August 16, 2017
fuck 'em
Kyle Landstra - "Vestige I" [Bandcamp]
I am meditating right now listening to this.
neo-nazis.
fuck 'em.
August 8, 2017
SHAMBLING
Keith Jarrett - "The Rich and The Poor" [buy]
This is shuffling music. A song travelling at half-speed with no destination in mind. It stops to look in every shop window. It rolls down the street noticing the orange of summer dawn limning the cornices, wondering where the night went. A wanderer in the almost-morning blue.
This is one of those songs that sounds like it was cut at four a.m. The band is dozy, nearly asleep at their instruments. The bass pulls them along like a tugboat. And they begin to wake up, finding their way into the groove. They pile on the melodies, solos, yelps, and almost gallop to full speed before the gravity of night pulls them back. This song is off-hand and glorious, shambling along to nowhere. It ends with the tinkling of wind chimes.
August 4, 2017
Estivale
We caught this song on the car radio, coming in static-shot like a transmission from outer space. Stripped down to just voice and woozy guitars, this would be a perfectly fine normal good song, but the synths - especially in the last minute or so - make it OTHERWORLDLY. Summertime on this planet has everything: an arcade cabinet from the '80s in a heated argument with an angry robotic pterosaur; one of those old room-sized punchcard computers stoned out of its mind at the planetarium, finally allowed to dream its own equations; a dying calculator croaking out its last wishes to a room full of lush neon laser beams, all blinking gorgeous constellations in and out, in sympathy.
August 1, 2017
PUNK VERITÉ
Doggo - "1342" [bandcamp]
Doggo - "Not Bitter" [bandcamp]
(Or if you're in Montreal buy a tape from the band!)
Big feelings, lots of words crammed into short songs, no-bullshit raw pop punk. That's the Doggo formula. Coming straight out of a punk house on rue Saint-Urbain, this is punk verité, capturing real life feels as they happen. Cigarettes, heartbreaks, long workdays, long-distance crushes, and hours in the dark room developing photos. There's a lot of missing going on here: missing far-away friends, missed opportunities, and plenty of missed hangs while you were hiding out in your room trying to keep it together. A solid rhythm-section helmed by scene legend Martin Tensions's hummable basslines and GAZM howler Bill's solid drums lay the groundwork for the wicked guitar attacks by fronters Sasha and Blair. Blessed with two brilliant lead vocalists and sick songs, Doggo are giving me the scrappy summer 2017 pop punk that I need right now. I love this tape! They had me at the hand-written lyric sheet!