No week is complete without new releases!
Album: Spooky Action at a Distance
Artist: Lotus Plaza
Genre: Pop
This is the second album from Lotus Plaza, the solo nom de plume of Lockett Pundt, better known as the guitarist in Deerhunter. Pundt has penned a number of the best songs on the last two Deerhunter albums; and his first album, The Floodlight Collective, was a tour-de-force of guitar pop smarts. He has the uncanny ability to build soaring, melodic gems from simple musical phrases; a möbius strip of a guitar line and repeating clipped drum roll in “Strangers”; a tribal drum beat holding down the foundation on “Out of Touch”; two acoustic guitar chords and a slight bit of snare as the basis for “Dusty Rhodes”; and a series of slowly descending piano chord scales on “Jet Out of the Tundra”. There is a wide variety of songs and moods here, from unabashed rockers such as “White Galactic One” and “Monoliths”, acoustic laced introspection on “Dusty Rhodes” and “Black Buzz”, to the lysergic electronics of “Remember Our Days.” Spooky Action at a Distance is a wide angle view of what should be the zeitgeist of contemporary guitar pop.
Album: Mochipet is Evil
Artist: Mochipet & MC Zulu
Genre: Industrial
Mochipet is Evil, titled by Chicago's MC Zulu (aka Dominique Rowland), could almost be classified as a brand new genre in Bass Music Culuture. Combining dancehall and reggae MC Vocals stripped of any of the stereotypical content used in the genre, with the uncategorizable beat explorations of Bay Area producer extraordinaire Mochipet (aka David Wang), this album is really like nothing else you have ever heard. Add in remixes by some of the best beat producers out today: Hellfire Mechina, Skulltrane, Jay Wikid, U9lift, Yan Zombie, BD1982, Polish Ambassidor, and Freddy Todd, and you have yourself a recipe for goodness. And if that is not enough, Mochipet has thrown in a added Ska Remix bonus track for your enjoyment. Mochipet maybe evil, but you're damn lucky if you listen to this release!
Album: Embrace
Artist: Ex Confusion
Genre: Ambient
Embrace is the second album from Atsuhito Omori's Ex Confusion project. His first since taking part in Keith Kenniff's (Helios, Goldmund) For Nihon compilation, this new album consist of ten tracks of emotionally-themed soloist ambient composed for guitar and piano. Much like his debut album something to remember, Embrace, at it's core, conjures a very strong thread of nostalgia. Wonderfully warm, hazy, sun-lit memories that actually somehow seem tangible. We all have something to remember, but Ex Confusion would now like the listener to use his compositions to embrace personal memories that are so very dear.
Album: Trojandropper
Artist: Neil Campbell & Robert Horton
Genre: Electronic
Two individuals with long histories in improvised and experimental music come together through, and despite, modern technology. Neil Campbell is an experimental musician known for his Astral Social Club solo project and for being a member of Vibracathedral Orchestra and a long time player in the UK noise underground. Robert Horton got his start in the San Francisco punk-noise act The Appliances and the eclectic Plateau Ensemble. Although Campbell and Horton have never met in person, they met virtually on the Jeweled Antler mailing list. Both musicians are ridiculously prolific and prone to collaboration. They got to talking disco, probably as an antidote to all the folk and 'how to record' bug chatter. Campbell says, "Robert TOLD me in an email 'one day we'll make a disco record together'... who was I to argue?" As far as the end result being disco, Horton notes "we failed at that." Guest musicians on the album include Dan Plonsey and Hal Hughes (Horton's Plateau Ensemble bandmate). The title references the infamous Trojandropper virus that infected Horton's computer, eliminating many hours of work and files. The resulting album that had to be pieced back together is something that mixes organic, almost crystalline drones with off kilter beat patterns and lopsided techno. Trojandropper is beatific, odd, and an anomaly to even its creators, like all projects that take on a life of their own.
