Heartbreaking Bravery

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Tag: Brick Mower

September 12, 2014

Nano Kino – Eyes Before Words (Music Video)

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Since the majority of the start of this week was spent on the road, it’s been difficult to be as vigilant about keeping up with the new music and videos that have been coming out. Today, that changed and the amount of great content is almost overwhelming. Every single one of the items that are going to be hyperlinked following this sentence are worthy of being the feature item. Those include full album streams from Mumblr and Sleepyhead (their first in 15 years), and a stream of Parquet Courts and Future Punx’s split 7″. There were excellent music videos from Death From Above 1979, Lace Curtains, and Brick Mower. Most of all, though, there were great new songs. Cut Teeth offered up a post-hardcore ripper, Ovlov provided a tantalizing glimpse at their upcoming 4-way split with Ex-Breathers, Woozy, and Gnarwhal. There was a smoky piece of folk-psych from Mail the Horse, a new Pity Sex song that ranks among the best of the year and teases an upcoming split with Adventures (it’s also their career-best), a new look at an upcoming EP from the increasingly popular Girlpool, a fiery Stereolab cover from Greys, another indicator that Dark Blue’s Pure Reality will be one of the year’s best records, another gentle piece of bliss from Eternal Summers, a snappy piece of riff-happy outsider pop from Little Big League that- like the Pity Sex song from just a few hyperlinks ago- ranks among the year’s best, another incendiary look at Meatbodies’ upcoming record on In the Red, and a brand-new career highlight for King Tuff. That’s one hell of a haul.

All of those are likely to get features elsewhere- if they haven’t already had them (and most have)- and Heartbreaking Bravery would be nothing if it wasn’t for the bands that are flying under the radar. Those are the kind of bands that this place strives to support- and Nano Kino (which translates to “very small cinema”) is one of them. And while the duo does include Duncan Lloyd of Maximo Park (and Decade in Exile), their profile’s currently surprisingly contained- which isn’t likely to last too long. There are chilly atmospheres that permeate throughout the duo’s music, using no-wave and post-punk as their major touchpoints while exuding an icy demeanor not too far removed from The xx. A lot of the band’s intrigue gets an extra push thanks to the mysterious vocal performances of Sarah Surl, the duo’s other member. While there’s still a considerable sense of mystery to be found in the textured guitar work that Lloyd provides, Surl gives it a strange sense of humanism that allows Nano Kino to eclipse so many similarly-minded acts.

Nano Kino currently have plans to release their debut record in the early parts of next year but have promised to tease pieces of the record in the lead-up campaign. One of the first pieces they’ve offered up is a visually stunning black-and-white clip that emphasizes the band’s penchant for noir-ish sensibilities. Bringing in other visual aesthetics to the fold (there’s a prominent French new wave influence running throughout this- as well as a lot of glances towards Spain’s golden-era of silent film), “Eyes Before Words” winds up being a quietly intense experience. Using grainy superimposed imagery (that’s occasionally stripped back to isolation) to maximum effect helps make this a video that stays with the viewer long after the final whispers of the fade-out. It’s unrelentingly poised and announces Nano Kino as a band that’s embraced a very particular vision- one that could wind up meriting critical and commercial success. Whatever the future does hold for Nano Kino, it’ll be a pleasure watching them fight their way forward- especially if the ensuing releases all manage to be as arresting as “Eyes Before Words”.

Watch “Eyes Before Words” below and keep an eye on this site for updates in the coming months.

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February 19, 2014

Watch This: Vol. 13

Again, sincerest apologies on the delay involving this 13th installment of Watch This. What would regularly run on Sunday was pushed back this week due to an obscene overabundance of material that needed some serious navigation. When the realization of the source of last week’s excess of material could be traced back to two events, things became a little more manageable. Now, at least for this week, there will be three standalone videos and the final two spots will be occupied by video playlists; one being the Marked Men weekend, the other being the Don Giovanni showcase. Brooklyn, you had a surreal wealth of incredible music this week, worthy of anyone’s envy. For all of those videos, as well as a few more, watch everything posted below.

1. Dog Day – Sandwich (exclaim!)

Kicking off the series this week is Dog Day, a quartet whose sound is steeped in shoegaze aesthetics without ever crossing the line into that genre. Instead, they offer up a very singular take on brooding post-punk that carries a lot of noise and no wave heft. As for the band’s performance, it’s detached to the point of being eerie, effectively elevating the sense of unease. A very strong, very curious, introduction to a band that has a decent shot of gaining a very faithful following.

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2. Sandrider – Gorgon (KEXP)

HOLY FUCK.

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3. Porches.  ft. Frankie Cosmos – Fog Dog (Live at Woodbury)

Porches. continue to impress every time the project surfaces. This fan-shot performance clip of “Fog Dog” may actually be the most arresting material to come from Porches. to date. It helps that Frankie Cosmos vocals lend the whole thing an almost unbearable lightness. A genuinely gorgeous piece of entertainment- and the ending? One of the most endearing things to have shown up in any kind of film this year.

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4. The Marked Men Weekend (Live at St. Vitus)

So, the other weekend an enormous wealth of material consumed Brooklyn and lit the NYC punk community on fire three times over. A large, large, part of this was the three sets that reclusive basement punk icons The Marked Men graced the city with, bringing along an assortment of their friends to share the moment. All three of The Marked Men’s sets were captured in full by the always-reliable unARTigNYC, who also filmed single clips of the support acts; Tenement, Radiator Hospital, Worriers, Kim Phuc, Iron Chic, Future Punx, and Shellshag. Those clips appear in that order and are all worth watching (especially Tenement, who will get an emphasis on here whenever there’s an appropriate excuse, and Radiator Hospital, whose Something Wild was one of 2013’s very best).

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5. The Don Giovanni Showcase

While The Marked Men weekend was happening over at St. Vitus, the Don Giovanni showcase was going strong just a stones throw away. There were a few bands that made appearances at both (Tenement, Worriers, and Shellshag) and made sure the wealth was lovingly spread across the city. Now, Don Giovanni’s a record label that’s earned a lot of mentions here by virtue of their roster, one of the strongest in DIY music. While not being able to attend was painful, it’s easy to tell that it was an incredible time from the videos that were presented by Don Giovanni themselves. Curiously, sets/songs from the explosive combination of Screaming Females and Tenement  were left out (though a performance of “Doom 84” in Cleveland has been tacked onto the playlist- along with the previously-mentioned Shellshag medley– because as long as this video playlist cheating is taking place, why not cheat a little more?) along with a few others but there’s still a lot to love here.

Contained in the playlist are the following: Nude Beach (who absolutely lit Quarters Rock N Roll Palace up in Milwaukee last July with Midnight Reruns and Tenement), Black Wine, Groucho Marxists, Priests (especially Priests, who, as one of the most original and exciting bands in music, are going to be given a lot more words here in the very near future), Vacation (a few members of which have found growing success in their other incredible band, Tweens), Worriers, Nuclear Santa Claust, California X, and, as mentioned, both Screaming Females and Shellshag. Watch it all below and buy a goddamn guitar already.

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