The Octopus Project Embark on West Coast Tour

The experimental indie rock group The Octopus Project will be kicking off a west-coast tour starting with the Lollapalooza festival. The Octopus Project put out one of my favorite albums of 2007, that album being "Hello, Avalanche". Which I still listen to on a regular basis because of its broad variety of musical tones and sounds. Where else can you get a chugging guitar riff alongside a theremin and a drum machine? No where else that I've found. Please, if you know of someplace that it exists please tell me. I'm serious.

Here's the tour schedule

The Octopus Project Live:

* w/ Diagonals

08/02 Chicago, IL @ Schuba’s

08/03 Chicago, IL @ Lollapalooza

08/04 Kansas City, MO @ Record Bar

08/05 Norman, OK @ Opolis

08/06 Lubbock, TX @ Tequila Station

08/11 Phoenix, AZ @ Rhythm Room*

08/12 Tucson, AZ @ Congress Theater*

08/13 San Diego, CA @ The Cashbash*

08/14 Los Angeles, CA @ Knitting Factory*

08/15 Visalia, CA @ Cellar Door*

08/16 San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill*

08/18 Portland, OR @ Satyricon*

08/19 Seattle, WA @ Nectar Lounge*

08/20 Vancouver, BC @ Richard’s

08/22 Edmonton, AL @ Velvet Lounge

08/23 Calgary, AL @ Hi Fi

08/25 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge

08/26 Denver, CO @ Hi Dive

08/28 Dallas, TX @ Lola’s*

08/29 Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live*

09/28 Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits Festival

Anyway, besides you lucky west-coasters out there having the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands, there are also a series of fan videos that have been produced by various... well... fans. They're pretty cool. Check 'em out.

And since I'm talking about the Octopus Project again, I can post more of their glorious music.

the Octopus Project - mmaj

the Octopus project - Vanishing Lessons

The Octopus Project Myspace

Falcon

There's something mythic about Brooklyn based band Falcon. It's not a penchant for face melting solos, mystic robes, or even a rock legend in the band's line-up. Their concept is mythic.

Falcon is a new band founded by three classmates of a junior high student named Jared Falcon. Jared Falcon was a songwriting prodigy that wrote nearly a song a day from 1986-1988 on a fischerprice tape recorder until he was institutionalized. The band studies the recordings and then fleshes out the musical arrangements to create some stunningly affecting rock songs. Neil Rosens' boyish vocals add to the stark poignancy of the lyrics. They may have been the compulsive musings of a junior high student but the band gives incredible power to the simplest lyric. If some of the power present sounds vaguely familiar, it's because the band is powered by the guitarist and drummer of Longwave. With a debut EP of this high a caliber, not only are Falcon making Jared proud, they're making some really great music too.

Falcon - Q of T

Falcon - Listen In

Falcon Myspace

Beck's Modern Guilt

Beck's latest release, "Modern Guilt", is also his first collaboration with Gnarls Barkley member and Gorillaz producer DJ Dangermouse. The album features a remarkable synergy as both Dangermouse and Beck have created a retro-future psychedelic 60's sound. Under the production of Dangermouse, Beck's ethereal backing vocals, chugging bottomless bass, and impeccable ear for melody take on a much more tangible form than they have in the last two albums. Not that at times Guero and the Information weren't hard hitting, but those albums and their many overlapping layers and rubbery reverb effects created a dream like atmosphere, particularly on the Information. Which to me is a good thing. And reverb and rubbery bass are still present on Modern Guilt, there's just something more straight forward and weighty about them. The fuzzed out bass, beats and crisp production (including the spectacular use of a folky violin) make Modern Guilt seem more 'real'. Like waking from a neon light show of a dream to the sun bursting through the pastel pallet of dawn.

Beck - Chemtrails

Beck - Walls

The Psychadelic video for Beck's "Gamma Ray"

Any Incredible Hulk influence here? Perhaps?

Science VS Witchcraft

I had a friend of mine ask me if he could post an article about an up and coming band from Rochester and their album art:

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"Science Vs. Witchcraft", a band from Rochester, NY is releasing an EP soon. They cleverly used 5.25" Floppy diskettes, took out the magnetic disk and replaced it with their CD. (who knew the two are practically the exact same size?) They also went one step further and made a custom sleeves & label causing it resemble an old 1980's PC game complete with ACSII art and Pixelized Images.

(Click the pictures to enlarge)















The icing on the cake though, happens when you put the CD in your computer. It will pop up with an old-school, text-based, semi-perverted, adventure game that one of the band members wrote himself.






In the game you'll find yourself feeling dirty whilst thrusting your dirk and "porksword" at various family-friendly monsters such as the "bone lord" and "cock goblin" in a futile attempt to rescue all of your seamen.

The Music itself is harder to describe, You can check out their myspace page at myspace.com/ScienceVsWitchcraft

If you're interested in buying a Floppy-Diskette CD, and you live in the Rochester, NY area, they will be for sale for $5.99 at Lakeshore Record Exchange (on Park Ave.) and at the Record Archive (East Ave.) Also, they'll have some for sale at BoulderFest, where Science Vs. Witchcraft is playing on Sunday at 2:30pm."

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I've taken a listen to their EP and it's a very interesting listen, some songs feature a keyboard navigating through negative space grinding up against a dirty guitar. Others feature ominous drifting riffs with disparate Sonic Youth type vocals. Something apparent in all their work is a driving ambition and singular vision to create something unique with everything at their disposal. The result, their "It's not Necrophelia if You're Dead Too" EP, sounds like the angry child of Cursive and Explosions in the sky, and I mean that in a good way.

Science vs. Witchcraft - Traveling Prostate in a Van

Science vs. Witchcraft - Smoke Crack and Do Math (Remix)

Microfilm's Teenage Symphony

Microfilm has released a new EP featuring the first single, "Teenage Symphony", from their anticipated new album "The Slingshot Orchestra". Just as the cover of the album would suggest the song is very much like a relaxed beach, with synthesizers and piano ebbing and flowing over the gentle crashes of the beat. This song is a strong step forward for the band, the vocals and instrumentation sound much more human than their previous releases. They've definitely learned a lot from their excellent Magnetic Fields and Sufjan Stevens covers. I look forward to the full length album, it may be one of the best of 2008.

Microfilm - Teenage Symphony

Microfilm Myspace

Ruby Isle's Night Shot

I had a most pleasant surprise in my inbox last night, the new Ruby Isle full length "Night Shot". The band that covered the top band on mp3 elbows for a number of weeks has compiled an album that is fully aware of what makes a hit song. When the band was covering popular songs, they were known to spend as little as a day on the recordings, but the result was always worth a listen or two or five, and that's a testament to the skill and expertise the members of Ruby Isle have. The songs that are featured here have the same kind of inspired fervor. Like they had an idea for a song and they just did it. Like a gymnast performing a routine perfectly, they executed bangin' beats, passionate vocals, versatile guitars, and stuck the landing with the ever important (for me) vocoder.

Ruby Isle haven't left their tendency to cover songs completely escape this album either. They've produced an amped up version of Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" supplemented with the excellent vocals of Amy Dykes. The song "All the Angles" features helium pitched backup vocals in the style"Bigmouth Strikes Again" over a Corey Hart beat. Perhaps the coolest collaboration on the album is Tay Zonday of "Chocolate Rain" you tube fame providing his processed baritone the album's namesake track "Night Shot". Overall, the album provides anthems of hazy summer love and an exhilarating rush of youthfulness in equal parts rock and electro. Sci-fi Bruce Springsteen would be proud.

Ruby Isle - Hey Hey (That Kid's OK)

Ruby Isle - Night Shot (Ft. Tay Zonday)

Ruby Isle Myspace

Klumpfisk remixes Magnetic Field's Three-way

Electro/Dance DJ Klumpfisk has transformed the swirly 60's psychedelic pop-tune "Three-way" by the Magnetic Fields into a zany club thumper. If this was played in front of 300 frat brothers their hands would be in the air.

Magnetic Fields - Three-Way (Klumpfisk Remix)

Klumpfisk Myspace

Klas

Klas is a musician from Sweden signed to Series 2 records who is compared to Jens Lekman due to his sense of humor and heartfelt delivery. I know I say this whenever I write about an artist from Sweden, but 9 times out of 10 I am always impressed with whatever Sweden has to offer.

Albeit simple and to the point, the young man from Malmo, Sweden uses his hushed voice and engaging simple arrangemets to create soothing atmospheres that are the perfect vehicle for his sometimes ironic, sarcastic, but always heartfelt lyrics. Klas is everything you would want Swedish indie pop to be.

Klas - Honda Civic

Klas - Duck Couples

Klas Myspace

Dearestazazel

"Hey, you got synth-pop in my hair metal!"

"Hey, you got hair metal in my synth pop!"

"Actually, it's Atlanta based rock group Dearestazazel! Wow!"

Dearestazazel employ their unique talents to making a number of epic and musically complex songs that are driving and catchy on their new album Be Mine. The synth and guitar often entwine in a sweetly serpentine way that sometimes yields something akin to Violator era Depeche Mode and sometimes yields something more like a dark sped up Def Leppard thanks to some sweet riffs and the wailing of Peter Felix Armstrong.

I've never heard a more complete merging between so seemingly disparate genres. Welded and soldered together in such a manner to rock stadiums with a sound that will catch the ears of fans of the New Pornographers and Van Halen.

Dearestazazel - Sex is a Sin

Dearestazazel - The One

The Presets: Apocalypso

I had been aware that the Presets had a new album coming out, but not until I listened to it did I know how great of a new album they had. Their first album, Beams, finds the Melbourne duo thrashing through a series of dark lo-fi electro rave-ups and a few surprisingly melodic tunes, most notably "The Girl and the Sea".

Their new album, Apocalypso, builds on all aspects of their sound. Whereas Beams was unabashedly raw and punky, Apocalypso is more refined. Julian Hamilton's vocals have never sounded better especially on lead single "The Boy's in Love". Another standout track is the Michael Jackson informed "Yippiyo-Ay" which single handedly blew my mind and eliminated the competition for #1 dance song of the summer. The duo have crafted more dark romance into their club anthems reminiscent of the dark lord Sauron commanding an army of undead to dance into the night.

The Presets - Yippiyo-Ay

The Presets - This Boy's in Love