Y’all want a 2012 top 10 music thing?

No, you don’t. Here it is anyway.

Stolen Babies – Naught

2006’s “There Be Squabbles Ahead” is awesome. It’s definitely in the top tier for me. Oddly though I didn’t really follow Stolen Babies’ progress after that, and it turns out for most of the time there wasn’t any. They took a big hiatus, but eventually they found out that people actually wanted to hear more music, and they happened to have a some on the burner; and so Naught came to pass. It’s as good as Squabbles if not better, and slightly darker, meaner, but still jaunty dark cabaret masterpiece. Their headlining show that I caught this year was possibly the greatest concert I’ve ever attended (along with the 15 other people who decided to show up).

Pig Destroyer - Book Burner

“Dangerously angry one minute, rocking and rolling the next!” These guys never disappoint, except for the whole barely ever performing live thing. Book Burner is the best sort of grindcore; honest, raw, and heavy as balls. It’s just great. It is, in a way, a regression though. It sounds quite a bit more like their earlier work, say Prowler in the Yard, as opposed to the slower brutality of Terrifyer and Phantom Limb. This is due to the replacement of their drummer with the guy from Misery Index. It works.

Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

I really don’t like the album cover art, but what does that matter? It’s another column of hellfire from the masters of true metalcore, Converge. They’re a close second to Stolen Babies for best concert experience of my life; these guys just tear it to pieces. All We Love… is not much of a progression, but Axe To Fall is hard to follow in that regard. It’s an extremely solid piece of music with everything I’ve grown to love from them.

Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

A momentary detour from the metal bits. I’m not sure why I tried this. Maybe just because I kept seeing the cover of Bitte Orca and being intrigued by it. Turns out that one isn’t really my thing, but this right here is just wonderful. It’s got a great sort of angularity in every aspect of the music, and lots of the lyrics pierce my little emo-heart.

 

Die Antwoord - Ten$ion

Definitely a worthy follow-up to 2010’s $O$, Ten$ion is another tongue-in-cheek masterwork of weirdness and irony that just hugs my hipster self all warm-like. Yo-landi and Ninja’s artistry is a sort that might be dismissed as trash by a lot of people, but underneath the ugly exterior is some positively innovative stuff.

 

Mares of Thrace - The Pilgrimage

Back to the metals! Mares of Thrace is primarily a female death/sludge metal duo with a huge sound. Their previous album, The Moulting, didn’t really do much for me aside from impress me by the concept of two beautiful ladies playing metal so honestly, but this year they really created something I can enjoy on its own merits. It’s got that angularity that I crave in spades, and it’s just straight-up heavy.

Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage

It’s another Gojira album! It can not suck! That’s why it’s here. Like Converge, they didn’t really forge any new ground, just made yet another hugely enjoyable, groovy metal album. I’ve got to catch these dudes live before I get sick of them.

 

Absvrdist - Illusory

Here we start getting ito somewhat less familiar territory. I found a review of this on MetalSucks, and though of lot of the stuff they’ve been recommending lately is starting to leave my areas of interest, I was intrigued by the “blackened grindcore” description, which isn’t really a thing that happens much aside from with the increasingly stagnant Anaal Nathrakh. This here is mostly just good grindcore with occasional black metal mixed into some of the later tracks, but it’s still really enjoyable. “Come on, doesn’t anybody wanna slam-dance?”

Matt Elliott - The Broken Man

Elliott’s perfected his style here. Misery loves company. I can’t get enough of “Dust Flesh and Bone”

 

 

Andy Stott - Luxury Problems

I think I’ve only listened to this three times or so, but I’m still including it here because it’s just so different. I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it before, which is probably because my dabbling with electronic music is sadly limited. This is not typical techno or whatever by any means; it’s a dynamically vibrant, lush, dark experience. Highly recommended.

Some extras that deserve attention but I’m done writing so whatever

Napalm Death - Utilitarian
Beach House - Bloom
Nachtmystium - Silencing Machine
Abigail Williams - Becoming
Scott Walker - Bish Bosch
Gaza - No Absolutes in Human Suffering 

The Troll Hunter

Norway’s pretty cool. It’s the home of black metal, Kvelertak, and a bunch of fjords, and it’s got probably the best average quality of life on the planet. Oddly their movies don’t seem to pop up on the global radar much though; this is the first I’ve heard of one. I’ll certainly be on the lookout now.

This is a kind of muckumentary/shakycam thing, a bit more like Cloverfield than anything else. It’s supposedly a bunch of footage that was discovered in some way that’s explained in the opening text, and it’s all just been put together into a movie. Originally it was supposed to be a documentary about bear poaching, made by a group of college kids, but it turned out the poacher wasn’t hunting bears. Trolls are real and they’ve been wandering outside their territories, and somebody’s trying to cover it up with fake bear attacks. One man is given the task of keeping the monsters in check, and the intrepid group of college kids are eventually allowed to tag along and document the atrocities.

The biology and diversity of the trolls is taken from legend and folklore. Not everything made the cut; the more fanciful bits like speaking human language and playing games of wit were thrown out in favor of making the trolls into massive, dumb predators who eat rocks or whatever else they can find. The film has pretty blatant environmentalist undertones. The destruction of the trolls is an affront to nature and the preservation of Norwegian history, all that sort of thing. And yet, the film maintains a not-quite-that-serious vibe, bringing on laughs once in a while and not really prompting that much reverence for the creatures; that’s directed more on the beautiful landscapes.

The trolls themselves are of course computer-generated, and they look great. The animation isn’t perfect all the time, but it didn’t matter that much considering the strangeness of the several different kinds of trolls. The most grating aspect of the film was the shakycam. I remember there being a lot of fuss over people getting sick at Cloverfield screenings; those people should avoid this one at all costs. It gets pretty brutal with the shaking. Also, since it’s supposed to just be raw footage spliced together instead of a professionally edited movie, the cuts are frequent and often jarring. The sound was probably the best part though. It made the scale of the creatures much more believable.

To top off the goodness, the closing credits were accompanied by a track off of Kvelertak’s self-titled release from last year, which is an incredibly fantastic album and extremely appropriate for this movie.

A bit about the theater. We went to the E Street Cinema in Washington DC. This is the first time I’ve been there and it certainly won’t be the last. They show lots of great limited-release films, and had posters for a whole bunch of movies I hadn’t even heard of. Once we got into our theater, which was very small but still had semi-stadium seating, we were treated to a live, albeit somewhat nervous introduction by one of the staff who seemed genuinely happy to see so many people in attendance for this movie in particular. The crowd was cool, the sound was great, and the screen was just fine. It was just an all-around great time.

Didn’t think I’d write this much.

The Tree of Life

I haven’t seen any Terrence Malick films before this, but I probably will do so in the future. It’s pretty obvious this guy really cares about what ends up on the big screen, and puts everything he has into it. Although I can’t say I enjoyed watching this as much as something like Super 8, I can definitely respect the film; it’s a beautiful, heady trip of a thing.

There’s a bit more of a story than I was led to believe in other reviews, but it’s definitely presented differently than in most films, and not very linear. The main character, played by Sean Penn in adulthood and Hunter McCracken as the child, doesn’t really lead that much of a special or interesting life; it’s just a life. He has problems much like most kids, and his parents have problems like most parents, they just happen to be very strong characters. His mother is the embodiment of grace, and his father a man who tries his hardest to be the best father he can be, which is much different than society’s current idea of the fatherly blueprint.

The story is told with gorgeous shots, limited dialogue, and barely any exposition. Surrounding the main plotlines are a few extended segments portraying the creation and destruction of everything. These segments are incredibly beautiful and I wouldn’t at all mind seeing them in IMAX. The thing is, I’m not entirely sure what Malick is getting at with them; they must relate somehow to the story of the boy, but in keeping with the lack of exposition, this is never really laid out. There are a fair number of whispered voiceovers, but they’re mostly cryptic. I’d probably need to watch again and listen more closely to glean the meaning. Right now it’s just left me a bit mystified.

It’s a monster of a movie, and Malick is planning/working on making a six-hour version too. I’m not sure I’d be able to watch that, at least not all at once.

Concert Review: Man Man at Black Cat, 2011-06-03

The Show is the Rainbow

Although not the worst opener I’ve ever been subjected to, the one-man rap-artist The Show is the Rainbow has the honor of the being the most retarded. The music wasn’t too bad, but being prerecorded I didn’t have much respect for him; in my limited research of the lineup before the show I saw hints that he had a band at one time, but they split. It doesn’t take much to imagine why. This guy is a wacko, pathetic pot-head. Most of the stuff he said between songs was about how great pot is and that he has no fans. Thankfully he was only “on stage” for about half an hour.

Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers

To me, this band was an experience similar to Secrets of the Moon; a band I’d never heard of that tore up the stage without the benefit of rabid fans, and had me transfixed. They’re definitely not the same sort of music of course, there was no metal to be had this night; still, the intensity and power that Shilpa threw into that microphone was pretty staggering for such a small person. They do a sort of jazzy punk-rock with a lot of soul and plenty of punch. All of the players were great. The guitarist’s sound was wonderfully distorted and colorful, the bass was clear and punchy, the drummer was the most animated person on stage all night, and Shilpa’s dynamic voice owned me. Possibly even more interesting was the strange instrument she was playing which is apparently a harmonium. They got a CD purchase out of me.

Man Man

This band could be one of my favorite bands one day. As it stands though I haven’t heard enough of their music enough times for it to click with me. They have a lot of the elements I enjoy, including frequent time-changes, quirky vocals, some pretty heavy bits, and just general strangeness, but for some reason up to this point they haven’t grabbed me. I heard a bit more Tom Waits influence on their recorded stuff than I did in the live setting, which was a bit disappointing.

The main problem for me though was situational; the fans were here to party, and party they did. I was pretty near the stage and a mosh-pit broke out almost as soon as the band started playing after their somewhat ridiculous and prolonged abandonment of the stage after setting up their instruments, presumably to get into their uniforms and face-paint. I’m not a fan of moshing. Since I’m a short guy, moving away from the stage obscured the band from my view, so I just went to the back of the club to sit down. After that the music was okay but a bit muffled.

I think the main reason people claim the band is better live is their theatrics. There was much standing on top of things and being strange, and the instruments themselves were all decked out with plastic fingers and bicycle pieces; pretty neat to see but it didn’t add much for me. It was nice to see Shilpa help out with the vocals a couple times.

This was the second time I’ve been to Black Cat, and it’s a pretty nice venue. It’s quite cave-like, a lot like Sonar but a bit more friendly seeming. The area in the back is quite nice thankfully, a raised platform with chairs, tables, and even a couple couches. The sound’s pretty good and the alcohol is apparently pretty cheap for the area. I expect to be going back there a bunch in the future.

Scott Walker - Tilt

Quite a while ago I wrote about The Drift in a very abbreviated post. That was back when I was even worse at music reviews so I couldn’t think of anything to say. Also, since that was my first exposure to Scott Walker, I didn’t know very much about his musical career or anything, and now I do, so I have a bit more to write about. Huzzah. I might give The Drift an expanded shot later, but more likely I’ll just end up talking about it here. We’ll see.

Noel Scott Engel started his career as an American teen/child idol on some TV show in the late 1950s. He also sang a bit at that point I think. After that, he joined a band called The Walker Brothers as their bass player and became Scott Walker. They played your basic pop songs, and became quite popular on the British charts, especially with their ballad The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, sung by Scott. He wasn’t the lead vocalist for most of his time in the band, but his deep baritone voice suited their sound well and he became a more prominent member in their later time together.

Eventually the band broke up and Scott started putting out solo albums in a style somewhat similar to his Walker Brothers material, but usually much darker in lyrical content and including more orchestral elements. His albums did quite well until his fourth venture, which failed to chart; he attributes this to his extensive use of 3/4 time on the previous album, Scott 3; I guess it’s harder to dance to waltzes. So anyway this failure kind of crushed him and he lost his spark for a while, putting out a string of uninspired junk for a few decades. Then in the 80s The Walker Brothers got back together and put out a few albums, the last of which started out with four Scott songs displaying a much different, darker, weird avant-garde sound that would signal the start of his descent into the realm of nightmare music.

The first of these was Climate of Hunter in 1984. It was the most similar to those four Walker Brothers tracks, not all that daring but still quite strange. It would then take another 11 years for him to put out another one, and finally we get to the real subject of this review. Tilt is an exceedingly dark kind of industrial dreamscape full of morbid tales sung in a sad crooning voice. The opening track, Farmer In The City, is based on a poem by Pier Paolo Pasolini about an Italian draftee and deserter; its emotionally drenched refrain of "Do I hear 21, 21, 21...? I'll give you 21, 21, 21..." always gives me chills although I’m not entirely sure what it means. It’s on the second track that the industrial part really steps in with a sound like a sledgehammer on an anvil and a herd of rattlesnakes about to strike. Also featured are long distorted saxophone notes and disturbing ambience which make The Cockfighter probably the most rattling song on the album.

The rest of the songs are bit more reserved but still very strange. The title track includes awesome wavering pitch-shifted guitars in the background of an almost upbeat bassline and drum track, giving it an ominous sound a bit similar to the opening track on Scott 3 from 26 years before. The album closes with Rosary, a quiet but emotionally saturated track set apart by Walker’s “ooh-ah-oooh ah-ooh-ah-ooh,” which sounds a lot more impressive than it looks written here. There used to be a live recording of him performing the track live on youtube, but I’ve been unable to find it again unfortunately. It was quite powerful.

Although not nearly as creepy as his 2006 followup The Drift, Tilt is a formidable release and should not be taken lightly. If you’re not really into the whole darkness thing then I suggest starting out with Scott 3 or 4 in order to get some appreciation for his talent, and eventually you might be able to stomach what he considers to be what he wanted to make all along, the aural depiction of his constant nightmares.

Here’s “Farmer in the City”

Portal - Swarth

I think it was a few years ago I was browsing the Meshuggah forums, and happened upon a thread about this band. It seemed everybody there couldn’t get enough of their sound. The most touted album at the time was Outre’, so I checked that out. I was underwhelmed. The production seemed lousy and it all just sounded like a big muddy mess; not what I was looking for at the time. So that album just hung around in my library for a while, mostly ignored. Then a few months ago, I heard about a new album from the band called Swarth; I got ahold of it and this time it clicked. Loudly and sharply.

Portal’s sound can be pretty accurately described as a whirlwind of angry bees being pummeled by an avalanche of rhinoceroses, with an occasional high-tension wire snapping through the maelstrom. If that doesn’t sound appealing to you then I wouldn’t be surprised. This sound is pretty consistent through their catalog so far, but Swarth somehow separates itself from the rest with a slightly snappier production and I think a bit more energy. It’s best listened to at very high volume and low light. Their lyrics are supposedly inspired by Lovecraft and other such things, but of course only the most careful of listeners will be able to make anything out. Reading the CD’s insert, all I gathered was that they like to use big words and Latin phrases that probably don’t really mean anything when put together. I’m fine with that.

Aside from the sound, Portal is known for their very strange stage presence. Everyone aside from the vocalist wears executioner’s masks and dingy business suits, while his outfit changes for each album release (so far). First he wore a large wizard’s hat that fell over his face, then a pope’s hat in conjunction with the robes and a black cloth, and now it’s a weird clock/radio-thing. I really want to see these guys live sometime.

Check out “Glumurphonel” if you wish.

Idiot Flesh, Zimmer's Hole

HEY FOLKS! IT'S TIME FOR A BLAAAAAAAG!.

That's right, I've hit upon something worth writing about and mustered up the boredom to contribute to this pathetic collection of thoughts. So, to start off this extravaganza of apathy, I shall introduce Idiot Flesh to you.


I've been a fan of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum for a while now, perhaps about as long as I've liked Meshuggah. Some of the weirdest, most innovative stuff I've ever heard. So, as is my wont, I was reading their Wikipedia page for about the 20th time and again saw the reference to the band Idiot Flesh. Apparently a bunch of SGM's members were in that band before forming the genius troupe. Their first full-length album was released in 1990, a time period I usually associate with not-so-great music. This is a ridiculous association of course but my mind is a dumb place.

So I checked 'em out. Their 1990 album, Tales of Instant Knowledge and Sure Death, is much milder than SGM's stuff. It's in the same vein lyrically though, and you can definitely discern the musical aspects that were carried on. A lot of it is more traditional, especially the bass work. Pretty funky really. All in all though I didn't think it was that great of an album; not really any stand-out tracks. Of course I just checked them out last night so I haven't had that much time to drink it all in. One thing I did notice was the similarity to Mr. Bungle, one of Mike Patton's earlier exploits.


I liked that album enough to try some more. So, Fancy was next up on the menu. This was their third and final studio album, released in 1997, just before their breakup. I haven't been able to find the middlin' one yet, but I think I'll be pursuing it, as this album rocks. Quite a bit more similar to SGM. The tracks Teen Devil Worshipper, Chicken Little and Cheesus (Dance Mix) were definite standouts every time I listened through it. Cheesus specifically is hilarious. It plays like a commercial, much like Gold Fish or something. It's just something you have to hear (unless you are an easily offended Christian). Many songs are a bit heavier than on their first, but there's no growling to speak of and none of the intensity reaches SGM's level.

Overall, satire and weird sounds make up Idiot Flesh's repertoire. I like it.


Next up is Zimmer's Hole - When You Were Shouting at the Devil... We Were in League with Satan. The title doesn't even fit on the front of the album; the second half is displayed on the back with funny portraits of the band members. This is comedy metal at its finest. The coolest part of the whole album for me was the track The Vowel Song. I was playing through it and this gem came up, and I was greeted by the voice of none other than Nathan Explosion of Dethklok, otherwise known as Brendon Small. Nathan has been conscripted to inform us that a lot of people can't read, and this is bad, because sometimes you need imagery to get off, like dangling sweaty knockers. We are then treated to a very short song with these simple lyrics:

A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes
Y are you wasting my air?
Why are you still here?
Why must I tolerate, no debate, eliminate!!!
A, E, I, O, U...SUCK....SUCK!!!

Nathan then lets us know that you don't need to know how to read to order a cheeseburger. Every restaurant's got a cheeseburger. The reason he's on this album is that the drummer, Gene Hoglan, filled in the for the fictitious Pickles on the Dethalbum and the subsequent Dethklok tour.

Other lyrical themes involve metal, hair, necrophilia, Satan, and I think marital stress or something. Great stuff. The only reason I bought this album is that 3 of the 4 members were part of the late and very great Strapping Young Lad, led by Devin Townsend, who is sadly not in this one. He did produce some of it and mixed it though. I've heard Zimmer's other two albums, and this one is definitely the best.

The Dark Knight Returns and Ghosts

I bought this along with Watchmen because Amazon told me to. I'm not sorry about it, but this is not as good as Watchmen. Of course, very little is.

Frank Miller has gained a lot of popularity since the cinematographic versions of Sin City and 300 were released. Incidentally, the guy who directed 300 is currently going to be directing the film adaptation of Watchmen, which Alan Moore does not endorse, sadly. Anyway, Miller is a pretty good writer. He's also much more into the extremes of sex and violence, moreso the violence. TDKR has a lot of that. It's a story of an old Bruce Wayne returning to the streets of Gotham as Batman after a 10 year self-induced hiatus. The reason given is the death of the two Robins, as far as I can tell; I never read those storylines. The overall battle is one between Bruce and the stupidity-saturated media/government. This is another apocalyptic novel, as it was written at just about the same time as Watchmen, during the Cold War. As such, nuclear weaponry comes into play. An odd thing about that is that the effect is almost positive; it gives the man in black an opportunity to fix things in such a way that it's obvious he's the only one with his head on straight. Characters of note are The Joker, The Green Arrow, and Superman. Superman's story in this is a pretty cool one; he almost dies in the face of nuclear holocaust.

It was a good read.

This was released yesterday and I haven't yet had time to listen to it all. However, the special thing about this isn't just the music, it's the way it was released. Trent Reznor, recently freed from his record deal, has decided to go the way of Radiohead and put out a (partially) free album. You can buy the whole thing for a minimum of $5 as a download in a variety of formats. The coolest part of that is that unlike Radiohead, this guys knows what the hell he's doing with music encoding. The mp3s were encoded with LAME, the accepted standard of quality, at 320kbps, not 160. Lossless versions are also available in FLAC and M4A. Another extremely cool thing is that Trent and co. uploaded the first quarter (Ghosts I) to a bunch of torrent sites, including The Pirate Bay. That is right way to get the internet's attention, friends. Also free is a 40 page PDF of images meant to accompany the music, complete with computer wallpaper versions in standard and widescreen formats.

As for the music, it is good. It's all instrumental and mostly experimental, a mix of electronic and a variety of traditional sounds. Adrien Belew of King Crimson appears on about half of it. 36 tracks of delicious music. I'm not the biggest fan of NIN but this is just too awesome to pass up. So, support this guy at ghosts.nin.com.

Scott Walker - The Drift (2006)

All I have to say about this album right now is that anything that can make the Donald Duck voice depressing is completely awesome.

Later:

This is one of the weirdest things I've ever heard. The guy sounds like a big-band era jazz singer crooning repetitively over a collection of electronic and analog sounds including a fist pounding a slab of meat. The sounds themselves are amazing, much more clearly defined than most other things I listen to. The lyrical themes are dark, brooding and cryptic. Overall quite depressing and edgy.

Yummy.

I checked this album out because Mikael Åkerfeldt mentioned that it had a heavy influence on Opeth's as yet untitled upcoming album, expected sometime in 2008. It should be killer.