Explosions In The Sky "All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone"

Artist: Explosions In The Sky
Album: All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
Label: Temporary Residence
Release date: 20 February 2007
Genre: Rock
Style: Progressive Rock

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Tracklisting:
01. The Birth And Death Of The Day
02. Welcome, Ghosts
03. It's Natural To Be Afraid
04. What Do You Go Home To?
05. Catastrophe And The Cure
06. So Long, Lonesome
Total running time: 43' 34"

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[Explosions In The Sky - The Only Moment We Were Alone - Live @ The Koos Cafe]

"As if following a run of stellar albums and playing to a steadily growing following weren't enough, the Texas quartet Explosions In The Sky gives itself plenty to live up to on the first 90 seconds or so of its fourth proper album, "All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone". After a few moments of silence, a low distorted rumble begins, joined by a cascading guitar line that threatens to pierce through the instrument's upper register before giving way to the rumble and the silence again. It's a stop-dead moment. It's also just the fanfare.

The vocal-less group long ago proved that it's a master of the slow-building crescendo, of layering one noise on top of another using just drums, guitars, and bass—and occasionally no bass at all. Sudden's closing track adds a piano, but the sound remains much the same. Songs keep building as the guitars repeat themes until they change shape, propelled along by an almost-martial drumbeat that has a habit of disappearing and reappearing as the song demands. Sometimes the bottom drops out, or the playing simply fades into nothingness. At other times, it keeps building until there's nothing to do burst.

Though it's often lumped in with post-rock bands, Explosions In The Sky is as close in spirit to adventurous film-score music, and it served as such for the film Friday Night Lights. The moods it creates are hard to pin down, and song titles like "So Long, Lonesome" and "It's Natural To Be Afraid" work only as signposts. It's easy to get lost in the strange balance between delicacy and muscle, which, to borrow a phrase from a much different band, resembles nothing so much as a dream in sound." [source]

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Kid Koala "Your Mom's Favorite DJ"

Artist: Kid Koala
Album: Your Mom's Favorite DJ
Label: Ninja Tune
Release date: September 2006
Genre: Electronic
Style: Turntablism/Hip Hop

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Tracklisting:
01. Left Side
02. Right Side
Total running time: 33' 32"

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[Kid Koala - Moon River remix]

"Kid Koala has always remained something of an outcast in the ballsy world of the turntablist. Where his peers measure their genitalia by showing how quick they can scratch or how many records they can blend in three minutes, Eric San aka Kid Koala has been more interested in assembling naaratives. This might not have him lavished with gold chains and serious hip-hop credibility but it has built around him a legion of fans desperate to hear anything to emerge from his gifted hands. I’m guessing that this is where he got the rather strange album title from, it’s the sort of hip-hop music you might play to your dear old mother and she might raise a smile rather than grimace at the state of modern music, San injects a genuine element of slapstick, a light heartedness into his eclectic compositions and that’s what makes his music so popular. His last full length album was accompanied by a comic-book also penned by San, showing further his eagerness to give narrative to the music, to write small stories linked together by the strangest of seams and this latest record picks off where he left off. Although there’s no book to help us this time around, the narrative is stronger than ever with movie samples (I heard ‘Gremlins’ in there for certain…) chopped over old rock ‘n roll, jazz, ragtime and world music to create a listening experience that is hard to compare to anyone else. I think the humour and nature of ‘Your Mom’s Favourite DJ’ is best compared to San’s most acclaimed record, the genre-defining ‘Carpal Tunnel Syndrome’ which was similarly pieced together. There are no ‘big tracks’ and hardly any moments when you get so absorbed to be humming a riff or stray melody, rather you listen from beginning to end as you would watch a film or read a book and the more you listen the more detail you can hear. You’re unlikely to hear anything else like this until the next Kid Koala record, and I’m pleased to say he’s on better form than ever, mum’s the word!" [source]

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Apostle Of Hustle "National Anthem Of Nowhere"

Artist: Apostle Of Hustle
Album: National Anthem Of Nowhere
Label: Arts & Crafts
Release date: 6 February 2007
Genre: Rock
Style: Indie Rock

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Tracklisting:
01. My Sword Hand's Anger
02. National Anthem Of Nowhere
03. The Naked & Alone
04. Haul Away
05. Cheap Like Sebastien
06. iRafaga!
07. Chances Are
08. A Rent Boy Goes Down
09. Fast Pony For Victor Jara
10. Justine, Beckoning
11. Jimmy Scott Is The Answer
12. NoNoNo
Total running time: 47' 16"

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"Apostle of Hustle truly holds a special place in indiedom. Their rock credibility is more-than-legit through their Broken Social Scene/Arts & Crafts connection, so listeners don't have to worry about how much they mean to the scene and enjoy their sound more out of context. What makes their second release, "National Anthem of Nowhere", so intruiging is that it walks the line of rock and folk, but bursts alive as an elaborate integration of art-tronic houserock that flourishes in the catchiest ways while exuding cool.

Right off the bat, the band drops three of its finest achievements to date, "My Sword Hand's Anger". A feathery acoustic guitar and soft, pumping drum welcome in an obliging snare before Andrew Whiteman's vocals spurt in with a fuzzbomb bass. Once it hits the refrain, a strung-out guitar joins in for a post-modern folk jam that's nearly impossible to resist. "National Anthem of Nowhere" has the most Broken Social resemblence - a skating rockout complete with brass backing. "The Naked And Alone" is darker, with breathy vocals and chilly organ giving way to an ominous piano, that helps build the intimate mood of the album.

The rest of the album contains a variety of styles and instruments that never stray from the cozy coolness. "A Rent Boy Goes Down" has a rolling piano and acoustic interplay splashed around a distorted guitar refrain. "iRafaga!" illustrates Whitehead's stylish Cuban influence at a quicker pace than does "Fast Pony For Victor Jara", and both exemplify the far-reaching talent the band has. "Cheap Like Sebastien" smooths out the bumps in the rug with airy guitar effects and a wispy vocals.

As their extensive list of influences shines through their raw talent, Apostle of Hustle have created a fascinating album worthy of everything from magnetic interest to pure curiosity. "National Anthem of Nowhere" is a collection of intricate backyard folk woven into basement rock viewed through an unclouded production lens. Even though the group is at most five regular members, combined, they sound more like a dozen cozy neighbors. Maybe this helps explain how, at its best, the Broken Social Scene collective sounded even bigger than they really were." [source]

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Fujiya & Miyagi "Transparent Things"

Artist: Fujiya & Miyagi
Album: Transparent Things
Label: Tirk
Release date: April 2006
Genre: Rock
Style: Indie Rock/Krautrock

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Tracklisting:
01. Ankle Injuries
02. Collarbone
03. Photocopier
04. Conductor 71
05. Transparent Things
06. Sucking Punch
07. In One Ear & Out The Other
08. Cassettesingle
09. Cylinders
Total running time: 36' 17"

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"'Transparent Things' is the title of a book by Vladimir Nabokov, and also the title of the latest album from Fujiya & Miyagi.

Following the sell-out success of their first three Tirk-10"-vinyl-only singles, 'In One Ear & Out The Other/'Conductor 71', 'Collarbone'/'Cassettesingle', 'Ankle Injuries'/ 'Photocopier', this latest release compiles new versions of those six tracks, available for the first time on CD, with three previously unreleased scorchers: 'Sucker Punch', 'Transparent Things', and 'Cylinders'.

Fujiya & Miyagi are David Best (Miyagi, vocals, guitar, occasional but strictly non-progrock Moog), Steve Lewis (Fujiya, keyboards, beats, programming), and Matt Hainsby (Ampersand, bass guitar).

The story of how they met and formed the band variously reports a mutual hero-worship of world heavyweight wrestler Kendo Nagasaki (from Wolverhampton, and like the boys from F&M, not a Japanese cell in his muscle-bound body), and a shared interest in krautrock and early-nineties electronica discovered while warming the subs bench during Sunday league football. And the name...?

David: "Miyagi was taken from the film 'The Karate Kid' and Fujiya was the name of a record player. It just looked really nice written down. And it was the only name we came up with"

Fujiya & Miyagi produce a sound that has been located by the music and media fraternity as somewhere between Can, the Happy Mondays, Alabama 3, Kraftwerk and Talking Heads. This, combined with David's eclectic line in lyrics: "I've got a slow, a slow, a slow metabolism", has won them an excited legion of supporters, among whom may be counted DFA, Tiga, Andrew Weatherall, Chicken Lips, Damo Suzuki and BBC 6 Music's Tom Robinson. As Matt points out: "You can't go looking for that kind of feedback"." [source]

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The Earlies "The Enemy Chorus"

Artist: The Earlies
Album: The Enemy Chorus
Label: 679 Recordings
Release date: 23 January 2007
Genre: Rock
Style: Indie Rock/Psychedelic Rock

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Tracklisting:
01. No Love In Your Heart
02. Burn The Liars
03. Enemy Chorus
04. The Ground We Walk On
05. Bad Is As Bad Does
06. Gone For The Most Part
07. Foundation And Earth
08. Little Trooper
09. Broken Chain
10. When The Wind Blows
11. Breaking Point
Total running time: 49' 08"

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"Though "These Were the Earlies" was the Earlies' debut album, it was also a collection of the EPs that they'd recorded over the span of several years. Keeping that in mind helps explain why their second album, "The Enemy Chorus", is a fairly drastic change from the mellow experimentalism of their first. While the band still sounds eclectic, their eclectic sounds are now in service of a much more organized -- and much darker -- set of songs. From the album title to song names like "Burn the Liars" to the tension that stretches through nearly every track, "The Enemy Chorus" is palpably, if not obviously, political and conceptual. Taut, Krautrock-inspired lock grooves and tense electronics dominate, giving the feeling of some impending conflict or crisis, particularly on the album's early songs. "No Love in Your Heart" opens the album with oddly majestic brass fanfares, martial drumbeats, and a relentlessly rolling synth bass; "Burn the Liars"' impatient rhythms and heavy keyboards suggest a sci-fi dystopia; and "The Enemy Chorus" itself delivers on that promise, painting pictures of "trees marked with Xs/waiting for the final cut." By the time the sweet pedal steel and delicate textures of "The Ground We Walk On" (one of the songs that fans of "These Were the Earlies" will probably like right away) roll around, it's a relief -- and shows how carefully considered "The Enemy Chorus"' ebb and flow is. The Earlies' ambitions are also reflected in more abstract tracks like "Gone for the Most Part," a collage of orchestral sounds and alarm clocks, and the meditative, Eastern-tinged closer, "Breaking Point." At times, the album feels more interesting than likeable, but "The Enemy Chorus" does include a few moments of instant gratification: "Foundation and Earth"'s bouncy rhythm and flashy brass feel directly descended from '70s AM pop, and "Broken Chain" is a twinkling mantra that also nods to "These Were the Earlies". "The Enemy Chorus" is a strangely formidable album, and in its own way, a daring one, too -- these songs of revenge, oppression, emptiness, and despair might puzzle some fans at first, but they certainly are impressive." [source]

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