Archive for the ‘Sightings’ Category

Sighting: Lantern x Dirty Beaches “Going Out West (Tom Waits Cover)”

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011


Last Spring, friend bands Lantern and Dirty Beaches played at show together at Glasslands. Dirty Beaches has been cropping up on some of the more forward-thinking Best Ofs at the end of the year for Alex Zhang Hungtai dour 2011 breakthrough Badlands, and I covered Lantern’s recent 7” release a few months back right here on Visitation Rites. Fans of either may be surprised to hear the results. The entire thing is now up for free streaming on Bandcamp, and the concluding track “Going Out West,” a cover pulled from Tom Waits’ seminal 1992 album Bone Machine, gives a good idea of the spooked, yelping sound that Lantern and Dirty Beaches conjure together. Although the collaboration is decidedly singular in its focus (the lengthy, improvised introductory track notwithstanding), it’s an inspired melding of Lantern’s guttural garage-rock appeal and Dirty Beaches’ brittle, Suicide-aping, disfigured anthems.

Lantern x Dirty Beaches “Going Out West” (Tom Waits)

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Words: Max Burke

Sightings: Steve Kenney, Live Lex LP

Monday, December 19th, 2011

As a chronic ruminator, I hear Steve Kenney’s Live Lex as an aural translation of my most hopeless anxiety terrors. But while I’m psychologically doomed to spin myself into the ground, Kenney drags himself on through the sonic bile of his own creation — bile which seems to grow deeper and more viscous with each step. On this reissue of live documentation dating back to a 2006 performance in Lexington, KY, he can stand it for just under thirty minutes. However, within that half hour, Kenney’s craft never feels repetitive, and though his tools are few (Pro-One and RE-301), his music never feels limited by this. Instead, it takes a decidedly human turn as his sharp improvisational instincts are broadcast unmarred by an exhaustive effects chain.

Kenney’s purity of vision and persistence is admirable; it seems he has been consistently honing his skills within this medium for the better half of a decade (collaborations with friend Nate Young as Demons are of special note). If, on paper, a six-year-old live recording seems an unusual choice for a vinyl debut, it’s because in most cases it would be. But Live Lex’s reissue on vinyl is earned in that this is an uncompromising live document by an expert of his field. When the motor in his RE-301 struggles to keep up with a swift acceleration Kenney has just administered, the Space Echo doesn’t whimper, it screams. Let’s cross our fingers for another LP soon.

Steve Kenney, Side A excerpt

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Words: Sam Franklin

Live Lex was released this fall on Nostilevo in an edition of 149 copies and can be purchased from Mimaroglu or Fusetron.

Sightings: Arches, “Nowhere to Go”

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

Philadelphia psych-rockers Arches impress again on their new EP, Enough. Just like Wide Awake– their release from earlier this year – Enough crams melancholy and swirling desperation into steady rhythms and crashing guitar lines. Closing track “Nowhere to Go” puts these traits on full display. A steady, unassuming drumbeat putters along while guitar and bass weave around heavily processed vocals. Underneath all the reverb and echo, “Nowhere to Go” seems to be a song about going back, presumably because there wasn’t any place to go in the first place. In that, it  recalls the last LP’s tales of a would-be drifter– of needing to escape, but being terrified of what to do once you’re free. This one forms  the perfect accompaniment to a late-night winter walk– cigarette in one hand, ipod in the other, and a mess in your head.

Arches, “Nowhere to Go” (Enough, Treetop Sorbet)

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Words: Marc Picciolo

Order Enough on cassette from Treetop Sorbet, or stream/download the EP from Bandcamp.

Sightings: Quicksails, “Walking Through Rain”

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

Otherwise known as the drummer in the seriously awesome Chicago free jazz band Tiger Hatchery, Ben Billington goes deep on the less harsh side of noise as Quicksails.  ”Walking Through Rain,” from the NNA-released A Fantasy In Seasons, goes beyond our initial sounds-of-the-rainforest association. In fact, I believe there to be some sort of “universal language” type of communication between the organic and the synthetic occurring here. Hard industrial bombastic drums machines signal the beginning of what could be a Dionysian affair between the more exotic animals of this planet and those existing beyond the astral plane—their voices a myriad of percussive sounds (both organic and inorganic), non-dance floor electronics, well-placed samples,and  gut-wrenching negative spaces. I’m not certain for which season this sort of fantasy-in-harmonium was intended, but I’m pretty sure I could get into this any time of year.

Quicksails: “Walking Through Rain”

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Words: Mary Katherine Youngblood

A Fantasy In Seasons is out now on NNA Tapes. Check it, and the other two of three 2011 Quicksails cassettes from Deception Island and Digitalis Limited

Sightings: Sean McCann & Matthew Sullivan, “Vanity Fair”

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

Imagine that as the night begins to take hold, you set out on a journey.  It is a frigid evening, and you are very much alone, but you feel the urge to venture out.  Fresh snow is on the ground, and the blocks around your dwelling are desolate. At moments like these, you feel like you are the only living organism left on Earth. Your mind is almost entirely blank, but little hums, fidgets, and crackles invade your mental state. Is someone or something lurking, carefully placed out of view? Your imagination runs wild, but you simply press on. Inevitably, you find your way to the city center. As chimes go off, everything feels more urgent. The city zoo is a short walk away, and its animals make frantic cries in the night, as if to say “I’m alive!” Clouds of somber music vibrate through the walls of buildings, fighting their way towards your ears. This sudden frenzy of sounds momentarily brings you into the rhythm of your average city dweller. That rhythm, however, does not sustain itself. A bell rings, and your mind goes back to blank. This adventure will amount to a circuitous route back home. Foolishly, you believe that you forged this path on your own. Little did you know that Sean McCann and Matthew Sullivan (Earn) were your guides for its duration.

Sean McCann & Matthew Sullivan, “Vanity Fair”
Sean McCann & Matthew Sullivan – “Vanity Fair” by Recital

Words: Samantha Cornwell

“Vanity Fair” comes from a full length of the same title, which will be available on January 27, 2012 from Recital.

Sightings: Flower Man, “Inversion Fortuite”

Monday, December 12th, 2011

Flower Man is the moniker of Chris Bush, half of Caboladies, one of my favorite electronics duos working today. Until now, this guise has appeared strictly on limited cassettes and CD-Rs. His vinyl debut, Inversion Fortuite, is a four-part suite pressed onto one side of a 10” record. The extended piece vacillates between ominous soundtrack ambiance and buzzing, plaintive electronic recitatives. Like Caboladies best work, there is a compositional sophistication on display here that sets Flower Man apart from the avalanche of contemporary solo drone operators. Drone is a misnomer in itself: the music here is far more restless and engaging than that overused descriptor would have you believe.

Flower Man: “Inversion Fortuite”
Inversion Fortuite by Flower Man by Monofonus Press
Words: Max Burke

Inversion Fortuite is now available from Monofonus Press.

Sightings: Sam Mickens, “At The Mountains Of Madness/Ebb Tide (C. Spencer Yeh remix)”

Friday, December 9th, 2011

With no four-on-the-floor, no loops, no EQ sweeps, and little in the way of added effects, C Spencer Yeh’s re-organization of Sam Mickens‘ “At The Mountains Of Madness/Ebb Tide” really has it all. Having obliterated any sort of song structure, Yeh presents us instead with naked configurations of truncated stems. He is auditioning his ideas, and the packed house so respectfully enraptured with the most tender moments of Mickens’ Billy-Mackenzie-goes-Flamingos original has been invited back to witness the workshopping.

At first, they applaud any recognizable shred of the song they fell in love with; quickly, they learn to keep their silence as Yeh expertly reduces the piece to a series of melodic vignettes. The result feels impulsive yet patient, and it’s the kind of beautiful re-imagining that deserves repeated listens on its own while also drawing attention to the thoughtful nuance of its source. What I heard as an audience may sound to you like the “ebb tide” of the title, or Yeh crumpling up his ideas and tossing them over his shoulder, or something else, and that’s a testament to the open-ended versatility of this track and Yeh’s masterful compositional chops.

Sam Mickens: “At the Mountains of Madness/Ebb Tide” (C Spencer Yeh remix)

Words: Sam Franklin

Sam Mickens’ Slay & Slake LP is out now on Shatter Your Leaves

Sightings: Raw Thrills, “Makin’ A Change”

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

As Raw Thrills and one-half of Greatest Hits– a “pop” band with experimental roots– Brooklyn’s Zak Mering makes pop music. On “Making A Change,” a track from his forthcoming Sick Steez LP, his vocals carry exaggerated tones over deliciously dulcet, almost-dance beats. An exceptional arrangement of candied percussion, deep-walking bass lines, and Fantasia keyboard melodies peaks up from low in the mix, making way for a turned-up, arena-style virtuoso guitar solo. Raw Thrills possesses the perfect amount of eccentricity, appealing to way-out ears without alienating the less preternaturally inclined.

Raw Thrills: “Makin’ A Change”

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Check out the Natalie Rodgers-directed video for “Both Ways,” from Raw Thrills’ Shakedown LP, released earlier this year on Sixteen Tambourines

Words: Mary Katherine Youngblood

Raw Thrills will be performing his first-ever-show Dec 10 at Tribeca Grand for the Ad Hoc, The Pop Manifesto and GUNK TV party. Free with RSVP to: events@grandlifenyc.com. Click here for more details.

Sightings: Pigeons: “The Welcome”

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011


If you look past the swirling colors, this Camilla Padgitt-Coles-directed video for NYC folk-rock outfit Pigeons reveals a dancer pirouetting in slow motion. The song, the latest single from the band’s recent They Sweetheartstammers LP on Soft Abuse, feels kind of like an extended pirouette, too. A long, buzzing drone lays the foundation for a cyclical vocal mantra from founding member Wednesday Knudson, as haunting and deceptively aimless as Nico’s notorious cover of the “End” (a personal favorite). Put this one on when you won’t have to go anywhere for a while.

Words: Emilie Friedlander

Grab They Sweetheartstammers LP from Soft Abuse, and check out Pigeons in Brooklyn tonight at Big Snow Buffalo Lodge. Details here.

Sightings: The Tower, “The Logical Means of this Destruction”

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011


As keen as I am on the new age tones resonating in the contemporary underground, there will always be a part of me that is comforted by the fact that honest-to-god garage rock is still being made somewhere, by someone. In this case, the location might be a little surprising. The Tower hail from the island of Costa Rica, which is internationally known as a tropical oasis. Like the other eight artists featured on The Free Music Archive’s Si San Jose compilation, they pump out noise drenched, guitar driven sounds that might not sit too well with the tourist population. However, the raw, kinetic energy of this track is undeniable. Guitar, bass and drums sludge together, creating a hearty soup of fury — while the spastic, yet simple guitar riffs and overall distortion recall early Sonic Youth. The track makes its daring exit with a slow, high register feedback burn. While their music may not be pushing the medium, The Tower may make you want to jump out of your chair and rage.

The Tower: “The Logical Means of this Destruction:

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Words: Samantha Cornwell

The Si San Jose compilation is available for free download from the Free Music Archive