New trip-hop EP from Germany’s Panic Girl

End of February sees the release of Panic Girl’s debut EP „Burn And Rise“ on the Berlin based label .shadybrain.   The EP contains five tracks offering an extraordinary as well as versatile blend of different electronic styles and trip hop.

Panic Girl alias Martha Plachetka, who is a professional audio engineer, not only was in charge of the beautiful vocals but wrote all music and lyrics. She also recorded and produced every single sound of „Burn And Rise“ herself. The EP ranges from strong beat oriented material like the anthemic „Midnight“ to soft and emotional works like „Hide And Seek“. „Burn And Rise“ will be released on February 25th as digital exclusive.The music video for the title track “Burn And Rise” was shot in Glasgow by award winning director Reza Dolatabadi: http://vimeo.com/8965799

About .shadybrain

New albums from Aartika, Carta, and Sarah June on Silber Records

Silber Records has three new releases coming in February & March from Aarktica, Carta, & Sarah June.

Carta: An Index of Birds
Street Date: February 16, 2010
RIYL: Low, Six By Seven, Hood, The Cure, Piano Magic, Charles Atlas, Landing, Ida

Carta returns with a new home on Silber combining all of the 1990s moody pop, slowcore, & post rock sounds into modern indie pop. File under Indie, Post Rock, Alternative, Slowcore, Minimalist Pop

Sample track –

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Aarktica: In Sea Remixes
Street Date: February 16, 2010
RIYL: Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Stars of the Lid, Eluvium, Brian Eno, mwvm, Godspeed You Black Emperor

Remixes of Aarktica’s In Sea.  Post rock & heavy drones that wash away all thoughts reworked by Rameses III, Slicnaton, Summer Cats, Al Qaeda, Mason Jones, Yellow6, Planar, Keith Canisius, ThisQuietArmy, Remora, James Duncan, Declining Winter, Pan/Suckers, & Landing. File under Indie Ambient, Post Rock, Alternative, Drone

Sarah June: In Black Robes
Street Date: March 2, 2010
RIYL: Joanna Newsom, Jessica Bailiff, Cranes, Stone Breath, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell

Attic core spooky americana with a sweet child like voice singing stories of love, cowboys, & death. File under Americana, Wyrd Folk, Alternative, Goth

Sample track –

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Holly Miranda – The Magician’s Private Library

Holly Miranda – The Magician's Private Library

As someone who grew up in a home where listening to secular music was strictly forbidden and where church was a near-daily ritual, the music Holly Miranda creates is ominously shrouded with dark atmospherics. Her initial role in music was as a member of The Jealous Girlfriends and there is a rather gripping story regarding how she met producer/musician Dave Sitek. But when your talent is an unrelenting presence of skill and beauty, even Miranda can nod to the rest of us with just how much of her music is waiting to be revealed.

A triumphant debut, The Magician’s Private Library is about the sounds that cloud all of our heads. You see, even if Miranda’s youth was a sheltered one where she had to sneak off into her rebellious sister’s room to find albums by Aretha Franklin and Nine Inch Nails, there was always a world of opportunity spinning in her head. And although she had to learn lessons the hard way – finding out at the young age of sixteen just how vicious the music industry is – there is something rigorously magnetic about her music.

A lush voice, she finds a way to fill each song with an excellent blend of nourishment and attention. Even when she’s dreaming away (“Sweet Dreams”) her voice is creatively dug deep into the music’s surface. Sometimes shining above the rest of the sounds, sometimes buried in the mix of instruments but always, the main attraction, Miranda’s best talent is her blissful vocal. And it doesn’t hurt that she has a producer in Sitek to maneuver every sound into something equally subtle and moving. Their coalition is never stronger as it is on “Waves[’]” burning manifestation of double-tracking vocals and hidden pageantry. Miranda’s voice lights the candle in a dark room with her dedication to love; snapshots of drums, guitar and shoegaze come and go before leaving her on her own to conquer it.

Her story on how she met Sitek and how they would trade demos, work together and continued to do so for a few good years before making the album, only supports the chemistry ebbing off it. Sitek’s prowess is one thing but on top of that, he knows the artist he is working with and has her science figured out. Whether Miranda needs a horn, a background singer, or even just more reverb, Sitek’s choices are realized into brilliant fruition. And as such, Miranda is so comfortable that she comes off sounding assured and poised; you’d never guess it was the voice of a rookie behind the mic.

While the album’s message can be attributed to a numerous amount of speculation, there is an immediate attention to the difference between real life and dreams. The subject matter can be just as easily dissected but in the end, it’s the album’s ability at swaying those emotions into something tangible that really bring out its strengths. “Slow Burn Treason” is a just that, a traitor’s recourse and the victim’s hurt after the betrayal. Just like a dream can leave you questioning its purpose and above all, its reasoning, hearing Miranda sing, “But who’s gonna feed you, who’s gonna lead you, who’s gonna want you, who’s gonna hold you, who’s gonna love you, who’s gonna tease you, who?” is a deliriously saddened exaltation.

The guests that appear (Kyp Malone’s vocals on the aforementioned track are especially superb) lend a selfless hand but there is no denying just how much Miranda and Sitek feed off each other. The Magician’s Private Library is Miranda’s personal baby but Sitek is the godfather, scavenging through all of the reading material. It’s a sincerely open recording and a true testament to what the human spirit is capable of – even when the odds are against it.

“Waves” by Holly Miranda

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XL Recordings

The Woodlands -s/t

The Woodlands - s/t

The Woodlands are a husband and wife duo that settled down from their world travels in Portland long enough to record ten of their dreamy folk-pop tunes for this quaint, self-released and self-titled LP.

The slow, acoustic-based tunes are mostly plodding, folk-pop frameworks colored in with piano, harmonica, and an occasional stringed instrument, with the subdued and whispering crooning of Hannah Robertson hovering on top. The songs are gentle, slow and amiable, occasionally building textural tapestries with soft instrumental touches, but are mostly rendered benign since they are often under-developed and tend to lack the quaint peculiarities that would make them flavorful enough for a second helping.

The folk melodies and the persistently wistful vocals often evoke the dreariness of the Pacific Northwest’s gray, foggy mist, while some bright flourishes add a warmth and fuzziness to a couple of tracks that impersonate Gypsy-like lullabies. But it’s nothing to get too excited about since they’re neither grabbing nor contagious and act more like threadbare window dressings to the repetitious song structures and their gentle acoustics.

The Woodlands play folk-pop that burns slowly with a smooth, mellow light that fails to yield much of an emotional response. Even the endearing vocals wear thin over time and while the music isn’t bad, it’s just not varied enough to keep things interesting.

Converge – Axe To Fall

Converge - Axe To Fall

Converge is that band that we want to call our generation’s great hardcore success story. In many ways they are. They are still going strong after 20 years and I still don’t have a band to compare them to, although I can count many who have tried to be like them.

As unpredictable as when they started, Converge released Axe To Fall on October 20. This is their seventh release and by far one of the most influential records to date. While Converge has never needed help making a record, this one has a lengthy VIP list. Some contributors include: Steve Brodsky and Adam McGrath (Cave In), Uffe Cederlund (Disfear), Steve Von Till (Neurosis) and Mookie Singerman (Genghis Tron). It’s one of the first times we see a lot of individual effort put into one Converge record.

The first song, “Wretched World,” sweats of hostility and ambient absence making us wonder if we downloaded the wrong band. Once you make it to “Slave Driver,” it’s back to business as usual. Jake Bannon’s harsh yet understated vocals make their way into the hearts of those who have been with Converge since high school. There is no question that the record gets better as you get further into it with songs like “Worms Will Feed” and “Reap What You Sow.” The songs follow a familiar message as many of the past records. Converge songs have always been about struggle and overcoming the world that’s beat us down, which is a nice sentiment to continue with Axe To Fall.

The record as a whole leaves much to be desired, and for those who have listened for years: I don’t think we will ever have another Jane Doe. History does not always repeat itself and I don’t assume Converge will ever move backwards. However, I think Axe To Fall is a listen that takes just that: listening. It’s a struggle to avoid picking out its qualms and breakthrough to the best pieces but when done, it’s a good record.

Jake Bannon’s interview with Alternative Press magazine in 2005 sums up the change the band has undergone. He said, “by definition, real hardcore cannot become mainstream. It’s too harsh, too abrasive and too opinionated to be able to fit what is commercially palatable by today’s standards. Hardcore is reactionary.” He is right—it still is much too abrasive to fit into any Top 40 chart — but it’s not mainstream that has changed, it’s Converge that has driven closer to mainstream. This is evident on Axe To Fall more than another record. It worries me that cheesy metal riffs have made their way onto a Converge record, making it sound like it might be accepted on tour with Mastodon. It’s not a matter of breaking apart but experimentation that might not always go right. However, for Converge there’s always the next one.

New EP and tour dates for Southerly

Portland, OR is widely known for its wealth of dark-pop songwriters, and Southerly is one of its very best. The nom-de-tune of Krist Krueger, Southerly has announced the release of a lush, layered new work titled Champion Of The Noisy Negativists on February 19th, 2010. The digital/CD/vinyl EP via the Self Group imprint follows the artist’s celebrated 2007 album, Storyteller And The Gossip Columnist (Greyday Records).

Picking up where the latest full-length, Storyteller And The Gossip Columnist left off, listeners can hear the natural progression toward what ultimately became Champion: a swooning, eerie, beautiful, morose and uplifting soundscape that serves as an undeniable reminder of the tension, release, intensity and intrinsic harmony that all of us experience and celebrate in life. Unlike the previous disc, Champion is a largely instrumental affair, using vocals as additional layers, rather than the music’s guide.

Champion Of The Noisy Negativists is a continuation in the evolution of songwriter/producer Krist Krueger, whose work has often been compared to fellow moody pop artists The National, Brendan Benson, Richard Ashcroft and Tindersticks. Predominantly recorded at Krueger’s own Sonic Sandbox (Portland, OR) and completed at Haywire Studios (Portland, OR), Champion was engineered by both Krueger and Robert Bartleson and produced by Krueger.

Listen to the MP3 for “Trials” from Champion.

Southerly On Tour:

02/16 – Portland, OR @ Kelly’s Olympian (Self Group & tour launch party)

02/18 – Amsterdam (NL) @ Nieuwe Anita

02/19 – Münster (GER) @ Amp

02/20 – Bochum (GER) @ Untergrund

02/21 – Giessen (GER) @ MuK

02/22 – Stuttgart (GER) @ Schocken

02/23 – Wiesbaden (GER) @ Schlachthof

02/24 – Hamburg (GER) @ Uebel & Gefährlich

02/25 – Osnabrück (GER) @ Kleine Freiheit

02/26 – Erfurt (GER) @ Engelsburg

02/27 – Magdeburg (GER) @ Projekt 7

03/01 – Zürich (CH) @ Hafenkneipe

03/02 – Freiburg (GER) @ White Rabbit

03/03 – Luxembuorg (LUX) @ Dqliq

03/04 – Weinheim (GER) @ Cafe Central

03/05 – Erlangen (GER) @ E-Werk

03/06 – Cologne (GER) @ Werkstatt

03/07 – Berlin (GER) @ Bang Bang Club

03/08 – Würzburg (GER) @ Posthalle

03/09 – Munich (GER) @ Orangehouse

03/10 – Vienna (A) @ B72

On The Web:

http://southerlysongs.com

http://myspace.com/southerly

The Art Of Shooting releases album in April

Brooklyn dream-punks THE ART OF SHOOTING release their debut full-length Traveling Show on April 27, 2010.
Traveling Show is an intensely personal work for The Art Of Shooting’s singer/songwriter/guitarist Kelly Irene Corson, who growls, shrieks and hums with a vibrato vocally evocative of Siouxsie Sioux and Chrissie Hynde balanced with the tenderness and vulnerability of St. Vincent and Feist.

This album is a documentary nod to Corson’s self- discovery of her truths. Lyrically and dynamically, Traveling Show is a raw look at life. “Truth till it can be humiliating,” attests Corson. “It’s empowering to show your imperfections as a point of pride in who you really are.”

Traveling Show was produced by both Paul Mahajan (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On The Radio, Liars, The National) in Brooklyn and Keith Souza (Battles, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Lightning Bolt) in Pawtucket, RI.

“This album has been a series of humbling miracles from beginning to end,” sums Kelly Irene. “Though it’s tested the ends of my patience, self-esteem, and faith not only in other people, but also in myself, at this moment, I’m as proud of it as I’ll ever be.”

TAOS also have a 5 song EP, Tyrant’s Black Eyes, available through the Ace Fu Family Business label.

MySpace Profile: www.myspace.com/theartofshooting

Stellarscope – This Is Who We Are

Stellarscope - This Is Who We Are

With an extensive discography that boasts an impressive album per year ratio, you’d be in good company expecting shoegaze outfit Stellarscope to sound every bit like the veteran act they appear to be on paper. Yet with more than a dozen recordings under their belts since 1998, these Philadelphia psychedelic rockers ironically still sound like a fledgling teenage punk band, energized by the sheer joy of jamming together while remaining ignorant of their lackluster technique and oblivious to the boorish nature of their songs. It’s hard to argue music’s potential as a referential art form, but in failing to distinguish themselves from their influences, Stellarscope’s heavily flaunted brand of space rock may have you pining for more sophisticated (and immediately appealing) albums by Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine. Stellarscope’s most recent offering, This Is Who We Are, features both bands’ propensity for fuzzed out riffage and swirling psychedelia, but lacks any notable sense of melodicism or finessed execution.

It doesn’t take long for the album’s cringe-worthy tone to set in. Opening track “Ready to Blow” blends schlocky guitar riffs – stockpiled with various FX pedals – and frenzied drumming with choice innuendo like, “It’s so hard to say no when you’re ready to blow.” The track, like much of the disc, sounds like it was self-recorded and produced in a garage using Garageband software, which is a less callous way of saying that the audio engineer on this one was either drunk, no more than sixteen years old, or both.

Elsewhere, it’s more of the same. “Still Standing” mixes overt sentiments of defiance (“There’s still fight in me / I’m really to strike back”) with an equally brash performance from drummer Bob Forman, whose sloppy phrasing and execution is only accentuated by the roughness of the production. “Just Like Flowers” finds the band flirting with nihilist punk attitude, as singer/guitarist Tom Lugo drones, “Just like flowers / slowly wilt away,” on a bedrock of laser beam squeals and massive distortion.

The tracks worth revisiting are those where layers are stripped away and volumes are dialed down. Though it still seems bloated by the pervasive use of reverb and hard rock crunch, the lengthiness of “En el Principio” also allows for occasional quieter moments where the celestial timbres of the keyboards and guitars are given space to roam. The slow-to-build mood of “Quite Frankly” showcases a blend of chiming guitar lines, glacial atmospherics, and glitchy noise. With the exception of Forman’s unnecessarily hectic drumming, the song is a welcome respite from the group’s inclination for forced intensity.

If Stellarscope is to be lauded for anything, it’s the colossal textures they’re able to generate with only three core members. Studio overdubs aside, the group knows how to deftly apply flourishes and add-ons in such a way that you’d likely expect a substantially larger personnel roster. Closer “Queremos Paz” is one such example, where an exotic riff – which instantly recall’s Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam” – pales in comparison to the resonance of Lugo’s guitar solo and former band member Paolo Coletti’s pedal steel work. In the end though, they seem too eager to affix “power” to their trio status, eschewing nuanced performances and understated gestures for unaffecting bombast.

For the truly inquiring minds who wanted to get to the root of Stellarscope’s modus operandi, This Is Who We Are provides plenty of blunt testimony, though you’ll get better answers (and a far more compelling headphone session) after time spent with your copies of Loveless and Siamese Dream.

Ceremony – “Someday” 7″

Ceremony – "Someday" 7"

There’s much to be said about bands that break-up and go on to form other bands. One that stands out for me – mostly because they are/were a local band – is At the Drive-In. They’re still responsible for what many consider to be one of the best albums of 2000, Relationship of Command. These break-ups can leave fans waiting for more and ultimately, they’ll never be satisfied.

The break-up of Skywave is a much smaller affair but where A Place to Bury Strangers was made on one side, here we have Ceremony. And while the former has already garnered plenty of attention, it’s only a short brisk of time before Ceremony make it onto the scene. Much like the loudness that pervades such noise rock, Ceremony feature raucous pop hooks and riffs that surmount the loudness. The lead single to their debut album, “Someday,” is both inspired by Dinosaur Jr. production and 80s style pop. The bond between them and A Place to Bury Strangers is undoubtedly felt but they’ve captured their own appealing facets. Although there is plenty of drive, it’s a noisy explosion that unquestionably delivers a strong jolt that resonates for a long time after it ends.

Included on the flip side is “Cracked Sun,” a song that will not be found on the proper LP. And it feels like such a shame because it’s every bit as muscular as “Someday,” if not a bit more even-keeled. Either way, Killer Pimp’s purpose in releasing this 7” single was to get the word rolling on what looks like to be a promising 2010 album from Ceremony. Soaked in reverb and walls and walls of noise, it will be noisy but let’s hope it still carries the same drive and pulse needed to deliver the goods.

“Someday” by Ceremony

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Artists-On-Albums: AOA #5 (Wes Willenbring on When)

Wes Willenbring on…

Vincent Gallo’s When (Warp Records, 2001)

Vincent Gallo - When

I think whether or not an album becomes a “favorite” is often dependent on the environment in which one first hears it.  Not just the where and the when but also what, stylistically, the listener had been listening to previously. It may be a musician seemingly perfecting a form or genre the listener already likes, or it may be the exact opposite—something so drastically different from what the listener had previously been listening to that it challenges their beliefs about music and their own personal taste by making them question why they like it. This initial new path can then lead to the discovery of new musical styles and also help in the development of their own personal sense of aesthetics. Vincent Gallo’s When was one of these albums for me.

In the early 2000’s I was mostly listening to and interested in the Warp Records output, specifically artists like Autechre and Aphex Twin. Since my primary instrument is piano and I owned a synthesizer at the time, and was very interested in technology and recording, I was naturally drawn to this form of music. At that time a lot of electronic music was trying to be as busy as possible—the fastest tempo with the most sounds stuffed into the song as possible. This was closely tied to the rapidly developing technology- computers were getting faster and faster and at the time many were racing to see who could push them the hardest, who could make the fastest and most complicated songs possible. So for me at that time complexity was analogous with the cutting edge and thus it seemed essential.

In 2001 Warp released Vincent Gallo’s solo album When. I had seen his (brilliant) first film Buffalo ’66 but knew very little about him, and had no idea he was a musician. A friend of mine who was a collector of all things Warp played it for me and I was instantly struck by it’s beauty, though somewhat hesitant to listen—this was the exact opposite of what Warp had been releasing and what I thought I liked. It was beautiful, quiet, stark, and minimal. My friend would play it a couple of more times for me over the following weeks and eventually I was hooked and bought a copy for myself.

As I listened to it over and over I was struck by the aesthetics of the recording. This was no harsh album that, typical of the time, was recorded directly onto a hard drive, but a very organic and warm album recorded on world-class vintage instruments and tape-machines. There were no harshly edited cuts and sounds stuffed everywhere possible but instead there was silence and space.  Instead of an “ambience” created out of a rapid blur of sounds there was an ambience of silence punctuated with simple and beautiful melodies. It had an understated, subtle minimalism that seduced me into listening closer and closer instead of trying to push me away with it’s complexity. When I listened I could see the sounds as different colors, mostly whites with slightly varying shades of pale blue, cream, and grey.

Gallo’s When made me reconsider why and how I was listening to music at that time, which eventually pointed me in an entirely different direction from where I had been previously. I began searching for more and more music that used space, that favored clarity, and that paid attention to aesthetics – not only in the recording itself, but in the way the individual instruments interacted with one another, mixed together like colors in a painting.  For me it was an entirely new way of looking at how to use sound within the context of a song.

Notes on the Artist:

Wes Willenbring

Wes Willenbring was forced into taking piano lessons at the age of seven, and after years of arduous practice he eventually turned to the guitar so he could learn the chord progression to “Lay Lady Lay.” An obsession with recording techniques and aesthetics then led to a disturbingly large collection of equipment and microphones. After years of writing and recording music both solo and in a variety of collaborations he has now set up home and studio in San Francisco.

Wes has released two albums on Australian based label Hidden Shoal Recordings.

www.weswillenbring.com/

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