Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Wild Moccasins * James Husband (Of Montreal)
* Unwed Sailor * Common Loon
"I’ve elsewhere mentioned in passing what I call the “pure pop,” and the this popular quintet’s clean-scrubbed little debut EP Microscopic Metronomes provides a nice opportunity to elucidate. In using this term, I don’t mean to suggest any specific relationship to pop art, most closely associated in this country with Andy Warhol and his coterie, but it is a useful comparison. The dramatic tension in pop art centers on the uncertainty over whether the artist does or does not intend to fully participate in the mass consumer culture s/he is either basking in or subjecting to the harshest kind of ironic criticism, or somehow in some kind of negative capability-ish way doing both. But the pure pop does away with this tension, replacing it with a deceptively simple aesthetics of a relaxed, lounging (as opposed to Dionysianly destructive) hedonsim. I say “deceptively” because of how unbelievably hard it is to write a good pure pop song, and also because of the analogous dramatic tension that arises in the best pure pop between sonic pleasure and what you slowly grow to suspect might be deeper meaning, and I suppose that to my mind Crowded House is the greatest example of pure pop music. Microscopic Metronomes makes its decided home in this camp." - Austin Sound |
'A Parallax I' is a collaged mix of musical styles & recording methods. Half of it was recorded on various analog tape machines..... a bunch of tracks in a digital format, some on cassette, and in about a half a dozen studios between Athens, Ga. & Stockholm, Sweden—with the final version seamlessly stitched together by Andy LeMaster at CPT in Athens, Ga. |
 Unwed Sailor (Tulsa, OK) - Born in Seattle in 1998 at the tender age of intent, Unwed Sailor is helmed by Oklahoma-born songwriter Johnathon Ford. The basis for the instrumental project came into being while Ford was still writing with Seattle luminaries Roadside Monument. Pulling towards a bass guitar-oriented sound, the songs he had begun to craft did not fully feel right for Roadside Monument, thus the unbeknownst predestined forming of Unwed Sailor. Not aiming for Unwed Sailor to fall into the regular confines of a typical band, Ford's ever evolving cast and crew has been tirelessly composed over the years of good friends and company. Throughout the past decade, Unwed Sailor has shared the stage with the likes of Pedro the Lion, Mary Timony, Low, The Danielson Famile, Sufjan Stevens, Early Day Miners, Minus the Bear, The Advantage, The Starlight Mints, Battles, Mates of State, and Beach House(just to name a few....). The band has since been relocated and based out of cities across the United States, including Chicago, Seattle, Washington D.C., Jackson MS, Little Rock, AR, and most recently Lawrence, KS. With numerous tours in the U.S. and Europe, the band has traveled almost as much as it has evolved.
From their 1998 debut ep release, Firecracker(featuring Dave Bazan from Pedro the Lion, and Casey Wescott from Fleet Foxes, The Vogue, & Seldom) to their 2001 full length release The Faithful Anchor(engineered by Dan Burton/Early Day Miners), the band strived to create side door studies into the pictures behind sound, while opening multiple avenues in the creation of reflective, legitimate, sometimes instrumental music. In 2002, these studies also produced two short film soundtracks for independent film maker Chris Bennett - Stateless (a musical collaboration with Early Day Miners), and For Jonathan, a multi-genre compilation featuring artists as varied as The Album Leaf and Mikael Jorgensen to Jessica Bailiff and Her Space Holiday. In 2003, the shape of Unwed Sailor changed dramatically as the sound became less a standard suite of instrumental rock songs, developing instead into a full scale storybook tale presented through classical baroque and nursery rhyme melodies, overlayed with organic/toy like percussion. The resulting album was recorded and released as The Marionette and the Music Box; music set to tell the painted "story-book" story of a lonely little marionette in search of a cherished, lost music box. With this change in musical direction, Unwed Sailor composed pieces just as suited for concert halls as they were the hot, impassioned stages of dark night clubs. In 2006 the band introduced two brand new recordings with Dan Burton(Early Day Miners) once again behind the soundboard, the ambient/Eno-esque EP "Circles", and the atmospheric and brooding full length "The White Ox". These two releases ushered Unwed Sailor's sound into a dark, minimalistic world of Native American imagery, and soothing meditative moods. These releases were supported by national tours with Me Without You, Murder By Death, and The Appleseed Cast, as well as an extensive 5 week tour throughout Europe. In 2008, Unwed Sailor combined its instrumental rock roots, with the experimental/ambient sounds from its recent previous releases to create Little Wars. Little Wars features energetic and highly melodic instrumental rock songs, gently colored with layered synth keyboards and percussion. The album moves along steadily with danceable rhythms, melodic distortion, and delicate ambience. Little Wars is truly a unique, progressive, and challenging, addition to instrumental music. In the 2 years since the release of Little Wars, Unwed Sailor has toured consistently throughout Europe and the U.S. promoting the release. In 2010 the band will record their follow up to Little Wars, and continue their touring schedule in both Europe and the U.S. |
 Common Loon (Champaign, IL) - "If you didn't make it to the Empty Bottle last Sunday night to see Common Loon perform, you and the rest of Chicago missed out. Recently, there's been a lot of talk about this Champaign-based indie duo - they were featured as one of Metromix's Local Bands That You Should Know and are releasing their first full-length album, The Long Dream of Birds, in February 2010....
[Common Loon] mellowed out the crowd with hypnotic harmonies that have both a Midwest indie feel and a hint of easygoing West Coast surf-pop. Guitarist/vocalist Robert Hirschfeld played dreamy, yet distortion-free riffs, and drummer/vocalist Matt Campbell served up eccentric, pedal-heavy drum beats, while backing tracks provided the warm drone of a synth. They debuted some songs from their upcoming album, such as "Everybody Knows," a cheesy number that had the crowd slow dancing under the romantic lights of a disco ball. But the highlight of their set was, strangely, a cover of Madonna's "Material Girl." Aside from being a fairly dead-on rendition, they played it with more passion and gusto than any of their own songs. In all, they gave a satisfying performance, but their sound lacked the dense complexity of their recorded work, a forgivable flaw considering that the studio allows them to add more layers to a track than any two-man band can possibly perform live. If you haven't experienced their music yet, listen to Dinosaur vs. Early Man and you'll know just what we're talking about." --Chicagoist |
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Last Update Tuesday 16 March, 2010