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Louisville must be covered in some dense shit, i.e. “fog.” Where else could the inspiration for the thick and dank “Fog” by Meridian Signals have come from? Yes, perhaps from the thick and cloudy mind of Michael Powell (of The Decibel Tolls) and not from what happens when the great outdoors meets wetness. Either way, “Fog” feels like something you have to make it through. You must push through the electric fuzz, the steady drum beat, in order to survive. Or to get inside.
What sounds like drums on “Fog” is actually a guitar. “It’s a false note distorted, flipped backwards, then reverbed out,” Powell said. SICK. With a Boss SP-303 and an effects processor, he made this happen.
Go check out Mercator Songs. It’s out on August 10 on Itslips Tapes.
Meridian Signals: Fog
TONIGHT
Feather and Folly at The Rock Shop, 9ish
Candy Claws, We Are Country Mice, My Glorious Mess at Pianos, 8ish
WEDNESDAY
Small Black and Beach Fossils at Mercury Lounge, 930
THURSDAY
So Cow, Minks, Yvette at Death By Audio, 8ish
Monotonix, Brahms at 450 Union St., 8ish
Violens, Beige at The Rock Shop, 730
FRIDAY
Caribou, Phantogram at Governor’s Island, 6
Thee Oh Sees, Golden Triangle, So Cow at South Street Seaport, 6
Weezer at Williamsburg Waterfront, 7
Caribou (DJ set), Class Actress, Teengirl Fantasy, Diamond Rings, Idiot Glee at Glasslands, 830ish
Caboladies, Radio People, Julian Lynch, Alice Cohen at Silent Barn, 830
SATURDAY
VILLAGE VOICE SIREN FEST! Featuring Matt & Kim, Ted Leo, Surfer Blood, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Harlem, The Night Marchers, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Earl Greyhound, Screaming Females, Ponytail, DOM, Holy Fuck, Apache Beat at CONEY ISLAND, noon.
Konono No. 1 at Prospect Park Bandshell, 1
SUNDAY
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Janka Nabay and the BuBu Gang, Diamond Rings at Monster Island Basement, 8ish
Konono No. 1, Javelin at Le Poisson Rouge, 7ish
Heavy Cream, Reading Rainbow, The Splinters, Elks at Death By Audio, 8ish
MONDAY
Calexico at City Winery (Tuesday, too), 8
Nestled in the awkward space between past and present is Sri Aurobindo, a Baltimore psychedelic-rock band. Sure, the heavy and emotion-laden guitar rock music the band makes originated in the late 60s, but it sounds just as meaningful now as it did then. This is music for stoned nights at home. This is not party music, but you’ll definitely have a personal or small party with these sounds.
Featuring a lot of distortion and dueling guitar meanderings, Sri Aurobindo makes a racket that is loud and abrasive. Some songs, like “Soul Vibrations of Man” are straight up and rock and roll. But others, like the ethereal “Rest My Mind,” premiered below, is more deconstructive and romantic. Soaring vocals and echo-laden guitars drift seamlessly from verse to chorus and back again.
The band is named after “quite possibly the most gifted Indian yogi,” said band member Mike Romano.
Sri Aurobindo, in his own words: “Man is a transitional being. He is not final. The step from man to superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth evolution. It is inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner spirit and the logic of Nature’s process.”
Moving from natural to supernatural, from the ground to the sky, from humanity to godliness. Certainly sounds like something to strive for. And indeed, Romano said the band likes to “take walks in our heads.” Through meditation, introspection and practice, man moves from one plane to the next.
The band’s debut LP, Cave Painting, was just released yesterday on Friends Records, a great label out of Baltimore. The band is playing September 15 with Moon Duo in Baltimore and upcoming gigs in New York City and Philadelphia will be announced soon.
Sri Aurobindo: Rest My Mind
The ever-fab Pixelhorse shot this video of Big Troubles playing heatedly in a fucking hot as hell Shea Stadium during Northside Fest. I have to admit this is the first i’ve heard about the boys being so inspired by me that they wrote a song! It’s called, yes, “Georgia”!
Elise Oh was wearing tiny jean shorts at this show. I watched her filming, everyone did, those long legs… so thank goodness for those in attendance she was filming, so we can see what happened onstage as well as off. Not that we couldn’t hear this when it was going on… multiple senses people! Oh, and Big Troubles plays big. By which I mean LOUD.
The band opens for Real Estate and Kurt Vile tonight and goes on tour with Ducktails soon, with the concluding night of the tour going down at the Microphone Memory Emotion presents show at Glasslands on July 30. Also on the bill, Julian Lynch, Ducktails, Campfires and La Big Vic. This will be sickkkkk.
WOOM at Shea Stadium, Brooklyn
WOOM expertly blends the avant-garde with indie-pop on its new album, Muu’s Way. WOOM’s music is definitely experimental, and their style not exactly conventional rock and roll as we know it. The way the members utilize different sounds, from percussive effects to recording actual noises emanating from frogs, proves that. Yet what holds this angular music together is a strong sense of melody, demonstrating that music this experimental can also be catchy, engaging and thoughtful.
WOOM is Sara Magenheimer and Eben Portnoy, formerly of Brooklyn but now based on the West Coast. Before starting WOOM, the two were in a band called Flying and then later Fertile Crescent. Despite being relatively new on the scene, WOOM is already building up some serious indie rock cred. David Chiu recently caught up with the duo.
How was your recent European tour. How was the experience playing at the Northside Festival?
Sara Magenheimer: The EU tour was completely mind-blowing. People were incredibly warm and receptive, especially since it was our first time over there as WOOM. The biggest surprise was the emotionality of the audience. There was a lot of dancing, as well as some crying.
Eben Portnoy: The Northside shows were fun too. We had the chance to play with the Fiery Furnaces for the first time, and we love their music. The next night at Shea Stadium was like being in an insanely hot steam room with beer vapor instead of steam. Way more fun than it sounds! It’s nice to sweat.
How did WOOM start?
SM: We have been collaborating for 6 years, in various capacities, but I think WOOM began after we toured the US with Deerhoof as Fertile Crescent. We had moved out of Brooklyn before the tour, and then retreated into the Massachusetts woods in the winter. The ground was covered in ice and it was very silent. We completely reworked our music and wrote a lot, too.
EP: We never would have met had I not contracted a rare illness, which forced me to come home from Mexico a month early. Don’t worry, I’m better now! I don’t want to bore you with the details, but let’s just say the stars aligned.
How is WOOM similar/different from your previous bands?
EP: Flying was a band Sara and I were in with Eliot Krimsky and sometimes Mike Johnson, who both play as Glass Ghost now. Fertile Crescent toured shortly after Flying broke up, and WOOM evolved out of that. In Flying there were a lot of different musical visions happening in the same place, which was awesome in it’s own way, but also very challenging. Fertile Crescent was almost like a garage rock band, very stripped down and primal, guitar, drums, and voice. WOOM feels more focused, and more of a complete expression for us. Our process is more intense and personal, but the finished product is more extroverted than ever before. We’re more concerned with what we’re communicating and how.
SM: I agree with all of that.
Can each of you explain a little bit about yourselves: how you got into music, your musical influences growing up, and if you knew you wanted to become musicians early on in your lives?
SM: I started making music while I was working on a series of sculptures. I wanted songs to be emanating quietly from the sculpture so I tricked myself into recording a bunch of songs with only voice, very naked and exposed. It was a conscious choice to do something that made me feel very vulnerable. Growing up, music was a big part of my life. My mom was into modern dance and we did lots of interpretive dancing around the house. I was lucky to be exposed to Kraftwerk records at a very impressionable age.
EP: I’ve been playing music since I was 13. When I was a kid I was fascinated by an old Panasonic tape recorder my parents had and I recorded my little brother’s screams into it. In high school I played in bands and messed around with four-tracks. My favorite records as a small child were by Cat Stevens, Bob Marley, and Laurie Anderson.
Tell me about the recording process behind Muu’s Way. How long did it take, and where did you record it?
EP: We recorded most of the album during a house-sit in the woods of Eastern Massachusetts, in the winter/spring of 2009. We had space to set-up and leave all our equipment and we recorded into a laptop. Then we moved to Oakland and recorded the song “Salt” in Annie Lewandowski’s (of Powerdove) room on her piano. We mixed at Butchy Fuego’s studio in Los Angeles during the wildfires of last August.
SM: There was a clear feeling of a departure when we started recording…departure from our life in Brooklyn, from our previous habits, even from the songs that we’d been playing on the tour we’d just completed. It was slow starting out because we were probably a little overwhelmed by the vast abyss that comes with starting over, but once we got going it was very freeing. We worked really collaboratively and generated a ton of material. We still haven’t even listened to all of it.
Last night, Delorean brought their alternative dance pop to Stuy Town. It was a hell of a nice time in there. It’s a different world in there! Read my post on Sound of the City, check out the mingling of cool kids and real kids. Everyone was so happy!
Here’s my favorite song off the album Subiza, “Come Wander” and the one you’re allowed to get for free, which is also good, “Stay Close.” The real heat wave is overrrr, for now, so feel this Spanish heat wave instead.
Come Wander
Delorean: Stay Close
“No currency will be exchanged.”
Matt Papich is Ecstatic Sunshine. I’ve been a follower for some time of the dreamy and occasionally harsh pop electronica of this Baltimore artist. He’s back with a digital-only free 7″. Freak Flag features two exercises in sonic experimentation. Papich doesn’t just make music that sounds or feels good–for him, it’s all conceptual. So how did he conceive of “No Future I’m Dead”? Does he believe that there’s no future? For himself personally?
Papich says Freak Flag is “music for being without intent, for occupying time and space in an ambient way.” So basically, relax, listen carefully, but feel it first. Luckily, “No Future I’m Dead” is a beautiful track awash in what can only be described as waves of ecstasy. And the melody is a haunting, low-end exploration of depth.
Ecstatic Sunshine is about to tour Europe. Hopefully a future show in NYC will pan out… Get Freak Flag! The tracks will later appear on the ES Dissolver LP.
Ecstatic Sunshine: No Future I’m Dead
Cole aka DEAD GAZE sent over the new jam from his upcoming Group Tightener release (we all saw that coming, amiright?) this morning. It’s, as you’d expect, an 80s pop-happy trip song, with vocals so thick in reverb it’s hard to hear what’s going on. That’s the intention, right?
When I listen to this I can’t help but picture a combination of Tom Cruise and Molly Ringwald. Like if they met in 1986 and decided that they were the future of pop culture. That didn’t quite happen, but maybe if they had teamed up then we’d have a different world today. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because we have DEAD GAZE to provide that daydream for us. For me, I mean.
Dead Gaze: We All Belong to You
Cole Furlow is moving to Brooklyn, so if you missed his show last week, no worries. You’ll get another chance soon.
TONIGHT
Total Slacker, Ava Luna, Red Romans (members of Beach Fossils) at Union Pool, 9
Prince Rama and La Big Vic at Glasslands, 10
Beirut, WOOM at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 8ish
The Nels Cline Singers at (le) Poisson Rouge, 8ish
WEDNESDAY
Delorean at Stuy Town Oval, 7 FREE
Wolf Eyes, Black Dice, Growing at Secret Project Robot, 8ish
El Guincho and Janka Nabay at (le) Poisson Rouge, 10
THURSDAY
Yellow Fever and Dream Diary at Cake Shop, 8ish
Phosphorescent, Dawes at Pier 64, 6 FREE
FRIDAY
Yellow Fever, Wet Dog, Larkin Grimm and MINKS at Monster Island Basement, 8ish
Bandit Teeth, Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk, Blissed Out at Cake Shop, 8ish
Real Estate, Kurt Vile and Big Troubles at (le) Poisson Rouge, 8
Zola Jesus at South Street Seaport, 6ish
SATURDAY
Real Estate and Kurt Vile at Maxwell’s, 9
Delorean, Tanlines, Glasser at Bowery Ballroom, 8:30
Bandit Teeth, Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk at Coco 66, 8ish
Tim Perry is back again with “Mint in My Mouth,” which, first off, sounds both sexy and cool. I love mint, especially in alcoholic summer drinks like the Julep, which leaves tiny, tiny pieces of the invasive species (yep…) in my mouth.
Weed Diamond‘s new track, off Carry On, out now on Bridgetown Records, is one hell of a buzz. It’s almost shoe-gazey in it’s gauzy vocals and high-octane sound. The song has such a pretty melody. Strap a speaker to your bike and blast this. The guitar is lost in the back of the mix, drums up front, but you can hear it better if you turn the sound up HIGH. Do it.
Video by Land ‘O Goshen.
Weed Diamond: Mint in My Mouth
