Archive for the 'Atlanta' Category

26
July
2008
tags: prettydrone, ATL, Nerdkween, Atlanta.

things i needed to say

With all this talk about Res repping Brooklyn, I thought I’d ressurect a vastly-overdue-for-posting song from where the other half of Resonator resides-Atlanta.

One of the biggest surprises the past year has held for me is that of the resurgence of dreamy, wind-and-feedback swept school of shoegaze. Don’t get me wrong, I’d sell my left anything (or right anything, or only anything) for the chance to experience My Bloody Valentine raging into “You Made Me Realise”  for like 25 minutes until synapses are bloody pulps, nerves are raw and all sound is apathy-inducing, but on a day-to-day basis I’ll take the snowy dream-pop broken hearts club band  over the former, if you don’t mind. Lismore abandoned the prettydrone aesthetic whole-heartedly a few years back, and since then I’ve been wondering if it was left for dead. Thankfully, 2008 has proven I need not worry.

It should be fitting, then, that when I saw Atlanta-based Lou Martyr (formerly of Res favorites One Hand Loves The Other, who have called it a night in terms of production as a collective whole) perform with another Atlanta musician with whom I was way less familiar, Nerdkween, at the one-year anniversary of Wordsmiths, it was the latter who left me utterly stunned. Don’t get me wrong-in a solo capacity, working through older material and some covers, Lou was completely angelic-Nerdkween, however, was an unexpected teacup tempest.

Surrounding herself with what I’m going to call “seriously analogue looping mechanisms” (actually tiny, portable boomboxes) she used to create walls of ambient sound, Nerdkween matched jaw-dropping white-noise soundscapes with lo-fidelity acoustic songs, all seemingly themed on the concept of moving and searching for…something. Doesn’t matter-I, literally, found myself with my head back, eyes closed, utterly lost in her sonic world. And, yeah, I ambushed her as soon as I could move again. Posing on this has taken me too long.

Nerdkween: Earning My Disgrace

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“Earning My Disgrace” is a soft,tinkling ballad, counterbalanced with the tiniest bit of hope every time Nerdkween’s fragile voice makes it out of the mix. With the sonic disturbances lying just beneath and just behind the song’s surface, this thing threatens to either fall apart or fly into the sun at any second. I could keep this on repeat for hours and not realize it.

The whole album is entirely worth it, and each song weaves itself into the tapestry of the next and adds to the overall feel of nearly 45 minutes of dark, glistening haze that’s achingly real. Pick it up from Stickfigure (where there’s also another song sample).

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07
February
2008
tags: Hope For Agoldensummer, Atlanta.

After the dreamland fire

It was our friends at Wordsmiths Books that first introduced me to Athens/Decatur, Georgia trio Hope For Agoldensummer, when they made the band’s gorgeously-packaged Ariadne Thread album the first CD stocked by the bookstore.

It’s taken a while, a good couple of months, for this album to begin nestling in my heart, wrapping itself deep and low around those guttural, blood-and-bone places that, when lingered in, makes music become part of the very fiber of being.

That’s the landscape, really, of the Hope For Agoldensummer sound.

bio2.jpg

Together, Page Campbell, Claire Campbell and Deb Davis call themselves a “junkyard soul trio”, but they’re actually so much more. This is music that’s definitively southern, definitely rural, and reminiscent of a folk-art angel singing her heart out. At times, the territory tread by Hope For Agoldensummer is equal parts Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor with weaponry provided by Nick Cave-the sort of songs that hold knives behind their backs, lingering in sweetness just long enough to unveil the darkness lingering ‘neath. Other times, the songs are southern field gospel revivals, celebrating the sweaty southern pastures of life and love.

This song treads the territory of the morning after that is the latter, but only after passing through the darkened terrain of the former.

Hope For Agoldensummer: 4th Night

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In my morning, things didn’t feel as they should-in my heart or in my head. It’s possible I guided iTunes to this song, but I have more faith in the fact that it was kinda chosen.

The thing with the soulful vocals, the soft finger-plucked instrumentation-it’s all so damn tangible, so damn human, so present. So much of the redemptive quality of all of Hope ForAgoldensummer’s music comes from that ever-present (even in darkness) humanity, and it’s what I didn’t know I needed this morning when this song found me.

Sometimes you just have to let it all go, let it all break, y’know?


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02
February
2008
tags: Janelle Monae, Atlanta, WTF Mate?, Creatively awesome, batshit crazy.

Monae love

This is less something “current” or “cutting edge” in terms of release timing than it is “current” and “cutting edge” in terms of the fact that you have never, ever heard anything quite on this level before. Around the midpoint of 2007, self-released with little fanfare, a quiet storm dropped on the city of Atlanta in the form of a time-traveling futuretro funk-rock goddess calling herself Janelle Monae and her debut E.P. Metropolis.

She would then proceed to tear shit up.

Metropolis took a little time to grow on the city, and it’s still spreading itself thick and oozing, but one listen to the too-brief five tracks and there’s an immediate hook, evidenced so not just by the amount of critical in-city “Best Of” lists this EP (an EP! on Best-Of lists!) ended up on, not just by sold-out shows, but by the fact that her biggest fans are the duo who last changed the face of southern urban music forever: Outkast.

Big Boi’s proven himself to be more than just a fan by signing her to the now-defunct Big Purp, and Andre himself has shown her Janelle studio time. So what, pray tell, does this seeming wunderkind sound like?

In this case, a picture’s worth a thousand notes:

This IS the sound of Janelle Monae-a futuristic blend of old-school classic funk, hard-ass rock and some sort of crazed electroglam stomp that both Marc Bolan and Prince would pawn their souls, pool their money and yet still be unable to afford. Metropolis, the story thus far, involves a far-flung society and a forbidden robot/human lovestory. Metropolis, the sound, is even more impossible, and instantly catchy.

Janelle Monae: Violet Stars, Happy Hunting

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The first real “song” off of the E.P., this is an absolutely perfect example of the nutsoid, cyber-hop funplex of candy-colored terrorbliss Janelle and her band are carving out for themselves. That stuttering beat in punk/funk time, Janelle’s way of phrasing, the fact that this is both a love song and a death march…holy holy crap.

Janelle Monae: Time Will Reveal

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From outside the Metropo-verse, off of one of the Big Purp comps that y’all kids ignored because you were too busy listening to Girl Talk mash up “Kryptonite” with something dumb, probably by Nirvana. Janelle’s early venture into bringing the world into her color scheme, this is actually a hell of a lot more frantic than any of the E.P., and for good reason-she’s singing like her life depends on it here, and who knows-maybe, by the time the full Metropolis suite reveals itself, it will.

Janelle Monae’s official site, with photos, a store to purchase the music, etc.  

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25
September
2007
tags: Gorilla Zoe, hot trax, Atlanta, Artists, Mp3.

Atlanta Zoo

ATL’s own Gorilla Zoe will be dropping his debut album today, “Welcome to the Zoo.” Now me, I don’t know too much about Gorilla Zoe, other than he is Young Jeezy’s replacement in Boyz N Da Hood, and that his role there is way fitting, seeing as how he sounds damn near just like Jeezy. But I was driving home earlier tonight and heard this little gem on V-103….

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Gorilla Zoe-You Don’t Know Me (Feat. D. Woods)

This is pop perfection. I know, I know, the rest of the album sounds pretty much like every other Atlanta/dirty south fare, but this track is gold. New rule: let’s have more exquisitely produced goodness like this coming out of our fair city because, goddammit, we’ve all heard the other stuff to death. I know it’s going to be a rarity though, since this track is the equivalent to a drum n’ bass pantywetter, and you just don’t hear a lot of good pantywetters among all the WOMPWOMPWOMP typical dn’b torrent of bullshit out there. I’m saying it now though, this is the standout track of the album.

-rjamz

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26
August
2007
tags: Atlanta, One Hand Loves The Other.

Cellophane

Hacks, yesterday, or maybe the day before that, or even possibly the day before that (who…the…hell…knows? The days, they blur) gave you a huge laundry list of ways you can spend your Labor Day Saturday if you, like he and I, are cornbreadin’ it up (aka in the southeastern United State.. And don’t look at me in that tone of voice).

One thing that he neglected to mention was an event that I tried to book his overachieving ass for, and couldn’t.

That’s right-I can’t even pull strings and get Hacks.

However, the remainder of what’s been put together, in part with us here at Res and in part with our good friends Wordsmiths Books, who have quickly carved out a brand as one of THE coolest little (and I use little figuratively, the place is huge) hangouts in the city of Atlanta, and who constantly strive to bring creative, forward-thinking entertainment (for free, nonetheless). Next Saturday, September 1st, the lot of us have assembled a little something that’s being called “futureTense”: from 7-8 P.M., a handful of Atlanta’s foremost bloggers are gather to discuss the future of media. This isn’t some sort of Grad School anally serious “flickr will change the world” panel, though-in fact, its’ purported purpose is to be the exact OPPOSITE of that.

The real draw, though, is that, following the panel at about 9 P.M., Res Mag favorites One Hand Loves The Other are going to be playing that gorgeous, intimate space. For Free.

To whet your appetite, and to remind you of exactly how damn GOOD the sweeping, orchestral electro-pop of One Hand Loves The Other is, take another nibble, in the form of “Rubbernecker Nightingale”, from the feast that is their self-titled debut album:

One Hand Loves The Other: Rubbernecker Nightingale

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It’s that gorgeous repeated chorus of “Cellophane/Seraphim” that will grab you at first, but the end, when the sonics collapse a little at a time around vocalist Lou’s choirboy-like angelic statement of “i. don’t. know. how. to. be. what. you. need”, is what will light the candle in your heart.

Don’t miss. Next Saturday, Sept 1st. One Hand Loves The Other as part of futureTense at Wordsmiths Books. Granted, there’ll be no Deejay Hacks-but since when could Hacks sing like a Backstreet Boy kidnapped by Ellen Allien?

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