So the album We Recruit from Swiss band Ventura is out, and a 7″ on which they recruited / scooped David Yow (that guy who’s in The Jesus Lizard) is also out. Ventura’s style is hard, slow and potent.. a good environment for Yow. At first site it does look like an odd project.. why is Yow hanging out with 3 young guys in Switzerland? Musically it makes a lot of sense. During his visit in Lausanne, this short was made:
After the demise of Mclusky one of the two bands risen from it’s ashes was Future of the Left. Singer/guitarist Andy ‘Falco’ Falkous and drummer Jack Egglestone recruited Jarcrew’s Kelson Matthias for bass and there it was, a band that kicks even more arsch than Mclusky. But after 5 years and two albums, Kelson has decided to quit the band.
Is this the end of FOTL? Thankfully, no. Falkous on the FOTL website:
Future of the left is still a band, a thing, the centre of our unremarkable lives and continues, if anything, with more effort and furious pride than ever before.
For the time being Steven Hudson (Kong/Oceansize) will be taking over bass. But there is more. FOTL have recorded a few new songs with a fourth member. On the website Falkous writes he was making songs for a side project but “it all ended up sounding so perfectly like where Future of the Left should have been going that it seemed ridiculous to not combine the two.” He has yet to reveal who the fourth member is but his roles are “to play guitar and act like a fucking maniac.”
We’ll have to wait and see with these changes mean for the music of FOTL. But the last big change worked out pretty damn good.
More info at http://www.futureoftheleft.com
Manchasm by Future of the Left
Future of the Left -
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Apparently a little 6-man band from Connecticut made a self-released EP last June, put it on bandcamp for free and pressed 100 copies, that deserve selling out.
The sound is tight at times and shows off a big, but well-timed and balanced group, at other times a bit more like a jazz-jam. They sound similar to their contemporaries from Antarctic and Enemies and their predecessors in Pele, embracing a light-weight sound with charismatic, playful instrumentation. The cool new thing about Fugue, is that they have a broader palette of instruments than most bands in this genre, where often the most appreciated skill is to get the more out of lesser instruments and band members.
It’s 17 minutes packed with driving melodies and explosive outbursts, but nonetheless doesn’t seem too calculated, as they embrace enough genres to be both entertaining and emotive.
Fugue - Ancient Glass EP
self-released, 2009
I was actually ordering the new Imperial China when I thought about making something from the shipping costs in the Socket Records store. So I picked up bldngs’ debut EP and that should not go unnoticed! The sound is happy, trippy, techie, instrumental.. awarding patience with the same amount of freaky, joyous eruptions.
Here they are playing some stuff they wrote after the EP…
Btw… Bth Pttrns nd bldngs rmvd thr vwls nd thy bth snd grt! S th cnnctn?
buidings - endless (EP)
Socket Records (Washington DC), Summer 2009
Sorry that I’m late with this… PTTRNS are from Cologne and have had a few songs out on a 7″, 2 splits and 2 casettes. Their sound is a musical alloy best described as DC post-hardcore, funkier and more fluent than for instance Q and Not U ever were, even on “Power”. And a bit out of time, akin Pit Er Pat. I heard the 3 tracks from People I Adore 7″… it was promising.. didn’t totally catch me, but nonetheless I found myself putting it on once in a while for a year or so.. and after putting PTTRNS into rotation again, I decided that they must’ve released something new by now. The band was doing small releases for 32 months before finally releasing Science Piñata this April. I’m still waiting to hear all of it, but whatever… I trust what I’ve heard.
Long time no speak. But not for no reason: we just finished mixing our LP with the awesome Guido Lucas at Blubox Studios. It‘s really good. It‘s called SCIENCE PIÑATA and it will be out on Altin Village & Mine Records on April 1st. Recording was difficult and tiresome - Benjamin and Daniel both fell ill in the process so we had to get Sting to lay down some bass and that guy from Arctic Monkeys to play the remaining drum parts. However, Guido is a wizard and edited it all. You probably won‘t be able to tell the difference. Get into it!
PTTRNS - Science Piñata
Altin Village & Ursa Major, April, 2010
…check out the EP from Tall Ships. The last 3 tracks are totally in the spirit of FMTM. I don’t know where this band is heading, but they have an interesting future. So does soundcloud, which i’ve just joined (this is me).
> It’s here… the EPs hiding right behind this link! Click it!! Seriously, do it!!<
The new Maps & Atlases Perch Patchwork might be considered a debut, but then again… no. I valued each of the two EP releases as any full-length, and the guys have displayed such a lot of activity that “debut” would sound awfully wrong. If you’re into merchandise, the band offers some lucrative deals btw… here’s what they said:
Hey, So we’ve been super busy, and we’re so excited for the perch patchwork release (June 29th in the US) and the accompanying headline tour. We’ve also got a bunch of cool pre-order deals going on. For Insound, if you pre-order the CD or LP then you get a copy of our extremely limited edition Solid Ground singles with two rare b-sides (Living Decorations demo and an Israeli Caves string and vocal mix). And with our merch company we’re doing all kinds of fun pre-order bundles. Check’em out HERE!
I don’t really dig the whole hype-generating, tension-building, merchandise-selling, US-exclusive record-releasing, so I’d like to mention that the album has leaked and sounds super. Like a holiday on Hawaii.
This is the link you should click
Richter Collective has been the label to follow in 2010 (The Redneck Manifesto, Jogging, Worrier). Now a fellow-Irish website is reporting that the new Enemies full-length is streaming in its entirety. After listening to it over and over again, I have no doubts that this is as elegant, balanced, admirable and scrumptious as I would’ve expected from the old EP Alpha Waves (2008)… and a big leap right into the elite of that unnamed genre that everyone would agree exists when they hear the sound. We’ve Been Talking is out on June 11th… I’m ordering mine now.
Noumenon has released a new EP that lives up to it’s title. No pretentiousness, just solid instrumental math played at party pace. The sound is crispy and live-like and is sort of a testimony/monument of many happy nights out at concerts.
Here’s a mention that qualifies for 2009’s best release… i’ve been sitting on it for a little too long, but just the more to ensure that this is a masterpiece durable for long term exposure and health benefits.
Antarctic’s debut was a long process, already anticipated more than a 1½ year ago when their music was only available as 4 demo tracks on myspace… and calling them demo tracks immediately set the bar high.
The album is a continuous flow of creative guitar and bass work and firm, lap-tapping delicious, tricky drumming. It crosses borders of genres just the way we like it, but without ever sounding unnatural or pretentious. It’s a joy to go hunting for details in. For instance how almost every of the 9 tracks flow seamlessly together: I’m sure it’s something that they’ve been working a lot with, so I’ll give them an ad hoc pinnacle delicious sound award® for that.
Antarctic - s/t
Hello Sir, 2009
