A refreshing advancement of the established post-rock premise, self-taught guitar prodigy Alex Fedorov’s nuanced, polished sound offers an alluring modernity, while still retaining a depth and complexity reminiscent of The Album Leaf or Mogwai. Fedorov seamlessly weaves elements of Heavy Metal, Ambient, Trance, and Classical to craft a signature sound that transcends genre lines, and appeals to a vast array of tastes. Currently unsigned, Fedorov continues to work out of Bedrock Studios in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, and his already extensive library of material can be further explored at http://www.reverbnation.com/alexfedorov…
From the people who brought you Suede Ape, comes Modus Pony, the new instrumental solo project from Matt Ackerman. The self titled, debut album is a collection of experimental ideas, born during countless hours of bedroom daydreaming, presented and served to you as a traditional collection of typically succinct pop-songs. The album is a buffet of bite sized, experimental pieces that can be listened to casually, or examined and picked apart meticulously as an extended piece of audio-art. The album is currently available via bandcamp, with two free tracks available for download if you’re looking for something odd yet catchy, while cerebral in a “I-see-what-he-did-there” kind of way….
Yes, July is over and the 2011 Pacific Festival is slowly inching it’s way nearer. On Saturday, August 13th The Oak Canyon Ranch (located in Orange County, CA) will play host to a litany of recognizable names, including Cut Copy, Calvin Harris, Toro Y Moi, and recently added headliner, and perhaps our greatest ambassador to west coast hip-hop, Snopp Dogg. We had mentioned previously our appreciation for the single day, concentrated dose of brilliance promised by the 2011 Pacific Festival, and to get you in the mood, the Official 2011 Pacific Festival Sampler is available now!
Mario Basanov is a grade A producer, studio weapon machine, and is surely heading for world domination. Still in his twenties but with a solid ten years of production experience behind his back Mario is the one to watch. House, Disco and Broken Beat, – Mario’s creative work shows all of these are just names not boundaries.
What really surprises people is Mario’s scope and versatility. He’s as gifted and comfortable with producing remixes for major label pop stars as when he is creating dancefloor destroyers for the underground dance music arena.
To date Mario’s work as a solo project or as part of his collaborations with co-producer Vidis has gained fans in Gilles Peterson, Jazzanova, Laurent Garnier, Toby Tobias, Pete Herbert, and many many others.
Back in 2009 Mario revealed his love affair with a more sentimental Disco and Deep House sound. Deep piano stomper Up, chugging synth mastery of Do you Remember? and the amazing balearic sun infused Caribbean Girl are just a hint of what Mario is set to achieve with his own productions.
Now in 2011 Mario lines up his first release of the year ‘Lonely Days’. This is his first full vocal song and once again demonstrates the young producers versatility (even the vocal is sung by Mario himself!). Mario Basanov may not be the most familiar name to most but get ready to hear it a whole lot more.
Purveying art, music, and yoga, among other things, Lightning in a Bottle 2011 is set to go down this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in Silverado CA, nestled deep in the rugged, Orange County wilderness. In anticipation for the event, The Do Lab offers a DJ performance spot to the winner of their annual mixtape contest, with this year’s prize going to Sex Pixels, whose, “Follow Me Now To A Place You’ve Only Dreamed Of: THE LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE EXPERIENCE” mixtape can be enjoyed below, and the runners up and honorable mentions from the competition can be found here. The lineup includes the stunningly beautiful Pretty Lights, as well as a DJ set from Thievery Corporation as the event’s Sunday night finale. LA favorites Fool’s Gold will also take the stage on Sunday to close out what promises to be one of the more cathartic festival experiences you’re likely to encounter, so nab your tickets below!
Absolutely unusual & positively peculiar in every bit of its stream (whilst not without sounding like these were the instrumentals left over from a one-time n’ rare Twilight Zone-brainstorming-session with Lady Gaga, M.I.A. and the ambiguous, behind the scenes producer of Nadia Oh all combined..) Al Ripken Jr makes the world an offer that they cannot refuse and hires in a ferocious looking cat for good company too.
With repeat listens as your advice, play at your Baltimore and “lazer-like” peril Ladies & Gentlemen. Tetris anyone?
Empty Space Orchestra certainly knows how to fill a room. The Bend, OR quintet of impeccable musicians crafts a symphonic, melodic sound that seamlessly weaves together elements of space rock, prog-metal, noir jazz, post-rock and afro-punk all in one massive blast of energy. Having built up a substantial following in the Pacific Northwest, the band has released their self-titled debut album May 10th and brought their genre-defying sound nationwide.
Their 9-song, 50-minute self-titled debut album is a hook-laden marriage of heft and harmony that veers far away from the navel-gazing jamming often associated with music of such explorative origins. Elements of The Mars Volta’s most frenetic moments merge with soaring post-rock of Russian Circles, as well as hints of Deftones, Dub Trio and lilting chamber pop all colliding in brilliant synergy from one song to the next.
The group of classically-trained musicians is anchored by the stunning power and precision of drummer Lindsey Elias — clearly a musician soon to hold rank amongst her most celebrated male counterparts. Guitarist Shane Thomas and bassist Patrick Pearsall provide a balance of head-bobbing riffs interspersed with tasteful and inventive lines that weave like musical narrative throughout. Meanwhile, multi-instrumentalists Keith O’Dell (keyboards, piano, lap steel) and Graham Jacobs (saxophone, flute, synths) add myriad melodic layers and cinematic moods that often deftly counterbalance heavy riffs with glissando piano melodies and swaggering horns.
The disc was recorded at the popular The Hanger Studios in Sacramento, CA with engineer Robert Cheek (RX Bandits, Deftones, Tera Melos) and mixed by Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Pearl Jam, ISIS) at Red Room Studios in Seattle, WA. Since the band’s inception in late 2007, ESO has built a devoted and rapidly growing fan base in the Northwest exclusively on the weight of their highly memorable live performances. While the album perfectly showcases the band’s musical precision, it must be noted that ESO is an extremely loud band — quite possibly the loudest band you will ever see with a saxophone on stage.
“I was spending a lot of time thinking about what Miles Davis used to say; ‘It’s not about the space you play, but the space you leave,’” explains Thomas. “That’s where the ‘Empty Space’ came from… ironically we don’t leave much space in our music.” Nonetheless, the sum of Empty Space Orchestra’s myriad parts never seem bloated, overblown or obtrusive.
Empty Space Orchestra’s self-titled debut album will be available everywhere on CD/Digital May 10th.
EMPTY SPACE ORCHESTRA LIVE:
04/20 Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern
04/21 Bellingham, WA @ Jinx Art Space
04/22 Portland, OR @ Portland State University campus (free)
04/22 Portland, OR @ Ash Street Saloon
05/11 Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios (album release show)
Those seventh heaven, rapture caressing strings and keys are back for Manzel Bush’s Space jazz-licious Funk melody. Renowned for being a über keyboardist and creating the track which you see before your eyes, ‘Midnight Theme’ was another one of his melodies which secured peoples imagination and took them to hedonistic places that Barbados and Jamaica look onto with green eyed affection.
‘Space Funk,’ is all that, and a bag of extra, extra large bag of chips.
Belonging to the home of the legendary record faction set up as Motown Records, the former freshmen of Tuskegee Institute fashioned together a remarkable band that outwardly produced music with true-soul and vocal lead songs with deep rooted funk.
Being able to support the Jackson Five on tour consistently is by far no small minded feat, so with the alternation between Lionel Richie and Walter “Clyde” Orange on lead vocals, The Commodores set themselves up as a impressive outlet for musical material and a respectable platform for Lionel Richie to then go own and form his own solo career.
Penning Walter Orange as the brains behind the machine in either co-writing or writing most of their tracks, ‘Machine Gun’ and ‘Cebu’ showcases the stripped instrumental side of The Commodores and flips the script for pure based instrument playing as we know and love it.
Originally written by Ron Temperton, this Bob James cover of ‘Sign Of The Times’ oozes brilliance. ‘Valley Of The Shadows’ operates on this environment of subterranean jazz, saxophone improvisation and amazing dynamics and light that comes animates itself intensely in the later half. Pure class.
Imagine hearing one of the most random and homely sounding tracks in the background of your neighbours BBQ or at a full blown, hows-ya-father wedding reception… Well.. this track by A Certain Ratio may well be it with its part Latin and tribal roots, but it’s certainly not missing any good old fashioned funk needed for those dodgy Uncle/Granddad dances we may always tend to see. Deeeelicious work from this seminal Manchester, England band.
With a range of textural and moody sounds to beat, this unfound concept from out of Seattle in the United States is best consumed via headphones and a willingness to drift. Failing that precedence, a period of time within a day where you can let this coast on by without any high-octane troubles or overly-stupidly high BPM beats.
Strikingly crafted with a screenplay quality to it, “TransIterate” gradually begins to put all of your plights away whilst equally putting its concept up there amongst the elite and up n’ coming best.
Brian Ackley brings his YellowLine Music concept to fruition in 2011, and gives Aerial Noise and all of our readers an insight into his own personal brand of ambient and electronic-rock. Thirst quenching in every last drop, this 10 track debut album releases odes and nods to his favourite heroes in Future Sound Of London, Kinski and Curve. Here are a few YellowLine Music samples to savour…
Good things come to those who wait, but in some cases, wonderful things happen when you least expect them to. Inspired by the actual birth name of one of Germany’s most famous poets in Friedrich Schiller, the initial production partnership of Mirko von Schlieffen and Christopher von Deylen gave birth to some timeless and most memorable dance floor wonders in the shape of ‘Das Glockenspiel’ throughout 1998 to 2000, and ‘Ruhe’ between 1999 and 2000.
Wonderful remixes from those two tracks in question in no doubt helped DJ Tiësto, Humate, Tom Middleton, Trisco and Sumsonic onto Ministry of Sound’s Data Records path of production-greatness and remix-folklore. But alongside the numerous-own Schiller projects and fertile promotion that these two men worked through, this duo always found time to maintain the attention of Zeitgeist/Island Records who in turn released their debut LP entitled “Zeitgiest.”
The “Weltreise” (Voyage) LP soon followed in 2001 and then the “Leben” (Life) LP in 2003. Somewhere between then, Christopher and Mirko experienced the age old hurdle of creative & artistic differences. And despite being really unfortunate to iron out those divergences naturally, Mirko decided to depart and Christopher picked up the ball to continue in the world we now as Schiller come today.
Without alienating music fans in the mother-language in which Schiller’s LP’s have been published, the continuation of releasing the album’s title’s and track names in German and then into English, remains a constant revealing flow. Throughout the whole of the Noughties, in conjunction with Christopher’s own stadium-like-inner-drive, the Echo & OPUS music awards closely preceded and his collaborations with all several, outstanding female artists soon following in suite.
Thirteen studio-based and concept-branded albums have followed since 2003 (with two more following in 2010 & 2011). But before then, we land on gently towards the 14th Schiller album (or 6th depending on who you talk to), which exuberates monumental, perfect ambience, of the very same entitled name.
The “Breathless” LP has an ongoing heartiness to it which makes the worldly feelings of sluggishness and exhaustion absolutely redundant. After spending a month on the oceanographic research ship known as the Polarstern in Germany, a nineteen track voyage of tender and infinite-whisked melodies were inspired onto the hills of the Schiller fortress once again. The pearls of aural wisdom in which these gates were opened to were among the Princesses and Prince’s known as Lenka, Nadia Ali, Midge Ure (lead man of Ultravox), Mia Bergstrom, Anggun and many more to add to favour.
Within their strength also, they helped glide, traverse and energise “Breathless” into a universe of unmitigated tranquilly and abundant, idyllic peacefulness. Together with “Breathless” (also known as Atemlos) featuring a quintessential number in the form of the song called ‘Try,’ the United States version of this album will be accompanied with the “Sehnsucht” (Desire) LP which originally came out in 2008.
Re-releasing the dazzling reminder of the single called ‘Breathe’ with vocalist September (and further exhibits from Despina Vandi, Kim Sanders, Xavier Naidoo and Jette Von Roth), “Desire” in its equal self retains a crisp bodied finish with an outlook on all things ambient and unanimously spirited.
The roads in which have been made and laid down for Schiller to continue on have not been sought after without a reflection to the past and an identical eye on the future, so with the enthused knowledge of Kraftwerk, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Tangerine Dream to contemplate over, Mike Oldfield fans alike are in no doubt to be content and humbled by that mystical and heart penetrating sound that moves and captures us all from Christopher “Schiller.”
Bookmarking the calendar for his epic nineteen date tour in December later on this year, will indeed hypnotise and spell bound all sorts of fraternities from chill out to trance to ambient to Balearic and back again. So in the words of a true composer, musician and producer.. “My Name Is Christopher Von Deylen… and I am Schiller.”
Julian Kaye had a night career, and it’s common knowledge that nothing sexy happens before sundown, so Blazin has hooked-up a lethal beat tape, in the form of a two-part saga, to help get you through the night shift. The Los Angeles based producer puts hip-hop drums against prismatic synths on his latest beat tape entitled Night Career, and it’s two parts Raw Like a Circular Saw and Relics of Psychedelics. Blazin also appears on “Out Of Bounds”, a spacey banger with massive drums by fellow Angeleno producer TuskegeeCadet. Between the two of them, Blazin and TuskegeeCadet are keeping suspensions bouncing all over the city with some dreamy, psychedelic electronica, kept lucid by their abrasive beats, and both Blazin’s Night Career and TuskegeeCadet’s Essence EP are readily available via bandcamp… (I should have clarified prior that there’s no actual cassette involved in this)
Suede Ape began as an idea by guitarist and producer Geoff Rowan. He conspired to record a jam session, rich with engrossing guitar improve, and edit it into something with less languish, that could appeal to an audience. Rowan needed to, firstly, amass hours of material, before he could chisel it down, and that meant reaching out to Andrew Monzon and Matt Ackerman who, between the pair, are musically proficient in whatever you need, including electronic elements such as kaos pads, drum pads and synths. Each member also brings a unique range of influences, including Weezer, Sabath, Fugazi, and apparently Geoff and I have been nurturing similar Mars Volta obsessions, so things are eclectic and genres are heavily blended. A jam session is primarily intended for experimentation and improvisation, and those more free-flowing moments needed to be vivid, yet concentrated, without being stifled, and that balance is as difficult to achieve as it sounds.There’s a very apparent vulnerability in sharing your most candid moments as a musician, and allowing people to hear you grind away for hours, to yield less than four magically harmonic moments. This “illegitimate brain baby of producer and guitarist Geoff Rowan” has ended up as seven cathartic tracks available now via bandcamp and (as this was a one time jam) it’s our only memento, so savor the journey… You can preview just a few of those “magically harmonic moments” while enjoying “Dr Dre Drinks Dr Pepper”…
