Archive for April, 2011
Dream Rock & Noise Pop in Videos: The House of Love – “I Don’t Know Why I Love You”
Bit surprised to find that there doesn’t seem to have been a promo video for Loop’s “Black Sun”. Less surprised to find there most certainly was a clip for this major label-era House of Love single. Track seven from volume two.
hmbkr in London (sort of)
The mighty hmbkr, photographed by Steve Louie*
Vancouver-based electronic music artist Constantine Katsiris – aka Scant Intone – has curating a two-hour programme of sound works and videos for London’s SoundFjord, the first gallery in the UK primarily dedicated to audio art. The works will be presented on May 3rd and will include hmbkr’s “Radio Majesty”, which is also available as a free download from the CSAF Records website.
Here are all the details…
Hlysnan
Hlysnan is SoundFjord’s monthly listening event, exploring the world of sound in all its facets, guises and surprises! Tonight is an evening of film and sound works selected by Constantine Katsiris (Scant Intone).
May 3, 2011 @ 7-9pm
SoundFjord, Unit 3b – Studio 28, 28 Lawrence Road, London N15 4ER
£2 at the door or buy advance tickets: http://wegottickets.com/event/116460
All monies are used to produce further events
((( SOUND )))
HMBKR – Radio Majesty
Crys Cole – Sand
Akumu – The Descent
John Kameel Farah – Rathenower
Shane Turner – (Squiggly Line)
Michael Trommer – Green Greyspace (Space Specters)
((( VIDEO )))
Erin Sexton – 3 x 2
Carrie Gates & Jon Vaughn – Dirty Two Minutes With You
Julia Staudach & Peter Kutin – Strob
Jan Goldfuß & Kokoro No Jojishi – Dreams of Solaris
Holzkopf – Foreign Heroin
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=204590509571553
(And for more of Steve Louie’s awesome pics of hmbkr, visit his Flickr page!)
Dream Rock & Noise Pop in Videos: Sonic Youth – “Teen Age Riot”
Can’t find a proper video for “Losing Touch with My Mind” and “Emptiness Inside” has already been covered here, so we’re skipping ahead to track five from volume two. This promo video is so official that it seems to have been posted on YouTube by (or at least on behalf of) the band.
And because SY is still one of the best live bands on the planet, here’s a performance of “Teen Age Riot” filmed by the BBC in 2009.
Mix CD: Pirate Soundz Vol. 2
Pirate Soundz Vol. 2
The first volume of Pirate Soundz got a pretty good reaction, so here’s volume two. This time around, the focus is on grime – which emerged, around the turn of the millennium, as a rave-spawned UK equivalent to Jamaican ragga or American hip-hop.
As you might expect, then, most of the tracks here focus on emcees spitting (sometimes) morally-questionable lyrics. The only instrumental tune is Low Deep’s “Str8 Flush”. Nevertheless, this compilation should provide a reasonably accurate overview of the grimy production style – which mixes the bass-heavy rudeness of rave with the rhythmic itchiness of US R&B, all topped off with cheap-and-cheerful VST synth melodies. Notably, two of the songs here are credited to ace producer Terror Danjah, rather than the emcees they feature.
Actually, one way or another, the same handful of names and voices keep cropping up throughout the mix. The fact is, grime was (and continues to be) an extremely localized scene, centred around a small area of East London. Grime is inseparable from its very specific place of origin, which may explain why it has never developed the kind of global prominence enjoyed by dubstep (a style which developed around the same time, from the same roots).
Still, listening to Pirate Soundz Vol. 2, you’ll have a hard time thinking of grime as any kind of failure. These tracks sound majestic and energizing and they were compiled to sound just that way. There’s no real attempt to be chronologically correct or historically comprehensive here, just a desire to present this music as something triumphant, uproariously witty and fundamentally unstoppable. That’s why the comp starts with “Don’t Give a Fuck” by Lykez – it’s hardly a classic grime standard but damn does it ever kick hard!
Basically, you’re going get a lot of pleasure out of this mix and you’re going to want to go out and spend some money on some actual product by the artists featured herein – plenty of whom have CDs and LPs in print. A good place to start might be with the first Run the Road CD – an epochal compilation, which was the source of several tracks presented here.
Two last things:
1. Big up to the Blissblogger, who inadvertently suggested a lot of the tracks that made it onto the final track-listing.
2. As ever, if you were involved in creating, publishing, manufacturing or distributing any of the music on this compilation and you object to Bubblegum Cage III sharing it, please just say the word and the right thing will done, without hesitation.
Here’s the full track-listing for Pirate Soundz Vol. 2.
1. Lykez – “Don’t Give a Fuck”
2. Roll Deep – “When I’m ‘Ere”
3. Ruff Sqwad – “Lethal Injection”
4. Trim – “Money Up Front”
5. Jammer – “Destruction VIP”
6. Wiley – “Pies”
7. Wiley – “Where You Gonna Run To?”
8. Terror Danjah – “Reloadz”
9. Terror Danjah – “Cock Back V1.2”
10. Kano – “Boys Love Girls”
11. Lethal Bizzle – “Pow”
12. Durrty Goodz – “Axiom”
13. Dizzee Rascal – “I Luv You”
14. Crazy Titch – “Sing Along”
15. Low Deep – “Str8 Flush”
16. Tinchy Stryder – “Move”
17. Slew Dem – “16 Bar”
18. Trim – “The Lowdown”
Dream Rock & Noise Pop in Videos: The Jesus & Mary Chain – “Some Candy Talking”
Skipping ahead again, this is track one from volume two in all its full promo video glory.
It’s Record Store Day!
Oval/Liturgy Split LP
That’s right, it’s Record Store Day! So go out and buy the awesome, limited edition Oval/Liturgy split LP!! Or something else!!!
Oh and if you’re in Vancouver, Loscil is playing at Red Cat around 5pm and Zulu is having a big sale all day.
Oval – “Kreak”
Dream Rock & Noise Pop in Videos: Black Tambourine – “Throw Aggi Off the Bridge”
Skipping ahead a bit here, track 14 from volume one.
Theo Burt – Colour Projections (Entr’acte) DVD ROM
Theo Burt is one half of The Automatics Group, whose Auto 17 12″ is one of the most intriguing pieces of electronic formalism in recent memory. Burt’s multimedia piece Colour Projections is available as a DVD ROM that (like all Entr’acte releases) comes packaged in a vacuum-sealed foil bag. Apparently, a regular DVD couldn’t render the video portion of the piece with satisfactory clarity, so it had to be delivered as a high-definition Flash video, which requires a reasonably powerful computer to play perfectly.
Clearly, Theo and Entr’acte have gone to some trouble to make this release as exquisite as it can possibly be. And with good reason – Colour Projections is a work of sheer brilliance, which reaches levels of ornate digital minimalism that a heavy hitter like Ryoji Ikeda or Carsten Nicolai could be proud of.
The concept is simple enough – colourful geometric shapes that rotate, pulse and transform in sympathy with modulating sine wave tones. The results are absolutely spellbinding. The extremely vivid rendering gives the whole presentation an uncannily hyper-real feeling – at once deliberately flat and hypnotically three-dimensional. Experienced on a big screen, at high volume, this could be pretty mind-bending.
Flex your grey matter: buy Colour Projections from the Entr’acte website.
Dream Rock & Noise Pop in Videos: Lush – “For Love”
Track 12 from volume one. Live at the Glastonbury Festival in 1992. Hands up anyone who had a major crush on Miki Berenyi at this stage.
Woebot – “Chunks” (Hollow Earth) LP
Woebot - Chunks
Chunks is the new album by Bubblegum Cage III’s favourite sampledelic hauntologist – the mighty Woebot aka Matthew Ingram. It’s also Woebot’s first album to appear on vinyl, which would make it a considerable cause for celebration even if it wasn’t up to his usual high standards.
In fact, Chunks not only clears the bar set by the ‘Bot’s previous releases, it vaults high into the cosmos, circles the moon a couple of times and comes crashing back down to earth with a resounding clang and stardust on its cheeks. Basically, it’s great.
This here blog has already given you a couple of previews from Chunks, via the videos for “Argos” and “Roger”. These are very much the album’s hits, being more hook-laden, hypnotic and percussive than anything Woebot has attempted previously. While the rest of the tracks are more in line with the fastidious sample collage of his earlier releases, these hits form the album’s conceptual core. On “Argos”, in particular, it’s easy to hear Matt working through some of the concerns he expressed when this here blog talked with him last June – the need to keep things visceral, the trade off between structure and repetition…
Certainly, this is a pretty visceral record by Woebot’s standards. Seventies rock riffs are much in evidence, as are rave-style sped-up vocals and deep sub-bass detonations. Also, whereas previous Woebot releases have been built entirely in the digital realm, analogue synthesizers make a few un-showy appearances on Chunks.
What really makes this album, though, is the attention to sonic detail. Matt seems to spend endless care and attention recording, editing and arranging samples, maintaining the highest possible levels of audio clarity and musical logic throughout the entire process. Once the finished tracks are cut to vinyl, the results are nothing short of gloriously vivid.
There’s a beguiling circularity at work here – the samples are sourced from Matt’s voluminous record collection before being guided through the digital night and back out onto vinyl, where they belong. And Chunks itself is definitely a record that belongs in your collection. Go buy it from Boomkat.
Bubblegum Cage III 