Listen to the mix below the jump::
Friday, April 20, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
In the Belly of the Woodrow Wilsons
Jamaica Plain, a part of Greater Boston, is home to many talented musicians that are constantly creating unique and/or bizarre events and contributing greatly to the personality of the city’s DIY music. One such band from the area that has been playing for a few years without laying down a record is The Woodrow Wilsons. It’s made up of some of the nicest and most genuine people you could ever meet. And just like a conversation with one of its members, the music radiates this ineffably positive feeling of warmth and empathy, subconsciously comforting and convincing you that everything is going to be alright. They all play a wide array of instruments, one of the main components being ukuleles that vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Chris McCarthy built himself out of a cigar box. In addition to bass, guitar and drums, the arrangement also includes glockenspiel, horns and a singing saw. The vocals are shared and harmonized between McCarthy and Laura Smith and the collaboration emphasizes the band’s open minds and open arms.
The Woodrow Wilsons recently released its first proper full length, Devil Jonah. The name references the biblical story of Jonah and the whale and has strong motifs of the East Coast and the ocean. As the group explains, the Atlantic seems to have strange powers over them (or at least over Smith). They associate the endless vastness with death and loneliness, but at the same time it’s something irresistible that calls them to get lost in it. It’s this sort of conflict or juxtaposition that is threaded throughout the album. Although one might think Jonah was doomed to be digested in the whale, it was actually the whale that saved Jonah from drowning. Likewise the music is a pleasant balance between somber and joyous. It has ballads and relaxing tunes, but it also has its share upbeat and irresistibly catchy songs like “Anthropomorphism” and “It Always Never Boils (The Kettle Song).”
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Lost in the Woods...or in Translation with Naturalesa Salvatge
- Photo by Sibila Estruch.
In Spanish, the word “tranquilo” is pretty versatile, being used for “relaxed,” “peaceful” and even the command “calm down!” Although slightly awkward and not a word that would normally be used to describe a band, its false friend (sort of) in English, “tranquil,” would serve as a good adjective for Naturalesa Salvatge. The Barcelona band’s name is in the regional dialect Catalán and literally means “wild nature.” However just like the tranquil example, sometimes the straight translation loses some of the flavor in the process, and maybe a better one would be “untamed wilderness.”
The name goes well with their sound, as their songs seem to take place deep in the woods. The meandering lead guitar melodies cut paths through the underbrush. The droning vocal harmonies sunken into the mix sound like they are being crooned a mile away from behind a thicket of tree trunks and bushes. The poppy moments add that bit brightness to the songs like twinkling and waning light that filters through the thick branches blocking out the sky. The rhythm is tapped out around a campfire where the five dudes are hanging out having beers and making s’mores.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Manos de Topo and the Verge of Tears
- Photo by Las Collecionistas
published on thebomberjacket.com
The bipolar warbling vocals of Manos de Topo are somewhere between sounding like they are full of tears and like they fell out of the mouth of singer Son Miguel Ángel Blanca after he stubbed his toe. Yet the group manages to make it joyous with a well honed pop sensibility, bright colors, games and a bunch of jokes.
The group is from Barcelona, Spain and has just released their third album Escapar con el Anticyclone! or "Escape with the Anticyclone!" Calling it a “collection of pocket operas,” the band said it was their most concentrated effort so far. The album is summed up nicely by the simple colors and shapes on the cover, as the group said that they were trying to “minimize the components to find only the essential feeling.” Before the album’s release, they group worked with illustrator Ana Sender on a board game for a musical exhibition at the Funcació Joan Miró. They said the themes from the game inspired a lot of their lyrics and it’s just one example of the playful nature in the music.
Another notable thing about the musicians is that a few of them also studied filmmaking.
Although they only made their first video on their own, their cinematic sensibilities continue to give them clever ideas and keep them involved during production. They have quite a few well made and hilarious videos like "Tus Siete Diferencias" ("Your Seven Differences") and "Es Feo" ("It's Ugly").
Watch the video for "Tus Siete Diferencias" below:
The Bomber Jacket: Manos de Topo means “Mole Hands” right? But what does Mole Hands mean?
A mole is a tender, wild and lonely animal, just like us. A mole’s hands is the metaphor of our hearts.
Watch the video for "Es Feo" below:Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Cymbals Have a Merciless and Insatiable Blood-lust for Guitars
- Photo by Josh Goleman
Brooklyn born Cymbals Eat Guitars take their name from something Lou Reed once said about The Velvet Underground. Yet, it wasn’t an overly whimsical metaphor like “my band sounds like cymbals eating guitars,” but instead something more musically technical. Reed was asked why the drummer, Moe Trucker, didn’t crash down on the cymbals a lot on their records. Reed responded that it was because the noise of cymbals eats, or drowns out, the guitar and he was apparently concerned about a purer tone from the instrument.
When explained like this, it sort of drains all the magic out of what a listener imagines when the phrase is plucked out of context. Like a swarm of floating cymbals, roving around a trashed underground nightclub savannah in search of it's prey. A centrifugal hum reverberates around the metal of the crash cymbal pack leaders as the muted high-hats let out a few taunting chatters. A guitar is spotted through the reeds of the tall amplifiers and a vicious, bloody onslaught ensues on the concealed pack of instruments. The cymbals mercilessly shred through fret boards and splinter hollow bodies easily. The stage becomes an out of focus mess of flying scraps of wood and metal. As the violence reaches its end, pick-ups are tossed into the air and swallowed whole into invisible stomachs and guitar strings are used to floss the remaining flecks of flesh from their teeth. Lou Reed might not have used the phrase to describe his band, but as for Cymbals Eat Guitars, the image represents their music pretty well.
There are more concrete ways to describe the band’s sound. Some bands wait until the end of one of their songs on a record to play with guitar effects and feedback to produce a random musical experiment for about thirty seconds. Maybe it’s at the very end of a show when they’re smashing their guitars on stage and they just go nuts, shouting and playing whatever. Well, for Cymbals Eat Guitars, those moments are present all throughout their music and are joined together by catchy hooks, sleazy keyboards and straightforward rock.
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