05-10-2018 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX

OCS aka Orinoka Crash Suite

05-10-2018 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX [from the recent past] # OCS aka Orinoka Crash Suite, Maston, Quilt, Gorillaz, Cowboy Junkies, The Sha La Das, The Holydrug Couple, Bully, Adrian Younge, Tough Age, Léonie Pernet, Guerilla Toss, And So I Watch You from Afar, James, The Pretty Reckless

M U S I C

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

John Dwyer's post-Coachwhips lo-fi psych-folk band, put on ice for Thee Oh Sees, then brought back to life in the late 2010s.  While playing in the bands Pink & Brown, Zeigenbock Kopf, and the Coachwhips in the late '90s, guitarist/vocalist John Dwyer found he needed an outlet for songs that didn't reach the same level of frenzied noise as those groups. He chose the name Orinoka Crash Suite, or OCS for short, and began recording the folky psychedelic songs in a lo-fi manner, mostly on his own at first.
OCS
Memory of a Cut Off Head 4:47
On and On Corridor 5:50
from Memory of a Cut Off Head 2017
As if he weren't busy enough cranking out records with the Oh Sees, making weird electronic albums as Damaged Bug, and co-running the prolific Castle Face record label, John Dwyer needed another outlet for songs and sounds, so in 2017 he brought the OCS name back to life and released Memory of a Cut Off Head. OCS was the early incarnation of the Oh Sees, making lo-fi and experimental records before the band evolved into a garage punk juggernaut. Memory of a Cut Off Head doesn't revert back to the scruffy, sometimes off-putting sound of those early records; instead, Dwyer and co-conspirator Brigid Dawson take a step away from the pounding power of the Oh Sees in favor of something hazily psychedelic and expansive, a little bit folky and rustic, with every nook and cranny filled by a wide array of instruments meticulously arranged into something that would make the Incredible String Band sit up and take notice...  She and Dwyer fit together like a warped hippie version of Lee & Nancy, or George & Tammy, each complementing the other perfectly. Her contributions show that she should definitely start working on her own stuff soon. Really, they should both work on more OCS music soon, since this album is a trippy, spooky delight.

Frank Maston puts his own spin on the retro studio stylings of inspirations like Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, and Ennio Morricone. Multi-instrumentalist Frank Maston grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, soaking in both the summery atmosphere and the musical and cultural history of his surroundings. Early on, Maston developed a love for the sunny chamber pop of Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson, as well as more California-inspired moments of rock magic from Harry Nilsson and Phil Spector. He eventually sculpted these influences into what would become his own music, a completely self-sufficient menagerie of dark pop sounds informed by '60s and '70s studio magicians and loner geniuses.
Maston
Swans 1:55
Old Habits 2:03
from Tulips 2017
... the Los Angeles native's follow-up, Tulips, shifts focus to the era's European film music, specifically that of the French New Wave and Ennio Morricone. Maston was drawn to these overseas influences after extensive touring in Europe that included living part-time in the Netherlands (hence, "Tulips") to play keyboards for Jacco Gardner. Completely self-made until it was sent to Jasper Geluk for mastering, the almost entirely instrumental album relies on grooving electric guitar and bass, Mellotron, and other vintage sounds to craft loose, whimsical lounge music for the indie crowd...

Quilt weave a tapestry of float-away guitars, Eastern melodies, and languid, intimate harmonies for a modern take on psychedelic folk. The brainchild of Shane Butler and Anna Fox Rochinski, who formed the band while studying at Boston's School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Quilt craft psychedelic pop that evokes '60s idealism without feeling too indebted to it.
Quilt
Passersby (Quilt) 4:16
Searching For 3:07
from Plaza 2016
After spending much of 2014 on the road touring in support of Held in Splendor, Quilt began working on songs for their third album in a historic building in Atlanta -- a long way from their Boston home base. Being so far from home may have contributed to the rootless, restless feeling underpinning Plaza; nearly all of its songs are about being in flux... Even if Quilt don't always find the answers they're looking for on Plaza, they've found some of their most confident and cohesive music.

Virtual hip-hop/electronica/indie group comprising fictional cartoons voiced by Blur's Damon Albarn and a revolving all-star cast. Conceived as the first "virtual hip-hop group," Gorillaz blended the musical talents of Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, Blur's Damon Albarn, Cibo Matto's Miho Hatori, and Tom Tom Club's Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz with the arresting visuals of Jamie Hewlett, best known as the creator of the cult comic Tank Girl...
Gorillaz
Humility (feat.: George Benson) 3:17
Fire Flies 3:53
from The Now Now 2018
It's not an unusual move for Gorillaz, releasing a brief, breezy record swiftly on the heels of a magnum opus. The Fall followed Plastic Beach by a matter of 13 months, but that 2011 record was deliberately positioned as an afterthought, promoted as being written and recorded on the road and initially released to the cartoon band's fan club. The Now Now, delivered a mere 14 months after Humanz, echoes The Fall, particularly in how nearly half of its songs carry titles that salute the presumed place of their composition, but this is quite a different beast than any previous Gorillaz album. Recorded in February 2018 so the group could have new material to play on the festival circuit that year, The Now Now by design has fewer collaborators than Humanz, the record Damon Albarn toiled over for the better part of a decade...

15-09-2018 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX

15-09-2018 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX [from the recent past] # Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Cigarettes After Sex, Halo Maud, Palm, La Luz, Tunng, Maston, Quilt, OCS aka Orinoka Crash Suite, Gorillaz, Cowboy Junkies

M U S I C

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

Folk-informed indie pop guided by Thao Nguyen, whose songwriting tends toward the musically playful and lyrically heavy-hearted. 
Thao & the Get Down Stay Down
Fool Forever 3:08
Nobody Dies 3:48
from A Man Alive 2016
Having constructed prior albums with the likes of Tucker Martine (the Decemberists, Camera Obscura) and John Congleton (St. Vincent, FFS), bandleader Thao Nguyen enlisted longtime side project collaborator Merrill Garbus to produce her band's fourth LP, A Man Alive. A match that sounds as good on the final product as it does on paper, Garbus brings the musical moxie associated with her tUnE-yArDs outfit and reinforces that same quality in Thao & the Get Down Stay Down for an especially muscular outing...

Ambient pop collective started as a recording experiment in an echoey hallway.  Ambient pop collective Cigarettes After Sex were formed almost accidentally in 2008 by songwriter and bandleader Greg Gonzalez. While living in El Paso, Texas, Gonzalez was experimenting with capturing the spacious sounds of recording songs in a four-story stairwell at the University of Texas.
Cigarettes After Sex
K 5:20
Flash 4:34
from Cigarettes After Sex 2017
After a slow start, Cigarettes After Sex saw their fortunes swiftly reversed by a whirlwind of YouTube hits. Although they formed in 2008, CAS waited nearly a decade to release their debut record, and rather fittingly it unfolds at a lethargic pace. The music that Greg Gonzales and his fellow bandmates produce is slowcore in the extreme. The shimmering guitars, placid percussion, and wistfully delivered vocals also reveal their debt to dream pop and shoegaze. More than anything, early supporters of the band have praised Gonzales' unashamed sentimentality and dyed-in-the-wool romanticism. You don't have to venture beyond the opening track to experience his hazy passion...

Psychedelic pop with touches of proggy and space age indie played by French musician Maud Nadal and friends. 
Halo Maud
Wherever 5:23
Je Suis une Île 2:3
Dans la Nuit 4:11
from Je Suis Une Île 2018
Lots of bands were making ethereal, hypnotically drifting, modern psychedelic pop in 2018 and lots of them were really good at it, especially those fronted by women, like Death and Vanilla and Gloria. Add to that female solo artists like Gwenno, Jane Weaver, and Melody's Echo Chamber and the field starts to get a little crowded. To make a record that stands out next to all the high-quality work of those artists, one would need to go a little outside the lines to add something extra. On her debut album, Je Suis Une Île, the French artist Halo Maud (known to her parents as Maud Nadal) does just that. With the help of producer/multi-instrumentalist Robin Leduc, Pablo Padovani from Moodoïd -- a band she played in in the early 2010s -- Benjamin Glibert from Aquaserge, and the members of her live band (Olivier Marguerit, Stéphane Bellity, and Vincent Mougel), Nadal crafts a sound that is indebted to the epic psych-pop of the '60s, but also adds some oddball prog touches, a little bit of electronica here and there, and a hefty dose of the kind of space age indie that bands like Broadcast and Stereolab did so well in the '90s...