Speaking of Buffalo vaporwave acts, another interesting track popped up over the weekend from the underground genre in the form of “D Frenzy” from electronic artist Fotisporn. The dark, disco single samples Billy Ocean’s “Carribeen Queen” while backed by smooth horns and has some serious Darkside vibes. Keep an eye out from future releases from this mysterious project. In the mean time, listen to “D Frenzy” below.
Before I start this review I just wanna touch on one thing real quick. The whole phenomenon of bands/music groups, cutting out vowels in song/album/artist names or replacing them with Vs, is so played out. I can’t stand the name of this album, just make it a self-titled. It would’ve been cool like two years ago, but now it looks like the name of a random soundcloud artist. I digress. Clipping. is a trio consisting of rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Wiliam Hutson and Jonathan Snipes. Hutson and Snipes both hold industrial-electronic roots with other bands and projects, and they craft the noisey in-your-face music that the band is known for. Diggs provides the raw, violent imagery to accompany the music, and he truly is a great technical rapper. Their Facebook page sums up their sound as “music for the club you wish you hadn’t gone to, the car you don’t[...]
Early last month, one man garage act, Arvid, released his lo-fi, debut album Old Factory Living. Recorded on a 4-track cassette player in the Rochester musician’s attic, the 90s alt-rock inspired album is ideal for fans of like era staples Stone Temple Pilots and the Presidents of the United States of America, as well fresher San Fran garage rock acts like Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin. Track 7, “Stage Fright,” sounds like a Mac Demarco/Ducktails collaboration that you wish would actually happen, while the Spaghetti Western-flavored “Wasted” could have been placed on a Tarantino soundtrack without missing a beat. You can download Old Factory Living in its entirety at Arvid’s bandcamp page. In the mean time, listen to the stand out, opening track “Phantoms of the Night” below. Old Factory Living by Arvid
Cleveland natives, The Modern Electric, took over our office speakers this morning with their driving single “All We Have Is Now.” Part manlier Keane, part vaudeville Jens Lekman, and a pinch of Spoon, the band’s sound is both whimsical and exuberant, channeling classic rock legends like Jeff Lynne of ELO. The Modern Electric will be making a stop in Rochester next Thursday (6/19) at Sticky Lips as part of their national tour. This post is geared to our Rochester readers and Buffalo readers that like driving 80 miles to see bands. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/69973526″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
I didn’t know what to expect when I dove into Look Both Ways, the early-June release from fresh Buffalo act, Newish Star. As I examined their bandcamp page, I noticed there isn’t a track on Look that touches the two-minute mark, so the moments before that initial listen-through were saturated with a nervous curiosity. Safe to say the songs—frenetic Dinosaur Jr-style explosions of noisy energy—warrant the quickness. It works. The opening track, “Super Double Jackpot,” touches on the all-too-familiar feeling of helplessness with lyrics like “So you tried, and you gave it your all / but the only thing that matters is the control of it all”, as the song races to the finish line, raucous and proud. Other highlights include the 36-second-long punk number “No Way Out”, the satiating riff-work of “Newbody,” and the whistle solo (yes, whistle solo) a midst the bumbling chug of “Runnin’ Rich.” Although proclaimed[...]
Since Hospice emerged as a narrative record of tremendous emotional force in 2009, The Antlers have consistently defined themselves through their weightiness. There is no hip posturing, no casual cleverness, and very little pop sensibility to the music they spin forth from what Isaac Brock might call “the dark center of the universe.” Although Burst Apart, The Antlers’ more contained follow-up to Hospice, found the band exploring tight song structures and stepping away from the glorious concept album fullness of their previous release, Familiars, the act’s fifth record, returns to the musical looseness of Hospice while applying a vague conceptual framework. Familiars lacks the immediate thrust and devastating intimacy of Hospice’s tales of cancer, regret, and trauma. It also lacks Burst Apart‘s comparative accessibility. And yet Familiars is as gorgeous a flutter of genuine feeling as one can wish for from Brooklyn’s most cathartic conveyors of human desperation. Frontman Peter Silberman’s vocals remain extraordinary[...]
Herd Fest act the Tins have announced the release of their latest EP, Young Blame, set to drop on July 29th. The EP is currently available for pre-sale here, but luckily, the band has released the music video for Young Blame‘s first single, “They Aren’t Evil,” earlier today to give us a taste of the new material. The single moves away from some of the more new wave vibes of their last LP, Life’s A Gas, and enters a DOM-like melody territory. If you wish to hear the new tracks before streaming begins on bandcamp, you can help celebrate the release of Young Blame with the trio on Friday, July 11th at Buffalo Iron Works. The release show will also serve as a tour kick off (see full itinerary below) that will take the threesome across the U.S.. More confirmed dates will follow. July 11th- Buffalo N.Y – Buffalo Iron[...]
Over at the blog offices last week, we stumbled across the impressive, debut LP, 電効営み , from vaporwave artist Darksleep. The album immediately had us thinking of works from Oneohtrix Point Never, Crystal Castles, and even some Purity Ring, and while we have no idea how to pronounce 電効営, the album quickly grew on us. Check out the entire release over at Darksleep’s bandcamp page and in the mean time, listen to album’s stand out track, “Left on the Curb,” below.
Buffalo born producer Edwang has honed his craft remixing and mashing up other rap songs, but he’s stepped in a new direction with this collaborative effort with rapper Duce. The Duce Bootlegs is a project full of poppy hip hop goodness that reasserts Edwang’s staying power. He’s crafted complex beats that still allow the freedom of an emcee to flow over. The bouncy keyboard on “True Hollywood Story” sets the tone for the rest of an album that never takes itself too seriously. The beat in “Pirate Booty” is based around a upbeat west-coast guitar riff, and the rapping is basically Duce rattling off pirate references in each line. His best rapping probably comes in “Old Joe,” where Duce narrates the unfortunate experience of catching an STD. Edwang continuously impresses on the beats, and flashes his experiences in productions by including some pop culture bites for skits between songs. Aziz Ansari’s[...]
First Aid Kit, composed of the elven-queens Klara and Johanna Soderberg, hit an Internet nerve after they placed their cover of hit Fleet Foxes song “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” on YouTube back in the year of 2008. Shortly before that, they had already re-recorded their first EP, Drunken Trees, with the help of their school-friend’s father, Karin Dreijer Andersson, who is one half of The Knife. At this milestone, the young ladies were the age of fourteen years old. Fourteen is a pinnacle year, especially from a developmental standpoint. You’ve survived the castrating year of thirteen of endless questioning and doubt and latched onto a form, an outlet–whether that’s singing, sports, writing, etc. You see glimmers of your passion. You swim this sea without the poisoned expectation of achievement. Perhaps, this is the best blessing. Continuing on this vein of relinquished expectations is a good way to be. First Aid[...]
In their new release, Glass Boys, Canadian hardcore punk outfit Fucked Up demonstrates their knack for tasteful anthemic punk rock, albeit in a more modest way than usual. This time around, the band looked to more self-reflective and moody elements to join their usual philosophically charged aggression. One thing listeners need to know before listening to Glass Boys is that, conceptually speaking, it is not anything close to David Comes to Life, their complex, punk rock opera that explores a love story through multiple perspectives and meta-narratives. In comparison, this record is the proverbial sidekick or henchman murmuring, “Yeah, what he said!,” echoing the previous record’s ideas of frustration with apprehension against society’s ills. However, this album should be praised through its particular use of song structure and instrumentation, which give it a brooding yet deeply energetic style. Whereas most hardcore punk music thrives off of bursts of high energy[...]
It was just this past April that the promising Oxford-based quartet Glass Animals cemented themselves a tight little niche in the psychedelic indie-pop market with their beaming EP Gooey. Now they’ve returned with their debut album, Zaba, to prove that beyond the Radiohead reminiscent grooves or the minimalist pop production, they are in fact an inimitable, contemporary pop creation. It’s only fitting that they hit the mark right out of the gate even with a ton of pressure riding on this up-and-coming group’s premiere effort. Glass Animals’ sonically forecasting Gooey EP brought about one of the quartet’s most unrestrained singles in “Gooey,” again found on Zaba. Oozing basslines all on top of Dave Bayley’s smooth, sleek falsettos make it one of their most authentic feeling cuts to date. The track isn’t without its fair share of sexual innuendos as unorthodox uses of pet names get that across, especially when referencing Winnie the[...]
A little over a year ago, I ran into Radarada‘s bassist, Colin Brydalski, and guitarist, Fran Coyne, at a bar. They told me they were forming a band. I laughed and responded, “Of course you are.” Something about Radarada seemed meant to be, like this group of people were always going to make music together. With the addition of Ana Vafai (vocals), Tommy Too (emcee/vocals), wZa (emcee/sampling), and Bryan Segarra (drums), the band took on a dynamic and extremely versatile vibe. Their music appeals to a wide variety of listeners. You’re gonna want to compare them to the Roots, Tribe Called Quest, or the Brand New Heavies with a little Sam Cooke/Miles Davis feel in the details, but I’d caution you against categorizing their sound. The more I listen to their debut EP, First Edition, the more I’m convinced that Radarada’s something different, perhaps influenced but never confined by their inspirations. Radarada’s[...]
Animal Ambition works when 50 Cent understands that he’s worth 140 millions dollars. Sometimes 50 gets caught up with his life back when he was fresh off of being shot 9 times, straight off of the streets, and all the other details that made him one of the best crossover gangsta rappers of all time. Now though, 50 hasn’t been on the streets for a long time. In the same way that Jay-Z still gets grief for his coke selling subject matter 20 years after the fact, 50’s strengths and weaknesses are on this album are dependent on whether he’s living in the past or the present. In “Hold On,” we see 50 attempt one of his sing-songy catchy hooks that took him to the top of the music industry 11 years ago. It’s not going to be the last time he does it on this album, and it’s probably[...]
Not really sure who crontab -u john is, other than that it’s a producer who just relocated to Buffalo from the small island-nation of Canada, but I am super high on his recently released Girls EP. Perhaps knowing that I’m wildly desensitized to boring regular indie rock and can only get off on weird shit and hard-as-fuck gangster rap anymore, a fellow buffaBLOGGER sent me a link to the Bandcamp page. A tinny and claustrophobic cluster of angsty tracks, Girls sounds like what would happen if David Byrne and The Birthday Party got tricked into boarding a time machine in 1981, but it turned out it wasn’t actually a time machine, it was actually just the hard drive from a shitty mid-00s laptop, oh, and the Butthole Surfers and Fucked Up were in there too, but instead of instruments they were playing circuits. So, in the end, it sort of[...]