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Nicolas Jaar Boiler Room NYC DJ Set at Clown & Sunset x RBMA Takeover (by brtvofficial)

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Live Review: Flying Lotus, Thundercat and Teebs at the Masquerade

This was the first show I’ve ever attended that could be classified as electronic music and I was fascinated to see what kind of show this would be like as I made a 2nd trip this month to the Masquerade to see FlyLo and his Brainfeeder cohorts. After the opening DJ, JPS, played a set consisting almost entirely of stuff I’ve never heard (except he opened with a little bit of A Love Supreme), Teebs came out and played a gorgeous set of sonically detailed beat music. Hunched over a Roland SP404, Teebs used the effects to create instrumental hip hop that sounds like it’s from a city on another planet. He played for just the right amount of time and ocassionally slowed down the songs and seemed grateful to be playing in Atlanta again.

Thundercat came out next with a keyboardist and a drummer and played an absolutely stunning set of his jazz fusion songs from The Golden Age of Apocalypse and one song from his upcoming record Apocalypse. The highlight of the set for me as “Daylight” which sprawled to a length far longer than the album’s 3 minutes, with each of the three incredible musicians showing off their technical ability. Thundercat’s awe-inspiring bass playing is well-documented but his drummer and keyboard player both showed their incredible improvisational skill, trading licks with Thundercat and getting a lot of freedom to take the song in new directions. Moments like the loudest point in “Daylight” remind me of why I love jazz so much, including long solo sections: the dynamic build and sharing of ideas. It was fascinating listening to Thundercat and his keyboardist trade little licks and build to this incredible climax that feels at once delicately planned and wildly spontaneous. Only incredibly talented musicans are able to do this and Thundercat’s band proved their muscle with an unforgettable set of music.

Flying Lotus came out relatively quickly after this and the crowd immediately went wild and were in the mood to dance. His new Layer 3 visual set up is the perfect backdrop (or front-drop too?) for his hazy worlds of beats that he creates of the course of his set.

FlyLo’s sets contain the normal beats and bangers that he is famous for on his records. Although jazz is featured heavily in his music, especially on his recent record Until the Quiet Comes, these characteristics are downplayed during his live performances to make way for hip hop bravado and electronic dance-a-thons. His set last night contained a very large amount of new material that was assumed to be on the next Flying Lotus album. It was hard for me to sometimes differentiate what was his and what the new stuff was, but it certainly fit well with his older material and show a very energetic new direction that will compliment his upcoming fusion album very well. I was quite pleased with the material he selected to play, as it was diverse but favored the stuff we could dance too, especially “Computer Face”, “Putty Boy Strut” and “Do the Astral Plane”

One of the things I loved most about his set was his ability to effortlessly weave in other people’s songs among his own and the crowd’s non-stop energy. The reception when FlyLo dropped Kendrick Lamar’s “Backseat Freestyle” was one of the loudest of the night, with most of the audience rapping along to Kendrick’s brag-filled verse. He dropped a lot of other interesting choices like some Radiohead, Portishead and a few TNGHT tunes. But a lot of what he played was hip-hop, because like Flying Lotus himself, most of his audience are big hip-hop nerds who poke their heads up every time they hear a Dilla beat and will have no problem rapping along to “Intergalactic”.

Of course, Flying Lotus’ hip-hop nerdiness is shown the most when he does appearances as Captain Murphy. We absolutely got one at the Masquerade. He stopped his set at one point and played the ominous laugh to rapturous applause and then immediately queued up “Between Friends”. I was curious if he was about to rap after Earl’s verse finished and sure enough, he did. I have to admit, I haven’t listened to the Captain Murphy tape much, so this bit of the show wasn’t my favorite part, but “Between Friends’ was certainly epic and FlyLo was about 2 feet away from me rapping “This Force is strong with this one though, over 9000 midichlorians say so”. The last Captain Murphy track Flying Lotus played was Shake Weight. Ellison decided for a special performance of this song and went out into the audience and a huge mass of people all wanting to rap along with FlyLo ensued. It was a fitting end to a night filled with dancing, hip hop and the sounds of the future of music.

[tabelzlovesmusic-blog]

Live Review: Frightened Rabbit at the Masquerade

This was my first trip to the Masquerade and I'm glad it was to go see a fine group of Scotsman, Frightened Rabbit. The Masquerade proved to be a nice little venue and I'm glad I'll be returning there in a few weeks to see Flying Lotus. 

Wintersleep opened the show. I've never heard the group's music before, but it was indie rock that was very interesting to listen to, with great guitar playing and interesting song structures. I really enjoyed the longer songs they played and the were a pleasant warm up for Frabbit. 

The last time I saw Frightened Rabbit, they were newly signed to Atlantic and had the coveted opening spot of an arena/amphitheater tour with beloved Seattle indie rockers and new label mates Death Cab for Cutie. The band had yet to release their triumphant return-to-form Pedestrian Verse. 

This tour must feel like a victory lap. The new songs fit right in with Frightened Rabbit classics as they sounded tighter than ever and proved to be very fun to watch and sing along with. They opened with Verse track "Holy" and immediately played "The Modern Leper" after that. Midnight Organ Fight" and the new album had the most time devoted to them but Frightened Rabbit did give Mixed Drinks some time by playing "Living in Color", "Swim Until You Can't See Land" and an epic shout-along rendition of "The Loneliness and the Scream" with Wintersleep. 

The Pedestrian Verse tracks all proved to be highlights of the set and the fans at the show knew all the words to the new tunes as well as Frabbit classics like "My Backwards Walk" and the chilling "Poke". New tune "Late March, Death March" also began with Scott telling a story about his young niece saying it was her favorite song in pre-school. Hutchinson is a natural performer and his warm and friendly personality came through at the show. 

We were also treated to a rare guest appearance by Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra, who sang a tune called "Architect" that he and Scott wrote together, but it was the premiere live performance of the song and the audience warmly received an Atlanta favorite who hasn't performed live much lately. 

It was a great show and I would recommend seeing Frightened Rabbit live, but I would be familiar with their discography before catching a show. 

Setlist available here:http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/frightened-rabbit/2013/the-masquerade-atlanta-ga-6bd8e2ee.html

I took this photo. I was really close!

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My Morning jacket Live Review

Not much to say other than this was my 3rd time seeing one of the best live acts around. This time came an extra dose of sweetness in the form of the price: it was absolutely free. I spent 5 bucks on a train ticket and that was pretty much only expense as I traveled to Centennial Park to enjoy Jim James and company rip through a solid set comprised of a very hit-oriented set that was part of the Big Dance Concert Series. Jacket ripped through "Mahgeetah" first and then traveled through Circuital's epic title track. My favorite moments of the night were mostly tracks from fan-favorite Z. "Worldless Chorus" and "Lay Low" are both powerful tracks live that are able to move any festival crowd and convert the crowd who may have just been there to wait for Zac Brown to start an hour later. My friends and I agreed though that our favorite song was "Victory Dance" from Circuital. The track was just massive live this time and made us all have one of those epic concert moments where we knew we were witnessing something special. I will see Jacket as many times as I can because it's worth it every dang time, especially when it's free. 

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What albums do you want me to review/write about?

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Albums of the Week: Stuff Released on 11-8

So this is a bit late but my album of the week is Atlas Sound's Parallax

This is Bradford Cox's 3rd studio album under the name and it's probably his most intimate and beautiful record to date under that name. I haven't given it a good and full listen, but I do know that it's pretty friggin epic from the tracks I've heard. So if you're gonna pick up 1 record this week, make it Atlas Sound.

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Happy Halloween! Stream the Flaming Lips 24 hour song

Here

flaminglipstwentyfourhoursong.com

It's super cool. check it out enjoy

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For Halloween: Songs That I Find Scary

So I'm just going to pick a couple of tunes that I find scary unsettling

this guy made a tune using only samples from Alice in Wonderland. It's not scary or agressive or anything, I just find it very unsettling. don't know why

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUZIE78ZK_A

The 2nd song is just a Halloween song. I chose Jack's Lament from Nightmare before Christmas simply because it's great song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv1HX80u5x4

And last, I'll pick a Nine Inch Nails song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCxz-d7jQwU

The Downward Spiral scared the hell out of me when I first heard it

OH and this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YfDeOa3LTE

Happy Halloween everybody!

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New Released for Nov. 1st

So I'm gonna try and highlight one new release every week and tell you a little bit about it

This week the best new release is by far The Smile Sessions. Even though Brian Wilson reworked Smile for a much later release, this is the closest we're ever going to be able to get to the fabled Beach Boys masterpiece bootlegged more than any record ever. It's surely going to be a great pop release that comes from the most epic period of 60s psych pop.

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The Official I'm Going to Start Blogging Again List: Tabelz's Top 10 Albums EVER

So I've decided to give this whole bloggity blog thing another shot and I love making lists. I've heard a lot of musicians hate making lists in interviews but I wanted to make a good top 10 lists of my favorite records and write why I think they deserve to be there. Hope this is entertaining and fun and if all goes well I'll start blogging again, with some changes. I don't know if I'll do reviews and scores but I'll just blurb about some records

So here it goes

Illinois-Sufjan Stevens

Rather than do the standard Illinois sum-up (it's a 50 states album, but boy is he slow, Sufjan's A CHRISTIAN?, there are soooo many songs on here), I'll just say why I think this is a great record. First off, the arrangements here are gorgeous. I'm constantly amazed by Sufjan's multi-instrumental recordings where he plays nearly all of it. The gorgeous chorus of Predatory Wasps being a good example. I like that this album has a folk feel lyrically, but also feels very large rather than just an acoustic guitar. Finally, this record has some of the most direct, heartfelt and emotional lyrics on an album ever. Illinois touches on everything from family, our relationships, God, death and often the most wonderously of all, puts it all in context of America, not the cheesy kind of America, but the America of all of our dreams that people have been chasing after.

Crooked Rain Crooked Rain- Pavement

Stephen Malkmus is just a flat-out terrific songwriter. This record definitely falls on the song-based side of Pavement's discography but it's also one of their most fun, relaxed and also strongest album. Arguably one of the inventors of modern indie-rock, Pavement cleans up the production, writes killers songs and delivers them with a sneer that oftentimes carries a lot of insight along with it.

Kind of Blue- Miles Davis

This is absolutely the oddball record on my list and it was a big toss up weather to include this or "A Love Supreme" but I decided since this was my first jazz album and the one I listened to the most, I decided it was it. I'll just keep this one brief by saying that it's a landmark album for music in general. Songs that embody nighttime so vividly and the beauty of these tracks stand the test of time.

Loveless- My Bloody Valentine

One of the more "Pitchfork Best of Lists" records on this list, MBV simply can't be left out because it's not only revolutionary, but there hasn't since been a record like it. It made distortions dreamy and sexy and the wall of sound is breathtaking. Kevin Shields is a guitar innovator and could also write a quality tune. The vocals are haunting too, which keep me returning even after the buzz-saw guitar tone and the awe-inspiring energy become a little more familiar.

Is This It- The Strokes

Can I say anything about the Strokes that hasn't been said. It was a record that saved rock music when mainstream rock sucked SO HARD. It was an album that wore its influences on its sleeve and celebrated where it came from. It's also really really good.

Feels- Animal Collective

If you're band's gonna genre-hop, you at least had better be good at it, because genre hopping can often be very very frustrating. But it's no problem from Animal Collective who over 8 albums have spanned space noise freakouts to delicate acoustic strums to electronic pop music. Falling somewhere in the middle of all this is Feels. Avey Tare's songwriting really starts to shine on this record and this is also full of great drumming courtesy of Panda Bear. The experimental nature of the 2nd half is a great contrast to the delicious pop songs of the 1st. Emotionally, it's really unifying and it's much less noisy than early AC records. It's easily one of the prettiest things I've ever heard and if you aren't floored by the drone at the end of Turn Into Something, the list might be kind of irrelevant to you.

The Soft Bulletin- The Flaming Lips

Ah, the Lips. I admire the Lips because they reinvented themselves with this record and succeeded so wildly that many think their best is yet to come. And this is a band who's been around since the 80s. The Soft Bulletin is an album that is pretty much the ultimate psychedelic album of the 90s, full of studio experimentation, thunderous Drozd drumming (one of my favorite parts of the album), endearingly strange Wayne Coyne vocals and most of all, BEAUTIFUL SONGS. These tunes are uplifting, strange, experimental, poppy, you name it, TSB's probably got it.

Merriweather Post Pavilion- Animal Collective

MPP is pretty much the high watermark of late 2000s indie music. It's meticulously crafted, yet even has an improvisational feel. The sounds are often strange, yet fit so well within a larger pop context. So this is pretty much Animal Collective's most important record, it stands for a lot of things. They will put out many great records but until then I have this wonderful wonderful record to tide me over.

Transatlanticism- Death Cab for Cutie

This is the most listened to record on my iPod. There was a period of about 4 months where I listened to nothing but this record. Death Cab really writes great songs and then their arrangements are somewhat atypical of indie rock. Their songs are often big. Rather than layer this record in lo-fi fuzz, Chris Walla produced their cleanest sounding record yet and then decided to play around with some really neat areas, adding electronic drums, ambient pieces even a long drawn out jam during We Looked Like Giants. Ben Gibbard hasn't topped this record since and probably won't but that's o.k. because this is the best indie rock record of the 2000s. It's honest and wears its heart on its sleeve. Something in common with album #1......

In the Aeroplane over the Sea- Neutral Milk Hotel

So this is absolutely my favorite record and I might go a bit mad here. Yes, it has a lot to do with Anne Frank, yes Jeff's vocals are nasally, yes, they can often times go a bit nuts with the noise, yes, it's very very very strange. But Jeff's lyrics are haunting and beautiful. But here's the thing. Aeroplane is about love in the face of horror all around you, hope in the face of trouble, life in the face of death. It's about the triumph of joy over cynicism, the triumph of life over death.

It's just the BEST ALBUM EVER. I MEAN I CAN'T GET OVER HOW AMAZING IT IS!

[tabelzlovesmusic-blog]

Hmm. Going to try to get back into posting thinking about changing formats. Should I be just reviews, new or old, just news, both, neither?? The world has been brutal these past few weeks but my friends and Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" have kept me sane.

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Hidden Gem: Luomo-Vocalcity

I found this album after reading an interview with Panda Bear saying this was one of his favorite albums ever. Released in the early 2000s, this record is experimental as a repetitive, rhythmic album can get, it takes little ideas and stretches them into infinity. Long song lengths, extremely repetitive but deeply interesting if you study its subtle variation, it's one of my favorite electronic albums ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alajE-WHh_8&feature=related

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Ok, so I love Star Wars just as much as the next person, but to me, they kind of suck in a way. Actually, Empire is an awesome movie and one of my favorites. But Return of the Jedi is stupid. All of the sudden Luke's a badass and can do crazy stuff and in Empire he cried because he couldn't lift an X-wing? not at all like the character. 2nd: Ewoks are the beginning of the end of Star Wars. I know that Star Wars was always meant to be a little bit family friendly, but Ewoks feel like they're places in the movie ONLY FOR THAT REASON. they don't do anything important except make C3P0 look useful for once. Also, I don't think George Lucas is the sci fi mastermind everyone thinks he is. He didn't even intend for there to be a 2nd movie originally. So either he or somebody else had to come up with a rich, elaborate universe for people to be fascinated by. And a majority of that work was done by BOOK WRITERS. he just sits in his office and thinks up weird aliens and leaves the more backstory related stuff to the fans. His most fleshed out alien creature with a back story was JAR JAR. I won't even touch the prequels here because I do actually have some nostalgia attached with Episode 1 specifically, because I was like 7 when it came out and I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. Aside from Jar Jar, I still think it's pretty good, midichlorians and all.

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kinda want to make a rant relating to star wars. should I do it here?

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ahahahah yonkers got nominated for video of the year.

hope it wins

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Tabelz's Favorite LPs of 2011 (So far)

Now that we're more than halfway through the year, here's a short list of a couple of my favorite records from this past year

Gang Gang Dance-Eye Contact

A real monster record from these New York psych explorers, except this time, the jams get tighter, the hooks get more danceable and the atmosphere is cohesive and compelling. From the of course jaw-dropping opener, Glass Jar, to the tight dance grooves of MindKilla, Gang Gang reach a level of pop sensibility combined with dark, interesting sonic exploration.

Shabazz Palaces- Black Up

In the days where popular rap can be just as acclaimed as the underground, I was heavily reassured that one of the most interesting rap records came out on SUB POP. I don't if this was self produced, but man whoever did these beats absolutely nailed it. The dark, swampy beats combined with clever almost stream-of-consciousness raps create a unique and enjoyable formula. Worth multiple listens to let the more abstract songs in the middle unfold

Death Cab for Cutie- Codes and Keys

One of my favorite bands side swept getting boring by actually writing a record that was different than the last because, well, they're mostly happy here. Ben Gibbard's lyricism is a tad less interesting here, but the warm electronics and subtle grooves of this album keep me coming back compared to the dark world that is Narrow Stairs. Walla's production is great and Ben sounds great as ever.

The Weeknd-House of Balloons

Well, this is technically a mix tape but the Weeknd (along with Frank Ocean) are some of the most extremely talented up and coming R&B stars who could legitimately take over the mainstream with a solid release and a successful single. While this record is hardy innovative the key here is mood. The record is absolutely stunning in the way that it almost transports you to the black and white world of its art. Wicked Games is definitely one of the strongest tracks of 2011.

James Blake self titled

James Blake's album works for me because it restored my faith in making beutiful, heartfelt music, using mostly digital sounds. It's amazing that under the auto-tune, atmospheric synths and subdued beats, James actually sounds human, more so than any other electronic act I've come across this year. After an excellent run of EPs, James just totally took over a scene and commanded everybody's attention with a little album that combined a singer-songwriter piano player with a dub head from London. Genius work.