Following in wake of KMFDM's more electronic forays rather than Rammstein's rougher and more popularized sound, fellow German band Eisbrecher has been quietly producing solid albums for the past five years. While less political and less angry than the aforementioned, Eisbrecher is far from a "happy" band. Their music mixes industrial, metal and dance aspects in varying ratios with dark-aspected lyrics...in German, of course.
Eisbrecher recently released their third album Sünde. Unfortunately, unlike their two previous albums, it was not picked up for US distribution. All of their albums are available in CD form through Amazon.com, though Sünde bears the price of an import. It and their second album, Antikörper, are available as MP3 downloads.
Update: 1/12/09 - IsoTank Music announced that Sünde would be released on CD in the US on March 10th.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
...Paying Work...
I need to finish edits on my novel by Wednesday.
OMM will be postponed until then.
Next entry: Eisbrecher.
OMM will be postponed until then.
Next entry: Eisbrecher.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Obscure MOVIE Monday -- The Fall
Every couple months I plan to deviate from music to post about some other bit of obscure media. Considering that many best-of-08 list are coming out, I figured I'd blog about a film that's been mentioned on several of them.
The Fall debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006 and received "wide" release in 2008. Wide is defined here as slightly over 100 screens. Directed by Tarsem Singh (The Cell, R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion"), The Fall is quite possibly the most beautiful piece of film-making I have witnessed.
Set in 1920s Los Angeles, the plot revolves around an injured stuntman, Roy (Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies), and Alexandria, a young immigrant worker who broke her arm while picking oranges. In an effort to gain Alexandria's help and trust, Roy tells her an epic tale.
The interplay between the story that Roy tells and the way the the audience sees it--through Alexandria's imagination--is interesting. Objects and people from her life are interwoven into Roy's story. When Roy speaks of an Indian, Alexandria doesn't imagine a Native American, but a man from India, a fellow orange-picker. By the end of both the movie and the story, the narrative is as much Alexandria's as Roy's.
This is not a mainstream film. It is slow in parts and meanders here and there. It avoids sentimentality in favor of harsher mettle. In that way, it shares common ground with Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone. It is also very beautiful. The Fall was shot entirely on location and contains very few non-practical effects. While the fairy-tale settings of Roy's story are breath-taking, as much care was taken with the 'real' setting of the hospital where the characters are laid-up.
By sheer virtue of movie-making, it is phenomenal.
The Fall is available on DVD and Blu-ray.
The Fall debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006 and received "wide" release in 2008. Wide is defined here as slightly over 100 screens. Directed by Tarsem Singh (The Cell, R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion"), The Fall is quite possibly the most beautiful piece of film-making I have witnessed.
Set in 1920s Los Angeles, the plot revolves around an injured stuntman, Roy (Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies), and Alexandria, a young immigrant worker who broke her arm while picking oranges. In an effort to gain Alexandria's help and trust, Roy tells her an epic tale.
The interplay between the story that Roy tells and the way the the audience sees it--through Alexandria's imagination--is interesting. Objects and people from her life are interwoven into Roy's story. When Roy speaks of an Indian, Alexandria doesn't imagine a Native American, but a man from India, a fellow orange-picker. By the end of both the movie and the story, the narrative is as much Alexandria's as Roy's.
This is not a mainstream film. It is slow in parts and meanders here and there. It avoids sentimentality in favor of harsher mettle. In that way, it shares common ground with Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone. It is also very beautiful. The Fall was shot entirely on location and contains very few non-practical effects. While the fairy-tale settings of Roy's story are breath-taking, as much care was taken with the 'real' setting of the hospital where the characters are laid-up.
By sheer virtue of movie-making, it is phenomenal.
The Fall is available on DVD and Blu-ray.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Abney Park
Steampunk. That is the genre name that Abney Park prefers these days. A label usually reserved for steam engine era "future" technology, it fits Abney Park's mixture of industrial dance beats and turn-of-the-previous-century orchestral instrumentation. With a bit of 90s goth and world music influences thrown in for good measure. What might end up being an unfocused mess in the hands of lesser musicians is held together perfectly by Robert Brown's vocal and the rest of the "crew." Though they've been around for a decade (and are probably not-so-obscure in some circles), Abney Park continues to become solid contiguous whole.
Abney Park offers quite a few songs for free via their Vault.
From their 2000 release Cemetery Number 1, this is "The Wake":
This year's "Airship Pirate" off of Lost Horizons:
And, better than anything you'll hear at the mall this month, "Little Drummer Boy" from Dark Christmass:
Four of Abney Park's albums are currently available from Amazon.com in both CD and digital form and in CD form off their website. Cemetery Number 1, Twisted & Broken (a remix album) and Dark Christmass are available through Vault access. I've purchased Vault access in the past and have found the band to be great to do business with.
Update (before I even post):
Dark Christmass is being offered for a limited time as a separate download!
Abney Park offers quite a few songs for free via their Vault.
From their 2000 release Cemetery Number 1, this is "The Wake":
This year's "Airship Pirate" off of Lost Horizons:
And, better than anything you'll hear at the mall this month, "Little Drummer Boy" from Dark Christmass:
Four of Abney Park's albums are currently available from Amazon.com in both CD and digital form and in CD form off their website. Cemetery Number 1, Twisted & Broken (a remix album) and Dark Christmass are available through Vault access. I've purchased Vault access in the past and have found the band to be great to do business with.
Update (before I even post):
Dark Christmass is being offered for a limited time as a separate download!
Monday, December 8, 2008
Charlie Watts & Bernard Fowler
Chances are, you've heard Charlie Watts play and Bernard Fowler sing. As the drummer for The Rolling Stones, Watts is arguably one of the most heard rock musicians around. Fowler, consistently employed as a background singer, has an enviable discography. And together they've produced several very good albums of American jazz standards.
Charlie Watts was a jazz musician before he was a member of The Rolling Stones and makes no secret of his preference for that genre over rock. In 1992, Watts put together a quintet and released A Tribute Charlie Parker with Strings. The first portion of the album consists of music written by Peter King and Bernard Fowler narrating a text written by Charlie Watts. The second set includes Fowler singing "Lover Man." Watts' next two albums, Warm & Tender and Long Ago & Far Away included many of the same musicians with Fowler's soulful voice highlighted on vocals.
Again, it was a bit hard to track down some this duo's work. The best I could manage within the bounds of what already exists on the internet is an interview Watts did in 1993 that includes a bit of Fowler singing. Unfortunately, it's not even embeddable!
Charlie Watts On "NBC Later" 1993 Pt 3 of 3
Only Long Ago & Far Away is currently available from Amazon.com as a CD, though another of Watts' albums, sans Fowler, is available for digital download.
Here is the title track from that Long Ago & Far Away:
Charlie Watts was a jazz musician before he was a member of The Rolling Stones and makes no secret of his preference for that genre over rock. In 1992, Watts put together a quintet and released A Tribute Charlie Parker with Strings. The first portion of the album consists of music written by Peter King and Bernard Fowler narrating a text written by Charlie Watts. The second set includes Fowler singing "Lover Man." Watts' next two albums, Warm & Tender and Long Ago & Far Away included many of the same musicians with Fowler's soulful voice highlighted on vocals.
Again, it was a bit hard to track down some this duo's work. The best I could manage within the bounds of what already exists on the internet is an interview Watts did in 1993 that includes a bit of Fowler singing. Unfortunately, it's not even embeddable!
Charlie Watts On "NBC Later" 1993 Pt 3 of 3
Only Long Ago & Far Away is currently available from Amazon.com as a CD, though another of Watts' albums, sans Fowler, is available for digital download.
Here is the title track from that Long Ago & Far Away:
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Spiffy Stuff Saturday - Amazon.com MP3s
If you haven't noticed, I'm a fan of Amazon.com's MP3 Downloads. While iTunes began dominating the market in the mid-2000s, Amazon.com was quietly offering free MP3 downloads from smaller record labels. In September of 2007, Amazon.com relaunched its download store1 and has since gained the support of the major record labels2.
The Pros and Cons:
Con: Amazon.com requires the installation of a download client.
Pro: It's a light-weight, non-obtrusive download client that adds newly downloaded music into your Windows Media Player.
Pro: DRM-free MP3s. The MP3 is yours to do with as you please. My household has five computers and a portable media device. I can copy my Amazon.com downloads to all of them.
Con: MP3s are, well, MP3s: a lossy data compression format. They're not going to sound as good as your CD, MPEG-4 SLS, WMA Lossless or the like.
Counter-Pro: Amazon.com's MP3s are generally 256 kbps which isn't too shabby.
Pro: They're cheap and there's lots of deals to be had. Their catalog has grown to a point where I can find most albums (even obscure albums) for around $9.
Con: It's digital media and prone to the corruptions and data loss (by hardware implosion) that any file is.
Counter-Pro: When the music is "out-of-print," the MP3 album is not only cheaper, but, more importantly, available.
But I mentioned deals and that's the true spiffiness of Amazon.com's MP3 Downloads:
The Pros and Cons:
Con: Amazon.com requires the installation of a download client.
Pro: It's a light-weight, non-obtrusive download client that adds newly downloaded music into your Windows Media Player.
Pro: DRM-free MP3s. The MP3 is yours to do with as you please. My household has five computers and a portable media device. I can copy my Amazon.com downloads to all of them.
Con: MP3s are, well, MP3s: a lossy data compression format. They're not going to sound as good as your CD, MPEG-4 SLS, WMA Lossless or the like.
Counter-Pro: Amazon.com's MP3s are generally 256 kbps which isn't too shabby.
Pro: They're cheap and there's lots of deals to be had. Their catalog has grown to a point where I can find most albums (even obscure albums) for around $9.
Con: It's digital media and prone to the corruptions and data loss (by hardware implosion) that any file is.
Counter-Pro: When the music is "out-of-print," the MP3 album is not only cheaper, but, more importantly, available.
But I mentioned deals and that's the true spiffiness of Amazon.com's MP3 Downloads:
- 25 Days of Free. From now until Dec. 25th Amazon.com is offering a free holiday MP3 every day. Everyone should have a few non-annoying Christmas songs...
- Daily Deals and Weekly Free MP3s. Sure, I didn't *need* Belinda Carlise's Heaven on Earth album, but as 99 cent daily deal? How could my 7th-grade-self resist? Generally, I use Dealnews.com to keep up to date.
- Pepsi Stuff. If you have an Amazon.com account, Pepsi's reward program integrates seemlessly with it. A refreshing change from CokeReward's Flash-bloated site.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Drain STH
The female band Drain STH (known as simply Drain in their native Sweden) is described by WikiPedia as melodic metal. While apt, it doesn't quite encompass the grunge quality of of Drain STH's musical style. The best comparison is to Alice in Chains, the female vocals of Maria Sjöholm are only slightly smoother and less aggressive than Layne Staley's.
While I try to keep all my clips and videos sanctioned and official, it is difficult to find much embeddable Drain STH on the web. The following is a fan submitted audio-only of "Black," off of their second album Freaks of Nature album:
Currently, Drain STH's albums are out of print and available used through vendors like Amazon.com. The band does maintain a MySpace with several tracks available for streaming. Other tracks, especially those from their first album Horror Wrestling can be found via a YouTube search.
While I try to keep all my clips and videos sanctioned and official, it is difficult to find much embeddable Drain STH on the web. The following is a fan submitted audio-only of "Black," off of their second album Freaks of Nature album:
Currently, Drain STH's albums are out of print and available used through vendors like Amazon.com. The band does maintain a MySpace with several tracks available for streaming. Other tracks, especially those from their first album Horror Wrestling can be found via a YouTube search.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Brother Sun Sister Moon
Not to be confused with the Franco Zeffirelli film or the Donovan album, Brother Sun Sister Moon is the trip-hop collaboration between Paul Robb of Information Society and vocalist Barbara Cohen. For anyone familiar with Cohen's more acoustic work with Little Lizard or her country-sounding solo album, the pair do not seem to be a logical match. For someone who first encountered Cohen's powerful voice in the context of Brother Sun Sister Moon's lush orchestrations, it's hard to understand why there have only been two albums by the duo.
Their first album The Great Game was released in 1997 to local buzz in Minneapolis and other parts of the heartland. It caught the attention of Virgin Records who signed them to produce a second album. Unfortunately, that album, Luminous, was never released by Virgin, the group was dropped, and eventually Luminous was released by Bleep Records in 2002.
Both albums were re-released by Robb's HAKATAK imprint in 2007. They are available for download only through Amazon.com (here and here) as well as through other online music outlets.
Source: Time to play b-sides
Their first album The Great Game was released in 1997 to local buzz in Minneapolis and other parts of the heartland. It caught the attention of Virgin Records who signed them to produce a second album. Unfortunately, that album, Luminous, was never released by Virgin, the group was dropped, and eventually Luminous was released by Bleep Records in 2002.
Both albums were re-released by Robb's HAKATAK imprint in 2007. They are available for download only through Amazon.com (here and here) as well as through other online music outlets.
Source: Time to play b-sides
Monday, November 17, 2008
Kerbdog
Hailing from Kilkenny in Ireland, Kerbdog has a mature post-grunge sound that fits perfectly in to any 2000s alternative metal playlist. Their only sin is being a good five years too early. Their first eponymous album was released in 1994. It neither fits the fading grunge sound of the time nor the budding genre of post-grunge which didn't come into prominence until the early 2000s. While Kerbdog did receive a wide release (their first album was available through BMG or Columbia House) and recorded a second album, On the Turn (1996), they never quite found their niche in the 90s.
Though officially "disbanded," Kerbdog maintains a strong fan base and has found some success in performing in the UK. In fact, if you happen to be in Dublin this December, you might want to check them out at Andrews Lane. If you are sadly states-bound, there is hope. Kerbdog offers both of their albums as well as a comprehensive array of "extras" for free in their media gallery.
Though officially "disbanded," Kerbdog maintains a strong fan base and has found some success in performing in the UK. In fact, if you happen to be in Dublin this December, you might want to check them out at Andrews Lane. If you are sadly states-bound, there is hope. Kerbdog offers both of their albums as well as a comprehensive array of "extras" for free in their media gallery.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Machines of Loving Grace
Perhaps the most underrated band of 90s, Machines of Loving Grace released three albums and the single "Golgotha Tenement Blues" from The Crow soundtrack. While MTV Music doesn't have videos by many larger bands, they do have a few for Machines of Loving Grace. Below is "Butterfly Wings" off the 1993 album Concentration.
While I could not find Concentration available for easy purchase, Amazon.com has Machines of Loving Grace and Gilt available for DRM-free MP3 download for a modest price.
While I could not find Concentration available for easy purchase, Amazon.com has Machines of Loving Grace and Gilt available for DRM-free MP3 download for a modest price.
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