Top 10 Life Events of 2011
Honorable Mention: The Fremont Diner.
In Sonoma, CA on Highway 37, this little shabby-chic diner bbq’s the shit out of a pig, pickles their onions with juniper berries, and strolls into their backyard garden to pick strawberries (to order) for their strawberry milkshakes.
10. Finishing my Second Album
I finished my second album, Fugue. I thought it was pretty good. Click to download for free.
9. Booker’s “Fracture”
One of my best friends and I got this hard-to-find bottle at the Hotel Cheval in Paso Robles. Due to a stock-keeping error, we got it at less than half MSRP. 96pt (WS) Syrah that may have been the best wine I’ve ever had.
8. My Four Day Drive to California.
Gallons of Iced Coffees from Starbucks. Two Haruki Murakami audiobooks. 2,250 miles of American plains, mountains, casinos, and roadside attractions.
7. Bon Iver’s Bon Iver.
That’s how much I liked this album.
6. Seeing Portishead live.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a band that has held a long tenure in my “favorite bands of all time” catalog. Live at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, CA.
7. Traveling to China.
Baiju, hutongs, Sino-American relations, and MBA war buddies in our last hurrah. The drunkest I’ve ever been, followed by the sickest I’ve ever been, followed by me landing a sixteen hour flight from Beijing to Seattle in the lavatory.
4. Getting my MBA.
Dude. That was hard. It made me more prepared than ever to kick ass at life.
3. Getting a job in San Francisco.
Included in this is “getting out of Indianapolis.” Indianapolis, all due respect, was sucking the life out of me. And San Francisco has the most potent business community in the country, one of the best food scenes in the world, and one of the most vibrant communities ever. It was the most logical place for me to start Life 2.0. My new job, my new boss and coworkers, and the deep connections I’ve already made are everything I was looking for. It’s rare that things work out as well as they have. (And I probably couldn’t have done it without #3.)
2. Moving to Oakland.
When I relocated to the bay, I had no idea I would end up living in Oakland. Ironically, my first day in the bay, I spent in Oakland, in the very place I now live. It’s gritty but insatiably friendly. It’s up-and-coming but not overplayed. It’s celebratory in its diversity. It has Cafe Van Kleef, which is literally the greatest bar I have ever been to. It’s got balls. I was meant to be here.
1. Proposing to Annie.
Annie and I have been together for 2 years. Speaking of balls, she has them in spades. She warmed the frozen metal heart of my sadistic shih-tzu, fell in love with a wreck of a guy, and picked up her whole life to move to the San Francisco Bay because I ‘felt’ it was the place I had to be. She’s amazing and she is responsible the deepest, most side-splitting laughs I’ve ever had.
My Top 30 Tweets of 2011 According to EnthusiastOfAll.com
I don’t know how (or why) he did it, but the list-master himself (and my sensei of ordination) compiled and ranked my 30 top Tweets of 2011.
Dude needs his own Twitter handle. Go visit him at EnthusiastOfAll
Follow me @JustinKeller
Top 30 Tweets of 2011
#30: “Anytime I go more than 30 minutes without getting an email/ text message/ phone call I get really worried that everyone in the world is dead.”
#29: “For a white guy, I have an awful lot of purple in my wardrobe.”
#28: “I just fell in a river. All of my electronics are okay but, yeah, that just happened. (Minutes later) In related news, I’m finding pieces of wood in places one would not expect to find pieces of wood.”
#27: “I am creeped out by the Wikipedia personal appeal photos. Every. Single. One.”
#26: “I’ve never asked this for fear of sounding dumb, but how, exactly, does paper beat rock?”
#25: “Top 3 things I want to eat in China: 1) Scorpion, 2) Peking Duck (in Peking), 3) Panda.”
#24: “I just sneezed so hard that I traveled into the future by two seconds.”
#23: “I refuse to say ‘mahi’ twice.”
#22: “Bingo is a really good way to commit a genocide of minutes.”
#21: “As awesome as the new IPad is, it still doesn’t have a vagina.”
#20: “I’ve finally decided my personal philosophy is optimistic cynicism. Which I don’t like but at least it’s something.”
#19: “Dear people who are allergic to gluten: stop ruining it for the rest of us. (Minutes later) You don’t hear deaf people telling everyone else to stop listening to music.”
#18: “Two of my grandparents are dead, so that makes me 50% ghost.”
#17: “I just do not understand the appeal of televised singing competitions. It’s the exact same way I feel about NASCAR.”
#16: “I’m no Gumbel, but I think if Butler wants to win this game they’re going to have to make the ball go through that hoop thing more.”
#15: “I’m starting a job search website for people with face tatoos called LOLJK.com.”
#14: “I sat next to two republicans on my way in this morning. Or, as I call them ‘San Francisco Leprechauns.’ ”
#13: “I disagree with police breaking up peaceful protests but I don’t disagree with police firing tear gas at hippies, so it’s kind of a wash.”
#12: Crocs stock down 40% after poor third quarter performance and also because “duh.”
#11: “One-horse open sleigh: less fun than advertised.”
#10: “Just so you don’t have to, I just listened to the new Kim Kardashian single and it’s as awful as she is inexplicably famous.”
#9: “BEST. RAPTURE. EVER.”
#8: “Fun fact: if you say the words ‘my cocaine” you’re also saying ‘Michael Caine’ in his voice.”
#7: “I wish when he doesn’t ‘feel like doing anything’, Bruno Mars would include ‘making music’ in things he doesn’t want to do.”
#6: “I will not have phone or email for the next 24 hours. If you need to reach me I suggest carrier pigeon.”
#5: “Hand dryers are great if you want your hands a little less wet, but still pretty wet.”
#4: “Rick Perry saying he’ll end Obama’s war on Religion is like me saying I’ll end Obama’s war on pancakes.”
#3: “All I hear about Herman Cain is “sex” and “pizza” and I’m like, what’s the problem?”
#2: “The amount you care about any Kardashian is inversely proportionate to how much you progress humanity.”
#1: “I’m heading to Paso Robles this evening. What am I doing there? Who knows- anything is PASOble! See what I did there? I am precious.
Top 20 Songs of 2011
Every day myself and EnthusiastOfAll will be counting down our Top 10 songs of 2011.
20 | “We Found Love” by Rihanna
19 | “Never, Never” by SBTRKT
18 | “67” by MellowHype (Odd Future)
17 | “How Deep Is Your Love” by The Rapture
16 | “Peso” by A$AP Rocky
15 | “Nattura” by Björk
14 | “The Greatest Light Is the Greatest Shade” by The Joy Formidable
13 | “Power” by Das Racist (Featuring Danny Brown and Despot)
12 | “Mindkilla” by Gang Gang Dance
11 | “Lotus Flower” by Radiohead
10 | “Street Halo” by Burial
9 | “Parentheses” by The Antlers
8 | “Drop the Other” by Emika
7 | “Montana” by Youth Lagoon
6 | “Glass Table Girls/House of Balloons” by The Weeknd
5 | “We Bros” by World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation
4 | “Balance” by Future Islands
3 | “Gucci Gucci” by Kreayshawn
2 | “Silesia” by Jeniferever
1 | “Holocene” by Bon Iver
Top 10 Albums of 2011
Top 1o albums of 2o11
1 | Bon Iver by Bon Iver
Bon Iver’s self-titled second release was inevitable. It’s so good that at some point it had to happen, otherwise what was the point of all that other music? An album this singularly good had to come along one day, and here it did.
This is an album that woke up one morning and looked in the mirror and, nervously but with conviction said, “Okay, album, today is the day.” The album opens the top drawer in his bureau and reaches way in the back to grab his best pair of pants. This album takes 10 extra minutes getting dressed and runs a comb through his hair two times before he walks down to the bank.
This album is applying for a home loan.
And in this rough economic climate where even good people with good credit still get turned down for mortgages, this album got approved for one – and this album wasn’t even a human, it was an album. Collections of songs seldom apply for loans.
This album walks out of the bank and down to the street to the department store. This album buys a goddamned handsome suit, drags a comb through his hair one more time, and walks out of that store smelling like like an expensive leather chair and pine trees and all kinds of other smell-good stuff. And he walks down a few more blocks and that album meets with a real estate agent. And even though it’s just a group of musical recordings this album was sold a house. And this house was next to houses owned by neighbors such as, oh… Abbey Road, Dark SIde of the Moon, OK Computer, (), and other really, really amazing albums.
That is what this album is doing.
It’s one of the best albums ever. I don’t even have to describe anything about it because it’s so good that no matter what you’ll like it and you’re wrong if you don’t.
And Holocene? That song is good. That song is bleeding good. I kind of like Wash. a little more (which, incidentally, contains this album’ss best single moment, from 2:32 – 2:56) but Holocene is one of the best songs in 100 years of music. And Beth/Rest? Are you kidding me? How the fuck does he pull that off? He’s all like, “Yeah, I’m going to make a cheesy 80’s song.” AND THEN HE PULLS IT OFF AND IT BECOMES ONE OF THE BEST SONGS YOU’VE EVER HEARD.
But even still… with his new suit and his new house, this album is still sad.
~
2 | Mammal by Altar of Plagues
Yeah, I put a black metal album in the second spot. Because this album is absolutely amazing, but also because I think something special is going on in the genre of black metal. It’s something that needs to be taken a little more seriously because I think what some of these bands are doing is imperative. Here’s a review I wrote about it in which I took myself too seriously…
When Profound Lore Records introduced Mammal via Twitter, they did so saying that this was their “Marrow of the Spirit” of 2o11. Referring to Washington State’s, Agalloch’s massive and exquisitely executed 2o1o album of the same label. It’s a fair comparison: both are interesting studies into a bleak and desolate world. Mammal‘s approach, however, is crushing, swift, and with a singular instinct, like a prehistoric animal. Its 18-minute opener moves in like thick fog, and from that opaque mist emerges a hulking shadowy figure who continues to shift into various silhouettes; all of them as crushing as they are eerie.
YouTube | “All Life Converges To Some Center” from Mammal
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3 | House of Balloons by The Weeknd
I don’t care if it’s a mixtape: it’s well curated and well remixed. It’s poignant, fresh, and extremely legitimate. The Weekend tells you ‘yo, I’mma fuck you right‘ and then it totally delivers on its promise. Here’s more things I had to say about this album when it first came out:
Building on Beach House, Siouxsie and the Banshees, etc., tracks by pouring glacial amounts of reverb into them and punctuating them with slow jams beats from an 8o8, The Weeknd has created dreary, dark, and despondent songs, are juxtaposed against his R&B falsetto. The songs are focused on four main things: drug abuse, strippers, doing it; and the remorse therefrom. I’m by no means endorsing these things, but the allure is he’s going where one shouldn’t go. “You bring the drugs, baby, I can bring my pain.” The inherent vocal swagger of Tesfaye is belied by what are actually sad, remorseful lyrics. ”Just say that you love me, only for tonight, even though you don’t love me.“
Download House of Balloons for free here.
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4 | Burst Apart by The Antlers
Following on their virulently painful debut, Hospice, The Antlers bring Burst Apart which succeeds conquering the sophomore slump. However, where Hospice’s best moments were in marrying the thematic opera with building crescendos and pinched, mournful vocals, Burst Apart’s best moments are subtle and un-inquisitive. Taking cues from The Flaming Lips and Boards of Canada, The Antlers put narrative in the back seat and focus more on steady beats and comfortably repetitive guitars that become hypnotically enchanting. This album feels like the drugged, lethargic aftermath of Hospice.
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5 | Eye Contact by Gang Gang Dance
Eye Contact is an odyssey that probably can’t be as well experienced in individual tracks. While St. Dympha had transcendent moments in the fusion of odd world-music and synths, Gang Gang Dance demands more of the listener with Eye Contact. However, with decent effort come pretty decent things and Eye Contact holds up its end of the bargain. Taking them through psychedelic bazaars of sounds, offered up in every shape and stripe, they let the listeners drift in warm night air, mixing with opium, incense and exotic dirt, levitated by whimsical shrieks and bizarre twists of a synth knob. From that daze Gang Gang aptly pulls that listener in throughout the album as they bear down on solid beats and catchy, erratic hooks.
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6 | Go Tell Fire to the Mountain by WU LYF
World Unite, Lucifer Youth Foundation (WU LYF for short) put the right channels to work for them. Hustling their image through sold-out shows and maintaining gauzy air of mystery as to their background, and it’s garnered them plenty of street cred. This album was recorded in an abandoned church whose volumetrics are heard through the depth of scraping shouts rubbing against room fulls of organs and shimmering, silvery guitars. Coming in somewere between early Modest Mouse and later Explosions in the Sky, World Unite recorded a legitimate album of anthems and a unique sense of energetic malaise.
Spotify URI for Go Tell Fire To the Mountain
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7 | Emika by Emika
Czech-born and Bristol-raised, Emika waited tables when she was 17 to save up enough money to buy a Mac and a license for Logic. Like a girl on a mission to carry the torch of her Bristol heritage, where Portishead and Massive Attack gave birth to several offshoots of electronica, the least of which are dubstep, bass and IDM. Blending seamlessly between sensual whispers-in-your-ear to burlesque, bottom-of-the-diaphram moans, Emika keeps all of her work well under control- like a professional. And to that end, she’s a chanteuse with interesting observations on prostitution and stripping that compliment the dark and devious synths on top of her her swollen, undulating bass-heavy beats.
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8 | The Year of Hibernation by Youth Lagoon
If the tenor of Youth Lagoon’s debut, The Year of Hibernation, is any indication, living in Idaho sounds pretty lonely – especially if you’re the socially awkward and hyper romantic frontman, Trevor Powers. With an overridingly pastoral undertone, Youth Lagoon sing somber, mousey songs that never fail to build into a soaring coda with a hooky piano line. If there is a fault, it’s that timidity is tiring. While often triumphant, the roads the songs take to get there can be as drab and depressing as the roads of rural Idaho.
Spotify URI for The Year of Hibernation
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9 | Take Care, Take Care, Take Care by Explosions in the Sky
2oo7’s All Of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, a concept album about the floods in Louisiana, was missing the epic moments of The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place or Those Who Tell the Truth… were entirely built around. I can understand wanting to change the formula up, but I was always surprised that EITS decided to keep it so small on All of a Sudden… Thankfully, Explosions in the Sky have figured out a way of keeping themselves new, while still providing the build-and-release they are so apt to deliver.
Spotify URI for Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
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1o | David Comes to Life by Fucked Up
Earlier this year, this album was in the number one spot. That is, before I heard Bon Iver and before I listened to it for the 24th time. David Comes to Life has been touted as the most epic punk album, and rightfully so. I have never seen a punk band bite off such an ambitious concept. Staged around two star-crossed lovers in Reagan-era America, they tell the tale of David, a sad office worker who goes through the travails of love only to have to eventually kill(?) his beloved -all told in four acts. From “The Other Shoe,” which defined much of my summer with its catchy, back-of-the-throat chorus- to the very aggressive “I Was There,” Fucked Up made magic out of only most of the 18-tracks and 8o minutes. However, and this is totally silly, but the very last track, “Lights Go Up,” is a handicap to the entire album. It’s so sappy in its summarization of everything-that-just-happened that it stains the rest of the album upon further listen. Still a totally brilliant album though.
Spotify URI for David Comes to Life
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Fugue | Review
My album, Fugue, reviewed by Matt Elliot. See Matt’s blog here.
Download Fugue Here
After underground electronic artist Bear Like Mouse completed work on his debut album This Minus Okay, a sprawling, enticing and unique array of trip hop, acoustic guitar and dark metal, he immediately began working on material for the follow up, which would take his sound in an entirely new direction. While his debut was packed with highlights and took the listener on quite the emotional journey over its 70-minute length, there was always an underlying feeling that the artist himself was never quite perfectly content with the end product; in fact, the atmosphere created by those feelings of hopelessness and frustration may have actually added to the consistency of an album that could have otherwise felt overlong and scattered. Even as the debut was actually compiled of songs written over years of creative ups and downs, it was loaded with diverse new ideas, innovative methods to create sounds and memorable melodies, but lacked an overall sense of direction and flow.
Bear Like Mouse set out to refine his sound on Fugue, and he succeeds with flying colors. Whereas vocals and impressive layers of sound at times seemed forced and excessive on the first go round, his sophomore effort shows remarkable restraint and polish, resulting in an almost symphonic effect. He takes the best elements of his previous work and combines and expands on them here over nine tracks, content to let the complex electronic orchestration do the most of talking.
Fugue is the type of album that can accompany you on a long, peaceful car ride, can wake you up gently in the morning, or help your mind drift far off into the background. It can also make you think. This isn’t exactly “mood” music per se, it is too precise and delicate to be labeled as such, but it does boast an aura of calmness and confidence as it evolves. The completely instrumental opener “Nuclear” is gorgeous and patient, and when it builds into a gentle coda around the three minute mark, it doesn’t so much explode as it pulls the listener back in, comforting them almost as a promise of things to come.
There really isn’t a weak moment anywhere here nor does the album waver with its overall style, and the only time the mood seems to shift suddenly, it does so with dramatic and meaningful effect. Centerpiece “Dirge/M” is nine minutes of completely repetitive acoustic guitar and electronic piano instrumentation that builds so subtlely with its nuanced undertones- there’s elements of an electronic horn, a fluttering guitar noise, and a soaring, whispy bit of lifted distortion that beckons Godspeed You Black Emperor- that express the aftermath of a relationship that has died.
But the tone takes a sudden turn with the equally devastating but musically opposite “Saigon and On and On”, a spectacularly loud scream fest that hits the listener like a shot to the heart and ponders the meaning of life in not the fondest light. Synthesized drums and brooding electronic horn sounds combine as we hear high pitched lyrics such as “We are slaves/ We suffer the same”, “We suffer the sun/ To wait for a point” and the honest, most desperate line of all, “There’s got to be more.” Despite its authority and anger, pound for pound, this may be the saddest track in the entire Bear Like Mouse catalog, and that’s saying something for an artist that doesn’t exactly have a penchant for creating songs filled with sappy optimism.
Perhaps the album’s best stretch comes early on. The slowly building melancholy of “Of Bird and Bullet”, perhaps the most approachable and straightforward track here from a song structure standpoint, seems harmless enough until it explodes with screaming but spot on vocals through its massive crescendo and elevates itself to standout status. The tension is taken down a notch after that with “Capital B”, perhaps the most relaxing, beautiful song in the entire Bear Like Mouse catalog. This is the type of song that makes you want to sail into the sunset and just keep going, and it showcases an unusual time signature complete with electronic horns and an airy, atmospheric falsetto vocal through the chorus that is in perfect contrast with the nonchalant, almost spoken word vocal style of the verses.
There’s plenty of innovation here as well, including the impressive electronic synth loop towards the end of the steady “River”, and an electronic violin above a trip hop beat on the beautifully textured “Oslo Also”, the first genuinely optimistic Bear Like Mouse love song. Again, the vocals on both tracks are very subtle and almost unnoticeable, but provide melodic structure rather than interference with the music itself.
Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of Fugue, and of Bear Like Mouse’s music in general, is the mystery behind the origin of some of these musical sounds. Penultimate track “Cleary and Crux” serves as the calm before the storm, with an addictive rolling percussion track, a repetitive clanking sound created from wires, cowbells and a drum stick above lifted vocals that seem just out of reach, kind of like how a song sounds in your brain right after you wake up from a musical dream. And it is all just a set up for the closer and highlight track, the 16 minute epic “Rue St. Anne.”
Beginning with an industrial grind and heavy percussion, this evolves into a call-to-arms masterpiece, with electric guitar swirling beneath massive, epileptic drum track change ups. This is the sort of song I imagine playing in my head before going into the deciding battle of a war, or before making a life or death decision, or some kind of a monumental, life-changing and ultimately serious event. In its final half, the considerable intensity surrenders into distorted shoegaze and eerie choral and violin notes that leave some uncertainty as to the outcome of the battle. And more relevently and poignantly, what exactly was the battle for in the first place? Perhaps only Bear Like Mouse himself knows for sure, but I’ll happily keep listening to figure it out for myself, even if I never do.
DOWNLOAD FUGUE HERE/NOW.
Bear Like Mouse | Update
Fugue
My second album, Fugue, has been available for free on Bandcamp for two months now. But, in the interest of capitalism, I’ve decided not to be such a hippie about distributing my music for free and will be making Fugue available on iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon.com, and a bunch of other middleperson websites. That is, unless, I can find a label who wants to release this, which would really be ideal because it would bankroll the things I’m about to write about in a minute.
But first…
Why am I telling you?
Because, just in case you haven’t downloaded it yet, you’ve still got a three-ish week window to DOWNLOAD ‘Fugue’ FOR FREE.
So… wait, why do you care about the money?
Because, oh holy shit, you have no idea how awesome the third album will be. And awesome shit ain’t cheap.
The Maw
Work on the third album has commenced. It’s ambitious. Possibly too ambitious. Principle recording will happen between a cabin with no electricity and a century-old lighthouse in Lubec, ME. After that, it will be back to San Francisco to finish the album in a studio. By the way, Lubec is the Easternmost city in the US. And, if you don’t count Hawaii, you can get much more west than San Francisco.
San Francisco / Black Girl
San Francisco is now the cave Bear Like Mouse calls home. It is also the home of some artists that have exerted the most influence over me. Bands like Oxbow, Xiu Xiu, and Neurosis. I also find that the fog nourishes me.
The first thing I did after moving here was finish Fugue. The second thing I did was hook up with Oakland-based DJ, Zoo Kroo. Together, we put together a nine-minute trip-hop single called “Black Girl” that is all about deep, focused groove. And an oboe. Also a jazz flute.
I think it’s one of the coolest, and most trance inducing tracks I’ve done, and I include the Sleep, Pea single in that statement.
Pulled Pork Sandwich | Fuck Yeah
I started making this sandwich at 5:00am today.
I started by lightly toasting the following and putting them into a coffee grinder (that I use for spices):
- Cumin Seed
- Fennel Seed
- Whole Black Peppercorns
After that I transferred the resulting powder into a food processor where I added a shallot, two fat cloves of garlic, a small hill of sea salt, and… wait for it… a bosc pear. If you get the proportions right you end up with a thick paste, and if the pear is ripe enough it’s sticky enough to hang on to the shoulder while cooking and caramelizes nicely.
Then I took a big pork shoulder cut from Prather Ranch Meat Co. that I picked up in the Ferry Building and rubbed the paste all over it and let them hand out together in a mixing bowl for a while. Merrrnatin‘.
While those two were doin’ their thing, I got out my mandolin and sliced the shit out of some vegetables. Fennel, a red onion, and fresh cayenne peppers. Did you know that fresh, whole cayenne peppers were actually a thing? Because I didn’t, but when I saw them I grabbed a bunch. Fresh ones are actually rather sweet and they’ve still got a decent amount of kick, but less than, say, a jalapeño. (Side note, check out my proper usage of the Mexican N-hat). Anyways, I got those things sliced up and ready to be pickled. Rather than use straight white or cider vinegar, though, I got a little crazy. I took some (just a few splashes) of white balsamic and a few quite healthy splashes of a very crisp Sonoma Sauvignon Blanc. Mixed them all together with some salt and let them chill.
The next morning, at 5:00am I threw the pork on the top rack of a very low grill (<200˚) with a grilling tray full of water, orange halves, and some mesquite wood chips. Just ‘cuz. Then I went and picked Cabernet grapes in a vineyard in Glen Ellen, for fun. It was kind of a migrant worker fantasy camp thing, where you do all the manual labor, but you also drink wine and eat muffins while you do it. I was pretty sticky by the end of that, and pretty hungry for a fuckin’ pulled pork sandwich! YEAH!
I rushed home and pulled my butt off the grill. I could hear it as I walked up to the grill; the fat had begin to sweat and was infrequently dripping down, causing a brief sizzle. Awesometimeporkparty.
I pulled it off of the grill, and it was definitely no where near tender enough to pull. OH NO! I’m so hungry and I need pork! So I improvised and braised it for another hour in some port. 60 minutes later, this thing was ready to party. I toasted an Acme bun, brushed with some olive oil. Loaded it up with the pulled pork, topped it with a few slices of smoked mozzarella, and a little fresh dill-mayonnaise and I ate the fuck out of that thing. And it was, literally, one of the best tasting things I’ve ever had.
Altar of Plagues | Mammal
It is viciously tempting for musicians to add “just-one-more-thing“; especially ones producing such massive and atmospheric sounds. It’s a common sin among bands that invest effort into building atmospheres to over-indulge in experimentalism and ambiance. Even the great post-metal forebears, Isis, fell victim to this. What were once focused and enduring sludgey-yet-galloping songs became lush and vivid soundscapes. Beautiful and rapturous as Isis’ later work was, it conspicuously lacked the trance-enducing focus on straightforward riffs. Ireland’s Altar of Plagues seem to have struck the tenuous balance between building gigantic, foreboding soundscapes that shift glacially behind pummeling drums and hasty guitars. They are dichotomous: able to show restraint and to unleash all hell.
Although their roots are in black metal, Altar of Plagues’ 2011 release, Mammal, shares a bit in common with post-metalers, Isis. Deep, chesty yells into a seeming chasm; down-tuned chugging guitar alternating with dissonant picking higher on the scale; and a restrained patience while developing an atmosphere. Altar of Plagues have emerged from the Black Metal realm and bridged over to post-metal, and in many ways have succeeded in redefining both genres. Like a dull saw, they oscillate with subtle intent until they’ve eventually cut through.
Weighing in at 55:00 minutes, brought in by a mere four tracks, Mammal will require monastic patience for listeners to fully grasp its mass. And for all the listener’s patience, there are no over-the-top crescendos for cheap, easy payoff. Rather, Altar of Plagues’ persistence results in subtle revelations that hint at a great, vacuous nothing; something legitimately dark. The name, “Altar of Plagues”, itself is hyperbole; dark and grim simply for the sake of being so. Prosaic or not, it’s an appropriate name. A genre like Black Metal is full of theatrics, but Altar of Plagues approach it with such anonymity and sincerity, they manage to suspend any pretense that would normally stigmatize such a band.
When Profound Lore Records introduced Mammal via Twitter, they did so saying that this was their “Marrow of the Spirit” of 2011. Referring to Washington State’s, Agalloch’s massive and exquisitely executed 2010 album of the same label. It’s a fair comparison: both are interesting studies into a bleak and desolate world. Mammal‘s approach, however, is crushing, swift, and with a singular instinct, like a prehistoric animal. Its 18-minute opener moves in like thick fog, and from that opaque mist emerges a hulking shadowy figure who continues to shift into various silhouettes; all of them as crushing as they are eerie.
The third track, “When the Sun Drowns in the Ocean” emanates cold, gravity-laden air. The air you would find in a tomb. And so appropriately, the vocals are provided by an old, haggard sounding woman who is singing in a traditional Irish style known as “Keening.” As Altar of Plagues explains,
“This was a vocal lament normally sang over the corpse of the deceased by an elderly women in improvised or pre-composed meter. The woman’s hair would be un-brushed and let hang down over the corpse to symbolize the disarray of death while expressing emotions of grief, loss, bitterness and love. Reference would be made to the deceased person’s genealogy, deeds and character and curses could be uttered if there was an identifiable person to blame for the death. The custom, although probably of ancient origin, can be dated to the 8th century and remained an integral part of Irish tradition up until the beginning of the 20th century when centuries of opposition from the church finally succeeded in abolishing it.”
Whether sullen and dirge-like as the track, “When the Sun Drowns in the Ocean” or a volcanic conflagration of swift, serrated black metal technique on “Feather and Bone”, Altar of Plagues is able to aptly create and support mesmerizing and imposing atmospheres. More impressive than architecting such massive songs, is their ability to furnish them. Whereas Godspeed You! Black Emperor intricately adds weird noises whose sum are greater than their parts, Altar of Plagues spends minimal time meandering. Their intention, though vast, is still focused and pregnant with intent.
Listen to Neptune Is Dead |
pg.99 | Document #8 (again)
There was a time when “emo” was a legitimate genre, led by talented and poetic musicians. And then something happened and it suddenly became the opposite of that. Much in the same way, “screamo” (which was more of an adhoc name for the more chaotic, desperate, and emotionally charged punk sub-genre) started out to be really cool. And then something bad happened again. But back in the hayday, it was pure frenetic and vitriol-fueled mayhem. DC/Virginia was a hotbed for this sound. pg.99, Majority Rule, City of Caterpillar, etc. along with bands like Orchid, Circle Takes the Square, Waifle really carved out a new niche in the well-worn genre. And that was right when I was at my angst-iest. In college I would drive all over, Louisville, Indianapolis, Chicago, Cleveland, to check out these bands. At best, the venues were vacant storefronts in run-down strip malls. At worst, the venue’s were in some dude’s living room in the sketch end of West Cleveland.
pg.99 is getting back together to play their classic album, Document #8 (all of their albums and EP’s were documents of some number) live for the first time in neigh a decade. And NPR did an article on it. I found THAT to be extremely strange. But the more I thought about it, the stuff that pg.99 did was actually pretty out there and on the vanguard. They never gained too much fame, but maybe that’s because they were so successfully ‘out there’. Apparently this scene is making a resurgence. Combined with my re-discovered adoration of black metal, it seems like there’s a weird trend happening. The dirty, disgusting music I listened to in college is experiencing a renaissance.
Please learn more about these guys via this amazing article on NPR.
Listen to “The Hollowed Out Chest of a Dead Horse” from Document #8 by Pg.99
Beijing | Punk Rock and Microbrews
The below is my final report written for my MBA at Purdue University. After spending three weeks in China, traipsing through digital streets of Shanghai, down alleys in Xi’an, filled with dust blowing in from the Gobi, and the labyrinthine hutongs of Beijing with my MBA cohorts, we were assigned a paper. A simple write-up of our experience. I was able to turn my last night in Beijing into my entire paper, which worked very well with my schedule. The paper, of course, omits a lot of the colorful details of the night that would be considered, erm, unscholarly.
Production facilities in Pudong, Shanghai, negotiating with invasively pushy knock-off vendors; the terra cotta soldiers in Xi’an, the Great Wall of China… my educational experience in China was so swift and vivid that these were the punctuation marks that act as the caesura in my memories of the trip. However, what I consider to be my most valuable memory didn’t happen until the very last night of our trip when a friend of mine from the States took me out to show me “his” Beijing. Perhaps it is because what he showed me existed in such stark contrast to the China I’d been visiting for two weeks prior that made that night so special. Perhaps it was because we’d had one too many shots of the pungent, Chinese vodka, baijiu, that made it seem surreal. Or maybe it was just that being able to explore unfettered by a flock of my beloved MBA cohorts that allowed me to easily squeeze into the nooks and crannies of Beijing. Regardless, what I found was a slice of China that was keenly aware of both itself and the rest of the world, bursting with capitalism, and showed a staggering amount of Western progress stemming from thousands of years of history.
My friend, Tom, from my undergraduate years at Indiana University had been living in China for three years as a government liaison for a Dutch renewable energy company trying to supply Western China with wind turbines. After returning from the Great Wall of China my classmates were all weary with exhaustion from our hike, but I felt unusually energized. I called my buddy Tom looking forward to gallivanting around with a clever “big-nose” who knew the Dongcheng neighborhood of central Beijing like the back of his hand.
For the sake of ease, he told me to have a taxi take me to Worker’s Stadium. I met him at the gates outside of this soccer stadium, and he led me around its outside wall to, of all places, a hot dog shop.
I looked around confused; there was one person working, three wrinkled hotdogs rotating on metal bars, and no patrons, save us. Following his cue, I followed Tom down some dimly lit stairs into the men’s bathroom. “Do you have to use the bathroom or anything?” he asked. When I declined, he proceeded to find a specific brick on the bathroom wall, pressed it, and the whole wall slid to the side, revealing a gorgeously appointed speakeasy hidden inside the guts of Worker’s Stadium, serving exquisite gin cocktails with cucumber- their specialty. His description of his job, the economics of providing inland China with cheap energy, and greasing the palms of Chinese officials, the dynamism of energy production in what is now the world’s number one consumer of oil and electricity, amidst such refined surroundings made the second guess where I was for a moment.
After our time at this clandestine bar, we went back to Tom’s neighborhood, navigating the hanjing’s, the tangled series of back alleys, in China for some street food. After eating skewers of (I think) beef, covered in mint and MSG, cooked over open coals that were bellowed by the vendor’s trusty hair dryer, I found myself in a Melrose-esque pedestrian street, vibrant and bustling with shops and bars. “This is my Chinese friend Jeff’s T-shirt shop,” Tom said, pointing to a shop that could have easily been found on a boardwalk. “He started it with 10,000 RMB and now he owns several of the apartments in my building.” Inside the shop were T-shirts featuring intentionally bad English, a tongue-in-cheek nod to missed translations from Chinese to English. T-shirts making fun of Chairman Mao’s revered quotations. T-shirts showing President Obama in traditional 50’s Chinese communist garb that said, “Obamao” underneath. Shirts and paraphernalia that were, according to Tom, forced to be hidden by Chinese authorities when Obama made his last visit.
Furthering the whimsical influence of the Chairman, Tom took me to a live punk-rock venue called “Mao
Livehouse.” Inside, behind two steel doors, was a live punk rock band with superb sound quality and a phenomenal light show. This band was not good by Chinese standards, they were good by anyone’s standards. Standing along a mix of about 100 expats and locals, this band had a very Western, and very progressive sound. Shocked that a Chinese band had such a contemporary, even innovative, sound, I had to know more. I approached the band’s manager after the show. She was from the University of Michigan, American born with Grandparents that still lived in China. She moved to Beijing to be a support beam in Beijing’s burgeoning rock and roll scene, which is apparently much bigger than an outsider would think.
Tom then took me to Great Leap Brewery – Beijing’s first ever microbrewery. Its owner, a guy named Steve, was a former IT professional from Cleveland who grew bored of the corporate drag in Beijing after three years. Steve missed the taste of a decent India Pale Ale but loved his home in Beijing. He had never brewed beer before once in his life. With an easy-to-get, low-interest loan, he bought a beautiful corner lot in a back-alley and started brewing beer… good beer! I asked him what alcohol regulations were like in Beijing, what was his overhead, where did he source his inputs- all the questions a MBA-to-be would want to know. He said that the regulatory process was limited to signing a single piece of paper. That once a month when the Chinese power representative would stop by he would say, “I used about 250RMB of electricity this month,” hand him the cash, and that was it for utilities. That he was proud to source all of his hops and barley from Chinese farms outside of the city. “It’s like the wild west out here,” said Steve, “you can be an entrepreneur in a wide-open landscape, without capital, without experience, and you can be extremely successful.”
Two of the biggest questions any business student would have are, first; How China’s giant, infant economy will evolve, blurring the lines between communism and capitalism, and second; is their economy growing too quickly and hotly? How will government constraints respond to yet unseen business transactions. What I saw over the course of my trip was that multinational companies are hastening China’s Westernism in a macroeconomic sense. China’s top-down response, while risky, has resulted in awe-inspiring results. At the same time, the top-down consensus that seems to pervade Chinese business discussions always seemed worrisome to me. I reckoned that, long-term, playing by one person’s rules impedes the game as unfairness arises. That fact juxtaposed with China’s scale made it seem like all balls were in their court.
What I saw on my last night in Beijing, however, showed me the cultural evolution that’s appearing in response to Western-style capitalism. More than making a few Yuan, these entrepreneurs are doing something really important for the Chinese people, in my opinion. An ability to be whimsical, creative, even occasionally irreverent as seen in the “Obamao” parodies in the T-shirt shop or the punk band at Mao Livehouse. Introducing microbrewed imperial stouts to Beijing, making superior beers than Yanjing and Tsingtao and doing it with exclusively Chinese inputs. This bottom-up growth was the insight into Chinese commerce I was missing.
It’s this latter form of business that hinted at an answer to my second question; whether or not China’s economy would bubble. It was said during class one day, that China’s is, “the biggest economic experiment in history.” The government’s top-heavy capitalization, development policies, and multinational business practices are all economically amorphous and could have any number of outcomes, both positive and negative. However, I hope that the small business perspective I saw first-hand will spread, becoming increasingly easy to infect young entrepreneurs as a few Chinese factory workers here and there realize they want to be running the line, not a cog in it. It was a fun, hidden corner of China that felt as unique as it did home-like. It gave me great expectations for the future of China.
Gang Gang Dance | Eye Contact
Brooklyn’s Gang Gang Dance release their follow-up to 2008’s critically-generally-liked, Saint Dympha. Somehow they have found themselves going even further out of scope, landing somewhere between Goa, India and the middle of the Crab Nebula.
This is the best album of 2011 so far.
Update: No it isn’t, the new Bon Iver album is.
I don’t know why the media player isn’t embedding. But you can also chase it over here.
Lykke Li | Sadness is a Blessing
Lykke Li – Sadness is a Blessing (Director Tarik Saleh) from Lykke Li on Vimeo.
Hey look! It’s that guy from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo!
This song is great and it seems like Lykke Li is able to consistently put out pop tunes in a Swedish cabaret vein. However, it’s the first 90 seconds of this video that I really dig. So slow and tense. Have mercy!
Beirut | Venice (Tom Croose City of Water Edit)
Beirut’s March of the Zapotec and Realpeople Holland saw Zach Condon go in a somber, electronic direction from the throaty, Eastern European sounds of Beirut – Especially the Holland part. This mix of Venice is extremely chill and would pair well with something with gin in it. Or just gin. Cold gin. Maybe a lime too.
Uffie | Difficult
I feel like this track is going to be a permanent cast member in my Summer Jamzzzzzzz Mix™. It’s like if MIA was a cute French girl. She’s labelmates with Justice and has apparently has done some colabs with him and other DJs on Ed Banger’s Records. I need to do some digging into this girl.
Business Cards | Yeah!
I am getting new business cards printed.
On the first day of the third week of May, I will be smooshing my heavily sedated dog into my car as I set off on my 31 hour drive to San Francisco; my new home. I’ve decided that the culmination of my MBA meant it was a better time than ever to do the whole ‘follow your heart‘ thing. My heart happens to be in San Francisco. I really, really dig San Francisco and I’ve spent a lot of time there. They’re a cultural and technological mecca and I want in on it. So without a job, a place, or even a friend out there I’m taking a deep breath and driving towards the sunset with Abbey Lu.
As I will be leaving my current employer, who’s given me five-and-a-half ridiculously amazing years, I will also be left business card-less. And since I will (hopefully) be making as many friends as I will business associates, I decided to make un-business cards I could give out to new friends as well. You can tell which is which.
(The one in Chinese says, in Mandarin, “The bearer of this card is entitled to one beer, courtesy of Justin”. That’s probably the best one. Oh, and I’m obviously not going to give the card with profanity to anyone other than a friend as a joke.)
The Weeknd | House of Balloons
One of my gripes with contemporary rock and roll is that it’s gotten too safe. Rock songs are more often about being sad and remembering-when, less about the stuff that made it edgy in the first place. Enigmatic Montrealian, Abel Tesfaye, has poured enough dirty, sinful rock and roll into his mixtape, “House of Balloons” than were in all the liner notes of every metal album that came out last year. And the dude is a Canadian R&B singer. Who’s apparently nice!
Building on Beach House, Siouxsie and the Banshees, etc., tracks by pouring glacial amounts of reverb into them and punctuating them with slow jams beats from an 808, The Weeknd has created dreary, dark, and despondent songs, are juxtaposed against his R&B falsetto. The songs are focused on four main things: drug abuse, strippers, doing it; and the remorse therefrom. I’m by no means endorsing these things, but the allure is he’s going where one shouldn’t go. “You bring the drugs, baby, I can bring my pain.” The inherent vocal swagger of Tesfaye is belied by what are actually sad, remorseful lyrics. “Just say that you love me, only for tonight, even though you don’t love me.”
The buzz engine has already been running in fifth gear after The Weeknd. Pitchfork is all up in The Weeknd’s guts, fellow Canadian, Drake, has been pimping the mixtape out, and both Twitter and Tumblr have been screaming about this album. (His Tumblr is actually really bitchin, you should follow it.) At the end of the day, it’s well earned notereity because what The Weeknd is inadvertently (or advertently) doing is re-legitimizing and overly saccharine, constantly xeroxed, and compositionally paltry R&B genre. Dude is about to blow up big, so dig in while you can.
Download The Weeknd’s “House of Balloons” mixtape FREE from their website.
Future Islands | Live at the Empty Bottle
This weekend I went and saw Future Islands play at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. Their most recent LP, In Evening Air, was my roughest-cast gem of 2010. What started as a slight obsession with the track, “Tin Man,” developed into a deep, enduring affair with the entire album.
In 2007 I saw Sigur Ros play “( )” straight through in its entirety. It was the most emotionally charged concert I’d ever seen… until Future Islands.
Click that photo to see more of the photos I took at the show. Below is a small assemblage of live performances by Future Islands that don’t even begin to show how amazing the show was.
In The Fall (Featuring Katrina Ford)
Little Dreamer
Inch of Dust
Wise Blood | B.I.G. E.G.O.
My buddy Evan and I were discussing our mutual crushes on Noelle Scaggs, the adorable girl from soul’s heir apparents, Fitz and the Tantrums. Evan was all, “speaking of cute black chicks…” and hooked me up with the video you see up above there. We’re not totally sure what it has to do with anything. Does “Coco” mean “Coco Chanel”? It is in Paris after all, and that girl is certainly dressed the part. Whatever it is, she’s adorable and the soundtrack is the electronic enigma, Wiseblood.
I know almost nothing (what am I good for?) about Wiseblood except that you can download their EP from Bandcamp and it’s fully worth the $5 bones. That, and they need to release more stuff because if that video is any indication of where their sound is going, I want to go there too.
Check out Wiseblood on Bandcamp
Check out Evan’s objectively awesome music blog, Koala Klaws Radio.
Papa Sangre | Entering the Palace of Bones
Vimeo is being weird. Click the awesome skull up there to go to the video.
*Note* for being a video game with no video, the animation is worth a peep.
This looks sounds amazing. As an audio nerd, I’m fascinated with binaural audio- especially audio that affects the theta waves of a brain. If you’re not familiar with this, there is a technique of using binaural beats (that sound like guttural bass) to trick one’s brain into shutting down and go to sleep. It’s great for those quick little naps.
I once had a friend, who in battling cancer, was having a difficult time sleeping. I composed a 45 minute song using binaural beats, rainfall, chanting, prayers, and choirs to help her in her struggle to sleep. I’ll be posting more about this song and make it available for download soon.
Paul Bennun from Somethin’ Else sez, “We just released Papa Sangre, the video game with no video. Backed by Channel 4 in the UK, it’s not the first audio game or first game with binaural audio in it, but it is the first game with an entire world generated on the fly using 3d, binaural sound. Amazing combo of tech and art. Yes, I am biased. But. We are incredibly proud. Response has been incredible, just amazing, especially from blind people (unsurprisingly).”
You are lost, deep in the darkness of the land of the dead. Your eyes are useless to you here — but your ears are filled with sound. And what is it you can hear … ?
All you know is someone is in grave danger and desperately needs your help. Can you save them and make your escape or will you be trapped in the blackness forever?
You’re in Papa Sangre’s palace. His palace is in an afterlife that takes the form of a malevolent, unpredictable carnival: imagine a Mexican graveyard on the Day of the Dead — with the lights off. You’re the piñata for a host of partying monsters. They probably look a lot worse than they sound. You should count yourself lucky it’s too dark to see them.
Top 30 Songs of 2010
Top 30 Songs of 20+10
I’m keen on Top 10 lists. I knew going into this it was likely to be closer to a Top 20. Then I did my best to limit it to a Top 25. I finally made peace with a Top 30 list. 2010 was such an amazing year for music that I couldn’t trim this list down without killing off a lot of my darlings, as Faulkner would say.
Here are my 30 best tracks of 2010:
30. James Blake – Klavierwerk
Ghostly, minimal electronic full of clicks, glitches, and possessed vocal samples.
29. Sea of Bees – Willis
A sweet, sappy, and poignant song from an earnest and nerdy girl.
28. Deerhunter – Helicopter
The only song I liked off of Halcyon Digest. These Atlantans find the right mix of garage rock and psychedelia on this track.
27. Mount Kimbie – Before I move Off
Eccentric British dubstep with some noticeably African influence.
26. Phantogram – When I’m Small
Guitar heavy trip-hop that could pass for Portishead’s younger, punkier sister.
25. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings – The Game Gets Old
Soul as pure as it gets from its reigning queen.
24. Die Antwoord – Evil Boy
Both lovable and hateable, this song showcases their South African heritage with an interesting backstory of contemporary tribal circumcision.
23. Four Tet – Angel Echoes (Jon Hopkins Remix)
A gorgeous and dreamy remix of an already phenomenal song.
22. oOoOO – Plains Is Hot
Witchhouse hit the scene hard in 2010 and oOoOO are one of the finest examples of it with this creepy and rapturous song.
21. Bonobo – All In Forms
In a wholly solid effort from solo jazz-tronic prodigy, Bonobo, “All In Forms” exemplifies the focus shown on his 2010 effort.
20. The Joy Formidable – The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade
Lush, dreamy vocals from an otherwise bratty-sounding vocalist add a saccharine legitimacy to this synth-rock track.
19. HEALTH – USA Boys
HEALTH’s single from their remix album, “Disco2“, hint at them taking an interesting change of direction from these noise-rockers’ earlier work.
18. The Twilight Sad – The Wrong Car
Hyper-biographical Scottish rock from The Twilight Sad’s 12″, The Wrong Car.
17. UNKLE – Caged Bird (feat. Katrina Ford)
Katrina Ford, formerly of Love Life and currently of Celebration, was born to work with UNKLE.
16. Balam Acab – Regret Making Mistakes
Mindblowingly sophisticated for a 19 year-old, Balam Acab produces progressive electronic music that draws from every wing of the modern indie-electronic scene.
15. Salem – Sick
Hard drugs, prostitution, nightmare-ish rap, shittons of keyboards, and violently creepy vocals are all in the gossamer that constitutes Salem.
14. Robyn – Dancing On My Own
The Swedish princess of pop demonstrates her intelligent and eloquent approach to an easily cheapened genre.
13. Jónsi – Go Do
Sigur Ros’ frontman went solo for his debut album, Go. This song sounds like summer. (And gnomes.)
12. Zola Jesus – Night
Zola Jesus hit her stride on her “Stridulum EP”. Coming from the dark, abstract shadows of her freshman effort, she puts her operatic voice and synthesizer to good work in “Night“.
11. Crystal Castles – Not In Love (feat. Robert Smith)
Young electro-punks teamed up with The Cure’s Robert Smith. What a perfect combination! That, and he could totally be their grandfather.
10. Caribou – Odessa
Cowbell.
9. Menomena – Tithe
Menomena takes a decided aggressive-guitar’ed approach to their angular and looped sound in this eager and severe track.
8. Future Islands – Inch of Dust
“Call on me… I’ll be there always.” This song is the close up on the bleeding heart that Future Island’s LP-about-a-breakup, “In Evening Air“, is about.
7. The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio
These Brooklyn-by-way-of-Ohio troubadours keep shooting from the hip and singing from the gut.
6. Darkstar – Dear Heartbeat
Hyperdub’s Darkstar shimmers in a diluted pond of other sub-par synth albums. Conceptually more similar to a 60’s R&B album than a modern electronic album, Darkstar shows the restraint and emotional honesty that is extremely rare in the genre.
5. Flying Lotus – Satelllliiiiiiteee
John Coletrane’s nephew, Flying Lotus, carries the Jazz torch high and is musically messianic across his entire Cosmogramma album. FlyLo is running far in front of his contemporaries to illuminate the path modern, intelligent music is heading.
4. Sleigh Bells – Infinity Guitars
Hella distorted guitars and bombastic, thump-heavy beats covered sugary, relaxed vocals from a knockout bombshell? Sign me up. I’m not sure Sleigh Bells will ever be able to reproduce the innovation and originality of their debut album, “Treats”, but this effort alone will keep them remembered.
3. Interpol – Try It On
Although it seemed to be a critical failure, Interpol’s latest (and possibly last) album seemed more honest and mature than any of their previous albums – replete with the sorrow and disillusionment a career like theirs can bestow. Try It On shows their maturity and elegance as they keep precise control over this song’s crescendo.
2. Beach House – Take Care
This song is the sound of a bursting heart and a gushing tear duct.
1. Gonjasufi – Ancestors
When I first heard this song I was blown away. Never had I heard something so unprecedented, bizarre, beautiful, and weathered as this track. Gonjasufi, mystic desert wanderer, philosopher, sometimes yoga teacher, and perennially homeless-looking-dude’s coarse vocals seep into every crack of the beat, produced by Flying Lotus.
Tape Deck Mountain | 80/20 (Arms and Sleepers Remix)
Arms and Sleepers is the most reliably great electronic band I know of. Everything they put out is amazing, to the point where I don’t understand how these guys aren’t huge. I managed to track down their amazing remix of 80/20 by Tape Deck Mountain. Listen and groove. Then check out the rest of their work. Please!
Radiohead | Nude (Bear Like Mouse Remix)
I’ve been on a big enough myself-kick lately, I figured I might as well slap the thigh and ride the wave in. When Radiohead put out In Rainbows, I was always really impressed with the model by which they distributed [download, pay what you want (I paid $0.95 because I was pretty broke at the time)]. They further impressed me when it came time to marketing their singles. Their video for my favorite track off of the album, All I Need, was a poignant-to-the-point-of-harrowing focus on child labor. As for Nude, they broke up the song into its core components and sold each track on iTunes for $0.99 a pop. Download them all and do with them what you please. They didn’t destroy the integrity of the song and, in fact, structured it in such a way that it was easy to remix. Now what do you have? Thousands and thousands of musicians paying $5.00 for individual tracks to one song who get to fully embrace Radiohead in an artistically intimate way, and then turn right back around and promote the everloving shit out of the single. Totes brill!
So back to me.
I took a pretty minimalist approach to this remix. The band, Holy Fuck, was the most doted-on remixer of this particular single and they did a lot of really cool stuff that structurally altered the song (as one might expect from them). I didn’t want to do that though. I really wanted to pare it back, crank up the reverb, and try to exploit the blues-y-ness of the track as well as create a gauzy track of those gorgeous ethereal vocals, which only makes brief appearance in the original track. It’s a much more luscious and saturated version of the song. I also ditched the drum track and did my own thing.
LISTEN | NUDE (BEAR LIKE MOUSE REMIX)
Bear Like Mouse | Heartbeats (Feat. Lindsay Manfredi from Neon Love Life)
I did a cover of Heartbeats by The Knife (and then again by Jose Gonzales) about a year ago and just sat on it forever because I can’t sing this song. “But you know who can,” I said to myself, “is the gorgeous and unflappable miss Lindsay Manfredi. She would rock this AND I know she loves The Knife.” So one night Lindsay and myself went into Queensize Studios with a big bottle of bourbon and rocked. Listen for frequent Bear Like Mouse collaborator, Ben Sutton, and myself screaming at the end of the track.
You absolutely MUST check out Lindsay’s band, Neon Love Life. They channel Kathleen Hannah and dump her in a boiling pot of high octane rock with a little punk sprinkled in the mix. All those girls rock my socks and I’m so psyched to see them gaining so much success.
This track still desperately needs mastered. IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW WANTS TO DO THIS, I WILL PAY YOU IN CUPCAKES.
Hope & Anchor 
