Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.
I found this while I was looking for something else: Follow Me Down, by Eddy Kaiser. He’s from Nantes, France, and he makes folk music with rock and roll undercurrents, and he’s got a rich, fluid voice, which he uses to haunting effect.
Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.
I have dutifully listened to all three of Keith Kenniff‘s bands – Goldmund and Helios, which are solo projects, and Mint Julip, which he shares with his wife, Hollie – and determined that I’m most fond of Goldmund. Below, as a taste, is As Old Roads, from Sometimes, which is a piano-focused gem.
Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.
Christopher Tignor is a composer, violinist and software engineer. He’s written works for several groups, including A Far Cry and Brooklyn Rider, and done strings arrangements for artists like John Congleton, This Will Destroy You, and Meshell Ndegeocello.
Along a Vanishing Plane is his most recent solo record, and it is a delight. It would, I suppose, fall into the category of “soothing and weird.”
It is, unsurprisingly, mostly violins, intercut with thudding drums and the occasional burst of experimental noise. It’s peaceful, but not dull. If Metal Machine Music is a cathedral made of noise, Along a Vanishing Plane is the flowers planted in the churchyard: singularly lovely and delicate, but watch out for hidden thorns.
A home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.
Because sometimes, twiddling knobs in the virtual garage, you get some static followed by atmospheric creaking followed by a roar straight from the dungeon. Or: “symphonic black metal” may initially sound like a contradiction in terms, but I promise it isn’t.
Unfathomed of the Abyss (Kevin Price) spent 14 years (!) working on Arisen Upon Oblivion and the result is a complex collection of sounds, some delicate, others more like a sledgehammer. That said, while it’s heavy, it isn’t suffocating.
For example, there’s To Unequal the Balance of the Cosmos, the first song on the record, which is fourteen minutes long, but not one single minute drags:
And then there’s The Figment Unadulated, the second song, which grinds on the bottom but soars at the top, and is what I would use to score a scene with a scrappy crew exploring a mysteriously abandoned spaceship:
And the rest of the record is much the same: loud, majestic, and cinematic in scope. For those of you busy NaNoWriMo-ing right now, it’s also good writing music.
Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.
Pretty Marsh is the debut record from The Point, the newest project from Michael O’Neill (JD Samson & MEN, Ladybug Transistor) and Sammy Tunis (formerly of The Lisps). It’s a meditative record, and a complicated one. It’s dreamy, but it also sounds like soundtrack for an existential crisis:
And then there’s this cover of Thirteen, which caught me by surprise the first time I heard it, and about wrecked me:
Just stumbled over this number by Morgan Square and was simultaneously sucked in and knocked over by the thudding drums and hypnotic melody. They’re Danish, so I have no idea what the song is actually about, but I’m happy to clap and sway and bang my head in my chair while they sing it.
Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.
Photo by Dominic Neitz
Arum Rae (formerly White Dress) is from Brooklyn via Austin, TX. Warrented Queen, her first EP with producer Sanford Livingston, is due out in late April. Consider these two songs a taste of the whole:
2001: This one jammed its claws into me in a weird way. I was here, that September. Sitting on the train on the Williamsburg Bridge, watching the towers burn. Standing on Houston Street while tanks rolled downtown. Leaning on the bumper of a U-Haul on John Street, during a brief pause in helping my sister move while the fires still burned and everything was covered in ash and unnatural silence, reading the note someone had written on a nearby windshield: You can knock us down but you cannot knock us out.
A year later I moved away. Several years after that, I came back. When the anniversary comes around, I don’t watch the news.
Warrented Queen: If you need a palate cleanser after all of that, this tune is far sweeter. Love thrives, broken-in and well-loved, if perhaps a little ragged around the edges.
Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.
HANNAH (Hannah Thiem; Copal, Nyxyss) is getting ready to release a solo record; Brym Al Mar is the first single. Inspired by a Norwegian folk song, it blends crystal-pure violin tones with gritty electronic beats to magnificent effect.
Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.
shallow swell is the first ep from electronic producer/multi-instrumentalist edapollo (Ed Bidgood), of Bristol, England. And it is the perfect thing to put on to unwind in the evening after a long day, or at any other time you need just over fifteen minutes of sounds that are soothing, but definitely not boring.
I’ve included the whole thing below, mainly because the songs flow so neatly into each other, like movements of a symphony.
Like it? You can buy the EP from Bad Panda Records at bandcamp!
Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.
Communion is the third release from Black Walls (Ken Reaume), of Toronto. Composed in the aftermath of his father’s death, the songs are bleak, contemplative, and soothing, all at the same time.
They also feel . . . liturgical, I think, is the word that I want. In the sense that they feel like being inside an ancient, dark Romanesque church hunkered down on the headlands, the thick walls and low arches standing as the only refuge against the wind howling outside and rain beating against windows.
For the rest, and to explore his earlier work, which is also quite good: stop by his bandcamp page; you can also keep up with him on Tumblr.
