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Thursday, September 7th, 2006
Swan Lake Creeps Nearer
Despite my comforting reassurances to the contrary, Swan Lake’s MySpace page has not restored the two tracks from the upcoming Beast Moans that had temporarily been offered. Frankly I’m surprised the whole thing hasn’t leaked yet. In the meantime, Scratch Records, who I can only assume will be issuing Beast Moans on vinyl, as is kind of their thing that they do, is offering “Nubile Days” on their MySpace page. Good grief.
Click through to the full post for purported previews of some liner note art, c/o LiveJournal’s Streethawk Community.
Carey Mercer: Phoning It In
Back in March, Carey Mercer was featured on Phoning It In, a weekly radio program on WMBR Cambridge and WBSR Providence, in which musical guests literally perform over the phone. Mercer did some old Frog Eyes material, three new (presumably) Frog Eyes songs (“Ambassador,” “Caravan Breakers,” and “Future Fortress”), and a song from the upcoming debut of his Bejar/Krug collab, Swan Lake (“The Partisan But He’s Got To Know”). The sound quality is understandably awful, but you can think of it as charming if you want.
The Phoning It In blog is worth subscribing to, as the show features some interesting performances. Hardcore Frog Eyes fans will also want to check out don’t laugh don’t choke, a fantastic resource with news, bootlegs, a forum, and more.
New Swan Lake Tracks
Update: This post has been rendered obsolete as a result of the named tracks being removed from Swan Lake’s MySpace. Keep an eye on it though, as they are likely to return.
The incestuous Canadian music scene is dangerously approaching critical mass with its latest collaboration, one between lit-rock powerhouses Dan Bejar of Destroyer/New Pornos and Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes. They’ve even let their little brother Spencer Krug (Frog Eyes/Wolf Parade) tag along! November 21 will see the release of Swan Lake’s debut LP Beast Moans on Jagjaguwar records, sneaking in just before 2007 to ensure prime placement on everyone’s year-end lists. The first promotional track, “All Fires,” has been floating around for a while now, and just today two more songs, “The Partisan But He’s Got To Know” and “The Freedom,” appeared on the band’s MySpace profile.
Friday, August 4th, 2006
TV Party
TV Party was a public access cable show that aired intermittently between 1978 and 1982 in New York City. The only things that really held it together were the host, Glenn O’Brien, the core three members of the revolving noise band TV Orchestra, and every participant’s vague but overwhelming sense that this was much, much more than a senseless, televised cacophony.
Somehow the hollowest of ideologies always strike me as the most fascinating and the most inspiring. Though lacking any focused, discernable agenda, these people were anything but nihilists. Theirs was a display of raw exuberance, one less of rebellion, rejection, and denial than it was of affirmation and empowerment. It was something to be believed in, its regulars, guests, and performances simultaneously crucial and incidental to this greater Thing.
And, at the same time, it wasn’t any of that.
Anyway, I was a toddler in Chicago when TV Party last aired, so it’d probably serve you better to read about it elsewhere, or better yet snag the torrent of the documentary (or, better still, purchase the DVDs from the official site).
Very special thanks to the consistently wonderful WFMU blog for bringing this to my attention.
Black Moth Super Rainbow
I’ve heard this name floating around for a while now, and despite the name’s sheer and overwhelming awesomeness, I had failed to take notice. But I’m doing my best to quickly make up for that.
From what I’ve been reading, these guys are frequently getting pegged as “ripping off” Boards of Canada. It’s a comparison that would occur to anybody, but “ripping off” is a harsh and plain inaccurate way to put it. Still, they are heavily informed by BoC’s hypnotic, break-driven ambiance. And if you amplify these elements with the bombast of M83, and hints of Aavikko and Apparat Organ Quartet, you’ve got a pretty close approximation of BMSR’s sound.
Further information is scarce (not even sure where these guys are from), and they seem to remain intentionally elusive to photographers, so please excuse the brevity of this post.
“Drippy Eye,” “Side 8,” and “Lost” all come from their (rather lengthy) EP of this year on Graveface Records, Lost, Picking Flowers In The Woods.
Holy Shit
Holy Shit is a new collaboration between pop savant Sir Ariel Pink and The Push Kings’ Matt Fishbeck. Fishbeck is responsible for most of the vocals, which resemble a more tender, sober version of Pink’s, still gently dramatic and throaty and exaggerated. In fact their debut album, Stranded At Two Harbors, is kind of a sleeker, more sensible version of an Ariel Pink record, though the super duper lo-fi Seventies AM aesthetic is still the order of the day. So for those who’ve kept Pink at arm’s length these past couple years, you’ll really want to give this a shot.