Read & Listen

The Postmarks - By-The-Numbers
[Unfiltered, 2008]

It’s been a long long while since I got such a warm feeling inside from music. The last time music sounded so comforting was, probably, back in 2003 when I first listened to Donna Regina’s “Late,” and sometime even earlier when it was Towa Tei and Fantastic Plastic Machine time for me… Warmth - not just around you, but getting inside, to the bottom of your heart, this instant feeling that everything is going to be fine, coming from nowhere, from these notes - this is what makes me listen over and over again to this album by the Florida-based The Postmarks.

It’s funny that The Postmarks’ sophomore album, By-The-Numbers is an album of cover versions. All of them (well, almost all) are sung by the Tel-Aviv born girl with a boyish name Time Yehezkely Jonathan Wilkis and Christopher Moll, the other two band members, had previously been in Stereolab-fan band See Venus. So, this can probably explain the un-Americanness sound of their music. The range of the songs selected for the album is pretty wide: the sweetest “One Note Samba” by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Blondie’s “11:59,” Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Nine Million Rainy Days,” Ramones’ “7-11,” Bob Marley’s (!) “Three Little Birds,” The Cure’s “Six Different Ways” and even “You Only Live Twice” by Nancy Sinatra (James Bond theme). And the final chord is “Pinball Number Count,” from the good old Sesame Street, now lost for the younger generations in gigabytes of South Park, Spongebob Squarepants and the like.

But the main thing is that it’s pretty easy to forget that you’re actually listening to cover versions. Each song gets its own new sound and soul. As Christopher Moll put it, The Postmarks “aim to produce songs that sound like they’ve always existed and always will exist”. Nothing to add.

Read & Listen:
Official website
Myspace
The Postmarks - 11:59 mp3
The Postmarks - One Note Samba mp3

B.Fleischmann - Angst is not a Weltanschauung
[Morr Music, 2008]

Nine years ago, Bernhard Fleischmann of Vienna and Thomas Morr of Berlin came together for Poploops for Breakfast. Now, it seems, there’s no need for Fleischmann to present himself at length, but Angst is not a Weltanschauung still opens with a polite “hello microphone… hello voice…” and so on it goes. Obviously giving up sleep and other pleasant things, Fleischmann fully devoted himself to other enjoyable activities - music and composing.

Impassive machine-made music, with mechanic confidence making its way through to your heart - that’s exactly what B.Fleischmann is a master and virtuoso of. Last Time We Met at a T&TT Concert is a nice gesture towards co-label artist, Tied & Tickled Trio. Train-like drums make you feel a bit uncertain, like it sometimes happens between your departing point and destination. The train theme is, by the way, supported in another song title, In Trains. Songwriting genre is kept with the featuring vocals of Marilies Jagsh and Sweet William Van Ghost, and two tracks give us the voice of Bernhard Fleischmann himself. But even on vocal tracks, machines dominate.

The artwork was created by the irreplaceable Morr master Jan Kruse, god of separated details. And the music on the album brilliantly glues these parts together, bringing them into a single gentle but powerful emotional apparatus.

Read & Listen:
B.Fleischmann Myspace
B.Fleischmann on Morr Music
24:12 mp3

The Rapture - Tapes
[!K7, 2008]

The first of, hopefully, series of mixes Tapes from a great Berlin-based label Studio!K7 is presented by the New-York dance-punk band The Rapture. It is, by the way, the band’s first compilation. Trying their hand at DJing, they made a 22-track and one-hour long mix of mostly classics of disco, electro, house, hip-hop and various beats bringing together a great bouncy mood and rocking any party even on the greyest of days. Not the best mix ever, and it’s not why we love The Rapture, but, on the other hand, why not?

After a 30-second opening by The Undisputed Truth, comes Ghostface Killah’s “Daytona 500″ - mostly hip-hop and urban rhythms of ghetto-ish places, the same on Junkyard Band’s “The Word.” And then “The Holy Ghost” by The Bar-Kays and 80’s classic “Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll” by Vaughan Mason & Crew - more funk and disco-rhythms, but everything is really old-school, from the times when not-yet-spoiled by the musical abundance public danced to the humble light effects of their respective dancefloors. Somewhere around “Flowerz” by Armand Van Helden we already get closer to our times - that’s still old-school, but house to which we all danced in our times. But don’t make a mistake of judging chronologically - there’s no specific order, the main thing of the mix is “shake, but don’t stir.” After Donk Boys’ electro “Cpstyre” comes a remix of a recognizable “Everybody’s Got To Make A Living” by Dances With White Girls - with a sample of “Heaven & Hell Is On Earth” by 20th Century Steel Band. And then, in a couple of minutes, comes a sheer hit tried by multiple generations, Paul Johnson’s “Get Get Down”…

All in all, nevermind the lack of a solid DJ work (the mix wasn’t for some reason part of DJ Kicks series) - Tapes is still a great mix to rock any party!

Read & Listen:
The Rapture website
The Rapture Myspace
The Rapture Tapes website
!K7 Records
Dances With White Girls - Everybody’s Got To Make A Living mp3

Max Tundra - Parallax Error Beheads You
[Domino, 2008]

When I was a kid, I got a Yamaha PSS 680 for my birthday. It was a great toy, especially when connected to our Amiga computer via MIDI. It was a real pleasure, though of course it was just another game for me, and no masterpieces came out as a result. The sounds were not like those “professional musicians” in the bands that I liked, but they were fun. And now, when I’m listening to a new Max Tundra album, I instantly remember those times. The music resembles the one in my favorite Amiga games, and you can almost see the ones and zeroes behind it. It’s nothing like a nicely combed and covered in gel 2.0, it’s a raw 01110100010 code, which, masterfully handled, gives you a great piece of music. Think of the times when Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks was getting the most of synthesized chords.

It’s been a while since we heard Max Tundra. That’s ok - his Mastered by Guy at the Exchange (2002) was a great get and showed us Max Tundra as an eccentric geek always experimenting with sound. Parallax Error Beheads You won’t get you bored either. It’s really programmed (I think it’s a better word than composed in this case) on an old-school Amiga. Ben Jacobs, judging by the end result, had his fun, and involved us in it too. The vocal part on all the tracks is raw, and sometimes even broken into bytes (like on Orphaned). Computer-and-human-generated music, which doesn’t make you tired (like the computer games music) - probably because Jacobs did put his heart and soul into it, not just the binary code. Old-school effects are present, still. Nostalgic - yes, fun - hell yes! I’ll probably give the album to my dad to get his part of Amiga nostalgia too…

Read & Listen:
Max Tundra website
Max Tundra Myspace
Which Song mp3
Will Get Fooled Again mp3

Tobias Hellkvist & Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - White/Grey/Black
[IAT.MP3, 2008]

White/Grey/Black is a net release, collaboration between Tobias Hellkvist and Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words. The Swedes this time offer not a naive-childish view on the world with caramel flowers and chocolate animals, but a monochrome beauty. In fact, White/Grey/Black is a one 25-minutes track, where not a lot is happening. With a contemplative mood it’s just the right thing. The music is gloomy, one note holding on for a few minutes, serving as a background for half-tones. But these half-tones are what you really start listening into. It’s like a painting that requires watching from different distance - to see the whole scope and the separate details. White/Grey/Black is a true harmony of the sounds - beautiful in themselves, and only then forming combinations. It seems like you’re watching nature - the growth of a tree, the process of a flower blooming, an almost invisible motion of clouds in the sky. The processes that you almost never notice, but they are happening right there, whether you’re watching or not.

An alchemy of colors, black and white - they are opposed in the Western tradition and are parts of the same whole in the Eastern one. In this piece these two beginnings don’t only come together, but create the whole range of possibilities, their own universe (with grey being the point where they meet). These 25 minutes seem like a bud about to become a flower, a miracle. But, like all art, this one to become a miracle needs its listener. Because the miracle will only happen inside your mind, not in the depths of digital sounds. Music without borders…

Read & Listen:
Tobias Hellkvist & Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - White/Grey/Black mp3
Tobias Hellkvist
Dead Letters…

One minute you mention Animal Collective, another minute you come across a track from their upcoming (January 20) album Merriweather Post Pavilion online. Ripped from some French podcast, but who cares… Pure wilderness!

Link (already deleted)

Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid - NYC
[Domino, 2008]

Two Exchange Sessions, last year’s Tongues, and now - another collaboration of the Kieran Hebden, the Four Tet genius, and a virtuoso drummer Steve Reid - not to mention the classics (Miles Davis, James Brown) he worked with, Sun Ra would be enough.

A somewhat intimate and private nature of Hebden’s music in combination with Reid’s extravert manner creates a flammabale (and exploding) material. From the very first track, it simply blows your mind. Jazz and electronic mixed together blast into your once calm and simple life like a tornado, change everything and hold you for the album’s 42 minutes. On the opening Lyman Place you already get the taste, the second funky piece 1St & 1St hypnotizes with its bass line… Then, through 25th Street, with its naked drums and electronic structures, to Arrival - where all the effects are enhanced and almost turn into a wild cacophony of the modern urbanism, but still keep the melody (think instrumental Animal Collective). Between B & C is probably the closest to Kieran Hebden solo improvisations. And the final chord, Departure, where sharp drum and electronic edges are smoothed out and polished with a kind of dreamy cover. The whole thing together keeps you tight and rapt. Add here my old love for what Kieran Hebden does, and I can’t drag myself away from this album. Probably this intensity is really New York.

Read & Listen:
Official website
Domino website
Hebden & Reid - Arrival Live Video on YouTube

Beach House - Used To Be 7”
[Carpark, 2008]

Baltimore duo Beach House after touring locked themselves in a studio for a short while to provide us with a new song Used To Be - a dreamy and romantic piece. The rhymes are extremely simple, the music morning-like and light, very pretty because of this particular openness. As an add-on, a b-side is a 4-track demo of Apple Orchard. Victoria Legrand sings in a voice from seemingly out of your sweetest dreams, and Alex Scally gives a great dreamy background to that, all together creating a transparent, airy mood. Looking at the cover with a simple motel and a light-blue sky, you fall into the picture of living a carefree life without any geographic or other anchors.

Beach House: Used to Be from shoottheplayer on Vimeo.

Read & Listen:
Beach House Myspace

The Legends - Seconds Away EP
[Labrador, 2008]

Labrador’s The Legends has always been on the verge between pop and indie music (the borderline as well as these definitions, are, of course, relative). On the new three-track EP Seconds Away, the “poppiest” song is not the main one, but a remix on a b-side, Over And Over, made by a talented co-label artist, Pallers.

Seconds away is a 2-minute noise extravaganza where the melody and vocals are densely covered in shoegaze noise. Johan says, “I need noise now, so this new single sounds like someone drilling a hole in your head. In a pleasant way that is. It’s called “Seconds Away” and is about the wonders of tryptizol.” (It’s an antidepressant) On the following Over And Over this white noise is increased to the level of a real dentist-related drilling - the more you actually listen into the song hidden behind it. It’s strange, but in some masochistic impulsion you tend to like it - extrapolating the noise that you constantly feel on all levels being a part of modern society. And a real treat to the ears after that, a long 6-minute remix, where you don’t have to try hard to hear the song itself. Which, by the way, turns out to be a beautiful sad love song.

Read & Listen:
Myspace
Seconds Away mp3
Over and Over full track on Last.fm

I Am Robot And Proud - Uphill City
[Darla, 2008]

As I Am Robot And Proud claims, “houses, stars and heads make music” - that’s from his website. I Am Robot And Proud is a one-guy project of Shaw-Han Liem of Toronto. During the past seven years he’s been making music which is really cute in its non-organic essence. Computer sounds, synthetic IDM lightness - all these melodies, it seems, could have been composed by robots not deprived of musical talent. I Am Robot And Proud is the exact opposite of a character from Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, Marvin the robot who’s constantly depressed, sort of paranoid android. Uphill City is, on the contrary, an example of music from a happy and proud robot who is absolutely satisfied with his (its?) life. And if on the opening Something To Write Home About it’s just getting started, the second track, Uphill City, already brings it to full swing, with a robotic rock’n'roll (aka IDM) - all the emotions are leveled out. The album seems to be constructed with a mechanic accuracy from information bytes and samples, glued together in a perfect equilibrium. You can dance to this, or you can watch the reality defragment to this music.

Read & Listen:
Official website
Myspace
The Melt mp3