Violens

Pop Addict: Violens’ Amoral

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

Violens: Amoral

Violens: Amoral (Static Recital, 11/9/10)

Violens: “Acid Reign”

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From the start of its debut LP, Amoral, Violens‘ strength is clear: revitalizing and embellishing 1980s-inspired new-wave pop.

By rejecting the raw, lo-fi approach so prevalent today in independent music and the all-too-common reverb-drenched sound, this NYC indie group sticks with what it knows best: clean, unabashed, dance rock. Even with the band’s overt arsenal of sounds — outer-space keyboards, calculated drumming, pop-driven bass lines, blissful resonating vocals, and fuzzed-out guitars — Amoral‘s production lets the band’s sound come off as tight and polished.

World in Stereo: Psych Funk Sa-Re-Ga!

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

Various Artists: Psych Sa-Re-Ga! Seminar: Aesthetic Expressions of Psychedelic Funk Music in India, 1970 to 1983 (World Psychedelic Funk Classics, 12/7/10)

R.D. Burman featuring Asa Bhosie and Kishore Kumar: “Lekar Ham Diwana Dil”

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World Psychedelic Funk Classics has released a mind-bending collection of Indian grooves that draws heavily from ’70s and ’80s Bollywood. A treasure trove for groove seekers, Psych Funk Sa-Re-Ga! includes a number of wild and tripped-out numbers that speak directly to the melodic wonderland that is India.

Music nerds will be pleased by the limited-edition package, available as a double LP or deluxe digipack CD, and equipped with hefty in-depth liner notes and photos of the thick mustaches and permed hairdos behind some of the the grooviest music that the world has ever heard.

The F-Bomb

Zine Scene: The F-Bomb

Looking for a little anti-holiday cheer? Tacoma-based zine The F-Bomb might just be the ticket. Since January of 2009, The F-Bomb has gathered submissions from writers into themed issues (seven so far, with topics like “Music,” “Sex,” the paradoxical “Unthemed,” and now “Holiday”) that incorporate comics, slice-of-life tangents and charts, interviews, fiction, and even an advice column.

The “Holiday Issue” features such gems as the “Boo For You” column, which recounts a freewheeling conversation about Nilla Wafers, Jesus, and stealing cheese. Other columns include descriptions of favorite Christmas memories in 10 words or less (sample memory: “I unwrapped a box for a phone. It wasn’t.”), and comics featuring adorable, demented animals using and abusing the titular “F-bomb” to discuss Thanksgiving.

On the opposite page of this irreverent story, you can read a chart diagramming all of the winter holidays, who celebrates them and why, and various fun facts and names for Santa Claus. The juxtaposition of the bizarre and mundane — the prurient and the informative — goes a long way in describing just what The F-Bomb zine is.

Mark Jenkins

Mark Jenkins: Startling, Lifelike Street Art

Installation artist Mark Jenkins knows how to provoke a double take. His work, primarily done in tape and plastic, confronts the public with human and animal forms in bizarre scenarios.

Morrow vs. Hajduch

Morrow vs. Hajduch: Oh! Pears’ Fill Your Lungs EP

Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.

Oh! Pears: Fill Your LungsOh! Pears: Fill Your Lungs EP (3/13/10)

Oh! Pears: “Fill Your Lungs”
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Morrow: Guitarist Corey Duncan left indie rockers Pattern Is Movement in 2007, opting to focus on a solo chamber-pop project.  That project turned into Oh! Pears, a 13-piece ensemble that plays Duncan’s classically and pop-inspired pieces.

Released independently earlier this year, Fill Your Lungs is Oh! Pears’ promising debut EP.  It begins with rounds of looping acoustic-guitar riffs and pizzicato, staccato, and legato strings, with Duncan’s deep voices joining to guide the music.  The rest of the five-song release is accented with other sounds, but this marriage of guitars, cellos, and violas best defines the EP.

Epstein

The Groove Seeker: Epstein’s Prefuse 73 / Jaytram / Epstein

On a weekly basis, The Groove Seeker goes in search of killer grooves across rock, funk, hip hop, soul, electronic music, jazz, fusion, and more.

Epstein: Prefuse 73 / Jaytram / Epstein (Asthmatic Kitty, 12/14/10)

Jaytram: “You Know They Out”

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Though Roberto Lange’s year has been busier than usual, the multitasking musician (also known as Helado Negro) has found the time to pack in another release before the year is over. Well, kind of. The back catalog of Epstein, Lange’s longtime electronic project, has received a complete cut-and-paste overhaul by beat conductor Prefuse 73 and drummer Jaytram (of Yeasayer), making for a record aptly titled Prefuse 73 / Jaytram / Epstein.

It is a fitting year-end release for the NYC-based artist and producer, who, in 2010 alone, released a new Epstein full-length, a new Helado Negro EP, worked on a number of remixes, and saw Asthmatic Kitty reissue four Epstein records that were never released outside of Japan until now.  The re-releases spawned not so much a remix album but an absolute dismantling and revision of his obscure recordings. The albums, recorded with Miami-based Beta Bodega label, serve as a wealthy groove print for Prefuse and Jaytram, who respectively split the duties.

Tom Warrior

Q&A: Tom Warrior of Celtic Frost, Triptykon, and Hellhammer

Tom Gabriel Warrior has produced extreme metal since the early 1980s, first with seminal groups Hellhammer and Celtic Frost and now with Triptykon.  In this question-and-answer session, columnist Todd Nief chats with the frontman about authenticity in music, beer cans in thrash metal, and the effect of happiness on extreme-metal composition.

Triptykon: “I am the Twilight”
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[Triptykon’s] Shatter EP and Eparistera Daimones LP are part of the same body of creative work. Can you comment on what you’re trying to accomplish with this, be it an emotional agenda, a political agenda, or any or all of the above?

Probably all of the above, but on this first album, it’s predominantly emotional. Of course, the sessions from the first album reflect some of the turmoil that existed when I left Celtic Frost. There’s no way around it. There’s some social commentary in songs such as “Goetia,” but, by and large, it’s my own feelings about leaving Celtic Frost, leaving my own band, leaving the summary of my life behind in a forced manner.

Nobody’s forced to read the lyrics; nobody’s forced to read the liner notes. We provide very detailed information, but by no means are you required to read all that. Music is music at the end of the day, and with music, you should create your own images in your head. I think it’s perfectly possible to listen to Triptykon without dealing with the lyrics or the liner notes. The music is intense and dark enough.

When I was a teenage fan, I didn’t speak English so well, so I just listened and the music created its own images in my head, and that’s the way it should be. It’s probably better that way.