Animal.Calls

Spirits are soaring ‘round here,
as every day more flowers are popping up all around,
fun shows are being organized
(check the cross building water balloon fight on May 3rd),
and a new mental garden is taking shape.
It is a magical time.

Greet the sound.

NYC / Brooklyn Events are now found HERE in full.
Got a show? Email me.
Here’s what’s happening over the next weekish:

+++++ MUSIC +++++

	Barn Owl - Smoke Loom Ceremony cs [Blackest Rainbow, 2008]
	San Fran duo who had some sold out releases on Not Not Fun and Foxglove. Slow building multi instrumental layered dream drones… totally fantastic …deep+heavy riffs, banjo jives, vibrating guitar slabs, vocal blurs, and pummeled tribal drum vibes. Recorded live at The Neon Commune at Echo Curio, Echo Park, CA. Hits in at about 20 minutes. Totally killer!!!
	Bollywood Steel Guitar [Sublime Frequencies, 2008]
	Bollywood Steel Guitar is the most comprehensive collection to date of Steel Guitar pop instrumental music from India. All 21 tracks featured here were Film hits from 1962-1986 and all the masters of the steel guitar sound from the period are represented. This CD was compiled and carefully selected from rare LPs over several years by Stuart Ellis.
	Brian Jonestown Massacre - My Bloody Underground [A Records, 2008]
	Anton Newcombe got his shit together enough to make another album, the first from Brian Jonestown Massacre in almost half a decade. My Bloody Underground was recorded in Reykjavik and Liverpool with guests including traditional Icelandic musicians and Mark Gardener of Ride fame. Provocative songs on the album include opener “Bring Me the Head of Paul McCartney on Heather Mill’s Wooden Leg (Dropping Bombs on the White House)” and “Just Like Kicking Jesus”.
	Casiotone For The Painfully Alone + Concern - Split 8” [PIAPTK, 2008]
	Owen and his brother Gordon collaborate on Bruce Springsteen covers. Simply incredible. The psyched out electronics and phased robot vocals change ‘Born in the USA’ in such a good way….and the Streets of Philadelphia seems even sadder if possible, the minimal electronics and the vocals are perfectly Casiotone.
	Fursaxa - Kobold Moon [Sylph, 2008]
	Listening to Kobold Moon is like traveling to a far off place where witches, folkloric gods and bizarre beasts, both fascinating and repulsive, still roam the planet. Either that or this is the result of one hell of a shamanic drug experience; but I prefer thinking of this album in terms of the fantastic. Alternating between absolute beauty and awkward, eerie moments, Kobold Moon is like experiencing a fable, an ancient children’s tale. Not reading it, living it! The unfamiliar, the comic, the tender, the terrifying and the weird! Each song acts as a new chapter: from Kokopelli, the very beginning of our journey, to Cornus Of Florida, when we slowly head home; the tone of the record is sustained and I never lose focus on the music.
	GHQ - Everywhere At Once [Three Lobed, 2008]
	GHQ are dangling from the precipice, but when they stare deep into the blackened abyss beneath them they don’t find it staring back. Everywhere At Once finds Gunn and his liege doing what they do best—building upon understated drone and guitar noodlings. However dependable that may be, it’s time to bust out of that comfortable shell and GHQ have dared to do as much in quite awhile. Late in 2007 the core GHQ duo of Marcia Bassett and Steve Gunn set off to Jason Meagher’s black dirt studios to settle in for some multi-tracked studio action. Joined by John Truscinski of x.o.4 on drums, the trio laid down a series of layered drones unlike anything else in their catalog. After the disc-opening “Rembrance” sets the proper mood, the group kicks into “Four Trees” and establishes a new standard by which their stretched-out drones will be measured. In a collection of chilling recordings, the hazy and aching “Drop City Blues” shines bright with Gunn stepping forward to provide a set of extremely focused vocals. Everywhere at Once is a new and exciting milemarker along the band’s continued ascent.
	High Places - EP [Ancient Almanac, 2007]
	A gust of fresh spring air on a sunny day. An Alka-Seltzer for your earholes. A dancing cactus (with sunglasses). The music of High Places is all of these things. Four songs are here and gone in a dazzling nine minutes. A guy (Robert) and a gal (Mary) based in Brooklyn conjure these songs from neo-tribal percussion elements, processed picked electric guitar, gulping electronics, and sweet but not too sweet female vocals about dinosaurs, a duck in a desert, silent clouds, and so on. Precious but intricate, deep enough to listen closely to but light enough to tap / shuffle your feets to, long enough to get a good feel for things but short enough to leave you wishing it was just a little longer. It will be a surefire lift to your day, nay, your very lifeAlso Available: High Places - Demo [Self Released, 2006]
	Islands - Arm’s Way [Anti, 2008]
	Diamonds are forever, although maybe not as stage names go. But if you haven’t hear/seen Islands since Nick went back to given name Thorburn - the nominal shift is having no effect on the Islands itself. Or it just could be that everything that you loved from the ex-Unicorner’s Return To The Sea is expanded and supplanted by the bolder, occasionally darker, definitely crunchier follow-up Arm’s Way. “The Arm” shows the lighter side of things; “Creeper” makes good on the darker (stabbings and knives! hiding in dark rooms!) side of things, the guitar chug and crunch, the colder beats. This is music for midnight, not those Islands tropical sunsets, and that makes it a very good time.
	Ladytron - Velocifero [Nettwerk, 2008]
	Velocifero fully transcends the confines of electro-pop with a fresh wave of distorted soul. Mira and Helen - whose disparate vocal styles already provide considerable depth -have evolved both as musicians and songwriters, lending provocative harmonies to songs like “Runaway” and “I’m Not Scared.” While, rhythmically, there are moments reminiscent of their old favorites Os Mutantes and the Birthday Party. Velocifero cycles through a wide swath of emotion, from sentient and blissful (”Tomorrow”) to forthright and impassioned (”Deep Blue”). “Predict The Day,” which starts off with a faint, whistled melody and crescendos into a bounce-rock onslaught of programmed hi-hats, background vocals, and jagged guitar, typifies the album’s graceful charge against the status quo. Produced by Ladytron with assistance from Vicarious Bliss (Ed Banger Records).
	Mark Kozelek - Nights of Passed Over [Caldo Verde, 2008]
	LP available only with the limited edition of the book “Nights of Passed Over”. The disc includes live and rare versions of Mark Kozelek songs dating from 1996 through 2007, including a previously unreleased version of “Cruiser” produced by Peter Svensson, a KCRW radio performance of River, the 10″ version of “Duk Koo Kim” and a guitar jam version of Carry Me Ohio unearthed from the “Ghosts of the Great Highway” sessions.
	Nadja - Desire in Uneasiness [Crucial Blast, 2008]
	Following a wave of recent reissues and re-recorded versions of older CD-R titles, Desire In Uneasiness is an album of all new material from the acclaimed Canadian dreamsludge weavers Nadja. Five colossal jams of eternally-fuzzy, ethereal dirge that is powered by the interlocking bass guitars of Leah Buckareff and Aidan Baker, setting loose a wave of monstrous grinding bass riffs amidts a fog of beautiful, swirling electronic effects. Desire also marks the first Nadja album to feature a live drummer in place of the drum machine programming that has driven the band’s previous recordings. The organic drumming here takes Nadja’s music into new realms of spacious jazzy exploration, dubby rhythms and cavernous psychedelia, while also delivering some of the band’s most grooving, crushing hypno-bliss yet.
	Nigeria Disco Funk Special [Soundway, 2008]
	Soundway never fails, but this release is a peach even for them. The first cut is some very good JB’s style funk. The set drifts into some stunning proto-electro funk (”Lagos City” by the Asiko Rock Group sounds like the long lost b-side to the stomping “Holy Ghost” by the Bar-Kays) before gradually revealing its African origins when the vocals kick in on later tracks. Essential.
	No Age - Nouns [Sub Pop, 2008]
	Succinctly all-encompassing, from the faux-simplicity of the title to the beautiful distortion of its sound, to the packaging that includes a 68-page full-color book packed with photos and art pieces. The record opens with a symphony of noise (both Dean and Randy use samples alongside their main instruments) and sometimes creeps, sometimes smashes through a sonic headlock befitting Daydream Nation-era Sonic Youth, Kiwi pop, My Bloody Valentine, and experimental noise.
	The Owls! - Our Hopes And Dreams [Magic Marker, 2004]
	This is not the Cap’n Jazz off shoot band Owls this is The Owls! Hailing from Minneapolis and quietly blowing your mind. Great pop with the sounds of mellower Velvet Underground, the female voices of Stereolab and a few of the Beatles thrown in.
	Pocahaunted - Neon Commune 3″ [Not Not Fun, 2008]
	Dying campfire guitar duel from NNF HQ’s loveliest ladies. Electric tendrils flower and intertwine while vocal lines peal like bells and dissolve in the dark. Intense and intimate, on the skin of an animal.
	Santogold - Santogold [Downtown, 2008]
	Comparing Santogold to M.I.A. is the easy way out. Sure the reggae jungle fusion is there at times, but Santogold brings us to more diverse places. She mixes her influences well, mashing early studies in multi-ethnic drums with a dash of new wave, and gaining wide standing as certain segments of the indie-rock audience are looking to hip-hop for an infusion of life onto the scene. This was a big year for her, getting a bunch of attention from artists like Mark Ronsen, and Bjork, who invited her on a big venue tour.
	Shadow Music of Thailand [Sublime Frequencies, 2008]
	Welcome to the Thai Shadow sound of the mid-1960’s. Shadow records were often marketed as ‘Thai Modernized Music’ which it was in the truest sense. Traditional Thai melodies were given the Shadow treatment; incorporating rock, surf, a-go-go, exotica, soul, blues, Latin and other worldly styles of the times and the results range from plaintive guitar and organ-driven lullabies to full-blown electric garage folk-psychedelia!
	Sian Alice Group - 59.59 [Social Registry, 2008]
	A fully realized album that moves through traditional pop songwriting and instrumental composition while tempering it with studio improvisation. It is an epic record that showcases the talent and range and of this young group, taking in elements of various genres and making them their own. At a time when the musical landscape seems inundated with derivative retrogressive guitar bands, or acts reliant on sequenced beats and oscillator knobs, Sian Alice Group’s more classical inclinations show their willingness to tread their own path. 59.59 features guest appearances from Douglas Hart (Jesus & Mary Chain), John Coxon (Spiritualized, Spring Heel Jack) and Brian DeGraw (Gang Gang Dance).
	Tickley Feather - Tickley Feather [Paw Tracks, 2008]
	The self-titled debut by Philadelphia’s Annie Sachs, is a collection of late night path-finding sounds, gingerly home recorded using budget electronics. Selected from the past four years, these songs are washed in effects and demonstrate a barbaric yet meticulous instrumentation, along with a paradoxically, otherworldly and natural vocal style. The resulting sounds tell a secret that feels serendipitous. The album also features a special guest: her 4-year-old son Aiden.
	Tom Carter - Skyline Grinder [Three Lobed, 2008]
	Skyline Grinder finds Tom Carter setting out in search of the infinite. He follows the quickest course - simply setting the ship’s engines towards the very center of the sun. Listen *closely* at the track’s opening and you can hear him instructing the engine room that the goal is in sight and to push the engines just as hard as it takes. Thirty-seven minutes later, you’re right there with him.
	Xela + Ajilvsga - I Love Her Till I Die [Digitalis, 2008]
	It all begins with a tangle of vocals and washed-out reverb, establishing an atmosphere of eerie, haunted machinery that gradually swells into a symphonic noise. Just when you’re all set for a monolithic barrage of rusty oscillators and general, aural filth, you begin to notice shards of harmonious tonality glistening in the undergrowth, eventually unfurling into a fully formed guitar passage, complete with choral falsetto wafting around in the background. Eventually, everything starts to dissipate quietly into nothing, with that vocal and the looped flecks of guitar setting a hi-fidelity counterpoint to the crumbling decay of a central tangle of distortion. It’s another top class side from our boy, who once again manages to make the aesthetics of underground noise a good deal more approachable than you could ever reasonably expect.Ajilsvaga, the collaborative project of Digitalis head boy Brad Rose (aka The North Sea) and feedback superstar Nate Young. These two are rather less subtle when it comes to going about their business, with a full-blown barrage rising up from the duo’s frazzled circuit boards, sounding like some synthesized version of the weather on a particularly inclement day. Over their twenty-plus minutes Rose and Young defy any strict binds with narrative progression, instead exploring modulations on the same gravelly idea.