I first encountered Miles Tilmann on the compilation “Six Records Breaks Your Heart Again” (in truth it was the first and last time the label would break your heart, because it was their first release and they haven’t released anything since) and a recent revisit to the album sent me searching around for facts and tunes from some of the artists. Miles Tilmann, pleasantly surprised me by offering up close to 100 MP3s on his site. Tilmann produces a variety of ambient tracks, but the ones I chose to highlight here are more beat driven. Tilmann’s music is awash in fluid synths, deep kick drum pulsations, and well, plenty of ambient sounds. You’ll discover similarities to Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin. Tilmann has been steadily releasing music since 1999 on labels like Sub:marine, Consumers Research & Development, and Toytronic. For his latest effort Departures (2008) he collaborates with drummer Steven Hess for an album of unpredictable rhythms and soundscapes. Extreme chill factor ahead.
Free Folk & Jazz Comps from NPR
PDX Pop Now! 2009
Today we’re happy to serve up a North West smorgasbord. However, unless you can get to the Portland area within the next 48 hours or so, this post won’t do you much good. There are the MP3s. Have at ’em. That’s the reason why you’re here ain’t it? This year marks the fifth time the good people of Portland have put their collective musicheads together for a weekend of free live music. The fantastic thing about the aforementioned people of Portland is that they’re doing this all out of the goodness of their hearts. Bands, businesses, and residents all volunteer their time to put on this grassroots festival which has spawned action packed compilations that help raise money and awareness for the festival. I wouldn’t mind it a bit if I were actually there this weekend enjoying the music, the weather, the wonderful city, and of course a healthy Powell’s browse would top things off nicely. If only… Included are songs from a few bands playing this weekend. And if your attendance is more than my pipe dream, here’s the link to the schedule.
Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions
I’m not gonna lie. Hope Sandoval makes me feel old. I can’t believe it’s been 19 years since the first Mazzy Star album. What makes it seem even longer are the eight years that have passed since Sandoval’s last album. Sure, she’s sang on other records here and there, but one-offs are never enough. Once again she teams up with Colm Ó Cíosóig, who admits he holds back on his work with Sandoval, and that the music exists on “the opposite ends of the spectrum” as compared to My Bloody Valentine, his other band. “Blanchard” is the first single from the album, Through the Devil Softly, due out September 15th. Compared to the songs on her last album, “Blanchard” is downright dense and lush. Dare I say, it sounds a lot more like Mazzy Star (who by the way are finishing up another record, but Sandoval told Rolling Stone that she “has no idea what that means.” I love it. She’s still wonderfully reticent). After an eight year absence, it’ll be great to have Hope Sandoval’s still, small voice flowing anesthetically through my brain. If tour dates coalesce, I hope the venues have seating, because while Sandoval’s voice completed resisted deterioration for the past twenty years, my ability to stand during extremely mellow concert sets has not.
Liechtenstein
This track has become a staple on the ol’ show lately, and I was about to mention how well they sound after The Raveonettes. Good thing I did a bit of fact checking, because in fact the only bands that have preceded them are Ratatat, Sonic Youth, and CSS. Being from Sweden, Liechtenstein probably don’t want to be compared to those aforementioned Danes, but I didn’t make that comparison. Liechtenstein play sugar-free, bubblegum bedroom pop: not too sweet, but instantly endearing. No nonsense. No frills. Just charming vocal harmonies and a steady beat, all sounding like it’s coming from the garage of the girl next door.
Dag Nasty
Among my punk friends your credibility diminishes in direct correlation to each subsequent Dag Nasty album you profess to enjoy. Those punk friends then, according to their criteria, are much more punk than I. “Can I Say” (the beginning and end of Dag Nasty for my punk-er friends) and “Wig Out at Denko’s” stand out as my favorites by far, but “Field Day” played hand in hand with those first two albums on my desert road trips to and from college over the years (Although to this day, I still haven’t ripped it to my computer—that’s changing today though. I mean, come on, the opening lines to the title track are, “Here on the beach I’ve got the sun / I’ve got the surf, I’ve got Mexican food. Life don’t get better than that!).
The shift in sound between “Can I Say” and “Wig Out at Denko’s” occurs mostly in the albums’ tempos and vocal styles. On the second record, the band slows things down a notch and singer Peter Cortner sings more often than he yells on “Wig Out at Denko’s.” The transformation continues on “Field Day.” Basically, the band continued to add more melodic elements to its hardcore sound, thus they’re often cited as one of the bands that influenced later emo bands (I threw up in my mouth a little bit just using that term. Ugh.).
. . . I just axed most of this review. Rehashing the band’s history was boring me, and hell, anyone could find that info online, or listen to the music and make up their own mind on whether or not Dag Nasty is a band they’ll enjoy. It’s sad because this post doesn’t do justice to the band, nor to their influence on my life. It’s close to impossible to talk about bands that mean a lot to me in a space so small (see my Lloyd Cole post as another example). I could organize an entire memoir around these Dag Nasty records. Dag Nasty dominated my stereo when I met Alisa. “Four on the Floor” came out the year of my first radio show. The people and bands I worked with during the first half of this decade were likewise influenced by the band, and I expect the connections I made with Dag Nasty as their soundtrack will last a lifetime.
Black Moth Super Rainbow
Somewhere in Pennsylvania, some guy makes trippy records with some of his friends. I do have a few more details about this guy. They won’t do you much good though. His name is Tobacco and he lives in or around Pittsburgh. Maybe. He sings through a vocoder, a lot. Guys like this would get my vote for American Idol: write sunshiney melodies, set them to gentle grooves, and then perform from a sitting position, practically out of sight, hoodie or knit cap pulled tight, tinkering with their gadgets like some musical alchemist—the music transforming my mood, my state of mind, putting it at ease.
The new album is produced by Dave Fridmann who’s worked with The Flaming Lips and Sparklehorse—a couple bands that BMSR would segue beautifully with. If you’re a fan of Air, you’ll really dig their new single, “Twin of Me.” The Go! Team takes the track and runs with it, adding their signature upbeat beat to the otherwise summerly languid song. Speaking of summer, catch the band on the second leg of their summer tour this week on the East Coast.
Luke Top
I am having a hard time filling in the genre field on iTunes for this Luke Top guy. In a word—curious. He plays the field a bit with bands, touring and recording with Cass Mccombs, Papercuts, and Foreign Born. I’m not going attempt a review of the Afro-Hebrew dance band Fool’s Gold he co-founded. Discover that on your own. The important part of the story? He’s quirky good. The cute-and-personable-brainiac-kid-in-math-class quirky good. Clearly being born in Tel Aviv to an Iraqi refugee and a Russian-born aviator transplanted to Southern California is a successful formula to inspire writing a light sigh of music.
by Emily M.
Nouvelle Vague U.S. Dates
The Raveonettes
I don’t think I’ve been this excited about demos before. The Raveonettes last album Lust Lust Lust engendered exactly that in my aural cavity. Their fuzzy washes of surf guitars and garage rock immediately balmed the ever-present ringing in my ears and Sharin and Sune still lull me to sleep at night with their addictively sweet melodies. They’re so good that I don’t mind when I awake in the morning wrapped in headphone chord. Dangerous? Yep. Worth it? You bet. The tentatively titled “Last Dance” perfectly captures my fascination with these Danes: from the opening line (which I wish I’d written), “Your lipstick smeared sad,” to the Beach Boys-ish woo-woos in the background, to the theme of the song itself (Sune succinctly explains it: “how drug addiction interferes with love”). My addiction to The Raveonettes hasn’t interfered with my love life, rather with Alisa’s sleep patterns, specifically when the wall of guitars rush in between verses of their track “Hallucinations” and bleed from my ears. It hurts oh so good.