Hello friends. Today is my birthday so I wanted to share a song that somehow, someway captures where I am right now in my life. Memoryhouse‘s “To the Lighthouse” is a song that embraces conflicting musical and emotional traits. The song is undeniably wistful and nostalgic. Its fuzzy and reverby synthesized production (people are going to tell you it’s chillwave but don’t worry about it) has the feel of a laser light show slowed down and invokes Carl Sagan’s The Cosmos. This nostalgia gives way to a melancholy in the form of droning guitar lines and impassive lyrics. Despite these overt fixations on lost time and washed out memories, a sense of hopeful yearning pushes through the haze. It’s in the bubbling synth line that doesn’t stop throughout the entire song. It’s in the somnambulating trip hop beat that never gets old. Mostly it’s in the vocals, which rise in subtle crests above the waves of lo fi instrumentals that saturate the song. “To the Lighthouse” uses its own malaise to create a stunning ode to memories, summertime, youth, and “the scattered sound / of time dispersing.”
Memoryhouse – “To the Lighthouse”
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Last week when we published our Top 100 Albums of the Decade feature people were most happy to see Gospel‘s The Moon Is a Dead World make it into the top 10. The timing of the feature couldn’t be better. Though Gospel have been dormant over the last few years, they are now writing and recording, having released a few demos earlier this year, and just today made their new song “Tango” available for pay-what-you-like download through bandcamp. “Tango” makes good on Gospel’s two sides, featuring heavy chaotic drumming and departures to moody jam passages. The band had some words to say about the song as well:
A few weeks ago we got really fucked up at Colin Marston’s place. This is part of the end result. The song describes a ritual suicide; A summer jam for the indoor kids. We are releasing it as a digital single, pay-what-you-wish.
There’s no denying it. Ever since Botch called it quits at the rise of the millennium there has been a void in the metalcore scene. The void they left started a power vacuum that paved the way for the funk that it’s in today. Thank god for Narrows. Featuring Botch’s almighty Mr. Dave Verellen on vox and members of such greats as These Arms Are Snakes, Unbroken, and Some Girls, Narrows haven’t quite lived up to expectations, but their recent split with John Pettibone’s Heiress seems to have put everything back on track. For the better half of a decade I’ve been kicking and screaming, praying for a Botch reunion, but if “Recurring” is a sign of things to come, I might just be praying for another Narrows release.
Narrows – “Recurring”
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A few weeks ago Nick Butler posted this track, which directly challenged my manhood when it came to filthy, grimy, disgusting dubstep. What Butler doesn’t know is that I carry trash bags with me on a regular basis. Enjoy this particular overseas artifact, which proves that everything in Japan is indeed dirtier.
two bottles of lubiderm and a box of condoms… this displeases Marshall
Last year, Eminem saying something like “Ain’t nothin’ but a whole lot of suckin goin on in rap” would be the equivalent to Oliver Perez saying something like “gee, the Mets’ starting rotation really sucks this season.” But this year, we get “Despicable,” a fucking jaw dropping two minutes where Em tears into fucking anything he wants to regardless of if it makes sense or not. On “Not Afraid,” Em promised he’d never suck again. On “Despicable,” he proves it. Eminem spits with the crazed desperation we remember from the albums where he’d fucking choke the shit out of his wife or drive off a bridge with his pregnant girlfriend in the trunk. Only now, we’re the victims. The indiscriminate “You” he threatens and mocks over two different stolen-but-sinister beats is probably everyone who wrote him off after Encore. And if this is any indication of the quality of Recovery, we’re all fucked.Believe him when he says “Bitch I’m as bat shit as Ozzy it’s obvious you can tell I go right off the bat. No pun intended but come any closer I’ll bite off your head.” Believe him when he compares himself to Donkey Kong. Marshall’s back, bitches.
Guess who’s back with a brand new rap? Since literally becoming the “abomination of Obama’s Nation” with the whole BEST VIDEO OF ALL TIME thing, Kanye West seems to have temporarily retired from the meme-making business with “Power,” an addictive, King Crimson sampling banger with his most ridiculous lyrics yet. Choice lyrics include:
“Fuck SNL and the whole cast. Tell em Yeezy said you can kiss my whole ass. More specifically, you can kiss my asshole. I’m an asshole? You niggas got JOKES!”
and
“I don’t need yo pussy, bitch. I’m on my own dick.”
Kanye’s back rapping about what he raps about best: himself. And “Power” is a track that makes us realize just how much we missed Kanye West’s opinion on Kanye West during his absence.
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Over/Under: one month until a caps-lock heavy blogpost/shitfit?
I’m not as familiar as I probably should be with Japanese Instrumental Hip-Hop. Nomak and the now deceased Nujabes always seemed like the two brightest stars to emerge from the Japanese archipelago, both combining smooth beats over an even smoother mix of jazz and traditional Japanese instrumentation and melodies. With his 4th album, Dynamic Meditation Instrumental Limited, Nomak still sticks with this sound, molding his country’s past with Hip-Hop’s future. On an album full of relaxed, chilled out cuts, “The Universe” just happens to be a little bit more cool, a little bit more relaxing than the rest. It is pure Nomak.
Nomak – “The Universe”
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Hammock’s latest release, Chasing After Shadows… Living with the Ghosts, is a return to form from the ambient/post-rock duo. Their 2008 release, while certainly good, stripped away all of the flair and power that makes Hammock such a special group in the ambient world. As if signaling a return to form with the ellipse in the middle of the title, recalling the group’s classic album, Raising Your Voice… Trying to Stop an Echo, Hammock brings back that power with a new sense of organic growth that makes their latest quite possibly their best.
“Breathturn” is the group’s single from the album, and is accompanied with a beautiful video that you should probably watch in full-screen. The song combines the purely ambient experiments of their previous album with the beautiful, reverb-laden climaxes of their previous work.
Brisbane has a lot of great bands and Nikko are one of my current favourites. Their sound has been steadily developing over the past five years, culminating in their debut album The Warm Side, released this year. Nikko’s textured sound sits somewhere between The Drones and Explosions in the Sky. “Young Liberal” is entirely instrumental and one of the best songs from one of the best Australian albums of the year so far.
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We’re generally encouraged to post new tracks here, but as I haven’t quite given Sunderland four-piece the Futureheads’ fourth record, The Chaos, a proper listen yet, I didn’t really have any relevant options. Then I remembered this supremely unique, supremely awesome Kate Bush cover (listen to the original here), which pretty much launched the band’s career back in 2004. It’s everything a cover should be – fun, tongue-in-cheek with the proper amount of respect, and arguably better than the original. The only shame is that the band still hasn’t come close to topping it six years later.
The Chaos comes out this Tuesday.
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Admittedly, when I first heard Ys by Joanna Newsom, I was hardly thrilled to say the least. However, Have One On Me has an intangible aura to its three disc, two hour album that borders along a unique blend of folk and classical modern style. Needless to say, now I see Ys and Have One On Me as albums that are nothing short of incredible, and “Soft as Chalk” is a peek at what Newsom and Have One On Me can provide.
Out of all of my new musical finds this year, none have captivated me as much as Noumenon. The Chicago area math rockers just released their Big Scary Monsters debut Party Mathematics earlier this month and really there is no more fitting a name for the zany, technical bliss that is Noumenon. The flippantly titled “Algoresrhythm” is an off-kilter bundle of ever shifting melodies that’s tied together by what may be one of the catchiest god damn vocal hooks of 2010. By the way, did I mention that their EP can be downloaded here?
Noumenon – Algoresrhythm
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Here is a bonus track from Guilty Simpson and Madlib‘s collaborative album OJ Simpson. The choruses are Motown soul smoothness, but the verses are subtle and laid back, letting Simpson’s deep, authoritative voice take over.
Guilty Simpson and Madlib – “Friends Only”
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With Chamberlain Waits, one of 2010’s early punk standouts, The Menzingers have garnered comparisons to melodic punk heavyweights The Lawrence Arms and Sink or Swim-era The Gaslight Anthem, and rightfully so, as their sound seems to fall perfectly between the two. “Time Tables” is the stand out off their sophomore album and if there ever was a criteria to writing a fun punk song, they’ve got most of the boxes checked: harsh/melodic vocal trade offs, uptempo riffs, nostalgic/relatable lyrics, and sing-a-long gang vocals come together in what is surely one of the best punk songs 2010 will offer.
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I would have loved to post some Janelle Monae here today, but such is the excitement around her outstanding new album that I’ve been beaten to it. Luckily, one of dubstep’s kings of utter filth has just premièred his latest sonic assault.
Diving further into the gutter than even last year’s Choke on Coke EP (and its delightfully tasteful artwork), “Disturbed” is just that. The bassline on this track isn’t even a bassline – it sound like more like the growling, gaping jaws of a demon-possessed monster of the kind John Carpenter might fantasize about in a particularly twisted moment. Hell, one of the top rated YouTube comments on the track insists that it’s ‘dirtier than Bin Laden’s wank flannel‘ – do you need a higher recommendation that that?
