…check out the EP from Tall Ships. The last 3 tracks are totally in the spirit of FMTM. I don’t know where this band is heading, but they have an interesting future. So does soundcloud, which i’ve just joined (this is me).
> It’s here… the EPs hiding right behind this link! Click it!! Seriously, do it!!<
The new Maps & Atlases Perch Patchwork might be considered a debut, but then again… no. I valued each of the two EP releases as any full-length, and the guys have displayed such a lot of activity that “debut” would sound awfully wrong. If you’re into merchandise, the band offers some lucrative deals btw… here’s what they said:
Hey, So we’ve been super busy, and we’re so excited for the perch patchwork release (June 29th in the US) and the accompanying headline tour. We’ve also got a bunch of cool pre-order deals going on. For Insound, if you pre-order the CD or LP then you get a copy of our extremely limited edition Solid Ground singles with two rare b-sides (Living Decorations demo and an Israeli Caves string and vocal mix). And with our merch company we’re doing all kinds of fun pre-order bundles. Check’em out HERE!
I don’t really dig the whole hype-generating, tension-building, merchandise-selling, US-exclusive record-releasing, so I’d like to mention that the album has leaked and sounds super. Like a holiday on Hawaii.
This is the link you should click
Richter Collective has been the label to follow in 2010 (The Redneck Manifesto, Jogging, Worrier). Now a fellow-Irish website is reporting that the new Enemies full-length is streaming in its entirety. After listening to it over and over again, I have no doubts that this is as elegant, balanced, admirable and scrumptious as I would’ve expected from the old EP Alpha Waves (2008)… and a big leap right into the elite of that unnamed genre that everyone would agree exists when they hear the sound. We’ve Been Talking is out on June 11th… I’m ordering mine now.
Noumenon has released a new EP that lives up to it’s title. No pretentiousness, just solid instrumental math played at party pace. The sound is crispy and live-like and is sort of a testimony/monument of many happy nights out at concerts.
Here’s a mention that qualifies for 2009’s best release… i’ve been sitting on it for a little too long, but just the more to ensure that this is a masterpiece durable for long term exposure and health benefits.
Antarctic’s debut was a long process, already anticipated more than a 1½ year ago when their music was only available as 4 demo tracks on myspace… and calling them demo tracks immediately set the bar high.
The album is a continuous flow of creative guitar and bass work and firm, lap-tapping delicious, tricky drumming. It crosses borders of genres just the way we like it, but without ever sounding unnatural or pretentious. It’s a joy to go hunting for details in. For instance how almost every of the 9 tracks flow seamlessly together: I’m sure it’s something that they’ve been working a lot with, so I’ll give them an ad hoc pinnacle delicious sound award® for that.
Antarctic - s/t
Hello Sir, 2009
We vs. Death (NL) just went on a little eurotour. At the end of it I saw them in Berlin. One-word review: Stunning.
They’re a 5-piece playing almost entirely in minor. It’s in the sentimental line of post-rock – but there’s enough musical creativity to engage, and more than anything, it works in a live setting. The lyrics are sparse, the trumpet is eerie, but it’s fitted as a perfect counter-balance to a heavy and dense foundation.
We vs. Death - A Black House, A Coloured Home
Beep! Beep!, 2009
Thanks for all the lovely music, amazing shows, and your unique passion! FMTM has been quite a chapter in music history — what they’ve created is something that will continue to inspire and give energy long from now, just as their first album (2002) hasn’t aged.
It’s with a wide array of emotions that I must announce the end of the band From Monument To Masses. FMTM is not organized or cohesive enough at this time to issue a unified or consensual statement, so I’m speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the other band members or affiliated labels. After almost a decade of making music and working hard to bring that music to you, we’re out of time. It has been educational to say the least. Our final tour will be Parabolicatune, a three-city tour of Japan at the end of April, 2010, and sergio robledo-maderazo will not be playing with FMTM on that tour. He ended his involvement with FMTM several months ago. After the Japan tour, it is possible that we will play a farewell show or two this Summer on our home fields of New York City and the Bay Area, California. That will be all.
There is too much to say here about our experience. We’ll be blogging about it later, I’m sure. Suffice it to say, that I’m incredibly grateful for my time spent with FMTM and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. From the responses we heard in talking to people about our music, I’m convinced that the music worked; it did it’s job. It reached people on a different level than most music… and that’s exactly why I committed myself to the band in the first place. I’m most sincerely grateful for every single person who enjoyed FMTM’s music and came to see us play. I loved every minute of it – even the minutes that I hated. FMTM was a very frustrating band, mired in frustrating business relationships, frustrating personal relationships, and frustrating contradictions between what we wanted to be and what we were; where we wanted to go and where we were headed. Given these obstacles, FMTM fell prey to a sort of “band entropy” wherein everything that we tried to control slipped even further out of our control. Eventually, the net losses outweighed the net gains and no one was happy. That’s when you know your band needs to break up, regardless of whether it breaks your heart or not.
It must be stated publicly that I regret any problems caused by our attempt at booking an EU tour in May, 2010. Our long-standing “partnership” with our booking agent went south as he pressured us to work exclusively with him and, once we had, he then proceeded to pawn us off to his incompetent sub-agents. The result was a lot of wasted energy and disappointment for no good reason whatsoever. It wasn’t the first time it had happened either — we had struggled through yanked dates for years, routinely unable to coordinate opportunities with the help and resources necessary to make them happen. The lesson learned here is perhaps to always work with independent booking agents and PR firms who have a genuine interest in seeing your band succeed – and not with corporate hacks whose interest in you only goes as far as the short-term commission your band can earn them, or who do the bare minimum that their retainer requires of them. Conversely, I must also say that Jerkov Booking in France worked very hard for us and confirmed a great set of dates, but since the rest of our EU dates never materialized, we had to cancel that as well…and we regret putting Jerkov in that terrible position. Divorce is hard on the whole family.
There are many people who believed in FMTM and who went above and beyond the call to help us succeed, and who never dangled any false carrots in front of us. Their talents and friendship do not go unappreciated. I will miss working with Kensuke Saito at Catune Records in Tokyo, Japan, Timo Siems at Golden Antenna Records in Braunschweig, DE, Lars Lewerenz at Audiolith Records in Hamburg, DE, Tom Dorsey at Nice Promo in Portland, OR, Jonathan Burkett who not only assisted us with graphic design but also drove us on a US tour, Eric Kuhn of Silian Rail who has filled in on several instruments for us, Matthias Werner at High-Low Agency, Florian Detlefsen at Trapdoor Tourz, all the engineers who helped capture our music; Tim Green, Matt Bayles, Ben Adrian, Tom DiMuzio, and Ed Brooks, among others, Eric Milhouse and everyone at the Glass House in Pasadena, Ramona Downey at Bottom of The Hill, and too many other artists, bands, and community organizers to name here. Members of FMTM will write in more detail about the characters in our history in our journals/blogs.
We don’t know at this point what will become of our albums, although it’s clear that they’ll remain available digitally for a long time to come. Whether Dim Mak will ever repress our out-of-print albums (the first two) is anyone’s guess. FMTM still administrates its own publishing and we will continue to make our music available for that purpose. I imagine the merch store, which is operated by the members of FMTM, will stay open yet for a while and I encourage listeners to use it. Thank you for listening. “Silence is argument carried out by other means.”
Sincerely,
Matthew W. Solberg, guitarist/co-founder of From Monument To Masses.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Out now on African Tape:
And on the Richter Collective:
Dont miss this stuff! It’s gooooooooooooood!
Need a reason to upgrade your hifi? Here’s one. And here’s a video with a different tune… they didn’t give it a title… so let’s call it This Band Is Cool, And Btw. Criminals Can Sometimes Be Victims And It Certainly Helps To Have A Pro Mugshots Stylist. Kerretta (New Zealand) sounds promising, they’re releasing on May 28th on Golden Antenna. I hope they’ll stick to the stuff from the aforementioned mp3, and maybe skip the Raised Fist-like parts.. it’s confusing.
- Room 204, Balloons – out on Kythingbong soon on LP+MP3 and Stiffslack on CD. link
- The Redneck Manifesto, Friendship – out on Richter Collective on March 27th. link1 | link2
UPDATE: New Redneck Manifesto preview track “Smile More” here.
