Tag: video

One Comment

Big Black Delta: IFUCKINGLOVEYOU

  By

 

Here’s a good tune to take you into the weekend. And contrary to what you might initially pick out from the name of the group (and from this blog’s proclivities), this is not some bluesy moan. “IFUCKINGLOVEYOU” is a weighty, sharp-edged electro blast with a propelling, industrial beat.

 

IFUCKINGLOVEYOU from Big Black Delta on Vimeo.

 

Big Black Delta, a name which refers to a certain type of UFO, is led by former Mellowdrone member and sometimes M83 collaborator Jonathan Bates. The band will be touring this summer with M83 and Jane’s Addiction, and their full-length album is due in the fall.

 

JULY
4th Milwaukee Summerfest, Milwaukee, WI *

AUGUST
1st Electric Factory, Philadelphia PA ^
2nd Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead, Munhall PA ^
7th State Theater, Portland ME ^
8th Central Park Summerstage, New York NY ^
18th MGM Grand Theatre / Foxwoods, Mashantucket CT #
20th Artpark, Lewiston NY #
22nd Stage AE, Pittsburgh PA #
23rd Old National Centre – Murat Theatre, Indianapolis, IN #
25th Orpheum Theatre, Omaha NE #
26th Pikes Peak Centre, Colorado Springs CO #
28th The Great SaltAir, Salt Lake City UT #
29th Idaho Botanical Garden, Boise ID #
31st Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver BC #

SEPTEMBER
4th Keller Auditorium, Portland OR
5th Grand Sierra Resort & Casino, Reno NV

* With The Joy Formidable
^ With M83
# With Jane’s Addiction

 

Big Black Delta @ Facebook

Big Black Delta @ iTunes

 

4 Comments

White Arrows: Dry Land is Not A Myth

  By

This has been a fever-dream summer, in which I have been occasionally sleepless and sometimes adrift in a sea-fog of bleepy-bloopy fuzzy distorted electronic tones.

White Arrows are sometimes fuzzy and distorted too, but they also bring a certain amount of vibrant clarity to the proceedings – the sun burning off the fog, if you will.

They are the promises of wave-jumping, beach-lounging, Ferris Wheel riding, and eating terrible food on the boards at Coney Island that hover on my distant horizons.

A sampling of their sound, starting with Get Gone, from Dry Land is Not a Myth.

NOTE: This video uses strobe-y effects! Alternate visuals here.
 

White Arrows - Get Gone OFFICIAL VIDEO

 
Fireworks of the Sea, also strobe-y (alternate visuals: here):
White Arrows | Fireworks Of The Sea

 
And finally, not on the record but still pretty a great, a cover of Springsteen’s I’m on Fire:
 
http://youtu.be/r7zJHSQEKsU

7 Comments

Never Fake Desire: Bethany Weimers, Harpsichord Row

  By ,


Eagle and Girl painting © Annika Olesen

NTSIBers, please meet Bethany Weimers, of Oxford, England. Harpischord Row is her first record; on it, she balances folk and pop in interesting ways, and weaves complex stories through delicate melodies. Every time one of her songs floats up on shuffle I pause for a moment to greet her characters properly, as they are compelling people.

Here is a video for the title track:
 

 

And one for 30,000 Days, wherein the video picture is somewhat unusual – filmed by Improbable Blue, the YouTube notes indicate it was originally recorded both in silhouette and in darkness, so what you see here is a “salvage job” – but I like it, as an unintended special effect:
 

Bethany Weimers - 30000 Days

 
And two more I especially like. First, Silver Moon, which I love because the beat is dreamy and soothing, a slow Loreena McKennitt-style stomp and swirl, and the lyrics contain a bright ribbon of stubborn defiance: I will not be pushed around / I will not be sacrificed.
 

 
And second, To the Land, which is a beautiful, spare incantation of determination:
 

 

4 Comments

A Good Read, a Good Listen, and a Good Drink: Mudlow

  By ,

photo credit: Nhung Dang

 

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.

Much like my appreciation for Skip James, my interest in Mudlow was originally piqued not by their music, but by a photo of the band. The photo you see above, in fact – taken by Nhung Dang with a pinhole camera made from a biscuit tin. Anyone who has ever purchased a record by an artist they’ve never heard before based solely on the sleeve art knows that art/graphics/image can convey much about sound. When I saw this blurred, rough photo of a bunch of hard men, holding big knives and wearing spattered aprons, I knew they made music I had to hear.

And, well, not only can you sometimes judge a book by its cover, you can also occasionally judge a band by their press photo because I can now put a Mudlow album in the player and happily leave it there for days of repeated listening. The noir grit of their music sits perfectly in that spot where all my favorite music hits me, somewhere between the gut and the pelvis – music for fucking and fighting. All the Mudlow elements, from Trimble’s sinuous saxophone to Tobias’ one-more-whiskey vocals, combine to create a sound that nearly dislocates your jaw with a strong uppercut before confidently seducing you into bed… or vice versa.

The men of Mudlow have favored us with some great recommendations. If these aren’t men you’d like to raise a glass with… well then, I’ll just take your place at the bar.

 

“Zane Merite” – Mudlow

 

TOBIAS

Good Read:
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
Amid the staggering brutality and violence in this book I love the way ‘the kid’ keeps on surviving. The descriptive way in which McCarthy writes is epic beyond anything else I’ve read. Also it’s a western and who doesn’t love a western!

Good Listen:
Big Time – Tom Waits
This is like a ‘best-of’ from his most creative period. I think that the re-worked songs, recorded live with a full band (one hell of a band too) are better versions than most of the studio originals.

Good Drink:
Wild Turkey bourbon
It picks you up when you’re down and knocks you down when you’re up. Cheers!

 

MATT

Good Read:
Jolie Blon’s Bounce by James Lee Burke
I hadn’t read any James Lee Burke novels before this one, I picked it up at a second-hand store because I liked the cover. It’s the last book that I read more than once and it’s still my favourite of his.

Good Listen:
Burnside on Burnside – R.L. Burnside
For me, there’s two really great live albums that I listen to regularly (Tobias chose the other one) and R.L. Burnside tears me a new earhole every time I put this one on. Superb sound and a ferocious set from R.L., Kenny and Cedric. It begs to be played really LOUD every time.

Good Drink:
Brooklyn Lager
Ice cold and from the bottle, this is my new favourite lager, flavourful but not too sweet. (there may be a slight emotional bias…my girlfriend is from Brooklyn too!)

 

PAUL

Good Read:
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
This is my current read. A ‘true crime’ classic. Hmm… Seems like we choose books with rather dark themes, huh.

Good Listen:
The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground
I have way too many (ever-changing) musical ‘likes’ to choose just one but I re-visit this album more than most and it’s a good one to drink and read to.

Good Drink:
Metaxa
I regularly go on holiday to visit my Dad in Corfu and this sweet, Greek brandy is my drink of choice when I’m there.

 

TRIMBLE

Good Read:
The Life of Lee – Lee Evans (autobiography)
I tend to read factual stuff on the whole, so I don’t really have a favourite but this is what I’m reading at the minute and it’s pretty funny.

Good Listen:
Smell of Female – The Cramps
It’s EP length really but it’s the Cramps at their best, it always makes me want to go out for a good time, as a result this record has got me into a lot of trouble over the years!

Good Drink:
Tequila Sunrise
It’s a ‘boat drink’. The kind of drink that puts you somewhere better, somewhere with the sun on your face. I hardly ever drink it coz I never go on holiday and you wouldn’t ask for this in the kind of english pubs i go to.

 

“Evol” – Mudlow

 

Mudlow Official Website

Mudlow @ ReverbNation

Mudlow @ Google+

Mudlow @ Facebook

 

2 Comments

We See Lights: Hopeless at Maths

  By

Maths monsters! This explains everything.

Scottish trio We See Lights have returned to shoot sunshine into your earholes again. And your eyeholes! Here’s an enlightening video for us maths-challenged types, for the song “Hopeless at Maths” off We See Lights’ forthcoming album Bloody Twenties.

 

 

Want it? Get it.

 

Bloody Twenties is slated for release in the summer.

 

We See Lights Official Website

We See Lights @ Bandcamp

 

One Comment

A Tribe Called Red

  By

 

Got some worthy free music to start your weekend. A Tribe Called Red is a collective of Native DJs who mix samples, beats and pow wow music into something they have dubbed Pow Wow Step. When I first read about this, thanks to Rick Saunders, I wondered why I hadn’t heard about anyone doing this sooner.

I’ve been a fan of pow wow music since I first attended the Great Mohican Pow Wow (where they let white people in) in my early teens. The highlight of any day spent at the Pow Wow was going down to the ring to watch the dancers compete as the thumping drums and otherworldly vocals set their rhythm. Pow wow music is, essentially, dance music. It may be more ceremonial than the dancing you see in a club on a Saturday night… but, on the other hand, from a sociological viewpoint, maybe it’s all one in the same.

I was endeared to A Tribe Called Red as soon as I watched this video for “Electric Pow Wow Drum”, which includes clips from Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man.

 

 

How frigging wicked is that? And there’s a whole album, also titled Electric Pow Wow Drum, free to download below.

 

 

A Tribe Called Red Blog

A Tribe Called Red @ Soundcloud

A Tribe Called Red @ Facebook

 

No comments

The Wind-up Birds: Talking Back All the Time

  By

 

While we moan like owt then this good shop shuts
Well take the blame
No you don’t have the guts
While we moan like owt then a good shop shuts
We’d take the blame if we had the guts
For the money we never spent
The times we never went

This is how The Land, the first full-length album from Leeds, England-based band the Wind-up Birds, opens: with an indictment that blankets us all who have popped around to the nearest discount megastore in the name of convenience and saving a buck, then proceeded to moan about what a shame it is when a good locally-owned store is forced to close. You know right off that if The Land is going to leave you feeling anything, “comfortable” will not be among the emotional options.

The Wind-up Birds – named for Haruki Murakami’s novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – have been playing together for nearly a decade, and perhaps it’s best that they waited so long to get their first full album together because this is a strong showing. While the intense “There Won’t Always Be an England” is the immediate favorite for me, I’d hasten to point out the greatness of tracks like “Nostalgic for….”, “No People Just Cutouts”, the first single “Cross Country”, and so on.

 

 

Songs like “Good Shop Shuts” – quoted at the opening of this post – and “There Won’t Always Be an England” are written at a local level, they translate easily to American ears and can make you feel both better and worse that the problems in your backyard mirror problems in the backyards of people an ocean away, and that it’s not just you who is fed up to the back teeth with blind jingoism.

 

 

And behind the words, a musical frontline that many might mark as “post-punk” but the band have dubbed “noisy pop”, “cos in our heads we are making pop music, songs that people can sing and dance to, just a bit noisier.” But the emotional outcome is much closer to punk than ABBA, tattered and angry, and by no means mindless or bubblegum.

 

 

Everything about this album is compelling. Eat it up.

 

The Wind-up Birds Official Website

The Wind-up Birds @ Bandcamp

The Wind-up Birds @ Facebook

 

No comments

Receiver: Ian Curtis Wishlist

  By

Receiver is the debut album by Ian Curtis Wishlist, also known as Aaron Struble, of Springfield, Missouri. I found it while noodling around the internets looking for things to make my brain stop spinning while I made bar review flashcards (this will be a recurring theme in my life/posts until the end of July, just fyi) and I am here to tell you this is 1) deeply weird but also 2) really good.

I realize “he had me at hello” is a terrible cliche, but, well, he kind of did, or at least he had me at the first 30 seconds or so of Flutters, which you can watch the video for below. That beat is blunt. It’s arresting. It demands attention. I have sat through his record twice now, and the rest of it is equally compelling.

This video is less blunt, but I find that even though I’m kind of wondering what in the world is going on here, I don’t really need an explanation. I can enjoy it as a brief foray into WTAFville, which, much like Vitamin C, is something I feel one should have every day.
 

ian curtis wishlist - flutters

Video by Joshua Rogers of brokenmachinefilms.com
 

Another favorite from the record: emerald park i: awash in you
 

 
If you like it, Receiver is a free download at bandcamp, and there’s much more to be had at ICW’s Soundcloud. For example, this one which is called Flights, and is the work of both ICW and VΞRACOM:
 
VΞRACOM & ian curtis wishlist – FLIGHTS by ian curtis wishlist
 
And this one, which is called HWMY<3BHVS0.9 which I’m pretty sure translates to “How My Heart Behaves 0.9”:
 
HWMY<3BHVS0.9 by ian curtis wishlist

No comments

Late Night Listening: Fiona Apple, Every Single Night

  By ,

Or Late Night Viewing, I guess. Viewing and listening. This is the video for her new single, Every Single Night, from her new record The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, which will be out June 19.

All I’m going to tell you is she briefly wears an octopus as a hat, there are giant snails, and the power of her voice remains undimmed by time. Also, be sure to hang on to the end. The last frame is the best part.

 

Fiona Apple - Every Single Night