It seemed like a good time to drop this Commercial for the periodical Humo with Smith & Jones. I can't say I disagree...
4/10It May Never End is the one-man project of a former DJ/Producer with an interest for dance and club music. After his adventures on the UK scene, he was struck by the post-rock genre - realizing the startling potential of this niche. An old love for the guitar was rekindled, and Such is Life is the result of that new found creative outlet.
The seven-track debut is obviously inspired by the usual suspects - This Will Destroy Mono in the Sky would be a band name suggestion that captures It May Never End's sonic pallette perfectly. With a plethora of similar bands aiming for their place in the spotlight of this crowded, global scene, the criteria for success come down to the finer details of the release. The performance, production, originality and creativity - even packaging - all make an album stand out from the pack. All of the pieces need to fit perfectly before an album or band can rise up to the level of greatness where it can be worthy of a score that leads the curve rather than following it.
It May Never End's debut material tells us that most of the basics are covered; the combination of the downright ambient with post-rock structures and climaxes is well spread over the album. There is a notable potential in the music as such, but the manner in which it is presented is one that recalls a recording in a rehearsal room with one microphone and a tapedeck. This can have a certain charm or romantic flair to it, but for a full length album, it doesn't work.
This is where the album offers plenty of room for improvement. As if somehow the mid-range sonic spectrum wasn't fully present on the release, most of the aural space is made up out of low and high frequencies. As a result, most of the bass and deeper background form a mismatched whole with the abundance of high range of frequencies. The middle range, and thus most of the guitar and rhythm, is lost in the poor mastering.
It's a shame that this artist doesn't get the chance to offer the complete picture of his music on this album. Most of the post-rock touch gets lost through the absence of it's frequencies, but when the ambient work takes center stage, the mixing issues tend to fade away. This can only spark a hope that IMNE's next effort will address this concern and push itself to the other side of the scoring curve. Who knows, perhaps the skill formed by working in electronica can make this project a leader in its niche. If you're the kind of person that likes the promise of what could be (in the form of a free download!), this is one to spend your bandwith on.
written for and published by The Silent Ballet
It May Never End Myspace
download Such Is Life
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AUS,
free music,
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2 months to the new Russian Circles album Geneva. Which means it's time to get excited, mark it in your agenda and what else not.
The genre-bending instrumental trio known as Russian Circles will be releasing their third album, Geneva, on October 20th through Suicide Squeeze. Produced by Brandon Curtis of the Secret Machines, Geneva promises a slew of hypnotic shred epics, the tracklist for which is below. Catch them live this summer on July 18th at Dudefest in Indianapolis, IN, and keep a look out for more supporting tour dates.TheTripWire
1. Fathom
2. Geneva
3. Melee
4. Hexed All
5. Malko
6. When the Mountain Comes to Muhammad
7. Philos
src
As surprising of a listen it initially is, as it turns weird and creepy towards the middle. Some nice hidden gems and great closing for not just your average mixtape.
"11 songs to drown to" - a múm mixtape by seaninsound
I usually make mixtapes to go running or if I am driving somewhere or if I want people to dance, but none of this sounds really romantic enough for a feature such as this. So I am going all in. A tape for those who are about to drown, is quite dramatic and will suit this occasion fine.
Elvis Presley - Blue Moon - Without a hope in my heart, without a love of my own. Along with Wicked Game, this was the single most inspiring song for our new album. I once played it 19 times straight in a row.
Slowblow - Brothers in arms - The most beautiful cover of Dire Straits you will ever find. It's as slow as a tape recorder made out of lava
S & E - Les Fleurs Sont Des Bonnes Auditrices - Looped ghosts voices from Finland.
múm - the Last shapes of never - I have no choice to put this song on the mix tape, since it is pretty much about drowning in a lake.
Johnny Poo - Tunglið (and reversed) This icelandic child-star/prodigy decided to release this song backwards for some reason. This is the song I use for my alarm clock so I wake up to it every morning. But since it is backwards, I decided to have it twice on the mixtape once backwards and once forwards. It's eery both ways. The title means "the Moon."
Lost in Hildurness - Aether - A beautiful track of our very own Hildurs, or Lost in Hildurness' solo album called Without Sinking. Intense beautiness and her father is even playing clarinet on this track.
Moondog - All is Loneliness - The loneliest song of all time, it's like suddenly going blind and deaf.
Yma Sumac - Magenta Mountain - A majestic vocal landscape-drama by the peruvian princess.
Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange - Dreams part 4: Sea - This mixtape is has already been going quite creepy on top of being dramatic, so why not go all the way. Delia Derbyshare scored this collage of people describing their dreams of the sea and being underwater, collected and put together by Barry Bermage for the BBC in 1964. What raises my hairs is that for some reason most of these dreams seem to be about drowning.
Perry Como - Sunrise Sunset - Why not? Perry Como?
Suicide - Dream baby dream - Well, this is probably the best ending song for any mixtape and will hopefully be the last song I will ever hear.
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Brothers in arms,
Elvis Presley,
free music,
Hildurness,
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Slowblow,
Suicide,
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Cypress Hill keeping it real.
Slideshow off all the pics
Cypress Hill Myspace
Arsenal Myspace
Lokerse Feesten homepage
This should be good to send a few of them '90s crossover-metal shivers down your spine. Shame off the LQ video, but anyone familiar with Senser knows this is going to be ranking highly in his or her's end of the year top-list.
Senser are back with a new album 'How To Do Battle', due for release on October 19 through Imprint Music.
The album will be preceded by a single, entitled 'Resistance Now', due for release on September 14.
The sextet (fronted by co-vocalists Heitham Al-Sayed and Kerstin Haigh) have been a force in music since their 1995 album 'Stacked Up' became a platinum selling album. The new album was produced by Neil McLellan (The Prodigy), Jason Wilcock (The Ghost Of A Thousand, Reuben) and
New York hip hop producer Scott Harding (Wu Tang Clan, New Kingdom).
Rock Sound is proud to present the new video for single 'Resistance Now', check it out below:
rocksoundTV
Senser website
Senser Myspace
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crossover,
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3.5/10Dear Baliset,
In all honesty, from the most boring to the most laughable albums I have reviewed at The Silent Ballet, I've never struggled so hard to get through a CD as I did with A Time For Rust. It took me a long time just to push myself to listen to the entire album in one sitting, an action an ordinary listener would not do if she wasn't into the particular sound or genre you've created on this album. Even though I had to succumb to my prejudice of my brief initial listens, I knew from the start that there was something to this album that would make the effort worthwhile, even if it were only to better myself as critical listener. Eventually I got through it once, and in the days to come I made the effort to listen attentively to your album - in different places, using different devices, even considering my own state of mind at the time and its impact on the listening session.
What I first noticed was that there were often shifts in the form of the music; at the base is undoubtedly an avant prog-rock structure - something I can appreciate - but in combination with the slabs of folk-like power ballads and ambient as imposing as something pseudo-kraut or psychedelic, it made my skin crawl. The problem with dropping in touches of folk into progressive rock with flares of ambient is that you can only do this every so often, since most tracks that fall from the one into the other without any justification are very hard to digest. This is the threshold that few people are likely to step over, unless the listener is one of the happy few that totally fall for this sub-genre. If there would be some sort of audible gradient stretching between the contrasting passages, it might have worked, but it's all very abrupt and irrational for the common listener. I already hear you thinking "What is he on about? Plenty of bands' trademark is to combine genres." That's very true; the critically-acclaimed Silencio is one of the best examples in that field, but they pull this off because their music actually lends itself towards genre juggling rather than forcing itself to do so.
It is obvious that Baliset's main band members - covering the guitar, bass and drums - are talented musicians and have the experience to master their instrument and it's sound to it's fullest, a gift that should be treasured and mined when writing the music. By cutting out the extraneous ambient and drone interludes, you can get to the essence of your skill and let that seed grow into a coherent album. I'm not pleading for an album that is one guitar solo after yet another power-riffed chorus, but A Time Of Rust is filled with intermezzos of mellotrons, awkwardly-panned drone and spaced-out pieces that just do not help your album flow in a consistent manner. In that regard, there's also no reason in the iPod era for a so-called hidden track, especially after a few minutes of (once again) drone boredom - but at least it was panned to the middle this time.
What weakens the almost enjoyable progressive rock is the vocal element of the album; I must admit that I'm not a big fan of vocals as such, but the sounds of the male and female vocals just don't work together with the rest of the production for 90% of the listening span. Again, this is not a matter of skill. It's partially a matter of the lyrics: there are some pieces that have a nice ring to it but most of them don't make any sense, even taking a huge amount of poetic freedom in account. A band that has taken it's name from a fictional instrument in Frank Herbert's Dune science fiction novel series - a writer and work that is regarded as the best in it's genre - does not do any justice to it's name by failing to deliver enticing lyrics.
There is also the matter of knowing when and how to use vocals, and what their place is in the music. Most of the time they tend to follow the leading aspect of the instrumentation (mostly being the guitar), but this demeans the power of that instrument rather than supporting or strengthening it. It's also apparent that the female vocalist is forcing herself to sound like she is instructed rather than exploring her capabilities to find something that would be an add value to the release. If she should stick to more mellow music or, if she does have interest in the harder music, she should have a listen to what Kerstin Haigh of Senser achieves with her (perhaps limited, but always confident) vocals, she'll be more at ease and comfortable with what she's contributing. I could almost as easily apply this theory to the male vocals. There is no grunt; no fire coming from the belly that sturs the listener's inner being and isn't the vocalist the foremost part of a band where the audience relates to?
All of these aspects made me suspect that there has been put way too much time in crafting (or over-producing, if you will) this album. It has taken over five years by your own source, giving you time to doubt, revise and revise over again until most of the natural flow had disappeared. I also couldn't help but notice that the album was inspired (and I choose this word carefully) by notable bands in the broad prog scene. I'd even take on the challenge - if I had a day or two to spare - to dig into my own music library and collect bits and pieces from tracks to build the blueprint of A Time For Rust; I have heard most of it before by the hand of other bands. Don't get me wrong, being inspired by other artists is a good thing, but there's is only so far you can go in mimicking before it starts to sound like a collage of 'that sounds great, we should do that' and 'things people are going to like'. In any case, the timespan for the album's gestation has been too long, as having your attention spread over other projects, pulling in a handful of guest musicians, and not being able to go fully for the release as a homogeneous band has put its stamp on the album. Sadly enough, not in a positive manner.
Promo-video for Baliset - A Time For Rust.
src
written for and published by The Silent Ballet
Baliset website
Baliset Myspace
So tonight I decided I was really sick of the typographical eye-sores and massive whiteness of the blog layout. Threw it in a new tweaked template and added some header links for an easy reference. Will be filling up the side columns with shizzle of interest later, along with resizing all images/videos. Layout is designed for a 1024px wide screen (most common standard I guess?).
Anyway, it's been out here for some time, and rather little used. This make-over might just keep this thing rolling and stocked with pretty much anything that interests me.
peace
Anyway, it's been out here for some time, and rather little used. This make-over might just keep this thing rolling and stocked with pretty much anything that interests me.
peace
Returning a favor to Tomas Halberstad for sending me his album The Anger illustrated with 1/6 of a painting. Each country to mail him for it get's one copy, each containing a piece of a painting. The album itself was a breezy piece of energy pumping electronica and vocals that make for a solid combination that went perfect with the heat these days. It grabbed me and got me moving again.
Get it here if you're country isn't claimed yet.
TomasHalberstad.com/
Thanks to Ralph for taking the actual photo after I had set-up the shot.
Sleep Whale - Little Brite
A twenty-six minute electro-acoustic soundtrack to a summers-day is what this Texas outfit offers on their six track EP. Imagine laying on your back in a park, drifting away on the tones of a skilled fingerstyle guitarplayer sitting on a bench improvising on the downtempo electronica from some kid down the street checking out the latest hip Japanese cupboard idm. Add the organic flow of waves caressing - and subtly refracting - a production floating on warm strings and you end up with half an hour of breezy summer bliss. A successful exercise in a genre labeled as electro-acoustic from a band we hope to hear more from in the future.myspace.com/sleepwhale
MGR (Mustard Gas and Roses) - Wavering on the Cresting Heft.
I love MGR; it's slow, it's dark, it's beautiful sadness on vinyl I want to be devoured by at massive volumes...The sleeve note describes it rather well:
MGR is an emotionally charged amalgamation of sounds that, much to it's credit, refuses to fit neatly into any particular category. MGR's effectiveness stems from how fluidly Mark Gallagher - of renowned dirge architects Isis - is able to gradually add texture upon texture, building up the intensity of the tracks until they reach a tragic momentum. Imagine Isis with much of the bombast stripped away, leaving only dark, moody and melancholic soundscapes...
myspace.com/mgrsounds
Isis - Wavering Radiant
Read up on my findings of Wavering Radiant here. Both the Isis & MGR albums are released by Conspiracy Records with much love and eye for detail, as always. There even is a print on the inside of the gatefold sleeve... wow.
ConspiracyRecords.com
myspace.com/isis
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Conspiracy Records,
electro-acoustic,
fingerstyle,
Isis,
melancholy,
MGR,
music,
post metal,
post something,
Sleep Whale,
US,
vinyl,
Western Vinyl
My Romanian (if the background-info I found is in fact Romanian) is a bit rusty so there is not much background info I can give about this, just sit back and enjoy this beautiful yet slightly disturbing short. (get the 16:9 HQ version here)
Possibly even more intense than in the skate vert competition, the skateboard park comp was pushing the skaters to perform their sickest lines in 30 second runs, leaving no margin for bails, making it even harder on the fast-pased semi-concrete set-up. Keep an eye of for the McTwist and Rune Glifberg's über clean style, seeing this guy skate makes you want to get up on that deck yourself. Considering it was his 15th participation and only 2nd (and consecutive) gold medal, you can only imagine how fierce the competition was in the last years.
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Andy MacDonald,
Omar Hassan,
Rune Glifberg,
skateboarding,
Tony Trujillo,
US,
video,
xGames,
xGames 15
DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, and DJ Numark performing live on Akai MPC samplers... 'nough said.
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DJ NuMark,
dj sets,
DJ Shadow,
music,
sampling,
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US,
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One of my first vinyl purchases back in the day included the 12" single of Photek's Modus Operandi, one heck of a killer record that marked a time in the drum'n'bass scene. For me, the mid and late '90s where the best in the scene, dark introspectives of minimal yet powerful experiments in drum'n'bass breaks - soaking in intelligent ambient and soundscapes. A sound that defined the pre-2K madness where we wondered through our adolescence, trying to feed our craving for something new - now the grunge had died and post-rock was,'t even a genre yet.
Underground parties in basements of bars where only the local old folk hung by night, getting beer in the night-shop around the corner because stock was limited, trading obscure mixtapes we got of our shitty tapedecks... it had a romantic appeal to it that got lost in the abundance of todays digital offers.
Great was my joy when @ninjamixdump dropped a 2h mix-session of Photek, recorded in 1997 for the BBC's Radio 1 Essential Mix series. The first hour contains a bulk-load of classics from that time and then drops back to Goldie's epic lengthed 'Mother' topped of with some of Photek's close to flawless mix-in's.
This comes highly recommended!
Download Photek 1997 Essential Mix
Photek Myspace
Photek Productions website
Ninjamixdump @ Twitter
Ninjamixdump @ Tumblr
Title track of the Photek album Modus Operandi
Underground parties in basements of bars where only the local old folk hung by night, getting beer in the night-shop around the corner because stock was limited, trading obscure mixtapes we got of our shitty tapedecks... it had a romantic appeal to it that got lost in the abundance of todays digital offers.
Great was my joy when @ninjamixdump dropped a 2h mix-session of Photek, recorded in 1997 for the BBC's Radio 1 Essential Mix series. The first hour contains a bulk-load of classics from that time and then drops back to Goldie's epic lengthed 'Mother' topped of with some of Photek's close to flawless mix-in's.
This comes highly recommended!
Download Photek 1997 Essential Mix
Photek Myspace
Photek Productions website
Ninjamixdump @ Twitter
Ninjamixdump @ Tumblr
Title track of the Photek album Modus Operandi
Last weekend it was time for the 15th X-Games, I haven't been following up on this event for a few years and was amazed by the consistency of some 'older' skaters and the progression of what some of the new kids in the park were bringing. This is what went down in the vert...
X Games 15 homepage
X Games 15 homepage
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Adam Taylor,
Alex Perelson,
Andy MacDonald,
Bob Burnquist,
Bucky Lasek,
Danny Mayer,
Pierre-Luc Gagnon,
Rob Lorifice,
Rune Glifberg,
Sandro Dias,
skateboarding,
US,
video,
xGames,
xGames 15
As confronting his work was to copy or mimic during my studies (by pen or mouse), the more of an inspiration Paul van Ostaijen's work became later on.
Paul Van Ostaijen @ wiki [ENG] & wiki [NLD]
Paul Van Ostaijen @ wiki [ENG] & wiki [NLD]
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