sexta-feira, 27 de setembro de 2013

Das Ding


About Das Ding (DD) it's an Electronic project headed by dutch Danny Bosten. There is a very interesting text telling DD's background, which is: 


‘I started recording in 1981, with a lot of borrowed equipment. It was fun to do, and everyone was doing music, so me and my friend Johan started a cassette label. We made some tapes, did some gigs, but things moved on. In 2007, 433rpm, of the exhaustive music blog ‘No Longer Forgotten Music’, posted some of my old Das Ding tapes, and Veronica Vasicka- who runs the New York based ‘Minimal Wave’ label and specializes in reissues of 80s synth-wave- contacted me, now living in Rotterdam, to propose the release of a Das Ding album. Old tapes were uncovered, and Minimal Wave released a remastered version of ‘HSTA’ and other tracks, in 2010. A wave of renewed interest followed the record’s release and soon people were in touch to propose live shows. Twenty years later, and after some deliberation, Das Ding was reincarnated under its old moniker but now with a revised line-up and a working set-up that reflected inevitable technological change. Suddenly, Das Ding was a ‘Dutch electro-pioneer’ and the apparent pinnacle of ‘Minimal Wave’.

These two songs are ressurected demos, I guess. My attempt at doing television show themesongs, inspired by ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’, (We Can Rebuild Him) and ‘The Day of the Triffids’ (Triffid Farm). I am very much a film buff, as they say, and secretly imagine all my tracks to be soundtracks to some movie I haven’t seen yet.' - text from Sonic Playground


So, whaddayouthink about it? Besides this most recent work from DD, whose artwork made by Nikos Dervisis and the two-song collection released by Sonic Playground, there are several songs on DD's soundcloud, most of them exploring deeply into the Minimal Wave, Ambient and the dark side of Electronic music. Some of them could very well fit on a oldschool sci-fi OST, and some could vey well fit on the alternative club closest to you, but all of them are of top-level quality such that any fan of Xeno & Oaklander, Automelodi, Oppenheimer Analysis, etc.) will surely enjoy DD's pieces of art.

You can download those two songs on .FLAC or .mp3 format on the Sonic Playground link above, as well as free-stream it and some other nice pieces, including a great cover of Joy Divisions' Means To An End adapted to DD's cosmos on the soundcloud widgets right below. As always, I hope you enjoy! ;)






Adicionar legenda

























quarta-feira, 25 de setembro de 2013

Stress Waves

Hailing from Brisbane, Australia, Stress Waves is a very interesting trio (Nick, Josh and Errol) assembled to craft very nice, gloomy and icy pieces of Post punk-meeting-Coldwave (there's a tag called cyber-romantic @ their bandcamp, I think it fits their sound very well, if you may ask). I'm not aware of how long they're making music together, but they seem a quite young band which has only a couple of releases so far, the EPs Lost Lutre (released on October 11th, 2012) and Lurid Abyss (released on August 12th, 2013). Although they have only a total of 5 songs at their bandcamp, it is possible to notice their great potential which already allows them to achieve a very nice musicanship level and (hopefully) will eventually allow them to achieve higher and higher levels very soon. As I mentioned before, they orbit into the dark realms of the sonic spectrum, however, even though they display gratitude for the oldschool masters (e.g. Asylum Party, early The Cure, Norma Loy), theiy're not exclusively nostalgic, as they seem in tune with more modern incarnations of Post Punk such as Motorama, Human Tetris, Be Forest, etc.


Well, at the end of the day, you can download all their work at the name your price method right at their bandcamp, all of them featured right below these words. I hope you enjoy and support it the way it deserves!




















































segunda-feira, 23 de setembro de 2013

Food Pyramid



Food Pyramid (FR) is a trio from Minnesota, USA, namely C. Hontona, C. Farstak and M. Weather, plus friends and special guests who highly (literally or not) contribute to enrich their sonic tapestry. Some folks classified FR's music on a forum as Krautrock v3.0, and isn't it true that it describes them very well? However, it would be too "generalist" to put them in a single weird label, as these guys push the boundaries of the constellations drawn by Neu!, Can, Tangerine Dream and such towards the Electronica, Glitch, Neo-psychedelia, Shoegaze and whatever-you-can-imagine, creating a multi-textured, ecclectic mixture of sound mushrooms melting in pure oneiric fire. Names like Spacemen 3, Silver Apples and Beak> (which, imo, is a perfect modern reference for them) are summoned easily when listening to their beautiful work.


You can find a link for their amazing latest album, Ecstasy and Refreshments (released last july) right below. As usual, I hope you enjoy!











get it!












get it!

sábado, 14 de setembro de 2013

Tropic Of Cancer

"Drenched in romanticism and soaked in themes of solitude, mortality and love, Tropic of Cancer’s music forms a strangely hypnotic connection with its listener. Camella Lobo’s majestic vocals, warmly cradled by waves of ascending synths, plangent guitar, and foreboding beats, summon the listener into a world of dark decadence and delicate beauty. 

For a start, their devotees really are a disparate bunch: card-carrying Tropic of Cancer fans include techno refugees, dedicated shoegazers, dapper goths, paisley psych revivalists, minimal synth nerds and pop pickers; what links them all is that they care deeply about music, and have a weakness for morbid romanticism. The sound Tropic of Cancer make is ethereal and elusive but also exacting – their lyrics are barely discernible, and yet this is music that really connects, really communicates." - edit from last.fm


That's a very interesting description, isn't it? Tropic of Cancer (ToC) released its debut material in 2009 and delivered us a handful of EPs, besides a 2012 compilation of this early material called The End Of All Things. As described above, they are dedicated to crafting ultra-gloomy soundscapes directly inspired from the dark old masters of Post Punk and Coldwave (early The Cure, early Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division, Asylum Party, Lowlife, etc.) peppered with the hazy, magic colours of the Shoegaze and Dream Pop spheres. Comparisions between ToC and modern dark acts such as The KVB, Lebanon Hanover, Soft Kill and Soft Moon can be drawn, although ToC is usually "quieter" and flerts more with Drone than Noise Pop as the mentioned artists.

Restless Idylls is the name of their debut full-length, to be released later this month but, as you're noticing, it's already available on the web. Those aware of their amazing work won't be surprised (and neither disappointed) with this album, as it's drowned in the state-of-art helpless, lush darkness they're dedicate since its very birth. A great work, for sure, that I'm sure all of you related to the dark side of the world will enjoy! ;) 














terça-feira, 10 de setembro de 2013

Flying Cape Experience

Flying Cape Experience (FCP) is one of the most pleasant surprises I've came across lately. It consists of a duo, Johanna and Akira Kosminen, from the beautiful (and sometimes beyond cold-ish) Finland, who started making music some years ago and recording, producing and mixing their own pieces of art since then. Their debut, Let's Sing More About The Eyes, was released on May 6th of 2013 by the netlabel El Vals de Conejo (whose owner is João Bispo, the mastermind behind the great Joaquim Barato, which was alredy featured on this same page some time ago ;) ), whose music consists of ethereal, swirling voyages into stellar realms. Classical references from 4AD acts (mainly Cocteau Twins and Swallow) and Projekt ensembles such as Love Spirals Downwards, Autumn's Grey Solace, etc. can be noticed, although they're not exclusively bound to the canonical definitions of the Dream Pop sphere in any sense, free-orbiting into Ambient and Folk very often as well as Psychedelia, thus providing new, multi-textured colours and shades to their already rich sonic tapestry.

By no doubts it's a very impressive debut and will crack a smile in any explorer of the deepest shadows of Dream Pop, Shoegaze, Ethereal, Darkwave and such. You can download it by the name-your-price method, as well as free-stream it (and freely download it) at their soundcloud page, all of them featured right below. I hope you enjoy! ;)








 





























sábado, 7 de setembro de 2013

Herod


Herod (formerly Herod Layne) is a Post Rock 4-piece ensemble formed in the huge city of São Paulo, Brasil, at the already distant year of 2006.  Differently from most Post Rock-ish groups, Herod does not make use of orchestrations, complicated arrangements or any pompous resource to craft their art, but simply creating (mostly) instrumental music with the traditional elements that made rock n' roll famous but without making rock n' roll itself. I've been keeping up with their work since their debut, In Between Dust Conditions, from 2008, when they were just a trio, and since then they were already delivering us some of the best quality music that has been done in the brazilian underground sphere. Roughly five years later, their latest album Umbra comes to light (sic), showing the great sonic evolution they went through along these years. Instead of keeping in the well-stabilished boundaries of Post Rock, these guys explored dark than deepest sea atomspheres, as the album name suggests, incorporating Shoegaze, Post Metal and even Drone in the already effervescent cosmos of their music such that you don't even feel the time flows by when listening to Umbra, even though it contains three songs (out of 8) with over 8-minute long. Besides, Umbra has some great participations along the album, as the likes of Cadu Tenório (Sobre a Máquina, Victim!, Ceticências), Jair Naves (ex-Ludovic, solo career now), Filipe Alburquerque (Duelectrum) and Joaquim Prado, the album producer who also colaborated with guitars or synthetizers in 7 songs. 

Although it may sound "natonalist" from my part, I'm not afraid to say Herod is one of the most creative and impressing Post Rock groups in the world by now. That's really great to see a "local" band crafting such high quality material as they are, even without the money and press they deserve to achieve such level. Alongside Labirinto, the aforementioned Sobre A Máquina, Loomer, The Sorry Shop and many others, there we have a blooming local scene, to put it in this way, which is delivering us some of the greatest music this country has ever produced. Therefore, I drop  a free download link for Umbra in the sinewave page, as well as the Herod's bandcamp, where you can get all their material released up to now by name-your-price method.


As usual, I hope you enjoy it!


























sinewave / bandcamp

quinta-feira, 5 de setembro de 2013

One Unique Signal


One Unique Signal, or simply put, OUS, is a London assemble dedicated to make delirant noisewaves since 2002. They have released a handful of albums and EPs so far (most of them can be downloaded for free, as you can find at the bottom of this post), the latest being the EP Luna Attractions, which came to light on September 1st. This work is pretty much on the same line they're following since their very beginning, i.e., what some people call Krautgaze. Yeah, the "kraut" comes from Krautrock scene of the late '60-early '70, whereas the "gaze" is taken from Shoegaze, as obvious as that. OUS pieces are usually repetitive and follow a mantra-like structure, mostly instrumental and always highly lysergic and brain-melting. Therefore, it's no surprising that they record and play live alongside Stephen Lawrie, the mastermind behind the unforgettable The Telescopes, under this very name since 2010. Mr. Telescopes couldn't make a better choice of support band, as they are one of the most impressive and accomplished "offspring" of their legacy.


You can find the bandcamp link for Luna Attraction right below, where you can download it at the name-your-price method, which is a "preview" of their forthcoming LP Aether, to be released on November 11th. Some of the band older material can be downloaded by the same method and, if you wish more info about them and even older stuff, you can find them in the OUS blogspot. I hope you enjoy it!















bandcamp

terça-feira, 3 de setembro de 2013

Mixtape #21




Hello, ladies, gentlemen and aliens! The mixtape #21 of our cherished blog has "EP-exclusive songs" as its theme. Yeah, that means it features only songs released exclusively on EPs. For the newbies or those who were in coma in the last 20 ~25 years or so, most Shoegaze/Dream Pop bands (specially the oldschool ones) used to release most of their material on countless strings of EPs, where some of their brightest material can be found. In this mixtape, we've picked one song from some of the finest mini-albums of this blissful soundsphere, ranging from eternal classics such as Love's Easy Tears, the 1986 EP from Cocteau Twins, Curve stellar first EP, the 1991's Blindfold, as well as the laid-back psychedelica of Mesmerise EP (Chapterhouse) and the oneiric electronica of 5 EP from Slowdive. Besides, there are also new material as tracks collected from the majestic Airiel's 2012 EP called Kid Games, Whirr's 2013 EP Around and Blush, the latest EP from the scottish fuzzy assemble called The Cherry Wave. Some deeply obscure material were included as usual, e.g. Have You Heard EP by Headtime (an extremly -and criminally- unknown act from the same label of Chapterhouse, Cherry Red), Playtime EP from Sunshot, besides the phillipino Moscow Olympics, featured by the beautiful piece of Dream Pop-meeting-Post Rock song called Still.


As usual, the full tracklist and the download link can be found right below. Let's raise our gazes and ride the noisewaves into the spirals of inifity! ;)










tracklist 




get it!