Tag Archives: Music

Amanda Merdzan Redraws the Indie/Folk Map

12 Jun

Amanda Merdzan

When astronaut John Glenn orbited above Perth, Australia in 1962, people in the Western Australia capital city turned on all their lights so the city would become a sparkling lightbulb to the orbital viewer; Perth is aptly known as the “City of Light” because of this magnificent communal stunt.

Indie/Folk musician Amanda Merdzan is also from Perth, Australia. What do these two things have in common (despite the similarity of origin)? Merdzan, similar to her hometown, is a “city of light” for Indie/Folk music. Her music dazzles with a powerful edge that shines through her savvy vocals. While a troubadour with a sincere rawness to her tunes, Merdzan juxtaposes this denuded flavor with a striking maturity in her words and musicality. Put simply, Merdzan is a fluorescent light in an often lucifugous climate.

After the release of her debut album in 2010, Merdzan spent three months in the U.S. before going home in 2011 and gigging around Perth. She is now on the heels of her latest release, an EP called The Map Has Been Redrawn.

“Afraid” is the title track off of the 5-song EP. The song bounces with a Mumford and Sons rhythm at its entrance, combining Merdzan’s potent vocal with an excellent instrumental of echoed strings, plucked acoustic guitar, and heavy percussion. The inception of the piece latches on to the listener like a good book to an eager reader; once it pulls you in you cannot stop exploring the created world. And it is quite a world – one full of imagery-inducing harmonies and musical precision. Seriously, the song does not have a flaw.

This live acoustic version of “Each Day Like the First” (the 4th song on the EP) exposes the tenderness of Merdzan’s voice. The song flows with the subtle authority of Fleet Foxes or Tallest Man on Earth. While pastoral, the persistent rhythm maintains an urban quality – a contradiction that works well to create the wonderful aura that encompasses all of Merdzan’s songs.

Follow Merdzan on her website, Facebook, and Twitter.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Airborne Toxic Event – Summerstage Preview

10 Jun

Airborne Toxic Event

There are many reasons to like Airborne Toxic Event. As I have written in the past, the band plays an infectious alt/rock style that pulls influences from the 80s and mixes these influences with theatrical vocals and riffs. This amalgamation creates an intriguing aura of orchestral sound that echoes and pulses.

The music is also “smart” rock. It’s a neoteric genre. Let’s be honest; a lot of music today is, well, nescient – intellectually dumbed down for an audience that just wants to hear a consistent beat. That is not to say that the producers and creators of the music are unintelligent – they are simply playing to what will make money. But Airborne Toxic Event is different. The band is made up of uber-talented musicians who understand how to mix “smart” rock with infectious rhythms.

I initially became interested in the band because of lead vocalist Mikel Jollett. Jollett, a fiction and freelance writer, began seriously writing songs after a string of moribund events in his life. He named the band after a tremendous section of my favorite Don DeLillo book “White Noise.” The life-altering events that engendered the band’s creation are similar to “The Airborne Toxic Event” portrayed in DeLillo’s masterpiece. Thus, as a writer, Jollett’s lyrics are laden with symbolism and passion.

The Airborne Toxic Event, fresh off the release of its new album Such Hot Blood, will join a large Summerstage crowd in Central Park (5th Avenue and 72nd Street entrance) on June 18. Best of all – the concert is FREE. Yes, free as in no money. The band will be joined by The Calder Quartet, a LA-based string quartet, who have been called “outstanding” and “superb” by the New York Times. So, yeah, free Airborne Toxic Event show with The Calder Quartet in Central Park – you should probably come.

“The Fifth Day” is one of my favorite songs off of the new album. The song features one of my favorite Airborne Toxic Event elements. The music is almost subtle. While you can drown in the elaborate instrumentals and production, the music progressively rises and falls like waves before ultimately crescendoing. In this case, the music perfectly matches the melancholic lyric.

Check out more about the Airborne Toxic Event and don’t forget to keep track of the diverse Summerstage schedule!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Album Preview – YEEZUS by Kanye West

7 Jun

Before you read on let me introduce you to the author of this post and new Music Court contributor, Jamie Waller. We are excited to have him on board. Jamie will cover the rap and indie rock beat. Keep an eye out for his posts every Friday. Check out Jamie’s bio:

“I’m from Mansfield in UK, and am studying Journalism and History at the University of Lincoln. I’m a keen marathon runner and often write about running on my blog – http://feetfailmenot2.wordpress.com/. I’m a big fan of both rock and rap – my favourite bands are Arctic Monkeys and Gaslight Anthem, and I also enjoy rappers like Eminem, Nas and Kendrick Lamar.”

 

Kanye West

Whether you are rap fan or not, you won’t be able to avoid hearing about Kanye West’s new album YEEZUS for the next few months. Kanye announced its entrance into the world by projecting the lead single on the side of 66 buildings across America. Here is what we do and don’t know about one of the most anticipated albums of the year.

What we do know

Kanye’s god complex hasn’t gotten any smaller. Kanye has always been one of the most eccentric (some would say arrogant) character in the world of rap, but he seems to be now taking it to new heights. Yeezus is a combination of his nickname, Yeezy, and Jesus. After his smash hit song New God Flow last year, he has now developed a god complex of his own.

The Dropout Bear isn’t back. The adorable bear from his first three album covers still isn’t back – instead he has opted for a minimalistic cover that mimics bootlegged CDs, complete with a handwritten sticker saying ‘YEEZUS.’ Perhaps the moral is ‘Don’t judge a CD by its cover?’

The guest list will be as huge as usual. The list of people he has worked with in the studio just keeps growing, from regular collaborators like Frank Ocean, John Legend and Pusha T, to some people you might not expect – Skrillex and Daft Punk, for example. The French duo reportedly produced the single ‘Black Skinhead’ while Skrillex’s role is still a mystery. Jay-Z will almost certainly have a guest verse too as usual.

It won’t be like anything we’ve heard before. If there’s one thing you can rely on Kanye for, it’s to constantly reinvent his musical style. From the slowed-down horns of his debut to autotune, there’s little telling what he will do next. People who have worked with him have hinted towards the album being ‘dark’, ‘primal’ and ‘tribal’, whatever that means.

It will be released on 18th June. That is, if you believe Kanye’s mysterious tweets.

What we don’t know

What’s actually going to be on the CD. Kanye may be very ostentatious but he can keep a secret when he needs to; there have been almost no leaks about YEEZUS. Going against the current trend, the album won’t be streamed before release either. Kanye has performed the songs New Slaves and Black Skinhead live, but besides that everything else is under wraps.

Whether his rapping has improved. Without being disrespectful, Kanye has never been the most gifted lyricist. His talents lie in producing songs and getting the best out of other rappers, but he constantly gets outshined by them. He has definitely made strides in recent albums – for example, take lines like “They say I’m the abomination of Obama’s nation/ Well that’s a pretty bad way to start a conversation.”  It will be interesting to see whether he can actually hold his own now.

Is he really going political? The first single from the album touches on themes about how consumerism is used to keep black people down, while the word Skinhead has strong political connotations. While he’s never been afraid to touch on struggles black people face before, this is the first time he’s placed them as the centre piece of his album.

Whether it will live up to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Nightmare. Kanye’s last solo album wowed critics and the buying public alike back in 2010. Looking at fame through the prism fairy tales, it dove into the grimy heart of celebrity, winning the Grammy for Best Rap Album. There was an outcry when it was snubbed by the main award in favour of more commercial albums. The question now – and the only one that will really matter to listeners – is if whether Kanye can return to the heights of his masterpiece.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Climbing Tall Mountains with Sydney Yeo

30 May
Tall Mountains

Tall Mountains

At only 20 years old, Sydney Yeo has already had to climb some pretty Tall Mountains to get where she is today. But one thing is for sure: her love for music trumps all. Yeo, who goes by the apt moniker Tall Mountains hails from Singapore, a Southeast Asian island off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. After graduating High School, she interned at Snakeweed Studios, an independent recording and production studio in Singapore before moving to New York in August, 2011. Considering that Singapore’s record low temperature is in the upper 60s – a balmy Spring day in New York – she must have felt like she entered a perpetual winter wonderland. Currently, she is studying music engineering and production at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music and interning at record label Astralwerks – the home of Pet Shop Boys and Swedish House Mafia.

AND…in her spare time she is a musician – and a good one at that. She has performed at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn and at 92Y Tribeca. Her mellow melodies and soft, reserved voice garners unexpected passion. The saccharine strings blend with spry percussion and robust guitar. While pastoral, there is a certain fast-paced city quality to the music – an eccentric juxtaposition that plays to Yeo’s mixed inspirations. Perhaps this is best encompassed in “Who Told You,” off of the five-song Tall Mountains EP, which was released in November of last year.

See what I mean. Driven by rapid percussion and clear vocal ardor, the song still maintains a string-induced natural pulchritude – much like a pretty girl on a city street. This potent folk/pop is infectious and agrestic – even taking on some country elements.

“Better” has such an authentic 90’s folk feel it’s scary – like straight out of a Romantic Comedy from 1999. This isn’t a bad thing. The song is enjoyable – embracing a tapestry of harmony, vocal strength, and a sweet melody. It also features some of Yeo’s lyrical aptitude with lines like:

The glass on my window is black 
I just swept the gray dust from my floors but I’m sure it’ll come back 
Before I knew you, I was stewing in my own filth 
You made me anew, now I don’t know how to live

Check out more of Sydney Yeo (Tall Mountains) on her Facebook and Twitter.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Turn Out the Light – Ray Manzarek

23 May
Ray Manzarek

Ray Manzarek

I was shocked when I heard Ray Manzarek passed away earlier this week. Really shocked. Still sort-of shocked. As I was listening to some musicians reflect on the tremendous career of the former Doors’ keyboardist, I tried to understand why I was so surprised. He was 74. In 2013 that is young, but he did fight a long battle with cancer. I think my shock was a product of a Manzarek-Krieger concert I saw at the NYCB Theater at Westbury in 2011. I had seen them once before with my father and brother when Manzarek and Robby Krieger went by the moniker Riders on the Storm. Considering that Riders on the Storm sounds like a cheesy cover band, it is probably a good thing the formers Doors’ members chose a band name of their last names.

Not many people know (or can envision) that The Doors played Westbury Music Fair (the former name of the current NYCB Theater). The Doors, one of the most celebrated and influential rock bands to come out of the 1960s, played a small venue less than a 5k from my house. Manzarek and Krieger celebrated their grand return to Westbury by recreating the set list from their April, 1968 show. It was electric. At the conclusion of the effervescent concert, the band played “Light My Fire.” Here is what I wrote about it back in 2011.

“Think of everything you love about The Doors – the energy, sexiness, ruthlessness, originality, togetherness – and throw it into a pot of boiling liveliness and love. Let that boil for around a 20-minute epic performance of “Light My Fire” that neared mystical levels and you have a great performance. Manzarek stood up from his stool, kicked it over, and swiftly put his right foot on the keyboard! 72 years old, my ass.”

That’s why I am still so surprised. His vivaciousness was striking. His effusive passion for the music was alive and well. While Jim Morrison was the soul of The Doors, Ray Manzarek was the mad genius behind the scenes concocting keyboard riffs on his Vox Continental. But when he got out on stage, it was clear that Manzarek was in love with the music the band was creating. If you have been listening to any of the eulogies of Manzarek over the past few days, I am sure you have heard words like “genius” and “master.” Sometimes these words are thrown around loosely. In the case of Manzarek, though, it would be unwise to understate his musical ability and perspicacity. Every member of the Doors was supremely talented. That is one reason why the band created keen, genre-bending music that appealed to the masses and maintained its canny flavor. But, if it weren’t for Manzarek’s proficiency with the breathy and psychedelic Vox Continental combo organ, low-pitched keyboard bass, and other keys, we may not be speaking about the Doors.

I include “Light My Fire” not because it is my favorite Doors song (that title is reserved for “Roadhouse Blues” or “Waiting for the Sun”) but because of the renowned organ intro. It is arguably one of the best known keyboard riffs ever. It is a riff of pure afflatus. While this may sound overly simplistic, there is just something so introductory about it. Without the riff, the song would not have the same potency. Manzarek’s work on keys on “Light My Fire” was a microcosm for how much he meant to the The Doors. As the elder statesman of the band, Manzarek also acted as an intellectual and sagacious force.

In the wise words of the Doors (from “When The Music’s Over” off of Strange Days):

So when the music’s over 
When the music’s over, yeah 
When the music’s over 
Turn out the lights

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →