Choose Your Own Adventure

Wednesday, July 29

New Order/Smiths/Primal Scream Supergroup Freebass Finishes Album


By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:
Two years ago, we told you all about Freebass, the new three-bassist supergroup led by combative former New Order/Joy Division member Peter Hook. The group, which also features former Smiths low-end master Andy Rourke and current Primal Scream/former Stone Roses four-string thumper Mani, hasn't exactly been enormously prolific since its formation, partly because all three bassists still have other things going on. But in the past week or so, the Freebass MySpace page has crackled back to life, with Hook posting a new song and a few updates on the band's debut album, which is now apparently being mixed.

The new song is a "rejected demo" for a long instrumental track called "Sugar Daddy", which sounds a lot like a vocal-free New Order. At least one of the bassists on the track plays something that sounds extraordinarily similar to a Bernard Sumner guitar line, which is pretty weird considering the acrimonious relationship that Hook and Sumner have had over the past few years. In any case, it's good to hear that unmistakable Peter Hook burble back at work; it's been a minute.

The MySpace page is also streaming "The Tower", a Freebass song that's now a few years old, which appeared as the theme song for the Channel 4 radio show "The Tube".
Read more here. On 10/01/05 Peter Hook performed a DJ set at Soundlab with Mark Webb, Thee Donnie Shaft and Snackboy. Andy Rourke did the same on 11/04/05.

Rhys Catham: What Is the Sound of 200 Guitars Wailing?


By Will Hermes for the New York Times:
The scene at Damrosch Park last August promised something spectacular: amplifier setups for 200 guitarists and 16 bassists, configured in a horseshoe that stretched along the south end of Lincoln Center, across the front of the park’s band shell, and curved up alongside the Metropolitan Opera House. The rehearsals for “A Crimson Grail,” an epic-scale work by the experimental composer Rhys Chatham, had gone exceedingly well — first at the nearby Church of St. Paul the Apostle, then, at 1 p.m. on the day of the event, in the park.

He is scheduled to lead an ensemble of twice as many in his composition “A Crimson Grail” at Damrosch Park in Lincoln Center on Aug. 8.

“The sound was so fantastic,” Mr. Chatham recalled recently via Skype from his home in Paris. “It took my breath away.”

Then came the rain.
Read the rest of the article here.

Chatham performed at Soundlab with his minimalist death metal project Essentialist on 09/15/06. On 02/01/07, he assembled a group of Buffalo musicians to realize his seminal no wave-minimalist piece Guitar Trio. Read Chatham's account of the show.

Thermals Release New Track, Demos on Itunes


by Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:
On August 25, Kill Rock Stars will release the Thermals' Now We Can See track "We Were Sick" as an iTunes-only single, featuring the new song "Plus Time Fell" and demo versions of Now We Can See's "When I Died" and "You Dissolve".
Thermals appeared at Soundlab on 05/02/09 with Shaky Hands and Point Juncture, WA. Check out a review of the show by April S. Engram for Blurt-online.com here.

Tuesday, July 28

New Octopus Project Video - "Wet Gold"


By Brandon for Stereogum:
When we posted the Octopus Project's "Wet Gold," there was a discussion of the Golden Beds EP's lead track itself (an upbeat, layered Versus-esque momentum created with voices, bells, instrumental accents, and handclaps), but also a mention of the Austin quartet's live appearances, which sometimes arrive with multi-media "Visual Music." Now we not only have updated tour dates, but also a Zellner Brothers-directed video that takes the band down to the ocean and gives an insight to what they look like when they're performing their roles and battling the waves on their singing boat. Yvonne Lambert stays on land, directing the guys to shore with green monsters, pink seagulls, and psychedelic hermit crabs.
Check it out here. Octopus Project played Soundlab on 06/18/06 with Black Moth Super Rainbow and Besnyo, and again on 10/23/07.

This Week at Soundlab... Saviours


Thursday, July 30, 9pm--SAVIOURS. American stoner metal, called "the clear favorites to champion metal's return to prominence" by Prefix magazine. Sound on the Sound compared Saviours to High on Fire, calling their album Into Abaddon, "one of those albums that pummels the listener until they are broken, bloody, and yearning for more by the album’s end."

This Week at Soundlab... Ajent-O


Friday, July 31, 10pm--Infringement Festival presents AJENT-O CD RELEASE PARTY feat. (N(007)DLES, It Smells Like Laundry, Reece Q, Type Relevant, Ajent O

This Week at Soundlab (Avant-Indie, Art-Improv, Multi-Media)


Tuesday, July 28th, 7pm-8pm & 10-11pm--Infringement Festival presents OSCAR THE HOOKER (rock/theater perfomed by PEANUT BRITTLE SATTELITE)

Wednesday, July 29, 8pm--the Infringement Festival SOUNDLAB MIDWEEK NOISE ORGY feat. Wendy Carlos Williams , Lulldozer, Black Bloc, w ((aa)) ou w, the bloody noes and a short film "extrapolted obsession" by Josh Strauss, with live music accompaniment

Saturday, August 1, 10pm--Infringement Festival SOUNDLAB NOISE CONVENTION feat. Gramar Skool, Scott Valkwitch, Praying For Oblivion, The Voidologists, Foot and Mouth Disease, Knife Jesus feat. Foot and Mouth Disease

New Islands - "No You Don't"


Via Stereogum:
At the end of September, Nick Diamonds & his shape-shifting Islands are following up 2008's Arm's Way with their third studio album, Vapours. The 12-song collection includes the drum machines and sequencers of Jamie Thompson, who left the band after the 2006 debut, Return To The Sea. As a result of the shift in the arrangements (or vice versa), the songs are less epic and more insular than last time out with Diamonds jamming more hooks and less prog excursions into Vapours' 42 minutes. Which doesn't mean the title track won't give you a triumphant horn arrangement, that you won't find orchestral martial drumming in closer "Everything Is Under Control," that "On Foreigner" doesn't meander by like a slightly cooled tropical breeze, "Tender Torture" doesn't take off with careening and swoony hooks, or that the appropriately titled "Hearbeat" won't use a little auto-tune. Get a sample of the collection via the poppy, defiant (and clattering, highly synthesized) second track, "No You Don't."
Islands performed at Soundlab on 04/16/08.

"This is The Awesome Generation..." (Handsome Furs Show Review)


by John Massier, Prolonged Hacking and Gnawing blog:
"This is The Awesome Generation..."

That's what Dai Skuse of FASTWÜRMS turned and uttered to me halfway through the Handsome Furs show at Soundlab last Saturday. He was gently mocking the fact that "awesome" was the word most regularly hurled from the crowd toward the dynamic Montreal duo: "You guys are AWESOME!" "That song was AWESOME!" Thesaurasly-challenged maybe, but it was pretty freakin' awesome.

It's a crapshoot what happens when you catch a band at the end of a long tour. Worst case scenario is that the band hates itself and each other and plays out the clock with total apathy. Or, as was the case with the Furs, you get a performance that couldn't be any tighter. I love this band and would have been satisfied with any kind of show from them, but they far exceeded even my exalted expectations. This is not a case where the guy leads and the gal throws in some slight support. Dan Boeckner's stupendous guitar work and singing was equally met by Alexei Perry's tight drum machine and keyboard fills. A fine example of a young married couple in complete sync, firing on all cylinders. Boecker has a halfway-epileptic vibe that rachets up his performance, while Perry is almost inexplicably in complete movement all the time, between full-body head-banging and swinging her legs wildly up in the air at every opportunity. They would often just lunge their upper bodies toward each other in time to the music or being a song with foreheads touching, a brief huddle before the snap of the ball. Clearly, these two are crazy in love and they are channeling their mojo with complete ferocity.

Opening act The Cinnamon Band, a splendid duo of guitar/drums from Stanton, VA, were tight and good humored, so I think it was apparent to both bands that the crowd was stoked, which put all the musicians in a great headspace. The combustible result is still humming inside me a week later. Really something.Wow. Thanks to SOUNDLAB for bringing them to town. (photo: Dai Skuse)

Sunday, July 26

About Last Night...Handsome Furs

Click here for pics of the show, which took place 07/18/09.

Thursday, July 23

This Weekend at Soundlab... Infringement Fest Electronic Showcase


Sunday, July 26, 10pm--The INFRINGEMENT FESTIVAL SOUNDLAB ELECTRONIC SHOWCASE feat. N3wT, This is the Sun, Dudley Ghost, shapes of states

This Weekend at Soundlab... Communist Party feat. Felix Cartal


Friday, July 24, 11pm
THE COMMUNISTY PARTY feat. FELIX CARTAL

Animal Collective License First Legal Grateful Dead Sample Ever


By Amy Phillips for Pitchfork:
Animal Collective's status as avant-indie's premiere jam band has now officially been solidified. According to a Tweet from their management company, the band has cleared the first ever officially licensed Grateful Dead sample. (Via Gorilla Vs. Bear.)

The currently unreleased track "What Would I Want Sky" contains a sample of the Dead song "Unbroken Chain". According to Leg Up! Management, Dead bassist Phil Lesh himself professed his love for the song.
Read more here. Animal Collective hit Soundlab on 04/14/05 with Ariel Pink.

Nate Wooley Interview


By Dan Warburton for Paris Transatlantic magazine:
Do you recall any memorable childhood musical experiences, early sound memories that marked you in some way?

There are two different kinds of sound experiences that shaped me growing up. The first was all the jazz I heard. Portland was a big jazz town – and still is to a certain degree – with a heavy emphasis on the hard bop tradition. For better or worse, all that bebop and hard bop and swing made its way into my trumpet playing. Listening to my dad play blues and jump R&B style stuff definitely had a huge impact on me early on, that feeling of the ecstatic. The other experience was all the silence that I grew up in. My hometown, Clatskanie, Oregon, had a population of 2000, but we weren't clumped together in any sort of organized manner. My family lived "in town" but there were no cars driving revving their engines at all hours, no cellphone conversations or loud televisions, no background noise whatsoever, except the wind or the rain. I've always been pretty obsessive about recording small details in my mind, things that I see or hear; I would concentrate on small sounds for hours when I was trying to fall asleep, trying to figure out how to recreate them or what their composition was. Listening to my grandmother hum tunelessly was something that affected me somehow, although I'd have a tough time pointing to its musical example. Those two types of sound experiences seem really disparate, but I think they are both pretty well represented in what I do now. At least to me they seem that way.
Read the rest here. Nate Wooley performed at Soundlab on 10/17/04 with Blue Collar; on 04/09/05 in duo format with Chris Forsythe; and again on 05/13/06 in a trio with Cor Fuhler, Nate Wooley and Newtown Armstrong.

Tuesday, July 21

New Fruit Bats - "The Ruminant Band"


By Amrit for Stereogum:
Being the newest full-time member of the Shins is enough to keep anyone's hands full, but Eric D. Johnson has no intention of pausing the Fruit Bats project, his Sub Pop band that will release its fourth full-length this summer. The collection's title track "The Ruminant Band" strums along with Bats' familiar major chords and AM golden lope, settling into a section of the '70s that matches Fleetwood Mac vocal harmonies with Dickey Betts-styled guitar lines straight from an Allman Bros jam (before the mushrooms kick in). It's a far cry from the new wave and chunky rhythms Mercer has him dabbling in, more on the Blitzen Trapper side of the present Sub Pop spectrum.
Check it out here. Fruit Bats play Soundlab on Wednesday, September 16 with Iran and Kevin Barker.

Book Review: "Who Owns Music?" by William Parker


Posted by Christian Carey to the Signal To Noise blog:
William Parker
Who Owns Music?
150 pages, ISBN: 978-3-00-020141-7
Published by Buddy’s Knife

Bassist, composer, arts organizer, and educator William Parker has had a distinguished musical career. One of the premier exponents of avant jazz on the New York scene, he’s recorded prolifically as a sideman and as a leader of small groups and large ensembles.

For over forty years, Parker has also been active as a writer. Who Owns Music? is a collection of his poetry, reminiscences, and writings about the philosophy of music. Parker is an eloquent advocate of the intrinsic connection between art and the spiritual. He frequently likens advocacy for experimental music to a spiritual struggle. His words will no doubt be heartening news to artists who long for an elevated discussion about the religious impulse in music, sans positivist scoffing or, alternately, dogma and judgmental proselytizing.

For Parker, societal woes and artistic concerns are also linked. Thus his discussion of the ideals of improvised music and composition are interwoven with advocacy for civil rights, free speech, environmentalism, and arts education. The perils of music criticism, particularly the danger of poison pen tirades, are also taken up. Parker occasionally paints with too broad a brush here, giving a sense that he is indicting the majority of music critics. This is perhaps understandable in context; much unfair and ill-informed criticism has been levied at avant jazz in general and Parker in particular. But, even here, he doesn’t stray long from the positive, providing a manifesto that writers should take to heart. He writes, “The role of the critic is to become the poet. (S)he must find a plant and water it and care for it without crushing one blade of grass or one weed along the way.”
William Parker is a frequent visitor to Buffalo, usually at the behest of Hallwalls, who placed him at Big Orbit/Soundlab thrice. First, on 11/02/00, he played a duo with Jameel Moondoc at Big Orbit Gallery. On 06/08/02 he visited the original Soundlab as part f the Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet (which in addition to Brotzmann also included: Mats Gustafsson, Mars Williams, Toshinori Kondo, Hamid Drake, Joe McPhee, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Michael Zerang, Kent Kessler, Jeb Bishop and Ken Vandermark). On 09/09/05 he hit the new Soundlab with Fire into Music, a quarter that also involved Hamid Drake, Jameel Moondoc and Steve Swell.

This Week at Soundlab... an Evening of Perfect Discordance & Controlled Abandon


TONIGHT! July 21, 9pm--FREE (pay what you can)

An evening of perfect discordance & controlled abandon feat.
***NORMAL LOVE***
with RED TAG RUMMAGE SALE, THE VOIDOLOGISTS
Formed in 2006, Normal Love is a Philadelphia-based instrumental quintet comprised of amplified violin, two electric guitars, electric bass, and drums. Normal Love's music generally has a loud and brutal aesthetic, with compositional influences ranging from African minimalism to serialism and death metal, but rarely within the same piece. Members of the band have performed and/or recorded with RUINS, Man Man, Dr. Dog, Pauline Oliveros, Kayo Dot, Dynamite Club, SATANIZED, Make a Rising, Illuminea, Mat Maneri, Jamie Saft, Andrew D'Angelo, and Mike Pride. The band has shared the stage with Make a Rising, Dysrhythmia, Daughters, Zs, Chinese Stars, Ocrilim (Mick Barr), Ex-Models, Cheer-Accident, Aa, James Plotkin, Weasel Walter, and Genghis Tron.

"Lisa and Phil, an adorable married couple who play together in Red Tag Rummage Sale. Lisa’s smooth cello sound meshes with Phil’s carefully complex guitar playing almost too perfectly. With the aid of a delay pedal, Phil creates a web of intricate sounds which are often very mesmerizing. It’s hard not to fall in love with Red Tag Rummage Sale as you watch them playing beautiful music while they look into each others eyes and sing songs about love to each other."--Derek Neuland, rapidtransitradio.com

The Voidologists perform abstract and improvisational harsh noise. A continuous exploration to discover the hidden beauty in layers of distortion.
http://www.myspace.com/normallove
http://www.myspace.com/redtagrummagesale
http://www.myspace.com/thevoidologists

Saturday, July 18

Grizzly Bear on Letterman


by Amy Phillips for Pitchfork:
After being bumped from "Letterman" in May, Grizzly Bear finally hit the "Late Show" stage last night. They delivered a lovely version of Veckatimest's "Ready, Able", complete with a string section.
Check it out here. Grizzly Bear played Soundlab on 11/06/05 with Lichens & Soft Circle

Hear the Atlas Sound/Panda Bear Collaboration "Walkabout"


Posted by Amy Phillips for Pitchfork:
Hungry for more sun-dappled soundscapes to bathe in during the peak of summer? Here's the latest: Atlas Sound's "Walkabout", from the forthcoming album Logos, due out October 20 on Kranky. (That's the cover up there, via the Fader.) Bradford Cox collaborated with Animal Collective's Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) on the track, which would have fit right in with the blissed-out Brian Wilsonisms of Panda Bear's Person Pitch.
Read more and listen here. Animal Collective performed with Ariel Pink at Soundlab on 04/14/05. Bradford Cox hit Soundlab on 05/06/08 with Deerhunter.

Thursday, July 16

Mattin Interview


By Dan Warburton for Paris Transatlantic magazine:
In time-honoured boring PT style, I'll start with the usual question about your origins and background, so –

I don't think things should be boring for routine reasons, so let's try something out: I'm interested in extending the exploratory aspect of improvisation to other areas that might seem to be at the periphery of music production such as interviews and the way I present myself in the context of music. I think that our knowledge about a certain player influences our appreciation of her or his music. So I don't make a clear distinction between the production of sounds and the way one presents oneself. A musician giving an interview should be honest: you should be the same person you are at home and the same when you're playing. One coherent subject. But I can see from the way you've asked me certain questions and the way you've edited my answers you want to portray me in a certain way, as someone I don't think I am. Then again, I'm not a singular coherent subject and even if I might have done things to feed steoreotypes of this persona called Mattin, that doesn't mean I agree with all of them. So I'll try at times to follow your game, and at other times to disrupt it understanding that we might fail miserably but at least we'll have countered the normative qualities of the interview. I'll try to go against the stereotypical persona that I and others have created against the mediation of my self-presentation. Against the idea of neutrality in this interview, probably in order to feed another stereotype.. will this ever end? That's the beauty of improvisation, it never ends. When I say neutrality I'm thinking of the way people used to record improvisation sessions trying to achieve as much fidelity to the event, creating the feeling that by listening to the recordings you're almost there with the players. We all know that this is absolutely impossible, that there are always decisions that mediate your relationship with the recording. For example, Dan gives the impression that this interview took place in a cafe in Paris in April, which it originally did, but we are now typing at our computers and it's early July.
Read the rest of this fascinating interview here.

Mattin performed in trio format with Tim Barnes and Tony Conrad on 4/30/05. The session was recorded and released as Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Check out some reviews of the record here.

Catching Up With the National's Bryce Dessner About His Million Projects


By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:
This Saturday night, July 18, the National will headline something called the Pitchfork Music Festival. But before that show, guitarist and songwriter Bryce Dessner will play a role in another big outdoor concert. Tomorrow night, July 16, the avant-garde classical legends Kronos Quartet will play Brooklyn's Prospect Park bandshell as part of the Celebrate Brooklyn! festival. At that show, they'll debut a piece called "Aheym" that Dessner wrote specifically for them.

That's just one more notable in what's turning out to be an incredible year for Dessner. With twin brother and fellow National member Aaron, he produced the Dark Was the Night benefit compilation and the landmark concert that followed. In October, he and Aaron will present The Long Count, a multimedia piece they collaborated on with visual artist Matthew Ritchie, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Howard Gilman Opera House; the Breeders' Kim and Kelley Deal, My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden, and the National's own Matt Berninger will all assist. Bryce also curated the Music Now festival in Cincinnati and played an important role in Sufjan Stevens' forthcoming Enjoy Your Rabbit album reboot, Run Rabbit Run. And he's hard at work on a new National album. This guy does not sleep.

Bryce took some time out of a ridiculously busy schedule to talk to Pitchfork about everything he's got going on. Read the interview here.
The National played Big Orbit Gallery with Mia Doi Todd and Clogs on 05/30/01.

New Black Moth Super Rainbow Video - "Born On A Day The Sun Didn't Rise"


Via Stereogum. The clip comes with this description:
Directed by Team Tobaxxxo, the video captures a day in the life of a besuited fellow whose big thrills in life are practicing good dental hygiene and toasting hot dogs.

With a big day ahead, he's recruited the friendly girls from next door to give him a hand. Lucky for him, the girls know just what it takes to put smile on a man's face.
Check it out here.

Black Moth Super Rainbow performed ata Soundlab with Octopus Project and Besnyo on 06/18/06.

Talk to the Blog: Five Questions for Mutant Sounds, Home of Doinky Synth-Pop, Beef-Heartian Art Damage, and Symphonic-Prog MP3s

By Jeremy Krinsley for the Village Voice Sounds of the City blog:
In any given week, Mutant Sounds will unceremoniously dump a pile of posts containing scanned or photographed album art, breezily-written descriptions, and full-album downloads into its expanding archive of musical rarities from the past four decades. One such occurrence in early June included a Swedish fusion LP from the 70s, "psych-as-psych-qua-psych" Japanese singles, and sub-underground post-industrial comps from mid-80s America. While the material might seem bound together only by its dusty obscurity, it's also united in its indebtedness to a handful of collectors who've united under the Mutant Sound banner.

Eric Lumbleau is perhaps the most systematic of this small group. As a member of the loose Texas-based music collective, Vas Deferens Organization, Lumbleau was already a legend in the Mutant Sounds realm, having been responsible for both a stream of mid-'90 to early-'00 releases (that's range was nearly as wide as what appears on Mutant Sounds), and a lavish stab at underground taste-making following in the tradition of experimental forefathers Nurse With Wounds, whose infamous "list" VDO one-upped (in quantity, at least), in 1996. With Lumbleau's assistance, the blog has become a go-to for outsider traditions in music. He recently answered five questions for us over e-mail.
Read the rest here.

Tuesday, July 14

Premiere: WHY?: "This Blackest Purse"


Posted by Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:
Talking to Pitchfork back in May, WHY? mastermind Yoni Wolf called his forthcoming album Eskimo Snow "really the least hip-hop out of anything I've ever been involved with." He added, "[The songs] feel like song-songs with-- I don't want to say a typical verse-chorus structure, but they're song-songs." Eskimo Snow is due September 22 in the U.S. from Anticon and October 5 in the UK from Tomlab. And judging from the track "This Blackest Purse", which you can hear below, he wasn't exaggerating.

Musically, there's not even a hint of WHY?'s art-rap past in "This Blackest Purse". The Bay Area band recorded Eskimo Snow at the same sessions that produced their last album, 2008's Alopecia. But "This Blackest Purse" is warmer and slower than anything on that record; the piano is positively Ben Folds-ian. Nevertheless, Wolf still turns in some of the twisty wordplay that he's always pulled off: "I wanna speak at an intimate decibel/ With the precision of an infinite decimal." Check it out here.
Why? Performed with the Dirty Projectors at Soundlab on 04/18/06.

Monday, July 13

This Weekend at Soundlab... Handsome Furs!


Saturday, July 18, 9pm--HANDSOME FURS with THE CINNAMON BAND & DJ Bryce, $10/12.
Handsome Furs are not a message band and they are not political, but Handsome Furs are a message band and they are political.

The juxtaposition of cold, metronomic, electronic beats, courtesy of Alexei Perry, with the jagged, dissonant and frail, broken or breaking, guitars of Dan Boeckner portray what it is to be a human being at the bottom of the 21st century. It underlines the confusion you feel as your best friends are conveyed to you via a series of ones and zeros passing through lines and cables and microwaves; the same confusion felt witnessing the pure, wholesome thrill of a band of musicians pouring their hearts out on stage, through someone’s cell phone as pixelated streaming video; the profound and bitter frustration of your long-distance relationship with the world up against a burning, alcohol-soaked sunrise as you admit some things you never thought you would; your constant feelings of inadequacy intertwined with the omnipotence modern technology grants us all. You are there, yet somehow you never are. As we all are and are not [...] We have built and taken up residence in our own Foucauldian Panopticon. Put in the context of a Soviet surveillance state of total control, modern western life becomes outright eerie.

Of course, there is always hope, and this is perhaps the point. The songs on FACE CONTROL often cast us as the young lovers in the shadow of the system, plotting their escape, revelling in their freedom as the shackles tighten around them. In the past, freedom may have meant jumping a barbed wire fence, or crossing a treacherous ocean or burning desert. On FACE CONTROL Handsome Furs show us that in our modern age escaping these constraints has simultaneously become easier and more complicated. While it once meant hanging on, it now means letting go, and drifting off, refusing to participate in the structure that shapes and dominates so many lives, eschewing traditional values, opting instead to make up their own ways.
-Haukur S Magnússon

A Day In the Life of Early 80s New York


By Brian Turner for WMFU blog:
I didn't move to the Big Apple until 1995, but as a kid growing up watched all the city's TV channels that got exported to Pennsylvania, and formulated a distinct picture of what living there was like. In my mind everybody there made their own independent swinger ads on Al Goldstein's show, had kids who competed for Dynamite magazine and Lenders' Bagelettes on Wonderama, had weird telephone numbers that started with "Murray Hill", and lived in apartments like Felix Unger and Oscar Madison. This 25 minute Jools Holland/Leslie Ash-hosted special for The Tube is a nice drift of early 80's NYC sights and sounds, focused on the Danceteria scene, Arthur Baker, Paradise Garage etc. Check it out (via Skratchworx).

Friday, July 10

This Weekend at Soundlab... Soundlab BBQ!


Saturday, July 11, 1pm, $10--2nd Annual SOUNDLAB BBQ! 20 Bands, Shock & Awe, Hot Dogs and More! All proceeds go to benefit the after school program at the Hope Refugee Center. Bands include Johnny Nobody-Besnyo-Bearhunter-Mark Nosowicz-Wooden Waves-Cages-Chylde-The Thermidors-Bygon Halcyon-Peanut Brittle Satellite-Monkey & Boy-Beard FIght-Bernice Marie-Brian Wheat-Shapes of State-Nodic- McCrackin-Worrywort-Ersing-Ashley England. Shock & Awe later in the night!

New High Places: "Late Bloomer"


By Zach Baron for the Village Voice's Sounds of the City blog:
Los Angeles certainly seems to have made a mellower band out of New York exile duo High Places, who return to the city for the It Came From Brooklyn series at the Guggenheim on August 14. "Late Bloomer," destined for a Post Present Medium split 12" with Soft Circle, is a vaguely choral and languid dip in the High Places id: lots of echo, chirping birds, tinny wrist-bracelet cymbals, dripping water, slithering electronics, floating bits of stray melody, and a brief but convincing Mary Pearson incantation. It's lovely and we envy them their out-of-town ease. Stream it at Pitchfork.
High Places played Soundlab with Soft Circle on 02/11/08

Deerhunter's Bradford Cox Announces New Atlas Sound Album


From Pitchfork:
Sometimes it seems like Deerhunter frontman/Atlas Sound mastermind Bradford Cox is friends with everyone in indie rock. This is a good thing. It leads to cool onstage collaborations and crazy interviews. And now, his affability has enticed Animal Collective's Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) and Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier to chip in with guest shots on the upcoming Atlas Sound LP, dubbed Logos and due out October 20 via Kranky.

Cox promises a less introverted and more spontaneous and far-reaching experience than on last year's Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel. "The lyrics are not autobiographical...I became bored with introspection," he writes in a note accompanying the record's press release.

In that same note, Cox also addresses the incident almost a year ago, when an early, unfinished version of Logos leaked to the internet, generating a passionate response. "I considered abandoning the project," he writes. Thankfully, he didn't.

Read more here.
Deerhunter performed at Soundlab on 05/06/08.

Sunday, July 5

This Week at Soundlab... Structural Chaos and Improvised Fragmentation


Tuesday, July 7, 9pm, $8--free folk stalwarts CASTANETS

Wednesday, July 8, 9pm, $8--a night of structural chaos and improvised fragmentation feat. METALUX (M.V. Carbon & Jenny Gräf) with
BILL NACE (electric guitar)/ STEVE BACZKOWSKI (saxophones, turntables) duo
Castanets were one of the more prominent proponents of the so-called freak folk movement (also known as psychedelic folk and New Weird America) that took place in the U.S. music scene in 2003-04. While Raymond Raposa is the only constant member of the band, his records and live performances often feature a rotating cast of musicians, the line-up often changing from night to night in a single tour.

Bill Nace you may know from his killer duo throwdowns with Chris Corsano as Vampire Belt as well as the more recent weirdness with Dylan Nyoukis and Karen Lollypop as Ceylon Mange and in duo with Thurston Moore as Northampton Wools. This will be his first duo encounter with Buffalo's Steve Baczkowski after having played together in 2005 with Moore's Dream Aktion Unit at the Festival Musique Actuelle in Quebec.

M.V. Carbon is a Brooklyn based musician and composer who sometimes incorporates film into live performances. She uses fragmented field recordings, analog synthesizers, samplers, tape manipulations, and photosensitive oscillators to assimilate structural chaos and decomposition. She creates eerie and unsettling compositions using her voice as an instrument and processing it through tape machines. She plays cello through tape loops and guitar pedals and uses 16mm film imagery as a backdrop for her performances. She is interested in the structural decomposition and fragmentation that occurs within architecture, landscape, human physiology, and perception.

Jenny Gräf is a sound and visual artist. Several of her works are long-term collaborations with individuals and groups, including several long-term collaborations with people with memory loss. One such project was The Guitars Project, in which 6 women with Alzheimer’s developed strategies for playing electric guitar that challenged notions of memory, identity and age. She is currently working with Chiara Giovando on Proud Flesh, a Western shot in the Badlands of South Dakota that features two older female protagonists as well as many Baltimore artists and musicians. Release date is set for early 2008.

Wednesday, July 1

Vision Festival XIV, a Review


Each year, Bruce Lee Gallanter of Manhattan's Downtown Music Gallery posts his take on the Vision Festival, which collects together the creme de la creme of the avant-garde jazz community. Buffalo improv fans will recognize many of the names as regular guests of Hallwalls. Check out the lengthy and detailed treatment here.

Marina Rosenfeld Interview Download


By Anne Hilde Nesset on Adventures In Modern Music/Wire Radio, June 25, 2009, with downloadable playlist by Marina Rosenfeld: www.thewire.co.uk. Marina Rosenfeld performed a solo turntable set at Big Orbit Gallery on 11/16/01. She returned to Buffalo to play the old Soundlab as part of a DJ trio organized by Christian Marclay (who could not make it), that also included DJ Olive and Toshio Kajiwara.
Related Posts with Thumbnails

Blog Archive

Family and Friends

(At Sea) (1) (N(007)DLES (1) 23 (1) 28 Degrees Taurus (1) A Hotel Nourishing (2) A Relative Term (1) A Storm of Light (1) Aaron Miller (1) ABCDJ (1) Acid Mothers Temple (1) Adam Deitch (1) Adultnapper (1) AIDS Wolf (2) Ajent O (1) Aki Onda (2) Akron/Family (2) Al Larsen (3) Album Leaf (1) Alfred Brown (1) All Them Witches (3) Aloha (1) Amber Long (2) Amungus (1) An Horse (1) Andrew Barker (1) Andrew Bird (4) Andrew Duetsch (4) Andy Rourke (1) Animal Collective (15) Apples in the Stereo (1) Arehouse (4) Ariel Pink (10) Arizona Drains (2) Arrington de Dionyso (4) ART/IMPROV (122) Arthur Doyle Electro-Acoustic Ensemble (1) Ashley Paul (2) Asobi Seksu (2) At Sea (2) Atomic (1) Audrey Chen (2) AVANT-INDIE (316) Ay Fast (2) Baby Dee (1) Bare Flames (5) Barry Weisblatt (1) Battles (5) Bear in Heaven (2) Bearhunter (1) Beige Records (1) Bernice Marie (1) Besnard Lakes (1) Besnyo (6) Beta Cloud (1) Bev Beverly (4) Big Basha (10) Big Digits (1) Big Gigantic (3) Big Orbit Gallery (1) Bill Horist (1) Bill Nace (4) Bill Sack (1) Biodeisel (1) Bird Day (2) Black Bloc (1) Black Moth Super Rainbow (5) Black Umbrella (1) Blessed Sacrifist (1) Blockhead (2) Blue Cheer (2) Blue Collar (2) Blueprint (2) Bobby Birdman (2) Boris (3) Born Heller (1) Brandon Stosuy (1) Break Science (1) Brett Masteller (1) Brian Milbrand (3) Brian Wheat (1) Brightblack Morninglight (1) Buffalo Soundpainting Ensemble (1) Bufffluxus (3) Burning Star Core (2) Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber (1) Busdriver (1) C-Mon (1) C. Spencer Yeh (2) C3PO (2) Cages (3) Call of the Wild (1) Calvin Johnson (2) Capillary Action (1) Caribou (2) Castanets (1) Caustic Solution (5) Cex (2) Chad Taylor (4) Chae Hawk (3) Chain and the Gang (1) Charles Bernstein (1) Charles Clough (1) Charles Gayle (1) Charles Olson (1) Charlie Looker (2) Chiara Giovando (1) Chicago Underground Duo (1) Chris Borkowski (1) Chris Coleman (2) Chris Corsano (4) Chris Forsyth (1) Chris Forsythe (2) Christian Bök (1) Chugga Chugga (2) Chylde (3) Cindy Sherman (2) Circuit Circus (1) Clicks and Whistles (1) Clogs (7) Clovers (1) Coffee (2) Colin Beatty (2) Com Truise (1) Communication Hymns (1) Communist Party (20) Computer Club (1) Cor Fuhler (2) Cort Lippe (4) Cory Arcangel (3) Cotton Jones (1) Craig Smith (2) Creative Associates (1) Critical Art Ensemble (4) Cults (1) D.U.G.O.U.T.C.A.N.O.E. (1) Dan Deacon (12) Daniel Carter (1) Daniel Higgs (1) Darin Gray (1) Dark Party (1) Daughters (3) David Andree (1) David Daniell (1) Dear Families (1) Deerhoof (5) Deerhunter (5) Dennis Cooper (1) Derek Holzer (1) Diplo (6) Dirty on Purpose (1) Dirty Projectors (26) DJ Bacon (1) DJ Brandon Chase (1) Dj D-Star (2) DJ Dave G (2) Dj Dopestar (2) DJ Jake Gittes (1) DJ K Gunz (1) DJ MJB Corporation (3) DJ Olive (5) DJ Sniff (1) DJ Soma (1) DJ Spooky (4) DJ Trio (1) Do Make Say Think (2) Don Metz (1) Doomriders (1) Dosh (1) Dudley Ghost (1) Dum Dum Girls (2) Ecstatic Sunshine (2) Eileen Myles (1) Elephant 6 (1) Elf Power (1) Eli Keszler (2) Eliot Lipp (1) Elliot Sharp (1) Eluvium (1) Emancipator (2) Enon (1) Entrance (3) Erik Friedlander (2) Erotic Economies (1) Eskmo (3) Espers (1) Essentialist (3) Eulipion (1) Excusamwa (1) Extra Life (3) Fang Island (1) Fat Worm of Error (1) Fatal Figures (1) Felix Cartal (1) Floor (1) Flufftronix (1) Fly Pan Am (1) Fog (1) Foot and Mouth Disease (1) Foreign Born (2) Fourem (7) Fourem/Rainbowmaker (2) Free Energy (6) From Monuments to Masses (2) Fruit Bats (2) Future Rock (1) G Lucas Crane (3) Gary Nickard (3) Gaslamp Killer (4) Gebhard Ullman (1) Genghis Tron (1) Gerard O'Grady (2) Gerry Hemingway (1) Ghengis Tron (1) Girl Talk (3) Glenn Hall (1) Glenn Jones (4) Glenn Kotche (1) Golden Dawn Trio (1) Gong For Brums (1) Gordon Beeferman (1) Greg Davis (1) Gregg Bendian (1) Grizzly Bear (6) Grouper (1) Guitar Trio (3) Gull (1) Gut Flora (1) Hamid Drake (1) Handsome Furs (4) Health and Beauty (1) Height with Bow (2) Here Come the Comets (1) High Places (9) Ho-ag (5) Holis Frampton (1) Hollis Frampton (6) Holy Fuck (2) Holy Sheet (1) Hot Pink Delorian (1) Hush Arbors (3) Huxley (3) Hymns (1) I Heart Lung (1) Ian MacKaye (2) Ian Svenonius (1) Icy Demons (1) In Tall Buildings (1) Intension Quintet (1) Interzone (1) Iran (1) Islands (3) It Smells Like Laundry (1) J Mascis (3) Jack Rose (4) Jack Topht with the Vegetables (1) Jack Wright (1) Jameel Moondoc (1) James Blackshaw (3) James Blue (2) James Plotkin (1) James Toth (2) Jan Williams (2) Japandroids (3) Jason Ajemian (1) Jason Forrest (1) Jax Deluca (3) Jeff Arnal (1) Jemeel Moondoc (1) Jeph Jerman (1) Jeremy Jay (3) Jessica Pavone (4) Jessica Thompson (1) Jim Abramson (1) Joe Nice (1) Joe Rozler (2) John Bacon (4) John Butcher (1) John Long (3) John McEntire (1) John Nystrom (1) John Valenti (1) Johnny Nobody (1) Jonathan Golove (4) Jooklo Duo (1) Josephine Foster (3) Josh Abrams (3) Josh Strauss (1) Josh the Funky 1 (1) JT Rinker (4) Julian Montague (3) Junior Boys (4) K-Holes (1) Kayo Dot (2) Keir Neuringer (3) Kermit Driscol (1) Kevin Barker (1) KG Price (1) Knife Crazy (1) Knife Jesus (1) Knife World (1) Knowmatic Tribe (7) Knox Harrington (2) Koji Tambata (2) Kralice (1) Kyle Price (6) Kypski (1) Lali Puna (1) Laundry Room Squelchers (1) Lavender (1) Leah Muir (1) Leah Rico (1) Lechuguillas (1) Lee Ranaldo (2) Leif Nicklas (2) Lejaren Hiller (2) Leo123 (1) Leslie Fiedler (1) Lichens (4) Lightning Bolt (1) Lights (2) Little People (1) Little Women (1) Liturgy (1) Loki (1) Lovely Feather (1) Lukas Foss (1) Lulldozer (3) Luvstep (2) Lymbyc Systm (1) Mad Love (1) Magic Markers (5) Mahjongg (1) Malaikat Dan Singa (1) Malaria Control (1) Mallwalkers (1) MAP (2) Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos (1) Marina Rosenfeld (4) Mario Bee (7) Marissa Nadler (1) Mark Freeland (2) Mark Kloud (9) Mark Nosowicz (1) Mark Webb (5) Marnie Stern (1) Mary Halvorson (4) Matana Roberts (2) Matt and Kim (5) Matthew Heyner (1) Mattin (6) Mayo Thompson (1) Medison (3) Melt Banana (1) Mercury Club (1) Mersault (1) Metalux (3) Mia Doi Todd (6) Michael Allard (1) Michael Basinski (4) Michael Hermanson (1) Michel Doneda (1) Michelle Tea (1) Mick Turner (4) Mike Ladd (1) Mike Parker (2) Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson (1) Millie Chen (1) MMCIII (1) Mock Syringa (2) Mon Petite Chou Chou (1) Mono (3) Monotonix (2) Morton Feldman (6) Mount Eerie (3) Mountains (4) Mr Lif (3) Mt St Helen's Vietnam Band (3) MULTI-MEDIA (86) MUTANT BEATS (120) Mutus Liber (2) Mux Mool (2) MV and EE (2) My Brightest Diamond (5) N3wT (1) Nadja (1) Nat Baldwin (12) Natasha Kmeto (1) Nate Wooley (5) Natural Ingredients (1) Needel (4) Nels Cline (1) Neon Indian (7) Neptune (2) Neutral Milk Hotel (1) Newton Armstrong (2) Ninjasonik (4) Nobody Beats the Drum (1) Noel Kupersmith (1) Nola Ranallo (6) NOMO (1) Normal Love (1) Novelist (2) NSFW (3) Nuuj (1) NY Sexy Beast (1) Octopus Project (5) ODDS N SODS (70) Of Montreal (1) Okkervil River (1) Old Time Relijun (3) Olivia Tremor Control (1) On Beta (2) On Fillmore (1) One Be Lo (2) Onedia (2) Oneida (3) Oriental Rugs (1) Orodruin (1) Oxford Collective (1) P.G. Six (1) Pacing (2) Pam Swarts (1) Pamela Susan Hawkins (1) Pan American (1) Paper rad (3) Papercuts (1) Papi Chulo (1) Parts and Labor (5) Patrick Cain (1) Pattern is Movement (2) Paul Devro (2) Paul Flaherty (4) Paul Kozlowski (4) Paul Sharits (8) Paul Vanouse (1) Paul's Grandfather (1) Peanut Brittle Satellite (2) Peeesseye (1) Peer Bode (1) Pengo (4) Perceptor (2) Peter B (2) Peter Bonk (1) Peter Brötzmann (1) Peter Hook (3) Peter Walker (4) Peter Weibel (1) Phantogram (3) Phil Elverum (3) Phosphorescent (1) Picastro (2) Plants and Animals (1) Pnuma Trio (1) Point Juncture (2) Polmo Popo (3) Pomegranates (1) Poverty Hymns (4) Power Pill Fist (1) Prairies (2) Praying for Oblivion (2) Prefuse 73 (6) Privacy (3) Radian (1) Rara Avis (1) Ravi Padmanaba (7) Raymond Federman (5) Readybox (1) Red Krayola (3) Red Sparrowes (3) Red Tag Rummage Sale (3) Reece Q (1) Reid Speed (1) Reinhard Reitzenstein (1) Rhys Chatham (5) Ric Royer (3) Ringo Brill (1) RJD2 (4) Rob Mazurek (1) Rob Sonic (4) Robert Creeley (1) Robert Dick (1) Robert Longo (1) Roboroc (1) Roger Bryan and the Orphans (2) Ron Ehmke (1) Royal Bangs (1) Rrrump (1) Rural Alberta Advantage (1) Rusko (5) RX (2) Sabir Mateen (2) Saviours (1) Scott Valkwitch (1) Sean Meehan (2) Seductive Sprigs (1) Seth Misterka (1) Shaky Hands (2) shapes of states (2) Shelley Burgon (2) Shigeto (2) Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers (1) Shock and Awe (13) shout out out out out (1) Siew-Wai Kok (2) Singer (1) Sir Richard Bishop (1) Six Organs of Admittance (5) Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities (1) Skoal Kodiak (1) Sleeping Future (1) Sleeping Kings of Iona (7) Smash Gordon (1) Snackboy (2) Soft Circle (11) Sole (1) Soul Position (2) Speakerfire (1) Spider Goat (1) Stay Lows (4) Steina and Woody Vasulka (1) Stephen Prina (1) Steve Baczkowski (22) Steve Kream (3) Steve Swell (4) Sticks and Stones (2) Styrofoam (1) Suckers (1) Sugar City (1) Sunburned Hand of the Man (7) Sunn O)))) (4) Sunset Rubdown (2) Superwow (1) Surfer Blood (3) Taku Anami (1) Tape (2) Tassels from a Day Sale (1) Tatsuya Nakatani (6) Team Robespierre (2) Teen Heat (1) Tentet/Octet (2) Tera Melos (1) Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt (3) Terry Riley (3) The American Dream Team (1) The Art Department (1) The Auras (1) The Bear Exchange (2) The Books (3) The Chandeliers (1) The cinnamon Band (3) The Entrance Band (4) The Evens (2) The Go Find (1) The Hive Dwellers (1) The Lochs (3) The Microphones (2) The Murder Group (1) The Music Tapes (4) The Narcs (1) The National (9) The Perceptionists (2) The Polish Ambassador (1) The Runway (1) The Shakes (1) The Spits (1) The Thermals (5) The Thermidors (1) The Voidologists (3) The Vores (3) Thee Donnie Shaft (2) Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra (5) This is the Sun (1) Tiger Hatchery (1) Tim Barnes (6) Times New Viking (1) Todd Reynolds (3) Todd Whitman (1) TOKiMONSTA (2) Tokyo Police Club (1) Tom Abbs (1) Tom Holt (1) Tom Watson (1) Tony Conrad (14) Tortoise (1) toshimuara Nakamura (1) Toshio Kajiwara (4) Treelined Highway (1) Trevor Dunn (2) Tristan Trump (5) Tumul (1) Turbo Fruits (2) TV Ghost (1) Tweek (1) Tweeknasty (1) Tyondai Braxton (5) Type Relevant (1) UB (1) Una Slim (1) US Girls (1) USAISAMONSTER (3) Utah Jazz (2) UVB-76 (1) Vacant Lots (1) Vampire Belt (1) Vampire Weekend (18) Versoma (2) Vetiver (1) Via Audio (1) Video Hippos (1) VJ Deliria (1) Voices Voices (2) Voltage (3) Voulez Vous Danser Avec Moi (1) VWLS (2) w ((aa)) ou w (3) WA (1) Warmer Milks (3) Warren Quigley (1) White Fang (1) Why? (13) Wiliam Parker (1) William Hooker (2) William Parker (4) Wind Up Bird (8) Witch (2) Wolf Eyes (2) Wolves in the Throne Room (1) Wooden Hand (2) Wooden Wand and The Vanishing Voice (1) Wooden Wand the Vanishing Voice (2) Wooden Wav (1) Wooden Waves (5) Woods (3) World's End Girlfriend (2) Worrywort (1) Xiu Xiu (2) Yacht (21) Yellow Swans (1) Yip Yip (1) Young Galaxy (1) Z Mann Zilla (1) Zaimph (1) Zs (3)

Followers