SDH at Cafe Du Nord

Ok man I gotta admit I had a pretty great time opening up for Throbbing Gristle.  Damn I could get used to those big stages.  And that big sound!!!  Special thanks to Mick and Alo for helping out with that.  The only thing that bums me out is that I don’t have any pictures from that set!  If you have some please get in touch: * myrobobedroom AT gmail.com  * But here is a pic from our Cafe Du Nord show with Jamie Stewart.  It was taken from DO THE FEEDBACK, which also posted a nice review of the set.  In fact, I’m going to excerpt here:

When we got up toward the stage and saw three non-Xiu Xiuers setting up gear, I’m not going to lie to you; I was bummed. When the singer got up to the microphone, said their name was Some Dark Holler and that their set was going to depict the birth and death of rock and roll I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes so hard that I gave myself a hernia. And you know what’s fucked up? They kinda did it. Starting out as a slow, bluesy dirge and then erupting into one of the most vicious maelstroms I have ever witnessed, the three members really did conjure up a spot on middle finger to some of rock music’s more bullshit laden conventions. Never have I been so anti a group and then immediately turned around by their music. I don’t care if they play one long continuous 30 minutes song, I would watch that shit for 30 hours. And then I’d probably die. But whatevs. I was doubly lucky in that I accidentally got to see them play “Kind Hearted Woman” again when they opened for Throbbing Gristle a couple nights later (though simply under the name Erika Anderson). The Regency Center, with its cavernous sound, and harsh lights suited their deconstructionist, feedback overloaded sound and I can’t imagine anyone in the sold out crowd was disappointed. I certainly wasn’t.

(If I’m doing this wrong lemme know, I’m still new to “blogging”, if you will.  Isn’t this called reposting?)  I really liked it as a review, as it’s always interesting to see how what you say and do is perceived, especially since I thought I was being cool by talking about destroying rocknroll.  Apparently not!

(even nikki looks skeptical)

And if you missed us in the fancy rock clubs and want to see us in trashy dives like THE SMELL (just kidding!  I cut my teeth at the smell.  Probably played there more times than any other venue), we have a couple of shows coming up with the awesome DAN FRIEL and CHEN SANTA MARIA.  Unfortunately, we will be sans Aaron Davis, our bass player and drone master also known as ACRE. But come out and say hi!

awesome tour poster by paul morgan

Dan Friel in action

“Personally, all of my favorite bands/artists are my favorites because of their albums, not singles. They created their own world within those albums to an extent that you just can’t do with much detail on one song.”

-Dan Friel, Parts & Labor

You can read the rest of my interview with Dan and flip through pictures of Parts & Labor’s recent show at Oxfam Cafe at Bostonist.

Hooooooray!

Finally the WIUX Culture Shock 2009 lineup has been officially announced. Personally I’m most excited by Four Tet and local band Found Objects. It’s too bad the other big name had to drop out, but you can’t win ‘em all. I’d say this is still a mighty big win. Way to go WIUX!

The lineup:
Four Tet
Destroyer
Extra Golden
Death Vessel
Dan Friel
Tremendous Fucking (TremFu)
Found Objects

Keep in mind this is totally free. WIN

More coverage around the interwebz:
IDS Weekend
The Bloomington Scene

The suspense has been excrutiating, I know.

A note or two on the list: if there were a #1 in my brain here, it’d either be Bon Iver or Erykah Badu; #1 in my heart, maybe Women. Been kind of “not liking music” lately (this is the reason for the delay), but we’ll try to get things back on track here at of Maine HQ. I’ll either talk about things I do like right now (basically Hauschka and the two other things I’ve listened to in 2009), whine about things I don’t really like that everyone else does (buzz kids of the week The Pains of Being Pure at Heart), or talk about how underwhelming this year’s Best Picture nominees are.

Here I thought I liked winter… Anyway.

Arthur Russell, Love Is Overtaking Me
Beach House, Devotion
Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
Chad VanGaalen, Soft Airplane
Cut Copy, In Ghost Colours
Dan Friel, Ghost Town
Deerhunter, Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.
Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
Fuck Buttons, Street Horrsing
Gang Gang Dance, Saint Dymphna
Grouper, Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
Hercules & Love Affair, s/t
Los Campesinos!, Hold On Now, Youngster
M83, Saturdays = Youth
Max Tundra, Parallax Error Beheads You
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, s/t
No Age, Nouns
Sam Amidon, All is Well
The Tallest Man on Earth, Shallow Graves
The Walkmen, You & Me
The War on Drugs, Wagonwheel Blues
White Denim, Exposion
Why?, Alopecia
Wolf Parade, At Mount Zoomer
Women, s/t

dan friel – ghost town (important)

if the magnetic fields added noise to pop, then dan friel from parts & labor must have added pop to noise in his solo album ghost town. listening to this reminds me of why i loved battles‘ mirrored so much last year – the lasting novelty of letting the combinations of new sounds speak to you in a new way. clocking in at a modest half an hour, ghost town makes for an intense listen that often brinks on the unlistenable, if not for its unbelievably anthemic pop structure and the fact that i do think the screeches and wails really are trying to tell me something. it’s not easy towing that line between the brutally noisy and the hopelessly catchy, and it probably won’t go down very well with those who lean more on either side, but for those of us who love finding the gaps in the middle, it sure makes for an impressive experiment in industrial circus/bastardized pop (delete as you wish).

mp3: dan friel – ghost town (pt. 1)

THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2008 (and other things)

So, like any music-related blog, here’s a listing of my top albums this year. Some of it may seem a bit odd and arbitrary, but there’s some backings to my orderings. But, it’s all merely numbers – I’ve enjoyed all these albums throughout the year, and completely numberless. However, for the sake of order, here’s the list…

35. AmpLive – Rainydayz Remixes

Here’s a great album remix concept that works out all the way through. Rather than simply mashing up In Rainbows with another album, AmpLive rearranges the Radiohead tracks into completely new and downright great hip-hop songs. Del’s track (“Videotapez”) is one of the best hip-hop songs of the year.

34. High Places – 03/07 – 09/07

It’s a bit random, but this selection of songs recorded by High Places made from March to September of last year is, if anything, a mark at how great this band can be. “Head Spins” and “Jump In” offer up some fantastic experimental pop songs, bringing some heft to the album of mostly-studio experimentations.

33. Future Islands – Wave Like Home

Comparisons are pretty easy, but in this case, it’s impossible to ignore. Baltimore’s Future Islands sound a little something like if New Order used cheap laptop technology for their electronics and were fronted by a slightly subdued Iggy Pop. “Old Friend” is perhpas one of the most endearing beginnings to any album this year.

32. Fuck Buttons - Street Horrsing

Listen to the first two tracks and just try not getting hypnotized. Experimental-art-whatever-kind-of-rock that’s quite pallatable.

31. Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III

I’m not sure what convinced me about this record. Oh wait, it could be the brilliant minimalism of “A Milli” and Wayne dropping rhymes like “you drop em cuz we pop em like Orville Redenbacher.” Now that’s an imaginative and oddball line for you.

30. Atmosphere – When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold/Strictly Leakage

Sure, Slug’s fit of anger may have become… well, sluggish. But he’s surely got more to offer, as seen on When Life Gives You Lemons. Although there are some rough patches here and there, Slug melts his tales of woe and wisdom of everyday folks with Ant’s increasingly experimental neo-soul. Guest spots from TVOTR’s Tunde Adebimpe and Tom Waits sure do add to the mix. The free Strictly Leackage is a bit of a toss-away in comparison to the large amount of Atmosphere material out there, but pump those beats and you really can’t go wrong.

29. The Very Best – The Very Best Mixtape

This mixtape might be a little higher to the top if it weren’t for the fact that many of its best tracks are simply recylced instrumentals that are quite recognizable… then again, that is part of the appeal of most mixtapes. Even so, Esau Mwamwaya’s skillful flow brings a newfound musicality to the over-used Clash sample on “Paper Planes”… now, if I only new what he was saying…

28. Foals – Antidotes

When I saw Foals in a tiny club in London back in 2007, I was sold. But when Antidotes was released, I didn’t pick it up. Actually, I still haven’t. However, I’ve heard plenty of the album, and after having a sizeable amount of distance from the material and the British hype machine, I must say the things that brought me to the band are still there. There’s the quirky math-minimalist streak, combined with an ambience I originally pushed off in search of more post-punk punch but does the trick. If only some of the songs stood out a little more on their own, or rather, didn’t appear to repeate the tropes of other tracks, this album would have been in the top ten.

27. Pattern Is Movement – All Together

Punk drums and church-like organs with operatic singing, and tons of positive feedback. How can you go wrong?

26. Hercules and Love Affair – Hercules and Love Affair

The sound of Hercules and Love Affair breathes disco, but it seems to be missing part of the free-for-all effervescence that fills the best tracks of that era. But considering that the large majority of songs from that era get increasingly hard to listen to, consider HALA a neo-disco best of. Some of these songs are that great. Hats off to Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons, who’s trumpet-like warble makes the albums best songs.

25. Apollo Sunshine - Shall Noise Upon

Like the Beatles? Like classic rock? Anti-folk? Country? Jam? “Indie?” Well, it’d be best to run out and pick up this record immediately. It’s great to see Apollo Sunshine constantly producing great music, and their work in the studio has certainly begun to equal their live presence. What’s the worst thing about the record? The fact that it hasn’t been getting its proper due.

24. Kanye West – 808s and Heartbreak

Here’s what my friend had to say to me about this album while arguing about it the other day:

“He doesn’t rap!”

“It’s all electronics!”

Now, on paper/screen image, it’s impossible to register the confused disgust in my friends voice. That’s because he was just making statements, though ones marked with hatred towards the album. For a person who isn’t neccesarily looking for a formula, 808s and Heartbreaks is a solid pop record. The beats are, if anything, still fresh, “despite” the electronics of it. And the auto-tone? Well, it’s better than T-Pain. Moreover, songs like “Say You Will” and “Coldest Winter” seem to stick to the inside of your head no matter what the ratio of electronic singing to rapping may be.

23. Hot Chip – Made In The Dark

It’s got some of the best dance tunes of the year, and some of the oddest slow dance songs of the year. You have to give it a hand to Hot Chip to keep on revitalizing their sound and style and interspersing it with effects from reggaeton to two-step to old school soul.

22. The Black Keys – Attack & Release

Danger Mouse. Danger Mouse is like cowbell for those musicians who aren’t Blue Oyster Cult. With Attack & Release, DM revitalizes The Black Keys tired and true approach and certainly makes it less tired, working in to fill in the blanks that come with only having a guitar and drum. The funky bump of “Strange Times” and wistful ballad of “Psychotic Girl” have helped revitalize my own faith in this band.

21. Marnie Stern – This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That

Here’s a record for folks who think that the world of the guitar virtuoso is gender oriented. Marnie Stern can shred faster than most of those old phallic hair metal acts, and she does it well to boot. AC/DC-styled riffs at chipmunk paces, math-stylized song structures, and Zach Hill make for pop-fueled fun.

20. Wilderness – (k)no(w)here

When the vocals on “High Nero” kick in halfway through the song, it’s as if Wilderness grabs you and goes, “where have you been?” I can’t believe it took me until this band’s 3rd album to discover them, and what a treat it is. Stormy, ambient psych-folk combined with brutally haunting vocals that don’t so much scare as orate tales of loss and redemption. Too bad it’s over far too quickly.

19. Dr. Dog - Fate

Another band that took me far too long to discover, but this was purely out of my musical filtering mechanism: the name Dr. Dog just has no appeal. Fortunately, their music is an entirely different beast, a wonderful combination of Beatles melodies, country-fried guitar rants by The Band, and who-knows-where-we’ll-go-with-this-song of good ole’ indie rock. These guys might actually turn me on to classic rock instead of the other way around.

18. Chad VanGaalen – Soft Airplane

VanGaalen’s third album is also his best (so far at least), and a complete picture as well; previous records sounded like a mess of VanGaalen screwing around in his basement with random instruments he created and a few good tunes surviving. Well, here that process has paid off, with some of his most mind-gnawing work to date: death, freak-folk, and oftly odd melodies crash and collide to make a great listen all the way through.

17. Alias – Resurgam

It’s been a banner year for Anticon, and Resurgam is just one of many great records to come out of this Oakland collective over the last couple of years. Almost entirely composed of instrumental work, it’s an ambient take on old school hip-hop that will put you in a state of relaxation for hours on end. It even seems a bit unpleasant when the two vocal songs kick in, at least until you recognize that the same music sits at the foreground of the album.

16. Beach House – Devotion

I was itrigued to see how Beach House, a band who’s music could easily lull one to sleep, would perform under the insurmountable pressure that comes with taking the stage at Siren Music Festival. Facing the grueling heat, packed crowds of hipsters, and set time near the end of a long, long day, Beach House performed as beautifully as their melodies. Devotion is a spellbinding, ambient mess of tunes that work under any weather or state of emotion. Victoria Legrand’s voice is as soothing as it is soulful, and it carries the entire album to its sleepy-headed end.

15. No Age – Nouns

No Age’s Nouns is filled with the kind of songs you seem to know before you even hear them. They’re packed with anthemic punk-rock riffs and bursts, yet remain emotionally perplexing and experimentally arousing. And it’s loud as hell. It’s hardcore for the arty crowd, art for the little punks in us all, and something for everyone.

14. Wale – Mixtape About Nothing

Here’s a hip-hop artist with a good head on his shoulders and an ego that’s perfectly comfortable in a realm where folks have to defend theirs at every turn. That could be because Wale can crank out dozens of tunes about something as archaic to hip-hop as Seinfeld can be… and it’s great too. Infuse sick rhyming and lyrical foreplay with old school hip-hop meets go-go (and perhaps that genre’s ticket out of D.C.) and tons of rap’s biggest names and you wouldn’t feel the need to defend one’s ego either.

13. The Bug – London Zoo

In an odds-and-ends collection of articles, a close friend of Lester Bangs’ describes PiL’s Metal Box as a musical accompanyment to his depression. In many ways, London Zoo feels like an equally derranged equivalent; the record is so dark, intense, and angry, I’ve yet to listen to the entire album in one sitting. But its intensity displays its musical muscle, as deep-in-your-chest bass grinds with glitchy grime and head-banging dancehall to create one intensely personal meditation on the nadir of society. Not for the weak, but definitely for the musically ambitious.

12. Forest Fire – Survival

Here’s a summer record for you – sprawling lo-fi folk that mixes with Velvet Underground-style proto-punk and garage rock done on spare acoustic instruments. It’s enchanting and oft-aggressive, and man does it get in your head and stay there. And to think, they gave this gem away for free…

11. Subtle – Exiting Arm

The impact of collaborations with members of TV on the Radio bear their mark on Subtle, who’s Exiting Arm takes their sound and turns it to the noises in between. Whereas on earlier recordings Doseone could often be heard spitting rhymes at 100 mph, here his vocals are subdued and sink into the tapestry, which taverses across an odd array of sounds and vibrations, but is a whole product throughout. The minute I heard this thing in an ice cream place over the summer I knew it was stuck to me; months later it’s yet to leave my head.

10. Food For Animals – Belly

Noise and hip-hop? Whodathunkit? Food For Animals, that’s who. And that’s why Belly, the long-delayed first album from the DC/Baltimore group, is in the top 10. It’s hard to find an album more ambitious in its sound and execution than FFA’s, and it’s as accessible as any other hip-hop blaring on mainstream radio today. It’s glitchy, bass heavy, and dark as hell, but this trio certainly spins some sick off-beats and rhymes that are more shout-along-chorus-friendly than anything else.

9. Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires

This is what the Foals record could have been, and what I originally wished it was: a great post-punk dance piece. Infusing that genre with strains of disco, salsa, and Brit pop, Friendly Fires’ debut defines irresistible. The music is taught and catchy, the sound gets in your head and shakes your hips, and the hits keep coming. Friendly Fires sounds like a singles collection, with each track as pop-friendly as the last – funny to think this is the band’s first record.

8. The Dodos - Visiter

It may be due to the fact that I had this album on repeat for most of the spring, but Visiter seems to uphold a sense of rebirth and newborn energy that’s often so hard for musicians to capture. Some folks cast the band off as acoustic Animal Collective wannabes, but the album is a beast unto its creators, filled with child-like enthusiasm and sincerity that makes them altogether unique.

7. The Mae Shi – HLLLYH

2008 could be the year of concept albums, or, more correctly, the year that produced a handful of great concept albums. The Mae Shi’s tribute to the end of the world sounds positively, well, great. It’s scary, but the band’s mix of agit-punk, twee, and art pop have an endearing effect that carry through the morbid lyrics of “Run To Your Grave” (and that title to boot). It’s got energy and vigor that blasts through the entire album, one concept to the last. For such a depressing topic to tackle, these guys sure make it sound fun.

6. Neon Neon – Stainless Style

Nostalgia can be a killer, and it’s flogged the 80s past the state of decay, but man oh man do Neon Neon know how to make a bad thing sound great. To call it nostalgia however is making the great concept of Stainless Style seem passe, when in fact it’s a record more “with it” than countless other albums released this year. Much as Gnarls Barkley emphasized “neo” in their neo-soul mix debut two years ago, Neon Neon take the aesthetic tics of 80s pop and place it into an entirely new landscape. It makes it so that the chincy-sounding synth sounds altogether refreshing on tracks like “Dream Cars” or “I Told Her On Alderaan.” It also helps that this project came from the meeting between oddball producer Boom Bip and even-odderball Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys, and they certainly saved their pop-tooth for this record.

5. Ponytail – Ice Cream Spiritual

Ponytail put on one of the best shows I’ve seen this year – so good, I saw them thrice. So I was immediately drawn to the record after grabbing an early release copy after seeing them, doing nothing but playing it for weeks straight. After my mania over the album subsided, I can safely say it’s still a fantastic record. It’s a swirling mess of punk-art-rawk, one that caterwauls off of every surface and smoothly glides through the down-tempos and down singer Molly Siegel’s over-worked larynx to create a record that seethes with passion and power. Kudos to producer J. Robbins for wrestling their great live sound into a well-preserved recording.

4. Sun Kil Moon - April

April opens with a song that nearly hits the 10 minute mark, and could have sustained my rapt attention tenfold. “Lost Verses” sweeps along like any Mark Kozelek song, yet there’s something profoundly new and slightly different than the frontman’s previous efforts. It could be his meditation over the death of a former muse, who’s image is never quite literally addressed, but who’s absence hangs over the entire record. Whatever it is, Kozelek delivers every last line with undue sincerity, and it’s probably because they are his own; in retrospect, the biggest problem with Tiny Cities, the last Sun Kil Moon album made entirely of Modest Mouse covers, is that the music wasn’t created by Kozelek himself (although he does a great job of re-imagining most of the songs on the album). But here, you get the sense that Kozelek’s body struggles with every pick at his guitar, even though all you’re left is with that voice and no image behind it. But what a voice it is.

3. Parts & Labor – Receivers/Escapers Two

For a band that makes a lot of noise, Parts & Labor have made music for just about everyone. Receivers is a fantastic opus of noise juxtaposed against anthemic, stadium-sized pop rock. The electronic bursts and blips are still there, but they’ve become a fixture of a larger pattern; noise doesn’t give way to bubblegum hooks and back again, but it’s all intertwined throughout the album. From “Satellites” to “Solemn Show World,” there’s a song for the punk in everyone (and every punk who submitted sound samples is in a song). For those who don’t like getting too close to accessiblity, Escapers Two offers 50+ “grind pop” songs, most of which barely hit the minute mark and have the mark of dark metal and hardcore punk bursting from the seems… at times, it’s quite beautiful to boot.

2. Why? – Alopecia

What a pleasant surprise Alopecia turned out to be. Why?’s previous work always had some inadvertantly beautiful quality to it, but it’d always been battling a range of sounds and ideas passed out by Yoni Wolf. On Alopecia it comes together in a brilliant and cohesive work, with Wolf’s lyrics and stories spilling into one another, but neither clouding up the music or his often enticing nasaly rasp. And, much like most of the top albums of the year, it is a whole product instead of a combination of some good songs repackaged for consumption.

1. TV On The Radio – Dear Science,

Numbers or not, there was no question this would be my number one album of the year. From the opening moments of “Halfway Home,” I knew this would be a fantastic album. Unlike Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes and Return To Cookie Mountain, Dear Science, is a fully fleshed-out album from beginning to end as each track seemlessly gluides from one to the next. The band’s turn to a poppier and all together accessable sound is just as natural as their work as a band in and of itself; they’re still pushing musical boundaries, using a wide array of feedback and avant-guard noises, but it’s an altogether cohesive and beautiful mess.

Albums I wish I had more time with, because they probably would have made this list:

For those of us who can’t get our hands on every available album to come out this year, it certainly made the “best of” list process a bit more difficult because, having heard at least snipets of the following albums, I wish I’d gotten them all. But, there is always time for more new music. Anyway, here are the ones I would have liked to have on my list:

High Places – High Places

Extra Life – Secular Works

Fall Out Boy – Folie á Deux

Beck – Modern Guilt

The Notwist - The Devil, You + Me

HEALTH – HEALTH/DISCO

Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Primary Colours

Lykke Li - Youth Novels

Dan Friel – Ghost Town

Eagles of Death Metal - Heart On

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

Edie Sedgwick - Things Are Getting Sinister And Sinisterer

Heavy Heavy Low Low – Turtle Nipple and the Toxic Shock

Spiritualized – Songs in A&E

Death Vessel – Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us

Doomtree – Doomtree

Milosh – iii

El Ten Eleven – These Promises Are Being Videotaped

School of Seven Bells – Alpinisms

Fucked Up – The Chemistry of Common Life

Dananananaykroyd – Sissy Hits

Hot Club de Paris – Live at Dead Lake

Best of 2008 from 2007:

The albums from last year that made a lasting impact this year.

The Dillinger Escape Plan – Ire Works

Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

Double Dagger – Ragged Rubble

Videohippos – Unbeast The Leash

Muscles – Guns Babes Lemonade

This just goes to prove the obvious that the Important label is releasing some of the best stuff going around right now. Dan Friel is a member of Parts and Labor a band that quite frankly I’ve never heard of, although I like the fact that he is referred to as musician/electrician. It’s a pretty apt description when you consider what Friel does. This is pop music for noise freaks. Like Fuck Buttons but embracing light and joy rather than something more sinister, Friel is producing the  kind of songs that I’m really enjoying right now, a modern and avant garde approach to electro pop. The other thing Friel gets is that sometimes truncating your idea into a pop song  format (around three minutes) is a a novel and at times welcome relief in a genre which seems to equate the  value of it’s art with the length of their tracks. This album all up is no more than 24 minutes but it may be the best and most fun 24 minutes you will spend listening to music this year. Check it out if you like Holy Fuck or more importantly Fuck Buttons. Awesome.

Here is Dan doing his thing live a a house party in Brooklyn. The track he’s playing is on Ghost Town.

Giddy would be a great explanation for how I felt when I saw this news release from Jagjaguwar:

We’re proud to announce that PARTS & LABOR will be releasing their new album, “Receivers,” on 10/21/08 here in the US and 11/03/08 in the UK.

Brooklyn’s Parts & Labor has become one of my favorite bands in recent years, and it’s been simply wonderful to see them grow as an artistic entity and in the eyes of the music community. In a handful of years and successive releases, they’ve turned from an anthemic noise act of uncompromising creativity into the center of a vibrant underground music scene in Brooklyn. With the release of Receivers in October, there is no doubt they’ll continue on their trajectory of making outstanding music. From the sound of it, they’ve already managed to do that. Pitchfork released the track titled “Nowheres Nigh” today, and chances are, P&L aren’t far off from joining a number of their critically-acclaimed contemporaries. The song is pure pop, but still contains those elements that make Parts & Labor such an anomaly; the clashing sounds of electronic blips float with ease atop shoegaze waves of fuzz, while Joe Wong maniacally bashes away on the drum-kit in the background and BJ Warshaw exemplifies the poppiest vocal work to rival any previous track the band has made. It’s a change-up for the band, but it keeps to their mantra of pushing their own creative notions.

old Parts & Labor live pic

I’ve been lucky enough to see Parts & Labor grow in time with a bit of my own maturation. While interning at Rock Sound magazine in London, I introduced the folks at the magazine to Parts & Labor after throwing their then-upcoming release (Mapmaker) onto the stereo. The staff instantly fell in love with the band as I won a little cred in their books; pretty soon I was interviewing Dan Friel for an “Exposure” piece on the band, no doubt bringing them into the homes of many new UK fans. A year later I had the pleasure of putting on a show with the band at Brandeis University; I was involved in putting on a lot of great shows in Chums coffeehouse (the venue of choice at Brandeis), but the Parts & Labor show was one of my favorites. A month ago I treked down to Brooklyn for the After The Jump Fest, where Dan pointed out what acts to check out, which included a set by newly-acquired P&L guitarist Sarah Lipstate’s solo project, Noveller.

I’m more than happy to say that I will also be a part of the next Parts & Labor album. While they worked away on Receivers, Parts & Labor asked fans to send in audio samples, leaving four questions as guides. I sent in a little something, and although I have no idea how they used it, the band has decided to use every single submitted audio sample for their record. Now if that’s not the sign of an inclusive, open community I don’t know what is. Of course, those ideas go hand in hand with Parts & Labor; besides the musical influence of punk’s past, the ideological influence of the DIY, hardcore and post-hardcore greats that filled the 80s is especially strong in how the band runs everything. And community, as strong as it is within the lineage of emo (and I shall write no more on emo and community for this post), is an especially strong aspect of Parts & Labor’s existence and coexistence. Friel and Warshaw even went as far as to create their own record label – Cardboard records – in order to release material from bands that they felt a strong ideological, musical, and personal connection to. Just as, say, Dischord (ok, I lied a little bit about two sentences ago) became an epicenter for a small, DC punk community, Cardboard has become a connection for like-minded musicians across the country. Just pick up Love and Circuits, a double album compiling all the bands that Parts & Labor has shared a communal bond with, and you’ll hear a fraction of the bands involved in the American art-punk/noise/whatever you want to call it community. Just as a record label, a venue, or a town can become centers of musical and cultural scenes, in their own way Parts & Labor – as a band and an idea – have also become something of a meeting point for a community.

The Cardboard Family

Parts & Labor will be performing at Siren Music Festival this Saturday and Whartscape this Sunday. Make it to the shows if you can.

Parts & Labor – Nowheres Nigh

Parts & Labor – The Gold We’re Digging (video):

dan friel from parts & labor has a new solo album on important records called ghost town, a dense package of equal parts noise and pop. in desert song, the stomping intro drone meets a series of terrifying fruit blender squeals and casiotone sequences, making for a concise two and a half minute blow to the head. this is analog music for the digital age.

mp3: dan friel – desert song

Veel eile samal ajal olin ma valmis vinguma kõigile, kes kuulata jaksavad, kuidas ma ikka juba mõnda aega muuskas midagi väga head leidnud pole. Ja kuidas suurem osa muusikast on ikka täielik pask. Mis on õige ka praegu ja ka siis kui kõik maailma muusikut solvunult mu blogi kommentaariumi ummistavad.

Mitte, et head muusikat ei tehtaks, aga midagi sellist, mis puhub katuse pealt ja lennutab üle vikerkaare, pole ammu leidnud.

Kuid siis sisenes mängu Dan Friel ja kõik maailma mured said korraga lahenduse, sest see mees on hull ja geenius, mis on päris paljutõotav kokteil.

Dan tegutseb muidu bändis parts and Labor, aga eriti katustsõidutav on ta siiski sooloprojektis sünti kääksutamas.

Karta on, et ma ei maga rahulikult enne, kui olen Dani laivis näinud. Tundub olevat just selline muhe tüüp, kes tuleb sinu magamistuppa ja lammutab selle tükkideks ning teeb nendest tükkidest diskoteegi.

Dan Friel – Ghost Town (pt. 1)

Dan Friel – Desert Song

Pidu:

On their last two albums, Parts and Labor haven’t eschewed their more experimental tendencies so much as incorporated them into an anthemic rock framework, with somewhat mixed results. The grit is still there, but, when buried underneath soaring vocals about great divides, it’s admittedly difficult to groove on the sounds alone. Basically, if frontman Dan Friel’s vocals aren’t your cup of tea, you’d be forgiven for entirely foregoing the operation.

To read the rest of the review, click here. 

Cinq disques dont je ne suis pas certain qu’ils aillent bien avec le soleil de mai. Ou la pluie. Le premier, la BO de Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid par Bob Dylan, bien sûr, est un classique, mais je ne l’avais jamais eu. Je me souviens pourtant de l’effet assez psychotrope ressenti en regardant le film. Il y a là quelque chose d’étonnant, comme un mélange entre un disque de country et un album de Steve Reich. Des parties instrumentales assez crépusculaires, répétitives, donnent l’impression d’un album dépressif et mélancolique, mais qui se dévoile vite comme un étonnant euphorisant, tout en retenue. Lorsque la voix de Dylan surgit, rare, tout se précipite comme en une petite implosion des sentiments.

L’album de Nadja, Touched, est une réédition en vinyle d’un Cd sorti l’an dernier. Cette nouvelle édition est fabuleusement belle, ornée de photos nouvelles, prises par Seldon Hunt qui a pour habitude de capturer une nature d’apparence tranquille, mais toujours insidieusement inquiétante. Le pressage est parfait, dévoile la musique pour ce qu’elle est : lente, lourde, prenante, mais aussi fascinante de densité.

Rien à redire sur la compilation de Model 500, sinon qu’elle vient d’être rééditée et qu’elle est assez impeccable dans son genre.

L’album de Tsé, La Ralentie, est arrivé hier. Tsé est un ami, qui vit à Berlin. Et hier en visitant l’expo Nieves, j’ai vu Isabelle Boinot qui m’en a parlé. Coïnicidence ? En tout cas, après une écoute rapide, l’album a l’air beau, s’envolant vers des territoires différents du dub électronique des sorties précédentes. Tsé y chante comme s’il était en train de faire son dernier disque et c’est ainsi que tous les disques devraient être faits. Et la pochette est somptueuse, impeccable.

Enfin, un disque qui va faire parler de lui dans le petit cercle des adeptes de noise et de bruit : l’album de Dan Friel, Ghost Town, est une déflagration assez insensée, qui évoque une sorte de My Bloody Valentine métallique, une collision entre Kid 606 et Merzbow, mais encadré dans un appareillage presque pop. Ici, sept morceaux forment cet album court, incisif, dont on se demande avec quels instruments sucrés il a été composé. Comme le bruit du sucre qui crie doucement en fondant. ça s’écoute par là : http://www.importantrecords.com/releases/imprec187_release_page.htm