VIDEO VACUUM - Liars, Wild Wild Wets, Peals, Plant Parenthood

Going crosseyed is the spice of 21st century life. Here are four rectangular boxes with stuff moving in them to expedite that blissful process, hmmm?

Sonic Masala faves Liars have a couple new tracks floating around for those who haven't already joined their mailing list. Because they are good aliens. Strangers with candy and all that. If it tastes this good though, what's the harm in some lost innocence? None, I say. NONE.



San Diego's self-confessed psych party band Wild Wild Wets have just released a 7", Criminal Blue, through Grizzly Records. Its pretty good, keeping things loud, loose, limber and louche. Acid coco pops? Bacardi barbiturates? Helium hallucinogens? Whatever the poison of choice, guaranteed that after a hedonistic night with these guys, you'll wake up in the middle of a deciduous rainforest, naked, cut and bruised, tongue tied, wild eyed, and ready for round two.


Wild Wild Wets - Realized Into Redwood from Celeste Byers on Vimeo.

What is a peal of laughter anyway? A sudden, abrupt, high-pitched outpouring of mirth. Usually over the top, often inappropriate, always noticed. Put a peal in a plural, and you have a conversation stopper. Baltimore duo William Cashion (Future Islands) and Bruce Willen (Double Dagger)'s collaboration, Peals, also stops the chatter, only because the air in the room has been sucked out by its inordinate beauty. Intrinsic to such elegance is the undercurrent of flippancy. Its a weird mix, likely to cause eyes to close and a grin to crease the lips. And maybe - maybe - a peal of grateful, unfettered joy to bubble through.



I've already proclaimed my love of 'Transit Town', the lo-fi racket Knoxville's Plant Parenthood smashed out earlier this year (check that out here). Here is a suitably lo-fi racket smashed out on celluloid. MTV-of-the-80s worthy - riptastic. Just try to get this serrated hook out of your head.


NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Deacon Presley

As I've made known on countless occasions, I'm not much for remixes. But when the remixee is Peals (Bruce from Double Dagger/Will from Future Islands) and the remixer is Dan Deacon, it's a no-brainer. And so it is. Enjoy. Night night.

Barn Owl Is Alive (Thrill Jockey Update #7)

I finish off the week, and my two week catch-up with Thrill Jockey releases with one of my favourite current  affiliates from the Chicago label. Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti are strong drone explorers in their own right, but their forces are at their greatest when together as Barn Owl, having carved out some of the best desert-scorched psych releases in recent times. You could say I am a bit of a fan - Ancestral Star from 2010 is a minor masterpiece in my humble opinion, and Shadowland and Lost In The Glare (both from 2011) continue this excellent beginning. Yet I have been taken aback by their latest offering, V. Their guitar-driven aural invasions this time have been extremely tempered, underpinned by sonorous electronics that somehow augment the unnerving atmospherics to a razor's edge. This is ambiance in a desolate, desecrated concrete jungle, all twisted metal and human ashes, yet hope exists beneath the surface. It's insidious, so much so that by album's end you don't care that the guitar drones you came to the record for in the first place are almost non-existent. That in itself is a admirable feat. The true magic is the realisation that you don't care. Five releases in four years, and the serpentine meanderings of Porras and Caminiti continue to enthral.

Order V here.

Barn Owl - The Long Shadow
Barn Owl - Pacific Isolation

Waving At The Life Coach (Thrill Jockey Update #6)

Constantly churning out exploratory classics, Chicago's Thrill Jockey is privy to some amazing collaborations amongst likeminded souls. One I wasn't expecting (but still makes a fair degree of sense) is Life Coach. Last year Trans Am's Phil Manley released a solo record with this as its title, yet like Jason Molina and his Magnolia Electric Company, he liked the process enough to make it a project in and of itself. The collaborative process comes from Manley joining forces with Jon Theodore. This excited me for a number of reasons. Whilst Life Coach wasn't something that connected with me in 2011 (which is bizarre, since since listening to it again in the past week it's brand of kraut-inflected motorik minimalism is pretty damn awesome) I have always been in awe of Trans Am's sonic explorations - I bought Futureworld in my first year of uni based solely on its cover art and haven't looked back. Theodore was the original drummer from proto-prog act The Mars Volta (and for the record, I loved them in the beginning - De-Loused In The Comatorium is actually right up there in my favourite albums of the '00s - and I still kinda like em, despite their douchery - let the daggers fly), and he was by far the best. Since then he's ..., and there was that One Day As A Lion project he did with Zach de la Rocha. The key is that Manley and Theodore played together on Golden, and have been spiritual and musical buddies for nigh on two decades.

So what do Life Coach bring to the table? Alphawaves, effectively a continuation of Manley's cyclical solo instrumentals that nevertheless grow into amorphous beasts due to Theodore's unrestrained style of playing. He is a truly kinetic force, and his inclusion on songs like 'Lifeless Possibilities' is breathtaking. The album is further augmented by the inimitable Isaiah Mitchell (the brilliant Earthless and Golden Void) on lead on a few songs, most notably on face melter 'Fireball'. The album is apparently played in sequence in its entirety when performed live, and you can see why. Essentially an exploration in drone and rhythm in various genres, from Endless Boogie-esque free form rock to shoegaze, Alphawaves is unrelenting in its groove, failing to truly ease off its intensity, rather letting it shift incrementally. It's the variations in tone and style that shows off Manley's various artistic facets, and it becomes a bit of a masterclass due to the members involved.

You can buy Alphawaves here. Buy now and you can bundle it up with Life Coach too, well worth the effort. I don't expect Life Coach to be a long-term endeavour - but you never know. There has to be a music god out there somewhere...


Life Coach - Alphawaves
Life Coach - Fireball

Zomes Was The Time (Thrill Jockey Update #5)

I can't say I'm a long term observer of the evolution of Lungfish - in fact I haven't really followed them at all. But before you hang me up and burn me life an effigy, I have, however, kept tabs their members. The solo work that Daniel Higgs has done as well as working with The Skull Defekts (which I spoke about here); and on Baltimore's Zomes AKA ex-Lungfishian Asa Osborne. But it's clear on Time Was (another excellent Thrill Jockey issue) that there has been a sizable shift in sonic manipulation, fidelity, scope and vision. There is no tape hiss - these tracks are clean as a whistle. The addition of Hanna Olivegren on vocals (a collaboration allegedly pushed into play by a member of The Skull Defekts) lends a pastoral, almost elemental root to Osborne's minimalist organ flourishes that grounds it, allows a focus and slipstream for his ideas to course more naturally. Olivegren's improvisational beginnings with Zomes have had time to ferment also, and the combination is something to behold - at times ethereal, at times tribal, yet remaining true to a stylistic mantra that Osborne set as a template on 2011's Earth Grid. In fact, Time Was is something of a palimpsest - Osborne's previous incantations and meanderings washed off the page and a new composition takes its place, even though remnants of yore appear like ghostly sign-posts from then to now. So whilst continual plays on repetition and melody rear their head, the amount of improvisation has been pared back, or at least intensely magnified to the point that such a performance is more second-nature than a true exploration of whim. And most importantly, its a beautiful record, with so many gems hidden within that repeated listens are mandatory, and instantly rewarded. Time Was is a pleasant surprise.

Grab Time Was here.

Zomes - Loveful Heights
Zomes - Cave Mountain Stream

Taking It In His Stygian Stride (Thrill Jockey Update #4)

The Thrill Jockey juggernaut continues to roll forth. This synth-driven release is the eponymous debut of Stygian Stride AKA Jimy SeiTang (Psychic Ills/Rhyton), eschewing tradition rock formations and templates in favour of electronic music that nevertheless adopts the improvisational style he has honed his craft in for such a long period of time. These stylings are further hued by the usage of vintage analog synthesizers. Therefore the atmosphere that cloaks Stygian Stride comes across as a metallic, metronomic heartbeat, the score of a hallucinogenic dystopian desolation that still invokes creeping dread beyond the horrors that already exist on the surface. It isn't all fearful anxiety and despair - the pun 'Fade Into Bolivian' hovers on the edge of inebriatic bliss, an ecstasy of glacial glitch - but SeiTang's insistence on cyclical elongation and distortion of tones within these undulating rhythms means that nothing on these tracks can be taken at face value - for better or worse, you need to allow yourself to be submerged by the bubbling white noise. And like all true classic brainwashings, it won't be long before you are proclaiming, "I love Stygian Stride".

You can buy Stygian Stride here.

Stygian Stride - Drift
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Double Dagger, Then, Now, Later (Thrill Jockey Update #3)

One of the bands that Paul, the other party that gave birth to this beautifully twisted sister of a blog, introduced me to was Baltimore's Double Dagger. The first time I saw them play was in the now defunct The Rest Is Noise bar in Brixton in 2009, to about thirty people. The people moshing (well, jumping around into each other...) were myself and a few friends. The supports, Friendship and Bitches, were brilliant. But Nolen came out and did his thing, Denny and Bruce kept it locked down, and it killed. Later that night, a woman who had been throwing up outside attacked my girlfriend out the front, in the process ripping out strands of another friend's hair. Suffice to say that it left an impression.

A lot has happened since then. Double Dagger has called it a day, but there is much still to celebrate. Denny Bowen has since drummed for the Dan Deacon Ensemble (which saw him visit Brisbane early last year), as well as playing in Roomrunner. Nolen Strals has a few projects in the offing, and his graphic design continues to abound, as seen (by me at least) on the Part Chimp/Torche split record.

Bruce Willen has teamed up with good friend (and Future Islander) William Cashion to form Peals, whose Walking Field is coming out on Thrill Jockey this month. Peals is an entirely different beast altogether, using live loops to encapsulate an exploratory tome to ambiance and intimacy and their intricacies and connectivity. It, like their stablemates Mountains as mentioned two days ago, is all about fully immersive soundscapes, leaving the outside world behind and reaching within. Peals are already searching for the smaller, more intimate realms in order to play their music live too, oft-times preferring houses and small art galleries over larger stages. They have recently come off a tour that included shows with other Thrill Jockey-ites Dan Friel and Brokeback, as well as Romantic States and Bamboo, and will embark on another tour in support of Walking Field (which, if you pre-order now, comes with a free 7") in June. (Also go to their website here where you can manipulate and make your own version of another track, 'Furniture' - pretty cool.)

Peals - Blue Elvis

But the legacy of Double Dagger itself lives on, as for Record Store day 2013 we are granted the final, posthumous record 333, coinciding with If You Shout Loud Enough, a documentary showcasing the criminally underrated trio in all their fabulous glory. It seems that the album is going to not only underline such a standing, but that they broke up just as they were gathering in strength. The growth from the More LP to the Masks EP alone was monumental. It's a damn shame they aren't around anymore, but their legacy can live on through these songs (as much as they'll fucking hate to hear it).

Double Dagger - Heretic's Hymn

Here is the trailer for the doco too. It features interviews with many of the Baltimore scene, such as Deacon, members of Wye Oak, Future Islands, Ruiner, Thank You and so many more, and a staggering amount of live footage across their 9-year reign. You can only get this on RSD from your local independent record store. You can see If We Shout Loud Enough as part of the official selection of the Maryland Film Festival, with (hopefully) many more venues thereafter.


If We Shout Loud Enough - Trailer (Double Dagger documentary) from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

Vale Double Dagger, long live Double Dagger!