Welly welly welly well. It appears that WindowAbove could not contribute this week, so I've jumped in in his place. And it's perfect week for me to do this because I couldn't sleep this morning (woke up at 6am), so I've already cranked out 3 hours of work (magazine design bullshit) drank a load of iced coffee, and started listening.
I've been obsessively listening to Julia Holter's Loud City Song again. This isn't the first time it's happened to me. Riding public transportation, I'm always looking for a record that can provide the perfect soundtrack to transport me to another world so I don't have to make eye contact with the crazy people around me (most of which are usually just staring into their phones and iPads anyway. I was out a lot this weekend. Long walks, bus rides, subway rides. It was most a beautiful sunny weekend, but Friday night was pretty awful outside. 2 minutes after getting on the bus, headed towards my girlfriend's art talk [http://www.paperdollparts.com/], a monsoon type rain came pouring down. I remained dry, while Julia Holter's voice soothed my journey.
For the 4th straight day, I listened to Loud City Song. It was the perfect record to wake myself up to. It's serene atmospheres and soft edges would not pound away at my half asleep mind. When I heard Loud City Song a year ago, I couldn't help but feel it was the record I wanted Julianna Barwick to make.
This weekend, Northside Festival hit Brooklyn with far too many bands than my 31 year old self can handle. Mecca Lecca had a showcase on Thursday, which was awesome. I totally skipped out on activities on Friday for my lady's art show. But saturday I finally caught some stuff. local indie pop band Neighbors were good, then I caught an outdoor set from Eagulls. I like their sound which has been understandably compared to Chameleons, but after about 3 songs, it all just sounded the same. There was no variation in their set.
After Eagulls, my friends and I fought the the crowds of yuppy hipsters clogging the streets and headed up the street to catch Thee Oh Sees. I had acquired a special Premium festival badge by speaking convincingly to a festival worker who was too lazy to see if my name was on any sort of list. This apparently gave me access to anything I wanted but I didn't really want anything but to get my girlfriend into the free Thee Oh Sees show. It was free, but you apparently had to RSVP ahead of time. We did not. But due to the lack of organization of festival workers, we walked right in while the staff turned away others without the proper RSVP. Unfortunately, Thee Oh Sees were cursed by a terrible sound system and strong winds. The sound waves seemed to get lost in the winds, fluctuating in volume. Standing back behind the most tightly compressed crowd, I failed to enjoy a band I'd rank amongst the most exciting I've ever seen live (I've seen them at least 4 times elsewhere).
After a brief intermission for dinner, I returned back to the belly of the beast of hipserdom (williamsburg) and caught Zula. One of my favorite local Brooklyn acts that have gone ignored outside of our city, Zula was perfect.
I decided to listen to their album This Hopeful today after finishing with Loud City Song. They were 2 of my favorite albums of 2013, and remain strong after dozens of listens. To me, Zula's sound makes me think of a hybrid of Talk Talk, Stereolab and recent Radiohead. There's skittering drums, electronic flourishes, warped vocals and a walls of sound that flash jazz sensibilities in their tonality.
I've been listening to quite a bit of MF Doom lately. King Geedorah is one of his many aliases, and one of the records I've yet to familiarize myself with. I'm clearly not known as hip hop fan on BEA, but I'm a BAWP who enjoys more than a handful of hip hop records. I like my hip hop weird and instrumentally interesting.
MF Doom has always reminded me of stoned ODB rapping over a mix of jazz and cartoons. Take Me To Your Leader further solidifies this feeling. Jazzier than anything attributed to MF Doom, and deeper entrenched in comic adventure than Madvillainy, Take Me To Your Leader is sort of a melting pot of his styles, and an excellent one at that. While I probably prefer Vaudville Villain and Operation Doomsday, this is still a great record.
A bizarre experimental orchestral record that seems to know no boundaries. From Zorn like jazz routes to dreamy detours not unlike Air gone acoustic, it's unlike pretty much anything you'll hear. Rate Your Music lists it as Art Pop, which probably couldn't be further from the truth. It's a wildly experimental album that doesn't just challenge its listener _________________ http://jonnyleather.com
The best of the the many performances I saw on Saturday, Leverage Models are the latest project of key Stars Like Fleas member Shannon Fields. (the album also features contributions from many of his former bandmates). Moving on from the more loose improvisation structure of his previous band, he went and started a really tight, dense new wave project. There's so much happening musically that it's pretty tough to take it all in right away. After a few listens, the album really reveals itself.
Had no idea BJM had released anything new until today. Not loving it. Seems like every time I listen to a new BJM record I'm a little disappointed that it's nowhere near as good as Take It From The Man! _________________ http://jonnyleather.com
Another collection of Peel Sessions that sounds as good as any of the bands actual records, and considering how good Magazine was, this is amazing. "I Love You You Big Dummy" sounds particularly amazing here.
Since I have this little space to say or do whatever the fuck I want...
Thursday night I hosted a show for my label. Rice Cultivation Society, Unicycle Loves You, NØMADS, SWF all played and there was a special collaborative set between Ajnabi and Carl Creighton. I busted out the old camera and took a bunch of pictures. Here's a couple for your amusement...
This is a great fucking user listening log! And I am now revisiting Loud City Song due to this ULL's "urging". Anyway, yeah this is good shit! I'm definitely interests in checking out that King Geedorah album too! Thanks for the recs. _________________ -Ryan
After my last post, I just threw on Ween's entire discography and let it play while I gave my cat a bath and cleaned the house. He must like Ween, because he didn't slash my throat.
Ween just doesn't get enough love. For a solid run, they found that sweet spot between weird and funny, while genre-hopping all over the place.
My favorite will forever be Chocolate and Cheese, but pretty much everything they did offers something new and wonderful.
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