Artist: Airbag Album Title: Disconnected Label: Karisma Records Date Of Release: 10 June 2016 I may be the Man Of Much Metal but occasionally, there’s nothing I like more than to dial down the extremity and indulge in something altogether more relaxed. The scratching post for this particular itch comes in the form of Norwegian […]
via Airbag – Disconnected – Album Review — The Blog of Much Metal
Multi-instrumentalist Abraham Sarache, who recently released a new album titled The Gardener, will play a special release show in support of the album at Volta in Amsterdam on June 24th. The show will be recorded for a future live release.
The Gardener is an alt/progressive rock concept album with the inclusion of folk instruments like ukulele and Venezuelan cuatro. To express the feelings involved, different kinds of voice registers are provided: from a soft, melodious or whispered voice to raspy voice. Various pads and synthesizers are used to give depth and warmth to the songs where an acoustic guitar with a low tuning predominates. A multicultural composition on the instrumental level and a progressive rhythmic base create an exquisite atmosphere of imbalance and peculiarity.
Continue reading “ABRAHAM SARACHE to Play “The Gardener” on June 24 in Amsterdam’s Volta”
District 97 is such a great band. Here’s a taste of them live from their recent world tour. Notice how amazing Leslie Hunt is fronting the band. I love how she is so totally into the music. What a great way to draw the audience in. This is one of my favorite songs off of the last District 97 album. It’s so darn good.
The Benny Goodman Orchestra’s performance at Carnegie Hall in January 1938 has a place in history as the coming out party for jazz, a legitimizing of an art form within the fortress of American (read: white/European) highbrow music. Ripe for irony? Yes. But when we recall this was the era of “race” records, and that jazz in the white American psyche was still an odd conflation of jump-and-jive black culture, blackface minstrelsy, and the carefully staged musical numbers of Hollywood sophisticates, Goodman and company’s triumph was quite real. Bringing an integrated group of musicians that included the best of its day to Carnegie Hall, blowing the collective Depression-era Jim Crow “high culture” hive-mind…. remarkable. This music is fierce, sometimes nasty, less a nod to propriety than a tuxedo-ed finger in the eye, dashing racial and artistic division by sheer force of celebratory musicality. “Sing Sing Sing,” a Goodman Orchestra signature tune written by Louis Prima, was the band’s finale, clocking in at over 12 minutes, and thus recorded, using the technology of the time, on acetate discs using a relay of multiple turntables (while the concert was almost instantly legendary, the recordings wouldn’t be made available for over a decade: see http://www.jitterbuzz.com/carcon.html for the whole fascinating story). The centerpiece of the song is Gene Krupa’s drumming, fading in and out of the mix — which was performed by the musicians rather than by the engineers — and ultimately making him jazz (and, by association, rock) drumming’s first real star. Lithe, articulate solos by Goodman, Harry James, and Jess Stacy shift dynamics, riding over Krupa’s pounding, roiling the waves sent up by the Orchestra. Even if you haven’t heard this song, you’ve heard it. But…get lost in it.
The new Big Big Train album has eight tracks, if you count “Along the Ridgeway / Salisbury Giant” as one track, which you should, since the two fit together seamlessly.
David Longdon writes about four of the tracks:
Folklore 7:33
London Plane 10:13
Along the Ridgeway 6:12 / Salisbury Giant 3:37
The Transit of Venus Across the Sun 7:20
Wassail 6:57
Winkie 8:25
Brooklands 12:44
Telling the Bees 6:02
Andreas Šala, guitarist and composer who plays with bands Subscale, The Ralphand If And When We Die, released a play-through video for the song “Hue” taken from his upcoming solo album Pleasure Dome.
Asked about the inspiration for the new song and the album overall, Šala who plays Wreck Guitars’ BlueMorpho 6 in the video, said: “Well I wanted to make a solo record for quite some time now but I just couldn’t decide in which direction I want to take it. But when I got my hands on the BlueMorpho melodies just started to pour out of me and I knew what I had to do. I felt like a kid again.”
Pleasure Dome differs from the albums he releases with Subscale and The Ralph in that is more ambient and minimalistic. “I wanted to do something a bit different. For the past 5 years I was composing mostly metal for The Ralph so I wanted to take a step back. I’m a huge Joe Satriani fan (and 80’s/90’s instrumental music fan in general) and I always liked “bigger than life” melodies so it seemed like a logical step to make a guitar driven instrumental album,” Andreas continues.
As mentioned, Andreas uses Wreck Guitars’ 6-string model BlueMorpho. “I was going for a blend of a old-school ’80s lead sound and modern rock/metal sound. I record everything digitally so I have more room to manipulate the sound later on in the mixing process. The guitar goes straight into my audio interface (an old-school E-MU 0404USB) with nothing in between. I use mostly Ignite Amps products — Emissary for the amp simulation and NadIR for loading the cab impulses. For the cab impulses I use mostly Catharsis‘ IRs. BlueMorpho is loaded with Dolezal pickups which are pretty hot and punchy which was great for tracking rhythm guitars.”
Watch a playthrough video for the new song “Hue” below, and follow Andreas on YouTube. Make sure to check Andreas’ other band The Ralph on Bandcamp and Facebook.
Visit Wreck Guitars official website and Facebook page.
We are the angels
and we are the ones
that are praying
Peace, shalom
Peace, shalom
Peace, peace
Epic greatness into the close of Weezer’s Red Album (2008).
Reading through the excellent blog of Stephen Humphries, I found that the great man is now editing the newsletter of another great man, Steven Wilson.
Sign up here: http://stevenwilsonhq.com/sw/subscribe-to-steven-wilsons-newsletter-and-receive-a-free-download/
VIRUS’ 4th full length album, Memento Collider, is set for a June 3rd release via Karisma Records.
No matter their level of activity, all’s right in the prog world when the on again/off again ensemble known as Frost* is in “On” mode. Many of us have closely – and happily – followed the twists and turns of writer/keyboardist/vocalist Jem Godfrey’s group since they released the landmark album “Milliontown” back in 2006.
For those who may not have been exposed to the band back then, “Milliontown” was something altogether new, or at least sounded altogether new – an accessible, expertly-produced, keyboard-heavy, dense, dynamic, and at times industrial-sounding blend of prog rock not for the faint of speaker cones. It was not to be mistaken for yet another prog band channeling the 70’s with all the cliches that go with that era (band names withheld to protect the guilty). As a fan of modern prog, “Milliontown” easily became one of two of my favorite albums of the last 15 years – the other being It Bites’ “The Tall Ships” – and not a week has gone by in the last decade when I haven’t given at least some of “Milliontown” a listen (no, really).
Progarchy 