Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Girl Talk - Show this weekend




There is a Girl Talk show this Friday at Saratoga. Prefese 73 (OMGZ) is opening.

Wired magazine just did this awesome article on the breakdown of the girl talk song "What it's All About". Find it online here. It's really neat and it's interesting to follow along.

[11900]

Fifty/Fifty {9/16}

Tonight's theme was ninjas.

[artist] - [track]

DJ Vadim - Your Revolution (feat. Sarah Jones)
DJ Food - The Ageing Young Rebel (Gentle Cruelty) (feat. Ken Nordine)
Mos Def & Diverse - Wylin' Out (Kut Masta Kurt Remix)
Saul Williams - Twice the First Time
Coldcut - True Skool
Dynamic Syncopation - 2 Tha Left (feat. Mass Influence)
The Herbaliser - 8pt Agenda (feat. Latyrx)
Cut Chemist - What's the Altitude (feat. Hymnal)
Handsome Boy Modeling School - First... And Then (feat. Dres from Black Sheep)
One Self feat. DJ Vadim - Be Your Own
Vast Aire feat. MF Doom - Super Friendz (Edan Remix)
Dr. Octagon - Blue Flowers
Big Dada Sound - Showtime
Roots Manuva - Movements (live at Inside Tracks)
Mr. Scruff - Come Alive
Bonobo - Recurring
Cut Chemist - The Garden
Amon Tobin - Four Ton Mantis
Kid Koala - Emperor's Main Course
Hexstatic - Ninja Tune (Enter the Augmenter) (The Process Mix)
DJ Krush - Beyond Raging Waves With Shin'ichi Kinoshita
Jaga Jazzist - All I Know Is Tonight (demo)

And the special "hey you listened until 2AM!" treat:
Morris Day & the Time - Jungle Love

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Ambient Signal - 9/16/08

WRPI 91.5fm!
http://www.wrpi.org/ for webcast
Tuesdays 6-8pm

Broken Social Scene - Pacific Theme
The Books - There is no there
The Helio Sequence - Back to this
Camera obscura - If looks could kill
Denali - Everybody knows
Forget cassettes - Salt and syncope
Caribou - Melody Day
Caspian - Crawlspace
Foxhole - The end of dying
talkdemonic - Tides in their graves
Alias - Justamachine
Starfucker - German Love
Andrew Bird - Fiery Crash
Mason proper - Fog
Paper route - Are we all forgotten
Secret machines - Atomic heels
Jared Mees & grown children - Strong black coffee
Shugo Tokumaru - Future umbrella
Adventure - Loredo
Ra Ra Riot - Dying is fine
Annuals - Bleary Eyed
Amy Millan - Skinny Boy
Carissa's wierd - Farewell to all these rotten teeth
Caroline - Drove me to the wall
Clare and the reasons - Pluto
Dntel - Roll on (ft. jenny lewis)
Charlie Everywhere - As far as I can see

pinkie swear.

artist - track

the ting tings - fruit machine
tilly and the wall - pot kettle black
yelle - je veux te voir
stereo image - dark chapter
elsiane - vaporous
minus the bear - let's play clowns
fixmer/mccarthy: FM - into the night
brazilian girls - good times
daedelus - get off your hi-hats
chemical brothers - do it again
twink - blindfolded bird race
sBACH - 06
adventure - civilization
the faint - forever growing centipedes
alias - oakland in the rearview mirror
hybrid - trifonic - parks on fire
flying lotus - camel
hybrid - quiver - surin
moby - I love to move in here - crookers lemmesee remix
don rimini - nervous breakdown
MGMT - electric feel - justice remix (OMG JUSTICE AT ALTAMONT FAIR GROUNDS OMG)
the faint - get seduced
alias - well water black
fujiya & miyagi - knickerbocker
death cab for cutie - no sunlight
mates of state - help help
beck - orphans
my brightest diamond - apples
the notwist - good lies
kimya dawson - happy home // wiggle my tooth (off her new kids album)

Today I decided to make the playlist colorful - drawing inspiration from the cd album covers actual colors. I guess I'm having a colorful day.
Emelie
[11861]

Gold Sounds 9/16/08: Mellowish?

Mellow to start, probably not mellow as it goes on. Consistency is hard! New music in blue

Wye Oak "Please Concrete"
Mono in VCF "Spider Rotation"
Nick Drake "Which Will"

Calexico "Two Silver Trees"
Koufax "Roll the Dice"
The New Year "The Door Opens"

The Walkmen "In the New Year"
Falcon "The Sandfighter"

On the Might of Princes "The Swell and the Breaking"
Dredg "Brushstroke: A Walk in the Park"
Archers of Loaf "Audiowhore"

Pavement "In the Mouth a Desert"
Shudder to Think "Hit Liquor"

Appomattox "Style-Sore"
We Versus the Shark "Keep it Wolf"
sBACH "08"

Los Campesinos! "Drop it Doe Eyes"
Oxford Collapse "The Birthday Wars"
Mason Proper "Lock and Key"

Why? "Fatalist Palmistry"
Apostle of Hustle "Song for Lorca"
Alias "I Heart Drum Machines"/"Well Water Black"

The Notwist "On Planet Off"
Fujiya & Miyagi "Uh"/"Pickpocket"

Monday, September 15, 2008

Gold Sounds: sBACH's new s/t album reviewed



sBACH is the name of Spencer Seim's solo project. Seim plays guitar for Hella and also drums for The Advantage. Those familiar with either musical venture know, in a way, what to expect, and fans of both bands can almost entirely predict the album's sound. Seim takes equal parts Hella and The Advantage, adds a little extra 8-bit influence and blends them together to create this self-titled album.

Seim knows a good thing when he hears it. Songs such as "04" and "08" present really intriguing material, especially "08" with its complex, feedback-filled and awe-inspiring central guitar riff and surrounding drum/electronic freakout. Without a doubt, the song claims the crown of the album's best track. It's worth noting that "08" is significantly longer than most of the other tracks on the album (which, if you can't tell, are all named "01," "02," etc.). It's also worth noting that the intro of "01" is actually the intro to "08," but "01" abruptly switches gears about 25 seconds into the track to introduce a totally different-sounding song, full of guitar-picking and somewhat annoying beeping noises, which are reminiscent of a cell phone's default ringtone at times. Eventually the beeping speeds up in frequency and, thankfully, the track ends soon after.

As with "01", most of the album's 13 tracks run no longer than three minutes, and these tracks are basically hit-or-miss. There are a lot of good songs here, but most of them prove to be either much more interesting than enjoyable or much more enjoyable than interesting; the two are nearly always mutually exclusive. This situation causes most of the tracks to be pretty bland. For example, the screeching electronics of "03" nearly make the track unlistenable, which is unfortunate because the other aspects of the track are very well done. There's something to be said for experimentation, but experimentation at the chance of alienating the listener always proves risky, and unfortunately this kind of experimentation permeates the album. On the other end of the spectrum, "06" provides a great synth melody and accompanying outer space-esque bleeps and bloops. Nothing too crazy goes on in the song, but it makes for one of the album's best tracks.

It's of course worth noting Seim's obvious high level of musicianship. His guitar work in the songs is undoubtedly complex, as is his frantic drumming. The problem here isn't with his musical abilities, but with his ideas and how they're executed. For every good song on the album, there's a complimentary one that seems haphazardly pieced together, ruining the album's flow time and time again. Overall, the strength of the good tracks definitely warrants at least the initial full listen, but the large number of mediocre ones definitely hurts the album's replay value.

The album is out now on Suicide Squeeze records. sBACH will also be touring with Pinback this fall, with shows in the northeast spread throughout the beginning of October.

Rating: 5.5/10. Key tracks: 06, 08

Listen: Myspace