Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Glasvegas – Daddy’s Gone

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Thrushes – Ghost Train

So one of our local favorites, Thrushes, are playing a great show October 2nd at the Ottobar.  Headliners are the fantastic sounding Glasvegas.  The bad news?  Due to some personnel shakeups in the form of drummer Ryan Sterner’s departure, Thrushes are taking some time this winter to regroup.  Drummer Scott Tiemman from Avec will be filling in for this appearance and they will officially be on hiatus afterwards.

As a “keep our seat reserved, we’ll be back soon” gift from Casey and crew to you, lucky readers, we are giving away one honking prize pack featuring:

• 1 guest list
• 1 Sun Come Undone vinyl
• 1 Heartbeats Remixed cd
• 1 limited edition 18 x 24 signed and numbered poster (pictured right) by Miss Amy Jo

Entry is simple, just leave a comment or email us at auralstates at gmail dot com.  We will let the winner know on Sept 30th.

CONTEST IS OVER, WINNER (B. SALZMAN) HAS BEEN EMAILED (11:59PM, 09/30).

Prolific recitalist, Soheil Nasseri, vowed to perform all Beethoven’s works for piano by 2020. He’s already 28-out-of-32 on the piano sonatas, but, on Thursday, we were treated to “trifles”: Beethoven’s Seven Bagatelles. And he began with Schumann. But then Nasseri warned: “If you have hearing aids, turn them off now.”

Hear that in a concert, and you’re almost guaranteed to be treated to some “sneak preview” premiere. Two works by composer Samir Odeh-Tamimi. Don’t know him? Me neither. He’s a Palestinian Israeli composer calling Berlin’s Avant-Garde home. Accordingly, Nasseri apologized as he sat down: “I hope that not too many of you leave.”

Read the rest…

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Parenthethical Girls – Gut Symmetries (Deerhoof cover)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Parenthetical Girls – A Song for Ellie Greenwich from Entangelments (2008)

Parenthetical Girls just dropped their album Entanglements yesterday, and already they are getting covered by Deerhoof.  Combine that with positive reviews of their album which is basically orchestral music slightly askew/gone awry and a tour extension and you have a recipe for exhaustion.  Hopefully they don’t get swamped and break up before we see what they can really do.  See the extended tour after the jump.

Read the rest…

Shearwaters are medium-sized, long-winged birds, part of the family Procellariidae. Elegant even by avian standards, many of their ilk are long-distance migrants and long-lived. Their flight is remarkable in its gliding ease and grace, and the length of its migrations spans hemispheres. It’s rare to be able to see a shearwater from land, as they nest in remote locales and islands and spend the majority of their time over open water.

In light of all this, it’s not surprising that Jonathan Meiburg and Will Sheff chose to name their non-Okkervil River musical collaboration Shearwater (Meiburg is also an ornithologist).  Sheff’s role in the collaboration diminished over time and most recently, Meiburg left Okkervil River to make Shearwater all his own.  Their latest album, Rook, most fully realizes the musical equivalent of the band’s namesake.  Sweeping and awe-inspiring in its scope, soaring, elegant and effortless folk rock.  It also marks Shearwater’s strongest declaration of independence from Okkervil River’s shadow.

When I have a longer moment, I’ll make some more developed remarks on the album and maybe elevate it to Recommended status.  For now, chew on these bits of aural greatness and check out our interview with Jonathan from back in June when he played DC.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Shearwater – Rooks

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Shearwater – Leviathan, Bound

Enjoy this vinyl-rip off AFX’s Smojphace EP, a remix of the Bug & Daddy Freddy’s “Run the place red.”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: The Bug & Daddy Freddy – Run the place red (AFX mix)

At a recent party, when the DJ dropped a bass-heavy Baltimore Club track, a man turned to me and proclaimed, “I want my epitaph to read: Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom!”

Well said.

Bass is powerful, you feel it hit in the sternum, feel that air being pushed. Bass, the word itself, is such a great example of onomatopoeia; it reads like it sounds. I think of a recent King Lear production were Edmund delivers his bastard monologue accompanied by a bass player–apt given the heavy alliteration on the “B” sound and the pun on base/bass. “Why brand they us/ With bass!” would read the play if it had been written by another, more current, Londoner, Kevin Martin aka The Bug. His new album features a multitude of ragga-tinged guest vocalists, and of course centers around bowl shaking bass.
Read the rest…

Courtesy of Aural States & the Hexagon: Win a pair of free tickets to the first Baltimore Chiptunes festival at the Hexagon Sept 13th. Leave a comment or email auralstates@gmail.com with your name and contact info to be entered. Simple as that. A winner will be drawn and announced Thursday Sept 11th.

Photo credits (top to bottom): Nullsleep, modestdub, Richard Alexander Caraballo, Josh Davis (x2), unknown, Dr. Rek

Baltimore’s first Chiptune festival is fast approaching.

This showcase of everything right and good about video gaming hardware and electronics, will be held at the Hexagon on Sept 13th.

Starting at noon, there will be a DIY synth/circuit bending workshop featuring local luminaries including Carly Ptak (Nautical Alamanc).  Once things get dark, some fantastical spazz-inducing video and music performances will keep you up til the wee-hours courtesy of a crew of NYC kids from famed chiptunes momentum-drivers and scene curators 8bitpeoples.

To prep for what is sure to be a memorable occasion, we took some time to chat with noteNdo (aka Jeff Donaldson), chiptune artist, member of WZT Hearts and former Baltimore-now-NYC resident about the scene, his music and the upcoming Baltimore fest which he is helping organize.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: noteNdo – INTERLOPER

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: noteNdo – VIDEOLOOP

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: noteNdo – Video Loop Live @ Metro Gallery, Oct 9 2007 (courtesy the Baltimore Taper)

Aural States – So let’s start out with the basics, your musical background and how you got into things. Read the rest…

Arbouretum & Pontiak play the Talking Head this Friday, Sept 5 with Psychic Paramount and Sri Aurobindo. Not to be missed.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Pontiak – Dome under the sky

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Arbouretum – Buffalo Ballet

John Cale is the highly prolific co-founder of a little band called the Velvet Underground. There is no shortage of love for his work, but this masterful EP collaboration of Arbouretum and Pontiak may be the best expression of it.

Arbouretum and Pontiak are both highly respected and talented groups of rockers steeped in folk, psych and garage rock traditions. Arbouretum works in a bit more of a meta, grander scale working more in the realms of folk and an almost supernatural force while Pontiak explores a more micro level, bringing the visceral crunchier psych jams and freak-outs.

Read the rest…

So we love some High Places. They wowed us in an earlier performance this year with No Age @ Floristree, and here we are, their self-titled album release just around the corner. And the lovely folks at Thrill Jockey have provided an MP3 nugget of aural glory in the form of the album’s closing track!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: High Places – From Stardust to Sentience from upcoming self-titled LP (Sept 23)

Tracklist

1. The Storm
2. You in Forty Years
3. The Tree with the Lights in It
4. Vision’s the First…
5. Gold Coin
6. Papaya Year
7. Namer
8. Golden
9. A Field Guide
10. From Stardust to Sentience

See their tour dates after the jump…

Read the rest…

This press release just hit our doorstep, and we couldn’t be more excited (especially me as an un-recovered video game nerd).  Stay tuned for more exciting coverage as we approach the fest.

Read the rest…

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: My Morning Jacket – Highly Suspicious from Evil Urges (2008)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: My Morning Jacket – Get Down On It (Kool and the Gang) live from Bonnaroo 2008

This Wednesday, DAR Constitution Hall will host My Morning Jacket, who recently has been touted by the media as the greatest live act in the world. It’s the kind of fanboy drooling usually reserved for Iron Maiden or U2 or Kiss, bands that really want you to believe they’re the greatest, but it’s the first time I’ve heard that kind of praise leveled on a band whose rise to popularity I’ve fully witnessed and who may not have even peaked yet. Maybe people of the generation before mine recall the rise of Pearl Jam and Radiohead and their nomination for that title. My Morning Jacket never had a huge breakthrough chart-topping single like either of those bands, and I doubt they ever will unless Jim James develops a more radio-friendly voice–although one could have said the same of Neil Young in 1970. Read the rest…