YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN

Pitchfork describes YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN as “psych-opera.” Press point yarn. This is not psych-opera, dudes; at least, not in musical style. When in consideration of YT//ST, one is inundated with hype terminology — including the band’s calling themselves “Noh(能)-Wave” (aka Traditional-Japanese-Dance-Theatre-Wave) and even more obnoxiously, “hyper-orientalist.”

While I am all for incorporating multicultural influences into one’s music, there is a degree of intense Asian fetishism present in YT//ST’s schtick that translates to their image in an arguably trite way. “Queens,” “Reverse Crystal // Murder of a Spider,” and “Hoshi Neko” from their new record certainly have moments of genre-crossing excellence. I don’t want to take away from that. But the music itself is not really opera, barely psychedelic, and definitely not hyper-orientalist, save for the use of the Japanese language. The genres that are crossed are more steeped in noise, metal, and pop; the hyper-orientalism plays out in facepaint (presumably in honor of Asian opera), music videos that seem a bit “tokidoki”, and pop art paper sculpture sets.

YT//ST call themselves a multi-disciplinary art collective, and they incorporate illustration and installation art into their performances. Fantastic! The way of the future! I admire their impetus! But what is it about Japanese and Asian culture that makes such emulation and fetishism culturally acceptable? While it is true that the two main ladies behind the project are themselves of mixed Asian heritage, at what point is it genuine, and at what point kitsch? These are just some things to contemplate while you decide yourself, via album stream and live performance video, below.
See an interesting discussion with PRINCE RAMA bout the topic of genuine versus kitsch HERE.

Swahili Blonde

Swahili Blonde also incorporate different multiple genres to break new musical territory. But at least their comparison points are actually rooted in discernible influences rather than just ridiculous buzz words. Yes — in Swahili Blonde you can hear evidence of the “unconventional dubby art-rock,” “Caribbean influences,” and “angular funk” of which they speak. And hell, though they didn’t use the description of “psych-opera,” I hear it more in their music and see it more in their visuals than in YT//ST’s. Their record, Psycho Tropical Ballet Pink, came out late last year, and the tracks “Etoile De Mer” and “Purple Ink” are great examples of genuine experimental groovy weirdness, not just emulation and fetishism. Stream the entire record below.

Directed by Burke Roberts.

Father Murphy

How cliche of an Italian band to take all of the meditative qualities of Catholic priestly chants and incorporate them into their craft! Comprised of vocalist and guitarist Reverend Fredie (of course), vocalist, keyboardist, and percussionist Chiara Lee, and vocalist, drummer, and string instrument wielder Vitorio De Marin, Father Murphy supposedly now have their most accessible record, to date, but they’re still channeling some transcendental black metal is-ness here. Anyway, your children will deny it comes out March 13th on Aagoo Records, and was recorded and mixed by Greg Saunier of Deerhoof. Have no doubt that it will leave you wondering just what your children will be denying. May / June Tour 2012 with Xiu Xiu & Dirty Beaches to be announced soon, as well as a split 7″ picture disc with Xiu Xiu!

Anyway, your children will deny it TRACKLISTING
1. How we ended up with feelings of guilt
2. His face showed no distortions
3. It is funny it is rest both came quickly
4. Digging the bottom of the hollow
5. In praise of our doubts
6. Their consciousness
7. In the flood with the flood
8. Don’t let yourself be hurt

Henetration

I have absolutely no idea where Hanetration is coming from with his moniker (I keep tragically typing it as Henetration, bringing to mind unnecessary filths), but his music certainly fits the goal of Spectral Hypnosis. For one thing, I completely forgot what I was listening to when the extended drones of “Rufus” started wailing, and I am finding myself repeatedly forgetting as I am writing this. This is transportive music, to be buried beneath ground with your secrets, where they will fester while being eaten alive by glitchy bugs. Tenth Oar EP is not nearly as dark as it sounds, though; it’s actually transportive, freeing, unassuming. And best of all: available for free download. (What am I doing?)

Tomat

Italians, again! Tomat is the solo project of Italy’s Davide Tomat. Dream and drone hold hands on his conceptual release, out March 5th on Monotreme Records. The conceptual backing is a fascinating one. In this technological day and age, it’s always nice to see when experimental artists are actually experimental in their creation process, as well as in their sound. Enjoy two tracks below, along with a brief summary from Tomat:

“This record came to life in 6 days from the 1st to the 6th of June 2010.

Each song is matched to an historical event that happened between the 1st and the 6th of June during human history.
I did a solo real time improvisation session for 6 days in my studio, recording each session in multi-track recordings, using only my voice, an analog monophonic sythesizer and a guitar through effects, loopers, computer and samplers, creating layers over layers of voices, sythesizers and guitar. No over dubs.

After 6 days of improvisation and 7 hours of music, on the 7th of June I started listening to all the music, isolating different tracks…at the end I had 36 different tracks.

I thought about the idea that something that had happened in these 6 days in human history may have inspired me while I was putting out this music and these emotions.

So I did some research about the events that happened in the past between the 1st and the 6th of June and I matched each track to a different event. I tried to mach things and emotions that could be compatible, emotions that somehow inspired me in creating this music.

I isolated 21 tracks to work on and then after some edits I mixed 11 songs and I mastered them on the 7th of September 2011.

This record is made 90% by vocals and 10% by an analog monofonic sythesizer and a guitar. It’s a drony experimental record that evokes sonic landscapes.

Wooden Shjips

If you weren’t convinced that about everyone ever is jumping on the remix bandwagon, we now have psych rock staples Wooden Shjips growing a third dance eye. Remixes, out February 21st, 2012, on Thrill Jockey Records, is a 28-minute 12″ EP featuring three remixes: “Crossing” from Andrew Weatherall, “Wiking Stew” from Sonic Boom (Pete Kember of Spacemen 3) and “Ursus Maritimus” from Kandodo (Simon Price of The Heads) w/ Ripley. Available now for pre-order on limited crystal clear vinyl with black streaks, and this shit is going to be good.

REMIX

ORIGINAL

Young Magic – “Night In The Ocean” (S.Maharba Serpent Love Song Remix)

We’ve been diggin’ on the new Young Magic record, Melt, with a palpable degree of excitement (you can stream the whole record here). These dudes really know how to market. First they dropped a bunch of EPs; then they dropped an album and a bunch of remixes — with each building momentum, each creating a bigger snowball that will ultimately go down as some Young Magic legacy, probably.

REMIX

ORIGINAL

Martin Denny – “The Enchanted Sea” (Young Magic Remix)

As a related added bonus: here is a Martin Denny’s “The Enchanted Sea,” which will lull you into some crazy mystic water raft. Always a treat when indie musicians can remix from largely untapped sources. Awash in blissful sound, ye! Avast!

REMIX

ORIGINAL

Blondes

On February 7th, Blondes released their latest double LP (appropriately titled BLONDES 2XCD) on RVNG Intl. It’s killer, and seems to be a next step in blurring the ridiculously segmented worlds of indie electronic music and club electronic music. Other remixes include “Pleasure,” remixed by Robert Miles (yes! Robert Miles! though this is available only as a digital exclusive), “Gold,” remixed by Laurel Halo, and “Business,” remixed by John Roberts. Amongst others.

REMIX

Teengirl Fantasy’s remix of “Wine” from the Blondes self-titled album remixes (RVNGNL12).

ORIGINAL

Whitney Houston – “How Will I Know” (Chromeo Remix)

In honor of the fallen lady of R&B, Chromeo have put together a new version of “When The Night Knows,” treated up in the usual Chromeo ’80s way. For max comparison, we’ve included an A Capella version of the track, as well as a music video from the 1991 track, so you can see Whitney at the height of her game.

A CAPELLA VERSION

ORIGINAL

Stuart Howard, or better known as Essex’s Lapalux, has been refining and experimenting with electronic music for quite some time now, and he’s no stranger to diverse and fringe technological music — which is both a blessing and a curse on When You’re Gone.

It’s strange trying to critique this album as a whole package, as various listens reveal little in the way of a single theme or identity. While one track bounces around between R&B and hip-hop, the next song which might be drum n’ bass or glitch house. As singles — as a track and not a package — Lapalux has done some of his best work on When You’re Gone, but trying to convince anybody that the album is a coherent work is nearly impossible. The album’s opening track, “102 Hours of Introductions,” begins as an ambient and pleasing, rain drop-sampling song before quickly shifting into a more beat-driven piece. It goes from Air to Shabazz Palaces at the drop of a hat, for better or worse. There are more traditional, vocal driven tracks as well. “Moments” features the voice of PY and boarders on an electropop sort of vibe, certainly the most immediately approachable song on the album. Even between those first two tracks on the album, it’s obvious that Howard’s influences are wide spread. Listen to “Gone” and you’ll hear everything from goth to Balearic, a strange but well-executed mix.

Listen to Lapalux’s “Gutter Glitter” – DOWNLOAD MP3

“Yellow 90′s” is far and away the album’s most brilliant moment, a soft but sharp electronic soundscape. For the first, and nearly the only time on When You’re Gone, Howard is onto something completely original. While it continues to drift in and out of different genres, the way in which “Yellow 90′s” uses filtering and sample pitching to juxtapose the sunny backdrop of piano keys and glistening synths is nothing short brilliant and catchy. Howard tries many times to capture this same sort of nonsensical rhythm, but most tracks fall flat or are too transparent to be taken seriously. Not only is Lapalux experimenting with different genres on the album, but it appears as though he’s still experimenting with what he wants to accomplish with his music. Howard is an incredible producer and every track is executed well, almost meticulously so. But very few of those tracks stand out, and as a whole, they paint a blurry and unfinished picture. The future is bright for Lapalux, as the project can basically be taken in any direction possible, but I can’t help from wishing When You’re Gone was the moment Howard decided to focus his efforts.

Guitarist and songwriter for The Fresh & Onlys, Wymond Miles, has just released his first solo effort on Sacred Bones, entitled Earth Has Doors. In just twenty minutes, the visually-evocative four-track EP seems to progressively journey through vast territories of earth and space.

Side A, with the tracks “Hidden Things Are Asking You To Find Them” and “Temples Of Magick,” begins slowly in folk-psych fashion, as though Pink Floyd have picked up a cowboy crooner, with whom they are now ambling through the desert. The cowboy gradually finds his role by lethargically using his tools — simple compositions of guitar and drum — and spurs his steed along with an occasional bluesy twang. As the end of “Hidden Things Are Asking You To Find Them” nears, the cowboy has located himself, as evinced by his hooting and hollering and sudden embrace of instrumental crescendos and vocal swells. “Temples Of Magick” likewise follows with wolf-like howls of noise, and heavy drums and rim shots translate visually as the cowboy bursts through saloon doors with shotgun barrels smoking. He is newly confident, panting and practically free associating as a verbal and lyrical free being. What had begun as an unsure stumbling through parched lands has reached town with an energetic bang.

Side B seems to start back at zero, to tell a new tale situated far from the desert, cowboys, folk, or psych. Listeners are greeted with a viola and classical instrumentation on “As The Orchard Is With The Rain,” a wordless post-rock track that is the most gentle offering of the four. Hints of spacial noise creep in here and there, subtly tying it into the next track, “Earth Has Doors, Let Them Open.” Whereas Side A was like growth upon earthly ground, Side B is like the promise of celestial exploration, beginning with simple organisms curious about what lies beyond the Earth’s surface and ending with full-fledged take-off. The cascading drum patterns, whirring tape delays, and sci-fi synths of “Earth Has Doors, Let Them Open,” makes it easily the most compelling track on the album — a fully-formed and dramatic idea that feels as though it is constantly traveling with forward momentum.

Recorded in Miles’ home studio on 8-track, Earth Has Doors is particularly fascinating in that it somewhat parallels Miles’ life interests. The EP comes after Miles has received his college degree in Humanities — “with an emphasis on the philosophical implications of the ecological/economic crisis of our times,” according to the press release — and you hear simplicity grow into complexity time and time again on the album, perhaps akin to the growing complexity of ecological and economic issues. Yet Earth Has Doors gives a listener hope; it leaves one unable to wait to explore the great unknown with Miles, and to nod “yes” to opening the doors of Earth and the stars, which lead to who knows where.

Orcas – Orcas

Two Pacific Northwest musicians — electronic-minded singer-songwriter Benoit Pioulard and minimal composer Rafael Anton Irisarri (of The Sight Below) — have gotten together for the aptly-named Orcas. Their upcoming self-titled album is a beauty, full of ambient space as well as structural mastery. Expect more from us from this release, because it is beautiful. Out April 24th, 2012, on Iceland’s Morr Music.

And if this teaser track below is not enough to satisfy your cravings for good music, check out this mix the two put together for Self-Titled Mag, which features such musicians as The Durutti Column, Fennesz, The Zombies, Cocteau Twins, and Broadcast, along with the reasons the two chose those songs.

ORCAS TRACKLISTING
1. Pallor Cedes
2. Arrow Drawn
3. Standard Error
4. Carrion
5. A Subtle Escape
6. Until Then
7. Certain Abstractions
8. I Saw My Echo
9. High Fences

CFCF – Exercises

With his latest album, Exercises, Montreal-based DJ and electronic artist CFCF goes two-fold, simultaneously embracing analog and digital sounds with equal measure, through inwards and outwards-flowing cascades of keys. This series of ‘exercises” are like warm-up lessons that pull influence from Philip Glass, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and David Borden, amongst others — but the tracks, which sound initially simplistic, build progressively into full-fledged compositions. Exercises feels like a more muted counterpart to CFCF’s 2009 debut, Continent, solifidying CFCF as one of few DJ’s and artists that treads the line equally between the indie-electronic and the club-electronic.

Exercises will be released on April 24th via Paper Bag Records, and we are sure to cover it a few times more.

Listen to “Exercise #3 (Building)” below.

EXERCISES TRACKLISTING
Exercise #1 (Entry)
Exercise #2 (School)
Exercise #3 (Building)
Exercise #4 (Spirit)
Exercise #5 (September)
Exercise #6 (December)
Exercise #7 (Loss)
Exercise #8 (Change)

Jogging House – Relations

Relations is the new EP from Frankfurt’s Jogging House, available for free download on their Bandcamp! Inspired by ’80s vocal pop artists like Cindi Lauper, Prince, and Michael Jackson, songwriter Boris Potschubay wanted to make a slowed-down resemblance of a traditional pop act. Calling his style “lo-fi R&B,” Potschubay has made a series of pop songs that fall somewhere between liquid drum n’ bass and indie R&B from How To Dress Well’s world.

Potschubay describes the themes of his music, saying:

The lyrics in my jams don’t make any sense at all, but if you listen to them for a while they sound like they would. I played them like instruments and tried to make them sound like vague and distant love cries. In the end, those lyrics mean what you hear in them… it’s nothing about me personally but it’s a theme everybody can relate to. And that’s what makes something pop, I guess.

The Dø – “Tightrope” (Janelle Monaé Cover)

Janelle Monaé is one charming lady, and her music for “Tightrope” is the type of spectacle one can watch and re-watch and hardly tire of. French-Finnish duo The Dø have decided to take a stab at slowing down the R&B dance track and adding a sultry lethargic bluesyness to it. While The Dø’s version certainly lacks the immediacy of Monaé’s, there are times when one desires to chill rather than bust ass, and their cover is a suitable go-to for such times.

BRAINSTORM – Mdou Moctar Covers (Music From Saharan Cellphones)

Portland pop band BRAINSTORM have recently covered two tracks from Nigerian musician Mdou Moctar. To ensure as close of a sonic match as possible, drummer and vocalist Adam Baz romanized the original lyrics and new English-language lyrics were created with the intention of maintaining the original flow and cadence of the song.

Moctar’s songs were first brought to the band’s attention by Sahel Sounds, a blog that releases West African music captured via cellphone SIM cards. This form of data transfer is one of the most popular and economically-sound options in an area where access to computers is limited. Below, you can listen to both BRAINSTORM’s covers and Moctar’s originals.

Lucky Dragons

The back-and-forth ebb-and-flow found in this track, “Existers,” found in all layers and all elements, compresses and decompresses like winds and waves, like sand and fog. It swirls around your head like a musical tornado slowly engulfing your mind and sneaking its way in… but in the most tranquil, most peaceful of ways. It feels a bit Buddhist and thoughtfully, quietly disengaged, and the description below, about the forthcoming LP, Existers, seems to fall in line with that interpretation.

ABOUT EXISTERS
FROM THE PRESS RELEASE
EXISTERS is a 21-minute long mini-album of brand-new songs by lucky dragons, produced in cooperation with artist / designer Jesse Hlebo of Swill Children. EXISTERS resist without intervening, subsist without consuming. They are everything about living except life, showing the effects of attention on a thing over time. “EXISTERS harkens to all things slow, delicate, and sharp–music for drifters, onlookers, and aliens of the everyday… By largely replacing the acoustic instrumentation and field-recorded sources of those records with the crackling pulse of modular synthesizer and alien sharpness of spectral processing, EXISTERS is both the wall and the push against it, a direct impression, a tribute to the boundary and how the boundary can be crossed.”

LUCKY DRAGONS TOUR DATES
1/27/12 Los Angeles, CA, Black Box
1/28/12 Los Angeles, CA, Mahasukha Meditation Center
2/15/12 Troy, NY, EMPAC
2/16/12 Brooklyn, NY, Release Party, 285 Kent
2/17/12 New York, NY, Release Party, Printed Matter
3/10/12 Los Angeles, CA, The Smell

Breezy Nix

Relatedly, Luke Fischbeck of Lucky Dragons has been spreading the word about this awesome record label, New Other Thing. This 16-minute track by Breezy Nix, entitled “Oerwouden,” is like a singing bowl tapping, wind chiming, spirit channeling mega good time, certainly worthy of repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat…

Listen to Breezy Nix’s “Oerwouden” – DOWNLOAD MP3

oOoOO

oOoOO have a new EP, Our Loving Is Hurting Us coming out April 10th, 2012, on Tri Angle Records. “NoWayBack” guest stars Butterclock (one of two tracks on the record to do so), and has a slow-motion percussive quality for one to drool over.

OUR LOVING IS HURTING US TRACKLISTING
1. TryTry
2. Springs (featuring Butterclock)
3. Starr
4. Break Yr Heart
5. NoWayBack (featuring Butterclock)

Future Blondes

This track, “VILA’GOK 1,” is unfortunately not available for download — but it is does celebrate Houston-based Future Blondes at some of their danciest yet. This track was a part of their last LP, limited to 100 copies — but it will be re-released when possible.