Pretty much everyone I know begs to differ, but Salem had me at hello. Between the smog machine, the Dimatapp-PM arpeggios, and the half-hearted white boy freestyle attempts, the show they put on at Pendu’s Horror Scores for the Dance Floor series in Brooklyn last January was too epic to be taken seriously. In fact, the spectacle was so over the top and ridiculous that I kind of wanted to believe in it, to abandon my heartbeat to the slow irregularity of the bass and bask in the sensation of my entire body slowly evaporating into the ambient B.O.. Other people just laughed at them, and that’s ok, too.
Salem premiered the song “King of Nights” on Gorilla vs. Bear this morning, and I’m afraid that it is even more debilitatingly overblown than the late night court they held at Glasslands this year. It is beyond the neon fantasia of Dark Side of the Moon, cheesier than a projection of Wizard of Oz catching on a beam of glittering narcotic dust in an empty password-only bar on the LES. I would even venture to say that it is more camp than the party that is raging downstairs when Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes meet by the fish-tank in Verona Beach — though there certainly some classical choral swells that sound like they were ripped straight off that racket. Is it possible, dare I say, that Salem is the 21st century’s answer to prog? If “King Night” is just the prologue to their debut full-length, I’m a bit frightened to find out what comes next.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
King Night is out on September 28th on IAMSOUND Records. (more…)
Something I’ve discovered in my 25 years on this planet is that when life begins to feel like a tilt-a-whirl that you can’t jump off, contemplating the possibility of life on other planets is a great way to shuttle back down to earth. Case in point: if you take a moment or two out of your day to consider the fact that somewhere, perhaps trillions of light-years away, there is another sentient creature sitting there wondering whether you exist, and if you in turn are thinking about him, then that swiftly approaching tax deadline or drunken romantic mishap really won’t seem all that important. You might even be able to say to yourself that in the grand scheme of things (and I’m talking the REALLY grand scheme of things), they don’t matter at all. After all, we should probably just be grateful that out of all the atoms in the solar system, the atoms inside our bodies just happen to have drifted into this here gravitational orb, and that the planet earth just happens to be endowed with a mysterious thing called life. Whatever that is. If you’d like to try this technique out sometime, Ivy Meadows, Harry Painter, and I recommend Arthur Radio Voyage #7 as a soundtrack. Just remember to bring your space goggles, and maybe some dehydrated ice-cream for a snack.
“Arthur Radio Voyage #7: Alien Receptor” (02.28.10)
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
One: Tuesday night at Glasslands in Brooklyn was the first installment of Pendu Org’s new weekly “Horror Scores for the Dancefloor” party, hosted by Harrison Owen and Todd Pendu.
Two: The headliner for the evening was the Gothic synthesizer trio Salem, whose onstage mystique I can only describe as falling somewhere between that notorious Massachusetts township and a menthol cigarette smoked in a parked sedan outside a strip mall.
Three: Tuesday night at Glasslands looked a lot like the above photo by Maggie Lee. In other words, the room was so smoky that you were unlikely to see past the raised French tips of the person standing in front of you. (more…)
Pretty much everyone I know begs to differ, but Salem had me at hello. Between the smog machine, the Dimatapp-PM arpeggios, and the half-hearted white boy freestyle attempts, the show they put on at Pendu’s Horror Scores for the Dance Floor series in Brooklyn last January was too epic to be taken seriously. In fact, the spectacle was so over the top and ridiculous that I kind of wanted to believe in it, to abandon my heartbeat to the slow irregularity of the bass and bask in the sensation of my entire body slowly evaporating into the ambient B.O.. Other people just laughed at them, and that’s ok, too.
One: Tuesday night at Glasslands in Brooklyn was the first installment of 
