New Music
New Music / Sieben
November 21, 2009 | New Music | 
by Gerry Mak 
|
UK-based one-man-band Sieben has a new album out: As They Should Sound. Frontman Matt Howden builds songs with a loop pedal and a violin, which he uses for rhythm and melody. His sound is wonderfully sophisticated and cabalistic, with a particularly British sense of lyricism.
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New Music / Paul Metzger
November 19, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
As abstract as Paul Metzger’s hypnotic, thrumming improvisations are, they have recognizable influences from Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Japanese folk traditions with the Minneapolis-based musician seeming to summon an entire orchestra of ancient sounds and extinct instruments from his cymbal-rigged guitar and 24-string banjo, which he plucks, strums, bows, and taps.
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New Music / Starless and Bible Black
November 17, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
Named after a 1965 track by jazz pianist Stan Tracey rather than the album by King Krimson, Starless and Bible Black draw heavily from prog and jazz to create their spaced-out, stargazing sound that feels like novocaine to the brain stem. The band evokes dark forests and calling loons with Moog, guitar, and wood-nymph vocals, yet nothing threatening lurks in their woods, just glassy-eyed gnomes sipping cocktails.
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New Music / Black Whales
November 16, 2009 | New Music | by Zolton |
After blowing people’s minds at the Capital Hill Block Party, then surprising everyone at Bumbershoot, then hopping down to Portland for Musicfest NW, Black Whales have made quite a name for themselves in the past year. One listen to “Young Blood” from their brand new EP, Origins, should clue you in on how far this young band is set to go. The EP was released last month on Mt. Fuji Records. We checked in with Davey Brozowski from the band and asked him to tell us about the music that inspired it. He started with Modest Mouse’s Whale Song [listen below]: ‘”I knew I was a scout, I should have found my way out” are the only vocal lines in the song and they only take up a minute or so of time. The rest is a musical jam that builds and builds into an epic ending that’s littered with different layers of guitar hooks, noise and percussion. Live, it’s even better. And did I mention the bassline? It’s good, really good’. Read the rest of Black Whales’ Secret Playlist.
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New Music / Scanners’ new single Salvation
November 13, 2009 | New Music | by Zolton |
I love this track by London based rock group, Scanners, which is off their latest album, Submarine. Having toured with acts such as The Horrors, The Wedding Present, The Charlatans, Electric Six, and Juliette & The Licks, Scanners could well blow up in 2010. Figuratively speaking, not literally. No, that wouldn’t be fun.
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New Music / Syntaks
November 12, 2009 | New Music | by Zolton |
The debut album from Danish duo, Syntaks, is called Ylajali and is a sublimely glitchy, melodically wavering, synth-driven piece of pure sonic bliss. But don’t take our word for it. Think Boards of Canada, think Solvent. Or don’t think at all. Just switch off and slowly drift away. We have it for free download via our Music Download section [psst, it's in the third column of the site]
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New Music / Carsick Cars
November 9, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
Beijing’s thriving music scene has no shortage of good bands, but few are as unabashedly innocent and giddy as Carsick Cars. Inspired by the blazing post-punk of Swell Maps, the aloof experimentalism of 90s shoegaze bands, and occasionally the discordance of Glenn Branca, Carsick Cars are equally influenced by the bands around them — PK-14, Joyside, Gar – singing in Mandarin and transcending the derivative unoriginality that marked the Chinese rock scene just a few years ago. Catch them this month on their US tour with PK-14 and Xiao He.
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New Music / Anna Ternheim’s Secret Playlist
November 9, 2009 | New Music | by Zolton |
Anna Ternheim is a singer-songwriter from Stockholm who has just released the album, Leaving On A Mayday. Her music has a dark touch about it which hints at influences from Nick Cave and PJ Harvey. We checked in with her and asked her about the music that inspired the recording. She started with the El Perro del Mar song, L-is for Love [listen below]: ‘I heard the song Dog a couple of years ago and was quite impressed. I love the production, the way it builds up and how the beat intensifies throughout the piece. At the same time, the song shows a great deal of restraint. It’s cold, hard, dark, and very beautiful’.
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New Music / Topaz Rags
November 6, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
California-based drums-bass-piano trio Topaz Rags may or may not have tumbled out of a desert roadhouse, but their sound evokes the kind of gleefully sinister goings-on you might imagine beneath thrumming bug zappers and a flickering neon glow after the bartender has locked the front door and Bubba has donned his purple cloak.
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New Music / Tristeza’s new album, Fate Unfolds
November 4, 2009 | New Music | by Dave Mata |
From the surreal opening to the feverish end, Fate Unfolds captivates with a tonal palette that is both broad and gripping. Indie kings of the southwest, Tristeza, have been at it for slightly over a decade. Their latest full-length delivers without a drop of disappointment. Fate Unfolds is drenched with the seemingly long lost art of crafting an album that plays as one solid piece. I could pick several ’singles’ that I hear on this record, but to do anything but drop the needle and park it does a huge disservice to the artistry and arrangement of this record as a whole. Herein are huge washes of guitars and synths, layered with drums dubbing back and forth from programmed to acoustic with ease and a backbeat that is anything but ‘indie rock’. Read more
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New Music / Cage’s Secret Playlist
November 2, 2009 | New Music | by Zolton |
Depart From Me is the latest full-length album from underground/indie-rap legend Cage, aka Chris Palko. Cage is helped along in this task with production by El-P, F. Sean (Hatebreed), the late Camu Tao and Aesop Rock. We checked in with him to get the word on the music that inspired his latest recording, and he started with Deftones song, My Own Summer [listen below]: ‘This song reminds me of what it feels like to be on all my favorite drugs that I quit doing and the sadness that comes from failed romances that will never be again. I’m referring to the drugs, not the women’.
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New Music / Belbury Poly
October 30, 2009 | New Music | by Gerry Mak |
Analog electronics by British outfit Belbury Poly (Jim Jupp and Eric Zann) make me believe machines have souls and the ghosts of obsolete recording devices are haunting the dusty stacks of libraries debating the relevance of 60s avant-garde music and counterculture.
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New Music / Cloud Control’s Gold Canary
October 29, 2009 | New Music | by Michelle Wilding |
Cloud Control have just unravelled a newly recorded track, Gold Canary, from their forthcoming 2010 album. It’s straight up pastoral Blue Mountains goodness. I actually heard it live earlier this year and it sounded quite rad.
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New Music / 80kidz remix of Metric’s Help I’m Alive
October 28, 2009 | New Music | by Casper Johansson |
Japanese DJs, 80kidz, have added their touch to Metric’s hit Help I’m Alive. Having already created remixes for CSS, Simian Mobile Disco, Phenomenal Handclap Band, and Dan Black, 80kidz have taken Metric’s original recording and added catchy synth loops and bouncy drums. We have it available for free download via our Music Download section [psst, it's in the third column of the site]. Read Metric’s Secret Playlist, where they write about their eight favourite songs right now.
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New Music / Hola Halo
October 28, 2009 | New Music | by Nicklaus Andersen |
This Athens, Georgia-based trio Hola Halo provides enough catchy hooks, swing, and swagger to melt the most expertly-designed of igloos. On their recording Time Out Here, vocalist and keyboardist Shauna Greeson and her bandmates re-work fuzzy, ’70s-inspired love music. But don’t think they can’t play their pop music, too.
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Laurie Hogin takes a classical approach to painting mutant critters that snarl and menace through their cute, day-glo fur. If Victorian artists got in a time machine to the ’80s, watched Gremlins, bought some Hypercolor jam shorts, and went back to their home era, they might have generated images like these. Read more
MP5 + TO/LET are a collective of three girls from Rome and from Bologna who have been working on installations and graffiti since 2006. This graffiti was created in Medika, a new squat in Zagreb, Croatia. They were invited there for the Vox Feminae Festival, and this was painted in four days in the main entrance. Read more
Made from 100 percent organic cotton, pesticide free, and eco-friendly, this super soft tee featuring a unique, bold design celebrates a sinister world of kaleidoscopic colours and ripples of psychedelia, of serenading Queens, of dancing flamingos, of unimaginable euphoria. It’s all the work of Sydney label, Das Monk and it’s available through the Lost At E Minor online store for just US$40. Now, there’s one hell of a Christmas present, even if we do say so ourselves Read more
The work of Chicago artist Nigel Evan Dennis is emphatically modern and sparse, with textures and clean geometric shapes dominating the frame. I get the feeling I could really relax and breathe deeply with one of these beautiful images hanging on the wall. Read more
It turns out that the Internet was invented for cute animals as much as it was for porn. All these four-legged nobodies suddenly have our attention, and all they have to do is sneeze or fall asleep or act like they’re talking for us to fawn all over them. Heeding the growing chorus of people calling for these furry hacks to be cut back down to size, Fuck You Penguin aims to keep the egos of goats, puffins, moose, and pretty much every adorable creature on earth in check.
Oh man, what I wouldn’t give to be able to sing like Neil Finn. His voice rasps with all the sincerity and integrity of a thousand heartfelt melodies. Heck, I’d probably trade my prized collection of Archie comics for just the chorus on this song. Driving Me Mad? You betcha(dupa). This man is a treasure. Bow low indeed.
Milwaukee’s Neon Hunk make spastic, synth-and-drum madness that is likely to trigger seizures in the uninitiated. Their psychotic, candy-colored aesthetic — complete with terrifying masks and stuffed animals — gives no quarter to the faint of heart, but for those whose retinas and ear canals are sufficiently fortified with scar tissue, the duo’s glitched-out dance attack should provide ample cause to bounce around. Read more
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WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
I live the upbeat, feel good tempo of the new single — A Hundred Hearts — from Philly group, The Swimmers. Off their latest album, People Are Soft, this song is a strangely fitting anthem for the blustery day outside.
Good thing Kris Kuksi channelled the trauma of growing up with an alcoholic stepfather, his disdain for ‘the typical American life and pop culture’, and his fascination with the macabre into obsessive, baroque assemblages, paintings, and drawings. Read more
Scanners’ new single Salvation
I love this track by London based rock group, Scanners, which is off their latest album, Submarine. Having toured with acts such as The Horrors, The Wedding Present, The Charlatans, Electric Six, and Juliette & The Licks, Scanners could well blow up in 2010. Figuratively speaking, not literally. No, that wouldn’t be fun.
Charlie Immer’s pastel-pallete sometimes obfuscates the gory violence in his surreal images. At other times, it heightens the gut-wrenching and visceral effect of his work. Read more
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
Made from 100 percent organic cotton and eco-friendly, this super soft tee celebrates a sinister world of kaleidoscopic colours and ripples of psychedelia, of serenading Queens, of dancing flamingos, of unimaginable euphoria. It’s all the work of Sydney label, Das Monk and it’s available through the Lost At E Minor online store for just US$40. Now, there’s one hell of a Christmas present, even if we do say so ourselves!
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