Home

Aural States Fest: Positive Press

asf-flyer-1-web

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 – All that will be has become, all that has come isn’t 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: Wye Oak – Obituary

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: Pleasant Livers – Touchdown

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: CANNOT BE STOPPED - Piano Hag

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: Lo Moda – Ready to go (Gospel Song)

Aural States Fest begins tonight with performance night at Sonar/the Talking Head.  Doors/free stuff @ 630PM while supplies last from most of the artists and our sponsors:

Here’s what people around town are saying:

Interview / Exclusive Audio: Sri Aurobindo

sri-aurobindo-andy-cookCheck our world premiere download of the first track off Sri Aurobindo’s upcoming debut full-length. Catch them live tomorrow, Jan 30th @ Sonar; they are up first on the Club stage at 9PM.

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: Sri Aurobindo – Nobody’s Child from the forthcoming full-length

Some address the genre of psychedelia as a treasure of the past- best left alone. Crucial individuals of Sixties counterculture set the bar for Rock ‘N Roll- that tripped out, feel good groove of peace and naked people. But just as other breeds have, this acid-rock can evolve too, and Sri Aurobindo (pictured right, credit: Andy Cook) are right on track. Scheduled to play the first day of our 1 year anniversary bash (Aural States Fest) this Friday night, Brandon Arinoldo, Danny Chenault, Mike Furniere, and Mike Romano met me on an icy Sunday night in Hampden to let us in on the soon to be released, self-titled album and what to expect at the show this weekend: conscious, free-flowing Bohemians spreading the good vibes of avant-garde psychedelia.

Aural States: How did you all meet? What’s the story behind your collaboration?

Read the rest…

New Chavy Boys of London Mix; Aural States exclusive Unruly Records give-away

chavy_boys_main_0Having grown up in Baltimore City it never dawned on me that the late night dance tracks on the radio were exclusive to this city–that didn’t come about until high school. Now, the sound is showing up everywhere. And the publication XLR8R is no exception.

This month’s podcast features a mix by the Chavy Boys of London, an Unruly Records super-group of Scottie B, Shawn Caesar, and King Tutt (if you haven’t listened to any of their Money Lotion series, do so!) To describe the mix I’d have to fall into genre cliche catch-words like “Bangin,’” because, frankly, this mix is bangin’. The DJ Technics remix of Radiohead’s “Everything in it’s Right Place” is particularly memorable.  Also, don’t sleep on DJ Class’ “I’m the Ish” which may be Baltimore Club’s breakthrough into the top 40.  People Like Jermaine Dupri (click here for viddy of JD losing it in the studio to this track) and, apparently Puffy are getting interested in this sound now.

This mix could be an interesting nod to what to expect in the future from Unruly Records–the mix abandons the Lyn Collins break periodically for some four-on-the-floor action. One would assume that is the King Tutt influence at work, or perhaps Shawn’s roots in Deep House.

Link for the mix after the jump. Read the rest…

Live Review: Breathless Whirl of the Baltimore Waltz – Ravel @ the BSO (2009.01.15)

Atypical Romantic

Atypical Romantic

The BSO, under the baton of visiting French conductor, Stéphane Denève, harnessed this whirling beast with great aplomb, taking us for a lovely hurl towards the edge of Viennese culture — as seen by the French composer. I’ve never heard a more genuinely- paced rendition.

“The impression of fantastic and fatal whirling” — this is what Maurice Ravel had to say of composing La Valse in 1919. That’s all that remained after he’d first envisioned La Valse — the tone poem — back in 1906. What intervened? Only the cataclysm of World War I.

Imagine yourself, asking a lovely partner of the opposite sex to waltz, to step — while turning — with a leg directly between your own. Chances are, you’d get drunk first. Just like you do before you go out to bump and grind. Denève offered a most drunkenly-divine slowness to start this unholy ballroom dervish. There’s a flash of percussion promise, a swish of skirt riot from the woodwinds before the strings take up. Best of all, as this turbine cranked up to full devilry, the cellos were raw and randy. There was almost a Latin-like squaring off with the two string sections as things got steamy.

Read the rest…

Album Review / Audio: Weekends – Weekends (unsigned)

weekends-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: Weekends – Cookie Salad and Buddy System

Weekends are making something I’ve been yearning for that seems in short supply. Their music is a sonicated form of optimism, refined and measured into well-sized portions ripe for enjoyment and resulting in one of the most buoyant and unapologetically rock releases I’ve put in my player since Ponytail’s Ice Cream Spiritual. Read the rest…

Album Review / Audio: Heartless Bastards – The Mountain (Fat Possum)

heartless-bastards-the-mountain

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: Heartless Bastards – The Mountain

Does anyone realize that real authentic folk is vast rarity in nowadays? If you drive for a few days out on I-70 West you’ll find yourself somewhere in Colorado, and things will look quite similar to how they do here on the East Coast. There will be cars, people, houses, and department stores. It seems to me that we have a lot of folk music and not so much folk living, and maybe that’s why it seems so synthetic when Heartless Bastards experiment with the all too popular genre. Especially when it’s so clear that they should stick to blues. Read the rest…

Album Review / Audio: Deleted Scenes – Birdseed Shirt (What Delicate Recordings)

deleted-scenes-birdseed-shirt

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: Deleted Scenes – Fake IDs

Hailing from Olney, Maryland, Deleted Scenes’ second album, Birdseed Shirt, debuted just after the turn of the new year and seemed to be the talk of the town before it.  The latest “it” thing crowned by DC’s new media, Dan Scheuerman, Matt Dowling, Chris Scheffey and Brian Hospital lead off the album with distorted guitar and solid drums, developing the promising opener “Turn To Sand” into dirty buzzing alternative rock not dissimilar to Spoon’s foot stomping Gimme Fiction.  “Fake IDs” and “Take My Life” also drip wet with grungy reverb and catchy vocals that manage to flow one after the other while remaining unique amongst each other. Read the rest…

Live Review / Photos: Dance Music Reflections – Deep Sugar @ Paradox (2009.01.10); Martyn and Joe Nice @ Hour Haus (2009.01.09)

shivaAll Photos: Josh Sisk

Dance—some Western creation myths favor a divine utterance rendering the visual (the Logos; Let there be Light!) Other traditions have the world arising from sound. But in the context of this article, one might find it enlightening to consider Shiva Nataraja and his dance of the 108 poses that engendered mortal existence. This belief, popular in Southern India, combines both the visual (dance) and the aural (rhythm) in a powerful synergistic way. Paradoxically, Shiva Nataraja’s swaying cosmic body forms both the Lasya, and the Tandava–the creation of the world, and the destruction of the world. Dance is literally the beginning, and the end. According to this Tamil belief, dance is not just a thing of beauty, or entertainment, but also the primal force of existence.

Why then Puritan America’s generalized abhorrence of dance? Why does dance music, and what follows—dancing to that music—carry such a heavy stigma in this country?

Read the rest…

Photos: Los Campesinos! @ the Ottobar (2008.01.15)

Los Campesinos! kicked off their tour in Baltimore this past Thursday at the Ottobar. This seven-piece band from Wales managed to pack the Ottobar with a crowd who was very excited to see this band play.  

Unfortunately, violinist Harriet Campesinos! was unable to travel due to illness; yet playing as a 6-piece, they still surprised the audience with a song sung from the floor, a climb up the side wall towards the balcony and an end to their set with some crowd surfing from stage.  

It was no surprise that the audience demanded an encore!  

Titus Andronicus from New Jersey is touring with Los Campesinos! and is certainly an opener worth catching.  They were every bit as energetic as the main act, so if you plan to catch this show along the tour, make sure you come early to catch this band as well!

Los Campesinos!

img_1276img_1671 Read the rest…

Live Audio / Photos: Avocado Happy Hour @ the Ottobar (2009.01.14)

IMG_2073

All photos: Greg Szeto

Avocado Happy Hour provide another interpretation in what may be the boom-genre of 2009: precious instrumental music.  The word precious comes to mind immediately with the twinkling glockenspiel and warm melodies.  They showed they have some adventurous ideas and inspiration, distributing a crate of bells to the audience for their first song.  All of their songs seem to have a somnambullic quality to them, at times sounding like a infant’s music mobile that is stammering while running out of juice, yet still struggling to accomplish its task of transporting you into dreamland.  This is likely owed to the glockenspiel dropping notes in an irregular pitter-patter in patterns of early rain.  

Unfortunately, each song seems to take a bit too long growing and developing, not enough happening to sustain interest early-on as they build each layer.  But it is worth it to hang on, because the finished tapestry is remarkably good; look no farther than the latter halves of “Mushroom” and “Seamore.”  ”Positano Prelude” and “Grilled Cheese” don’t really ever find their footing in an engaging way for me; it seems they need to refine their alchemy of instrumental voices a bit further to figure out just how much is needed of each to produce more tracks like “Mushroom.”

Avocado Happy Hour
The Ottobar
Baltimore, MD
January 14, 2009

Band:
Amanda Schmidt-Rhodes piano, glockenspiel, and keyboards
Rod Hamilton-vibraphone, drums, and percussion

Source: Peluso CEMC6/ck4(cards)>PS-2>AD-20>NJB3
Transfer: NJB3>PC>SF-7>Wav>FLAC
Taper: Jeff Mewbourn (jm292@yahoo.com)

Notes:

Avocado Happy Hour>The Love Language>The Rosebuds
Mics located 8ft below heat vent
Sound: Brian Daniloski              

SUPPORT LOCAL MUSIC

Download the full set as a ZIP file formatted in: FLAC or MP3

Stream MP3s and photos from the show after the jump. Read the rest…

Older Posts >