// Category Archive for: Music

Music Review: Shelly Bhushan, Something Out Of Nothing

By Melissa Bratcher

With a voice as soulful as Shelly Bhushan’s, Something Out Of Nothing could have taken a straight R&B route, and she could have thrown in boatloads of melisma to impress. Instead, she’s turned in an album full of interesting, unexpected arrangements and thoughtful lyrics, and presented them with her gorgeous, versatile voice. Something Out Of Nothing is a stealth charmer.

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Music Review: Love, Poetry and Revolution – A Journey Through The British Psychedelic and Underground Scenes 1966-72

By Melissa Bratcher

In just six short years, British Psychedelic bands went from singing songs about tea to songs about witches. Love, Poetry and Revolution: A Journey Through The British Psychedelic and Underground Scenes 1966-72 is a recent three-disc boxed set that plumbs the depths of the psychedelic revolution and collects these little-heard rarities alongside thoughtful, witty liner notes from compiler David Wells. Forgoing the more easily accessible, overplayed songs, Wells gives the listener gems by bands that never landed a recording contract, or perhaps only put out one album, alongside demos and alternate takes of more familiar artists like The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and The Spencer Davis Group.

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Waxing Nostalgic: Nada Surf, “The Plan”

By Jeffery X Martin

Music in the Nineties wore its heart on its flannel sleeve. Once you got past how things smelled or how evenly they flowed, Nineties rock was a veritable LiveJournal of emotions. There were earnest, honest lyrics depicting difficult emotional situations, sometimes couched in the friendliest of music, sometimes buried under layers of compression and distortion.

Nada Surf had a bit of a different sound. The guitars were fuzzy and discordant, but singer Matthew Caws’s vocals were clean and clear; no Cobain mumble, no Cornell voicerobatics. When he poured out his angst, it was inescapable because it was right there. You could almost envision him in front of you, two shots into a bottle, hand shaking with frustration while his voice never quavered.

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Music Review: Painted Palms, Forever

By Less Lee Moore

At the risk of dating this review, Painted Palms’ Forever is a beam of sunlight in the middle of an oppressive winter. It’s not like pulling up the shades at 7 a.m., though. The album’s delightful qualities creep up on you slowly but surely, until you’re singing along and humming the tunes later on.

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Waxing Nostalgic: Leapy Lee, “Little Arrows”

By Jeffery X Martin

I should probably hold on to this one for Valentine’s Day. That would be the intelligent thing to do. It would be easy click bait. But I, as a Professional Music Journalist, have a responsibility to my readers, and I am here to issue you a warning. I am being very serious.

Cupid is a raving psychotic bastard who wants to kill you.

Leapy Lee says so.

Who is Leapy Lee? He may very well be your savior.

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Waxing Nostalgic: The Buoys, “Timothy”

By Jeffery X Martin

Lots of bands hope to write that song, the song, the big hit that will make them household names and mansion money. It’s not as easy at sounds. Public tastes change quickly. That Calypso epic you came up with at four in the morning may not be the chart-topper you think it should be. It’s hard to make it in the music business, to be sure.

Rupert Holmes of The Buoys decided the best way to get his band the attention they desired was to write a song so controversial, it would get banned. Negative attention is still attention, and there’s no such thing as bad PR.

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DVD Review: ’83 US Festival, Days 1 – 3

By Melissa Bratcher

In the early 1980s, Steve Wozniak had a dream and a whole lot of money. He wanted to marry music, technology, and community, and so created the US Festival. Showcasing new technology and the best acts in current music, the community created itself in the desert (in ungodly hot conditions, because, well, desert) on Labor Day and Memorial Day weekends in both 1982 and 1983. Now, you can relive those sweaty, dusty days of 1983 in the only DVD release sanctioned by Unuson (an acronym for “Unite Us In Song”).

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Waxing Nostalgic: Joe Jackson, “Real Men”

By Jeffery X Martin

Before the term “body modification” entered our vernacular, getting your ear pierced was a huge deal, if you were male. There were strange superstitions surrounding the process. If you got your left ear pierced, you were gay. A right ear piercing meant you were still straight. Get both ears pierced and you were Adam Ant.

You know, I may have all that wrong. These were unwritten rules, vague and probably regional.

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Best Of 2013: JG Thirlwell

Music
Here is some popular music I have been absorbing this year. Some on this list came out this year and some didn’t.

Chrome Hoof, Chrome Black Gold (Cuneiform)
Ken Thomson/JACK Quartet, Thaw (Cantaloupe)
Fuck Buttons, Slow Focus (ATP)
Guapo, History of the Visitation (Cuneiform)
Goldfrapp, Tales Of Us (Mute)
Dominique Leone, January – December: Mr. Leone published a new piece of music almost every day in 2013 (Bandcamp)
These New Puritans, Field Of Reeds (PIAS)
Yamantaka//Sonic Titan, UZU (Suicide Squeeze)
Noveller, No Dreams (Important)
Patrick Higgins/Mivos Quartet, String Quartet No. 2 (Ex-Cathedra)
Else Marie Pade and Jacob Kirkegaard, Svaevninger (Important Records) and Jacob Kirkegaard, Conversion (Touch)
Christian Gibbs, Sleep The Machines (Eastern Spurs)
Robert Haigh, Darkling Streams (Primary Numbers)
Tim Hecker, Virgins (Kranky)
The Field, Cupid’s Head (Kompakt)
François Bayle, Motion – Émotion (INA-GRM)
Oneohtrix Point Never, R plus Seven (Warp)
M.I.A., Matangi (Interscope)
Igor Wakhevitch, Logos/Docteur Faust/Être Dieu/Hathor (Lithurgie Du Souffle Pour La Résurrection Des Morts)/Les Fou d’Or/Nagual (Les Ailes De La Perception)/Let’s Start (Fractal)
Major Lazer, Free The Universe (Downtown)
A Hawk and a Hacksaw, You Have Already Gone To The Other World (LM Duplication)
Francis Dhomont, Mouvances-Métaphores (BVHaast)
Jonas Broberg/Erik Mikael Karlsson, Two Composers (Fylkingen)
Red Stars Over Tokyo, Melody Attack (Kompakt)
Dorit Chrysler, Avalanche EP (In My Room)

Concerts
I went to a bunch of concerts and events in 2013. Here are some of the most notable . . .

1/19: Extra Life at 285 Kent
2/7: Swans, Music Hall of Williamsburg and 6/13 at Warsaw
2/10: Beak/Chrome Canyon at Bowery Ballroom
3/23: Stockhausen’s Oktophonie at Park Ave Armory
4/4: Clint Mansell at St Paul the Apostle NY
4/7: Yeah Yeah Yeahs at Webster Hall NY
4/12: Barn Owl at Death By Audio
5/8: The Residents at Sodra Teatern, Stockholm
5/16: Tristan Perich at The Kitchen NY
5/31: Secret Chiefs 3 at The Stone NY
6/16: Asphalt Orchestra play Yoshida Tatsuya at the BOAC Marathon, Pace University
6/30: Tilt Brass/Holly Herndon at Winter Garden
7/6: Wolf Eyes/Hubble at St. Vitus
7/9: Squarepusher at Le Poisson Rouge
7/12: Cheap Trick at Coney Island
7/31: Melvins at House of Vans
8/2: Dan Deacon at Celebrate Brooklyn
9/17: Shining at St. Vitus
9/19: Lary 7 at Clocktower NY
10/16: Nicolas Bernier & Martin Messier La Chambre Des Machine at Lausanne Film Festival
10/17: Jason Lescaleet at Lausanne Film Festival
10/22: Mario Diaz de León at Roulette Brooklyn
10/27: Child Abuse/Cellular Chaos at Death By Audio
10/28: Sparks at Webster Hall NY
10/31: Raime at Output Brooklyn
12/6: Anna Von Hausswolff/Noveller at Union Hall Brooklyn
12/7 Frank Bretschneider at 285 Kent Brooklyn
12/8 Goblin/Zombi at Le Poisson Rouge NYC
12/15: Ken Thomson/JACK Quartet at SubCulture
12/21: Forma at Bowery Electric NYC
. . . plus John Zorn, various events for his 60th birthday

Film
Films I dug:
Paradise: Faith
Paradise: Love
Only God Forgives (why did everyone else hate this?)
R
Amour
The Imposter
Cold Fish
Leviathan
Gravity (for the incredible visuals and 3D, not the questionable script)
12 Years A Slave

I also keep a Tumblr blog where I talk about events that I check out, and other cultural obsessions, etc.

I must say it was a year of professional ups and personal downs for me.
Some of the highlights were:
Touring Europe with Manorexia
Working, recording, and touring with Zola Jesus, and being musical director for a succession of killer string quartets
Performing my solo piece Cholera Nocebo in Stockholm, Istanbul, and Lausanne
Writing my first piece for solo instrument—a piece for double bass commissioned and performed by James Ilgenfritz
Working with modular synths at the ElektronMusikStudion in Stockholm, and all the great music I discovered in their library
Skydiving from 13,000 feet
Pat Noecker’s Assemble Project at the Ace Hotel
Plus, I released two albums—Foetus, Soak and JG Thirlwell, The Blue Eyes—and produced another—Zola Jesus, Versions—and contributed to two others—Melvins, Everybody Loves Sausages and Kavus Torabi’s Exquisite Corpse project.

For more on JG Thirlwell, please visit Foetus.org.

Music Review: Foetus, Soak

By Julie Finley

Let me start off by saying it has been very hard for me to enjoy anything lately. This year has sucked the life out of me due to being in constant pain. When you are in pain, it is hard to focus on anything but agony itself. That agony becomes mental anguish on top of the physical distress, thus making everything worse. In order to break through the grip of throbbing torment long enough to take notice of anything else, it has to be of either A) exceptional excellence, or B) something that sucks worse than your current state. In the case of Foetus’s Soak, it is of exceptional excellence!

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