I picked this album up off of Dem Hunger’s blog and didn’t listen to it for a while, but it’s really great. The album is a wicked good debut from this dude, he takes a leaf from J Dilla’s book and crafts an album kinda like Donuts. Him Jenson is 26 tracks, most of them only a minute or two of his own beats, some of them with the greatest rappers you’ve never heard of. Check out the album here with a little blurb from the LA Weekly.
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If you’ve already heard this, forgive me. It’s a great release and everyone else needs to hear it. Bibio creates an album with some great laid-back, funky beats and instrumental solos, but the part that shines is the vocals. They’re semi-distorted, but it sounds like a chorus of lovers exposing their feelings to the world on this album. The records that end up becoming my favorites are those that blur the line between music and manufactured emotion (if that line even exists in the first place), and Bibio does a fantastic job. Recommended if you like Black Moth Super Rainbow, Four Tet, or Daedelus, and to a lesser extent, Amon Tobin and Boards of Canada. Or rather, if you like this, then check them out. Also, the beat work on tracks like Fire Ant and Sugarette is fierce.
More information:
Purchase here or here.
Download.
The Seven Fields of Aphelion, one of the members of Black Moth Super Rainbow, has released a phenomenal solo album. Her music is one of the closest resemblances I can think of to Boards of Canada, but altogether different at the same time. I think her take on the BMSR song “Lake Feet” is the best track on the album. Anyway, I’ve probably given her enough praise; the members of Black Moth Super Rainbow never cease to amaze both in solo projects and as a band.
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Purchase.
Download.
The Cat Empire’s new album, Cinema, will be released in the USA on July 5th! For all y’all who don’t know The Cat Empire, they’re an Australian fusion of rock, jazz, blues, ska, and some latin influences up in there. At their website you can do any of the following: (1) listen to new tracks from their upcoming album, (2) “attend” the album launch; they will have a live feed to their live performance of the new album which will be starting at 10:30pm on Sunday June 20th in their hometown of Melbourne, meaning it will be airing to the east coast of the US at 8:30am the morning of the 20th. Everyone elsewhere, time yourselves accordingly. And (3) you can pre-order the new album. To do any of the actions I mentioned above, mosey on over to their site here. Also, they will be touring North America, Australia, and Europe, and you can check the tour dates here. Unfortunately for those of us in the USA, they will only be doing two shows, both in Southern California. At least I saw them in Portland back in 2008. I will not post downloads of The Cat Empire’s music because of their RIAA-affiliated label, but if you happen to find a download of their albums online, I recommend their eponymous first album and Two Shoes to get a feel for what their music sounds like.
The Flashbulb’s new album, Arboreal, is coming out June 8th! I think from what he said it will be more similar to his new sound on Soundtrack to a Vacant Life. The album is available for preorder over at Alphabasic.
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I have no idea what to say about this, except that it’s ridiculously bizarre and sounds like a surrealistic tapestry of noises and beats. It’s been stuck in my head for days. Dem Hunger has a hilarious blog, below titled “SHELLEY DUVALL” where he posts a lot of his other songs and comps before Caveman Smack was released, put out on Leaving Records. I’ve tried to describe Dem Hunger in relation to two other artists twice and it was mostly incorrect, but it’s kind of like if Master Musicians of Bukkake and Flying Lotus had a lovechild with synesthesia that walked around town sampling noises while on acid and made an audio painting of it. I gotta say, this kind of music is new to me and I like it.
Here’s Dem Hunger’s comments on this release:
‘YEH THIS MY NEW LITTLE ****IN TAPE.
WHEN NOT WORKIN I WAS POURIN LITTLE BITS OF PISS COLOURED SWEAT ALL OVER IT.
REAL BEER TALK KINDA ***T. ZEBRA DEATHS RECORDED ALL OVER IT.
SHELLEY POPS UP FOR A FEW SYRUP POPS.
GUESS THE WHOLE IDEA IS SOME EARLY HUMAN JUST LAYIN AROUND WITH HIS EYES OUT OF HIS HEAD.
ALL SKULL BASHED UP IN THE RIVER. THIS MUSIC SORT OF FLOATIN AROUND INSIDE HIS JAWBONE.
THE BONES GET EATEN BY THE SUN, THEN IT ALL GETS SPAT BACK DOWN TO EARTH.
PREDATOR 3-D MEETS SLIMER TYPE ***T.
I GOT A RECIPE FOR YOU ALL AS WELL
SQUID SALAD
FRY THAT ***T INNA PAN
THEN JUST TOSS THAT SHIT INNA ROAD.’
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Download.
Edit: I removed Dem Hunger’s blog from the blogroll. If I posted the blogs of every artist I liked, that blogroll would be ridiculous.
Loverless is a blues-influenced rock group from good old Portland, Maine. There have been a few bands to hit it big in Portland, but Loverless is more unknown than Paranoid Social Club, the Rustic Overtones, and Conifer (for example) but deserves equal if not more praise. Their sound is very unique, and they are described by CDBaby as “[a] unique brand of blues based rock and roll [with] a psychedelic swirl of sex and danger.”
Here’s a review from the November 2008 issue of the Noise from Boston:
“To be honest, this band was not what I expected at all. The album art is white with black text—as plain as can be. But the music isn’t plain at all—some of the songs border on epic, though they are so different from one another that each song sounds like a completely different band. I like ’1942′—it reminds me of the Beatles at first, and then launches into a Journey-esque guitar solo.
Then there’s ‘Out of the Woods,’ which sounds eerily like the ’90s Australian rock band Silverchair. ‘The Crown,’ on the other hand, is a short but heart-wrenching acoustic ballad, while ‘Down with the Viceroy’ is decidedly jazz. The variation between the songs is almost overwhelming. Despite this, all the songs are good—so good, in fact, that it leaves me wondering what these guys could accomplish if they stuck to one style and perfected it. (Emsterly)”
The aforementioned album, Nothing Under The Sun, is available on iTunes, where you can grab it to support them (albeit a small amount, iTunes is notorious for taking a large margin of sales [see The Flashbulb's rant on this subject]).
Note: The version here is the version of the album that was available for free download from Loverless online, which has since been taken down. As such, the album is split into “Side A” and “Side B” rather than into individual tracks.
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Quarter After are the hip-hop duo of Justis and Marcus D, two college age musicians from the 206. Justis has collaborated with local rappers and producers and so has Marcus D, the latter making an album under his own name featuring tons of local rappers such as Geologic (Blue Scholars), Substantial, and Royce Da 5’9″. Marcus D also sports the trophy for winning the Red Bull Big Tune Beat Battle back in June of last year. This release was a free EP given out at their shows up until recently, since their first album G Between Us is now out.
Justis and Marcus D are both proving themselves in the local and national scenes. They’re ones to watch.
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This is a music blog, not following any specific genre other than what resonates within the core of my/our being.
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