What The Hell Am I Listening To?!?
The three best Spring 2009 releases from Georgia:
Lotus Plaza
While Bradford Cox gets the lion share of credit and attention when people talk about Deerhunter, the band is far from a solo endeavor. The quiet genius of Lockett Pundt is the ying to Cox’s yang. His debut album under his code name, Lotus Plaza, demonstrates not only the impressive talent Pundt possesses, but the music itself parallels his seemingly humble, stoic stage persona. Everything has this weird, distant detachment to its sound and the whole thing feels like a background. What initially attracted me to Deerhunter in the first place were the ambient, instrumental jams on Cryptograms, and those ideas seemed to be fleshed out much further on The Floodlight Collective. I feel like I peel back a new layer every time I listen to this record, so be advised this is a grower that may not hit you that hard upon your first listen, but I think it is one of the best to come out this year.
Mastodon
Mastodon have returned with a record that is more psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll than metal. At times it reminds me of the best of Metallica, Black Sabbath, and Pink Floyd, but still remains completely a thing all its own. The record showcases just how successful this band is at straddling the line between arena rock massiveness and avant-garde artfulness. Crack The Skye is a logical progression for the band, and the best thing about this album is that it gives you exactly what you were expecting and hoping for from the follow up to Blood Mountain. I know I had some giant expectations, and they have been completely fulfilled. Here are the first two tracks to start your journey:
Venice Is Sinking
photo by: Ian Darken
Athens’ Venice Is Sinking have finally unveiled their sophomore effort, AZAR, and it is a gorgeous yet surprisingly difficult release. Something about the pacing makes it hard to penetrate, and it has taken me a while to learn to love this record, but love it I do. It is simply unapologetic about its heavy employment of emotional builds and pushing dreamy lushness to its limits. Seven songs are strung together by the four part instrumental title track combing the best of both worlds between conceptualism and exceptional pop music. With Arcade Fire fallen back to Earth and Sufjan Stevens missing in action, the symphonic indie rock approach has become a lot less hip these days, but fashionable or not, Venice Is Sinking have created an outstanding collection of music that you should pick up:
Venice Is Sinking : Iron Range
Buy AZAR
- Posted by Davy Minor on April 13, 2009 at 6:06 am
One Response to “What The Hell Am I Listening To?!?”
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mp3hugger Says:
April 13th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Azar is one of the album’s of the year no doubt. And Iron Range is my fav from it. Wonderful stuff.
Post a comment.
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mp3hugger Says:
April 13th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Azar is one of the album’s of the year no doubt. And Iron Range is my fav from it. Wonderful stuff.
