Deepchord Presents Echospace – Liumin

Echospace’s first album, The Coldest Season, acted as a de facto summary of minimal techno forms at their chilliest, hearkening back to the boingy, static-y Basic Channel/Chain Reaction template, the deep echo and complex rhythms of dub techno artists exemplified by Pole, the tumultuous swooshing of Thomas Köner, and the hissing ambient grandeur of GAS. An 80-minute behemoth, it was this grand scale that really set The Coldest Season apart from its peers, and which allowed it to carry its theme of the comfort of isolation to its bleakly numbing but triumphantly perseverant conclusion. That album’s monolithic status made a repeat unlikely, but sure enough, three years on Echospace is back with another 80-minute behemoth, though this time they trade in the theme of stark isolation to explore the overwhelming rush of cities and the excitement of strange places.

That’s not to say that Echospace have fully reinvented themselves. Rod Modell is still supplying field recordings as source material and Steve Hitchell is still there to help him stitch all the layers together into a smoothly progressing whole. Liumin finds the duo changing modes – they are now expanding instead of synthesizing and refining. This is even more of a complete front to back work than The Coldest Season was. At the same time, the tracks here also stick out more as standalone songs than one would expect. Liumin follows the trajectory of a bell curve, bookended by two atmospheric beatless tracks, with increasing action on the first half which crests directly in the middle of the album, and then slowly recedes in the same fashion to a calm, flat-lined end.

“In Echospace” begins the album and acts as a segue from past to present. Introducing the field recordings of Japanese train stations and urban life that weave their way in and out through the course of the album, it is an apropos starting point for what will be a journey, even though the train is not picking you up for a ride, but dropping you off in the middle of the city. It also signals that the omnipresent hiss you’ve come to expect from Echospace has been jettisoned for more clarity and motion. “Summer Haze” follows, transforming the atmosphere into a jubilant one, bringing in a 4/4 thump and skittering melodicism that both gradually evolve, adding more percussion patterns until the track feels like it’s smearing past you at a rate too quick to fully process, like passing through a city lit by neon and moonlight. “Sub-Marine” takes over from there, feeling more trance-y and cerebral with some slightly funky dub noises suggesting descent to a deeper, more intense section of the city. After the initial surge of excitement, “Burnt Sage” brings in a careful and quiet microhouse beat, dark synthetic strings, and some faraway echoes which sound like water trickling down the sides of a sewer, and it feels like trouble. Luckily “BCN Dub” brings some voices back into the mix and picks up the pace with a throbbing thump and some echoed woodblock which slowly is subsumed by a scratchy synth chord and a distant sounding, but over-amplified reggae horn section which slowly intensifies and distorts until it is running the show. This unexpected touch feels like pure genius, and it provides a touch of exoticism as well as the climax of the album – a surrender to the city’s intuitively incongruent but organically seamless cacophony of activity. The album plays out much like it began, but now the tracks indicate a confident merging with the city in the smooth self-assuredness of “Firefly” and the tunneling groove of “Maglev”. “Float” and “Warm” continue the dialing down to a place of peace and serenity, the lights and banging now just audio and visual tracers banging around inside your tired but sensually satisfied skull.

These guys’ control of gradients of intensity both within and between songs is masterful, lifting you up and then laying you back down. If you’ve listened to much dub techno, you probably know what this sounds like for the most part. On the grounds of this tradition, these tracks measure up with the best. But the real experience here is the pure immersion and the unfolding of a lengthy narrative in sound. The field recordings of a train station in foreign lands are an obvious nod to Monolake’s Hongkong, another masterpiece of transportive ambient dub from over a decade before, of which Liumin bears a striking resemblance. Echospace have never privileged ingenuity in sound, but always in form and function. There’s always room for more masterpieces in a genre. All it takes is an artist with the vision and talent of Echospace to make their own room. On Liumin they take the same clay many have used, but where most simply manage tracks with a nice feel, they use it to sculpt something intelligible and grand.

Echospace

Modern Love

Zippo – The Road To Knowledge

The quality of an album depends just as much on the production as it does on the writing and performance. I have often encountered records with some interesting ideas that are ultimately ruined by poor sound, and I wish that the creators could go back and remix it, making it more polished and involving. The Road to Knowledge, the sophomore album by Zippo, is such a case. Also, it simply becomes redundant after a few tracks.

Zippo formed in Italy in 2004 with an aim to play “…a thousand-faces-stoner-rock, from massive and pachyderm sounds to moments of quietness and peace.” After Ode to Maximum was released in 2006, the band’s sound started turning darker, heavier, more psychedelic and deeper in complexity. They discovered Carlos Castaneda’s famous book The Teachings of Don Juan, and it inspired them to craft this conceptual album about addiction and self-will. There is certainly a mood of meditative self-reflection and growth, but there is also a lot of muddled sound, lacking any spark.

Appropriately, The Road to Knowledge opens with “Don Juan’s Words”. It features a spoken passage (in Italian, of course) over backward sound loops. It’s mysterious and intriguing. Soon festive drums and dancing bass introduce “El Sitio”, which also presents tight guitar work and interesting rhythmical shifts. The intensity and timbre of the vocals reminds one (if only slightly) of System of a Down. The singer also screams a decent amount, which makes him sound like he’s vomiting. Intangibly, it sounds like we’re hearing the music under water, as it’s clumped together and not at all vibrant. This remains true for the entire album.

The title track is more dynamic and acoustic, and it uses a wider array of instruments, making it a bit more engaging. At the same time, it has the aesthetic of a garage band (albeit a really good and rehearsed one). I know I sound like I’m probably contradicting myself, but again, this is what happens when the production doesn’t do justice to the promising material. “He is Outside Us” is a pretty acoustic piece that’s not too evolved but pleasant enough. A bit later, “Lizards Can’t Be Wrong” provides a tranquil intermission in the form of humming with lightly decorated accompaniment. It’s as if we’re sitting around a fire on holy land.

A lot of The Road to Knowledge sounds the same; it’s a big crash of drums, guitar and aggressive vocals. I know that that set up is the basis of rock music, but it doesn’t have to all sound this interchangeable (enough so that I feel an insufficient ability and need to discuss each track separately because they aren’t unique enough). The biggest “miss” is how they venture into poorly executed metal with the latter part of the album, starting with “El Enyerbado”. The singer can try his best to growl like James Hetfield and borrow the low register of the late Peter Steele, but it just sounds bad here.

“Reality Is What I Feel” has a very involving and impressive guitar passage; sounds eerily similar to In Flames’ beautiful “Acoustic Medley”. Still, it’s a nice change of pace, and definitely a highlight of the album. Similarly, Zippo seem to pay homage to brilliance of Sweden’s Opeth with the closing track, “Diablera”. It features the moving chord progressions, countermelody bass lines, and chanting of the [supposed] inspiration. I cite these comparisons not to accuse Zippo of plagiarism but to reference two standout tracks that fans of the complementing bands would appreciate.

The Road to Knowledge is a tragic album in a way. On one hand, it has some great ideas and interesting choices, as well as some great guitar pieces. But, it also lacks any real diversity outside of those moments, and the entire album could do with better production to make it sound more exhilarating and colorful (instead of dull and condensed, like it is now). Zippo certainly have something to offer listeners, but they haven’t quite figured out how to record their specialties well enough yet.

The Harvey Girls – I’ve Been Watching A Lot of Horror Movies Lately

The title isn’t just some off-hand admission of the consequences of boredom driving a man to watch reel after reel of predictable film but rather a probable process that led to the creation of this weird and sometimes wonderful album. The Harvey Girls connection to the horror genre has got nothing to do with serial killers or shrieking, reluctant heroines, but more the time-weathered resident who warns those naive teens away from the old whatever place, whilst inexplicably continuing his business practices there despite the obvious obstacles to be had living in the same neighbourhood as psychopaths.

Still, that’s not what’s up for debate here. The Harvey Girls are much more exciting and surprising than any horror film, possibly. They offset normal folk-country sounds with deathly groaning and rattling, lending a consistently dark and menacing atmosphere to everything. The first song, apparently emotionlessly detailing a grisly discovery of a mutilated body is disorientating for the frenetic guitar and lots of hard to track movements. As guitars slide in and out of focus amidst injections of ambient noise, horses gallop and snort; put your hands out and make sure you’re still where you think you are. There is a distinctly desert feel to the opening few songs, as if it were inspired by travelling aimlessly towards nightfall, increasingly unsettled by random noises.

The atmosphere is toned down somewhat as the album progresses and for the most part this is fairly downbeat, apathetic low-fi guitar pop. The production always helps the music seem more expansive than it is and there usually appears to be elements at work that create always interesting music. The album does tend to stay in fairly low gears which can be testing unless you’re willing to lie back, close your eyes and try and imagine the scenes the music tries to imitate. It’s short of any real classic single material but as a whole it is an intense album which very successfully attempts to create ambience that suits the mood of the music, and very worthwhile for that too.

Rasputina – Sister Kinderhook

Rasputina mainstay Melora Creager returns with the band’s seventh studio album, Sister Kinderhook, produced and engineered by Melora, mixed by Brian Kehew (Fiona Apple, Air), and released on June 15^th.  Rasputina is currently a trio of Melora (vocals, cello, banjo, harpsichord), Daniel DeJesus (backing vocals, erhu, and the band’s first male cellist in its almost 20-year history), and Catie D’Amica (concert bass drum, d’jembe, ankle bells).

Songs are cello-based with stark, eclectic, vintage-sounding instrumentation. The band replaces the traditional, old-fashioned instruments of guitar and fiddle with new-fangled, or at least atypical, fare like cello, d’jembe, and harpsichord.  The cello is an interesting choice for lead instrument as its yearning, and plaintively melancholic tone resembles the human voice and the result is an old-time vibe brought vividly to life.

Songs are also lyrics-heavy with such historical to fanciful subjects as Colonialism, giants, the Anti-Rent Wars of 1844, Early Americana, and Emily Dickinson.  Melora’s homespun, story-telling tales recall the lyrics-packed, intellectual punch of bands like The Decemberists.  Melora’s vocal delivery is unique, where every phrase ends with an extended wavering vibration that can be considered intriguing or distracting over the course of an entire album.

Opener “Sweet Sister Temperance” is a keepsake with Melora clearly enunciating her vocals with a sharpness that recalls early Sinead O’Connor, her fluttering, sing-talking voice mixing with the slowly-drawn frisson of bittersweet, warm, and gravely low-register strings as she describes poet Emily Dickinson “…she of the marble-hearted innocence…” whose “…glory and her power / plain and small and all things in between.” The briskly-paced “Holocaust of Giants” is a fascinating yarn about finding the fossils of giants in the riverbeds of Ohio.  Sawing and fiddling strings follow the ups ‘n’ downs of Melora’s vocals as she tartly sing-talks “…even giants think they’ll live forever”, but that they killed each other off in a meaningless war, ending with the quite ironic line “Thank your lucky stars that we don’t do that anymore.”

The fast jangle of banjo, longing cello, and other strings fill “My Night Sky” as Melora talks about “…her desire to live in the past.”  There are several exclaiming, high-register backing vocal layers that recall some of the songs on Bjork’s album Medulla.  The instrumental “Olde Dance” glows with a soft patina of muted percussion of drum beat strikes, sinuous Indian-like strings, and finger cymbal taps.

Creakily sawing, low-tone cello gives “Humankind as the Sailor” gravitas as a variety of vocal lines float with and against each other as Melora sing-talks about “…embarking without hope of a safe way home.”  The lament “Dark February” pits ponderously-pulled strings against shiny percussion taps with Melora’s wiry vocals shadowed by another as she waveringly sings “They say we’ll come to an end / then all things begin again.”

http://www.rasputina.com/

The Hundred in the Hands – This Desert EP

The Hundred in the Hands first came on the scene with the single “Dressed in Dresden”, a feverish collage of angular guitars, four-to-the-floor drums, and sharp yet intimate vocals. The tension running through their New Yorker veins bled all over the track, leaving a tinge similar to Interpol or The Strokes. Chanteuse Elenore Everdell initially resists the intense, driving back-beat, but eventually she unleashes a couple of controlled yelps before climbing into the playful hook. Although officially released on Warp in April of this year, the original “Dressed in Dresden”, along with several remixes, has been floating around on the internet for a while, gaining hype from bloggers and a bump from Adult Swim. It’s fair to say that more of this pulsing, energetic dance-floor oriented art-rock flowing out of the NYC underground, notably from Fischerspooner, was highly anticipated from THITH.

The follow-up EP, This Desert, is more polished and precise, but has slowed down by about 60 BPM and the passion from their preceding single has, for the most part, vanished. Although a slower tempo does not necessitate tedium, the sparsely employed elements of musical progression generally crumble before any climax is reached. On the supposed single “Tom Tom” the chorus is virtually unidentifiable, having dissipated by the time you notice it. The chorus is a microcosm of the entire song, which finishes warming up just in time to fade out. The positively boring “Into It” drags itself along with a melange of unremarkable sounds muddled carelessly into a single track. Perhaps it’s fitting for a nap on the beach, but in all other circumstances, it is disengaging and unchallenging, yearning for a click of the next button.

Perhaps the only exception is “Sleepwalkers”, which builds a tight pop structure, creating the strongest track on the disc. Jason Friedman’s shimmering guitar chords string you along though Elenore’s reverb-laden singing, which continues to echo in your head after the song has ended. The other highlight is the opener, “Building L.O.V.E.”, which careens towards the sonic ceiling and employs strobing synths that dance circles around Everdell’s layered vocals. The frigid synth-pop feel rings of the xx or The Junior Boys, but lacks the careful composure that lent them such mystical beauty.

To say that This Desert is a failure is an overstatement, but it is an underwhelming divergence from THITH’s previously conceived path. The tenderness found in Everdell’s voice on their first release deflates to lethargy, failing to revive the lackadaisical instrumentation, especially on “Tom Tom”. Her attempt to be cute does her a disservice, as her spineless delivery is overpowered by a hand drum and a few minimalist keyboard notes. Furthermore, the cryptically sexual lyrics end up sounding more kitschy than steamy when you wonder if it was actually “clock” that she said. For a duo who advocates concise pop songs this set of meandering new wave tunes, short as they are, leaves you feeling unenthused.

New album from Red Wanting Blue in July

Columbus, Ohio’s Red Wanting Blue has been touring the heart of America for over a decade.  The band, led by Scott Terry and voiced by his gifted baritone, has self-released several records in that time and built a loyal following for its version of roots rock.  Throughout, Red Wanting Blue fielded label offers from indies and majors alike, but never found a suitable partner until now.

Fanatic Records has fallen in love with the band’s These Magnificent Miles album and will give it a national release on July 27^th, 2010.  Fanatic will also issue a deluxe double-LP edition of These Magnificent Miles with full-color LP sleeves in a gatefold jacket.  Red Wanting Blue will begin to expand its touring to new markets this summer to support the album.

Produced by Jamie Candiloro (Ryan Adams, Willie Nelson, REM) in Columbus and mixed in Los Angeles, These Magnificent Miles captures the feel and sound of Red Wanting Blue live — an addictive show that has earned the band a loyal following which stomps, cheers and sings along. It’s an album for all of the musicians who live life on the road and lifts the veil on what it means to be an underdog in a touring rock band.

“Where You Wanna Go” [MP3]:

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MySpace Site: http://www.myspace.com/redwantingblue

Free songs from The Band In Heaven

Shoegaze in the vein of My Bloody Valentine, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Jesus And Mary Chain, and Black Tambourine.

It’s all free for download at: http://thebandinheaven.bandcamp.com

Official Site: http://thebandinheaven.bandcamp.com
MySpace Site: http://www.myspace.com/thebandinheaven

Canasta – The Fakeout, the Tease, and the Breather

Chicago orchestral pop sextet Canasta has been riding a giant (and much deserved) wave of hype since their debut EP – Find the Time – was released to critical acclaim in 2003. Boasting a formidable lineup of multi-instrumentalists and a pop sensibility that gave equal nod to both melody and texture, frontman Matt Priest and his bandmates shrewdly kept their names in the press for the past seven years, releasing first a proper long-player in 2006 and then a companion remix in 2008. Given the group’s overwhelming complex arsenal of material – both physical and musical – fans have patiently waited for Canasta’s sophomore release, which finally hit shelves just last month.

Rarely is new music categorized as being both immediately accessible and dizzyingly complex, but Priest and co-founder Elizabeth Lindau manage this feat so adroitly at times that it even makes Win Butler and Régine Chassagne look like rookies. With no fewer than a dozen instruments and sometimes nearly as many performers, the eleven tracks that comprise The Fakeout, the Tease, and the Breather cover a vast emotional terrain that ranges from exuberant and impassioned to tender and introspective.

Music, as we know, is an incredibly referential art form, and Canasta has expertly cherry picked the finest aspects of three of indie rock’s most powerful names in creating an album that manages to astound just as much on the first listen as it does on the fifth. If you were to pigeonhole an act into a subgenre – as rock crits are wont to do – then Canasta’s most obvious connection is with The Arcade Fire, whose highly anticipated third album sees its release in August. Montreal chamber pop darling references aside, the guitars bristle and shimmer more in the manner of Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, while Priest’s airy vocals and occasionally buoyant pop tunes recall The New Pornographers’ A.C. Newman. Whether you consider yourself a devoted follower of all three acts or just a casual fan of one, Canasta’s poignant songwriting and technical fluency means everyone walks away happy.

Opening track “Becoming You” is a stroke of restrained genius, choosing to gently pogo off of Josh Lava’s expert drumming with lush keyboard and guitar work where it could’ve exploded into gratuitous bombast. The song is broken into thirds that are instantly ear grabbing in their eccentricity; things begin with two minutes worth of slow moving atmosphere before a midtempo ballad is introduced and ultimately left behind to revel in a blissful jam of wordless vocals and cascading piano melodies. It’s a little unorthodox, but Priest’s lyrics make it fairly clear from the outset that he’s not looking to fit into any particular mold: “I don’t care much for football scores, the great outdoors, guys being guys.”

“Mexico City,” a completely danceable track with shout-along group vocals and fantastic fiddle work from Lindau, is among the album’s most easily digested offerings. Listen intently enough however, and the attention to sonic layering becomes readily apparently. Herein we find a fascinating Canasta dichotomy: How do songs with Hammond B3 organ, melodica, grand piano, Fender Rhodes, and even Farfisa manage to sound so effortlessly breezy and winsome? The answer can be obtained from Kyle Mann and Ian Wilson, who between the two of them pepper the album with close to ten different keyboard instruments. It’s a true testament to the musicianship on display here that everything they touch is handled with such a grace and elegance; not once do these songs become bogged down by their own weight. Slowburner “Throwaway” is a showcase for this, juxtaposing the dissonance of the piano’s lower register with vocals that sway from whisper to wail and enough instrumental variations to keep the song going well past its five and a half minute length.

Other disc highlights include the pseudo-soul vibe of “Reading the Map Upside Down” (in which Matt Priest busts out some trombone) and “I Don’t Know Where I Was Going with This,” which is a satisfying blend of nuanced execution (Lava’s drumming is absolutely delightful) and memorable vocal melodies that will likely have you singing the song’s title along with the band. At nearly an hour in length, it may be a lot to take in, but to cite another obligatory critics’ cliché, this album is definitely one that warrants repeated listens. Thankfully though, the songwriting here is so sharp that Canasta makes it exceedingly difficult to give The Fakeout, the Tease, and the Breather only one spin.

The Silence Kit – Dislocations

The last release by Philly’s The Silence Kit has its moments, and the new record Dislocations does as well. Overall, though, this one doesn’t have quite the same overall impact and it’s difficult to say exactly what’s changed. The music hasn’t changed drastically.

This album sounds as though the band has gone for more of an 80s sound. Opener “Let There Be No Hurt” has the kind of dancefloor beat that some of the old postpunks put behind their snarling, sneering tracks. In fact, the band has managed to pull off a bit of Josef K on this and a few of the other tracks. Instead of biting political or agitprop discursions, The Silence Kit tends towards emoish (not a criticism) subject matter. Closing track “I’ll Always Bring You Down” bookends the album with another urgent, guitar-driven cut. These two songs show off the band’s best traits: headlong and desperate, the band pulls together and makes appealing music delivered with conviction. Light bits of synth do more to mark the band’s influences than get in the way, which is a good thing.

Tracks like “Fire Escape” don’t have quite the same impact, though. The first two-thirds of the song, done at a slow pace, seem to go on a bit too long or seem somewhat forced, and it’s not until the last third that the band gets back into high gear. It could be that the slower passages dwell too much on the vocals, which don’t always quite convey (a bit off key, maybe?). The song’s Springhouse ending almost makes up for the slow start. “Bad Months” never quite gets up to speed, leaving the listener feeling like the band is even constrained by its own choice of pacing, and the same could be said of “Spent Too Long Waiting.” Playing up the misery angle doesn’t always translate. It seems that the band’s sweet spot is in its charging, postpunk-influenced numbers, where the band feels like a unit.

A nice surprise is the simple, affecting “The Magician,” whose key changes and mood — plus its choruses’ hook — redeem what could have been something uninspiring. As with some of the Clinic records, the good songs can be really good, but sometimes you have to go through the less engaging material to find them.

Common Prayer – There Is A Mountain

A frequently impressive and often stunning album that could trigger emotional responses from dinosaurs, if it had the chance, maybe…

Not affiliated with The Book of Common Prayer, though it would be very good if they could get an endorsement for it, wouldn’t it? Common Prayer like to do conventional things in unconventional ways like writing good songs with strange instrumentation. Which, when you think about it, is pretty smart.

There Is A Mountain features some jaw-dropping moments of beautiful songwriting, made all the more enjoyable by the blemished imperfection of their delivery. It takes a while for opening track “commonprayer”(possibly affiliated with the book, I don’t know) to emerge from behind a speech sample and clunking and clattering percussion but when it does its well worth the wait. Come on, how admirably charming is a lyric like “I’ve been singing in and out of tune/and its always been to you”? It should get right at your heart, if you’ve got nothing to offer at least you try, or something! Inspirational stuff.

Even better, it’s hardly indicative of the musical styles of the rest of the album, maybe similar but sufficiently varied to be entertaining, couple this with the quality of the songs themselves and pretty much every checkbox has a healthy tick across it, if we’re going on basic minimum expectations from a great album.

And even though they have ample cause for bragging and muscle flexing, there’s a very endearing humility to everything which just makes this even easier to love, it’s a difficult album to find fault with, try submerging it in water and seeing how well it copes, it’ll probably survive because it’s just that damn good.

“Us vs. Them” is the standout track with a chorus that could send shivers down the spine of a T-rex (not affiliated with the 1970s rock legend) but even at that, it’s only marginally more remarkable than anything else on There Is A Mountain, really a very rewarding album.

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