The Love Language

The Love Language - The Love Language (2009)

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“After three decades of sonic observation, you start to realize what really good music sounds like. You know what you like. You like the Beatles. You like Thin Lizzy. You like Stevie Wonder. The declaration, “You’ll love this band!” no longer arouses much excitement. You’ve heard thousands of bands, millions of songs, and find little incentive to embark on any audible adventure when “The Boys are Back In Town” has already been written. In terms of music, we download it, we burn it, but we rarely really listen to it. Perhaps I’m being selfish, but I listen to the Love Language because they write music I wish I’d written. I often picture myself playing these songs for some awkwardly shy, yet strikingly beautiful French girl on a jetty in Quebec, romantically duping her with my plagiarized sentiments. Dishonest, yet undeniably feasible. I could figure out those chords on guitar, and placidly convince some girl that these thoughts and feelings were my own. It’s not like trying to pass off “Blackbird” as an original composition. As you strum, you begin wishing that these poetically mundane moments were parts of your own past, until you realize that they are. That’s what the Love Language is to me: The modest declaration of the universal obvious. Songs written about apartments you’ve lived in and rotary phones that you’ve hung up. Although McLamb’s arrangements are typically overcast, each song reminds you of the towering trees that relish each falling drop. That there are winners and losers, but sometime tragedy makes the most beautiful story. After all, no one would remember the Titanic had it not sunk. That is the Love Language- the celebration of the sinking ship. Bon Voyage.” – Jon Kirby, Wax Poetics

Bob Dylan and George Harrison

The Dylan Harrison Sessions (1970)

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This session is from May 1970, when both artists were busy on solo projects.

Indeed Bob Dylan released two albums in 1970, 'Self Portrait' and 'New Morning', the latter proving far more popular with his critics.

George Harrison was of course working on 'All Things Must Pass' his legendary 'triple' album.

Bob Dylan co-wrote 'I'd Have You Anytime' with George Harrison, which appeared as the opening track on 'All Things Must Pass' (which also included a cover of Dylan's 'If Not For You').

These sessions may well have prompted or been a part of those developments, whatever the case, it is clear as you listen, that they were very comfortable with each other, and enjoying themselves.

This then is Bob Dylan and George Harrison's Studio Sessions at Columbia Studios B, New York, NY, on the 1st May 1970.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Advance Base Battery Life (2009)

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Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is the beats-and-keys solo project of 31 yr old singer, songwriter and Chicago resident, Owen Ashworth. Drawing heavy influence from traditional Americana as well as 80's synth pop and commercial hip hop, the music of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is a curious mix of austere character studies and playful electronic programming.

After recording three albums of cassette-recorded, two-minute exercises in pop minimalism, Ashworth's most recent album, Etiquette, changed the focus from a decidedly utilitarlian aesthetic to a broader production spectrum that finally gave his affecting song writing the space it deserves. In collaboration with producers and musicians like Jherek Biscoff (of The Dead Science and Degenerate Art Ensemble) and Jason Quever (The Papercuts and Pan American Recording Studio), the sound of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone has grown to include pianos, organs, strings, flutes, drums, and pedal steel guitars in addition to Ashworth's signature electronics and drum machines.

Live, Owen Ashworth recreates his recordings using a makeshift dub soundsystem. Glitchy drum machine rhythms, battery-operated synths, melodic loops, and hand-triggered samples are routed through various echo boxes and filters to accompany his slow, deliberate vocal style.

Recently, Owen Ashworth has been quietly releasing a steady stream of new tracks by way of limited edition vinyl singles for a number of small labels, meanwhile remixing songs for friends like Dudley Benson and Headlights, and contributing music to several independent American films, such as Medicine for Melancholy and Stay the Same Never Change. Two different CD compilations of his limited vinyl releases and soundtrack work are planned for the coming months, with a brand new album to follow in early 2009.

Ribbons

Ribbons - Royals (2009)

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Multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer Jherek Bischoff has had one of the more quietly prolific careers in the last decade of independent music. He’s served as both full-time member and guest musician/arranger for experimental pop crews The Dead Science, Xiu Xiu and Parenthetical Girls, composed music for dance and orchestral performances, and elegantly produced records for many of his talented friends including Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s critically acclaimed Etiquette and Parenthetical Girls’ Safe As Houses.

His multisyllabic musical capabilities and voracious attention to detail have lent all of these projects layers of intricate loveliness and classical drama, qualities that find full flight on Royals, the debut release from Bischoff’s solo project Ribbons.

Through various shifts in musical genre however, Royals maintains a keen focus on the observance of sheer beauty in all of its fractured, 21st century forms, and so makes a record of winningly old-fashioned emotionality.

Someone has giving this record through my email, and this is quitely great project by jherek bischoff.. thanks to beardsociety

The Avalanches

The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist (Single) (2001)

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The Avalanches - At Last One (Japan EP) (2001)

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The Veils

The Veils - Sun Gangs (2009)

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Andrews, who was born in London, started playing music in a folk club in Devonport, New Zealand. Finn played in a 12-piece band there for three years, where he first started composing his own music.

When Finn reached 16, he left school and moved to London to form a band and find a record label to record his compositions under. Within a month Geoff Travis signed them to Rough Trade Records.

The original lineup of The Veils disbanded in late 2004, following a string of inter-band altercations related to the future sound of the band. After this Andrews returned to New Zealand in order to find a new lineup and the write a new record. He spent the summer rehearsing with high school classmates Liam Gerrard (keyboards) and Sophia Burn (bass). The trio returned to London in early 2005 where they were joined by Dan Raishbrook (guitar) and Henning Dietz (drums).

The group recorded their second album Nux Vomica at Underbelly Studios in Los Angeles, with producer Nick Launay, and the album was released on 18 September 2006. The album featured string arrangements by ex-Lounge Lizard and long time Lou Reed collaborator Jane Scarpontoni. Nux Vomica featured on 9 critics' Best Of The Year lists in 2006.[who?]

During the sixteen months of touring that followed the release of Nux keyboard player Liam Gerrard left the band and The Veils continued on as a four piece. It was during this period that they started living in a garage in Oklahoma and using The Flaming Lips studio to record demos for their third album between playing shows on the east and west coats of America. They returned to London 6 months later and began recording with Graham Sutton. The album, entitled Sun Gangs, is now finished and due for release on 6 April, 2009.

Crystal Antlers

Crystal Antlers - Tentacles (2009)

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'Tentacles', the hotly anticipated debut album from Crystal Antlers will be released on April 6th (Europe) via the stalwart indie label Touch and Go Records, home to CocoRosie, Ted Leo, The Jesus Lizard, and many others.

Recorded and mixed on 2” tape at San Francisco’s Closer Studios in the span of one sleepless week, 'Tentacles' is a dоcument of the Antlers’ vigorous work ethic and breathless vitality. As hinted at on last year’s /EP/, many of the tracks here touch on the fragility of nature and its destruction by humankind, all under a cloudburst of epic sound and energy.

Beyond the sonic expansion, the band itself has grown: original guitarist Errol Davis returned to the fold for ‘Tentacles’, bringing the personnel tally to one bass, two guitars, two drummers, and an organ. Davis will also be a part of the Antlers’ manic and massive live show, joining them on the road for the North American tour in March.

Lambchop

Lambchop - OH (ohio) (2008)

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‘OH (ohio)’ was recorded in Lambchop’s hometown Nashville, and co-produced by the group’s songwriter/vocalist/guiding force Kurt Wagner and part-time ‘Chopper Mark Nevers, at the latter’s Beech House studio. It features eleven new songs all written by Wagner, with evocative titles - like the stately soul folk of “Slipped Dissolved and Loosed,” the galloping rhythms and chiming guitar-piano interplay of “National Talk Like a Pirate Day,” and the shapeshifting, nearly funky “Popeye” - that have come to be a Lambchop hallmark.

Urlaub in Polen

Urlaub in Polen - Liquid (2009)

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Urlaub In Polen (German for “Holiday in Poland”) is a German noise rock electronica duo formed in 1999 in Cologne. They were originally formed by Georg Brenner and Oli, but shortly after Oli quit the project in 2000, Georg Brenner joined forces with Jan Philipp Janzen comprising the current line-up.

After having released their first recording, the eponymously titled EP, through the German recording studio Institut für Wohlklangforschung in 1999, Urlaub In Polen signed to German noise rock-label RAKETEmusik through which they have now released three studio albums as well as yet another EP.

Although they are only two man on stage, Urlaub In Polen have built themselves a reputation as a highly energetic live band. Thus they were recognised by Northern Europe’s biggest music festival, Roskilde Festival, who put them on the bill in 2003. Live they are sometimes supported with Super 8 slide projections by Mark Witzel.

Flairs

Flairs - Sweat Symphony (2009)

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Cockney speaking French knob twiddler Lionel Flairs is currently shacked up in Paris producing some of the most eccentric and off-beat pop & electro that you are likely to have heard since the start of this admittedly young millennium.

Starting his career as a bass player for Ben’s Symphonic Orchestra, first two albums produced by Oxford based Radiohead & Supergrass management, he very soon tours the globe & also starts playing for established French bands such as Mellow, AlexGopher Benjamin Diamond or the Hush Puppies, to name a few.

....But Years of shuffling between gay Paris, Staines (before Ali G and Hard-Fi had heard of it) and London’s Soho infused the maverick songsmith with the tongue-in-cheek triple irony of post-post modern England : he sets up a studio, puts his brains to work and soon produces « the non PC ep » a now collector white vinyl 12’ (2004/microbe rec.)

Thanks to the sonic talents of legendary producers Etienne de Crécy & Alex Gopher, he then self releases his « Better than Prince EP » 7’ limited edition customized vinyl (via his label, muddy trench rec.), a cynical electronica piece disguised in a form of basic indie rock…few weeks after, Koln based infamous producer Patrick Alavi (roXour) offers him to officially re-release the single, to be out in march 2008, with brilliant remixes from Benjamin (texas/Kitsuné) 25HRS a day (Phoenix & Cassius remixes) and Alavi himself (reRoX).

Not wasting his cockney rhyme, Flairs also gets a golden hand from French Wonders Jonas & François (Justice D.A.N.C.E, Kavinsky, Kanye West, Madonna "4 minutes"…) who produced a « better than Prince » stunning animated psychedelic Walt Dysney on acid video...that one can watch below !

Last but not least, Flairs recently finished producing & mixing a debut album that will demonstrate that when it comes to surpassing the little one formerly known as ‘The love symbol’ in hatching the perfect 3 minute electro pop gems, he is the dog’s bollock’s, mate… 

Obsession

Various Artists - Obsession (1967-1973)

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Following up on last year’s loving reissue of Silver Apples’ ‘Garden’, the erstwhile Bully camp now turn their expert hands to this compendium of headachingly rare psychedelic sounds. All songs were compiled by Mike Davis, owner of Academy Records in New York. Dating from 1967 to 1973, and origination from such far corners of the psyche globe as Turkey, Uruguay and Peru, these 15 tracks represent some of Mike’s most obscure and valuable acquisitions in decades of obsessive record collecting. As with all Bully releases, the packaging is first rate, including limited edition gatefold vinyl jacket, with sleeve notes containing some information about each band, even though some of it was practically impossible to track down.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz (2009)

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One of New York’s finest rock trios, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, are returning in April with a new album called It’s Blitz — and Rolling Stone has the scoop with an in the studio story in the next issue (on newsstands this week!). “We’re always going to have Yeah Yeah Yeahs hooks and energy,” Karen O tells us. “But we came up with something new that we’ve never heard before from ourselves. Less angst and more positivity, man!”

It’s Blitz, the follow-up to 2006’s Show Your Bones, was produced by Nick Launay (who oversaw the band’s 2007 EP Is Is) and TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek. Recording went down in the band’s native Brooklyn and in Texas where — no joke — the crew lived on a pecan orchard. It was certainly a far cry from the sessions that produced the trio’s raw 2003 debut Fever to Tell.

Odawas

Odawas - The Blue Depths (2009)

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The Blue Depths is an album for warmer places, a balmy haze habitat for headphone meanderings. This is a dream world where Neil Young and Jimmy Webb float in the reverb-saturated summer breeze. The solemn harmonies of "Moonlight/Twilight" drift between sheets of stirring bowed bass murmur as shimmering guitar notes ebb and flow underneath. Bursts of yearning harmonica arc over ethereal soundscapes in "The Case Of The Great Irish Elk." The jubilant piano of "Harmless Lover's Discourse" gives way to the most startling pop moment of the album, a soaring bed of synth propelled by a driving bass line and vibrant rhythms.

Oddjobs

Oddjobs - Drums (2002)

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Emerging in 1996 out of the Minnesota-based Cases of Mistaken Identiy crew, the group featured Minneapolis MC's Advizer and Crescent Moon and St. Paul DJ's Anatomy and Deetalx. Also coming out of the CMI camp, rapper Nomi completed the Oddjobs line-up a few years later. As they became part of the Minneapolis scene governed by the Rhymesayers crew (Eyedea & Abilities, Atmosphere), Oddjobs released their first full-length in 1999, titled "Conflict and Compromise". Yet when Advizer and Deetalx went to New York to attend college, working together became increasingly difficult, although that period did produce the acclaimed "Absorbing Playtime" EP. In order not to lose their 'band' feeling, the rest of the quintet relocated to New York as well. "Drums" is the product of their stay in the Big Apple.

Spiritualized

Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (1997)

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First Post

Welcome to A Cassette Cathedral, a blog for the musically like minded. This is my first music blog so I hope I can keep up with this for a while. I'll be posting, hopefully every few days, new artists and albums that I'm listening to, and provide links so you can listen too. I enjoy a variety of genres so you can expect to find things from all over the musical spectrum. If you like something, you should support the artist and buy the album, or go to a show. 

Here are few albums to start, all highly recommended:

Rodriguez - Cold Fact (1970)

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Disco Inferno - Technicolour (1996)

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Dan Deacon - Bromst (2009)

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Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks: New York Sessions (1974)

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Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

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Langhorne Slim - Diamonds and Gold (2008)

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Lotus Plaza - The Floodlight Collective (2009)

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The Middle East - The Recordings of The Middle East (2008)

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Spacemen 3 - Forged Prescriptions (2004)

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