Pause!

Christmas truly is the worst of times. Regular activity will resume in 2014 as I work on the design and future plans for the blog.

No top x of 2013 here either, there are plenty of those around.

Happy holidays.

This week in news

Though there have been some releases this week I haven't paid much attention to them, so I can't really vouche for that. Here's a few memorable things:

Announcements

Birds Are Indie - Love Is Not Enough

Birds Are Indie are a small portuguese indie (surprise!) band that make the sort of campfire-singalong-love-tunes that would make you cringe if they weren't so mind-bogglingly adorable. Their new album should be out on their bandcamp on January the 8th. Meanwhile you can either get their older stuff or just loop this song to eternity.

Reverend Bizarre - So Long Suckers (4LP)

Doom bannermen Reverend Bizarre are issuing their last album on vinyl and they have something to say about it: "Reverend Bizarre's final opus is a 130 minute juggernaut, thought by many as impossible to fit on vinyl. Well, you thought wrong." This made me laugh, and they had to fit the damn thing on a 4 LP release to prove everyone wrong. Comes out on January the 17th, you can preorder it here.

Interesting shit

"Blackened Everything" is a must-listen CVLT NATION mixtape. One hour of terror? Sign me in. Check it here.

Church of Fuck Mystery Box is a special christmas promotion by Manchester blackened hardcore band Church of Fuck. Also the main reason I'm featuring this here is to celebrate that Church of Fuck Mystery Box is an actual thing that exists. Life is good.

SotD: Julia Brown - i will do this for the rest of my life

Julia Brown is a noisy indie pop act that I've been listening to recently, they are catchy enough to appease the masses while seeming to me innovative in the way that they fill the simple guitar chords with layers of dream pop and shoegaze elements. I has that "work of passion" feel to it and it shows both in the carefree aesthetics of their bandcamp and in the groovy flow of their songs.

The thing about making noisy sound, the trick, or rather the thing that has some noise stand out in relation to other cases, is whether or not it sounds "natural". Noise can't be forced into a music through either technique or a sort of mathmatical precision. In my mind, it eases its way into your brain as it would ease out of the musician's - an organic communication through the medium of sound.

Though not without its less exemplary moments, Julia Brown seem to understand this and their brand of noisy lo-fi pop can really hit the nail when they build up for it (check out "i was my own tv show..." as another song that stands out).

SotD: Diane Cluck & Jeffrey Lewis - Travel Light

Diane Cluck is a personal favourite. I love her music, her voice and her lyrics; this Jeffrey Lewis guy, I don't know who he is. But I've found this bandcamp and it has three nice little songs from both her and him, they're light and amusing songs that seem to have been recorded on a binge. Here's one of them, check out the bandcamp for those other three:

SotD: Earth - His Teeth Did Brightly Shine

I love Earth and I love Angels of Darnkess, Demons Of Light. There's nothing more to that. What a kickass band, damn.