Hiro Ballroom in NYC on September 12^th, 2007. I think they were just finishing up Some People Have Real Problems around this time, so you do hear some of her new songs on this DVD release ("Academia", "Day Too Soon", and "You Have Been Loved" to name a few).

The DVD opens up with the hidden-track from Problems called "Buttons". Combining "crude" child-like drawings with neon fluorescent colors (an wonderfully catchy song to boot) it was really hard to top that. Although I will confess that "The Girls You Lost To Cocaine" came very close.

The best part of the show was when Sia pulled a tooth out of her bra shortly before "Breathe Me". The tooth was from her guitarist, who had the tooth taken out the previous night. What I took out of this is what a strange creature Sia is. She's like this child, keeping a tooth close to her chest the whole time!

Sia and company seems at ease on stage, not at all nervous. They knew the show was being filmed, but you get the impression that Sia welcomes this. The video editing by director Nic Wrathall and 5.1 surround sound are excellent. I'm just surprise it took them this long to get the whole thing together as a DVD release. I don't think there is a bluray version, but seeing as it was shot in high-definition, I wouldn't be surprise if they decide to release a bluray version later on.


The special features includes four official music videos, including the wonderful "Soon We'll Be Found" video. The rest of the features is Sia and friends recording random "Behind the Scenes" snippets. These bits aren't very long, but it gives you a glimpse to the band and what they're like on tour. It's really meant for hardcore fans as it will just seem boring to casual fans... But if you do decide hunt for the eastereggs, try and find "pushups for shots" videos. I love hearing "Too easy, mate! Too easy!", followed by Sia's pushups.

For those wondering, the complete song listing is here:

SETLIST
1. Buttons
2. Little Black Sandals
3. Lentil
4. Day Too Soon
5. Sunday
6. Destiny
7. Breathe Me
8. Electric Bird
9. You Have Been Loved
10. Academia
11. The Girls You Lost To Cocaine
12. Distractions

Be sure to pick up the DVD next Tuesday, fans who pre-order TV is My Parent gets a chance to get their DVD autographed by Sia, herself. It's quite limited, only 10 will win.

Can't get enough of Sia? She recently released an exclusive iTunes live EP called Sydney. It's seven tracks from her in-store performance at the Apple Store in Sydney, Australia, and it's available now for $7.

Wrote by Soup

Receiving a copy of Genevieve by Velvet Cacoon from Southern Lord was somewhat of a surprise to me. I've had the vinyl edition for almost a year, I'd guess, and to be honest, I just assumed the CD version had been out for about as long.

I'm not complaining, though. Writing about a band (the names Josh and Angela are the only clues given as to who they actually are – and there's speculation that Angela doesn't exist) as utterly absurd as Velvet Cacoon is something I've wanted to do for quite a while, and honestly, I was actually considering just writing a review of it earlier based on the vinyl edition. For those who don't know the story, Velvet Cacoon is a Portland based ambient black metal band that extols the virtues of DXM, the active ingredient in Robitussin. They made a name for themselves spreading rumors about the band's supposed ecofascist activism, the death of a band member in the Cascades, and accounts of incredibly violent live shows. On the album I'm reviewing now, they allegedly used a homemade invention called a “diesel harp” - a guitar with diesel-powered pickups amplified through aquariums. Of course, all of these things were later revealed to probably be completely untrue (except the diesel harp thing; in case your common sense hadn't tipped you off as you were reading it, Josh openly admitted it was after the album's release). Eventually they put recordings of Portland-based dream pop artist, Korouva (listen to this stuff; it's good) on their MySpace page as their own and faced further controversy after the plagiarism accusations. The band's response: to admit that everything about them is a joke, that they're horrible people and an excellent example of what too many drugs will do to a person, and announce a still-unreleased new album. Of course, this presented a hell of a lot more questions than it answered, and the band's intentions are even more unclear at this point than they were before.

Recently, Southern Lord picked up a couple of the recordings that were theirs to reissue. Northsuite, an earlier recording, and Genevieve, which is their actual debut album. And for a “joke” band, this is a really great, really powerful album.

At the core of the sound here is fuzzed-out, noisy black metal. Droning ambient passages hide surprising melodies and drugged out, distant vocals. A thick, distorted haze surrounds everything, from the drugged out lullabies presented on “P.S. Nautical” and “Avalon Polo” to the sleepy clockwork guitars of “Laudanum” that fade out for a vocal break and then again for an ambient passage toward the end of the track. The title track probably sounds the most like traditional black metal, with fast drumming and buzzsaw guitars providing the backdrop for tortured raspy vocals and subtle keyboard holding down the melody. The last track, “Bete Noir” takes up a good third of the playing time of the album. This track is the album's comedown, a slowly building ambient track that exercises considerable restraint, consisting mostly of ambient noise and layered keyboard melodies, all hanging in the background for 17 minutes, getting noticeably louder and then disappearing completely in the last 30 seconds.

As for finding further information on this band, you're essentially limited to what Wikipedia and Google searches turn up. They haven't really maintained an official website (their current site features nothing more than an e-mail link and a picture of a lady on a bike) in quite some time, and they will probably never tour. Still, they're responsible for some of the most oddly atmospheric black metal in recent memory, and I have to highly recommend it to anyone who's into that sort of thing.

 11/23/2008 22:52:22  ♥ written by vu ()

As usual, if you're subscribed to our show via podcast.weheartmusic.com through the RSS Feed, no need to change anything.

However, if you prefer the segments broken down, you can update your podcatcher to gcast.com through the feed (although if you go the main page, you're presented with a variety of options, including email alerts). Personally, I prefer the really long shows, but now you have an alternative. Plus, I think gcast's server's a lot faster in downloading the MP3 files.

Download Full Episode #34 (72 min)

This week's theme seems to be multiple guests on the line, which is a nice change of pace because I'm so used to just talking one-on-one on the phone. Usually with multiple cell phones involved, the audio is terrible - but thankfully through the magic of "noise removal" and normalization the audio on these recording sessions actually sounded really good. The audio for Darkroom was especially AMAZING, due to their professional microphones (the same ones they use for recording music on their studio) and fast internet connection.

PART ONE: GLADSHOT
Download Segment (18 mins)
gladshot.com ♥ myspace.com/gladshot
Gladshot is from New York.  We spoke to Mike Blaxill and Debbie Andrews regarding their album Burn Up & Shine. You can buy the album in various methods on their website via iTunes, etc.

After hearing the recorded interview on edit, I didn't realize that Mike was sick!

They will be appearing live at Fontana’s in New York on 12/03/2008.

We talked about:

• How Mike met Debbie (stalking apparently works)
• Gladshot's non-history name
• Burn Up & Shine compared to their previous two albums
• Cover art, based on Simplicity Patterns
• Guest musicians pitching in to help play on the album
• Practicing and playing around in New York
• My misunderstanding of "1961"
• "Fabulous Friends" video and single. The story behind the song--it's in reference some famous fashion designer and her entourage.
• They wanted to say "hi" to Minnesota's The Wars of 1812 (unfortunately it didn't fit anywhere on the interview, so I threw it as a bonus outtake at the end).

PART TWO: DARKROOM
Download Segment (34 mins)
darkroomtheband.net ♥ myspace.com/darkroomtheband
We previously mentioned Darkroom and I was more than happy to have them back on to talk about Some of These Numbers Mean Something.

I actually didn't think this interview was actually going to happen because an hour prior to our scheduled session, I noticed I didn't have any contact information for the band (e.g. their skype ID or telephone numbers). I was a little unprepared for the whole thing, but I quickly realized I actually didn't even need to ask anything as Michael Bearpark and Os carried on like professional interviewees and volunteered some great answers.

The interview actually ran a little too long, but is well worth a listen:

• "Darkroom" is a common name, is this a concern
• Their influences from the early days (electronica); apparently they had a standard singer/guitarist, but their singer left the band after the second album.
• The current project is Darkroom, a collaboration between Mike and Os - a mostly ambient, atmospheric sound.
• Modern recording technology
• bringing back the gated snare
• The Concorde airplane on the cover art
• "The Valley Of Ten Thousand Smokes"
• The name and its significance for the album title Some of These Numbers Mean Something

PART THREE: GOOD NIGHT, STATES
Download Segment (19 mins)
goodnightstates.com ♥ myspace.com/goodnightstates
This was a great experience: five cell phones, one call! I think that this was a first on W♥M Radio (to have that many people on conference).

I thought I would get confused about who was who but it was easy to identify who was doing the talking. Thank you to Megan for making this happen, Steve, Joe, Trevor and Dan.

At one point, I thought one of the band members got pulled over by the police! Although I'm glad that didn't happen, part of me thinks that would make exciting radio, don't you think?

• Last night's show at The Fire in Philadelphia
• Joe and his Lap Steel
• Recording two songs per month's experiment and pricing structure.
• "The Odd and the Even"
• the two "Not Come Around" songs
• Being on Spin.com
• "The Family Dark"

 10/29/2008 19:17:02  ♥ written by jaklumen ( / jaklumen.vox.com)

Microcastle is one of those albums it took me a while to figure out how to actually review, which means it's a good thing they gave us an absurd amount of lead time on it, and I've had it to listen to all summer (this thing has seriously been on my iPod for about the past two months or so). Deerhunter's last full-length, Cryptograms, explored noise and ambient music in a pop context, largely pushing the more pop tracks into the second LP. The vinyl edition came with the next EP, Fluorescent Grey, a largely pop affair, on the D-side, and they ran quite nicely into each other.

Microcastle picks up about where they left off and sort of comes back around full circle. After a short instrumental intro, they're in full-on pop song territory with “Agorophobia,” which might be one of the most explicitly sexual indie rock songs ever written. Blending a new wavey bass driven sound with sunny pop melodies seems to be what this album (or, at least, its A-side; I'll explain this shortly) is all about. “Never Stop” takes the pop element even farther, with a bigger guitar sound drenched in reverb and feedbacking all over the place with everything building into an ecstatic outro sort of reminiscent of The Arcade Fire, if they were too stoned to be excited about much. “Little Kids” slows things down a bit, drowns the vocals in reverb and lowers them in the mix, and then proceeds to drown everything else out into a strange noisy pop drone. The title track, “Microcastle,” seems like a strange contrast to this, with its sparse arrangement and relatively untouched (aside from a little reverb) vocal sound. It's not until the last minute or so the distortion kicks in and then the whole thing abruptly grinds to a halt. “Calvary Scars” is more a straight-up ambient thing that serves as a really nice lead-in to the Sigur Rós-styled piano of “Green Jacket,” a song that is almost staggering in both its sparse expansiveness and its brevity. The last third of this sandwich is “Activa,” which brings to mind the “swamp of noise” (because it sounds to me like someone writing songs around a bunch of sounds they recorded at some sketchy looking house in a swamp somewhere) sound of their last album. I get the feeling these tracks are probably intended to make the listener sort of uncomfortable in preparation for the album's first single, “Nothing Ever Happened” bringing the band back into full on pop song territory. This track is about as straight-up “indie rock” as these guys get. It reminds me a little bit of Yo La Tengo with its extended, sort of “jammy” instrumental outro, which takes up about half the time devoted to the song. “Saved by Old Times” is written around a bluesy guitar line and the actual song gives way to goofy samples of people yelling at each other incoherently played forward and backwards. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but the song itself is great and turns into a weird ambient post-punk thing at the end. The next track, “Neither of Us, Uncertainly,” is more an ambient thing with lots of reverb and a nice hypnotic melody. The outro leads into “Twilight at Carbon Lake,” which sort of reminds me of Built to Spill with its expansive sound and melancholy pop vocal melody, as well as its use of guitar interplay. Even Bradford Cox sort of channels Doug Martsch with his vocal style on this one. The biggest difference is that where Built to Spill would turn the song into an epic jam session, Deerhunter drowns it, bludgeons it, and destroys it with layers upon layer of guitars and feedback with equally majestic results.

So basically, this album is good. I like it about as much as I liked Cryptograms, but for different reasons. The last album was more about ambient strangeness. This album is pretty much the closest thing to a pop album they've written so far. It's really good and I recommend it highly.

These guys are headed out on tour with Times New Viking (who are also awesome in their own way). More info can be found at the band's MySpace page, and also at the blog where Bradford Cox posts a lot of song downloads, mostly for his other band, Atlas Sound.