There seems to be a general movement by noisy bands that begin with ‘wall of sound’ albums that smack you in the face to eventually adopt pop sensibilities into their sound. Fans of lo-fi call it ’selling out,’ while others argue that a band is trying to become more ‘accessible’ to a larger audience. It can go either way, in my opinion, depending on the band.

One of our favorite noise-rock bands, Film School, is becoming more ‘accessible,’ as I prefer to put it. They’re releasing their fourth studio album, called Fission on August 31st. Their first single, Heart Full Of Pentagons, reveals a full noise-rock sound with catchy moogs, thick distortion (though somewhat tamed) and melodies that stick in your head. I’m really enjoying what I hear, since it seems to bring the right balance that could help expand their audience.

Approaching their tenth year since they debuted in San Francisco, Fission is their first album in three years since Hideout was released on Beggars Banquet. Fission will be released on Hi Speed Soul, a California based label that has released artists such as Nada Surf, Jim Noir, Creeper Lagoon.

Film School: Heart Full Of Pentagons
(more…)

Hello world. No, this isn’t my first post, but it has been a while. In the past few months I’ve been trying to balance the life of being a father, husband, student, and co-worker. I distinctly pulled back from commitments so I could regather my focus. I had been burning the candle on both ends, recording and co-hosting a weekly radio show on top of the grinding mix.

Everything culminated on May 29th when my wife, two small children, and I were in a head-on collision at full speed with an SUV on a highway near our home. Amazingly, we were walked away from our burning car with no serious injuries! It took several weeks to fully recover physically and emotionally from the “fire crash,” as my daughter calls it.

Burgeoning with the accident, I have been working on forming a non-profit organization with a friend of mine. It’s called Quilts for Orphans, and the name explains what our goal is. We’re collecting donations (handmade quilts, knitted and crocheted items) to bring warmth and comfort to poverty-stricken, homeless or orphaned children. Forming projects to help focus our support-base, each project will go towards an organization or orphanage that we have a professional relationship with. We’ll be announcing our second project in the coming week, with specific goals that we are aiming to achieve. Do you quilt, knit or crochet?

Even with the water splashing over the edge, Puddlegum has been on my mind. I’m entering my last year at the University, and considering the options of graduate school. I’ve been studying ‘new media’ quite a bit and find myself composing articles in my head. It’s time that I put my ideas to pen… again.

Here’s a beautiful music video for Fire of Birds, by DM Stith:

I’m typing this article out on my Macbook, listening to my iPod Touch. Yes, I’m a fan of the Mac OS and I’ve been a user of their products for over ten years. But I haven’t been very happy with Apple lately surrounding their conflict with Adobe. Today’s news about Lala has felt like an insult to fans of music.

Lala was a music locker where you could upload your music and stream your playlist anywhere. It was the best implementation of “music in the cloud” that we’ve yet seen. What was especially appealing to the music consumer was the option of purchasing “web songs” and “web albums,” and you could add them to your online music library (but not download them) for a great price: .10 cents per song.

When Apple bought Lala we suspected that they were going to release an online iTunes. But what we weren’t sure if Apple would continue the web song distribution. Today, it became apparent that they’re going to end the web songs, though we still expect Apple to announce “iTunes in the cloud” in June, since Lala closes on May 31st and Apple’s WWDC will be held a week later.

Anyone that has purchased web songs will be given a refund as iTunes credit, revealing that Apple is not interested in non-downloadable music. This is a really bad deal for the Lala music consumer, such as myself. I’ll break this down:

I’ve purchased 64 web albums on Lala, and a total of 642 web songs (most of them making up the 64 web albums). I bought all of these 642 songs for .10 cents per song, spending $64.20. If Apple credits me with $64.20 in my iTunes account, I’ll only be able to purchase 81 songs at .79 cents per mp3. Apple is ripping me off, since they’re shorting me 561 songs!

First, I never purchase music on iTunes. Never. I think they’re over priced, and I don’t like the fact that you can never download your purchased music more than once. I do use iTunes and appreciate their platform, but I don’t want iTunes credit. I want my music!

I’m also frustrated with this move, as a music blogger. I have occasionally posted a Lala song, album or playlist on my site so you can listen to it, and this means that any blogger that has done the same will need to find other ways to post media (besides direct downloads). Lala was gaining ground, via Billboard, Pitchfork and Google, and we’ll miss seeing their healthy competition with Apple.

I’ll close this by saying that I am hopeful that Apple will extend Lala’s technology by introducing iTunes in the Cloud in June. Apple is finishing a 500,000 square foot data center facility, and I highly suspect that it’s going to be for iTunes Cloud, ahead of Google’s Chrome OS, which will be a cloud-based operating system. Adding to the suspicion, an AP article quotes Rich Miller, editor of Data Center Knowledge, “Only about a dozen data centers in the world are larger than the 500,000-square-foot facility Apple has under construction.”

They’re going to announce something big in June, and I would place my $64.20 that it’s for iTunes Cloud. I just wish they wouldn’t have killed the web song.

José González has been quiet since he released In Our Nature in 2007. This Swedish artist toured the world several times and gains critical acclaim for his tape saturated classical guitar sound. I was suspecting that José was working on new music, and my suspicions were confirmed today.

We’re excited to share that González is fronting a band called Junip, and they will be releasing Rope and Summit EP and a full-length, along with a worldwide tour in the summer. What I didn’t realize was that Junip formed in the late `90s in Gothenburg, Sweden. The press release points out, “their first 7″ came out in 2000 and they self-released the Black Refuge EP in 2006. RCRDLBL distributed the single “Chickens/Azaleadalen” in 2009.”

Fans in the US and Canada will find Junip on Mute, Europeans will find them on City Slang, Australians will find it on Shock and fans in Japan will find them on Ultra-Vybe.

Check out the first single from their EP:
Junip – Rope an Summit

Junip Tour Dates:
May
28 – Barcelona, Spain, Primavera Sound Festival

June
8 – Boston, MA, Great Scott
9 – Brooklyn, NY, Knitting Factory
10 – New York, NY, Bowery Ballroom
12 – Milwaukee, WI, Turner Hall
13 – Chicago, IL, Lincoln Hall
16 – Los Angeles, CA, Eagle Rock Arts Center
18 – San Francisco, CA, Rickshaw Stop
19 – Seattle, WA, Vera Project

July
21 – Nijmegen, The Netherlands, De Affaire Festival
23 – Gent, Belgium, Boomtown Festival

August
12 – 14 – Rees-Haldern am Niederrhein, Germany, Haldern Pop Festival
12 – 14 – Gothenburg, Sweden, Way Out West Festival
15 – Leicester, UK, Summer Sundae Festival

Some artists find it appropriate to give roots to their musical plurality by releasing music under multiple band names. Ben Cooper of Jacksonville Beach, Florida, has embraced this approach, and it seems that he’s unable to stop the flood of songwriting ideas. He writes under three band names: Electric President, Radical Face, and Patients, each project offering different angles to explore songwriting.

Earlier this year Ben Cooper and Alex Kane released The Violent Blue under the name of Electric President. We’ve been enjoying this release, their third album as Electric President, released on Fake Four Inc, and the more I listen to it the more I really dig their subtle soundscape arrangements. If you enjoy Say Hi then I’m confident you’ll enjoy Electric President. Most recently, Ben Cooper and Mark Hubbard produced a music video for the title track on The Violent Blue, filmed during a dark night at a sandy Florida beach.

Radical Face is a moniker that Ben Cooper writes and records as, more or less, a solo project. His debut album for Radical Face was released in 2007, Ghost, on Morr Music, a fitting label for Radical Face. Ben is currently working on an interesting set of three albums with a story-line running through the three albums that he began writing in 2007.

The next three Radical Face albums centers around a fictional family, spanning 1800 to 1950. Ben has worked out a fictional family tree for this family, the Northcotes, and wrote roughly forty songs about this family. The first album, The Family Tree: The Roots, is now complete and is purposefully less produced than the forthcoming two albums. This will be followed by The Branches and The Relatives, each will have a progressively more produced sound than the previous as the albums advance in the time period.

Ben Cooper set guidelines for the new Radical Face albums before he began recording The Roots. He explained on his blog, “I chose from that the start that first record would revolve around 4 instruments: piano, acoustic guitar, voices and a floor tom (the main source of percussion). There are some flourishes beyond these instruments when the song called for it (strings, banjos, etc), but those four were the things each of the songs were actually written on.”

A third moniker that Ben Cooper works under is Patients, created as an avenue to give away his music. You can download the Patients debut album for free on Musicfloss. He has also begun working on a new Patients album, but with a unique approach. Setting out to record a new song every month, Ben will release each new song for free (on Musicfloss). But what makes this album (a term used loosely) is how Ben will gather subject material for Patients: Volume 2.

“For subject matter, I would like to hear stories from people. Anyone out there who is reading this and has a story they think would be an interesting subject for a song. It could be autobiographical, or something that happened to someone you know, or something you read in a newspaper, or complete fiction (though, I’d prefer these were based on true events). I just like stories, all kinds, and while I have plenty of my own, I think it would be really fun to have them provided by people I don’t personally know. To just be surprised by them.”

Check out RadicalFace.com for more information about Ben Cooper and his many projects.

Radical Face – Glory

Electric Presidents – The Violent Blue

In what was meant to be a one day break from blogging, I’m back from a month-long silence. During this time I have been recollecting my thoughts, relaxing, and working on projects.

If you’ve followed Puddlegum for more than two years (thank you!) you might remember that I am a recording engineer. It has been a year and a half since I’ve seriously recorded, due to reasons I won’t explain here, but during the past thirty days I decided to test the waters again. I found it to be inviting and have begun booking artists to record. I’m excited to share that several bands and artists have asked me to engineer for them, and a record label asked me to master a compilation.

Note: Email me if you’re interested in hearing audio samples of my work.

I have also taken this time to turn to classic artists of the `60s… albums I’ve spun many, many times. I’m finishing a book by Geoff Emerick called Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles. Emerick was the engineer for the Beatles and he has written a beautiful memoir on his experiences. I’m purposefully reading the book slowly since I don’t want it to end. And of course I have to listen and relisten to every song he describes in detail. So I have been sipping coffee and hearing artifacts in the Beatles’ recordings that I never noticed.

Along with this, I have been working my way through Bob Dylan’s recordings in chronological order, in memory of a friend who died 12 months ago. He was a big fan of Dylan, and I can’t help but think of him when I listen to these songs I’ve heard hundreds of times. We miss you, Garrison.

Bloomington, Indiana’s Landlocked Music and Russian Recording brought in quite few artists traveling through Bloomington in 2009. Having recorded each performance, they’re releasing a vinyl compilation set on Record Store Day (April 17th, 2010). It Happened Here will be a limited print LP and 7″ set; 750 will be pressed to be exact.

The list of artists is quite impressive: Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Lou Barlow, The Delicious, Maps & Atlases, Rooms, Magnolia Electric Co., Tremendous Fucking, The Entrance Band, Prizzy Prizzy Please, Wovenhand, Alexander the Great, Damien Jurado, Whoa!Tiger, and Phosphorescent.

The 7″ consists of two live in-store performances at Landlocked Music, called Live At Landlocked Music, and the LP will have twelve tracks recorded at Russian Recording Studio, called We Just Call It Roulette V.III.

David Woodruff (The Delicious) of Woodruff & Sons and In Case Of Emergency Press are designing the artwork. The work of David Woodruff can be seen on many flyers, album covers, and t-shirts around Bloomington.

Engineer Mike Bridavsky moved Russian Recording to Bloomington in 2008, located at the previous home of Secretly Canadian Records. Bridavsky has managed to keep his rates affordable for local artists without sacrificing the quality of equipment.

Landlocked Records is one of the best vinyl stores in the Midwest, located in downtown Bloomington. Landlocked is always stocked with the best and most obscure indie artists. They opened on March 3rd, 2006, so this announcement couldn’t come at a better time.

Live At Landlocked Music 7″
Instore Performances from 2009
—————————
Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Beware Your Only Friend (live)
Lou Barlow – Imagination Blond (Dino Jr song, live)

We Just Call It Roulette V.III LP
Recordings from Russian Recording Studio
———————————
The Delicious – Something
Maps & Atlases – Pigeon (live)
ROOMS – Radio Ghosts
Magnolia Electric Co. – Rider. Shadow. Wolf. (live)
Tremendous Fucking – We’ve Got Your Daddy
The Entrance Band – Lookout (live)
Prizzy Prizzy Please – Let’s Go to the Zoo
Wovenhand – Kicking Bird (live)
Alexander the Great – Built From the Ground Up
Damien Jurado – Kansas City (live)
Whoa!Tiger – Calm After the Storm
Phosphorescent – South of America (live)

Listen: The Delicious – Something

For more information:
Landlocked Music
Russian Recording
David Woodruff
In Case Of Emergency Press

Sean Hogan and Taylor Nelson of The New Monarchs digitally released a new album called Electrocaching on March 2nd, while the CD will be released March 23rd. As the album name might indicate, The New Monarchs have an interesting experimental electronic sound that doesn’t abandon the importance of vocal melodies.

Electrocaching was released on March 2nd on Soup Bowl Records, a Minneapolis imprint. During the recording and post-recording process The New Monarchs recorded the album with Jeff Marcovis (Me & My Arrow), and Brian Moen of Peter Wolf Crier, “crafted the visual accompaniments.”

Sean Hogan repeats in both songs Tangent and Electrocaching, “I am searching for a message in the electric sounds that are running through my head.” The sounds and lyrics feed off each other as Sean sings, “these sounds keep me moving `round,” suggesting a theme that Electrocaching taps the aural imagery in Hogan’s psyche.

Listen: The New Monarchs – Tangent
Interact: The New Monarchs on Myspace
Watch: The New Monarchs on Youtube

Several months ago we pointed you towards Peter Wolf Crier, a project by Peter Pisano (Wars of 1812) and Brian Moen (The Shouting Matches with Jusin Vernon). After hearing Peter Wolf Crier’s debut, Inter-Be, we wished that this band would be heard by the indie-world, and in May it appears that we may get our wish. We’re excited to inform you that Peter Wolf Crier signed to Jagjaguwar, and Inter-Be will be released in the US on May 25th and the UK on June 7th!

Jagjauwar wrote:
“With our ears tuned into labelmates Gayngs, Volcano Choir, and Bon Iver, Peter Wolf Crier fits firmly into our developing Midwestern curatorial.”

Peter Wolf Crier will be performing SXSW at Emo’s Main Room (with Miles Kurowsky, Rogue Wave, Local Natives, Adam Green, and Delta Spirit), so be sure to look them up if you’re going.

Listen: Peter Wolf Crier – Crutch and Cane
Interact: Peter Wolf Crier’s website
Connect: Peter Wolf Crier on Facebook
Watch: Peter Wolf Crier performing on The Current

Being a sucker for Icelandic artists, I was excited to find that Benni Hemm Hemm is releasing Retaliate EP in April. Benni now lives in Scotland and this album marks the first time he has sung every song in English.

Benni recorded this album using his own recording gear, while the previous albums were recorded in the studio owned by Sigur Rós. The title song of Retaliate reveal a stripped down Benni Hemm Hemm, without the brass instruments breaking his song open. While Benni plas most of the instruments on the album, he is joined by Emily Scott on double bass and Peter Liddle on trumpet and alto-horn.

“The resulting EP is a collection of five songs which feature knives, gold, lazy pioneers, confident talibans, blood thirsty vampires, Stan-Stan-the-caretaker-man and last but not least blood, lots of blood.”

The EP ‘launch night’ is set for March 29th at The Bowery in Edinburgh. This will be his second album released on Kimi Records, an imprint based out of Benni’s native island, and it will be released as a 10″ vinyl in Europe, US and Japan.

Benni Hemm Hemm, whose real name is Benedikt H. Hermannsson, has been performing and recording with a large brass band since 2003, but it has been three years since he released Kajak, Benni’s first and only full-length.

Listen: Benni Hemm Hemm – Retaliate
Interact: Benni Hemm Hemm’s website

(more…)