Nonwrestler Blog

Weekly mp3 #45: Faux Pas - Rose's Lament

I've scheduled this to appear while I'm on holiday in Melbourne, since it's music that was made there. One of several good tunes from a free release on the artist's site from late 2008.

'Heart of Glass' drum machine bips and surging (backwards?) vocal snippets move into a bit of a doof doof beat, but still accompanied by acoustic guitar, before a breakdown which makes me think of 60s acoustic pop stuff and in come the flutes, double-tracked with a nasal synth. Blam, back into the beat and on we go. Little arpeggios speed up and slow down. So dense. So much stuff in there. But so chipper and tuneful along the way. Nom nom nom.

This tune started life as a remix of 'Rose Rose' by Inquiet. You can check out different working versions of his remixing process on Faux Pas' blog.

Turns out Faux Pas is one Australian called Tim Shiel. He's obviously operating in the electronic domain, but I guess what he does is more sampladelic or what have you - there's a huge number of not-electronic sound sources compared to things that sound like synths or drum machines or whatever. Sounds like he plays the guitar, or at least that instrument shows up lots. He enthuses about Paul McCartney. Hm. The liner notes for the Waterfalls EP, which the above tune is off, have credits for strings and banjo samples.

The free MP3s on the store page sound really good too, plus there are more remixes he's done over on XLR8R. The Pikelet one's particularly mint, as we kiwis say. (Um, that means good.)

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  1 Comments Links to this post

Weekly mp3 #44: Morgan Geist - Detroit (feat. Jeremy Greenspan)

Download.com's music bit makes this tune available to us for free. How nice.

Chipper synth chords sparkle away, then in comes Jeremy, the voice of the Junior Boys, singing about the lights of Detroit. Melodic synth bass comes in and sparkly.. well, Detroit chords, before a four-to-the-floor kick finally drops in and we start cruising down some American highway in my head. The track keeps switching about with nice little chord changes and new melodic parts while the beat keeps on chugging.

I recommended the album this is from in my round up of 2008. This definitely isn't my fave track on the album, but it is indicative, so if it didn't put you to sleep, check out more...

New Jersey producer Morgan Geist is someone I picked up on as part of the bloopy UK response to techno. Warp records, etc. B12, Black Dog, Plaid, etc. May sound weird, but his earliest releases were on British label Clear alongside bods like Plaid and Matthew Herbert. So yeah, geeky electronica of the mid-90s, I suppose. Somewhere along the way he dug back another decade earlier and became a kind of doyen of 80s disco and electro weirdness... He got more well-known through his act Metro Area, who pull out the fairly 80s-sounding disco moves really, really well, and through his label Environ which has put out lots of goodies, including Kelley Polar.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  0 Comments Links to this post

Japan Tobacco would like you to mind your manners

I used to stumble upon these posters all over Tokyo. They're pretty amazing examples of visual design, as well as weirdly ... poetic?

The English is close to impeccable, but the imagery is completely different from what I'd expect to see in any English-speaking country I can think of.



There's a whole gallery of the things on Japan Tobacco's website.

Labels: life, misc time-wasting

Posted at 22:33  3 Comments Links to this post

Weekly mp3 #43: The Books - It Never Changes To Stop

Great tune off their 2005 album, still available via betterPropaganda.

Starts with acoustic guitar and banjo before the lurching, multitracked cello party begins. OK, maybe not a party. It's cruisy. In comes the classic The Books trick of throwing in confusing, context-free speech. In this case a stressed, voice-cracking man goes on and on, telling everyone "no moving, look up here, eyes closed". The cello goes off in new directions, a woman talks about how a man believed he could stop if he wanted to. End of track.

The thing I love most about The Books is how they cut their own path without being all "woo, look at me, I'm experimental!" Both technically and content-wise, there seems to be no regard (either way) for fashion or progress, but they come out with something distinct and intriguing. This same lack of self-consciousness comes through in the mix of acoustic and electronic means to achieve what they're doing. Some tracks are all choppy and very explicitly edited electronically, others like this presumably got recorded in a similar way but sound like they could be done live very easily. No echoes, no reverbs, no contemporary pop or dance references in their sound... Yay for being focused.

I also love that while they're not earnest - often sound like they're chucking in stuff for jokes and the way they edit speech to be nonsensical is great - they still seem really sincere. I mean, they sound like they're doing stuff very deliberately and care how it's going to come together. It's cool. I don't think my own music sounds anything like theirs, but I find them really inspirational nonetheless.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  0 Comments Links to this post

Weekly mp3 #42: Dafluke - New Strut

Pheek's label Archipel kicked off as a free-for-download netlabel and has quietly shifted its model towards a freemium style thing where you have to wait 3 or 4 months to get MP3s for free, and can get better quality files if you're willing to pay... or even vinyl and CDs if you're really wild and crazy.

Anyway, this track dates back to the free-for-download, rep-building, hypens-between-every-word days. I linked to another free release of theirs a while back. I have to say I prefer this EP by quite a margin, so am not sure why I held off on it in favour of the Ten & Tracer one...

I dunno how to describe this really. It's house tempo, instrumental electronic stuff. Drum machine beats are more a backbeat than a house thing, with clacky percussion. Bendy guitar notes drop in over gated synth chords (What's gated? Think 'Age of Love' or Justin Timberlake's 'My Love' - reportedly the latter takes the gating pattern from the former). There's a slightly restless feeling with bits and pieces popping in and out of the mix, but the main elements are so cruisy it's not at all jarring.

Dafluke is the nom de boom (sorry) of Canadian designer Lucas Granito. Heaps of DJ mixes and live sets on his site. Unlike lots of tech-y tunes his tracks tend to change at least once each. :) I bought one of his other singles, but have to admit this free EP is better. Although he did do a great track where he thoroughly butchered a Tweet acapella until (I guess he hoped) it was unrecognisable.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  0 Comments Links to this post