This Is Book's Music

The Swan King are a Chicago-based trio whose Eyes Like Knives (Seventh Rule) comes out this week (February 22, 2011). Let me describe their music as best as I can. They have that on-the-edge sound that bands like Queens Of The Stone Age and Foo Fighters have, but both of those bands have punk roots which makes it possible for them to explore the limits they create for themselves. Then you have touches of Seaweed and Mudhoney that gives the music a slight Pacific Northwest flair (which in many ways is also rooted in the midwest), while vocalist/guitarist Dallas Thomas sounds like all of them with a pinch of Mike Muir of Suicidal Tendencies. So listen children, what does this all mean?

For one, this is is the kind of hard rock and heavy metal with loads of riffs that show a love of Iron Maiden, which in many ways are rooted in the dual guitar tendencies of the Allman Brothers Band and a lot of Southern rock. If there is a Southern rock influence, then it’s a need to be melodic and write songs with depth and long lasting power, and they don’t do it just to be loud and audibly vulgar. Then you have a track like “Invisible Hands” that has the guitar chugging of early/mid-80′s thrash and speed metal. With lyrics covering the battle of internal vs. external vs. personal power, they present a moment where you want to lift up your hands, form Satanic horns, and say “yes, this is how fucked up my life feels right now, but I can make it if I play this game well”, just as a lot of good metal should feel like.

(The first 200 downloads of Eyes Like Knives (MP3 or FLAC) will be free when downloading from Bandcamp. You can order the CD directly from Seventh Rule Records.)

Robotanists released a brand new EP called Plans In Progress (my review of which can be read here), but when word about the new Radiohead album surfaced, everyone was abuzz had to hear it. Robotanists not only listened to and enjoyed The King Of Limbs, but they learned the songs and recorded it themselves in full. It was mixed and they made it available to fans in 24 hours since inception.

You can now download it for free (not only as MP3′s, but in lossless FLAC as well) via Bandcamp by clicking the player below (if the player for some reason is not present, you may click here.) I think this may be one of the fastest tribute/cover albums ever made.

There was a time when hip-hop looked beyond its own limits, wanting to expand over what it had created for itself. Some felt that doing anything “other than” meant you weren’t hip-hop, and that was especially true within the United States. Over in hip-hop, raps and breakbeats were turning into new genres, sub-genres, and sub-genres of sub-genres. To hear it as it went down, even with a two to three month delay, felt like you were rushing into the future awaiting for that rocket ship to come through and take you even further. Elucid is a Brooklyn rapper who makes music is very much of that futuristic vibe, at least he is someone who is allowing his flows to be taken to/into new places that very few would dare due today, so once again it is music of the unknown future, destination unknown.

Super Chocolate Back Simian is said to be a two-part mixtape with 12 tracks of relentless hip-hop passion. It reminds me of what was going on in the mid-90′s when producers and MC’s were doing loads of multi-layering that was slightly different from Bomb Squad‘s techniques, but very much about altering what you think you’re listening. Elucid can sound very gruff, as he does in “Pain Parade”, but other times he could easily become one of today’s top maintream rapper too. However, he’s covering topics that aren’t easy to get into, or at least it will take a number of lyrics to understand his stories and metaphors, this is not easy listening hip-hop by any means. The El-P-produced “MEANR” begins almost without a rhythm, or at least the voice is the rhythm and the drums are non-existent during the intro. When the beats kick in, it sounds paranoid and insane. With a line like “jungle fever, no, we don’t pay for reefer/top dollar, bring me the head of Justin Bieber”, this is not about making power moves to become an MC for models and swimsuit endorsements, this is that afterworld shit and it’s great.

Even though it sounds like what hip-hop could sound like ten to twenty years from now, its very Eurocentric qualities with hints of reggae and dub shows that all of the producers involved (along with El-P, songs are produced by Sensei, Breakage, Jamie Vex’d, 12th Planet, Chasing Shadows, Mexicans with Guns, Lorn/Samiyam, Skream, Leonard Destroy, and DVA are smiling and smirking with the potential of bringing their style of music out of their minds and into the world. The entire project was tightly controlled by Primus Luta, and upon hearing how it’s presented, I definitely want to hear what Elucid offers next. Upon my first listen, I found it hard to immediately come up with an easy way to describe it, but I had said that perhaps it’s “post-apocalyptic hip-hop for those still with hope”. In other words, if hip-hop has been declared dead, this is the music for people willing to wait for it to resurrect itself.

(Super Chocolate Black Simian can be downloaded for free by going to ConcreteSoundSystem.com.)

Elucid – Super Chocolate Black Simian by Concrète Sound System

The album begins with natural sound of someone walking into a room, before it goes into a sequenced melody that sounds either like an old video game or something from a Japanese jewel box. Then there’s filtered horns, raging horns that sound like what would happen if ska came from the moon, and then just these powerful drums and raging guitars. There was a bit of information and sensory overload, unsure if what I was hearing was electronic, electric, analog, digital, or everything combined.

This is how I would describe the world of Ireland’s Adebisi Shank on an album they cleverly title This Is The Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank (Sargent House). While this was released last summer, it is making its presence known stateside in the winter of 2011. “International Dreambeat” ends as if it just watched the Flash Gordon movie with the Queen soundtrack, while “Masa” sounds like Prince entered a Chemical Brothers jam session with the Dust Brothers giving them tainted weed from the Doobie Brothers soaked in the panties of the Pointer Sisters. It’s the kind of music you’ll want to slam and create a pit with, but then again it’s also makes you want to krump and dougie too if you can maneuver your body that way. All of the songs are instrumental, although some of the melodies are taken from what sounds like mysterious vocal/verbal samples. Now add to that the kind of psychotic rhythms and counter melodies Primus were known for. Want to get weirder? A track simply called “(-_-)” is meant to be as relaxing as the emoticon indicates, sounding like something you’d expect to hear on Toto IV or a Mick Jagger solo album. It may become their money song and you could hear it everyday in commercials selling everything from washing machines to cars, only time will tell.

I love the different textures of sounds on this album. Sometimes it’ll sound like long lost early/mid-80′s pop classics (as is the case with “Logdrums”) as it mated with drum-n-bass, other times it will be like re-entering the early 90′s and discovering the best indie/alternative rock that the major labels forgot to horde/whore. Adebisi Shank isn’t trying to be everything at once, but their attempts to be what they want to be is commendable. Just imagine entering your first video game room, and then getting an itchy crotch that makes you want to move furiously to the rhythms you feel. This Is The Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank is the sound of that joy in repetition.

(This Is The Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank will be released on vinyl and CD on March 15th, but is available now digitally through Bandcamp (click the Bandcamp player below.) They will also appear at this year’s SXSW at the same time.)

The variants of metal are many, and once you get down to the black, death, doom, and drone level of things, you’re at the point of no return. This is a good thing. As The Sun Through A Telescope, Leigh Newton wanted to combine the ambient side of music with something more mind-blowing, more metal, more harder and in-your-face. It was the idea of using different elements to create a powerful style of music. To add to that, he wanted to do it on his own, and he did.

Orange and Green/Black could have been one single album with two different moods, but instead they are two EP’s meant to be heard separately. However, if you think vinyl-centrically, consider each of them flipsides of the same coin. The one thing about one-man projects is that either it’s going to sound like elementary studio tinkering, or something that is of exceptional quality. The latter is in play here, for it sounds like music which could’ve been played by a band of three, four, or twelve people. There’s just layers of sound, almost orchestral at times but it’s that overwhelming heaviness that pulls you in.

Orange is the shorter of the two EP’s, and what I love about this style of metal is that its pace drives you crazy, but you tend to want to visualize it as something being made at an extremely slow process. Yet within that slow pace is some decent musicianship, not just someone holding an amp close to a speaker to insure that every tone lasts for 30 seconds or more. There are some chunky riffs within, and you’ll end up wanting to remember them too.

Green/Black is the itch created by Orange that eventually gets scratched, still somber in tone. Then once it reaches the disgusting “The Priest With One Black Hand”, it’s as if everything in a basement has been collecting for days and weeks, and everything within can’t stand its surroundings anymore. The drums are loud, the pace is furiously fast, it’s punk rock in its approach and it screams for help and some sense of relief. The effect is beautiful and it completely changes the tone for the remainder of the EP.

Again, you have to listen to this and realize this is all coming from the mind of a single individual, which adds to it. I’ve always been a fan of one-man projects, because in a way the listener can’t blame anyone but the one individual. Yet when it’s good, you want to celebrate the music and the individual who created it. In this case, it is very much a shock to the system as it is to look at The Sun Through A Telescope. The music may not burn your eyes, but you never know what may happen next.

(Orange and Green/Black are both available as individual cassettes, no vinyl or CD counterparts. You can also purchase it digitally. All of this can be bought through their Bandcamp page, while cassettes can also be bought directly from Dwyer Records.)