ALARM

MP3 Premiere: GDP’s “Quintuplets”

Guest Spots: Benoît Pioulard on three perfect moments in soundtracked travel

Benoît Pioulard: Lasted (Kranky, 10/11/10)

Benoît Pioulard: “Sault”

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Releasing music under the name Benoît Pioulard is one Thomas Meluch, a Portland, Oregon-based ambient electronic artist. His most recent album, Lasted, is his third as Pioulard, but it’s just one of more than 10 releases for the long-independent 26-year-old who cut his teeth as a drummer in half a dozen bands. His lo-fi, pop-influenced compositions are driven by a fascination with natural sounds and the textures of decay. As someone tuned into his surroundings, Meluch describes three memorable moments in his travels where everything — time, place, and sound — came together perfectly.

A Plane, a Train, an Automobile: Three Perfect Moments in Soundtracked Travel
by Benoît Honore Pioulard

1: Loscil: “Rorschach” (Plume)
On a flight from Detroit to Portland, December 2008

In lieu of any kind of pharmaceutical calmative, I typically assemble a playlist of the slowest, most repetitive music that I can summon from my now-antique third-generation iPod when I travel. On one particular plane trip from a holiday visit with the fam, on my way back to the Pacific Northwest, I happened to put this Loscil track (hey, Scott!) in the mix and settled into my window seat over the wing. Seat 14F, maybe?

Anyway, once the piece swelled to full volume, I noticed that the careful pace of the song was exactly in time with the flashing of the little light at the end of the wing. Not “sort of,” not “a little bit,” but fucking exactly. And it remained so for the entire eight-ish-minute duration of the track, keeping me wholly mesmerized. It was the kind of thing that I always want to happen when my blinker is on in the car and it syncs up with whatever’s on the stereo, but y’know it always fall out of phase. It was perfect, and I get a little sad when I realize that something like that will probably never happen again. Alors, life goes on.

Concert Photos: Deerhoof @ Bottom Lounge (Chicago, IL)

Experimental-rock band Deerhoof, the recent focus of an ALARM Q&A, is currently touring material from its most recent release, Deerhoof Vs. Evil. In a stop at Bottom Lounge in Chicago, vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki, bedecked in face paint and big red boots, jumped about the stage as the band tore through its avant-rock collection of controlled chaos. As photographer Elizabeth Gilmore‘s photos below show, it was just another off-the-wall, endlessly inventive performance.

Tim Hecker: Reluctant Neo Eno

Montreal-based ambient electronic artist Tim Hecker recorded his most recent album, Ravedeath, 1972, in one day with a single church organ in Iceland. Then came the real work: meticulous editing, rearranging, and layering.

Artist Scott Campbell’s solo exhibition, Noblesse Oblige, in LA

Car Bomb’s Michael Dafferner unveils tech-metal documentary

Q&A: Deerhoof

Deerhoof: Deerhoof vs. Evil (Polyvinyl, 1/25/11)

Deerhoof: “The Merry Barracks”

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If you’re familiar with the band, it takes less than 10 seconds to recognize a Deerhoof song. If bassist/vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki‘s beautiful, extraterrestrial voice and seemingly improvised lyrics don’t tip you off, surely the impetuous drumming of Greg Saunier, or the sharply jangled guitars of John Dieterich and Greg Rodriguez, will. Like a Galapagos of music, the quartet has evolved purely on its own, each member an island and each song a new creation found nowhere else on Earth.

The band’s dynamic approach to songwriting has led to a catalog stuffed to the brim with experimentation, and its tenth studio album, Deerhoof vs. Evil, is no exception. Here, Dieterich answers some questions from the road and kindly reveals his secret weapon in the ongoing battle against evil.

What happened in the past two years to influence the sound of the new record?

I guess the main thing that happened was that we all moved away from the San Francisco area and ended up in different cities. So we have had to figure out a new way of operating as a band and try to stay connected, even from far away.

What is the current dynamic in the band in terms of songwriting? How are the songs constructed?

Each song is different, but the basic method is the same, in that everyone writes on their own and brings in their ideas, whether it’s in the form of recorded ideas and demos, or a guitar or bass riff or a vocal line, or whatever. Then, as a band, we just try to get it to a place where everyone is happy with it and feels like it’s something we want to do. A lot of material gets thrown away, as well.

The Metal Examiner: Augury’s Concealed

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

Augury: Concealed (Sonic Unyon, 3/8/11)

Augury: “Alien Shores”

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Though Quebec-based death-prog band Augury earned rave reviews in the metal press with its 2009 release, Fragmentary Evidence, its 2004 debut, Concealed, went largely unnoticed at the time, save for some devotees on the fringe. A reissue of that disc doesn’t lessen any of its original challenge, but it may well give fans of technical metal something new to cheer about.

Newcomers beware: Concealed is not an easy listen. The individual tracks (“songs” isn’t always the correct term; “sequences” may work better) live and die by their constant shifts, resulting in music that seems as difficult for a listener to follow as it is for the musician to play. Throw in Augury’s steadfast devotion to its tone and sonic aesthetics, and what begins as a promising suite can end up as a stream-of-consciousness barrage of sound. This is technical music that goes beyond technique — beyond mere “math rock” — into its own brand of astrophysical metal.

Concert Photos: Little Dragon @ Relentless Garage (London, UK)

Swedish synth-pop quartet Little Dragon performed at HMV’s Next Big Thing festival in London earlier this month, alongside other up-and-coming artists like dubstepper James Blake and the great, ALARM-endorsed Stateless. Little Dragon, led by vocalist Yukimi Nagano, has been making waves with its ’80s-throwback dream pop mixed with dub and African rhythms. ALARM contributing photographer Gavin Thomas captured these images of the band’s show in London, and he even managed to snap a few up-close-and-personal portraits backstage.

Record Review: Ghostly International’s SMM: Context

V/A: SMM: Context (Ghostly International, 3/1/11)

Christina Vantzou: “11 Generations of My Fathers”

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In most cases, if the typical, well-respected independent label were to take a risk in compiling an ambient-heavy compilation with artists who were mostly unknown outside their respective hyper-insulated circles, most fans of that label would probably skip the compilation without much thought.

But then there is Ghostly International, a Ann Arbor, Michigan-based label with an eclectic roster comprising Matthew Dear, Loscil, Shigeto, and Dabrye, among others. For its new compilation record, Ghostly chose to dust off SMM, an offshoot of the label created back in 1994, to present a refined aesthetic within a particular — to borrow from the compilation’s title — Context.