The One AM Radio: "Sunlight"

LA-based multi-instrumentalist Hrishikesh Hirway is the force behind dream-pop band The One AM Radio. On the day before his new album, Heaven Is Attached By A Slender Thread, is released to the world, Hirway took the chance to get introspective with ALARM. Below, he explores the alignment (or misalignment) of various expectations and realities, including those of his own songwriting process, through the lens of self-portraiture.

On Self-Portraiture
by Hrishikesh Hirway (The One AM Radio)

Everyone confronts this question every day: how do I present myself to the world? This process is so ubiquitous and so fundamental that it often goes unnoticed, a blip in the subconscious. But when dealing with any work that’s declared to be a self-portrait, the process of figuring out who you think you are, and how you want to reveal that to others, becomes paramount.

For my new record, I wanted to make a conscious effort to step away from the adjectives that were often used to describe my music: somber, melancholy, introspective, East Coast. I thought, "I’d like to make something buoyant, happy, fun, LA. Dance music." When the record was done, I realized that I hadn’t accomplished that at all. There was a huge divide between what I thought I could make and what actually came out.

These are some of my favorite self-portraits. I think about what self-loathing and self-aggrandizement had to go on behind the scenes to create them. The monstrous-ness of Francis Bacon’s. The careful, deliberate fiction of Cindy Sherman’s. John Coplans’ — unflinching. Rineke Dijkstra’s self-portrait could be of anyone at all. With the bathing cap and goggles and hands over her face, she makes herself almost anonymous. And Egon Schiele’s, dissipated and abstracted, but still presenting a picture of someone keen and haughty. But I don’t know — what of himself did he think he was capturing? What did he want to leave out?

Francis Bacon

Cindy Sherman

John Coplans

Rineke Dijkstra

Egon Schiele

Glasgow instrumentalists Mogwai return with an album full of beautiful minor-key epics-including a few seriously heavy tracks like "Batcat," which nicely contrasts "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead," the album's droning, thudding, tinkling opener. Sporting a still-life portrait of a bald eagle's mug on the cover, The Hawk is Howling is one of Mogwai's most diverse releases this decade, possibly since Rock Action or EP+6 2001.

*Read Drew Fortune's lengthy feature on Mogwai in ALARM 33, available soon.

Mogwai: \"The Sun Smells Too Loud\"

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God of Shamisen: Dragon String Attack (Reptile)

If you're into the fusion of metal with traditional Japanese music (and who isn't?), pick up Dragon String Attack by God of Shamisen. Shamisen master and Estradasphere member Kevin Kmetz leads the group with his acrobatic finger work on the fretless Japanese instrument, infusing said sounds with any other genre that feels appropriate (reggae, Gypsy, jam rock, funk). The shredding riffs of guitarist Karl Schnaitter and the detonating beats of fellow Estradasphere cohort Lee Smith also propel the band, which you know will be good given that two of Kmetz's listed influences are ultra-heavy death metallers Cryptopsy and classical legend J.S. Bach.

God of Shamisen: \"The Science Fiction of Ray Bradbury Attack\"

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Lymbyc Systym: Love Your Abuser, Remixed (Mush)

As Lymbyc Systym, brothers Mike and Jared Bell released a beautiful 2007 debut full-length, Love Your Abuser, on Mush Records. The album's heartening tunes used piano, synthesizers, organs, xylophones, brass instruments, and much more to provide a gorgeous multi-layered mix. Now the album gets a remix treatment with clicky electronic beats and thematic revamps by The One AM Radio, The Album Leaf, This Will Destroy You, Daedelus, and others. Magic Bullet Records will also soon release a This Will Destroy You / Lymbyc Systym split 10"/CD as well as re-release Lymbyc Systym's first studio EP, Carved by Glaciers.

Lymbyc Systym: \"Fall Bicycle\" (The Album Leaf Remix)

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Genghis Tron: Board Up the House, Remixes Vol. 1 LP (Temporary Residence)

Normally on the Relapse roster, electro-metal trio Genghis Tron has its crushing sci-fi sounds reworked as part of a five-label LP project that includes 20 mixologists. This first volume has been available for a few months, but now it has its official release, featuring renderings by Steve Moore, Justin K. Broadrick, Rob Crow, and Eluvium.

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Ten Kens: Ten Kens (FatCat)

The debut album from this Toronto-based quartet is an eclectic combination of power pop, folk, and droning, experimental rock.