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: Max Tundra – Which Song

Max Tundra plays at the Metro Gallery tonight with Deastro, the Water, and Comeback Ranch.

Max Tundra (aka Ben Jacobs) is a one-man electronic orchestra from England. His pieces have multiple personalities, movements that hop without forewarning from one intricate synth part and drum loop to another, topped off with falsetto vocals and a surprisingly human (and modern) lyricality. Max doesn’t really use any touring musicians, which means that on stage he is allegedly a bit of a whirlwind, putting on what could be the most energetic show you’re likely to see in some time. I haven’t been part of the event, and unfortunatelty won’t be able to see him tonight, but it promises to be fascintating.

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: Dirty Projectors – Stillness is the move from the forthcoming full-length Bitte Orca (2009)

There’s a strange pattern of listenership between Dirty Projectors and myself. Here’s generally how it works: every few months I excitedly stumble upon one of their albums at some miscellaneous record shop. I’ll take it home, cherish the album art that the indie gods have bestowed upon me, set my player on repeat, and amongst the other indistinct tunes, I’ll find one sole outstanding track that absolutely dominates my musical interests like a newly acquired puppy.

For example: the beauty-saturated The Glad Fact’s most sincere track (“Lit From Below”) ran through my speakers for the majority of last January, whereas the grand harmonies of “Not Having Found” played the same role for The Getty Address last June. Over a year and a half after my first experience with Dirty Projectors, “Rise Above” still hasn’t vanished from my play cue, and that’s all I’ll say about that. It’s always been worth the trouble to shuffle through Dave Longstreth’s discography for these rare tracks, which is exactly the state of mind I utilized while first listening to Bitte Orca.

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: Benjy Ferree – Fear

Benjy Ferree’s (Wiki) first album hinted at a promising future.  He is one of a sizeable stable of musicians undertaking the fusion of a deep love of Americana with an unabiding passion for rock.  Too often this leads to uninteresting and unsatisfying ends: pale imitations of rural folk, gimmicky and trite psych-folk meanderings…the list of mediocre iterations is endless.  But the top tier of these artists are possessed of uncanny arranging ability, an ear for dynamic interplay between vocal and instrumental voices, and a unique alchemy that lends the music an unclassifiable quality that breaks the shackles of its influences.  

To my ears, Benjy Ferree is one of these top tier talents.

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: Wild Beasts – Vigil for a Fuddy Duddy

“Room a catacomb, this ghoul a balloon, with the breath from beneath your breast, yes that is best,” opens Wild Beasts’ Domino debut (Limbo, Panto) with Hayden Thorpe’s enormous cry. Even though everything Wild Beasts pull out of their English bag of tricks could have been predicted after just a few verses of Thorpe’s howl, they’ll still surprise you every time. Read the rest…