Monday, November 26, 2012

Road Music

Mr. Gainer... I must bow in respect and awe of your awesome musical knowledge. Just last week, the man introduced me to the band which is fast becoming a near-obsessive listening experience. I've listened to this album roughly 20 times in the past week and each time, I'm finding new elements that I fall in love with.

This is the point at which any expectations of this being a critical review should be thrown out the door and your should prepare yourself to simply listen to me gush for a while.


The Motorleague just fucking rocks. When Jesse told me that Sir Ian produced their album, I should have stopped talking, emptied my wallet and eagerly awaited my impending spiral into audio repetition. For me, this band crafts songs in a way that resonates perfectly. They combine MASSIVE riffs with driving punk beats, anthemic lyrics, sing-along hooks and a perfect balance of taking themselves seriously enough to be amazing musicians, but also not lose sight of the fact that music still has to be fun. I bought their 2010 release Black Noise and I'm still finding it hard to believe how many songs on this album I would be willing to call 'singles.' My mind has shifted between around 6 or 7 of the 10 tracks as my favourite, and while I would love to share my current #1 (Fossils) with you, I can't find a video on YouTube.  That said, see below for their video for yesterday's starchild, You Wear Me Down and below that for Saturday's jam, Hymn for the Newly Departed.

Do the band (and more importantly yourself) a favour and go buy their album. If you don't trust me (shame on you), you can preview the whole thing on their website (please listen to Fossils), but for only $8.88 on bandcamp, this will be the best use of money since you bought new underwear.

-Keep staring at your hips and the back of your brain

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Granola-Hop

In my ongoing search to find the most epic hip-hop possible (and yes, to answer your next question, I live with a lot of quests on my mind) the last couple of months have been quite fruitful. While enjoying Macklemore in my spare time, I was pleased to find an even more epic (though not as smooth) supergroup that I would be able to make a terrible title-pun about.

Quakers are a 30+ member hip hop collective that released their 41 track, self-titled debut just this past spring. At the core of the group were 3 producers: Jeff Barrow (of Portishead fame), Katalyst and 7-Stu-7. They are joined by a massive list of MCs that were pulled in from seemingly all directions. The ~70m disc leaves the bulk of tracks clocking in at under 2m.

So, you might be thinking this album sounds like a jumbled, ADD nightmare with no cohesion or sense of direction?  I'll admit, it is all over the place, however, they have somehow managed to pull the disc together and make it flow from nearly the A-Z of hip hop. In addition, while the short songs often leave you wanting more, there is something to be said about not dragging a track out and cutting it before it becomes boring or jumps the lyrical shark.

LYRICAL SHARK!!!! DUN DUN DUN!!!

-I'd spend forever with all of my friends

Friday, November 9, 2012

Dirty Rascal

I felt like writing early this morning, however, I could also tell that it was going to be poorly-written, illogical, dirty, mashes of aimless words. As such, I couldn't think of a better outlet than my trusty blog; no one expects quality here!

Much in-line with my mood, today I wanted to talk about sloppy, dirty, sneering, grind-you-up-the-side music. As such, it fit perfectly that I had just stumbled across Hanni El Khatib, a Palestinian/Filipino skateboarder/dirty blues musician. He describes his music as being for "being for anyone who has ever been shot or hit by a train."  Can't say I've done either, but right now, that about encapsulates my mood.

He was picked up by Stones Throw records and his first album, Will the Guns Come Out, was released last fall. He's now working towards his second full length that I just learned will be produced by Dan Auerbach - suddenly makes a lot of sense why I like this guy so much.

That's all I want to say... check out this awesome, grimy, dirty blues rock.
-I need a martyr to kill

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Building Devils

When I first heard about How to Destroy Angels, I dismissed the project as a way for Trent Reznor to keep his gorgeous wife, Mariqueen Maandig, happy and feeling engaged with something.  I didn't give her much credit and I really didn't see the project going anywhere.

For almost 2 years, they proved me right.  Their initial EP release was unique and kind of interesting in instrumentation, but pretty inaccessible and containing poorly written songs. However, as new bits have begun to surface from their upcoming An Omen EP, I'm changing my tune.

It sounds like time has given this project room to evolve into what it needs to become.  The team is starting to understand each other's strengths and roles and the resulting work is turning up good... really good.  Check the latest studio single they've just released:



-Medium, please astound me