Christopher Willits

Another solo electronic artist, i first heard of him through http://www.bleep.com, one of the coolest paysites for digital downloads. You're not gonna find a better website for legally purchasing obscure cutting edge electronica. Fuck iTunes!!!

This video/song is too pretty not to post. Even if i just posted about Max Tundra 5 minutes ago. From his 2006 album, Surf Boundaries:

Don't you dare not full-screen the shit out of this.



I wanna melt into this video.

Seriously, i think this is the most amazing video of all time.

Max Tundra

I honestly don't know where to start with this artist. Max Tundra (ie Ben Jacobs), has a notorious reputation for being a total perfectionist, and i'd say it shows with his new album, Parallax Error Beheads You. But for someone who is a perfectionist, this guy makes the quirkiest bizarre pop music I've heard in quite some time. Sometimes quirkiness is not a positive, but this guy totally owns his quirkiness. Its very electronic oriented, but I couldn't really genre file it if i had to. I haven't listened too in depth yet, but so far its very promising!

Check out his website, he's got tons of cool photos that i'm guessing he took himself.



And this is his new video:


Funny story about this video, when i first saw it, i had accidentally opened it up in a new window, and so it was playing, unbeknownst to me, on top of itself, but in a way that it synced up, tempo-wise. So I thought it was the craziest most out-there bizarre thing i ever heard. Which, really, wasn't that far off. :)

Most absurdly long album title of the year...

This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That

by Marnie Stern



I'm not too familiar with her music, but i'm listening to Marnie on her myspace page right now, and she's pretty damn interesting. Almost Animal Collective-esque in its zany off the wall energy. It sounds as if she's a virtuoso on the guitar. Kind of like one of her influences, Khaki King, another female guitarist, who happens to be coming to Congress this Weds.

Album titles are great. And the longer the better if you ask me. There's nothing quite as fun and flustering as coming up with a last minute album title. I have little to no respect for bands/artists that give up and go the self-titled route. That being said, here are some of my favorite long album titles.

My other choices for absurdly long album titles:
He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corners of Our Rooms
- Silver Mount Zion
When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight And He'll Win The Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters The Ring There's No Body To Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is The Greatest Of Heights And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where To Land And If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right.
- Fiona Apple
now that my tv has wings i'll never be lonely - ...music video?
"This Is Our Punk-Rock," Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing
- The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
- Godspeed! You Black Emperor -

Making postrock album titles looks so fun...

So those are the super-long ones. Is there any album title longer than Fiona's?

Now for ones that I just think are really good:
And then nothing turned itself inside out (Yo La Tengo)
We Should have never lived like we were skyscrapers (Chin Up Chin Up)
Born Into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward (A Silver Mount Zion)
Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel (Atlas Sound)
From Here We Go Sublime (The Field)
Shut Up I Am Dreaming (Sunset Rubdown)
Pinkshinyultrablast (Astrobrite)
( ) (Sigur Ros)
The Beatles - The Beatles (The White Album)
Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? (The Unicorns)
I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too (Martha Wainwright)

(also my choice for most sexy album cover of the year)

Hymie's Basement

Way back in 2003, back when The Postal Service were as indie as i got, two of my current (2008 current) favorite indie musicians got together and formed what I'm calling a 'Super-Duo' called Hymie's Basement. Andrew Broder of Fog, and Yoni Wolf of Why?. I didn't realize until recently that Andy Broder was one half of this group. I must not have been listening closely. Their styles compliment each other perfectly, and I think they actually do have pretty similar voices (which would explain why I thought it was just Yoni). The music is pretty somber in tone, which isn't a great departure for either musician, but it's also more minimal than Fog or Why?. I tend to like Why's music more than Fog's, but I feel like the music on this album leans more to the Fog side of the coin. It also seems like Yoni is handling most of the vocals. I really love it when they sing together, because their voices blend like two singers that have possibly been rubbing off on each other.

Here is the full album of Hymie's Basement, download before it gets taken down:
http://www.mediafire.com/?q0qzlklxjze

William Basinski

makes some of the saddest music ever. I use it to lull myself to sleep. Is that sad? I'd genre-file it under 'experimental ambient drone.' Right next to all my other experimental ambient drone music. Ha.

Try the Disintegration Loops I-IV. There's a whole story behind this that i'll probably get somewhat wrong, but as legend has it: Basinski, possibly unbeknownst to him, stored some tapes-loops for years in a not-so-safe place, possibly forgot about them, and then a few years back, he recorded them as they looped on a reel and they proceeded to disintegrate over an hours time, their sound getting more ghostly and broken over the course of each tape loops' recording. The collection is 4 discs long.

Here is the story according to its review from Pitchforkmedia:

During the summer of 2001, Basinski set about transferring a series of 20-year-old tape loops he'd had in storage to a digital file format, and was startled when this act of preservation began to devour the tapes he was saving. As they played, flakes of magnetic material were scraped away by the reader head, wiping out portions of the music and changing the character and sound of the loops as they progressed, the recording process playing an inadvertent witness to the destruction of Basinski's old music.

You can't make that stuff up...or can you?? Either way, i want to, nay, have to believe its the truth.

Not to get too deep on ya, but the music itself is kind of like an aural metaphor for a life (and death) of something (not necessarily a human): full of color and intensity during its beginning stages, but gradually becoming more soft and broken, until nothing is left but a ghostly shell of what once was.



At the 1:17 mark of this video is Disintegration Loop Disc 2, Track 2. One of my favorites. That's William Basinski sitting in front of his laptop, watching the playback in front of a live audience. Talk about minimalist performance. His hair is awesome.

Kinda like this guy in that movie...

Why?

are my new favorite band. Maybe i should've said, "is my new favorite band." People actually debate this on the internet. But since there are three contributing musicians, i went with 'are.'

Anyway, hailing from Oakland, they're now officially a 3 piece who tours as a 4 piece. The guy on the left is Jonathan 'Yoni' Wolf (originally from Berkeley), who is the songwriter and lead singer of the group. His brother, Josiah Wolf, is on the right, and he plays drums and various other instruments. Sometimes he plays the xylophone and the drums at the same time. Wowzers. Stop it Inspector Gadget, this is my blog. Anyway, Yoni's lyrics can be very introspective and personal, and are almost always open for interpretation. Their music, complete with glockenspiels, vibes, pianos, organs and guitars, is a perfectly layered match for his lyrical quirkiness. Their genre placement would most easily fall somewhere between indie and hip hop. I suppose then, that its also worth noting that they're on the experimental hip-hop record label, Anticon. The band's newest album, Alopecia, came out earlier this year, and i'd be hard pressed to recommend anything better.

Here's a video of them performing an as of yet unreleased new song, Eskimo Snow:



All of my words for sadness
Like eskimo snow on unmanned crosses all
Planted in threes in a field for living trees
are hummed as prayers in secret
then sung through speakers in rooms for people to hear it
Even when I'm wasted and numb
With the words for good wine on a philistine's tongue

And I'm under something black
and thicker than a sheet for ghosts
in the first beat of snow
That old cloud's you
On the crosses on the chests of dead soldiers in a field
and I'm still here
Bearing my watery fruits if fruits at all
And I'm still here
Barely understanding what truth that rarely calls

www.myspace.com/whyanticon

Oh, and here i am with them, at their Solar Culture show.

Yoni's tongue looks like its approaching my beard. I'm clutching a paper sack enclosing an oil can of Fosters. Classy. Josiah is workin it with that sweet, sweet Jewfro. Also classy.

Mika Miko

I usually don't like punk rock (too abrasive for my ears), but these girls are just so much fucking fun.



Two lead singers that only sing. I defy you not to enjoy them in this video: