29-01-2020 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX

Aaron M. Olson / L.A. Takedown

29-01-2020 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX [from recent past] # L.A. Takedown, Roine Stolt's The Flower King, Buke and Gase, Cherry Glazerr, The Wood Brothers, Hurt Valley, Lake Street Dive, Spencer Radcliffe, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Bahamas, FIDLAR, Courteeners, Cursive, Whyte Horses

M U S I C

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Los Angeles-based instrumental rock project equally inspired by Krautrock and '80s action movie soundtracks.L.A. Takedown is a cinematic instrumental rock project helmed by Los Angeles-based composer/musician Aaron M. Olson, along with a revolving cast of additional contributors. Inspired equally by prog/Krautrock as well as film and television scores, the group's music is equally suitable as a soundtrack for cruising through the desert as well as beach escapades.
L.A. Takedown
Bad Night at Black's Beach 2:50
L.A. Blue 3:40
City of Glass 5:18
from II 2017
Following a cassette on Burger Records and a self-titled LP consisting of a single 41-minute epic, II is the third release by Aaron M. Olson's L.A. Takedown project, and the first recorded with a full band. The group take their name from a 1989 made-for-television crime thriller, and they aim to re-create the soundtracks of that era, but of course it doesn't sound like an exact facsimile. The group twist Krautrock and prog influences into their sound, and the arrangements and rhythmic patterns are complex and a bit suspenseful, but they still have a generally easygoing, beach-friendly feeling. The full-band upgrade means that there's less of an emphasis on synthesizers here than on past L.A. Takedown recordings, and a much more fleshed-out sound...

Gifted prog rock guitarist is a member of the Flower Kings and Transatlantic. He is also ex-Yes vocalist Jon Anderson's collaborator. His distinctive guitar style combined David Gilmour's debonair midtempo, Steve Howe's sharp edges, and Frank Zappa's virtuosity. 
Roine Stolt's The Flower King
Lost America 9:50
The Alchemist 6:57
Rio Grande 7:49
from Manifesto Of An Alchemist 2018
With Manifesto of an Alchemist, guitarist/ vocalist/composer Roine Stolt looks all the way back to his 1994 solo date, The Flower King (hence the singular band name). His list of collaborators on this ten-song, 70-minute outing includes proper Flower Kings' members bassist Jonas Reingold, guitarist/vocalist Hans "Hasse" Fröberg, and Michael Stolt on bass and vocals, with Marco Minnemann (from Stolt's other collaborative project, the Sea Within) Max Lorentz on Hammond organ, Zach Kamins on assorted keyboards, Rob Townsend on reeds and winds, and Nad Sylvan on lead and backing vocals. Stolt claims that this is both a new and old album; most of these songs were developed from riffs, melodies, and arrangement ideas from more than a quarter-century of demos and notebooks grafted on to newly composed parts, most of which were created in the studio. Perhaps because of the treasure trove of older material he rummaged through, Manifesto of an Alchemist was completed exceptionally fast: it took only a month from first recordings to final mix. That quick turnaround time presents listeners with a clash of impressions. First, it is uncharacteristically "raw" sounding. The artist told an interviewer that, "A lot of the guitar work is actually my spontaneous 'demo' guitars ... I didn’t want to process ideas too much...."

Experimental duo from New York who use instruments and electronics they created themselves to make playful but challenging music. Playing unique instruments of their own design, Buke and Gase generate a sonic palette that's very much their own, rooted in the traditional functions of guitar and bass but thrown into different relief. Their songs, usually built from ideas generated during extended improvisation, mix fractured melodic lines and strong but jagged rhythms, generating a sound that's playful but also curiously alien.
Buke and Gase
Stumbler 3:26
Derby 2:30
Eternity 4:36
from Scholars 2019
If you remember Buke and Gase as that experimental duo who play the instruments they built themselves, you might want to adjust your expectations before listening to 2019's Scholars, their first full-length album after a five-year recording layoff. In their previous work, Aron Sanchez and Arone Dyer constructed their music around two instruments of their own creation, the buke, a large, six-string relative of the ukulele played by Dyer, and the Gass, a fusion of the guitar and the bass used by Sanchez. However, while both instruments are part of the mix on Scholars, this time around the duo have pared back on organic instrumentation and jumped deep into electronics...

28-11-2019 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX [from recent past]

Miranda Lee Richards

28-11-2019 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX [from recent past] # Miranda Lee Richards, The Paperhead, Holly Golightly, Fabienne Delsol, Dead Horse One, XXXTentacion, Sunshine & the Rain, L.A. Takedown, Roine Stolt's The Flower King, Buke and Gase, Cherry Glazerr

M U S I C

if you want excitement PRESS SHUFFLE!

pres_perf_mix # The player always plays the latest playlist tracks. / A lejátszó mindig a legújabb playlist számait játssza. 

LISTEN THE PLAYLIST ON DEEZER.COM

Singer/songwriter and 21st century heir to the Laurel Canyon sound who's also an active collaborator on the L.A. music scene. Miranda Lee Richards' songwriting career was shaped by her bohemian upbringing in San Francisco, where her parents, Ted and Teresa Richards, made a living as influential comic book artists. She grew up in the underground comic book scene, with R. Crumb serving as her de facto godfather.
Miranda Lee Richards
Existential Beast 5:48
Ashes and Seeds 3:15
On the Outside of Heaven 5:18
from Existential Beast 2017
Miranda Lee Richards' fourth album, Existential Beast, follows 2016's Echoes of the Dreamtime by just a year, a quick turnaround for a songwriter who's gone several years between records in the past. It comes with a lusher presentation, too, edging deeper into psychedelic folk-rock while hanging onto a country influence and her distinctly Laurel Canyon-esque sound. It's also, at least in part, a protest album, with songs motivated by the 2016 U.S. presidential election...

The psychedelic pop sound of the '60s courses deeply through the blood of Nashville group the Paperhead. Formed in 2009 by three friends (guitarist/vocalist Ryan Jennings, drummer/vocalist Walker Mimms, and bassist/vocalist Peter Stringer-Hye), the band began playing shows around town, some of them in the form of psychedelic happenings replete with trippy light shows.
The Paperhead
War’s at You 2:18
The True Poet 4:50
from Chew 2017
The Paperhead's third album, Africa Avenue, was where it all came together for the Nashville trio. Their retro-psych sound reached its full bloom, while they also added other elements to the mix like a little country-rock and some swanky bossa nova. These few left turns sprinkled in amidst the dreamy pop-psych freakouts turned out to be teasers for the band's next album. On 2017's Chew, they rip up their playbook and treat the record as if each song were a different AM radio station circa a mid-'60s dream world that only exists in the mind of retro bands like the Paperhead. It's a pretty fun place to touch down, full of wacky juxtapositions and a kitchen-sink approach to arrangements that always keeps the listener guessing...

Prolific songstress, and partner-in-crime with Billy Childish, whose blues-based swagger is rooted in early rock & roll, R&B, and rockabilly.
Holly Golightly
Hypnotized 3:53
I’m Your Loss 4:00
Satan Is His Name 4:20
from Do the Get Along 2018
Garage rock legend Holly Golightly began her reign in the early '90s and spent the following decades churning out countless volumes of searing, attitude-heavy '60s-modeled big-beat rock & roll. Even the 11 years between 2004's Slowly But Surely and 2015's Slowtown Now! weren't signs of Golightly slowing down, as the break from solo albums was spent producing upwards of eight albums with her side project Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs. Her 11th proper solo album, Do the Get Along, doesn't differ greatly from any other entry in her massive catalog, but that doesn't suggest stagnation in any way. With one of the more distinctive and expressive voices in garage rock, Golightly sounds every bit at the top of her game as she has on the majority of her albums, leaning even harder on the smoky atmospheres and simmering scorned-lover narratives that mark some of her most electrifying work... Throughout Do the Get Along, Golightly demonstrates her knack for restraint and effortless charisma. She breaks no new ground over these 12 songs, but in the case of an artist with this much mastery of her work, more of the same is happily welcomed.

017 ALTER.NATiON: weekly favtraX 20-01-2019

ALTER.NATiON
Sharon Van Etten, Deerhunter, Juliana Hatfield, Steve Gunn, M. Ward, Israel Nash, Joe Jackson, Night Beats, Liz Brasher, Buke and Gase, Lost Under Heaven, Dolphin Midwives

weekly favtraX

20-01-2019

Sharon Van Etten - No One's Easy to Love from Remind Me Tomorrow
...From her 2009 debut Because I Was in Love through 2014's Are We There, she mined the tension generated by murmuring instrumentation clashing with her passionate delivery, a balance that proved quietly compelling. Van Etten maintains that sense of drama on Remind Me Tomorrow, her fifth full-length album, but she's radically shifted her presentation. Working with producer John Congleton, she's expanded her sonic palette, incorporating vintage synthesizers and drum loops while occasionally cranking up her amplifiers. Some of the sounds are conscious throwbacks, but they don't play like retro nostalgia, not in the context of Remind Me Tomorrow, which juxtaposes fearless aural adventure with keenly observed observations of easing into a satisfied life...

Deerhunter - Nocturne from Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?
...On Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?, Cox looks at the world around him with the same intensity that he used to examine his own life on earlier albums. Though this shift in perspective was brought on by the political climate of the late 2010s, Deerhunter's version of resistance isn't to rail against only the injustices of that era, but against a seemingly endless history of inhumanity and death with songs that sound deceptively life-affirming...

Juliana Hatfield - Broken Doll from Weird
...Appropriately, some echoes of AM pop linger on Weird -- it's there in the occasional wash of analog synth and the insistent hooks, and it's there in exuberant closer "Do It to Music," a love letter to the complex joys of pop -- but the album is barbed by design, a return to the ornery personal pop that's been Hatfield's métier in the 21st century. The album title alone hints at what Weird is about: the feeling of not quite fitting in with the world at large...

Steve Gunn - Paranoid from The Unseen In Between
Annabel Mehran's black-and-white cover photo for Steve Gunn's The Unseen Inbetween is a portrait of the guitarist and songwriter seemingly on the move. It evokes those found on early- to mid-'60s recordings by Bob Dylan, Koerner, Ray & Glover, Jackson C. Frank, Bert Jansch, and others. Gunn has shifted his focus considerably. Rather than simply showcase his dazzling guitar playing, he delivers carefully crafted, uncharacteristically tight and well-written songs with guitars, keyboards, strings, reeds -- and percussion -- translating them without artifice or instrumental disguise...

M. Ward - Shark from What a Wonderful Industry
Equal parts rock memoir and cautionary tale, M. Ward's ninth outing, What a Wonderful Industry, arrived out of the blue as a surprise release in June 2018. Forgoing his long-held roster position at Merge Records, the Portland-based songwriter issued the album himself, pairing his affinity for arcane American roots traditions with colorful stories from his two decades operating in various branches of the music industry. Ward's laconic delivery and retro-minded Americana have always been presented with a twinkle of dry wit, but not unlike its unannounced delivery, a self-released concept album calling out what he refers to as the "heroes and villains in equal measure" encountered during his career comes as a bit of a surprise...

Israel Nash - Spiritfalls from Lifted
Israel Nash takes his retro references seriously. While his vocals bring frequent comparisons to Neil Young in full helpless mode, his new album, the suitably titled Lifted, occasionally echoes the Beach Boys with a symphonic sound. It’s hardly surprising considering the fact that Nash has continued to expand on his folkadelic sound since starting his career a decade or so ago. He even dropped his proper surname Gripka in the process, a further step, one would guess, along the path to reinvention...

Joe Jackson - Fool from Fool
“When it looked like I'd be recording in late July and mixing around my birthday, in August, it struck me that the only other occasion that had happened was while making my first album. It still took a while for it to sink in: this would be 40 years on… The road to this album is littered with the wrecks of songs and half-songs that didn't make the grade. There are eight survivors, which I think is enough. How significant the resurgence of vinyl is, I'm not sure, but I did think of this as an album, with two complementary sides of about 20 minutes each…
I never have an overall theme in mind when I start trying to write songs for an album, but sometimes one will develop. In this case it's Comedy and Tragedy, and the way they're intertwined in all our lives. The songs are about fear and anger and alienation and loss, but also about the things that still make life worth living: friendship, laughter, and music, or art, itself. I couldn't have done this in 1979. I just hadn't lived enough.”

Night Beats - Eyes On Me from Myth of a Man
It's easy to sound tough when you're part of a gang, but it's a good bit different when you're traveling all by yourself. With his band Night Beats, Danny Lee Blackwell kicked up a lot of dust with the 2013 album Sonic Bloom and 2016's Who Sold My Generation, playing fuzzy garage-accented rock with a bluesy undertow. But with his band at least temporarily out of commission, Blackwell was forced by circumstance to do things a bit differently, and he's doubled down on that thinking on 2019's Myth of a Man. Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys signed on to produce Myth of a Man, and instead of assembling a new edition of Night Beats, they headed to Nashville and recruited some veteran first-call session musicians to accompany Blackwell on his latest batch of songs...

Liz Brasher - Body of Mine from Painted Image
Singer/guitarist Liz Brasher first tried her hand at songwriting as a young adult after studying up on a variety of 20th century American masters, including Stephen Foster, Lead Belly, and Bob Dylan. She found particular inspiration in the sounds of the Delta blues and Southern soul. On her full-length debut, Painted Image, those influences shine through an eclectic retro-soul. With stops in Chicago and Atlanta along the way, the North Carolina native was drawn to Memphis, Tennessee to write and record the album, which was tracked at the historic Ardent, Royal, and Electraphonic Recording studios..

Buke and Gase - Eternity from Scholars
If you remember Buke and Gase as that experimental duo who play the instruments they built themselves, you might want to adjust your expectations before listening to 2019's Scholars, their first full-length album after a five-year recording layoff. In their previous work, Aron Sanchez and Arone Dyer constructed their music around two instruments of their own creation, the buke, a large, six-string relative of the ukulele played by Dyer, and the Gass, a fusion of the guitar and the bass used by Sanchez. However, while both instruments are part of the mix on Scholars, this time around the duo have pared back on organic instrumentation and jumped deep into electronics...

Lost Under Heaven - Bunny's Blues from Love Hates What You Become
Lost Under Heaven's debut, 2016's Songs for Spiritual Lovers to Sing, was the sound of Manchester-bred singer/songwriter Ellery James Roberts and Dutch singer/songwriter/visual artist Ebony Hoorn having fallen in love and willfully drowned themselves in artful sonic euphoria. With their sophomore album, 2019's cathartic Love Hates What You Become, the couple rise to the crashing reality of living in the wake of that love and the realization that simply finding your soulmate doesn't fix your life, your emotional health, or the world around you. Recorded in Los Angeles with producer John Congleton and Swans drummer Thor Harris, Love Hates What You Become is a devastatingly affecting album, built deftly around the duo's yin and yang vocals with Roberts' tortured, throaty yawp coolly contrasted by Hoorn's flat, Marlene Dietrich-in-Doc Martens delivery. The songs are hugely anthemic in the punk tradition of Patti Smith and Nick Cave...

Dolphin Midwives - Mirror from Liminal Garden
The first vinyl release from Dolphin Midwives, the solo project of Portland-based artist Sage Fisher, is a delicate yet splintered album of sparkling, multi-tracked harps and ethereal vocals. Fisher states that the album is "about finding beauty and acceptance in the fractured, broken and vulnerable places," and her usage of electronic effects seems very hands-on, as she's constantly twisting and warping the sounds of her voice and instruments. It's much busier and glitchier than something by Mary Lattimore, to name another harpist who augments her playing with looping pedals and other effects...

Sharon Van Etten, Deerhunter, Juliana Hatfield, Steve Gunn, M. Ward, Israel Nash, Joe Jackson, Night Beats, Liz Brasher, Buke and Gase, Lost Under Heaven, Dolphin Midwives