Peace, love and death metal

Tap Tap - “100 000 Thoughts” mp3

Taken from Tap Tap’s Lanzafame album on Catbirdseat. And it’s not Alec Ounsworth on vocals even if you think so. However, I couldn’t resist ordering this album, half because of the beautiful handmade limited edition version. I’ll let you know later how’s the rest of the album. At least this song have enjoyed attention from many blogs during last ten days or so.

Beirut - “Postcards From Italy” mp3

Taken from Beirut’s Gulag Orkestar album on Ba Da Bing!

Sometree - “Hands And Arrows” mp3

Taken from Sometree’s Bending The Willow album on Pias/ Populoud. And it’s not Thom Yorke on vocals even if you think so.

Kunek - “Coma” mp3

Taken from Kunek’s Flight of the Flynns album, which I think is self-released.

The Spherical Minds - “Cast Regret Aside” mp3

Taken from The Spherical Minds‘ Fern album on Carte Postale. Album’s title track is featuring the lyrics and vocals of Danny Cavanagh (Anathema), by the way.

My Latest Novel - “The Reputation of Ross Francis” mp3
Aerogramme - “Disciple” mp3
Under Byen - “Hjertebarn” mp3
Boy Omega - “If Only” mp3
Giraffe - “Smoke And Mirrors” mp3
Logh - “The Smoke Will Lead You Home” mp3
Tokyo Police Club - “Citizens of Tomorrow” mp3

Passing the midsummer is hard for a person whose cup is always half empty. I need more of these bright summer nights. And here are some music to spend those nights with. Half an hour altogether.

My Latest Novel are perhaps the next Arcade Fire or perhaps the first Arcade Fire copy. Or perhaps I’m double-wrong. Anyway, lovely song. Aerogramme’s Slayer contrubution was posted just the other day, but I found out that it fits in perfect here, so that’s why it’s included yet again. Under Byen are Danish. Beautiful music that’ll lull you to sleep.

I found out about the new Boy Omega album The Black Tango via Afterseason who had quoted (perhaps) the press release for the album. I quote too: “This album is basically about the ending of a three-year-old relationship.— It is about moving to a new place on your own, a new street, with a new graveyard outside your window. It is about the silence when you go to sleepalone, with cold feet, pretending the pillow is her.” That’s strong - and with such a beautiful cover I think this album is something I should get my hands on. It sound awfully lot Robert Smith, though.

Giraffe are unknown to me by any other means than his music. His self-titled album has been a sort of revelation to me during last few months. It’s available for download at the brilliant 12rec, and I also purchased an original cd-r copy. 12rec is brilliant, did I mentioned it already. Great, unique music offered for free downloads plus sold cheap in cd-r copies with admirable artwork. I’d say support! Anyway, Giraffe’s music is calm, emotional, nicely rough. Somehow the atmosphere of the record reminds of Logh’s first album Everytime A Bell Rings, but maybe it’s just the time of the year; I found out about Logh at the same season.

Which leads us to Logh. I will post about them everytime they have something new to share and this time it’s “The Smoke Will Lead You Home” from their latest record. It’ve stayed perfect.

Tokyo Police Club are Canadian, that I know. And their myspace site need someone’s extra care. That’s all I know. Cute song however.

Because Of Ghosts
1: “You Fool” mp3
The Samuel Jackson Five
2: “Skinflick Dress Rehearsal” mp3
This Is A Process Of A Still Life
3: “No Memory Of The Airshow” mp3
The Seven Mile Journey
4: “Through The Alter Ego Justifications” mp3
Don’t Mess With Texas
5: “Sound Of One Lung Filling With Water” mp3
65 Days Of Static
6: “I Swallowed Hard Like I Understood” mp3
Saxon Shore
7: “The Revolution Will Be Streaming” mp3
Foxhole
8: “End Of Dying” mp3
Youth Pictures Of Florence Henderson
9: “Yet We Continued To Build There, The Structure” mp3
Sickoakes
10: “Wedding Rings & Bullets in the Same Golden Shrine” mp3
Esmerine
11: “Merrick” mp3

Spending few days all alone gives a good chance for making a post-rock/ instrumental mixtape. These bands just never end, there’s always more (of the same), it seems. But if you have never listened to any post-rock bands before, this will be a revolution nevertheless.

I started from last.fm’s post-rock forum, googled the bands named in there, followed some more links, add some bands I’ve had in mind for several months already (like the brilliant SJ5), followed some more links, ended up at After the postrock forum - and the needed 80 minutes were filled.

I’ve listened through the tracks in this given order for a couple of times. They are quality-checked. Not that many surprises there since I like my post-rock to stay in the background. Less noisy, more quiet. Even if the outcome is expectable, it’s enjoyable.

Norwegian experimental sound duo Ryfylke’s latest album arrived to my mailbox and left me soon wondering what it actually was telling me. I enjoyed the atmosphere Ryfylke was creating, but for the task of reviewing it, I had to email Sten Ove Toft and ask few things about their views on approaching the concept of music. Finnish readers can check that review at Noise.fi.

Anyway, as the ice was broke, I thought it’d be great to learn more about the musical tastes of Toft and asked him to make me a five-song mp3 mixtape. So, if you are interested in finding out about new (?) music from the more experimental end of Scandinavian artists, please check these mp3s.

Ryfylke - “Morild (excerpt)” mp3
Ryfylke - “Nuema Brister (excerpt)” mp3
More Ryfylke mp3s and other Roggbif Records artists’ mp3s

Theme Toft selected to go with was The Comfort in Blood.

01: Next Life - “Red Stone” mp3

Track from Next Life’s new album Electric Violence. Harsh Amiga-metal.
[To get the track, you’ll have to download zipped label sampler, ~ 75 MB. Other Next Life mp3s can be found from their homepage. - Lupatarkastaja]

02: Jon Eriksen - “3′24″” mp3

AI AI! This swedish bloke really knows how to push the limits. It is quite difficult to get more extreme than this.

03: Jazkamer - “The Worms Will Get In (Edit)” mp3

Evil track taken from their new album Metal Music Machine.

04: Noxagt - “Cupid Shot Me” mp3

A full-on testosterone bastard this one. You just want to drink beer in an impressive tempo when you hear it.

05: Lasse Marhaug - “Bomb Nothing” mp3

Fuck yeah.

Baroness - “Rise” mp3
Danse Macabre - “Syntax Error” mp3
Stockholm Syndrome - “Master Slave Configuration” mp3
Russian Circles - “Death Rides A Horse” mp3
Tomán - “Deportivo” mp3

Twenty-six minutes and forty-nine seconds for your weekend pleasure. That if you like crushing sludgecore (Baroness), emotional [metal]core (Dance Macabre), experimental quiet/loud bursts (Stockholm Syndrome), redsparrowes-esque (Russian Circles) and soothing, no worries (Tomás) instrumentals. I know I do, and that’s why I’m rather excited about these bands.

No one blames you if you haven’t heard of Omega Massif before - they are so young band that they don’t even have a website up yet - but please consider this as a warm, friendly recommendation to get to know them now. Formed last autumn, this new German instrumental band have released one demo Kalt - which I will review later - and I thought they’d be good guides to let us know more about their own and local favourites. Still, the underground music scene in Central Europe is quite unknown to me, and I know there are many great bands out there.

Now, I’ll give the turn to Andreas and the rest of the band:

“Nowadays Dillinger Escape Plan is trying to gain the attention of mainstream youth by using catchy metalcore und newmetal parts, Crowpath, a small band from Sweden longs for the crown by burying everything under their grindcore-chaosmetal-tank. Be aware!”

Crowpath - “The Will To Burn” mp3

“Heavy as shit, brutal as piss. Sanity’s Dawn is German Grindcore at its best. Unfortunately they are not that known as they would deserve but they kill . Also live, don’t miss them when they come to your town. I think you can imagine after listening to their song.

Sanity’s Dawn - “Kurzzeitrevoluzzer” mp3

“Elision are friends from our hometown, the bulldozer!!!

Elision - “Things Are Far From OK” mp3

“Fresnel. The power of this song is growing with every second it creeps deeper into your ear.

Fresnel - “My Track In Dust” mp3

“Something soft, but unbelievable intensive. I’ve loved Gregor Samsa from the first time I heard a song.”

Gregor Samsa - “Young And Old” mp3

It’a a great honour for me to announce that the tenth guest in Luuvitosen Vippi series is Greg Burns from Red Sparowes. Greg also played in “dark chamber folk sextet” Halifax Pier. Red Sparowes’ debut album At The Soundless Dawn was released last spring and it made a huge positive impact, gaining new friends to the band from many different musical backgrounds, from post-rock to metal fans. Follow-up to At The Soundless Dawn is recorded and waiting for a release through Neurot Recordings later this year. At the moment the band is preparing for their second European tour that will start on March 1st in Netherlands and end also in Netherlands, on April 7th.

Red Sparowes - “Alone And Unware, The Landscape Was Transformed In Front Of Our Eyes” mp3
Red Sparowes - “Our Happiest Days Slowly Began To Turn Into Dust” mp3

I’ll let Greg introduce his choices. Please leave some comments, I’m sure he’d like to hear them.

“In my opinion Grails are one of the best bands around today. Although very tight, they have this effortless, loose quality that’s amazing. They manage to capture a huge amount of energy and control it through amazing dynamics, both live and recorded.”

Grails - “Dargai” mp3

“For someone that grew up listening to Yes and Rush, Zombi was an incredible discovery. Intense musicianship, no pretentions at all. They manage to capture everything good about 70’s synth rock and take it a millions steps further.

Zombi - “Orion” mp3

“This was one of the bands that started it all. Everyone seems to forget Tarentel and yet they were one of the most important bands in this surge of epic, textural, instrumental music. They’re still around today, and pushing the boundaries more than anyone else out there. A HUGE influence on not only my playing, but my musical tastes in general.

Tarantel - “Its In You Right Now, Just Get Still, Think About It, I Am Light Filled” mp3

“Guitar for people that hate guitar. Here you have two of the founding fathers of textural guitar for indy rock nerds like me. Nels Cline turns the guitar into a fucking animal, you’ve never seen anything like this. His knowledge of the instrument and the pedals he uses is beyond admirable. I aspire to be half of the musician this man is. Here he teams up with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. What can I say about Thurston Moore that hasn’t been said? He redefined rock. This is the best collaboration I could ever hope for.

Nels Cline and Thurston Moore - “We Love Our Blood (clip)” mp3

“Jesu. This from the man that brought you Godflesh. Beautiful soundscapes with intense melodies and dark, heavy moments. I get the same feeling from this that I got when I first heard My Bloody Valentine. Just pure, emotional and intense.”

Jesu - “We All Faulter” mp3

Red Sparowes photo by Bryan Sheffield

Dead Next Door - “Time To Fight” mp3
Neon Machine - “Heaven Is A Lot Worse” mp3
Boys Of Scandinavia - “Beautiful As A Person” mp3
Band Of Horses - “The Funeral” mp3
The White Birch - “Your Spain” mp3

I haven’t done these five-song mixtapes in so long time that it’s almost illegal. But these take time to make - and that extra time I don’t have. Anyway, here comes four new songs I’ve found today plus Boys Of Scandinavia, for which I have had no excuse to post earlier.

British Dead Next Door starts with nice and upbeat indie rock tune, though it definitely have some reckless character in it as well. Danish Neon Machine picks up with their somewhat progressive art-pop. This song is from 2003, but it still reminds a bit of their natives, Mew. Maybe it’s just the drum beat, or then I’m on my way finding the core sound of Danish pop music. Oujee. Boys Of Scandinavia’s debut album was really much hyped in Finland at the end of last year, and it admittedly have a lot of dark disco/ post-punk charm in it. They did a four-night tour in Finland in mid-January, at a time when it was around -30 celsius outside and still over 1 400 people turned out to see them altogether. Band Of Horses, then. They appeared here last March when they still were just Horses. Anyway, they have a debut album ready to be released and this song here comes from it, naturally. They sit well in this company. Norwegian The White Birch play slowly moving music for small hours, something I never can’t get enough. Oh, how comforting this song is, as if nothing ever went wrong.

Only if I would’ve known about these bands (and Overmars) a week earlier, the mixtape I posted last Saturday would’ve been closer to perfect. Well, I won’t sink in to an olympic-sized depression for that, I’ll just post another mixtape and call it an appendix to last week’s offer.

Rosetta plays in that Isis-style we all know and they deliver their goods reasonable well, I think. I haven’t heard other tracks from them, just this “Europa”, which makes a fine opener here. Tephra is something I found thanks to my good friend Lars (from Escapado) and his links to some German and Central European bands. Tephra’s take on emotional hardcore is more than just unique, I think and they place perfectly here. As do The Nihilists, who walk on that fine line between hardcore and post-rock (hmm, is there such?). Just imagine Plain Fade with more straight-forward touch - or The Blood Brothers on antidepressant. Men In Search Of The Perfect Weapon introduces us to more sludgier riffs. I can hear even some vintage downtuned Gorefest guitar harmonies there.

Exterminating Angels starts the more instrumental part of the mixtape. There are few more downloads at their site, get them also. Mouth Of The Architect builds their atmosphere as we like it - slowly - before giving in to some harsher riffing and great screams. Last two tracks are both instrumental: Shora is very good post-rock with a good soundtrack-like touch. Those weeping guitars that come in at around 1′30″ reminds me of the movie Crash and its soundtrack. Monno is a twisted fucker that wraps things together nicely in their dirty, bass-driven beats. If someone would’ve told me this is new material from The Insult That Made A Man Out of Mac, I would’ve believed.

Now line them up!

01: Rosetta - “Europa” mp3
Translation Loss Records

02: Tephra - “Icon” mp3

03: The Nihilists - “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” mp3

04: Men In Search Of The Perfect Weapon - “Spirit Disease” mp3

05: Exterminating Angels - “Now You Don’t Remember” mp3

06: Mouth Of The Architect - “The Worm” mp3
Translation Loss Records

07: Shora - “Parhelion” mp3
Conspiracy Records

08: Monno - “Error” mp3
Conspiracy Records

This mixtape post is long delayed. Last time - with my second post-rock mixtape - I didn’t have cover finished, and still today there’s no cover art for that beast. I like making these collections complete, so that’s why I thought it’s better to wait another week or two and have cover art, even a simple but warm hearted cover art made - and then post it.

And here it comes. Past mixtapes have been post-rock or indie rock, now for the first time I focus mostly on music with screams as a main instrument. This is 77 minutes of music without genre name, be it post-hardcore or slowcore or whatever, it is slow, it is absorbing, it is agonizing. Of course the atmosphere is the main point of concentration and that’s why there are few post-rock tracks included as well. They fit in well.

I see no point in going through the mixtape track by track. Circle Six opens with one hell of a song, giving measures for both emotional and physical qualities. Minsk closes with a different kind of monster, still as crushing as it should be. Most propably I will post about bands like Circle Six and From Now On (download the demo now, for crying out loud!) in the future. Foremost, every track here is selected with care and needs no explaining.

I hope you will take the trouble and download the tracks and burn them on a cd-r for maximum listening pleasure. And please, leave comments!

(Continued)