Yet another score with an excellent post rock group out of Athens, Greece of all places. When I think of Athens I think of greasy metal of questionable quality, but this is soundscape-ish post rock with a distinctive sound removed from the familiar Chicago style of post rock. A freshman album of instrumental greatness, 89%.
Unfortunately, Orlando was in the midst of a cold snap with the thermometer sitting at a frigid 52 degrees, for days, which is why this post was so long in production. Go ahead and laugh but my motivation plunges when it’s that cold. Fortunately it is warming up, but there are still no waves and I’ve already argued with the Angry Ginger, so I’ll move on to music.
Got a great math rock band out of Ithaca, New York, Mouth To Mouth To Mouth. Me and Sammy Razor Blades got a charge out of the cover of this live album from January 2013 (look closely) . While many people don’t care for live albums I really enjoy them. Even with muddy acoustics and noise from the audience there is often a depth and texture that is absent or scrubbed away from studio recordings. In this release all the instruments come through clearly, playing together in an appealing math rock frenzy with the slightly hollow acoustics and the low undercurrent of the audience leave the listener feeling like they are at the small venue hearing MTMTM play. Quite good, playful riffs and a band that plays well together, 90%.
There has been a serious lack of music that I feel compelled to talk about. It might be that life in the non-cyber world has overcome much of my free time or it could be that I am frustrated that the era of free music downloads is over. Or, maybe that there just hasn’t been much decent music to talk about.
Whatever it is today’s selection is black metal out of Portland, Oregon… Decent black metal leaning towards Black and Roll, not really feeling it, 70%.
(But I’m working on a post for an awesome album for next week.)
There is a subtle psychology that is revealed with selection of the play You Can’t Take It With You for the high school play. Evidently the drama teacher is haunted by dirty thoughts concerning her students because the only notable aspect of the play is the repeated mention of sex. Which is surprising in and of itself because the drama teacher is so old I would have thought that those ideas would have faded long ago… Not really sure where I’m going with this one other than I’m going to barf if I find out some high school kid has been poking that old drama teacher.
Ostots is a basque black metal band that is pretty good. 89%.
Legos Lord Of The Rings on iPad is great too
Happy New Year, the first post of 2014 is starting a new category exploring the Peel Sessions.
DJ Peel was a British disc jockey that was influential in a large number of bands gaining populaity by exposing them to a national/ global audience by way of his radio show (Wiki). The truth of the matter is that I only knew about him because of Dead Meadow’s Peel session album, but as I began composing this post it kept getting delayed because of the massive amount of music associated with him. From the late 70’s through the 2000’s he was one of the most influential people in music, recording bands [normally] in a four song session. I’ll delve deep into DJ Peels work in future posts, but until then here are three Peel Sessions, enjoy.
Dead Meadow, Indian Bones, Peel Sessions
DL
Tools You Can Trust, Peel Session
DL
Half Man Half Biscuit Peel session
Last FM
The Brian Jonestown Massacre Peel session
Last Fm
