151A is the first LP released by Kishi Bashi, the prolific violinist who plays for Of Montreal. Being one that is not usually impressed by overly happy music, I was surprised when my lips curled up into a smile that I could not possibly fight. Along with the smile inducing hooks and melodies, the album also has a surprising amount of progression.

The album begins with “Intro/Pathos Pathos” which portrays someone looking back on a relationship and sets a perfect tone for the rest of the album. It begins with a swelling orchestral introduction leading to a spritely bassline and the joyous singing of choruses. “Manchester” has a constant back and forth on the violin which provides a perfectly backdrop for Ishibashi’s angelic voice. Of course, the song “Bright Whites”, probably the most exciting song on the album, makes you involuntarily grin with joy, like seeing a loved one after their long absence or running down the stairs on Christmas day.

Very few albums can capture the joy that Kishi Bashi is able to capture in “151a.” But what’s just as impressive as the emotion, is the beautiful maturity that increases through the album’s progression. The innocent, energy filled, and childlike melodies of “Pathos Pathos” and “Bright Whites” lead to more mature and well thought out songs like “Atticus, in the Desert” or “I Am the Antichrist To You.” The progression works so seamlessly that in the final track “Beat the Bright Out of Me”, he is able to bring in an ominous drone that is combated with the pleasure sighs of a beautiful crooner’s voice.

151A plays out like an intricately accurate love story that transfers the ways it hands you the joys of life. In the beginning the joy is brought to you in unbridled, wild excitement, whereas in the end the joy is brought to you in intricate song writing and planned layering. The turning point of the album, which is probably “Wonder Woman, Wonder Me”, shows a more romantic side to the music which is accompanied by a lower and more mature voice. The uncontrollable happiness and innocence is traded for romanticism and borderline sensuality. “Atticus, In the Desert” gives the vibe of a 60’s love song with bright guitars and interesting vocal harmonies. For me, this transition makes the second half of the album seem slightly dull in comparison to the bright joyousness from the beginning. But, his sincerity is still felt through the layers and harmonies.

Above all the hooks and melodies, the song writing is sincere and Ishibashi’s vocal ability and control is truly breath taking. In the end, this album’s impressive parallels to life and love strikes straight to the heart and will be something you always keep close by.

Rating: 8.3/10
RiYL: Of Montreal, “Aquarius” by The 5th Dimension, being serenaded by an angel sitting on a cloud of happiness and spring time
Recommended Tracks: “Intro/Pathos Pathos”, “Manchester”, “Bright Whites”, “It All Began With A Burst”, “Atticus, In The Desert”, “I Am The Antichrist To You”

 

Bright WhitesKishi Bashi151a

Photo credit: ATP

The precise temporal patterns documented in the bands’ seven albums were hit often, the volume was dialed in high, and the overpowering waves of sound throughout most of the set often divulged into jam territory,. With thirty years’ experience, you would expect a flawless performance, but that was not quite the case. Instead the Dallas crowd got to see Jason hiccup and restart his opening verse of “Hey Jane” and completely skip the second verse of Ladies and Gentlemen staple “Come Together.” During quiet moments on “Hey Jane,” “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space,” and “So Long You Pretty Thing” the band was not exactly tight and the playing was not very clean. All qualms aside, the physical experience of Spiritualized’s music was impressive.

The setup and lack of energetic stage presence showed Jason Pierce’s age. The music wasn’t always ‘perfectly’ performed, but the legacy and history that is Spiritualized carried the show along. The riffs entrenched in the annals of the minds and ears present could easily fill in for the missing sounds and incomplete harmonies. This show will go down as one of those warm fuzzy memories, where the incompletes don’t matter and the shortcomings, you assume, are just your feeble mind forgetting.

The night started off differently than it ended with the opening act Bethan. With odd, sometimes dark, melodies and a lead singer who’s gentle gaze could inspect every bit of your soul in one glace, the band certainly did garner a lot of attention. However, the atmosphere was not exactly dance-filled per se. Nevertheless, Bethan humbly accepted the stage and performed earnestly.

Up next was Vacationer, who’s sound is more on the same page as Tennis’s delightful pop noise. Littered with piano loops and stringy guitar riffs, Vacationer sounded indeed like they were off to vacation somewhere warm where they could order something sweet with an umbrella in it. Something in them gave off a cheerful feeling, as if you could just tell that they were happy to entertain. The group definitely increased the pace of the audience’s movement, and adequately prepared everyone present for the headlining act to complete the night.

After Vacationer was done, Tennis finally arrived on the stage, consisting of husband and wife duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley and two touring members to help throw the show. For the two concrete members of the band, summoning up energy from cute indie-pop seemed effortless.

Most (if not all) the songs on the set list commanded a certain strength that made a surprisingly large bulk of the crowd dance along to Riley’s guitar strumming and Moore’s vocals. When favorites from the new Young & Old album that Tennis was promoting for the tour (such as “Petition” or “Traveling”), most of the crowd broke out into doo-wop hip twisting and the likes. Before performing “Robin,” Moore announced that it was her birthday and the crowd then, after a moment’s pause, broke out into a happy birthday chant (humorously saying “happy birthday dear Tennis” when the time to announce her name came.) After a shockingly loud set with intervals of Moore’s soft-spoken voice relaying commentary to the crowd, the group played their new single “Origins” and then quickly exited the stage.

Dream-pop duo, Memoryhouse, started out as an art project in between two friends. Evan Abeele (composer) and Denise Nouvion (vocals) create art and music that coexist with one another: images of nostalgia, photographs of memories. Memoryhouse is a growing band: having released their latest, The Slideshow Effect off of Sub Pop Records, ethereal and dreamy are just minor ways to put it.

They will be here in Dallas with one of our local favorites, The Burning Hotels, this Friday, May 11th at Club Dada. Thanks to our friends at Spune Productions and Wellhouse Co., we’ve got some tickets for you to win!

Contest rules:

1. ‘Like’ Radio UTD and Spune on Facebook.
2. Click ‘Attending’ to the MEMORYHOUSE / BURNING HOTELS Facebook Event.
3. Post your favorite Memoryhouse video on the event Wall tagging @RadioUTD.

And just like that, you’ll be entered to win! Contest ends at 5PM on Thursday, May 10th. We’ll alert you soon afterwards. Tickets are available over at Spune’s website. But hey, enter if you’re feeling lucky (which you should, always).

*Featured image by We All Want Someone To Shout For

Sarah Jaffe is as genuine as it comes. Releasing one full length and a few EPs to accompany, the singer-songwriter has always been filed under, well, the singer-songwriter genre with country-folk sounds. Her latest release, The Body Wins, took a turn, not for better or worse, but into another dimension. And we love it. Produced by John Congleton, whose name might also be associated with Annie Clark’s past releases, Sarah Jaffe has leaped well beyond just acoustics. The Body Wins is a transformation, and we couldn’t complain one bit.

Sarah Jaffe will playing at Granada Theater this Saturday, May 5th! Since we want you to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with us, our good friends from Granada Theater have got a few tickets for you to win.

Contest rules:

1. Follow Radio UTD and Granada Theater on Twitter
2. Tweet at us saying “Hey, @radioutd, give me those tickets to Sarah Jaffe @granadatheater this Saturday!” or something similar and under 140 character (YOU CAN DO IT).

Contest ends this Thursday at 5PM. We’ll pick winners and let you know! Tickets are still available over at Granada Theater’s website. If you haven’t already, you can stream The Body Wins over at NPR. See you guys this Saturday, and good luck!

*Featured image by Sean Berry

The Orbans

The Orbans were even better than I expected after listening to their (really good!) recorded music a few days earlier. A local Fort Worth band with one album (When We Were Wild) under their belts and a second one on the way, The Orbans are folksy but not too country, playing a hybrid of rock, pop, and folk that appeals to a wide audience of listeners. Despite this appeal, The Orbans are anything but run-of-the-mill. Their lyrics are intelligent, their songs are extremely compelling, and their live set was incredibly tight. There is nothing more satisfying than hearing great music skillfully executed, and there was no shortage of this phenomenon on Friday. Lead singer Peter Black cracked jokes with the audience, following them up by self-deprecatingly calling his jokes “bad.” The Orbans played songs including “Like a Liar” from When We Were Wild and “San Francisco,” and their set represented them as a soulful, powerful band that knows how to rock without losing it. With beautiful harmonies and deep-heartbeat bass pedal, The Orbans’s music is hauntingly catchy. (For those of you who want to hear The Orbans for yourself, they will be back at Granada on June 29th.)

Sleeper Agent

Then, at nine, Sleeper Agent took the stage. I will try not to be the huge fan girl (that I am), but Sleeper Agent is and was just SO GOOD. Collectively young and with no shortage of hair (if you think I’m kidding, you should go to a live show and see lead singer Alex Kandel and bassist Lee Williams throw their glorious manes around), Sleeper Agent is loud, fast, and oft-described as a completely accurate “unapologetic.” Now, you may think that I am using these adjectives to tactfully let you know that Sleeper Agent is bad or amateurish, but I want to let you know that they are anything but. There is an art to the way they maintain a skillful execution of their music while still having the most fun I have ever seen a band have onstage. Kandel is a microphone artist, turning the cord into a prop that accompanies her manic movement and hard-and-fast-and-sweet vocals. (A funny aside of the evening was when Alex’s boot became untied and she asked an audience member to retie it for her (making sure that it was double-knotted!)) Everyone in this youthful band works together like a big, crazy, musical family to create indie-pop-rock with music and lyrics that knock your socks off and stay in your head for days on end. By my count, they played almost every (if not every) song from their debut album Celabrasion, from upbeat “Get Burned” to more balladic “That’s My Baby,” and every single one was a marvelous respite from the trite and tired pop-rock that floods all too many airwaves and stages today.

Sleeper Agent

As I am writing this, I have Ben Kweller’s “Jealous Girl” stuck in my head. For a girl who avoids country music like the plague (that would be me), Kweller’s music wasn’t just tolerable: it was GREAT. Combining rock and country with fantastic songwriting skills and an incredible stage presence, Ben Kweller definitely knows how to put on a show, and the crowd knew it. Mellow but energetic, Kweller was fantastic in his own right, but the show was definitely amplified by the passion of his fan base: a large percentage of the crowd who flooded the front of the stage and sang along with every song. New and old songs were played, from old favorite “Falling” from the 2000 debut album Sha Sha to balladic, piano-driven “Gossip” from his new album Go Fly A Kite. At one point, Kweller sang happy birthday for several concert-goers and for Sleeper Agent drummer Justin Wilson (“Happy birthday, BriannaJustinandJooooosh!”).

Another heartwarming highlight of this hometown show was the fact that Kweller’s grandmother (who starred in his music video of “Penny on the Train Track”) was present, a fact that he pointed out to us before playing the song she danced to. Strong elements of crowd participation ensued when Kweller turned parts of the song into a call and response, ending his show with the musical reiteration of an adoring audience.

Overall, one of the best parts of the evening was the interactivity between the bands and their audience. From The Orbans’s mellow folk to Sleeper Agent’s manic pop-rock to Ben Kweller’s Texas-flavored rock, the sound was diverse but consistently good. The chemistry was great on Friday, easily making it the most enjoyable and most fun concert that I have been to in a long time.

Why should you see The Brian Jonestown Massacre at the Granada this Friday? They lack the irresistible draw of an up-and-coming artist, and the prestige of best-selling albums and chart-toppers. So why, if at all, should you attend their show?

For one thing, you won’t want to miss one of the most interesting and talented bands of the past two decades.

I’d be remiss to write about The Brian Jonestown Massacre without mentioning the band’s struggles: an aggressive and volatile band leader, a constant-revolving door of entering and departing band members, and rampant drug and alcohol abuse. In the 90’s, The Brian Jonestown Massacre (or BJM), epitomized the oft-used caricature of the deflated burnouts. They were talented youth who were unsure of their place in the music industry, or even if they wanted a place to begin with.

The band’s conflict is well-documented. The 2004 Sundance documentary DiG! chronicled the fights, bad gigs and arrests that made the band infamous, contrasting them to the much more grounded musical rise of  fellow psych band The Dandy Warhols. As the leader of BJM, Anton Newcombe’s tenuous hold on stability fueled the film. Without Newcombe’s uncomfortably frequent breakdowns, the band may have had a more clear shot at success and band unity, instead of becoming a punchline for his temperamental behavior.

While DiG! exposed BJM to new audiences, it was hardly the exposure the band had previously hoped for. With Newcombe as the butt of the joke in some music circles, audience’s flocked to BJM shows in hopes of witnessing drama.

With a back-story like this, it’s easy to push aside the music, but the music of BJM goes hand-in-hand with their evolution as a band.

The early days of Brian Jonestown Massacre were heavy in shoegaze pschychedelia, with Newcombe’s calm voice stretched over the slow, rhythmic tambourines and guitar drone. Entrancing and impenetrable, the band’s second album Methodrone was a glimpse into Newcombe’s instrumental curiosity.

As they grew more raucous, so did BJM’s albums. Later releases including Give it Back! and Thank God For Mental Illness drew a rhythm and blues influence, reflecting the band’s upbeat party-hard attitude that had gained them a small, but steady following. This was the band’s peak, an amalgam of harmonicas, sitars, lutes, and a variety of other instruments. Amazingly, the musical variety avoided “hodge-podge” territory, and instead created an emotionally-driven and insightful work.

After DiG!, Newcombe retreated from the center-stage, giving most of the singing parts to other band members. For the later albums My Bloody Underground and Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?, BJM discarded their previous sound, moving into synthesizers and vocal obfuscation.

While The Brian Jonestown Massacre have gone from flouncy-shirted hippies to rock ‘n roll bums in their near two decades of existence, the constant release of high-quality music is what stopped them from becoming has-beens as soon as DiG! was released. I recommend that everyone see the show on Friday. After all this time, The Brian Jonestown Massacre still deserve your attention.

The Midwest has been home to a host of progressive blues and country musicians from Chuck Berry to Uncle Tupelo. Carrying on the tradition of progressive blues and country music is St. Louis band Since 1902. Robert Don, Justin Enoch, Pete Holohan, and Nathaniel Endicott are still young, but the music they make shows taste and maturity. Their debut full length, No Excuses Wednesdays, is a sprawling meditative mass of music. These four dudes are currently at work on their second full length album, but before that hits, here are my favorites off of their debut full-length and an interview with the band.

Review

“Bend The Gap”
Twangy guitars and echoey old piano. What a perfect combination. Listening to this song feels like you are standing in the room while they are playing it. It’s short, it’s sweet, it’s beautiful, and it ends with a harsh bluesy seventh.

“Big Fish In a Little Pond”
This one goes through a sort of weird evolution. It starts with noise and perhaps samples, then in comes the guitar and out goes the noise. But just when you think it’s all going to continue swimmingly, the guitar stutters, the bass and drums fumble in, and coughing can be heard. Then the chord progression hits and the drums come in. Then the vocals come in and that’s where it I lose it, in a good way. It’s so incredibly relaxing I almost can’t handle it.

“St. Louis”
Perhaps the hit single? Unlike much of the album, this song gets straight to it. Catchy bass, funky yet chill guitar, shuffly skippy drums, and oh-so-soulful singing. This song captures what the band is all about. Soul, blues, chillness, atmospherics, funk, happiness, beauty, and I would assume love.

Interview

Where does the name come from?

We get asked this question all the time.  A lot of people expect Since 1902 to have some significant meaning.  I think I made it up on the way to guitar lessons one time.

It just sounds good.  It’s got a ring to it!  Feel free to look the date up on Wikipedia or something.  Tons of cool stuff happened.  The first movie theatre in the US opened in 1902.  Who knew?

How did the band form?

The band formed right after the summer of my freshman year.  Robert, Pete, Nathaniel and I had played together a couple times before.  At the start of sophomore year, I pitched the idea to become a band.  We all congregated in Pete’s basement and started learning songs.  We have weekly practices we’ve dubbed “No Excuses Wednesdays.”

We moved from Pete’s basement to his living room where we played our first house show.  It was the first time we’d played live together.  Things took off from there.  It was a really good year.  Recently, Caleb Hill joined the band on guitar.  It’s a whole new era of Since 1902.

What are your influences and favorite artists?

We all listen to a ton of diverse music. Some notable artists that have had personal impacts on us are Broken Social Scene, Radiohead, Annuals, Lindsey Buckingham, Andrew Bird, The Beatles (who doesn’t love The Beatles?), What Laura Says, XTC, Wilco, Beulah, Givers, INXS, QotSA, Sufjan Stevens… this list should stop or it will never end!

A new band favorite is definitely Earth, Wind, and Fire.

What is the writing process like? Collaborative or solitary?

It’s a mix of the two.  When the band started, Robert and I both had songs we had written.  Most of these songs were from a couple years earlier.  When we introduced these songs in a band setting, however, they tended to change in really great ways.  The most dramatic change, for me personally, is a song we play called Our Front Yard.  That song transformed from being a sad, slow song, to being our most upbeat jam.  It’s funny to me because the lyrics are a huge contrast to the song now.  It really works though.  Stuff like that happens when you give an idea to four other brains.  Everybody has their own style and adds a unique element to the song.  That’s something you can’t do as a solitary songwriter.  So, while Robert and I may write the basic idea for a song, our songs tend to be more collaborative.

What’s the local music scene like in St. Louis?

I like the local music scene.  We’ve been rebuilding recently.  Robert left for college.  Last year though, we played a lot of shows. Ra Cailum and Kid Counselor are our good local friends.  The good thing about St. Louis is the amount of all age venues there are.  Cities like Chicago and New Orleans tend to be more restrictive.  It can be pretty hard to break into the local music scene though.  At the DIY level, I feel like it lacks diversity.  It could be better, could be worse.

What are your future plans for touring or releases?

We’re in the process of working on another album and hope to release it in the near future.  Most of the recording is done, but there’s still lots of mixing to do.  Mixing is terrible.  It makes music not fun.  The new album is a mix of really old songs and super new songs.  The songs were recorded over the course of 1-2 years now.  It’s been a chore trying to consolidate all the sounds into one finished product.  It should be really good.  We’re all super excited about it!

We’re almost always working on new music for Since 1902 as well as side/personal projects. As for touring, it’s always been a dream of ours. We definitely want to do it at some point in the future, so if anyone wants to give us a couch to sleep on, we’ll gladly come your way.

What is Cryptocracy?

A.) Really involved and harsh witch house?

B.) Really, really, disgustingly dirty house music?

C.) Incredibly tasteful dubstep?

D.) A giant robot punching Adele and David Guetta in the face?

Hmmm…. Let’s just go with E.) All of the above. Huoratron (Finland native, Aku Raski) has been remixing and making dance music for 9 years. With his second full-length album, Cryptocracy, Huoratron brings us one of the most aggressively entrancing and unsettling electronic albums to date. Each song merges so many different genres that he should probably be expecting a letter from Guinness Book of World Records. He keeps the dark and horror filled tones of witch house mixed in with the aggressive percussive pounding of dubstep. This mixture creates a very unique phenomenon. The songs are always changing, leading you on a frantic and fear stricken journey through an electronic world, and just when you are getting lost it drops you back into familiar ground. These stark changes give a real unique and entrancing feeling to this album. It’s like being stuck in a nightmare, but you want to stay for the adrenaline rush.

If you’re looking for nice harmonies that stick in your head and you can sing along to, you are not going to find them. Huoratron’s melodies are mostly made with percussive noise with some stereotypical electronic “bleeps” and “bloops” mixed in. The only song with any form of harmony is “New Wave of Mutilation” which loops a creepy, high pitched synth run that sends you helplessly into a frantic trance. The unique thing that he does with his percussive aggression, which some will say is very indicative of dubstep, is that he uses the thought of “less is more.” Even the most dubstep sounding song, “Sea of Meat,” really treats all of the layers with some form of delicacy, giving the impression that he worked diligently on each one.

Unlike big dubstep producers like Skrillex, Huoratron doesn’t simply pile a bunch of samples and “WUBS” on top of each other, he treats each one in a smart way. For instance, in the song “A699F” he pays attention to each layer (like when he quickly fades out one layer and brings it back a few seconds later) , adds samples sparingly, but more importantly, puts the samples in clever places. This attention to detail adds depth to the album, which you don’t see in most other producers’ work. Even the way he structured the album was smart, putting the more house-inspired things at the beginning, which become more dubstep inspired until they reach a climax in “Sea of Meat,” afterward slowly making its way back to house. I’ve got to be honest, not many albums have impressed me as much as this one has. Huoratron put a lot of heart and ingenuity in this album. Sure, it’s aggressive and really unsettling (I mean, in the first song a distorted voice chants the word “choke”) but honestly, that’s what makes the album the jarring piece of beauty that it is. Listen to this album, there’s nothing quite like it.

Rating: 8.7/10
RiYL: MSTRKRFT, Gatekeeper, being scared and in awe at the same time
Recommended Tracks: “Cryptocracy”, “New Wave of Mutilation”, “A699F”, “Top 1%”

Straight from Denver with a indie lo-fi sound, husband/wife duo Tennis has been active since 2010. Alania Moore and Patrick Riley met while studying philosophy in college and married soon after, and the band was born after a seven month sailing adventure around the Eastern Atlantic Seaboard. After the initial releases of the 2010 EP “Baltimore” and the subsequent single “Fire Talk,” the band released their first album, Cape Dory, in 2011 and its follow up, Young & Old, on Valentine’s Day 2012. Armed with the soothing, luxurious voice of Moore and Riley’s clean guitar, the album’s latest single, Origins, has been making mega waves.

Now Tennis, along with dream pop band Vacationer and Dallas-based Bethan, will be at Club Dada for your listening pleasure. With the help of our friends at Spune Productions, we’ve nabbed some tickets for a giveaway!

How to win:

Tune into Cold War Radio with Scott Herndon today (Wednesday, April 24th) from 2 to 4PM. Listen closely for his instructions, dial in at 972-883-5305 or IM us at IAMRADIOUTD, and you’ll have yourself some tickets!

Tickets are still available, but take a chance and try to win it them from us! Grab a friend and see what can happen!