Slipped Discs April 2017
Discs You May Have Missed
by John Noyd
Timber Timbre
Initial Thoughts
From stoic country-folk poet PETER BRADLEY ADAMS’ patient parables, “A Face Like Mine,” to radical neo-classical saxophonist and electronic collagist COLIN STETSON’s phantasmagorical, “All This I Do For Glory,” April albums ask if we’re in this together or just out for ourselves. Between amorous jazz-pop enchanters LAKE’s breezy, buoyant ultimatum, “Forever or Never,” or somber somnambulists TIMBER TIMBRE’s hypnotic goth-folk dystopia, “Sincerely, Future Pollution,” it’s bond, spawn or cut bait.
Disc Reviews
Matthew Logan Vasquez - Does What He Wants
Matthew Logan Vasquez
Album title: Does What He Wants
Record Label: Dine Alone
Dipped in trippy blues-rock chops, funky honky-tonk stomps and bittersweet synth-folk anecdotes, “Wants,” hitchhikes from heavy to heavenly, courting outlaw-gospel vaudeville supplemented by fiery bar-room choirs and sinful brimstone violins. Practiced in story-teller melancholy and paperback nostalgia, Delta Spirit’s Vasquez revise and surmise street-wise diaries defending cleansing surrender, candid abandon and belated escape. Matthew play Madison’s The Frequency May 6th.
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Matthew Logan Vasquez online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Purchase Does What He Wants on Amazon
R. Ring - Ignite the Rest
R. Ring
Album title: Ignite the Rest
Record Label: Sofaburn Records
Authentic, contentious, veering from reckless and tempestuous to direct and defenseless, the debut album from The Breeder’s Kelley Deal and Ampline’s Mike Montgomery overflows in raw, real feeling, plucking sublime ruckus from serrated impatience and surly curiosity. Spellbound thought-bombs launched from electric strings bent in relentless invention, “Ignite,” tussles in barbed garage-rock muscle injecting eccentric chemistry into classic indie spasms.
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R. Ring online:
• Website • Facebook
• Purchase Ignite the Rest on Amazon
Cold Beat - Chaos By Invitiation
Cold Beat
Album title: Chaos By Invitiation
Record Label: Crime on the Moon
Rinsed in kinky synths programmed for cynical, clinical minimalism, “Chaos,” micro-manages galactic sadness seized in seductive electro-pop buzz and scrubbed with candy-coated vocals from moonstruck cyber-waifs. Mining ghostly tones from computer ghouls schooled in fleshy caresses, dabbling sound-lab collaborators Cold Beat unleashes fiendish dreams firing laser-guided desires via stratospheric lyrics; tempting tingling senses with machine-tooled cool engineered in space-ballad algorithms.
(1640) Page Views
Cold Beat online:
• Website • Facebook
• Download Chaos By Invitiation from Amazon
Maximo Park - Risk to Exist
Maximo Park
Album title: Risk to Exist
Record Label: Cooking Vinyl
Deploying fidgety syncopations glibly pivoting around anxious bass, skid-marked guitar and panicky percussion, Maximo Park’s snarky remarks spark savvy rallies, conjuring tight, propulsive convulsions ripe in curt, subversive rhetoric tailor-made for post-millennial politics. Dry wit commits splendid revenge enlisting, “Exist,” in fluid moves to slip crisp incriminations inside dance-able propaganda while wiry New Wave renegades demolish through posh, swashbuckling outrage.
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Maximo Park online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Purchase Risk to Exist on Amazon
Blaenavon - That’s Your Lot
Blaenavon
Album title: That’s Your Lot
Record Label: Transgressive
Rich, melodramatic catalysts catapult spiraling pile-drivers spun from indie-rock waltzes trimmed in delicate affections; “Lot,” rides emotional tides whose unguarded martyrdom erupts in tough bluster before regaining load-bearing composure. Heart-broken ballads straddling glorious six-string introspection shelter dashed hopes and bold soapbox confessions while Blaenavon’s strong, agile mastery of tangled pains and double-fisted resistance juggles fevered soliloquies born from sensitive redemption.
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Blaenavon online:
• Website • Facebook
• Download That’s Your Lot from Amazon
• Purchase That’s Your Lot on Amazon
San Fermin - Belong
San Fermin
Album title: Belong
Record Label: Downtown Records
Energetic connections tie lavish imaginations to theatrical passion as cavalier art-pop maestros San Fermin bring stately elation to level-headed revelry, balancing talented hindsight against luxurious urgency. Cultivating tasty mayhem through polyphonic tectonics, “Belong,” fawns over sophisticated cadence, fusing varnished harmonies among orchestrated trills and nimble drum-fills, creating a sumptuous, melodic cocktail bubbling in sly pride, restless meditations and honest wonder.
(1649) Page Views
San Fermin online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Download Belong from Amazon
• Purchase Belong on Amazon
Final Thoughts
From runaway guitar-punks DEEP STATE’s raucous, “Thought Garden,” to zany indie-rock pagans, THE OCTOPUS PROJECT’s pliable tribal rampages, “Memory Mirror,” spring brings records dredged from mental temples. Looking further inward, lofty pop-goddess WILSEN’s sensual unmentionables, “I Go Missing In My Sleep,” haunted modern-rockers WILD ARROWS’ quivering, “Dreamlike Dream,” and pop-rock angel TAHAKI MIYAKI’s, encyclopedic, “The Dream,” provide world-weary clearinghouses. Additional reactions to reality include murky searchers OMEGA VAGUE’s supple decoupling, “Aversion/Reversion,” whip-lashed castaways WHAT GIVES’ crackling grunge-lunging baptism, “Feels Good” and swinging shamans WOODS’ magical groove-roots pageant, “Love is Love.”