It Has Certainly Been A While

ar Why, hello. I apologize for taking such a long time to post again. I've been really busy this past month or so, first being away at Brown and I just got back a day ago from San Francisco.

Anyway, let me start you off with this video by one of my favorite bands ever (The Antlers)

The Antlers - Two / Epilogue - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

It's done by La Blogotheque, who have a whole bunch of other great videos by loads and loads of other artists, I highly recommend checking it out, it's basically impossible to not find at least one video you like. Only problem might be that they're based in french and the english version of their site is not the easiest to navigate.

Next up, No Age. They're another one of my favorite bands (the fact that they are a drum and guitar two piece make me like them even even more than I would anyway) and they have a new album (Everything in Between) coming out on September 28 (my birthday!) (the new Deerhunter comes out then too) and it leaked pretty recently. It's quite good (although it definitely needs more listens, I think it'll be a grower) but really toned down from their older garage-noise-punk days. Check out the first officially released song off it:



Privacy. Privacy is Laurel Knapp, currently signed to Marriage Records, based in Portland, Oregon, and (I am pretty sure of this at least, but there is a good-ish chance that I am wrong) run by Adrian Orange, who makes some nice tunes under the name Thanksgiving. All I have heard of her is her 2007 album Without Mercy. It's really good and enjoyable (also perfect for falling asleep to). Privacy's music consists of Laurel playing sparse, somewhat repetitive (in a good way) folk-ish guitar strumming with soft, incredibly soothing vocals over it. They all strike me as very lullabye-esque. I really want to listen to her 2009 EP, Songs, but her music is incredibly hard to find. I may end up buying it without ever hearing it because I have heard it is really, really good, and I enjoyed Without Mercy a whole bunch. Check her out bee-low.


That's all for now, expect a mix in the somewhat near future as well as a return to more normal posting schedule.

-Alec

Let's Try an Experiment

Alright. I can't keep "finding" new bands that I really like and that are less well known, so I needa think up some new sort of posts. I also don't go to enough shows to fill my quota with reviews (and they really aren't good reviews anyway).

Anyway, here are some things I like and don't like.

LIKE:



The Antlers on Tiny Desk Concerts : I really love the Antlers in general. They were quite possibly my favorite "new" band in 2009 and Hospice is really one of my favorite albums ever. Hospice is just everything an album should be really. It tells a story, the songs segue into each other nicely and flow together, and when you read the lyrics off the liner sheet, they look like a short story, but when listened to aren't awkward or clunky at all. When I saw them live I was a bit disappointed though. They weren't bad at all, they were really, really good, but the show just failed to capture the intimacy and delicateness of the album and its emotions. It's partly the crowd's fault. It seemed like hardly anyone was there for the Antlers (although, when I left, almost right after their set, I saw a few other people leaving the show too), and several people kept talking and looking around and bein' obnoxious which really ruined the mood. The other problem was that they just didn't capture all the dynamics they had on the album. They played my favorite song, Wake, where at the end there is a repeating part that starts off super softly and then builds up and up until he's practically screaming and the drums are pounding and the guitar is oscillating more and more and surrounding you (it's really awesome), but in the live show they didn't get quiet enough at the start so it lost its intensity. That's why I love this filming of them playing a few songs. It's a lot more quiet, stripped down, and intimate, a lot more like the record was. Also, I felt like the background and surroundings really kinda fit the sound and feel of the music. Definitely give it a watch, or at least listen to it.

DO NOT LIKE






Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92: Apparently this is one of THE GREATEST ambient albums out there, or at least from the 90's. I don't see it. At all. It's just not "amibent" enough for me. The first few beginning tracks are pretty good, and then it just gets more active and annoying, culminating in Green Calx, a really, really, boring, repetive track centered around truly awful synth sounds. The Album doesn't flow together well either, which I guess is okay (since it's a collection of works), but really bothers me, since I love ambient albums that seem complete and more like it was written as an album instead of seperate songs. Maybe I'm wrong about this though, so many people seem to love it. Can't stand it, but it might be your thing if you like lackluster, repetitive techno/trance that's a bad combination of ambient and dance-like stuff.

- Alec

Show Review! : The Antlers! (and Editors and The Dig)

First off, let me apologize for our very infrequent posting habits (almost a week in between!). We're pretty bad about this, but will probably hopefully get better.
Anyways, last night I popped into DC to go see the Antlers. They were opening for Editors along with The Dig, who played before them. I so very much like their album Hospice (released 2009) (it's definitely one of my favorites ever), plus I'd heard some live recordings (which were great) so I was quite excited to see them. But first, The Dig.

They're kind of an indie-pop band, and the couple songs I'd heard before the show weren't the greatest so I was kinda dreading their set. They started right when they were supposed to (which was really great, sucks standing around waiting) and basically played songs for 30 mins or so, very little talking. Their stuff was much better live, I liked it, and seemed like the crowd was digging it too.

Next, THE ANTLERS. man oh man, was I excited. They opened with Kettering, moved onto Sylvia, then Bear, Two, and ended with Wake. They played slower more atmospheric/shoegazy versions of Bear and Two, which I thought was good, cause the album versions sound a lil' too happy, I think (I actually prefer the album version of Two, though). They were really, really, quite amazing. Their show was more keyboard oriented which was just dandy. Plus, Wake is my favorite song of theirs and is just a completely great song anyway. My one complaint is that their show was not as emotional as the record. Partly because of the arrangements of the songs, but very much also because of the crowd. A lot of people weren't there to see them, and these two asian ladies pushed their way in front of me and kept talking and looking through the crowd the whole time (thankfully they were really short).

Editors. meh. They sound soooo much like Interpol. Their show was pretty enjoyable, everyone was moving and they played several of the small amount of their songs that I actually know, so that was quite nice. However, they completely overloaded their show bass-wise, it was really poundin into ya.

All in all, a good night.

Wake - The Antlers

Two - The Antlers

- Alec