Music

Bruce Lamont

The Metal Examiner: Bruce Lamont’s Feral Songs For The Epic Decline

Every Friday, The Metal Examiner delves metal’s endless depths to present the genre’s most important and exciting albums.

Bruce Lamont: Feral Songs for the Epic DeclineBruce Lamont: Feral Songs for the Epic Decline (At a Loss, 1/25/11)

Bruce Lamont: “2 Then The 3”

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Having spent a decade as the voice and one-man horn section of post-metal outfit Yakuza, Bruce Lamont’s name has become synonymous with “metal plus saxophone,” an all-too-oversimplified yet all-too-useful shorthand description of that band’s output. But outside of his main group, Lamont has readily (and more frequently) contributed to a number of distinctly non-metal productions, resulting in a body of work that has little in common, sonically speaking, with his most commonly identified (and most actively self-identified) act.

With Feral Songs For The Epic Decline, Lamont’s first proper solo album, the elements that he has always brought to the table remain fully intact, yet never in a predictable way.  Though the foreboding atmospherics persist, Lamont has foregone most conventions of common (and even uncommon) metal and assembled something closer to the spaced-out soundtrack to some kind of indescribable psychological nightmare: less physical aggression but considerably more mental warfare.

Pretty Lights & Major Lazer

Concert Photos: Pretty Lights & Major Lazer @ Congress Theater (Chicago, IL)

The palatial Congress Theater in Chicago knows how to throw a New Year’s Eve celebration. Last year, Girl Talk rang in 2010 to a packed house. This year, electronic heavyweights Pretty Lights and the Diplo / DJ Switch collaboration Major Lazer were called upon to soundtrack one of the night’s biggest parties. The DJs (and Lazer’s hype-man Skerrit Bwoy) kept things uptempo, blasting another sold-out crowd with deep bass, hip-hop beats, and turntable theatrics. Photographer Tracy Graham attended the show and captured these great photos.

Pretty Lights & Major Lazer

Iron and Wine

Pop Addict: Iron and Wine’s Kiss Each Other Clean

Every Thursday, Pop Addict presents infectious tunes from contemporary musicians across indie rock, pop, folk, electronica, and more.

Iron and Wine: Kiss Each Other CleanIron and Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean (Warner Bros., 1/25/11)

Iron and Wine: “Walking Far from Home”
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When Iron and Wine made its debut in 2002 with underground sensation The Creek Drank the Cradle, it immediately became apparent that there was something special at hand. The album — anchored by lo-fi acoustic finger-picking set to Sam Beam’s hushed, harmonized vocals — featured no bells and whistles.  It remains a blunt testament of Beam’s humble offerings as a songwriter and the splendor that he can achieve through it.  Today, when listening to the album, you still get the feeling that the songs were written by Beam while he sat on the front porch of a ramshackle home, located on a dirt farm somewhere down south, singing “Upward Over the Mountain” as the late summer sun sets beyond the horizon.

World in Stereo: Josephine Foster & The Victor Herrero Band’s Anda Jaleo

Each week, World in Stereo examines classic and modern world music while striving for a greater appreciation of other cultures.

Josephine Foster & The Victor Herrero Band: Anda Jaleo (Fire Records, 11/2/10)

Josephine Foster & The Victor Herrero Band: “Los Cuarto Muleros”

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“Anda Jaleo” has a long history as a Spanish folk standard; its melody repeatedly transforms and reemerges anew. First recorded in 1931 by poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca and flamenco singer/dancer La Argentinita, it was a popular dance before it was adopted by the Republican Army as a resistance song during the Spanish Civil War.  But under head of state Franciso Franco’s repressive military regime, Lorca’s leftist art was outlawed, including the folk-song collection Las Canciones Populares Españolas, which features “Anda Jaleo” and many others.

The song’s name appears again in avant-folk artist Josephine Foster and husband Victor Herrero’s recent reworking of Lorca’s Las Canciones, a simple and skilled record that shows the songbook’s ability to connect with audiences 80 years later. Along with Herrero’s acoustic band, Anda Jaleo was recorded live in the Grenadine Sierra, capturing a rich, lively mood that stays within the traditional framework of the 1931 original.