The Outward Spiral

March Update

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 06:48:00 +0000

I finally got around to going through my phone and camera and sorting through a huge load of pictures. Here are some random photos taken during The Pass' tour out west in January/February, which you can check out here. They're mostly scenery and whatnot. I wish I made a better effort to capture all the wonderful people, friends old and new, that we encountered along the way.

Here's a separate album devoted to the Grand Canyon, where we were treated to an awesome display of nature. We arrived there in the early morning in the middle of a swift snowfall and the low clouds filled the canyon, creating a quite ominous feeling. Peering over the rim, you could sense the vastness below, but all that visible was a void of white-grey clouds and snow. Within minutes of our arrival, however, the clouds were quickly swept away and, like some magic theatrical curtain being drawn, the canyon was revealed to us in all its glory. Words don't do it justice.

Here's a brief album that contains random phone shots from shows in Toronto, Louisville, and St. Louis.

The Pass has more pretty sweet dates coming up as well. Check our calendar to see if we'll be playing near you.

I'm looking to book some more Brainbheats shows in the near future, but in the meantime I've been working on a bunch of new music and doing some more remixing. Most recently I remixed "Lotus Flower" by Radiohead. Check it:

Radiohead - Lotus Flower (bhts rmx) by brainbheats

Until next time.

The Pass - Walk Away (Music Video)

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:37:00 +0000

New hotness from The Pass:

My Favorite Music of 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 05:38:00 +0000

So it's nearing the end of the year, which means it's time for an onslaught of best/worst this/that of-the-year lists. Here are what I thought to be the best songs and best album of 2010:

Songs (in no particular order)

Martina Topley-Bird - "Phoenix"

It's hard to describe this song in words, but I'll attempt by throwing out "minimal yet haunting." Her albums Blue God and Some Place Simple put her on my list of favorite female singer/songwriters. I find it difficult to listen to this song once and not play it on repeat.

Tanlines - "Real Life"

Ethereal, 80s-sounding new wave pop, done so well that Tears for Fears could have written it themselves. A 2010 song, but it manages to give me that sweet nostalgic feeling, and I can't resist it.

Miike Snow - "Billie Holiday"

Driving beat? Check. Epic dirty synthy goodness? Check. Lovely vocal production with a killer hook? Check. That about covers it.

Joanna Newsom - "You and Me, Bess"

The harp is such an under-rated instrument. Mixed with a spare horn accompaniment, Newsom melodically weaves and plucks through enthralling chords with spine-tingling dynamics and imagery-rich lyrics.

Flying Lotus - "Zodiac Shit"

This song really makes more sense within the context and flow of the album (Cosmogramma), but is a stand-out nonetheless. Like Dilla before him, Flying Lotus has the ability to produce instrumental hip-hop music so stunning that lyrics would only get in his way.

Brad Mehldau - "The Falcon Will Fly Again"

If I had to speak in terms of specific genres, Mehldau's Highway Rider would easily be the best jazz album of the year. Brad Mehldau + Jon Brion producing = forget about it. This track certainly isn't the best representation of this lushly orchestrated, sprawling album as a whole, but it's the one I keep coming back to. To me, Mehldau and saxophonist Joshua Redman are the best duo in the game right now, and this minimal piece serves as their showcase.

Erykah Badu - "Window Seat"

I'm a huge Erykah Badu fan, and this might be my favorite song that she's written to date. The perfect combination of jazz and soul, delivered by maybe the most beautifully raw and soulful voice since Billie Holiday (the singer, not the Miike Snow song from before).

Album of the Year

The Roots - How I Got Over

I surprised myself somewhat with how little thought I needed to put into this. Game, set, match, Roots. Not since Passion Pit's

Manners last year have I listened to an album so obsessively. I don't consider myself a connoisseur of hip hop by any means, especially within the past decade or so, but I know what I like, and I like this. The Roots have been my high water mark for good hip-hop music for a long time, and they exceeded even my high expectations by crushing it big time with How I Got Over. There's not a single misstep to be found. This is their masterwork. They got back to the basics of their style with more stripped-down instrumentation, tasty and creative arrangements, and culturally relevant and meaningful lyrics (which are unfortunately all too rare in modern rap and hip-hop). The album is simultaneously modern and reminiscent of vintage soul, and for my money, Black Thought has about the tightest flow in the emcee business. I could say more, but these are all just afterthoughts. It's all there in the music.

The Roots - "Radio Daze" (feat. Blu, P.O.R.N., Dice Raw)

The Roots - "Right On" (feat. Joanna Newsom)

The Roots - "Dear God 2.0" (feat. Jim James)

Lucid Dreaming

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:20:00 +0000

For the past few months, I've been really into the idea of lucid dreaming. If you don't know what lucid dreaming is, you can read all about it on Wikipedia, but the short answer is that a lucid dream is a dream in which you know that you're dreaming. This concept has fascinated me for a long time, but only recently have I started practicing the ability to achieve a lucid dream.

For those who might think this is some sort of New Age crap, lucid dreaming has a lot of science and history to back it up. Lucid dreams have been mentioned as far back in history as St. Augustine of Hippo in 415 AD. Scientific studies of dreaming have also documented them using brain activity monitors and other such fancy gizmos.

Fact #1 about dreams is that everybody dreams. Everybody. Multiple times per night even. The problem, though, is that the part of your memory responsible for dreaming also does a great job of resetting itself upon awakening, which is why it's so easy to forget dreams in the morning. You could be having lucid dreams every night and simply forgetting them the next day. So, the first and foremost strategy for anything involving dreams is to improve your ability to recall them. Like anything else, it takes practice. For a while now, I've been documenting my dreams by keeping a dream journal. It's as simple as writing down every detail you can remember about your dream the instant you wake up.

There are techniques you can use to help this process, which I won't go into, but it seems to work over time. For me, it started as very hit-or-miss (maybe one or two a week), but now I can almost always remember at least one dream per night, and sometimes two or even three. It's also incredibly interesting to go back and read the entries for some of my past dreams. Sometimes reading them triggers my memory and I can remember having that dream, and others read like the strange rantings of a madman.

Of course, you also have to become aware that you're dreaming while the dream is taking place. Your brain has a tendency to believe what it sees, and since dreams are brain-generated, you have to convince it that what you're seeing isn't reality (shades of The Matrix, anyone?) To practice that, you have to become accustomed to performing regular "reality checks," which are some type of action with predictable results in the real world, and for which any other result would help convince your mind that you're dreaming. There are a lot of possibilities, but a common one is to look at a watch or clock, look away, then look at it again. Things like words and numbers tend to become distorted and confused in dreams. Chances are, your watch would show a different time each time you looked at it (which is why you look twice), or might even show strange characters or or other non-numerical symbols.

So far, I haven't had any lucid dreams that I can remember, but the process been enlightening nonetheless. Dreams are crazy things.

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 01:51:00 +0000

Don't remember how I got here, but I came across this random website that pairs Friedrich Nietzsche quotes with images from the horrendously trite cartoon The Family Circus. I love it because they're two things I'm not a fan of, but together, they're a genius combo.

Go Away, Weezer

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 08:11:00 +0000

I've always loved Weezer. They'll likely never top the consistency of the "Blue Album" and Pinkerton (I really enjoyed Maladroit and the "Green Album" as well), and I must admit that their odd choice of putting a picture of Hurley from the show "Lost" on their latest album cover is more than a little puzzling, but Rivers Cuomo still knows how to write a quality song from time to time. Just like Green Day, Weezer was a band of my generation, the mid-90s, and yet, here it is around 15 years later, and they're still able to create music that teenagers can identify with. There's something to be said for that in my opinion, and if they can save just one kid from listening to Miley Cyrus or Bruno Mars, then they've done their job.

Long story short, I still have love for Weezer, but I thought this article about a guy who wants to pay Weezer to break up was pretty funny. And hey, if you agree, go ahead and contribute to the cause.

BURST On Sale Now

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 03:06:00 +0000

The debut LP by my band The Pass is finally out. We threw a sweet midnight release party at the country's best music store Ear X-Tacy for all of our Louisville friends, but all you folks from elsewhere aren't going to be left out. Please help us keep the wheels turning by checking it out, and if you like what you hear, buy a physical or digital copy using the links below.

BURST digital

BURST physical

Also keep an eye out for our tour dates to see if we'll be in your area. Over the next month, we'll be in Cincinnati, Toronto, St. Louis (with Major Lazer), Indianapolis, Muncie, NYC, and of course you can catch us here in Louisville supporting !!! (chkchkchk) at Headliners on Sept. 30.

Preview the New Pass Album

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:42:00 +0000

My band The Pass are releasing our debut LP called BURST next Tuesday, Sept. 21 on SonaBlast Records. You don't have to wait until then to check it out though. Using the player below, you can temporarily stream the album in its entirety. If you live in the Louisville area, you can be among the first to get your hard copy by swinging by our midnight release party/performance at Ear X-Tacy on Sept. 20. Remember when "new music Tuesday" was a big deal, and you'd camp out at the record store to get that hot new album? Well, we're bringing that awesome vibe back. Ear X-Tacy is keeping the lights on late, and we're gonna rock the house. Come out and support one of the best independent record stores in the country.

If I could recommend some tracks, a couple of my personal favorites are "Treatment of the Sun," "Criminal," "Out of Hand," and "Fate." Honestly, though, I think the whole album is solid and flows really nicely, if do say so myself. It feels great to still be pumped about something I've been dealing with on a daily basis for the past 6-7 months or so. I'm really proud of the fact that I can still listen to this music for the billionth time and feel good about it. Normally, I'm the type of person who finishes a creative project and is instantly ready to forget about it and move on to the next thing.

BURST by The Pass

New Video from The Pass

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 20:54:00 +0000

My band The Pass has a new video out for "Vultures," a song off our debut LP BURST, which comes out Sept. 21. Our friend Zach from We Listen for You (who directed our videos for both "Colors" and "Treatment of the Sun") had the great idea to make the video work on two levels. For most people, it's just a weird, wild house party for a fun party song (which was really fun to shoot, I might add), with a sort of lo-fi, first-person feel. On the other level, Zach set up visual references for a whole bunch of music blogs and other music-related websites. It's a contest, in fact. Whoever can name the most references will win a $50 gift certificate to InSound along with a free hard copy of BURST. Learn more here, and check out the vid below:

Lords Knows I've Been There...

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:31:00 +0000

...and I wish I had written this song. Cee-Lo says it all, and wraps it in one hell of a catchy, groovin' package:

Brainbheats Mixtape

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:07:00 +0000

One of my favorite music bloggers Pretty Much Amazing recently asked me to make a mix for Mixcloud's Celebration of Curation showcase. You can check it out in the embedded player below or download it directly here (right click, save as, etc). I recommend throwing it on your iPod and listening to it at max volume while taking a nice summer Sunday drive. In case you happen to be wondering what song #15 is (mistakenly left off the track list), it's "Faberge Falls for Shuggie" by Of Montreal.

I picked, in my opinion, some under-rated songs from a few well-known artists, as well as some killer songs by lesser-known artists that I feel everybody should hear at least once. At the very least, I can guarantee that your head will be nodding involuntarily throughout the set.

Pretty Much Amazing X Brainbeats: Celebration Of Curation Mix by Pretty Much Amazing on Mixcloud

Essential Listening: Soul Coughing

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:21:00 +0000

Combine the funky groove-jazz of Medeski Martin and Wood, the madman stream-of-consciousness rambling of Captain Beefheart, and the songwriting sensibility of Dave Matthews, and you'll have something that sounds like Soul Coughing. They were relatively short-lived, having only released three albums, but that can be a good thing. Their music can stand on its own, without the inevitable need that comes with time to adapt or evolve into something different. There are no half-baked ideas or questionable musical decisions anywhere in their discography. Just three albums full of ground-breaking material from a band in its prime.

To me, Soul Coughing is undeniably summer music. I can't say why exactly, but it probably explains why they've been on my mind lately.

Soul Coughing - Uh, Zoom Zip

Soul Coughing - Soundtrack to Mary (Live)

Soul Coughing - Moon Sammy

Sneak Peak from The Pass

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 22:50:00 +0000

Check out Treatment of the Sun, the opening track from my band The Pass' forthcoming LP Burst, due out this fall. Download the song right here from BandCamp. Learn those hot new dance moves.

Premiered by Pretty Much Amazing:

The Pass - "Treatment of the Sun" PMA Premiere from Pretty Much Amazing on Vimeo.

Time To Put Up or Shut Up

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:51:00 +0000

So, a little over a year ago, after Paradigm dissolved, I decided to take all this electronic production I've been doing in my spare time and make a real project out of it. Making beats and playing around with sonic what-have-you has always been a blast to me, so I finally said to myself "fuck it, let's do this thing for real." I made some serious upgrades in my little studio (which I lovingly call the Shit Factory), and within the year I released my EP Tomorrow is the Destroyer, thanks to Ropeadope Records.

Then, there was the next step: performing live. At first, I wasn't sure if I even wanted to do it, but once again, I told myself "fuck it, why go halfway?" Of course, easier said than done. Right around this time, The Pass started to really pick up some heat and started working on our debut LP. That has occupied quite a bit of my time, but happily so. I also quickly realized how different performing this music live would be from a technical standpoint than what I've been used to. I've been performing as a musician for a long time, and doing production for a long time, but combining the two into a "production performance" is a whole different beast. It has been a challenge to overcome, for sure, for both mental and musical reasons, and I must honestly say I've been doing a fair amount of procrastinating as well. But now, in the "fuck it" vein of thinking that I've been embracing lately, I decided to do precisely what the title of this post says and put something in stone.

The debut live Brainbheats performance will be happening on July 15 at Skull Alley in Louisville.

Summer Festival Time

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Wed, 26 May 2010 06:05:00 +0000

With music festivals all over the place, summer is a great time for live music. You pretty much can't lose with all the major ones, like Bonnaroo, Lollapalozza, and Coachella (which already happened), but there are always great smaller festivals too. I just found out about the Nateva Festival in my home state of Maine, which must be brand new because I'd never heard of it before. Killer line-up, including The Flaming Lips, STS9, Passion Pit, Zappa Plays Zappa, and a whole ton more. The Rothbury festival in Michigan was one of the coolest ones I've ones I've been to in terms of how well it was run, the environment/festival grounds, and of course the line-up was pretty stellar as well. Strangely, the powers that be at Rothbury have announced there won't be a festival this year, and didn't really give a reason.

We in The Pass have at least two festivals scheduled for the summer thus far. We'll be appearing at Louisville's Forecastle Festival, which has grown really quickly from a small local event to one of the bigger events on the festival circuit. This year's Forecastle line-up also includes The Flaming Lips, Spoon, DEVO (who I'm by far the most excited about), and festival mainstays like Widespread Panic and Umphrey's McGee. We'll also be making the trek to Brooklyn in June for the Northside Festival, which has been on the cutting edge of new indie music, sort of like the northern version of South By Southwest.

We've also been selected as finalists in an online contest for another festival in Louisville called Hullabalou, which is grounds for a little shameless promotion. If you want to help us out (which would be awesome), go to leoweekly.com/band-vote and vote for The Pass. You can vote once a day for each email address. No spamming here. The email address is only used to confirm votes. Bonus coolness points for voting multiple times by using different email addresses. If you're like me, you probably have a bunch of email accounts: a personal one, one for work, an old one you don't really use anymore, etc. Use all of them!

The Pass - Colors (Music Video)

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:14:00 +0000

We filmed a music video for the song "Colors" with director Zach Hart. Check it out! 720p setting highly recommended.

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:16:00 +0000

Just came across this cool random video of two guys playing melodic beats on hangs thanks to I-Am-Bored. Even though 99% of YouTube is useless crap, every once in a while you'll find a gem like this that makes you glad we live in the internet age. Sweet minimalist, Philip Glass kinda vibe with some nice melodic interplay. Keep it up guys.

Brainbheats Love and Thunder

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:24:00 +0000

A couple blogs, Paper Pistol and Boom Boom Chik, have been kind enough to feature my recently released EP this week. I can't lie, it always feels really cool when somebody says positive things about your music. You never get tired of it really. Be sure to check those blogs out.

Next weekend, April 17, the Pass will be performing along with Wax Fang and the Seedy Seeds at a Thunder Over Louisville event sponsored by the LEO and Louisville ballet called Let's Go Crazy at Thunder. It's a pricey one, but honestly, this is probably going to be the best place to be during Thunder this year. It's going to be amazingly cool. Forget about performing. I'm looking forward to this gig just to be at the party.

The Pass on MTV

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:01:00 +0000

The Pass' song "Colors" made an appearance last night on everyone's favorite reality show about knocked up teenagers, 16 and Pregnant. If you want to check it out, the episode can viewed online by clicking here. The song plays during the lead-in right after the first commercial break.

I feel like I should add the standard disclaimer: the views expressed in 16 and Pregnant do not necessarily reflect those of The Pass. Don't go getting pregnant, kiddies. Or go ahead if you want. Whatever.

Essential Listening: Robert Miles/Trilok Gurtu

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:47:00 +0000

I get asked all the time about what I'm listening to, so I've decided to start an ongoing series dedicated to artists and albums that I feel would make great additions to any music lover's collection. I'll try to avoid the obvious, like "y'all should check out Beethoven, because he was like a super awesome classical composer and junk" and stick to music that's probably lesser-known to the general public. To me, there's no better album to start with than Miles Gurtu, one that pretty much became my Bible for a long period of time.

What happened when trance producer Robert Miles collaborated with insane Indian jazz drummer Trilok Gurtu? Pure awesomeness, that's what. To me, this album represents what's largely missing from both the jazz and electronic worlds: fully embracing each other. It's beautiful musicianship meeting electronic wizardry, and vice-versa. Think jazz trio meets Deadmau5. Miles' electronic soundscapes blend perfectly with Gurtu's frantic drumming and Jon Thorne's snaking bass lines. The best part is that it doesn't sound like an experiment. It sounds completely organic. Overall, in my opinion, this album is one of the finest examples of what the future of jazz should sound like. Here's a sample:

Colors Re-Release

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:49:00 +0000

My second release in as many weeks! SonaBlast Records has re-released the EP Colors by The Pass, which is now currently available online on iTunes and in hard copy at area record stores. At only $5 for the download, you can grab a a copy along with Brainbheats' EP Tomorrow Is The Destroyer, which was released last week by Ropeadope Records, for just over $10.

The Pass will also be playing a free show with Aquaventure this Friday (2/26) at Indiana University Southeast. Gonna be insane.

Brainbheats - Tomorrow is the Destroyer

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:01:00 +0000

The debut EP of Brainbheats, my solo studio project, was released yesterday by Ropeadope Records. Tomorrow is the Destroyer is available exclusively online, available almost everywhere that digital music is sold, including Ropeadope's Digital Store, iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic, among many others.

I'm really happy that this album is finally out, as it's something I finished work on over the summer, so it's been a long wait to take that final step to put it out into the world. The next step is to develop a live show, which is something I must admit that I've been slacking on due to a variety of reasons, one of which is The Pass' current studio undertaking for Sonablast Records, which has been my top priority of late. I can definitely say right now, without question, that The Pass will turn some heads with this album, which will probably be coming out sometime this summer. Live Brainbheats shows are on the horizon, though, and I look forward to getting that rolling in the near future.

Also, in case you missed any of the Countdown Freemix series that I made available for free download in the weeks leading up to the album release, they will still be available for free in the media section of my website. I had a lot of fun mashing different artists together to create, for all practical purposes, completely new music. The final volume, release last week, was also partly a celebration of Ropeadope's 10-year anniversary. I took samples from close to 30 different pieces of music, all Ropeadope releases, and weaved them together into a 7-minute mix. Among many others, you'll find samples by Medeski Martin and Wood, Charlie Hunter, DJ Logic, Christian McBride, Benevento/Russo Duo, and Paradigm. Of course, I had to throw some Paradigm in there. Can you find the Paradigm sample I used?

David Byrne/Fatboy Slim: Here Lies Love

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:21:00 +0000

A little while back, I read about what sounded like an incredibly cool record that was in the works: a collaboration between David Byrne and DJ/producer Fatboy Slim. I'm a huge fan of both, so needless to say, I had to find out more. Who wouldn't want to hear Byrne, one of the most creative guys in music, pair up with one of the world's foremost electronic musicians?

The project, called Here Lies Love, is a song cycle based around the life of Imelda Marcos. According to Byrne's website, "In particular, the production looks at the relationship between Imelda and a servant from her childhood, Estrella Cumpas, who appeared at key moments in Imelda's life." The album includes collaborations with various singers as well, including Tori Amos, Cyndi Lauper, Santigold, Natalie Merchant, and Sharon Jones.

So, obviously, it's worth looking into. The double-CD album will be released on April 6th. More info and some short audio samples are available at David Byrne's website.

Also, a reminder that my digital EP Tomorrow is the Destroyer will be released digitally by Ropeadope Records on Feb. 15. That's next Monday. As we count down to the EP release, I've been releasing a new random remix each week for the past 3 weeks, with a final remix to follow later this week. They're available for free download from my website: brainbheats.com.

Freemix Countdown

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:43:00 +0000

In case you haven't checked out the brand new Brainbheats web hotness, I'm celebrating my upcoming Ropeadope Records release on Feb. 15 by giving away a free remix each week. Last week's track Bring the Noise blended Public Enemy, Radiohead, Incubus, Medeski Martin and Wood, Lou Reed, and a whole lot more.

I just put up this week's remix, Ms. Jackson, which is a mash of Outkast, Pink Floyd, Nine Inch Nails, Marvin Gaye, Beck, Beastie Boys, and Sublime.

Two more to go until the EP release!

Also, you can dig on "Crosswalk Stereo" by The Pass on Hype Machine. Love it!

The Marching Band Routine from Hell

noreply@blogger.com (Brian) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:18:00 +0000

Louisville folks who know the local music scene might be familiar with Troy Yocum, a drummer from Louisville currently serving in the Army. Troy played with a number of great bands around town, but these days he's pushing his drumming skills to tha max. Last year, while stationed in Iraq, Troy attempted to set a new world drumming record by playing for over 120 hours in a row. Unfortunately, the extreme heat in Iraq during his attempt forced him to bow out mid-marathon due to cramping. Still determined, Troy plans to make another attempt at the record in the future, but not before he tackles another goal: to take his drumming on the road. 7000 miles. By foot.

Troy will kick off his massive 15-month trek, during which he'll have to average more than 20 miles per day, here in Louisville on April 17th. Dubbed "Hike for Our Heroes," Troy will be visiting numerous cities and events in an effort to help raise money and awareness for our nation's military families. For loads more info and to find out how you can help, check out drumhike.com.

Good luck Troy!