Steve Lawson

Steve Lawson is a “New-Age Post-Rock Ambient-Jazz Solo-Bassist”, that’s what it says on his website. I found him though the looping work he does.  You really need to hear this guy’s stuff., head over to www.myspace.com/solobassstevelawson and listen to “Grace and Gratitude”. It is just beautiful. The space that surrounds the notes, the notes that chooses to play.

This is just glorious stuff.

Steve Lawson is one of the most respected solo bass guitarists around – his innovative use of looping technology has garnered him plaudits from across the globe, and lead to tours across Europe and the US and radio airplay in over 20 countries. His solo albums demonstrate his melodic multitracked approach to solo bass performance, with all the layers being added in real-time via the use of Looping technology.

I love this video lots of bass and loops and his partner Lobelia on vocals. And it gets wonderfully chaotic  towards the end!  All the loops and layers are live – there are no pre-recorded samples or backing tracks.  And yep, that’s a 6 string fretless bass he’s playing.

I confess that the performance reminded me of osh10 (we covered them last year).

Highly Recommended, damn this guy is a seriously good.

Websites at www.myspace.com/solobassstevelawson and www.stevelawson.net/wordpress/ and www.reverbnation.com/stevelawson

Tim Hecker

Tim Hecker is an electronic/ambient artist based in Montreal, Canada. He mad a name for himself as Jetone creating techno/dance music, but his ambient works have garnered him a heap more interest.

His music has been described as “structured ambient,” and “cathedral electronic music” (I like that one), his soundscapes dance along the line that separates noise and melody and he creates complex, truly beautiful and thought-provoking songs.

So lets chat a bit about his album “An Imaginary Country“, the best way to approach this is possibly imagine Tim as a tour guide through a aural landscape. Each of the tracks is a different region and he is pointing out some of the interesting possibilities that are available.

“Borderlands”  sounds like a huge cathedral like space, populated with shimmering , piano-like synths and  samples of organic noise that just wander around. The sounds are so wonderfully rendered that you cant see how it was done, the illusion is just perfect. The combination of fantasy and natural sounds make this a really enjoyable experience.

Not everyone’s cup of tea, but it has been definitely entertaining me.

Recommended

Websites at  sunblind.net/ and www.myspace.com/rainbowbloodx

Aural Vampire

We haven’t had a Japanese band for a while now, but recently I have been listening to Aural Vampire. They are a strange “Electro / New Wave / Industrial” Japanese electronic band which consists of Exo-Chika and Raveman. They hail from Tokyo and work a dark ,mainly electropopand synthpop music (lots of yummy industrial noises in places).

Exo-Chika and Raveman have known each other since highschool, where they were classmates and shared their interests in western horror movies and peculiar art.

After they finished school, both started making music.
Later they decided to form Aural Vampire, where Exo-Chika is in the role of a vampire and Raveman in the role of a butcher.

The track that is still on my MP3 player is “murealism”, it’s   seriously intense.  It just barrels along at a million miles hour. I think it reminds me of the theme music to “Bubble Gum Crisis”

This is how I found them, in my inbox…

Move over Gwen Stefani! Get ready to be dazzled when the real Harajuku posse takes over EBC. Japan’s flamboyant synth-pop duo, Aural Vampire, teams up with Melbourne’s own gender-bending trance master GPKISM on a showcase of Tokyo’s vibrant subcultures and the city’s dance music scene. A mixture of diva du jour, Lady Gaga, and the ABBA-inspired Madonna effort, Aural Vampire is sure to tickle the fancy of pop fans who like their music with a twist. Joining them is the explosion of crazy colours and trance that is Tokyo DJ SISEN.

Yep, they are playing here in Melbourne at the East on Saturday
18 April 2009.

Website at www.myspace.com/auralvampire

100 Monkeys

100monkeys are a band that aren’t perfect. Far from it but they are interesting. Every track is one take. No safety net , no “we’ll fix it later”. It’s all there warts and all and as a result it has a honesty to it’s performances that I find wonderfully refreshing.

There are the odd moments of musical awkwardness (read bum notes) but they add to the performance. They are literally making it up as they go. Words, music , arrangement. – listen carefully because it will never sound like this again.

Here is a live clip froma recent gig.

The Hundredth Monkey Effect generally describes the instant, paranormal spreading of an idea or ability to the remainder of a population once a certain portion of that population has heard of the new idea or learned the new ability….hmmm. Look it up at Wikipedia

Not for everyone but HighlyRecommended

Website at www.myspace.com/these100monkeys

The Deadfly Ensemble

The Deadfly Ensemble‘s, “A Seed Catalog For Extinct Annuals”, is a  gem. A dark and disturbing gem. But a gem nonetheless.

This has been wandering off an on my MP3 player for a while now and they are one of those bands where you think “OK I’ll delete that one… or maybe not. May be next week” Repeat for the last three or so months.

My problem is that they are in the same playlist I keep “Abney Park” in and they are just such a perfect complement to the “Air Pirates“.

The album is just full of wonderful stories, wonderful dark stories, like the kind we were told as kids before the nanny state sanitised all the “scary stuff” out. The songs just seem to stick theirs heads out into the daylight, have a quick look and then scurry back to the dark places. Have a listen at www.myspace.com/thedeadflyensemble

From the website …

Deadly Ensemble

Fantastic musical tales of debutantes with extra limbs, twisted young financial geniuses, thirsty ghosts, shipwrecks, ogres, pirate queens and a whole host of other characters ensure that every instant, every note is rich with imagery and operatic invention.  The Deadfly Ensemble carves dramatic circles in the dusty floorboards of a shadowy attic and arranges melodies on the ancient instruments stored up there.  Cello, guitars, bass, a myriad of percussion and a troupe of voices deliver this album like a series of short operettas, each infused with their own dramas, their own victories and tragedies.  Discover this package of melodic worlds, this bundle of folk fables and revel in the adventure.  “A Seed Catalog For Extinct Annuals” confirms that the Deadfly Ensemble is a major voice in the realm of artistic music, and that they are masters of song storytelling.

A clip from YouTube…

Weird and wonderful – Highly Recommended
Website at www.myspace.com/thedeadflyensemble and www.cinemastrange.nightmarezone.de

First there’s this one…

We all Do vocals on various songs, and we switch instruments a bunch.We also use instruments such as ukulele, and mandolin, organ, and kool shades, and hot keyz., and african thumb piano. Everybody Does everything

and this one…

Fewn is Arthur Bond, April Brennan, Matt Brewster and Dan Jircitano. Two of them live in the same house, three of them live in the same city, and four of them live in the same state. They met at college. They don’t know what they’re doing.

I’ll be honest this is one of those bands that don’t leave much middle ground. You will either love them or hate them. They are basically driven by passion rather than fabulous technique.

Me? I love them. They brighten the day every time they show up on the MP3 playlist.

Recommended

Websites at www.awkwardcore.com/fewn.html and www.myspace.com/fewn

Marina and the Diamonds

A friend overseas sent me a review from the Guardian of “Marina and the Diamonds”. Paul Lester wrote a “New Band Of The Day” piece about them/her back in September.

Here is a bit of it…

Female performer with quaint Christian name and inanimate-object appendage alert! Marina and the Diamonds are the latest “and the” band, if indeed they are a band. Some of her/their songs are full-band performances even though on her MySpace, under “band members”, it simply says “me”. So we’re not sure who or what Marina’s Diamonds are, but then it took us quite a while to work out what Florence’s Machine was, let alone Joe Lean’s Jing Jang Jong.

and so on.

There are three wonderful tracks over at www.myspace.com/marinaandthediamonds, self produced in her bedroom with really strong and even stronger (and stranger) lyrics. Just listen to them in order. “Obsessions” is my favourite. Lo-fi production and highly entertaining ideas and quite frankly Marina sounds like an she is a cross between Nina Hagen and Kate Bush. So we are talking way left of centre iconclast.

“Perfect” says thatch.

Lets face it, left of centre is good, iconoclasm is good, so she must be fabulous… well that’s the way my brain works.

Highly Recommended

Website at www.myspace.com/marinaandthediamonds

Wolf Parade

Continuing on from yesterdays post about Canadian band “Wintermitts”, today’s band is also from Canada. Wolf Parade is an indie rock band from Victoria (British Columbia).

Another band pursuing it’s own idea of what rock music sounds like, there is a joyous edge to their music. They like to take chances,  Head over to www.myspace.com/wolfparade and just pick a song. For those of you suffering from the weekend’s excesses, click on “I’ll Believe In Anything”.

I just love the dynamics, the guitars, the manic vocals and the sense of celebration. Yes it sounds raw and unfinished. Here’s a hint… it’s supposed to be. It lets you get your ears around what they are saying in between the lines, these guys are serious.

Here is the video for “I’ll Believe In Anything”

Lets finish with a a bit of hype…

Wolf Parade released their eponymous debut EP in 2003 with only Spencer, Dan and Arlen performing on it. After Hadji joined the group, they released another independent, self-titled EP in 2004. They were signed to sub pop by Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse and released their first widely-distributed record, Wolf Parade EP. In September 2005 their debut album Apologies to the Queen Mary was released. Apologies to the Queen Mary was given this name because, as in rock and roll tradition, Wolf Parade trashed the Queen Mary hotel. It was said that they trashed the hotel worse than any band before them.

Highly Recommend

Websites at www.myspace.com/wolfparade and a page at Subpop

Efterklang (the Danish word for remembrance and reverberation) is a post-pop group formed on January 2001 in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. The group consists of five core members (Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen, Thomas Husmer, Rune Mølgaard & Rasmus Stolberg).

OK, I still haven’t figured out “postrock” and now I have to deal with post pop… any help out there?

According the their website Efterklang are “nice and friendly people from Copenhagen” and if their music is anything to go by “seriously interesting people” people as well.

Head over to www.myspace.com/efterklang and have a listen to “Mirror Mirror Live”. It may take a listen or two but it strikes me as an amazingly ambitious piece of work to do live.

Another piece that has caught my imagination is “Caravan”

There is a load of material (MP3′s and videos) available over at their website as well.

They have been compared to Sigur Ros, but to my ear Efterklang are way more interesting and a ton load more accessible.

Highly Recommended

Websites at www.myspace.com/efterklang and www.efterklang.net/home/

Fruit Bats fired up in the late Nineties as a side project (that’s musician talk for stuff that you want to do but the regular band thinks is way too weird), and what  I have heard from the first album “Echo Location, ” is a curious (and successful) mix of experimental sounds and  pop folk-rock.  It took a listen or two but it gets you eventually.

But the song we are here to talk about is the glorious Slipping through the Sensors

It’s off the second album “Mouthfuls“, it’s a true gem. and the record company hype gets it spot on…

” warm, thoughtful, bittersweet pop that’s as hopeful as it is curious.”

This has been on my MP3 player for weeks now and I always find myself slowing down and just enjoying the sounds and the textures that they use. Woody acoustic guitars, fab vocals, and wonderful atmospheric textures that just transport you. If you aren’t in love with this by the second verse you really should check your pacemaker.

You can find more tracks at the Subpop site and over at Myspace (dont miss “Buffalo and Deer”). All are different, all are worth your time and all are worth slipping the band a few bucks.

Incredibly Highly Recommended.

Websites at www.subpop.com/ and www.myspace.com/thefruitbats

I just noticed that there is an older (2006) review and a few tracks over at indiemuse, seems like I’m not alone in thinking that they are pretty damn spiffy.