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Devendra Banhart – Rejoicing In The Hands

GAL — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:16:08 +0000

The third studio album from freak folk artist Devendra Banhart, the peacefully beautiful “Rejoicing In The Hands” (Young God 2004) is easily one of the best musical efforts of his career. Banhart’s unique singing voice and great penchant for painting illustrative pictures with his surreal lyrics over atypical time signatures set him apart from any other of his singer songwriter contemporaries and on “Rejoicing In The Hands” he utilizes all these exceptional characteristics to create an album full of marvelous songs. The songs he creates have its own retro aesthetic that make them sound like they would fit comfortably along side old American and bits of British folk music. From “This Is The Way” to “Autumn’s Child” the music stays pretty light and at a leisurely pace making for a relaxing and easy listen from start to finish. Like any good folk artist rather than making it feel like your just going through motions and listening to an album, Banhart is able to make it feel like your listening to a collection of hymns or old traditional music that was sang around a campfire at one point or another and was now being handed down to you. Not all the songs on “Rejoicing In The Hands” are just guitar and vocals though showing that Banhart can do more than just stick with a comfortable formula, album closer “Autumn’s Child” relies on haunting piano work which sets up the mood of the song nicely, “The Sun Shone On Vetiver” has a droney violin and nice slide guitar. You will dig this homage to the simple things in life if you enjoy the folkier side of the musical spectrum. 1. This Is The Way 2. A Sight To Behold 3. The Body Breaks 4. Poughkeepsie 5. Dogs They Make Up The Dark 6. Will Is My Friend 7. The Beard Is For Siobhan 8. See Saw 9. Tit Smoking In The Temple Of Artesan Mimicry 10. Rejoicing In The Hands 11. Fall 12. Todo Los Dolores 13. When The Sun Shone On Vetiver 14. There Was Sun 15. Insects Eyes 16. Autumn’s Child -Gino Fabio(for GAL)

The New Limb – Sounds People Can Hear

GAL — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 20:40:06 +0000

Hearing this band live at “The Strange” Venue in Los Angeles at the A “K” Halloween event last Thursday (of October) really left an impression on me from the other bands. The New Limb was superb, their lengthy sets had much of what consumers look for in a modern indie band, yet the band takes it an extra mile with the entwined voices of the female/male harmonies. Sounds People Can Hear is their debut album, dropping in early April of 2010. California grown music, without a doubt, the members have only been together for a couple of years, but the cohesiveness in the sound would suggest longer; matter of fact, the number of awards and nominations would too.

The New Limb performing at The Strange venue. Photo by Alex Hann

Cycle Mother Earth, it’s not the first track you’ll hear on this operate album but it is the first non-pop sounding song, which is a nice change, the band shows their ability to hold a steady sound in this song. By the ending of this song, one can expect to sing repeatedly “We are the dust, We are the dust, We are the dust, We are.” The second track, “Ebb and Flow” a more obscure beginning with different spacey effects and the warped words “It is alright” being repeated behind the eastern sounding “ahhhhs” and smooth bass line. The song doesn’t go in a completely different direction, still having the spacey effects and riffs throughout the song, but the lyrics tell a story where obviously the band wants to let us know that, It is alright. The new sounding cover of New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” has the elegant touch that only The New Limb can produce and mix the second half with Cyndi Lauper & Rob Hyman’s popular Napoleon Dynamite song, “Time After Time”. “Bizarre Love Triangle/Time After Time” is an ingenious combination, from start to finish, the sound has poise with the distinct use of the opening instruments, the smooth layered vocals showing soul to both songs, and the first breakdown featuring the keyboard and beach sounding guitar solo riff. ”Autumn Leaves” opens the album with a soft voice singing lyrics of nature’s leaves in the term of love, accompanied by the smooth electric chords and guitar strings. Soon the song explodes into an enthusiastic sound, where the song only climaxes from that point on. “Phil and Marie” gives the album a sense of balance, and shows off the poetic lyrics that can stand with a piano score in the background. This song has an orchestrated feel, what sounds like a plucked violin that has been reverbed in the final cut, which again shows another sound that people can make, and hear.

The elegant beach sounding band has too many influences to classify into a single genre of “indie” but the alternative vibe is always relaxing, making this a perfect band to unwind to after a glass of wine, or joint whatever. I believe this group is trying to stretch the field of an indie band, which has earned them credible accomplishments and plenty of buzz; however, even with all the success, it is nice to know that there are bands that are still down to earth and will give their musical art out for free at a show. The artistic integrity is what i enjoy most about this group, and their debut album definitely shows their flexibility and unique ideas when it comes to song composition.

Autumn Leaves

Ebb And Flow

Birds and Stuff

We Forgive You, Gene

Breathe Tenderly

I Know You Know

Cycle Mother Earth

Sarah

Sounds People Can Make

Fire Song

Phil And Marie

Bizarre Love Triangle/Time After Time

Vagaries

We Were Children

http://thenewlimb.tumblr.com/

http://www.myspace.com/thenewlimb

-Tone (for GAL)

The Men Who Stare at Goats

GAL — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:24:17 +0000

“Mother Earth, you’re my life support system. As a soldier I must drink your blue water, live inside your red clay and eat your green skin. Help me to balance myself. As you hold in balance, the Earth, the sea, and the space environments. Help me to open my heart, knowing that the Universe will feed me. I pray my boots will always kiss your face, and my footsteps match your heartbeat. Carry my body through space and time. You’re my connection to the Universe and all that comes after. I’m yours and you are mine. I salute you.” – Bill Djangle

Since this film doesn’t really follow the conventional blueprint for the comedic drug usage and/or powerful psychic militant soldiers role then it naturally paves the way for the rest. This movie was moderately based on the book by Jon Ronson, that also deals with the New Age concepts. The movie (released in 2009) takes place in the state of Kuwait and Iraq, using flashbacks dated back from ’72 to tell a captivating story that leads to questions of a current mission. A bleak reporter named Bob Wilton (Ewen McGregor) with a frantic persona, in search for a story, he befriends Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney) who is the golden child of the New Earth Army. While the reporter narrates the majority of the story as it’s told, Cassidy searches for the meeting grounds where he should reunite with his psychic crew again. Such a basic straight forward movie, not really, between the visions, acid-trips and paranormal comedy the plot escalates pretty quickly.” The gentleness is the strength,” Bill Djangle (Jeff Bridges) saw and heard in a vision after getting shot in Vietnam combat, he goes on an all expense paid spiritual journey to find alternate ways of non-combat battle. As Bill Django researched into the alternative methods of fighting, he is influenced by the spiritual lifestyle of the Eastern culture, bringing that knowledge back to the US army, The New Earth Army is what Bill created and looked over, he wanted to build a spiritual army of jedi’s that fight with their mind. The journalist, was more than skeptical the whole excursion, as anyone would be, following spectacular Lyn Cassidy. Embracing true happiness, the new earth army did everything by the book to build a psychic team, they differentiated from the combat army in many ways-just to name a few, they had long hair and they danced for their first meeting, but their powers of the supernatural, paranormal and human goodness sometimes worked out better than violence, even though it might’ve took longer without using violence, it still worked. An open minded person would not be keen to the American exploitative ways; on the contrary, the New Earth Army will become the vision of ones hopes for our government. Lyn and Djangle completely through masculinity and pride out the window and adopted ways of the previous generation, “the hippy movement” so they could get in touch with mother earth. There were downfalls to adopting a completely different (almost opposite) lifestyle of the hippies and allowing anyone claiming to have psychic powers access to the group. With the open experimentations ranging from spiritual conn- enctions to testing serious drugs such as LSD, the New Earth Army were viewed sometimes as a dangerous organization. Lt. Norm Middelton was a new recruit in the New Army, approached to have an experimental research done on him by Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey). In this scene Larry (the films antagonist) serves Norm Middelton water dosed with acid and created an unhealthy environment for him to trip, the end results stirred havoc on the military base. Hours later Norm, while in the nude, aimed and shot his gun at fellow soldiers on the field, which is why one should always be in a friendly environment when frying. PSYIC – Psychic Systems International Corp is the operation program that is ran by Larry Hooper years later after the New Army was found obsolete and both Lyn and Bill are no longer soldiers in the US army. Using computers and music interpretations rarely utilizing the mental/spiritual powers that Djangle taught, PSYIC was operated such as a modern business. Lyn’s spirits were down after witnessing the new PSYIC camp. Wilton knew Lyn had a “broken heart” so he finally took control and devised a plan to liberate the goats and soldiers with the help of Djangle, mother nature, and of course LSD. After Wilton and Djangle have a spiritual redemption on top of a roof, Djangle accidentally falls off the roof and after Wilton asks him if he was ok, Bob states: “I just saw Timothy Leary.” This film is a riot, it will keep one entertained even past the run time. The only mystery is wondering if this movie was a hoax, and maybe wondering if it was written under the influence. In the end this movie has more drug reference than pop music nowadays, and more experimentation than most sci-fi, yet it still categorizes into the comical realm. With the surreal story ending with a break out of jail scenario (PSYIC being the jail), Bill and Lyn escape the desert using a helicopter, finally revealing to Wilton, that he was indeed the mission and now he must tell the world. “Nobody exactly knows what happened. The official story is that their helicopter must have crashed, either because they were hit by an RPG or because… Well, that’s what happens…when you fly a helicopter while you’re tripping on acid. All I know is that they’ve never been seen since. Like all Shaman, they returned to the sky.” -Tone (for GAL)

Royal Trux – Cats and Dogs

GAL — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 01:58:08 +0000

“Cats and Dogs”(Drag City Records) the fourth album released in 1993 by alternative noise rockers Royal Trux(consisting of two main members Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema) is disorientating bent out of shape indie rock at its finest. Hagerty and Herrema’s drug addled voices multi-tracked over sloppily combusting and spastic guitar riffs, sparse guitar riffs that seem to drift in and out of the mix, bottleneck slide guitar, and echo laden pianos is what the album “Cats and Dogs” mainly consists of. The music Royal Trux manage to craft using all of the aforementioned is really a ‘The Stones meets Sonic Youth’ kind of sound and always remains pretty unpredictable throughout “Cats and Dogs”. The slurred, hazy and deconstructed sounding “Lets Get Lost” mixes elements of Exile on Mainstreet era Stones with Royal Trux’s noisy flourishes. “Turn Of The Century” is a sprawled mini bluesy masterpiece featuring the most instrumentation out of all the tracks on the album. The fuzzed out opener “Teeth” features the slow/fast/slow tempo changes that was common during the music scene in the 90′s but the track still remains one of the album’s highlights. The closing track “Driving in The Car(With an Eagle On The Hood” is just downright eerie. “Cats and Dogs” shows Royal Truxs transition from their early heavily experimental work to the more cohesive albums they would later release, but that’s what makes “Cats and Dogs” one of their best records. It has the best of both worlds. 1. Teeth 2. The Flag 3. Friends 4. The Spectre 5. Skywood Greenback Mantra 6. Turn Of The Century 7. Up The Sleeve 8. Hot And Cold Skulls 9. Tight Pants 10. “Let’s Get Lost” 11. Driving In The Car(With an Eagle On The Hood) -Gino Fabio(for GAL)

Slim Twig – Contempt!

GAL — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:24:35 +0000

Canadian native Max Turnbull aka Slim Twig’s first full length LP “Contempt!”, released in 2009 by Paper Bag Records, is compellingly different to say the least. The style of the music he creates is almost intentionally weird, which makes for a very interesting listen especially the first time around. Slim Twig uses his own vocals, sometimes processed, over bizarre samples and collages of sound that sound like bits and pieces of old horror movies and synthesizers/organs to create his unique sound. Even the way the samples are arranged are unconventional and sets the music on “Contempt!” apart from its contemporaries and unlike its contemporaries it’s Slim Twig’s dense vocal work, not the lyrics, that are the real strong point. A lot of the tracks feature Mellow Gold Era Beck style rapping and the rapping is at its best on “Gate Hearing(Redux)”. “Mansion Haunting” which has Talking Head style vocals (David Byrne-ish) over a beat that sounds like it would actually be played at a haunted mansion and the slightly creepy “Tenement Watching” are two other highlights off the album. “Contempt!” isn’t any kind of masterpiece but it is very entertaining to listen to and has some pretty far out tracks. www.myspace.com/slimtwig 1. Young Hussies 2. Patty Ann 3. Alley Spying 4. Mansion Haunting 5. Hidden 6. Phantasm Inquest 7. Estate Intrusion 8. Gate Hearing(Redux) 9. Japanese Machines 10. Tenement Watching 11. Sybarities, Etc. 12. Spirit Hunting -Gino Fabio(for GAL)

Beirut – Realpeople Holland

GAL — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:47:14 +0000

Beirut recorded new and old material in New Mexico and Holland, releasing a double EP in the package of one (March of the Zapotec/Holland) in early 2009. Starting as an independent project of Zachary Francis Condon, the project expanded into a full band including more than ten people. The electric sound of the first track “My Night with the Prostitute From Marseille” goes well goes well with the strong vocals of Zachary. “My Wife, Lost in the Wild” has layered and slowly drowned vocals that are held for extended lengths to talk about the touchy subject of a wife. The lyrics in the song are distorted but the message is clear; “you’ll send your eyes your heart to me, where would I be?” The intro for “Venice” is almost 2 minutes long and the lyrics only being a couple of sentences: “What falls, What falls on the side of my soul”, that may be the case but the emotion in the voice of Condon is completely exposed in this track, hearing stronger riffs on each layer. The space instrumental tune “No Dice” shows off the pure talent of Beirut’s fused beat composition. The captive style of Beirut is great for people who enjoy different angels of indie, including rare instruments, world musical themes, electro-pop and a strong voice to tie the sound all together.

http://www.beirutband.com/

-Antoine (for GAL)

Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam

GAL — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:40:34 +0000

In 2007, Animal Collective(Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist and Deakin) release an exceptionally blissful and wild experimental pop album in the form of the brilliant “Strawberry Jam”. The album constantly melts and swirls through alluring melodies and spacey effervescent psychedelic textures. Animal Collective’s seventh album finds them expanding more on the sound they already created, heading in a more cohesive and accessible direction, relying on the strength of Avey Tare’s easily adaptable vocals(which are now more clear then ever than on previous AC albums) and putting the focus more on the band’s mastery of immaculate and complex songwriting. The lyrics on “Strawberry Jam” revel in their absurdity but always manage to take you to far and distant places or capture an emotion or certain situation perfectly. The album begins with the bright odd pop of “Peacebone” which finds Avey Tare using acid style free association to create feelings of childhood-like wonderment all over an electrically pulsating beat. “Chores” is where Panda Bear makes his first vocal debut on “Strawberry Jam”, he uses his Brian Wilson like tenor to sing about finding comfort and familiarity in work over joyful electronic modulations and spastic drumming. “For Reverend Green” and “Fireworks” are two absolutely superb Avey Tare led pop tunes that use peculiar keyboards, splendid melodies and create complex and concise moods through the imagery created by the combination of the lyrics and music. “Winter Wonder Land” is a catchy ode to fantasy and how soothing it can be. “Cuckoo Cuckoo” features some nice piano work that sets up the tone perfectly for the emotions created by having to leave your childhood behind and moving onto adulthood. “Strawberry Jam” closes with the folky and huge sounding Panda Bear tune “Derek”. “Derek” is essentially about the joys one finds in caring for something, in this case being a family pet. “Strawberry Jam” is a wonderfully catchy and enjoyable album and shows Animal Collective’s knack for constant evolution in the right direction. http://www.myspace.com/animalcollective 1. Peacebone 2. Unsolved Mysteries 3. Chores 4. For Reverend Green 5. Fireworks 6. #1 7. Winter Wonder Land 8. Cuckoo Cuckoo 9. Derek -Gino Fabio(for GAL) .

Psychobuildings – Birds of Prey EP

GAL — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:45:46 +0000

The should’ve, could’ve, would’ve been perfect in the 80′s pop coke scene, but the band Psychobuildings (all hands electric records) is super fun to groove to in this day in age also. The trio made up of ecstatic frontman Peter LaBier, Peter Schuette on keys providing the whirled synths and effects and Juan Pieczanski pumping out the 808′s and supporting beats. The band is based in Brooklyn, NY fusing funky beats and spacey arrangements, with only two EPs out to date (Birds of Prey & Paradise), the band reveals mp3 downloads to music blogs, adding more anticipation for the debut album. Psychobuildings is definitely cutting edge with their outer space tunes in songs such as “Birds of Prey” features a heavy beat layered on top of roaming synths and warped effects, using only more synthesizers for the song to build up the tone. “Paradise” is really self explanatory, in an estranged glam pop world, the track holds less euphoria than the average song labeled “paradise” but LaBier’s version is more jungle sounding with philosophical lyrics of pretending to live forever and afterlife (which always raises eyebrows). “Portrait” which is the B-side of Birds of Prey, starts off with eerie riffs and a strong bass line that balances the extended synths and electric keys. The songs Psychobuildings sing about sound exactly how they should, with the meaning and moral backing up the weird vibes they produce, this band is vintage and different.

http://www.allhandselectric.com/psychobuildings.html

http://www.myspace.com/psychobuildingsmusic

-Antoine (for GAL)

Team Ghost – You Never Did Anything Wrong To Me EP

GAL — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:35:51 +0000

Team Ghost is the work of Nicolas Fromageau(formerly of M83 and co wrote their first two albums) backed by Jean-Philippe Talaga and Christophe Guerin, together they create dark electronic shoegaze soundscapes much like Fromageau’s former band, M83. “You Never Did Anything Wrong To Me” is filled with washes of synth, shoegaze drones, arresting rhythms, and various other ambient electronic sounds. The EP’s opener “Lonely Lonely Lonely” is an instrumental piece that grabs your attention right off the bat with its vibrant and shimmering-easy to swallow crescendos before switching gears with “A Glorious Time”, a song revolving around a fuzzy harsh guitar riff. The other gorgeous instrumental on the EP, “Sur Nous Les Etincelles Du Soleil” creates a wonderful atmosphere with its French whispers and heavy waves of synthesizers. The highlight of “You Never Did Anything Wrong To Me” comes in the form of the dark and sprawling bass driven “Deaf”. Fromageau and company’s debut release is easy listening with seven great tunes with no filler. http://www.myspace.com/teamghostmusic 1. Lonely Lonely Lonely 2. A Glorious Time 3. Sur Nous Les Etincelles Du Soleil 4. Echoes 5. Only You Can Break My Heart 6.Colors In Time 7. Deaf -Gino Fabio(for GAL)

Dragons of Zynth – Coronation Thieves

GAL — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 02:13:11 +0000

Dragons of Zynth’s debut “Coronation Thieves” released September 2007 (via Gigantic Music), the band definitely has interesting music, artwork, members and friends. Just to give an idea of the distinct persona of DOZ, the two front man (Aku and Akwetey) are twin brothers both trained in the classical style since the age of 5, Bizza the bands notable drummer from Chicago, has also been playing since adolescents, winning a state champion drumming competition at the tender age of 7. With the knowledge and experience the members have on their own, when they collaborate it only shows how explosive the musical influences ricochets in every direction of genre. Sometimes rough sounding guitar riffs that transition to obscure sounding mixes of instruments and vocals, the first song “War Lover” is not long but it allows DOZ to show their turbulent attitude in such a short time span. “Breaker” the song that defines DOZ as a smooth but strange garage rock band, has an edgy sound, with yelling and whispers within the same minute. One of the band’s allies are TV on the Radio, and in such songs as “Breaker” and “Get Off” one can hear that influence, until the band has it’s own freak out that leads to a hard jam session. “Get Off” features a nice beat in the beginning with an defining bass line that allows the trumpet to have creative freedom with it’s own solo. “Who Rize Above” is another hard pumping jam that starts with more strong lyrics and an even stronger sound, showing the bands unison skills and power to rock. “Funky Genius” shows a more chill and poetic side of DOZ, using a looped dreamy beat with added synths and light drums; however, the smooth sound is balanced with the ending (fading out) lyrics of “and everyone must die”. “Anna Mae” is another smooth sound with repetitious bass line and drums hitting the same beat throughout the song, and a soft lyrics sung (almost whispered), with the reverb on the mic at a perfect pitch for the atmosphere, behind the electronic guitar riffs. The first section of songs on this album are really hard throbbing rock songs, but the second half of songs are really smooth beats and soft lyrics showing the bands perfect symmetry. This band’s music is definitely unstable with creativity, I noticed this just with their debut artwork. The music is smooth and sometimes edgy, a combination that usually doesn’t mix well but their obscurity brings it all together and captures our interest. http://dragonsofzynth.com/bio/index.html -Tone (for GAL)

gnaracidlovemusic.com

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