What The Hell Am I Listening To?!?

The badassity of All Tomorrow’s Parties has yet to wear off on me, as I have been jamming hard the new albums from three of the bands I caught there:

Mogwai (Glasgow, UK)

Mogwai‘s newest album seems to be getting a bit overlooked and underestimated by the blog-a-lites, and it reminds me of Explosions In The Sky‘s record from last year in many ways. Obviously there are many parallels between these two bands, but I think each band’s most recent work may be their best. Both are a refined, culmination of a specific sound exploration that marks the pinnacles of what they can achieve. And both albums will be ultimately perceived by most as more of the same from bands that do not stray far from the conventional post-rock sound they have mastered. Yes, the armies of artists that have followed in their foot steps have pushed the boundaries of what an instrumental rock band can do far beyond anything on The Hawk Is Howling. But, every single song on this album has one of those blissful moments that you can never seem to get enough of, and there are very few albums I can think of that are capable of that:

Mogwai : Danphe And The Brain

Mogwai : The Sun Smells Too Loud

Mogwai myspace

Buy The Hawk Is Howling: [MP3] [CD] [LP]




Mercury Rev (Catskills, NY)

While a part of me certainly hates hardly being aware of such an old, established band until recently, my lack of expectations for their newest album allows me to appreciate it in a different sort of way than those versed in Mercury Rev. Every review I read about Snowflake Midnight is so concerned with the band’s past and each analysis is fully in the context of their previous work. Taking it as an intro point to this band, I hear an album with a movie soundtrack vibe commanding mature, interesting songwriting and a sincere, ambitious vision. I can’t wait to go back through their discography and learn what I’ve been missing:

Mercury Rev : Snowflake In A Hot World

Mercury Rev : Butterflys Wing

Mercury Rev myspace

Buy Snowflake Midnight: [MP3] [CD] [LP]




Growing (Brooklyn, NY)

I remember listening to Growing‘s Color Wheel back in the beginning of last year. Every time I would try to sit down and listen to it, I just wasn’t in the right mood to digest it. You have to be in a certain frame of mind to truly be able to enjoy the low key, trippy instrumental, slow developing loop stuff this duo deals in. I eventually moved on and forgot about that album until recently being impressed by their live show and then digging in deep to their newest, All The Way. Tonight, I went back and listened to Color Wheel again by myself with my headphones on, and it felt very satisfying to finally be able to appreciate such a great record. Their newest is just as good, so check it out:

Growing : Rave Pie Only

Growing : Innit

Growing Myspace

Buy All The Way: [MP3] [CD] [LP]

Photos: ATP New York – Day 2 (9-20-08) in Monticello, NY

Growing

Fuck Buttons


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All Tomorrow’s Parties NY Day 2 (Saturday): This Festival Is Cool And All, But I Sure Wish Jack Johnson Was Here

Just Kidding. I noticed in the programs/schedules we got that they joked about a big thing that set ATP apart from other festivals being “that no one selected or even wanted Jack Johnson“, and if you read this blog regularly, you know I can appreciate that sentiment.

We stuck around until last call at the bar at The Raleigh Friday night, so the first band I was able to catch on Saturday was the end of Growing‘s set. The 10 minutes or so I saw, I thought sounded great. I’ll be looking hard into this noise jamming duo now. After that I gave a short listen to The Drones and Wooden Shjips, but neither was really up my alley. I watched Fuck Buttons next, and damn their set was serious. I listened to their album and thought it was decent but it didn’t really hit me as something special, but catching them in a live setting totally sold me on these guys. The two dudes used all sorts of cool devices stacked on a table including a toy mic audio recorder sent through some interesting effects resulting in sweet distorted vocals. Their sound came off to me somewhere between Holy Fuck and Indian Jewelry, which is a great place to be.

After that I decided to start partying and enjoying the facilities. The resort ATP was being held on was kitschy and weird, and at first seemed like sort of a dump. But around the second day we were starting to appreciate how cool a venue this actually was. It was really nice to have an entire resort completely to ourselves, and often times you would see the artists walking around, catching shows, and hanging. We hung out in their children’s playground for a bit and tried out some strange playground equipment I had never seen before. We hung out by the pond with all of the drinkers and smokers and chilled. The place had a lot of amenities, but was crappy enough that a festival crowd couldn’t do too much damage to it. Well, they probably could.

Anyways, I checked out about half of Edan‘s set, and that was really good. I’ve found myself getting really bored of hip-hop these days, a genre I used to love. I mean, the new Lil’ Wayne is incredible and all, but it is still pretty much the same old thing rappers have been doing for 20 years. But Edan and his partner for this show Dagha brought some originality to the game. I particularly liked how they utilized a delay pedal to accent certain syllables instead of having a “hype man” yell the last word of every line. Another trick I enjoyed was when Edan did a rap referencing all types of classic records while Dagha would shuffle through them and display each record he was referencing. I love a show that can be fun to watch and exhibit feats of musicianship and skill at the same time.

I did some more partying, caught a little bit of OM, thought it was cool but I wasn’t really in the mood for it, then did some more partying. Next up for me was Low. They really impressed me because I only liked a few of the songs from their last record, but they were making me love absolutely every minute of their “slowcore” set (which is a funny yet accurate for this band genre title). The amount of intensity they can can pack inside of such downbeat, soft, and pretty sounding stuff just dazzled me.

By the time Thee Silver Mount Zion Orchestra began their set, I realized I had been partying too hard and could not properly appreciate it. I went and grabbed some food and drink some water, and got myself back to a manageable level of intoxication. I then returned back to the second stage, laid down in the back, and just let the rest Mount Zion‘s epic two hour set wash across me. This may have been the show I enjoyed most all weekend. I am about to obtain every bit of material from this project I possibly can and get obsessed for a while, so expect more of that around here. In addition to their top notch music, I loved how the dude would respond to every single bit of crowd heckling and yelling and call people out and talk smack . All around, this show was just: Wow!

I caught the last part of Shellac‘s set and felt the same way about it that I did when trying out their records: it wasn’t bad, but nothing amazing. Among many other basic indie rock facts I learned over the weekend, I hadn’t realized this was Steve Albini’s band, and they did a little question and answer part at one point that was interesting. After that Lighting Bolt set up on the ground to the right of the stage with a big circular mirror hanging above them so everyone could see the chaos going on at the center of that sonic tornado. What a day!

I’ll have my Day 3/Wrap-Up post as soon as Biggie C gets all of his photos posted, probably around the end of the week.

Here’s a video of Shellac from ATP NY: