18-01-2022 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX (2h 22m) [2019-2022] # Deap Vally, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Night Flowers, Desert Sessions, Mike Dillon, Teen Daze, Rhye, Mura Masa, Sweet Whirl, Resavoir, Tindersticks, The Cribs, The Silence, Trees Speak, David Bowie
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A rock & roll duo from California, Deap Vally deliver a primal mix of hard rock stomp, glam rock swagger, and greasy blues riffs, like the White Stripes colliding with the Black Keys after time traveling to the 1970s and back. With just guitar, vocals, and drums, the group manage to sound full-bodied while possessing a deadly sense of cool, a healthy degree of sonic punch, and a deadpan sense of humor in their braggadocious lyrics...
Perfuction 2:56
Phoenix 2:57
from Marriage 2021
Now that two-piece rock bands are no longer considered an anomaly, high-energy duos are expected to have ready answers to the question of how you keep things fresh and change up your sound when there are only two instruments to contend with. Deap Vally, consisting of guitarist and singer Lindsey Troy and drummer Julie Edwards, showed they knew how to deliver primal, stripped-back rock on their first two albums (2013's Sistrionix and 2016's Femejism), and their third full-length, 2021's Marriage, finds them expanding and exploring a bit after firmly establishing their template of straightforward hard rock with a side of blues and a dash of glam. Through the magic of overdubbing, Troy has added several extra layers of guitar on most of the tracks here, as well as multiplying her half-breathy, half-sneering insouciant vocals into massed choruses and casual but passionate harmonies... Though Deap Vally have found new ways to dress up their music on Marriage, at their core they haven't changed that much -- this is still a smart, powerful rock band with sharp wit and an abundance of well-deserved confidence -- but the added details and textures make a difference, and this music points to a more interesting future for them than one might have imagined after Femejism.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's sense of unfettered sonic exploration makes it easy to mistake them for a long-forgotten relic of the psych explosion of the 1960s. With a far-out sound that, at times, feels barely held together, King Gizzard evoke the eclectic rock experimentation of Frank Zappa's early work with the Mothers of Invention, the anything-goes feeling of the Flaming Lips, and the demented glee of a random, obscure '60s group plucked from a Pebbles compilation as they follow their musical flights of fancy wherever they might lead...
Minimum Brain Size 4:18
Some Of Us 3:52
from K.G. 2020
Over a ten-year span spent releasing an album every few weeks (or so it seemed) King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard never repeated themselves, always pushing forward and trying new things whether it was lengthy jazz excursions, gloom-and-doom synth prog, or thundering thrash metal. That changed some on 2020's K.G., where the band revisit the approach used on Flying Microtonal Banana, the group's 2017 album built around the avant-garde sounds of their custom-made guitars and altered instruments. Stuck in their various homes during the global pandemic, the band gravitated toward the unique instruments and built a batch of songs using their non-Western tunings and tones. Unlike that album, though, where that almost felt like a (mostly successful) gimmick, this time the guitars are more fully integrated into the songs...
Indie pop quintet Night Flowers cast a warm spell of dreamy guitar pop and dulcet boy/girl vocals that result in a wistful, romantic sound. Based in London, but with Northern English roots and an American singer, the band rode a steady stream of singles and EPs in the mid-2010s to critical acclaim, both in the U.K. and Japan...
Night Train 4:38
Merry-Go-Round 2:25
from Fortune Teller 2019
Awash with wistful, romantic lyrics and breezy guitar jangle, London's Night Flowers made a winning impression on their 2018 debut, Wild Notion. Greg Ullyart, Chris Hardy, Sam Lenthall, and Zebedee Budworth originally formed the band in Humberside before moving south to the capitol where they recruited American singer Sophia Petitt to complete their lineup. The sound they make together flirts with the misty borders of dream pop, but ultimately plays like a cleaner and more straightforward take on classic indie pop. Guitarist Ullyart shares some of the lead vocals with the dulcet-toned Pettit, making for some amiable interplay and sweet harmonies. Appearing a little over a year after their debut, Fortune Teller is Night Flowers' second full-length and sees the band shifting even more toward a mainstream sound with clear, full production from drummer Budworth and arrangements that fall somewhere between soft rock and the more earnest side of '80s college rock...
The seeds for the revolving door lineup that Queens of the Stone Age has become famous for were originally sown in another related project, the Desert Sessions. Dating back to the ‘80s, guitarist Josh Homme and his pals would throw what would become known as "generator parties" -- consisting of live music played for a bunch of friends out in a secluded part of California's Palm Desert, the electricity for the amplifiers being supplied by a power generator...
Noses in Roses, Forever 5:33
Something You Can't See 3:26
from Desert Sessions, Vols. 11 & 12 2019
Josh Homme always meant to get back to the desert, it just took him nearly 16 years to do so. Homme never officially put his Desert Sessions project on ice, but Queens of the Stone Age kept him busy, as did domestic duties, so the call of the wild remained muted for year after year, until the collective finally returned in 2019 with Desert Sessions, Vols. 11 & 12. Time changes everything, including the tenor of the Desert Sessions. Where previous excursions into the arid netherworld relied on overpowering volume and nocturnal menace, Desert Sessions, Vols. 11 & 12 is concise and colorful, a blast of madness and mischief...
Vibraphonist, percussionist, and songwriter Mike Dillon is an eclectic, highly adventurous musician with a sound steeped in post-bop jazz, funk, and avant-garde rock. Drawing upon such wide-ranging influences as Harry Partch, Thelonious Monk, Tom Waits, and Frank Zappa, he has led and co-led numerous ensembles, including the Dead Kenny Gs, Garage a Trois, and Critters Buggin'. As a sideman, Dillon has also worked with a varying cadre of acclaimed performers, such as Primus' Les Claypool, Karl Denson, Ricki Lee Jones, and Ani DiFranco. In addition, he has released his own genre-bending albums...
Tiki Bird Whistle 3:50
Rumba for Peregrine 2:48
Earl’s Bolero 3:45
from Rosewood 2020
Named after the deeply red-toned wood that marimba bars are made out of, Mike Dillon's 2020 album Rosewood finds the vibraphonist further honing his genre-bending brand of percussion-based music. The album follows up his kinetic punk-, jazz-, and experimental rock-influenced 2018 album Bonobo Bonobo, which featured his large Mallet Men ensemble. With Rosewood, Dillon decided to work primarily as a soloist, only collaborating sparingly with fellow percussionist Earl Harvin and audio engineer Chad Meise. Consequently, while improvisation is still at the core of his sound, he took a more compositional approach, showcasing his deft arranging skills on a mix of original compositions and surprising covers... Listening to the lush sounds at play on Rosewood, it's easy to forget that every instrument you are hearing is a percussion instrument. Dillon has crafted a hypnotic album that pulls you deep inside a percussive, sylvan-toned dreamscape.
Teen Daze is the primary moniker of Jamison Isaak, a prolific musician from British Columbia, Canada, whose output veers between mellow, summery electronic instrumentals and atmospheric indie pop...
Last Time in This Place 3:35
Interior 5:43
from Interior 2021
Jamison Isaak cites the French house wave of the late '90s as a primary inspiration for his career as a musician. His lengthy discography as Teen Daze includes jangly indie pop as well as lush chillwave and reflective ambient pieces, and up to this point, most of his beat-focused compositions have felt restrained and introverted, and more appropriate for studying than dancing. Interior feels like a conscious attempt to emulate the electronica era more directly... Isaak seems to prefer dance music that's detailed and expressive but not gaudy and over-the-top, and his most club-friendly album to date is vibrant and wondrous without being brash and anthemic.
Advancing a uniquely organic/synthetic hybrid sound mixing sophisticated pop and sensual R&B, Rhye is further distinguished by the soft soprano vocals and candidly intimate songwriting of Mike Milosh...
Beautiful 4:21
Helpless 3:41
from Home 2021
...The songs made with Blood collaborators such as Itai Shapira, Nate Mercerau, and Ben Schwier aren't retreads, either, still fleet but considerably heftier, as if the word "dainty" was drawn with a slash through it and posted on the walls of each studio where they worked. Another element that sets this apart from Milosh's earlier work is the Danish National Girls Choir, whose recurring presence is stirring rather than the cloying distraction it could have been. This being the Rhye album with the most layers, Milosh was wise to employ the brilliant Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails, the Killers) as mixing engineer. Every change pays off.
Known by his stage name of Mura Masa, Alex Crossan is a Grammy-winning producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist whose music encompasses a wide variety of pop, dance, and hip-hop styles.
Raw Youth Collage 3:39
Vicarious Living Anthem 2:25
from R.Y.C. 2020
The title of Mura Masa's second album, R.Y.C., stands for Raw Youth Collage, and its contents zero in on all of the messy, uncertain feelings that come with young adulthood. Not quite as long or guest-heavy as the producer's 2017 major-label debut, the album feels much more personal and introspective, with lyrics directly addressing confusion and alienation. First track "Raw Youth Collage" features a sequence of barely connected thoughts ("I don't know who I'm supposed to be," "All my friends have changed," "I can't see past the screen") over chiming guitars and floating, atmospheric synths... R.Y.C. is scattered and uneasy, but considering its subject matter and the emotions it expresses, it seems like it couldn't have turned out any other way, so it sounds undeniably genuine.
The solo project of Australian musician Esther Edquist, Sweet Whirl's wry, sophisticated adult-alternative pop songs draw on the influence of singer/songwriters spanning Joni Mitchell, Sheryl Crow, and Bob Dylan. The project's official full-length debut, the reflective How Much Works, arrived in 2020...
Sweetness 3:27
Your Love On Ice 3:50
from How Much Works 2020
... Unpredictably to outsiders, her solo work shifted toward more structured, melody-centric songwriting with a classic '60s-'70s influence for the 2019 EP Love Songs & Poetry. She uses that still-dreamy EP as a launching point for How Much Works, her first album for Chapter Music and official Sweet Whirl debut. Opening the record with a spacious arrangement of piano, keyboard, staccato bass, and crisp snare instead of the EP's reverberating guitar, "Sweetness" adds a commanding lead vocal line, organ tones, and vocal harmony for a mellow, jazzy pop that has much more in common with Joni Mitchell than with Superstar... torch song-styled closer, "Your Love on Ice," ends How Much Works on a union of melodic bass and organ. Not a belter, the singer's somewhat husky delivery sits well on these observant, resigned songs, which represent a promising start for a newfound musical direction.
Chicago's Resavoir are an experimental indie jazz collective led by trumpeter Will Miller, who first garnered attention with their 2019 self-titled debut. Formed in 2018, Resavoir started out as a home-recording project helmed by trumpeter, producer, and arranger Will Miller. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, the jazz-trained Miller built an eclectic array of credits prior to putting Resavoir together...
Taking Flight 3:37
Resavoir 5:46
from Resavoir 2019
...Like his fellow International Anthem labelmate Makaya McCraven, Miller deftly draws upon spontaneous improvisation and methodical studio wizardry alike, melding the two practices together (as well as 18 different players) to create an amalgam stronger and sweeter than the sum of its parts. On “Resavoir,” he toggles between crisp beats and sunny 1960s pop, expertly arranged jazz-funk and experimental electronic textures, but its five minutes feel breezy and conversational rather than overstuffed with details. Subtle but deft jump cuts detour from soaring to meditative and back, with plenty of room for instantly hummable horn charts as well as field recordings of gulls and airy vocal harmonies that drift like afternoon clouds. It’s a complex piece of songcraft that also feels dreamy and sunlit...
Tindersticks were one of the most original and distinctive British acts of the '90s, standing apart from both the British indie scene and the rash of Brit-pop guitar combos that dominated the U.K. charts. Where their contemporaries were often direct and to the point, Tindersticks were obtuse and leisurely, crafting dense, difficult songs layered with literary lyrics, intertwining melodies, mumbling vocals, and gently melancholy orchestrations. Essentially, the group filtered the dark romanticism of Leonard Cohen, Ian Curtis, and Scott Walker through the bizarre pop songcraft of Lee Hazlewood and the aesthetics of indie rock...
The Amputees 3:37
Pinky in the Daylight 5:22
Tough Love 4:56
from No Treasure But Hope 2019
There are few if any working bands who craft their music as meticulously as Tindersticks; their music is like a suspension bridge built out of nuance, a wealth of small details coming together into something tremendously powerful even when it's whisper quiet (which is often). So it's surprising to learn that the group's 2019 album No Treasure But Hope was recorded in less than a week. Rather than creating an elaborately constructed piece in the studio and then figuring out how to play it on-stage, in this case they opted to establish the framework of their compositions first, and then played them live in the studio for a more natural, organic feel. But if anyone was expecting No Treasure But Hope to sound rougher or less precise given the way it was recorded, they'd be wrong. The craft these performers bring to this music is as stunning as ever, and the interplay between the musicians is wondrous, made all the more remarkable by the deeply affecting murmur of Stuart Staples' vocals. As one might expect from Tindersticks, No Treasure But Hope often feels dour and somewhat overcast, despite the strength of the tunes and the abilities of the instrumentalists...
Blending quintessentially British influences like Sex Pistols and the Smiths with American indie rock like Beat Happening, the Cribs became one of the U.K.'s cult favorite bands in the 2000s and beyond...
Screaming In Suburbia 3:49
In The Neon Night 3:37
from Night Network 2020
On Night Network, the Cribs trade the serrated punk of 24-7 Rockstar Shit for guitar pop that's as joyous as it is cathartic. Exploring the extremes of their sound is nothing new for this band, but the reasons behind the shift seem clearer than ever this time around. Not long after the release of their previous album, the Cribs parted ways with their management when they discovered the rights to their early songs belonged to someone else. During the year and a half they spent in a protracted but successful legal battle to regain ownership of their music, they recorded Night Network at their longtime friend Dave Grohl's Los Angeles studio. Given the heaviness in their lives at the time, it's no wonder that the Cribs opted to make music that's lighter and often wiser-sounding than what came before it. On their first self-produced album, they don't just strip away much of 24-7's aggression and distortion; they come to terms with the complexities of the past on Night Network's frequently gorgeous songs...
The Silence are a 21st century neo-psychedelic band led by guitarist Masaki Batoh, founder of the iconic Japanese band Ghost. After disbanding the long-standing group in 2014, he formed the Silence straightaway. Influenced by everyone from Love and Blue Cheer to Quicksilver Messenger Service and Can, the band's sound is a dizzying array of psych, progressive folk, mutant pop, and hooky melodies...
Meido Nisshi 9:40
Electric Meditations 7:56
from Electric Meditations 2020
Since Masaki Batoh founded the Silence in 2014, the guitarist and group have traversed open sonic terrains between acid folk and psychedelic rock, free improvisation and structured composition, visceral statement and textured meditative space. Electric Meditations brings together the same quartet that issued the excellent, sprawling Metaphysical Feedback in 2019: Batoh on guitar and vocals; Taiga Yamazaki on bass and vocals; Futoshi Okano on the drum kit, and Ryuichi Yoshida on baritone saxophone and flute. For the first time, the Silence recorded completely in analog at Tokyo's GOK Studios. The warmth and immediacy of the album's sound is welcoming and enveloping... Electric Meditations is a loose, warm follow-up to Metaphysical Feedback and a welcome sequel. Its canny sense of melodic drift is less tied to an end result than its predecessor, but it's also more welcoming. In total, it results in a more exploratory, if abstracted, psychedelic journey of inner space.
Tucson, Arizona band Trees Speak look to 1970s Krautrock, synth drone, soundtrack music, and Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis for inspiration when putting together their dizzying experiments with electronics and song deconstruction...
Seventh Mirror 3:22
Pyramid 2:34
...Yet the tracks themselves are mostly short, and the band remain incredibly focused, even as they're venturing further out than they've ever gone before. The Krautrock and cinematic influences of their previous albums remain present, but this one seems far more influenced by vintage electronics of all stripes, from the alien soundscapes of the Forbidden Planet score to Tangerine Dream's iconic soundtrack work from the '80s. It almost seems like the audio equivalent of hyperlink cinema, as each successive track sounds vastly different than the last, yet it's all connected in some way, and it makes more sense with repeated listens. The band excel at channeling '60s psych vibes through a retro Broadcast/Ghost Box filter, with touches of Baroque pop and film noir influences, and there are also moments filled with hazy effects, making them sound like they're sourced from a crackly old film reel...
One of the greatest stars of the rock & roll era, David Bowie evaded easy categorization throughout his career, operating as the artiest rocker within the mainstream and the most accessible musician on the fringe. Bowie may have trafficked in ideas cultivated in the underground, but he was never quite an outsider as far as rock & roll was concerned. From the outset of his career in the 1960s, he attempted to break into the Top 40, playing British blues, mod rock & roll, and ornate pop before finally hitting paydirt as a hippie singer/songwriter...
I Dig Everything 5:03
Liza Jane (Alternative Mix) 4:46
In The Heat Of The Morning (Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric Mix) 3:52
from Toy (Toy:Box) 2022
Since David Bowie's death in January of 2016, rummaging through the Bowie archives and repackaging his earlier material (especially from 1968-1970) has become a bit of a cottage industry for the Parlophone record label. Examples of these posthumously released albums include the Clareville Grove Demos, Conversation Piece, The 'Mercury' Demos, Spying Through a Keyhole, and The Width of a Circle. You can now add Bowie’s Toy (Toy:Box) 3CD/6LP box to the list. [The many lavish era specific box sets and numerous live releases are something else altogether.] Toy (Toy:Box) is an enjoyable and intriguing set of new interpretations of some of Bowie’s earliest songs. It was recorded in a New York studio in 2000 with drummer Sterling Campbell, bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, pianist Mike Garson as well as guitarist Earl Slick and includes inspired updates of the Space Oddity B-side “Conversation Piece,” “Let Me Sleep Beside You,” Bowie’s then Davie Jones & the King Bees 1964 debut single "Liza Jane," “Shadow Man,” an energetic take on "You've Got a Habit of Leaving" and “Silly Boy Blue” from 1966 in addition to 32 other selections many of which are just alternative mixes or unplugged versions of a handful of the same songs including "Baby Loves That Way," "Can’t Help Thinking About Me," and "I Dig Everything," among others. These are essentially old songs first recorded by Bowie circa 1964-1971 except for the title track with a number of these songs previously appearing on the compilation albums Early On (1964–1966), and The Deram Anthology 1966–1968. An essential purchase for Bowie completists and perhaps avid fans of his pre–Space Oddity recordings.
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