Check out the stunning new music video for “Thank You, Oaky,” off of Chicago-based Pillars and Tongues’ latest release, The Pass and Crossings. Directed and produced by 19th State Productions, the video is as chilling and unnerving as the trio’s signature goth-folk chants, yet by its end it has us celebrating life, beauty, and nature.
Anders Nilsen: Big Questions (Drawn & Quarterly, 8/16/11)
Big Questions is a pretty self-explanatory title for the “magnum opus” of Chicago-based writer Anders Nilsen. The story he chooses to tell in a collected 600 pages of comics and writing is indeed about the big questions. But what are those big questions? Nilsen says, “The usual, I suppose: life, death, foundations of human knowledge, the existence of god, stuff like that. Also: what are the best kinds of doughnuts, and whose fault is it when the giant egg explodes?”
All joking aside, Big Questions is nothing at which to sniff. After releasing 15 issues in zine form over the course of a decade, Nilsen and Drawn & Quarterly published a gift-quality collected edition in 2011. That's not bad for something that started so small; as Nilsen puts it, “The book started with me just playing around in my sketchbooks, doing little gag strips about birds eating seeds and talking about things that were a little bigger than they could really wrap their heads around.” In the end, however, it became a lot more. Big Questions has been an enormous project for Nilsen and is an engrossing read for comic lovers.
M83, the French electro-pop act led by multi-instrumentalist Anthony Gonzalez, played to a capacity crowd at Chicago's Lincoln Hall last week. The band's latest release, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, has garnered heaps of hype since its release last month, and the crowd was buzzing in anticipation of hearing the tunes live. Though critical praise has been ample, mainstream success had, until recently, eluded the band. On this night, bathed in shades of pink and blue, M83 put on a show befitting its newfound indie-darling status. Photos by Wallo Villacorta.
Animals as Leaders: Weightless (Prosthetic, 11/8/11)
Animals as Leaders: "Odessa"
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In 2009, Animals as Leaders was a one-man prog-metal band that showcased guitar virtuoso Tosin Abasi’s prowess with an eight-string. Its self-titled debut challenged metal with its unique fusion of progressive, electronic, ambient, and jazz influences to contrast its heavy, djent-style riffs. This year, its sophomore album, Weightless, continues to expand this brand of metal — only now Abasi has help.
Initially recruited as the live band, guitarist Javier Reyes and drummer Navene Koperweis have proven capable of keeping up with Abasi’s maniacal shredding. On tracks such as “An Infinite Regression” and “To Lead You to an Overwhelming Question,” Reyes’ ample rhythms and Koperweis’ polyrhythmic drumming play off of and provide pacing for Abasi’s wilder and seemingly limitless riffs. For both new members, Weightless is their studio debut, and their presence on the album marks the unmistakable difference between man and drum machine.
Abasi took a few moments from his busy touring schedule to speak with ALARM about the new album and the trio's experiences in transitioning to a full band.
Tosin, you were self-taught up until a rather late point in your career. What motivated you to go to school for music? How has it changed the way that you think about and write music?
I decided to attend school because I felt that, although I had developed quite a bit of advanced technique on my own, I still had a lot of holes in my knowledge of the fretboard and general music theory as well. I was only in school for a year, but it was very valuable!
Why did you decide to make AAL a full band? How did the new dynamic affect the writing and recording experiences?
AAL became a full band by default from performing and touring together. The dynamic was great with writing the album. It's nice to have your ideas expanded upon during the creative process. Usually, the result is beyond your initial conception.
Last week, avant-garde songstress Merrill Garbus and her band, Tune-Yards, made their second stop of the year in Chicago in support of their latest full-length, Whokill. Known for its use of looped drum and vocal patterns and ukelele in live performances, Tune-Yards creates a diverse whirlwind that spans from doo-wop to hip hop to folk. Photographer Elizabeth Gilmore snapped these shots of Garbus and company (in their signature face paint) at Lincoln Hall.
Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.
Keep Shelly in Athens: Campus Martius EP (Planet Mu, 12/5/11)
Keep Shelly in Athens: "Campus Martius"
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Morrow: Hailing from Athens, Greece, Keep Shelly in Athens (whose name is a play on the Grecian suburb Kypseli) is a down-tempo/chill-wave electronic two-piece that has garnered steady 'Net buzz since last year. The hype, to this point, might be a tad undeserved, but the duo's recent In Love With Dusk EP demonstrated potential across a spate of digitized genres, even if it was heavy on the Ibiza influence.
The major appeal here is the interplay between singer Sarah P and producer RPR (mysterious!), whose styles seem to be coming into their own. With Campus Martius, the duo's first release on Planet Mu, there's less of the beach-y nightlife and '80s cheese; instead, there's an urban, industrialized, and ambient vibe to better fit Sarah's elongated and reverberated vocals.
Dub Trio: "Control Issues Controlling Your Mind"
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Since the release of their last studio album, Another Sound is Dying, the boys of Brooklyn-based dub-metal band Dub Trio have been busy touring extensively as well as working as the backing band for acts such as Matisyahu. But in that time, they’ve managed to get back in the studio to continue crafting their own distinct songs.
IV, the band’s latest release, is possibly their heaviest and most experimental album yet. It waxes and wanes between raw, thrashing metal and chilled-out ambience, highlighting the band’s versatility. And though the sound is far from reggae, it never fully departs from the dub genre. Listeners of IV should expect to hear “dub,” rather, as a concept: compositions are mangled and manipulated to explore different ideas and emotions.
Bassist Stu Brooks and drummer Joe Tomino took time out of their touring schedule to speak with ALARM about their latest album and about the evolution of their sound.
You’ve mentioned that much of the songwriting for this album was done on the road. What was that process like?
Joe Tomino: The first batch of songs for IV were written in Chavagne, France at the start of one of our previous European tours. We had a few days off before we started the tour, so we set up our equipment in a house and played all day. The next batch of songs was written several months later in Brooklyn. We rented a rehearsal space in for a few weeks and worked on more material. Finally, the last couple of songs were written in the studio. [We] actually wrote, recorded, and mixed in the same day. It was an interesting approach of having this discipline of going in to the studio with an idea and needing to come out with two completely finished songs within one day.
Though Another Sound is Dying took a noticeably heavier direction, IV is even more packed with riffs. Has the band's hefty tour itinerary led to songs that have more live energy?
JT: As with all our tours, the songs we play from night to night are always evolving. There is enough inherent improvisation in our music that we can subtly change things from night to night or tour to tour. We always try to give the audience as much of a visceral experience as possible from stage. Since there are no lyrics or front-man talking between songs, we rely on energy to propel the performance. A Dub Trio show is like an emotional rollercoaster of sound.
There are fewer full-on dub moments on IV, but you added a few tracks that are completely different, including a "Dub Trio take" on dubstep, a minimalist percussion piece, and a nine-minute tune that starts with toy piano and goes ambient at the end. What else do you want to try that you haven't yet?
JT: Not sure. We’ve covered a lot of ground, musically, between our four studio albums. These days we’re really enjoying playing a good, old-fashioned blues jam at sound check every chance we get. The other day we played a twelve-bar blues [piece] with some sub-bass keyboards, distorted and effected guitars, and some dubstep-sounding drum samples. We try not to set any limits on where the music will take us when we are composing new songs.
Moses Avalon is one of the nation’s leading music-business consultants and artists’-rights advocates and is the author of a top-selling music business reference, Confessions of a Record Producer. More of his articles can be found at www.mosesavalon.com.
I was not really affected by the death of Mr. Steve Jobs until the other day when I got an E-mail from him — about a week after he passed. Well, clearly it could not have been from him — he’s in an important meeting right now, I’m sure — but rather someone at Apple cleaning up his affairs.
As many might know, Steve did not believe in putting many layers between him and his customers. For several years well into his worldwide fame, anyone could E-mail him at steve@apple.com. And for about six years now, that addy and another that led to his inbox have been on my mailing list along with the other 14,000 (+/-) of you all.
It seems he’s carrying this policy of staying in touch, even in the after life.
Every other Thursday, Pop Addict presents infectious tunes from contemporary musicians across indie rock, pop, folk, electronica, and more.
Phantogram: Nightlife EP (Barsuk, 11/1/11)
Phantogram: "Don't Move"
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In 2010, the electronic-pop duo Phantogram burst on the scene with its impressive debut offering, Eyelid Movies. The duo, comprised of Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel, brought a fresh perspective to the indie scene, showcasing an album that was both elusive and grounded at the same time — simultaneously experimental and catchy. It was so well received, in fact, that Carter and Barthel were able to quit their day jobs and tour relentlessly in support of the album. Alternating between vocal duties, Barthel and Carter concocted an assortment of beat-heavy drum loops, ornamental guitar work, bipolar synthesizers and samples, and two-headed harmonies. Phantogram was one of the best new acts of year. And so the question remained, as it does with every notable debut act: could they follow it up?
With the six-song Nightlife EP, Phantogram builds on what made Eyelid Movies such an achievement in saturated digital pop. Yet again harboring a swath of soundscapes and sonic concoctions, Phantogram has constructed a record that fleshes out its strengths. Between Carter’s guitar work, Barthel’s keyboard work, and both of their vocal and sampling duties, the duo has positioned itself as one of indie’s most beloved new entities.
Jason Martin: Papercutter #17 (Tugboat, 2011)
There are plenty of prose and poetry journals in the world — we profiled one just a few weeks ago — but what about a comics journal? Award-winning anthology series Papercutter is just such a publication; this ongoing series is “dedicated to showcasing the best young, underexposed, and emerging comic-book artists.” Published quarterly by Tugboat Press in slim black-and-white volumes, the Portland-based zine has just released its 17th issue of original comics stories.
Jason Martin provides the seven autobiographical stories for this issue, each illustrated by a different artist. Using a different artist for each story seems a bit unorthodox, but the effect is rewarding; a cohesive thread of thought runs through the book, but the art shifts in style and medium with each artist. Each story takes on a slightly different tone depending on the type of art used in it. Stories set earlier in Martin’s childhood have looser, more cartoon-ish art, while the college-era tales use tight pen-and-ink strokes.
Martin opens with a childhood story of his own beginnings in comic-book writing, in the affecting “The Weeper.” He connects his early days of writing Batman stories with a personal “self-control” problem at school. Martin’s shifts between his real life and the life of his character, “The Weeper,” are well handled, as is his realization that he roots for his “villainous” analogue more than for Batman. He writes about missing out on childhood mainstay Nickelodeon, and about seeing a pretty girl singing in her car at a streetlight. The latter story, “Streetlight,” is only six panels long, but the dynamic art really pops, and a relatable sense of after-school camaraderie says everything about this memory for Martin.
Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.
Polinski: Labyrinths (Monotreme, 11/8/11)
Polinski: "Tangents"
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Morrow: Following its first three albums, England's 65daysofstatic took a step away from its experimental beginnings — when it collided instrumental post-rock with glitchy breakbeats — to craft an album that was more a fusion of rock and dance. (Think of Holy Fuck, only moodier and with more of the band's core elements.) Now 65DOS computer dude Paul Wolinski has headed straight to the dance floor for his solo debut. It's purportedly inspired by the darker synth sounds of 1970s and '80s sci-fi flicks, but even though there is the occasional John Carpenter moment, Labyrinths is much more clubby than scary.
Hajduch: I like how the promo MP3s came all in ALL CAPS and look like the music of a CRAZY PERSON. The tunes are a bit busy and energetic for the Carpenter comparison – they're more like a Rustie that's been toned down. Opener "1985-QUEST" sounds exactly like the title. You could watch VHS end-credits to it, or maybe do some aerobics. If anything, the clubby bombast here sounds a lot like Gatekeeper, which does the "horror disco" thing about as well as anyone could hope to.
Darkness Falls: Alive in Us (HFN Music, 10/25/11)
Darkness Falls: "Noise on the Line"
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Earlier this year, Danish dream-pop duo Darkness Falls released its first self-titled EP, a promising four-track introduction of haunting melodies and guitar tremolos. It succinctly showcased the duo's style while unmistakably bearing the fingerprints of electronic producer Anders Trentemøller, who produced the EP.
Now the same creative forces have captivated us again with Alive in Us, Darkness Falls’ full-length debut album. Keyboardist/vocalist Josephine Philip and guitarist/bassist Ina Lindgreen playfully yet skillfully combine psychedelics, '60s guitar twang, surf-rock reverb, pulsing synth pop, and hypnotic harmonies to produce a dynamic sound that’s both eerie and infectious — and uniquely their own.
The album twists and turns from beginning to end, teasing us with deliciously sweet, melancholic vocals like those featured in the acoustic dreamscape of “Noise on the Line,” before traversing into the creepy-cool B-movie-inspired “Hey!” Alive in Us demands multiple listens; when revisited, each track begins to unravel, each time revealing something new.
ALARM spoke with the duo about how it developed its sound and what lies ahead for Darkness Falls.
How did you begin making music together?
We have known each other for 10 years now. We used to play together in an all-girl Ska band called Favelachic. After Favelachic disbanded in 2005, Ina started at The National Film School of Denmark, and Josephine put out an album with singer Ane Trolle under the name of JaConfetti.
As we were sitting one day together, sipping white wine and talking about music — our likes and dislikes — we suddenly found that we were both curious about the same thing within music. We decided on the spot that we would start working together again. This was back in 2009.
How are each of you involved in the songwriting process?
Usually, Josephine writes the lyrics and creates the compositions, and Ina brings guitar themes and ideas. We finish the songwriting and final tune together. We have different temperaments, and we challenge and complement each other.
As a whole, Alive in Us maintains a haunting and psychedelic quality throughout, but "Hey!" stands out with a B-movie sort of vibe. Was film an inspiration at all when writing this album? Are there any specific genres or filmmakers that have influenced you?
Film has definitely been an inspiration. We like the aesthetics of old black-and-white movies, and we have been watching a lot of old noir and Hitchcock movies. We both really enjoy movies from favorites filmmakers like David Lynch, James Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, Quentin Tarantino, and Gus Van Sant. Their movies all had an important impact while making the album.
