Author: Jennifer

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Late Night Listening: Black Walls, Communion

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Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.

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Communion is the third release from Black Walls (Ken Reaume), of Toronto. Composed in the aftermath of his father’s death, the songs are bleak, contemplative, and soothing, all at the same time.

They also feel . . . liturgical, I think, is the word that I want. In the sense that they feel like being inside an ancient, dark Romanesque church hunkered down on the headlands, the thick walls and low arches standing as the only refuge against the wind howling outside and rain beating against windows.


 

For the rest, and to explore his earlier work, which is also quite good: stop by his bandcamp page; you can also keep up with him on Tumblr.

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Mosey West, Bermuda

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MW_Bermuda_DigitalCov

Bermuda, the third release from Mosey West, of Fort Collins, CO, is named to reflect the spirit of change that has been driving the band for the last year or so.

First they changed their line up – the current crew is Adam Brown (guitar, vocals), Mike McGraw (bass, vocals), and newcomers Max Barcelow (drums, vocals) and Nathaniel Marshall (keys and guitar) – and then they changed their sound, pulling up most of their country roots and taking a flying leap into the world of psychedelic indie rock.

That might seem like a hard right turn, but the end result is more of a logical evolution than a complete re-invention. The changes have, if anything, given them more depth and warmth then they had before.

Now as for the tunes, I only say they’ve pulled up most of their country roots because there are still one or two left, which you can hear in songs like Old Stone:
 

But the psychedelia is clear and strong too, such as in Hurricane Eyes where they really jam it out:
 

For the rest, head over to their bandcamp page!

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A Good Read A Good Listen and a Good Drink: Lydia Loveless

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It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

No matter what state your heart is in – broken, full of longing, drunk in love, just drunk – it’s likely there’s a song for you on Somewhere Else by Lydia Loveless, due out on February 18. I’m particularly fond of Really Wanna See You; it’s a song for the end of a long night – what you should put on and sing along with instead of sending your ex a text you’re going to regret when you sober up.

And now here she is to tell us about her current favorite book, record and drink:

Photo by Blackletter/Patrick Crawford

Photo by Blackletter/Patrick Crawford

A Good Read: The Easter Parade by Richard Yates
You can expect anything by Richard Yates to be more than a little upsetting, but this book shattered my heart. I started reading it while staying at a friend’s house on tour, but couldn’t finish it before I left. I spent the next few days frantically searching for it in each town we stopped, and could think of nothing else until I found it. The story of two sisters for whom nothing goes right-or maybe everything goes exactly as it does for all humans-this is what it’s like to be a woman, told perfectly by a man.

A Good Listen: Ride the Lightning by Metallica

It’s tough to pick a “favorite album of all time” obviously, but I never get tired of this one (I’ll bet my band does, though…). It’s my favorite thing to listen to when I get mad and want to picture driving over people in a giant monster truck. Everyone does that, right?
 

Metallica Ride The Lightning

 
A Good Drink: I’ve been really into making carrot ginger apple (and whatever else I have lying around) juice in my blender. I don’t always get to be healthy on tour, so I find making a juice I can chew at home makes me feel oddly smug and Gwyneth Paltrow-ish.

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Songs That Stick To Your Ribs: Vol. 1

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Some songs come and go – sweet pleasures, but fleeting ones.

Others, they linger, wearing a groove in heart and brain that runs down the intersection of comforting and challenging.

These are some of those songs.

Off My Mind, Ryan Ross: It’s the plucked string at the beginning, I think. The insistent whang whang whang that reaches out to hook your attention just before the other guitars muscle in, rumbling and grumbling and trying to start a fight. And then about half-way through they settle down and start hammering out a quasi-hypnotic rhythm. I both do and do not want to know what the words are supposed to be; I’m curious, but also suspect context might ruin it.
 

 
If You’re in New York, The Grahams: I have more to say about Riverman’s Daughter, their most recent (and most amazing) record, but this is one of the songs I have been listening to obsessively. I have danced to this on subway platforms from Harlem to Brooklyn, and hummed along everywhere from the center of a swirl of autumn leaves on Central Park West to a rapidly thickening blanket of snow on 1st Avenue. It’s a country song, but it’s a got a city heart, and the city heart is full of joy.
 

 
Have a Cuppa Tea, The Kinks: From Muswell Hillbillies, but driven by the spirit of Village Green Preservation Society this is indeed an entire song about the role of tea in British society. I like to listen to it on my way to work while, yes, drinking a cup of tea.
 

The Kinks - Have a Cuppa Tea, 1972

 
Boys on The Radio, Hole: When Courtney Love is down, she’s down; but when she’s up, she’s radiant and ascendent and nothing can stop her. I am not going to lie, I wasn’t really a Hole fan back in the ’90s. But I’ve come to have an abiding love for Courtney Love in general, and this song in particular, and how it encapsulates how some of us are doomed to always love the boys on the radio, even if they are rotten to the core, and don’t love us any more. I also like to contemplate it as a counterweight to the Felice Brothers’ Radio Song; the other side of the coin, the darkness their romantic light chases away.
 
Hole--Boys On The Radio--Live @ Ottawa Bluesfest 2010-07-09

 
All My Things, SWiiiM: I like the build-up to the drops, the way the synths sparkle and shimmer, and then, whub whub whub, here it comes, trouble in paradise. I would have given all my things to you / I would have bought diamond rings for you. It was good, maybe, but now it’s gone bad. Maybe it was always a losing proposition, a missed connection that should have continued to be missed. It was better that way. Maybe.
 
SWIIIM - ALL MY THINGS - (DIRECTED BY CHRIS ACOSTA)

 
I Don’t Recall, Lavender Diamond: I just wrote about them last week, but I am bringing it back because the crystalline purity of Becky Stark’s voice is just that beautiful, and because this is another song I like to use to start the day. It is both wrenching and lovely, and – I am realizing just now – a song about heartbreak that is meant for grown-ups. If you’ve ever rolled over and realized half of you – your life, your plans, your feelings about important things like breakfast foods and appropriate places to sit at the movies – was abruptly missing, but you still had to fumble through your day and weren’t quite sure how to do it, here is a song to listen to while you figure it out.
 

 
Storm and Stress, Field Report: Go to a car. Put this on. Crank it up. Sit in the parking lot, watch the sun rise or set or the rain fall or the snow slowly pile up, and let it roll over you like a majestic steamroller.
 

We All Come to the Same Place, Rhubarb Whiskey: Because my people are the traveling kind; the ones who wander; who may or may not be lost, and if they are lost they probably like it that way; the ones who send me snippets of streetcorner moments, flashes of foreign trees, sunrises around the world, and more; the ones whose feet will never be wholly still; the ones for whom the roving dies hard.
 

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Late Night Listening: Springtime Carnivore

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Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.

springcarn

Between the vaguely apocalyptic bandcamp art and the band being called Springtime Carnivore, I was expecting heavy metal. Spoiler alert: *bzzzzzt* try again!

What it actually is: a little bit ’60s dance party, a little bit Venice Beach when the sun’s gone down, the boardwalk is almost empty and there’s a distinct chill in the air.

And then there are the videos, by Eddie O’Keefe, which also wobble back and forth between charming, nostalgic and super-freaky.

Springtime Carnivore :: Collectors from Eddie O'KEEFE on Vimeo.

 

Springtime Carnivore – Creature Feature from Eddie O'KEEFE on Vimeo.

 
You can listen to the whole thing at bandcamp, or, if you prefer vinyl, scoot on over here.

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Postcards from the Pit: Panic! at the Disco / The Colourist / X Ambassadors, Roseland, 2/4/2014

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It’s a rare thing, getting to watch a band grow up.

My first (indoors) Panic! at the Disco show was at Roseland Ballroom in May 2008. I say indoors because my actual first Panic! at the Disco show was at Bamboozle a few days earlier, and when I saw them I couldn’t really see them, because I had just broken my glasses in the Bouncing Souls pit. I could hear them just fine, though, and against all odds – they were in their hippie phase, wore lots of beige and had four tattoos between them – I loved them.

But at Roseland I could see them, and they looked like sweet-faced deer in the headlights. Their stage presence was probably best described as “charmingly awkward.” But the songs still made me happy. And so, for good or for ill, I was in for the long haul.

This past Tuesday night – six years, two records/style-shifts, and three line-up changes later – they were at Roseland again, one last time before the places closes down in the spring.

The openers this time around were X Ambassadors and The Colourist.

X Ambassadors had a dark dreamy-draggy-occasional-burst-of-thundering-drums vibe going, which I rather liked. Plus their lead singer is also their saxophone player, which was unexpected and awesome. Verdict: A++, would see them at their own show.
 

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The Colourist was a little bit bouncier; apparently they describe themselves as “majestic rock” and/or “math pop” which, okay, I guess that makes sense. All I can tell you is they had super-intense, high-energy drums (majestic, indeed) that were precise but not cold or stiff, and that when they were done I definitely wanted to see them at their own show as well.
 
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And then Panic! at the Disco came out, and – though I have seen them many times since 2008, I’ve watched the show evolve, I know what’s coming – I was struck, again, by how Brendon Urie has evolved as a front man. Gone is the almost-bashful boy who once wore a ringmaster’s costume, and his place is an actual showman in a glittery jacket and skin-tight leather trousers with a signature back-flip move – which he deployed twice – who finally seems comfortable in his skin.

(I really love that back flip. So graceful, and he makes it look effortless. I live in hope someone will put him in a Broadway show while he can still stick the landing.)

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Lavender Diamond, Incorruptible Heart

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LDCLR

True confession: I downloaded Lavender Diamond‘s Daytrotter session because I was intrigued by their name. I didn’t even read the description, just snagged it because it was there and I could and why not?

That, as it turned out, was a A++ life decision, because Lavender Diamond is awesome. Halfway through the first song I was breathless and hungry for more.

Happily there is more; the Daytrotter songs were excerpted from their most recent record, Incorruptible Heart, which you can listen to in full on Soundcloud. (And then go and buy it from them right away, so you can wrap it around yourself like a warm aural blanket.)

The following are three of my favorite tunes:

First: All The Stars, because every time I listen to it, I hold very still, so I don’t break the spell cast by Becky Stark’s voice:
 

 
Second: Teach Me To Waken. The Daytrotter version is by necessity stripped down, and the piano dominates; on the record the drums roll and roar like the beating of a mighty heart:
 

 
And finally: I Don’t Recall, which is spare, delicate and devastating. I seriously do not understand why this is not the #1 crying-into-your-ice-cream song in the world right now. The video, directed by Jena Malone, captures it perfectly:
 
http://youtu.be/aL3Vv1hQW4Q

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A Good Read A Good Listen and a Good Drink: Bob Morris, The Hush Sound

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It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

Photo by Craig Seymour

Photo by Craig Seymour

In 2009, after three records and a lot of touring, The Hush Sound decided to take a break. That break lasted until 2013, when they reconvened to make more of their unique and delightful mix of power pop, folk and rock. As an example, here are two of their most recent tunes, Not A Stranger and Scavengers:
 


 

And now, here is Bob Morris (center, above; guitar/vocals) to tell us about a favorite book, record, and drink:

A Good Book
One of my favorite books is JITTERBUG PERFUME by Tom Robbins. It has many story lines that weave together and by the end they, of course, collide. My favorite story line in the book is that of Alobar, a ruler of a small tribe from prehistoric times. Alobar’s tribe doesn’t fear death, it’s a part of life. When you start to show your age, you are sacrificed and the next strong and able man takes over. Alobar, however, plucks his grays and when he is found out, he escapes. He meets the love of his long life and they meet some monks that teach them to live forever, through meditation. It’s an epic saga. It’s a beautiful love story and it weaves together ancient times with today.

A Good Listen
While I would argue that Stevie Wonder is the greatest music to listen to in virtually any situation, contextually, I think Marvin Gaye‘s What’s Goin’ On album is my favorite of all time. It was released in the late 60s on Motown and is the most ambitious of all Funk Brother’s arrangements. The themes of peace and forgiveness are both beautiful and empowering to any peaceful warrior. It’s an album that I can always listen to.
 
http://youtu.be/ph0aELhsQoc
 

A Good Drink
Intelligentsia coffee, man. Why are you saving ten bucks buying Trader Joe’s coffee when you could be living the high life with the good stuff. Just stop. You’re doing it wrong.

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WHOOP-Szo, Qallunaat/Odemin

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qallunaatodemin

Qallunaat/Odemin, the latest from WHOOP-Szo (this incarnation: Adam Sturgeon, Kirsten Palm, Gnathan and Starr Campagnaro), is a double album, recorded mostly in the village of Salluit, in the Québécois part of the Canadian Arctic, while Sturgeon and Palm were running a screen-printing program with Inuit youth.

The songs are, collectively, an odd but dazzling musical kaleidoscope. Here, you hold it, I’ll spin the wheel for you:
 
Amaruq (feat. Larry T) is the first song on Qallunaat, and is a low-fi pop song.
 

They’ve built their nests, in the chimneys of my heart; those swallows that you’ve lost is both the title and an appropriate summary of this delicate, sweet little song, also from Qallunaat:
 

Kirsten Time is the second song on Odemin and it is an eccentric, dreamy ambient delight limned with the perfect amount of distortion and fuzz.
 

And finally, Mirror North, the last song on Odemin which starts out – not boring, certainly, but – like the soothing routine of necessary tasks done against the background of snowscape – and ends in the unexpected cracking of the pack ice.
 

For the rest, stop by their bandcamp page.

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Wax Fang, The Astronaut

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Wax Fang - The Astronaut Cover

The Astronaut, by Wax Fang, is everything you would want from a space opera: lush, sweeping, majestic, a little bit mysterious, and, since it’s about a lone space traveler who gets separated from his vessel, sucked into a black hole, and made into an interstellar god, a little bit tragic, too.

After I had listened to it a couple of times, I had some questions for the band:

Why a space opera?

We wanted to do something big and bold, something experimental and transcendental that was in accord with our tastes in art and music. A metaphysical musical adventure set in the deep reaches of outer space just seemed like a perfect fit for us.

At first I thought the three singles [The Blonde Leading the Blonde, Hearts Are Made For Beating, King of The Kingdom of Man] were independent of the space opera, but after repeated listenings to both works, the singles now sound, to me, like they should be part of the space opera. Were they conceived separately, or in conjunction with the opera? Why were they released separately?

The singles were all written long before the idea of the Astronaut came to be and, as such, have little, if nothing, to do with one another, save that they all come from the same place, that is, us.

How, if at all, does Alpha Man fit into the narrative universe of the space opera?

In my mind, each of our songs is its own microcosm. Therefore, Alpha Man and the Astronaut inhabit separate universes (or alternate dimensions of the same universe, perhaps?). But who am I to tell you what to believe?

And with that, dear readers, here is The Astronaut, in its entirety, so that you may decide for yourselves: