Igorrr - Very Noise

 #Igorr #Gautier Serre #extreme metal #breakcore #experimental #industrial #baroque metal #trip-hop #death metal #electronic #Meat Dept #animated music video

We have a challenge for you: Watch Meat Dept’s latest video and try and keep a straight face. Chances are you probably can’t. A weird and wacky music video created to accompany French musician Igorrr's track,Very Noise, it may surprise you to hear that there is a quite a serious meaning behind it – amidst all the madness. “Very Noise is an attempt to transcribe on video the synthesis of numerous testimonies of stroke victims that we have collected over the past few years,” explains David Nicolas of Meat Dept. “About 3/4 of the stroke victims are heterosexual white males over 50 years old, and the visions that arise from these experiences are in common with the neuroses of this category of the population. Identity disorder, existential anxieties linked to erection problems, transfer phenomenon to a more sporty image of the father, a burning desire for extreme but playful activities such as motocross or solo rock climbing…”
What on the face of it seems to be impossible to link together, was actually created with a lot of consideration and much thought. “The notion of figurative abstraction is also very significant in the stories, it is a form of link between two ideas that challenge each other, one could speak of a remedy for cognitive dissonance generated by overlapping fantasies,” explains David.
Bearing in mind the serious subject matter underpinning the project, Meat Dept have approached it in a typically humorous and open manner. “We just opened our psychic channel and went fishing for ideas,” recalls Laurent Nicolas. “We basically took the ideas as they came and translated them instantly into images, without any filter or thinking, like the “cadavre exquis.” Then we connected the dots to create some kind of story and everything made sense.” The team behind Meat Dept are David Nicolas, Laurent Nicolas and Kevin Van Der Meiren, who's varied backgrounds across animation, design, art and film have proved quite a prolific combination. As a collective they have previously had a short film premiere at Sundance and produced idents for Adult Swim, alongside their own personal film and music video projects. They are currently working on their first series, entitled Black Holes, which has been signed by a US television network.
Looking through their portfolio, it is clear that the team has a unique way of looking at things, that manifests itself in such intriguing work. Their process that facilitates this seems to be one which snowballs from one idea: “The deal with Igorrr was total freedom. We started from a motion capture bug in a loop David was working on: the chewing gum character on the boxing ring. Then we improvised and built around it, with a lot of experiments,” explains Kevin. “Then what’s important in our approach is the attitude we have towards the variety of tools and techniques we’re using. Technology plays a very important part in our process. We are as excited about the technology as the art itself. We love to play around with new tools and push them to their limits. As we said, the starting point of the video was some weird bugs and distortions in motion capture movements. From this technical problems can sometimes arise interesting forms. You have to be open to that kind of discovery.”
When they were approached by Igorrr, the team were experimenting for an exhibition that focussed on loops. David explains that this was where the collaboration began: “At the time we were preparing an exhibition of living paintings, made of loops, basically an animation sequence that loops perfectly and can be watched endlessly,” he says. “Gautier loved the concept, but listening to the track, we were really disconcerted. It’s very violent and unpredictable.” The fast and varied nature of the track itself is obviously something that drives the visuals, and many of the scenes are directly synced to the beat - something that Meat Dept considered important. “Of course, especially for a track like Very Noise, it’s all about rhythm. Towards the end of the process, we adjusted the cuts together with Gautier and he tweaked the music a little bit and added some sound design to make it perfectly fit with the images,” says Laurent. “Some say he’s a genius but he’s just a maniac really! Jokes aside, it was great working with him. Great guy!”
The video has had an amazing reception so far, with millions of views on Youtube and the inevitable reaction videos alongside them. Famous fans of the piece also include Mike Judge, someone that Meat Dept hugely admires. Based on the success of Very Noise, attention turns to where they go next. We ask them if any of the characters may make an appearance again in the future, to which Kevin responds: “Haha! The Grandpa biker is definitely coming back…”  From: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/meat-dept-digital-film-310120

Euringer - Fuck Everything

 #Euringer #Jimmy Urine #ex-Mindless Self Indulgence #Chantal Claret #alternative/indie rock #electro-industrial #avant-garde #electropunk #music video

Euringer is a counter-culture, surreal, psychedelic, art house, avant-garde, possibly posthumous concept project from Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence fame. Featuring guest vocals from Grimes, Serj Tankian (System Of A Down), Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance) and Chantal Claret and also staring Jimmy’s Mom and Dad for good measure! “The record is one long song/musical/concerto, as if an underground movie was made for your ears. I wanted it to sound as if Depeche Mode hired J. Dilla and DJ Premier to drop loops while Frank Zappa produced, and then I came in and shit all over it,” said Jimmy.
Jimmy shares his innermost musical insights through sixteen songs, two covers (Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights and The Doobie Brother’s What A Fool Believes), four guest stars and one Jimmy. Damn, he is really hyping up this record - it better be good!
He continues, “I was having fun exploring my brain and I wanted to invite my friends to have fun with me immersing myself in another time and space, bit by bit, gaining its form from my daily life into a surreal stream of consciousness.”
From trigger warnings to Martin Niemöller quotes, from reading himself to boasting and testing, from touring the world to alcohol poisoning, from kissing your mother to dismissing his entire career, this two-year adventure is a mindfuck of Jimmy’s escapist reality.
“Mathematically speaking, I am breaking time into pieces of distance and moving through them diagonally at a rapid rate,” says Jimmy. “Naaaahh, I am just fucking with you. I just drank a whole bottle of Southern Comfort and wrote this album. A hallucination, a proclamation, a degradation? Or maybe its all just all a pile of bullshit I made up to stay relevant. Either way, I am right behind you.”
Jimmy Euringer is the frontman, songwriter and programmer for the cult favorite, critically-acclaimed band Mindless Self Indulgence. He has applied his talents as an innovative songwriter, arranger and producer in a variety of projects, including composing songs for and acting in film, television, video games and many remixes.  From: https://www.metropolis-records.com/artist/euringer


öOoOoOoOoOo - Chairleg Thesis

 #öOoOoOoOoOo #ex-Pin-Up Went Down #experimental #avant-garde #art rock #progressive metal #avant-garde metal #experimental metal #black metal #electronic

 

öOoOoOoOoOo - Samen (Apathia Records)
Fans of Pin-Up Went Down will find this debut record from France’s newest export Chenille (let’s just call them that for the sake of sanity) quite remarkable. That’s because what these two musicians have done (with help from Pryapisme skinsman Aymeric Thomas on session drumming) actually works to build upon the Pin-Up Went Down formula, and hey – it even has the same frontwoman, Asphodel. You might even call this act Pin-Up Went Down 2.0, even though this time around there is much more of an experimental factor, almost to the level of Unexpect and most certainly Carnival In Coal, as well as the obvious Diablo Swing Orchestra influence, not excluding Mr. Bungle (who inspired pretty much all of this stuff to be honest.)
When you listen to this one don’t expect one approach to continue for too long. There’s disco, death metal, pop music, freaky atmospheres, black metal blasts, electronic bits, Seussian horns and even Dahl-friendly Oompa Loompas. Yes, I said Oompa Loompas. You’ll actually hear them chiming in on this weird circus music around the mid-point of the album, particularly on the cut “No Guts = No Masters.” You may also hear some lounge, drum and bass and heavy bits of groove. The album even incorporates chiptunes. It’s not just an “everything but the kitchen sink” kind of album, because Samen also includes the kitchen sink, as well as the saxophone. At this point, we may as well call Chenille an avant-garde act, because there is just no other way to put it. I’m telling you right now listener, I had no idea what I was getting into with this one at first and was wondering what in the living hell I was listening to when opener “Rules Of The Show” came onto the scene. I said to myself, “Disco pop? Who in the hell sent me this?” Though as I kept listening, I suddenly realized that there was more to this than I ever could have imagined.
Samen is the kind of record where one will discover something new with each listen and must be absorbed thoroughly through repeated listens. You just won’t get it the first time, because there’s just too much to ascertain. It’s all going on at one time, in true experimental “paint on the wall” fashion. Some people don’t even see this as music, but that’s okay as it is literally marked as an exhibition, as if it was an entry in an art gallery. This classification fits, because Samen is literally abstract art in the form of music. Additionally, I can’t even discern as to what some of the songs might be about and feel that this is is one record where the experience will be enjoyed more with the actual booklet in hand. Asphodel’s lyrical matter is extremely difficult to understand, though I believe opener “Rules Of The Show” is intended to make a sort of strong feminist statement. As for grasping at straws, “Well-Oiled Machine” seems to have something to do with peer-to-peer file transferring and Who’s The Boss. I guess it is appropriate to mention that while I was born in the eighties, I never took interest in that show, nor The Wonder Years. Aside from the weird scientific excursions taken here, we also have a couple of catchier (yes, even in this style) numbers in the form of “Purple Tastes Like White” and “I Hope You Sleep Well” where the Oompa Loompas appear along with death metal vocals. Baptiste Bertrand comes into play as he manages the guitars, bass, programming and the vocals on “Well-Oiled Machine.”
Carnival In Coal was the literal birth of French experimental metal, so it makes sense that Pin-Up Went Down and this new incarnation in Chenille would only continue to expand on some of the greatest things in this genre. In all honesty, Pin-Up Went Down was a hard sell for me because it was too poppy and not experimental enough, nor did it have the amount of extremity that I remembered from Carnival in Coal or other works by Arno Strobl. Yet in this new, daring format I find Chenille to be one of the most interesting avant-garde acts of the last decade. This is what happens when the formula is done right, and if you don’t understand it or just don’t get it, that is entirely acceptable. After all, Chenille aren’t meant for everyone and not everyone will be able to get into them very easily. But I don’t think that Asphodel and Bertrand would have it any other way. Samen challenges the mind, but it also twists and distorts easily accessible pop music in a way that would make most American contemporary labels scratch their heads. I could see several executives now with confused looks on their faces, wondering how and to who they would actually market this record. Which is why those gentlemen aren’t working with this act and the fine folks over at Apathia Records are.
I am not sure about some of the other writers here at New Noise, but I have always been one more into experimental and overly weird approaches. So chances are that if you’re going to combine a shoehorn with a trombone and filter that through a bubble bath somehow, I’ll be game for the experience. That being noted, you need to open up your mind extravagantly wide for this one as it can go from depraved and ugly to rather pretty in a mere second. Chenille can offer a bite or they can be soft and fluffy. Sometimes they may just turn into a type of amorphous antimatter. It simply depends on the song. Although I’ve talked about a couple of the tracks here already, my intention is not to spoil such an interesting record for you. I haven’t even explained every style utilized on this record, particularly because I haven’t been able to catch them all. I will say that the most extreme moment on the disc is the French language cut, “Hemn Be Rho Die Samen” which also closes the disc, showing listeners right at the very end how demonic and hopeless this act can sound when they want to. I have a feeling that most of the more elite metalheads out there will probably just check out that one, but I recommend that the more open-minded of listeners give the entire album a chance. There’s simply nothing like it and hasn’t been any similar approaches for quite a while. Even when there were, nothing this over the top was ever attempted. I applaud Chenille and hope that this is only the beginning of something grand. As a minor side note, you might have noticed that the band’s moniker is a literal caterpillar which was intended. After all, that is what Chenille literally translates to in English. It’s quite clever. Just as clever as this album as a matter of fact.  From: https://newnoisemagazine.com/reviews/album-review-ooooooooooo-samen/

 

Black Moth Super Rainbow - Windshield Smasher

 #Black Moth Super Rainbow #Tom Fec #psychedelic rock #electronic #indie/alternative rock #experimental #folktronica #synthpop #music video

Tom Fec is quietly building a tiny, twisted religion. Like the KISS Army and Misfits Fiend Club before him, the mastermind behind the psychedelic synth projects Black Moth Super Rainbow [often shortened to “BMSR”] and Tobacco has started his own “Rad Cult.” This past summer, Fec used a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for the release and distribution of his latest album, Cobra Juicy. He named the hypothetical record label that would carry it “Rad Cult.” The money pledged by fans also funded the ancillary packaging and artwork Fec wanted to produce. Most notable among the BMSR accoutrement was a specially designed full-head latex mask of a terrifyingly mutated orange face. The Kickstarter was a roaring success, so there’s now a small army of BMSR-devotees running around with identical orange head masks. Ominously, the first music video from the album, “Windshield Smasher,” depicts a group of similarly orange-masked hoodlums accosting a young couple with baseball bats, ultimately forcing frosting-covered cake down their mouths and chopping off their hair while pinning them to the hood of a car. Beneath all this scruffy bravado, however, there’s an artist who truly believes giving his unvarnished id free reign is the best way to satisfy his fans. Before BMSR head out on a nationwide tour this spring, Fec talked with us about the making of Cobra Juicy and where his brand of lovably leering weirdness comes from.

I’d like to talk about the “Windshield Smasher” video. It’s such a fun but weirdly disturbing clip. Where did all that come from?

It started off being a bigger-budget idea, and we kind of had to compromise to it being what it is. It’s the first video from the new album, so I wanted to come out baseball bats swinging [laughs]. I thought it was the perfect visual idea for that.

For me, this video typifies the vibe you’ve got in a lot of your work wherein there’s this sinister or leering feeling. There’s the offbeat violence of this video, song titles like, “I think I’m Evil,” etc.

I think mainly what I’m going for is, I don’t like music that’s all one thing, because I think it’s corny no matter what you’re doing. Like a dark metal band: “Everything is evil.” To me that comes off as corny, and a lot of other music that’s just happy, whether it’s indie stuff or pop music or just happy or whatever, it just comes off as corny. It just needs to be more complicated than that. We’re not that simple, especially now in 2013, and we shouldn’t be listening to stuff that’s so straightforward and simple.

It’s interesting you say that because I noticed Cobra Juicy has some of the most structured and pleasant pop songs you’ve ever written, but the “Windshield Smasher” video is probably the most directly threatening and unsettling visual piece you’ve put out.

I always like having fun with what I do and what I put out there because, from the second people started listening, like when Dandelion Gum came out, they had expectations for what the video should be. Everyone figured it would be this sunny valley trip with people in fields with weird colors. That shit is so predictable and so stupid and it’s been done so many time. I remember when the “Sun Lips” video came out, so many people were so upset, like, “This isn’t what we expected! This isn’t what we wanted!” But that’s just how it is, that’s what entertains me, and that’s why I make this stuff. “Windshield Smasher” was violent, but it wasn’t too mean. I still think it was kinda good spirited, but it was a lot of things at the end of the day.

From: https://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/tom-fec-black-moth-super-rainbow-tobacco

A-Wa - Habib Galbi

 #A-Wa #Yemenite music #Mizrahi #world music #ethnic #Middle Eastern music #electronica #traditional #music video

Let us introduce you to a band of sisters with the last name Haim. No, not the ones you’re thinking of. Tair, Liron, and Tagel Haim are sisters from southern Israel, and together they form a band called A-WA (Arabic for “Yes,” pronounced AY-wah). “It felt like music chose us,” Tair Haim explains. “We really have so much love to give, and so much good music, and we are all about bringing people together.”
Their musical style is unique — it’s a combination of traditional Yemenite songs, electronic music, and hip-hop. In 2016, their song “Habib Galbi” (“Love Of My Heart”) went viral, becoming the first song in Arabic to reach the top of the Israeli charts. Their debut album, also called Habib Galbi, uses traditional Yemenite folk chants and re-imagines them with electronic beats, pop music, and more. Their music is a powerful mix of modern and traditional, emphasizing their Jewish Arabic roots. And they’re the coolest. Seriously. “Since a very young age, we all discovered the love of music. I am the oldest sister, and I was always dancing and singing around the house. We grew up in a very small desert village in southern Israel called Shaharut. There weren’t many kids around so we were always best friends,” Tair told me. “We were known at school as the musical family from Shaharut.”
Their new album translates to My Home Is In My Head, and it tells the story of their great-grandmother Rachel’s journey from Yemen to Israel. “She used to say, whenever she was asked in Yemen, why are you always traveling from one place to another? Why don’t you stay in one place, and she said, ‘I can’t stay in one place. My home is in my head.’ She was a very legendary character in our family; we heard a lot of stories about her from our grandma, and from our dad,” Tair says. Their great-grandmother came to Israel from Yemen as part of Operation Magic Carpet, in which 49,000 Yemenite Jews were airlifted to Israel between 1949 and 1950. She wouldn’t agree to stay in an arranged marriage, Tair explains, and so she traveled as a single mother. Now the Haim sisters want to tell her story. It’s a “courageous story – traveling from Yemen to Israel, coming to Israel as a refugee, and starting from scratch. And being such a strong woman. We always laugh and say she was a feminist without even knowing what one was,” Tair explains. “We had so many things we already wanted to say, and we felt like we could use her life story and her voice — things she wanted to say, but couldn’t – and kind of blended with our voices. Each song on the album represents a piece of her life.”  From: https://www.heyalma.com/a-wa-a-band-of-yemenite-jewish-sisters-want-you-to-feel-at-home/

Emilie Autumn - Opheliac

 #Emilie Autumn #dark cabaret #electronica #industrial #classical #gothic folk rock #singer-songwriter

Emilie Autumn Liddell is a Gothic poet, singer / songwriter, violinist, harpsichordist, performance artist, feminist, and author. She's self described as that she sounds "like the best cup of English Breakfast spiked with cyanide and smashed on your antique wallpaper." Of Emilie's life, very little is known at the moment. What we do know is that she started playing violin at the age of four, a talent that she has continued to this day, and that she voluntarily stayed away from most of the mainstream music communities (both classical and commercial) due to bad experiences and clashes within them: In fact, most of her albums were self published by her own company. Her first album was On a Day - a classical album released in 2000, when she was 20 or 21. The following year she put out the Chambermaid and By the Sword EPs. In 2003 her first full vocal album was released: Enchant, an album filled with a number of songs inspired by fairy tales. Also contained in this CD was the Enchant Puzzle, which no one has ever solved. This was the Enchant era, when Emilie was a faerie.
After going through an extremely awful period in her life that resulted in a suicide attempt and hospitalisation, she was inspired to move in a different artistic direction. This began with the Opheliac EP, followed by the full album Opheliac. This album was far Darker and Edgier than Enchant, and a reflection of Emilie's mental state, as this album was released as an agreement with herself that she'd make the album instead of killing herself. The songs are mostly about madness and suicide, particularly in water. Much of the album is influenced by William Shakespeare, as is made obvious by the title. Many of the songs are not written from the perspective of Emilie, but from Ophelia herself, the Lady of Shalott, and others. Later in 2007, she re-released Enchant along with A Bit o' This & That, which was a collection of previously unheard songs, re-mixes, and tracks from older EPs. Also released that year was Laced / Unlaced. Laced was a re-release of On a Day... while Unlaced was an all-new collection of instrumental songs done in her newer style. In 2009 she was able to release her autobiography, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. She has also released The Opheliac Companion, which provides information and background about the songs on Opheliac. The Opheliac era is what Emilie is most well known for. And from gaining more muffins (fans), she was able to make more and more theatrical tours which gained more and more theatrics tour by tour. Joining her on stage in the Asylum are her Bloody Crumpets, a group of lovely mad girls.
In 2012 she released another album, Fight Like a Girl, which had been lingering in Development Hell for several years. Despite her initial promises that it was going to be "more metal" than Opheliac was, it ended up being a theatrical concept album based around the fictionalised Victorian story that appeared in The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. According to Emilie, she intends to use the album as part of the soundtrack to the play she's currently writing about the book. The album has created a Broken Base in the fandom because of its differences from the highly popular Opheliac and because the violin plays a much less significant role it in than it had in her previous music. Her current look and shows are generally referred to as the FLAG era by fans. She played the Painted Doll in The Devil's Carnival and its sequel Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival, musical films by the creators of Repo! The Genetic Opera, alongside two of her Crumpets, Captain Maggots and Contessa.  From: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/EmilieAutumn

Zola Jesus - Exhumed

 #Zola Jesus #darkwave #electronic #industrial #experimental #art pop #electropop #gothic rock #music video

Nika Roza Danilova has been recording and performing as Zola Jesus for more than a decade. As a classically trained opera singer with a penchant for noisy, avant-garde sounds, she launched her career with a series of lo-fi releases that pitted her soaring vocals against harsh industrial clatter and jittery synths. Her work became more hi-fi as she began to explore her own skewed vision of pop music on releases like Stridulum, Valusia, and Conatus. That era culminated in the release of Versions, a collection of string quartet interpretations of her most beloved work, conducted by J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus). That album and subsequent tour were followed by her most hi-fi outing to date, Taiga. In 2017 she returned to both the Wisconsin woods in which she was raised and her longtime label, Sacred Bones Records, to release Okovi, her darkest album yet. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, and Patreon.

Zola Jesus on making a living as a musician:

What’s the best way to make a living as a musician?

Be really good at budgeting money. Don’t live in an expensive city. Don’t get too comfortable.

What’s the hardest part about making a living as a musician, as you’ve experienced it? How can you avoid that trouble?

The instability. It’s feast or famine. It’s important to understand that every good year comes with three bad ones, financially speaking. Don’t take anything for granted. Plan accordingly. Work smart. Work hard.

Do you think using social media — Instagram, Twitter — helps with sustainability?

Yes. Social media is the watering hole of our culture. For better or worse, it’s where we congregate. Also, having access to the public directly gives us autonomy and control over our art. No longer do we need to rely on some Big Joseph from Shareholders Inc to get our message out and speak up.

Where are there opportunities for making money in the music industry currently?

On a practical level, hope that your music gets played in a movie or TV show. It will help to pay the bills, especially at times when you have no active income. I’m starting to learn something else though. I think when we talk about “making money,” our ideas have to come from something capitalistic, like a sponsorship, or a record deal, or whatever fantasy of being a rich rock star yields. But really, instead of focusing on making money by selling what you do, we should focus on making connections. Fostering the relationship between you, your music, and the people who like your music. Find a community. Respect it. Once you have that, turn to it. The community can sustain you, if you let it. Forget the Apple advertisement or sponsorship or whatever else you think you might need to be a working musician in late-stage capitalism. Turn to people. Mutual fucking aid.

How important has Patreon been for your sustainability? Why do you think it’s been so successful?

Here I will repeat myself from what I said above. But, Patreon allows me to sleep at night. It has been amazing to experience the generosity of a community. I never thought about being able to be supported in this way. Before I started my Patreon, it always felt like I was forced to figure out how to package what I did as a thing to sell, and I hated it. I can’t think about my music in that way. But instead I realized, I could figure out how to change how I made money from my music. This way, I don’t need to change what I do. I just go directly to the people who my music is for, and they can all come together and support it, if they can.

How important is it to develop a digital audience for you work?

Well, I live in northern Wisconsin, so my regional audience is pretty sparse. “Digital audience” really just means audience. When you make a thing, especially a weird thing, you’re only going to find so many “matches.” That is to say, “people who get what you’re doing and like it.” These days, it’s pretty convenient to be able to have access to nearly an entire world of potential “matches.” So, while I tour as much as I can, there are only so many places I can go in order to evangelize my work. For everywhere else, I am grateful for the possibility that I could find a match of someone in some far-flung place that could never stumble upon my show. Having that channel open for us to find each other is vital.

How important is merch to making a living?

I’m horrible at merch, so hopefully it’s not super important and I’m not missing the point on all of it. For some people it’s huge I think, or so says the legend.

Is it possible to make money as a musician through streaming? How much is reasonable to expect?

Ha. Some say yes, some say no. It’s possible to make money, but not enough to live on. I would never count on it. You’re basically being paid micro amounts for each listen that could one day add up to the actual amount of the purchase of one record.

How should someone just getting started wade into the streaming waters?

I’d like to know as well. I guess getting on playlists is important? But I’m cynical about it. About all of it. Sorry, that’s not helpful! The one thing I can recommend is to use sites like Bandcamp, which puts musicians in the front seat with their music.

From: https://thecreativeindependent.com/wisdom/zola-jesus-on-making-a-living-as-a-musician/

Puscifer - The Mission (M is for Milla Mix)

 #Puscifer #Maynard James Keenan #art rock #experimental rock #electronic #industrial #progressive rock #eclectic #music video

When you think of prog metal giants Tool, the word ‘comedy’ probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But the way frontman Maynard James Keenan sees it, it’s essential not only to that band, but to just about every band he’s ever had a hand in – most notably his solo-project-turned- full-band, Puscifer. “It’s always been the case,” he contests. “It just so happens that Puscifer embodies more of that up-front than the other projects – though, [1996 Tool single] Stinkfist... come on!” Puscifer started life as a gag, a punch-line to a joke that only Maynard fully appreciated. The band’s first public ‘appearance’ was on November 3, 1995, when they popped up on the first episode of the Bob Odenkirk and David Cross comedy sketch show, Mr. Show. In a rockumentary-style skit, a wig-and-trucker-hat-sporting Maynard appears as ‘Ronnie Dobbs’, frontman of the hardcore punk group Puscifer (which also featured Tool guitarist Adam Jones). At that point, ‘Puscifer’ existed only as the vehicle for comedy sketches and was more a workshop of ideas than an actual musical project.
“The name ‘Puscifer’ came up even before we did Mr. Show, when I was working with [comedian] Laura Milligan in a comedy club in Los Angeles,” Maynard explains. “Puscifer was one of the fake bands we’d get to play at shows. There were lots of little things happening behind the scenes long before the first full-length – we even printed t-shirts and stuff. Puscifer didn’t really fully realise itself as a project until I started working on the Underworld soundtrack with Danny Lohner.”
A sometime live member of Nine Inch Nails, Danny had collaborated with Maynard on A Perfect Circle’s debut album, Mer De Noms, as well as the ultimately unrealised supergroup Tapeworm. The pair had become a closely knit creative force, Maynard even inviting Danny to help develop ideas for the long-mooted Puscifer project. In turn, when Danny was appointed as the musical supervisor on the 2003 vampire/werewolf action film Underworld, he suggested the pair finally release a fully fledged Puscifer song. The finished product, Rev 22:20, was Puscifer’s first ‘official’ release, but it still took another four years for the band to release a debut album. “Part of the reason it took so long to record a debut album was logistics,” Maynard admits. “These days, you can go onto a bunch of AI programmes, give them a bunch of lyrical and visual prompts, and within five minutes you’ve got the whole thing done while sitting in your underwear drinking coffee. When I was trying to do Puscifer as an independent band, you didn’t really have things like Pro Tools, Final Cut Pro or even iMovie, so everything took budget and I didn’t have a budget.”
Puscifer’s development reached a major turning point when Maynard began working with engineer Mat Mitchell on A Perfect Circle’s 2004 release, eMOTIVe. Recognising that he had again found a kindred creative spirit, Maynard enlisted Mat to help him realise his vision for Puscifer. One of the first songs they worked on became Vagina Mine, based around a riff Maynard had been tinkering with for “a fuck of a long time”. “We worked really well together, complementing each other in strange ways,” Maynard says. “I came up with the riff to Vagina Mine back when I was living in Grand Rapids, pre-Tool. It was an acoustic riff, but when I tried to explain it, [the people I showed it to] couldn’t wrap their heads around it. I just kept shelving it, but I showed it to Mat and he was like, ‘Let’s record it!’ It all spiralled out from there.” With Mat’s help, Puscifer’s sound truly began to take shape. While A Perfect Circle had largely inhabited the same alt metal/prog crossover sphere that he had become famous for with Tool, Maynard knew this new project was going to be something entirely different.
“Trying to reinvent yourself is not an easy task when you have a lot of pressure from an existing, successful thing,” he admits. “With Puscifer, it was hard to find a way to still be ourselves and bring something unique to the table while trying to also force yourself into another box. We really turned on our creative juices to find our way through that minefield and, for the end product, I’d point to the likes of Tom Waits and Kraftwerk. If they had a baby, that bastard child would be Puscifer. There are weird analogue, acoustic instruments mixed with synths and drums.” Over the next three years, Maynard and Mat worked together on Puscifer’s debut album, recording bits in the brief windows of downtime the pair had while Maynard juggled the massive success of both Tool and A Perfect Circle. Maynard freely admits he has no idea how many different sessions and recordings it took to finally pull together Puscifer’s debut album, “V” Is For Vagina.
“It’s hard to track when you’re almost 60 and used a lot of aluminium deodorant back in the day!” he offers with a chuckle. “It literally ended up being a Frankenstein creation, because we were forced to record it in hotel rooms and various studios on our days off, in boiler rooms and dressing rooms. On the original Vagina Mine track there were some tom hits and snare hits that were recorded in a big arena somewhere, alongside acoustic guitar we’d recorded in a closet, and keyboard stuff Mat brought from I don’t even know where. He could have done it at Starbucks for all I know!”
As the songs came together, humour remained a key element, Maynard creating a cast of colourful characters who would crop up in Puscifer song lyrics, music videos and recorded skits online. “Some successful bands get caught in that trap of being afraid to go off brand”, says Maynard. “AC/DC is one of my favourite bands, but you will never catch them dead going off brand. With Puscifer, there’s no such thing – just go.” The approach was undoubtedly bizarre, but became more prevalent in subsequent years as emerging bands constructed their own fictional narratives to great success. Which raises the question: did Puscifer pave the way for Ghost?
“Somebody always has to be first, but I don’t think there’s one person that specifically invented it and then everyone else followed,” Maynard says dismissively. “The ideas of having characters associated with your music was where music was always heading. Our exposure to Canadian sketch comedy show Kids In The Hall, Second City and other things like Monty Python while we were kids all seeped into our subconscious, and shows like Saturday Night Live helped cement this connection between music and comedy. We connected those dots and those characters just started coming out. I’d love to take credit for that... So in fact, starting over, yeah, we did that!”
Released on October 30, 2007, “V” Is For Vagina marked the moment Puscifer officially graduated from Maynard’s gag group into a fully realised creative enterprise. Along the way they had been a comedy country-punk group, subjects of short films and even a clothing line (consisting mostly of novelty t-shirts). The next logical step was to play shows. In February 2009, they hosted a multi-night residency at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, mixing comedy skits and live performances of their songs.
“We were scratching our heads and going, ‘How the fuck do we do this?’ because we had all this movement onstage and all these modified sets,” Maynard recalls. “I still remember the butterflies, because I was so used to just going out and singing my songs, but there was all this improv dialogue and that was nerve-racking. Some of it fell 100% flat, but other bits were fucking awesome.”
Puscifer’s debut album peaked at No.25 on the Billboard 200 in the US and, by autumn 2009, Maynard was ready to take the project properly on the road. There, they picked up the final ingredient to turn Puscifer into a fully-fledged band, British singer-songwriter Carina Round. Carina initially joined as a live member, but soon became a key creative force at the heart of Puscifer – and remains so today. Much like Mat Mitchell before her, Carina’s first contribution was helping them re-interpret Vagina Mine for live performances.
“We didn’t want to be one of those bands that wrote a great song that would sound awful live and be too afraid to actually change it,” Maynard explains. “If you have all three of myself, Mat and Carina working on a song, even if we go off in wildly different directions, you have a frame of reference for what those three people can do. Nine times out of 10 Carina’s decisions are going to be smarter than mine, and the same goes for Mat. Combine that with the insanity that my brain goes through with those two people, and those three creative forces are more than the sum of their parts.”
But with Maynard having so much experience playing characters, who would he like to play in a film of his life? “I keep getting calls from Brad Pitt, but I keep muting him. Ha!”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/puscifer-story-behind-the-first-album

 

 

St. Vincent - Your Lips Are Red

 #St. Vincent #art rock #alternative/indie rock #electronic #singer-songwriter #avant-rock #pop rock #ex-Polyphonic Spree

St. Vincent was born Annie Erin Clark on September 28, 1982 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and spent most of her childhood in Dallas, Texas. She began playing guitar at the age of 12, and picked up some valuable lessons on the life of a touring musician as a teenager when she joined her uncle Tuck Andress on the road with his popular jazz duo Tuck & Patti. After graduating from high school in 2001, she studied at the prestigious Berklee School of Music, and recorded a self-released, three-song EP with fellow students in 2003, Ratsliveonnoevilstar. In 2004, Clark left Berklee and joined the extra-large Baroque pop group the Polyphonic Spree as a guitarist and a singer; she toured with the band, and appeared on the sessions for their 2007 album The Fragile Army. Also in 2004, Clark performed with Glenn Branca's 100 Guitar Orchestra for a recording of one of his avant-garde symphonies. In 2006, she left the Polyphonic Spree and joined the backing band of like-minded pop composer Sufjan Stevens. She recorded a three-song EP to sell at her shows with Stevens, on which she adopted the name St. Vincent (inspired by the New York hospital where poet Dylan Thomas died as well as her great-grandmother's middle name). During this time, she also recorded her debut album with musicians including Polyphonic Spree members Louis Schwadron and Brian Teasley and keyboardist Mike Carson, a frequent collaborator with David Bowie. Arriving in July 2007 on Beggars Banquet, Marry Me won critical acclaim, and in 2008 Clark won the PLUG Independent Music Award for Female Artist of the Year.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/st-vincent-mn0000574035/biography

One of the first things you wanted to learn to play on the guitar was Jethro Tull’s Aqualung – where did that come from?

I think that was my dad’s CD. I saw Jethro Tull three times. Tull – three times! My first concert was Steely Dan. I was never cool. But a lot of that – Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young, Neil Young, The Doors, Zeppelin, Steely Dan, The Crusaders, Herbie Hancock, Traffic – all that stuff would have been my dad’s influence, I guess. How many times have you seen Tull, hmm?

Were they not a bit alarming for a child?

If I’m honest, I don’t love the flute – it ranks as one of my least favourite instruments. I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t understand the novelty of just how brave he [Ian Anderson] was to bring the flute into prog rock. When you’re going back and raiding the boomer record collection you don’t have the same concepts as they do. “Oh, so-and-so was just a so-and-so rip off, these people are corny” – it’s all just exploration for you. It’s nice with virgin ears.

You’ve said there’s a Stevie Wonder influence on Daddy’s Home – was that from your father too?

I knew the sort of young Stevie Wonder era but actually it was right after 9/11 – which was my first or second day at college – and my friend was like, “Just go deep on Innervisions.” And I was like, “Woah, OK.” So it was music that helped me deal with the depth of what was going on. That was when I really got into Innervisions, Talking Book, Songs In The Key Of Life, that particular era of Stevie Wonder that was super-heavy.

How about Sly Stone?

I knew the hits growing up and then dug in around the same time and went back and revisited it recently. Checked out the Long Beach sound and bands like War. Super groove-based but with other influences whether Latin or, like, wiggly stuff. No straight lines. No right angles at all. Groove and feel are like a house of cards. It’s like this elusive magic trick.

You were into theatre at high school – is that where you learned to become a performer?

It was something that really scared me but I got such a thrill out of it. Let me make a distinction: I wasn’t into musical theatre. I was, like, reading Ibsen. I wasn’t trying to be the lead in Hello, Dolly! Musical theatre, I didn’t understand – I was like, “Why would you break into song right now?” I loved David Mamet.

What were your signature roles?

I had a progressive theatre teacher who changed one of the roles in Our Town to a female role so I could have a part. I think I had about four lines and most of it was to look forlorn, which wasn’t that hard as a teen. And then I was Helen Keller’s mother in The Miracle Worker.

You went on to study at Berklee College Of Music but did you ever play in a guitar-bass-drums school band?

I did a bit. I played in bands in high school and we’d do Jewel covers and such. Then I begrudgingly played in a jam band in high school. And then in college I played in a noise band that was very Polvo, all those Sonic Youth kind of noise bands with detuned guitars. It was really fun. I was doing my own solo stuff in the midst of all this. Writing at least.

Can you remember the first songs you wrote?

One of the first things I wrote I ended up using on the song Saviour [on Masseduction] – I’m picturing pressing play and record at the same time on the Tascam 4-track. I don’t remember exactly the first thing I wrote, but I do remember that I would learn other people’s songs and then about three-quarters of the way through I would immediately start trying to write my own things. I’ve never been that great a student, I guess. I think instinct can take you a lot of great places but at a certain point, if you want to keep trying to get better, you do just have to go back and figure out: “OK, this song is great. Why is it great?” Take it apart like a frog in biology. It’s not the sexiest part, but I just find it crazy, endlessly fascinating.

Do you think you’ve written a standard?

A song like What Me Worry? [on Marry Me] was literally inspired by the Great American Songbook. Maybe my song New York [on Masseduction] can go into the canon of songs about New York. It’s a little bit of a hard sell with the word “motherfucker” in it, but who knows? Maybe that would play in 2040, 2050. The obscenity won’t matter. Nobody will care.

There’s a song on the new album named after Warhol Superstar Candy Darling. When you moved to New York after college, were you in thrall to that Warhol idea of the city?

Yeah, I think New York is full of people who have escaped from wherever they’ve come from, unless they were born there. It’s still my favourite city and I still have so much more of a romantic relationship with New York than any other place. I moved there just after college. When I was in college, I would escape Boston and go on the Chinatown bus for $15 and go to the city for the weekend. Hoped I’d find a place to stay and run around and be drunk and see shows. Every single block of downtown has memories – good, bad, ugly, fuzzy – and you’re alive in that place more than other places. That’s my experience and I know I’m not alone. Candy Darling was just so beautiful and singular and funny and I feel kind of a perfect heroine.

On returning to Texas, you were invited to join The Polyphonic Spree – how was that as a learning experience?

I always wanted to be essentially doing what I am doing now but it was so exciting to go from playing little clubs to – I think my first gig with them was at a Spanish festival called Benicàssim. It was like, the elevator doors opened and there were like 40,000 people. The chaos, it’s hot and sweaty, and there’s just that unpredictable ‘What’s going to happen next? Am I going to hop on top of a road case and be wheeled all over the stage?’ We were mostly on the bill with Sonic Youth and the stuff that was big in those days. Franz Ferdinand was really big, Kaiser Chiefs, The Bravery – are all these things ringing bells? Jet was one of the big headliners.

Beyond music, what did you learn from watching other bands on the festival circuit? Any cautionary tales?

One thing that I think of is when I see people with really massive entourages. I know it maybe seems sexy from the outside but you’re paying for all that. I mean, don’t go bankrupt ’cos you’re bringing your entourage around.

From: https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/stories/i-could-be-anybody-today-st-vincent-interviewed/

Let's Eat Grandma - Rapunzel

 #Let's Eat Grandma #art rock #pop rock #dream pop #experimental #avant-pop #electronic

The project of lifelong friends Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth, Let's Eat Grandma's boundary-breaking pop stems from their intuitive creative connection. Featuring songs they wrote in their early teens, their 2016 debut album, I, Gemini, felt equally inspired by chart-topping acts, Grimm's fairy tales, and the likes of Björk and Kate Bush. The luminous synth pop of 2018's acclaimed I'm All Ears, which found Let's Eat Grandma collaborating with cutting-edge producer Sophie, was more sophisticated but no less exuberant, while the heartfelt songwriting on 2022's Two Ribbons reflected the changes and losses that reshaped - but didn't break - Hollingworth and Walton's bond. Similarly, the duo's work on the score to the Netflix series Half Bad: The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself expressed Let's Eat Grandma's continued creative growth with its eerie fusion of electronic and traditional instrumentation.
Growing up in Norwich, U.K., Hollingworth and Walton became best friends at age four, when they bonded during a kindergarten art class. From there, they embarked on creative projects that ranged from building tree houses to making short films and, eventually, music. They made their first song at age ten, and by the time they were 13, they were writing in a rehearsal space in Walton's home. Taking their name from a joke from the humorous punctuation book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Let's Eat Grandma began recording songs for their album at the local music college when Hollingworth and Walton were 14 and began playing shows soon after. Around this time, they caught the attention of Manchester singer/songwriter Kiran Leonard, who saw their name on a poster for the 2014 Norwich Sound & Vision Festival. The pair soon shared management with Leonard and signed to Transgressive Records, which released a trio of singles - "Deep Six Textbook," "Eat Shiitake Mushrooms," and "Rapunzel" - in early 2016. Featuring the duo on every instrument, Let's Eat Grandma's first full-length, I, Gemini, arrived that June consisting of songs Hollingworth and Walton wrote several years earlier and earning critical acclaim for its clever songwriting and whimsical instrumentation.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/lets-eat-grandma-mn0003481701/biography

Dälek - Classical Homicide

 #Dälek #experimental hip hop #industrial hip hop #electronic #glitch hop #noise #avant-garde

Forged in the fires of the East Coast underground music scene in the 90s, Experimental Hip Hop pioneers Dälek have spent decades carving out a unique niche fusing hardcore Hip Hop, noise and a radical approach to sound. Founded by Will Brooks (aka MC Dälek) and Alap Momin (aka Oktopus), Dälek debuted in 1998 with Negro, Necro, Nekros; a sonic tour de force built upon thunderous drums, blissful ambient sections and gritty, insightful lyrics. From the very beginning, Dälek came out the gate, following in the footsteps of their predecessors Public Enemy while drawing from influences as varied as My Bloody Valentine and German experimentalists Faust, Dälek have succeeded in adding completely new textural and structural dimensions to rap music. After signing with Mike Patton’s renowned label, Ipecac Recordings, Dälek went on a virtually unparalleled run throughout the 2000s releasing a string of ambitious and challenging albums including From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots (2002), Absence (2005), Abandoned Language (2007), and Gutter Tactics (2009). A visceral and powerful live act, Dälek spent over a decade touring and bringing their raucous and blistering performances to audiences around the world.  From: https://deadverse.com/artists/dalek/

This avant-garde hip-hop stuff is spreading fast. You know the stuff of which I speak; hip-hop built from samples harder to grasp than a wall of Jell-O, whose time signatures change faster than a 15 year-old girl's fashion sense, all strung around beats dirtier than the old man asleep at the bus stop. Innovators like cLOUDDEAD, El-P, and the Anticon Crew have been redefining what hip-hop is for years now, so it's nice that people are finally starting to take notice. If you've been paying any attention, you know what's bound to happen next: the market will glut, and innovation will make way for imitation. But first, Dälek returns to the scene, fresh off collaborations with Faust, Techno Animal and Kid606, with a sophomore album inventive enough to extend avant-garde hip-hop's stay in the limelight for, at the very least, a few more weeks.
So what is it that makes Dälek - alongside producer Oktopus, and turntablist/producer Still - stand out amongst a seeming onslaught of original, challenging hip-hop? Namely that their songs are set to moody musique concrète backdrops that sound like something out of a David Lynch nightmare. Yes, there are rhymes set to hand-drums and cowbells. Yes, the lyrical content would feel more at home in a lit hall than in some trash-ridden alley. Yes, there are times when Dälek opts to speak his vocals rather than rap them. And yes, he's more sensitive than your average bear. But what really separates Dälek from the rest isn't his rabid experimentation as much as the way he builds a bridge between the avant-garde and the traditional.
While his contemporaries experiment with slant-rhyme and abstract poetics, Dälek takes a comparatively standard lyrical approach, setting forcefully delivered rhymes to some of the strangest soundscapes that will ever be labeled 'hip-hop.' Pleas for understanding, cries of frustration, and even the occasional ray of hope weave in and out of music that owes more to 80s Western European industrial music a la Psychic TV and Nurse with Wound than it does to Grandmaster Flash or Public Enemy.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2148-from-filthy-tongue-of-gods-and-griots/

Beth Orton - Shopping Trolley

 #Beth Orton #folktronica #folk rock #trip-hop #contemporary folk rock #electronica #singer-songwriter #music video

Has Beth Orton ever sounded as angry as she does on "Worms", the caustic kiss-off that opens her fourth album? "I'm your apple-eatin' heathen, any ol' rib-stealin' Eve," she sings on the chorus, turning talk of original sin into empowering invective against some unnamed target. It's an odd song with an odd little shuffle to it, and even though it sounds uncannily like Fiona Apple (right down to her rushed cadence at the end of the second verse), the track reminds you how singular Orton seemed on her first two albums and how much she buffed away the rough edges on her third album, Daybreaker, an AOR makeover that aimed for but missed the same listeners who one year later made Norah Jones a sensation.
So it's nice to have the old Beth Orton back. It's also nice to have Jim O'Rourke at the helm, particularly because he puts some rhythm back into her songs. Orton needs it, too: Her voice hits your ears at an angle, as if refracted prismatically, and O'Rourke's sturdy beats don't reset that angle to perpendicular so much as make sure it hits its target with a little more force. Comfort of Strangers is strongest when O'Rourke and percussionist Tim Barnes translate Trailer Park's spacey effects into earthier rhythms, especially with the oscillating bass line and tight drum beat on "Conceived". They let loose on "Countenance" and are joined by what sounds like a full band on "Shopping Trolley". The intro to the title track sounds like "Walk on the Wild Side", but to their credit, Orton and O'Rourke undercut that seedy strut with handclaps, sparkling piano, and perhaps her most straightforward performance.
Orton's vocals - so arced and mellifluous - reign over all other sounds on Comfort of Strangers. On Daybreaker, her voice sounded like an empty vessel, beautiful but conveying very little; here it has a very real personality behind it, one that allows itself to be angry, cynical, hopeful, and snide - a complex and compelling emotional mess. This attitude fits her songwriting well, giving her words added resonance. On "Heartland Truckstop" she sings, "I wanted to love, but I turned 'round and hated it," and her strong, glaring delivery of that second line - as if she's making eye contact through her voice - reinforces not just the wordplay, but the cheated disappointment of the sentiment.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/6050-comfort-of-strangers/

Garbage - Thirteen

 #Garbage #alternative rock #electronic rock #industrial rock #trip-hop #industrial power pop #Alex Chilton cover

The name of the album was #1 Record, which was bitterly ironic, as it ended up selling under 10,000 copies upon its initial release in 1972. The name of the band, Big Star, also proved to be an unfortunate misnomer, because outside of critics and other musicians, they remained virtually anonymous during their brief time together. Despite all these negatives and contradictions, Big Star included on #1 Record one of the best ballads of the rock-and-roll era, the hauntingly yearning “Thirteen.” The title comes from the age of the narrator, and the song is one of the most accurate depictions of an era in life when the first pangs of romance arrive to simultaneously enthrall and torture.
On #1 Record, their debut album, Big Star wielded an impressive duo of singer-songwriters in the Memphis-raised pair Alex Chilton and Chris Bell. Chilton had already achieved chart success as a teenager with The Box Tops, displaying gritty vocals that were soulful beyond his years on a string of rhythm and blues-influenced singles. But when he joined up with Bell, a proponent of a combination of Byrdsy jangle and Beatles-y catchiness that would come to be known as power pop, Chilton changed his game. Bell and Chilton wanted to emulate the Lennon/McCartney formula as much as they could, so they shared credit on many of the songs on #1 Record even though there was in fact little writing collaboration between the two. “Thirteen,” for example, was entirely Chilton’s creation, and he also delivers the aching vocal that vacillates between hope and heartache and that many cover versions have tried to emulate but never quite matched.
“Thirteen” focuses on an age that is somewhat underrepresented in pop and rock music. Many have written songs about childhood, and, since rock and roll was born out of teenage rebellion, high school ages and upward are of course the focus of many a ditty. But Chilton finds that bittersweet spot in between when innocence still lingers but more complicated emotions start to work their way into the picture. Over tender acoustic guitars, Chilton begins with a question that thirteen-year-old boys have been asking thirteen-year-old girls for generations: “Won’t you let me walk you home from school?” “Won’ t you let me meet you at the pool?” he follows, again treading lightly so as not to scare her away. He eventually suggests a date at the dance on Friday; “And I’ll take you,” Chilton delicately sings, as if anything more forceful than a gentle plea will destroy his chances.
In the second verse, the narrator for the first time reveals an obstacle blocking the path to this girl for whom he is clearly falling hard, his modest queries notwithstanding. “Won’ t you tell your Dad get off my back?” he asks her. His response to the doubting father is brilliant: “Tell him what we said about ‘Paint It Black.’” By drawing a parallel between his own musical tastes and that of the father, he’s hoping to show that he’ s not just some punk kid with bad intentions, although doing that by name-dropping a song by The Rolling Stones, one of the most lascivious bands, might be defeating the purpose. And his next exhortation (“Come inside now, it’s okay/ And I’ll shake you”) shows that his intentions aren’t all that pure after all, the sexual hinting a gutty and honest move by Chilton.
The final verse finds him struggling as she remains both rigidly unknowable (“Won’t you tell me what you’re thinking of?”) and frustratingly proper (“Would you bean outlaw for my love?”) His concluding lines redeem him in terms of his integrity and honor, even as they suggest that he’s losing his opportunity with her in the process: “If it’s no then I can go / I won’t make you.” The final “Ooo-hoo” that Chilton utters is a real killer, tinged as it is with the sting of implied refusal.
From: https://americansongwriter.com/behind-the-song-thirteen-by-big-star/

Unveiling the new model of a machine that made its debut three years prior, alternative rock outfit Garbage polished the raw grind of their hazy first album with the sparkling digital sheen of 1998 sophomore effort Version 2.0. Emerging from the eerie trip-hop and bleak grunge of the critically acclaimed, multi-platinum Garbage, the quartet expanded their vision, going into overdrive with a futuristic sound that blended their inspirations both classic (the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and the Pretenders) and contemporary (Björk, Portishead, and the Prodigy). While Garbage retained the sleaze and effortless cool of their debut -- hinted on early tracks "As Heaven Is Wide" and "A Stroke of Luck" -- they infused Version 2.0 with deeper electronic layering, improved hooks, and an intimate lyrical focus courtesy of iconic vocalist Shirley Manson, who seized her place as the face and voice of the band with authority and confidence. On the propulsive "When I Grow Up" and the bittersweet "Special," Garbage took cues from '60s girl groups with "sha-la-la"s and stacked vocal harmonies, grounding them with a delivery inspired by Chrissie Hynde. Elsewhere, the hard techno edges of Curve and Björk cut through the frustrated "Dumb" and the lusty "Sleep Together," while Depeche Mode's Wild West years received tribute on the stomping "Wicked Ways." Beyond the blistering hit singles "I Think I'm Paranoid" and "Push It," Version 2.0 is also home to Garbage's most tender and heartbreaking moments, from the pensive "Medication" to the trip-hop-indebted "The Trick Is to Keep Breathing" and "You Look So Fine." Balanced and taut, Version 2.0 is a greatest-hits collection packaged as a regular album, not only a peak in Garbage's catalog, but one of the definitive releases of the late '90s.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/version-20-mw0000032128

Cibo Matto - MFN

 #Cibo Matto #alternative rock #art rock #trip-hop #alternative pop rock #electronic #music video

From the start, it’s clear that Yuka Honda, one half of the New York City band Cibo Matto, doesn’t like to stay within the lines. When asked to name five albums that everyone should hear, she rattled off all of Stevie Wonder’s records, everything by Earth, Wind, and Fire, Sly Stone, all of the Beatles’ albums, John and Yoko, Talking Heads, all of Brian Eno’s stuff, and Antonio Carlos Jobin. When asked to offer up a simple description of Cibo Matto’s music, she shyly responded Oh. I don’t think I could do that.
Her unwillingness to accept boundaries is an excellent metaphor for Cibo Matto. When it comes to the group’s music, the keyword is fusion. From heavy metal to bossanova to hip-hop, Cibo Matto mixes everything to produce an eccentric recipe for sound.
Honda was born in Japan and came to the United States in 1987. She says her experience gives her a different perspective on making music. I am not only from Japan, but I lived in Europe for some time, Honda said during a phone interview. I have learned that although people have very different mind sets, they also have a lot in common. I don’t know why people like to categorize things between country and genre and like to put a border between things.
It was open-mindedness that eventually led her to form a musical union with another Japanese-born New Yorker, Miho Hatori. At first, Cibo Matto came together to play only one gig for fun. We were just really having fun, a lot of fun, and thinking we can just do whatever we want, Honda said. There was a lot more freedom to try out and be experimental for one gig.
A fan base started to form from Cibo Matto’s random performances and then led to a recording contract with Warner Brothers. Cibo Matto’s first album was released in early 1996. Entitled Viva! La Woman, the debut album conveyed what was on Honda’s and Hatori’s minds – food. Of the 11 songs on the album, 10 were about food. In fact, cibo matto is Italian for food madness. Viva! La Woman was highly innovative, built on the hip-hop loops produced by Honda’s extraordinary keyboard skills and Hatori’s vocal power.I started getting into hip-hop in 1986, Honda said. It was always very exciting, especially since I did computer music. I always try to build the song as much as I can. I look at it from different angles, but I don’t want to lose the live feel. I try to think about aspects of the music and realize as much as possible in every song.
Her openness to musical exploration paid off. Cibo Matto went on tour opening up for Beck, Luscious Jackson and other headliners. Viva! La Woman was named in Time magazine as one of the top 10 hip-hop albums of all time. As Cibo Matto grew more successful, new band mates joined to support the duo on the road. Sean Lennon was added on guitar and bass, and Timo Ellis and Duma Love on percussion. The group played at the Tibetan Freedom Concerts and opened the one in Chicago in June. Yuka thinks that the Tibetan Freedom concerts have brought together the most diverse of today’s artists. Cibo Matto is especially close with two groups that also call New York City home – the Beastie Boys and Luscious Jackson. We don’t help each other out in writing stuff, but we’re good friends, Honda said. We definitely have a sense of family in the music industry.
This past June marked the release of Cibo Matto’s second album, Stereotype A, which Honda produced. A more pop-oriented album, it shows that Cibo Matto is growing in leaps and bounds. Honda said a pop album should have something that sounds familiar, but also has to show you something new about it. Like most things, Honda had something to say about the title of the group’s latest release. People have a lot of stereotypes, she said. They are not used to women handling machines. If we have problems with the equipment, and we call a friend, they always want to talk to Sean first. Even if a producer walks in, they will always look to the man. People aren’t used to women pushing buttons and pulling strings.  From: https://www.gwhatchet.com/1999/11/18/cibo-matto-blends-variety-of-genres-to-produce-its-own-sound/

Blue Man Group & Venus Hum - I Feel Love

 #Blue Man Group #Venus Hum #performance art #alternative/indie rock #experimental #electronic rock #percussion based #music video #Donna Summer cover

Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink are entrepreneurs, innovators, educators, artists, and contemporary comedians, known collectively as the founders and originators of Blue Man Group. That these three bald and blue characters would become a cultural phenomenon – let alone the foundation for a most dynamic and successful artistic organization – is an idea that was all but unimaginable when these inscrutable beings first emerged, walking the streets of New York. “We weren’t really goal-oriented,” says Stanton. “When we started walking around the city, we did it because we wanted to see how people reacted. And being bald and blue was our social life. We didn’t want to go to bars and be part of a singles scene, a drinking scene. We wanted our social life to be somehow creative, and this was a lot of fun. We knew we would eventually do some kind of performance, but we never envisioned a commercial theater run.”      
Blue Man Group’s wildly popular, always evolving theater piece has been a mainstay in New York, Boston and Chicago for years. Now touring the country for the first time, there are also productions in Las Vegas and Orlando, and there are or have been productions in Tokyo and numerous European cities. The show is an absurd and wondrous blend of music, painting, science and technology, as the Blue Men silently engage in a variety of set pieces that run the gamut from primitive and childlike to witty and sophisticated. And the character has been the springboard for numerous additional ventures, including a rock tour, a museum exhibition, a 3D movie and a school.
“It’s all about creativity and innovation,” says Puck Quinn, creative director of character development and appearances. “If someone asks, ‘What does Blue Man Group do?,’ my answer is simple: ‘We innovate.’” Everything begins with the Blue Man, and although he’s been around for more than two decades, his founders still can’t entirely explain where he came from. Like the character himself, his origin is enigmatic. “There really isn’t an explanation,” says Goldman. “Chris dug up a picture that he drew when he was five years old, and it had three blue men in it. And I had a thing in my wallet for years with a blue tribe in South America. I don’t know why it was there; I never put pictures in my wallet. We think the Blue Man has always been here. The best answer is that we found each other.”
The impulse for going bald and blue emerged, in part, when the three longtime friends observed a clash of cultures on a New York sidewalk that no one else noticed. “We saw three punk rockers – giant Mohawks, safety pins in the cheekbone area, leather and chains – walk between three other gentlemen who were dressed in Armani suits and carrying alligator briefcases,” says Goldman. “These six guys didn’t even blink, and the people around them didn’t even blink. And we turned to each other and said, ‘If that scene didn’t even get one iota of consciousness put to it, what human imagery possibly could?” Eventually, an image began to emerge. “We thought, ‘What would surprise people?” says Stanton. “‘What’s going to catch someone’s eye and make them think?’ We thought that if we created a bald and blue character, that image would have the ability to surprise and spark some thought for a long time."   Goldman adds, “The first time we got bald and blue, we knew instantly it was something very special. And it was so freeing, because it wasn’t us. Our own egos were gone.”
Eager to see an end to the 1980s, they carried around a coffin and staged a “Funeral for the ’80s” in Central Park – two years before the decade ended. “We also walked around the streets or into bars; we were really interested in being a little provocative,” Goldman said. The traits of the Blue Man developed gradually. “There was something about him that seemed timeless, and something that seemed a little bit futuristic,” says Stanton. “He seemed to have the ability to be beautiful and comic at the same time. I’m not even sure we thought about that at first. It was really intuitive. We were trying to create a character that somehow represented humanity, but was able to be outside of humanity and look at it at the same time. We wanted to make a statement about community, about the power of a group, as opposed to the American individualist mentality. We thought the character would express community through something tribal, and drumming seemed the way to go. Chris had trained as a drummer, and I was from a really musical background. We wanted to draw from our own interests and backgrounds, and bring them into some kind of performance. We wanted to express something about the process, or the impulse to create.” They built drums and instruments made of polyvinyl chloride – or PVC – pipes. They caught thrown objects with their mouths, and learned how to make things squirt out of their chests. Not all their experiments were successful. “We tried these hats that had tape recorders in them,” says Goldman. “They were called ‘Read Your Mind’ hats.” An acquaintance complimented them for their bravery.          
They continued to develop material for three years, performing in downtown clubs and event spaces. “We wanted to do work that had never been seen onstage before,” says Goldman. Their shows were fresh and funny, exhilarating and experimental, but they were uncertain how long they could continue; they often paid out more than they took in on a gig. But in 1991, they were invited to perform at La MaMa, the prestigious off-off-Broadway theater. The show created a buzz, and that summer Blue Man Group took part in Lincoln Center’s Serious Fun Festival. In the fall they moved off-Broadway to the Astor Place Theater, where they remain to this day.
Two decades later, Goldman, Stanton and Wink are still tinkering with, refining, and updating the show. Each additional production, including the tour, provides an opportunity for new material, and even the New York show is refreshed from time to time. “Sometimes we just see something that we think is really cool, and we’ll try and see how we can make it theatrical,” says Stanton. The success of the show has enabled Blue Man Group’s founders to do what they most enjoy: innovate, create, and inspire. Among their many enterprises are CDs and DVDs; toy development; and the Megastar World Tour, their take on what a rock concert should be. “It plays around with all the trappings of the big arena concert,” says Quinn, “all the things we do that we don’t even think about – waving your hands in the air and bopping your head and dancing in your seat. We’re poking fun at all those little actions. But at the same time, we’re trying to put on the best rock concert there is, with all the stuff we want to see.”  From: https://www.stifeltheatre.com/news/detail/coloring-the-world-blue-the-history-of-the-blue-man-group

Shireen - Umai

 #Shireen #witchpop #folk rock #dark folk #neo-medieval #folk metal #electronic #Dutch #music video

Shireen is a band that comes from Netherlands and has managed in a little while to form a completely personal sound which is constantly evolving. By mixing folk and acoustic rock with ambient and pop and introducing the use of electronic samples and beats in their music, they created their own genre they call Witchpop. The "acrobatics" between various genres produces an excellent result that dresses the wonderful voice of Annicke, frontwoman and Shireen's lyricist. Annicke very kindly gave us an interview about the band's work and dreams.

What motivated Shireen to go on their own genre and what reactions do you get when you say “We play Witchpop”.

The genre we play (or actually, not conforming to a set genre at all) has never been a choice for us. We write whatever we like, and don’t try to fit it somewhere because that would only retain us from using the full scale of possibilities. So it happens naturally that our music usually floats in-between genres. We get our inspiration from a lot of different artists and music styles. We gave our style the name Witchpop to get rid of the “describe what you play” questions (which actually didn’t work haha). But even if people don’t know the genre, they immediately have a general idea or a feeling about what kind of music we play.

When someone listens to your works for the first time, they might be surprised by the contradiction that comes from the atmosphere of your music and your lyrics. How do you manage to combine social and inner matters (like the human cruelty and endurance or femininity and modern religion) in a style of music that in its "traditional" form is more "out of this world" and how does the audience respond to it?

I don’t feel there is a contradiction in the style of our music and my lyrics. I write the lyrics and sing vocals exactly how I feel them. The rest of the musicians in the band are really attuned to what I mean by it, and every single one of them has their own unique influence on the sound when writing songs. I strongly believe in using people’s strengths as good as possible. When we write a song for me it feels as if it grows like an organic thing. People who like our music sometimes tell me in person that they are very touched by the lyrics and their meanings, that is the most rewarding thing for me.

How do you evaluate Shireen’s musical evolution since 2014 and ‘Unmarked’, until today and what changes brought the new member addition to the Shireen sound?

We took it slow, deliberately. I’d rather do things good than rush it. I don’t want to make “fast food music” anyway; bringing out singles for the sake of exposure, or fill an album with less good songs just to finish and be able to sell the album sooner. The whole modern world is already filled with stuff like that, and I feel, and hope that people also feel that there is no soul in it. We all deeply enjoy the positive reactions we get from people, and it motivates me to make new things. Every new band member has a big influence on our writing music. When Guido joined us with electronics he brought a complete new world of possibilities with him, and we started to (re)write songs to implement his amazing sounds. So does Berend, our newest band member and guitar player, bring in his style and we get inspired by the new possibilities of it.

Starting with the Umai video we can see a character like an alter ego developing and we find her again on the covers of Shireen’s three digital single releases and of course on the ‘Matriarch’ album cover. Is this character going to be Shireen’s optical signature?

I have always styled myself quite dramatically for our live shows. It is like a ritual; I always do my own hair, makeup and design and make my own stage outfits. I try to catch this feeling in a sort of character design that I then wear and become it. It’s not like becoming a different person to me, it’s more like “wearing my extra special skin”. I just don’t like “normal”, So I would say yes, as long as I’m the frontwoman of Shireen it will probably always be a dramatic signature style.

From: https://www.blackvelvetradio.gr/index.php/synentefkseis/430-interview-with-shireen-welcome-to-sound-world-of-witchpop