Morrow vs. Hajduch: PVT’s Church With No Magic

Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.

PVT: Church With No Magic (Warp, 8/10/10)

PVT: “Light Up Bright Fires”

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.

[Stream all of Church With No Magic on PVT's website.]

Morrow: Formerly known as Pivot, Australia’s PVT was formed as an improvisational quintet in the late 1990s before transitioning to an electro-rock trio.  The group maintained a number of experimental, freeform elements, but it focused on synth grooves and a mixture of live and digital beats.

Its new album, Church With No Magic, is its most composed yet, seemingly dropping the improv parts while delivering some major pop melodies and vocal hooks.

Hajduch: Most of this album sounds huge and energetic, and surprisingly unique for how boldly the band wears its influences on its sleeve.  The echoed vocals of the title track, in particular, sound exactly like Suicide without coming off as mimicry.  (The best example of Suicide worship, by the way, is The Cars‘ “Shoo Be Doo,” which is terrifying and unexpected.)
Read more

Contest: Win tickets and a Pop Hopper wristband for Pop Montreal

From September 29 to October 3, the ninth annual Pop Montreal international music festival runs in dozens of venues and involves more than 400 musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, and independent cultural entrepreneurs.

This year’s five-day festival includes performances by Swans, Marnie Stern, Gotan Project, Holy Fuck, Municipal Waste, Menomena, Liars, Arrington de Dionysio‘s Malaikat dan Singa, The Budos Band, Portico Quartet, Xiu Xiu, Buke & Gass, Mount Kimbie, Immolation, and many more.
Read more

Brent Amaker & The Rodeo’s five favorite places to visit on tour

[Top photo taken by Lord FoTog]

Seattle’s wiley Brent Amaker & The Rodeo, known for its invigorating live shows and Johnny Cash vibe, is a group of characters — literally. The band’s brand of country/western is as much an homage as anything, calling on the tried and true clichés of sex, booze, and rock ’n’ roll.

Its blend of hooks, hoots, and reverb has taken it around the world. Naturally, the band has encountered a few standout locations in its travels, five of which it was kind enough to share with ALARM.

Brent Amaker & The Rodeo: “Man in Charge”

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.

1.  White Trash Fast Food, Berlin, Germany

“Five cowboys travel to East Berlin, only to find themselves eating in an American-themed burger joint staffed by artsy Americans living and working in Berlin. Not what I expect when I set out to take in the international flavors of a major European city. But then again, I do love me a good burger. And they know how to make ‘em at White Trash Fast Food.”

Read more

Concert Photos: Ratatat @ the Riviera

Photographer Jon Shaft covered Ratatat‘s recent show at the Riviera in Chicago. Touring in support of their latest album, LP4, Ratatat’s Evan Mast and Mike Stroud worked the crowd with electrifying light and video displays. And though the band isn’t big on words, by using nostalgia-heavy clips from sources like Predator and Paul Simon, Ratatat managed to speak volumes.

Read more

Moses Supposes: Google in Your Pocket, Apple in Your Mind

Another chapter in the double standard of music and technology. Google protects its stuff, but the music and content biz should give it up for free?

While Google is hard at work trying to make it possible for the public to steal any creative work you can cache in a browser, they are also working hard to make sure that that same public doesn’t steal from them.
Read more

Download Harvey Danger’s final, posthumous single

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.

“The Show Must Not Go On,” the posthumous, final single by Seattle rock band Harvey Danger, is now available to download at the band’s website.

“Show” was written for Harvey Danger’s brief farewell tour last fall and esd recorded by John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney, Los Campesinos) a short time later, then mixed and mastered in time for the first anniversary of the band’s final show.

Also available on the band’s download page is the 2006 LP Little By Little, and Dead Sea Scrolls, a brand-new, 15-track collection of B-sides/rarities.

Little By Little – Harvey Danger on iTunes

Contest: Win a five-day pass to CMJ 2010

Once a year, for the past 16 years, the entire music industry descends upon New York City for a few days of live music, film screenings, discussions, networking, and general revelry. This year’s CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival takes place October 19-23 in venues all over NYC.

The mountainous lineup is only partially announced and is sure to keep on growing. Seeing so many stellar acts might get a bit pricey, so CMJ and ALARM have teamed up to give away two five-day passes to two lucky readers. Total retail value of one pass alone is $495 and will give its bearer access to any show, provided that it’s not sold out.
Read more

Squarepusher / Shobaleader One video for “Megazine”

Shobaleader One, the mysterious new “band” project from electronic guru / bass virtuoso Squarepusher, has released a video for “Megazine,” the fifth track on the upcoming album d’Demonstrator.  The album will be released October 19 on Warp.

Morrow vs. Hajduch: Bongripper’s Satan Worshipping Doom

Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.

Bongripper: Satan Worshipping Doom 2xLP (August 13, 2010)

Bongripper: “Hail”

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.

Morrow: Chicago’s Bongripper makes the type of music that you might glean from its name — bleak, crushing doom metal that’s built on stoner riffs and down-tuned guitars.  I will preface this by saying that I’m not a huge fan of the genre, but the band already has two strikes in my book for the lame pot-related name and the (presumably tongue-in-cheek) Satanism.

Read more

Zine Scene: Pink Noises‘ documentation of female pioneers in electronic music

For the past ten years, Tara Rodgers, a.k.a. Analog Tara, has dedicated herself to studying female electronic musicians and the evolving dynamic of gender, creation, and community. With her website, PinkNoises.com, she publishes interviews, investigates the supposed dearth of women in electronic music, and develops collaborative relationships with the many fascinating women that she finds.

In a new book, Pink Noises: Women On Music and Sound (Duke University Press), Rodgers republishes and expands 24 of those interviews (including Ikue Mori, Le Tigre, and DJ Rekha), along with some striking black-and-white photographs and academic meditations on the meaning of her project.  Along the way, she tries to address some of those big questions of gender and music with what she has learned in the past decade.
Read more