Song of the day: Animal Collective - Moonjock

There are certain sounds that we all can attest give us goose bumps and essentially make us feel a sense of excitement that cannot be matched by anything else. I think for me personally, the most exciting tracks fall between “Lost Outside the Tunnel” by Aztec Camera to "Carlotta Valdez" by Harvey Danger to “Southern Point” by Grizzly Bear (these are completely impulsive choices and I’m sure an academic sensed introspection would last pages). Regardless of your choices, the tracks essentially encapsulate a sense to physically run and jump around; i.e. get hyped motherfucker.

Now I usually never find a track that gets me this excited nowadays, if anything I’ll find this joy in music that was released a few or many years back, it’s a plague of discovering next to zero excitement in recent releases, and that’s not counting ‘genuine’ excitement; that kind that doesn’t wear off after the initial misleading hype. So color me surprised as hell when I find myself returning to Centipede Hz, probably the most hyped and anticipated release of this goddamn year.

And while I do love a great majority of the tracks on the album (dat fucking first half holy shit) the track that prepares me for everything is opening track “Moonjock”. Starting up with some creepy vocal loops that eventually lead to a repeated “One… One… One…” and explode into the hard hitting snare and hi-hat, it’s just fucking exciting. This continues into a glorious build-up of delayed guitar, distorted organ and bass, and sound effects until Avey Tare begins to sing a deliciously catchy melody and leads to this schizophrenic stuttering that blends into the chaotic soundscape.

Emphasis on the chaotic by the way, the song and majority of the first half of the album doesn’t relent on the sheer amount of sound effects and textures that just fly around like flocks of deranged birds. And while many could call the messy and layered sound of “Moonjock” and Centipede Hz as directionless or just plain ill-composed, when the final chorus of “We ran it out, ran it out” begins repeating in all it’s chaotic glory at the end of “Moonjock”, you realize none of that even matters and you proceed to get lost in the midst of the happy noise. Excitement like that just can’t be faked.

Song of the Day: Chavez - Wakeman's Air

Chavez is one of those bands that you 'kind of' have to dig around about in the confines of the internet to really find out about. It's ironic that one can make such claims when it is already an immense step up to what might have been an impossible search in the past when they were still around.

The reason I bring this up is because the sound that Chavez have is particularly timeless, it's not obviously 90's post-hardcore and it's not really too modern sounding to be considered a recent release either. I always see this as a blessing because it allows much of the song's context to be focused on in a more specific manner; it allows for a unique listening experience because it literally 'sounds' unique.

But to cut the inane attempt at describing, I'm just going to say that Chavez knew how to really balance their sound between moods as they allow for a certain amount of tension to build up unknowingly to just throw you off a little when the song itself actually 'quietly' explodes.

'Wakeman's Air' is a great example of this skill and really lends itself to several moods (it opens with a heavy riff, goes into a rather bleak verse, has a noisy bridge and morphs into an uplifting chorus, goddamn!) that are only exemplified by that timeless feel and their almost post-hardcore/metal hybrid sound. A real treat of balance and attention to arrangement that makes for repeated listens.

Song of the Day: James Blake - Once We All Agree

I really enjoy the sound of a piano, but don’t confuse the typical sound of a piano with the sound of a piano that I’m referring to. I enjoy a very melancholy, slightly reverberated, and filled with ‘dark’ sounding chords sort of piano; something that I try my best to emulate with my shitty Casio keyboard that leads to poor results and terrible dynamics. Fortunately, James Blake’s ‘Once We All Agree’ from 2011’s Enough Thunder really feeds my sweet tooth for this particular delicacy of sound.

But I wouldn’t simply call this a typical melancholy piano ballad by any means, in fact James Blake employs his masterful, ahem, ‘post-dubstep’ sound to the track by adding whirring low bass tones and a haunting sound that I can only describe as the owl that follows you in your bleakest noir-esque dreams. It’s not all dark black melancholy though, as James Blake’s sweet vocals add a glimmer to the tonal sadness and ultimately allow the track to achieve a heart-aching success.



Couldn't find the studio version, sorry!

Song of the Day: Cocteau Twins - Glass Candle Grenades

I'm fairly new to the Cocteau Twins' expansive discography and really only listened to parts of Heaven or Las Vegas and the song 'Crushed' on the 4AD Lonely is an Eyesore compilation (which is excellent by tHe way). But the lack of Dream Pop in my listening had encouraged me to dig deeper into the band's music. While I haven't been able to listen to all of their material I can attest that Cocteau Twins were definitely the flagship band of 4AD for the duration of their stay.

'Glass Candle Grenades' is one of the songs, that to me, really displays a rarity in the Cocteau Twins' grandiose style. Mixing heavily reverberated drum machine, layered and heavily processed guitar and Elizabeth Fraser's famous vocals, the song is one of the highlights of 1983's Head Over Heels for successfully containing both heaviness and ethereal, sometimes even alien, tones.

Those 'alien' tones don't pertain to just the guitars either, it's evident in the melodies, harmonies and incomprehensible sound that Fraser vocalizes. This is something I don't see mentioned often in their music, a shame because much of Cocteau Twins' material is very foreign-sounding, unique and ultimately indescribable until you really pay close attention. Maybe 'Dream Pop' is an apt definition after all; events that happen in slumber often transcend the familiarity of reality. In others words, they are- otherworldly.