Chris Stewart from Black Marble sets his Joy Division-like post punk to footage from a rodeo, what appears to be a county fair and a horse race. He plays his icy synth on the outskirts of a concert crowd watching a band that seems a much more likely rural attraction. Stewart doesn’t stray far from the sounds of his Brooklyn origins, despite the subject matter of the video. It’s a strange juxtaposition, but it works in a slice-of-life kind of way.
Black Marble – Private Show (YouTube)
When someone complained about the surface noise that came with listening to music on vinyl, the late BBC disc jockey John Peel (a notable lover of the format), was said to have replied, “Mate, life has surface noise.”
It’s hard to argue with Peel’s assessment of life in this mortal coil. Who among us wouldn’t wish that things were different, though?
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I’ll write a hymn again.
Brothers Evan and Quinn Seurkamp, who primarily make up the Ohio band The Laughing Chimes, call upon the hauntings of the Appalachian foothills of their native state as inspiration for their gothic jangly post-punk. There is a wistfulness appropriate to the rust belt and its faded glory that pervades their album Whispers in the Speech Machine.
“High Beams” is one of the catchier, more upbeat tracks on the album. The vocals call to mind Peter Murphy and the keyboards add some sparkle. One can imagine this is what Bauhaus might have sounded like after indulging in some Special-K.
The Laughing Chimes – High Beams (YouTube)
Bandcamp is finally adding a feature that I, and other like-minded enjoyers of music have been wanting for some time. The new ability to create playlists feels like in most ways it aligns with the ethics of the service, which is a good thing, but the focus may be a bit too heavy in that area.1 Bandcamp describes the feature as, “Like digital mixtapes.” There isn’t much need to describe how it works, everyone is familiar with the concept of playlists and this feature appears to do exactly what it says on the tin.
In June, I hope to see long-time indie pop favorites Tennis on their farewell tour. The husband and wife duo of Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore are calling it quits after an impressive run.
The pair made this statement regarding the end of their time as Tennis:
read more…It became clear that we had said everything we wanted to say and achieved everything we wanted to achieve with our band … We are ready to pursue other creative projects and to make space in our lives for new things.
Just as I’m starting to get back into vinyl records, one of the format’s proponents, a popular record club called Vinyl Me, Please is shutting down.
Read more…Since launching in 2012, Vinyl Me, Please has offered boutique, collectible record pressings to a subscriber base paying as much as $654 a year for the highest-tier membership, as The Denver Post’s John Wenzel reported last month. The article traces the period of instability back to the firing, in March 2024, of three senior staff, whom the board of directors allege had conspired to divert company funds to build a pressing plant. Cameron Schaefer, the company’s former chief executive, said he believed that he and the two others had been fired to save on severance.
Featuring a heavy dose of Nippon by way of Berlin, Germany, Mitsune brings their blend of traditional folk sounds with a proggy psychedelic flair to KEXP. The songs center around the shamisen playing of Shiomi Kawaguchi and Youka Snell but have the rhythm backing of bass and drums. Colorful traditional costumes enhance the power of the music in what is almost as much of a visual as audio delight.
I’ve been coming back to this video quite a bit. I’m not sure anything could be farther from the Byzantine chants that will accompany the Pascha celebration at my Orthodox Church tonight, but I’m enjoying the thought of the contrast.
Mitsune – Live on KEXP (YouTube)
I was delighted to find out yesterday that one of my favorite EPs from 30 years ago, long out of print, was available on Bandcamp. I loved Peter from Eric’s Trip, but even when it was current, it was hard to obtain. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I ripped my friend’s copy to burn on a CD, a practice I was totally against, but felt I had no other choice. Now the band’s Rick White is releasing his archive through the indie music service.
Read more…The record label Ghostly International just reissued West Coast, the 2006 album by Studio, a collaboration between two musical auteurs from Gothenburg, Sweden. Ghostly spent months hyping the release, and it has garnered critical acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork, which labeled it a best new reissue. Bandcamp selected West Coast as their album of the day near the end of January.
Louis Pattison’s review for Bandcamp Daily focuses on the balearic influences that feature prominently on West Coast but what struck me most was the sense that this album fit right in with much of the disco (dance) punk revival that permeated the musical landscape in the aughts. Even the heavy reggae vibes coming from the slow staccato guitars on the expansive (almost 16-minutes long) “Out There” wouldn’t sound out of place in some of the first wave experiments in dance punk.
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