Nonwrestler Blog

Weekly mp3 #32: Kampion - Routes

Mexican net label Filtro provides access to this week's daftness.

Staccato slices of what sounds like mambo sprinkled liberally over some heavily baked hip-hop beats. About half-way through the beats pick up pace and it all gets a bit more jigg(l)y than you might first expect. Dancehall moments? Kind of.

Kampion is producer Guillermo Guevára and one half of Duopandamix. They have a funny sequencer toy on their site. I picked up a couple of their albums cheap from Amie Street, but I think his solo stuff is more up my alley.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #31: Mount Eerie - Wooly Mammoth's Absence

This tune can be nabbed from The Internet Archive along with six others from some tour-only EP that Mount Eerie decided to make available for free.

Unadorned acoustic guitars strum away in either ear and then Phil Elverum's stupidly distinctive vocals come in. Confusing lyrics. Multi-tracked muffled vox provide backup, while brushed drums mix with layers of tapping, slapping, clapping... fapping? No. It's a really pleasant and accessible song, made weirder by the guy's voice and the grubby production. Basically completely typical Mount Eerie material if you've heard any of their stuff.

Phil Elverum's probably one of the most popular peeps I've listed on this blog so far. At time of writing this EP's been downloaded 50,535 times and last.fm lists a combined listenership of over 200,000 people for his projects Mount Eerie and the Microphones. His popularity intrigues me, because he can't keep a tune very well, his lyrics are completely obtuse and his production is bizarre - murky and raw-sounding, while often adorned with electronic treatments and sounds. I guess he does write songs (not instrumentals), is an American (more than anywhere else, the USA seems to thrive on "indie"), and has an individual sound (which is not necessarily a factor in popularity, I guess).

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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The perils of hunting for elusive records

These pics are great. :D

Crate Digging, Don't Do It

Labels: misc time-wasting, music

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Weekly mp3 #30: Drumlake - Spectral Archway

The track with the teeth-clenchingest title in the world can be downloaded from the fairly defunct-looking net label Monohm (have to navigate the frames to find release number 10) or listen first over at the Internet Archive.

We're back to the hyperactive drones after all that turgid, depressing party music. Shimmery, swirling clouds of high-frequency stuff roll about over a sturdy bass of base. (All of which are belong to us?) Does clicking sounds pass by in stereo. Nothing much happens over the course of five and a half minutes. Yay! Should appeal to anyone who has heard of and enjoyed Pub or maybe Gas.

No idea who or what Drumlake is. The rest of the Monohm label's releases seem to be one guy from Austria, so it wouldn't surprise me if it's him again, splintering his output under different aliases according to whoever he's been trying to rip off in his bedroom. Sorry, that's totally uncharitable, it's just so much net label output seems to be imitators working out their obsessions with the (commercially-released) innovators. Kids: try this at home!

My wife has always liked this EP, so I figured I'd link to it on her birthday. :)

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #29: The Metservice - Nose Shit

This was a chance download a few years ago that's proven to be less throwaway and more stickaround. Got it from his myspace, but you can get it from his virb page if you don't want to sign up to somewhere crazy.

It's weird scuzzy rock - lo-fi digital sound, choppy editing, changes in tempo, fairly nonsensical lyrics.

I got a thing for Mr Bush
I like the way he works the people
I like the sound of his trumpets [falsetto vocal trumpet impersonation]
I like his sense of commitment

Leonardo Da Vinci's AC invented the computer and seven kinds of wheat.

(Have to admit I don't even know what an AC is!?)

Yeah.

Not much info about The Metservice. The guy's a Kiwi and is living outside NZ. If it's not a weird state of mistaken identity, from my time mucking about on NZMusic.com before the wheels fell off, I'd say this guy was in Christchurch bands Solid Gold Hell and The Pedalling Machine Gunner, and now may or may not be in Australia or China.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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