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doomedandstoned · 4 years ago

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Spelljammer Reveal Trippy New Vid, Talk ‘Abyssal Trip’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Interview by Billy Goate

Cover Art by Aaron Cahill

Our week of big interviews continues as we meet up with the ethereal doom outfit from Stockholm SPELLJAMMER and premiere a new music video, from their just released second LP, dropped only weeks ago on RidingEasy Records and now the number one album on the Doom Charts.

'Abyssal Trip' (2021) is an enthralling listen from edge to center, with lavish textures, deep thematic content, and unforgettably emotive atmosphere that will stick with you for life. Enjoy it as you read the revealing conversation with Niklas Olsson (guitar, vox) and Robert Sörling (guitar) that follows as we unpack their steller new spin, talk nerdy gear shit, and contemplate humanity's fate.

And now, Doomed & Stoned is pleased to bring you the world premiere of the brand new video for that epic third track, "Among The Holy."

Give ear...

Spelljammer - Among The Holy (music video)

You guys have been a band now for damn near 15 years, maybe longer. Most bands don't make it past two years! What is the "key" to the band staying together for so long and continuing to find inspiration for creating new music?

Rob: I don’t think it’s been 15 years just yet but we are getting there, haha. None the less - that’s a really interesting question! Nik and I started the band much because we share the same taste in music, film and, well, art in general. I think that's the core keeping it all together. Also, there have been a few constellations of band members over the years, all with their own dynamic. I think these kinds of changes, and the new directions of the music because of that, is part of the inspiration. Maybe another reason is that we all live in different cities and because of that sometimes a lot of time passes between rehearsals, writing sessions and such, making us always craving for new Spelljammer jams and songs.

Nik: The craving yes. And another reason I think is the fact that we’ve never really been in a rush to get anywhere. Anything Spelljammer, the music included, takes time. If we had been set on making it, this thing probably would have fallen apart a long time ago.

Abyssal Trip by Spelljammer

How did the theme for Abyssal Trip originate?

Nik: I have always been more drawn to the feelings or emotions you get from a riff or piece of music than to any theme of a lyric. But I would say that any themes came in at the lyrics state, which is at the end of the process. But the themes aren’t that specific to any of the albums. I think I cast a pretty wide net in the beginning and stuck to it. For the next album perhaps we will venture more into unchartered waters. We’ll see.

What fascinates you about the Great Abyss of the ocean?

Nik: I totally get that the word abyss conjures up images of ocean trenches and, yes, the ocean is a fascinating and to a large extent undiscovered place. However, when I wrote that I wasn’t necessarily thinking of the ocean but more the abyss of our own minds. But I think it’s a word that evokes many things, like despair and doom, and it is of course totally open to interpretation.

Is mankind doomed or do we have time to correct our course?

Nik: I’m not as pessimistic of a person as the lyrics may suggest. I think we will be here on earth for a long time. Mankind is clever (perhaps too clever for her own good) even if there are a lot of people hell-bent on trying to screw up everything for everybody else.

Rob: Yes, and considering how ignorant and careless (some) people are acting during this pandemic, at least over here, makes you wonder if there’s any hope at all.

Nik: People are the worst. Ultimately, though, none of it matters because we’re all doomed.

Have you guys seen any good movies/documentaries or read any good books lately that inspired you or otherwise challenged your thinking about life, the present, or the future?

Rob: I can’t say that I’ve seen or read anything recently that challenged me significantly, I guess I’m getting too old to be that overwhelmed haha. The film A Ghost Story though was kind of cool though because it was different, slow and weird (in a good way), and for me it’s always inspiring to read/see/hear something that makes you think, "Man, I wish I had come up with that idea”.

Nik: Absolutely! Punch Drunk Love, Moon, and Office Space are definitely movies like that. I have watched so many movies and series through this pandemic and I can’t remember any of them right now. But I did just notice that there is a season 3 of Loudermilk on HBO! If you haven’t already, see it! I’m currently reading "Homeward Bound, The Life of Paul Simon” by Peter Ames Carlin. It’s a good read about one of my favorite musicians.

For recording this album, what kind of gear did you use and what production/engineering considerations did you have to take into account?

Rob: Since we did a remote recording in the countryside we had to use whatever stuff that we could fit into a couple of cars. I have a couple of old audio interfaces that I linked for a total of 16 channels. I also have a small collection of mics (nothing fancy) and we used them all and the rest was borrowed. We set up the drums in the living room and put the guitar and bass rigs as far away as we could (the adjacent rooms) to avoid bleed and just focused on getting the rhythm tracks done. The goal was to get us all in the same room and to catch the vibe from a relaxed rehearsal kind of situation. The bass rig used was a Orange Terror Bass and an Ampeg SVT 810 and the guitar was tracked through a Reval Mark I and/or Orange TH-100 and a Orange PPC 412. Of course there’s always some unforeseen problem lurking and this time it was the electricity in the old country house.

Nik: I don’t use many effects, just a fuzz. For this one I used a Supercollider from Earthbound Audio. It is exactly what the name suggests. That’s all you need really.

The album cover is amazing! It reminds me, in some strange way, of the creature in the old B-movie Robot Monster (1953). What's the story behind the artwork?

Nik: It definitely has a B-movie vibe that I really like. I’m afraid I can’t really tell you much about it other than the artist name is Aaron Cahill and you can find his stuff on Instagram under the name nghbrs.

I filmed your first US appearance at Psycho Las Vegas in 2016. Fans want to know: do you have ambitions of returning to North America once the world sorts out this pandemic?

Rob: Yes, that’s our first and only US appearance so far and we wouldn’t mind at all returning to Vegas or any other part of the US. For now it’s really hard making any plans at all. In fact, you would think that this kind of isolation would enhance creativity, and maybe for some it does, but for us it’s actually been the most unproductive period so far for Spelljammer. So I’m hoping that by the time this thing blows over we get the inspiration back both for writing/recording new music, and in time hopefully revisiting the US!

Nik: I agree, playing at Psycho Las Vegas was a blast. I hope we get another opportunity to come back some day.

Spelljammer at Psycho Las Vegas/a>

Some Buzz

“The vastness of everything is something that I think about a lot,” says Spelljammer bassist/vocalist Niklas Olsson. And it certainly shows in both the expansive, sludgy sounds and contemplative lyrics of the Stockholm, Sweden based trio. Following a 5-year break between their previous album, Ancient of Days — perhaps fittingly spent pondering said vastness — Spelljammer is back with an album that perfectly bridges the band’s earlier desert rock leanings and their later massive, slow-burning riffs.

'Abyssal Trip' (note: carefully reread that album title) takes its moniker from the perpetually dark, cold, oxygen-free zone at the bottom of the ocean. The 6-song, 44-minute album fittingly embodies that bleak realm with rumbling, oozing guitars intercut with dramatic melodic interludes. The songs take their time to unfurl, making them even more hypnotic. Likewise, the lyrics take a poetic approach to establishing the sonic scenery.

“The lyrical themes we address, like the ultimate doom of man, and the search and longing for new and better worlds, are still there,” Olsson says. “The concept of something undiscovered out there in vast emptiness is pretty much always present.”

The recording process for Abyssal Trip differs from previous releases in that the band — guitarist Robert Sörling, drummer Jonatan Rimsbo and Olsson — opted to capture the performances while holed up in the mental bathysphere of a house in the countryside near Stockholm. “The songs benefitted from the relaxed environment of being away from everything,” Olsson explains. Indeed, the album sounds confident and meticulously arranged, afforded by the band’s isolation. Sörling mixed the album and it was mastered by Monolord drummer Esben Willems at Berserk Audio.

Album opener “Bellwether” begins dramatically with a very slow, nearly minute-long fade in of rumbling distortion setting the stage for heavily distorted bass and guitar plucking out the lugubrious riff for another minute and a half before the drums begin, and likewise equally as long before vocals gurgle to the surface. “Lake” abruptly shifts gears, opening with an unusually fast gallop before rupturing into thundering doom that soon drops into a clean-tone Middle Eastern melodic breakdown.

The title track serves as the album centerpiece, opening with ominous film dialogue about blood sacrifice that launches into pummeling, detuned guitars rumbling over gut-punching drums and howling vocals hearkening to the proto-sludge of Pink Floyd’s “The Nile Song.” The dynamic relents briefly for a slow building clean guitar melody before all instruments lock into a jerking riff topped off by a trilling Iommi style lead. Throughout, Abyssal Trip is, just like its title suggests, an epic tour through desolate zones which yields much to discover.

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

#D&S Debuts #D&S Interviews #Spelljammer #Stockholm #Sweden #doom #metal #doom metal #music video #HeavyBest2021 #RidingEasy Records #Doomed and Stoned

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scentedsublimehologram · 4 years ago

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Serial Number For Stage Plot Pro

Serial Number For Stage Plot Programming

Serial Number For Stage Plot Project

Serial Number For Stage Plot Processing

Serial Number For Stage Plot Proposal

Let me offer a recent, real life example of why sending an up to date stage plot and input list when advancing is critically important.

Stage Plot Pro 2.9.8 Serial Number Key Welcome to SerialCore.com your number one source for the latest serials! We are a new surfer friendly serial site without annoying advertisements, updated almost every day to make sure you find the serial number key code. That you are looking for:). Question: Q: Logic Pro 8 Serial number HELP!! My G5 recently died on me. (I think it's the power supply, but that is another story entirely!!). Stage Plot Pro 2.9.8 Serial Number Key. Welcome to SerialCore.com your number one source for the latest serials! We are a new surfer friendly serial site. Stage Plot Pro Serial Number 13 stage plot pro serial number stage plot pro serial number mac stage plot pro 2.9.5 serial number stage plot pro serial number windows serial number stage plot pro 2.6.1 Mac version 2.9.8.2. Windows version 2.9.8.1. Stage Plot Pro: 13-Mar-2018: 2,263 KB/s. All retail software uses a serial number or key of some.

We had a fly date into a festival in San Francisco, with a tight window of arrival. Our window became even tighter when our flight out of LAX was cancelled, and we were bumped to a later flight, now arriving across the bay in Oakland. It was one of those moments on the road where things are out of your control, and travel is either going to work out, or it isn’t, so it’s best to simply relax. With pre-arranged ground transportation botched, the festival hustled and sent us a runner van to get us on site. With traffic from Oakland into San Francisco, we ended up arriving on site 29 minutes prior to stage time. Woof.

There is a certain due process to arriving on site at a festival. Artist check in, meeting up with the festival liaison, getting your bearings, settling into the dressing room, checking in with production, checking in with backline, loading or crossloading gear to stage, building gear, grabbing a bite to eat, potential press, using the bathroom, etc. The picture that I am trying to paint is that there are a lot of things that happen before your set, and when you arrive so close to set time, things you have done in advance become even more important.

Walking onto stage, it was as if an ethereal force had descended and backline, monitors, and mics were all placed exactly where they needed to be. How did it get to be this way? How did they know to put it like this? Allow me to introduce you to the Stage Plot and Input List.

The stage plot is a visual representation of how gear is organized on stage. What do you need to include when creating a stage plot?

Band name – Imagine not putting your name on the plot if you are playing a festival with 100+ other bands. You want people to be able to find and utilize your plot, right?

Serial Number For Stage Plot Programming

Date – I like to title things with the season and year. IE:Summer 2015. This allows the person receiving the plot to know that what they are looking at is current. If it is dated Fall 2012, and it’s Winter 2015, audio begins to question the validity of the plot they are looking at.

Contact information – the production contact for your band. Your name, role, phone number, and email address should suffice. Put it right on the plot. No one wants to dig up an email to find your info.

Names of band members – People don’t always use it, but sometimes it’s nice to have the people you’re working with for the day know your name when you are thousands of miles away from home. First name and instrument does the trick.

Ok, so the above is important in its own way, but this is the part that really matters.

Placement of gear – use labeled shapes to show where a piece of equipment is going to live on stage. Guitar, Bass, Drums, Keys, Horns, Vocals, Doom Reverbinator, Strings, etc. Doesn’t have to be fancy; simply write it in a box, and plunk it down where it’s going to be set.

Placement of monitors – use labeled rectangles (IE: Monitor 1, Monitor 2, etc.), and number the monitor mix. Place the rectangle in front of where the player will need their monitor positioned. On a separate page, you can include notes for the monitor engineer, as far as what a player wants in their mix.

Placement of power – Until future technological developments arrive, we are tethered to the archaic system of “power cords” where we have to “plug in.” Wireless electricity, can you get here already? Need to plug in an amp? Need to plug in a pedal board? Need power for something else? Denote where you need to plug in on your stage plot. Oh, shit! What kind of power do you need? Are you using American or European gear? Bollocks, we haven’t the step down convertors!

Placement of mics – Maybe you are cruising with a non-standard piece of equipment. Telling the engineer how you want a mic placed (on axis, off axis, distance, etc.) helps them work more efficiently and quickly. This means more time for your sound check or line check. Is your singer on wireless? Make it known. Need an extra long XLR? What kind of mic stand do you want? Boom? Straight? Include all of that information either on the stage plot or input list.

To be even more specific, I’ve seen people label their plots with measurements of how things should be laid out. I encourage you to do this. Someone will appreciate it. Additionally, actual photographs of your stage layout are useful and provide a true visual for those setting things up before your arrival. Keep in mind that fine tuning will be required upon arrival. These documents are simply meant to get things close.

Serial Number For Stage Plot Project

The input list describes to an engineer what each channel is being utilized for. In the left hand column you will see ascending numbers. These are the channels that are being used. In the middle column, you will see what is being utilized on that channel. In the right hand column you will see what microphone we have requested, to mic or DI that element. For example, input #1 is the kick drum microphone placed inside of the kick drum. We’ve asked the engineer to use a Shure Beta 91a. Sometimes the house will not have certain mics available, and you will have to be flexible, unless you are traveling with your own mic package. Further, but not included in the example above would be effects that an engineer could apply to certain channels. I’ve seen where people will specify compressors, or gates on certain channels. I tend to let the engineer do their thing, and if something is grossly inaccurate to my ear, I will tastefully let them know.

**Please for the love of God, if you are a local engineer, do not put any vocal delay in the house mix unless explicitly requested. That is the peeve of all pet peeves. I will never understand the thought process that is occurring moments before letting that delay rip-roar through the lead vocal channel. Why would you ever do that? Reverb is commonly requested, but delay… NEVER!!

Full disclosure: I am not a FOH nor a MON engineer.

Serial Number For Stage Plot Processing

There are a slew of resources available online, both free and paid, to put together both. I personally have enjoyed success using Google Draw that is available for free in Google Drive. It is simple, intuitive, and has all the options one could want to effectively create a stage plot. The examples I provided above were created using Google Draw. Photoshop is another option, but it is more complicated, and costs money. I try to use the K.I.S.S. system whenever possible. Keep it simple, stupid.

Serial Number For Stage Plot Proposal

Stage Plot Pro is another option, and can be checked out here. I’ve personally never used it, but if you search stage plot in Google images, someone certainly has.

If all else fails, you can actually DRAW a stage plot. Crude, but it gets the point across and it’s better than nothing. (Photo credit: RockOnColorado.com)

As far as making an input list, any word processing software will do the trick. Simply create a table and wa-lah!

///

Sometimes despite sending an updated plot and input list, the engineer is looking at an ancient technical rider that has somehow made its way to them. That is the worst feeling when you arrive and see lines run to the tune of an old plot. Despite your best efforts, unintentional sabotage does occur. I like to keep a stack of correct stage plots and input lists on hand for arrival. Make it a priority to provide management and your booking agent up to date copies of your technical rider to avoid this issue. These documents are only useful if you can get them in the hands of a skilled production staff.

///

I highly recommend checking out Mark Workman’s book, One for the Road: How to be a Music Tour Manager. He is the one who turned me onto using Google Draw to create a stage plot, and I would be remiss if I did not give credit where credit is due. It’s a great read if you are fascinated by this subject matter, and I can’t recommend it enough.

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docfuture · 7 years ago

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Line and Sinker

[This is a background vignette that contains some material I cut from The Maker's Ark. It occurs just after the scene with Donner and Stella in Chapter 26. Links to my other work are here. I try to post new chapters or vignettes every two weeks.]

Donner watched the tree branches sway in the wind at the isolated campsite where he'd met Stella. It hadn't rained yet, but the clouds still looked ready to soak anyone who got too complacent. "No," he said. "I just can't. The more I think about it, the more scared I get. If I start putting more power into my regular singing again... Yeah, the effects from Concert in the Dark seem good so far, but that was one song, once. Who knows what would happen if there were millions of people listening regularly mixing with others who don't? I sure as hell don't. And neither do you. Keep sorting through what already happened with DASI. I'll have other questions. But I'm not about to try anything else like that without a good reason." "As you wish," said Stella. She smiled faintly. "You're really giving up? Just like that?" he said. "I expected more of a hard sell." "When you say no, I listen." Donner remembered their first meeting, all those years ago. "Yeah, you do. But that smile worries me. You were pretty damned convincing. Did I pass some kind of test?" "In a way," said Stella. "This was what you wanted, fifteen years ago. And some of the reasons you stopped are gone. I wanted you to think hard about this before we hit a crisis. I gave you my best pitch--because I wanted you to hear it from me. Not Osk. And not Flicker." "Oh. Yeah, that's..." Donner trailed off, and he realized his hands had started to sweat. "There. Now you're scared for the right reasons. Mass mind control is terrifying. I've been studying it for most of my life, and we still need better defenses. That's what I'm really after. I'd like it if you were involved in the research. Popular impressions to the contrary, neither DASI nor I are omniscient. DASI will be happy to talk to you whenever secure conversation is possible. As will I, when I'm not in the middle of a crisis." "Really? You're--" "I am very short on safe ways to relax." She took a drink, then studied her glass, still half full of gratuitously expensive Scotch. "Discussing the theory and practice of mind control with you is one." "Ways to relax. Right." Donner took a drink from his own glass, and watched a flock of birds swirl in the distance. "I guess finding out more about it is better than not knowing. Yeah. Yeah, I'll help." "Excellent. Want to hear another interesting and slightly alarming tidbit DASI uncovered about the concert?" "Whoof. Okay, go for it." "Disentangling the effects of your song from the psychological relief at the end of the battle was rather tricky, so DASI examined a lot of data to correct the correlations. She looked at hospital childbirths, because they're good at recording exact times, and music is a common aid for pain management. And she found something very interesting. Complications and pain reported by women who were in labor or gave birth during the last song of the Concert in the Dark were quite low." He frowned. "You mean, low for the women who listened to the broadcast?" "No. That's not what I mean." Donner digested that. "Okay, what do you mean?" "Since the effects of your song on those DASI could confirm were listening seemed so positive, she decided to compare to a control group of women who gave birth at the same time. And ran into a little snag." "I'm listening," said Donner. Stella seemed to enjoy building up to something scary just a bit too much for his comfort. "DASI first tried to limit the control group to women who were listening to some other music. But some of those later commented that someone changed the station, mix, or track. Even when that definitely did not happen. They heard you anyway. But it was difficult to pin down, because there was a strong correlation with someone else nearby listening, so audio leakage was possible. "But there were a few cases where we could completly rule out nearby music... Like one from rural Madagascar. No one was present at the birth except the mother and a midwife. Neither was aware of the concert, the Xelian attack, or even your existence. DASI could verify the time, because the midwife was using a smartphone to help monitor vital signs. The mother reported hearing a man with a nice voice, singing in some language she didn't understand, just before the birth. And her pain went away." "Oof." Donner looked down. "Halfway around the world. Without even hearing me. So the wrong song could really go far." "Or even the right one," said Stella. "Which brings me to another topic I'd like to discuss. Fifteen years ago, Doc asked you to serve as Earth's last line of defense against mass mind control. I'm sure you've thought about what you'd do, if someone started taking over the world with mind control, and you had to recover it, with no holding back." Donner eyed her warily. "I'm... not sure that's something that's safe to talk about. Are you?" "It doesn't matter what I say." He only hesitated for a moment, but it was already too late. "...Shit. How long have you--scratch that, does anyone else know?" "I seriously doubt it. A few might have guessed, but there's been no recorded discussion. And DASI did check, thoroughly." "How did you figure it out?" Stella smiled. "It's been one of my favorite songs for a long time, for some of the same reasons you chose it. I wasn't certain when I first studied you. But the ubiquity of the instrumental structure was a point in its favor, in case you needed to use it on short notice without recent practice." "Everybody knows Pachelbel's Canon. It's a running joke for musicians. But that can't have been enough." "No. But I understand your unique relationship to song lyrics better than anyone but you." "Ah. Yeah. I can control reactions while I'm singing, but people always bring their own baggage to lyrics, so they're gonna diverge as soon as I'm not actively preventing it. And the more people who hear, the further the extreme ones go, in all directions. If I sang full power to mind control a big audience, and it's broadcast or recorded--like it would have to be--it would be real hard to keep from killing anyone with side effects." "Unless the song is about mind control," said Stella. "But none of the organizations that are paranoid about you understand that, or how serious you are about not hurting people. And your excuse for never using the song in concert was very well thought out." "Well, it's true. I might need ten mil in a hurry someday, and I can only sing it for the first time once. And anyone studying the lyrics would catch the connection to the last line. So I figured that would keep them from realizing I might be saving it for some other reason." Donner looked down. "So what's wrong with it?" "Nothing," said Stella. "Except that it would work." Donner stared at her, then laughed, ending with a groan. "Yeah," he said, wiping his eyes. "You see the problem. It works. I say jump, everyone jumps. But then what? How do I let go? That's the part I've never been able to figure out. I could sing another song to release people--but it's not going to get everybody, it would spread differently, there'd be an unholy mess while it's working, and a whole bunch of people would be pissed at me afterwards. Even if I did it to save the world." He waved a hand. "And that's not the worst part. There's no way we'd be able to get rid of all recordings of the original song these days. They'd still be out there, sitting around like a bunch of stray nukes for anyone with a mixer and an agenda to try to use. The genie would be out of the bottle once and for all." "Not necessarily. With advance warning and the right kind of broadcast, DASI can track every recording." "Seriously?" "It might give away some capabilities that we would prefer to leave unrevealed, but this isn't something you'd do without an overriding threat. As for the rest--we can study potential solutions without it being obvious. Some of them are likely to come out of the defense research I'd like to work on anyway." She met his eyes. "I hope you never need to sing the song that way. But if you do, I want to minimize the damage. Just like you do." "Yeah." Donner nodded slowly, then looked down. "Listen. This has been... educational. And I appreciate finally learning about my family. But I've got a lot to sort through. So I think I'd better go, before you drop anything else on me." "I understand. Do you want a ride home? My flyer has an autopilot, I have space for your bike in the back, and it's no trouble." "Nah, I'm fine. It's only..." He looked over at the Scotch bottle, almost empty now. He knew his limits. He should be fine. But there was no reason to turn her down, except reflex. "Okay, yes, I would." Stella didn't talk much on the flight back. She asked him a few leading questions, then just listened while he blathered about concerts, goddesses, aliens, and the music industry. After they unloaded his bike, she paused for a moment. "Donner?" "Yeah?" "Thank you." "For what?" "For being understanding. And kind. And human." "No problem. You take care. I never know what Flicker will drop on me next, but whatever happens, I'll be in touch." She smiled wryly. "I know. It doesn't take a hook to bring you back."

[“Hook” by Blues Traveler.

Lyrics.]

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc #Maker's Ark

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sinceileftyoublog · 5 years ago

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Pitchfork Music Festival 2019: 7/19-7/21

Stereolab

BY JORDAN MAINZER

You’ve heard it by now: The weather was mostly shit. Triple-digit-feeling temperatures for a day and a half, a torrential downpour that had half of the security guards incorrectly telling people the fest was cancelled for the rest of the day when it was only Kurt Vile for the 50th time. Those who came back were rewarded with Stereolab, those who left hopefully came back for a beautiful day on Sunday that was also unexpectedly the best day for music. After all these years, Pitchfork is still full of surprises. Here are some of the sets that surprised us.

Great Black Music Ensemble

Part of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), the Great Black Music Ensemble were a bold choice for the festival to choose as the kick-off performance. In the past, equally far out acts like Sun Ra’s Arkestra and Irreversible Entanglements have at least played early on the third day of their respective years. But this year’s group started out undoubtedly captivating, starting chanting backstage before entering, continuing to chant while filling up the stage, their backs turned to the audience. When they turned to face us, saxophonist Ernest Dawkins, the animated maestro, led the band with finger-pointing and swooping direction through grooves and scatty jazz, backing off for percussion solos and swells of horn. As hot as it was, it was an invigorating set to start the day.

MIKE

Whether or not you were familiar with New York-based MC MIKE, it was easy to be swept up in his infectious energy and positive vibes. For one, before he rapped any words, he humbly shouted out the Great Black Music Ensemble that had just finished, along with future performers that day Standing on the Corner, Rico Nasty, Valee, and Earl Sweatshirt. Then, with family members in attendance, he delivered a lyrically dexterous, no-bullshit set that nonetheless left room for him to show his appreciation to the crowd. “Y’all ready for bars?” he asked before showing off his spit skills. “Make some noise for yourselves,” he repeatedly demanded of the crowd; when he spelled out the first three letters of his name and the crowd responded with a loud “E!!”, he laughed, “Y’all could have said anything...but you said ‘E!!’” The bouncy beats got the crowd in the mood to move and yell even as the weather continued to scorch.

Standing on the Corner

Like their jazz brethren Great Black Music Ensemble, Brooklyn-based experimental collective Standing on the Corner consisted of a bevy of musicians, orchestrated by a leader, Gio Escobar. Unlike the soulfulness of GBME, SOTC were noisy, their jazz venturing as much into surf punk and neo-classical music as it did hip hop. In the quieter moments, you could hear Rico Nasty booming across the park, but for the most part, the genre-bending crew held their own, never descending into chaos. Collaborator Earl Sweatshirt, standing on the side of the stage, looked impressed.

Valee

If you’re gonna wait this long to appear on stage and pump up the crowd for minutes, you better as hell bring it. About the only thing Valee brought on stage was his dyed red Chihuahua. Whether “I’ve Got Whatever”, “Juice & Gin”, “Extra”, or “Miami”, the local rapper’s set embodied the most disappointing of what rap sets can be: lazy and overdependent on the backing track disguised as some semblance of “chillness.” (See Earl Sweatshirt below for how to do that well.) By the time he played his beloved banger “Womp Womp”, you wished he had pulled an ILoveMakonnen and played it twice instead of something else.

Sky Ferreira

In a career filled with missteps, Sky Ferreira has managed to release just enough brilliance to not just stick around but become an anticipated artist. Friday’s set was that quintessential mix of misstep and perfection. Her follow-up to 2013′s Night Time, My Time has been in the works for the better part of the 2010′s but has only yielded one comeback track: “Downhill Lullaby”. She didn’t perform that song on Friday (it was sound-checked); in fact, she didn’t perform many songs at all. Teasing the crowd with audio of untouchable classics like Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”, Talking Heads’ “Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place)”, and David Bowie’s “Fame”, Ferreira walked out late. By that time, her band members had already been on stage taking pictures of the crowd and each other. With a deadpan “Hi”, she launched into “24 Hours”, “Boys”, “Ain’t Your Right”, and the powerhouse “I Blame Myself”. Unfortunately, that’s when the technical issues started. Backing tracks of her voice started prematurely playing, inadvertently revealing her cover of choice, an otherwise flawless rendition of Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry”. “Everything that’s gone wrong has,” she told the crowd, unable to hear herself sing, the band trying to start the shoegazey new song “Descending” multiple times before she just decided to do “Everything Is Embarrassing”. She and her band were eventually abruptly cut off by an impatient Earl Sweatshirt, leaving her set in the same thematic category as The Avalanches: Legendary performances that never were.

Earl Sweatshirt

As I was saying: This is how you use the crippling heat to your advantage. The slow, cloudy, warbling production of all of Earl Sweatshirt’s songs is as perfect for barely swaying and slightly nodding as it is hands-up palm pumping. Starting off with the gentle surf-and-horn tones of Some Rap Songs’ “Riot!” and getting the one sexually aggressive remnant of his pre-I Don’t Like Shit days out of the way (Doris’ “Molasses”), Earl delivered standouts with no fanfare: “Grief”, “December 24″, non-album tracks like “Wind In My Sails”. And while he began the set with Some Rap Songs’ closer, he finished it with his latest masterpiece’s opener, the soulful “Shattered Dreams”, as if to emphasize that his music puts you in such a haze, that it becomes cyclical, never-ending, never-beginning. It just always was, and that’s not sun poisoning.

Pusha T

The excellence of Daytona aside, a Pusha T greatest hits set--solo standouts, features, Clipse--was always going to be the best festival move. He delivered, and then some. Barging onto the stage with full force, speedily spitting the entire first verse of “If You Know You Know” sans backing track, Pusha relentlessly burned through song after song of dragon fire. My Name Is My Name highlight “Nosetalgia” and banger “Numbers on the Boards” and King Push’s hard-nosed “F.I.F.A.” proved to be the show-ready hits we always knew they would be. It’s hard to believe that My Name is technically Pusha’s solo debut, since his rapping often dominated both features and Clipse, so when he dedicated a string of songs to those who had “been with him since the beginning,” I did sort of a double-take. What he meant was his verses on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s “So Appalled” and “Runaway” as well as--wait for it--Clipse’s immortal “Grindin’”. By the time he got to the original Drake diss track, you didn’t even care whether he would follow it up with “The Story Of Adidon”. You were already out of breath and in awe.

Mavis Staples

If you had told me that a singer’s new album contained the line, “All that we are is the living ghost of our youth,” Mavis Staples would have been my last guess as to who that singer was. Then again, the reflective, often somber nature of her latest great album We Get By makes sense: her sister Yvonne passed away last year, and she’s only six years removed from the death of her other sister, Cleotha. As such, she’s mourning again the absence of both of those women and her father, Pops. Combine that with the current political climate, one that Staples has spent her entire life fighting, and you start to become surprised that the album’s not straight-up dour. But Staples doesn’t do depressing: She finds beauty in the darkest moments, using them to raise up both herself and others. It was this spirit that pervaded her Friday evening set. “I’m a fighter, I’m a lover, there is no other way,” she admitted on “Anytime”, “Could be one or the other on any given day.” The ambiguity of the title track, meanwhile, paying tribute to the power of a relationship that could be a lover or a friend--really anyone--meant that the difference between the Ben Harper-featuring album version (he wrote and produced the album) and vocal presence of one of her singers was negligible. It was the emotion that counted.

But what made her set brilliant was that in the context of her new album, the songs chosen outside of the album fit its themes of political urgency and self-improvement. “I’m working on me,” Staple sang on “Take Us Back”, her voice as gravely and powerful as ever. The necessity of change detailed on “Build a Bridge” mirrored that on the first track of We Get By where she asks, “What good is freedom if we haven’t learned to be free?” To Staples, freedom means the constant improvement of society, a sentiment as far-reaching back as The Staples Singers’ “Touch a Hand, Make a Friend”. She could have performed more from We Get By--album closer “One More Change” is Staples’ promise to do everything she can to get us out of this current shitstorm--but a quick sign-off of “No Time For Crying” is just as effective. Staples’ set was the rare one that made her new album AND old albums even more affecting.

Album score: 8.5/10

Lala Lala

Mid-day heat was not enough to offset the whispery voice of Lala Lala’s Lillie West combined with the dreamy instrumentation of her band of Chicago all-stars, which included V.V. Lightbody’s Vivian McConnell, Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, and Sen Morimoto. West and company played largely from last year’s breakout album The Lamb, but the true standouts were “Siren 042″, her collaborative track with WHY?, the band’s sweeping, blistering cover of Perfume Genius’ “Slip Away”, and statement of identity “Lala Song”. “Do you guys like screaming?” West asked the crowd, sure of the answer. The propulsive, saxophone-filled dirge consisted of wordless harmonies and the increasingly loud repeated mantras of “I’m not even listening / You’re not even nothing,” an anthem if there ever was one. Oh, and unlimited props to the band for donating all merch proceeds that day to RAICES.

Ric Wilson

Like MIKE on Friday, Ric Wilson brought the type of set you could walk into with no prior knowledge and leave a huge fan, almost entirely due to his charisma. It’s not just that he knows how to make a crowd feel good. He knows how to make a crowd feel good about themselves without sacrificing what makes him unique. Sure, on the surface, leading off with a song called “We Love Us” could cause some curmudgeons to walk away for a beer. But Wilson came to play not for those people but to pay back to the crowd of the first music festival he ever attended, delivering a positive mix of hip hop and soul: “Black art, not bad art,” he proudly declares on “Banba”. As such, he brought out Kweku Collins and the Lane Tech Marching Band and led what his band claimed was the world record for the largest soul train, jumping in the crowd to dance during it. He channeled D’Angelo on the funk of new song “Yellowbrick”. Oh, and nothing to bring a crowd together like rapping about traffic on the Dan Ryan, right?

CHAI

The Japanese quartet CHAI believes you can be Kawaii while still subverting standard definitions of beauty and femininity. Or really, they argue that there’s no such thing as the “standard.” They exist somewhere between individualism--arguing that you’re a “Fashionista” as long as you’re dressing the way you dress--and collectivism, donning a band uniform of an orange top and pink pants with white stripes, tightly harmonizing and chanting with equal pitch. That dichotomy in and of itself is unique, especially in Japanese culture. They call it PUNK, their terrific second album. From freedom anthem “CHOOSE GO!” to the propulsive beats of “THIS IS CHAI”, the band’s instrumental variation (the funk of “FAMILY MEMBER”, banging dance of “Curly Adventure”) is always tied together by the four women and the spirit each of them brings to the performance combined with the sum of parts that the band CHAI represents. And their radicalism is present in songs like “GREAT JOB”, a reclamation of housework as therapeutic, but it’s never so strong as when they shout their simple proclamation: “We are CHAI!”

Album score: 8.1/10

Cate Le Bon

“It has got to be hot in that long purple dress,” I thought looking up at Cate Le Bon. A few songs later, she admitted it. Thankfully, many of her songs are low-energy, and a set comprised entirely of Reward and Crab Day material suited the weather. She started with the first few songs of Reward, showed off her immaculate guitar tones on “Love Is Not Love”, extended a jam on “Mother’s Mother’s Magainzes”, and ended with the krautrock of “What’s Not Mine”. Perhaps she would have been ideal at the shadier, notoriously more chill Blue Stage, but Le Bon made the most of her time and location.

Parquet Courts

Entering to The Skatt Brothers’ “Walk The Night” seemed appropriate for the new version of Parquet Courts that released the funky, Danger Mouse-produced Wide Awake! last year. Yet, the band played a (storm-shortened) set full of songs that reminded you why you fell in love with them in the first place: the classic one-two punch of “Master of My Craft” and “Borrowed Time”, “Donuts Only”, “Dust”, and “She’s Rolling”. The songs they did play from their latest record for the most part were ones that could have fit on past records: “Total Football”, “Almost Had To Start A Fight / In And Out of Patience”, and “Freebird II”. The standouts, then, were the ones whose style is unique to Wide Awake!, the political “Before the Water Gets Too High” and the dance-punk of the new album’s cowbell-laden title track, a perfect party before the park was evacuated due to oncoming storms.

Stereolab

"This is French Disko,” is never a sentence I thought I’d hear Laetitia Sadier say. Not because I didn’t expect to ever see Stereolab live; rather, the nonchalance with which she introduced one of the band’s most beloved songs was striking. I don’t blame her: Since the band’s 1st North American festival appearance in 10 years to be rain-shortened, she wanted to play as many songs as possible. It was everything I wanted it to be: Emperor Tomato Ketchup hits “Metronomic Underground” and “Percolator”, “Miss Modular”, “Lo Boob Oscillator”, fucking “Infinity Girl”!!! Besides occasional guitar issues preventing Tim Gaine from shredding into oblivion, the band sounded perfect. Spotted at the side of the stage enjoying it: the Savage brothers from Parquet Courts, Jay Som’s Melina Duterte, and a stoked Kurt Vile who didn’t seem to care at all that his set was cancelled.

Belle and Sebastian

For one of the trademark albums of 90′s indie rock, Belle and Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister is generally pretty quiet, which made their grand, orchestrated performance of it Saturday night even more impressive. From the start of “The Stars of Track and Field”, it was apparent that even non-fans or even detractors would appreciate the band’s live presence. The chaotic harmonica playing of usual set closer “Me and the Major”, bouncy pop of “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying”, and climactic “Judy and the Dream of Horses” offset the preciousness of songs like “The Fox in the Snow” and the title track. They played the record so fast that they actually had time for an encore: Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance’s “The Party Line”, which saw Stuart Murdoch enter and dance in the crowd, and Chicago-appropriate “The Blues Are Still Blue”.

The Isley Brothers

Are The Isley Brothers still good? Yes. Do they belong headlining a festival that prides itself on alternative music? I’m not convinced. Maybe Pitchfork isn’t that anymore, but seriously--you can see these guys play at casinos all across the country, and that’s exactly what the set felt like. Sure, it was immediately full of classics, many of which have gained second life as primary samples for famous hip hop songs, like “That Lady”, “Between the Sheets”, and “Footsteps in the Dark”. The Isley Brothers stay new actually by embracing that, having band members rap a verse or two from the contemporary songs, or Ronald Isley singing, “I love it when you call me Big Poppa.” Their choice of covers, including Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay”, “Twist and Shout”, Stephen Stills’ “Love the One You’re With”, and Todd Rundgren’s “Hello, It’s Me”, showed their versatility. But Ronald’s voice couldn’t hold its own compared to Ernie’s scratchy funk guitar riffing, and the dancers and backup singers changing outfits every other song was more distracting to the actual music than adding to it. I’d have loved to see The Isley Brothers as an earlier set, but as headliners, their bravado failed to make up for their lack of dynamism.

Black Midi

Another band who met at BRIT school who learned to play guitar from Franz Ferdinand? Yeah, but Black Midi transcend even the hype they deserve. The very fact that hours of jamming contributed to a few bars of songs on their instant classic debut album Schlagenheim is already legendary, and the band covers territory from noise punk to jazz to surf rock to Slint-esque post-rock to chaotically played and sung math rock and...I’m out of breath. “We won’t build to this code,” Geordie Greep sang on “Speedway”, a standout from Schlagenheim, the band’s statement of purpose denoting that they’re truly trying to do something new with all of the above. Album and set “953″ is as good of an offering as any of their palate, starting immediately with complex time signatures, morphing into straight-up grunge, giving way to circular riffs and rhythms as Greep sounds like a coked-up Daniel Rossen, ultimately ending with fast punk.

Out of context, a song like “Of Schlagenheim” might seem the only one on the album a product of men the age of the band members (19 and 20). In it, Greep acts like realizing the ideal woman doesn’t exist is depressing rather than a statement of righteous feminism. Its live performance was likewise the most masculine and primal. But in context of “bmbmbm”, you realize it’s an act. On that song, he impersonates an uncontrollable creep obsessed with a woman, and Black Midi are too smart to fall prey to the cognitive dissonance that would come with both songs being genuine statements.

The band didn’t play everything from Schlagenheim. The gorgeous, 8-minute “Western” wouldn’t have fit the energy of their set, though the blistering “Years Ago” would have. Still, since the album is perhaps the best debut of the year, Black Midi gave arguably the best set at Pitchfork. Yeah, better than Stereolab.

Album score: 9.0/10

JPEGMAFIA

The most energetic set at the festival? That belonged to Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks. Performing from his album Veteran, inspired by his stint in the military and growing up experiencing racism in the South, JPEGMAFIA didn’t rap so much as screamed to the point of coughing fits, especially notable over his off-kilter, slow beats. He’s also as much of a troll as Vince Staples, repeatedly referring to the fest as the Condé Nast Pitchfork Music Festival, and performing a song he purportedly had retired in the U.S.: “I Can’t Fucking Wait Until Morrissey Dies”. He jumped in the crowd so much that he rewarded himself at the end of the set: “I’m about to get high,” Hendricks declared in victory as he left the stage.

Amen Dunes

When we first saw Amen Dunes touring Love back in 2015, he probably wouldn’t have garnered a set at the Blue Stage so late in the day. This set was a victory lap for his most acclaimed album to date, Freedom, and apart from a cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song To The Siren” and Love standout “Splits Are Parted”, he stayed faithful to the album that got him here. The title track, “Blue Rose”, “Calling Paul the Suffering”, “Miki Dora”--they all sounded immaculate, Damon McMahon’s trademark sneer rising above his excellent band, which included Delicate Steve on guitar.

Neneh Cherry

“I’m an old bitch,” joked legendary singer-songwriter and rapper Neneh Cherry. It’s funny, but most of her set was her strong most recent album Broken Politics, “Shot Gun Shack”, “Deep Vein Thrombosis”, and “Synchronised Devotion”. The two best songs performed, though? The noisy Blank Project title track, and of course, her immortal first single, “Buffalo Stance”.

Charli XCX

Midway through her set, Charli XCX proclaimed herself to be one of the top 15 pop stars in the world. It seemed dubious; after all, this is someone whose biggest hits are merely songs she wrote or on which she was featured secondarily. Plus, what would that make headliner Robyn?!? Well, with a performance like the one she gave--alone onstage, save for two giant orange cubes, and one CupcakKe guest appearance--she made the case that she should have been the headliner. Opening with “Track 10″ from her best yet Pop 2, Charli delivered banger after banger, slowing down only for the undeniable “Boys”. “Gone”, from her upcoming Charli, held its own without Christine and the Queens’ Héloïse Letissier. Charli even made time for a little Spice Girls tribute. In a perfect world, she’d be as popular as they were.

Robyn

Perhaps the most anticipated set of the festival after Stereolab, Robyn finally answered the question everyone was thinking: What would Union Park look like filled with thousands dancing on their own? It was blissful, followed by “Missing U” and “Call Your Girlfriend”. But honestly? Before that, the set was...fine. Her vocals were turned far too down. The songs were good, the stage set and dancing artful, but it slowed down the festival experience, the party atmosphere everyone hoped the final headliner would finally deliver. The ending three, plus an encore of “With Every Heartbeat”, were worth it, but Robyn’s set capped yet another Pitchfork where the headliners were really not the main event.

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scottielambchop · 7 years ago

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My Review of The Summer Set Festival (1/2)

You know, as a 32-year old man, I don’t really feel like I’m all that old. I’m hip, I still have that old devil-may-care attitude, I’m in pretty good shape, I play video games and don’t have many responsibilities. I love music, and I certainly feel that I’m more than open listening to new music and giving it an honest shot.

Then I started my security job at a Minneapolis bar called Psycho Suzi’s and got to know (and befriend) many people in their early 20s. Now, I’ve now come to realize that I don’t know shit. One such coworker recently posted the flyer for Summer Set (a local EDM festival), and only three names sounded familiar to me: Run the Jewels, Die Antwoord, and Zeds Dead—and that last one was only because it’s a Pulp Fiction quote.

So, as an attempt to fit in with these wacky youths, I’ve decided to listen to one song by each band (group) in the order it was written on the flyer and post my initial thoughts on each. It’s like a stream of conscience from hell. Let’s see how this one goes.

Zeds Dead - Frontlines (ft. GG Magree): This girl’s voice is okay, but musically who gives a shit? Oh, never mind; now it’s turned into a goddamn dubstep song. What in the holy fuck have I gotten myself into? It would be a lot cooler if this featured G.G. Allin — and I really hate G.G. Allin

Zedd – Clarity (ft. Foxes): This song sounds like every song played at my gym. It’s fine. I probably would have liked it in, like, 2001 when I went through a bullshit Paul Oakenfold phase. Do you think this guy has a beef with that Zeds Dead group? I guess that would make this festival kinda neat to see how they hash that shit out.

GRiZ – Hard Times: I’m really hoping this is about Dusty Rhodes, but I think I need to get that out of my head right away. This song starts off kinda cool, like a hip hop version of a Reservoir Dogs-type movie intro. Oh, now the dumb bullshit dubstep kicked in and ruined it — should have figured that nothing stays gold in the context of this miserablelittle adventure I’m on. Also, watching this video, you need to understand this this dude is the most stereotypical white guy trying to be a hip hop DJ. It’s like if Edward Snowden put on a hockey jersey and shitty glasses.

Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels: I’ve heard this before. These guys are cool. But then again, I’m a white guy who casually listens to NPR, so of course I like Run the Jewels. My only problem with this song is that I think only Angel Witch and Minor Threat should have titular songs.

Die Antwoord – Ugly Boy: I don’t know how two people can look so much like juggalos but not be lumped into that group. Instead they’re like the best thing to happen to graphic designers since the Adobe Creative Suite. I used to really like these guys but, then again, I used to be really fucking stupid.

RL Grime – Core: This is building up to something that I’m probably gonna hate. Not to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but holy shit was I right. It has buildups that I felt like will have a significant payoff, but then it just does fucking nothing. It’s like audio edging. For fuck’s sake, this song goes nowhere. Well, at least I can say that I also really hate their name.

Datsik – Redemption (ft. Excision): Oh great, I found the official background music to every YouTube vape video. When they inevitably remake the Matrix movies, I fear this is all they’re going to sound like. The track says it features another artist, but the only thing I can hear is some random audio clips. But then I did some research to find out it took TWO separate DJs to make this bullshit.

Post Malone – White Iverson: First of all, this guy needs to land on his basketball references. Second of all, this video has 276,473,194 views—a number I wish I were joking about. This song just sounds like every other modern hip hop song, minimal beat and some dude inaudibly saying dumb shit without a rhyme. Now that I’ve established how milquetoast this song is, I’d really like to comment on how this guy looks. He’s the missing link from Riff Raff and James Franco’s character in Spring Breakers. Seriously, if they were to make a reboot of Malibu’s Most Wanted, casting had better snatch this honkey up QUICK! He seems like an exaggeration of someone trying to appropriate black culture, and it’s heartbreaking no one is calling him on this shit. I can’t wait until we’re in a time of post-Post Malone.

Seven Lions – Worlds Apart (feat. Kerli): Honestly, this starts out okay. Kerli has a pretty voice, the electronic beat isn’t overbearing and the video features bloated images of outer space that you’d probably find on the wall of a “worldly” teenage stoner. I’ve heard way worse. Granted, this could also be my old “techno” fan coming out. There’s a middle dubsteppy part that I could do without, but whatever. Yeah, I didn’t mind this one.

Zomboy – Like A Bitch: Right from the get-go I’m told to, “stop acting like a (woop) and get my hands up.” Here’s the deal, Zomboy: you only get one chance to make a first impression. And you insulting me for not doing what you want isn’t going to make friends with anyone. So, no, I won’t stop acting like a bitch. The mere fact that you keep repeating it, isn’t going to motivate me to do it any faster—if at all. With that said, musically, this also sucks.

Audien – Something Better (ft. Lady Antebellum): Hey! This has a structure of a legit pop song! I don’t know if this project has been beating me down, or if this is actually decent. Don’t get me wrong, it has the really annoying electronic hooks that most modern music has, but compared to some of the garbage I’ve already put in my ears, it’s pretty alright.

Bakermat – One Day: Man, what a progressive song. Nothing says, “heartstring cash grab” better than mixing samples of MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech and sexy saxophone with generic dancy electronic beats. It honestly sounds like the backing beats to Marky Mark’s “Good Vibrations.” Oh well, at least it was short.

Big Wild – Aftergold: This song sounds like it was tailor-made to be used in the opening narrative of an “inspirational” teen movie. Imagine an opening shot of an urban high school with the main character doing a voice over explaining his life and school, now think of the music that is playing in the background. Yeah, you’ve got it. It’s light and floaty with an array of unique instruments (strings, Taiko drums, etc.) and then sample in some record scratches and electronic noise and that’s it. It’s not offensive. It’s not anything. It’s just a thing.

Bleep Bloop – Slippin: Before I start, I want you to know that it was THIS band that made me venture into this masochistic assignment. It all started when a group of younger coworkers posted the flyer for this festival on social media and expressed their sincere excitement. Now, being the complete asshole I am, decided to shit all over their good time by stating that it sounds like the worst time imaginable. (I was essentially being facetious because I really don’t care what they listen to. But for the record: I’m right). Anyway, after skimming through the names, my eyes caught the name “Bleep Bloop” and everything in me laughed and cried all at the same time. I voiced my opinion about this band without ever hearing them, stating that this just sounds like a generic EDM placeholder until these assholes can figure out something dumber to call themselves.

Cut to a few days later. It’s a Saturday and once we were finished closing up, I decided to invite some coworkers over for drinks. While everyone is over, I take it upon myself to throw on a record that I figured would appeal to many. So I put on my copy of T-Swift’s 1989 (it’s solid pop-gold, fight me). I throw on the record, and it’s mostly well received. At this moment, the person I was giving shit to about Bleep Bloop made his opinion heard by stating that he can’t believe that I would listen to/enjoy 1989, but refuse to open myself up to Bleep Bloop. Now once he said “Bleep Bloop” out loud, I couldn’t help by throw myself into maniacal laughter. I mean, just think about how goddamn stupid that sounds. Imagine your favorite band of all time. Then imagine their name is fucking Bleep Bloop. Now try and defend that band to someone who hasn’t heard them before. It turns into the biggest, most useless uphill battle you’ve ever waged upon someone else. It’s also just really funny for the other person, if you’re dead serious about them.

Okay, now that I’ve got the backstory of this shit-ass band, it’s time to dive into the music.

This is just a series of dumb sound effects. It honestly sounds like it was created on the Playstation version of MTV Music Generator. Then they have remixed versions of a guy saying the same damn thing. It’s seriously giving me a headache. I don’t know why anyone would want to listen to this for enjoyment. It’s really fucking confusing. All in all, it’s exactly what I expected out of a band named Bleep Bloop.

Destructo – Higher: Have you ever seen an action movie from the late 90’s/early 00’s where the protagonist has to kill a mafia boss in the middle of a douchey club? You know, those scenes where in which shit really escalates into a full-blown gun fight and the fire alarm goes off making everything wet creating a unique aesthetic? Yeah, this is the shitty music playing at the beginning of the scene that lets the viewer know that the location really sucks. The video is blatantly alluding to straight-up heroin/sex addiction—it’s pretty glamorous. And then she dies at the end from a broken heart while some guy repeats, “get higher, baby.” All in all, better than other stuff already reviewed on this godforsaken list.

Ghastly – We Might Fall (ft. Matthew Koma): This video started out by saying “Dubstep Electro House” which is weird because I can almost guarantee it should just say “whiny dude singing over bullshit.” It started off slow with dumb vocals, then it slowly built up to a techno climax (which is also a medical term for when you ejaculate lasers) with a high-pitched autotune. And then it repeats. Whatever, it sucks, but it’s fine.

Well folks, that’s it for the first half. I’m currently waiting on edits for the second. I’m sure you’re waiting with baited breath. Trust me, it fucking sucks.

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cjostrander · 7 years ago

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In This Moment: Ritual

Hello everyone! Today i’m going to tackle the latest album by In This Moment. I was hoping to have Black Widow reviewed before they did a new one; but this one has caught a little interest on my end. Sound wise it is a departure for them and breaks from the heavy metal sound in favor of a rock centric one; heavily reminiscent of The Pretty Reckless in terms of rhythm. A little bit of Halestorm could maybe be argued but there’s no denying the The Pretty Reckless comparison. Luckily i can say that i’m back on my game as far as reviews go and i can scratch off quite a few of these new releases before the month ends. Hope you guys enjoy; but this one is going to be a fresh pick on my behalf in terms of familiarity. The positive thing is that critics seem to generally be in favor of its direction so it’s nice to see that these guys have gotten some exposure over the years.

Salvation:We start this album off with an entry of audio effects, chimes, and general spooky vocal effects. It seeks to create a rather sinister scene that is actually rather beautiful in terms of relaxing melody and tension build up. The album is focused around religious persecution and witchcraft and the gloomy electronic effects do a pretty good job of starting this album on a pretty good note. It will get you in the mood for it quickly and will be a great opener for a concert setting. 9/10

Oh, Lord (Single): We begin with the main single for the album and drums and a gritty guitar riff start it off. It has a rather catchy blues/bar rock tone that reminds me of Marilyn Manson’s tone on The Pale Emperor with that southern atmosphere; as well as that Pretty Reckless trait. Maria’s vocals are a bit smothered but retain a good degree of coherency in terms of lyrics and her voice manages to bring out a nice degree of catchiness into the atmosphere. The chorus is pretty basic but does keep things going relatively smooth but remain a bit overly spaced for a catchy level of rhythm to really surface. The blues rhythm does prove to still be a nice change of pace for the band that will offer the listener something entirely new and unexpected verses their previous work. I’m not going to say that it is their best work; but it will so maturity on their end and for those that may of wanted something different as well as less sexualized; this album will give you that opportunity. After being five albums in; it was definitely time for them to make a bit more of a risky album than their prior work. I personally find their last three to be very solid albums with a good deal of originality; but this will help to give a better variety to their fanbase regardless of whether they are repulsed by it or not. Knowing the metal community; i’d be surprised if they havent been flooding facebooks posts and youtube videos calling them sellouts and other excessive things that you know damn well they would be too chicken shit to say in person to them. Anyways; enough of that little rant. This would be a fairly smooth live piece as long as their concerts are geared around a rock sound instead of their typical metal but i’m sure they already have the right songs figured out for their shows by now. 7/10

Black Wedding: This one is a semi original song by them that takes the chorus from Billy Idol’s White Wedding and puts their own little spin on it. Keys start it off on a nicely classical note and it hits the listener with a nice sense of defiance. The electronic drum beats manage to give a nice sense catchiness and Maria’s vocals give this song a nice push during the casual verses and Rob Halford’s subtle presence at the beginning (Judas Priest) is a nice guest appearance for the listener to be caught of guard by. The chorus comes by very smooth and original and the easy to spot Billy Idol elements are a positive flair that will engage the listener to a rather successful level. The original lyrics build on this pretty smooth and the instrumentals provide Maria with an aggressive yet balanced support so that she can bring forth the power in her voice that she is best skilled at. This would of been a nice single for the album and is an easy yet safe song to toss into a live performance that would mess very well with their older material. I’d be surprised if it isnt a single to some extent; but maybe they are trying to limit royalties or something; which would be understandable from a commercial point of view. 8/10

In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins cover/Single): Now this oddball choice for a cover/single will likely come off at first glance as one of those “why did you pick this one“ kind of songs but the band was wanting to do it for awhile now; so you gotta respect their choice when you know it was one based off of creative passion. It will definitely challenge them musically and that alone is another reason to give them props for even trying. Electronic effects slowly fade in before a subtle bass riff starts the song off. Maria enters after a rather atmospheric opening to recite the song’s highly memorable lyrics. Her voice is rather smooth and controlled in perfect comparison to the original version. The pacing of this song is going to be pretty slow churning as expected so if you really aren’t a fan of it; this is going to be a tough listen being nearly five minutes long. Overall though; Maria does the song justice and will provide a relaxing element for the listener on this album to experience. The guitars begin to slowly give it more of an aggressive rock edge without taking away from the slow power and high emotion in Maria’s voice. The electronica and prominent bass riffs finally end the “proper” cover format of the song and give the band’s own spin on it. It’s only to close the song out but its something to note and will close out the first 1/3rd of the album for you. like i said; it’s a song that you either love or hate; but respect them for doing nonetheless. It is actually a pretty good cover in terms of staying true and Maria’s voice manages to make it flow over well. For me it’s likely going to be a song i skip over; just because when i pull out an In This Moment album; i want something with a good deal of energy to get me going. For the listener; look at this album as one to unwind to a small extent (big verses previous albums) and it will have a purpose on in your CD collection. 7/10

Joan of Arc: More audio effects begin this song off on a more tense note before 80′s influenced electronic effects enter with the drums to established a very interesting groove effect. Actually reminded me of Queen’s Hot Space sound. Maria delivers some pretty smooth vocals and establishes a high degree of power during the chorus. The backing vocals do well to add a little extra oomph to it and the instrumentals continue to provide a nice balance between energy and groovy rhythm to dance along to. I could some live potential for this as well that could do well to get an audience up and moving and even sticking out as a favorite among some listener. Definitely a stronger song at this point in the album with some heavy elements of Rob Zombie it as well. The spooky audio samples and the groove element is what makes Rob Zombie sound stick out in my head. Definitely not a bad element to pick up on in this album. 8/10

River of Fire: Drums begin an aggressive beat while Maria returns to her blues rock style of vocals. The guitars and some electronic effects establish a very sinister effect and the guitars do very well at infusing it with a heavy dose of aggression. The positive effect if that being as simple and slow as it is; it will do very well at getting an audience in a nice middle range state of adrenaline. It will catch interest rather quickly and Maria’s lyrics do pretty well at sticking out on their own. The chorus is decent but doesn’t make much of an appearance on this song. The guitars have a nice little jam segment towards the end with the drums and will do a decent job of getting the audience pleasantly engaged without going over the top. This one would be another decent live piece as long as things didnt get monotonous by this point in the show. 8/10

Witching Hour: Vocal samples begin the spooky Rob Zombie element of this album on a nicely catchy and melodic note. The guitars bass and programmed drums begin to build on it with a high degree of danceable rhythm and emotion. Maria uses a simple vocal style that is remarkably effective at pouring in a high degree of emotion into the atmosphere. The chorus is surprisingly well supported by the electronic elements and straightforward guitar riffs. It is simple but the atmosphere of it is very effective despite being so simple and this all joins together to make this the strongest album track as of yet. I would suggest giving this one a good listen because it really comes off as a surprise; especially if you have had trouble really finding something that truly stuck out to you. 9/10

Twin Flames: This five minute song is the longest of the album and begins with some very soothing guitar riffs. The bass joins in to Maria’s blissful vocal harmonies to establish an atmosphere that is very high in emotion. This is immediately a song that would be perfect to slow dance to with your significant other. Maria’s lyrics are very simple but substance filled and truly dominate during the chorus due to the level of power that Maria is able to draw from her voice. The instrumentals provide strong support despite using a simpler more refrained approach as to ensure the melodies in the song reach their maximum potential without the risk of clutter. I’m actually really surprised by the strength of this one and it signals that the band is finally coming into its own with this new sound. 9/10

Half God Half Devil: Now that this album is finally picking up some good strength; The guitars echo their way into the mix to slowly set the tone for a more aggressive number than the last couple songs. The strong rhythm of it will get an audience moving and Maria’s highly strong and catchy vocals will do a good job of keeping the listener hooked into the song. The lyrics are pretty strong and Maria does a terrific job of building them up till the chorus hits. The chorus is pretty basic in comparison to the casual verses; but that is suitable and keeps the song from going too grandiose for its own good. I will give this album that it does have a decent flow to it and is definitely written solidly for a whole live performance.That will do nicely to ensure that this album will have a good place in the band’s catalog and is more than just their risky experiment for future/older fans to come across. 9/10

No Me Importa: Keys come back to begin this song on a beautifully classical note before the guitars roar in with an electronic bass support to join with them. It all combines with Maria’s dire sounding vocals to develop a dire sense of urgency that immediately connect with the listener. The chorus is mind blowingly powerful and Maria thrives with rebellious emotion as she recites her lyrics to maximum effect. This is definitely a solid gem that deserves to be a single all unto itself. The live potential will kill any audience’s expectations due to how strong it manages to turn out despite it’s simple structure. The incorporation of strings into the background is a smart addition to add some extra complexity into it and give the guitars some footing to add a little extra turmoil for Maria to work with. She uses this moment to deliver some rather smooth harmonies before returning to the chorus to round this song out on a remarkable note. Yeah; this is the hidden gem and easily my favorite song so far on this album. To think; i was really expecting this to be a semi-weak album for them based on the beginning; but this second half is defying expectations and giving a high level of strength to it that may very likely earn it a reviewer’s pick label. 10/10

Roots (Single): This final single for the album warms up with some electronic effects and eventually Maria enters with a slightly more echoed delivery than on the past songs. She ventures into a more aggressive but coherent tone when the guitar roar their rhythmic way in. Maria proves to dominate the airwaves with her smooth and persistent transitions between aggressive shouts and more casual sounding verses.The lyrics are decent but the guitars and Maria’s voice are going to stand out more on this one; which is no real loss to the song as a whole. It is a decent single due to its radio friendly sound and has potential to be an easy crowd pleaser; due to the level of power it can build up for an audience. 8.5/10

Lay Your Gun Down: This finale track is going to be similar to the ending song on their previous album Blood. Its meant entirely as a closer and uses soft yet beautifully melodic keys to start this song off. It has hints of turmoil in the background and Maria enters to deliver some gloomy yet attention grabbing vocals. Her lyrics are very thought provoking and manage to garner a nice deal of emotion from the atmosphere. Subtle electronic effects and string seep into the background to ensure that Maria gets the most support out of as little musical presence as possible. It would be a nice concert closer for the band will stand a strong chance of developing a very intimate moment with an audience. It actually goes by rather quickly and proves to be a very pleasant surprise that they’ve typically had issues with in the past. Nice to see them drastically improving with songs like this one. 8.5/10

Overall album rating: 8.4/10

I’m actually really surprised by this album. The first half was understandable in terms of direction but really didnt have a wow factor to it and seemed like the band was shooting in the dark so the speak. After the first half; things really picked up and the band showed that this sound change was a positive one for them. You can tell that their songwriting has drastically improved and they have yet to peak in terms of potential. I’m curious where they will go with this one because have only continued to grow in terms of skill as the years have gone one. I suggest checking it out and seeing how it is to you and if you like it; the deluxe edition has a cover of Radiohead’s Creep that i’m rather interested to check out. Other than that; this is a great review choice to scratch off my promo sheet and i’ll start looking through what i’ve got and will do my best to follow this up with something equally nice. Enjoy your day everyone and i shall see you all next time!

*Reviewer’s Pick*

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sixeightsuited · 8 years ago

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Of Gaming, Maths and Misery

Onward! The second of God knows how many posts on the topic.

People used to dismiss video games as mindless entertainment that created a generation of lazy, disinterested youth who would rather stare at a screen than go outside. Kinda funny how now almost EVERYONE is staring at a screen for long periods of time and it’s totally cool. Well, to a point….I mean, you CAN go outside and do stuff too. But anyways…

I got hooked on the game Destiny and while I loved the campaign side of it, I was TERRIFIED to try the competitive side or PvP as its known. I am really uncomfortable with strangers to begin with and it requires often being on a headset with people you don’t know. So, I went a long time without trying what was one of the most popular parts of the game. You can look for people to play with via LFG sites (Looking for Group) but it’s a painful process for someone like me who is so self-conscious and finds making new friends very difficult let alone approaching strangers on line and asking them to play a game with me lol

I decided to try starting a Clan on the Destiny website but make it for people like me who suffer from anxiety, social awkwardness and have it be a “safe space” where there would be no judgemental shit (gamers can be real assholes) and a spirit of inclusiveness. Age, sex, culture….none of that mattered. You didn’t have to be good at the game either. Just maybe try stepping out of your comfort zone a bit like I was doing.

Well, I had no idea my vision would resonate with so many people. A rep from Bungie, the author of the game, contacted me and asked if I would like to be featured on their website.

https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/44591/7_Unite-the-Clans—Not-Quite-Sonic

Having no idea what that meant, I said “Sure” and filled out the questionnaire they sent me and as soon as it went live on the site, I had a maxed out clan and 1500 members in less than a weekend. Within three months, I went from having 10 members to over 3000 across three platforms. PS4, XBOX, and PS3

Now this post isn’t to brag about that. It’s to talk about how gaming helps people. In this particular instance, with self-confidence, self-esteem, and things like the aforementioned anxiety issues.

When I started gaming it was completely solo. The only interaction you’d have with another player was if they were in the room with you on the other controller. No online, no game lobbies, no clans. It was perfect for me. I had a friend who played and we’d spend hours on stuff like Tomb Raider, all sorts of sports games, and I especially enjoyed puzzlers and platformers.

Problem for me was, problem solving puzzlers triggered a physical reaction in me the way that math and tests in school did. When faced with math, I would have this feeling like someone just grabbed hold of the back of my head and was trying to pull my face off. My stomach would knot up, I’d get anxious, and ultimately flounder miserably. I never made it past grade 9 math to make a long story short.

(BUMMER ALERT: This next part is depressing but integral)

To go along with crippling anxiety, I had an undiagnosed Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) You see, back when I was about 5, a bunch of kids tried to cave my skull in with rocks. I was literally stoned. Not in the fun, “Dave’s not here man!” way…that came later. But in the Biblical, Life of Brian “who threw that” way. Why? Because of the colour of my skin. So that, among other things (including woeful health care that involved just throwing some stitches in me and sending me home where my adopted family ignored the vomiting and accompanying migraines) left me with a TBI that lay undiscovered til an MRI a few years ago that joyfully showed not just scar tissue on what little I have that passes for a brain, but an aneurysm somewhere in the left carotid just to sweeten the deal.

So… if it goes off, my demise will be on the hands of those kids all those years ago and they’ll never know they ultimately succeeded in killing me. Now, I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a lot of anger about it, but I also know that that kind of racism and hate is taught. At home, usually. You’re not born with it. So…while I can’t say I forgive them, I can say I understand that it’s not entirely on them. I’ve made as much peace with it as I can.

Anyways, having this physical reaction to math made learning a bit of an issue. While I was fine with other subjects, anything involving tests or activities that centered me out would cause this most unpleasant of feelings. There’s a ton of other reasons for that but this isn’t really supposed to be about me and my childhood, it’s supposed to be about gaming, games, math etc. and how it helps people.

I dropped out of school in the eleventh grade because I hated school and the way it made me feel. The two things that saved me from turning to a life of crime or at least more very poor choices were music and martial arts. I’ve covered this elsewhere so I won’t get into it here.

Now the math thing I realised also stemmed from how I was being taught. Numbers on a page evoked the aforementioned stresses. Practical application of math, like while playing darts, did not. I had a bass player who loved playing darts and his game was 501. You start with a score of 501 and subtract your score per 3 darts til you hit zero. I found I liked playing too but realised I was going to have to do math in my head. It scared me so I just watched for a while until finally I was talked into playing. Strangely, and very surprisingly, I didn’t feel that same stress and anxiety I did when doing math on paper. It made no sense to me but it made me happy that in a short time I could and still do subtraction pretty quickly without having to write it out.

Now, I’m no educator (obviously) so I can’t explain the ins and outs of it but if I did things in a hands on, practical way, I would learn and have learned a lot of stuff nobody that taught me would have ever expected. I was told by a grade 5 teacher that I would “never amount to anything like the rest of my dirty drunken kind” Little did she know I would go on to become proficient at multiple instruments including guitar, drums, bass and keyboards, sing and play in touring club acts and learn how to do front of house sound for live bands and work with some popular at the time Canadian bands like Sloan, I Mother Earth, Tea Party, Moist and a bunch of other alt-rock acts, jazz ensembles and even toured with an awesome Drag ensemble as the live sound engineer.

None of this happened by going to college and learning (Daughter of mine: DO NOT follow my example. Stay in school! I am an anomaly) but by teaching myself as far as the music part goes (I was actually kicked out of my high school music class) and having someone take me on the road as kind of an intern and show me how to set up, run and maintain a large sound system in numerous environments. I found I could troubleshoot, work under tremendous pressure in a live environment, all to my great surprise.

The reason was, for me anyways; because I learned this all in a practical way. I remember we had a college that taught audio engineering that would send students to the production company I worked for and I was charged from time to time with taking them into a live situation and putting them to work. They had no real practical experience but loads of theoretical knowledge.

I figured I’d teach them how I was taught. Throw em in the fire and see which ones think to jump out. I gave this kid total control of the show one time and the entire left bank of speakers went out in the first song and he had this deer in the headlights look as the audience, band members friends and family, all started turning around to look angrily at us. “What do I do????” he asked. I said what were you taught? He had no answer and was genuinely beginning to melt down and I don’t relish in other peoples discomfort so I offered this: follow the signal. Meaning, follow the sound signal from the mixing console back to the speakers and figure out where it’s failed.

Somewhere in that chain, something has failed. We know it’s nothing at the band/stage end of it because it’s the speakers that aren’t working. So start subtracting the stuff that it couldn’t be and find the few things it might be. It sounds like its complicated, but in actual practice, it’s quite simple. Subtraction. One of my old childhood tormentors in math was now a friend.

He, understandably, had no idea what to do under that much pressure so I left the light tech at the board and walked him through the process.

We knew back then that the signal comes to the mixing console via a cable we called the snake containing the signal from all the instruments on stage. That isn’t the problem. The sound is making it to the console. Next, the sound goes from the console into processing units like compressors, equalizers, effects units etc. Well, out of those subtract the ones that aren’t applied to the entire mix. FX units are applied to individual tracks or instruments or groups of instruments, so we know that’s not the problem. Follow the signal.

What things after you leave the mixing area affect the path of sound heading to the left and right side speakers? If its not there in your rack at the console, then follow the cables back to the racks of amplifiers that power the speakers. Have any of them shut down? Has something come unplugged? And so on. In that instance, a poorly wired amp rack was the culprit and simple subtraction (sorta) saved the day

**Of course, it’s more accurately an example of deduction or the process of elimination BUT the point is more importantly that practical application was how I learned the trade and was able to explain it to someone with mostly theoretical knowledge.

“Now what in the holy hell has this got to do with anything?” you may ask.

I’m getting there. Trust me. Now I’m gonna go watch football and eat poorly cuz, well….I deserve to.

Later taters. Stay tooned!

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