Ed. note: Aural Slate Recordings artist Caverns is embarking on a North American tour (that includes you Canada) in support of Aural Slate’s inaugural EP release We Lied.   Tagging along with Maryland stoner rock legends Clutch, Caverns will be going pretty much everywhere you don’t want to be  in April, if you like to be warm!

Greetings.   Welcome to Northern Exposure, which is to be a written archive of all of the adventures our band, Caverns, whilst touring with the mighty Clutch.  As I’m writing this, most of the band is, like me, at lunch at their day job mentally preparing to embark on this 3 week, 16 date tour.   We’re all still in shock that we got the time off work (except for our piano player, Patrick who is his own “boss”) to live out this childish rock fantasy, but never underestimate the generosity of a well kissed ass!  Seriously though, thanks so much to the powers that be for letting us take the time to do this, you know who you are and you win.  We’re leaving for our first show in Portland, Maine tonight after Rush Hour.  What did you think we’d go on tour for three months without watching Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker hilariously riff off of each other?  No chance, kemosabe.

Getting ready for our first national tour has been fraught with buying unnecessary items, people offering questionable advice, and losing the thing you just had in your hand two seconds ago because you have so much shit on your mind.  We’re probably gonna forget Ross when we leave.  We’re about 99% of the way done at this point, but I will say that, for a band about to embark on a tour opening for Clutch, we are wildly deficient in facial hair department.  Ross and our tour manager Ira have respectable beards, but even then they are not at viking status, which is where I think they need to be.  I myself am clean shaven because I just don’t have the stones to grow a beard and Pat’s face never went through puberty.  Anyone know a good costume shop in Portland?

We’ll be checking in pretty much daily with news or our happenings and wildly embellished retellings of assorted road hijinks that may or may not have occurred.  There will be pictures, videos, laughing and love.  Oh and a daily recap of amazing events and noises Pat was able to sleep through.  So please stay tuned, good AS reader, we will be back to check on you very very soon from Portland, ME.

Love,

Kevin/Caverns

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Title Tracks – Every Little Bit Hurts

To start, Title Tracks sound nothing like Q and Not U, whose raucous clatter compelled DC post-punkers to dance in the early part of the last decade. Neither does Title Tracks remind you of the energetic indie pop of Georgie James, John Davis’ first post-Q and Not U band. Instead, Title Tracks produces mid-tempo power pop with all the requisite influences, {insert The Jam/Big Star reference here}. And they follow this formula quite well, crafting some tight and exciting songs in the process.

That’s the good news — if you enjoy that sound and feel, you’re probably gonna eat this up the way I ate up Abe Vigoda (who?) a year and a half ago. But frankly the formula is weary, old, and been done before, many thousands of times over. If you’ve decided to step into this arena you have to face the fact that there are a thousand other guys out there playing the same chords and singing the same “la-la”s. So what’s there to distinguish you from them? Usually the answer lies in strong vocals and melodies, and on both counts Davis is fine. In a world where ex-post punkers are embarassing themselves at an alarming rate, give the guy props because he certainly succeeds more often than he fails, but I wish he would take enough chances to do either on a large scale.

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A week from today, our newest venture (EP label Aural Slate Recordings) will launch with the release of Caverns’ EP We Lied. Caverns have long been one of my favorite local artists, providing a unique take on the stale formula of rock and an explosively engaging live show. I’m really proud to have them on-board as our inaugural release. The first release show will be on Friday February 19th at Comet Ping Pong in DC with Detox Retox, and Prisms. Release shows in Frederick and label party in Baltimore will follow in the spring.

We Lied was recorded with Chris Freeland at Beat Babies, and J. Robbins at the Magpie Cage. Mixing duties fell on Chris Freeland and Matthew Leffler-Schulman of Mobtown Studios, who also did the mastering. Album art was designed by the multi-talented Caleb Moore of Lands & Peoples.

To give all you loyal Aural States readers a taste of the album, today we present the opening track (and lead “single”), entitled ”Arctic Phantoms.” Coincidentally, it is also the only track on the EP recorded with J. Robbins at the Magpie Cage, and really sets the stage for the rest of the EP.

More from lead guitarist Kevin Hilliard:

The opening track, “Arctic Phantoms,” operates as the mission statement for this EP. In fact, we titled the EP We Lied because this song steps outside of the purely instrumental confines our music has remained in up to this point by incorporating a heavily effected vocal melody and atmospheric synths into the mix. Our drummer, Ross Hurt, programmed glitchy electronic drums to add yet another texture previously absent from our compositions. The beginning of this track might even sound like the work of an entirely different band if it weren’t for Patrick Taylor’s lead piano line, which maintains a continuity between “Arctic Phantoms” and our earlier work. As for the lyrics…we’re not at liberty to discuss them, but if anyone figures out what they are, we’ll give you a free t-shirt.

Find out more than you ever wanted to know at our label site (including more track previews, links to buy etc), and stay tuned for more exciting announcements throughout the year. Starting next Friday, a limited run of 200 CDRs will sell for $5 at shows, and the album will be available digitally on Bandcamp (which means you could even get it lossless!) for $4.

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MP3: Imperial China – All That Is Solid (limited time exclusive download)

Sockets is having a label showcase at the Black Cat Mainstage on Fri Jan 22nd including Imperial China, Hume, Buildings, The Cornel West Theory and Big Gold Belt.

First, let’s address the unavoidable: few can discuss any independent music act coming out of DC without mentioning Dischord Records. This is not without good reason since Dischord casts a long shadow, more a movement and culture than anything so narrowly scoped as a record label. Since its output, while significant, began to dwindle in the late 90s, there has been arguably no real engine of creativity to rival its explosive, pioneering hey-day. DC has steadily kept up with musical trends and , building a strong cast of devoted locals, but no real movement or creative hub has emerged. DC is a town in flux. This is something both artist and label are acutely aware in this situation.

With Imperial China’s signing, DC label Sockets appears well poised to step in and pick up the torch where Dischord laid it down. Preparing to catalyze a genuine movement again, they have amassed a strong roster featuring some of DC’s most exciting and ambitious music makers (notably Buildings, and Hume). All of their acts seem to be mindful of striking that careful and electric balance between experimentalism and accessibility, as well as being painfully aware of the Dischord void.

Imperial China debuts on Sockets with their full-length Phosphenes, a release I’ve had the luck of following throughout its life from birth through live performance, recording and refinement with Devin Ocampo at the famed Inner Ear Studios, to its completion and finding a home at Sockets. It swiftly became one of my favorite albums to listen to last year, so I am very confident it will be in my top albums of this new year (the year of its official release).

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Photo: David Carter

Solar Powered Sun Destroyer is a DC band, captured here in an opening slot for Sainthood Reps and Caspian at The Red & The Black. Only about a half hour of music here, but they have a very nice genre-defying sound going. Track 3, “Some Assembly Required,” is especially fine. Solar Powered Sun Destroyer will be appearing again at The Rock and Roll Hotel in DC on Friday February 5.

Solar Powered Sun Destroyer
The Red & The Black Bar
January 8, 2010
Washington DC, USA

Justin Horenstein – guitars
Jimmy Rhodes – drums
Dave Davies – guitars
John Kniep – vocals, guitars
Ross Hurt – bass

Streaming player:

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MP3 links:

1. Ender (3:21)
2. On the Shelf (5:19)
3. Some Assembly Required (4:44)
4. More or Less (6:20)
5. Ghost Light (4:54)
6. Intromission (1:33)
7. The Roulette Year (4:40)

Total time: 30:51

ZIP links:

Entire set in mp3 format

Lineage:

AKG 414 mid/side pair -> Zoom h4n 48/24 -> Nuendo (stereo encoding, limiting) -> MP3

Recorded by:

David Carter(carteriffic@gmail.com)

Photo: David Carter

Caspian is a fierce instrumental rock band from Boston. Their three electric guitarists generate a wide range of textures, from sparse orchestral passages to volcanic blasts of distortion. The entire band has a cohesiveness that only occurs in nature after relentless rehearsal and touring. In this set, recorded at Washington D.C.’s The Red & The Black Bar on January 8th 2010, we get five tracks of strong material from their recently released Tertia, and three from 2005′s You Are The Conductor. Caspian’s kinetic presence made that crowded little space very happy. After this mini-tour of the east coast, a more extensive US tour is planned, with a date shaping up for a show at The Black Cat this March.

Caspian
The Red & The Black Bar
January 8, 2010
Washington DC, USA

Philip Jamieson – guitar
Erin Burke-Moran – guitar
Jonny Ashburn – guitar
Chris Friedrich – bass
Joe Vickers – drums

Streaming player:

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MP3 links:

1. The Raven (7:20)
2. Malacoda (7:50)
3. Of Foam and Wave (7:42)
4. Quovis (1:10)
5. Further Up (4:22)
6. Further In (3:56)
7. Ghosts of the Garden City (9:30)
8. Sycamore (10:41)
9. Happy Birthday (0:50)

Total time: 53:21

ZIP links:

Entire set in mp3 format
Entire set in FLAC format

Lineage:

AKG 414 mid/side pair -> Zoom h4n 48/24 -> Nuendo (stereo encoding, limiting) -> MP3

Recorded by:

David Carter(carteriffic@gmail.com)

Every year, some lucky players get to borrow Ms. Gertrude Clarke Whittall’s Library present of three violins, a viola, and a cello from the unbeatable maker Antonio Stradivarius for the night. This year, the young New Englanders Parker String Quartet, with their rock-solid lyricism, won the prize. Best of all, the concert is always free.

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Ed. note: Here’s hoping you all have a great time ringing in the New Year. Thanks to Guy (Vimeo / YouTube) from the Metro Gallery, you can also reflect back on a great night of live music from 2009: our fall showcase headlined by So Percussion this fall. Unfortunately, Microkingdom’s set was lost due to technical malfunction.

Congrats to friend of Aural States, stand-up guy, and all-around great musician (and highly underrated lyricist) J Robbins. His noted 90s project Jawbox (infamous for being one of the only artists to leave legendary Dischord Records). They delivered a taut performance of “Savory” last night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to commemorate the reissue and remastering of their Atlantic debut For Your Own Special Sweetheart.

If you missed it, YouTube has a version (see below), and Hulu will have a true HD 480p version later today.

And according to my chat with J, we also get two more online-exclusive performances after the jump (“FF=66″ and “68,” both also from FYOSS).

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Ed. note: The photos from this review are from the first of two consecutive nights, while the review is based on the second.

All photos: Shantel Mitchell

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MP3: Pixies – Dancing the Manta Ray from Doolittle 20th Anniversary Live Sampler

The whole entire-album-in-one-concert trend has been derided as an attempt by artists to cash in or dumb down the concert experience to something as predictable as pushing play on your iPod. The Pixies had flashes of both at their show in Washington on Tuesday night, where they dusted off Doolittle and its B-sides. But then you remember, “Oh yeah, this is the f-ing Pixies,” and you count your blessings for being able to see what turned out to be an awesome show.

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