Have A Nice Life

Time of Land

UM HOLY SHIT

THANK GOD

...no, just kidding. dont thank god. thank me.

red sparowes

The Fear is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer

ok so yes, red sparowes can't spell. and yes, their album title does strike me as kindof lame. but don't worry, these guys can create some truly brutal, backbreaking walls of sound. it always weirds me out that the only people i see at their shows are filthy, long-haired, pimply metal-types.

why is this? can anyone explain? they sound nothing like slayer, i swear!

i guess i "understand" why they're not more popular... kids would rather suffer through shitty, my-american-heart-esque singing while waiting for some cliche, 15-second breakdown than listen to the builds and swells of a song that actually requires technical skill.

whew sorry that came out so bitter. might have something to do with being woken up by my friends listening to iwrestledabearonce at 5am. almost took my own life. anyway, at least listen to the last track. it's breathtaking.

Myspace // Last.fm

Warpaint

Exquisite Corpse EP

just some babez with angelic voices who make gorgeous music.

really dreamy, a little post-rocky, and completely otherworldly.

perfect for being snowed in for the night.

if you're starting to lose hope with all these recent dreampop bands springing up and putting out 7 minute tracks of boring, repetitive shit, don't worry-there's quite a bit of range here. they go from the more traditional "stars" to this pretty jazzy track appropriately titled "billie holiday" to "beetles," which is probably one of the more interesting stylistic ventures i've heard lately in the genre.

Toe

For Long Tomorrow

"The Long Tomorrow" is the title of a futuristic short comic written by cyberpunks. Though i've never read it, clearly it's inspired some diverse shit... first the timeless classic Blade Runner (<--sarcasm), and now Toe's latest album. Sorry I took my time putting it up, but you know. finals. and stuff.

For those of you not familiar with Toe, they're Japanese prog-rock/post-rock instrumentalists. They sometimes mince their music with vocals. Other times (read: now), they disappear for 3 years and then reemerge with an amazing album. If there's a bone in your body, you'll gulp this shit down. I might not be able to decipher half of the titles, but that hasn't stopped me from bumping both parts of モスキートンはもう聞こえない pretty hard.

Here We Go Magic - Tunnelvision (Live)

Soooo I didn't expect myself to want to post this so soon, but wow! I came across it while thinking about making a "Best Live Acts of 2009" post, and just couldn't contain myself. This song live is as epic as the fact that they are performing in front of a huge boat. No, it is more epic. Imagine they are performing on the boat, and it is a Viking boat on its way to discovering Iceland, and then they encounter a portal into another dimension, or something. I don't understand how this video only has three-hundred-something views.



If their new songs are any indication (they played maybe four*, I think, when I saw them two months ago), and if they release an album in 2010, I can't imagine a world in which they do not become huge.

*Sadly, there is no Youtube evidence of this. Total bummer.

P.S. I almost forgot -- Noisevox also has several other videos from this show up on Youtube and they are all Olivia-Wilde-goddamn-beautiful. Check them out.

Ren Sanchez

Ren Sanchez is a dude I know. He does shoegaze-influenced electronic stuff, which is pretty awesome. This is a collection of tracks he composed over the last year or so. Reminds me of Atlas Sound and Mogwai and Grouper and other stuff. Kinda depends on the song. The last two are full-band songs, under a different name: Sun Shower. The first is a pretty standard post-rock tune, but the second puts an organ alongside the guitar, transforming the groove into a dark drive down a rural road. He's writing some pretty ridiculous epic dubstep-ish music right now, which I'm really psyched about. I'll probably post it when he's got enough material.


Soundtrack

M. Pyres (Pt. 2)

Yay, finally got around to posting this! You may recall M. Pyres from the post I made about Cast Off / Cold Months. Pretty awesome ambient/post-rock album. The following albums stray far from that -- but not too far. All three are totes srsly recommended. Apart The Echo is kinda like Meneguar and Wavves or No Age or some other lo-fi punk/noise band but really into 90's indie rock and still with the ambient ideas floating around. & New Past Tense, which hasn't been released yet, is like a cross between Apart The Echo and Cast Off / Cold Months, integrating the post-rock ideas into the noisier punk songs. Consider Me, Ghost is a collection of their early demos, but almost all of it is as good as the newer stuff. Get into it, dudes.


Apart The Echo -- Buy it!


& New Past Tense


Consider Me, Ghost (demos)

Myspace

M. PYRES

CAST OFF / COLD MONTHS

This is one of the best ambient records I've heard in a while because it's so organic, unlike most of the other ambient stuff I've been into -- that of the synth-based and spaced-out set. This album is more like the end of The Shining as opposed to the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, if that makes sense. I'd recommend this to fans of Super Minerals and other things I can't think of right now -- for some reason, I want to say the quieter parts of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, or if The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place was buried in a bomb shelter and recorded through a drain pipe. Most of it is guitar loop streams and feedback rivers flowing down delay mountains, if I'm not mistaken (I probably am, since I've neglected all valleys and clearings); hence, the post-rock tag.

I'll be posting three other records from this band in a few days, but I figured I should put them in a different post since they're all somewhat different from this one. You'll see. In the meantime, familiarize yourself with a record I'm surprised isn't more widely hyped.

Myspace

New: Om, Russian Circles, Between The Buried and Me

Russian Circles - Geneva

I have been a fan of Russian Circles for some time now. Their new album is, to me, their best. They do a wonderful job of blending textbook post-rock melodies with intense guitar work that is reminiscent of fellow Chicago band Pelican. This album starts out strong with some shorter tracks and ends with a few epics that delve into the realm of prog.

Myspace///Buy


Om - God is Good

If you don't know about Om, and don't feel like opening up a new tab to look at their Wiki, they are a duo that formed as a result of the disbanding of Sleep. They play some good Doom Metal. While I definitely prefer 2007's "Pilgrimage" to this new release of theirs it is still fairly solid. I may post Pilgrimage sometime in the near future.

Myspace///Buy


Between The Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect

I'm sure this band needs no introductions. You either love them for what they bring to the table, or hate them for it. Just know this, if you loved 2007's "Colors", you will dig the fuck out of this.

Myspace///Buy

Parotia Tree & Tycho Anomaly & Memory Screen

Stay with me here, this might get confusing. Recently, some dude on www.CollectedAnimals.net posted some of his music. And it was awesome. Some members of the forum requested that he post more music. So he did. All of it was awesome.

The first and most recent thing he posted was this:
Balloons Split
One half is Chordata Primate, the other half is Tycho Anomaly (the guy that posted it). It was recorded "over the past few months".

Chordata Primate is now known as Memory Screen. Memory Screen's album can be downloaded HERE for free (watch the video, too). Get this if you're a fan of Do Make Say Think and miss the way they used to play jazz like they wanted to hypnotize the Titans.

These are both awesome records. Listen to them at their myspace links below if you want a better idea of how they sound. Also, do you see how many genre labels I used on this post? I even resorted to using "experimental". That should tell you something, because I usually make it a point to avoid that tag simply due to its cop-out, anti-descriptive nature. Today, I can't avoid it. I'm of the opinion that the fact of this being posted on an Animal Collective fan forum is enough incentive to download all this stuff.


Then, he posted this album, which the Tycho Anomaly guy made with the guy who is now Memory Screen. And it is awesome. I've been listening to this one the most, which is weird, because it apparently was recorded "several years ago" and, according to the dude who is now Tycho Anomaly, is "definitely not as well developed as some of the stuff on the split". I don't know what he's on about, really.

Parotia Tree Myspace
Tycho Anomaly Myspace
Memory Screen Myspace

By The End of Tonight/Tera Melos - Complex Full of Phantoms (2007)

Inspired by Patrick's post. Two great bands together for one great split.

EDIT: Had to use Megaupload as Mediafire was being lame. I will try again on mediafire in a few days or something.

Download (240 kbps [VBR])
Buy

Tera Melos - Drugs to the Dear Youth

Hey dudes, STREAM/DOWNLOAD/BUY one of my favorite albums ever, recently remixed and remastered. How sweet is that vinyl? Hella sweet. Even sweeter in person. Enjoy.

Myspace

This Will Destroy You - This Will Destroy You (2008)

This album resurfaced into my library the other day when I decided to put everything on shuffle. I had forgotten how good it was. They're a little more post-rock on this record than on their EP, but that is never really a bad thing.

Myspace
Download
Buy it!

The Appleseed Cast

Myspace
Buy!

By The End of Tonight - The Fireworks On Ice EP (2004)

Got introduced to these guys today, really enjoy them. Good post-metal, math-rocky feel. All instrumental.

Preview on Myspace
DOWNLOAD
Buy it!

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band - 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons

If there was a nuclear apocalypse going on at this very moment this album would be it's soundtrack. It would blare over loudspeakers, boom over radios, and be on every television channel. I would dance along without a care in the world. In case you haven't noticed, I love this album in all of it's epicness.

Official Website
DOWNLOAD

Vessels - White Fields and Open Devices (2008)

Since no adjective or metaphor is better at describing music than a comparison to another band, this is like the heavier side of Mogwai mixed with Battles. If it's safe to say that any new band today is copying things their forebears have done, and if it's also safe to say that the success of the new band is based on how well they actually execute these rehashed ideas, then Vessels is undoubtedly post-rock worth hearing.

Preview on Myspace/Buy it!
DOWNLOAD

EDIT: THIS LINK IS DOWN UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

Because Of Ghosts - This Culture of Background Noise (2008)

"The album was tape-recorded in Montreal at Hotel2Tango by Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Silver Mt. Zion) with additional production work from Efrim Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Silver Mt. Zion) and guest strings from Thierry Amar and Jessica Moss."

They come from Australia. You've got a pretty killer post-rock record right here.

Preview on Myspace
Try it
Buy it!

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band - Horses In The Sky (2005)

Canadian post-rock! The band has seven members, three of which are involved with the extremely influential post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. This is one of my favorite albums of all time and features my favorite song by them, God Bless Our Dead Marines.
DOWNLOAD
Buy
Band Website

Mogwai - The Hawk Is Howling (2008)

If you're a fan of Mogwai, you should know by now that they never disappoint. In any case, so far, I enjoy this more than Mr. Beast, whatever that means.

Preview on Myspace
[My link was removed by mediafire, try the SORDO Music Archive]