No Clouds Over This Zen Summer

Cloud is Tyler Taormina of Long Island and is fresh behind the ears - not that you would guess it’s the one young dude with how huge and fun his second album Zen Summer (out now through Paper Trail Records) comes across. ‘Sunshine Psych’ has the summer psych euphoria that Woods espouses. There is an easy inherent groove in the likes of ‘Mantra One’ that evokes early Broken Social Scene -  in fact there are a number of moments on Zen Summer that remind me of that band’s second album You See It In People. There is a bucolic bubbling that underpins the album too, something that infuses naturalistic freak-folk shamans like Devendra Banhart or pastel-freak-popsters Animal Collective (‘Luana’). It is this constant sense of colourful inventiveness and verve that makes Zen Summer such an appetising prospect. The album supposedly comes from a dark place, a deliberate attempt to suppress anxieties and trepidations about the outside world and Taormina’s place in it, and songs like the atmospheric ‘Melting Cassatt’ and chaotic cascading ‘Sleepy Giant Speak’ certainly hint at these internal misgivings. Whether the creation of Zen Summer works for him is unsure, but he easily succeeds at setting the listener at ease at the very least, which is a great effort.

Get With The Program

Changing names is always difficult. Even when you would do anything to dig yourself out from under the shadow of your former life, it always haunts you, tethers remnants of itself to your being. You are never truly free - you can never not be yourself. Same goes for a band. Toronto's Program are going for a clean slate, and although they still have some semblance of former alter ego Volcano Playground coursing through their veins, there is an iciness in their lifeblood that flushes everything with a anachronistic blue hue, hiding in darkness even whilst standing in the full glare of the light. Produced by David Newfeld (Broken Social Scene), 'Waiting' is the first taste of what is to come. 

Their "first" release will be with us soon enough. Until then, listen incessantly to 'Waiting' below, and check out their pretty cool Tumblr which is about music as much as it is about Program.

Program - Waiting

Inability to talk, propensity to sing

What an ace choice of a band name for a post rock outfit!

Taiwan's Aphasia (which is the total impairment of language ability) are a band that before a couple weeks ago had never ventured beyond their homeland. Its possible you may have heard of the band they came out of the ashes of, Nipples (an experimental noise rock band that featured Guitarists Yi-Jyun Wu and Su and bassist KK previously). Either way, they are currently playing in Canada, and their 'sudden unearthing' has met with some murmurs in blogland - and with good reason. A real brooding sense of subvertive menace pervades many of Aphasia's tracks, and although they have only been together since 2007, their Sonic-Youth infused roots are evident in colouring their time signatures. However Canadian label Arts & Crafts (Broken Social Scene, Metric, Constantines) are distributing their 2nd LP, 2008's The Crocodile Society of Aphasia, which might launch these guys more into the limelight that they so rightly deserve.

Check out track 'Deep Spring' below, and a recording from their Canadian tour of 'The Freedom Highway' (the sound muffles at times but its a very fine live recording nonetheless).

Aphasia - Deep Spring

Answer to peace comes from the Middle East - of Queensland...

Townsville, a town on the north coast of Queensland, Australia, isnt known for its prolific and trailblazing music scene. Rugby league, rodeos, monsoonal weather. Not a lot to hope for, right?

Out of nowhere a little band is doing its darnedest to change all that. The Middle East are a seven piece who are rapidly storming across the world, making waves everywhere they go (especially at South By Southwest where they garnered glowing reviews and a few celebrity listeners, allegedly including one very bemused Bill Murray). They have elements of fellow Aussies Art of Fighting in their vocal harmonies and spectral soaring guitarwork, but in tracks like Lonely the shadows of other well-known collectives such as Broken Social Scene shine through. It is the surprising beauty inherent in every second of their tracks that dislodges you from your cynical ways, beguiles you with its ethereal harmonics and finally bolsters your hope that all is not lost.

I had heard of the band through snippets of info, but it wasnt until my mate Andy played me a track that I cottoned on to the hullabaloo. Their recordings have been on high rotation ever since.

Their first album, The Recordings of the Middle East, has been going great guns since its re-release late last year in its home country, and should be pushing more than a few units when it gains international release in the very near future. Until then, unless you decide to order it in (which I strongly suggest), here is a sample of a track from their self titled EP from earlier last year (which is really an abridged version of their album anyway).

The Middle East - Blood

You had me at Bill Murray.

Album review - Owen Pallett's Hearltand/Jason Collett's Rat A Tat Tat

This is my last album review for a little while - Im heading home to Australia for a few weeks over Easter - so I thought Id make it a double bill. As has been fairly clear over the short course of this blog thus far, Sonic Masala deals mainly in rock, and noisy rock at that (hence the Sonic of the title). However we aspire to recognise musical merit of all shapes and sizes (where we deem fit of course!) And so Im going for two albums that are decidely lower-key than usual.

Broken Social Scene are in institution, both of music in general and of the Canadian music scene in particular. The band have a turnstile of coming and going talent involved in their pastiches of musical genres, their only predictability being their unpredictability. We have seen member take flight on their own merit (Feist; Emily Haines, both as a solo artist and in Metric), and band members put out gear with Broken Social Scene flourishes (Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning in particular).

One band member that has flourished in his own world is Owen Pallett. the violin extraordinaire, he is the man that the likes of the Arcade Fire go to to bolster their string arrangements. Under the moniker of Final Fantasy, Pallett released a quirkily enjoyable album a few years ago called He Poos Clouds. Nuff said there. And although his newie, Heartland, is more generic in its title, and under his own name, it contains all the quirky elements that we have come to expect, this time in a lusher, more densely layered context - and is all the better for it.

Heartland showcases everything that is Owen Pallett, so it is great that he places this album under his own name. He is a true one man band - its hard to fathom how one person can create such intricate landscapes to let his musical vision dance the light fantastic in. The various percussive instruments, brass and strings, intermingling with electronic flourishes, are hard to fathom - so much is going on that each listen provides a new gem to gawp at, to savour, to fall in love with. The soaring opener "Midnight Flourishes" throws you straight into his world, with all of these elements on offer from the get go, and there is no letting up. "Lewis Takes His Shirt Off" is a five minute opus that enraptures as well as amuses; "Tryst With Mephistopheles" is a kaleidascopic amalgam of Postal Service twitches and Sound of Music grandeur and pomp (imagine Julie Andrews twirling around in a field of multicoloured flowers, fireworks going overhead, psychedelic stop motion creatures tugging the hems of her skirt...no, I cant either...); "Flare Gun" comes across as a relation to something we would expect to hear in a Tim Burton directed Fantasia. And that is the key - this is truly a fantasy world we have entered, akin to Pallett's previous moniker. Now if only Burton's Alice had fallen down Heartland's rabbithole... This is something that I wouldn't normally champion - but I cannot get this album out of my head. A true album (Ive been saying that a bit this year...), it grows - no, morphs itself into you. Surreality has never been this fun, infectious, and beautiful.

Jason Collett is another active Broken Social Scene collaborator that has released an album this month, Rat A Tat Tat. We have mentioned his activities already this month - being a influence in the works of the band Zeus - so its time to monitor his own work. And what he has produced is pop folk mishmash that has its hand in Dylanesque territory, though with more 70s rock stylings and influences. "Rave On Sad Song" is a barroom drunken pint clinker, the honky tonk on the piano, the gentle strummings of an acoustic song, the effortless chorus. It builds from here, from the T-Rex meets Sgt Pepperish "Lake Superior" to the whimsical wonderings of "Winnipeg Winds". It is heavily influenced by other artists - nay, albums - but has Collett's swagger and pop nuances well in check.

It seems a little unfair to have these albums side by side though - Rat A Tat Tat is a lot of fun, but lacks the fantastical (there's that word derivation again) immersiveness that Heartland dishes out in spades. If this was a showdown, Pallett would take the undisputed crown. As they stand on their own, they are two terrific albums by two talented troubadours.

Owen Pallett - Lewis Takes His Shirt Off

Jason Collett - Rave On Sad Song

The Father of Gods Makes A Musical Menagerie

Zeus, the Greek god of Gods. Ruler of Mt Olympus. God of the sky. Bearer of the thunderbolt. About to be played by Liam Neeson. Very now, in the then.

Zeus, the Toronto four piece. Melders of extreme influences - Fleetwood Mac, The Kinks, Syd Barrett, John and Paul. Purveyors of immaculate denim and moustaches a la The Band. Very then, in the now.

Zeus are (as is the way right now) splashing South By South West in sepia tones and fire tinged edges, in their first stage of taking over the world and dragging it back 30 years, into a world of 'classical' rock pop. Chaperoned by Broken Social Scene collaborator and influential singer/songwriter Jason Collett, the band, the core dreamings of kindred spirits Mike O'Brien and Carlin Nicholson, Zeus aim to bridge the Pro Tools era of now to the days of achingly simple harmonies and 45s. The guys dont have plans to tour Europe or the UK any time soon - slowly but surely - but it certainly is refreshing (?) hearing these vintage sounds in such a lovingly and engaging manner.

Zeus - The Sound of You

Zeus - Marching Through Your Head from Arts & Crafts on Vimeo.