7 Results for : fuzzed
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Songs of Mountains and Wetlands
Before the advent of mass communication technology - you know, stuff like television, radio, internet, wireless, youtube, bluetooth, metro, etcetcetc, music played a much more important role in the life of your average yeoman. Not to bring up statistics, or risk any sort of regression to Music History 101 or anything, but there was indeed a time when sheet music was a hot commodity and musical literacy was more than just an after-school special aimed at increasing your adolescent statistics at being accepted into a 'good' college as some sort of stab at a page torn from the Horatio Alger copybook. In short, music was not just a hot topic, it was THE hot topic - it was what you did. I mean, imagine coming home and gathering around the piano to play the latest programmatic score hot off your Schubert subscription and then packing up to head out for choir rehearsal for the local cantata - neat! And then... well, folks like Edison and Tesla had to come around and provide the grease for the slippery slope that lead us to our current manifestation of musical culture, dominated by iPhones and ring tones, where music is a commodity at best, shuffled around as bits and bytes like sampler spoons in a sea of infinite pseudo-memes - where spectacle and explosions aren't just a garnish, they're a norm, partially produced by Bruckheimer's and Bay's, with remixes by Diddy and that guy from the Postal Service. I could go on, but hey, we're all here now so one can only hope that you get my drift. However, what if we were able to take a step back for a second and reset the clock to about 1897 or so - with the proviso that we can take our technology with us? What if programmatic song cycles were still a cultural fixation reserved for the population at large, and not just regulated to individuals concerned with the 'preservation' of culture in music libraries nested in suburban New Jersey, hoping their next cultural discovery will secure them a speaking slot at the next musicology conference, taking place just outside some other suburban music library? And what if these programmatic art-songs were presented with the same respectable grandeur as a contemporary cinematic blockbuster, equip with all the explosions, glass shattering and gruff-voiced pituitary-cases rasping 'freedom isn't free,' while suspended by one hand from an Apache helicopter above a pit of molten lava... ...or something to that extent. If you're still with me after that particular rant, then Songs of Mountains and Wetlands might right up your alley. Imagine songs inspired by nature and transitory environs, composed on custom software and analog electronics tuned to seven-limit just intonation - hyper-compressed and oversaturated to the point where all aspects of delicacy have been smoothed away into a wash of fuzzed-out static - where the smallest sound is grandiose in a post-Bruckheimerian, digital neo-Wagnerian spectacle. Where even the mundane deserves it's own twenty-minute explosion-sequence... Still hooked? Place an order for this disc! Limited to the Thinktank standard of 25 hand-assembled CD's, and priced commensurate to the current economic slump, what do you have to lose? So uh, yeah, let's be in touch!- Shop: odax
- Price: 16.77 EUR excl. shipping
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Chatelaine Saloon
Listen up, cowboy: Former leader of the band Taconite Haven. One solo CD, Chatelaine Saloon from 2004...there is a new recording rumblin' 'neath the floorboards at Underwood Studios. It'll creep out of the darkness in mid-2007. There may be some shows, but till then, it's just a late night rumor. The falcon has recorded and produced albums for Big Ditch Road, Martin Devaney, Bob McCreedy, Tom Feldmann, Hojas Rojas, Inwood Radio, House of Mercy Band and many more. The folowing is a review of the most recent record: Mark Thomas Stockert Chatelaine Saloon Eclectone Records (2004) I always tell people that if they're reading an album review and the writer goes on and on about the packaging, that's a pretty good sign that either he/she hasn't really given the release a proper listen or that they did and it was so bad, offensive, or just plain boring that the CD jacket was the only thing about it worth mentioning. In the case of Mark Stockert's latest, Chatelaine Saloon, neither of those options hold true. Yeah, the CD IS in one of the sweetest packages I've ever come across, either on an indie or a major release, a triple-gatefold with groovy, velvety material covering the outer skin, but for once a label (in this case, Martin Devaney's relatively new outfit, Eclectone) has actually put as much effort and TLC into an album's look as the artist did it's feel. And believe me, this record is chock fulla FEEL. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Stockert surrounded himself with a whole passel of expert musicians, vocalists, and fellow songcrafters for Chatelaine Saloon, an album that holds the rare distinction of containing music that's so timeless, so universal, so wholly AMERICAN, that, despite the fact that much of it is played on or through electric instruments, it could easily be stripped down to it's bare, acoustic essentials and make just as much of an emotional and psychic impact were it to be performed live at an 1874 frontier saloon, a Depression-era porch pickin' party, a backwater 1950's revivalist tent, or a hip modern folk club. Kicking off with the dreamy, rolling licks of 'Cowboy Song,' (Not a cover of the Thin Lizzy rocker, but astute pop music fans will notice that several of Stockert's song titles recall classic hits of the past, including 'He Don't Love You,' 'Oh Daddy,' 'Wild Thing,' and 'Hush,' but you can rest assured that the tunes on this album are all originals) a melancholy hopin' song with jagged guitar riffs and simple but drop-dead-gorgeous lines like, 'I wonder if I'll ever be married to a girl with bright, shiny eyes/And I wonder if I'll ever be married to sunshine and blue skies...' Stockert immediately establishes himself as both a musician and a wordsmith who's working the same dark, mysterious artistic soil as ex-Son Volt frontman Jay Farrar, Will Oldham, and Jayhawks co-founder Mark Olson. 'He Don't Love You' (yes, I keep wanting to add, '...like I love you, if he did, he wouldn't break your heart...' too, but that's NOT this song, dammit!) has a loping, cow-poke groove and features happy-blue honky-tonk piano and lines that reference that instrument as well: 'White Cadillac, long saloon/Drives you back from my mind too soon/But like a nine-fingered whorehouse honky-tonk piano player without a knack...he don't love you the way I do/But I won't love you if you don't want me to...' Stockert sometimes sings in a deep, lonely voice, sometimes in a tragic, near-whisper-though his utterances are always clear and concise-and on first listen, these songs seem almost too understated to grab you by either the heart or the balls. But take my word for it, after your second listen, you'll be hooked. 'Oh Daddy' oozes out on grainy slide guitar, weird bell sounds, and a dire banjo/guitar line, a hypnotic road trip song for some slightly off-kilter traveling salesman with scotch on his breath, a statue of Jesus, and (to paraphrase Jon Dee Graham) a small dark spot in his trunk that just won't go away. 'Light Me Up' unfolds over a minor electronic maelstrom and a half-drunk/half-holy chorus of partners-in-crime, then jumps the rails to morph into a catchy, keyboard-driven cow-pop nugget that'd sound equally at home between 'Dark End Of The Street' and Mark Eitzel's 'Fresh Screwdriver' on a mix CD. Superb songwriting, an easy-going, kinetic relationship between the players, and honest, no-bullshit production make this album a sure bet for a lot of local year-end Best Of 2004 lists-and recent positive reviews in such esteemed publications as No Depression hint that this whole project might be a lot bigger than either Stockert or Devaney could've hoped for. 'Chicky Boom,' my personal fave from this collection (and that's a tough call, because I really do like every song on here), kinda drips outta your speakers at first, like the last couple of reluctant drops from a morning-after bottle of whiskey, Stockert talk-singing the first lines in that weary, devil-may-care-but-I'm-not-sure-I-do-anymore tone of his. And just when you think you're gonna sink back down into the depths (not that you mind sinking, by this point) the tentative pickin', weeping steel guitar, and choppy drum beats coalesce into another beautiful, bibulous half-waltz and Stockert's voice picks up like Deputy Festus on the old Gunsmoke T.V. show after Miss Kitty'd pour him a closing time shot on the house: 'Chicky-chicky boom, yeah!' 'Devil' finds Stockert and his 'House Of Strange Sounds' players (a take-off on the handle of his pals, The House Of Mercy Band, the line-up includes Dave Downey, Jim Hauf, Dave Schultz, Jimmy Peterson, Peter J. Sands, Brian Fessler, Brian O'Neil, Eric Luoma, Steve Murray, Adam Wortman, Darin Wald, Alicia Corbett, and Kevin Pinck) trotting out a Creek Dippers-esque ramble about personal demons and searching for a place (inside?) where 'the devil's got no hold on you...' 'Wild Thing' features more stump-preacher banjo, strange, disembodied voices, and that rollicking honky-tonk piano. And it's got about as much in common musically with The Troggs' nugget by the same name as Ton Loc's wacky hit did. But then again, this record's not about '60s psychedelia, fuzzed out garage guitars, faux rap, lifted samples, fashion, or funky cold Medina. It's about capturing a FEEL, like I said before. And that's exactly what it does. Lots of feelings, to be accurate. Like Jessco, The Dancing Hillbilly and The Dashboard Saviors once said, it's about love, sorrow, hatred, madness ... and anything else that might be boiling just beneath that shiny surface you allow the rest of the world to see. You might not find any answers here (Stockert's clearly still searching himself), but if you're not touched by the raw humanity and the genuine passion running through Chatelaine Saloon, you probably never knew the questions in the first place. The final track, 'Hush,' moans it's way deep down into your ears with sad slide guitar, wispy acoustic pickin', and Stockert's cracked, broken voice summoning up the ghosts of Hank Williams, Nick Drake, and The Scud Mountain Boys simultaneously, literally putting the proverbial cherry on top of this batch of well-crafted, heartfelt, spiritual tracks. And although the album (or it's author and players) never can seem to make up it's/their mind(s) about whether this is a beer-soaked, bleary-eyed Saturday night drinkin' record or a 'damn-I-can't-believe-I-did-that-shit' Sunday morning confessional, by the time you've reached the end your soul makes that decision for you. The cool thing? It's different every time. Try it yourself- and whether you end up with the perfect soundtrack for creating future regrets or one to live them out with, there's no doubt you'll dig the music along the way. Available in all your finer local mom-n-pop record shops. Chicky Chicky Boom!!- Shop: odax
- Price: 25.46 EUR excl. shipping
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Recorded by Gary Burger from the Monks
They specialize in primal punk rock, played at a breakneck pace with frenzied, fuzzed-out lead guitar riffs interspersed throughout.- Shop: odax
- Price: 17.29 EUR excl. shipping
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Simply Blaxploitation
HEAR THE SOUNDTRACK TO PIMPS,PUSHERS AND KILLERS IN THE GRIMY WORLD OF BLAXPLOITATION.LOW BASS AND FUZZED GUITARS HAVE NEVERBEEN SOUNDED COOLER THAN EARLY 70S NYC.LET CURTIS MAYFIELD BE YOUR PUSHERMAND AND LET BOBBY WOMACK LEAD YOU ACROSS 110THSTREET.DUDE,INHALE THIS COLLECTION OF FLY,FUNKY CUTS.- Shop: odax
- Price: 14.26 EUR excl. shipping
