REVIEW: Le Carousel - s/t

8.25 out of 10

Find it here. 

Le Carousel was a random chance find on the internet for me one day.. (although Phil Kieran actually leads a pretty prolific career I am new to his sound) This was a good day, as Le Carousel's debut s/t album is a pitch perfect Synth-Kraut-Gaze Pop masterpiece, and that was precisely Phil's goal with this release, his "opus" if you will.

From the get-go this album will most likely have you tapping something. The beats are smooth and seductive meets slowed down Disco meets Dub-like bass sounds. The guitar layers are really nice too, somewhat of a Krautrock vibe meets New Order meets (MBV) Shoegaze style. The vocals are pretty impressive too, in a way that they can seduce as well as inspire and move you. Every track on this release has an epic feel to it, the tracks builds from something pretty and mysterious and blossoms into a colorful audible heaven (the kind you don't want to leave). I guarantee there is at least one to three (if not more preferably..) tracks on this release that you will dig, trust me. Get-ta listenin'..

One of this year's best.. it'd be a shame if you missed this boat-Highly Recommend.

Standout Tracks: Good Times, Carousel, Lost Years, Stick Together, Broken, Forget Me Not,

REVIEW: Disappears - Pre Language

6.5 out of 10

Find it here.

Disappears have never shied from embracing their influences. Almost every song of theirs is entangled in a nostalgic web of Krautrock propulsion, Shoegaze haze, Drone-heavy distortion, and dissociative vocals. This is no different on their newest release, 'Pre Language', the first album album of theirs to include Steve Shelley's imaginative drumming.

The effect of the band's marriage with Kranky Records is evident on 'Pre Language'. What made 'Guider' such an intriguing release – its focus on repetition, its cavernous guitar tones, its excellent dynamic control (all things we have grown to love from Kranky) – are only heightened on this album. We've got Krautrock rhythms reminiscent of Battles' 2007 masterpiece 'Mirrored' on songs like “Replicate” and “Joa.” There's the claustrophobic, minimal, and dark Post-Rock riffs of the title track. Even some echoing drones and drawn-out vocals are present on “Love Drug” – arguably the album's best five minutes. The track has a lagging rhythm that holds us back until, like an injection of some drug, we're thrown out of a trance into a frenzied climax that is among the loudest moments in Disappears' discography. (This is said for a band whose sound has been compared to standing next to a jet that's firing its engines in preparation for takeoff.)

Let's jump back to 2011. Remember the closing track off of 'Guider', “Replicate”? Not in recent memory has a Rock song interwoven so many styles and movements, with its momentous rhythms, hypnotic riffs, and psych-heavy effects stretched out into fifteen minutes of sheer aural ecstasy. To me that song is Disappears at their best; it embodies what the band should be: a collision of past sounds that arise out of the rubble as indecipherable and anonymous, fresh and new. Though on 'Pre Language', the band unfortunately often falls short of this ideal. However well-written and entertaining it may be, Disappears' newest release doesn't come off as much as a riveting collision of genres as it does a routine hybrid. There's still plenty of interesting elements that grant it merit, but don't expect 'Pre Language' to offer you an experience different and better than their previous works.

Standout Tracks: Pre Language, Minor Patterns, Love Drug

EIC'S10Q'S w/ La Big Vic

"..rebirth from a tiny alienistic egg into something completely/conceptually beautiful.."

(Photo credit: Weird Magic)

La Big Vic
Psychotomimetic Venerable Dream

La Big Vic Bio:
Actually from Brooklyn’s La Big Vic. LBV’s lead guitarist, Toshio Masuda, performed in a major label J-Pop boy band in his youth in Japan. He produced hip hop songs, commercials, and soundtracks before coming to America to become an inspirational R&B musician. Peter Pearson, the group’s synthesist, is an apprentice to Pink Floyd’s live sound producer Jeff Blenkinsopp at Expert Audio Repairs & Servicing (EARS) Inc. One of Jeff’s last interns was Gavin Russom. La Big Vic’s lead singer and violinist is Emilie Friedland, founder of Visitation Rites. She inspired us to start chatting with people about music. La Big Vic is a kosmische, trip-hop, genre buster. Actually is hook rich, atmospheric, and full of lurking positivity.

Hello, how are you?
Pretty tired.

That's a shame, may I ask why?
Well, I am in grad school for journalism right now and I also run two music blogs-- Altered Zones and Visitation Rites. If you add recording and playing shows to the mix, it's quite a full plate. I think Toshio and Peter are pretty exhausted as well. Toshio does production work for J-Pop labels in Japan, and Peter is working as a synthesizer repairman at this place called Expert Audio Repairs and Service in Manhattan. Both of them work other day jobs on top of that, and have various musical side projects as well.

What are you listening to these days?
As a band, I'd say that in addition to all the usual Psych and Kosmische and Kraut and Prog reference points, we've been on a heavy, early aughts electronic music binge. Lots of Air, Daft Punk, Gorillaz, Massive Attack, UNKLE, Aphex Twin. Portishead. Cibo Matto too. That warm, resonant, crystalline production sound was painfully out of fashion for a while in indie music, but I'm glad that it seems to be making comeback these days. There's something much more earnest and brave and hopeful and naive about putting yourself out there in high resolution. On a technological level, there is all these free or low-cost digital tools available now for making music that sounds clear and direct. It's sort of a lie to say that you "were so poor that you had to record on a shitty four-track" these days; should you choose to do so, you should be doing so for because that production sound is part of the message your music is trying to get across. James Ferraro's new record, "Far Side Virtual", takes this argument to an extreme. Last time he played in New York, at the Neon Marshmallow fest, he had a laptop on stage beside him. He didn't even use it; it was just a kind of tongue-in-cheek "endorsement" of the idea of making music on a computer.

What's the story with the band name?
Well, the story we always tell is that we named it after a mutual friend named Victor, who happens to be very tall. The "La" was sort of a jokey reference to the '80s Krautrock band La Dusseldorf, which is one of our faves. At this point, I just like the fact that it has three syllables.

How did the idea for this project come up/start?
Toshio and I met when he was playing keys in another Brooklyn band called Behavior, and I was sort of guesting in it as a violinist. At a certain point I found out that my services were no longer really in demand there, so Toshio and I started jamming on the side-- just live keys and violin for the most part. This was in Fall of 2009. In early 2010, Peter came on board as our keyboard player, and Toshio switched began playing guitar and taking on more of a producer's role. Peter is Toshio's upstairs neighbor, and we do all jamming and recording in this massive industrial loft building where they live. It's one of the only artist buildings in a heavily Hasidic section of Williamsburg. Our sound sort of came together as a product of our instruments (synths, guitar, and violin) and shared musical obsessions. I wouldn't say that we started out with a concrete mission statement or anything.

Whom introduced you to Underwater Peoples?
Probably Matt Mondanile of Ducktails/Real Estate. He's an old college bud of mine who happens to be from North Jersey, where most of the UP's are from. I actually did a show on Newtown Radio with Ari Stern, one of the four founders, before La Big Vic signed on for a record. It was called "Underwater Visitations," and you can listen to the archives on the Underwater Peoples Website.. At the end of the day, the NYC scene is so small that we probably would have linked up anyway; it seems that like-minded people always do.


Has the idea of working with any other artists from Underwater Peoples come up?
We've jammed on stage with members of the greater UP family. Julian Lynch played Clarinet on our track "Chinese Wedding" once or twice, and Evan Brody-- one of the label founders and the frontman of Family Portrait/Wet Dream has thrown down on guitar for us. I also laid down some from violin and vocals on the first Family Portrait LP. But no, we haven't really thought of doing anything more extensive as of yet.

EIC: I'm in love with the latest Julian album, definitely one of this year's best! I would love to hear you guys put out an album together!!!;)

If you could score any movie real or fake, which would you choose and why?
I don't know. I'd say a year ago, when we were tracking the first album, it would have been a feature-length advertisement for Euro Disney, or a soundtrack for an airline's in-flight entertainment system. Now that we're working on the new album, which is much darker and more dystopian, I would say some sci-fi noir movie with lots of crazy urban architecture in it, like Alex Proyas' Dark City, or a Batman cartoon, or even a Little Nemo type tale. I'm very interested in Gothic skyscrapers of the 1920s and how they come off as cathedrals to the church of capitalism. There's something very rich in the contrast between that celebration of infinite prosperity and this dark underbelly of corruption that often accompanies representations of it in the popular imaginary, like some bad guy lurking around the corner or down the next manhole.

Speaking of manholes, you're stuck underground for the rest of your life..

You can only keep/listen to ONE album ..which album would it be?
Personally, maybe a box set of every Les Rallizes Dénudés live recording ever captured. But that's sort of my least favorite kind of question.

Are you living your dream?
To the extent that I love doing about 90 percent of the things I have to attend to on any given day, and couldn't bear to part with any one of the hats I wear, yes, I guess I am. That doesn't mean that surviving in one of the most expensive cities in the world while living that dream, and trying to make time for the people you love, isn't pretty challenging sometimes. I'm still in my twenties though, so I guess I haven't hit the age when those difficulties become disqualifying ones. So far so good.

Thanx Emilie!

La Big Vic are currently working on a companion "Dub" remix EP ("Dub The World 12") which should see the light of day around February 2012..

REVIEW: La Big Vic - Actually

8.75 out of 10

Find it here.

What a lovely album. What a perfect meshing of Kraut Rock and Dream Pop. I absolutely adore this group and everything they are doing for music. If you haven't heard about this band, which is slightly likely seen as how "under the radar" they seemed to be for some odd reason, know this; one of them co-ran the site Altered Zones (RIP) and another member was trained by the guy who ran Pink Floyd's live sound (yep, that Pink Floyd). The range of knowledge/sounds between all three of these musicians is incredibly expansive/impressive, it only made sense that when they finally put their heads together that they would create something as stunning as this.

'Actually' is a constantly evolving album from beginning to end, each track seems to rebirth from a tiny alienistic egg into something completely/conceptually beautiful. To me when listening to this album I am constantly reminded of Mahogany's stunning debut "Dreams Of A Modern Day", only more Kraut-like, which is laid-back and euphoric mixed with a bit of "Psych weirdness". Note for note this album is amazing, not one sound, not one beat, nothing on this album is wrong.

I'm just hoping you get all the keywords mentioned above, if you do than you get that this is something you can not pass up. HIGHLY-HIGHLY-HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Standout Tracks: All, but at least check out Heyo (Silver Morning), FAO, Mr. Broken Bird, and Musica

Check into Suuns..

Suuns - Zeroe EP (yep, a whole ep!)

Guys, soo sorry on the delay.. My computer got a virus so I had to deal with that (gotta love hackers..) Anyways, make sure to check into these guys. Suuns reminds me of a "looser" Kraut-Rock Jam Band with modern Dance sounds and catchy vocals thrown into the mix, very awesome stuff. All you have to do is give the band your email addy and it's yours FOR FREE! Yay. I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.

REVIEW: Ikons - Ikons

7.25 out of 10

Find it here.

Ikons are an up and coming 6-piece Krautrock group from Sweden. Their debut s/t album was produced by D Lissvik (Studio), and they've opened for the likes of Spiritualized (whom they kind of sound alike at some points). Ikons are the soundtrack to a lost astronaut floating adrift in space.

Their debut album "Ikons", is the equivalent of a slow motion trip through parallel galaxies. Or, more specifically; like cross between Can and Zombi. Synthesizers set the main tone/theme behind the music (which is definitely "space" oriented"), next would be the bass lines (which are danceable and relaxing), after that the guitar fx (which give the album the perfect amount of white noise that it needs), and then the drums (which as simplistic as they sound give the album the feel of a finely crafted Pop song). There are (usually) no vocals, this is (mainly) an instrumental band. A sort of Space Rock free form Jazz session if you will. But the tracks that do have vocals fit in perfectly, in-fact those tracks are usually my favorites. Within the thick walls of "Kraut-inisms" there are also moments of dark Post Punk, Shoegaze, Jazz, and Psych Rock. So, basically what I am saying is, just calling it a Krautrock album seems "unfair", let's just call it good music.

If you love Space Rock/Krautrock you will probably be pretty obsessed with Ikons. If you're looking for some chill background noise with a little bit of beat and some "far out there" atmospheres look no further. Recommended

Standout Tracks: Africa, Honey, Domine

Check into Ikons..

Ikons - Slow Light

Ikons debut self-titled album comes out May 21st via Service (which is a pretty consistent label when it comes to putting out amazing albums)..

Have you heard about the Neu! box set yet??

NEU! "Complete Retrospective" Limited Edition Vinyl Box Set comes out June 29th, 2010 via Groenland Records

From Michael Rother (1/2 Neu!):

"I am very happy to know that with the NEU! vinyl box set our fans will for the first time have the opportunity to hear the whole bandwidth of NEU!. My partner Klaus Dinger sadly passed away in 2008 but he has been in our minds all during the work on this box set and his visual ideas for NEU! were our inspiration. . . Most of all I'm thrilled about the release of the album NEU! ´86 which Klaus Dinger and I originally recorded in 1985/86, but left unfinished back then and which led to some unfortunate problems between Klaus and myself in the 90s. I now completely reworked the album from original multi-track and master tapes, and unearthed a few yet unknown tracks, which are essential for a full understanding of what Klaus and I focused on for NEU! in the mid 80s. It was my aim to present Klaus Dinger’s musical strengths and visions just as much as my own ideas. The best musical result was to be my only guideline, not the ego. All during the emotional process of reworking our album Klaus was on my mind and I contemplated what he would think about my decisions."

Here's whats inside!:
4 vinyl LPs & 1 vinyl maxi-single including:
NEU!
NEU! 2
NEU! ‘75
NEU! ’86
NEU! ’72 non-public test
36 pages picturebook & NEU! stencil
Personal download code for digital versions of the songs and free NEU! t-shirt

Here's my favorite track ever of theirs. From the album "'75":
Leb' Wohl

Listen to Geoff Barrow's (Portishead) new project..

Beak's debut album comes out this September. It will be one of 09's shining moments (I predcit)...