Rolling waves of white noise, feedback, and even mic noise wash over the clarion singing and drone-based ambience of Caldera Lakes (Eva Aguila and Brittany Gould) on their “arranged” cassette (out now on Ecstatic Peace). In the midst of this deliberately lo-fi and noise distressed ambience lies a primeval aesthetic that contrasts clangorous stabs, bleary utterances, and muscular cries with delicate arpeggios and strummed guitars.
While getting ahold of these limited run artifacts is great fun – a scavenger hunt for adventurous music listeners (I found mine on a recent visit to one of my favorite haunts Downtown in NYC: Other Music) – it’s a pity that this release hasn’t gained wider currency – as yet! The band, like so many others, is going to SXSWthis year. One hopes that they bring a bunch of their tapes, CDRs, and other releases along (may they need runs >100!), and that the resultant buzz yields anything but lo-fi results for their careers.
One of our favorite out indie songstresses, Julianna Barwick, guests on An Album By Korallreven, (out now on Acéphale), the debut LP of Swedish electronica duo Korallreven. Marcus Joons and Daniel Tjäder (of The Radio Dept) incorporate Barwick’s soaring layered vocals alongside droning guitars, synth brass stabs, and chanting refrains, all mixed over a bed of warm keyboard pads and acidic drum beats. Hear the single below as an embed via Soundcloud. The band is promoting the CD with their first US tour dates (below).
You can also hear Julianna’s new song “Never Change” via Soundcloud (courtesy of Asthmatic Kitty).
Korallreven Live in Concert
3/4 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
3/5 – Washington DC – Black Cat
3/6 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
3/7 – San Francisco, CA – Independent*
3/8 – Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex*
In 2011, William Fitzsimmons released a sleeper, but one with staying power on Nettwerk.Gold in the Shadow is an incandescent recording that should have been on many more year-end lists as a noteworthy entry in the indie folk category. Noisetrade is offering a free Fitzsimmons sampler (say that three times fast!). Embed is below.
Everyone’s favorite indie chanteuse and harpist Joanna Newsom performs on Austin City Limits this Saturday (1/21). Check your local PBS station’s listings for airing time. But in the meanwhile, you can enjoy a teaser video from Joanna’s performance below.
Gamma Graves is a prime example of the kind of release that has helped to fuel the cassette resurgence on the indie/experimental music scene. Produced by a variety of sources, from bedroom DIY collectives and small tape-only labels to established imprints like Ecstatic Peace, the audio cassette format, long thought extinct, is back. Tapes have been unassumingly encroaching their way onto the shelves of connoisseur collectors and music critics (no less than Steve Smith is a devotee): even record sellers such as Insound and Other Music have made room for them again.
The Brooklyn triumvirate of synthesizer performers Nathan Cearley and Erica Bradbury and prepared guitarist Casey Block comprise Long Distance Poison. Armed with vintage gear by Moog, Arp, and Roland, they create experimental soundscapes with a sense of history, referencing everyone from David Borden and early Philip Glass to Keith Rowe, Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda, and Derek Bailey. Drone-based foundations are overlaid with coruscating ostinato loops and distressed with pointed interjections.
Gamma Graves is the type of music that would have been just fine to distribute digitally (or via CD). Indeed, some purists might argue that cassette is an inherently inferior audio format to hi-res digital played through good equipment (by no means do most consumers play their MP3s through good equipment). So, why do I like having it on cassette? I find the noise imparted by tape and deck to do no harm to this music: in fact, it adds another, subtle, layer of drones to the proceedings that is consonant with the musical intentions of the work.
The tape as artifact yields something important too. Limited runs of handmade cassettes are often lovingly attired with artwork more expansive and, obviously, more tangible than any JPEG can provide. They are a reminder of a bygone era in which the physical release WAS the release, in which tape-trading and digging in bins for rarities was a hobby to enthusiastically pursue: not something simulated in online forums and furtively grasped at brick and mortar outposts now few and far between. Long Distance Poison (and Ecstatic Peace) acknowledge their debt to history not only via musical reference points, but through the resonances found in a cassette as relic and artwork. Try finding all that in a computer file.
After finishing school, New England Conservatory of Music graduates find all sorts of ways to collaborate together: orchestras, recording sessions, chamber music, etc. Members of the indie band Cuddle Magicmet while studying at NEC. They’ve taken the classical chops they honed in Boston and brought them into a hybridized chamber pop scenario that owes as much of a debt to Steve Reich and Moondog as it does to Beirut and Animal Collective.
Now based in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Cuddle Magic is preparing Info Nympho, its third CD, for release on FYO Records. It combines classical instrumentation with a penchant for 80s keyboards (including the vintage Casio seen in the video below), whimsical toy instruments, and honey-sweet vocal harmonies.
Much of this is captured in the close-miked immediacy of apartment recording. But the band has also been recording at Old Soul Studio in the Catskills, enlisting the help of toy pianist extraordinaire Phyllis Chen (video below). They also guested on Chen’s recent Uncaged Toy Piano Festival. Both Chen and Cuddle Magic are able to re-purpose unorthodox materials to create music that employs a light touch, but is never lightweight.
Courtesy of the band, here’s a free download of album track Moby Dickless.
In the first evidence of what will purportedly be an ongoing collaboration in 2012, David Lynch has remixed the Zola Jesus track “In Your Nature” (Soundcloud stream below). The song first appeared on ZJ’s 2011 LP Conatus.
Feb 16 Washington, DC – U Street Music Hall [w/ Talk Normal]
Feb 17 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer [w/ Talk Normal]
Feb 18 New York City, NY – Webster Hall [w/Liturgy, Talk Normal]
Feb 20 Cincinatti, OH- Contemporary Arts Center
Feb 21 Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall [w/Chris Connelly, Talk Normal]
Feb 22 Grinnell, IA – Grinnell College [w/ Talk Normal]
Feb 23 St. Louis, MO – Luminary Arts [w/ Talk Normal]
Feb 24 Lawrence, KS – Granada [w/ Talk Normal]
Feb 25 Denver, CO - Larmier Lounge [w/ Talk Normal]
Feb 27 Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge [w/ Talk Normal]
Mar 01 San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall [w/Wymond Miles, Talk Normal]
Mar 02 Los Angeles, CA – Natural History Museum [w/EMA]
Mar 03 San Diego, CA – Casbah [w/ Talk Normal]
Last night, Sharon Van Etten played the song “Serpents” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (video below), debuting a new band featuring a guest appearance by Aaron Dessner (the National). The song is from Van Etten’s forthcoming 3rd LP, Tramp, which is slated for release on 2/7/12 via Jagjaguwar. It’s also been released as a single b/w non-album track “Mike McDermott.”
The performance featured a more amplified sound palette than her previous work, adding tinges of indie rock to Van Etten’s alt-folk style, with the songwriter inhabiting a bolder demeanor fronting the proceedings. Add the key ingredient of stardom’s formula – a memorable lead-off single like “Serpents” – andTramp appears poised to be Van Etten’s breakout release. Congratulations on a very successful network TV debut!
One of our favorite indie-folk songstresses, Sharon Van Etten, performs tonight (1/5/12) on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Sharon recently announced that her forthcoming record,Tramp, will be released on 2/7 viaJagjaguwar.
Hear and download “Serpents,” a track from the album, on the label’s website.
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