Squid Can - For the Coolest Cephalopods

Veterans Day

Alex — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:55:04 +0000

Something nice for Veterans Day.
Download "Dawn Chorus" by Boards Of Canada

P.S. Cheers for a year or so of Squid Can not-sucking--the first 'good' post in months also happened to be the first mixtape.

You'll Love It - Numba 4

Alex — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:25:04 +0000

Go to bed.

Download "Swinging in the Park at Night" by Lullatone (Wikisend)

You'll Love It #3

Alex — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:45:00 +0000

Old pic. Washington, DC, May 2008. Taken from a hotel window.

Download "Statue of Liberty" by Boards Of Canada

Review Challenge 6/125: Curtain call? But they’re just getting started

Alex — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:50:13 +0000

Curtain Call by Midaircondo
2009, Twin Seed, 11 tracks at 43 min.
Listen Buy CD

RATING: 4.9 out of 5

Roughly four years have passed since Midaircondo’s phenomenal debut, Shopping for Images. The path’s been cluttered—one less bandmate, a label switch, and a sudden (or rather gradual) change in musical disposition for the Swedish gals. The brooding darkness of their debut is not entirely lost; it just happens to be a bit more subtle. In place of the furrowed-brow-gloominess that solidified their freshman LP? Why, a terribly violent and bittersweet feeling—and plenty of it.

The opening track (also the title track) instantly recalls images of days long since past—it’s sunny yet clinical, immersed yet detached from its source. Following track “Come With Me” shatters this formula, brining into play an industrial-esque, jazzy, evil dance sort of track, complete with distorted vocals and delicately grinding synth. If it’s meant to be intimidating, it is. Midaircondo has gone martial, it seems.

Then we get “Reports on the Horizon”, in which gently lilting horns are complemented by the characteristic Swedish-sorceress vocals and what sounds to be a reversed piano. It’s hopeful, glorious—and it crashes back down almost immediately into the threatening “Below” and “Bringing Me Home”.

And maybe that’s what makes this record not-quite-an-improvement over Shopping for Images but a companion. It’s two-faced, tricky, dramatic, perversely genteel. Removed from the intimacy of their debut (excluding “Silk, Silver, and Stone”), Midaircondo have now proven themselves to be some mighty furious ladies. I’m not entirely sure what they’re steamed about, but whatever is in their craw should stay there. With their ferocious new outlook and their ever-present talent, Midaircondo appears to be nigh-invincible. Or maybe the Swedes are just really cool people.

Review Challenge 5/125: I wish they played this at Stop & Shop

Alex — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:50:56 +0000

Shopping for Images by Midaircondo
2005, Type Records, 11 tracks at 53 min.
Listen Buy CD

RATING: 4.9 out of 5

Swedes are good at a lot of things—meatballs, berries, tennis, dynamite, Walpurgis Night, and classifying things into other things. They are also amazingly talented in producing music. The Knife, Opeth, ABBA, Robyn, the Tough Alliance, Meshuggah, Refused—all of them, delicious Swedes. Particularly apt in black metal with lyrics concerning permafrost, the Swedes are also aces in their ability to create electronic music and jazz. It should be no real surprise, then, that ambient-jazz outfit Midaircondo’s debut album, Shopping for Images, is good.

It’s real good, actually. The trio (now a duo) have produced an album that is frightfully unnerving, gloriously moody, and just plain listenable. Refusing to soak themselves in ambient tropes (fuzzy releases, drawn-out passages of near-silence), Midaircondo instead immerse their music in continual oppositions—flirtatious saxophone to meditative bleeps, plinks and plonks to ticks and tacks.

It is this friction that propels much of the album forward. We get ghostlike imperatives on the first two tracks and cloyed sentiment on “Perfect Spot”; we get windchimes on “Perfect Spot” and discordant sax on “Faces”. All of it works wonderfully—gratingly so, actually, as each song takes itself in deep seriousness and solemnity (disregarding the slyly sarcastic “Eva Stern, Shake It”).

Above anything else on the album are “Although I Heard” (the midpoint) and “I’ll Be Waiting” (the endpoint). On the first, we hear, “I didn’t stop/although I heard you coming.” On the final track, we get an infinitely more reassuring nudge: “I’ll be waiting.” It’s fierce contrast, but it’s played out in the same terms—a gentleness impeded by darkness; an ominous, fatal sort of mindset. Yet it is the slurred, hushed vocals and the music box melody on the final track, whispering their message, that will stun you. No matter how dark, how awful it seems, someone will be waiting. It’s a hazy guarantee, a sloppy prospect, and it’s a little suspect. Yet given the constantly shifting state of our world, the unobstructed flow of life at insane speeds—“I’ll be waiting” is the greatest promise you can make. Midaircondo ‘gets’ that. And they’ve put to it to such good use on their debut that it’s paralysing.

You'll Love It - The Redux

Alex — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:00:44 +0000

I think I should make this into a series--a photograph, a witless quip, and a piece of jive-ass music. Also, pic is sorta not related, but whatever. It's vintage, and the song is vintage. Eh. I'm not so good in logic.

Download: "My Buddy" by Doris Day (via Filedropper)

Damn It's Björk!

Alex — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:30:46 +0000

Instead of doing homework Monday night, I decided to look around for sites that could 'cartoonify' me. Swell idea. Eventually, I came upon a site that lets you make Miis and---DAMN, IT'S BJÖRK!

DAMN, IT'S ME!
I'm a cutie even in Mii form, huh?

Here's a deliciously dark remix for you:
Download "Cover Me" (Plaid Mix) (Wikisend)
You can visit the Mii-site here.

You'll Love It

Alex — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:05:00 +0000

Some classic Aphex Twin for those quiet moments.
Download "Blue Calx" (Mediafire)
(Photo by me)

Review Challenge 4/125: Thankfully it doesn’t last forever

Alex — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:50:01 +0000

Nothing Lasts…but Nothing is Lost by Shpongle
2005, Twisted Records, 20 tracks at 1 hr, 7 min.
Listen Buy CD

RATING: 3.8 out of 5

What to make of Shpongle? Besides, of course, the accurate response of “lol u listen to Shpongle?” On Nothing Lasts, there is ample cause to perhaps throw away this retort, and to not be embarrassed by Shpongle. In place of eleven-minute trance epics that lead to ‘neo-consciousness’ or the like, there are twenty short tracks, each one less of a ‘thump thump thump’ Goa extravaganza and more of Aphex-like techno vignettes.

Do not come to Nothing Lasts expecting the British duo to be hardcore techno wunderkind, however. The pieces here retain their “shpongality” via goofy vocal samples (“Outer Shpongolia”), mystically-obsessed titles (“The Stamen of the Shamen”), and placid guitar (“Falling Awake”). Yet the dabbles into techno territory remain the centerpiece. The beats are jerky, distorted, cut-up, playful, chaotic—it’s aptitude masked by lack of pretension, a trademark of the most revered electronic maestros (Wagon Christ, for example).

The bedlam contained within is not exactly ‘danceable’, though I suppose this keeps in line with Shpongle’s ‘higher goal’—magically-imbued consciousness or something, I don’t know, some Middle Eastern shit. The flow of the album is seamless, and accordingly it operates on some degree of ambience. Periodic bursts of high energy—the beguiling brass on “The Stamen of the Shaman”—are welcome, and while the album runs a bit long it doesn’t run unbalanced.

Maybe I’m just impatient, but my main complaint about this album is its length. It’s nice to fall asleep to, but once you put conscious effort towards listening it seems something of a chore. The beats squibble, squabble, and flutter, yes; but one pair of ears can only take so much tomfoolery. My first thought on hearing this album was, “Wow, sounds like Digimon World 3.” And it does. So if you’re in the mood for video game music, then Nothing Lasts will be nothing short of a gem. Otherwise, you may want to take this piecemeal, at every meal, and with water—a big glass, since you’ll be swallowing a whole lot of haberdashery.

Review Challenge 3/125: I dreamt of sheep and I got this

Alex — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:25:15 +0000

The Dreaming by Kate Bush
1982, EMI, 10 tracks at 43 min.
Buy CD

RATING: 5 out of 5

This is one of those albums that I’ve reviewed in several drafts, only to scrap the entire thing near the end. It’s one of those albums which I enjoy so much yet I can’t quite explain why. It’s one of those albums I’m tremendously biased towards. It’s one of those albums that make you feel like you’ve just lost your virginity.

Yes, I had assumed that Hounds of Love would remain eternally the centerpiece of my compulsive Kate Bush habit, but the September day that The Dreaming arrived in the mail I was totally put to shame. This album is the pinnacle of Kate Bush’s career. She didn’t top it, won’t top it, shouldn’t top it. Let’s see why.

First off, this is something—as much I may not like to admit it—of a prog album. Thankfully, though, the length is concise; and the material is still pop, so let’s call it ‘art pop.’ Then you have the arrangements which are not only of Carpenters-level quality but also imbued with an undying artiness. The special treatments which Bush adds to this already-substantial core—mulish braying, medieval intonations, Vietnamese howls—provide the gloss, the lustre, that really makes this album shine.

And, in most respects, it’s the surface which mystifies here. The ‘sound’ of this album—a sound I haven’t really heard replicated to a point, and I’ve traversed the bowels of female-fronted music—is immeasurably attractive. “Get Out of My House” may well be the high point of Kate Bush’s discography. I could describe it as ‘art rock,’ but that seems hokey. It’s like Kate Bush meets metalcore, if that makes any goddamned sense.

On The Dreaming, everything makes sense. All ten parts of the album are in perfect unison, each gear grinding into the next to make a stream of perfectly produced, panned, and planned pop. It’s Victorian, it’s fake Australian, it’s cinematic, it’s literate (extremely so), and it has mule screams (thought I’d mention that again). It’s Kate Bush, damn it. And damn you if you can’t be bothered to give it a listen.