// Category Archive for: Music

Electric Six, Zodiac

By Less Lee Moore

Since it continues the mythology of the band—self-perpetuation through self-aggrandizing self-deprecation—there’s likely no more appropriate title for the new Electric Six album than Zodiac.

Zodiac is more ambitious than any E6 release since I Shall Exterminate. . ., more structured than Flashy yet more ridiculous than Kill.
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MoogFest 2010: If You Build A Synth Fest, They Will Come

By Less Lee Moore

MoogFest 2010 is an extraordinary three-day festival which takes place Halloween weekend (October 29-31) in Asheville, NC. MoogFest will celebrate the innovative spirit of sonic pioneer Robert Moog, who developed the Moog synthesizer in the 1960s.

A Moog (pronounced “mohg”) is actually a series of “modular voltage-controlled analog synthesizer systems,” which has been utilized to create a lot of awesome music by the likes of Perrey & Kingsley, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Hot Butter (of “Popcorn” fame), Giorgio Moroder, Gary Numan, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Brian Kehew of The Moog Cookbook, and way more musicians than can be listed in this article.
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From Coast To Ruby Coast

By Less Lee Moore

Ruby Coast are a five-piece band from Aurora, ON. They’ve been around since 2006, released an EP in 2008 called Projectable Collections, and toured with bands like Passion Pit, Tokyo Police Club, and Ra Ra Riot, in addition to Toronto’s own Born Ruffians.

The band wrote and recorded their first full-length album this spring with Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade), and Brian Paulson (Wilco, Dinosaur Jr., Beck). It won’t be out until 2011, but don’t be sad: you can listen to a couple of tracks on their MySpace page now.
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It’s Raining MEN!

By Less Lee Moore

From MEN‘s press release:

MEN, the Brooklyn-based band fronted by Le Tigre’s JD Samson . . . began in 2007 as the DJ/production/remix team of Le Tigre members JD Samson and Johanna Fateman. When the duo began to write new songs, it made sense to merge with JD’s live band named Hirsute, which she had formed with Michael and Ginger. JD Samson, Michael O’Neill and Ginger Brooks Takahashi now comprise the core of MEN, with Johanna and artist Emily Roysdon contributing as writers, consultants, and producers.

But what do they SOUND like?
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Black Sabbath: The Secret History Of Black-Jewish Relations

By Hanna

The goal of Black Sabbath: The Secret History of Black-Jewish Relations, a compilation released by the Idelsohn Society For Musical Preservation, was to “gather the US history of Black-Jewish relations into a selective pop musical guide.” While a lot has been published about black and Jewish musical influences, there hasn’t been an actual musical guide to Jewish music by black artists, and this is what the Society set out to accomplish.

Of course, it’s slightly less universalist in its approach than that; Black Sabbath focuses on the ’30s through the ’60s, a time of enormous racial oppression for both groups, and also a time when the cultural exchange between the two was especially great. This really shines through in this compilation; for all that it’s only one CD. It is an amazing effort and even more amazing in that it succeeds.
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Buke And Gass, Riposte

By Jimmy Ether

In the few short weeks that I’ve been aware of Buke and Gass, I have become their biggest fan. Seriously. I’ll fight you for that bragging right! Let’s go!

Aron Sanchez and Arone Dyer create a sound—simultaneously backwoods and urbane—which fans some deep, primordial fire in my chest. They are positively . . . explosive. And they make me feel explosive.
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Richard Barone, Glow

By Christian Lipski

Sometimes it’s more difficult to write reviews for material that is sent from the publisher than it is to simply review material that you encounter by chance. The difference is that material from the publisher comes with Marketing Literature attached, to help the recipient understand just how amazing the owners feel the product they’re selling truly is. This assistance can be beneficial to reviewers who are looking for pull quotes or just more information about their decision to like the product.

On the other hand, sometimes the PR machine can try too hard and overshoot its product, making it seem like a comparative failure. In the case of Richard Barone’s fourth solo album Glow, it’s the latter, but not solely due to the press release. Barone himself seems to have either fallen for marketing’s high opinion or encouraged it in the first place. Taken on its own, Glow is a pleasant group of pop songs; a little light, but nice. When sampled after absorbing all the surrounding hype, though, it’s a pretentious pile that falls very short of its self-described ability.
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Richard Thompson, Dream Attic

By Chelsea Spear

In the early 1990s, British folk music hero Richard Thompson found himself the subject of a surprise revival. While his instrumental and songwriting ability had remained at a consistently high level throughout his career, his signing to Capitol and subsequent MTV success (with “I Feel So Good,” which would later appear as Puck’s unofficial theme on The Real World: San Francisco) brought him a younger, more diverse audience.
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Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, Hawk

By Noreen Sobczyk

Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell are well-known artists, each in their own right, coming from The Screaming Trees and Belle and Sebastian respectively. On their three collaborations thus far, the duo often resembles the lazy, hazy ease of bands such as Mazzy Star or The Cowboy Junkies.

While the Campbell/Lanegan collaborations are often gorgeous, Hawk proves that this formula might have worked best in one concentrated dose—perhaps as one release—instead of being portioned out repeatedly over multiple efforts.
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The Prids, Chronosynclastic

By Jemiah Jefferson

Fully recovered from an intensely bad 2009, the black-clad Portland-based quartet emerges as if from a chrysalis, their sound now fully formed. These days, the Prids have a sound all their own, no longer reminiscent of New Wave pastiche and riffs cribbed from old goth favorites. The Prids are their own group now, with a sound as distinctive and unique as any of their inspirations while allowing enough room to shout out as the mood strikes.
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