31 Dec

frWe've finally made it to the bitter end of 2020, and believe it or not, human beings are still making amazing art in the midst of crisis and a pandemic. After a five-year hiatus, our Album Covers of the Year feature is back with a deep dive of artwork from...

29 Sep

Beyond Beyond Is Beyond is a record label that has become adept at curating artists for a very specific roster. These artists tend to not have the typical "Brooklyn" sound; what critics usually associate with Brooklyn tends be a trendy "indie" sound, BBiB eschews for a deeper dive into all...

03 Mar
Oftentimes, a complete change in sound and a long delay between full-length albums marks the death knell of a band, or at least a rebirth. After a long brainstorming session -- during which the band lost a guitarist, put out an EP without that guitarist, and gained another in time for the latest record -- Metavari has returned, and the Metavari you hear on Moonless is not the Metavari you heard six years ago, during the release of Be One of Us and Hear No Noise. This time around, the quartet from Fort Wayne, Indiana, seems to have found its niche in the instrumental world, eschewing the grand sonic explosions commonly associated with post-rock in favor of analog and electronic sounds and samples.
Metavari Press Photo
06 Feb
Jan St. Werner - Miscontinuum Album Review
Miscontinuum is a surreal, subjective sound opera; an abstract tone poem; a stream-of-consciousness dream monologue on the nature of time and memory.
"Every memory is just a loop. Returning again to places I once was, before, things are never as I remember them. Every home is also a burning house. Loop... and if one could draw this loop differently, then what? Different lengths? Four different lengths? Changes history's courses - places, people, and events; all of them never were. Could they be made anew with this loop? I doubt it. Is this really happening?" - Intro to Miscontinuum
Miscontinuum, from Mouse On Mars member Jan St. Werner, is the third installment in his Fiepblatter Catalogue series, was originally conceived as an operatic performance and radio play, with a very surreal, stream-of-consciousness libretti written by Oval's Marcus Popp, and recited, wonderfully, by Earth's Dylan Carlson, in his reedy voice. The text revolves around the misconceptions of time and memory, inspired by unique acoustic phenomena derived through digital phasing and musical time-stretching techniques, which is punctuated with St. Werner's tapestry of hypnotic electrical pulsing. Imagine, if you will, if Philip Glass had written an opera based on a text by Haruki Murakami, rather than illustrating Einstein standing on a beach; with Terry Riley on the keys, if it had been recorded thirty years later, and you're getting close to imagining Miscontinuum's minimalist electronics.

 

17 Dec
Album Covers of the Year 2014
In contrast to modern patterns in music consumption comes our annual Album Covers of the Year feature, where, instead of forgetting album artwork even exists, we hyperextend ourselves to assert that it is an artform that is vitally connected to the spirit of the music. This feature, which is divided at times into thematic elements and at times into artistic medium, incorporates interviews with not only musicians, but also artists involved throughout the artistic process. We pride this list in being diverse and multi-faceted, as well as philosophically exploratory. See all of our entries from previous years or get started by choosing a category below. Happy travels through the artistic universe we've crafted for you.
14 Aug

Multi-disciplinary artist Chad Wys is all about tricks of the eye that then tickle the mind. Whether by splotching paint on fine porcelains or enhancing vintage reproductions with pixel paint, his works live within a blurred space between the digital and the analog, via additions that also subtract — or...

28 Jul

"What appeals to me is the potency in the image -- the object itself, or the mysterious atmosphere it holds. A truly beautiful image has the power open up this whole inner world; it's like a visual "key" that unlocks and fires up your imagination." - Alice Cohen...

11 Jul

My idea for this mixtape comes from the surreal juxtaposition of cultures and time periods we are allowed to experience through the internet. Many of the songs were discovered in a state of self-induced hypnosis, while exploring YouTube and blog sites where record collectors freely share their rare relics with...

15 May
Dub Thompson - No Time Music Video Dub Thompson - No Time Music Video
Drawing obvious inspiration from timelessness and less obvious inspiration from Aleister Crowley's Thoth tarot deck, director Vinyl Williams takes Dub Thompson's "No Time" and turns it into a multi-level philosophical exercise. Williams explores the slippery nature of existence by using both HD and analog techniques, which ebb, flow, and spin within a mad cycle, in such a way where beginnings and ends are indiscernable from one another. Timelessness, indeed. Read on as he speaks to his process and collaborating with the band.
Dub Thompson - No Time Music Video Dub Thompson - No Time Music Video
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