Monthly Archives: March 2015

When Rock and improvisation are spoken of in the same breath it’s frequently in the context of some sweaty creature in the throes of an uninhibited onstage solo, but on occasion it can refer to sensibilities of a deeper nature. One such example is People of the North, an outfit shaped-up by Bobby Matador and Kid Millions, both noted as part of the veteran Brooklyn unit Oneida. With key assistance from band mates, they’ve managed a handful of worthwhile platters over the last half decade; their latest LP and second for Thrill Jockey is Era of Manifestations.

Since 1997 Oneida has issued a dozen full-lengths and a serious mess of singles and EPs, the contents of which detail the combination of psychedelia, Krautrock, and assorted elements of experimentation. Theirs is a decidedly expansive proposition, and its prolificacy leaves most of the band’s contemporaries looking like comparative underachievers.

And yet for certain members Oneida’s level of activity is apparently inadequate. That’s particularly the case with Kid Millions aka John Colpitts, his drumstick plying digits jabbed into all sorts of aural pies, e.g. Scarcity of Tanks, White Hills, Man Forever, and a recent collaboration with the tenor saxophonist Jim Sauter (of NYC jazz-noise titans Borbetomagus); their Fountain, released late last year on Family Vineyard is a wonderfully ass-flaying ride.

The handiwork of Kid and his Oneida cohort Bobby Matador aka Fat Bobby on organ, People of the North first emerged on wax in 2010 with the murky, keyboardy-Krauty repetition of Deep Tissue via Jagjaguwar subsidiary Brah Records. The 2LP Steep Formations arrived two years later; also on Brah, it offers a surplus of kit rumble and soundscapes spanning from minimalist to early industrial in texture.

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As we noted upon the launch of our first of 9 weeks of vinyl giveaways, it’s easy to forget that going on 8 years now when TVD was in its year one (as was Record Store Day) the vinyl medium wasn’t “back,” sales weren’t stellar, and indeed record stores were a fading lot. No, worse actually. Shops we’re closing at such a clip, their disappearance literally informed the launch of the site you’re reading at present.

And as we’ll repeat for 9 weeks—vinyl and record stores go hand in hand. Their shared intrinsic value is the cultural commodity and the bedrock of any local music scene. Don’t believe us though…hit up your locals and the marriage becomes crystal clear. 

But we too have been overwhelmed with the resounding popular and prevalent headlines as to vinyl’s big resurgence, yet they also arrive in tandem with far less rosy headlines such as “Starbucks to Open in Former Bleecker Street Records Space”—and worse, some very bad ideas when one advocates for record shops have, of late, become internet fodder. (Seriously, vinyl subscription clubs are the Carson Daly of record collecting.)

As such, picking up with an old TVD favorite, we’ve lined up 9 (count ’em, 9) weeks of vinyl giveaways as we count down to Record Store Day 2015 to redouble our efforts to underscore the viability and the inherent need for your local brick and mortar record shops to remain the vibrant community touchstone that they intrinsically are. And while we kinda hate hanging out by the mailbox waiting for a record to show up (unless you’ve ordered it from a mom and pop or directly from a label!) we’re shipping out records for 9 weeks straight as sweet reminders that record stores are literally where it’s at.

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Brooklyn transplants Echo Bloom capture undeniable indie-country twang on “Evangeline.”

The Americana/orchestral folk band’s newest single off their upcoming album Red, “Evangeline” is a slow burning love song awash in summer colors and southern comfort. The grit of lead singer Kyle Evans is countered by a glowing backdrop of tumbling twang and weeping slide guitar while the track ebbs and flows from full-blown orchestration to up-front guitar and vocal.

“After bouncing between Washington DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, Evans eventually caught the muse he was searching for in Berlin. Completely submerged in the German culture, Evans found inspiration in dusty libraries along the Spree and quiet bike rides through the city. After a few months, he left Germany with material for three records.

Because each album seemed to fit into slightly different genres, Evans began thinking about them as different seasons, different countries, and finally different colors. Blue would be the more folk-oriented of the group, Red would be more country rock, and Green would be more classic pop.”

For each musician scoring a measure of lasting recognition there are multiple examples of the opposite. This is reliably due to a dearth of ability, though occasionally gifted artists do fall through history’s crevices. And sometimes they receive belated acclaim; so it is with Connie Converse, a folk-oriented singer-songwriter whose material, originally documented in the 1950s, remained unreleased and almost entirely unknown for decades. In 2009, 17 of her tunes were collected on How Sad, How Lovely; it’s just received the clear vinyl treatment with an extra cut by Squirrel Thing Recordings.

Every lost record has its own story to tell. In fact, many of those accounts are more remarkable than the music; they frequently include one or more of the following: being out-of-step with the era, eccentricities, conflict, flagrant bungling and flat-out bad luck. Additionally, there are tales of talented individuals who plainly lacked the aptitude for self-promotion, scenarios less gripping in unusual content, but ultimately ringing of truth.

Connie Converse was not adept at career-building. Her narrative is quite interesting however, though the positive circumstance of her music’s long-delayed emergence is tempered by the events of 1974, the year she packed up her belongings, wrote goodbyes to family and friends, and drove off in her Volkswagen Bug. None of those she left behind have heard from her since. If alive today, unlikely as the notes hinted at suicide, she would be 90 years old.

The “big break” is often simply possessing the knack for putting forward one’s best when the right person is in the room. After learning that Connie Converse, born Elizabeth Eaton Converse on August 3 1924, appeared on CBS’s “The Morning Show” with Walter Cronkite, some will assume she either blew it or just didn’t have the goods.

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Jurassic 5 MC delivers blue note remix off new solo EP.

You gotta give love to a MC who identifies himself as the Bigfoot of hip hop—seeing himself on the periphery, creeping in the shadows, spinning his own myth… this is not the usual girls, guns, and gusto we have come to expect from the genre.

Los Angeles MC Marc 7 who found success as part of the Jurassic 5 crew, is keen on putting his personal stamp on 2015 which is truly shaping up to be a major year for hip hop releases (Kendrick Lamar’s future funk opus To Pimp a Butterfly just dropped while the Hypem crowd is basically salivating over the release of Kanye West’s forthcoming So Help Me God.) Marc 7’s EP, “When Sounds Attack, Vol. 1” is a slightly more mature mix of tight, soulful beats and gritty samples—a combo that lends credence to 7’s mellow demeanor and sweet spot flow.

The EP’s single, “Sasquatch” has been handed over to mash-up extraordinaire Imperial who reworks the dubstep-tinged original into a ballsy rocker with attitude to spare. The remix certainly gives the subject matter new life and rumbles out of the speakers like the song’s untamed namesake.

New York by way of Philly-based favorite matt pond PA is hitting the road across the nation as part of a 10-year anniversary tour in celebration of one of their most beloved albums, Several Arrows Later.

Several Arrows Later will be played in its entirety along with a sampling of songs from their upcoming album The State of Gold, which will be released later this year. We’ve got three pairs of tickets to award to three of you to attend one of the band’s shows on any date and in any city of your choosing.

Matt Pond and current core members Chris Hansen, Tierney Tough, and Shawn Alpay, are revisiting Arrows—which harbored standout tracks like “Emblems” and “So Much Trouble—in a live setting, although the band says that the decision to do the tour wasn’t just about homage, but rather the right manner to launch their new album The State of Gold, which takes the band’s sound to a wildly different place.

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It has long been my contention that The Fall are the best band to ever come out of England. Better than those annoying Beatles, better than the Rolling Stones, better than The Smiths even. Front man Mark E. Smith, instead of rotting from the inside out given all the booze and seething bile in his seemingly indestructible body, continues to produce album after album full of weird poetry, rants, funky and monstrous beats, and gigantic riffs. You don’t have to know what he’s going on about—in fact it may well be impossible to determine what he’s going on about—but he does it with the urgency of a WWII siren warning of an imminent attack by German bombers. He’s truly one of a kind, spewing his indecipherable harangues that come at you like communiqués from who knows where, all set to the backing of a big, percussive, and frequently intimidating din.

The U.S.A. has never fully embraced Mark E.’s hypnotic cadences or his band’s big beats. But that just goes to show you how backwards we Americans are. In England, his idiosyncrasies have made him an institution, which he is, having released some 600 studio LPs (actually it’s somewhere in the thirties, with an equivalent number of live LPs) since 1979’s Live at the Witch Trials. And over that time he’s utilized an ever-revolving cast of musicians who probably number in the hundreds as well. Even my pal Kid Congo Powers toured with Smith, which puts me at only two degrees of separation from the man I consider England’s best retort to Captain Beefheart.

2005’s Fall Heads Roll (Fall LP #25, if you’re keeping count) is compelling for the simple reason that it features the most primal and unrelenting drums and bass I’ve ever heard. Listen to it, loud, and the head rolling will be yours. It’s like a sonic guillotine, this LP, and it’s a pity—although hardly surprising, given Smith’s tendency to mistreat the help—that the band Smith put together for the LP (Ben Pritchard on guitar, Steve Trafford on bass, Spencer Birtwistle on drums, and Elena Poulou on keyboards and vocals) split acrimoniously four shows into a 2006 tour of the United States, never to return to the fold.

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Press Play is our Monday recap of the new tracks received last week—provided here to inform your next trip to your local indie record store. Click, preview, download, purchase.

Jeremy Bass – Lift Me Up
Kate Copeland – Trouble
Dimond Saints – What U Doing To Me
DOSVEC – Runaway Buggin (Galantis vs. Justin Martin)
Samantha Grabee – Nibble
Matthew O’Neill – Bluejay Cedar
Meghan Trainor – Lips are Movin (Geist Remix)
Major Lazer – Get Free ft. Amber (Jerome Price Remix)

TVD SINGLE OF THE WEEK:
Dot Dash – Rainclouds

Broken Boy – She Said
Blackshots – Cage (Alex Zelenka Rmx)
Alison Wonderland – U Don’t Know (PACES Bootleg)
Monty C. Benjamin – Clueless
Tumbleweed Wanderers – Bad Blood
American Opera – Sand & Seed
Bok Bok – HEALING (dj Mix)
Creature In The Woods – Beneath The Sun (Feat. Elisa Coia)
Louie V Gutta feat. Lil Uzi Vert – Pull Up