An Eye for Music
It seems especially true nowadays, with the kind of access creative types have to different artistic mediums, that they are rarely satisfied with just one. This isn’t a crime in and of itself, of course, especially not if the endeavors into different artistic avenues prove successful. This being said, SQÜRL, the self-titled debut EP of a band featuring noted filmmaker and writer Jim Jarmusch, isn’t a crime. However, it is apparent in these four tracks— three and a half really, but more on that later—that he and his bandmates, Carter Logan and producer/engineer Shane Stoneback, aren’t afraid to push the same kind of buttons Jarmusch pushes within the confines of his films.
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By Patrick W. DeLaney Posted in Reviews Jim Jarmusch, SQÜRL
Kraut Pleaser
German rock four piece Okta Logue have released this, an EP entitled Transit, which combines tracks from their previous album, as well as an anticipatory glance toward their upcoming LP, Tales of Transit City. Though clearly meant to be a kind of “catch-up” EP for the U.S. market, this record could fool some listeners into thinking it is a full-fledged album all on its own. This is due in part to the presence of the twenty-minute centerpiece, “Decay,” at the latter end of the album. And even if it ultimately serves as a sort of teaser for the fuller experience, Transit is an intriguing and enjoyable listen.
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By Patrick W. DeLaney Posted in Reviews okta logue
Waiting to Exhale
Long-form compositions are nothing new to modern music, and though they still often bear a certain novelty, many artists revel in the ability to let a musical idea exhale before moving to the next one. In the company of the careful composer, these long-drawn breaths can merit excellent, tension-drenched moods that flail and extinguish in very affecting ways. In the hands of lesser composers, largely unedited strains and swells become an endurance test for the listener. Case in point, for “Dead Foxes in the Street,” the lead of the two tracks, it seems as though it is a full nine and a half minutes before the initial musical breath has satisfied the souls of the players.
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By Patrick W. DeLaney Posted in Reviews aidan baker, the plurals
Darkness in the Noonday Sun
For the soundtrack to recently released film The Place Beyond the Pines by director Derek Cianfrance, Mike Patton abides by two simple concepts: mood and tension. Though the arrangements are minimalist and the instrumentation is sparse and precisely placed, Patton gets the most out of these pieces through his skillful management of said concepts. Patton, no stranger to soundtracks—or really anything at this point—frequently lets out a slack of rope to the listeners, catches them in a momentary groove and then jerks them back to attention.
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By Patrick W. DeLaney Posted in Reviews Mike Patton
A Book by Its Cover Song
Journalists by nature are often short and to the point with their work. Anika, a former journalist who has split her time the past few years between England and Germany, bears this mark of her former occupation in her musical endeavors, as this simple six-song EP shows. Much in the same vein as her debut album, Anika EP is primarily covers. In fact, two of the covers here, “I Go to Sleep” and “Yang Yang,” originally by the Kinks and Yoko Ono respectively, make appearances on both releases.
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By Patrick W. DeLaney Posted in Reviews Anika, anika ep
Idly By in the Kidwell Haze
Rjyan Kidwell—an electronic composer, sometimes rapper and oftentimes provocateur—returns here with an album in full ambient mode. Often working interchangeably under the alias, Cex, Kidwell has had a colorful career to date, but as one would guess, working under a likely self-imposed sense of restriction robs his work of what has made him unique in the first place: his personality. Read more…
By Patrick W. DeLaney Posted in Reviews Cex, rjyan kidwell
Icelandic composer and multi-instrumentalist Olafur Arnalds has returned with his fourth album in six years, a subtle and modest effort entitled For Now I Am Winter. Historically, words like subtle and modest sometimes run the risk of coming off negative, or at the very least bear the sting of a backhanded compliment. However in Arnalds’ case, those words can be applied in a more favorable and genuine sense. As it is, so much of electronic music these days concedes to such a calculating nature, where most times you can almost hear the copy/paste of a beat or melody being duplicated to seventy-two bars instead of a mere twelve. Plainly spoken, it is refreshing to hear an artist have a little more restraint with his electronic composition.
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By Patrick W. DeLaney Posted in Reviews Olafur Arnalds
A Ride On the Way-back Machine
Rock ’n’ roll is such a rare form of entertainment, one in which the lines between intelligence and stupidity—and satire and reality—can be so blurry, it’s sometimes nice to just get lost in the wash. Bored With Prozac and the Internet? seems to fit nicely into this sense of ambiguity, mostly because it is such an odd little thing. If you have read anything about this album, you’ll know that it has some interesting roots. Conceived by Duran Duran members Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo during some down years with the band, it is basically a near pastiche of decadent keyboard-based electronic rock that makes liberal use of splice and loop technology. In fact, the “vocals” of the album are largely the duo’s strategic use of some bizarre television audio clips.
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By Patrick W. DeLaney Posted in Reviews bored with prozac and the internet?, tv mania
When Less Needs More
Composed by Daniele Luppi—an Italian-bred, Los Angeles-based composer—this film score is at its base well crafted, if minimalistic. And at the end of the day, the obvious challenge befalling the soundtrack genre is that to a certain extent the music has to work hard to be memorable on its own, rather than merely effective in its pairing with an affecting visual, or else it just blurs into peripheral consciousness.
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By Patrick W. DeLaney Posted in Reviews Daniele Luppi
One-track Mind
One would think that at the end of the day, a good rule of thumb when considering a piece of music is to essentially let the music itself do the talking. However, after browsing through a few articles about what LISm was intended to be—an artistic departure, music for a dance production, etc.—there seems to be little the music has to say on its own. Read more…
By Patrick W. DeLaney Posted in Reviews Ellen Allien, LISm
