Category

Singles

• 05.26.08
  2 Tracks From Wolf Parade’s At Mount Zoomer   Singles (0)

  

  At Mount Zoomer is a far better title than Kissing The Beehive. At Mount Zoomer is also better than Return To Cookie Mountain. I won’t slight them for that.

  After getting exposed to a lot of the new material during last summer’s tour, it was easy to say that I was excited for the new album. “Call It A Ritual,” the first song leaked by Sub Pop, initially let me down a little. The song felt thin and drenched in a massive heap of reverb, which only amplified how odd the overall tone is. Live, it felt fuller and like it commanded more power. I persisted and with a certain number of listens, the fantastic details began to shine through, best shown by the subtle build backed by the charming strain to Simon Crug’s voice.

  I think that the same will hold for the rest of At Mount Zoomer, judging by a listen to a few other tracks I found on hiding around the internet.

  
  Fine Young Cannibals by Wolf Parade

  ‘Fine Young Cannibals’ wanders, that’s for sure. Lacking the older kind of urgency that Apologies to Queen Mary held, the song clicks along with a persistent certainty. The spindly, loping guitar riff serves as a bed for Dan Boeckner’s vocals to rest upon and it bears a little 50’s nostalgia, recalling a song I can’t put my finger on. Like ‘Call It A Ritual’, there’s a melodic learning curve…stick with it though, because again the melody creeps out and stays with you.

  
  Language City by Wolf Parade

  ‘Language City’ is a little more familiar than ‘Fine Young Cannibals’ sandwiching the familiar angular guitar and bouncy piano in with driving a beat. As it stands, it could be a song off Apologies To Queen Mary, but I’m not really prepared to punish Wolf Parade for producing something that sounds a little familiar, as the formula they previously perfected is music to my ears. The melody is strong and it builds to a satisfying release. Tracks like this certainly bode well for the rest of the album.

  HIT THE JUMP FOR UPCOMING TOUR DATES

• 05.22.08
  More Maps & Atlases! Stream the song ‘You And Me And The Mountain’   Singles (0)

  

  Yeah, I did just post something about Maps and Atlases and yeah, it’s been a slow week here on Taking Tiger Mountain. But! Now we have a sample of the new album up on their Myspace page. Click over and check out the title track from the forthcoming EP You And Me And The Mountain along with newly added tour dates. Even newer than my post earlier in the week.

  As for ‘You And Me And The Mountain’…it’s certainly different…a little less spazzy, a little more jazzy. By the end, with all the rising guitar arpeggios and drum stop-starts, it begins to feel like what Maps and Atlases covering a Dan Deacon tune.

  A bizarre concept that is as amazing as it sounds.

  Just because this post is light on actual content, here’s a video of Maps and Atlases performing another new track at last year’s SXSW.

  
  
  NEWLY ADDED TOURDATES:
  with mewithoutYou

  Jun 17 2008 Club at Water Street Rochester, New York
  Jun 18 2008 Skully’s Music Diner Columbus, Ohio
  Jun 19 2008 Mac’s Bar Lansing, Michigan
  Jun 20 2008 Skelletones Grand Rapids, Michigan
  Jun 23 2008 Grog Shop Cleveland Heights, Ohio
  Jun 24 2008 Canal Club Downstairs Lounge Richmond, Virginia
  Jun 25 2008 The Soapbox Laundrolounge Wilmington, North Carolina
  Jun 26 2008 Cat’s Cradle Carrboro, North Carolina
  Jun 27 2008 New Brooklyn Tavern Columbia, South Carolina
  Jun 28 2008 The Orpheum Ybor City, Florida
  Jun 29 2008 Common Grounds Gainsville, Florida
  Jul 1 2008 Bottle Tree Birmingham, Alabama
  Jul 2 2008 Rocketown Nashville, Tennessee
  Jul 3 2008 Uncle Pleasants Louisville, Kentucky
  Jul 6 2008 Picador Iowa City, Iowa
  Jul 8 2008 The Bottleneck Lawrence, Kansas
  Jul 9 2008 Bricktown Ballroom Tulsa, Oklahoma
  Jul 10 2008 The Parish Austin, Texas
  Jul 11 2008 The Door Dallas, Texas
  Jul 12 2008 The Foundry Music Theatre Joplin, Missouri
  Jul 13 2008 Off Broadway NightclubSt. Louis, Missouri
  Jul 14 2008 The Mad Hatter Covington, Kentucky
  Jul 16 2008 The Ottobar Baltimore, Maryland
  Jul 17 2008 Valentines Albany, New York
  Jul 18 2008 Maxwell’s Hoboken, New Jersey

• 05.21.08
  Review: These Are Powers - Taro Tarot   Singles (0)

  I wrote this review a little while back for Spacelab.tv. It all went up just this week, but it was written back in March. When I saw it online, I’d honestly forgot what I had to say about the album, but it’s not a half bad review. I like it when I surprise myself. (Even though I neglected to research and find out the whole Liars connection, but c’est la vie…)

  

  These Are Powers - Taro Tarot

  The ultimate truth with noise music is that you have to approach it and assess: how much of the population would assume that better music could be made by beating a choir of cats with a baseball bat. There’s a chart that could be drawn out, putting Merzbow’s harsh noise calisthenics at the most severe end, The Liars’s tribal wash in the other, moderately palatable end of the spectrum. These Are Powers EP Taro Tarot sits pretty much square in the middle. Much of their noise is based out of a traditional bass-drums-guitar-vocals, but using them to make a much looser, hazy kind of noise rock.

  The album opener “All Night Services,” is a curious wash of sludgy atmospherics, sparse percussion with a faintly Waits-ian vibe. The vocals arrive out of left field: an eager, angry croon that soars above the rising guitar atmospherics, giving a touch of Drift-era Scott Walker. The track plods along before spiraling up like a tornado, the two guitars rising like a cresting wave over the persistent thin. loping drums. It’s a song lost somewhere in the clouds, waiting till the inevitable downward fall begins.

  “Chipping Ice” punches through the settling dust of “All Night Services” with an almost punk-rock drum barrage. The track sits for a solid minute in a rhythmic mess of drum fills elbowing for room with the sludge bass and power drill guitars. After a brief breakdown of some actual coughing, the track transforms with a push of structural momentum. Like The Liars minus the dance punk leanings, the propulsive noise takes on a loose sense of structure; exploring less a progression of verse and chorus, but of meditations on repetition. Dolloping on layer after layer of sludgy guitar whines and noisy squeaks, “Chipping Ice” wanders blindly for three and a half minutes.

  Throughout Taro Tarot, the drums and marching bass underpin the constantly shifting mess. Like with the later track “Cockles”, the dense cloud of gray noise and reverbed voice threatens to float away, saved just by the anchor of meditative drum repetition. Taro Tarot’s biggest weak spot in the sameness of most of the songs. Much of the rest of the EP, save the throwaway 40 second “Garage Bird,” is a linear build, lurching forward like a train from a dead stop, slowly building speed to an inevitable squalling peak. The saving grace is that the longest track clocks in at 4:18, illustrating These Are Powers’ with a mercifully short attention span. Noise music is often terribly fun to make and less so for the listener to consume, so by not overindulging on the song lengths, TAP offer a degree less of wear on the listener. While not a total failure, moments like “Chipping Ice”’s proto-punk drum attack and “All Night Services” twisted croon offer moments of intrigue, but overall Taro Tarot is lacking a cohesive element that reaches through the speakers and grabs a firm hold of listener’s attention.

  
  These Are Powers - Chipping Ice

• 05.15.08
  New Ratatat Single ‘Shiller/Mahalo’ Calms and Confuses   Singles (0)

  

  Earlier this week, I was overtaken by the urge to listen Ratatat. I dubbed the day “Ratatat Day,” promptly dumped both the “Ratatat” and “Classics” on the iTunes and whiled away the work day. The very same day, news of a new Ratatat album finally surfaced. After just under 2 years away, Pitchfork announced that the band would be returning with a new album later in the year. In anticipation of the release of their third (and possibly 4th, if the press release is to be trusted) Ratatat has released the single “Shiller”.

  Both songs play out in an unexpected way, floating on a hazy cloud of beat-less mush. It’s discernibly Ratatat, but far less active than one would expect. “Shiller” spends over 2 minutes meandering through a calming murk of synth wash and harpsichord before the familiar coo of processed guitar sound punches through. “Mahalo” is even stranger, pumping another beatless track through what sounds like a Hawaiian wax cylinder. It feels a little like spacier Mars Volta wearing a lei; the song floats up toward the rafters almost unaware of the audience. While it’s not necessarily bad, but it certainly is different. Classics was a bit of a downer, less outwardly energetic than their self titled debut. I’d be amused to think that they’d release a beatless ambient album…amused but a wee bit disappointed. Luckily, our questions will be answered in less than a month when the new record is released.

  

  Click the big honking jpg of the cover art for the Shiller to hear both tracks.

• 02.15.08
  MP3: Mobius Band Free Valentine’s Day EP - LOVE WILL REIGN SUPREME   Singles (1)

  
  Click to download LOVE WILL REIGN SUPREME
  While Valentine’s Day is a barely noticeable blip on the radar of my life, it’s worth mentioning when there’s free music involved. Brooklyn’s Mobius Band, a group I didn’t really know about even though I found an album of theirs on my hard drive, are giving away an EP of covers in honor of the 2nd most expensive holiday of the year. LOVE WILL REIGN SUPREME is a six track digital download that features covers of The National, Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Daniel Johnston, and most charmingly, Daft Punk. I haven’t even listened to the whole disk, but their cover of “Digital Love,” off of 2001’s Discovery is worth the click alone. Stripping away 99% of the driving electronics and replacing it with acoustic guitars and delicate reverbed vocals, Mobius Band show that the cleverness of Daft Punk transcends choice sampling and squiggly synths.

  Click the graphic up top to download the full EP for free!

  Hit the jump for a full tracklisting and the video for their single “The Loving Sounds of Static,” which puts their cover of The National in context - JUMP