Electronic musician / DJ / avant-garde artist Dan Deacon will be closing one of the Empire garage sets at Levitation Austin (April 28th at midnight) this year. His shows are apparently wild affairs with audience participation. His videos are weird enough, so a live set from him should be a good time if it’s as odd as they are.
Keep your mind open.
[Subscribe! You can do it!]
Another Austin band that will be melting minds at Levitation Austin this year is SURVIVE. They play a cool, creepy style of synthwave that pays great homage to John Carpenter and they’re well known for their work on the Stranger Things soundtrack. They’ll play the second set at Stubb’s BBQ on April 28th starting around 9pm. This will be the show to see if you’re in the mood for something spooky at the festival.
Keep your mind open.
[How can you survive without music updates? Subscribe and lose your worries.]
Like all DJ Koze records, knock knock exists outside of trend and influence. In fact, Knock Knock is a step further beyond: absolutely every single thing here, from grooves to voices to handclaps, is otherworldly and unique. Which is not to say it is utter alien abstraction. There is still disco, there is still soul, there is still techno, there is still hip hop, there is still psychedelia – there are even wafts of easy listening and lost crackly thrift store record memories – but though it may sound familiar, it never does what your brain thinks it’s going to do.And that’s what is crucial here. Koze is a world-maker, knock knock is far and away his greatest statement of that. You don’t get to choose how you hear his music – you enter his world or you don’t, that’s it. knock knock is an album that came together slowly and steadily, his working processes arcane and mysterious in their steady accumulation of sound and inspiration. It’s so complete and bursting with detail and consistency in every way that you’d swear it was meticulously planned (but there was no master plan) to create a definitive artifact: the record itself decided when it was ready. And now it is ready, the most perfectly constructed portal into that other world, you had better be ready too!
Kyle Molleson, otherwise known as Makeness, has given us a record that sounds like meticulous electronica and yet moves like free-flowing dance tracks at the same time – Loud Patterns.
The title track opens the record, bringing to mind a jungle DJ putting down tracks at a party in the House on Haunted Hill. “Fire Behind the Two Louis” is as slick and hot as a grease fire. “Who Am I to Follow Love” has lovely female vocals behind Molleson’s drums and sounds that make for good lounge slow jams.
“Stepping Out of Sync” has fat bass and more lounge synths combining for one of the best cuts on the record. “Gold Star” is another choice cut, with big synths and floor-shaking dance beats throughout it. I don’t know if the bass in “The Bass Rock” refers to fish or low-end sounds. I’m guessing the former because the bass grooves on it are somewhat subdued.
“Day Old Death” is a bit creepy, as you’d expect from such a title. I like the metronome-like beat in it to remind you of some masked killer stalking you. The building synth-bass of “Rough Moss” has a great payoff. It might be the most danceable song on the record. “Our Embrace” is as jubilant as you hope it would be with such a title. The synths are bright and bouncy and the drums keep you moving. The bass on “14 Drops” is so fat that it needs to go on a diet. The album ends with the appropriately titled “Motorcycle Idling,” because that’s just what it sounds like for a little over three minutes.
Loud Patterns is indeed both loud and full of wicked beat patterns. It bodes well for Makeness’ future, and for your next party.
Keep your mind open.
[Step over to the subscription box before you go.]
Loud Patterns Out April 6th On Secretly Canadian
https://makeness.lnk.to/
North American Tour With Unknown Mortal Orchestra Starts This Month
Loud Patterns is an album that’s noticeably indebted to house and techno; there are 4/4 rhythms, and a no-nonsense directness that harks back to the Detroit pioneers. Channeling avant-garde experimentalism and an outsider’s interest in pop, Kyle embraces the distance between those two poles. The album arrives after a series of releases that have established his particular, in-between approach to dance-minded music. He put out two EPs on Manchester-based imprint Handsome Dad, a one-off single with Adult Jazz and the self-released Temple Works EP; Whities also released a limited-edition white label of a Minor Science dub of one of his tracks.
Following the release of Loud Patterns, Makeness will tour with label kin Unknown Mortal Orchestraacross North America and parts of Europe.
|
|||||||
|
Chicago’s Mamby on the Beach music festival returns with another impressive lineup of hip hop, EDM, and rock acts. Getting Common, Spoon, and Cold War Kids all in the same weekend is impressive. Grizzly Bear will probably put on a mind-bending set, Jamila Woods impressed a lot of folks at Pitchfork Music Festival last year, and Jai Wolf‘s DJ set will most likely be a must-see.
Tickets are on sale now.
Keep your mind open.
[Subscribe, won’t you?]
Electro / shoegaze quartet Ladytron are set to release their first album in seven years. The as yet untitled album will be out later this year, but the current single, “The Animals,” is already available.
Ladytron have started a PledgeMusic campaign for the album to celebrate the new album’s upcoming release, and it has some great perks. A CD of the new album signed by the band is just $25.00. There are big bundles of signed music and merchandise, handwritten lyric sheets, colored vinyl copies of the album, and you can even get your name listed in the album credits. Each pledge level comes with a digital download of the full album and an immediate download of “The Animals” and a remix of the track.
Get this stuff while you can.
Keep your mind open.
[I’ll be as happy as a puppy if you subscribe.]
In case you weren’t aware, Afrofuturist / electro-funk artist / cyborg Janelle Monae is set to unleash her first album in five years, Dirty Computer, later this year. She’s calling this project an “emotion picture” and, judging from the trailer she release, it looks like it deals with many of her favorite themes – the future, the blurred line between technology and humanity, love, sex, and female empowerment.
She’s already given us “Django Jane” from the upcoming album, and she just delivered the Prince-inspired (with whom Monae was working before his death) bisexual anthem “Make Me Feel,” which is easily the hottest and sexiest track of 2018 so far. Anything that hopes to top this in terms of getting your groove on will have to bring serious chops.
Monae is an innovator and free spirit, and we need her and many more like her not only in the world of music, but also in the world at large. This is probably going to be one of the best albums of the year.
Keep your mind open.
[You make me feel great when you subscribe.]
