The Horrible Fanfare

2012-04-30

I Hate Myself and Want to Die: A Finals 2012 Mix by Colin

19 songs for soundtracking my inevitable demise.

just a little bit of what I’ve been doing instead of writing papers and studying and stuff. AWESOME.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?550tybdt5gkph75

EDIT: If anyone so happens to download this, make sure you follow the track numbers that are in the folder when you download it. That’s the intended order. For maximum depression. K THX.

EDIT (2): A TRACKLIST FOR LAZY PEOPLE

1. COMA CINEMA - Caroline, Please Kill Me

2. COLD CAVE - Life Magazine

3. [[[[VVRSSNN]]]] - bruise blood

4. SHLOHMO - It Was Whatever

5. TEEN SUICIDE - Salvia Plath

6-8. TIM HECKER - Music For Tundra (pts. 1-3)

9. SATANSTOMPINGCATERPILLARS - I think it is beautiful that you are 256 colors too

10. SLOWDIVE - Dagger

11. BALAM ACAB - Now Time

12. ARRANGE - When’d You Find Me?

13. SMALL BLACK - Despicable Dogs

14. SPARKLEHORSE - Sad & Beautiful World

15. TELEVISION PERSONALITIES - Diary Of A Young Man

16. SHOULD - Faded

17. THURSTON MOORE - Honest James

18. YO LA TENGO - I Feel Like Going Home

19. SIGUR ROS - Varuo

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do you ever feel like you’re just generating content?

2012-04-18

(via aulacrimosa)

Source: 200troubledteenagers

2012-04-10

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rickyeatacid:

this is a song called salvia plath. it’s about strawberries and eating girls out and the food network and college. it’s composed entirely of samples of marvin’s room, drums, and my voice.

This is the best thing I’ve heard today.

Source: rickyeatacid

2012-03-19

Roommates - Winnifred

This 7” is so rad. Definitely seek it out. Will be buying it if I ever see it in person.

That whole lo-fi thing has been around for quite some time, and though we’ve had some refreshing reprieves from it in our guitar based rock of late, this blown-out aesthetic has dominated the genre.Winnifred, Roommates’ debut 7” on Slumberland, certainly embraces this aesthetic wholeheartedly, although in a manner a bit different to their fellow travelers.

Where Wavves, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls and the like used lo-fi as a jumping off point for sun-drenched beach pop, Roommates - comprised of real life roommates Ben Cook (of Fucked Up fame) and Mark Fosco - seem to focus more on the freewheeling, windmilling, power chord strumming of lo-fi progenitors Guided By Voices. It’s in the harmonies of ‘1st Floor Blues’, the way they slam their short tracks together, and their ramshackle recording approach. Each bit of their style seems indebted in its own way to the work Bob Pollard, but these songs are catchy, powerful, and immediate enough to succeed despite falling well within established indie rock tropes.

Though throwing around the Fucked Up name will likely lead to images of barked vocals on top of searing guitar lines, Cook’s focus is a bit different. The edges are still jagged, but the hooks are much more apparent. There’s something about the format of the duo that often results in catchy immediate music. Instead of burying the song under the grand excess that a large band allows, the track is laid bare for all to see. Stripped down to guitar, drums, and vocals, the song underneath better be pretty good. Each track here certainly lives up to the expectation that such a format offers. These aren’t two guys lazily conjuring up pop punk in a garage because they can’t find anyone else to jam along with them, these are fully formed tracks presented in their most basic form. The unadorned strums and simple beat of ‘Back To The Sun’ recalls much of what Slumberland Records has become known for over the years and it’s amazing that a duo is able to pull that off.

Slumberland has hit yet again on an astoundingly catchy guitar based indie rock act. This shouldn’t really be news to anyone given their stellar track record with signings, but Roommates is something special. We’re only given 9 minutes of music on this debut release, but its enough to whet the appetite for what will hopefully be more to come. Though it’s familiar, and well within the style that Slumberland has attached itself to, it’s certainly worth checking out.

Rating: 8/10

Originally posted at The 405

2012-03-03

Ifan Dafydd - Treehouse/To Me

The internet is a curious place sometimes. In fall of last year, several tracks began to make the rounds under the guise of one Ifan Dafydd. The hazy organ sounds and warped Amy Winehouse vocal samples on “No Good” led to much speculation that this was none other than James Blake working under a new moniker. Alas this is not the case, though recent revelations make the similarities make sense. Dafydd is a friend and one time roommate of Blake’s, so it’s more forgivable perhaps that much of this style seems ripped from the work of Blake’s earlier EPs.

This new 7” feature the titular “Treehouse” a moody piece of Blake-ian post-dubstep foreshadowed by those tracks that floated around throughout the end of 2011. Unlike “No Good” however, this track doesn’t rely on gimmicky samples but succeeds fully under the weight of its own snipped vocals and clattering beats. There’s no four-on-the-floor simplicity to tie this track together, but it’s propulsive nonetheless. Unlike Blake’s tracks, this song doesn’t build and loop around, it moves forward to some conclusion. Where Dafydd is distinct from his most obvious reference point is in his unwillingness to recycle dynamics. Though the same samples pop up throughout the track, Dafydd doesn’t linger. Across its four minutes “Treehouse” doesn’t stop moving forward, and its all the better for it. It’s a unique take on a style that’s relatively familiar.

The b-side, “To Me” while still representative of this forward movement, seems overall a bit less developed than “Treehouse.” Its vocal samples, instead of seeming meticulously placed like on the a side, seem smeared across the track, leading to a more dizzying feeling once it interlocks with the piano pieces than Dafydd likely intended. It’s still an interesting take on the oft homogenous post-dubstep sound, but this sounds more like an outtake to be cast upon Soundcloud than a song appropriate to back such an astounding track as “Treehouse.”

Rating: “Treehouse” 9/10, “To Me” 6/10

Originally posted at BPM

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Bowerbirds - The Clearing

Before I go any further, check out this interview I did with Beth Tacular. She seems like the most awesome person ever. Review below.

Six years deep into their career, it would appear that Bowerbirds have it mostly figured out. Their first full length effort, 2007’s Hymns For A Dark Horse, showcased the songwriting talents of one Phillip Moore, just two years off his last release with North Carolina post-rockers Ticonderoga, in a more stripped down form than we had ever seen his work. Hymns… didn’t move massive numbers of copies or garner widespread critical praise, but it did foreshadow the compositions to come on Upper Air. Due to to a more emphatic critical response, as well as the endorsement of friend and fan Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, Upper Air provided Bowerbirds - then composed of Moore, his girlfriend Beth Tacular, and his Ticonderoga bandmate Mark Paulson - with greater exposure. This set of songs afforded them the acclaim, time, and money necessary to undertake a year and a half’s worth of recording at Vernon’s studio in Wisconsin and a cabin they built in North Carolina.

The Clearing is the product of that recording, and what a product it turned out to be. Though Upper Air was astounding in its own right, this effort eclipses it almost entirely. The sunny harmonies of ‘House of Diamonds’? Outdone here by ‘In The Yard’. The timbres of the voices of Tacular and Moore have never meshed better than on this Tacular led track (though really that much could be said about the album as a whole). Tacular’s sweet, yet earthy voice, paired with one of the smoother takes that Moore has recorded to date takes their well regarded vocal interplay to levels far beyond mere harmonies. Their wordless vocalizations, both on this track and elsewhere, push far beyond anything they’ve done previously. Tacular has stated that much of the band’s free time is spent watching films of all varieties, and there’s no doubt that much of the dramatic flair of film soundtracks - and of film in general - has presented itself in this facet of the new albums. The “oohs” and “ahhs” that mark ‘In The Yard’, ‘Walk The Furrows’, create emotional peaks that would punctuate heavy scenes in a film, and music wise, Bowerbirds general sound isn’t too far from what Andrew Bird did with his soundtrack for the 2010 indie film Norman.

That being said, The Clearing eclipses said soundtrack, and much of what’s gone on in the indie folk genre over the past several years. Aside from the harmonies, there’s just so much going on here. The intricacies of the guitar parts on tracks like ‘This Year’, and the attention to detail throughout the album really speak to the effort that was put into this album. The interlocking parts on ‘Death Wish’ aren’t the work of bedroom hacks. The way the drums, acoustic guitar, and the faint plucking of a violin interact suggest the work of pure professionals, and on this record that’s what Bowerbirds have proved themselves to be. Having ditched the accordion for the most part, which Tacular relied on heavily on the last album, the band is freed up for these more complex arrangements, which paired with Moore’s ever incredible lyricism makes for a listening experience more rewarding than the indie folk genre often offers.

The 2000s folk landscape has shifted wholly with the latest releases from each of its luminaries. Justin Vernon’s Bon Iver traded the moroseness of his previous work for a more MOR sound. Sufjan Stevens traded his trademark literary guitar and piano based compositions for the insanity that was Age of Adz. Fleet Foxes traded their early earthiness for the 60s influenced tones of Helplessness Blues. And here we have Bowerbirds. Though their earlier efforts might not have reached the heights that the early work of these aforementioned, their trade was perhaps the most successful. Though their shift was not a broad stylistic one, they chose instead to trade sparseness for incredible detail. Though it’s pleasant at surface level, this is one that takes a bit of time to unravel. And when that unraveling occurs, listen by listen, it becomes clear that this is a record of such quality that isn’t come across on a daily basis.

Rating: 9/10

Originally Posted at The 405

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Grimes - Visions

Although such an assumption could be entirely off base, the aesthetic side of Claire Boucher’s Grimes seems to me an affectation similar to the much maligned and discussed persona of one Lizzy Grant. Though Boucher hasn’t released an album under her birth name, her carefully constructed public visage is one of heavily puffed up weirdness. Instead of playing toward her looks like Grant does, Boucher’s persona is one of confrontation. Every aesthetic choice seems poised to make her appear as weird as possible, and major media outlets have latched onto that outlet in similar ways that they have to Grant. I’m not asking for asking for equal treatment for these two female stars, in fact quite the opposite. I’m all for artists putting as much work into the aesthetic side of their work as the musical, you just have to be able to back up those aesthetic choices with the music itself. Born To Die proved that Grant was all style and little substance, but Boucher’s background of work, including Visions, allows her this aesthetic freedom. Her schtick isn’t annoying, simply because she backs it up.

2010’s Geidi Primes, an opening slot for Lykke Li, and a fair amount of buzz surrounding Boucher at last year’s CMJ Music Marathon, have all contributed to the critical firestorm surrounding her at present. In an interview with Pitchfork, she said that Visions far surpasses her previous works, and as a fan of those previous records I was a bit skeptical. They seemed to me cohesive works in their own right and then Boucher disowned them as if they were collections of demos. If this album were to be as great as Boucher made it out to be it would be something truly outstanding. That being said, it doesn’t represent the same leaps and bounds that Boucher seemed to indicate that it might.

In fairness to Boucher, Visions is a triumph of composition in ways that previous efforts never approached, and nowhere is this more evident than on the lead single, ‘Oblivion’. This is one that’s been kicking around the internet since the end of 2011, but in the context of the album, its burbling synths and layers upon layers of breathy vocals seem even more stunning. It’s just one of those songs. You’re listening to the album pretty closely, but at the opening moments of tracks like this your ears perk up a bit more, you find your head nodding, your foot tapping and then four minutes later its back to the usual listening mode. Tracks like this are absolutely necessary to make an album feel fresh listen after listen, and though this album has its share - ‘Oblivion’ is the obvious one, but ‘Circumnambient’ and ‘Be A Body’ aren’t too far behind it - there still feels like a handful of wasted moments.

Yes, despite the highs, and all the lavish praise that has been and will be laid at the foot of this album, it just has this feel that while the high points are high, the low points are just a little boring. More than anything the album feels a bit front loaded. The whole stretch following the aforementioned ‘Be A Body’ just becomes a bit laborious. By ‘Nightmusic’, the immediacy of the first few tracks is sorely missed. Though ‘Skin’ represents a thoughtful stab at a different style than the insistent electro pop of most of the album, it, and much of the second half of the album just wears out its welcome within the first couple of listens.

That being said, the collective whole of this release does continue to hint at the promise of earlier efforts - supplanting the ever present solid songwriting with more fleshed out and complex arrangement. Its just that Boucher’s effort wears thin over the course of these 48 minutes. Were this an EP, it might have been a perfect release, but as it stands Visions, while improving on previous work, is not yet the career defining moment that Boucher seemed to suggest it might be. Really though, were any of us expecting that? While Boucher has been making music for an eternity in blog-rock years, her career is still in its infancy by many more tangible measures. Because of that fact, it is perhaps inappropriate to lambast Visions as a disappointment or a representation of unfulfilled promises. Rather, this album makes promises of its own. Its flashes of brilliance promise better work yet to come.

Rating: 7.5/10

Originally Posted at The 405

2012-02-23

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seasonoftheshark:

Slowdive Megapost: Part 2

Slowdive - Alison

Alison? Yeah, I used to know Alison. It’s been a while since we’ve talked though. I forgot what we talked about, but it was nothing significant. The usual ‘how’s it goings’ and such. I miss her though. She reminds me of that summer. You know, the one before freshman year? It’s silly to think about nowadays. We lived life carelessly for those few months. Wasting our days wandering aimlessly in the city, relaxing in the park, laughing at my brother’s (then) hilarious antics, playing Super Mario World, smoking cigarettes by the diner at 4 am, anxiously sneaking into our respective houses at night - it brings a smile to my face thinking about it. Everything seemed so light back then. This was before my brother’s antics would get him jailed, before my parents split, before home became foreign to me and, of course, before the stuff between Alison and me.

Life has changed since the ‘real world‘ hit though. We’re different people now. We’ve got things to take care of and careers to tend to. Life back then could not have been as great as I imagine it anyway. We were up to a whole lot of nothing. I’m just peeking back through with my rose-tinted glasses on. Alison and I are working on things that matter now: our degrees, careers and such. At least, I hope they matter… That was five years ago though? Wow…it’s strange how the years seem so quick, yet that summer feels like forever ago…I miss Alison.

-Chris

Some incredible writing by Chris. Check this blog, I write for it sometimes too.

Source: seasonoftheshark