Avey Tare - Down There (2010) [Paw Tracks] // Grade: B+

Avey Tare isn’t quite sure how far from Animal Collective’s highly recognizable sound he should push on his debut album, Down There. Stripped of the AnCo sheen, Down There is a raw exploration of a familiar style. Through rough-hued production and impassioned vocal expositions, Tare pours out his distressed, broken soul, and in return, we offer empathy for his pain.

Much as Bradford Cox’s solo material is marked by pared down intimacy, Tare shrugs off production values, and presents the foundation of AnCo’s sound. Somber pulse-and-swirl atmospherics and a structure built on warbled repetition are Down There‘s backbone. “Heads Hammock” and “Lucky 1″ are both comfortably close to full AnCo compositions. They stand out as two of Down There‘s stronger selections, but that status is largely credited to their familiarity. Comparatively, “3 Umbrellas” is a much more interesting exploration. A basic keyboard rhythm pairs with Tare’s clear line of vocal melody and an assemblage of faded sound samplings. While still sounding familiar as AnCo, its simplicity offers closeness.

The moments in which Tare really pushes away from AnCo territory are Down There‘s most creative. Raw, aching words backed by uncomplicated keyboard is a formula that’s worked well as a trademark for Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, and employed on “Laughing Hieroglyphic”, Tare’s inner demons are brought to the surface, commanding notice. “Cemeteries” and “Glass Bottom Boat” introduce self-reflective soundscapes to the mix. They meander quietly, expanding where you’d expect repetition, familiar through their use of organic sounds, but new in structure and beautiful in affect.

Some artists take on solo efforts as a space to structurally work outside the bounds of their main projects. Others need the creative space to emotionally roam. Down There gives Avey Tare an obviously needed space to look into himself and pull out that which has haunted him. While the album hugs its pared down AnCo sound tightly (for the most part) its takeaway is a “very personally yours, Avey Tare” sign-off.

John Dadzie, aka 12th Planet, has quickly become one of the leading figures in the American dubstep movement. Based in Los Angeles, this part DJ/part producer rapidly gained the ranks of the elite in this still underground scene. Endorsed by L.A. party starters, SMOG, Dadzie has found continual support throughout the scene since his induction in 2007 (an opening gig for the now legendary UK dubsteppers, Benga and Hatcha). Now crowned as the official King of Los Angeles Dubstep, Dadzie has been spreading his seed across the nation with non-stop touring, including headlining major U.S. cities and several festival appearances.

12th Planet’s collab with Flinch for a remix of “Youth Blood” marked a true increase in his popularity and exposure – the track dominated radio show playlists, setlists and mixes worldwide. Most recently, the artist is making waves with the release of his track “Reasons” featuring MC Juakali, a Los Angeles resident, Brooklyn transplant and native of Trinidad and Tobago. Chalk up a remix of the track by the filthy physician himself, Doctor P, with a video reminiscent of the opening scenes of “Independence Day” and POW! – even more of a reason for you to catch Dadzie’s vibe. To boot, Juakali strangely resembles Chappelle’s “Tyrone Biggums.” Check out the video above and be sure to stay tuned for additional hype for 12th planet… We’ve got something big brewing up in the Мишка combine!

Superpicther - Kilimanjaro (2010) [Kompakt] // Grade: A-

Superpitcher is the guise of Aksel Schaufler, a German with an impeccable taste in techno, and who’s brand new album Kilimanjaro is unique and innovative in it’s approach to tech-house and indie-rock genres.

Released on Kompakt, Kilimanjaro is Schaufler’s second studio album, following up on 2004’s Here Comes Love record, and the new sound shows even greater depth than the debut.  From the church bells of the opening “Prelude,” to the aquatic ambience of “Moon Fever,” Schaufler leaves a great deal of room for mellow reflection, which enhances the power of uptempo jams “Country Boy” and ‘Black Magic’. Standout on the record is penultimate track “Joanna,” which consists of catchy synth licks layered over a piano’s backing. When adding electronic elements to a track, the tendency by many is to use electronically processed percussion. Yet, the joy of Superpitcher’s music is that he uses a great deal of acoustic percussive sounds; a lovely reminder that a human composed these songs.

Kompakt is a label based out of Cologne, Germany, and a name that all electronic music enthusiasts should  remember; it’s an independent imprint that is kicking up a lot of heat at the moment for it’s innovative directions within the various micro-house genres. The label, run by Michael Mayer, Wolfgang Voigt and Juergen Paape, is dedicated to pushing the musical envelope so to speak. Kilimanjaro is certainly a product of these progressions, and therefore an album worthy of it’s name – Schaufler has created a mountain of a record that conveys a 71 minute journey that you’ll want to revisit on a regular basis.

This Thursday our brother from another mother, Drop The Lime releases his long-awaited single, “Hot As Hell.” I gotta say the release is pretty mad, and features an insane remix from France’s Canblaster. The Trouble & Bass x Мишка fam will be celebrating and getting shwasted at Public Assembly in Brooklyn. Drop The Lime, AC Slater, Star Eyes, and The Captain will be on the decks reppin’ some next level beats.

The T&B DJs are some of my favorite out there. They always push a wide variety of new sounds, ranging from grime 2 R&B 2 house. The Captain recently did a Smashcast with the one and only 77Klash that definitely show cases the T&B vybz well. So all you New Yorkers and tourists from Eastern Europe who are visiting New York, don’t miss out! RSVP at HiFi Cartel for free entry before midnight! BONUS!

In the meantime head over to DTL’s site for some pics from the upcoming “Hot As Hell” video

Thursday October 28th,10pm-4am
Public Assembly
70 North 6th St.
Brooklyn, NY
18+ to enter
Free w/ RSVP before Midnight | $7 after

Bad pun. I know. I don’t really apologize, however, because that is what you expect from me, O reader. Bad puns. And that is what you will get. Unapologetically so. As mentioned above.

I can be quoted here, within these oh-so-virtual pages, as saying that I’m not one who really ‘gets’ Bansky, ahem, “…one of the greatest graffiti artists of all time.” And you know, I still stand by that, but I think it has more to do with my propensity for thinking too much—coupled with my omnipresently sneaking suspicion that there is more that others are ‘getting’ that I am not ‘getting’—and less to do with the quality/message of his works.

That said, I think I ‘get’ him—his output, at least—a little more, now that I’ve seen this relatively radical repository of no less than 106 Bansky pieces over at BuzzFeed. I know I know…the world can relax now that Hateball appreciates some dude that everybody else already appreciates. But still.

This went up to commemorate the now-controversial Bansky-curated Simpsons intro, but I’m pretty sure that the examples shown here are from far and wide, old and new.

Incidentally, does anyone here know of any other ‘street artists’ who’s work is as regularly and aggressively ‘consecrated’ as Bansky’s? Is this a new thing, or did the suburbs kill the part of my brain that’s supposed to have been noticing shit like that?

Did you miss this week’s episode of Dexter? Good for you. ‘Cause I watched the entire thing, and I’m happy to report that absolutely nothing of worth occurred. Oh man! Sippin’ the Hatorade. That’s me, right here. Naw, not even. The fifth episode of season five was unremarkable. That’s the long and the short of it.

And for anyone in the “give it time” bullshit mode, we’re a third of the way through. At this point in previous seasons, we were humming sexily along. Secure in our trajectory. Right now? Waiting for shit to take off.

Wake me up.

Tonight’s episode can be distilled down into three painfully telescoped plot-points, and two interesting moments.

Telescoped Plot Point #1 – Wait, one of our ATM people actually are murdered?

I bet you totally thought that Deb wasn’t going to strike pay dirt when going house to house searching for people who withdrew money from an ATM in a hurry. I was like, oh man, they’re not making any headway! And then, slam! Two corpses. Who would have thought! Gosh!

The whole cult thread is doing absolutely nothing for me. I’m not actually sure what was built upon in this episode as far as it goes. We got to see Masuka and a tattoo parlor – pointless! It’s all pointless because it turns out to be a sticker to a club. A revelation, which if we didn’t’ figure out for ourselves, we would have from this episode’s use of dialogue as sledge hammer exposition. Deb yells across the street, “It’s a not a fucking fucking fucking fuck tattoo, it’s a fucking club!

Previously in the episode: Dexter comments to himself “An ankle bracelet! That can only mean one thing! This isn’t the guy!”

And finishing off the episode: A taxi drive barks, “Welcome to Miami!” despite the screen panning up four seconds later to Miami International.

Good lord. It’s like reading an issue of Uncanny X-Men from back in the day, penned by Scott Lobdell.

Interesting Moment #1 – Dexter Is Fucking Crazy
Almost too short to mention, when Dexter realizes he’s about to kill the wrong guy, he flips the fuck out, and yanks down his kill room. It’s a fleeting moment, but it’s nice to see Morgan in his natural habitat: barely contained insanity. This is the sort of Dexter I want to see. Not monotone monologues about Harrison’s fate as his hellspawn.

Telescoped Plot Point #2 – Wait, LaGuerta Isn’t An Unfaithful Whore?
Man, they’re really doing a number on Angel this season. They’ve just dragged his character down into the depth of superficial exploitation for the sake of a convenient plot. Angel’s gone from playing some guy who bangs hookers, to a bar brawler, now to a jealous significant other? It’s absurd.

If you didn’t know that LaGuerta was being faithful to Angel, you need to eat more narrative. Get some more plot in your diet. It was fucking obvious. If you didn’t know that she was obviously doing something to help her man out, after he slapped down some dickhead in a bar, I am impressed at your lack of foresight.

The whole scenario could have been avoided if these two chucklefucks just communicated! Oh gosh. Silly married couples. When LaGuerta says that she’s coming home late, Angel doesn’t say anything. He just stares as she walks away, and then literally skulks about in the fucking bushes. Tremendous. Skulking. In bushes.

Hey Angel, next time, just ask where the fuck your wife is going! Don’t internalize that shit! My therapist tells me that shit will eat you alive! And yo, LaGuerta! You can’t be returning home late at night with weak ass excuses and not expect your man to become jealous.

However, half-credit goes to the Dexter writers for the inversion of gender roles with Angel and LaGuerta. The power dynamic between the powerful female and the prideful, less successful male is interesting, no doubt. It’s a shame that they’ve bungled an attempt at examining it. You know, just write Angel as a jealous wife-type who is screaming about lipstick on LaGuerta’s collar or some shit. Brilliant.

Interesting Moment #2 – Lumen’s Airport Search
When Lumen gets stopped at the airport, she gets the ole hands search. Invariably, this triggers something in alignment with her shock and trauma. The whole scene was super uncomfortable to me, and if they were trying to convey her horror, they succeeded. Good god damn.

There’s been parts, particularly past season, where the show played with perspective and used other visual techniques to more obviously mirror a character’s internal emotions. I’m a sucker for the film class kid, so I dig it. As the warped screen pinched and distorted with a pack of leering dudes eyeing her down, I wanted the scene to end. Which I am assuming was their attention.

Brief aside: Dexter should really just extend his code to serial rapists. I know, I know, it’s a slippery slope. If Dexter makes this exception, then everything can have the potential to be an exception. I acknowledge that. Whatever. Still. He’s all over Lumen’s ass for wanting to kill a rapist, saying it’s not allowed, blah, blah, because he’s not the one who was involved with raping you, and killing the other chicks.

Well then.

If I was Dexter, I’d find it in my heart to accommodate continual rapists who hang out underneath Pervert Bridge into my bloodletting.

Telescoped Plot Point #3 – Wait, Lumen doesn’t actually go home?
Get the fuck out of town! I was totally shocked at the last scene of the episode where its revealed that – gasp – Lumen didn’t take Dexter’s advice and return to her family in Minnesota. If it wasn’t painfully obvious when they had Dexter inexplicably leave her before watching her boarding, it was obvious when they cut to her getting searched by security.

What the fuck is wrong with Dexter? They guy is playing the serial killing game like a god damn jabroni this season. Breaking into people’s houses during the day? Or how about that really, really awkward conversation with Boyd’s pedophile friend I this episode? He just strikes up the chit chat with anyone he’s stalking these days. In really bad accents.

But the dumbest move of the season took place in the airport. Not only does Dexter reveal his entire name to Lumen, but then he fails to make sure she boards the plane. What the fuck is going on. Is there a better way to execute your storylines, writers, other than penning the characters as fucking invalids?

That’s about it, for the episode. The chick doesn’t go home, which was obvious. Quinn is still a douchebag, forming alliances with shady people with annoying voices. LaGuerta isn’t a cheat. And this season continues on being listless. Not awful, not remarkable. Listless. Formless. As forgettable as one of Dexter’s endless monologues.

I don’t know about you but I love when the mainstream press tries to tackle the subject of “Hipster.” New York Magazine is the latest by recently posting their article What Was the Hipster? which examines the death of well, duh, the hipster.

Our own Mark Dowling pondered as much recently in his “Commodity of Cool” post a few weeks back. Are hipsters dead? All i know is that I was labeled Alternative in high school, Indie rocker in college and a hipster in my 20s and it was all the same shit. the word hipster may die, but not everything you hate (or love) about it all. Can we all just agree to get “bohemian” back in fashion next? That way we can have Electrohemians, Brohemians and Retrohemians!

Read New York Magazine’s “What Was the Hipster?” by Mark Grief

Warpaint - The Fool (2010) [Rough Trade] // Grade: B+

The Fool is a dangerous lover. It has you at hello. You’re head over heels within two minutes; by 10, you’ve pledged it eternity. Whether you’ll love it just as much when morning tumbles in all dust particles and reality, well, that’s yours to untangle. But in this moment, these 50+ minutes of cold-thunderstorm melody, vocals in haunting rounds, whispers down your back and promises, promises—in this moment, you’re absolutely ensnared.

In other words: the Warpaint girls’ debut full-length is breathtaking…until you start analyzing it. It’s especially breathtaking if you pine for PJ Harvey and shoegaze-era Lush, the shuffle-stop drums of Blonde Redhead, all things Rough Trade and 4AD, but stop right there. Let it go. The Fool’s a lot like the XX in this way, sonic similarities aside: focus too hard on influence and construction—on how its being a little same-sounding is technically a critical fault—and you’ll never really hear the album. Try too hard to pinpoint the mechanics of love, or even lust, and you’ll never really experience those, either.

And The Fool feels like lust versus love, the terrible desperation of it, the constant bewitching. Every measure is a new fascination: the reverbed 60s round of “Warpaint”, an underwater Josef K jaunt in “Undertow”, this perpetual vocal unison and every ghostly sound, melody, chorus, lyric, everything, phasing in and out of consciousness. All this cloaked spookiness belies the sun of Warpaint’s Los Angeles roots, or merely captures its smog, but you want to cozy up to it anyway, shatter the interminable arm’s length. The dangerous lover dictating how close you get and when. So let yourself be dictated to. Go full under the spell. If The Fool is any indication, Warpaint will be casting them for quite some time.

The longtime Bloglin reader will theoretically recall a few posts I made months-and-months-back entitled ‘TV for Dummies‘, the coolest one in which I displayed a photo of a ridiculous (yet accurate) description of that most storied star-saga that I took off my cable menu. Jesus that sentence is weird.

Anyway, in true TV for Dummies style, Gawker.TV put together a hilarious joyride in which we—the remote viewers—are taken through a back-to-back comparison of some of the most beloved lines from some of our most beloved movies and their edited-for-TV counterparts.

Sadly, Gawker has no way for me to embed that video here, but, I assure you that it is worth a link-click…your eyes will be wide focused open. Eating pineapple.

While the Sounds From the Other Side column on the Bloglin moves around covering a bunch of bands with differing musical styles from the darker side of the music world I do find it returning to the genre which in that respect I find most interesting at the moment, Witch House. And this weeks post is no exception to that rule, in fact it’s about an outright unabashed Witch House love-in for a band that embraces everything about the genre wholeheartedly.

V‡S kULt are from the Witchian breeding ground that is Berlin, and make the kind of epic vaguely dancey and very filmic witch house that sits in the centre of a mystic triangle between Mater Suspiria Vision, †‡† and §. Filled with spaced out ambiance, echoing delay over zombie-fied rave beats, glacial drones and the ever present feeling that this is a soundtrack looking for the most trippy, satanically esoteric film you would ever see, V‡S kULt fit right in with their contemporaries like the missing piece in a Twin Peaks themed jigsaw.

What is also so great about V‡S kULt (notice their full on Witch House name complete with symbols and odd spelling!) is their visual side, with a series of brilliant “cut up and mess with” videos by their equivalent of Mater Suspiria Visions video impresario Cosmotropia de Xam. V‡S kULts video maker is named False ╪ Prophet and again akin to many Witch House bands all identities are vague and mysterious, is False ╪ Prophet the same person as V‡S kULt? And how many people make up the band? All is obscured in a fog of intentional misdirection and obscurity.

What isn’t obscured though is how good this all sounds and looks, this band are close to being one of my favorites, in terms of their visual aesthetic, alongside their videos are some brilliantly atmospheric imagery, all digital glitch cultism with a love of shrouds and hoods, triangles and pentangles, some sweet font choices and garish yet gothic colours.

V‡S kULt have no releases as of yet and no free downloads up online which definitely places them more as video art in my book, with their imagery taking an equal precedence as their sound. He/she/they are more than simply being an electronic band swimming in the dark waters of the Witch House pool they are creating art for the sake of creation, which is absolutely fine by me and is again something that ties them in with some of the best the genre has to offer. They’re all in it for the right reasons!