005 ALTER.NATiON: weekly favtraX / 05-11-2018

ALTER:NATiON 

Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox feat: Haley Reinhart, Christian Kjellvander, Beacon, Orchestra of Spheres, Lunar Creep, Etienne Jaumet, Richard Reed Parry, Audiobooks, Moonface, Connan Mockasin, Paint, Marianne Faithfull

weekly favtraX

05-11-2018

Haley Reinhart

Postmodern Jukebox, also widely known by the acronym PMJ, is a rotating musical collective founded by arranger and pianist Scott Bradlee in 2011. PMJ is known for reworking popular modern music into different vintage genres, especially early 20th century forms such as swing and jazz. Postmodern Jukebox has amassed over 1 billion YouTube views and 3.6 million subscribers.
Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox feat: Haley Reinhart - Black Hole Sun 4:33
"Black Hole Sun" is a song by the American rock band Soundgarden. Written by frontman Chris Cornell, the song was released in 1994 as the third single from the band's fourth studio album Superunknown (1994). It is arguably the band's most recognizable and most popular song, and remains a well known song from the 1990s. The song topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, where it spent a total of seven weeks at number one. Despite peaking at number two on the Modern Rock Tracks, "Black Hole Sun" still finished as the number-one track of 1994 for that chart. It failed to hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart due to the rules of a physical/commercial release of the single at the time, but it still peaked at number 24 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart and number nine on the Mainstream Top 40 chart. The song was included on Soundgarden's 1997 greatest hits album A-Sides and also appeared on the 2010 compilation album Telephantasm.

This Swedish singer and songwriter was also founder and frontman for the Loosegoats. A Swedish-born singer and songwriter whose style is rooted in the indie Americana tradition, Christian Kjellvander's songs are marked by his resonant baritone and a poignant, often haunting tone.
Christian Kjellvander - Love Xomes 5:36
His eighth studio album as a soloist, Wild Hxmans is singer/songwriter Christian Kjellvander's first to arrive after the 2016 U.S. presidential and U.K. Brexit elections. Though not overtly political, his lyrics address intimate encounters, separations, and forces of good and evil, in international settings across open borders. Expanding his delicate, poignant songcraft and arrangements in subtle ways, he arrives at a more epic, ominous sound without deviating too far from Wild Hxmans' consistently elegant predecessors...

Brooklyn downtempo electronic duo that, like Telefon Tel Aviv and Junior Boys before them, creatively incorporate elements of contemporary R&B. 
Beacon - Over My Head 4:01
Intrigued by Walter Russell's fringe science theories -- an inspiration obvious only in the album's title -- Thomas Mullarney III and Jacob Gossett discovered a way to metaphorically reframe a third LP of the simmering intrapersonal and interpersonal crises that have been their specialty since 2011. On Gravity Pairs, Mullarney's voice is more expressive than ever, possibly strengthened through continued touring and always signifying some degree of emotional upheaval... The songs underwent a painstaking revision process that sometimes involved simplification, but the likes of the driving "Over My Head" and hammer dulcimer-accented "Marion" in particular display that Mullarney and Gossett can still layer and manipulate sounds to intoxicating effect...

This New Zealand collective uses homemade and formal instruments to create a hybrid music from numerous global traditions. Orchestra of Spheres is a wide-ranging collective from Wellington, New Zealand whose music is a hybrid of global sounds and cultures, from disco and electro to kuduro and mbalax, from neo-psych to no wave, from kosmiche to prog, on instruments both formal and homemade.
Orchestra of Spheres - Koudede 8:39
Wellington psychedelic travellers Orchestra Of Spheres have announced the impending launch of their latest studio album Mirror, and unveiled the record's cosmic lead single 'Koudede'. Drawing on the band's shared love of Tuareg, Niger musician Koudede of legendary collective Group Inerane, Orchestra Of Spheres lay down a massive groove to impel listeners on a reflective voyage of sonic discovery...

Michigan-based group playing a heavily atmospheric yet driving brand of psychedelic garage rock influenced by surf and Krautrock. 
Heaters - Lunar Creep 7:14
By the time Heaters recorded their fifth full-length, the group's members were spread out between their original hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan and Montreal. The partial relocation has done nothing to slow down the group's development; in fact, they sound more focused than ever. While still exploring a particular area of modern psychedelia, one marked with brisk, motorik rhythms and dazed, echo-bathed vocals, this time their sound shifts closer to jangly '80s post-punk... On the ambitious closing number, "Lunar Creep," they start off with the type of Krautrock glide common to the album before breaking down halfway and changing into an effervescent skipping rhythm.

French tech-house producer who is also one half of Zombie Zombie. Jaumet studied saxophone and sound engineering at the Conservatoire in Paris and began collaborating with several likeminded artists in the 2000s.
Etienne Jaumet - Caravan 4:33
Etienne Jaumet fans may not know about his lifelong love of jazz -- at least, not until they hear 8 Regards Obliques. Jaumet's reinterpretations of classics by Miles Davis, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and other legends live up to the album's title in how they provide different perspectives on time-tested music. Even listeners who aren't jazz buffs will recognize the undulating melody of Duke Ellington's "Caravan," which Jaumet gives a '70s sci-fi twist with an arpeggiated synth bass...

Canadian singer/songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and member of indie rock outfit Arcade Fire. Although he's a key member of Arcade Fire's core lineup, Canadian singer/songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Parry is also part of Bell Orchestre and New International Standards, as well as a collaborator with contemporaries like the National, Sufjan Stevens, and Islands.
Richard Reed Parry - Gentle Pulsing Dust 8:18
...His voice is gentle and graceful, reflective of his reverence for the natural phenomena he details. Within the first few seconds of opener “Gentle Pulsing Dust,” he’s treating his window as a cinema screen that frames some never-ending sylvan documentary. Overtop fluttering oscillations and circular acoustic patterns, he sings, “First the rain begins, and the quiet settles in/And it’s awesome.” Though that peaceful rainfall begets an apocalyptic seven-day storm, Parry’s sense of ecstatic wonder remains unaffected by the tumult, as if he were leading a cult-ceremony salute to nature’s higher power...

The improvisation-based synthesizer art pop of producer/mixer David Wrench and singer/visual artist Evangeline Ling. 
Audiobooks - Friends in the Bubble Bath  4:37
The debut of an unlikely music duo, Now! (In a Minute) introduces the arty synthesizer pop of David Wrench and Evangeline Ling, who call themselves Audiobooks. After meeting at the party of a mutual friend, Ling, a then-art student who speak-sings lead on the album, invited herself over to check out Wrench's studio. A solo artist in his own right best known for his work as a producer/engineer, Wrench (David Byrne, FKA Twigs) was wrapping up the installation of a modular synth set-up at the time. The two began improvising songs, liked when they heard, found they worked quickly together, and continued to rendezvous at his London studio. Conspicuously impromptu and unbridled in nature, especially for -- broadly speaking -- new wave/post-punk revivalism...  album highlight "Friends in the Bubblebath," a high-drama club track in which Ling proactively refuses advances.

Spencer Krug

Yet another outlet for the dark indie sounds of prolific Montreal musician Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown. Moonface began in 2010 as a solo project of the already-incredibly-busy Montreal, Canada multi-instrumentalist Spencer Krug. Krug was at that point perhaps best known as the pianist, singer, and a primary songwriter for indie bands Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown, but he has also logged time with Frog Eyes, Swan Lake, Fifths of Seven, and more. The incredibly prolific songwriter used Moonface as an outlet for his dark pop and melodious experiments that didn't fit with any other of his other more collaborative projects. 
Moonface - Walk the Circle in the Other Direction 4:22
Moonface (aka Canadian musician Spencer Krug from Wolf Parade, among other bands) has announced a new album, This One's For the Dancer & This One's For the Dancer's Bouquet, and shared its first single, the jazzy "Walk the Circle In the Other Direction." Krug is calling this his final album under the Moonface moniker and it's due out November 2 via Jagjaguwar.

New Zealand-born purveyor of oddball, psychedelic pop. New Zealand native Connan Hosford first found success as leader of the quirky psych outfit Connan & the Mockasins, who gained some attention and endured a short-lived contract with EMI imprint Regal in the mid-2000s, before its leader found the pop scene too constricting and chose a significantly weirder path as a solo artist.
Connan Mockasin - B'nD 3:36
Following his 2016 outing as one-half of Soft Hair, an uncomfortable pink-glazed detour into seedy synth-funk with co-conspirator LA Priest, displaced Kiwi Connan Mockasin returns to bandleading business with Jassbusters, an eight-song soundtrack to his homemade absurdist five-part melodrama film, Bostyn 'n Dobsyn. The film's premise centers around the relationship between a music teacher named Bostyn, his band, Jassbusters, and Bostyn's student, Dobsyn. While this may sound like a rather obtuse project to newcomers, followers of Mockasin's career are likely to receive it with a knowing nod of recognition and perhaps appreciation... The wonky post-midnight sleaze-soul of tracks like "Last Night" and "Con Conn Was Impatient" follow in the same manner, with only the semi-sprightly "B'nD," offering even a midtempo groove, punctuated mid-song by a conversation between Dobsyn and his school principal.

Lo-fi psych and garage pop from Allah-Las guitarist Pedrum Siadatian. Influenced by artists like R. Stevie Moore, Syd Barrett, and Kevin Ayers, he teamed up with producer Frank Maston to help capture his rough-hewn psych-pop missives.
Paint - Heaven in Farsi 2:53
A little rickety, a little spacy, but boasting plenty of laid-back charm, Paint is the solo project of Los Angeles indie stalwart Pedrum Siadatian, best known to most as the lead guitarist for garage-psych revivalists Allah-Las. Paint began its existence shortly after the completion of Allah-Las' 2016 LP, Calico Review, when Siadatian began committing to tape a handful of offbeat solo cuts just to see where things would go. Before long, fellow West Coast psych enthusiast Frank Maston got involved as a co-conspirator/producer, and the 12 songs on Siadatian's self-titled debut began to take shape. With a pint-sized gap in Allah-Las' schedule and their label, Mexican Summer, willing to take him on as a side project, Paint was a shoo-in on a roster ripe with fellow sonic explorers like Ariel Pink and Drugdealer... One of the strongest cuts is the instrumental "Heaven in Farsi," a neatly constructed Mellotron-led composition that combines a bit of eerie wonder with loungey orchestration.

Gentle '60s pop vocalist who matured into a smoky chanteuse who focused on dark, deeply personal themes. Few stars of the '60s reinvented themselves as successfully as Marianne Faithfull. She began her career as a pop thrush who scored an international hit with her version of "As Tears Go By," which was released well before the Rolling Stones recorded it, and a string of successful singles followed in the U.K
Marianne Faithfull - As Tears Go By 3:52
"As Tears Go By" _WikipediA
Marianne Faithfull was just 18 years old when she scored a hit in England and America with "As Tears Go By" in 1964. In 2018, a 71-year-old Faithfull re-recorded the song for her album Negative Capability, and the differences between the two versions speak volumes about the artist she is in the 2010s. The performance on Negative Capability comes from a vocalist who has learned a lot more about love, heartache, and the good and bad places that fate can take you than the 18-year-old ever imagined she could know.

Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox feat: Haley Reinhart, Christian Kjellvander, Beacon, Orchestra of Spheres, Lunar Creep, Etienne Jaumet, Richard Reed Parry, Audiobooks, Moonface, Connan Mockasin, Paint, Marianne Faithfull