Incoming: Caving

Andy Dixon has worn many hats over the course of his musical career; guitarist with d.b.s. and The Red Light Sting, glitch knob-tweaker as the Epidemic and electro-acoustic mash artist as Secret Mommy. Well now we can add yet another alter-ego to the mix with his new project, Caving.

Pairing rap acapellas with world music samples and a fair dose of glitch-inspired beats and noises, it’s certainly not like anything Dixon has done in the past. He originally intended these tracks to come out under his Secret Mommy moniker, but the North Vancouver native realized the tracks were “just too obtuse of a tangent to pull off,” and thus Caving was born.

Dixon says he plans to work the new aesthetic into his DJ sets, but is staying mum on any kind of official release. And due to murky legal waters he’s wading into with the rap samples these might stay Internet only phenomenon. Regardless the tunes posted at the new Caving myspace page – particularly the cleverly titled, Jay-Z sampling “Rap’s Grateful Dead” – bode well for the future.

This originally appeared in the Click Hear section of Exclaim.ca

Incoming: Great Bloomers – “This Ain’t You (Live @ TARA)”

Via Exclaim’s Click Hear

A great song from a great album by a great band gets that much greater thanks to this live version from the second instalment of the Audio Recording Academy’s Secret Sessions.

Great Bloomers debut is a stark contrast to the EP they released two years ago. Where that was a visceral, ramshackle affair, Speak of Trouble asks listeners to look inward lyrically and sonically. “This Ain’t You” is a prime example of this approach, showing through two characters that no matter how deep you might bury your feelings, they’ll always rise to the top for all to see. The slightly more laid back nature of this semi-acoustic live take is well suited to the beautifully effortless voice of main Bloomer Lowell Sostomi. His pitch perfect rendition is just as emotionally fuelled as its studio counterpart.

Listen to the track here.

Related Post:

Record Review: Great Bloomers – “Speak of Trouble”

Incoming: York Redoubt – “I Said Slightly”

Via Exclaim.ca’s Click Hear

The Pixies loud-quiet-loud aesthetic got hijacked in the ’90s as lesser bands (Silverchair, Bush, Everclear) ran ragamuffin with the sound, making it the most clichéd dynamic shift this side of a Korn breakdown. But as necessity is the mother of invention, a new generation of bands is taking the Pixies sounds to new extremes in both directions. I like to think of it as “noise-not noise-noise.”

One of the best practitioners of this new aesthetic is Halifax’s York Redoubt. Featuring Brad LaHead from the Got to Get Got and named after a national historic site and former military base in their hometown, the trio find a striking balancing between art rock and pop. Their best track “I Said Slightly” from The Ryan Allen EP is a fun, breezy example of their sound; out of a wall of lo-fi noise comes catchy, melodic singing. I especially dig the single note guitar line that follows the vocals. Then back to that awesome, arty noise. It’s like the bastard child of Sonic Youth and Fleet Foxes.

The Ryan Allen EP is available for free download here. All three tunes will be included on the band’s forthcoming self-titled EP, hopefully out very soon.

Listen to “I Said Slightly” here.

Incoming: Memory Cassette – “Asleep at a Party”

Via Exclaim.ca’s Click Hear

Who is Memory Cassette? It seems to be the question of the moment. Based in or around Philadelphia, we know the group/artist/collective is somehow affiliated with Weird Tapes, a side project for Dayve Hawk, who in turn was a member of the late Hail Social. A post on Gorilla vs Bear quotes someone who we can only assume is Hawk as saying “Prince had Vanity 6, I’ve got Memory Cassette,” so there you go. There are a bevy of tracks up on Weird Tapes’ blog and Acephale and Sincerely Yours will be jointly releasing Memory Cassette’s debut EP Call & Response as a limited edition seven-inch record this month.

All four tracks from the EP are streaming on Memory Cassette’s myspace and available for download on the “We’re Tapes” blog, but this is hands down my favourite. The basic track sounds like the lost soundtrack to the kind of second-rate ’70s European art film that has bad English dubbing and gratuitous amounts of sex scenes. But here the sweeping strings are backed by some reverb heavy drums and what sounds like a children’s choir singing a melody that is at the same time melancholy sweet and just kind of creepy. I have no idea what it is they’re singing, as the diction is lost in the mix. It’s like a slow slip into unconsciousness after a long night of drinking.

Incoming: New Lightning Dust – “I Knew”

Via Exclaim’s “Click Hear“

The kids in Black Mountain have had the run of my iPod lately. Just when I was finally getting over last year’s fantastic In the Future, Stephen McBean drops that new Pink Mountaintops record. And now, singer Amber Webber and drummer Joshua Wells, under the guise of Lightning Dust, hit us with “I Knew,” the first track from their upcoming record Infinite Light.

The tune is a departure from the moody, keys and acoustic guitar-based tracks the duo recorded for their self-titled debut. And while that record felt like a side-project (albeit a very good one), “I Knew” sounds like the main event. Freed from her usual back-up singer role, Webber takes full advantage here and delivers a full-on pop rave-up over a keyboard line that sounds like it was cribbed from an 8-bit video game. It’s kind of revelatory, and hopefully a sign of what to expect when their album drops in August.

Stream and download “I Knew” here.

Incoming: Malcolm Middleton – “Carry Me”

Via Exclaim.ca’s Click Hear.

Malcom Middleton’s been a busy man since he and Aidan Moffat parted ways as Arab Strap back in 2006, releasing a pair of solo records with a third, Waxing Gibbous set to drop on June 1 in the UK.

While much of what’s up from Waxing…on his MySpace page follows in the mould of his previous band’s latter day records, “Carry Me” is far more reminiscent of Arab Strap’s earliest releases. All the elements are here: the delicate acoustic guitar, weird back ground electronics and the thick Scottish brogue in the spoken word verses. It’s the perfect, sober grown-up bookend to Arab Strap’s first hedonistic blast of brilliance “First Big Weekend.”

Middleton has hinted that this might be his last solo record for some time. And while we look forward to his future output in whatever form it materializes, “Carry Me” seems like a perfect closing track for this chapter in his career.

Stream and download “Carry Me” via Stereogum

New Eels video – “Fresh Blood”

Via Exclaim.ca’s Click Hear…

Eels have been MIA since dropping the double album Blinking Lights and Other Revelations back in 2005. Main man Mark Everett, E to his friends, has kept the brand alive through live records, greatest hits and rarities comps and some curious soundtrack work (Jim Carrey’s Yes Man?). Finally though, a light at the end of the tunnel: after four years Eels will release their seventh album Hombre Lobo on June 2.

The album’s first single, “Fresh Blood” finds the band at their most stripped down and bluesy, sounding like a 21st century Tom Waits. A slinky, brooding drum and bass line propels the track with E throwing out the blood curdling “whoos” in between his usual laconic vocals. The accompanying video, complete with a blood red wash and a heavily bearded E howling at the moon, is downright frightening.

Pink Mountaintops’ Wedding Album

Black Mountain mastermind Stephen McBean is set to drop a new record with his other colourful hillside project. Pink Mountaintops released their third record, Outside Love, today through Jagjaguar.

McBean says the album was inspired by a wedding that he and Thee Silver Mount Zion violinist Sophie Trudeau performed at last summer in Montreal. Still on a high from the gorgeous weather and wedding “love vibes,” the pair reconvened in Vancouver and began fooling around with guitar and strings, developing some song ideas that McBean had lying around.

Bolstered by their quick progress, McBean invited friends over to help lay down the album’s 10 tracks.

“It was written and recorded at the same time,” he says. “We weren’t planning on making a record.”

“Vampire,” a slow and meandering country jam, has been making its way around the internet for some time now. The track is fairly indicative of the album’s sound, prominently featuring a big group singalong chorus and lyrics like “you can suck out the blood/but you can’t kill the heart of my love,” which McBean has likened to a Danielle Steel novel.

The album’s collaborative nature is a departure from previous records. While 2004’s self-titled debut and 2006’s Axis Of Evol were effectively McBean solo albums, he employed a slew of his musical friends for Outside Love.

“It’s nice,” he says of the recording process. “Everyone has a different interpretation of the music.”

That collaborative experience will continue as McBean hits the road in support of the album. In tow are a six-piece band that includes Trudeau and Black Mountaineer Matt Camirand.

This post originally appeared at Chartattack.com

Incoming: CFCF – “You Hear Colours” video and mp3

I’ve previously written about  CFCF and his EP Parisian Nights which is available for digital download from Paperbag Records. But Acephale Records just released the fantastic new 7 inch “You Hear Colours” from Montreal DJ. The mysterious knob tweaker also has a nifty new video for the track. The clip, which was directed by Dallas filmmaker/blogger/VJ Tommyboy, teams CFCFs instrumental track with footage from the National Geographic and NASA video “Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner,” which I must say, work quite well together.

You can order your limited edition (of 500) copy of “You Hear Colours” backed by the as-excellent-as-the-a-side track “Invitation to Love” on white vinyl via Acephale’s website. An mp3 of “You Hear Colours” is below.

CFCF – “You Hear Colours” mp3

Related Posts:

New CFCF – “Crysal Mines”

Incoming: Fan Death

Vancouver’s Fan Death the new side project from Dandi of Dandi Wind fame. The elctro-rapping duo lay down old school rhymes over some of the best Harold Faltermeyer hooks the German musician never layed down. Personally I prefer Fan Death to Dandi Wind, though I’ve never seen either live (I’ve been told that’s where Dandi shines). According to my friend in Vancouver, they’ve got quite the industry buzz on at the moment. Fan Death are playing a show down at Sneaky Dees here in Toronto Friday, February 6 with very cool local trio Parallels. Check it out…

“Veronica’s Veil”