aiwld

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Jon DeRosa — Black Halo (Rocket Girl)

Photo by Julia Henry

If you hadn’t heard anything from Jon DeRosa in a while, he might not be the most obvious pick to collaborate with Stephin Merritt. After losing hearing one ear, DeRosa formed (the mostly solo) Aarktica to channel the aural hallucinations he was experiencing, and under that name specialized mostly in beautifully drifting soundscapes, although through the years he also proved to be a capable songwriter in more conventional molds with songs like “Aura Lee” and “Hollow Earth Theory.” The latter provides the most obvious connection between his work as Aarktica and his officially solo material, appearing both on the former’s last LP to date In Sea as well as his first LP under his own name, 2012’s A Wolf in Preacher’s Clothes. The latter version was a bit warmer and sweeter, but mostly revealed how skilled DeRosa has gotten at blending the various facets of his musical life (ambient/drone, including studying with La Monte Young, post punk, 1960s pop, Americana) together. 

Keep reading

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I’ve wanted to draw this all day.

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alt-J “An American Wave" Live from Kansas City (Trailer)

(hopefully this will work for all of you non American alt-J fans)

(it will premiere Friday July 12th at 9pm est/ 6pm pst in North America only. But if I find a way to download it, I will.)

[aiwld]

Any librarians or library workers who are involved in noise music AND going to this summer’s ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, please contact LJ’s Music for the Masses columnist Matthew Moyer at mmoyer@coj.net.

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In a long email thread with Jason Molina back in 2008, I made a passing comment about having trouble finishing some Tre Orsi songs. He hammered out this reply a few hours later on his Blackberry.

I have a lot of reservations about posting private correspondence, but what he says here is so...

[aiwld]

Rad bands, booze, record release celebrations, ice cream, SECRET special guests. And it’s the last show you will ever see - I can’t even handle how awesome this night is going to be… You can too. 

(N Arms will also have LP’s, CD’s and tapes on hand for the show. Buy one of each - you’ll have no more use for that green after the night’s over anyways!)

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fuck you nancy

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Overlapping terms include haunted house, screwgaze, crunkgaze, chillgaze (crunk shoegaze), occult house (okkvlt), shoegrave, trianglecore, post-whatever, boogaze, next wave, broken-clash, post-pop, glambient, ghost drone, avant hard/avant-hard, zombie rave, ghost step, gothstep and drag.

Last.fm on ‘witch house’. (via inky)

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I think this is my favorite line about alt-J I have seen yet

"In a way alt-J are a Trojan horse, unsuspecting to gaze upon yet filled with an inside that will muster a huge impact. "

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[PIAS]/Infectious - Released: 28 May 2012 (UK) By Jaber Mohamed

Here is a band that is hard to place. Originally from Leeds, this four-piece is fresh onto the scene with their debut album ‘An Awesome Wave’. Their name stems for the keys you have to press on a Mac computer to create the...

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alt-J

Biography

alt-J (∆)’s name takes a little explaining. Pronounced “alt-J”, the delta sign is created when you hold down the alt key on your computer keyboard and punch ‘J’, providing your computer is a Mac and not a PC, that is. It’s more than an un-Google-able symbol that looks good on a T shirt, though. As guitarist/bassist Gwil Sainsbury notes, “in mathematical equations it’s used to show change,” and the band’s relatively new name came at a turning point in their lives.

Gwil, Joe Newman [guitar/vocals], Gus Unger-Hamilton [keyboards] and Thom Green [drums] met at Leeds University in 2007. Gus studied English Literature; the other three Fine Art. By their second year of studies, Joe had played Gwil a handful of his own songs inspired by his guitar-playing dad and hallucinogens, and the pair had begun recording them in their dorm rooms, ready for sharing with a world still hung up on MOR, cookie-cutter indie. As Joe remembers: “Gwil was originally a producer as much as a musician, because he was GarageBand-ing my original songs. But personally, I was just interested in my friends back home in Southampton hearing that I was doing music. I thought, ‘I’ll get a MySpace up, and when I go home for Christmas they’ll all come up to me and comment on what they thought.’”

Needless to say, the response to Joe’s hushed falsetto yelps and Gwil’s rudimentary sampling skills was good. When Thom was played the tracks he joined the band straight away. “I hadn’t heard anything like it,” he says. “It was music I was looking for, I just didn’t know I was. I just loved it.”

Gus completed the band’s line-up and together – first as Daljit Dhaliwal and then as the slightly easier to spell Films – the four friends spent the next two years playing art-show fundraisers for their course-mates and venues around town, developing a precise and unique brand of alt. pop that draws on poignant folk verses, crushing synths, smart hip hop syncopations and tight vocal harmonies. Their then moniker of Films had to go by the summer of 2011, though, largely to avoid confusing the band with Californian punk troupe The Films. But with all members having recently graduated and the band planning a move to Cambridge, it couldn’t have come at a better time – alt-J (∆) meant change and it also gave them a unique name to go with the unique ‘folk-step’ that they now concoct in the basement of a terrace house in Cambridgeshire.

Since then, attention, admiration and favourable comparisons have come thick and fast for alt-J (∆). Even before the release of their debut single on Loud And Quiet Recording last October (a record that has long since sold out), the band was likened to Wild Beasts, ‘In Rainbows’ era Radiohead, The xx and Anthony & The Johnsons – four acclaimed acts noticeable by their ability to create the kind of patient, sophisticated, intricate music that alt-J (∆) do. “Nick Drake meets Gangsta Rap,” went another likening.

An early demo of the skittish, euphoric ‘Breezeblocks’ gained healthy radio play without even being released; alt-J (∆)’s SoundCloud managed to generate over 70,000 plays in its first 6 months with little to no promotion.

So much of the band’s sound is their own, perhaps because, as Gwil puts it, “we never had any ambitions at all”. From Joe’s high soul cry and Thom’s refusal to drum with cymbals (a rule first born out of necessity, because he couldn’t fit a full drum kit in Gwil’s bedroom where the band first practiced, so instead used saucepans), to the sparse guitars and Gus’ delicate key clunks on songs like ‘Bloodflood’, a neat sound-bite for ∆’s music is yet to be coined, and perhaps never will be. And by challenging what constitutes folk, hip hop, indie and pop music, the band have quickly found themselves in the studio at the beginning of 2012, recording their debut album for Infectious Music with long-time producer Charlie Andrew (Micachu & The Shapes, Eugene McGuinness).

Their debut album will further explore alt-J (∆)’s varied soundscapes and percussive, experimental grooves, but it’s also a record that isn’t as stringently leftfield as some might be expecting.

Veering wildly from psychedelic avant-pop to skeletal folktronica, the finished album promises to trade in understated beauty one minute and epic oddities the next, just as you’d expect from a debut album that tackles everything from love to bullfighting to the heroic life of 1930s war photographer Gerda Taro, crushed by a tank on the frontline. Other tracks are inspired by cinema, including ‘Matilda’ (about Natalie Portman’s character in Luc Besson’s Leon) and the Good The Bad And The Ugly-referencing ‘Tessellate’; others seem to have come to the band as unexpectedly as they come to us, sounding like great experimental pop acts we already know about, yet somehow only ever completely like the band with a triangle for a name.

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RECORD STORE DAY ‘12

This year’s Record Store Day was hands-down the most enjoyable experience in its 5 year existence. It might have had something to do with being accompanied by a small but fierce squadron of fellow record-shopping homies - in years past I’ve pretty much gone it alone. This year’s roster of exclusive releases seemed thin in quality (a sentiment echoed pretty much everywhere) but the handful of items I did want weren’t mere wants, they were gotta-fucking-haves - Mclusky, both Luna re-issues, Matt Pond and the Empire Records soundtrack.

It seemed like my best bet on getting my hands on the lot was to sully off early to Philly’s best-kept record shopping secret - Long In The Tooth. So that’s where we were standing around 9:30 until the gates opened up at 10:30. (*side-note - while waiting in line with coffee containers and other various wrappers/junk the reason Philly is so damn filthy hit me square in the brain like a runaway street sweeper - at any given time/place you can look up/down/left/right to the each side until you hit the horizon….and not find one single trashcan in sight!)

There were about 15 or so of us waiting outside and the owner (Perry?) handled this tiny throng rather adeptly - you shouted out your RSD exclusive needs in the order you waited in line. When you were done - it skipped along to the next person in line. Fair enough. I was 3rd in line so I got everything I wanted but the Matt Pond LP (he didn’t order/get any). I happily moved on to browsing the voluminous used section/standard new stock, leaving everyone else to fight for their needs. I figured I would browse the remaining RSD swag when I was done and sure enough there were a few secondary wants leftover - those being JEFF The Brotherhood and the Shores/Creepoid 7”. The RSD releases were nice but the catches of the day here were a NM copy of Graceland (one of my favorite albums ever) and a VG-NM copy of The Hollies’ King Midas. Long story short - this place rocks in every way imaginable and I will definitely be returning next year (and many times before assuredly).

Long In The Tooth

Shores/Creepoid - Split 7” (maroon marble vinyl) JEFF The Brotherhood - Live - Upstairs At United 12” (RSD exclusive) Mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas LP (white vinyl) (RSD exclusive) VA - Empire Records OST 2LP (gold vinyl) (RSD exclusive) Luna - Rendezvous LP (180g) (RSD exclusive) Luna - Romantica LP (180g) (RSD exclusive) VA - Good Feeling LP (80’s comp feat. Vaselines, Sonic Youth, Beat Happening, Pastels. etc.) Paul Simon - Graceland LP (finally a copy in NM condition!) Parenthetical Girls - Safe As Houses LP King Khan & His Shrines - The Supreme Genius Of… 2LP The Hollies - Dear Eloise/King Midas In Reverse LP

We decided to hit up AKA next instead of Repo, mainly because Repo was so jam-packed last RSD it was impossible to move around and look at anything with the line wrapping around the store and out the door. As expected, AKA was pretty much wiped clean of RSD exclusives upon our arrival (12:30ish) but I did manage to pick up my last need - Matt Pond PA’s Measure LP - the last of his albums to see vinyl release and coincidentally my favorite from his catalog. Snatched up the Brendan Benson United 12” as I’ve always kept up with BB’s solo output even though everything else pales in comparison to his pretty-much-perfect debut, One Mississippi (someone please issue this on vinyl!). I’ve also picked up tickets to finally see him at World Cafe in a few weeks. The Wuxtry LP is a swath of exclusive songs offered up by Athens-based bands and made available during last year’s RSD. Glad it made it’s way up this far north and into my collection.

AKA Music

Brendan Benson - Live - Upstairs At United 12” (RSD exclusive) Matt Pond PA - Measure LP (180g) VA - Wuxtry Record LP (feat. Elf Power, REM, Marshmallow Coast, Grape Soda etc.) (2011 RSD exclusive)

Time was nearing for us to bail on the Philly area to spend the rest of the day in Princeton, not for a frat party but Princeton Record’s Exchange vaunted halls of vinyl, movies and cheap-as-hell CD’s. However, on the way out we stumbled upon a cozy little shop (Noise Pollution) of eclectic vinyl ranging from jazz to pop to bins and bins of punk, power-pop, garage, noise 7” (the real treasure here). We were pressed for time so we more or less had to quickly scour through the offerings. Managed to snatch up the debut King Biscuit Time 12” - featuring members of the Beta Band (remember them?) and the CMJ-heralded college hit - I Walk The Earth. And just as we were about to walk up to pay there was a very tiny ‘new indie’ section of which the impossible-to-find Portastatic Slow Note From A Sinking Ship LP beamed out like a pot of waxy gold. Turns out this was a very limited mail-order only release on vinyl. I immediately felt bad knowing that my partner-in-crime has recently been on a non-stop tear through the Superchunk catalog so…I offered it to him. He politely (foolishly?) declined and I hesitated not to tuck it under my arm and gleefully spend $7 for it. Chit-chat yielded that the shop had existed for like 20-something years but somehow it’s eluded my attention (and pretty much everyone else’s too…) but, rest assured, I will be returning to thoroughly scour those punk/garage/power-pop singles….

Noise Pollution

King Biscuit Time - No Style 12” Portastatic - Slow Note From A Sinking Ship LP Fleeing Philly in a timely manner was of the utmost importance given we chose Princeton Record Exchange as our last destination not only because it was out of the way, but moreso because They Might Be Giants(!) were playing a free show at 6pm with a signing to follow. As you can see I scored a few solid older releases and a re-issue of my favorite Shearwater record. I remember really digging that Jennifer Gentle album a few years back but for some reason I never picked it up so it was nice to see it sealed for a cool $5. Much to our delight TMBG did not play inside PREX - imagine the disastrous outcome - but outside under a tent in front of the Princeton public library. I’d say a solid 500 people attended, ranging from strollers on up to the grey-bearded (yours truly). They played a half-and-half array of old faves (Mesopotamians, Birdhouse, Pencil Red) and new tunes (yes, they still put out adult records!) but skipped the undeniable classics (Ana Ng, Don’t Let’s Start, Istanbul, SEXXY, Malcolm In The Middle theme song….) so it was an up and down performance as far as I was concerned but who’s complaining - it was free. Exhaustion set in as the sun beat down on us during the set so we passed on the signing - though it might have had more to do with I was packing a self-titled TMBG LP and I realized that the other non-John members of the band were barely alive and kicking back in ‘86. Awkward. Princeton Record Exchange Landing - Gravitational IV LP Jennifer Gentle - Valende LP Shudder To Think - Get Your Goat LP Shudder To Think - Ten Spot LP Shudder To Think - Funeral At The Movies LP Shearwater - Winged Life LP All in all the day was a major success and on top of finding great records, emptying out the wallet and hangin’ with fellow vinyl enthusiasts it was great to hear the constant ching of cash register transactin’ in every place we visited. I still feel strongly for the case of brick ‘n mortar record shops and what they ultimately bring to the music community - a place for music nerds to converge and commune and support the artists they admire and love.

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Miss listening to albums with your friends? First edition of OBPI’s album therapy is THIS THURSDAY at 9 EST/6 PST. Be there, and bring your friends!

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Something Awful forum member Kuuenbu; This is an audio file of him as a DJ. At about 30 or 40% through the file he starts having a meltdown and fights with his dad.