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CIMS HANDPICKED: DEADMAU5

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October 10, 2012 - The Record Exchange Blog - by - No Comments

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Joel Zimmerman doesn’t like being called a DJ. The 28-year-old dance music phenomenon from Toronto, better known as Deadmau5, sees that as a hopelessly outdated way of describing what he does. His sets are closer to live performances. He plays mostly his own material, assembling tracks on the fly, using cutting edge computer technology, including software he’s helped write himself. “There are no CDs involved,” he explains. “It’s a technological orgy up there and I try and keep it more my music than anyone else’s. If people come out to see Deadmau5 I want them to hear Deadmau5 music.” The title of Deadmau5’ latest album > album title goes here < will likely serve as a litmus test to record buyers – haters will imply it confirms IDM’s “lack of creativity” (an ignorant complaint levied by rockists ever since they first encountered a drum machine) while fans will revel in its linguistic anarchy. Regardless: The man is a creative force giving the kids what they want… And couldn’t the same be said for a new Foo Fighters record? Check it out.

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CIMS HANDPICKED: AMANDA PALMER AND THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA

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September 13, 2012 - The Record Exchange Blog - by - No Comments

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Singer, songwriter, piano-slayer and super blogger Amanda Palmer is preparing to release her first new studio album in four years, in conjunction with her new band, The Grand Theft Orchestra, featuring Michael McQuilken, Chad Raines, and Jherek Bishoff. Entitled Theatre Is Evil, the album was recently recorded in Melbourne, Australia, with producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Murder By Death, Modest Mouse, Xiu Xiu). Arguably her most pop-influenced album yet, Theatre Is Evil showcases Amanda’s powerful vocals and talented songwriting in ways that might surprise even her most ardent fans. Written over the course of several years (since the release of her last studio album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer), the album offers a collection of sounds and rhythms heavily influenced by the music Palmer grew up listening to – most notably 80’s synth rock and Brit Pop. True to form, the undisputed queen of crowd-sourcing and fan engagement enlisted her community of loyal supporters to launch her ambitious global release, selling nearly 25,000 copies of her new album in multiple formats via Kickstarter, along with a variety of unique merch items. But don’t worry: The songs are cool, too.

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CIMS HANDPICKED: DIRTY PROJECTORS

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August 16, 2012 - The Record Exchange Blog - by - No Comments

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With Dirty Projectors’ swelling and beautiful new album, Swing Lo Magellan, David Longstreth shows he really doesn’t know how to do the same thing twice. Where prior DPs albums investigated 20th-century orchestration (The Getty Address), aerated the aesthetics of ’80s hardcore and West African guitar music (Rise Above), and explored complex contrapuntal techniques in human voices (Bitte Orca and Mt Wittenberg Orca), Swing Lo Magellan is a leap forward again – with Dirty Projectors delving into the beautiful, generous simplicity of the heart and soul. “It’s an album of songs, an album of songwriting,” says Longstreth. The songs of Swing Lo Magellan are culled from a sprawling twelve months of constant writing and recording in a weird house in Delaware County, New York. Swing Lo Magellan bears the impress of this informal working style: The album is a collection of moments: Accidental, fortuitous, spontaneous. The performances feel warm and imperfect. Unguarded intimacy is somewhat of a new look for this band, and it turns out to be a good one. Swing Lo Magellan has both the handmade intimacy of a love letter and the widescreen grandeur of a blockbuster, and if that sounds like a paradox – it’s because it was … Until now.

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CIMS HANDPICKED: POLICA

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August 16, 2012 - The Record Exchange Blog - by - No Comments

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Drawing elements from Portishead, Bon Iver, Fleetwood Mac and Eurythmics, Polica is a group featuring chanteuse Channy Leaneagh from Roma di Luna, Ryan Olson of Gayngs, Vampire Hands guitarist Chris Bierden, and drummers (that’s right, there are two) Drew Christopherson from Digitata and Ben Ivascu from STNNNG. “Amongster” opens with buzzing, reverberated guitar leads, over which Caselle’s ghostly, layered vocals hover like a mist. An Auto-Tune modification makes it sound like she’s singing behind a whirring fan in “I See My Mother”— all dub-inspired bass and an electric guitar approximating a synthesizer with help from an electronic bow, it’s here where the finesse of the Polica’s two drummers comes shockingly into the foreground. “Violent Games” plays with more menacing tones. Dark drumming patterns give chase to a driving, distorted bass line, while Caselle croons through a slew of gurgling effects. The standout tune “The Maker” gives Caselle more room to stretch out and exercise her dynamic vocal range, though “Wandering Star” (no, not the Portishead song) is the jam (among many jams) that could make Polica huge. You need this.

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CIMS HANDPICKED: JD MCPHERSON

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July 12, 2012 - The Record Exchange Blog - by - No Comments

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As a visual artist, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, native JD McPherson is well versed in the process of working within clearly defined formal parameters, and he employs a similarly rigorous discipline with his music. On Signs & Signifiers, McPherson’s seductively kickass debut album, seamlessly meshes the old and the new, the primal and the sophisticated, on a work that will satisfy traditional American rock ‘n’ roll and R&B purists while also exhibiting McPherson’s rarefied gift for mixing and matching disparate stylistic shapes and textures. Never has an album of so-called “retro” music been laced with such a rich payload of postmodern nuance… But that was precisely the intent. Of course, pushing the genre envelope doesn’t work unless the artist has the chops and feel to capture the form in its pure state to begin with. Check out, for example, “Dimes for Nickels,” McPherson’s vital evocation of the very moment when R&B and hillbilly music had a baby and they called it rock ‘n’ roll, or the Jackie Wilson-meets-Elvis exuberance of “Scratching Circles,” or the lascivious ecstasy of the Little Richard doppelganger “Scandalous.” This cat is wicked-clever—and man, can he ever deliver this righteous shit.

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