ALARM Magazine #39

LIFE ON THE ROAD WITH OTHER LIVES / INSIDE SARGENT HOUSE ROCK-’N’-ROLL CULTURE FOR THE MODERN MUSIC FANATIC Issue 39

THE

Death of a Dictator

BATTLES IN THE CLUB: REMIXES AND THE ART OF THE B-SIDE

MESHUGGAH CONNECTIVITY AND THE COLOSSUS

MAYNARD JAMES KEENAN ADVENTURES IN WINEMAKING

omar rodriguez lopez of the mars volta

PLUS: HIGH ON FIRE GOES BACK TO BASICS DAN DEACON ON DEGREES AND DEBT

JULY/AUGUST 2012

RODRIGO Y GABRIELA ON VEGANISM

CONTENTS Omar Rodriguez Lopez For ten years, guitarist/composer Omar Rodriguez Lopez has ruled The Mars Volta with an iron fist.

Now he’s relinquishing that power and eager to make music fun again.

Meshuggah With its first album in four years, Swedish “djent” powerhouse Meshuggah creates new musical pathways, both building off and breaking from its weighty traditions.

Battles Last year, the peerless Battles crafted an experimental-rock tour de force in Gloss Drop. Now the trio has issued an inversely titled remix album, Dross Glop, that reworks its propulsive grooves while maintaining the group’s unpredictable creative trajectory.

Other Lives Indie-folk quintet Other Lives has toured relentlessly in support of its enchanting sophomore effort, Tamer Animals. This photo feature offers a glimpse of the trials and tribulations of life on the road, as lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Tablish talks about his favorite gig, essential traveling music, and a near-death experience.

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Photo by Tim Cadiente

Maynard James Keenan While the world’s been caught up with his musical prowess, Maynard James Keenan—the essential vocalist for Tool and A Perfect Circle and the creative lead for Puscifer—has spent the past decade teasing secrets from the soil of Verde Valley, Arizona, bottling stories squeezed from the vine.

CONTENTS Letter from the Editor Inventory Merch Table

High on Fire The latest from High on Fire is a back-to-the-future affair, balancing punishing sludge riffs with epic solos and high-octane tempos. Drummer Des Kensel speaks about going back to basics, writing in the studio, and “Eureka!” moments.

My Life: Maynard James Keenan

Label Q&A: Constellation Records

My Life: Dan Deacon

No Journalists Allowed: Tim & Mike Kinsella

Funny Shit: Doug Stanhope

Photographer Spotlight: Jessica Eisner

Rodrigo y Gabriela on Veganism

After-Party: Portland, OR

Life on the Road: Other Lives

Music Lesson: Greg Burns

Battles in the Club

Studio Visit: A Place to Bury Strangers

Death of a Dictator

Calexico on Analog Recording Q&A: High on Fire Q&A: Baroness Q&A: Tim Fite Photo by Josh Band

Exotica: Buke & Gase’s Handmade Instruments

Queens of Rock: Doris Yeh

Album Reviews Photo Essay: Bruise Cruise Festival 2012

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

W

hat’s up, ALARM readers? It’s been two years since the last issue of ALARM came out, and thanks for your patience. If during that time you got down with our book project, Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music, or the design mag we started, Design Bureau, extra thanks. You obviously have fantastic taste, and we have some great shit coming up with ALARM.

EDITOR-in-chief CHRIS FORCE chris@alarmpress.com

However, in true punk-rock fashion, I also would like to address all the miserable fucks out there that bemoaned the “last” print issue we did as the death of print, the death of punk, the death of indie publishers, the death of “good” music writing, or us plain out quitting.

FOLLOW ME ON :

Well, here’s what I have to say.

Thank you.

It’s the risk-adverse, negative, whiny haters like yourselves that have helped me keep this going for 17 years. Success is the best revenge, and in 17 years, I have always almost woken up angry, riled up, and ready to prove to myself that no bullshit, Dilbert-dicked motherfucker like y’all could stand in my way.

I’ve seen that kind of anger in friends turn into addiction, failure, and depression. But I’ve also seen it create brilliant musicians, artists, entrepreneurs, writers, and creative types who have harnessed that energy and used it to stream-roll through an all-too-often negative, condescending, “you can’t do that” environment that stifles anything without a profit motive and business plan.

So thank you. Thanks for keeping us fueled up. Thanks for giving me that little push to create something I love to work on everyday. Thanks for giving me the guts to create a job where I don’t wake up dreading the day. Thanks for still thinking that everything is about money. It leaves a lot of room for us to do what we want, and it helps us scoop those marketing $$$ in easier because you remain consistently clueless to how life works. You continue to listen to shitty music, which just drives us to like and make better music. You hate shit that is different, unusual, so we seek it out. We go on road trips with our weird bands playing weird instruments. We make metal music at night, wine during the day. We get prolific (and sometimes date gorgeous Mexican musicians). We buy houses and start rock communes.

But most of all, we’ve figured out how to make you think we don’t give a fuck…when, in fact, it’s you that doesn’t give a fuck. Every day we try to make some kind of sense of our world, we try to find anyone who is willing to help, and we do it our own way.

So thank you. Thank you for not caring about your shitty life. It helps us remember what not to do with ours.

Your forever friend and enemy,

Photo by Noah Kalina

INVENTORY 7 summer songs that don’t suck *AUDIO INCLUDED! TAP PLAY BUTTONS TO LISTEN

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Jack White: “Sixteen Saltines” from Blunderbuss (Third Man / Columbia) Who cares if it sounds like The Who’s “I’m Fine” and recycles a melody from “The Hardest Button to Button”? Dig on the riffs and falsettos.

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The Hives: “I Want More” from Lex Hives (Disques Hives) Simple, classic, monstrous rock ’n’ roll with some serious Joan Jett flavor.

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Fang Island: “Asunder” from Major (Sargent House) The perfect combination of sugary melodies and head-banging opportunities.

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Beach House: “Myth” from Bloom (Sub Pop) Because you can’t party all the time, “Myth” is there for your sad summer nights.

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Off!: “Wiped Out”

10 Tunes to Stick it to the Man Chicago hosted the NATO Summit in May, drawing crowds of demonstrators to our hometown. Here are 10 classic protest songs to get your protestation on.

Gil Scott Heron: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” Public Enemy: “Fight the Power” Brother Ali: “Uncle Sam Goddamn” Bodycount: “Cop Killer” Zack de la Rocha & DJ Shadow: “March of Death”

The Perceptionists: “WMD”

Wild Belle: “Keep You” from Keep You (Sandhill Sound) A doozy of a seductive dub jam.

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THE RUNDOWN

Dead Kennedys: “Holiday in Cambodia”

from Off! (Vice) 1:13 of skate-approved punk rock.

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Playlists for any occasion

Mr. Lif: “Brothaz”

Nick Waterhouse: “Some Place”

Against Me!: “From Her Lips to God’s Ears (The Energizer)”

from Time’s All Gone (Innovative Leisure) Old-school rhythm and blues for all your crooning needs.

East Coast Avengers: “Lady Liberty”

one more list from flat earTh society

INVENTORY GUEST LISTS

Flat Earth Society’s favorite funeral songs Over the past year, the multifaceted Flat Earth Society—a Belgian big-band ensemble led by Peter Vermeersch—has performed its RIP Project, a set of dirges for each member as they figuratively die, one by one. To honor the dirge itself, here are the members’ favorite funeral songs.

Abdullah Ibrahim: “Calypso Minor” (Peter Vermeersch)

Chet Baker: “Portrait in Black and White” (Marc Meeuwissen)

Johannes Brahms: “Ihr Habt nun Traurigkeit” (Benjamin Boutreur)

Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (Wim Willaert)

Goran Bregovic: “Tale V (Andante Amoroso)” (Stefaan Blancke)

Duke Ellington: “African Flower” (Michel Mast)

Maurice Ravel: The second movement of Piano Concerto in G Major, performed by Martha Agerich (Peter Vandenberghe)

Frank Zappa: “Big Swifty” (Bruno Vansina) Frederic Chopin: “Funeral March” (Luc van Lieshout)

“Inmormantare Tinca Ioan Iagher” (Bart Maris) Franz Schubert: “Der Tod und des Mädchen” (Berlinde Deman)

MERCH TABLE SKIP AHEAD

These are the things you need this summer. Trust.

Don’t argue.

BOOKS FASHION BOOZE GEAR DVDs

SPECIAL EDITIONS

Amon Tobin Box Set (Ninja Tune) Brazilian electronic producer/ composer Amon Tobin’s box set is a must-have for any fan.

Limited to 4,000, it’s chock full of ultra-rare Tobin tunes (unreleased score work, bootlegs, live audio, remixes, and more) all compiled onto six 10-inch vinyl records, seven CDs, and two DVDs—with posters and digital downloads to boot— fashioned neatly within a boltfastened mechanical press.

—MEAGHANN KORBEL ninjatune.net

MUSTBUY

BOOKS

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BOOKS

Literacy looks good on you

TAP BOOK COVERS FOR INFO

GRAPHIC NOVELS

Everything We Miss

by Luke Pearson Beautifully captured in a restrained black, orange, and grey palate, Pearson’s newest graphic novel is a poignant tale of heartbreak, simultaneously chronicling the lives of one couple going through the throes of a breakup and the mysterious and unseen happenings occurring all around them. —DANIELLE TURNEY Published by Nobrow

MORE BOOKS

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BOOKS SPECIAL EDITIONS

128 Beats Per Minute: Diplo’s Visual Guide to Music, Culture, and Everything in Between Photography by Shane McCauley Foreword by Alexander Wang Influential DJ/producer Diplo looks back on seven years of music, traveling, and partying, sharing with us some memorable people, places, and moments that inspire him.

—MEAGHANN KORBEL TAP BOOK SPREAD FOR MORE IMAGES

Published by Universe

FASHION

MERCH TABLE

FASHION

Because you can’t be naked all the time

RAD SNEAKERS

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Converse CONS Trapasso Pro II

Macbeth Brighton

As the signature shoe of Team Converse pro Nick Trapasso, these chucks are durable enough to withstand wipeouts yet flexible enough for maneuverability. The Pro IIs are available in two color combinations—gray with white accents and black with baby blue—and each comes with memory foam around the collar and tongue. —Megan Dawson

With its Brighton line, Macbeth streamlines and modernizes the classic “T-toe” jogger, giving it an updated low profile and hidden cushion pockets. Even better: half of the Brighton styles are completely vegan—meaning zero animal products used—and available in a plethora of colors such as brick, midnight, and anthracite. —Meaghann Korbel

converse.com

macbeth.com

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Zuriick Herrera

Industry of All Nations Kenya Vintage Sneakers

Designer Michael McCaleb launched Zuriick in 2005 with just one boat shoe—now the Salt Lake City brand makes everything from boots to tees and natty dress shoes. This summer, we’re feeling the Zuriick Herrera in black olive—a slim canvas shoe with a little attitude in the form of a slim stripe, a funky purple rubber sole, and an eyelet that lets the air in (ahhhhh!). —JOHN DUGAN

For 40 years, Kenyans have worn these flexible, locally made cotton sneakers with all-natural rubber soles. Now you can too.

We’re especially digging the mini Kenyan flag.

—JOHN DUGAN industryofallnations.com

zuriick.com

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FASHION

BRAND SPOTLIGHT

Jean Machine Denim and JM-4 Jacket Didn’t know the English had their own denim tradition, did you? Named for the 1970s King’s Road denim shop, Jean Machine is a re-launched brand of men’s jeans, work shirts, jackets, and tees from the folks that brought women MiH jeans.

Available in three fits from relaxed to skinny, the back-tobasics, Italian-made jeans in Japanese and Turkish denim don’t come cheap ($150 and up), but it’s quality stuff that you’re unlikely to find at the local mall.

—JOHN DUGAN jeanmachine.com

MORE FASHION

MERCH TABLE

FASHION Wilco / Don Quixote T-Shirt OUT OF PRINT CLOTHING

To celebrate the relationship between books and music, Wilco and Out of Print have collaborated on a Don Quixote-inspired T-shirt design, for which a portion of the proceeds will go to Chicago and Brooklyn chapters of 826 National, a nonprofit organization that encourages creative writing among inner-city youth. You can snag one of these puppies—bundled with Wilco’s eighth album, The Whole Love—for $32 at Outofprintclothing.com.

TAP TO BUY

—MEAGHANN KORBEL

Helms Alee’s Beavis and Butt-head T-Shirt BLUE COLLAR DISTRO

In its video for “8/16,” Seattle posthardcore trio Helms Alee took inspiration from Beavis and Butt-Head while spoofing classic music videos from the ’80s and ’90s. The band also parodies itself B&B style on its “8/16”-inspired shirt. Get it at Bluecollardistro.com.

TAP TO BUY

—MEAGHANN KORBEL

BOOZE

MERCH TABLE

BOOZE

Fueled by ethanol

COLLABORATIONS

Dogfish Head & Dan the Automator’s Positive Contact As part of its Music Series, Delaware brewery Dogfish Head has collaborated with hip-hop producer Dan the Automator to produce a beer/cider hybrid brewed with some of Dan’s favorite ingredients: Fuji apples, roasted faro, cayenne peppers, and fresh cilantro. With the ABV weighing in at 9%, this “Belgian-ish” ale will add a little spice to your summer.

Packaged as a limited-edition party-in-a-box set, Positive Contact includes six 750-mL bottles, a 10-inch vinyl EP containing four exclusive Deltron 3030 remixes, and six recipes from renowned chefs like Mario Batali, David Chang, and Sean Paxton—all inspired by Deltron 3030. Just what that means, you’ll have to find out. —MEAGHANN KORBEL

Dan the Automator Photo by Viviane Oh

GEAR

MERCH TABLE

GEAR

Accessorize that shit

T-21 Pedal Board and Hard-Top Cover Big Jambox JAWBONE

Jawbone’s pint-sized wireless, portable audio player, the Jambox, received an overhaul this year with the release of the appropriately named Big Jambox. At 10 x 3.1 x 3.6 inches, it’s more than double the size of its predecessor, but capable of 15 hours of on-the-go sound from just about any wireless source, be it your phone, MP3 player, or iPad. —MEAGHANN KORBEL

BOICEBOX

BoiceBox offers stylish storage for your guitar pedals. Encased in wood, you can store them tiered or flat—or, like Andrew Bird, wheel them through the airport and into overhead storage. —MEAGHANN KORBEL boicebox.com

jawbone.com

DVDs

MERCH TABLE

DVDs

Watch your heart out

TAP DVD COVERS FOR INFO

ACTION

Machine Gun Preacher Relativity Media Directed by Mark Forster (Monster’s Ball, The Kite Runner), Machine Gun Preacher is based on the true story of Sam Childers, a drug-dealing/-addicted criminal who, after an eye-opening incident, converts to Christianity and leaves home for Sudan. There he devotes his life to building an orphanage for victims of the Lord’s Resistance Army, risking life and limb to keep children out of the war. —meaghann korbel

JuLY/AUGUST 2012

FUNNY SHIT Doug Stanhope

“I really don’t like art with a message, unless the message is crystal clear.

Don’t hide it in indecipherable lyrics. ‘There’s subtext…’ Fucking say it! The masses of humanity are dumb as shit, and you’re really just pandering to your friends. Say what the fuck you mean. Title the song ‘Eat More Leafy Greens.’”

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FUNNY SHIT

Few comedians are as inspired by sociologist James Loewen as by abortion jokes. But Doug Stanhope, in case you haven’t noticed, isn’t your everyday comic.

Yes, most of a set might be devoted to Japanese nether regions, odorous urine, and ripping on Dr. Drew. Underneath the sophomoric exterior, however, is an educated everyman: someone as taken with the hacktivist group Anonymous as with football-jersey aesthetics.

TEXT BY SCOTT MORROW

Following the release of his second album for the Roadrunner Comedy imprint, titled Before Turning the Gun on Himself…, we caught up with Stanhope during a massive UK tour—including a stop in Wolverhampton, ranked fifth on Lonely Planet’s “Cities You Really Hate.”

What’s the dumbest argument that someone has made to you for why you should believe in a god?

Maybe the dumbest one was a friend of mine who said he’s Catholic. I go, “You really believe that?” He goes, “Well, I know that it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, but I don’t care, because it makes me happy.” He knows it’s all bullshit but chooses to believe in it. I don’t know if that’s the dumbest or smartest reason to believe in religion.

What’s your dream NFL matchup, aesthetically speaking?

It would be the Creamsicle ’76 Buccaneers and probably the old Patriots one with the Minuteman snapping the football. Right now the Patriots have the worst uniform in the league next to maybe the Giants and the Broncos. I love the old Oilers. It’s always nice when they match up well—I always liked Redskins/Saints.

What’s the weirdest or smallest place where you’ve performed?

In the early days, when you’d play anywhere, I played a bus once. It would take people from Minneapolis to the Indian casinos, and you’d walk up and

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FUNNY SHIT

“Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you’ve never met. All of a sudden you take pride in accomplishments you had no part in whatsoever. If you’re American, you’ll go, ‘Fuck the French. If we hadn’t saved their asses in World War II, they’d be speaking German right now.’

And you go, ‘Oh, was that us?

Was that me and you, Tommy?’”

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FUNNY SHIT down the aisle of the bus, telling all these old people whatever jokes you could think of that an old person would laugh at.

What are your favorite bands? Do you prefer music with a sense of humor or wit?

Rarely. If it’s dark—Warren Zevon, I don’t think you’d refer to as humorous, but a lot of it is really dark humor. And of course Zappa. I don’t like music that relies on its humor.

But guys you’ve never heard of—The Mattoid is always one of my opening iPod songs for pre-show, as people are coming in, and Mishka Shubaly. I rarely listen to music, but if I do, I just download a shitload of Count Basie and Duke Ellington—great background music. I listen to music the way that most people watch comedy: they watch it rarely; they don’t know what’s good or what’s current.

I’m the same snob about comedy as most people are about music. If you said, “I like Jeff Dunham and Peanut,” I’d completely judge you for that.

You’ve mentioned wanting to be “Anonymous’ favorite comedian.” Have you figured out a way to be subversive through comedy?

I’m working on it, actually. I’m such a fan of Anonymous, and I really don’t know how it works—I don’t know computers or hacking for shit. I just love that whole “fucking with the system.” I found out about them through our mutual hatred of Scientology. I just read a book called Inside Scientology— it’s absolutely fucking unfathomable. It goes through how L. Ron Hubbard started the whole thing, how he promoted it and the cutthroat tactics through the years—lawsuits and blackmail, “black ops” kind of shit. It really inspired me to use some of those same tactics but on an Anonymous level, doing it for good instead of evil. That’s sort of what’s guiding me right now.

I want to adopt some of the same principles but attack lower-rung targets and make it fun and ridiculous. I don’t want to take down the CIA’s website; I’d much rather get the GEICO cavemen off the air.

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“If you’re offended by any word in any language, it’s probably because your parents were unfit to raise a child.”

FUNNY SHIT

“Ninety percent of every war that’s ever been fought is because of some made-up, mind-control, completely fictional religion. You never hear in the news, ‘200 killed today when atheist rebels took heavy shelling from the agnostic stronghold of the north.’”

CLICK HERE FOR ANOTHER JOKE 5 of 5

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Rodrigo y Gabriela’s Rodrigo sÁnchez Talks Veganism 1 of 4 PHOTO BY TINA K.

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AS TOLD TO SCOTT MORROW

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ecoming a vegan was a

process. I stopped eating meat when I was 17 because I thought that it was bad for my health. It didn’t hit the right nerves in me; it was just a personal thing. Years passed, and I kept eating according to my understanding, just based on health reasons. One day something happened to me. I don’t know how to describe it. I just thought, “This is not a health reason; this should be a compassionate situation.” Then I

saw a video on YouTube, and I became fully vegetarian. Three years later I was more aware of the difference between being vegan and vegetarian, and why I should just become vegan. It wasn’t just overnight.

What happened in the last three years of being more active and being full-on vegan is pretty interesting. Our tour manager was one of the most annoying guys if you’re a vegan. There were times when I couldn’t even be in the same hotel because he was challenging me all the time. At the beginning, Gabri-

RODRIGO’S FIVE FAVORITE METAL ALBUMS Listeners need to search no further than the opening seconds of 11:11, Rodrigo y Gabriela’s acclaimed 2009 album, to find traces of the duo’s thrash roots.

Here are five of Rodrigo’s favorite metal albums, as well as a teaser about a potentially distorted future.

Metallica Master of Puppets

Megadeth Rust in Peace

Testament Practice What You Preach 2 of 4

Anthrax Among the Living

Pantera Vulgar Display of Power

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GUEST SPOTS

One day, I gave [our tour manager] this present—a documentary called Earthlings.

He’s been a vegan for two years now, and he’s doing it for the right reasons.

ela and I were trying to tell him why we were vegan, and he wouldn’t understand. That was the first example of how we learned to be compassionate. Instead of getting angry, we were respectful. One day, I give him this present—a documentary called Earthlings. He watched it. We stopped touring for a month, and when he came back, he was vegan. I thought, “You were the last person I thought was going to become a vegan.” He’s been a vegan for two years now, and he’s doing it for the right reasons.

From there, it’s just a chain of similar stories: my studio engineer became vegan, and my personal assistant became vegan. It’s amazing how, for non-vegans, it’s about just not having the right information. Some have to change their diet because they’re ill or sick, but some don’t know what they are eating and where it’s coming from. Once you show them, a lot of people change. It’s incredible.

There’s no doubt that proper knowledge about

veganism is not out there. There are people who believe that milk is going give you calcium, and if they don’t drink it, they’re going to die. But we should be compassionate with the guy who eats meat or doesn’t care about animals. Those are the people we have to be more patient with and loving and respectful of, because they are the ones that need it the most.

They just don’t know otherwise. They are in a different kind of moment in their lives. If you share this compassion and love with them, I think eventually they’re going to change. I’ve seen it.

To me, talking about the treatment of animals is the same as talking about kids that are starving; it’s very much related. There’s a lot of people dying everyday because they don’t have anything to eat. Meanwhile, there are millions of soy grains given to these cattle to eat so people can kill them and eat them.

A lot of people don’t know that. I think our responsibility is to share all this informa-

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GUEST SPOTS

tion in a peaceful way and not to give up on people. That is a very important thing—not to give up on people— because I was one of them.

Rodrigo Sánchez is one-half of the Mexican acousticrock duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, whose diversified influences of Jimi Hendrix, Paco de Lucía, and Ástor Piazzolla combine with elements of their thrash-metal past.

Rodrigo y Gabriellica?

Have you ever Thought about mixing more metal into what you do?

Totally. We got a chance to meet a lot of my metal heroes through two or three years of touring and playing with them, so it is interesting to think about doing some kind of more metal- or rock-based album. I think that when James Hetfield himself tells you, “How can you fucking play my riffs on an acoustic guitar?” that makes you feel like, “Okay, I can do some kind of metal riff here on my acoustic guitar.”

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Napalm Death on Utilitarianism

JOEY BURNS OF CALEXICO ON ANALOG RECORDING

BONUS:

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RANDOM THOUGHTS: NAPALM DEATH

O

UR LAST FEW YEARS OF RECORDING PROJECTS AND

collaborations mostly have been recorded in digital, which has been relatively easy and cost effective. But recently, when working on a collaboration with Jairo Zavala of DePedro, we recorded onto two-inch analog tape again and were blown away at how much better the drums, bass, and guitars all sounded.

So when it came time to plan a new Calexico album, John Convertino, engineer Craig Schumacher, and I all agreed to go analog. We found that we played better knowing we couldn’t save multiple takes and rely on the engineer to edit together a track. There might have been a few times when we lost something cool, but what the hell?

We started using the tape machine at times as an instrument, slowing it down or speeding it up to get different tonal qualities in some of the instruments. And yet again, we were pleasantly surprised at the richness and character that the analog tape was giving us. It has an intuitive feel and sound that makes more musical sense. Even with lo-fi four-track recordings, there is an undeniable quality that can be endearing for making soundscapes and translating something totally unique and handmade.

Joey Burns is one-half of the creative crux of Calexico, a southwestern- and world-infused indie/folk/rock outfit. Following the release of the Road Atlas limited-edition vinyl set, the band has a new full-length album slated for release later in 2012.

ON THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND NEW ALBUM UTILITARIAN Utilitarianism is a philosophical concept, the basic premise of which is that if you do “good” deeds, it will lead to good consequences. It sounds obvious, but it’s really quite complex, because “morality” is a misnomer.

If you really strip morality down to its base level, it assumes that one action is a better and more righteous action than something else. And morality is only defined by those who see their own actions as moral. If anything, morality only causes more conflict because it draws a definitive line between supposedly “superior” and “inferior,” and it is so immersive in that separation that it often causes people to condemn, oppress, maim, and murder for the supposed greater good. Look at someone like Sarah Palin’s version of morality. Need I say more?

—BARNEY GREENWAY, VOCALIST, NAPALM DEATH

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High on Fire: “Fertile Green”

HIGH ON FIRE Bigger, stronger, faster...and slower

1 of 4 TEXT BY JEFF TERICH / PhotoS by JOSH BAND

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akland sludge trio High on Fire has kept the heavy-metal flame alive and burning for 14 years, having formed following guitarist/singer Matt Pike’s time in doom/stoner group Sleep. And with each new chapter in the band’s scorching legacy, Pike, drummer Des Kensel, and bassist Jeff Matz further challenge what a power trio can do. Somehow, over time, they’ve managed to grow louder, more epic, and even catchier.

The band’s sixth album, De Vermis Mysteriis, in many ways is classic High on Fire. Recorded with Converge’s Kurt Ballou, it balances punishing sludge riffs with epic solos and high-octane tempos. The first half alone is an exercise in ferocity: “Bloody Knuckles” pounds out a hook-laden variation of the band’s classic churn; “Fertile Green” lunges into an ultra-menacing stomp; “Madness of an Architect” taps into its Sabbath-y roots for old-fashioned doom.

Here Kensel speaks about going back to basics, writing in the studio, and “Eureka!” moments.

“On this record [we wanted] a couple songs where it’s really simple, three parts, nothing too intricate.

That’s kind of the origin of High on Fire: really basic, catchy, simple riffs.”

Do you have a “Eureka!” moment when you know that a song is finished?

Yeah. I mean, sometimes it will be more challenging. After a while, you keep trying all these different arrangements, and different parts here and there. Mentally, it’s very draining. And we’re just like, “Fuck it—I don’t care.” And we’ll go back to it tomorrow, or next week. Actually, a lot of times some songs end up in the graveyard, and it might come back to life a couple records later. And

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Q&A

there are other ones where it’s like...we write it really fast, and boom—we got a song. One thing we tried to do on this record is have a couple songs where it’s really simple, three parts, nothing too intricate. That’s kind of the origin of High on Fire: really basic, catchy, simple riffs. All it really needed was three parts, and it kind of wrote itself.

Did you have a specific direction in which you wanted to take De Vermis Mysteriis when you entered the studio?

Not really. Even if we did, it always changes. We always have an idea of a direction to head in, but once you start writing songs, it comes down to crunch time and you say, “All right, song sounds cool, on to the next one.”

We’re always trying to build on our songwriting skill, whether it’s improving songwriting or getting better at musicianship.

This is record number six, and technically, we’re getting better, but...I don’t want to say we regressed, but some of it is definitely sounding more like our first two records—like some of the slower stuff, or just straightforward drum beats and simple

power-chord riffs. So, writing-wise, we might have a direction going in the studio, but it always changes. We just try to go from one song to the next, and just try to bust it out.

How finished were the new songs by the time you were ready to record?

Each recording, they’re less and less finished. Actually, the first two weeks of this recording—we call it pre-produc3 of 4

tion, but it’s actually kind of like finishing writing. I think over the years, and record after record, between tours, we’ll go over and rehearse over in our studio in Oakland. You have days where you get a lot accomplished.

But then you have days when it’s like, “Sorry, guys, can’t make it to practice because I can’t put my kid in daycare.” [Laughs] We’re not 23 anymore.

But luckily, we had the budget and time. And after talking with Kurt [Ballou] in the studio, we had the time to go in there and not just finish the songs we were working on but actually write a bunch of songs from parts we’d had lying around for a long time. At first, maybe we weren’t too psyched on it, but in a studio environment, we’d play them and say, “That’s pretty fuckin’ killer.” So we went in

with half an album, and while we were in the studio, we wrote the other half and put the finishing touches on it.

How comfortable do you like to be with songs before you’re ready to record them?

I mean, it’s funny, because I talked to Kurt about this. Ideally, I’d like to play a record for a few weeks before tracking it. But it also can get to the point where it’s sort of robotic, when you’re playing it every night. You kind of lose some of the raw energy from that first take of a new song. When you hear that first take, sometimes you just get all excited and you’re like, “That’s fucking awesome.” But the more and more you try to perfect it, the more you can take away from the feel of it. So I wouldn’t want to go too crazy.

FINDING GODCITY For its sixth studio album, High on Fire ventured to Salem, Massachusetts—home of the infamous witch trials—to record with engineer extraordinaire Kurt Ballou at GodCity Recording Studio. Drummer Des Kensel explains Ballou’s magic: “[Kurt] is definitely very handson. He’s a complete studio-phonic physics nerd. He’d really get into the kind of amps we were using, or what pickups, or even what my drums were made of. He actually makes his own snare drums. He even makes his own guitars. He just really gets into the science behind the sound.”

KURT BALLOU AT GODCITY / PhotoS by SIMON SIMARD

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SHORTCUTS Q&A

BARONESS An “indie-metal” color shift

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Baroness: “Take My Bones Away”

1 of 4 TEXT BY BOBBY MARKOS / PhotoS by AARON FARLEY

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Q&A

avannah, Georgia’s Baroness has

had quite a facelift or two since it released the First EP in 2004.

Dealing in Southern-tinged metal melodies, the band made a series of transformations from the Second EP to Red Album, Blue Record, and now a new double album, Yellow & Green. Production got cleaner, vocals became more accessible and gruffer, riffs became more sludge-like, and, now, a whole new brand of melody is introduced.

The new 18-song release explores myriad paths of rock music, from heart-wrenching harmonies and pop arrangements to bellowing, grizzled riffs and thunderous rhythms.

Singer/guitarist and graphic artist John Baizley gave us a call to discuss the potentially divisive nature of Yellow & Green.

Some people have described Yellow & Green as an indie-rock album. Do you agree with that?

I think “indie rock” is a limiting term in the same way that in 2003 people were calling us a “sludge band.” Over the years, we’ve always had a hard time describing what type

of band we are. There’s elements of classic rock, there’s elements of indie rock, there’s folk, there’s metal. There’s all this stuff, and in 2012, that may fall under the umbrella term “indie rock,” but it’s not what I’m content to agree to.

Were there any specific factors that pushed the formation of the two halves, Yellow and Green?

I know that one of the things that seemed to be long overdue within the band was that we needed to build our compositions on something a little bit more pure, on a song-by-song basis. I thought what we had accomplished, which was sort of the idea for Blue, was to write an album that stood up on its feet as an album, before any one song took over.

Now with this, we didn’t do exactly the opposite, but we more or less tried to apply a conceptual purity to each song where on a song-by-song basis, each song had an added trajectory, or a feel or a vibe that we really stuck to for the benefit for the song. A lot of the time it worked itself out in an interesting way. We would write and be like, “Okay, let’s now write a simpler song; let’s write a song with a more recognizable structure,” in terms of verses and choruses. Another thing I wanted to do was expose the band a bit more vocally and lyrically and make things a little bit sharper and a little bit clearer.

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How do you expect Yellow & Green to be received?

I hope and believe that our audience is our audience because they expect us to go different places, and they expect us to offer up something different each time we put out a record.

It would be really upsetting to me to learn that our entire fan base wants us to write the same record over and over again. In that regard, I’m not making any anticipation. If no one likes this record outside our band, our fucking band likes this record.

We’ve put ourselves into this, and we’ve put ourselves up on the chopping block with each album we’ve put out. I had this same discussion three years ago with Blue and two years before that with Red. I never assumed that there was any financial reward playing the type of music that we set out playing, so I don’t have to stick to those rules. I’m liberated that I don’t have to write music for money.

“We’ve always had a hard time describing what kind of band we are. There’s elements of classic rock, there’s elements of indie rock, there’s folk, there’s metal.”

With every progression, is it harder to revisit your past material?

Yes, but it’s not as a result of our new music. It’s as a result 3 of 4

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TRUE COLORS

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With their elaborate artwork and color motifs, Baroness’ full-length albums serve as artistic emblems of musical progression.

Red Album (Relapse, 2007) The band’s critically acclaimed full-length debut, showcasing melodic-metal tendencies and classic dueling riffs.

Blue Record (Relapse, 2009) The first of the band’s efforts with John Congleton on the dials—a sludgier take on its predecessor.

Yellow & Green (Relapse, 2012) More polish, with a whole new focus on traditional arrangements and harmonized vocals.

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of the amount of touring we do.

When you play something or when you say something 1,500 times, it becomes less fresh every time you say it. I’m a huge music fan. I support bands. I watch bands. I listen to bands. I’m looking for something to move me. And it’s always the element of hunger and freshness and danger, those bands that kind of teeter on the end of actually making any sense at all that really drive me. That’s always where we are with whatever we’re putting out now.

Where do you see Baroness going next?

That’s tough—that’s a tough call to make. All we really want to do is figure out a way to keep our touring machine on tour. That’s why we started the band. The ultimate experience in Baroness for us as musicians is the touring part. Writing is fun and cathartic, but it is mostly not the face-to-face communication that you get during performance and during the concert. That’s really what drives us to make music in the first place, because we’d be shit-head studio musicians. I’d say we’re marginally talented with our instruments. It’s a game of sweat.

It’s a game of energy. It’s a game of person-to-person communication.

SHORTCUTS Q&A

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Tim Fite: “Bully”

TIM FITE The singer-songrapper gets homebrewin’ samples for his latest and greatest

1 of 4 TEXT BY MEAGHANN KORBEL / PhotoS by GAVIN THOMAS

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Q&A

SECRET SOUNDS of

Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t

T

im Fite has come a long way since his

rap roots. Though many may recognize his face from the 2001 hit “Shaniqua” with One Track Mike, the man formerly known as Little-T has spent eight years and ten albums singlehandedly bridging rap and indie folk under his current moniker. That, however, makes his career sound much too simple: Fite’s half-rapped, half-sung delivery has paired with a massive library of samples and an alternately cut-and-paste and acoustic aesthetic to craft something unparalleled.

For the final installment of his Ain’t trilogy on Anti- Records, the aptly titled Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t, Fite reinvents his own unconventional process.

He’s still sampling, but gone are the bargain-bin cuts; instead, they’re rearranged compositions

by Fite and his friends. Thematically, the album’s prequels were youthful commentaries on adult topics, but Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t flips that as well—offering a mature take on the heartbreak and joy of his teenage years.

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Tim Fite’s newest album is a cornucopia of weird sounds.

Here the hybrid collagist comments on a few of the unsung MVPs.

Self-made samples & piecemeal solos “I’m not Yo-Yo Ma or some shit.

If I can’t play a solo that’s 42 notes long, I will play each note, one at a time—and then size it, and pitch it, and clip it together until I sound like Eddie Van Halen.”

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“For this record, I made my own samples, so it was like going in a time machine to before the samples exist.”

When did you begin sampling, and why?

Probably when I was a little kid.

Because that’s the only way that I knew you could make music then. I only listened to rap music, and that’s how it was being made. So I was like, “Oh, that’s how you make a song: you steal.”

When do you start working with samples in the songwriting process?

Right off the bat. There’s a big difference in the way that I approached the samples for this record, because usually I would dive into other peoples’ recordings and steal big chunks of songs that are already layered up, already recorded, mixed, mastered—the whole shebang.

But for this record, I made my own samples, so it was like going in a time machine to before the samples exist.

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Q&A

I’d take all my friends and just record random sounds, without considering song structure. And then we’d get a bunch of BPMs from the drums—different beats, different tempos—and build up this huge bank of sounds. And from that bank, I could start where I would normally start building a song out of things that are already there.

How does Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t compare to the rest of the trilogy?

I think that this record might be the easiest entry point because of the subject matter, being a teenager. That’s really great in a lot of ways, because I come pretty harsh sometimes on other records. I like emotional intensity; I like a full scope of emotion, which is sort of rare, I find, when it comes to albums.

And even artists—most people pick their emotion and they stick with it. “I play sad songs; I play mad songs; I play happy songs; I play songs that go in a Target commercial.” With this record, and with every record I’ve ever done, I try to play all those songs. And that can be hard sometimes for people to get into.

You’re a visual artist and storyteller in addition to a musician. Do you try to put your music and visual art in conversation with each other?

To be really honest with you, I would say that I’m not a musician. I would say that

FITE FACT In 2001, Timothy Sullivan—now known as Tim Fite—made waves with “Shaniqua,” a single from Little-T and One Track Mike that went into rotation on MTV. Though the rest of the duo’s only album was more serious, the single was a goofy rap tune that reflected Sullivan’s silly side.

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my songs are visual art. Just because my songs have to go through your ears to get to your eyes—that’s just a different path to visual art. I think about it the same exact way compositionally, structurally, of thinking about it as a picture, not necessarily as a song.

MY LIFE

Desert Adventures—in Winemaking

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Puscifer: “Man Overboard”

With Tool and Puscifer’s Maynard James Keenan

1 of 4 TEXT BY DAVID METCALFE / PhotoS by TIM CADIENTE

“If I wanted to make money, I’d just tour with Tool for the rest of my life—just come home and count my pile of money. I don’t do that anymore.”

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MY LIFE

hile the world’s been caught

What does it take to set up vineyards in Arizona, where there aren’t many examples to follow?

up with his musical prowess, Maynard James Keenan—the essential vocalist for Tool and A Perfect Circle and the creative lead for Definitely a lot of planning, and a lot of testPuscifer—has spent the past decade teasing ing of the soil, but a lot of that is having a lab secrets from the soil of Verde Valley, Arizo- that knows viticulture come out and check na, bottling stories squeezed from the vine. your soil. There are so many variables you need to factor in. I haven’t researched this, Following a mid-’90s move to the topo- but I may be farming at the highest elevation graphically diverse state, which celebrated in the US at 4,900 ft. I don’t know that for a its 100th anniversary in 2012, Keenan found fact, but if I’m not, then I’m definitely in the muses in Mingus Mountain, the Verde Riv- top 10 as far as high-elevation farming. er, and the city of Jerome, the “largest ghost town in America.” He soon planted the Who has influenced your winemaking? tiny, half-acre Merkin Vineyards, growing grapes to launch the partnership Strong- One of the biggest influences on me in terms hold Wines and his own Caduceus Cellars. of winemaking has been Peter Gago of PenBut more than a mere economic developer, folds. It’s amazing how large that production Keenan uses his wine to capture the es- is and how huge that company is, and yet he sence of the Verde Valley, where once “the still has time for smaller batches—[includrifle was more necessary for successful ag- ing] one of the most wonderful wines I’ve ever had in my life. riculture than the plow.”

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MY LIFE

BANDS & BOOZE For some, plastering a band name on a bottle of booze is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Others, like Maynard James Keenan, pour everything into their creations. However you define the following, here are a few band-name beverages to request at your next show.

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miles davis

Bitches Brew

by Dogfish Head __ Forty years after the milestone album, Bitches Brew now has its literal namesake. A dark, earthy ale, the beer is suggested alongside spicy foods or chili.

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MY LIFE

How is the unstable economy affecting the wine industry?

Most wineries right now are just trying to survive. The startup costs are astronomical, and it’s a very competitive industry, so you have to have your heart in the right place to really get into this thing. À la the Châteauneuf-du-Pape early days, there can be a competitive antagonism that goes on amongst the local winemakers. But that’s the way it’s always going to be—the same with anything. Everybody is looking to get a job where someone is going to pay them money and give them benefits and health insurance and shit, and a week’s paid vacation.

Those days are over. You have work harder for less.

If I wanted to make money, I’d just tour with Tool for the rest of my life—just come home and count my pile of money. I don’t have that anymore; I don’t do that anymore. I do this, and this is a pay cut.

Does Puscifer follow a similar ethic?

I have run across this idea that there’s some sort of underwriter or sponsor, or that we’re not an actual independent project. Every-

thing we’ve done from the beginning has been self-funded. The whole point of it is to be completely self-sustainable, and not be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Those projects are absolutely joined at the hip, and the process they go through is very parallel. We’re not going to have acres and acres of products sitting on shelves somewhere that will sell on discount over at Best Buy. That’s not the point of the project.

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MY LIFE

How Important is a Formal Music Education?

Quirky composer Dan Deacon weighs in

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Dan Deacon: “Lots”

1 of 5 TEXT BY TIMOTHY A. SCHULER / PhotoS by SEAN SCHEIDT

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MY LIFE

n a police lineup of today’s most unique

young composers, Dan Deacon would be easy to spot: big, red hipster glasses and a big, red half-moon beard. But despite the “charming doofus” look, Deacon’s blend of synthesizers, vocal effects, and acoustic percussion is some of the smartest electronic music around, and he owes its complexity at least in part to his time studying composition at the Conservatory of Music at SUNY Purchase. Here he discusses what his education meant to him, the enormity of student debt, and forcing musicians to study math.

You don’t need a degree to make electronic music. Why did you decide to study music formally?

Well, like a lot of Americans at the time, I felt like I had to go to college. So I went for two years, and I was undeclared. It was fun, but I realized I was going into debt. I figured I’d always be poor, so I might as well study music and seal the deal on that. So I auditioned for the music conservatory, got in, and fell in love with it.

Do you have any thoughts on how the performance and experimental worlds could be bridged?

No, I think it’s important that they’re not.

Academia is academia for a reason. They’re studying what exists. I used to battle with that constantly, like, “This is fucking bullshit.” But after I got out of college, I was like, “It sort of makes sense.” You’re going to school because you want a specific outcome.

I’m not going to borrow thousands of dollars from the government for an experiment.

Obviously, I think there should be a bit more experimenting going on, but I think that’s up to the student.

Have you been able to pay off your debt with the music you’ve made since?

I’ve been paying it off. I haven’t paid it off entirely because I’m irresponsible. I went to state school, and I got a lot of financial aid, but I did take out loans. And when you’re 17, you don’t realize that when you borrow $5,000, you actually owe $10,000. It’s insane

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MY LIFE

“You’re going to school because you want a specific outcome. I’m not going to borrow thousands of dollars from the government for an experiment.” that they give children—I mean, I was technically a child when they gave me that money. Fucking crazy.

Has learning theory been valuable to you?

It has opened a lot of doors. I get to work with So Percussion and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. When I first started, I was relegated to the electronic realm because that’s what I had available to me. But look at a band like Matmos. They’re probably two of the most amazing musicians I’ve ever

met. Neither of them read sheet music, but they’ve also worked with Kronos Quartet.

Can you imagine what the musical landscape would look like if everyone making music today had a degree in music?

I have no idea. [Laughter] If everyone studied it, I think it would be pretty much exactly the same—you know, if everyone was forced to study it. I think you’d have a lot crazier landscape if everyone was forced to study college-level math.

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MY LIFE

offstage dance-off If you see Dan Deacon live, prepare for an “in the crowd” performance and an interpretive dance-off—including, for example, instructions to dance as a “sassy as fuck” Jurassic Park.

5 of 5 Photo by JOSH SISK

PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT

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AFTER-PARTY

PORTLAND, OREGON Though sometimes overshadowed by Pacific Northwest neighbors Seattle and Vancouver, Oregon’s cultural capital holds many distinctions of its own—including nicknames of “Brewtopia” and “Pornland” for its prevalence of coffee, beer, and strip clubs. Yet it’s known as much for green living as these vices, and known for bluegrass, world, and jazz music as much as punk and hardcore. So whether your type is more Poison Idea or Pink Martini, here’s a short list of anti-tourist destinations for the first (or next) time that you roll through.

—Scott Morrow, Meaghann Korbel, and Charlie Swanson

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TO ROCK AND/ OR LOUNGE TO GET YOUR GAME ON FOR PASTRIES WITH PANACHE FOR ETHICAL LAP DANCES

GROUND KONTROL CLASSIC ARCADE TO SEE A SHOW Old Town / Chinatown

TO KEEP ON SNACKIN’

TO SLEEP IN SCHOOL

Open from noon to 2:30 AM daily, Ground Kontrol is like the Mos Eisley cantina if it existed in Tron instead of Star Wars.

It holds dozens of classic arcade games with buttons to mash—from Centipede to The Simpsons to Marvel vs.

Capcom 2—and gamers can grab a drink or a bite between “continue” screens, with options to “veganize” any menu item.

Scroll down for more picks from Portlandia star Fred Armisen

FRED ARMISEN’s PORTLAND PICKS With a few seasons of Portlandia in the books, sketch master and former Trenchmouth drummer Fred Armisen has helped spawn a renewed interest in the The City of Roses (aided, of course, by the talents of Wild Flag guitarist Carrie Brownstein).

Just about every restaurant I go to in Portland is unbelievably great. Portland really does have its own style of food, and it never feels derivative or desperate. It says a lot about the city. You know what’s great too? The service. It’s always informative and polite, but never too much. I am crazy about the food carts too. In no particular order, here are five places I really like going to:

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clyde common

Ping

ping (Old Town, Chinatown) I love the menu.

Different and fast.

stumptown coffee

pok pok noi

olympic provisions

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Red Sparowes: “Giving Birth to Imagined Saviors”

MUSIC LESSON

An introduction to pedal-steel guitar with Greg Burns of Red Sparowes TEXT BY GREG BURNS / PHOTOS BY OLIVIA JAFFE

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MUSIC LESSON

“It’s not too long a journey to begin playing pedal steel in a way that sounds amazing and doesn’t take 25 years to master.”

W

hen i turned 18, some-

how I saved enough money to buy a used record player that some guy was selling as he replaced his vinyl collection with CDs. Along with the record player, he threw in hundreds of LPs that he no longer could use. After listening to each record, I came across a track that had a sound I couldn’t quite figure out. It sounded like guitar, if guitar was water. That track was “Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and it not only played a role in opening me up to music outside of punk and hardcore, but it introduced me to the pedal-steel guitar.

My favorite pedal-steel players are somewhat minimalist and often aren’t even mainly pedal-steel players. Jerry Garcia on the CSNY track and Jimmy Page on “Tan-

gerine” are two of my most influential pedal-steel songs. “Sneaky Pete” Kleinow did a lot to progress the instrument by incorporating effects such as distortion, delay, and phase-shifters, and he’s a big influence on my playing. I think that Greg Leisz is a tasteful genius (his playing on “Raising Sand” by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant is beautiful, and a great example of how far minimal, tasteful playing can go).

Don’t get me wrong: I love the greats (Buddy Emmons, Lloyd Green, Buddy Charleton) as much as anyone else, but I’ve always been more a fan of textures than guitar licks.

In that context, it’s not too long a journey to begin playing pedal steel in a way that sounds amazing and doesn’t take 25 years to master. (A Nashville session player once told me that anyone who hasn’t played for 25 years can’t call him- or herself a pedalsteel player.)

SCROLL DOWN FOR TIPS TO GET YOU STARTED

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MUSIC LESSON

Burns’ Tips TIP 5:

Practice

Practice your grips You can get nice movement by just playing the same chord and moving through inversions using different grips.

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Practice your intonation, and then practice a million more times. It’s way more important that you can play in tune than play at a million miles per hour.

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Burns’ Essential Pedal-Steel Listening TAP ALBUM COVERS FOR MORE

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A Place to Bury Strangers: “You Are the One”

STUDIO VISIT Death by Audio with A Place to Bury Strangers TEXT BY NOAH DAVIS / PHOTOS BY ERIC LUC

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STUDIO VISIT

A

ll Oliver Ackermann ever

wanted was to make music. The Virginia-born, RISD-educated, Brooklyn-based guitarist has spent the past 35 years forcing his way toward that goal. The result: Death by Audio, the Williamsburg recording space / venue / effects-pedal company that houses the songwriter and assorted friends as well as his noise-rock band, A Place to Bury Strangers.

The converted warehouse is part studio, part lab, and part jungle gym—an unlikely facility for gear that’s used by bands as famous as U2 and Nine Inch Nails. A climbable rope net hangs from the ceiling, and bikes and skateboards line the hall of its entryway. All sorts of stuff—guitar cords, cymbal cases, a massive French press—fills virtually every space, and a pair of cats wander aimlessly.

It’s a mess, but a beautiful one. Ackermann recently gave us a glimpse of this rock-infused Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and sat down to answer our questions.

You have so much happening in this building. Did it all happen naturally?

It was completely natural. Things like the effects-pedal company started because my

real passion in life is for making music. It’s just another element. You have to build your own gear when you’re not rich. It’s from spending tons of time doing that. I used to do web design or graphic design, and so you put together your own album covers or make posters for shows. You just teach yourself to do whatever you can.

A Yelp reviewer wrote of the venue, “In all of the places I have seen up-and-coming bands play in...Death by Audio stands out as the best shitty venue of them all.” Is that a badge of honor?

Yeah, I think so. For sure. It’s a great thing to have the kind of space where people can just have fun. It’s all about the music and bringing people together. If people are talking about how wonderful the bathrooms are or how great the shrimp cocktail is, it doesn’t sound like that has much to do with the venue. It’s a space for people to meet.

You’ve made pedals for a lot of big bands.

How does that happen?

I think that musicians are really interested in their craft, and they are seeking out tools.

There are some producers and engineers who fell in love with the pedals. I don’t know how they got them, but they tell everyone

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STUDIO VISIT

who goes through those studios. We played this show in Mexico with the Deftones, and the guy from the Deftones was telling me that Lou Reed says he should get a pedal. That was one of the most insane things I’ve ever heard. How does that happen? [Laughs] It’s all just people talking about it, because the pedals are doing something that maybe you shouldn’t do with effects pedals or something that other people don’t do.

going to cost $350.” I would have no clue. I would wonder what a whale would sound like.

Or someone would tell me that they wanted it to sound like Tom DeLonge’s guitar. I didn’t know who he was, but I’d say, “Sure, no problem. I can make that happen for $250.” That was a good learning tool, because I would have to do the research to learn how to build that.

Do people come to you with strange requests for effects?

I don’t know. I guess—I’m happy. Sure, it’s my dream, I suppose. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing. If you put me in some frickin’ mansion somewhere, I’d probably have a fun time smashing shit and enjoying the hot tub for a day or two, but I’d get bored really quick.

After the first or second pedal I came out with, I started to take custom orders. Sometimes people would be like, “I want it to sound like a whale.” I would tell them, “No problem. It’s

Is this the dream?

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STUDIO VISIT

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Buke & Gase: “Medulla Oblongata”

EXOTICA Homemade Instruments with Buke & Gase TEXT BY LAUREN ZENS / PHOTOS BY ELIZABETH WEINBERG

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EXOTICA

“Part of my process of making music is knowing how instruments work and are built. I’m very into sound, and I like to be in control of how the sound is being achieved.”­ —Arone Dyer

After their short-lived noise quartet Hominid broke up in 2004, Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez took to their own solo endeavors before forming Buke and Gass in 2007 (and becoming Buke and Gase a few years later to avert pronunciation confusion). The duo’s name derives from Dyer and Sanchez’s selfcrafted portmanteau instruments: the buke, a six-string former baritone ukulele, and the gase, a modified guitar-bass.

These homemade melody-makers contribute to the New York-based duo’s distinct sound, but so too does the utilization of their feet. Bell anklets, toe-bourines, and a bulbul tarang that’s customized for the toes rather than fingers—not to mention an assemblage of effects pedals and Dyer’s quirky falsetto vocals—produce a musical multitasking and uniqueness of timbre that are a treat to the ears as well as the eyes.

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EXOTICA

BUKE & GASE EXPLAIN 2. THE GASE The gase has gone through eight or nine iterations; it started as a bass with both bass and guitar strings and different pickups that I made to separate the guitar sound from the bass sound. It has since shrunken down to an instrument with a guitar-scale length and neck attached to a baritone-ukulelesize acoustic body. It has two bass strings and four guitar strings, and there are various pickups attached to it that go to separate amplifiers to produce discreet bass or guitar-like sounds. When it’s played, though, the gase is neither bass nor guitar and has certain limitations that are interesting to me in terms of writing music. Tuning is E-E-A-A-C#-E. —Aron sanchez

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L A BEL Q&A OUR FAVORI T E REC ORD L A BE L S , INSIDE & OU T

CONSTELLATION RECORDS

TEXT BY MEAGHANN KORBEL / PHOTOs BY YANNICK GRANDMONT

L A BEL Q&A OUR FAVORI T E REC ORD L A BE L S , INSIDE & OU T

In t he l at e 1990s, Mon t ré a l wa s a dism a l scene for emerging a rt is t s, prov iding mos t ly pay-t o-pl ay venue s t h at m a de i t diffic ult for UNDERGROUND ACTS TO PERFORM. Recognizing the need for sustainable, artist-friendly music infrastructure, friends and music lovers Don Wilkie and Ian Ilavsky started Musique Fragile—a monthly concert series run out of an inner-city loft—and launched Constellation, issuing handmade records by local bands.

The label’s third release was Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s F#A#∞, which granted both the band and label an instant cult following. Constellation would quickly (but be2 of 5

L A BEL Q&A OUR FAVORI T E REC ORD L A BE L S , INSIDE & OU T grudgingly) become synonymous with the post-rock movement, and it has since been home to artists such as Vic Chesnutt, Do Make Say Think, and Thee Silver Mt. Zion.

Here Ilavsky shares the label’s impetus and mission.

Why did you start Constellation?

We were responding to local conditions and concerns above all. Montréal, in the mid’90s, was, from our perspective, sorely lacking in local resources and institutions for the kind of experimental/defiant DIY music we were excited about, that we saw and heard being made by a number of Montréal artists. It was a real pay-to-play city at that time, with a painful lack of artist-friendly venues—especially so when it came to the less obviously crowd-pleasing, more immersive, experimental, and attention-span-demanding stuff that we were into. We also felt common cause with—and were to some extent active in—the critiques and protests surrounding the neoliberal agenda (“free trade” agreements, etc.). Montréal was an epicenter of activism on this front in Canada, and this movement was most definitely the larger political and social context in which we were seekLocation: ing to define cultural/artistic work and institution-building.

Montréal, QC How would you describe your impact on the Montréal music scene? Has the city changed to better accommodate underground artists?

Maybe Constellation helped contribute to the city’s reputation and cred in some way. We’ve been name-checked that way at times, which is flattering. But we’re more inclined to see Montréal as having ridden the larger wave of urban gentrification and international hipsterism that’s fueled “indie” music culture writ large over the past few years. This city is a lot more like any other healthy boho urban zone these days. In the mid-’90s, it was broke-ass, surly, skeptical, and beautiful in a very unique and often uncomfortable way.

According to conventional metrics, it was either going to get “worse” (Detroit?) or find itself with a lot of room to get “better” (Brooklyn?). It would be silly to begrudge the fact that the latter has happened. But there sure are days when

Year founded: 1997 Employees: 6 Genres served: Many, all hyphenated Current # of recording artists: 27 Lifetime total of recording artists: 36 Best-selling album: Yanqui UXO by Godspeed You! Black Emperor (by a long mile) Website: cstrecords.com 3 of 5

L A BEL Q&A OUR FAVORI T E REC ORD L A BE L S , INSIDE & OU T

We ’re no t looking t o “ow n” a n a rt is t ’s propert y.

Good-fa i t h agreemen t s h ave worked for us, wi t hou t e xc ep t ion, for 15 y e a rs.

we miss 1997—which is not nostalgia for our youth, but a longing for the small, positive political/cultural potential the world (and our town within it) felt like it still held out back then.

Why did you decide to forego the use of legal contracts with your artists? How has that simplified or complicated things?

Seriously, would we ever go to court or sue a band for some sort of contractual breach? We’re not looking to “own” an artist’s property. Goodfaith agreements have worked for us, without exception, for 15 years. We assume this has kept things simple, but we don’t really have any other reference points! We can say that over the entire life of the label, we have literally spent zero dollars on legal fees or retainers, and we have never “lost” a band for any reason.

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L A BEL Q&A OUR FAVORI T E REC ORD L A BE L S , INSIDE & OU T

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NO JOURNALISTS ALLOWED Cross-examination with the brothers behind Joan of Arc and Owen

TIM & MIKE KINSELLA

intro BY SCOTT MORROW / PHOTOs BY CHRISTOPHER KITAHARA

NO JOURNALISTS ALLOWED Cross-examination with the brothers behind Joan of Arc and Owen

GROWING UP IN T HE NORT HERN C HIC AGO SUBURBS, BROTHERS TIM AND MIKE KINSELL A BEGA N T HE INDIE-ROCK C ULT FAVORI T E C A P ’N JA Z Z AT T HE RIPE YOUNG AGE S OF 15 A ND 12, RE SPEC T I VELY. Though the idiosyncratic quintet didn’t garner most accolades until a few years after disbanding, its founders and cohorts all have gone onto productive, overlapping careers.

Tim has been the force behind Joan of Arc; Mike has released six solo albums as Owen; and both regularly collaborate with a small army, including cousin Nate Kinsella (Birthmark), Sam Zurick (Owls), Bobby Burg (Make Believe), and Victor Villarreal.

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NO JOURNALISTS ALLOWED Cross-examination with the brothers behind Joan of Arc and Owen

Here the brothers take turns questioning each other about being musicians, coming off like an asshole, and feeling your age.

MIKE ASKS TIM TAP BUTTONS to switch INTERVIEWs

TIM ASKS MIKE

Mike: Do you feel your age?

Mike: Do you think that people think

Tim: I feel 15 years older than my age. I did

you’re an asshole just because your music is challenging?

just sleep with a 24-year-old girl, and then I realized that the age difference between us is the difference between me and a 50-year-old. If I’m an okay sex partner for her and I’m 13 years older than her, then why can’t I feel like a 50-year-old?

Mike: What is your least favorite Joan of

Arc era?

Tim: Well, there was the first practice for

the Boo! Human tour. There were so many different people on that record, and then we were like, “Okay, here’s the tour dates.

Who wants to come?” And everyone who wrote back was like, “Yeah! I’m in.” And we showed up and had a guitar, a conga, and two synthesizers. So that one afternoon, we were like, “Well, let’s see how it goes.” We tried playing as many songs as we could.

Mike: That’s how much you differ from

me: you got through that whole practice before you were like, “We gotta do something.”

Tim: I was super psyched. Wouldn’t you

be so happy if it worked?

Tim: “What gives you the right?” That’s a

term that makes me really excited when I see a band. I get so excited because it’s so life affirming to be like, “You can do that?

Who knew you could do that?”—which would have been like the conga/two-synthesizers lineup.

I went to see Neil Michael Hagerty a few years ago. I see him every couple years, and every time I leave the show thinking, “Holy shit. That’s the worst shit I ever saw.” And then a month later, I’m like, “Oh, my god, did he do that?” I saw him at the Double Door eight years ago and— no one there—the opening band is a jazz trio he hired to do covers of Royal Trux songs. So he has a jazz combo playing his old band’s songs to open for his show, and he shows up and his band gets up there— and he’s this ultimate guitar shredder—and he’s playing bass, and he’s playing bass solos high up on the neck the whole time. That’s his set. That’s daring.

But that’s not the what-gives-you-theright thing. I’m talking about some young band that makes you re-imagine the potential of things.

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QUEENS OF ROCK

DORIS YEH BAND: Chthonic LOCATION: Taipei, Taiwan GENRE: Symphonic black/ death metal INSTRUMENT: Bass TAP BUTTON TO lISTEN

Chthonic: “Takao” from Takasago Army (Spinefarm)

TEXT BY SCOTT MORROW / PHOTOS BY MICHAEL ROBERT WILLIAMS

QUEENS OF ROCK

Since the late 1990s, Hsiang-Yi “Doris” Yeh has served as the leader and bassist of Chthonic, a Taiwanese metal outfit that utilizes the traditional Asian erhu.

The band shreds, but its members have a more important mission: supporting internationally recognized independence for Taiwan from the People’s Republic of China. The members have been a voice for Tibetan freedom as well—vocalist Freddy Lim, who doubles as the chairman of Amnesty International Asia Pacific, met with the Dalai Lama in 2009 in advance of a “Free Tibet” benefit concert—and they remain outspoken in support of the Uyghur people of China.

That would be solid enough as a day job, but Ms. Yeh, who has appeared on the cover of GQ Taiwan, also moonlights as a sex symbol. Maybe China should rethink that whole blacklisting thing…

Q

What difficulties have you faced as a woman in a metal band?

Changing clothes! As a girl, you always need privacy to change or do makeup, but you can’t do it like boys do in the dressing room. So I always need to find a “toilet” to do this. If the toilet is clean, then I’m lucky, but if the toilet and floor are gross, then it makes me feel bad for a whole day.

Q

What excites you about adding erhu to extreme metal?

In our music, there’s always some sad part of the song, and the hena (erhu in Taiwanese) is like having something magical to elaborate so many complicated emotions that we can’t express by normal instruments.

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LIFE ON THE ROAD

OTHER LIVES TAP BUTTON TO lISTEN

Other Lives: “For 12”

Text by Michael Danaher Photos by Aaron Farley

LIFE ON THE ROAD

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or the better part of 2011, Stillwater, Oklahoma’s Other Lives toured the United States and Europe in support of its enchanting sophomore effort, Tamer Animals. The record—one of our favorites from last year—took the ghostly, orchestrated folk pop of the band’s debut to an entirely new level, harboring haunted melodies, wistful lyrics, deftly layered instrumentation, and unorthodox chamber-pop arrangements.

Taking nearly 14 months to complete, Tamer Animals has become the quintet’s crowning achievement. So this year, the band has taken a well-deserved victory lap with even more touring, including a series of dates opening for Radiohead. The following pages offer a glimpse of the trials and tribulations of life on the road, as answered by lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Tablish, who tells us about his favorite gig, essential traveling music, and a near-death experience.

LIFE ON THE ROAD

LIFE ON THE ROAD

“I’m sure we’ll tire of [the record] someday, but we’re thankful that we’ve been able to play it for seven moths straight and still enjoy it each night.”

Which albums are in the tour-bus/van rotation?

Colourmusic’s My ___ Is Pink and Timber Timbre’s Creep On Creepin’ On. What’s the farthest you’ve had to travel in one day?

The farthest distance would be from LA to London, but what felt like the farthest would be the time we drove from the northeast to Oklahoma, only stopping for gas. I think it was, like, 32 hours.

What are your most essential tour snacks and beverages?

Water and fruit. We try to keep it somewhat healthy.

Have you ever missed a show because of traveling?

We’ve been lucky. We only missed one show [in 2011] out of the seven months of touring. Our van broke down in the Bronx, and it wasn’t a little fix, so it took a few days.

What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you while on tour?

The craziest thing would have to be when I was woken by a taxi that crashed into the room directly next door to mine in Portland.

The taxi driver suffered some medical emergency and ran straight into the room, running over the man sleeping inside, critically injuring him. So awful.

How much of 2012 is devoted to touring?

We started in February and plan on being out most of the year, with the exception of a few weeks off somewhere in the middle.

What’s your favorite venue to play at?

LIFE ON THE ROAD

The first show we ever played on this record was in our recording studio. We brought in a PA and had about 100 friends and family cram in there to listen to the record performed in the place it was created. It was very memorable and one of our favorites.

Have any venues stiffed you?

ence. People seem to take something away from it, so it gives purpose to us playing each night outside of our own enjoyment.

Other Lives shows are such an intimate experience, which has translated well to the smaller venues. How do you plan to bring that personable feel to arenas and larger venues?

Not that we know of!

What was the first thing that you did when you found out you’d be opening for Radiohead?

Smiled.

The live show is always a work in progress.

We’re constantly thinking of any possible improvements we can make. We’re definitely going to spend a lot of time making improvements in several areas for the bigger shows, but ultimately, we’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing live, regardless of the room size.

Given the wear and tear that touring can have on a band, how have you managed to keep going and performing up to par?

What’s your biggest accomplishment at this point in your career?

I think it’s because we still like playing the record. I’m sure we’ll tire of it someday, but we’re thankful that we’ve been able to play for seven months straight and still enjoy it each night. The other part of it is the audi-

I would have to say the completion of this last record. We put more time into Tamer Animals than we’ve ever put into anything else in our lives, and we loved doing it. I’ll never forget the feeling of finally finishing the record.

“We put more time into Tamer Animals than we’ve ever put into anything else in our lives, and we loved doing it.“

LIFE ON THE ROAD

Where better to start a mini-tour than The Crepe Place? Following an opening comedy act by singer Jesse Tablish’s uncle, the band sets up in front of the Santa Cruz establishment’s bar, where patrons had snacked just an hour prior.

LIFE ON THE ROAD

LIFE ON THE ROAD

Despite the snug spaces, Other Lives squeezes in all its gear— timpani included.

LIFE ON THE ROAD

LIFE ON THE ROAD

After stopping at a music shop to grab a few supplies, Other Lives packs into the tour van and hits the road for San Francisco. With gear in tow, the band arrives at the hotel— where it takes a good 10 minutes to back into a parking area with two inches of maneuverability.

LIFE ON THE ROAD

LIFE ON THE ROAD

LIFE ON THE ROAD

LIFE ON THE ROAD

A quick rest is all the band can afford before making its way to CafÊ du Nord, a live-music venue in the Upper Market district’s Swedish-American building, featuring Victorian interiors and a hand-carved mahogany bar.

LIFE ON THE ROAD

LIFE ON THE ROAD

LIFE ON THE ROAD

Another night, another amazing show—this one totally sold out and full of concertgoers singing along. The band anticipates a rare day off before trekking to the Pacific Northwest.

The New Model

TEXT BY SCOTT MORROW photos BY NATHANAEL TURNER

From her historic LA headquarters, Cathy Pellow of Sargent House is redefining the management-label relationship 1 of 6

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amed after the historic home where its offices reside, Sargent House isn’t your ordinary music company. It’s a management company but also a record label—and houses a PR company (US/Them Group), a video-production site (Terroreyes TV), and, now, a licensing and music-supervision division (1656 Music).

Situated between Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles, Sargent House is all of these things, and its owner and founder, Cathy Pellow, isn’t your ordinary businessperson either. From her beginnings as a 20-yearold representing fashion photographers in New York, to her role as a film producer and talent-boutique owner, to creating a musictelevision show and commissioning videos for Island and Atlantic Records, Pellow holds an unusual pedigree for an indie-label head.

Her business acumen has followed to Sargent House, which she began in 2006 as a means to release an album by RX Bandits, a band that she managed and continues to manage.

From there, it’s been one ever-expanding family, working with bands such as Hella, Fang Island, and Russian Circles and acting

as a parent label for Rodriguez Lopez Productions and Ireland’s Richter Collective.

The house itself has as much personality as those who live, stay, and work there—vinyl, memorabilia, and miniature dogs are scattered throughout the four-story abode, where dozens of bands have crashed for a few nights or spent a stretch “in residence.”

Perhaps literally, Sargent House and its many offshoots have absorbed the energy of their founder.

How does your interaction on social media separate Sargent House from other labels?

I think it’s what completely separates us from every label out there. This label is run by people—really passionate and sincere people. We’re not some corporate-sanctioned label, saying, “You’re hired, and here’s the band you work on. You listen to Rihanna, but you’re going to work on Deafheaven.”

I talk about my bands non-stop, because they’re genuinely my favorite bands. But it’s sad that I’m the only label that will re-tweet something from 4AD about XY band because I like that band. Why wouldn’t I want to help spread the word about this great music?

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What challenges have you faced as a woman in a maledominated industry?

It’s funny, because I started my first company when I was 20 years old; I represented fashion photographers and stylists in New York. Everyone’s gay or a woman [in that industry] anyway, so there was no discrimination. Then I became a film producer, and so many of the best producers are women because we’re organized; our brains think in a different way, and we’re super nurturing. I hear a lot of the time [in the music industry], “You should never have a woman manager.” And I’m like, “Why? Because they might actually care about something beyond how much money you’re going to make them?”

It wasn’t until I got into music that I ever experienced the “boys’ club.” I can unequivocally say that I think Sargent House would be included on a lot more things like “the best indie labels of Los Angeles,” which I see a million times, and it’s all labels that don’t even put out records. But I think it’s also because I’m pretty vocal and people are super freaked out.

It always sucks when I hear all the time—and it’s always people who have never met me—“I hear she’s insane; she’s a bitch.” And it’s like, “No.” Insane? I’m insane because I’m passionate?

Do your beginnings in video and film give you a different perspective on artist management, album releases, or promotion?

An incredibly different perspective, because I came into it having worked with all these major labels—not just making videos for them, I then started commissioning for them. So I’m in on marketing meetings on the new artist Gnarls Barkley and how we’re going to roll it out.

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A Look Inside Sargent House With wrought-iron gates, black-and-white tiled stairs, a glass room, and 360-degree views, the four-story Sargent House has as much character as its inhabitants.

Photos by Chase Ortega

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Major labels—it’s not that they’re evil. I became a label because I managed bands that signed shitty, little indie deals, and I was like, “Really?

If all you’re getting is three grand and then they own your master, I’ll give you six.”

That’s such bullshit to sell your whole fucking life for. I do know the inner workings of waste and just how stupidly major labels can be run, but I also saw really clever and smart people there and the access they had. It forged great relationships for me. I could get this brand to put some beer in one of my videos and get 20 grand to pay for it. It made me see the different possibilities that they have access to.

Having a production company was a hugely valuable asset. Being able to go make a video in my backyard—that was just as good as the one I charged 100 grand for some other band with the same exact director—was a huge advantage for my bands. We could go shoot a glass-room session in my house, and that would become a great tool.

How is Sargent House’s financial model more beneficial to its bands?

The biggest difference with Sargent House—and I think it’s something really important to make clear—[is that] I don’t just put out records. I manage bands and put those records out. I manage bands first and foremost. Sargent House is a company that chooses artists we believe in and [whose careers] we want to be involved with. That career may involve us putting out your record, and then we will be partners on that record. Or it may be to sign you to a major label, because I just got an amazing deal that is beyond what we could offer for you, and I’ll continue to manage you there or I won’t.

People say, “You have so many bands. How do you manage so many bands?” Because I don’t spend 90% of my time shopping them to get a record deal or arguing with the label to try to get stuff. That is 90% of what takes up time in other managers’ lives.

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“Bands who are told they have to pay $7.85 for their own record, a lot of times they don’t even take CDs [on tour] because they can’t afford to buy them from their own label. That’s fucked up and wrong, and that’s everything I stand against.”

What do you say to those who view the combined management company / record label as a conflict of interest?

I really don’t get it at all anymore, because we’ve proven ourselves. When lawyers see our deals, they’re like, “Wow. I’ve never seen anything like this.” There are certain things we do in the contract that are so geared toward helping the band, especially touring.

Our contracts are [such that] every time you go on tour, you get five free CDs per day. If you go on a 20-day tour, we give you 100 free CDs—we just gave you $1,000. From a managerial perspective, that’s me going, “Hey, this is the cheapest, most cost-effective way to serve so many purposes.” One, I’m going to financially subsidize and help the band by giving them $1,000—which didn’t cost me $1,000; it cost me $100—and I’m going to have 100 more people with that CD in their

houses. Whereas bands who are told they have to pay $7.85 for their own record, a lot of times they don’t even take CDs because they can’t afford to buy them from their own label. That’s fucked up and wrong, and that’s everything I stand against.

What else should the music industry take from the Sargent House model?

Sign stuff you believe in. Don’t follow trends.

If you look at who’s still standing from 30 years ago, none of it is commercial bullshit.

It may be commercial now, but Bob Dylan is still here; Bruce Springsteen is still here; U2 is still here. Yes, they’re massively rich, but they started as legitimate and honest and real rock bands that were unique to everyone else at the time that they started. Quality and uniqueness are the only things that sustain over time.

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BATTLES

in the clu b Remixes & the Art of the B-Side

Story By Saby Reyes-Kulkarni Photos By Jason Frank Rothenberg

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Battles: “Ice Cream”

I

f the appeal of a cover tune rests on an artist’s ability to emulate a preexisting song and bring new flavors to it at the same time, then the remix is something of an estranged relative.

With remixes, the implicit goal is to stretch an existing piece of music as far as it can possibly go. Remixers are thus encouraged to let their musical personality eclipse the composer’s.

They are essentially hired to take risks, to reconstitute, and to deconstruct—even altogether ignore—the mood, structure, and musical components with which they’ve been given to work. The end results often qualify as works of art unto themselves, yet they also exist more or less as novelty items. Arguably, few remixes connect with more than a limited niche audience—even for fans of groups like Massive Attack and Depeche Mode—and the thought of a group of remixes working together within the larger framework of a fulllength album remains an anomaly.

But that isn’t stopping experimental rock trio Battles from trying.

other hand, they can be good if you’re patient about the process.”

As a companion to last year’s Gloss Drop, the inversely titled Dross Glop consists entirely of Gloss Drop music reworked by the likes of Kode9, Shabazz Palaces, Gang Gang Dance, The Field, and Gui Boratto. Given the band’s unpredictable creative trajectory to this point, it’s no surprise that Williams and his bandmates, guitarist / bassist / art director Dave Konopka and drummer John Stanier, have released something to induce head-scratching among existing fans and electronica fans alike.

Stacked with propulsive grooves, the highly rhythmic Gloss Drop surely would have made suitable fodder for breakbeats and a conventional dance-floor makeover. Indeed, the new album does contain some perversely appealing moments that illustrate what a “Battles in the club”type culture clash would sound like.

But Dross Glop wasn’t conceived as an overt stab at contemporary dance cred along the lines of U2’s Pop.

“We thought about it as something “Remixes can be tricky,” muses that would exist in the club and Battles guitarist/keyboardist Ian dance world,” Williams explains, Williams. “A lot of them suck, so “but we’re also going for something we’re going about making a re- that’s weirder than that. There are so mix record knowing that. In some many different subcultures involved ways, they’re cheap, but on the in this kind of thing.

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“I love smaller doses of music, rather than making this one grand statement.”

There’s the dance world, which can be rate 12-inch singles and slated for release really cheesy, but then there’s a cooler, on a staggered schedule leading up to more indie version of that. It’s a matter Record Store Day 2012. (Writing for the of ‘who are you making the music for?’” next studio offering is scheduled to beIt’s a rhetorical question, but the an- gin this year as well.) According to both swer is, apparently, not any single Williams and Konopka, the band investaudience. The band selected a crop ed considerable time and thought into of remixers who would bring dis- its plan to unveil the material in phases. parate points of view to the table. “The first 12-inch is a banger,” Konopka “I like juxtapositions,” Williams says. says. “It comes out of the gate pretty “The more wild and disjointed a con- strong with some awesome techno stuff. nection is, sometimes I like that. I know The second one has more of a hip-hopin the world of dance music, there’s y vibe to it. The third one has more of a a sense of keeping the BPM flow- super-minimal Berlin-style techno thing ing, but I like ruptures. My two band- going on, and then the last one is totally mates tend to favor continuity. When out-there stuff.” you group things, you can have three blue things, three red things, and three “I think,” he continues, “that it makes it green things, etc., but I tend to advo- more interesting for a fan to do it that cate for jumping from hot into cold.” way. At least it does from my perspective.

Back in the day, the idea of the EP was

Prior to being assembled into a full- to leak out music and break it up a little length running order, the remixes were bit. I love smaller doses of music, rather grouped according to style as four sepa- than making this one grand statement.”

L

isteners who do intend to digest these remixes in one sitting should prepare to cover a broad range of musical terrain.

But if Battles is known for its almost subversive ability to tap into a musical language that exists free of genre, Williams and Konopka aren’t taking any credit this time around. Certainly, the band helped curate the group of artists who took part, but Williams and Konopka stress that they had no direct input in the way that the various remixers went about their tasks— other than occasional back-and-forth dialogue—and that they were content to play the role of observers.

“With the guest vocalists on Gloss Drop,” Konopka recalls, “it was more like, ‘I like where you’re going with that. We’ll move the song around’ and ‘Can you try this?’ But with remixes, it is what it is. We wanted a scope of artists. In choosing the scope of the artists, you’re also blueprinting the scope of the album as well. But when it comes down to the actual remix itself, I don’t think it’s that important to shape somebody’s vision. It’s kind of not our place to do that. The fact that someone’s willing to participate and do a remix for you is flattering enough.”

As such, some of Dross Glop falls more closely within established boundaries than Battles fans may come to expect. Still, even in residual traces, the

band’s oft-heralded oddness manages to shine through. More compellingly, some of the new interpretations bear no resemblance whatsoever to their original counterparts. Without a look at the track listing, listeners at times will be hard-pressed to match what they’re hearing with a specific tune from Gloss Drop.

In the hands of The Field (Axel Willner), for example, the playful bounce that defines “Sweetie & Shag” dissipates into an ominous, zero-gravity haze. Likewise, it’s hard to draw any discernable connection between the scurrying guitar and keyboard lines at the center of “Wall Street” and the melodramatic fashion-runway disco that Brazilian producer Gui Boratto presents in its name. Going in another direction entirely, Seattle hiphop group Shabazz Palaces turns the driving, melancholic “White Electric” (along with its carnival-esque coda) into an acid-fried backdrop for a foul-mouthed rap. Though instantly recognizable, Williams’ organ phrases from the original now sound as if a rapping cult of gremlins from Funkadelic’s home planet raided the studio and had their way with the console in the middle of the night.

“Gloss Drop had a lot of sonic stuff going on,” Williams says, “so there were so many things for a remixer to focus on. Gloss Drop is sort of a maximal record, and you can do a minimal take

on a maximal piece. It was interesting to “I can say,” Williams says, “that I’m insee which little snapshots each remixer terested in the idea of doing all-anachose to focus on. A remixer might keep log for the next thing. For the last reshooting until they grab the right thing cord, I played with three laptops all to build the song around. One guy was the time. I’m finding a pure analog having the hardest time; he couldn’t fig- sound-stream to be sexy. That would ure out how to do the remix. He finally be very liberating for me in some ways.” latched onto the right minute piece of the song and built a whole new song out And how much should we expect to hear guest vocals next time? “I don’t know,” of that.”

Williams answers. “That remains to be It’s not inconceivable that the remixes seen.” could become source material too. If any of them were to get in the hands of adven- “I haven’t really given that too much turous DJs and turntablists, the original thought,” Konopka concedes. “I like the tracks would take on yet another life. So ratio of vocals-to-instrumentals that we there’s no telling what their next stage of had on the past albums. I would be okay creative evolution might sound like. And leaning either way; I just don’t want an evolution, after all, has been at the core album full of guest vocalists. We were reof Battles—whether transitioning to the ally reluctant to go full-on instrumental poppy, vocalized tracks of Mirrored or after Ty left. I think we can exist in both adapting to life as a trio following the worlds.” departure of Tyondai Braxton. So, naturally, there’s no telling what the next Bat- For Battles, dual existence only seems tles studio offering will sound like either. fitting—much like a remix.

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THE DEATH OF A DICTATOR For ten years, Omar Rodriguez Lopez has ruled The Mars Volta with an iron fist.

Now he’s relinquishing that power and eager to make music fun again.

Story by Timothy A. Schuler Photos by Aaron Farley Cover photo by tim cadiente

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Omar Rodriguez Lopez: “Asco Que Conmueve Los Puntos Erógenos”

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For the past ten years, when not on tour, mastermind guitarist Omar Rodriguez Lopez has been holed up in Mexico, in a once-abandoned mansion in Zapopan, 600 miles south of the US/Mexico border. It’s there, in the studio that he built himself, that he has written nearly all the music for the 30-some albums he has put out since 2003. Most people know Rodriguez Lopez as the fast-fingered, left-handed guitarist from The Mars Volta, alongside front-man Cedric Bixler Zavala—or as the afroed kid from At the Drive-In, the influential posthardcore band that, in 2000, spread from El Paso, Texas, like a radioactive blast just months before it broke up. They may not know him as a single-minded, authoritarian despot who’s been labeled—fairly, he says—as “Little Hitler.”

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H

e’s not a death-dealing antiSemite, but the prolific Grammy winner is a perfectionist who often cares more for his projects than for the people around him.

He doesn’t ask for opinions, and he doesn’t allow his bandmates in the mixing room. He kicked his own brothers and their girlfriends out of their house while shooting his 2009 film, The Sentimental Engine Slayer, in his hometown of El Paso because he wanted to use the house that they were renting. And some who’ve played in The Mars Volta have joked, not kindly, that he should add an “O” to his famous band’s name and make it Omar’s Volta.

of these,’ I had to take eight. And then when I got sober, I wanted nothing in my body except a vegetable and a protein. For whatever reason, I work in extremes. I wore a threepiece suit for fucking five years straight, every day.”

Like that suit—which was actually three of the same kind—Rodriguez Lopez obsessively uses things until they wear him down, or vice versa. He wore the suit ragged and

“I’ve always had a problem with extremes.”

Despite his tendency toward tactlessness, Rodriguez Lopez lately has struggled to win the tug-of-war between self-obsession and selflessness. In this way, he’s not much different than the average person—just a more extreme version. This follows the trajectory of his life—35 years that have seen him go from one extreme to the other.

“I’ve always had a problem with extremes,” Rodriguez Lopez admits. “When I was a drug addict, I was an extreme drug addict. I was the one who did the most, went the furthest out. If somebody said, ‘Only take two

eventually threw it away. He’s been known to do the same with musicians.

But Rodriguez Lopez, who also leads the acclaimed Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group, seems to have reached the end of his reign— by his own choosing. Like a dictator who has built impenetrable walls around himself, he’s feeling the weight of the power he wields. “I spent eight years in a collaborative band, in At The Drive-In,” he says. “And we had a meeting for everything, for the shade of fucking yellow on the album. It was like,

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‘Jesus. Fuck that. I don’t want to collaborate.’

So now I’ve done 10 years of The Mars Volta, of having it all my way, and I’m like, ‘God, this is not fun.’”

His method, for both The Mars Volta and each of his solo records, used to be this: Write every part of the songs—drums, key-

board, bass, guitar, and anything else he wanted to add. When the songs were done, fly the musicians down to Mexico. The lineup changed over the years, but whoever it was, Rodriguez Lopez forced them to record their parts without rehearsing them. He says that he didn’t want them “intellectualizing” the music, so he devised a method of record-

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ing where they would be forced to “abandon all that shit” and go for the life raft. “Just that pure primal instinct of survive, you know?” he says. “Sink or swim.” Because the studio time was paid for, he effectively had a gun to the musicians’ heads; they had to play his music his way or leave.

O

ver the years, this brutal method took its toll, alienating many of Rodriguez Lopez’s friends and collaborators, including Bixler Zavala. Realizing this impact, Rodriguez Lopez now plans to usher in a new era.

“I don’t want to be a dictator all my life,” he says. “It’s no way to live. I make these records, I shape them, they’re all laid down and recorded, and I hand it over to [Cedric] and he sings on top of it. But that’s not a true collaboration. A true collaboration is where you write together. And we’ve never done that.

I’m used to being the little kid who gets to hold the ball—the little greedy kid. So all of a sudden I have to learn to play with others.”

When he says this, he isn’t intending it literally, but he might as well be. After 11 years of silence, At the Drive-In reunited this spring, joining each other on stage at Coachella before several other festivals this summer. A decade ago, it would’ve been hard for Rodriguez Lopez to imagine this moment. The band’s breakup was sudden and fatal. One

day, without ever having voiced his growing frustrations, Rodriguez Lopez snapped. “I was like, ‘You know what? I’m out. I’m done with this,’” he says. He walked away and took Bixler Zavala with him. This wasn’t an ordinary break up; At the Drive-In’s dissolution had very real ramifications, beyond the despair of ardent fans and Rodriguez Lopez’s relationship with members Tony Hajjar, Paul Hinojos, and Jim Ward. Like dominos, a distribution deal for Beastie Boy Mike D’s record label fell through because it had been based on his signing At the Drive-In. The label, Grand Royal, folded shortly after.

“I don’t want to be a dictator all my life. It’s no way to live.”

As the years wore on, At the Drive-In’s “indefinite hiatus” seemed much more definite, making this year’s announcement a complete shock. So why get back together now?

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renaissance man It’s hard to believe that Rodriguez Lopez could have more on his plate, but the tireless guitarist and composer also has become a filmmaker, director, and screenwriter, most recently premiering his self-penned Los Chidos at SXSW 2012.

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“You know, people change,” Rodriguez Lopez says. “People grow up. For everybody else, it’s a surprise, but for us, we’ve hung out. We patched up our differences about three years ago.” Plus, Coachella had been trying to get At the Drive-In for years.

Until this year, Rodriguez Lopez was the lone holdout, but as with his process of recording, he has started thinking about what other people want. “We like each other, and we were being offered money,” he says. “If anyone doesn’t understand that, I don’t know how much simpler to make it.”

Meanwhile, Rodriguez Lopez has kept busy (well, busier) with the self-named Rodriguez Lopez Productions (RLP), an imprint of Los Angeles management company and record label Sargent House. It releases just about everything that the fruitful artist yields—from

films like Los Chidos (which he wrote and directed and which premiered at this year’s SXSW) to seemingly infinite solo albums to collaborations with John Frusciante, Damo Suzuki, and Hans Zimmer. Cathy Pellow, who helms Sargent House and the business side of

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RLP, knows Rodriguez Lopez as well as anyone, and she believes that the At the Drive-In reunion has been a huge step for him. “I said to him, ‘Why don’t you do At the Drive-in?’”

Pellow recalls. “And he’s like, ‘I just can’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t now, especially.’ And I was like, ‘But the truth is: you owe it to them.

You were a dick.’”

Rodriguez Lopez admits this and more. “It was a very selfish way to end it,” he says of his abrupt departure. “I completely…turned my back on a bunch of friendships, all in the name of following my vision. And that’s bullshit, because you have to be accountable for shit. You have to be a human being.”

Rodriguez Lopez’s concession to Pellow is an example of how close the two have become since Pellow took RLP under her wing.

“Omar plays a huge role in my life,” she says.

“We’re very alike. We’re super creative, and we are dictators. I’ve been running my own company since I was 19 years old…and I’ve never worked for anyone but myself since.”

(As a quick but important aside, the RLP trinity is completed by Sonny Kay, the visual artist and original founder of Gold Standard Laboratories—the record label that was co-owned by Rodriguez Lopez and that co-released The Mars Volta’s De-Loused in the Comatorium. Kay is another trusted colleague, serving as creative director for RLP and creating nearly all of the album art for Rodriguez Lopez’s releases.)

Of course, the At the Drive-In reunion at Coachella wasn’t the only news of early 2012. Noctourniquet, the newest record from The Mars Volta, hit stores in late March, and despite its stylistic advancements—with, for example, an emphatic synth riff on “The Whip Hand” or some

“You have to be accountable for shit. You have to be a human being.” organic drum-and-bass beats on “In Absentia”—Rodriguez Lopez lumps it with its predecessors. “I’m not being a very good salesman about my own project,” he says with a laugh, “but Noctourniquet is more of the same. It’s the final piece of that era.”

He means the era of isolation, of totalitarian rule. Noctourniquet is the last Mars Volta record of its kind. From here on out, Rodriguez Lopez wants his musicians—for both The Mars Volta and The Omar Rodriguez Lopez

cover story 9/15 Group—to write their own parts. He imagines bringing skeletal song ideas to his bandmates and letting them add the flesh and bones.

The lineup probably won’t change, he says: Juan Alderete will remain his go-to bassist, his brother Marcel his choice for keyboards, and Deantoni Parks his pick for the intricate,

forceful drum parts. But as with any regime change, it can be hard to accept the new order—even when it’s good. “Juan asked me, ‘Is this a trick?’” Rodriguez Lopez recalls. “But you have to change in order to live. To stay the same is to die. So it’s either I change the rulebook, or we call it a day.”

THE TOTALITARIAN ERA

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Telesterion (Rodriguez Lopez Productions, 2011)

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THE POINT IS THE PROCESS Writing sick jams is well and good, but for Rodriguez Lopez, the point of creation is its process.

“A composer’s credit,” he says, “is really just saying, ‘I put [music] in a tangible form for you. I performed a function.’”

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W

hen Rodriguez Lopez is asked about something, he often ends up talking about something else. He constantly traces things to an antecedent. He draws a looping line, for instance, through several points on a world map, tracing the emigration that marked his childhood. Born in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, in 1976, Rodriguez Lopez moved at an early age to Puebla, Mexico; then to Columbia, South Carolina; and eventually to El Paso, a no-man’s land at Texas’ westernmost tip, where the state meets New Mexico and Mexico.

You can see El Paso’s influence on Rodriguez Lopez in nearly all his work, not just because it draws from both American and Latin culture but because of its in-betweenness. Many American minorities will tell you that they feel caught between two cultures, and though they try to walk the line, it’s often too fine to tread. Rodriguez Lopez says that this is what El Paso is like—it’s not Mexico, but it’s not Texas either. Coupled with the overt racism that he occasionally encountered on the road with At the DriveIn, Rodriguez Lopez inevitably exorcises his own issues of identity through his compositions. The Sentimental Engine Slayer, as one such example, is a pseudo-portrait of life for a young Latino in El Paso, dealing with issues of family, culture, and identity.

“The first thing that came to my mind was El Paso,” Rodriguez Lopez says of his influences for the film. “The Rings of Jupiter, the possibility of there being an inner world, you know, the whole ‘inner-Earth theory’— my genealogy and my family tree and the various sicknesses in there. Those are the things that influence my filmmaking, way beyond anything else.”

He hints here at the mysticism and spirituality that are a large part of his life. Rodriguez Lopez says that his faith, heritage, and creative process are, in ways, enmeshed—each affects the other. He says that mystic rituals remain a large part of his life, including a unique way of giving thanks: cooking. “I make a meal, and I put it outside by a tree, and I say, ‘God, thank you for every single meal you give me every night,’” he says.

“And by ‘God,’ you obviously know I don’t mean white, penis, hair…you know.” In other words, his God is not a King Triton-esque patriarch, but rather an amorphous entity full of mystery and power.

It’s similar to the way he views music, which to him is not something he creates but rather extracts. Music, ideas—they’re all flying around on different frequencies, fully formed and waiting for a conduit, like a radio, he says. A person receives something and transcribes it. “Now, I’ve had a life of being able to recognize how to grab it,” he says, “and I grab it and make it into a tangible form.

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But if I don’t grab it, someone else does. So composers, authors, whatever we are—it’s really just being lent to us, and we get to put our name on it. But like land, or like love,

“[Music] is really just being lent to us, and we get to put our name on it. But like land, or like love, it doesn’t belong to anybody—it belongs to everybody.”

it doesn’t belong to anybody—it belongs to everybody. A composer’s credit is really just saying, ‘I put it in a tangible form for you. I performed a function.’ Through that function, you have the process, and that’s the important thing. This all goes back to the same place: the process.”

Rodriguez Lopez is rare in that he doesn’t feel accomplished when an album is finally released. He says that the completion of a project is more like a funeral than a celebration, because the actual act of making a record is more fulfilling than shipping it off to record stores. Plus, his sheer prolificacy means that what’s released this year isn’t necessarily his most recent work—by the time an album comes out, he’s already on to the next thing. Noctourniquet, for instance, is three years old. Other albums are cobbled together from compositions that have been written years apart from one another. At any given time, there are approximately 600 tracks on his hard drive, any of which could be used for his next release. When asked how much music he records in a year that doesn’t get released, his answer is astounding: “I would say every year there’s, like, 8–15 records that don’t come out, that just sit in the vault.” That means in 2009, for every album that did get a release, there were at least two that didn’t.

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It’s difficult to do, but if you strip Rodriguez Lopez of his celebrity, his Grammy award, his guitar chops, his esoteric mania, and his magnetism, what you’re left with is someone who really just never lost his childlike fascination with things. “It’s as simple as this: you get too excited sometimes,” he says. He describes a hypothetical road trip with a group of friends: there’s always one person who has everything planned out—where to stay, who to see, which clubs to hit. And they often become the de-facto leader. “They don’t mean to be annoying,” he says. “They’re just really excited about that road trip.” He says he’s been that person his entire life.

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I

f this seems overly simplistic, it is. But it’s telling as well. It explains his work ethic and the frenetic nature of his music and why he waffles from one extreme to the other. There is, however, a sense of penance in Rodriguez Lopez’s pronounced emphasis on humility and “being a human being,” as if he’s attempting to undo a decade of selfishness. Yet Pellow is quick to point out something others have missed: “The reality is that he’s honest,” she says, explaining that a lot of bands operate more similarly to The Mars Volta than people would suspect. “They just don’t have balls to say, ‘He writes everything...and we just come in and play what he tells us to,’” she says.

Pellow might be right. Rodriguez Lopez saw something of himself in Teresa Suárez, known onstage as Teri Gender Bender, as she dragged her Mexican garage-punk band, Le Butcherettes, onto the dark stage of a club in Guadalajara one night a few years ago. The electricity had gone out, but Le Butcherettes powered through their set anyway, without sound equipment or lights. Rodriguez Lopez says that it was clear from watching them that the project was solely Suárez’s, that she led the band the way that he led The Mars Volta. Soon after Rodriguez Lopez and Suárez met, Le Butcherettes joined the RLP family, which released the band’s debut fulllength, Sin Sin Sin, in 2011.

Unlike Suárez, who is 22 years old and on the cusp of her career, Rodriguez Lopez has an entire history behind him. He’s nat-

“I had to be persistent. I had to have will power.

I had to have passion. Those are things I can apply in my life.” urally more introspective, in part thanks to partners like Pellow, Kay, and Bixler Zavala.

Music, too, has taught him about the person he hopes one day to be. In fact, he places little value on music itself. “[Rolling Stone] put me on the cover of a magazine, and they want to talk about guitar playing,” he says.

“But that’s useless to me. Being a good guitar player does not get me anywhere in my spirit. But what I can use is the process, what I learned. I had to be patient to sit down and play guitar. I had to be persistent. I had to have will power. I had to have passion.

Those are things I can apply in my life. I can be patient with my father. I can be willful with my mother. Those are real tools. The playing-guitar part, the end result, that’s interchangeable.”

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This mindset, once a fledgling notion, now guides the way that Rodriguez Lopez wants to make music. He’s after a type of fulfillment that takes into account all the people in his life. He says, in the end, that working this way always did make him happiest. “That’s why I like scoring films, or producing a record for Le Butcherettes: I’m a collaborator, I’m not the source,” he says.

“And I think that’s where I do my best work, when I’m a part of something.”

If this is true, the music of this new era might ruthless dictator but as a relentless artist— exceed anything that came before it, and Ro- one who relinquished much of the power driguez Lopez may be remembered not as a he’d acquired.

ALBUM PROFILES PROFILES MESHUGGAH THE MAGNETIC FIELDS EARTH PELICAN TRAILER TRASH TRACYS EVYING KANG MARRIAGES MUNICIPAL WASTE LIBERTEER SIGH ANDROMEDA MEGA EXPRESS ORCHESTRA

EDITOR’S PICK: MESHUGGAH

ALBUM PROFILES 1 of 11

EDITOR’S PICK

MESHUGGAH Koloss (Nuclear Blast)

Connectivity and the Colossus: Sweden’s metal mavens on alternate musical pathways TAP BUTTON TO LISTEN

Meshuggah: “Do Not Look Down”

Photo by Anthony Dubois

T

he average brain of an adult human has 100 to 500 trillion synapses. Each new electric impulse, each wrinkle that develops in our minds, leads to our understanding of the world around us. How this is done is still a mystery, and our experience of music is at the forefront of this complex puzzle. Somewhere between vibrations in the air hitting our eardrums and memory, we each confront and interpret the sounds of our surroundings and perceive the phenomenon of music—that which is made of rhythm, pitch, timbre, and dynamics.

Formed in 1987 in the northern Swedish city of Umeå, Meshuggah has reached for new musical experiences and new conceptual understandings of the phenomenon of metal for the better part of 25 years. The band’s impulses and constantly shifting approaches to making brutal, esoteric music are instinctively multi-rhythmic and uncompromising. Over the course of eight stunning albums and various other releases, the gentlemen of the “djent” subgenre have adopted and abandoned labels like thrash, death, and math metal.

All labels, in fact, should be discarded; this is an experience best felt without restrictions and identifiers. For if our minds are to fully perceive and interpret, it must go deeper than our linguistic understanding of popular concepts.

There may be no better starting point to revolutionize the abstraction that we call metal than Meshuggah’s merciless new record, Koloss. Containing and manipulating elements from myriad sub-genres, the album marks Meshuggah’s return to the front lines of experimental and extreme metal, a spot that the group has occupied since its early days of blending potentially ill-fitting pieces together.

As the rhythmic foundation of Meshuggah, drummer Tomas Haake has been integral to the group’s style since 1990. Haake himself has become an influence and is considered one of the top performers by his peers and critics. His defining use of polyrhythms (the simultaneous use of two individual rhythms) and his devastating tempo changes and compound timing make Haake one of the most mesmerizing percussionists playing today. Though he maintains that he works around simple 4/4 structures, the kind found in most popular music, his rabid take on metered percussion is anything but simple. And more than anyone, Haake understands the importance of rhythmical and stylistic advancement to Meshuggah.

“Our strength as a band is that we are always searching for that something new,” he says, “a different take that is still within the frame-

“Our strength as a band is that we are always searching for that something new, a different take that is still within the framework of our signature sound. We always want people to be able to put on a Meshuggah record and recognize it as ours, but we never want to stay in one place, or exist in one category.” work of our signature sound. We always want people to be able to put on a Meshuggah record and recognize it as ours, but we never want to stay in one place, or exist in one category. People are always trying to compartmentalize us, but we can’t be caught up in that.”

Very early on, Meshuggah was known for its intense tempos and fusions in style, merging the extreme end of metal with a Metallica influence for a punishing blend. But the band’s sound soon became unlike anything in this world or beyond, as its unique sense of rhythm and dueling down-tuned riffs (from specially made seven- and then eight-string guitars) became permanent fixtures. That evolution hasn’t been easy, according to Haake, who describes the process of creating each new album as almost torturous—yet necessary for continued growth.

“With every album, you try to renew yourself, and it gets harder every time,” he says. “As the years go on, there’s less time to sit down and take things in and think about stuff.

“Koloss really has a lot of different things going on,” Haake continues, describing the band’s first album since ObZen in 2008. “It’s much more collaborative, everyone adding little pieces to every song. With this record, we were going for something with a bit more space between the hits. It’s a little groovier, with less of the staccato guitars and more tricky tempos.”

Indeed, Koloss contains many moments that break from or are rare within Meshuggah’s 25-year history. The album’s second track, “The Demon’s

Name is Surveillance,” is a return to the speed of the band’s formative years, only with math riffs that are more plainly counted. (In one instance, 3-3 / 3-6 / 3-9.) The next song, “Do Not Look Down,” unleashes a shredding solo that Haake describes as “Meshuggah goes rock and roll,” and closing track “The Last Vigil” is completely devoid of percussion and distortion, instead consisting of glistening, spacey guitars in a free-floating haze.

Of course, the album holds many identifiable Meshuggah marks as well.

“Behind the Sun” lives in a low-end growl, “Marrow” steeps in staggering syncopation, and “Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave it Motion” is a steadily chugging beast, written during the ObZen sessions. But even “Break Those Bones…” takes a break from the band’s conventions, letting the bass handle all the distortion for a stretch.

Throughout the 10 tracks, the band combines its breakneck pacing and menacing atmospheres to register on a deeper, more visceral level. There are more differences in tempo and riff range—including an expanded and higher palette for the low-end melodies. On the surface, it may sound like a musical mismatch, but the shifting expressions only make it more engaging to the mind. “It’s a good mix and a bit more diverse artistically,” Haake says.

“Not every song being super tuned down means that those songs will have more of an impact, and the music pops out more.”

In addition to the influential drummer, Meshuggah is comprised of founding members Jens Kidman (vocals) and Fredrik Thordendal (guitar) as well as longtime members Mårten Hagström (guitar) and Dick Lövgren (bass).

Working from its home studio, the band records and produces its material in a veritable bubble, minimally aware of outside influences and invariably focused on its own high standards. But beyond this, its songwriting process isn’t quite the norm. Typically, different members will write parts or map out complete songs on a computer—a practice that the band began in the late 1990s.

For Koloss, though the initial process began much the same way, the songs were arranged or altered with a greater group dynamic. Each member wrote at least some part of Koloss individually, but Haake notes that the band tried to find solutions to the songs together. Furthermore, Haake credits Kidman, who acts as a standalone vocalist but still plays guitar, with a larger share of the work, and he singles out Thordendal as the album’s MVP.

“Fredrik [Thordendal] was really the spider in the web on this album,” he says. “He really coordinated the work, figuring which take to use or [which] guitar track needs to be redone.”

Thematically, Koloss is not a record concerned with narrative and message as much as it is an exploration of impulse and action. Haake, who acts as primary lyricist, writes only when inspiration grabs hold. “The lyrics on this album are from three or four years of writings,” he says. “What I thought two years ago is different from where I am today in my head.”

Even the Swedish word koloss, for colossus, is less about specific images and more about the overall enormity of the record’s tone and style.

And enormity, of course, has been at the band’s core since its inception.

Broad in scope and open in interpretation, Koloss is both Meshuggah’s most accessible album and most complex. After all, the infinitely possible connections and intrinsic artistic perceptions that crafted the album—the synapses working in tandem—are as mysterious as anything in the known universe, and so singular as to be completely irreplaceable. Though, for all the mystery, there is no denying that Koloss is a phenomenon of pure and profound metal. —CHARLIE SWANSON

PRODUCERS:

RECORDED AT:

TIME SPENT IN STUDIO:

RECORDING BUDGET:

Meshuggah

Fear and Loathing Studio in Stockholm, Sweden

2011

4 Swedish krona, 10 euros, and cases of Coca-Cola

ALBUM PROFILES 2 of 11

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS Love at the Bottom of the Sea (Merge)

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The Magnetic Fields: “Andrew in Drag”

Photo by Matthew Williams

“People...seem to be inanimate objects about a third of the time. They’re only conscious once in a while, but it’s possible to fall in love with them anyhow.”

S

tephin Merritt must have sonar. Whether helming The Magnetic Fields or penning songs for films and musicals, he finds depth in even the shallowest of topics and creates meaning by exploring meaninglessness. The title of his new, self-produced album, Love at the Bottom of the Sea, hints at this process as it summons daydreams about mermaids, pirates, and amorous octopi.

Synthesizers power this emotional bathysphere, recalling the sound that the band debuted on Distant Plastic Trees in 1991 and refined on 69 Love Songs in ’99. Hints of ’80s synth-pop pepper the recording as well, nodding to artists such as Gary Numan and earlier versions of the Merritt that fans know and love.

“Parts of it were taken from very old recordings I’d done,” Merritt says.

“Most were done in the last two years, but bits of the last three decades are in there. Like ‘My Husband’s Pied-à-Terre,’ parts of that song were recorded in 1982.”

The album’s sonic textures aren’t entirely retro, however. Many of the electronic gadgets that shaped this disc didn’t exist in the ’90s, Merritt says. Plus, after making three synth-less albums—i, Distortion, and Realism—the band was eager to test-drive the instruments that the past decade has spawned.

In addition to harnessing new technology, the album explores how technology harnesses its users, creating fears of inadequacy and strange love triangles between people and objects. With lyrics such as “your every touch would be my command, and I wouldn’t be so slow,” “The Machine in Your Hand” imagines the band as an anthropomorphic smartphone that’s more lovable and attentive than an analog human.

“People aren’t that different from inanimate objects,” Merritt says. “In fact, they seem to be inanimate objects about a third of the time. They’re only conscious once in a while, but it’s possible to fall in love with them anyhow.”

Sometimes, you can hook such a lover with a theatrical belly flop. Other times, you have to dive deep to woo them. Merritt uses both methods to lure listeners to Love at the Bottom of the Sea. His baritone voice propels them to the bottom of the musical scale, where odes to drag queens swim with tales about mariachi addicts.

Humor emerges not only from the lyrics but from mismatches between medium and message. As the words of album opener “God Wants Us to Wait” reference love, beauty, and the scent of jasmine, robotic vocals and dark traces of krautrock demonstrate the storyteller’s lack of emotional warmth.

“My Husband’s Pied-à-Terre” takes a similar tack, pairing a plaintive melody with lyrics about wild, carefree nights at a groovy love den. Perhaps this sadness stems from feeling unmoored in an Oprah-free world. Though Merritt won’t admit to being a fan of the famous talk-show host, he built the song around an episode of her show.

“This woman was telling Oprah how she discovered that her dead husband had this secret pied-à-terre,” he recalls. “In my song, he’s still alive, and you watch her discover that he has this secret hideaway where he’s getting a lot of nookie. But at the end, you realize she’s in an insane asylum.”

As the synths swirl and dissolve into the ether, questions begin to surface. If this story is a mirage, the people listening may be just as imaginary. Whether they’re real or a figment from Stephin Merritt’s cranium, one thing’s for certain: these songs are voyagers, traveling through space and time. When they plunge into ears and unearth submerged memories, they tether the band’s past to its present and tie the sonic relics of the digital age to a hazy, heady future. —JESSICA STEINHOFF

Producers:

Recorded at:

Stephin Merritt and Charles Newman

Bell Tree in Los Angeles, CA; Mother West, Serious Business, and Dubway Studios in New York, NY; and Tiny Telephone in San Francisco, CA

Time spent in studio and recording budget:

Unknown

ALBUM PROFILES 3 of 11

earth Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light (Southern Lord)

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Earth: “His Teeth Did Brightly Shine”

Photo by Sarah Barrick

“I’ve never been fond of despair for despair’s sake.”

L

ast year, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I captured guitarist Dylan Carlson’s drone group Earth yet again turning into something else. The songs may have had the slow tempos and clean-butmenacing guitar lines of 2008 album The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull, but the record challenged Carlson and drummer Adrienne Davis to embrace more collaboration and improvisation with a pair of new bandmates, cellist Lori Goldston and bassist Karl Blau. Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II reveals just how far they were stretching.

Both albums were recorded in a two-week bout of 8- to 12-hour workdays in spring of 2010 at Seattle’s Avast Studios. Carlson worried at the time that he might be making the last Earth record, as he was struggling with chronic hepatitis B, a condition that he has since been able to stabilize with medication and dietary changes. “When we did the record, I was bright yellow with jaundice and quite ill,” he says. In a way, being in such poor shape made it easier to focus and draw out a variety of emotions, including what Carlson calls a sense of hope: “I’ve never been fond of despair for despair’s sake.”

Perhaps because this is the first time Earth has put out two consecutive albums with the same lineup, Angels as a two-piece set truly realizes Carlson’s desire to make Earth “as collaborative as possible.” The first album’s title track took up a whole side of vinyl while letting the band build almost conversationally, resulting in a loose feel that was starkly removed from the more controlled and overdub-heavy Bees. This second batch of tracks consistently goes further, opening with three minutes of just guitar and cello on “Sigil of Brass.”

“We just played [‘Sigil of Brass’] and when I was listening back, I was like, ‘You know, I don’t really want to add anything to it,’” Carlson says. “I’m a big believer in what I call the happy accident in the studio.”

In fact, Carlson’s not being corny when he refers to Angels II as Earth’s “around-the-campfire-in-a-small-village record.” Engineer Stuart Haller-

man helps the instruments sound cozy together, adding a room mic in addition to mics on the individual instruments, and Carlson kept overdubs to preserve the live-in-studio feel. The second track, “His Teeth Did Brightly Shine,” all but abandons the epic trudge, the panoramic import, that made Bees and much of Angels I so powerful. Ultimately, the song is better and braver that way. Goldston’s cello holds the rhythm, allowing Carlson to meander through a rather busy guitar part (relative to Earth). It’s also the second song on the album without a drum kit. Instead, Davies’ percussion sneaks in and out, complementing the guitar’s reverb with quiet rattles. “It was Adrienne’s chance to really shine as a percussionist, not just a drummer,” Carlson notes.

As Earth’s group dynamic loosened up, it created opportunities to change the songs. When the band initially played “Waltz (A Multiplicity of Doors)” on tour, it was “sort of a throwback to the old Earth,” Carlson says, but it gradually took on its lumbering 3/4 beat. Mostly, the 13-minute track lets Carlson and Goldston develop their most stirring guitar-cello interplay yet.

A little change in rhythm also impacts the closing track, “The Rakehell,” which Carlson thinks has “a sort of weird soul, R&B feel.” Once the band has built up a good drone, it may sound a lot like many other plodding Earth tracks, but Davies’ drumming starts things on a funky note, or at least as funky as one can get at Earth speed.

Like the songs themselves, the change in Earth can appear maddeningly gradual. But let Angels II soak in for a while, and it won’t sound that way at all. Earth’s approach changed drastically in just a few years, and the members are, in fact, never just waiting for a few lonesome notes to finish ringing out or bowing down to one slow-moving melody. Rather, they’re pushing each other to create moments that no one’s capable of creating alone.

—SCOTT GORDON

Producers:

Recorded at:

Time spent in studio:

recording budget:

Dylan Carlson Stuart Hallerman Adrienne Davies

Avast Studios in Seattle, WA

2 weeks, 8–12 hours per day

Unknown

ALBUM PROFILES 4 of 11

PELICAN Ataraxia / Taraxis (Southern Lord)

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Pelican: “Lathe Biosas”

Photo by Lisa Shelley

T

en years is a time frame in which anything can happen, especially in the music industry. Relationships begin and end, bands come and go, and trends begin and overturn, causing new heroes to rise and the kings of yesterday to be left in the shadows. But sometimes bands remain on top of their territory past this milestone and beyond.

Enter Chicago’s Pelican, whose ten-plus years on the circuit have taken it around the globe and left it in the higher ranks of post-metal acts. Though 2010 marked the band’s tin anniversary, 2012 is a year of progress, reflected in its new EP, Ataraxia / Taraxis.

Presently, the quartet is sprawled out in different parts of the country.

This, as much as anything, contributed to the direction of the new compositions. The four-song release was composed and recorded in different studios across the map, with the help of engineers Sanford Parker and Aaron Harris, and after material was demoed back and forth via E-mail, the compositions were rerecorded.

“This definitely was an experiment,” guitarist Trevor de Brauw says.

“We’re all working on different platforms. Some of us have an Ableton Live setup, and we’ve even utilized a Boss pocket recorder.”

As “Ataraxia” begins, listeners will hear a new side of the old veterans as soft electric piano and acoustic guitar weave a melancholy melody over a nest of feedback and gurgling electronics. Though Pelican never has been contrary to change (remember the 2009 track “Final Breath,” featuring vocals from Allen Epley of Shiner), it’s a fresh sound for the band’s catalog.

“When you break away from a traditional writing process, it’s easier to bring in different elements and try new things,” de Brauw says. “When we were writing, I was on a bit of a John Carpenter kick, so it may have rubbed off a bit.”

But just as listeners are lulled into a halcyon state, the recording bursts into life with “Lathe Biosas.” This track and the subsequent “Parasite Colony” were composed with the group all together, and they’re much closer to traditional Pelican material.

“When we were writing, I was on a bit of a John Carpenter kick, so it may have rubbed off a bit.”

“Lathe Biosas” expands upon the chord progression that’s introduced in “Ataraxia” in a much more triumphant and powerful light. The pace is upbeat in comparison, and sturdy chord sections are sewn together as distorted melodies complete each other’s thoughts.

The closing track, “Taraxis,” is a hybrid of old and new, led by pitch-bending acoustic melodies that dance with a distant electric line. The sounds are familiar—even culminating in a sludgy outro—but they’re presented in an untried light, almost like a “Pelican unplugged” arrangement. “‘Taraxis’ represents the biggest break from anything we’ve ever done before,” de Brauw says. “We’ve never recorded a full song where we haven’t all been present.”

Though the new material is a step away from yesterday’s path, its direction isn’t alien. De Brauw, in fact, describes Ataraxis / Taraxis as being comparable to prior releases but “a lot less optimistic.” The changes aren’t too drastic—just enough to pump some new blood through the system.

“We’ve continued to grow in our own way,” de Brauw says. “Although this is a Pelican release, I think it shows a different side of our ‘creative yang.’

There’s a lot there for fans of our music to take away from it.” —BOBBY MARKOS

Producers:

Recorded at:

Time spent in studio:

recording budget:

Pelican, mixed by Sanford Parker

Engine Studios in Chicago, IL and miscellaneous locations

3 days, 11–12 hours per day

Unknown

ALBUM PROFILES 5 of 11

TRAILER TRASH TRACYS Ester (Domino)

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Trailer Trash Tracys: “Engelhardt’s Arizona”

F

rom the moment that it starts, Ester—the debut album from London-based psych-pop quartet Trailer Trash Tracys—sounds like a bad trip. The opening track, “Rolling—Kiss the Universe,” unravels erratically, featuring waves of synthesizers, intermittent drumming, and sporadic vocals all fusing together in a kind of subdued chaos.

But then the strife-riddled sounds give way to a steady drumbeat, and the beauty of “You Wish You Red” comes through with a simple, detuned guitar lead and singer Suzanne Aztoria’s soothing, ghostly vocals, and suddenly you’re through the woods. You realize that the trip might not be so scary after all.

Photo by Michael Robert Williams

Written on a solfeggio scale—a seven-note diatonic scale such as “do-remi-fa-sol-la-ti”—Ester comes off as ethereal and otherworldly, yet totally accessible. According to band member Jimmy Lee, some esoteric circles claim that the solfeggio scale has “healing properties, as far as repairing DNA, whatever that means.” He adds, “If it is or isn’t true, you might as well hedge your bets.” Indeed you should. This album is an experience, and whether the scale’s properties have any real effect or not, the result is the same: this album is worth hearing.

Ester churns out track after track of slow-burning psychedelia mixed with hook-laden indie pop, though never anchored in either. Instead, the music is a movement, shifting speeds and directions to arrive at some new and unexplored topography. “Engelhardt’s Arizona” has a straightforward arrangement, guided by Aztoria’s trailing, echoing voice, but it’s flanked the entire time by a swirling lead-guitar riff that might’ve arrived from an alien planet.

Underpinned with assorted percussion and a basic bass line, the song never delves too deep into predictability or abstractness, but rather finds a happy medium.

Much of Ester follows suit, showing flashes of indie-psych greatness by balancing hooks with experimentalism. Though “Los Angered” is haunting and heavily reverberated, it offers a melody that could fit somewhere between the sensibilities of Phantogram and The Kills; “Strangling Good Guys” marries distorted drumbeats with a chorus of angelic vocals; and “Die in 55” tools with digital beats and erratic electronics that are set to a very approachable melody.

The album is entrenched in reverb and delay, echoes and effects, but the songs move fluidly, always accompanied by irregular bits. Aztoria’s voice is a guiding light through all the dark, foggy sounds, there to take your hand before you become immersed in the soundscapes. And when the album ends, you’re not exactly sure where you are, but it’s okay—because it feels safe and comfortable, even if it means that you just passed through another dimension. —Michael Danaher

Producer:

Recorded at:

Time spent in studio:

recording budget:

Jimmy Lee

Home, mainly

Disappearing days and nights over the past couple of years

Peanuts and sweat

ALBUM PROFILES 6 of 11

eyving kang The Narrow Garden (Ipecac)

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Eyvind Kang: “Pure Nothing”

Photo by Bryce Davesne

M

ost musicians have fans; Eyvind Kang has aficionados. Many listeners might recognize the multi-instrumentalist and composer’s name from work with Sunn O))), Sun City Girls, Animal Collective, Lou Reed and others, but his personal work encompasses far more than avant-garde rock. Kang’s stylistic vein, a fusion of modern compositions and classical and traditional elements, is the basis for his famed collaborations. But from his early NADE compositions and orchestral and ensemble efforts, even Kang’s solo work heavily depends on the creative processes of collaboration.

On his latest solo recording, The Narrow Garden, Kang shows the extent of his influence across a broad spectrum of styles by leading a collective of 30 musicians. It’s a musical synergy that moves through delicate and soaring moments, with unexpected turns that divulge influences from non-Western melodic modes and tonalities.

The majority of the album was recorded in Barcelona with the large group, but Kang also added auxiliary touches back home in Seattle, including overdubs of setar, keyboard, and rebab for “the higher overtones and surplus epiphenomena,” he notes. But despite the home-base additions, Kang is a conceptual composer whose writing is particularly affected by its immediate surroundings. “We played in Milano at first,” he says, “and then in Barcelona, where the humor, buildings, and Park Güell all harmonized.”

The Spanish city played host to Kang and his crew, which included renowned ney player Bassam Soba, Spain’s own Embut Ensemble, and wife and renowned vocalist Jessika Kenney. Together, the collective achieves powerful, multifaceted themes on The Narrow Garden. “In my directing, there is a Confucian impulse,” Kang says on leading the large-scale process, “a social organization and hierarchy, but a pun to the sense of anarchism.” The pun is Kang’s way to draw parallels between artistic inspiration and the history of civil disobedience and unrest in Spain. It seems to be his prevailing philosophy, yet another way to affix his work to a larger continuity of history, time, and place.

The same complexity is found beneath the surface of The Narrow Garden, where textures and melodies unfold as compositions evolve.

“In my directing, there is a Confucian impulse, a social organization and hierarchy, but a pun to the sense of anarchism.”

“Forest Sama’i” begins the album with a minimalist rhythm before opening into a sonorous assortment of reed and string instruments, symmetrical in melody but asymmetrical in tone. Describing the song’s foundation, Kang notes, “It’s a Bengali sound, like a beautiful [Rabindranath] Tagore song but in an Arabic form and meter. The parts are composed in different temporalities.” It’s again another case of multi-tiered composing, and the effect is hypnotic.

More avant-garde, drone-heavy offerings are found in “Usnea” and title track “Narrow Garden,” each as captivating meditations on stillness and space. Choral contributions, which are spaced throughout the album, sum up the old-world spirit of the album, and tracks such as “Pure Nothing” and “Minerelia” possess a Medieval courtly aura, partly due to the compelling work of Kenney. Both spellbinding and melancholic, the choral performance opens up layers of emotional depth that otherwise might have been lost.

Listening to The Narrow Garden calls to mind a different world, similar to ones from 18th Century period films where, as modern audiences, we revel in a rarified past. But here the fantastical is tempered by Kang’s modern receptivity. “Sometimes a world, like a galaxy, can be very far away in light years,” he says, “but in sound it could be right next door.” The Narrow Garden should not be missed by anyone who has a remote interest in modern classical and world music, or even the reaches of sound itself.

—MICHAEL NOLLEDO

Producers:

Recorded at:

Time spent in studio:

recording budget:

Eyvind Kang, mixed and mastered by Mell Detmer

Live at Sala Ovidi Montllor, Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona, Spain

N/A

Unknown

ALBUM PROFILES 7 of 11

MARRIAGES Kitsune (Sargent House)

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Marriages: “Ride in My Place”

Photo by Greg Burns

E

mma Ruth Rundle has a belated Christmas gift for you. While most of us braved awkward reunions with relatives last winter, the guitarist/singer and her new band Marriages were cooped up in a studio, challenging the very notion of what it means to be “post-rock.”

Rundle, who also leads The Nocturnes, is joined here by Greg Burns and Dave Clifford—all names that you might recognize from instrumental powerhouse Red Sparowes, a band that pushes the boundaries of the loud-soft dynamic with an innovative use of pedal steel and subtle vocal textures.

And with Marriages, Rundle vows to uphold the sanctity of that evolution.

This debut still makes use of post-rock conventions—elongated melodies, reverberating guitars, and deliberate drumming—but they’re led by Rundle’s intoxicating vocals and unconventional playing style.

“I don’t use a pick,” she notes. “I play a bastardized version of finger style—I have long nails on my right hand, and I alternate bass notes with my thumb while playing melodic lines with my other fingers.”

This hybrid style helps Marriages defy the foundational post-rock commandment of “thou shalt precede thy low note with one high note,” and the result is odd yet beautiful. If pressed, one might compare the sound to PJ Harvey teaming up with Tool in 1995 to cover Mazzy Star.

Rundle’s vocals—breathy and, at times, ghostly—benefit from a bit of traditional post-rock atmospherics. But they’re also joined by a subtle, deep effect, allowing her to harmonize with a nearly inaudible lower octave.

Veteran producer Toshi Kasai (Big Business) plays an important role in this production, getting the best sounds for the guitar and bass as well. One song, however, specifically was built around one of Rundle’s custom pedals.

“When I get to use it, it sounds fucking insane,” she says. “It’ll tear people’s heads off.”

Yet despite this powerful, assertive sound, Rundle expresses trepidation at how Red Sparowes fans will receive the album, and she has some nerves

about fronting the band. Thankfully, her anxiety evaporates from her familiar bandmates, particularly during live performances. “I look over and there’s Dave,” she says. “That’s really comforting.”

And soon enough, Rundle’s confidence will come from fans who hear what Marriages has to offer. Because more than anything, she knows that postrock—like any genre—needs to take chances to stick around.

“I think people want to expand what’s going on,” Rundle says. “It has to go somewhere in order for it to survive. I think it has to evolve.”

—JOHN TAYLOR

Producers:

Recorded at:

Time spent in studio:

recording budget:

Marriages, engineered and mixed by Toshi Kasai

Entourage Studios in Los Angeles, CA

December 22-24, 2011

$3,500 (mastering included)

ALBUM PROFILES 8 of 11

MORROW

VS

HAJDUCH

TOO HOT FOR HTTP

Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. In each issue, they debate the merits of a different album. Visit alarm-magazine.com to read their weekly column.

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Municipal Waste: “The Fatal Feast”

THIS ISSUE’s PICK

MUNICIPAL WASTE The Fatal Feast (Nuclear Blast) Photo by Lisa Predko

Morrow: In this age of sub-

sub-genres and hyphenated crossovers, Virgina’s Municipal Waste remains 8 of 11 steadfast in thrash. The quartet has leaned on the hyper-speed riffs of guitarist Ryan Waste and the manic fills of drummer Dave Witte to achieve this singular goal, crafting a reusable template over which vocalist Tony Foresta barks his punk/hardcore cadence. The band’s fifth full-length album, The Fatal Feast, is another exercise in thrash—the definition of a band revisiting its sweet spot (or, in less flattering terms, rehashing the same material).

ALBUM PROFILES

Hajduch: I love this band. I don’t listen

to them often, but when I do, it makes me happy, even if all their albums have gradually congealed into a long trail of repetitive throwback thrash. A lot of older music in this vein has a very tinny, thin sound, and it’s nice that Municipal Waste has such beefed-up production (and arguably the most talented drummer in heavy metal).

Morrow: The production is on point, and the

riffs shred, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been done for the past 30 years. “Waste in Space” begins the album with a spacey, creepy intro, but there’s only one other moment like that over the remaining 37 minutes.

Ryan Waste’s squealing whammy-bar solos are a highlight—not too cheesy, and reminis-

cent of Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s wailing bursts. For me, however, Foresta’s delivery and lyrics are the elephant in the room. The former is formulaic, and the latter is sophomoric. There’s enough to like in his oldschool delivery, but he forces too many lines to fit the style.

Hajduch: The space theme and sci-fi synths

(courtesy of Steve Moore from Zombi) definitely feel like a missed opportunity when they bookend a bunch of songs about partying and puking and partying again. They don’t even seem to be partying in space?

I like the vocals more than you seem to—that insistent monotone bark pushes the music when otherwise I am just hearing the same technical thrash. It’s also worth mentioning that this is a long album (by thrash standards) with a lot of similar songs. If you are into it, it just kind of washes over you—but if you’re not feeling it, the effect is tiresome.

Morrow: John Connelly (of Nuclear As-

sault) and Tim Barry (formerly of Avail) also make guest appearances, but they’re brief and hard to notice. Unfortunately, between the guest spots and the gang-vocal moments, the vocals don’t have enough variety.

I agree about the missed opportunity—just like how Muppets from Space wasn’t a movie about Muppets in space. Huge difference.

—Scott Morrow & Patrick Hajduch

Producers:

Recorded at:

Time spent in studio:

recording budget:

Municipal Waste

Trax East in South River, NJ (drums); Torment Studio in Richmond, VA (bass); Minimum Wage Studios in Oregon Hill, VA (guitars, vocals)

Varies depending on member

$69

ALBUM PROFILES 9 of 11

liberteer Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees (Relapse)

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Liberteer: “Build No System”

Photo by Chloe Aftel

“I didn’t address whether this was wise to do. I didn’t even think, ‘Is this going to be entertaining? Will it sound good? Will it be annoying?”

A

s the new solo moniker of Santa Cruz grind veteran and multiinstrumentalist Matt Widener, Liberteer has delivered a maiden opus that might truly justify using the words “grindcore” and “opera” in the same breath. It’s an epic and unorthodox debut—one that plays essentially as one continuous song while marrying D-beat crust to horns, flutes, banjos, and marching snares. It is, furthermore, potentially the first to include a chart that allows listeners to track all of the riffs contained in the music.

When he began writing what would become Better to Die…, Widener decided to scatter his riffs throughout the album similar to the way that verse/ chorus motifs recur within a traditional song structure.

“I didn’t address whether this was wise to do,” he chuckles. “I didn’t even think, ‘Is this going to be entertaining? Will it sound good? Will it be annoying?’ Looking at it now that it’s done, it’s much harder than I thought it would be to pick out these melodies.”

Widener, who also studies classical orchestration, actually finds the finished product “kind of fatiguing” to get through in one sitting, but grind fans—and even listeners without much of a reference point for metal—may beg to differ. As the name of the project suggests (and as the lyrics make abundantly clear), Better to Die… is fueled by Widener’s opposition to the various machinations of government. But his surprisingly effective use of tongue-in-cheek humor gives focus and power to his points—and entertainment value to boot.

As expected, the album contains plenty of bellowing, ultra-low B-tuned guitar and blast-beat bury. But from the very first banjo plucks and buglehorn strains on the introductory track, it’s obvious that Widener’s over-

the-top militarism is meant as a parody of patriotic fervor. Flourishes of his humor crop up amidst the stormy, hard-charging grind as the old-time motifs evoke the extravagant, almost tawdry melodrama of military music.

At times, particularly on the mock training montage “Sweat for Blood,” the music plays like an army recruitment ad. But Widener’s real message probably would make a drill sergeant wretch.

Widener served in the US Marine Corps from 1996 to 2000. When he enlisted, he says, he harbored a lot of anger with patriotic overtones. But, over time, his perspective has shifted dramatically—twice. In 2004, Widener founded Citizen, a grind trio that he describes as “playing up to the conventions of political grindcore à la Brutal Truth and Napalm Death in a way that wasn’t completely authentic or coming from me.” Since the 2005 release of Citizen’s Manifesto for the New Patriot, however, Widener has embraced the tenets of anarchism. Though his new album might be mistaken for a militiaman’s bitter renunciation of the federal government, Better to Die… is in fact a call to rebuild society from the ground up, and to take action against the very idea of social hierarchy that holds so much sway over our lives. “Once I looked into what anarchy really is,” Widener says, “I found it to be really humane.”

Grindcore arguably has worked as one of the most effective countercultural music vehicles for people whose anger arises out of concern for their fellow human beings. Widener’s history in the genre goes back to his early-’90s work as a formative member of pioneering goregrind outfit Exhumed. Currently, he serves as bassist and primary lyricist in Cretin, a grind trio that positively revels in its Deliverance-meets-Human Centipede brand of shock. He also is a member of Carcass tribute act The County Medical Examiners. All three groups fall about as far as possible from politically or even socially conscious metal, but Widener is perfectly positioned to bridge what appear to be two divergent poles of expression. “I don’t have a problem shifting gears,” he says, “and creating new projects that are very different in theme from each other.

My new album kind of knows what it’s doing. It winks at you and lets you know that it knows.” —SABY REYES-KULKARNI

Producers:

Recorded at:

Time spent in studio:

recording budget:

Matt Widener

Matt Widener’s basement in Aptos, CA

2 years, on and off

$0

ALBUM PROFILES 10 of 11

sigh In Somniphobia (Candlelight)

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Sigh: “Far Beneath the In-Between”

Photo courtesy Earsplit PR

F

ormed in Tokyo in 1990, Sigh isn’t like most extreme metal bands.

To the uninitiated: imagine a mad scientist who has left traditional morality behind in his quest for discovery. Imagine Mr. Bungle, doubled down on metal brutality. Imagine John Zorn as a founding member of Iron Maiden. Imagine that someone left Scandinavian-style metal out on the counter overnight and that strange, hypnotic, polychromatic molds have started to grow on it. You still haven’t quite imagined the unique strangeness of Sigh, but you’re getting there.

Singer, songwriter, keyboardist, and front-man Mirai Kawashima’s Sigh has spent the past two decades producing black metal truly outside the norm, stirring genres such as classical, disco, electronica, riff-driven ’70s British metal, and film scores into the mix. To him, blending styles is unavoidable.

“It’s not our purpose at all, but a mere result,” Kawashima says. “We always choose the best style to describe our views musically. Sometimes it’s distorted guitars while other times it’s sitar. Heavy guitars can do something that classical string quartets can’t, and vice versa.”

The band’s landmark 2001 record Imaginary Sonicscape took the listener on a bizarre ride through metal’s strangest back alleys, with choirs of laughing babies and interludes reminiscent of game-show themes working themselves in. In 2010, Scenes from Hell delivered epic, symphonic metal while adding Dr. Mikannibal, a scantily clad saxophonist, to the band’s lineup. And Sigh’s latest, In Somniphobia, follows a storied history of risk-taking, boundary-ignoring metal—but still finds ways to surprise.

Over its career, Sigh’s production quality has had its peaks and lulls, but this self-produced album, recorded almost entirely at Kawashima’s home studio, finds the group at the top of its game production-wise. Guitars squeal and crunch crisply, and the drums have the weight they deserve. In Somniphobia opens with a pair of self-described “very heavy metal” tracks—they’re loud, fast, and brutal, as one would expect from a band so influenced by classic European black metal. But Sigh can’t help but add organs, saxophone, keyboards, and a whistled melody that sounds like it was ripped from a lost Sergio Leone film. Even listeners who aren’t used to the harsh guitars and vocals of metal can find melody to latch onto, and Kawashima is no stranger to crafting a catchy tune, with composing credits on everything from TV shows to videogames.

“I love movies that blur the border between reality and dreams, or life and death.”

The meat of the album comes in the middle, with a suite of gleefully creative compositions based on Kawashima’s recurring lucid nightmares. “I often have nightmares in which I realize I am dreaming,” he says. “I love movies that blur the border between reality and dreams, or life and death. This time, I wanted to musically describe this.”

The resultant songs are decidedly unsettling in their strangeness. Growled vocals, thundering drums, and Shinichi Ishikawa’s ever-melodic riffs envelop the eclectic interludes and genre exercises that are sprinkled throughout. Dr. Mikannibal’s presence is a near-anomaly in itself, and her inclusion opens Sigh to avenues that other bands simply can’t replicate. For proof, check “Amnesia,” eight minutes smack in the middle of the record that bursts with twinkling piano, soulful sax, and a bluesy guitar solo that dances and flits like a candle flame. Sigh here sounds like the house band at the classiest jazz club in hell, ever willing to unleash a blast of metal discord in case the listener forgets what kind of record he or she is hearing.

Even more baffling: not a single other track on In Somniphobia sounds like this.

From the classic thrash of “Fall to the Thrall,” to the strings and harpsichord on the three-part closer “Equale,” to the squealing synthesizers that kick off “Somniphobia,” almost every song on the record stands alone in its style. In Somniphobia doesn’t suffer from a case of split personality, though. Despite all the detours, Sigh plays metal, and when its instrumentation doesn’t fit the genre, the tone remains aggressive, foreboding, and frightening. If ever it seems that metal is stale or formula-driven, In Somniphobia shows that some bands aren’t afraid to push it outside its comfort zone. Kawashima has been doing this for longer than many metal aficionados’ lifetimes, and he shows no signs of slowing.

“When I play or listen to metal,” he says, “I still feel like I’m 18.” —TOM HARRISON

Producers:

Recorded at:

Time spent in studio:

recording budget:

Sigh

Electric Space Studio and Studio Moopies in Tokyo, Japan

5 days, 10 hours per day (the rest recorded at home)

$4,500

8 80918 20371 3 Katalognr. N 29

A Ninety-Degree-Thank-You-Bow to all the people who helped realizing this epic thingy!

Thank you for your love and commitment!

Special Thanks to the idealistic musicians, the dedicated engineers (Ciao Francesco!), Mama Andromeda, Vater Staat, Familie Glatzel/Brandmaier, Familie Viechtl, Bärenhorst, Das Rote Gras, Mari Sawada, Max von Aulock, Markus & Micha Acher, Florian Steinleitner, Oli Zülch, our Gneisenau-neighbours and Henning Wagenbreth.

ANDROMEDA MEGA EXPRESS ORCHESTRA

Gerhard Gschlössl trombone on Track 2 Andi Haberl drums on Track 3 Grégoire Simon 1st violin, Johannes Pennetzdorfer viola on Track 4 Anna Viechtl harp on Track 6 Kalle Zeier guitar, Magnus Schriefl trumpet, Matthew Lonson whistling on Track 7

BUM BUM

This led to a one-year long journey into the unexplored realms of editing, processing and mixing of millions of puzzle-pieces that had been recorded in numerous overdub-sessions before.

This odyssey is now condensed to one hour of music which you are about to listen to.

We welcome you on board aswell as the great Enrico Caruso and Bruce Lee who will be able to join us for a minute despite their busy schedules and early deaths in 1921 and 1973 respectively.

Artwork by Henning Wagenbreth Music composed in 2009-2011.

Recorded in 2010-2011 at Studio P4, Lovelite Studios and Bärenhorst in Berlin.

Mixed in 2011 at Lowswing Studios and Candybomber Studios in Berlin.

Mastered in 2011 Calyx Studios in Berlin.

Produced by Daniel Glatzel Mixed and Mastered by Francesco Donadello and Daniel Glatzel Edited by Daniel Glatzel Recording Engineers: Martin Ruch, Jean Szymczak, Andreas Stoffels and Jochen Ströh Assistant Engineers: Florian von Keyserlingk, Maurizio Borgna and Martin Stupka paranormal solistic activities:

BUM

4. Hektra Mumma Gulla is a musical diary, written in the cold winter of 2009.

Outside people tried to balance on the thick layers of ice like clumsy penguins.

Everyday rainy showers made matters only worse. Inside it was dry and empty.

Repetitive patterns riddled the author… daily routines, music, perception – absurdity and mystery of life…

Ceci n‘est pas de la musique?

This album was created by a group of friends and idealists called the Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra. They had been playing and living together with this music-form for over 4 years when a vision of a parallel reality arose in the year 2010: The deconstruction of the whole organism into its individual parts, its reconfiguration and transformation into something that could not be done live.

Photo by Sarah Barrick

Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra: “Saturn Hoola Hoop” TAP BUTTON TO LISTEN

All tracks composed by Daniel Glatzel except Track 3: composed by Karsten Hochapfel, arranged by Daniel Glatzel Oliver Roth, Laure Mourot flute, alto-flute Daniel Glatzel clarinet, tenor sax, melodica, vocoder Sebastian Hägele bassoon Johannes Schleiermacher baritone sax, flute Aki Sebastian Ruhl, Magnus Schriefl, Ritsche Koch, Fidelis Hentze trumpet Gerhard Gschlössl, Johannes Lauer trombone Karl Ivar Refseth vibraphone Andi Haberl drums, percussion Anna Viechtl harp Kalle Zeier guitar, banjo Andreas Waelti, Andreas Lang bass Matthew Lonson, Josa Gerhard, Mokkapan Phongphit, Grégoire Simon, Adrian Kimstedt violin Johannes Pennetzdorfer, Martin Stupka viola, recorder Isabelle Klemt, Sophie May cello Elena Kagaliagou french horn Marie Séférian, Annika Ritlewski, Ulrike Schwab, Jelena Kuljic vocals The »Lusubilo Choir« and our neighbours from the 4th floor vocals and kids voices The Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra: 1: Saturn Hoola Hoop 2: Sotho Hotho Ro 3: Le Prêtre Viré 4: Hektra Mumma Gulla 5: Rainbow Warrior 6: anebulamanifesto 7: Space Purolator

BUM

BUM BUM

BUM

BUM

BUM

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5. September 27th, 2010. Mankind has gone insane. Something has to change. Something has to move. But not us! We need a hero who can pull us all along. We need you! We long for you! We desperately call you…

1,2: Saturn Hoola Hoop is quite simply a beat combining orchestral and cut-up aesthetics. Something it has in common with the more abstract Sotho Hotho Ro, which you could call a distilled essence - a constellation of musical aphorisms and assumptions, colorful crystals mirrored and juxtaposed in the tightest of spaces.

6. Anebulamanifesto is a collage of scattered, improvised fragments by harpist Anna Viechtl.

7. Despite his dubious character, the express messenger Space Purolator is always on his way.

Burdened and thrilled by the goods he has to carry out into the world, he jets around between utter apathy and supernatural motivation.

3: Le Prêtre Viré was originally an argument between a priest and a doubter.

Karsten Hochapfel - guitarist, cellist and composer of this piece - discarded the part of the priest though, hence the title. This piece was written for his band „Das Rote Gras“ in which he plays with Daniel Glatzel, who created this adaptation for Andromeda.

Supported by the Initiative Musik Non-profit Project Company Ltd. with project funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media on the basis of a resolution passed by the German Bundestag.

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ALBUM PROFILES

BUM BUM (Alien Transistor)

Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra

“Exploring the possibilities of treating music with cut-and-paste techniques and handling the medium as a tool of expression definitely made an impact on our pieces.”

E

xplosive, absurd, and symmetrical” is how Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra’s main man Daniel Glatzel describes BUM BUM, his collective’s latest offering. Under the guidance of Glatzel, the 20-piece Berlin-based ensemble is shaking up the assumptions that come with orchestral music, putting forth modern sensibilities and intelligent composing styles to fuse its myriad influences together.

The styles already visited on its 2009 debut, Take Off!—minimalism, classical, jazz, film and television scores, drone, and modern composition—are all heard on BUM BUM, but in an electronic cut-and-paste aesthetic. Imagine the album as a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, where each piece is a sound snippet and they have endless possibilities for configuration—that’s BUM BUM in a nutshell.

Whereas Take Off! was recorded with all the members in one room with minimal overdubs, BUM BUM was the complete opposite. “We recorded almost everything in overdubs and only did a handful of sections together,” Glatzel says, “and the editing and mixing took one very long year. Exploring the possibilities of treating music with cut-and-paste techniques and handling the medium as a tool of expression definitely made an impact on our pieces.”

Yet for as spontaneous and sporadic as they sound, the album’s compositions not only work as a whole but also as stand-alone pieces. “Saturn Hoola Hoop” is a monstrous opening track that begins with a soft, atonal drone before bursting into a heavily symphonic chopped-and-screwed breakbeat.

Brass, reed, and string instruments pop in and around the off-kilter kick and snare rhythm, giving the impression that perhaps a Brainfeeder pro-

ducer had a hand in all of it. But Glatzel helmed the production, and the orchestra recorded all the samples except for a select few.

“We did some very extensive, weird processing at times to get an old sound,” Glatzel says, “or to closely imitate the sound of something being a sample. Here and there are chosen sounds, such as on ‘Rainbow Warrior’ and ‘Space Purolator,’ but the vast majority of it was recorded ourselves.”

The ensemble’s broadest sonic range can be heard on tracks like “Sotho Hotho Ro,” where the quantity of samples is so vast that only Glatzel can tell how many were used. It’s hard to imagine the piece played live, but the composer assures that it can be performed as a “composition fully written out as a score like a ‘traditional’ orchestra piece.” Samples are stacked onto samples, and the song quickly moves through exotica, classical baroque, dub, modern improv, found sounds, Latin jazz, and even a short dose of prog rock. It’s something you must hear to understand, but it all works surprisingly well without being muddled.

Without diminishing the importance and creative skillfulness of the orchestra, credit must be given to Glatzel’s compositional proficiency. As a bandleader, he has managed to fuse almost every style imaginable into challenging, engaging, and rewarding compositions. And even though the orchestra teeters on the precipice of conceptualism and the deep abyss of randomness, it does so in a way to push orchestral music forward to a new generation. —MICHAEL NOLLEDO

Producers:

Recorded at:

Time spent in studio:

recording budget:

Daniel Glatzel

Funkhaus Nelepastrasse in Berlin, Germany

12 days recording, 25 days mixing, 14 months editing at home

Unknown

ALBUM REVIEWS REVIEWS antigama beach house clark el-p health lungfish matt chamberlain portland cello project

El-P photo by Timothy Saccenti

ANTIGAMA Stop the Chaos EP (Selfmadegod)

SHORT REVIEWS 1 of 8

This EP from progressive grindcore act Antigama ends with a familiar swooshing sound that usually precedes the beginning of a new track. Listeners are thus left with the impression that there’s more to come, and that Stop the Chaos might actually be a teaser for a longer offering. (A relatively restrained ambient soundscape, the EP’s final track also lines up nicely if you have music of another genre cued up to play after it on your playlist.)

Still, though Antigama deftly plays the leave-them-wantingmore card, the Polish quartet packs no small measure of substance into Stop the Chaos’ 15-minute run time.

TAP BUTTON TO LISTEN

Antigama: “The Law”

More varied than many grindcore albums that are twice as long, Stop the Chaos demonstrates Antigama’s penchant for peaks, valleys, and innovation. As usual, the band folds a number of experimental elements into the material without sacrificing its underlying urgency. But Antigama also puts a high premium on songwriting—a skill often overlooked by the group’s peers, and one that’s on expert display here. Memorable riffs within songs that actually develop, sometimes in the space of just a minute and a half, create the illusion that this EP is much longer than it actually is.

Stop the Chaos marks Antigama’s return to Polish label Selfmadegod after a two-album run on Relapse. The EP also ushers in the return of original vocalist Łukasz Myszkowski, as well as the recording debuts of new drummer Paweł Jaroszewicz and new bassist Michał Zawadzki. Even with three-quarters of its personnel overhauled since 2009 full-length Warning, Antigama manages to keep its vision, purpose, and the continuity of its body of work strikingly intact. —Saby Reyes-Kulkarni

BEACH HOUSE Bloom (Sub Pop)

SHORT REVIEWS 2 of 8

Two years ago, Baltimore-based dream-pop duo Beach House released its best effort to date with Teen Dream. The album took the band’s gift for crafting atmospheric, melancholic synth pop to an entirely new level. The band’s writing was tighter, cleaner.

The songs themselves were suffused with nostalgia and heartbreak. It took the band’s signature style—droning organs, echoing guitars, digitized beats, and gorgeous vocals and lyrics—and refined them to the point where a successful followup seemed unlikely.

TAP BUTTON TO LISTEN

Beach House: “Myth”

Fortunately for us, Beach House has proved that notion wrong.

Bloom, the band’s new album, asserts that Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally’s melodious prowess and integrity are back—and to stunning effect. Song after song, it’s evident that the band’s sophisticated songwriting and complex-yet-approachable arrangements are more self-assured than ever. The tracks are concurrently experimental and catchy, and with them, Beach House has found a perfect outlet for its keyboard-laden, sad-eyed hymns.

With a majority of these songs written during Beach House’s constant touring over the past couple of years, Bloom is to be experienced as a whole rather than by individual tracks (though it’s difficult not to single out stunners like “Myth,” “Wild,” and “Troublemaker,” among others). But album flow and consistency always have been two of Beach House’s strong suits. Thus Bloom is cohesive from start to finish, tied together not just by the band’s indelible sound, but by Scally and Legrand’s powerful songwriting.

On each subsequent album, it feels like the duo gets more and more confident, and that is quite apparent on Bloom. Churning through layers of languid, twilight-esque pop, the album lets listeners witness gorgeously crafted songs blossom on every track—resulting in a true work of beauty. —Michael Danaher

CLARK Iradelphic (Warp)

SHORT REVIEWS 3 of 8

For his last pair of full-length albums, hyper-melodic electronic artist (Chris) Clark moved into dance-floor territory, albeit in an idiosyncratic and IDM-ish fashion. Iradelphic, his sixth fulllength for Warp, is a bold step back to the future, moving away from those dance elements to simultaneously go old- and newschool.

TAP BUTTON TO LISTEN

Clark: “Com Touch”

The album’s first single, “Com Touch,” contains an array of timbres and resembles Clark’s Empty the Bones of You era, but much of Iradelphic explores organic realms, combining acoustic guitars, soft vocal bits, and field recordings with his old and new synth sounds. Iradelphic, in fact, was recorded in six different countries to capture different field-recording and vintage sounds, and it shows in many of the samples.

But Clark’s guitar work is the most pleasant surprise, and it meshes beautifully with the synthesized melodies. There are male/female bossa-nova-ish vocals and guitar on “Open” and “Secret,” the latter of which features Martina Topley Bird (of Massive Attack) and contains a chorus entirely of “bum-bumbums.” “Tooth Moves” is a track that best exemplifies the new sound—leading with an acoustic riff but defined by a manic, squiggly electronic melody. And then there’s “Black Stone,” a delicate interlude that only features piano, and “Broken Kite Footage,” a five-minute ambient closer.

Heard separately, these tracks might resemble any number of artists. But taken as a whole, Iradelphic is both one of the best and most daring albums of Clark’s career. —Scott Morrow

SHORT REVIEWS

El-p Cancer for Cure (Fat Possum)

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Rapper/producer El-P took five years between his 2002 debut, Fantastic Damage, and its follow-up, the dystopian and downtrodden I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead. This year brings another five-year wait to an end with his Fat Possum debut, Cancer for Cure, following the untimely demise of El Producto’s independent label, Definitive Jux.

TAP BUTTON TO LISTEN

El-P: “Tougher Colder Killer”

In 2002, Fantastic Damage fell to Earth hot but basically unscathed from entry into our atmosphere, forming a crater that MCs like Danny Brown and Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire—who kill their guest verses on Cancer for Cure’s “Oh Hail No”—are still tumbling into. Cancer for Cure is more of a return to the style that El-P helped to popularize: a slower BPM rate mixed with fat synths and a faster rhyming style. Most rhymes are infused with a dark sense of humor, and the vocal styles keep a healthy diversity thanks to a bevy of guests, including Killer Mike, Islands’ Nick Thorburn, and the aforementioned Brown and MF eXquire.

The real star of the show, however, is El-P’s production, which makes your head nod with ease amid a mix of boom-bap beats, bass bombinations, and sci-fi sounds. But he’s never been a slouch on the mic either, tackling traditional hip-hop topics like self-promotion but replacing gun and drug talk with societal commentary and infusing most everything—including references to himself—with that oft-off-color sense of humor.

It’s been a while, but Cancer for Cure was well worth the wait.

—Dave Hofer

HEALTH Max Payne 3: The Official Soundtrack (Rockstar Games)

SHORT REVIEWS 5 of 8

Ever adept at pulling beauty from the squall of its savage synthrock attack, Los Angeles quartet Health makes for a fitting choice to score a video game. Conversely, the game Max Payne 3 contains enough violence, visual brilliance, and plot development to draw from different aspects of Health’s multifaceted sound.

TAP BUTTON TO LISTEN

Health: “Tears”

Longtime followers of the band may be surprised at the eventempered tone of this music, particularly given the graphic nature of the game, but the band’s new-found restraint pays huge dividends. Health could have taken the easy way out and made ejaculatory noise to go along with game’s blood-splattering imagery. Instead, the group has served up a moody, evocative work just as suited to pensive anime or science fiction as to the subject at hand.

Kudos to the game developers at Rockstar Games, who apparently must have believed that juxtaposition would add to the power of Max Payne 3’s impact. But the ultimate credit goes to Health for succeeding in making a soundtrack that works just as well if not better on its own. Where so much in the world of gaming and music—particularly noise music—is tailored to saturate our minds with information, Health’s expansive work allows the listener to fill in the blanks. Ultimately, the best visuals to go with this music are the ones it inspires in your imagination. —Saby Reyes-Kulkarni

lungFish ACR 1999 (Dischord)

SHORT REVIEWS 6 of 8

The website for independent label Thrill Jockey jokes and/or asserts that post-hardcore progenitor Lungfish is “enshrined as one of America’s last true folk bands.” Digging into the vaults, Dischord Records’ latest release shows that the group’s hidden relics still have potency, folk or otherwise.

With a stripped-down production style, ACR 1999, a session from ’99 that was recorded by Craig Bowen at Baltimore’s ACR Studios, is a good Janus-faced album that looks towards the past and future of Lungfish, amplifying the band’s nuances while fostering a warm sonic simplicity.

TAP BUTTON TO LISTEN

Lungfish: “Occult Vibrations”

For long-time fans, ACR 1999 provides a look at arrangements of familiar songs from the Necrophones album that shortly followed in 2000. But it also offers four new songs to keep things interesting, and in the rhythmic lyricism of “I Will Walk Between You” and the abstract soundscapes of “Aesop”—two of the new tracks—we hear hints of where Daniel Higgs and Asa Osborne would veer after 2005.

The ACR cuts have a distinctively raw sound, displaying subtle production choices that stand out against the more complex manipulation of Necrophones. For a band like Lungfish, holding such a vast experimental potential, it’s good to revisit the power of simple production to highlight the musical aptitude of each member of the group. After some of the unrestrained aural investigations that Higgs and Osborne have fashioned under various monikers, it’s interesting to see how their unique visions are shaped through more standard forms. —David Metcalfe

matt chamberlain Company 23 (Yanki Arc)

SHORT REVIEWS 7 of 8

As one of the world’s countless musicians who’s overly talented but under-appreciated, drummer Matt Chamberlain is a prime example of why magazines like ALARM need to exist. You might recognize him from working with Critters Buggin, Floratone, or Tori Amos; you might have noticed his credits with Fiona Apple, William Shatner, Morrissey, or a smorgasbord of other big names. For much of his career, Chamberlain has been the rhythmic studio muscle behind a crazy number of albums. But even there, he doesn’t get his due, and he most certainly is not appreciated for being a composer in his own right.

TAP BUTTON TO LISTEN

Matt Chamberlain: “8 Circuit Model”

In 2005, Chamberlain released a little-known solo gem on Trey Spruance’s Mimicry Records. It pulsed with fat beats, fatter synths, outer-space guitars, fuzz bass, and string arrangements, arriving as, in Chamberlain’s words, “an imaginary soundtrack to an Asian Western sci-fi horror movie.” Now the drummer/producer has a new solo electro/acoustic effort, marked by influences from Ennio Morricone, Nine Inch Nails, krautrock, and the general groove oddities of his Critters Buggin cohorts.

From start to finish, Company 23 never lulls or stumbles—but it also never overplays its hand. Despite plenty of expert playing— take, as just one example, the swirling synth solos on “Shirl”—it abounds with accessible melody and rhythm. It’s alive, quite simply. A handful of regular collaborators, including prolific Seattle guitarist Bill Horist, provide the final layers of the dense, protean tracks. But underneath it all is the work of Chamberlain, a man who, despite his multitude of accomplishments, is still waiting for his due. —Scott Morrow

PORTLAND CELLO PROJECT Homage (Jealous Butcher)

SHORT REVIEWS 8 of 8

Since 2007, the Portland Cello Project has taken the cello where few have gone before, offering chamber and stringbased renditions of movie themes, pop songs, classical pieces, and more—even metal tunes such as Pantera’s “Mouth for War.” The group’s live and recorded output now boasts more than 900 pieces, varying between straightforward arrangements with a handful of cellos to setups of grandiose proportions, with a dozen of its namesake instrument being supported by full choirs, winds, and percussion.

TAP BUTTON TO LISTEN

Portland Cello Project: “H*A*M”

On Homage, PCP pays tribute to hip hop by reworking influential hits such as “Hey Ya” by Outkast and “That’s My Bitch” and “H*A*M” by Kanye West and Jay-Z. “Canon on a Lollipopalicious Theme” takes Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop” and elegantly transforms its beats and vocoded rhymes to a string-quartet structure. In many regards, it’s unrecognizable in contrast to the ridiculousness of the original, but it manages to highlight many of the song’s catchiest aspects. The rest of Homage is built the same way, and whether or not you like hip hop or know the original tracks, fans of crossover chamber pieces (with beats) will enjoy the group’s latest. —Meaghann Korbel

PHOTO ESSAY

BRUISE CRUISE FESTIVAL 2012 A dispatch from the rock-’n’-roll festival at sea

King Khan & The Shrines 1 of 3

PHOTOS BY ERIC LUC

PHOTO ESSAY ALARM contributing writer Mark Craig and photographer Eric Luc stowed away on the second annual Bruise Cruise, a three-day “tropical rock-’n'-roll vacation” from Miami to the Bahamas. Here’s a rundown and glimpse of the seaworthy action.

“There’s no future in anarchy. I mean, let’s face it…we can do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than outside of it.”—Steven “Stevo” Levy’s final monologue in SLC Punk

For the second year in a row, founders Michelle Cable and Jonas Stein fully booked their partial charter on the Carnival Imagination known as the Bruise Cruise — “a floating Las Vegas casino” as guitarist Petey Dammit of Thee Oh Sees put it. Though most festivals charge way less, rely on headliners that perform in Colosseum-size venues, and typically have attendance in the thousands, the Bruise Cruise bets its success on the pockets of the grassroots rock-’n’-roll scene.

The festival set 500 “Bruisers”—composed of fans, hired hands, performers, musicians, and media correspondents—in cabins next to 2,000 regular cruisers on a three-day trip from the Port of Miami to the shores of Nassau and back. You have to get creative to entice a demographic that spends most of its leisure time in dives, and the Bruise Cruise delivered. From the Xanadu lounge in the hull of the ship to the night club Señor Frogs in Nassau, the voyage featured more than mere performances

by Fucked Up, Thee Oh Sees, King Khan & The Shrines, Kyp Malone (of TV on the Radio), Neil Hamburger, and Jello Biafra. It also featured, among other activities, a dance class fronted by bounce artist Vockah Redu and a Valentine’s Day dating game hosted by unruly Fucked Up front-man Damian Abraham. Now in its second year, the Bruise Cruise is a risky and unorthodox take on the modern music festival.

By incorporating the garage and muscle of Carnival, Cable and Stein were able to, once again, re-imagine the possibilities of an event set on a 70,000-ton pontoon amusement park that’s headed toward the Bahamas. The amenities offered on and below the decks of the Imagination included a giant water slide, a miniature golf course, a casino, endless food, room service, a night club, a salt-water pool, hot tubs (emphasis on the plural), and fine dinning. The tropical setting of Nassau offered resorts, tourist-tailored commerce, and miles of beach all devoid of open-container laws. What was witnessed on board was more than just an intoxicated observation on the Lido Deck. It was an experience full of high-highs and low-lows—a harsh reflection of the 21st Century and contrasting cultures. —MARK CRAIG

VIEW PHOTOS

TAP BUTTONS TO VIEW PHOTOS

Quintron (and Miss Pussycat) 3 of 3

Publisher & editor-in-chief Chris Force chris@alarmpress.com ----MUSIC EDITOR Scott Morrow scottm@alarmpress.com ----DESIGN DIRECTOR Lindsey Eden Turner lindsey@alarmpress.com ----DESIGNER Lauren Ayers lauren@alarmpress.com ----WRITERS Greg Burns, Mark Craig, Michael Danaher, Noah Davis, Megan Dawson, John Dugan, Scott Gordon, Patrick Hajduch, Andrew Hall, Tom Harrison, Dave Hofer, Meaghann Korbel, Bobby Markos, David Metcalfe, Todd Nief, Michael Nolledo, Saby Reyes-Kulkarni, Timothy A. Schuler, Jessica Steinhoff, Charlie Swanson, John Taylor, Jeff Terich, Danielle Turney, Lauren Zens

photographers Chloe Aftel, Josh Band, Sarah Barrick, Greg Burns, Tim Cadiente, Anthony Dubois, Jessica Eisner, Aaron Farley, Yannick Grandmont, Noah Kalina, Christopher Kitahara, Olivia Kate Jaffe, Tina K., Eric Luc, Lisa Predko, Jason Frank Rothenberg, Sean Scheidt, Gavin Thomas, Nathanael Turner, Elizabeth Weinberg, Matthew Williams, Michael Robert Williams cover image Omar Rodiguez Lopez, shot in Los Angeles by Tim Cadiente ----marketing manager Danelle Sarvas danelle@alarmpress.com ----national sales director Liisa Jordan liisa@alarmpress.com

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