LEAP DAY MiX 075 ALTER.NATION weekly favtraX 29-02-2020

ALTER.NATION #75

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The Proper Ornaments, Waco Brothers, Real Estate, Soccer Mommy, The Secret Sisters, Pictish Trail, Cold Beat, Caribou, Wrangler, Tycho, Sunny Jain, Mhysa

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L E A P - D A Y "Music of the Traffic"

Quietly jangly indie pop from a London duo that includes a member of Veronica Falls. London-based indie pop group the Proper Ornaments formed as a byproduct of the friendship between musicians James Hoare and Max Oscarnold. Their love of classic psychedelia and West Coast folk-rock led them to craft their own home-cooked version, starting with a batch of singles in the early 2010s. 
The Proper Ornaments - Mission Bells / Music of the Traffic
Released less than a year after their 2019 album 6 Lenins, Mission Bells finds the Proper Ornaments in the middle of a creative burst. Most of the songs came together during soundchecks while the band was touring Europe. Once back in James Hoare's home studio, the quartet set to work getting the songs on tape quickly, without a lot of fuss or overdubbing. It makes for an immediate, intimate sound that creeps and crawls like a melancholy spider...

Fun and furious leftist alt-country band, primarily comprising U.K. expatriates led by Jon Langford of the Mekons.
Waco Brothers - Resist / I Fought the Law
On Resist!, Chicago's original punk cowboys The Waco Brothers play protest songs about the folks getting shoved down and songs about the system that's doing the shoving. They can be political, they can be personal, and sometimes there is no difference. Their shout-along manifestos and strident tomfoolery make for a potent elixir in times when reason and humour are at odds. With a hardy cackle and righteous rant, they're down for the siege, as long as there's enough beer to make it to last call. Includes all the songs that have never been available on vinyl in the US before.

New Jersey band whose hazy style of indie rock mixes relaxed grooves and breezy melodies with psychedelic influences.
Real Estate - The Main Thing / Also a But
With their 2017 album In Mind, New Jersey indie drifters Real Estate began a very slow evolutionary process, changing up their time-honored formula of laid-back, jangly pop by gently introducing new sounds and ideas. A change in their long-running membership brought in new guitarist Julian Lynch, who carried over some of the world music-influenced sensibilities that marked his excellent solo work and his new gig. Fifth album The Main Thing continues the band's one-step-at-a-time stylistic development while underpinning their ever sunny tunes with unlikely themes of anxiety for future generations and apocalyptic dread... Particularly toward the end of "Also a But," the band breaks their warm, tuneful sound down with some ungrounded jamming that sounds like an excerpt from a particularly spacy Dead set circa 1974...

Hooky, angular indie rock with the personal lyrics and vulnerable vocals of singer/songwriter Sophie Allison.
Soccer Mommy - color theory / crawling in my skin
Though Soccer Mommy's Sophie Allison generated buzz as early as 2015 with her introspective, then-self-recorded tracks, the project made its official debut three years later with Clean, a critically lauded set of hooky, heartbroken songs with lyrics that were notably vulnerable and relatable. That more hi-fi release was produced by Gabe Wax, known for his work in the studio with acts like the War on Drugs, Cass McCombs, and Frankie Cosmos. The pair reunited for the follow-up, color theory, Soccer Mommy's Loma Vista debut. The title comes with a thematic key code; the album is divided into three sections represented by blue, yellow, and gray, each with its own associated topics and emotions (sadness, mental and physical sickness, and darkness)...

A Muscle Shoals, Alabama-based country-folk duo featuring the talents of siblings Lydia and Laura Rogers, The Secret Sisters emerged in 2010 with a sound that combines effortless harmonies, sharp songwriting, and a shared love of country music's rich history.
The Secret Sisters - Saturn Return / Water Witch
The Secret Sisters Find Their Voice on ‘Saturn Return’
The fourth album from Alabama sibling duo the Secret Sisters is the stunning country-soul opus their talent has always promised. Laura and Lydia Rogers have been at it since 2010, making solid LPs with high-profile producers (T Bone Burnett, Dave Cobb) while lending their Southern church harmonies to legends like Willie Nelson and Elvis Costello. In 2017, the pair enlisted singer-songwriter Brandi -Carlile to co-produce their third LP, You Don’t Own Me Anymore, helping them up their game in a set of songs about piloting life’s hardships, delivered with tender -intimacy. Carlile is back for Saturn Return, a spare, -gorgeous, relatably realistic set...

The shape-shifting, psychedelic lo-fi project of Johnny Lynch, founder of Lost Map Records.
Pictish Trail - Thumb World / Double Sided
Named with both a defining characteristic of homo sapiens and the proliferation of handheld devices in mind, Thumb World is the fourth officially sanctioned album from Johnny Lynch's long-running solo project, Pictish Trail. The founder and operator of Lost Map Records (Rozi Plain, Seamus Fogarty, Tuff Love), Lynch offers his usual eclectic blend of psychedelic folk, fuzz, electronic whimsy, and contemplative and clever singer/songwriter fare here, though the recording quality and performance takes have gradually improved with each release, making the lo-fi label apply more in spirit than sound. Issued on Fire Records, Thumb World was produced and mixed by prior collaborator Rob Jones...

The darkly poppy, post-punk-inspired solo project of Grass Widow bassist Hannah Lew. Named for a song by the Sound, Cold Beat is the post-punk-inspired project of Hannah Lew, also the bassist for San Francisco's acclaimed trio Grass Widow.
Cold Beat - Mother  / Double Sided Mirror
San Francisco band Cold Beat make their DFA debut with Mother, a collection of ten pop transmissions from Earth, 2020.
Wound tight with an energy that ricochets from one song into the next, Mother was made while frontperson Hannah Lew (formerly of indie trio Grass Widow) was pregnant and considering the chaotic conditions of the world she was bringing a new human into. If we consider Mother an artistic style guide through space and time, the framework Cold Beat provide is overcast by design but focused in execution; locked-in drums and synths with choir-like melodies high above it all.

Canadian musician's one-man project (originally called Manitoba) that seamlessly blends electronic production with psychedelic pop pastiche.
Caribou - Suddenly / Like I Loved You
Over a long career arc, electronic producer Dan Snaith took his Caribou project from sunny sample-core to more organic, psyche-tinged creations and beyond. His 2010 album Swim filtered his unique musical perspectives through a fascination with deep house music, and four years later Our Love delivered some of his more intimate and minimal sounds. Sixth studio album Suddenly picks up threads from both of these, pushing the dancefloor-ready style of Swim as well as Snaith's more softly drawn songwriting into colorful and fun new places...

Electro supergroup whose members have played with Cabaret Voltaire, Tunng, and John Foxx. Armed with an assortment of analog synthesizers and digital sequencers, electro trio Wrangler are named due to their stated goal of wrangling new music from vintage gear. The group is a collaboration between Ben Edwards (Benge), Phill Winter (Tunng), and Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), and their music is a loose, improvisational blend of synth pop, techno, machine funk, and EBM.
Wrangler - A Situation / How to Start a Revolution
Electro trio Wrangler, consisting of Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), Ben Edwards (Benge), and Phil Winter (Tunng), harness old technology in order to create futuristic music, playing vintage synths and sequencers in a loose, improvisational way. A Situation, the group's third album, sounds similar to the first two, except this time there's a greater presence of lyrics, and the songs sound more urgent... While it's hard to even process everything that's going on, let alone attempt to find a solution, Mallinder at least encourages listeners to take action and make a difference, particularly on the commanding "How to Start a Revolution." Even though the underlying message of the album is quite serious, the music itself is playful rather than bleak or cathartic... The situation of the world might be increasingly dire, but Wrangler aren't entering panic mode just yet. They still feel that something can be done about all of this, and being able to have fun, dance, and create music helps immensely.

San Francisco-based group founded by Scott Hansen, whose productions play out like complete electronic dream pop songs.
Tycho - Simulcast / Weather
Weather was Tycho's first album to be centered around lyrics, with guest vocalist Hannah Cottrell (Saint Sinner) adding a more relatable touch to the group's already accessible brand of atmospheric electronic pop. Simulcast takes the same material and makes it more open to interpretation, removing the lead vocals and expanding on the instrumental ideas of the album. Three of the songs on Weather were already instrumentals (with just a few vocal traces by Cottrell), and they reappear on Simulcast without alteration... Simulcast could be thought of as the more "background music" version of Weather, but even without lyrics, it's still meant to put your mind in motion. Both versions are equally worth the roughly half-hour it takes to listen to each.

Innovative drummer and dhol percussionist, who combines jazz and psych-rock with North Indian musical traditions.
Sunny Jain - Wild Wild East / Immigrant Warrior
An explosive jazz drummer and master of the Indian double-sided drum the dhol, Sunny Jain is known for mixing post-bop jazz, psych-rock, and funk with the vibrant Indian musical traditions he grew up with as the child of Punjabi immigrants. He brings all of these influences to bear on his fourth solo album, 2020's potently realized Wild Wild East. Drawing inspiration from Bollywood and Spaghetti Western soundtracks, surf rock, hip-hop, and avant-garde improvisation, Jain paints a vivid, cross-cultural musical portrait. It's a sound that has specific roots in '70s Bollywood "curry westerns" like Sholay and Khote-Sikkay, where directors brought American cowboy archetypes and themes to stories set in India...

Atmospheric ballads and discordant jams from multidisciplinary artist E. Jane, who has recorded for NON, Halcyon Veil, and Hyperdub.
Mhysa - Nevaeh / when the saints (reprise)
The New York City-based conceptual and visual artist’s experimental club tracks channel the legacies of black women icons into visions of utopias... When it comes to reinterpreting songs, how you sing matters just as much as what you’re singing. Louis Armstrong turned an apocalyptic dirge into a celebration of new life and a New Orleans jazz funeral standard with his recording of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Whitney Houston transformed a limping nationalist anthem into a tear-jerking ballad of resilience with her 1991 performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at that year’s Super Bowl. Excavating new meanings from old work and stirring new emotions: This is the talent electronic artist Mhysa brings to her latest album, Nevaeh, as she plants seeds of R&B, pop, and spiritual hits and allows them to bloom over crashing beats, twinkling chimes, and playful synths.

The Proper Ornaments, Waco Brothers, Real Estate, Soccer Mommy, The Secret Sisters, Pictish Trail, Cold Beat, Caribou, Wrangler, Tycho, Sunny Jain, Mhysa

2020. 02. 27. 10:45 > magyarugar:MiX > FALLOW.HU # 33 válogatott szám 1995-1978

Másfél

2020. 02. 27. 10:45 > magyarugar:MiX > FALLOW.HU # 33 válogatott szám 1995-1978 >>Másfél, László Attila Band, Kispál és a Borz, Nulladik Változat, Hobo Blues Band, Sziámi, Gasner, The Super Trio, Sexepil, Balaton, Hangjáték Ensemble, Kontroll Csoport, Beatrice, Tűzkerék<<

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Másfél
Mese 4:20
A szám 3:16
~ Mese 1993
Újrakiadás! Másfél: Mese + Kínai nátha
...A nyolcvanas évek legvégén létrejött, a kilencvenes évek elején koncertezni kezdett Másfél sajátos megszólalást képviselt a korszak zenei életében, instrumentális, nagyon sok mindent mixelő magatartása gyorsan kiemelte az eredetileg ötfős, kétbasszusgitáros formációt a korabeli alternatív színtér megszólalásából. Az alternatív rock instrumentális változata mellett eleinte funkrock-, posztpunk-, pszichedelikus rock- és acid jazz-hatások jellemezték (Ozric Tentacles, Primus, Kong), a világban ekkoriban bontakozó posztrock sem lenne távoli analógia velük kapcsolatban, főleg, hogy idővel egyre több elektronika, jungle- és drum'n'bass-ritmusok szűrődtek be dinamikus váltásokra és az egyedüli alapító tagként mindvégig másfeles Lukács Levente szaggatott szaxofonjátékára erősen építő dalaikba...

László Attila Band
Ballet on the Moon 8:11
Waterloo 8:20
~ The Only One 1995

Kispál és a Borz
A Pécsi Szál 4:05
Sika, kasza 3:47
~ Sika, Kasza, Léc 1994
Mélységesen mély
...A Kispál-féle „ars poetica” egy kortárs zenészi hitvallást tár elénk – meglehetősen ironikus módon. A zenélésért kapott rengeteg pénzből a zenész a saját álmát akarja megvalósítani („kinézek egy házat a hegyek között mondjuk...”), de ez valamiért nem jön össze, csak kívülről, az ablakból lesi a házat. Ráadásul az is kiderül, hogy nem egyedül, mert rengeteg más zenész is pont ugyanezzel az álommal vágott neki a showbiznisznek.
A tragikomikus kis történet, amely elég komoly kritikát fogalmaz meg (szimpatikus módon egyes szám első személyben!) a könnyűzenei szcéna szereplőinek motivációiról és ezek közhelyességéről, a központi strófájában a mélységről beszél. A mélység ebben az esetben – értelmezésünk szerint – a dalszövegek tartalmára vonatkozik. A beszélő elzárkózik a gondolattól, hogy szövege a mélységet kerülgesse: könnyű zene, könnyű tartalom. Csakhogy a poén éppen az, hogy a Kispál-szöveget – ha Kosztolányi felől olvassuk – éppen azt mondja magáról, ami az igazi, a Kosztolányi által nagyra értékelt művészetet jellemzi...

074 ALTER.NATION.MiX weekly favtraX 23-02-2020

ALTER.NATION #74

Grimes, Agnes Obel, Lanterns on the Lake, Lee Ranaldo / Raül Refree, King Krule, Six Organs of Admittance, Sonny Landreth, Pat Metheny, Courtney Barnett, Greg Dulli, Guided by Voices, Cerrone

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"My Name is Dark"

Canadian singer/songwriter/producer/visual artist known for her catchy yet genre-defying approach to music. Combining dream pop, R&B, electronic, and hip-hop influences into futuristic yet familiar-sounding songs, Grimes' Claire Boucher became one of the most distinctive artists of the 2010s.
Grimes - Miss Anthropocene / My Name is Dark (Art Mix)
Grimes' music has frequently sounded like pop music for the end of the world, so it makes sense that she leans into that mood on Miss Anthropocene. On her fifth album, she taps into mythology's power to make vast forces easier to comprehend by envisioning climate change as a demon-goddess pop star (as hinted at by the title's clever blend of "misanthrope" and "Anthropocene"). Humanizing the harm humans have caused to the environment by evoking deities of destruction and the singles chart is an intriguing concept that Grimes commits to completely. She trades the surreal, hi-def brightness of Art Angels for a murky mix of ethereal, nu-metal, and industrial-inspired sounds that call to mind a thoroughly polluted world: The tempos are sluggish, the atmosphere is thick, and guitar riffs struggle to emerge from processed sludge... "My Name Is Dark" builds from bleak hedonism into a pop song worthy of a dance number that becomes a fight scene -- a Grimes specialty, as Art Angels' "Kill V Maim" proved...

Pure, austere, and remarkably poised singer/songwriter from Denmark with a penchant for melancholy atmosphere and icy chamber pop arrangements.
Agnes Obel - Myopia / Myopia
The follow-up to 2017's acclaimed Citizen of Glass, Myopia is the Danish singer/songwriter's fourth full-length effort and the second collection of songs self-produced in her Berlin home studio. Built on the competing themes of trust and doubt, the aptly named Myopia is Agnes Obel's most insular work to date, continuing in the vein of its predecessor with dramatic pitch-tuned vocals and Gothic chamber pop melodies. Obel has been refining her spectral nocturnes for a decade now, and Myopia, with its fever dream vistas and melancholy abyss, doesn't disappoint...

Songwriter Hazel Wilde's brooding vocals and textured instrumentation including strings combine for a distinctively dreamy, delicate indie rock.
Lanterns on the Lake - Spook the Herd / Baddies
Based in Newcastle, England since their formation, Lanterns on the Lake have historically kept their recording practices in-house, opting to track songs in their homes and other improvised studio spaces, even after signing with a label that would provide funds to do otherwise. For their fourth album, Spook the Herd, they finally did venture outside of their comfort zone to work with engineer Joss Worthington (the Membranes, Pete Coe) at a studio in Yorkshire. The band still oversaw production. Fine-tuning their sound instead of marking a significant change in presentation, they emerge with another solid set of songs distinguished by rich, dreamy, acoustic-electronic textures and singer Hazel Wilde's brooding lyricism...

Lee Ranaldo is best known as one of the co-founders of the iconic noise-rock group Sonic Youth, and his work helped bridge the gaps between experimental music and New York's no-wave scene with the larger world of alternative rock.
Lee Ranaldo / Raül Refree - Names of North End Women / The Art of Losing
Ranaldo and Refree worked together Ranaldo’s last solo album, Electric Trim (Mute, 2017), and soon after the pair returned to the studio to record the follow up they realised that Names of North End Women would become what Ranaldo describes as “the beginning of a new partnership, a new configuration’”.
For one of the greatest guitarists, ranked by both Rolling Stone and Spin, of his generation (Ranaldo co-founded Sonic Youth in 1981) and an artist reinventing traditional flamenco guitar (Refree’s album with Rosalía continues to grow internationally), this is an album that features tracks with little or no guitar. Instead the duo composed using marimba and vibraphone, using samplers, a vintage 2-inch Studer tape recorder and a modified cassette machine Ranaldo had previously used in performances 25 years earlier...

Performing as Zoo Kid as well as this alias, London's Archy Marshall has wowed audiences with his gruff, soulful voice.Named after King K. Rool, a character in the Donkey Kong video game, King Krule is a solo project of Archy Marshall, a London-based artist who has been compared to Joe Strummer and Billy Bragg and admired by Beyoncé and Kanye West.
King Krule - Man Alive! / Cellular
... Marshall duly stuffs his concise follow-up to The Ooz with the terror and negative liquid references, both literal and metaphorical, for which he is known. They even girdle it, starting with a numbed post-punk creeper in which Marshall drones about glancing at his phone to watch a girl cry, and signing off with a lashing, hollowed-out appeal of disconnectedness and dejection that contains the lyrics, "We don't have long 'til this earth is drowned." The Krule gaze is certainly more outward than before, though the most trenchant observations are mumbled. At times, Marshall sounds like he's recording a memo in the middle of a sleepless night...

Part of the "new weird America" sound, featuring deft finger-picking and heady psychedelic drones. Inspired by the East-meets-West solo guitar musings of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, Northern California guitarist Ben Chasny has built a prolific and diverse body of work under the name Six Organs of Admittance. An experimental amalgam of new folk, drone music, percussion, chimes, and strange textures...
Six Organs of Admittance - Companion Rises / Mark Yourself
Three years after 2017's relatively low-key and largely organic Burning the Threshold, Ben Chasny nudges Six Organs of Admittance back toward the brink on the exploratory Companion Rises. Over the two previous decades, the California native's prolific project has shifted back and forth from a collaborative full-band experience to a deeply focused solo endeavor espousing its creator's current philosophies or passions. Composed, performed, recorded, and mixed entirely by Chasny, Companion Rises falls squarely in the latter camp, though it's certainly not without a sense of spontaneity and chance. Offsetting nimble acoustic guitar patterns with synths and rhythm-generating algorithmic programs, the arrangements ripple with wild energy, coating the more earthbound elements in swathes of hyper-digital space dust...

An award-winning, in-demand blues guitar prodigy, singer, and songwriter with an inimitable slide technique.
Sonny Landreth - Blacktop Run / Groovy Goddess
Louisiana guitar slinger Sonny Landreth returns to the studio with his quartet two years after 2017's Grammy-nominated Recorded Live in Lafayette. Blacktop Run is more than just a new studio outing, however. Landreth reunites with producer R.S. Field for the first time since 2005's Grant Street. Field produced Landreth's three breakout sets for Zoo as well as several later albums. He is a studio empath and extends artists full faith and credit. Landreth possesses a distinct sound to be sure, direct, resonant, and simple, but he's restless when it comes to experimenting with styles...  Cajun stomper complete with button accordion; zydeco and Delta blues melt together on a honky tonk dancefloor. "Groovy Goddess" is a spiky instrumental showcasing Landreth's electric slide-playing swing.

Guitar virtuoso whose accessible, original style and extraordinary sense of technique bridged the gap between jazz and rock.
Pat Metheny - From This Place / Wide and Far
During the late 2010s, guitarist and composer Pat Metheny toured a new quartet featuring British piano prodigy Gwilym Simcock, Malaysian-Australian bassist Linda May Han Oh, and veteran Mexican-American drummer Antonio Sanchez. This group learned the guitarist's catalog and toured it globally, gelling and maturing before entering the studio for From This Place, the first new studio material from Metheny since 2014... "Wide and Far" is a bluesy groover that nods to Metheny's first great jazz influence, Wes Montgomery, while Simcock melds Horace Silver's funky hard bop to nearly pastoral expressionism. The tune's orchestration recalls Don Sebesky's on The Rape of El Morro, one of the CTI dates that remains important to Metheny. "...

Australian singer/songwriter with a slacker style and deadpan delivery that work in perfect tandem.
Courtney Barnett - MTV Unplugged: Live in Melbourne / Sunday Roast
Recorded in October of 2019, nearly a year-and-a-half after the May 2018 release of her second album Tell Me How You Really Feel, MTV Unplugged: Live in Melbourne finds Courtney Barnett choosing collaboration over intimacy... she's supported by her regular band of bassist Bones Sloane and drummer Dave Mudie, along with cellist Lucy Waldron, and she invites many peers and idols to share the stage. Paul Kelly, Evelyn Ida Morris, and Marlon Williams, musicians all better-known in Australia than America...

With a distinctively dark and powerful vocal presence, Greg Dulli is best known as the singer for Cincinnati shadowy grunge rockers the Afghan Whigs.
Greg Dulli - Random Desire / A Ghost
...By the end, the Afghan Whigs were Dulli and whoever else he chose to bring along, and presumably tired of the ruse, he's chosen to cut out the middlemen and issued his first solo album, 2020's Random Desire, which does a better job of fleshing out his musical and thematic tropes than he managed on Do To The Beast and In Spades. Random Desire doesn't rock like prime Whigs, but the rhythmic patterns and melodic shifts have Dulli written all over them...

Long-running band led by Robert Pollard who revolutionized indie rock with ever-evolving lo-fi pop created by a rotating cast.
Guided by Voices - Surrender Your Poppy Field / Cat Beats a Drum
Anyone who was shedding a tear at the Electrifying Conclusion of Guided by Voices in late 2004 would probably be taken aback if you had told them that the group would not only be back in action in the year 2020, but also in the midst of one of the most consistent hot streaks in their recording career. But after Robert Pollard assembled a new and improved edition of GbV in 2016, the band released six albums that range from quite good (2019's Warp and Woof) to genuinely great (2017's How Do You Spell Heaven and 2019's Zeppelin Over China). 2020's Surrender Your Poppy Field puts the count up to seven, and it stands out stylistically from its immediate predecessors. Since Pollard debuted this GbV lineup -- Pollard on vocals, Doug Gillard and Bobby Bare Jr. on guitars, Mark Shue on bass, and Kevin March on drums -- their songwriting and production has favored their leader's latter-day embrace of the twists and turns of prog rock rather than the lo-fi dense-pack pop hooks of their '90s breakthrough works...

Marc Cerrone was one of the most influential disco producers in Europe during the 1970s and early '80s, eclipsed only by Giorgio Moroder. Born in Paris in 1952...
Cerrone - DNA / I've Got a Rocket
As of 2020, disco pioneer Marc Cerrone has been professionally making and performing music for nearly 50 years. His vast discography, spanning dozens of albums, has included Afro-beat-influenced funk, suspenseful soundtracks, adult contemporary pop, and French house... The sensation of cruising through space is elevated by "I've Got a Rocket," which seems like a more interstellar variation on Cerrone's 1978 track "Rocket in the Pocket," with a sprinkling of Man-Machine-era Kraftwerk...

Grimes, Agnes Obel, Lanterns on the Lake, Lee Ranaldo / Raül Refree, King Krule, Six Organs of Admittance, Sonny Landreth, Pat Metheny, Courtney Barnett, Greg Dulli, Guided by Voices, Cerrone