Best New Atlanta Music: Nomen Novum – “Go Primal” EP
The prolific duo of David Norbery and Mark Godfrey have turned out yet another gem. Here’s a little info on it via facebook:
The new Nomen Novum EP, “GO PRIMAL” is finally finished! It is free and available in MP3 or WAV format via our website:
http://www.nomennovum.net/goprimal
The files come lovingly zipped with a PDF booklet of lyrics, notes, and photos.
The web page features a special visualizer composed of eleven video loops created and processed by Mark. Our goal was to convey the idea of primordial ooze using things from the kitchen (and a lot of glitter.) Thomas Barnwell of Orphins/Thy Mighty Contract fame helped us with the Flash programming. Thanks Thomas!
GO PRIMAL includes more field recordings than any other NN release to date, many of which were made during our tour of the West Coast last May. Many of you will recognize your own voices on “It’s In The Air,” whether you helped sing the chorus vocals or almost blew your face off at my Fourth of July party.
Oh, and we cover a Natalie Imbruglia song (sort of…)
The EP is another dose of pure musical gold from one of the best bands in this city, so go grab it up:
- Posted by Davy Minor on January 27, 2010 at 5:59 am
- 1 Comment
Best New Atlanta Music: From Exile – “Monolith” LP
After playing their last show in 2007, From Exile headed into the studio to begin working on their second record. During the arduous two year process, the 5-piece act that had once been drawing hundreds of people to house shows on the west side disintegrated, leaving only the core duo of Eric Guenther and Ben Wetzelberger behind to pick up the pieces. Rather than becoming frustrated and falling apart, the two remaining members used the situation as an opportunity to reinvent themselves into something far greater. They were able to fully focus on pursuing their personal vision and created a phenomenal album that delivers on all of the vast potential many of us had seen for a long time.
While I enjoy a lot of music in the general spheres of metal and prog, I find the rigid nature of those genres stylistically often constrains the elements of music I value most. The primary attention to technical prowess and excessively complex compositions dominates those scenes and their almost athletic, competitive nature leaves very little room for good songwriting or taking artistic chances. It’s ironic that a genre called “progressive” seems so relatively conservative in today’s musical landscape.
But lately there seem to be more and more innovators in the general umbrella of metal that are pushing things forward, and that especially appears to be true locally. Bands like Mastodon and Baroness have been able to break down some sonic barriers of the genre, and From Exile are pushing those boundaries even further. If there is one thing that Monolith excels at more than any other, it is how perfectly it manages to extract everything great about prog and metal without retaining any of the bullshit.
That’s not to say that this record doesn’t shred and showcase some very impressive chops, but there is a tastefulness and a restraint to the way they utilize the enormous talent at their disposal that I’ve rarely heard in such epic music. In lieu of having a band around them, the From Exile duo turned to fellow Atlanta metalists Daath, and in addition to Monolith being co-produced by Eyal Levi, both he and Emil Werstler have guest solos and the drums throughout are done by Kevin Talley. Even Tealights‘ Mary Knight dropped some cello on the recording. The extremely able supporting cast around the band is implemented in a way that enhances and compliments their strengths, and in the end this record is a success on just about every facet you can measure.
From Exile are streaming the entire album at their website, so go check it out for yourself.
Here are a couple of studio videos of the making of Monolith:
- Posted by Davy Minor on December 1, 2009 at 4:33 am
- 1 Comment
Best New Atlanta Music: Untied States – “Instant Everything, Constant Nothing” LP
“Sonic Youth are like the Beatles to me” – That quote from Untied States‘ Skip Engelbrecht in 2003 was my first introduction to this band, and it resonated deeply with me at the time because it echoed exactly how I felt. A year later they released their first full length, Ineffable, By Design, and it turned out to be one hell of a debut and the most criminally underrated record to ever come out of this city. Rather than falling in the all too common pitfall of simply ripping off the sounds of their influences, Engelbrecht and his partner in crime, Colin Arnstein, instead adopted the abstract musical philosophies of the Youth and used them as tools to express their own unique personal vision. They strengthened melodies by juxtaposing them with dissidence. They balanced weirdness with catchy hooks. But they always focused those ideals through their own lens and in the end they emerged as innovators rather than imitators, the greatest tribute possible to their inspiration.
With their third LP, Instant Everything, Constant Nothing, they have traded away the gritty, raw home recording sound for glossy, polished, professional production quality. Those already familiar with US may see this album as a move away from their avant-garde roots, but that would be a misinterpretation of what this band is all about. Many musicians that wear the “experimental” tag proudly are content to bang away at noise and amble around aimlessly and believe what they are doing is “artistic”. But when it comes down to it, the results are always more important than the approach. In the world of science, it is the people who make actual discoveries from their experiments that are considered great, and I feel no differently about the world of music. From the very beginning, Untied States had been in the business of making spectacular pop music by searching out inventive and novel ways to do so, and Instant Everything, Constant Nothing is the triumphant culmination of that scholarly quest. Get your ears on the current high water mark of one of the greatest bands Atlanta has ever known:
Untied States : Not Fences, Mere Masks
Untied States : Holding Up Walls
Buy Instant Everything, Constant Nothing
Untied States will be at 529 with Small Reactions and Doppel Gang Thursday, November 19th.
- Posted by Davy Minor on November 9, 2009 at 11:57 pm
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Best New Atlanta Music: Atlas Sound – ‘Logos’ LP
From the very beginning of this blog, I’ve been evangelizing the music of Bradford Cox. The guy is a prolific, consistent, and an all around incredible artist. He’s from another planet. And so at this point, anyone who reads this blog is either on the bandwagon with me or not. If you’re smart, you’ll get a copy of Logos and find that it is awesome, just like everything from this dude. So I’ll spare you a long-winded lovefest. Instead, I decided I would put together a little mixtape of my favourite songs that have been given away on the Deerhunter blog over the years along with other Atlas Sound rarities and such. Whether you’ve been living in an alternate dimension and have not heard of this Mr. Cox, or you need something in between daily repeats of “Walkabout”, this is for you:
Ohmpark Mixtape #12: Atlas Sounds
Atlas Sound : Danse Infernale : Two Halloween Dances
Atlas Sound : Activation : Orange Ohms Glow EP
Atlas Sound : TIme Warp : Time Warp Virtual 7″
Atlas Sound : Airedales : Maybe Logic Virtual 7″
Atlas Sound : Coffin Trick : Deerhunter Blog Music
Atlas Sound : Atlas Shrugged : Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Sound : Recent Bedroom : Axis Tour CD-R
Atlas Sound : I Slept On The Bridge : How I Escaped The Prison Of Fractals
Deerhunter : Cum Horizon (Improvisation) : On Platts Eyott Island
Atlas Sound : Danse Macabre : Two Halloween Dances
- Posted by Davy Minor on October 20, 2009 at 12:46 am
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Best New Atlanta Music: Tealights – “Take Us By Sea” EP
It’s a rare band that can survive, let alone thrive, after losing their primary songwriter and vocalist. But Tealights seem to be a unique case of addition by subtraction. After a not so amicable divorce from One Hand Loves The Other brainchild Lou Rodriguez last year, the remaining three members had to go back to the drawing board and start all over. Mikey Johnson, Nancy Shim, and Mary Knight all took up trading off vocal duties and built a sound around their distinct talents. They picked up local legend Brett Kelly to play drums, and now with the release of their debut record, Tealights have emerged as a much more dynamic, interesting, and just altogether better band than OHLTO ever were.
The 28 minute EP contains 6 fantastic songs that demonstrate the range and diversity of sound this band commands. The outfit manages to blend together so many different sorts of styles into one cohesive hybrid. At times its trip-hop, at times its indie rock, at times its dream pop, and it all flows together beautifully.
The record is not without its imperfections, though. I have come to find that typically an initial release from a talented young band tends to suffer in its execution, and Take Us By Sea is no exception to this. What is surprising about that here is that the production side of the equation appears stacked, including Snowden‘s Jordan Jeffares mixing. But for the most part, the technical flaws are overpowered by the sheer strength of the songwriting.
What is clear is that Tealights have an enormous amount of potential and Take Us By Sea is quite an accomplishment for a band that is still finding its identity.
Here is a teaser video for the EP giving a behind the scenes glimpse at the making of it:
They are currently on tour, and while they have been on the road, they did a Soldout Session with a nice stripped down version of “Passport”:
photo credit: www.bartramnason.com
Tealights will be at 529 Tuesday October 20th with White Hinterland.
- Posted by Davy Minor on October 16, 2009 at 8:37 am
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Best New Atlanta Music: Nomen Novum – ‘Paradises’ LP
Nomen Novum‘s second full-length album, Paradises, proudly showcases the multitude of strengths of one of Atlanta’s most versatile and talented outfits. The 8 song collection sees the experimental rock duo of David Norbery and Mark Godfrey continuing down an arc of trading the guitar-centric, conventional song structure of their Moorish Idols roots for loops, electronics, and pushing boundaries. The record has a terrific balance between Nomen Novum‘s more avant-garde tendencies and their brilliant song writing abilities. There are so many minute details that greatly enhance the sum of its parts, like seamlessly weaving field recordings and samples throughout the entire record. Songs start and end at different sides of the spectrum, for example the title track begins an upbeat, acoustic folk jam and ends in trancey, synthetic harmonies, sound effects and loops. But despite being so dynamic in terms of both its sounds and its methods, Paradises still retains a simplistic and easily accessible feel. It’s almost too perfect for a mere half an hour of music. Together with their November LP, one could make a strong case that Nomen Novum have the two best records to come out of the city so far this year. So if you have yet to become acquainted with this band, you can stream all of Paradises at Nomen Novum‘s website.
Nomen Novum : Miracles Come True
I was first introduced to many of the songs on Paradises during their 2008 “Vegan Tour”. I caught them in Brooklyn on my way to All Tomorrow’s Parties New York. They played in a dark basement under some weird bar giving away pizzas with every beer, or something like that. I remember being totally blown away by the drumming jam at the end of “Miracles Come True”. The band put together a great little mini-doc of that short east coast jaunt that features many songs from Paradises:
Nomen Novum @ Nophest 2009
Nomen Novum will be at The Earl with Bear in Heaven this Sunday, October 11. (Tickets/Info here)
- Posted by Davy Minor on October 7, 2009 at 4:56 am
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Underground Hottlanta: The Orphins
The Orphins were one of the very first bands to get me interested in Atlanta’s music scene. They were really the first band where I thought, I would get into this act even if they weren’t local. When I picked up their 2004 full-length release, Drowning Cupid, I listened to it non-stop for months. I had been anxiously awaiting a follow up for 5 years now, and just as I had begun to lose hope and start to believe that The Orphins may just have become a forgotten relic of the scene’s past, they have reemerged with an outstanding new record. Where Drowning Cupid had an almost monochrome feel to it, Wish You Well sees the band becoming much more dynamic and varied in their approach. The sound is still unmistakably their own distinct brand, but there is a maturity present that greatly compliments what they do. All and all, it was well worth the wait. Wish You Well is also the first release on Atlanta’s newest local label, Adair Park, which will also be putting out This Piano Plays Itself‘s next record. Here’s a taste of the newest tunes from one of Atlanta’s greatest bands of the last decade:
I interviewed Orphins‘ guitarist/vocalist Thomas Barnwell via email, so check it out:
Me: 5 years have elapsed since your last album, I’m curious about the
reasons for such an unusually long break between records?
TB: We had a number of pitfalls. We originally did the recording with Keith Vogelsong from Goodnight records who put out our first record, and he was going to put out our second one. Believe it or not, we started recording this record about a year after Drowning Cupid came out. We tracked everything and tinkered with it for about 6 months before deciding that it really wasn’t the sound we were going for. We wanted everything to sound big, meaning loud vocals, thick bass, and heavy drums. We really wanted it to represent what we do live more than the last record did. The first recording of Wish You Well had a very clean and polished sound to it and the instruments sounded overly isolated.
So we began the process of re-tracking the instruments, when our producer, Keith, suddenly decided to move to New York. We tried for awhile to mix and produce from afar but realized the process was too tedious.
So, after awhile of sitting around wondering what we should do, round three of the recording consisted of us buying some nice mics and pre-amps, re-tracking everything ourselves, and mixing the album at my house. It perhaps became a bit of a record that we didn’t know when to stop working on. We almost had too much freedom to do what we wanted to with it, and with no producer to answer to, the process went on and on. Daniel took it upon himself to really learn how to mix properly, and I think he really did a great job. It was a long exhaustive process, but we finally landed on something we really liked, and we learned how to record an album in the process. We sent the final tracks to Goodnight Records who had apparently dried up since it’s move to New York. So we sat on the record for a few months until I spoke with Gavin from Stickfigure who decided to released it on his indie label called Adair Park.
So we recorded it almost three times and took a long time to polish it. Other than that.. jobs, school, relationships, other bands, houses.. all I can say is that life took over for a minute.
Me: You are also in Thy Mighty Contract. Do you approach writing music differently for TMC than The Orphins, and if so, could you describe the differences in how you approach each?
TB: I intentionally go for a different sound when I write for Thy Mighty Contract. While The Orphins play on The Pixies, Deerhoof, The Smiths, and The Flaming Lips side of my music tastes, with Thy Mighty Contract I look to stuff more like Emperor, Mika Miko, At The Gates, and old hardcore acts like Union of Uranus for inspiration. When we started Thy Mighty Contract, I decided that if I was going to be in two bands, I wanted them to sound distinctly different from one another, because what’s the point in being in two bands that sound exactly the same? I tend to do a lot more piecing together of songs bit by bit in Thy Mighty Contract, where as in The Orphins, its not uncommon for one of us to write a song completed with lyrics before we even present it to the band. Neither band has a real definitive way in which we write songs. In both bands, everyone tends to bring stuff to the table. On Wish You Well, a number of the songs were written by Daniel on his computer as midi tracks.
Me: You’ve been involved in the Atlanta music scene for at least a decade now, how has the scene changed over that time and how do you feel about it right now?
TB: The scene seems to come in waves, with lots of great moments. 2001-2003 was a great time for music in Atlanta with lots of house shows and excellent bands. 6 months ago I thought the scene was really happening with bands like Vera Fang and Fagstatic. We still have a ton of great bands, but overall the tide seems to be out at the moment.
Me: What do you think about the current state of music and the music industry as a whole?
TB: We have always either done our releases on small labels or as DIY releases, so I am kind of disconnected from the formal music industry. I can tell you that I know CD sales are suffering, and therefore labels are suffering, and small labels especially seem to be hit hard by the lack of CD sales. Because of this, small labels are more reluctant to put stuff out unless they think it really has a chance of doing well. Actual physical CDs seem to be becoming an unnecessary counterpart or gesture when it comes to musical releases since everyone listens to the music on their computer and their mp3 players anyways. We print CDs more so we can have something to send to radio and press, and to have something that someone can buy at our shows. But from what I can tell, music sales really seem to happen more online these days. I think we are at a strange time in which all labels, big and small, are going to have to reevaluate how they do what they do.
Me: What do The Orphins have planned next and do you have any new projects on the horizon?
TB: No new projects on the horizon for me. Two active bands is enough for now. The Orphins have an EP in the works we want to record and release to keep the flow of new stuff coming. We want to get out there and play some out of state shows once the new record picks up a bit. Thy Mighty Contract is planning to record again, and we hope to release that recording by the end of the year. And most importantly… no more 5 years break.
The Orphins play The Other Sound Festival this Saturday at Criminal Records following Yo La Tengo‘s in-store performance.
Photo by Clint Miller
- Posted by Davy Minor on September 15, 2009 at 5:04 pm
- 1 Comment
What The Hell Am I Listening To?!?
Atlanta bands playing Nophest:
Jungol
If you aren’t familiar with Jungol, you might be familiar with Liquid Jungle, the band’s former incarnation. Centered around brothers Josh and Graham Yoder, this group has actually been soldiering the local scene for most of the decade. I caught them a few times back in the day when jambands ruled a hefty portion of the underground music turf, and while they were certainly part of that scene, I remember there being a little something different about these guys. They had something special that the typical neo-hippie brahs didn’t have. Fast forward to now, and Jungol have evolved into an excellent band that writes beautiful, concise pop songs infused with a heart of prog, as showcased on their newest record, Places. I think my favourite thing about this album is how so much intricacy and subtly is veiled behind the pleasantly appealing melodies in the forefront. Make sure to pick up a copy, because it still hasn’t stopped growing on me:
Nerd Parade
As the name of their band would imply, Nerd Parade aren’t concerned with their style being hip, they’re just busy making good music. Usually it is hard for me to dig into conservative leaning music like this, employing pop music and rock ‘n’ roll from every corner of the late 20th century, but this band just puts it all together masterfully. Their newest record, The Span Of A Life, is ridiculously dynamic, bouncing around between so many different influences and styles while Abby Wren and Randy Garcia trade vocal duties when they aren’t both differing to extended instrumental jam outs. What is also striking about the album, is how seamlessly it all flows together. It is all one colossal composition, and it’s been an integral part of my summer soundtrack. Check it out:
Nerd Parade : Dead Air & Denial
Nerd Parade : One Million Wooden Arches
- Posted by Davy Minor on August 6, 2009 at 5:22 am
- 1 Comment
