posted by Nick on January 27, 2012
Admittedly, Attack on Memory, the third major release by Cloud Nothings, the Cleveland outfit born from the lo-fi basement mixtapes of Dylan Baldi that straddles the fault line between garage punk and noise rock, putting the city on indie rock’s radar, caught me by surprise. I’d greedily devoured Turning On and Cloud Nothings over the last year that I settled into a music coma.
Attack on Memory draws the curtain back slowly with “No Future/No Past,” as Baldi copes with an aching, Doomsday manifesto that lures you to the next track, because, wait, there’s no way this is Cloud Nothings. It’s uncharacteristic of the band’s previous opening tracks, as well as the rest of the album. At eight tracks and about a half hour, it’s a Wolf Pack of a work that bursts into the second cut, “Wasted Days,” a nearly nine-minute ballad that’s familiar, fist-pumping Cloud Nothings, laden with exultant, Mike McCreadian riffs and Baldi’s roar before curiously losing itself in a mess of drum fills and distortion. It’s longer than any of the band’s prior songs (after a cursory look at my iTunes).
You’ll find a Cloud Nothings that’s making the most of graduating from the basement to the recording studio on “Fall In,” which sheds the lo-fi fuzz and embraces fast, shredding guitar. Much like Turning On’s “Can’t Stay Awake,” Baldi’s petulant, pleading fit, “Stay Useless,” reveals perhaps he’s unsure what trajectory his band, his tempo, his everything is taking: “I need time to stay useless / I need time to start moving.”
Keep up with the all-instrumental “Separation” with its erratic, Thunderbirds Are Now!-like lane-shifting amid Ween-esque waltzing bridges and solos, before taking a dark, slow turn on “No Sentiment,” a ruthless asterisk to the album’s title. “Our Plans” is more forgiving but shivers equally with snare drums and uncertainty: “No one knows our plans for us / We won’t last long.” The last track, “Cut You,” fades out, leaving behind everything but reassurance.
If you’re hungry for the perennial glut of music that drops before summer, endowing you with songs to index moments of the year to remember upon later listens, Memory’s friction and fears will give you the fix you won’t forget.
Cloud Nothings – Fall In (Downloaded 288 times)
Cloud Nothings – Our Plan (Downloaded 255 times)
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» Meaningless labels: Big Sound • Driven • Male vocal • Post-Punk
(7 votes)
Loading ...posted by Patrick on December 4, 2011
“Austra is an island on the border between Nord-Trøndelag and Nordland counties in Norway. The 88-square-kilometre (34 sq mi) island is shared between the municipalities of Bindal, Leka and Nærøy. The highest point is the 588-metre (1,929 ft) tall Romsskåla.” (Wikipedia)
Austra is also a band. Hailing from the equally cold, if somewhat more cosmopolitan, Toronto, Canada, Austra has perfected a sound defined by contradictions: remote but intimate, clinical but warm. That’s due in large part to the offsetting influences of lead singer Katie Stelmanis, a classically trained opera singer, and the band’s chilly, dance-inspired electronic backing. Stelmanis’ voice soars and lingers, while the music pushes forward with a driving beat. It’s an unlikely combination, but when it works, as on ‘Lose It,’ the results are stunning. And when Stelmanis performs ‘Lose It’ with only a piano and her voice, as in the video below, the song is completely transformed, and even more compelling. As a beat addict, I prefer the electronic version, but I can’t deny the video’s power. Perhaps Paper Bag Records can release them both?
In some ways, Austra reminds me of Phantogram. Austra’s lead singer has a wider vocal range, and is less reliant on effects and reverb, but both combine heavy beats with dramatic vocals to create a cinematic sound and feel. If you like one, try the other and let us know how they compare.
Austra – Lose It (Downloaded 283 times)
Austra – The Choke (Downloaded 283 times)
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» Meaningless labels: Amazing Voice • Driven • Electro • Female vocal • Orchestral • Synth • With Bleeps & Blips
(15 votes) Loading ...posted by Leigh on September 21, 2011
We only had to wait four years for Hysterical. Upon the first few listens, I wasn’t immediately drawn into the album like I was with the self-titled debut or Some Loud Thunder. For me, there was no immediately unforgettable refrain like “Satan Said Dance,” no stream of consciousness rambling instantly adhering to your psyche as in “Is This Love?” But, after about the fourth or fifth play of Hysterical, something grander steps out of the shadows, a slower compatibility and connection emerges and you see the forest, made up of all those individual trees, for the first time. I was irreversibly bonded with the music, with the lyrics, with the forest, in a way that was quite different from before.
Brooklyn’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah has been with me since the beginning, forming part of the soundtrack of my life for the last six years. Not having seen them live since probably soon after 2007’s Some Loud Thunder, I was ecstatic to be able to hear them again at the Bowery Ballroom show in New York just last night, fresh off the release of Hysterical. They played the perfect mix of old and new, and didn’t just reproduce the songs as they were recorded, but, rather, made each song a novel auditory experience for the listener, while never losing the comfortability of a favorite sweater.
It was difficult to decide which tracks from Hysterical to share below. “Siesta (For Snake)” and “Maniac” show off the fast and the slow, while both making it impossible to overlook the beauty and effect of Alec Ounsworth’s vocals, the given lyrical ingenuity and the unfaltering and driven musicianship. Try the whole album out for size. Let it grow on you like moss, and look down from time to time to appreciate the beauty of this soft green plant that is now a part of you forever.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Siesta (Downloaded 369 times)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Maniac (Downloaded 291 times)
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» Meaningless labels: Amazing Voice • Beautiful Lyrics • Clever Lyrics • Driven • Male vocal • Psychedelic
(12 votes) Loading ...http://unumusic.bandcamp.com/track/sevilla
If you like them, you’d like this guy!
posted by Jessica on August 21, 2011
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at Lollapalooza 2011. Photo by Jessica Mlinaric.
Post-Lollapalooza: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
On the third straight day of traversing Lollapalooza, after one big storm and before another, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart played. In a set that seemed made for summer Sunday afternoons, the Brooklyn band’s easygoing indie pop performance was as sunny as the bright reflection off the Chicago skyline. Blending new tracks from Belong, released in March, with familiar favorites from their 2009 debut, Pains were a welcome respite of luminous balance in a blissfully hectic weekend. Enjoy the energetic “Heart in Your Heartbreak” in the last weeks of summer because, as the song says, “It never stops when you want it to.”
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Heart in Your Heartbreak (Downloaded 391 times)
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» Meaningless labels: Catchy • Driven • Energetic • Male vocal • Poppy
(16 votes) Loading ...
December 11th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
We had a fun interview with Austra and would like to share it with you guys:
http://nightdrivemiami.com/2011/11/01/austra-interview-ticket-giveaway/