Owner: RegnYouth Archives URL:http://www.regnyouth.com Join Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:06:44 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: The RegnYouth Archives provides the reading audience with music related selections, reviews, and interviews, introducing new and upcoming artists and bring older, extraordinary artists back into the spotlight. Site statistics:Click here
Dan Deacon - Acorn Master EP 2007-11-03 09:13:17 ‘Acorn Master
’, the first EP from Baltimore’s Dan Deacon
is a kiddy-pool of compu-tunes, perhaps just as likely inspired by a mediocre mushroom experience as by Raffi’s children’s classics. One can’t help but imagine twin kids giggling and clapping along with Dan to at least four of the six clownish, almost juvenile-with-a-whiff-of-self-awareness tracks. While Deacon adeptly layers samples from pop tv and video games, the product of his efforts is a grating, irritating aural mash, complete with Butthead’s “huh huh huh” dollop’d on top. Make no mistake though, Deacon is more than entertaining here, as he playfully bounces from jilted lover neo-ballads to classic cover songs on acid. Wrapping up the album with an electro lullaby for Nintendo/roleplaying gamers to cull their damsels with is a soothing touch… perfect to put those twins to bed to.
1. Two Friends
2. Big Big Big Big Big
3. Moses Vs. Predator
4. It
Devastations - Yes, U 2007-11-03 09:09:52 It takes a few songs into ‘Yes, U’ for Australian born and now Berlin/London relocated trio Devastations to get to the foreboding, funereal dirges for which they were lauded on their breakout album ‘Coal’. But before singer and bass guitarist Conrad Standish gets to the squalls and moans of “Rosa”, very strange things happen. On ‘Yes, U’, Devastations have brought in Nigel Yang on piano, synths and drum machines and Andrea Lee on synth and violin. It’s evident from the very beginning. While they retain their creeping sense of dread and gothic melodrama, “Black Ice” sounds like Giorgio Moroder scoring a sex scene from an ’80s psychological thriller. It slithers like a shameful fantasy into another surprise - the hypnotic distorted synth plod of “Oh Me Oh My”. Devastations have managed to step out into a strange new universe, not unlike the more cosmic and cheery Midnight Juggernauts of Dystopia. The band
Tacks, the Boy Disaster - Oh, Beatrice EP 2007-11-08 15:47:04 Fronted by Evan Jacobs, a founding member of Midlake, this Austin, Texas, quartet arrive with a debut that is both as light as a feather and as complex as a tapestry. ‘Oh, Beatrice
’ may call to mind the definitive expression of highbrow cultural absurdity – when Martin Creed’s switching lights won the Turner prize, an art critic, invited to respond to the accusation that the work was insubstantial, replied that that may be so, but it was “substantially insubstantial” – yet it contains detailing of such richness and subtlety, the songs continue to reveal themselves even after multiple listening. This could, of course, be simply so much nerdishness, but Tacks
, the Boy Disaster
manage, on Blue Nile/Beach Boys/Wilco-leaning tracks such as “Forget Me Not” and “Paris”, to build from bare bones – circular guitar figures, piano parts either sonorous or Glassian, Hammond organ, minimal percussion, massed harmonies – something lightweight, certai
White Williams - Smoke 2007-11-08 15:40:44 The “It” boy of the 2007 SxSW festival, WhiteWilliams
is a laptop balladeer who mimics the minimalist sounds of ’80s synth-wavers like Pylon and New Order. These bubbly songs are long on melody, suiting Williams’s sonorous croon, and his recording technique seems more about preserving the feel of the original post-punk era rather than making any great production strides: the beats are simple, dotted with Casio bleats and airy chord structures that foreground the vocals and synth hooks. Just 23 years old when he recorded this 2007 debut, Williams accurately appropriates the aesthetics of his birth era, and if it isn’t wildly inventive, it is at least a faithful distillation of all that rocked about the ’80s underground.
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Odd Nosdam - Level Live Wires 2007-11-08 15:16:05 In the space of a mere two records, cLOUDDEAD achieved way more than most bands achieve in a lifetime, as their releases stand as milestones in the abstract hip hop genre. And while the group called it quits in 2004, Odd Nosdam has continued on, releasing a variety of solo works. His latest effort, 2007’s ‘Level Live Wires
’, may owe more to shoegazing and electronica than hip-hop. While the crumbling tape recorded sounds, downsampled beats and occasional rapping is still clearly present, Odd Nosdam has added ever-growing drones and waves of noise, not unlike those of Ben Frost. The humorously titled “Fat Hook” builds up from fizzing pads into a cacophony of noise and fuzzy synthesis. One could almost replace it with guitars and end up with something out of the My Bloody Valentine catalog. “The Kill Tone Two” samples a busted-up break-beat that is clearly hip-hop, yet adds live violin and vocals that create a rolling pastoral epic (TV On The Ra
Pram - The Moving Frontier 2007-11-08 15:13:26 With “The MovingFrontier
”, dream pop outfit Pram have delivered their most engaging and confident work to date. The thirteen tracks of their ninth long-player heave with the kind of hazy bliss that fans of Iceland’s Mum or Birmingham’s Broadcast will hugely enjoy. Lifting off with “The Empty Quarter”, one of The Moving Frontier’s four instrumental pieces, the scene is perfectly set with gritty, tremolo drenched guitars that shift behind a wandering Rhodes organ and muted trumpet. The track embodies Pram’s individual skill as composers and their ability to simultaneously evoke urbanity with more industrial archetypes. Singer Rosie Cuckson is a key component in this formula, her Nico-intoned, metallic voice draping itself over the fuzzy, reverberating backdrop. In “Blind Tiger”, Pram flirt with the Portishead aesthetic, a fairground organ cutting through the ominous backdrop of horns and cymbals to unnerving effect. Elsewhere,
Amy Winehouse - I Told You I Was Trouble 2007-11-12 19:16:11 As her universally acclaimed album ‘Back to Black’ is approaching five times platinum, Winehouse
.htm">Amy Winehouse
returns with a DVD entitled ‘I Told You I Was Trouble
’. Capturing highlights from her live performances at Shepherd’s Bush Empire (in West London, England), listening to this audio easily proves that the vocal soul power displayed on ‘Back to Black’ isn’t achieved through studio wizardry; yes, her voice and singing really are that good. Nearly all the songs performed on ‘I Told You I Was Trouble’ are from ‘Back to Black’, with highlights including her rendition of the album’s first single, the defiant “Rehab” and the ska-tinged “Just Friends”. Add in the almost unbearably hip-swinging “Me & Mr Jones” and the gloriously confident “My Tears Dry On Their Own”, both delivered with a sass and attitude that sets Winehouse apart live, and ‘I Told You I Was Tr
RZA - Instrumental Experience 2007-11-12 19:08:15 When talking about cutting-edge hip hop producers, it’s impossible not to mention New Yorker Robert Diggs, better known to the world simply as RZA. Sure, Dr. Dre has made the headlines with his innovative take on P-Funk, but RZA captured the critical acclaim with his diverse and hugely original production style which revolutionized the genre spawning hundreds of imitations. Diggs made his name producing for the Wu-Tang Clan, most notably re-defining the whole hip hop genre with 1993’s ‘Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)’ which with its blend of lo-fi, off-time beats, discordant piano samples and wavering strings made people think differently about the entire sound. RZA’s encyclopedic knowledge of cinema has helped him to pioneer this dark, mysterious sound but it was a sound which for many has never been bettered and, although it has been copies plenty of times, nobody can quite do it like the RZA himself. This collection of instrumentals is the perfect examp Read more:Instrumental
Burnt Friedman - First Night Forever 2007-11-12 18:53:47 Veteran producer and master of electronic kraut-funk, Burnt Friedman
returns for another solo album after his acclaimed collaboration with David Sylvian, Stina Nordentsam and Arve Henriksson on the Nine Horses project. ‘NightForever
’ finds Friedman recruiting a number of vocal contributors, including Australian singer Steve Spacek, Funkstorung collaborator Enik, Berliner Barbara Panther and Daniel Dodd-Ellis. The productions themselves are the real stars here though, Friedman’s multi-layered studio excursions sewing together detailed drum edits, misty horn sections and even the odd burst of strings when needed. There are some very peculiar moments on the album, most of which come on tracks lent vocals by Theo Altenberg, an artist whose roots lie in the Berlin commune scene of the ’70s. He makes a number of appearances on the album, seemingly styling he’s hollered, gruff vocals on a hybrid of Tom Waits and James Brown, resulting in the screeching electro-g Read more:First
, First Night
The Slits - Return of the Giant Slits 2007-11-12 18:16:03 Originally released in 1981, ‘Return
of the Giant Slits’ was the long out of print second album by the London post-punk outfit. It wouldn’t be until 2006, an incredible twenty-five years, before the Slits would release another proper collection of studio recordings (’Revenge of the Killer Skits’). This album finds the band pursuing with their early dub influenced sound only to add more experimental elements, particularly with regard to percussion and rhythm. Opening with “Earthbeat”, the band sound some distance from their punk origins laying down low rumbling bass and heavily layered multi-tracked vocals. Things take a turn towards the bizarre with “Or What Is It?” and the harmonic chaos of “Face Place”, which fuses squealing vocals with meandering brass and chopped up, ambitious structuring. It’s wildly inventive stuff, but as the album shifts into its second half, “Difficult Fun” comes across as a re
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