Fight Like Apes - 'Jake Summers'

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21st Century Bites: A Mix

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Side 1 - 20:24

1. Suicide - Televised Executions

2. Si Schroeder - Brailowsky (schroedersound remix)

3. Battles - Tonto (The Field Remix)

Side 2 - 33:28

4. Q and not U - Soft Pyramids

5. Dan Deacon - Wham City

6. Grails - Silk Rd

7. For Carnation - Moonbeams

21st Century Bites - download as two tracks ('21-1' and '21-2')

21st Century Bites - download as individual tracks (1-7)

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The idea for this mix came when I was watching the film Manhunter on TV a couple of nights ago, and decided I wanted to listen to some cool 80's electro pop. Since Betamax Format haven't released their EP yet, the nearest (and yes, not very near at all) thing I had to hand was Suicide's 2002 album, American Supreme. Anyway, the first track on that, 'Televised Executions', was the genesis for this selection.

The '21st Century' part of the title is a reference to the fact that all these songs were released within the last 8 years, with the earliest being the For Carnation in the year 2000. Musically, it's not that these artists necessarily sound very 'modern', and indeed most of them have their origins - whether in earlier releases or in previous groups - in the preceding century.

Broadly speaking, these songs are 'electro' in at least some sense, moving towards more usual post-rock with Grails and the For Carnation, although there is plenty that is unusual about those two groups. The first side is the more wholly electronic, with far more rock tropes in the sound of Q and not U and Grails. If you're looking for punk, it's either nowhere or everywhere...

(A technical note: I decided to try out the long mp3 form of josephlovesit's playlists, one for each side. If I do say so myself, I think it works very well for the first side in particular. Nothing special was done to them, except for a few sections of silence between tracks being removed - no cross-fading or whatever it is you are supposed to be actually able to do with Audacity. Both formats are available for download above, although if you want both be aware that the zip files - and the folder in them - have the same name.)

21-1/Side 1

Suicide's 'Televised Executions' from American Supreme starts off with a combination of thin drum sounds which are characteristic of Suicide's sound right from 1977, and hip-hop scratching, which isn't. On top of this, of course, are funky, repetitive keyboard lines and echoey rockabilly vocals. This is a fantastic album, not just for the consistency with which it matches the original 'no-wave' Suicide, but also for the incorporation of contemporary sounds (well, contemporary in 2002 - you should hear their 90s album; a little dated!). What I said when I first posted this album still stands, that "if you've ever wanted to hear hip-hop played like weird 70s electronica, this is very possibly the album for you".

An instantaneous moment of relief, Si Schroeder's 'Brailowsky' remix comes from a limited-edition 2006 7" of the same name, with paper sleeves and original artwork. Si Schroeder, as his Myspace describes him, is "a six foot hairy male who makes 'music'" from Dublin in Ireland. Previously, he was one half of a Sonic Youth/MBV style noise band, so you can kind of guess where he's coming from in this piece and in his idiosyncratic electronica in general. 'Brailwosky' is instrumental, although other songs have lyrics, all with a soothing, ethereal and above all beautiful quality of sound. Road Records say of his full-length album, Coping Mechanisms, "hats off to mr schroeder for doing something very new and inventive with laid back electronica. really really superb stuff". 'Brailowsky' (a reference to a 20th century French pianist) has a lot of the same, characteristic melodies and flourishes follow on into that album; a really nice song. I met him in person once - I should say that he is a relative of a friend - and he seems like a very nice guy too.

While 'Brailowsky' is very calming, I think it has a hard enough edge to stand up to the intensity of the preceding song and the following, The Field remix of Battles' Tonto, from the Tonto+ EP. The original song is an epic, expansive and at times very intricate and complex post-rock/math-rock tune, full of space and balance - something which is largely abandoned here, as the heavy remix track layers on the intense rhythms and compresses everything into a tight, claustrophobic sequence of sounds. I don't know anything at all about The Field, except that I think their style can be classified as house - correct me if I'm wrong - yet I find this remix immensely and almostly unreservedly enjoyable. The vinyl EP of Tonto+ has the album version followed by this remix on the first side, and the Four Tet remix of 'Tonto' and a further remix of 'Leyendecker' on the other, neither of which do much for me. This version of 'Tonto' - and if you aren't familiar with the original, you owe it to yourself to watch the video here - is a revelatory take on the Battles' track, and a celebratory one of musical intensity in a way - techno, house, whatever - that is quintessentially electronic.

21-2/Side 2

To bring this mix back to the - perhaps unlikely – haven of Dischord Records, this is the opening track of Q and Not U’s second album, Different Damage. ‘Soft Pyramids’ begins with a wonderful spoken word intro, “S-O-F/T-P-Y/R-A-M/I-D-S E-V-A/P-O-R/A-T-E in day-light”, and for that alone it is a quintessentially math-rock song. As Mr. Mammoth wrote last year, “q and not u disbanded two years ago, ending a seven year stint as one of the more relevant and original bands to emerge from the d.c. punk scene. though the term "dance-punk" is one often associated with q and not u, the unfortunate connotations and limitations of that genre really can't explain the band's rather unique post-hardcore sound”. Like him, the frantic, punky No Kill Beep Beep is my favourite of their albums, but given time, what Different Damage reveals in its subtlety and complexity more than matches up with the quality of their debut. With the band’s re-emergence as a three-piece (following the departure of the bassist on No Kill Beep Beep) on their sophomore release, “a more sober (yet just as disparaging) look at America”,

“the first two songs on Different Damage set the album's tone, the divide between ferocity and reflection - "soft pyramids" is almost tender, a sweet singalong that is starkly contrasted with its neighbor, the vitriolic "so many calls," a jittery and sneering attack on our broken healthcare system”

('yo, you remember how good q and not u was?')

Lyrically, I think this song has something to do with the ephemeral and supeficial nature of modern human civilization - appropriate for the mixtape then! Most of Q and not U's lyrics are very interesting, but also very distracting to try and understand. This tends to be the case with these kind of math-rock bands, like the current Foals. Really, it's just a reflection of complexity and cerebral twistiness in both words and music.

Trickling gently into the next song, it is Dan Deacon's utter masterpiece, 'Wham City', "the all-encompassing complexity of the perfect creation" which stretches to nigh on twelve minutes of sonically and emotionally confounding composition. It's awesome live; you can see the lyric sheet here. Listening to this song again reminds me that a Dan Deacon live show is not just a musical experience, but a deeply emotional one as well. It's strange, perhaps, because Deacon's songs are based so much on electronic - albeit analog - instrumentation, something I don't immediately associate so much with feeling. However, the flourishes, the slow build-ups and sustained, drawn-out electronic riffs on 'Wham City' are sincerely affecting. The incessant drumbeats only add an underlay of urgency to the epic soundscapes of emotion and ambition present on what is possibly this man's, or anybody else's like him, finest work.

Next up is the rhythmic, exotic post-rock of Grails on 'Silk Rd'. Grails are possibly the least electro of the artists here, although 'samples' and 'tapes' are listed on their liner notes. Instead, they bring a range of Eastern influences to pretty usual, guitar-based post-rock. GY!BE seems like both a good and a bad comparison: Grails play similarly rich, textured compositions in which, usually, a good deal more happens; but that which does happen is still quite subtle. The title 'Silk Rd' conveys the sense of a journey, and this is an especially propulsive song. Yes, it gets quite heavy at times, but in a melodic, cymbal-bashing kind of way and not with epic, labyrinthine guitar riffs. The sound, as josephlovesit notes, is largely clear and undistorted, allowing the strange and exotic sounds to come through. Blend77 says on Zen and the Art of Face Punching, where I was first hipped to this album, that

"The eastern feel of these songs is not hokey in anyway and goes a long way to legitimizing these songs as mantras for spiritual understanding. Yeah, that sounded like some new-age shit. Grails are not new-age. They are incredible-age."

Finally, turn your speakers up for one of the quietest albums I know of, released by musicians known for their work in ultra-quiet rock and in a genre known for the exact same thing. This is the For Carnation, Brian McMahan from Slint's later group, and the closing song from their self-titled album, 'Moonbeams'. This is the first time I have posted this up on the blog, although the first three tracks of the album were up previously (and will not be upped again - just go to the Touch and Go website for samples). As far as I know, this was released in 2000, so it just slips into the 21st century mix. The electronics are restrained to a shimmering, elliptical ambience which trails the sparse guitar and drums, and occasional, carefully placed keyboard bloops. The sensation of darkness pervades this record, as a thematic of each song and as a backdrop for slowly unfolding post-rock structures. Gentle and delicate, yet masking a hard core of brooding, neurotic intensity. Powerful stuff.

New Vinyl Photography and Friday Videos: Crystal Castles, Fight Like Apes, Foals & Radiohead; Skins & SXSW

(Click to enlarge - and to test your knowledge of Dischord/No Idea/etc release numbers!)

First of all, hope you like the new header (above, top). I'd been thinking of changing it for some time, especially since the mp3 player in the original (and the headphone cable, but not the headphones) had given up on me. You might recognise the current picture from the Double Slowcore Post; it's a record stylus in action, shot from a slightly odd angle. It fits the slightly different direction this blog has been going in lately.

The picture immediately above - the sum total of my LPs as of 04/04 - is the genesis for a third header. I might come up with one or two more, and maybe rotate them on a weekly basis...

However, no vinyl is involved in this post; it's all hip, up-and-coming indie-ish bands, shown mostly through the medium of low- and medium-quality video:

Crystal Castles on Skins:

I've heard a good deal of buzz about this band, particularly surrounding their outing at this year's SXSW. Apparently the singer was flailing around the stage only days after she had a few ribs bruised (or cracked, I can't remember) in a car accident. I haven't heard much, but I like their sound and I'm encouraged to seek out more; kind of like a collision between the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O and the loopy beats of Dan Deacon (oh, but I've used that comparison before - see below) with a good dollop of Suicide thrown in. Here's their appearance in a scene from Skin, "the new-rave OC" according to UnaRocks". Pretty rockin':

Fight Like Apes at SXSW:

Yep, back to being parochial again. This excellent Dublin band first garnered my - quite shallow - Dan Deacon/Yeah Yeah Yeahs comparison (prologue to Fuck This Band: Mclusky Singles) and fit more generically somewhere between "obnoxious pop" and punk. I haven't heard much about their trip to SXSW, but a few Irish journalists who went said they put on a very good show - for documentary evidence, here's a couple of videos from YouTube (also found via UnaRocks). Fairly decent sound quality, too. I'll be seeing them for just the third time when they hit the UCD Student Bar this coming week, and then hopefully for a fourth when they play the Village with Future of the Left next Sunday:

Foals - 'Hummer', Skins Secret Party Episode:

A video I've been meaning to post for a while, in particular following this post on 'Cassius'. The scene comes from a special mini-episode of Skins which was broadcast shortly before the start of the second season. Basically, the group find a small abandoned mansion in a forest and put on an impromptu rave with, er, Foals providing the music. Mucho hedonism.

You can watch the full 10-minute episode on YouTube here.

Holy Fuck - Radiohead 'Nude' Remix:

Finally, the song used for the recent Skins trailer, Radiohead's 'Nude', has been offered for remix for the band (BBC story). I came across - via Thrill Pier - a Holy Fuck remix today, which sounds pretty good - you can download it from Fileden here. This is the original trailer which I posted previously:

Eighty-Four: Bob Mould - 'The Silence Between Us'

- post #84

I missed the chance to do anything particularly special for '76 or '77 (the latter was My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, ?) which is a bit of a shame considering what kind of a blog this is.

Of course, '84 as in 1984 has its significance in a literal sense (Orwell) and I could work in the awesomeness of the eponymous Californian montage artist Winston Smith, and post some Dead Kennedys or Green Day's Insomniac. (Hey, that sounds like a pretty good idea - unfortunately, it's not on the schedule) However, 84 is quite significant in music terms as - to pick one example -the year of Husker Du's double album Zen Arcade. This isn't anywhere near as good as that, but it's pretty good nonetheless, and it is Bob Mould.

To borrow a non sequitur from the Clash:

eighty four... four... four...

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"There were trails of fallen trees,

deciduous and [?]

the lowland birds and crickets roared, the final sounds of fall

along the banks of the river we approached the footbridge

entering the wilderness, following my footsteps..."

I really like this stage-quiet pastoral intro to 'The Silence Between Us'; and then, it's the point at which - pretty much - the big Sugar guitars kick in. It's a good, short and loud pop song although at least one person thinks we should be asking for more:

"If this track came from any other artist, people would dismiss it as the hacky, watered-down Foo Fighters bite it really is. Quicker than you can say Candy Apple Grey. But because it is “Bob Mould,” critics and fans seem to be hailing this twaddle as the Hüsker Düde’s comeback to his guitar-rock roots. In truth, “The Silence Between Us” hardly holds a votive to anything Mould has accomplished in his 20-odd-year career. Perhaps this tragic turn into Daughtry-esque tribal tattoo rock is the residual fallout of from hearing ring-entrance music during his tenure as a WCW scriptwriter a few years back. Hey, at the very least, this tune could make a great theme for the Batista montage!"

(Paper Thin Walls: Single Review; with a response from I Rock Cleveland)

Bob Mould - 'The Silence Between Us' (vinyl rip)

Bob Mould on eMusic

The b-side is a live version of 'If I Can't Change Your Mind'.

Read all about District Line on the ANTI- Records website

The Black Keys - Attack & Release, Chulahoma

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If you're a regular to this blog, you might have read this post from earlier in the year: (in which, I-VII, gabbagabbahey attempts to write about the blues). If not, I warn you it might be a bit experimental, but it is the previous and only piece that I have written so far about the awesomeness that is the Black Keys, and sets the context for this post.

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Attack & Release (2008):

I literally found out about this less than a week ago. A new Black Keys album! And it's really good! And it comes in a gatefold LP!

Attack & Release is the out-there blues-rock duo's fifth full album. Without putting forward too much of an opinion about the last two albums (Magic Potion and Rubber Factory) because to be honest I don't know them all well, the Black Keys might be considered due a return to form. The thick, heavy rhythms of their debut, The Big Come Up, or the equally thick, viscous ferocity of its follow-up (and my favourite) Thickfreakness, beckon.

However, Attack & Release throws a curveball in that regard. Mostly because, in effect, they've added a third member in the form of extra-famous producer Danger Mouse. When you have a band based on two performers - although the size and volume of their sound, as is so often the case, belie those limitations - adding further sounds is naturally going to do big things. The result on Attack & Release is a Black Keys album which not only has the mesmerising guitar and drums of their previous - and their very best - releases, but also unwinds it in a whole different sonic space.

Attack & Release has soul; soul in a whole different way. Whereas Thickfreakness and its lieutenant, The Big Come Up, relied on Patrick Carney's "patented recording technique" "medium fidelity", Attack & Release - "recorded by Paul Hamann on the recording console that he and his father built together in 1973" - occupies much of the same sonic space but fills out the corners with matured, modern and above all subtle textures. The grit still shines through.

Today, the AV Club's Steven Hyden gave the album a lukewarm B- in his review. But his analysis - if not his enthusiasm - is not misplaced. The pertinent section is as follows:

"So what does a Danger Mouse and Black Keys collaboration sound like? At its best, it sounds like "Psychotic Girl," which pares the band's usual riff-heavy bluster down to a slinky guitar, sleepy drums, and Dan Auerbach's lustful moaning, and lays it on a bed of disembodied voices and psychedelic banjo plunking. Here, Danger Mouse helps deconstruct and reassemble The Black Keys into something fresher than the sum of their overly familiar parts. Attack & Release falters on the rockers, which sound like the same old Keys, for better or worse"

The A.V. Club: The Black Keys

Attack & Release is an entrancing album; it has a veneer of sounds - pianos, banjos, harmony voices, allegedly (I read somewhere) a theremin - which also seep, like a decidely non-viscuous fluid, deep into the stripped-down rock of the band. Whether, outside of these astounding production values, the Black Key's traditional sound is any better than usual, I'm not sure. I'm not sure it's entirely important either.

The Black Keys have returned to form, as an out-there blues band taking their music in powerful new directions. Compared to Thickfreakness, their aggression is much lessened (though the layered production absents itself from the searing minimalism of, say, 'I Cry Alone') while the emotion is relatively muted, if no less tense. Attack & Release is a fine album, the finest I've heard from this band in a while.

The Black Keys - myspace ('Strange Times' and 'Lies' from the current release)

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Chulahoma (2006):

In the - for me - barren period surrounding Rubber Factory and Magic Potion, this was the album (technically, an EP) that kept my faith in the Black Keys. Don't get me wrong, Rubber Factory has some great songs, but it didn't make me feel anything in the way the Thickfreakness did. Chulahoma - a collection of six songs originally by the fellow Fat Possum bluesman Junior Kimbrough - however, was sublime and intense in its quality, and in a way that I've rarely heard from any other record. Except perhaps Spiderland.

Chulahoma makes a psychedelic blues counterpart to the ethereal blues of Attack & Release. Six songs, some quite long, taking you some seriously good, 'pure' guitar blues. If you like the stripped-down minimalism of a lot of post-rock stuff, like Slint or Human Bell, this might be recommended. Basically, it rocks.

It was by accident I saw the vinyl of this - I was looking for somewhere selling Attack & Release that wasn't HMV for €21.99 - there wasn't - and this was pure serendipity.

The cover, a psychedelic painting of a gun, you can see in a slightly garish version on the original post, comes unadorned with writing and on soft matte card. Inside, the paper sleeve is covered in a grayscale pattern: grey and cream, it looks somehow like something from 1930s Down South, like something from the world of Carnivale, and likewise the record labels themselves, with the curls of the Black Keys logo and the surrounding rims.

The notes contain the same recollection by Dan Auerbach of first hearing Junior Kimbrough's music as I posted before but continues:

"Well, I'm a musician now. It says so on my passport. Though it's gotta be more than just that. I feel like a man blessed with some sort of mind and heart connection to the vibrations I find in the music I love. Junior allowed me to feel that way, to open that once hidden doorway. My family had steered me in the right direction and pushed me when I needed it but the walls came tumbling down when I locked into Junior's groove. I'll be forever grateful, forever in awe, and forever indebted to Junior Kimbrough. Someday, I'm gonna meet him in the city and I'll shake his hand and maybe he'll play a few songs for me."

-Dan Auerbach

David "Junior" Kimbrough was born in 1927 in Hudsonville Mississippi. He worked at the John Deere dealership in Holly Springs for 18 years. On weekends he played guitar and ran "Junior's", his club. Unfortunately, Junior had died before Dan Auerbach could make the journey. "Junior's" burned to the ground, but his music and his 36 children are still thriving.

If you want to hear from the man himself check out:

Meet Me In The City

The Black Keys - Chulahoma

Chulahoma on eMusic