Bee Mask - Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico 7.1

                 Here’s the first release from Edition Mego’s ‘Spectrum Spools’ division. If this is the kind of quality they’ll be having, I’m perfectly fine with it. Before I went to bed, I put this on and sort of drifted around for a while. That’s the kind of music you’re getting into.

                Side I starts off as if it was a irr.app.(ext.) track. Tension gradually builds through the light scraping sounds. Chris Madak teases this out as a loud drone is processed in the background. Eventually it just overwhelms you. Compared to Side II, this one is considerably louder.

                Almost as an exact opposite, Side II sounds much more melodic and calm. Sure, there are a few blasts of static noise. For the most part though, the Cleveland native touches upon the calmer aspects of drone music. The ending is pure gold.

                Overall, Bee Mask moves extremely quickly for a drone artist. During the course of 30 minutes, he introduces all sorts of strange themes. Some of these would not be out of place on a James Ferraro recording, while others feel more homages of Terry Riley’s early work. Either way, he does it well. It moves by quickly while still giving you plenty to ponder.

Explorers – Bermuda Telepaths 5.8

                We’re given a look into Sam Mehran’s world of drone. Personally I’m a bit more familiar with his Outer Limits Recordings and Matrix Metals. Here we get to see how exactly he arranges an otherworldly drone. Despite occasional flashes of pure genius, it tends to have too many dramatic transitions without any real rhyme or reason. Usually with drone pieces there’s a greater tendency to smooth these out. But Explorer’s failure to do so is not its only problem.

                A lot of these ideas in general sound too familiar to a poor man’s James Ferraro. James Ferraro does some great otherworldly drone, in a similar vein. While James’ stuff works for the most part (obviously there are dullards there) here Sam’s stuff doesn’t seem as far out there as he would think.

                Side A has “We Thrive Off The Encantic Dance Of Orbs”. I’m not going to judge how good or bad the title is, but the song is disjointed. Great ideas are touched upon, but by him moving around too much, it feels aimless rather than transcendent. “That Beneath Of Realms Fermenting” part II of the sentence is much better. Here he focuses on having the drone evolve less suddenly and more organically. Using less abrupt transitions and generally better ideas helps it out.

                Overall, this could have been better. Moments exist which point to a potential for greater things, but it is a bit of a letdown.

Ducktails – Killin’ the Vibe 12 Inch

             As a member of Matt Mondanile’s generation (80s born and raised), I can’t help but to relate to what he does. Hypnagogic pop speaks to me, and Matt’s approach happens to be one of the more accessible ones in the field. Ducktails is a fun project, and his own evolution from living in his parents’ basement (he moved out this December to Greenpoint, Brooklyn) is an experience countless millions can relate to. 

                He’s now trying to earn money to release a 12 Inch version of his song “Killin’ the Vibe” to the suspecting masses. Besides just asking people for money on “Kickstarter” the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world, he offers goodies. People can opt to get a 30 minute cassette of unreleased songs (known as B-sides or sketches), the vinyl itself with a handwritten note and new songs, or with a Zine (so retro) of his photographs, and finally guaranteed shows of him playing in the Northeast. Apparently his fan base is rabid enough to take up all of this, even the last one with the $500 contribution. In fact, the only one not taken is having him perform in your living room for $1000, which is something I hope gets amended. 

                Now he’s even exceeded his goal of fundraising: he has exceeded his goal of $3500 by about $1940. I guess his chops are complete; he tends to avoid the prolific releases of his friends James Ferraro and Spencer Clark (of The Skaters fame). That’s a good thing; it has allowed me to keep track of his various projects, including his most famous one “Real Estate”. Seeing how he literally lived with those two Skaters in Berlin during a study abroad trip gives me hope for when I’ll be doing that. I always thought study abroad sessions were supposed to be stuffy; his experience proves my theory dead-wrong.

                I’m hoping he succeeds in getting this 12 out. He exists as sort of an in-between point between various different genres: rock, hypnagogic pop, cassette culture, lo-fi recordings, etc. Considering he’s only in his twenties, he’s been lucky enough to tour with some wonderful people (like Emeralds and Deerhunter) has an excellent grasp of aesthetics (Lauren Pakradooni will do the 12 artwork). Plus, and this is huge, he’s managed to show New Jersey as a place where interesting things are going on, where actual art is created. Instead of feeling like they need a crutch of New York City, they show exactly why New York needs more people like him to move here. 

                With that, I’d like to say if you feel like contributing to this guy, or want him to perform in your living room; you might want to go here:

Africa Germany Germany Mexico Turkey Australia – Africa Germany Germany Mexico Turkey Australia 7.3

Most likely, Matthew Mondanile’s (of Ducktails fame) is partly responsible for this. It appears on his discography page, so it is probably accurate. Unlike his Ducktails material, this oozes out hot hot heat. There’s a structure, but it is considerably looser, more akin to James Ferraro territory than anything Matt’s been involved with in the past. 

Little chirps start up the first track. Those chirps are existent throughout the album’s (EP’s) running time of about 26 minutes. Hearing the beat for the first time, you figure it will evolve into something mightier. It doesn’t and you’re no worse of for it. 

This is pretty zoned out stuff. Walking around the supermarket listening to this on my headphones, I got to feel a little drunk with it on. Disorientating, without indicating any beginning or endpoint, it just is. You’re better off for it. Olde English Spelling Bee did us another favor with this one.

Olde English Spelling Bee – My favorite label of the year

Each year there happens to be a great record label. A record label that confirms good music continues to be made. Whether they are trail blazers or not is almost irrelevant. They’ve found a niche that completely works for them and stay steadfast in that dedication, until they finally give up and open their doors for all (remember Warp’s signing of !!!, Grizzly Bear, etc.). 

Olde English Spelling Bee supplied me with the hits I needed this year. Having such a low output anyway makes this all the more remarkable. Most of their stuff tended to veer towards the chillwave/hypnagogic pop area, which is what I’m a sucker for anyway. But their quality control for such a burgeoning scene is admirable, as is their evolution from like the guy who practically invented the genre (James Ferraro/Skaters) to newer acts like Big Trouble, Rangers, and Outer Limits Recordings.

It is doubly nice to have a record label so close to me that I get to see all their Greatest Hits perform. Not only do I have the expected joy of shows, but they even get to curate various magazines mixes for thanksgiving. That’s right, I’m talking about the below:

http://www.viceland.com/music/2010/11/greatest-hits-lsd-karaoke-mix/

Vice Magazine hosted these guys, with all their wonderful taste in pop music trash. Ducktails have a great twitter and probably are the most famous band off the label. Sam Mehran started about a billion different projects, so it seems like the label is even more prolific. And the kicker, all of the people performing on this label looked like cloned versions of themselves. It reminds me of Dr. Venture’s lab, but instead of cloned Hanks and Deans, they have cloned hipsters and allow them to float in tubes filled with liquid irony and borrowed nostalgia. 

The music videos show this off, with weird blurry images of people hanging around, not doing much. Most the videos are fun, quirky, and so cheaply made that my cheapo camera has better resolution. Taking this approach towards the visuals only compliments the tact taken by the artists themselves, of hiding honest-to-goodness pop under layers of fuzz and static. 

Please keep up the winning streak OESB. I believe in you. Your label has convinced me to have a “best of” EP edition for this year. Each release gets sweeter and sweeter. More of your artists need to put out albums. If I need to almost beg you to do this, that’s a positive thing.

Labels like Thrill Jockey, Warp, Tigerbeat6, get your head in the game. These guys clearly do, and rather than having a slick website, they have a myspace and a blogspot. And that blogspot looks like it got set up in 3 seconds by some dude before he went to bed. 

Thank you my favorite label of the year for making me so very, very happy.

Lamborghini Crystal – Alien Microwave 8.3

Here’s probably a perfect place to start for all the Skaters/Clark Spencer/James Ferraro type things. This particular album is rather easy to understand and doesn’t involve the epic track lengths and ambient/new age atmospherics that he usually employs. Only “Goro Kralth” does this on the entire album, and it does it quite well, so it doesn’t drag down the album.

It is called “Hypnagogic Pop” for a reason. Pop can be found with relative ease on here, complete with actual beats and almost melodies. James usually doesn’t work with stuff that’s so immediately catchy, like “Midway Video” or “Alien in Hollywood”, the latter of which possesses some extraterrestrial chorus.

Vocals are even found on here, making it even more lovable work than usual. The “Alien Microwave” pieces seem to be noise interludes between the more conventional material, the word conventional being used very loosely.

James is famous for stating that he doesn’t use samples in his compositions. Everything on here is played by him, making the casual listener worried about James’ mental well being. But don’t fret. He works best in this sort of medium, and this is definitely one of his better recordings. And I know I tend to be a bit of a cheerleader for this guy, but it is rare for someone with a discography of his size to be involved in so many high-quality projects.