Former Cinnamon Aluminum member and Buffalo ex-pat Kid on Purpose just released the trailer for his forthcoming visual album, titled Paper Moonlight Symphony. The trailer, which is just over a minute long, gives some idea of what one should expect, as snippets of music ranging from ambient to chillwave to pysch rock are backed by images only someone from CA could think of. No word yet on if Beyonce's new, self-titled album with accompanying music videos was inspired by Kid on Purpose's project, but further info will follow when album drops early next year. In the mean time, check out Paper Moonlight Symphony's trailer below.

9) Jack Toft - "Jump Up and Down"
Jack Toft had an amazing 2013. Between his numerous music video appearances, collaborations with up-and-coming emcees, and dropping singles so fast that buffaBLOG just simply could not keep up, Toft found time to partner up with producer TEEN WOLF to make an exceptional full-length album, TEENWOLF AND JACK TOFT. “Jump Up and Down” is arguably the most listener friendly track on the an already very listenable album. The song is abstract rap-pop where Toft hypes the listener to, well, jump and down, while also incorporating his signature delivery of one-liners, Allentown observations, and dated cultural references. Toft's partnership with TEEN WOLF spurred Toft's momentum this year which is on course to translate well into 2014. "Jump Up and Down" makes you want freak out with your buds, jump uppin' down and bust your nuts. - MJM



8) Bryan Johnson & Family - "Mt. Vesuvius"
Bryan Johnson & Family are Buffalo’s resident surf rockers. Despite Johnson's omnipresence in the Buffalo scene, he had yet to release a large batch of recordings of his songs until this year. BJ released “Mt. Vesuvius,” which might be one of the catchiest joints to come out of Buffalo in the history of time (perhaps even since the tragedy at Pompeii). With the surf rock tag, there are hints of Beach Fossils, Surfer Blood, and even a bit of Cloud Nothings. Regardless, BJ&FAM has perfected their surf rock sensibilities. Trust us when we say this is one of the best choruses of the year; 'I feel like, I feel just like Mt. Vesuvius' will be stuck in your head for days. - NAS



7) Failures' Union - "Between"
Indie rock veterans/mainstays Failures’ Union have always been known to deliver and definitely did not go against the grain with the lead single, “Between,” which is from their late 2013 full-length, Tethering. "Between" made its internet debut via music video in late August, resulting in the buffaBLOGGERS spending the tail end of the summer rocking out to heyday '90s indie rock. The video also sparked an internal blog debate as to whether or not Will Sasso makes a celebrity cameo at 1:00, but that's not very important. What is important is that Failures' Union is brash Americana for a blue collar city like Buffalo. They are the rust belt's Hold Steady and with age/experience, Failures' Union continue to become more refined. - MJM 




5) Cinnamon Aluminum - "Girls in Disguise"
Cinnamon Aluminum has always been an unpredictable enigma, both as performance artists and musicians. Sometimes their songs are surface level electronic tracks, while others are best described as upbeat acid/jamtronica fronted by a nun with a strap-on dildo. Regardless of your favorite flavor of Cinnamon Aluminum, it’s undeniable that this band has a gift for commanding attention. Knowing this, we were pleasantly surprised to find “Girls in Disguise,” nestled as track four off of the band’s farewell EP titled Guys, Warlords. Girls. “Girls in Disguise” is enchanting dance-punk track featuring front man Hurricane Relic mumbling/babbling about girls lying/wearing disguises accompanied with Kristachuwan’s smooth jazz saxophone and a !!!-like percussion backing provided by Kid on Purpose. If you told me that "Girls in Disguise," was from the latest batch of DFA signees or a James Murphy production, I would believe it. It's that good. - MJM



4) Marine Biologist - "Allegro"


3) Smart House - "Car Ride"
Things have been a bit quiet on the Smart House front as of late, but earlier this year, the four piece electro pop act captured our attention with their incredible debut single "Car Ride." Led by the Ogadzhanov Brothers, Alek and Staz, Smart House recalls the sunny side of the Cure and just enough Wild Nothing to get you dancing. You can't listen to "Car Ride" and tell me you don't hear a lot of "Pictures of You" in that guitar or even a sans vocals "Boy's Don't Cry" in the song's first half. When we talked about this song at the year's half way point, nostalgia seemed to be the driving factor of our love for "Car Ride." For me, I am reminded of those endless nights as a teen in Amherst with nothing to do and nowhere to go, but everything still ahead of me. Those nights were perfect. I can almost pin it down to the exact second in song, right around that sun peaking through the haze moment at the 1:57 mark, where those feelings emerge. "Car Ride" reminds me of a time in my life when things were so much more simple, before bills and 9-5 jobs, before the thought of marriage and children were running through my mind, a time I still wish I could go back to every now and then. - MPM 



2) JOHNS - "Worm Wall"
When we got hold of the pre-release zip file of JOHNS’ House of Wrongheads, there was an instant excitement that 2013 was going to be a great year for Buffalo music. “Worm Wall” is the first track on House of Wrongheads, and is a droning, dissonant work of beauty with an eerie sense of urgency. From lead singer Johnny Toohill’s ghoulish 'ooo' ing introduction, to the band’s one-chord jam session breaking out at the two minute mark, and ending with drummer Ryan McMullen’s tribal drum outro, this haunted-garage rock five-piece has made one of the best songs we’ve heard in years. - MJM



1) Del Paxton - "Motion Sick"
Well, it’s unanimous. Del Paxton captured our hearts this year with Worst. Summer. Ever., a six song EP of perfect emo-meets-math-rock masterpieces. It was hard to pick only one, but in “Motion Sick,” Del Paxton gradually crescendos out of their soaring, angular indie rock into a blissful, reserved sing-along, complete with jazzy drums and far-off harmonies. This EP perfectly encapsulates where the emo genre was headed before it was bastardized – Del Paxton is able to be introspective without being sad. The blend of emotion, complexity, intelligence, and just the right amount of pop sensibility helps this album appeal to almost anyone you can think of. Emo enthusiasts, fussy musicians, gear nerds… even punks. I think we can all agree on one thing, Del Paxton brought it home this year. This is music that makes you want to fall in love. - NAS 



If you missed songs 20 - 11, you can check them out here.

With members moving on to other musical projects and other states, the art rock foursome of Cinnamon Aluminum has called it a day. After playing it's final show a few weeks back, the band has begun to prep the release of one last EP, titled Guys, Warlods, Girls, set to drop in a couple weeks. Last night, the band shared the EP's single, "Girls in Disguise," a relatively restrained tune for the group, recalling the tribal vocals and beats of Yeasayer and the 80s sax sound of recent Ducktails and Destroyer albums that would be so cheesy if it wasn't so good. Listen to the tune below and give yourself an excuse to nod your head at your desk all day.

Formed in 2009, experimental four piece Cinnamon Aluminum have been active in the Buffalo music scene since releasing their debut EP Mission Horse Flex. With a style that falls somewhere between acid-jazz and psychedelic pop, their sound brings to mind fellow experimental acts like Black Dice, Animal Collective, and of Montreal. Last April, the band released their latest LP We Ate The Wrong Crab Spirit and have stayed busy playing shows locally, most notably playing buffaBLOG's third birthday party at Duke's this past March. Tonight the band will co-headline a show at the Vault Arthouse along with Wooden Waves, A Hotel Nourishing, and Lazlo Hollyfield member Sonny Baker (here performing his solo material) and Utica, NY drone band Twin Speak. The event will follow the final art opening at the venue and is sure to be an evening celebrating local talent held at one of the city's most beloved independent performance spaces. Donations will be greatly appreciated.

Tonight's special guests on the WBNY Local Show, Cinnamon Aluminum, have always been difficult for me to describe, but the band I keep coming back to as a starting point for them is Animal Collective. The band's form of experimental dance rock can be dense and challenging, but always engaging and fun. Even their names - Hurricane Relic, Kid on Purpose, Kristachuwan, and Young Hermie - recall the aliases of AC. If you have ever caught them live, there is some Avery Tare in Cinnamon Aluminum's slightly chaotic frontman Hurricane Relic. Basically this.

The band will be joining host Michael Moretti around 8:30pm this evening for a live performance, interview, and relieving Mike of his DJ duties. Show begins as always at 7pm with a long block of the newest Buffalo tunes. Listen online here or tune your radio to 91.3FM and you are good to go.
 

Kid On Purpose is the solo material of Zach Acard, who many of us know from Cinnamon Aluminum, the four-piece band that will be playing at our birthday party (coming up the last Saturday of March). It's difficult to characterize the music under Kid On Purpose into any genre- it's the musical adaptation of an ADHD stream of consciousness, something along the lines of what would happen if DJ Shadow joined Animal Collective. Amid the versatile use of samples and jangling percussion are smooth melodic lines spearheaded by an assortment of instruments- brass, keys, guitar, etc, it manages to flow and be unpredictable at the same time. For instance, in "Fetishism," heavily saturated textures and spontaneous transitions give listeners the hazy sense of flipping through channels on late night t.v. Picture yourself on a recliner, hardly awake, and the content on the screen melting into you not-fully-asleep dreams. Check out his soundcloud here.

Nearly three years to the day of our very first blog post, and what an epic post it was, we here at buffaBLOG are gearing up to celebrate another great year in the books.  To commemorate our three year anniversary, we will be throwing ourselves a birthday party at Duke's (253 Allen St.) on Saturday, March 30th.  Like all of our past shindigs, we have put together an impressive bill of musical acts,  showcasing some of the best bands the Western New York area has to offer.  This year's bill includes sets from Cinnamon Aluminum, Merchants, Joywave (Rochester), Young Suns, along with Space Wolves (DJ Sets).  The fun kicks off at 10pm, with a cover of $5.  We look forward to you joining everyone at the blog for this celebration.

P.S. Make sure to check back in on the blog the week leading up to the show for a special spotlight on each of our performing acts.

Speck Mountain will be playing at the Vault tonight alongside local electronic experimenters Space Cubs and Cinnamon Aluminum. The Chicago natives combine the airy and commanding female vocals of Marie-Claire Balabanian with echoing guitar chords, organ lines, and sturdy drum patterns. Altogether, it's music that leaves the vague impression of having entered some kind of homecoming. Space Cubs will be showering the crowd with dance-ably introspective electronic tunes while Cinnamon Aluminum will be playing other-worldly tunes reminiscent of Animal Collective and Talking Heads.  The event starts at 8:00PM and $5 will get you through the door. See you there!

Cinnamon Aluminum. Cinnamon Aluminum. Cinnamon Aluminum. Last Thursday, when I caught up with them for a couple minute before their practice time, they admitted they gravitated to the name because of it's tongue-twisting difficulty. For those who don't know, the group is a four piece outfit, consisting of Zach Acard (drums, vocals, sampler, synth, guitar), Mike Schroeder (bass, vocals, synths, samplers), Chris Svoboda (synths, laptop, vocals, sax), and the most recent addition, Bill Conroy (drums, percussion, samplers). They've played at The Vault, Soundlab, Nietzsches, DBGBS, and a couple of other places. As you could probably tell from the photo, their approach to performance is strongly visual- they embrace the use of projectors, wear costumes, etc. All of this in order to conjure a certain atmosphere. One that will induce crowd members into participating in the zany hypnotism that is happening in front of them.

buffaBLOG: How'd you guys come together?
Zach Acard: Me and Chris went to college together, we used to be in a band together, but we knew each other way before that, then we met Mike through a casual acquaintance. I met Bill in college too.
Mike Schroeder: I met Bill in high-school.
Zach Acard: Me and Chris used to be in a band called Ape Documentary.
Chris Svobada: Yeah it was basically when we figuring out our instruments (laughs).
Zach Acard: We came together as Cinnamon Aluminum in 2009.

buffaBLOG: Who would you say your influences are?
ZA: We were listening to a lot of Animal Collective, it was right around the time when Merriweather Post Pavilion came out. It kind of changed our direction.
CS: We listen to a lot of house and Daft Punk.
MS: Devo and Talking Heads.
CS: Black Dice.
ZS: One of the reasons me and Schroeder connected was because of the Of Montreal album Hissing Fauna.
CS: That's probably a big influence on the theatrical aspect of our band, that and Zappa.
ZA: Yeah, he's like all of our uncles.
MS: It's his attitude toward comedy, music, and life. It's kind of how we try to think about it. Don't take it too seriously, it's a joke, we're performers, we're dancing around, we want you to laugh and have a good time. Just doing whatever what's on our mind musically. We'll like start with some corny, corny chant and turn it into a cool song.
CS: That's kind of how we wrote our last album.
ZA: Yeah, we have recorded albums of just as chanting.

buffaBLOG: So you just started going into your song-writing process, can you flesh that out more?
ZA: We do the chants, sometimes instead of having regular guitar practice, we'll set up our samplers, synths, and computers in our living room and call it "fort night", and build a fort. Then we'll bring them into practice and make them into real songs I guess. We're trying to write more sounds based on improv, we used to do that, but now we've been trying to jam more. Having a second drummer helps, now we can have full songs no matter what I'm doing.
MS: We definitely write in all those ways, we always switch it, right now we're doing more of the jamming and writing lyrics over it, perfecting it to make it sound good. We still have a lot of songs that need drums.

buffaBLOG: What's your favorite venue to play at?
ZA: The Vault is my favorite place to see a show, it's probably my favorite place to play a show.
MS: The Vault is hands down the best venue.
ZA: Playing here [at Slyboots] is cool, but you have to really bring in a crowd.
CS: It's a little off the grid.
ZA: I prefer playing at places like The Vault over a bar, because there are people that just go there to drink, and that's something you have to fight. I like playing at Soundlab a lot too.

buffaBLOG: What do you guys have in store for the future?
MS: We wanna have more monthly shows, more circus shows, people dressed up as wizards. Weird creepy fantasy jesters.
ZA: We plan on setting up like a monthly party where it's gonna be a set day and a set place. We also have a new album that we're putting out right now. Shabooshkadoti*
MS: It was one of my aunt's nicknames, somehow, I don't know how it was given to her.

*writers note: I may have butchered that.

Walking on Fire by thefoundsound


Favorite Song of 2011


Shut Up by jhameel


Favorite Show of 2011


Purity Ring, Love Scenes, Early Attic at Mohawk Place (August 23, 2011): I'd hated hard on this band for a while before the Mohawk Place show. With a half-million Soundcloud hits and a bevy of blog-love before they ever even performed, I figured Purity Ring was all hype and I planned to just sit this one out. But when they started their Mohawk Place set, I ate my own words. Heavy glitch beats, devastating lights, and banter that grounded the experience with an integral, saccharine innocence. Even if Corin Roddick's light-bulb-and-pipe “device” didn't actually generate sound – and was just for looks as I semi-suspect – it was still an impressive, compelling show. Support from local pop duo Love Scenes was an adept pairing, but I missed Early Attic's opening set, because, for once, a Buffalo show started on time.

Honorable Mention:


Laughing Eye Weeping Eye, Cinnamon Aluminum, YesYes HeavenTongue at Soundlab (June 11, 2011): This show reminded me of why I first fell in love with Soundlab; suspiciously low turnouts, uncomfortably open-minded vibes, and deeply unsettling music projects make for a perfect hotbed of weirdness. LEWE stranged things up with their circuit-bending chant opera, followed by an acoustic set by rapid-fire poet YesYes, who was surrounded by a cult of vocal accompanists, and the night ended with the synth-jungle trio Cinnamon Aluminum, who were joined by friends for a rousing set of brain-scraping pop. Afterwards, I felt as though I'd beheld the maddening machinations of Nyarlathotep, and spilled, with a newfound schizophrenia, out into the yawning mouth of oblivion that is the Buffalo streets.

Moksha by YesYesMichaelErsing