New Music Review - Saudade - Lookouts' Journal LP

I wrote this review for Oregon Music News, which is where it originally appeared.



Saudade is an untranslatable Portuguese word for an irreconcilable longing.

Saudade is also the musical conversation between Jason Gray and Chris Cantino, two artists who met working in a residential psychiatric treatment facility.

They come from different musical backgrounds, and opposite sides of the country, but working together they found a common voice in tonal dialogue. They have been playing shows in Portland since 2007, and their 2008 downloadable LP The Hooded Ones (also released on the cassette-only label Peasant Magik) was well received and made a few top-ten lists in the noise/ambient blog world.

Their newest effort, Lookouts’ Journal, is available this week from Arena Rock Recording Co.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

New Music Review - Adam Kadmon - Teslaphonics LP

Adam Kadmon makes rap music that draws from a multitude of sources and clearly reflects the stew of sound that we encounter on an average day of listening in the aftermath of the blog era. I just googled his name and apparently it references a Kabbalistic character that is the primal soul of all mankind. Good starting point. Teslaphonics is hip hop with all its circuits bent, but not to the point that your ears get overloaded. This is lo-fi, scratchy like vinyl and full of strange tones that linger in the rhythm. Some sound like they are banging out of a bomb shelter symphony (Hark the Herlad), and others sound like they were heard at the Circus-Circus while Hunter Thompson was tripping on ether (Nuggets). His vocal delivery is swag enough to have the current crop of post-Kanye-rappers shaking in their vintage sneakers, and filtered through static like a transmission from earths last radio. The lyrics are poetic, drawing abstract metaphors together with sci-fi braggadocio and vivid images from some brokedown noir film. Wild lines I can decipher include: he held a sign in his hand that said spare change please / and in large bold letters GOD DONT HEAL AMPUTEES, and heavenly trumpets playing from the beaches / kids shooting up the school while they layin with their teachers, and I got a coin-operated laundry list of demands / assisted living off the skin off the palms of my hands / skin of our teeth, our lives are intentionally brief / to keep the meaning of it all insufficiently deep. Clearly you will need to think about these songs and thankfully they are engaging enough to warrant many repeat listens. This record is part of the slew of free releases from the good people at World Around Records, who are committed to developing artists that are creative, honest and personal. Adam Kadmon is, at the very least, all of the above, and this record has me wondering what strange landscapes his music will bring me through in the future. I will certainly be listening.

You can download the full record HERE and check out more great music at WorldAroundRecords.Com

Nanoism - fiction phrased for your phone.

Nanoism is a Twitter-based lit zine (no, really) that publishes fiction of 140 characters or less. As in, the length of a Twitter post. They publish 3 stories a week, and also pay for accepted submissions. Thats not all. They also publish good stories- as good as it can get in that breadth of space. In December they are going to publish a series of serials, each five posts in length, and they are running a contest to find the best stories to publish. The best part about this idea is that they not only have to make sense as a serialized whole, but also must stand alone as individual stories. The theme is the story of life, which I look forward to seeing ripped open across the board.

Apparently there are a growing number of very short story (#vss in the search box) publishers on Twitter and if you like reading quick hits of good words, its worth looking into. It seems like the idea is that you can subscribe to these zines via your mobile device, and get txts of poetry or fiction to brighten your day. Nanoism editor Ben White is blogging about these zines as he finds them at BenWhite.Com. Overall I think this literary arena is worth checking out, because if nothing else, its a quick read.

Visit Nanoism.net

and follow Nanosim on Twitter

Low-Income Housing made from Recycled Materials - Dan Phillips is Doing It Right

Apparently Dan Phillips has been doing this for a while, but I just recently heard about it. He and his wife run a project called Phoenix Commotion, outside of Houston, Texas, that builds homes for low-income families almost entirely out of recycled materials. This project was recognized as the "most innovative housing worldwide" in 2003 by the International Institute of Social Inventions. Its not like you sign up and they build you a house though, instead they set people up with a skilled builder and actually train the new residents in home-building skills. They call it a "homesteading initiative" with the intent to give people homes and skills that they otherwise would not be able to acquire. This seems to impact social problems on so many levels that it is amazing its not being repeated elsewhere (maybe it is, but I have yet to find it). They work with large plots of land that they can break into smaller segments and can create single family homes for about twenty to fifty thousand dollars. In this way they are creating new sustainable neighborhoods that will carry the positive intentions through their lifespan. I would like to see this take the place of suburban expansion, which it just may as the greater American consciousness begins to realize we can no longer live out that lie. Its an added benefit that these homes all look unique and completely rad - these are the types of places you used to draw as a kid, the dream home with cool windows, weird doors and spiral stairs. Imagine if instead of a large tract of cookie-cutter boxes we saw our neighborhoods develop as personal expressions of the people living there. Throw in a small town center with a community building, co-op and a local farm and we are talking about awesome, unique villages that provide a positive space for sustainable life. This guy is already doing it, laying the blueprint for the generation to come.

Learn more at PhoenixCommotion.com

New Music Review - Forest World "Super Bright Skullz" EP

Super Bright Skullz is the new EP from Provo based electropop duo Forest World. This is clearly music to dance with. The bass knocks hard, with kinetic snares that punctuate hi-hats and cowbells. Drawn out background synths hold the feeling while melodic arpeggios bounce in around the drums, amid errant 8-bit accents. The songs build up and release with extended breakdowns that riff off all the elements and create the sense of a live mix. Throughout the EP you hear all of the sounds interact in different ways that continuously re-frame the overall feeling. Both lo-fi and clean tones keep the vibe crispity crunchety in your ears. Sean and Sam share the vocals in a pleasant male/female harmony that gives a sense of dialogue to the lyrics, which seem to be heartfelt glimpses of hope and connection in the modern mundane. I love the refrain from the title track, "all of this is just as real as you can make it," spun through a dance floor crusher that I will be stoked to experience live. The track that challenged me most was 'Jodie Jensen' which is apparently an ode to a high school crush and thrusts a grip of awkward romantic attachment over a sparse beat that takes two minutes to come back from its initial despair. It does come back though, and they follow it with 'The Singularity' which is also low-key but draws me in with its story about living to age 100, only to be alone with nothing but the songs written in your youth. Overall the lyrics are emotional and real, but not overbearing, and never empty, even when distanced through distortion. This is perfect music for sweaty basement dancing, solo city cycling or making out in a car on the side of an empty mountain road.

Listen to most of the tracks at myspace.com/forestworld
or go ahead and get the hand-packaged cd at forestworldblog.blogspot.com (download is available as well)

New Music Video - Tell The Truth "Consoul"

Tell the Truth are street musicians. I have seen them on stage and in coffeeshops or bars but when I see them on the street I know they are at home. They wail out ballads that pull me into the depths of an emotive struggle for understanding the knot of reality, relations and experience. Their music is challenging - the vocals will pierce anyone's wall of cool, digging into your ears, only to apply a sensual massage once there. The guitar is passed back and forth, along with vocals that harmonize or push off of each other, building into a completely shared expression - two people as one voice that echoes through the city.


listen to more at myspace.com/tellthetruthpdx

Trash Art and Animation from Himay Rivera

Himay, aka James Hacker, is an artist based out of Boise, idaho. Most of what I have seen of his work is visual, sculptural recycled trash art. He installs art boxes in various locations around the city which are made from found materials, which are usually interactive in some way to create motion or action inside. Recently I was pointed to his youtube page where he has a number of short animations posted, and a full length process documentary in 5 parts.

The animations are all stop motion, utilizing found materials (mostly toys) to create the world his characters inhabit. These worlds are multi-textured from the various materials used and have a depth and magical quality. The one below tells the story of a summer kayaker. Another follows an isolated commuter. In one particualrily awesome video a doll on a skateboard performs a series of street-skating tricks, with the fluid motion of a skate video.



His documentary, 'Wal-Merica', documents Himay's process creating a 3 dimensional representation of the US built from materials found in the trash and thrift stores. The video series follows the construction of the huge piece, its display at an earth day fair (as documented by the local fox affiliate), one night where community members gather to party and appreciate their response to the piece and finally its deconstruction and dissemination back into recycling bins and the fabric of our waste culture. I watched the whole thing in one sitting. His passionate effort is truly inspiring, and overall it brings his ideas about our culture out in a way that is fun, unpretentious and easily accessed. This is what makes me love art. Totally badass.



View more of his flix at youtube.com/himayrivera