Showing posts with label local music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local music. Show all posts
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Squeaky Wheel's Teach Art for Girls Workshop Teams Up w/UVB-76 to Produce a Music Video


UVB-76, in collaboration with Squeaky Wheel's TechArts for Girls Program, recently released a new music video for their song "2 if by Sea."

 Squeaky Wheel's TechArts for Girls Program has been running since 1999 and is"a community action project that encourages girls from the city of Buffalo and Erie County to receive an affordable hands-on education in computers, technology and media literacy." As part of the advanced experimental video workshop, led by teaching artist, Alice Alexandrescu, a group of students listened to the song and then collaborated with UVB-76 to produce the video with a green screen and a collection of found footage. Students individually edited the footage and collectively compiled the final video.

 With everyone donning UVB-76's trademark white hazmat suits, the duo and the girls dance around the shifting images on the green screen. The result is a fun video that captures both the song and the overall playful aesthetic of UVB-76's consistently inventive and inspiring music.




Michael Torsell

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Album of the Week: Sparklebomb - Funeral Beats


The other night, I noticed muffled sounds/voices coming from somewhere in my house. Only vaguely threatened, I first assumed the guy upstairs, normally gone for weeks at a time (this is a whole other mystery), had simply returned home or that someone was working outside. Then remembering that the windows were closed and realizing that the guy upstairs was not home, I began to search for the source of the sound until I realized the stereo receiver was picking up radio signals, a low ghostly murmur coming through the speakers. The effect was haunting, and reminiscent of Jean Cocteau's classic movie, Orpheus, where the the car radio broadcasts abstract messages from the afterlife. In both of these cases, the radio signals, faintly picked up by stereos, becomes a ghostly presence, suggesting a space between life and death.

I bring up these two instances to introduce this week's Album of the Week by Sparklebomb, the alias of Angie Conte, a Buffalo based electronic musician who has just released her debut cassette EP, Funeral Beats on Prime Ruin. Sparklebomb has crafted a series of pieces around tape and synth loops that, combined with the interspersed phone recordings of a now deceased man, explore this liminal terrain, acting as a sort of musical crypt.

The title track is a strong example of Sparklebomb's style, which mixes the found and the original in a way reminiscent of Burial at his more downtempo moments. It is low fi but for very specific reasons as Sparklebomb begins to explore and emphasize the materiality of her instruments, the scratches and muffling anchoring the music and giving it a textural quality that further underscores the life and death of an ultimately marginal figure. Conte had acquired the phone conversations of a now deceased man who seems to have recorded every one of the calls he made to phone sex operators trying to find an outlet for his desires. It is to Conte's credit that she is able to take this premise and use her music to articulate the gentleman's loneliness, leading the listener to be both at times uncomfortable with how raw these recordings are and also acknowledging that this individual was a person just as deserving of achieving his desires as anyone else. The tape becomes a memorial and the choice of sound clips, albeit raw, forces us to confront the damage done to individuals we deem to be outsiders.

For such a short album, Sparklebomb has crafted a strong statement of introduction for her work and its focus. Funeral Beats is quiet collection of affecting and haunting pieces. Its materiality allows it to carve itself a space for its ghosts while also acting as a marker for a life filled with desires, moments of pleasure and feelings of rejection. There is a moment towards the end of "I'm Home," the EP's penultimate track, where Conte's own muffled vocals come through the loops and drumbeats. This moment seems to introduce another specter but the voice's melodic quality signals the entrance of the living, an uncanny moment that firmly positions the record between life and death sharing space with Cocteau's radio poet and the free floating radio signals coming through my stereo receiver. Overall, the EP is a great debut from an artist carving out a unique space for herself. I am excited to see what Sparklebomb does next.

Funeral Beats is available via Prime Ruin.


Michael Torsell
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Album of the Week: Swolyats - Swolyats


For all the talk about clichéd autumnal treats and tropes, we often forget that this is the season of death. Plants are literally entering into a process of decay and retreat before the oncoming chill…the dread cold. So it makes perfect sense that we often trot out our talk of hauntings and general spookiness during the month of October with Halloween being the culminating carnival of souls. The fall is a haunted time, a brisk wind, the smell of dying leaves and the onset of the silence resulting from the various animals retreating to wherever they wait out the winter, it all leaves us feeling that slight twinge, that we are powerless before that simple movement of time. So what better way to celebrate this danse macabre then with a properly spooky local album, enter Swolyats.

This recording was technically completed over 8 years ago but Eric Kendall (full disclosure: Eric is a good friend of mine…great guy really, you should meet him sometime) recently rereleased it on Soundcloud just in time for Halloween. Eric posted the album along with the following background information. “So...8 years ago I decided to start this project with the sole purpose of creating an album to give to friends in the spirit of Halloween. With the help of some friends and past/present/future band mates, we made it happen. The method of these recordings sometimes involved a main idea followed by tracking various instruments and field recordings with no knowledge of what was recorded beforehand, just to see if chance could create something somewhat listenable and eerie. Unfortunately, we never finished it by Halloween 05' and the tracks and files were gradually lost over the years. Until now!”  The result of this project is roughly 40 minutes of tense, unsettling atmospheric music that plays like the soundtrack to a now obscure 70’s horror film.

Swolyat evokes a certain sense of haunting, one that works through the layering and continuation of unease with no actual release or catharsis. Mixing outside elements throughout, the album moves along intercut with dissonance and garbled together field recordings. These field recordings are the most unsettling element, garbled noises and otherworldly chants evincing nothing but faint recognition with a minute of laughter being the only clear time you can identify something. It leaves you unsure and slightly confused, deeply nervous. Running through all of that are moments of low, droning, melodies lurching towards their conclusion.

Hauntings work best when the spectral element is only half present, teasing us at something terrible but never showing us its true nature, letting our imaginations fill in the gory details. Here we have these half recognitions and low droning hums and buzzes to signal we should be uncomfortable, physically and mentally.

Catharsis is often disappointing, the reveal mitigating our terror and causing us to question what frightened us in the first place. The monster is never as scary as what we come up with on our own. Luckily, Swolyat offers no catharis, only false endings. The dread continues throughout and the album never really releases us, only ending in cacophony of found sound and chants. While listening, I happened to notice some scratching on my door that I am sure has been there since I moved into this apartment but which I had previously missed. The music and the sudden recognition made me nervous, had something come in and done this recently, was that something still there? Was it coming back for me? Of course these thoughts are fleeting and irrational but often we can only talk ourselves down from our fears, themselves rarely rooted in logic. Swolyats evokes this irrational, often suppressed terror, bringing us close to it, letting it run through us. It is an excellent soundtrack to this most haunted season. We present it to you in full below. 



Michael Torsell



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Album of the Week: Lesionread - I gave my robot a brain and it got scared and turned herself off


We did a spotlight on Lesionread after his first EP, 2012, in April. It was the first time I listened to Buffalo, New York student and artist Shawn Lewis’ music, and the beginning of a beautiful friendship. It was the start (for me, and in many ways for Lewis) of a madness that crept around the hardwood floors of Buffalo music venues and lighted our chins. Every time Lesionread performed was different and better, culminating in a dancetastic show at The Tralf opening for Wild Nothing that rallied our spirits, as if the silly string and plastic blow up pool critters were just a distraction from the open chest, the pounding heart of a Buffalo starship.

Lesionread’s latest EP, I gave my robot a brain and it got scared and turned herself off, is a bright light in the warp speed microcosm that Lewis created this year. It’s unifying and personal, but it’s also dark and assuming. It needs to keep moving or it will crack and bleed. Each track (there are 37) is a piece of earth, a chunk of metal, the slippery lips of a cavern. According to Lewis, the EP was inspired by Dan Deacon, Department of Eagles, and Dirty Projectors, especially their early, less conventional work. So it’s no surprise it has an amorphous, amebic quality; what does surprise me is how solid the framework is. Little arms of goofiness splatter the experience with somewhat unoriginal bullshit (Lewis counts to 100 on a track; a Yodaesque voice alerts the listener to the shared human experience of having first-day-jitters; a Spotify ad interrupts the EP midway; we recognize the calm voices of the local music world), but the music itself—the beats, the lyrics, the core—is beautiful.

The major course of Lesionread’s robot is cinematic and modern. The phrase, “I’m happy I’m changing with you” repeats on one track, while the music solders like a hexachord. Every purely musical track is stronger than the one before it, though there are moments of intense brilliance throughout. By the end, the music is simply excellent. Sunspots, robots, and the tiniest human notions, all rolled up into a hot little diamond.

Lesionread and fellow Buffalo electronic musician Kristachuwan are touring now (#LK2013), casting a handful of shimmering dust wherever they go. Check them out, and get Lesionread’s music, including I gave my robot a brain and it got scared and turned herself off, here. 



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Album of the Week: Space Wolves - Space Wolves IV


Over the last year, Space Wolves put together an astounding collection of pitch-perfect guitar driven pop rock. Long haired crusaders of the short and sweet, Nick Reynolds (guitar, choir boy vocals, near encyclopedic knowledge of Japanese surf rock and the specifics of various literary forms) and Chris Scammura (drums, vaguely ginger) just released their fourth cassette, Space Wolves IV, which is also freely available on their bandcamp. IV is a continuation of their work to date, a burst of catchy melodies and clever lyrics as much a call back to the early 60's as to the C86 bands of the mid '80s.

By now, the band has thoroughly solidified their sound. Space Wolves' music is deceptively simple. Songs rarely crack 2 minutes, driven by quick guitars and treble soaked guitar. It is refreshingly devoid of a prominent bass, and the songs are all harmony and melody. Reynolds' gentle and sonorous voice pushes the music forward while he simultaneously pulls off blisteringly quick footed melodies on guitar. Scammura keeps pace, providing the music's backbone and doing the work of 2 people. The whole thing is effortlessly enjoyable while you marvel at their ability to keep up this pace of solid songwriting. 

IV finds the duo building on past success, continuing their frantic pace of recording while miraculously maintaining quality. This isn't necessarily music that takes off into new directions but highlights the inherent difficulty in making consistently good pop music. There is nothing over the top or grandiose, nothing that isn't trying to be anything more than catchy, appealing, fun while remaining good with a capital G. This is Good Music. The depth is not in their playing with convention but in plunging into its preexisting possibilities. This is a clear rejoinder to the increasingly prevalent but ultimately false presupposition that to fully immerse yourself in genre is steer away from making truly great work. The attitude then goes onto suggest that the use of genre (itself relegated from the respectability of "Art") means you must keep up an ongoing challenge to its existing rules. Under this thinking, one couldn't make a simple record like IV, one would have to constantly thwart our expectations. And while playing with these expectations can produce something compelling, oftentimes it is far more difficult to work entirely within those conventions and produce something as excellent as IV. Genre provides the appropriate constraint for something both readable and intriguing. 

It will be interesting to see what the group does next. To date, they have a tremendous catalog of music anchored by a dedication to writing catchy songs. As Reynolds points out on the album's closer, we are all going to die quite alone, but at least we have some catchy tapes to take with us. 

Also, 10" records are the worst.

Michael Torsell
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Tonight: Jack Topht, 100% Black, Dog, and Settlers


I've never been to the Jungle Gym before, but I could only imagine that the place could be some sort of venue simulation designed after the classic apparatus of fun that it gets its namesake from. Performers could balance on metal beams as show goers plummet into wood chips and get bruised, then run back screaming for more. But that would be ridiculous.

Then again, so is Jack Topht.

The man loves to do rap. And beers, and sex and art, and many other things he'd like to share his love for with you. He's a better rapper than you. He's also a self-proclaimed local folk hero. Probably because he actually is. Jack Topht's lyrics are relevant and irreverent at the same time. With an open mind and a sense of humor, you'll enjoy his set. If not, it's likely you haven't lived in Buffalo long enough.

Dog will be on guard to provide the experimental music portion of the night, and will surely deliver on an unusual, interesting musical experience. Dissonant punkers 100% Black are straight out of Binghampton, and will open your mind by shooting beams of high powered feedback through your cranium. Hopefully you're into that sort of thing. 

Picture the seemingly ancient memory of a summer night partying on the beach. Settlers orchestrate the soundtrack for such a scene, and they do it well. Their music may cause you to indulge in a little nostalgia, but without being forced or obvious. 

With a line-up like this, you should feel like you're on a playground.

The show starts around 9:30  at The Jungle Gym.



~ Photo by Nate Peracciny

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