Thanks to the fine work of The Yellow Stereo, I’ve been listening to School of Seven Bells’ new album Disconnect from Desire all morning. The album is available (to stream) for the price of an e-mail address here, and it’s really a lovely, dreamy sort of electro-pop, in the spirit of bands like M83, that just shines out with large, nuanced textures…
Continue reading “New Music: School of Seven Bells – “Disconnect from Desire””
The fine folks over at Aural States pointed me towards the warm, folk-tinged music of Small Sur, and I’ve been happily listening to it all evening. In fact, it’s fair to say that it has become my evening – pushing aside the English Summer to make room for visions of vast, American forests and skies. All I’m missing, really, is a campfire and the gentle hum of crickets… Here’s how the folks at Aural States describe the band:
Small Sur stands opposed to today’s quantity-over-quality stampede, in which the pursuit of fleeting Internet notoriety threatens creative continuity, growth, and a sustained sonic relationship that honors the listener as well as the creator. The band’s patient, near-obsessive exploration of warmth, depth, and space makes each offering an experience rich in sensory detail—quietly compelling listeners to turn their iPods off shuffle and allow the entire release to envelop them from start to finish. […]
Small Sur is the primary musical alias of Baltimore-based songwriter Bob Keal and current collaborators Austin Stahl and Andy Abelow. The project was born during the spring of 2005 in a friend’s Southern California bedroom, where Keal recorded the self-titled Small Sur EP shortly before relocating to the East Coast…
In the vein of other sites we’ve mentioned – Luxury Wafers, Daytrotter, and Black Cab Sessions – They Shoot Music – Don’t They is a Viennese site dedicated to bringing high-quality, impromptu performances by new and established artists to the masses. Their mission, as they describe it, is a pretty simple one:
Why are you doing this?
1) We all feel strongly connected to sub culture in one way or another and we enjoy being productive.
2) We all agree with the fact that Vienna is a great town but also lacks fresh representation platforms when it comes to music scenes and media projects. So we will tag the urban space of Vienna with soundscapes from indie artists and document that on our website. The combination of act and location is also meant as a guide for people who want to know more about relevant subcultural spots in Vienna.
The site features a wide-range of artists (see some after the cut), who are all chosen through a simple mechanism: “We have no strict guidelines for that [choosing]. If we like an artist we contact him or her. If the artist likes the idea of working with us we seal the deal and schedule a session.” The site features videos in Flash. However, if you sign-up for a free account, you can view things in higher-quality divx. And I highly recommend you do. You can also visit them on Twitter and Last.fm. But for now, let’s look at some of their excellent handiwork around Vienna:
Continue reading “Other Stuff You Might Like: They Shoot Music – Don’t They”
Laura Veirs visited the fine folks at Daytrotter back in March to lay down some beautiful, acoustic tracks. The tracks are lush, gentle, and reminiscent of Summer evenings past. The more I listen, the more I am captivated by them – and it seems I’m not alone. Colin Meloy has described her most recent album – July Flame – as “the best album of 2010.” (It’s worth noting that he said this in January, which I take to be a sign of confidence rather than sarcasm.) As her site describes it:
[July Flame] explores the emotion of mid-summer. Drenched in wood smoke, sunlight, pollinators, pastoral dales, fireworks and warm nights, her lyrics explore the dichotomy between one’s desire for permanence and security and the realization that such things rarely exist.
And there is a sense in all of these Daytrotter tracks that things are both beginning and ending at once… that the world is both waking and sleeping, and that you are, indeed, caught between the two. Follow me for more…
I’ve discussed Laura Gibson before, but the need keeps coming back to revisit her work. Gibson is a powerhouse – evolving and revolving with each passing moment. And so it is no surprise that her collaboration with fellow Portland resident Ethan Rose represents another step forward. The Bridge Carols website describes it like this:
Bridge Carols, the new project from Portland, OR friends Laura Gibson and Ethan Rose, began as a conversation of mutual appreciation and curiosity — a shared desire to challenge old ways of working. Ethan had mostly distanced his music from words, while Laura had often felt bound by them.
To wit: Steeped in the fingerpick-guitar rudiments of folk music, inspired by the expressionism of classic jazz vocalists, and finding common ground in the minimalism and ear-taunting of the avant garde, Laura Gibson alights on a branch of the music tree that no one else has found (NPR called her last release Beasts of Seasons “a quiet masterpiece.”) Sound artist and composer Ethan Rose has released recordings, scored films, and created sound installations (upcoming exhibitions include a collaborative installation with glass artist Andy Paiko at the Museum of Contemporary Craft.)…
…As the project developed, Laura began improvising lyrics and wordless vocalizations, stream of consciousness singing that tumbled out of her in long trailing waves. They recorded in the basement, the forest, and the field – each session having its own unique mood as Laura reflected from subject to subject.
The result is something that moves subtly, yet deliberately, and plunges the listener into a hazy, breezy Summer evening. The music calls out for space, and, in that space, silence. It does not overwhelm, or give into fits of bombast, but, instead, it washes over you with a simple, earthy beauty. Here’s how Dusted Magazine puts it:
Part of the beauty of Bridge Carols—and this is a beautiful record—is the way that the line between real and contrived, natural and synthetic, shifts under your feet. Still, the music seems redolent with memory, imagination and doubt, strange yet recognizably reflecting the most mysterious parts of the human experience.
This is indeed a record to lose yourself in. Its constellations of sounds need to be absorbed slowly, and are perhaps best appreciated in private. There are movements in these sounds that stir echoes deep within, and then call them forth. Listen to the whole thing below, and see for yourself – preferably on a day when you’ve nothing to do, and no one to call you away.
Continue reading “Laura Gibson and Ethan Rose: Bridge Carols”