Broken tools and bent nails: why Nothing matters

Maybe the reason we’re so drawn to Nothing is that, like us, they don’t preach happy endings.

Maybe it’s because, like us, they don’t encourage a life of success driven by misattributed quotations.

Maybe it’s because they make it OK to be average.
And to give up.
To live a life of quiet mediocrity.
To fail and to stay failed.
To let go.

I’m built to bleed
Plan my ruin guiltlessly
Another John who’s lost his head
I’m a bent nail
You’ve got no use for me
A monster for eternity

 

Maybe it’s because they confirm what you’ve always suspected.
That it’s not going to get better.

And I hate
Everything you’re saying.
Watch out for those
Who dare to say
That everything
Will be OK.

 

They validate our solitude.
And the outliers among us.
Our obligation to exist.
To wait.
And to vanish.

Outside the door the world’s alive.
I’ll stay and hide on the other side.

 

See also: Built to Bleed

serve cold: bloody knives

bloody knives are a band after my own heart.

There’s never been a group more suited to soundtracking the cold-blooded crime I will one day commit.

Not since ‘To Fix The Gash In Your Head‘ has a group succeeded in capturing the serenity that accompanies a perfectly planned and executed retribution.

In fact, Preston Maddox‘s languid vocals only serve to enhance the careless loathing a typical bloody knives track spits out.

Similar to how Oliver Ackermann’s vocals on ‘To Fix the Gash…’ are less furious and more disconcertingly calm when he declares ‘I’ll just wait for you to turn around/and kick your head in‘.

And not unlike Archive‘s disaffected chant ‘there’s a place in hell with your name on the seat/with a spike through the chair just to make it complete‘.

So does Maddox ever so serenely dare you to ‘tell me I’m wrong‘ on Burn it all Down

Or politely inform you that there’s ‘blood in your mouth‘ on blood.

Or sweetly croon that he’s ‘waiting for you to die‘ on DEATH.

The fulfilment that comes with the manufacture and execution of pre-meditated violence is a recurrent theme throughout the bloody knives discography.

[Pre-order I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This]

bloody knives do not make music for the hot-headed – those who might not hesitate to throw themselves headfirst into a shouting match or a street fight.

They do make music for the sort of person who, on seeing you looking a bit high strung, offers you comfort and a coupon for a relaxing spa session and then bakes you alive in the sauna.

Because isn’t the glee on ‘Buried Alive’ not just the smug contentment that comes with suffocating someone to death while simultaneously disposing of their body?

You only attain this clean efficiency with time and reflection. Not through impulsive action.

There’s a lesson to be learned from all of this.

Guard your fury.
Plan its release.
Let its consequences stretch across weeks, months or years.
And let your parting note read:

‘This will be your last mistake‘

 

Buy albums.

Pre-order I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This.

Which LSD and the Search for God album is right for you? An interactive guide

It’s been 9 long years since LSD and the Search for God blessed us with their distortion soaked self-titled EP and a lot has changed in the interim. Heaven is a Place with its steady walls of psychedelia in lieu of fluid curtains of reverb is the mark of a band that has truly evolved. Adapted. Matured. Grown up. it is the mark of a band that has recently recruited a Brian Jonestown Massacre member (hello, Ricky Maymi!).

Between the shoegaze-by-numbers self-titled and the swirl-heavy Heaven is a Place, we have two wildly disparate EPs before us. How do we know which one is best-suited to each of our unique, inimitable personalities?

I daresay we have found ourselves in the midst of a most egregious dilemma.

Fortunately, I have dedicated the last two weeks to intimately acquainting myself with both these records by playing them at very high volumes very late into the night and I believe I am now qualified to create and share an interactive guide that will solve all of our problems and assuage all of our fears.

Here’s the official guide to figuring out which LSD and the Search for God album is right for you:

YOUR RESULTS!

Mostly column 1: You’re a cynical bastard (that’s Diogenes in the picture) who smokes up to cool down, prefers listening to bands that make a lot of noise before anyone knows who they are but drops them the moment they go mainstream, i.e. someone apart from you knows them.

LSD and the Search for God’s self-titled EP is the album for you.

Your life in a lyric: Be careful what you wish for/Because it might come true (Starting Over)

Mostly column 2: You’re one of those irritating existential types who relies on psychedelics to distract you from your own impending mortality. You listen to a band’s later albums first, but assure everyone you knew who they were before they became who they are.

Heaven is a Place is the album for you.

Your life in a lyric: One thing I know/I’m gonna die (Without You)

—

Do the options in both columns look equally tempting? Dear god, you must be insufferable in person. Let’s be BFFs! Get your LSD and the Search for God goods here and we can be pricks – with unmatchable taste in music – together for all eternity.

Video Premiere: We Meet in Dreams – The Microdance

It’s no secret that New Waves of Hope has been the album I’ve been looking forward to the most this year. Not least because I’ve known it to be in the making for about two years, and living off snippets, and whatever sneaky crumbs Alex threw my way.

New Waves of Hope released earlier this year, and while I was too busy earning a living (down with capitalism) to write a full blown article about it, I have still managed to land the chance to premiere the video for ‘We Meet In Dreams.’

‘Inspired’ by Mario 64 if Mario 64 had drug dealers and shots of Mario staring pensively at the user on a Shoreditch sidewalk, the video’s making full use of the cool-factor brought in by TMD’s skateboarding bassist, Cheryl, and the unshakeable Gavin (not even clomping through a metre-deep lake fazes him).

Where and why Alex/Mario got those overalls will remain a mystery forever.

Ce fut quand même notre histoire: Une entrevue avec Milanku

Milanku, groupe Québécois, marqué par un son qui juxtapose les mélodies les plus douces contre des voix enragées, viennent de sortir leur premier album après 4 ans. De Fragments, comme son prédécesseur, n’a rien à voir avec les débuts du groupe. Lorsque Demo et Convalescence étaient presque ‘punk’ ayant donné la brutalité de leurs sons, ici, maintenant, on voit – on écoute – les compositions beaucoup plus structurées. De Fragments possède la même complexité que Prise A La Gorge. Cependant, ce dernier est peut-être moins lourd.

Ce mélange n’est pas très diffèrent que ce d’Alcest – groupe français enraciné dans le black métal – ou on écoute clairement l’influence de leur ascendance même quand les chansons restent assez éthérée.

Bien que, au niveau de leurs esprits, les deux groupes sont presque pareils, musicalement, ils ne se ressemblent pas du tout. En fait, comme Alcest, je trouve qu’il n’y a aucun groupe comparable a Milanku.

Ça fait deux mois que je leur ai envoyé quelques questions à propos à leur histoire, leur son atypique, et leurs pensées au sujet des téléchargements gratuits. Voilà – tous que vous vouliez savoir de Milanku mais n’aviez jamais demandé.

 

1. Pouvez-vous me parler de l’histoire de la formation du groupe? Y avait-il quelque chose en particulier qui a réuni le groupe ? Et comment avez-vous trouvé votre son ?

L’année 2016 marquera les 10 années de Milanku. Ayant tous évolués au sein de différentes formations dans le passé, à cette époque, nous avons fondé le groupe avec le désir de sortir des sentiers battus en comparaison des groupes plus hardcore, voir punk, qui dominaient alors la scène. Nous voulions un son plus mélancolique et évocateur, mais tout en gardant un son lourd et pesant.

2. Votre son a beaucoup changé depuis vos débuts. Demo et Convalescence étaient plus bruts que Prise A La Gorge. Ce dernier est plus lourd, mais, quand même plus raffiné que ses prédécesseurs. Pouvez-vous me raconter l’histoire autour de cette transformation ?

Je dirais que simplement l’évolution normale du groupe. Nous n’avons pas produit beaucoup d’album depuis notre formation et avons toujours voulu garder l’indépendance dans notre son. Nous avons voulu prendre notre temps pour créer. Nous avons aussi beaucoup de matériel qui a été crée et qui n’a pas été sorti sur album. Peut-être qu’un jour nous produirons un album avec seulement des bootlegs ou des idées de local! En fait, nous avons toujours voulu garder le son de Milanku aussi près possible de la base de la musique rock, sans trop d’arrangements. Guitares, bass, voix et drums, what you see is what you get. Nous misons plus sur les mélodies et les harmonies entre les guitares que sur des arrangements liés au matériel ou aux équipements.

3. Personnellement, au niveau du son, je n’ai jamais rien entendu qui ressemble à Pris à la Gorge. Quels sont les groupes qui vous ont le plus influencés?

C’est difficile à dire…Je dirais que nos mélodies viennent comme idées au début et on garde ce qu’on aime, on fait des compromis, et s’ajuste en fonction du « vibe » général. L’ambiance et les textures sont ce qui nous importent. Il faut que les sentiments véhiculés nous rejoignent et je dirais qu’on n’a pas d’influence particulière….. Chacun dans le groupe écoute des trucs différents et je crois que c’est ce qui apporte le son et la particularité de Milanku.

Nous allons sortir notre nouvel album, De Fragments, l’automne prochain. Le lancement à Montréal est prévu pour novembre 2015. Le son de cet album est différent de ce qu’on a fait jusqu’à maintenant et on le voit un peu comme un renouveau.

4. Il y a une pause de 4 ans entre Convalescence et Prise A La Gorge – qu’est-ce qui s’est passé pendant ce temps ?

Des soirées au local à lancer des idées, à créer et essayer des choses. Il faut dire que Guillaume (drummer) est aussi parti à l’étranger pour un an. Nous avons alors jouer avec un autre drummer à cette époque. Nous avons fait plusieurs concerts.

5. Des nouvelles à propos de votre prochaine sortie… ?

Comme je l’ai mentionné précédemment, notre album, De Fragments, sortira en novembre 2015. Cet album est le fruit du groupe avec un nouveau guitariste. Les chansons sont plus courtes et je dirais plus dynamiques. L’ambiance et le « vibe » Milanku est toujours là, mais je crois que nous avons amener le groupe vers d’autres horizons.

L’album sortira sur plusieurs étiquettes, notamment Moments of Collapse (Germany), Tokyo Jupiter Records (Japan), Grain of Sand (Russia), L’Oeil du Tigre (Montréal, Canada), Replenish Records (US) et D7I (Quebec, Canada).

6. Votre avis au sujet de la musique en streaming et des sites où on peut télécharger les albums, les discographies, etc. sans payer ? Selon vous, est-ce que ces sites aident ou sont néfastes aux groupes – surtout les groupes indépendants ? De même, que pensez-vous des sites Bandcamp et Soundcloud?

De façon générale, comme Milanku est un projet lié à une passion, celle de la musique, nous considérons que le plus de gens qui écoute et apprécie notre musique vaut beaucoup plus que quelques dollars que pourraient générer la totalité des albums ou chansons achetées. Ce qui est plus importants, ce que les gens viennent aux concerts et achètent nos t-shirts, nos albums, etc. C’est ce qui est le mieux pour nous.

De même, je crois que si les gens veulent aider les groupes indépendants, il est aussi pertinent de « donner ce que vous voulez » lors du download des albums ou des pièces en-ligne.

7. Quelle est l’ambiance idéale dans laquelle vous souhaitez que les gens écoutent Milanku ?

Dans toutes les ambiances! Chaque moment est englobé dans une ambiance et si les gens sont heureux et léger et écoute Milanku, c’est ce qu’on veut. À l’inverse, si quelqu’un marche seul le soir et est dans ses idées, et écoute Milanku, c’est aussi ce qu’on veut.

8. Un groupe que chacun des membres de Milanku écoute et que les gens seront étonnés de savoir que vous aimez ?

Haha, bonne question. De mon côté, j’aime beaucoup la musique électronique et tout ce qui s’y rapporte. Je pourrais te citer plusieurs artistes, mais j’aime beaucoup Kiasmos et Olafur Arnarlds (Iceland), mais aussi des trucs avec plus de bpm, ça dépend des jours! Mon groupe favori depuis maintenant près de 20 ans est Leatherface…J’aime aussi beaucoup tout ce qui est plus « crasse » comme des bands punks comme Nausea et des projets vraiment lourds comme Amenra et tout ce qui s’y rattache.

Frank (guitariste) écoute beaucoup Esa-Pekka Salonnen, plus précisément sont concerto “Out of Nowhere – Violin Concerto. Mais il a une grosse fascination pour l’époque où Brian Wilson a perdu la tête avec les Beach Boys (Pet Sounds, Smile & Smiley Smile). Godspeed You! Black Emperor et leurs projets parallèles, autant que l’époque psychédélique des ’60.

Guillaume (drummer) aime autant Future Islands que Cursed en ce moment il écoute beaucoup de Beatles et de Loud Lary Ajust

Guillaume (chanteur) est plus dans la musique lourde, comme Amenra, Sumac, Old Man Gloom, etc.

 

Milanku vient de sortir son nouvel album, De Fragments. Vous pouvez l’acheter sur Bandcamp  ou iTunes.

Si vous voulez l’écouter avant de l’acheter, je vous présente: ‘L’ineptie de nos soucis’:

Outtakes: AE meets Blueneck (Part 2)

On (unlikely) Influences:

I don’t know how we skipped the usual suspects, but when talking about Blueneck’s influences, Rich throws a name at me that has me caught completely off-guard.

‘Phil Collins.‘

Pardon?

‘Phil Collins! You know Phil Collins?’

Yes, I know Phil Collins. Why are we talking about Phil Collins?

‘You’ve heard ‘In The Air Tonight’?’

Yes, I’ve heard ‘In The Air Tonight’. Why are we talking about Phil Collins?

‘Listen to the start of it again, and then listen to ‘Sirens’.’

I play ‘In The Air Tonight’ in my mind.

Dear god, it’s true.

—

The scourge of the One Song:

Rich calls on me to remember that dreadful ‘Rollercoaster’ track by Ronan Keating from a decade or two ago.

‘Do you remember how it went?’ he asks.

‘Yes, but I’d rather not.’

‘That’s OK. Do you know the New Radicals?’

‘Sure – that group with the one song.’

‘Yeah that’s them. Do you remember how that went?’

‘Sure,’ I’m about to start humming ‘You Get What You Give’ and it hits me.

‘It’s written by the same guy,’ he tells me.

‘They really only have the one song.’

—

The before-they-were-famous moment

‘I met Chris Martin’s parents,’ Rich tells me. I’ve been railing against Coldplay for about five minutes now. For a moment I feel like we’re two schoolteachers discussing a problem student. ‘I was at one of their early shows – there couldn’t have been more than 200 people there. There was this older couple sitting in the corner, and I got to talking with them. They told me their son was in the band. It was Chris Martin.’

—

Settling debates with Google:

‘My childhood dream was to be in a Right Said Fred video,’ I reveal.

‘Aren’t Right Said Fred gay?’

‘What? Surely not!’ I quote their lyrics to make my point.

Deeply dippy about those Spanish eyes,
Sierra smile,
Legs that go on for miles, and m…

‘Ah yes, one of them’s bisexual.’

—

On their name:

I’m so convinced about my own interpretation of Blueneck’s name, Rich doesn’t even get the chance to speak before I’ve launched into my exhaustive explanation the story behind their name. He hears me out patiently and after what must be a quarter of an hour tells me that I’m free to go with that as the story due to its overpowering glam factor. It’s not the real reason though. The Real Reason is so superbly unglamorous that I decide to keep my own illusions, and leave the truth shrouded in mystery.

Sorry, not sorry, but you’ll never know.

—

“Don’t meet your heroes”: AE meets Blueneck (Part 1)

“Don’t meet your heroes,” he tells me, taking a sip of wine.

I’m talking to Rich Sadler from Blueneck. We’re sitting across from each other 10,000 kilometres apart. He’s recounting a Radiohead-related tale of woe that befell his friend, and I’m pretending to be surprised to learn that Thom Yorke is a twat.

I joke – there’s never any need to convince me that Radiohead are a bunch of wankers. However, in keeping me from a life of shattered dreams and cynicism, Rich’s wisdomous advice appears to overlook one tiny detail:

I’m talking to Rich Sadler from Blueneck.

I refrain from telling him the damage is probably already done.

—-

Blueneck are not a group that frequents shoegaze circles. They aren’t even a name that pops up too frequently within the community. It could be because up until recently they hadn’t even the foggiest notion what to qualify their sound as. They’ve had the label ‘post-rock’ thrust upon them by over-enthusiastic third parties (independent publications not unlike this one, e.g.) but Blueneck never set out with any such intentions. No one in the group had even heard the term before having it stamped all over them.

Rich is one of the lucky few to have had the chance to be a fan of the band before being in the band. He recalls seeing them live before they’d released their first album, Scars of the Midwest, and wondering:

‘Why are they not huge?’

Then, when they toured for The Fallen Host, he toured with them.

‘Why are they not huge?’ – a standard reaction when you first hear Blueneck. I recall my own First Time; playing The Fallen Host while at work. Even under stark white light in the middle of the morning, ‘Low’ managed to stop my world. For a little over 9 minutes, it was just the two of us, spinning in infinity.

The live experience is a grandiosity that we scattered fans can only imagine.

 
How do they do it?

I can’t bring myself to ask the question, even though I’m longing to know the answer. Innate curiosity fights the urge to preserve the magic of the Blueneck sound by leaving technicalities shrouded in mystery.

Curiosity wins.

‘How do you do it?’

They live miles apart, the Bluenecks. They have lives and jobs. I can’t imagine how they find the time to be in the same room for more than a couple of hours every month. With both space and time against them, how is it even feasible for them to create anything at all?

Enter, the internet.

Spending hours in a studio writing, testing and recording tracks is a luxury most groups just cannot afford – least of all when they have to balance distance, families, work, and the basics of adult existence. Blueneck aren’t any different and Rich, being the furthest away from the others, makes a two and a half hour trek down to Bristol when the tracks are finally ready and it’s time to lay them down.

They’re not the first band to embrace the dropbox method of recording. Tears Run Rings rely on a similar technique, recording albums while divided by cities. Meanwhile, The Microdance make sure lyrics and composition are perfectly in place before they hit their Brick Lane studio (or Los Angeles) to churn out an album. Epilogue, Rich reveals, was recorded almost entirely remotely, and Rich and Duncan still have an album’s worth of songs waiting to be tracked.

‘They’re not Blueneck songs, though,’ he forewarns, pre-empting my apopleptic fit. The internet can only overcome the tyranny of distance by that much and Rich and Duncan’s project is both a resolution and an experiment. He seems intent on assuring me that Menace At The Dam has close to nothing to do with Blueneck, and I can’t tell whether to be excited or apprehensive about a potential departure from the established, accepted, worshipped norm.

 
Despite their elusiveness, Blueneck are far from unknown, scads of fans hang on to their every note, buy their albums, go to their gigs, and pick up their merch. Sure, it doesn’t hurt to be signed on by Denovali, but it does lead you to the obvious question:

File-sharing: good or bad?

It’s not a cut and dry question and Rich takes a while to respond. Understandably, he can’t take a definitive stance.

‘I’m torn,’ he tells me. ‘There wouldn’t be a Blueneck without file-sharing.’

I’m clearly not the only one who found out about Blueneck through word of virtual mouth before buying their album. Downloads, streams – whether legit or no – do little to further the economic ambitions of a band. But they’re what drive an audience to attend a gig, to buy a t-shirt, to invest in the vinyl.

‘We never expect to earn anything from album sales,’ he says. It makes me think of a ‘legal’ service like Spotify which may pay a cent for a thousand plays. Rich knows better than to expect to turn a profit from online services alone – I think they’d be lucky if they even managed to break even – but find me a 21st century band that does.

It’s a blessing, not a curse. Without the extrinsic motivation, or even the expectation, of making money off a recording, a band is free to focus on creating what they want to create, a listener less likely to be turned off by the ‘polish’ that coats anything released to achieve a commercial or economic result.

Rich concurs, even though I never say this out loud.

“We wouldn’t care if no one bought King Nine. It’s the album we wanted to make.”

[Incoming] Dance with your Enemy – AE meets Blueneck

There was a time in my infancy when the dream of one day being able to talk to the peddlers of the sonic amphetamines that ruled my life was nothing more than that – a dream. One that would, if all went well, be realised in the afterlife.

I must have been very, very good (or very, very insistent) because it came true in less than a decade, further fueling my unshakable belief that the internet is, in fact, The Great Beyond.

Blueneck were around when I was building these castles in the sky, but it was only when my shoegaze dealer sent me a link to The Fallen Host that I came to know of them. This is also when I established: they will be mine, oh yes, they will be mine.

I’m calling them now. Stay glued.

And while you wait:

Stay with me.

Hell is made of people of leaving, of leaving people, and of being left behind.
(Such is life)

‘Ghost’ will bring you to your knees and to tears, but at least it won’t leave.

Hold me close
Stay with me

7 years: Turn the lights down.

I don’t remember when we met, but I remember it felt like flying.

And like sinking.

I remember there were others who were like you.
(but none of them were you)

So, I always came back.

And I found something beautiful hidden in you every time.

7 years today.

Happy birthday, DiaSoS.