Music

This might come off as a bit fanboyish — but Django Django is the best band you probably haven’t seen live yet.I’ve made no secret about my love for the quartet from the English isles, and a cancellation on their performance at Iceland Airwaves only furthered my anticipation. Like everyone else in the Neptune Theater on a rainy Tuesday evening in Seattle, I eagerly waited and waited for Django Django’s jangly take on psych-electronic influenced rock — a wait which first began since KEXP started blasting “Default” nearly 15 months ago. March 19th, 2013 @ Neptune Theatre, Seattle, WA Night Moves Django Django chose Minneapolis-based Night Moves, fresh off of a whole lot of good press for the brand new [...]

From its wavy slow-motion intro alone, one can tell that the music video for Xander Harris’ “Night Fortress” is bound to be a rainbow-colored adventure into bizarre costumes and texture-melting acid trip territory. The best part, though, is that it’s not walls or environments melting here — that would be too boring — but rather, bobbing and weaving dancers that dissipate and reform while in a static environment, their bodies changing by way by way of sharp refraction, color dodges, and ripple effects. It really is a video that gets better with repeat viewings, and the dance moves are just tantalizing. Says director Melissa Cha of the concept: “For me, ‘Night Fortress’ conjured images of deranged, alien characters skulking around [...]

Julian Lynch Lines Underwater Peoples (2013) As somebody who studies ethnomusicology at a major university, a scholarly pursuit I assumed was long since dead, Julian Lynch is probably more qualified to being writing this review than myself. His dedication to music both in regards to society and history is admirable, but it is Lynch’s own musical output that he will eventually enshrine him as memorable in a larger sense. On Lines, Lynch’s sixth solo album, it is not as though the singer-songwriter/composer has approached the process in any appreciably different way, but the outcome here is vastly different than past efforts. Be it on Mare, Orange You Glad or even his spare tracks for old Underwater Peoples compilations, Lynch has [...]

for 2013, we’re bringing SXSW coverage into our personal lives. Rather than writing up simple show reviews, we hope to present to you an uncensored portrait of our exceptional 3-way mind-meld, as we navigate through the chaos that is SXSW in our own manic, sarcastic, and profound ways. Mostly, we talk about food, document idiosyncrasies, review music… and bring it all home with more talk about food.

Blue Hawaii Untogether Arbutus Records (2013) Voice and space function as the two most important instruments on Untogether, a side project of Braids’ Raphaelle Standell-Preston and collaborator Alexander Cowan, their debut album as Blue Hawaii. That’s not to say that traditional composition — at least in terms of electronic music — doesn’t conquer all on Untogether, but it does put the focus squarely on what is left out versus what is included. But does it accomplish enough with so little? Not exactly. Standell-Preston is obviously the star of Untogether, as her unrelenting, bellowing vocals are not only lethal in a very fundamental way, but the tricks and twists which Cowan adds to her voice make the record come alive in [...]

Ensemble Pearl Ensemble Pearl Drag City (2013 February) Comprised of drone merchant Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O)))); psychedelic guitar wizard Michio Kurihara (Ghost/Boris); white-gloved drummer Atsuo, (also Boris); and William Herzog (Jesse Sykes And The Sweet Hereafter) on bass, Ensemble Pearl is comprised of some of the brightest gems the drone metal underground has had to offer over the last decade. Many of them have worked together already, so it is an electrifying thrill to have them all gathered on wax, in the same place at the same time. For this self-titled release, the ensemble’s press release expresses influence from: “Cosmic heavy rock sounds in an area between Link Wray (one of the songs is titled ‘Wray’), Earth “Hex”, and early [...]

Dawn McCarthy & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy What The Brothers Sang Drag City Can we appreciate older music, without it being retrostylized, sculpted and reconfigured for modern ears? Will Oldham, the right honorable Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, and Dawn McCarthy (of Faun Fables fame) seem to think so, dishing up thirteen slices of pure unadulterated Americana on What The Brothers Sang. In 2013, we are seeing an increasing trend of reissue labels, tribute bands, and artist-curated mixtapes (read Simon Reynold’s Retromania for an exhaustively thorough look at the issue). It’s just an exaggeration of what has always been going on in pop music: artists referencing bands referencing musicians. Any aspiring musicologist will follow the riverbed to the source of inspiration. The Everly [...]

REDEFINE’s third unofficial SXSW house party went off with minimal hitches, as usual. With 1,250 free beers from Dos Equis with which to lubricate showgoers, we created a musical oasis in the midst of corporate SXSW chaos, full of good vibes, good music, and real human beings. Below is a brief recap of the day’s festivities. Click here for the original press release, along with a 13-track mixtape download and stream featuring some exclusives. Golden Spun from Brooklyn, NY   Beca from New York, NY   Young Pharoahs from Austin, TX   Ethereal & The Queer Show from Portland, OR   Brainstorm from Portland, OR   Brainstorm from Portland, OR   Darktown Strutters from Dallas, TX         [...]

Misfit Mod Islands & Islands Stars & Letters The unfortunate burden that Portishead has to bear with being an innovator is the multitude of bands that have subsequently been trying to imitate their sound. In keeping with the Portishead reference, there is something about Sarah Ann Kelleher’s (who moniker is Misfit Mod) debut album Islands & Islands that just sounds dated, like she’s trying to revive a scene that everyone has already moved on from. It just gives me the feeling that I’m back in the UK in 1998, and she’s playing at a bar.  

They say that watching a master at work lights up the same regions of the brain as if you were executing the work yourself. That is to say – if you were to watch a tennis champion win Wimbledon with an EKG glued to your temples, it would be as if you were playing tennis yourself. Masters, experts, geniuses… pinnacles of human achievement. They show us what is possible. Inspiration is essential in an age of uncertainty, when it seems like we’re living at the bottom of a gravity well of despair, where everything is conspiring to dull your shine, to make you docile and easily controllable. When you feel like everything you see and hear is a copy of [...]