Chicago’s Kniife Prrty has popped onto my radar with some somber electro pop on par with Styrofoam, Postal Service, The Go Find and others in that vein. The track Change your Mind offers up a steady beat and a full array of synths that illuminates a story that has adulterous aspirations. Also the band pulls out their post-punk guitars for the atmospheric ballad Trap Door. All in all Kniife Prrty offer some emotionally heavy pop ideas with beats to match. A must have for the neo-synthpop connaisseur.
Logan Lynn is an artist out of Portland, Oregon that has recently been signed to the Dandy Warhol’s “Beat the World” label. His new album “From Pillar to Post” is an emotional journey through sprawling soundscapes of sparkling pop melodies and jagged glitchy beats. As the press release on his web page says; “He Puts the “Disco” back in “Discomfort”.
How did your interest in music begin?
Well, I grew up in a SUPER conservative religious home…I was LITERALLY the son of a preacher man…so, most music aside from church music was outlawed in our house. My parents had some John Denver tapes as well as the “Footloose” soundtrack mixed in with all of the Contemporary Christian music, which I gravitated toward at a very young age and proceeded to play to death. This is totally fucked, but when I was 10 I started going to Target with my mom and stealing “secular” (aka outlawed) CD’s which I kept in the bottom of a trash can at home to hide from my parents. All of that was very “Footloose” too, now that I think about it. Eventually they found the stash and I got caught stealing, so the jig was up. There was no internet back then, so from there I had to get creative in order to get music. I recall convincing my folks that “Jesus Jones” was a guy’s name and that Tori Amos‘s song “God” as a hymn. These sorts of plans always worked until somebody paid attention, then the jig would be up again.
At a certian point, my parents mellowed out and I got heavy into Alt/Rock and Female vocalists. I started taking tons of drugs and going to giant raver parties in the midwest when I hit high school and started own the DJ road then. I think somewhere along the way the A Cappella church music, the angry female vocalist alt rockers and the techno combined in my head and helped to form the sound that I’ve kind-of come to be known for. It’s a funny mix of stuff, but I think having to fight to listen to music as a young man made my connection to songs so much greater…like the idea that they could be taken from you at any minute makes every play that much more important or something.
Who are some of the artists that have influenced your own style over the years?
My favorite band of all time is “The Innocence Mission”…I bought their first record in 1989 and have continued to buy everything they have put out since. I love them. If I were to pick one person who has influenced my lyrical style and the way I think about words it would be their lead singer, Karen Peris. She is someone who continues to amaze me with every step of her musical journey. I also am really inspired by Liz Phair, The Sundays, Lori Carson, The Cardigans, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Regina Spektor and some of those ladies as far as the feeling inspiration goes. On the flipside, I still love all kinds of techno, indie rock and dance music as well…I am in more recent years inspired by “Styrofoam”, “Simian“, “Phoenix”, “Santogold“, “MGMT”, “Midnight Juggernauts“, “The Presets“, “Rogue Wave“, “Mew” and a bunch of other folks who I think make music that could be friends with my music. I am also consistently inspired by the local Portland music scene…”The Dandy Warhols“, “Assemble The Empire”, “The Upsidedown“, “Menomena“, “Gavin Castleton“, “Glass Candy”, “Chromatics”, “The Gossip”…to have that sort of talent swirling about town has been magical lately.
What do you like about the combination of electronic dance music and emotional subject matter?
I think it’s that age-old “spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down theory but applied as a method of music-making. I know that I often times am dealing with heavy subject matter…life and love and loss…but the format of electro or dance music let’s people hear what I am saying while grooving out. It makes the pain more tolerable or something, to have that dichotomy of pretty vs. ugly all wrapped up together. It’s easier for me to write about sad or emotional stuff that way, and I think the same goes for the listener on the receiving end.
When you write a song do you draw from personal experience or create a character to narrate through? Or maybe a combination of both?
Yeah, I have found that I’m no good unless I am being truthful, and the only way for me to do that is to take the mirror, turn it around on myself, and write about what I see. I try to just be honest about what
I’m feeling, whether it’s right or wrong. My music is about the struggle often times more than the answer, so I try just to make peace with the fact that it just is what it is and what it is is true, like it or not. I figure as long as I’m not full of shit people will continue to respond to it.
How did you meet your collaborator Carlos Cortes?
Carlos is one part of a local DJ Collective in Portland called “Assemble The Empire” (You can check them out here: http://www.Myspace.com/AssembleTheEmpire) and he approached me via Myspaceabout doing a remix for the original version of “Burning Your Glory” from 2000. I was so pleased with what he did, we made a video which ended up getting picked up by MTV’s “Logo” Network and was really the first major milestone as far as my music getting “out there”. We decided that, since that had gone over so well, we would make an E.P. —that all happened at the beginning of 2007 and has been sort-of a whirlwind ever since.
What about working with Carlos Cortes on your single “Feed Me to the Wolves” made you want to continue the collaboration?
Carlos and I work really well together. There is a mutual trust and respect that works wonders in the studio. We also got to be really good friends along the way, which made it even better. I really believe in being loyal to the folks who have done right by you and Carlos is one of those people for me. We have a special connection with the songwriting that I have NEVER had with anyone else. It’s rare that you find someone who you think is awesome and who you trust with your name, your sound,
etc. He is really good at what he does, so I tend to let him do it. It has been nice to be able to focus on what I’m good at and not have it be a one man show anymore. He’s super talented, is basically what it boiled down to.
How did you get hooked up with The Dandy Warhol’s Beat the World record label?
That was all chance as well. I was running a company in LA and Portlandand we had hired a photographer named Ray Gordon to take photos for a new ad campaign. One night while we were there Ray and I got wasted and decided to take my new band photos as well. I then gave him a copy of the demo which Carlos and I were going to release as “From Pillar To Post” and he liked it. He also happened to be best friends with Courtney Taylor-Taylor and passed the CD along to him the following week.
From there, Courtney set up a meeting with Carlos and I and told us that he was interested in putting our record out. We said “Hell Yes” I believe and started in on what ended up being two years in their studio with Carlos and Jeremy Sherrer (one of their engineers). Courtney really believed in the record and what we were doing from day 1 and basically handed us the keys to the kingdom to get it made. We really owe a lot to The Dandys for making this all possible and to Courtney in particular for hearing what we were TRYING to do through what we had actually done. They were patient with us and let things run their course at a natural pace. They were so cool and really welcomed us into their family and the label.
Have you had a chance to meet any of the other Dandy Warhols?
Yeah, they are great. On the professional level, “Beat The World” is their label, so they are very hands on. On the personal level, we are all friends with a common goal. I really lucked out with all of that. There is literally ZERO nightmare attached to my label situation and I wish everyone could find themselves in such a dreamworld as we have found ourselves in.
Who is your favorite Historic American Cultural Icon (Daniel Boone, Ben Franklin, George Washington etc.)?
The Age of Rockets are a small unsigned band with a huge signable sound. Vocalist, programmer, keyboardist and guitarist, Andrew Futral, drummer and trumpet player Saul Simon Mcwilliams and bass, synth, glockenspiel and flute player Bess Rogers hail from New York Ciry. The three of them love making music together and have just recently released their sophomore album “Hanna”.
Their sound inhabits the space between orchestral pop and glitch heavy ballads. The album begins with sweeping synthesizers that give way to glorious harmonies and eventually gentle guitar and glockenspiel. Andrew Futral recently posted that he wanted to take the band in a more organic direction from their previously heavy electronic sounds. If the sound of the first few tracks is any indication, they have accomplished their mission. The soft melodies, harmonies, and understated glitch beats work together to create an album that is the most comprehensive successor to the Postal Service’s “Give Up”.
While the melodies, harmonies and rich lyrical content are the primary draws to their sophomore album “Hanna” there are some great pure rock moments here as well. Like the eruptions of guitar riffs on “H. Soft Escape”. Or the towering strings and ultra glitchy breaks on “Ship to Shore.”
The biggest pitfall The Age of Rockets could fall into is sounding to the passing ear as “Too Alike” to The Postal Service with Futral’s soft voice not sounding terribly different to Ben Gibbards saccharine croon. If anyone takes the time to listen to more than 10 seconds of a song, it should be readily apparent that their songs have greater cohesion and depth than that of the groundbreaking 2003 subpop collaboration between James Tamborello and Ben Gibbard. There’s not an unpleasant sound to be heard on “Hanna” and that’s sure to make them on many short lists for album of the year.
The groundbreaking German indie-rocktronica band, The Notwist, fresh off of the release of their first album in six years, “The Devil, You, and Me” are kicking off their new tour of North America tonight at Lee’s place in Toronto.
In celebration of this, we’ve received a few goodies. One of them being a video of the Notwist and the Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra together performing “Boneless”, which also happens to be the Notwist’s latest single.
The next goodie that we’ve got for you is a “radical reworking” of track by Panda Bear of Animal collective.
To top it all off, I’ve even got the album version of “Boneless” to share with you all.
Since I played “The Private Life of a Cat” off of their debut LP Vs. The Snow I have been hooked on The LK’s sound collage pop style. The band consists of Lindefelt, an abstract concrete music style sound artist and Frederik who is a master class songwriter. Together they craft some of the most compelling sounds I’ve heard so far this year. Super melodic pop songs with euro-disco stylings that will make you shimmy and shake while they melt your heart. As if that weren’t enough, they’re from Sweden, now I’ve stated before that artists from Sweden must be taking some kind of music enhancing drugs because anything from that country that’s been brought to my attention has been outstanding (Jens Lekman anyone?). I’ve listened through the album a few times now, and I can say, it’s a solid listen from beginning to end, I have a feeling that this will end up on my year end best of list. Yes, I know it’s just February, but this found sound euro-pop is stunningly well made. Maybe the reason the music is so good is because they stay inside and work on it rather than go out in the snow, the album is called Vs The Snow, after all. If I only had this album and some headphones to fight off a snowy day, I think I’d fair pretty well. As for conspiracy theories on the quality of Swedish music I think I’ll stick with my water theory. Someone get me a sample of the water supply in Sweden and check it for the raw essence of good music, then bottle me some.
Back at the end of High School and the beginning of college I became fascinated with the sounds of the Postal Service and I was looking all over for acts similar to them. I found out about all kinds of indie/electronica bands like Lali Puna, Ms. John Soda, Styrofoam, Stereolab, and the Go Find, but out of all of them the Burnside Project forged a special place in my heart. I think it’s because when I heard them they were relatively unknown and their raw juxtaposition of indie style guitars and electronics evoked a very New Order kind of feel. Their minimalist guitars and poppy electro alongside almost spoken word vocals was very endearing. I liked to think of them as my secret band for a while, but it seems now that the secret is out.
The Burnside Project released a follow up to their 2003 debut “The Networks, The Streams, The Harmonies” in 2005 with the only slightly shorter titled, “The Finest Example is You”. The sound on the new album was more natural, with the songs being based around vocal melodies more, the guitar fleshed out, and even at times live drums. In short, the songs sounded more like pop songs with electronic influences, rather than electronic songs with pop influences. Richard Jankovich’s voice sounds like a more breathy Ben Gibbard and it took me some time to get used to it, and sometimes his lyrics come off a bit awkward over the lush soundscapes, but he contributes some wonderful harmonies on the addictive breezy “Get Better Soon” (3) and the building “Another Way” (6). The guitars and keyboards have progressed as well, working together almost seamlessly to create a smooth upbeat atmosphere. The guitars in particular have been beefed up, no longer the occasional melodic plunk here and there, there are full on riffs at times and even something of a guitar solo on “Just Drop Off” (5). All this progression doesn’t mean that they’ve ditched the kinetic dance music that got them noticed, there are dance tracks aplenty from the opening salvo of “Signs of Perfection” (1) and “And So It Goes” (2) to the four on the floor stomp of “One to One” to the arguable high point of the album “Start Again” (10). I’m surprised that the smooth energy of the album didn’t garner attention for car commercials, but then again, we can look at that as a good thing because we can keep them secret for a little while longer.
Chicago’s Kniife Prrty has popped onto my radar with some somber electro pop on par with Styrofoam, Postal Service, The Go Find and others in that vein. The track Change your Mind offers up a steady beat and a full array of synths that illuminates a story that has adulterous aspirations. Also the band pulls out their post-punk guitars for the atmospheric ballad Trap Door. All in all Kniife Prrty offer some emotionally heavy pop ideas with beats to match. A must have for the neo-synthpop connaisseur.
