in the works

i'm going to start using this blog again, but it probably won't be as strictly music related as it used to be. first off, I have a ton of old photos from shows that I'm getting up on flickr that i will post a best of set ...

ATTN hipsters: vinyl is losing its obscure indie points

The word is out ... according to Time Magazine: vinyl is actually cool again. Since this is Time Magazine that we are talking about, it is no longer obscurely cool to buy new vinyl and steal your parents' old records. This is a big problem for all us hipsters. I guess we'll have to do the 8 track thing for a while, and when that wears out ... Edison wax cylinders? This semi-joking drift aside, definitely check out the article ... by the sound of it, the world of vinyl is on the rise. I say that's a good thing. (The picture is an old attempt at a header for the blog).

[link] Time Magazine: Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back

beach house and high places @ the sugar tank

Well, Lancaster is half decent again as of Sunday the 6th, thanks to a new artist collective/warehouse space called The Sugar Tank. (The Chameleon Club stopped having good shows years ago ... if you're not from central PA, ignore these first 2 sentences.) If you don't know Beach House ... you'd better get on that, and see them live ASAP too. I've linked to "Gila" below which is on their new (and really good) album Devotion out February 26. As far as High Places, they are from Brooklyn and you can tell ... in the best way possible. They put on a really fun live show complete with constant, pounding bass, multitudes of percussion, and bounding melodies - whether it be on recorder or synth. Oh, and my top album list for 2007 ... still coming soon ... lists are so overrated.

[mp3] Beach House - Gila
[link] Beach House on myspace

[mp3] High Places - Shared Islands
[link] High Places on myspace

Neal's Top 21 of 2007

ok kids, so its that time of year. What time of year is that do you ask? Well, Top 10 time of course! And not to be left out this is my top 21 of 2007.

Note: this top 21 is NOT of albums that came out in 2007, nor are they in order from most favorite to least favorite, although they may be. It is more of a list of awesome music I have been listening to in 2007...

21.)ecstatic sunshine - living

20.)the arcade fire - neon bible

19.)the talking heads - sand in the vaseline jar

18.)television - marquee moon

17.)the misfits

16.)low - drums and guns

15.)boredoms - seadrum/house of sun

14.)mount eerie - pts. 6 & 7

13.)tim hecker - harmony in ultraviolet

12.)soft circle - self titled

11.)panda bear - person pitch

10.)deerhoof - friend opportunity

9.)tara jane o'neil - after a dark seven

8.)the besnard lakes - are the dark horse

7.)raccoo-oo-oon - behold secret kingdom

6.)animal collective - strawberry jam

5.)battles - mirrored

4.)lucky dragons - dark falcon

3.)casanets - in the vines

2.)akron/family - love is simple

1.)dirty projectors - rise above

anatomy of a leak

There was a really cool article in New York Magazine earlier this week with a brief inside look at advance CD leaks and also comments on the evolving nature of the music industry. Take a look:

[link] New York Magazine - Ripped to Shreds

long time coming

Hello again, you few, but loyal readers. I'm just stopping in to post a few links and make some empty promises. The second half of my semester turned out to be rather busy and the blog got pushed into some dark, dusty corner.

I'll start off with some shameless self-promotion: cCoOmMpPuUtTeErR iIsS aA rRoOoOmM with j.s. makkos is completely finished and I'm headed to Cleveland later today for our small and unofficial CD release show. If you are in the area, check out languagefoundry.org for more information. I'll have another track or two up on my Virb account within the next week or so (virb.com/wherethereisfire) and sometime in the next month there will be some means of purchasing the album online through Paypal if you are interested. In other Where There is Fire We Will Carry Gasoline news, Neal and I will may be doing some recording in the next week, so look for a track or two from that vein on the Virb as well.

My best of 2007 list is in the works and will be up sometime in January. If you are itching to find out what could be on my list, a friend of mine from State College has list up and a few of his albums will definitely be on my list as well.

[link] britches11596 - Top 20 Albums of 2007

Neal has also had a few posts on his blog over the past month or so that you should check out, especially if you are into noise (Pink and Brown, Lucky Dragons, etc).

[link] (kidsmoke) - Neal's mp3 blog

the music, as opposed to the blog

As many of you know, I also compose music under the name Where There is Fire We Will Carry Gasoline. I've had an album (Computer is a Room) in the works with a poet from Cleveland - j.s. makkos, and it's now finished, slated for release sometime in November. Anyway, I have a song up on my Virb now, so if you are into spoken word backed by ambient electronica, then you definitely need to listen. If not, you should probably still check it out.

[link] Where There is Fire We Will Carry Gasoline on Virb
[link] Language Foundry - Cleveland arts collective which j.s. is involved with

in rainbows

I'll have a full review of this up within a week or so ... I've got a lot of chewing to do. Inititally (with the 6 or so listens I've had so far), I really like the album. I realize many people paid for this download via the website and you can too if you like (inrainbows.com), but for those that want to judge it before they decide to drop $81 on the discbox (it's looking more and more like I will when I have $81 to spend) and don't feel like going through the site ... here are two links to download the zip of the 10 160 Kbps mp3s:

[Sendspace]
[Rapidshare]

By the way, the bridge of "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" really sounds like Broken Social Scene. Did anyone else find themselves making the eerie comparison on the first listen?

andrew bird

Everyone's favorite whistling violinist played the State Theatre here in State College on Monday night. I can't really comment too much on the show because I was only able to catch the last 30 minutes, but what I did see was definitely worth my money. Andrew Bird is still on tour and I'd recommend going to see him if he's coming through your area. If you haven't heard Mr. Bird, check out "Heretics" off his most recent release, Armchair Apocrypha.

[mp3] Andrew Bird - Heretics

phosphorescent

Associations like "the next Bob Dylan" have been thrown around about Matthew Houck, and his new album Pride is another step in that direction. He calls himself (and friends) Phosphorescent - if there has ever been a more eerily dead-on band name, I can't think of it right now. Phosphorescent evokes eerily warm and beautiful folk anthems from the dark world around, not unlike the natural phenomenon of the same name. The organic, wonderfully minimal folk accompaniment envelopes and intertwines with Houck's frailly stoic voice sitting somewhere between campfire improvisation and the soundtrack to soaring through the clouds in a dream. My attempts to explain the truly magnificent feeling of Pride can't even do it justice. You'll have to hear for yourself - it will be released on October 23 via Dead Oceans.

[mp3] Phosphorescent - A Picture of Of Our Torn Up Praise from the forthcoming Pride

Phosphorescent also did a Daytrotter session back in May and there are four tracks available for download; you should read the interview as well. Also, sorry about the lack of posts this week. If you accept excuses ... exams.