Monday, August 30, 2010

Awesome DJing going on Thursday...










Stuart from the epic Radiodiffusion Internasionaal blog will be DJing at the Langano Lounge (1435 SE Hawthorne, below Jarre's) EARLY on Thursday, 5 to 7pm. I totally missed it last time, so don't be like me.
Here's what Stuart says:

Come listen to Khmer Pop, Ethiopian Jazz, Pakistani Surf, Benin Funk, Thai Shadow Music, Persian Beat, Nigerian Psych, Malay Garage, Bollywood Steel Guitar and much more – all from their original vinyl.

And then
Pete Swanson - Ghost O Clock
Pete Swanson - Ghost O Clock - $6

Surprising new tape from Pete Swanson that totally made my day. Layer upon layer of molten guitar, chugging away while the overtones collide above, but everything anchored by a steady 4/4 throb. Side B really breaks the mold with some excellent, treble-y, sun-scorched riffing beneath the swell of blown out guitar and -- I think -- faraway sing-speaking. This shit is straight up New Zealand 1989. So good.
Pete Swanson - Challenger
Pete Swanson - Challenger - $6
Heavy synth and tape detritus, seething across the stereo field. Very intense, very dense stuff, in constant motion. Pete's modular synth work is great, pushing way beyond the nostalgia-warble and filter-twiddling sound du jour. Nice rhythmic stuff a little bit in a Black Dice vein, and the tape-work gives the proceedings a lot of motion and energy. Recording quality is great on this tape, you really get a sense of how deep these pieces go. $6

Also, I'm not carrying them, but Pete just did a private press release of two LPs -- a "greatest hits" from the recent five tapes, six tape sides pressed onto an LP, and a split LP with Rene Hell for their upcoming tour(is that happening right now?). If these haven't disappeared yet, they will be gone in a second, highly recommended.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Friday, August 13, 2010

Brother Raven - VSS-30 LP - Digitalis
Brother Raven LPs!
Really happy to have a few copies of the brand new Brother Raven LP, VSS-30. These guys are a duo operating out of Seattle, each half an active member of the underground music scene by their own right. Their music is made using old synthesizers recorded directly to tape, then carefully edited into substantial, fully-realized synth-scapes that float somewhere between ethereal space music and more terrestrial, melodic work. It's been close to a year since I last checked in on these guys via their Nellie tape, also on Digitalis, and in the meantime the amount of synthesizer music being put to tape has about quadrupled. Brother Raven were head-and-shoulders above the crowd then -- their synth explorations always tight and focused where others were just twiddling away -- and that is only more so now. In line with their past work, there is always a steady pulse underlying the pieces here but the range, both in style and sound, is greatly expanded. The compositions are on the whole leaner -- stereo echo is used to great effect to give the pieces weight and width -- and the duo confidently move beyond the safe, hazy, new-age-iness of the moment. There are some welcome curve balls on the LP, a heavily rhythmic track with echos of early 90s dance music, a bubbling Raymond Scott tribute, the white-noise boulders that come crashing through the placid solar-tones of the opening track. Excellent work from Brother Raven here, doing what they do well while still pushing themselves in new directions. $14

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

This show already happened, but the poster is a good one:
Place Gallery show, July 16th 2010
Drawn by Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson and Kevin Thomson.