1
Featured album: KoAk - Morningtime Stumble
posted on July 9th, 2008 by matt in New Releases
“Something’s Going On” leads off KoAk’s debut LP, Morningtime Stumble, with the whispered lyric, “When I believed in you, I said I could not live without you.”Seemingly a broken cry, the sentiment is soon lifted on train rail rhythms and building guitar work. As the frail song lurches into its final refrain, it is carried on a splintering momentum. Damaged and beautiful, it’s an anthem for the fallen.
Based out of Fredericton, KoAk has been the moniker for Ian Wilson’s bedroom recordings since his early teens. Stockpiling track after track, he would sporadically perform a collection of the material and then disappear again for months at a time. After the completion of Morningtime Stumble though, Wilson’s girlfriend and drummer Meg Folkins decided to send the album to fellow New Brunswick artist, Shotgun Jimmie.
Upon receiving the paper-clad album, which bore nothing more than a potato stamp that read “KoAk,” Jim was somewhat skeptical. This quickly faded after hearing music contained on the CD-R though. He soon sent the tracks to his label, Delorean Recordings. A month later, plans were in the works for the album to be re-released on the Halifax based label.
Morningtime Stumble’s ten tracks range from the seaside dirge of “Foggycoast” to the longing notes of “There is a Lion.” Holding onto the influences of lo-fi figureheads The Microphones and Eric’s Trip, Wilson’s songs thrive with the lack of studio polish. Using this aesthetic as a tool, the album’s sound never betrays the lyrical content, making for a cohesive and incredibly powerful collection of music.
2
Featured album: Atlas Sound - Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
posted on July 7th, 2008 by matt in New Releases
Atlas Sound is the solo moniker of 25 year old Deerhunter front man / provocateur Bradford Cox. It is also the earliest incarnation for his musical adventures. Although “ Let the Blind …” is the Georgian’s debut album, the genesis of this music can be traced back to when Bradford was a kid, more specifically when in sixth grade ; a time when he discovered through reading a Beck interview that his family’s disused karaoke machine could be used as a rudimentary multi-tracking device. Furthermore, the darker childhood experience of spending an entire summer on a children’s hospital ward undergoing operations also (understandably) plays a pivotal part in colouring his music.
Bradford is everything with Atlas Sound and what you hear is a complex, expansive bedroom recording. Totally absorbed and working at a prolific rate, he channels a stream of consciousness, leaving the scorched beauty of his vocals raw and untreated. Bradford cites the “ideas that I can’t make work with a five piece rock band,” as the basis of his solo work and unrestricted, he makes a currently unparalleled meld of garage rock and ambient electronics. ’Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel’ is a serious body of work that manages to combine seemingly incongruous sound elements to make a wonderfully cohesive pop narrative. It is also undoubtedly one of the year’s first truly great albums.
Praise for Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
“A largely ambient meditation on romantic obsession full of densely layered electronics and guitars that sound as if they were beamed in from some haunted parallel universe.” - The Fader
1
Classic album: Hood - Cold House
posted on July 7th, 2008 by matt in Classic Albums
From Allmusic.com: Moving closer to their goal of blending beep-and-click electronica with the exotic tunefulness of space rock, Cold House is a cold and delicate examination of isolation. Hood creates unique and interesting variations on melodies while taking dirty, lo-fi beats to carry them. The guitar work is extremely minimal, drawing attention to the thin and frightened vocals that seem to haunt the songs more than take part in them.
The dark and droning “They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here” is a beautiful shuffle that begins the disc with an urgency that plays off of the band’s natural melancholy. “This Is What We Do to Sell Out(s)” is a manic, ambitious collection of beats that contains some of the most depressed vocals this side of Codeine. But Hood’s unique burps and skips are at their best on “The River Curls Around the Town,” where everything stutters and stops without warning, parts of the song just start to go backwards, and the guitar part jumps from channel to channel while horns play in the background.
Drummer Stephen Royle is the hidden weapon on this album; the music revolves around his phenomenal pounding in a graceful battle of rhythm and atmosphere. Although Hood sounded like this long before Radiohead experimented with electronica, Cold House is the next step toward the icy-cold future of alternative rock that Kid A forecasted. Like any good experimental rock album, this may take time to grow on a casual listener. But it’s a rewarding experience to hear bands like this break and bend the boundaries of modern pop and twist it into their own glitch-filled vision.
“Something’s Going On” leads off KoAk’s debut LP, Morningtime Stumble, with the whispered lyric, “When I believed in you, I said I could not live without you.”Seemingly a broken cry, the sentiment is soon lifted on train rail rhythms and building guitar work. As the frail song lurches into its final refrain, it is carried on a splintering momentum. Damaged and beautiful, it’s an anthem for the fallen.
Based out of Fredericton, KoAk has been the moniker for Ian Wilson’s bedroom recordings since his early teens. Stockpiling track after track, he would sporadically perform a collection of the material and then disappear again for months at a time. After the completion of Morningtime Stumble though, Wilson’s girlfriend and drummer Meg Folkins decided to send the album to fellow New Brunswick artist, Shotgun Jimmie.
Upon receiving the paper-clad album, which bore nothing more than a potato stamp that read “KoAk,” Jim was somewhat skeptical. This quickly faded after hearing music contained on the CD-R though. He soon sent the tracks to his label, Delorean Recordings. A month later, plans were in the works for the album to be re-released on the Halifax based label.
Morningtime Stumble’s ten tracks range from the seaside dirge of “Foggycoast” to the longing notes of “There is a Lion.” Holding onto the influences of lo-fi figureheads The Microphones and Eric’s Trip, Wilson’s songs thrive with the lack of studio polish. Using this aesthetic as a tool, the album’s sound never betrays the lyrical content, making for a cohesive and incredibly powerful collection of music.
2
Featured album: Atlas Sound - Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
posted on July 7th, 2008 by matt in New Releases
Atlas Sound is the solo moniker of 25 year old Deerhunter front man / provocateur Bradford Cox. It is also the earliest incarnation for his musical adventures. Although “ Let the Blind …” is the Georgian’s debut album, the genesis of this music can be traced back to when Bradford was a kid, more specifically when in sixth grade ; a time when he discovered through reading a Beck interview that his family’s disused karaoke machine could be used as a rudimentary multi-tracking device. Furthermore, the darker childhood experience of spending an entire summer on a children’s hospital ward undergoing operations also (understandably) plays a pivotal part in colouring his music.
Bradford is everything with Atlas Sound and what you hear is a complex, expansive bedroom recording. Totally absorbed and working at a prolific rate, he channels a stream of consciousness, leaving the scorched beauty of his vocals raw and untreated. Bradford cites the “ideas that I can’t make work with a five piece rock band,” as the basis of his solo work and unrestricted, he makes a currently unparalleled meld of garage rock and ambient electronics. ’Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel’ is a serious body of work that manages to combine seemingly incongruous sound elements to make a wonderfully cohesive pop narrative. It is also undoubtedly one of the year’s first truly great albums.
Praise for Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
“A largely ambient meditation on romantic obsession full of densely layered electronics and guitars that sound as if they were beamed in from some haunted parallel universe.” - The Fader
1
Classic album: Hood - Cold House
posted on July 7th, 2008 by matt in Classic Albums
From Allmusic.com: Moving closer to their goal of blending beep-and-click electronica with the exotic tunefulness of space rock, Cold House is a cold and delicate examination of isolation. Hood creates unique and interesting variations on melodies while taking dirty, lo-fi beats to carry them. The guitar work is extremely minimal, drawing attention to the thin and frightened vocals that seem to haunt the songs more than take part in them.
The dark and droning “They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here” is a beautiful shuffle that begins the disc with an urgency that plays off of the band’s natural melancholy. “This Is What We Do to Sell Out(s)” is a manic, ambitious collection of beats that contains some of the most depressed vocals this side of Codeine. But Hood’s unique burps and skips are at their best on “The River Curls Around the Town,” where everything stutters and stops without warning, parts of the song just start to go backwards, and the guitar part jumps from channel to channel while horns play in the background.
Drummer Stephen Royle is the hidden weapon on this album; the music revolves around his phenomenal pounding in a graceful battle of rhythm and atmosphere. Although Hood sounded like this long before Radiohead experimented with electronica, Cold House is the next step toward the icy-cold future of alternative rock that Kid A forecasted. Like any good experimental rock album, this may take time to grow on a casual listener. But it’s a rewarding experience to hear bands like this break and bend the boundaries of modern pop and twist it into their own glitch-filled vision.
Atlas Sound is the solo moniker of 25 year old Deerhunter front man / provocateur Bradford Cox. It is also the earliest incarnation for his musical adventures. Although “ Let the Blind …” is the Georgian’s debut album, the genesis of this music can be traced back to when Bradford was a kid, more specifically when in sixth grade ; a time when he discovered through reading a Beck interview that his family’s disused karaoke machine could be used as a rudimentary multi-tracking device. Furthermore, the darker childhood experience of spending an entire summer on a children’s hospital ward undergoing operations also (understandably) plays a pivotal part in colouring his music.
Bradford is everything with Atlas Sound and what you hear is a complex, expansive bedroom recording. Totally absorbed and working at a prolific rate, he channels a stream of consciousness, leaving the scorched beauty of his vocals raw and untreated. Bradford cites the “ideas that I can’t make work with a five piece rock band,” as the basis of his solo work and unrestricted, he makes a currently unparalleled meld of garage rock and ambient electronics. ’Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel’ is a serious body of work that manages to combine seemingly incongruous sound elements to make a wonderfully cohesive pop narrative. It is also undoubtedly one of the year’s first truly great albums.
1
Classic album: Hood - Cold House
posted on July 7th, 2008 by matt in Classic Albums
From Allmusic.com: Moving closer to their goal of blending beep-and-click electronica with the exotic tunefulness of space rock, Cold House is a cold and delicate examination of isolation. Hood creates unique and interesting variations on melodies while taking dirty, lo-fi beats to carry them. The guitar work is extremely minimal, drawing attention to the thin and frightened vocals that seem to haunt the songs more than take part in them.
The dark and droning “They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here” is a beautiful shuffle that begins the disc with an urgency that plays off of the band’s natural melancholy. “This Is What We Do to Sell Out(s)” is a manic, ambitious collection of beats that contains some of the most depressed vocals this side of Codeine. But Hood’s unique burps and skips are at their best on “The River Curls Around the Town,” where everything stutters and stops without warning, parts of the song just start to go backwards, and the guitar part jumps from channel to channel while horns play in the background.
Drummer Stephen Royle is the hidden weapon on this album; the music revolves around his phenomenal pounding in a graceful battle of rhythm and atmosphere. Although Hood sounded like this long before Radiohead experimented with electronica, Cold House is the next step toward the icy-cold future of alternative rock that Kid A forecasted. Like any good experimental rock album, this may take time to grow on a casual listener. But it’s a rewarding experience to hear bands like this break and bend the boundaries of modern pop and twist it into their own glitch-filled vision.
From Allmusic.com: Moving closer to their goal of blending beep-and-click electronica with the exotic tunefulness of space rock, Cold House is a cold and delicate examination of isolation. Hood creates unique and interesting variations on melodies while taking dirty, lo-fi beats to carry them. The guitar work is extremely minimal, drawing attention to the thin and frightened vocals that seem to haunt the songs more than take part in them.
The dark and droning “They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here” is a beautiful shuffle that begins the disc with an urgency that plays off of the band’s natural melancholy. “This Is What We Do to Sell Out(s)” is a manic, ambitious collection of beats that contains some of the most depressed vocals this side of Codeine. But Hood’s unique burps and skips are at their best on “The River Curls Around the Town,” where everything stutters and stops without warning, parts of the song just start to go backwards, and the guitar part jumps from channel to channel while horns play in the background.
Drummer Stephen Royle is the hidden weapon on this album; the music revolves around his phenomenal pounding in a graceful battle of rhythm and atmosphere. Although Hood sounded like this long before Radiohead experimented with electronica, Cold House is the next step toward the icy-cold future of alternative rock that Kid A forecasted. Like any good experimental rock album, this may take time to grow on a casual listener. But it’s a rewarding experience to hear bands like this break and bend the boundaries of modern pop and twist it into their own glitch-filled vision.
