Glasgow, Scotland indie group Union of Knives is back with a new album and a new single. “Doing Drugs” is a roaring and soaring new single that shows off an edgier sound that is probably in part to them working with Atticus Ross who has collaborated with Trent Reznor on many NIN albums as well as his own work. Union of Knives is the second band to turn to NIN personnel to produce their albums after Ladytron recruited NIN keyboardist Alessandreo Cortini to produce their 2008 album “Velocifero”.
Ohgr, or Nivek Ogre, is a unique pressence in the music community. He started off making experimental electronic music that took a life of it’s own with the creepy and transcendent industrial band Skinny Puppy. He utilized his unique growl and perspective to sing/shout grotesque stream of thought imagery. Some of their music is very disturbing, but some of it is very beautiful too. Since the band’s inception the band have crossed into so many different genres, from dance, to metal, to ambient, and nearly everything in between.
After collaborating with original Skinny Puppy member cEvin Key on two albums that their fans thought they might never see, Nivek Ogre returns with another solo album following 2003′s SunnySyOp. So what do you expect from the third solo album of a man whose vocals have sent chills down the spines of many music connoisseurs? Would you expect piano and real singing? Well if the lead single off of “Devils in My Details”, “Timebomb” is any clue Ohgr is set once again to defy expectations. There’s still a significantantly creepy feel to this track, and a mind warpingly dark intro, but it’s growing musicality is mesmerizing.
Woven is a band from Los Angeles, CA who have used refined noise to create a stunningly beautiful album in their latest release “Designer Codes”. Layers and layers of synth and clanking percussion fade in and out over their strong rock song structures. A lot of the time they sound like some of the more progressive work of The Cure submerged in a synth haze and cross polinated with trip hop. Every time I listen I imagine someone driving through the California desert with light refecting off of their sunglasses.
Beck’s latest release, “Modern Guilt”, is also his first collaboration with Gnarls Barkley member and Gorillaz producer DJ Dangermouse. The album features a remarkable synergy as both Dangermouse and Beck have created a retro-future psychedelic 60′s sound. Under the production of Dangermouse, Beck’s ethereal backing vocals, chugging bottomless bass, and impeccable ear for melody take on a much more tangible form than they have in the last two albums. Not that at times Guero and the Information weren’t hard hitting, but those albums and their many overlapping layers and rubbery reverb effects created a dream like atmosphere, particularly on the Information. Which to me is a good thing. And reverb and rubbery bass are still present on Modern Guilt, there’s just something more straight forward and weighty about them. The fuzzed out bass, beats and crisp production (including the spectacular use of a folky violin) make Modern Guilt seem more ‘real’. Like waking from a neon light show of a dream to the sun bursting through the pastel pallet of dawn.
Beck – Chemtrails
The Psychadelic video for Beck’s “Gamma Ray”
Any Incredible Hulk influence here? Perhaps?
Downliners Sekt is an electronic-post rock-ambient band that has some truly fascinating compositions in it’s work. Using samples, eerie soundscapes, melodic guitars to craft their their second studio album “The Saltire Wave”. The result is fiercely original. I imagine that if the Sonic Youth ever got into electronics it would sound something like this.
Downliners Sekt – Blackstock Mews
If you’re digging these samples you can get the whole album at dsekt.com.
Belgian industrial/indie/rock band Thot have released a new EP named ‘Year of the Thistle’. Their music melodic and forebodin and other times the cacophony of relentless punk energy recedes to reveal a tender guitar or piano. Any fan of Nine Inch Nails or The Notwist’s early work can find something to enjoy here.
Thot – Blue and green(are melting down in a seed)
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has released a new album hot on the heels of his instrumental anthology “Ghosts”. I’d heard something about the instrumental album and listened to a few tracks, but an over saturation of meandering instrumentals led me to not listen to the albums as a whole yet, and I like ambient industrial music. So when I heard that he was releasing a new album for free I had to check out this more digestible bit of free music. It seems that ever since Radiohead released “In Rainbows” for free, Trent has not only aggressively adopted this new music business plan, he has aggressively pursued new avenues and ways to push it’s envelope. Now he has released Saul William’s “The Rise and Fall of Niggy Tardust”, NIN’s “Ghosts” and now NIN’s “The Slip” all for free. Out of all these releases it is certain that “The Slip” will be getting the most listens with it’s short running time and sound that will be familiar to both new and old NIN fans.
It doesn’t seem like that long ago that we got a new Nine Inch Nails album, and by new album I mean an album with a complete collection of songs with lyrics that have a discernible emotional arc so this excludes “Ghosts”, maybe because in the past they’ve taken so long to produce. In more recent times, like with the Albums “With Teeth” and “Year Zero” it’s only taken a year or two to get a new release out. In this case it’s only been one year. I remember when “In Teeth” came out, I thought that he was moving in a much better direction than he had been in years. I was one of the people in the 90′s who liked “Pretty Hate Machine” but didn’t care much for his following releases. I didn’t much go for his adolescent swearing lyrics. His beats and production style? Yes I enjoyed that very much, but even as a high schooler I was embarrassed to be associated with Nine Inch Nails because of lines like “I want to fuck you like an animal” and the commonly pimply, sweaty, vinyl trench coat wearing constituents of Mr. Reznor that took his songs as something more than songs, or rather a bizzare creed to live their B.O. filled lives by.
In “With Teeth”, some of his lyrics gave way to the simplicity of his song structure and lyrics. Particularly in “Only” when he discusses how he can “See right through himself”, and he criticizes who he is and where his place is, he soon abdicates this fascinating new perspective for familiar swearing and shouting, but at least he does it over a nice bass groove and Talking Heads beat. Year Zero, for me, was the most complete return to form that Nine Inch Nails has seen since the late 80′s. I think the concept of the album helped Trent focus on all aspects of the release resulting in the most fully formed set of songs since “Pretty Hate Machine”. Songs like “God Given” and “Capital G” returned to a song style that was as dance-able as it was stomp-able. Another noticeable step forward was the song “In This Twilight” that sounded remarkably optimistic. Overall, the album had me defending the merits of NIN’s legacy more than ever.
The standout element for me in the new album is the low-fi studio tricks that mangle guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals like never before. Sometimes in a way that recalls only static, and other times a voice is so vocoded that it brings to mind some idealized pop ideal. While all the songs feature this, perhaps the best example is the album closer “Demon Seed” that realizes Trent Reznor literally reaching deep into his bag of tricks and throwing them all at us. Deep bass grooves, propulsive drumming, menacing vocals kept at a whisper, analog keyboards and pianos hum and plunk, restless guitars strum until a curious calm envelopes the song. Then all those aforementioned elements start launching themselves through digital distortion for an apocalyptic conclusion capped off with some strings and an abrupt end.
“The Slip” is undoubtedly the product of inspiration from no longer having to be a slave to the record companies (Interscope). Overall it feels less like a complete album and more like the best of the experiments and songs he’s made in the past year. Or leftover beats and ideas from other albums reconfigured into a more menacing commercially viable beast. I say more commercially viable, because I feel like there’s much of a return to the 90′s style sound, the propulsive drumming of early releases is back along with the analog thumps of deftly programmed drum machines along with the formation of largely coherent lyrics. Therefore pleasing his loyal longtime fan base, as well as people like me that he’s attracted in the wake of his latest more enjoyable releases. It may not be a project as polished as “Year Zero” but the result is something that I feel will only make the NIN brand stronger in the coming years. The fact that people can get it for free only strengthens that fact.
Nine Inch Nails – Discipline
Nine Inch Nails – Demon Seed
Nine Inch Nails Official Slip Website
Here it is, the final installment of Wesley the Robot for this season. It’s been a good run this season and he might pop up somewhere this summer, who knows! Again I apologize for not posting a whole lot, finals and papers routinely kick my ass. After this Thursday I promise to start posting regularly again, I have so many bands to review. This summer is going to be awesome. Like usual here are some songs that I’ve been enjoying.
Flight of the Conchords – Inner City Pressure
Nine Inch Nails – Discipline
Sportsday Megaphone – Young Lust
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Rollerdisco
Jackson Jones – I Feel Good, Put Your Pants On
Mouse on Mars – Mine is In Yours
Dub Pistols – Rapture (Blondie Cover)
A Faulty Chromosome – Bad Thing
Hadouken blipped onto my radar screen some months ago, with their hipster electro punk rapping style and outrageous lyrics. They are self aware to the point of parody and that’s what makes their high octane jaunts so enjoyable. Apparently they’ve got an album coming out entitled “Music for an accelerated culture”.
If you’re into night vision underage house parties, they’ve also got a video that’ll be right up your alley.
Hadouken – Get Smashed Gate Crash
Multipass is the stage name of an electro project hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The sound of the electro is vintage and haunting like Peter Murphy fronting an early incarnation of Depeche Mode. The industrial loops and dramatic piano are sure to entice fans of Nine Inch Nails and Fischerspooner.
MP3 – Entrvue – Multipass
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