News
After a comeback tour in 2008, Polvo has fully reunited for a full-length, In Prism, which is coming on September 8th. New track is deeeeee-licious. Whereas I found them a bit dull and lacking in spirit and energy for their ATP show, I can only say the opposite for this track.
Oh, and no recent updates.. true dat. I’ll be back with loads of goodies as soon as vacation kicks in.
Just like last year Pinnacle Magazine paid a visit to Paris for the Villette Sonique festival. Unfortunately we have less interviews, but a whole lot of more live footage! Of whom you may ask? Well, the Jesus Lizard, Lightning Bolt, Deerhoof, Duchess Says, Sunn o))), Extra Life and incredible footage of Monotonix.
We also have established some contacts over there with other filmers, photographers and so on. It’s going to take some time to process and publish the material, but it will be online.
What can you expect? Live footage of Jesus Lizard from the moshpit (the singer basically jumped on us), the same for Monotonix (the singer actually did jump on us), interviews with Duchess Says and Lightning Bolt and much more.
So stay tuned!
This is what I’ve recently listened to from U.S. and found interesting.
The Reptilian
Released in March by Count Your Lucky Stars, The Reptilian gave a big boost to my hopes for finding good new music on emusic (also avail. on Itunes). Playing math in the style of Native and Antlers, it’s full of creative guitar-work and catchy rhythms, that set a cheerful mood.. together with concise titles such as “I’ll Ram My Ovipositor Down Your Throat and Lay My Eggs In Your Chest But I’m Not An Alien”.
Imperial China
I was late finding out about Aucan, and now I can say the same about Imperial China from DC. Method EP was released last year. At times it’s pumping and minimalistic like Battles and Aucan, but Imperial China can play with a heavier attitude than Battles and lighter, more organic sound than Aucan. Get the EP now, and we won’t wait long for the full-length:
We’ve just finished recording a full length album and will be mixing it over the next few weeks. As with the EP, Devin Ocampo is doing a splendid job of making us sound great. We hope to get a label squared away soon and get the album on the streets this fall.
You.may.die.in.the.desert
My initial reaction was that I didn’t need more post-rock at the moment, but this goes beyond post-rock with lots of interesting sounds and less focus on buildups and atmosphere. Bears In The Yukon (2008) is easy to get your hands on immediately on emusic and released on CD. Give it a listen. And they have another one coming up..
Little Kingdoms
Quiet, but full of melodic structure: Little Kingdoms from Pennsylvania deserves attention, because they have a unique style, playing something that could be much louder, adding acoustic guitar and chilling electronics. Their full Willow EP can be downloaded from their myspace.
Castevet
Released a brilliant demo preview of their full length, I Know What A Lion is, which is free btw. Melodic and easy to like with lengthy, intelligent tracks that moves the style back and forth between emo (largely due to the singer) and instrumental, melodic math.
Noumenon
Soon to release a split and playing at Chicago friends Castevet’s release party. Two yummy tracks on myspace.
On April 10th My Heart To Joy will be releasing “Seasons in Verse” LP. The style is very 90s, with similarities in most genres. I highly recommend checking it out.
The Littlest Viking released a debut loaded with happy instrumental math.. beautiful melodic work, I kid you not: This is a true winner! Close to Fago.Sepia, Sleeping People, Antartica, Souvaris, Sincabeza etc..
And finally! Enemies from Ireland put up a new song on myspace and are releasing a 7″ on The Richter Collective. Their debut EP from last year was amazing, kind of like everything else on this label. So let’s just go over, what they have for us soon:
- Enemies – Untitled Vinyl (April 2009)
- Ebu Gogo – “Worlds” (April 2009)
- Bats – Untitled Album (2009) (editors note: WUHUUUU!!!!)
- Kidd Blunt – “The Flood” (2009)
- The continuous battle of Order – Untitled Album (2009)
Some bands you can check out for your previewing pleasure. They’re in the category of math, and I thought they deserved some attention that I can’t currently give them by reviewing.
- The Bronzed Chorus (US) – New release on Hello Sir, sounds amazing. – myspace – hello sir
- Argument (FR) – Second album ‘Schweiss’ Out now on Kythibong. Hell yeah. Fits nicely with Fordamage, Komandant Cobra, 31 Knots and Room 204. – MP3 I – MP3 II – myspace
- Tall Ships (UK) – currently recording EP, a promising mathy post-rock mix.. FMTM, Maserati etc. – myspace – Big Scary Monsters Podcast feat. Tall Ships’ new demo
- Three Trapped Tigers (UK) – EP is available for five quid or on Emusic. Fantastic mix of Electro and Math, kinda like Aucan – myspace
- Obstacles (DK) – I know for a fact that these guys play amazing live shows. – last.fm with every song from EP listenable
- Monument (US) – Think Algernon Cadwallader, American Football etc. New 7″ out – myspace +2 tasty free demo releases
- Antarctic (US) – Brilliant new Florida instrumental mathy sound of genius currently recording – myspace
- Zona Mexicana (US) – myspace
- Modrec (GR) – myspace
- Los Webelos (US) – myspace
- DÃa Dora Vida (US) – myspace
- Pneu (FR) – myspace
- Alright, first of all That Fucking Tank from Leeds released 2 new tracks from upcoming Tanknology. Everything this band did is sold out for good reasons, so it’s about time they manufactured a new product. I’d already post a review of how great this album is, but I haven’t listened to it.
- Pass Montagne is releasing a bunch of savage math-rock tracks on Africantape in April. Two of them already up on the French band’s on myspace page.
- Also Africantape related… Three Second Kiss from Italy, they released some good stuff and are now touring the U.S. with Shellac and Bear Claw (who btw. are writing new songs). That should be about the highest thing achievable in this genre.
- The defunct Silkworm, that has found new life in Bottomless Pit, is not forgotten and never will be forgotten. There even seems to be a consensus that Silkworm is a band with so much musical depth, that they will outlive their contemporaries and find even greater popularity in the future. And that’s why there’s a documentary coming out called “Couldn’t You Wait? The Story of Silkworm”. The movie has been under way for 3 long years now, and is in post-production. It features tons of interviews with band members and all the great people surrounding it: Steve Albini, Jeff Tweedy, Greg Anderson and Stephen Malkmus just to name a few. The director, Seth Pomeroy, writes on his blog that we can expect it within a few months.
- New Alarma Man songs have been posted on myspace. Big cheers – great tracks!! Still no news of the release date, though.
- The Andalusians, founded by former Del Cielo member Basla Andolsun, released single Do The Work on Dischord.
- Antarctic is a jazz inspired math-rock outfit from Florida formed in 2006, releasing a really well-made demo in 2007. It’s full of guitar melody, rhythmic patterns etc., but overall the compositions feel more intuitive than experimental, which is what caught me. So, imagine something like Antlers and Native, but with more traditional power. There’s a really good reason to be excited about their full-length debut coming up on Hello Sir in spring (hey, that’s soon!!). Here’s what they leaked to this hungry, savage blog reporter:
Our music has definitely changed since our last release. We have had a lot of member changes and have found a lot of new inspirations. Our music really changes styles from song to song.. but I don’t think we would have it any other way.
We’re putting out a new album in the Spring with Hello Sir Records. Full length baby. We’re re-releasing our older stuff because we’ve made a lot of changes. We have some newer songs as well : )
We’ve definitely put alot more time into the music for this album. We’re all really excited for it to be released.
- French jazz/post-rock outfit Fago.Sepia are following up 2006’s brilliant “L’âme sûre ruse mal” with a new record said to be out soon on label aposiopèse. This February they’re touring with Pennies, unsigned British band sounding much like American Football.
- A new detail has been revealed of the Tortoise album: It’s still untitled, the songs are still untitled, but yet they managed to promise us: April 21.
- Temporary Residence has released the new Maserati/Zombi split, and it’s pretty damn okay. A 7″ split by Bonnie Prince Billy and (you guessed it!) Young Widows is ready for pre-order, and Mono has done their first ever official video.
- And now the big news: The new From Monument To Masses is set to be released on Golden Antenna: 13th March. The title is “On little known frequencies”, and there will be 500 copies on 2xLP. Maybe it’s a good idea to pre-order. And here’s the cover art btw.
- Former members of Black Eyes have formed Mi Ami, who’ve released a remix EP on Touch and Go and will have their full-length out February 17th. Definitely something for fans of Black Eyes.
Update: Golden Antenna posted a new track for FMTM, and we now know that Dim Mak will be releasing the CD world-wide, and Golden Antenna will have the limited 2xLP for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
A while ago we interviewed Daniel of the UK band Father of Boon. We asked about the future of the band, and Daniel, the band’s guitarist replied: “We’ve been going for a long time now, so we’ll see… haha”. And we have seen, ’cause they broke up. But hey, we have the interview, we might as well post it. About the band, combining being in a touring band with a normal life, Fugazi, and much more..
We did a bid of clicking around to see what to look ahead for in 2009:
- Tortoise is releasing a new album! Title and date is still TBA.
- Maserati has a new split coming up in February with Zombi. Track preview on myspace sounds amazing… Holy Fuck meets From Monument To Masses or something. 30 minutes long and available in 1000 copies on Temporary Residence.
- Jesus Lizard reunites and joins ATP vs. The Fans. At approximately the same time as the festival, Touch & Go will re-release Head, Goat, Liar, and Down.
- The Redneck Manifesto should be in the studio around these days, previously saying that they’re very excited about what they’ve written.. so am I… before even hearing it.
- Belgian band Frank Shinobi is working on a self-released album for late 2009. 3 tracks from their previous live set will be included and supposedly 7 new.
- Another Belgian band, Hitch, pretty experienced guys, are releasing Clair Obscur on January 26th and posted 3 new tracks.
- Quatre Tete are releasing Art of The State on Sickroom on January 13th.
- Fordamage are releasing in March and subsequently touring UK, NL, BE and FR.
- Future of the Left – Last Night I Saved Her From Vampires is out on January 26.
- Robotic Empire’s Gods & Queens are touring Europe extensively and will probably be in a town near you. They namedropped some of my personal favorites (Rodan, June of 44, Unwound, Lungfish) so I’m definitely checking them out ASAP.
- The new Mono is coming out on March 24
- Austrian instrumental outfit Valina has been signed by Joyful Noise and will release a-tempo in spring. Btw. pickup their 2009 free sampler.
- Alarma Man is waiting for the mastering of their album to be called “Love Forever”. Guitarist Calle Fredrikson gave us some words on it, being a bit disappointed that masterings seem to take forever these days.
The new album sounds, like the way it was created, loose. Comparing to the previous it’s soft. It is easy to follow along in the songs and you will not get lost in it if you don’t want to. Bass and drums is easy. Guitars is a bit more sofisticated but still not hard to get. Vocals are nice, clean and not irritating at all. The lyrics are deep, I guess. I should probably mention that those comments about how the record sound will only make sense to people familiar with our previous work, others will find them overexaggerated.
First time I heard the record, all of it, I got a very strong feeling for it. It sounded very dark. I felt proud and a bit sad at the same time. I was very exited about it for weeks. After that, I decided to not listen to it before the master is cut.
Earlier the long-forgotten year of 2008 they posted a preview of what’s to come.
