Live Show: Mogwai (BBC Sessions 1996-2003)

This is a pretty epic collection of songs from nine different BBC Sessions Mogwai has done from 1996 to 2003. Many of the tracks from these sessions have seen official releases, but none of those have been included below. Enjoy:

Mogwai
Opposition Commissions: BBC Sessions 1996-2003

Peel Session, Maida Vale Studios, London (1997-01-11)

01. Superheroes Of BMX (removed)
02. Summer (priority version)
03. Waltz For Jo
04. R U Still In 2 It? (removed)

Mary-Anne Hobbs / Breezeblock Session, Maida Vale Studios, London (1997-10-28)

01. Like Herod
02. R U Still In 2 It? (removed)
03. Helicon 1

Peel Session, Maida Vale Studios, London (1998-02-17)

01. Procedure Four
02. Ex-Cowboy
03. Don’t Cry
04. Helicon 2 (removed)

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Live Show: Mogwai (9/8/2008)

Mogwai

The Grand Ballroom at the Regency Center
September 8, 2008
San Francisco, CA

1. The Precipice
2. Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home
3. Thank You Space Expert

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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]

All Tomorrow’s Parties NY Day 3 (Sunday & Wrap-Up): I Think I’m Gonna Need A Bigger Set Of Earplugs

All Photos by Abbey Braden courtesy of ATP.

Saturday night we got back very late to our hotel so I proceeded to order vodka and cranberries by the handful and shoot as many as possible before the looming last call at the bar. I clearly overshot my target and ended up waking up Sunday with a ludicrously painful hangover to start off the day. Most of the afternoon consisted of me trying recover. It finally subsided and I was able to make it to the very end of the Mercury Rev show. As soon a I walked in the backdoor of the venue, there was like a sonic boom blast of sound from a particularly epic part of their set, and you could tell they had this soundsystem at full blast in anticipation of My Bloody Valentine. I wish I could have seen more of Mercury Rev, because the last few minutes I caught were amazing. I’m about to dig deep into their new CD and their old stuff because i wasn’t familiar with them until now.

We stuck around up front to wait for Yo La Tengo, a favourite for all of our ATP crew. The guards or somebody decided starting on Sunday that they would make everyone leave the venue between each performance and have everyone wait outside, which really seemed rather purposeless. At one point a security guard unsuccessfully tried to get the massive crowd filling an entire room to form two lines to go in and it was hilarious. The guards never cleared out the venue area again after that.

We still managed to get front row, and enjoy their top notch set. I was hoping for a full on noise jam set from Ira Kaplan, and while it ended up being a rather balanced sort of set, full of soft, pretty parts and loud, psychedelic stuff, Ira still shredded plenty enough for me. Yo La Tengo is just one of the best bands of alltime in my opinion, to still be writing relevant, amazing music and playing such impressive live shows after 24 years. Here’s video from their set:

After that, we literally ran across Kutcher’s to the second stage to catch …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. We missed only a little bit of their great set, and I’m glad I finally caught these guys. In comparison to the rest of the mindblowing shows of Sunday, Trail Of Dead might have seemed a bit less enjoyable, but still could have been the highlight of lesser festival.


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Humpday Randomnimity

Athens Popfest is going on in our little sister city all this week and it looks awesome, so check it out.

Times New Viking is playing with Deerhunter on their tour including the Variety Playhouse stop Halloween. I’ll be there.

Minus The Bear and Annuals will be at the Variety Playhouse November 1st.

Ted Leo and Against Me! will be at The Masquerade October 1st.

Weezer and Tokyo Police Club will be at Gwinnett Center Arena October 25th.

The Reverend Horton Heat will be at The Variety Playhouse November 2nd.

Tegan And Sara will be at The Tabernacle September 30th.

Check out some Snowden tour footage.

Stop what you are doing and go watch the 31 minute film Portishead In Portishead here.

MF Douche strikes again. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, MF Doom keeps having lip syncing fake MF Doom‘s do his over-priced live shows for him.

Issac Hayes died.

The Rosebuds have a new album coming out in October.

The new Mastodon album is looking like it comes out January 2009.

Be Your Own Pet have broken up.

Jason Lytle of Grandaddy has a solo album called Sew Low Owl Bum out this winter. I’m excited!

The Stooges got robbed.

Jesu keep releasing EPs.

Burial has revealed his identity.

Beach House have a new a new single 7″ coming out.

Wolfmother is having some drama.

Jay-Z and Oasis are in a cat fight.

CD Baby just got sold.

Criminal Records is about to do some expanding.

The East Atlanta Icehouse (formerly Echo Lounge) should be having shows now, but they’d do themselves a service to have a show listing somewhere online.

There is never enough Grizzly Bear coverage.

Yo La Tengo are releasing a compilation of soundtracks they have done.

The finest vids on the ‘net:

New Grizzly Bear song played at All Points West “Fine For Now”:

No Age “Keechie”:

Mogwai “BatCat”:

Bowerbirds “In Our Talons”:

Release Of The Week

There are some intriguing albums coming out this week like Wilco‘s Sky Blue Sky and Dungen‘s Tio Bitar, but I want to focus on a DVD this week:

If you are unfamiliar with this movie, it’s the latest from one of my favourite directors, Darren Aronofsky (Pi and Requiem For A Dream). The movie was originally to be filmed in 2002 starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchet with a large budget, but the movie fell apart with Pitt leaving. After a few years, Aronofsky found a way to get the movie remade, this time with a much smaller budget and starring Hugh Jackman and Aronofsky’s fiance, Rachel Weisz. Despite the indie-budget, the actors turn in unbelievable performances and the movie looks stunning utilizing almost no CGI, but instead employing visual effects done from photographing reactions between chemicals and bacteria.

I don’t want to get into what the film is about really, because i think that’s one part of the movie I really love, figuring out what is going on. To me, this movie parallels The Mars Volta’s Amputechture in that they are both two amazing pieces of art from last year that most people, especially critics, don’t really get. So be warned that this seems to be a “love or hate” movie, but regardless i think it is something that everyone should see. Honestly, it is hard for me to think of a science-fiction movie that I have enjoyed more than this film. It even has a beautiful soundtrack done by Clint Mansell, featuring Kronos Quartet and Mogwai:

Buy The Fountain DVD here

Buy The Fountain Soundtrack here

Sugarkane’s Top 50 Albums of 2006

2006 was a great year for me, and the main reasons are mostly related to music. I decided to do this list in December because i wanted to learn about as much music as possible, and what I thought would take a few days ended up taking almost 2 months, but it was extremely educational for me and i feel very good about this list. There were so many albums that I would like to give props to and cutting it down to 50 was hard. On a technical note, I went by U.S. release date with the exception of Laura’s Radio Swan Is Down (It was released in Australia over a year ago and has no U.S. release date). Feel free to blast it:

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