Crawl | Heartbreaking Bravery

April 30, 2017

american poetry club – glad to be here, etcetera (EP Review)

In the past week Wendell Borton, Side Eye, Detenzione, Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Puppy Problems, Soft Fangs/Bellows, Kindling, moshimoss/stabilo, Wilsen, and GRLMIC all unveiled full streams of various types of records. The landmark Our First 100 Days compilation also came to its natural conclusion. On the quieter, less-publicized side of things, american poetry club’s glad to be here, etcetera — packaged with I Love to Surf’s Mantras as a split EP release — was also made available to the public.

A deeply felt bedroom pop recording from Jordan Weinstock (who runs the excellent It Takes Time Records), glad to be here, etcetera is the sound of creative restlessness. Collaborators trickle in, a sample gets used, and one lonely narrative after another crops up. There’s a lot of resentment present in glad to be here, etcetera, typically manifesting in self-deprecation or self-loathing (and never as strongly as it does on the EP’s closing track) but there are softer moments scattered throughout, specifically “how i felt about most things”, which boasts a simplistic but oddly affecting video that’s premiering right here:

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More than any other song on glad to be here, etcetera, this one feels complete. Fully formed, deeply felt, and brimming with genuine emotion, “how i felt about most things” grapples with a much larger scale than most of the other songs on the record. Instead of just introspection, it’s a meditation on love, familial love, mortality, aging (and being forced to age), and a handful of other weighty topics. It’s easily the strongest composition on the record (the piano figure at the end is the EP’s loveliest moment) and it suggests Weinstock will be saying a lot more things with american pooetry club in the future. A gorgeous moment on a very strong EP, “how i felt about most things” affirms one basic truth: glad to be here, etcetera is worthy of any serious collection.

Listen to glad to be here, etcetera below and pick it up here.

August 19, 2016

Eluvium – Rorschach Pavan (Stream)

eluvium

Over the course of the past few days, a host of impressive streams have surfaced from the likes of Death By Unga Bunga, Cory Hanson, Cheap Girls, Goon, Super Unison, Mannequin Pussy, Sofia Härdig, Totally Sl0w, Kiran Leonard, The Tallest Man On Earth, Two Houses, Suburban Living, Chasms, Racing Heart, Roses, Kadhja Bonet, Belle Mare, Diamond Hands, Astro Tan, and Kynnet. A bevvy of music videos emerged as well, including impressive new clips from Mozes and the Firstborn, Annabel Allum, Sam Evian, Marching Church, Billie Marten, Odonis Odonis, Eleanor Friedberger, Austin Lucas, The Body, Sunshine & the Blue Moon, Peter Bjorn and John, Cinemechanica, and The Pooches. Outstanding full streams from Band Aparte, Channeling, and Kaz Mirblouk rounded everything out in stylish fashion.

While all three dozen of those entries are worth a hefty amount of investment, it was Eluvium‘s characteristically breathtaking “Rorschach Pavan” to earn this post’s featured spot. Following on the heels of the spine-tingling “Regenerative Being“, Matthew Cooper once again demonstrates what’s made his discography one of the richest — and most celebrated — in ambient music. “Rorschach Pavan” is one of Cooper’s finest offerings to date.

Once again, there’s an air of tranquility that permeates through “Rorschach Pavan” as well as a genuine sense of peace. Cooper’s stated that False Readings On is meant to be a meditation on cognitive dissonance and that thread reveals itself in patches throughout the course of this track but never overwhelms the proceedings, acting as a brief reprieve from the aggressive punctuation of “Regenerative Being”. Even with feedback and white noise swirling through its veins, “Rorschach Paven” registers as one of Cooper’s more calm, cerebral works.

The structure of the bulk of Eluvium’s music demands the songs to slowly unfurl, revealing themselves in layers while simultaneously adding new, overlapping themes, motifs, and instrumentation. Here, that approach hits an apex just after the 3:40 mark as a bass suddenly lifts the melody skyward in what’s one of the most beautiful sequences of music anyone’s likely to hear all year. That specific moment winds up being the definitive one for “Rorschach Pavan” as the gentle climax slowly cedes and the track begins to calmly disintegrate.

Otherworldly, intimate, and unfathomably gorgeous, “Rorschach Paven” is classic Eluvium, through and through. Beyond that, it’s one of the most awe-inspiring songs of recent memory. If the rest of False Readings On can live up to the standards set by its precedents, it’ll likely stand as one of the most beautiful records of 2016. Until then, “Rorschach Pavan” should be more than enough to tide anyone over. Fall under its spell and drift off on a sea of muted bliss.

Listen “Rorschach Pavan” below and pre-order False Readings On here.

May 14, 2014

Dead Stars – Someone Else (Music Video)

Old Flame Records continue to build themselves one hell of a catalog. Next month the label will be releasing what looks to be the umpteenth great record in the past few years that they can lay claim to; this time around it’s Dead Stars’ Slumber. They’d already teased Slumber with “Crawl”, an undeniably great basement pop song that owed a debt to the late 80’s/early 90’s SST scene as much as what was happening at that time over in New York. A little scuzz and a lot of melody is a happy meeting point to arrive at and it’s where Dead Stars find themselves once again with “Someone Else”. This time around, they’ve paired that song with a decidedly lo-fi video that winks at a long list of their influences. Micah Weisberg and Bill Dvorak directed the clip, which looks like it was shot on Super 8, and features the band miming the song in locations that range from a basketball court to a gas station to a food truck. Improbably, it comes off as more charming than tired, and suits the song nicely. Aspiring DIY directors, look to this clip for proof that you don’t need to worry about a budget. Potential listeners, start paying attention to Dead Stars.

Watch “Someone Else” below and get in a game of pick-up basketball before the sun disappears.

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