Feature EQ Magazine December 2009 Link Oliver Ackermann’s mixing advice— “It’s all about listening and figuring out what sounds good”—might sound funny coming from a vocalist/guitarist known for working at such a punishing volume. That’s not just hyperbole. When Ackermann and his A Place to Bury Strangers bandmates Jay Space (drums) and Jono Mofo (bass) […]
Review Pitchfork November 30 Link 6.8 Jahdan Blakkamoore’s solo debut begins with familiar sounds: a coy flute melody, a clapping cadence, and then the sub-aqueous bass notes of Baby Kite and Nokea’s “Reef”, the slow burner that kicks off DJ /rupture’s Uproot mix. The track– co-produced here by Rupture and Matt Shadetek and rechristened “Get […]
Article Pitchfork November 25, 2009 Link Krautrock: Cosmic Rock and Its Legacy Edited by Nikolaos Kotsopoulos; Black Dog publishing This thick tome might as well be called the field guide to krautrock (“notice the long, unkempt hair and colorful plumage on Gerd”). The original genre tag in part represented the condescension directed toward this vibrant […]
Interview Pitchfork November 23, 2009 Link A lecturer in music culture at the University of East London, Scottish producer, DJ, and theorist Steve Goodman is anything but an ivory tower intellectual. How many of your professors have spun at Fabric? Under the name Kode9, he has immersed himself in the subject he writes about and […]
Article Wax Poetics Issue #38 Link A camera can be an annoyance or it can mean access. For Chicago photographer Michael Abramson, his 35mm Leica M3 was his way to penetrate the curtain of clubland and document a world both public and private. “Nightlife is eternal,” says Abramson. “It went on 100 years ago, and […]
Music Review Pitchfork November 10, 2009 Link 7.7 “Life is nothing but death and taxes/ And all the trees that get the axes,” Pylon singer Vanessa Briscoe Hay dryly coos on “K”, against a backdrop of prickly guitar tones and a taut bass line. “I’m tired of moving my jaw,” she also sneers, in case […]
Feature EQ Magazine June 2009 Link Somber French poets and friendly prostitutes sound like fitting inspirations for a raucous, balls-out rock album. While these characters were part of the neighborhood color near the studio where chic French foursome Phoenix—comprised of Thomas Mars, Laurent “Branco” Brancowitz, Christian Mazzalai, and Deck D’Arcy—recorded the bulk of Wolfgang Amadeus […]
Feature EQ Magazine November 2009 Link “Chameleon,” from the Maps album Turning the Mind, begins with flittering synths and syrupy layers of Roland Juno-G melodies, a common feature of James Chapman’s airy, escapist music. But the words sung by Chapman—those of Marsha M. Linehan, a professor and proponent of a cognitive therapy system called Mindfulness— […]
Music Review XLR8R October 2009 Link Chilean producer Matias Aguayo (formerly of Closer Musik) has created a dark carnival of an album on Ay Ay Ay, a restrained event with sustained creepiness underlying the celebration. Filled with thudding drums and melodies constructed from vocal tics, tones, whispers, and asides, it plumbs disorienting depths—imagine an Audion […]
Music Review Pitchfork October 23, 2009 Link 7.2 When instrumental rock bands get tapped for soundtracks, it can be kind of a gut-check that tests how a wider audience may view their music. Sigur Rós’ folkloric melodrama and emotive language made sense as a backdrop for Vanilla Sky, itself a sort of sci-fi fairytale about […]