Today the world stopped what it was doing to watch a balloon fly across the Colorado sky. Usually this would mean that the world was really, really stoned. Turns out, this wasn’t entirely the case.
Now that Falcon Heene is a bonafide celebrity (and due to the Beastie Boys’ current hiatas), perhaps his brotherly rap group can finally get the respect it deserves. I really don’t know how the following video still has less than 3,000 views. IT SAMPLES COLD!!! These kids are going to be huge.
*UPDATE: Apparently the view count has gone from less than 3,000 to OVER 124,000 in just a couple of hours. Ladies and gentlemen: meet the new viral sensation!
Once upon a time, Alice Cooper struck fear into the hearts of millions by wearing a snake like a necklace and prancing around with a girl’s name. I think it was Lester Bangs who wrote: “If you thought Billion Dollar Babies was hot, just wait until he discovers green screens and rap music! When he does, look out children! Applying that Tasmanian devil glottal scope, that yellow-eyed depravity to the urban sound of way out will surely make the world fart blood*.” Or something like that.
Until you decide to come back to us, I will be transmitting Ladomour’s “All We’ve Been Through” using loudspeakers set up strategically throughout the continental United States.
In 2007, Dan Deacon released his first proper studio LP, the oddly-named Spiderman of the Rings. Listening to that album is best envisioned like a trip to Toon Town. But in Deacon’s Toon Town, there is no maniacal Judge Doom. So, instead of fearing death by “The Dip,” all the toons just took copious amounts of ecstasy and held raves in Toon Square.
Sounds like fun.
It is.
So, Deacon took two years and a lot of studio time to record his follow-up, Bromst. A meticulously-crafted electronic odyssey that feels slightly more grown up. But only slightly.
Bromst begins with the slow-build up entitled “Build Voice.” Well played, sir! “Build Voice” sets the standard for the rest of the album: intricately layered cuts that continue to swell for the next 4-6 minutes. Every track is like a countdown to ignition, with a payoff that takes you to another world.
Deacon’s music evokes this child-like splendor. The album’s cover is dead on: a lone tent in the woods, filled with this warm glow for it’s inhabitants. Bromst sounds cute and blissful (“Of The Mountains,” “Woof Woof”) most of the time, but it can also be a deeply intricate brain-feast (“Slow With Horns/Run For Your Life,” “Get Older,” “Snookered.”)
Yeah, I’m gushing over this record, but it is well-deserved. Deacon built off the good foundation he laid with Spiderman of the Rings and made a fantastic record. His song-writing has matured, and he hits on every track. It’s infectious, good-natured and, overall, completely danceable. It’s a great contender for Record of the Year.
So pack your friends inside that happy little tent, and let Bromst take you on a fantastic voyage.
You bring the flashlights and Skittles. I’ll bring Benny the Cab for transportation.
Maybe you’re thinking about watching another marathon of “Make Me a Supermodel”, or you’re still watching CNBC with a gun held to your temple…why don’t you queue “Mister Lonely” instead? What other movie has a chicken-obsessed child Buckwheat impersonator, Werner Herzog as a priest, AND flying nuns? Simply one of the most spellbinding films I’ve seen.
(Dir. Harmony Korine, 2007)
P.S. That’s A Silver Mt. Zion playing in this clip.
In 1994, Plunderphonics composer John Oswald released a nearly two hour reconstruction of Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star”, per the request of bassist Phil Lesh. By chopping and layering over one hundred different performances of the song, recorded between 1968 and 1993, Oswald created one of the longest, strangest (and, hell, perhaps even the best) trips in the Dead cannon. As he explained in a 1995 interview:
Phil Lesh called me up and talked me into doing it. At that point, I hadn’t listened to any Grateful Dead music in about twenty years. I did think I was qualified, because I do think it’s often a good idea to come into a project without a lot of prior knowledge and get kind of an alien’s overview of what the music seems to be, and then put in your own two cents of what you think it should be. And I think that was the case for this. During the course of working on it, I went to a couple of Grateful Dead concerts, but other than that, I haven’t listened to anything except these hundred versions of “Dark Star” that I found in the vaults.
2/3 or 1/2 (their many configurations make it difficult for accurate fractions) of Animal Collective will be on NPR’s All Things Considered today at 2:00 p.m. EST. Maybe they will talk about the Sun City Girls or drugs or Lisbon or handshakes. And maybe NPR will read the comment I left with them about their cliched reportage from rural Oklahoma yesterday. Maybe. Listen here:
Sometime in a previous life (read: junior high) I took piano lessons with hopes of conquering the sonatas of Beethoven, the etudes of Chopin, the oblique structures of Satie. It never quite happened, seeing as I had zero knack for reading music and even less perseverance, but it helped to instill a deeper appreciation of piano composition.
Around this same time I became fascinated by the prepared piano work of John Cage. His techniques seemed to turn the instrument into a living architecture (sometimes even silence prevailed), a sound that was beautifully imperfect.
The music of Hauschka (also: Volker Bertelmann), a modern German composer, appeals to me in much the same way. His most recent recording, Ferndorf, is available on FatCat, and should be of interest to fans of Max Richter and Eluvium.
Silence in Architecture is a blog about transient gumbo recipes (and salsa!).
It is written by three guys who pretend to know what women look like. We love country music, football, pork, and America.
The artwork used to create this blog's header was created by Chris Piercy, so don't front.
