Nonwrestler Blog

Weekly mp3 #24: Blue Vitriol - Breeder

I severely doubt there has ever been a greater label name than Jahtari. Hen's teeth! It's ridiculous. Alongside their virtual 7" singles, they've offered up a couple of EPs, including the source of this track, Blue Vitriol's They Went To Titan.

Ridiculously low-bit beats give a squelchy Nintendo sound to the rhythm. Nice contrast to the hefty bass, piano skank and melodica melodies. Crap loads of dub fx, as you might expect from a label called Jahtari. Ripper.

Blue Vitriol are a duo from the Bay Area in the US. I've been in email correspondence with Josh for years through various mailing lists and so on. We have a pretty similar take on a lot of things, music-wise.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  1 Comments Links to this post

Weekly mp3 #23: Solo Andata - A Ballet Of Hands

Couldn't think of anything special for my birthday, so here's a tune which is hopefully not about mutual masturbation. ;) You can download "A Ballet Of Hands" from Hefty Records . This is the second tune I've featured from that label, weekly mp3 #14 back in July was on Hefty too.

A bunch of acoustic instruments, here - piano, acoustic guitar, subdued sax and occasional roaming double bass - with minor electronic treatments and some very quiet percussive elements that are basically an electronic version of brushed jazz drumming. The moments of distortion never really cause distress. Man. So mellow. If you're in the right mood, it's a thing of great beauty. Wrong mood and you'll fall asleep.

Solo Andata are a duo who collaborate over the internet - one member's in London, UK and the other's in Perth, Australia. I bought the album this is off, the weirdly titled Fyris Swan, and it's fully worthwhile.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  1 Comments Links to this post

Shit Band Names Redux

OK, I had a grump about bands with punctuation in their names a while back... Now, having discovered the existence of Does It Offend You, Yeah? I feel compelled to have another moan. Actually, yeah, it does offend me. Cocks. It makes me think only of Jonathan Yeah?, the editor of Sugarape from Nathan Barley.

Here's Dogme 08 for band names:

No punctuation.
The (Fallen) Black Deer, Holy Ghost!

No references to animals, especially wolves.
Ignoring the Animal Collective and its members.. Wolf Parade, Sea Wolf, Wolfmother, Wolf Eyes, Cruel Black Dove, The (Fallen) Black Deer, Deerhoof, Deerhunter, Jet Jaguar

No mention of black
The Black Ghost, Black Mountain, Black Gold, Cruel Black Dove, The (Fallen) Black Deer

No holy anything
Holy Fuck, Holy Ghost!, Holy Sons, Holy Hail, Holy Martyrs

No ghosts!
The Black Ghost, Ghosts on Tape, Holy Ghost!, That Ghost, Jukebox The Ghost

Meh, that'll do... I could add no two-word names in the format modifier + noun.

Labels: music

Posted at 11:30  4 Comments Links to this post

Teddy bears dressed as Disney mice

This is a photo I'd meant to blog while I was living in Japan. Toys dressed as other toys seemed pretty commonplace there and never failed to do my head in.

This pic's in a toy shop in Meguro, Tokyo.



Yesterday marked one year since Amanda and I left Japan.

Labels: life, misc time-wasting

Posted at 22:13  0 Comments Links to this post

Weekly mp3 #22: Starchy Arch - Alright

This tune comes to us courtesy of Rappers I Know . The site features a whole lot of stuff by rappers the site's author knows. Who would've guessed?

This is a big dumb party rap, one of a million tunes about partying and getting drunk. The ridiculously named Starchy Arch has a mighty drawl which is ace and sits nicely over a heavy beat with a nice vocal sample (Aretha? Sounds really familiar, anyway). The track's not world-shaking, but it's heaps of fun, which is all this kind of tune's about.

Not sure how much music Houston MC Starchy Arch has put out, as this is the only tune of his I've heard. When I was living in Japan I downloaded the whole damn Rappers I Know site and sifted through it. Despite some fairly high-cred names on the production side of things (e.g. Nicolay) this is by far my favourite tune on the site.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  0 Comments Links to this post

Ridiculously awesome mimickry

Whoa. This is quite amazing. Embedding disabled, so click that link...

Bird sounds from the lyre bird - David Attenborough - BBC wildlife

I was thinking at the start "I heard those birds in Australia all the time!" and was surprised something so awesome-looking should be trotting about Melbourne. Of course it unfolds the bird in the vid is a mimic...

Thanks to Stu for the linkage.

Labels: youtube

Posted at 09:17  2 Comments Links to this post

Weekly mp3 #21: Unit 21 - September, 10th

Figure this is timely given the track title. The ancient techno netlabel Thinner released Unit 21's September-October EP in 2006. Thanks heaps to some dick for bringing it to my attention.

My one word sum up of 'September, 10th' would be "pulsing". It's something like what I'd always expected to hear happening after tracks by people like Porter Ricks and Gas back in the mid-90s. A sort of rainy-day techno? The bassline is just a mechanical buzz and the spaces between the kick drums are filled up with swelling clouds of loosely harmonic stuff. The dub-techno standard of scattered record crackle shifts between roles of providing texture and rhythm. Short, relatively untouched flute passages roam about on top of the beats. Something in the back of my mind says "Blade Runner soundtrack". It's a great atmos, a single-beat pulse that throbs away with no particular feeling of bars or phrases. 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1...

In some ways it seems strangely late for this to show up in 2006, given the tricks at play all seem pretty played out, but it's great. The atmosphere and textures remind me a lot of Burial, but obviously kicking off from the (more well-trodden) Teutonic techno starting point.

Unit 21 is a Russian guy called Stanislav Vdovin. Try and say his surname 10 times fast. He's hot enough to have a Virb page.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  3 Comments Links to this post

Weekly mp3 #20: Tunng - Woodcat

These oddballs share at least one MP3 from each of their albums on their website and this is my fave of what’s on offer.

Rhythmic, acoustic guitar, picking out arpeggios with lots of major chords. Folky, in other words. Very English-sounding man singing disturbing lyrics about transforming into animals to a friendly melody. Clicking, kitchen sink percussion. Mellotron flutes. Rhythmic, clicking edits.

I'll look for a man to turn me into a hare
Just like they did when you did what you did
And the court came around and the verdict flew out
And the rats ran about and the change trickled down

And they left your brown body gentle and shivering
Back in the clearing with the deer in the evening
And I'll come and find you; small sleek and silent
And we'll live like lovers in an old wooden rhyme

And we're in for a lovely time

Right then.

Tunng are a British band centred around a duo of the guy who sings and plays acoustic guitar in a folk-y way and the guy who makes bleepy noises and does glitchy electronic production tricks. The songs often contrast happy or at the least peaceful sounding melodies with lyrics that have a real air of disquiet about them. Apparently when they play live there are heaps of members and they use all kinds of quirky things for percussion.

As with several other artists I've written about in my weekly mp3 posts, I downloaded this MP3 and thought it was so good I wanted to hear more... only to find out this is by far my favourite song of theirs.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  1 Comments Links to this post