Showing posts with label cemeteries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cemeteries. Show all posts
, , , , — 0 comments

Snowbeast Records Releases 1st Annual Halloween Compliation


The Halloween season will be in full bloom over the next few weeks, meaning the leaves will continue to change and countless of unfortunate purchases of candy corn will be made. In order to encourage your spooky spirit, Snowbeast Records, the local label started by Kyle Reigle of Cemeteries & Camp Counselors, released their 1st annual Halloween compilation, Rituals. Filled with and contributions from various electronic and dream pop artists, Rituals also contains a new track from Reigle's two projects. Both tracks are heavily influenced by horror films and the atmosphere of the coming holiday, which the musician appears to love with boyish glee. 

"Incantations," from Camp Counselors, sounds like a collaboration between Red House Painters and Dead Man's Bones, while the eerie, yet celestial Cemeteries track, "Sharpen Your Knives, Sharpen Your Teeth," could easily soundtrack a killer (get it?) 80's slasher flick. The entire compilation, which includes cuts from Psycho Twin, Field Mouse, and Tender Bats, whose "Seance" is the album's first single, can be downloaded here.






, , , , , — 0 comments

Tonight: Cemeteries


Kyle Reigle records ambient dream pop under the name Cemeteries, one of Buffalo's most interesting acts in recent memory. Reigle's ethereal songwriting style features elegant, reverb-laden vocals and melodic guitar riffs similar to Youth Lagoon and Porcelain Raft, both of whom Cemeteries recently opened for at Brookyln's Music Hall of Williamsburg. After catching national blog attention, and receiveing an album of the week nod here, last October with his full length release The Wildnerness on Lefse records, Reigle has been working on a side project under the name Camp Counselors and hopefully will put out another Cemeteries album before the year is over. Tonight, Cemeteries will perfom at the Waiting Room alongside fellow Buffalo acts Love Scenes, Bryan Johnson and Family, and Smart House. Tickets will be available at the door for $8 or can be purchased from the After Dark box office at 630 Elmwood Ave. Doors open at 9:30







, , — 0 comments

Cemeteries Debuts Camp Counselors Side Project


Buffalo's goth popper Kyle J. Reigle, who records and performs under the name Cemeteries, recently debuted his Camp Counselors side project. In a possible a nod to Camp Crystal Lake's doomed staff, Camp Counselors continues Reigle's love for all things horror. The first single, "2/5/11," moves away from Cemeteries' dream pop sounds to more ambient soundscapes, while the B-side, the tense and uneasy "Oslo," is much more beat driven than anything heard on Cemeteries' full length The Wilderness. You can listen to the single below or download both the single and it's B-side at the project's bandcamp page. A full length Camp Counselors album will be released sometime this spring.




, , , , , , , , , , — 0 comments

buffaBLOG's Best Buffalo Tracks of 2012: 20 - 11



We gave you a little tease yesterday of some Buffalo tunes that have locked themselves into a pretty constant rotation for us here at the blog.  Today, though, is real talk.  Twenty of the finest Queen City songs that 2012 had to offer are ready for your listening ears.  We will start today off with songs 20-11.  Check back in tomorrow for the Top 10.  



#20.  Sea Snake Vs. - "Dink Donk"

 Rising from the rubble left by former local acts, Baby Blue Bird and Chateau Terrace, Sea Snake Vs. first emerged in the summer of 2011, making their debut performance at the Infringement Festival.  Despite the potential, the band would meet a similar fate. While a proper full length release never saw the light of day, the trio turned five piece rock outfit managed to release a couple killer tunes in their short existence.  “Dink Donk” sounds like a perfect marriage of the darker sides My Morning Jacket and the National, combining the driving rhythm section of J. Daniel and Christopher Joseph along with Alexander Reid’s brooding vocals.




#19. Early Attic – “Patterns”

After a fairly quiet 2012 on the internet front, Early Attic released the single, "Patterns," in the final quarter. The band has gone through some personnel change-ups within the last year, but that has not stopped their creative output. The single off their forthcoming album (that MIGHT come out in 2012), “Patterns,” is a testament to the band’s both staying power and ability to pump out one hell of a catchy chorus.

#18. On Beta - "Crackin' Up"

Continuing the tradition of great Harvestsum releases, There's Blood in Your Heart, the debut album from On Beta, wasn't your normal debut.  The piano rock trio was full of veterans from the Buffalo scene (all members are featured or former players in Johnny Nobody, the Backpeddlars, and the Old Sweethearts) and that seasoned confidence can be heard all over the LP, but no more so than in  "Crackin' Up."  The song builds on a tense sense of urgency, featuring great harmonies from the grizzled, soulful voice of Mark Nosowicz, to the always reliable Andy Vaeth (Harvestsum's secret weapon in my opinion and a damn fine beat), proving that piano pop can have a swagger of its own. 




#17. Love Scenes - "Enigmatic" 

Buffalo’s electro-pop staple, Love Scenes, released their second full-length album, Blissed Out Youth, this past summer, just in time for the buffaBLOG restraining order to be lifted.  Blissed Out Youth was positively received not only by Buffalonians, but the band has been rapidly gaining fans in Brazil. Without a doubt, the most impressive and take home worthy track of this album is “Enigmatic.” This track features Leah Loefke’s sweet and ghostly vocals combined guitarist/programmer TJ Grace’s hypnotic electro-pop instrumentals (Freezepop, Crystal Castles), which make this track a must-have for the best of 2012.



#16. Quinton Brock - "Bros" 

University at Buffalo’s resident emcee, Quinton Brock, has a flow that is bigger than his relatively small frame. In 2012, Brock released his debut full-length, Light Mayonnaise, produced by former Sleepy Hahas bassist, Derek Sullivan.  The lead single off the album, "Bros," is a tale about Brock's interactions with the university's...bros. Brock could easily be thrown on the next OFWGKTA mixtape, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it actually happened. MAN FUCK THEM BROS.


#15. Merchants - "Moth" 

2012 saw the departure and eventual return of Merchants. Boy are we glad those plans to move to Alaska and work on a tourist train didn't really pan out. Before their exodus from Buffalo, the band was a three-piece grunge act relegated a dark corner of Nietzsche's with zero internet presence or recordings. Fast forward to December 2012  and the band has a demo, a semi-active Facebook/Twitter, a gig with The Growlers under their belt and an additional member, keyboardist Steve Gordon.  Merchants are resurrecting grunge in Buffalo, singing songs about depression, whiskey, and well, other things. What is exceptional about Merchants is their ability to "Real Estate" themselves up once in a while. "Moth" sticks out because it's one of the first songs we've heard from this foursome at buffaBLOG and still holds a firm place in our heart and iTUNES playlists. 




#14. Settlers - "Sky Kings" 

Born on the dirty basement floor of DIY space, The Jungle Gym, Settlers were one of the bands that instantly clicked with us.  The band's sound could best be described as noisey, driving, lo-fi rock and roll a la No Age. This scuzz rock tagteam consists of current Buffalo expats, Maxwell Scott (bass) and Daniel Gomez (drums). "Sky Kings" was the first song released by the band via a trippy youtube video made up of clips from a 70's hang gliding doc titled Playground in the Sky and needs to be on this list. Also, we're pretty sure Maxwell Scott is the only three-stringed bass player in Western New York. 





#13.  Signo Vinces - "Hot Time"

This is the official start of bands associated with Buffalo’s indie hit machine and mastermind behind Steak and Cake Records, Brandon Schilia. Signo Vinces consists of Schilia and Love Scenes songstress, Leah Loefke. The band started out as a recording project recording covers and throwing them on bandcamp, but the duo's electro-pop project has grown to a four-piece live performance. Their track "Hot Time" is a must-have for any best of Buffalo 2012 countdown. 




#12. Young Suns  - "Whale Fall"

If the world ends tomorrow, I know I will die barricaded in my apartment with Young Suns' "Whale Fall" blaring out of my dying computer speakers because most likely the power grid will fail before it all goes down. In 2012, we saw the debut of post-hardcore instrumentalists, Young Suns and boy are they tight. Garnering influences from Russian Circles, Every Time I Die, and Explosions in the Sky, this post-apocalyptic rock quartet is on it's way to becoming one of Buffalo's chief exports. 
#11. Cemeteries - "The Wilderness"

 Goth Pop.  Dark Dream Pop.  Whatever you want to call it, Kyle J. Reigle’s Cemeteries released one of the most impressive albums to come out of Buffalo in some time. Released on Lefse Records, The Wilderness was a collection of atmospheric and mood filled pieces that easily could have scored one of the horror flicks Reigle oh so loves.  On the album’s ray of light title track, though, the shimmer and shine break through for a song that would sound right in place on any great John Hughes' film.  Had Red House Painters and Wild Nothing ever gotten together, this is what it would sound like.




, , , — 0 comments

Listen to Cemeteries' Halloween Mix


Late last week, Buffalo goth popper and horror movie buff Kyle J. Reigle of Cemeteries, who recently released his latest album The Wilderness on Lefse Records, took the time out of his busy schedule of promoting the album to release a Halloween mix titled Everyone is Entitled to One Good Scare.  The mix featured some spooky sounding tunes from Wooden Shjips, Timber Timbre, Evangelicals, and more.  With one day left until Halloween, the mix should get you in the mood for the holiday, just in case the last two weeks of parties here in Buffalo did not quite do the trick.

EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO ONE GOOD SCARE from CEMETERIESmusic on 8tracks Radio.


mac mcguire
, , , — 1 comments

Album of the Week: Cemeteries - The Wilderness


The first track I ever heard from Cemeteries, the solo project of Buffalo native Kyle J. Reigle, was a cover of Neon Indian’s track “I Should Have Taken Acid With You”, which was released second in a three-part series of ‘Virtual’ 7-inches in December 2010. I played it on repeat for close to a week. It wasn’t just the way that Reigle transformed the track from a quintessential chillwave staple to an ethereal, elegant dream-pop drone, but his ability at making the essence of the track horrifyingly ironic. With sprawled out, waxing guitar-work combined with hushed, reverbed vocals Reigle takes a track generically precursory to bedroom goth-pop, and gets uber creepy, bastardizing the original title in psychedelic slow-dance fashion. Two years later, Reigle has only intensified his goth-pop sound on the superb 9-track sophomore record The Wilderness.

Building on what contemporaries Youth Lagoon and Porcelain Raft are already doing so well, which is holing oneself up in four walls and mentally transcending the notion of place, Cemeteries deviates from typical bedroom-pop acts stylistically as he seeks to abandon the more accessible gloominess of the urban back-alley or crumbling suburban parking lot, and retreats instead to the darkness which lurks in the uncertainty of rust-beltic woods just outside the smoggy glow of the city.  

 In an interview from last year, Reigle said he began his first album, Speaking Horrors as most bedroom artists do: as a hobby put out via his Bandcamp page. It quickly became the most popular download in our region, and with a little persistence, Cemeteries was eventually signed by Lefse, who supports prevalent artists such as Teen Daze, a musician Cemeteries just played a CMJ showcase with this past week in NYC. 

Inspired by hours spent in front of the TV watching countless horror flicks from childhood on, The Wilderness doesn't so much seek to indulge in the utterly terrifying niche of the film genre, but rather the more mysterious and unsettling aspects. Think Twin Peaks rather than Nightmare on Elm Street. Sonic highlights “Young Blood” and “Summer Smoke” exhibit a hybrid of Atlas Sound and The Antlers. Reigle's take on songwriting is not-traditional, and instead relies on a linear scaffold of instrumental ascension and repetition. He starts with one or two tracks and slowly builds a landscape of cascading drums and washes of reverb-heavy guitar riffs that give off a blissfully unsettling aura that compares to hair-raising and at times uplifting tactics that Phil Elverum and the late Mark Linkous have evoked through their respective bodies of work. 

 Yes, we’ve heard musicians that sound like Cemeteries before. There’s the headstrong reliance on reverb, synth swells, waves of guitar that hang in twangy echo, but there’s a genius behind tracks like “In the Trees” that sets The Wilderness apart from records that simply want to sound woozy. There’s an embodiment of nostalgia that goes beyond indie trend; Reigle wants you to feel unique headaches of uneasiness, similar to the euphoria of deja vu or a hailstorm in the summer. Cemeteries wants you to walk into the woods at dusk and think the owls are not what they seem. Reigle isn't writing songs about the wilderness to be clever, but rather writing about the essence of whatever it is that we experience alone in the woods to realize what makes home or a particular place so safe and familiar.  

As if I need to expand any further on the David Lynch parallels on The Wilderness, the gem "Leland" is named after the grieving father of Laura Palmer on Twin Peaks (FYI the entire series is available to stream on Netflix), and tumbles out of your speakers effortlessly like the visual motifs of a surging waterfall and wind-whipped pines found in the cult TV series. Even more evidence of the show's influence seems to peak through in an excerpt from the artist's Soundcloud page which reads, “Cemeteries is the dream pop transmitting over the truck radio of teenagers driving the dark labyrinth of outlying woods in a mountain town.” 

Cemeteries' vocals are a separate enigma altogether. Shrouded in haze and manneristic underpinnings of label-mates The Morning Clouds, “What Did You See” sounds tired against it's downcast guitar licks, like a song you’d hear someone croon after they’d been wandering a patch of forest for eons. 

Right now, Cemeteries might be the best band, not to come out of Buffalo in the past year, but in the past decade. Ever? I say that will the utmost enthusiasm and sincerity. Reigle takes bedroom-produced music to transcendently dark, and at times unexplored heights on The Wilderness. The record baits you via lush guitar and vocals and then thematically you're hooked. There are countless ideas spun into each gloomy track, each bent on a new twist of influence that could keep you listening for days.



Tom Dennis
, , — 0 comments

Picking Up the Slack for MTV: Cemeteries




As Cemeteries, the dream pop act of Buffalo's Kyle Reigle, prepares for the drop of it's debut LP The Wilderness later this month, the band has just released a music video for the blissful track, "Summer Smoke," a tune that would not sound out of place on an early Beach House album. The nostalgic clip chronicles the early years of a young girl and her friendship with a ghost - sweet and touching, and kind of creepy, because well, she is friends with a ghost.  

Spin and Paste Magazine Online have already given some dap to the video and song earlier this week, surely to spark some additional interest for the upcoming album.  The Wilderness will be released on October 23rd and is currently available for pre-order on both vinyl and CD at Lefse Records.  Enjoy.


mac mcguire
, — 0 comments

Cemeteries release new single, prep debut LP



One of my favorite Buffalo bands just happens to be one of our most elusive it seems.  Outside of some great bedroom recordings on band camp and an opening slot for Caveman earlier this year at the Ninth Ward, I haven't had a chance to cross paths all that much with dream pop outfit Cemeteries.  Sometimes I forget Kyle Reigle, Cemeteries leader and songwriter, is even a Buffalo act sometimes.  Luckily, Reigle and crew are prepping the release of their full length debut album Wilderness, which will officially be released on Lefse Records on October 23rd.  You can currently pre-order the album on both CD and vinyl here.  The title track is a great starting point to experience Cemeteries' fully realized sound as somber, distant vocals and gorgeous, shimmering melodies give off a Red House Painters fronting Wild Nothing vibe.  Enjoy.


mac mcguire
, , , , , , — 1 comments

Concert Review: Caveman w/ Cemeteries & Aircraft




Saturday night the crowd at the Ninth Ward at Babeville were on the receiving end of a solid and frequently brilliant night of music from NYC's Caveman and local up and comers Cemeteries and Aircraft. There's been some buzz on the Interwebs about Caveman and locally about Aircraft, and it was real nice and genuinely exciting to have that buzz totally justified.


The show kicked off sharp and on the money with new local favorites Aircraft. It was my first time seeing Aircraft, and yes, I am officially now down with Aircraft. They have the four minute new wave pop song down pat, but because they're more psychedelic than strictly new wave, the pop songs come off explosively, big and shiny within that pleasingly tight song structure. Phoenix by way of early Pink Floyd with terrific vocal harmonies and a fun Talking Heads vibe, that's my initial take on Aircraft, and because I'll certainly be on the lookout for them this summer that's my first of many takes on this excellent up and coming band. Yes, it all works for Aircraft. Local band Cemeteries followed, offering a more atmospheric and moody take on their indie shoegaze rock with nice Ezra Koenig by way of Roy Orbison vocals. They're still a work in the progress inasmuch a lot of their songs just kind of end abruptly, but there wasn't anything wrong with what they were doing up until that point, and like Aircraft they sounded terrific in that excellent brick basement space.


The stage was perfectly set for up and coming NYC buzz band Caveman, and they did not disappoint. Kicking off their set with dual percussion reminiscent of early 00's Radiohead, Caveman settled into a mighty and tasteful groove they maintained throughout thanks to their pleasing Beach Boys vocal harmonies, powerful melodies, and exceedingly solid rhythm section. At a time when indie music is awash in (plagued by?) trends and the never-ending churn of the quest for the next big thing, it was most gratifying to see a "buzz band" operating comfortably above and beyond the fray. Caveman said they were keen to come back to Buffalo and I for one hope they do, and often.


I just hope their lead vocalist survived the Mighty Taco. That could be a deal breaker.


Special kudos are also in order for ESI Events for putting this fine show on, and the sound guy at the Ninth Ward for another magnificent job. The sound in that wonderful venue was astounding.







Cliff Parks
, , , , — 0 comments

Tonight: Caveman


There aren't many places you can go after starting with the headline, "Tonight: Caveman".  Whether you're a fan of indie rock, or a person that giggles at people like me who use the word "indie" as a nonsensical genre description, you can't deny that ESI Events has put together a fantastic bill tonight at Babeville's highly underrated Ninth Ward.  Caveman have been riding high off the success of their debut album Coco Beware, featuring the "why-can't-I-stop-listening-to-this" single "Old Friend".  They'll be treating Buffalo to an intimate performance tonight backed by a couple of the city's finest up and coming bands.  Aircraft blew me away with their performance at Mohawk Place a few months ago opening for Wildlife, so much so that I'm sure I've annoyed my fellow bloggers by bringing it up so much. Also on the bill is Cemeteries, who I'll be checking out for the first time. Their virtual 7" Home/Cobwebs displayed a very mature songwriting approach that I'm looking forward to catching in a live setting.  Both bands are indicative of a swelling local music scene that is making it a pain in the ass to find bathroom breaks at shows.

Doors at 7, Tickets are $10 at the door.



Brian Gorman
, , , , , — 0 comments

Just Announced: Caveman

People often ask me which live music venues in town I like the most.  When I bring up Ninth Ward, I'm surprised at how many people haven't been there, or worse, aren't even aware of it's existence. Ani DiFranco's Asbury Hall has risen to the forefront of noteworthy venues in the city of Buffalo.  What often gets overlooked is Ninth Ward, the converted church's under the radar basement venue, which has hosted some of the best touring and local acts to grace this city's burgeoning music scene. On March 24th, Caveman is the next such act to grace their stage.  Riding off the success of their well reviewed debut, Coco Beware, the band's rhythmic, yet soothing sound is perfectly suited for Ninth Ward's intimacy. Be sure to catch the opener, Cemeteries, an up and coming local act that you're sure to be hearing a lot more about this year.


Brian Gorman
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)