This is an ACM.

Mysterious Waters aren't bad, but their depressing surf-pop can get pretty irritating after a couple listens. From last year's debut album of theirs comes lyrics like "go surfin' in the sun and have some fun, while your best friend's mom aims at you with her gun." Seriously.

Their new single, "Bad Signal" (b/w "Archenematic Decisionmaking Techniques") is different than Mysterious Waters The Full Length Album Of All Time. It's still depressing, but not upbeat anymore. It's sludge. With depressing lyrics. Oh well. At least there's some awesome drumming.

sp: teargarden parts one and two

The Smashing Pumpkins broke up in 2000, after "releasing" a free album, Machina II: The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music. They reformed in 2006 and released Zeitgeist in 2007. In 2009, Jimmy Chamberlin, longtime Smashing Pumpkins drummer, quit the band and Billy Corgan hired Mike Byrne from Portland, OR.

Teargarden by Kaleidyscope was announced on September 16, 2009, and it shall be released one track at a time over several years as 192kbps mp3s on smashingpumpkins.com. The first song, "A Song for a Son" is piano-based with an amazing solo. It is a beautiful song.

"Widow Wake My Mind", from February 2010, is rock. Like Zeitgeist but less heavy. Kind of Siamese Dream, but different.

By the time I heard "A Stitch In Time", I figured out that Teargarden now has its own feel, a mix of mellow, beautiful songs, and rockers. There is no way to compare to other albums because it's its own thing.

"Everyone gather up your soul," sings Billy Corgan in the Zeitgeist-like "Astral Planes". I find nothing wrong with Zeitgeist, unlike other fans, so I like this song a lot. Nice to have a mix of styles.

"Teargarden Theme" is a beautiful song with guitar and organ that less people have heard than the others because it is only on the vinyl 7" of the physical release that is a limited edition. Fortunately, several people ripped the song from the vinyl and posted it online. Many of these, however, are played at 33 1/3 RPM instead of 45 RPM, and are slower and longer. There is a correct speed rip here.

"Freak" was released on July 6, 2010. It has pretty sweet distorted guitar, a nice beat, great lyrics, and a beautiful melody. It was released as a single and is available as 256kbps AAC on iTunes.

"Spangled". A beautiful acoustic song. Originally released on Sweet Relief. A day later released on the official website. The shortest track so far. A love song.

"Tom Tom" (mp3 coming soon) is scheduled for release on Tuesday, the EP release day. Some record stores began selling it early , leading to its leak on YouTube. This prompted producer Kerry Brown to offer radio stations, magazines, and rock bloggers (like me!) a CD-quality WAV of the song, which sounds great. It's a great rock song, and I'd love to hear it on the radio over some of the trash on there these days.

"The Fellowship" is synthesizer based. It adds a horrible layer of noise into the background of the song, but at times sounds possibly melodic. The track was released 11/12 on The Vampire Diaries OST. It does have pretty good lyrics though.

"Cottonwood Symphony" has not yet leaked. I will review when it does, but for now, that is Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, Parts One and Two.
EDIT: "Cottonwood Symphony" has leaked. Here. The acoustic song is beautiful, and possibly should have been on Part Two.

flexi-discs

These are cool. No, really. They are. Flexi-discs (or diskettes, if you like that term better) are cool. Hold one on your hand, expecting it to be stiff and watch and feel it bend like paper. Feel the grooves. Don't worry, it won't damage them. Somehow they are much more durable than their vinyl plastic cousins. Now put it up to the light and look through it. Kind of like sunglasses. Put your hand on the white printing. What does it feel like? And finally, place it on your turntable and carefully lower the needle onto the plastic surface and carefully listen. Is it crackly? What is on the disc? Is it a local hardcore punk band? A spoken word or sound effect record from an old magazine? Or even data for a computer?
Flexi-discs were officially first manufactured by the company Eva-Tone as Eva-Tone Soundsheets in 1960, but the discs had Soviet origins. Eva-Tone went out of business in 2000, being the last maker of flexis. Erika Records claimed in early 2010 that flexis would soon be available, but after a website redesign, no mention of them can be found, and there possibly will be no more flexi-discs produced.

thoughts: in the light of machines

In the Light of Machines - veggieman - 2009
From September to November of 2009 I recorded and assembled the electronic experimental noise album In the Light of Machines. It was the follow-up to August's Modern Life, a lengthy guitar experiment and my first album under the name of veggieman, and will be followed by Apply to Forehead (title may change) in most likely 2011 (which will also sound completely different). I have written reviews/explanations for each track; here they are after the jump.

vr: the jay album

The Jay Album is one of my favorite tapes I've released. It's simple yet complex and if you follow the track titles, it tells a story. The story is about a person and a journey he takes from his mansion. He journeys, through caves and hallows, taking chances. He reflects on his newfound popularity, but must save everyone when an alien species attacks. He attempts to negotiate, but fails. Their robots raze the world leaving only the man's mansion as his punishment for trying to resist. He sits at his pond, thinking for infinity.
It's actually pretty awesome and the whole thing (minus In the Light of Machines Sampler) will be available on CLLCT soon.
Image (c) 2010 AGR Recordings.

acm: 'spacefreak' sampler by mindcore

THIS IS AN ACM.

Mindcore is one of the bands that is the hardest to listen to, for fans of any genre. Their music is often ancient operating system sounds in chord progressions along with white noise, where the vocals are synthesized spoken word about various technical sci-fi concepts incomprehensible by mortal minds. Spacefreak will be their fourteenth LP since their self-titled debut in 1985.
It is a concept album about an alien that is left out and is driven crazy.
'Spacefreak' Sampler takes the best songs from Spacefreak and puts them in a new order that compliments the original order by forming a completely different story about someone trapped in a prison cell for no reason at all. Mindcore hopes that people will appreciate Spacefreak more than their previous albums, but I think that it's sales will not surpass the platinum certified Marching Past Now from 1998.

bandcamp offline

Go to any Bandcamp website and see this:

Why did this happen? I was happily listening to LeFleur, and then nothing would play. I refreshed and got a 503 error (Service Unavailable). Several refreshes later, I get this. According to their status Twitter, it's "maintenance". Pfft.

More updates as they available.
EDIT: As of 12:19am, they're back.

acm: forest fire by hear

This is the first Album Cover Mockup (ACM). ACM is a project to cure my boredness. (none of these bands or songs or etc. really exist and all similarities are coincidental.

Forest Fire is Hear's third album, after their multi-platinum debut Equals Bracket and their commercial flop, Lack of Respect. It strays from their previous pop-punk records, being more depressing, dark, and noisy. It begins with the quiet song "A New Control" which features a beautiful theremin composition, a first for the band. It fades into the pure rock of "14 of 87". The style of this track is similar to Hear's previous record except for the distortion, screaming, and lyrics about death. It ends mid-line and switches to the song "Misery of You", which is white noise backed with distorted banjo. Layered over top of it is dozens of voices whispering. At the end, a robot utters one word, "burning". "Shine" begins an obvious single, but it gets stranger and stranger and then, six minutes into it, all that you can hear for the remaining two minutes is crackling flames. "Forest Fire" is the first single, most likely because it sounds like the pop-punk of the first album that was so successful. Yet it was different. The lyrics in "Forest Fire" are about people burning a forest and the feelings of the inhabitants of the forest afterwards. It is a sad song, but the album as a cohesive entity is much more depressing. "Ripping You Off" is a joke. It is three full minutes of cackling, proving that the band just ripped you off. Track 7, "The Media", is similar in style to "14 of 87", but it's about the negative effects of the media. "Untitled" is a metaphorical song about lossy media compression. Its hidden meaning is that we are losing a lot by moving into big cities. "Spirits of the Dark" is the epic of the album, with a 27 minute length. It is quiet and slow for many minutes, fading in to an instrumental part where the whole band sings about the end of the world in harmony. Then an orchestra and two guitars suddenly start playing, fusing punk and orchestral music in a perfect balance of both. And as suddenly as it began, it ends. 

concert: built to spill

Guess where I was last night. Yep, you're right. I was seeing Built to Spill (and LeFleur) at my first real concert. (Earlier in the year I saw Frank Black at CD World, but it was just solo and not really a crowd of crazy people.)

First off, LeFleur were awesome. They sound kind of like The Cure, but with a female singer. Also, they have similarities with another indie band that are really awesome called FUR. LeFleur is a five-piece outfit: guitar, guitar, drums, bass and vocals, synthesizer and vocals. They played for about an hour, ending with the amazing song "Stone Cold Eagle" off their first LP Din Din.



Built to Spill were amazing. Their main set lasted for an hour, and included songs like "Liar", "Dystopian Dream Girl", and "Carry the Zero". Once they finished the main set, a bunch of people jumped up and down on the floor, demanding an encore. Doug Martsch went on stage with an acoustic guitar and played two tunes acoustically. After those, the whole band went on stage for a second encore of three songs, including the first Built to Spill song I ever heard, "Car". The last song, which name escapes me, was jammed and soloed on for around forty minutes. It was an epic noise rock space jam. After that, they said, "Thank you," and the lights went on.



"Car" from There's Nothing Wrong With Love.

demoted to b-side status, volume 1

What is the point of b-sides? It is to have exclusive material on a single that is often an outtake from the album the single is from. This makes it so dedicated fans buy the album and the single, which gets the label more money &c. Yet some b-sides are better that half of the songs on an album and flow better which leaves me with one question: How are b-sides decided on?
I shall never know, but here are some b-sides (and other-type things) that should not have been neglected.


Weezer - Longtime Sunshine
Released on Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
Originally for SFTBH/Pinkerton

This song is amazing and as beautiful as the songs as Pinkerton, and fits well with the others. It is one othe songs like No Other One, Getchoo, Why Bother?, and Tired of Sex that was written before the Songs From the Black Hole album, but were fit into its concept with only slight changes. In the SFTBH form, a reprise and "coda mix" were formulated. After the SFTBH concept was shelved, it was intended to close Pinkerton, a position that would be fitting of it. The equally beautiful acoustic song Butterfly which was written late in the album sessions was chosen to take its place, which was not a bad choice besides the fact that it caused Longtime Sunshine was shelved. The song saw release on Rivers Cuomo's demo collection in 2007, Alone. The "coda mix" was released on the deluxe edition of Pinkerton today and the reprise is scheduled for release on Alone III in December.


Mono Puff - Tryptophane
Released on The Devil Went Down To Newport EP
Could have been on Unsupervised

Mono Puff are one of those bands that no one has ever heard of. They are John Flansburgh (of They Might Be Giants) and a couple of other guys that made music similar to TMBG. Their first release was the EP John Flansburgh's Mono Puff, released on his Hello label in March of 1995. It had six songs, five of which were later rerecorded and released on Mono Puff's first full length, Unsupervised. The opening track, Tryptophane, was released in this demo form as a b-side. It is a great track and is just piano and vocals. The Giants neglect it so much, they even misspell it as "Triptaphane" on their Clock Radio. It is sad...


volume 2 coming soon to this blog.

Yes, I actually am corrupting your stealth.