Elephant Space Snowstorm

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Review Grab Bag 'doble uno', Mix #20

This is the very last article I'll post here. It is a completely visceral reaction to a childish (but very appreciated) provocation from the cavedweller known as Daxelkurtz (which you can read here http://warspite.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/review-grab-bag-11-musics/), and contains completely partial, subjective and immature comments on some elements of modern music, all of which will have been issued in the past year. You can thank him for making this blog have one quiver before it dies out completely.

In ESS tradition, it includes an eleven-song mix.

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2011 was a fucking amazing year for music. Apparently people having real problems makes them be really good musicians, who would have thought. Unlike my literary brethren mentioned above, which I can now proudly, obnoxiously and ironically call my alma matter, I don't really remember what I was doing precisely enough to match it to the music I was listening to. Which isn't a problem, because honestly, would you care? I didn't think so. Here's a few things I thought were worth mentioning, let me know if I missed anything:

*Alcest "Le Secret" EP - rerecording: Fucking amazing. Blast beats, walls of guitar, melody, intensity and, occasionally, cheese. An acquired taste, but this flies miles above the usual French bullshit rock.

*Altar Of Plagues "Mammal" LP: The tortured, Irish, brutal and not any less amazing compliment to the above recording. Tasteful playings with the black metal genre, bringing it to the realms of destroying post-rock or gloomy ambient, and, even more magnificent, making the music pretty damn universal.

*Bon Iver "For Emma Forever Ago": I remember trying to listen to this record.

*Bon Iver "Bon Iver": I remember trying to listen to the first 30 second of the first song.

*The Antlers "Burst Apart"LP: If this isn't accessible music everyone can agree on, I don't know if there will ever be anything to agree on.

*Ash Borer "Ash Borer" LP: More amazing thrashing. blast beats, shredded vocals, buzzing guitars. Another one of this years beautifully agressive records.

*Barn Owl "Lost In The Glare" LP: laid back drone psychedelia. soothes your soul one second, transports it the next. Could be amazing, lasts a little too long

*Bibio "Mind Bokeh" LP: logical continuation of his work on "Ambivalence Avenue" the Boards of Canada tribute evolves into a folky choppy beat-sample behemoth. Solid.

*Black Cobra "Invernal" LP: It seems that since they've signed or Southern Lord, they don't really need to try anymore. "Bestial" remains, and probably for a while, the thrashy duo reference album.

*Bosse De Nage "II" LP: this record is supposed to gnarly, filthy, brutal. I find it amazing relaxing, strangely beautiful and extremely interesting. On the level of Altar of Plagues and Ash Borer, mentioned earlier.

*Caspian "Tertia" LP: a landmark in melodic yet powerful music. Doing better and still being as post-rock as this record is going to be really hard for anyone not willing to mix in different genres.

*Cold Body Radiation "Deer Twilight" LP: I've never managed to listen to this at a time where I wasn't thoroughly exhausted, but it was worth it each time.

*Coma Cinema "Blue Suicide" LP: How good I think this is might actually offend a few people, so that's all I'll say.

*Craft Spells "Idle Labor" LP: making the 80's sound like a decent idea. Well done.

*Crock "Grok" LP: What the fuck. seriously guys, how am I supposed to write anything about this. "This is a good record." ?

*Deafheaven "Roads To Judah" LP: another blast-beat pleaser, worth it even just for "Unrequited", one of the four 10-min long pieces. Live videos look disappointing though.

*The Dodos "No Color" LP: Enjoyed this one way more than I should have. Not "Visiter" but, how could you top that?

*Explosions In The Sky "Take Care" LP: Enjoyed this one way less that I should have. Not "The Earth..." but I can't hear why?

*Fleet Foxes "Helplessness Blues" LP: folk prog, wooptidoo.

*Grails "Deep Politics" LP: see EitS entry

*The Horrors "Skying" LP: Doing better than "Primary Colors" was near impossible. they didn't, so that makes sense, but they were close.

*Jack Buck "Ugly" 7": Best packaging ever. Good tunes too.

*Liturgy "Aesthetica" LP : over intellectualizing black metal works too!

*Male Bonding "Endless Now" LP: oh cool that band is still here.

*Megafaun: S/T LP: What went through Bon Iver's head as he left this band is the only gossip I'm curious to hear.

*Mikal Cronin S/T LP: WHY WON'T YOU MAKE A RECORD AS GOOD AS THE MOONHEART'S SELF TITLED. It's alright though this is still really good.

*Mogwai "Earth Division" EP: constrained Mogwai is an extremely interesting exercice

*Mogwai "Hardcore..." LP: see Grails. PS: Still better, in my mind, than every sonic youth record combined.

*Punch "How Nothing Lasts" 7" Never thought I'd like hardcore so much. Seven songs for almost ten minutes of brutal, intense, rapidly changing riffs. The "Dopethrone" of punk? Is that even a thing?

*Real Estate "Days"LP: the musical equivalent of Star Wars, episode 4-6? An amazing debut, a turnaround centered around duality - can't wait for the dancing ewoks.

*Reigns "Widow Blades" LP: and, for todays invented genre, postrocktronicambientfolk!

*Russian Circles "Empros" LP: More metal, more bass, why not more awesome? No Sé...

*Slow Loris "Routine Glow" LP: "Is that a drum machine?" is the only question for this perfect pop record.

*Sonny And The Sunsets "Hit After Hit" LP: too cool for school.

*Talkdemonic "Ruins" LP: I'm looking for a cello player and drummer for a Talkdemonic inspired band. Black metal and nuggets interests a plus. please email ejt08@hampshire.edu

*Thou "The Archer And The Owle" EP: wins sludgy record of the year award, probably will next year too.

*Tune Yards: "whokill" LP: sure why not.

*Ty Seagall "Goodbye Bread" LP: see Mikal Cronin

*Washed Out "Within and Without" LP: title and artwork not really to my tastes, but achieves what Craft Spells do with higher standards.

*Widowspeak S/T LP: still a fresh listen, but a solid set of songs. What pavement would sound like if they were fronted by a woman, listened to a lot more Ventures and actually bothered.

*Wolves In The Throne Room "Celestial Lineage" LP: How good was this year for metal? Pretty fucking amazing. What do I even say about this one.

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The Elephant will now go die. It has done many things, some of which I will look back on to laugh at, but has always stayed true to its ideals, and for that, it will die in peace. Thanks to all who ever read anything on this!

PS: if you actually miss it, you know how to find me.

JNCT.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Minimalist article

Top Childhood Underdog albums:

eels - daisies of the galaxy
secret machines - ten silver drops
firebird - hot wings
nebula - apollo
acdc - powerage
buffalo - volcanic rock
chet atkins - guitar man
langhorns - s/t
karma to burn - almost heathen
lynyrd skynyrd - nuthin fancy
offspring - best of
scott h biram - dirty ol one man band
sun dial - acid yantra
system of a down - mezmerize

Thursday, March 3, 2011

consistencyfail

Animal Collective is a strange beast, with a variable geometry in its lineup and sound. Depending on who's in it, the proportions of poppy ambient, schizophrenic structures, psychedelia and intense yet minimal drumming vary, probably reaching perfection on this record, Strawberry Jam (sorry, Merriweather fans - have you heard Discreet Music by Brian Eno? He's really good at ambient too).

    This is pretty objectively a partitioned record - tracks stand out more than others, mostly based on the presence/absence of beats. The latter dominate, making the primer stand out even more in their nonsensical genius. Maybe the atmospheric tracks are intended to rest you from the insanity of the others, as you sure will want to take a deep breath or two to recover form the yelling.

    Yelling, which is probably the most randomly efficient heard in pop music (rivaling Helter Skelter, except the riffs are replaced by… more yelling/singing?), brings Animal Collective's voices to be their undeniable strong point. Over the shoddy, poor, yet strangely functioning instrumentation of their songs, it just took a lot of courage and voicepower to make the whole recipe work, creating one of the most enjoyable-cathartic musical experiences in a while.

    Yet, it would appear that this band is sadly inseparable from its status as art-student favorites. There's a varied and numerous catalog of sounds in their repertoire - try to ignore what your friends think and figure out if you actually like anything. If you do, great, you win a plaid flannel star. If you don't forget, this band until they come out with another record (or movie), and repeat.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Winter Mix I

Better late then never. Here's part I of II winter mixes. These seasonal things seem to be a tradition.

tracklist:

蘑菇 - Carsick Cars
Hybrid Moments - The Misfits
If I Had A Chance - Lost Boy
Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault - Jawbreaker
Bad Mouth - Fugazi
Permanent Vacation - Pet Milk
Rage In The Plague Age - Les Savy Fav
Don't Look Back Into The Sun (Mick Jones Version) - The Libertines
Drop Dead Baby - Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin
I Hate Myself - Moonhearts
UFO - Torche

11 songs, 28:43, 53.6 Mo

enjoy

JNCT

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Winter Mix II

Part II of the Winter Mix. Subtitle: love using the search bar.

Hope you like it.

Battlegrounds - Altar Eagle
The Canadian Brought Us Snow - Piano Magic
Wild Wind - Black Mountain
Snow & Lights - Explosions In The Sky
Sunflower - Low
Snow Days - Real Estate
Peace Of Mind - Blue Cheer
Snowstorm - Galaxie 500
Winter - The Dodos
Young Men Dead - Black Angels
In The Cold, Cold, Night - The White Stripes
Lost Snow - Mono

12 songs, 1:12:05, 185 Mo

Permanent Vacation, by Pet Milk, is on both mix 18 and 15. redundancy success.

Enjoy

JNCT

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Saturday, January 15, 2011

Professor P.P. P-pants and the mean cafeteria ladies from outer space

ACDC - If You Want Blood (You've Got It) - Live

    A perfect synthesis of their first albums, with songs from High Voltage to Let There Be Rock. From the bloody coverart to their bloody genius, AC/DC is here presented in all the primal stupidity that makes their strength.

    Being able to write good songs with old tricks - namely the pentatonic scale - is indeed a strength. If you've never liked AC/DC, chances are it isn't a quality you're interested in, but if you even have a minor appreciation for a good riff, don't let Bon Scott's disturbing stare/roar combination unsettle you.

    Indeed, this album has something any other official live album from the Australians probably won't have: Bon Scott, the original singer, tearing Satan's ears apart. The Young brothers, in their guitaristic and riff-producing prime. The classic Rudd/Cliff rhythm section at the upmost of its neanderthalian efficiency.

    Before someone starts thinking "how is that different from Let There Be Rock…?", If You Want Blood has one last quality: its sound. Studio production, even when as minimal as the one usually employed by early AC/DC, polishes the inherent gnarlyness of the music to a radio friendly "let's attract hair metal fans" level. None of this here. Guitars slam in your face like the tusks of a thousand mammoths, and the rhythm section drives you to heavyblues heaven like a 1920s locomotive: it's dirty, reasonably quick, fascinating, and people make miniatures of them in their living room.

    By sticking to their methed-up Berry-esque blues about liquor and women, AC/DC always avoided a sabbathian doominess they could have very well veered into (like fellow Australians Buffalo) - same with Zeppelin-like mysticism. None of that here, just pure, amped up, SG straight in Marshall upping 4/4 beats with a drunkard merryman imposting as the street version of a comedia del'arte cantor. No fuss. Just give the kids what they want - here, it's blood, and it's served on a silver platter.

Monday, January 10, 2011

"In the interrim, this sounds like the music that MacBooks would make if SkyNet was a Snow Leopard app and The Matrix was autotuned"

I KNOW THIS IS ONLY JAN. 11 BUT I'M VOTING THIS BEST LINE OF THE YEAR.

original post at thundercurrent express. Please publish his damn novel, he obviously deserves it

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Review Grab Bag #2

As promised. exploring the "would rather rant on a bunch of things for a line than rant on a thing for a bunch of lines" world. Don't worry though, reviews are lined up:

AC/DC: if you want blood...

Animal Collective: strawberry jam

for the 15th and Feb. first respectively

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Best Coast: Crazy For You
Fucking Depressing. Used to sound fun, now just one long whine.

Stereolab: Not Music
Naming your last album "Not Music" is probably the only way Stereolab could become any more badass

Tame Impala: Innerspeaker
Australia, Rock'n'Roll's eternal underdog

Thee Oh Sees: Warm Slime
Best record of the year for its type, but remember that garage is only one letter away from garbage

Titus Andronicus: The Monitor
I'm not a big fan of New Jersey, except when I see records like this come out of it. Ignore the lyrics, these kids reconvened Arcade Fire-esque melodies with punk.

Tobacco: Mystic Thickness (CD-R)
More of the same. YES PLEASE

Torche: Songs For Singles
Doompopsterstothemax

Vampire Weekend: Contra
Nowhere near as good as the first, still pretty damn enjoyable

Ventura: We Recruit
Where do I sign up?

Watain: Lawless Darkness
to do #293: listen to more black metal or death metal. Whichever it is.

Wavves: King Of The Beach
cf. Best Coast, except this time you don't wonder "who's the long haired asian on the side of the picture?"

White Hills: S/T
I knew I wasn't the only one who wanted to sound like Hawkwind

Yamon Yamon: This Wilderness
Foresty Neu!. Get your beverage of choice, something to stare at and anything to lie on for a bit.

Beach House: Teen Dream
I still am only barely able to remember more than the first song off that album.

Brian Jonestown Massacre: anything by them ever
In the category of 60's revivalism for its own sake, these guys win the palm. Plus, Anton Newcombe is a blast to hear about - Dig! is probably the best music documentary since Spinal Tap, except this time, it's real.

Broken Social Scene: Forgiveness Rock Record
Forget the record, go get a ticket. WORTH IT

#17 - 2:42

JNCT

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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Do the android dream of electric sheep and why would I care?

Nebula: Atomic Ritual (2003, Liquor & Poker)

    Second album of Nebula's psychedelic tryptic (preceded by To The Center and followed by Apollo), Atomic Ritual is an album that not only assumes the fact that it'll please sci-fi fans, but transcends it, makes fun of it, and does it well all simultaneously.

    Let's go over the mild parts first, because they will be meaninglessly stomped by the qualities of this record. The cover is a a cheesy graphic design piece that would be barely good enough for the 12th re-edition of a weird Lovecraft meets Moorcock meets Asimov and Nostradamus' bastard child fanfic space opera (which 13 year old boys might appreciate nonetheless). The lyrics/titles (when payed attention to more than as an added melodic line, which they're not intended for) are not much more than an uninspired rip-off of the previous authors, mixed in with a bit of californian epicurism. Finally, Eddy Glass' voice strangely oscillates between an upper-register Ozzy and a growly Mark Arm, which might bother some.

    If you're willing to put all those aspects behind you, the music equivalent of a winter wonderland will be opened to you - imagine a soundscape, covered in riffs. Like a prayer to Mudhoney, The Stooges, Hawkwind and Black Sabbath, Atomic Ritual is referential without ever stagnant, hyperactive without ever reaching the Mars Volta, and varied. Songs, which range from 3:00 to 9:42, might go from an upbeat psychoblues jam to a downtempo atmospheric in seconds, or develop a riff for the whole song Dopesmoker style.

    The first wave to hit you are the guitars, provided by the ex-Manchu Glass, building layers & layers of glorious tone(they did go a bit haywire on the overdubs, sometimes with simultaneous solos, multiple rhythm parts and the like). With the classic stoner rig (SG, fuzz, phaser, wah, Marshall stack), he delivers all of the headbanging knowledge he left Fu Manchu with, but this time drenched in psyche-rock juice (noises, self-oscillations and is that a wonky filtered organ I hear in the background?).

    Even if the guitars are more than reason enough to try this record, it shouldn't take to long to notice that the rhythm section is at least as worthy as melodyman Eddy. Providing a more than necessary backdrop and low end to the record (the guitar has typical boosted treble bite), they fuel the cosmic journey that is this record, going from exploratory tempos (that leave an opportunity for guitar excursions of the epic level) to a quick let's flee this hostile alien planet speed, all in a crash of cymbals, and with a touch of Spike (Cowboy Bebop) level class .

    Atomic Ritual, produced by legend Chris Goss, with its memorable artwork, heavy-yet-melodic riffs, and balanced spaciousness/richness, is the '00's Space Ritual. Beyond the obvious title reference, it is, like Hawkwind's early 70's masterpiece, a collage of pop melodies (acoustic guitars, piano), drug hazed atmospheres (DikMik, wherever you are, this record is a straight up tribute to your bleeps'n'swooshes), and fuzzpower. Dave Brock should be proud, Lemmy should be pissed (but isn't he always), and Ozzy should wish he bought a phaser for Tony for the '73 christmas. I'll certainly be enjoying this record many more times.

As I said, mixes every week (!!), reviews every 1st and 15th of the month. I probably won't have time to post anything on Jan. 1st, so you can count the "shortgoodquestionnable" mix and this review as a first installment.

JNCT

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Sunday, December 26, 2010

11 songs in 14:51 minutes: The Short, Good, and Questionnably Arranged ESS Mix

Very good songs are sometimes very short.

Here are 11 songs, all between a minute o'seven and a minute thirty eight. All of certain quality, maybe questionnably arranged.

Expect acoustic guitars, angry people, quasi-silence, tributes and jokes, not necessarily in that order or in specific combinations.

11 songs happen to be the lenght of mixes Flavio picked over at Payola. I have to admit it works pretty well. Thanks, Flavio

JNCT

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Review Grab Bag - Happy Holidays!

To all reading this blog: Merry holidays. May 2011 be full of fun and productivity for all of you

Here's a bunch of records I listened to this year, and my opinion, resumed in one line. This idea is shamelessly ripped off the Thundercurrent Express, maintained by my good fellow David Axel Kurtz. Please publish his novels.

FORMAT:

[band name]: [album name]
[short sometime offensive comment]

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Angel Eyes: Midwestern
like Isis or Neurosis, but enjoyable. Maybe I should give Oceanic another try.

Arc Of Ascent: Circle of The Sun
a good stoner rock record from New Zealand. Just in: copying Kyuss still works.

Belle And Sebastian: Write About Love
You'll love this if you wear flannel and leggings.

Black Diamond Heavies: Alive As Fuck
White Stripes - guitar + Organ x Lemmy = fun and a headache

Caribou: Odessa
Water pop - tasteless, but enjoyable from time to time. Keep some around

Jack White: anything he made this year
enjoy your revenge on hype

Dreamend: So I Ate Myself, Bite By Bite
Black Moth Super Rainbow goes acoustic not really - awesomeo

Dum Dum Girls: I Will Be
Enjoyment follows a logarithmic curve with time

High On Fire: Snake for the Divine
"I'll take the usual please. Wait - make that a double."

LCD Soundsystem:
Made for clubs. I don't go to clubs.

MTV: Lost Boy
Self production sounding like a load of fun.

Mogwai: Special Moves
Post Rock for dummies

Mono: Holy Ground
Goddamnit. Japanese rockers are the craziest.

Moonhearts: S/T
What does it take to sound honest these days? 29 minutes, apparently

Mountain Man: Made The Harbor
Vermont: good cheese, good music. Bonus points for recording a folk record in an old ice cream truck

No Joy
The single sounded so much more memorable than the album…

Pet Milk: Demo
What does it take to sound good these days? : 17 minutes, apparently

Rien: 3
Only the French could use post rock yet sound innovative and miles above the national musical average

Sleigh Bells: Treats
Proving that Lo-Fi sounds better unfinished

Sloath: S/T
Bonecrushingly relaxing

Soft Pack: S/T
Incredibly close to being perfect

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More to come. Expect an obnoxious end of the first year of the decade favorites list, as well as a short mix as soon as its uploaded.

MERRY WHATEVER. I love you all.

JNCT

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Thursday, December 23, 2010

list #6.1: where to procrastinate

http://whenparentstext.com/

http://trollscience.com/

http://www.dead-philosophers.com/

http://www.savethewords.org/

http://chainsawsuit.com/

http://awkwardfamilypetphotos.com/

http://hipsterhitler.com/

http://www.lookatthisfuckingperson.com/

http://www.lamebook.com/

http://gawker.com/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

http://www.sporcle.com/

http://www.picagon.com/

http://babieswithlasereyes.com/

http://failbooking.com/

http://www.urbandictionary.com/

http://brownsharpie.courtneygibbons.org/

http://abstrusegoose.com/

http://www.theonion.com/content/index

http://www.fmylife.com/top

http://www.robandelliot.cycomics.com/index.php

http://mylifeisaverage.com/

http://unhappyhipsters.com/

http://www.questionablecontent.net/

http://failblog.org/

http://thereifixedit.com/

http://ericsaysfuckyou.blogspot.com/

http://awkwardfamilypetphotos.com/

http://oracleofbacon.org/

http://epicwinftw.com/

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

http://itmademyday.com/

http://pictureisunrelated.com/

http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/

http://oddstuffmagazine.com/

http://hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com/

http://www.daisyowl.com/

http://www.latfh.com/

http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays

http://scanwiches.com/

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

http://xkcd.com/

"Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment."
Robert Benchley (1889 - 1945)

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Untitled # (2+√5)/√5

lets play a game. It's called spot the grinning mustachioed man with aviators and a star around his lefteye.

My computer tells me that it's three am. Explaining how I got precisely to the point at which I'm standing right now would be a boring and long story, truth is I'm just procrastinating - as of 20 minutes ago, I like Radiohead's OK Computer, ending a solid 5 years of vague indifference towards their repertoire generally and hatred towards Creep more particularly.

Anyways, an announcement: as soon as I am done with what I'm supposed to be doing at this very moment, and stop reading the procrastination page on wikipedia, I'll be posting mixes all over this place. One a week. every week. until next year. In a similar fashion, record reviews will be twice a month.

FOR THE SAKE OF SELF CONTROL.

BLARGH

JNCT
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Friday, December 3, 2010

Decembrrrrrrr

For those of you who haven't noticed, it got pretty fucking cold lately.

Chanukah, Christmas, whatever you do, you're probably going to listen to music anyways. Which is why you should get PAYOLA MIXES and your weekly dose of ElephantSpaceSnowstorm.

Doctor said so. Don't discuss with the Doctor, d'accuerdo?

To go with freezing your gonads off, here's a healthy dose of contradiction for you. Can you fit Fugazi and Eels on the same mix? How about Sleep and Vampire Weekend? Spacemen 3 and AC/DC? Well, I just did, and I think it sounds ok. This isn't a compilation for anything or anyone, it's just music, for you, when you want it. Little bites for the busy.

JNCT...

Thursday, November 25, 2010

THE SELF TITLED INTERVIEW: LAETITIA SADIER

http://www.self-titledmag.com/home/2010/11/24/the-self-titled-interview-laetitia-sadier-of-stereolab-monade/

I guess I just love Laetitia Sadier for her music.

JNCT

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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Throwback! 3 - The Emperor Strikes Back... I know, that's episode 2. Qu'est-ce qu'il se passe quand on lance de l'ail contre un mur?

My dad doesn't have a vinyl collection. His CD shelf is basically a mix of classical music him and my mother got when I was born (Mozart makes kids smarter, anyone?) and a collection of what's been in the top 40 of whatever country he was in pretty much since CDs became available commercially.

After numerous siftings through this nevertheless exhaustive collection, the only two albums I've taken to the relative safety of my room are Eric Clapton's Unplugged and Soundgarden's Superunknown. The first he got because it has a song that mentions my sister's name a number of times (I'll let you guess what that is), the latter he described as "a mistake I only got because it was number 1 somehow. I've never listened to it entirely". For a long time, he described my music with the expression that my great-uncle uses to talk about old-style rock'n'roll: de la musique de peaux-rouge. Which happens to be mildly offensive, so I'm not translating that.

So no vivid vinyl memories for me. No passing on of buried treasure, no shared tastes. Sure, I had a vague backstreet boys moment around 9, as well as other momentary radio crushes, but they always felt tasteless - going with the easy option, what was readily available.

So what changed that? Well, I didn't write this lenghty useless introduction for nothing. If you're still reading this, it means you have some nerve, and must be really interested. I'll skip the Linkin' Park and Good Charlotte episodes and the Blink 182 covers (although I have to say Travis Barker is still a sick drummer), and finally get to my point:

DIGIMON

That's right. I would probably be a very different person if it wasn't for that fairly catastrophic child's pokemon ripoff cartoon. More specifically, the movie that spawned from its success, and very precisely, the sequence with Smashmouth's song All Star. To this day, I still haven't thought too much as too what the song is exactly about, nor do the lyrics make any sense in my head (I was still learning English back then). It's been about 10 years since I first listened to this song, and I finally got around to actually reading the lyrics.

Verdict: song's pretty bad. But it made me get Smashmouth's 2001 self titled album:

Beneath the horrible cover was the first CD I had really asked for. As mentioned before, and like for Flavio, I was learning English at that time, which made me able to consider the lyrics more as sounds then anything with a message (let's be honest, the words to most of these songs are fairly horrendous).

However this record shaped my tastes: I liked the coolness of the first track, the relative "violence" of the second track (qualified by my dad as sounding like a drum carnage), the violin synths of the 3rd track pretty much made me want to vomit...

So why would I ever talk about an album that is important to me only it was a random starting point?

First of all, this was Flavio's idea, and I just went with it. Read his own blog too, it's awesome.

Second, it's obvious that this record has little musical interest. Sister Psychic still sounds like an ok song to me, and memories of Shrek and Digimon are woken up by listening to All Star. The Monkees' I'm a Believer is also covered on this record, and that reminds me of The Spy Who Shagged Me, which is probably the movie that turned me on dumb absurd comedies. The harmonica solo in that one song is kinda cool, that gnarly synth in Force Field makes me understand why I like Tobacco today, Shoes'n'hats is a bro version of AC/DC (which remains one of my favorite bands). You could even say that Smashmouth's only feat is that they take a number of influences/characteristic sounds (ranging from hip hop to metal and going by 60's pop and lounge) and making it sound like a cohesive blend pop record.

In short, it was a pretty awesome introduction to modern music for a 9 year old kid. Your young cousing/familly member is coming over for Christmas and you don't know what to get him? This blog just provided the longest most inconvenient and specific gift advice of all times. Enjoy.

Quand on lance une gousse d'ail contre le mur, elle rebondit. C'est le retour du jet d'ail.

This one's for you, Arthur.

...

Friday, November 5, 2010

"THOUGHTS ON... " - EP. PRIMERO: HALLOWEEN

The best thing I like about Halloween is that I have an excuse to listen to the Misfits' Monster Mash without shame (apparently they started sucking when Danzig left? Nice of the music press to inform me of that after years of listening to Famous Monsters... meh. You know what, AV club? Go cook yourself an egg).

The second best thing is getting a mix from Flavio. It kicks ass. GET IT HERE!

Other than that, I'm the grouchy old man that doesn't give you candy when you ring at his door. I've half-assed my costumes for the past two years (I wasn't even doing halloween any year before that), and I don't like getting scared.

What really makes me excited is dumb ridiculous senseless laidback things and beers. Which is why, next Halloween, I'll be staying home, trying to lure my trickortreater friends into watching Plan 9 with me and drink weird allegedly pumpkin flavored beer.

Ok I'm done. If you've made it through this rant, here's a r e w a r d. kind of.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Should You Fear Satan?

Kingpins of a kind of rock that came after rock (What was that? Oh you mean that makes no sense? no, it doesn't. Whatever, I'm over it), Mogwai cultivate an image of being mildly unfriendly Scottishmen who have been studying the balance between power and melody in music, and the very special place where both meet.

Rest assured, this isn't the intro (yet) to a book I'm writing that would be titled "Mogwai: a decade-long study of dynamics in popular music", just to an article about their latest record, which also happens to be a live recording. Their first, I believe:

Mogwai, Special Moves

Rock Action, 2010

You'll find many reviews for this album. Most of them will describe the intensity of the songs, how Mogwai has been constantly innovating in their own fairly specific subgenre, and managed to maintain cohesiveness. They should then move on to describe the setlist choices, how each song is live rather than in studio, etc... They might mention some lack of direction, but will reassure right away with something like "most bands who sound like that do that" so if you like Post Rock, you should like this, hipster (offended? email me, hipster!)

It would be worthless to repeat this here. I understand lazy people, so I'll even put the link to two such reviews so you can get your usual info there:

Allmusic

Pitchyforky (that's right, I just called it that)

So what's left to say? Well, here's a few thoughts for you to munch on:

Mogwai is one of the very few bands who knows how to use a vocoder. Well done guys.
THIS IS A GREAT RECORD. GIVE IT A SHOT.
How much time will the cheap trick of playing softly then bashing power chords for an entire show will go on? Long, I hope.
Buy the record. You get a dvd (which is supposed to be awesome, but that I never got around to see) and 6 bonus tracks. It's all good. Really good.
The packaging is gloriously minimalist. Black and white pixelated security cam with all caps text inside and one horizontal line of lightning blue as the only colored element. Should make the graphic designer inside of you (if any) shiver.
This is a comprehensive guide to Mogwai so far.
Recorded in Williamsburg. Keep it local, hippie.

That's all I got for now. Go enjoy it rather than read my nonsense. You better come back here though. I'll be watching you.

JNCT

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