fatandconfused

Motoro Faam Reviewed ...(Boards of Canada, World's End Girlfriend etc)

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Motoro Faam - …and Water Cycles (Preco)
Motoro Faam are three highly talented twenty five year old musicians from Japan mixing classical and contemporary music with irregular beats and sampling. This is probably the most genuinely moving thing I’ve heard since Johann Johannsson’s IBM 1401 – A Users Manual and perhaps the most original and thought provoking thing since I was first wowed with Godspeeds intelligent outlook on modern music. It’s like Lucky Dragons should they ever decide to soundtrack a ballet recital, pianos roll and electronic glitches flicker like decaying static.
The sound will satisfy those partial to the sounds of Max Richter and the like, however this is one if not two steps ahead of their game and is one of the most exciting discoveries I’ve had the pleasure to stumble across lately, timeless yet undeniably original. …and Precipitation weaves and delights with bubbles of waters and waves, sandstorms and gentle pianos beneath stormy rainfall, it’s unlikely you will find anything quite so delightful this year.

Motoro Faam – …and Surface Runoff MP3

Motoro Faam – …and Condensation MP3

Motoro Faam – … and Evaporation MP3

Website

Preco Records

Myspace

Normans Records - We have another great Motoro Faam CD on the Preco label from Japan called 'And Water Cycles'. This is pretty lush sounding stuff. Gorgeous electronics and neo classical nubbins mixed together in a sexy love pot all ready to pour into your unsuspecting ears. There's a healthy dash of Ryuichi Sakamoto in there and maybe some more. It's quite experimental and there's an awful lot going on. The sound is very dense and full, but together it makes a really beautiful listen, what with all the lovely classical-ness being chucked into the electronic mix. Mingus thinks it sounds a bit like Takagi Masakatsu....highly recommended anyway!

Boards of Canada

Long term readers will need no introduction to the fact that i absolutley adore Boards of Canada, I stumbled over these videos on youtube, the excellent video for ROYGBIV, the song that turned me on to them (thanks to an NME compilation!!) and then a rather crazy but suprisingly good Audio/Video mashup/blend of David Hasselhoff's cover of "Blue Bayou" mixed with Boards of Canada's "An Eagle In Your Mind"...nice!!

And a couple of other videos i saw that summarise some of what i'm getting more and more into at the moment...beautiful stuff

at the close of every day - Hemelsblauw

World's End Girlfriend - We Are The Massacre

Reviewed

Cue – Wedding Song (Thirty Ghosts)

I only recently discovered quite how much decent post rock there was out there, everyone is familiar with the Godspeed’s the Explosions in the Sky, The 65 Days of Static, the Dirty Three’s and although I had long been ignorant perhaps Mono were not so deep in the underground as I imagined. Thanks to Jordan Voldz Silent Ballet and particularly their top 50 Instrumental albums of each year since 2005 I’ve unearthed a number of great bands not least the Ascent of Everest, Laura, The Pirate Ship Quintet and Souvenirs Young America, still what I’ve found is that all too many whilst undoubtedly being excellent have often followed the straight forward formula that Explosions in the Sky do so well. As I say, it’s not that its bad, it just lacks depth, much like with a “pop” band I get bored of seeing guitar, bass and drums, at the very least bring in a keyboard, so it is with post rock that the piano and violin can add that extra depth that allows the band to take on a new level, to dig deeper and express a dictionary full of new and unknown feelings. It’s refreshing to hear a band like Texas, Austin’s Cue, that are described rather nicely on last.fm as a four-piece progressive instrumental/chamber noise rock band. Although one of the things that draws me to post rock is the slightly doomy outlook most bands have, the darkness and apocalyptic direction most take, its again refreshing to hear such an upbeat instrumental band.
It comes as no surprise to discover that guitarist Colin Swietek is an occasional member of Graveface Records outfit the Octopus Project (perhaps best known for their collaboration with the also fantastic Black Moth Super Rainbow. Wedding Song for Living Things and Dead Things, YROKROLSUKKDN2002, Can You See My Skeleton? And Fleur de Lis stand out, though as whole this is a great upbeat album that could quite welcomely be my wedding song.

Cue - Forests of Pencil Pierced Children - MP3

Cue - Fleur De Lis - MP3

Myspace

Thirty Ghosts Records

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - #3 (Labrador)

I was first drawn to the Surbaban Kids by their excellent name, I don’t know how many times I have been disappointed with this theory yet this time I was far from disappointed, their first EP bragging the instantly classic Rent a Wreck and Trumpets & Violins. This was followed with #2 boasting the instantly loveable Funeral Face as lead song and now #3 a classic collection of songs sung in the style of Jonathan Richman and generally accompanied with handclaps, drum machines, whistles, and ba-ba-ba’s, unsurprisingly as they to quote ”want turn all the dance floors into a burnings inferno of Ba-ba-ba”
The majority of the album is excellent but really peaks at track 9 with the trio, S_____y Weekend (take those silly shoes off and go back to summer camp/ and don’t ever come back/ you look like you live in a tent…), Rent a Wreck and Seems to be on my Mind (love seems to be on my mind/ seems to be all the time/ oh what a lovely way to spend your life/ not needing anything…I’m a young boy with a lot of things on my mind) which’ll all have you singing along before you finished hearing them for the first time. Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, not just kids with great names after all.

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - Funeral Face MP3

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - Rent a Wreck MP3

Myspace

Labrador Records

Our Brother The Native – Tooth & Claw (FatCat)

Textile Ranch/ Charles Atlas -  (Static Caravan)

French Teen Idol – Enlightened False Consciousness (Lost Children Net Label)

Three seriously beautiful releases, elegantly textured tapestries of organic prettiness.

Much like by the limitations restricted, the fewer materials on offer, a vegetarian chef tends to conjure up far more interesting dishes than a traditional chef as he utilizes, improvises and gives new meaning and uses to familiar staples in search of something that will both interest and excite the taste buds of the partaker so Our Brother The Native take the hard route to making music. Imagine pre-electricity electronica, like Four Tet with his laptop taken away, simply left with the sounds that surround him from day to day, kindly captured in a box or in the case of Our Brother The Native perhaps a treasure trove would be more appropriate.

These are songs made from a bundle of sounds, birds singing, water running, hands clapping, pans clashing and a collection of samples, mostly of children’s voices used to a similar fine effect as the Boards of Canada, Isan and The Books. On top of this is a brand of peculiar Cocorosie-esque high pitched vocals, and perhaps along with Animal Collective, Cocorosie are as close a comparison as you will find whilst not wishing to take any credit away from what are a seriously unique and creative band, but for music critic/ pigeon-holing’s sake lets just say that if The Books remixed Cocorosie we may end up with something similar and I’m sure if you have any taste in music you’ll realise that that’s far from a bad thing.

Falconiformes, Tilia Petiolaris (the most straight forward, song based song on the album, a beautiful finger picked twin vocaled affair) and particularly the seven minutes of discontent samples set against at times operatic vocals of Octopodidae standout, though if you are looking for a challenging yet rewarding listen there is little that you will be disappointed with here.

I’ve said it time and again but am yet again here reassured that to quite a large extent you can indeed if not judge a book by its cover certainly you can a CD by its. One look at the excellent artwork that accompanies the Textile Ranch and Charles Atlas split and you know already that the CD contained within is likely to contain something rather special and indeed it doesn’t disappoint.

There is something magical about the cover, two girls on swings mid air, one coming up the other going back down against a 1970’s backdrop in some Austrian or Hungarian town that evokes memories of the Brothers Grimm’s fairytales, the state of innocence and total naivety to the horrible things that go on around us and the responsibilities that come with growing up.

Textile Ranch themselves have a magical sound, like Colleen had she been more mischievous, had her twinkling fairy dust tunes had a more urgent feel about them, had they been laced in mischief rather than melancholy, set to charity shop drum machines, flickering in the light like the facets of a diamond, recalling also the magic of State River Widening and many of the early Static Caravan releases like Fortdax and Little Robot Voice. The four tracks here come highly recommended and remind me of why Static Caravan has received so much praise over the years.

Charles Atlas follows a similar route but takes the long and winding roads, the country roads where it doesn’t matter if you want to take your time, if you wish to pull in from time to time to take in the green fields with their solitary trees and endless acres. At times it treads the same water as some of the more glacial post rock out there, pianos, heavily delayed guitars and electronic drums gently compliment each other in a lovely wash of  esoteric sound.

You may be aware of the Lost Children Net Label, a glorious accumulation of free downloads mainly in the form of post rock or at least “instrumental”, instrumental as in the way Sigur Ros qualify as instrumental even though most their songs contain singing. It’s somehow linked to the Silent Ballet website and forum and a blessing beyond anything your preconceived ideas of free music are.

The latest of such free downloads is French Teen Idols Enlightened False Consciousness a lovely album that is as much electronica as it is post rock, full of samples, doomy and apocalyptic yet hope crammed keys and some lovely skittering beats. Disaster samples conversations from flight United 93, respectfully so, and where some people may feel that the very idea of this is wrong I’d have to strongly disagree. Music is a form of art, and an expression of peoples feelings and emotions and I can’t possibly think of a more emotionally charged situation, the result is spectacular.

Compromise Your (He)art is graced with playground chatter and a closing speech from an Indian philosopher that brings to mind the well selected samples of the much underrated The Books. The Fleeting Beauty of a Butterfly is true to its name in its poetic beauty, all slow waves of synthesis and French spoken word samples.

For the majority of the time the album possesses the same unblemished and natural beauty that Johann Johannsson’s IBM Users Manual album displayed so well, the oneness with nature, the slow motion look at a world that holds so much splendour beneath the things that are so often forced to our attention, the bad things that fill the pages of the newspaper, the natural wonder of a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, tracks such as Memento convey such wonder, much how Johann does but perhaps with more of a proclivity for drums and beats.

This is a truly wondrous album and as its free you really have no excuse not to go and download it immediately.
www.myspace.com/ourbrotherthenative
www.myspace.com/fatcatrecords
www.staticcaravan.org/
www.piano-magic.co.uk/textile_ranch/
www.myspace.com/charlesatlasnyc
www.myspace.com/frenchteenidol
www.archive.org/details/LostChildren023
www.frenchteenidol.com/fti.html

Johann Johannsson – IBM 1401 – A Users Manual (4AD)
How anyone could fail to fall in love with this album I really don’t know, perhaps it may much like Joanna Newsom’s Y’s end up an album that its so different and so perfect that reviewers will not be able to do anything but wax lyrical of its pure beauty and ingenuity. I have heard nothing like it, at least not within the field into which it falls, a very large field in which everyone has stood still and stopped looking at Joanna. Instead there stands a man with nothing but hope and an old IBM Users Manual.
At its most obvious on the fifth and final track Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black you may hear Sigur Ros, elsewhere you hear nothing but beauty and gratitude, the slow burning soundscapes sweeping along like on the documentaries you used to watch at school, the clouds whizzing across the sky as it turns from blue to red to black. A flower growing from seed, speeded up, taking in every moment as it sprouts and blooms. Whales swimming in the vast open oceans. The closing scenes of a film, the fight is over, he and been caught, the danger has gone and the family are reunited, in the background the street is covered in debris, the building is smouldering, blue and red lights flash as a testimony to all that has happened but all this fades into obscurity as he walks hand in hand with his wife and daughter in his arms, the calm after the storm, the contemplation and anticipation of a new beginning. This is an album of intense beauty and really one not to be missed. 
www.johannjohannsson.com


Red Sparowes -- Every Red Heart Shine Toward The Red Sun (Neurot)
I like Red Sparowes, they like long titles, titles that when read one after another tell a story, titles that have absolutely no relevance to the songs. Their songs are instrumental, much like Godspeed and Mono they have the ability to pack their songs with so much feeling that lyrics are not really needed to appreciate the message, each song is intricately layered with riff upon riff, each sings song builds and then builds again into an epic crescendo and as Plan B Mag pointed out musical trends come and go yet for me the thrill of Post Rock at its very best is one that I personally will never tire of no matter how many times its repeated. Unlike the aforementioned bands Red Sparowes under their mean disguise (they share members with Metal-heads ISIS) they carry pop sensibilities that are a pleasant addition to a popular but still enjoyable recipe. 
www.myspace.com/redsparowes


Sodatream - Reservations (Fortuna Pop!)
Remember when you were back at school and you ripped open your packet of crayons, all the brightest ones you could find, coloring the page like a rainbow delight? then you'd get the tickest blackest paint and paint right over those colours till they were almost forgotten. the next day once it was dry you get a sharp instrument and carve out a baeutiful picture all bright colours contrasting against the dark black crust. Sometime Sodastream can be like this, there songs can on first impressions seem encrusted, swamped in dark sounds, the deep double bass and the cello but the deeper you letter yourself dig into the album the more colorful and beautiful it gets, like an Australian Will Oldham or an older wiser and all round more country Belle and Sebastian, like its predecessor, A Minor Revival, it'll take a few listens but soon it'll be another Sodastream song to cherish and return to time after time. 
www.myspace.com/sodastream
www.myspace.com/fortunapop
 
From the Archives

The Rock of Travolta – My Bands Better Than Yours (Truck)
The fact that this album was recorded in just 11 hours one Sunday afternoon in January is well reflected in the music. Not that it sounds rushed or unfinished but more that it carries a sense of urgency. The Rock of Travolta have a message to get through to you and they have just 11 hours to compose this message, a message that can’t contain any spoken word but be made only by the use of musical instruments, and they succeed.
Many bands that fall under the category of post rock are often criticize for their quiet/loud/quiet/loud formula, the Rock of Travolta dash this accusation to pieces by going loud/louder/louder still.
The message rings clear from the opening notes of Giant Robo right through to the imperial attack of I am Your Father.Yes their band are better than yours, they are better than mine and better than most, trust me, you will not be disappointed.
www.myspace.com/therockoftravolta