The Blood Beat

A joint like Barrel House commands a certain respect from a journalist, or in my case, someone faking to be a journalist. Something about the term “citizen journalist” feels to me to fit in a line of euphemisms not far behind “friendly fire” and “collateral damage,” but all military and political ho-hum aside… As a venue, Barrel House ought to draw some speak-easy comparisons – discreet location, vigilant doorman, bizarre alcohol situation. Saying anything about it in writing probably has me now on the blacklist, but since I was never on the A-list, I suppose I’ll just keep ducking my way in all the same. The point of all this being, the ad-agency-gone-underground-music-venue hosted San Francisco’s latest indie electro-pop darlings, Geographer, on Friday night.

Geographer released Animal Shapes on Tricycle Records, a 6 song EP full of orchestral influenced dance-pop numbers. If that classicifaction has you scratching your head, let me also say, the album prominently features digital drum loops, catchy synth hooks, and cello backing from cover to cover. Michael Deni’s vocals command the same effortless slips into floating falsettos as the likes of James Mercer, though less nasally; rich and smooth. It helps that his stage presence includes a mastery of multi-tasking, pivoting between finger digital drums, guitar, keyboard, vocals and controlling and altering loops, all in a single song. Not impressed? He’s joined by a high quality drummer and one of indie rocks only electric cellists that comes to mind (a fine one at that). They’re an original sound that’s garnered such attention as Spin Magazine ranked them amongst only two others as ‘Undiscovered Bands You Need To Hear Now’ in October of 2008. Well, they’re discovered now and have been playing the piss out of the San Francisco concert circuit. I’d tell you to check them out at the Independent on 2.23.11, one of the Noise Pop 2011 shows, but it’s already sold out. But that’s good news for Deni and crew. Keep an eye out, they have been making the SF venue rounds.

- Matthew Hunt

November 2010

Matthew Hunt — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 05:25:46 +0000

http://www.mediafire.com/?d9a6r39yh2u5g

Banjo or Freakout Since We Last Met

jj Let Them

Mogwai Rano Pano

The Cave Singers Swim Club

Porcelain Raft Back Of My Eyes

Baths Pop Song

Tyvek Underwater To

Tennis Take Me Somewhere

The Hairs Balding College Girls

Memory Tapes Pretend The Devil Isn’t Real

Shit Robot Take ‘Em Up (feat. Nancy Whang)

PO PO Lets Get Away

Jim Noir Car

Air Waves Waters (Feat Sharon Van Etten)

Depressed Buttons Ow!

Soft Circle Reaper

Destroyer Chinatown

Buffalo Tom Arise Watch

Dinowalrus Phone Home From The Edge

The Poison Tree My Only Friend

October 2010

Matthew Hunt — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 05:27:27 +0000

Woodsman Insects

Surf City Kudos

Houses Reds

oOoOO Burnout Eyess

Soars Figurehead

British Sea Power Zeus

Kurt Vile In My Time

Botany Agave

Mr Dream Learn The Language

Quiet Lights Ablaze

Lower Dens Blue And Silver

Nive Nielsen Good for You (I Would Be)

Keepaway Sideways Smile

Expensive Looks Proud Looks

Former Ghosts Winters Year

Gold Panda Snow Taxis

Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger Jardin Du Luxembourg

Diamond Rings Something Else

Computer Magic Victory Gin

Weekend – Sports

Matthew Hunt — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 18:28:37 +0000

Coma Summer

After speaking with them in their practice space in July, we waved the flag on San Francisco’s own Weekend as a band to seriously keep your eyes on. There’s a lot of shoe-gaze making the rounds these days, but Weekend brings some of most charged elements of punk and post-rock to keep it pressing and renewed. When you’re touring with A Place to Bury Strangers, you’re going to need some ear-bursting, bleeding-red energy. And with their first full-length, Sports, Weekend provides just that. Having served us with two fantastic singles ahead of the album this year (“End Times,” a track taken from their split with the Young Prisms, is one of our favorites from earlier this year), Sports was shaping to be quite a ride, most likely a fast, hazy and spirited one. So let’s get these windows down! Wait wait wait… can you unlock my window?

Sports rockets into play on “Coma Summer,” with hot pace and a youthful attitude. The bass and drums give the music a distinctly punk base layer, while the often blistering, at times droning, and at others clanging guitar work of Kevin Johnson grab you by the neck and throw you through alleys of rupturing texture. In the spirit of Kevin Shields and Ira Kaplan, Johnson throws a diverse set of distorted tantrums through his pickups. Overlaid all of this chaos are the vocals of Shaun Durkan, which serve more as an instrumental compliment to Kevin’s fretwork than as the vehicle of a story teller. They’re predominantly indistinguishable, at times sounding almost inhuman amongst the storm clouds of fuzzed-out distortion. Yet, on tracks like “Coma Summer” Durkan leans heavily on captivating melodies, getting downright anthemic.

Though the more immediately memorable tracks come rather fueled, there’s a lot of diversity to the pace and vibe of the record. It’s noisy, that’s for damn sure. And was probably loud as hell to record (and meant to be played that way). But there’s a lot of trade off between how that noise is shaped. For instance, “Monday Morning” exchanges offense for slow, swelling waves of distortion and drifty vocals, while the cruising bass line keeps complete eruption imminent (which eventually comes at the beginning of “Monongah, WV.”) It’s rarely busy; Sports is mostly minimalistic, as the cover art my suggest. And while the tour-mates might suggest a bleaker feel, Sports lends itself to plenty of triumph.

In every sense, this is city music. It’s disorienting, aggressive, and overwhelming, with moments of unity, release and a damn good fight in it. Kids in Manchester are going piss themselves over it. And for good reason; it challenges where its influences like Joy Division left off with a modern attack and renewed vigor. It’s a hell of a record and well worth the ear damage.

- matthew hunt

Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest

Matthew Hunt — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 05:12:35 +0000

The first time I saw Bradford Cox play a drunken night in San Francisco, he was hardly capable of standing up,let alone keeping a song together. Suffice to say, we got off to a rocky start, but I’ve since been made quite a believer. If anything his substance abuse that particular evening stuck with me when reading his statement on the decision for the new album’s name, Halcyon Digest (4AD), “The album’s title is a reference to a collection of fond memories and even invented ones… The way that we write and rewrite and edit our memories to be a digest version of what we want to remember, and how that’s kind of sad.” We all have memories we’d prefer to forget, and worth drinking past. Deerhunter isn’t without their fare share of tragedies. The record runs the gamut from blissfully nostalgic to a soft sadness regarding the irreversibility of time. There’s particular attention to aging and loneliness, though mostly paired with a sunny backdrop. The self-produced album got an assist from Ben Allen, who produced Animal Collective’s MPP and Fall Be Kind EP, which should set the stage for the album’s tasteful expansiveness.

Beneath the noisy yet ethereal atmosphere lays a bedrock of straight pop. Bradford Cox and Joshua Pundt let memorable hooks spin and spin amidst a nebulous sound, like pinwheels in the swirling wind. Despite it’s content getting heavy here and there, Halcyon Digest, moreso than prior releases, feels sun blistered and bright. “Revival” is a perfectly relaxed beach-soaked pop number, which drives hard and keeps you slapping your knees. Cox, now more than ever, displays a magnificent range and angelic purity to his tone, reminiscent to the indie favorites, Grizzly Bear. “Basement Scene” plays bittersweet in its distinct end-of-summer tones, but its lyrics suggest the occasionally somber theme of the record, “It could be the death of me/knowing that my friends will not remember me/I don’t want to get old.” This bittersweetness hits best on the back half of the record with the single, “Helicopter,” which drips with an echoing drum machine, chiming bells and psychedelic effects with a bright yet lonely melody in the canopy above it all, “Nobody cares for me/I keep no company/I have minimum needs/And now they are through with me.”

However, there are a handful of songs that lean away from sunny atmospheres, getting groovier and shoegazey. “Earthquake,” features a downpour of multi-tracking, the seemingly 20 some-odd acoustic guitars rippling like a flock of scattering birds. “Desire Lines,” opens up into a lengthy, entrancing breakdown, carried by bass and straight ahead drums, and steered by shimmering guitar licks on repeat. Similarly, “Fountain Stairs” hammers like a great 90s rock groove, complete with sax accompaniment, though the true sax number on this record is “Coronado”. “Sailing,” while more of a folk ballad, lyrically embodies the inverted drive behind the typical shoegaze song, “Wind in my sails/I live for days/No water, no food/It was good/I didn’t mine, no/Nowhere to be/Nothing to see/Except me.”

Final track, “He Would Have Laughed” is a tribute to Jay Reatard, and was recorded by Cox alone at Notown Sound in Marietta, Georgia. This track serves as testimony to Cox’s impressive composition capabilities, tasteful choice of effects, and a monster on the loop pedal; not to mention a touching dedication to a shooting star musician that burnt out bright if but far too early. The intimacy and sincere intensity of the track at times feels like songs from Thom Yorke’s The Eraser.

The production level throughout the album is a great mid-level, big enough to reach expansive levels, but not hesitant to strip down to bare, gritty essentials. Combined with increasing accessibility, their opening spot in Spoon’s tour becomes an easy line to connect. The songs build wonderfully, starting from stutter steps and reaching elegant strides. They hit moments of golden glory, but are steeped in loneliness. Halcyon Digest proves a truly dynamic, transporting listen and a satisfying volley from a band held with considerable expectations.

- matthew hunt

September 2010

Matthew Hunt — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:58:49 +0000

http://www.mediafire.com/file/xkwx9lyozdc0akh/September%202010.zip

Parlovr Hell Heaven

The Fresh And Onlys Waterfall

Twin Sister Meet The Frownies

Weekend Coma Summer

Anoraak Dont Be Afraid (Feat. Sally Shapiro) (Alternative Version)

Shabazz Palaces Barksdale Corners

Warpaint Undertow

Bell Dialtone

The War On Drugs Comin Through

The Octopus Project Fuguefat

Reading Rainbow Wasting Time

Family Of The Year Lets Be Honest

White Denim Through Your Windows

Owen Pallett A Man With No Ankles

Mr. Little Jeans Faking Gold

Lower Dens Blue And Silver

Dungen Marken Lg Stilla

Sharon Van Etten Dont Do It

Escort Cocaine Blues

Grinderman – Grinderman 2

Matthew Hunt — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 21:27:22 +0000

I tried to warn you. Nick Cave and his crew of miscreants WILL STOP AT NOTHING! Let me make this abundantly clear: this album comes nearly 40 years into Nick Cave’s career and these old wolves are still foaming at the mouth to rip off your limbs and party in your blood. Though the rock legend requires little if any introduction, this Aussie’s prolific career ranges from early days as a murder ballad songwriter, to score composer (The Assassination of Jesse James), to novelist (The Death of Bunny Munro), and now… in what should be the twilight of their careers… Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos, weighing in at an average age of about 50, give us their most psychedelic and hard hitting work, period.

Grinderman 2 plays somewhat like an extension of the original effort which was a pivotal turn for the foursome, so its worth delineating how it arose. The members, all originally Bad Seeds, began Grinderman in 2006 as a side project with a distinctly rawer sound, supposedly due to Cave’s rudimentary guitar capabilities (traditionally a piano player). Grinderman, released in 2007, was a runaway train- trippier than the Seeds, and down right ridiculous in its loose approach, while maintaining a commanding aggression. The album’s focal point, “No Pussy Blues,” was a declaration from Cave, “It is the child standing goggle-eyed at the cake shop window, as the shop-owner, in his plastic sleeves, barricades the door and turns the sign to “CLOSED”. It is the howl in the dark of the Everyman.” Watch their performance of ” Honey Bee (Let’s Fly to Mars)” on Later… With Jools Holland for visual digestion of this concept.

Now Cave returns as the psych rock master of twisted, unsatiated, Nabokovian desires. He sizes up a tiny hellion on the single, “Heathen Child,” detailing, “She’s got a little powder/She’s got a little gun/She’s got a little poison, got a little gun/She’s sitting in the bathtub sucker her thumb” (hilariously literal interpretation above). We’ve heard him discuss a similarly destructive nymphet on his better known, “The Curse of Millhaven.”

Perhaps the only real divergence of Grinderman 2 is it’s more troubled, warped, longing approach to getting busy, where Grinderman used testosterone-driven outrage to make its demands for sexuality. The first album felt like a battle cry for all muted carnality, and now Cave has raided the sealed cages. On “When My Baby Comes,” Cave begs from the perspective of a psych ward patient for his lover to visit, “Just how long you gonna be my baby? Til you come.” The grunge groove that hits is soaring, fueled and entrancing, winding out while the full band repeats, “Where did you go in my house?” On earlier track, “Worm Tamer,” Cave tastes the lustful poison of a serpent-like lover on his tongue, and concludes with the lamentation, “I guess I’ve loved you far too long (far too long!).” These are twisted tales of passion. Though no longer banging on the doors for entry, his torment persists pungently in fresh confusion, as Cave continues to take on the impossible and unbearable power of nubile temptresses. He’s the wolf in the decadent chambers; the beast in the deceitful gardens; the Grinderman.

- matthew hunt

SF Rumble at Milk Bar ft. Oona, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., and Taxes – 9/08/10

Matthew Hunt — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:23:34 +0000

Oona http://www.myspace.com/oonamusic

Thanks to a slew of support from Future Sounds, The Owl Mag, Noise Pop, BAGeL Radio, and SonicLiving, Milk recently hosted a free monthly Rumble featuring the growingly recognized Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. The night kicked off with a unique performance by Oona, Oakland’s own magnetic front girl. Oona brings a mix of soul, rock, R&B and stage presence that, as for contemporaries, can really only be likened to Bad Boy’s recent megastar Janelle Monae. Oona brandished singular vocal capabilities, which can were backed by a shiningly polished band. The set was best summed later by Taxes front-man Robby Cronholm who said, “How about Oona, huh? I want what she’s having! What a performer.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Vocal Chords

Headliner, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. arrived in their emblematic Nascar uniforms, touting Detroit pride and the most American flags SF has seen since election year. What followed was a set of rich vocal harmonies and pure pop energy. The trio was a cheerful bunch, expressing that this being their first tour, they are still managing to not hate each other. Given their spirit and knack for complex pop harmonies, their cover of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” seemed to fit well into a set of originals. They’ll be spraying champagne from the winner’s podium by the time their LP debuts later this year/early next.

Taxes http://www.myspace.com/taxesband

Lastly, San Francisco locals Taxes rounded out the oddly mixed bill. Though Cronholm began their set stating “its be a rough week,” implying some personal challenges, they certainly weren’t showing any signs of down-trodden attitude in their enthused performance. Emotional lyrics met hard rocking bridges and the occaisional scream, equating to something like an angsty Ben Gibbard. Though their music isn’t all that aligned with this publication’s direction, I have to esteem these guys as a rehearsed act who are plenty impressive for their genre.

– matthew hunt