)Birds, what is up with that? It seems lately that we're getting album artwork that features birds on the cover artwork (especially owls). Can someone explain this to me? Seriously.
Below are a ton of bird-album artwork.
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AVIARY GHOST
aviaryghost.com ♥ myspace.com
Fom Illinois is Aviary Ghost, a band that seems to be headed by Charlie Crimando and Stephen Kemsley. Reading their biography, it would seem that they spent a lot of time recording music in a one-room apartment in Michigan. One of my favorite song on their album, Memory Is A Hallway (featuring cut-out birds over a scenic location), is the most fast-moving song is "Windowlight", which seems to be about the light through the window - sung in an old-fashion cabaret-style song, which I will say works very well for the song. I thought "Somewhere Else" was also pretty good. The song is described as "catchy Swedish pop", which I'll have to agree with. The lyrics are pretty detailed too, I especially liked the chorus: "we're laughing, 'cause laughing is much better than a scream". You can get their album, Memory Is A Hallway (recently released July 15th), on iTunes or CD Baby.
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MORE TEETH
more-teeth.com ♥ myspace.com
I think someone in the W♥M group have this album, One Bird a Day, for review, so I won't go into too much details about it. Surfice to say that it's a compilation of three or four bands in the electro-genre. Based on what I've heard, I really dig Sparkydog (sounds like new wave) and More Teeth (which sounds like very experimental noise art). I've decided to go with More Teeth because of their snazzy drums and electroclashesque vocals of Mindy Abovitz. JESSICA LEA MAYFIELDjessicaleamayfield.com ♥ myspace.com
We're not really promoting Jessica Lea Mayfield (I don't think her PR company knows my address, which I will confess is fine as I have too much music to handle), but I couldn't resist the owl-art on her soon-to-be release album With Blasphemy, So Heartfelt out on September 16th on Polymer Sounds on her press release. What's there to say based on this one song, "Kiss Me Again"? She has a very nice voice, and sounds like Thao Nguyen. |
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PUTOIS
citizensofcontraryknowledge.com ♥ myspace.com
Yet another Chicago, Illinois band - man, they really love their animals! I believe "putois" is actually a ferret or something. Anyway, on their second album, Problem Is Not a Problem Anymore, we see a crane with some ducks (while their debut album, The Thinking Fireplace features a cartoon bird dressed as a gentleman). It would seem that these introspective songs are written and sung by its creator, one Bob Mason since 1995. Most of this album is acoustic, mostly folky and the song "No More Dancing" would best represent what currently Putois sounds like. There are a few highlights on the record. For instance, I liked what he was trying to do with "Cta". This had a weird bass and quirky noises and beeps. Even his singing style is different here (although I think this might be a guest-vocalist? It just sounds very different). The other song that isn't so acoustic is "The Lonely Traveler" with its arrangement of piano and harmonica. If you like bands like Minnesota's Low, Putois might be right up your alley. Problem Is Not a Problem Anymore is out now, you can get it from CD Baby. |
PLUSHGUN
plushgun.com ♥ myspace.com
I love Tommy Boy Records. One of my first CD was a Tommy Boy and I just remember how big they were in the early 90s, especially with the b-boys and girls. Well, I guess the record label is still around and I have one of their latest release by one-man-band, Plushgun. Daniel Ingala's vocals sounds like he has a British accent, reminiscent of early 80s new wave pop bands. His latest self-titled EP has a cute drawing of a bird with an old SNES controller in a cassette-tape-style mess in the sky. All the songs were available for download on August 19th (iTunes). The four songs on the EP is a very easy listen. I love all the songs actually, with the exception of the semi-sappy "14 Candles". Although it was nice to hear a woman singing backup on this song, but I didn't think this song belong on the EP. Maybe I just don't like love songs. His other songs are more upbeat and sounds more like obsessive/stalker feel to them. There are some great lyrics on "Just Impolite" ("I walk the line, like Johnny Cash" and "I'm not upset, just impolite"). A physical copy of Plushgun will be available on September 9th via Amazon and other retailers for $9.99, but if you can't wait the download is sold now for 60% cheaper ($3.98) |
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BRICE WOODALL AND THE POSITRONS
bricewoodall.com ♥ myspace.com
Check out Brice Woodall and the Positrons with their album, Sine Wave Sea. The artwork on the cover is a flying bird block with a whole in its stomach. I know it's a bird because if you visit the artist's website (trevorbittinger.com) his all-flash website features these same block birds flying around. Brice Woodall is currently based out of Chicago, Illinois, according to his myspace. Woodall's vocals has a woman quality to them, but not in a falsetto way (and not as a put down). His voice is very interesting, it definitely pulls you in. I think my favorite songs off this album is easily "This, There, Where", a pop song with some interesting mix. I also dug the experiment on "Winter/Break/Down/Away". Well, it looks like they are currently on tour, be sure to check them out.
09/12/08 Double Door- Kittypalooza Chicago, IL 09/24/08 Rapture Charlottesville, Virginia 09/25/08 Lucky Buddha Richmond, Virginia 09/26/08 Trash Bar Brooklyn, New York 09/27/08 Murky (upstairs) Arlington/DC area, VA 11/08/08 Art*Bar Riverwest Milwaukee, Wisconsin 11/19/08 Madison, Wisconsin 11/20/08 Chicago, Illinois 11/21/08 Detroit, Michigan 11/22/08 Indianapolis, Indiana You can pick up Sine Wave Sea from InSound. |
CITIZENS OF CONTRARY KNOWLEDGE
citizensofcontraryknowledge.com ♥ myspace.com
Featuring a drawing of a chicken on the cover of Citizens of Contrary Knowledge's You're What You Wish You Are. Upon closer inspection, is that a cock? They do sound a bit southern cock rock... Reading their biography, it would seem most of the band members are residing in Harlem, New York. Their singer/frontsman, Chris Barczynski, sounds like he doesn't take his biography too seriously (he writes that he was in the Witness Protection Program, etc). This is also a problem when he lists that he's appeared on stage with Green Day, Sugar Ray and Hootie - should you believe him? I'm leaning to 'no'. I was drawn to the faster/rock song and my favorite is "Complicated" and "Lonely Hearts Society", which is driven by a muscular guitar playing (with some neat tricks). Despite as I have said about their music being rock, they do lean to the sensitive/slow side with "House of Cards", "Unless You Do", "Real Love", and "Wrong Side of the World". I think listening to them that they might fare better as a live act, perhaps jamming their songs at a longer length at a dive bar. You're What You Wish You Are is out now, available on CD Baby. They just finished playing Arlene's Grocery, which is apparently a bar? |
Here is the bonus segment, some bird-bands we've previously covered: Tinkture, Birdflu, Story of the Year, The Alarmists, The Notwist, Loquat, El Perro Del Mar, Ben Sollee, Peter Bradley Adams (Owl), Death Valley Sleepers, Death Cab For Cutie, Patrick Wolf, Deadbird, Jeff Hanson (Owl), They Might be Giants (Owl), Eels, Biography Of Ferns, Computer Vs. Banjo (Owl), Ash, Susan Krebs
Bands we haven't covered, but I'm sure we'll get around to them. These features birds on the cover: The Great Northwest (Experimental Folk), Nebraska (Folk), Foals (British Rock), The Black Keys (Southern Rock), KYTE (Ambient Pop), and the talented Graeme K (Experimental/Old-time/Dance). Honorable worth mention is Abigail Washburn with her tiny birds on the cover.
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The 1990s--particularly the mid-'90s--were the Golden Age of Industrial Music. Nine Inch Nails was registering industrial on the pop-music charts with Pretty Hate Machine and its more metallic, but still amazingly accessible, follow-up Broken. Skinny Puppy offered up their monumental "swang song" The Process. Ministry was riding high on the popular success of their breakthrough album Psalm 69. Bill Leeb & Rhys Fulber released tons of new music every year, either under their primary moniker, Front Line Assembly, or as Delerium or any one of a hundred other names. Even as legendary Wax Trax! Records were being bought out by TVT, acts like My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult were still touring and putting out tremendous albums like Sexplosion. Klaus Larsen's Leaether Strip helped launch the West Coast Gothic/Industrial label Cleopatra Records, who eventually became one of the decade's primary purveyors of scene releases. On the East Coast, Mentallo & The Fixer helped establish Philadelphia's Metropolis Records as a major player as well. And, of course, there were hundreds of indie acts--like Fektion Fekler, Alien Faktor, Pounce International, and Terminal Sect--cranking out harsh little masterpieces on hundreds of small labels throughout the United States and Europe.
One of the forerunners firmly entrenched in the industrial assault's frontline were KMFDM (MySpace). Formed by Sascha Konietzko in 1984 in Germany, KMFDM eventually moved to Chicago, where they became one of Wax Trax!'s pre-eminent industrial bands by combining fist-pumping, system-ripping metal guitar grind with sparkly synths and nuclear dance beats. Now centered in Hamburg, again, after a brief period in Seattle, KMFDM are celebrating their 24th anniversary this year with a whole slew of new releases: twenty-four 7" vinyl single featuring classic cuts and new material, remastered editions of all their classic albums (now available through their new indie label KMFDM Records, distributed domestically here in the states by Metropolis Records), as well as an album of brand-new material, Tohuvabohu (which actually came out last year, in 2007, though somehow I missed out on it until now--my bad!), and a related remix album, Brimborium. Since Tohuvabohu is their newest collection of never-before-heard material, I'm going to focus on that album alone, and hopefully explain to readers how it has single-handedly revived my hope in the industrial genre.
Simply put, the industrial music genre completely and utterly collapsed in the late-'90s/early-2000s thanks to the overwhelming influx of "EBM" and "futurepop" artists like Apoptygma Berzerk, VNV Nation, and a horde of indistinguishable others. This crap was not industrial music: it was bad trance, at best, and completely untalented, repetitive nonsense at worst. It seemed like any jackass who could combine a steady 120bpm thurd-thud-thud beat with some crunchy or bleepy synth loops and some inane lyrics about humping machines or losing faith in humanity could get an industrial club hit. What had happened to industrial music that stood for something? That dared to challenge "the system" while smacking you upside the head with join-in-the-chant choruses and stomping beats? When it became apparent that the genre's leading lights were abysmal groups like Icon of Coil and Funker Vogt, I was finally forced to admit that industrial music--oldskool industrial full of rage and machinery and creativity--was dead. When KMFDM released the thoroughly boring WWIII in 2003, I heaved a sigh of depression and shed a single tear of rust and mercury, for even one of the most consistent industrial acts of all time--one of the very founders of the genre itself--had succumbed to the plague of mediocrity, as well.
But then, only a year later, Skinny Puppy returned with their comeback album, The Greater Wrong of The Right, which proved that real industrial music was still being made...at least by the biomechanical gods who had created the sound. Front Line Assembly, too, proved that they were still going strong with 2004's Civilization and 2006's Artificial Soldier, both of which his listeners with wicked rhythms and corroded synth melodies from the wastelands of post-nuclear Canada. Hell, even Insekt returned in 2006 with Teenmachine, an album so packed with meateating industrial mayhem that listening to it literally left you with the taste of burning metal in your mouth. Could it be? Was industrial not dead? At least the old soldiers of the genre still seemed to be capable of busting out the jams as always!
Well, KMFDM was still carrying the torch as well, even though I'd lost track of them. Which is why I'm damn grateful to have stumbled upon Sascha K and Friends' newest album, Tohuvabohu, just the other day. Industrial is not dead. And KMFDM have released an album that embodies all the sonic and lyrical ideals that made such titanic albums like Naive and Adios rock so goddamned hard.
"Tohuvabohu" in Hebrew means "waste and void," which--at least in terms of album names--is about as industrial as you can possibly get. No, it's not a particularly original concept. And neither is any of the music on Tohuvabohu. But so friggin' what? KMFDM have maintained a loyal fanbase for 24 years by being an incredibly consistent band with a very personalized, trademark sound. Now, that whole disco-beats-meets-metal sound could become tedious and repetitive in the wrong hands, but Kap'n K and Krew have always realized that there are many ways to remain tonally consistent without becoming bogged down in recycled sounds and motives. One of the easiest ways to do this is to explore melody and arrangements, and though you usually don't find the terms "melody" and "industrial" mentioned in the same context, you simply have to admit: one of KMFDM's greatest strengths are their melodies. Classic tracks like "Virus" and "Juke Joint Jezebel" have irresistible choruses that will always get dancefloor crowds singing along. They also have the capability of writing ultrafast speed-metal assaults just as well as they write ominous dirges and straightforward dance jams. Another of KMFDM's tricks is self-referential: songs like "Light," "Sucks," "A Drug Against War," and "Superpower," the opening track of Tohuvabohu, all mention KMFDM. It takes balls, but also a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek humor, to write lyrics like "Stronger than ever, ever before! / KMFDM is a drug against war!" But you've got to admit, those lyrics will implant themselves in your head and live there forever!
In all these aspects, the band are back at the top of their game with Tohuvabohu. "Superpower" is a self-referential celebration of KMFDM's quarter-century of experience, mixing a straight-up funkay bassline with a perfect sing-along chorus--"Superpower! / A force in its own! / Superpower! / We're going it alone!"--headbangin' guitars, and samples of phone messages left by fans explaining what they really like about KMFDM's music. Egotistical? Yeah...but its inspiring. In this one song, KMFDM is not only acknowledging its faithful fans, but explaining why they've told the record industry to kiss their asses and go 100% independent at last. In an age when so many bands are blowing off record deals in favor of going totally D.I.Y., KMFDM in this one single song have justified themselves and their longtime fans adoration. Oh, and it's got a killer sax solo, to boot! This one track is a text-book study in one of KMFDM's favorite subjects: ripping the system--bucking the majority trend for doing your own damn thing and loving the freedom of it.
The rest of the album, even when dealing with much darker subjects like political chaos and violence (subjects that KMFDM have loved to write about since Day One), is still full of jubilant, high-energy synthlines, disco diva vocals, and scalding-hot guitar licks. "Tohuvabohu" will have you screaming along with its chorus as you clean up your M-16 to get it ready for the battle against world imperialism. Not only is the music clearly packed full of love for its art, but Sascha Konietzko's lyrics exhibit a keen awareness of sociopolitical problems around the world. Whether denouncing any and all holy wars in the blistering "Not In My Name" or damning the slack-jawed, sheeplike masses who blindly follow leaders (political, social, artistic, and so forth) in title-track "Tohuvabohu," Konietzko is writing lyrics--in English, German, French, Spanish, Latin, and even Hebrew (I think)!--that aim to inspire listeners to educate themselves in what is happening around them and take action. Here in the United States, with a presidential election coming up in a scant two-and-a-half months, KMFDM's message to get off your ass and take fixing the system into your own hands is extremely timely and necessary.
So, OK...KMFDM kinda suffered a bit of a slowdown earlier in the decade. But they are back, folks. Whereas young punks may be wiping their butts with the dregs of industrial music, the Good Ol' Boys--Skinny Puppy, FLA, Insekt, even Ministry--are still Out There keeping the battleflags flying and providing anthems for the culture wars. KMFDM, we salute you for again doing what you do so damned well!
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Fans of indie popster The Bird and the Bee, should take a note from the release of Capades from Obi Best, featuring Bird & Bee member Alex Lilly. The album was released digitally only yesterday (August 25th),
but reading their official website, it looks like there will be a
limited number of physical CDs that's only available at their live
shows.
If you live in the Los Angeles area, they are playing at the end of the month on August 31st for their CD release party at Tangier with fellow LA-acts, I Make This Sound, Alex & Sam, Vosotros.
The rest of the band consists of music veterans: Bram Inscore (Beck, Peeping Tom, Jem), John Wood (Inara George, Mike Andrews), and drummer Barbara Gruska (Jenny Lewis, Benji Hughes).
I have to say that I really love Lilly's voice, which comes off as sounding a little bit like Feist or Jenny Lewis/Rilo Kiley, but less alt-country. The music is a mix of traditional with electronica elements. Lots of beeps and quirks, but not distracting from Lilly's clear vocals, this is especially evident on "Days Of Decadence" and "Green And White Stripes". "Green" is my favorite song off the album with the singing carrying most of the song.
I also really dig "It's Because Of People Like You", which ends with a humorous "an angry note was on my car this afternoon, it's because of people like you". "Origami" features a male harmonizing backdrop which is a nice change of pace from Lilly's sweet voice. Also be sure to check out "Swedish Boy", which is like a song written for Sweden from a perspective of Japan - at least the melody made me think of Toyko.
Fans of
Bird and the Bee will probably not replace them with Obi Best, but Obi
Best will make a nice companion for their collection. Capades is available now at most digital music sellers (iTunes and Amazon) from Social Science Records.
If you sign up for their record label's mailing list, they will enter you into a contest to give away some of Obi Best's favorite albums, which includes one of my favorite artist, Pizzicato Five.
Keep up with the latest news for Obi Best on site.w♥m.
Links:
obibest.com
myspace.com/obibest