snowdrop music

Sin Ropas: Fire prizes

2009-02-03T11:47:00.001-08:00

This week album is from 2005. Snowdrop's review will sometimes be reviewing album that are not just released, if we consider something has to be written about some discovery we made.
Sin ropas is actually the only band I know that has zero friends on myspace, and in a way it fit quite well with their detachment . They also aren't avaiable on I tunes and wikipedia doesn't say a word about them, which make them kind of a secret band.
Their last album, fire prizes, is somewhere between lo fi and sadcore , if we have to use such classification to give an idea to what it might sound like. The record was made after a huge flood in the town in which they recorded it, marshall, in 2005 .
So they describe the album as the consequence of the amount of desperation that a flood brings. It could be a nice music to get drown with, if earphones were able to work under water. It's definitely music to listen with headphones, cause the fine arrangement, background noises, small strings sounds, amplifiers sounds like buzzers , would bring more benefit if they are listen in autistic conditions. The album is released by shrug records in vynils with code to get mp3 here
The tracks are all more than five minutes long, which makes the record a long playing one, even if it's only eight tracks on it. If some of the tracks are not that impressive, possibly due to the fact that it doesnt sound that new in 2009, there are at least three really great tracks on the record, which make it an amazing album, if we consider that an album with only one good track is quite rare around.
The lengh of the tracks often end in an absorbing deluge of noises that is more able to talk to your guts than to your mind. The contrast of this kind of noises with the whispered , almost lullaby singing of Tim hurley, whose voice is often doubled one octave pitched, makes the identity of sin ropas songs.
The band is a duet, so both hurley and Danni Iosello are kind of one man band and one women band each, if we consider the number of separated tracks that are on each song.
The cover of the album is a really nice painting from brent green who is a self-taught animated filmmaker. The viny edition is limited but still avaiable here. You can see the picture disc also.
Mp3 are also here
http://www.sinropas.com

Marnie Stern: "This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That". (killrockstar-2008)

2009-01-25T08:26:00.000-08:00

Marnie stern second album is as special as his name, "This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That"
Possibly the sense of the album name is the consequence of the irrefutable effect of the album first listening.
The cover of the album, a watercolor portrait of Marnie, could let us think it's kind of a folk like floating album, when the musical result is somewhere in between Cobra killer, Le tigre, and naked city (with John Zorn). The beat almost never slow down, And the general impression after a few seconds of any tracks, is a huge feeling of caffeine inside your bloodstream. Waking up music for overbooked brains, but still fixative music with patterns changes. The tracks are full of tempo changes and breaks, like some loops that changes from one to the other, sometimes by adding new patterns, sometimes suddenly, like turning page. Listening to the music in a sofa will give you the impression of making a lot of things by itself. Possibly cause of the ironic aspect of this overdose of speed .You can easily imagine yourself running down on an automatic stairway as fast as you can,or trapped in a merry go round turing at 3000 mphn accompanied by such riffs. The music is quite visual, and closing your eyes while listening this will soon make emerge a lot of moving colored shapes. Possibly this feeling of emergency music is the result of the almost systematic use of the tapping technic, and also the fact that the highest notes of the guitar are continually on use, accompained by very skilled drums parts, tone drum sound corresponding to every notes of the guitar (The excellent drummer is Zach Hill, which has his own album signed on anticon records).
These technical aspects gave the color and the main pattern of the album. Stern beautiful voices and second degree poppy singing on choruses and breaks add the ironic aspect that makes the record quite subtile. Instead of being an album that people listen when making sport, it's the album you'll have to listen if you want to make some boxing session against a huge stuck of beef in some butcher's shop, just like Marnie is doing on the video of 'ruler'.
Stern is known for her high skills in guitar, especially in tapping technique. (Often considered as the guitar hero girl number one in the world). But guitar hero fans wont probably love the record. The songs stay in mind like some pop hymns do, which is totally weird if we consider the technical aspect and singularity of the albums. Ironic pop hymns for guitar heroins.
vvc
you can buy the album here:
http://www.buyolympia.com/killrockstars/Item=krs486

www.myspace.com/marniestern1

jamesphoney & jamesreindeer: "Rough tongue surface" (milled pavement, 2009)

2009-01-19T07:49:00.000-08:00

Rough tongue surface is born from a triple collaboration. The two english rappers James and James (jamesphoney jamesreindeer) and a swedish producer who made the music, whose name is joel simeus. And it's such a wonderful collaboration.

The two James both have voices full of personality but totally different. Reindeer flow is quite nasal and sounds agressive like, when Phoney ones sounds quite much more peacful and relaxed, but not less convinced. The sound of Simeus are quite dark, and you can easily concieved the whole album as a trip in some kind of chlostrophobiac area. The only picture of the really nice package of the cd is a small impression of plane, landing or almost crashing on the bottom of the album. Some might say that the general impression of the album is a dark trip of people in a plane which is in a compromised situation. Some might see it in a more organic way, related to the name of the album, and might see it as an interior trip inside rough organs. The drum machines of Simeus are quite often distorted, and increase this impression of rough. The changes from one track to the other are often filled with radio voices and waves, which bring a nice feeling of dreamy impressions, interrupted by the voices of james and james, that lead you from dreamy sad songs to half awake way of concieving music composing .
It might be kind of a drugged trip too, the terms "ascent" and "descent" would fit with that, but it would be reductive to consider this album as an album for weedsmokers, though weed smokers will definitely enter in this trip without problems and would definitely enjoy it.
One of the track is appart from this dreamy state, and it s produced by nimrodsearpreme. We could say it's the more direct song, the one your ears will remember the more easily, possibly the more accessible. Let's call it the awake song of the record. It's called dh.106, and on this track, the two james released this very innovative sing of basing a rap song on a leonard cohen loop. I guess only typical openminded english rapper could bring us to the idea that leonard cohen and hip hop can fit together.

It's totally the kind of album that might have been published on anticon records, oakland, if anticon has an english wing.
It s edited and distributed by milledpavement, and you can order this recommanded record in here.
http://www.milledpavement.com/rts.html

www.myspace.com/jamesphoneyjamesreindeer