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MP3: Spectre – Blazed feat. Sensational

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MP3: Spectre – Valour

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MP3: Spectre – Fracture

I haven’t taken rap, or hip-hop for that matter, seriously since I first heard “Get Low,” penned by some disillusioning bastard with a mixing program. So, needless to say it’s been years. Friends of mine would play their favorites in an attempt to convert me, all usually trashy jams you hear on Hot-99.5 (ruining the taste of high school students, one single at a time), which didn’t help in the least.

That’s the backstory of how I came to loathe the genre as a whole, just so you’re aware of my rap/hip-hop/R&B credentials before I go into this any further. But to be fair, I had an open mind to rap, believing somehow that it can express notable emotion in its own way. I just assumed that such art was almost unobtainable without some sort of black-market inside source so I never attempted to find it. Years later, this guy named Greg asked me to check out an artist named Spectre.  He sent me his 2003 album, Psychic Wars. This is where my viewpoint on rap and hip-hop shifted for the better. This is the art I was hoping existed, but never quite found.

Spectre, otherwise known as Skiz Fernando, is a Harvard-educated rap artist that runs his own “Crooklyn”-founded, Baltimore-based label called Wordsound. His default setting is sinister: a dark, contemplative tone that calls for chills on all occasions. And it works.

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MP3: The Rural Alberta Advantage – Don’t Haunt This Place from Hometowns (re-release on Saddle Creek  July 07, 2009)

The Rural Alberta Advantage have got something special. Like any good music group, a list of their influences (Neutral Milk Hotel, Mountain Goats, countless other gloomy bands) doesn’t even half explain their music. Trying to break down their debut album, Hometowns, into genres and comparisons proves itself a futile task because there’s something untouchable about them, almost as if what they create is more than its material aspects.

With pipes that ineffably burrow into you (like those of many who inspire him), Nils Edenloff’s vocal work probes around with rippled valor and finds it’s home right near where your most melancholy emotions reside. While Hometowns definitely sounds like a collaborative effort, most would point to Nils when looking for a frontman. He’s accompanied by Paul Banwatt, a drummer who,  if “Don’t Haunt This Place” tells us anything, has got some serious skills, and Amy Cole, whose voice perfectly accentuates Nils’ in all the most necessary places. They come to the table with a downcast mix of guitar-driven indie rock, sometimes heralding with frantic blasts of energy, others utilizing more contemplative moods bordering on folk-art, but always accomplishing what the song intends.

Following a near-zero-press independent release of the album last year on eMusic, the RAA have been steadily doctoring a now-developing buzz in the music world, and have opted to re-release Hometowns through Saddle Creek Records (a damn good decision). They may sound like a thousand other forgettable indie outfits, but something about these Albertans sticks regardless of that fact. Prediction: a total blog-based (cough) explosion of popularity in the next month or two.

Necrophagist plays the Summer Slaughter tour, kicking off at Sonar this Friday, June 5th.

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MP3: Necrophagist – Seven from Epitaph (2004)

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MP3: Necrophagist – Stabwound from Epitaph (2004)

If ‘metal-head’ is an honorific term measuring the duration (as well the depth) of one’s commitment to metal, I am probably not a metal-head.

I am a dedicated and passionate student of metal, but also a fairly recent convert. The lynchpin in my conversion: Necrophagist, who I first heard somewhere in the middle of a ten-hour car ride in the summer of 2006. Pushing play, the friend who introduced me to Necrophagist declared with confidence that they were “the best death metal band in world.” This kind of enthusiasm is typical of devotees to death metal, and is hard to resist. Walking home from the library a few weeks later with “Stabwound” on my iPod, I had a thought which went something like “these guitar solos are really, really good.” And thus, my conversion was complete.

Necrophagist incorporates an almost absurd degree of technical proficiency into their music. If you are into metal you have probably already heard them. But besides those who already like fast, brutal, technical metal, fans of jazz, progressive, and guitar dweebs (players or fans of Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen, i.e. me) could find plenty to love. What sets guitarist and vocalist Muhammed Suicmez apart from many other gifted guitar players is the degree to which his solos are seamlessly integrated into the music. Necrophagist’s songs are constructed around complex guitar parts, so two minutes of sweep-picking can be a development and expansion of what has gone before instead of a showcase for Suicmez’s awesome talent.

Necrophagist also go far beyond technicality and complexity for its own sake, and many of their songs could be even described as catchy. It is weird to find yourself humming “Intestinal Incubation,” but just try to get those harmonics out of your head. Necrophagist, in other words, make really good music and (unlike Steve Vai) they are not a guilty pleasure. Depth and complexity are terms that apply to a lot of heavy metal, especially death metal. Necrophagist can easily become a bridge to some of the even heavier bands at Summer Slaughter like Origin, Beneath the Massacre, and death metal legends Suffocation. Metalheads are already looking forward to Summer Slaughter.

Non-metalheads, I want to convert you: Necrophagist are the best death metal band in the world.

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MP3: The Love Language – Lalita

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MP3: The Love Language – Manteo

Photo credit: Greg Szeto, Love Language at the Ottobar playing a fantastic set with Avocado Happy Hour (more pictures here)

There’s something undeniable about a well-executed pop song. There’s this assured quality in how pop feels, you begin to believe that there’s a normative characteristic about the music, that everyone should like a good pop track.

Raleigh’s The Love Language make music that fits this description like a pair of one-size-fits-all gym shorts. They apply the now-popular lo-fi fuzz filter to the beat-to-death standards of indie pop. Sounds worn and unoriginal right?

Wrong.  The Love Language’s greatest talent is their ability to inject some much-needed vitality into otherwise mundane breeds of indie music, making for a wholly delightful listening experience.

I, for one, cannot understand why anyone would/could/should ever dislike the batshit-giddy beach pop beats of “Lalita.” A few lone rapid strums of an acoustic guitar open the floor for an overdriven surf-pop riff larger and brighter than my radio station’s marketing director (whom I’m beginning to suspect is at least half-giant). The song continues in the same euphoric fashion for the next three minutes, with a verse catchier than that deadly swine flu from hell, and a chorus that belongs in a summer blockbuster’s soundtrack.

From what I’ve heard, The Love Language’s success has to do with their mood-enhancing vocals much of the time. While I’m still not certain what fuzzed-out voices do to us, or why they do it, I surely hope they never stop.

Check their new music video for song “Sparxxx” after the jump.

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MP3: Solar Powered Sun Destroyer – Ghost Light (Live on WMUC)

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MP3: Solar Powered Sun Destroyer – Intromission

Some of you may or may not remember me gushing a bit about SPSD when they opened for Appleseed Cast at Sonar a few weeks ago. Even more remarkable, and something I may have neglected to mention, is that the show was one of their first ones back after a massive line-up overhaul.

Seems even more people have hopped on the fan-wagon this week as, in anticipation of their show tonight at the Black Cat, DC blog DCist conducted one of their Three Stars spotlights on the fellas.  I’ve said pretty much all I desire to at this point, so go back and read that review and enjoy the above cuts (thanks to SPSD for kindly letting us host them).  I will likely gush a bit more when they open a phenomenal bill at the Talking Head on May 8 with Aural States regulars and Aural States Fest alums Caverns and a little band called FRODUS headlining.

If you are in DC tonight, do head over to the Black Cat Backstage, where SPSD will open for Tera Melos.  $10/doors @ 9PM.

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MP3: François Virot – Not the one

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MP3: François Virot – Cascade Kisses

Buglike.

That’s how you describe François Virot’s vocals. The dude sounds like the product of an insect and a well-refined microphone. Aside from the presentation of an almost exact replica of Marty Anderson’s (Okay) vocal style, François Virot’s Yes or No is a laid-back-yet-tense-in-every-way piece of mostly-acoustic glory. His voice is at once breathy and full of life, a rare quality usually reserved for the well-established indie masterminds. It’s as if it’s everywhere at once, the words are distinguishable but somehow last for longer than you expect.

He doesn’t really ever “strum” his guitar, rather he opts to simply smash it with his artsy French hands. Maybe that’s a trendy new European thing. It takes on an unnatural crunch in its tone, like a glass of cold water from a rusted sink. Likewise, his percussion is of the found-variety: handclaps, stomping, hitting his guitar with a soft mallet, it’s all fair game. You’ll find the nearly-twee drumming on every beat, far enough in the background for it to be out of your mind, but just loud enough to carry the rhythm.

Yes or No is ancient in terms of blogosphere time, released way back in September 2008. I’m not sure if I’m just behind the times or it’s just finding its way to the United States now. I pulled it, by chance, out of the radio station library one especially underprepared day. I was overwhelmed by “Where O Where A.” How the percussion sits around and somehow never ceases stop, how the guitar sounds like it may either be played by a person or by a thousand tiny bugs working together in near-perfect harmony. There’s just enough wiggle-room to make the occasional imperfections add to the music. Then, the vocals. François Virot’s weak-yet-potent delivery adds to the almost-nonsense backing music to complete something altogether heartfelt and, at times, joyful.

Yes Or No is a far-overlooked acoustic indie album comprised of consistently fantastic songs, and I give it my highest recommendation.

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MP3: Ben Sollee – A Few Honest Words

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MP3: Ben Sollee – Bend

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MP3: Ben Sollee – A Change Is Gonna Come

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MP3: Ben Sollee – Dear Kanye

You may or may not recall one of last year’s most remarkable releases, the self-titled LP from Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet.  I can’t emphasize enough how truly innovative that album is.

But it turns out 1/4 of the Sparrows, Louisville KY-hailing cellist Ben Sollee, happens to have some rather remarkable solo work as well.  Much like his elder contemporaries in the Sparrow Quartet (notably the legendary Béla Fleck who we interviewed here), Sollee takes his instrument of choice and stretches its sound to the limits, adeptly bowing, plucking, slapping, bending tones to his will.  Impeccably nuanced playing that steadily morphs from technical origins in classical conservatories to traditional styles rooted in deep rural, urban and mainstream America.

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MP3: Extra Golden – Anyango

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MP3: Extra Golden – Thank You Very Quickly

Extra Golden is a band who probably needs some introduction.  Formed by Ian Eagleson and Otieno Jagwasi while Eagleson was studying Benga music in Kenya for his doctoral thesis (a solid choice; there’s a void of information about Benga music on the internet).  Eagleson had formerly played in the Oberlin OH rock band Golden, and Jagwasi (who has since passed away from liver failure) was formerly a member of Orchestra Extra Solar Africa–hence the name Extra Golden.  After recruiting former bandmates Onyango Wuod Omari and Alex Minoff, the group set to recording debut album Ok-Oyot System.

I’ll admit that when I first read their biography, I expected this band would be the most egregious exploitation of “passport rock” yet, and there are certainly those who would say this band consists of two privileged white boys who traveled to Africa and brought back some local flavor.  Before condemning them outright, it’s important to note that Jagwasi and Omari were both successful musicians when Eagleson met them, so it’s not like he plucked some amateurs who would’ve been farming otherwise.  Furthermore, I hadn’t investigated Benga music prior to hearing Extra Golden, maybe never would have, so at the very least, before even hearing one note of music, I’ve learned something valuable from the band.

Thankfully, Extra Golden’s records don’t become the kind of comparative study common to “world music” (itself a vapid term), usually only interesting to ethnomusicologists.   Read the rest…

Check out Baby Venom along with the Vivian Girls (already shouted-out) October 1 @ the Ottobar.

We here at Aural States receive a surprising amount of music to review, or at least I find it surprising given that our blog hasn’t existed for more than a year, and our original goal was to possibly get into some shows for free. And, as has been stated before, a surprising amount of that music is decent, but most of that music comes through online promotions companies. Sometimes we are given music directly from an acquaintance, or someone that somehow knows about our involvement with Aural States.

These encounters make me cringe, because I usually have a pre-existing relationship with the person, and I don’t have the nerve to honestly tell them what I think if the material is poor. I generally try to avoid these situations. So when my friend Dave (Coldspring Lane food service unite!) gave me a CD-R of his band’s EP, I was bracing for the worst. But I should have known better. Baby Venom has a solid pedigree. Needless to say, I was surprised (there is that word again) by the inventiveness of the group. Read the rest…

Philosopher-punk. Few bands could even come close to warranting that designation.  Lungfish is one of them.  Forged in the fires of 1987 Baltimore, they slammed out album after album of intense, mesmerizing and primitive post-punk laden with lyrics that oscillate between poetry and manifesto.

There is unquestionably a rigid, formulaic approach Lungfish have intentionally implemented in their music.  Simple, repetitive rhythms and melodies are formed from lumbering guitar and bass lines. They present a cyclic sound that feels as natural and dependable as day progressing to night and back again.  Each song with a familiar-yet-distinct, enthralling hook.  Lead singer Daniel Higg’s sophist lyrics babble like a brook, speaking and ranting, washing away everything but the instrumental bedrock.  Stretched across 11 albums, all but the first released on DC institution Dischord Records, their music is fresh and energizing as the day it was written.

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