June 2011
1 post
5 tags
Digitalism: Love
Music climates can get stale and often leave a listener begging for change. Whether from a band or genre, most avid listeners are often unable to accept anything but the very bleeding edge from sound and technique. I’ve been known to be one of those listeners, but what I love the most is when an artist just does their thing without any conceptions of a ravenous scene.
German dance-punk...
May 2011
3 posts
Moment Bends: The Pleasant Obituary of...
If you’ve ever listened to Architecture in Helsinki and wished that they take serious notes from MGMT, you’re in luck. And if you’ve always loved Architecture’s unique, imaginative and tonally deep sound, it’s time to bust out the tissues and prepare to start dabbing your tears away.
Moment Bends, the groups fourth full-length, is a disappointment. Not that...
7 tags
Canyon Candy: Javelin Goes Cowpoke
For almost no particular reason, it makes sense for Javelin to have released a western themed EP. Perhaps it their ability to make dusty old samples relevant – a mandatory skill for the assignment. Maybe it’s because they go about their work with the same precision and let-it-be-damned attitude of all those steer drivers of yesteryear. Or, it could just be that they’re the only...
5 tags
The Depth of Noise
Pantha Du Prince aka Hendrik Weber is an oddity of a creator whose style exists as a faint pulsing light within and beyond his predecessors and peers of electronica. A faint star whose light we’re only beginning to see with brilliance like we’ve never seen thanks to the recent XI Versions of Black Noise released on the Rough Trade Records label.
Of course, credit must be paid to the...
April 2011
3 posts
7 tags
Chromeo: Live at the Rose Center for Earth and...
On April 22, 2011, I was given the chance to witness something beautiful. Chromeo would be performing a DJ set at the Rose Center for Earth and Space. I had a ticket.
It’s likely that this was a once in a lifetime event. So naturally, when the opportunity decided to bestow itself upon me, I jumped quicker than a proton in the Large Hadron Collider – okay, that’s the only science...
6 tags
Explosions in The Sky: Take Care, It's Been Fun
I absolutely love it when even after 12 years of creating music, a group of musicians can still churn the pot and create something that peels back the layers of personality further than before. Like discovering a reignited love in something, or cracking into a new level of musical ability. However, I feel with “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care” by Explosions in The Sky, there are layers still...
4 tags
Nine Types of Light: Misguided Beauty
To describe the fifth album of TV On The Radio – the group that created this blog’s eighth best album of the decade / the same ensemble that’s driven me to countless, immensely passionate, drunken rants of praise / one of my favorite bands, period – in one word: alright.
In case you haven’t gotten the picture thus far, this is a group for which I hold great respect. And...
June 2010
3 posts
The Moody Blues: The Magellan of Noise?
In 1969 The Moody Blues released On the Threshold of a Dream, on it is one of the powerful sounds I’ve ever heard. Track one, second one, the noise has arrived. For the next two minutes your mind will struggle to process what it’s being exposed to. Your preexisting rules do not apply.
Physically, the noise is made up simple ingredients. The low is barely audible; a warm tone that lays a steady...
8 tags
Ratatat: Veterans.
Ratatat do it again with their newest addition to their discography, LP4: a testament to maturity, growth and a solidification of their sound. The album does well to showcase these progressions with rich, broad rhythms, an array of custom percussion, well placed and intricate overdubs and gentle melodies that guide you through each track. On LP4 you can see that the time spent over the years has...
5 tags
Giraffes? Giraffes!: Not An Ordinary Trip To The...
Giraffes? Giraffes! is, without a doubt, something that you don’t come across often. Whether this music is for you is unsure; I’m guessing that they don’t possess a mass appeal. Who they do appeal to, however, are those who appreciate music for what it truly stands for. Not only an art, but a science. The term “musicians’ musicians” comes to mind first, but this certainly isn’t only...
May 2010
3 posts
11 tags
New on The Radar: Pantha du Prince
Pantha Du Prince aka Hedrick Weber has been at his game of Minimal Techno Electronica for the better of the last decade creating brilliant dark minimal that has received positive critical acclaim, attention that has carried through to his latest creation. His latest album Black Noise serves as what I would say to be his most cohesive and focused album yet. Creating subtle atmospheres from...
Broken Social Scene: Please, Don’t Get Old
Forgiveness Rock Record, more than anything, has an air of familiarity to it. If you’ve been listening to Broken Social Scene over the years, you’ve come to expect things from them. A graciousness, warm tones, large chords, a sense of ease, a calm but powerful energy: these are how this group’s given me solace. And rightfully, I’ve come to love it.
However, these expectations also have a dark...
11 tags
From The Ashes, What is Reborn after a Split.
So if you were tuned into Q and Not U at all, you might have became a fan of the late-great-hit-and-quit-it pop group Georgie James from the Washington D.C. area, whom had taken a piece of our hearts here at In Your Chest. But if you knew of Georgie James you would’ve known that they called it quits back in 2008 to work on their solo projects. That was a sad day for yours truly, having...
April 2010
2 posts
4 tags
Dan Deacon: The White Knight of the Month
The pursuit of music is a lovely and disastrous endeavor. Like many things that bring great joy, music has the ability to hurt just as much as it does lift. Due to this, there are times when true music is extremely evasive. Months will go without a promising sound. Hope will fade as the dark powers of mediocrity start to grow. But it’s just then, as in Star Wars, that the virtuous...
11 tags
Getting Sick on Tobacco
So, here at In Your Chest we’re obviously big fans of those cats who love to throw it down in bright new ways that make us go “whoa” or make us laugh uncontrollably in astonishment. That said I think attention must be paid to a guy who has been flying under the radar for a minute now, I’m talking about Tom Fec AKA Tobacco. I guess you’d call him the frontman for experimental...
March 2010
3 posts
6 tags
Holy Fuck: Not Just a Snazzy Name
All throughout your childhood there was always one kid who constantly craved attention. They were the ones who everybody hated, but few could stop staring at. They fed off of attention. They needed it. They would stop at no bounds. They were assholes – and most likely still are.
Those assholes are usually the first thing that comes to my mind when a band names themselves something that’s...
5 tags
The Beautiful Black Sands Soundscapes.
I think that it is common for most appreciators of music to notice and respond to progression in an artist’s repertoire as signs of strong creative ability, and for some artists that maybe their goal, to always progress or alter their focus. However there are often overlooked artists who are brilliantly consistent. Such have hit their stride or sound and continue to create from an...
6 tags
When Albums Throw Cuffs: Broken Bells v. Gorilla...
Welcome to the first installment of our very own head-to-head album throw down.
Albums come in all different shapes and sizes, and are hardly all on the same level. Let’s face it, most albums in the world shouldn’t have ever been made. Their parents were the dull, ugly ones who settled for each other only in fear of loneliness. A small portion do hold their own, but don’t...
February 2010
4 posts
6 tags
Welcome to, Efterklang.
When hearing Efterklang’s 2007 release Parades, I became hopeful to hear more from the group that in my mind successfully paired classic composition and vocal arrangements with emotionally dynamic experimental/baroque pop. However, with their new release Magic Chairs it seems that much of that scope and feeling that was found in Parades is lost. That is not to say that the music composed...
4 tags
Yeasayer's Odd Blood: Jekyll and Hyde
Odd Blood, Yeasayer’s second full-length, starts out strong but sadly fades into mediocrity.
Listening to a new album by a band who you admire is always an exciting, scary experience. When you bond with something, you’ve made a personal investment in a relationship between yourself and whatever the other may be. And when it comes time for that thing to grow, part of yourself is...
4 tags
Forget Me Not: Little People
It is something of a psychological tendency to associate one thing, whether it a voice, a smell, a street, a comfortable position, a face or just about anything with something else. I think it could be said that many do this with music for moments in our lives that fit so tenderly into whatever groove one might hear. But I find it refreshing when a producer or artist recreates moments in their...
4 tags
Maps and Atlases: The Great Converters
Their sound is infatuating. Complex melodies and mixtures with simple tones. It’s a blend of pure and primal. It’s as if a math-core band went to rehab and found some serious taste. But what’s most appealing about their sound is its amiability. Although they put out musically deep and extremely technical tracks they still get a thumbs up from the vast majority of those that I introduce them to....
January 2010
4 posts
4 tags
My Mutual Break Up from Pop-Music.
All the shapes of music that stand out in my memory do so for one reason or another, but none of which do so because some one else said, “listen to this but not to that”. There have been appreciators, practitioners, and enthusiasts in my history whom have showed me what they had loved for one reason or another, thus perpetuating the flow of art and depth of meaning that music has...
7 tags
Sleep. To Those Who Guide Us There.
Usually when an album puts you to sleep it’s a bad thing. However there are some out there that have earned this patch nobly. There is a great difference in music that bores you and that which pleases you into relaxation. These albums don’t force you to sleep, they allow you to.
All too often people confuse this genre with music that depresses. But, on the contrary – it’s about...
6 tags
Four of Dakotah's Guilty Pleasure Albums
We’ve all been there before (I hope anyway), someone comes over and you willingly allow them to sit down at your computer or your album collection to pick something to listen to while they relax or wait for a cocktail, forgetting about the dark secrets hidden in your prized collection of cherished and championed albums. Albums that you hide or avoid playing in front of people just because...
27 tags
Top Ten Albums of the Decade
This is a list of the best albums released over the last ten years. We are not shying away from this statement.
To get to the bottom of the mass of music and “music” that was made over this relatively huge amount of time we asked the question: “What albums cannot be fucked with?” Looking at originality, influence, technique, album arrangement, time context, etc… we arrived here. The last...
December 2009
5 posts
5 tags
Javelin: Talented. Immature. Promising.
At first listen, I doubt you’ll be very impressed. But as the tracks wear on you begin to realize that their sound has a substance that most others lack. They have a sense of ease. Javelin’s not trying to blow your mind – something that many electronic musicians attempt but fail with. Javelin’s just making music.
Their core is making simple, interesting beats. On top of that, smooth...
3 tags
The Antlers: Sorry, You were saying?
The saying, “Say it once, why say it again?” has a counterpart saying that applies to The Antlers latest full length release, Hospice. That is if you’re going to say something, say it loud and clear. Within the very first moments of the album, you would think you’re in for a post-rock journey with the first track setting the mood with loop delayed piano garnished with a space reverb,...
3 tags
Bear In Heaven: And Your Point Is…
Bear In Heaven has volume. However, I’m afraid that they’re lacking most other qualities required to make good music. Newly released Beast Rest Forth Mouth starts out semi-solid. It’s around track three that you realize the album isn’t going anywhere. The potential displayed up to that point is both the peak and plateau.
The largest problem with the album is the relentless repetition of...
2 tags
New On The Radar: Opiuo
Has a beautiful sound ever stopped you in your tracks before? And did that sound ever permeate in your brain so much that after it hit, you could not help but to ask, “Who/What is this?” That’s what Opiuo did to me, a DJ from New Zealand who has been carving himself an international niche out of Melbourne, Australia. His noise can be described as mid-tempo heavy glitchy break beats that...
2 tags
Tim Fite: Ode to Distinctiveness
He’s a pure visionary who’s writing albums like nobody before. Fite’s unique structures and arrangements are pushing music to new limits. The approach is comic and shreds to pieces any preconceived rules you had of modern, popular music. It’s as if he rules out no possibilities in his process. Everything the man thinks of is included: awesome harmonies - it’s...
November 2009
1 post
2 tags
“Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the...”