On her myspace page Leila lists her influences as “life…noise…stuff.” I’d just add “beats” to that list for a quick summation of her sound. These tracks her label has generously offered for your downloading pleasure demonstrate Leila’s controlled cacophony as she gathers audio odds and ends, samples of this horn and that vocal clip, and masterfully stitches the sounds together into something you can dance to and something you can chill to, respectively. It’s pastiche-core in the vein of Solex. Leila brings in a hodge-podge of guest musicians to add their own noises and stuff like Martina Topley Bird, Terry Hall, Andy Cox (The English Beat/Fine Young Cannibals), and her own sister Roya Arab. Blood, Looms, and Blooms is just the latest in her decade long recording career. Leila has worked with Björk and Aphex Twin and recorded as Grammatix and Little Miss Specta. Admittedly, I’ve got some homework to do as I’ve missed out thus far on her earlier efforts. Shame on me.
Lewis & Clarke
I know, I know… If you’re at all like me, you were probably pretty stoked about a band named after Thomas Jefferson’s intrepid explorers of the Louisiana Purchase, until you noticed the “e” up there that’s not really on the end of William Clark’s name. Then you realized the band’s name refers to the correspondence between C.S. Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke, not the Corps of Discovery. (Ok, the band website helped me out on that last part.) And then you download the ten minutes of “Before It Breaks You” and listen to it, and then it’s over before you realize it and the whole time you’ve been bathed in the musical equivalent of sunlight filtered through a grove of aromatic, soft-needled southern pines, or something similarly tranquil and pleasant. Lewis & Clarke call their sound “avant chamber folk,” but don’t let that turn you off. Give them more than a few minutes, and see if you like what you get back. I did.
Zoos of Berlin
I’m at least six months late in writing about this Detroit-based quintet, which gives me the luxury (or burden) of reacting not only to their music, but to others’ reactions to their music. One rarely hears Zoos of Berlin mentioned without a reference to Brian Eno and David Bowie collabos. And while there are certainly similarities, especially in Trevor Naud’s cool, spacey vocals, to focus on that is to miss the range that Zoos demonstrate live, or even in the three songs on their debut EP. “Below the Old House” serves up ebullient psychedelia then resolves in a trance-inducing ending. “Speak Well of Manderlay” romps and stomps about with an amped-up Baroque air. Then there’s “On Large Amusements,” my personal favorite, which fits a sprawling shoegazerly jam into an efficient two-and-a-half minutes—leaving you hungry for more. They’ve kindly permitted us to make all three tracks available for download so you can decide for yourself which Zoos of Berlin you like the most. Have fun.
GROK
I hope you don’t like this song very much. Or, better put: I’d advise you not to get too attached to this song, show up at a GROK show, and expect them to recreate this recording live. See, GROK’s got a thing or two to prove, and that thing or two has plenty to do with improvisation. They have no songs (at least not in that written, structured, rehearsed, performed sense of “song”), the songs they do have are performed only once so that every GROK show is a one-of-a-kind, highly unique experience, and audience members act as collaborators by suggesting a theme for a song, playing an instrument, or spinning the Wheel of Chordal Destiny. Their music sounds just as fun and whimsical, as is the case in “Pink Shirt.” Don’t worry if you find yourself listening to “Pink Shirt” more than once. To disagree with GROK is ultimately GROK. Don’t think about it, just listen…
Molly Shannon, Molly Shannon
These guys dig women…or their names, at least. Not just the “Saturday Night Live” star after which they’re named (twice, for good measure), but every track on their debut album is named after famous-to-obscure female celebrities (if you can identify all of them without the help of Google, my hat’s off to you). What connection they all have with each other is a mystery to me (“Batgirl, Miss America 1954, and a French physicist walk into a bar…”). And that mystery is only furthered by their nearly unintelligible lyrics and eclectic compositions (ranging from Eno-esque to bluegrass to indie spunk). What I do know is some strangely compelling songs emerge from the artsy din, “Bianca Montale” probably being the most conventional of the lot.
Stars Like Fleas
Stars Like Fleas is a Brooklyn-based collective of musicians you probably haven’t heard of from bands you probably have heard of (especially if you’re a regular to 3hive). At the nucleus are Montgomery Knott (vocals) and Shannon Fields (everything else). It was Shannon who emailed us to say that Stars Like Fleas will be releasing their third album after “a fair bit of wandering-in-the-desert time.” That’s gotta be some kind of crazy metaphor ’cause they recorded the album in Iceland—with Bjork’s producer, Valgeir Sigurðsson—and I don’t think there are any deserts there. Wherever it was that they wandered, they appear to have lost their penchant for unstructured, free jazz compositions and replaced it with a knack for lushly-orchestrated pop epics. The single, “I Was Only Dancing,” is a precise audio replication of a cloudburst falling on parched earth, sandwiched between slices of warm sunlight. Bathe/bask in it and you’ll see why it’s already one of my favorites of the year.
Meho Plaza
Each dose of Meho Plaza’s quirky, hooky electro-punk takes care of business, then bolts—leaving you craving more. I’d hardly call it minimalist, only that each musical element is used cunningly and sparingly. If there is an imbalance worth noting, it’s that Mike Thrasher’s lyrics take a back seat while the Moog gets its own dressing room—but it’s all for the good. From what I’ve read, their live show’s even better than the recorded version, and quite different. Alas, I’ll never know firsthand until they get enough funding to tour beyond of their SoCal homebase…so buy this record (available on iTunes), if only for me and everyone else east of the Pacific Time Zone.
P.S. Whew, I made it to the end of the post without referencing Wire… Oops!
Hanne Hukkelberg
I’ve been a patient boy. And today all my quiet suffering and yearning pays off. Hanne Hukkelberg’s new album comes out today and she begins touring the states this week. What Hukkelberg offers this time around on Rykestrasse 68 is fortunately more of the same: beautifully textured percussion, swaying rhythms and her exquisitely delicate voice. Her bicycle returns on this recording along with 29 other different instruments. The best way to listen to Hanne Hukkelberg is to simply shut up. Shut up your preconceived ideas of what a pop song should sound like. Shut up the glut of voices and sounds you’ve been listening to all day today and let her swab your skull clean, like a slice of aural ginger clearing your head of everything before it, and hear the world for the first time again.
A Cheater’s Armoury [MP3, 5.3MB, 128kbps]
(Original Post 10/25/05):
My eight year old started up on the clarinet this year in school. Never having played a reed instrument, I took a stab at it. Wow. Blowing into that little hole to produce any sound besides that of cats mating was impossible. Lucky for us and our neighbors, it clicked with my son much quicker. Segue to a recent CD shopping spree and I bought this Hanne Hukkelberg album based on the cover art alone. Several tracks feature a gorgeous clarinet and I was anxious to play it at home. The rest of the album was simply a wonderful surprise. Ms Hukkelberg’s calm, gentle vocals evoke a female David Sylvian, and her minimal, jazz-like compositions played on, among other things, pots, pans, wineglasses, and bicycle spokes, make for an organic version of Björk.
Realistic
Realistic (brainchild of musician/motion graphics designer James Towning) started a la Negativland: whipping up a smirky hodge-podge of everything from self-help tapes to soap operas to classic rock. With Perpetual Memory Loss, Realistic rises to the next level, crafting some outright tuneful (if chaotic) thumpers from layers of sounds and samples. These tracks illustrate the contrast between albums, but don’t even represent the best that Realistic has to offer. Stream the whole album here in order to hear the excellent tracks “Music in the Round” and “Amazing Fall.”
Take
Take’s rich, melodic take on downtempo made his gorgeous 2007 debut LP Earthtones and Concrete more than a clever title, but the flag-planting of a new genre. Now Mr. Thomas Wilson has brought some remixes and collabos together for The Plus Ultra EP, where things get a bit electrospacey but no less warm and nuanced. Do yourself a favor and go straight to eMusic for the full album and EP.