He’s from Chicago but once was in the military and lived in New Mexico,
certainly quite different from the Windy City. When you look into him and his interests you find they are the same as yours, if you consider yourself a lonesome being with little meaning who still maintains a certain set of indiscriminate principles.
Willis Earl Beal’s debut album, Acousmatic Sorcery cares little for sophistication or complexity, or words that begin with a latin-based prefix. It prefers words that have no ending. There are soft songs and then there are hard songs. He croons, not like Nashville Skyline, more like the man who whispers at you from a shadow asking you if there is anything that you want. It is feeling that takes precedence over the literal truth. Talent is not relevant, although he has it. Willis will belt, really belt, and at other times sing quite softly-beautifully. His voice is more expensive than his equipment, which can barely contain his pipes’ limitless glory. I was out at night on a stoop when I listened to this album.
Most of the tracks are just Willis accompanied by 1 or 2 sounds. It sounds more near to you that way, intimate but not uncomfortably intimate. You can tell he wants to be your friend. He nearly raps on one track, but it feels closer to a generational shout-out. Overall, night sounds, gloomy, eerie and twinkling, define this album. Imagine Willis Earl Beal, strapping-handsome-without-a-doubt, as a martian, who found a guitar and plucked it until it sounded nice and banged on things with sticks until the percussion began to excite him.
You could call Willis Earl Beal the next big it. You could call him WEB for short. You could call Willis Earl Beal a singer-songwriter. That would not suffice. You would need more hyphens. If you really want to know, call him (773)295-2135 and he will sing you a song.
FOUND magazine, issue no. 7, he's on the cover and there's an article about him, I've had this magazine for a few years now, couldn't believe I remembered his name right but I did! He wasn't famous when it was published, so weird that this happened gah!
If you are a Mumford & Sons, Fleet Foxes, or Avett Brothers fan, you will dig the tight melodic harmonies of Plume Giant. Coming out of New Haven Connecticut, the three members (one of whom is from Minnesota), met while attending Yale. Their first effort, a self-titled EP, while a little rough around the edges, is an enchanting disc that pulls you in on the first listen. They have a new album coming out sometime in Spring/Summer 2012, but in the meantime you can download their 2010 EP for free! Here's a link: http://plumegiant.bandcamp.com/
I’m Introducing a new section to the esteemed KRLX mp3 blog. It’s called look out below – bands you don’t know, and besides the clever rhyme, it will introduce you to bands that should become very famous, but aren’t quite there yet. It will also be largely comprised of people that I know because with the power of the Internet, I have the responsibility to use it for a purpose.
The first band is called Terriers. They come from DePaul University in Chicago and have talent. They just came out with their first single, “Waste Time,” a taste of more sure to be fantastic material to come. The strongest aspect of Terriers is their songwriting. Whether that’s the clever lyrics, the kick ass bridge that fits into the structure just right (as the occasional dabbler in songwriting, I appreciate a good bridge) or the interesting, catchy, yet non-cliché chord changes, they know how to construct a piece of music. The luscious harmonies, gritty guitar, and driving solo only help to push this song closer to my “Top 25 most Played” iTunes playlist.
With these small bands looking to break out of the mold and into the tough world of indie music, I urge you to support them as much as possible. That being said, the song is available for a pay-what-you-want price on bandcamp, so you can grab it for free listen to it first, then throw them a little something if you’re up for it.
Here’s that
http://terriers.bandcamp.com/
Baths is 22-year-old Will Wiesenfeld from Los Angeles, California. The short story is that he is an American electronica artist, and that his first album, Cerulean, came out in the summer of 2010. The short story is that this album is very good. But we’re not interested in the short version.
The long version is this: on Cerulean, Baths creates the most intricate and beautiful soundscapes I have ever experienced in electronic music. They are a bubbly mixture of syncopated funk and intimate clicks. Will keeps vocals to a minimum, and when he decides to use them, it is for a reason. His beautiful, charming, slightly awkward falsetto blends perfectly with the electronic blend he creates, and his lyrics are usually repeated phrases that sound like honest excerpts from conversations he has had with people he really cares about. In “You’re My Excuse to Travel,” he repeats “I love you enough to drive like an hour from wherever I am to be with you / And it’s always the simplest shit that means the most.” In “Departure” he slowly, softly, and somewhat sadly croons “Smile for me if you can / I wanna have that in my head.” A whole back-story and relationship emerges just from these simple phrases and the tone in which he sings them.
Something else that makes Baths special is his phenomenal usage of spoken samples. The best example for this comes in “Aminals,” which I have recently decided is my favorite song on the album. It begins with the thoughtful, earnest words of a little British boy, who says, “And… I talk nicely to them… and… try and get them to come closer!” Right after these words, the beat drops, and it’s got that characteristic Baths ebbing feel to it that I’ve come to love so much. Later in the song, we hear a little girl say “Hey! We’re elephants! We love giraffes!” It’s gotta be the cutest sample ever.
While this recording has become an absolute staple in my music collection, perhaps what is the most exciting about Baths as a new artist is his live performance. When I had the opportunity to see him at Pitchfork Festival 2011, he instantly struck me as a sweet and earnest guy that I’d love to spend time with. His technical style as a DJ is something to see as well: while some music fans would argue that electronic music has taken away much of the technical skill that makes live shows especially exciting, Baths instantly trashes that umbrella statement from the first song. (Maybe “trashes” isn’t the best word; Will seems like the kind of guy who would “compost” instead.) His hands are constantly busy as he simultaneously twists dials, pushes buttons, adjusts volume, and does all these things in syncopated patterns that leave you staring. Check out the video below for an example of what I’m talking about:
So check out the tracks below from Cerulean. Baths has become part of how I define my taste in music, and I can’t wait for him to come out with a new album soon. Take Baths and enter a bubbly, ebbing wonderland.
Wiesenfeld looks like he has so much fun live. The videos of him at SXSW are just wonderful.
Also, check out his ambient project Geotic (his new album Mend is probably his best), all of his albums under that moniker are online for free. And he released some pretty sweet stuff under his first name post-foetus as well (migration is a phenomenal track)
The top dogs over at the KRLX music department fully support Gotye and this video is an example of why. An impressive blend of stop motion, live action, compositing, and whatever other dirty little video tricks they might have thrown in. More than slow motion and cash moneys floating around. Delve the eyes! Oh and the music is pretty slick as well.
You know that “Hallelujah” song from Shrek that Rufus Wainwright sings? Or maybe you know Jeff Buckley’s version? Or maybe K.D. Lang’s? Leonard Cohen wrote that song. It appeared on his album Various Positions, which he released in 1984. Or maybe you know that guy who influenced Bob Dylan, Conor Oberst, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Pixies, R.E.M., Nina Simone, Nick Cave and U2? That’s Leonard Cohen. Or maybe you know the guy who has a song about his affair with Janis Joplin? That’s Leonard Cohen (see “Chelsea Hotel no. 2”). Or maybe you know the guy that received the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement award? That’s Leonard Cohen. He’s one of the most important musical figures of the twentieth century and yet most people under the age of 40 don’t even know his name. Nevertheless, at 77 years old, he’s still going strong, writing new material and selling out shows. On January 31, he released Old Ideas, which has already reached number 3 on the Billboard Top 200 (2 in the U.K. and 1 in Canada) and which comes a full 44 years after his debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen. That’s staying power. (Let’s see LMFAO last 44 years. Can you imagine any of us still singing “Party Rock Anthem” in 2056?) He’s a master and it shows on Ideas, one this year's best releases so far.
The album opens with “Going Home” which starts with a heavenly choir and string quartet before Cohen’s signature sub-bass voice comes in with, “I’d love to speak with Leonard,” sending immediate chills down your spine. From the first line on the album, Cohen’s lyrical ability shines, as he effortlessly reshapes the entire paradigm of singer-songwriter lyrics with one simple line. Then the choir joins in and the harmonies between the impossibly silky soprano’s and Cohen’s gentle growl are simply delectable. It’s polished in way that you don’t often hear anymore, which is understandable. After such a long career, Cohen has a remarkable amount of control and finesse in his production. Nothing in his songs seems accidental or out of place and everything performance is perfect. It’s soothing how smooth “Going Home” is it’s and a perfect way to start the album.
However, I will admit, that the second song, “Amen,” might lose the less die-hard Cohen fans. At 7 minutes and 36 seconds it will scare off the faint of heart. But those who make it through will be rewarded with “Show Me The Place,” a gorgeously emotional ballad. In it Cohen croons, “Show me the place where the word became a man. Show me the place where the suffering began.” Who else could fit so much into such a simple line? It’s tragic yet cathartic in a way that most songwriters can only hope to achieve. Cohen, however, is not most songwriters.
This is most evident on “Come Healing,” my favorite song off the album. A viola introduces the familiar female choir that flawlessly carols “Gather ‘round the brokenness and bring it to me now. The fragrance of those promises you never dared to vow.” It sounds like the music that would play in the Garden of Eden (assuming there is any) and I personally think it would suit the voices of our very own Knightingales perfectly. Everything about this song is stunning. How could you not feel something when the Choir and Cohen harmonize on “O, solitude of longing where love has been confined. Come healing of the body. Come healing of the mind.”? This is Cohen at his best.
If you already know Leonard Cohen, I don’t need to convince you to listen to this album. But if you don’t, you should hear what everyone from your parents to important musicians have been listening to throughout the years. You might not like every song, in fact, you probably won’t. You probably won’t like his voice right away or you’ll get bored and start craving something more upbeat. That’s fine. But don’t let it discourage you. In my time listening to Cohen (a long journey from reluctance to admiration) I’ve found that he lends himself to best-of albums very well (see The Essential Leonard Cohen) in that no single album is great from start to finish, but every album has those three or four songs that shake something inside you. Old Ideas is no exception. There’s a reason Leonard Cohen is still around and Old Ideas is a great way to discover why.
Who ever thought Claude Debussy, Brian Eno, and Royksopp would have a musical love child? Well, perhaps Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, the two members of the prolific, French-electronica band, Air, did when they started working on their latest album titled, Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon in English) released February 6th. The duo has been making music together since 1995, releasing seven studio albums since then, and Le Voyage is just the latest in this long line. It’s a wonderful mix of other worldly melodies and splendid jazz instrumentals that blend together seamlessly. This is, admittedly, my first time listening to album Air, but based off this album, I can’t wait to hear more.
I first read about it on a music blog when it was announced that Victoria Legrand (resident Beach House singer) would be contributing. She appears on only one song, “Seven Stars” (for which she wrote the lyrics) but she makes it count. Ominously low piano, guitar and timpani, accompanied by a tom-driven drum set open the song before Legrand’s iconically sultry voice sweeps in, asking, “How long will it take you to reach the stars?” in what might as well be a baritone. It’s impeccably ethereal and flows gorgeously into your ears. The song subtly gains momentum with bird-call synth and well-placed guitar hits before the piano returns and a man’s voice counts down to lift off to start the album on its title trip. A heart beat grounds the rhythm for the rest off the song as it accelerates to the moon, ending with the hard thud of impact. But before you have time to regain your bearings the impressionistic piano of “Retour sur Terre” starts and then bleeds into the upbeat funk-inspired “Parade” reminiscent of something off of Royksopp’s Junior played on guitars and live-drums.
Next comes the sedated “Moon Fever” and we see an intrepid astronaut taking his first steps on the moon. He’s surrounded by every-evolving etherial piano and a theremin-esque synth melody that would make Brian Eno proud. Then the bass hits and sweeps from left to right and you can almost see the beautifully desolate moonscape around him. Air wrote Le Voyage as a pseudo-score for the 1902 silent film also titled, Le Voyage Dans La Lune, and this shows throughout the album. There’s an overarching feeling of otherworldliness and timid exploration that reflects the mystery of any lunar trip. In other words, if they ever remake Apollo 13 (or the silent film from 1902 for that mater), the music director should definitely get his or her hands on this album full or orchestral interludes and melancholy instrumental beauties.
However, this means that there won’t be many singles off of this record but that’s fine with me. Le Voyage is an album, not a collection of singles. Air clearly had a start-to-finish vision going into the studio and they brought it to life delightfully. At just over thirty-one minutes long, Le Voyage is compact and fits a lot of music into a small amount of time. It moves fast and keeps you enthralled and I, for one, can’t wait to hear more.
Imagine this: You put Animal Joy in your CD player. (Good choice. You're clearly already a bright person ready to hear some good tunes.) You wait a second. The first track begins, and there are some nice, simple chord progressions on a guitar. Nice, you think. Then a sensitive, charming baritone voice begins to sing over the guitar with poetic, mysterious lyrics that flow forth as though the singer is coming up with them on the spot: "Born inside the gates of the family / Hardened by a Roman machinery / Cast among the building sites / The calling wives, the shards collected…" And suddenly the scene is reminiscent of a few centuries ago, somewhere in Europe. Then Shearwater slowly brings in the beautiful golden sound of liquid guitar. Before you know it, there are over 7 different sounds overlapping, each beautiful and bizarre: well-timed timpanis, weird machine crooning, and driving bass like you might find in a song by Interpol.
If you like beautiful layers of sound, and if you like truly good song-writing, Shearwater is your musical dream. As you may have expected, that describes me. Since I found out about these guys five years ago, I have asked myself why they are not more popular. Of course, it doesn't really matter, as long as they are doing well enough for themselves, but this album might just catapult them to the popular recognition they deserve. Animal Joy, officially set to come out on Valentine's Day, is Shearwater's most mature and versatile album yet by far.
What a gift indeed(!) to be presented with an album that creatively incorporates underused instruments like xylophone, timpani, and harp without a dash of pretension. The sense you get from Shearwater is that they are serious about their music and every detail is important to the feelings they want to convey. They love what they do, they are pouring their souls out, and they understand the importance of balancing delicate sounds and huge bursts of energy, both of which are abundant in Animal Joy.
In a way, Animal Joy is a lot like a satisfying work of literature. The album feels like embarking on dark and epic adventure into the soul of an individual, perhaps someone who lived a long time ago, or perhaps an animal. Perhaps it is several different individuals who have something in common. The lyrics remain a mysterious ancient haze, and the vocals are sometimes delivered tensely and quietly over an environment of minimalistic creaks and moans, and sometimes soar over electric guitar and carefully placed drum-beats. The vocalist and leader of the band, Jonathan Meiburg, has an especially beautiful baritone, but also an impressive falsetto, which he uses in especially tender or intense moments. The album is truly best taken as a full work. Indeed, just as it would seem peculiar to ask your friend which chapter of Catcher in the Rye he liked best, it seems to strange to ask which of the album's songs are best. Each song flows beautifully into the next like it's all part of the same dark and interesting European forest adventure.
Honestly, I can't wait for you to discover Shearwater. I am proud to say they are from my hometown of Austin, TX, and I believe they are creating something truly special for music. Please listen to the songs posted below and consider purchasing the whole album as well!
Boards of Canada hails from Edinburgh, Scotland and consists of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin. The duo is known for their signature warm, scratchy songs constructed from a stockpile of song fragments. Prior to the release of their most recent album, the band’s albums have featured an incalculable number of particularly sharp, eerie fragments strewn together in an eclectic arrangement of songs. Their 2005 release, which I've recently rediscovered, The Campfire Headphase, displays a slight divergence from this style as Sandison and Eoin whittle their song fragments into a dream-like cohesion that functions excellently as a concept album.
In The Campfire Headphase, BoC certainly employs the same scratchy motifs that have always been stitched into their unique approach to electronic music, but they also bend, process, and layer acoustic instruments in order to make their standard sonic warmth even fuzzier. “Chromakey Dreamcoat,” the album’s first full-length song, is a complex arrangement of fragments that features a distinct melody layered amongst several samples of electronically modified sounds; this style typifies the Boards of Canada catalog. However, these sounds differ from those previously created for other albums because they employ musical modes and melodies that are less ominous and more focused on content. This practice generates a mellower mood than each previous album, and allows the songs to flow together into one overarching idea. Each song develops more slowly and washes over you like a dream of oceans and rainbows; indeed there are literally electronic sounds that emulate the ebb and flow of an ocean tide—check out “Satellite Anthem Icarus.”
Due to this less stark, more gradual compositional approach, Pitchfork’s Mark Richardson has called The Campfire Headphase sluggish and less effective than Boards of Canada’s previous albums. And perhaps it does lack the band’s typical incessant barrage of distinct ideas, but this slightly modified style, which results in a more conventional song construction and more focused content, is necessary because the album is intended to be conceptual; an album cannot concurrently revolve around one idea and highlight the seemingly infinite reservoir of fragmented ideas for which the band is known—at least not successfully. Sandison’s vision for this album verifies the necessary application of these new techniques. “We usually imagine our music to have a visual element while we're writing it, so we were picturing this character losing his mind at the campfire and compressing weeks of events into a few hours, in that time-stretching way that acid fucks with your perception," he said in a 2005 interview in Remix.
The Campfire Headphase is a successful concept album, and is definitely still worth listening to seven years after its original release. Gather up your sleeping bag, your preferred musical device loaded with some BoC, and go get lost in the woods.
This may be old news to many, and many may have already checked it out after seeing St. Vincent pop up in the various top 10 lists, but Annie Clark (e.g. St. Vincent) deserves as much recognition as she can get. She is just that good.
Her third effort, Strange Mercy, is an adventure into the catchy yet surprising, the subtle yet seductive. Clark went to one of those fancy good music schools, and you can tell if you pay attention. Her arrangements reflect originality and skill, the vocal melodies running around the chords in fantastical fashion. To add to her aura of greatness and credibility (at least in my eyes) she makes different arrangements every time she plays live, sometimes taking a small little rockin’ band, and sometimes taking a large orchestra type rockin’ band.
In all honesty, I like the previous album, Actor, better; I feel that it is slightly more cohesive and gets my blood dancing with every single song, but each of her albums, including the more lyrical debut, Marry Me, is a distinct, aural journey, fit for a different mood and meditation.
Check it out, especially if you like artists such as My Brightest Diamond, Cat Power, and other catchy strong female vocalists.
SV is amazing live, we should get her for spring concert. She is also beautiful…
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You know that “Hallelujah” song from Shrek that Rufus Wainwright sings? Or maybe you know Jeff Buckley’s version? Or maybe K.D. Lang’s? Leonard Cohen wrote that song. It appeared on his album Various Positions, which he released in 1984. Or maybe you know that guy who influenced Bob Dylan, Conor Oberst, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Pixies, R.E.M., Nina Simone, Nick Cave and U2? That’s Leonard Cohen. Or maybe you know the guy who has a song about his affair with Janis Joplin? That’s Leonard Cohen (see “Chelsea Hotel no. 2”). Or maybe you know the guy that received the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement award? That’s Leonard Cohen. He’s one of the most important musical figures of the twentieth century and yet most people under the age of 40 don’t even know his name. Nevertheless, at 77 years old, he’s still going strong, writing new material and selling out shows. On January 31, he released Old Ideas, which has already reached number 3 on the Billboard Top 200 (2 in the U.K. and 1 in Canada) and which comes a full 44 years after his debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen. That’s staying power. (Let’s see LMFAO last 44 years. Can you imagine any of us still singing “Party Rock Anthem” in 2056?) He’s a master and it shows on Ideas, one this year's best releases so far.
Who ever thought Claude Debussy, Brian Eno, and Royksopp would have a musical love child? Well, perhaps Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, the two members of the prolific, French-electronica band, Air, did when they started working on their latest album titled, Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon in English) released February 6th. The duo has been making music together since 1995, releasing seven studio albums since then, and Le Voyage is just the latest in this long line. It’s a wonderful mix of other worldly melodies and splendid jazz instrumentals that blend together seamlessly. This is, admittedly, my first time listening to album Air, but based off this album, I can’t wait to hear more.
FOUND magazine, issue no. 7, he's on the cover and there's an article about him, I've had this magazine for a few years now, couldn't believe I remembered his name right but I did! He wasn't famous when it was published, so weird that this happened gah!