Music

Apr 12th, 2008

Cog – Sharing Space

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Who: Cog
What: Sharing Space

Cog’s latest album, Sharing Space, has been a while in the making. Since early 2007, Cog have been working on the album in the quaint town of Weed, California.

The album takes a slight detour from the stylings of its predecessor; it seems as though the boys wanted listeners to focus more on the lyrics of their songs. This is not without reason, with a few of the songs exploring an anti-establishment mindset, most notably “Swamp” in which ‘the government’ is criticised and blamed.

The vocals are wonderfully typical of Cogs previous work, with multi-layered chorus melodies giving them depth; a welcome multi-dimensional quality.

In aid to this, you won’t hear as many ripping guitar riffs that we’ve come to know and love from Cog’s earlier work; which isn’t to mean the guitar has taken a back seat, its role has merely been reprised somewhat, with less show-boating, and more effort put into making the guitar work together with the rest of the song.

The drumming is foreboding, powerful, with a certain finality to it, ever-present in the background, driving each song by pacing itself with the beat. It’s quality stuff.

The songs “Bird Of Feather” and “What If” have been floating around the airwaves for a while now, and they’re epic tracks. Although “What If” seems to be quite similar-sounding to work from The New Normal-era, it fits right in as the fourth track on the album, followed by the powerfully moving “Bird Of Feather”.

If any complaints, the only I have is that the mastering of the album doesn’t seem quite as good as The New Normal: overall, it’s quieter. I suppose some would say this is due to the quieter, less punchy nature of the songs, but I think they could have done a better job.

Taking everything into account, I’d say that Sharing Space is another quality release from the Sydney band. At only $20 from JB Hi-Fi, you can’t go wrong.

Cog is touring with support around Australia in May and June, check them out.

Apr 11th, 2008

Ghosts cometh

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Nine Inch Nails’ latest album, Ghosts I-IV, has started shipping. I’ll be dutifully checking my mailbox over the next week or so in anticipation of its arrival.

If you ordered from nin.com:
The standard CD is shipping today.
The Deluxe Package:
Pre orders made on or before 4/6 will ship 5/1
Pre orders made 4/7 or later will ship on 5/15
(this due to overwhelming demand and additional order materials arriving later)
Limited Edition Package:
Will ship 5/1

Apr 10th, 2008

Muscles @ The Met

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It was fucking epic! Last night the gang and I went to The Met in the Valley to see one of my favourite artists, Muscles. It was every bit as awesome as I expected it to be; there wasn’t a moment that I didn’t enjoy!

Carly and I @ the met

Upon arrival, I grabbed myself a few bourbons and checked out the place. The Met was such an appropriate venue! Probably one of the best-themed clubs I’ve been in, they had so many different rooms and levels, it was an intricate maze of open-space dance floors and intimate, quiet areas for chilling. Couches and arm chairs could be found scattered almost randomly throughout the venue, and there were many bars, each with a different theme. The place has three or four levels, it’s immense!

The stage itself is modest, but the lighting setup is perfectly suited to the size of the space, and the stage is backed by a wall of widescreen LCDs, all linked together and displaying imagery to accompany the music.

lcd wall @ the met

The support act, The E.L.F warmed us up with some cute remixes of classic tunes, including Fleetwood Mac and the Beach Boys; but the best part was when he played “My People” — HOLY. FUCK. I absolutely fucking love this track, and to hear it played at The Met through the sound system there was simply epic.

After that, we warmed down a bit with a few more drinks and waited patiently for Muscles. He teased us a little by having his album symbol put up on the big screens while the interlude music went quiet — everyone started screaming and jumping, yet he wasn’t to show himself for another twenty minutes! Nevertheless, it caught most people off-guard when he did come out, which I think was his intention from the start.

Annie and Kate @ the met

Let me just say that if you haven’t heard anything by Muscles before, then I’d recommend checking out his MySpace. His songs seem to pop and fizzle and buzz with the energy and excitement of a childhood science experiment; if you let them, they completely envelop you in a sense of endless fun. It’s dance music with a twist. In an interview I read, Muscles said one of his influences is the techno-pop, energetic theme music he used to hear when playing his Super Nintendo as a child; games especially like Super Mario Bros whose musical accompanyments were designed to create an environment of surrealism. These kind of influences are evident in Muscles’ songs.

In addition, the lyrics to his songs are plain, obvious and easy to sing-along to: as opposed to the majority of dance tracks which are either too much techno, too much R&B, or too much of both, Muscles’ music and lyrics are not about head-banging or gang-banging, they’re about simple things like a love of ice-cream, having your friends over, and meeting people on public transport.

Listening to Muscles is a regular thing for me. I don’t get tired of the innocence and the energy in his songs. I did not stop jumping and throwing my fists into the air for the entire set. It was fucking awesome!

muscles @ the met

Mar 26th, 2008

This Is Sparta! Techno mix

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Funny shit.

Mar 11th, 2008

Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts I-IV

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Well, it’s out.

Trent Reznor, aka Nine Inch Nails, having freed himself from corporate stupidity has released a 36-track instrumental album in the form of four nine-track EPs. There are many purchase options; many more than would accompany a typical record label release.

The album was released without any prior advertisement; and in mere hours after its release, the incredible thing is that, of the 2500 $300 deluxe special editions made available, there are now no longer any left to buy. It’s funny that. People will pay good money for music, without even having heard it, when they can see value for money. Yet, the record companies don’t seem to understand this. Hmm.

I personally tried the (sans-DRM) free download; immediately fell in love with the songs, and bought the $10 2CD set. Even after paying for shipping direct from the US, the total cost ended up just shy of $26; about $10 cheaper than I would’ve had to pay had I purchased this from a shop somewhere nearby and as a bonus, it’ll be delivered direct to my door. Typically bricks and mortar stores charge through the nose ($50 for a 2CD set is not unheard of) for ‘obscure’ foreign music. Of course, Trent knows this, having spoken-out at a show here in Australia in late 2007.

Fuck the RIAA. Fuck the labels. I want to see more bands getting onto their own thing and doing what Trent Reznor has done here. It’s a beaut idea that I, and many others worldwide no doubt, will dutifully embrace.

Mar 9th, 2008

Triple J Hottest 100 Vol. 15 (2007)

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It’s out!

Go buy it! :D

Edit: I’m very annoyed by the fact that I cannot rip this CD. The first disc rips OK, but the second fails on the last two tracks, always in the same place. It must be some fancy-pants DRM at work to be stopping my drive ripping it. Too bad I only have an iPod and not a portable CD player, eh? Fucking tards Warner.

Edit again: TripleJ’s Hottest 100 was the number one album in Australia in the week ending March 15 — what’s the bet fucking Nova are going to play more songs from it?

Jan 28th, 2008

TripleJ Hottest 100 + Australia Day weekend

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Hi all!

Hope you had a mad-as weekend. I know I did. The TripleJ Hottest 100 countdown was simply ecstatic this year, with some really great songs receiving their deserved position in the biggest music countdown of the year.

You can review the final 100 listing and re-listen to the event at the TripleJ website; I’m a little disappointed that Muscles, Midnight Juggernauts and PNAU didn’t receive more recognition, but there really isn’t a song in that list that I don’t like (except maybe that fucking Soko song …)

This year saw 53 of the top 100 songs from Australian artists, which I think is a fucking top effort. Good work Australia!

Nov 18th, 2007

Aussie music

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Hello readers, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I’ve been thinking a little about music recently. Essentially, I love music. I like to listen to it a lot, and I’m certain many people are in the same boat. The thing is though, I prefer Australian music to music from overseas. That isn’t to say I listen to only Aussie music, or that I only listen to Midnight Oil or The Veronicas, oh no.

There’s a wealth of excellent Australian music that I believe many people are unaware of, mostly because many of the thousands of great small Aussie bands simply don’t have the advertising budget that all the mainstreamers do.

In the same vein as the classic “Australian-made” advertisement, I believe I’m doing my part to keep great musicians on our shores producing great music by buying Aussie albums.

For those of you who may already be scoffing, shaking your heads or saying something along the lines of “there’s no such thing as Australian made insert your genre of choice here“, have I got a shock for you!

Firstly, checkout triplejunearthed.com; the latest incarnation of TripleJ’s Unearthed competition allowing bands from all over the country to submit a few songs to be judged by the Australian public at large and TripleJ, with the winner being given a grant and some studio time to record a debut album, allowing them to prove their worth and go on to spread their musical talent across the globe.

There’s almost 10,000 songs on the website that you can listen to anywhere, anytime; picking your favourites and rating each track. The good thing is though, there’s almost every conceivable genre available on the site: dance, electronic, hip-hop, indie, metal, pop, punk, rock, roots, and no doubt their respective sub-genres are included too.

Aside from TripleJ, MySpace Music is also a great place to find acts — hit the music search page, select Australia as the country, and search to your hearts’ content by a combination of genre, sounds like, influences, and everything else!

To get you started, here are a few Australian bands I think are top shit:

There are so many more artists I could add to the above list — but then, I’d be taking all the fun away from you, wouldn’t I?

Of course, once you’ve found yourselves some good Aussie artists to love, you can head over to TripleJ’s Gig guide to find out where they’re playing next!

Oct 9th, 2007

I WASN’T BORN WITH ENOUGH MIDDLE FINGERS!!!

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boysatmanson.jpg

Aug 6th, 2007

Midnight Juggernauts – Dystopia

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Woah!

Midnight Juggernauts’ album Dystopia was released Saturday the 4th. I went and bought it on the day and have had a few days time to listen through it. I have to say, it has some standout tracks, but overall… I feel it’s fairly mediocre! Which is a shame. I hastily handed over the $30 and gleefully accepted the brown paper bag containing my prize from my local Music Shop, but was thoroughly nonplussed after my first listen.

I thought to myself, “Remember Owen, this happened when you first heard Shadows from the Shadows EP on JJJ…” and remembered how utterly confused I was by it. It sounded nothing like Raised by Wolves or any of the other tracks from their self-titled EP, though after a few listens, it definitely grew on me; Tombstone is definitely the best song on that EP; if not one of their best.

Unfortunately though, I think that’s part of the problem. You see, on the thirteen-track Dystopia, there are eight previously unreleased tracks; one of which is an intro track, one of which is a noise/filler track with no substance, and one of which is a very short two-minute experimental track. So basically, of the thirteen-tracks, you’re only getting five new songs for your money. Well, if you include the bonus CD, you’re actually getting nine new tracks (two of which are remixes, and one live) for your money, from a total of nineteen.

Stand-out songs are Ending of an Era (heard it on JJJ), Road to Recovery (been on their MySpace for months), Nine Lives (a new track that impressed me by being more electronic than trance), and Jump The Gun (quite dancy, very much a bop-along song), from the bonus CD.

So, I’m going to listen through the album a few more times over and hope that the other songs which don’t seem to grab my attention at the moment manage to grow on me. I dearly hope that they do. If not, seeing them play live at the end of the month is sure to galvanise my appreciation of the tracks I already love, and perhaps improve my opinion on the ones I may not grow fond of. Hearing Midnight Juggernauts live impressed me so much last time I listened to their two EPs over and over and over again for the millionth time.

I hold high hopes.

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